Normal?

This evening I am not a happy bunny. This evening I face the prospect of returning to work with a head and heart full of anxiety and apprehension, on a magnitude I haven't felt since I was a kid returning to school.

It's no secret to anyone who follows my blogs, or who knows me, that there is no love lost between me and education. I can't honestly say that I even like the threads of my job any more. It used to be an acceptable pain to bear in exchange for a pay cheque, and before the job changed this time last year there was always the fact that there was a flesh and blood person to work with onsite. To say it has decayed still further in quality is an understatement and frankly I’m amazed that after sixteen years as part of an on site team I’ve managed to keep it together working alone in an office for the past year, the lion’s share of it with only remote support. For reasons which these days are quite beyond me I keep returning to notions of art from time to time, but often lacking the will or energy to actually engage in it. The best part of my art away from the day job has been the joy of productivity and achievement. Nothing so valid exists in the former - its problems are repetitive, often created by misuse, ignorance, third party fuck ups, or a combination. Art is a far cry from changing printer toners (most benign), diagnosing those third party fuckups (more annoying), or perpetually replacing keyboards and mice in abused IT rooms (the most heinous and repetitive crime). It's fair to say that I'm heartily sick of directing my efforts in such an environment.

I knew, even before I booked the time off, that taking the recent four week holiday was always going to be a double edged sword. This used to be the case ten years ago, when I worked term time only and had all the school holidays to myself. I tends to be the case that too much time away leaves me blissfully restored back to factory presets (to extend a professional parlance) which I think is why I’d been neglecting the idea of taking a break at all since Xmas.. an act of self harm I never imagined I’d ever contemplate. I had been looking forward to a happy break of self determination, but life had other plans and all was succinctly undone by two crises. One thing I had consoled myself with was a return in the final holiday week, construed on my part to help soften the blow, and to a degree it worked. What caused the next headache was the state of play regarding the new network, which I will not go into here but suffice to say it’s not as it was supposed to be, promises and otherwise. With the cumulative stresses of the “holiday”, combined with four days of trepidation and two and a half live days of actual chaos complete with staff and kids, I spontaneously folded in two and have been off sick for the past week. I’m supposed to be returning tomorrow (as I write this) on the grounds that my week’s worth of self certification will have expired. An extension would require a doctor’s certificate and that would be fine if I could actually get a spontaneous appointment. Alas such things no longer seem to exist and so with that circumstance it seems most prudent, if undesirable, to try returning. If I’m honest I really don’t know how well it will work out. In addition to the unknowable headaches there will also be the coming disruption in the form of my girlfriend's exacerbated treatment, which I only found out about ironically thanks to a meeting which I shouldn't have even been able to attend. This may well pose a bigger headache for the people I work with than I would wish for them, but I have hopes that they can accommodate our needs as they arise. From my perspective I'm not sure they have any more of a choice in the matter than either of us.

A Compassionate Pause

Recent events have once more put me in a place where the practice of mindfulness has very much become an ally, and I feel compelled to scribe a little piece about the value and importance of compassion. Let’s face it there's always a place and a time for this.

I’m reading a book which some of you may have heard of, called “The Book of Joy”. Maybe some of you will have read it, in which case (even though I’m only part way through it) good for you! If you haven’t (even though I’m only part way through it) I recommend it. It’s a meeting of minds between old friends the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, together with author Douglas Abrams, the latter member also somewhat involved in the discussions. In fact it was a point which he himself raised between them which caught my mind. He mentioned almost casually a lab experiment involving eighteen month old children who were shown dolls facing one another versus others who were shown dolls facing away from one another. The former group were more cooperative than the latter, which arguably demonstrated that cooperation is a deep evolutionary drive which exists in our earliest development. In concert with the Dalai Lama’s assertion in other texts that our continued presence here today after so many millennia is likely due to a natural disposition for cooperation and compassion, rather than aggression and conflict, lead me to ponder our present social situations in a general sense.

On the same morning I was also engaged in conversation with a handful of friends over matters of immigration. It became evident once again that matters of practical mindfulness are as equally important to awareness of actual political facts if not more so, the latter of which can be fraught with objective corruption through to irresponsible reporting. In fact one of the people I was conversing with admitted that they didn’t really understand the political scene that easily, and who can blame them? It really is a quagmire of chaos, and I personally believe (as I stated in the chat) that we are in the midst of a fight of considerable magnitude when compared to the general impression given by the media, an information world war if you will - somewhat ironic when I think of us all living through the background fear of matters more nuclear. This is why I would implore people to embrace some responsibility and shrink the chaos we live with down to something manageable by meditating (in the sense of reasoned contemplation) upon those same natural, core instincts which the children mentioned above displayed.

Whilst I hesitate to broadly call the media out on “fake news”, a particularly reprehensible act when issued from those demonstrable sociopaths in our midst (no names mentioned), such problems whether inadvertently misinformed or purposefully fabricated are very real, and bring a destructive chaos to our efforts. What is undeniable however is the power of stepping back and looking deep into the heart of any matter with a sense of right minded compassion and empathy. Again, given my current circumstances I can assure you that these senses are currently quite tuned within myself and it was whilst I was engaged in this debate that the truth of such an approach became obvious. As I considered those children, free from complicated ego and social indoctrination, so too does this point to the validity of our own efforts as adults to undo those irksome habits in exchange for positive and clear mindsets. We all have a base sense of right from wrong which I would argue are influenced by real life experience even in the absence of parenting - the latter usually brings those lessons with a tempered kindness. By taking the time to allow ourselves some space when engaged in connection with others, tolerance to help us filter our knee-jerk emotions to feelings of confrontation, compassion rather than admonishment (for ourselves and others) when we fail to prevent our own vengeful reactions to verbal/actual conflict, we can take an active hand in creating better dialogue and actions. We can make clearer progress on a level where so many leaders, political and otherwise, bring little except shame in their “profitable” rhetoric. If so many of them cannot be trusted to demonstrate virtue then it really is up to us, as members of communities both virtual and tangible, to take the lead and smooth our own rhetoric into something worthy of the tools of communication at our disposal.

The Deepest Cuts

It seems that this four week holiday I have before me at the time of writing, the timing of it, is no coincidence. Mortality and suffering is at the heart of it and so I suppose my first responsibility to myself is to be compassionate, since all I can do is resign myself to the truth that it is not seemingly going to be the restful one I expected it to be when I booked it a couple of months ago.

Many of you reading will not be aware that I lost my half brother about three weeks ago under lamentable circumstances which I won't dwell upon here. My father is going into hospital for the day, a relatively minor operation on the morning of writing this, and in spite of recent CT scan results my girlfriend and I have what I believe to be around a 90% chance of facing the return of her cancer, which we have been in combat with since summer 2016. It seems that life is not being fair at the moment and I find myself working hard to remind myself that there is no fair or right and wrong in life without a mind lazy enough to qualify such platitudes. There is no point asking why or how this happens, only the will to see these things through. As you might imagine I am both succeeding and failing in this respect, a pretty normal state I think in life for us all. To have some parts of your life suddenly wrenched away and others taken a piece at a time is mind numbing to say the least. Yet it is remarkable to me that the strength to surf these events exists at all. Being a spectator to it all is a horribly humbling and guilt laden experience. There's no wonder that such things leave people, both spectator and participant feeling victimised and set up. This is perhaps the lesson for us all - to realise that if there is no fate or preordained unfolding, only the cause and effect of life, that there can be no stronger evidence that we should have compassion for one another at all times. Dwelling upon this may serve to make you aware or keep you mindful of the pain which we all experience on a daily basis by avoiding or denying our interconnectedness. Whether you choose to accept and embrace that pain as a means to justifying your personal effort to set aside anger in favour of understanding and compassion is a point of meditation I want to leave with you via this little insight.

