[motor memory] when it fails to serve

Once, in the time when I ran two cars, my friend and I went for pizzas with me taking my custom car and nosing it into a car spot near the pizza shop. We did the business, came back to the car, I went to put the car into reverse to pull out and it wouldn't go in.

Damn. He watched as I struggled to get the gear lever in but every time it went into first gear. Hell. This was going to mean pushing the little bus backwards - it was a light car but not that light.

Then he said that he wasn't sure but why was I pressing down, left and forward when he was sure I had pressed down, right and back earlier? Redfaced, I followed his suggestion, went easily into reverse and we went back to eat the pizzas.

Reason for the blockage? Down, left and forward was the way I put my other car into gear.

Muscle/motor memory

Have you wondered, when you play squash or badminton, how such a small racket head on a long stick can possibly move at an angle to the curving ball/shuttlecock and make [usually] unerring contact with it, often onto the sweet spot of the strings? Miracle, if you ask me.

Motor memory is dependent on a number of factors and there's no need to get technical here, even if I could but it's worth a read, just to see the complexity of the whole thing - motor neurons, synapses and so on. Let me not murmur the words "intelligent design" here but you know what I'm thinking.

Here's a little test of motor memory. You should really do the whole thing but for now, try this:

Get someone to highlight the words written in white in the gap below [yes, there are words there] and then say them slowly to you:

Dog - Bed - Smoke - Coat - Road - Job - Door - Shoes - Head - Drain

Now quickly say them back to your partner. They say that if you are normal, you should be able to repeat seven of them but I sure couldn't. If you are in doubt or even if you are not, try the whole of the test.

Imagine people who can't complete this test satisfactorily. There, but for the Grace of G-d ...

[blogworn] many are taking increasing blogging breaks

Is it just me or are fellow bloggers feeling the work pinch just now? More and more blogs are closing and there is also a constant demand for quick grab posts, which pains me:

"Right now, and for the foreseeable future, the blogosphere is the friend of information but the enemy of thought." [Alan Jacobs in Books & Culture, 2006]

He goes on to speak about the sphere as a disseminator of information, which I dispute, on the whole considering that an awful lot of blogs simply comment on the news [guilty plea here as well]. Jacobs then adds:

"But as vehicles for the development of ideas they are woefully deficient and will necessarily remain so unless they develop an architecture that is less bound by the demands of urgency—or unless more smart people refuse the dominant architecture."

Have to agree. There needs to be some sort of mechanism which raises the quality of the information at least to published book level [a topic in itself] and yet we can't afford to put up with any form of bureaucratic control or even a Voluntary Code.

Many will argue that the rant is the defining characteristic of the good blog, providing it is backed by research and this does distinguish the blog from the MSM, which has gone over to so-called "blogs" which might charitably, in the main, be called banal.

Total Politics and the like are trying to elevate the status of the blog within the narrow sphere of politics but what of the cooking or pretty-landscape photo blogs? Where do they fit in? They are certainly popular but what s their future? Possibly they'll outlast the text blog.

There is certainly the question of the friendly nature of blogs, a culture in existence where many of us now prefer a list of trusted bloggers to be our first source and initiators of ideas, before going off to Wiki or even to a book, to expand our horizons on that topic.

The local library has been partly replaced by the blogosphere, for how long?

Security expert and tech curmudgeon Bruce Sterling famously quipped at this year’s South-by-Southwest conference that “I don’t think there will be that many [blogs] around in 10 years.

On the question of 'short grab one-liners', concerning what you had for breakfast or where you'll be at 6 p.m. this evening, do you want a steady diet of: "I'll be home at 6 p.m. dear, just as I always am"? In an article, Twitter will die and I'll tell you why, Marios Alexandrou says:

Much of what gets posted to Twitter is not valuable to the community. I'm not saying that there has to be a money-making idea in ever message, but a message to your network should at least be of value/interest to more than one person. I don't need to know that you'll be calling so and so at 9:00pm tonight.

