The new balance

Odeo Have some interesting voice tools. You can send me a message with this one:




Give it a try! Don't mind who you are or what you say (within reason).

It must be said that, when the nascient Internet gurus put their heads together and came out with SMTP as an e-mail sending protocol they never considered the base nature with which humans endowed with that dubious quality of "business acumen" would approach the relatively harmless concept of web advertising.

Spam was the result. An insidious, creeping consumer of human time and energy, of precious bandwidth and valuable processor clock cycles.

You see, I'm not opposed to advertising. Anyone is welcome to inform me of the products they sell. My requirement is that they only tell me when I want to hear. Which is not when I'm trying to work, and it isn't when I'm trying to play. In the same way that I expose myself to the market when I venture into a shopping centre, from time to time, in a curious, exploratory kind of way, I might establish contact with the world of advertising when I desire to find a particular product which meets one of life's needs in an efficient, harmless way. A well-developed website available from any reputable webservant can allow me to do that. Believe me, if at any time in the future I require Cialis, my recourse will be to my doctor and thence to an e-tailer I find through a search engine that algorithmically indicates reputation. It will not be through clicking the first Cialis ad that rattles through my IMAP account!

Why would I bring this to the fore today? Spam e-mailers are normally not trying to build a reputation of innocence and honesty. But when Match.com, which is advertising in meatspace as well as on the net sends me spam and tells me I requested it, I take offence. Running an opt-in scheme is right and proper, but signing individuals who have never even visited (indeed, I'm opposed to artificial community websites (other than those addressbook ones, which are simply convenient) is sheer gall. I announce a boycott! As if you need a dating website, you Valentine-blog-reader, you.

God gave us free will, because, although He could have created humans to be a crowd of automatic God-worshippers, He chose not to, because a person who chooses to worship Him is something very special to Him. For example, I could cause my computer here to tell me that I'm wonderful, on the hour, every hour. I can assure you that even if I had a huge ego, I wouldn't find these constant reminders from a dumb machine particularly satisfying.

So, free will is God-given. So what does that tell us? That systems of government that supress it are wrong, even if the ultimate goal of these systems is well-meaning.

That's not to say that free will is an excuse to be reckless. On the contrary, we are holders of huge responsibility. God knows that we could do ourselves harm with it. Humanity has the power to destroy itself with free will. But, in the same way that a parent would never prevent a fit child from learning to swim because of the chance of drowning, God doesn't take free will away, even from those of us who abuse it. What he does do, is have an attendant there by the poolside. He is our Saviour, Jesus Christ! Now, if I, with my free will throw myself into the pool in a reckless manner, and harm myself, I could thrash for a few moments and stay afloat, maybe for minutes. Jesus would through me a lifeline, which I might foolishly, or proudly refuse to accept but eventually, I'd tire myself out. Then I would surely drown. But if I take that line and show willing, he will pull me to the edge and then out of the pool.

Why then, regulate? Why must the government dabble in the excercise of our free will? Because greed and other sin stifles our good nature, and we then misuse our free will. We stop working socially, and start to work for ourselves alone. We isolate ourselves in the pursuit of personal wealth, then become apathetic and shallow and community crumbles.

I'm going to try and see what I can do to make sure everyone gains from what I do, first locally, then in the wider community. Now there's good use of free will! Pray for me, will you? And join me if you like.

With some of the longer-term projects that I start when working for Kohera there can be a combined feeling of excitement and fear. Normally it is during this period that I break the back of the project (especially if it needs designing and coding. The excitement comes from having a plan, through which I can help someone else achieve their goal. I take great pleasure in establishing that person's goal through long telephone conversations and short meetings, and sometimes a lengthy exchange of e-mails. The e-mail exchange approach is only enjoyable when the other party has a good understanding of e-mail ettiquette and convention: otherwise what should be a simple and useful process turns into a stunted paperchase.
The fear comes from realisation that this project may last for months (quite legitimately) and that can really hit cashflow.

That said, however, I gain much more than the final cheque from any project I start (that's right: I said "start": I don't finish them all for a number of reasons). Firstly, I learn through application. Secondly, I gain insight into another individual or, more commonly a business. I can leave my brain to work out the connections between the different jobs that I do. This makes me quicker at solving problems if I have completed similar thinking efforts of other jobs.

David Seah has posted an interesting article on decoupling my expectation of financial reward from my work. That means I can have the enjoyment without the fear, right? Read on after the jump. Read More

Tony Blair recently boasted that the World Bank had described Britain as being among the most "lightly regulated" countries in the world.

In other words big business can do pretty much whatever it likes.

And big business in the 21st century is driven more completely than ever by the short-term desire for the maximum possible profits – so for them public services can never be too paltry, or wages too low – because the less we have, the more profits they make.

So while the government has no problem spending money (for example current costs for the occupation of Iraq are running at £5 million a day) it does everything it can to resist spending money on improving our living conditions – because it is not in the interests of big business.

...screams the Socialist Party manifesto. To what extent am I comfortable with that? First things first. Let's find the source of that quotation. We don't want the socialists making things up. More after the jump. Read More

Hello!
In order to encourage me to write, I'm going to start a little series of articles. This one is called "JDV pro". It will give you an idea things I'm in favour of. I'm not going write pages and pages, and I'm not going to be very specific about what I select. It will depend on what's happened during the day or the week. First up? Chiropratic.

I must say I was a chiropractic sceptic, but since "doing my back in" a few months ago, this sophisicated treatment has made life bearable again.

Today, for example, I woke up unfocussed and dull-feeling. I often have no energy in the mornings, so this was of no great surprise, although I did feel iller than usual. I had my monthly chiro booked for 1030, so I drove in and got stuck in traffic in Henley, making me late. Lucky for me, these people are very flexible, and as the appointments tend to be between 15 and 30 minutes, someone else can always jump in first.

All I tend to need to remove in the way of clothing is my belt. These days, as Brian Bourne knows his way about my crippled frame, shirts and shoes are no major object to success on the platform I spend a lot of time face down apon during my appointment.

I always explain what difficulties I've been having during the week, as chiro is a very holistic approach to human health, and he can usually find answers to my dificulties. I told him about my lack of motivation and he went for my neck, literally, citing the possibility that the bloodflow was being reduced to my brain. One thing you realise when undergoing a course of chiropractic is that the most dire things are happening to everyone, every day. If we don't care for our spinal health, there are many nasty things that can happen that are not evident from acute back pain. In fact, that can be one of the last symtoms before serious harm is done. Now on to the treatment itself. Read More