Posts tagged “random”

You mean things happen before 5pm? — Jan 21, 2007
If you’ve ever worked with students or you’ve ever had a few good nights in a row there’s a rule everyone lives by. That rule is that nothing shall be done before 5am, whether it’s consuming a good meal, putting on clothing other than pyjamas or other. It’s a time when everyone rests. Especially on a sunday. I was out by 930 today because I had to travel across London for a shoot with some students for the rag week. I don’t know much about the thing but it seems typical of pre 1970’s universities where they are bound by an extended legacy. My uni seems to lack this unfortunatly. I don’t often shoot and edit a piece on the same day. I usually take my time and eventually get round to it. At least today was different. It’s been a good weekend....
World's biggest silent disco was small — Feb 11, 2007
The World’s “Biggest silent disco” was made up of only 200 people but they danced for over an hour to all the music they had on their ipods, mobile phones and other mp3 playing devices. It was very amusing. I arrived over an hour early and scouted out the area seeing where the event would be most likely to take place. As I did this I looked around, seeing which people were likely to participate. I saw two or three groups of friends, then some more. Around 1830 a lot of people were standing around and waiting. Within a few minutes more and more people were coming and you could see them all watching the clock. They saw the counter switch to 18:42 but it took ten to twenty seconds before people started dancing. My camera was ready and rolling as soon as 18:42 was on the clock. I was listening to my own music and was filming. I saw lot’s of people start dancing and laughing. I saw some individuals synchronise their music, others shared. Some came with only small earphones whilst others came with big headphones. Some of them danced in groups. Overs danced alone and many people took photographs and video. Conga lines and waves were formed as the individuals listening to their music formed into groups of people who danced the evening away under the arches of Paddington station. I filmed for fifty seven minutes and I’ve got over 300 individual shots of a variety of people dancing, interviews being carried out(I can’t be bothered with interviews and I didn’t have a mic anyway) and more. There was a small police presence but they did not intervene until the very end when some musicians started to play. The crowd loved it though. When I started editing last night was the first glimpse of how surreal the event must have been for the by-standers watching the dancers. I can hear lot’s of squeaking shoes and conversations can be heard loud and clear since there was no loud music. It’s hilarious to see such an event and when it happens again I’ll definitely participate in as many as I can. I’ve been looking at what people say about it on facebook and there are many people that I recognise from the video footage. Overall it’s a great bit of random fun at a random time on a random day and it’s great to see....
Wifi detection — Sep 24, 2007
Twice yesterday I was surprised at how fast the new ipod detects networks. The first time was in one of wagamama’s restaurants. It found ten within two seconds of opening up the application. The second time was in a block of flats. Both times it detected the networks within a matter of seconds. It’s a shame youtube isn’t working on the Touch Ipod at the moment....
Why You Should Use Twitter — Mar 17, 2007
Twitter is a short message that are only 140 characters long. It can be used in three ways. The first is by instant messenger, the second is by text messaging to your mobile phone and the third is via the web interface. It’s referred to as microblogging, although not by me. I see it as being something more powerful. The BBC, Google, and other companies have already used it for showing people what the latest news is. Of course, with such a medium you have to be careful not to send too many messages or people will give up. Where it would come into its element is traffic info, radio schedules, or even event notifications. Imagine that you knew about this before rag week and that many of your friends were members. You could tell them “just finished ragging, on my way back to uni” or “only 20 tickets left for an event”. In other words, you can let people know what an organisation is doing quite easily. Another way to enhance this is when you’ve got quite a lot of friends and they’re all members. “Hey, just handed in my assignment, going to sit in the grass outside halls, welcome to join” and many people who might have been bored now know where to find you. Of course, you’re paying the price of SMS (text messaging) if you’re away from the computer but it’s at a local tariff to the best of my understanding. It’s an interesting development, similar to the status bar in many of the current messengers and on Facebook....
Why the bookshop survives whilst the record shop disappears — Jan 26, 2007
Whilst reading an article about the music and book industry I was surprised by what was written. They say that the music industry and the record shops were expected to survive the digital revolution whilst the bookshop was expected to die with the advent of sites like amazon. There is one possible reason for this. The nature of the medium. A song is a work that takes five minutes to listen to in it’s entirety and can use other supports to be consumed on. The book on the other hand is a medium that requires for people to sit down and thumb through various pages to assess the writing style before deciding on whether to purchase it. As a result they’re far more likely to go into a library and check that product than a cd shop. At the same time myspace, among other websites is the new music shop. Go there, browse the categories and find various obscure acts, discover them and purchase what you enjoy. It’s not quite that easy with books. I’ve bought quite a few books and dvd in the past few months but no music in physical form....
Why It's Great To Be A Student — Mar 18, 2007
One of the best things about being a student is that you can work on projects without having to feel bad about not making any money. In particular, I’m thinking of the dissertation. It’s a point where you’ve got ten thousand words to write about subjects you love. As you’ve got to do so much research you’ve got a reason to buy tens of books and DVDs and watch them, enjoying every minute and taking the occasional note. As you progress and you start writing you’re there, being your own boss. You develop your structure and you see what you’ve achieved. You think about what is already said and what else must be written. You write it down, re-write it. You find there’s some information missing so you’ve got an excuse to get sidetrack to look for some in-depth material about that. You come back to the original text and you’ve just added 200 words. paf. Done, great. My project has progressed ;). Of course, the more time you give yourself the more fun the project will be. If you give yourself ten weeks then you’ve got lots of time so it’ll be lots of fun because you can sidetrack all the time. if you’ve got 6 weeks you’re under pressure but not quite in the same way. If you’ve got four weeks you may have to be very disciplined. If you’ve got two weeks then forget about sleep, about friends, about sunshine and everything else. You’ve got to plod along and distractions will destroy your chances. Anyway, I want to get the writing part done by the beginning of April so that I have four weeks to edit. Editing can be quite amusing when you’ve got time. Enough procrastinating, time to go back for five minutes before the next distraction comes along...
Why I am happy that youtube is being sued — Jan 28, 2007
I am happy that youtube is being sued because out of the hundreds of video sharing websites out there it is the most devious. It has taken hundreds of hours of content produced at great expense by teams of professionals and offered them in poor quality for nothing on their site. To make it worse it’s made them billions of dollars. How can the mega corporations, through the intermediary of the RIAA give so much trouble to those who share music let allow youtube to thrive. It doesn’t make sense. What about all those video sharing websites that went about making content and distributing it the right way? What about those who decided that they would provide a service at no cost to themselves. I’m speaking of those guilty of unlawful distribution of video material. It’s a website about deception, look at lonelygirl, look at the coke and mentos adverts. Look at the ball in groin laughter. It’s all a form of sadistic pleasure. Why would you want to be manipulated in such a way. On the positive side it was fun to see the world cup celebrations and I uploaded some video of my own in response to other people’s content. When it’s used as a video version of flickr it’s an excellent website because it’s an audiovisual window onto the world where a vast wealth of video content may be accessed. Good snowboarding, post it, good party, post it, personal work you’re proud of, post it. Everyone of us is a content producer and distributor and everyone of us is challenging himself to create something that other people will enjoy. Geocities was about websies, the original sixdegrees was inspired by the film to show that everyone is related throough less than six people to everyone else. Blogging allowed people to reount their lives to anonymous audiences, flickr allowed the sharing of instants and video sharing websites allowed for the sharing of moments. Is it voyeuristic to look at online videos and photographs made by friends and random strangers and is it exhibitionist of them to show that content? Is it wrong to look at it? I would participate in this more actively were it not for the droit d’image. I don’t want others posting pictures of me without my consent and I won’t post pictures of others without their consent. Doesn’t mean I won’t keep looking. It’s fun to constantly refresh the most recent pictures on flickr and see all the events that have been taking place around the world....
What I learned after three weeks with a cat — Feb 1, 2020
What I learned after three weeks with a cat is that they’re easy to take care of. Cleaning up the litter tray takes seconds and providing them with food two to three times a day is simple. It’s also simple to keep them entertained. A ball of string on a string and a laser pointer are great toys. They also enjoy shredding rolls of toilet paper so it’s good to be careful....
We are living through the media's golden age. — Mar 18, 2007
When I started using comptuers they were nothing more than ega displays with the large floppy disks and games were text based. As I grew older so the games grew to be more complex, from 2d to 3d and then the quality improved. The television of my youth was limited to five channels and by the 90’s had expanded to twenty plus channels. By 2000 the number had exploded to several hundred channels and that’s just counting the English ones. The media have progressed. I am in constant contact with everyone by mobile phone for over a decade. I have had minidisk players, i’ve had phones and I’ve had a television in my room. Now the mobile phone I have replaces all these devices if I so wish. The ipod replaces the radio and the television, the phone replaces the laptop, the minitel and the fax machine. I have access to the world’s media within two clicks of a mouse, which is no more than a trackpad on an ibook. Video editing is far simpler. When I wanted to learn to edit I remember that you’d need to get two player/recorders and a third device to control the two machines. We bought Adobe Premiere and the Miro dc30+ and there it was. I spent a weekend learning to edit with pictures of the Mer des Glaces, a glacier in the French Alpes. Since then I upgraded through the years and my laptop can do all this seamlessly. We discussed video on demand years ago and that idea was novel, was something which would be hard to implement. Today video on demand is so easy it’s syndicated via RSS feeds. I get my televisual experience via downloaded streams on a daily basis. Radio on demand is certainly here and doing well. In this week in media one of the presenters said that in the near future media content would become more valuable than oil. It’s an interesting idea. Are media studies a mickey mouse course when you’ve got free newspapers, you can watch television whilst commuting to and from work? When you share your pictures with friends around the world and computing is no longer the realm of the computer geek I think we’re in the Golden age of media studies and that it may have been one of the most interesting topics to study with the exponential growth of media outlets....
Waking up to heavy metal — Feb 13, 2007
There is nothing more aggressive or stressful than being woken up by heavy metal. There is nothing but some idiot yelling into a microphone and other idiots calling it music. It’s not music so much as noise to me. I’d prefer to be woken to the sound of seagulls or the waves than music created by the disenfranchised youth of a bygone era. In halls causes for being pulled from your sleep are numerous. On many occasions it’s people yelling from outside to windows, cleaning staff talking loud to each other, girls talking about subjects that would later embarrass them (hilarious though), and the clanking sound of kitchen utensils. There’s the sound of cupboards being opened and closed, of fire alarms, demolition, grating barriers and more. I can’t think of anymore but those are a great method by which to make me appreciate the countryside all that much more. Nothing but the sweet sound of birds and wind in the branches, storm clouds, and more. Any noise that is not the result of some selfish person I do not mind....
Via Ferrata de Tière — Aug 29, 2010
In the valley close to Champéry there is a via ferrata. Via Ferrata are routes passing on rock faces thanks to the help of metal pedals, hand and foot pedals and bridges. On this Via Ferrata you climb up vertically and horizontally depending on the moment. Some obstacles are easier to get past than others but overall it’s good fun. One of the things you should take the time to watch, especially on a rainy day is the way the water erupts out of the rock. The first waterfall reacts to what the second waterfall higher up spews out. It’s fun to watch how much power this water has....
Vernissage — Sep 8, 2006
I’ve been to a few vernissage but they don’t usually include videos, computer games and flash animations. I saw a vernissage on six floors which included all of these things. The idea is interesting, how to include the various media and make something practical. It’s a shame most of the people weren’t there to present their ideas though....
unseasonal heat — Jan 11, 2007
In Austria, there’s a pollen warning. Apparently the lack of frost has encouraged the trees and other plants to begin releasing pollen. That’s quite amusing. We have the same temperatures in central Europe as you’d expect to have down in the south Israel has seen snow but the resorts can’t open because of the lack. Where is winter? Is it hiding in the south? Should people go on skiing holidays with their bikes and hiking boots rather than snowboards and skies? On the Porte du Soleil ski pass you’ll see that they advertise their summer time activities like downhill mountain biking....