Send an instant message instead or use the direct message feature. Twitter is like TV. You can park yourself in front of it, become really engaged, and hours later wonder what you did during all that time. I had a one week period where all I did was check Twitter instead of checking my RSS feeds.

And what of the blogs which branch out and include a team? Jay Garmon says:

Nearly all great innovation comes from a singular vision pursued doggedly until it achieves success ... Opening your project up to an unreliable parade of volunteer contributors allows for a great, lowest-common-denominator consensus product.

I can't agree in terms of this blog here. Whilst I have a style some might like/some might vote against with their click-out finger, the introduction of divergence through guest posters has certainly upped the intellectual status of the blog, not to mention the contributions from Anon in comments.

Do we go the way of Samizdata, where a central figure controls a group of under-bloggers who are expected to post with a certain stance on things? I particularly like Johnathan Pierce there but he only pops up now and again. There's something a little 1984 about that blog organization.

There's a negative reaction to guest posters in many cases. I won't name two of my favourite blogs but both gentlemen have other regular contributors and I tend to ignore these latter posts and go for the originator's. It's clear why the owners do it - to keep the thing going and to allow someone else the luxury of posting without having to maintain a blog him/herself.

Now one or two of these 'guest posters' are damned good in their own right and I really like their stuff but there is something ... something ... well, I don't know how to put it, really.

What of the corporate blog, very popular some time back? In a comment on these, which could equally apply to blogs in general, the Boston Business Journal says:

"I try to do it consistently but oftentimes I can't do it," conceded Waltham-based Black Duck Software Inc. CEO Doug Levin. "I don't blog for blogging's sake. I blog when I have something to say." Levin, a self-proclaimed blogophile, said he simply doesn't have the time to blog daily. "I used to do it every Wednesday, but then I began travelling on Wednesday."

Does a firm run a one-product, mini-niche site [or a series of them] or is the future the one-stop mega-site? Quadszilla says, on the trend to black holes:

If you’re doing SEO and have an extremely trusted site as a client, it certainly makes sense in the current Google environment to recommend an “Everything for everyone” strategy ... It would take some cash, but buying and transforming highly trusted sites into everything for everyone sites looks to be a very profitable business strategy.

Are we going to see megasites in the future or will the one-person-blog survive and even flourish?

[the north] not featured in the superports

As one tends to do on a dull Friday, the UK Superports are ripe for investigation.

Felixstowe, the biggest player, rating in the top 30 worldwide, is set to go mega, with Harwich and the other Haven port, Ipswich and this was interesting. Shell Haven, Thurrock, is going to become a major rival, according to plans.

Dibden Bay, Southhampton, which ran aground in 2004, is now hoping to rise again but will Liverpool, scuppered by union action following the decline after containerization, ever rise again? Does it need to?

Whilst the nature of the docks on Merseyside were their own reason for decline in their inability to cater for new shipping techniques, it has become even more pointed that the major ports are clustered in the south-east corner of the country, not unlike most modern industry, such as IT.

Seems to me that the country needs to look at a situation where the only way to survive is to be within range of London. Take North Wales, where I am. It is depressed, for one reason, due to lack of transport infrastructure - a motorway or two - and unless this improves, the second factor - population in the area to take on the jobs - will also not improve.

Is there any serious plan to develop the North or is it to be as it always was?

[offending people] the mc cain letterman way

While Letterman fumed:

"Here's how it works: you don't come to see me? You don't come to see me? Well, we might not see you on Inauguration Day."

... McCain felt he was doing vital stuff, dealing with the crisis. I'd like to know what he was actually doing and with whom he was negotiating. Did the SPPNA* or S. 853 come up in his discussions at all? Now, as for Obama and his non-admittance, despite this link, does his wife influence him at all?

* Left wing rebuttal of the concept

[top 100] conservative blogs

For someone who railed against the big boys and demanded justice for the little blogger in 2006, do you think I've sold my soul by being particularly pleased by this list?

