Joe's Jottings

  • Live together or die alone

    This article in the BBC’s online magazine rather intrigued me; basically, are we heading for a dislocated society in which the relatively wealthy live in walled communities whilst the rest of the population exist in a less secure ‘open world’?

    When I was a kid I remember reading a suggestion that the evolution of community resources, like street lighting, sewers, etc. came about because the rich had to share the world with the rest of us.  A wealthy man might have a well lit private estate and safe water, but if he, or his family, had to go outside the confines of their safe zone they might soon be in dark, dangerous streets and exposed to foul standing water rife with disease. 

    So, philanthropically minded individuals acted from enlightened self interest (and then from the profit motive) to create municipal organisations that provided street lighting, paved roads, sewers, etc. for everyone.

    It’s ironic that a century or so later we’re heading in the other direction by starting to consider retreating from these communities in to walled communities and other protected environments.  The wealthy no longer choose to collectively improve the commmunities that they interact with on a regular basis, but instead choose to isolate themselves from them and rely on defences rather than building a ‘common treasury’ in their communities form which all can benefit.

    I have recently become very interested in Permaculture and ‘Transition Towns’   as means of addressing the pressing problems of Peak Oil and Climate Change.  Both of these philsophies reflect the enlightened self-interest approach to surviving massive cultural shocks.  They assume that the ebst way to make lives in a future totally changed by fuel and energy crises and climate modification is to survive as a community.  Compare this with the alternative approach – wealthier individuals building individual bolt holes for themselves and their families shows admirable foresight and planning but there remains the problem that at some point, after the MREs have run out, the inhabitants of these bunkers are going to have sally forth in to the world they left behind.  At that point they’re going to have to interact with those who didn’t have bunnkers – either by force of arms or by negotiation. 

    I see survival built purely on personal and family group provision as being short sighted and, whilst for some it may be the only way open to them, for the vast majority of us we need to work out how we’re going to mould together the communities in which we live to prepare for changes in the future.

     

  • Dumbing Down 2.0?

    I regularly follow Bill Thompson’s columns on Online Issues at the BBC’s website – see the Blogroll here for a link to Bill’s personal blog – and recently re-read this item  which I found very interesting indeed.

    In it he comments on the idea expressed by Nick Carr – that Google and it’s ilk on the Internet might actually be diminishing our capacity for thinking.  There is also a little backing from neurologist Susan Greenfield for the idea, in that the way we take in information from modern media is different to how we’ve taken in information (by more direct experience) for the last couple of million years.  In other words, there may be a bit of re-wiring going on…

    Now, what really interested me here was that it actually supports a vague suspicion I have that my own mental faculties have changed in recent years.  I’ve also witnessed it in others, and heard people complain about the fact that ‘They can’t settle down to read’, for example.  Just watch people around you – we seem to spend an awful lot of time when we are mentally engaged in ‘information surfing’.  We used to joke about MTV Attention Spans and ‘soundbite politics’ – how long before we start commenting on your ‘Googlespan’ rather than your attention span?

    Experience in administering and contributing to numerous online discussion forums and mailing lists has also exposed me to what I think are changes in the style of discourse.  Ignoring the ‘slanging matches’ I’ve noticed more use of links to things like blogs and wikis without any interpretation of the target link by the poster.  Sometimes this is appropriate, but sometimes the relevance of the link to the ‘guts’ of the issue at hand seems to be tenuous or requires ‘drawing out’ from the material referenced.  In either case, I’d expect the referenced material to be developed in the discussion; without this development it often appears that the poster is simply ‘Google Bombing’ the discussion with a load of references designed more to give the appearance of knowledge than the actual knowledge itself. 

    After all, Googling a topic rarely takes more than a few minutes; understanding the material returned, cross referencing it, checking it’s particular bias or accuracy – these are the parts of the process of Internet research that take the time if done properly.  I guess I’m concerned about laziness or, in some cases, posters exhibiting intellectual intimidation by simply attempting to floor people with their apparent erudition.  How one determines whether soemone is lazy, intimidating or simply assumes people know as much as they do is a good point for discussion!

    Perhaps we should all take a few steps to stop the rot in our own thinking. 

