Brilliant article from Cory Doctorow about writing in the age of distraction. Every word is pure gold, savour it!
I am a serial offender in this respect: I used to insist on the right environment long before the internet was around to distract. Thus I would find myself having to wash up before I sarted to write because the washing up would distract me; doing the washing, dusting, hoovering before I could start even though I didn't worry about those things being undone when I wasn't writing.
I'd make tea, get food, warm up or cool down the house... it could easily take three or four hours to get everything set up, and then the slightest thing - a phone call, a noise from outside, the washing finishing - would distract me.
I realise now it is the discipline of doing a small amount every day that I should be focussing on, and hope to make myself do it.
Happy New Year!
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Floating designs for climate refugees
Stumbled upon a site for a green architect, trying to design buildings that clean the atmosphere rather than polluting it, and saw this fascinating design for a floating city for climate refugees. If the predicted global rise in sea levels takes place, some places (Maldives for example) will disappear. If they still "own" the territory, then this may be a workable solution, who knows?
I heard Rachel Brett from the Quaker United Nations Office talk about the new discussions which are taking place about climate refugees and how this will differ from refugees displaced by war or famine. It hadn't ocurred to me that there might be a difference until she pointed out that the choices for someone whose homeland has literally disappeared (or become completely inhospitable to human life) would be somewhat different from those driven out of their homes for some other reason.
I heard Rachel Brett from the Quaker United Nations Office talk about the new discussions which are taking place about climate refugees and how this will differ from refugees displaced by war or famine. It hadn't ocurred to me that there might be a difference until she pointed out that the choices for someone whose homeland has literally disappeared (or become completely inhospitable to human life) would be somewhat different from those driven out of their homes for some other reason.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Remembering and Forgetting... a 21st century poem
A poppy for a broken man
A butterfly for a child-shaped hole
A pink ribbon where my friend once was
and rosemary for remembrance.
A kiss for any broken skin
A hug for every child in need
A phone call for a friend who lives
and love can heal the world.
November 14, 2008
A butterfly for a child-shaped hole
A pink ribbon where my friend once was
and rosemary for remembrance.
A kiss for any broken skin
A hug for every child in need
A phone call for a friend who lives
and love can heal the world.
November 14, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Obama the Builder
Well, every blogger in the Universe will be blogging today about the American Presidential elections. I am afraid that I didn't stay the course, fell asleep about 2am, leaving my children following the wall-to-wall election coverage on tv. "Do the Americans watch coverage of our elections?" asked my daughter. Er, no.
I was still wondering whether Americans would be able to elect a black president as I fell asleep... I wondered whether the huge turnout for the elections indicated a late surge for Obama or a mobilization of those trying to prevent him from reaching the White House... maybe it was both.
To be honest I find it amazing that Americans will wait in queues for three or four hours in order to vote. If we had to do that here, I think there would be riots... I have never waited at all. It's strange to me that Americans can be so demanding and complaining in some respects and yet so accepting in others.
In the UK schools and community centres are turned into voting stations, and the system works to ensure that if you want to vote, you can, with a minimum of queuing or difficulty. I don't really understand why it is otherwise in the US. The other thing I found very surprising was a picture of people reading a four-page guide to voting which seemed amazingly complex. I know they don't just vote for president in the elections, but a four page guide seems... well, like it might be an obstacle to voting. And likely to mitigate against people with an aversion to paperwork successfully voting.
A turnout approaching 80 per cent in some area and a landslide victory seems to indicate that the American people were determined to have a change no matter what difficulties lay in their way... and so when I woke this morning it was to Obama making a speech of acceptance. My brother has been on duty all night at television centre in the UK. He hates night shifts, has to rely on a large dose of caffeine to help him through. He wonders if the Americans realise they have elected not Joe the plumber, but Bob the Builder for president. Can we do it? Yes, we can!
