What makes you happy ?

What’s it like to be dead? That’s a really stupid question isn’t it - but … I’m finding the whole thing abstract in the extreme.
At school we are taught (here in the UK anyway) that the Vikings came over and rampaged and pillaged centuries ago, that Harold died in 1066 with an arrow in his eye and lots of other stuff that is just text. It means nothing, there is no connection, no linking of them and us. Equally we read about things like global warming and supernovae and the death of earth - but to us now, today - it’s so far away as to be a non-starter. It doesn’t exist. The concept of that far behind and that far ahead, the concept of the people that have lived and those that have yet to be born is also foreign.
A girlfriend I had at school went on holiday and (remember - I was young!) we agreed to look at the moon each evening and think of each other. I can look outside now and see the moon and I also know that someone in Italy can see the same thing. Now as then I find that too large an idea, too large a reality to get my head around. It’s like money - we all want to have more but we all have a point where if we had it we’d not know what to do - we can all imagine spending a few thousand, but a few million? Really?

Anyway, dead. I know that that situation means you stop. But I can’t imagine what it would be like. I suppose that if I believed in some sort of god then I’d perkily wander along through life content that St. Peter (or whoever) would let me through on the nod and it’d be all harps, angels and fluffy clouds (or whatever). I strongly believe that nature abhors a vacuum and that the nature of man seeks to fill it with anything to make it less scary - hence religion. I have vaguely believed in reincarnation but then how would I know? But it still seeks to add a continuance to something which is actually a stop. A halting. A cessation.
I can’t get my head around it because it’s abstract. But it’s so very real too. Real for those around and pretty real if I’m the dead one - but I’ll not know it. And I’ll not know I don’t know it. Does that make any sense whatsoever? It does to me. I think.
I first realised I was mortal when D was born. One of the scariest / saddest things about our girls is that they will experience a world in which me and J are no longer present. At some point that will happen - even just typing that has made tears well up. And there is nothing I can do. Not that I can’t live forever but that …I’m finding the concept of death just sitting at the front of my mind recently. It pops up and waves occasionally just to be sure I’ll not forget. Maybe it’s MH related - I don’t know. Maybe I should get born again (on condition I don’t have to meet my m*ther). Or maybe I should just try to shake the thoughts free. You know those tunes that stick in your mind for ages? I need a new mental tune :)

A couple of months ago, I saw a link to the Attention Trust. The aggregation of a single user’s interests had seemed to be a logical step for me before and this looked to be doing just that - basically tracking my attention. So out of curiosity I joined up. Hmmm…..
Here’s the deal as I see it - and I think my vision is pretty clear: I install a firefox extension, every web address I click on is sent to Root Markets (it’s all linked from the above). My data accumulates. I could then be approached by a company who say “Let us see your data and we’ll put you into a draw for a new car (for example)” because my ‘attention data’ is mine to do with as I wish. Then another company, and another etc. Root markets become the middleman by getting some sort of slice for letting the marketeers close enough to me. (Of course I’m sure that a company that got hold of a copy would never ever do more than they said. Oh no.)

Right .. so the data accumulates. It’s possible to use ‘local storage’ where an xml file is created on your machine but despite some instructions to the contrary, it is not possible to store your ‘clickstream’ on your own server. I have a database, I have the code but each time Firefox starts, the extension phones home and overrides what I have chosen. My data, my clickstream, mine to do with what I want but it must be stored where they want. I wanted to store locally because I wanted to watch what happened. I wanted to see if blocked sites really were not recorded (for the brief time the extension was here they were not recorded) and I wanted to poke about and see what data was being stored in the db but not output to the screen - curiosity, that’s all. So being stopped from doing that was extremely annoying. (If I knew enough I’d remove the phone home stuff from the .xpi file).

Two principles from their site:

1. Property
You own your attention and can store it wherever you wish. You have CONTROL.

2. Mobility
You can securely move your attention wherever you want whenever you want to. You have the ability to TRANSFER your attention.

