With great power comes great responsibility...

Listening to Anil Dash only serves to affirm my thoughts on how powerful the web and the control the major sites have on people's lives.

It appears the main issue is the internet becoming an economic marketplace.
Links to pages have moved from being 'of interest' to 'of something that will make the linking page page money'. True, personal pages still have the apparent sharing of interesting pages, yet many of those pages have come to the attention of computer users through promotional placement on sites that sell screen space for advertisements.
Start up companies have become businesses that often look to be bought out when they achieve 'enough' success, with 'enough' being the number of figures needed on the cheque to buy the company/application/etc. The issue then becomes what happens to the users' data that was on that company's website. Anil Dash gives the example of wedding photos being lost - unique memories being deleted at the signing off of a company and the sending of a warning email.  Personally, if FaceBook was to shutdown tomorrow, I would still have all my photographs... but I wouldn't have all my friends' photos, and I wouldn't have all my photographs ordered into nicely labelled albums with tags, dates and places. We trust the monopolizing internet companies and with this trust they have great power and influence over our internet and real lives!

Ultimately though, we, the users of the internet, will let them manipulate our lives like a spider lures a fly into its web. My FaceBook has changed its layout multiple times over the last six months... sometimes I complain, but only with muttering under my breath and not with an email to a FaceBook admin. Fortunately, I'm happy to report that now my FaceBook has a fantastic look - tabs to the side and a full list of those available to chat when I zoom the screen out a bit; although this is apparently not universal - another interesting fact that internet users do not have a universal experience. Other web pages have become streams too, unlike the initial page design of the social web. Yet, I would argue that this is not an issue for just the internet - it is typical of anything that has become monopolized by or popularized through only a few main institutions. With the majority of sites now becoming streams, including this set of blog posts you now see, there becomes familiarity for users - I haven't read an instruction manual, but I know menu pages are at the top or to the side, whilst the main content is a handy scroll through. The stream has become popular because of the internet becoming a constantly updated, constantly looked at system and people want to be able to access a lot of information quickly.

Yes, Anil Dash raises many interesting points. However, many technology-aware people probably already have an idea of these points.
Is there going to be a revolution?
Maybe.
We may grumble when GMail asks you to sign up to Google+, or YouTube blocks your video from showing in a country (it's always Germany) because of the music you added...
Yet, ultimately we will all continue to use the internet.

Rain in the UAE - either look at it through windows or go outside with your mac

We are in a time of change. The computer has not changed much over the years. Physically, it's been a keyboard, mouse and monitor system for a long time. Operating systems have generally just been updates of old ones with a couple of additional functions. Looking through the operating systems of old, it's interesting how recognisable they are to a modern day computer user.




Icons came pretty earlier on. Various windows for different tabs are used, whether they overlapped was up to the particular company. Microsoft slowly became dominant after Apple had started strong, and now the two stand at the top of the pile. Microsoft, now seen as the more boring company, had an arguably more radical start since Bill Gates and Paul Allen wanted to purely sell operating systems, not even computers, which was the foundation of Job's and Wozniak's enterprise.

As I watched videos of motion operated interfaces, music created through body movement, and ReacTj using blocks to create a DJ set, I wondered why I'm still sitting with a keyboard and screen on my lap - a disappointingly boring scene in comparison to those shown in the videos. However, it is one of great practicality and it is understandable why it has lasted so long. A box contains all the electrical gubbins needed for the computer to run, and then the keyboard is a wonderfully easy way to input data. It only requires minimal movement of fingers and the rest of the body can slump in a chair. We are a lazy society now... no one wants to have to move their arms around and jump up and down to type the word 'Hello'. For speed's sake the keyboard just works.

Yet, there is a movement towards movement! The Nintendo Wii did well until updates to Microsoft Xbox and Sony Playstation smashed it out of the market (it really should have had better graphics and not just relied on Mario!). Even then the XBox's Kinect has become popular. The difference between these and a computer is the element of time. "I'm going to check Facebook", "Let me just send this email quick". Although an inordinate amount of time is spent on one's Mac or PC, people can just be on it for five minutes at a time. In comparison, "I'm going to play FIFA or Lego Star Wars" is an activity for at least a minimum of half an hour with a significant, obvious return like a completed level or match. The longer input of motion with a game is taken into account as part of the longer total experience. This relates to music as well. It normally takes time to practice an instrument or get out decks to DJ. It is an activity that one dedicates too totally for that specific time. It's not like computers where you might be watching a movie, listening to music, sending an email AND be cooking all at once!

The biggest development that seems to be taking over is the tablet. I think this is more to do with portability than interface. Touch screens keep the quick input but will take time to takeover from the traditional keyboard as people's fingers get used to pressing up onto a display screen. The smaller display screen has become home to more obvious icons, though it is easier for traditional computer operating to move over to tablets, than tablet software to go back the other way... why Windows 8, why...