It's often said that we know little of other people's battles. I personally cannot find anything to better express this notion than in the sharing of this moment in my life and I'm sure I'm not alone in such a scenario. My wish is not a generic platitude, but a very directed one. Love one another more - not because you never know what is around the corner.. many people pass that meme around. I want you to love and have compassion for one another because it is a choice. You have freedom of choice every day. The only freedom you do not have in life is freedom from the consequences of those choices, which is why I implore you to choose well. So many people rant at some form of fate instead of realising that the choice remains with you as a person to live intentionally, positively irrespective of the unknowable. Don't live well with compassion because you don't know what's coming, live well with compassion because the power rests with you and those around you to make things better in spite of the unknowable, by sheer force of will. This is what makes those who live in ivory towers so despicable and cowardly to me, yet I recognise that they too are not free from suffering, but seem to be in a losing fight to block it out with money and power, ignorant of their self harm as well as harm to others. We can all do better. My simple hope and calling to you out there is to choose what is right. You know what that is, under all the layers of bias, under all the rhetoric. Without compassion and empathy we are nothing. That is the gift inside life itself. Don't squander or deny it.

Games Without Frontiers

One of the most frustrating double-edged swords we have is that of borders - they protect and suffocate all at once. Societal issues which we face as a result will remain entrenched whilst the usual ritual ego of combative rather than cooperative nature is allowed to continue unabated (which can be traced back to our failure to account for the lack of proper ethics and hypocrisy with education, again), and I think it’s high time we looked at those lines in the sand with a lot of truth, en route to their dissolution – a path we should be embracing instead of resisting. Please don't say it's impossible. From our systems to our very selves, we can choose at any time to change our minds and circumstances if we really care to. 

I suspect that dropping borders and relegating notions of countries to matters of mere orientation would send shockwaves of horror through many political parties and corridors of power irrespective of creed were it seriously tabled. One might only imagine the smear throughout our current mainstream media outlets if such a thing were so brazenly proposed. However, as with the truth of emotive judgment so often pointing more to the mind of the attacker than their victim, the stark reality is that such reactions are likely more a telling sign of our manipulative habits and tantrums, the true problems we have earned through social neglect and abuse. It would mean a lot of work for which we are probably quite unprepared - a reordering of how we function, a change in practices of cooperation on multiple levels, what we actually choose to do, shifts in our habits of coexistence, all manner of strife which up to now has mostly been held at bay by obfuscating political presumptions of control. To my mind the burden of guilt in much of this rests upon those, who with the upper hand, choose to wield that political power with a sense of impunity, all the time faced down by the perennial anger and frustrations of those being abused, to say nothing of the compound effect of language difficulties and cultural misunderstandings - you'd think we'd make it easier on ourselves. This is why I tend to believe in a revolution in education principles and practices, and more pertinently our structures of social media as a broader means of exposing and defusing such tensions, even if the latter is caught up in those same selfish and manipulative motivations. Life will not be so pleasant as those threads are dealt with, and yet to ignore them will perpetuate our pain and anxiety. With proper right minded use we can communicate and learn about one another underneath all the noise, and I believe this is happening. We are beginning to see the truth of our shared root problems; fears for family and friends, stability, peace and matters of daily survival. It’s easy to say that these (and the latter in particular) are more of a third world problem - in the grand scheme of things theirs are more urgent, but remove first world privileges for more than a couple of days you'll realise that our problems are really more shared than admitted.

Social media is dizzyingly busy with news and events, which even if not clear in motivation can no longer be as easily hidden or skewed by the mainstream channels as before the advent of the internet. For every act which is an insult to right-mindedness there is someone in the middle of it ready to set the record straight. These little acts should not be taken for granted, nor their momentum squandered. We all have a common responsibility to be mindful against ego, which both in the benign and not so benign members of society is really our common enemy. This is why it's always been important to me to hold sympathy and compassion as much for those who are painted as the political enemy as those who are painted as political friend. In truth there is no such differentiation in context, only perspectives in mutual survival. I take this stance not because of that most insulting and unnecessary of concepts - political correctness (an ironically divisive myth, again concocted by manipulative ego), but because it's an ethical and calming position to take. Lashing out at someone already hurting serves neither side. We would be so much better served if we dropped pretence. To look at the polarising, oversimplified and outright misleading headlines shouted out by the mainstream media you'd think it were a bloody playground argument, rallying for people to take sides. It's lazy to attribute the failings or unfettered, blatant abuse of a single leader (or group of leaders) upon an entire nation. These seem to be the buttons the mainstream like to press, but it really doesn't hold much water if you have friends in those nations. These days I'd argue that the capacity to make and maintain friendships, and explore common ground comes very much into play when trying to decipher truth from exaggeration or lie. At the end of the day it's about building trust. If those with power are determined to try and play games then I say it's up to us all to usurp their efforts and find our own way. That may be the most peaceful beginning we can make - to embrace a way of acting which renders the troublemakers inert and irrelevant - until they come around to the realisation that they stand to gain more from cooperation than conflict.

The Code of Human Principles

So much of what we do is made unnecessarily complicated. Why is that? Staring into this inane circus of political and social noise which persists before our eyes and minds, I decided that it was time to dust off the Code of Human Principles once more.

I challenged myself (some time ago now) to try and create a comprehensive set of core principles, to be used as an everyday mantra for the individual, and as something which could be applied to help clarify the right-mindedness of a much broader and impactful proposal of matters legislative, judicial and/or political. In action it should act as a pre-emptive net upon the former, filtering the essential truth of an idea before it becomes the concern of the latter. If you sense an aspect or scenario which cannot be sufficiently informed by these principles, or if these principles are still too cloudy then please do open the debate!

I. It is the right of every individual in society to live a life of peace and self-determination, where such actions do not contravene the responsibilities of Article II.

II. It is the civic duty of every member of society to reason and act with compassion, empathy and tolerance towards oneself, other citizens and living entities (natural and artificial), and to exercise a prime duty of care to the natural environment.

III. It is the responsibility of the system of community to afford reasonable opportunity and resources for every citizen, to enable and support their natural talents, such that the individual will know a means to maintaining their personal mental and physical happiness and wellbeing, and in so doing allow that value to extend to the benefit of other citizens, with an overall beneficial impact upon the extended community.

IV. It is the right of every citizen to hold (or not) to religious and/or spiritual beliefs in accordance with Article I, free from interference from fellow citizens. It is incumbent upon the practitioner to take personal responsibility for those beliefs and any actions so arising, in accordance with Articles I and II, respecting the rights of others as a priority of civility and peace for the extended community.

V. As we live, so too should the fundamental choice of the individual to die be respected, where it is clear that euthanasia is being mindfully chosen by the subject. In cases where the subject is incapacitated and the option is being administered, such a decision and action should derive from no other place other than right-mindedness and compassion, sanctioned under normal circumstances by the consent and unequivocal agreement of no less than a minimum five qualified and relevant individuals.

Possibilities With Responsibility

So here’s an interesting poser.. It was only a morsel of clickbait, yet as with many they often act as a springboard to philosophical thoughts. Today’s was “Should there be a United States of Europe?”. I would say a very hesitant "possibly", but there's a lot to resolve before you get close to being either deserving or qualified.

There’s a meme which floats around the web (and within Buddhism as a truism) which speaks to the idea that a flower is best appreciated as it is, for what it is, and not picked. On an interpersonal level this implies the virtue of sharing in our relationships with a right-minded intent, allowing people in our lives the dignity to be who they are. If you are entering a loving relationship you should do so with the intention of sharing life with the person they really are rather than harbouring designs of change or control, irrespective of any perceived justification. So too I tend to think that such notions should equally inform us on best foot forwards when addressing geopolitical matters and a United States of Europe (or any other locale for that matter). Such an evolution could at present be considered as pointless as redecorating the house whilst it burns, simply because in the current climate something valuable is being distorted.

