Joe's Jottings

  • Keep your tank full!

    Some years ago when I was engaged (in a small way) in the movie industry I read a rather interesting book of advice to low budget (or zero budget) film makers.   One of the most useful things I read was the advice to make sure that you kept the tank of your car full of petrol.  That way, if opportunity knocked, or you needed to get somewhere fast, then even if you were rock-bottom-skint you wouldn’t be caught by being unable to buy petrol for the car!

    It’s a simple idea, and one that I’ve adopted to some degree with various aspects of my day to day life.  It’s always been particularly useful because I have a very up and down cash-flow – being self-employed can sometimes result in personal finances being like the Biblical 7 years of plenty and 7 years of famine. The money one is the obvious application.  Whilst it’s possible to stuff money in a savings account or, in these days of fiscal doubt, in a biscuit tin buried under the roses, it can sometimes be more useful to spend the money on things you KNOW you will need in the not too distant future – pay extra off your Credit Card, keep a few extra quid around to allow you to take advantage of ‘BOGOF’ offers in the supermarket, cheap deals in the local shops, etc.  We have a ‘stock box’ which contains cans, dried foods, rice, pasta, cooking oil, etc. that we keep topped up for use in winter conditions or as a stop gap when things might get tight.  The advantage of getting stuff rather than saving the money is that it prevents the money being spent on other things.  Of course, it doesn’t help with those ‘rainy days’ that always whack our lives, but it at least allows you to lay things aside for a rainy day. 

    The ‘keeping your tank full’ approach also applies to time; whilst it’s true that you can’t store time in a bottle (except in the Jim Croce song) what you can do is make use of spare time that you do find yourself with to get things done that may need doing further down the line when you may be short of time in which to do ’em.  My own ‘favourites’ in this category of task are quite often Blog Posts or at the very least ideas for future posts.  The WordPress software makes this easy; I can write a couple of posts in the same session and use the software to schedule their publication in the future.  Other tasks that I often fit in to this category are what I call ‘errands’ – doing some of the stock up shopping listed above, collecting and dropping off dry cleaning, sorting out files – anything that will be required in the next few weeks and that may get forgotten in the ‘hurly burly’ if time becomes short for any reason.

    And I’ve also applied it to my health and well being; whilst I know you can’t stock up on sleep, I have been known to go and take afternoon or early evening naps when I get an unexpected opportunity.  Whilst it might only benefit me over the next 24 hours or so, it’s good to make sure that I don’t run up a sleep deficit – especially living with 3 cats, one of whom is a royal pain in teh arse at keeping the rest of the house awake!

    So…keep your tank full and don’t get caught running on empty!

  • Sturgeon’s Law

    Following on from a recent post when I commented on the quality of Web 2.0 ‘user generated content’ I started thinking about the continued validity of Sturgeon’s Law – usually stated as ‘90% of everything is crap’.  When it was first formulated, the vast majority of the consumers of science fiction – the genre to which it originally applied – were protected from most of the crap by the editors.  (Having said that, the magazines of those far off days still contained a reasonable amount of stuff that could be described as ‘less than brilliant’…but that’s another story!!)

    In my own view, I think Sturgeon’s Law is slightly out of date now – I’d probably suggest that the figure is closer to 95%, and what is worse is that:

    1. Web 2.0 allows much more of it to come through to the web-using public.
    2. The demand of satellite TV, Cable TV, etc. for new content has again reduced the quality threshold, allowing more stuff through that, to be honest, just isn’t up to the mark.
    3. The situation is almost certainly going to get worse; it’s increasingly difficult to apply any critique of quality to produced media without being accused of being elitist.

    Is there an answer?  I certainly hope so; I have a good many years of life ahead of me and I hope that some of the time will be filled with entertainment that makes me laugh, cry and think .  I want to be provoked; I don’t want media to slide down to a lowest common denominator value or simply be inferior re-hashes of past glories.

    The bottom line is that, whether we like it or not, we have to reintroduce the old concepts of judging value; of estimating and rewarding quality, even if this means we have to produce material that is regarded as too intelligent or challenging by some.   It may mean that sacred cows are killed – I have frequently commented, for example, that some otherwise excellent scripts of the most recent incarnation of the TV science fiction series ‘Dr Who’ were ruined in parts by the writers bringing in politically correct characters and dialogue that absolutely jarred.  It might also mean that we have LESS content; I for one would prefer to have less entertainment and media of a higher quality and production standard.

