ThinkingShift

I vaguely remember Sunday School classes when I was a kid. My father was a Christian Scientist (no, nothing to do with Scientologists) and his mother was a Christian Science practitioner and so I was raised according to the religious teachings of Christian Science. I remember feeling really worried in high school because some dude declared Christian Science to be a “cult” and I thought OMG are my father, grandmother and ergo me part of a cult? Would we go the way of the People’s Temple or those sorry dudes waiting for that UFO to whisk them away in the Heaven’s Gate fiasco?

Well, nope that hasn’t happened but I did get caught up in trying to figure out and understand all the messy relationships in the Bible (because I studied it in my undergrad History degree, we had to know it pretty well). So I really could have done with some information visualisation of the rich social networks in the Bible and all the people and places. Apparently, there are 2619 names mentioned in the Bible so keeping track of that is pretty darn hard.

But Chris Harrison, a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, took the list of names, parsed the King James version and when two names appeared in the same verse, a connection between those two entities was created. Cool. And here’s how an SNA of the Bible looks:

The background is the entire text of the Bible, whilst the names are the Biblical names he’s mapped. Font size of the names is proportional to the number of occurrences in the text. To do the maps justice and see the rich connections, you’ll need to download the high resolution versions (it took me ages as they’re over 100mb each, but well worth it so you can see the weave of connections).

Chris has also been busy having a look at Wikipedia. As he says: “Wikipedia is an interesting dataset for visualization. As an encyclopedia, its articles span millions of topics. Being a human edited entity, connections between topics are diverse, interesting, and sometimes perplexing - five hops takes you from subatomic particles to Snoop Dog. Wikipedia is revealing in how humans organise data and how interconnected seemingly unrelated topics can be”. He calls this project WikiViz. The map below is five levels deep, centred on the topic Music.

And here’s the Wikipedia Top 50 from August 2006 to May 2007:

Other projects on Chris’s site include a set of visualisations that display how cities across the globe are connected. Go and have a look at all the projects and fascinating maps on his site - I got lost for a couple of hours.

Thanks to Chris Harrison for giving me permission to link to his maps!

I’ve only recently started putting my photos on Flickr as I’ve been using another photo sharing site. Seems the Library of Congress is the same as me: a late starter on Flickr. Whilst rummaging around on Flickr, I found the Library of Congress is making copyright-free images and photos of historical and cultural interest available so that the public can tag content. It’s a pilot project but there’s already some amazing stuff:

• the 1930s and 1940s in colour collection
• 1500 photos from 1900-1920 New York depicting disasters, sports events, strikes and celebrities (yep, even way back then, we were celebrity-obsessed apparently)

And what is really exciting is that a trio of photos had been incorrectly labelled by the Library of Congress as images from the administration of Ulysses S. Grant in 1869. A user was browsing through the online collection of photos and alerted the Library to the high probability that the photos were from 1865 and therefore from the Lincoln administration. The Library checked the negatives and confirmed that the podium shown in the photos was that of Lincoln and not Grant.

According to the Library of Congress blog, there are more than 14 million photos and other visual materials but the project is starting off modestly with the two collections mentioned above. The Library is hoping that key information sometimes missing from photos, such as who took the photo or where the photo was taken, will be provided by the public tagging items.

Flickr has created a new publication model for publicly held photographic collections called “The Commons”. If you want to participate, here’s the FAQ site.

I spent hours on the Library of Congress Flickr site. Here are just some of the images that caught my eye and I’m tempted to answer the question “How would you tag this photo?”:

There’s something about the power and drama of an old black and white photo that (IMHO) modern DSLRs can’t quite match. Have a browse through the collection - you’ll wonder what people’s lives were like and you’ll become caught up in the history and stories.

Source: Los Angeles Times

I just had to rant about this. I was actually thrown out of a major Sydney hotel the other day. Yes, me! Now, this was not for diva-like behaviour or dressing badly. Nope. This is how it all started.