Looking from our own position in the UK and issues relating this idea with the Brexit movement in mind I have to say that I see a lot of cowardice, dishonour and manipulation from those pushing it, with little value in that which was actually spoken. The actual front presented has been more vocal about what it isn't rather than what it is. Brexit isn’t about taking the country back, except in the minds of the fools scrambling to protect their pots of gold by way of sickening alliances which I predict are yet to be properly forged, and a return to the bad old days of a good hard flogging for a poor day’s pay. I can only presume that those who voted for it suffered a wave of amnesia when marking that X. I suppose the only reason I bring up the whole sorry mess of Brexit at all is because it is relevant to the heart of the matter with the EU itself, which is still immature, and going through growing pains to find its proper direction. This is nevertheless something it will achieve better together than apart, and as we see the threads of Brexit unravel in a manner not dissimilar to those same threads dissolving around Donald Dumpf's presidency, it's relatively easy to see, free of emotion, bound by logic and an awareness of the characters involved, that pulling the UK out of the EU reflects not the actions of a fresh, brave ideology but rather that of an escapee marriage partner with ulterior motives.

So where does this leave the notion of a United States of Europe? This is where those Buddhist principles come into play again. One of the ways in which life manifests turmoil is when people are confronted with change. Fear of change is a fabulously repeatable ignition point for our species, driven as we are by our base emotions. When change happens to us it's often unintentional from our own perspective, unfolding as a random event, surprise and/or inflammation from consequences. As lamentable as it is people need to come to terms with the fact that you can plan for a thousand outcomes and that unforeseen event will probably still happen, hence the practical demonstration that there is no real control - only the next choice. Fans of Star Trek may recall Picard telling Data that in action it’s possible to commit no errors and still fail, the result simply being life. The trick is to mature and adapt your mind into accepting this unfairness, which we curse so much, as naturally as you might accept that water feels wet, and act accordingly in a right-minded fashion in spite of the emotions which arise. In this respect our education does us few favours, which is partly why the focus of my debates so often drift towards it. It’s the most helpful and potentially unifying tool we have, but it's also little surprise that in its current abused form it tends to enable rather than dilute divisions, which is why I tend to tear strips off it. Education should be much more concerned than it is with teaching children and adults alike to truly understand, and help themselves and one another. Whilst knowledge in the conventional sense is an important part of the overall process it's all for nothing if it becomes reduced to a productivity instruction book, which for the majority of scenarios is pretty much where we are. I would say that compassion, reasoning and confidence are more important, since without such capacity an informed or half-informed mind becomes as much a liability as a force for good. Assuming we wish to improve out lot with minimal culture shock (and I can only speak to ours) I would hazard a guess that one possible way forwards would be to encourage a shift in responsibility and influence - empower people via a devolution of power to smaller, more manageable, cooperative and interconnected communities, supported by the logistical services which the corporations have learned and built upon. Such monoliths need to evolve with a better sensibility and not be allowed to simply desecrate those same communities in a vain effort to have it all. Using the strengths of their know-how would simply be the best way for them to continue. That is a digression for another blog though and merely illustrative for the moment. This is about the EU, which was at least to my own limited understanding broadly about rebuilding the aftermath of WWII, with a goodwill which should be nurtured and not squandered. On the broader stage the EU would probably be best served by adopting an inquisitive and malleable mindset, and seeing the value in its self as a stepping stone to finding and amplifying commonalities and responses to issues arising, even well beyond its boundaries, for such concerns are global and not restricted to any one continent. Current political ideals and efforts help little since their base aspirations are extremely narrow and selfish, wrapped up in faux diplomacy which virtually all countries still employ to feed their own interests in as diplomatically expedient a way as possible. If we truly want to better ourselves we need to look more honestly and surgically at where band aids of equity (not equality) can be brought to bear - helping one another as required with a practical sharing in the things which we each have in abundance or need in times of scarcity. Such a virtuous approach and right-minded ambition would promote a foundation of cultural respect, something I would seek to defend for that is where a lot our most valuable and potent qualities as a species are to be found - strength in diversity of thinking, approach and experience. The world, much less the EU itself, can ill afford anything less these days.

Updating The Present

So this is something which I certainly didn't expect to be doing quite yet, though I confess I was on a build up to it.

My initial thoughts on this ranged from "why should I wish to do this?" to "why not?", though it was never going to be something I really wanted to spend a lot of money on. Of course "a lot" is very relative to computer peripherals but it's for certain that I fancied the idea of upgrading on the keyboard at some time, from the more menial rubber membrane type to something a little more, shall we say, professional. To that end I found myself perusing the mechanical keyboard pages of many a website, and had settled on two choices - the Corsair K63 and the Coolermaster Masterkeys Pro S White (Coolermaster always love tangling customers in long winded names..).

Now before anyone says "hang on.. that's not a K63", let me explain the accident I had with my cash card. It's through a sad and lamentable state of affairs that we see Maplin closing their doors, but it's been a well known fact to me that they are purveyors of Corsair hardware. I didn't hold out much hope for their stock levels or availability, but after a few efforts to find a K63 elsewhere I felt it was probably only right that I at least pay my final respects to our local store and see if it might be possible to bestow one final gesture, one last consumer salute to this bastion of high street electronics retail (yes I know they were overpriced, but to mention that is really just peeing on the tragedy isn't it?). Anyway I worked my way around the store and was saddened to see that the computer hardware section had been laid waste.. nothing. Not even shelves. Undeterred by over forty five years of stubbornness in the face of ridiculous odds I did find some keyboards - heartsinkingly they were only budget models, not dissimilar to the unit I was already using. All hope seemed gone until, just as I was about to leave the store, I glanced over to where the routers and hard drives used to be, to find a last batch of mid-range and higher end hardware. My elevated heart sank a little once more when the eye cast a rapid glance over the range and found no sign of a hoped for K63. What it did find however is this little beast as seen below - the K65 LUX.

I still wasn't convinced. The K63, with its "budget" spec of mono backlit cherry MX red keys and (very robust) plastic housing was already looking to tip the scales at a piece of useless change short of £70. This monster before me was an aluminium chassis filled with glorious but ostentatious full RGB cherry MX red keys, and sporting an RRP of £129 on both shelf and internet.

Except not today..

Today was one of those last gasp days for Maplin, and there it sat on the shelf at a noticeably less unreasonable £90. Could I stomach the idea of dropping an extra £20 on this behemoth?

in a word, for reasons of both momentum and potential buggering about, yes.

The construction and simplicity of this thing is wonderful. It has a reassuring weight to it, combined with a visual aesthetic both in body and typeface which is really quite apart from other designs out there. Out are the subtle Helvetica and Trebuchet style keyfaces, in exchange for a Norse warrior looking f**ker of a typeface regaling this splendid monstrosity with a thoroughly positive purpose behind every keystroke. When mind moves finger neither are left doubting your ability to damn well get that letter, number or symbol of choice.

Unpacking the innocuous cardboard innards reveals its glory, along with a detachable wrist rest (one presumes most are), a set of key caps (not really my thing, but nice all the same) and the conventionally useless manual/warranty card. You will notice that it's also fitted with not one but two USB plugs. It seems that if you are cursed with a PC with only USB 2.0 sockets then you will be needing two of these little gateways to get your keyboard up and running, since not only is there the keyboard itself to power in the traditional fashion, but also a matrix of RGB LED's and something of a computer within it to control all the various silly functions which they can perform. Fortunately my dearest little LAIN comes complete with mainly USB 3.1, so just the one plug for me thank you very much (the other left hanging rather unceremoniously).

