This month I’m trying something different. It’s Nanowrimo. It’s a strange word for the unitiated but it’s short for National novel writing month. It’s the time of the year when people around the world set themselves the goal of writing 50,000 words without proofreading. The idea is to produce as much writing as possible during this month. It’s next time that the challenge of editing takes place.
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Belaying is a core climbing skill. With good belaying a climber can climb as fast as he is comfortable to climb, as if without a rope and yet have his fall cushioned at be safe at all times. The belayer needs to be active. He needs to observe and be attentive. I first learned to rock climb with a rope about ten years ago on the Italian side of the Alps and at the time I enjoyed climbing more than I enjoyed belaying. I then spent several years climbing via ferrata instead. The advantage with via ferrata is that it’s a simplified form of climbing.
Over a year ago I started climbing indoors daily as I finally found a group with which to climb. My interests and skill in belaying improved. Yesterday I assisted a short belaying perfection course in anticipation of the Villars IFSC climbing event. During this session we were reminded of a few key points.
As part of the pre-climb check we check that the rope is threaded through both loops on the climbing harness. We then check that every knot on the figure of eight knot is double. Once this is done we run through the rope and put it in a theoretical basket to check that there are no knots.
Initial part of the climb
Before the first clip as a belayer we are there to assist and direct the climber should they fall. We guide them towards a good landing until they get to the first clip. Once they are clipped in we make sure that they have enough rope to progress without feeling a pull downwards. We keep one hand to feed the rope and the second is always below holding the brake end of the rope. If they fall we are ready to stop and block the fall for the first four clips. From the fourth to the sixth clip we have a choice of either absorbing the fall or absorbing the fall and letting them descend to the ground. Once above the sixth clip we are feeding rope and ready to slow the fall and then lower the climber to the ground.
When you’re belaying you keep your legs so that one is forward and the other is behind. You’re ready to step forward to quickly provide more rope and ready to step back to tension it. If they fall we are in a good position to react to slow down the fall and lower the person back to the ground.
When lowering the climber both hands are on the brake side of the rope. One can feed the rope a little faster and the second one is providing resistance as the rope slides through the system. Gloves that protect palms are recommended that are cut off so that fingers still have a tactile feel for the rope.
During the training we took it in turns to belay and then to climb. When we were climbing we learned to be confident enough to fall and trust the belayer to slow down and then lower us. As a result of this part of the climbing training I was able to push my climbing to a higher grade and be confident enough to fall a number of times. This was a pleasant part of the climbing training because it allowed me to open up more challenging climbs.
I come from the age of bloggers and self-installations. In fact, I come from the age of HTML pages and static websites. In those days we surfed the web looking for and finding content. We also found interesting bits of code and we added new features to our websites. We would install forums, guestbooks and more. In so doing our static websites became dynamic. At this point, our website could grow a community.
At this time we had our PhpBB forum, our own wiki, our own WordPress installation. When we said, “My website”, “my blog” or “my forum” it was ours. We were the webmasters. We were the ones that had found the code and figured out how to install it on our web host. Communities were small and geographically dispersed across countries, continents and time zones so most interactions were verbal.
Fast forward to today and most people do not have their own web server, their own wiki, their own web page or their own blogs. What they have are social media accounts hosted by others. They are not administrators, they do not have the technical knowledge. According to investors, marketers and other groups, these people are users of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google Plus and other websites but their power is restricted to what they post and whether they delete their account.
They are so disconnected from the mechanics of websites that they say “My Facebook”, “My Instagram”, “my twitter”. Web sites and by extension social media are not like books, mobile phones or bikes. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are not yours. Your influence is restricted to your personal account, no further.
I wanted to have my own microblogging platform, I wanted to have my own diaspora server and more. I never did because my technical skills and budget did not allow it. With both of these, you needed server permissions that I was not willing to pay for. At that time I would have had my own Twitter or my own Facebook. I would have installed them. I would have been the administrator. I would have had the challenge of finding a crowd or tribe to populate it with content.
Recently I was also thinking about the discussion about curation that people were having. There was a time when the idea was to get people to surf the web, find content and organise it in such a way as to make it easy for others to find content. Now that we’re in 2017 the idea of curation has evolved. Everyone shares content so the need for dedicated people has dwindled.
This weekend I went on a social media binge. A social media binge is the moment when you forfeit sleep and the rest of reality for a few hours as part of the social media.
For the purpose of this particular challenge I set myself two pass times. The first of these was to twitter and the second was to seesmic. If you read previous posts you’ll find out what twitter. As to seesmic that’s another story. It’s close to being instant messaging with videos.
Normal video chats are live. I talk and as I talk you can respond and interrupt me. In seesmic you talk, type a title and share the video. After that another person speaks, presses stop and posts. Over the period of a few hours many more posts appear and as they do so the conversation evolves exponentially. All of these videos is available to every over member so there is a great degree of overheard conversation. This overheard conversation is where the fun begins.
I’ve seen girls dancing, guys act like zombies, discussions about literature and social media. I’ve seen so many things that it feels like the social media equivalent of a music festival. Watch seesmix clips on youtube to get a better idea.
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That’s the cool part–writing without worrying about editing. Makes it very fun. 🙂
I look forward to seeing your story!