Archive for the ‘Technology’ Tag
If you have seen my earlier post you will know that I am concerned about our lack of awareness of the subtle effects of computer technology on our lives. My deepest concern is about the effects on young children so in this post I am going to talk about the boundaries my wife and I imposed on computer (and TV) use within the home and some of our experiences.
I have been a computer professional since before the early days of the “Personal Computer” boom when we could hardly contemplate that everyone would have their own computer! Many certainly did not even dream of the phenomenal proliferation of “microprocessors” that would take place. That was the word that was used a lot: microprocessor – which highlighted the fact that it was just a super-chip for the electronic nerds like myself. You hardly hear the word mentioned nowadays, but they are still there, usually called just “processors” although thousands of times faster and more powerful and with more fancy names like Core i7 or Phenom.
I also remember sitting at a screen (which was not integral to the computer) typing in commands well into to the late hours at work. But at that time of day I was using an early computer game called “Adventure”, and if you really got into a pickle you would just keep getting the response: “You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.”, regardless of the command you typed. Such things used to happen at work since that was the only place where you had enough tech to run the games program. Remember no Personal Computer – or PC – yet!
So I was aware from the early days about the addictive nature of this particular beast. Not only was the game playing addictive, but the programming was (and is) addictive. 4 hours can pass in the blink of an eye if you get “in the zone”. According to folks like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of the book “Flow”, this is because so much attention is required for the task that we do not have enough attention for noticing the passage of time. This is a central facet of computer technology. It sucks in your attention. No wonder there are social problems. How can you give attention to other people if your computer or phone is taking it all? But I am getting ahead of myself…
Back to home life – my awareness of this addictive nature of technology was shared by my wife and we both decided that it was inappropriate for our young children to use them. I know a lot of the world does not agree with me (yet!), and we knew that we could not stop them playing with computers at their friends’ houses, but we decided on the following rules:
Rule 1: No computers/mobile phones/electronic games AT ALL until the children were 12 or 13.
Thats right – none. Occasionally my work would require me to bring one home, but this was closed away in the box room and the kids were not allowed near it. Especially NO COMPUTER GAMES. Of course when they went to their friends houses they did have games, but in our house it was traditional toys: wooden train sets, building blocks, Lego and so on. [Also, due to our involvement with the local Steiner school we preferred natural materials over plastic. Hence our preference for wooden toys. I currently think plastic toys are ok, but the wooden ones have a nicer feel.]
Well the kids seemed to be ok with not having computers – but the next rule definitely caused complaints…
Rule 2: No TV.
Eventually we would watch DVDs once the children were 10 or so, but NO TV. And no DVD watching in the bedroom. In fact this was when we got the first family computer in the house to watch the films. If we wanted to watch a film we would congregate around it and have our evening sandwiches watching the film as a family. Why only films? Mainly to place a boundary around our viewing – with TV it is too easy to keep on watching just the next programme, and the next, and the next, and so on… We still have no TV despite me working in the business, and my wife and I are quite happy with that state of affairs.
So what about our experiences with this regime?
Certainly there was some complaining from both our daughter and son about how all their friends had these games, or could watch TV. But we were quite firm and simply said something like: “Yes I know my loves, but we don’t agree with that for you at the moment.”
As I said above, the games issue was not a problem, possibly because (a) I was so sure it was a bad idea and was very firm about it, or (b) they really enjoyed their own games that they would make up themselves. They both have wonderful imaginations and we have many happy photos of them playing without a computer in sight.
The “No TV” was more difficult especially as we would go to their grandparents and they would be allowed to watch TV or a video. This was why we introduced watching family films at around 10 years, although with such great imaginations we had to be careful about the content, even though they were age-appropriate films and seemed innocuous to an adult, the children could get quite scared by some scenes. I think adults too easily assume that the consciousness of children is very similar to their own.
There is an important story about our experience related to the “No TV” rule:
One day a friend of the children came around to play and had a shock when he could not find the TV! He was quite bewildered. Meanwhile our children got stuck in and started putting the wooden train set together. He just sat and quietly watched what they were doing, initially without taking part, until my son and daughter pulled him in and started showing him how to play. I was amazed and later found out that at home he was allowed unlimited access to the video player and would keep rewinding and replaying his favourite scenes over and over again. This boy had partially lost the “knowledge” of how to play! In the past this would have been considered a pathological problem, and I am convinced this is becoming more of an issue for the children of today.
If we fast-forward to the present day, both kids are now at university, both have their own laptops, both have them in their own bedrooms, both watch DVDs in their bedrooms. It is now a different phase of their life and they need to be part of the current culture for it is to be their culture. We will see how it develops.
But perhaps some concluding thoughts:
Boundaries must be placed around our use of such gadgetry and in writing this post I have come to see that it is all related to Attention.
The Boundary Problem is giving rise to The Attention Problem.
Our social human communications should not take second place to our electronically mediated communications. You can see an earlier post where I talked about some of the problems inherent with the latter.
Attention is a special thing that we give to the world. Currently we are giving too much attention to our machines, when we need to give more of it to our fellow humans.
At last the mainstream computing world is beginning to catch up with my warnings about unbridled technological use. The latest “Communications of the ACM” has an article entitled “Living in the Digital World” about the effect of gadget use on people’s social behaviour.
