Young Rewired State

I’ve spent the last two days at the Google HQ in London attending Young Rewired State [hit link for more info about event] (#youngrewiredstate), and it’s been nothing short of epic.

And of course, I’ve taken some photos.

The schedule (shamelessly copied from the site) was as follows:

Saturday 22nd August:
10:00 Start
10:30 Planning session
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Hacking starts
17:30 Dinner
18:30 Home (Hacking overnight allowed!)

Sunday 23rd August:
10:00 Back to hacking
11:30 Brunch
12:30 Back to hacking
16:00 Presentations to Judges and Press
18:30 Prizes announced

On the first day we split into groups and started thinking up ideas. At about 4pm we finally settled on our idea: to make something very similar to RentACoder, but much simpler, targetted at talented coders who need experience in order to get a proper job. Here are a couple of screenshots of the final result (click to embiggen).

We decided on a PHP/MySQL project and as luck would have it, I was the only PHP/MySQL programmer in the group! So it was fairly frantic work (solid coding from 10 till about 3 on the last day) and we ran into all sorts of problems with versioning and people overwriting each others’ work in FTP, especially as the CSS people tended to be working on the same files as I was at the same time!

IRC

As with all hack days, IRC was one of the most important methods of communication. Literally everyone had their laptops out during talks, especially during the presentations at the end and there was a fairly constant stream of chatter on the channel. @samhale123 also put up a bot on the channel to tweet things over IRC – we had several hours of fun attempting to overload the script / twitter / the server!

Immaturity with Twitterfall

Google

Google is an amazing place with by far the best decor I’ve seen in a company building. The floor is laid out like the London underground and the meeting rooms are more or less in the right place for stations (with consistent naming). There are ducks on the ceiling and random awesome other bits of furniture / decor adorning the walls / ceiling / floor.

We were also given a load of Google freebies, including Google yo-yo’s, Google cakes, Google water, Google pens, Google notebooks…

This actually was a telephone box!

Google and Youtube Cakes

People

Of course it was a floor full of geeks, which essentially means a brilliant selection of geek T-shirts (I spotted several from ThinkGeek, at least one from the xkcd store…). The mentors (helping out with coding / guiding the groups) were also working in all sorts of fantastic companies; one of our mentors is working at last.fm, one at moo, one with the BBC etc. And needless to say there was a wide array of OS’ – the large majority seemed to be using Macs, those with PCs were probably split 50/50 between linux (mostly ubuntu, one debian that I know of) and windows.

There was also a brilliant selection of judges, including people from Wired (for some reason looks very familiar; came to school to give a talk maybe?), C4, etc.

Some of the judges

The presentations were good fun – there were something like 40 people from the press / outside making the buzz all the more exciting. And we (@workforpeanuts) won the “Wish I’d thought of that” award!

Anyways, this is the first hack event that I’ve ever been to, and if this is anything to go by, I’m definitely game for another at some point. Heck, maybe DEFCON next year… *MANY* thanks to @hubmum for organising such an amazing event.

And I took other cool photos so go for it and browse!

Techie’s Take on Snow

White grass?

I don’t think there’s anyone out there who needs to be told that the UK ground to a halt today thanks to a freak downpour of snow. But I think some of the stuff that happened today was actually a great metaphor for the current status of technology in the UK as a predominant part of virtually everyone’s daily life, a phenomenon that I hope will flourish in the future.

Denial of Service

Slashdot and Lifehacker tend to inflict DoS attacks on websites and webapps whenever they feature them simply owing to the sheer traffic generated. This morning several sites began to have problems due to similar reasons: thousands of commuters simultaneously looked out of the window, smacked their heads and immediately tried to find a way to get to work … using TFL, subsequently causing the route planner to slow to a crawl for a few hours. The school intranet also managed to get DoS’ed from all the 900 Paulines attempting to discover whether the wonderful terrible rumours of school being snowed off were true. I suspect this reflects the current trend in general load balancing (including non-techie things: apparently electricity usage peaks just after some TV show ends in the UK owing to kettles being put on) and the clear necessity to move computing power to the so-called ‘cloud’ where it can take the strain of flash-flood traffic.

