Complaining would appear to be a very British trait. It's only when engrained in another culture for a while do you see that whilst it does happen all over the world about various things, it's the British who can complain about pretty much anything, to any degree, even in the face of rampant hypocrisy.
The easiest example to pull out of day to day life is the ardent complaining of the weather that takes place up and down the country in almost every commute, in every town, and in every office. It's too cold, too windy, too warm, not warm enough, too sunny, too much work and too little work. It was suggested by Ford Prefect, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "field researcher" in Douglas Adams' book of the same name (that I've mentioned a few times here and there), that human's had to keep talking about banal stuff to stop their mouths from locking together – he later abandoned this theory in favour of a different one: that it was to stop our brains from thinking.
I actually favour the second postulation to the first. The reason I think that this might be the correct one is that the level of complaining that you encounter must be correlated to people not fully grasping what they are saying. A great example of this is when people complain about where they live, or work. Complaining about working is a little more bearable when it comes to it, as there are a hundred thousand more chances to be mildly annoyed on a daily basis (by my current estimate) at work and that is sometimes a way of venting rather than just complaining – but living in Aberdeen you are bombarded by people belittling where they live.
My friends were not immune, but at least did something about it – Steven left and Shayan found himself a lady (one of the best reasons to stay anywhere, natch). It is when I hear of people who have made a home in the city complaining about living here that makes me tut and shake my head. I actually really like it in Aberdeen. It took a long time, sure, and it also took me to leave to realise that I wanted to come back, but it has everything I like in a city and more in some cases. The exact details of these criteria are for another post, however.
When hearing of a couple starting a new family in the city, or moving here to live it smacks of ludicrous idiocy to just settle in somewhere that you don't like. I have been asked loads of times if I enjoyed Houston – the answer is, of course, yes, because I really did. But when asked the similar and leading question of "Did you want to come back" or "Did you want to stay" my answer is "Yes" and "No" – that is a different question to saying if I enjoyed it, but wanting to stay is entirely different basis.
In response to my answer I have had people being incredulous, dismissive, and unbelieving of my answer. "Really, Aberdeen?" and I wince almost every time – there's a lot to like about Aberdeen and a lot to dislike, sure, like almost every place in the world. As I said before, just because I don't want to live in Texas doesn't mean that it's wrong for others to want to or that I am dismissing the city entirely, but to suggest to me that I am a little bit crazy to want to live in the city I want to live in when you yourself works and lives in the city feels a little circular and backwards, in my mind.
I suppose people projecting their own annoyances and opinions on to people is nothing new – I am trying to stop my self from doing it almost daily, being one of those tossers that sometimes thinks their opinion is the right answer above all else. I am trying to work on that annoying personality trait but it's a hard one to erode out. I just despair when someone complains about something that is quite easily changed - like their location.
Do not point out the irony of me complaining about people complaining – it'll blow up the internet.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Saturday, October 29, 2011
I Know I Know I Know...
Always apologising for not posting these days. BUT I do have three posts lined up in the drafts and after a whirlwind weekend I will post them on here as soon as I get a chance to tidy them up.
I am sure you are all waiting with baited breath.
In the meant time, why not read some of my recent contributions for Tones of Town or Write in for Writing's Sake?
The links are over there on the right ->
I am sure you are all waiting with baited breath.
In the meant time, why not read some of my recent contributions for Tones of Town or Write in for Writing's Sake?
The links are over there on the right ->
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Hooting and Howling
Carry me hooting and howling
to the river to wash off my hands
of the hot blood, the sweat and the sand
Any rival who goes for our girls will be left thumb sucking in terror
and bereft of all coffin bearers
A crude art, a bovver boot ballet - equally elegant and ugly
I was as thrilled as I was appalled, courting him in fisticuffing waltz.
Now I'm not saying the lads always deserve a braying.
And I'm not saying the girls are worth the fines I'm paying.
Hooting and Howling by Wild Beasts from their album Two Dancers.
to the river to wash off my hands
of the hot blood, the sweat and the sand
Any rival who goes for our girls will be left thumb sucking in terror
and bereft of all coffin bearers
A crude art, a bovver boot ballet - equally elegant and ugly
I was as thrilled as I was appalled, courting him in fisticuffing waltz.
Now I'm not saying the lads always deserve a braying.
And I'm not saying the girls are worth the fines I'm paying.
Hooting and Howling by Wild Beasts from their album Two Dancers.
Monday, October 03, 2011
4mph
Apparently the average distance that someone can walk in an hour is 3.1 miles. Recently I have been pushing myself to walk faster and faster each day going to and from work, as a way of gamifying the route in which take to work. I have managed to walk the 1.1 miles from my flat to the train station in 14 minutes, or I can walk at around 4.7 mph in the mornings. I keep this pace up as a way of losing my Texas Fat, the some rather unsightly weight that I gained on the great American adventure, but also as a way of saving a fortune on not owning a car or throwing money down the drain on petrol.
Gamification is a controversial topic amongst many people in many circles, mostly because of the way that it appears to trick people into doing certain things, and also the way in which it can be nefariously applied. I became interested in gamification (a word that likely doesn't quite exist yet, but I am going to add to my Word dictionary right now to stop those squiggly red lines appearing all over this draft) after a thought experiment after playing a session on the Xbox Live Arcade title Trials HD.
