Inception

I've been trying to rationalise my web presence but it's been a bit tricky.  I've stopped looking at FB as mentioned in the previous blog, in fact I went through the quite tearful departure as it begged and used emotional blackmail to get me to stay.  So and so will miss you, this person will not know where you are.  Eventually they reminded me that it all stays where it is.  Oh yes, I've granted them a perpetual licence.  

So now I've started building my own website, I registered my own domain name and I have tried to centralise all my bleating on the web.  Follow the link below, then select off the top menu and you will experience something akin to Inception.... 

http://www.soliloquy.me.uk/Soliloquy/Welcome.html

I haven't decided on a consistent theme and I'm just getting the hang of frames so bare with me.

Finally, I haven't managed to activate a comments section so you'll just have to google+ me, or at the very least twot me (not sure of the official present tense personal for "To Twitter", and I'm damn sure I'm not going to use the past participle that seems to fit!)

Networking (Social or other)

After a self imposed moratorium from the now ubiquitous facebook I have had pause to think about the phenomenon that gets termed social networking. I glanced at a link on google+ from +Robert Llewellyn, who I found from his @bobbyllew twitter account, about the perceived political motivations behind facebook. I need to read it more deeply but as I scanned the site, one of the throwaway comments that resonated with my view was "people's need to collect friends and be popular, in the sense of an American high-school teenager. "  I'm not sure why it needs to be an "American" teenager, perhaps they are better at it than the rest of the world.

This does appear to be borne out on all the sites I have seen, there are awards or rewards for becoming a super-user.   On the sites I am familiar with, they publicly display your number of contacts/followers/friends as some badge of honour.  We seem to actively feed that teenage need to be superficially popular. For many of us it doesn't matter if we have 500+ contacts of people who have very little real connection to us, the system is merely an address book that is maintained by your contact for you. Like Plaxo was before it became a virus.  I realise that calling it an address book is a massive over simplification of a more complex modern phenomenon.   As a society in the current era, we tend to be very distant from each other, not just physically but figuratively and online networking is probably feeding a need to feel part of a community, to feel connected to the lives of family and people with a shared interest.  Still for many people a badge like 500+ does seem to be a status symbol to be displayed.  Even in Google+ there are networks of people that seem to be collecting followers like trophies and are celebrating each others' apparent success in collecting vast numbers.  I'm not sure what value it has, I have found that my twitter feed and my facebook wall have become so clogged with casual comments from people I have "collected" that I am missing messages that are more important to me.  In theory G+ might provide an elegant way to handle this phenomenon with circles but I fear it may descend into the stream of chatter that I have found Facebook and Twitter have become. 

So is it really networking?  Networking itself is a fairly recent phrase, I remember being told I was a good networker and not having a clue what it meant. Obviously that may be more to do with my own knowledge but I do think it's a modern context for an older word.  Making friends, making acquaintances, being generally sociable are all traits that have served people well for generations.  These are skills we want our children to adopt as usually people fair better as a collectively supportive society (see comments on enlightened self interest).  So why do we fear them collecting online connections in what sometimes appears to be an automated and systematic process? It could be that we are simply technophobic and I do believe that many are, especially those who read mainstream media reports that are designed to provoke emotion not debate. But many are not, like myself, in fact I have experimented with quite a few of the so called networking sites, but I still have some concerns over the "collectors".  I think we need to teach new users the difference between a casual acquaintance who may be a useful contact in the future and who maintains their own contact details from a person who you merely wish to follow their views as they are expressed, to the vitally different "friend"; be that a close personal friend or a casual friend.

Opine, repine, supine

When you think about buying a new car, don't they suddenly seem to be everywhere?  To me it seems to be the same with a blog idea, I have an idea for a blog and then mysteriously I see the idea in many places.  This latest idea centred around our right to express an opinion, our right to not like that opinion and to express that discontent and the need to overcome indolence and to raise a challenging opinion.

