Pi Hole Morality
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Pi Hole Morality

Byrichard

After several days of playing with a Pi-Hole I both enjoy using it and feel guilty. I feel guilty about blocking adverts from certain websites and sources because I don’t want to impact their revenue streams. At the same time I really want to block ads from two specific sources. Pre-roll videos for Plex, YoUTube and other sites, and video adverts from iOS games.

Blocking Pre-Roll

I want to block pre-roll adverts, especially from Plex now, because it’s Christmas themed. As a single person I don’t want to be reminded of the family life that is not mine directly. I don’t want to suffer from ROMO (Reminder of Mission Out) as I’m about to watch a program about people flying DC-3 and DC-4 aircrafts in the North West Territories.

With YouTube I want to block pre-roll ads, more than other ads, because sometimes you decide that content is not worth watching after ten seconds. When you’re browsing like this you give up when you have to watch 30 seconds to two minutes of pre-roll. It’s too much, especially when you always see the same advert, or the same three adverts.

Stop Seeing the Same Ads All The Time

A decade or two ago I said that the problem with satellite broadcasting is that we see the same four or five adverts at every break. If you watch three programs you might see the same adverts five times. That’s several minutes wasted, for the consumer, and a waste of money for the advertiser. I remember seeing an ad after seeing it once. Forcing me to see it five times just gets me to tune out and stop watching tv, and youtube, and podcasts.

Awful Ads for Crap Games

With iOS games I want to block adverts because it’s always the same crappy games. It’s adverts for pay to win games. If the game maker stopped making crappy games he wouldn’t need to make crappy adverts, and then make people pay for crappy games. He would just make crappy games, and people would play them. How much of the cost we pay for some app games is to pay to be overloaded with bad adverts?

Arcade and Premium

I hear you say “but just use Apple arcade. It’s 6 CHF per month and you have a choice of games and no adverts. This goes back to the topic I mentioned in other posts. If you pay 25 CHF per month for Switch online, 6 CHF per month for Switch, and x amount for another service then it quickly becomes hundreds of francs per year. In this context it’s cheaper to get a console and buy games when they’re reduced in price due to Christmas or other promotions.

With YouTube you can pay for premium and stop seeing ads too, but do you want to pay to see user generated content via a company that demonetised your content because their celebrities poisoned homeless people, for views?

An Ad Guard Interlude

I experimented with Ad guard locally, and I also looked at the app on iOS. 5 CHF per year for the iOS version. The price of installing it on a Pi locally. I stopped using Ad Guard locally because it seemed to be blocking 192.168.1.1 and I want access to that IP. I also found that the UI was less fun. No interesting graphs and less active oversight of what the app is doing.

Political Blocking

Right Wing Media like to spread hate and disinformation. These sites are usually inundated in ads. By using ad blockers we make sure that if, by accident, we visit their sites we do not help them generate revenue from adverts.

It would be nice to whitelist websites, from which adverts are accepted, and blacklist websites from which I refuse to see ads. At the moment the closest you get to incremental blocking is to disable blocking for five, ten, 15 or more time. This is a workaround but not a solid solution.

White List Specific Sites

I would like to white list quite a few magazines, news sites and personal websites, without getting ads from sites that I have blacklisted. I want ads from my blog, and the Guardian to show up, for example, but not from The Times of England, or The Sun, or the Daily Mail and other such sites.

Ad sources

When you block Google Ads you block ads on large websites and small websites. Small legitimate websites suffer when we don’t see ads, so that’s why we need the option to whitelist Google ads on this site and that site, but not those other sites.

Web Browsing on Low Ram Machines

Anyone who has tried web browsing on a feature phone or low ram Raspberry Pi has experienced how slow websites can be. Part of the reason for the sites being so slow is the volume of ads that need to be downloaded, but also displayed. A website that is a few lines of text and one or two images loads fine. Commercial websites inundated with ads do not.

