09 Mar 10 Learn something new no.5 – Water (and a bit about me and David Bellamy) | #LearnSomethingNew
David Bellamy (wearing some of the Rohan gear that I probably sent to him)
A long time ago, David Bellamy and I knew each other vaguely. He was a big fan of Rohan (clothing) and given that he was a regular on TV back then (late 80s), we were happy to clothe him and even took some inverted pride in his ‘Worst Dressed Man’ award. As Rohan’s Marketing Manager, it was part of my job to send all the gear to him. I later wrote articles in magazines, including one entitled ‘How Green Is Your Clothing’ for Outdoors Illustrated. I rang David to get his view on the subject and he kindly gave me an hour on the phone tutoring me in why cotton, natural as the plant is, can actually be an environmentally disastrous crop. The reason? It take 17 tons of water to produce 1 ton of cotton – cotton production is the reason that the Aral Sea in Russia effectively dried up.
Remembering this, I thought few other facts about the planet’s life giving fluid might be worth learning:
- It takes 120 gallons of water to produce one egg.
- A person can survive without food for more than 30 days, but less than a week without water.
- A gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds.
- For every 2.31 feet that water is raised above the earth’s surface it can create one pound per square inch of pressure.
- The average household uses 107,000 gallons of water per year.
- It takes 1,851 gallons of water to refine one barrel of crude oil.
- It takes 1,500 gallons of water to process one barrel of beer.
- 95 percent of the world’s cities still dump raw sewage into their water supplies. Thus it should come as no surprise to know that 80 percent of all the health maladies in developing countries can be traced back to unsanitary water.
07 Mar 10 Learn something new no.4 – What is the current historical era? | #LearnSomethingNew
Learn Something New
We’ve all heard of the Stone Age, The Bronze Age and The Iron Age, but what Age are we now living in?
These titles refer to social and technical advances in the human race and lasted for thusands of years, so to call the current era e.g. ‘The Technical Age’ is a little premature. Although steam power (technology in an early frm) has been around for some 2000 years it has only impacted on society and environment for some 300 years, when it heralded the start of the industrial revolution. So in millennia to come, others will decide in what era we currently reside.
However from a geological perspective, Earth is currently in the Cenozoic Era of the Phanerozoic Eon.
04 Mar 10 Learn something new no.3 – The effects of global warming and rising sea levels | #LearnSomethingNew
Things that get wet tend to shrink - like Holland
Today I have learnt that sea levels are rising and I will not be moving to Peterborough or New York.
With a rise in sea levels of 1 meter, the UK could see coastal towns like Hull, Portsmouth and Bognor Regis swallowed by the sea. Inland, it could also be bad news for Peterborough.
At the other extreme, with a 14m rise, large chunks of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Somerset will succumb to the waves, changing the distinctive outline of the UK dramatically.
In such extreme circumstances, Holland would almost completely disappear, leaving two islands, each little bigger than the Isle of Wight. Most coastal towns on the East coast of America would be overwhelmed, and an area of China about the size of England would disappear, As would many Pacific and Indonesian islands.
Current predictions have sea level rising by about 0.8m by the year 2100, which still makes the coast a dodgy place to live. The rest of us may have dry feet, but the further effect on tides and the meteorological impact on the gulf stream and air currents etc. means it will become a very different world.
Courtesy of http://flood.firetree.net/
03 Mar 10 Learn something new no.2 – How many websites are there | #LearnSomethingNew
Learn Something New
In March (of 2009 I think) it was estimated that there were at least 25.21 billion web pages online. In May (2009 I think again), the estimate is that these web pages belong to more than 109.5 million websites.
03 Mar 10 Learn something new no.1 – The list of human instincts | #LearnSomethingNew
Learn Something New
Recently I came to a realisation that: All knowledge is free via the web. Yet I waste my time on trivia and useless social media. Note to self: Learn something new online each day.
And I thought I would start by learning about humans
Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct
You can take all sorts of angles on this and get very academic about it. I have taken no side in this, I have just lumped them all together:
- Sex (life instinct)
- Aggression (death instinct)
- Reflexes (such as the Babinski Reflex fanning of the toes when the foot is stroked)
- Sleeping
- Altruism
- Disgust
- Face perception
- Language acquisitions
- Fight or flight
- Subjugate or be subjugated
- Fairness
28 Feb 10 Photo suggests Ramsey damaged leg before Shawcross made contact | #AaronRamsey
The incident being talked about in football pages this morning is of what Arsene Wenger has called a “horror tackle’ on Aaron Ramsey.
