It seems to me that society as a whole, and nowhere more evident than within Politics in particular, likes to pass the buck with whom the responsibility lies for the outcome of our actions.
I speak in particular of a generation, higher than mine, there are many - as the definition of a generation in itself is very grey - but one thing that seems to breed incessantly is the mentality of blaming the next generation for failures at holding up "traditions" and "values". Well to that I have one thing to say - take responsibility for your own actions. My generation is the product of those that came before it, and the generation that will come after mine will be the product of my generation and the ones that came before it. Before you pass judgement 'looking down' on the generations below you, do me a favour and do two things first: Shut up and take a long hard look at your own generation.
Politics is dominated by older people. The current generation is often under-represented or even unrepresented within the government of the day. Many government institutions systematically oppress the view of the younger generation - take the President of the United States - to be president you must be at least 35 years old. In any other field an age requirement like this would be seen as age-discrimination, be deemed unlawful and the company instigating such requirements would be legally liable to prosecution. Within Politics however it seems to be the norm. The first thing most young people think of when they think of Politicians are old people sitting in a room squabbling - and that image is very justifiable.
Politicians blame the younger generation for many problems and failures in society, but as I said, we are the product of the generations that came before us. When you see young people you brandish as criminals, is it any wonder they turn out the way they do when our role models who supposedly represent us in governance are as corrupt and underhanded? When Members of Parliament en masse, fiddled expenses and claimed for everything from toilet seats to a moat - you seriously want my generation to swallow that swill that we were "brought up" to be moral?
There are parents who hold good values and teach their children right and wrong and raise them to be the best that they can be, and then there are parents who teach their children to be corrupt and teach them to exploit all that they can, to take advantage and do whatever they can to get as high as they can. As long as politics remains to be dominated by people without conscience you have no right to expect any future generation to be moral. As Politics dominated by older generations seek to satisfy themselves before putting in place the foundations of a better future you can not expect future generations to hold older generations in any regard.
What all this boils down to, is one simple fact - my generation and future generations may be selfish, and they may satisfy their own interests first, even if doing so contradicts the law, but they do this because it is what they have been taught, it is what the generations before us did and you can not sit on your high horse and pass judgement when it is about to collapse of malnutrition because you rode it to death never feeding it and caring only about yourself.
Do not be surprised when the world is turning to shit around you, this is the world of your creation, of your generation and the countless generations of selfish, self absorbed, all consuming short sighted fools.
Would you eat The Apple?
Let's discard any views we have on Religion and approach this from a philosophical point of view for a moment. Let's imagine the story of the Garden of Eden was true and that it really existed. Now let's imagine you, and your partner are Adam and Eve or Steve or whatever floats your boat.
The story goes that Adam and Eve lived in The Garden Of Eden, a sanctuary created by God where they lived in peace and tranquillity, completely ignorant and protected from everything. They hadn't a care in the world, they knew nothing of Science and they knew nothing of hunger, disease, war etc, and they wanted for nothing and were given all they desired all this under one condition, they never eat of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.
Now let's imagine you and your partner, if you haven't got one, imagine the love of your life, the perfect partner you could ever wish for and imagine they were with you in the Garden. The serpent rises with the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and tempts you with it. On the one hand you can deny it and continue to live forever more in the Garden of Eden, in complete ignorance but ultimately without free will and without an understanding of the world around you - while on the other hand you have complete freedom, free will to do as you please in a world of your making, but with knowledge of all the realities of life.
Would you eat The Apple?
The story goes that Adam and Eve lived in The Garden Of Eden, a sanctuary created by God where they lived in peace and tranquillity, completely ignorant and protected from everything. They hadn't a care in the world, they knew nothing of Science and they knew nothing of hunger, disease, war etc, and they wanted for nothing and were given all they desired all this under one condition, they never eat of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.
Now let's imagine you and your partner, if you haven't got one, imagine the love of your life, the perfect partner you could ever wish for and imagine they were with you in the Garden. The serpent rises with the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and tempts you with it. On the one hand you can deny it and continue to live forever more in the Garden of Eden, in complete ignorance but ultimately without free will and without an understanding of the world around you - while on the other hand you have complete freedom, free will to do as you please in a world of your making, but with knowledge of all the realities of life.
Would you eat The Apple?
European Exodus
On Saturday the 26th of May a new law passed by the EU will come into effect governing the use of Cookies in websites hosted and operating inside the EU. The law in a nutshell states that any site inside the EU must gain explicit permission from site visitors to use cookies, if the user denies permission then the site can't use cookies. Sound simple enough but the aftermath and the implementation is nothing but one huge headache with far reaching implications.
To start I guess I should explain what a cookie is. Basically in order for a website to remember a little about who you are when you visit, it stores some information in a small text file called a cookie. That file is managed by your web browser and can be requested by websites. Cookies are most often used for recording session data, they are integral to a website allowing you to "log in" - without cookies the site can't mange a session and it wouldn't be possible for you to use any logged in services, e.g. posting comments or replies, having a member profile, having a username etc.
The second most popular use for cookies by far is page analysis. This allows a website to gather statistics on which pages are the most popular etc. You can do all this without cookies as I have mentioned in a previous post, but in order to do all this without cookies you need to know a lot about the Internet and how it actually works. The problem is that most people don't. This is where Google comes in, and many other companies. They provide JavaScript code you add to your website. In the case of Google this code is provided and maintained by Google Analytics. Practically every site you visit will use some form of Analytical software like this. However this solution requires cookies.
The new EU law on cookies states that any cookie which is not strictly necessary as part of the site's operational features must require permission from the user.
Now here's the problem which we have already highlighted, a lot of people don't know how the Internet actually works. So when prompted with the question "can this site store cookies on your computer?" they respond "No" thinking they are some kind of virus or simply out of paranoia. The following graph shows the tracked user visits to the Information Commissioner's Office website. The Graph shows average visitors tracked before users had to agree to cookie usage and after users had to agree with cookie usage:
If we take the highest point pre cookie opt-in, that's approx 12,000 visitors and match it to the highest post op-in which is approx 1,200 we can see that about 10% of users will allow cookies and the other 90% will opt-out. This could also be biased based on the fact that the site is a government website and that may influence the level of trust the user has in allowing the site to store cookies.