In low bandwidth areas, or places with machines that have limited RAM it makes a lot of sense to use a Pi Hole, to make the web more accessible.

And Finally

Ad blocking can be about quality of experience, for example in trying to block pre-roll on video streaming services or video ads on iOS games. In other cases it can be about seeing what certain news sources are writing, without contributing to their business model. News organisations that spread disinformation can be visited without helping fund yet more disinformation.

We need Pi-Hole to be like web browser plugins. “White List this site, and that site”. We could support the newspapers, blogs and magazines we like, without supporting those we do not. When ads are not obnoxious I don’t mind seeing them.

Ads make the web functional. By blocking them we are affecting content creators. We should use ad blockers sparingly. My site has too little traffic for ad blockers to make a difference but other sites do, and it’s a shame to see sites that we appreciate fail, because we used ad blockers when visiting them.

The Absurdity of Driving Culture
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The Absurdity of Driving Culture

Byrichard

For a long time I thought that driving would give me freedom. I was impatient to be old enough to drive, and then I was impatient to pass my driving test. I failed the theory three times in Switzerland, zero in England, and the practical in England once, and once in Switzerland. Eventually I did pass my driving test in England, on Valentine’s day. I then drove to see the girlfriend of the time.

Driving has given me the freedom to go to and from work without waiting for trains. It has given me the freedom to live according to my schedule, and shifts, rather than other peoples’.

It has also cost me my freedom. The absurdity of driving is that you are responsible for getting drunk friends to their home, and you are responsible for driving people from A to B when you’re hiking, climbing and more. Having a car means that you have to drive to see people who don’t have a car. Driving a car means that you have to make the effort to see others, but they will not make the effort to see you.

The Necessity of Cars

Having a car is about remoteness from work, from play and from more. It’s about always having to get into the car, to do anything:

  • seeing friends
  • shopping for food
  • commuting to work
  • going for a walk
  • going for a bike ride
  • going to snowboard
  • going to a restaurant
  • going to the cinema.

Tonight I have to drive for at least an hour, if I’m not unlucky with traffic, to have a dinner, and then drive home. I have to drive at rush hour by Morges, one of the most awful places for traffic at rush hour. A few years ago I would arrive an early for rock climbing, slightly after Morges, because of how awful traffic was. I got told off by the cashier at the climbing place, for being to early for the special deal the group had. As if that wasn’t enough I eventually struggled to find parkings and got a fine. After that I stopped making the effort.

What sealed the deal was “let’s meet to climb in Gland” and a person answered “no way”. It was fine for me to face traffic but people weren’t ready to do the same for me. All of my friendships died when I decided that I was tired of driving.

When you drive, and when you have space for others it iss assumed that you are ready and willing to drive others,and sometimes you are volunteered, without being asked. This is especially annoying. Picking people up often adds half an hour to an hour to travel time. You become their chauffeur. In one case someone just went to sleep, as if I was a bus driver. It’s great to be so trusted. It’s unpleasant to be so used.

Building More Homes Without Adding More Buses

Recently Vaud has busy building new houses and apartments anywhere with a garden. They have destroyed old single family homes and replaced them with apartment buildings. The result is that there has been a surge of car traffic. This is bad for two reasons. The first reason is that villages that were once filled with green gardens have been turned into tarmac hells. The trees and the grass is gone, replaced by buildings with underground parkings.

The Daily Traffic Jam

Recently I have noticed that the A1 motorway that passes by Nyon is blocked in both directions consistently, as the number of cars and local population increases. They’re happy to “densify” people and villages, but they forgot that densification increases traffic. What were once quiet roads are now saturated with cars.

This morning, due to the motorway being blocked, local roads were blocked too. By increasing housing, without increasing public transport infrastructure there are more cars than ever, using a road network that is not suited to so many cars.

