Category Archives: Time

Beyond Human

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An interview with Geoff Hinton in the New York Times this week made me stop and think about where AI is heading next. The last few months have been a bit of a roller coaster since the public was given access to the various generative text and image tools, such as chatGPT, Bard, Dalle-2 and Midjourney which has resulted in millions of people trying them out. Quite remarkably, it has unleashed unprecedented levels of joy, amazement and incredulity from all walks of life at what they can do when prompted by us, humans. It has also been matched by many people worrying about how the AI tools will replace millions of jobs while turning our children into cheats, by using them to do their homework. Not since Google search and Facebook came to the fore has there been so much excited talk across the globe about what a new tech can do for society.

I have always been a glass half full person and start by looking at the benefits and opportunities of a new technology. Instead of seeing them ending up making children lazy, I see them helping them learn how to write and code. I see them empowering many others in their work – for example, enabling clinicians to see more patients by summarising and automatically composing reports from their consultations with their patients. Across the board, it is taking the drudgery out of many of our mundane knowledge-based tasks. It can also spark our imaginations to do more and differently. Writing new kinds of plays, books, scripts and so on.

But then something Geoff said in the middle of his interview made me see the future of AI from the dark side, for a change. The first worry that got me thinking was when he talked about there being ever more powerful tools that can be used by evil, malevolent and greedy people for their own ends. The so-called bad actors of the world (although personally I don’t like that term as it used to refer to people who are not very good at acting on stage but now been generalised to mean malicious rather than incompetent people). Scam porn, fake news, fake videos, fake voices, fake claims, etc. could become mainstream, being used in all sorts of unpleasant ways to extort us. Moreover, it is already starting to get messy; being more difficult to know what is real and what is fabricated. While we have all gotten used to getting email scams and more recently deepfakes we may find it more annoying, confusing and scary when they become commonplace – where videos, images and stories are made about us which are untrue but which become increasingly difficult to disprove. Our sense of reality will be turned upside down and inside out if we are not careful.

The second and perhaps more worrying concern is not knowing what the new AI tools might be used for or do, God forbid, on their own volition as they become ever more ‘intelligent’.  What happens when say, chatbots, start to learn from each other? Geoff poignantly pointed out:

“…  it’s as if you had 10,000 people and whenever one person learnt something, everybody automatically knew it. And that’s how these chatbots can know so much more than any one person.”

Yikes! It could unleash a new generation of killer robots that could easily get in the wrong human hands causing unprecedented destruction. And other unthinkable things.

I reminded myself that this has always been the case with manmade (sic) weapons  – whether it is chemical warfare, machine guns, nuclear arms, and so on. We still see terrible acts and atrocities being committed all the time. But will the new generative AI escalate man’s propensity to destroy life with the latest technological means available and make it easier and more shocking to do so?

The sensible course of action is for societies across the globe to put stops and deterrents in place. The politicians and the officials are indeed starting to discuss what to do. But is it possible or realistic for governments to make sure safeguards, regulations and policies can be developed and implemented in order to prevent or reduce AI from being used for bad? Will the exponential advances in AI mean that the goalposts keep moving making it is difficult to keep up?

Returning to my more comfortable glass half full lens, I think about how the unprecedented speed and uptake of the latest AI technological advances could enable us to make more rapid and more profound scientific and medical discoveries, such as finding cures and ways of preventing awful illnesses, such as dementia, Parkinson’s and cancer.  Could we also use them to help society detect and even prevent all manner of crimes before they happen, including terrorism, people trafficking and money laundering? And wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was possible for AI to solve the problems it creates?

The bottom line is one of balance. Is it possible that the new AI kids on the block can be put to more good use than to bad use – now the genie is out of the bottle?

 

The two inserted images were created by DALL·E

Numbing numbers

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A part of my work involves advising various companies and government bodies about their future technology research strategies. This week, I had the pleasure of visiting the EPSRC headquarters in Swindon for a two-day meeting. Besides being super excited about meeting up with other members of the scientific advisory team for the first time in 3D (many of whom I had only met as digital postage stamps during the past 3 years), we were also invited to tour various facilities at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in nearby Didcot. I was assigned to a small group that went to see the Diamond Light Source. Sounds like a big laser show but it is in fact a massive science centre. On entering the building we were shown a model of the building to see what is inside. From an aerial view, it reminded me of Apple’s latest donut campus – in terms of its shape, scale and size.

This huge set up enables a laser beam to whiz around a circuit at some unbelievable speed that has the effect of giving off light 10 billion times brighter than the sun. The mind boggles at what that actually means in practice. Of course you never get to actually see the beam racing around the donut but I was mightily impressive to know it was hurtling around while we mere mortals were walking tentatively around the place. What you do see are various numbers, graphs and images in the nerve centre that lets you know what it is up to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The shining beam is siphoned off into lots of little labs where teams of scientists use it to study all manner of topics, including fossils, jet engines and vaccines. In a nutshell, it is a ginormous microscope that allows lots of measurements to be taken during millions of experimental trials. The scientists and engineers we were introduced to, who work on site, told us how having such a powerful magnifying beam enables them to do incredible science. Making the invisible visible in all sorts of unknown ways. However, they all also mentioned that the data that is collected from the various beam runs is so massive, that outside researchers who come to run their experiments at the facility, nowadays can’t cart their data home with them because there is simply too much of it. Instead, the data has to be stored and analysed on site before a digested form is sent back to them. A few years ago they could save it all onto a portable hard drive…

So what do scientists do with this ever growing mountain of data? How do they count it, describe it and then importantly, work out how to turn it into new knowledge? While data scientists may revel in this sea of data, other kinds of scientists often find it somewhat overwhelming, to put it mildly. To help them in their quest, every now and again, the ‘numbers’ community come up with new names to  make it more manageable to describe it. Just this month, the 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures introduced some new names (or prefixes, cf. milli- to be precise). These included talking about data in terms of being a ronna which has 27 zeroes after the first digit or a quetta which has 30 zeroes after the first digit.

So how would you use these funny number names to talk about science? Consider the mass of the sun. Previously it was talked about in terms of 2,000,000,000 yottagrams. Now its mass can be said to be 2,000 quettagrams. To me it all sounds a bit double-dutch but to data scientists it provides a new and hopefully more meaningful way of expressing huge quantities of digital information.

Coming up with new data words must be one of the fun parts of the job. I wondered how did they choose them this time?  What were they thinking of? Ronna is also a girl’s name meaning “rough island and true image”, while a Quetta is a fort and is the tenth most populous city in Pakistan! And what will replace the ronnas and quettas to express the ever growing volumes of data that will have accumulated in the next 5-10 years? What new words will be dreamt up?  Perhaps Tom Lehrer should get in on the act. I am reminded of his classic song, The Elements, from 1956. Makes me laugh every time I hear it.

Thanks to John Collomosse for taking the photos inside the Diamond.

NFT Art

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A mysterious dark space in a strange shopping mall can be very luring especially when it is only lit up by LED screens in the window. On entering ‘The Circle’ –  Zurich airport’s latest retail space built to connect a green park with the airport – I unexpectedly came across one such space – a pop-up NFT Gallery, called elementum.art showing a select few digital artist’s latest works. I wandered in not knowing quite what to do or where to go. I headed to the nearest brightly lit LED screen, which happened to be the work of the artist Aaron Huey. Turns out, he is a professional photographer who goes solo into various Metaverse worlds to find the edge – where the developers have stopped creating the virtual world.

As I was pondering why make art as a NFT, I heard clip clop noises getting louder. A gallery attendant was walking towards me. She had a big-eyed smile. Even though she was real she looked like she could have walked straight out of Second Life. There was something not quite real about how she talked to me in English about the exhibition. She seemed overly keen to know more about me, and was very curious to know what had led me in to the gallery. I tried to explain to her it was just simple curiosity and that I did not know much about NFT art. She then proceeded to tell me how I could buy one of the digital artworks if I had a crypto wallet of NFTs at the ready. If only…

After about 5 minutes of explaining she then wandered off and left me fumbling with my iphone trying to focus on the QR code next to the screen showing one of Aaron’s edgy pieces. On seeing me struggling, she promptly returned, and asked if she could do it for me. I agreed and handed her my phone; with nimble fingers and knowing how to catch the light, she was able to get the camera on my phone to snap the QR code; the accompanying website revealed the price and a link to a PDF brochure. This part of the process seemed a bit old fashioned. The reason I could not get the QR code to work first was the room was so dark!

It turns out that Aaron’s pieces are priced at about $1000 each. In the blurb about the work, it points out how edges are boundaries, which can signify the end or the beginning of the unseen – all to be explored, grasped, and shared. It asks the viewer to consider how the virtual and physical worlds connect and what is real and what is unreal. All very profound. I could imagine the artist confronting these questions while spending hours venturing forth in these unknown virtual worlds in search of an edge. To record his journeys, he films and takes virtual photos of his journey either from far behind his avatar or just in front of it. The ones shown in the exhibition convey him mainly being on the edge of various graphical landscapes such as those found in Second Life, MineCraft and Roblex. He walks, flies or jumps off them. For example, this one called Leap 293 shows a blockhead image of Aaron about to jump into oblivion.

