Dr Robert N. Winter

I learn today that Jules-Albert de Dion took the chequed flag in the world's first motor race, the Paris–Rouen in 1894. Sadly for Jules-Albert, he was not declared the winner as his steam-powered car was against the rules. This was because his vehicle required a stoker to keep it going.

Given the race was run to promote the motor car as a vehicle that was 'easy to use,' it is little surprise a stoker was considered one complication too many.

The award of the 5,000 franc prize, for the car which was closest to the ideal of a vehicle which was easy to use, went to Panhard et Levassor and Les fils de Peugeot frères (The sons of Peugeot brothers). The Peugeot company we know today was formed two years later.

Though a seemingly random musing of the day, it stood out because it is so closely allied to my current quest: a publishing platform which is 'easy to use,' is privacy respecting, sustainable and scaleable.

Today I moved a step further by settling on a host who embraces sustainable and responsible growth. Now it is just a case of standing the beta site up. Looking forward to the journey.

Good night and good luck.

Count Albert de Dion Driving by “La France Automobile” is licensed under Public Domain.

This post is day 081 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from 100daystooffload.com.

Emotional Contagion is the phenomenon of feeling what it appears someone else is experiencing. Art abounds with examples of this, where a painting, sculpture or film elicits a sensation in us of what we imagine the character we are viewing is feeling.

An example of this is at work in 'Marsyas' by the Salzburg artist Balthasar Permoser (1651–1732).

The story of Marsyas is one of the great parables of hubris in Greek literature. Permoser’s sculpture, with its open mouth and bitten tongue, twisted neck and writhing face, strikingly conveys the satyr’s pain as he is flayed alive. The red flecking of the mottled marble base is reminiscent of spattered blood, a gruesome reminder of mortality.

Apollo also slew Marsyas, the son of Olympus. For Marsyas, having found the pipes which Athena had thrown away because they disfigured her face, engaged in a musical contest with Apollo. They agreed that the victor should work his will on the vanquished, and when the trial took place Apollo turned his lyre upside down in the competition and bade Marsyas do the same. But Marsyas could not, so Apollo was judged the victor and despatched Marsyas by hanging him on a tall pine tree and stripping off his skin. – Apollodorus. 1.4

And on that grusome note...

Good night and good luck.

Marsyas by Balthasar Permoser from the Met Museum is licensed under Public Domain.

This post is day 080 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from 100daystooffload.com.

James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck, lived in an age in which titles were grand and letters and diaries were even grander. In a time of conspicuous literary splendour, Boswell wrote perhaps the greatest biography in the English language of one of the English language's greatest biographers: Dr Johnson.

Yet for all its soaring verse, The Life of Samuel Johnson can have a most sanguine effect on a humble author who, at the end of a frustrating day, feels drained of simile. Thus today's offload puts me in mind of the following anecdote:

BOSWELL: “Is not the Giant’s-causeway worth seeing?” JOHNSON: “Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see.”

I trust tomorrow's offload will be more edifying, but for today... it is worth seeing, but not worth going to see.

Good night and good luck.

A View of the Giant's Causeway by Susanna Drury is licensed under Public Domain.

This post is day 079 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from 100daystooffload.com.

As the great bard made a Prince of Denmark once say:

To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them

Or in the case of my journey to an more optimised site would have it: to CDN or Not to CDN, that is the question.

For the uninitiated in the ways of networking, a camp into which I firmly put myself, a CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a method of distributing a service, for example a website, over a wider range of servers. For example, if you use a web host based in Switzerland, your website would likely reside on a server buried somewhere under a mountain in the country of chocolate, fine watches and very private banking.

If the people who access your site live in a neighbouring canton, they will probably experience a fast connection to your site. But what if someone lives on the other side of the world? Your site will likely be slower to access. This is where a CDN comes in, because your site is disttributed to a number of proxy servers based all around the globe. In technical terms, this shortens the bit of string between them and you as your visitors can access a server nearer to their location.

CDNs are also very useful to protect your site in the event of a sudden surge in popularity, or DoS attack, as there are more servers processing the requests, which lessens the likelihood your site will fall over following a surge of access requests.

