Saturday 17 November 2012

2390 In Time, its use and its technology

There are many important matters to write and to read about today November 16th 2012 but despite a good sleep last night after an uncomfortable and unsettled night before I am just not in the mood. So will attend to my in-tray and films and TV and perhaps get back to the world at large later. One of the reasons why I am unable to apply my mind creatively and with intellectual vigour is that for the greater part of this week I have applied myself to two related tasks with intense concentration and effort.



My priority is to make rapid progress in the Artman 101 project where I have averaged only 1200 new sets a year but which because of the store of useable material and cutting some corners it is my intention to increase output 500% and complete the original project by 2014. So far this month I have created 322 new sets and well on the way to the 500 target set.



I broke off at this point in time to go to the top of the house to bring down the next material to work on during the day as well as to commence work on the in tray (0.30). 10.55 I have discovered three more Child Care media volumes from 1992-2003 period to work on and invested £2 in the Euro draw for this evening when I later learned I had won £5.



I went shopping on Thursday at Tesco to use my remaining 10% reduction voucher on £50 and forgot to make a running total on the phone calculator so overspent by £16 buying some extras include a new set of over gloves and a couple of items for the Christmas period. I was struck by their high prices of meats and chickens compared with other local supermarkets so did not purchase and reckon the £5 saving was taken up with higher prices and the additional petrol. I also forgot a £2 voucher, some extra points vouchers and then also noticed that I could have got £9 off the £60 spent.

Later 14.49 I waited for the result in to Corby by-election before undertaking my exercise session for the day after having gone through the in- tray during which I made three contributions to charities purchasing raffle tickets at Age, Concern, The Royal National Institute for the Blind and Alzheimer’s Society with three others to consider over the coming week.



I have also been side tracked when checking the news channels I came across a session of the Greater London Assembly devoted to the Legacy of the Olympic and Paralympic Games attended by Lord Coe and his Chief Executive of the ongoing Legacy commission and then the Mayor of London and his chief officer concerned with the legacy answered questions after making short statements. The questioning was divided on party political lines when the Mayor was questioned while there was also concerns expressed at the ticketing situation directed at Lord Coe, some based on misunderstandings although overall there was appreciation for the what was achieved during those seven weeks especially to contribution by the Games Makers and the London support. I look forward to making several visits to the Olympic site over the next few years to witness the fulfilment of the legacy with its impact on that part of London.



My evening went downhill although I did watch an interesting film called In time which is reported later. I was also pleased that the Saville Scandal and the BBC troubles did not appear to have affected the amount being given to the BBC’s Children in Need Appeal.



The downloaded version of Norton anti virus which I will report one separately then developed a problem but just when I was tempted to snack in reaction to the growing disappointments of the day I had two emails almost together which changed everything with some excellent and unexpected news about Christmas and the New Year.



By 23.00 and not immediately tired I decided to write on lasting for thirty to forty minutes before felt tired to go to bed with two good sessions of sleep amounting to 7 hours. At the beginning of this piece I mentioned there were two matters which reduced the time and energy available for writing this week. The first was the decision to concentrate over the next 12 to 15 months on completing the original design of the Artman 101 project, The second is the decision to improve the effectiveness of the technology I use in relation to the project and generally in addition to Fitness development and sorting out the use of printers,



I have previously explained that I invested in a second flat screen TV for the front room to use with a Wii console and a Wii Fit balance board and programme. These have been a great success bought through Amazon at reduced prices despite being as new. It was possible to use my wireless modem to achieve a connection for the Wii.



On my train travel I have found my lap top a problem because of its size when sitting in the single twin seats with another traveller or using the table quartet so I decided to invest in a Sony Vaio note book which is ideal for the purpose and which by also using the wireless net work and cable connections for sound and vision with the TV mans that the TV can work as a TV via the Sky Go programme although I may also install an aerial to this room at some point. The notebook does not have a disk drive but previous when the disk drive on a previous lap top failed I purchased an external disk drive which meant that I could download the required Microsoft Works and Word disks. I will come to the transfer of the Security system in a moment.



I have accumulated a large number of printers whose functioning required expensive repairs or became un-repairable.



I have an on online agency which has provided cut price printing ink which also does deals on printers but where sometimes the ink creates problems because of the software antics of the manufacturers who make the printers with limited lives and attempt to make it difficult to use other inks than the their expensive cartridges.