University politics are amusing — Mar 13, 2007
There is a rumour that the person that is running should not be doing so and as a result, there are bits of information coming out about this. It’s interesting because I did not want the person to become SU president due to her canceling an interview for a live Multicam I was producing in my second year. There is information that leads us to conclude that she should not be running for her position and I find this is amusing. It’s student politics at their best. I spent at least six hours last night chatting to many friends, both on campus and within the SU bar and it’s been a really good afternoon-Evening-Night-Morning. If only all days were like that, full of conversations....
Uninspired to Write — Jan 2, 2023
I know that I should be inspired to write, since this is the second day of the year. I am not. I watched Top Gun Maverick and it was better than I expected. I find this a curious film because it uses elements from the old film but all the characters are older and possibly wiser....
Two series of photographs of Concerts at paleo — Jul 29, 2006
The Pixies at Paleo and Wampas, a group I knew nothing of until I went under the chapiteau and saw them performing....
Twittervision — Mar 24, 2007
Twitter is a global short messaging system that allows people to post what they are doing 140 characters at a time. For the moment it is a relatively new phenomenon therefore it’s not too hard to keep track of the conversations going on. They are also geo logged. As you’re watching people’s messages you can see China say that they’re getting ready for the night ahead whilst in Europe people are going out to lunch. In the US people are complaining about having to wake up early in order to catch their planes, go for walks or in certain cases go to bed. It’s amusing and it’s reminiscent of ten years ago when I spent 13hrs in a chatroom at a time when spending ten minutes online was expensive. it’s cyclical. One thing is popular, then is replaced by something else before becoming popular again. One difference this time is the technology used. Google maps show where in the world people are tweeting from whilst the twitter site simply shows what people have written. It’s amusing to watch the world and what people are doing in it....
Tuesday is not the most productive of days — Mar 20, 2007
One of the best nights to go out on at the moment is Monday night because that’s the night when most friends are out in the same place. Last night I was at the student yet again and I took 73 pictures of which one I’m afraid I’d prefer never to look at. Some of those pictures are really amusing and the expressions are great. I’m going to keep those private, simply for my friends to view. They’re on my phone, Facebook, and my iPod. They’re a collection of memories for when university is finished and that what remains are memories. What made last night interesting as: 1) lollipops, two girls I know had a lollipop fight, a sticky affair 2)Many photographs of friends 3) Many conversations 4) the cold Of course, the night had started differently. It started when I went to watch some friends act in the show Howard Katz. A friend was in the play from the first to last scene, that’s 110 pages. There were some great moments and the principal actor has great stage presence and projects his voice well. I enjoyed the play because I allowed myself to be transported into the moment. It’s a shame that it’s the last play I go to, produced by this university....
Travian, an online game — Sep 12, 2007
Travian is one of those games you would have loved to play after reading a few Asterix comics. There are three civilisations you can be, Gaul, Roman or Teuton. Each player starts off with one village and expands from there. There are four types of resources. These are wood, clay, iron and wheat. As your village begins you need to decide on what resources you want to grow. Click on the land type and you will see a display with the amount of time it will take for the order to be completed. The next step is to look at your town. Build a granery, a cranny, a warehouse and other buildings that make a village what it is. Overtime as your buildings improve so the town is large enough for more buildings. These are stables, palaces, residences for kings and more. Getting your village to expand is just one step. The next step is to make sure that you’re safe. Around you are many other villages and some of these players have been playing for a number of months. As a result they have amassed many resources and alliances. They will attack and pillage you therefore you must defend your land with troops. As you expand and form alliances so the game becomes more interesting. At this point you are competing not just as a village but as alliances to see which can be the most prestigious. It’s a fun game, reminiscient of such games as Civilization amongst others. If you need a two minute break whilst working on a long project then this may be the game for you. I’ve enjoyed it and so may you....
Travian, an online game — Sep 12, 2007
warzabidul - Jan 0, 2009...
Too much listening to podcasts. — Dec 28, 2006
I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts over the past few days. i had to catch up with all those I haden’t taken the time to listen to over the last few months. It’s amusing. in "96 I began working on my website, in 2007 I uploaded it and since then I’ve been following everything that’s happened. I’ve seen as some new things became old and old things became new again with time. How many people remember Geocities, Angelfire and other projects? I remember them. I remember when I started trying to get people to contribute to my website because I didn’t have time to produce the content. It didn’t work. That was web 2.0 several years before the time. I remember 6 degrees.com, a website that attempted to do something which is becoming more standard as new social networking websites come of age. Look at myspace, look at youtube and Flickr. Each one concentrates on your interest, whether music, video, or video. Everything the youth enjoy. Rupert Murdoch is attempting to join the fun. It bothers me that people are putting so much content on myspace without attempting to put that content onto their own domain names and websites. Why should I create content only to have a billionaire make a little extra money when the content is mine. The challenge for me is to find how to create content, host it myself, and then make money through other people showing interest. Over time it should improve. A site I like at the moment is Facebook because of how much information is available. The user interface is good, the add ons are interesting. If I create a post in a blog on my own website it’ll automatically be synchronized with Facebook for people to come to and read. It’s also where people I haven’t seen for over a decade re-appear and I can see how things have evolved since last time. We’ve grown up....
Thoughts on British European Identity — Jun 27, 2016
For several weeks or even months I was afraid that the EU Referendum, BREXIT, would result in a bad outcome. On Thursday the British people went to vote. On Thursday night I was watching. When I saw Gibraltar vote to stay in the EU I relaxed enough to manage sleep. On Friday Morning British people around the world woke up to the news that our nation had voted to leave the European Union. Some people were shocked and never expected it to happen. I was terrified that it would. For months before Brexit I commented via the social media that I was tired of seeing so many anti-European stories. When I read about refugees I said that the story should focus on the push factors rather than shame European nations. When we read about Calais and refugees I kept commenting that we should read about how it is the British that are blocking the refugees from coming, not the French oppressing these people. I was so tired of the Anglo-Saxon Anti-European stance, both from America and the United Kingdom that I moved towards reading French language news sources, just to change perspective. It worked. From Friday to Sunday I spent hours reading article after article to keep up with current affairs. I looked at online conversations. In articles and in social media comments I kept seeing the word democratic used. Brexiters were using that word to tell “Remainers” to just accept the democratic decision by the British people. If the EU referendum had been democratic I would stay quiet. Two aspects make me think that this was an undemocratic process. British Europeans were not allowed to vote unless they were registered to vote in a General election and as long as they had lived in England within the last fifteen years. As I lived in England for five years but between General Elections I did not register to vote. As a result of this I was not allowed to vote, as a European Brit, in the EU referendum. We are at least hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised EU brits. Wouldn’t it make sense for British Europeans to have a say in this, as they have seen the benefits and challenges of being British in Europe?...
There Are Two Parts To The World Wide Web — Jul 23, 2007
the future of the web...
The night before Christmas — Dec 24, 2006
It’s the night before Christmas day and it’s been relaxed. With the thermal inversion it’s easy to get above the clouds, simply get in a car and go to the mountains and you’ll get a nice view of the sunshine. We went to the vallée de Joux and that’s where you find many of the watch factories. This includes Audemars Piguet amongst others. Tomorrow’s Christmas day, then 6 days till the new year....
The "Jobs" sense — Sep 7, 2007
If you’re the head of a company that’s doing as well as Apple there’s something you’ve got to be admired for. It’s the ability to sell a phone with no keyboard and get people to love it. It’s also about selling it for $599 and taking it back down to $399. What appears to be an act of generosity is a great PR stunt. Everyone that got an iphone and saw the price drop was angry so they wrote complaining. Steve jobs then “decided” to take the price down. The effect of such a move is clear. He’s proved to his shareholders that the market was ready for a device that was $200 higher than it needed to be. Investors have a boost in confidence in the company and he gets glowing reviews from the blogosphere....
The end of paleo and back to normal life — Jul 27, 2006
For the past week I was at Paleo going from concert to concert during the first few days and gradually moving towards other activites. It’s good fun as it’s the most sociable time aorund this part of Switzerland. I took quite a few images which I have yet to upload. This should be done within the next few days anyway....
The Contrast Between French and Swiss News — Nov 23, 2021
As I struggled to find a neutral topic to write about I noticed the distinct difference between how the French and the Swiss media are speaking about the fifth wave. The swiss say that it is “pre-occupying” and that it “has won the French speaking part of Switzerland” and “no long term impact on Swiss finances.” Switzerland is not taking the pandemic seriously anymore and reminds me of England. It is denying that there is a problem and taking reactive rather than pro-active measures....
The aftermath of a night's activities — Feb 13, 2007
In continental Europe there are a lot of people who go out and enjoy a glass or two over dinner and have a long conversation about a great variety of topics which they enjoy. In other parts of the world, for example, England you’ll find that the volume of night clubs has deafened the night revelers to go home speaking far louder than would otherwise be socially acceptable. England is an extremely generous country in terms of educational subsidisation. Whereas the English only pay £1200 pounds per year for their tuition fees in America it’s up to 30,000 dollars a year. What this means is that the English student is rich. If I work one month in Switzerland and save that money I could pay the tuition fee. If I work for three or four I could live for half a year in rented accommodation. This would lead you to believe that going out for a meal and living in relative luxury would be an integral part of student life in England but this is not so. A lot of time and energy is spent on encouraging people to spend money and time on drinking. If you’re a student in England how many times have you been invited out to dinner. How many times have people suggested social activities other than drinking to you? Tomorrow you’ll find that a large portion of those living in halls will be hungover from the amount they spent at the bar. I’ve heard a rumour that in some uni bars they can make up several grand in one night. If that’s true then it’s really depressing. It’s depressing because if that’s what they make in one night then what money is left for more enjoyable pursuits are left for the rest of the week? Will some people go to the cinema or go out to dinner? How many of these students spend a week a month broke with hardly anything left for food because of their single night of excessive drinking? It’s a serious problem in the whole of England and it should be addressed. Doing it once every few weeks is fine, and for special occasions. Doing it every week is counterproductive. Are universities not pushing students enough and that’s why they’re so willing to drink to excess? What if they had to wake at 6 am and be in lectures by 8 am and out by 6 pm to do some research till 10 pm and sleep 6hrs? In summary, I don’t care what people do in their free time as long as they don’t keep me up in their inebriated state....
Television Series — Jan 4, 2007
I love watching television series on DVD and straight from the hard disk. You never understand the complexity of the storyline until you spend 12 hours or more watching entire seasons of series like Scrubs or House. If you look at the series scrubs you’ll get to know the characters very well and they’ll become far more interesting than if you were to watch only an episode a week. That’s probably why they have channels where you run a series every day for a number of days before going back to the beginning again. The best example of that is the Simpsons and Mash. How many times have you seen certain episodes? Recently I enjoyed watching the series House because it’s analytical nature. You’ve got a patient and you run tests, and lot’s of lumbar punctures. For some reason that seems to be one of the favourites… probably because it’s the most interesting. When I finished watching a few episodes I saw how greatly I enjoyed the series but more than that how diagnostic you think you become. I don’t mind that you can cure diseases or anything of the sort. I mean that the series is exploring how reason and empirical knowledge can accumulate so that when you see something out of the ordinary you try to understand it. You start to notice smaller things. It’s great for students, It’ll encourage you to diagnose various situations and find solutions. The most recent series I’ve been watching is Dexter. After I came back from New York I was curious about the program. The adverts had peaked my curiosity therefore I had to find a way by which to access the series. I’ve been watching the series and I’m enjoying it. I watched the first episode on my video iPod, to see just how watchable series were on an i-pod. It’s not that bad. I watched the next two or three episodes on my laptop since that’s more comfortable. The beauty of holidays is staying in a quiet place and doing what you want, driving around and more. It’s just over a week until I go back to England and the fun starts again....
