Obey your technology!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My new watch even beeped at me to let me know that it thought that there would be rain later in the morning!   

     When you are stumbling around in the pre-dawn getting read to cycle for the morning swim, a beeping watch is the last thing that you need, as you mostly rely on automatic to get you through the quotidian rituals of getting the day going.

     I did however, glance at the watch and a terse message said, “Expect rain at 8 am” – even poetic in its way.  However, I decided to ignore such a warning and trust to the legendary positive weather conditions of Castelldefels.  Sometimes, even when the forecast for the town says rain, it seems to make an exception for the strip of the town along the beach and we often stay dry.

     Not this time.   

     It rained at 8. 

And as I ploughed my way up and down my gloriously empty lane in the local pool, I heard the tell-tale sound of globular moisture hitting the retractable roof and, with my surgically altered eyes, I could make out the running smears of water trickling down the glazing at the sides of the pool.

     Never mind, I told myself, after I’ve finished my swim there is always the extra time for my tea and sarnie in the cafe, which together with note writing  should ensure that by the time that I am ready to leave the weather will have cleared up.

     Not this time.   

     In a rather touching gesture of moderate futility, I drained the water from the cleft of the saddle and dabbed, mostly ineffectually, at the rest of the seat in the hope that first rump-contact would not be totally wet, but just unpleasantly damp.

     And so I made my way home through spiteful rain that, in spite of the fact that I modified my route back via tree canopied roads, seemed to find the spaces between the leaves to fall, not so gently, on me.   

     My coat is now hanging on the sheltered line downstairs to drip dry and my shorts have (bugger the expense!) been put into the tumble dryer in gloriously damp isolation.

     It is said that the amount of super-computing power that it devoted to forecasting the weather dwarfs all other uses.  But I still react to forecasts as if they were based on the “feeling of a bit of seaweed” approach of the “experts” of my youth, rather than the almost infinitely sophisticated approach of the present technological day. 

     I should believe the forecasts because they are really, generally, correct.  I think that what you might call 'forecasting faith' could be related to an age divide, where people of my baby-boomer generation are still sceptical, whereas those who have been brought up looking at ever smaller screens for their information now expect the info that they are given by the Almighty operating systems of their phones to be correct.

     As a matter of interest, I just asked Google what it based its weather forecasts on and the answer was that it, "takes radar data created by doppler radar stations" and by organizing this data into images and creating a time specific sequence is able to suggest what the weather will be.  So there!

     Just staying with temperature, I got to thinking about how much 'faith' I do have in flashing lights and digital information connected to various things that I possess actually telling me the truth.

     I have never independently verified the set temperature in the fridge for example.  I have taken as gospel the temperatures that the machine tells me that my dishes are washed at in the dishwasher; the time that the microwave cooks for; the length of the various washes in the washing machine.  Virtuallly the only time that I check my watch is when the BBC News starts, and even that is compromised by the fact that I listen to the BBC on the Internet and I have discovered that there are seconds lagging, between broadcast and my radio making absolute accuracy impossible.

     I remember, from my teaching days, one supremely irritating child in a 'bottom group' when such things existed (no, hardly a child he was 15 going on 7) who replied to everything I said for almost the whole of a lesson with the single word, "Why?"  

     I decided, in the way that you sometimes do, that, instead of losing my temper or ignoring the kid, I would attempt to answer him.  And I did.  The interchange (if you could call it that because the boy didn't think about any of his responses, which were always "Why?" or consider any of my increasingly philosophical responses) were obviously one-sided, but the rest of the small class appreciated the 'game' and eventually, they called time, to which the kid gave one final "Why?" and laughed.

     I recall this because it was an example of questioning, mindless questioning perhaps, but it did force me to think while I attempted to answer the continuous drill of "whys?" that was leading to a point of absurdity that I never quite gave into.

     If that experience was essentially arrid, perhaps it should make us think about the way that we too easily accept authority from electronic, inanimate machines functioning on a series of zeros and ones.