I brought my camera into the city so I could take some photos of urban fragments - doors, windows, graffiti, urban art, abandoned and decaying stuff and so on. I don’t take photos of people as they don’t really interest me. So it’s not as though I was about to cruise the streets of Sydney a’la Google Street View, snapping the unsuspecting citizen on some street corner.

I was opposite a particular major hotel - I won’t name the hotel. I was focusing on some archways to the right of the hotel. I wasn’t even focusing on the hotel itself. This dude came over and asked: “what are you doing?”. I felt like saying: “playing a game of golf, what does it look like” but said: “I’m taking photos”. A back and forth conversation then began: why are you taking photos? what are you taking photos of? who are you?

Now, some of you might think I excelled in showing extraordinary patience with this dude. After all, I didn’t even know who he was. I finally lost said patience and asked who on earth are you? Turns out he was one of those dudes who open taxi doors for incoming guests of the hotel.

I then decided to go into the hotel itself and take some photos of windows, vases and so on. I thought it would probably be a smart move to make myself known to the concierge. I showed some ID and told him the truth: that I belong to several amateur photography clubs and wanted to take some photos of their art deco windows. He said “should be okay, but let me check”. A PR dude then materialised, asking the same set of questions.

Once I confirmed that I would not take any photos that would identify the hotel or of people in the foyer, I was told “nope, you can’t take any photos”. I asked: “See that window up there? the top part of it? how about that? It doesn’t show any identifying features”. Nope, was the answer and I was asked to leave.

Undettered, I set off for two well-known buildings in Sydney - both have lovely architectural details and both are major tourist attractions. Although privately owned, I’ve seen many a tourist happily taking videos and snapping away. First building - I was up the top level trying to get a perspective shot when a security guy came along. Same questions: who, what, why?

Standing about 12 metres to my right was a guy taking a video. I asked the security guy about this - if you’re asking me what I’m taking photos of, are you asking that dude too? And what about those two ladies over there taking photos of the ceiling?

Get ready for the reply: “Oh, they’re tourists”. Okay. So tourists (who of course could be terrorists masquerading) are allowed to take photos and videos but an average citizen can’t? Despite protestations that I’m simply taking photos of architectural features, I was turfed out.

Off to the next building, feeling a bit like an urban terrorist. Up on the top floor. All alone. This is good I think to myself; I should be able to take some good shots of balcony features. What I didn’t notice was the CCTV camera behind me (yeah, I know: me of all people not spotting CCTV). Just as I was about to snap away, another security dude materialised. Same questions; same outcome for me.

Now, I realise that security has tightened up since 9/11 and being a lawyer, I realise that buildings are private property. I’m told by photographer colleagues that they are well-prepared for interrogation, so they go armed with ID; a fluorescent jacket so they look “official” and therefore might avoid getting asked questions; they even take a photo album along to prove they are simply taking photos. Guess I’ll have to kit myself out in camouflage gear from now on!

So the humble, amateur photographer interested in exploring architecture and the textures and urban fragments of city life is reduced to taking photos like these:

Crap photos of public seats and fire hydrants because these urban features don’t seem to draw the attention of skittish security types. I would, however, think that a creative terrorist could think of something to do with public seats and fire hydrants!

Obviously, the hotel in question was also concerned about image: God forbid the hotel should be photographed by an amateur photographer. But I also drew some worrying glances from people on the street who saw me taking photos of things like fire hydrants, stuff abandoned on the street and so on. And I had to be particularly careful not to be in any way looking as though I was taking a street view with people in it. One dude asked me “why are you taking a photo of me?”, when I was taking a photo of peeling paint (he just wandered accidentally into the shot).

I’m always told when I carry on about surveillance and privacy that people don’t really care if their photo is taken as they wander down the street. People don’t mind if Google Street View snaps them or if a CCTV camera freeze frames them. My experience wandering the streets of Sydney tells me perhaps otherwise.

I realise that buildings imply security, hence the questioning. But tourists are allowed to take photos and amateur photographers aren’t? I was even bailed up by a city officer whilst trying to snap a public garbage bin. So I’m not sure what photos you can and can’t take these days. Guess it’s back to the flowers, the butterflies, the cats and the dogs (and make that street dogs and cats, because owners might even object to a candid shot of kitty being taken!).

