Tidying up after leaving an online forum

Good old Mitch Sullivan, the recruitment expert, has the right idea about interacting online; it's not the real world, so don't take it too seriously. Wise words and I'm trying, honestly.

However, this year, the behaviour of one particular person in one particular forum (LT) got right under my skin. It didn't seem to bother anyone else in the forum, so I guess it was just my own weak spot. I tried ignoring it, I tried just staying away, I tried mocking the behaviour as Mitch advised and none of it worked. So I left the forum and asked the owner to delete my account. And I once again became more active on Ecademy, where I started out my online networking activities in December 2004.

For the good order, I would like to express my appreciation for various people on LT:
- Coaksey for his humour, balance and for sharing difficult moments of his year
- Rupert for his intelligence, erudition and for playing the ball, not the man
- JH for patiently hosting the whole thing
- Mollie for her unique wit and incisive perspectives
- Rachie for putting me straight on websites
- RAD for being an all-round good man with a great sense of fairness
- Mitch for being a provocative, funny and insightful nutter
- MJ for his dry, wry, pithy humour
- Bood for being the deep-thinking, reflective peace-maker
- JW for reconciling me with Ecademy again
- Nikki for taking no prisoners
- DH for being a unique monomaniac
- Essex Girl for her spirit, curiosity and kindness.

Apologies to anyone I've missed out - I guess we weren't so much on each other's radar.

Reasons to visit Bradford-on-Avon

Nobody sane comes to the UK for a beach holiday. There is always the possibility of sunny weather, so it’s good to be near a beach or walking area. But there is always the likelihood of rain, so it’s good to be near indoors attractions too. I would recommend the town where I live – Bradford-on-Avon- or somewhere nearby. The parents of our German au pair came on holiday here twice, each time for a week, in the last year and loved it. I believe an IWE staffer spent a week here this year as well.

The Cotswold countryside is beautiful, with lots of little stone villages and valleys and streams and woods for walking. The Roman city of Bath is nearby (great for shopping too) and the port city of Bristol is half an hour by train. Within a half hour drive there’s Glastonbury, an old magical town full of “alternative” people. The ancient stone circles of Stonehenge and Avebury are also with half an hour by car. There are great country parks to visit such as Longleat, Stourhead and Westonburt Arboretum. There’s swimming and paddling in the river Avon if it gets really hot, or a trip to the coast of North Somerset (about one hour west) such as Brean Down or The Jurassic Coast of Dorset, about 90 minutes drive south. There’s horse-riding, paintballing, canoeing, cycling and walking all in and around the town. Cycling along the Avon and Kennet Canal it’s easy to go for many kilometers without seeing a car – just stopping occasionally for a beer or a coffee.

The power of incremental progress (and a gadget)

I've never been a great fan of jogging, but where am at right now it's the most effective way to get some daily CV and rebalance the system. I can swim for an hour or play tennis for an hour, no problem. When I started running just after Christmas I had to take a breather after 800 metres.

I've gradually increased the distance non-stop and the pace but the big break-through has been getting the RunKeeper app on my iPhone. Now that I can see exactly how far I've run every day, and how fast, I just have to make sure it's a little more each time. Today it was just over 3 km and soon it will be 5.00 km.

So many thanks Jason Jacobs of RunKeeper.

Blowing away the cobwebs today

I went on the following run - map courtesy of RunKeeper on my iPhone. Great app, guys!

Tweets as a way to drive blog / website traffic

Maybe it's the people I'm following on Twitter, but it seems to me that a lot of tweets are essentially functioning as a signpost to blogs or websites.

Sometimes the click-through is worth the time, but nine times out of ten I scan tweetlinks and ignore them. IMO part of the value of Tweets is saying something worthwhile in 140 characters or less.

Twitter search, not Google

Today I needed to find out some information about Location-Based Services and rather than Google the term I searched it on Twitter. Within seconds I had found something highly relevant and authoritative here, thanks to Twitter.

Twitter 95, Blogger 0

It's a couple of months since I've been moved to blog anything here. Yet in not much more than a week I've tweeted over 90 times.

Two key differences.
1 - Brevity - no need to craft a well-turned piece for Twitter, there are only 140 characters
2 - Interaction

John McCain and the art of losing well

So Barack Obama ended up winning around twice as many electoral college votes as John McCain (365 vs. 173). The actual votes cast show a closer race than that (52.8% 45.9%) but it was still very clearly Obama's election. The worse the economic crisis became, the more Obama looked like the man who would be better able to steer a course through it (please God!)

If it's any consolation to McCain, there top job looks like the most poisoned chalice around. As The Onion ironically reported under the headline Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job - In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation's broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it.

Even dealing with the current crises (plural) will put years on Obama fast. Just imagine if it were McCain with a 72-year-old body already damaged by torture and bouts of illness.

All in all, John McCain probably got the best result for him, for the United States and the world. His loss was clear but not crushing and certainly not humiliating. And whatever he goes on to do, he will be remembered for one of the most gracious, courageous and magnanimous concession speeches on record.

John McCain will win

At the time of writing everything is set for Barack Obama to achieve an historic victory in the US Presidential elections on November 4th 2008. The polls are showing him with a six-point lead at a time when the panicky economic situation seemed to cry out for his reassuring coolness and detachment. McCain is an experienced, older man, but economics are not his strong suit. And his party was on watch when the credit party ended and the economy turned hyperbearish.

There are signs of a rift in the McCain camp. His VP selection Sarah Palin and her fervent supporters are eager to attack Obama with whatever weapons come to hand (some of them literally), while McCain himself is standing up to defend Obama and asking highly partisan crowds to tone down the attacks.

But there are at least three factors set to upset the predicted Obama victory. One is that although there are waverers among both affliliated Republicans and affiliated Democrats, there are more Democrat waverers leaning towards McCain than there are Republican waverers leaning towards Obama. Another is that McCain's support is stronger among older voters while Obama's support is stronger among younger voters; older folk are more reliable at turning out to vote than youngsters. And the third is the so-called Bradley factor - up until the last moment, liberal and moderate white voters go with their conscience, but in the privacy of the booth, they go with their gut and vote for the white guy.

Teaching Creationism and Darwinian Evolution

Once again, thanks to Sarah Palin, there's been a lot of debate about whether schools should teach Creationism / Intelligent Design alongside Darwinian Evolution.

I'm all for teaching both alongside each other, but not in the science lesson - nor in religion. Evolution is a scientific theory based on tangible evidence, with some scope for testing the hypotheses, and belongs in science teaching. Creationism / Intelligent Design are based on scriptures and belong in religion.

Both are dependent on belief systems, and what kids (and adults) need to learn is the ability to examine belief systems and ask smart questions about them. So maybe they should come together in PSHE of philosophy.

FWIW when until the age of 7-8, my youngest never asked the typical kiddie question "why?" - he asked the far tougher "how do you know?"