So what is it like!???

Well here it is in-situ, in all its splendour. I have it set to a rather delicate shade of purple at present, and can at will change this and many other functions far too numerous to list here, via the Corsair CUE utility engine (pop on You Tube if you really want to go that far under the hood). I'm even giving it a good workout in this very blog!

I went for the "tenkeyless" design as it's referred to (no keypad) in order to promote a little space on the desktop. Not that I'm really lacking space but it does make for a more compact and satisfying arrangement for my tastes, particularly when I have the tenancy rights of this and a graphics tablet to balance when working artistically. Would I recommend a mechanical keyboard over a budget creature? Am I happy with it? Yes! Thus far I can say both I and my fingers are in a state of relative ecstasy. One of the more problematic aspects of buying a better keyboard is the matter of those Cherry MX keys, which come in a variety of shades - not LED wise, but grade wise. Black, blue, green, clear, red and brown, all various weights under the finger, with and without click action. It's quite a bewildering array of options for something as simple as text input and PC control. I haven't really played with the full available array, which on first thought might seem like a silly thing to have not done when laying out this many beer tokens on such a peripheral, but I can say that I have experienced this and many other keyboards over the years. Between this catalogue of experiences and the many videos and reviews poured over beforehand I was pretty confident that I knew what I was getting myself into.

Sorry Coolermaster.

Whatever might be next for this lovely little (ahem.. expensive) hobby I've found?

Incandescent Fun

Looking back I have to say I rather enjoyed my PC project. For those curious readers I can tell you that Lain is working very happily. Undoubtedly one of the more inspiring aspects of the whole game was not just the end goal, but also those little sparks of achievement along the road. To that end I found myself almost lamenting her completion. For sure there will be more bits to do along the road - upgrades, peripherals and so forth, but I find myself in need of another 'something' over which to muse.

A couple of months ago I finally made the trip to our new local IKEA here in Sheffield, and far from just being the sum of its reputation it's actually become something of a little wonderland to me. I'm not a bits and bobs kind of bloke, preferring a lack of clutter where places such as IKEA can easily undo such notions in a single trip. Armed with mindfulness however, such visits can become a treasure hunt rather than a credit card savaging basket nightmare, and treasure indeed was discovered, informing my next project - solar lighting.

This all came about as a result of my wish to replace my Chinese lantern light shades, which had both seen better days, and due to a lower than normal ceiling were admittedly somewhat in the way. Happily for me IKEA stock an unusually squat version of the lantern design which could have been made for my apartment. Yet the real basket gem turned out to be an afterthought, my attention turning to some subtle yet intriguing eastern style solar lanterns. I've had a tiny non-replaceable battery powered lantern from Manchester's Chinatown hanging in one of my windows for a while now. In light of its lack of, well.. light these days, I thought that perhaps a solar lantern would be just the thing to replace it. I didn't expect much for my investment as these things go, but why not try it? I had no idea how much solar lighting might have improved over the years, never having owned any, but I thought for £4 a pop it had to be worth a giggle.

I grabbed two.

Much to my surprise they are quite capable. Only a subtle low light to be sure since each is a singular warm kelvin LED, with a similarly singular battery to carry it from one charge to the next. Yet they're happy to recharge hanging in the window under very average UK skies, I've yet to see them expire over an evening's use and the hippy in my blood does enjoy such a candlelight atmosphere as they exhibit. Indeed under a typical evening's activity such as enjoying a good film I've enjoyed their lovely cinema-esque circles of light, each hanging from the underside of the frame of each ceiling light (yes I know that will mean that they are primed to hit me in the face again after all that effort of finding shades which didn't, but it's convenient, and in all fairness you don't normally run around the room when watching a film). Also since they ARE lanterns, unencumbered by power cables, you can move them around at will. For example they sit very nicely in the bedroom, again with one hanging under the light shade and the other from the door handle, or even over the shower rail in the bathroom, complimenting a nice candle. No, this whole purchasing afterthought had created something altogether more interesting, and based upon the fun thus far I've elected to expand the idea to the next level.

You see it isn't so much that I think I use a lot of electric - to be honest I don't think I do, and neither does my bank account. It is however unavoidably logical that if I can formulate an effective, basic atmosphere of solar powered illumination, particularly if it can be creatively done, then I can forego the use of the regular lights excepting those circumstances when you truly need that much presence. It probably doesn't seem like much of a gesture, but should it work then the sums seem to rationalise this into a decent investment. Of course you don't just get the lights.. you have to add a little something. Enter a bamboo plant. IKEA just happen to do a nice artificial one (real plants die on me very easily and I wouldn't inflict such a tangle on a living thing). Combined with a nice base, their 24 LED solar light string and a couple of packs of matching small lantern decorations, the idea might just fit the bill. To look at the basic concept (I'd buy the plant anyway) you have what amounts to a reusable light stand in keeping with the Asian theme of the apartment, and a set of LED's which claim a 25,000 hour life span. On a typical reckoning of six hours use per evening and a mildly conservative estimate on their life expectancy (say down to 20,000 hours) we're still talking a potential lifespan of around nine years. An initial investment of just £12 makes that a running cost of about £0.11 per month, plus a pack of replacement batteries over that same period (£5.00) and maybe a little effort to ensure a reasonably optimal charge every night.

As with the typical style of these blogs I will let you know how it goes, planning as I am to make that purchase this weekend. I may initially restrict my experiment to the set of lights and save the plant for later, depending upon my ambition and how benign the tram conductor is probably feeling on my way out there. Nevertheless I think I may be onto something fun, so wish me luck and let's see if I can help reduce that footprint, my bills and bring a bit of fun to the cave.

Charity Begins

I'm becoming evermore of the opinion that it's time for the culture of systemic charity to (at least temporarily) stop. That may read as a contradictory position for a follower of wholesome, communal Buddhist principles, but I would urge you to think a bit deeper than any first appearance.

I can't speak for the practices outside the UK, but I can tell you that after finding myself in possession of what can only be best described as a surge in begging post of late that I turned my attention to this matter, and concluded that it really isn't in the best interests of those seeking remuneration from the willing public to provoke their emotions in this matter. There are likely many people who do help out, donating a bit here or there to the numerous worthy causes out there, all striving to stave off the pressures placed upon those in society who are doing their best to make it all work. Yet I can't help but feel that in doing so it's (in part) akin to taking pity on the poor guy who can't get out of bed without a pint or a shot, and helping them to acquire their much needed fix in order to help mitigate their suffering. As kind and well meaning as the gesture and intent may be, the result is obviously less beneficial for the real right reasons. For one it would be better for the environment if there wasn't such a quantity of paper used so recklessly, but more importantly I would encourage these organisations to reassess where they are applying their pressure. Most people have already paid taxes. One of the main reasons for the existence of taxes at all is to fund community services to those in need who are either less fortunate, or simply as a common part of the overall operation of the system itself. If those taxes are being redirected/mitigated/abused (and we can say quite definitively that they are, by a mix or all of those criteria) then it would be far more helpful, productive and less wasteful for those same charities to pool their efforts and join the public in chasing those responsible for the excesses of which they are guilty. We should not allow ourselves to lose or forget our capacity for charity, and indeed such matters should be at the heart of all we teach and how we act. It's simple logic that without holding all to account to the ethic which is inherent to such motivations, we simply cause more suffering, and usually to those who are least able to afford it.