A lot of website are ad-supported and many websites use on-site advertising that is not third party related, e.g. Amazon advertises products to its visitors based on cookies it sets and uses to track the items you look at, offering up items others looked at too etc, this is called context-aware advertising and a lot of sites rely on it to make ends meet.
Now for the point of this post the title as it says "European Exodus" - I would be very wary of this law and the impact it will have on online business. I run a website, not linked to this blog and I have already had to make several changes to comply with this new cookie law and for me it was a pain in the arse quite frankly and I am a one-man-operation. If I was a large company based in the EU I would realistically assess if it was cheaper to actually move outside the EU, not have to comply with this ridiculous law and maybe even cut my running costs while I am at it - the IT industry in India is massive and is growing at a phenomenal rate, if I moved operations there I may make massive savings - as long as you are based outside the EU then this law does not apply to you.
The EU and the idiots sitting in Brussels are playing a very dangerous game at a time of economic uncertainty, a vast Exodus of IT services from Europe to other countries could be a massive blow to any existing economic recovery. Will there be a European Exodus of Tech Giants?
To start I guess I should explain what a cookie is. Basically in order for a website to remember a little about who you are when you visit, it stores some information in a small text file called a cookie. That file is managed by your web browser and can be requested by websites. Cookies are most often used for recording session data, they are integral to a website allowing you to "log in" - without cookies the site can't mange a session and it wouldn't be possible for you to use any logged in services, e.g. posting comments or replies, having a member profile, having a username etc.
The second most popular use for cookies by far is page analysis. This allows a website to gather statistics on which pages are the most popular etc. You can do all this without cookies as I have mentioned in a previous post, but in order to do all this without cookies you need to know a lot about the Internet and how it actually works. The problem is that most people don't. This is where Google comes in, and many other companies. They provide JavaScript code you add to your website. In the case of Google this code is provided and maintained by Google Analytics. Practically every site you visit will use some form of Analytical software like this. However this solution requires cookies.
The new EU law on cookies states that any cookie which is not strictly necessary as part of the site's operational features must require permission from the user.
Now here's the problem which we have already highlighted, a lot of people don't know how the Internet actually works. So when prompted with the question "can this site store cookies on your computer?" they respond "No" thinking they are some kind of virus or simply out of paranoia. The following graph shows the tracked user visits to the Information Commissioner's Office website. The Graph shows average visitors tracked before users had to agree to cookie usage and after users had to agree with cookie usage:
If we take the highest point pre cookie opt-in, that's approx 12,000 visitors and match it to the highest post op-in which is approx 1,200 we can see that about 10% of users will allow cookies and the other 90% will opt-out. This could also be biased based on the fact that the site is a government website and that may influence the level of trust the user has in allowing the site to store cookies.
A lot of website are ad-supported and many websites use on-site advertising that is not third party related, e.g. Amazon advertises products to its visitors based on cookies it sets and uses to track the items you look at, offering up items others looked at too etc, this is called context-aware advertising and a lot of sites rely on it to make ends meet.
Now for the point of this post the title as it says "European Exodus" - I would be very wary of this law and the impact it will have on online business. I run a website, not linked to this blog and I have already had to make several changes to comply with this new cookie law and for me it was a pain in the arse quite frankly and I am a one-man-operation. If I was a large company based in the EU I would realistically assess if it was cheaper to actually move outside the EU, not have to comply with this ridiculous law and maybe even cut my running costs while I am at it - the IT industry in India is massive and is growing at a phenomenal rate, if I moved operations there I may make massive savings - as long as you are based outside the EU then this law does not apply to you.
The EU and the idiots sitting in Brussels are playing a very dangerous game at a time of economic uncertainty, a vast Exodus of IT services from Europe to other countries could be a massive blow to any existing economic recovery. Will there be a European Exodus of Tech Giants?
Could you live without the Internet?
How you react to that question I think will depend on your age among other factors such as you job etc. It's remarkable to think that the Internet is now some 50 years old and that the World Wide Web will turn 22 this year. Yet in those 22 years the Web has evolved so much and brought about such a great dependence for us upon the Internet.
As I sat today using one of the apps on my phone I stopped and realised what I was doing, and how second-nature it had become. To think that a few years ago, never mind a decade or two ago, using a phone for the plethora of activities the thousands of apps available provide is remarkable. Take that away for a moment and consider that as technology moves forward and as we evolve with it, our mindsets changing, stepping back seems nigh impossible - in some circles even akin to heresy.
So ask yourself this, as you sit reading my blog on your PC, Tablet or Phone, or some other device as yet unimagined by me; as you sit with your internet connection which will likely be in the magnitude of megabits, could you imagine stepping back say 10 years and living with Internet via a dial-up connection? That in itself is almost cringe-worthy to think of but go beyond it to the title of this post, could you live without the Internet?
Try banking, booking a holiday yourself without a travel agent, try writing and finding a media outlet that will let you share your thoughts with the world, try shopping for something you know not a single retailer within a 10 mile radius would sell, all without the aid of the Internet and you begin to realise how much we have become linked to our technology.
The older you are in reading this post the more likely you are to remember or have experienced life without the Internet. I can remember this, as I was 11 when we first had dial-up Internet and from age 16 to 18 lived without Internet at home, only accessing it while in college. I had a computer since I was around 5 years old, an Amstrad CPC-464 that had a green monochromatic display. I have had and used computers without the Internet and think how much easier it makes life, I don't know how I could live without it now. Don't get me wrong, I won't die if my Internet connection is cut off, what I am trying to say is that if it happened tomorrow that all of the UK was disconnected I think I along with many people would have to re-learn how to live without it.
As I sat today using one of the apps on my phone I stopped and realised what I was doing, and how second-nature it had become. To think that a few years ago, never mind a decade or two ago, using a phone for the plethora of activities the thousands of apps available provide is remarkable. Take that away for a moment and consider that as technology moves forward and as we evolve with it, our mindsets changing, stepping back seems nigh impossible - in some circles even akin to heresy.