     My watch measures and charts my movement and lack of it, my activity, my sleep, my heartbeat and lord alone knows what else.  When I go for a bike ride, I can with a few taps bring up a map and trace the route that I have taken, the time it took me to complete it and even the elevation above sea level and the inclines and declines that I navigated.

     My watch and the app that is linked to it have more information about me and the way that my body works and where that body has been, than anyone else in the world - apart of course from the people who can link into the watch or the app and download whatever.

     What prompted these thoughts was that my watch was right about the rain and I was wrong.  

     Perhaps, in the future should I be more willing to listen to the information that, although presented on one, small, round watchscreen, is actually the visible and tangible sign of an unthinkably powerful information superhighway to which I am linked?

     I am no conspiracy theorist, but asking "Why?" might be the really human thing to do.

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 33 – Friday, 17th APRIL

After all my mocking denigration of hapless teachers who fail to come to grips with modern technology, I was hoist by my own arrogant petard.

     This afternoon was the on-line meeting of the ‘delegates’ from our cancelled language classes in Spanish and Catalan.  I don’t really know why I was dragged into this in the first place as I am not a ‘delegate’ but, ever the willing drudge I accepted my responsibilities and offered to join in.

     The meeting was held in Google Meeting and was by invitation, a click on the link and you are there, sort of thing.  That bit went fine, it was when I tried to speak that there were problems, well, one problem: it didn’t work.  My Firefox thingie was apparently obstructing its working and, try as I might, and even by going on to the systems part, I still failed to transmit my voice.

     As the others seemed more than happy to speak in reasonable Spanish I felt that my enforced muteness was something of an advantage for the preservation of my reputation, even if it did little to develop my language skills.

     The end result of this one sided meeting was that we are going to be offered a lesson a week on line, with tasks to complete and if we complete the tasks then we will be able to get our certificates at the end of the course.

     Meanwhile I have to do a little administration in getting our classmates together, explaining and getting information to the teacher.  It will be interesting to see how this all works out, and if I am able to get my microphone working!

The various scandals of the virus continue to frighten.  Now we are told that many hospitals are going to run out of PPE by the weekend in the UK.  The number of tests being carried out are still in the teens of thousands and we are expected to believe that 100k will be carried out in the UK by the end of the month.  The daily press conference in the UK is a time of almost unmitigated depression as politicians steadfastly fail to answer questions of ultimate importance.

     I do not feel that any of the politicians in power are telling us the truth about the real length of the crisis and the real consequences of what is happening now.  It is disturbing, no, not disturbing, more frightening that the UK does not appear to have an exit strategy from the crisis.

     The longer this crisis continues the more disturbed I get about the way that it is being managed.  I do not think a day has gone by when I have felt confident about the people who are making life and death decisions about our future.

     And talking of the future, it can only be a matter of weeks before the Blond Trumpian Mini-Me bumbles his way back into national life and the idiocy of Brexit is added to our woes!

Ah, me!

The New World

After much debate with myself, I finally forced myself from my seductive bed and started the preparations for my early morning swim.  These preparations take the form of preparing for very little: a quick rinse and a brushing of my teeth and then off to the pool where a later shower and shave can be done after the swim.

     As this was the weekend (the day after my non-examination for Catalan) the pool opens an hour later, so I do have what amounts to a technical lie-in.  Bike to pool and the gates still locked.  This is nothing new, as the gates are opened on the dot of the hour rather than before.  What was more disturbing was that the lights in the café were not on.  And there were no other early swimmers waiting.  Ominous.

     Suspecting the reason for this situation, I decided to continue my bike ride down the road for a little jaunt and then see what was happening on my return when the appointed hour for the opening would have passed.

     Nothing!  Obviously the place was not opening.  Nothing daunted I decided to make a virtue of necessity and go home via one of my ‘bike rides’ to Gavá.  Not only does this ride have the advantage of a bike lane virtually all the way, but it is also next to the sea.

     On my return home I texted Toni (who is in Terrassa for the weekend) telling him the news that the pool was closed.

     Last night Toni had texted me saying that we needed to stock up on food and essential supplies, but as he had the car the re-provision was up to him.  What we both did not fully comprehend was that the situation here in Catalonia had taken a more serious turn.

