It is natural to form an emotional bond with the phones that we carry with us 23 and a half hours a day for two to four years, that come with us to festivals, to the cinema, to work, on hikes, on bike rides and more. It is normal to feel nostalgia for a device that allowed us to photograph babies that turn into toddlers, that become children. It is normal to feel nostalgia for a device that is an integral part of our live 24/7 for years.
One of the reasons for which I keep using Facebook has to do with peoples’ sharing of old photos, paintings, sketches and more. I love to see photos of Nyon, Morges, Neuchatel Lausanne and other places through time.
Recently I saw a photo of La Dole with a group of children skiing before the Doppler radar “boule” was installed as well as old photos of the Little Red Train as locals call it. I saw a photo of the steam train that connected Divonne to Nyon before it was removed to make way for the motorway. Part of that line is still used by Landi for farm produce. The rest of it is used as a voie verte for cyclists and walkers to enjoy a path away from cars and other traffic.
Yesterday I finally took the step of deactivating my account, and then reactivating it, and then this morning deactivating it again. Normally when I lose interest in a social network I just forget about it and I’m done. In this situation I didn’t forget about it though. I went a step further.
Three factors pushed me towards this decision. The first is that Musk wants to use our tweets to feed AI and I don’t want my tweets to be used that way. Logically they can’t be used, because my account is private.
Recently I decided to re-explore Casio watches like the ones I had as a child. In the process I found that they’re minimalist, but great. They tell you the time. They beep every hour if you want them to. They wake you up if you set the alarm at the desired time. Some of them last for ten years, or more.
I experimented with several models including the F 91 and the A168 series. The F-91 might be 19-28 CHF in cost but the precision is not that great. It needs to be resynched every few days. In contrast if you set the A168 series of watches you set it once and it’s good for days, weeks or even months.
The Swiss Television archives shared this nice news item about how to prepare a fondue from 1969. It’s nice because we see the old way of preparing a fondue with the fluid burner rather than electric heaters. We also see the ingredients being placed in the caquelon.
As I went through my video archive I’ve found a lot of good videos. As a result of this, I’ve been reminded of many moments and memories. There are a few people I’ve seen frequently since the shooting of the footage whilst others have not been present for months or years in some cases. I love watching this footage and I can’t help but want to upload the videos to Facebook. It’s not that I particularly like the video interface on Facebook but rather it’s easy to do with the people bothering to look at them. The first video I uploaded to the web was of the Crete graduation back in 2000 but at the time no one would watch them. Finally, technology has come to a point where sharing is easier. I’ve uploaded three clips and am in the process of uploading the fourth clip now. One or two are of a fashion show, another one is of a snowball fight and the last is of some friends dancing. These videos are tame compared to others I have. It’s part of contemporary life, that it is recorded. How many times are you photographed by tourists as you walk through London? How many times have you been filmed during parties that you may have forgotten. What about those conversations? I don’t live in the past. I live in the present and I love to film. I love to watch a scene and film it from many angles. I love to capture conversations without the people noticing so that a few years later we may laugh as we view them. Friends acting in plays or performing in various ceremonies are probably the best but parties are good too. Especially when the video is of the cameraman (in other words me) as he is distracted by something. It’s amusing footage. Some of it my friends will see, some of it will be archived and preserved for later.
I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts over the past few days. i had to catch up with all those I haden’t taken the time to listen to over the last few months. It’s amusing. in “96 I began working on my website, in 2007 I uploaded it and since then I’ve been following everything that’s happened. I’ve seen as some new things became old and old things became new again with time. How many people remember Geocities, Angelfire and other projects? I remember them. I remember when I started trying to get people to contribute to my website because I didn’t have time to produce the content. It didn’t work. That was web 2.0 several years before the time. I remember 6 degrees.com, a website that attempted to do something which is becoming more standard as new social networking websites come of age. Look at myspace, look at youtube and Flickr. Each one concentrates on your interest, whether music, video, or video. Everything the youth enjoy. Rupert Murdoch is attempting to join the fun. It bothers me that people are putting so much content on myspace without attempting to put that content onto their own domain names and websites. Why should I create content only to have a billionaire make a little extra money when the content is mine. The challenge for me is to find how to create content, host it myself, and then make money through other people showing interest. Over time it should improve. A site I like at the moment is Facebook because of how much information is available. The user interface is good, the add ons are interesting. If I create a post in a blog on my own website it’ll automatically be synchronized with Facebook for people to come to and read. It’s also where people I haven’t seen for over a decade re-appear and I can see how things have evolved since last time. We’ve grown up.