Super slow mo — Jul 13, 2008
With a friend we’ve been playing with a slow motion camera and here are two of the results....
Start judo as young as you can. — Nov 27, 2014
Learning judo is important. Some people choose to learn this martial art as soon as they can stand on two legs....
Snowcrash And a Silent Rave — Mar 8, 2007
I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts rather than radio and one of the weekly podcasts I enjoy most is This Week in Media, where some people discuss what’s going on in the media landscape, from how they will only sit in five or six seats out of the cinema, how they’re early adopters and how they’d love to have cameras capable of 1080p The reason I mention this podcast is that recently they mentioned a trilogy of books of which snow crash is the first. Two or three weeks earlier they had mentioned how people should go and watch Blood Diamond and as I enjoyed the film I decided to read the first of the three books. So far I’m enjoying it and it’s keeping me entertained. Some UCL students decided to put on a silent rave tonight but as I went through the list of people I saw that it was almost only students from that uni which was slightly disappointing. I went there and although the idea is amusing it seemed to lack the energy from the silent disco I had been too a few weeks ago. Within four or five minutes security was already asking them to leave....
snow fight at 3am — Jan 24, 2007
Snow began to fall this morning at 3 am and a group of those living in halls went out to enjoy the fresh snow. it was falling for several hours and everyone was enjoying it. There were snowball fights between the premiums and the standards. That’s Premium block and standard blocks. Some people were continuously pelted with snow whilst others simply enjoyed being out in the snow. A remote-controlled car was there driving around but struggling. The tires were skidding. When will these people learn that you accelerate slowly in snow and gradually build up speed? I’ve got a video of this morning but I still have to capture it....
snow fight at 3am — Jan 24, 2007
julia - Jan 4, 2007...
Skype through a mobile phone — Jan 12, 2007
I just ran a test and skype with my mobile phone works fine. It means that when in range of open wifi hotspots without restrictions I can take advantage of free phone calls....
Skype on a mobile phone — Sep 30, 2006
I have just installed skype on my mobile phone and have yet to test it. it’s wifi enabled phone which means that anywhere there’s a hotspot I should be able to make phone calls via skype. it’s going to be fun to chat with people without paying for the connection....
Six degrees of seperation — Aug 16, 2006
Last night I watched Six Degrees of Separation. I had heard about it a few years ago when one of the first networking sites began. The aim of the website was to prove that you were related to everyone through six degrees. What this meant that was that by knowing a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend you were related to everyone. The idea of the website was to see primary connections, i.e. your friends and then the friends of friends. The site didn’t survive that long but over websites came after it so the idea is still around through myspace and over such social networking websites....
Singapore Is the Fastest Walking City — May 3, 2007
I just noticed that I’d love living in Singapore because that’s the city where people walk the fastest. Copenhaguen is a city I’ve walked in but I didn’t notice it being particularly fast. Berliners walk faster than New Yorkers and Londoners walk slower than all of the above. I wonder how I’d compare to all these people and how I’d affect the averages. It’ just the type of news story I enjoy. Out of all these cities Malawi is the slowest. It’s 20 seconds slower than the rest. source...
Saw The Film Shooter And Really Enjoyed it — Apr 30, 2007
Last night I was feeling good about how my dissertation was going so I got my shoes on and walked to the cinema, feeling good about what I had achieved in the day. I went from my dissertation being a collection of words on the computer to it being printed out for visual inspection. What I found as I looked through the thousands of words I have written is that I am quite happy with the way it’s going and thought that I’m going to meet the target date for the handing in earl, if everything goes well from here on. When I went to see Shooter I really enjoyed the film. I often find that I prefer war films to other genres because although the story format is always the same the way the story is more engaging than many of the other styles of films. It’s great fun to watch explosions, to watch works of great precision. I also approve of the choice of women selected for the film. It’s a nice distraction from what I’ve spent most of my time looking at recently. i.e. words on a screen. I’d recommend people to see it....
Reading versus Videos — Mar 16, 2007
When I’m online I love reading. I read articles everyday. I see what people are doing. I see what’s happening in the world through text. When I see some information that may be of interest to me in video form I’m lazy. I hardly ever bother watching that video. I’d much prefer to have the text version. I’ve often watched mobuzztv and Iused to enjoy watching the videos but recently I find myself watching them less and less, probably in part due to bandwidth constraints. I especially avoid watching certain types of interviews because they’re dull. The interviewer has a bad technique and there’s no editing. I don’t want to hear someone talk for three minutes for something that can be summarised into one sentence. It’s a shame that video bloggers have not yet learned how to conduct proper interviews. An interview should be well researched, both material wise, knowing what the person knows about the topic and then charisma wise. Get an interesting subject but unresearched and the questions won’t give good information. Get a poor speaker and there’s a good chance the audience will lose interest and stop listening. get some cut aways and illustrate what the person is saying. Talking heads are boring. Finally avoid being arrogant, don’t gloat because you’ve got an interview with someone most people have never heard of or care about....
Rag week is fun — Feb 10, 2007
I was at the Roxy bar a few days ago in central London and people were cheering. They had just seen the proper version of the Rag week trailer and they loved it. I had been asked to shoot some material and edit other material for Thursday evening when the rag review took place. I went to two or three of the events. I went to the school disco night and it was great fun, between people dancing, others being hit by the death squad and others just being really friendly it was a really good night. I met a lot of friendly people and there’s such a contrast to my own university. When media students see a camera they’re going to be so angry at you for filming, being to used to being behind they don’t appreciate it as much. I must admit that I feel the same way. One individual that marked me is a girl that was on crutches who wanted to dance for the camera. there wasn’t quite enough light so we don’t see as much as would make the video great fun but it’s still entertaining. I was on a platform and three girls came to join. Sandstorm was playing so I had to dance, in memoriam of when I was a fresher back in the South West of England. A girl took the camera from me and I danced for her so I’m going to have to include that footage in the edit as a good laugh. Moonragger had a different feel to it, partly because I was tired from the previous night. Some people needed to look futuristic and whilst some took aluminum foil and wrapped it around others took cling film. One person was in a spacesuit but I didn’t manage to get that on tape. Lot’s of people danced, lot’s of people enjoyed the night. One attractive girl told me to “f*** off with the camera” so I moved away and filmed more people. She came back and told me to f*** of again. It’s to be expected but what people haven’t understood is that I film movement, I film when something interesting is in front of the camera. Turn your back to the camera or stop dancing and I’ll understand you’re self-conscious therefore the camera will stop rolling. There’s no point in filming people standing around. I went to sit down and had some nice moments with people I had only briefly seen in the past. As a guest to the university, I really liked the way people were friendly and open. They want to chat, they want to be filmed, they enjoy the camera and appreciate my company. It’s so refreshing. I’m going to add the video within the next few days for people to enjoy....
People love photographs — Mar 12, 2007
Video is one of those mediums that is great because it captures several moments and amalgamates them into a sequence. Those moments are with the voices and sounds, the excitement, and more. It’s too much information for most and that’s why video is a hard medium to use at parties. The more impersonal a video the better it works, within the realms of you being at the event with your friends. In contrast, photography is far better accepted. People have been using for photographs since before they comprehended what that box with a big piece of glass actually does. As a result, they were desensitized to being photographed. There are no objections and by the time they realize you’ve taken their picture objection is futile. With video, you point the camera and watch from a distance. It’s not because you’re a stalker or a voyeur but rather because that is the nature of cinéma verité - Kino Glaz. How can someone be comfortable when they know that what you’re doing is getting a precise recording of both their conversation and expressions. It makes them uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. That’s why the camera points up as soon as people realise they are being filmed. it’s my signal that I know that they don’t want to be filmed anymore and I move on. Over time people are desensitised to this “invasion” of privacy and there are occasional video lovers. Theatrical people are one example. During the last two years of High school every night, I would go down and shoot their theatre performances and they’d buy the tape from me. of course, I almost got in trouble with their lecturer but I was not breaching copyright. I was providing them with a visual record of their activities. Performers also enjoy having copies of their work. Ingyama a few years ago, Anarachic hand and of course last year’s first-year music students. It’s a way for them to show the world what they have produced. Sometimes it’s not good so they prefer to forget about it but when it’s good they’re happy and post it on their websites, whether myspace or specific domain names. The World Wide Web and the network of networks are not ready for the proper sharing of video at the moment. It’s fine for three or four-minute segments but any longer and you’ll find your audience disappearing. That’s because internet service providers aren’t always giving their customers enough bandwidth. In other cases, it’s just that it’s boring. The Silent Disco was really well received within a small community in part because it’s anonymous but also because it’s made up of good memories for them. it’s good memories for me too by the way. My collection of undercroft pictures ended in October and I want it to continue. we’re in March now....
People From The Past — Jul 9, 2007
Since I started using the world wide web one thing has become clear over the past year. The web has become personal. We have seen a migration from a worldwide web of strangers where everyone is hiding behind an avatar to a worldwide web where no one is hiding behind an avatar, where everyone wants to be seen. In the early days of the world wide web when no one was sure what the world wide web was about many people created websites and web rings and such were formed. Webrings were an early form of tagging whereby a list of websites on a particular subject would be put together to help promotion between websites. Over time this disintegrated. Another difference is the mentality of webmastering. Whereas before a website was designed to provide text-based information within the smallest amount of data (due to network limitations) it has gone the other way. From HTML pages to Flash-based video players. The Web has become a far more important tool now that broadband is so popular. At the same time, broadband and “always-on” connections have meant that whenever you turn on the computer you’re online. In the early days, I had a friendship with a Swedish girl, via e-mail. The friendship was an interesting one because it was one thousand word e-mails one to two times a day for an entire month before it ceased completely. That’s a lot of communication between two countries at a time when social networking was in its infancy, at least online. Remember the Geocities chatrooms, those that were text-based were a popular question was A/S/L… Those days were more interesting. In those days you’d chat with someone and try to keep them interested and establish a friendship which would result in getting an e-mail address to stay in contact. Profiles and logins became more advanced and chatrooms are now designed so that everything about you is clearly visible (that you choose to make public) therefore some of the more basic questions are no longer needed. I have been a member of many online forums and I have seen how they have changed from being fairly simple places for people to share ideas a post at a time to massively complex social networking websites such as myspace, Facebook and others. This brings me to the idea of portals. I remember when companies like yahoo attempted to give you as much information as possible on their main page and the most activities to enjoy were numerous so that you would stay there. A few years later and one of the top social networking websites is Facebook where not only do you have all your friends as members of the network but additionally they may choose how much they share with others. It’s become a central node for the web-based user experience. In this time those networks have demonstrated one thing, the ability to re-establish links. On Facebook it’s getting back in contact with school friends I haven’t seen for more than a decade whilst in other situations, it’s about people we met during vacations in another country. It’s a way for friendships to be created and to remain alive thanks to the virtual communities that have formed. I wonder how long it’ll be before my friends use Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce or other SMS enabled social networking communities online. In America, with Facebook, this is already a reality. For other countries with patience, it will be a reality as well and we will be truly connected. I’m already experimenting with that idea via twitter....
