A Little Knowledge Can Be A Dangerous Thing

Have you seen the film from last year called "21 Jump Street"? It's hilarious. I'd recommend it. Don't be put off by Channing Tatum. He's actually very funny. One of the scenes is where they go into a modern high school and to their amazement find it's quite cool to be clever and environmentally responsible and so on. I couldn't help doubting that this is the case in many modern schools but I was reminded of it again at work last week when I mentioned that my Gamification course was starting yesterday. Immediately the criticism begins.

"Ewww, why you doing a course on that? It's all about mind control"

"Don't believe what they tell you on the course. It's all the government trying to control how we think."

"You should watch this documentary on youtube before you do anything."

"I've seen loads of documentaries about it and you don't realise what you're getting into."

It reminded me of when I was in Year 12 and a Hari Krishna guy gave me a book during a lunchtime outing to McDonalds and the Head Girl confiscated it in Maths because she'd "heard stories" about people who read their books. 100% uneducated bollocks.

Some of you may be wondering what Gamification is. To be brief - it is taking game features and game design elements and putting them into non game situations. For example, you ever driven past one of those speeding signs that lights up and tells you your exact speed as you drove towards it? You usually realise you're driving a tad too fast and slow down a bit.

Well in Stockholm they added a license plate recognition camera to one and it took a picture every time someone was under the speed limit. Under, only. Then they entered them into a lottery and the winner got a portion of the money raised from speeding fines in the local area. During the pilot the average speed in the area dropped by 30%. They gamified their anti-speeding strategy. You'll notice that in this example no one got their mind controlled and, to my knowledge, no documentaries have been posted on youtube about the subsequent annihilation of Stockholm's residents by some speed crazed freak.

I'm doing the course through Coursera, which is an interesting experiment to watch if you happen to be a learning and performance professional, which I am. University led training courses delivered completely online with certification at the end and all completely free. I'm halfway through the materials for week one of my course and I am very impressed. I've seen a lot of online resources, especially free ones, and the quality can be a little dubious. This course, coming from the Uni of Pennsylvania, is very well put together and the Professor clearly knows his subject.

Excellently researched and informative. I may only be a week in but I like it. As do others, clearly. Thousands of people from 147 countries have signed up to this one course and because of the delivery method it is entirely accessible to all of them, provided they are fluent in english and have an internet connection. Online delivery of training is an area I've long been interested in hence my decision to actually take a course rather than merely read industry articles on how it is all going.

Which brings me to my second gripe. When I was at school it was not cool to study. It was cool to be intelligent without studying but that's not something I ever managed, if in fact did the cool intelligent people. In 21 Jump Street it was slightly cooler to study but still not much. At the age of 34, in the comfort of my own home, during my evening free time, after a full day at work, I am told I'm a "geek" for watching an online lecture instead of an episode of Lewis which I can see anytime. I get called a geek quite a lot because I can fix photocopiers, know how to wrangle Microsoft into doing what's needed and remember BODMAS. I see it more as a lazy label to recognise a skill-set others seemingly lack but in this case it was meant as a definite insult and seems completely unwarranted.

At a time when employability is everything, knowledge means power, intelligence is key and people draw lots of graphs that show higher qualifications mean higher earnings, how can anyone be criticised for learning? How is it bad to increase your knowledge? In fact how can that ever be bad, not just during a recession? Would it be a better use of my time if I just sat there, mesmerised by the picture box, letting the inevitable wise cracks and homely morality wash over me? We all relax in different ways. Some people relax productively and others relax unproductively. That's fine. But no one will convince me it's a bad thing to relax productively. And certainly no one would ever convince a knitter of that either. What does seem a bad thing is people who sit around saying "Oh, I don't need to know about all the geek stuff. I'll just get a geek to do it." You know how every time you say "there's no such thing as fairies" a fairy dies? Well every time someone even thinks that sentence about 'geek stuff' a new Tech starts working on how to automate their job out of existence. And even in the worst case scenario I'll be the one who developed the online redundancy training they're watching as they head out the door.   

This post started out very sweary but having got it all out of my system I've cleaned it up. Perhaps that bodes well for another course I've signed up for called "Think Again: How to Reason and Argue" which I dare say will not be in favour of the respond-angrily school of communication. It's also a Coursera course and there are lots of other ones so if you are interested in expanding your mind from the comfort of your own home and for free I'd recommend going and having a look. I am not sure of the finance model behind the website but suspect that they will have to start charging at some point so you might as well sign up while it is all still free and easy. The "Think Again" course starts in 3 months while I've also got "Intro to Philosophy" pencilled in for the New Year. You can even sign up for the Gamification course for the rest of this week if it has tickled your fancy since you still have time to catch up.

Personally I have always found knowledge in whatever quantity to be rather useful. Feel free to quote me.

Back to Crafting

I haven't posted about what I've been up to craftwise for a while so here is a big catch up. First up I've been knitting the Stitch Sampler Shawl (rav link). Nickerjac pinned it and I loved it at first sight. The yarn is not 100% ideal but it is nice to be using my favourite Marble again.