Two responses from me:

1. No.
I am not allowed to store my data on my server.

2. No.
You are not telling me how or giving me the tools

Did I mention the data accumulates ? So 100,000 people could accumulate data on one of their servers. I’ll be extremely conservative - 10 clicks a day each. That’s 1,000,000 clicks a day. 7 Million clicks a week - which is an awful lot of attention data - and the company will not do anything at all with that unless you agree because it’s your data. Okay, I can’t doubt them on that - but it does become a case of ‘castles in the air’ doesn’t it ? The company stock / profile / whatever and that of the people involved climbs even if they have a ‘product’ which no-one can access. Weird. Not that the people behind this shouldn’t get returns for their work - indeed they should - but it seems .. very .. bubble-like.

Some other thoughts:
1 - You are creating a track of your web habits, a track that would be investigated and while you could take a sledgehammer to your HD, you can’t delete from a remote server. And who is to say that security services wouldn’t impose conditions on companies that say something like “You can’t destroy anything and you can’t tell anyone we told you that and you can’t tell anyone anything about that”.
2 - There would be a market in creating false attention data wouldn’t there ? Wouldn’t be too difficult to create would it ? (open firefox, run code, go bed. Awake to a solid block of data)

It’s a non-profit.. and ?

I really can see a reason why attention is important if you want to look at just clicks but then if you were to find two webpages in my browser history you would have no idea which I had looked at for the longest - maybe I’d taken the dog for a walk and not shut Firefox - and the time was being recorded in the db but not output to the screen (I’ll play later maybe again) - and I can see why someone might want to sell their data in return for something but right now I’m an extension free zone. Go read…

From The Independent, I find this hilarious - and sad:

The BBC announced last week it had ended its three-year contract with Peter Schmeichel, the former Denmark and Manchester United goalkeeper, reportedly after executives became exasperated by his long sentences on Match of the Day.

The BBC are paying him for his opinions - but only if he speaks in short sentences ? That’s crazy.

Lineker: “So Peter, tell us what you thought about the goalkeeper’s performance in that 12-nil drubbing”
Peter: Could. do. better.

Not being a fan of what is called by some the “Beautiful Game”, I haven’t watched Match of the Day ever but given the way that footballers seem to be paid astronomical amounts I’d actually be impressed with a footballing role model who could actually string several words together.
The sad bit is that somewhere in the BBC someone lost their concentration when listening to Mr Schmeichel and that was the seed that lead to this contract ending. And would you put money on the person being a fan of the team that Man U had probably just beaten ? I would.

The BBC don’t think we can concentrate or want to hear the words of someone else. It’s a slippery slope …

I always thought that if you looked at the world from a long way away, there would be snow on the top and snow on the bottom. I have no idea where that notion came from - maybe the years of being subjected to the weekly treat of “Look and Learn” as a comic instead of The Beano - but either way there would be lots of snow. There isn’t !
I decided to try and find a penguin using Google Earth. I knew it was a long shot but I figured a black penguin against white snow would be a head start. I even remembered that I should start at the South Pole - mind, I had to find my own way there as Google Earth has no record of the place - but a couple of things surprised me:
- the images are very blurred. Is this to conceal secret installations of military things ? Or is it because the satellite trajectory means that it’s travelling really fast and it cannot focus on white ? (Don’t tell the commies or they’ll be over as sprinting snowmen !)
- There is a lot of the South Pole.
In fact the amount there is is about what I would have guessed. I think if someone had given me a pictures of the globe and asked me to colour in the amount I thought the South Pole would be, I’d have been close.

I’d have been waaaaaay off with the North Pole. It’s tiny. I’ll accept that if you are there that even I as a lover of the cold rather than a sun-worshipper would find it a tad on the chilly and barren side of welcoming, but even so it is so small !

I do believe in Global Warming as a phenomenon and my perception now could easily be “Look ! It’s nearly all gone !” which it may well be, but that’s based on my childhood beliefs but even so, doesn’t it look small ? Isn’t it smaller than you thought it would be ? And isn’t that worrying in some right now abstract way ? I wonder if someone somewhere has done lots of zooming and measuring so that when things are updated they can say “It’s got smaller!” because this GE tool has given us that possibility hasn’t it ? And not just snow but rainforests and rivers and deserts and roads - I hope someone maps roads. Tarmac is evil.

