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.

Naked Mentalism 3 - RELEASED TOMORROW

At long last, Naked Mentalism 3 is finally released tomorrow. It'll be available from Books By Tomo and also from some rather lovely magic dealers. They're also carrying the other two books in the series. Here's what splendid things people say about these books:

"I have no problem standing behind this material 100%. I use it. I used it tonight at the Living Traditions Festival in SLC. It was a hit all night. I booked the gig by performing the Naked Book Test for an agent over the phone" - Jerome Finley

"I am now able to accurately describe people's thought processes. The impact of this cannot be overstated. It really feels like the 'real deal' because, essentially, it is." - Matthew 'Malchat' Schouten.

"This book is immensely powerful and potentially dangerous in the wrong hands" - Thomas Korelin (Naked Mentalism beta tester).

"Clearly you love our art, Jon, and that’s truly shown in your new book. Very valuable information and great approaches. My good energy and blessing for you and your future Naked projects!" - Pablo Amirá

“This book, I believe, takes Paul Brook's 'Alchemical Tools' and shafts it, which is a compliment! I absolutely adore the credit/debit card effect. Simple, yet brilliant. And the approach to readings in chapter 11? Fantastic!” – Chris Beard

“I can talk about this book for hours on end but suffice to say that whomever buys it will be launched from the realm of Mentalist to the realm of Psychic, and the beauty is that whatever Jon says can be checked and proved correct." - Roni Shachnaey, mentalism and bizarre magic guru

Seeding the Torrents

I've started to place corrupt versions of Naked Mentalism 1 & 2 on P2P networks. Such larks...

Nervous Times

Naked Mentalism 3 is nearly ready for release, and as usual I'm getting increasingly nervous. Will people like it? Will they understand it? Will anyone want it?

The feedback from the people who have read the manuscript recently has been very good and positive, but that never stops me from feeling that when it's released, people will hate it. When I released the first volume, I wondered if this nervousness ever goes away. It doesn't, but it's probably a good thing because it makes me try harder to create something of quality and worth.

Sell-By Food Shops

I watched an item on the news this morning about "dumpster diving" for food thrown out by supermarkets simply because it's past its sell-by date. A shocking statistic flashed on the screen. The US alone throws out billions of pounds in weight of perfectly good food every year simply because it is "time" to do so.

In the UK, the big supermarkets have basically gang raped the hell out of our high streets, and local councils have held their coats while they did it. Up and down the UK, high streets lost small businesses as the likes of Tesco expanded into everything from dry cleaning to prescriptions. no one was there to help them and that was wrong of us. I propose a new law that taxes the supermarkets to fund a chain of high street stores that cheaply sell the "past sell-by" food they currently throw away.

Naked Mentalism 3

I don't usually talk about my magic books in this blog, but about 5 years ago, realised that I rather liked using my smarts to come up with new material for magicians. Perhaps the thing I'm most known for inside magic is Naked Mentalism, which has to do with using genuine psychological principles in magic - specifically mind magic or "mentalism". I'm currently readying Naked Mentalism 3 for sending out to trusted friends to read and pick apart, and I thought it'd be good to throw caution to the wind and share what it's all about.

Volume three marks quite a departure in the series. By that, I mean it focuses on the way in which mystery entertainers can exploit the naturally occurring "bugs" in the way we use common sense thinking. It is the business of experimental psychology to discover these bugs. Rather than showing how to avoid them, this book shows how to use these bugs to enhance effects of all kinds (not just mentalism effects) to make them seem more natural and all the more remarkable. As well as containing more traditional "Naked" effects, this, I think is the "breakout" volume of the Naked Mentalism series because it spills quite naturally into other areas where the techniques I reveal are also applicable.

Needless to say, I'm very excited about this book, and excited to know what the magic community at large think about it.

New Life

What's this? Hits on my little blog after all this time?

Hello new readers! I see you're predominantly coming from the Make It Macclesfield forum. Stick around, have a read and, hopefully, a laugh at previous posts while I try to think up some new ones.

Hmmm...

If the US has killed Osama Bin Laden, where's the body?

It's been a long time...