    The answer is almost certainly not technical; there is too much content produced and we don’t have a technical means of grading material based on such subjective and culturally loaded terms like ‘quality’, ‘taste’ and ‘entertaining’.  maybe we all need to ‘up our game’ and be less forgiving of stuff that just seems slipshod and hastily put together to meet a marketing demographic.  Perhaps we need to have more editorial input on our web forums – there will always be calls of ‘censorship’ and freedom of speech when you do this, but perhaps it’s the first steps on the path to breaking Sturgeon’s Law.

  • Google predict the end of desktop PCs….

    When I started in IT, I encountered a program called ‘The Last One’.  It was a menu-driven application generator that allowed a non-programmer to specify the sort of system they wanted (within a limited range) and generate a BASIC program that would do the job.  When it was first announced – and before any of us got to take a look at it – there was a little nervousness amongst the ranks of programmers, based on the advertising strapline for the program, that suggested the software was called ‘The Last One’ because it was the last program you would ever need to buy…

    Which was, of course, utter rot.

    I was reminded of it today after coming across this piece in which the bods at Google are predicting the  end of the desktop computer.  And the reason I was reminded was that the ‘The Last One’ story just went to show how bad IT pundits – and those in the industry – are at predicting the future.   You see, the problem with predicting the future is that you have to make certain assumptions and extrapolations from today in to the future, and then work out consequences based on those assumptions.  And if you get your assumptions of teh future wrong – or the assumptions of how the world works now – then it can all go horribly wrong.  And that’s what’s happened to Google.

    The demise of the desktop computer – to be replaced by iPads, Smartphones and similar mobile devices.  Note that Google aren’t even suggesting that laptops and netbooks and their ilk will be delivering the goods – it’s all going to be a mobile wonderland.  Now, short of some sort of high tech ‘Rapture’ occuring in December 2012 that whisks away all the computers we use in our homes and offices whilst leaving only mobile computing devices behind, I very much doubt that this is going to happen.

    Google have mixed up predicting the future with what they (with their interest in mobile operating systems and desire to compete with Apple) want the future to be.  A dangerous thing for a technology company to do.  Whilst in Google’s idea world of media and search consumers everyone would be able to do what they need to do on some sort of mobile gizmo, those of us who work with computers for serious amounts of time each day will NOT be able to function with  poxy little touchscreen keyboards or Blackberry QWERTY pads.  Sorry guys, we need real sized keyboards which will be realistically associated with a decent sized screen and so will be at the very least a reasonably sized laptop – which we’ll sit on a desk and run from the mains.

    Quite a few of us also like the idea of storing data locally – not in ‘The Cloud’ or on Google’s application servers – something that isn’t easy on many mobile devices right now.

    Google – you’re wrong.  Stop looking at the dreams of your own and other researchers, and start looking at how real people use computers – especially in their work.  And make that the basis of any more crystal ball gazing.

  • The problem with Tweeted Wisdom….

    Like many of us on Twitter, I follow a number of Twitter users who post aphorisms, quotes, sayings, etc.  A sort of electronic review of the ‘Wisdom Literature’ of the last 2000 years.  This can be pretty cool; I do wish that some folks would post their tweets across the day rather than in large floods, but, hey, it’s tolerable.

    However, I recently started wondering about aphorisms in general – just how much wisdom can you cram in to 140 characters?   There is a lot of really smart stuff that gets posted, but just how much of it ‘sticks’ with us – indeed, how much of it is actually thought about by the people who actually post the wit and wisdom? 

    Don’t get me wrong – there is quite a bit of good stuff that comes up.  My main issue is just how much we think about what we see – indeed, how much time do we have to think about what’s presented to us in the Twitter-stream.  After all, Twitter is fast and ephemeral – that hardly seems a suitable medium for something designed to stimulate thought and insight.  There is a serious risk when we start delivering and consuming ‘bite sized’ wisdom literature, and that is that the interpretation  and assimilation of what we read gets forgotten about.  

    the whole idea of ‘widom literature’ is that it delivers to us something to chew on; it’s not a finishing point, it’s actually a starting point from which each of us may trace our own journey starting from the same starting point.  There is a Christian practice called Lectio Divina – literally ‘Divine reading’  which is based around reading a piece of spiritual writing – maybe scripture, maybe something generally spiritual – and then study it, ponder on it, interpret and then use as a basis for prayer or other worship.  And this is a process that takes time, and isn’t rushed.  While a piece used in Lectio Divina might easily be short enough to encompass in a Tweet, the time taken to interpret it certainly isn’t ‘Twitter-Time’.

