How LED Lights Stole Christmas

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Rather bizarrely, one of the most popular blog posts I’ve ever written concerned colour. Specifically, why grey is the new black. Given that I’ve obviously acquired a readership amongst colour consultants, decorators, architects and members of the Pinterest community, I’ve got something related to say and it’s something that hasn’t been commented on elsewhere. At least this was true until Christmas when Tyler Brule, writing in the Financial Times Weekend magazine, made the following astute comment:

“For the past two weeks I’ve been in South Tyrol hosting family, stocking up on wines from local producers and watching my mother hand-paint 1,500 LED Christmas lights in order to create the right seasonal effect indoors and out. (“Do people not see how bright and ugly LED lights are and that they’ve completely changed the spirit of Christmas?” she told me. “These are the lights they should be banning!”)”

His mother is right. LED lights have ruined Christmas and much else beside. The problem, I think, is that LED lights are too bright. There is no subtlety to LED lighting and, one might add, no soul. ‘White’ LEDs are the biggest problem though, because they aren’t really white at all. They give off a slight green hue, which makes me think of refrigerated meat well past its use by date. I’m told this problem is being addressed, but until it is it’s perhaps it’s time to get out the candles.

Staying human in an age of automation

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I thought this, via Aeon, would be interesting, although when I watched the video (7 minutes here) I wasn’t so sure. Is he saying that we need to ‘gamify’ all aspects of work so that people are more engaged and have more fun? Why does work have to be fun all he time and surely some aspects of work need a level of deep thinking and attention that screens, constant movement and distraction destroy. Moreover, shouldn’t humans focus on what humans do best and use machines to amplify this?

Personally I think that some aspects of gaming could be useful to apply to real world situations, including work in some instances, but overall I think the negatives far outweigh the positives and that the argument is weak. Surely, this is yet another example of digital solutionism. Screens and games are fine, but they shouldn’t remove us, distract us or distance us from physical human contact or thinking that is deep, sustained and reflective.

This is worth a read too if you are pro, although again I don’t agree with it.

Digital Vs Human – show me the money (final)

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Given what’s going on in China I thought I’d share the edited version of the chapter on the economy while there’s a vague chance of me being prophetic. For those readers that are new to this I had huge problems with this chapter and it underwent several re-writes.

The older versions were posted here and here and here and here. (Runs from newer to older versions).

Final version is here (23 pages, PDF)

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