Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer
The Great Hack (2019) looks interesting.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal is examined through the roles of several affected persons.
Weirdly by a company also involved in surveillance capitalism?
I’m still working out how to do a vertex as I wrote in my new years resolutions. But while looking for videos to help explain where I might be going wrong, I found a new category of tricks called j-sliding?
J-SLIDING is a new style of juggling with diabolo,
that enables you to do more tricks.
Its not quite the shift of the vertex before this, or the suicide before that and the grind before that. But interesting move forward regardless.
Following the Madrid after the sun drops mix, I was messing around with the Pacemaker on a very hot night so went for a walk to get fizzy water. I came across some… lets say interesting streets… I recorded a mix that night and it was alright but the 2nd half got pretty sketchy, maybe something to do with heat and drink. So I removed the last half and saved the first part for your listening pleasure. Its also lots of tech trance with Sander Van Doorn and Mauro Picotto appearing in the line up.
About a month ago I went to the Hague for the first time. The journey included a flight to Amsterdam then a train to the Hague. It was a lovely place and of course I had my pacemaker device for the journey.
Quite a interesting mix going very trancy near the end, with some of my favourite tunes.
Following on from the great work being done by the databox project team which recently appeared in BBC News, about the work (BBC R&D) have done with it including the living room of the future and BBC Box project. I was impressed to learn about the Dada wiki.
The Defense Against the Dark Artefacts (DADA) project is a collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge, Nottingham, and Imperial, addressing challenges in security and privacy related to smart home devices. These challenges result from the current, widely-adopted approaches in which cloud services underpin home IoT devices, where network infrastructure protection is minimal and little or no isolation is provided between attached devices and the data traffic they carry.
It addresses these challenges by:
- designing and implementing mechanisms for device traffic monitoring with a precise look at packet traces and device profiles;
- applying learning technologies to detect devices’ abnormal behavior;
- introducing techniques for dealing with traffic anomalies and restoring home network operability;
- putting the homeowner in the center of management by informing them of possible security threats and offering a choice of defences.
This although I used the wrong technology, this was what I was pointing towards in my blog titled your home needs a blockchain. All the things in Human Data Interaction – Legibility, Agency and Negotiatability all apply if Dada was a databox application.
Interestingly Dada isn’t the only one in this field. Recently Princeton released IOT inspector to do something similar.
Today, we release Princeton IoT Inspector, a open-source tool that lets you inspect IoT traffic in your home network right from the browser. With a one-click install process, you can watch how your IoT devices watch you within minutes of setup.
However IOT inspector is a tool for inpection, while Dada is a tool and place to upload data for analysis to benefit the research community. Of course you don’t have to upload the data and maybe do the analysis locally (this would fit the Databox model perfectly). There is a privacy policy of course, but I expect this will be expanded in the near future.
We understand that any uploaded device trace might contain personal application data. While we need to analyse the uploaded traces to extract IoT features in order to form ML training datasets, we do not aim to analyse nor store your personal data. Therefore, the processed traces are anonymised and all sensitive application payload is removed before the actual analysis starts.
After analysis is done, our servers store the anonymised trace and the extracted features such as packet headers, addresses, ports and payload size (but not the payload itself).
Of course uploading the data for research purposes could be incredible useful. For example imagine you bought a device which is already in the Dada database. You check the device and it seems to be sending a lot of traffic odd places. You check the version number, firmware, etc but its consuming a lot of traffic which is odd. Maybe it was hacked/hijacked? With a public database, its possible to check. Even better with a databox application, it could be done automaticlly if the user(s) allow it.
Some of you maybe thinking this is insane stuff but can I remind you of the house that spied on me and the follow up which armed people with tools.
Even Mozilla went as far as to create a buyers guide to help people choose IOT devices with more information that whats usually available to you in the shop or without proper research. Now theres loads of stories about IOT hijacking by hackers (hummmm possible) and more likely from the companies who make the hardware to bring new features…
Another one of those travel with pacemaker device mixes, this time while in Madrid during the heatwave. The hottest heatwave in European history, and with a heat at night topping 33c all types of fun was unleashed including a protest. I was hoping water cannons might be used, maybe others were hoping for similar?
This mix was done during the night and signals a slightly darker side of Madrid with some tech trance – but still equally cool.
Update… Thursday 11th July
Madrid after the sun drops mix is now 90th in the global Tech Trance chart.
Its a lesson I’ve learned after many mistakes from a previous life (before my brush with death). Taking some time for myself to chill out a little, especially after one of those busy weeks that I sometimes post.
A while ago during my sabbatical after my brush with death, I did read (listen) to a lot of things, this is also when I decided to get hypnotherapy for my fear of needles. Another thing I picked up was the idea of self-care.
Self–care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health. Although it’s a simple concept in theory, it’s something we very often overlook. Good self–care is key to improved mood and reduced anxiety.
I tie it directly to the conscious living lifestyle which is simple in concept again but being mindful is more tricky that it first seems. For example one of the things I do is plan in self-care time in my calendar, especially when I identify a potentially stressful period coming up. It could be a great time away for work but flights are always full of stressful moments and finding hotels etc. For example last week, I flew to Madrid to talk at the xR fest. It was great but the weather temperature hit a maximum of 41c and my flights were via Brussels. I knew the connection was tight with 55mins between landing and the connecting flight leaving.
