Could it be that Trump has dyslexia?

I have been thinking about this quite a lot over the last few years. I choose to say little simply because of the negativity I will get. However I want to make one thing clear… Regardless of Trump’s politics, lies, sexism and racism (for this post) I have been considering my own experience of dyslexia and also helping others with dyslexia.

I’m pretty sure Trump has dyslexia…?

There is a growing number of incidents which are very common mistakes for dyslexics. The latest one being misreading from a tele-prompter. I recently had to read something out from a screen to be recorded – It was Hell! I almost just gave up at 2am but with some audio editing handed something in. Reading from a tele-prompter  would be a real problem and its a common problem for some people with dyslexia.

Theres a real question about how much he reads (lots of dyslexics read a lot but its not usually for pleasure in my case) and its interesting to see how he acts under pressure to read out-loud. As person with dyslexic I recognise its the kind of thing I do a lot and its a common trait. My brain tends to change the words I see when they come out my mouth.

Its also clear a lot of people with dyslexia are charming for example Steve Jobs, Keira Knightley, Richard Branson, Whoopi Goldberg, Tom Cruise, etc. This doesn’t excuse the way people are treating him as a person with dyslexia. Its highly likely he does and his daughter even says it.

GO: Is Trump illiterate?

NC: He is severely dyslexic, and has been his entire life. Ivanka would joke about it off camera.

Although its not directly from the source, so its still not confirmed

If he does have dyslexia or any other learning disability. Its says something positive that a person with dyslexia could be the president of America. But like Jobs there is a dark side which masks the hidden disability which he might not want to admit to himself, and certainly not anyone else? The best thing to do is to be honest but its not going to happen.

So till that moment, expect much more…

The Secluded rave in my head mix

The Secluded rave in my head

My latest mix is a strange one. While sitting on my sofa trying to stay cool in front of multiple fans during some of the hottest days in Manchester. I busted out the pacemaker device and started to mix. I wasn’t really feeling very happy about the heat, hence this is quite a heavy mix which shifts, although only running at 130-ish bpm. I was thinking about redoing it with a different ending but maybe thats for another day.

The cover art is a combination of Artem Bryzgalov and Reynier Carl‘s work put together using my fav photo editing tool PhotoGIMP.

Enjoy the mix, which is another entry in the locked down, mixing out album of mixes.

  1. Anasthasia (Valentine boys rap mix) – T99
  2. Opium (Stan Kolev remix) – Jerome Isma Ae Alastor
  3. Orbion (Max Graham vs Protoculture remix) – Armin Van Buuren
  4. Freedom (Extended mix) – ARTY vs Muvy
  5. Grotesque – RAM & Alex M.O.R.P.H
  6. Floyd (Extended mix) – Jerome Isma Ae Alastor
  7. Reflection (Extended mix) – Ferry Corsten
  8. Metro (US mix) – Oliver Lieb
  9. Time to Burn (12 inch long version) – Storm
  10. The wave 2.0 (Extended mix) – Cosmic Gate
  11. Night in Motion – Cubic 22
  12. Opium – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor

 

3 special Tech for good live podcasts for #blacklivesmatter

Black heart street art
Photo by Ed Robertson on Unsplash

The last one of the three special edition podcasts was released just recently. I blogged about them a while ago, but now they are all available for your listening pleasure.

  1. Tech for Good Live: (Black Lives Matter Special) – Cancelling Cultures (transcript and more info)
  2. Tech for Good Live: (Black Lives Matter Special) – Canaries in the coal mine (transcript and more info as its ever so topical at the moment)
  3. Tech for Good Live: (Black Lives Matter Special) – Time For Change  (transcript and more info)

George Floyd mural in Manchester's Northern Quarter

I want to thank all my guests who joined me on the podcast, as a lot of people agreed in principle but never stepped up and joined me. Annette, Ade, Vimla, Erinma and Naomi, you were all wonderful and a breath of fresh air.

Massive thanks to Ethar & David (pretty much my co-hosts) for joining me on every single podcast!

As every podcast ends, if you have anything to say about what was said, let techforgood know on twitter or email. Thanks to podcast.co for hosting the shows and finally a huge thanks to the tech for good live team.

Black lives matter
Photo by Sushil Nash on Unsplash

Remember Black lives still matter and I’d recommend listening to the others who also took up the offer.

Checking for Spy Cameras everywhere…

I recently been tracking a lot of Spycams in hotels and airbnb’s. Yes its currently mainly happening in the east a lot more it seems, but like most technological trends its on the way westward.

It very much reminds me of my experience in the Airbnb in Barcelona. Yes its was a listening device and they did declare it once we were in the flat but its not good enough. Airbnb is the wild west for this.

The spycameras are getting super small and higher quality all the time. For the last year I have been checking my hotel rooms (pre-covid19 when I could travel) with my camera phone and light. I’m not using an app but rather the camera light as my camera sees IR no problem. Theres some quite good tips in this travel site.

By the way, don’t search for “spycameras” on the web, as you will get some questionable results!

