9:15 of birds on boats

Posted on

No.

Not that sort of thing*. Sorry.

If you have 9 minutes to spare – and let’s be honest, who doesn’t? – then take a quick look at this video

Potentially (?!?) a little less glamourous than the above alternative, but actually quite relaxing and thought-provoking, as various migratory birds take a breather on merchant ships literally hundreds of miles offshore.

Are the ships heading the right way? If so, the birds will cheat a bit. If not, they’ll catch up once they get going again. But it actually doesn’t matter, because these birds are completely knackered and just need a bit of a break from their constant flying.

How many can you identify?

* I spent four hours of searching for an appropriate image for this bit of the post. That’s dedication for you.

On kids on planes

Posted on

Probably not the debate that you thought the title might suggest. I think I did that back in 2009 in the subtly entitled post ‘Why Does Our Society Hate Children?‘.

No, this has nothing to do with whether kids should be allowed to aurally terrorise innocent passengers travel on flights, but rather keeping them safe while they are up there.

There’s an interesting article here from the Washington Post about how best to keep babies safe on flights. The basic problem is that in episodes of turbulence or in the event of a crash, parents’ loving arms simply aren’t strong enough to hold onto their child:

Your arms aren’t capable of holding your in-lap child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence, which is the number one cause of pediatric injuries on an airplane.

See?

And in the event of a crash, the supplementary belt seems to be there more for show than for actual function:

During dynamic testing, the forward flailing of the adult and the child resulted in severe body impacts against the forward seat.

Beautifully put. The use of the word “flailing” is particularly descriptive. Given the proximity of the forward seat in most economy flights, I’d guess that the flailing in question would be pretty brief.

So if we’re going to keep babies safe on planes, we need to find another way. And that other way is: by making them having their own seat.
Yep. The safest place for a small child is in its own seat.
So problem solved, right? No, not at all. In fact, additional problem created.

Because having to pay for an extra seat will persuade/force some families to choose a different mode of transport. Probably not for long haul stuff, but certainly for shorter journeys. And that alternative is often car, and car is much more dangerous than plane.

In fact, a 2003 study showed that “if as few as 5 to 10 percent of travelers hit the road instead of flying, the number of infant deaths caused by car accidents would probably exceed the number of fatalities averted by requiring child restraints on planes”.

At the end of the day, there doesn’t seem to be consensus about any foolproof way forward. Although there does seem to be some sort of unwritten agreement about using strikingly descriptive language when referring to potentially unfortunate scenarios for small children while they are on board a plane.
Like when putting your baby in a harness/carrier against your chest:

Hoffman warns that the carrier is not foolproof, especially during severe turbulence. “The child can slip out of it because of all of that force. A plane that falls 4,000 feet in seconds — that’s like being shot out of a cannon.”

Boom.

Going elsewhere – come follow

Posted on

Once Space Karen got hold of the Twitter reins, things were never going to be great. It’s not like we didn’t see it coming. But now he’s hammering nails into nails that were already in the coffin.

Some of them are very clearly penetrating the corpse. It’s leaking. Eww.

Shutting down Tweetdeck is a big loss for me, and the requirement to pay for so many features just isn’t happening. I have no issue paying for a good quality service – I pay for plenty of them on the internet – but that’s not what Twitter is anymore.

And yet, I don’t really want to leave: it feels like deserting an old friend (it’s been over 14 years!). But that old friend has become unruly, unpleasant and abusive, and isn’t nice to be around. And so you’ll definitely see (even) less of me on there from now on.

So, where are we going to go and play instead? Well, there are few issues with that. Firstly, that there aren’t many good choices: although there are plenty of mediocre ones. And you need one to stand out from the crowd because you need a critical mass of users to make it function and be useful – for it to work well – in the way that Twitter did all those years ago.
Nothing has stuck its head above that parapet… yet.

And so I have profiles at a couple of places – you can see all my socials at the top of the sidebar up there [indicates upwards and right]. But right now, I’m throwing my weight behind Spoutible.