    Twitter is a great medium for certain types of message, but I am starting to wonder whether it’s a valid medium for wisdom literature ; I toyed with the idea of launching a ‘blog’ type site last year based around publishing a suitable quotation each day and writing a short piece based around my own thoughts on that topic – but then ditched the idea after a week or two because I realised I was subjecting others to my own interpretation. 

    At least Twitter removes the ego from the posting of such literature quotes; there’s no space to post an interpretation, after all!!  But Twitter reduces everything submitted to it to something that exists in the reader’s ‘window of opportunity’ for just a few minutes before it’s forgotten.  Is that really how to treat this type of post?

  • The end of 6 Music

    So, the BBC are going to close down 6 Music – which will be a great shame as it’s one of the few stations around that play a good mix of contemporary and past music, AND also has presenters that are knowledgeable about music and that have a love and passion for it.  Which is rare in this day and age of pre-packaged poppets of either sex whose main claim to fame is that they’re currently ‘in the public eye’ because of who they’re seen with or where they’re seen.

    The cuts announced by Mark Thompson to the Corporation’s 3.5 billion budget may be politically motivated or commercially motivated, depending upon who you listen to.  They may be a ‘stalking horse’ to try and coax the Government to give the BBC more money, and won’t be pushed through.  They may be designed to soften up  the public to make them willing to take higher license fees to keep services.  there are any number of possible reasons floating around the blogosphere right now, as well as the stated reason of focusing the BBC’s resources on what are called ‘core functions’.

    I’m not going to get in to the other aspects of the restructuring; I’m just going to focus on 6 Music and try and bring it’s cost in to perspective.  It costs about £9 million a year to keep it running, and there are some useful comparisons of ‘cost per listener’ of the BBC’s digital stations here.  In terms of pure cost per listener, Radio 1 Xtra and the Asian Network cost considerably more.

    £9 million is a little over half the cost of the original (ending in July 2010) deal with Jonathan Ross for his services to the BBC – £17 millions over 3 years.  Graham Norton has just signed a 2 year deal with the BBC for a total of £4 millions. Thompson’s salary £800,000 a year.  Take the opportunity to read around about the expenses culture at the BBC – again, you’ll find that an awful lot of license fee seems to be spent on things a long way away from the provision of programmes.

    The cost of  6 Music is small fry for the BBC – it’s a bout 0.0002% of the total budget of 3 odd billion.  It’s almost a rounding error in the BBC’s scheme of things.  To cut the services will do the BBC no good at all.  It’s such a fundamental misjudgement that I am starting to wonder whether the ‘conspiracy theorists’ are right and we may soon be told by Thompson that it was all a mistake and that 6 radio will not be scrapped after all.  A lot of the listenership of 6 Music is vociferous and media-savvy; there are many alternative media sources available for people today.  The BBC’s repeated treatment of licence payers as a cash cow that need not be listened to can only go on for so long before a backlash starts, and this round of changes might just be the thing to do it.

  • Time for a memorial to Bomber Command crews.

    From a very early age I was always interested in the history of the Second World War – part of this almost certainly came from that fact that I had Uncles who’d been in the Army and Merchant Navy who had served in WW2, and my mother had been a ‘Fire watcher’ in my current home-city of Sheffield.   I became very interested in Bomber Command after I got interested in amateur radio and electronics.  The link was to do with radio; the detection of bombers by radio, the navigation technologies used by both allied and German bombers were all radio based, and RV Jones’s brilliant history of the subject ‘Most Secret War’ was an excellent read for me as a teenager.  The more I learnt about Bomber Command, the more I admired the men who flew the aircraft that attacked strategic targets in Occupied Europe and Germany. 

