Archive for April, 2014

Sea Monsters Museum

Iceland has a Sea Monster Museum.

A little credit…

2nd May 2014: How to get your UK Games Production Tax Credit. Birmingham.

National Photography Symposium 2014

National Photography Symposium 2014: ‘Integrity’, 12th (students afternoon) – 13th (orgs day) – 14th (photographers day) June 2014 at the The Library of Birmingham. £75, which can be defrayed by concessions and membership deals.

Jobs of the future

Jobs of the future. A list that panders rather too heavily, for my taste, to the affluent eco-worrier / health faddist / quack psychotherapist (‘Cognitive Behavioural Therapist’, blugh) brigade. But here are the new job possibilities that I found most interesting… Rewilder (Undoes environmental damage, removes fences, repairs ecosystems, genetically recreates extinct species etc) Nostalgist […]

Local Government Dashboard Prototype

The new UK.gov local government data dashboard, currently in alpha and sniffing around the rubbish bins of Solihull.

Futureshift

Just found out about the Futureshift Festival. The main day of commun-i-tech talks seems to be on this coming Saturday at Millennium Point in Birmingham, though there is also stuff happening on Friday.

£500 to hire the Light House

The main downstairs gallery at The Light House, Wolverhampton, is now available for hire for wall-mounted artworks or photography. £500 for two weeks, inclusive of installing and removal. “Longer periods may be negotiated”.

Wow

Awesome new Labour policy on Internet use…

Labour wasn’t working

A new short report and data from the ONS, GVA for Local Enterprise Partnerships, 1997-2012 gives, “for the first time” they say, robustly calculated data on economic output for what are now the LEP areas of the English regions. They measure ‘Gross Value Added’ in the UK investment regions, or to put it in simple […]

Arts Org Search

A new Custom Search Engine, courtesy of Chris Unitt. His Arts Org Search Engine (UK) just searches the websites of 101 UK arts orgs. Especially useful for those needing to swiftly cherrypick a list of cool summer touring events across a wide region of the UK, perhaps. Or to look for elusive job ads. Currently […]

Peak fitness

Free vintage cycle and lifestyle festival up in the Peak District on the Staffordshire/Derbyshire border, this summer. Plus an “up hill, down dale” cycle race. I know some of that area, and wowzer it is going to be strenous!

Sajid Javid replaces Maria Miller

Oh, that’s good news. We have a new Arts and Culture Secretary to replace to the total disaster-zone that was Maria Miller. Sajid Javid has just been named as her replacement. He’s MP for Bromsgrove, so I’d hope that the down-to-earth attitudes of the West Midlands will keep him from drifting too far into the […]

WarkaWater

$550 bamboo WarkaWater towers, producing 25 gallons of drinkable water each day from water dew in the air. Set for real-world tests in Ethiopia in 2015.

Blognix 2014

14th June 2014: Blognix 2014. A one-day event for bloggers, at the Custard Factory, Birmingham. Looks a bit too expensive for me.

Hackference

19th September 2014:Hackference 2.0.14 Conference. “Three day event with a conference day, then a full weekend hackathon to top it off.” Birmingham.

Shelf and safety

The new Library of Birmingham brought to book. Or rather, not brought. If a book is down in the storage stacks, or up on a public shelf that’s too high, its reported that Council’s health ‘n safety rules mean that it can’t be retrieved.

Bicycle: the film

Phase two of a major documentary on the bicycle in Britain is crowdfunding now. Seems to be being made in the West Midlands…