Of course we didn’t actually get into the air for 45mins from Manchester, giving me no time to run across the airport through passport control with the express connection ticket and luckily catch my flight as it was also delayed and they couldn’t quite close the gate with people arriving from previous flights. Trust me it was a close call!
This is all the stuff I thought about while resting in the hot tub at the Hilton Hotel Manchester Monday July 1st. I had planned in a day off and took advantage of a treatment some kind friend had bought me for my 40th birthday.
While listening to The Nod recently I was impressed with the discussion about Self-Care. There were two aspects I liked quite a lot (wish I could transcribe it). In summary the conversation was about getting men (especially black men, being a black culture podcast) to consider self-care as part of being masculine. The discussion reminded me of a discussion I had a long while ago about the game being a self-help book for men who usually avoided self-help books.
Self-care is clearly important but its equally important to find what works for you. The example of a yoga retreat just doesn’t work for me although it might work for others. My kind of self-care is certainly spas and rollercoaster parks…
Stunt fall's rollercoaster classic cobra roll – https://t.co/pizBIPwCoo
"formed by the exit of an Immelmann going directly into a Dive Loop. The two elements are positioned as if one is a mirror image of the other. The train exits the element… https://t.co/o7hMM3Jl5p pic.twitter.com/8tazzfZcDA
— Ian Forrester | @cubicgarden@mastodon.cloud (@cubicgarden) June 30, 2019
Maybe your more a sleep in long hours type person or rearrange and clean the house hygge person. What ever it truly is (and I mean truly deeep down) then a little self-care when things get tough is really a life savor!
I can’t believe Seinfeld is 30 years old…
Found via Vox
Seinfeld, one of the most successful TV shows ever made, turns 30 on July 5, 2019. Its pilot, “The Seinfeld Chronicles,” aired that evening in 1989, but the show wouldn’t return for nearly a full year
One of the classic episodes is (of course) the Soup Nazi…
I heard today Julius a friend from University who I always knew was super talented and would make waves in the near future. Won 2 awards for his new film Rattlesnakes.
RATTLESNAKES by Julius Amedume from Julius Amedume on Vimeo.
There’s a showing and Q&A with Julius (work permitting) at the BFI Southbank, London in August. Really hoping to be there…
Many companies still consider diversity policies solely in terms of dealing with separate categories of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, socio-economic class, religion or disability. However, a better awareness of how these strands overlap — a concept known as intersectionality — can improve an organisation’s understanding of its staff.
– FT
I can’t tell you how many times I have expressed this problem with traditional diversity to people. Most thing they are doing a great thing focusing on diversity, and I never want to stop that. However they miss the point of true diversity…
As the FT piece points out (found via Jonathan Ashong Lamptey)
Treating people as individuals is key to improving this perception, she says. Taking an intersectional view means recognising individuals can have multiple identities that overlap, for example an Asian LGBT woman or a white disabled man.
Looking at the law, the example which I would use to demonstrate the importance of intersectionality is Baylis-Flannery v. DeWilde.
In the case of the complainant, who alleged discrimination by her employer on the basis of sex and race, the Tribunal found that the discrimination she experienced was intersectional, and observed:
While the findings of discrimination made in this case are of sufficient gravity that Ms Baylis-Flannery could succeed on either enumerated ground of race or sex, or on both grounds, one set following the other, the law must acknowledge that she is not a woman who happens to be Black, or a Black person who happens to be female, but a Black woman. The danger in adopting a single ground approach to the analysis of this case is that it could be characterized as a sexual harassment matter that involved a Black complainant, thus negating the importance of the racial discrimination that she suffered as a Black woman. In terms of the impact on her psyche, the whole is more than the sum of the parts: the impact of these highly discriminatory acts on her personhood is serious. (2003 HRTO 28, para 145)
But as Jonathan points out lets look beyond legal discrimination, as its easy to see the problem. He uses a good example of himself to show how in certain contexts he has advantages and disadvantages.
…he says: “Being a 6ft 2 man has its advantages in the workplace but being black has disadvantages, at different times and different places.”
This also gets more tricky once you have a number of people who share similar categories. My example I always use is if you have a large number of white women from a middle class background, how does this effect the inclusion or culture of the business for other non-white or working class women? Outside the workplace I have no issue with women in tech initiatives, but I really do like what Sarah Lamb did with the Girl Geekdinners, which felt a lot more inclusive due to the 50% invited rule.
Its complex but thats the point, diversity and inclusion isn’t a thing you can throw magic dust/money at. Likewise training is good but its not something you think about away from base then come back and forget.
The way to build empathy, foster inclusiveness and create trust in the workplace, according to Mr Ashong Lamptey, is to discuss difficult topics in employee groups or staff networks that share a common identity. “Instead of guessing, ask the people who are having those experiences,” he says.
…
“Organisations should make this part of a long-term strategy,” Mr Ashong Lamptey says.
I have to say I especially like the idea of the reverse mentoring whereby managers are mentored by a minority staff member.