'The Lifehacker Effect' occurs when a site goes down owing to overload from traffic emanating from a Lifehacker post

Social Websites

The majority of Paulines used Facebook as their primary source of information regarding the school snow-off. Sitting there watching my Facebook feed reload every few seconds, I couldn’t help but notice that virtually every wall post, status update and note seemed to be asking and/or confirming rumours about school being snowed off. Twitter was also buzzing with activity which concluded with a jubilant remark from @the_unnameable:

No school. Yipppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Eventually intelligence was obtained from the few people who had managed to contact the apparently grumpy porters by phone (and of course sons of teachers) and information was seeded in the form of status updates on both Facebook and Twitter which spread virally and reached most people. Of course, this merely illustrates the increasing reliance on the web for up-to-date information and the power of viral marketing (well, spread of information). As a sidenote, David Smith, a teacher at the school with the foresight to see what is needed, has created a Twitter account for one-way updates from the school: @stpaulsboys.

And of course, since the school was closed for the sake of safety and preventing us from having to brave the weather, everyone was out and about, efficiently organising events through Facebook, Twitter and mobile phone.

Social Website Logos

Cameras

Of course, every such event is a photo op. There was a point when digital cameras were associated exclusively with Japanese tourists, but today during a photography outing with George, virtually every person we saw who wasn’t building a snowman was pointing a camera at something (often with flash still turned on *sigh*). In the age of twitpic and flickr, digital cameras have become day-to-day objects embedded into just about everything which are used as a means to record moments of one’s day. If this had happened just a few years ago, I don’t think anything like the number of cameras I saw today would have hit the streets, as the idea of having to record every precious last moment of one’s life on an SD card hadn’t quite caught on.

My Flickr Photostream

Personally, I ended up with a pretty cool collection of photos (including some of Doc Mayfield & co. having fun), a new way of getting school updates (@stpaulsboys), the beginnings of a raging cold, a free Sodexho school lunch and confirmation that school is off tomorrow as well.

John Colet Statue looking rather cold

Surviving China

Communist China

I’m leaving for the Lake District on Thursday on the school Winter Walking trip, after which I’ll be travelling to China with my family. Being the cynic that I am, I suspect China will be more Ray Mears-esque in terms of tough survival than the potentially freezing/hail-ey/flooded conditions of the Lake District in Winter, and being the masochist that I am, I’ll love both trips. Being the pragmatist that I’d like to think I am, I’ve already started thinking about how to survive the desperately corrupt, totalitarian and uncompromising system of law, justice, police and politics.

Internet: Tor

The ‘Probrem’
Accessing the internet is crucial to me, even at home. My main form of communication with the outside world when I’m not out is through the internet. I rarely make phone calls when email and IM suffice and writing letters is almost out of the question. In China, it will be my only point of communication with the outside world, since I’ll be separated from everyone I know by thousands of miles. Unfortunately China’s internet is segregated from the outside world by the Great Firewall of China which means any data obtained from the censored network of ‘information’ available from inside China is very probably erroneous, especially if it has anything vaguely to do with politics. Most blogs (wordpress for example) are also banned.

TOR: The Onion Router

The Solution
TOR (The Onion Router) is basically an open source software which links thousands of computers around the world in a huge relay network for the purpose of providing what is essentially a very secure proxy. This means anonymity for anyone who uses it, as well as a method for getting round internet censorship in certain authoritarian schools and institutions and, more importantly, China. I shall be bringing with me a portable version to grant me the ability to keep track of and avoid the growing list of poisonous Chinese foodstuffs.

I’d also encourage anyone who reads this to consider running a Tor router and generally helping the cause. There’s a Facebook page and group and a volunteer section in the site. You’ll probably route some of my traffic if you set it up quickly enough!

Internet: Remote Desktop

The ‘Probrem’
There is still a problem. Although I’ll be able now to surf without hindrance (albeit slowly – Tor is rather slow), I might need to access some files on my home computer which are stored on encrypted hard drives. I’d be worried about taking a HDD on a plane trip which, after being bombarded with X-rays then being shaken about a bit, might be rather shaken up. I obviously can’t just use remote desktop normally – China will get the password to my home computer and will probably keylog everything that goes through which would grant Hu Jintao the key to all my data: precisely the opposite of what I want. Remote desktop through Tor is also painfully slow.