    One starting point is to search for knowledge, not to point score.  Resist the temptation to Google for facts in a topic about we know nothing, purely to win a debating point.  After all, shouldn’t you be engaging in that debate with at least a grasp of the basic issues involved?  Now, don’t get me wrong here; I’m not saying don’t Google; I’m saying Google in the heat of debate to get clarification and detail, not to get ‘first time exposure’ to the issues.  If you see a debate that looks interesting but of which you know nothing, then take soem quality time out to read around the issue from a number of online sources and – dare I say it – the odd book or magazine article?  After all, if it’s worth your time debating it, it’s worth doing well.

    Secondly – know and question your sources.  See what other ersources are referenced.  regard anything without at least a couple of supporting ‘quality’ references as an debate-pieces rather than it necessarily being afctually correct.

    Read deep as well as wide; too often people see something that appears to support their point of view and then stop reading. 

     Let’s see what we can do to stop the ‘fast food’ approach to our acquisition of information.  We should be acquiring information, to improve our knowledge, and from that develop wisdom in the application of that hard earned knowldge.  Read deep and wide and continue the tradition of the centuries.

    Now, stop reading this and grab a book.

     

  • Computer says no – or, `How I stopped worrying and learnt to love the waste…`

    People who know me will be aware of my occasional – and increasingly regular – rants about the lack of joined up thinking that surrounds us in every aspect of life in the UK.  I’m currently attempting to reduce my carbon footprint and general consumption, but every now and again succumb to a desire for take away pizza.

    I know I shouldn’t, but just occasionally noting hits the spot better than watching TV whilst eating something that is baaaaad for you. 

    Tonight, however, ended up with me almost beating my head in frustration against the telephone receiver.  The order was simple – big pizza, two portions of garlic bread and a pot of ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.  The problem started when the assistant tried to be helpful by creating a ‘deal’.  However….ice cream wasn’t included – fine.  And you can have a third side dish.  Not fine.  I didn’t want a third side dish.  Mrs P. and I couldn’t EAT a third side dish.

    I explained this to the assistant and then sat back to listen to her try and get the 1 pizza, 2 sides and ice cream through the computer.  I worked really hard to explain that I didn’t want to waste food by taking a third side order that wouldn’t be eaten…

    And failed.  Said order arrived…with three garlic breads.  Ack…..

    It’s funny in a way but let’s take a serious look at this; Wee Gordon tells us to stop wasting food.  His Government are also concerned about obesity.  Yet major fast food chains in the UK are basically promoting food waste and obesity by attempting to talk people in to taking food they don’t want.  Utterley, utterley bizarre.

    The Government and the Corporates need to get their act together on this sort of issue…if they are genuinely concerned, that is.  Or, as I suspect, are they just mouthing platitudes because they genuinely feel powerless in the path of world events?

  • Just a nudge?

    I recently read the phrase “Some days, it’s just not worth chewing through the straps” on someone’s online signature.  With a wry smile I came to the conclusion that, Yes, some days it’s just too much like hard work out there, and that many of the basic paradigms of civic behaviour and politeness that I was brought up with seem to have become an increasingly rare commodity in modern life.

    Now, before you dismiss this post as the ravings of a fortysomething craving for his lost youth, let me direct you to this Blog entry from the BBC’s Mark Easton – Do We All Need a Nudge?.

    To which I think the answer is yes.

    This article pulled together a few themes that I’m very interested in.  The issues of civic responsibility, duties and rights has always been important to me.  Many people who know me will be sorely tired at my usual rant of ‘Too many people who know all their rights and undertake none of their responsibilities’.  The one aspect of Gordon Brown’s premiership that has encouraged me in any way, shape or form was reflected in a quote from the PM in Easton’s piece – “people themselves adopting the work ethic, the learning ethic and aiming high”.  It may be rare for me to agree with ‘Wee Gordon’, but he’s right on the money here.

    People need to adopt the habit and attitude of learning, working and aiming high; I’m hoping to encourage this in the social and community project field by a new project of mine (still under construction, but feel free to take a look) – CommunityNet – which I’ll be formally launching in the near future.  I have a great belief in communities and individuals helping themselves, and shaking off the ‘nanny state’ and ‘dependency culture’ that seems to have grown up in the UK in recent years.

