Spinning the wheels

Image: Clipground
 Oh yes, we are spinning the wheels and some of the mud is flying. Mostly hitting us! No concerted public health protection. We are just going to pursue the deluded state of infectious diseases are not happening to us mode. We cannot get out of the rut in so many ways! We keep shopping. Worse, we are rude to sales personnel. There are those who are trying every trick in the book to scam in shops, on the phone, via text and email. Let us just let all this mud stick! God forbid we should challenge these people and make them back off! It is the brazenness of it all. Then in 2022 we have such inefficient technology. There is a massive pretense it is all tickedy boo but apps don't function efficiently. We get to download stuff and then it becomes obsolete quickly. We can't access help when we need it and we get harassed to change to 5G when we signed up for NBN which isn't really NBN because somehow we got copper plied with fibre and we don't have enough bandwidth. Something like that. Who cares? We didn't make it happen like that but we sure are to blame for being so difficult. 

We have a new, competent government at the federal level. We have Prime Minister Albanese. At least he was interviewed effectively on 7.30 report tonight and it was a pleasure listening to a Prime Minister who is actually doing his job and has care and concern for all Australians. Mostly main stream media is still putting out daft media personnel at press conferences and is stuck on interviewing and reporting on the same people as we have had featured the last 9 years. The LNP people. They are gone. We have Labor , Greens and Independents. We need to hear from them and let the opposition sort itself out because they are struggling after losing government. Why wouldn't they?

So we need to turn our steering wheel left and right, clear some space, and get our new juggernaut up and running properly. There is a future to be had with vision and environment in it. We have a chance to flex our brains and get the creativity and energy going. Wellbeing ought to be a top priority, don't you think??

Wiggles for the win!

 

Where would parents and grandparents be without The Wiggles? In Australia they are part of life for most children growing up. They entertain, educate and make children want to move, laugh , sing and know. Children find them fascinating and they concentrate on The Wiggles like nothing else. Why? Wiggles magic. They have this winning way of connecting with little ones and making them happy. We all know The Wiggles songs. Thank heavens for technology, connectivity and Wiggles magic, though. Today we had a story of a little girl, Nayvah, getting her foot stuck in an outside drain in a house. These drains hold a fascination for toddlers. They are like sinks and so toddlers are drawn to them . Usually they have a loose grate over the top of the pipe opening but that can go missing. Today's story was a reminder to protect toddlers from those drains. The mother had a phone and the firemen knew the Wiggles songs so the little girl was kept safe and happy as they removed pavers and broke the earthenware  drain pipe as it was the only way to release the little girl's foot. Nayvah was distracted by the Wiggles music and so managed the whole event comfortably. It probably soothed the adults too to be singing the songs because that was all a big worry. I am wondering now whether the pipe was easily fixed and the paver's replaced and if that was all within the financial means of the house owner. The rest of the story, that we don't know,  is the fall out from a toddler being a toddler and adults problem solving that. The property damage is significant and would be costly to repair. Hoping the house owners are able to have that all dealt with in a good way. 

The other amazing story about the Wiggles is how they helped a Down's Syndrome woman who was in ICU because she was fearful of wearing an oxygen mask and was seriously ill with Covid. The Wiggles made her a video to watch because she loved them so much. They showed her how to wear the mask and with their Wiggles magic made it all okay. The woman responded to her beloved Wiggles, wore the mask and could start recovering from Covid. 

Childhood media friends and personalities are invaluable in life and can contribute to  critical problem solving in a way nothing else can, especially when we have technology.

We need a better world

"Aaron's insatiable curiosity, creativity, and brilliance; his reflexive empathy and capacity for selfless, boundless love; his refusal to accept injustice as inevitable - these gifts made the world, and our lives, far brighter,'' Swartz's family said in a statement.

What is the matter with the world? What is the matter with people? 26, brilliant and dead. There has to be a better way. We have to be able to nurture such talent which is literally world changing. Aaron Swartz should still be here. As a young person he was showing us how different our world could be and giving us things which we valued. A bright star and someone who could navigate our future. This  needs to be discussed for a long time. We can do better than this. I feel so very sorry for his parents , in particular, and his family and friends. 

 

Government plans to ban e-waste at landfills

"Under the policy, products such as light globes, computer monitors, TV screens and white goods would be banned from going to landfill and diverted to a system of recovery, reuse and recycling."