Please Mine Responsibly

At the end of last year I built a PC. Those of you who follow my blogs will know this, and for those interested parties you can’t miss them if you look in the recent archives. Today’s topic relates to, and impacted very much upon, that project. I can no more tell you the future of today's topic than the next person, but I can say that if I’d have waited by even as little as a month or so longer there’s a good chance that it would still be a wishlist. At the heart of the enthusiast market which relies so heavily upon the GPU, lies the issue of cryptocurrency mining. I thought I might weigh in on this and even try to avoid using the word 'scourge', however appropriate it may feel because really it’s not the cryptocurrency itself that is predominantly to blame for this disastrous turn of events. As is so often the case with human constructs, it seems to be more to do with the attitudes underlying its usage. I have little interest in mining myself because I don’t tend to be that concerned with the world of money and wealth at large. I’m not everyone though and there seem to be plenty of people jumping on a bandwagon, which for all manner of traditional economics has caused a serious instability in the pricing and availability of GPU’s the world over.

I’ll begin by saying that there are far better qualified people out there who can talk about the minutiae. What I can say is that cryptocurrency’s heart lies in the concept of decentralisation and separation from the traditional controls of the world banking system. Whether that is presently a good thing long term probably can't be called now, but there are clues in the philosophy. I find it ironic that most immediate positive feelings towards it in society appears to be a reflex to the problems which irresponsible bankers brought upon their profession, since it now it seems to be the same virus which is playing out in the computing fraternity. You see on the one hand I can appreciate the miners desire to take advantage of something which is out there, even if I don’t happen to agree with the underlying motivation. The main arguments seem to boil down to “why not?”. In a buyer’s market people are free to do as they please and if the tech and the will is out there, why can they not buy all the cards they want and mine to their heart’s content? People have a right to make money, right? On the other side of the fence are the gaming and productivity enthusiasts who cannot buy a graphics card at a sensible market price, with cards currently running at double (and often more) the RRP and typical market price, or in some cases even buy at all when availability is compromised by the miners snapping them all up. The price I paid for my card was enough to be honest, and currently that same card typically sits about £60 or so over that! It’s easy to understand why the enthusiast community is so pissed right now, being forced to either hold off on their beloved project or face paying way over the odds. One of the louder counterarguments to the enthusiast complaints has been to push back against the market by simply not buying cards at their current prices, and to protest with the wallet - refuse to buy GPU’s at the price they’re at and this will force the GPU manufacturers to respond. Personally I’m not sure what kind of response the GPU manufacturers would or could give. They could make more GPU’s to try and satisfy demand if they can get their hands on the raw materials, but at what point would the market become saturated enough given that the market could swell with newcomers, and/or miners could go on buying until they themselves had no more money left to buy more with? The GPU manufacturers don’t really care who they sell their GPU’s to, miner or enthusiast. In the end it currently falls to whoever can afford to buy, or is willing to pay, to have their needs met and thus the problem curls in upon itself.

To see where the real issue is requires you to rise above both sides. That freedom of choice touted by the mining community is a practical but unwholesome answer, being something of a linguistic cousin to the same people who are sowing discontent and division through society with their belief that more means better. To adopt a stance based upon that is to succumb to the function of greed, which is the real enemy of the situation, and I’m afraid by that measure then it really is mainly a lack of respect for the community on the part of the miners which is funnily enough hurting both parties, in a similar fashion to hysterical buyers we see running to the stores and clearing shops out of comestibles before a storm (except that they believe they’re doing it for reasons of survival and not the acquisition of wealth). Let’s change the analogy from GPU’s to another commodity.. let's say water. If people suddenly started hoarding water you’d end up with a group of people with a lot of water and many more going with precious little, because of market expense or actual availability - how or why would you go to the water service companies to complain? Even if they were inclined, they can’t affect any meaningful action when the damage is already done. The ones hoarding the water would just take more anyway yes? I dont see either miners or water hoarders being spontaneously benign. Water may be a necessity where a GPU isn’t, but the result on a philosophical level is the same. Back to the computer market, and it wouldn’t happen, but if the GPU manufacturers threw their hands up in the air and stopped making cards that would cause a clusterfuck which might eventually see the redistribution of existing stocks after the cards were burned out. A better, more simplistic solution would be for us as consumers and community members to exercise discipline, play fairly and not buy into rank selfishness. That doesn't factor into our educated habits though.. you know, the same habit that lets politicians get away with so much. In fact I might go further and suggest that on the face of it, currencies that can be thrown around in such anarchic ways likely can’t work if the community working with it is no better disciplined than that of a primitive. If the market chaos cannot be demonstrated to be anything more than infantile behaviour, then it’s probably indicative that there’s much more work to be done before society is truly ready for something like cryptocurrency.

Recycling Smells.. SCENTS! Recycling Scents!

Okay, after all the world-righting it's time for a bit of a fun!

I've had a significant number of exhausted candles lying around for longer than I'd care to remember, and it was always a dream of mine (I don't always dream insanely big) to perhaps one day try reconstituting them!? Could it be done? I had no idea but it seemed reasonable enough.. get some wick, a few pencils.. Well the dream finally came to pass over this weekend when after yet another visit to IKEA I actually stuck to an agreement with myself (!) and visited a store next door to them called Hobby Craft - they were still there, and that's quite a thing for Sheffield. They had to do candle wick in some form I thought to myself, and true to form they did.. and more! This was both a joy and a pain as we were actually stuck there far longer than I intended, thanks to an overwhelming selection of just about any craft paraphernalia you could imagine, and even a modest but interesting collection of model spacecraft - I am not getting into that game again.. really! Far from doing things half arsed, I walked out with a pack of nine wicks (three differing sizes) pre-made with their bases, a glue gun for a ridiculously reasonable £5 (just under $6.85) and some spare glue sticks. To complete the effort I searched all today (Sunday) for a reasonably priced aluminium pitcher for the wax to melt in, but in the absence of even an unreasonably priced aluminium pitcher I settled for a small milk pan (£1.75/$2.40).

A worthy investment!

Returning home I set about trying my hand at reconstituting these candles, as had been my plan for soooo long.. and... it worked! At least I think it has. The wax took all of about ten minutes to reclaim from the glasses and a further ten cleaning them all, which I arguably didn't have to do but it has left me with some fabulous glasses to work with.

Reclamation at its best!

Three of the best and the aforementioned wicks, glued in their place.

For a first go I've not worried about scents since the reclaimed wax is already infused with various delightful aromas, and the process wasn't a complicated affair - I blended it together in batches which seemed sensible to my nose in a pick'n'mix kinda way (as opposed to picking noses) and they've taken on something of a Frankenstein consistency. Still they do seem very pleasant and it was all just an experiment. I had no idea half way through the process that I would entertain the idea of this as a hobby, but I have to admit I may have been bitten by a bug of some kind.. probably a good thing since I can now customise my nose flavours, and reasonably priced decent candles are quite scarce, to say nothing of how much you end up paying for good ones!

Settling in.. We shall see how they do.

To this entire end I would like to give a shout out to Jeff Standley from Standley Handcrafted for his timely and concise video on You Tube on the matter! I've learned the best time to pour your wax, how to cope with sink holes in your candles (I don't think you can apply the same theory to real sink holes, but I suppose someone could try a little top-up lava if they wanted) and how to use a pen body to set the wicks into place in their containers once they have glue on them - handy! He even had a glue gun for the job himself, which was after the fact for me since I only found his video this morning, after buying mine.. I often do things arse about face, and this time it paid off! Yes! The corner of my living room is probably thanking me for all this, and I've learned a bit in the process.

All in all it's made a change of pace, and you know.. any excuse for a bit of creativity really.