So ask yourself this, as you sit reading my blog on your PC, Tablet or Phone, or some other device as yet unimagined by me; as you sit with your internet connection which will likely be in the magnitude of megabits, could you imagine stepping back say 10 years and living with Internet via a dial-up connection? That in itself is almost cringe-worthy to think of but go beyond it to the title of this post, could you live without the Internet?
Try banking, booking a holiday yourself without a travel agent, try writing and finding a media outlet that will let you share your thoughts with the world, try shopping for something you know not a single retailer within a 10 mile radius would sell, all without the aid of the Internet and you begin to realise how much we have become linked to our technology.
The older you are in reading this post the more likely you are to remember or have experienced life without the Internet. I can remember this, as I was 11 when we first had dial-up Internet and from age 16 to 18 lived without Internet at home, only accessing it while in college. I had a computer since I was around 5 years old, an Amstrad CPC-464 that had a green monochromatic display. I have had and used computers without the Internet and think how much easier it makes life, I don't know how I could live without it now. Don't get me wrong, I won't die if my Internet connection is cut off, what I am trying to say is that if it happened tomorrow that all of the UK was disconnected I think I along with many people would have to re-learn how to live without it.
Communication
There are many things in life we try to communicate with others. There are many forms of communication we can use to try and convey our message, we can speak, we can write, we can draw, we can sing, and we can dance, to name a few. As the list grows it becomes more and more obvious to us that communication, ultimately is simply and extension of expression. That is to say that almost all forms of expression can be viewn as forms of communication. Not all of these are conscious, some are unconscious, such as body language for example.
Communication is necessary not only to understand what the other person wants and needs but also to convey what we want and what we need, or indeed what we don't want or need. The latter of which is so often conveyed via our unconscious communication, e.g. visible discomfort, awkwardness, or anxiety. This is where communication online fails in comparison to face to face meetings 0 we only communicate conscious expressions online, we do not convey the unconscious expressions we often associate with weakness, moreover we don't make any conscious effort to convey these feelings because of the fear of being seen as weak.
For me I have a number of forms of communication but ultimately I would have to say that I fit the above description quite well, whether that be a positive or negative assertion about my personality type it stands as an admission of my habits. I write, I draw, I listen to music and share it online to my twitter followers or my G+ followers and of course to my facebook friends. All of this conveys my conscious communication. When it comes to the unconscious communication, there are little to no forms of online communication that I use that enable those to be perceived. I don't cam-to-cam on skype for example, my calls are voice only. Almost all of my communication is written and I rarely interact with anyone I know online in the offline world.
In contrast I would interact with my friends offline more than I would online. Even if they have an online presence for the most part it will not interact with mine. I could speak to you face to face or on the phone every single day, but never tweet you, never post to your wall etc to anyone online it would seems we don't interact at all. Then again that is more or less the point, I try to keep my life online and my life offline completely separate. It's rare that you would see a tweet about something going on in my life. I only share those things with people I communicate with one on one.
It's sad when you read this and realise, unless you can transition from my online world into my offline world, you are likely never to know what I am really like. Ironically I am being quite open about this fact here while saying little of what it really means. If you understand what I mean then you actually have a chance of being one of the few to pass from online to offline.
Communication is necessary not only to understand what the other person wants and needs but also to convey what we want and what we need, or indeed what we don't want or need. The latter of which is so often conveyed via our unconscious communication, e.g. visible discomfort, awkwardness, or anxiety. This is where communication online fails in comparison to face to face meetings 0 we only communicate conscious expressions online, we do not convey the unconscious expressions we often associate with weakness, moreover we don't make any conscious effort to convey these feelings because of the fear of being seen as weak.
For me I have a number of forms of communication but ultimately I would have to say that I fit the above description quite well, whether that be a positive or negative assertion about my personality type it stands as an admission of my habits. I write, I draw, I listen to music and share it online to my twitter followers or my G+ followers and of course to my facebook friends. All of this conveys my conscious communication. When it comes to the unconscious communication, there are little to no forms of online communication that I use that enable those to be perceived. I don't cam-to-cam on skype for example, my calls are voice only. Almost all of my communication is written and I rarely interact with anyone I know online in the offline world.
In contrast I would interact with my friends offline more than I would online. Even if they have an online presence for the most part it will not interact with mine. I could speak to you face to face or on the phone every single day, but never tweet you, never post to your wall etc to anyone online it would seems we don't interact at all. Then again that is more or less the point, I try to keep my life online and my life offline completely separate. It's rare that you would see a tweet about something going on in my life. I only share those things with people I communicate with one on one.
It's sad when you read this and realise, unless you can transition from my online world into my offline world, you are likely never to know what I am really like. Ironically I am being quite open about this fact here while saying little of what it really means. If you understand what I mean then you actually have a chance of being one of the few to pass from online to offline.
Content Combination
If you have a product that you want to reach a wider audience the simplest strategy for doing so is content combination. That is, to combine your content with existing content - packaging your product alongside existing products to increase its exposure. The natural route in this strategy is to bundle like for like but is that really the most effective strategy?
I am not a violent person, I wouldn't call myself aggressive and for the most part I would say that my taste in games would be overly childish. The types of video games I would play would fall along the lines of Banjo Kazooie, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario, Pokémon, Ratchet and Clank to name but a few. I would never personally have considered shoot-em-up games and First Person Shooter types to be included anywhere in the plethora of Games that I would play. Indeed one of my favourite games is called Chrono Trigger and was released for the SNES, a game I did not experience until I was in my 20s - in my younger years I would have seen the title and dismissed it thinking it was related to shooting [which could not be further from the truth]. I was never one for games like Grand Theft Auto or Golden Eye etc.
All this aside a turning point emerged in my gaming habits when I was a teenager, not because I had a change of heart per-sé but because I was given an xbox - the original first generation xbox a.k.a the black brick [on account of the fact it weighed a tonne]. The original xbox came bundled with Halo which was a first person shooter set in space. First off I didn't actually play it for a while because I had no desire at all. I eventually sat down and decided it would be a waste so I would at least try it. I played Halo and I fell in love with it. It wasn't just mindless shooting, there was a strategy to the game you did have to think about what you were doing if you wanted to get through. My perception of the genre changed after that experience and I was eventually given Halo 2 as a gift from a classmate in Uni. I played Halo 2 and loved it too. I eventually bought an xbox 360 solely because Halo 3 was exclusive to the console and I wanted to play it and keep it completing my collection.
