Economic Life

After posing a question recently about Brexit and the dearth of actual facts supporting it, a friend did make a reasonable attempt to bolster the notion with something beyond the regular rants, which are usually along the lines of a democratic win (and we'll leave the arguments on that alone because it's a distraction from the point here). He pointed to the fact that the EU block had pushed too hard into politics, rather than sticking the base aspirations of trade and freedom of movement, rightly concerned that notions of globalisation could ruin cultures. Whilst I can all too well appreciate his sentiments, and agree that the expansion (particularly involving those states who don't seem prepared for handling any prerequisites) can be problematic, I don't think that matters of politics and economics are necessarily that easy to tease apart since each invariably impacts the other. As to aspirations, even if it's present state can be considered a precarious one, there is little if any true justification for either our withdrawal, nor its dismantling - in truth it's still a young project.

A more appropriate view and approach to the function of the EU should indeed be based in the tenets of cooperation and actions and deeds should also aspire to reach so much further. Yet great care should also be exacted to fully understand the implications and consequences, and in so doing walk in a benign way. There is in reality a much greater responsibility and remit with the sphere of economics than an end goal of happy book keepers; such minutiae can't be seen to be so important when it comes to running an ethical system; the natural state of money is by definition a perpetual imbalance, and the focus ought to be on meeting the real base needs rather than simply an end goal of feeding the fake happiness of the richest. The competitive self, the ego must be understood and trained - our issues are often because of a failure to do so. Priorities which speak to quality of life (food, comfort, security, community happiness) are aspects which all too frequently get the short end of the stick when decisions are made, and our systems are more threatened and damaged in the race for control over that by those who fear obsolescence. I've argued many times by metaphor that the worst way to run matters is by hoarding money to an obscene degree - it's the first way to inflict fractures and strain. The big game these days across many economies seems to be about juggling how much of that strain can be inflicted before it causes more trouble to the executor than it's worth - a hugely unethical way to act in times when as a race we have realistically never been in a position to have it so good. At worst such practices are being employed as a means of perception manipulation, recklessly abusing something into the dirt only to then open it up to more egregious methodologies, insultingly presented as the only viable solution to the problem - the NHS debacle in the UK is one great example of this. There's even enough history to suggest that there is a pattern of economic chaos used to crash markets into a state of liquidity, such that all can be bought up cheap and siphoned off to the 1%er's, building on their already immense capital and causing even greater disparity between the have's and have not's.That anyone is still left behind in the stakes of equity is a disrespect to life and any efforts toward progress. 

I suggested recently on the issue of globalisation, that as has happened with the internet becoming a tool adopted by capitalism, so too the unity of politics and commerce is forcing both into a crucible of inevitable self-conflict. On the one hand, dictated by the insatiable appetite of capitalism, corporations want and need globalisation (on their terms of course) as a function of their growth. Yet to do so is to simultaneously connect the dots between cultures which could scupper their efforts to retain power and control (again you can delve into the arguments against the real existence of such control, but for here we'll remain cognisant of the 1%'er's angst arising from their hedonistic fear of loss). For a successful effort at globalisation you would need to force some much needed change into the political and corporate arena. I've talked before about the idea that we could see a return to the village/community approach for life, with the added functional and social bonus of the internet for convenience, adaptability, and probably most importantly to summon the qualities of self-respect and responsibility in those comprising those communities. For my own take on our problems a good start might be a shift in the raison d'etre for corporations; rather than wishing their obsolescence I would scale them sideways to make the most of their proficiencies, as logistical operators of established trade routes, leaving the creation and trading of actual goods at either end of the equation to the local communities and cooperatives as a means of ensuring that the wealth maintains a half decent measure of distribution. Maybe a given area could even sustain a number of people earning a living within any one proficiency, which in the case of commerce would see opposition to the one corporate store hogging the potential and employing an ever shrinking base of staff, thanks to automation which only arises because of that unregulated greed mechanism which demands more for less cost. The needs and dictates of the community could establish some equilibrium and see a potential return to something which might actually approach social happiness, but with the internet - a better foundation for connecting people, adapting to circumstances and furthering ideals. You don't even have to succumb to Communism to provide a counter to Capitalism, as so many capitalists seem to scream when you suggest balance. As far as I can presently tell you could (simply) apply Socialist/Buddhist principles and real education as tools of moderation. Often Socialism and Capitalism are pitched as irreconcilable enemies - if there's ever to be an attempt to reconcile that one then I'd argue that Socialism should be seen and employed as Capitalism's safety release valve - to inform the ethic of limit, a tap on the shoulder to remind you of the difference between a want and a need. It may be a little idealistic to imagine it but if people were truly granted a non-cynical chance in life self correcting mechanisms from how people feel to how they connect and how they are connected to the whole could support the spirit of capitalist invention, whose major core problem seems to be that in its naked state it exists entirely without any true capacity for self-regulation, save for those wise enough to understand and behave appropriately.

