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On The Desire To Change Career

Byrichard
Reading Time: 3 minutes

If I had been smart I would have changed career path around 2006-2007 when I was in London surrounded by entrepreneurs and web developers, rather than now during a pandemic. Normally I struggle to find new contracts because of two things. The first is that for camera and editing work there are very few opportunities per year, and the opportunities that do arise have hundreds, if not thousands of candidates so the probability of success is low. The other issue is that because there are few jobs, if you fail you may have to wait months for an opportunity to appear.

That’s why I have spent the entirety of the pandemic reskilling. Every single day I study web development. I have gone from IT support courses, to CSS to HTML, to Javascript to frameworks and back to JavaScript. The journey is long and hard. When I was finally free to study Angular in depth I found that my knowledge of Javascript was not deep enough, so I went back and studied on JS pathway, and now I am studying a second one on Linkedin Learning. My goal is to be proficient. This isn’t a one day goal. This is a journey.

You can follow my journey on github to see what I am learning. One of my side projects, to practice what I have learned is this one. At the moment it is a simple app that retrieves a random image from my instagram gallery and displays it with its title. This self-project is worthwhile because it is easy to follow a course and code along with the teacher. The problem with this is that when there is no teacher, and no model you need to innovate and find your own solutions.

Last year when I tried something similar I found a way to convert from Json to CSV to bring it into WordPress. Now I am working with Fetch, random number generators to find a post, let to be within the scope of one block, converting epoch time to human readable date and time, and more. If I followed instructions I would find it easy to do, but I couldn’t find any, so I am experimenting with ideas from courses. The next step is to find how to use classes and ids’ to embellish it with CSS.

I started with the random post generator. The next steps will be to use constructors, for each loops, display ten posts at a time, but also to enable finding them by year and month. I can also add more metadata fields than I can with Instagram. I could add country, type of landscape and more. I can practice building a CMS from the ground up. In letters of motivation I wrote about learning about Media Asset management tools from the ground up, and now out of curiousity, that is what I am doing.

It has taken a while to understand how Javascript works, but now that I have I can spend more time experimenting and learning each day. My increasing proficiency will be shown through the projects I build in courses, but also the self-led project.

Sometimes I add comments to commits, to explain what I found hard, and then I show the code that resolved the issue. If you’re curious as to why I would use a self-hosted json file and media files the answer is simple. I don’t need to go through the process of asking for permission to acccess an api to access my own data. For an example of working with ajax and json you can refer to this project.

And Finally

When you work in the media and broadcasting you constantly need to look for opportunities, to face rejection, and continue looking. With the skills I am learning now people are already interested, and that is the reason to change from skills that are less interesting, to those that are.

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De-Confinement, In Name Only.

Byrichard

Until recently every time Switzerland moved from one phase to another the number of new cases per day increased slightly but with the latest phase the number of cases has increased by four or five times the number of new cases.


From March until mid June we could go to the shops with the recommendation that we should wear a mask but not the obligation. I wore a mask anyway. From Wednesday onwards masks will become obligatory for people visiting the shops, and on public transport. In theory the change is not that big. Wearing a mask to the shops and on publlic transport is not a dramatic change.


Until you consider outdoor sports, in the mountains, where car sharing is an integral part of event organisation. If a shop, with tens of thousands of litres of air is deemed to put people at risk of being infected by the virus then sharing a car with people not in your household becomes impossible.


The summer social season is now impossible. The Swiss government missed three or four opportunities to wait an extra two weeks for the disease to be eradicated from wild transmission before moving on to the next stage. Now, not only is the virus making a comeback, but the measures are stricter than at the peak of new infections in Vaud and Geneva.


Although the virus was almost eradicated from wild transmission in Switzerland the latest phase as ensured that the virus will be around until the end of summer.


For single people, like me, who do almost all of their socialising during the summer months, through summer sports this mistake in policy means that some of us will have another solitary summer, waiting until next summer to socialise.


I’m tired of getting hopeful that we will be able to do outdoor group activities, only to see the progress being nullified and voided, again, and again by the government saying “let’s open up more.”


The truth is that if I’m not driving to the mountains to socialise through climbing, via ferrata, hiking or other outdoor sports then I am not spending much money. I’m not buying petrol. I’m not buying drinks at café at the end of the activity, I’m not buying new gear.


When I walk locally I’m not using the car, I’m not going to cafés, I’m not buying new sporting equipment. I’m not buying snacks and I’m not buying funiculaire tickets.


The notion that we need to risk a resurgence of new COVID-19 cases to restart the economy is a deeply flawed one and we have seen, with every phase, that it makes things worse, at least temporarily. With the latest phase change months of sacrifice have been undone.


We’ve gone from 0-20 new cases a day to 160+ a day.


The graph is steepening again


We have gone from a moving average of 13 new cases per day to a moving average of 77 new cases a day.


