Eiffel Over

Tag: satnav

  • Storm’s coming: go to the cinema

    Storm’s coming: go to the cinema

    In times gone by, people went to the cinema to stay warm. The movie theatre offers a place of shelter from the elements and also an escape from reality for a couple of hours. Last week, when storms huffed and puffed and infrastructure bent and buckled, Great Western Railway suspended all services from London to Bristol. I was stranded in the capital amid a maelstrom of conflicting information about when services would resume. So rather than stare at the blank departure screen, I headed for the silver screen instead.

    I felt liberated. Give me a ticket for the next film, I said. The next feature was Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film ‘Parallel Mothers’. For the next two hours and three minutes I was transported away from the rain and the wind to sunny Madrid and the tale of two who give birth on the same day.

    By the time I emerged the information storm had settled down. There would be no trains today, and probably none tomorrow morning. Decision made for me: I would need to stay another night in London.

    Incompatible and incomplete information

    In a situation like this, when a system that usually runs in a steady state is knocked off course, then the information about that system is likely to be incompatible or incomplete. For instance, National Rail Enquiries showed some trains leaving Paddington, GWR said none leaving Paddington for now, others had simply crashed.

    (more…)
  • Analogue Skill 008: Be happy not knowing

    Analogue Skill 008: Be happy not knowing

    There’s a gap between certainty and doubt, and that is being happy not knowing. In this gap is space for discovery, serendipity, delight and the opportunity to grow confidence that you have everything you need. 

    I see the ability to be happy not knowing as a keystone analogue skill that supports other analogue skills and behaviours. Not knowing the weather, what’s on at the cinema, what your friends are doing, the headlines, what’s on TV, the fastest way to get there. Once we can wean ourselves off this need for certainty, we can become less dependent on our devices and more confident in encountering the world as we find it. 

    (more…)
  • Apollo 8 | What do you do with your computer?

    Apollo 8 | What do you do with your computer?

    I’ve been listening the BBC World Service’s podcast ’13 Minutes to the Moon’ about the Apollo space programme. Last night I listened to the episode about Apollo 8, the perhaps forgotten daring mission that enabled the moon landings to happen. I woke up this morning thinking just what an incredible achievement it was.

    (more…)
  • The horizon of existence | surveillance capitalism | the return of analogue skills

    The horizon of existence | surveillance capitalism | the return of analogue skills

    It’s hard to know where to start. So much has changed in the last fortnight and there is so much that I feel compelled to write about. But now that our house has also become a remote workplace, a homeschool and playground and locus for all entertainment and time-passing activities, it is hard to find the time to write in an ordered way, so I will capture things as they emerge and look to see the patterns over time. I hope you will bear with me, reader. On my mind today:

    • The shrinking horizon of existance
    • Surveillance capitalism and Analogue Skills
    • Everyone is the same distance away
    • Mourning friction
    • A great slowing

    (more…)