Unfortunately, there is a flaw in this seemingly simple solution to speed and access requests. If the CDN network goes down, then access to your truly prolific collection of cat photos may be 'disrupted.' As happened in the recent upheaval, or should that be silence, following a Cloudflare outage.

Though perhaps a dearth of cat photos is a boon for civilisation generally, it is of concern to the tech minded and those seeking uninterrupted access to their content outpouring. The upshot is some people are sort-of dropping Cloudflare for their sites. I am in two minds, while I would be unlikely to use Cloudflare for tinfoil hat reasons, I am inclined to use a CDN for site speed improvement reasons.

At this stage I am not certain which of the myriad I will use, but given the recommendations I have read, am leaning toward BunnyCDN.

Good night and good luck.

NCDN – CDN by Kanoha is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

This post is day 078 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from 100daystooffload.com.

Today was a day of relaxing. Well, it started in mild dismay looking at the stock markets, descended into a frustrating morning fighting the dragon of a site with less byte, and resolved into a walk through the local markets.

Whlie out, the most delectable pizza was consumed to the tunes of a live singer belting out a Nina Simone classic:

It's a new dawn It's a new day It's a new life for me, yeah It's a new dawn It's a new day It's a new life for me, ooh And I'm feeling good

By that point... I was feeling good.

From there, things went from good to great as resumed my battle with the beast of optimisation, until at last:

I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountainside where he smote it in his ruin. – Gandalf

Good night and good luck.

This post is day 077 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from 100daystooffload.com.

I have been musing on 'how I publish' a lot of late. This is in part because I am now blogging every day, but also because I am reading more of other people's blogs than I have for some time. Some of the blogs are specifically about blogging. Two of the finer examples of this genre are from Kev Quirk and Marko Saric, the latter of whom is part of the brain trust behind the excellent analytics software Plausible.

In other cases, the bloggers may have a tech focus, but it is more how they have implemented their own publishing platforms. Ru Singh's site is one of the more beautiful and minimalist examples of the genre. Doug Belshaw also has some wonderfully inventive approaches to his site design.

But I am getting ahead of myself, or rather, I am looking at the surface elements. Dig deeper, and there is another crucial element to a site: weight. Or rather, its bandwidth consumption. This moves thinking into a very rarefied atmosphere as the 'modern' web is all about features, with a general acceptance of the bloat that comes with them.

A notable exception to this rule comes in the shape of Susty, which delivers WordPress in less than 7kb. Yet the reason for this act of extreme minimalism is more than geeky pleasure, as Jake Lenox explains in his blog:

I learnt of the colossal energy demand of the Internet. That this demand makes it the largest coal-fired machine on Earth, meaning that its CO₂ emissions are probably at least equivalent to global air travel. More and more people are coming online, but this coupled with the rise of ever more obese websites means that the Internet’s energy demands are growing exponentially. Every additional byte transferred means more energy, which in most countries means more CO₂.

It is widely accepted that we should avoid printing emails to save trees, but this leads to a false assumption that the web is a green medium. I’m afraid to say, it is not.

This has started me on my own quest for a lighter footprint in my publishing platform, while acknowledging that minimalism can be taken a step too far. For example, when it militates against the provision of an engaging experience or prevents a writer from delivering content. To that end, there is much tinkering to do. Till the next instalment.

Good night and good luck.

This post is day 076 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from 100daystooffload.com.

Reading the popular press these days, I thought I had long gone past the point at which an article would surprise me. In an age in which E=mc2 has been argued to be a sexed equation because 'it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us,' no gymnastics should seem out of place. Yet today, an article in The New York Times managed the seemingly unmanageable.

In How a Famous Harvard Professor Became a Target Over His Tweets, the renowned cognitive psychologist comes under fire for some of his tweets and the findings of his book, The Better Angels of Our Nature. Though I am far from in agreement with many of Professor Pinker's arguments, particularly those in his recent book Enlightenment Now, it seems people have toppled off the edge of the planet when an academic such as Professor Pinker is painted as an 'undercover monster.'