I read today on the comments field of the "Jack of Kent" blog that, like law, journalism is now not a profession it is a business. I understand this view and have much sympathy with it but I do believe that there are a set of governing principles and an expected behaviour that define any practice or profession. Perhaps the comment was more a wry statement of the extant philosophy adopted in the media rather than a de facto opinion.  

Previously I have commented on my concern over society's ability to learn how to play with it's new toys.  Johann Hari and the Independent for me are just the tip of the iceberg with journalism's failure.  Note I said "journalisms" failure, I believe JH has made mistakes from which he can learn and for which he can atone, but the failure lies in the system.  In general the news media don't seem to be leading and innovating with these radically different communication channels but perhaps that is the point.  For a while at least, blogs, podcasts, twitter etc are the antidote to institutionalised news.  Eventually though the lack of professionalism, the abundance of unsubstantiated opinion and the paucity of evidential facts will drive the users of these new tools to regulate themselves or at least find some way to evaluate the credibility of a blogger/twitter. 

These new tools do appear to give unprecedented access to the champions.  @daraobriain has just shy of 1/2 a million followers on twitter. Last Sunday at midnight, I responded to a comment by @billbailey where he expressed his opinion that The Apprentice was "a vortex of drivel" (a comment that has now been deleted from his twitter stream).  My comment was based on several opinions that I have formed independently of, but seemed at least vaguely consistent with, Bill. (1) Dara is a good guy, (2) Dara is a funny guy, (3) the apprentice is a lack lustre entertainment show that has taken a moderately interesting idea and bastardised it into something quite disgusting. These are based on (for 1) I feel that the "true" Dara is glimpsed on many of his shows but to me a splendid part of his nature was captured in one scene in Three men in a boat. There was a sequence where he was admiring a cottage, not far from me, with unadulterated pleasure. With his lilting Irish accent he exclaimed "would ya look at that house". Nice guy.  (for 2) I watch many of his comedy shows and laugh often. (for 3). I watched the first series and was entertained but felt slightly concerned that the programme was essentially a reality TV show, "I'm a pretentious wannabe, get me into here". I stopped watching and have caught some moments, especially salacious outtakes on other shows.  So this was my comment: "Bill, we know Dara has to pay the mortgage, let's hope he doesn't give too much of his soul away". Exaggerating for comic effect I thought. I don't believe anyone has a soul, if they did, Dara would have a big one, and would have to give only a tiny bit away to work on the show :-) . I also accept that he is a professional clown and must earn a living. In his shoes may be I would do the same, I don't know the full circumstances but the fact remains, if I could afford not to, I wouldn't diminish my integrity by being associated with The Apprentice. It's an opinion, formed on scant evidence - I haven't watched it for years- I accept I may be wrong. What is fascinating is that I got a response., "@Jim_McD Give my soul away? Hosting You're Fired? I'm a professional clown. Christ, some people take this shit waaaaay too seriously."  I'm not sure if the last statement was autobiographical but I certainly wasn't taking it seriously.  Good putdown, you have to admire him.  I can't help feeling though that I touched a nerve, still, the point that resonates the most is that a single twonk heckler in half a million audience got his opinion heard and responded too.  What power we wield with this new toy.

Another dialogue on twitter brought opinion into the fore recently when one of the other heros (@mitchbenn 25,000 followers) got drawn into a debate with a nobody.  Mitch was angry, articulate and right in the main.  He teetered on the brink of righteous and then made this statement, "2. But you DON'T have the right to criticise my working methods because you have no idea what they actually are.".  When someone says it tastes like poo, we all accept that this means it tastes like i imagine poo might taste - unless they said earwax, we all know what earwax tastes like, don't we?  Mitch went on to say, "You said it was sloppy and not thought through. How do you know how much care and thought goes into it? Are you there?".  Clearly, the heckler meant "it appears to have been" [that you didn't put enough work in].  He was wrong.  He expressed an opinion on scant facts.  Does he have a right to?  My view is yes.  Should Mitch have responded? well, I think yes; the visceral anger that fuelled his dialogue was intoxicating.  Mitch is a fabulous lyricist and has a wonderful way with words.  Does it matter that I don't agree with his defining point? I don't think so, I am starting to get familiar enough with these new toys to know that we get a very real response and occasionally, like real life, its not as polished as the old media.  We must all learn to relish in the experience of unadulterated (edited) human thought.  Go on, express an opinion, just don't expect anyone to agree.

