Jaggerian Dissatisfaction Matrix [328]
Greetings from the shed...
Friday has been the longest day of the week. But I’m ok with that.
#TheAction
For days I might spend my time in the village. But I got to head out and about this week. I even got to ride the motorbike.
And the pushbike. In fact I managed a 40 mile mind purge of a ride. Despite a little tech fail with my Wahoo bike computer.
If I program a ride in the app Komoot then share it to my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt2 the Wahoo appears to decide which way round I should do the route. I don’t know how to fix it on the bike outside deleting the route, editing the route on my app and hoping I can then share it to the Wahoo without WiFi. I did 20 miles of the ride clockwise listening to it beep orders for me to turn around before I gave up and headed straight back to my start/end point. It felt like the only way I could shut it up without turning it off and losing my ride data. You would think that it would be smart enough to see if I’m just doing the route in reverse. I’ve messaged Wahoo’s boffins and am awaiting a response.
I’m only using this tech so I can get exercise or find new places to ride during brief windows of free time. I’m looking forward to having the time to just ride and see where I end up.
On the paid work front there was the definite flutter of excitement when I was asked if I was available to deliver some culture change coaching in a couple of months. Especially as it would be in Austin Texas at the end of an already planned trip to America.
I have missed doing this kind of work and hope it happens. With so many workforces and their clients existing in both physical and virtual spaces there are lots of new ways to look at how to implement culture change. I’m hoping to deliver workshops around how shared experiences inform the actions and behaviours of a group who can then role model this across the organisation and beyond.
#ThePictures
Another video for the NYT. Welcome to Londongrad. Pie hits the nail on the head once again.
A lovely film from Mickey Smith and Allan Wilson.
Thanks to @Clair_Slade for sharing this via Tim LeRoy.
Clair is in a jovial race with the Mayor of St Neots at the moment. To win this race she quite simply needs to have more followers than him. Clair is as yet to make the leap to being a supporting subscriber of this publication ;-) …but never-the-less, I have a feeling that if a load of you go to follow Clair over on Twitter (she does loads of cool stuff for the arts and communities) then she might take out a full sub. Thousands read this email and she only needs 114 of you to follow to take the lead.
Will more followers make her happy? Maybe for a moment. But it will be fleeting. It’s not about how many followers you have. It’s how you connect with those you are connected with.
But will more subscribers make me happy?… YES GODDAMMIT YES!!
#TheWords
This dispatch takes it’s title from this article. If you read no further than this article that’s fine. As long as you read (or listen) to it. It will also explain the secret of happiness. I have shared TSOH in this email before, and this article uses an equation not too dissimilar to mine. Many of us know this stuff. But will society ease off the coercing, tempting and subliminal messaging and let us remember?
Substack now has an app. Feels to me a little like centralising a decentralised system. But i’m happy to be proved wrong. There is also the chance that Apple and Google play will now be taking a chunk of any subscription fees when people subscribe in the app. Stripe and Substack already do this and I fear I’ll need to either up the price.
For a long time now it has cost a meagre $5 or £3.79 per month to subscribe. Not all of it goes to me.
Please consider subscribing here and not in the app. In fact now would be the perfect time. Everything else in the world appears to be getting more expensive. But the price you subscribe to now stays fixed for the length of your support.
#TheSound
How Russia uses disinformation as an instrument of war.
Here is a podcast I recorded earlier in the week for supporting subscribers.
I rarely listen to music when assembling this dispatch. This works though. A Turkish band collaborating with a Ukrainian singer.
I’m still adding songs I have shared here to a playlist. At the moment the easiest way is via Spotify. So far I’ve gone though about 215 issues so lots more yet to be added. It’s a long winded job, but if you’re a Spotify user and ‘like’ the playlist I think it’ll continue to update as I add things.
Another plug for Digital Human. This podcast is entitled ‘Collapse’ and in it “Aleks explores how Context Collapse in the social media has impacted our behaviour and well being and what it could mean if this becomes the norm in a potential metaverse.”
At one point they discuss Secondlife and the Guardian sponsored gig that I worked at at as a virtual photographer. I think that must have been Second Fest. I was there. There’s an image in the following tweet.
#TheConsumed
This gluten free courgette and avocado cake was AMAZING.
And this happened as I was in the queue to buy it.
What happens when you pop into Smiling Grape aka LowCostBeer.com in St Neots to stock up on ale, load the top box of the motorbike with cans, then have so much fun riding the long way home that you totally forget about your precious cargo?
Thankfully, on this occasion very little. I was half expecting to open the lid to a foamy hop soup. But I got away with only having to quarantine the unexploded cylinders in the garden bar till they stabilised. If you want to see what I picked up i’ll no doubt log them on Untappd.
I do like Ralfy’s whisky reviews. But wait a minute. That’s not a single malt!
Did you watch it. That was a nice surprise actually. I like his lighthearted approach. Here is a guy who really enjoys what he does.
A conversation in my head.
