Musings of Old Man Joe

Irish guy living in Los Angeles

Joe

The Future of Creativity

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Creativity is a wonderful thing.  It gives us art, music, poetry, photography, gardening, and the list goes on. Creative people come in all shapes and sizes and in all temperaments.  They can be rude, humble, obnoxious, or shy.  They can be also be depressives who will go without shelter and food, simply to be able to express themselves creatively.  It gives their lives meaning.  I am not saying that all creative people suffer from depression.  I am saying that a lot of the artists I know do have a dark side, and this is reflected in their work.  

Does it help to have some level of depression to be creative?  Does the function of creativity lead a person to depression, or to depressive thoughts? Are we, as humans, attracted to the chaos and drama that can come with social non-conformity?  Is it the dark side of existence that we wander toward, to feed our creative minds?  

It’s part of our wiring as humans to have good days and bad days, and how that looks can depend on external factors, such as, where we live, how we look and our status in society.  Does the way we are raised provide us with different tools when dealing with depression?  When we as a society get to the stage where we can change our DNA, eradicate things like depression, are we not only changing the chemistry of our brains, but also altering the parts of our mind where creativity resides?  

What could be the function of depression as it exists with so many of us?  Does it have a function or is it just a chemical imbalance, a mind fuck, if you will?  And if, in the future, we can remove the genes that gives us these dark feelings, should we do it?  Will it create a happier society?  Is it moral to allow people in the future to be afflicted with depression if they don’t have to be?  When our genes are changed, and people have a bad day, how will they react when sadness should be the resulting emotion?  Will we be like the Eloi from H.G. Wells, “The Time Machine” (spoiler alert), devoid of emotion with a certain apathy, as they are in fact really just a food source? 

In the future, when we can gene sequence humans to be whatever we need them to be, what will creativity look like?  What is the future of creativity in a world without depression? And even scarier, will it be humans or AI that are the creatives?  

I am writing this in a café, drinking a coffee.  How long will it be before the first blog post written by an AI is posted?  Will it be about what it is like to work and live with humans?  Will it be funny?  Sad? Will it feel like a threat to other bloggers?  Will the AI truly appreciate all of the likes and comments?  

In the future, will creativity be considered an emotional plus or an impediment?  Will the darker side of creativity be considered an abnormal way of thinking and be judged as detrimental to society?  I personally think that, as people, we would find Utopia boring and probably start killing each other, taking drugs or just staying drunk all of the time, even more than we already do.  

Some of the greatest people I have met are often quite “off”, not what would be considered normal.  They have an edge that makes them interesting and fun to be with.  Some may call them crazy, but that is just personal interpretation.  Different people have different normals; that is what makes interesting conversations and relationships.  

So, what is the future of creativity?  We shall know quite soon.  

Los Angeles City Services?

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Sleeping not so Rough

Update below!

I admire using resources to make the best of any situation, and this guy was smart and used a tarp and rope to make himself a nice sleeping place.
I do feel for the thousands who are struggling because society in the United States thinks that social services to help anyone including healthcare is bloody socialism. At some point people decided that social services were too much money and now we have this problem. Self inflicted bad economics by greedy people in the 1980’s.
Of course my street guest had departed late morning and took his creation with him. What he left behind was the pole that was now dangling and was obviously a danger if people hit it!

Busted

Of course this was bad so I contacted the city using my handy 311 app and let them know what was wrong and even sent the picture above to let them know this was not safe. A blind person with a cane would not notice this metal pole dangling, or a person engrossed in the bloody phone might also get a surprise.

Well after two weeks I can honestly say the City has proved to be crap, not only has this not been fixed but the temporary fix is a joke. Not even sure the City has been out and this fix may have been done by a local who saw this and felt the urge to do something. To be honest I am surprised and thought this would have been sorted quickly under the circumstances.

kind of fixed

I was wrong!

My other question would be what function does this really have when propping up the pole. Is it dangerous that this support isn’t supporting?

Well if the pole does fall over I will take a picture and send it in, because that is the right thing to do!

Then wait!

Update January 14th 2020
Case Closed no action taken
I received an email from the city telling me how to report a damaged pole.