TTS - Roots of Education and Law

As our nature so surely rests in the animal, so then is education the root of humanity. This is where it all truly begins and whatever it ought to be it most definitely shouldn't be a ritual of rote learning, though poor choices seem to have left it so. The very notion that building successive generations on a foundation skewed upon the premise of passing exams is clear enough evidence of a system which spits in the face of overwhelmed teachers, and is broken or corrupt on an epic scale. It could be either, likely both given that this betrays the roots of education which rest in a plan conceived over a hundred years ago at the birth of the Industrial era, to make society useful to those self-apppointed leaders. There is a notable comparison between this concept and that of American gun ownership rules - both are built on principles from another era, seriously outdated and in need of revision to meet the problems of the present, in spite of the stubbornness which rises to meet such suggestions. Matters of real life which we have every opportunity to improve upon have been virtually side lined by the harder topical matters deemed necessary for our fabricated industries. That's not to say that this cherished knowledge isn't necessary or valuable, and a broad curriculum is needed and welcome, but there is much angst and hysteria surrounding but a mere part of the spectrum of education. Worse still, with the exception of specific events such as TED which do some good in bringing these matters up, barely any light seems to be cast by the mainstream towards that which deviates from the normal patterns pointed at in statistical analysis, reports and performance-related tweaks (it has to be said this is ironically exacerbated by technologies which have enabled the harnessing of such vast quantities of data which would otherwise be unmanageable). That's not to say such data isn't of value either, but it should not be centric at the expense of the individuality and development of the child, as both a student and human being.

Rituals based upon artificial models of behaviour, the inflexible routine exemplified in a typical school day - a fixed a time of day to start and finish, a set pattern of hours for lessons and lunch, likely does no less harm to the individual psyche from nursery to college than any ten to fifteen year stretch in prison, and all this from within halls which are supposed to promote betterment. Pavlov would be proud of the demonstration but probably less so of the result. Funnier still is the recent trend in the west looking to the east for inspiration since those students in Asia seem to do so much better on paper than our students. Setting aside the fact that eastern cultures have a different approach to work, education and family (largely as a result of an economic work/life balance demonstrably poorer than ours in the west, and most of ours aren't great), as well as the notable suicide rates amongst Asian teenagers, one has to question why their model should be seen as better when its value is being measured by industrial parameters. If they were to be strictly adhered to they would see virtue in all people being pushed to breaking point to balance the numbers in the bank. It's an inevitable Capitalist wet dream from the point of view of raw data, whether compiled by a 19th century ink-doodled log book or a 21st century digital spreadsheet - bigger numbers often equal greater results, and whilst I don't wish to paint any boss as overly ogre-ish I'm sure raw business would have it exactly that way if it could. This resistance to change and compromise is why it took a long while to begrudgingly get some workers rights into place. Were it not for the past efforts of unions we'd still be locked into more of a Victorian workhouse model than the refined version we're still lumbered with.

We should be taking a long hard look at what we really want and what we need to live with. We ought to be helping kids to be the best they can be by working with their inherent qualities and motivations instead of adopting patterns of conformity within a conveyor belt model of false reliability, however such reasons might be justified. Even if such practices were optimal for an entire generation in a given school, it would be no guarantee that the next would be as well suited, and this isn't even the case - no one child is the same. They should be treated as such, not pushed through a factory system. Reserve that habit for when you're in need of a million M32 thread screws, reliably pushed out to established spec tolerances, not for when you're trying to nurture creative talent. It's not right to merely accept the existence of individuality as some form of irritating anomaly to be tolerated and accounted for. If someone truly learns nothing else other than that which they are best naturally suited, at least they will have that to help keep them psychologically and creatively focused in a healthy way. I'm afraid to say that if the job is to be done well, the actual ethical basis of being a teacher cannot be encapsulated and compacted into a factory solution, fit only for churning information out. This is one of the main justifications I can fathom for keeping class sizes to a low maximum limit, since a teacher cannot possibly handle too many diverse personalities with any real effectiveness. Any efforts to establish a good working practice for schooling environments would do well to heed this when they decide how best to craft the environment. That suggests that the system within a school itself demands flexibility, in presentation, function, resource allotment, class times, lunch times, start and finish times. Of course there is still only a certain amount of time in the day, but slicing all that up into set routines where every individuality is expected to work and learn the same way will produce mediocre results irrespective of such force and control (which if you read the last blog gives some insight into why letting go of some forms of control in exchange for flexibility is a benefit and not a hinderance). Sometimes you just have to let go of the demands, with change required in unexpected places. I want to give a shout out to a few people who have done well to illuminate worthy avenues, and which have in turn helped me to explore ideas. There are doubtless others and I would encourage you to continue any exploration as I have, but to start you off here are a handful. Sir Ken Robinson gave not one or two, but three fabulous TED talks, and it's worth throwing Shawn Achor's similarly entertaining TED talk which looks at his research into the cult of the average. Little help seems to be gained from current governments in spite of their lip service to the people who promote these matters. Academies have sprung up in the UK promising revolution, but despite the official promotional line they're little more than rebranded grammar schools, funded by central government rather than local, and with a "convenient option" for private sponsorship. That such backing potentially arises from the same source as the problem leaves me with little hope that matters will be made right under such a model.

Much like the paperless office, so many opportunities for simplification seem to have been inexplicably bypassed altogether. The best developments are not only about taking the next step but drilling down into the matter to explore where it's possible to improve the quality, completely rewriting if necessary. To that end I would see changes made on multiple fronts to evolve a better way of living. The rule of law for example could be approached with a far less autonomous mindset, and be far more prosaic than it is. I think it's completely reasonable to pursue such a concept if we really want to resolve all the loopholes and caveats which litter our processes. Fairness and equity (that being "appropriate" and not necessarily "literal" equality) seem to sit at the heart of a better legal system. I'll drop a link to the piece I published elsewhere about the Code of Human Principles, a playful little diversion I set for myself which came into sharper focus as I considered how one might adopt a more simplistic model. It's imperative that we continue to impress the notion of a legal system which remains stoic and factual in itself, and yet we would also be remiss if we didn't try to handle the emotive matters. Society could be better served if we look to prevention rather than reactionary improvement alone. I don't claim for this to be perfection incarnate, although I've yet to break it. It's a test work in progress, and like any good model I made it with the intention of having any and all hypothetical cases thrown at it to test it's integrity, with the one caveat that it remains prosaic. The intent in its heart is two fold;

• As a set of rules designed to act as a conscience filter, to provide a guide to living a good life and help prevent transgressions. 

• As a foundation for philosophical debate and consideration for people charged with the dispensation of law when trying individual transgressions.

Life is complicated when you seek true justice. Rather than trusting upon an ideal of guidance and keeping intellect to the fore, it seems that the legal system has steadily built itself upon a pyramid of exemplification and test case. Doubtless followers of such history might look at the Code of Human Principles with either a sense of painful naivety, abject horror or both at its nakedness. Yet if you stop to think about it all I'm presenting here is the case for the dispensation of an intelligent justice. I tend to believe that cases should be treated as unique, even when there are similarities to be had at some level. That uniqueness in a given case can make true justice difficult enough to achieve, without the guidance and principles being similarly convoluted. I'm sure I don't need to cite examples - most of you reading this will at some time or other have encountered cases of injustice, either in the news or first hand. Granted a fair few of them will have seemed outrageous in the absence of any knowledge of the evidence, which is why I often think that some deeper thought ought to be applied to current reporting restrictions. Such matters are perhaps not always so worthy of being withheld, should that result in the report becoming a plaything for ratings, glamour and drama. Still it's a fact that people have been the victims of miscarriages of justice and this has to be accounted for if improvement is to be sought. To that end rules which inform and guide a resolution under circumstance have to be so much better ethically and morally than the listless sterility of compendious tomes, which by their very complexity become less of a guide and more of a blender into which a given case may simply end up being justified into fitting. I would invite you to consider the code as it's laid out. I'm not setting out on a crusade as such, but as with anything so designed it cannot be improved upon if it rests unchallenged.

