Via Ferrata in the mist. Moleson in the Jura.
Via Ferrata in the mist
[flickr-gallery mode=”photoset” photoset=”72157624857106763″]Most people think of the concerts, the food, the alcohol and the social aspects of Paléo Festival. If you are one of the collaborateurs (sounds Cold Warish doesn’t it?) then Paléo is about sleep deprivation, roasting in a tent, sleeping under trees, eating with others and occasionally doing the task that you are collaborating on. I decided to look at Paléo Trafic this time.
I have spent at least ten hours standing at la Barillette over the last two days filming the Paléo Festival terrain. In that time I have looked at the landscape, photographed the landscape and talked with people up there. During this time the camera has captured the crowds of people walking from the train stop to Paléo, the cars driving from Nyon and tractors harvesting crops in the background. In effect I have captured life in summer.
I have been lucky over the last two days because the weather and visibility has been excellent. We can see really see everything at the moment. You can see the valleys on the French side, you can see the Cervin, the Dents du Midi, the Mont Blanc, Lausanne and more. If you spend as much time as me enjoying this landscape then you can see places you have been to in person from afar.
If you want to get to La Barillette and enjoy the views in person then follow this link
How technology disrupted the truth is currently a popular topic. This statement is a fallacy because technology is not misleading people. People with political agendas are disrupting the truth. If you remember back to the Obama campaigns you will remember that bloggers were seen as part of the solution, not the problem. In the social age when everything shifts towards clicks and audience reach people lose focus on the value that the world wide web and user generated content can play. With the way in which social media have been hijacked by political groups, trolls, flamers and others it is hard to see social media as sustainable.
Information has always been controlled by those who have the funds and the technology to distribute it. There was a time when writing and Latin were the barriers to entry. If you could read you could access information. The better your understanding of Latin and the more in control you were of the information that you could access. The Dark ages, as many of us have read about were a period in time when information contained in books and other manuscripts were read, duplicated and interpreted and that information was then used to provide an interpretation of what was permissible in science and politics. With the shift from Latin to English, French and other European languages the number of interpretations of certain texts could grow. Add to this the arrival of the printing press and the speed with which information could be spread increased. It also provided greater power to the masses as they could interpret moral rules and ethics themselves.
Although it is seldom discussed the Industrial revolution and literacy are closely connected. While parents and older children would be working the machines, mining the coal and labouring so their children would be in school learning to read and write. They would have a religious education and be taught values that would make them easier to control. At the same time by increasing literacy so did people’s ability of self-determination increase. Why would a worker accept what you say as truth when he can read an article proving or disproving the claim made by his employer. Literacy also gave people access to the written press and journalism.
Koenig and Bauer sold two of their first models to The Times in London in 1814, capable of 1,100 impressions per hour. The first edition so printed was on 28 November 1814. They went on to perfect the early model so that it could print on both sides of a sheet at once. This began the long process of makingnewspapers available to a mass audience (which in turn helped spread literacy), and from the 1820s changed the nature of book production, forcing a greater standardization in titles and other metadata. Their company Koenig & Bauer AG is still one of the world’s largest manufacturers of printing presses today. Source
The beauty of the written and printed word, of journalism and of the Printed press is that it provided thousands of people with the same information at the same time and people could check the veracity of what someone had read. Another important aspect of printed journalism was reputation. If you printed reliable and useful information then your readership would grow and your authority would grow. In such a landscape anytime a newspaper or journal would make a mistake or misrepresent information their reputation and circulation numbers would suffer.
By the early 19th century, many cities in Europe, as well as North and South America, published newspaper-type publications though not all of them developed in the same way; content was vastly shaped by regional and cultural preferences.[24] Advances in printing technology related to the Industrial Revolution enabled newspapers to become an even more widely circulated means of communication. In 1814, The Times (London) acquired a printing press capable of making 1,100 impressions per hour.[25]Â Source
“Our news ecosystem has changed more dramatically in the past five years,†she wrote in March, “than perhaps at any time in the past 500.†The future of publishing is being put into the “hands of the few, who now control the destiny of the manyâ€. News publishers have lost control over the distribution of their journalism, which for many readers is now “filtered through algorithms and platforms which are opaque and unpredictable†source
Berlusconi, Murdoch and others controlled or still control big portions of the news media landscape in Italy and England. This control has allowed them to shape how and what people think about a number of issues. In effect it allowed them to shape public opinion.