How to report damage to a telephone pole, wire or cable If a damaged telephone pole, wire, cable or pedestal is affecting your phone service, call us at (800) 573-1311 to report the problem. Tell us about the situation When you speak with the repair agent, you will be asked: Your name and telephone number Which services are affected — telephone, Internet How the services are affected — noisy, no dial tone It will be helpful if you can also provide: Address, directions and/or landmarks to damaged equipment Identifying numbers or marks on damaged equipment Description of equipment (Is the wire smaller or larger than a pencil?) Cause of damage — termites, lightning strike, car crash, tree limb, construction Person/company responsible (if applicable) Description of damage — leaning pole, drooping/cut wire, equipment missing door When damage likely occurred — days, weeks, months Any other information — emergency personnel on scene, additional damage imminent.

I must admit to be at a loss, the metal has not been fixed and it would seem contacting the city is a waste of time.
I actually didn’t see that coming!

More important than Impeachment.

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Love-Fest in Helsinki 2018

So what happened this month, well Putin has a news conference and who does he defend, No Collusion buddy Donald Trump read here.

I always wondered why Putin favored Trump so early in the GOP debates, he was helping him regardless of all the other GOP candidates. Which tells me this was never a Conservative VS Democrat thing. This was always a Trump and not Clinton thing. Clinton knew Putin was not our friend, Trump is Putin’s Pawn. Why is that?

As soon as Trump was in office he tried to get the sanctions lifted, probably because Trump gets financing from Russian banks as his credit in the united states is crap. Trump tried and failed to get Putin back into the G7.

Trump pulled US forces out of Syria and two weeks later who was in the bases, Russian troops! Putin is playing the game and gaining power through the region, and Trump is helping him do just that!

Trump has attacked the CIA and FBI since he became president, that is a Putin move to make sure your resistance opinion is diminished.
Trump has attacked the media because he doesn’t want the people to have the truth as a reference, only his lies.

Putin’s goal has always been to bring back soviet power and diminish the United States power, and he is doing just that. NATO alliance is broken thanks to Trump, Dictators are having a field day since Trump took office.

The Russian intelligence campaign that put Trump in office is still working on Putins behalf and because the GOP put Party over country nothing is being done to stop it.

And now Putin is testing a totally separate internet just for Russia and while Moscow Mitch decides nothing needs to be done to protect the American voting system this leaves Putin with the capability to shut down or cripple the internet and leaving himself totally ok!
Career intelligence officers are saying out load this is a threat and the people vote in morons who for some reason have their heads up there ASS and do nothing!

Oh and merry Christmas!

Today algorithms rule our lives, this needs to change!

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Everybody who doesn’t watch Fox News (state TV) will know by now how much the Russians helped the Donald get elected President. The question I still have with this today is why him? They were helping him way early in the republican election process, why not one of the other republican candidates? Is it because they knew he could be manipulated? he has rich Russians staying in Trump tower New York & has for years. Why they decided to use social media to help Trump eludes me, yet they did!

Photo by Ilya Pavlov on Unsplash

FaceBook, Twitter, Google all use algorithms to determine what to show you when you log on or do a search. The search results are created to show you what the company thinks you want to see! that’s all well and good, but when you are looking for unbiased information this is not the way to go. You will be fed exactly what you need to keep thinking what you want to believe. The bubble that has politics so polarized can be said to have been create by a computer program. With ten likes on FaceBook the computer knows you as well as a member of your family.
There are many articles TechCrunch and this one CNBC that have mentioned the devil that is FaceBook. I actually deleted my account because it freaked me out when you look for something on your phone on Amazon, then go to Facebook and guess what you will see come up on an add?
Yup!

I know from reading Teri Kanefield that what is going on with Trump and the GOP is fear of change, the white ones are losing their dominance and they are fighting back. They feel that progress will leave them behind, and it is true. They want to take us back to a time that existed for only a rich few. It’s an idea that has no place in a modern society. But with the help of Fox News (state TV) the average person who alas chooses to watch (state TV) has been bombarded with propaganda that only
Paul Joseph Goebbels would be proud of. It’s the difference between Fox News (State TV) & NPR (News).

