Charlie's Diary: Youth of today

Charlie's Diary: Youth of today

This is worth reading. I was going to post a comment, but realised it was a bit on the long side, so I should probably spin it off here.

I think Charlie Stross' gedankenexperiment really illustrates the speed of change of technology in our society, and the fact that post 30s, we tend to settle in to some kind of happy equilibrium, just keeping up with the essentials. I wonder if that's something to do with the average age of parenthood? Anyway.

I wanted to offer back a long view on this - that it's not just the change for the youth, it's the change in the span of a single human life that is now quite incredible.

When I was little - around 7 or 8 - I had a recording of Bach on a cassette. My grandfather was babysitting me one evening, and my player (a flat one with buttons along the front and a flip up lid) chewed up the tape. (Recorded Music playing with moving parts - how quaint!)

My grandfather came to find out why i was crying, and himself cried because he couldn't help; he just didn't understand the problem, or how to fix it.

Now, he was born in 1896, and died in 1986. So, in his lifetime, he saw
The Motor Car become comoditised
Powered human flight
Mechanised Warfare
Recorded music as a comodity
Radio
Commoditised photography
Comodditised Paperbacks
The Supermarket
Cinema in every town
The Telephone
Television
Transatlantic voice communication
Satellites
Rocketry
Space Flight, man on the moon
The NHS
The Welfare State
Nuclear Weapons
The computer
The home computer
Home Video
Car Phones
Credit Cards
ATM Machines

It's quite a list. Is change going to be so palpable to this generation? Is change accelerating? Is it just the C20th that will see such a radical shift, or was this accelerating speed of change set in train from the moment of the industrial revolution? How will society adapt to this speed of change? What will it do to people? Is there an upper limit on the human capacity to assimilate change?

I don't have answers to this, but I think it bears thinking about.

Employee Benefits for Peer to Peer businesses?

Etsy's First Five Years

Etsy just raised a startling ammount of investment, which makes me very happy. They do so much right.

There's a very interesting post on their site about what their intentions are. This in particular caught my eye

It is immensely important to me that all Etsy workers are paid a good salary, provided with full benefits (medical, dental, vision) by the company. Many companies, far too many companies, underpay their employees, don't make workers employees at all ("permalancers" and "permatemp" are the new words for this), and provide few if any benefits. (We also know that many of the sellers on Etsy lack access to such benefits as health insurance, and we want to work to change this.)

Emphasis mine, there.

That's a game changer. A community marketplace that also acts as a kind of international, distributed trade union come employee benefit scheme? Visionary stuff.

Epigrams through the Ether

/blows dust off the top of her blog, and waits for the valves to warm up

Twitter / oscarwilde

The other day, I was sitting in Monmouth Coffee in Borough Market. They do very fine 'macaroons' - actually, coconut pyramids.

They also do a startling line in braying middle class idiots, like what I am.

Anyway, a conversation between two actresses was so tooth-grindingly comic, I twittered it. It set me off thinking about the uses of twitter, and why I prefer the mundane, silly and epigrammatic posts over the 'I've updated my blog, here's the URL' or the '@someblokewhoknowsaboutmacs yes, saint steves shiny robot turds are amazing' tweets that pop up from my contacts. One of my favourite people there is David, who posts rarely, but beautifully.

To cut a long story short, it got me thinking, and inspired partly by Matt's Presence Machine, I have decided to give Oscar Wilde a life on twitter. Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young is the perfect work to consume via twitter - it's shallow, vain and a tiny bit self obsessed. Also, it comes in nice short lines, which are (I hope) mostly under 140 characters.

Twitter Updates

That's all, really...

Twitter / AEguy27

Twitter / AEguy27: "About
* Name AEguy27
* Location Costa Mesa, CA
* Web http://sportshut....
* Bio I am 21, Live in southern California, and go to the Art Institute as an Advertising major! Stats
* Following 4,783
* Followers 339
* Favorites 2
* Updates 158"

I'm not sure that they're teaching their students the right things on the Advertising Course at CalArts. an Art Institute in southern California.

Advice to Mr AEguy27: friending everyone in twitter makes you look like a cunt. Stop it.

Quiet Round Here

06-10-2007 trainer. Big. Small.
Originally uploaded by MildlyDiverting

Hello, it's quiet round here at the moment.

I'm not entirely sure why - I'm busy, yes, but also I don't feel like I have anything particularly interesting to add at the moment. Maybe that will change.

In the meantime, I leave you with a photograph of a shop window in Tooting, that featured the largest trainer I have ever seen. It's a godd 18-20 inches long.

Uni the Hedgehog!

Oh, god, laughing so much I have tears in my eyes. The *cutest* little legs.

