Mark Keating

So it has reached that time of night when I have had a day filled with events and random come downs where my body has taken what rest it could while a fevered mind ponders the multitude of contrasting elements that is must engage with when I realise that sleep isn’t so much taken from me but confined to a wilderness that my resting soul cannot share…

In other words, it is 01:42, sleep hasn’t arrived as I have been engaged with a computer all evening and now I wish I had closed my eyes two hours ago…

On the other hand, I am lying in bed next to my young and beautiful wife, there is some classic British comedy in the background, I am catching up with writing, picture editing, and some promotion/conversation in online life and so it isn’t like I am lying here staring at the ceiling…

But I still wished I had closed my eyes…

You see these days I don’t drink caffeine, well not much, just on the special occasions when I want a really good coffee, or when I really need to perk my brain into semi-semblance of activity and it is refusing. I had to give it up, I was getting old, it was affecting my mood and my sanity, and mostly it was preventing me from sleep.

There are some people who claim that caffeine doesn’t affect them that way, biologically that is wrong, though biology can adapt as can perception and environmental adaptation (mostly biology again but this time intentional), but it is still wrong, but right with the correct mitigating factors.

For me, that has never been true. caffeine has always had the correct knock-on affect.

So I gave up drinking it and switched to decaf (please stop shuddering and claiming that you would prefer it if an elderly syphilitic goat had just urinated in your cup), and that gets me through the day. Insatnt decaf, good blends and good beans only, are an acceptable alternative to caf., eventhough they are a travesty and a rape of all things nice and bean like. Though I always did like strong blends, rich roasts, and they always contained less caffeine anyway (the richer the roast the more caf. is burned away).

I still wished I had closed my eyes…

Because then I would be dreaming (in song lyrics I would be “made winding through her hair”, or wanting you “in my arms” or even making her “the cutest that I’ve ever seen”, wait she already is that…) and I like to dream “perchance to sleep”, I have always thought of it as “what is man, what is he not, man is but the shadow of a dream” (Pinder [apologies as it should be 'person' not 'man' but it is a quote]).

I have always been a lucid dreamer, and I have noticed patterns to how my dreams form and when I can remember or engage with them, and one of those patterns is not being up this late as then the over-tiredness will kill either the conceptual space in which I am lucid or the recollection of any lucidity.

So I wished I had closed my eyes…

Thanks for reading.

——-
* Apologies to the Cure. Also it should be a Wednesday morning, but the song has night in the title not morning so I took liberties, “drip, drip drip…”

How fickle and pointless I have become, I found myself recently responding to various celebrities, not because I wanted to comment on something interesting they had said, but to see if I could be re-tweeted by them. All this because a few people I know had been retweet by a celeb. How sad is my behaviour.

Please, don’t answer that, it is sad. I normally just reply to whomever I follow when spurred by what they write, but I found myself watching the one or two celebs I follow more keenly and responding to them more, perhaps not as much as some of my other Tweeples, but definitely more than I had done previously.

Well, now I have caught myself I will stop. I promise, cross my heart and…ooooh a chance to respond to Ben Goldacre, gotta go…

<rant>

Does anyone who is even remotely sane follow the trending topics by looking at the actual responses anymore. My basic issue is this:

1. You see a trending topic;
2. You open the link to view;
3. You read the first few replies and realise at least two of them are retweets;
4. You look up and notice at least 20 new tweets have been added in the time it took you to read three;
5. You try to make a tweet, but your words are lost in the miasma of retweets, inane comments, WTFs etc.;
6. You give up on looking…

So I do not understand why anyone bothers with them at all. What do people get by making something trend. Okay I know that things will trend just by being mentioned, but a lot of people make them trend by insisting on using the # (which is fine to use), or by using the appropriate keyword that is trending. We all have at least some mastery of English, it is easy not to use the word and avoid trending the inane.

Basically trending topics give analysts an idea of the public consciousness, apparently, and I say ‘apparently’  as I have noticed that they in fact are not the zeitgeist of the modern persona but an inflation of a small section. Take, for example, that during the coverage of the Earthquake near Japan one of the trending topics was PearlHarbour. The tweets were split between the offensive “this is revenge/karma for Pearl Harbour”, to the angry “how can people compare this to Pearl Harbour” and the various millions who retweeted. It made it look as if this was a hot topic of division.

It wasn’t really, it was mostly over-reaction from both sides leading to a spurious heated exchange lost in the wealth of pointless retweets and insults. The trending topic is the new internet flame war, Twitter allows us to vent our spleen in much tidier packages that can distill the essence of our bile and render ineffective any viewpoint we have.

How can we analyse and debate anything in a mere 140 characters. Twitter is a great tool for an instant thought, or linking something of importance, but it is nano-blogging, there is no scope for reflection.

The trending topic has become a parody, it no longer shows the pattern of public feeling, more the shoaling of minnows with little voice. Yes, from a distance a lot of shouting may appear to be a great tide of opinion, but when all they are doing is chanting to a tune you realise it is just an audience at a spectator sport.