I would see us embrace our differences, where there is a great deal of irrationality and hypocrisy in the tensions arising from such matters. As the world becomes smaller people are wasting so much time fearing for their loss of identity - in principle it's a lack of understanding which is causing it, and the vast majority from any one side of an argument aren't truly a threat to one another. Again it seems to be those greedy, power thirsty ones among the communities who are causing the friction. If people who do express such misgivings and cravings spent as much energy being truly inquisitive and appreciative as they did mindlessly fearing and panicking in their ego, half the tension would be gone pretty swiftly. At whatever level you wish to look, global, national or personal, there is individuality and a range of perspectives and possibilities in the way people see, experience and respond to the world around them. This should be debated, respected and harnessed as finer qualities of our species. Of course that is also where arguments begin, but this is why we need to demand and implement real open-minded education, so that people can be better informed and granted true critical thinking skills, with the self respect and confidence to act with right-mindedness. We all know such qualities, but are so often forced to compromise on them for comfort and survival (note that some compromises are actually right-minded, but they usually only arise because of a wrong-minded action). To improve all this requires us to put away old toys and raise the bar. For too long we've been taught to be content with what we know, either directly or subconsciously, between each one of us and so many seem resigned to accepting the falsehood that nothing will or can change. In the final analysis that is such bullshit (a.k.a a wrong-minded compromise), and we know it. The only reason it hasn't yet been shed from our daily lives is likely because we're overwhelmed by the scale and trapped in our cycles of compromise. This is where the internet can make (and is making) inroads, as we can so easily share our cross-cultural thoughts if we try. I've been doing this for a while now and I can tell you with every confidence that we are far more alike than dissimilar where it matters most. The irony is all those same people compromising matters would be a part of the same, more healthy way of living. This is why in the effort it's imperative that we keep to our truths, and never feel that it's not important to speak them. Times such as these demand that we begin to take more responsibility. If we keep one another's heads above water we can begin to take the conventional "wisdom" that it's impossible, and turn things around. For those of us so fortunate, there shouldn't have to be too much compromise in comfort and survival in order to help raise others - this would at both build trust and promote calm. As facile and first world a problem by example, many of us have made efforts in our habits already by adapting to recycling, so why not continue to pursue other ethical matters? We're adept at developing technologies and solutions to problems, but (as I implied above) we should be mindful enough to accept, however begrudgingly, that there are practical limits of resources to attend to which capitalism has let us sleepwalk into forgetting. Also there are matters of judicial principle - just because we can do a thing doesn't necessarily mean that we must do a thing. As an exercise look to what you have and what you aspire to, and give yourself a reality check. I'm not saying throw everything away and disappear up a mountain, but rather look honestly at the difference between needs and wants, and see where you are honestly better off drawing a line. As with any social gathering lots of small acts, from compassion to frugality, can produce a tsunami of change and make all the difference. Indeed it's those small, seemingly insignificant acts which I believe are keeping us afloat today. All these are qualities which will serve us so much better than being consumed by rhetoric and allowing ourselves to be manipulated by cynical, divisive politics. We are still on a learning curve, but in no other time in our history do we truly have such potential and less justification for our misdeeds.

