Why do people tend to desire the "old days"?

I have the oddest urge to find an old school electric typewriter and just write. (I'm not masochistic enough to desire a true manual typewriter😀)

This urge just popped out of nowhere, I'm actually getting ready for work/volunteering. We will see where this blog entry of mine goes… In the next day. You will be seeing the complete entry as I'm currently writing this as a draft. But this is how I often come up with ideas. I write down a quick note. Using whatever means it's necessary.

… It's the next day and this is the first time I've had a moment to return to this article…

One of the reasons I think the reasons we look back to the old days is that it is something understandable, we knew how it fits into the fabric of our lives back then and we knew what it meant. This is an understandable reaction to the modern day when everything is kind of scattered about. I don't know about you, but I deal with a lot of interruptions and minor detours throughout my day. Sometimes I feel like the information centre for my building especially when it comes to fixing things. But even the average person has kind of the scattered lifestyle it seems unless there one of the very lucky this profession or discipline allows them to cloister themselves away… The luxury of that thought has me momentarily jealous.

Anyway in modern society we have become accustomed to taking on too much and as a result too much is expected of us overall. How many of you have at the experience of someone being furious that you didn't answer their email right away. So the simplest solution is to either pare down the number of for lack of a better word "connections" you are currently hooked up to or if that is not an option segmenting them into certain days whenever possible. A friend of mine has a very good rule: "They do not do any work on Saturday at all. They won't even talk about it." This simple and direct change makes them ingenious in my book. Because it sets not only a boundary but it sets up an anticipation that on Saturday this person is just not available and that in turn sets an example.

So what do you think is that something you could apply in your life? Even to a small degree? You might start something if you do, and that something might turn out to be awfully good for everyone. Again it's making things simpler, just like we thought the old days were. Which I kind of doubt if we were actually back there in time.

Take care Patrick

To Perceive, Unseen Personal Challenges

 

I am not so sure the old saying "Walk a Mile in Someone Else's Shoes", meaning to (if taken literally) for a short time live with someone else's life to gain their perspective is such a good idea. For the reason that I think the human race overall has underestimated just how uniquely personal and different each person's life is. Personally I don't think reality itself is uniform across people. There are just too many ways for the brain to wire and I think that's where the above statement falls very short.

What would you do if you could for a while take up residence in someone else's mind. Would their reality be shocking to you? Would you no longer be your self, but rather a product of the new mind...

This idea, underpins the philosophy that we should not assume anything when we meet someone new, but rather be as open as possible. In doing so we may find boundaries and limits within ourselves which we had previously not knowing needed addressing.… It is yet another opportunity to learn.

This whole train of thought came about when I was talking to a friend downstairs who deals with the great amount of physical pain every day. It is part of their condition and even though they are on very strong medication it is evident this is something they face alone and something that is very unique to them and their experience. But we can in contemplating their situation find boundaries within ourselves and to grow beyond them when necessary.

I suspect billions of people have those "Unseen personal challenges". It is time for humanity to start recognizing that as well as the individual. Be thankful for what you have right now.

Learning never stops and it frequently appears as an opportunity when you least expect it.

Take care Patrick

Keys to a better life: inner awareness.

Inner awareness, of one's self is so important; it cannot be overstated. First comes self-awareness, then if one pays attention, they will focus on not only the outside world but also what is going on within their own psychology or psyche. They will ask questions like "Why do I feel anxious?" And ponder what is going on to produce the feeling. They are listening to the inner dialogue of their own mind and body. This is inner awareness.

It takes time however to develop this aspect of one's life. To come to terms with the person and motivations you really are and have may not be the ones you initially assumed. Yet this is very true and becomes most obvious when a person is conflicted about something in their life.

It usually occurs because they are at odds with who they think they are as opposed to their real motivations and needs. They may see themselves in this modern world as a true professional able to tackle a multitude of things at once and just keep on going. At the same time however the body is screaming "Stop! I need some rest." If this goes on unattended then it is my personal belief that a train wreck of some kind is in the making.

I have stated many times in this blog that I live in assisted living, which means a facility where attendants are available to take care of healthcare needs around-the-clock. I had a lifelong disability and formulae due to aged 63 years old things were just becoming too difficult to do so it made sense for me to move in to a building like this. For others however who were completely able-bodied they have various ailments and physical conditions which demand they get help regularly. For some it is quite severe. Most of them share one thing in common a lack of inner awareness. Their ego drives most of their personality and up until now they have plowed through life I think for the most part with blinders on. Missing the all important messages that their bodies have been saying for a long time. I can't help wondering if they had listened to that message when it first appeared if they would be in much better physical condition. I don't know if there's any evidence for this in the literature but it sure seems intuitively true.