Computers used to look like this...

A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma

Code has always been about hiding a message. Whether a command of war or the information that forms a person's identity. Today we worry about people spying on us in our homes, looking through our internet history and hacking into our Facebook. In 1926, the worry was far more severe. Enigma had arrived. The threat of further wars after the First World War had become greater.


The unbreakable code had broken the resolve of the Allied cryptanalysts. Even with Hans-Thilo Schmidt, a disaffected German, providing information about the Enigma machine, the English and French cryptanalysts were unable to push towards a solution. Yet, the adversity of the Polish, as they were flanked by the powers of Russia and Germany, meant they could not stop trying to break the Enigma. Mathematicians were the new cryptanalysts of the time and Marian Rejewski, a timid Polish man in his early twenties, was to place the first pieces in the puzzle on the way to breaking the Enigma code. He found links and chains in the intercepted messages, which eventually led to finding the particular day key that the scrambler setting were set to. Rejewski spent only a year compiling his catalogue of chain lengths and with the few identifiable phrases, such as "arrive in Berlin", he had cracked the code!




In 1939, the Enigma code became invulnerable once more as the Germans used new scramblers and extra plugboards. Rejewski and the Polish cryptanalysts did not have the resources to cope. Hitler's blitzkrieg strategy was directly associated with the Enigma - "speed of attack through speed of communications."
But Rejewski's work had proven the Enigma was breakable and the British increased their efforts, again with a focus on combining the efforts of linguists with mathematicians and scientists. Bletchley Park was taking over from Room 40 as the home of code-breaking in the UK. It was there that Alan Turing, with the help of others, developed the bombe. The bombe was a electromechanical machine and with it the Allies could translate the Enigma code. Turing is now famous as the father of computer science as after the war he developed the Turing machine, considered the first model of a general purpose computer.

It is interesting to think that code-breaking ultimately comes down to the ingenuity of man and the battle of machines. Without Rejewski and Turing's brilliance, war and blitzkrieg could have been even more devastating. It was a case of Enigma vs bombe, the coding machine vs the solving machine. Nowadays the situation is not much different - people come up with coding techniques and encryption formulae, then machines carry out the process. The modern-day war is still filled with numbers, it just takes place on a digital platform.

Video killed the radio star and gave birth to the YouTube star

Video has the amazing ability to provide visual alongside a voice, to be a moving image that can be pure art and pure documentary, and to be a reflection of a person or culture.

Rosalind Krauss' wrote "Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism" about the capability of video, unlike other visual arts, to record and transmit at the same time - instant feedback, with the immediacy of a mirror. Video as art is an interesting concept. The feedback to the viewer it can create an immersive experience for the viewer, different to any still image, whether a photograph or painting. With this in mind, video may be a medium used to contradict or challenge the very thing it is meant to be, art.

Of the pieces mentioned in Krauss' writing, I found the most interesting to be Peter Campus' "mem and dor". It cleverly uses the immediacy of video feedback to oppose the 'normal' experience of art, which is to stand directly in front of the piece to observe it. Furthermore, a gallery viewer may find that they in turn become part of the art for another viewer as their image is displayed on the monitor!


As I was reading, the mention of ego and artists displaying themselves in video got my mind thinking about the explosion of vlogging, video blogging, over the last few years.
YouTube has become a platform for people to upload videos of themselves talking about whatever they like. Traditionally not thought of art, looking at the structure, content and audiences of these vlogs does raise some intriguing points. Structurally, most of the videos I'm referring to depend solely on one person, centred, looking directly at the camera/viewer, and with a fast edit that matches the quick speed of speech. The fourth wall is broken in a similar way to Acconci's "Centers".
Content-wise, the videos are often commentaries on the world, particularly social and cultural observations, and generally more direct than any other 'art' piece, since the vlogger/character relays their views in speech; they often even refer to their audience directly! Audiences for these vlogs are normally made up of under-30s, and these audiences are BIG, e.g. Jenna Marbles has over 11 million subscribers and her most popular video has been viewed over 50 million times; Charlieissocoollike has over 2 million subscribers and his most viewed video has over 9 million views - all it is is him attempting an American accent!

Vlogs are mainly recorded as individual opinions and personal issues displayed in video... however, audiences seem to flock to them as they find they can relate, or criticise, or learn from them. Sometimes these videos actually define a whole social issue, in the same way that many artists try to - Jenna Marbles most video is entitled "How To Trick People Into Thinking You're Good Looking", which addresses all the stereotypes and pressures put on modern society to 'look good'.

Why can't a bicycle stand up on its own?