One year ago today. What were you doing? I was toying around with the idea of starting this blog. And so I started ThinkingShift one year ago today - January 26, 2007. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I started the ThinkingShift blog on Australia Day. Good timing, even if I didn’t realise it then.

It’s been a great year. I’ve managed to upset quite a few people on social networks - the climate change naysayers particularly. Matt Moore has outed me for having “something of an obsession with the uses & abuses of surveillance technology”. And I’ve collected a lot of LOLCats obsessed people and a few alien believers along the way.

I’ve had over 82,000 visitors in the last 12 months, which is about 6, 800 visits per month. Thanks to everyone who’s been a regular reader, has left comments or emailed me suggesting topics. I’m way behind on a few of these special posts for particular readers, but it will happen!

So, I thought I would look over what have been the most popular topics and photos over the last year. What have people most enjoyed? Well, the photo that has been looked at the most is this little fellow:

An unusual species of flying fox recently discovered on Mindoro island in the Philippines, not long after it was said not to exist.

This cutie was closely followed by these two.

The first is a squirrel clearly chilling out and the second is of Max. Lots of people have emailed me asking why collies appear regularly on ThinkingShift and are there two collies or is there just one? Well, to clear up the mystery: the photo above is of Max, the wonder collie. And the photo below is of Tyler, Max’s brother and top dog.

Max and Tyler belong to a great friend of mine but I count them as my godchildren

The top post was ThinkingShift Species Watch number 3 on the top 10 animals that are about to disappear due to human encroachment, deforestation or loss of habitat. This was closely followed by a post on privacy and surveillance (yeah, I’m not alone!), which outlined the disturbing piece of US legislation known as the “Thought Crime Bill”. In fact, mostly any post I do on privacy and surveillance attracts good readership, so hopefully that means I’m not the only person concerned about these issues. The most controversial post (which had me accused of being a Neo-Nazi) was Creeping Fascism, a post that had me in an email tussle with some 18 year old dude in the US.

You may have noticed that I’m not doing daily posts at the moment. This is largely because I have taken up photography again and been sidetracked by participating in various photography groups on Flickr and practising with my new Nikon camera. My current photographic obsession is with urban fragments: graffiti, urban art, decaying buildings, peeling paint, abandoned objects. I might try to do some sort of photo journal approach this year.

But recent emails have asked me to follow-up on special topics, one I particularly wish to get my teeth into. The question to me was “Why is it that people don’t seem concerned about surveillance and eroding privacy?”. Yep, good question; I ask the same one. Another one was: “Does increased surveillance mean a decline in democracy?”. So I’ll get onto these questions and keep bringing you interesting, curious, bizarre or amusing things.

Meanwhile, happy Australia Day to all Aussie ThinkingShift readers. And to all my international readers, I leave you today with a photo that I recently took. I was lucky to capture this superb butterfly who was literally waiting on a flower camera-ready. He was very patient with me while I fumbled around trying to get my best shot. I suspect he’s had many an amateur photographer desperately snapping away!

Regular ThinkingShift readers would know that I love a good doomsday prediction or two. Is the human race going to be kicking around still in another 1000 years or will we have been snuffed out by our own stupidity, a super volcano blowing its stack or the Mayans being right about December 21, 2012?

So today’s post brings you some of the latest apocalyptic End Times scenarios. Forget global warming, there are more serious things to contend with if any of these predictions turn out to be true.

Mayan calendar: 2012 could be it, kaput. Another four years to go. The Mayans created their calendar 5,122 years ago and they set the expiry date after thirteen 394-year baktun cycles. Just in case you’re not fully up to speed with the Mayans, that expiry date is December 21, 2012. Great…just before Christmas! We’ll go up in smoke accompanied by volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and a comet or two smacking into us. But the author of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, Daniel Pinchbeck, thinks we shouldn’t panic because the concept of apocalypse means ‘uncovering’ or ‘revealing’ and so 2012 will be a catalyst for a transformation in human consciousness. Good to know: guess I don’t need to pack the cat just yet then. But there is a word of warning from New Age guru, José Arguelles, who says we should just accept the 2012 apocalypse, don’t fight it because those who do will be carried away on silver ships. To where, I’m not sure.