Then the final piece that underscores but also threads through this soliloquy was @robinince 's  piece in The Now Show last week.  It seemed to be the essence of my own view on News Papers and all the News Media.  I haven't read a newspaper for over a year - if not longer - I found it more and more difficult to distinguish opinion from news or fact or evidence based commentary.  Robin's view; don't read a paper, read a book.  Don't be lazy absorbing other's opinions, form your own opinion based on facts. 

My view is additionally, once you have formed an opinion, don't hang on to it like the only piece of wood following a ship wreck.  Keep revising it, researching it, testing it and listening to other's views and don't fear using new communication channels to do this.  

What's the point?

On Tuesday, 10 November 2009 I put my first post on my new blog Soliloquy.  It was called Existential Angst.  In fact I toyed with calling the entire blog Existential Angst.  This pervading theme may be a sign of my time of life or perhaps it’s the age in which we live: we are inundated with information and data streamed at us at such a pace it is virtually impossible to absorb, process and synthesise; we are destined to be standing like rabbits staring at the proverbial headlights of the information juggernaut.  I have three major themes which I cannot seem to get enough time to digest the current perceived wisdom and to formalise my own view.  The topics are quite broad (1) The nature of matter and the hypothesis of its creation, (2) The origin of human society and the resultant behaviours and (3) Exponential technological and biological evolution, the extrapolation of Moors Law and the Singularity

I feel like I am building three 10,000 piece jigsaws, each in a different room.  I am running from one to the other completing one part and then dashing back to look at the previous one – often finding that a small portion from my last attempt is in the wrong place. 

All three strands fit with the general theme and I wonder if its part of the nature of self-awareness that we must ask these questions.

On (1) I am intrigued by the celebrity presented view of Quantum Theory – packaged for the masses to consume – but feel that I have just scratched the surface and I want to know more.  I have this instinctive awareness that there are monumental and potentially portentous discoveries happening right now that I will only have a chance to marvel at in wonder but never truly understand.  I have bought a Quantum Mechanics text book but was shocked to find that I struggled to get to grips with the initial mathematics and physics – the very material I had studied and been examined on years ago.

On (2) I had completed .... you decide part 1, as an initial view of the origins of cities and city states, where apparently for the first time humanity decided to locate itself in a desired place and to defend that place and the resources it provided or represented.  I was intending to research if the first example on the planet of a city, Jericho, was still one of the global hotbeds of civil unrest and what this means for our civilisation.  If the descendents of those early inhabitants of the Levant who have migrated to Europe and the British Isles were not able to live closely together without the apparent need for demarcation lines and jingoistic sabre rattling from minority groups based around arbitrary geographic boundaries – what will our society become?  I have idealistic Start Trek notions of a United Federation of Earth – am I the only one? Or are we descending into a densely packed tribal combat zone?

and finally, on (3), The notions and postulations of Raymond Kurzweil and his disciples are intriguing.  Mathematically and logically they make sense – there is an elegant simplicity to the proposal that ensures that it seems like common sense – my cynicism alarm is still twitching.  I’m not sure I concur with the proposed endpoint of this exponentially accelerating evolution but nevertheless it provides an interesting perspective on how we will see an accelerating introduction of life-changing technology.  Critically it also provides a view of the life that our children might experience and will hopefully help us to prepare them better for their turn “holding the baton”.

And so, still no answers, only questions.  The eventual epitaph of all humanity.