Pay-to-win Futility. — Mar 17, 2016
[caption id=“attachment_2795” align=“aligncenter”] Pay to Win games make casual gaming futile Several years ago a friend told me about Clash of Clans and I began to play the game. The game is an enjoyable distraction for when you have a minute or two three. You perform a few actions and then you get on with your other tasks. When you play for free patience is an asset. You have to wait to get enough gold, elixir or gems before you can complete certain actions. The game is designed in such a way that you can play for years and still progress. I like to joke that the Pay to Win model is both encouraging and training people to bribe their way through life. If you’re impatient you pay a little supplement and you complete the action. Instead of taking a week for an action to be completed it takes seconds. Supercell has made millions this way as individuals spend more than a thousand euros. Those who are willing to pay get to the top of the leaderboard....
Over 400 views of the Sandstorm video — Feb 15, 2007
I’ve just checked the number of hits on the Silent disco hits and it’s now up to over four hundred views. That’s a nice amount. I’m quite happy with this number because it’s from my website rather than another source. I’ve been posting videos on the web for many years and I’ve seen many projects start and fail and others expand. It used to be that websites would have just 5 megabytes and websites would be html based. We’re in web 2.0 now and it’s normal for me to download over a gig of data per day when I’m at home. Some people say that video on the web is going to cause problems, that there are bottle necks and that’s it’s not built for live video. That’s because they’re new to the web and think they’re gurus after just two years of daily use. I remember when it was the 56k modems and use was paid per minute. I remember when short text pages would take a while to load. I remember when chatrooms did not require you to create a profile which everyone could see. Where everything was fleeting, as bars are. You’d see hundreds of people but you had to converse with them. ASL used to be a popular question Today there’s no need. Just click on the username and you find out everything about them that they want you to know, age, sex location, websites, groups they like and more. For the past few weeks I’ve become really familiar with facebook and how powerfull a tool it is. I love it. It’s great because when you’re out meeting people you often get to meet up to 20 people in one night sometimes and there’s no way you’re going to remember them. Ragweek is an example of them. Too many faces. Not enough personal detail for the name to stick in my mind. Facebook means that I go online and I can review the night, see pictures of new friends and learn a little more about them. When I was at the silent disco there are a few people I notice in quite a few shots and by posting pictures online they’ve presented their identity. They are no longer nameless faces that shall remain irrelevant to my life. They seek each other out and tag themselves in video frames I’ve posted. In so doing their friends can see them. They enjoy it. It’s not a stalker medium. it’s about the McLuhanist global village. It’s about the extension and enhancment of social interaction. I was doing some research for an essay about technological determinism yesterday which explains the use of such terms. When McLuhan talked about the medium as the message he talked about the media as a thing which acts as an extension. Imagine you go out and meet someone and you get their name and phone number. The phone number is great because you can talk to them live with no difficulty. A facebook account is greater because it allows you to understand their personality, their likes and dislikes and more. It’s a way for people to embelish on spontaneous meetings. It’s the global village that McLuhanits have examined and studied. Since everyone knows everyone else facebook is the village taverna. It’s where you speak to your friends about other friends and a community forms. If you interact with enough groups then that village, that medium (facebook) becomes a family. There is nothing sinister about it for the simple reason that you do not remain anonymous. Everyone whose interest you have summoned will be able to feed their curiosity and the next time they go to an event they will invite you. I love it. When I was living in a small village in Switzerland I was afraid that technology was a great isolationist tool but that view has changed. What is isolationist about going online and sharing your interests with others. i created one group and 56 people became members. Those members are all fans of the Paleo Festival. Events are shared and talked about. I may not spend every day around those at King’s but this does not mean that I have not been invited to their events. I was invited in person to the clavicle challenge but did not participate. I’ve been invited to parties via sms, bulletins on myspace and event notifications on Facebook. People invite other friends and you’ll see how many people are planning on going and next time you meet them you’ll be able to discuss that. In other cases, as with the silent disco I was able to see an event and participate. Once the event was over I was able to share the content with many people. They come, they participate. They take pictures and upload them. I upload some as well. The event was only an hour long but the bond formed through the event is enhanced and perpetuated through Facebook. There is a night at the SU bar tonight involving tequilla shots. Many people will meet but how many friendships will last beyond a night. There’s one girl who I chatted to at the beginning of the year but now she doesn’t recognise me. Similar things happen every year and it’s tiring. Facebook has become the new social hub. I see how everyone is doing and they see how I’m doing. They post pictures and I’m reminded of how much fun was had at those events. It’s perpetual, a cycle of positive feedback. Does technology determin how people interact? Yes because it helps them get to where they want to get and affects the comfort level but no because human nature is human. In other words the fundamental principles remain the same although the means by which certain things are done affects the interaction. Why study the media? Because by studying the media you are studying communication between individuals, whether it’s the type of chair they’re sitting on or the type of alcohol they’re drinking. It encompasses our daily lives to such an extent that it’s considered a mickey mouse course. Why spend 30hrs in a library reading books that were written thirty years ago when the media changes at the speed of thought. I’ve seen the media landscape change so much within the past 10 years that every day I form new opinions and philosophies about communication. Media studies are within every book about film, every photograph, every song, every bag. We’re saturated by the media around us therefore we discredit those who study the media. I don’t me we as in I but rather the metaphorical We of society as a whole....
On walking more than five minutes — Apr 28, 2007
person “you walk fast” me “I like to walk” person “I thought you were rushing somewhere” me “nope, just stride as I walk” On average every step I take is two and a half times longer than most people therefore I cover distances in half the time it takes others to do the same. That’s because I love walking. I used to walk an hour a day after high school and the distances expanded over time. One day I wanted to create a gps track to see what it looked like so I walked nine kilometers within the space of an hour. I wasen’t even tired at the end. Last night I went to a house warming party and the night finished around 2 or three in the morning and walked with a friend to the bus stop. I waited, and waited until I got bored. A bus came but when I asked whether he was going my way he told me “look at the front of the bus”. His arrogance made my mind up. I’d walk from Aldgate east, via Bank and temple to Traf. Square before catching the night bus I wanted to catch and going home. It’s a long walk. At moments I ran, then I walked. I was listening to music so that was fine. At one point an accounting student asked me the way to where he was going so I chatted with him for a while. He was walking too slowly and it’s too late at night to hang around chatting so I told him which landmarks to use for navigation and started walking at my cruising speed again. I covered big distances. I saw St Paul’s, I saw the Tate Modern tower and I saw the London Eye, quite far, I thought. Didn’t deter me. I walked past the club boat and people were standing on the pavement whilst others were making the way home. Caught up with them within thirty seconds. They turned right away from the bank but I continued. The London eye was getting bigger. I passed the Savoy where I saw a few police cars and some people chatting. I don’t know what it was about. I passed the royal horse guard hotel, good memories of two nights spent there before a flight to New York. I turned and started to head from the river towards Trafalgar Square and spotted the N18 in the distance. Great. I ran, with big strides that conserve energy by covering a lot of ground. I got to the bus and saw whether he could let me in before the bus stop. No luck. I started to run. I ran across the roads of Traf Square, watching out for traffic of course, and got the the bus stop. I was slightly out of breath but I had run fast enough so that I was waiting for the bus. Conventionally other people have to run to keep the bus from running. I got on. Sat down at the front and looked at London as it slid beside me, one bus floor below mine. Cars were around, drunks were waiting for their respective buses and heading home as well. Time to daydream. I arrived at Sudbury as the sun was rising. 7 minutes till the next bus, ah well, that’s not so bad. Finally I got home, decided to have some crisps before going to sleep for a few hours. That was a nice walk. I really needed it. Hardly any traffic, no slow movers in front and no people to avoid. Just the way I like my walks to be....
On Trendio My Portfolio Is Doing Well — May 7, 2007
If you love reading the news and seeing what’s going on around the world then Trendio is an interesting site for you. I looked at the events that are going to take place and whether Trendio already has them listed. If it does then I decided to buy some stock for those words and as their quantity increases so it means I will get some income. Knowing that the French elections would take place I bought stock in two of the key elements to see by how much they would increase. As you see the increase isn’t that bad. I also saw some other events in the news so bought those. Overall it’s about understanding the news cycle, what stories have a long life, which ones are going to be short lived and which ones will generate the most hype. If you buy words before a key event when they’re low and wait for the event then you can make a lot of trendilions within a short amount of time. It’s an interesting distraction and I’d recommend people take a look at it. Trendio.com...
On Trendio My Portfolio Is Doing Well — May 7, 2007
Mariuca - May 5, 2007...
On thermal inversions — Dec 26, 2006
Thermal inversions are a great part of life in valleys. Whilst you’re living down in the glacial trough you’re waking up every morning to the knowledge that you won’t see the sun for the next few days… until the wind shifts. If you’ve got the time during daylight hours though you have the option of going up to the mountains. It’s at this point that you can enjoy the sun. As you walk in the Jura at the moment you’ll find that there are long plaques of ice and they’re slippy whilst in direct sunlight. In the shade traction from normal shoes is possible and walking is not that complicated. There are different types of ice, that which is transparent, where you see the leaves and other objects, that which is white, from too much oxygen and then the mixture where it’s a little of both. Many families were walking today, some were struggling and others treated the landscape like a giant playground. Some people spoke French, others, German, Italian, Spannish and more. It was international. Sometimes when I walk there are hardly any sounds and it’s good, a break from London and student life....
On the origins of OK — Sep 30, 2018
If you’re a french speaker you will probably remember that scene from Les Visiteurs where they say “OK” over and over again. You might also remember it from films like “The Right Stuff” when they speak about things being a-ok. The history of the word dates back to the 1800s when people would say “all correct”, then “all Korrect” and because they liked abbreviations it eventually became OK....
On the Importance of understanding what you are writing about — Nov 27, 2007
Nick O’Neill needs to do more research. Most of what he writes is speculative based on two or three months of research rather than sociological research. He goes after trends and gut feelings. As a result whilst his content is interesting to keep a track of it’s not relevant to the type of content I am looking for. Podcasters and social media people need to take a more academic approach to their writing. I’ve found myself angry with what Leo laporte and other podcasters have said. Some of them are really pro certain technologies and boasting about their advantages without taking a media tech and society view. What I mean by this is that technology and communication are cyclical. What was really common in older media is going to become common in new media as more people come to use it. Radio and letter writing are what podcasting and e-mail are to their contemporary period. It’s the same with the iphones being bricked. There was such an outcry within the early adopter crowd that you’d think technology has never evolved. We all know that more apps would be created for the Ipod touch and iphone for example. It’s interesting to see how things are evolving and how by looking at previous technological trends we can see how the future will take place. Those who write about technology need to have a media studies background for a proper, well based understanding of their topic of conversation. If you want historical information you want to find professors and their PhD thesis, the same should be true about technological writing....