If we don’t get wiped out in a Mayan inferno, then we might need to duck lava and hot ash spewing out of a super volcano. I’ve finished rereading Simon Winchester’s fabulous book, Krakatoa, which left me wondering when that famous volcano’s child, Anak Krakatoa, might blow up. Perhaps I needn’t fret because there’s a super volcano hiding under Yellowstone National Park in the US that could be far more to concern ourselves over. 640,000 years ago this volcano had a mega hissy fit and Greg Breining, author of Super Volcano, says this volcano is due for “another shake up” (witty guy). Should it erupt, it will take a chunk of Earth far larger than Mt Everest with it. Mmmmm….wonder if that chunk will include Australia. Apparently, the way to survive this cataclysm is to head west of Wyoming since the jet stream blows East and will carry far less ash and debris going West.

Honey Holocaust. This one isn’t about super killer bees. Since 2006, honey bees have been vanishing. It’s said that Albert Einstein once muttered: “”If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live” - although Einstein most likely didn’t say this. Nevertheless, the disappearing bees is a serious matter. Bees pollinate more than a quarter of the world’s food supply, so no bees equals no honey, no fruit or veges and so on. The solution would seem to be to learn how to be a bee keeper super fast.

Then there’s the usual predictions of pandemics but global health experts expect a global pandemic that might make the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918 look like the common cold. H5N1, aka bird flu, is seen as the likely suspect for a pandemic. Although not easily transmitted to humans, 61% of people who have contracted bird flu have died. Virologists think that should H5N1 mutate, the death toll would be in the billions. I must say that I’ve always thought that a pandemic is the most likely doomsday scenario - how many more people can our Earth withstand before Nature turns on us?

Blue gold. We’ve heard this one repeatedly in recent years - a future scarcity of clean H2O - which may lead to conflict, famine and huge disruption of food supplies. More than a billion people lack access to safe water and 3.4 million people die each year from water-related diseases. An estimated two billion people are expected to have no access to clean water by 2050. China and India, superpowers-in-waiting, already face issues with the infrastructure necessary to distribute and clean water. The problem is really a fast-growing global population and its need for food rather than a lack of water.

Resistance is futile. Here’s one I hadn’t heard of before. Do you know what telomeres are? The DNA of nearly every life-form contains telomeres—protective coverings on the ends of chromosomes that aid in replication and linking. Over the course of generations, telomeres degenerate and erode and this has been linked to ageing, cancer and diabetes. So it’s a ticking time bomb - a countdown to extinction. Some scientists are linking the increase in cancer, for example, with telomere degeneration.

Gray-goo. The so-called gray-goo scenario was first suggested by nanotechnology pioneer K. Eric Drexler in his 1986 book, Engines of Creation. This is all about robots going wild. If nanobots break free of their controls, they’ll run amok, reproduce at an exponential rate and ” reduce the biosphere to dust in a matter of days”.

Kick-ass chunk of rock. Didn’t think I’d leave this one out did you! The fatal impact of a comet or asteroid could wipe us out for sure. Maybe it will happen in 2029 when 99942 Apophis, a near-Earth asteroid passes very close to Earth. Most likely it will just be a close brush but this chunk of rock could set up a “gravitational keyhole” - a precise region in space no more than about 400 meters across, that would set up a future impact on April 13, 2036. Said chunk of rock will have a 1 in 45,000 chance of hitting the Pacific Ocean or Denver, Colorado on Easter Sunday. That will sure spoil any chocolate eating on that day! And I guess Bruce Willis won’t be around to save us.

Don’t mess with nature or space. Messing around with human DNA strikes me as not a good thing. And this scenario suggests that some dude in a lab coat could turn things horribly wrong and you might find a human embryo growing inside a rodent. Alternatively, you have the artificial worm-hole scenario. Scientists are suggesting that a short-cut or worm-hole in the space-time continuum could be artificially created. But those of us who spend our time watching Star Trek or Alien movies might wonder what sort of unspeakable horrors lie beyond our known universe just itching to slide down a worm-hole heading to Earth.