TTS - Decentralisation and the Digital Village

Pondering our quaint habit of voting for those who lust for power rather than those who might be best suited for it, I thought I would muse upon the value of a change of ideals to favour smaller scale arrangements and decentralisation. It's clear that monopolistic systems and wealth inequity cannot continue unabated. Can such lofty goals be achieved? Would we want them? Let's ponder whether it might be a good idea.

In this context It's a generally accepted notion that more in less hands is largely a bad thing for society. We see the effects of this everywhere. It's the reason I tend to happily accept the ideal of a comfortable life in the midst of society rather than harbouring dreams of becoming uber-rich. It's the reason I generally tend to disapprove of projects such as the national lottery, whose consolatory charitable donations are really little more than a distraction from the fact that those lucky recipients should be getting their funds from proper taxes, and not from taxpayers paying twice for the one in a million chance to be a part of the problem. We need to be looking at how we can improve upon our lot not for the sake of something as shallow as money, but for the sake of making the best of what we have, in the most benign and beneficial way for the good of all. Certainly we have the beginnings of the necessary technologies in place and foundations upon which to build. The problems seem to lie in convincing the 1% minority of shareholders wielding most of life's tickets, effectively holding the world to ransom with their egotistical fear of losing their wealth and control, the latter of which they really never had any to begin with, hence their perpetual anxiety. I would propose that even if we cannot scrub it altogether, that we can at least try to mitigate the worst excesses of Capitalism, arguably one of the most destructive force we've imposed upon ourselves alongside the atom bomb.

Before you roll your eyes in anticipation of yet another rabid, foaming dog fever "attack on the system" let me say I'd grant the idea that overall Capitalism has probably been the lesser of many tried evils and holds a place of note in history, but that does not and cannot justify it remaining as the major motivator of our habits. Like fossil fuels it's time for a form of retirement. It's achieved benefits in terms of driving overall social development, but it's also been an extremely wasteful, sloppy and excessive bag of methodologies and is undoubtedly an insatiable monster which will eventually kill us all, if we aren't already a dead race walking. I would urge a consideration of the merits of a reduction in the scale of its functions, for reasons of both efficiency and duty of care. If the minority power brokers cannot be trusted to juggle ambition with reason and common sense we need to gradually usurp their power trips, and formulate methods for best use of our technologies to enable efficient, smaller, localised industries. Doing this ought to bring opportunity down to such a level that it would enable contributions from all who are able or who wish to, where a sustained effort beneficial to community can flourish free from the threat of aggressive takeovers or forced economic redundancy. There are few people except those obsessives running corporations who truly believe in or desire the burden of such structures in the form we see today, mishandling and swallowing up everything in their path, and it's for certain they themselves don't need them. If those unfortunates weren't so afflicted and driven by brazen egos then most would probably stop long enough to realise this. Possibly those who are at the very least genuine in their motives might consider alternatives. Corporations are always promoted in a positive glow as job and product creators, but seldom are they shown as drivers of inequity, grating against the fabric of society and at worst providing a self-fulfilling forum for corruption, especially when it comes to workers right's abuses and excessive profit margins - something for which Capitalism and corporations are both rightly condemned. Then there's the foodstuff for those systems. Whenever I discuss the subject of money itself I use the metaphor of engine oil. An engine relies upon the oil at its disposal, to be readily available in the right place at the right time for the whole to function properly. To watch an engine destroy itself under the stresses of too little oil or too much in all the wrong places is to understand why we see any collective system failing.The NHS is a very pertinent example, but any outfit which benefits from taxes as a means of capital investment and overall management will fail if its "engine oil" is hoarded and steered into extremely specific arenas. Analysis dating back ten years exposed the wealth of America's 1% to the tune of approximately 35% of their engine oil, and it will come as no surprise to anyone that here in 2018 this figure will not have remained the same. I can't think that the ratio is that much better in the UK, to say nothing of countless other countries around the globe.

Similarly if we cannot trust our governments to use our taxes responsibly, and they certainly seem overly comfortable with the notion of getting into bed with the corporations and doing what they want rather than in concert with the mood of the electorate and their remit, then we should be encouraged to stand up and demand a better application, by poll or ballot force. This could be done by altering our buying habits, or simple repetitive acts of cooperation between smaller structures and local amenities which already exist. Whatever form it takes I'd suggest applying ethically responsible forms of democratic power, where such actions provide benefit derived from public choice, via repositories which have a vested interest in seeing the system work successfully. In other words if the government can't be trusted to spend your taxes wisely, then at least let's have a mechanism by which you get to influence where your engine oil circulates, and at best a say in where your taxes are actually spent. If we do have to have any kind of government (and I suppose it's only realistic to consider that even with decentralisation you still need some overall structure) I'd suggest a deeper alternative form, which would see the dissolution of the politician as a discrete job. In their place I'd suggest a form of governance involving active members from all the various disciplines in life, positions conferred by their peers to work as an organisation which would probably physically appear to be very much like the UN, charged with the responsibility of debate and diplomacy for their chosen field. I'm making an assumption here (it's probably a fairly safe one) but imagine if you will Stephen Hawking working as both astrophysicist and "politician". I would think this would at least afford some measure of respect, a function of real responsibility, accountability, and with the help of the web a measure of direct communication between diplomat and worker - a valuable thread with which to keep all parties grounded and provide a sense of responsibility to the individual. This in itself is a sound justification for enshrining net neutrality, and it can only be a good thing if people who work within their passions are granted the means to share in debate. We can likely achieve much good, even unpredictable and inspiring results by way of a more level form of cooperation. Further there's the idea of utilising the web to enable people to remain in their communities away from the cities if they so choose, doing what they do best in their own comfort. That would mitigate a significant tonnage of both carbon emissions and commuter stress. Not fully - people and materials still have to move around, people still need to meet up and be together, but a network running less vehicles would mean that any necessary movement could arguably be achieved by more efficient, sustainable, affordable and cleaner means. With less people commuting, the cities too could be opened up a bit more to help those who do choose to live and/or work there - re-engineering them to be even cleaner and greener. Who wouldn't prefer a beautifully crafted city designed with tech and greenery working in harmony, as opposed to Ridley Scott's dystopian Los Angeles? On a personal note in the cases of my home city of Sheffield, less or better implemented concrete would also leave such places less prone to environmental hazards such as flooding (just because we haven't had a flood since 2007 doesn't mean it would never happen again - bureaucracies and history do conspire to repeat).

Smaller systems allow for more granular control. Hang on, I thought you just said there was no control? So I did. The lack of control rests in our incessant push to try and force the world and the unknowable future to conform to our demands, instead of bending to reality to make the best of that which we're served at any given world moment (see this blog). The control of which I speak here is something which we seem to forget on a daily basis - one of choice. It's about the virtues of honesty, authenticity, respect and awareness (for the self and others), the capacity to recognise and handle the ego when it interferes - and it does so all the time.. more so than you probably realise. If you want a head start with this then you could do much worse than to grab a copy of "The Art of Happiness", and probably a copy of "How to See Yourself As You Really Are" if the former doesn't decimate you enough. In spite of appearances we are not pre-programmed for destruction. It seems to me that notions of responsibility for our actions, seizing our imagination and sharing ideas, simple daily justice and fairness aren't so elusive if you can get the scale right. For once the scale gets too grand the concerns and needs of people slip all too easily between the cracks, and before you know it no one feels connected or responsible for anything anymore.

Look at us now. We owe it to ourselves to pick up that mantle.

