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Hat Parties and the Events Therein

Byrichard

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.

Snowcrash And a Silent Rave

Byrichard

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.

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All that is left from three years is one essay and one dissertation

Byrichard

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.

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As Long as There Are No Clouds

Byrichard

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

Henry Dunant and IDHR

Byrichard

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.

Cheeky phonecall

Byrichard

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.

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Idlewild

Byrichard

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 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0553815970?ie=UTF8&tag=perspectraveland&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0553815970” >idlewild<="" a>http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=perspectraveland&l=as2&o=2&a=0553815970” title=”Idlewild”>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.

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On living in a rural setting

Byrichard

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.

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Over 400 views of the Sandstorm video

Byrichard

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.

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On Smoke Filled Kitchens

Byrichard

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