Well, better mark my calendar for December 21, 2012 and April 13, 2036 - seem like possible glitches for mankind in the 21st Century, that is if water wars, pandemics, crazy nanobots and eroding DNA don’t get us first.

Sources: Radar Online and Cracked.

You may have noticed no recent posts on privacy and surveillance issues. That’s largely because I’ve been reflecting on surveillance issues from a complexity perspective and crafting my thoughts into some semblance of an argument - expect a post soon.

But Popular Mechanics January issue ran a cover story on new high-tech video surveillance cameras. Scary to read what these new style cameras are capable of. To give you a taste: used by banks, hotels and retail stores, “searchable surveillance” systems automatically create a template of every face that passes in front of the electronic eye. It creates a mathematical model based on the geometry of each person’s face and compares to a central bank of images of known suspects. But the really scary bit I think is that this same technology can also automatically log and analyse events based on an automated object recognition analysis of an entire scene—for example, Joe Blogs met with Jane Doe at 12:45 pm; Doe arrived in a blue car. Because the cost of data storage is now much cheaper, several months’ worth of data can be analysed in minutes.

In the good old days of village life, eyes were of course everywhere and so your neighbour could lift the curtains and spy on you. But contemporary society is Government and Big Business society. It’s an era of Government and business watching us via surveillance cameras in shopping centres, on public streets and even within organisations. But surveillance is not a two-way street; we can’t easily turn the cameras back on them. I was recently in a hotel foyer taking photos of some lovely art deco features and was busted - some security dude wanted to know who, what, when and why. Fortunately, I wasn’t hauled off in handcuffs but it did get nasty for a moment!

But I think the really interesting thing about contemporary society is that we are a video-enabled population. We have camera phones, we can upload a video to YouTube in seconds. So we can turn the cameras back on government and big business and find, for example, the “don’t tase me bro” incident a huge sensation on YouTube (where University of Florida police used a taser on a student). In fact, we have more tools in our hands than those who plant surveillance cameras around us. And we have the distribution channel of YouTube. So whilst we are in the grip of the surveillance society, surveillance tools have become democraticised.

But Government and big business will fight back. Police officers for instance don’t like being snapped by a camera phone perhaps over-zealously frisking someone down or roughing someone up. Retail stores don’t like you taking footage of a security guard dealing with an alleged shoplifter. And, as I found out, hotels are a bit skittish about you taking photos of art deco windows.

In the US for example, HR1955, the Homegrown Terrorism and Violent Radicalization Prevention Act, was rushed through in late 2007. Known as the “Thought Crime Bill”, this is a dangerous piece of legislation IMHO. It’s a piece of legislation aimed at preventing home grown terrorism but its wording is so vague that if a person posts let’s say a video onto YouTube outlining their political views, that person may be inciting violence and the US government, under the legislation, may have the power to take down said video.

HR1955 is aimed at the internet and defines “homegrown terrorism” and “violent radicalization”. The first term simply means the use, planned or threatened use of violence by a US citizen based or operating within US borders; the second term is the more worrying and means “the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious or social change”. (You can read the full text here and check the status of the Bill).

Now the truly scary bit is that HR1955 sets up a National Commission and a network of academic researchers to define certain ideologies as ‘thoughtcrimes’ and it encompasses the concept of ‘pre-crime’. The network of academic researchers and the commission will provide the basis for identifying certain ideologies as “thought-crimes”. Forgot Orwellian, this is more Minority Report with Nazi overtones (Note to Neo-Nazis I recently dealt with - don’t bother emailing me).

You really need to be aware of HR1955. If you’re too lazy to wade your way through the hefty legal text, then check out the video on LiveLeak (just under 10 mins) or watch this idiot’s guide on YouTube:

I found this YouTube video by a young Gothic-looking woman really got to me, particularly what she has to say about her son - I sometimes feel like her, no-one listens or cares about our loss of privacy:

This is anti-freedom of speech legislation. Nazi Germany created the crime of “Volksverhetzung”, which basically meant stirring up the populace through hate mongering or mobilizing against the status quo. Volksverhetzung is simply another term for radicalization.

