Category Archives: media

A Wilderness of Mirrors

Posted by on April 5, 2012 No comments

There’s a song I still listen to by an artist called Fish, it’s called “Vigil” from the “Album in a Wilderness of Mirrors”.  I’m watching the news, reading the newspapers and wondering when the truth died and where they buried the body.  I have to say that this song comes more readily to mind these days.  I was having a similar conversation with a friend this morning, so I now I’m not the only one who feels this way.

I was looking at the unemployment figures earlier today, given my current situation they have special resonance now.  The figures are next to useless, people are pushed off onto incapacity benefit or into an unpaid work placement scheme to get them off the figures and in any event if you’ve been there for more then 6 months you don’t count.  The idea that the true figures are far higher than the official ones is not new and I’ve read claims of up to 26% unemployment for the UK.

I’ve been keeping an eye on UK house prices for a while as well, what’s interesting is the changes in prices.  The actual headlines are meaningless as the actual number of houses sold is so low historically and the data includes London, where the prices are buoyant.  As soon as you start investigating the individual regions outside London, a very different picture appears than the headline figures would have you see.  We must also avoid the mention of the word bubble at all costs, even though that’s exactly what the huge rise in prices over the years up to 2008 was!

Oil prices rises are blamed on speculators, greedy schemers out to ruin us all.  But not on a growing demand in the face of a constrained supply.  Not on the ever increasing cost and difficulty of extraction, the increased cost of refining.  Again, smoke and mirrors all the way.

I imagine every reader can add something of their own to this short list above.

It seems to me that increasingly nobody is addressing the truth, just their spin on it.  They construct a strawman of reality and then address it as if it were the world.  Of course, it’s not, and this failure to engage with reality is something we really can’t afford.  Since beginning Buddhist practise, I’m noticing this stuff more and more.  The Buddha reaches to us across 2500 years with a timely warning about our behaviour.  I only hope that enough people are listening.

 

 

The Quality of Slowness

Posted by on January 18, 2012 1 comment

I’d like to write briefly about something that has been on mind mind for quite some time. It’s not an original observation that our modern world is moving at an ever faster pace. Nor is it an original observation that this pace is responsible for quite a bit of human pain and suffering along the way; we are not machines.

It was a couple of years ago with a feeling of pleasant surprise, that I discovered the Slow Movement and decided to look a little deeper. This movement was inspired by the book “In Praise of Slow” by Carl Honore, and this movement has at it’s core the idea that faster is not always better and we should do things at the right speed rather than the fastest. In fact, that constant increase in speed does us more harm than good.

It goes without saying that I think they’re right on the mark with this. We have enough aphorisms and sayings that echo these sentiments “the more haste, the less speed”, “haste makes waste”, “look before you leap”. In the east we find the Taoist principle of “Wu Wei” one part of which is observing the worlds pace and doing things at the correct speed, neither too fast or two slow. Anyone who’s done Tai Chi or Qigong, as I have, will understand what I mean.  After all, you can’t make a tree grow by pulling on the branches; and as an IT example you can’t make a file transfer or disk check run any faster than the hardware or connection will allow, you must simply wait!

To rush things often leads to substandard results and problems further down the line that take up more time to sort out. So any time you may have “saved”, is now spent there instead and you’ve had the extra headache that comes with this as well! Still think it’s a good idea to rush? Better to take the time to get it right, “measure twice, cut once” as the old saying goes.

I will finish with a specifically British example “you can’t hurry a good cuppa”, and this is very true. Tea needs time to brew properly and a hurried cup of tea is certainly not a good one.  When asked how I seem to always make a good cup of tea in the past, guess what I say?

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished” – Lao Tzu

Second Life – A flawed masterpiece.

Posted by on January 15, 2012 No comments

For the last couple of years, I’ve been involved in the virtual world of Second Life. For the most part, this has been a rewarding experience. Although I have over time become more aware of some of the flaws. It’s been a disheartening thing, seeing a platform that I believe has real potential being held back by these flaws. Happily, the creators of Second Life under the guidance of Rod Humble are working to make the technology more accessible and easier to use, which is excellent news, and have plans to drive the world forward.