Buses and Bikes Make More Sense

That’s where frequent buses, and dedicated cycle routes would make a huge difference. If it was safe to cycle, rather than drive, then people commuting from villages to Nyon gare could take bikes. With an increased bus schedule people could leave their cars at home and ignore their cars until the weekend, and even then cars could remain parked.

Dormant Start/stop

For context, I have a car with stop/start technology. If I stop at a traffic light the engine stops. When I drive the car it never works, because I use the car twice a week. When other people used my car, this summer, I finally experienced that it starts and stops when it’s at a traffic light.

Before having two summers without a car, and before the pandemic, I didn’t think anything of people’s over-reliance on cars. During the honeymoon of lock downs, when the car was dormant, I got to see how fantastic the area where I live is, for hiking and walking, without getting into a car. I miss the freedom of living without the need to use the car.

Unwanted Journey

Tonight I need to use the car. I need to waste petrol with at least an hour of driving, if traffic is good, and two hours or more if traffic is bad. I don’t mind driving during the day, to do something. I do mind driving at night, to do something that brings me no pleasure.

Escape

If the cleaning Gremlin comes tomorrow afternoon for example, I would be happy to have somewhere to flee to. The point is that today I’m destroying the environment, for nothing.I wouldn’t mind driving for a walk, but I really mind driving for a dinner.

And Finally

At the moment they’re increasing carrying capacity for the motorway entries and exits, and they’re speaking of increasing the motorway to three lanes in each direction. I think this is absurd. I think that rather than encourage more car use they should diminish reliance on cars. More buses, more trains, more safe walking routes. All of these would help reduce traffic, rather than encourage it to grow.

This evening I face the absurdity of driving culture, yet again.

Thoughts On The Garmin Etrex Solar
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Thoughts On The Garmin Etrex Solar

Byrichard

I quite like Garmin devices. I like that my Garmin Instinct Solar can run forever in summer, and less time in winter. I like that the Garmin Etrex SE can last for days or even weeks with my type of use. I also love the idea of the Garmin Etrex Solar. They make the claim that you “Get unlimited battery life when used in sunny 75,000 lux conditions or up to 200 hours with no solar charging.”


This means that if you get the bike mount for summer bike rides you don’t have to worry about battery life. It also means that you can go for your daily walk, run or bike ride, without ever worrying about charging. Of course you need to keep it facing the sun, so that it charges.


The great thing about the Garmin Etrex family, especially the SE and the Etrex Solar is that they have battery charges that last for days or even weeks, when running off of batteries, and with the Etrex SE you can swap batteries and within seconds be on your way again.


One drawback of the Etrex GPS is that it’s fine for tracking the route, when you know where you’re going, but not if you need to navigate with it. The map is “cities only” which means you don’t see rivers, contour lines or anything else. For that you need the Explore app on your phone but phones can be unreliable due to battery life. A map and compass are a low tech alternative.


The last option is to find a GPS track of the route you want to walk and download it to the device. This can be fiddly, even for someone as geeky as me.


The Garmin Etrex Solar is 279 CHF whereas the Garmin Etrex SE is 179 CHF. If you get four rechargeable AA batteries then you can keep two in the device at all times, and two spare, ready to replace the first pair. The cost of rechargeable AA batteries is still less than the Etrex Solar price difference. I am not clear on whether you can replace the Etrex Solar batteries.

The Dystopia of Child Influencers
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The Dystopia of Child Influencers

Byrichard

Today I saw the headline “Content creator camps help kids become online influencers” and to me, this represents a nightmare, rather than a dream. It represents a nightmare rather than a dream because the notion of creating content to sell, to influence, and to market, rather than to amuse, inform, educate and entertain seems wrong.


YouTube and Instagram are awful. They’re awful because people are creating content to get views, likes and subscribers, rather than to produce individual videos of special interest. Social media should first and foremost be about connecting people, having conversations and establishing strong bonds, that, with time, become friendships in the physical world, rather than online. People should create content that is fun and entertaining.