So whilst the average citizen has its own tools of surveillance and can indulge in sousveillance, proposed legislation like HR1955 (from my reading of it) could be used to:

• suppress and prosecute US based groups engaged in quite legal but unpopular political activism. Who will judge it to be unpopular? The National Commission and academic researchers. So this may see groups like environmental activists (who big business would love to silence); Islamic sympathizers, anti-abortion activists and various right-wing organisations busted for “thought crimes’.

• s899B states: “The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens”. The internet is supposed to be free of Government interference, but not for long by the looks of this section of the Bill. So you could see YouTube videos taken down for example.

• the term “violent radicalization” is vaguely defined and leaves the door open to many interpretations. Socialism, communism, Neo-Nazis, white supremest groups could all be classified for example as extremist belief systems depending on your viewpoint. Heck, maybe even animal-liberationalists and people flinging themselves onto whale-hunting boats will be seen as extremists.

• s899A(4) defines “ideologically based violence” and is so vaguely defined that you are left wondering what constitutes violence. Is it civil disobedience? Is it a peaceful protest rally?

I’d like to think that ThinkingShift readers are concerned about societal issues whether this be environmental or threats to our civil liberties. If I’m right and you are: do yourself a favour and become familiar with HR1955. This post is just an alert and a summary for you. Then tell me what you think of HR1955.

Image source: Popular Mechanics

I was watching American Idol the other night. I was flicking through the channels on my way to Law and Order and stumbled across this sorry dude who was on his way into an audition. All he wanted was “to be famous”, he blurted out to the intrusive camera following his every nervous move. To have people utter his name in awed whispers and to win Grammy awards is his dream. Well, I like a person with ambition but strikes me that we’re in the grip of the era of the microcelebrity. I know some people who are “camera-ready” just in case they end up on YouTube. They announce their glittering social activities on Facebook and post photos of themselves in various states of inebriation from the latest party attended. I mean honestly: does anyone really care?

In a recent Wired article, Clive Thompson sniffed out what it means to be a microcelebrity starting off with the humble blogger. Unless you’re Boing Boing or some other top dog blog, you probably have a few hundred die-hard fans who regularly read your blog - this makes you a microcelebrity. Known to a few, not millions. These few might discuss you, look at your photos on Flickr, Twitter about you and know more about you than you might think. Because blogging is so deeply personal, we reveal snippets about ourselves here, a large chunk there. A blogger’s personality can’t help but shine through.

Some people don’t care if they’re talked about or criticised. Others, like me, remain cautious about what we say or dislike being caught on a video in case it is plastered all over YouTube (I’m told there is one of me on YouTube but I’m too scared to look!). Last year at an overseas conference, I was well aware that a live-blogger was in the audience, so I chose my words carefully during my conference session just in case I was misquoted or my words were taken out of context. But others don’t give a toss.

It’s all about managing your own identity, your brand. YouTube gives us the opportunity to be our own media channel. Facebook provides an opportunity to manage how much of our personal identity we reveal. It provides us with a venue for erecting a false facade about ourselves - I really have a boring life, but hey, look at my thousands of friends and what I’m doing this weekend.

But what I do find curious about today’s Brand Me culture is the number of people who believe they have talent or who truly think that other people give a hoot about what they are doing socially. I know all the arguments about young people engaging with social networks and that old timers are well…old and don’t get it. And I guess you’re becoming a crusty old fossil when you say things like “in my day, people just lived an anonymous life, got on with it and never really desired to be famous or adored”.

Just in case you yearn for worldwide fame and adoration, I’ve come across this interesting resource: How to Become Popular on YouTube Without Any Talent by Kevin Nalts. Nalts describes himself as a “viral video genius” and a YouTube “weblebrity”, with 20 million views of his more than 550 online videos. His free ebook will give you proven strategies and insider secrets to developing a following on YouTube.

