Today I went to try the new macbook pro and macbooks and I found that I prefered the macbook to the other device. I like that the keyboard is there and there’s nothing to the side. it’s a better feeling machine for when you move around.
The biggest difference between these two machines and older models is the touchpad interface. Rather than have a seperate button and tactile area both are integrated. press down on the touchpad and you’ve got the same reaction as when you pressed the button. Use two fingers and you scroll. Use three fingers in apps like iphoto and you move from one picture to another. Use four fingers and there are three reactions. The first is when going up then down. It minimises the window, to the sides and it changes apps. Down and you go to see several windows. It’s not as intuitive as it sounds.
Whilst the trackpad is a nice idea I think it’s going to take people some getting used to. At first it was really great but within a few minutes I would accidentaly drag things across, select something I didn’t want to or other. In brief whilst it’s meant to be intuitive it wasn’t.
When we first joined Facebook it was filled with chronological timelines kept active by university friends. At that time algorithms did not affect what we saw or how frequently and there was a sense of community. In the last two or three weeks we have heard a lot about Cambridge Analytica and other companies because they have siphoned off user data and used it to manipulate people in a number of political events.
During this time articles have been written detailing privacy and the threat that social networks pose. I have seen very few, if any articles looking at people and how easily misled they have been. I see very few articles exploring the issues surrounding how such a large portion of the population is susceptible to being misled.
The events of the last week are a perfect demonstration of the Manufacturing of Consent that Noam Chomsky wrote about in his books and discussed at his lectures. He spoke about looking at the dominant headlines and looking at what was ignored. He spoke about taking an active look at what is being said and by whom. In theory, the very people that were misled by the manipulation are the people that would have been seduced by his rhetoric.
What I really want to see, is a shift away from websites like Facebook towards blogs and online communities where users interacting with each other are not manipulated by algorithms. I want to go back to an age where web forums, chronological timelines and more, are the norm. Facebook experimented with emotions in timelines a few years ago, now they have allowed companies to syphon off data and most importantly they are being accused of helping aggravate the situation in places like Myanmar.
The best way to hurt a company like Facebook is not to delete your account. It is for them to lose your eyeballs. It is for you to stop using the site, to start using others, and to reduce their income. If they want to treat us like a commodity then we can return the favour. We can use them fleetingly.
I had a morning walk this morning because I found that there are too many people to avoid during my afternoon walks. During my morning walk I took images of flowering plants, bees collecting pollen from flowers, roses budding and Apple orchards getting ready to blossom.
During the walk I also listened to two Echo Der Zeit episodes in a row. I like to listen during my walks because I’m taking the opportunity to get used to hearing German, and as I become more fluent, so I can understand a bigger proportion of the podcast.
In Switzerland the discussion about whether to close tourism sites continues although for me the answer is simple. During a pandemic you should entertain yourself as close to home as possible. Every one of my walks starts at home and reaches as far as I can walk in an hour. The trip back might bring it to two hours but I’m within a radius of five kilometres of my home and i am staying local.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpc8FXhbWIw
Video of traffic at lunchtime at the Nyon motorway bridge.
The motorway is almost empty. At the same time of day in normal conditions both lanes would be filled and you would struggle to see decent gaps between cars. Now the gaps are large and it would be a pleasure to drive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umk7gU2bVCk
In normal times this road would be full of traffic
Normally this road is filled with traffic on a Sunday as people head to and from Nyon and it’s surroundings. Today we see large gaps in traffic as so few people are getting into their cars for activities. Traffic, at least on weekends has declined.
In Grens you can see a sign from around this time still pinned to a notice board.
I followed the link because i was afraid that there was a new pandemic rule forbidding us from using vehicles on Sunday. Luckily it’s from a century ago.
Now that we’re entering week four of the pandemic it’s appropriate to mention this open letter. In the last three days I’ve seen two different neighbours have guests over three times. Tomorrow will be the fourth week from self-isolation where we have not been able to socialise in person and it does have a cost. We can’t shake hands, we can’t have a conversation from a normal speaking distance.
