Social Media Fatigue

Posted on by TheOneAW

I have often wondered about social media fatigue, maybe it’s because I have noticed over the last decade that there comes a time in the year; not necessarily regularly, that I just get tired of social media. Zuckerbergs baby as I call it is the one that is gripping my shit at the moment. It maybe that they have changed the algorithms that show you stuff you see on a regular basis to that end that you never see anything fresh! Is it just the fact that it just churns out the same timeline every day when you login to your page. Dorseys baby seems to be following a similar algorithm, however at least you can go off and find stuff more easily and then follow the twitterati that are posting. I have always loved twitter for it’s ability to break news, is it therefore a disruptor still?

I see information on my timeline that is posted minutes and sometimes hours ahead of the major news services such as Reuters, CNN, Foxnews. It could of course just be a geographical advantage whereby Europe is ahead of the game still when it comes to news stories and the USA has to play catch up despite there being staffers over here in the EU. Most news agencies have an office in a capital city in the EU countries and also around the world.

Getting back to the fatigue, is it solely because we are overwhelmed in information supplied to us by smartphone, tablet and computer that the brain just really cannot be arsed to deal with some of this stuff all the of the time,? How relevant is the curating system and algorithms in these systems ? We have seen the fallout from some of the apps with the closure of Cambridge Analytica even though the company claimed a witch hunt by Channel 4 News. I don’t personally agree with the way that they were collecting data to profile voters for any election, it smacks of subliminal advertising from the cinemas in the 50’s and the UK banned it.

There is now a bleed over of advertising from Facebook into its new toddler Instagram which it bought in 2012, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun, six years ago as I write this piece. I would love an algorithm that lets me automatically ban advertising from my timeline in Instagram, now before the advertisers get hot under the collar, let me explain the reasons; 1) its very annoying, 2 ) see one 3) see one! An advert autoban would be nice, is it the future ? Will you have to pay for it? frills free, advert free social media? After all if I really want to look up something why not use a search engine? Are we becoming that lazy that we just want to link click and then get frustrated, raise blood pressure because the link doesn’t take us to the right page straight away. I am currently trying out a different social media platform called Vero . One of the joys of the platform is it has a usage chart, it shows how much time you spend in the app. This seems to have been caught on by Apple and Google on the back of the outcry over people permanently glued to their smartphones.

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I just put this picture in to see if you were awake still, I try not to write stuff that will send you to sleep!!
So in conclusion I pose the question is social media by directing what you see in your timeline manipulating your worldview either directly or indirectly? And will the incurious therefore be directed down an alley of no return?

Election Time on the Isle of Man

Posted on by TheOneAW

 

Well here we go folks, it’s election time again on the Isle of Man however these aren’t elections that the public have any say or matter in. These are the elections to the Legislative Council, one of the two houses of the Isle of Man Parliament known as Tynwald. The other house being the House of Keys which is elected by the populace every five years unless of course a member can no longer continue due to ill health, jail or some other incapacity.

I should of course declare an interest in case anyone thinks I am going off on one. I stood along with two other members of the public last May when a vacancy became available in the Legislative Council, it was a massive learning curve for someone who had previously had very little interaction with politicians apart from when they came round looking for your vote every five years.

Anyway this time around there are five seats available on the Legislative Council out of a possible eight; the other seats are made up by The Bishop, the Attorney General and the President. Here is  Tynwald   as it currently sits. The way you get nominated to stand for election to the Legislative Council is to find two Members of the Keys who think you may or may not have a chance and then find two more who will act as your Assentors. With me so far? good. Now all you have to do is convince the rest of the members of the House of Keys that you are capable of doing the job. What is the job you may ask and rightly so, well I can’t put it in a nutshell as it would be pretty huge but if I was to tell you that the role of the Legislative Council is changing you would think it would be like nailing jelly to a wall. Not quite, there was an inquiry and report by Lord Lisvane on the Review of the Functioning of Tynwald. And as a follow on to that there was a Select Committee on the Functioning of Tynwald.

So after you have read all of the reports, submissions and everything else what lies ahead for the candidate, once nominations close there are the hustings, this is a little like Mastermind but with potentially 24 questioners not one. If you want to watch me squirm and eventually forget that there is a camera a yard or so away from me have a look here!

So finally this year after four members of the Council decided not to stand again and one member decided to resign; we now have the situation of five vacant seats on the Council. As of the 13th February 2018 there is the  list of the runners and riders for the Grand Legislative Council Runoff on the 12th March 2018. This list closes on Friday 23rd February 2018 (and should autoupdate as people come forward in the dying days of the closing date. ) As you may have noticed if you were interested enough to have a look at the excellent local web TV Isle of Man TV you’ll see that there are number of interviews of the candidates for this election on the site, I was interviewed myself but because I am not proceeding with my nomination it won’t be shown. Another ten minutes of non fame!

