The Ed Techie

What would Russell make of it?

John recently posted about Bertrand Russell and his essay 'In Praise of Idleness'. When I was a student this was one of my favourite books, largely because I was idle and was trying to justify it (and you've got to admire someone who smokes such a pipe). I have been thinking about this a lot recently (sadly, this is true, this is what I think about), and considering what Russell would make of modern day Britain or the global society.

He puts several arguments forward in the essay, the first being that work (which was physical work then), was a tool for governments. The second is that leisure is a good thing, and that

"The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich. In England, in the early nineteenth century, fifteen hours was the ordinary day's work for a man; children sometimes did as much, and very commonly did twelve hours a day. When meddlesome busybodies suggested that perhaps these hours were rather long, they were told that work kept adults from drink and children from mischief."

He criticises the uneven distribution of labour:

We have no attempt at economic justice, so that a large proportion of the total produce goes to a small minority of the population, many of whom do no work at all. Owing to the absence of any central control over production, we produce hosts of things that are not wanted. We keep a large percentage of the working population idle, because we can dispense with their labour by making the others overwork.

With an even distribution he argues that everyone will have time for leisure, leading to some kind of artistic utopia:

In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be.

So what would Russell make of us now? I think he would be simultaneously overjoyed and dismayed. Undoubtedly we have more leisure time than we did in 1932, and this is fairly well distributed (although sadly the 4-hour working day hasn't caught on). With labour saving devices and a convenience lifestyle as well as more holidays and shorter working hours there is a good deal of leisure time for the average person compared to the time of Russell. But what do we do with it? Is it the great explosion of artistic endeavour and creation that Russell predicted?

Yes and No. Russell would I think be shocked to see that when given leisure time a lot of us spend it slumped in front of the TV drinking Pinot Grigio and watching other people on reality shows. But, the whole 2.0, user generated content world would delight him I think. For his painter who wants to paint without starving read Photographer who shares with the world via Flickr. And then there are all the bloggers, wiki writers, YouTube creators, podcasters who create material of mind-bendingly variable quality, but they are engaged in being creative, and that is fulfilling. So the next time someone bemoans the quality or self-indulgence of user generated content, quote Russell at them:

Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever.

DIY Despair

If you haven't come across them Despair Inc offer parodies of those motivational posters you see up on the office wall of a David Brent type. Some are very funny indeed.

You can also create your own, so here is mine. This is what someone said to someone I know recently when discussing a project. If I wasn't moving to an open plan, I'd have it up on my wall. (image - TPorter2006 http://www.flickr.com/photos/tporter2/1392077364/).

Songs for a funeral

AJ has a post about using lettermelater (a means of posting future emails) to send a message about your funeral preferences. He limits himself to 3 songs, so here are my choices:

1. Pyramid song - radiohead. Get 'em all weepy and reflective.

2. Dress sexy at my funeral - Smog. C'mon, you'd have to go for this.

3. Bankrobber - The Clash. Leave 'em humming, and because there are no songs about being an educational technologist.

Reminds me of an idea floated over at the half-bakery a few years back for the Fatal Auto Collision Song that would detect when you had been in a fatal crash and would play your pre-selected choice. You would thus be spared the final insult of spending your last few minutes being forced to listen to Britney on the radio.

Gordon Brown is the Steve McLaren of politics

I don't 'do politics' in this blog usually, but really, the analogy is too good to pass up. Look at the similarities:

• Both were second in commands
• Both took over from someone who had been in post for a long time.
• Both of their predecessors left on a wave of unpopularity
• Both enjoyed brief periods of (unexpected) success.
• Both then made a series of strategic errors

I think the foot and mouth outbreak was Gordon's draw with Macedonia, the election that never was his away defeat to Croatia, and this week's armed forces attack his away defeat to Russia. If the analogy is to be played out in full, that means by my reckoning he only has a catastrophic home defeat to Croatia left before they start looking for a successor. Wonder what it could be?

Now, that's security

Chip and Kerching
Originally uploaded by Auntie P

My wife went off in the car yesterday, with my wallet. I needed to get some stuff so she told me to use her card. The good thing about chip n pin is nobody looks at the name, you insert the card yourself. So I was able to spend happily in Toys R Us, BP, Threshers and then I went to Tesco. I needed to get some fireworks which were available from a special stand. To my discomfort they printed the receipt out and asked me to sign, no chip n pin. I tried to forge my wife's signature and made a poor effort.
'The signature doesn't match', the assistant told me.
'No,' I mumbled, rather embarrassed.
Then.... nothing. She just handed the bag over and I left with the goods. There's no getting past that level of security eh?

In Sydney

I'm in Sydney at the moment, working with James Dalziel at MELCOE, Macquarie University. We're having some good discussions around web 2.0, learning design, open educational resources and the implications for higher education, which I will work up in to a paper (and blog posts). I'll be concentrating on the learning design aspect for a presentation at the LAMS conference (which by virtue of bad timing will be when I'm back in the UK, so will be via Skype).