    A ‘nudge in the right direction’ is perhaps the best thing we can all do to help this happen.

    Catch people doing things right, set a personal example in all that you do, dedicate some time or resources to community projects that matter to you, be a good friend and neighbour, and show genuine respect to those you deal with.  All good things that have become almost platitudes in the last decade or so; perhaps it’s time for us all to be nudged to making small changes that will make the world a more pleasant place to live in.

    Mao Tse Tung said ‘The long march starts with a single step.’; what long march will your small step start off?

     

     

     

  • `Viva la Vida` – `All Along The Watchtower` for 2008?

    The perennial question of ‘What the heck is that all about?’ with regard to the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s ‘All Along The Watchtower’ was kicked off last year when a haunting version of the song by Bear McCreary was used in the season finale of ‘Battlestar Galactica’.  The brooding, beat-driven, almost trancelike music provided a stunningly effective counterpoint to the unfolding action of the last 15 minutes of the episode.

    The dense, occasionally apocalyptic imagery of the lyrics of the song, drawing as they do on at least two archetypes – the Trickster and the King – provide a Rorschach Test for the listener; to a great degree you can project in to the song whatever floats your subconcious boat. 

    And so to Coldplay, and Viva La Vida.  I wasn’t a great Coldplay fan – I actually admitted to my wife that I got them mixed up with Radiohead.  For me, hipness is simply where my legs pivot. 🙂  But I caught a snatch of the song on an iTunes advert and thought – that sounds interesting….if weird….  One swift trip to HMV later – sorry guys, I’m not techie enough to manage this downloading tomfoolery – I like polycarbonate! – and I had a good listen to the album…which I enjoyed greatly.

    And so to this song…it clearly seems to have triggered a lot of thought and analysis in people.  There are a number of versions of the lyrics on the lyric sites online – most of them (to my 47 year old ears) seem reasonably accurate.  Google is your friend here…anyway:

    I used to rule the world
    Seas would rise when I gave the word
    Now in the morning I sleep alone
    Sweep the streets I used to own

    I used to roll the dice
    Feel the fear in my enemy’s eyes
    Listen as the crowd would sing:
    “Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!”

    One minute I held the key
    Next the walls were closed on me
    And I discovered that my castles stand
    Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

    I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
    Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
    Be my mirror my sword and shield
    My missionaries in a foreign field
    For some reason I can’t explain
    Once you go there was never, never an honest word
    That was when I ruled the world

    It was the wicked and wild wind
    Blew down the doors to let me in.
    Shattered windows and the sound of drums
    People couldn’t believe what I’d become

    Revolutionaries wait
    For my head on a silver plate
    Just a puppet on a lonely string
    Oh who would ever want to be king?

    I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
    Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
    Be my mirror my sword and shield
    My missionaries in a foreign field
    For some reason I can’t explain
    I know Saint Peter won’t call my name
    Never an honest word
    But that was when I ruled the world

    Again – a lot of imagery of which a great deal is religious and obviously historical.  A few theories propounded on the Internet have suggested that it’s an allegorical reference to the Bush Whitehouse, or the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon.

    My immediate thoughts on this song were that it was pretty much something to do with Roman period Jerusalem (nothing complicated there!), and I started contemplating events that would fit.  Now, as regular readers will have realised, I’m very interested in Pontius Pilate (see my short review of ‘The Master and Margarita’), and after a few minutes thinking I got quite convinced that the song was referring to Pilate.

    I felt rather smug at this point, did a Google and found this link –http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080604143507AADrMnN&show=7 – which indicated that a chap from London had come to the same conclusion a couple of weeks previously. Anyway – in addition to the comments that are made in the link, here are a few more thoughts.

    One thing about Pilate is that he’s a very anonymous person in historical terms; there’s a great deal of speculation and mythology around him, and so my analysis here draws on that.

    “Viva la Vida” – a VERY loose translation might be ‘Live Forever’, reflecting one version of the myth that states that Pilate, like the Wandering Jew, was damned to live forever as punishment for his act of cowardice.

