The November Project: the What and the How

Posted by on 31 Oct, 2010 in Lifenotes | 0 comments

If you read my last post you’ll know I’m taking a break from social media for a month. That post explained the general reasons why.

In this post I’ll add a little more detail on what exactly I’m doing, and how.

Here’s the things I’m doing for November..
  1. Blocking my computers from accessing Facebook or Twitter.
  2. Turning off all Facebook and Twitter alerts on my email and on my phone.
  3. Deleting all Facebook or Twitter-related apps on my iPhone and iPad.
  4. Turning off and putting away my Chumby.
  5. Unlink Twitter from Flipboard, sobeeslite and other news apps.
  6. Turning off NutshellMail and Twilert, two services I use which send Twitter and Facebook updates to my inbox.
  7. Disabling Google Alerts, Slashdot newsletters, and any other regular emails that arrive in my inbox.
  8. Turning off Google Buzz within Gmail (I can’t disable it completely without deleting my Google Profile). 
  9. Disable all notifications (including email and IM) on my iPhone and iPad.
  10. Disabling anything else that pops up early in November that I might have forgotten about that seems like a regular notification or distraction.
2-10 are all fairly straightforward.

1 is a little more interesting.

The solution I am going for is to edit the hosts file on my computer (/etc/hosts on the Mac), and add an entry which remaps twitter.com and facebook.com to different addresses – probably google news and my blog respectively). As of yet I haven’t found a way to do this on the iPad or iPhone so I may just need to rely on willpower there… Unless anyone has any suggestions?

[To read the follow up to this post, reflecting on the experience, go here.]
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The November Project: No Facebook and Twitter for a month

Posted by on 31 Oct, 2010 in Lifenotes | 2 comments

 

No_facebook

 

[To read the follow up to this post, reflecting on the experience, go here.]

 

I’ve decided to do something unusual for November. For the whole month I’m going to give up Facebook, Twitter and a few associated “short update” type services. But I’ll be back on December 1st. Pointless? I don’t think so. Allow me to explain my thinking…

 

I’ve been on Facebook for five or six years now I guess. And that whole time I’ve hated Facebook – their lack of respect for personal privacy, their blatant commercialism, the way they abuse you and use your friends against you (I wrote a whole blog post about that). But I’ve never left. Because, well, my friends are on there. And now I’m living across the pond from most of my friends, those relationships are more important than ever. So I can’t leave Facebook altogether, it would leave me too isolated – in fact that’s my only contact with many friends.

 

I realised that this is unhealthy. Facebook encourages a very shallow level of friendship – little ego strokes with Like buttons and comments on each others profiles, lazy status updates to everyone instead of picking up the phone. It’s damaging the quality of the relationships I do have, because it makes me feel connected even when I’m not at all really.
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I’m proud of the BBC

Posted by on 26 Oct, 2010 in My Stream | 0 comments

via youtube.com

Don’t let anyone tell you the BBC is not worth paying for. I’d gladly pay a licence fee even while I am out of the country.

Video by Mitch Benn – more of his music at http://www.mitchbenn.com/

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Amazon why dost thou forsake me?

Posted by on 5 Oct, 2010 in My Stream | 1 comment

This is ridiculous. I am an international citizen and regularly use international services in Canada, the US and the UK. But still the likes of Amazon, Audible and Apple thwart me.

I was recently given an amazon.co.uk gift voucher. There’s a book I need for my writing course, available on amazon.ca – but of course it won’t let me use the voucher. OK, fair enough. So then I think, I’ll buy something else with the voucher. But I don’t want to pay international postage.

The solution? Buy some Kindle books on my iPad. Perfect. digital transfer, no postage costs. I know it’s easy because I already bought a bunch from my same Amazon account.
I spend a few minutes picking out some books in the Kindle UK store. I click buy, and I get this unhelpful message:

Kindle

 

Oh I see, my Kindle “account” is marked as Canada. Fair enough, so I go in and change my country to United Kingdom. And try again…
But I still get the same message!Maybe it’s the credit card that’s the problem? So I change that to a UK credit card…
Makes no difference.

Maybe it’s my address? I change the address in the account to my parent’s address in the UK…
Same old message.

Maybe it’s because I’m connecting from Canada. I log in via a UK proxy (which I know works for other sites like BBC iPlayer)…
Still the same result.

So now what?

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The world’s scariest job – free climbing atop a 1700m tower (via @planetf1)

Posted by on 28 Sep, 2010 in My Stream | 0 comments

via youtube.com

Think you have a stomach for heights? This video shows what transmission tower workers have to do to service the top of a 1700m high exposed structure… This death-defying free climb makes you feel queasy just to watch.

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The tragedy of electronic communication

Posted by on 22 Sep, 2010 in My Stream | 0 comments

via youtube.com

Here’s a bittersweet little “could-have-been love story” I came across on YouTube.

It’s amusing to watch, but I think there is a serious point to make here… If this were a real conversation, the pair would have picked up on the body language that much was not being said. Electronic chat loses that, and both parties can leave with a completely false impression of the other person’s feelings.

I’ve never seen a better illustration of why electronic communication is inferior to face to face communication.

In my view there’s kind of a hierarchy of communication in terms of how complete or effective it is… Face to face at the top, then video chat, then phone, then instant messaging, then text or email.

Food for thought anyway.

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Reverse culture shock – Ten observations of a Canadian Brit visiting the UK

Posted by on 13 Sep, 2010 in Articles | 0 comments

 

I spent last week in the UK (for the HCI 2010 conference) and having spent a year and a half in Canada, for the first time I felt something of a stranger in my own homeland. Here are my top ten observations from the week of the cultural differences I observed:

 

1. When in a car driving on the left, it felt really wrong – like we should be on the other side of the road – especially when turning!

 

2. I found myself asking the driver to open the boot (trunk) – because in Canada you can’t open the boot from outside, you need to pull the lever down by the driver’s seat.

 

3. When buying products, I expected things to cost more than their displayed prices when I got to the till – because I’ve got used to tax not being included.

 

4. The prices seemed really small due to them being in pounds not dollars. What was really weird was I found myself converting pounds to dollars to understand how much they cost – but yet I still convert dollar prices to pounds in Canada to understand them!

 

5. I felt guilty when leaving no tip at a bar or when paying for a meal – I’ve obviously got used to Canadian compulsory tipping. Found it even stranger there’s not even a line to add a gratuity on the receipt when paying by Mastercard.

 

6. I felt like a second-class citizen when trying to pay with my Canadian Mastercard. It has no Chip & PIN, and the idea of a credit card without Chip & PIN is pretty unheard of in UK.. Most places won’t accept it, and I actually was told to use an alternative means some times! Funnily enough they are just rolling out Chip & PIN in Canada, so things should improve soon. I wondered if I would have got more acceptance of my foreign card if I had put on a non-British accent!

 

7. I was able to hear the British accent as a distinct accent, my ears have obviously tuned in to Canadian as a baseline.

 

8. It seemed really strange to be wandering around town after work, 5.15pm – and all the shops were shut. I’ve got used to late night shopping being an option most nights.

 

9. Answering the question “Where are you from?” proved most confusing. Well I’m from the UK, but I’m also from Canada. Depends on the timeframe for the question!

 

10. I suddenly found myself using SMS again. Hadn’t realised how little it is used in Canada vs the UK (email being the preferred instant contact in the US & Canada, given the Blackberry revolution)
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