But all of this is really an excuse for me to show you my view:

All together now: Correlation does not imply causation

I've moaned about this before, and I agree with D'Arcy Norman who rants that it should be taught to every child. So when on the radio yesterday I heard a BBC reporter talking about a new report that looks at marriage, cohabiting and single parents in the UK, it inevitably got another airing. One of the findings was that children of married couples were more likely to stay on in education. 'So,' the reporter concluded, 'it seems that being married has benefits for the children over just cohabiting.'

No, no, no - there will undoubtedly be a number of other factors here. For example, maybe married couples are more conformist and thus their children more likely to succeed or enjoy education. I'm not suggesting this is a factor, who knows? There could be a thousand such factors at work (I think they controlled for socio-economic factors, so we could rule the obvious ones out). But it would be unlikely that marriage causes children to stay on in higher education. The danger of such lazy reporting and interpretation is that daft politicians (stand up David Cameron) start making policy on the back of such 'evidence'.

I'm married so this isn't a personal defence of cohabitation, just another example of the correlation error, which seems particularly prevalent in research around families. Nearly all of the guides to good parenting are based on this error - 'Parents who are X with their children have children who turn out to be X in later life. Therefore being X causes all children to be this way.' Where X is any attribute or habit, good or bad (gentle, loud, aggressive, kind, patient, etc). This becomes advice on how to parent, ignoring the very obvious genetic influence ('Parents who are X will tend to have children who are X also').

I think I'll have it on my tombstone 'Correlation does not imply causation - except in this case.'

What I don't get about fashion

Watching TV last night they were interviewing up and coming Welsh fashion designer Ross Jenkins. They mentioned, rather casually, that his last collection was 'based on the holocaust'. I spluttered my tea at this point as they showed skinny models in stylishly distressed black and grey robes. And no-one seemed to think there was anything wrong with this. I see now he is claiming it is a 'tribute'. Oh yeah, of course. It's a tribute in the same way an Auschwitz inspired breakfast cereal would be a tribute, and in no way insulting, shallow and disrespectful. It leads to such deep analysis as: "Ross Jenkins' moth eaten brogues are refreshing and although he used the Holocaust as his theme, there are some unscary high-waisted trousers and fabulous knits which drape around the body."

If Clive James were to use this in a novel we'd accuse him of taking parody too far. And this is the thing I just don't get about fashion - nothing matters, absolutely nothing,except self-adoration. And this is a world so many of our youth aspire to. I mean, come on. It's not just me that finds this appalling is it? Yet I couldn't find any criticism of it anywhere.

A couple of Gaping Void goodies

I liked these two from Hugh MacLeod recently. The first will resonate with all my Apple fan friends:

And this one seems true of everything from the McCann case to children's vaccinations:

The new morning routine

I have a morning routine now, which has evolved over the past year or so. It's remarkably different from even a couple of years ago, largely as a result of becoming a blogger I think. Here it is:

After the school run I sit at the laptop with a cup of tea and bowl of muesli (if I'm indulging - marmite on toast).

1. Firstly, I check email, delete all the spam messages, do any quick responses, and mark any more detailed ones for later.
2. I check messages in the student forum for the course I run.
3. So far, so 1990s. Next I go to my blog, check stats, and comments and respond on any comments.
4. Then I pop in to Facebook, check my news feed, update status and look at any messages or notifications.
5. By this time Twitteroo is loaded so I catch up on all the tweets from the US or Canada of the people I am following. I follow any urls that have been twitted and look interesting.
6. Lastly, to Google Reader to look at any new blog posts of the 112 blogs I subscribe to. I will scan most of these, ignore a few, read some, and respond to maybe one or two.
7. Now I'm ready to start work.

And here's some thought on what this routine reveals:

• It's a mixture of social and professional. Most of my Facebook friends, blogs and Tweeters are professional peers but what they post is often a mix of social updates and relevant resources.
• I'm more connected to what is happening in my field than I was before. I didn't used to start every day by reading an academic journal, but I will usually find one academically interesting post or resource before I've finished my cup of tea.
• It's expanding. Since being a blogger I have had the additional burden/privilege of tending one's own blog garden, but also I have become a much more active blog reader, so now have a lot of posts to get through in my aggregator. And then I added Facebook in to the mix, and more recently Twitter. I don't seem to have dropped anything though. At this rate my morning routine will be my all day routine.
• I'm developing new skills in scanning, interpreting, reading and writing. Given the expansionist desires of my morning routine, I have developed further skills in information processing - I'm not on a par with ultra bloggers, but I can scan my Google reader list quickly, and determine which posts to follow. It may not be always reliable, but it is reliable enough. I know how to get in to Facebook, get what I want and get out quickly. I am currently trying to develop my Twitter voice (more on this in a later post).

Any other activities that should form part of a connected morning routine?