When "One For the Price of Two" is Both Good and Desirable!

Irrespective of your era, it never generally makes good economic sense to get two of anything, only use one and call it valuable and worthwhile.. unless you're talking about a niche matter in computing. Okay, so the headline is a bit of a con really. One for the price of two isn't good value, but where this pays back is in redundancy. Yes my friends, we're talking about RAID.

What's RAID?

Depending upon who you ask, and for no discernible reason, RAID is an acronym - Redundant Array of Independent Disks or Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. How there came to be two definitions is lost to the mists of time but I'm happy with either. For those who don't know anything of this it is a principle of sharing your data across two or more hard drives in order to either increase performance, provide more hard drive space or provide some level of protection against the scourge of reality - broken parts and wear and tear. In other words our nonsensical "value" is redundancy. This latter reason is why I've done this.

RAID is not.. I'll repeat that.. RAID IS NOT a get out of jail free card for those who choose not to perform data backups. It is not a substitute so don't be fooled.. keep doing those backups. If you value your data but don't do backups then shame on you, and people more cruel than I would say you deserve everything potentially coming to you.

There are different practical implementations of RAID, from RAID 0, 1, 5, 10.. We won't go into too much detail here but I've elected for RAID 1, which essentially means that I have two hard drives of equal capacity set up to function as a mirror or clone. Both drives contain exactly the same data, thus enabling a scenario whereby if one drive were to (re. will inevitably) suffer hardware failure no data is actually lost and I the user can continue happily, suffering only the anguish of knowing that the failed drive needs replacing ASAP as opposed to crying into his coffee over his lost data, particularly if he hasn't been doing backups. Once replaced the system will copy its data from the good drive to the new one and you're back to business as usual!

One caveat to my plan is that I'm running a 2Tb system but only have a 1Tb backup drive.. I trust you see the problem with this. To that end my next goal is to increase the size of the backup drive and that can only be done in this case by a new purchase.. alas no technological development that I know of allows you to simply nail or glue extra space onto a hard disk. This too however is a part of my near future rationale. It occurs to me that in times of fiscal strife the best way I could proceed is to replace my 1Tb external backup drive with a 4Tb drive - given that a 4Tb drive is "only" £20 or so more than a 2Tb drive makes justification quite simple.

Why 4Tb?

The least advisable and yet strangely popular RAID scheme is RAID 0, which combines your drives into one. In my case that would double the capacity of my drive space from 2Tb to 4Tb, but also compromise physical integrity in a very inadvisable direction. With RAID 0 your data is alternately written to both drives which means that you have your expected capacity increase and you gain an increase in read performance for your data. However since you're spreading your data over two drives you also double your chances of suffering mechanical failure since you now have two drives to worry about. Worse still if one goes t*ts up then you only have half of your data, and since that data is only every other bit then what remains intact is less use than a dolls head. This is why RAID 0 is pretty bad.. you don't get something for nothing. That said, if I was running out of space, absolutely needed the data space and had absolutely no chance of affording an upgrade for my hard drives then I could opt for a RAID 0 configuration to increase my working space to 4Tb and manage with regular backups to protect my data, until such time as I could afford to expand things.. hence a 4Tb external drive would cover me in this instance. Another route would be to use the 4Tb drive to store the excess work - at least that would only represent a single drive failure problem!?

Anyway at the end of the day it's all about protecting your data, assuming it matters to you. If it doesn't then forget everything I just described. As an aside, as I type the PC has already performed 21% of the task of synchronising the drive contents - yes it's doing it in the background as I write this.