I have been a member of the ACM since 1986, having managed to get one of the early super short sexy email addresses ct(at)acm(dot)org so beloved of Unix types. Usually I have been severely unimpressed by most articles from the ACM folk about the existence of any problems with technology use, let alone a balanced view on what those problems might be. Most press has been heavily for technological use, even down into Kindergarten, with what they call the K-12 curriculum.
Oh dear me.
As someone who has programmed computers since the mid 70s I can tell you that coding for this stuff definitely does affect your social skills. I am not your usual uncommunicative nerd type – I like to think that I have quite good social skills – well – as long as you don’t get too close! What I have noticed is that the necessary criticality required to do the “day job” can spill over into your close relationships. This was a primary influence that led to the break-up of my first marriage, although of course as ever there were faults on both sides. But bringing my critical nature home definitely adversely affected my first wife, resulting in her developing allergies galore. My favourite anecdote is that apparently most of these allergies disappeared within a month of me leaving.
Hmmm…
When I found myself doing the same thing again in my second marriage, even I was not stupid enough to think that it was all the other person’s fault. I have now toned down my critical nature when at home and my kids, now of University age, are not backward in coming forward to tell me to “Chillax”. After having realised the problem existed I was extra watchful of myself during their early years and my wife and I have definitely been “good-enough” parents – or so the kids seem to think – honest!
[A problem with parenting is that it is too easy to try so hard to definitely NOT make the same mistakes our own parents did that we "slot-rattle" to the other end of the spectrum and guess what... the effect on our children can be similar to what we wanted to avoid. It seems to be a psychological law.]
So why do I call this issue of technological use The Boundary Problem?
Lets look at a number of places in my own behaviour where I did not have appropriate boundaries:
Without realising it I brought the thinking techniques from work back to the home.
I now know that the highly critical thinking required for software work must be heavily constrained within a close relationship. Of course we need some critical thought, especially if we are parents, but – as a teacher once said to me – there is value in developing a “Nelson’s Eye” and not chasing every little thing. This is easier said than done, especially when it means trying to respond rather than react to a situation that is pressing your buttons!
I was not aware of the effect of programming on my psyche.
This is a biggie and applies to almost every computer professional. In my early years it never crossed my mind that there could be a problem. Soon after the realisation hit me, I went to a computer conference and ran a session to discuss the personal aspects of being a software developer. You should have heard some of the comments! “Navel gazing” was the least abusive one. It is understandable since most technical types like to play with the toys and gadgets. Nowadays things have changed a small amount and with more “techies” you can see the penny starting to drop. I think this is mainly due to what we call “Agile” software development techniques, where you really need to focus on your programming process as well as your technical knowledge. When recruiting programmers the question “Are they aware of how they learn?” is as important as “How good is their technical knowledge?”. If someone cannot take critical feedback it can be very difficult to have them on a software team.
Of course the drive to earn more money just reinforces the “boundaryless” behaviour. You cannot expect companies to control their call on their employees’ time.
Another interesting observation is that when I was younger the gadgetry was much more enticing to me than it is now. I have spent far too many late nights programming computers into the early hours of the next morning to only see the glamorous side. You may see a nice phone. I see just how many hours coding are required to make it work well.
Well that is a small view from the inside of the industry.
In the next post on this topic I will talk about how we as parents dealt with The Boundary Problem at home: A house without computers or TV!
So – The story so far. I had just completed the Duo Discus check flight with Chris, my instructor and it was still the morning (just), so the next thing to do was to get one of the Discus single seaters rigged and for that I needed to get hold of someone knowledgeable in such things.
Discus SH3 sitting in its trailer
Let me explain: The three club Discus gliders are kept in trailers rather than in the hangar ready to go. This means that if you want to fly one you have to enlist the help of at least one other soul and put it together – a process called rigging. Luckily the Discus is really easy to rig. Usually on a good soaring day there are a few people who want to fly the single seaters so they all help each other.
However, this was not a good soaring day and could I find someone to brief me in the requisite art? The phrases “hens teeth” and “gold dust” come to mind. Most of the instructors I talked to used to own one but had not rigged one for many years now and were too rusty. In the end I was pointed at the famous Merv, a well known character and fount of knowledge at Lasham who also got his mate, Dave, a current Discus owner, to help out.
Merv is very knowledgeable, an instructor, and possesses a particularly laconic temperament. This coupled with my own psyche resulted in me apologising a lot of the time for disturbing him. My apology rate abruptly increased when I found I had left my diligently purchased BGA wing sealing tape at home and had to borrow some of Dave’s. The guilt rate went up even further when Dave used his car to tow the rigged Discus out to the launch point because yours truly has no towbar on his car! Yeah. I was feeling fairly small by this time, but Dave was great and helped me out in getting ready. Merv was also helping out and doing his instructorly duty briefing me about the flying as well as being ready to observe my performance.
After some final recommendations from Merv to watch out for PIO (Pilot Induced Oscillation) on take-off due to the sensitive elevator I got myself strapped into the cockpit. The radio seemed to have a dodgy connection, but once I jiggled with the panel and its knobs it came good. If it did stop working it was not going to be an issue since this was only going to be a local flight to get the hang of the glider, and given the prevailing conditions it was going to be a short one. I normally carry a spare radio if the conditions are good so that I can either use it as a spare should the main one fail, or sometimes it can be useful to listen to two frequencies at once.
While waiting for the aerotow I was feeling fairly nervous, so just sat in the glider while I waited and calmed myself down and managed to relax. The tug pilot was told I was a Discus virgin (actually the phrase used is: “First time on type”) so knew to treat me gently!