“Study after study demonstrates that even if there is only a little bit of connection between groups (i.e. social dinners, playdates/playgrounds, etc.), the epidemic trajectory isn’t much different than if there was no measure in place.”
Open Letter from Jonothan Smith, Epidemologist, yale University.
Apathetic and selfish people, who continue to socialise, and continue to see different people are making it so that those of us taking the pandemic will need to sacrifice for longer before the end of the pandemic. It does feel interminable. We chose to start self-isolating as individuals six weeks ago and now we’re in week four of forced self-isolation, and because people are not respecting the rules, it feels as if there is no end in sight for this pandemic.
In England those who like to spend time outdoors for walks, for runs and for bike rides are afraid that the selfishness of some will result in the removing of their last freedom. Enforced solitude and the ensuing loneliness is detrimental to people’s well being. Having the freedom to go for a walk, a bike ride or a run is beneficial because for half an hour to two hours we can spend time with our thoughts, but also distracted by the landscape in which we find ourselves.
The worst thing about losing the freedom to go for walks, runs or bike rides is that we lose the safety valve that enables us to cope with isolation. It also takes away our access to sunshine and daylight. If we’re stuck indoors without our daily walks we will see a deterioration in health. That in turn will lead to more preventable deaths.
On Google Plus, one of my muses, I saw that instead of Street photography someone suggested Village photography. I like the idea because villages are such an integral part of my life.
Life in villages is a privileged one. Every time we go for a walk we cross people we do not know and say hello. We walk from field to field and along paths. We see which crops have been planted and which ones are being harvested. We see frequent horses and dog walkers. We also see families. We hear the sound of rifle practices at the local gun range. The practice is for military service most of the time.
We also have fountains and old buildings. We hear the church bell every half hour and hour. We see the fountains with wooden chalet to protect from the cold in winter.
Villages are seasonal. In summer the sounds of children playing, of fireworks and of barbecues can be heard. In Autumn the sound of wind blowers can be heard. In Winter we see lights on as the neighbours prepare their evening meal.
In the mornings we see parents bring their children to school before the bell rings and they head in to their classes to sit and wait impatiently for the school day to be over so that they may go out on adventures.
That’s why village photography captivates my imagination. I know villages well. I appreciate them. I look forward to looking at images from the past, and preserving today for future generations.
La chapelle D’abondance is a nice via ferrata split into three parts. The first part is not so hard, the second part is harder and the last part is meant to be very hard. The walk from the parking to the first section is short at around 15 minutes. The via ferrata itself took about 2hrs going with people whom had not yet practiced this sport.
We did experience rain on this visit to the via ferrata so some of the rocks were slippy, as were the cables. This did not present such difficulties though. Here are some images from the trip.
For those of you familiar with twitter there are a number of ways of keeping up with information and my current favourite is Twhirl. What I love about using Twhirl is how well it works.
At first it feels clunky. You’ve got to download adobe air, then you’ve got to download twhirl and once this is done you’ve got to get used to the user interface. I went from twitterific to here and the transition was relatively painless. I missed one or two of the keyboard shortcuts.
Since then I’ve grown to enjoy using it for three key reasons. The first of these is that you don’t need to restart it as there are no caching issues. For someone who tweets as much as I do and follows as many a lot of time would be sent reseting twitterific. Not with Twhirl. It’s got over 5500 tweets right now and no sign of slowing down.
The second feature i love is how you can choose whether to @, DM, Favourite or re-tweet. Anyone using twitter is familiar with the first three. The re-tweet feature is fun. It allows you to retweet verbatim quite easily. I don’t see it used often luckily but it’s a nice gimmik.
The third feature that I enjoy are the shortcut keys specific to this program. R for replies, F for friends, D for direct messages and then there are two or three other such short cuts that could be of interest.
As an aside you’ve got the filter option although having not used it I can’t comment. It’s a nice package and anyone using Aero should give it a try.
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