For a brief window the virus no longer seemed to be out in the wild but “Le COVID-19 regagne du terrain” and now we’re back to anti-social pandemic mode. Socialising this summer is no longer worth considering.


In conclusion although we’re not in “confinement” we are confined. Until the 21st of June we could live with the hope that the pandemic would almost be over, and that we could socialise with people who like the same sports as us. Due to the government’s policy decisions those plans are destroyed, and we might as well continue studying new skills at home, and going for solitary walks, because nothing else is possible for as long as “economic recovery” gives the virus new opportunities to become virulent again.

I hope he doesn’t succeed

Byrichard

There is an individual from Wembley who wants to sue google for search results apparently defaming him. The content was posted by anonymous sources and due to this fact, it is time-consuming to find who was the source of these allegations.

There is a problem with the complaint. The worldwide web generates several hundreds of thousands of words a day in a multitude of languages and anyone can read the articles. It is malleable and ever-changing. If your reputation is put into question on the world wide web there is only one thing you can do. Write a response on your own website to demonstrate that these allegations are false.

If you’re going to attempt to sue a search engine for making search results visible then that is going against what the world wide web, i.e. the free flow of information. When an anonymous source prints something that is incorrect then it is up to the reader of the source to evaluate whether he will take this source seriously or not. It is up to the user to take this content and look in a number of trusted resources to form a proper opinion.

Can you imagine the millions of hours it would take to investigate and verify all the content on the web? It’d make the world wide web far slower and less responsive to news and information.

One of the great things about the world wide web is that it encourages people to do research from the comfort of their own home. If you want to buy a new laptop you can find information easily from a number of sources, the same as with travel destinations and more.

When someone writes something then the creator of the content, rather than the search engine, should be held accountable for the content they make available, not the search engine. If you want to control what search engines link to then you are slowing down the world wide web and you are hindering its progression.

What makes the world wide web so powerful is it’s size. It is dealt with on a daily basis by millions of people, some being experts and others being more impulsive. What this means is that content on the world wide web should not work you up so far as to attempt to sue a company.

He’s got increased visibility, by writing something negative more people find out about the company. As they find out about the company they may be more interested in what the company has to say. If it does not address the issue then it is missing a PR opportunity.

It seems rather stupid to sue Google for something like this.

Day 32 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Single Tab Open
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Day 32 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Single Tab Open

Byrichard

I have a single tab open in Chrome at the moment, my main browser. This window, to write this blog post. We are now in Day 32 of self-isolation and I’m keeping myself distracted through blogging, making webpages mobile friendly and more. I’m also limiting the time I spend on news websites, social media and more. I have a five minute time limit on social media apps on my phones.


I wanted to write a Facebook post while on the escalators to go shopping but couldn’t because i was already up to the limit for today. Pandemics are funny because they end up being really boring. You can walk, you can run, you can river walk and you can cycle, but if you have technical issues you need to find a way home. You also need to creatively find routes that people are less likely to follow. People are discovering my snickets so I need to be more and more creative.


It would be so nice to get into the car and go somewhere but for now that idea is absurd. We have to wait for the right time. A few more weeks of nice weather and then, when the rain comes, we can start spending time outdoors again. I write this as a joke. It would suck if we did see that happen.


Coiffeurs, physiothérapeutes, jardineries et médecins seront autorisés à rouvrir leurs portes dès le 27 avril, a décidé jeudi le gouvernement.

Déconfinement coordonné et en trois étapes


From the 27th of April onwards people will be able to get their hair cut again, and to make it easier, people will be able to leave their children at kindergartens. On the 27th of April normal shops will be allowed to reopen and on the 11th of May children will go back to school. That’s if every step goes smoothly of course. In another article they mentioned that exams in Switzerland will be in August.


Poor teenagers, spending their summer holidays studying for exams. Does this mean they will head to university a month later?


When speaking with a neighbour/teacher two days ago he told me that some children and their parents went to secondary homes in France and other questions so the question is how will they get from their secondary homes back to Switzerland in order to start lessons on the required day? Is returning to Switzerland seen as a legitimate reason to drive over big distances?


Un été blanc et sec attend les festivaliers


Annulations Historique! Paléo, Montreux Jazz, Caribana, la Cité… Les grands rendez-vous prévus d’ici fin juillet devraient tirer la prise de leur édition 2020.

No festivals this summer


This summer may be one of the quietest in decades or even centuries. There is a chance that all of the music festivals will be cancelled for this summer. In one article I read that, if so many countries are still in lockdown then it isn’t worth going on a tour, as a band for just a few gigs.


The risk of forest fires is now severe enough for fires to be banned.


Although it feels like we’re nearing the end of the pandemic we can see that it’s still a month or more away, so our current lifestyle will have to be resilient enough to carry us through.


Time for a walk. See you later.

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Map Your Friends – Facebook Api

Byrichard

As I was looking through the applications I found an application that helps to map your friends according to the geolocation details they added to their profile. As your social network is more global so you will find that your friends are more spread around the world. As you’ll see for me there’s a lot of clustering around London where most of the people I know on Facebook are living.