I went through the pre take-off checks and was hooked on. During the take-off run, the elevator sensitivity was noticeable and I did have a couple of PIOs but got it under control fairly quickly. After that it was another lovely flight, albeit under rather overcast skies.
The glider handled very well and I landed back near the trailer where Dave was waiting with his car to take the glider back and help me derig it and pack it back into the trailer.
Shot of SH4 showing the Discus wing shape.
So many thanks again to Merv and Dave for helping me out with becoming current on the Discus.
I am looking forward to many hours of great soaring in these “Modern Beauties”.
Recent flying has been hampered by the weather, but I have managed to convert myself to flying the newer Discus single seater gliders, of which Lasham has three. These are beautiful fibreglass and carbon fibre aircraft which were initially built in 1984.
For local soaring flights I had managed to get all the necessary “qualifications”, apart from the final check flight:
1: Bronze ‘C’
- Yep. Got that.
2: 20 hours solo flying, including 10 hours in the Grob102 or similar (i.e. a glas fibre single seater)
- Yep. Got that too.
3: Briefing and check flight with full cat.
- Don’t have that – so this was the day to go and get it.
What on earth is a “full cat”? This is a Full Instructor or FI as the BGA calls it. There are various categories of instructor ratings from those who are “Basic Instructors”, usually the folk who do the trial flights, up to the “Full Instructor” rating that is the person who needs to do this check as well as be on hand to run a launch point.
So – given that there had been a dearth of good soaring days, it was time to get myself converted, although I am still not quite ready to go cross-country as yet. I am only able to do local flights closer to the airfield. For cross country I am going to need to get what is called a Cross-Country Endorsement. This is part of the Red Card and will need two flights with an instructor to cover field landings and navigation. Hopefully coming soon!
Anyway – on to the day’s proceedings.
A wet and dreary Lasham after the rain the night before. Not looking great.
As you can see the morning started with water on the ground since it had been raining copiously the night before. It had also been a hectic week for me at work so it was a difficult thing to raise my sleepy head to get to Lasham when I could see it was not set to be a great day. The forecast was for overcast skies which, as you can see, turned out to be correct. However, I was determined to get the conversion done if possible.
After having got an ASK21 out to the launch point and having grabbed an instructor, the CFI recommended that we should really get the Duo Discus trainer out. This is the 2 seat version of the Discus, and as I found out later is an absolute joy to fly so the initial exasperation at having got the wrong glider to the launch point was soon overcome by the fun of playing with a new toy! Also the K21 would not go unused so I was not too bothered. I always like to feel I keep the “social credit” in the club topped up.
One of the things I really like about this sport is the beauty of the flying machines. They are lovely to look at and I can sometimes quite happily just sit there gazing at them. The next thing I like to do is go up and touch them – usually done under the disguise of cleaning the glider! Of course I also then do the nerdy thing of looking into the cockpit and checking out the toys – whoops sorry – instrumentation, in them.
I suppose the closest thing for me in a powered aircraft would be the Spitfire, but gliding is cheaper and not so noisy! Plus I can have that supercilious grin of feeling more “green”, just.
 Lasham Discus SH4. |
 The Duo Discus. Love those swept wings. |
 The recent Arcus, but can't afford this. |
You can see from the accompanying shots that both the Discus and the “Duo” have swept back wings, in common with many modern gliders. This is to reduce what is called induced drag. I have also included a shot of the most recent glider from the same company, the Arcus, which I happened to see at a recent competition day at Lasham. If you look you can see that the Duo and the Arcus have the same fuselage sections although I only found that out from the Arcus’ Wikipedia entry.
Explanation: Drag
Whether you are designing an aircraft or a racing car, trying to swim faster, or leaning into a strong wind, you will be familiar with drag. Drag is the force that tries to stop you moving through a fluid medium, e.g air or water. But just considering aircraft, drag is generally broken down into two main types: Parasitic Drag and Induced drag.
Parasitic Drag is the drag that happens just because you are moving through the air. Just like when you hold your hand out of a moving car’s window, flat on to the airstream. By streamlining the shape you can reduced this drag. Hence the reason gliders (and fast fish!) have pointed noses. This type of drag increases the faster you move through the air.
Induced Drag is rather more subtle and happens as a by-product of the lift generated by the wings. While flying, as the airflow leaves the ends of the wings it becomes a vortex. [Good image here and you can see my previous photo]. This vortex causes drag on the aircraft and so a lot of research is done to make glider wings that produce as little drag as possible. This is also a reason why you will see winglets on many aircraft, from gliders to airliners. This type of drag decreases the faster you move through the air.
That is but just a quick introduction to the world of drag.
The Discus panel. Clear Nav in centre.
Once the Duo Discus had been checked over we brought it out to the launch point ready for an aerotow and I climbed in to familiarise myself with the cockpit layout. OK. Read that as: I climbed in to play with the GPS system. The Duo and the single seater Discus gliders all have a “Clear Nav” GPS system which is a real help when flying. So, yours truly being one of the original nerd types, I am able to have a wonderful time both flying newer gliders and playing with computers. Great fun!
For the pilots among us, at the time of writing the online Clear Nav manual can be found here. I find this more useful than the PDF version of the manual.
When I had familiarised myself with the controls I climbed out of the cockpit. Wow. It is really deep and I was pulling muscles in my arms I didn’t know I had. Looks like more trips to the gym are required.