On YouTube, Instagram and other platforms people create a video where they keep saying “Don’t forget to like and subscribe, more than once. In some videos they tell us to do this at the start of a video, and again half way through, before telling us to do it at the end. In many circles, and for people of my generation that practice is clearly spamming. I’m curious about views, and comments, but I don’t give a flying duck about likes and subscribes. That’s not why I create content. My aim is to share moments, nice sites, thoughts and experiences. It is not to be a binfluencer. I have no desire to be a binfluencer.


There was a time when I hoovered up YouTube content, watching up to three or four hours a day. Eventually I stopped. At the time content was content, and it was fun and interesting to watch. With Google Prime I found that everything that was being pushed on me was junk with millions of views. In one series of YouTube videos the idiot drew one eyed trouser snakes in everything he did. In another the person always did eccentric things, that eventually bored me. In a third case I saw that an English content creator created a clickbait headline. Before that I liked the content, and after that I blocked the channel from being recommended.


It’s the same with Instagram influencers. I went to Instagram to share nice photographs from my walks and adventuress. With the coming of Facebook, binfluencers, and more there was a cultural shift to the illusion of opulence, rather than ordinary life. As more and more junk was pushed towards me I quit. Is that really what we want to teach children and teenagers?


The Alternative


People shouldn’t be taught to be influencers. They should be taught to be creative artists. They should be taught about the art of film, documentary and television. They should be taught about story telling, about editing, continuity, shot types, sizes and more. They should be taught how to write good scripts and more. They should be taught to create content that is not just about views, likes and subscriptions. They should be taught to create individual pieces that are beautiful to watch, or interesting to watch. It shouldn’t be about selling. It should be about living in the moment. It should be about fun and pleasure.


I recently found a photography group on Facebook where skilled photographers share photographs because of their love of beautiful images. As I look at those images, and given that to have Facebook and Instagram would cost 15CHF per month, rather than 9CHF, I would be tempted to dump Instagram, since so much of that content is influencer garbage.


The Significance


In previous decades film and television were well-funded mediums that people invested their time and money in. There was the notion of being media professionals, of high production values and more. Now we have shifted towards a different age. It’s the age of the Cult of The Amateur, as Andrew Keen called it in the zeros but it’s also the age of community video on an international scale. To a large degree binfluencers are making community videos that have global reach. Instead of aiming for work in film and television people are going for the bottom of the barrel, social media.


It’s the Goal, Rather than the Medium


In the 21st century, whether you use iPhone Pro Max like Apple for its keynote, or a broadcast camera, doesn’t make much difference on a laptop or mobile phone screen. It’s only on 4k, UHD or Apple Vision Pro that it will make a difference. Rather than creating content for the pleasure of working with the medium people are creating content to sell. They’re being trained to spam and market, rather than enjoy the medium for what it is.


The Danger


If you search for influencer on Google News you will find stories about people endangering themselves with horses, dying after liposuction, gyms banning selfies, and more. I just searched for “influencer”, nothing more.


Financial Risk


To be a social media influencer you need to get a mobile phone, probably the highest spec possible. You also need to buy your own camera gear, sound equipment, edit suites, and more. You also need to pay for transport, accommodation and more. Social media influencers take on all of the financial risk, without any of the guarantees on the other side. You might spend thousands on creating a dream experience, but if it’s not picked up by normal users, then that money was wasted.


In conventional broadcasting models people come up with an idea, sell the idea, and it’s someone else that puts the money forward and accepts the financial risk. It might take more time to pitch ideas and get funding but in the end you’re paid as a content creator, for creating content, rather than after the fact, for behaving like a spammer. “Please hit the like button, click the bell and punch the subscribe button” when said in every video, is spam. Writing clickbait headlines is spam. Catering to the algorithms, rather than creating content for the sake of content is spam.