I can’t twist the world to show snow on the top and the bottom at the same time. My childhood vision is gone.

I’ll keep you updated on the penguin search :)

From Lifehacker

I’m the kind of web surfer who’s never terribly happy when he has to move his hand over to the mouse

Now I know this is probably not what the author meant, but my very first thought - which still persists - was “Just how damn lazy are people wanting to be ?!?” RSI I could understand but “never terribly happy” seems …. gah.

Now if someone could just click that Publish button down on the right ? And bring up some more Fatboy Slim on Winamp, change the active window to IRC ….. and pass me a mince pie that P cooked earlier (part-chew it please - I’m never terribly happy munching pastry).

Just went for a walk up to the shop. No idea how far away it is but at a good pace (which is my standard speed setting) it takes ~15minutes. About halfway there an old lady appears from a driveway and starts walking in the same direction towward the shops. She’s around 80 yards ahead and is walking slowly. I’m listening to music and not really concentrating on much when I see that she has half-turned, looked at me and then kept on walking. The distance between us has closed and she does it again. But this time she doesn’t just turn and keep walking, she starts scurrying. She actually speeds up while still taking her small steps and she holds her bag tighter. Having seen this behaviour countless times, I simply cross the road. I don’t look at her (I’m still around 40 feet behind her) but I notice she glances at me and visibly slows her pace. It’s an odd exchange of sorts and I cannot be the only bloke that this sort of thing happens too - and I perfectly understand why it happens, but I can’t help feeling that even though nothing happened that this old lady has had some believe about society reinforced. Is she thinking that because she ‘got a good look’ that I was ’scared off’ ? Is some other aspect of the situation reinforcing something that she holds to be true already ? Because you can bet she is not thinking “that bloke realised I was scared and moved across the road to make me less afraid” which is what really happened.

Those spray bottles - the sort for kitchen / bathroom cleaners ? There’s a little tube from the trigger bit at the top to the bottom of the bottle bit isn’t there ? Well WHY is that little tube bent to be at the back of the bottle so when it gets to the end and you tilt the bottle the tube catches only air ? Is it beyond the realms of technology to get that little tube pointing the right way ? Irritating.

At the house we are moving to, in a bedroom that D will occupy there is a wardrobe with a desk / two cupboards thing attached. The sort of thing one might put together for a growing child. D doesn’t like it and given it’s brown-covered chipboard, neither do we. I’d not really taken much notice when we look round and today J asked me if I could remove it. Yep says me, no problem. Hmmmmm……. I can’t.
I’ll try to describe it. Floor to ceiling fitted (that’s about 8ft). No back. About 20-24 inches square. No base. 3 internal shelves. No top. I can see carpet (old carpet) at the bottom and ceiling at the top. I can see no visible means of fixing it to the wall. I see no brackets, no screws, no battens. Nothing. We have permission to remove it so I kick it. It doesn’t budge. I get in, close the door and can see light between the wall and the sides. I can slide thin card along most joins - except the right vertical as it butts the door frame. I even looked at the other side of the wall for coach bolts, and went into the roof space too. I have NO idea how this thing is staying in place. Liquid Nails ? It looks and feels indestructible - I wonder what sort of child it was built for. We checked when we got back. When the landlord bought it, the wardrobe was in place - something we suspected as the carpet in that room has been fitted around this monstrosity. So tomorrow it dies. Me, bro-in-law, a jigsaw, a drill, mallets and hammers are going to find out just what magic has been worked. It’s very very odd right now.

On the back of the Heinz ketchup bottle listed in the ingredients is celery. Nothing too strange about that, except that under that, in a section specially marked ‘Contains’ is the word ‘Celery’. That too I find odd.

On the BBC News page, there are - among others - 4 links on the left: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Clicking England or Wales will result in another screen that has a dropdown menu that further localises the news. Northern Ireland and Scotland do not have this dropdown - yet Scotland is much larger than Wales. I wonder why.

One: Be careful what you wish for - it might come true.

Two: If you can’t handle the answer, do not ask the question.