“You’re shit and you know you are” (endless repeat)
“Who’s the b*stard in the black” (and many other varieties)
“We’re all bald impotent w*nkers with girlfriends who remain sexually unfulfilled” (truthful option)

</rant>

I have tweeted (to my Tweeples – thanks Mr Pegg: https://twitter.com/simonpegg) on my dislike for the rise of early-day loans, work-day loans, short-term loans before. It is not their existence I abhor (though I am close to it, I don’t think they are worthwhile components of our society) but the fact that they are allowed to advertise on the television and the radio.

Just like cigarettes, they cause a cancer, theirs is a moral and fiscal cancer but it is still a disease that grows and spreads and without management will become terminal. (Sorry, this is a fairly poor allusion and a touch offensive to all those who are suffering from the big C., I do apologise in advance if it causes you offence).

So I don’t want it in my mass media, thank you very much. I personally don’t want them to exist at all, but the legality of the situation allows them to exist. This form of short credit with its accompanying excessive fees is a blight. I understand that for many it is a saviour, but I feel sure that with proper regulation and support from local authorities low-cost community loan schemes can flourish and occupy the same space without the excessive profiteering of these companies.

I have even had one of these creatures follow me on Twitter to try and “educate” me of their true face, they apparently “provide a low cost service to those in need as long as the loans are repaid in the short term.”

Well, really. But since I did not have enough money for this month, and now next month I am down by the amount I borrowed from you + your interest, there is a chance I will be returning to you in the future. This is the sad cycle that many people cannot avoid. So should we allow these people to prey on them or set up systems to protect the vulnerable in our society?

I am blogging about this now as there is an early day motion:

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=41619&SESSION=905

And a push by Compass to end the most severe forms of this behaviour:

http://www.compassonline.org.uk/news/item.asp?n=10636

Personally I say that you should push at your local councils, MPs etc., to try and support regulation to catch the Great Whites otherwise we are going to end up with a 3D sequel with Michael Caine* in it.

*Note Michael Caine was in Jaws 4 (Jaws on vacation – Cheesy dulness but a nice turn from Mr Caine as the hero of the piece) which was not in 3D, Jaws 3 however was in 3D and it was cheesy badness

a.k.a. Facebook can go f*ck itself

a.k.a p*ss off you over-subscribed bad medium

a.k.a. once annoyed the comments get bad but you’re still sh*t

So I’m leaving (indeed)

On a jet plane (not really)

Don’t know if I’ll be back again (hopefully never)

Hello, you might be reading this because you saw it linked from my Facebook page, you might be seeing it from Twitter. it doesn’t matter the message is still the same. I will soon be leaving Facebook.

I have a hard decision, but I have determined to make it.

I am leaving Facebook.

It’s true, I don’t completely like it but it is happening.

It is because I have had enough of this service, the launch of Places was the last straw… Well, no, it wasn’t, the launch of like button was the last straw… Well, no it wasn’t, the launch of the new security was the last straw… Well, no…

Actually, it was all of these and more. My laziness was the only thing stopping me, but now I am convinced I have to go. For all of you bothering to read this who only know me through Facebook, find me on Twitter (while I am still there – for a long while yet I think), or email me, PM me so we set up an email route, or whatever, but please stop thinking that Facebook is the route – as it is not – I have to go,

I can stand it no more.

It is a shame as I own my own name on Facebook. I have used Dopplr. Twitter and others with Facebook, I have reached people, but that dearest ones is over.

But why?

I could do a long treatise on why social networks inspire redundancy in communication skills by removing the onus to be active in pursuing ones familial network. But I am not going to.

Instead I am going to rant.

I would like to point out hate things against a certain Facebook founder who stated:

“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity”

Well f*ck you.

Harsh words but I feel harsh. What kind of w*nk statement is that? The arrogance, the sheer ignorance. What the hell has your identity got to do with your integrity? That is either a gross simplification by someone who doesn’t understand those terms or a gross simplification by someone who does understand those terms but is talking sh*t.

I think it is an easy platitude but I am going to use it:

Those who know everything understand nothing.

We can all come up with the one liners but at least mine comes from a familiarity with the actual words.

So it is goodbye!

So long, farewell (and a song from The Sound of Music) I am going. Follow me on Twitter (shadowcat_mdk) or perhaps since we are friends ask for my gmail email and if you like use Buzz.

Please don’t rely on Twitter, for sometime soon it will be gone. I will give a few months for people to filter through and know me elsewhere where I will welcome them for the loved ones they have become (for I was selective in my Facebook attachments). But then I shall be gone.

No doubt one day people will look back and say “why did he do it, silly fool, when all we have is this marvelous tool”, well because for the reasons mentioned above – and perhaps others I will add in edits to this post.

For now, use this time to make sure we stay in touch – I may not have any other contact than Facebook and if so it will be sad to lose you. Let us use email, and those other social tools I am using for this time. But, mostly to email let us be consigned. True it may not have the immediate appeal and one has to choose who to inform, but surely that should be celebrated as at least you know I mean it…as opposed to: look, you knew I was here as someone I once knew told you so and now you feel obliged to contact me…

Facebook is no longer a tool for communication, it is the monkey we feed on our social back, it makes us feel good and wanted but is still a burden to bear…

So I am going…

Just not yet. I have to let you all catch up with me yet…I have to let you all know…I have to make sure all the services that this provides are replicated or replaced…Don’t I….

Will I really go…