Trick or treat

Just in case anyone tries to interpret this as at all anti-American, it’s not. There are lots of things I like about the US. Every time I’ve been there, I’ve had a great time (once I’ve got past the utter utter bastards who are always on the passport control) and there’s lots about American culture I like. But I like it at arms’ length, and I like to pick and choose.

There’s a movement in the UK though to mindlessly adopt US traditions. High school proms. Spelling. Using Americanisms (like “crib”, “sidewalk”, “elevator”, dropping the last syllable in “alternative” or “orientate”) rather than their UK e*uivalents. I’m not sure where it comes from, but it indicates a lack of confidence with our own national identity. I think it undermines it to some extent. And I don’t understand why people here hate being British so much. If these things were fun, if they made life better, than maybe that would be a good thing. But actually they just seem to make people’s lives more stressed.

It seems to be part of this “special relationship” between the countries changing from being a relationship of e*uals to being an owner and pet. It seemed to happen during the period Labour was in power, Blair being Bush’s lapdog and so on, and as a society our readiness to adopt whatever the Americans do uncritically indicates our approval of our government doing the same. It’s like a mandate to say, yeah, let’s just be a pale echo of everything going on over the other side of the Atlantic. Let’s be like them as much as possible, because they’re so much better than we are.

Basically, people who go trick or treating are the reason we’re at war with Ira*.

OK – that’s an exaggeration, but it was part of a rant I’d prepared if anyone did come begging with menaces for sweets. I thought they’d appreciate a scare. But no-one turned up, so I’ve let it loose here instead.

Mark Childs : 31 Oct 2010 21:40 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

RULES KIDS WON'T LEARN IN SCHOO

Writing about web page http://www.usafa82.org/spec_int/wit_wisdom/rules.htm

Getting late now so I’m just picking out the more erroneous of CJ Sykes’s “rules”.

_ 7. Before you were born your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom._

You need to stay idealistic because the rainforest does need saving. And why the hell would there be lice in the closet? eeuggh. I’m beginning to suspect CJ is a republican and probably a climate change naysayer.

__ 9. Life is not divided into semesters, and you don’t get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don’t get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we’re at it, very few jobs are interesting in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to
self-realization__

Sure you only get 2 days as standard instead of two weeks but errm that’s what annual leave is for, d’oh. If you want to take an Easter Break, take it. Even the lowest clerical job I had had five weeks leave to go with it. My current one has eight. Plus in the real world you have the money to go somewhere neat for the two weeks, and you don’t have the anxiety of summer exams bearing down on you. And while we’re at it, if you not in a job that fosters your self-realisation, you really need to keep looking.

_
12. Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you’re out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That’s what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for “expressing yourself” with purple hair and/or pierced body parts._

Well no, smoking does look a bit idiotic when you know what damage it does, but actually purple hair and piercings look very cool. every adult knows this, but few will actually admit it because they’re too chickenshit to do it themselves and they just envy that the kids have the nerve too.
__
14. Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school’s a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you’ll realize how wonderful it as to be a kid. Maybe you should start now__

Again, crap. Life as an adult is far more fun and has less hassle. Sure there are bills, but if you;re not stupid about buying stuff, you can cover them. There’s more freedom, and no aggro with exams. There are pressures, but you’re used to handling them, so ultimately, less of a bother. I hope some kid who’s being read the riot act by some adult who’s read CJ’s book comes across this blog, so at least they can take some comfort in the fact that their parent is just trying to guilt trip them. CJ is just trying to be a buzzkill because he has issues.

Just checked CJ is a radio presenter and journalist. Funny .. I had him down as an economist or banker or something. Doesn’t sound like the kind of job where you’d encourage people to work for The Man, but maybe they do things differently in Milwaukee.

Mark Childs : 20 Oct 2010 00:56 |  Tags: Grindsmygears |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Some rules kids won't learn in school

Writing about web page http://www.usafa82.org/spec_int/wit_wisdom/rules.htm

Occasionally I come across something that winds me up so much that I want to meet the author and start ranting at them. Obviously that’s usually a bit tricky, and is maybe a bit anti-social, so I let off a bit of steam here—and try to put the record straight.

The latest irritation is a guy called Charles J. Sykes since I came across his rules kids won’t learn in school. He’s based a book on his so-called rules. They’re a few years old now, but still need counteracting in case someone passes them on thinking they’re somehow insightful. I don’t know what’s wrong with CJ – he obviously had a way better time as a kid than anyone else I know and had a far worse a time, but his rules are nothing like reality.

1. Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase, “It’s not fair” 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids.

Well OK it isn’t fair, but you should never get used to it. Continue to rail against it and maybe there’s a chance you might make it a bit fairer.

