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The Ragged School Blog Deptford

Monday, May 23, 2005

Convoys sold to World's 22nd Richest Person

News just in that Convoys Wharf is being sold by News International to Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing. The new owner is Hong Kongs richest man who is the world's largest operator of container terminals. Whether this bodes well for plans to create a "cruise liner terminal with allied marine businesses" is not yet clear as Lewisham Council's strategic planning committee will reveal on May 26.


Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Made In Deptford Festival



"Between 20-22 May 2005 the historic area of Deptford in South East London will lay out its cultural and creative wares to make its mark on the London landscape. Participating venues include: The Albany Theatre, Laban, St Paul’s Church, St Nicholas Church, Evelyn Triangle, Cockpit Arts, Creekside Artists and local shops. Giffin Square will serve as the Epicentre." http://www.madeindeptford.com


Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Google SE8 style

I have just created a search box [Search SE8 ] at the top right. Please try it and be as amazed as I must have been when I discovered it myself. Google has deployed its new mapping technology with a database of business addresses from Yell.com to create something Ive never seen before. In one stroke Google has illuminated the 'invisble' web of references to places in Deptford (which mainly have no websites themselves). This means that it is now easy to find accurate up to date contact details for nearly everything, filtered by place. This is about mapping information from two different sources to a third, an actual map. The two sources, Yellow Pages style listings and references to the same establishments (on web pages scattered across the net) have been cross referenced to draw on the power of both. The result is a context rich search which shows how such establishments are represented electronically when they have no website themselves. What can we learn from this about the future of the web and the choices the local community need to make about representing themselves using their own voices ?

postcript August 2006, have removed said serachbox from main page to preserve here.








Tuesday, May 03, 2005

The Debt Collection

Just found/listened to this - "Made from an assortment of Deptford market junk and 50p charity shop tunes, fed into a dilapidated laptop, what has emerged are a bunch of uniquely beguiling, off kilter hangover classics. Now completed The Debt Collection is set to be release on April 18th 2005."

"Step children of South East London, The Shortwave Set herald the imminent arrival of their debut album, the Victorian Funk masterwork The Debt Collection, with the release of a highly covetable 10” only record at the start of April 2005. Featuring album tracks Is It Any Wonder, Figures of ’62 and In Your Debt, it will be available via all discerning record stores. It follow the release of their debut single, Slingshot, a rickety, clumsily cut up and put back together stroke of genius that inadvertently stumbled into the world some 18 months ago."


Sunday, May 01, 2005

Blog Technology

Recently Ive been discussing with my friend Nick about the world of blogging and podcasting and I commented that at first its like when you discover the web itself, theres no where to start or end. The blogosphere is an amamorphous tangle which is holographic. Most blogs contain quoted portions and comments to and from other blogs. If like a holgram a piece is shattered, its constituent parts are found scattered around reflecting the whole.

One Crucial entry point into the blogosphere is Technorati, which I have used to determine our first link from a fellow South London blogger. The Technorati search engine which frequently indexes blogs can be searched to see if a website you are on is being blogged about. So when you put in The Ragged School, here is what you get. Thanks Casino Avenue, this is a great example of how a geographical net or hub comes about. I hope this blog can be used as a demonstration medium to engage local community based projects in getting online savvy. With enough patience and determination perhaps a future DeptfordX festival could expand into digital media and put Deptford in the spotlight as a vibrant convergance zone for geomedia innovation. I have in mind the London Free Map which is pioneering a free of copyright, free to use map data, which in turn others can exploit to create cool online gadgetry like perhaps making your phone beep a certain way when you pass a site in Deptford which has a website, blog or realtime stream of data. The point is not about cool stuff, but generating excitement about the way one persons approach can help another, and how oppurtunities for ecology, economy, community and education are expanding as activists working in the digital create a synergy with people working on the ground in the locale.