You don't need goggles because you're swimming in shallow water

Since we are talking technology, might I ask what on earth the boffins at Google were thinking of when they came up with the brilliant idea of Goggles?

If someone was going on a trip to, say, San Francisco, wouldn’t he borrow a good travel guide from the local library, or do some research on the Internet (perhaps even using the Google search engine) before leaving home? In this way, he would have some idea of where to go and how to plan his days. Who travels to a strange destination without knowing where he is going, what he is doing there, and why he is there? If you don’t know anything whatsoever about the place, then why pay for an air ticket to go there?

I will pose similar rhetorical questions for other objects that Goggles can handle. Works of art, for example. Point your mobile at a painting (or even a picture of a painting if you’re into simulacra) and Goggles will identify it and produce a page of relevant search results from the Web (undoubtedly the ubiquitous Wikipedia will assume position No. 1 on that list). Ditto for any products with barcodes, bottles of wine, books, DVDs and so on and so forth.

The geeks and nerds are already waxing lyrical about the “potential” this new development offers. The only potential I can see is for Google to strengthen its dominant position even more – users can opt to save their searches and this new information will enlarge Google’s database, for the benefit of future Goggles aficionados.

Admittedly, one might concede there is some usefulness to be gained from Goggles: it is perfectly feasible that someone might be lost in a strange town late one evening, have no knowledge of the local lingo and desperately need to find the nearest McDonald’s in order to stave off growing hunger pains. Alternatively, he may wish to know more about the unusual wine his host is serving up at dinner and how much it really cost. (On second thoughts, perhaps it would be better if he didn’t know).

However, I see a worrying trend emerging where we don’t even need to know the name of a thing, or indeed articulate a question, in order to find out more about the nature of this thing. What is more, how can we truly appreciate and utilize the information gained when we couldn’t identify the object under investigation in the first place?

Call me a cyber-Luddite if you like, but it is a fact: language skills and true research capabilities will deteriorate (are deteriorating?) as we “communicate” more and more via electronic media. Soon we will merely point our mobile phones at whatever catches our attention and click a button. Perhaps the only human sound to be uttered will be a grunt of satisfaction as we read off the information on the screen.

Nicholas Carr questions whether Google is making us stupid. I would qualify this by saying that the dunces stay dunces and the intelligent stay intelligent: there is no way on earth that Google can turn us all into Nobel prize winners. What Google (and others of their ilk) IS doing is making us LAZY.

http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/#landmark
http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=166331

http://www.roughtype.com/

Some things never change

Marshall McLuhan recalls a prank that used to do the rounds in the days at the turn of the (previous) century when the telephone was still a novelty and people were not so au fait with new technologies. A practical joker would ring up his friends, pretending to be a telephone engineer. He would then proceed to inform them that the telephone lines would be cleaned out that day. Subscribers should cover their phones with an old sheet, otherwise the room would fill with dirt during the cleaning process. Then the prankster would rush round to his friends’ homes, enjoying a laugh at their expense as they covered everything in sheets and waited for the lines to be blown out and cleared. (Marshall McLuhan. Understanding Media. The Extensions of Man. London: Routledge, 1987 [1964], p.268).

The other day (purely coincidentally) I read Dilbert’s modern take on this eternal problem of blocked wires (http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20070913.html accessed Friday, 11 December 2009). ‘New’ technology is not so new after all when it poses the same old challenges for the not so technologically minded.

Edification

The other day I drafted three CVs to illustrate layout and content, to be used in a training context as a starting point for further work. Instead of the insipid “type your name here” label, I thought I would jazz up the drafts somewhat by adding real names. “I know,” I thought, “I’ll use the names of famous authors!” Without really taxing the grey cells too much, I immediately came up with three, randomly selected names: B. Jonson, Alex Pope and O. Wilde.

Later, when discussing these model CVs in the training session, a thought occurred to me. How would these three individuals fare in the 21st century if they really were on the job market and trying to find gainful employment? A moment’s contemplation was enough to come up with the answer – in all probability they would fail miserably, literary genius or no literary genius. These three giants of the Western Canon had rather unsavoury backgrounds: a murder conviction (although we managed to save our neck because we could read and write); a physical disability; belonging to a church not approved by the Establishment; engaging in a same-sex relationship. Today’s employers are not allowed to discriminate on the grounds of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, religion, marital status. So, yes, a potential employer would have to look at our three candidates, overlook any factors that he finds personally abhorrent … and then go on to discriminate on the grounds of their educational background.

