Communications

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Endless Speculation

This morning was the result of the Eastleigh by-election. I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while getting breakfast and I was amazed at the utter rubbish that the presenters and politicians were promoting.

There was endless speculation about why the public had voted a particular way with nearly every party claiming the result was good for them and using their own justifications. What utter rubbish. I do understand that the political parties are trying to spin the message and make sure that people think that they have done well but when you hear one argument after the other you begin to realise it’s BS.

I like the way that the politicos were trying to gather to mood of the nation and applying interpretations about the thoughts of the voters from this election result. Surely to gather any evidence about people’s motivation for voting a particular way would take some serious questionnaires and detailed investigation. It is not possible for this to be done a few hours after the result. I am sure that the sociologists out there must be swearing at their radios far more than me.

Politicians and spin! Perhaps one day we will get someone in charge who is quite happy to say things as they are and admit that they don’t know much!

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Easy Research

Short one this. For a few years now I have become convinced that there’s an easy way to make discoveries and gain a PhD. Although this might be slightly controversial and I am prepared to accept my views are probably wrong, I do currently think that this is how some fields of research work.

Recipe:

  • Take a phase of life or social behaviour (grieving, riots, middle-age, becoming a parent)
  • Perform a survey of people going through this process or involved in these behaviours
  • Look through your data to find correlations or patterns (humans are very good at this)
  • Make up a causation-correlation statement or split the phase into sub-divisions
  • Perform another survey to confirm your results
  • Write up a PhD
  • Write a popular style book explaining your results and what people can do to fix themselves
  • All done!
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Unreliable

Some time ago I started writing communications about news failures on the BBC News website. It has been quite clear to me that the quality of journalism on the BBC website has been falling for years (subjective rather than hard data). The headlines and stories have not been presented well. Rather than giving accurate news and reporting important things it seems that the BBC feel they are in competition with sites such as the Huffington Post and the Daily Mail “news” websites. The BBC is not in competition and as a public body should try to maintain high standards of news and programming but they push their content to the lowest denominator of population trying to compete with channels that I couldn’t care about.

I have decided to stop using the BBC News website so much. It has been a gradual decision but was forced through the day I saw the following picture and clip on the front page of the site.

Not really news

This story is not news. It’s not even a new thing. Animals have been given wheeled prosthetics for a long time. I just don’t care!

Goodbye BBC News website. I will still listen to Radio 4. I feel there is still some standard of production there. I guess one day I’ll change my mind. Is it because I’m getting older and therefore more cynical? I think there’s a Phd in looking into these factors.

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Too Early (part one)

For too long now I have been an early adopter of new technology [funds dependent]. Sometimes this has caused me issues of new tech surpassing me and then I feel a little left out.

I think the earliest part of trend setting in which I was involved was roller-blading. I know my mum was rather unhappy that I asked for a set of rollerblades (by Bauer) for my 20th birthday. I think she would have preferred that I got an iron or something else sensible. But, I was at university and wasn’t thinking about setting up kit for real-life and houses and things. I practised on the roller-blades during the Easter break from college so I was able to GO|STOP|TURN before I went back to halls. I was one of the first students on rollerblades and one of the first people to rollerblade around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Jason and I would rollerblade around London for an afternoon trying to find the smoothest pavements. It was a good time and I felt as though we were starting something big. In the next few years rollerblading really took off.

In my fourth year at college, a sabbatical year rather than a four year degree, I bought a NICAM Stereo video cassette recorder and linked it up to my new hi-fi amplifier. Watching Star Wars on a 21″ 4:3 CRT television with two hundred watts of sound power blasting out was brilliant and an excellent investment. I remember watching Fry and Laurie on TV and they had a sketch where they played the sound of a telephone ringing. In the early-mid nineties all telephones sounded the same and were plugged into the wall. Whenever they played this effect it sounded as though my phone was ringing! To make the point they put a small picture (now called an icon) in the corner of the television picture whenever they played this sound to save us mere mortals getting up and trying to answer the phone. It was a wonderful piece of television and technology.

Coming up soon in this list of things I-have-bought-before-the-technology-was-mature are HD TV, Speaker docks, wi-fi, mobile phones, pro-logic decoder.

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Screen Capture

Downloaded an app to the iPhone that controls my tv via the home network. All very well and good but there is also a screen capture button! Why? Who would need to screen capture a tv? Apart from writing this communication that is?

GT5:

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Is That It?

After playing for a long time I have finally got to 900 cars in my Gran Turismo 5 garage. This represents a large amount of effort and time playing. Also, the process for buying cars in the dealership is laborious and boring.
All I get for reaching nine HUNDRED cars is a bonus colour and car horn! I don’t even customise my cars with these.
Some money or game points would have been rather better!

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Breather

I’m slightly paranoid about electronic gear overheating. This might be down to a fear of setting my house (and street) on fire and relying on Jase to put it out but is also to do with breaking electronic kit.
Everything has an optimum operating temperature. Whether that’s me at about 36 or so Celsius or the sun running at a few million Celsius. Electronics are no different. Why do you think that stuff has fans and air circulation grates?
My amplifier has loads of grating over the top of the housing. This indicates that the contents are likely to get quite warm. The Blu-Ray player I bought has tiny feet and a solid base. Now, the only sensible arrangement for the kit is amp at the bottom, then the disc player and finally the Sky box.
All of these items have a fan or large vents. Why then do they stack so to leave very little room for air circulation? Granted, you don’t need a great deal of space to move air but you would think these things would be designed to fit with other electronic kit? No. They are designed to look good and functionality comes a close second! (See the original PS3 for cooling issues)l
So, rather than pay loads for spacers for my kit I used Duplo and Lego. It looks rubbish but adds a little colour and a certain something!

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I’m Back

I am back online. I have watched the NFL Super Bowl and don’t have to avoid seeing the result anymore. I managed to watch it on Monday night although I did fast forward the power outage and in the last quarter I had to skip the huddle time. I was getting very tired and knew I could manage to see it all.

It was a thoroughly good match and full of excitement. Really pleased I saw it.

The problem now is that I won’t be seeing any NFL until Septemeber! I’ll have to dust off the Madden game again and complete a championship there. I am considering getting ESPN added to my subscription just so I can see college football but I don’t know what their season is.

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