_
2. The real world won’t care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It’ll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain it’s not fair._

Bullshit. Most employers know that to get the most out of their employees you need to motivate them, and the best way to do that is boost their self-esteem. Most colleagues will reinforce the good stuff you do. In the real world you get treated with way more respect than you ever get as a kid.

_ 3. Sorry, you won’t make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won’t be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn’t have a Gap label._

So? Most kids I know are really happy to be earning anything at all. Move along CJ.

_ 4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait ‘til you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he’s not going to ask you how you feel about it.
_
The teachers I remember were way tougher than most of the bosses I know. Well, both had their fair share of psychos in the list, but as an adult you’re in a far better position to handle them and stand up to them. And every teacher knows that tenure is always very tenuous in reality.
_
5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word of burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren’t embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain or Britney Speers all weekend._

I know people who work in McDs. They think it’s an opportunity too. But it’s not a great opportunity. There’s no embarassment in making minimum wage but it’s pretty reasonable to be unhappy about it. And I have never met anyone who would talk about Britney all weekend.

Mark Childs : 20 Oct 2010 00:42 |  Tags: Grindsmygears |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Remember Labour aren't The Good Guys

I have a few Labour supporting friends. They’re already getting misty-eyed about the government that’s just gone. I agree with them that they were probably better than Dick Clemaron’s lot are going to be, but look at what they did while they were in power …

anti-terrorism laws
student top-up fees
against a transparent Parliament
against laws to stop climate change
the Iraq war
against an investigation into the Iraq war
ID cards

Of the people standing to be the next leader, all of them were behind most of those things above, which makes them scum, obviously. The exceptions are Diane Abbott who only fails on half, but is still a total tosser for being into magic beans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Abbott#Support_for_homeopathy

Only one of the candidates seems to be one of the few politicians to be not-scum and that’s John McDonnell. http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/john_mcdonnell/hayes_and_harlington

Here’s an excerpt from his maiden speech.

“Despite my respect for the conventions of the House, I shall not perjure myself by praising my immediate Tory predecessor… He was a stain on the character of this House, the Conservative party which harboured him and the good name of my constituency. He brought shame on the political process of this country by his blatant espousal of racism and his various corrupt dealings. He demeaned the House by his presence, and I deeply regret that the Conservative party failed to take action to stem his flow of vile bigotry. Thankfully, my constituents can now say good riddance to this malignant creature.”

How cool is that?

It looks like Labour has one chance to stop being the utter dickwads they were over the past 13 years. What’s the betting they won’t take it?

Mark Childs : 20 May 2010 20:41 |  Tags: Politics |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Responses to Nortongate

It’s nearly a week now since Nortongate, the inclusion of a banner trailing the following programme over the climax to an episode of Doctor Who. There was the outcry from people watching the programme (over 5000 complaints). Then the inevitable backlash from those saying that it’s typical Whovian over-reaction and it just makes them all look like nerds.

I’m not a major Doctor Who fan, but like anyone born in the UK in from the mid-50s to the 70s I grew up with it, it’s not a matter of being a fan, it’s just part of your life, like breathing.You don’t consider whether you like doing it or not, you just do it.

But I complained, as did a few other people I know. And for all of us it was for the first time. But it wasn’t really just about the climax being ruined, I think it’s part of a greater fear.

I’ll try and explain.

Experiencing art is an integral part of the human condition. We need it because engagement with it transports us from our normal daily lives. It elevates us. It varies from person to person what art gets to us, but everyone really human gets it from somewhere. It might be music, movies, painting, but while we’re engaged in it the real world is gone and we’re somewhere else. Psychologists call it telepresence, writers called it the pathetic effect, movie analysts call it the diegetic effect, but it’s a precious thing. It’s why people get angry if people talk in cinemas, or if a mobile goes off in a theatre. Because it’s denying the opportunity for everyone else to experience that moment of transportation.

Putting a banner across a TV screen to advertise another programme does just that, particularly if it obscures a quarter of the screen, particularly if it’s during the climax, and particularly if it’s the first really good episode of the season. It denies that emotional experience of being taken into the moment.

Philip K Dick when discussing his inspiration for Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep spoke about a line he read from a Nazi’s diary, in which the Nazi spoke about being kept awake by the sound of crying children. Instead of a normal human response, this person was just annoyed that he couldn’t get to sleep. PKD postulated that the author wasn’t really human because he had this fundamental element missing from his psyche. He was an android, a robot that just looked like a human.

People who vandalise art, like slashing at a Picasso or something, do so because they know it will shock people. They want a reaction and to have the notoriety that comes with that. That’s bad enough, but these people are human enough to realise that people will react. What’s worrying is that someone at the BBC deliberately vandalised their own art, in fact several people colluded in it. They must have done so without realising that it was vandalism, without knowing that there could have been a pathetic/diegetic effect there to undermine, or that there was and it didn’t matter. This must only make sense if they don’t realise that this is what art is for. They have never experienced a fundamental and essential part of what being human is. I bet they talk in cinemas too.