In some senses, it shouldn't seem a stretch as there is an ever growing push to set certain subjects as off limits for discussion. Being an enquiring thinker whose work is driven by the data, Pinker does wade into difficult waters. As is evident from one of his tweets from 2015 in which he looked at the data for police shootings:

https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/655389531429064704

Yet this is far from the first time in history free thinking has been the subject of pogroms. In 1758, Claude Adrien Helvétius published a controversial work titled De l’esprit (On the Mind). The book was condemned by the College of Sorbonne and the Parliament of Paris, but François-Marie Arouet – better known as Voltaire – took exception to the attacks. Though he was reputedly unimpressed with De l’esprit, and vehemently disagreed with much of Helvétius' thinking, the famous philosopher is credited with saying:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Though the quote is apocryphal, the sentiment is very Voltaire and I think apposite in the current climate. Though the conclusions drawn from the data may be offensive, we should be slow to take offence at the underlying data. Even if it contradicts to our deeply held beliefs. No one has a monopoly on truth, and only by perusing the data and the inexorable conclusions to the bitter end, can we hope to edge that bit closer to true understanding.

Good night and good luck.

Image credit: Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times

This post is day 075 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from 100daystooffload.com.

#onthisday in 1799, the Rosetta Stone was discovered by French soldier Pierre-François Xavier Bouchard during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt. It is one of the most important artefacts pertaining to ancient Egypt as it was the key to deciphering hieroglyphs, which has helped humanity unlock lost ancient knowledge.

Read more...

I could not let July 14 pass without a nod to that most French of occasions: Bastille Day. A celebration which marks both the anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 and the Fête de la Fédération of 14 July 1790.

Being the unregenerate Anglo-Saxon I am, it is the storming of a nearly empty building housing only seven prisoners which takes the lions share of the point of the celebration. But committed Gallophiles are quick to remind me that it is more properly the Fête de la Fédération which is the true focus of Bastille Day: a celebration of not just the Revolution itself, but of National Unity.

Following the divisive events of 1789 and 1790, the Festival of Federation sought to salve old wounds and even, surprising though it may seem at this remove, find a place for King Louis XVI that would not only respect, but maintain his royal status in a constitutional monarchy. As the oath sworn to the coming constitution made clear:

We swear to be forever faithful to the Nation, to the Law and to the King, to uphold with all our might the Constitution as decided by the National Assembly and accepted by the King, and to remain united with all French people by the indissoluble bonds of brotherhood.

The King, for his part, made a similar counter promise:

I, King of the French, swear to use the power given to me by the constitutional act of the State, to maintain the Constitution as decreed by the National Assembly and accepted by myself.

In a show of solidarity from the fledgling United States of America, Thomas Paine, John Paul Jones and other Americans unfurled their Stars and Stripes. The first known instance of the American flag being flown outside the United States.

Yet amongst the tumult and celebration of liberté, égalité, fraternité, not all onlookers were so jubilant or hopeful. Edmund Burke saw storm clouds overhead which the revellers seem largely to have missed:

the true moral equality of mankind [exists] not in that monstrous fiction which, by inspiring false ideas and vain expectations into men destined to travel in the obscure walk of laborious life, serves only to aggravate and embitter that real inequality which it never can remove, and which the order of civil life establishes as much for the benefit of those whom it must leave in an humble state as those whom it is able to exalt to a condition more splendid, but not more happy.

On this Bastille Day, I raise a glass to la Révolution Française, but with sober mind keep a wary eye on its modern incarnations. Every age has them, revolutions that is. Some for better, some for worse, but none without their blood letting: be it figurative or literal. My hope for humanity is we can navigate the current tumult without the Reign of Terror which followed the Revolution of 1789.

Good night and good luck.

Cover image credit: Anonymous – Musée de la Révolution française, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64767751

This post is day 073 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from 100daystooffload.com.