David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

I am dumbfounded by their choices of navigation of their site.

Even the list view - 'Explore the Collection Directory to view the maps by categories - starts listing things by 'What' first - so you get 'County Atlases' before any mention of a placename.

How inexplicable.

Web game provides breakthrough in predicting spread of epidemics | Science Blog

No, not the usual 'web' game I talk about. Another one.

I got a bit irritated by the article on Today (I'd link to it, but I think it was Tuesday, and the page is 404ing, and natch, their naming scheme is rubbish, see posts passim) talking about the Corrupted Blood episode in Warcraft being a viable way of studying disease vectors. This was partly because the incident they were talking about happened nearly two years ago.

It turns out there's a little write up on BBC News, with some quotes from the researcher, Professor Nina Fefferman whose article has just been published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Alas, aside from being 2 years late to the party in warcraft terms, it's not a particularly original piece of thinking. Dirk Brockman and Lars Hufnagel studied a realworld/online phenomenon of tracking dollar bills to much the same effect.

Web game provides breakthrough in predicting spread of epidemics | Science Blog

Not really news, was it? I suspect it's just the sexy 'virtual worlds' tag that bought it to editors attention.

Wikipedia Edit Monitoring

Threat Level - Wired Blogs

Hands up, it was me. I was one of the people who anonymously spun edits in Wikipedia from within the BBC. I wrote the Wikipedia entries for Marguerite Patten, and for Queen of Puddings, in fact. This was part of a terrible, hideous, covert, evil attempt by the BBC to skew the history of home cookery, and I was working under the direct command of the DG, Delia Smith, Keith Floyd and Fanny Craddock. Obviously. Would I lie to you?

I think I've written before about 'BBC' edits in wikipedia - partly because a friend I worked with got a roasting from the Wikipedia community for making a playful edit he probably shouldn't have done, if he'd thought about it a bit more and not been wasting an idle five minutes playing around in the office.

This is the thing. You can look at these huge lists of anonymous edits from inside a company, and not know if they were the work of one evil genius in the press department, or of a thousand bored junior office clerks who were surfing the web rather than filling in that deadly dull spreadsheet on a quiet tuesday. They'll all come from that one blanket IP address.

That second scenario is precisely where wikipedia derives its strength - from being editable by anyone, from anywhere, according to whim or expertise (well, preferably both).

It would be a loss to wikipedia if large organisations prevented their employees contributing to the project, in order to control the random enthusiasms that could backfire on their PR department.

Great Practical Jokes, no 28741

Twitter / Yoz: Wreaking revenge on a colle...

Heh. Klingon.

The USPS willfully ignores a customer's questions.

Oh, I do love stock responses that *completely ignore* the question asked. Viz:


--------------------------------------------
Customer (KIM PLOWRIGHT) - 07/27/2007 04:27 AM

Hello

[tracking number] - this packet is showing as having attempted delivery at 12am on July 25, 2007.

That's midnight...

Could you confirm if USPS uses Royal Mail in the UK to attempt delivery? In this case, is Midnight the time at which the package left USPS and was handed to the Royal Mail?

I have had no confirmation through my letterbox to say any delivery was attempted, and I don't know how to track this package or ring to arrange a time when I'm going to be in... and not asleep!

Kim

--------------------------------------------
Response (Angelique M) - 07/27/2007 07:43 AM
Dear KIM PLOWRIGHT,

Thank you for contacting us about item number, [tracking number].

We attempted to deliver your item in GREAT BRITAIN at 12:00 AM on July 25, 2007.

For further assistance regarding this item, the United States sender must call 1-800-222-1811:

Monday through Friday -- 8:00 AM to 9:30 PM Eastern Time
Saturday -- 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM Eastern Time
Sundays & Major Holidays – Closed

If I can be of assistance to you in the future, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thank you for choosing the United States Postal Service®.

Regards,

Angelique



As our customer, your privacy is important to us. Please see our privacy policy at www.usps.com
-[---001:001238:46443---]

Chore Wars :: Latest News from ChoreQuest!

Chore Wars :: Latest News from ChoreQuest!

Bugger. Jen and I were just discussing the other day that we should invent a Household Tasks MMORPG so that we could gently encourage our other halves (and ourselves, occasionally) to do more housework, chores etc.

Someone's gone and done it already. Awesomes!

Stickers

IMG_6687.jpg
Originally uploaded by smagdali

Look, here they are!

Moo Stickers

MOO | Stickers - Print stickers using your images

So, you can now buy Moo Stickers. They're great. Really. You can put your own pictures on them, or buy one of our new ReadyMade packs if you don't think your pictures are up to the job.

You'll notice I said 'Our' there.

