If we love our children and want them to thrive, we must allow them more time and opportunity to play, not less. Yet policymakers and powerful philanthropists are continuing to push us in the opposite direction — toward more schooling, more testing, more adult direction of children, and less opportunity for free play.
Peter Gray, psychologist, writing for aeon Magazine
Right now I want to invent time travel for the sole purpose of finding my pre-fatherhood younger self and slapping him every time he claims to be “very tired”.
#lunch in progress…
Winter sun on the #beach
That’s a win… @smallbatchcc in #shoreham-by-sea
[youtube www.youtube.com/watch
Damn you, Coke, for catching the new parent experience so very, very well. It’s the cut between the pre- and post-parenthood living room that does it, I think.
[via CoCreate]
Uh-huh.
#leweb bloggers - serious business
Strangest #hotel corridors ever…
Liveblogged notes from a talk at TEDxBrighton 2013
Little Red Riding is a story about womanhood.
And by that, Carol means periods.
The wolf devoured Red Riding Hood’s grandma. And it devoured Carol’s grandma, too. It was called endometriosis - and it caused pain during sex and periods, and eventuallymade her infertile. It hurt her granddaughter, too. Before Carol knew sex wasn’t meant to be painful, she was divorced…
Odd solutions have been tried – a red rubber ring to prevent deep penetration. The base problem is that we have many organs crammed into a small space. The cells can grow anywhere – we shouldn’t just call it a gynological condition.
Carol’s an accountant. She loves statistics. They’re great. One in ten women have this condition. There are as many women with this condition as with diabetes. It takes seven and a half years to diagnose it (on average). She saw many, many doctors – including one who put her symptoms down to moving house. She had surgery at one point – and shaved off all her pubic hair as a result of a conversation with her brother about her nerves about being “tidy” down there. Surgery becomes part of your life.
In the last 10 years, she’s lost four years of work through surgery, and recovery. Think how much has been lost through lost productivity – and yet nothing is done. She ended up having a complete hysterectomy. So she threw a “bye bye” uterus party. They made her a fluffy one…
Her woodsmen have been doctors and surgeons. She climbs mountains in pink knickers to make a point – but we have to do things like this to raise awareness and make sure our daughters don’t have to go through this. She can talk about it. Now we can too. Pretending it’s not there isn’t going to help anyone.
The wolf is devious. It can hide in any woman. Let’s talk about it. Let’s break the taboo and slay the wolf for good.
Liveblogged notes from a talk at TEDxBrighton 2013
Little Red Riding is a story about womanhood.
And by that, Carol means periods.
The wolf devoured Red Riding Hood’s grandma. And it devoured Carol’s grandma, too. It was called endometriosis - and it caused pain during sex and periods, and eventuallymade her infertile. It hurt her granddaughter, too. Before Carol knew sex wasn’t meant to be painful, she was divorced…
Odd solutions have been tried – a red rubber ring to prevent deep penetration. The base problem is that we have many organs crammed into a small space. The cells can grow anywhere – we shouldn’t just call it a gynological condition.
Carol’s an accountant. She loves statistics. They’re great. One in ten women have this condition. There are as many women with this condition as with diabetes. It takes seven and a half years to diagnose it (on average). She saw many, many doctors – including one who put her symptoms down to moving house. She had surgery at one point – and shaved off all her pubic hair as a result of a conversation with her brother about her nerves about being “tidy” down there. Surgery becomes part of your life.
In the last 10 years, she’s lost four years of work through surgery, and recovery. Think how much has been lost through lost productivity – and yet nothing is done. She ended up having a complete hysterectomy. So she threw a “bye bye” uterus party. They made her a fluffy one…
Her woodsmen have been doctors and surgeons. She climbs mountains in pink knickers to make a point – but we have to do things like this to raise awareness and make sure our daughters don’t have to go through this. She can talk about it. Now we can too. Pretending it’s not there isn’t going to help anyone.
The wolf is devious. It can hide in any woman. Let’s talk about it. Let’s break the taboo and slay the wolf for good.
Liveblogged notes from a talk given by Aral at TEDxBrighton 2013
Today we stand at a crossroads. One road leads to a digital free land, where we own our own data and services. The other path leads to digital feudalism, populated by digital serfs. They don’t have the option to own their own services or devices, let alone their data.
We’ve gone from big, cold computers in rooms, to cybernetic extension of ourselves. They either empower us, or enfeeble us. If they’re so essential to our lives, it become important to ask “who owns the tools?”. The answer is the companies that supply them. Facebook, Google and Apple are all closed companies. Many of the tools they provide are free – and you might think that it is awesome. You’d be wrong.
Here’s an example: Schnail Mail will be awesome; it’s a new (fictional) startup, that will give you free physical mail around the world for ever. Admittedly, they do read all your letters – but it’s only to make your life better – to tell you about things that might help you.
Not excited? Yet – you use Gmail. It does that. Why? It’s their business model. They monetise your data. Google needs data to grow. reCaptcha allow security – but also help Google digitise books. Why is a Nexus phone half the price of an iPhone? It’s a gorgeous data entry device.
What’s the end game? Connectivity. If your internet sign in is your Google ID, they get data whatever device or service you use.
In the US they created the Information Awareness Office – but it was never really shut down. The Edward Snowdon leaks show us that. They’re collecting everything. Why? because it’s easier for governments to ask for the data you’ve volunteered to them. Eric Scmidt once suggested that if you don’t want something you do known – maybe you shouldn’t be doing it. So clearly he’s sharing his defecation, maturation and sexual habits online. Or not.
Terms and Conditions may apply is a movie that explores these ideas and is well worth watching.
What’s the alternative? Open technologies. They’re not easy to use. It doesn’t matter if the source is open, if it’s not accessible to you. That’s closed to some people.
For example, take Firefox OS – an open source phone. Aral got one for a week. And it was a mass of terrible user experience mistakes. Open is still feature-driven. It’s stuck in an older age. It’s a trickle down theory of technology. It doesn’t work for economics, and it doesn’t work for consumer tech. Features don’t trickle down to consumer in usable form. We’ve been giving people PCs for 30 years when they want iPhones. We called them stupid – but we were.
The age of features is over. We’re in an age of experiences. We need to create a new category of open technology. We need to create design-led open companies. Design is about saying no to things. Great design is a symptom of a design-driven companies. We have two categories of closed companies: feature-driven and experience-driven. We only have feature-driven ones in the open space.
Indie Data is about empowering regular people with open tools that empower them while allowing them to own their own data. Support the pirate party, the EFF and the Open Right Group.
We stand at a crossroads. He wants us to join him on the road less travelled.
[youtube www.youtube.com/watch
Strange ducks they breed in these parts…
Hazel and I are making art!
Ah. #london #architecture - that’s better.
It’s before 9am and I’m taking photos of a #pub. What does this say about my life?
That @neilperkin draws a mean skull and crossbones…
Tunes station while Hazel sleeps in the car seat.
I may have a battery “problem”.
Training and thinking…
Night flight to Venus. No, wait, it’s Gatwick. Never mind. #easyjet
Mmmm. #Arches.
Welcome to #berlin
