Category Archives: technology

Nov 10 2012

The less of me – revisited


I started with the good intention, in June, the walking, for the weight loss, the general fitness, the sense of wellbeing and accomplishment , and all the good things that that brings.

Well I started, then I broke a toe, then life happened and that. So… some excuses later, and fast forward from June 14 to November 10, and I know you’re thinking what-the-hey, thats like 5 months, and you’d be right there.  But life indeed was happening and sometimes that intrudes on your good intentions.

Summer is here and we’re off again.

This time though I upgraded from the Nike+ Sportband to the Nike+ GPS watch. Which altogether appeals more to my sense of big brother wathching me.

And full of the enthusiasm I was faster today than the previous efforts, to be fair it is warmer, I’m wearing less clothes and I have new motivation.

Can I keep it up though. Only I can know and only I can let me down.

Apr 25 2012

My Weird Belief System- the Moon Landings


I’ve always held doubts about the Moon Landings, in particular the ones we saw on TV, the Armstrong, Aldrin ones, beamed live into your lounge.

Buzz Aldrin salutes the U.S. flag on Mare Tran...

Buzz Aldrin salutes the U.S. flag on Mare Tranquillitatis during Apollo 11 in 1969. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Call it what you like but it seemed odd that the most complex thing that man had assembled worked first time like a dream, without a hitch. Ok so you could say that the path to success littered with failure guaranteed a success.

I’ve also doubted that with 1960′s technology that it would be possible, and the fact that we’ve only managed low earth orbit with mixed success since stands out to me as something that should make you go mmmm.

Are there particular things that raise my radar. Well first up I think man did get to the moon, not the ones we think did, or when they say they did. I also think it’s not about any secret alien agenda, moon bases, visitations, strategic missile bases or other warmongering, masonry, new world order, illuminati or other such.

I read somewhere that a conspiracy needs to have a monumental amount of “proof” to prove a conspiracy and that conspiracies were therefore very convoluted and confused, with many strands that if you followed them all you would naturally end up laughing.

A Conspiracy does not have to be complicated or involves hundreds or thousands of people.

Tdhe two links below contain a miss-mash of things that make me frown and things that make me laugh as they appear a bit off beam. And before anyone comments that “Mythbusters have proved it” lets just say that Mythbusters is about as reliable or credible as the War on Terror is.

I’ve read the books that make claims about radiation, and not being a scientist I find them compelling and yet I don’t know. I’m sure I read somewhere that the moon suits were left on the moon, having been thrown out of the module somehow, I wish I could remember where I read that.

There is enough dubious content from NASA and other “official” sources that show difficult and contrary things, not in and of itself confirmation of a conspiracy, but carelessness and ill-though out rush to release.

The big question though is what would it take for me be believe?

So check out these links that I referred to.

http://apolloscam.bravehost.com/

http://mrbasheer.tripod.com/moonwalk.html

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Aug 31 2011

In an instant…


Way back when, before the internet and mobile phones we’d agree to meet somewhere and we did. The newspapers arrived with the news from far-flung places, with the best bits held for the Sunday papers. Junk mail didn’t exist. There were weekly local newspapers. We all watched either the news at 5:45, 9pm or 10pm or all three. There was no 24 hour TV.

Fast forward a bit. Now we have everything in an instant.”Social Media”. For instance  we have Twitter, which is about as real-time as it gets without being there, sometimes it’s accurate, sometimes not. If you’ve ever witnessed the rise and decline of a twitter meme you’ll understand how fickle it is.

And we have deal-a-day websites, by the hundreds, imploring us to buy now, immediately, things we don’t need at prices we can’t ignore. We have deal a day advertising on twitter of course, and Facebook.

We can’t just agree to meet somewhere, we have to text and call numerous times ‘just in case’ It’s scary how frail we’ve become, how unsure it all is, how needy.

Facebook has given everyone access to our lives, out thoughts and deeds. And we accept it. FourSquare has given you the ability to let people know what cafe, shop, street, bar you are in all the time. It’s “me” central!

But it can’t carry on. This explosion of socializing on the internet is doomed at some point, where it becomes intrusive. And I mean intrusive to me – I don’t really care that you’re the mayor of the donut shop, I don’t really want to see your party pictures on Facebook. There are bits of your life that I am interested in, just not some bits.

Twitter, Text, Facebook, et al, is where the wild west is. “Everyone” is trying to get a piece of the action, to make a buck, and to get you to spend a buck. At some point you just have to switch off and tune out.

Now I can’t actually think of a service that I’ve used that has fallen into obscurity, other than the web hosting Geocities, other than that Bebo, and MySpace perhaps. So I can’t see a tailspin for any of the services we use right now, or are familiar with, which are, to repeat them, Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, and Youtube. Even an aggregation of all these things into one super app isn’t what is going to happen, because why? It’ll be too cumbersome, too awkward, too heavy.

The thing that we overlook  with Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, Youtube. Google+, Flikr, WordPress, LinkedIn et al is that they are all “free” That’s right we don’t need to part with any cash of any kind to use them. Sure we have to have a device that can access them interactively, but they are free to use. And we accept that without question that we’re giving up something for something. We just don’t seem to care about what it is we’re giving up, which in two words is privacy and ownership. Of our identity and our intellectual property.

Anything that rises will have to have some basics, speed, reach, ease and appeal. Anything that falls will have become bloated, tedious or have some cataclysm around it like bankruptcy, where users fall away like hair falling out never to return.

Nov 13 2010

Chasing the technology tail


Well so an I-Pad is just frippery then, unless I find one for say $600, and you know that’s not going to happen any side of soon.

So the next thing that catches my eye, of course, as if I have money burning a hole in my pocket is perhaps and aPad, which is a 7″ Android based tablet. Problem with that is that it’s 7″, and not an I-Pad. IT is cheap though, but at, say, $300, it’s kind of nearly like half the price of an I-Pad,

So the next thing that catches my eye, of course, is perhaps and Android phone. Voda have one for $199 or DSE for $175. The problem with that of course is I have a work based BlackBerry that I use. It’s not like I have friends or anything. So one of those would be sort of interesting and the a handbag filler for the wife.

I am then in a quandary as to what to spend money on, it’s not like I need to or want to, but it’s technology and I appear to be addicted to it.