An appetite for APPEITG lunches

It's not the best abbreviation, but the APPEITG (All Party Parliamentary Engineering and IT Group) do host a pleasant meal. The group exists to promote the role of engineering and the future of engineering in the UK, and I've been happy to see that they are keen to involve younger engineers (like me!) as well as the usual grey-haired examples. I look forward to being more involved, and perhaps to more delicious lunches on the beautiful House of Lords terrace.

At the lunch in mid-July, Sir David King spoke about the challenges of climate change and how engineers should be stepping up to tackle these. His key points were not particularly novel but bear repeating, in the context of a call to arms for engineers (and others).

• The "City big bang" should be a drive for the UK science, engineering and technology sector to deliver new solutions for climate change
  
• It should be possible to hit the carbon reduction targets set for mid-century, and still grow GDP
  
• Engineering skills are desperately needed to deliver new nuclear power stations, zero carbon homes, and (very important for the UK) the technology to retrofit homes and other buildings to reduce carbon output. This means technicians and apprentices, as well as Chartered-level professionals. We need more engineers of all types
  
• Don't forget that reducing emissions can save money
  
• We need new, novel solutions. The Prius, for example, is great, but this is an example of a transitional technology - we need fully electric vehicles and a decarbonised grid
  
• There is still a need for real cultural change. The media are happy pushing Tesla roadsters, because it's a bit like a Ferrari; but instead we should look to a future where a flash car isn't a status/sex symbol
  

I was also encouraged by Baroness Platt of Writtle to look into joining the Worshipful Company of Engineers. (I fear that I'm not quite senior enough for the Company yet, and couldn't really afford the membership fees, but I've bookmarked it for the future.) The APPEITG lunches always remind me that although women are scarce in engineering, they are present at all professional levels and represent all generations. A little bit of a boost for those of us who are starting out in our careers - or feel as if we are!

live music Tuesday

Cambridge was full of buskers today, in unusual places (outside the
Chop House on Kings Parade, or here, outside Carluccio's by the Grand
Arcade / Lion Yard). These guys were pretty good.

Proper engineer

From our fascinating tour of Tate Modern's oil tanks.

Polite notice

In the bathroom of my room at Keele University, where I was for the
JISC Innovation Forum.

Other people's toys

If this worked, this photo is tagged with a location on flickr.com :) I couldn't resist playing.

Sent from Michael's iPhone

non-words

The Local Government Association says that the following are "non-words." I find this very encouraging, and look forward to seeing some clear communications from local public service organisations in the future, as this list is adopted. Although at a first look, words such as "welcome" seem quite innocuous, when I recall how they are used in some official documents, I can see why the LGA picked them out.

Ambassador; Agencies; Beacon; Best practice; Bottom-up; CAAs; Can do culture; Capacity; Capacity building; Cascading; Cautiously welcome; Champion; Citizen empowerment; Community engagement; Conditionality; Consensual; Contestability; Core Message; Core value; Coterminosity; Coterminous; Cross-cutting; Customer; Democratic mandate/legitimacy; Distorts spending priorities; Early Win; Empowerment; Engagement; Engaging users; Enhance; Evidence base; External challenge; Facilitate; Fast-track; Flexibilities and freedoms; Framework; Fulcrum; Good practice; Governance; Guidelines; Holistic; Holistic governance; Improvement levers; Incentivising; Income/funding streams; Initiative; Joined up; Joint working; LAAs; Service users; Level Playing Field; Localities; Meaningful consultation/dialogue; MAAs; Menu of options; Multi-agency; Multidisciplinary; Outcomes; Output; Participatory; Partnerships; Pathfinder; Peer challenge; Performance Network; Place shaping; Predictors of beaconicity; Preventative services; Priority; Process driven; Quick hit; Quick win; Resource allocation; Revenue streams; Risk based; Scaled-back; Scoping; Seedbed; Shared priority; Signpost; Single point of contact; Slippage; Social contracts; Stakeholder; Step change; Strategic/overarching; Streamlined; Subsidiarity; Sustainable; Sustainable communities; Symposium; Synergies; Tested for soundness; Third sector; Top-Down; Transparency; Transformational; Value-added; Vision; Visionary; Welcome; Wellbeing


(Thanks to Denis Payne for the link!)

Tim Berners-Lee at NESTA

I was at NESTA last night for a debate about the future of the web. Sir Tim was at NESTA to launch the web science research initiative. I won't bother blogging most of the talk content or the WSRI as I'm sure this is better covered elsewhere.

You are spared my mediocre camera work, as conveniently Bill Thompson was sitting in front of me, and did a good job of recording the event with his superior tiny camera. I was too
awed by the beautiful character sketches of the speakers and audience being produced by my neighbour, Chris Meade, from if:book, to take many photos myself.

TBL's presentation was given in Firefox, which made a nice change, and contained quite a number of typos. Either that, or he's invented a new field called Electroncis. His strongest analogy was comparing the ecosystem of the web with the blob of gunk which you find when you unblock your sink - full of historical items like fishbones and niches where new bits can settle. Nice.

There was no answer to Charlie Leadbeater's question about whether a fully open web could solve the spam problem. Maybe the answer is not to faff around with the web, but just read books; Charlie referred to at least 4 books during his talk, but no online content.

Well done NESTA, especially Roland Harwood for valiant tweeting in the face of laptop crashes. (There was a slight contradiction between the encouragement to twitter, and the instruction given in the main auditorium that everyone should "turn off your mobile phones because they interfere with the equipment".) Excellent canapes, as usual at NESTA :)

Party animals

Unusual sweets, kindly sent by Steffi some weeks ago