Remote Desktop

The Solution
Remote desktop’s security needs to be pimped up. For some, a windows product juxtaposed with the word ’security’ is almost oxymoronic, but I’m not *that* cynical. Some time ago I found a fantastic guide to Remote Desktop which focuses on security. Here are a few good ideas which I took:

1. Lockout Policy

Run >> secpol.msc
Security Settings\Account Policies\Account Lockout Policy
It’s always a good idea to set this if you’re going to allow remote desktop connections to your machine in case Mr Brute Force comes along.

Security Policy

2. Use SSL

Run >> gpedit.msc
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Terminal Services\Encryption
This speaks for itself really – encryption is a necessity if anyone’s going to get round the Great Firewall of China

Group Policy Window

3. Change Port

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber
If a hacker finds your IP he might immediately try the default Remote Desktop port. Change it to something random like 156 to baffle him. If you’re concerned about choosing a port number, here’s a list of port numbers. Happy reading

Food

The ‘Probrem’
Need I say more?

Everyone knows about China's tainted milk scandal

The Solution
We’re bringing rations from good old Tesco – I can look forward to a holiday of canned food. In addition, there are some food items which are probably not poisonous. Food which has to be imported and can’t be made/grown in China for example. I can’t think of anything immediately… Vegetables should also be fairly safe provided they are properly washed to cleanse them of excessive pesticides and have thick skins. Hopefully they aren’t full of Arsenic like the rice.

Though I hate to say it, China is still fundamentally a third world country, despite her phenomenal economic growth. There are real problems which she faces. I suspect, owing to the way China seems very good at under-stating problems (e.g. SARS some years back) that the economic situation over there is far worse than it seems and I’m genuinely concerned that possible ensuing riots might cause the government to change fairly more violently than I hope. Meanwhile however, I’m really looking forward to being plunged into such exotic territory and actually almost excited about the potential danger – what doesn’t kill me will make me stronger, right?

I hope these ideas help someone – this research should in theory help me. I’m still not sure whether I’m over-preparing and/or being melodramatic about China’s perilous nature. If you think there’s something important I’m forgetting, please point it out to me! I’m making it a new policy to attempt to abide by some of Ben’s rules (an excellent compilation of blogging policy I think), particularly rule three about actively welcoming critical comments. In this case in particular, my holiday (or, if you’re as worried as me, my life) might depend on it, so if you have any advice for me or anyone travelling Communist-Eastwards this Christmas, I’d be very keen to hear from you. TIA

Failbook

Since Facebook had a … facelift, it has become the talk of the town among my Facebook-oriented social groups, and it appears to have received quite a lot of angry fire from furious users who have become disoriented by the changes. I personally think in terms of usability Facebook has improved, however there are still several huge problems which are beginning to turn me away from Facebook.

1. Facebook attempts to do everything. It is an amalgam of all sorts of different social networking services which at first sounds fantastic but actually ends up really quite a mess. My philosophy on social networking is that each site serves a single purpose and serves it very well; an example of such a site is Twitter – it’s for status updates and it works pretty damn well, even from text and other non-web interfaces. Facebook on the other hand attempts to incorporate status updates with notes (a sort of excuse-for-blogging concept), links (sort of mimicking Pownce), photos (imitating Flikr), groups and networks, events and private messaging all rolled into one enormous bundle, and even more ‘applications’ can be added. This used to be a huge problem as to get to someone’s wall one had to scroll past ‘Hatching Eggs’, ‘Top Friends’, ‘Compare People’, ‘Superlatives’, miscellaneous flash games and all sorts of other rubbish. Fortunately the new layout circumvents this annoyance, although nonsense with invitations like ‘xyz thinks you are gay – add Facebook Gay Application Version 2.4 to return the favour’ (??) still goes on in bulk.