    “Roman Cavalry…” – Pilate was a member of the Equestrian class of Roman Society – a sort of lower rank Patrician – and in his duties in Jerusalem he would have commanded only a few hundred troops – probably light cavalry and auxilliaries, akin to a police force.  Bulgakov, in his novel, certainly took the view that Pilate would have had light horsemen available to him that were deployed at the Crucifixion.

    “See fear in my enemies eyes…” – Pilate’s military career isn’t clear; it’s likely he spent at least some time as a soldier.  Again, in fiction Pilate is regarded as having been a military officer.

    “Rolled the dice…” – this may refer to the Biblical reference where soldiers played dice at the crucifixion for Christ’s belongings.  However, I think it’s more likely that it refers to the game of ‘Basileus’ – a dice game something like Ludo which was popular amongst the troops AND was played by the troops in Jerusalem – there is evidence in the form of a game board cut in to stone in the vicinity of the palace.  The aim of the game was to become king, and the winner might easily be dressed as a mock king as part of the game – this could refer to the ritual humiliation of Christ at his hearing with Pilate as described in Matthew 27.

    “held the key…” – Pilate did indeed hold the key to what happened to Christ; Bulgakov hints in his novel that Pilate was tempted to try and free Christ and have him accompany him to his own home. 

    “Seas rose at my command”… OK…a bit of a stretch but…Pilate carried out civil engineering projects in his reign, one of which was a viaduct project to improve the water supply of Jerusalem by carrying water from elsewhere.  Another possible hint is again part of the eternal fate of Pilate according to myth – that after his death the waters and land of the Earth would not hold his body – the seas could be regarded as having risen and rejected him.

    “castles built on pillars of salt and sand” – someone with a viewpoint of eternity would regard the things that were important during his life to be ephemeral in the great scheme of things.  Again, another Biblical reference here is to the Sermon on the Mount.

    “puppet on a lonely string” – Pilate was a Governing official of limited real power – not quite a puppet, but restrained in his ability to do his job by the Empire and local Jerusalem politics.  However, it could also be read as him being a puppet of fate; the Crucifixion is the defining moment in Christianity – Pilate’s actions might therefore be regarded as pre-ordained and out of his control.  A true puppet of destiny.

    So….my personal interpretation!

    I wonder if discussions will be taking place about it in 40 years time like with ‘All Along The Watchtower’?
     

     

  • Attrition vs Shock and Awe in the Online World

    Anyone who’s spent time in any online communities will be aware of the feuds and fights that take place between users of those communities.  Whilst some degree of conflict is inevitable, there always seems to be a few people who move it form debate and discourse in to abuse and harassment.  I’ve concluded that there are two forms that this takes – attrition and ‘Shock and Awe’. 

    What’s motivated me to raise this at this time?  Firstly – personal experiences and observations, secondly the return of Channel 4’s Big Brother to the TV screens and finally a piece of legislation from Scotland, which, although aimed primarily at sexual harassment, may have implications for anyone running an online community.

    So…let us begin…

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  • Facebook – fool if you think it’s over?

    I came across two articles today which are related – one informing us that Facebook had finally made it to number 1 in a league of social networking sites:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/06/facebook_over_only_in_islingto.html

     and the other telling us that minining the social netspace for business is a waste of time and energy.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/17/isosystems_networking_talk/

    Like many things in life I was a late comer to Facebook and within a few weeks of me joining was being told by all and sundry that Facebook was a spent force and that all the cool kids were probably going elsewhere.  My first thought was ‘Thank God – no more being poked by a dead sheep’ or whatever, followed by a quick examination of how many contacts I had in Facebook overlapped with contacts in my E-Mail directory.

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  • The Bus Book – 5th to 17th May – Wikinomics

    Wikinomics is something of a phenomena – it has a website as well as being a book.  The book is about the concept of ‘peer production’ – think of the way in which Open Source sofwtare and Wikipedia is put together.  Lots of people collaboratingfor the greater good to produce something that is valuable to all – and then making it free.

    The phenomena reminded me of two similar ‘paradigm busting’ management theories of recent decades; ‘Excellence‘ and ‘Re-engineering’.  Both of these approaches were sold to the world like the second coming of the Messiah, and both ultimately had what can best, in my opinion, be described as less than paradigm-breaking impact.  I have a little admission to make here; in my youth I was a fan of the Excellence management theories of Tom Peters.  Two things kicked me off the wagon; the first was that TP was getting WAY too far out there, even for me, and the second was that it was just oversold.