I now have two working Canon printers with the first a mistake on my part when I though I had checked the availability of cheap inks but got the model number wrong. Fortunately the machine only cost £40 with one set of inks costing £30. I doubly checked that I could get could get the significant reductions for inks for the second Canon which uses five cartridges with the local dealer offering 4 for £10 while the on line agent gives a similar concession but only if you buy in quantity and where I have been caught out holding a supply when a machine ceased to function.



I remain pleased with the purchase which has a unique feature as the cartridges come with an electrical link which lights up to show that they are functioning with flashing, when the ink is running out, going off when the ink has run out. It has a separate printing system for Photos from paper as well as wireless functioning.



However at the commencement of this week after a paper jam warning messages indicated an on going error which persisted and required a service agent contact. This led to discovering another aspect of the Brave New World not previously fully appreciated, The Printer was manufactured in Thailand for the International Corporation which produces the Canon brand and who have a call centre somewhere on the planet which I contacted and who provided me with the address of the British based official repair centre in Woking Surrey who suggested that I used a Compare the Market type of service to find the best and cheapest service for collecting from my home and delivery called Parcel2Go. There is at least one other similar enterprise,



In order to get a quote it was necessary to assess the approximate weight of the package and this proved the most time consuming activity because neither the on line manual, the original supplier or the original box disclosed this information but after several goes I did find the required information online for a similar looking model, adding more for the packaging and box and then adding a further margin to be safe although I was well inside the up to 10 kilo band. I then selected the second quickest service of collection on the Tuesday for delivery to the service agent on the Wednesday and paid the on line fee of just over £10 which included an insurance value to £100 after which the same on line contact instantly sent a printable label and two copies of a consignment note for my and the signature of the collecting agent. It was at this point I appreciated having a second and working printer available!



Before sealing the package I enclosed my particulars and a copy of the original dated purchase note to establish that the repair was under warranty and waited for the collection which occurred early afternoon. I then waited to be contacted with information about problem and solution only to received the repaired printer pack later the following day. Amazing and was pleased to echo the reports of other satisfied users of the service. The carrier in this instance was TNT. Had I been prepared to wait up to 72 hours for collection and then a further period for delivery the cost would have been at least 50% lower or less.



About the same time as the printer came home so did the purchase of a refurbished mainframe with a Windows operating system for £100 with a visual clarity and speed of performance better than anything I have previously used. On both machines I needed to move my Norton on line security service and it is at this point I also discovered another aspect of the development of software interaction of mind boggling proportions and which helps to explain a lot of how the world of state powers, state and private hackers now operate. In past when I needed correction to an operating system or other software problem someone somewhere dictated what I should do step by step with one example deleting all the programmes which run in the background when a machine is first switched on each day.



Earlier in the week I was asked if I had any objection to the agent effectively taking control of the computer to add a copy of the software to the machines and as I had other information added such as access information to my on line accounts this seemed to me to pose no problem and within minutes the latest security software was added and tested, Later a problem did I arise when Windows alerted that the Security system was not operating correctly but with was immediately rectified with an updated download from Norton.



I have gone into this detail because of one TV show and one film experienced recently. TV and films have for sometime suggested that some nations posses the ability via Satellite to direct a rocket to a precise location where a target is located anywhere on the planet, and on Tuesday came the news that the head of the Hamas military had been assassinated by Israel using such a precise weapon system and which killed a number of civilians in his immediate vicinity. Hamas with the help of Iran supplied weapons then increased the ferocity of the missile attack on the Jewish state having delivered thousands over recent years, and several hundred during 2012 with several hundred rockets being launched over a period of hours.

This included several long range rockets which had been suspect were held after supply by the Iranians and which surprised observers because disclosing these weapons would as it has resulted in a escalation of the conflict with the Jewish capital becoming a target as well as also attacking Jerusalem, Understandably Israel is mobilizing its forces for a potential land invasion as the best way to remove the Hamas leadership and military controllers because of the likely number of civilian casualties using is air power and rocketry.



The problem is that while Israel does all it can to restrict civilian casualties Hamas as we have seen throughout the Middle East has no such morality and hides its rocks and rocket launchers in hospitals, schools and among community building in this heavily populated West bank as well as just firing its lower grade rocket bomb into Israel without regard to the outcome in terms of civilian lives and in fact announced to Israel and the world its intention, launch the Gates of Hell.