I do have to question here, whether I would ever have played Halo, if it had not been bundled with the xbox. If I had never played Halo [which would have been quite probable if it hadn't been bundled] I would never have played Halo 2 and I wouldn't of had any desire to play Halo 3 - the deciding factor in buying an xbox 360. It is quite probable that I would never have bought an xbox 360 at all. So as far as I am concerned personally as an individual case study, combining content was an effective strategy to extend the audience of the genre to include people like me - people who would never have considered FPS games. My xbox was bundled with Midtown Madness 3 and Halo. The former was a Game I actually wanted to play, the latter I didn't. One was essentially a racing game and the other a shooter. If the console bundle had been like-for-like and bundled Halo with another shooter it wouldn't have been bought for me. A console by itself with games I would actually play would have been bought instead.
One last comment would be to say that this does work both ways in the above scenario, there may have been people who bought that console bundle solely for Halo then discovered they actually liked the style of racing game Midtown Madness 3 presented. So this is just something to think about - it's not always about finding similar content to help promote yours, sometimes opposite content or completely unrelated content can be just as effective at expanding your audience. If you run a blog, a site, or a youtube channel for example, with a particular style of content, try doing something completely different and see what happens. You might attract visitors that find you for that content but then discover the rest of your content.
I am not a violent person, I wouldn't call myself aggressive and for the most part I would say that my taste in games would be overly childish. The types of video games I would play would fall along the lines of Banjo Kazooie, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario, Pokémon, Ratchet and Clank to name but a few. I would never personally have considered shoot-em-up games and First Person Shooter types to be included anywhere in the plethora of Games that I would play. Indeed one of my favourite games is called Chrono Trigger and was released for the SNES, a game I did not experience until I was in my 20s - in my younger years I would have seen the title and dismissed it thinking it was related to shooting [which could not be further from the truth]. I was never one for games like Grand Theft Auto or Golden Eye etc.
All this aside a turning point emerged in my gaming habits when I was a teenager, not because I had a change of heart per-sé but because I was given an xbox - the original first generation xbox a.k.a the black brick [on account of the fact it weighed a tonne]. The original xbox came bundled with Halo which was a first person shooter set in space. First off I didn't actually play it for a while because I had no desire at all. I eventually sat down and decided it would be a waste so I would at least try it. I played Halo and I fell in love with it. It wasn't just mindless shooting, there was a strategy to the game you did have to think about what you were doing if you wanted to get through. My perception of the genre changed after that experience and I was eventually given Halo 2 as a gift from a classmate in Uni. I played Halo 2 and loved it too. I eventually bought an xbox 360 solely because Halo 3 was exclusive to the console and I wanted to play it and keep it completing my collection.
I do have to question here, whether I would ever have played Halo, if it had not been bundled with the xbox. If I had never played Halo [which would have been quite probable if it hadn't been bundled] I would never have played Halo 2 and I wouldn't of had any desire to play Halo 3 - the deciding factor in buying an xbox 360. It is quite probable that I would never have bought an xbox 360 at all. So as far as I am concerned personally as an individual case study, combining content was an effective strategy to extend the audience of the genre to include people like me - people who would never have considered FPS games. My xbox was bundled with Midtown Madness 3 and Halo. The former was a Game I actually wanted to play, the latter I didn't. One was essentially a racing game and the other a shooter. If the console bundle had been like-for-like and bundled Halo with another shooter it wouldn't have been bought for me. A console by itself with games I would actually play would have been bought instead.
One last comment would be to say that this does work both ways in the above scenario, there may have been people who bought that console bundle solely for Halo then discovered they actually liked the style of racing game Midtown Madness 3 presented. So this is just something to think about - it's not always about finding similar content to help promote yours, sometimes opposite content or completely unrelated content can be just as effective at expanding your audience. If you run a blog, a site, or a youtube channel for example, with a particular style of content, try doing something completely different and see what happens. You might attract visitors that find you for that content but then discover the rest of your content.
Hindsight
"The full extent of any historical event is neither fully perceived in the moment nor in foresight. It is only in retrospect that we realise monumental events and atrocities as being instrumental in changing the world. You will not understand what is happening in the world today until tomorrow." - My words at age 22.Two years have passed since I first wrote that quote, I can't remember what event first inspired it but I know that I have reused it many times since in moments of my life, partly as a way pinning my emotions to a point in time so that I can look back in the future and recall what I felt, but also partly as a reminder to myself in the moment that one day will come when I will look back on what I felt and on that moment and think how much I overreacted or how consumed I had become.
I have echoed the words of another before, a wise man who once told me, it doesn't matter how much experience someone has nor how many times they have been there themselves, no matter what they say you'll never listen, because no-one can ever truly know what you feel, they can come close but they can only empathise, they can't take your place.
Of this I would like to extend. We are not the same person throughout our life. I am a different person today than I was yesterday and I will be a different person tomorrow as I was today. What I feel here in this moment I can document, I can explain, I can relate to events of others - all this I can do but tomorrow I will not feel the same. I may come close, but even though it is my life, my memories and my experiences, all future versions of myself and all past versions of myself are as any person would be to me - different people I can come close to knowing but ultimately people whose places I cannot trade.
At age 22 I wrote that quote but even if I could remember exactly what inspired it, I would never again grasp the mentality completely and share the same emotions as I did in that moment. You can look back on your life, the crushes you had the break ups the get togethers and you can remember what you did and how you felt but memory no matter how vivid is no substitute for first hand experience. You can recall how great something tasted but you can't relive the taste. You shouldn't let this get you down though. You should see this as a lesson, live in the moment. Let tomorrow be a mystery and revel in your past but don't try to go back.
Deception Points
Apologies in advance if any of this posts sounds angry and or venomous but I am quite agitated at the moment and I have a few things I want to say.
I have said before in other posts revolving around Psychology and in particular confidence, that we as individuals present a shell to the world - a projection of a personality that we want others to perceive. Inside that shell the reality is usually quite different and you see the person inside, for what they really are.