I do feel there is hypocrisy in some people's version of the tall poppy syndrome - that if someone gets somewhere, then they're criticised for enjoying that. With a straight face, I say that it was never to keep new bloggers mediocre that Blogpower was set up - it was to help them upwards.

Ditto Bloghounds now. Good luck to all on this list.

H/T Steve Green

Total Politics

[swanwick] don't you want to stay home

Don't know how many of these have been affected by the Swanwick computer downtime:

BAA, Gatwick Airport, Stansted Airport, Luton Airport, Bristol International, Heathrow Airport, Southampton Airport

... and it's not the first time, is it? Tell you honestly, there are currently five things this blogger has zero desire to do:

1 Travel by plane;

2 Travel by train, bus or car to get there;

3 Be unemployed;

4 Make love;

5 Get sick.

Maybe one or two of those delights will return with time.

[day in the life] mustn't jinx it

All right, so today hasn't been a bad day [so far]. Advances were made and this in itself is causing me anxiety. It's certainly a long journey getting re-established over here and there are factors seriously militating against and threatening to scupper the whole thing but the advances currently have their noses in front.

Tomorrow will tell.

How was your day today? If you can see your way clear, I'd like to know about it. Did you axe murder anyone or make a killing on the markets or meet the girl/man of your dreams? Or were you just glad to get out of it alive?

[favourite marques] in no particular order

What are your five current [in the last five years] favourite models? You can't include collectibles like Austin Healeys or the old Bristols in the list.



The Holden Commodore, which is now making inroads into the American market, is a large engined sub-compact designed for long haul trips in Australia.


Needs no introduction - the Aston Martin Vanquish has to be the sexiest and most menacing thing on four wheels.


My personal choice if I ever get back to some sort of financial position - the BMW Mini is a great car for the UK.


The Miata is a bit aged now but in its soft top form is one of the niftiest around. I've always liked all but its front nose styling.


If I still had a family, this or the Volvo Estate would be the choice - usually wagons are ugly but in this case, the A6 is better in Estate form.

So there are my five. What re yours?

[macintosh] even used to help pcs

I'm constantly being told that the Mac is a toy and that no businesses bother with them and yet this story about the presenters of the "I'm a PC" ad all turn out to be Mac users and the ads for Microsoft were even partly made on Macs:

The new ads are a direct attack on Apple's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads, which portray the Mac as cool and intuitive and the PC as boring and clunky. Microsoft has ignored Apple's ads at its peril, allowing the Mac maker to own the narrative and frame the PC's image. Now the company is looking to use Apple's stereotype to its advantage.

Microsoft hurriedly scrubbed out the data references to Macintosh but the story still got out. Hey, there's all the proof you need, methinks. Once you've used a Mac and it's fitted itself to your personality, which it can do, it's difficult to go back to a PC.

[fusionman] spirit of adventure

The Taipan has now replaced the QB2 I once sailed but the principle is the same - two man crew, both on trapeze and a very, very fast boat indeed.

I know it's re-reporting what was in the Telegraph today anyway but this represents the type of thing which gives us hope.

Fusionman's flight across the channel will reportedly take place at 13:00 BST, launching from a plane and crossing the English Channel in about 12 minutes. Good luck to him.

Though my little ventures never reached these proportions, forgive me for mentioning that I have also attempted things in my time, once making it into the Australian press for trying to sail an off the beach QB2 catamaran round Port Philip Bay [about 300 miles in sometimes treacherous waters, which did run us onto the rocks at Brighton when a gale hit] and I once took part in a marathon in an A Class catamaran, placing 5th from 68 entrants. Long time ago now. This is a short little video of one of these craft sailing:



It's very much in the English blood, the nautical spirit of adventure but airborne feats are as well. They take more money though. Some say these sorts of things are a waste of resources, which could have been spent on the poor but without this spirit of adventure, surely a community is that much the poorer for it?

Finally, just check out this video of Fusionman: