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Last weekend I went to an Introduction to LRM and psychogeography. PerfDave mentioned the Loiterers Resistance Movement when discussing the OpenStreetMap talk for Manchester Free Software, so I went to learn more, and give OpenStreetMap a mention.

The meeting began with an a few people speaking about different aspects of psychogeography, the meaning of which noone’s really clear on anyway. I think that’s what makes part of it: The mystery.

We split off into groups, each with “maps” collated from drawings made by those present. The idea was to wander around Manchester and interpret the drawings as places to go to, or directions to take. If I’ve made it sound boring, it was actually quite fun, and a pleasant walk, while others in the group would talk about the history of the places we went through.

The LRM have a festival going on this month, the Get Lost Festival, in association with TRIP and the Royal Exchange Theatre. I’m planning to go to some more events, starting with the Tour of Old Ancoats tomorrow. If you’re interested, take a look at the full programme.

The day after the RMS speech, and it was time for currybeer again. Paul was skiving, so I took the twelve of us off to the Punjab restaurant. We have been there before, but with a larger group that ended up sitting around two tables. This time we got one, although there was still no talk between the extremities of the table.

I had keema dosa, which was quite filling. So filling I didn’t eat all of my main course, which was a fairly nice dish that I can’t remember the name of (a Punjab special tawamix thingy).

I didn’t say an awful lot in my last post. I was a bit tired by that point. The RMS talk was indeed a success.

Before the talk, a few of us handed out flyers for Manchester Free Software and the Free Software Foundation, hopefully gaining some publicity there.

The badgering to get the larger lecture theatre (and possibly the blog posts too) paid off, with the talk being moved from a 100‐seater to a 300‐seater room. Most, if not all, of the seats were taken, with some people sitting on the stairs or standing at the back. I was one of the latter. I tried some different positions that didn’t make me any more comfortable, but I lasted it out.

Stallman’s talks mostly boil down to one of a small number in similarity, and this was one of them. He covered off the GNU project, the principles of free software, some of the bad things about proprietary software, and free software in educational institutions. I had heard most of it before but it still interested me and possibly filled some bits I had missed. I suspect a fair number of the audience hadn’t.

The questions and answers at the end lasted a long time. There was something about how works of art compare to software, and how computer games fit in; an amusing look into the future when machines may have freedom; and a drawn out debate from someone desperately trying to argue that they should be allowed to make money through proprietary software and, in Stallman’s view, subjugate the users.

RMS then auctioned off a copy of “Free Software, Free Society”, which was fun to witness. John Leach put in his first (or second?) bid following with a request for a hug. The next bidder requested not to get a hug, with Stallman saying “how much will you pay not to have a hug?” (maybe paraphrased). Eventually, I think £90 was raised for the FSF, and the winning bidder (not John) got a hug.

I thoroughly enjoyed the talk, and wish Richard Stallman well. Also, thank you Matt Lee for setting things in motion, and Paul Waring and the BCS for the effort that went into organising the event, and Paul Robinson for hosting Richard Stallman during his visit.

Success!

I’ve brushed the dust from my Yahoo! account to add Richard Stallman’s talk in Manchester to Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/495367/

If you’re going, stick your name down. Let’s see how many are really going¹.

1. or how the number reflects the reality post‐event.

I’m sure everyone who knows me knows by now, but just in case you don’t: Richard Stallman is speaking in Manchester.

Paul Robinson, who has kindly offered to host Richard Stallman for his visit, expresses his opinion on the size of the lecture theatre the BCS have booked. He’s not alone, I wholeheartedly agree. We don’t just have people coming from Manchester. We have, that I have heard rumour of, people from Yorkshire, and even the Midlands. As said on the Futuresonic site:

A rare UK talk by Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software movement.

This is a rare thing, attendance is very likely to be good. I can only hope the catering guys sorting out the “refreshments” before the talk have been forewarned.

Note: The Futuresonic talk is a different one to the Manchester Free Software and BCS/IET‐organised event. Go to both!

I wouldn’t mind knowing about Paul Robinson’s backup plans though:

however there is a backup plan those of us with an ear to the ground will have in place.

I haven’t had my ear pressed to the ground hard enough, despite being a silent(‐ish) observer of the liaison between Paul Waring on behalf of Manchester Free Software, RMS and the FSF, and the BCS (and IET, but apparently they left it all to the BCS to sort out).

Manchester Free Software (well, Paul Waring) asked the BCS and the IET to help, because we knew it would be big. Manchester Free Software didn’t get a mention on the initial flyers from the IET (they didn’t know there was an involvement), so if I’m being a little paranoid I hope you can understand. That is not important though: What is important is that Richard Stallman’s words on freedom are heard by many.

Life seems to have been taken up with other things these past few weeks.

Since I mentioned OpenStreetMap I have done a little bit more mapping, including Birchfields Park in Longsight, and some bits around Deansgate Locks. I have a number of pending questions about mapping bits of the latter area, but just haven’t got around to asking.

I had neglected my bike a bit. To make up for it, I gave it a good clean. The cadence sensor to go with my Edge 305 arrived last week, so I’m sure I’ll have a little “must play with new shiney gadget” phase that gets me out a bit more. I had hoped to cycle over to my mum’s this weekend, but I think I have left it a little late.