...but I think it's time I started this blog up again. The world's become even more stupid than it was a year ago.

The lost art of conversation...

So, the ISPs (including phone companies) have begun to retain data on our digital lives for 12 months.

Under EU regulations, the "where and when" of all digital communications must be retained. that includes all mobile phone calls, emails, etc. However, the content of those communications isn't being stored. The idea is that a web of associations can be drawn up to link one suspect with another, regulated by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act. However, isn't this the same RIP act that local councils have been using indiscriminately to detect petty crime?

I'm sure I'm not the only one to figure out that by simply eschewing digital communications, there are literally dozens of ways to avoid having your associations recorded. I suspect that any organised criminal worth his salt will be using face-to-face meetings in anonymous places at pre-determined times, for example. Maybe sales of books and DVDs featuring spies will increase. After all, such stories are filled with the techniques used by the very people whose job it is to avoid having their communications noticed.

The rest of us are simply filling yet another useless government database (of sorts ) with noise.

Jason Lewis Watch... part 94

Well, it's Sunday and, as predicted, the Daily Mail has published yet another story on its RSS feed by Jason Lewis telling us how our privacy is under threat. This is getting predictable. In fact, clicking on Mr Lewis' name shows a long series of sometimes scantily supported stories. 'A spokesman' could be anyone (or no one), for example.

Yes, the idea of Big Brother expanding its reach into the lives of innocent people is something that needs checking, but I keep thinking maybe it would be a good idea to extend my reach into the Daily Mail by calling and asking to speak to Mr Lewis, just to make sure he's real. If he exists, I have a few questions...

The North Korean satellite fib...

The BBC reports that North Korea has failed to get anything into orbit. The US military says that the two-stage rocket and its payload crashed into the Pacific Ocean. The really funny thing is that North Korea insisted for a while that the satellite had reached orbit and was transmitting data back to Earth ...the little liars.

That this was almost certainly a test of a long-range missile capable of hitting the continental US is immaterial. What's galling is that this pointless missile programme exists in the first place. There's no warhead to put atop it. No, what's really galling is that North Korea can't feed its own people. It relies on food aid. It is a country whose borders aren't just to keep others out. It is home to one of the last brutal totalitarian regimes.

The suspense...

Well it's Saturday afternoon. The Grand National has been run, and the football played. However, there's still one thrill left. What will be the scaremongering national security story posted to the Daily Mail's RSS feed later tonight by by Jason Lewis? I can't wait!

MPs have needs too...

"Wacky" Jacqui Smith has submitted an expense form. That's not unusual. Perhaps frustrating for anyone who's ever tried to get legitimate expenses signed off, it's a bit much that hers contained the bill for her Virgin Media cable package. While we leave the tabloids to infer and sniggeringly imply what she may get up to in the privacy of her own home after it came to light that the bill included two porn films, let's examine her reaction to being caught putting a domestic expense through as a legitimate business one.

"I am sorry that in claiming for my internet connection, I mistakenly claimed for a television package alongside it. As soon as the matter was brought to my attention, I took immediate steps to contact the relevant parliamentary authorities and rectify the situation. All money claimed for the television package will be paid back in full," She said in a statement.

Fair enough, you may think, but if her husband (whom she's reportedly "furious" with) could order up pay-per-view skin flicks, it's not a simple broadband connection she's got - it's a full high-speed cable package. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't pay for the internet connection separately in a cable package. It's an all-in-one deal. If the charges for each part of the package were itemised, however, how did she mistake the high figure for the total package for one of the lower itemised charges? Did she even fill out her own expense claim?

There's a far more interesting aspect to this story, however. The natural conclusion many people will have jumped to after learning about Smith's porn bill was that she enjoys having, shall we say, a lovely relaxing time with a bit of porn. Go on, admit it - you did didn't you. However, the films were watched on 6st and 8th of April. Smith wasn't at home at the time. What a let down!

The interesting aspect is that the data collecting facilities Smith wants in place to collate details of our lives will ultimately be analysed by humans who are capable of making equally misguided inferences about us. If she doesn't learn that this can lead to some erroneous yet compelling conclusions that may ruin lives or worse, when the hell will she learn?