Category Archives: Society

Business, Marketing, Music, Society

But It’s a Bargain

The volume rocker of the Amazon Kindle 2

The volume rocker of the Amazon Kindle 2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve just noticed on Amazon.co.uk that the top five kindle books at the moment are all priced between £0.20 and £0.99.  Is this a coincidence or is it the same reason I also bought the number one book (besides it being a QI book) – only 20p, I’m having that!

I’m sure they’re all good books but it also shows that almost giving content away can give a book, or music, momentum in the sales charts.  It’s only really been possible thanks to digital media’s lower distribution costs and the benefit is that once people have tried it they’ll tell others about it and maybe they’ll still buy it even if it’s at a higher price later.

The music industry needs to pay attention.  It isn’t devaluing, it’s marketing.

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Science, Society

Unpredictability on Trial

L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy. A goverment's office...

L’Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy. A goverment’s office disrupted by the 2009 earthquake ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_L’Aquila_earthquake ) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week six scientists and an ex-official were convicted of manslaughter in Italy because, it was said, they had given misleading and falsely reassuring advice to government officials.  Following a tremor in the L’Aquila area in 2009 scientists told officials that a further quake was not impossible but not likely.  In this region people would usually stay outside following a smaller quake but taking the advice as meaning they were safe many went home and when a larger quake occurred many were tragically killed.

Scientists have been trying to find some pattern, some definite precursor effect that will indicate an imminent earthquake for decades but aside from the theory that earthquakes can process along fault lines as movement during one can move the geological stress further along the ability to say when one will occur still eludes them – therefore the best they can say is that one may occur.

The Fortean literature is full of stories of Earthlights – small balls of glowing plasma – floating over fault lines and animals leaving the immediate area in the hours before quakes but again these effects haven’t been documented or proven.

If the authorities had said “there is a possibility that this smaller quake could lead to a massively destructive one” and evacuated every time there was a quake in a seizmologically active area it would cause chaos and cost a fortune, and how long do you tell people to stay away?  A follow-up quake could happen the day everyone returns.

The L’Aquila verdict will have an effect on science, as many are already saying; the journal Nature called the verdict “perverse and the sentence ludicrous” and called for protests, and the head of Italy’s disaster body has resigned stating that the commission could not work under such pressure in the future.  It will make scientists more weary about telling anyone about their discoveries, or offering any advice at all just in case one time something goes wrong.

[BBC News Magazine, BBC News, BBC News]

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Health, Psychology, Society

Being Yourself, Being Happier

Cherai Couple

Cherai Couple (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

These days we are bombarded with imagery and articles telling us we should look a certain way, wear certain things, use certain perfumes or aftershaves and act certain ways to find love.  Most of this only makes people feel inadequate and depressed because they can’t achieve these ideals.

As this article by Ken Page describes trying to be someone who you just aren’t is emotionally exhausting and will either attract the kind of partner who won’t really be right for you or will put everyone off altogether.  You also need to be patient and not obsessed with “not being single”.

The most important thing to do is to respect and encourage your authentic self to surface, some people won’t like you doing that but being true to yourself is more important than keeping everyone happy.  Once you accept your gifts and flaws then your let your authentic self out you will feel more relaxed with yourself, will feel happier and can then attract the right kind of partner, one will be in harmony with you.

[Psychology Today]

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Society

You, You Make Me Feel… Brassed Off

Eddie Bright Eyes

Eddie Bright Eyes (Photo credit: Picture Zealot)

To put it politely.

Today’s example of modern lack of consideration comes courtesy of someone in my apartment building who was playing one song (the Stylistics version of You Make Me Feel Brand New) for at least two and a half hours on repeat until 2.00 am this morning.  The acoustics of our building means that the sound resonates, you can’t really tell where it’s coming from, it’s just a ghostly background noise that gets steadily louder as your ears get used to the otherwise silent night, each high note flicking your almost slumbering brain back into consciousness.

I tried putting the mattress on the floor as it was a bit quieter down there, which was strange as the music was definitely from an apartment lower down than mine but not my friend’s immediately below.  In the end I lay on the sofa, then it started raining which drowned out the music and is a sound I can fall asleep to easily.  I had been considering knocking on the door of the suspected culprit but wasn’t sure of the response I’d get; would the music stop or get louder?  These days you can’t be sure.

In the end it stopped, shortly after.  Luckily I could have a lay-in this morning.

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Society

Too Posh to Pass Politely

English: I'm watching you Charming carved ston...

I’m not sure it’s a modern thing but it certainly seems more prevalent today – the lack of basic courtesy.  At work I encounter customers who never say “hello”, “please” or “thank you”, just walk in and start demanding what they want like I am some kind of automaton, and then today yet another ignorant person on the street.

I’ve been at work all day, on my feet, all day, dealt with problems and hassles, all day, yet when I’m walking home and I see this man in an expensive looking wool coat and post-ironic, hipster flat cap walking towards me pushing a pushchair I wait beside a sign blocking one half of the pavement to let him go past first and he walks past without so much as a “thanks”.

I don’t hold doors, let people go first or help people for the thanks but I don’t do it because it’s my job, its common courtesy and it doesn’t cost anything to acknowledge that.

I don’t like to think that society is becoming more selfish and impolite but I have noticed this happening more often, that more people have this sense of entitlement, that they expect others to do things for them, to move out of the way, to let their car out first, and as such feel no need to simply say thank you.