My son was the only one in the household who managed to stay the course and watch the coverage throughout. He is completely uninterested in UK politics, and yet has been very interested in the US election. That seems to have been universal here... I think people have come to see how much US actions have hurt the UK in the past eight years, and to realise that although most Americans have little interest in UK politics (or even knowing where the UK is, in many cases) they need to take notice of what the Americans do, because it will bite us in the pocket among other places if we don't.
I don't know what the future will hold. I hope that Obama will close down Guantanamo Bay, and will reverse the policies which have led to the homeland security oppression in the US. I hope that he succeeds in bringing peace and prosperity to the US, not simply because of the knock-on effects to the UK if the US experiences a prolonged recession, but because I think the ideals of America worth a damn... freedom and democracy and human rights... have been eroded over the past eight years and it is in the interests of everyone on the planet for that to be reversed.
I was still wondering whether Americans would be able to elect a black president as I fell asleep... I wondered whether the huge turnout for the elections indicated a late surge for Obama or a mobilization of those trying to prevent him from reaching the White House... maybe it was both.
To be honest I find it amazing that Americans will wait in queues for three or four hours in order to vote. If we had to do that here, I think there would be riots... I have never waited at all. It's strange to me that Americans can be so demanding and complaining in some respects and yet so accepting in others.
In the UK schools and community centres are turned into voting stations, and the system works to ensure that if you want to vote, you can, with a minimum of queuing or difficulty. I don't really understand why it is otherwise in the US. The other thing I found very surprising was a picture of people reading a four-page guide to voting which seemed amazingly complex. I know they don't just vote for president in the elections, but a four page guide seems... well, like it might be an obstacle to voting. And likely to mitigate against people with an aversion to paperwork successfully voting.
A turnout approaching 80 per cent in some area and a landslide victory seems to indicate that the American people were determined to have a change no matter what difficulties lay in their way... and so when I woke this morning it was to Obama making a speech of acceptance. My brother has been on duty all night at television centre in the UK. He hates night shifts, has to rely on a large dose of caffeine to help him through. He wonders if the Americans realise they have elected not Joe the plumber, but Bob the Builder for president. Can we do it? Yes, we can!
My son was the only one in the household who managed to stay the course and watch the coverage throughout. He is completely uninterested in UK politics, and yet has been very interested in the US election. That seems to have been universal here... I think people have come to see how much US actions have hurt the UK in the past eight years, and to realise that although most Americans have little interest in UK politics (or even knowing where the UK is, in many cases) they need to take notice of what the Americans do, because it will bite us in the pocket among other places if we don't.
I don't know what the future will hold. I hope that Obama will close down Guantanamo Bay, and will reverse the policies which have led to the homeland security oppression in the US. I hope that he succeeds in bringing peace and prosperity to the US, not simply because of the knock-on effects to the UK if the US experiences a prolonged recession, but because I think the ideals of America worth a damn... freedom and democracy and human rights... have been eroded over the past eight years and it is in the interests of everyone on the planet for that to be reversed.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Only connect
Although of course I knew from a very young age that a baby has two parents, it wasn't until I was nearly middle aged that I understood the implications of what I knew. Family history taught me that my number of direct ancestors doubled as I went back each generation: two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great grandparents. It doesn't take a genius to work out the maths.
The working forward of that thought didn't come until later. I have twice as many ancestors as my mother...she had twice as many as my grandmother...who had twice as many as her mother. My children have twice as many as me. Their children will have twice as many as them.
The trouble is, that much like the old story of the mathematician's payment, where a ruler was asked to pay one grain of rice, or wheat (depending upon who tells the story) on the first square of a chessboard, and two grains on the second, doubling up with each square, you soon get into the realms where you feel as though someone is slowly tryng to turn your brain inside out.
