Recently in phi·los·o·phy Category

I like the time 3:33. Also I like 12:21 on the 21st of December. They numbers have something special about them. Of course I know that 3:33 is no different from 3:34 or 3:51. Or any other time.

However the mind like makes sense of things, and so we find patterns where there are not. We find rationality in random events. It’s called Apophenia or sometimes more specifically Pareidolia when it relates to a specific stimulus. This allows us to see “the devil in the smoke”

Now I know that Pareidolia doesn’t disprove the devil actually existing. You can’t disapprove a negative and I suppose technically it could be the devil in the smoke. However it offers a far more likely answer, one that is scientifically significant. Of course that doesn’t mean you’ll ever change the mind of someone who thinks the devil is real because they have seen it’s face in a fire.

I’ve had two conversations with two different people in the last month or so, both where they saw “the god in the coincidence”. Both people said virtually word for word the same thing to me :

I know god exists [I believe in god] because I walked away from a situation that I shouldn’t have survived.

This for me is the devil in the fire, but in reverse.

Again, I can’t prove that it’s not actually god that saved this persons live. But the fact that a person’s life was saved by no means proves that it was god. What it does prove is that the person who “walked away” felt like it was because of a god. But I think this is a far more likely (significantly so) our coping mechanism, than the hand of god.

Otherwise I’d really want to know why god choses to kill the other people who don’t walk away.

Another way of looking at it, is why does god help people walk away, but never help amputees that only half walk away?

I guess the short is, whilst god could exist, I suppose, the feeling that god saved your life is no proof of it. It’s just a comfortable feeling.

Just to start with a caveat, I’m not talking about your kids. I’m sure yourkids are wonderful and angelic. I’m also not talking about your wedding. I’m sure you are very accommodating.

Right now I’m on the wedding circuit. Apparently I’m at that age. I had a bunch last year and I’m 4 down out of 5 in 3 months at the moment where the last weekends of my life have been stag do, stag do, stag do, wedding, wedding. And it’s not that I don’t love you, but enough already. I can’t afford you.

That aside, being at so many weddings in a packed timespace, and being a blogger, leads you to observe watch and mentally write blog posts during the vows. I mean canapés.

So kids … at weddings.

I don’t blame kids. I really don’t. I also don’t believe kids below a certain age (I’m going to stick a finger in the air and say 6, but any parental units out there who want to correct me please do so) don’t have the ability to understand what’s really going on at the wedding, or to sit still, or to keep quiet.

Of course they don’t. They’re kids. In fact I think their must be something behavioural in the requirement to be quiet makes them want to be noisy (which they do). Because they’re perfectly quiet before and after the ceremony, but I’ve yet to go to a wedding where they can maintain angelic silence throughout. There’s variance of course, from mildly disturbing, to shut your fucking kid up, but it’s always disturbing.

Now I understand that being a parent (hi folks) you have a tendency to switch off the air pollution of your own children. And hell I understand when you’re our in public and Little Junior goes off on one, these things happen. But at a wedding, during a ceremony, …. come on …. what did you think was going to happen.

It’s near like clock work. Everyone files into the church/notchurch and sits down and talks and chats. Some hidden sign is sent that the bride is coming and a crowd falls silent whilst some blokes nudges another and makes a comment about that being the end of for [name of friend]and that’s the last time [name of friend] is getting a blowjob. (No that person is not me). Bridge comes, and a zillion compact cameras go off (separate rant) whilst everyone ooh-aahs and comments how lovely the bride is (but did you see what she made the bride’s maids wear) etc etc.

About 5 minutes into the bit about some poem about some thing about love and petals and preciousness, the kids get set off. So if you’re someone easily distracted by sounds (trust me, ask my office, I’m sensitive to noises) you can hear the next 5 minutes of “sssh. …. sssssshhhh …. come one we talked about this ….. sssssssh”. Then if you’re lucky you only spend the rest of the ceremony listening one half of the couple taking junior outside, getting junior to quiet down, and bringing junior back in. In which Junior goes off again. If you’re unlucky as I have been at one of my weddings, I missed just about every word that was said, to listen to a kid make kid noises for the entire ceremony.

You know, if I’m blowing somewhere around half a ski trip to a skip trip attending a wedding, I’D LIKE TO HEAR THE DAMN THING. If I spent the whole ceremony whispering or talking on my phone I’d be told to shut the fuck up. And rightly so.

So solutions (I’m not just a ranter). Ideally I’d suggest, weddings aren’t places for kids of a certain age, and don’t bring them. But this is

1. Impractical

2. Ignored

3. I would want friends of mine to attend even if they couldn’t get a baby sitter

So what I would suggest is, arrange for a nanny and form a mini crèche in a room near the wedding if possible (or outside if the weather is good). Then all the parentals can drop of their kids in the creche and enjoy the wedding, as can everyone else who doesn’t have kids or just likes to hear the vows instead of constant murbling. If you don’t want to leave your kid with the nanny or child minder, then you can stay in the creche with the kids your self. If it was me, because I’m a geek I would set up a camera and broadcast it to the creche for those wont leave their urchins in the hands of another. But not everyone is a geek, so for most cases I would say the choice is yours. Attend the ceremony and leave your kind with a qualified child minder / nanny person for 45 minutes or miss the ceremony.

The only person crying during the vows should be the bride (or groom). Not Junior Jack.

A friend of mine used to drive a right hand drive Alfa Spider. It was a ridiculously impractical car, with all the niggles of old Italian engineering. He had to put his work access card on a stick and lean across the passenger seat to get into the office.