[Some of the links in this email are Amazon affiliate links. If you can’t find a more ethical place to shop then shopping there might earn me a voucher. But that’s not happened for over a year. You’re all too good :-) ]
Realisation of the week. Why do I not have a Cobb Grill?
When the gas is too expensive or just not there at all, you’ll wish out had one of these to roast your pigeon fillets in wild garlic.
#TheThings
Remember I was looking for an indoor air quality monitor. Well I found one that I quite like. The Aranet4 Home.
After putting a shout out on Twitter, people recommended a few different devices but this one stuck out for me. Firstly it was the easy to read e-ink screen, then I was sold on the compact size and battery life. Finally I saw that the Latvian company that made this are not playing about in the space. They do a lot of IoT tech and sensors for all kinds of uses.
So I contacted the company and they kindly sent me this unit on lone. You can see the full spec sheet on it here but I must say that this is not just any old gadget. It’s a £200 tool that will deliver information defining the condition of your environment. So far I have been testing it around the home and wherever else I might be.
I have found the data enlightening. As I don’t feel the cold much I’ve been flinging windows open where possible. And feeling much better for it. There is only one place I’m struggling to ventilate. The bedroom. (I need permission) I do not sleep well most nights and thought it was the heat. But with the windows closed the C02 creeps right up into the danger zone. We are currently in negotiations as to how to resolve this issue. It’s winter and open windows play havoc with our mediocre heating. I’ll talk about this more at some point. Unless I suffocate in my sleep.
Last night I took the device to an AGM with about 20 people in attendance. It was a big room but the CO2 levels crept up to insane levels. The highest I have recorded.
I showed people the numbers saying we should open some windows but it was close to the end of the night so nothing was done. Even though people were nodding off and stumbling over words I didn’t want to be that guy. Perhaps I should enable the audio alert so it was the device telling them to open windows.
Was the confusion and sleepiness down to bad air quality? Quite possibly. Here is an article penned in 2019 from the Guardian…
“Traditionally, the team say, it had been thought that CO2 levels would need to reach a very high concentration of at least 5,000 parts per million (ppm) before they would affect human health. But a growing body of research suggests CO2 levels as low as 1,000ppm could cause health problems, even if exposure only lasts for a few hours.”
Global CO2 levels have never been this high. It’s worth taking a peek at this graph. For a long time fresh air contained CO2 at less than 300 parts per million (PPM). Now you will be lucky to find clean air at less than 420 PPM
In the meantime here is a quick overview video I made with the Aranet4 Home.
In some recycle-repair-reuse news. We felt like we’ve needed a drop spreader for lawn food and seeding for a while. But 50 quid is 50 quid and shaking a box has done for now. Even if a bit patchy.
Then this week I found a drop spreader in the street. I checked with the closest house and the man had left it for the bin lorry but they hadn’t taken it. He told me the wheels had seized and it was useless rubbish. He seemed annoyed that he now needed to “take the piece of crap to the tip”. I said i’d take it off his hands and carried it home.
Over the course of two hours I stripped the wheels, hammered out the axel and then finding some drill mounted wire brushes I’d bought for the ex-canal boat, I removed the rust. I then coated everything with the miracle spray ACF-50, greased it all up and reassembled it. You can’t tell in the last picture but we now have a smooth rolling, fully operational Scotts EvenGreen drop spreader. All it cost was a few quirts of a fancy spray, a couple of hours of my time and two teabags.
Everything seems broken at the moment and I really enjoyed the process of fixing something. I might wheel it triumphantly the block a few times. A one man carnival. Perhaps the guy who threw it out will see that not all rubbish is trash. :-)
#TheWeb
How many times have you seen the stupid tech content culture cycle?
A box of human heads has been stolen. Investigators have requested that if anyone finds them to call the police. Personally I'm not imaginative enough to consider any other options other than to call the police.
Some of the people who read this email have added themselves to the Documentally community map. Are you one?
It’s not listed on their front-page yet but in a drop-down menu Ready.gov have a handy guide on how to survive a nuclear explosion. It was updated recently on the third of March. Weird how covid social distancing is still emphasised.
Thanks to @Luboxon for forwarding me the latest instalment from JohnSweeneyRoar.
Bitcoin cash machines to be shut down in the UK.
Russia moves to ban Instagram as it designates Meta an ‘extremist organisation’
#TheEnd
I must thank the paying supporters that get all the content I share into this feed. If you are able, please upgrade. Or perhaps you would like to buy me a coffee.
What are you up to next week? I have a mini wish list pencilled in. Things I’ll try to wrap around my usual routine.
As ever, thanks for reading.
“As we age we shouldn’t accumulate more to represent ourselves, but rather strip things away to find our true selves and thus to find happiness and peace.” ~ Arthur C. Brooks
Keep on keeping on.
See you out there.
Over…
Don't know where in Texas you are going (cos it's very big! 🤣) but if anywhere near Houston you should try the Bull & Bear for a steak and
2sides, with a Guinness. Top food reasonably priced.
http://www.thebullandbear-tavernandeatery.com/