     This morning after checking various news outlets and seeing an explanation of the Generalitat’s new orders, I realized that Catalonia has taken Draconian measures to combat Covid-19.

     Shops (apart from food shops and medical supplies shops) are now closed, as are gyms, pools, theatres, museums, clubs, day centres, bars restaurants, libraries, schools, colleges, universities, cinemas, sporting events.  Travel is not recommended.  Basically we are confined to our homes except for essential purchases.  For the next two weeks (at least) life in Catalonia is going to be very different and the Internet is awash with lists of films, books, and TV series to read and watch to keep some form of sanity during our incarceration!

     On the other hand, yesterday saw the arrival of another of my ‘presents’ from Kickstarter.  The wonderful thing about these start-up sites is that if you support them you have paid for what you are going to receive so far in advance that when the object of your purchase finally arrives it seems to be sort-of ‘free’!  Don’t know it, this is the sort of logic that has kept me level(ish) for most of my life!

     My latest acquisition is going to drive Toni up the wall.  It is a combined robot cleaner that can do the normal Hoovering, but this little beauty can also mop!  To enable this it has a sort of home station that looks like a clinical waste bin and contains the charging station and the reservoir of water and the ‘dirty water’ tank.  And it works!  The only thing that doesn’t seem to be operational is the app that stubbornly refuses to open for me.

     Why, you may well ask, do you need an app. to hoover and mop?  But, there again, to ask such a question indicates that the last ten years have passed you by.  What doesn’t need an app these days?  And, I understand that the machine is able to map the rooms to facilitate optimum cleaning, and I further understand that the app will allow me to order the machine to do all sorts of things that I will probably never be competent enough to understand let alone operate!  But if it exists, then I want it.

     The only thing about the machine that I do not like is the fact that I have to change the brushes to the mops manually.  This is not a difficult operation, it takes seconds, but the fact that I have to do it somehow lessens the robotic delight in the whole enterprise!  But only a bit.

     It strikes me, as I sit here in the living room typing this, that I am delighting in yet another Kickstarter purchase as I write.

     As I was having my post bike ride cup of tea and while checking through my emails and deleting those of no interest, I noted that Amazon has sent me a message the aim of which was to make me feel better about being a paid up member of Amazon Prime, by reminding me that umpteen pieces of music were mine for the hearing at no extra cost to that which I had already paid.

     Whenever I go on a music website or music streaming site or whatever, my test of its worth is to check how many pieces by Carl Nielsen it has.  So, having duly put in Nielsen’s name I looked at the selection it produced – and was reasonably impressed.  I think it is more than likely that in Castelldefels I have the most extensive collection of Nielsen’s music – I fear there would not be that many competitors – so I can look at offerings from sites with an informed eye!

     I could not of course resist listening to a selection and rapidly became irritated with the excellent, but limited reception offered by my phone so I decided to get a loudspeaker.  But not just any old wi-fi loudspeaker (and I have a mini Bose, amongst others) but the most recent purchase from Kickstarter (at least in audio, my mop is the most recent) and that is a pair of headphones.  Wi-fi of course, but the USP of these is that the earpieces of the headphones can be twisted outwards and they transform into speakers!  Turn them back inwards, into their more conventional configuration and they become headphones – and are thus able to counteract the noise from the noisy transformation of the house next door!

     Ah excessive technology, what would I do without you!

Things are different?

When I was a kid . . .

There probably isn’t a greater turn-off opener than that one.  It is the sort of phrase that is regularly used as a weapon by the older against the perceived privilege of the young.  There is nothing that riles a certain proportion of the older generation that seeing a very young child with a mobile phone.  And especially the young child using it with a proficiency that the resentful oldie can only wish for.

Technology means that kids have things like music players, film players, TV, radios, cameras and, yes, telephones way before the generation that includes me ever had, but – just think about what my generation had and continues to have.

Free milk, free school, university grants, free university tuition, full professional employment, good health care, generous pension scheme, professional retirement at 60 with professional pension, state pension at 65, membership of the EU throughout my working life, free access to foreign countries within the EU, access to the work markets of the EU, and so on.