On social determinism and the media — Jan 30, 2007
My week started at 10 this morning and was over by 1300 this afternoon. It was a lecture and a seminar about Brian Winston and social determinism in relation to the media. It’s a theory which is exploring whether social factors affect the technology that we use. I was taking notes during that lecture but not with pen and paper and without a laptop. Instead I was using the O2 XDA minis. It’s a really nice device and I’ve had it for over two months now. What I love about it is it’s size, being about the size of my palm it’s large for a fun but tiny for a laptop. It’s got a big display and a sign out keyboard. It’s also got a good scribling interface which makes handwriting notes just as easy as typing. It’s a friend that played with this feature and I’m quite impressed. The reason I love it is that it’s got all the features you’d expect from the i-phone but in the windows operating system and for a European market. The fact it’s got a keyboard makes it ideal for fast typing of sms. I often find myself writing over 200 characters because it’s so simple. Checking e-mail is a doddle. Simply download the gmail interface and connect to the web. The download of messages is easy and intuitive. It’s a shame that data transfer over gprs is still expensive otherwise it’d be perfect. I’ve made a skype call with it and it’s worked well. I was able to make a phone call to a mobile phone and talk and hear myself at the same time. Being alone that’s complicated but I know it works. I bought a program and that makes the synchronisation extremely straight forward. I have contacts, pictures and some word documents synced on the ibook and the mobile phone this way. It’s perfect for students and I really enjoy using the device. I’m speaking as someone who’s owned at least 5-10 mobile phones over the past few years....
On Smoke Filled Kitchens — Feb 14, 2007
Last night I was sitting in my room surfing the web and thinking about a variety of things when I could smell burned so i checked the heater. Cold. Visual inspection of my room, nothing apparently a problem. I decide to go outside my bedroom towards the kitchen and open the door. Oh fuck, the room was filled with a dense smoke and a pot was on the hob. I rushed to the window and opened it to disperse the smoke. I then moved the pan from the hot hob to a cool one, turned off the power to the unit and opened the second window. once that was done I opened the kitchen door and the flat door to create a draft that would take the smoke out of the kitchen. It worked. I checked the pan and poured water into it. Some idiot had left two chicken legs to cook without keeping an eye on. If I haden’t gone to investigate the fire alarm might have gone off and flames may have made this more serious than it was. I really want to say that I believe at least one of my flat mates to be an absolute idiot for doing something so stupid but I’m afraid that individual will read what I wrote. Apparently it’s not unusual for kitchens to be found extremely warm because students had left the hobs on overnight. Most probable cause, after reading certain threads on facebook would be drunk students. They think they’re sober enough to cook something so they heat the hobs and start to cook, decide to nap for ten minutes and fall asleep. At least the only damage is to the pan and two chicken legs. No one was harmed, no going off of the fire alarm and no material damage to university property. Happy Valentine’s...
On living in a rural setting — Feb 16, 2007
Switzerland is a land of mountains, rivers, and lakes. it’s a great place for skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, walking, and sailing. Those are all sports I’ve done. When I was several years younger we had a day’s racketing: Racketting is walking with rackets attached to your feet across the trees up in the mountains. It’s fun, although occasionally tiring sport. At one point we took a break for lunch. During this time a few of us were jumping over a young tree and someone was taking photographs. Within a period of weeks, one of those photographs was blown up to poster format and used in several shopping centres. it was also used for the cover of a local tourism magazine. The picture was of a younger me in a ski suit with rackets attached to my feet. Many people have seen that photograph and I was a cover boy for at least one issue of the local magazine. Recently that picture was in a shopping center much closer to where I live and we recuperated it. It’s now sitting on my desk at home. I’m thinking about going raquetting if there’s enough snow for it to be worthwhile. I haven’t done that sport for many years and I think it’d be interesting. It’s simple. No need to drive to where the snow is good, Thirty minutes and I’d be where I may be able to raquet. If there’s snow that’s what I may spend a few hours doing....
On it being cold but sunny — Dec 20, 2006
It’s winter, I can tell. There are icicles hanging from the metal parts and the wooden covers are on fountains to prevent them from freezing entirely. Add to this my birthday yesterday and the winter tires today and there’s no mistaking this time of year. I worked on my dissertation yesterday, seeing how familiar I am with certain elements of the documentary genre. I watched a few open university documentaries about the university and there’s one that makes me want to go back to Sienna to see the building in more detail. I’ll wait till the summer....
On dissapointment — Jan 15, 2007
Student unions are one of the best places to meet people and make new contacts. It’s a place where drinks are cheap and normal rules no longer apply. At least that’s what they’d have you believe. The undercroft is one of the worst student bars in the United Kingdom for a number of reasons, firstly the prices, highest in the UK, secondly the location, a basement with rats scurrying about. thirdly poor management, the reason for which many of the staff quit the job. For over two months now I’ve been unable to go due to the management, not the staff, taking a dislike to me. I went in today, not planning to get anything to drink because a friend wanted to drop down. The manager took a minute or two before he asked me to leave. I had not had the time to do anything of any sort. I’m disappointed because tonight is the first night that everyone is back from holiday and I can’t go to be with those I’ve studied and had fun with for two years. I enjoyed the convenience of that bar being so close. After tonight the bar is so empty there is no reason to go anyway but tonight could have been different. On the positive side, I’ve just started my six-day weekend and one friend in the same year is wondering what to do to occupy all our free time. Shall we find work, shall we live at home and commute only for the lessons? Shall we spend three or four days a week on dissertation work? I think so. I need to find work. I need to carry out phase two of the research, interviews, and discussion groups before starting phase three, the first draft, and subsequent copies. Last night I watched the Nile DVD and it’s interesting to see how different it is. It’s an anthropological documentary, taking time to speak first about the geography of the place, secondly about the people and thirdly about how they’re affecting the environment. It’s an interesting documentary that lasts about 100 minutes, 50 minutes per part. Already I’ve written notes about it and I’m getting closer to seeing how it’ll fit in as one of the case examples for what I’m talking about. I still need to read through the two dissertations I have. It’s going to be interesting to have so much time to work on one project. A documentary about the differences and similarities between the two documentary genre. Hours of fun as long as I organise my time so well as not to feel any pressure....
On an amusing conversation in Denmark — Feb 6, 2007
We had been walking around various parts of Demnark with a friend when he said that we should go to a bar. In some countries the name would not be allowed but in this part it is. It’s spunk bar. It’s located on one end of Westbork in Copenhaguen. We were having a drink when a person with a chinese tattoo walked past and told us “this is snake”, a strange statement. He went and sat down for a bit, then came back and asked if we knew goose eye. Nope, first I’d heard of it. He went back to his seat. Are you American? was his next question. No I live in London. He went away again. Hey, do you know how an ash tray flies. Both my friend and I were perplexed, wondering what he meant by that. “well I do”, back to his seat. Do you know scientology, nope. Ok, yet again to his seat. Where in London… Do you know churchill park? nope, it’s a nice place. They bury people there. This is probably the best example of surrealism I have seen in a long time. Those fragments are so random that we couldn’t help but burst out laughing. How often do you hear this type of statement? After that he went away and the episode was finished....
O2 and iPhone — Jul 5, 2007
According to a number of articles, 02 and Apple are in final discussions about the iPhone and how they will distribute it within the European Union. So far we still have to wait until December of this year to get it in Europe. I don’t think I want to own this particular phone because the one I have now has almost all these functionalities to start with. I also like having a qwerty keyboard for ease of typing whilst on the move, unlike the iPhone. The browser is probably the strongest feature of the iPhone but this is irrelevant for most websites. Both Google and Facebook, two of the only websites I’m interested in using on the move have created useful interfaces for those on the move. in the case of Gmail, it’s the interface that allows you to check and send e-mail within their own java applet which is installed on your phone. In the case of Facebook, their strength is in giving you just the features you want, i.e. what your friends are doing, the latest news, and more. It’s great to get some quick information whilst unable to go online. I want to try out the iPhone and see how great and easy it is to use. Apple loves making software that is simple to use, without submenus as you find with windows mobile so for newbies it’s better. In a few months, I may get to see the iPhone in person and see how good it is… unless I fly to the US or go to one of the EU Macworld....
No power — Jul 24, 2007
Something you hardly ever think of when you’re in economically more developed countries is electricity because it’s always there for you to use. This was not the case yesterday afternoon when coming back from an interview. Due to some roadworks or the rain (not much but apparently poor maintenance makes things worse) the power down the whole street was shorted for at least six hours, which is a long time. A machine was digging up the road and a second worker was digging. At moments he pulled on a cable, then pulled on another. Occasionaly they beeped at some people in a van before getting back to work, then they’d come back. The whole time they were seeing this as a little bit of fun. Whilst this was going on outside many homes had no power, no refrigeration, no television, no safety alarms and more. It’s somethng we’ve grown unused to since power cuts are usually so rare....
Mobile spending — Jun 24, 2008
Important for global marketers, mobile handsets are the dominant way people access the Web in many emerging markets, as it is far cheaper, says John Gauntt, senior analyst at digital ad tracker eMarketer. With a computer, “The cost of entry to get Internet access is about $1,200 for the PC and broadband; a mobile is less than half the cost.”...
meet the press — Jan 25, 2007
I’m listening to meet the press by NBC and it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking as the governor. It’s quite amusing....
Learning about Tiny Houses — Dec 5, 2016
Learning about Tiny Houses is interesting. There are a number of features/documentaries online where people build their own tinyhouses either from shipping containers, trailers or other structures. The aim of these tinyhouses is to maximise space and reduce costs. Some of these homes are entirely off the grid. They collect rain water and solar panels provide power. The bedroom is often built above the kitchen and climbing wall holds are used instead of ladders or conventional stairs. One home folds out from a truck to become a castle. One tower serves as a toilet and the second one serves as a shower. The space above even features a bath. Another Tiny home is designed as a tree house providing a beautiful 360° panoramic view of the landscape around. This tiny home is interesting because it’s built out of half a shipping container. For a change the bed is below and the living room is above. The kitchen and office are next to it and there is a shower from which to watch birds. I have seen a lot of people speak about minimalist living, living off the grid and living out of cars, campers and other vehicles. By watching videos about tiny houses you begin to understand that there are certain basics that you need to have and that these basics fit in to small spaces. If you have a van, a caravan or other vehicle then you can live as comfortably as these people. This last video would make for a perfect summer home for recent university graduates or high school graduates. It’s small, light and mobile. You’re self sufficient to a great extent and as long as it’s warm you have your own space. It’s amusing that in at least three videos we hear about people learning to be neater through living in such small spaces. As a scuba diver, rock climber, cyclist and geek the biggest challenge for someone like me would be to find a place where I could store my diving gear and especially the scuba tanks. They’re bulky. Diving gear also needs to dry properly to avoid the smell of the lake (as I used to dive weekly in the lake). My view of living in a tinyhouse has changed through the watching of these documentaries. It shows you that what you want is functionality rather than size. You want “gadgets” as these maximise how you use available space....
I've lost my shoe — Jan 20, 2007
Last night I went to central London to get some information about a possible shoot and edit for students at another university. If we get a camera then we can do something for tomorrow. 1p coins in student unions are dangerous. If one happens to fall in you’re going to have to drink it. Touch the cup is another game I saw yesterday. It’s a strange game because of it’s aim, at least with last night’s drink. Before going to sleep two students were outside the halls yelling and trying to get into the building. one of them kept yelling “where’s my shoe”, “I’ve lost my shoe”. Sometimes you hear strange things...
I'm A Martial Artist Typist. — May 9, 2007
Sometimes you hear about writers and how they fall in love with their machines. I think I’ve begun to love my laptop. I’ve just spent an extraordinary amount of time writing so many words over such a period that the laptop has use marks. If you look at the trackpad you see that the right side is smoother. If you look at the keys they’re also smooth with use. The space bar has smoothed out where I always press with my thumb. There’s a dark mark where I rest both my hands when I’m typing. The monitor shows signs of degradation. The repetitive motion of the fingers has developed muscle reflexes that mean that as I sit in one place from which I see people walk by I can observe people and continue writing at the same time. In effect I’ve been touch typing for a year and every computer develops a certain amount of time for the reflex to be perfect. I’m a martial artist at the art of typing ;) Laptops are great because they become such a big part of your life. You use them every day, from the bad times to the good times, from nice locations to some of the worst. They’re there whatever the weather. They’ve got all your music, all your photographs, possibly some of your video projects and more. They’ve also got all the software you need from day to day work practices. They’re reflective of the person that uses them....
