Monday bloody Monday.
Sorry this is so late, I went to bed early to try and watch the World Cup game between Australia and Spain. I kind of wish I hadn't now.
Technology and Travel.
I try to avoid technology when I travel, mostly because I've been in places where you can't get electricity or internet just enough times to know not to rely on it.
From the jungles of Papua New Guinea to the endless plains of Russia I've been places where battery life is impossible and connectivity is a myth. But still there are people who insist on taking their tech with them wherever they may go and I can respect that to a degree.
Some people want to just stay connected.
But the problem with taking all of your tech with you when you travel is that you can often feel like you've barely left your home city. In his book "Pattern Recognition" author William Gibson had a character note that she never really felt homesick because wherever she went around the world there was always her online world to return to. This was written in the time before Facebook and social media when independent forums were king and when I read about it(while on a train heading south out of Rome) I really felt that he'd noticed something I hadn't recognised until that point. We're building communities removed from geographical boundaries in a way that we've never been able to before the last decade or so. We've made houses of sorts for ourselves and now we can take them anywhere we want whenever we want to go somewhere, like Baba Yaga's house on legs.
This is your Facebook and Twitter profile. Source: The Whispering Dark.
When I travel I try to reduce the technology I'm taking, not because I'm a Luddite or because I'm one of those wankers who thinks they're better than other people because they don't own a phone or a TV but because I spend most of my regular life online or connected to a computer and my holidays are meant to be just that, holidays. I usually kill off my connection to Social Media entirely when I'm travelling these days, in Spain I didn't use Facebook for the entire trip and came back with 64 notifications which was insane, it nearly broke my phone trying to load them. I also try not to rely on Technology too much because I've a history of having my tech fail on me time after time. I've had batteries die on me before and it has sucked. I've lost cameras which was devastating and I've had problems connecting with local networks and various other things like it.
My parents are both terrible at using technology overseas, my mother spent the first week of her trip in Japan having trouble using her tablet to connect online, the reason? She didn't set up her email account for travel and didn't understand how to make it work, my dad had the same problem when we went to Europe. Trying to explain that email programs have protection to stop people in other countries and locations from using them doesn't seem to filter through to either of them because guaranteed next time they travel the same problem will kick in.
The older generations are getting more reliant on technology but they haven't got the experience in adapting to changes in the system so when they leave the comfort of their homes they end up unable to use it. This is probably going to be a major problem going forwards as more and more retired people start to travel more often and insist on staying in touch with their families at home. Oftentimes they don't even try to have a backup plan if their technology fails which means that there is no way for anyone to get directly in touch with them.
When I travel I try to keep my technology to a minimum, my phone(with a local SIM), my camera, a battery charger for both of them and a power adaptor. I use Wifi when I can, if I have to, and internet cafes occasionally to check up on the state of the world. I have used Skype once while travelling and that was to wish a friend of mine a happy birthday(it didn't go very well because the computers I thought would work didn't and so I had to use my phone which didn't have a forward facing camera and was really choppy). I think that other people are using technology a lot more intensely than I am when they're travelling but I don't think that it enhances their trips, I think it keeps them at home in ways that travel shouldn't.
This week.
Monday.
Technology and Travel.
Tuesday.
Dealing with Writers Block.
Wednesday.
The downfall of twitter activism.
Thursday.
Gaming and the future of technology entertainment.
Friday.
Are Australian Libraries Different to the rest of the world?
Saturday.
The Quiet Young Girls Guide to Multiple Personalities.
Sunday.
Short Story Sunday.
My Day
I have, I am pretty sure, broken my big toe on my right foot. The reason I think this is because I woke up this morning in a ton of pain and it hasn't gone away all day.
I didn't go to work because I didn't want to pile more suffering on my foot, I've avoided painkillers for the most part but tomorrow morning I'm going to the doctor to get an X-Ray. Hopefully it isn't broken but I'm reasonably sure it is at this point.
I also found out last night that I won't be able to go to the Craig Ferguson show because he's taking August off and his first episode back is one day after I come back to the Australia. I'm really sad about that because I was looking forwards to going. I'm going to look into other things I might be able to do while I'm in LA for a day but I'm not that hopeful of finding anything I'm really interested in. A friend of mine said she was interested in having lunch or dinner with me which would be fantastic.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I basically just slept and waited to go to my brothers place and then after that we went and got steaks from the pub. Tomorrow I have to phone up this guy we used to live next to and see if he's still keen on coming over for dinner on Wednesday Night which will be nice if he can make it.
I've pretty much written off today which was a shame, I did plan on submitting my application to SLQ for a job opening they have but I'll leave that until tomorrow night now, I really hate writing cover letters and crafting and re-crafting my Resume to suit various jobs but it is the way things are done now so I'll have to do it. Just takes a bit of time and practise.
Going back to bed now, my brother is due to wake up in two hours or so so I should probably get to that and prep breakfast and the like for him.
YouTube Video of the day.
Seriously this is the greatest show on TV right now(aside from Doctor Who), they've dubbed over the song here but the original and this are both hilarious.
Also for those who don't watch this show... same actress.
Technology and Travel.
I try to avoid technology when I travel, mostly because I've been in places where you can't get electricity or internet just enough times to know not to rely on it.
From the jungles of Papua New Guinea to the endless plains of Russia I've been places where battery life is impossible and connectivity is a myth. But still there are people who insist on taking their tech with them wherever they may go and I can respect that to a degree.
Some people want to just stay connected.
But the problem with taking all of your tech with you when you travel is that you can often feel like you've barely left your home city. In his book "Pattern Recognition" author William Gibson had a character note that she never really felt homesick because wherever she went around the world there was always her online world to return to. This was written in the time before Facebook and social media when independent forums were king and when I read about it(while on a train heading south out of Rome) I really felt that he'd noticed something I hadn't recognised until that point. We're building communities removed from geographical boundaries in a way that we've never been able to before the last decade or so. We've made houses of sorts for ourselves and now we can take them anywhere we want whenever we want to go somewhere, like Baba Yaga's house on legs.
This is your Facebook and Twitter profile. Source: The Whispering Dark.
When I travel I try to reduce the technology I'm taking, not because I'm a Luddite or because I'm one of those wankers who thinks they're better than other people because they don't own a phone or a TV but because I spend most of my regular life online or connected to a computer and my holidays are meant to be just that, holidays. I usually kill off my connection to Social Media entirely when I'm travelling these days, in Spain I didn't use Facebook for the entire trip and came back with 64 notifications which was insane, it nearly broke my phone trying to load them. I also try not to rely on Technology too much because I've a history of having my tech fail on me time after time. I've had batteries die on me before and it has sucked. I've lost cameras which was devastating and I've had problems connecting with local networks and various other things like it.
My parents are both terrible at using technology overseas, my mother spent the first week of her trip in Japan having trouble using her tablet to connect online, the reason? She didn't set up her email account for travel and didn't understand how to make it work, my dad had the same problem when we went to Europe. Trying to explain that email programs have protection to stop people in other countries and locations from using them doesn't seem to filter through to either of them because guaranteed next time they travel the same problem will kick in.
The older generations are getting more reliant on technology but they haven't got the experience in adapting to changes in the system so when they leave the comfort of their homes they end up unable to use it. This is probably going to be a major problem going forwards as more and more retired people start to travel more often and insist on staying in touch with their families at home. Oftentimes they don't even try to have a backup plan if their technology fails which means that there is no way for anyone to get directly in touch with them.
When I travel I try to keep my technology to a minimum, my phone(with a local SIM), my camera, a battery charger for both of them and a power adaptor. I use Wifi when I can, if I have to, and internet cafes occasionally to check up on the state of the world. I have used Skype once while travelling and that was to wish a friend of mine a happy birthday(it didn't go very well because the computers I thought would work didn't and so I had to use my phone which didn't have a forward facing camera and was really choppy). I think that other people are using technology a lot more intensely than I am when they're travelling but I don't think that it enhances their trips, I think it keeps them at home in ways that travel shouldn't.
This week.
Monday.
Technology and Travel.
Tuesday.
Dealing with Writers Block.
Wednesday.
The downfall of twitter activism.
Thursday.
Gaming and the future of technology entertainment.
Friday.
Are Australian Libraries Different to the rest of the world?
Saturday.
The Quiet Young Girls Guide to Multiple Personalities.
Sunday.
Short Story Sunday.
My Day
I have, I am pretty sure, broken my big toe on my right foot. The reason I think this is because I woke up this morning in a ton of pain and it hasn't gone away all day.
I didn't go to work because I didn't want to pile more suffering on my foot, I've avoided painkillers for the most part but tomorrow morning I'm going to the doctor to get an X-Ray. Hopefully it isn't broken but I'm reasonably sure it is at this point.
I also found out last night that I won't be able to go to the Craig Ferguson show because he's taking August off and his first episode back is one day after I come back to the Australia. I'm really sad about that because I was looking forwards to going. I'm going to look into other things I might be able to do while I'm in LA for a day but I'm not that hopeful of finding anything I'm really interested in. A friend of mine said she was interested in having lunch or dinner with me which would be fantastic.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I basically just slept and waited to go to my brothers place and then after that we went and got steaks from the pub. Tomorrow I have to phone up this guy we used to live next to and see if he's still keen on coming over for dinner on Wednesday Night which will be nice if he can make it.
I've pretty much written off today which was a shame, I did plan on submitting my application to SLQ for a job opening they have but I'll leave that until tomorrow night now, I really hate writing cover letters and crafting and re-crafting my Resume to suit various jobs but it is the way things are done now so I'll have to do it. Just takes a bit of time and practise.
Going back to bed now, my brother is due to wake up in two hours or so so I should probably get to that and prep breakfast and the like for him.
YouTube Video of the day.
Seriously this is the greatest show on TV right now(aside from Doctor Who), they've dubbed over the song here but the original and this are both hilarious.
Also for those who don't watch this show... same actress.
Click to view