Stephen Dale's Posterous - Passionate about the social web, collaboration, learning, sharing and trying to make sense of an increasingly complex world.
I think we all know how pervasive the mobile phone has become in our everyday lives. That feeling of anxiety if we haven’t got it in our pocket; being out of touch or disconnected. The need to frequently check if we’ve received a new email or text. However, even I was surprised by some of the statistics revealed in this Infographic.
43% of iPhone users would go without shoes for a week rather than temporarily be without the phone
73% of people sleep with the smarphone on their bed
The average person checks their phone 150 times per day
53% feel anxiety if they run out of battery or credit or have no network coverage.
There’s also the problem of “nomophobia” (no mobile phone phobia) – fear of losing your phone. Not sure what treatment is available for this
I was also unaware that some companies (Microsoft and Apple are mentioned) that encourage tech-free getaways to resorts prohibiting technology. Wether or not the delegates benefit from the experience or return from their break as quivering heaps, with symptoms of nomophobia is anyone’s guess!
I think you can’t go too far wrong with the mantra “everything in moderation” – whether that’s food or mobile phones. But no doubt we’ll soon see the first clinics and treatments for mobile phone addiction springing up – or maybe they already have?
Posted on January 17, 2009 by Steve Dale in Blogs, fun, Wiki
Hat-tip to my colleague Michael Norton who told me about this video. I hadn’t associated blogs with Watergate until I saw this. Maybe there’s some truth in the notion that blog are on ‘the dark side’!
Posted on August 27, 2008 by Steve Dale in fun, Social Media
For all those poor souls struggling to get their managers to grasp/understand/deploy social media tools in their work environment:
It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things; for the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order; this lukewarmness arising partly from the incredulity of mankind who does not truly believe in anything new until they actually have experience of it.
I was amused by an article in the July/August 2007 edition of Information World Review regarding the problems caused by (lack of) digital preservation of e-documents at the National Archives (TNA) – though I should add the intention of the article was not to amuse.
It seems there are problems accessing data created in legacy versions of Microsoft systems, though I wasn’t entirely sure if this was because of the medium used to store the data (I think most people would struggle to get at the contents of a 51/4 inch diskette these days), or the software application itself (surely Word97 is not yet obsolete?). However, as the article points out, the objective is to make “digital data as resilient as paperâ€. And anyone who’s spilt coffee on the printout of that latest policy statement knows exactly how resilient paper is!
Ah yes, I remember how we were once told that CD-ROMS were virtually indestructible, and that preservation of the data was guaranteed in perpetuity. I guess anyone who’s tried to rebuild software on a malfunctioning PC using the original manufacturer’s CD-ROMS can testify to this being a myth.
I’m reminded of a quote from a senior executive at the old Sperry Rand Corporation (now Unisys) when questioned about the longevity and integrity of digital data on Sperry’s (circa 1960) drum storage technology. The riposte was “it will last indefinitely, or 5 years, whichever is the soonerâ€. It seems we still haven’t cracked this little nut!
Posted on March 29, 2007 by Steve Dale in fun, Software
Directgov, has launched a new Flash animated site for children aged
5-11. DirectgovKids
welcomes our future generation of civil servants (else why else would they be visiting Directgov?) into a self-contained little world full of virtual buildings to explore, each representing a part of
government – so introducing, says the blurb, "important ideas about
citizenship, democracy, and political participation".
Children’s Minister Beverley Hughes proclaimed "This is the first time children in the UK have been communicated with
directly by Government through an online site".
The site is quite well constructed, with lots of animated games to play, though I don’t think the makers of Sim City have got anything to worry about just yet. I thought they could perhaps have introduced a bit more realism into the relationships between communities and government by introducing some elements from Doom3, but perhaps that’s part of a later release.
To pick up on an editorial from Public Sector Forums…" after all, which five-year-old wouldn’t tear themselves away from Hungry Hippos or their PlayStation 2 for a heated debate on ‘Sustainable Schools’? In the words of Eric Morecambe…"there’s no answer to that"!
Posted on March 23, 2007 by Steve Dale in fun, Software
I’ve covered this before in a previous post, but if ayone is seeking a cheap (as in free) but powerful photo editing application, take a look at Picnik. They’ve just released version 11, which has a whole host of new features.
I’m afraid this is off theme a bit, unless I try and make a very tenuous link to story telling techniques described by Shawn Callahan over at Anecdote! Actually, I picked this up from The Times yesterday in relation to a compilation of anecdotes from celebrated figures of the 1950′s, being auctioned for charity today in London. This one appealed to my sense of humour:
Sir Arthur Bryant. 18 February 1899 – 22 January 1985
I had 12 bottles of whiskey in my cellar, and my wife told me to empty the contents of each and every bottle down the sink, or else…!
I withdrew the cork from the first bottle, and poured the contents down the sink with the exception of one glass, which I drank. I extracted the cork from the second bottle and I did likewise, with the exception of one glass, which I drank. I withdrew the cork from the third bottle and emptied the whiskey down the sink, with the exception of one glass, which I drank.
I pulled the cork from the fourth sink and poured the bottle down the glass, which I drank. I pulled the bottle from the cork of the next and drank one sink out of it, and threw the rest down the glass. I pulled the sink out of the next glass, and poured the cork down the bottle, and drank the glass. I corked the sink with the glass, bottled the drink and drank the pour.
When I had emptied everything, I steadied the house with one hand and counted the bottles, corks, glasses and sinks, which were 29. To make sure I counted them again, and when they came by I had 74, and as the house came by I counted them again and finally had all the houses, bottles corks, glasses and sinks counted, except one house and one bottle, which I drank.