I could see how some collectors might dabble in purchasing a few of these digital artworks on speculation. But when I mentioned to the big-eyed girl the recent outrage about the Damien Hirst NFT stunt she just smiled again. Last year he launched his first ever NFT collection, called The Currency, which was made up of 10,000 NFTs, corresponding to 10,000 original pieces of his art, largely comprising his bright coloured spot paintings. People who bought one of the ‘spotties’ had the choice of either keeping it as a NFT or swapping it for the actual physical artwork. Half chose the NFT and half the actual painting. Then, this year, Hirst burnt the first 1000 of his spottie paintings that had been sold as NFTs in his gallery and livestreamed the destructive act on Instagram. Some watched with horror. He argued that he was merely “completing the transformation of these physical artworks into NFTs by burning the physical versions…” All that was left from these is the NFT code. I am not sure what the collectors thought when seeing their art literally go up in smoke. I think I would have been one to have kept a physical spottie painting.

Next, I moved onto two artists called Harry Yeff and Trung Bao. They had created a multi-media piece that you listen to on headphones. The piece I heard was of  ethereal voices singing while I watched a very colourful piece of multiple digital gems circle in front of me. Their work was generated by synthesizing a series of AI algorithms – based on a data set of anonymous real human voices that were ‘gifted to the project’. The voices sounded lovely and in harmony with the digital gems. It was very pleasing eye candy and the name ‘voice gems’ was befitting. I was tempted to buy one,  but on discovering that they were nearly 5000 Swiss francs each I was not so sure.

I was glad I had ventured into this unknown landscape as I did learn a lot more about digital crypto art having explored it in first person for the very first time. But call me old fashioned as I much prefer physical art.

TikTok Food

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TikTok has been around since 2016 and caught on like wildfire amongst young people all round the world, as quickly as Facebook did when it first took off. It is fast and furious, and because of this terribly addictive, leaving you wanting more. Essentially, it is a social media platform primarily targeted at GenZ, who spend hours making and viewing their’s and each other’s short, snappy and slickly-edited videos. Each TikTok video typically lasts less than a minute. After clicking on a random video, the viewer can easily find themselves immersed in watching hundreds of other videos from that person’s account and then before they know it are onto someone else’s videos. An hour or more can easily pass by just as the videos do.

The choice of topics covered on TikTok is endless, but most videos are about the stuff that young people are into these days, including dance moves, fashion, jokes, adorable pets, lip synching and slapstick pranks. They also include skills that traditionally most kids have not shown much interest in, such as cooking. I was listening to The Food Programme on the radio the other day which just so happened to be featuring the growing trend amongst young people watching TikTokers demonstrating how to cook, that is quick and easy, without fuss, while looking yummy. Collectively called #FoodTok, videos in this genre have been viewed many billions of times. The mind boggles.

One of the people mentioned in the programme was Poppycooks, who has made a name for herself by specialising in how to cook the humble spud. Her video of how to make roast potatoes went viral which she then followed up with several other recipes of cooking potatoes, from crispy to crunchy to fried to mashed. She was really clever in working out how to keep viewers coming back for more, by adding a new video each day of the advent calendar, this Christmas just gone, comprising 25 recipes. The best was left to the 25th December, salty, super-thin, mouth-watering chips. They are indeed moreish. Poppy also has a cheeky look, adding a pinch of humour every now and again. You can’t but help fall for her and her style of cooking. The sound of her breaking open and biting into a crunchy potato is mouthwatering – and would make most people want to peel some potatoes and get cooking.

Like with other social media platforms, the secret to which TikTok videos become viral is largely down to a combination of algorithms, appeal and advertising. The trick is working out how to sustain interest. Many people may have a one hit wonder while a few go on to make a career out of it. Poppy, for example, has nailed it. She now has over 2 million followers. But staying high in the leagues of TikTok influencers creates huge pressure. The FoodTokers have to keep conjuring up new recipes they can show off in consistently tantalising ways always under 60 seconds! It is an amazing skill. Unlike the celebs of yesteryear, who have become famous through wealth, being in the know, being a looker, and/or having a huge talent, these youngsters can rise to the top  through their deft video-making and editing skills, making things look easy and super cool. They may only discover they have a real talent to entertain when beginning to create the videos. And literally anyone with a smartphone/camera can bubble up and become a star over night. This is one of the joys of this media – its serendipity.

Sometimes, people experience autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) when watching FoodTok videos, which essentially is a tingling body sensation that starts on the scalp and then progresses down the back of the neck and spine. For some people, this kind of sensation can be triggered by listening to crunching, slurping and other whacky sounds. SamSeats, for example, has made an amazing video of many tingling sounds associated with preparing a fancy ratatouille dish.  The sounds include ice cubes being dropped in a bowl, a knife slicing through an assortment of veggies and the rapid and fine chopping of garlic cloves and sprigs of herbs. It is music to the ears and makes you want to watch and listen to the video again. Each time you do, you hear something new. The second time I viewed it, I heard the glugging sound of oil being poured from a bottle and the frying of onions. Such food performances, speeded up to fast-beat tempos, are simply sumptuous. I can see how addictive they are (although sadly I never experienced the ASMR sensation of tingling).

And now I am tempted to upload to TikTok my old fashioned YouTube video (10 years old now) of ‘a plate of sizzling food’ being served up. Here it is: sizzle sizzle.

 

(Image of roast potatoes from lianaskitchen.co.uk)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Twisties

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Simone Biles introduced the world to the phenomenon of “twisties” this week when she had to pull out of the Tokyo Olympics as she realized her mind and body were out of synch after she had flung herself from the vault.  At the critical moment when you need to let the body twist and turn in mid-air by its own volition, she said she could not literally tell up from down. No wonder she stopped her routine there and then.

When interviewed by the BBC News, Christina Myers, a former gymnast, said that the twisties happen “when your brain and body disconnect.” It is at that moment when you need to be at your most self-assured and certain, but instead something flips and twists out of control. Sometimes, when this happens the gymnast ends up against their body will, doing an extra twist or flip that was not intended in their repertoire, resulting in them not being able to land correctly, risking serious injury. Thank goodness Simone had the wherewithal to recognise what was happening and to quit. And how lovely, to see her humility and team spirit shine in the face of adversity – where she came straight back to cheer her team on when she must have been going through mental agony.

I love watching gymnasts perform extraordinary feats, heat after heat. The Olympics is always a treat for watching endless supermen and superwomen move, jump, swing, swivel, uncurl, sail and fly in the most spectacular ways. They are under huge pressure at pregnant moments to perform –  and manage consistently to execute their moves with what looks like perfection to us mere mortals. It is jaw-dropping, gob-smacking magic – whether swinging at full pelt on the uneven bars, the balance beam, the vault, pommel horse, still rings or other apparatus.

I can’t even imagine what it must have felt like for Simone, with the world’s expectations on her shoulders, being one the world’s greatest gymnasts, to go through a twistie. To suddenly lose her  heightened sense of space and dimension when flying through the air, doing a double flip somersault. The body needs to lead the mind knowing what to do precisely when. But when the mind intrudes the body-mind goes into overdrive. It seems on this occasion, immense pressure took its grip, resulting in Simone losing control.

Meanwhile, back in my more mundane world of academia, it has been hard to perform anywhere near how we used to. Since the pandemic started last March 2020, I have not had the pleasure of ’embodying’ my lectures, talks or seminars with movement – there has been no flailing of arms or pacing up and down the stage or the aisles. Instead, I sit stationary in front of a laptop, check how my head looks in the image of myself appearing on Zoom, say hello to whoever is out there and then start my ‘talking head’ show. I have gotten used to the format now after 18 months – it is bland and flat. There are no pre-nerves, butterflies in the stomach, or any anxious looking at smiling faces sitting in the audience, nodding back at me reassuringly. Just my slides and a few postage stamp faces popping up on the side. The audience are hidden behind their portals, with only ever a few turning their cameras on. During conference keynotes, it is even worse, with the attendees all migrating to be in another virtual space (e.g. Discord) to back channel and chat about what I am saying while watching me on YouTube.  They are also all at home, half in their own world of pets, children, delivery people calling, and a flurry of beeps and other distractions.

Instead of the twisties, I have begun to experience occasionally a case of  what I am calling ‘the disconnecties’ – where I start to notice things on the desk, like a cable, an old scrap of paper, a pen, a bit of paper with my to do list on, a sweet wrapper. Instead of  projecting myself into the minds of others I feel myself drifting back into my own physical space. I try to stem the ‘at home’ mind from taking over. But I feel discombobulated and it is unnerving. Sometimes, I wonder if the audience on the other side are also disconnected. I try to block out my home world and focus on the slide in front of me, but then against my will I slip back into home world. I am even tempted to just click on the Teams or Zoom ‘leave’ button. I try cracking a joke – that usually helps me to get back in the flow – but of course no one laughs back. Eventually, when I have finished I know I could have done better. Damn those disconnecties.

This week, however, when giving a talk to some industry folk, a disembodied voice butted in out of nowhere and asked me a question mid slide. Never happened before. It completely threw me. Luckily, I knew the person so could picture them in my mind and try to compose an answer and shift gear. Then it happened a few more times throughout. Afterwards, it made me think perhaps we need a bit more of that – makes for a more spontaneous and natural presentation. My mind went into overdrive, and I changed what I had planned to say. It almost broke the 4th wall – so to speak. And it kept me on my toes rather than letting my mind do gymnastics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chloe Robbins performing a vault

Drone Delivery

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Amazon have been trialling drone delivery of parcels to people living in remote and suburban towns for a while now. Since then, flying deliveries have literally taken off. Only last month, a rival start-up company in Ireland, Manna, took it one step further. They have developed a fleet of drones that are pretty nippy, flying at 80km/h and delivering goods in less than 3 minutes within a 3km radius of take off. That is really impressive. 