Yes, my parents did not buy a television until I was 11, though we did have the radio.  I did not have a ‘real’ record player until I was in my teens, though I had had a second hand wind up version with some old 78s for one birthday.  Our holidays were usually in the UK and in B&Bs, though I did go to Spain when I was 7, and I was the only kid in my year in primary school who had been abroad.  Our camera was a Kodak box camera, until we had the next model up, eventually – and those two camera kept us going for years and years and years.

Although we were not rich as a family, I did not lack anything important.  I was loved and secure and, most importantly (as I was really too young to truly worry about the Cuban missile crisis) I felt secure.  I felt that I had a future and that I would easily be able to get a job and that I would be able to keep it for the whole of my career.

How many young people today can say as much?  I know younger colleagues in teaching who are dreading the extra years that they will have to work until they are able to retire and I sympathetically share their dread, though I cannot imagine what the awful reality must be like.  In my view you cannot be a classroom teacher beyond the age of 60 in any sort of normal school.  Forcing people to work beyond that is like a sort of death sentence, or at the very least they are not going to be paying many pensionable years for the unfortunates who are able to make it.

This serious thought was brought on my thinking about cartoons.  One channel on the television this year has been given over to a whole series of ‘blockbuster’ animated films and I am constantly amazed at their quality.  There was a scene of one of the monsters from Monsters Inc II where he was sitting by the side of a lake in moonlight which was stunning, a beautifully rendered part of the film.  And in another film I was fascinated by the sheer complexity of the rendering of hair and fur with a naturalness that would have had early animators reaching for their crucifixes!

It used to be that Christmas would see the latest-old Bond film trotted out to general delight, but I am not sure nowadays that there is a single screen franchise that would bring viewers together now in the way that 007 did.  After the gloriously clever first film of the 'Pirates' franchise, for example, the whole series descended into a narrative nightmare which denied coherence to the story, but did give individual moments of success, as for example in the umpteenth film when the company baddy walks, with manic serenity, down a flight of steps as his ship is destroyed about him.  It is a sublime moment and deserves a better film around it!

But the mechanics of showing films have changed.  When I was in school we did have 'Christmas Treat' films.  The two I remember are 'Fanstasia' and Tony Hancock's 'Punch and Judy Man' - the first we loved and the second we hated.  But both these films were shown via a film projector, the cans of film had been rented and were shown projected onto a screen.  In an age when films are available on your phone, the attitude towards a 'grand' production has changed somewhat!

So time, place, technique, everything has changed, and the 'gift' of a major film at Christmas is not longer the 'treat' that it once was.

But for me, at least, the power of a great animated film, something like 'Up' for example has me as glued to the picture as if I were a child watching fireworks - and you only have to see my open mouthed wonder and fixation with exploding rockets to understand how quickly I can regress to childhood!

Perhaps cartoons are the nearest things we get to keep us together, to bring back the sense of wonder that over exposure to CGI in so-called reality films has taken away.

Technology bites back!

For a person who has been in the forefront of technology, when it comes to gadgets, all of his spending life, I am surprisingly opaque when it comes to the hardware.  As I type I am surrounded by a positive Bolognese of wires and an obsolescence of machines, but I am still a fingers-on-the-keys and bugger the mechanics of what I am using sort of person.  I still have a touching faith in the belief that makers of computers are on my side and that they are and have been doing everything that they can do to make my computing experience as joyful as possible.  Self-delusion of course, but it keeps me sane.

            Which is all a way of building up to the fact that things are not working as well as they should be.  Various arcane messages have been flashing up on my computer screen that, I think, indicate that things are not working at an optimum level.  As I have no idea what to do in response to these messages I have, of course, ignored them.

            This was a Bad Idea and I have paid the price as the machine has slowly but inevitably ground down to impotence.  That infuriating little circular symbol of many colours, which is an indication that the computer is thinking, and is going to ignore your commands, has become a more permanent icon on my bright screen.

            Eventually, of course, I had to follow the implacable advice of Toni and go to YouTube and discover What To Do.

