Oh, and for those of you who didn’t know there is also a GoogleFight.
FlickrTagFight
FlickrTagFight is great. In usefulness terms it is completely useless, in entertainment value is great.
FlickTagFight is a sight dedicated to comparing the number of photos with different tags in a fight.
You know when a site is becoming part of the mainstream when it is becoming extended by the masses, and those extension are aimed as much at entertainment as at usefulness.
Interesting ones:
- Graham 2888 – Sue 2262
- CSC 313 – EDS 644 – IBM 1369
- Australia 84705 – England 75426
- Microsoft 2456 – Google 3674
See, completely useless, but great fun.
Count Your Blessings #15 – Memories
I have recently been remembering my early Christian life by listening to some sermons that I heard back then. They are available online by a preacher called Tony Campolo. Like many itinerant preachers he gives the same message in a number of places so the talk online isn’t quite the same as the one I listened to, but it was enough to rekindle my memories of those day. I was lovely to feel those days.
In one of the talks he recounts a survey of 50 people over the age of 95 who were asked what they would do differently if they had life to live all over again. They responded by focusing on the following:
- They would risk more.
- They would reflect more.
- They would do more things that would live on after they were dead.
What an amazing challenge. But what does live on after you die, and then it came to me memories. Not my memories, but the memories of those around me, and especially the memories of those I dearly love. Especially the memories of my children, Jonathan and Emily.
The other Sunday, Sue and I were in the rare situation where neither of us needed to be at church. We had an evening off. As it was the last day of our holiday we decided to break free a bit and build some memories. On this occasion we drove up into the Trough of Bowland where there is a stream which is deep enough in a few places to swim. We took swimming gear and paddling shoes. Though it wasn’t the warmest evening ever both Jonathan and Emily decided that being in the water was definitely more interesting than sitting on the bank. 
Jonathan stuck to paddling and throwing stones; Emily wanted to get in deeper and deeper though. She wanted to risk more; she wanted to really swim. We steadily made our way down the stream until we found a pool big enough and she loved it.
Sue and I both sat on the banks and reflected. We revelled in the joy that our children were getting from the simple, yet profound, adventure of life. We breathed in the beauty of the gently flowing brook and the green hills, lit by the summer sun slowly making its way down into Morecombe Bay.
The great thing about memories is that they don’t need to cost anything. You don’t need to pay £65 for a day pass into a theme park. What you need to do is something that is either new or something that is old and dearly loved; a ritual. It’s one of those strange contradictions. The things that build memories are either things that are novel and adventurous, or things that have become part of your family ritual. When I say ritual I am talking about those things that we do time and time again with the same love and excitement as the first time we did them.
I am sure that Emily will remember the game we play every evening. Emily and I have this ritual of racing to bed. She (nearly) always wins and I (nearly) always let her. We have played this game thousands of times we will probably play it thousands more; it is our ritual and we love it.
We love to watch local television programmes that tell us about things going on in our area, because it opens our eyes to new adventures. These programmes show us things that we would never have thought of. It’s OK to be spontaneous, but sometimes adventures take a little planning.
The whole chastney family love going to church, and it feels strange when we don’t. I pray that the ritual of going to church will live on after I die, in the lives of my children. I pray that their memories of what God can do in his people will stay with them, and that they will love Him too. That would be a real blessing.
Jesus gave us a ritual – we call it Communion. He gave is this ritual to remind us; to make the memory live.
In many many ways he also challenged us to adventure too.
Even Geeks Need a Breather
Another interesting article from Regina Lynn in Wired Magazine touching on the social impact of all of this communication technology.
She says:
All week, I’ve been burned out on technology. I haven’t wanted to read e-mail, much less answer it. I haven’t felt like logging into IM, despite the clients and friends who expect me to be there. I haven’t even wanted to pick up my phone.
In my job, I can’t boycott technology for a day, much less a week. I’ve been forcing myself to bang out e-mails and make the necessary phone calls.
But when I’m done working for the day, I’ve been flopping on my bed with a novel in hand and the phone turned off. No social e-mail or chatting — there’s not a keyboard in sight.
I even wrote this column the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper.
I’m sure this is familiar to you. If you’re reading Wired News, it stands to reason that you spend a lot of time at the computer. All geeks burn out on tech once in a while, and even gamers need the occasional break from the controls. (Really.)
