What is the point of social networking?

I always thought that the point of social networking was to talk about things (to be social). To exchange ideas, to perhaps have your ideas challenged. Throughout my professional career I have been in an environment where almost every utterance is examined by my peers and, generally, mercilessly torn apart if they do not hold water (and sometimes even if they do hold water). With most of my friends we maintain a level of banter where stupid comments are responded to with stupid answers (All in a spirit of jest).

I have always viewed myself as being of a scientific bent and, as such, view most ideas I put forward to be just that “ideas” until they have been peer reviewed and tested. I have written a few programs and scripts over the years (nothing of any consequence, in case you are interested) and have found that regardless of the time I spend testing something, users seem to have the ability to break anything in new and creative ways, that I never imagined. In security a system is not viewed as secure until it has been beaten on by experts and remains secure.

Getting back to the question. I have noticed lately that most of the social media platforms, far from being a conversation, seem to be a platform for people to show how clever they are, with no come back (or tell the world how much they love their kids/cats/dogs/choice of diet). Similar to someone standing in an empty room and shouting. The only acceptable response seems to be “here, here” and “I agree”. If I have the temerity to disagree or point out the flaws in the logic people seem surprised. It’s as though they had not realised people were reading their utterances and can respond.

While it is possible to turn off comments on most platforms, no one ever does. Is that because they don’t know how, don’t realise they can or are simply soliciting positive reassurance? Is it because the art of conversation is dead and people just want to rant?

Basically. Have I missed the point or is it that many of my “friends” have and I need to “unfriend” them (would that life was so simple J ). I have actually taken to unfollowing certain individuals (half-way towards unfriending them and not as far as blocking them).

<Zipp…> Ok the flame suit is on. Tell me that I am just an unpleasant human being, do not deserve to be in society and have missed the point. Or is it that I am just a socially inept techy (bit of a bugger as I am in customer service).

Cyclists beware?

 Yesterday was a great ride in to the City.

Most traffic lights had coppers to "advise" cyclists.

I have NEVER seen so many cyclists STOPPING for RED lights!

LOL.

Riding home was a different story. No coppers so no stopping. Hmmm....

And this morning?

Same old, same old....  At every red light a gang of cyclists.  Some Stop, Some Pause, Some just carry on as if it is a green.  It's a kind of Russian roulette on wheels.

For ages Lorries have had reversing warnings.  First it was a beep, now it is a voice that says "Vehicle Reversing!!".  Today I came across a lorry that blared "Vehicle Turning Left" at me as it (guess what??)  TURNED LEFT.  The yellow flashing things, what are they called?  Oh yes... INDICATORS were also flashing, telling me that it was TURNING LEFT.

What next?  A man (let’s not be sexist) or woman walking in front behind, left and right of every lorry carrying a red flag and shouting "lorry coming!", "lorry slowing", "lorry passing" etc.....

I am out on a motorbike most days and see such stunning acts of stupidity and carelessness that I am lost for words (I have not been at any of the recent incidents and so cannot make any valid comment about the circumstances, I am speaking in general terms (It goes without saying that I am sorry for the families of the cyclists that have been killed on our roads, it is a terrible loss and I feel for you)).

Cars are the worst (actually push bikes are, but let’s not labour the point).  They pull out without looking, stop for no readily apparent reason and deliberately block the road so that Bikes (motor) can’t pass.  I have seen cars, that have been over taken by several bikes (in traffic) move over in to the gap so that other bikes cannot pass.  Car’s jumping red lights, closely followed by bikes (push) that must have jumped the light by an even larger margin.

The roads are what they are.  Painting Blue Bicycle Super-Highways will not change that and will not make more road space.  Perhaps, over time, as new roads are built and old roads are redeveloped, the planners can devise a way to magic some reserved space for each class of vehicle.  Until then is it beyond the wit of man for us to coexist?

There is a kind of natural hierarchy that is imposed upon us by the laws of nature.  Much like the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.  A motorbike in collision with a car will lose.  Metal box Vs Me (I have no chance).  A car in collision with a Lorry will lose.  Hard metal Vs Soft metal.  It goes without saying Cyclist Vs Lorry…

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation (I have been knocked off and can say, with some level of certainty, the road is hard!  It hurts when you hit it!  Lorries are hard, it sounds like a silly statement, but how many of us have touched a lorry?  Try it.  Cars deform when you push them.  Lorries do not.)  Look after yourself and just keep as far as is possible away from things (machinery) that can seriously hurt you (however inadvertently).

