My Missing Past

I decided to download my Facebook History yesterday to see what I'd been posting two years ago. To do so, log in, go to account settings and it's at the bottom. facebook emails you a link, which you click on, and then enter your password to verify your identity.You then download the history, which in my case was nearly 16Mb. It was a dull read, made all the more interesting by the fact that nearly 6 months of posts are completely missing. What's going on? Is this yet another rolled-out feature that is not actually ready to be rolled out or is something more interesting going on? I'm guessing the former, but if Facebook can lose so much data, what happens when the authorities go knocking on their door with a warrant for someone's history to use as evidence in a court case and they can't produce it?

A Decision on the Side of Sanity

The Guardian is reporting that teaching the nonsense of Creationism (and it really is complete nonsense) will be outlawed in the UK's free schools. This is great news. Creationism is nonsense, plain and simple. Its proponents claim that because the Theory of Evolution is "just a theory", then why not open the floor to other theories?

Let's be clear about this. The word "theory" in science is a very closely defined term. It is not a hunch but the result, in the form of a long chain of explainable evidence, of a systematic investigation into the way the universe works, and from which we may deduce that it does work. We know evolution happens. We can see it at work in our hospitals and in the wild as bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, and in the colouring of moths. But more importantly, there's the fossil record. We can see it happening with out own eyes over millions of years. It is not a hunch but a conclusion backed by overwhelming evidence..

Creationism is a load of old toot with no basis in fact. It isn't even a philosophy ...or even a hunch for that matter.

An Industrial Revolution Waiting To Happen

Last summer, I read something that has been bothering me ever since. It was in New Scientist and the link is Here.

It's been bothering me, I think, because of the way that manufacturing was abandoned in the early '80s in favour of financial services. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul is not an economy. Now that the causes of the global crash have come to light, that much is certain. What's also certain is that the people with the most liquid wealth (not lines of credit but money in the bank) are the ones who actualy make things and save the profit.

Monetarism, plus the stupidity to trade potentially bad debts in the hope that they'll only go bad after you've sold them on and screw whoever bought them, has brought us to this sorry state. It's been the dominant doctrine in the West for 30 years. It has led us to finance a lifestyle that gives us the illusion of being wealthy, when all we really are is in debt. I know someone who was made redundant a year ago, and despite having a potential pot of £20,000 sat on the drive in the shape of a 4x4, wouldn't part with it because of what the neighbours might think. It's a mark of how deeply we as a culture have come to believe our own illusion.

Meanwhile, the Chinese, for all their faults, now have the fiscal wherewithal to bail out (perhaps "buy out" would be a better word) whole countries. They, with their traditionally lax attitude to intellectual property and copyright, have made and sold us things, while we've borrowed from each other in the scramble to afford those things. We've been chumps chasing shiny things to extend the illusion.

The illusion isn't working. If what you're doing isn't working, the sensible to do something else, right? Isn't it time we started manufacturing again and generating wealth ourselves? I think it is. This brings me back to the the article I linked to above. We're about to begin the third decade of life online. Buy a domain name, customise a free web template, open a PayPal account and you're a business. But how do you manufacture things to sell? Can you write? There are places, like Lulu.com,  that will publish books on demand. You upload the manuscript, someone buys it, Lulu prints and sends the finished book. Can you design an object? Again, there are 3D printing shops that will print out and send your design to the customer. Got an idea for an app? Find a free programming course online and write it. Need to publicise your idea? What else are Facebook and Twitter all about? Exploit them.

OK, these are simple and obvious examples that sprung readily to mind, but the point is that there's a robust, mature, global infrastructure already in place with all the services and people you need to know to get an idea off the ground, and which you can use at minimal or zero cost to simply see what happens. If your idea doesn't work, fine, you've lost nothing but the time you would have spent servicing or increasing your debt. But if it takes off, wow! Be kind, socially aware and pay something back in thanks - along with your taxes.

Isn't this approach better than worrying about whether you can make the mortgage payment this month and keep the credit card companies off your back? Just add ideas and some belief in yourself.

SALE EXTENDED

Yes, that's right. You can pick up the full Naked Mentalism series for 50% off (75% off with a Lulu 25% coupon code). The sale MUST end at midnight on Wednesday.

50% OFF GLOBAL THANKSGIVING SALE!!!!

I think I must be going crazy. Over at Books By Tomo, I'm having a 50% off global Thanksgiving sale on all books and ebooks. Ends Sunday. This is your chance to pick up those missing volumes at rock bottom prices and to enter a new world of psychological mentalism. Click on each title to see the sale price.

Praise for Naked Mentalism

Permit me a bit of a brag here, because I feel rather good today after reading Bob Cassidy's good thoughts about Naked Mentalism on the Magic Cafe:

"Finally started reading Naked Mentalism 3 (and the first two as well), and I must say this is refreshingly good and amazing material. Well thought out routines with the kind of presentational subtleties that are the hallmark (or should be) of professional mentalism.

Highly recommended."

Documentation Is Part of the Project Too!

Over the years, I've used a lot of open source software, and during that time a common theme has emerged. Open source developers are great coders, but overall, the standard of the user documentation can leave much to be desired!

True story: I was once commissioned to write an article for a magazine showing how to install an open source personal automated IP telephony package. The software itself had lots of dependencies, which I dutifully downloaded, complied and installed. Then, at around 4am and about 75% of the way through, the documenter seemed to have become bored. He ended the documentation with a phrase like: "There are a bunch of other things you'll probably need to do to get this running..." What the f**k...? That's not documentation; it's a joke.

Much more common are user guides and other documentation that are simply out of date. When a new release means changes to the way you install or use the software, the instructions need updating. They are a VITAL part of that release. People do not have time to plough through your code trying to work out what the hell you mean. We are not mind readers. We are your users. Trying to get software to run is not the object of the exercise: using it to complete a task is.

I fully realise and applaud the fact that the open source business model involves allowing the software to get to whomever can benefit from it, and to charge for consultancy, customisation and books showing how to go deeper, but come on: basic documentation is the difference between an enthusiastic user buying your time or books and thinking your stuff is the worst piece of digital excrement ever to stink up a hard drive.
 Thank you.