Author: John Biggs

#MakeAndTell

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Last week a 14-year-old boy brought a tech project?to school setting off a wave of controversy. He is a Maker and he wanted to show his teacher a fun thing he put together. The resulting reaction was typical of today?s Internet praise and outrage cycle. On one side the Maker community has banded together to?show the boy that his desire to build was important.?On the other side, some believe everything about this story is a dangerous farce. After all, they say, Ahmed didn?t really build the clock. It wasn?t real ? it was just a repurposed Radio Shack clock from the 1980s. The boy?s father is an Islamic firebrand! This is a carefully orchestrated sham so Ahmed can get a Surface and so kids can bring?real?bombs to school and teachers will think twice!

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My Interview With William Gibson

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I had the unique privilege of interviewing William Gibson this year. Gibson is my favorite author and, quite literally, the reason I got into writing. It’s my squee moment and was really important to me. It’s a great interview – except for a little audio trouble. Check it out.

How To Pitch Me

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Hi. You’re interested in pitching me your project. Ok. Cool. I like you. Let’s get this done.

So here’s what I ask every time. If you do not complete this basic survey then I will not read your email. Answer each of these questions in clear English in your email. Do not send attachments. Do not send images. Send links to screenshots and a link to your project.
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Sending Data To The Pipsta Printer With PHP

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I’ve been messing with the Pipsta mini-printer that connects to the Raspberry Pi. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do with it so I decided to learn how to send messages to it via the web. To do this you need to use the example software that comes with the printer and runs on the Raspberry Pi, a third-party MySQL server, and a little PHP.

To start, you have to set up your Pi to ping an addressable database. You can learn how to do that here. You can then then set up the server to receive jobs from the database and test it by sending a few jobs via the command line.
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My Book, Marie Antoinette’s Watch, Is Now Shipping

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It’s been almost eight years in the making and it’s taken lots of work to get here but here we are: my book, Marie Antoinette’s Watch, is now available in ebook and paperback. I’m working with a publisher called Zola Books to distribute the ebook version and I’ve been working with Victor Marks of A Blog To Watch to solve the myriad issues with printing the paperback version. Both are ready to go and I want you guys to be the first to get them.

You can buy the paperback from Createspace now and it will soon be on Amazon.
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My Croatian Is Fantastic

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A Croatian site posted an interview with me in advance of my arrival in Zagreb this week. More Central European ink!

?Zagreb ?e tako postati ?esti grad ove godine, koji ?e ugostiti ovaj jednodnevnim doga?aj s utjecajnim ljudima iz svijeta biznisa i startupa. Vi?e o doga?aju mo?ete prona?i na slu?benim stranicama, gdje ujedno i mo?ete kupiti kartu, a u nastavku mo?ete pro?itati na? intervju s Johnom Biggsom, jednim od predava?a i urednikom presti?nog TechCruncha.

ZIMO je slu?beni medijski sponzor ove konferencije!

Pozdrav John, postoji li ne?to u hrvatskoj startup sceni ?to vas privla?i da do?ete ovdje?

Uzbu?en sam kad idem bilo gdje. Toliko je iznimnih talenata diljem svijeta, stoga je uvijek dobro do?i na nova mjesta i nau?iti nove stvari.

Pre-order My New Book, Technotopia

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We’ve all been expecting a techno dystopia, a world shattered by climate change and deadened by social media. But what if the reverse is true? Technotopia is a book about the future and how things will get better, not worse, in the next 100 years.

I’m John Biggs and I’ve been a professional cynic for the past decade. I saw where technology was headed and I was upset, not amazed. But something is changing and I want to tell you about it.

“Yearly reminder: unless you’re over 60, you weren’t promised flying cars. You were promised an oppressive cyberpunk dystopia. Here you go,” wrote Kyle Marquis in February 2015. For most of my life Marquis’ words rang true. I saw the future as a slide into darkness, all Blade Runner and dirty bombs. But we are living in an era of unprecedented access to information and increasingly improved access to the resources needed to build a better world. All is not peaches and cream – yet – but I argue it will get there.
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My Everyday Carry

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I’ve always loved Everyday Carry. It’s a pretty obsessive site dedicated to stuff people put in their pockets. They finally invited me to take part and it was great.

As you can see above, my EDC is pretty limited – I don’t have to fight off rabid dogs or look into utility ducts – so I’ve got my Omega, my Dad’s old British Navy knife, and my crazy wallet. I also talked a little about writing and creating. It’s a great site and a fun read. Check it out here.