Clickbait Headlines


Almost every video on YouTube that is recommended on the front page is written as clickbait. It uses sensationalism, as well as titles that give a glimmer of what the content is about, without telling you. The headlines are sensationalist, rather than factually relevant. “I crossed the Deadliest Jungle”, “girls smile in front of their graves…”, “10 things you must never do with your watch” and more. All of these headlines are designed to make you click, without giving you the reason behind the click. Clickbait.


A Quick TikTok Mention


Plenty of influencers use TikTok but for me this isn’t a video sharing site. It’s thousands of people doing the same dance to the same song at the same time, to be like everyone else, without anyone having a conversation or dialogue. I saw something about book TikTok and more, but to find these conversations takes time and effort.


Facebook Reels


Instagram and Facebook have reels and I almost never watch them because they’re usually short, tabloid videos. Their only reason to be is to inflate views, likes and spam habits. It is more sensationalist rubbish.


And Finally


Content creation is fun. Creating videos is fun, as is photography. By encouraging people to see themselves as influencers rather than content creators we’re training them to think in a utilitarian and immoral manner. We’re training them to be spammers and scammers, rather than honest content creators. When I was a child we didn’t have edit suites and other technology easily at hand, so we had to improvise. I learned camera work through filming theatre productions and then making copies for those that wanted them. I didn’t have the goal of sharing to YouTube because the internet was still very young. I didn’t try to be an influencer. I enjoyed the media I played with, and eventually it became my career, just at the end of the age of television.


I think that focusing on Social media is a mistake. I think that rather than think of social media, we should create content that is shared via topic driven websites. As a case study I would look at [OnebladeShave.com](https://www.onebladeshave.com/) and their use of video. The videos are hosted and shared via YoUTube but they’re also integrated within their website. Rather than making content for social media, they’re making content that illustrates their product in a number of videos that cover different aspects. I find this approach more interesting because there is no sensationalism, no “like and subscribe” and other junk. You watch a video to get information, and then you move on. That’s how it should be. Liking and subscribing should be a self-driven decision, not a result of nagging.

Rural Solar Panels
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Rural Solar Panels

Byrichard

Sunak and Solar

Detached from reality’: anger as Rishi Sunak plans to restrict solar panels.

Rishi Sunak plans to restrict the installation of solar panels on swathes of English farmland, which climate campaigners say will raise bills and put the UK’s energy security at risk.

Solar Powered Shade

Solar panels, if placed high enough can generate energy whilst at the same time providing shade for grazing sheep and cows beneath them. If you look at the surface of barns and other farm buildings it makes sense to replace the old roof, especially if it’s not beautiful patterned tiles, with solar panels. There is a barn near Ikea, in Aubonne that is covered entirely in solar panels. This is probably generating quite a bit of power for the local village.

Solar Panels as Walls

At the airport in Geneva at least one building is covered entirely in solar panels. At the time I was in that building the panels were not connected. The point is that there was potential to generate power for the entire length of daylight hours.

Solar Panels on Village Roofs

When you walk or drive around you sometimes see roofs that are entirely covered in solar panels, and others where the bare legal requirement are placed. Solar panels should be maximised on non historical roofs, because they generate enough power for cookers, dish washers, laptops and more, without going to the grid for energy.

Sheep and Solar Grazing

In the article How Sheep Keep Solar Farms Out of the Shade we see an illustration of how fields that are used by sheep can be used to generate solar power and this has twin benefits. The first one is that, year round, farmers can generate solar power and feed it to the grid. This means that the fields have an income year round. Sheep sometimes cost more to keep, than they sell for. By combining sheep with solar power generation you’re subsidising the sheep, with clean energy.

Instead of subsidising farmers for nothing, you can help them, by buying the energy they produce.

Biofuels and Solar

There was talk about planting crops that could then be turned into biofuel. Thanks to solar panels that are placed high enough, off the ground, to provide shade, you can cut out the middle person, and get energy straight from the producer, i.e. the sun.