Find my profile there… er… here.

It seems the best option with lots of the good twitter features, and fewer of the bad ones. And it also seems to take a lot of user feedback and suggestions into account when adding stuff. It also has some pretty strict rules about abuse, harassment etc. So if you think that’s likely to infringe on your right to “free speech”, then maybe it isn’t for you.

Shame.

It looks promising. But it needs to be bigger before it will work properly, and so if it doesn’t make that critical mass I mentioned above, then it won’t fly. If that’s the case, it will hopefully be because something equally good (or better) has made it.

Anyway, I’m lucky enough to have this place [indicates general blog space] so that I can at least tell people where I’m going to be if Spoutible doesn’t work out. So please keep coming back here even when we’ve all left the hellsite that twitter has become. After all, everyone needs to regularly visit at least one hellsite, just so you can be reminded of how good the rest of the internet is.
And if it’s not the Loud Mouth Space Wanker’s place, then it might as well be here.

So. This isn’t a complete farewell, but it is a definite move to set up home elsewhere.

I look forward to you popping in for coffee soon.

Reuben Ireland

Posted on

I mentioned a little while back [checks recent archives] here that I am heading back to Robben Island again this year to help out with the annual Year 6 Tour there.

But it was Facebook that reminded me of this absolute gem from the COPE political party.

President Lekota is Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota, the COPE leader (his nickname coming from his imposing presence on the football field), “Uncle Kathy” is Ahmed Kathrada, a struggle veteran, and I have no idea who Reuben Ireland is.

I actually had to check if COPE are still around, and they are. Just:

0.27% of the votes still gets you two parliamentary seats, hey? Wow.

The COPE website greets you with plenty of colour, and an ill-fitting banner image. And then, there are their four pillars (which actually appear to be eight pillars):

Promoting reposposibility is important. Some people just want to pose twice, but as a modern political party, you need to be able to pose, pose again and then repose. That reposposibility is what the electorate is looking out for. That, and being dependeable. Hugely important.

And… below that is this mystifying non-question:

I clicked Yes & No, because I was confused and I thought that it was actually just a thing for the recruitment department at the party to answer. Both take you to the same screen where there’s a form to fill in to join COPE. Then you email it directly to Shalati Nkhwashu. I can’t imagine that her inbox is very busy. Still as the old saying goes: “Empty inbox, great middle name”:

I’m looking forward to my visit to see Reuben. A very interesting guy.

A frankly ludicrous suggestion

Posted on

It wasn’t the most healthy of weekends, so I really should have done some exercise this morning. But my body was far from willing, and my mind was… also far from willing.

Still, with just three weeks until the start of the new season, and hopeful of a successful return to some footy 4 months after this, I lobbed on some running gear and headed outside. Needs must.

As per usual, a few stretches while my watch looked for satellites to track my run, and then a glance down at my wrist and… wait… my watch was suggesting a suitable training regimen for me.

Well, what it thought was suitable.

Apparently, my watch is supposed to learn from my fitness and workout routines and help me get more from my exercise. It isn’t a fancy pants model – far from it – but it does everything I need it to.
What I don’t need it to do is suggest a suitable training regimen for me, especially when it thinks (having been on my wrist from more than a year, nogal) that 21.0km at 5:45/km would be a good thing for me to do this morning.

Or any morning. WTF?!?!

This workout improves your ability to sustain high intensity efforts for longer.

it told me. (I don’t know why, but I read that in the calm, authoritative and mildly sinister voice of Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which freaked me out even more.

That workout would improve my ability to sustain rigor mortis permanently.

I replied.

I ended up doing a (much) shorter, (slightly) slower run than my watch suggested. Just so I could see my family again and watch United at Wembley next month. You know, the basic pleasures in life.

I have switched the “suggest a workout” feature off now. It’s for the best.

Still, run done, and feeling good.
Onward (but not that far onward) and upward (but not that quickly).