It's Sunday today and so I'm going to listen to that little voice, and take the rest of the day off. Take a break for yourself, the world will live on, and you just might avoid any oncoming train wrecks and at the very least will be able to relax. The world does not want you to fall apart. Listening to those gentle voices.

Take care
Patrick

Tips on Building Websites

 I've been building webpages and doing computer-related work for quite a few years now and in that time I've seen people excitedly jump on the "You Simply Must Have a Webpage." bandwagon. Of those people, the ones that decide to do it themselves, usually end up frustrated within the first month because they do not understand how people use the Internet. The scenario usually goes something like this:

Even if there website hostess provided them with guidelines and templates on design, there is a tendency to override the rules and create a webpage that is laid out much like a book or a magazine and in which the placement of photos in relation to the topic of the text is important. Then they are horrified when a friend shows them their page on a smart phone or tablet because they initially of tried to over format the content, resulting in pictures and text being out of place and generally very difficult to navigate on a smart phone or tablet. So rule number 1:

Do not over format your content. Make sure that your text and photographs make sense no matter where they are. Modern webpages are designed to be very flexible and they will automatically adapt to the device they are displaying on. When creating your page think more about the message you are conveying and less about the precise formatting.

Another pitfall people find themselves in occurs when they are choosing their colour scheme. Colour varies greatly from one screen to another. Your purple on black text might look great on your set up, but be absolutely useless to someone on a tablet.

Although modern systems will automatically download a great variety of fonts which does improve the chances of the webpage text looking the way you want, don't pick something really obscure. There is a reason why most websites stick to well-known fonts like "Arial" and "Times". These are more likely to be accessible to most devices. That is also the reason why if you are actually tinkering with webpage code itself (HTML- HyperText Markup Language ) most of the font and formatting options have been removed and are now exclusively in a language which only deals with formatting. (CSS - Cascading Style Sheets)

The other issue that is common with people designing a webpage for the first time is they don't resize their photos before uploading them to the website. To be clear I'm referring to the actual file size of the photograph or image. Modern cameras can capture a huge amount of detail that is just unnecessary for images displayed on the Internet. Not only that but large file sizes contribute to bandwidth usage on the visitor device. This can also really slow down the loading of the webpage if the device has to scale down an image. Unless you have a particular need for a high resolution photo you should make sure that all your photos and graphics are no more at most in an megabyte. Preferably one third of that. There are many services online that will resize photos for you. Also as was discussed above make sure the photo looks good across a few different devices. Extremely bright or dark photos can be problematic especially if they rely on a lot of shading. 

• A good place to start working with graphics for free is  https://www.canva.com/  Although this site focuses on the actual creation of graphics, as is often the case, the best way to learn is by doing.
• If you would rather download image editing software GIMP (GNU Imaging Manipulation Program) is excellent. Be aware though, the learning curve is quite steep. The program is free and open source.

While we are on the topics of images and photos please take the time to ensure that you have the appropriate copyright clearances. Many images can be freely reused provided that you indicate who the original author was and whether you made any modifications to the image. The Creative Commons is an excellent place to get images in this regard.

Modern websites use a variety of software. While you're keeping the content of your site up-to-date make sure that software is equally up-to-date. Many website hosts provide a "Managed Site" option which simply means they take care of the software side of things allowing you to focus on your material. This is a serious option to consider if you are not technically minded. One of the ways websites get hacked is that the software is not maintained and hackers will ultimately find flaws they can utilize to getting.

Also once your masterpiece of the website is close to finished, for the first time, because there will be and should be revisions, make sure you connected with services like "Google search console". This will not only help get you on the search engine listings, Google will also notify you of any potential problems related to the visibility of the website.

Tools like the the Google Search Console will take some homework on your part if you're not technically inclined and it by no means guarantees that your website is going to be an overnight smash. Getting your website listed in a way that will appear on search engines regularly and effectively is a whole other field in itself known as "Search Engine Optimization" and involves among other things understanding the phrases people use when they search on a particular topic, titling the individual pages and posts of your website in a meaningful way, and that's just the beginning. One thing you can do though is make sure the content of your website is up-to-date and regularly add new content. Think of what keeps drawing you back to your favourite websites. It is probably the new content they put up in a timely manner.

Finally, a website won't automatically generate traffic, rather it is where you want your traffic to end up at. One of the simplest ways to generate traffic is to make your website address part of your signature on all public posts. Then if the content on your website is engaging, over time people will come back.

To summarize:

• Don't be too concerned about the layout of the images and text. The information you are conveying should make sense regardless of the formatting.
• Keep the colour scheme simple. Check the website on a number of different devices.
• Keep your photos and file sizes small. Under no circumstances upload a photo directly from a modern camera.
• If you're using someone else's picture or artwork make sure to check the copyright and give them the required credit.
• Search engines have their own requirements for getting your content listed. This can take some ongoing work on your part.
• Keep the content of your site up-to-date.
• Keep the software which runs your website up-to-date. If you do not know how to do this ask your website host about a "managed site" option.