I think I may immerse myself in fiction for awhile and see how things have moved on when I resurface……

Blogging is such sweet sorrow

We watched a "best of live at the Apollo" last night. It was funny in places but I was reminded of a quip on some other show saying ".... that was as thin as Michael McIntyre's material" (http://www.comedy.co.uk/guide/tv/michael_mcintyre_roadshow/press/) still it was light entertainment.
A clip of Ed Byrne was aired where he trotted out some amusing observations about the differences between men and women, still funny to hear them a second time, one such observation, posed as a question from men to women; "you know when you ask us what we are thinking....", well I won't just repeat the joke in writing, since without the lyrical southern Irish tones and the cheeky wink at the camera, it may fall flat. Suffice to say, men tink about nutten ;-)

Do we really think about nothing? I'm afraid to say it's not true in my head. It never stops churning over and over, analysing, questioning, postulating. The noise can be as suffocating as it is intoxicating. I rarely remember my dreams and I think it is probably because my brain is completely exhausted so, when I sleep, it honestly needs a rest. In fact my inner narrative is so profligate it has often deigned to share it's overflow with random expressions to anyone within earshot. I have, over the years, learned to curb this trait. How am I doing? I seem to notice this trait in others and tend to be more tolerant than many as I too hear the noises.

Reading other's blogs, as I do, I still question the purpose of my own. In general some blogs are review digests, some are issue related discussion boards, many others also seem to have a purpose. Not sure what the purpose of mine is. Is it just another valve with which to release the noise from my head? Is it a necessary chore that serves to allow the peace and quiet with which I struggle to surround myself?

Sent from my iPad

Sinophone

I am not a sinophone, I think eventually we may all have to become at least partionally sinophonic. 

I've been regularly reading articles on http://www.kurzweil.net/ with interest but today one arrived in my twitter stream that disappointed me.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/globa-accelerating-technologies-will-create-a-global-state-by-2050

So I have submitted a comment and I am awaiting its approval:

The “Global Language Snowball Effect”

I think some of the fundamental facts have been missed here. Chinese is (one of) the fastest growing langauge(s) on the internet (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm) , it is probably more likely that some derivative of Chinese will become the global language, if such a global language were to develop.

It was also disappointing to read the following:

” It will certainly not be Chinese, since the world will utterly reject China’s incredibly clumsy and stupid writing system”

From a non sinophone perspective this may be a much held view but is it really a sensible view. To express it in such a clumsy and inarticulate manner just detracts from what was quite an interesting premise. A small bit of research would show you the variety and richness of the languages that are similar to Chinese. A little further research might have shown you that despite your (and my) ignorance of the language it is a powerful analytic language that depends on sytanx rather than morphology.
I suggest this article is edited to remove what appears to be xenophobic content that adds little to the debate.

I wonder if it will be added?

The Devil may care

I like the new(ish) stats page on blogger. If I'm honest I like stats. As mentioned before (http://jims-soliloquy.blogspot.com/2010/04/big-brother.html), periodically I have a nosy at who, if any, are visiting my musings. I paticularly like the search terms that people have entered immediately prior to selecting my blog from the list presented by their search engine (not shown here). Anyhow, today I noticed the portentous count that had been reached for my UK total.

New Year's Revolution

As I have mentioned before the communication challenges that confront us all, with the advent of what is variously called social networking, Cyberspace, the Web, the Internet etc, are numerous and many people are struggling to come to terms with them.  From businesses to the media to private individuals the struggle is evident.  Some businesses can't cope with the onset of viral marketing the vast scale interconnectedness of their consumers.

The news media - in the 24hour constant reporting world - struggle to balance relevance and source verified factually correct reporting.

Finally the general public are swamped by the accelerating and rapid upgrading and introduction of new tools with which to communicate. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn are my current trio there are many more brands from which we can choose. 

In all of these sites I am finding an increasing discomfort. It has been clear to me for some time that we are someone's product but the escalation of the disdain with which our information security and privacy are being handled I find increasingly frustrating.  There must be a business model that supports a more safe, secure and open relationship with the provider.  If so many people desire this type of facility I'm sure it can be provided as a low-cost fee for service type deal.  I have started sketching out a business plan, not sure how to fund it? My New Years Resolution is to complete the plan and if it looks sensible to get it funded and build an alternative, who's with me? Comrade Jimbo, leader of the people's popular affront. 