The competition for jobs today is ruthless. A Bachelor’s degree is no longer enough to differentiate you from the hoi polloi. Recruiters looking for new blood to fill their graduate programmes now say a Lower Second is no longer sufficient: you must have at least an Upper Second. And what do they do when all applicants have an Upper Second (since this is the grade the majority of students achieve)? Then they go even further and look at A-Level results – if you have Grade B's then don’t waste your time posting off your CV: the stamp will be better used elsewhere.

Oxbridge too are trying to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Students are working harder and achieving straight grade A's for their A-Levels so the dons have resorted to a barrage of entrance tests (psychological tests, English tests, aptitude tests, numerical tests, trick tests – you name it, they’ve got it). The last ones left standing get a much coveted place. A good example here, I think, of the inadequacies of our systems for evaluating educational performance. How do you allocate 100 university places when all 1,000 applicants have (identical) excellent results?

Furthermore, if it is our aim to get more people into university and improve their level of education, shouldn’t we at least make sure that we can provide them with enough places, instead of goading them on and then disappointing them? Unfortunately, these youngsters are products of their education system.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/6520835/Students-need-more-A-grades-to-secure-university-places.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/6561399/Oxford-and-Cambridge-introduce-new-entrance-tests.html http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/sunday_times_university_guide/article6831837.ece

So a university graduate needs a lot more than good grades and the usual “skills” of communication, flexibility, teamwork, initiative etc. etc. What that “more” is I don’t know – I’m still thinking what it could be. And whether Messrs. Jonson, Pope and Wilde could get an entry-level position is a good topic for a heated debate.

p.s. A second, more disturbing thought occurred to me as I ruminated on these Dead White Males. When searching for names to paste at the top of my draft CVs, why on earth had I chosen male authors? WHERE WERE THE WOMEN? Where was Behn, Wollstonecraft, Brontë, Eliot, Woolf, Perkins Gilman, Rhys, Atwood, Lessing and so on and so forth (apologies if I’ve missed your favourite). I am, too, a product of my education, in the sense that I have been fed a canonical diet of male writers, imbued with their values and trained in their idiom. Now that I am free to engage my brain in any way I choose, I find myself following the well-trodden familiar track. The alternative path is stony and seldom frequented. This has been an exercise in deep soul-searching and I am sorely disappointed in myself. I shall make myself a cup of rosehip tea and mull over these developments.

OUTRAGEOUS!

What has Laura Jesson (played by Celia Johnson) in David Lean’s Brief Encounter got to do with Deutsche Bahn? You might well ask.

Train fares are going up a whopping 1.8% on 13th December (how convenient – just in time for the Christmas exodus) and this at a time when inflation in this country is practically ZERO.

To be fair, the organisation does need an urgent injection of funds: there are new axles to be bought and brakes and such like, and someone has to be paid to fit all these new technical things. It’s not much different to having your old banger serviced – it’s not the spare parts that cost an arm and a leg (especially now that China has flooded the market with “original” copies) but rather the labour costs. So far we haven’t been able to import cheap Chinese labour here to do the job for us – qualified German technicians must apply themselves diligently to the task in hand.

I recently had occasion to travel to Munich. Three travel options were available to me – train, plane, car. Naturally, I opted for the latter. As a conscientious European citizen, not unaware of my impact on the environment, it goes without saying that I originally wished to travel by train. However, not being in receipt of a banking executive’s salary, this mode of transport was way out of my league, since two return tickets cost way over 400 Euros and were MORE EXPENSIVE than flying!!! Also, the whole city is plastered with advertising hoardings proudly announcing: “Mit Dauer-Spezial reisen Sie schon ab 29,- Euro durch ganz Deutschland.” Don’t believe a word of this fairy tale! Tickets at this ridiculously low price are severely limited (in fact, I don’t think I have ever heard of anyone traveling cross-country for this meagre amount) and you have to book years in advance. Furthermore, the cheapest option by rail involved THREE changes and a stretch of the journey to be undertaken BY BUS, if you please!

I now realise why the train platforms are deserted and why traffic jams on the nation’s motorways are inevitable – it’s cheaper in the car and the more people that travel with you, the cheaper it becomes. A full tank of petrol (about 70 Euros for the good quality stuff) is all you need to reach Munich from Berlin, and this is still cheaper than even the bus! The tedium and the endless pile-ups are minor inconveniences when you think of how much money you are saving.

