Why do some things have 'Historicity' ?

Aakanksha: I'll meet you at the statue of that guy you like ..
Mark: Which statue?
Aakanksha: You know ... the one at the station ... with the hat...
Mark: Which one? at which station?
Aakanksha: the statue of the guy in the chair!
Mark: Oh, you mean Isambard Kingdom Brunell, possibly the most highly regarded and influential engineer in the 19th century?
Aakanksha: Yeah him.

I have recently been very interested in the debate over Intellectual Property that is raging on the Internet, especially in regards to copyright and the ownership of ideas. After reading this article by a famous "Pirate" Matt Mason regarding what he calls "The Pirates Dilemma", I learnt a brand new concept. He links to this article on the sale of a copy of the Magna Carta which postulates that some objects have an element of "historicity" to them. It's an intangible and invisible parameter that we as humans give to these things, which can only be defined by the people who assign it. Historicity adds value and appeal to something simply because it has history attached to it or contained within it.

Take for example a white, thin, silk-lined trenchcoat that I have hanging in my wardrobe back in Australia. To most people's eyes it's the kind of thing that you might pick up from a charity shop in Melbourne for $5. Perhaps to some people it's interesting for its unique cut across the back or maybe for its vintage appeal. If I took it into a vintage clothing store in Notting hill they might pay me £10 for it, because it is vintage and was made in London.

However even they can't see what I see. I see a coat that my Grandfather bought back to Melbourne on his business trip to London in the early 1950s. He flew in on a DeHavilland Comet (before they started dropping out of the sky) and took a tour around the carburetor factories in Marylebone and Barrow In Furness. He took an 8mm movie camera on the trip, the film of which we got transferred to DVD just this year, and we saw together for the first time in nearly 50 years. In this simple yet elegant coat I see a memento of that trip. I see an item which has enormous historicity attached to it.

I constantly feel this aura buzzing around objects and buildings on the streets of London, and sometimes it amazes me that I seem to be the only one that notices it. Walking down South Bank (the real one, not the Melbourne one) I can't help but stare across at Cleopatra's needle. An object that was carved out of stone near 1000 years before the city it now stands in was founded.

In my opinion you can print and sell as many copies of the Mona Lisa or Monet's Sunflowers as you like in the giftshops but the originals still retain that energy. The museums of London are not the only place this sort of energy can be felt, but they are where it concentrates the strongest.

I love the elegance of the arched dome in the Royal Ballet hall at Covent Garden, in the Palm House of Kew Gardens and of Paddington station. The new Euston station is just a few boring slabs of concrete when compared to the spires of St Pancras Station just down the road.

I had a new business idea that involved buying a pub near Paddington station, I think it's a good idea but that's only because I can see this energy about the place. My pub would just be an ordinary business in any other city or town anywhere in the world. But only in London, Paddington would it resonate and become a success, even an attraction, not just a barely profitable drinks venue. Anyone know anyone with a couple of hundred thousand pounds to invest in some Historicity? or prehaps London has a surplus of this already?

- Mark

Mark on: Branding, identity and finding your niche

In the bustling area of Edgware Rd London, there is a small group of mens clothing stores which compete for the trade of the many hundreds of middle eastern men who live in the surrounding neighbourhood and sit at the cafes up and down the road and smoke their hookahs / shishas.

The stores are not all that far from the touristy bustle of Oxford street and it's high street/major chain/brand label/"made in guatemala for 20p per hour" clothing outlets. So in order to compete they take the quality angle. They know their small market and they cater for it. There's a store called "Masons" and "Clothes for Gentlemen". There's even a store called "Princes of London". The largest and busiest one is a store called "High and Mighty" with the tag line on either side of the name - "Clothes for big or tall gentlemen".

Now which one of those business names sticks out in your mind? and which one would I, a 6'1" Australian man shop at? or moreover which one would I take my Father and Father-in-law to if I had the chance. It seems to me that the operator of this establishment has thought beyond targeting just the people who live nearby and has broadened his appeal with the use of 6 small words. By simply choosing a great name, a tagline and a niche market, they have won me over before i've even stepped in the door. I don't think of myself as a "Esprit" or a "Zara" man (although I do own clothes from them) however I do think of myself as a Tall man.

though maybe not a gentleman ...

- Mark

Meet a person with far more letters after his name than you

Last night Ace and I had the opportunity to listen to a lecture by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of Hypertext, HTML and HTTP. The founder of the modern internet and the man who first imagined the World Wide Web of freely accessible information that now spans the globe. And I see it as an opportunity that I could only have had in London. For half the cost of a movie at the cinema we got tickets to a once in a lifetime type of event.

I was impressed by Sir Tim's ability to give down to earth examples for the abstract ideas he is currently pondering. I was somewhat surprised to see that he didn't speak with a politician's polished and rehearsed manner, but with the enthusiasm of a person who just can't find the words to keep up with the big ideas in his head.

I found the lecture to be both enlightening and to a certain extent inspiring. His discussions on Linked Data and the Semantic Web showed just how far we have come in the few short years that the internet has been everywhere and also what can be achieved when things are open and free for everyone to use.

Now if only I could come up with that next big thing ...

-Mark

Mark It So

I just read about Engineers Australia's new campaign to get more public exposure for the profession of Engineering, and I reckon it really hits the spot. The idea is that the public can submit ideas based around the phrase "Make it so ..." check out the video at http://www.makeitso.org.au/. The concept is to shows how Engineers translate ideas into reality by organising funding for the various ideas as projects to be undertaken by groups of engineers at various companies and instutitions. Has my full support, as I can remember a friend once saying "When I signed up for engineering, I thought I'd be fixing tanks - like in Red Alert". In my opinion, the more public awareness of what engineers do, and how essential we are, that gets out there, is for the better.

- Mark

Welcome

Welcome to the Roboticist Mark blog page, this is the place where I'll keep an ongoing list of my current projects and progress as I make it. I hope to keep regular updates just to post my musings and to link to other interesting sites as I find them.