Forgive me ether it has been 2 months since my last confession

Despite getting great satisfaction from SHOUTING into the ether, like some poor demented soul, I have been unable to put finger tips to keyboard for 2 months.  Yes, I have excuses; yes, they are all perfectly reasonable; no, I am not happy about it; no, I feel powerless to change it.  Well, until now that is.  Unfortunately, I now discover that I have literally nothing to say.  Actually, this is not strictly true, I have oodles to say but nothing appropriate to share on this medium.  I have struggled to spend quality time with my family, I have hardly cycled, I have read very few blogs, I have missed some games nights, I have not rung my Mum and why have I forsaken all these things?  Short pause whilst I try to grandstand the inevitable, yes you guessed it, like millions of other "saddos" I have allowed work to consume my life.  One maxim that has defined my existence so far has been "Life is about the journey, not the destination".  I feel I have been forgetting this of late fellow ether dwellers, so I herby vow to grab time back from work and share it equally amongst those pursuits listed above....  Look out for many blogs on these subjects in the weeks to follow.

Nose pressed to grindstone

Of late my head has been so choc-a-block with stuff that I have found no time to read any fiction, no time to write and very little time to ponder life's great questions. I have managed to keep my hand in with a few boardgames and I have sporadically updated my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn sites. I am missing these simple pleasures, some would say luxuries. The holidays are finished, the kids are back to school and life is starting to settle down to it's normal rhythm. Just need need to get through the PhUSE annual conference and then it's the run up to Christmas.

Sent from my iPad

The Battle continues

The latest WotR session with Eric has proven one of the most challenging yet. Coming off the back of a series of morale bashing defeats Eric has managed to capitalise on having "normal" dice rolls and card draws. The game has started well for the Free Peoples of middle earth, after 9 rounds comprising 92 actions, the ring bearers are poised to be declared in Minis Tirith and they have zero corruption. The Shadow forces however are not making it easy for them, after a punishing onslaught of Uruk Hai, Rivendell has fallen. Isengard then turned its attention to Rohan, Helms Deep falling after a failed rescue attempt by Gandalf and the Rohirrim. The Shadow forces are mustering at all points, it is now a race against time for both sides.

Look out for a full report on my games blog.

Sent from my iPad (Which will be the subject of my next blog)

Check out my website!

Just trying out writing my own webspace. Publishing to Blogger is a bit tedious.

Hi everyone,

I just updated my website and thought you might want to check it out. To visit, just click on the links below or paste the URLs into your browser.

Site http://web.me.com/mc_dermotts
Games Blog
Archive

Take a look and let me know what you think!

Made on a Mac

Big Brother is watching you

The ubiquitous reference to an authoritarian regime is perhaps overkill for this blog entry but I do feel kind of guilty.  It is apparent, from most people that I talk to, that in general users of the internet are not aware of the level of information that is routinely collected on them and stored for posterity.  Well, maybe we're all aware we just, in that typically human way, manage to ignore it somehow.  We can switch off that conscious part of the brain and hide from big topics like death, homework, tax returns and in my case the dishwasher.  My original intention for this blog was not an attempt to generate followers or readers but it does tickle me to think that others read it and I often look to see who has.  Recently I had my first Hawaiian IP address.  You can see on the map above there is a dot.  I can zoom into this and show the detail, this map shows the last 100 unique IP addresses that viewed my site.  If I paid money, there would be more detailed information available, so advertisers and others may well be getting significantly more info from each of us than this.  I have had a different - and less user friendly - counter running since the launch of my site.  Thanks to a tip from Simon. Currently, there have been 1066 unique hits and 1063 visitors to my site - excluding the IP addresses that I usually connect from.

The simple screen dump of info from the Sitemeter site looks like this:

This hawaiian visitor was on a peak day..... (UTC -11hrs = 08:08:22 am Mar 31st)

Lest you misunderstand my motives here, I should probably add that what I am attempting to do in "broadcast mode" is what I have been doing to certain individuals on a 1:1 basis.  Namely, inform them about the quantity, nature and automation of the data that is available on all of us.  So there you go.