Waterside places break all their promises and things haven’t even started

Islington Wharf

Waterside places the owner of Islington Wharf, the organisation trying to fix the latent defects (they call it resident issues) in the cheapest way possible. They recently posted out forms/contracts to gain our consent for access to our apartments.

The form will give the go ahead with their poorly thought-out plans to take over the garden for 2+ years, have access to our flats and much more.

Here is the letter I got in my postbox, its part of about 9 pages. But most of it is the times of when flats are scheduled.

ISW contact 1ISW contact 2

Note a few things, the date of the letter is 10th August but they want a reply by the 21st August.  Imagine if you are renter, and having to contact your landlord who may not even be in the same country or its all done via a 3rd party like a agent. This could take a long time and who knows what happens if the landlord wants one thing and the renters want the opposite?

There is the minimal of actual detailed information on what will happen. For example what if we have a 2nd Covid19 lockdown, how much noise could result of the work, would we have to lock our things away, etc, etc, etc…. They have requested access to my flat for 4 months next year but its not clear exactly what will happen except this outline. No deadlines or real details.

The test window in the garden
The test window in the garden with the UV screen

On top of this our many questions haven’t been answered. For example the sample window in the garden Waterside places admit isn’t right and they promised to replace it with a new sample. Of course this hasn’t happened. The effectiveness of the actual film is questionable, let alone if it doesn’t peel or scratch when the window cleaners come to clean the windows.

Theres also a real concern that the film is so dark that looking through it at night will be like pretty much block out the view, especially at night when you have internal lights on. The right thing to do would be to trial it in someones flat (committee members have offered) and then people could really make a decision (they blame Covid19 for not doing this) However we have to make a rushed decision based on information we don’t actually have access to, which will affect not only the next 2+ years, our health (imagine living on a building site for 2+ years), our security, our privacy, flat prices, etc.

Will I be signing the agreement?

Not a chance!!!!

I want the changes to happen (I was working in my flat while it was 31c the other day!) but the way its been rushed upon us and the circumcises is criminal. This should go down under how not to conclude an operation like this. Its almost laughable but its really not!

I find the threat at the end interesting too.

ISW contact 3

To be fair I’d rather take my chances with the management company (Revolution) because at least we can actual talk through the issues one by one and not be tied to the clock of Waterside places who just want to get phase 4 done and whip their hands of everything.

Upsplash free photos but at what cost?

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

I love good photos and especially like them when they are creative commons so I can attribute the original author. I tend to use Flickr which I have contributed to a lot because you can easily search across all the creative commons photos using this search link.  Recently I came across unsplash and I was impressed and when I saw free and decided nope read that licence. Had a read and started using the photos with attribution in my blog and slides.

Recently I was alerted to the fact unsplash use to apply a creative common licence originally then changed them all to their own licence.

From wikipedia

Before June 2017, photos uploaded to Unsplash were made available under the Creative Commons zero license, which is a public domain equivalent license and a waiver, which allowed individuals to freely reuse, repurpose and remix photos for their own projects. This was changed in June 2017, and photos are now made available under the Unsplash copyright license, which imposes some additional restrictions

What are these additional restrictions?

The Unsplash license prevents users from using photos from Unsplash in a similar or competing service. While it gives downloaders the right to “copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer or Unsplash” the Unsplash terms of service prohibit selling unaltered copies, including selling the photos as prints or printed on physical goods.

Before June 2017, Unsplash photos were covered by the Creative Commons zero license.

That sucks to be frank, feels like a platform play and although they now have the dataset on github for research purposes…  Its seems the creative commons zero marked metadata is gone forever?

Epic games serves up some 1984 on the app stores

 

Epic battle unfolds

Its been a Epic (Pun intended) battle going back and forth for Epic games and the app stores (Apple & Google).

For mobile developers the 30% cut has been a talking point for a long while but the fact you can’t use other payment systems really put the foxes in the hen house. I won’t get into details as there are others which do a much better job. I love this timeline

But I found the Fortnite 1984 trailer absolutely spot on. Pointing directly at Apple and their classic 1984 advert.  Although to be fair like most big companies, Epic isn’t clean in this area but the monopoly & closed doors of the app stores is a big deal. Its very clear Epic games planned the lawsuit, the 1984 and the trigger event in a perfectly planned check move (chess).

Shall we get the popcorn ready for this clash of the titans?

Regardless of what happens, I’m sure mobile developers will massively benefit from Epic pulling the trigger. Of course many other big names have also jumped in behind Epic.

Visiting the cinema to see Tenet on 26th Aug


I like this trailer unofficial trailer

I have been waiting for the cinemas in the UK to fully open to finally watch Tenet on the IMAX screen. Its 10 years since Inception and although I did spot a few cinemas replaying inception but there was no way I’d watch it unless it was on the IMAX screen.

I booked my ticket for Wednesday 26th August and while booking I noticed there is 2 clear seats either side of me. This is good but also great to know masks are required (unless eating/drinking – not sure how they maintain this?) Either way Vue have created a Covid19 video explaining what they have done.

Looking forward to finally seeing Tenet the way Christopher Nolan wanted it to be