We've recently bought some new lightweight camping gear, with the aim of doing some long distance walking and wild camping in the future. (I think I've begun to realise, from my conversations with people, that I'm becoming a bit of an outdoor gear geek!) Last weekend, we decided to test it out a little, up on the Clwydian Hills in North-East Wales. I've put a page up in the walks section of this site with lots of pictures and a description of the route, but I thought I'd also just mention what some of the equipment is that we have been using - equipment which so far I'm extremely pleased with - in case anyone else is looking for some pointers at to what might fit their needs.

The tent is a Big Agnes Seedhouse SuperLight 2 Person, which packs down to just over a kilo and easily fits inside a 35 litre rucksack. We got this from REI in the US, where it was considerably cheaper than in the UK.

I'm sleeping in a Mountain Hardware Lamina 35, which whilst not the lightest bag in its temperature range, does pack down very small and will fit sideways at the bottom of my pack. You can pay as much as you like for a sleeping bag these days, and I reckoned that this was a good compromise. Got it from Cotswold Outdoor in Betws-y-Coed.

For cooking, we're becoming awfully fond of our Trangia 27 series. We got the one with the steel coated pans (too many scares about aluminium around), which doesn't add much weight at all. It weighs in at about a kilo, plus fuel (meths).

And my latest purchase is my Rab Drillium jacket, which I got from Joe Brown's in Capel Curig. This is an incredibly light jacket (around 350g) which is made from the eVent stuff, which has done better than GoreTex in many tests. Waterproof, breathable, hood, light, nice and short so also good for cycling. Oh, and brightly coloured so you can be seen by the helicopters should the worst come to the worst.

I've been growing veggies out in the garden, that much is known. I've also been trying my hand at growing mushrooms. I love mushrooms as a food, but I'd always kept my distance from any knowledge of how they're grown, for fear of grossing myself out a little too much to enjoy them on my plate. But, a few weeks ago, me and my Dad found some easy-as-you-like mushroom growing kits in a DIY shop in Denbigh. The kit consisted of a polystyrene box, filled with some straw-like stuff and a bag of compost. The instructions indicated to store the compost and straw at separate temperatures for a couple of weeks, then to cover the straw with the compost, lift the lid and leave in a cool place. Mushrooms were promised after another couple of weeks. Indeed, three crops of mushrooms are promised.

Well, after following the instructions diligently, it seems my first crop is here!

I had some for dinner last night, and they tasted really good. It really did mess with my mind a little, eating something which has been growing in amongst some mouldy compost in my under-the-stairs cupboard, but I guess this is me getting in touch with where mushrooms come from. Not everything's as glamorous as apples and blossom.

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of doing something I'd wanted to do for quite a long time; see Richard Stallman speak. Stallman, for those not in the know (RMS for those who are) is the founder of the Free Software Foundation and the GNU project, and writer of the original General Public Licence (GPL). The lovely recursively acronymous GNU's Not Unix has arguably been the biggest contributing factor to the widespread availability of free software as it is today. Again, for those unfamiliar with GNU, it's probably safe to say that it's most of what you'd usually end up calling Linux. (I'll probably blog about the name thing later...)

Stallman, an American, doesn't get to these shores very often, so the chance to see him speak in Manchester was one not to be missed. I travelled up in the car with Dan and Zeth. Pete Ashton and Jez Higgins also went up from Brum.

I've actually been holding off posting anything about the talk, since I wanted to mull over my thoughts about it, rather than merely contribute to the flurry of "i haz seen rms omg" posts which litter the internet ;-)

I'm not quite sure when I first heard of Richard Stallman, but it was probably rather soon after I started using GNU/Linux in 1998 (PC Plus coverdisk of SuSE 5.2). Having had some rather lefty teenage years (not to say that I've grown out of it), the idea that software could be driven socially rather than by capital excited me quite a bit. As I read more, the philosophy of software being knowledge to be shared, rather than a shrink-wrapped product, seemed to be rather more obvious than I'd been led to believe by the aisles at PC World. Articles claiming that Stallman was as much a philosopher as a programmer encouraged me to look at my computer in a different way. My commitment, it seemed, had begun to develop.

So, I guess I had some rather pre-conceived ideas about what I expected Stallman to be like in real life. Sure, he's a kind of geek-monk as a person, but his speeches? This guy had inspired a movement, right?

He was actually every bit as inspiring as I had hoped; and every bit the geek-monk. The talk (the video of which is available via OneBigTorrent here) roamed all over the current state of play with free software, DRM and asserting the right to control your own computing. I won't recount the details - that's what the video is for - but the evening did give some perspective and crystalisation to a subject area which I believe I know pretty well. And it was nice to be among friends.

At the end of the almost two hour lecture, Stallman took plenty of time for questions. This was really good I think, though the guy really has to learn to let questioners finish what they're saying before jumping in with an answer. I guess this is due to his enthusiasm for the subject, even after 25 years of being evangelist-in-chief of the free software movement.

One thought provoking topic which did come up in a couple of questions was that of whether sofware is unique in its position of being able to be "freed" in this manner. Could the same principles be applied to harware, or to pharmaceuticals? The questioners almost seemed to be begging him to lead a charge from his barracks in software into the world in general, with copyleft principles becoming all-pervasive in advancing the tide of social over capital in all areas of life.