Once out of the cockpit I was all raring to go and so . . .
We waited . . .
 Waiting . . . |
 And waiting . . . |
So there I was – I had the glider, the instructor was there, the tug plane was available, but the English weather was not cooperating. The cloudbase was too low at around 1500ft for an aerotow to be worth the money.
After my initial accommodating behavior of just waiting 30 minutes and chatting at the launch point and being sociable (I am a very accommodating and sociable person!) I got fed up with waiting and said to my instructor: “Chris I am fed up with this – lets take a winch launch”. So we moved the glider to the winch queue and we took a wire launch.
I could notice immediately just how lovely she was to fly (yes the aircraft are always ladies). We even managed to contact some weak lift and stayed airborne for 11 minutes. Not too bad for a winch launch on an overcast day. By the time we had returned a report came back that the cloudbase had risen and so we were ready for the aerotow.
When flying the single seater Grob102 or Discus the first launch must be an aerotow since it is gentler than a winch launch. For the Discus, the elevator control is more sensitive so the check flight is best done with the Duo Discus. I must admit that I didn’t have a problem with the Duo, but definitely noticed the difference with the single seater.
As I mentioned before I found the Duo a lovely glider to fly. The main foible was the undercarriage. My instructor, Chris, mentioned that you really needed to make sure that it was locked down since the lever could come out of the détente. Also the instructor is not able to lock the lever from the rear cockpit – he has to have faith that the person in the front has done so properly. To try and reassure Chris I had locked it properly I gently thumped the lever to the cockpit wall after I had put the undercarriage down!
Again we found some weak lift but I was mainly concentrating on getting used to the handling. After giving myself more space in the circuit thanks to Chris’ advice, we landed back and Chris signed my log book with the words:
Check for solo Discus. OK. Well handled.
Also, since the sign-off for the Discus is on the Yellow Card I went back to the office and he signed that entry on the card.
Great! Another milestone reached.
It may be a naff (technical term meaning Not Actually Fully Functional) day weatherwise but I was checked out for the Discus. The only thing left to do now was to go over to the clubhouse and find an instructor prepared to brief me about rigging the Discus. Now this is a whole tale in itself and I think I shall leave it to the next posting . . .
Coming soon – the tale of the lesser spotted Discus rigging briefer and yours truly apologising profusely.
The title is not a misprint. I do not mean Tech-Aware. I mean Tech-Awake. Here is a little story and some thoughts:
Last Wednesday I was driving home from work and encountered an illustration of the problems of trying to set appropriate rules for traffic.
A High Energy Story
The road in question was a connecting road through an estate. It had a 30 mph speed limit and there was a barrier in front of the opening of a path. I was about 200 yards away from the path when I saw some children walking out from it and congregating next to the barrier. Some of them had bikes and I could see there was a possible hazard. Although the speed limit was 30 miles an hour, I decided to reduce my speed to 15 miles an hour. Sure enough when I was about 50 yards away from the barrier, a high energy child came whizzing out from the path like a particle shot from an accelerator and zoomed out across the road on his push scooter to the other side. All without looking for traffic coming from my direction. At 15 mph it was no problem to stop, leaving about 25 yards between me and the young boy in question.
This is not a rant about the children of today or the lack of parental control. Children bring life to the adult world and this boy certainly had plenty of it! I find myself wanting to celebrate that life.
I would rather question our indiscriminate and mostly unconscious use of powerful technologies that in truth we have less control over than we would imagine. A mantra I have is that accidents happen due to bad judgement. When a bad judgement coincides with the use of a powerful technology, such as a car or aeroplane, the situation is ripe for a tragic outcome.
So let me assess the situation I am in as the driver above:
Firstly : Technology amplifies my existing capacities, or gives me new capacities. Cars allow me to travel faster than walking; Aeroplanes allow me to fly (Wonderful!); and a final example: Computers amplify my thought – well a certain type of thought anyway.
Secondly : I can make mistakes. I am not a machine. I would not want to be a machine – a point of view that I believe confirms my sanity! Like our young children, making mistakes can bring life to our world. I enjoy musical improvisation where frequently a mistake can be turned into a beautiful thing.
So what am I to do?
Time to Wake Up
I have wanted to publish this post because I think that our use of technology is asking a fundamental question of us. It is asking us to become aware and most of all to WAKE-UP in our use of these tools.
The reason why this is so important is that when using a car, aeroplane or computer it is too easy to have too much trust in the system and frequently we go to sleep in some way. We may fall asleep at the wheel, rely on buggy fly-by-wire systems, or let computers (try) do some job we would be best doing ourselves.
So here we are – going to sleep, when we need to be waking up.
With flying it is blatantly obvious just how important it is to be careful. All you need do is look out of the window to the ground thousands of feet below while you are trusting the engine to keep on working. This is why as a pilot you are expected to learn a lot about the aeroplane and its systems, far more than you are expected to learn about car mechanics.
I have heard it said that the best way to make a car driver safer when driving around is to put a 6 inch knife blade on the steering wheel pointing towards the drivers chest! Hmmm. Not too sure about that but I can see the point. (Pun intended 
)
Would it be possible to work at holding that awareness of how powerful a machine you are using and to bring your awakeness up to meet the situation? I know I can do it when flying and I do my utmost to do so in the car. Though I can look back to the consequences when I have not done so and have felt especially stupid in those moments…
A Question to Ponder
Well there are some thoughts to consider and this time I will leave you with a question…
Is it asking too much for people to become more awake in their use of technology?