2. Ajax/javascript etc. I presume the auto-complete when searching and Facebook chat are based on Ajax or something similar, and it simply doesn’t work half the time. The number of times I’ve started searching for a person and ended up having to refresh the page just to get that drop down menu exceeds my tolerance thresholds and I just end up giving up and doing something else. I can’t stand working with a site that doesn’t work. Plus the site loads unnecessarily slowly.

3. Facebook Chat. Socially awkward. Incompatible with Pidgin (last time). Breaks a lot. Distracting when in the middle of doing something on Facebook. Pure evil.

4. Facebook messaging. Bulk messaging is a complete mess and there’s no way to opt out of a spam thread which contains many people all spamming you – you just have to sit there and watch your emails pile up. Even unfriending and blocking them lets them spam you for 30 days.

5. Privacy. Facebook, with its reputation for refusing to delete users from their database and vulnerabilities to maliciously coded applications, is possibly the most anti-privacy website around; it is the antidote to anonymity. The fact that they refuse to delete information on anyone is just incredibly unnerving, and the possibility that Mark Zuckerberg will in the distant future have access to my entire online social history is disturbing to say the least.

Facebook is definitely useful, but I’m beginning to drift away from it. If I want to share links I’d much rather use Digg or StumbleUpon or Pownce than a system in which the link will be quickly buried under a sea of spam application invites, fan page joins and other people’s wall posts.

Snail Mail

I was required recently to write to my sponsor after having attained an Arkwright scholarship, and while going through the nowadays almost unfamiliar and alien motions of printing a word-processed document, enclosing it in a brown envelope, handwriting a destination and applying a stamp, in order for a recipient to open the envelope and move information from that sheet of paper into their consciousness, I wondered how anybody could still use this relatively expensive, time-consuming, inefficient and slow process for actual communication of raw data, particularly plain-text messages and linked information. Most of the steps seem so unnecessary when compared with the capabilities of modern technology: so much paper is wasted on envelopes which serve only to enclose the information being sent; so many man hours are taken up sorting mail and delivering it *physically* to destinations when it can be transferred painlessly and electronically through the network of cables which is our internet; and so much effort is expended packaging up and ripping open mail when it can be done at the click of a button.

If the point is to convey an idea or data, such as a reminder to a friend about an event, email is infinitely superior. It’s far more reliable than snail mail, especially if you have to rely on Royal Mail; it is geared towards delivering the message as fast as possible even to the extent of splitting the message into parts and sending them separate ways, hence you don’t need to wait several days for your recipient to receive your message; and of course it’s (for most people) completely free. Plus it has functionality for interactivity – mail clients provide the recipient with a ‘reply’ button rather than simply a reply destination which must be reproduced on paper, and linked / referenced information is much enhanced (contrast hyperlinks with ISBN numbers or references to publications).

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying snail mail is at all useless; quite the contrary as I believe at times it can be the only appropriate way of doing something. To cite an example of such occasions, the letter to my sponsor, in my opinion, was written not really to communicate any specific data but to, in a rather subtle way, impress and leave a good impression. I was requested to introduce myself and include my GCSE results, the ultimate aim of which, surely in this case, being to leave some good impression to stimulate a response and hopefully pave the way for a good sponsor-student relationship. Email’s optimisation for speed is therefore unlikely to be appropriate on this occasion since it may possibly give the impression that communication with my sponsor is so unimportant that I’m trying to spend as little time on it as I can – hardly a good impression. A posted letter however gives the impression that time (and money for the stamp) has been put into communication and therefore that this said communication must be of high importance to me. Letters are also obviously tangible and therefore give me a more solid existence on the side of the recipient, complete with a personal touch – a signature – to prove my existence as a person. Don’t forget also that presentation is generally vastly easier to manipulate in mail since it’s a very literally WYSIWIG situation, while email relies on the recipient’s mail client’s settings and preferences; hence things like layout can be conceived with much more confidence in fidelity of reproduction at the recipient’s end than email.

However having said that, email seems such a huge step forwards that it makes me wonder whether, other than for instances in which communication is less about getting text data from A to B than about sending a specific message or impression (or for legal purposes which involve tangible signatures), people who know how to use email still actually use snail mail to communicate data.