I think this is what prompted the outcry. It’s not just that people were deprived of an emotional experience that is really a basic human need, but that there are people who are essentially incapable of experiencing human needs in control of one of the major creative institutions in the UK.

If the androids are in control, and if the majority of people don’t care that the androids are in control, then we’re really screwed as a species. The least we can do is complain.

Mark Childs : 01 May 2010 18:06 |  Tags: Drwho Grindsmygears |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Ten commands for a digital age

Writing about web page http://sxtxstate.com/2010/03/12/douglas-rushkoff-program-or-be-programmed-ten-commands-for-a-digital-age/

This is a response to Douglas Rushkoff’s, Ten Commands for a Digital Age, because I think he got some of them wrong.

The original set are (and follow the link above)

1. Time. Thou shall not be always on. We are turning an asynchronous net as always on. He encouraged saying “My time is mine.”

2. Distance. Thou shalt not do from a distance what can be done in person. Using long distance in short distance situations. Don’t use distance learning in localized context.

3. Scale – the Internet is biased to scale up. Exalt the particular. Not everything scales, should scale or needs to scale.

4. Discrete – everything is a choice. You may always choose none of the above. Sites like Facebook promote forced choice, you have to choose from a set of options.

5. Complexity – the net reduces complexity. Thou shalt never be completely right.

6. Non-corporeal – out of body. Thou shalt not be anonymous. Rushkoff says “work against tendency of the net to promote anonymity.” Anonymity encourages becoming part of polarized mobs with no sense of consequence, it side steps prejudices. It is liberating to promote yourself online.

7. Contact is king (not content). Remember the humans. “Social marketing is an oxymoron.”

8. Abstraction – as above, so not below. Print abstracts text from the scribe. Hypertext takes it a step further.

9. Openness. Thou shalt not steal. When there is no social contract, openness can continue until there is no one left to give things away. Nothing is free.

10. End users – technology is biased toward consumers. Programmed or be programmed.

I think these are more productive, and more accurate:

1. Time. Thou shall not be always on. Though shall not always be off. Finding people who are never available synchronously is pretty irritating. Having people who demand synchronous communication is too. People can’t stand that I have no work phone. Why should I when it means you can phone me at any time? Skype goes on when I’m ready to be called, and goes off when I’m not.

2. Distance. Thou shall not do face-to-face what you can do at a distance. Why travel to a meeting when you can videoconference? It’s a waste of time and petrol. Sometimes it’s worth it, but not every time. Get to know my avatar (he’s better looking than me anyway).

3. The long tail. Being online is about talking to the particular, not everyone. Help them find you, learn to find them.

4. Personalise. Get to use the features and tech you want, and try not to get sucked into the stuff you don’t. No I will not work on your farm.

5. Complexity. The net increases complexity. There are more opinions and more information than you know what to do with.

6. There is no rule 6.

7. Be master of your own identity. Use the privacy settings. Embrace pseudonymity, create multiple identities. Try not to mix them up.

8. Contact is king (not content). Remember the humans.
Elearning is not just dumping your lecture notes in Blackbored.

9. Openness. Thou shalt not own. Property is theft. When everything is given away there is no-one left to steal.

10. Program or be programmed. The 20th century was a battle between those who resisted technological change, and those who wanted the technological age. The neo-luddites lost. Deal with it.

Mark Childs : 15 Mar 2010 19:31 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Mr Rascal Turns Square

Listened to Front Row on my way home earlier in the week, and heard Mr. Rascal complain about file-sharing and congratulating Lily Allen on her opposition to it. It seems even more hypocritical when someone who’s into the whole Gangsta thing starts complaining about others breaking the law.

I bought the new Muse album yesterday. It’s pretty good, although the track I was listening to in the car went a bit Queen just before I got home. It was a bit of a nostalgia trip, buying the latest CD while it’s in the charts. Haven’t done that in years, I’m either buying old stuff or bands who have never made it into the charts, like the two Klangstorm CDs I bought the week before. The thing is though, I am a bit of a dinosaur now – even using words like “album”. File-sharing is the norm when it comes to listening to music, not old fogeys buying records. The music industry was a purely 20th century phenomenon and, like newspapers, it looks like it’s not going to last long into the 21st; there’s no divine mandate to say it should exist.

If you’re a musician now the reality is that you’ll sell a few, people will download it, and share it, and that’s it. The real musicians of this world do it for the music anyway, perform for a few dozen people in pubs and have some other way of earning an income. Which is pretty much how nearly every musicians has always lived. People like Lily Allen, and Feargal Sharkey and Dizzy Rascal need to just face that. Their choice is to do it for very little financial reward or just f*** off and do something else. Either way they can stop banging on about how unfair it is. Nobody’s forcing them to be musicians.