I've also finally made some beads I got in the John Lewis sale into a necklace.

You know me and my polka dots. I also wove the cord myself out of two shades of dmc cotton.

I wanted something three dimensional and thick enough to knot between the buttons but not shiny or distracting from the beads. I think it's worked quite nicely! I must do a tutorial on the weaving technique too. You use an odd number of double strands - then it's a matter of a mixture between plaiting and finger knitting.

Then my attention turned to the Kaufmann Jelly Roll my Mum gave me at Festival of Quilts. I unrolled it and, after a bit of maths, arranged the colour groups into 5's.

I am using a pattern I originally saw on Pinterest (what doesn't one see on Pinterest?) and which I found a free copy of here. I only had 25 strips rather than 40, hence the maths. I can see why quilters refer to their 'design walls' so much. I have a 'design carpet'. My quilt has 5 plaits and I tried out keeping them in colour groups...

...and then also in random order.

The colour groups have it I think. I've cut all the fabric so the next step is the sewing - whee!

Pooch and I went to the Edward Munch exhibition on Saturday. It is terribly expensive but amazing. I have been a huge fan of his since GCSE Art. He's best known for The Scream but my favourite has always been his Madonna (pic from wikipedia).

I was quite surprised the Scream, Vampires and Madonna didn't feature at all but then when I thought about it the exhibition was about his life rather than his paintings, kinda, and there was plenty to make up for it. I came away with three postcards of my favourites.

The horse seemed to be charging out of the painting straight at you, and Pooch tells me the colours of the landscape at bottom right is exactly like the light in Norway as the brief appearance of the sun ends.

My 900th post and Books #32 - #41

The images are amazon affiliate links so click on them if you want to buy - but dudes, I'm only in it for the pictures.

#32 The Saltmarsh Murders
by Gladys Mitchell

Although this is the fourth in the Mrs Bradley series it is my first and something I came across in the Library by chance. (Holborn Library is awesome by the way if you work in the area). I was attracted by the description of Mrs Bradley which I forget the exact words for but was something like "small, shrivelled and remarkably ugly". She sounded like my kind of anti-heroine and indeed in the books she is. My liking for this one caused me to get hold of the TV series starring the really beautiful Diana Rigg as Mrs Bradley. Not fitting a single element of the description in the book I was rather surprised at the casting but she does look f-a-b-u-l-o-u-s in the outfits. Sadly the series is bilge and only to be tried if you're in your second week of flu and have run through all the Murder She Wrote's already.

I rather liked the helter skelter plot of this and the way you weren't quite sure who was who or why they were being so weird. I retained faith that it would all be explained and it was and in a decently entertaining way. I have since read another and plan to read more.

#33 Sweet Death, Kind Death
by Amanda Cross

This would be a great book for someone who likes highbrow english lit and detective stories. Not being a highbrow english lit-er I didn't particularly enjoy it. The story revolves around the autobiography of a professor at an all female college in amercia being written by two men. They start to suspect it could be murder and suddenly our hero, Kate Fansler, is accepting an invite to investigate and sitting on a working group looking at womens studies or something. This is the 7th book in this series so I guess I should have started earlier to get more of the back story. As it was I was a bit lost as I'm not familiar with the american educational system. That aside, as a story this was quite well written but the plot left a lot to be desired as it fell into the Byrne category of "bit silly".

#34 The Ivory Dagger
by Patricia Wentworth

Yay for Miss Silver! Boo for the amazingly stupid, repellant, insipid, mimsy, useless young female. Yay for her friend who had pluck and was therefore a decent female character!

I rather liked the wicked Aunt in this one. I might almost say I aspire to be her. I adore Miss Silver. I definitely want to be her once I get to 70. All that knitting - what a gal.

#35 Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder
by Catriona McPherson

Bloody hell this was an awful book. I rather liked the others in this series, of which this is number six, but this one sucked. The story was morbid, which might sound like a strange thing to say about a murder mystery, but seriously it was. With every new revelation I felt like begging her to just stop there as she was clearly making everything worse and as painful as possible for the two families involved. What starts as Romeo and Juliet ends as some Freudian nightmare. Ugh.

#36 Death at the Opera
by Gladys Mitchell

 This is the fifth Mrs Bradley book and one that they tried to televise in that Diana Rigg series but made an awful mess of. The teachers at a small school decide to put on the Mikado and during the performance it all goes a bit pear shaped and one of them dies.

While you could tell that this was by the same authore as #32 it was sufficiently different for you not to be reminded of Agatha Christie or even Patricia Wentworth. Mrs Bradley remained at her ghastly best and romped about psychoanalysing and disturbing people. There is a strange interlude with a man with a tin bath which all weaves neatly in to the plot. A very satisfying and engaging read.

#37 The Documents in the Case
by Dorothy L Sayer

I did this one as an audio book which could have gone wrong ( as it is a series of letters) but actually worked rather well. Letters between various people over a period of time outline the story of a married couple with two lodgers and a female companion slash housekeeper and the interactions between them. I will say no more than to let you know that the husband enjoys eating wild mushrooms. Aha. Exactly.