    Out of a total of 125,000 aircrew in Bomber Command, 55,500 were killed during the war.  The average life expectancy of a crew was 13 missions.  This could easily equate to just a few months of active service.  In the later years of the War, crews that ‘bailed out’ of their aircraft over Europe and that were captured by the Germans might easily fall victim to the‘Nacht und Nebel’ Decree of the Nazis, in which the captured airmen, rather than being treated as prisoners or war, would simply disappear in to the Concentration Camp system.

    The commander in chief of Bomber Command was Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris was the creator of the ‘thousand bomber raids’ policy which put as many bombers as possible in to the air to overwhelm German defences.  His policy of ‘Area Bombing’ – even after the accuracy of bombing techniques had improved to such a degree that the required damage could have been inflicted on German strategic targets without the massive destruction meted out to such cities as Dresden –  did not go down well after the end of the War, and Harris was the only one of the senior British commanders not to receive a Peerage after the war.  And Bomber Command did not have a campaign medal struck in their honour.  And whilst a statue of Sir Arthur Harris was erected in the 1990s, there is still no memorial for those in Bomber Command who died performing their duty.

    End of the history lesson; recently there has been continued interest and activity to get a memorial for Bomber Command crews erected, and fund raising activities are taking place.   The Bomber Command Association has raised £1.5 million out of the £4 million required, and it is hoped to get the memorial erected by 2011.

    It’s overdue, and something that should have been funded from the public purse.  Some will look back on the activities of Bomber Command over the span of 65 years and claim that the area bombing campaign was barbaric, a war crime, an over-reaction.  The generation of people who fought and died in World War 2, or who were subjected as civilians to German air raids, is obviously dying out, and with the best will in the world it’s hard for those of us too young to have been there to truly realise what it was like to live through a period of years during which their was a genuine fear of invasion and the destruction of the British way of life in a way that had never been considered before or since.  Bomber Command between 1939 and 1944, and the later the United States Air Force, was the means by which the war was taken to Germany and the German industrial and economic capacity disrupted.  With the benefits of hindsight, it’s easy to take the revisionist view of history; that the raids were not as effective as had been believed, that civilian damage outweighed the military impact, that the lives of the crews of Bomber Command were thrown away.

    I don’t take that view; it’s way too easy (and way too common) for us to try putting the morality of the 21st Century on to the actions of previous years.  The young men of Bomber Command – as young as 18 and typically in their early 20s – should be honoured before they all pass away.

    Please consider giving the memorial project your support.

  • Gender Disappointment – psychological condition or just spoilt?

    When I was a kid, out strolling with my mum, we would often meet a lady of similar age to my mum who’d had a child that suffered from Down’s Syndrome.  Back then in the 1960s / 70s, it was a rare sight to actually see a child with Downs out and about.  Many died relatively early, and others were institutionalised.  This lady had chosen to keep her child at home with her.  He was a happy child – I would see him on and off until I left home.  I think he was a wee bit younger than I was.  What her reactions would have been when the child was born I had no idea; I can only imagine.  But in later life whenever I mother and son they seemed perfectly happy, despite the  difficulties they both faced.

    I was reminded of this lady this morning when, on my scout through the online editions of various Sunday newspapers, I came across this article about a ‘psychological condition’ known as Gender Disappointment.  This is the condition suffered by women (and their partners) who give birth to a perfectly healthy child who’s the wrong sex – they get a girl when they wanted a boy, or vice-versa.  Now, I can see that it may be a severe disappointment to know that you’re going to get a little girl when you already have 3 or 4 boys; but that, I’m afraid, is genetics and biochemistry for you.  That’s the way the cookie crumbles – there may be things you can do with diet and such to make conception of a child of a particular sex more likely, but I’m not sure how effective they are.  And yes, it can be heartbreaking if you have 5 or 6 girls and desperately want a boy for whatever reason.

    But here’s a quote from a woman suffering from this ‘condition’:

    “Another mother of three boys writes: ‘I honestly don’t think I’ll ever get over not having a girl. I think about it every day, and the  disappointment never goes away. I will carry this agony with me for the rest of my life.’”

    I’m sorry.  Three healthy sons.  This ‘disappointment’ is a slap in the face to the childless.  This ‘agony’ is an insult to those who have given birth to a disabled child that will require constant care, or that will die in childhood.  And what do her own children feel about this?  That they’re ‘second best’?