I still have customers who sincerely say thanks but it feels like their number is dwindling.

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Psychology, Society, Tech

Radio Daze

Cat sitting on a radio, Sydney, 1930s / Sam Hood

Cat sitting on a radio, Sydney, 1930s / Sam Hood (Photo credit: State Library of New South Wales collection)

I’m listening to the radio and the presenter, earlier in the show, said that the weather was going to be mixed, with some rain and possibly some sunshine later.  Since then he’s been bombarded with tweets along the lines of “it’s raining in Lincoln, isn’t that where they’re meant to be based”, “dunno what window he’s looking out of, it’s raining here” and similar.  Is that what these people are thinking “it’s raining now, it’ll rain forevar….”

He has resorted to saying “I know it’s not sunny NOW, it’s called a FORECAST.  If you want to know what it’s like now you can just look out the window.”

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Funny, Society, Tech

Pets & Passwords

christmas cats

If you’re thinking of getting your child a pet this Christmas there’s one thing you need to make sure of beyond the practicalities of its food and where it’ll sleep and whether your kids or you will end up taking it for walks (or if it’s a cat, letting it in or out of the living room/bedroom/bathroom et al).

Bizarro Comics points out the importance of giving the creature a unique, hacker-proof and, most importantly, memorable name as it will almost certainly end up as a security question some twenty years down the line.

[Bizarro Blog via Gizmodo]

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Photography, Psychology, Society

The Patience of the Landscape Photographer

English: Ashness Bridge, Borrowdale, English L...

I’m in the English Lake District and I’m here to get away from work and relax but also to take some more landscape photos. As any good landscape photographer will tell you patience is something that is as important as a neutral density grey grad filter.  Sometimes you have to revisit the same spot day-in-day-out, or even week-in-week-out until the weather and lighting are just right as a landscape’s appearance can be completely altered by cloud, the angle of the sunlight and the time of year.

Patience is something that can be lacking these days as I witnessed yesterday when walking past a place called Ashness Bridge.  As I approached the bridge, coming down from the fell above, I saw a small group of men stood in the flowing stream beneath the bridge, expensive cameras on tripods, the aforementioned neutral density grey grads in place (the sky was a combination of sunshine and cloud so the grad helps to avoid underexposing the foreground or overexposing the sky).

One of the group wanted a “picture-perfect” image of the apparently famous bridge and was becoming increasingly annoyed at the other tourists and car drivers that were intruding into his shot and rather than be patient and wait he began gesticulating at a car driver, shouting at walkers and generally being a bit of a tit to put it politely.

The attitude of “I’ve got an expensive camera here, I’m a real photographer, get out of my way” was evident and it is one that gives photographers a bad name – as pretentious and inconsiderate.  No doubt the group had to press on to the next photo opportunity but this is no excuse, if they had prepared properly then all they would need to do was wait patiently for the right moment and fire the shutter, as I did later after they had gone.  I don’t mind having people in my photos as they add scale and context but if I’d waited a few seconds I could have taken a shot free of humanity altogether. I had considered pointing my own camera at the camera club when the man had started shouting, perhaps shouting back “could you get out of my way too please, I want a shot of those trees” but I didn’t as I felt the irony would have been lost on them.

As for my own patience, well put it this way I’ve waited one year, two weeks and three days approximately to reshoot two images I took last year on the summit of Walla Crag near Keswick that last year I messed up due to forgetting my neutral density grey grad filter.

This year I got the shots and I now only have to tweak them a bit when I return home before uploading them to Flickr.

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Health, Society, Work

Longfellow Has Been Unwell

Example of dark circles

Example of dark circles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What happens when you combine frequently disturbed sleep, daily exercise involving cycling – usually against the wind, two weeks of work where you have been unusually busy so that you’ve barely sat down never mind had a proper half-hour lunch break all the while dealing with multiple tasks at once where you can’t quite get one done before the next walks through the door expecting to be dealt with immediately?

What you get is fatigue, and if you’re me a blog that looks abandoned.

Normally I balance things nicely, get enough rest but even then I still often find it difficult to sit down and write a blog post; I know what I want to say but just can’t get into the right frame of mind.  The last two weeks have been an exploration of the effects of fatigue and what I consider was probably mild compared to what some people have to deal with was eye-opening.

Each day I went to work (and these two weeks I volunteered to work Saturdays to cover a holiday) so woke up early, cycled in, stood up all day, went home full of good intentions and…

…collapsed onto the sofa with a microwave dinner and the TV remote.  During this time I felt too tired to do anything and could summon up no enthusiasm for anything either.  Nothing mattered – not even tidying up my apartment; I felt that nothing ever would; I didn’t want to talk to anyone; the slightest things going badly annoyed me; I certainly couldn’t put together an article on the joys and perils of 21st century life.  As such I was irritable frustrated and I didn’t feel like I was even in the real world.

The contrast was striking with the week off I enjoyed at home three weeks ago where I got lost of sleep (though still woke up at the same time) got lots of projects done and even managed to squeeze out a couple of posts for this site.

Today I’ve felt much better following a couple of quiet days at work, and some good nights sleep.  The things that fatigue us are cumulative if you don’t have a chance to properly slow down and recuperate.

It’s often difficult or even impossible to get sufficient breaks at work and sleep at night but I’ve found that it’s really important to aspire to getting both.

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