You have a little peek at me and I'm peeking back through the curtains ;-)

Communication

Not a communication you understand, but communication in general.  Which is a case in point.  A written exchange of information can be very literal, expert writers are able to craft their prose to gently convey a subtext or to imply a broader and often less direct meaning.  However, in the main we are pretty poor at this, especially if you compare our ability with the spoken word.  Here we have a replete armoury of weapons to aid the communication, conscious or subconscious.  Paralanguage has evolved over aeons to provide us with tools to inform and be informed by each member of our social group - a vital skill in survival.  It is thought that modern humans developed language around 200,000 years ago.  By contrast, the written language has arguably only been in existence since 3300BC.

This is a Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet from circa 5000 years ago and is one of the earliest known records of the written word.  It contains a schedule of payments to workers made in beer.  This is one of the podcast episodes in A History of the World.  It has triggered some of the thoughts I am currently sharing.

It is not surprising then that in our rapidly accelerating evolutionary environment as we approach the singularity; we are experiencing some difficulty in the transition from traditional methods of engaging in social discourse.  In my last blog I provoked an engaging discourse that suffered a little from not being face to face and also was diminished as it clearly wasn't a peer reviewed journal.  Its really worth reading the dialogue in the comments between Eric and myself if you get time.  I can't help thinking though that as we blunder and err our way through this proto-social-communication tool we are in some way chipping the cool wet Tigris and Euphrates clay.

Nothing to Say

So I haven't written anything on my blog for a while. I suppose its because I don't feel I have anything to say.

“Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.” 

A "google" search attributed this to DH Lawrence. 


In this modern world, where the hive mind hums relentlessly, we don't need to rely on memory.  Social networking media informs our opinions, "massively multi-user graffiti site", wikipedia, is the first repository we all visit for our research. 


We are moving into a strange world where my claret coloured thoughts don't just meander aimlessly into the silent evening as I sip my Chianti - they get published, stark and glaring in their futility.


Will paralanguage ever effectively transition to cyber space?

Christmas Cheer

Too many Christmas lunches, too many seasonal extra events.  Why do we pack 95% of our social calendar in to 31 days in December?  I have now had 4 Christmas lunches and for those that follow me on Twitter you would have seen the delights of the photo of me adorned by a festive bonnet of some sort!  I am wrestling with my desire to relax and enjoy the seasons festivities and my overwhelming grief at humanity's tragic collapse into blatant commercialism and excess.   

So if I can avoid the gluttony, I am really looking forward to some quiet time with family and friends and hopefully spending a little bit of time with my blog!  Must dash, I have a carol concert to go to, I hope there are mince pies and mulled wine.

Work life balance

Ironically I've been struggling to write this work-life-balance blog all week, as I have been too busy.

This week work has taken me away from my wife, the kids, my home, my games, flash-forward, and blogging.  I'm sure there is more it's just my mind is so overloaded I cannot remember.

When did we stop being a profession and start having a profession?  Where our life was in balance, as we were what we did - that is you were a farmer, doctor, soldier.  You didn't leave your life and go and do these things, then when finished return to your life.  This was probably the time we started actually having leisure time - so I shouldn't complain, the fact that I had leisure time to loose is a bonus.  Somehow this doesn't quite feel right, perhaps we need a three-day weekend!

I once went to a meeting in London where, Sahar Hashemi, the founder of Coffee Republic was a guest speaker.  Her talk (and the book that she was selling in the lobby afterwards) were discussing the nature of entrepreneurs.  One comment that registered strongly with my perspective at that time was that entrepreneurs didn't "clock-off" at 5:30. If an idea came to you at 6am on Sunday, you worked on it.  Your passion for what you did meant that it pervaded your entire existence there was no boundary.  But don't we need a boundary?  The photo in this blog is me in 2003 on holiday in Ireland, the document in my hand I believe was the monthly management accounts and I was on the phone to Linda in accounts.  I was stood on the fence (not metaphorically this time) as the cottage was in a hollow with no phone reception.  Eventually I had to give up and have 2 weeks off.  It was great and I felt refreshed when I returned.  Lesson learned I think.

Recently with my foray into the virtual, social and professional networking arena with facebook/twitter/LinkedIn I am having the same issue of work/life balance.  Should I have a Chinese Wall between them, should I allow work to drift in to personal?  Should I leverage my contacts? or should I remain in this schizophrenic state of having two separate personalities?  Clearly, I haven't decided yet.  I think I'll just see what unfolds.

Also, I don't think it is wise to "collect" friends and contacts like some sort of trophy.  There seems to be a practice of adding everybody you've ever met, or in some cases just worked at the same place, to your collection of links/friends/followers.  I'm sure this practice will be self defeating as it undermines the  strength of your relationship with your real links/friends/followers.  I don't advocate a set of selection criteria for adding to your list, just use common sense - ask yourself, do I know this person?

Oh no, I've run out of time, must get back to work........

Too much to say

Unsurprisingly I find myself with too much to say. Perversely this has resulted in me actually blogging nothing for over a week. My thought process about what to blog had been: BT Vision Review, Cult of "New" or Pain of the Early Adopter, Moore's Law of Exponential Micro-Processor Evolution, The Law of Accelerating Returns by Kurzweil, The First Person that will live for 1000 years has already been born.  It's like "Surfing the Brain".

So let's start at the beginning.

Recently we moved home and this provided an opportunity to rationalise three essential modern services. Fixed line telecoms, broadband internet and pay2view TV. These 3 services between them were responsible for more than I cared to admit of our monthly outgoings.

We had Sky HD with loads of add-ons, BT 8MB business broadband and most of our phone calls were on the O2 mobile account from our iPhone's prepaid monthly calls. The "full service" options were Sky, O2, Virgin and BT. For various reasons and despite my misgivings about BT customer service, we opted for the BT package. Customer service has been the worst I have ever experienced - well maybe the Biroska shop in Soviet Moscow in 1984 - no BT still occupy that nadir, nothing can go lower. The cost saving has been good if they actually credit back all the errors in billing that have occurred!

So finally the review of BT Vision:

The device that is provided is an uninspiring receiver/recorder box for freeview TV but additionally you can access TV programmes over the broadband selecting from a whole array of past series. Unfortunately this selection is quite limited and programmes don't seem to be available in perpetuity. Also HD is only on very limited "download" availability and is not able to be live streamed. As a concept then BT Vision is a prelude to the future. Being able to pay for what you view - or use credits - and to chose a specific programme from a backlog of all those produced is clearly a fairer way to bill and a more empowering way to engage with visual media. In actuality though it is a mere shadow of what it could be, I'd wait until more early adopters (like me) have beta tested it and the bandwidth has improved in the UK.

Why am I blogging?

So episode 3 and already I'm becoming overly introspective.  What is blogging? typing whyblog? in to google was quite enlightening.  I think, looking at the top link, it gave me some ideas. 

It's like sitting around a virtual fire with some good friends, may be drinking a glass of winter warmer, and "chewing the fat".  You get to hear some of your thoughts and try them out on people - judge their response - before they've become set in stone. Unless of course you're a journalist and then its entirely different.  It strikes me that many people haven't really explored what they express verbally to any degree before they utter it in public.  Of course this all relies on having an audience.  So to the nub of it, I am now torn between polar opposites, the theme "soliloquy" implying that I am speaking in to the ether without care of an audience and the clear opposite - characterised by me regular reviewing my reader stats on blogpatrol - is my desire to solicit feedback from readers, to communicate.

This desire has got me in to trouble previously, I distinctly remember my Dad pleading with me on a long car journey to sit back and try to sleep - code I was clear on even then in the back of his blue Ford Cortina, for "Stop talking".

I suspect then you have an opportunity, with the patient tone of a father driving to Cornwall, to gently say "stop talking".  The opportunity may not be around for long so don't delay!