There is a nice spread in other parts of the world. Some of them are in Australia, various parts of Asia, Africa, and the US. As you zoom in you can see a nice amount of detail as to where they live. With high-resolution satellite images you can see the street they live on. They can see the street where I live as well.


This is one of the Facebook applications which I feel is not there to fill your profile with junk but rather to provide an interesting insight as to the global spread of friends you’ve met over the years.


For further info

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Don’t rely on twitter in case of Emergency.

Byrichard

Snowboarding is a fun and safe sport as long as you know what you’re doing. Occasionally of course we push the limits. A few years ago whilst snowboarding with someone around La Dole we decided that rather than go back down via St Cerque we would snowboard home by passing over the ridge and down the other side. For decades both us had hiked those slopes so we knew them well.

I took one step and felt myself falling. I was face down in the snow and I called to the person I was with to know whether he could see me. He could, so I knew there was no problem. We both strapped our snowboards on and from that point we snowboarded down the slope.

In Verbier a 29 year old Entrepreneur lost his life after falling from a cliff into a rive below, from a few articles I’ve read. The conditions are unclear at the moment. What is clear though is that the people did not have a proper contingency plan or experience of the mountains. If the conditions are adverse the last thing you want to do is go off piste, especially when you’re not with a local guide who knows the mountains.

The reason I’m speaking about this particular story is that these people had some of the latest technology at their disposal. GPS enabled iphones and twitter, as is written in this article. If you’re lost in the mountains with this type of device you can get a geo loc within twenty meters of where you are. You can see a satellite view of where you are and you can see which way would be the best to get home. You can also stay put and let rescuers find you rather than attempt to make it back down. If your GPS location is within 20 meters it’s not that complicated to find two people.

The other reason I’m speaking about this is that some of those who were part of the group were tweeting the adventure. One tweet speaks about the great time they were having and how they “finished the ski day due to complete whiteout”. The next is about the 2 people missing. Screen grabs of the tweets are here.

This demonstrates the weakness of the iphone and the GPS functionality. With my phone whenever I go outdoors the GPS tracks my exact location within 20-60 meters. What this means is that if I go missing within a minute you’ll see exactly where I am if you’ve added me on Google latitude. On that note I’ve invited a few more people to follow me on google latitude. If you have an S60 Symbian phone maybe you could do the same, just as a backup.

It’s a shame it had to happen to anyone, especially since that type of accident is easy to avoid. It’s even more of a shame that Hermioneway, whom I met at LeWeb in Paris is one of those that had to go through the experience. Switzerland is a beautiful country for all those that enjoy outdoors sports and beautiful landscapes so it’s a shame that it’s overshadowed by that event.

A Flawed Approach To Ending A Pandemic

A Flawed Approach To Ending A Pandemic

Byrichard

Switzerland is currently following a flawed approach to ending a pandemic, because rather than taking a pro-active approach to preventing outbreaks in various communities across Switzerland they are doing the opposite. They are ignoring the problem until it flares up enough that they can no longer pretend to see it. Today the number of cases has reached 6000 a day for the whole of Switzerland.


A rational and moral government, within a healthy democracy, as we have seen in pandemics since the SARS crisis and others, have done everything to contain the threat, but also to prevent it from spreading. They have done everything they could to contain the threat, and to keep people safe.


During this pandemic it feels as though countries have failed to have the foresight to keep people safe, but also the political strength to resist populism. This pandemic feels as if it is as much about populism, news as entertainment, as it is about a pandemic that could be controlled, if only governments could stand up to pressure groups. In a healthy democracy, and I’m speaking about the issues across Europe, England and other countries, we see that politicians let the virus spread, without seeming to fear that they will lose power, and this seems absurd.


I would expect politicians, in healthy democracies, with healthy media landscapes, to do everything that they can to ensure that their citizens are safe, and that their economies return to normal. By normal I don’t mean with masks, distancing, and covid passes. I mean that the virus is eradicated, and that life is back to the pre-pandemic normal.


For now it feels as though we are stuck in this pandemic for seasons, or even years more.


An event sent an e-mail today, about needing volunteers for an event in January but I don’t see how it will be able to go ahead when we have gone from 1000 cases, to 2000, to 3000 and now to 6000 within a few weeks. Politicians in Switzerland refuse to commit to vaccinating people beneath a certain age, and refuse to acknowledge the trends that we see in other countries. They are benefiting from people’s habit of not reading international news like some of us do.


If I thought the Swiss government was trying to end I would still not be traveling, and I would still be using the pandemic as a reason not to travel, but as things stand, and with the current Swiss attitude, we stand no chance of the pandemic ending for a while, so we might as well take liberties that would be absurd under a different government.


Liberties like road trips.


We need a change of leadership in Switzerland, to include people who use science, and have the courage to stand up against interest groups, to ensure that Switzerland may exit the pandemic sooner, rather than later.


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