But how many couples confuse technology burnout with relationship burnout? You start projecting the anti-IM sentiment onto the person on the other end of the dialog. Or you resent the friend calling you when you suddenly can’t stand the sound of the polyphonic ring tone you paid $2 for.
She then goes on to explain how her relationship is so intertwined with the communication technology available to her that when the technology becomes a barrier it significantly impacts her relationships.
We have made huge and significant changes in the technology that is available to us, this has allowed us to make significant changes to the way that we interact with each other, but we have only limited understanding of what this is doing to us.
I recently read an article in the Harvard Magazine about how we were all getting less sleep. The article talks about the impact to our sleep of the electric light bulb and the change that having always-on light available has made. this is being further compounded by the availability of always on communication.
There has been other studies which concluded that our IQ was impacted by communication technology.
We really need to get studying the social impact of all of this communication if we don’t we are in danger of becoming the next big scare. By this I mean that communication technology is in danger of becoming the next thing that people start to regard as too dangerous to use. This will not necessarily be because it is too dangerous to use, but because we can’t communicate the dangers and the safe practices. Once these worries are embedded within a culture they are incredibly difficult to remove. In the UK a worry about the use the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine has become lodged within the consciousness of many people. Millions of pounds have been spent on advertising and studies to prove that it’s safe; but the worry won’t go away. Even though these three deceases are terrible, people still delay having their child inoculated because of worries. The key issue with these worries has been ‘control’, there is an alternative, but because the government told them they couldn’t use the alternative they felt that they didn’t have control and the worries just increased. Communication technology is in danger of suffering from similar worries because people increasingly feel like they are not in control. We all know that they are, but do they feel it. Do they feel empowered to turn the mobile phone off, do they feel empowered to turn the email off. The feeling of control is constantly being diminished and at some point there will be a rebellion, unless we can make sure the everyone understands that they are in control and that they aren’t permanently plugged in.
(I must find a better word than communication – because none of this technology actually enables communication, it enables the transferal of information that may result in communication. Communication requires somebody to the thing that is being transmitted to them AND to comprehend it. Just receiving the transmission isn’t enough.)
Count Your Blessings #14 – Sleep
A natural periodic state of rest for the mind and body, in which the eyes usually close and consciousness is completely or partially lost, so that there is a decrease in bodily movement and responsiveness to external stimuli. During sleep the brain in humans and other mammals undergoes a characteristic cycle of brain-wave activity that includes intervals of dreaming.
The other day I read an article from the Harvard Magazine (of all things) about sleep. I could go into a long and complicated story about how I got to be reading this article but I’m not sure it would be that interesting. Suffice to say it involved a rather dull teleconference and a blog article. Sleep has always fascinated me, big questions like; why did God create it? what do we get from it? what do we really do while we are sleeping? This article made some fascinating statements about sleep and it’s purposes. Some of it was quite technical but there was some great lines too:
Sleeping well helps keep you alive longer. Among humans, death from all causes is lowest among adults who get seven to eight hours of sleep nightly, and significantly higher among those who sleep less than seven or more than nine hours.
And:
The moral of much sleep research is startlingly simple. Your mother was right: You’ll get sick, become fat, and won’t work as well if you don’t get a good night’s sleep. So make time for rest and recovery. Stickgold likes to compare two hypothetical people, one sleeping eight hours, the other four. The latter person is awake 20 hours a day, compared to 16 hours for the first. “But if the person on four hours is just 20 percent less efficient while awake, then in 20 hours of waking he or she will get only 16 hours of work done, so it’s a wash,” he says. “Except that they are living on four hours of sleep a night. They’re not gaining anything, but are losing a huge amount: you’ll see it in their health, their social interactions, their ability to learn and think clearly. And I cannot believe they are not losing at least 20 percent in their efficiency.”
It also has a lot to say about our need to go with the rhythms of night and day.
Sue and have been teased by many of our friends for our need to get to bed, but it turns out we were right all along. We all need our sleep.
But just because we need something, doesn’t mean it’s a blessing.
I love sitting in my bed reading a book and feeling sleep come over me like a wave.
I love waking up on a cold crisp winters morning , knowing that it is absolutely freezing outside my warm cozy cocoon.
I love going up to my children’s bedrooms and just watching them sleep, peaceful and quiet.