I have to admit I’ve never yearned for a following on YouTube, but there are some handy hints about things to avoid. A major trick to avoid if you want a following is….gasp, wait for it….avoid blatant self-promotion. Well, I must say this would take out about 99% of all people out there as blogs, YouTube, Facebook and so on are all about me, the individual, promoting me The Brand. But a quick scan of the ebook does highlight some useful marketing techniques: stick to your brand, package your video, aim for the big finish, topicality drives views.

Okay, so I’m not sure what on earth I’d pop up onto YouTube. I can’t imagine anyone would be interested in me droning on about Knowledge Management (although sadly I think that’s what the YouTube video of me does in fact do!) or yapping on about privacy. LOLCats is covered, so can’t do that. Conspiracy theorists abound on YouTube, so that genre is covered. Oh well, guess I’ll just keep blogging and be content with my fan base of 2 people. And before my email becomes clogged up with my favourite 18-year old gamer once again taking issue with me - yes, I know, I have a blog, therefore I’m a microcelebrity (in my own mind anyway!) and I’m quite happy to keep it at that

As I’m reading and ferreting around the internet, I often come across interesting (if not sometimes disturbing) facts. So today I’m introducing a new, regular feature - the ThinkingShift Fast Fact - short statistical or interesting information on many and varied topics.

I’m starting off with a sobering but important Fast Fact: The lack of pure water is the greatest killer on the globe. Four children die each minute from illness caused by a lack of drinking water. That’s the equivalent of 30 fully loaded Boeing 747s crashing every day – far more than are killed by Aids and malaria combined.

Source: Money Week

This post is going to be about the gentle subject of sleep, but first I have to deal with all the Neo-Nazis who have emailed me following my post on Creeping Fascism. Little did I know that post would spark off such (often puzzling) responses. The emails clearly showed that these dudes hadn’t (a) read my post clearly; or (b) tracked back to the original article. If they had, they’d have realised that there was no suggestion that the US is Nazi Germany, but that the US displays some characteristics of fascism and invites one to explore whether fascist tendencies are taking hold in the US. And so no, I don’t wish to join the Neo-Nazis, thx very much for your invitation.

And to the 18-year old gamer who abused me from pillar to post - you did provide me with some good entertainment especially when you were so vehement in stating that Hitler was not a fascist. Well dude, you might need to go back over your high school texts because fascism is all about individual and social interests being subordinate to the interests of the state or party ie fascism is the antithesis of democracy and Nazism was a form of fascism. And yes, I did censor your comment (the first time I’ve ever done that on TS blog) and you might also like to pick up a dictionary to discover a world of words other than F***. It might help you to construct an argument and engage in debate instead of just being an immature brat.

Okay, that’s off my chest, on to today’s post. How do you sleep at night? I’m not referring to whether you get a good night’s kip but whether you sleep in a soft comfy bed. I must admit I enjoy my sleep and like nothing better than to be wrapped in a duck-down doona with my head resting on satin covered pillows.

Now, if you’ve ever thought about our hunter-gatherer ancestors, you’d know they couldn’t trot off to the local department store to get a king-sized bed to fit all the family members in! Our ancestors slept in sprawling huts or around a fire with older and younger generations entwined - multi generational heaps. The ecology of sleep is quite fascinating actually. In the West, we ensconce ourselves in beds, like a Queen on her throne. Some of us like mattresses that are almost as hard as a concrete slab, whilst others prefer a mattress into which you can gently sink as you waft off to sleep. Do you prefer therapeutic contour pillows or fluffy pillows? Egyptian cotton sheets or seductive black satin sheets? Are you a tummy sleeper, back sleeper or side sleeper? We sleep alone or with a partner.

But our ancestors and other contemporary cultures sleep in a sensorily rich environment. The ritual of going to sleep involved lots of chatter amongst young and old, hunters and wives. It involved stories being dramatically retold whilst fires were stoked to keep everyone warm or wild animals away. There was information exchange and social activity. Domestic animals were often a part of the chaos and confusion. Lots of people coughing, sneezing, snoring, procreating, arguing, laughing. There was context. You were confident in the knowledge that you were not alone and there was safety in numbers.