Three greats: 32; four:64; five:128; six:256; and so on: 512; 1024; 2048; 4096; 8192; 16, 384; 32, 768; 65,536; 131,072. 17 generations back and you have one hundred thousand ancestors, and the numbers seem unimaginably huge. But actually, allowing for 30 years a generation on average, seventeen generations only takes you back to about 1500... and the beginning of a problem. The numbers appear to accelerate enormously quickly over the next few generations: 18 is 262, 144. 19 generations back comes to 524,288; and 20 comes to over a million... 1,048,576. So your total ancestry going back to around 1380, would be around a million people. Hold...on...though.
In 1377 the adult population (over 15 years of age) were subject to a poll tax, and so we have good records about the number of people in England at that time. There were 1,355,201. So go back another generation... to around 1350... you will have 2,097,152 ancestors in theory. Which is many more than the adult population of England at the time.
Even allowing for the ravages of the Black Death, which removed about a third of the population of London in the course of 1348-50, there are still too many ancestors for the number of adults.
Now it is already obvious from my own family that the same people turn up in the family tree over and over again. If cousins marry, then the lines of family ancestry will join together with the same couple appearing as grandparents on both sides of the family. This has to account for the conundrum that although you have in theory twice as many ancestors each time you go back a generation, the maths doesn't add up once you are in the 14th century.
My feeling is that anyone with an English ancestry is probably related in some unknown way to any other person with an English ancestry. We are all cousins, and family. Probably that's true of all people, everywhere, because once you go back a few more generations, you need the adult population of the world to account for all the ancestors.
I enjoy family history because it moves me in a way that political history never could. Initially I thought it was the thrill of finding out about my own ancestors... but it isn't, because I feel every bit as thrilled about researching other people's families. I think it is simply that history on a personal level; the history of people, their story, is touching because you can always project yourself into the person's place, and understand their lives in a much more empathetic way than the wars and machinations of government.
Family history research has convinced me that we are all connected, and that time is much shorter than we think. Where once I would have thought of 14th century England as a place far removed from my daily life, and the people as being a long way from the people of today, I see that there are no real differences: the people living then were not much different from the people living today. 500 years, in the context of the history of the world, is hardly an intake of breath, it is no time at all.
It always amuses me when I hear someone from a documented ancient lineage say: of course my family goes back to the time of the conqueror.... Yes, so does my family - and your family - and the next person's family. By dint of us being in existence, we all have ancestors who were alive back then, and the chances are, they were related. In fact the population of England must have been fairly static for a few centuries, because there are estimated to have been about 1,250,000 to 2,000,000 people around the time of the Domesday survey.
So next time you see a picture in a gallery of an illustrious 15th century merchant, or a peasant in the fields, don't look upon them as a stranger. The likelihood is, if you have English ancestry, that they are your grandfather or grandmother - or aunt or uncle, cousin or sister. We are all related, and all connected, and we should celebrate that.
The working forward of that thought didn't come until later. I have twice as many ancestors as my mother...she had twice as many as my grandmother...who had twice as many as her mother. My children have twice as many as me. Their children will have twice as many as them.
The trouble is, that much like the old story of the mathematician's payment, where a ruler was asked to pay one grain of rice, or wheat (depending upon who tells the story) on the first square of a chessboard, and two grains on the second, doubling up with each square, you soon get into the realms where you feel as though someone is slowly tryng to turn your brain inside out.
Three greats: 32; four:64; five:128; six:256; and so on: 512; 1024; 2048; 4096; 8192; 16, 384; 32, 768; 65,536; 131,072. 17 generations back and you have one hundred thousand ancestors, and the numbers seem unimaginably huge. But actually, allowing for 30 years a generation on average, seventeen generations only takes you back to about 1500... and the beginning of a problem. The numbers appear to accelerate enormously quickly over the next few generations: 18 is 262, 144. 19 generations back comes to 524,288; and 20 comes to over a million... 1,048,576. So your total ancestry going back to around 1380, would be around a million people. Hold...on...though.