The thing that many Motorbike riders hear as they lie on the road waiting for the ambulance… “Sorry mate, I didn’t see you”.

Oh and one last thing.

Lycra.  It's not a good look.

MAMIL's please cover up.

Physician heal thyself

Today I have given myself a major shock and have, fortunately, been able to recover.

A very important container of information (Microsoft OneNote – if you are interested) disappeared from my laptop!  I do not know how that happened, but such is life.

After a short period of running around screaming (metaphorically).  I started to work out what to do about it.

 

The Backup files were not where they should be, or rather they were, but did not contain what I needed.  

Fortunately I suffer the paranoia of someone that has lost data before, and try to adhere to a 3-2-1 backup strategy, so (after some digging) I managed to find a recent backup in a different location.

An hours fiddling and I am back to where I should be.

There is the outside chance that some of the data is a day older than it should be.  And Steve, my business partner, may well have edited some of it in the last day.  But we are in a far better position than we could have been.

I have rejigged my backups to take into account what when wrong this time. 

The morel of this story?

YOU CANNOT HAVE TOO MANY BACKUPS!!!  

And make sure that your backups take all your data, it is not always where you think it is.

Me thinks it is time for a beer.

Is technology adding value to our lives?

I was sitting on the train this morning watching two people (obviously friends) sitting next to each other, both furiously stabbing away at their phones. Overhearing their sporadic exclamations it became apparent that they were both engaged in the same conversation with a third party via Facebook.

It strikes me as sad that they did not put the bloody phones down and TALK to the person they were with. Or maybe CALL the third party, have the conversation and finish.

We spend more time 'Chatting' to people we have never met (and probably will never meet) than we do talking to people right in front of us.

Now don't get me wrong. I love technology and have made a career out of it, but I do feel that it is getting beyond intrusive. We can't go out without someone 'checking in' (OK, hands up if you have never done this. I have so this is a person in a glass house throwing stones). We can't have a meal without taking a picture and rating it (actually this is not one of my vices).

I am out with my six year old today. I will admit to taking pictures and posting them, but I am competent enough with tech for each one to take seconds to do. Unlike a chap I was held up behind, that took ten mins to work out how to use his camera while his poor kids sat looking bored and the queue behind him (with me in it), trying to get into a vintage carriage, grew ever longer.

We all seem to be living somewhere else while our lives are happening here (we are almost observers' to our lives while living vicariously through the lives of others). Now I may appear to be a hypocrite, blogging while out with my son, but , in my defense, he is on a train simulation at the mo.

The Book "Lucifer's Hammer" is a great indication (if somewhat extreme) of what could happen.  We live in a world of technology that NO ONE knows how to build, operate or maintain.  Perhaps we need to teach our kids what makes a bus go and how to build a generator?  Perhaps we need to talk to each other, before we forget how.

How many people have managed to keep an email conversion going beyond 2 or 3 exchanges?  There was a time that I exchanged Letters with friends round the world for many years, but along comes the internet and something that should have been made easier has petered out and finally ground to a halt.

While technology has allowed me to maintain better communications with some people in America it seems to have killed communications with some friends in North London!

I guess what I am saying is that, wonderful though the brave new world is, we do need to remember the way we used to do it and, sometimes, the older ways are "better".

I still remember the anticipation of receiving a letter from a friend or collecting a roll of processed film....

I'm back!

I have been missing London so.     

Its sorrow is as sweet to me as a rare wine.  

IT Knowledge

<soap box mode>

Over the past few years, as computer technology has been invading it's way in to just about everybody's life, there has always been one thing that has never ceased to amaze me.

I cannot understand why it is still socially acceptable, in fact almost encouraged in some circles, for people to be proud of the fact that they are totally Technologically inept!

The has been a conversation on one of the Mensa lists I belong too, during which one lady was happy to declare that she did not know her own phone number and another (supposedly tech savvy) person did not know how a phone number should be formatted (trivial, but an indication of the lack of respect this kind of knowledge holds).  I ask you, what other area do you find people proudly declaring their ignorance?

I have noticed, in my interactions with friends etc, that not many kids (in my social circle) are doing any form of technical subject.  Those that are doing "Computers" seem to spend more time learning how to write a word document and make pretty pictures, than they do learning how to actually PROGRAM a computer.  I am glad to see that the government is finely waking up to this   http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/10/computer-skills-ed-vaizey   the question is "Will the rest of us wake up, before we are left too far behind to catch up"?  

