Convergence
Posted: Sun 12 January, 2014 Filed under: Change, Design, Geeky, Health, Technology, Thoughts 1 Comment »Since getting the FitBit Flex, I’ve been thinking a lot about technology, innovation, and devices.
Why?
Because actually, despite being useful, the Flex feels something like a backwards step. Despite it still doing a number of things, it’s nowhere near as advanced as it could (and should) be.
Yes, this one device – worn on a strap on the wrist – can detect/monitor motion, whether that be steps, or motion during sleep. It can communicate via Bluetooth with my phone. But really that’s about it. It’s not got GPS to show where I’ve been, it’s not got a display for showing time, heart-rate, or anything else. In essence, it’s a pretty dumb device.
How has this happened? I remember back in the late 80s and early 90s when Casio were bringing out watches galore, and they could do so much more than the Flex. Casio’s corporate history is amazing for the number of innovations and firsts. Their first databank watch was made in January 1984, their first watch with GPS was released in June 1999. Within that time they certainly made watches with thermometers, weather predictions, heartrates, and many others.
So why are we now in some ways less advanced than these watches of 20-odd years ago? Why can’t my Flex also display the time, or be able to monitor my heartrate? Casio did it 20 years ago – it just seems bizarre that we can’t get one device to do all that now.
New Year’s Eve
Posted: Tue 31 December, 2013 Filed under: Change, Charm School, Cynicism, Festering Season, New Year, People, Resolutions, Thoughts Leave a comment »
Unsurprisingly, I don’t really do New Year’s Eve. Partly it’s that whole “Everyone else does it, so I don’t” thing I’ve written about before on here, but primarily I just don’t quite get the whole concept. OK, we go from [old year] to [new year]. Big whoop. I get it – or at least more so – with birthdays, the anniversal thing of being another year older. (Or, more pessimistically, the celebration of having got through another shit year) But celebrating a new year leaves me cold – let alone the whole ‘resolutions’ thing.
I suppose it makes sense in a “The new one will be better than the old one” spirit of hope and optimism over [x] years of experience, although one assumes that leaves most people really quite disappointed.
I’ve never been a fan of it though – I did too many New Year’s Eves working in pubs, dealing with pissed idiots singing “Auld Lang Syne” and being all ‘love thy fellow man’ at midnight, and kicking the shit out of each other by quarter-past. New Year’s loses its happy glow when you’re sat (for the third year running) waiting for an ambulance by half-past.
I know, I’m a grouchy old sod. I accept that about myself, and try to stop it from affecting others, and their decisions.
All the same, I’ll be quite contented tonight to be at home, just doing my own thing.
Have a good one, wherever you are, and whatever you choose to do.
Changing Qualifications
Posted: Fri 1 November, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Change, Cynicism, Education, News, Thoughts 3 Comments »It’s been announced today that OfQual has announced the finalised changes to GCSEs from 2015, with first exams in 2017. The changes will initially be for English language, English literature, and Maths – others will be announced later.
The key changes are :
- Grading by numbers 9-1 rather than by the current letters A*-G
- No more modular courses, instead full exams taken at the end of two years
- Controlled assessments (coursework done under exam conditions) will be scrapped for most subjects
I think most of these are good, but the one that makes my brain bleed is about the changes to grading. I don’t care about it being numbers or letters, but why change the order of them? Until now, for decades, A has been the highest mark. Why would it now change to 9? That’s just counter-intuitive. When you think of ‘the best’, it’s usually “Number One” to be the best, not “Number Nine”.
Employers are used to that grading system, with A being the best. Changing that round is – I suspect – likely to cause more confusion than any other part of this revamped assessment.
Saloon vs Estate
Posted: Tue 17 September, 2013 Filed under: Change, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Thoughts 2 Comments »Over the last couple of weeks, for one reason and another I’ve been lugging a lot of stuff around in the car. Shopping, tip runs, that kind of thing. It’s still be OK, but it’s made me conscious of how different it is to do this kind of stuff without an estate car.
With Mondeo, I simply dropped the back seats, and could chuck any amount of stuff in there – the loadspace was amazingly capacious. It gobsmacked people on a few occasions, the sheer amount (or size) of stuff it could handle with no problem whatsoever.
With Saab, it’s a different prospect. I can still get stuff in, but it’s far more of a hassle, and there’s a few things that simply become impossible – or at best a nightmare. What would have been a simple ‘chuck it in the back‘ becomes more about ‘how the hell am I going to do that?‘.
I’m not unhappy with Saab at all – it’s doing me very nicely in general – and this is by no means a deal-breaker. What it will do, though, is make me think more about what I want as and when Saab goes to that great garage in the sky.
And you know what? I think the next one may well be an estate again. I don’t need that loadspace often – but when I do, I really like being able to just have it there, ready for use.