Was it the tackle that broke his leg?
Without wanting to detract from the seriouslness of the injury, a little closer inspection might be necessary. A photo originally from the Telegraph shows a snap-shot of the incident and suggests that the injury was incurred as Ramsey planted his studs into the pitch and no doubt compounded as Shawcross hit him. The position of the ball shows Ramsey getting to the ball first. It means Shawcross was late, but in the context of the challenge it was a 50/50 challenge and Ramsey was early more than Shawcross was late. It might also suggest that this was after the tackle had taken place. If so it shows Shawcross pulling his leg out of the tackle.
Personally I feel for both players – particularly Ramsey. I don’t believe there was any malice or even clumsiness in the challenge, it was full-blooded from both players and either could have been injured, equally both could have walked away. As it is Ramsey was carried of and Shawcross walked off distraught.
19 Feb 10 What’s the #BUZZ about Google Buzz? Oh look, the Emperor has got no clothes on
You have come across Google Buzz or maybe you haven’t. Anyway it is Google’s answer to Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, although, I wonder what the question was if Buzz is the answer.
It launched recently to a bit of a viral fanfare and all of us social media maniacs and Twitter pimps toddled on over to check it out. It seems that lots of people are going absolutely unnecessary about it. It will apparently kill off Twitter, Facebook and change the world as we know it. I say ‘apparently’ for a reason.
The problem is that I am still trying to work how Buzz accommodates any need I have. I keep coming back looking at it and thinking, ‘I must be missing something’.
I understand Blogs, LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter and they have somehow seamlessly slotted into the way I do things personally and professionally. I can write once on any of them and publish everywhere. I can use things like TweetDeck to get multiple views of Twitter based on friends, interest topics or back-chat. Others use aggregators like FriendFeed or Posterous but they all do variations on a theme – they collect all this etherlution (© Dave Yates, meaning rubbish deposited all over the web) and collates in into a single, manageable distribution and collection point for all you want to cherry pick from these platforms.
So while I detest e.g. FB, I do understand why it is there and I can interact with my contacts on it without having to go on it very often. Similarly with LinkedIn. I quite like it, but I don’t feel compelled to ‘live’ on it. I use it from time to time, but can update it remotely with a range of tools, mainly my Blog and Twitter account.
But again today, I returned to Buzz, looking at it this way and that and concluding that I must be missing something, because lots of people are saying it is great and everything else will now become obsolete. I repeat, I really must be missing something because, for the life of me, I don’t get it, I don’t know what to do with it and I don’t know why everyone else is raving about it.
Oh Look – the emperor’s just gone by without any clothes on.
10 Feb 10 Dictionary of Online Abbreviations
Image shamelessly adapted from toothpastefordinner.com
I know there are pre-existing glossaries out there, but at least with this one I know where it is for reference. Also I can keep adding to it.
Please feel free to suggest any more via the comments box and I will add them to the list
- AFK – away from keyboard (I am gone for a few minutes)
- AFAIK – as far as I know
- ASL – age / sex / location?
- BFF – best friends, forever
- BFN – bye for now
- BIO – going for bio break (washroom break)
- BRB – be right back
- BTW – by the way
- CSAK – Chucking Silently At Keyboard
- CUL8R – see you later
- CYA – see ya (or it could also be: cover your a*s)
- DH – darling husband
- DD – darling daughter
- DS – darling son
- FMV – fair market value (for selling items online)
- FTW – for the win (basically a big thumbs up)
- GG – good game
- IBTL – in before the lock (for when you post a message prior to the administrator locking the heated discussion thread)
- IMHO – in my humble opinion
- IMNSHO – in my not so humble opinion
- IRL – in real life
- KK – OK (commonly used by online gamers to acknowledge that a message has been received)
- LOL – laughing out loud
- MT – mistell (commonly used by online gamers to say that they made a mistake and mistyped their last message)
- NP – no problem/you’re welcome
- NWOT – new without tags (for selling items online)
- NWT – new with tags (for selling items online)
- BNWT – brand new with tags (for selling items online)
- OOAK – one of a kind (for selling items online)
- PICNIC – problem in chair not in computer (apparently favoured by IT support techs when dealing with low ability users)
- PLZ – please
- PLIBT – please let it be true
- PMSL – P*ssing myself laughing (a common UK expression)
- POS – Parents [watching] Over Shoulder
- QFT – quoted for truth (a compliment to another person on the forum)
- RL – real life
- ROFL – rolling on floor laughing
- ROFLMAO – rolling on floor laughing my a*s off
- RTFM – read the f***ing manual (to show frustration at someone’s ignorance of basic knowledge)
- RTM – read the manual
- TBH – to be honest
- THX – thanks
- TTFN – ta-ta for now
- TTYL – talk to you later
- TX – thanks
- TY – thank you
- VFF – very f***ing funny
- W/E – whatever
- WTF – what the f*** [is that all about]
08 Feb 10 iPhone …or perhaps I don’t any more
iPhone Apps - Want them more than need them?