At first, the dropping of goods in this way was limited to medicines where there is a need for urgency. Now, it seems all manner of groceries are being dropped, from coffee to melons. People can order something on their phone and within minutes a parcel is released and lowered on a dangling piece of string in front of the person’s house. How novel is that – having a cool glass of wine or a cup of coffee suddenly appear in this way – as if it was out of a sci-fi movie. Look up to the sky and see hundreds of buzzing drones circling, descending and releasing parcels in the air. 

Speaking of which, a new report released by the Pentagon provides further evidence that UFOs are for real. The US military has documented meticulously an increase in unidentified flying objects sighted moving around in the sky.  At first, one might think there is a coincidence – an increase in drones dropping objects might be what is being mistaken for as UFOs. But the video clips and photos they have released pre-date drones. They look like supersonic bats or lit up jellyfish in grainy skies. For many, it is the ultimate fantasy to imagine actual aliens landing on earth coming from these mysterious flying objects. However, no one has caught on camera any sighting of them lurking around Wandsworth or such like. Sadly, it seems there is still no real evidence. Just glimpses of what might be. Part of the problem is us earthlings don’t have the means to capture them or catch up with them, as they zip passed our planet at lightning speed. As noted by the former director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe, “Movements that are hard to replicate, that we don’t have the technology for or are travelling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom. “

Meanwhile I am looking forward to my first G&T dropping slowly from the sky…

Step Challenge

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There are a myriad of apps available now that are designed to get you to take part and sustain interest in some form of physical exercise – be it walking, running, cycling, yoga, swimming or other.  Many have been around for a few years now and have had considerable success in motivating the masses. At the start of the New Year I succumbed to one, called Hadrian’s Wall Virtual Challenge, that caught my eye as it flashed through my Instagram feed, and before I knew it, I had signed up. I have been quite debilitated for the last few months, having been diagnosed with sciatica and some damaged discs in my back  – in part due to sitting badly, for months of hours on end in front of Zoom meetings. I am slowly on the mend and in need of an incentive and encouragement to get doing some exercise again. The Conquest challenges you to walk the 90 mile length of Hadrian’s Wall not literally but where you happen to be. I have always wanted to do that walk in the real, but with lockdown and bad back, it remains for the time being a pipe dream. So why not do it virtually? You walk the steps wherever you are and they get added to your total count. Simple idea but clever.

The app has been around for a few years now and has so many endorsements from people who have taken up the various challenges, it had to have been designed well. Indeed, it has the right wow factor, and good use of behavioural  change mechanisms in place; rewards when you reach certain stages; compelling and simple visual feedback on a map that charts your progress against others; employs a social good factor; has some personalisation, and promotes peer support. The interface is also intuitive to use although the navigation is a bit fiddly at times. It also automatically downloads your steps (once you work it out, so even walking round the house adds to your total). You find yourself of an evening looking to see where you are on the virtual map and how far you have gone that day and how far to the next stage. It is quite compelling.

I asked a couple of my friends to join me on the Conquest and we paid our dues and got set up and set off. We created our own community so only our icons appeared on the route on the virtual map. There are thousands of people from all over the world doing any one of the challenges each day so you don’t want to be crowded out by lots of stranger icons. I uploaded an orange cagoule-hooded image of myself and it magically appeared on the map.

I set myself 12 weeks to complete the walk – having only just begun to walk again. My friends popped up soon on the route just behind me (you can see one of them on the screen shot). Then they got neck and neck. Two days later they were both racing ahead, fighting it out to the end, with me lagging behind. It was a bit of healthy competitiveness, pushing all of us to exercise that bit more each day. I came third but well within the time I set. By the end I was averaging 6-7,000 steps a day – which for me was a major achievement.

During the Challenge we received various messages charting our achievements. We also each planted 4 trees along the way as part of the Eden Project – that gives you a feel good factor. The strangest part of these ‘add-ons’ was every now and again being sent a virtual postcard, handwritten by yourself to yourself, about what you had seen and learnt. It reminded me of when I was a young child I wrote to myself a postcard from the Victory ship my family were visiting on a day trip to Southhampton. I did not know what to say to myself other than something inane ending up with ‘wish you were here’.  There is something weird about writing to your other self. And my handwriting was dreadful then – at least it has improved since then.

 

After completing the Hadrian’s Wall,  we hastily joined another virtual challenge to keep us going. This time we decided to climb Mount Everest. However, it did not feel right as it only counted your steps and not the height of your steps. Pity, as we would have had to have all been running furiously upstairs for the next few months to reach the lofty height of 8,849 m rather than the 39.9 miles we clocked.

I was surprised by how much I have enjoyed the Conquests. Not least, keeping in touch with some friends in a lighthearted and lightweight, but competitive way – while personally upping my game and helping me to get fit again. When you complete each one you have the option of being sent, in the post, a chunky physical medal with a fat ribbon to wear round your neck. The girl below is showing hers off on Facebook, having just completed the Land’s End Challenge, which is a whopping 1,743 km. No wonder she has such a big smile. I wonder what our next Conquest will be?

 

Wikipedia What?

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I was chatting with some friends about where we get our general knowledge from. One reminisced about the rows of hardback, dark blue covered books, called the “Encyclopedia Britannica”, her family had bought from a dodgy door-to-door salesman. Back then in the 60s and 70s, it was a status symbol among working and aspiring families to have bought the entire collection. She admitted hardly having read them but pointed out how they filled the bookshelves nicely. According to Wikipedia, it was the longest lasting printed tome, first published between 1768 and 1771 in Scotland. It kept growing in size with new volumes being added each year such that the 15th edition spanned a mighty 32 volumes, comprising 32,640 pages.

For some reason my family bookshelf did not possess a set. Instead, we had the slimmer ‘Golden Book Encyclopedia’ that was made up of 16 slender, hardback volumes. Each has its own distinct shiny colourful cover made up of a collage of enticing objects and targeted at the family rather than keeping up with the Jones. I would often take one or two off the shelves at a time and dip into them to learn and wonder; whether it was reading about the brain, seeing volcanoes spew forth or discovering strange animals existed like the aardvark. It was a joy on a Saturday afternoon to be lying on my bed absorbing this general knowledge while whetting my curiosity. The writing was accessible, the text illustrated with enticing figures and drawings. I was hooked on the multimedia of my day. I loved the feel, smell and weight of the books in my hand and occasionally liked to rest my chin on the top of an open one, that I balanced on my bed, as I daydreamed about mummies in Egypt or seeing lions in Africa.

Then  the Internet and Google arrived, transforming how people got their knowledge – free and instantly available. It was the end for printed versions of encyclopedias. Next, Wikipedia came into being at the turn of 2000. And that makes it 20 years today. Happy birthday! The online resource started off by being written by a few keen editors contributing articles about things they knew about which were then edited by others if they felt they needed to be corrected. Over the years the number of edits grew exponentially while the number of contributors levelled off and then declined considerably. There are now over 40 million accounts, suggesting a huge number of people worldwide have had a go at adding to this collective memory of knowledge. However, of those only 127,480 are actively editing today.

Then there were the infamous editing wars over the years where editors who disagreed about the content of a page repeatedly wrote over each other’s contributions, sometimes to the point of being quite vindictive – be it about politics, history or scandal. Someone, also thought it was a good idea to start contributing biographies for ‘known’ people – be they footballers, academics, actors, musicians and so on. As a result, it also became a Who’s Who. We all quickly discovered you can learn lots of interesting things about your colleagues – that you did not know otherwise – like what school they went to and how old they are.

But who has the time on their hands to do all of this? Especially, since it is not paid for. It seems the contributions are not evenly distributed. The person who has edited the most articles is Steven Pruitt who has made over three million edits! He has also created more than 35,000 articles. I wonder if he wrote or edited my entry. It now needs updating and I don’t think I should do it.

Managing Uncertainty

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 Last week I went to my local swimming baths for my pre-booked slot alongside about 25 others. On the stroke of 12.00 p.m. we walked at a distance from each other to the poolside already in our swimming togs. We stripped off our outerwear clothing at the poolside down to our swimwear – each at a physically distanced plastic chair. We then showered at alternative showers before slipping into one of the demarcated lanes.

It was strange to see strangers stripped down to their bathers with no masks on. After a couple of lengths, I rediscovered the small pleasure of smiling at one or two of them in that old-fashioned way of acknowledging each other, having seen each other before at the same end. One spoke a few words to me which I replied to about how warm the water was, while facing me bearing their face, lips, mouth, cheeks and eyes. It felt so natural to have our smiles reciprocated followed by making an inane comment or two. Even the over-powering garlic breath, emanating from another chap reminded me of how deprived we have been of ordinariness. To be made aware again of each other while stood in chlorinated Hockney-esque water felt strangely liberating. Almost in touch. But sadly, my newly discovered pool times came to an abrupt halt. With the COVID virus starting to mutate and now spreading like wildfire through the UK, the government has decided to close down all leisure facilities in our neck of the woods.

It also put an end to millions of people’s much looked-forward-to plans for the Christmas Period. In their place, a cocktail of anxiety, confusion and uncertainty had returned. Can we, should we, is it OK if we… bend the rules a little? What if and when will it end? When will we be able to meet up again normally with family, friends and strangers? When will be able to book a holiday, a cruise, hold a big birthday party, a large wedding or other social gathering, that is not restricted by numbers, wearing masks and social distancing? And so on and so on. Everything is up in the air once more; some people resigned and other’s pulling their hair out with worry, wasted effort and disappointment.

Many of us like to be in control of our lives, planning weeks, months and even years ahead, whether it is the next career move, a personal life choice, e.g., getting married, having a family, taking a gap year, what university to go to, when to retire and what to do afterwards. We often spend hours researching, reading up and asking others for advice to help us make the right decision. And then bang! Along came COVID early this year that threw a mighty spanner in the works, for us all. A big effect has been massive uncertainty worldwide – even with the vaccine in our midst now being offered to the first lucky ones.