But he loved it. Where others saw niggles, he saw character. Where others saw ridiculous impracticality, he saw the coolest car on the planet. Or at lest that he ever owned.

Which is why I have always said “Buy the car you want, not the one that looks good on paper” †. The problem when you buy a car that ticks all the boxes the decision is too logical. So the pleasure or enjoyment you get out of it is minimised but all the quirks still remain. And those quirks can drive you nutty. But when you buy a car for emotional reasons (which can vary from “It’s red” to “It’s a sexy fast convertible”) you overlook those quirks or rationalise them in character, or simply don’t care.

Ever wonder why most car adverts try engage with people on an emotional rather than practical level? No one really cares about how many cup holders a car has. Note also the shift to things like fuel economy and safety as those issues have become socially and hence emotionally relevant over the recent few years.

Which brings me to Apple. Since the return of Jobs (and doesn’t that sound like biblical passage) Apple has more been engaging with people emotionally. From a design level, from a usability point of view, and from inserting itself into the social zeitgeist. Note the passion of Apple converts. It may be written off in the media as fanboys or fanatics or what not, but it’s a sign of a company building products that engage emotionally, and I can bet that Microsoft or Sony would sacrifice virgin coders to the dark forces if they could get it. Or get it back in Sony’s case. Nintendo has managed this too with the wii.

Of course their are cases where this passion can be counter productive. Some people hate a winner. Starbucks suffer from this a lot in the UK (perhaps elsewhere too). Apple gets a lot of people who resent the ‘hype’ (whatever that is) and don’t like apples products regardless of any logical reasoning. Seen often Daring Fileball as a jackass or being taken down by The Macalope

I had an argument with a friend this week on the iPhone. He “doesn’t buy into Apples hype”. Although he did go through 3 Sony MP3 players before now buying a series of iPods and an iPhone. But because he got the iPhone for logical reasons (best phone on the market) the quirks annoy him. And yeah the iPhone has it’s quirks, and bugs. But no more so than any other phone.

However because he has no emotional attachment to the iPhone (because he doesn’t like the ‘hype’), where he sees an issues with ringtones it’s Apple being crap, and not noticed that it’s the record companies or the fact he had the exact problem with every other phone. Where he sees it as annoying their is no drafts folder for texts, I see the fact that I have email that finally works, where he sees no 3G, I see the best mobile browser on the market.

We both have the same phone. But because I ‘like’ the phone and he doesn’t he sees the problems the phone has and I ignore them. I see the features the phone has, the design, and the general increase in use I have had over all my other phones. He never should have got an iPhone and I advised against it. Because it just frustrates him.

I always think you should buy products that you like.

I always think you should build products that people like. That people emotionally engage with. That people are passionate about. All the best websites do. If you want to be the best make sure you people who are passionate about what you do. If you want people to be passionate about what you do, you better be too.

† This may not be true for all people, or people who could car less about the car, as the fact it’s 4 wheels and box to get you from A to B. However most people I have found who own a car have some degree of passion for it, from Ford Fiestas to hand build Caterham Sevens. People who don’t own cars at all (and/or can’t drive) however often don’t get the car thing at all.

When I am grand dictator of all (pending) the following people go on my list of "amongst the first with their backs to the wall"

People who quip up with "Oh did you **actually** play the game" in response to "we won" when talking about a sport.

We is a perfectly acceptable associative reference to a team. Or electoral party. Or family. Or any group.

So we meaning, "South Africans" or "Liverpool Football Club Supporters" or "Labour Voters" doesn't mean you need to be the chap on the field to speak about having won. The players in the team represent something more than the 15 on the field. Ever wonder what the "shirt" or the "badge" is when players talk about playing for the shirt. It's the connectivity that teams have with their history and their fans. It's the "we".

So next time someone quips up "What do you mean _we_ did you actually play the game" just remember ... backs first to the wall when I'm grand lord dictator of all.

That is all.

I was installing a 3G data card and my computer said “Can’t read disk” to which I repeated out aloud to myself. The girl I work with then passed me the install CD it came with. I started explaining how the error message had nothing to do with this CD to which she cut me off and explained how she had no interest and didn’t care.

Which is fair enough …

But …

I don’t understand it. It’s beyond my comprehension how you might not want to know how something works. I just can’t fathom why anyone would not want to know how anything works. Whether it’s the 3G modem, or the social anthropology of why people use facebook or why you can’t pour concrete too quickly.

Life to me, without understanding what’s beyond the veil, what the depth is, they why and the “no really why, I mean exactly why and how and what’s the bit do here” is just grey and bland and dull.

I thought the same thing listening to Mark Kermodes podcast on Attonement and was thinking how interesting it is to know why he think the movies fails and what the director was doing wrong from a film making perspective. The movie might still be perfectly passable, enjoyable and good, but that doesn’t mean one cannot learn by looking at what the flaws might be.

Yet so many people want to, and in fact choose to live a life where they purposely avoid knowing why something fails, why it doesn’t work, what’s beyond the veil. I cannot understand why someone would be happy flicking a light switch and never knowing how it comes about that the room is illuminated.

Life might seem quite magical, but it’s all a lie. I’d rather know the truth of life, and believe a magical lie. In fact the truth of life is far more fantastical anyway.

This is why I call myself an Engineer (occasionally scientist), even though I practise neither. It’s because of how I think, and I how I perceive the world, rather than the particulars of the day to day job I might I have.

I is Engineer. And mighty proud of it too.