The Empire and the UK's good times, were built on manufacturing.  We have thrown that away and seem to be in the process of throwing the hi tech business.  This country has had some great inventors in the past.  Why are we not trying to train the inventors of the future?  Why are kids at school not being told that  programming is creative and "artistic".  Designing and building a "thing" and then making it work, thus solving an issue or achieving a goal, is incredibly satisfying (and "creative").

This is an episode from a podcast I listen too about this subject.  The guy starts by talking about a "Portable dog Killer" (don't panic, the name is more dramatic than the device) and then goes on to discuss the need to encourage innovation and development of new "stuff"  http://media.grc.com/SN/sn-281-lq.mp3   it is well worth a listen.

After WW2 we threw away an early lead in Computing.  Let's not let the rest of the world crush us in the stampede to the future, while we sit around twiddling our thumbs and drawing pretty pictures.

"There are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what the heck happened". Philosopher Dr Friedrick Nietzsche. 

</soap box mode>

________________________________

Cosma
www.papouis.net
P Please consider the environment
Save paper - do you really need to print this email?
Save electricity - do you really need to send this email?
Save your own energy - do you really need to read this email?

Windows 8 Developers Preview

Well,

After much gnashing of teeth and hair pulling I have managed to get Windows 8 up on both an old laptop and a Virtual machine.

The installation was much helped after I found out that there have been download issues from the MS website and some people (me included) ended up with truncated .iso files!!  I re-downloaded it an checked that it was the correct 2.8Gb, which is was second time.

After that…. 

It would not load on VMware workstation, but I am using V7 so I was only able to specify Windows 7 as the OS type not Win8, not sure if it makes any difference whatsoever.

I then tried Oracle Virtual box.  When I started the App it immediately wanted me to update it, so I did (more out of habit than any belief that it would make a difference) and loe and behold it offered me a “Windows 8” OS type!  Notable features.  Well I noticed immediately that it set the memory requirement to 1Gb(for 32bit 2Gb for 64bit!) Which is much  higher than the usual values for other OS’s.

My laptop only has 4Gb, 1Gb of that is used by the graphics card so I had to kill a few tasks to get it to a point where it would actually install.  But it then went on to install and start working!

Initial comments.

My 1^st impression was “Very pretty, but nothing works”.   Then I changed the screen resolution. It, by default, sets the resolution to 800x600 (on both the laptop and the virtual) but then you click on the tiles and nothing happens.  I wound it up as far as I could, just to see what it looks like, and the tiles sprang into life.

Many (all??) of the tile apps that come pre-installed seem to want to be full screen.  I will withhold judgement on that for the moment.  IE looks totally different when launched as a tile, but can be put back in to “standard” mode.  I like the apps I have played with (Facebook, Twitter)  they are pretty, not revolutionary, but pretty.  I think that if I can pin Word Excel, and a few other key business apps to the Metro interface it could actually be quite good for offices where you only what the staff to have the apps you authorise.  I must remember that, being a techy, I am not like other users.  I typically have several apps open at a time, and visible (maybe even on two or more screens).  Most “normal” users tend to switch from app to app, using one at a time.

The active tiles are interesting, but I must admit the Facebook tile is very irritating as it scrolls through an ever changing selection of pictures from my friends.  Very distracting, especially as, when I saw a picture that intrigued me, I clicked on it and it took me to the home screen rather than the picture in question.  I think I would like it to scroll the news feed rather than pictures (this may be possible, but I have only been looking at it for a while and have not got that deep).

Another “odd” feature is the lack of “Exit” buttons on apps.  The intention is that you just use the apps and don’t worry about managing them.  When you want to move on you just go back to the “Start” screen (incidentally, alt + tab will take you back to the desktop not the start screen.  This is a pain, but, again, I am assuming it is a tweakable feature) and select another app.  Windows 8 will manage the open apps and will terminate the “oldest” when it needs more resources. 

So far I quite like it.  It will require slight mental shift and a change in my working practices, nothing dramatic, but still a change.  I will have to take my own advice and stop fighting the system (to make it behave the way it always has) and try to go with it.  The performance is not what I would call snappy, but I am not too upset about that as a, I am running it on a Virtual Machine and an aging laptop, b, It certainly is not bad, c, I have heard reports from people running it on better hardware that it is quite snappy and d, it is not released code so it probably does contain debug info, which will make it bigger and slower.

I will carry on experimenting and see where it takes me.

Tick Tick Tick

Tick tick tick
the sound of my life ebbing away.