Hello all
Well once again it has been awhile since I have contributed to this blog.
It has become clear to me that one of the last things I want to do when I get home is to sit in front of a computer and carry on typing after having spent all day in front of one writing software. However I still want to get my thoughts down.
So to overcome this I decided to invest, partly as a test and partly out of interest, in a new toy. The toy in question is a copy of the speech recognition software called Dragon Naturally Speaking. As ever with any piece of technology it may take some adjustment but at the moment I am being pleasantly surprised about how effective it is. It does seem to need a computer with a fair amount of power and memory but I am finding it nicer to use than sitting typing. Of course there is always the chance that it is just a new toy 
but if it helps me get my thoughts down here that is all to the good.
So the process I have used for this post is to speak most of the text into the computer and then to edit it by hand thereafter.
Having re-read the last post I realise that I have managed to find a rather good antidote to the problems of the enquiring mind. The answer is quite simple: Exercise, cycling to be exact.
Anyway – down to business.
I would like to connect some of the thoughts of one of my favourite thinkers that I highlighted in that last post, David Bohm, to some recent viewing I have been doing. His writings and comments related to a rather surprising subject (for me) that I normally do not deal with here. So I would like to warn you that I am going to deal with a politically loaded subject. Yet still strongly connected to how people can get stuck into patterns of thought thus leading to behaviour.
We recently bought the DVD of the Channel 4 series “The Promise” and I have to say that this is not viewing you would want to watch just before going to bed. After every episode I would find my mind turning the issues over and over, each time coming back to certain thoughts which would invariably interfere with sleeping. Given also that recently I have read the book “Mornings in Jenin” by Susan Abulhawa which detailed the experiences of families from Ein Hod, there were quite a number of parallels as you would imagine.
Let me say that I am well aware that these are works of fiction, but this doesn’t in any way reduce the value of the thinking one can do, and particularly the imagination of what life might be like for people caught in those conflicts.
My impressions about this whole subject? I was mainly struck by how psychological damage rattles down through the generations. Although I am not so familiar with the details of what started World War 1, it was the reparations from that war that set the context for World War II. And it seems that that in turn set the context of the current crisis being played out in the Middle East. This stream of thought was driven by asking myself the question: How is it that the same mistakes keep getting made over and over again?
So after World War I it was the Germans that were traumatised leading to their dire economic state. After World War II it was the Jews who were traumatised, thus leading to a violent birth of the state of Israel. If one allows oneself the luxury of standing right back from the details of the individual conflicts you can see this tragic progression of traumatisation from one group to another. It was at this point that I remembered David Bohm writing about thought as a system. It is as if the human race in conflict is being driven along like leaves in a storm, but of its own creating. I can well imagine that if one got caught up in the conflict in the Middle East now, one’s view would be affected by the particular experience one had, which in turn would dictate one’s sympathies, be it pro-Arab or pro-Israeli.
The hard thing would be to hold oneself neutral and see the recurring behaviours. My goodness. Could I do that?
So I wonder – would it be fair to think that we are being driven by our own unconscious thought processes. I don’t underestimate how strong the feelings may be for the individual but if the cycle of violence is not to be perpetuated the human race as a group has got to be able to step outside of certain trains of thought and strength of feeling.
Or is that thinking all too detached? In my defence I can only say that my wish is to understand how to stop it happening again. Of course I have not been involved directly in the conflicts I have mentioned so who am I to comment upon them? But make no mistake : it is the weight of popular opinion that will be the strongest force in stopping a conflict. This has already happened in Northern Ireland among other places.
To me – popular opinion is based upon the experience of families. In each example of conflict, the real tragedy is the effect that it has on family life and how people are catapulted out of a very loving environment into a horrible and violent situation. Thus the hurt children of one age become the soldiers of a subsequent one. If only those in power would, when making their decisions, consider in an imaginative way just what effect their deliberating will have on family life, then maybe there would be more reason to hope.
Once again it is a case of thinking being too abstract rather than being imaginatively grounded in reality.
I have experience of a situation where doting grandparents did not see their grandchildren for 10 years due to the fear and instability fostered by the prevailing political climate in the grandparent’s own country. It is so easy to spend time worrying about high level political changes going on but for me the reality of this aspect of the world can be seen in any airport arrivals terminal when you see the love and joy of families being reunited after long absences.
Next time will be on a more upbeat note. Promise!
Till the next time…
Well it has been a long while since I last posted here, and for that please accept my apologies, but there have been good reasons. I have been re-assessing life somewhat. I am hesitant to call it a mid-life crisis, since it feels like it has been happening for most of my life!
One of the problems of having an inquiring mind, a curious mind, an analytical mind, is that you tend to deconstruct everything, i.e. you pull it apart. Sometimes there need to be boundaries as to what you will and what you will not pull apart. I must confess I have had problems with where to place those boundaries. And I think I am not alone in this. As I have mentioned before, the puzzle becomes the thing ,and if you have an analytical bent, you can easily forget why you wanted to solve the puzzle in the first place, or maybe sometimes you don’t even know, which means you are usually doing it just for fun.
The impulse to re-assess has come from a number of directions and has a lot to do with a dawning realisation about just how damaging this sort of mind can be.