Western-style sleep, however, is decontextualised. Like Egyptian mummies, we individually wrap ourselves up in our cocoon of a bed. If you’re not in a committed relationship, then someone might fleetingly share your cocoon for a one-night stand. Married couples, tired from the daily grind of work, might give each other a quick peck on the cheek and a “good night dear”. It’s a controlled environment devoid of social clues and nuances. Our beds are solitary capsules, floating off the floor, leaving us alone in the dark in a room we call the ‘bedroom’. An isolated monk’s cell nestled within another cell, the bedroom.

By contrast, a number of cultures exist and sleep in one messy blur of kids, parents, grandparents and animals snoring collectively. The !Kung of the Kalahari desert, for example, sleep when they feel like it - not bound to the clock. Playing games, singing, lengthy discussions and arguments all occur against the backdrop of crashing together. They enjoy interrupted or polyphasic sleep. Western-style sleep (if you get a good night) is an uninterrupted, 8-hour norm.

The siesta of Mediterranean cultures is perhaps a continuation of polyphasic sleep. Using tiny sensors to detect REM sleep, anthropologists discovered that modern, urban Egyptians who nod off during siesta time get on average the same 8 hours that people in Western countries believe to be the healthy norm. But they obtain their sleep in two stages: 6 hours at night and 2 in the afternoon. Mmmm…wonder if the organisation I work for will introduce siesta time?! And apparently to this day, many Egyptians sleep with one or more family members in the same room with windows wide open to the loud, bustling traffic surging through the streets below. Don’t know about you, but I require minimal noise to waft off for a good night’s sleep. And a pitch-black room too. Although when out and about in nature, some bull frogs croaking deeply and rhythmically can definitely send me off.

So sleep is a cultural acquisition and is shaped by the cultural milieu in which we live and breathe. But seems to me that Western-style sleep has lost a lot of richness. What do you think?

Source & inspiration: Discover Magazine

A really interesting piece in the Boston Globe recently about how two companies are bringing the world of virtual interactions into spaces where people can interact face to face. As we all know, kids and young adults today cut their teeth with online social networks, creating friendships and establishing their digital (and real life) identity. Instant messaging, twittering and telling the whole world who you are and what you’re about (via YouTube, MySpace etc) is the norm. It’s the age of the micro-celebrity - you get your 15 mins of fame, which hopefully might spin out to 30 mins or more.

Two Boston companies are using flat-screen digital graffiti boards to display text messages, bringing the virtual into the real world. Using a mobile or cell, people can send messages or pictures to video screens in pubs, clubs and other areas where people socialise. User-generated local content is displayed (author’s phone number is not disclosed) and content can be tailored to the audience.

People can use the screens to display Happy Birthday messages or vote for their favourite bartender or drink. Known as a wiffiti application, the technology could ultimately be linked to social communities. And so you can find out whether your friends are also gathered at the same busy Friday night club or where your fav music is playing. I can only imagine the possibilities of use in schools or for advertising and a screen behind a politician who’s delivering the latest campaign speech might light up with text messages of “lies, damn lies”!

I do have visions though (probably not warranted) of people sitting in clubs and bars staring at lit up mobile phone screens, then lifting their collective heads momentarily to see messages flash up on the big screen - would anyone talk to each other?! And of course a mobile phone number is a unique identifier, so part of me wonders “can you be tracked”?

The wiffiti model is below (Locamoda is one of the two companies pioneering the technology):

One’s life is now on and off the screen. Increasingly, we are socially connected through the conduits of BlackBerries, online social communities and neighbourhoods we belong to and the broader internet. But it seems to me we are somewhere in between, in transition. We are either off the internet or turn the mobile off - and therefore existing in the physical world; or we are on the internet, on Skype, participating in some social network - and therefore occupying another space. We participate in two separate worlds, building identities in both. Maybe wiffiti applications will help to bridge the two worlds.

Image source: Digital Natives