If only we could take a number of these practices and group them into something we could test and write up the studies of?
I really enjoyed riding around these around in Bucharest 3 years ago. Its also something I was thinking about when I went to the future of transport futurists a while back.
It was surprising to see it and other things on sale in El Corte Ingles department store (Spanish department store like Debenhams type), in the same place where you might see laptops or something like that.
I was also surprised about the price to be honest. I always assumed they would be closer to 1000 pounds/euros. There was also a electric skateboard which when I lifted it, was better than what I tried before. I have to say these electric roller skates are insane.
The question still remains about where are you allowed to actually ride these in the UK? I know the UK government set out their strategy for the future of mobility, and a bit more about the last mile transport. But still no clear ruling. I certainly would like to see our streets a bit more like the European cities.
The HP 200LX was my first pocketpc and it was quite a device. It nicely had a PCMCIA slot (remember those things?!) which means I could upgrade the storage to a massive 8meg. The big thing I found extremely useful was the installed version of DOS which meant I could do lots of things the device was never setup for. The infrared was great for actually getting things remotely over my 2.5g connection. Not really the web but the internet.
I can’t even tell you how many times I was busy writing stuff on this, while in the booth of the cinema box office.
Thanks to Phil for this flash back from the past.
I had the pleasure of talking to PyData Manchester better known as PydataMCR.
Next episode of the PyDataMCR podcast is out. Listen to Episode 5 – Data in Dating Ft. Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden) https://t.co/BsVw6mdFaD@Manc_ML
— PyData Manchester (@PyDataMCR) June 28, 2019
They post their podcasts to Anchor.fm oddly enough but post it elsewhere too, so its take your pick. There is a RSS feed too which was tricky to find at first for us old skool podcasters.
The interview was nice but if you heard me talk about online dating data before you may have heard a lot of it before. It was noticeable how things move in the dating world, should do some more research really.
At the end there is a shout out to a woman who has been an inspiration for me. Jeni Tennison the CEO of the Open Data Insitute. I wasn’t sure if Jeni was the only woman on a wrox book cover ever. Although I did notice both genders on the C# 2005 programmers reference book and Beginning XHTML. Even saw multiple races on Professional Multicore Programming: Design and Implementation. Then I finally found Beginning Java Objects: From Concepts to Code by Jacquie Barker
So I take back, although I was never so sure..
Thanks to PydataMCR for the interview and my chaotic schedule which caused many issues. Remember to subscribe to the podcast here.
Don’t get zuckered into this all, again… glad others have push back hard.
I was reading a piece about short kings a new coined term for short men.
The whole thing is about how men under 6ft tall are always the brunt of jokes and bullying. There’s also some critical points about the way society, masculinity and our culture thinks about short men.
Sizeism is hard to avoid on dating apps such as Grindr and Tinder, where users commonly forbid men under 6ft from contacting them. Tinder even made a 2019 April Fool’s joke about launching a “height verification” update that would prevent guys from exaggerating their stature.
Yet short-shaming isn’t harmless. “There’s a host of studies that show short men are stigmatized in many ways, not only in people’s perception, but in actual real world outcomes as well,” says Joseph Vandello, a social psychologist at the University of Southern Florida. “People perceive shorter men as having fewer leadership qualities,” he says, citing findings that majority of American CEOs are over 6ft in and voters prefer tall presidential candidates (including, at 6ft 2in, Trump).
All this starts early – even in kindergarten, studies have found, teachers perceive the shortest boys in their class as less academically capable than their peers.
Height is also perceived to correlate directly with masculinity. As Vandello explains: “Because of [the correlation between height and perceived masculinity], a lot of men feel kind of a chronic sense of anxiety and uncertainty about their manhood status.” Insecurity generally manifests in oversensitivity to insult (which may contribute to the stereotype of short men as angry, resentful, over-compensating Napoleons.)
I’m almost 6ft tall at 5ft 11 so rarely gotten much of the criticism of others much shorter than myself.
It got me thinking about a few things related to height in the past. Okcupids the big lies people tell in online dating and also the discussion we had on BBC Radio Merseyside about height. Even then, I was thinking there’s got to be a connection with self confidence here, for example a lot of the women I spoke to who couldn’t imagine dating someone shorter than them was shocking. Likewise men who wouldn’t dare date someone taller was equally shocking. This is where I started keeping a rough tally on how self-confident they appeared, and it seemed my rough theory might have something about it?
Like many short men, Steven recalls an adolescence spent believing masculinity was defined by a set of immutable characteristics – like being tall and imposing – and that by not fitting that ideal he was “kind of cursed.”
But as he grew up, he began thinking about manhood as something he could develop by embodying his values, rather than a blunt appraisal of his physical self. “I think to be masculine, to be manly, whatever that word means, is about doing good in the world. It’s about contributing. It’s about finding a way to serve other people, to be kind, to be strong in defense of those who need strength in their corner. The more masculinity is an idea of service the more I think it is helpful.
Now happily committed to a taller woman, Brendan hardly thinks about his height at all. “Once you get into that sense of self-confidence the height issue kind of melts away,” he says.