Daddy Daddy Daddy.
'Enjoy them while they are young', "they will soon stop asking"

Will there be any me me left by then?

Is there any of me left now?

Quote from Edith Wharton

"Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before."

View article...

Senna and the death of F1

This weeks Top Gear was a cracker.

The film celebrating Senna (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mj59) really brought it home that F1 has slowly been drowning under a sea of technology. (oh and, had Senna lived, that would have been one of the greatest F1 years ever!).

Don't get me wrong. I love technology and I think that for mere mortals it can be the difference between a nice fast drive in the country and a hospital ward. But there is nothing finer than watching a skilled driver tame an F1 car and drive on the ragged edge. Some of the shots of Senna controlling 1200 BHP as the car squirms it's way down the road are amazing. Even Mr Hamiliton (who is no mean driver himself) admitted that it was a totally different driving experience.

I know that F1 is a test bed for new car technology. But to survive as a spectator sport it needs to bring some of the "fun" back. Michael Schumachar, great driver that he is, is just boring to watch. Get him in a good car and he just wins, he is a machine. Well I have a Playstation if I want to watch a machine drive. All the races I have watched recently are just to clinical. The computer is controlling big bits of the car and preventing all the shimmies and squirms. Until the point the driver cocks up or something breaks, in which case it crashes. Where's the skill? (no I am not saying they are not skilled drivers, anyone that can can control a car at those speeds is clearly a skilled driver, and has nerves of steel) I want to see cars scrapping and duelling for position. Wheel to wheel combat. I want the guy at the front to have to fight for it and then defend it all the way to the line.

Currently, who ever has the best technology, gets the best grid position and wins. BOOORRRIINNNGGG!!!

How about randomising the grid? Just pull starting positions out of a hat? or reverse the grid so that the winner of the last race starts at the back? or have the drivers pull a car number out of a hat? (that would make the constructors and drivers championships really mean something!) or simply have a rota so that every driver drives every car (over the course of the year) not sure if the numbers work on that one, but you get the idea.

Get rid of the driver aids! I can see the argument for ABS but surly this level of driver can cope without traction control and launch control? I can see the point of flappy paddle gear box's but lets make them dumb. Press the button and the gear changes, do it at the wrong speed and the gearbox explodes!

Let's make the drives DRIVE not just be passengers is a glorified video game. Actually. We could take the drivers out of the car, make them drive by remote control and then take all the restrictions away so the cars can go as fast as technology (dam!) can make them go.... Hmmmm... Now I am being silly.... Or am I?

It's been said before... The 80's were a great decade. Let's wind F1 back a bit.

Weight Loss Using The Dog Food DIET

I was buying 2 large bags of Purina dog chow at Wal-Mart for my dogs, Winston, Chief, Gus, and Maximus. I was about to check out when a woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

 

Surprised by the question, I asked her: 
"What do you think I have? A small elephant?

Since I had little else to do, on impulse, I told her: "NO, I didn't have a dog. I was starting the Purina Diet again, although I probably shouldn't because I ended up in the hospital last time I was on it. However, On the bright side though, I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of every hole in my body and IVs in both arms.

"I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry and that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again."

(I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was enthralled with my story by now.)

Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food had poisoned me.

 

I told her: 
"No. I had stopped in the middle of the parking lot to lick my butt and a car hit me."

I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard!

WAL-MART won't let me shop in that store anymore.

Linux

Well it had to happen.

I have just spent the evening messing with a virtual Ubuntu 10.01. And I must say I quite like it.

Being as it is on a VM none of the visual effects (if there are any) work, but other than that it was easy enough to install and get working. Actually all I did was install it and it started working by itself. I did manage to break the network connection for a short while, but that was down to it being on a VM and it did not take long to fix.

Most of the pre-installed apps are ok, but the messaging tools are great. Being able to login to all my assorted messaging apps in one place is really handy.

Considering that it is running on a desktop PC that is also running a virtual XP and only has 512Mb allocated to it the performance is great.

I would like to give it a more extensive trial, but am not quite brave enough to make it my main platform yet. This is because by laptop is critical to my work and I am not au faix enough with Ubuntu to be 100% confident that I can get it to do everything I need in double quick time. This laptop is ageing and as soon as I can replace it I think I will make it 100% Ubuntu and run it in parallel to what ever new machine I get.

As I have said before, the platform is far less important that the tools (apps) that I need to use. Maybe I will be able to find free, Linux based, alternatives to all the tools I use. Alas there is no MS Office for Linux (Open office is just not compatible enough) <flame suit on>, Maybe XP (Win 7) in a VM ;)

Just My 2C worth.

