Google Chrome was misbehaving recently so I started to explore other browsers. By explore I mean try browsers that I had used plenty of times in the past. As I did this I came across Firefox Developer Edition.
Firefox Developer Edition is fun because it allows you to see everything that’s going on. If you’re studying HTTP headers then you can watch that traffic. If you’re trying to evaluate which parts of a page are loading slowly you can see that. If you want to look at media items loading that is possible too.
The advantage of this browser is that it allows you to play around and experiment as you work on your websites and get answers efficiently and effectively. It’s a one stop solution to getting plenty of answers without using a collection of websites and tools. It is now my default browser.
You can read a more comprehensive description of the browser’s features on their webpage.
The next step would be to follow a new web development course online, and as I experiment and learn about using frameworks I will be able to determine how useful this tool is.
Here is my daily good morning message from the ISP:
Yesterday you exceeded the daily usage limit of 500MB as referred to in our Terms and Conditions. This type of activity could have a detrimental affect on our network unfortunately be forced to downgrade your service to a throughput limit of 56Kbs dial-up speed, for a period of 5 days. I download over a gig a day when I’m at home on average, that’s 30 gigs a months or more.
Detrimental effect on our network: What about every time you cut me off for no reason, what about the interruption of service when I get beyond the number of hours allocated p0er month. What about the fact I have over 20 gigs of data transfer but can’t use it?
Limit to 56K, It’s already limited to that speed.
If you exceed these limits on a regular basis, we may be forced to suspend your account.
So interruption of service for no reason isn’t an interruption of service?
For users of Peer-to-peer (P2P) applications such as BearShare, Warez, Morpheus, BitTorrent, iMesh and KaZaA note the following:
Why not stop whining about this and block those services rather than destroy the rest of the services
Most P2P applications you install will usually be configured so other users can access your hard drive and share your files all of the time. This constant file transfer can degrade your computer’s performance and generate heavy traffic loads on the network, making it difficult for other users of the network to work well. The network is a shared resource and we all must use it responsibly.
Network bandwidth consumption is monitored. If your usage could possibly impact the overall performance of the network, your computer may be blocked until the situation can be discussed.
One gig a day is nothing. Two nights ago I downloaded over two gigs of podcasts within an hour without any problems suffered by the University infrastructure therefore why can’t these people cope. If they’re going to block internet access from my machine then that’s a Denial of servic although not an attack. Just sub standard.
Should you have any queries regarding this email, please contact Customer Services
Context and analysis
Diggnation is 120 megabytes per program and Nouvo by the TSR is around 80-120 megs as well. The BBC’s daily news is around 20 megabytes. This week in tech, this week in media and others are around 20 megabytes each.
Diggnation =1/5 of my daily allowance, nouvo = 1/5 as well. Twim etc are a little less but quickly saturate the amount allocated per day.
What’s more interesting is that they currently have at least 7 fibres for 100 people. If the Cern were using those fibers it would be the equivalent of at least 3.6 gigabits per second, as was tested at the 2003 Telecom world event.
7 fibers = 7 gigabits per second, at least theoretically. For 640 users that would be 10 megabits per second. compare that to the 50KB/s and you see why I’m dissatisfied with the service.
Parents in the silly con valley are idiots. They are in a trillion dollar industry and make billions a year because people want to use the technology they are developing. Think about how different my childhood would have been if we had learned camera work and video editing in art classes rather than painting, pottery and other less interesting art forms.
Imagine if as a child I had not watched Cousteau Documentaries. Two of my strongest passions would never have emerged… scuba diving and documentary making.
The luddites who amass personal wealth worth billions should understand that new technologies promote creativity and innovation rather than the opposite. Look at games and how they have evolved. Look at the emergence of multiplayer gaming right up to the leading edge games like Ingress among others. Without creativity and free time with new technologies revenue would be less forthcoming.
My passions for video and editing were held up for many years because I had no access to an edit suite. Imagine how the children of Sillicon Valley execs are having their creativity stunted because of the very people who have most to gain from their children being early rather than late adopters.
“Those who endorse this approach say computers inhibit creative thinking, movement, human interaction and attention spans.”
These people demonstrate just how limited their understanding of modern technology is. News organisations are teaching their staff how to shoot and edit news stories using mobile phones, others are using tablets to write books and more. The idea that information technology prevents people from moving around in today’s world is redundant. How many of you still have a desktop at home that you use regularly. I personally use my mobile phone and a laptop most of the time. The laptop is with me everywhere I go.
As a child and as a professional the thing that limited my movement is classroom and office time. In the classroom you learn at the speed the teacher chooses. There is no fast forwarding, skimming or rewinding. Everyone learns the same information at the same speed… in theory. In practice we learn at different speeds and information technology allows us to build knowledge actively. As children we had books and we learned by reading different chapters at different moments. Imagine studying the Roman civilisation as a child and wanting to see pictures and video from the time. Multimedia devices and computers would bring more to life quicker.
I strongly believe that children should be given the freedom to use the technology or medium they want to use. It is not up to adults to decide which tools are relevant to their children. As an early adopter contemporary values and norms have held me back and stop others from keeping up.
The Mavic 2 Pro just came out and people are euphoric about the drone because of its one inch sensor, it’s ability to zoom and it’s omnidirectional systems keeping an eye on the environment below, behind, above and ahead of it. It also has a flying time of 31 minutes.