That's it. Wow, and to think this article started as an afterthought yesterday when I was helping someone straighten out the formatting on their webpage.

• There are several other articles on the blog dealing with various aspects of website creation and upkeep. You can simply click this link to see the most current list of documents, or at any time, use the search box on the site to search for the keyword "website" or just click here to automate the search.
  

Take care Patrick

Political Correctness

 Okay today's entry is going to be very short initially because I am under the gun with so many things right now. But I did want to post something....

There is a problem with "political correctness" and its related phrases. That is to say the wording we use in relation to a person or group automatically. Very often I find now days that the phrase used is now more important than the meaning or the intent of the message. That means that the society tends to get sensitized to the words used and ignores the message. That's can't be a good situation.

Indeed, I prefer the exact opposite. I don't care what phrasing or terminology you use in describing myself or someone else. Rather my focus is on your message and intent. 

Clarity of communication is the bottom line. If people and society are going to rely on political correct statements then need to, understand their origins, and  their context. Choose for yourself based on the situation you are in what you would like to do and what message you would like to convey.

The focus of all communication should be to remove ambiguity and inequality. It is very simple to put together a politically correct statement which still trashes the person's dignity if someone is so negatively inclined.

So don't rely on political correctness to do your work or you, and hope it keeps everything comfortable. Rather understand the context and purpose of the statement. Most of all take responsibility for what you say and do. At the end of the day you are the master of your own ship and sometimes political correct statements don't help in defining that truth.

Take care Patrick

Change the world today.

Modified, text added, photo by Marco Verch
under  Creative Commons 2.0 license.

In my world there's nothing better then creating something from scratch. Whether that something physical, like an electric circuit for a project or writing some code that does something, even if it's very simplistic. The way I look at it, they are all tiny contributions to the world and reality. Something that wasn't there before now is. This is a desire to be remembered, it's more like adding content to the great universal library and it doesn't much matter how long it exists. It's just one of those things I find pure joy in.

Sometimes there's a plan involved in the project can get quite long and consuming of resources and time. While others it's the spur of the moment "idea" and I think those are the most fun. Can you imagine if most people acted on just a fraction of the ideas that went through their head every day? For the purpose of this little text let's keep those ideas positive, because there's enough negativity floating around. Let's focus on what we can do. "Change the world today." Now that I think about it it's pretty awesome that each of us is aware enough that we can affect our existence. We can make it better, or we can leave it along, but the idea is we have the option to tinker. I would just speaking with someone and we were going down memory lane and I remembered purchasing for a night course "The CMOS Cookbook" (**If it is still in print, I will provide a link). It was basically a cornucopia of datasheets on various integrated circuits using the CMOS construction technology. Even if you didn't understand what you're looking at it was marvellous to go through. This is the one of the few books I would have to get physically in this case just something about it that makes it more real. It might cost me an arm and a leg relatively but for me it embodies the whole idea of creating.

To the best of your ability if you can you should create something, whatever that something will be as long as it has importance or relevance to you. Because one of the best things about ideas is that one can lead to another, which leads to another, which leads to another etc. Many of the fundamental features of the Internet were created that way, a block at a time. The some of those blocks have now turned into a grand algorithm (s) and here we are at the beginnings of artificial intelligence.

So take a moment…
… What will you create today?

Take care Patrick

** Sorry although there are archival copies of the book available on the Internet I was unable to determine the legal validity of linking to the sources and the latest publisher Synergetics Press,  no longer lists the book on their site.The latest copy I was able to find was the fourth edition.  You can search "WorldCat" to find copies a at your local library. (Click the ISBN number below)

FOURTH EDITION
SECOND PRINTING - 2019
ISBN: 0 672-21398-2

Other used copies of this book are available on Amazon.

Learning in Manageable Chunks

 As I was doing my science course this morning, because it is online I can break it into manageable chunks. Therefore when I feel I have absorbed is much as I can I can take a pause or stop for the day.

This, as I have found out, has some major advantages. One can focus on what they've already absorbed to more fully understand it before moving on. Or if there's a problem it can be identified before getting lost in greater details. (How I wish I know and this in high school when I was drawing electronic schematics when dealing with the directions current flows.) I have already identified a section of the course I will deliberately redo in relation to a binary search algorithm. If I had learned in the more traditional sense where you must progress through the lesson linearly, and usually at a certain rate, to keep up with everyone else, it would be necessary to move on regardless of whether the information was understood. Then it becomes a point of frustration later on when you can't connect the dots and understand the outcome. This is one benefit of self-paced online learning. So I wonder if it was applied to some degree it all aspects of lifelong learning, how many people would discover they are actually "bright", for lack of a better word? That is to say if the teaching method allowed a person to work on the specific parts of confusion until they were comfortable with it. Would they then not achieve more. Basically love to learn. The lesson being that they have their own way of learning and that insight on its own is tremendously beneficial to the person as a whole.