I love going to bed on a stormy windy evening and listening to the gales howling telling me that it’s all wild outside; but inside it’s warm and it’s cosy.
I love waking up and listening to Sue’s latest bizarre dream.
I love sitting in the shade on a summers day and feeling a gentle breeze woo me too sleep.
I love waking up knowing the answer to something I’ve been pondering for hours the previous day.
I love waking up knowing that I don’t have to rush off to some job or other, rolling over to Sue, putting my arms around her and lying there in that semi-awake state that a clear schedule allows.
And that it why sleep is a blessing.
I have to say though, that I am still pushing back against the afternoon nap because that is just too strong a signal that I am getting old.
Anyway it’s 10 o’clock, it’s dark outside and it’s time for bed.
From Psalm 4:
Why is everyone hungry for more? “More, more,” they say. “More, more.”
I have God’s more-than-enough, more joy in one ordinary day than they get in all their shopping sprees.
At day’s end I’m ready for sound sleep, for you, GOD, have put my life back together.
SyncToy
I have been playing with SyncToy over the last few days at home.
There are three computers in my house and regularly a requirement t keep bits of data in sych. This is partly for back-up purposes, but also to keep the network load down a bit; photos and stuff like that. Previously I have built scripts with quite complicated robocopy.exe jobs in them. This has been OK, but it’s not that easy to maintain.
SyncToy fulfill all of my requirements, but there are some bits that aren’t quite there and would lead to problems for others.
There isn’t any real granularity on how files are compared, it really is about synching.
There isn’t any way of doing a recursive synch to make sure everything is in synch. So if you are synching more than one computer you have to run it a few times to get everything into synch.
I liked the ability to select which sub-folders were synched, but I couldn’t see any way of defining the default behaviour for new sub-folders.
The performance across the network seems to be good too, would be very interested to see how Microsoft take it forward as the ability to do block level copies comes into their arsenal elsewhere.
In general though, super little tool – why did it take this long?
Personality Types and When Processes Go Bad
Sometimes it’s great when two articles come together on different subjects, but providing a wonderful intersect.
While I was on holiday Steve highlighted an article by Andre on Personality types and today Kathy Sierra over at Creating Passionate Users has really gone to town on the whole issue of change, particularly process change.
- Builders – At the front of every train you typically have the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are all about ‘what could be’. They envision the world the way they want to create it and then set out to make that vision a reality. Entrepreneurs are typically described as both visionary or charismatic.
- Executers – In the middle car you have those that were born to execute. Executers might not brainstorm your next innovation, but once an idea is hatched, they can execute the heck out of it.
- Protectors – At the back of the train you have the protector. Neither innovation nor execution mean anything to a protector, who is motivated only to protect and guard what’s already been won in terms of assets. Protectors are better at saying “no” than anything else, for fear that any movement might somehow diminish or dwindle what’s been harvested by those before them.
And Kathy’s comments:
Too many times I’ve heard “upper management” assume that when employees (or users) insist that what the company is doing makes no sense (e.g. a policy that punishes customers or pisses off employees), it must be because the employee just doesn’t get it. The employee doesn’t have all the facts and doesn’t see things from the “higher” perspective of management. The employee doesn’t see the Big Picture.
Sometimes… sometimes that’s bullshit.
Sometimes the employee or user is the only one who DOES “get it”. Sometimes it’s the lower-level (or at least more user-facing) employee who really knows how damaging a company’s policies can be, or where the points of leverage really are. Sometimes it’s the user who has a basis of comparison — who hasn’t bought into the company’s worldview so long that they can’t see any other reality.
Personally I’m not sure quite where I would fit in Andre’s list; somewhere between Builders and Executers. I do know what I’m not though, and that’s a Protector. So Kathy’s comments have me cheering along; but at the same time I wonder what a Protector feels. Do they think “Yes!” to Kathy’s comments or do they think something more like “well I’m sure there is a perfectly good reason”.
Today I am reviewing a problem situation which I predicted about 18 months ago. At the time I didn’t manage to persuade the Protectors to part with their money, now they don’t have any choice. Who’s issue was that. Did the situation arise because I couldn’t communicate in such a way as to move the Protectors, or because the Protectors were too protective.
Is it up to me to learn to communicate better, or is it up to me to learn how to be patient?
Is it my lack of patience that drives me to care?
Does it matter that I care?