            Eighteen pages of advice later I was more in a cold sweat panic than surveying the possibilities of restoring my machine to working order.

            Eventually, of course, I bought a program to do what I am sure Toni would have done at no cost whatsoever.  As the dreaded little circle of colours has reappeared during the typing of this missive, I am not sure that the payment of money has had any real effect, or indeed affect – I am still not sure about the correct use of those words.

            However, in the world of real facts, I am able to type without total frustration and that, in itself, is something.  We will have to see what happens when I try and add the Internet to the mixture – that usually does something more interesting and unexpected.

            I think that my basic point is that as a dedicated user of computers and so forth, I really do think that they should be just a tad more responsive and, dare I use the word, kind.

            However, they are not, and I constantly feel like throwing whatever device I am using away from me with extreme force.

            At which time, of course, I need to remember that I am of the generation where schools had only one BBC B computer to their names and counted themselves lucky.  I am of the generation that used an early version of Windows where the sacrifice of a full-blooded cockerel was sine quo non for anything to work.  I am of the generation when things simply didn’t work.

            But I thought that things had changed.  I put this down to the fact that I had a Mac at a fairly early stage of my computer development and got used to an operating system that seemed to be user friendly.  And when Windows stole the operating system that Apple had already stolen in their turn I thought that things had finally got to a stage where you could relax: the computer was on your side.

            Well, that didn’t really happen, and, in spite of the developed sophistication and complexity of the computers, they still have the unerring capability of reducing you to stuttering imbecility at a single keystroke.  But I wouldn’t be without them.

            So, it is with increasing excitement and ill concealed impatience that I await my latest gadget.  I am not sure what “between 3 and 5 working days” to get it to me actually means to the distant Chinese factory producing the mobile phone that I have ordered (apart, of course, of it not being “between 3 and 5 working days”) but, in spite of the fact that I rarely use the phone as a phone, I cannot wait for the gleaming (golden) outsized piece of bling to arrive and for me to get down to the serious business of not understanding its most basic capabilities!

If I want to frighten myself, I just sit down and try and work out how much my parents and I have paid over the years for my poor sight.  Admittedly in the early years of my sight deterioration I had a pair of round NHS black wire rimmed curly ear ended things that made me look, as my father so caringly pointed out like, “the Owl of the Remove”!

            My glasses became a little more presentable over the years, but the price and the delay in getting them made – as well as the sheer discomfort of wearing the bloody things made them a Necessary Object of Dislike.  I am sure that there is another blog post of a disquisition on the number of NODs that one has in one’s life, but this is not the time.

            As soon as it became a practical possibility I turned to contact lenses.  I was so keen to have them that I even paid part of the cost out of my own money!  I think it was this measure that persuaded my parents that I was in deadly earnest and they ponied up for the rest.

            I still remember my first fitting for lenses.  They were eventually placed on my eyes and, as they were made of hard plastic, the eye did its best to get rid of them.  It was impossible to raise one’s eyes from the downcast position because of the extreme pain.  Having got the things in, I was then sent from Windsor Place in Cardiff where my optician was situated, to wander around town for an extended period of time to allow the oxygen (in the centre of a city!) to do its stuff and see if my eyes would accept the lenses.

            I stumbled back into the opticians after having looked like a self-effacing picture of modesty, emitting yelps of pain when I forgot and raised my eyes.  I persevered and became a confirmed contact lens wearer.

            Recently I have gone back to my glasses, but fickle as ever, I have now decided to return to the lenses.

            And how much easier is it when they are daily lenses and made out of accommodating plastic.

            My problem of being short sighted and long sighted at the same time has attempted to be coped with by a variety of contact lens prescriptions – none of which has worked.  I have therefore decided to go with a contact lens prescription for normal seeing and using magnetic glasses for reading.

            The magnetic glasses are hideous and I am not sure how you are supposed to transport them.  I know that the fact that they ‘break’ means that you should wear them around your neck, but how does that work when you are driving?

            Something else to complicate my life.

Well this writing has seeped on over days and I am going to post it to get it out of the way and allow something new to take its place.