I see Second Life being used by numerous artists and other creatives. People the world over are able to tour art galleries and view works of sculpture. Further to this, Second Life makes art exhibits happen that are just not possible anywhere else. Concerts can be held and DJs can play virtual sets. I’ve listened to artists from across the world performing live from their own homes, so I know first hand that there is a live music scene in Second Life. All of this is available to you, as long as you have an internet connection. Remote location, or physical disability need present no obstacle to fulfilling Second Life.

Of course, my more usual field of comment is agnosticism, religion and spirituality. This area is most certainly catered for in Second Life. In my early days, I found a region called “Bodhi” which was well constructed and hid snippets of Dharma in gems around the landscape. Bodhi is now gone, to the best of my knowledge, but there are plenty of other places. The Skeptical Buddhists Sangha and Kannonji are just two such places with discussion and talks. Consulting the inworld search yields many more.  The odds are, if you enter your faith or lack thereof into Second Life search, it will be there.

In addition to this, there are many centres of learning, not just focussing on inworld skills but things of use outside of Second Life. You can also find support groups inworld for any number of things, and I find myself reflecting that if Second Life saves even one person through these groups. Or when it enables people to grow and reach nearer their potential through these classes, then it’s all been well worth it

Looking back at 2011

Posted by on January 1, 2012 No comments

Well, this has been an interesting year, in some senses I’m glad it’s over.  I also feel a sense of some foreboding about next year.  Maybe it’s the darkening nights, the shadows lengthen and grow…

This year saw us take another hit in the financial system, in truth the problems never went away, just glossed over with loads of printed money.  Of course, you can’t keep doing that; as a very wise man said “Ye cannae change the laws of physics!”  How very true, we are about to find this out.

We’ve seen the whole software patents story take turn after turn.  Apple vs Samsung, then Apple vs HTC.  I can’t shake the feeling that Apple might just have entered an arse kicking contest with a Centipede here, but time will tell.  But the interesting one could be Barnes and Noble vs Microsoft, this seems to be a far more interesting story as B&N take aim not at the patents but at the strategy of using them.  Clever, and also something that could be very disruptive.  We have the SOPA act still being fought in the US, this could easily wreck the Internet as we know it and the potential effect of freedom of speech and fair use is chilling.  A short video here explains things.

Finally, the Occupy movement.  This has been fascinating to watch, and eye opening.  In fact, just as bemusingly, the suicidegirls.com twitter feed turned out to have better US coverage than the mainstream media!  Outdone by a softcore porn site, hang your heads sirs, hang your heads. I except Al Jazeera and Russia Today from this, I consistently find some very good stuff on both those sites  Occupy has started to show the hypocrisy at the heart of some quarters of the Western establishment, tactics were used on American and UK citizens that were not in keeping with anyone’s idea of the response of a democracy.  Though the fact that it had to come to this speaks volumes.

For 2012?  Well, I’m not much with the old crystal ball.  But, I’ll give it a whirl.  I see us living more within our means, this won’t be such a bad thing as the alternative simply stores up more trouble.  Better to start now.  I can see the software patent system coming into disrepute very quickly, and I suspect that the tech landscape could look a bit different this time next year.  The patent war is to the death, and I wonder about how the current hegemonies will hold up.  For freedom of speech and SOPA, I recommend paying the Electronic Frontier Foundation (or EFF) a visit and doing some reading to see what can be done.  The internet is not taking this lying down however, and I think that the industry lobbyists and their pet politicians are going have more of a fight on their hands than they realise.

Occupy.. I can see more trouble on the horizon. Especially in the USA, the controversial Detainee Bill promises more grief for the occupiers.  I honestly can’t understand how Barack Obama let this one past him, I can only hope someone comes to their senses while there are still any freedoms left worth defending in America.

Virtual Remembrance Day

Posted by on November 13, 2011 No comments

virtual-cenotaphIn both the real world and the virtual world, it’s time for remembrance.  We enjoy a lot of freedoms in our lives, freedoms which were won at an awful price. Remembrance Sunday is the day where we stop to honour those who fell so that we can be free.

Of course, that’s as true of our freedoms in the virtual world as well as in the physical world and it crossed my mind to see if this was remembered there.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is and Second Life has a virtual Cenotaph.

When I visited it was quiet, but I could tell there had been visitors.  At this time of year, land permissions are relaxed there so you can lay a wreath there (the dispenser is by the entrance) while you stop to reflect.  If you have Second Life installed on your computer, you can find it here.