“According to a Loughborough University study, once newspaper circulation is taken into account, just 18 percent of media coverage was pro-Remain compared with 82 percent pro-Leave.”
If you were in favour of Europe in Great Britain during the EU referendum campaign you would have been hard pressed to find articles supporting the view that the European Union was a good thing. Even those that supported Remain had articles that were negative about the EU.
Although the author writes that In the digital age, it is easier than ever to publish false information, which is quickly shared and taken to be true – as we often see in emergency situations, when news is breaking in real time. I would argue that the main issue is media literacy. People take as truth what are nothing more than rumours. People believe that if they read just one source of information that it will be sufficient to get a good understanding of current affairs that this is the case.
As people have shifted towards Social media and web platforms so their browsing is done automatically rather than actively. News publishers have lost control over the distribution of their journalism, which for many readers is now “filtered through algorithms and platforms which are opaque and unpredictableâ€. Source I would argue that the situation is as bad for the audience as it is for publishers. Social media are meant to be social, conversational, between friends but media platforms have now tried to be about news, about entertainment, about friends and about events. By combining all of these things social networks such as Facebook have lost their value. That unpredictability as the writer phrases it translates in to unreliability when it is used as a communication tool between individuals. More time is spent sorting through the feed than finding interesting and relevant information.
I switched back to blogging because of this trend: The New York Times announced that its operating profits had fallen by 13%, to $51.5m – healthier than most of the rest of the publishing industry, but quite a drop. Facebook, meanwhile, revealed that its net income had tripled in the same period – to a quite staggering $1.51bn. When you think about it this is pathetic. If you have 1.6 billion facebook users and your revenue is 1.51bn USD then your customer is worthless. One dollar per user for an entire quarter. With that return on investment is facebook really to be envied?
“When reorganisation and cost-cutting in this core area jeopardise accustomed journalistic standards, it hits at the very heart of the political public sphere. Because, without the flow of information gained through extensive research, and without the stimulation of arguments based on an expertise that doesn’t come cheap, public communication loses its discursive vitality.
This is clearly evident in comment streams. People are happy to flame each other rather than to share points of view and attempt to understand the other point of view. Discourse has been replaced by quick comments rather than thoughtful responses.
I would argue on this point “But we must also grapple with the issues underpinning digital culture, and realise that the shift from print to digital media was never just about technology.” that digital culture has not been the big change but that the mass migration from analogue media to digital media by the mainstream, average person is the big change. I would argue that although studying was seen as a Mickey Mouse course by some it does show value in today’s media landscape. We see how those who are media illiterate are drown towards the appealing lies and unrealistic promises rather than the well thought out and well understood policies of professional and realistic people. Truth
A few months ago, before the winter months came I was
At some point in
The problem occurs when I try to connect the DJI Go4 app with the remote. At this moment the app refuses to recognise the drone and I’m stuck. I’ve tried resetting the remote, resetting the drone. I’ve tried re-installing the app and I’ve tried Android and iOS devices without any communications between the app and the drone.
If I had had these issues during my previous 90 flights and with a previous version of the app I would assume responsibility. As things are I am not to blame, the app breakers are.
Remember that this is the prime season for someone to buy a new drone and I would be tempted by the air. How can I justify buying a new drone when the old one has a faulty app that other DJI drones use as well?
I would strongly advise people against buying a drone that relies on their
Canyoning shows you some beautiful geographical locations but is nonetheless a dangerous sport. Make sure to practice jumping from lower heights before trying an eight meter jump. A via ferrata friend injured herself. It brought back flashbacks from another canyoning trip I never want to experience again.
