Tag: contact

Why NHS’s world-beating app was always a going to be awful but 10+ million!

Contact tracing api
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Even if you forget the thoughts are coming from a ex-googler who has interests elsewhere this blog is pretty damming and I  can imagine how the NHS really bought their own nonsense about it being world beating. Of course in the end they had to back pedal and use the Google & Apple decentralised contact tracing api.

But there are parts even I was shocked at…

It worked 4% of the time.

Thats not even funny, its not just unreliable but a total waste of time. Even if thats exaggerated, double would still be a bad joke at 8%

The British effort did find workarounds that most other developers could not: They used “keepalives” (messages sent by one device to another) to circumvent restrictions on having apps in the background on iOS. Notifications were sent between two Apple devices running the app to keep the connection between the devices alive and therefore having the ability to detect each other’s keys. The NHS tried to develop with a hacker’s mentality and shared its progress through its GitHub page.

There is a reason why keepalives are a bad idea, battery is one of the number one reasons why people find their smartphones deeply frustrating. Having a app keeping the system awake is just a terrible news. Although I assume as most people are staying at home, they will be closer to a charger at least

in May it was reported by the Financial Times that the British government was simultaneously exploring a solution with Apple and Google’s decentralized system as a backup, indicating that, even within the government, there were doubts that the centralized effort could work.

And this is when I heard they were testing both systems, leading to the fact they were going to drop the centralised app soon. This would be fine but…

The development of the app has taken months and cost millions of pounds from taxpayers…

…around $15 million spent…

I have no words to sum how I feel about the UK government throwing this money down the drain in the middle of a pandemic where people are losing their jobs and dying. Its not just wasteful, its incredibly disgraceful and pretty much sums up the UK government right now.

The arrival, arrived and must be seen

Arrival

It was actually Si who recommended to me Arrival. It’s very unlike him to recommend films as he’s not really into non-interactive media, so I went and watched the film and was pretty much blown away.

I promise not to spoil the film but the film reminds me of 3 other great films, and I mean great! Interstellar, which was influenced by Contact and finally Donnie Darko.

Well worth watching before they do a weird donnie darko directors cut on it.

Its a 8/10 or even 9/10, and so many other people agree.

It’s dangerous to say an alien movie achieves any level of realism. That is, we won’t know which ones are realistic until the aliens show up in real life and confirm it. With that caveat, Arrival feels like an uncommonly realistic alien invasion movie, if only because it understands a simple fact of life often misunderstood by Hollywood: few of life’s biggest mysteries can be understood through conventional thinking. Too many alien movies assume that our interplanetary visitors will look, sound, and communicate like some gnarled version of ourselves. Arrival rewrites the rule book. Instead of filtering the aliens’ intentions through our understanding of human behavior, it asks us to put our thinking caps on and luxuriate in the unknown.

Absolutely!

I also found the gender dynamics really interesting too… Amy Adams is incredible, strong and very thoughtful when most of the men around her are reaching for their guns or jumping to action. Shes confident of her own abilities and knows what needs to be done. Funny enough, another film by the same director is Sicario, with Emily Blunt who also command total respect by everyone around her.

Amy Adams is magnificent as the linguist at the centre of a world-changing event; Jeremy Renner turns in a quiet, introspective supporting performance as a mathematician brought in to help solve the visitors’ mysteries. The interplay between the two, as they seek to understand an unfathomably complex alien language, feels effortlessly natural; as well as a sci-fi movie, Arrival functions as an astutely observed relationship drama.

Go watch this film!

Reach out, connect with somebody and #share1moment

The World’s Biggest Eye Contact Experiment: Sheffield

Remember when I wrote about the sharing your humanity with strangers? Well I did just that…

I took my scooter along snakes pass to Sheffield, today (Sunday 4th October 2015). I haven’t really drove around Sheffield before, only gone by train and walked it. So it took me a long time to find somewhere to park and finally head to the Barkers Pool, next to the city hall.

When I got there things were in full flow, with about 8 people sitting on the cushions and 4 others sitting on bbq chairs. I found Frank and noticed Brendan filming with Elizabeth deep in eye contact with somebody.

The World’s Biggest Eye Contact Experiment: Sheffield

After a little chat I dived in to my first eye contact. It was surreal but strangely calming and relaxing. The only reason I had to break it off after about 5mins was because my knees could only take so much. The lady was great and so friendly, she gave me a nice warm hug afterwards, we certainly shared a moment. Her eyes were wonderful and deep. In that time, I thought about the existence of humankind. It was a tiny bit like when I first got out hospital 5 years ago. I think in a quieter place, I could imagine feelings would be higher strung and more intense.