New uncertainties have come forth. When will I get the vaccine? Is it safe? Will it work? When can I travel unmasked, shake someone’s hand, and hug a colleague again? When will we be able to experience being in a crowd again, like attending a live concert, wandering through a packed shopping mall, or feeling crushed on a university campus during a normal termtime where there are tens of thousands of students and staff thronging through a labyrinth of corridors and courtyards? We simply don’t know….and for many managing this level of uncertainty can be all too much.

To help we can take recourse to the numerous self-help books and blogs around about dealing with uncertainty – including Christine Carter’s (2020) seven tips. Many of these seem sensible and common-sense, such as accepting the situation rather than fighting it, looking after yourself (e.g. getting enough sleep, eating healthy), and giving yourself the odd treat when feeling down. One that struck me, however, as being out of the ordinary was her advice to switch perspective at various times throughout the day. Instead of imagining a frightening and unknown future that we cannot fix or even predict the likely outcomes, she suggests we should “bring our attention to our breath”.

That phrase took me by surprise. What I think she means is: we should try to increase our self-awareness at inconsequential moments, such as asking ourselves, “how are you doing right now?” every time we wash our hands or wait for the kettle to boil. But supposing the answer turns out to be bored, tired, frustrated, listless, etc., then what? Her follow through is: “attending to what is happening within us at any given moment keeps a crappy external reality from determining our inner truth”. That sounds intriguing: turning in on ourselves to block out the depressing news around us. However, I am not sure such a strategy will enable us to feel better about ourselves. Will it make us calmer, more open-minded and less reactive? It might make us worse. I’ll give it a go but, personally, a walk by the sea or laughing my head off listening to a good podcast on my iPhone keeps the bogeymen away.

The other thing I have learned during COVID, is not to get my hopes up any more about us going back to normal any time soon – meaning not to plan anything ambitious in the foreseeable future. A weekly visit to the supermarket is the limit now. I’ll only allow myself to dream again once I know I am definitely booked in for a jab. That seems like it will be a while. Then I will plan a holiday, a work trip and even a city weekend break, reimagining the familiarity of strangers, from bustling queues and being squeezed into planes, trains, pubs, bars, shopping malls, hotel foyers, waiting rooms, reception areas, etc. and being able to smile and sometimes laugh at the person/s next to me without a mask on. In the meantime, it is back to a life of endless zoom meetings among familiar faces. Speaking of which…

Remote Tracking

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It is great to see the tech companies coming together to do their bit to help curb coronavirus. Apple and Google have been collaborating on a tracking platform that could help governments worldwide monitor, track and manage the pandemic more effectively. Their proposed system works by using Bluetooth and encryption keys, that enable data to be collected from phones that have been in close proximity with each other. From this data, it can be inferred who else, phone owners have been close to, for a set period of time (e.g. the quarantine period of 14 days). Users can also alert health authorities if they have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and conversely, the system can text them if they have detected that their phone, and indirectly themselves, have been in close contact with someone who has been diagnosed with the virus. The term coined for this new form of remote tracking is ‘contact tracing’ as illustrated by Apple and Google’s graphic:

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Remote Numbers

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The day before the coronavirus lockdown started in the UK, I had a smart meter fitted in my house. After the engineer had finished, he walked me through all the various functions shown on the digital display; a dashboard of numbers provides all sorts of stats and data about how much electricity and gas you are using and how much they cost per hour, alongside an easy to read traffic light barometer that moves into red bars (see above) if you are using a lot of energy (e.g when boiling a kettle) while rewarding you with green bars when you are being energy efficient. The idea is that you use the various number and bars to change your behaviour and in doing so reduce your energy usage and save money.

I looked at the display a few times but did nothing to change my behaviour to be more energy efficient. Quite the opposite in fact; I started using more electricity and gas, making more cups of tea, cooking more meals, spending more hours in front of my laptop, TV and doing more washing – as a result of being stuck at home 24/7 now. Best place for the display was to hide it in a drawer.

Meanwhile, like everyone else I have been gripped by numbers that are being delivered each day about coronavirus – but uncomfortably so. The number of new cases and the number of new deaths are on the rise each day. At first 2-3 people dying was considered shocking. Now we are up to nearly a 1000 a day in the UK. It is no longer shocking but expected. We have all become engrossed by the graphs the scientists generate each day to help the lay person understand what the numbers mean with respect to where we are in the quest to flatten the curve’. They project how steep the curve is each day relative to day zero. The colour coded ones show where the UK is relative to other countries we might care about. I catch myself comparing how we are doing against the US or Italy – thinking we are better off or not doing as bad. Why are we being shown this as if it was a competition? To make us feel better? Comparative graphs are a mechanism that is commonly used in behavioural change; known as social norms. By seeing how well you are doing relative to others (it could be a peer, a family, a neighbouring city or a country) you can feel good if you are below the others or worry if you are above – as it indicates loud and clear you are using more or spending more (conversely, if it is exercise, the reverse is true).

There are more and more of these visualizations appearing now, such as Sky’s: “Coronavirus: How many people have died in your area? COVID-19 deaths in England mapped”. Those who live in remote areas, like Suffolk can sigh a big relief that there are no big blobs near them. Those who live in London or other densely populated areas will notice  big blobs splatted over where they live. No wonder so many Londoners flocked to the countryside when they could. That is, before those who live there told them where to go.

For the most part there is little we can do other than worry when looking at these comparative coronavirus graphs. They are fodder, too, for the media and politicians. For example the headline on one news website: “Singapore Wins Praise For Its COVID-19 Strategy. The U.S. Does Not”

Today’s headline on CNN’s website was more in tune with the way science happens; through competing predictions and hypotheses: “New US model predicts much higher Covid-19 death toll in UK. But British Scientists are Skeptical.” The US team predict nearly 70,000 will die in the UK. The British scientists, on the other hand, predicted only 20,000-30,000 would die in the UK, based on their brand of mathematical modeling. Who do we believe?

One of the UK scientists involved, who has become a household name, is Professor Neil Ferguson from Imperial College. The UK government has increasingly relied not only on his team’s modelling prowess but also on their wisdom to decide on its next response strategy during the pandemic. It is an unenviable position to be in, as we scientists are not renowned for having the superpowers necessary to enable us to see into the future. Who knows what people will do and what will become of us when making such hugely impactful choices on how to manage the pandemic.

It goes without saying that mathematical models need lots of data in order to make accurate predictions. When predicting the weather, a tsunami or an earthquake millions of data points  are used. The current pandemic, however, in comparison, has relatively few data points that can be used.

It would be hubris not to remember the failure of Google’s Flu Trends program, a few years back, when it’s developers claimed, based on analyzing people’s search terms for flu, they could produce accurate estimates of flu prevalence two weeks earlier than official data. Sadly, it failed to do this for the peak of the 2013 flu season. Then, they had access to big data – masses of it. The current modelers only have access to small data – very little of it. Let’s hope all the lockdown restrictions imposed on society at large, that have been put in place in nearly every country in an attempt to stem the rise in the pandemic, based on current predictions and remote numbers, fares better. We can but hope.

Remote Living

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So official lockdown kicked in on Monday for us living in Britain. The rules are a bit more lenient than in some countries, where they have draconian curfew measures in place. Here, we are allowed to leave home for one exercise a day, and to go shopping to buy necessary food and medicine. We are also allowed to go to work if we absolutely can’t work from home. So for the time being if you are a construction worker you can carry on as normal – so long as you are two metres apart. Good time to be a crane operator – high in the sky looking down on empty streets. I suspect not for long. It must be very difficult for a government to balance its country’s economy when deciding which strategies to use try to flattern the pandemic curve that will have most effect – while determining how best to change human behaviour in a way that is so very different from how people normally live their lives.

Yesterday, I did my beach walk alone at 8.00 a.m to start the day. It was full of joggers and dog walkers. There was plenty of space so we managed to keep our distance. The sea looked calm and serene and for that hour one could think of something else other than Coronavirus. Today, I am saving up my permitted outside exercise for later in the day. By mid-afternoon yesterday I was getting quite restless. At one point I looked at my watch thinking it was 4.15p.m – soon time for a planned social chat with a friend – only to then discover it was actually 3.15p.m. Normally, being surprised by finding I have an extra hour would be a joy. I can fill it in easily by catching up on work. Yesterday, I can honestly say my heart sank a little, reminding me of when I was a teenager on a long Sunday when the clock stands still…

Meanwhile, all around us is a flurry of activity online. I see a lovely Amanda is streaming her yoga class to us on Friday at work. A couple just got married in Birmingham before the country banned weddings; over 100 guests watched it being live streamed on Facebook. There are also sweet videos of grandchildren, now doing the rounds, waving at their grandparents through the windows or patio doors in their garden, some even squashing their little noses up to the glass. Lots of people have celebrated their birthdays with their friends family and by virtually holding their birthday cakes up for them to see.

The one that has caught everyone’s eyes, however, is Joe Wicks, also from Birmingham, who has become the self-proclaimed UK’s living room PE teacher. Hundreds of thousands of families are joining in each day for his 9.00a.m class. You can see why. He has charisma, presence, energy and drive that appeal to children and parents, alike. The videos of kids prancing around the living room, following his instructions, are very moving. A bit of the magic that Russell Brand oozes seems to have rubbed off on him.