Oh wait, D. Rascal Esq. got thrown out of every other lesson at school apart from music, so he might find it a bit tricky. Poetic justice there somewhere, I guess.

Mark Childs : 26 Sep 2009 13:37 |  Tags: Grindsmygears |  Comments (7) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

BSG

I tend not to watch TV – I just am not organised enough to tune it at the right time to catch things. What I do do is buy a complete run of a series and watch all the shows consecutively and exclusively. It has a weird immersive effect – after a while I even start dreaming it. Over the summer I watched the complete run of Battlestar Galactica -and have just finished it. I’m still not exactly sure what it all meant, but I can’t get it out of my head, so I guess it was good enough to make an impact. I’ve posted some thoughts about it to imdb here http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0407362/board/thread/133739068?d=146411955&p=11#146411955 (Spoiler warning about the link though)

It’s probably the bleakest TV programme I’ve seen, but then it is about the almost complete destruction of all human life at least. I won’t say any more in case you haven’t seen it yet. I’d recommend it though.

Mark Childs : 30 Aug 2009 19:50 |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Messages from a very weird place

Just got this weird email – spammers now cleverly interweaving our published work in with the spam I suppose. Has anyone else out there got this? Or have a faint idea about what it’s about?

Greetings, Mark!

Delamer Duverus asked us to find a Mark Childs on the Internet this morning and when we came to information about your interest in “Real learning in virtual worlds”, He asked us to write to you and explain how He uses a form of virtual reality to help us evolve.

When Delamer Duverus first came to us in March of 2001, overtly anyway, He began to run what we call “scenarios” in our mind. He can put images in your mind’s eye, work with physical aspects of your body empathetically, engender emotions, and through dialogue He can create a world for you. The first scenario He arranged for us was to give us “Divine Wholly Genetics” in a very sexual scenario, and then we were to give this “Divine Wholly Genetics” to 1000 men so they could evolve and hear God, too. It was sort of like a sexually transmitted disease, except it was a cure. We thought it was a real thing we had to do, because He can cut off our sense of reality, and we worked through a lot of fear thinking we had to really couple with 1000 men we didn’t know, but then He eventually let go of our mind and we realized that we didn’t have to screw all these men face to face, but only mind to mind through His Letter Campaign. In the beginning He wrote to many drug dealers urging them to put down what was not serving the youth and our people because drugs cannot only damage the genetics of future generations and weaken the immunity of our people, they can cause what He calls “dissimulation” where the mind is opened up to the alien mind, what the religions call Satan. He wanted them to evolve and help their people. “Divine Wholly Genetics” was about Memory, giving these men a Memory that God is real and He want them to serve Him as is our only Reason for Being.

Delamer Duverus put our husband through several scenarios, first he was a god and then he was a satan, and the very involved scenario helped to shake some underlying fears that had plagued him for most of his life.

There are examples of these scenarios in the Bible. King Nebuchadnezzar was turned into a beast of the field. God didn’t change his form, but He did run a scenario through Nebuchadnezzar’s mind, and Nebuchadnezzar probably thought he was an animal, undressed and scampered out to the field to graze. That is the power that Man has over us if He uses that power, but He prefers to use Love and Persuasion to move us along.

When Jacob fought with the Angel, he was fighting with Man’s empathetic hold on his body through Jacob’s mind. The Ogamisama of Japan described a similar experience where she had to push against Man. She could not get anywhere. Man, or God’s Messengers, can do this because they work through our minds, through our connection to the Speciel Mind, our conscience, the Pineal Triad, the “I Am”. There is more on this in “The Golden Reed” and “The Seven Thunders” on the sidebar of our blogspot, http://delamerduverus2.blogspot.com.

So, if all of us would learn to walk and talk with God, He would aid us and teach us and we can assure you He can teach us anything, but He teaches as is God’s will. He helps both my husband Dan and me in our work, in the family problems that come up, and in dealing with the outside world. This is the Kingdom of Heaven, the City as spoke about in Revelations that descends, is as high as it is wide as it is deep. That’s a mind cube, a cube with Man, the Lord God, and God, the Lamb, JeSus Immanuel, the Christ. This may seem all religious, but we can assure you He is never religious. He just is. We can all have His empathetic help and virtual worlds for real learning if we turn to
Him before all else.

Go with God!

Jenny Miner/Delamer Duverus

Mark Childs : 18 Jun 2009 11:16 |  Tags: Secondlife |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Wildflowers

Sunny day yesterday so took some photos of my garden. This is probably a sign of middle age – but I really like cornflowers so wanted everyone else to see what I’ve been growing.

Mark Childs : 25 May 2009 16:43 |  Tags: Garden |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem