Ordnance Survey Maps for sale in the Market Square in Cambridge – shot with my mobile phone camera.

Arguments in the car about someone’s skills as  a “Map Reader”

are now a thing of history and folk lore

I find that in the networked and connected society this type of question can lead to some very short conversations

“;+)

TV the culture hearth of the family home?

If found this post over at Russell Davies’s gaff online. Russell has such a lovely turn of phrase dontchya think? Although as someone also said to me. ‘sometimes Alan being right is not necessarily the right thing to be’.

Russell writes

If / when telly people complain that their industry was blind-sided by the internet/interactivity I think it might be fair to point out that this was made in 1990. And that it was shown – ON THE TELLY. Or would that be mean?

Did someone cough the word, ‘hubris’?

We say: Why use your TV to watch repetitive drivel when you can plug your PlayStation into it instead? Whilst you confide in your friend that your TiVo thinks your gay. And someone has to go down the hall to the ‘Grand Fromage’ to tell him that TV advertising is the equivalent of the silent movies of the 21st Century.

In the future of television, we get a vision of well, the future,

To begin, the trend toward larger and larger televisions will continue as screens double in size every 18 months. Televisions will eventually grow so large that families will be forced to watch TV from outside their homes, peering in through the window. Random wolf attacks will make viewing more dangerous. And, just as televisions grow larger and more complicated, so will remote controls. In fact, changing channels will soon require people to literally jump from button to button. Trying to change the channel while simultaneously lowering the volume will require two people and will frequently lead to kinky sex.

SMLXL archives on Television

Got a million yen for the jet powered bike via Treehugger.

FAIYATORIKKUBOBU, ???????????  (pronounced as Fire Truck Bob) is a bicycle fitted with a TABINJETTOENJIN (Turbine Jet Engine) that allows you KERUZU (cruise) in HAIPA (hyper) speed!

Commuting will never be same again

Daisy has the right gun for you

I came across this on my travels, and I marvel at what this ad tells us. The mixture of the nuclear family, innocence, and the deadly weaponry that they hold in their hands. So I guess the annoying neighbours will receive a visit on Boxing day!

anti-rational government is not the product of a Machiavellian plot by ?Washington? but is the inevitable result of ?an overarching crisis of memory and knowledge? that has left many ordinary citizens and their elected representatives without the intellectual tools needed for sound public decision-making. The real question is not why politicians have lied to the public but why the public was so receptive and so passive when it heard the lies. At this crucial political juncture, The Age of American Unreason challenges Americans to face the painful truth about what our descent into intellectual laziness and our flight from reason have cost us as individuals and as a nation.

Its a bold statement -

The author Susan Jacoby appeared on Comedy Central -

Matthew C. Nisbet writing at Framing Science observes….

Jacoby’s appearance on Colbert does prompt the serious question: to what degree do shows such as the Daily Show and The Colbert Report contribute to the age of unreason, with younger viewers displacing traditional news consumption with regular viewing of late night satirical comedy? In other words, can young audiences have their satire and their knowledge too?

Is this true? I don’t know.

But when trust in traditional media is very low – where do you go to get your information? As I understand it blogging went vertical in the US after 911 – when people hungry for information went online. Take the whole issue of VNR’s for example

According to the trade-group Public Relations Society of America, a VNR is the video equivalent of a press release and presents a client’s case in an attractive, informative format. The VNR placement agency seeks to garner media attention for the client’s products, services, brands or other marketing goals. The VNR affords local TV stations free broadcast quality materials for use in reports offered by such stations.

Trust Wiki

Its why OhMyNews in Korea a Citizen Journalism news platform is so powerful – and the underlying point is trust – trust between you and me and trust in the media

So we are in a process of migration

Founded on the premise that “every citizen is a reporter,” OhmyNews is accredited for having a tremendous impact on the news production, distribution and consumption habits of citizens across the world. By promoting an inclusive online forum for news reporting, OhmyNews encourages online global collaboration and features over 40,000 contributing journalists worldwide, generating over one million hits daily. OhmyNews president Oh Yeon Ho reflected on the importance of online social movements, ?Being acknowledged by institutions such as Infosys and Wharton confirms the arrival of citizen journalism as a catalyst to create an egalitarian media.

An egalitarian media.

or this one

We know that India provides as many as 350,000 people to service companies around the globe.