Eating alone together online has also started to become popular again amongst families and friends. I remember a few years ago when Skype was becoming mainstream some of us tried it as an experiment. For example, when I was in South Africa on sabbatical I had a Skype dinner with a friend back in the UK. It was nice to catch up with her while doing something but the eating part actually felt quite odd. We had both served up ourselves something simple – a pasta dish – and started eating about the same time. But somehow picking up our knives and forks together did not synchronize and the eating of the meal did not feel natural. The smells, tastes and noises when eating together were lost in translation.

Unlike the craze for ASMR where someone uploads a YouTube video of themselves making eating noises when eating jelly beans, cake or other delight that makes viewers go crazy when listening to them. The acronym stands for ‘autonomous sensory meridian response’ which apparently causes a tingling sensation in someone akin to the hairs on the back of their neck standing up. Zach Choi, who has over 7 million followers, does a great impression scoffing fast food – might be compuslive viewing for those who are missing their junk food fix now that McDonalds, Nandos and the like are all closed.

Apparently, there is a huge following for ASMR; over 15 million videos have been made and watched endlessly. It is not just the chewing, munching and crunching noises that appeal but also lots of other mundane noises that trigger that weird sensation in people – including the sound of rolling marbles on a hard surface, someone whispering ever so softly or tapping their nails gently on a desk. The mind boggles.

I have watched a few of the ASMR videos and I am afraid they don’t do it for me it; if anything they do the opposite, making me judder and cringe. I like the straight forward things in life like the clinking of glasses. At the end of a tiring day of back-to-back remote work meetings I now look forward to a FaceTime chat with a friend or two with a glass of wine in hand. Of course, it is no substitute for the real thing but it can be surprisingly relaxing and enjoyable. We make sure we have a good laugh, crack some jokes and try to see the funny side of life. And then its dinner, Netflix, and the 10.00 o’clock news before going to bed.

Another Groundhog Day in these strange times.

Remote Working

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It has been a full-on week of remote working since the university instructed us last week to do so because of the escalation of coronavirus. It feels like I have had more videoconferencing meetings than hot dinners! One moment it is Skype, the next Teams and then Zoom – many have been back-to-back. Even though it is great that we can keep in touch in this virtual way, it is frankly exhausting – but in a different way from my usual tiring day at work. While my twice daily train commute often takes its toll at the end of the day, sat being glued to a screen for hours on end, talking to virtual colleagues and students, elevates fatigue to a new dimension. It is not a physical exhaustion but more enervating, like how one can feel after a long Sunday, when you have indulged in too much binge-watching.

Part of the new tiredness also stems from having quite different kinds of meetings than usual; having to deal with so many updates and breaking news each day, on what has been planned, decided, revealed and mandated by government, country, university or at the departmental level. Right now, there is an awful lot of ‘cascading’ interspersed with checking up and reassuring each other. There seems to be much less ‘actual’ work’; but one hopes this will return once routines begin to settle into place.

Then out of the blue you might get an email from one of your colleagues letting you know they are not feeling well and have begun self-isolating. It is quite anxiety-inducing, worrying if they have got the lurgy. I have heard now from quite a few people that they have developed flu-like symptoms and are self isolating; some seem more serious than others. It is all a bit discombobulating, and russian roulette-like. You can but hope they will be better the next day.

To welcome each day, I have started walking on the beach early in the morning with a couple of my neighbours. It is invigorating, filling the lungs with fresh sea air and watching life at a distance. We even see a group of women each day, braving the waves in their wetsuits for a bracing swim. But who knows how long we can carry on doing this before a lockdown is imposed – as has been the case in Spain and Italy.

Today it was raining and so we put our umbrellas up; making it easier for us to ‘social distance’. At one point we entered a shop, and while waiting in line, other customers came in and stood a metre apart from us and each other – abiding by the government’s guidance. It felt a little strange and silly as we skirted around the small place. But even though it seemed unnatural it felt prudent.

Later in the morning, when I peered out of my study window that looks onto a primary school playground, I saw many 5-6 years old children playing together during their break time as if they did not have a care in the world (as it happens it was probably for the last time as UK schools begin to close). For them the concept of social distancing must seem alien. As for taking part in social isolation, it must seem even stranger, as to why they can’t go out to play but instead have to stay indoors for a week or two without physical contact with their grandparents or playmates.

This new world order brings out the best and worst in people. There are so many acts of kindness being reported it makes you feel warm and fuzzy, realizing that, as human beings, we like to look out for each other. However, the flipside is just how many people are looking out for themselves. Many can’t resist the temptation to stock up on tins, bread, toilet paper and other staples. Panic buying maybe, but it gives them something to do and makes them feel safe. I found myself today, after failing to find any cereal left on the shelves, wondering if I should buy the last remaining cereal bar that I spotted. I would never normally buy such a thing let alone eat one. It is not easy to restrain oneself when irrational fears enter our psyche. As it turned out, one of my neighbours came to the rescue and brought round a tasty loaf of bread.

As we have all started to sign off our emails with: ‘Stay safe’.

Alarming Alert

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When I lived in the mid-west in the US, I used to go swimming in the Olympic-sized outdoors pool at the University I was working at. One afternoon, I jumped in and started doing my strokes when I noticed people around me stopping and getting out. I did not think anything of it and carried on swimming until I got to the end of my lane. I then looked up and saw an official waving his arms furiously at me. My ears became attuned to a large shrill siren sounding. He shouted manically at me, “Tornado warning! Get out now!” I looked around and noticed by then everyone else had left the pool. I apologised saying I was from the UK and had not known what the sound meant. I quickly got out and ran to the changing room, where most people were hurriedly collecting their stuff and leaving.  I got changed and drove home, against the backdrop of blaring wailing sirens all around me and the car radio repeatedly telling me to go indoors, or if not possible, to hide in a ditch or under a bridge. I’d never been through this perpetual warning scare before. It felt terrifying. When I got back to an empty house (my then partner was elsewhere at the time), I put on the TV and hid in the utility room in the middle of the house. It felt silly standing there not knowing what to do, but also scary imagining the house being swept away in the path of the tornado. After a couple of hours, the siren warnings went away and I came back out into the living room, relieved after having been so tense for so long about what might have happened.

I can only imagine the panic and fear the residents of Hawaii went through yesterday on receiving a text message telling them to seek immediate shelter from a ballistic missile threat. Most probably thought initially it was a test drill but then realized from the message that it was for real. I think If I had been in their situation I would have gone ballistic with only 15 minutes to find shelter. Some people were able to quickly hide under their beds, while others were outdoors away from safety, playing golf, cycling or surfing.

It was not until 38 minutes later, when the emergency services sent out another message saying ‘there is no threat’ and the first message was mistakenly sent. One of their guys  had accidentally sent out the alert, having clicked ‘OK’ in response to a second message – intended as a safeguard – that asked whether the alert should go out. I am sure people were mightily relieved at receiving this, but at the same time confused, angry and in a state of shock.

The reason it took so long to send out the second message, after the emergency services realized what had happened was, according to Hawaii Governor David Ige, that “there was no automated way to send a false alarm cancellation. We had to initiate a manual process. And that was why it took a while to notify everyone.” Shame on the software engineers for making it so easy to trigger the alert but so difficult to rectify.

We’ve all clicked on that warning message button “Are you sure you want to …” where the dots can mean overwrite a disk, delete a file, send a message and so on. Sometimes, it triggers a momentary awareness that makes us think twice before and that we are sure; other times it is simply an automatic act.

It is far too easy to make a decision with huge consequences by simply pressing a button. If only software engineers and HCI researchers could come up with a better way of helping humans make rapid decisions for seismic events that have massive consequences. Perhaps, at the very least it should require two people to press their buttons in a sequence. After all, the aviation business has known for years that two is better than one; always requiring two cabin crew to manually ‘cross check’ when arming opposite doors of a plane.

Smart AI

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One of my PhD students has been investigating how environmental sensors can be situated in community gardens to provide new data about light levels. The motivation stems from wanting to help the volunteers who work in these gardens decide what to plant and where best to plant new crops. The data can be digitally visualised for them on a display to provide new information about the patterns of shade and bright sunlight over time. Information they don’t currently have access to. Instead they rely on previous knowledge and experiences of what worked and what didn’t do so well. The aim is to augment people’s existing knowledge with new contextual information, especially where it can be difficult to predict how different areas of a garden changes due to seasonal shifts in light and variable plant growth.

However, the initial reaction from the community gardeners was one of scepticism. They did not want to have ‘computers’ in the garden because that is where they come to get away from the digital world. Instead they value the experience of being in the garden and the importance of ‘getting their hands in the dirt’.

But later, when shown the sensed light levels in different parts of the garden over time, using augmented reality, their initial resistance was replaced with a degree of curiosity. They could see the potential benefit of having such light data to hand that could be overlaid on their schematic sketches and maps of the garden when planning in the potting shed. What they were clear about was not wanting an app that gave them advice  about what to do in the garden.

Meanwhile in India, Microsoft in conjunction with the Andhra Pradesh government have been using AI and machine learning to help local farmers determine when best to sow their seeds for groundnut, rice, maize, cotton and the like. Using 40 years of past data for weather patterns and soil conditions, they have been able to develop a predictive model of the likelihood of rain, drought and even pest attacks. From their models, they can determine when the best time is to sow seeds in a given region so as to optimise yield and reduce risk of failure.

The really cool part of the project though is how the new knowledge is delivered to the farmers. Not via a smartphone app but by Microsoft letting the farmers know simply through sending them a text message – in their native language – to their feature phones.  And for those who can’t read they  leave a voice message. Gut feeling, experience and human wisdom are being replaced by straight forward messages – based on a remarkable combination of weather forecasting, satellite images, machine learning and cloud services. And what’s more, the farmers don’t need to have any sensors installed in their fields.