One of my favourite music tracks is by DJ Encore feat. Engeline 'I See Right Through To You' - the reason it is my favourite is because I pride myself on not buying into the projections of others. I usually ignore first impressions [except those made by people who aren't trying to make a "first impression"] - in other words I ignore what people try and convince me they are like, then later judge for myself who or what they really are. To date this has stood by me well as there are a few people I regard as good friends who have said their weakness is that they do not make the right first impression.
While I pride myself on this ability I am still Human, I still make mistakes and errors in judgements - I can still be wrong and I have been with one or two individuals I have met. Putting this aside though, there are points we reach in what we choose to share with people. Even I have these points and there are a number of individuals I have set points for - in practice what this means is that I have observed behaviours of one or two people I know and in my mind I know what they are really like. I am not a fool and they are not fooling anyone with the projections they make, but I haw never let this be known. In other words there is a point with everyone at which I stop being open with how I really feel about them.
The problem with these points that we create comes when the point I make for you and the one you make for me are not equal or synchronised if you will. This is a problem as it invariably means that one person is more open than the other, the latter in this case can be seen to be holding back or deceiving the former if the two have agreed to be open with each other. In other words if two people agree not to hold back, then what is expected is exactly that, that nothing should be held back - if it is, then you are creating a Deception Point if you do not openly admit that there are things that you are holding back or things that you would just rather not talk about.
The remedy or the resolution to all of this is to deliver exactly what you committed to - openness - there will be no deception if you simply admit that there are things you would not like to talk about, any good friend, myself included would respect that boundary. All my friends know that there are certain things I don't talk about and they know that pushing me on those things is a bad idea and the shortest route to ending a friendship,
The only other thing I have to add to this post is this: if I have not already told you, exactly what I think of you, I think you would be very surprised by what I really think.
I have said before in other posts revolving around Psychology and in particular confidence, that we as individuals present a shell to the world - a projection of a personality that we want others to perceive. Inside that shell the reality is usually quite different and you see the person inside, for what they really are.
One of my favourite music tracks is by DJ Encore feat. Engeline 'I See Right Through To You' - the reason it is my favourite is because I pride myself on not buying into the projections of others. I usually ignore first impressions [except those made by people who aren't trying to make a "first impression"] - in other words I ignore what people try and convince me they are like, then later judge for myself who or what they really are. To date this has stood by me well as there are a few people I regard as good friends who have said their weakness is that they do not make the right first impression.
While I pride myself on this ability I am still Human, I still make mistakes and errors in judgements - I can still be wrong and I have been with one or two individuals I have met. Putting this aside though, there are points we reach in what we choose to share with people. Even I have these points and there are a number of individuals I have set points for - in practice what this means is that I have observed behaviours of one or two people I know and in my mind I know what they are really like. I am not a fool and they are not fooling anyone with the projections they make, but I haw never let this be known. In other words there is a point with everyone at which I stop being open with how I really feel about them.
The problem with these points that we create comes when the point I make for you and the one you make for me are not equal or synchronised if you will. This is a problem as it invariably means that one person is more open than the other, the latter in this case can be seen to be holding back or deceiving the former if the two have agreed to be open with each other. In other words if two people agree not to hold back, then what is expected is exactly that, that nothing should be held back - if it is, then you are creating a Deception Point if you do not openly admit that there are things that you are holding back or things that you would just rather not talk about.
The remedy or the resolution to all of this is to deliver exactly what you committed to - openness - there will be no deception if you simply admit that there are things you would not like to talk about, any good friend, myself included would respect that boundary. All my friends know that there are certain things I don't talk about and they know that pushing me on those things is a bad idea and the shortest route to ending a friendship,
The only other thing I have to add to this post is this: if I have not already told you, exactly what I think of you, I think you would be very surprised by what I really think.
Online Anonymity
If you are worried about your privacy online then I think it's time you learned some home truths so sit down and read this no-nonsense basic lesson in how the Internet actually works.
First of all we need to cover one thing, the difference between the World Wide Web and the Internet. Put simply the Internet is the hardware, the physical connections that make up the network of computers that spans the globe. The World Wide Web is an application that runs on that hardware. There are other applications too but right now they aren't important.
When you visit a website a connection is made between your computer and the server that is hosting the website [the computer the website is saved on]. We call your computer the Client, and we call the Server - simply the Server.
You have control over anything that runs on your computer. You do not have control over anything that is running on the server. A lot of people are concerned with online privacy and in particular "Tracking" which keeps records of sites you visit etc. Most of this tracking software runs on your computer Client Side. You can disable it by installing an app or a plugin or an extension in your browser, e.g. Do Not Track, AdBlock Plus and NoScript among others. All this is quite useful. You can not however block anything that runs server side. More than that you can't stay anonymous online - forget what anyone has told you its just not true.
The Internet is a vast network of computers. They talk to each other in their own language. That language is called a Protocol and the main one we use is called TCP/IP. Every device that wants to use the Internet first needs an IP address. Your computer will have an IP address, usually a local IP address that is unique to your computer within your own local network. In most situations this network starts and ends at your router - the device that connects you to the wider internet and lets you access websites.
Your Router will have its own IP address which will be unique within a larger network which will be run by your Internet Service Provider let's say BT or O2. At the end of that network there will be another device like a router that connects that entire network under one IP address to another larger network, until eventually at the very end there is one single network which has connections to all computers in the world through different routes through different networks.
Now, in order for information to get from your computer to the web server and back a lot of information is needed:
- Your IP address
- Your local exchange
- Your ISP
- Your Country
Among others, this information is needed in order for a connection to be made without it you can't make a connection. It's like making a telephone call, you need to know the telephone number to be able to call it. None of the above information can be blocked client-side.
A Proxy server is a computer that sits in between you and the Web server, so the Web server sees the IP address of the Proxy server instead of yours. The proxy server then sends and receives data to and from the Web server. It sends copies of that data back to you and asks you what to do with it. In effect this is like you sitting in my bedroom and me talking to someone on the phone, pretending to be you, occasionally stopping to ask you questions I don't know the answer to.