Firstly has been my attendance at a Science conference in Stourbridge on a rainy weekend in late February (see footnote 1); secondly I have recently started reading what I am finding an inspiring management book called “Theory U” by Otto Scharmer (see footnote 2); and thirdly an article recommended by a friend about a breathtaking display of technological hubris by neurology professor, Henry Markram at the Ecole Polytechnique in Lausanne (see footnote 3).
So what on earth is it that pulls all these threads together and is giving me such a hard time? Well… deep breath… I have been finding it harder and harder not to worry about various environmental concerns and bury my head in the technological sand, saying that we will be able to find solutions to the issues coming our way. A tipping point was when I watched a TV program about James Lovelock originally broadcast in April 2010 (Episode 2 of the “Beautiful Minds” series). Here is a man who is a great polymath and a scientist who is quite happy to be on the outside of the mainstream, pointing out the inherent problems of working within mainstream science at this time.
These different threads have led me to the point where I feel very strongly that there are not just limits implicit in the current mode of thought we have, but that there is a fundamental flaw that is causing wide scale havoc with our environment.
Favourite Metaphors, Quotes and Insights
Thanks to the minds of various giants I like to think I am able to stand on their shoulders and have assembled here some of my favourite thoughts from them that, together, encapsulate some of what I am going on about.
J.W. Goethe: Life is a Conversation. Ah yes, the wonderful idea of Delicate Empiricism.
David Bohm: Thought as a System which creates the world and then says “I didn’t do it!”. So our collective thought is creating organisations which are prisons, and then we can blame the “system” for all the problems, which, remember, we have created.
Rudolf Steiner: The problems of Dualism and the terrific difficulty of getting to Monism (which I link to a holistic way of seeing), though Henri Bortoft helps…
Henri Bortoft: We cannot know the whole in the same way as we know a thing.
This is worth more words here: The whole is not a thing. The way to the whole is through the parts. It is not to be encountered by stepping back and taking an overview. The whole is to be encountered by stepping into, and passing through, the parts.
Couple these ideas with the realisation from my own experience of how difficult it is to recruit competent, thoughtful, software developers and perhaps you can see why I am going through a rather angst-ridden period.
Conclusions
So I have now come to realise that we must must must change the way we collectively think. Obviously this requires us to individually be more clear in our own thought, but there are issues of social technique that we need to learn, which I believe are key to how we turn this around. Now here is a kicker, there is a major link with the whole Risk Averse rant I usually bore friends with. The trouble with all this tech is that there is a risk of letting it do the thinking for us.
My favourite example is the use of a satnav. I hate using a satnav that is telling me which way to turn. I once tested one and found its route choice to be flawed at best. No. I will choose the route thank you very much, and I will use the machine as a very useful map follower which traces where I am on the map. This is exactly what pilots are recommended to do when flying with a GPS. This is a prime of example of how to consciously use the technology.
So… the link to risk aversion. Well if you do not consciously use the technology, you stop thinking. This is comfortable, but in the end, dangerous. It is also very convenient for any government. Since to have a population who are quite willing to follow orders is just fine by them. Risk aversion also puts you in a comfort zone. Again this means you stop thinking. Which is of course tied up with existence , as Descartes realised:
I think therefore I am…
And thats enough for now.
See you soon.
Thanks for reading.
Footnotes
1: This was Science from an anthroposophical perspective (the Steiner lot if you don’t know what the word means). I co-presented one session about the “Conscious use of technology”. The conference in general was a positive experience that has started me tentatively re-approaching some of Rudolf Steiner’s ideas. In preparation I read Paul Emberson’s book called “From Gondishapur to Silicon Valley” which I found a difficult read as I felt it was rather too evangelical about just how nasty our present computer technology is. In recent days I have come to have a better view of this, but more about that in a later post.
2:
I have found that, so far, the book called “Theory U” by Otto Scharmer is an inspiring read. It is early days as yet since I am about one third of the way through, but his insights from a personal perspective stop it being a dry book, for me at least, and I can relate to a lot of what is being said. His drive is to get to understand why we carry on doing things that are so destructive, and don’t seem to be able to change the results.
3:
A close friend sent me a link to an article in the Daily Mail about Prof Henry Markram trying to make a conscious computer system. As far as I can see this is all an effort to get some more funding and investment. His approach is breathtakingly short sighted and is yet another instance, to me, of someone playing with their toys.
This post is a call to the computer professionals among us to be more aware about computer mediated communication issues:
Have you ever thought why email communication so easily descends into conflict? Is it something we should just accept and get on with? Or can we be rather more in control of the situation?
These questions have bothered me for quite a while now. I believe that we could become better masters of the situation. I present a working hypothesis in this article about what happens during a conversation. I first presented this as a “Lightning Talk” at ACCU2009 and was encouraged by the response which, along with some other subsequent insights, has prompted me to put pen to paper, or rather, fingers to keyboard. Some of the conclusions turn out to be fairly surprising.
Why Should We Care?
I start from the position that as technologists we should be more aware of how electronic communication media can affect human discourse. This becomes more of an issue because we are likely to be a reference for lay-people who have problems with such communication. The trouble is that although we are technologists, the questions raised are primarily psychological.
During a conversation, here defined as occurring between a number of people, (I don’t believe machines can converse, but that is another story) I suggest it is a very rare occurrence for us to talk directly to the “real” other person. We form an image of the other person and communicate with that image. It is then the reduction in the congruence of this image with reality that can cause problems.