Who wouldn’t want to take heed from free advice coming from the cloud that is better informed and has a better chance of increasing their income? This seems like a win-win situation for all concerned. Local farmers benefit without having to compromise or change their practice. Scientists get to demonstrate a real impact of AI through increasing the income of people living in developing countries – without replacing them with robots or pushing ads down their phones. And Microsoft can bask in a feel-good factor for providing the infrastructure and wherewithal.

But what happens if the advice given is wrong?  And the farmers end up planting too early or too late resulting in a poor crop yield. Do they simply shrug their shoulders and think, oh well even AI can get it wrong. Do they continue to follow the text advice, next time – just like many people now have taken to blindly following their GPS when driving – sometimes against their better judgement. Or will they abandon the advice, revert to their gut instinct and decide once more for themselves? I supect we are in the midst of a quiet revolution in rural farming and there is no looking back. The AI will keep improving, too. But then again, global warming is also in our midst. And that is unpredictable.

 

Opera Moments

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The other day, I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s new exhibition “Opera: Passion, Power and Politics”. This latest extravaganza explores the context, history and origins of seven great operas in seven magnificent cities, from Venice to Leningrad, where they were originally performed and for which they are now renowned for their operatic heritage. It has been curated as a journey through opera, full of suspense, the visitor never quite knowing what to expect next.

Quality headphones on, my friend and I were initially led into a passage where a beautiful aria burst forth into our ears. My friend started grinning from ear-to-ear and went straight into ‘the zone’. After our visit, she told me how the first few lines of the aria had triggered a Proustian moment, taking her right back to a poignant time in her life when she had first heard it. I looked on enviously while being distracted by trying to get my headphones to sit more comfortably on my head. It proved more difficult, however, for me to be transported. So I left my friend in her element and wandered into the next darkened room, where I was taken back to 17th Century Venice, which is where it all began. There were various exhibits in the room intended to give you a taster of the passion, the politics and the power – that had been crafted and selected to convey iconic aspects, including original music scores, costumes, and old instruments.

For me, the multimedia experience was largely about the music playing in my ears rather than the visuals confronting my eyes. I tried to focus on the artefacts in front of me and read accompanying materials but it proved quite difficult. The sounds in my ears had my undivided attention for most of the time. Sometimes, I managed to synch what I was looking at with what I was hearing.  Other times, I simply closed my eyes, wandered around and listened. I barely noticed the other people milling around the space or how crowded it was. They appeared almost like solo ghosts coming in and out of focus. No-one spoke, just the occasional smile of recognition or a whisper, with a partner/companion. The one time I did hear an old couple talking to each other rather loudly, it appeared very discordant and, immediately, another woman walked over to them and shushed them.

The exhibition set-up uses wireless location-based tech to track where you are so that the head-hand set can play the relevant operas and sounds that go with the rooms as you enter and walk around them. No need to ever tap a number into the handheld device to match up with the exhibit in front of you. The effect is to place you in your own digital musical bubble – quite a contrast to how multimedia guides are used in art galleries and other museums. The transitions from one opera to another are abrupt but the moving is fluid. You don’t have to suspend your disbelief of going back in time to work out what buttons to press.

In the middle of the series of themed rooms and joining passages is a large cavernous space where short clips from films of more recent operas  were projected onto multiple sets as if appearing on the backstage of an opera house.  Very cleverly done. It was mesmerizing to watch and listen to one after the other – enjoying the climax moments as they multiplied across them. This was where the combination of sound and sights really worked for me in unison.

The whole experience was one of sheer delight. I could not agree more with an excerpt from last week’s Evening Standard’s review:

“Throughout, you’re hearing sounds so beautiful that it’s a wrench to leave one historic moment and enter another. You want to stick with what you’re hearing. What drives you on is curiosity to see what the clever organizers have come up with next.”

However, you are always very much an onlooker – in reverence and in awe. Opera does not have to always be so. Last year, one of my students and I worked on a collaborative project with the English National Opera and a tech company, called Holition, where we developed and evaluated an app that was intended to enable the general public to literally ‘step into character’ and in doing so, imagine what it was like to be an opera singer. It was called the MagicMirror and we dressed it up to appear as a make-up mirror in a real dressing room at the London Coliseum Opera House. It was incredibly effective. Pity, there was not some more of this kind of interactivity at the V&A. But then again it is a museum and not an opera house.

 

Photograph: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Face Age

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I have been watching episodes of “Tonight at the London Palladium” on ITV for the last couple of weeks. My interest was whetted when seeing one of my former schoolmates, Bradley Walsh, hosting it. He is slick, funny, charming and on occasion a bit naughty. Just how I remember him at Francis Combe School when he was 15 years old, and he had the rest of the class in stitches impersonating Tommy Cooper. Besides the variety acts he introduces each week, from moving magicians to sparkly singers, he invites an unwitting member of the audience to come onto the stage and play a ‘guess the age’ game. One row of the audience is asked to stand up and the participant has to guess their age by saying whether the person to the right of them is older or younger. This is repeated for each person all the way down the row. The person who has been judged to be older or younger then turns over a white card, they are holding, which reveals how old they actually are. If the participant guesses right the audience roars in approval. If they get it wrong everyone looks a bit embarrassed. Great fun. Mostly the guesses are right because humans have developed a well-honed skill of working out the age of someone by how their face looks.

It was with a mix of shock and then disbelief that I later saw a version of the guessing game being played by a computer for real in a wine bar in Hove. Many bars and clubs now have scanning technology (Scannet.com). It checks someone’s ID card (usually their driving license) and reveals the details on a public TV display for all to see; their mugshot with their age and a big tick on either side – indicating if their ID has passed the authentication test. While having a quiet drink in the wine bar after dinner, we noticed it in action as the early birds arrived, all made up. They waited patiently at the door for their go with their ID cards ready to hand over to the bouncer. It just seemed routine to them. Nothing out of the ordinary. Why were we so surprised?

The mugshots that appear on the screen appeared to have some kind of pattern superimposed on their foreheads which made each one look like a criminal photo. Their age extracted from the card also shows up in bold 60 point font; both can be seen clearly from anywhere nearby. For added security, the scanner takes a photo of the ID card and stores it as data. Who knows what other information is stripped from the ID card as part of that data? When the scanner is not in use, a webcam on top of the display clicks into action, like a CCTV camera, which was pointed at our table in front of it – we could see ourselves on the screen drinking.And for equal measure, there is another TV screen, with the same information appearing on it, hanging by the bar, so the bartenders can check as well as the bouncers.

Apparently, in London and other cities across the world, it is now required to install this kind of ID scanning equipment in clubs and bars. Worryingly, the data does not stay in one place. The scanners are all hooked up to a network that allows all the signed up clubs and bars to share the data with each other. Should a clubber be rowdy in a bar and subsequently banned, they may find they are banned from all the other venues that are part of that network. No wonder nightclubs are closing by the hundreds throughout the UK.

We watched as people’s ages popped up alongside their faces on the screen – 22, 23, 26, 33. We played our own version of the London Palladium game, guessing whether we thought the number appearing on the screen matched the person walking through the door. Some looked older than their actual age rather than younger. None appeared under age or had fake ID. Perhaps the technology was doing its job acting as a deterrent. But most unsettling to us was that the young things did not seem to care in the slightest – after being handed back their cards they headed straight to the bar to grab a cocktail. Par for the course of being young these days.

Fake News

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father-christmasAt what age do children stop believing in Father Christmas? I think I was about five when I saw my mother stealthily entering my bedroom with a stocking stuffed with presents ‘from Santa’ and placing it at the end of my bed. I pretended I had not seen her and waited a few minutes lying motionless before taking a peak at the goodies. I carried on pretending I believed in Father Christmas for another year.

Many kids seem to continue really believing in Father Christmas until they are 7 or 8 years old – according to some online surveys. That is hard to believe but maybe they want their parents to think they still believe in him. All part of the make believe that is part of the story of Christmas. The idea that a kindly old man with a big white beard comes all the way from Greenland, on a sleigh pulled by reindeers through the sky, and pops down every child’s chimney throughout the world, to deliver them presents is a wonderful fantasy. What young child wouldn’t want to stop believing in that?

But what happens when we become grown-up? Are we able to know when something is for real and something is made up? And do we pretend to believe in something when clearly it is not true? It seems the line is becoming more blurred. Some people have started making up stories, and publishing them online, in the hope that other people will believe them – even though they are clearly not true. These stories, however, are not innocent stories about kind people, but sinister stories about the world. Welcome to the year of fake news.

By fake news is meant the deliberate pushing of hoaxes, propaganda and disinformation, via social media and online news that are intended to incite people into believing them. At the same time, the term is used to refer to anything people happen to disagree with or don’t want to hear. When somone doesn’t like the facts or news they will make out they are fake. For example, the idea that the world is getting warmer is viewed by some as fake – despite the resounding scientific evidence. They will then ‘find’ and ‘generate’ news that ‘proves’ it is not true. But this then becomes clearly fake for the others.

What is fake depends on the eyes of the beholder.

Why is this happening? When people grow up they often look for information that confirms their ideological views, rather than information that comes from reliable sources or science. Increasingly, this entails following links on social media to read stories and watch YouTube videos that support their opinions. Most startling is the outcome of a recent survey by BuzzFeed that revealed that 75% of US adults believed fake news headlines they were shown. Moreover, those who use Facebook for their news feed are more likely to believe fake news headlines as telling the truth than those who read their news from other sources.