I came across an article by Matt Mullenweg about what he calls the Five Levels of Autonomy. It is an interesting article which is worth reading at length, but in brief the five levels are:

  • Level Zero autonomy is a job which cannot be done unless you’re physically there
  • Level One autonomy where the work isn't remote-friendly
  • Level Two where work is enabled remotely, for a while, but not intended as a long term solution.
  • Level Three sees increased benefit from a remote work scenario and accrued social benefits kick in for a worker (e.g. doing homework with the kids because you aren't in the office)
  • Level Four is where work output is judged on what is produced, not hours in the office and real-time meetings are treated with increased respect
  • Level Five is Nirvana: when work is performed at a higher level than it ever could be in an office

Apart from observing the obvious, that there are six levels in a five level model, it seems a classic example of a man with a hammer sees every problem as a nail. In this case, a man with an online business sees every problem as having a virtual solution. It is also arguably a result of a misunderstanding of the notion of an autonomous workplace, which is a philosophical rather than technical solution.

A fact that is self-evident to the privacy focused as the monitoring tools available in platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc. mean a manager can more closely monitor employees in the virtual realm than they could in a traditional office. Making remote working a very poor advertisement for workplace autonomy.

Studies indicate that some 75% of employees want increased autonomy in their jobs. An equal number are concerned their talents and abilities are not effectively utilised at work. Given these numbers, too many managers militate against autonomy in their employees. Not because of the lax IT implementation of remote working solutions, but because of the authority gap.

In short this, is when a manager withholds an unreasonable amount of authority from a given employee when said authority is needed to complete the task. This withholding of authority caps the autonomy of an employee and hinders their ability to perform their role or achieve their goal.

B. F. Skinner established that changes in behaviour are far more effectively achieved when positive reinforcement is used, as opposed to negative reinforcement or punishment. Armed with such knowledge, the solution to managerial sand bagging of an organisation is to shift from an environment of coercion and fear to positively recognising individuals for their work. This in turn increases sensations of freedom and by extension creates autonomy.

Armed with such knowledge, it is possible to advance an actual five stage solution to autonomy in the workplace. One that can achieve it rather than merely indicating when it is happening:

  1. No Person is an Island Create an environment in which an employee is willing to learn from coaching. This is critical for autonomy as no person is an island, entire of themselves. Thus the foundation of an autonomous workplace is for employees to seek out coaching and mentoring from their colleagues and managers. If the proper climate is established, rich interactions are the result and will result in feelings of openness.

  2. Independent Function Sometimes an employee will be overly loyal to their manager or their business. To the extent that they become a liability because they are so dependent on the person or the institution that they fail to act with a necessary level of independence. Organisations need to reflect on the level of independence their employees exhibit (this goes for managers as much as it goes for entry level operatives). Only by allowing individuals to make their own decisions, can an organisation rise above the competition. As such, when an obstacle is met, let your employees bear the initial responsibility for determining next steps and for generating solutions.

  3. Purpose of Autonomy The purpose of autonomy isn't so anyone can do as they please, such beliefs are a classic example of taking a literal meaning of autonomy and then misunderstanding and misapplying it in an organisational setting. Rather, the purpose of autonomy is to engender an enhanced working environment. To ensure that when people are brought in to perform a role, the organisation is getting the most out of them. Something which can only happen when employees freely (autonomously) engage in the task at hand and bring their experience and abilities to bear on the project. Put another way, hire competent people and get out of their way and let them do their job.

  4. Minimise the Negative Argument, in the sense of discussion of opposing views, is a critical element in decision making and problem solving. Phalanxes of 'yes men' are useless if a problem simply needs one person to ask 'why is it so?' But for arguments to be productive, strength of character, knowledge of subject and acceptance of having a view changed is required in individuals. Only through the rinse and repeat of this process can employees achieve self-realisation.

  5. Management by Objective and Self-Control. Peter Drucker, invented the notion of management by objective and self-control (MBO). The concept is simple, a manager reviews organisational goals, sets worker objectives, monitors progress, evaluates performance and gives rewards. In other words, they set the organisational objective and then let their team get on with implementing it (self-control). At this stage, employees, whether working remotely or in a traditional office, enjoy true autonomy. The Nirvana Mullenweg and Co. are in search of for their businesses.

Good night and good luck.

This post is day 072 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. If you want to get involved, you can get more info from 100daystooffload.com.