The media is in a time of convergence and that’s what some people find fascinating. i’m listening to a number of podcasts about technology, the media and computing in order to keep informed on developments.
Today I will be working once again with footage that has been shot in another country. What makes this particularly interesting is that the footage is coming from Hungary whilst I will be in Switzerland. I will see the races take place, then I will cut the video, add some text and upload it to a website. This is similar to what you’d expect to find on a variety of websites.
Once the event has been finished for a week or two I may take one or two of the edits and upload them as part of my showreel.
For several days I have not been looking as seriously at the COVID-19 case graphs for Switzerland because we the storm waves of new cases that we were getting before are now no more than ripples on a pond. The situation seems to be under control in Switzerland.
As we look at the graph above we see that for at least a month the number of new cases was high every day but that by the fifteenth of April the number of cases decreased week, by week, until the number of new cases per day seems imperceptible at the scale of the graph above.
The graph for the total number of cases has flattened for a few days now so we may be over the worst. I still wear a mask in the shops and I still respect the minimum two meter distance between individuals. I don’t want to lose a habit only to find I will need to resume it in a few days.
The number of active cases has also gone down. We are now at around six hundred active cases.
During one of my many walks I passed by the French border from Vaud into Divonne and I saw columns of cars waiting to get into France. I saw one or two cars, turn around, in the hope of finding a less congested route. For people who have to cross borders on a daily basis patience will be even more important than usual.
Someone shared an image of two mice resting in hammocks with a caption to the effect that “it’s wonderful going into cities at the moment, there are plenty of hammocks to be found.”. The perspective is amusing.
When I went to the shops yesterday I saw that some people were wearing face masks, as was I. Now that I have a few I can wear them when I have to be indoors with other people or within close proximity to others. My only reason for not wearing a face mask was that I couldn’t find them. It was never a political statement.
For some people, the wearing of a mask is a sign of oppression and of submission. For others it is common sense to wear a face mask.
The Daily Walks
Yesterday the daily walk was a run and a walk. I went on a shorter route than usual because we’re at the end of the month and I had reached the daily distance goal for the day. I still walked fifteen thousand steps.
During a bike ride two days ago it was funny to see how a walking path had been worn between Signy and Eysins. So many people have walked along the grass by the road that they have left a walking path. Usually foot traffic is not heavy enough to leave a trace.
Daily Tasks
I have renamed one of my daily tasks from “write a blog post” to “work on the website”. Yesterday and the day before I spent hours working on my website so I was out of creativity when it came time to write a blog post. That little change means that I’m on a 70 day streak.
Black Mirror is a television series that was broadcast by Channel 4 a few years ago and made available to Netflix audiences recently. The series explores a variety of topics and issues to do with technology from death to crime and existentialism. It also explores themes like family and friendship.
We spend a lot of time thinking about technology and how it has changed our lives. Sometimes it’s fun to watch 80s series to see the world as it was before computers and the internet and sometimes it is fun to watch dystopian essays or short stories exploring facets of modern life.
In modern society we see that social media is affecting the discourse that is taking place between politicians and normal people. We see how social media and the lowering of the barriers of entry to the fourth estate have created a golden age for propaganda and disinformation. We see in The Waldo Moment that a CGI bear can mock the political system. It could be directly related to what we have seen happen recently.
Be Right Back deals with online identity and how a person can be emulated once they have died. The question is an interesting one. The more active we are on social media the more our character and personality can be understood and reflected back. This is limited. We are not entirely ourselves online. There are some things that we hide from the online world.
In Fifteen Million Merits we see a dystopian vision of the world where everyone lives in a small dark room. They get out of this room to go and peddle for a few hours to get Merits. Once they have 15 million merits they can “apply” for a different kind of job via a talent show.
Nosedive explores popularity and social networks. Everyone is constantly being rated based on what they share, how they interact with others and more. In such a dystopia people can progress or lose privileges based on reputation. In such a reality people are vulnerable.
A vertovian theme is explored in “The Entire history of You”. An implant called the Grain records your entire life and you have the ability to fast forward and rewind moments of your life. In so doing you can analyse what went well, what went badly and more. You can also see more than you were intended to see through other peoples’ recorded experiences. In this episode we see the Kino-Eye, the all seeing eye. Your life is no longer private.
I like some of the themes that are explored in this series and I recommend people to watch at least some of the episodes. I feel that they are relevant to our discussion about social media and online lives.
Today I went to try the new macbook pro and macbooks and I found that I prefered the macbook to the other device. I like that the keyboard is there and there’s nothing to the side. it’s a better feeling machine for when you move around.
The biggest difference between these two machines and older models is the touchpad interface. Rather than have a seperate button and tactile area both are integrated. press down on the touchpad and you’ve got the same reaction as when you pressed the button. Use two fingers and you scroll. Use three fingers in apps like iphoto and you move from one picture to another. Use four fingers and there are three reactions. The first is when going up then down. It minimises the window, to the sides and it changes apps. Down and you go to see several windows. It’s not as intuitive as it sounds.
Whilst the trackpad is a nice idea I think it’s going to take people some getting used to. At first it was really great but within a few minutes I would accidentaly drag things across, select something I didn’t want to or other. In brief whilst it’s meant to be intuitive it wasn’t.
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