If the kinds of fake stories that were being promulgated through people’s newsfeeds were only porkies – like those we read or watch on April Fools Day – it would not be quite so bad. It would be a bit of harmless fun like the classic spaghetti story. Back in 1957, the BBC made a short documentary about the plight of the spaghetti crop that grew on trees in Switzerland. Now that would be laughed at as being ridiculous. Then, many people were fooled – since at the time very few people ate spaghetti outside of Italy, let alone knew where it came from. Indeed, a considerable number of British viewers called up the BBC after watching the programme to find out how they could get hold of a spaghetti tree. They were told to “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best” It was later viewed by CNN as the “the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled.”
fake-news

These kinds of hoaxes are harmless. Just like the kinds of ridiculous but funny stories the National Enquirer comes up with each week. In contrast, the increasing spreading of fake news is much darker and more sinister. People really do believe that that global warming is not true, that Hillary Clinton is a criminal, and so on. Please bring back Father Christmas.

Smart Time

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QRcode While travelling on the Heathrow Express into London I had one of those envy moments. As the ticket inspector came into the carriage I fumbled in my bag for my ticket that I had just bought at a ticket machine while a smartly dressed guy across the aisle from me raised his arm to her brandishing a sparkling new Apple watch. The QR code on his ticket filled the screen. The ticket inspector put her handheld scanning machine next to his arm and hey presto his ticket information pinged up on her screen. Ktchung! We all looked at her smiling face and marveled at how slick the action had been. It was her first time checking an Apple watch face.
apple3 She then turned to me and I handed her my ticket. She looked at it and then me and said, sharply, “that’s your receipt.” I apologized profusely and looked again in my bag for the ticket. I found another one and gave it to her. She looked back at me and said that was also a receipt. Two receipts, no ticket! I must have left the ticket in the machine in my dash to catch the train. I tried to explain how after two pieces of card had been printed I’d assumed that one must have been the ticket. Then I remembered, how on other occasions having to wait ages for numerous bits of card to be printed (some for the seat assignments) and each time scraping the back of my hand to scoop them up as they slowly came out of the machine.

Luckily she was sympathetic and did not make me buy another ticket. Meanwhile Mr smart guy’s watch had turned into a swirl of candy crush apple icons and he and his colleague returned to talk business. I saw the future. I checked out the new smartwatch train apps and saw that there is a cool one for checking where you are on the track and what the next station will be. Perhaps, that was a trainspotting step too far!
apple-watches-ribbon
Yesterday, FitBit’s shares soared on the New York Stock Exchange on their first day of going public. The wearable technology company that sells fitness bands that track your sleep, calories and footsteps sold over 10 million of the devices last year. That is a lot of people wanting to find out more about how their body works. It seems all the tech companies are getting in on this wearable act, all counting and measuring parts of the body, from pulse to movement. One I tried, was Microsoft’s new Band – that was a gift given to me at a tutorial run by Microsoft. They normally cost £170 each. Made me feel like I had been given a big present. Once I had set it up, I was curious to see how well I had (or not) slept, how many calories I had burned each day and what my pulse was. There are lots of other cool sensors packed into the band; one that even lets you know the current UV level so that you know whether to slap on some sunscreen.

But after two weeks I stopped using it. I did not need to obsess about whether I was exceeding or deviating from my average number of counts. Checking occasionally an app on my mobile phone to see how often I have reached or exceeded the magical 10,000 steps each day seems to be about the limit of my interest in body counting. According to one of my colleagues a lot of other people also stop using their wearables after a couple of weeks, once the novelty has worn off. While the consumer market may not grow big it seems the corporate one is likely to. A number of companies have been buying them for their employees with the goal of improving overall employee health and well being. BP America, for example, bought 24,000 FitBits for its employees, their spouses and retirees in 2013. Nearly 75% of their employees are now wearing them. That is a lot of step counting for a company usually associated with putting your foot on the gas!

It is not just BP. Last year, according to an article written by Jena McGregor in the Washington Post about 7% of all Fitbit wearers got given a band by their employers. And that is likely to increase as more health insurance companies offer reductions in their deductables as part of their health insurance schemes to companies who get their employees to wear them. No wonder Fitbit shares are soaring. While I was free to stop using my fitness band, I wonder what the pressure to continue wearing them is for those who are given them at work. The social pressure to conform could be immense. If everyone else at work is wearing a Fitbit or a Band or an Apple Watch maybe it will be hard to justify why you are not. Especially when 3rd party companies are brought in to manage the scheme and so in charge of the privacy issues as to who gets access to your personal data. Luckily, we humans can be crafty. If you have not achieved your 10,000 steps each day there are workarounds – so long as you just know how to…

Data Slices

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dashboard British Airways sent me an email a few months ago with the teasing subject line, “Want to know how many miles you’ve flown with us, Dr Rogers?” I was intrigued and clicked on the link. It sent me to my very own dashboard letting me know how many miles I had flown since joining the BA frequent flier club. The email also proudly announced, “it’s a celebration of your life in the air with British Airways.” However, it just made me think, wow, I travel too much. I immediately wondered and worried what that makes my carbon footprint like – bigger than Bigfoot’s even? Not only does it show me the total number of miles I have flown but also how many weeks I have been in the air (three!) and how many cities and countries I have been to. I looked at it in horror and then quickly squirreled it away, shocked at how much travelling I had done rather than celebrating it. But then, a few weeks ago, I found myself looking at the link again – more intrigued than guilty this time, to see how much more I had flown in the last few months.
footprint2

Dashboards have become an increasingly popular form of information visualisation, serving up slices of data for all manner of things, from health to business trends to the pulse of a city. For example, the London City dashboard shows portals of data side-by-side from multiple feeds. Health and well being devices, like FitBit, Nike Fuel and Jawbone Up have tailored their dashboards towards the individual, using an assortment of gauges, bar charts and pie charts to make it easy to see how well the wearer has done that hour/day/week, and whether they have met their targets.
london_dashboard

By themselves, the graphical components of most dashboards are relatively easy to read. However, collectively, many of them have been designed with poor visual design by software vendors who “focus their marketing efforts on dazzle that subverts the goals of clear communication” (Few, 2013, p2). The result can often be a hotch-potch of graphs and tables making it difficult to know where to find something or how to compare data over time or multi-dimensions. The holistic design of a dashboard needs to provide a digestible and legible slice of information that is thoughtfully laid out in a spatial manner and intuitive to the user when first looking at it, drawing their attention to anomalies or unexpected deviations from the norm. This involves thinking about how best to combine and contrast the different elements.

So, which is the easiest to read – BA or London City? Which is the most aesthetic and informative? What piece of information stands out the most?

The BA dashboard has much thought gone into its visual design and the pictograms that have been selected instantly drew my attention. Noticing I have flown an enormous number of miles and that I have been in the air for nearly a month is truly shocking. What the BA dashboard does not tell me, however, is how long I have been a member of the BA frequent flier club. That requires more digging of the data. If I had only joined last year the dashboard of factoids would be really scary but it has been many years since I joined them – so maybe, all things considered, it is not so bad. The piece of information in the lower right hand corner also adds a bit of humour.

In contrast, the city London dashboard, developed by some colleagues of mine from UCL, provides much more information about transport, the current level of service on the various London Underground lines, the weather, news headlines, cycle hire capacity, weather forcast and more. At first glance, it seems incredibly busy. But after studying its form, the spacing between the blocks of information makes it easy to break it down into its components. After a few times looking at it, I can begin to make more sense of it, and see which parts I might be interested in so I can quickly glance, for example, at how bad the traffic is or what the air pollution is in Bloomsbury.

But all very different from the car dashboard that makes you turn into a cold sweat when the warning lights suddenly come on indicating a full-on failure, or simply some faulty electronics. Who knows which?
cardashboard

Few, S. (2013) Information Dashboard Design: Displaying data for at-a-glance monitoring. Analytics Press.

Special Collections

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senate_library This week I went inside a real library. One made of bricks and mortar. I can’t remember the last time I went in one or what for – if I am honest, probably a few years ago. It feels like a shocking admission, especially since I work in academia. Libraries are our sustenance, where we obtain our knowledge. The stacks, the periodicals, the rows of books all neatly lined up in Dewey style used to be where you would find us browsing on a regular basis. But the Internet has changed all of that. Most of us now do our knowledge work by accessing the multiple digital libraries, databases and pdfs that are readily available at our laptop fingertips. Google, too, has made it even more easy to sample an increasing number of books in digitized form.

But Special Collections in libraries retain their specialness. Last Monday I visited one at Leicester University. The reason they are special is that they contain numerous archived collections that are often donated to them, by a local historian, politician, artist or other philanthropist. For example, at Leicester amongst many is the Dyos Collection, the Gorrie Collection and the Hatton Collection. The collections include rare books, pamphlets, papers, etc., from the person whom they are named after, such as the political memorabilia of Archibold Gorrie. Many of them have yet to be digitized and so can only be seen in the physical library where they are housed.

book_pillowMy reason for coming to Leicester University’s one was to delve into the Diplomatic Collection transferred from the Commonwealth Library after it became defunct (I was doing some research into my family history). It comprises 217 boxes of lists of diplomatic, consular and foreign service. I had requested to look at Box 140 that listed the diplomatic corps, consular corps and other foreign representatives for a given country. I’d discovered these existed through browsing Google and then the library catalogue. There was something antiquated about the place. The collections are hidden away in the bowels of the library to protect them and only brought out on request. The viewing room had no windows, just artificial light. Other protective measures included having to put my bag in a locker and being only allowed to use a pencil. But strangest of them all, was the presence of over-sized white cushions on each desk that looked like miniature futons. The librarian who welcomed me in (who had all the qualities you would expect – curious, rule-abiding, knowledgeable, methodical and very nice) told me they were there to protect the spines of the large rare books that are sometimes requested. How quaint.