In Hi, its Bollywood calling

We are informed that

the Indian call centre, where around 350,000 people are employed, has emerged as the inspiration for some of the country’s most provocative cultural creations. From soap opera to Bollywood musical, from arthouse documentary to best-selling novel, the call centre has been immortalised this year as a symbol of contemporary India and a convenient illustration of globalisation. In other cases, it is simply an exotically modern backdrop for slushy romantic comedy.

John and Jane by Ashim Ahluwalia explores the call centre

Those living in the United States often forget that “America” encompasses a much wider swath of territory than the 50 states. There’s Canada, of course. And even in certain parts of India the residents call themselves “American.” For powerful evidence, see Ashim Ahluwalla?s “John & Jane,” one of the most fascinating discoveries at this year?s festival. An observational documentary about 1-800-call workers in Bombay, “John and Jane” exposes the insidious reach of the so-called American Dream, as experienced by six phone agents who peddle odd products and services to callers throughout the U.S.

Without any direct comment, Ahluwalia’s camera captures the workers’ strange surreal lives as they leave their small cramped flats for the clean, immaculate hallways of their offices and take on fake American names to interact with their customers. More intriguing and alarming, however, is the workers’ “cultural training” — where they learn about “the pursuit of happiness” and other distinctly “American” fundamentals.

Inspired, one man buys self-motivation tapes in order to realize his dream of becoming a billionaire, like Elvis and Englebert Humperdinck; a woman refashions her identity around her phone alias “Nicky Cooper”; a blonde girl prides herself on her light skin and Westernized looks. Utterly blind to the cultural imperialism overtaking their existence, the film’s subjects are among globalization’s most tragic offspring. After watching “John and Jane,” you’ll never think the same way again about calling customer service

In book format we have One night @ the call centre written by Chetan Bhagat

Set in a failing call centre, Bhagat’s novel describes the frustrations of highly educated Indians giving helpline advice to a series of unintelligent Americans who need assistance on understanding how to use ovens and vacuum cleaners

And

Call centres in the UK have never attracted much artistic attention, but the Indian outsourcing industry has inherent elements of drama not shared by the UK business: here, thousands of young male and female college graduates spend the night confined in close proximity (breaking down the traditional distance between the sexes), working to US-time in smart, modern offices, adopting alien American identities, performing mindless tasks but earning salaries larger than anything their parents could aspire to.

The changing socio-economic model will ultimately have a direct impact on the fabric and attitudes of individuals and the wider society.

India even has its own soap opera called India calling and airs every Monday to Wednesday

About call centres Out of India a CBS news story

This on reflection is another example of living in a post-industrial society, an unravelling of indentity, and place, time and organisational structure.

How does the experience affect all these people? Does it change how one sees the world from a wider perspective? Or, does it reinforce already held world views?

Lets face it – on one wants to live in poverty – shackled to a lifetime of misery. But if I am a highly educated Indian working in a call centre and I have a new accent, personality and name – how might that ultimately affect me? My relationship to the opposite sex, loosened by the working environment.

All these things will have an impact over time.

May the organic farm be with you!

Use the farm and stretch out your peelings…..

Even my son of 8 years old and my daughter of 17 watched this and thought it was great

There was a famous French writer known simply as Exbrayat. He invented the genre of the humorous detective novel and wrote more than 100 books (plus several plays and films), on which his first name, Charles, never appeared.

Apparently there are still many fans interested in the life and work of this man, and, a blog has been set up by his daughter to celebrate her father in a way that feels fitting and appropriate to her. And importantly she is in control. Not a broadcaster, nor a newspaper nor a publisher, who will naturally direct and exert their own agenda upon his material.

Jackie Danicki, explains

We hope the blog will be something very special for Exbrayat’s fans. We will be adding more never before published family photographs, podcasts, and other goodies for fans as time permits. For Antoine’s mother, who has always been very publicity shy and has refused all interview requests, it’s a genuine case of blogging and social media as DIY PR – actually conversing with the public, bypassing the traditional media owned by others in order to speak directly with the people who really count, on a platform owned by the family. The network that nobody owns is a million times more valuable and useful to the family than any other.

So no more middle man, its DIY social media, and as Jackie indicates it is a direct connection with a passion led, niche community, and, probably more widely scattered than just within France itself.

I see, once again the dynamics of peer-production, and networking technologies that enable a two way conversation, in an unmediated and authentic way.

Doc Searls said markets are conversations, but also many would argue that culture too is a conversation.

Via the Engagement Alliance