But what has made this much harder to fix, because fixing it is going to be very hard. The computer companies have to figure out a way to not only give results in search but also give credence to the results. Or at least fake news should be labelled as such, with citations as to why. FaceBook needs to get out of news period! It was the reason the Russians were so easily able to manipulate the American public against Clinton. When the Autocrats are in charge we don’t have a democracy. Legislation is being done by people who were not voted in as such but have manipulated the system so much that we weren’t able to vote them out!

In the end this all comes down to trust, I trust the news media, NY Times NPR, BBC, because that’s their job. Fox News is not a news outlet (State TV). When I lived in England I knew the Sun was a conservative newspaper, the mirror was more liberal. So you could read both and get a gist of what they were saying. I preferred the times or the independent as I liked my news more neutral. NPR is the equivalent of the BBC, which means you get news.
Bottom line is never trust just one news source, they can sometimes make mistakes. Because that’s life, it happens. But not everyday not every story, and most of the time it’s a fairly accurate account.

And so can computer algorithms, they can also make mistakes. they need to be tweaked every so often. As a web developer when google changes its algorithm which it did not too long ago. All the web developers were checking their websites ranking to see what changed. All the tech companies that we rely on for our information need to be more responsible of the outcomes of their business models. It’s not good enough any more to blame Russia because they could. We should be asking why did we let them?

I want to write about website design.

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gandalf using the computer
I feel like this quite often!

For the last few years I have been working toward having my own website design company. I have designed about half a dozen websites for friends and family. This I would say is most web-designers start in the business.

Younger ones may even have the chance to go to a code camp and get hands on coding experience, which is great of course. I actually want to go to a camp next year if I can afford it. Of course you have different opportunities if you’re in your twenties and even thirties than when you’re in your late fifties!! My expectations have to be more what I can do for myself as any company would prefer to hire a coder that would be a bit younger. I get this and I’m not complaining. I think I would much prefer to be a freelancer than part of a design business. But that is where getting into the business becomes a bit more of a challenge.

Where to begin?

As I mentioned before most people start this business helping out friends and family. It’s a great way to get the feet wet and you get an opportunity to iron out the bugs (should there be any of course!!)

It’s also really common for newbies (hate that term), to charge much less as they don’t have the confidence to ask for the $60-$90 per hour a full stack web developer can earn. For your info there are front end developers who create websites, there are coders who can also use software to talk to the server/database in case you had a store or needed some specific actions to take place like a membership etc: Facebook. The dynamic aspects require server side languages and having that knowledge makes you a full stack developer. Personally I am studying it but not sure if I want to go into applications as such, the answer is still out on that one!

What I have learned (short version)!

There are so many ways to build a website it’s crazy, but the things that you should consider are really not too hard to grasp.

How much are you willing to spend on a website?
The answer to this is how important is a website for what you are trying to achieve.
If you have a online business and this is the way you intend to make money it’s crazy important you don’t skimp. If your site goes down for a few days and you lose hundreds of dollars it would be a hard lesson to learn.

Is your website not an online business but just to promote a static business?
I would still make sure it’s hosted with a good website hosting company. You don’t want any downtime and you don’t want to hacked! Yes I secure my websites and many attempts have been made. The cheaper hosting companies will look after their computers but not your website, you are responsible for that. Always back up you’re site!

Mobile/Tablet friendly
Nearly 50% of website traffic is now either mobile phone or tablet, if your website is responsive you’re good. if not you will go down in google rankings!

WordPress or not WordPress?
It was only recently when a friend asked me to look at her website as it needs updating, it’s not mobile friendly it is not WordPress or another CMS (content management system). So in order for her to update the content she would have to use an FTP (File transfer protocol) to update her website using html and she doesn’t know code.
I looked at the code for her website and it was fine, but just being the html there was no easy interface for a regular person to add or change content.
I have coded many websites and some are interactive using different CSS libraries like Bootstrap. But to have the non coder use their website it truly needs a CMS either WordPress or Drupal.

Free Websites
Last I want to talk about the free websites, you can create a website using wordpress.com or wix.com and with wordpress for a not too large sum of money you can even have your own url (yourname.com).
There will be advertising and you are limited to what you can add but it’s doable for a web presence. Wix to be honest I don’t know much, it’s probably quite reasonable for the free page but any more content and functions will probably require some kind of payment.

In the end the choice is always yours, but don’t bet tempted to spend money on this unless it’s required. Remember you have choices!

Peace!