    The perceptive amongst you will by now have gathered that, as I put the term ‘psychological condition’ in inverted commas, I’m not at all convinced.  Post natal depression is a psychological condition.  OCD is a psychological condition.  ‘Gender Disappointment’ is not a psychological condition; it’s an excuse given by some whinging couples to feel sorry for themselves because, possibly for the first time in a long time, they haven’t got exactly what they wanted.  The ‘perfect family’ they envisaged ain’t going to be perfect because they have boys rather than girls, or vice-versa.  I have a name for folks who bitch when they don’t get exactly what they want.  It’s called being SPOILED.

    So, sufferers of Gender Disappointment; grow up, get over it, get a grip, stop whinging and appreciate the fact that you have healthy children. Count your blessings and accept them for what they are – one of the great miracles of life.

  • 24 hours of techno-hell!

    For better or worse I’m a tad dependent upon the technology around me working to support me in my work, entertainment, staying in touch with friends – the usual.  So, I have to say now that Friday 26th February has now been officially declared ‘Techno-Hell Day’ – the day on which most aspects of communications and media technology at Pritchard Towers decided to withdraw their functionality.

    As is often the way, Facebook kicked off proceedings with a smattering of the bugs for which it is well known; I can sort of handle the events of two days ago being displayed as ‘most recent’ – what tends to brass me off big time is when the Notes application in Facebook decides to stop importing my blog.  There’s usually a 5 or 6 hour delay between me writing a blog post and Facebook reflecting that fact automatically; in the last week or two there have been outages in the service that’s prevented blog posts from getting to Facebook at all.  So I’ve been manually adding details of the Blog posts, or stopping and starting the Facebook notes application – a process which seems to import TWO copies of the most recent Blog…sigh….

    OK – situation normal, Facebook fuc…er…broken.

    What’s this…Broadband seems rather slow.  Ooops…Broadband is now absent.  Broadband is now back…running at a tenth of normal speed.  A quick call to BT indicates that there are ‘significant network problems’ – again, this seems to have happened more frequently in the last year than in the previous 8 or 9 years we’ve had BT Broadband installed. 

    And finally – attempted to record the NME Awards on the all singing, all dancing, DVD recorder.  Woke up this morning to see that the DVD recorder had decided it really didn’t WANT to record the awards for us.  It had happily recorded adverts before…just decided to crap all over the disc.  And the T4 programme about the same awards this morning seems to be full of up their own backsides presenters rather than the music.

    And in to Saturday….Facebook – still stuffed.  Broadband…seems better.  DVD recorder – amazingly enough recording.

    Ah well….that’s life in the white heat, bleeding edge techno-world of Pritchard Towers.  Where’s my slate and chalk?

  • Twitter Phishing…YOUR responsibility!

    The recent spate of Twitter ‘phishing’ attacks have been interesting for me in a number of ways. First of all, my wife received one of the phishing DMs from a contact of hers whose account had been compromised. Fortunately, she knew enough not to enter any details in to the page she was directed to, and there was no harm done. A quick change of password just to be on the safe side, and that was that.  Fortunately, she knew enough not to enter any details in to the page she was directed to, and there was no harm done. A quick change of password just to be on the safe side, and that was that.  This particular DM was one that was a ‘social engineering’ attack – an invitation to check a website out to see if the recipient of the DM were featured on that site.  A nice try – after all, most people are interested in finding themselves on the Net!

     

    The second point of interest is why the sudden flurry of attempts to compromise Twitter accounts. It’s been suggested that one reason is that the compromised accounts will be used to promote sites in to search engines, based on the recent development of search relationships between Yahoo and Microsoft’s ‘Bing’.  Getting hold of the Twitter accounts would have been the first stage of the operation; the idea would be to automate those accounts to ‘spam’ other users with  other links over the next few weeks to attempt to increase the search engine standing of those links.

    But the thing that’s surprised me most is how often people have actually gone along with the phishing request – to enter your Twitter user name and password into an anonymous web page, with no indication as to what the page is!  To be honest, it stuns me.  And it isn’t just Internet neophytes – according to this BBC story an invitation to improve one’s sex life was followed through on by banks, cabinet ministers and media types.  Quite funny, in a way, but also quite disturbing – after all, these are people who’re likely to have fairly hefty lists of contacts on their PCs, and whilst an attack like the one detailed in this article is quite amusing, a stealthier attack launched by a foreign intelligence service against a cabinet minister’s account would be of much greater potential concern.