Is there ever a happy median where I can believe that I have done all that I could do and that there is no point in worrying anymore?
Does any company have the balance of personality types correct?
Does the fact that I ask the question make me a Builder?
Should anyone who has only been back from Holiday for a day really be asking these questions?
Do I need counselling?
Summer Holiday Pictures
Summer Holiday Pictures
That was close
Was nearly caught off guard this morning. Going through the hundreds of emails from a two week break I came across one from Pay Pal asking me to update my details.
Clicked on the link and was about to start filling in the details when I noticed that lower down the page they wanted my PIN number. Umm, no-one is getting my PIN number on-line.
Did a little more checking and discovered that it was a bogus site. Phew, hadn’t entered anything.
Fortunately I was just about awake enough to notice. I have always been on the guard for such things but have never seen them before, but today was the exception.
Count Your Blessings #13 – Lake Swimming
Today is the first ‘real’ day of our holidays.
The actual first day was yesterday, but a holiday never quite feels like a holiday until I have actually woken up in a place.
This morning we woke up to a gloriously sunny day in Keswick and dressed for church. One of the really nice things about Sue’s Mum and Dad’s house is that it is in walking distance of church (we normally have to drive) and on a sunny day like today that was fabulous. We arrived at an early (so we thought) 10:15, only to discover that they had recently moved church earlier to 10:15. The place was packed because it’s the Keswick Convention. It was Steve Brady, who is always really good.
Having been to church we grabbed a sandwich and set off to walk around Buttermere. We all love Buttermere, there is something about the place that is both restful and awesome. We also planned for a bit of a paddle and perhaps a bit of a swim, so had the backpacks full of enough gear to allow everyone to get thoroughly wet.
Half way around we paddled in a waterfall. At the end of the lake we watched the local shepherd bringing the sheep down for shearing and grabbed a well deserved ice-cream. Just before the tunnel at Hassness we stopped for a proper paddle, and all got changed to go in for a swim.
By this time Emily was absolutely bursting with excitement. Jonathan was equally as excited but at 13 is trying to show it in a more adult way (and not doing too good a job of it yet, thankfully).
So in we went, straight in, well not actually because lakes in the UK aren’t very warm. The kids always go in first and try to fool us by saying that it’s not cold. Their faces always tell a completely different story. Despite the cold (and it wasn’t that cold) in we went; in deep; in over our heads; in out of our depth.
One of the challenges with swimming in Buttermere is that it slopes off dramatically; at 45 degrees down into a 20 metre deep abyss. Within 5 metres it’s too deep for any of us to stand.
It is cold, it is clear and it is glorious.
Now to those of you who might be thinking something along the lines of “But Graham isn’t that a bit dangerous, you’ve got young children” I have this to say – life is an adventure, live a little. In order to live a little you need to adventure a little. Much of life in the UK seems to be about squeezing the adventure out, but all that does is remove the life from it.
A swim in a lake that is surrounded by glorious mountains, trees, rocks and lake, is a treasure of great value. Doing it with my loved ones multiplies the value to make it a treasure beyond value.
Count Your Blessings #12 – Marriage
Today is Sue and I’s wedding anniversary.
On a warm sunny summers Saturday 16 years ago Sue and I were married at Crosthwaite Parish Church in Keswick. It was a fabulous day, but only the start of many more fabulous days which have followed it.
Sue and I have been through all sorts of good times and bad times – together. And that is the purpose of marriage – together. Not as individuals, but as a couple.
We have known what it is like to be absolutely penniless, and to see God provide.
We have known what it is like to experience child birth.
We have known what it is like to watch children grow and mature.
We have known what it is like to be hurt by those we thought were our friends.
We have known what it is like to buy and to move house.
We have known what it is like to see God move in ours’ and other’s lives.
We have known what it is like to make dramatic carrier decisions.
We have known what it is like to struggle with sickness.
We have known what it is like to have money.
We have known what it is like to have been married long enough to need a knew bed.
And many many more things we have known – together.
Every year about this time the Keswick Convention draws a few thousand Christians together. Tomorrow, Sue and I, Jonathan and Emily will be getting into our car and heading there again. Each year that we go it’s a bit like a renewing of our marriage vows because it occurs so close to our Anniversary, but also because it expresses in so many ways what Sue and I are about.
Graham Chastney 