Idlewild — Feb 18, 2007
After having spent the whole night without sleep yesterday my energy levels were low and I decided that I would rest. In doing so I’ve spent quite a bit of time online but I’ve also conclued my reading of Idlewild. I was with a friend and he was looking for post apolaptyic books and was struggling to find anything. I was looking around at random books without any particular goal. After asking for help and getting some books suggested by the staff I decided to take a look at the books in the same section as he had been looking. It’s always when you’re not looking for something specific that you find it. I saw the book idlewild and I read the back. It seemed like a good book, showed it to the friend. He agreed. He commented "why do you find a book immediatly when I’ve just spent ten minutes looking without finding anything. Luck I suppose. The book is about some children who are living in a virtual world, created for their education. It is an immersive virtual reality program which they have grown up in from a young age. One of these people wakes up without memories, confused. Throughout the book he struggles to understand what happened. I won’t go any more into the details of the book but it’s a good read. It’s one of those books that you start reading and actually finish within a short amount of time. It’s well written and interesting. It’s a look at what may one day be part of our daily lives. I enjoyed it so I’ll pass the book to that friend and see what he thinks....
Oversimplification — Feb 10, 2007
The more time you spend online the more headlines and articles you read, the more you see mass idiocy. Every time a phone comes out that’s slightly similar to the iPhone they rant about how similar to the iPhone it is. It’s not. There are several models of phones preceding it. My phone is very similar in design to the Samsung f700 but I’ve had it since October/November of the year. It’s got a touch screen and the slide-out keyboard and it’s got all the synchronization features. Why has Apple become the standard for a product they’re not even releasing to the market for another half a year. What a lot of excitement for a device that’s more of a gimmick than anything else. The iPhone is for the myspace generation. Those who are looking for entertainment value in electronic devices rather than usefulness. How are you going to write notes in lectures with the i-phone? One of the things I hate most about web 2.0 is that it’s all about hype, what’s popular, what’s not. What does the mass want, what doesn’t it want? Why is everything over-simplified to such an extent? At the moment you can’t open a paper without the aftermath of the CBB article being rammed down your media-saturated throat yet intelligent articles like “Identity and Migration” by Francis Fukuyama published in Prospect for February 2007 goes unnoticed. It’s a well-written article that looks in-depth at the issues that are relevant to the future of the international community as a whole. The disjuncture between one’s inner and outer selves comes not merely out of the realm of ideas, but from the social reality of modern market democracies. After the American and French revolutions, the ideal of la carrière ouverte aux talents was increasingly put into practice as traditional barriers to social mobility were removed. One’s social status was now achieved rather than ascribed; it was the product of one’s talents, work, and effort rather than an accident of birth. One’s life story was the search for fulfilment of an inner plan, rather than conformity to the expectations of one’s parents, kin, village or priest. One of the strongest arguments within the article is this one: The first prong of the solution is to recognise that the old multicultural model has not been a big success in countries such as the Netherlands and Britain, and that it needs to be replaced by more energetic efforts to integrate non-western populations into a common liberal culture. The old multicultural model was based on group recognition and group rights. Out of a misplaced sense of respect for cultural differences"”and in some cases out of imperial guilt"”it ceded too much authority to cultural communities to define rules of behaviour for their own members. Liberalism cannot ultimately be based on group rights, because not all groups uphold liberal values. The civilisation of the European Enlightenment, of which contemporary liberal democracy is the heir, cannot be culturally neutral, since liberal societies have their own values regarding the equal worth and dignity of individuals. Cultures that do not accept these premises do not deserve equal protection in a liberal democracy. Members of immigrant communities and their offspring deserve to be treated equally as individuals, not as members of cultural communities. There is no reason for a Muslim girl to be treated differently under the law from a Christian or Jewish one, whatever the feelings of her relatives. There are some valid and interesting points within the article. Take a few minutes to read it....
I hate slow connections — Jan 14, 2007
I hate slow connections, they force you to wait patiently whilst the content you desire shows itself. It forces you to select more carefully the content you are about to read. When the connection is fast you skim through the pages reading the first paragraph before jumping onto the next page until several hours have passed. In contrast with slow connections you look through articles of interest and start downloading them. As one arrives you read it without rushing. There’s no point. You’ve got time. Whilst I was in the southwest of England every Sunday I would go to a pub where I’d order a coke and find all the newspapers. I would have four or five papers and I would skim through each paper looking for articles of interest. On occasion I would read the entire article, learning new things as I went along. It allowed me to keep up to date with what was happening. It was a method of escape, of relaxation. There was no rush, nowhere to be. It was directed daydreaming rather than free. It was directed by the article. The eyes read the text and the mind translated it into pictures and thoughts, spreading and converging. Occasionally those daydreams meant that the eyes were reading the text but the mind was thinking of something else. That demonstrates that the article was not written as well as it should have....
High Definition Pleasure — Jan 21, 2009
I love high definition because it reminds me of those massive paintings you see in art galleries. You know the ones. It’s those that have things happening in different parts. Look to the top right and you see one set of people, look at the centre of the image and you notice something slightly different. Look to the right of there and yet another story is told. That’s because high definition is a large canvas where everyone that appears in the shot tells a story. Look at that shot. You see Obama in the foreground and you see the faces behind. You see the family, you see the faces of those that are having a good time, those that are there because they have to be and more. It’s also about eavesdropping in the visual sense of the word. You look at the action in the foreground but you can also look at the book shelf, you can see which titles are present. You can see the marks on the walls. You can see that person sitting, and from the facial features see whether they are tired or full of energy. I just love high definition. I’ve been watching high definition content and I must admit that documentary is the type of content that may be the most fascinating. You see reconstructions of historical battles, background actions and it’s just a full image. If it was audio it would be high fidelity. It’s just complete. It doesn’t require fast cutting, it doesn’t require close ups. What it does require is a process of thinking of how to provide a frame, an image, a canvas that’s interesting to look at. It’s getting closer to photography in a sense....
High Definition Pleasure — Jan 21, 2009
warzabidul - Jan 4, 2009...
Henry Dunant and IDHR — Feb 28, 2007
Whilst doing my work last week in Geneva I was told that I had to include footage from the Film “Henry Dunant - Du Rouge sur la croix”. I didn’t get to watch the film until today but I enjoyed it. it’s an interesting film for anyone who has been brought up in Geneva to watch. There are two cities in the World that have the United Nations, New York in the US and Geneva in Switzerland. Both these locations are important but Geneva is seen by some as the capital of Human rights. Henry Dunant is an important figure in the history of International Human Rights (DIH) because when in Solferino after seeing the ravages of war he wanted to help anyone affected by conflict, no matter the nationality, religion or ethnic background. In effect for him they were “brothers in arms” to quote the film. The film itself is well shot, has a good rythm and a good pacing. It tells the story without getting bogged down in details and serves as a taster for those who would like to do more research on the subject. The acting is good and it’s amusing to see the old town of Geneva in a film, especially since those are the streets around which I have spent many hours on a number of weekend evenings. I love the international aspect of Geneva. I’ve done work for the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Labour Organisation, I’ve been accredited to the United Nations on three seperate occasions, each one for over a month and I’ve done work for the World Health Organisation. I have been through Two International Labour Conferences, the first ever General Staff meeting of UNAIDS and on the lighter side I’ve been to two Student League of Nations as a precursor. This is part of the reason for which I see Globalisation not as a form of corportage agrandisement but rather as a coming together of the world’s population, living according to specic rules and guidelines which means that we are compassionate about ethnic diversity and co-habitation. Where are you from is not to find out what village or town you’re from but what country. This is because we follow world news and international politics. We are aware of every continent and aspects of many cultures. That’s why we watch BBC World when we have the chance and read the international newspapers. If you have the opportunity of seeing Henry Dunant then do so, it’s worth it....
Hat Parties and the Events Therein — Mar 10, 2007
Last night I went to a hat party and I enjoyed it. I found it amusing to look at all the hats, from pink cowboy to chimney sweep, snowboarding and even motorcycle helmets. The more excentric the hat the more amusing the person. House parties are interesting because it’s a familiar event. We already know everyone that’s there so there’s no time wasted in trying to meet everyone for the first time. A simple hello will suffice in some cases and in others great conversations will fly off like water drops descending from Angel falls into a fine spray. That spray is the culmination of a hundred conversation. As it hits the plunge pool all of them merge into the pile of consumed conversations. Some wash up on a stone and will come back into our conscience but most will vanish. Photographs of parties are great. If you’re in a bad mood, feel tired or are down then it shows and you’re dissapointed. When you’re smiling, relaxed and enjoying yourself though they’re great. Some of these are “stolen”, taken by a photographer who prefers spontaneity to the posed image. Occasionaly posed images are good too. Two weekends, two very different events, one in a London nightclub, the other a few minutes walk from home. Both will leave enjoyable memories. Tonight I shall rest, content with the way Friday night progressed....
Great Britain and the Fourth Estate — Jun 27, 2016
When I think of Great Britain I think of the BBC and I think of the Natural History Units. I also think of radio programs like In Our Time, From Our Own Correspondent and Hard Talk. I also think of BBC World and the quality of their news coverage. I mention these current affairs programs because I believe that the British provide quality content. They also inform, educate and entertain us. That is their purpose. In a healthy media environment the media should inform and educate their audiences. They should provide us with the facts and context for everything they write about. They should provide us with neutral and unbiased information. Radio and Television broadcasters were held to this standard until recently. With Video on demand services increasing in number and with the number of channels made available through satellite broadcasting and digital audio broadcasting opinion has found its way on air. This made it easier for satellite and television broadcasting to share opinions rather than facts....
Friends and Those Who Fool Me — Mar 16, 2007
Yesterday afternoon I received a phone call from some post grad students asking whether I could go and film the football game they were covering. It was between westminster uni city FC and another club whose name I don’t think I heard. It’s the first football game I cover so it was an experience. It was in a smallish club an the crowd was quite small. I set up in the home and away section of the stands and filmed people running from one end to the other many times over. It’s a shame I didn’t have one of the better cameras to use because the video footage would have been better. Still it was an experience. This summer had meant that I saw a lot of football matches. It meant I knew what shots to frame up. What actions to look for. The award ceremony was the more interesting bit to film because it saw me on the field with the teams making sure to get the shot of people receiving their awards. Too bad our team was not the victorious one....
Fox Film distribution and the European market in relation to Night at the Museum — Feb 2, 2007
Fox and UK cinemas fighting I have just read that a few cinema chains in the United Kingdom are pulling Night at the museum from the cinemas. They became angry after Fox distributors decided to release the film just three months after the cinema release. From a media student’s point of view, this is an interesting development. What early adopters have found is that they can get content as soon as the film has been out for a few hours/days. For those with the technological know-how, this means that they can ignore film releases and watch the film as soon as they hear about it’s release. As a counter to this problem new measures are being taken, for example, the simultaneous release of certain films in cinemas around the world on the same day in order to encourage people to go to the cinema rather than download the content for free online. For the film industry, this is bad news because it means that they have to find new ways of preventing the illegal distribution of the content they have produced. Whilst I think that the release of the DVD of Night at the museum is a good idea I fail to understand the logic in releasing the DVD whilst the film is still in the cinemas. They’re undercutting the European cinema industry. It’s not surprising that Europe is angry. The distribution of films is expensive. They have to take the film reels and ship them around the world. From a logistical point of view, it’s a nightmare both in terms of cost and time. Digital distribution is a good possibility but an investment for the cinema chains is high and the training of the staff would take time. What does this mean, Will it encourage the cinema chains to invest in new technology which would make having the most recent films available within a shorter amount of time, or will they lobby for the proper distribution times to respect?...