Some see Proxy servers as a solution to Online Privacy, but the reality is that they bring new problems for a start, can you trust me? I will hear everything you say to one another and have the potential to remember it, so when the person on the phone asks me for your credit card number and you tell me it after telling the person on the phone I could keep a copy of that information to myself, and I could use it later without you knowing.
Not all proxy servers are anonymous. All connections send information back and forward including routing information and destination information. Not all Proxy servers strip this information, some Proxy servers will actually tell the website you are visiting that the connection is via proxy and on request tell the web server your actual location - if you have ever sued a Proxy server to try and watch Hulu.com from outside the US or iPlayer from outside the UK you probably have already experienced these sites telling you they know you are not in either of those countries.
More than all of this most public access proxy servers even those that are anonymous will be listed in numerous places online and in some cases "Blacklisted". Any website has the capability to access these lists and quickly determine that you are using an anonymous proxy and they can then deny you access to the site.
The simple truth of the Internet is that if you want to remain completely anonymous then don't use the Internet, because no matter what you do, information can and will still be gathered. Web servers that work in co-operation can share server side data including how often you visit, the more people start using client side tools to block tracking the more websites will use Server side tools that can't be blocked.
Web sites still know what you are doing. To give an example, on average around 1,000 of my blog visitors use AdBlock Plus to disable Google Analytics tracking code. However I still know when you visit how long you stayed what OS you are using which Browser and which country you are in - why? I know because all of that information is shared with the web server and is required for the connection:
- When you visit is determined when you make a connection to the server
- How long you stayed is determined by the time-out of the TIME_WAIT connection your browser establishes and maintains as long as you continue to view the page and terminates when you leave.
- What OS you are using which is determined by information the browser provides but can reasonably be obtained from your TCP packets as well
- Which Browser - as above
- Which country you are in which is determined from the host-names and DNS resolution of addresses contained within the routing information necessary to deliver the web page from the server to you
First of all we need to cover one thing, the difference between the World Wide Web and the Internet. Put simply the Internet is the hardware, the physical connections that make up the network of computers that spans the globe. The World Wide Web is an application that runs on that hardware. There are other applications too but right now they aren't important.
When you visit a website a connection is made between your computer and the server that is hosting the website [the computer the website is saved on]. We call your computer the Client, and we call the Server - simply the Server.
You have control over anything that runs on your computer. You do not have control over anything that is running on the server. A lot of people are concerned with online privacy and in particular "Tracking" which keeps records of sites you visit etc. Most of this tracking software runs on your computer Client Side. You can disable it by installing an app or a plugin or an extension in your browser, e.g. Do Not Track, AdBlock Plus and NoScript among others. All this is quite useful. You can not however block anything that runs server side. More than that you can't stay anonymous online - forget what anyone has told you its just not true.
The Internet is a vast network of computers. They talk to each other in their own language. That language is called a Protocol and the main one we use is called TCP/IP. Every device that wants to use the Internet first needs an IP address. Your computer will have an IP address, usually a local IP address that is unique to your computer within your own local network. In most situations this network starts and ends at your router - the device that connects you to the wider internet and lets you access websites.
Your Router will have its own IP address which will be unique within a larger network which will be run by your Internet Service Provider let's say BT or O2. At the end of that network there will be another device like a router that connects that entire network under one IP address to another larger network, until eventually at the very end there is one single network which has connections to all computers in the world through different routes through different networks.
Now, in order for information to get from your computer to the web server and back a lot of information is needed:
- Your IP address
- Your local exchange
- Your ISP
- Your Country
Among others, this information is needed in order for a connection to be made without it you can't make a connection. It's like making a telephone call, you need to know the telephone number to be able to call it. None of the above information can be blocked client-side.
A Proxy server is a computer that sits in between you and the Web server, so the Web server sees the IP address of the Proxy server instead of yours. The proxy server then sends and receives data to and from the Web server. It sends copies of that data back to you and asks you what to do with it. In effect this is like you sitting in my bedroom and me talking to someone on the phone, pretending to be you, occasionally stopping to ask you questions I don't know the answer to.
Some see Proxy servers as a solution to Online Privacy, but the reality is that they bring new problems for a start, can you trust me? I will hear everything you say to one another and have the potential to remember it, so when the person on the phone asks me for your credit card number and you tell me it after telling the person on the phone I could keep a copy of that information to myself, and I could use it later without you knowing.
Not all proxy servers are anonymous. All connections send information back and forward including routing information and destination information. Not all Proxy servers strip this information, some Proxy servers will actually tell the website you are visiting that the connection is via proxy and on request tell the web server your actual location - if you have ever sued a Proxy server to try and watch Hulu.com from outside the US or iPlayer from outside the UK you probably have already experienced these sites telling you they know you are not in either of those countries.
More than all of this most public access proxy servers even those that are anonymous will be listed in numerous places online and in some cases "Blacklisted". Any website has the capability to access these lists and quickly determine that you are using an anonymous proxy and they can then deny you access to the site.
The simple truth of the Internet is that if you want to remain completely anonymous then don't use the Internet, because no matter what you do, information can and will still be gathered. Web servers that work in co-operation can share server side data including how often you visit, the more people start using client side tools to block tracking the more websites will use Server side tools that can't be blocked.
Web sites still know what you are doing. To give an example, on average around 1,000 of my blog visitors use AdBlock Plus to disable Google Analytics tracking code. However I still know when you visit how long you stayed what OS you are using which Browser and which country you are in - why? I know because all of that information is shared with the web server and is required for the connection:
- When you visit is determined when you make a connection to the server
- How long you stayed is determined by the time-out of the TIME_WAIT connection your browser establishes and maintains as long as you continue to view the page and terminates when you leave.
- What OS you are using which is determined by information the browser provides but can reasonably be obtained from your TCP packets as well
- Which Browser - as above
- Which country you are in which is determined from the host-names and DNS resolution of addresses contained within the routing information necessary to deliver the web page from the server to you
Sunday Shuffle
Every Sunday I will post the first 6 songs my iPod throws up on Shuffle mode.