If you don’t need to plant fields of biofuel plants, fertilise them, and harvest them then you’re saving on various forms of pollution, helping to protect the environment.

Even BP are promoting solar sheep farming.

And Finally

Sunak is from another age. He is from an age where fossil fuels were seen as a source of profit. He is a fossil. He is failing to look at the big picture. By generating green energy we reduce global warming, and by reducing global warming we reduce weather weirding, and by reducing weather weirding we reduce the cost, for insurance companies, when natural disasters cause billions of pounds in damage each year. I don’t think in GBP but as I’m writing about English policy it makes sense to think in these terms.

Millions of people, in England, are heading into poverty because of how expensive fossil fuels are, in England. In such circumstances it makes sense to promote green energies.

Podcasts and Social Media
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Podcasts and Social Media

Byrichard

When you listen to podcasts, and you read articles, and you visit websites you always see Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Instagram, to name the giants. In every podcast episode you hear the guests say “You can find me under this name on this network, and the same name on that network.”


The Shift to CrowdFunded Media


With the recent shift from Venture Capitalist Social Media to crowdfunded social media I expect to hear about a shift in where people can be found. I expect that we will soon hear “And you can find me on Calckey at this address, on Pixelfeed.eu with this username, and peertube.social. 


I expect that there will be a shift in where people can be found on various websites and I expect that Twitter, Instagram, and other websites will fade away. 


Dormant


I haven’t deleted Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other accounts, but my eyeballs are no longer there. If something is shared on Twitter, Facebook Instagram or other sites there is a chance that I will never see it. I don’t want to use Venture Capital funded Media anymore. 


VC Funded Media is Declining


Venture Capital Funded Media thinks that users are addicts, rather than valuable users, and this attitude is why they get away with appalling behaviour. Huffman is the most recent one to treat his subredditors and redditors with scorn, rather than respect. Without the user community social media giants are just websites, nothing more. 


A Thought


Decades ago we heard “and you can find this information on Teletext or “and you can find this information on your minitel at 3615…”. Those days are gone, and those mentions are part of a different age. I think that we are going to see the shift away from Twitter, Instagram and other handles, to Fediverse linked accounts. I think we’re about to enter a new era. I look forward to it. 

Thoughts On The Vapour Glove Six
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Thoughts On The Vapour Glove Six

Byrichard

I walk around in socks when I’m at home, so not quite barefoot, but almost. The idea of barefoot shoes is to get the human body, and especially the lower half to get back in touch with walking barefoot.
Yesterday I went for an 8.55km walk in barefoot shoes. I didn’t regret it. I took some spare shoes with me in case I found myself in such agony that I felt the need to switch. The truth is that I didn’t. When I walked the same route with crocs, and again with wellington boots I felt pain quite fast, and I just wanted to get home. With the barefoot shoes I didn’t. The Shoes I have: Merrel Vapor Glove 6.


A Reminder of Diving Shoes


If you go scuba diving you will be familiar with the “barefoot” sensation because diving shoes and boots have thin soles designed to protect your feet from pebbles, rocks and more. Barefoot shoes are similar. They’re thin and flexible. You can roll them up into two little balls and have them with you when rollerblading or doing other sports. They can be worn with, or without socks.
The reason for which I did not try walking with diving shoes is that they are made from neoprene and I felt worried that I would get blisters or friction burns. That’s why I chose these shoes, rather than the cheaper alternatives.


Heel Impacts


The first thing that I noticed is that walking barefoot feels normal, at least in the appartment, because I do, all the time. The moment walking with barefoot shoes feels different is when you are walking with big strikes and you feel the heel hit the ground with each step. At this point you will feel that if you don’t change your ground strikes you will get heel damage fast. It requires you to think about walking. Ever hear that clomp, clomp, sound when children or adults walk without thinking of cushioning their footsteps when not wearing shoes? That’s the problem when walking outdoors. We need to re-learn to walk barefoot, without clomping with our heels.


