A Python Finish!
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under Uncategorized
Just finishing my final year project off and it’s taking much longer than I expected. That being said I’m having a relatively good time because I’m singing/whistling along to Monty Python songs.
Tags: Desk Work, Monty Python, Singing, University, Whistling, youtube
Return of the blog!
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under blogging
This morning/afternoon I’ve finally got round to making a few changes to my blog, and this will probably continue for the next couple of days as I finally get back into keeping my blog updated.
Tags: blog, blogging, Reading, Review, Science, Test, University
Distractions = Creative Productivity?
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under News, Technology, opinion
For me, this Monday didn’t turn out to be the productive day I wanted it to be, due to various electronic distractions, but despite this I don’t believe that social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, amongst other various Internet delights, are in fact leading us to be less productive.
On Sky News last Sunday, they reported that a study from the University of Northampton suggests that people are becoming addicted to there gadgets.
The scenarios they give are worryingly familiar.
Interrupted from our primary task by a pop-up alerting us to an email, we stop what we are doing to read the email.
That then directs us elsewhere, perhaps to another link on the internet.
We may then check other emails stacked up behind the new one. A quick look on Facebook, Twitter or something else, and it may be half an hour before we’re back to that primary task.
“You can not any more do effectively the task you were originally doing, even if it was routine,” Professor Kakabadse said.
“You will suddenly feel low energy, you become clumsy and you have a spatial disorder. You become exhausted,” she said. (Sky News)
This sort of reporting regarding technology hardly new, neigh it is expected, take for example the scares around televisions. In relation to this story, which is nothing special; it seems to have only got coverage due to the PR department at the University of Northampton, I would suggest that you can find addiction in almost anything from cheese to stamp collecting from computer gaming to knitting.
It is of my opinion, and partly that of Russel M Davies from Wired magazine UK, that distraction may infact aid productivity. We were not designed to work solely on one task, as Davies points out, “we’re easily distracted creatures, evolved to be continually scanning for new stimuli…” I personally find that when doing creative work. i.e. not reading, it is much easier to do it with the occasional look at YouTube, the occasional bit of tweeting on twitter and the occasional stumble on stumble-upon. This personal affirmation seems to be proved plausible by a study pointed out by Davies who states that:
A study from the universities of Harvard and Toronto suggests that people with reduced latent inhibition are more likely to have original thoughts than the rest of us. Latent inhibition is “the capacity to screen from conscious awareness stimuli previously experienced as irrelevant”. I think this means that imaginative people are worse at screening out the world than you and me. Or better at being distracted. So maybe we mortals can increase our originality by deliberately and purposefully using distracting and unfocused tools. (Wired Magazine UK)
I must now end this blog post and get some work done, well, I’m going to have a quick look at facebook first, naturally.
Tags: Evolution, Facebook, Internet, News, Productivity, Reporting, Social networks, Study, Stumble Upon, Technology, Twitter, University, Web 2.0, work, youtube
Hay Fever.
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under Books, Culture, TV, University
I’ve recently been watching the sky arts coverage of the Hay festival, which incidentally was an accident in the first place. I’ve known about the festival for sometime now but have never really taken an interest in it, particularly as it always comes across, at least via TV coverage, as being rather pompous. However flicking through the vast amount of TV channels I came across it, and the only reason I actually continued to watch it was due to the presence of Chris Addison, a comedian that starred in the recent satirical film In The Loop. I’ve gone on to watch many more episodes and really been rather interested in the book themed conversations. What has really struck home of late is how much of a book worm I’m slowly becoming, which I blame; and it’s no bad thing, on university.
I’m currently reading The English by Jeremy Paxman, but in a pile awaiting me I also have the following treats to go through:
Selected Tales by Edgar Allan Poe
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Prince by Machiavelli
The Metamorphosis by Kafka
Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
The Foucault Reader edited by Paul Rainbow
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
The Book with No Name by Anonymous
Flat Earth News by Nick Davies
and
Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
In addition to this I have a load more saved in my amazon basket yet to buy. As many may know, I’m very much into my gadgets, but I really cant see the printed word dieing out anytime soon, at least not in book form anyway. And should I do poorly at my degree; which I of course would not wish to be the case, at least I can credit always the university experience for nudging me into doing more reading than ever before.
Tags: Books, Chris Addison, Festival, Hay, Sky Arts, TV, University
