Yep, i’m talking about Jonathan Harris speech (beyond flash) , the last one of the conference, the only speech many people have been concerned of, and yes, i’m concerned too. FOTB has been a great conference, many wonderful sessions, many good speakers, many interesting things…but the last one was really tagged as “moralism”. I didn’t want to post about it, FOTB has to be considered a great conference, but i can’t keep my mouth closed about that session.

Jonathan session can be resumed with few words:

- he talked about the motivation and the message behind a work
- he showed many examples about it…all USELESS according to my point of view…

1. he killed a whale to build up a website on which you can see every single frame of that story… (tell that story to greenpeace Jonathan! )
2. he went to buthan to interview poor people and give them one baloon for each own personal wish revealed to the camera\audience (what a shame…never heard about HONOR!?)
3. he built up an installation inside new york museum to make people dating…something like this, but maybe more beautiful to the eye…

- also he talked us as we were stupid guys unable to think or to have our own feelings. (this really got me nervous…)

Now…this is a slide from Jonathan’s presentation…if your work doesn’t fit these points sorry guys, you’re wasting your time…

I think the wondeful mistake Jonathan made is to put everything together…he was talking about websites, applications, art…everything, and “everything” is NEVER fitting those points. Is a RIA, or a website able to make cry someone? YES, just put a “while(true)” somewhere in the code

I just read Jonathan “clarification” on his session, but i think he had better to think at the consequences before speak about something so “dangerous”.

[kaltura-widget wid="ajewj2kycg" width="300" height="282" /]

You can find all pics here on my flickr account page (227 photos…go and come back with a coffee for a better view )

Enjoy

That’s my first thoughts about these few days in Brighton at Flash on the Beach ’08.

It has been a pleasure to attend such some much AWESOME sessions. I’ve been quite impressed by those by Mario Klingemann and Doug McCune, both very much inspiring even if very technical. I liked so much the session about Flint too which has been very explanatory on many aspects of that good project.

A special mention also for Carlos Ulloa’s session which has been quite inspiring, actually he didn’t talk so much about technical arguments otherwise his speech was about workflow, and expecially papervision3D workflow, so I learned a lot from there

Anyway, FOTB is absolutely great, the greatest conference I ever attended and YOU ALL must go there next year because it could really change your life (your professional I mean…even though brighton is full of nice girls ).

By the way, I’m really happy to have met so many gorgeous people and I feel so much comforted to have seen so much “famous” (in developers’ world I mean ) people being SO friendly! I mean, I shaked the hand of Richard Galvan, Aral Balkan, Ralph Hauwert, Mario Klingemann, Carlos Ulloa, Chris Allen (I still have to offer you that beer man!;) ) and many others… I mean…that’s incredible!

However, I missed Neil’s session…again :\ oh man, i’m really sorry for this, but I’m really happy to have met you again and really I hope to see you soon at someother conference around the world

I even missed Peter Elst’s session, so Peter…I hope to attend your speech at Head conference

further, I met many friends in Brighton (yes Zohar, you’re inside that group) and I’m really glad to have seen again those faces…and..I even tanned myself a bit…so i’m really satisfied

Really nice hotel, rooms are fantastic and location is quite central…anyway my wi-fi won’t run, so I’m spending sometime to blog from the hotel internet cafe.

By the way, I’m really enthusiastic from the beginning of my trip…Just landed and I met Mario Klingemann (Quasimondo), Ralph Hauwert (UnitZeroOne), Chris and Rebecca Allen (infrared5) and Dominick Accattato (infrared5 too), got some beer and went to have some sushi in a really stylish sushi bar near the hotel named “Moshi Moshi”. I was quite surprised to find they’re all REAL! I just follow them in their blog and via twitter so it has been a pleasure for me to have spent so a good time with them

Furthermore, as we exit the hotel we met Aral Balkan and his girlfriend Stephanie… and they joined us for the dinner…

After a good sleep time I got up early in the morning (and still my wifi wouldn’t work) and got around in Brighton for “exploring” after been registered for the conference at the Corn Exchange. In the hotel hall I found Cyril Hanquez and Peter Elst both just arrived from belgium, we got around together, found a couple of squirrels in the park and joined Aral and Stephanie for lunch (japanese…again…ouch..). We also met Dave (the pistach.io guy) and found his hair is really fancy

I’m really impressed, this is my first time in England and Brighton is a really lovely place… I could move here in some time, this town fits quite well the spirit of a bunch of nerds as we are

stay tuned!

 

(as soon as I can I’m publishing some pic on flickr…unfortunately I lost my mini-usb cable to download my photos :/)

I’m really enthusiastic of getting there, I use to read blogs of speakers I never met yet and it will be a pleasure to listen and talk to them “live”, further, I’m meeting again some great people I knew at 360 Flex in Milan such as Neil, Koen, Zohar (yes, I installed kaltura plugin for wordpress ), Franto, and many others (and even my best friend Luca )

Back in topic… here’s my own schedule:

Day 1 – Monday 29th
09:00 – Keynote
10:15 – Carlos Ulloa: The best way to predict the future is to invent it
11:30 – Branden Hall: Brilliant ideas I’ve blatantly stolen
13:30 – Mark Anders: A preview of Flex 4 and “Thermo”
14:45 – Tink: Flex effects: transitions as design elements OR Richard Lord: creating particle effects with Flint
16:00 – Erik Natzke: Beyond the Knowledge: The Art of Play

Day 2 – Tuesday 30th
09:00 – Aral Balkan: Welcome to the cloud
10:15 – Adobe: Town hall meeting
11:30 – Grant Skinner: Things Every Actionscript Developer Should Know
13:30 – Chris Allen: Building Red5 Applications
14:45 – Lee Brimelow: Platform Jiu-Jitsu

Day 3 – Wednesday 1st
09:00 – Rob Bateman: Finding Away3D
10:15 – Seb Lee-Delisle: Papervision3D simplified
11:30 – Doug McCune: Decompiling Flex and Flash
13:30 – Koen de Weggheleire: Play With Pixels, bitmap manipulation with AS3
14:45 – Mario Klingemann: Here be Pixels

mmm…I really think I’m going to have a great time there in UK (hey, it’s my first time in UK…it MUST be great! )

stay tuned for comments and follow ups