I’m happy with the DJI Spark. Last Autumn as the nights shortened and work got in the way of flying the drone I felt disappointed that I would have to suspend the passion whilst waiting for the next summer to arrive. This summer came and it is now approaching an end and I haven’t flown as much as I would have expected to. It’s partially due to having to get the charger out, charge all the batteries and fly somewhere new that slowed me down. NFZs limit the number of places where you can fly.
The issue with DJI drones is that whilst they are excellent camera drones they are not as versatile as FPV drones. If you don’t have a video project in mind they’re limited in scope.
This being said I did get nice footage of the Swiss flags with vineyards in the background. You can tell how windy the conditions were by how taut the flag is.
I also got footage of golden crops yesterday. I had the sun behind me and I stayed on the grass between the field and a road. You get a nice view of the crops in the foreground and the Mont Blanc and the Alps in the background.
I stopped playing Ingress a few years ago because of how much time it requires. I have started going on Ingress walks again – a 12km path to level 13 in yesterday’s case, because I’m combining the daily walk that I would do anyway, with listening to podcasts and audiobooks, anyway.
By walking and listening to audiobooks and podcasts I am constantly learning about new things. Recently I’ve been listening to current affairs podcasts, I listened to 13 minutes to the moon, I listened to podcasts about the Swiss Watch Industry and more. Every walk is a journey in learning. I also learn about the fifty objects that made the world and more.
I also listen to books when I walk. These aren’t the most inspiring of books but four of them were free, as part of the books I get by being an audible member via Audible originals. Every walk I go on is an opportunity to learn, without feeling that I am not as productive as I could be.
According to my blog stats, I should have lead with writing about the game Ingress, which I took a break from for years, because of how much time it takes to level up, especially when you live in the countryside.
Luckily as time has progressed so has the ability to suggest and have new portals approved. A 12-kilometre walk had three or four portals. Now it has twenty or thirty. This means that during a walk in the countryside it is worth playing Ingress. Going to a polluted city is no longer required. Even country bumpkins like me can play and progress.
By having portals in the countryside it also opens up the prospect of Ingress bike rides. Last week I cycled from Nyon to Rolle, and from Rolle I went up into the vineyards and I destroyed and captured portals. My health benefited because it was a 40km bike ride with four hundred meters of climbing in between vineyards and some of these climbs are steep.
That’s where you see that cycling in Spain has its advantages. I cycled up steep inclines without suffering or worrying I wouldn’t make it. I also cycled up those steep inclines clipped in. I don’t feel comfortable with cycling up steep hills when clipped in because I’m afraid that if I lose power in my legs I will lose forward momentum, not be able to unclip and fall.
Having said this the swiss hills are nothing compared to the Cumbre Del Sol climb. As you cycle up from Mercadona there is one bit of road that is so steep that you can’t start up again. I know because I made the mistake of stopping there and had to walk a hundred meters or so before I found a portion flat enough to start up again.
In Switzerland, you almost never find such gradients on roads, for the simple reason that it snows and water freezes. Snowploughs and other machines need to go up and down Swiss roads.
To get to level 13 I participated in an Ingress Saturday for the first time in years and I participated in two fielding events, to get one of the medals I was lacking the first time, and for the Didact Field Challenge medal currently taking place.
This month I visited 735 unique portals, discovered one portal, collected 4.7 million XM, walked 117 kilometres (low because most of my walking is without playing ingress) and more. I could bore you with the stats but I’d bore myself too. I also spent three weeks in Geneva as part of a favour for a friend so during my daily walks I got back in the habit of playing Ingress.
I don’t make time to play Ingress. I take advantage that my walks and bike rides take me by Ingress portals and play. By combining Ingress with cycling I go down many more roads than I would otherwise go down. I explore villages that I have no reason to stop in. I treat cycling as a journey, rather than a challenge to get segment personal records. I slow down., to experience the locations. It results in me having a more relaxed bike ride.
Ingress walks are also interesting because local people, who know about features that could be portals suggest them, and as a result, we see a portal off to the side of where we’re going, and we investigate. We capture the portal but we also increase our mental map of the area where we are walking.
Ingress, for a while, was a game for people who lived in town and cities. If you lived in the countryside you had to make time to play. Today Ingress can be played in short bursts and yield better results. It has been from a “chronophage” (waste of time/time consuming)activity, as french speakers would call it, to being, for lack of a better word, integral to our daily activities.
The Return on Investment of time, and distance traveled, to play Ingress, even in the countryside has decreased to the point where it is feasible to level up, without devoting half a day. One hour yields the same result.
However, many purported Social Media experts are merely engaging in cultural voyeurism at best. They look from afar and roam the perimeters of online societies without ever becoming a true member of any society. This means, they don’t truly understand what, where, or why they’re “participating,†only jumping in because they have something to say and have access to the tools that will carry it into play. This is unfortunately a representation of the greater landscape of Social Media Marketing and it’s time to take a step back and study the sociology of Social Media in order to keep communities intact and unaffected by outsiders.
Social Media is much more than user-generated content. It’s driven by people in the communities where they communicate and congregate. They create, share, and discover new content without our help right now. They’re creating online cultures across online networks and using the Social Tools that we learn about each and every day to stay connected. And the societies that host and facilitate these conversations cultivate a tight, unswerving and mostly unforgiving community and culture. As Shel Israel describes it, people are populating Global Neighborhoods.
Whilst a friend was filming with a high speed camera i was streaming the event live from my phone via Qik. I noticed they improved a couple of important things. The first is that video files are now saved and readable without conversion. The second fact is that you now have an RSS feed, makes aggregation easier. I’ve added two or three of those feeds to itunes so the content can be accessed more easily.
And there are a few more on Qik which I’ll let you get to yourself.
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