I found myself not using the iPhone recently while doing a load of Mountain Biking. I put it away safe in a drawer while doing rufty tufty phone threatening activities. Instead, I dragged one of the collection of old phones out of a drawerr, I got a free Orange PAYG card, filled it up with £20 and it has lasted months. I stick it in my pocket and use it if I get lost, when I fall off and need someone to put me or my bike back together.
But it has had a sobering effect. I have started asking myself what the hell I need an iPhone for at all. It’s a shame as well. I have an App called Map My Ride which is great for Mountain Biking. But I don’t use it because it s not so good if you smash your phone while taking a tumble. To give you an idea, I fall off at least once every time I go out on my MTB and usually a lot more. I started thinking that if I were to break, lose, or get my iPhone stolen etc. then I would suffer a load of cost and the sickening feeling you get when you break something nice. If I break the old Nokia, I rip out the sim card, bin the bits and get another cheapie out of the drawer, or on Ebay
iPhone meets mountain biking - not a good combo
Mountain Biking is good for the soul in many respects. All that exercise and fresh air combine with the pain and repeated falling off and landing on your head. It knocks some sense into you. With regard to the iPhone, my MTB epiphany on the off road trail to my metaphoric Damascus led me to suspect that I want it more than need it (note to self: Design iPhone App based on lyrics, such as Glenn Campbell’s ‘Wichita Lineman’). I make myself use apps because they are there and handy, but in some respects they add extra chores to my day rather than save time. I like the idea of iXpenseIt, but it takes loads of time to use and the pics of the receipts are rubbish because the iPhone camera is poor indoors and poor at close-up – exactly the setting where you take pics of the receipts. I actually create more work for myself!
Then I have to wonder again. My old friend Ravi Damani and his cousin Chetan over at Imano are developing brilliant augmented reality apps. But do I really want to augment reality – I might find that I am superfluous rather than my phone. I could then send my iPhone to work and sooner or later it would realise that as much fun as I was, I was just expensive, stupid and unnecessary. It would dispose of me!
Meanwhile, back in the real world, I think everyone should try putting their iPhone / Blackberry away for a week and instead go back to a basic handset. You’ll be surprised at how superfluous a lot of its functions are. Funnily enough, I got used to using a phone based camera when I got an iPhone. But the iPhone camera is not particularly good. I wonder whether I should get a decent pocket camera and a basic phone instead of paying £30 / month for the pleasure of keeping a beautiful design icon in my pocket.
07 Feb 10 Personal Branding – Coming up with a personal business card
Recently I found myself wishing I had a personal business card. It is unusual because I have various business personas for the work I do, but with some of the overseas government work I have been involved in, it is easier for them to buy into an individual, no matter where they come from, than an organisation from another country.
I may never get these printed, but the idea has driven me to think it through and there is probably a white paper waiting to happen at a more general level. In any event, if it never gets printed, at least it has a home here.
Once I started thinking about this I came up with the design shown. As with all designs, I don’t like to over-rationalise it – you hope it will speak for itself. But, briefly, being able to pull out the syllable ‘id’ from my first name, David, is handy. The id is the uninhibited and creative part of the brain. I am a creatively driven designer – I place emphsis on the psychology of design and usability in my work. So a psychological term referencing creativity is a bit of a godsend. The notion of a card being a kind of identity of I.D. is not lost on me either. For those that don’t get the rest of it, the card is my ID.
On the counter side, my surname, Yates, provides the opportunity to pick out the word ‘Yes’. The single most positive term in the language. And all that you want to put across: ‘I can do this’; ‘this is possible’; ‘all is good’; ‘Yesss! what a result’.
I like this for other reasons. I read once that John Lennnon first met Yoko Ono at an art exhibition. The central exhibit was a work of hers with a ladder in the centre of the room. At the top of the ladder was a magnifying glass and very small word painted on the ceiling. When you climbed the ladder, and looked at the word through the magnifying glass, it simply said, “Yes”.
I can’t say I like her music much and I don’t know anything about her art, but this resonates with me, as clearly it did with John Lennon.
So in a nutshell this is all about being creatively positive and so am I.