The game is a simple physics based platformer game with the trick being that it focuses on trials biking – it's a fiddly game and dependant on skill almost entirely. It is classified as "Score Attack" game – the only real reward, after completing the levels, is to better your times and get better "awards", being the simple Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze that we are all aware of.
The thought suddenly hit me. It was like a bolt of lightning – why am I spending so long to shave literally 1/10th of a second of an arbitrary time? The only reason, really, was the glow that the game gives me when I am rewarded by a token gesture of success – the small idea that in a way I have won a victory. It meant that the hours spent getting annoyed and frustrated by the rough skills needed for the game and the unsuccessful attempts were for something, and I felt like I had achieved something in the end. It was an important part of my love of the game.
I began to think about applying this to other parts of my life; how to reward small things that I am enabled to do by giving myself similar rewards. For example, a really easy one was that if I had walked to work four days out of five I was "allowed" or "achieved" a McDonalds Breakfast. It sounds silly, but it meant that there was a reward for doing it. This is not new, not at all – conditioning via reward goes all the way back to survival instincts and training dogs and children to do certain things outside of their basic infant ideas. Give a kid a toy car every time he pees in the potty and he'll keep doing it wanting the reward, and removing the reward gives you the feeling of success without needing the reward, in the end.
Of course, I am not training myself to walk at 4mph like a dog... but the gamification of lives could be used in a really interesting way. Think about school – you are given a grade at which you are marked against. You get an A on a chemistry exam and the reward is that you got an A. Imagine, however, you were given something else. In the world of the Xbox, Microsoft revolutionised gaming by giving out "achievement points" during games. Each game has 1000 to give out, and a well thought out game gives these points for a myriad of various achievements in the titles. Some a rewarded for doing the whole game, some are for getting a certain score or time. It's a good thing and has made me go back to old games just to get the points. My current "gamerscore" is at the side of this blog, and is quite low for someone who has had an Xbox since 2007. But still, it's a numerical and easy way of rewarding someone for doing something that is boastable.
Do this in schools, or work, and you might be impressed at the way that you improve productivity and work quality increase. Instead of seeing a failure, you see a lower level of success, and that's an important way to change the attitude to trying. A small change is still a change in the right direction.
The day someone at a gym figures out and implements a Gamification system of getting fit, you'll see a massive change in peoples success rates. For me, all I want to get to is 12 minutes to the train station so I can break the 5mph barrier.
Gamification is a controversial topic amongst many people in many circles, mostly because of the way that it appears to trick people into doing certain things, and also the way in which it can be nefariously applied. I became interested in gamification (a word that likely doesn't quite exist yet, but I am going to add to my Word dictionary right now to stop those squiggly red lines appearing all over this draft) after a thought experiment after playing a session on the Xbox Live Arcade title Trials HD.
The game is a simple physics based platformer game with the trick being that it focuses on trials biking – it's a fiddly game and dependant on skill almost entirely. It is classified as "Score Attack" game – the only real reward, after completing the levels, is to better your times and get better "awards", being the simple Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze that we are all aware of.
The thought suddenly hit me. It was like a bolt of lightning – why am I spending so long to shave literally 1/10th of a second of an arbitrary time? The only reason, really, was the glow that the game gives me when I am rewarded by a token gesture of success – the small idea that in a way I have won a victory. It meant that the hours spent getting annoyed and frustrated by the rough skills needed for the game and the unsuccessful attempts were for something, and I felt like I had achieved something in the end. It was an important part of my love of the game.
I began to think about applying this to other parts of my life; how to reward small things that I am enabled to do by giving myself similar rewards. For example, a really easy one was that if I had walked to work four days out of five I was "allowed" or "achieved" a McDonalds Breakfast. It sounds silly, but it meant that there was a reward for doing it. This is not new, not at all – conditioning via reward goes all the way back to survival instincts and training dogs and children to do certain things outside of their basic infant ideas. Give a kid a toy car every time he pees in the potty and he'll keep doing it wanting the reward, and removing the reward gives you the feeling of success without needing the reward, in the end.
Of course, I am not training myself to walk at 4mph like a dog... but the gamification of lives could be used in a really interesting way. Think about school – you are given a grade at which you are marked against. You get an A on a chemistry exam and the reward is that you got an A. Imagine, however, you were given something else. In the world of the Xbox, Microsoft revolutionised gaming by giving out "achievement points" during games. Each game has 1000 to give out, and a well thought out game gives these points for a myriad of various achievements in the titles. Some a rewarded for doing the whole game, some are for getting a certain score or time. It's a good thing and has made me go back to old games just to get the points. My current "gamerscore" is at the side of this blog, and is quite low for someone who has had an Xbox since 2007. But still, it's a numerical and easy way of rewarding someone for doing something that is boastable.
Do this in schools, or work, and you might be impressed at the way that you improve productivity and work quality increase. Instead of seeing a failure, you see a lower level of success, and that's an important way to change the attitude to trying. A small change is still a change in the right direction.
The day someone at a gym figures out and implements a Gamification system of getting fit, you'll see a massive change in peoples success rates. For me, all I want to get to is 12 minutes to the train station so I can break the 5mph barrier.
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