Quotes about computers and connectivity

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Richard

Well, if you liked the last one how about these two…?

“There is a connection waiting to be made between the decline in democratic participation and the explosion of new ways of communicating. We need not accept the paradox that gives us more ways than ever to speak, and leaves the public with a wider feeling that their voices are not being heard. The new technologies can strengthen our democracy, by giving us greater opportunities than ever before for better transparency and a more responsive relationship between government and leaders.” – Robin Cook.

“The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it.” – Bill Gates

Image of the week

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Richard

Well it made me laugh!

BTW, did you know that Back in 2007 it was reported that there were 32 CCTV cameras within 200 yards of the author’s former home at 27B Canonbury Square in North London.

A good quote

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Richard

I’m up to my eyes at the moment so I apologize about using another quote.
Life returns to something vaguely resembling normal in about a month.

“At it’s best, the Internet can educate more people faster than any other media tool. At it’s worst, it can make people dumber faster than any media tool. Because the Internet has an aura of “technology” surrounding it, the uneducated believe information from it even more. They don’t realize that the Internet, at its ugliest, is just an open sewer: an electronic conduit for untreated, unfiltered information. Just when you might have thought you were all alone with your extreme views, the Internet puts you together with a community of people from around the world who hate all the things that you do. You scrap the BBC and just get your news from those websites that reinforce your own stereotypes.”

– Thomas Freedman, New York Times.

Good bye to all that

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Richard

What is it about human nature that means we usually react after the event? Its was pretty obvious that one day my main computer’s hard drive would crash to the point where it would be inoperable or it would be stolen. So why wasn’t everything backed up? Answer: Backing everything up was always important, but it was never urgent. It was always something for tomorrow not today.

Actually I’m be a bit unfair on myself. 99% of my files were backed up, but I somehow forgot about emails and email addresses. There’s also annoying little things like printer drivers and bookmarks.

Thought for the day:

“Loss is nothing else but change, and change is nature’s delight”
– Marcus Aurelius.

24,450 reasons to get in touch

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Richard

Well brainmail is finally up. Two issues no less (don’t worry, that’s unlikely to happen again). BTW, if there are any journalism or media students out there that fancy helping out with future issues do get in touch.

So what else is new? Well I should have taken more notice of one of my computers when it said its memory was full. It crashed a few days ago taking 22,450 emails with it. All of the files were backed up, but none of the emails were. Hopefully I can get them back, although there is something rather liberating about having lost them all.

The books are going well. 50* is done and is being fact checked, although fact checking things that haven’t happened yet is proving rather fun. The other book (4*) is almost done, but needs a significant degree of polishing. Getting some scenario logic right is more difficult than I expected, as is separating the four scenarios, which have a tendency to merge together if you turn your back on them for more than a few days.

Other news? Some good stuff coming up with KPMG, GE and the London Business School and I’m almost back on the road with trips to San Francisco, Hong Kong, Lisbon, Frankfurt and Prague.

The image, btw, is the structure of the second book.

* Working titles.

Past views of the future

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Richard

I’m researching a few ideas for one of my new books and just came across an old book called Looking Backward: 2000-1887. The book was written in 1888 about someone that falls asleep in 1887 and wakes up in the year 2000 to a socialist utopia. Here’s a bit of it.

“It was the sincere belief of even the best of men at that epoch that the only stable elements in human nature, on which a social system could be safely founded, were its worst propensities. They had been taught and believed that greed and self-seeking were all that held mankind together, and that all human associations would fall to pieces if anything were done to blunt the edge of these motives or curb their operation. In a word, they believed — even those who longed to believe otherwise — the exact reverse of what to us seems self-evident; they believed, that is, that the antisocial qualities of men, and not their social qualities, were what furnished the cohesive force of society … It seems absurd to expect anyone to believe that convictions like these were ever seriously entertained by men …”

What’s quite interesting about this, and other books like it, is they seem to go to one of two extremes – utopia or dystopia. Why is that do you think?

Why ten is the safest number

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Richard

A few years ago a statistical study of murders in New York City highlighted some interesting trends. The study, covering all 1622 murders that occurred between 2003-2005, found that men (including boys) were responsible for 93% of all murders.

Victims tended to be other men and boys and in more than 50% of cases the attacker and the victim knew each other. 75% of victims and offenders were also of the same race. 90% of killers and 50% of victims had criminal records. In other words, Joe Average has very little chance of being randomly killed in New York City.

The most likely time to be killed was between 1am-2am and children are usually
killed by a parent not a stranger. Age 10 is the safest age for kids because they tend to be too old to be abused or neglected and too young to get caught up in violence on the street. The most alarming adult crime trend was that 25% of murders were committed by complete strangers, usually due to a dispute of some kind. This was up 50% on 50 years previously. As for why (and why the overall murder rate had declined), the answer was primarily social factors. Crime ere generally the result of local poverty, family disruption, poor schools and a lack of recreational or work opportunities.

Steam punk heaven!

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Richard

This is too cool for words – a way to integrate your iPad with a manual typewriter keyboard. I don’t even own an iPad, but may now have to buy one just to get this out on the train (or you can synchronize with a standard PC or Mac, but that wouldn’t be quite so portable). Does this mean anything? I mean why do I want one? Is it just a pure nostalgia trip or is it saying something about our relationship with modern technology? You tell me!

More here (including DIY build instructions) or buy complete thing here via etsy.

Creative Cities

Posted on February 11, 2012 by Richard

Found this last week…

Between 1551 and 1801 the population of London grew from 80,000 to 865,000. This was despite the fact that during this period overall deaths exceeded births in the capital. This can partly be seen as London attracting migrants with energy and ideas, but can also be seen as people moving from the countryside because they had no choice, with traditional industries such as agriculture, spinning and weaving being hollowed out by mechanisation.

Digital cash – nothing to see

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Richard

Here’s a link to the PDF of my 2012 map. Regarding Europe, which features heavily towards the centre of the map, I had an interesting chat with Anthony Hilton from the Evening Standard the other night about the European situation. He made the very good point that the EU is targeting the wrong problem.

The issue isn’t European solvency, it’s European competitiveness (or the lack of it), especially in southern Europe. That’s why there’s a problem with debt.

Also a good piece in the Telegraph this morning about QE (i.e. printing money). This, too, was on the money in the sense of highlighting how the UK government is playing with fire by digitally printing money to buy it’s own debt. You heard that right. It’s buying its own debt – to the tune of £50 billion (on top of the £275 billion it has already bought). Had the government actually printed real money and we saw truckloads of it being shifting around the city there would, no doubt, be an outcry. But it’s digital so there’s nothing to see.

What happens if you buy your own debt? In the short term a transfer from savers to debtors – so thrifty pensioners will be hit hard while profligate borrowers (who partly caused this mess!) will have access to further funds. Doesn’t seem right really. We are allocating vast amounts of money to individuals and institutions that speculate, or transfer money from one place to another, rather than putting it in the hands of people that actually invest in wealth creation and jobs.

As to longer-term impacts, who knows? This is part of the largest money printing experiment in modern history.

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Diary of an accidental futurist – observations on current & future trends