... because it's too tired!

When I think of my bicycle, the word that comes to mind is ‘freedom’.

I enjoyed a childhood of being able to go to school and out into town without relying on my parents driving me everywhere, or train schedules dictating when ‘home time’ was. The other major plus of my bicycle was speed. It halved the journey time for walking into town, and even when I was unfortunate enough to have to walk, I found myself drifting into the cycle lane dreaming of being on my bike (much to the annoyance of actual cyclists). 

It was interesting to watch ‘Thoroughly Modern: The Bicycle’. In the same way that I think of a bike as freeing, so it was for the Edwardians. The bicycle became available to everyone, from the working class to the affluent middle class. Sitting upright on the two-wheeled contraption allowed the rider to see the world, as I do at home as I ride standing up to look over walls and other obstacles! The countryside began to see more visitors and cycling groups became loyal to their favourite pub. The bicycles design had come a long way from the Penny-farthing, thank goodness too because I struggle on bikes with thin handlebars, let alone bikes with one massive wheel!

 Bicycles are astounding too just purely looking at the ways they can be used. Commuters from around the world now choose to cycle to work and beat the morning traffic, students make their way to school, postmen do their local round, athletes race on the roads in various global tours, and recreational riders and professionals go off-road to get the adrenalin going! 

Stealing someone's coffee is called 'mugging'

I'm not a fan of coffee. Don't get me wrong, I see that it has potential as a social drink, as a stimulant, as a thing to be analysed and discussed, yet for me the taste and temperature will always be off putting. Unlike the seventeenth century European, I, as a twenty-first century European, do not require coffee as an uncontaminated drink. For those Early Modern Europeans, coffee was regarded as the antithesis of alcohol - I would be interested to ask the question today of which beverage people could choose if they could only have one: beer or coffee?

As I sit typing at my desk in the Middle East, it is appropriate to note that coffee originated in the Arab world. Coffee had reached Mecca and Cairo by 1510 and became a social drink, sold in the markets and offered in dedicated coffee houses, the Starbucks of the times, and respectable people could come together in these places. Interestingly, religious law found coffee hard to place - it wasn't alcohol, but it did kind of intoxicate a person - there was even a big meeting of religious leaders in 1511, Mecca, to try to answer the question, (based upon the Arab's modern love of coffee, I guess the answer was that coffee was 'legal').

Continuing from their Arab roots, coffee houses triumphed in seventeenth century London and continue to triumph around most of the world. In my home city alone, there is a Starbucks, Cafe Nero, Cafe Rouge, Boston Tea Party, Coffee Mocha, Carwardine's, Bird and Carter... each of which is less than 100m away from the other... in many cases less than 20m! Coffee has become part of a greater social culture - for businessmen and women, for mums, for students, for tourists, and many more.

In Ethiopia, where I visited last week for Eid, they have a coffee ceremony, taking time to roast the beans and then pour out the coffee in prearranged porcelain cups. The ceremony gives the participants three cups of coffee each. Though coffee is a stimulant that speeds up life, I feel that this ceremony is a nice way of slowing life and allow one to ponder...

Ponder things like, "How fast can a coffee powered car go?"

Through the looking glass

In physics, the term glass refers to a solid formed by rapid melt quenching.

In other sciences, the term glass refers to every solid that possesses a non-crystalline structure and that exhibits a glass transition when heated towards the liquid state. 

In everyday use, the term glass refers to a material composed of silica, sodium oxide and lime, which is commonly used to make windows and vessels. (Thank you to Wikipedia for those...)

This is all sounds quite scientific. Appropriately so, since, without glass, science would not be the same beast that it is today. 

Glass, with its glorious transparency, mouldability and relative toughness, has made it an essential material for science. Microscopes using light and magnifying glasses have allowed us to explore a microscopic world that was previously hidden from man's gaze. Similarly, the ability to measure liquids in a vessel was made a lot easier when beakers and measuring cylinders were created from glass. These vessels could also be heated and moved without losing their shape, all whilst still being able to observe the reactions that were happening. Prisms refracted light and revealed the colours of the rainbow from a single beam of white light.

Glass was possibly the first time a transparent, safe barrier could be put between an observer and subject, with shaping enhancing the viewing e.g. magnifying.

The potential for the creation of a diverse range of glass products is the reason why glass was and is still valued. Yet, before the advent of scientific instruments, glass was being used as a substitute material for the fashioning of established tools. Obsidian, naturally occurring volcanic glass, was used by Stone Age societies for sharp cutting tools, perhaps due to it being easier to craft and fulfilling the cutting purpose better than rock. Not just for pure practical use, glass jewellery, beads and artworks are examples of the aesthetic beauty that can be attributed to glass products too.