Extreme Mountain unicycling — Feb 9, 2013
Sometimes you watch clips that impress you. In this case it’s a clip that scares me. I wouldn’t want to ride a unicycle down that type of landscape. Would you?...
Extreme Mountain unicycling — Feb 9, 2013
Alex Leonard - 10th of Feb, 2013...
Enjoy the stairs — Jan 27, 2007
Myspace was used to advertise a pyjama house party and I went for a number of hours. It’s amusing when you’re at a party in your pyjamas. It makes a change from all those fancy dress and I began wondering about the walk of shame and whether wearing pyjamas on the way home constitutes the walk of shame. The party was good although it did not really begin till later on when everyone arrived. There were lots of people I’ve known for two to three years by now. The stories were good and the conversations too. Some were interesting whilst were some left you a little confused. I went to central London with one friend and we stayed in a night club till the first tube in the morning. The club was quite full of people because the top musical act of the week had played there an hour or two before we arrived. I don’t know the group so I’m left indifferent. This part of the night continued till the early hours of the morning. We caught the first tube home. I gathered my stuff from the friend’s place. Two people were sitting in the stairwell chatting, saying that they had not gone to sleep but that everyone else was trying to sleep. I encouraged them to enjoy their stairwell before continuing on my way. Back to halls where I encountered some french-speaking friends. Conversations and random activities continued until around 7 in the morning. It had been an 11hr night/party for me and I’m surprised at how quiet everything is today. It must be the calm after the chaos of a good night out....
Embouteillage pour cause de sapin sur l'autoroute a1 en direction de Lausanne Blecherette — Dec 22, 2006
I went snowboarding at it was great fun. At some moments the snow was great fun so it felt really good. I love the feeling of snowboarding at a fast rate down ski slopes and keeping up with skiers who don’t mind waiting too much. All the snow canons were active because there’s a lack of natural precipitation. Some resorts are worried about what to do but as long as it’s cool then fake snow can be created to make a base on which for skiers to have fun. It’s tomorrow the resorts open properly, when all the tourists arrive. On the way home on the radio I heard there was a traffic jam on the way to lausanne due to a christmas tree being on the road and I burst out laughing. only in Switzerland would you hear such a traffic jam warning....
Digitising Old Videos — Jul 17, 2007
I have spent a few hours this morning and part of this afternoon digitising videos from a few years ago and it’s a time warp. I have one or two fashion shows on tape. I have at least ten theatre pieces. I have two or three field weeks and I have the 2000 graduation trip to Crete on tape. Those are moments that are not just static, in an album. They are alive. They are moving and they are nice to keep. I would often spend weeks and weeks with the camera on me all the time, whether in a pocket or a bag. I would film life as it happened. I have a pre-show video of the Ramayana. I have a video of post-Ramayana drinks when the characters are still in character. I have some of the best nights I’ve spent in geneva on tape. I also have conversations. Does anyone remember the suction pump s****tal scratcher? Do you remember why people were perplexed? I do. It’s on tape and I want to digitise and share them with the people concerned because they are nice to have and there’s a guaranteed laugh that would ensue. There are about 22yrs of my life on video and the past decade is shot mainly by myself. At one party I was busy and someone filmed me whilst I was occupied with what I was doing. I can see how I appear to other people. I can also see how other people interact. It’s from a barbecue video that was had at home. That video won’t be going online anytime soon, in fact, there’s little chance of others seeing it. It’s great to go through your own video archive, seeing your life as it happened whilst still a teenager. I’m going to go through some more tapes now, to find some footage that may have relevance to my showreel. It’s the turn of the Tanzania footage now....
Digital television in the UK — Mar 18, 2007
1.1 The three months to the end of December 2006 (Q4) saw over 1,000,000 net household conversions to digital television (DTV) in the UK, following on from 800,000 additions in the previous Q3. Growth was driven by another strong quarter for digital terrestrial television (DTT), with total sales of DTT equipment reaching 2.4 million. 1.2 The digital cable and satellite platforms also added over 300,000 households between them during the quarter. This means that 77.2% of households now receive digital television services on their primary set, up 3.9 percentage points from the previous quarter. 1.3 With a further 1.4% of households subscribing to analogue cable, the total number of homes receiving multi-channel television at the end of Q4 2006 stood at 78.6%. Source What this means is that narrowcasting is no longer within the grasp of early adopters but slowly getting into the hands of the everyday public. As more people have more choice so their viewing habits and choices will be different. At the same time television is getting a lot of competition from online resources, especially for programs that are aired in territory months earlier than in others....
Deep blue — Jan 18, 2007
It’s fun to watch documentaries when you know that they spent at least two to three years in the making. I like the documentary because it’s an opera rather than a documentary. There is a minimum of comment and a maximum of shots. There are some sequences where you see things happening in front of the camera and it switches to a second camera. That’s because for sequences like the penguins jumping out of the water they filmed it with one film camera and one pole. Doesn’t that make you wish you were studying a media BA. where part of your studies is television. Every field of studies has it’s advantages. One person I know is studying James Bond films, another is doing Disney cartoons. I’m doing underwater documentaries between France and England. Another is doing something related to social elements and zombies. One is doing special effects It’s a broad range and that should make it more interesting to those that have to read through all this content....
Day 52 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – More Cows, and Cascading Style Sheets — May 6, 2020
While some of us have gone fifty-two days without being within two meters of another person due to the pandemic others walk side by side down country lanes, forcing those walking alone to make the decision of whether to risk infecting the vulnerable couple or stepping off the road and waiting under an electricity pylon while the selfish people clear the way....
The Daily Show - Trevor Reacts to the Orlando Shooting — Jun 15, 2016
I have been watching The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for a while now and I like the insight and analysis that his shows provide to current affairs programs. I like his shows because he provides a different perspective than other news. He is a South African who moved to the US and work on the Daily show. In this show he explores cause and effect. He speaks about his childhood and tying shoelaces. He speaks about running and falling “a lot” and then about how his mother told him to tie his shoe laces. What I like about his show is that it is calm, factual and logical. He makes the occasional joke but it helps strengthen the point he has just made and provides a transition to the next point. What is interesting about this comedy/current affairs show is that it also pokes fun at mainstream news shows and the way in which they try to deflect the conversation away from the key issues. News and current affairs should provide insight and analysis without worrying about what shareholders, lobbyists and other groups want the message to be. They should provide people with facts and context. We are in the age of On Demand videos and it takes the average web user seconds to find the content that will provide them with the message or conclusions that they want to justify. Search for Orlando as a key word on youtube and you will find emotional video content. In a healthy news environment you should have two main sources of information. Mainstream media should provide you with the facts and the context of what happened without prejudice or assumptions being made. Once these sources of information have been exhausted then we can shift towards the emotional talk shows, opinions and columns. What I see at the moment is emotion taking centre stage and obscuring reality....
Cooking at the table — Jan 6, 2007
It’s a wooden tray with two sauces on the left, a dish to the right with chips, at the back some vegetables. Front and centre you find a slab of stone. It’s very hot. That’s because it’s Entrecote sur ardoise, similar to a steak. There’s a hot slab of stone and you use it to cook your meal on top. It’s delicious....
Comment on "The BBC is under threat because its success challenges market ideology" — Jun 30, 2015
Imagine for a moment that television did what other industries did. Imagine for a minute that every program you watched was so good you wanted to pay money for it. If people want to pay money to watch it then your content is valid and worthwhile. Commercial peak time television is rubbish placed to fill the space between adverts. As a result when people say “TV rots your brain” and “Television is a waste of time” and “Television makes you dumb” they are for the most part right. I’m thinking of those endless copycat programs. There is little program diversity on commercial television. I love specific BBC content. I enjoyed watching DR WHO which is rather low brow. I also love the output by the BBC natural history unit, so much so that I have bought all of these documentaries. I used my dissertation exploring Cousteau and Attenborough documentaries as an excuse. The BBC is a cultural icon of what Great Britain stands for. It produces thousands of hours of radio and television content. As the article points out people listen to 18hrs a week of content. I used to like listening to the From Our Own Correspondent podcast/radio program but have lost the habit as I have changed from one mobile phone operating system to another. I also listen to more audio books instead....
Cold Brew - A 24 Hour experiment — Apr 21, 2023
I have been reading and watching videos about coffee brewing. In the process I kept seeing cold brew coffee come up again and again and it made me curious to try....
Cheeky phonecall — Feb 28, 2007
I have a deep and sincere hate for spammers, whether in forum comments, spam e-mails, spam websites or sales phone calls. It’s only 950GMT and already I’ve received a phone call from 02920368792 trying to get me to change from one phone network to another. The problem is that there’s no proof that the person is who they claim they are. They call from a noisy room and they’re disturbing my peace and quiet. If anyone sees this number reject the phone call. If I want to upgrade my contract, if I want to change provider, if I want to improve something then I’ve got the world wide web and all the phone network websites several hundredths of a second away so why would I want some salesperson calling me. No way am I going to accept anything that someone attempts to sell by phone....
Cheeky phonecall — Feb 28, 2007
dommy - Apr 4, 2007...
Casino Royal in Leicester Square — Nov 14, 2006
I went to Leicester Square tonight and I saw many celebrities for the opening of Casino Royal, the new bond film. Among those present were the scissor sisters, Girls aloud, Richard Branson, Mohammed Al Fayed, Paris Hilton, Sting, Elton John, Eva Green, The songwriter, Miss MoneyPenny, Dame who plays M and a few other celebs. It was good fun in central London. I have uploaded some pictures. One of the images is of a friend shaking hands with Daniel Grey Casino World Premiere...
Casino Royal in Leicester Square — Nov 14, 2006
Emanuele - Nov 3, 2006...
Barbeque Sunrise - A Student excentricity. — Apr 15, 2007
There are many things I have done in the past but having a barbeque at five am whilst the birds are tweeting and the sun is rising is not within my normal realm of experiences. It was nice, felt more like the end of a festival night than anything else. The party took place at a friend’s place along the Metropolitan line. We arrived at about 7 pm and that moment everything about the party was normal, all the usual features, barbeques, people, drinks and more. Not that many people ate much at the beginning of the night, preferring to socialise instead. At the end of the night when most people were responsibly going to bed we decided to have a barbeque. It was a mission at first. We had to find out how to open the garden door. It had been locked therefore we could not go out through one door and had to get another one. After this, we had to struggle to find the fire lighting blocks. Finally, we lit the blocks and now it was time to wait for the fire to be warm enough. By this point, the birds were tweeting more and more excitedly as the sun was rising. As the blue of the sky started to appear our fire was warm enough for the steaks. It took a little time to cook with improvised tools. The food was finally ready and those steaks were good. It doesn’t end there A popular phrase was “there’s plenty of meat left in the fridge”, resulting in some turkey being fetched and cooked. The pieces were thicker so aluminium helped speed up the cooking process Once we had eaten this it was time for bed for my friends whilst I decided to go home on the tube. There was just one problem, the tube station was closed and there was no indication of when it’d open. You can imagine my joy at the thought of waiting for them to open. It didn’t matter though, I walked back. It was actually a nice walk. No one in the streets except the occasional post worker. The air was nice, felt like a proper summer morning. Finally, I was home, having no special need to go to sleep quite yet I stayed up for a little longer. By around 8 am I was asleep. It had been an interesting night....