That disconnect which we struggle with on a daily basis does not generally derive from the technology we have. We can no more wholly blame the computer or the smartphone for that feeling of lack of connection any more than you can blame a hammer for its duality as a tool of productivity and violence. You might as well blame pen and pencil. One of the main recent reasons for a computer to exist is communication and connection. It's all about how you use a tool, and that's where the internet is our real gem. We can communicate and organise so easily between one another by having the right structures in place, and with that we gain the freedom to exercise our lives with quality, and the wisdom to use it all.. Yes, wisdom. This last point is where the above books come in handy, and that will probably form the heart of the next blog.

I concede it's a massive problem, but it's still there whether we like it or not. So to help get things on track I suggest going back to the root, to re-draft that which we have lost. Community needs to be at the heart of this, for the sake of the sanity of the people working and living in them, for the sake of the resources and ingenuity going to waste, frankly for the sake of the delicate cradle we're all peeing in. We need to set aside our ego and look at the sorry state of that which created all we have both good and bad, including the 1%'ers.. our education.

"Control, Control, You Must Learn (Un)Control"

With the latest folly in the tech world and the FCC's blatant failure to realise that having someone as illegitimate as Ajit Pai is a corrupt and dodgy thing, I thought I might reflect upon things. Where do you begin with that?

In essence politics (and that is the forum by which we can best look at the function of our world as a whole) seems to broadly encourage the notion of voting for people on the basis of their ideology. Sometimes those ideas are good, often it's a mixed bag, all too frequently no good whatsoever. Whatever the intent I'd like to suggest that we should stop accepting this given process as a fundamental, unavoidable truth. Of course internet neutrality, at least in the US, is now caught by that notion and like it or not, as with many such matters, contrary to what the official press statements would have you believe all is not rosy. Most people are so busy getting whipped up by the media's current hysterical obsession with global tensions and Trump that they fail to realise we are already in the midst of a war - an information war. All our fundamental freedoms are under attack so plainly that you either you don't wish to see it or you cannot see it simply because it's everywhere - hidden in plain site, often the best place to put the worst matters. So let's cut to the chase, accept that we're in the deep end and consider what can be done to handle this problem. One cannot, or perhaps that ought to be should not, overcome this issue with violence. Of course we have to continue to resist and strive for the better path, but more than that perhaps the most important thing we can do to affect the outcome is resist the urge to violent confrontation and hold commune with that part which no one from the outside can ever truly reach - we have to change ourselves. We have to get used to the idea of attaining our goals whilst simultaneously letting go of our addiction and supplicant attitude to control. That sounds contradictory but it really isn't.. it's just a different approach to everything we've been lead to believe, which in turn is why I would suggest (and have done for a long time) that very central to this is a needed revolution in education, so unworkable and broken as it really presently is. Probably much of that which we have about us in society is fragmented and out of joint because we try to exert a forceful nature over matters which simply will not yield, whether man vs an act of nature or between groups of people, and the harder you push against the grain the worse matters become. One thing you can guarantee, and it has been the source of much harm in our time, is that humanity as a whole is a real force to be reckoned with, but that should not be let off the leash chaotically. This is where we fail, since that is precisely the aspect of ourselves which is most undermined, in exchange for political compliance - control within control.

If you've ever wondered why education feels crap and why you possibly (probably?) didn't enjoy your time at school, then I would suggest that you look to where education came from and why it exists at all. To have systems which would teach our kids to become the better parts of their selves would undermine the power base of those hysterical control freaks suffusing politics, who created education to serve the notion of making useful members of society. Essentially a politicians societal wet dream is one in which you are ideologically helpful but essentially stupid. This is why it was inevitable that they would cotton onto the internet as a threat, hence our information war. I would guess that they succumbed to their worst excesses when they wove business interests with the web, and funnily enough in the mad scramble for a new profitability model they created a double edged sword of commerce vs free expression - otherwise I'm pretty sure they'd have pulled the plug on it a long time ago. So, in order to counteract this perversion of the web's raison d'etre we need to evolve our communities and use the tools at our disposal in a smarter way - I'd perhaps suggest to use that communications tech to become co-habitually smaller but better connected. First and foremost I'd posit the idea that we need to help ourselves keep in touch with our daily humanity by keeping the nest small and recognisable, but accept the power and responsibility of the much greater whole which we represent. Learn to harness the force we are to be reckoned with, and do it with utmost self respect. Still neither that individual responsibility, nor the idea will be claimed overnight - not with the quality and content of education we have. Education needs to be taken from those who would continue to employ it as a tool of the workhouse, and evolve it to a tool of self discovery and communal assistance. For me, I see the very foundation of Buddhism - qualities of empathy, compassion and tolerance as being most welcome in all arenas. Why? Whatever your denomination of spirituality, full believer to atheist, it's undeniable that these matters speak to the heart of us all. The minority 1% of power brokers with their power trips need to be both helped back into their place and welcomed into the new way, otherwise you simply create another tiresome enemy, and the only enemy they really have is their own ego. They won't have the world be any other way than how they see fit to bend it, and all of them are trying to have it all their way - that's why they fail and why we all hurt. Probably through no fault of their own those who reach for power seem to have for the best part chosen to buy unquestioningly into the system. Indeed their ambition probably singled them out for power to those placed to bestow it, and like their mentors, underneath all the pompous justifications they simply ended up hurting themselves with a lack of self respect. If you were to ask most of them I'd say under the facades they'd define self respect as being better than the next person and grabbing what you can, when in actual fact that's precisely the cause of their pain. Like it or not, community is why we are here today, and why we have made it this far. Without a sense of right and wrong, underneath all the tiresome false competition and fury, we would already be extinct. Community will get us out of this hole. Perhaps that's essentially why life does go on, and why we seem to be able to miraculously continue as a whole in spite of (or maybe to some degree because of) ignorance.

To me the philosophy and the art in refining how that life goes on is the tricky part - to keep walking the path whilst removing or minimising the unnecessary acts which bring about painful transitions. It's a dour truth, but that can only happen when we care enough, and that can only happen when we encourage such platitudes. You can see how our collective pain is a self fulfilling prophecy on many levels, whether it's by forceful means or simplistic cycles of revenge. This is where notions of letting go of control come into play. If there is an overall objective I would suggest that either as individuals or as a whole we get as close as we can to it whilst allowing for and embracing failure along the way. So many times we're taught to fear failure, when in actual fact it's a natural part of life, and if we cared enough about one another then we wouldn't fear failure so much because we would trust that someone would be there to cushion us when we trip up, and if we cared we would be there for the person who trips because we ourselves would feel nurtured by the next person enough to care, and so on.. If embracing failure as a part of the overall goal is accepted, it's not so weird to consider the idea of aiming without having too tight a grip on the reins. Let the mission unfold as it will - that is far less painful for the whole. Learn to breathe into whatever it is you're trying to achieve and bend with the flow of the river. That doesn't imply that you don't try, but accept that the points from A to F are probably not going to go through B to E exactly as you might wish or predict, and react calmly in accordance with the next best step. That is true on a personal daily basis of choice, so it should be on an international level. Don't limit people into become something they don't want to be, or are not inclined to be, simply because it doesn't appear to add value to your goal. You have no idea how their natural line of exposition will affect you down the line. That's where education fails - look at the hysteria of measurable outcomes and exam grades. Of course it's good to know how well children are developing in order to to best help them, but their futures should not be dictated by the hysteria of the 1%'ers, fearful of bending to an unexpected or unwanted reality, as they so unreasonably expect us to do in turn for them. Day by day, plan by plan, work with what you have and be grateful at all times. If the cupboard only has a certain set of ingredients, work with what you have to make the best meal you can. If the food isn't to your liking then plan a new path towards something more fruitful, but without expectation, and enjoy the journey. Let go of control and accept that tomorrow will come, and if that doesn't happen then don't worry about that either, for you most certainly won't.