Oh It Is Love - Hello Goodbye
I Won't Last A Day Without You - The Carpenters
Firefly [Robert Vadney Remix] - Paul Oakenfold
Brimful of Asher - Cornershop
It's Over Now [Flip n Fil Remix] - Big Ang Feat Siobhan
Following but not a Follower
I know for some celebrities and comedians etc the reason they tweet is solely for publicity and exposure. For normal people however the reasons we tweet aren't always that clear. I mentioned Britain Unzipped in a recent post and some of the statistics it had unearthed, some of the statistics I did find interesting were the reason some people use social networking.
When asked whether or not they had used a social network to meet people 17% said yes and 83% said no, and when asked whether or not people found others' status updates interesting 54% said yes and 46% said no. Now firstly, given that a social network is meant to be a place to be "social" if only 17% of people actually meet people through them that's a bit of a misnomer, same goes for status updates - if the number of people who are interested and the number of people not interested are more or less equal what does that say about a site like twitter where more or less the whole purpose of the site is to post status updates - or tweets?
If half of twitters users are people who read statuses and the other half are people that post them but don't read others, that would imply that the number of followers you will gain on Twitter will be related to the number of people you connect with who actually read statuses - in other words you need to read them if you want to be followed. That's not necessarily the case though because in reality there is a rather large proportion of users who live in their own worlds and don't connect with others - the fact that only 17% of people actually use social networks to meet people would imply that only 17% of twitters users would be people who are actually interested in meeting others - if that was the case though that would mean almost a whopping 40% of Twitter's users would be people who read others tweets, without following them.
The next time you use Twitter and see your follower count don't think on it too hard, the reality is that the number of people who read your tweets is likely to be a lot higher. That's also a little creepy though as from a privacy point of view regularly reading someone's tweets without following them so they know you have an interest is akin to stalking - i.e. following someone without them knowing.
When asked whether or not they had used a social network to meet people 17% said yes and 83% said no, and when asked whether or not people found others' status updates interesting 54% said yes and 46% said no. Now firstly, given that a social network is meant to be a place to be "social" if only 17% of people actually meet people through them that's a bit of a misnomer, same goes for status updates - if the number of people who are interested and the number of people not interested are more or less equal what does that say about a site like twitter where more or less the whole purpose of the site is to post status updates - or tweets?
If half of twitters users are people who read statuses and the other half are people that post them but don't read others, that would imply that the number of followers you will gain on Twitter will be related to the number of people you connect with who actually read statuses - in other words you need to read them if you want to be followed. That's not necessarily the case though because in reality there is a rather large proportion of users who live in their own worlds and don't connect with others - the fact that only 17% of people actually use social networks to meet people would imply that only 17% of twitters users would be people who are actually interested in meeting others - if that was the case though that would mean almost a whopping 40% of Twitter's users would be people who read others tweets, without following them.
The next time you use Twitter and see your follower count don't think on it too hard, the reality is that the number of people who read your tweets is likely to be a lot higher. That's also a little creepy though as from a privacy point of view regularly reading someone's tweets without following them so they know you have an interest is akin to stalking - i.e. following someone without them knowing.
Empathy is a Double Edged Sword
The other day I saw a guy who must have seen about 14 or 15, out riding on his bicycle in a small public car park that had a few ramps and things that he was trying to use to perform tricks on his bike with - quite successfully I might add. The thing that struck me however was that he was alone. It was about 4 in the afternoon and it was raining. I was sitting in the car waiting for my Dad. I felt sorry for the guy. Now that sorrow may not have been wanted, and I shall never know. Some people are content in themselves and don't need others around them. Some people can be completely alone and not be bothered by it. Last week on Britain Unzipped on BBC Three, a statistic was shared that said 10% of Britons when asked how many real friends they had said they didn't have any. That extrapolates to 6.2 million people in the UK who don't see themselves as having any real friends.
If you want to know more about Britain Unzipped visit BBC Three's website
Empathy is the emotional sympathy we feel when a personal connection is made between us and something we see that warrants sympathy - it may be something sad but it may not be necessarily. To take empathy to the extreme if we empathised with everyone we ever met that we thought was worse off than us we would ultimately break down. Ignorance is an important part of our lives. Don't get me wrong I am not advocating ignoring the rest of the world and being completely selfish, I would actually regard myself as being quite empathetic maybe more than I should. I care about people and it is that nature that caused the reaction I detailed above. Now the question is whether or not empathy is a weakness or a strength. I have said to an extent ignorance is an important part of our lives and that it is. There are numerous examples that demonstrate how we ignore many things in our day to day lives, partly because processing the sheer amount of data we experience would not be practical, we would grind to a halt quite quickly.
Empathy is a double-edged sword for two main reasons. On the one hand it strengthens our social responsibility as a society. It protects the weak and defenceless by ensuring that someone will take pity on them. One of my personal sayings is reflected here: "To only help those who help themselves is to sentence those who are not capable to certain death" - there are certain people we have to help, or we fail as a race - not as a race defined by culture but as the human race. Then there is the other side of the sword, the exploitation of empathy. While empathy can be seen as a strength by those that display it. equally it can be seen as a weakness by those who hold no empathy at all. These people use those who are empathetic. They know that they can exploit their sentimentality in order to get ahead. While this can be seen as a stereotype there have been studies carried out with real evidence to back up these claims, if you want to learn more you can start by reading this TIME article here.
The cut-down simplification of this conclusion is simply that those who are higher in business and in commerce and government are less empathetic towards others. It seems the more you have the less you care. All this brings its own conclusion and a question. Although it may be true that those who are at the top are less empathetic than those at the bottom, does that mean if you are at the bottom and want to move up, that by giving up on caring about others you will rise up? Do we have to discard empathy if we want to get ahead in life?
If you want to know more about Britain Unzipped visit BBC Three's website
Empathy is the emotional sympathy we feel when a personal connection is made between us and something we see that warrants sympathy - it may be something sad but it may not be necessarily. To take empathy to the extreme if we empathised with everyone we ever met that we thought was worse off than us we would ultimately break down. Ignorance is an important part of our lives. Don't get me wrong I am not advocating ignoring the rest of the world and being completely selfish, I would actually regard myself as being quite empathetic maybe more than I should. I care about people and it is that nature that caused the reaction I detailed above. Now the question is whether or not empathy is a weakness or a strength. I have said to an extent ignorance is an important part of our lives and that it is. There are numerous examples that demonstrate how we ignore many things in our day to day lives, partly because processing the sheer amount of data we experience would not be practical, we would grind to a halt quite quickly.