It is this image that I call the “Communication Shadow” and it is formed by a combination of our own psychological projections and the various miscommunications and errors made by the other speaker. The greater the discrepancy between this Shadow and the “real” other person, the more chance there is that the conversation will descend into conflict.
The Available Media
So what does this have to do with computing? I have experienced that the various types of electronic communication media will affect human conversation differently. So lets look at some differing modes of communication:
1. Face to face
The best mode of communication we can experience, where we can continually pick up subtle cues: body language, facial expression, as well as the timbre of the voice. Of course it can still be difficult. Something I experience in married life! Even after many years I can still fall into some of the old traps, usually culminating in having the last words, namely: “Yes dear”. I am sure there will always be a job for counsellors. With face to face conversation the Shadow we are creating is (or should be) getting continually updated and modified to match the other person. Conversations in the bar can be hilarious just because we can laugh about how different the shadow image is from the real person, although usually the alcohol will help things move along smoothly.
2. Video and Audio
I have in mind the current set of video conferencing systems which are so useful for long distance communication. Although problems with the video/audio synchronisation can make for a stilted conversation, this mode of communication works very well. There will, however, still be missed cues. Though the image of the other person is important I think that what and how the other person speaks is a greater help in adjusting the Shadow image we have of them. But I would advise caution if you think that there are absolutely no problems with this medium. I have worked in the TV business for many years and know that many celebrities are very adept at promoting just the image they wish by video. The reality invariably turns out to be quite different.
3. Audio only
Usually telephone conversation, which has even more absent cues. Again, since we can hear the other person, it still can work well because we can adjust our Shadow image to make the communication work. I believe it is here where we can start to realise that we are creating a Shadow of the other person, especially if we have not met them face to face. Just remember how surprising it can be to see the person in the flesh after we had been forming a totally different image of them having only conversed by telephone.
4. Text only
The worst form of communication in terms of its ability to foster massively discordant Shadows. In ye olden days, people would take time over letter writing and would therefore ponder, peruse and pause in their thinking. But now we have the chance to “chat” instantly and isn’t that bound to be an improvement? Well, yes and no. Being faster can mean more mis-communication errors are made. On the positive side, the speed of interaction means that we can correct the error by further clarification, before the other person has a chance to ruminate and get too upset.
The Conflict Process
Lets look at a typical sequence that can occur during a textual communication:
Person A types some text and is just not quite careful enough, writing something which is ambiguous and just happens to “push the buttons” of a recipient. Needless to say person A is totally unaware of how their message is going to be received.
Person B sees what has been written and due to their temperament, and the ambiguity inherent in the message immediately gets offended and starts making all sorts of assumptions about person A. Person A, they think, is a complete and utter twit and needs to be told so in no uncertain terms right now. “How can they think of writing something so preposterous?”
So person B fires off a flaming response, usually starting the latest flame-war.
So what just happened? It is here where the idea of a Communication Shadow can be useful. What has happened is that person B very quickly created an image of person A, projecting all sorts of personality traits onto them, and then proceeded to communicate with that Shadow. From then on it may all be downhill as person A is likely to do the same with person B.
Thus we end up with a conversation with 4 people in it! Person A is going at Shadow B and Person B is going at Shadow A. Anybody who can successfully manage and calm this conflict will usually do so by getting both people to step outside of the immediate arena, psychologically speaking, and see what is happening from a distance. If successful this can immediately help them realise that assumptions have been made. Unfortunately in my experience this rarely happens and the protagonists go their separate ways, convinced of the idiocy of the other person.
The Point
Now here is the key point of this article:
The problem is not that this Communication Shadow exists…
…it is the fact that we are unaware that it exists.
If we are truly to enter into a more enlightened communications or digital age, call it what you will, then we must become more aware of the processes in which we are involved rather than solely the content of our communications.
From my experience I can see that programmers may have more trouble communicating than non-programmers. I am not pointing this out as a bad thing, rather it is a side effect of the sort of work in which we are engaged. If you have to think complex structures or processes through in your head, stringing together a number of thoughts, you must reduce your communication overhead while doing so in order to maintain flow. Once you have reached a point where you have enough coherency within those thoughts, you can then communicate them to others.
We therefore have to live in the two worlds, the inner world of thoughts, the very thoughts from which we create the software, and the outer world of our interactions with other humans, because you need a team to produce a finished product.
So I hope that you feel that the idea of a Communication Shadow has some merit and may help you to be more reflective about future conversations. Just remember that using text or email is a lot like using powerful Unix commands when logged in as root, you need to check them 3 times at least before hitting the return key.
[Note for non-programmers: A Unix command allows you to do most things through a textual interface. You don't need a window based operating system. "root" is the system administrator username on a Unix system]
On Feb 15th I spent some time at Lasham where I fly gliders, helping out with the Lasham Cadets. Unfortunately the weather was not good enough for flying so we had some talks. The cadets had to give a talk about various aspects of the theory of flying gliders, whereas the adults gave a mixed set of talks about work they have done.
I want to focus on a particular talk given by one of the parents who is a professional in the aviation industry, previously having been a pilot, now also flying gliders. He was making a point about the importance of being able to link theoretical knowledge to practical application, in this case about the theory of flight and saving lives.
The subject he chose was the accident at Heathrow on 17th Jan 2008 where a Boeing 777 lost power before landing and just managed to touchdown inside the airport but short of the runway. He was particularly highlighting the actions of the captain and the effect it had on the outcome.