In 1377 the adult population (over 15 years of age) were subject to a poll tax, and so we have good records about the number of people in England at that time. There were 1,355,201. So go back another generation... to around 1350... you will have 2,097,152 ancestors in theory. Which is many more than the adult population of England at the time.
Even allowing for the ravages of the Black Death, which removed about a third of the population of London in the course of 1348-50, there are still too many ancestors for the number of adults.
Now it is already obvious from my own family that the same people turn up in the family tree over and over again. If cousins marry, then the lines of family ancestry will join together with the same couple appearing as grandparents on both sides of the family. This has to account for the conundrum that although you have in theory twice as many ancestors each time you go back a generation, the maths doesn't add up once you are in the 14th century.
My feeling is that anyone with an English ancestry is probably related in some unknown way to any other person with an English ancestry. We are all cousins, and family. Probably that's true of all people, everywhere, because once you go back a few more generations, you need the adult population of the world to account for all the ancestors.
I enjoy family history because it moves me in a way that political history never could. Initially I thought it was the thrill of finding out about my own ancestors... but it isn't, because I feel every bit as thrilled about researching other people's families. I think it is simply that history on a personal level; the history of people, their story, is touching because you can always project yourself into the person's place, and understand their lives in a much more empathetic way than the wars and machinations of government.
Family history research has convinced me that we are all connected, and that time is much shorter than we think. Where once I would have thought of 14th century England as a place far removed from my daily life, and the people as being a long way from the people of today, I see that there are no real differences: the people living then were not much different from the people living today. 500 years, in the context of the history of the world, is hardly an intake of breath, it is no time at all.
It always amuses me when I hear someone from a documented ancient lineage say: of course my family goes back to the time of the conqueror.... Yes, so does my family - and your family - and the next person's family. By dint of us being in existence, we all have ancestors who were alive back then, and the chances are, they were related. In fact the population of England must have been fairly static for a few centuries, because there are estimated to have been about 1,250,000 to 2,000,000 people around the time of the Domesday survey.
So next time you see a picture in a gallery of an illustrious 15th century merchant, or a peasant in the fields, don't look upon them as a stranger. The likelihood is, if you have English ancestry, that they are your grandfather or grandmother - or aunt or uncle, cousin or sister. We are all related, and all connected, and we should celebrate that.
Kiva: microfinancing entrepreneurs
I had one of those web and virtual world connections-leading-to-a-connection things we all experience. Last night I went to the perfomance of the Wall in Second Life, and then to the after-show party. While there, I saw an avatar dressed in some great clothes, and followed the creator to her shop, To The Nines.
Looking for information about the creator, I found the LeeZu Baxter blog, on which she mentions that LZB makes a donation to Kiva. As I hadn't heard of Kiva, I followed the link and found a wonderful thing.
Kiva is a website which matches people who have money to lend with entrepreneurs who need microloans to enable them to grow their business. There are fantastic stories on the website which make the loans personal, show what a wonderful thing it is. Visit it!
Looking for information about the creator, I found the LeeZu Baxter blog, on which she mentions that LZB makes a donation to Kiva. As I hadn't heard of Kiva, I followed the link and found a wonderful thing.
Kiva is a website which matches people who have money to lend with entrepreneurs who need microloans to enable them to grow their business. There are fantastic stories on the website which make the loans personal, show what a wonderful thing it is. Visit it!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Ecological living
My son introduced me to stumble upon, and as I am currently suffering from back pain, I have spent a little time this morning stumbling over a variety of wonderful things. Go, sign up!
Among them is the story of this house in west Wales, built for £3000 in a farmer's field, with natural materials. I am sure that the article written by the mother of the family glosses over some of the difficult times which they must have experienced in the building of the project, but the result is just gorgeous, and I WANT it.
I have always loved buildings which have an organic shape... I like the buildings designed by Hundertwasser, by Rudolph Steiner and Gaudi. I think people respond to organic buildings and love them... which means the market isn't effective in producing what people want to buy, as new buildings are generally angular and ugly, not curved and beautiful.
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