The above text sounds a little convoluted. If I have time in the next few days I may do a short video explaining this. For now however this is just food for thought. 

I truly do believe that the human mind is so good at learning that we do it automatically. Unfortunately this means that we can also "learn" that we are not good at learning and that bias then affects all our other exposure to learning throughout life. By the same token, it also means that you can start learning in many ways at any time.💗

Take care have a great day!
Patrick

Quantity over quality

Important disclaimer: I want to be very clear I am in no way singling out this article or commenting on its specific contents. Rather to illustrate what I see is a possible trend on the Internet.

Oh my goodness! I couldn't believe what was in my recommended reading list this morning. An article on discontinued morning cereals of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Now to be fair I understand why they're doing this, in order for a company to stay visible on the Internet they must put out material frequently and no doubt somebody is getting paid to write that material. But really... Can't we find a better way to use all this technology. I couldn't myself to click on the link. Even if it turned out to be an exquisitely written piece

Now I know my little "articles" fall into this very category, and I have no excuse but also no delusions of becoming a massive porthole. I created this website way back when as a place to put the occasional thought. This year something occurred to me, I began to wonder if I can make this little site actually pay for itself in 12 months just cover one year of domain rental. That's the reason for the increased number of posts you are seeing is I'm just curious what can be done if one is persistent. But at least I try to give my posts some substance of usefulness. And if I do come up against a technical problem that I think is widely applicable and then I'm sure I've got the answer to I will put that up here as well.

Think about it though every single item that goes online takes electrical energy and hardware which must be maintained. Not to mention the fiber-optic's and metals which must be mind and purified to a high level. A huge amount of effort… For articles on deceased cereals?…

For those braver than me I will post the link to the article itself. Maybe one day I will be brave enough to click it. Without further ado here it is:

Here

Take care Patrick

"Iconic" a language for symbols. Something whose time has come

Attribution Forsaken Fotos on Flickr
Creative Commons license 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Have you noticed that computers and related equipment are moving away from text based interfaces in favour of the icon symbology?

It looks cute, most of the time but as someone who helps people with technology, the move toward graphic symbolism seems to be backfiring. Even myself when looking through the myriad of icons in my video editing package spend an ever-increasing amount of time just trying to find what symbol relates to what function. While I know there are standards of therefore some of the more common functions and indeed it can make it easier to produce software when you don't have to translate the entire interface to another language it can also unless you're very careful make the interface a mess.

I think we are going to end up having to create a visual script, an abridged version of the written word, to represent some of the features coming along. It could be called "Iconic". Something that would actually be taught so that by the time a child or person was faced with a multitude of images they could find their way through the maze. This would go a long way toward simplifying a lot of things will still keeping the information quality of the symbol high.

Or is there something out there like this already? Would emoji's qualifying? Not quite. From my limited experience with them they don't appear to have enough context or infer information in the defined away.

One of the most frustrating experiences now days is when I open up a new manual and it indicates an icon in the text, but doesn't give it a name, and the icon itself is too small to make out in the details.

I think the visual language of "Iconic" is something whose time has come. It would sure save me a lot of grief and time. Who knows it may even eventually replace the written word.

Take care Patrick

The Internet 20 years from now... Just where will we put all that stuff?

IBM Model 7030 Stretch Early Super Computer
Wikimedia Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Much has been debated about where the Internet is going and what it'll be like in the future. There is a larger question: Where does all the necessary storage come from? Society will also have to figure out how to power it all.-I'm afraid your laptop charger just will not do.

Then there's the question of where it's all going to be backed up, or will society ultimately come to the conclusion that there will only be selective archiving and like the human brain Internet will forget a certain percentage. While I love my life, I do not wish to remember everything in exquisite detail. Mind you that would make going through school a snap, provided I understood what I remembered.😀

They always say that society is changing so fast nowadays, but what everyone forgets is that it's always relative to whatever part of history a person is part of. 100 years ago there was only a fraction of the change in a given amount of time compared to today, but it was still faster for them then what their grandparents knew.

Whatever way the Internet continues to evolve I'm okay with it as long as I still have the opportunity to understand the knowledge which will be accessible to me. Because it is the understanding that I personally find so enjoyable. I don't want just a collection of things in my head, I want to know how they relate to each other and other items in my memory. In other words I don't want to be a glorified search engine. But rather a knowledge foundation.

In other words, plug the me in and turn me on, but leave the manual handy. And I mean the detailed one; not be abridged user's guide. I want to understand it all, for me that's one of the big joys in life.

Take care Patrick