Thoughts of the Day

Windows 10 just surprised me by asking if it was convenient to run the ‘Tuesday (?) Update’ now or later? ! I told it to go away, for now.

Movie quote of the day:

Coke please, regular, not that diet shit.

London Calling

London the very hub of it all, where…
Telephonists once were awaiting your call.

Bankside long-ago; the cathedral of power
Tate Modern art today has a new tower.

Millennium Bridge spanning anew
Faraday Building still, an imposing view.

The Thames gently flowing, down to Mondial
Sadly though, that’s not been there for a while.

Keybridge at Vauxhall; the name lives on, but…
How did the planners get it so wrong?

The Tower at Fitzrovia of Sixties White Heat
Still revolving, and a fab place to meet!

Contactless!

It seems ages ago, and it was (2009), since the memorable Barclays’ “waterchute” ad of the man jumping onto the slide and eventually passing through the supermarket where he grabs a bunch of bananas and at the same time waves his debit card at the reader to make the payment, while still in motion on the waterchute!

I thought it rather silly at the time, that payments might be made without confirmation of a pin number, but now ‘contactless’ is very popular, and fun!! At one of my favourite supermarkets, the lady at the checkout even joins in, and makes an extra beep sound, as I wave my card at the reader!

Far from being the agile chap on the slide, the reality is that I don’t have to find my reading glasses to see the numbers on the keypad to make my payment. TV commercials are much overrated.

Big Data

‘Big Data’ and algorithms is where it’s at. If you ( a corporate entity) collect a big enough sample (e.g. from Facebook) you can fairly accurately predict people’s likes and dislikes and possibly understand them, better than they consciously know themselves.

Patterns can be seen in very large samples, which is how systems can have expert knowledge, without spending years acquiring it. Now, how long have I been on Facebook – since 2008! Enough said.

Concepts

Usually, if you want to understand how a product works, it is better NOT to go to the orginator’s website, because they are too close to the concept, and assume that everyone already ‘gets it’ or understands its use and function. They want to ‘sell’ you the higher functionalities, when you as a complete novice only want to know where the on/off switch is located, and which way to move it!

Younger people tend to instinctively ‘know’ how to learn emerging technologies easily, without the hesitation of worrying if something might misfunction. They quickly envisualize  and grasp the benefits of how it can be programmed to ‘do their stuff’! Older people may be more fixed/less fluid in their ways of learning, and take longer to accustom themselves with new devices or software.

Indeed it is difficult to maintain an agile mind when increasing entropy and inertia is a by-product of getting older!

Light Straw Ignites or simmers gently!

This is a test page of WordPress authoring first created on Friday 8th September 2017 AD.  It’s not too serious at the moment.

WordPress is a WYSIWYG way of quickly managing and organising my thoughts into notes, as well as planning resources for my books!