Background
As a preamble it is worth noting the layout of the ground on the runway approach in question, 27L. From the airport boundary fence there is about a 1700ft gap before the runway paved surface starts. Here is a detailed map for the flying nerds among us. Just before the airfield fence you have the main A30 road which is a very busy highway. According to the AAIB report S1/2008 the aircraft touched down “some 1000ft short of the paved runway surface”, so there was only 700ft or so between the touchdown point and the road.
However, the key statement is in the interim report on page 4 where is says: “At 240 ft the aircraft commander selected flap 25 in an attempt to reduce the drag”. According to the person giving us the rainy day talk at Lasham, this action is not mentioned in any training, although it will be known by pilots because the effect of flaps is a basic theory of flight item.
Some Theory of Flight
So what are flaps and what do they do? On an airliner they are like big barn doors that, when down, extend from the rear of the wing. They allow the pilot to increase the lift from the wing at slower speeds. Depending upon the aircraft and their setting they also adjust the angle the aircraft flies at so that visibility is usually better for landing. In this case they had 30 degrees of flap which will have given them a slow flying, high visibility approach. Since with physics, you never get something for nothing, the down side will have been the high drag. In this case the autopilot will have been countering this drag with more thrust from the engines because at 30degrees the flaps were giving more drag than lift.
Handling the Emergency
Looking at the approach graph, when the engines gave up, although the glide angle was fairly constant, the airspeed was fluctuating and falling rapidly at some points. This could only go on for so long before the aircraft would have slowed down too far and fallen out of the sky, quite possibly onto the A30 dual carriageway. When the commander selected 25degrees of flap, although the glide angle steepened temporarily, it reduced the drag so that the airspeed stopped falling and the aircraft was able to glide a bit further than it would have done with the 30degrees setting. This would have taken courage because just after reducing the flap there was less lift from the wing so the aircraft lost some height before it stabilised on a better glide angle.
Conclusions
In any pilot’s training the effects of controls like this are covered. It is something that is relevant regardless of the type of aircraft you are flying. It works just as well for a glider as it does for a 200-400 seater airliner. Luckily what happened here was that the pilot had internalised the theory of flight enough to make the right judgement in an emergency, even though the initial response of the aircraft was going to be losing more height, something he would have known.
He managed to make that important link between theory and practice.
The Moral
Although technology can be made to work well a lot of the time, when an emergency occurs you will be vulnerable. A successful outcome will depend upon making the link between theory and practice. It will not be an academic exercise.
Lets start with some overview of the love affair that the human race seems to have with technology.
In the 30 or so years I have been working in the profession, computers have moved from being the province of nerds to now being a fashion item. And, yes, I was a spotty faced geek with glasses spending all hours in front of a keyboard playing some of the early computer games like Dungeons and Dragons – “Get in bucket. Drop bottle. Pick up matches” – usually eliciting the response from the game – “You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike”. Those games did not need much computing power. Now if you have a Smartphone, it has more power than many desktop PCs of the 90s.
But the question that has puzzled me is why there has been an inordinate amount of time, money but above all, human energy invested in developing computer software. Where I work, for example, there have been over 2 person centuries of effort expended in writing the software, which now stands at over 16 million lines of software, if not more. This is not out of the ordinary in industry.
Information technology is just the latest result of a continuum of technological development stretching from thousands of years ago. However it has a special attribute which I will come to later.
As with the movie character Shrek, even though he didn’t like being compared to an onion, there are a number of levels here:
The Development of Craftsmanship
Humans are consummate toolmakers and the computer is the latest in a long line of inventions that have given us more power to predict and control our environment. However, every tool has two sides, just like the proverbial two-edged sword. On the plus side a good tool amplifies our capacities. The down side that is usually forgotten is that any tool will place obstacles in our path which we must overcome by training ourselves to use it properly. Eventually, with effort, we develop more skill and a good tool becomes transparent to us as we use it. This has resulted in the development of craftsmanship and the professions.
The Development of Automation
If we look at the beginning of the 20th century, Henry Ford introduced the assembly line to help speed the construction of the Model T car. This was a major change in the way work was carried out and was met by strong opposition. He doubled the pay of his employees, segregated the work, yet stayed profitable because he was able to triple the running speed of the assembly line (see Shop Class as Soulcraft reference). This was the beginning of a massive development towards more automation in the workplace. Automation is about defining sets of rules to follow, and this can be done with some non-physical work, culminating in the current so called Expert Systems. For example I would expect the legal profession to see quite a few changes in this area in the years ahead.
The Development of Software
And so we come to software development. Why do I consider it to have a separate place from the automation of other work? With software programming the rules of work are almost impossible to pin down. Software is always written in an unambiguous machine-friendly language, and requires a lot of human effort create, since we have to use the ambiguous human languages to define what we want done. Now to automate software development, which uses a language, you have to… you guessed it… use another language. This means that to improve software development you have to do even more software development! With computing this has been the story so far with many new languages appearing every year, and it does not look like slowing down.
And so…
In terms of tool use and development, we have reached the top of a pyramid, moving up from physical work to thought work. We can automate repetitive physical work by using our thinking. But to automate repetitive thinking, we can only do more thinking, but at a higher-level. Of course we need to recognise that we are talking about the more utilitarian mode of thought here, but of course, as you might expect, the view of the path starts to get murky.
More to follow…
Reference
“Shop Class as Soulcraft – An Inquiry into the Value of Work” by Matthew B Crawford, Penguin.