But Stallman was decidedly cautious about this, and mostly argued that software was unique in its suitability for liberation, due to the programmable nature of computers. The basic example discussed was that if you demand certain freedoms for your computer, why not for your microwave too? Stallman's argument, weak in my view, was that since computers are programmable and microwaves aren't, then the principles just don't apply to microwaves. On the one hand, I can't help but be reminded of Stan's fight for the right to have babies in Monty Python's Life of Brian, even though it was be a physical impossibility, but I really can't see that this is what's happening here. Stallman's argument to me boils down to "if you can, you should have the right to", which I think is both wrong and dangerous if applied generally. There are things which you can and both should and shouldn't have the right to do (think walk to the shop vs murder) and things which you can't physically do (yet) but likewise should and shouldn't have the right to (think swim to the bottom of the ocean vs build a nuclear bomb out of potatoes). This approach is clearly nonsensical.

The OpenMoko project is just one example of how the pricincples of free software are being transferred to hardware, and the free culture movement is borrowing heavily from free sofware too. I can't help thinking that Stallman is trying to stop himself from biting off more than he can chew with this self-imposed restriction to software-only freedom. After all, it's a big enough task in itself.

So, all in all, it was a very inspriring, thought-provoking and satisfying evening. I'd encourage anyone - free software convert or not - to take the opportunity to see Stallman if they get the chance.

All in all, I think today's coworking crawl was a big success. After the last post, which I wrote in Jibbering Records in Moseley (nice coffee), we took the number 50 bus up into Digbeth and set up camp in Rooty Frooty (£1 pastries and lightening fast internet) at the Custard Factory. Despite the initial confusion about which electric sockets worked and which didn't, it was actually a pretty good place to work, with plenty of space and comfortable seating. We all settled down to some decent work at Rooty's, and stayed there for the rest of the day. Despite allegations of "coslacking" in the comments on my previous post, work did in fact take place; I managed to get a decent chunk of coding done.

Five of us took part over the day; Simon Hammond and Pete Ashton had already met up by the time I arrived in the morning, and stuck around all day. Mike Voong joined us for an hour or so at Jibbering Records, then we later met up with Stef Lewandowski, who was already at Rooty's when we arrived.

There's already talk of more events such as today, and some discussions took place about more semi-permanent homes for future coworking sessions. Keep tracking the #brumcoworking tag on Twitter and keep your eye on the Birmingham coworking wiki for future occasions. All welcome!

Following the idea being mooted at the recent Birmingham bloggers meet-ups, today is the first decent attempt at coworking in Birmingham. I haven't blogged about the bloggers meet-ups myself, mainly since everyone else seems to have done a pretty good job themselves. I've only been to two out of the four meets so far, but they've been a nice informal gatherings of bloggers, social media people, journalists, techies and artists.

The basic idea of co-working is that people who often work alone from their laptops, from home or an office, get out, go somewhere else together and work in proximity to each other. Instigated with Simon Hammond, today we're having a co-working crawl of various cafes and other places offering free wireless internet around the city. We began over a hearty breakfast at the Kitchen Garden Cafe in King's Heath, and are currently enjoying tea, coffee, chilled Afro music and free wifi at Jibbering Records in Moseley (who incidentially have computers running Ubuntu). Rooty Frooty at the Custard Factory is next...

If you want to track us, or come and join in, then follow the #brumcoworking tag on Twitter and take a look at the Birmingham coworking wiki. I'll also be streaming the occasional live video on my newly created Bambuser channel.

I think that the production of compost has to be one of the nearest things to magic that exists in the world.

I was lucky enough that upon moving into my house, nine months ago, the previous owners left two almost empty compost bins behind in the garden. Ever since then I've been adding my raw vegetable scraps, tea bags, coffee and the odd bit of paper and cardboard too. One of the bins had filled up by late last year, and except for a bit of turning with a fork, I've left it be since. This week, I opened it up to see what was going on inside.

And wow, all those onion peel scraps and carrot heads have completely dissapeared. There wasn't a single tea bag in sight. Instead - and to be honest I wasn't really expecting the whole thing to work - was some rather good looking brown compost, all evenly mixed up!

Until now I've been buying compost to add to the soil in my vegetable patch but this was an opportunity too good to waste. So this evening, taking advantage of the ever increasing hours of daylight, I knocked together a compost sieve out of some old wood and a bit of mesh (instructions here), and started sieving the compost out into the wheelbarrow.

The result... lovely fine warm compost.

Considering that this stuff costs a fair bit of money at the garden centre, this is a rather cool way of getting it for free I think!

Fellow Birmingham blogger Andy Pryke has recently written about the right to photograph in the UK. He points out that this BBC News article, including its quite interesting comments I might add, describes a worrying increase in the number of mis-informed police officers attempting to illegally stop photographers from taking pictures in public places. In some cases, officers even demanded that the photographer delete their images.

As pointed out by Linda MacPherson, a lecturer in law at Heriot Watt University, taking photographs in public is, except for a few specific exceptions, a right guaranteed by law in the UK. She has produced this rather useful factsheet for photographers, which can be carried around and checked up on if and when the police start making demands.

Austin Mitchell MP has tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons calling on the government to clarify to police the law on the right to photograph, according to the BBC article. Andy Pryke also points out that there is an online petition in support of such a clarification, which can be signed here.

So, I've got some tomatoes growing nicely, but they're taking up rather a large area of my breakfast room right now. I'm also starting off a few runner beans indoors. I'm running out of room!

This weekend then, I decided to have a go at building a small lean-to greenhouse in which to grow them. These things can cost quite a bit of money (as much as £400) if you buy them ready-made, which I don't have spare right now. Plus, I always quite liked the idea of being able to build something like this myself. People always say that the more effort you put into growing your food, the better it tastes!

I feel quite pleased with myself.