I have blogged about this on several occasions and still there is no easy way of disposing of e-waste and some of the disposal methods are costly. Fine us all you like. Bring the big guns out and point them at us but know that the community has failed to provide us with a simple solution to e-waste and we all have it piling up because the market made everything disposable and obsolete in record time. So now we have lots of dead monitors, printers, microwaves, computer boxes...we have updated and changed. We have the nonsense of new printers being cheaper than buying a set of cartridges. So consumerism got us to this point and the technological world foisted this upon us. I am currently collecting our e-waste from 3 family households and it is a great pile. It's insane. They charge a lot just to remove monitors. Some of what I have could be used by someone who knows what these things are for. I am sick of it. I want it to be easily collected and I don't want to have to pay heaps to get it removed...THAT is why it is just being dumped. We haven't dealt with it yet and I have asked and asked. Any other recycling I do easily and we have the bins, the depots and the management systems in place so I can recycle quickly and without cost. We really need e-waste depots which are easy to access.

AdelaideNow... Government plans to ban e-waste at landfills

The next big thing in technology

"The next big thing is constant real-time online interactions such as sharing photos, messages and locations from wherever you are, whenever you like. Everything is getting faster."

This is already happening in my life and I can tell you I wouldn't need to work away from home if it were set up properly and everyone was doing it. The whole article is worth a read because it is a series of interviews with those who ought to know where our technology is headed. It is actually good to be able to connect with people online. it enhances live meetings no end and the benefits are substantial. it tends to forge strong bonds but you can also get a lot of innovation and hilarity. People tend to be more relaxed online and more like themselves. In a live social setting they have all their interpersonal skills to deal with. If the world is going this way, I wish it would hurry up. I'd be far happier mixing and matching it online and then organising live meetings with others when I needed to. It brings such a great deal of variety to your life and you can really get to see just how much people do and how interesting they can be. This will often go unnoticed in a group situation in real life.

The next big thing - Essential Gadgets - Executive Style - theage.com.au

Vista vs XP

 I have had an interesting time with my computers this week and it has set me straight about XP and Vista. I use XP at work but I have a laptop and desktop at home which I was using and they were Vista and Office 2007. I came to Vista with an open mind and quite like the shiny new look. It was irritating me because it kept checking and double checking what I was doing and then the endless updates became a joke. I have had yet another stream of updates tonight. We have an XP laptop and on Tuesday for reasons best known to itself it lost the onboard wifi connection to the Net. I thought it would be easy to get it back. No. I cleaned everything. I checked everything, updated drivers and then did what you do these days...Google. As it turned out I was not alone with this problem but there did not seem to be a solution on any of the problems. The two I tried just didn't work. So then I did a clean install to no avail and as I did I suddenly thought that XP just was old hat. I re established the connection with a USB wifi adaptor and it's fine but a bit silly on a laptop. So now I use that laptop for my work things because I don't really need the Net for that. I was relieved to get back onto Vista. Vista does weirdo things like uninstall my supposedly compatible printer which is highly annoying but it fixes things up pretty quickly. I like how it looks and I like how it is set up for use. I accept it is trying to help people and builds in security against malicious damage and inadvertent absentmindedness on the part of the user. By and large it is very flexible and Office 2007 allows me to produce things which have a wow factor and make me look good. My previous opinion was that XP was better but when I had connection problems with Vista it had the whole lot sorted out within half and hour or less and the thing is, when it goes wrong on Vista, the help is somehow there to get the problem resolved quickly. The other criticism I have heard is that it won't run old programmes. I have some ancient software and it runs perfectly well as does the new software. There is not a programme I have had a problem with and I have not had to abandon any of my software that I like.

Cybersex a success with oldies

Image via Wikipedia"That old stereotype that you get to a certain age and you don't want to do it any more is not true," she said.

This article about sociologist Sue Malta's research is utterly fascinating. Not only are the oldies techno savvy they are having some liberating and life changing relationships. Her study group is 60-92 years of age. I have been saying for ages that software and games companies ought to be looking at more and varied applications to suit older people because they are getting right into technology and are being held back by lack of choices and a market which thinks narrow focus applications are what it is about. We are held back technologically by inflexible thinking in terms of what games consoles ,gadgets  can do. The is a whole world of oldies out there waiting for you to wake up. These guys know how to use technology to improve their lives and bring happiness and they are a busy lot!

It pays to advertise, but...

Bit of a shame to target one person, but this article shows just how au courant everyone is becoming with the latest technologies and that they cannot be used to brag or have one over on someone. I don't understand why he advertised his day off, but he must have had his reasons and his capacity to accept being sprung is a little heretic, but he probably thought it was a normal response to such a situation. New technologies are creating new language uses so I wouldn't hold it too much against him that his response to a boss seems a bit too informal. I think that part of it was in good spirit. Why, oh why would you advertise like that? We all have an online profile and we need to be aware that people know it's there. I guess this one you look upon as a learning curve.

Qantas

"The air data computer - or inertial reference system - for the Airbus A330-300 sent erroneous information to the flight control computer causing the autopilot to disconnect, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said."

Why? How? This is serious.