I moved to the chairs and had some eye contact with a older woman, a woman in a electronic wheel chair. and of course Elizabeth (which was odd, as I knew her and see her everyday pretty much).

The World’s Biggest Eye Contact Experiment: Sheffield

By the time I had gone to the toilet in John Lewis and got a  takeaway mocha, things started wrapping up and I got one last eye contact with a red haired woman. She sat close to me and I won’t lie, I felt we could have sat for far longer. Her eyes were blue and quite different from each other. Looking at the density of the strands which make up the iris was so fascinating. Once again I started wondering about humankind and the person I was sitting opposite… if only my knees didn’t hurt once again.

The World’s Biggest Eye Contact Experiment: Sheffield

The whole experience although short was wonderful and the connection  with fellow human being was stronger than I imagined it would be. I highly recommend it to everybody.  I could kind of see why the 36 questions thing could work with the eye contact to finish it off.

Thank you to Frank, Sarah and Liberators International. I’m already thinking about Manchester for the 15th and maybe something at Mozfest to fit with the theme around humanity, citizenship and diversity.

It was a experience I enjoyed and made the trip over to Sheffield well worth the time on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Can’t wait to see the edited video Brendan…

The romance contraceptive?

DSC_0576

Been reading up lots of stuff about dating and social media recently…

One of the most interesting ones has to be this entry from David Wygant a dating and relationship coach and writes for the New York Times.

Social media is what I’d call a romance contraceptive. It prevents romance from happening every single day.

Every day when I’m out and about, I’ll see people in elevators, I’ll see people in grocery stores, coffee shops, and at restaurants. And they’re all checking Facebook! Or they’re tweeting something to their 3.7 followers. We’ve become a society of people who are obsessed with what’s happening in the imaginary world.

Just the other day, I was in a supermarket in Los Angeles and I saw this guy checking out this girl. He was standing next to her in line at the juice bar. He kept looking at her, and she kept looking down … at the Facebook app on her iPhone.

Now, I know some of you right now are thinking, maybe she wasn’t interested. That wasn’t the issue. Because what I’m about to share with you is something most of you have probably done.

He gave up and disappeared. But I was crazy curious so I stood next to her in line and got real close and peeked at what she was typing into her phone.

Her status update: When am I going to meet a nice guy? It seems like all the good men are taken.

Think about what just happened.

She complained about not finding good men, but here was an interested man, standing next to her. Now, granted, nobody knows if the romance would have worked, but think about this: for every moment that you’re checking your Twitter feed, or your so-called friends’ updates on Facebook, you’re missing another opportunity to connect with somebody in real life … which could be another opportunity to fall in love.

I agree to a certain extend. I already gave a 5min presentation to #smc_mcr urging people to do more in real life. Don’t get me wrong, I also sometimes say “I got to tweet this…” but generally I’m not attached to my phone like some people I know.

We are in a world of flux right now, for some people mobile internet access is a good thing and for others its certainly not. Do you blame the technology or the person? I would say its the person.

Missed my chance to have a wider debate on who pays first?

I very recently got this through my contact me form on my blog,

This is Josh Neicho from Letters at the London Evening Standard, I hope all is well with you. I wanted to forward you our piece today in which two writers address the question of who should pay on a first date. Following your recent talk I would be very interested to hear your thoughts or alternatively a summary of the different points made by people who attended and which you found convincing. I would just be looking for 50-100 words later tonight for tomorrow’s paper.

Unforgivable I didn’t see this till too late. I assume Josh wanted to get it into the Evening standard in time for Valentines day? So I’m still available to do it if Josh is interested?

I could just imagine some of my friends in London such as Cristiano, Sheila, etc picking up the standard on their journey home and doing a 2nd look when reading it. Oh well…!

Although to be honest, I would need to get my sister to check it through before sending it. I was going to prefix anything I wrote with this is coming from a dyslexic guy… I’m sure it would be fine with work, because it would be my own views and certainly not the view of the BBC.

Also a friend from London (don’t want to out them) sent this event also on the same day…

How our relationships and our affections are being moulded by the technology? This session will include insight into affection in the age of social media from a leading consumer research firm. There might just be a few dating tips, too

Would have loved to have gone if I was in London. Also I’ve not seen Mel Kirk for ages…

Reminds me I need to kick off Geeks Talk Sexy season 2 maybe in late March?