No Residual Pain The Next Day


I considered writing this post last night but didn’t. I wanted to see whether I had any knee, heel or other pains. I don’t. I feel fine so I’m tempted to go for another barefoot walk but I am not sure that’s wise, as it makes sense to give my body time to adapt. They say to do half an hour. I did one and a half hours as a first try. That’s a full immersion. I am not regretting it now.


Without Socks


I always wear socks, except for when I am in a wet suit. I even wear socks in my dry suit. Wearing socks in a dry suit is normal, as you wear a dry suit for cold water diving. I feel that the base of my foot got a friction burn but I think that’s related to the previous day’s running, rather than the shoes.
With the rain we have had recently plants have thrived and grass has grown. As a result of the plant growth I had to walk through taller grass at moments. I don’t feel comfortable with this. I’m worried of creepy crawlies or snakes biting me. This is due to feeling exposed without socks, and wearing much thinner shoes than usual.


Pebbles, Dirt Paths and Tarmac


I walked on tarmac for the most part. The shoes feel comfortable, aside from the heel strike that I need to concentrate on avoiding. This behaviour modification will be easy to implement, especially now that I have read that it requires active avoidance, at least initially. I tried walking along a dirt path and I felt comfortable. I didn’t feel the pebbles and stones too much. They’re comfortable on dirt paths. The final surface test was to walk on pebbles. Near one church they have a nice testing bed of stones so I walked there and felt fine. No pain from small stones and pebbles. I only retracted my foot in anticipation of pain once with these shoes. They are fine for the terrain I walk on ever day.


Spare Shoes


If I’m cycling or rollerblading these shoes would be great because they allow me to go for a bike ride, and when I get to destination, and if I then go for a walk with people, then I can swap from cycling shoes to normal shoes. The same is true of rollerblading. Rollerblading is great to get around faster than on foot, but sometimes you encounter a steep hill that you need to get down, or you want to go into a shop, but can’t, due to the roller blades. With these spare shoes in your pockets you can swap one for the other.


Fitness and Adaptibility


Fitness is meant to play a role in how fast you adapt to barefoot walking. I hope that I’m fit enough, and used to walking barefoot around home enough to find adapting to barefoot shoes simple and pleasant. I don’t plan to see or feel any health benefits. I am experimenting with this out of intellectual curiousity. In the last 12 months I have walked four million six hundred steps. With such a solid base I think I will be okay.


And Finally


Originally I was tempted to get new running shoes that cost twice as much but eventually not only did I forget about the running shoes, but I also considered that I want to try such expensive shoes in person, before spending such money. Buying shoes is hard because they feel fine in the shop, but after seven kilometres of walking at full speed you start to regret plenty of shoe purchases. That’s why I have two or three pairs of shoes in active use now, on contrast to the old single pair of shoes.
I have hiking boots, for proper hiking, hiking shoes, for my daily walks in rainy conditions, and when I want more protection, running shoes that I also use for hiking and that I plan to use daily now, a second pair of running shoes, that I haven’t used frequently because they’re good for dry weather, i.e. summer. The fourth pair are years old and will be retired. I then have a pair of cycling, and a pair of climbing shoes, along with a pair of crocs. Now I have the barefoot shoes too.
At the moment my walking shoes last for six months, if I’m lucky but they usually wear out sooner. I usually replace them when I start to feel that the base is getting so thin that I feel stones almost breaking through the sole. I will log how far I walk before I feel the need to replace them.

Happiness and Social Media
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Happiness and Social Media

Byrichard

It is the turn of the Washington Post to discuss whether people are happier after leaving social media. As with every other article I have skimmed on the topic it discusses addiction and more without discussing the reason for which social media might be bad for one’s mental health. 


Remember that social networks, discussion groups, and collaborating with people in different rooms, countries, timezones is normal, and has been for decades. What makes social media different from other social networks is that social media is algorithm and profit driven, rather than community centric. 