I realize I sound too much of a Socialist (is that bad?) but it is a fact that people need an efficient, safe, and above all, affordable system of public transport. Not everyone can afford a car, or even know how to drive one and they must have a free choice, rather than being forced by economic factors. Public transport should not evolve into an ‘elite’ service, accessible only to a privileged few. The powers that be should not look to make a profit out of what is essentially a social necessity, on a par with schools, hospitals and provision of clean water. Unless this trend (of milking the system for all you can get) is reversed, then Germany and many other European countries, will go the way of the United States, where public transport is derided as a means used only by dropouts (I have here a picture in my mind of Midnight Cowboy – the two hustlers took the bus to Florida, not the train).

In closing, I shall answer the question I posed at the beginning of this diatribe. The suburban housewife, Mrs Jesson, indulges in a weekly outing to town in order to do a spot of shopping, visit the library, see a film in the afternoon and take her afternoon tea in the town’s tearoom. The action is set in the inter-war period and Mrs Jesson has no car – she uses the local train (steam) for these weekly excursions. Had she lived in the present day and been obliged to use Deutsche Bahn, should could not have afforded this blatant luxury – she would have had to stay at home every day and become a Desperate Housewife.

A final plea for forgiveness for the excessive use of hyperbole, litotes, exclamation marks and block capitals –simple, unembellished text cannot adequately express my indignation.

Das ist doch nicht zu fassen!

Yesterday I found myself on a windy S-Bahn station platform in Adlershof, vainly waiting for a train to show up. Lots of other people were also waiting for the same reason. The platform canteen (operated by Deutsche Bahn) couldn't get the hot coffees out quick enough and there was a queue for the freshly made sandwiches. I'm sure the proprietor would have made a huge profit yesterday morning - at least enough to buy one new train wheel. Cancelled trains meant my usual travelling time was trebled and I lost count of the number of times I had to change lines and forms of transport. Anyway ...



I am certainly not the first (and most definitely not the last) traveller to rant and rave about the city's non-existent S-Bahn network (and "S" here stands for 'snail' not 'schnell'). I am not competent to analyse responsibilities and conduct post portems or apportion blame. All the local papers are filled with horror stories and attempts at justification. However, "Hier ist die Hauptstadt" with a public transport "system" reminiscent of the developing world. How does that look to the rest of Europe?



The second picture comes from a border crossing OUT OF one of the East European countries that recently realised its EU-membership ambitions. If the truth be told, I can't for the life of me remember which country this was: they have all blended into a homogeneous mass, with similar behavioural traits (which makes a nonsense of so-called 'national' customs-cultures-traditons). Perhaps the powers-that-be in this fledgling EU-state looked to Berlin for guidance in how to be a good European and decided that they had to create transport havoc and chaos. Only then could they be considered 'European'. In any event, I enjoyed the hospitality of No-Man's-Land in baking summer sunshine for a good hour, followed by an interrogation into my smoking and drinking habits. (Incidentally, who would be foolish enough to carry excessive booze and ciggies over the border, knowing that some official will certainly poke about in his car boot and find them???)



Get out your rusty bicycles and dust them off! Rediscover local tourism - find a cycle lane to work. Do something good for your figure and the environment: "on your bike!"

There are democracies, and then there are democracies

The inauguration of a President is no different to any other important occasion in public life, in the sense that, after all the formalities and protocol and signing of documents, there then follows a slap-up dinner.

On 3rd July the new/old President, Mr Köhler, will host a dinner to celebrate his inauguration. As is to be expected on such occasions, the guest list will read like a ‘Who’s Who’ of German public life and the crème-de-la-crème of high society. BUT (unlike some other “democracies”) this event will take place in full public view in front of the Brandenburg Gate and not behind closed doors. Of course, important people and prominent VIPs will be invited BUT one thousand additional guests will also be invited from all around Germany: these lucky few will be selected by the country’s newspapers – all you have to do is write in and say what your wishes are for Germany’s future and its President. A lottery in other words.

As is fitting for an occasion involving such a broad range of social strata, the menu will be modest: fish in aspic jelly for starters, and nice homely casserole as a main course, followed by cakes for dessert. Diners will be able to quaff wine produced by young wine producers – teetotallers will be offered Berlin tap water.

The president will ensure he changes seats frequently so that as many citizens as possible will have a chance to chat with him.

In other “democracies” the people must make their own entertainment and celebrate democracy privately. The Presidents of these people would prefer the company of like-minded individuals and flunkeys. Perhaps they believe that too much contact with the hoi polloi will introduce a miasma into this noble institution. Either that or they fear the masses will find them out.