But what next for the future? Will the elections to the Legislative Council become elections by the populace or will they within the ‘gift’ of the Keys? does this  therefore mean that political patronage will ensure that any attempts to continue to modernise Tynwald have the potential to fail. Public perception, as can be ascertained from the numerous pages on Facebook and other forums, give the range of opinions from snouts in the trough, an anachronism, old boys club for MHKs, through to complete ignorance as to what the Legislative Council do or what they are about. It will be interesting to see how Tynwald evolves with regard to the Legislative Council and it’s place in the future of isle of Man politics. It will also be interesting to see how the Tynwald PR machine continues to work to enhance the public image of both Houses of Tynwald in the future.

In the meantime on a personal note I wish all the candidates well in their election hopes and dreams; look on the bright side there will be another election in two years for the Legislative Council

 

Chamber_Ent

(entrance to Tynwald)

The English obsession 

Posted on by TheOneAW

It’s quite a mundane topic really..the weather. We English can be quite reserved, we rarely speak to strangers in trains or in fact on any mode of transport; preferring to bury our head on a newspaper or these days ‘zoning out’ with a headset on with our favourite tunes rebounding around the inside of our skulls….However should you happen to start a discourse with anyone from our fair Isle and I include for the sake of completeness,the smaller islands within the United Kingdom continental shelf (in case they feel left out) regarding the weather then look out.

Its like pulling the scab off a boil. The eyes let get it go  and the brain goes into overrdrive. No other topic can wind us up like the weather.

Weather Forecasting on the Isle of Man

Posted on by TheOneAW

Despite the best efforts of the Met Office at Ronaldsway Airport,  weather forecasting continues  to be a dark art on the  Isle of Man.

As an example let’s take the latest weather forecast from Ronaldsway

Dry this evening and overnight with the light to moderate east or north-easterly wind turning east or south-east and becoming moderate to fresh, locally strong later. Lowest overnight temperature around 4 Celsius.

Now while I admire anyone who went to University, spent years practising their trade (without or with the aid of super computers at Exeter) there is a slight problem on the Isle of Man, it’s called micro-climates, these are the little things that to a local, explains why you can drive from Douglas in bright sunshine, pass through Crosby six miles away with the wipers on the car going full tilt and then emerge into bright sunshine again at Greeba, approximately a mile and a half outside Crosby.

This also leads to the TT phenomenon ( microclimates not rain) whereby the Practices will be held up due to mist on the Mountain Section, while the rest of the course is usually bathed in temperatures of up 24 Celsius, although on one rare occasion when I had the delights of Marshalling on Bray Hill, it was actually the Mountain and Ramsey in bright sunshine and the Start to Quarterbridge in the mist. Obviously not very safe for riding at speeds at the time of unto 115mph.

So what does the local do to correct this standard or nonstandard deviation in Manx weather, well depending on where you’re living a number of factors can be taken into account. If you’re situated in the West the usual practice is to look to the coast and see what sort of rubbish is blowing in from  Northern Ireland, they say if you stand on Peel Headlands and you can see Scotland and Northern Ireland then the weather is usually going to be abysmal within forty eight hours. If you stand on the Headlands or Peel Hill or any points on the west coast and you can’t see anything then tough, you’ve mistimed your walk and you’re probably right up to your neck in a Force 9 with rain at the horizontal, for the locals amongst us the usual rejoinder is ‘ a bit of a breeze’ or  us transplanted Londoners ‘it’s a bit tasty out innit’.

Those residents lucky enough to live on the northern plains of the Island have a number of choices, usually these follow along the lines of walking out the front door, doing a 360 whilst gazing into the distance like a man in the crow’s nest hoping to glimpse land, although if you are doing this you’re more likely to see a ship either coming down the east coast past Ramsey or going across the top of the Island from Stranraer to Larne.

Residents in the south of the Island have the enviable delight of knowing when the mist is down on the South usually due to the lack of the paper plane not being able to land at Ronaldsway Airport, this has been known to cause chaos in the past with postmen setting their alarm clocks ( or not) by the sound of the paper plane arriving in over Castletown on the flight path to Ronaldsway and on days when the mist arrives being late for work and turning up grumpy.

People in living on the east coast are lucky, they just have to ring up friends on the West and ask what the weather is doing , because usually an hour later they get the weather that’s come in from the West.

So there you have it a brief guide to weather forecasting (or not) on the Isle of Man and why it’s just the safe option to stick your head out the door and see what’s going on around you.

Off to a footie match

Posted on by TheOneAW

off to The Bowl in Douglas for Peel AFC  v Corinthians in the Warehouse Fitness  Womans FA Cup final. Peels second cup final this year, hoping they bring the silver home today.

Looks like the weather is improving for it too, very cold and wet this morning, still a gloves day 🙂