Interesting Times

Posted by on November 4, 2011 1 comment

It’s been a busy few weeks.  As I write, the Greek parliament proceeds with it’s no confidence vote in George Papandreou.  Today has been fascinating, I’ve been watching the G20 coverage on Twitter and it has been very worrying.  I can’t shake the feeling that after all this, they’re back to square one on the European debt problem.  The solution seems to have been to roll the economic tanks onto a few lawns, certainly in Athens, and I think in Rome.  Italy is looking shakier, though storm clouds are gathering over France as well.  This can’t end well, I certainly don’t expect the Euro to survive in its current form and the fight to save it has led to the democratic governments of Greece and Italy being undermined by the EU leadership (i.e. Merkozky).  So this is how democracy dies….

Holding that thought, we find the Occupy movement spreading.  It’s been an the receiving end of some stick in the media and some beatings from the police, but they’re sticking with it, I admire their grit.  It was alleged in the UK media that half the tents at OccupyLSX were unused at night.  This was given some mileage in parts of the UK media that opposes the protests, but I suspect nobody’s thought beyond that.  The tents are allegedly empty at night, which is when you’d expect people who have families to tend to be gone; and  I am wondering about the weekday situation of those tents.  In my opinion, this bit that’s being missed is that this protest involves more than just professional protesters.  It’s involving more of the “average” people, people who can’t always be there as they have jobs to go to and children to care for.  If I were in power, it’s that fact that would be giving me sleepless nights, and setting the riot police on these people isn’t going to do any good.  It’s not going to solve the underlying problems and it will eventually raise legitimacy questions about the current governments.  I’ll leave you to ponder that, as I love to throw questions out there to provoke thought.

But coming back to that thought of Democracy, well, I did tell you to hold it didn’t I?  The Occupy movement seems to be directed by a very participatory democratic process.  This does seems to be working and if it can scale up it could be a major challenge to the current systems of power.  In fact the message that such an event would have for the politicians is “We no longer need or want you, consider yourselves redundant”.  If I were a politician, I might be getting a be worried by this as well.

A final thought.  There is an old curse “May you live in interesting times”, I’m of the opinion that they really knew how to make a curse back in the day….

Maybe not so tactful?

Posted by on October 10, 2011 No comments

I checked Slashdot earlier today and found that Richard M Stallman is under fire for comments regarding Steve Jobs.  The exact comment is posted below and a short Google will provide enough commentary via a variety of websites and comment section flame wars to keep you reading for quite some time.  I’ve italicised the controversial section.

“Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.

As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, “I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s gone.” Nobody deserves to have to die – not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs’ malign influence on people’s computing.

Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective.”

Click here for the original

Let me be frank, I value my freedom and as such I run Linux as my main desktop O/S.  I can see where RMS is coming from with regards to the whole “computer as a jail” idea, it harks back to the bad old days when when parts of the internet were walled off and proprietary, for example Compuserve.  I have not bought an Apple device for some years, after buying MacOS X for my blueberry iBook and then quickly  having support dropped by just about everyone, when 10.1 arrived.  This left me facing a bill of over £100 to carry on using the machine, even though I was already a paying customer and the software wasn’t technically out of support!  I seethed, then installed Yellow Dog Linux, gave Apple two fingers, and never looked back.

I should disclose that I have an iPhone but only as my company provides and requires it, their standard is Apple phones and that’s it, my own mobile is an Android device.  So what do I see?  To my eyes, iTunes is well designed, iTunesU certainly seems interesting, but the content is available elsewhere on the open Internet.  Also, while Apple are accused of restrictive DRM, I can play my iTunes purchases on OpenSuSE Linux with no problems.  I am however looking for an alternative to Amazon / iTunes.

Anyway, back on topic.  While I can empathise with where RMS stands, I see his comments as badly timed and frankly, there was no need to say it like that.  Though I will observe that in his next two sentences RMS does separate the man from his legacy, or as the Christians say “love the sinner, hate the sin”.

Steve Jobs went too early, it wasn’t a nice way to go (is there one?) and at this moment in time our thoughts should be with his family and friends.  A civil discussion of his legacy as regards our freedom can wait for another day.  I’ll air my own views in due course, but not yet.