Homebase Finally Respond

Well, Well, Well….

 

Finally got a response from Homebase.

 

They have basically totally failed to respond to any of my questions and comments, but have apologised for “inconveniencing” me.

 

They have also given me £30 worth of Homebase vouchers.  That does not really cover the time I have wasted on this or address any of my issues, but I really don’t want to waste any more time on them.

 

A result of sorts….

Homebase Enquiries

Just spoken to Paul at Homebase.
He has promised to get back to me within 24 hours.

We will see....

Re: Your Appalling Service

The Arrogance of this firm is outstanding! The cannot even send me an email that is written in decent English!

Lets's not forget the fact that that they refuse to address my issue!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Homebase Enquiries <info@homebase.co.uk>
Date: 18 May 2010 15:17
Subject: re: Re: Your Appalling Service


Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding Your Appalling Service parking fines.

I am sorry for the delay in responding to your e-mail, whilst we do aim to ensure that all e-mails are answered within 48 hours, due to the high number we receive this
may not always be possible.

Whilst we never like to hear that anyone less than satisfied with the service they receive we do appreciate knows where we need to make improvements.

I am sorry you received a parking fine while shopping in a Homebase Store, as you do not state which store, could I suggest you take your receipt and parking fine into this store and speak to the manager who will try and assist you.

Should you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us at info@homebase.co.uk or call us on 0845 077 8888.

Regards,


Carol Grace
Homebase E-Commerce Customer Service Team.

Homebase

Still no response from Homebase…

The sound of silence is deafening.

Is that what they think of their customers?

Think I will have to investigate the head office number and pursue it there.

 

Re: Your Appalling Service

Sara,

On 12 May 2010 13:28, Homebase Enquiries <info@homebase.co.uk> wrote:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding the service you have received.

I am sorry you have been unsatisfied with the service you have received.

Please forward us your complaint so we can investigate further.

Should you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us at info@homebase.co.uk or call us on 0845 077 8888.

Regards,


Sarah Gate
Homebase E-Commerce Customer Service Team.

For your reference the above reply is in reference to your earlier email

Much though I hate to repeat myself....

I am dissatisfied with the following....

1. Wasting my time having to make several phone calls and send several emails just because we wanted some of your products and had the temerity to spend more than an arbitrary amount of time in your car park.
2. Receiving a demand for £95 that is made up to look like an official PCN. I am now led to believe that these documents are not legally valid and I should have just binned it! That is just extortion.
3. The fact that having made 3 phone calls to 3 different members of your staff, I was told 3 different things!
4. The fact that having made a formal complaint to you I receive no formal responce.
5. Repeating myself because you do not keep track of cutomer interactions.

Need I carry on?

Any Decent Company would have a manager contact me in order to resolve my issues.

Clearly Homebase does not care about it's clients!

Clear?

By the way http://cosmap.blogspot.com/

The "Conversation" Continues..

From: Me
Sent: 12 May 2010 13:17
To: 'Samantha Stevens'

Yes, I read that in your 1^st message.

During the many conversations I have had with your company I have raised a number of specific complaints. These should be on the record.

I am formally requesting a response from Homebase to my questions.

And one more question,

You Say “However, we do also appreciate that there may be occasions when customers are shopping in our store longer than 90 minutes. Under these circumstances, the store does have the discretion to advise the car parking agent to ensure no penalty is issued.”

Your store staff do not seem to know that as they were adamant that there was nothing that they could do, when I called the store. What do you intend to do to ensure that your staff have the correct training on such matters.

I cannot believe that I am the only person to suffer from this situation that is nothing more than extortion.

By the way… http://cosmap.blogspot.com

Parking in Homebase

This appears to be Homebases way of saying “Go away and annoy someone else!”

They really value their customers….

From: Samantha Stevens [mailto:Samantha.Stevens@homebase.co.uk]
Sent: 12 May 2010 13:05

A waiver letter was sent by G24 on the 6^th May.

If you haven’t received this I can arrange another copy.

Regards
Samantha Stevens

Retail Operations

My Reply to them

Actually it does!

 

1. I would have though that you would have been pleased that people were spending time in your store, not penalising them and inconveniencing them!  I have had to make several calls to clear up this mistake on your part.

2. You had better train your staff in store better.  I spoke to them and was told that there was nothing they could do.  Either they did not know what to do or were too lazy to do it!

I am totally lost for words by the poor level of service Homebase provide.