About a month ago, I was chatting to Roo Reynolds, who said 'I keep reading your site expecting you to make the big announcement, but you never do. What's with that?'. Except he probably didn't say 'What's with that?' because he's not Californian. But, he had a point.

So, I left the BBC. In May. I now work for Moo, as a product manager. Doing nice things. Yes. I'd spent eight and a half years at the Beeb, doing all kind of things, from Cult and Doctor Who, to the bbc.co.uk2.0 project looking at the way the site needs to change to keep up with the rest of the internets. But a girl gets tired, and needs a change.

Moo is a challenge. It's a small company - we're all in one room! It's fast moving. I get to make suggestions that get acted on in hours, not years. I'm working with lovely people like Denise, Dan, Stef and Richard. It's a good change, and a challenge, and we make cute things. The project I'm working on is interesting, and brings me back closer to an old love - design.

I'm pretty happy.

The Ukulele Orchestra - Wuthering Heights

Good yes.

Facebook | AGA (Anti Gay Alliance)

The Google Cache - and indeed, the internet - has a very long memory. Once you post something to the internet, it becomes very hard to remove it. Things you post when you're 18 have a habit of sticking around until you're, say, 33. I know this, as my old posts still float around in old archives.

In particular, these three young gentlemen should be aware that any future employer will be able to Google their names for a very long time to come.

* Garren Salibian (Acton- Boxborough Regional High) (creator)
* Harout Yogurtian (Belmont High School)
* Garin Parseghian (Belmont High School)

They are the founder members and admins of the Facebook group, The Anti Gay Alliance.

Facebook | AGA (Anti Gay Alliance)

It is 'Dedicated to preserving straightness throughout the world.'

The people who have commented on the site should also be aware that their comments are now indexed and searchable, as follows:

Lee Campell (St. Cloud, MN) wrote
at 11:28pm on July 7th, 2007
those mother fucking fags wow they should all be shot. and for anybody that sickes up for them should be beatin also. goldam shit packers .and oh yeah GOD hates fags

Richard Wohlbier (Wisconsin Colleges) wrote
at 11:14pm on July 7th, 2007
For every deer that we shoot, we should shoot a fag.


Scott Campbell (Chippewa Falls High) wrote
at 3:57am on July 6th, 2007
I say all fags or fag lovers who talk shit on this group should get the fuck out and run into a middle of an intersection

The group Facebook | AGA (Anti Gay Alliance) has 32 members at 4:38pm BST on 11 July, 2007.
Those members are:

Name:
Brennan Heath
Network:
Arkansas State '09

Name:
Jordan NAve
Network:
Marshall High School '10

Name:
David Arshakyan
Networks:
Watertown High School '09
Boston, MA

Name:
Paul Derderian
Networks:
Rye High School '09
Westchester, NY

Name:
Matt Fitzpatrick
Network:
Lloydminster Comprehensive '08

Name:
Teddy Lucas-rowe
Network:
Sherborne School '07

Name:
Michael Hill
Network:
Australia

Name:
Mitch Larson
Network:
Eau Claire, WI

Name:
Ani Israelyan
Network:
Watertown High School '07

Name:
Richard Wohlbier
Network:
Wisconsin Colleges

Name:
Samuel Volk
Network:
Raleigh / Durham, NC

Name:
Mike Griffioen
Network:
Central Mich. '11

Name:
Scott Campbell
Network:
Chippewa Falls High '07

Name:
Oscar Derderian
Network:
Belmont High School '09

Name:
Rob Karasiewicz
Network:
Lowell High School '07

Name:
Bosah Hlwah
Networks:
None

Name:
Matt Barber
Network:
Falmouth High School '11

Name:
Anita Tomasian
Networks:
None

Name:
Meroujan Bagdasarian
Network:
Watertown High School '07

Name:
Lee Campell
Network:
St. Cloud, MN

Caleb Merrick
Network:
Thorold Secondary School '07

Name:
Danielle Cormier
Network:
Royal Valley High '08

Name:
Harout Yogurtian
Networks:
Belmont High School '07
Boston, MA
Officer Title:
Vice President

Name:
Garren Salibian
Network:
Acton- Boxborough Regional High '09
Officer Title:
President

Name:
Will Truax
Networks:
Acton- Boxborough Regional High '09
Boston, MA

Name:
Allen Papazian
Network:
Belmont High School '09

Name:
Greg Torosian
Network:
Belmont High School '08


Name:
Eric Grigorian
Networks:
Belmont High School '10
Boston, MA

Name:
Garin Parseghian
Network:
Belmont High School '10
Officer Title:
Vice President

Name:
Chris Wood
Network:
Red Bank High School '07


Name:
Christopher Seifel
Network:
St. John's '09

Name:
Brady Lee
Networks:
Chippewa Falls High '07
Wisc Stout '07
Eau Claire, WI

Name:
Garren Salibian
Network:
Acton- Boxborough Regional High '09
Officer Title:
President

Name:
Garin Parseghian
Network:
Belmont High School '10
Officer Title:
Vice President

That is all.