I sat down and looked at the red box folder that was placed in front of me – it looked, itself, about 50 years old. I pushed back the metal clasp and opened it up. Inside were about 30 small green and red books all lined up in order of their year of listing. The first one I took out was from 1959. The pages were a faded yellow brown and the type font from a typewriter that had not seen the daylight for as many years. The one page I wanted to check was still attached to the next one. I was fearful I might rip the page in the wrong way so I asked the librarian to do it. She was delighted and went off in search of a paper knife. When she returned she diligently went through the whole book slicing up the pages that were cojoined.

I was transported back to another time and place, imagining who the people were and what they did in their diplomatic roles – behind the listed names of Brigadier M. d’Aude-Shaw, Major B.C. Butler and so on. A world full of diplomats, attaché cases and special car number plates in far flung places. The smell, colour and texture of the paper, with its embossed higgledy typewritten print, evoked a powerful train of memories and thoughts that digital print never does for me. It was sheer joy to let my mind move in mysterious ways. Usually when I am pottering through digital collections on the internet I jump all over the place, from one site to the next, engaging in multiple hops, that often lead me far astray from what I was looking at or thinking about. It can be as equally delightful but a very different form of mind wandering. One is not better than the other but there is something special about being immersed in a special collection that someone has carefully and meticulously catalogued for others to inspect. I doubt if many, if any, people had looked into Box 140. That gave me a visceral thrill to think I was the first and probably only one to do so. Whereas visual analytics can show the number of page views and downloads of digital collections there aren’t any records of what people look at in old boxes of papers. There is something special indeed in this time warp that cannot be digitally catalogued or mined.

Real Talk

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yammer-mascot-785x1024A fellow commuter was having a bit of a rant on the train yesterday about how his colleagues, especially the younger ones, don’t talk any more. He got more and more animated in his diatribe against the youth, glued to their screens, constantly tapping away on Facebook, Twitter, Yammer and email. But what really pissed him off was what they were not doing, rather than what they were doing. Why could they not spend some of their time face-to-face with people, practicing the art of conversation and using a bit more body language?

My fellow commuter manages a corporate hospitality company, where socializing offline is central to their business, which involves procuring new clients to sponsor sporting events, such as the Olympics. He lamented how it is rare now for someone to get off their seat in the open plan office and go out for a coffee. Instead they all drink take-away coffee and eat ready-made sandwiches at their desks. None of them ever walk over to the specially customized coffee area he had built to try to encourage them to meet together a bit more offline – to catch up, share an anecdote, voice a worry, or simply engage in gossip and in doing so, practice the skills of small talk, medium talk and big talk. As a result, they don’t know the first thing about how to talk to a client, let alone how to engage with them in the first place. They rely on ‘the dinosaurs’ (his term) to do the ice-breaking, the buttering up, the arm touching and the broaching. “What will the company do when he retires” he sighed, “God only knows…”

Good old fashioned networking, where time is spent relaxing over dinner, seamlessly switching between day-to-day stuff, personal stuff and work stuff, provides the fabric for building up rapport, trust and a sense of being wanted and respected. People are far more likely to give and want to be part of something if they are treated well and looked after. But it takes time, effort and skill to know how to network well, something you can’t learn from online chatting. Sending an email to the manager of the marketing department of Adidas or Nescafe, however charming or witty, simply wont cut the mustard. If you want a company to part with their money you need to be mindful of them.

The widespread use of the social media tool, Yammer (over 2 million employees at more than 100,000 companies have used it), that looks like Facebook and Twitter, makes it even easier to not have to talk face-to-face with colleagues. It’s all mediated through the system: “Yammer filters the conversations with Share, Ask, Praise, Event, or Poll prompts. Responses are tracked by most likes, most replies, most posts, trophies, and badges that are consolidated in the Leaderboard.” Whilst one can quickly get a sense of the pulse of the office or the word on the street, by following the numerous ticker streams of online comments, thumbs up and quips, it is not real talk.

It is not just the hospitality business where the art of small talk and face-to-face networking is on the wane. It is happening across all walks of life (as I wax lyrical about in my recent TEDx talk,).

squeezyIn my workplace at UCL we are conducting a study to see whether we can buck the trend by turning a ‘dead’ building, where no one really talks to each other besides the people in their own group, to being more of a curious lived-in building, that encourages people to talk more with each other – even strangers – in the lifts, on the stairs, in the coffee room, etc. about anything. It is called ‘Mood Project Building’ and is being headed by Sarah Gallacher.

floordisplay The project is investigating how physical and playful installations can be used to encourage a greater sense of community and social connectedness within a building. The idea is really simple – to encourage people, as they walk about the building, to squeeze one of a number of coloured squeezy balls that are located in public spaces on each floor of the building to reflect their mood. Are you having a yellow morning? A blue afternoon? The squeezes from the different floors of the building are mapped onto a large LED floor display intended to act as a social meeting place. There people can discover and chat each day about what balls they have squeezed, why floor six is all yellow and then maybe, seamlessly switch into other talk.
anthonysqueeze

So far, the interactive installation has triggered lots of people throughout the building to squeeze the balls, to talk to strangers, to even be subversive and to be curious.

Maybe we could also design a physical interactive installation to get those city guys glued to their screens to take a break and actually talk to one another more in the flesh. You never know one of those impromptu conversations could lead to an unexpected and fruitful collaboration and land them a big client. Goodbye emoticons. Bring on the real smiles.

Time Matters

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diary1 How many of us still use paper diaries to schedule our working and personal lives? Not many now I suspect. Google, Outlook, iCal and all the other host of online calendars now available control us. Frequent meeting invitations are emailed directly to us, perpetually popping up on our smartphone screens, pretending to be text messages. The week-at-a-glance always seems to fill up with overlapping coloured blocks of scheduled meetings. And Doodle has become the default tool for many of us now, commiting even more of our precious ‘free’ time to ever more meetings, way into the future, often weeks and months ahead. Sometimes, my dean’s calendar is so chocker that he can only meet before or after hours (i.e. before 9 or after 6) several weeks down the line.

What has happened?

Imagine what it would be like to turn the clocks back; wake up one day and have a completely, meeting-free, workday.

diary3 Whilst being away from my workplace, on my dream fellowship, I have tried to find ways of letting this happen again. To help, I deliberately chose to stop using my online calendar, temporarily, and instead bought myself a small Letts diary for 2013, which proudly claims on the back to be “the original diary since 1812” and has the London underground map on the back two pages. Inside, there are two days per page with 10 thin lines for each and a black ribbon that can be inserted between the pages to allow it to be opened easily for that day.

I have been using a thick italic felt pen to fill it in since January. A day can easily get full after two appointments have been added. Then there is no more space and that signifies that my day and evening are booked. This simple physical constraint restricts me from getting overloaded. My Australian friends find this new-old way of planning hilarious.

But for me, it is a real joy. Instead of clicking each morning on my Google Calendar and trying to think through what is in store for all of my many meetings scheduled for that day, and to see if I might squeeze one more in, I occasionally scribble down, in my unaccustomed and ungainly handwriting, the odd event. A ‘busy’ day might read an 11.00 a.m. coffee with X, followed by a 12.30 p.m. lunch with Y, ending up with meeting friends for a ‘footie evening’ (watching a local derby game of aussie rules with 80,000 others at the Melbourne Cricket Ground). Some days my diary is completely blank giving me the freedom to decide what to do all day from the moment I wake up.

balloonsOn such a day, I might start by watching the sunrise and the hot air balloons go past my balcony. Then to work at 7.00 a.m. catching up on the emails; then for a morning swim, followed by a coffee at the local café at about 10.30 a.m., or later, depending on what takes me. Then down to a solid hour or more of work, before having lunch at a café on the riverside. Then take the tram to the university and see who is around to chat with about our respective research ideas. What might happen is down to serendipity. Then some more hours spent reading and writing, finished off by a delightful walk in the botanical gardens, before thinking about dinner and a glass of something. All the time, when not in meetings, I am thinking and letting my mind wander in unexpected ways.

Having the freedom to indulge in time and thought in this unfettered way is, sadly, a luxury for most of us in the modern academy. Normally, I am constantly aware of the pile of work that envelops me – together with my never-ending and always expanding to-do list. To be freed from all of that – albeit just for a few weeks this time – especially the tyranny of the online calendar has been an invigorating experience. With back-to-back meetings, one never has time to reflect or think about what one suggested or agreed on in one meeting before the next one comes along with a trainload of new demands and challenges. Having only the occasional meeting in a day allows one the freedom to push one’s mind in new directions.
rota

There is also something quaint about writing down an appointment in a little book – just for yourself. Paper-based calendars, however, can be as controlling as their online counterparts, depending on whether they become public. My sister-in-law came across a paper-based rota, when clearing out stuff, that my parents had written for each family member’s chores over the Christmas Period of 1969 (when I was a wee child)! We were a large family of 4 children with various other people staying during that time. To help my parents, we were each given tasks to do each day over the 10-day period. Mine included preparing and clearing the table for meals, washing up and breakfast prep. The handwritten and meticulously worked out rota was stuck on the kitchen door for all to see and be checked off by. Looking back at it now reminds me of how powerful it was in managing us all. There were no fights; just shouts of ‘your turn’ and finger pointing at the rota. I wonder if this regimented orderliness was peculiar to our family or other families had their own variant of ‘Alles in Ordnung’ plastered on their walls, too.

Nowadays, there are all manner of online family calendars like cozi claiming that they will “manage your whole life”.

That is scary. At least our managed family life was only for Christmas.