Back to Solitude — Jan 23, 2013
Playing with your sense of time and logic....
As the embers of the fire die down — Dec 25, 2006
It’s over, Christmas is disappearing into a pile of ashes as the last pieces of wood are combusted into nothing more than ashes. tomorrow those ashes will be fertilizing the garden. It’s been a quiet Christmas day, nothing extraordinary to write about...
As Long as There Are No Clouds — Mar 3, 2007
In less than twenty four hours there will be a total eclipse of the sun that will give us a red moon and this should be interesting to see. Back in 1999 I was in Salzburg for the total eclipse of the sun by the moon. I was almost within the area of totality. It was over 99%. There is nothing like a total eclipse of the sun. At the start you see hundreds of people go into the square and look up at the sky. You see the moon eating up the sun. Over time you see that more than half is eaten. Then you see three quarters and you approach totality. At the time I wasen’t spending too much time looking at the process as I was looking for shots for the video. I climbed up the road to the castle and turned around. As I did so I saw all the birds fly away and I saw a grey shadow racing across the landscape. Hundreds of flashes started going off and people started to make noise in excitement. Totality was here. The light was grey, with no depth, then it was night. As it was night I looked up and saw the corona that forms, where the solar flares are twelve kilometers long, visible because the sun’s main mass is blocked by the moon. Totality is over within a few seconds and day comes back. Many people have enjoyed this event. It’ll be another century for most people to see the next one. That’s why I want to see the red moon, that’s why I’d prefer seeing a silver ball turn reddish. That red is formed by the refraction of sun in the earth’s atmosphere being sent to the moon and bouncing back to give us a splendid sight, as long as there are no clouds...
Digg and Mob Rule — May 2, 2007
There is a copy and paste culture on the web and I don’t like it. When you go to Digg, to Youtube, to myspace and other websites what you find are short comments. They’re contributing nothing to the debate, in fact they make the online experience online less enjoyable. There has been quite a vocal outcry from certain people about the HD DVD codec and how forcing articles to be pulled down and deleting user accounts was going against their user rights. In fact, there is nothing of the sort. It was nice to see that these users would be held accountable for the content they link to and provide. Adding fuel to the fire Kevin Rose said something in his blog to the effect that since so many people feel so strongly about this issue he would not pull down any more links. I don’t agree with this. There’s a level of mob rule which I think is counterproductive. There’s all this talk about user-generated content and networking. Ok. Where’s the original and innovative content. Simply digging a story and putting a few remarks is not enough. Do some journalism, do some research, learn the topic inside out and then post an informed opinion. I’m not going to be part of sites where accountability is irrelevant. It’s irresponsible for them to publish such information. It’s also given a massive PR boost to Digg....
Apple's phone — Jan 9, 2007
It’s a nice screen, it’s a laptop replacement similar to the phone I’ve had for two or three months but the hard drive is much better. He advertised all these features as new yet I’ve got most of those capabilities already so I’m laughing slightly. I was just two months ahead of that particular market. I’m wondering about wifi access. How easy is it to connect to password-protected networks and how strong is the antenna?. Would it work only on open networks? I like the screen but where’s the keyboard for fast texting? How easily will it scratch? I know at least one person that’s going to be looking forward to the PVR with integrated wifi although I don’t find it interesting because the hard drive is too small at the moment. The fact you can stream from five computers at once is nice....
An ode to lost votes — Mar 12, 2007
One girl lost my vote a year ago when not turning up to a live interview she was meant to attend, deciding an hour before to cancel Another lost my vote for not having the strength of character to campaign for herself through a medium like facebook or Myspace. One lost my vote for her slogan, which I do not appreciate. Which people are we talking about? We’re all equal. Some have the luxury of misbehaving around uni before going home to their parents to recuperate. Others don’t. I will vote for those individuals I know. I will those whom I have seen work as a team and those whose friends I know. I will vote for those whom have attempted to make themselves visible or known to me whether in person or online by their own steam. In retrospect the campaign has been surprisingly dissapointing. Where’s the student newspaper with the candidate’s applications. Where were the flyers for the people running. Where’s the presence of the UWSU elections anywhere within smoke media. You’ve got voting starting yet do we know any of the candidates outside our circle of influence and friends?...
An academic fox for university — Apr 11, 2007
When you’re s student normal clocks no longer have any relevance to the way you live your life. Sometimes you go to sleep three hours after the sun rose and other times you have a nap at three in the afternoon. Occasionally you sleep from ten at night till 6 am. That’s extra ordinarily rare. When you’re in halls this is particularly true. You’ve got an entire ethnic group in university that takes the university to be the same as school. They come in at 8 am and leave on the dot at 1900 hrs. That’s because they’re still at home and they live according to their parent’s cooking schedule. They love to play during the day. Most of the people I know are of the night disposition. They will party all night and pull all-nighters to get work done rather than get up early in the morning to do things the way non-students do. It’s a great way of life. You might not see the sun in winter but in Summer there’s a chance you’ll be sitting in the sun soaking in the rays whilst office workers are slaving away. It doesn’t matter, in three to four years most students will experience the same so it’s only a question of time. Anyway, the point of this post is that I was leaving the library after doing some work on my dissertation when I spotted an orange fox lurking around. it was looking for food and that’s not hard to find where students have been. I thought that I should scare it off by hissing and stamping my foot but it remained oblivious. I decided to walk up the stairs and turned around. It was heading towards the turnstiles to get into university. Did I meet one of the rare academic foxes in North West London? Let’s see whether I see it at my graduation. How many of you have had such encounters with nocturnal creatures?...
All that is left from three years is one essay and one dissertation — Mar 6, 2007
Yesterday I handed in my penultimate essay. There are two main assignments remaining. the first of these is a tech case study which should be fun to do. I already have an idea of a topic that I know fairly well. with the second it’s the dissertation and I should really spend a few hours progressing with that. I had one of those classic nights on Saturday. You begin with the idea that you’re simply going to drop into the cinema and watch a film before going home and watching the lunar eclipse from the relatively low light pollution of the area around the halls. This plan disintegrated as a friend encouraged me to stay out and go out clubbing instead. I knew I had the penultimate essay to finish. Most people hate the night bus because it’s so full of weird people, some are just drunk, others are in worse states and finally some are amusing. On occasion you’ll enter the bus and a girl will offer you some crisps and you won’t say know, to which someone next to you asks whether you’re really going to accept them. Later on you understand that it’s the brother joking around. In other cases you’ll find that it’s like a plane cabin. If you’ve ever flown easyjet and got up to go to the front of the cabin you’ll know the sight. it’s that of two hundred people having a nap. It’s a soothing sight to see so many relaxed people. Occasionaly some people get cold so you lend them their jacket and you walk them home before rushing home to finish your essay rather than taking the time to get to know more about them. There are a lot of people that hate the stop at Sudbury but having lived there last year I know a little secret. That there’s a 24 hour shop where you can buy jaffa cakes and lipton ice tea for the second part of the journey. What I enjoyed most about saturday was the people I met on the bus journey home....
A Typical Day Two Weeks Before Uni's End — Apr 24, 2007
Just put on some music and now I’ll tell you about a typical day, just two weeks before the end of uni life for me. My phone is set so that it rings every morning at 9 am and the reason it gives me is “catch a flight” because I had set that particular alarm to wake me up before one of my numerous flights. It doesn’t often get me out of bed, I usually snooze till about 11 am and that’s when there’s noise from the cleaners. I open up the laptop and I start surfing around the world wide web syncing up with what’s happened whilst I was sleeping. It’s not until about two hours later than I do something productive like get out of bed, take a shower, and then get on with the public phase of my day. a few times I’ve woken up and got straight into one of the three assignments that are due within the next three weeks. I stop working when either it’s at least an hour later or I’ve run out knowledge and because it requires research I decide it’s easier to get sidetracked by something else. Around 2 pm I go for a walk, as an excuse to listen to a podcast. I get myself what is required for a sandwich and get some ice tea. Time to relax whilst eating. Until this point there’s a chance I haven’t been sociable so I walk over to the uni library, it’s only 5 minutes away so it’s no struggle. As I arrive there I go from one friend to another, getting a little insight into how well they’re doing with assignments. With certain people you find that they’re halfway through the dissertation, others are finished. Some were working on their advertising module course work and others claim not to have started writing. I’m glad I have. (slight understatement) There are a few groups of people I hang around with. Sometimes I go to a venue and I film a friend’s gig, as happened or I go to the SU bar (which hasn’t happened for the past two weeks and won’t happen before next Monday. The third option is to hang out with more friends in halls. Once I get home I do some more work, sometimes another two or three hours. I found that at one point I was so anxious and worried about my work that I couldn’t go to sleep before I had progressed with my dissertation. I’m lucky that way. My mind has become the perfect nag. I’m grateful for this. Sleep is easy, I lie down, pull the laptop screen down and see that it latches. Listen to my ipod and fall asleep....
A Larger Readership Than The Student Newspaper — Apr 17, 2007
A few days ago I was with a friend discussing the student media within my university. I’m not speaking about the content created by those in the various courses but rather about the student newspaper and television channel. It’s gone downhill over the past year. In my first year at uni although people poked fun at the student magazine they used to get it in order to get all the events listing. It meant that you knew a month in advance what was going on what night and so university spirit was stronger. At the same time, some second-year students of the time decided to create a student television program in which they got up and running external to the student union. In so doing they guaranteed success. Last year the student magazine coasted along and the first discussions about it becoming a newspaper happened. Since then it’s been downhill. We’ve gone from having a glossy magazine coming out once a month with all events listed to having recycled paper as a newspaper. Rather than having people fighting to get their articles published an apathy seems to have formed around the project. There is no features editor, no listings editor, no main editor, and no layout person. This is a uni with 23,000+ students of which 10,000 full time. You’d be led to believe that they could produce some content without too much difficulty. The one thing that’s doing relatively well is the student radio but it’s not independent of the Student Union, therefore, it seems to run better. If they had kept podcasting as they were doing last year then I’d still be downloading and listening to those programs as I walk around London. I’m ready to leave university and get on with other more interesting projects. I’m ready to get back to the world of work. I only have about three weeks left of work....
A funny day — Jan 18, 2007
I found today quite entertaining. I went out and noticed that it was a little windy. Later on, I was heading towards the student bar only to find that it was closed due to windows being blown in. “Oh well”, I thought “time to do something different”. I walked across the street, the name given to the path in the middle of our university, and looked up to the screens, “ship abandoned”, train delays, tiles off roofs, and more. [caption id=“attachment_5829” align=“alignleft”] Due to various trees on the line As if to provoke more problems for myself I decided to head into central London. There was a hilarious sign. "Because of various trees on track - severe delays on metropolitan line. It’s such a matter of fact, a casual way of saying there’s a problem. I went up the stairs to the platform ad caught a train limited to 30 mph due to the adverse weather conditions. That’s quite a bit slower than usual. We arrived near Wembley Park but the train remained blocked. Apparently they had to change driver and this was holding us up. So to recapitulate six trees on the line, heavy winds, severe delays, and to top it off delay due to the changing of a driver. Don’t they have enough problems as it is? I went to the world’s biggest apple store but there’s nothing new, no apple tv, no iPhone, nothing I haven’t seen already. The trek back was fun in itself. Highly packed trains filled with commuters and masses of people trying to get back to Northwick park after going to Harrow on the hill because the trains were suffering from the weather conditions. I got out and walked home....
A funny day — Jan 18, 2007
iPhone - Jan 4, 2007...