Also last week, I have suddenly become a whole lot more involved with Manchester Free Software. We had Alex Hudson speak mainly about the Bongo Project, and followed up in Fab Cafe with a meeting to discuss the future of Manchester Free Software. The minutes are online in the Manchester area of the FSF Groups wiki for those interested. Next month we have John Leach, author of Everybody Loves Eric Raymond. He’ll be talking about that, as well as well as Brightbox, a Ruby on Rails hosting provider.

Around about a month ago, I purchased a Garmin Edge 305 for my bike. It is a fitness training and cycle computer that also happens to contain a GPS receiver. It features the ability to follow workout programs and courses that can be programmed in via the device itself, or likely much more easily sent to the device from a computer via USB. I haven’t used it for that yet, though, that sort of thing requires me to get into a routine.

What I have been doing is taking it with me wherever I ride, and collecting GPS traces to upload to OpenStreetMap. OpenStreetMap is a project to create and provide free¹ geographic data that people can then use to create maps, plan routes, or whatever else takes their fancy. Anybody can contribute, and you don’t even need a GPS: Street names often need to be filled in, or maybe you know that a junction is actually a mini‐roundabout. Some areas also have fairly high quality aerial imagery available, such as the Yahoo! aerial imagery and OpenAerialMap, which can be used to add roads, building outlines, parks, and other things. Old, out of copyright map data for the UK is also available from the New Popular Edition Maps, which can be used to map, for example, cycle routes that follow the paths of disused railway lines.

My first edits in South Manchester covered the area around West Point, Levenshulme, most of it residential areas. I continued from there by mapping up to Rusholme and Longsight. There is Yahoo! imagery available, although it’s not always easy to see things clearly. Combining the aerial imagery with GPS traces and notes taken while surveying makes things a little easier. A highlight has to have been putting The Street With No Name (article with more pictures) on the map.

Last Sunday I met up with Rob (pobice) and went to Leeds for a micro‐mapping party organised by WYLUG members Louisa and John, joined by Paul and Tim. Partnered up with Tim, I helped map around St James’s University Hospital aka Jimmy’s. I lost Tim as we were finishing up to head back to Leeds, but with the help of existing maps from OpenStreetmap I had little trouble finding my way back. Louisa posted a summary along with some lessons learned from organising the mapping party, and Tim created a fantastic animation (MPEG video) of the traces collected that afternoon.

Back to work, and I have been spending some lunch hours mapping in Manchester city centre, mainly around Great Bridgewater Street. It was nice to see that at around the same time, someone else put the G-MEX on the map. Incidentally that’s already out‐of‐date since it has had its name changed (back?) to Manchester Central. Fear not, the maps should be updated soon. The ease of updating the data is part of what makes OpenStreetMap, similar to Wikipedia.

Today I followed the footpaths of Birchfields Park, which is yet to be seen on OpenStreetMap, despite other nearby parks being included to a reasonable level of detail.

I think I may have caught the mapping bug.

1. “free” here has little to do with price, it means you have certain basic freedoms to use, study, modify, and redistribute the data, akin to those you have with free software.

“Don’t Bollock the Normal User” is the message that sticks in my head after Stuart Langridge’s (aka Aq, of Lugradio fame) talk for Manchester Free Software, most likely because of the slide illustrating parts of the male anatomy. He’s right: Someone tells you about their latest software experience, and then some zealot like me comes along and says “that’s not free software, don’t use it.” Some free software zealots are worse than me. Instead, as also presented by Aq, we should be going for the people who cause this to happen, the people like nVidia and Broadcom, who develop hardware that requires software components that are not freely distributable.

I thoroughly enjoyed Manchester Free Software this month, and Aq’s a good speaker. He managed to get his message across, and involved the audience. Not a large audience, but reasonable for the fledgling group of people centred around free software and having a different target to most LUGs, which by being the first such group we know of in the UK (not counting those LUGs that are very much free software groups), became known as a UK Free Software group, and even got stretched to Europe (despite the existence of FSFE).

After (and before), we went to Fab Cafe just a few doors down. They have free wifi, but noone felt compelled to use it, either because they couldn’t or we had some interesting conversation. I had some Guinness.

There was an impressive turnout at the #manlug currybeer. A whopping eighteen people turned up. There were a few new faces, including, but probably not limited to Simon Murray, a friend from my university days who now gets to be called “pink”, and some fellows known by their IRC nicks in #manlug as Falken and parag0n. Also there were Daniel and Rob after a bit of a break, Leslie was kind enough to give Eve a lift, and Matt came along too.

Paul took us along to Lal Haweli, a restaurant I’m not sure has ever let me down, and last night it didn’t let us down either. They had no problems, or didn’t show them, seating eighteen of us at no notice. Popadums as usual, lime pickle included. The lime pickle was extra yummy too. It felt like there was some time before the starters came around, but that may have just been my curry cravings, I can’t help it. I had a lovely, gingery “lamb special” for my main course.

Back to Hardy’s Well afterwards. Of course, they rock too.