Green and Pleasant LAN

Terra Nova: Our avatars, ourselves

I love the kicker at the end of this article. Spending two years in Warcraft, and having seen the world, I've often found myself thinking 'If I could live in one of these zones, which would I choose?'. Until recently, it was Arathi Highlands; nice rolling grass, occasional pleasing rocky outcrops, good mountains. Ashzara came close, too, but I'm less of an autumn fan. These days, I'd be living in Nagrand.

I wonder, actually, what the spectrum mix of light coming from a monitor would be, when questing in one of WoW's green areas. Is it the nearest approximation of full-spectrum summer sun? Is it just hitting our pineal gland's sweet spot? Has anyone tested melanin levels of regular hardcore gamers? Could this explain the late nights we all pull, given the opportunity?

Hmn.

Too old for Facebook? « Scobleizer

Too old for Facebook? « Scobleizer

What goes around comes around. I was upstairs, playing Warcraft for most of today; my first good five-hour session in a long time. As I ripped through a metric buttload of Ogres, grinding my way through level 68, I was thinking about the time I've spent on the game, and how my media habits have changed over the last few years.

I've started watching television a bit more, recently; rarely live (unless it's a half eye on the sport that Ian has on), usually documentaries from the PVR, or catching up with Doctor Who. The set rarely moves from UKTV History or BBC Four, to be honest. This evening, as I tore myself away from Azeroth, I came down to find Ian watching a best of Clive James' Chat shows programme.

The line-up - admittedly, a best of, so they had a lot to choose from - but the line-up of guests was amazing. Peter Cook and Barry Humphries together. Germaine Greer and Alan Coren. David Attenborough and Howard Jacobson. Melvyn Bragg, Jonathan Miller, Joanna Lumley, Katherine Hepburn...

There used to be clever people on television, with opinions, whom you learnt from. They cling on in Radio 4, but TV is the realm of the makeover, the WAG. It makes me feel old and irrelevant, and it’s oddly unsatisfying, like a diet of takeaway food.

Which brings me to Robert Scoble's comment about the drop in blog traffic. I'm so behind on my feed reading at the moment, it's not true. I'm not (book) reading much, but I'm listening to more music and watching more TV than usual. I'm fiddling on Flickr, and a bit on facebook, but neglecting Twitter, and Jaiku.

I'm fickle, and only have so much attention to pay to things. If one thing takes my time and energy, other things must be neglected.

It amuses me that I've been in so many meetings with people going 'games and the internet will take eyeballs and time away from telly!' and now I'm hearing bloggers going 'Social Networks are taking attention away from blogs!'. Admittedly, in the case of telly their idea of attention is a bit warped; it’s been long known that those viewing figures aren’t a guarantee that anyone was actually taking in your programme’s content, just an indication that the telly was burbling in the corner of the room whilst domestic life ebbed and flowed around it.

I’m getting to a point where I feel permanently un-satiated by my media. None of the experiences seem… significant enough, in the way that watching the Late Show in the early 90s made me set the course of my life away from science and towards art. Even the excellent Andrew Marr histories felt too… shiny and slick to really be meaningful. The images are empty. My to-read pile of books is growing inexorably – thanks to Amazon and the ease of finding things that look interesting, I’m buying faster than I read now.

How many hours in the day do you need to keep up with the onslaught of information? When was the last time you engaged really deeply with a pop culture artifact? These are all transient things.

I just wish those transient unsatisfying things didn't distract me from getting round to that slow, tangible drawing project I've been thinking about for weeks.

The Powerpoint definition of Irony

slideshow4 » SlideShare

Practice what you preach, sir, practice what you preach.

Not much going on around here recently, sorry. I'm having a fallow posting period, as my energies are elsewhere.

Roo, the big post you're expecting will be along... sometime soon.

Google Homepage Gadget

BBC Pres Clock Google Gadget

I made a gadget. It shows the flash files of the old BBC clocks from the cult site. You can put it on your google homepage.

To make it work:
- Sign in to your google personal homepage
- hit the 'add stuff' link on the left just above the content panel
- hit 'add by URL' next to the search homepage content button
- put this url http://www.mildlydiverting.com/bbcpresclock.xml in the box
- confirm
- go back to your homepage and marvel at my leet coding skillz. :)

It may stop working when the BBC archives my old cult site. /wipes away tear