Empathy is a double-edged sword for two main reasons. On the one hand it strengthens our social responsibility as a society. It protects the weak and defenceless by ensuring that someone will take pity on them. One of my personal sayings is reflected here: "To only help those who help themselves is to sentence those who are not capable to certain death" - there are certain people we have to help, or we fail as a race - not as a race defined by culture but as the human race. Then there is the other side of the sword, the exploitation of empathy. While empathy can be seen as a strength by those that display it. equally it can be seen as a weakness by those who hold no empathy at all. These people use those who are empathetic. They know that they can exploit their sentimentality in order to get ahead. While this can be seen as a stereotype there have been studies carried out with real evidence to back up these claims, if you want to learn more you can start by reading this TIME article here.
The cut-down simplification of this conclusion is simply that those who are higher in business and in commerce and government are less empathetic towards others. It seems the more you have the less you care. All this brings its own conclusion and a question. Although it may be true that those who are at the top are less empathetic than those at the bottom, does that mean if you are at the bottom and want to move up, that by giving up on caring about others you will rise up? Do we have to discard empathy if we want to get ahead in life?
Eurovision 2012
In 15 days on the 22nd of May the first semi-final of the Eurvision Song Contest 2012 will commence. The second on the 24th and the final on the 26th of May. Acts representing all 42 participating countries will descend on Baku, Azerbaijan to celebrate the 57th annual Eurovision Song Contest.
The song Eurovision Song Contest is traditionally hosted by the country that won the previous year. Azerbaijan won in 2011 with their entry by Eldar and Nigar 'Running Scared'.
Last year the entry for the United Kingdom was 'I Can' by Blue which finished in 11th place while the entry for Ireland was 'Lipstick' by the twisted twins themselves Jedward which finished in 8th place. Jedward's performance won the vote of confidence from the Irish public and during the televised entry selection the duo were voted overwhelmingly to represent Ireland again. This year Jedward will represent Ireland with their entry "Waterline".
This year the UK entry has once again demonstrated the somewhat questionable sanity of the BBC Select Committee which picks the UK entry for the contest by choosing Engelbert Humperdinck and 'Love Will Set You free' - proof if needed that it is time the BBC dissolved the Select Committee and actually held a public vote based selection process like so many others use.
Who will win? It is hard to say, in recent years the contest has become somewhat unpredictable. Although I usually support both the UK and Ireland, I think this year I will find it hard to cheer on the UK entry, nevertheless good luck to all the entries - including the Dancing Russian Grannies who have been selected to represent Russia [I am serious]
Sunday Shuffle
Every Sunday I will post the first 6 songs my iPod throws up on Shuffle mode.
Barbie Girl - Aqua
Revolver [Paul Van Dyk Remix] - Madonna
Troy [Push Remix] - Sinead O'Connor
Love Doesn't Ask Why - Celine Dion
The Grid - Daft Punk
Knoppix
So in a previous post I discussed Linux and the general philosophy in my mind that I use to judge it. I thought that perhaps I was too hard on Linux and I wanted to take the opportunity to say that it's not all that bad. Linux was the first Operating System that I cam across that had the ability to run on a system without installing itself and without making any changes to it, this behaviour is called "Live" mode and is achieved using a Live CD - a CD that you boot your computer with thus loading Linux rather than whatever Operating System you have installed [or indeed none at all].
Knoppix is a Debian based Linux Distribution [similar to Ubuntu] and it remains one of my favourite distributions - a serious contender for first place in fact - the reason I love Knoppix is because it negates many of the criticisms I have made of Linux in other posts - namely that it is incredibly hard to break. Owing to the fact that you boot it from a CD and that you can run it without making any changes to your computer at all, you are guaranteed a 'fresh', 'clean' boot each time you run it. If anything goes wrong, just reboot and all default settings are loaded.
Knoppix is also an excellent tool for using in environments where you may want to have an unrestricted Operating System where the host PC is restricted - e.g. in a workplace or a school which normally has a network that is pretty much locked down, you can simply boot the Live CD and use Knoppix to your heart's content with all OS features at your disposal and often applications that you would not of had access to - however worth note, owing to the way many networks are administrated when boot in this way you are usually 'offline' and have no internet access. Beside that fact the Knoppix remains incredibly useful.
One of the main uses I have for Knoppix is usually data recovery. Owing again to that fact that it makes no changes to the system itself it can be invaluable for retrieving files from a hard disk of say a corrupted Windows install allowing you to back them up before reinstalling the system. I have actually had to use Knoppix before to retrieve an ISO file from the hard disk to burn to a CD so that I could reinstall my OS.
The best thing of all is that Knoppix is free and available for download from the official Knoppix site.
http://www.knoppix.com/
Knoppix is a Debian based Linux Distribution [similar to Ubuntu] and it remains one of my favourite distributions - a serious contender for first place in fact - the reason I love Knoppix is because it negates many of the criticisms I have made of Linux in other posts - namely that it is incredibly hard to break. Owing to the fact that you boot it from a CD and that you can run it without making any changes to your computer at all, you are guaranteed a 'fresh', 'clean' boot each time you run it. If anything goes wrong, just reboot and all default settings are loaded.
Knoppix is also an excellent tool for using in environments where you may want to have an unrestricted Operating System where the host PC is restricted - e.g. in a workplace or a school which normally has a network that is pretty much locked down, you can simply boot the Live CD and use Knoppix to your heart's content with all OS features at your disposal and often applications that you would not of had access to - however worth note, owing to the way many networks are administrated when boot in this way you are usually 'offline' and have no internet access. Beside that fact the Knoppix remains incredibly useful.
One of the main uses I have for Knoppix is usually data recovery. Owing again to that fact that it makes no changes to the system itself it can be invaluable for retrieving files from a hard disk of say a corrupted Windows install allowing you to back them up before reinstalling the system. I have actually had to use Knoppix before to retrieve an ISO file from the hard disk to burn to a CD so that I could reinstall my OS.
The best thing of all is that Knoppix is free and available for download from the official Knoppix site.
http://www.knoppix.com/
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