For that reason I am questioning whether I will go canyoning again.
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What is there to see in the lake is a question that people have frequently asked me. For at least two years I would go diving nearly every weekend. I would dive in the Lac Léman, the Lac de Bourget, the Gouille Du Duzillet. I also dived the English channel in November. I dived all year round. In summer we would cook in our dry suits and in winter our hands were sometimes so cold that we couldn’t take off our dry suits.
Lake divers are an eccentric, hardy bunch of people. I used to say that the beauty of lake diving is that it is not affected by weather. You’ll get wet anyway and if you go below a certain depth water is always at 5°c. I’m in Spain at the moment and I decided to go snorkelling with my semi Dry Suit around El Portet. This is the cove where I worked on getting my rescue diver certification. I snorkelled by the rocks to the west at first. The waters are shallow and I did see a school of juvenile fish. As I finned further I saw some slightly larger fish and urchins.
After a while of searching I finned to the other side of the bay. New sand has been deposited along this beach. As a result of this new sand visibility has suffered near the beach. By the rocks the visibility is still good.
From the image above you can see that the water is really clear. I thought that with such clear waters I would see a lot. I was hoping to see fish, maybe an eel or two and maybe some crabs. It’s good to dive and snorkel close to marine reserves. In marine reserves fish are allowed to mature and grow and eventually they branch out to other areas. As a result diving and snorkeling are more rewarding.
It’s at the supermarket fish section that I saw the most fish. It’s a shame that they were lying dead, on ice, rather than swimming underwater. In effect I see as many fish in the mediterranean as in the lakes of Switzerland and France so you travel for the climate rather than aquatic life. People need to allow the seas and oceans time to recover. It’s a shame not to see much aquatic life. I should try again in a different location where there are fewer people. I might be luckier.
I like the social media and I spend a lot of time with them. Occasionally i meet the people involved in real life and so the social media are no longer quite as interesting, although of course I still have fun with them. One of the things I’ve been thinking is the term social media girlfriend.
What would require for a person to be a social media girlfriend? What does it require in the physical world? Conversation for a start. It would entail many conversations and discusssions, so far Twitter and seesmic both provide that. I wake up in the morning, hardly able to open my eyes yet I open up the laptop and type “good morning world” to which i get a good morning back.
There are currently two social media girls that wish me a good morning. Melissah in Australia is one of them. Maggieconv in the US is the second. The three of us are in different timezones but we wish each other good meals, nice evenings, good mornings and sweet dreams. We’re friends in the same sense that flat mates may be but with one big difference. We are not within the same physical space. We’re separated by distance, over a thousand kilometers when we’re lucky, over 20,000 when we’re not.
That’s unimportant. It’s the idea that we share our daily lives through text messaging, data access on phones, websites, blogs and even facebook. To some people this is an abstract idea. Why would you want to meet people online in such a way. Well in fact chatrooms were like this a decade ago. IRC is like that today. There’s one major difference. We’re not anonymous. We know how the people look, we know how they sound. We know when they’re happy and we know when things are going well. We also know when they’re going badly.
If both physical and virtual friends are both inhabiting the same spaces nowadays then what discounts those whom we don’t know from another context? If I meet you at the cinema and we become friends then everyone would accept that. Online though people wouldn’t. Of course that is changing. For me the distinction is fading since I have met so many of these people in real life, occasionally quite a few at once.
Anyway part of the reason for this post is that I was called a flirt online, told that half my seesmic videos answering one girl’s posts were flirts. It kicked off a conversation about flirting and that’s fun. we’re using the social media and we’re flirting. That’s a great idea. The idea that we’re flirting with people across a new medium. That’s where the idea of a social media girlfriend came into place. I saw two friends flirting across both seesmic and Twitter and I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to come out with the idea.
Anyway to cut a long story short I was meaning to type @melissah but started to write @maggieconv instead. Would she be more likely to be a social media girlfriend? We added each other on Facebook so there’s a chance she c0uld be a social media girlfriend.