Dorothy Sayers is most famous for her Lord Peter Wimsey stories but this is outside of that set. If you like a traditional mystery story then you will enjoy this one.

#38 Murder on the Eiffel Tower
by Claude Izner

I am still in two minds about whether to read another in this series. The book overall left me with a little puff of an out breath and a general feeling of 'meh'. But I did get the feeling of wanting to find out hwat happened next so maybe this was just a slow start?

This is the first book in the Victor Legris series. Victor runs a bookshop with a japanese friend who raised him and is his mentor but not in a lame karate kid type way. He happens to be present when a woman apprently dies from a bee sting but of course it's not that straight forward. All good fun and the heat of a paris summer is well evoked.

#39 A Christmas Beginning
by Anne Perry

My eyes! My eyes! Save me from the sight of any other books in this series. No! No! Take them away! Away!!!!!!

I just wanted to hit the main character. Don't ask me how he ever got to the rank he has. This book is only about 50 pages long and every one of them stank like three day old dog poo. I could not have cared less about who killed who or why by the end. God it sucked. And there are loads of them in the Library! I made the fatal mistake of thinking them must be ok if it was such a long running series. Ugh. Stupid me. If it hadn't been a library book I would have taken it to work and shredded it. Ugh.

#40 Mr Tickle
by Roger Hargreaves

I happened to read this when spotting it among Nickerjac's LB's toys at the weekend. I later read it to him, with actions, which only confirmed my earlier opinion. This book is a psychological exploration of the effect of in and out groups in a closed society and how Pavlovian theories can be used to good effect to bring about a change in disruptive behaviour and thus return the community to a state of harmony. I suspect this is how prisons are run.

#41 Death at Face Value
by Joyce Christmas

Who can forget the first of her books I read, "Suddenly in her Sorbet".

Ever since then I have been a devoted fan. I prefer the Lady Margaraet Priam series but I've read all those so now we're on Betty Trenka, retired office manager and looking to not be bored in her retirement. This was a quick read and good travel/beach reading as it was engaging without requiring a lot of thought. The murder of a model in New York triggers a series of events in Conneticut (are these places close to each other? I have no idea but I guess it doesn't matter). Betty ends up with a cat though which can only be a good thing.

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Oh What A Lovely Wedding

The wedding of Nickerjac and Andy took place last Saturday. It really was lovely. Jane had lent her family home on the Isle of Wight and it was the perfect setting. A beautiful garden was lovingly done up with about a mile of my handmade bunting.

 

They both looked lovely. Plus I finally get to show the waistcoat I was making for Andy (plus a matching one for their littl'un). 

I also had a hand in Nic's dress although the body of it was done by another more skilled sewer than I. 

She looked like a Princess! My face was 99% grin through the whole ceremony which Laura performed brilliantly. As well as a mountain of savouries we also had a candy bar. It was brilliant! Lots and lots and I mean LOTS of sweets and little paper bags all hand stamped to put them in. Kids of all sizes were enjoying that one. And I adore this photo of Yvonne and Sue trying to make their selections. 

You can see all of my photos here. It really was a very lovely day. 

Festival of Quilts 2012

Squeee! It was another lovely one. I went with Mum again and we both had a great time. Here she is rifling through the Liberty scraps with the greatest concentration.

As was I of course, except to pause and take a sneaky photo without her noticing. Here are the ones I picked out.

It's the amazingly fine lawn cotton and the perfect size for lovely little somethings.

The quilts were of the usual excellent standard and variety. I loved the Miniature Quilts section last year and this year it was definitely my favourite. Pictures of some are hard to take given the light and the number of people. This was the first place winner.

You see how perfect that is? It's about 5 inches across. There's a close up of the detail here. The workmanship was just amazing. I actually preferred her second one - which came second. Yep, she got first and second place in this category. Here it is.

Bit fuzzy but yes, she made miniature 9 patch stars. I can't even do them full size. Phew. Detail here.

My favourite was this one:

So clever. I would *love* to have this on my wall. Other favourites from all the categories:

It's made up of these wavy blocks and hand embroidered:

Beautiful hexagons. There were quite a few hexagon quilts plus a miniature one that was amazing.

An amazingly textured pictorial quilt of Venice.

A gorgeously vibrant silk quilt.

The detail on this was beautiful - the whole thing seemed to glow.

And then I was also very taken with the aerial map type quilts which can only have been by the same person (I *will* get a catalogue next year). There was one full size one.

And then a tiny miniature one.

So cute!

As well as the Liberty scraps I got a few other things. A selection of fat quarters.

And two jelly rolls.

Rather moderate for me I thought! And I came in £10 under budget. Holla!

Since then I have of course been to Nickerjac's wedding which was amazing. I just need to have a word with someone before posting about it though. I'll tweet as soon as all the pics are ready for viewing. In the meantime all of my Festival of Quilts photos (all 127 of them) are here.