    There are no doubt technical solutions that twitter can apply to their system to reduce the risk of the propagation of these Phsihing attacks.  For example, looking at the content of DMs sent from an account and flagging up a warning if a large number of DMs are sent containing the same text.  Twitter have also been forcing password changes on compromised accounts – again, this has to be a good move.  It might also be worth their while pruning accounts that have been unused for a length of time – or at least forcing a password change on them. 

    A further part of the problem is with the use of Link Shortening services like Bit.ly to reduce the length of URLs in Tweets.  This means that you can’t even take a guess at the safety or otherwise of a shortened link;  a link that is goobledegook could lead to the BBC Website to read the story I mentioned above, or to a site that loads a worm on to a Windows PC – or prompts you for your Twitter credentials.  perhaps a further move for Twitter would be to remove the characters in URLs from the 140 character limit.  That way, full URLs could be entered without shortening.

    But ultimately a lot of the responsibility for Twitter phishing attacks lies with us users.  We need to bear the following in mind:

    1. If you get a DM or Reply from ANYONE that says ‘Is this you’ or ‘Read this’ form a friend, then to be honest, check with the person concerned to see whether they have sent them.  If you get such a message from anyone who’s not well known to you, then just ignore the message.
    2. DO NOT enter your Twitter username and password in to any website that a link takes you to.  If you do do this, change your password as soon as possible, and don’t use the Twitter password on ANY other system.
    3. Keep an eye on your Followers – if there is someone you don’t like the look of, just block them.  It may seem extreme but it stops possible miscreants ‘hiding in plain sight’.
    4. Ensure your anti-virus and anti-malware software is up to date – this is your last line of defence designed to stop malware that YOU have allowed on to your machine by falling for phishing scams. 🙂

    So…play your part in reducing the impact of Twitter Phishing attacks by not clicking those links!

  • The wee small hours….

    Even when I have something worth worrying about, I have to say that it takes a lot of worry to stop me sleeping; having said that, I doubt there’s a night goes by without me waking up at some point.  2 years ago, however, I did manage to sleep through an earthquake, but that’s another story.

    When I do wake in the night I usually just let my mind drift until I doze off again; last night I found myself reflecting on the peace and quiet of that moment.  My wife was sleeping by me; two out of our three cats were in the usual place, and Jarvis (almost certainly the cause of my wakefullness) was wandering around the bed trying to find a place to sleep.  It was quiet, warm.  I was incredibly comfortable, and wasn’t bothered whether I went back to sleep or not.

    I love that feeling; it’s the state of mind in which I count my blessings.  Yesterday I learnt of the death of a young woman known and clearly loved by several of my friends.  I found myself thinking last night of all the other folks my wife and I know, younger than we are, who’ve had ill health over recent months and years; almost a reversal of the natural order of things.  I thought of their families, and of my own mortality.  Not in a gloomy way – almost a matter of fact acceptance and realisation that my presence in the world and awareness of that presence is one of the many ‘everyday miracles’ we take for granted.

    Jarvis settles for a while by my side; there’s silence in the world outside and it’s still pitch black.  A moment of light – that usually indicates that the neighbour’s porch-light’s been triggered by the passage of some animal or other.  It also starts me realising that there are a few things in my life I’m not going to manage.  I’ll not be an astronaut; I won’t become a world famous political or business figure; I might make millionaire with a lot of luck and the odd break.  On the up-side, though, I’ve done all sorts of stuff and had a good time doing it.  I have a wonderful wife, beautiful God-daughter and niece who I love dearly, and other folks in my life who I love and respect and who, I think, have the same feelings for me.

    In other words, I’ve counted my blessings and found them good.  When it comes down to it, I think it’s the ‘small stuff’ of life that can bring most pleasure.  Like being warm, comfortable, with people you love.

    Whatever else today may bring, I’m happy to have experienced that time of quiet in the middle of the night, a time when I knew that, in the words of Browning:

    “God’s in his Heaven —
    All’s right with the world!”

    and I start this new day content.