Another advantage I experienced this morning going through the hassles of installing another hard drive is that it gave me another opportunity/excuse to indulge in cable management. I managed a slight but noticeable increase in quality.

Alas I have no before and after shots worthy for comparison so you'll have to take my word for it, but I think it looks quite tidy now - something to be revered in a system which relies on airflow to keep the volume of space within the chassis within a good operating temperature.

A Little More Room

Lately I've been putting myself through a gradual learning curve with DaVinci Resolve. I first encountered video editing using Shotcut, blissfully unaware that the world's leading colour grading company had released what is arguably the best free (with caveats) video editing workflow out there. No leaping in and out of Premiere Pro, between After Effects, Audition, etc.. for me. Here you have a complete, uninterrupted and active flow (meaning that you can work sequentially or jump from say tweaking the sound to extending a clip or importing something more - your project remains up to date and editable throughout) . Importing your work, cutting it, adding effects, colour grading (or course), sound mastering and exporting. In fact I dodged Adobe's bullet altogether, along with the increasingly loathsome subscription model. Between DaVinci, the Affinity suite and Artrage I'm doing quite well, if I say so myself. 

I said there was a caveat to the "free" status because not all the features are there to use.. Some are locked behind the paid version, and as you learn more you discover where those limitations lie. What is good is that there is nothing stopping you from using this package to achieve fabulous basic results and learn more than anyone's fair share of basic/intermediary level techniques and tricks. The price? £299 at time of writing.. Walking a line between products it's more expensive than the ridiculous value of Affinity but not as expensive as Adobe. Judging by its capability I'd say it's a fair price, and in context that's what it's all about. So far I'm loving it. It isn't without its capacity to fall over once in a while, but it certainly seems to be more stable than its competitor, if the anecdotal evidence from other users is to be believed.

What I did discover is that video editing is quite a hungry beast, and although where computer memory is concerned there is a real world law of diminishing returns on capacities above 16Gb I was tempted into buying myself a bit more space - enter two 16Gb sticks of Kingston Hyper X Fury RGB (RGB because reasons..). So Lain now has a bit more room to play and I have to say that 32Gb has quickly established itself as the new normal size for the playground. Affinity and Artrage have also benefitted from this. 

Homura Akemi and Madoka Kaname are optional, and aside from keeping the artist company have no technical impact upon the system performance whatsoever.

Comfort is Important!

Okay it's not to be overstated but you can't go wrong with a little proper support when you're spending time drawing, writing, etc.. these things should also never be underestimated.

Not so long ago it was quite easy to pick a chair - popping to Office World granted a wealth of seating to try out. Alas I missed my window and along with the pens, printers and other consumables, it all disappeared into a capitalist black hole, in other words the local store shut down. So I was left with a few ideas but nothing specific to park the butt on for that practical experience. Left with little choice I opted for the path of reviews and a general consensus on what seemed to be most likely to be un-crap. I'd looked at Argos and decided upon an option from three choices which fit the price bracket, but then dropped upon this one..

I had a choice from black, brown, cream, grey, green and red, finished in pleather or velvet. Why green you ask? Well it felt like it'd be a change of aesthetic from the standard black, something to be commended in the back of my mind since it's existing in a creative spot. I also opted for velvet, again a change from the sterile office fashion, and I think all things considered a snugglier option. Buying from Amazon also assured delivery, since Argos couldn't deliver their option, for reasons unknown.

I was expecting it on the Saturday and so you can imagine my surprise when my DPD app alerted me to its delivery on the Wednesday, a full three days earlier than predicted.

It was easy to assemble - just short of 20 mins..

..conforms pleasantly to the photo as advertised and fits in very nicely!

Having typed this blog whilst sat in it I can confirm it is indeed comfy, sturdy and snuggly. It raises, lowers and reclines with the best of them, and all for a full £40 less than the Argos derivative. Job done. Always look after your back!