Category: Uncategorized

Struck in this story initially by the reference to nursing in contrast to health-care-management. Sometimes people are robbed of any intrinsic “job satisfaction” by their management systems. This medical example is the Dr James Willis “Friends in Low Places” agenda. Engagement with the task skills and their primary objectives is a key factor as Richard Sennett’s “The Craftsman” would suggest in the news story. Of course for some jobs such aspects may be hard to find or value, so perhaps not everyone should expect to find that kind of happiness in their work, but I’m not so sure.

Chris Wilson’s new book “Healing The Unhappy Caveman” would suggest that evolving human minds should not expect to find happiness in daily life anyway. He may be right, but again I’m not so sure after the intro and one chapter so far. I think the key we will find is in understanding where that satisfaction arises, and why it is valuable to pursue it the right way. I shall read on and report back.

Perhaps I’m the eternal optimist as one commenter on the news story suggests.

Cooling effect of Moon’s shadow on the earth’s atmosphere during an eclipse, moving across the earth’s surface at supersonic speeds, may be the source of very-low-frequency “infrasound” (ie inaudible to humans) shock-front that tips off some birds and animals to the approaching eclipse.

Excellent edition of “In Our Time” today, on the subject of the ancient library at Nineveh. Another example of the “enthusiastic scholar” in Karen Radner, but all good contributions.

As well as the general Assyrian / Babylonian cultural history, including Gilgamesh and the even older myth of the Great Flood, it was fascinating to hear the myth of the fish (long-lived human-sized Tigris carp) as wise advisers to the even-longer-lived and disease-free humans in the times before the flood.

After the flood, all had changed for humankind. So many allusions. A fall from grace. Babel-fish, and so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the … Douglas Adams references. [And how could I forget the “Salmon of Wisdom / Knowledge” and DNA’s “Salmon of Doubt” – Comment from Dermot below.]  Also another specific interest for me in Nineveh / Carchemish / Leonard Woolley and T E Lawrence. Libraries destroyed by fire; Nineveh, Alexandria, “Name of the Rose”, oh, and Guisborough my original home town. Must add links to all those referenced allusions …

[Post Note : The recycling of mythology in cultural undestanding of real knowledge is fundamental to the defining moment of “Arrive Without Travelling“.]

[Post Note : Conversation with DMB on MoQ.Discuss – The programme also mentions that ironically, if the library at Nineveh had not been torched, then future archeologists may never have found the Gilgamesh / flood tablets. Here’s a thought; how many of us would have known of the Afgan Buddha’s if they had NOT been parttially destroyed by the Taleban; how many US citizens would have known that Bablyon was the cradle of their civilized world if they had not been plundered in tthe course of their “war on whatever”. Perhaps myth has more lasting value than the contents of libraries and museums, however outrageous their deliberate destruction ? Perhaps they benefit from being converted back into myth ocasionally.]

Interesting that this case was successful. If MySpace can be protected by the law what about every other social network or e-mail service. My WordPress Blog gets 100’s a day, 1000’s a month, and my GMail e-mail accounts get 1000 and 3000 apiece each month.

The (free) spam filters are 99% effective, but it’s a criminal drain on resources. I really believe in the idea of charging for all e-mails, posts and comments – just a very small marginal cost would raise significant money for some worthwhile cause, but would price the malicious timewasters and freeloaders out of business

I relegated my manifesto from the blog header to a subsidiary page just last weekend; it includes that phrase “seemingly irrational”, which this letter also uses ….

Your article (How did no-win, no-fee change things?, 7 May) bears out the fact that the “rise” of no-win, no-fee is more of a perception than a reality. But it’s a powerful perception, and one that is often the root cause of seemingly irrational decisions to require schoolchildren to wear goggles to play conkers, but not to wear them in the swimming pool when the chlorinated water irritates their eyes! My profession, health and safety, then gets saddled with the blame. But the reality is that it’s not a result of advice given by health and safety professionals – rather officials seeking an easy way out of a difficult decision or racked with unrealistic fears that they might be sued should something go wrong. Modern health and safety practice is about striking a sensible balance. Unfortunately, it’s a powerful and believable excuse for some in positions of authority. Health and safety professionals are not interested in preventing people from doing activities that have gone ahead without serious harm for generations. We want people to have good fun – in a safe and healthy way.
Ray Hurst, IOSH President, Wigston, Leicestershire.

Healthy balance being destroyed by “enforced” choices … enforced by the decision-making psychology, not by any reality or necessity to do so.  Perception is the root cause.

Let that be a lesson to anyone thinking of converting to Catholicism. Should have stuck to his day job, and worked for mid-east peace as he suggested he would do when he stepped down. The power-crazed ego-trip backfires.

Hate to blog about the knowledge angle of this, but it was interesting at the Christmas 2004 Tsunami that wreaked havoc in Thailand and Aceh / Indonesia, that hundreds were also killed in Myanmar, but the closed-to-media environment meant that this barely registered in international news for some time.

This cyclone seems to have killed thousands (three days ago) 4,000 some said, more than 10,000 now according to official statements. A real tragedy. At least Myanmar is prepared to share it with us.

[Post Note – Wow – what a disaster – now 22,000 dead and further 41,000 missing. And by the by, I notice we’ve reverted to “Burma” again – same word phoenetically of course as “Myanmar” – but the BBC is usually pretty pernicketty about such things. Nay a catastrophe 100,000 dead estimate by US diplomat. I notice the US press are using “Myanmar”.]

Yesterday I noticed yet another web 15th birthday story.

The usual Tim Berners-Lee / CERN story proposing and then releasing URL / HTML / HTTP freely. The precise birth of that “web” depends on which point in that process you consider significant – the proposal to do it (1989), the agreement to do it, the doing of it, or the agreement to let it go free (1993).

The point that always confuses me is the DARPA TCP/IP story – I’m guessing that’s the invention of the internet – network of interconnected communications – (as opposed to the web of information on the internet).

From memory that packet-based redundant / multi-route connectivity was invented for reasons of secure (US) military communications so that messages broken into packets on multiple, random network routes could never be (easily) intercepted, and a receiver could always know if a packet had been lost, since the message could not be rebuilt without it – secure as in reliable.

Let me check. Yep, that’s it – ARPANet in 1967/68. I guess the perspective that agitates W3C people is the “free” collaborative standard aspect as opposed to the earlier military need aspect of ISoc. 20 years between the internet and the web, but it “took off” when the web information standards were set free, since the important internet comms standards were already free to use.

[Post Note : Even spam pre-dates the web; almost as old as the Arpanet itself, 30 years.]

A poll of the top 100 public intellectuals, in Prospect Magazine, with an interesting take on not just voting but also suggesting an alternative; plus a blog-meme that I picked-up from Sam, to list:

(1) those with whom you could carry on a conversation.
(2) those with whom you’ve actually had any contact.
(3) those who are must-read and those who are unworthy of the listing.
(4) those you have read some, and intend to read more before confirming an opinion.
(5) those you would add to the list.

As Sam says, the number unread or unrecognized just adds to your reading list. I see Zizek appearing again – not read yet. Anyway, coming soon … my lists:

Died yesterday aged 102. Blogged twice about his 100th Birthday.

Also this interesting story today on the effects of LSD too … change that is, created by people who were affected by it.