As I skim through this article I see discussions about self-perception, bullying behaviour and more. What I see is not a commentary about social media, but rather a commentary on the cruelty of normal people on the social web. As I like to say, the problem with social media is that the bullies we used to spend time on the web to avoid, have made their way onto the web. The web is now as unpleasant as meat space, as some called it. 


The article discusses body image and instagram but there’s something that people forget, or never experienced. Instagram was a photo sharing app, between friends and friends of friends. We didn’t share images of ourselves, or if we did it was because we were at events together. Seesmeetups and tweetups were events where we would have photos of ourselves, with others. If we posted images to instagram they were of landscapes, travel and more, not individuals. Body image didn’t even come into it for us. 


I left Myspace because the community left, I left Jaiku because it shut down. I left Google+ because it shut down. I left Facebook because it became filled with adverts and reminded me of the life I wanted but didn’t have. I left Instagram for almost the same reason, but also because I was seeing adverts, without feeling human connections with humans, anymore. 


I left Twitter for political reasons. I don’t like what Musk stands for, but I also hate what he is doing to the platform. 


People love to speak about social media as if it was addictive, and as if it was bad for mental health. They are missing the point. The point is not whether social media is healthy or unhealthy, because at the end of the day it’s just people socialising. If they were in a bar or pub we’d think nothing of it. If they were on a balcony or in a garden we’d see them as just socialising. People have lost sight that social media is a group of friends socialising. 


They think that social media is about likes, views, about re-shares and more. It isn’t. It shouldn’t be. Social media is a network of friends of friends, and to leave the network is to leave behind that network of networks. 


Twitter, Facebook and Instagram destroyed that network of networks, and now they’re trying to fix what they broke, whilst blaming what they broke on personal weaknesses, like addiction. Being social, as I have said for decades, online, is not addiction. It’s normal socialising via a different medium. 

On Friends, The Series, Being Offensive
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On Friends, The Series, Being Offensive

Byrichard

Friends is a television series that aired in the 90s and that still makes millions today, as the show is re-aired. Jennifer Anniston, Rachel Green in the series, says that people today find the series offensive today. I find it ironic, that in a day and age where books are edited to be more politically correct, parties that are immoral, are voted into power.


Brexit, the Tories, the UDC and The US Republican Party are two examples. They represent old fashioned views and yet people not only vote for them but they lead politics. In the age where people are worried about what people said and thought decades ago, people are showing more bigotry in who, and what they vote for today.


If we edit books to be more politically correct, and if we criticise television series and films for representing old fashioned views, then we should edit the bible and Quoran, to make them more representitive of modern values.


Television series, films and books represent the world as it was, and if we have moved on from the values seen in TV series, films and books, then that is the entire reason we study them in the first place, whether through english litterature classes, film studies or media studies. The fact that our values change is part of the academic discussion to be enjoyed.


The danger comes not from laughing about something, but about growing angry, and showing intolerance. Remember that joking about something, offending someone by accident, and apologising is one thing.


Brexit and some political parties are about radicalising hatred against people based on race, religion or national identity. Whether Roald Dahl or Friends shows old fashioned attitudes to one thing is an interesting quirk to be discussed by parents, children, and students.


The movement to divide, radicalise and spread hatred is quite another. Until Drumpf and Brexit I felt that England and the US were making forward progress. With BRexit and Drumpf the US and England took a big step backwards, morally.


Complaining about books, televisions and films is nice, but it’s a desire to change the past. What worries me is that the Far Right is thriving in the US, England, Switzerland and other countries. I want people to vote against the Far Right, in government, rather than worry about how people thought three decades ago. What I see happening now worries me. England voted against Europe and the European identity. They behaved in a xenophobic manner and no one noticed.


Rather than complain about television, books, and films people should vote to keep the Far Right out of power. If the Far Right is in power then the very things that people decry in films, books and television, are shaping government policy in the wrong direction. Vote intolerance out of government.