    Now, before I embark in what will sound like heresy to some, I’ll say it clearly:

    “I’m a great believer in Wikipedia, Open Source, Creative Commons and any other collaborative project you care to mention.  Heck, when it starts to move my own CommunityNet project will be using wikis, forums and other Web 2.0 tools.  This is an excellent way for things to happen, and long may it survive and flourish.”

    But I found parts of this book a nightmare.  Why? 

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  • Upgrading to WordPress 2.5.1 – some notes for the nervous

    There’s a few basic rules that we can all follow and learn from in life.

    You know the stuff:

    • Never play cards with a man called Mississipi Slim
    • Always walk a mile in the other mans shoes – you have his shoes, and you’re a mile away from him.
    • Don’t eat the yellow snow.

    To that I might add – Be wary of upgrading software when you don’t need to do it!

    I’ve just upgraded ‘Joe’s Jottings’ to the most recent version of WordPress and whilst it only took me an hour or so, it could easily cause some serious pain for folks less happy with a little database hacking.

    I followed the basic upgrade instructions given here – and on completion attempted to log in to the system.  Now, this is soemthing I do every day, so it’s reasonable to assume that I can remember my password.  And, just in case, I have it noted down soemwhere…so…I was rather peeved when WordPress rather politely told me I’d got it wrong.  Never mind…I can order up a new password.

    Following the instructions, I received a mail containing a link that included a URL containg a ‘key’, and on clicking on this was told that the key was invalid.  A closer look at the key indicated why; it contained a couple of ‘&’ characters, which would be treated as splitting the key in to multiple fields when entered in to a browser!

    Guys…this is REALLY naff!

    Anyway – as I needed to get the blog sorted and checked I opened up the database, went to the relevant user record in the database and changed the value of the ‘user_activation_key’ field in the record to a word that didn’t contain any nasty characters.  I then took that word, pasted it over the value of the old key in the URL I’d been sent, and posted that in my browser window.  The result was I soon received the new password.

    There is a proper fix – http://trac.wordpress.org/changeset/7837?format=zip&new=7837

    Note that if you’ve already requested a password change you’ll have to blank out the user_activation_key field before you can make use of this fix. 

    Anyway – apart from that, it now works fine.  But by ‘eck, it was a hairy 30 minutes sorting this out.

     

     

  • Reflections on “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”

    I read this short story again recently; it’s by Ursula Le Guin and is one of the most haunting short stories that I’ve ever read.  The only short story that sticks with me more than this one is Parke Godwin’s ‘Stroke of Mercy’, which is stunning.

    I’d suggest you go and read ‘The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas’ before you hit the link below, but, if you can’t, to save the plot summary, here we go:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_From_Omelas

    I guess the question for me is whether I would choose to be one who walked away; I suppose that in our heart of hearts we all like to think that we have in ourselves the courage and self-knowledge to ‘do the right thing’.  For several years after I first read this story – which must have been in the mid 1980s – I guess at one level such thinking was hypothetical and rhetorical; it wasn’t the sort of world we lived in, after all.  But today I’m not so sure that it is rhetorical anymore, and also I’m not sure I’ve got the guts to walk away.

    We in the ‘developed world’ live a materialistic and consumer driven lifestyle, which has had an increasing amount of impact on the state of the world.  For us to have many of our goodies, it could be argued that somewhere else in the world someone else’s lifestyle takes a kicking.  We have an oil-driven economy; if you’re cursed enough to live above rich oil fields then start running now.

    We want high-technology equipment; if you’re a young, female, circuit board assembler in a sweat shop then be aware that some of the processes that are involved may expose you to fertility affecting chemicals.  In order to provide us with cheap electronics, some of the safeguards that we adopt in the developed world are ignored.

    Have a think about it, please.

    I guess my hiking boots and rucksack are still in the store cupboard right now, and I sincerely doubt that I’ll be walking away real soon.  But I do wonder whether I should at least dust the rucksack down and polish the boots, figuratively speaking, for the day when I too start looking to the distant hills of a less consumption oriented lifestyle and choose to walk away from Omelas.