On Wednesday evening I watched the second episode of a new Political series called Secret State on Channel Four about the role of an International Corporation and its power of a government tot eh extent of appearing to be involved in the assassination of the UK Prime Minister. The programme centre on the former Deputy Prime Minister who is persuaded by the party Chief Whip (Charles Dance) to successfully stand for the leadership against the female Foreign Secretary and another member of the Cabinet who assumed that one of them would be elected and had offered deputy job to the man who in fact became the Prime Minister.



One of his first challenges was to decide to use a precise guided missile to assassinate the head of a terrorist organisation who had entered Afghanistan and was making his escape back over the border into Iran. The mission appeared to be successful until the Iranian claimed the rocket had exploded within its borders and therefore called the action an Act of War. Spooky.



I have also previously mentioned that Hunted is a BBC drama serial from the same company that provided Spooks and that I would write about what has become an interesting series after a shaky start when it had concluded. The interesting and overlapping aspect of this series given the technology issues already mentioned is the ability to watch and listen at a distance as well as the use of technology to investigate as well as manipulate others although in this instance there is also much use of paper data.



Yesterday I also watched a new film on the Sky Channel called In Time which also featured a Brave New World. The concept is an interesting one although the film is flawed in fundamentally ways. Genetic engineering and micro technology has developed humans into being able to stop the aging process at the age of 25 ensuring that before this the body is able to develop without difficulty subject to having an implant with kicks in at 25. From that point life is governed by time with time being the system for payments and purchasing and all digitalised. Time can be transferred in a number of ways between human directly hand and arm to hand an arm and by time bank machines or electronically. Society is divided into time zones with at he least end a ghetto area where everyone functions on a day by day basis but where the payment for world and the price of goods and services is controlled to ensure that the population remains at the appropriate level to enable the continuation of those who inhabit other time zones although why this is so is never explained, or how the economy works in general or what happens in the interim time zones between the ghetto and the New Greenwich which is where the most prosperous and influential live.



In addition to the being controlled on a day by day basis where the authorities raise the price of cup of coffee from 3 to 4 minutes and where the mother of the main male character having given her son 30 mins of her time so he can have a proper meal at lunchtime finds that the cost of transport where she has been to where she where she is to meet her son has been raised from one hour to two and she only has an hour and a half of time left and she expires before he can meet her having found that she is not the transport.



Before then the main male character has saved someone from New Greenwich who has lived for 100 years and has grown weary of his life and has come to area knowing his life will end as there are those who will steal his time. When he is rescued against his wishes by the main character, Will played by Justin Timberlake. he gives him his remaining years, over 100, while he sleeps and then falls from a bridge as his time ends. With the death of his mother Will decides he will make for New Greenwich and the High Life after giving his closest friend, a family man but also something of a drunkard ten years. Arriving in the top area he books into a top hotel and buys a racing car and meets the daughter of an entrepreneur who operate a time loan company. Will plays the father and his friends at Poker in the Casino where entrance for non members involving giving the doorman a year but where he quickly wins over 1000 years and gets invited to party the man is hosting where he also begins a relationship with the daughter whose father is suffocating in his protection and she is bored with the life she is leading.



Order in this society is maintained by Time Keepers, a force who are kept on their toes by being paid sufficient for a day by day existence as long as they perform to the standards of the senior management. The problem is that the chief Time Keeper on the streets who has held the role for 50 years refuses to accept an imbalance so when he finds that Will has moved Time Zones he arrests him at the party and removes all the time back to his normal ration of a day per day while the position is further investigated. Will escapes kidnapping the daughter and escaping back to the ghetto to where they are robbed by the local villains and then finds that his friend has killed himself by drink after being given the time. As their respective time runs out they are able to pawn her diamond earrings as the store is closing and then attempt to get the father to provide a thousand years of time for the daughter with a view to donating to the local time mission, When father refuses and sends in the Time Keeper, the shoots and injures the man so they both become outlaws initially with a small price on their heads but which rises eventually to 100 years after they successfully steal father’s store of One Million years of time from his vault. They are nearly destroyed by the local villains who have a deal with the Time Keeper to carry on as they have as long as they do not move into another time zone and eventually they have a similar escape from the Time Keeper renewing their time from his top up machine in his car.



In this contemporary version of Robin Hood in the final scene they are about to raid the state bank for time to disperse among those previously restricted to living from day to time and at the whim of the controllers who raise costs and reduce payments to ensure the population is kept under control and in order. Reminds me of the present Capitalists governments especially here in the UK and which brings me to the political meeting I attended in Jarrow on Tuesday evening but this is another writing.

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