The Uses of Technology

There was a letter in this week's Amateur Photographer from some old fogey bemoaning the fact that modern cameras do everything.Where's the skill? Where's the fun? he was asking. If the camera made all possible decisions what do you do?.

To an extent I can understand: he wants to feel he is the master of a craft and is practising a skill. If the camera makes all the decisions where is the credit?. However the letters editor had a perfectly reasonable response: if you don't want to use a feature then don't. There is nothing to stop you using manual focus or setting your own exposures.

When I look at running technology I sometimes feel like that man. Why do I need all that information or all the rigidity of different zones? But then the other, more intellectual open, side kicks in and tells me just to use what I need - and anyway aren't all these functions amazing? Who could have imagined, but a few short years ago, so much cool stuff would be available. In so many ways I am in love with the modern world.

But the grumpy old man still lurks and an alert about a Motorola fitness aid brought him out. I have no idea whether the device is any good or not but the blurb for the music player tipped me over the edge.

"Training is serious work. You need a soundtrack. MOTOACTV's smart music player learns what songs motivate you by tracking your performance against your music. It determines which songs help you perform better and then compiles them in a high-performance playlist."

Instead of thinking Wow! How great! I need that! I found it slightly creepy and sinister. The association with work made me think of all the monitoring in soulless call centres and the regimentation of production lines. The attempts to pen people in and systematise their effort. Science fiction has long warned of societies that suppressed all individuality and free speech with rigourous regulation and I thought of that rather than an aid that would help me achieve more.

Four simple words: "training is serious work" put me in the opposition camp. This is not what I think about when I think of running. For sure I am serious and treat it with respect but it is not work. Instead it offers the opportunity for freedom, play and the satisfaction that comes from effort. That is the heart of it and I don't want to be nudged into thinking of it in any other way.

2011 Streak Day 266 (Monday Sept 26th): Public and private space

2011 Streak Day 266 (Monday Sept 26^th): Walk - 3 miles , Time -1hr Weather - drizzly to start but the grey clouds were later blown away to be replaced with whiter clouds and patches of blue

If I wasn't trying to record so form of exercise each day I would have paid no attention to today's walking. It was just there and back, there and back, around Watford, running some errands and visiting the hospital. Nothing much to report.

I did however spot a notice in the shopping centre forbidding photography. It reminded me of how many of what we think of as public spaces are now privately owned. I can remember feeling vaguely outraged a few years ago when the shopping centre of Milton Keynes (which is actually the town centre, but under a roof, was passed into private ownership but was frankly amazed when, in 2008, I read about the development in Liverpool which would hand over existing public streets to a private landlord ( half way down this extract from the book Real England by Paul Kingsnorth). But I should have been more clued up Anna Minton wrote a report for RICS on the privatisation of public space in 2006 (followed up by a book in 2009 Ground control).

I mention these things not because they have anything to do with running but because they are related to the other side of the project, which is to explore my local environment.

Before I knew of the ban on photography in the Harlequin Centre I had not felt constrained because as I had had no desire to take pictures of shopping but know I know I can't I feel miffed. What is the problem with taking photographs?

Perhaps I ought to rethink my attitude to recording shops after all they are a significant indication of the health and nature of any town.  Shopping is probably  the country's dominant pass time and if I am exploring my environment it is blinkered to ignore it.

But today I sidestep the issue as photo has nothing to do with shops but is of something that, at the moment, is not fettered by copyright or ownership problems - nature. there have been an enormous number of ladybirds flying and crawling about. It must be there time for mass migration. The picture shows a couple caught in a spiders web

2011 Streak 113/365: Easy Day

2011 Streak 113/365: Walk - 2 miles, Time - 50 min, Weather - as sunny as a summer's day

Today we have a guest photographer - my niece. 

Those words probably conjure up an image of me indulging a child by giving her my camera and letting her play but that is only half true. I did give her my camera but she is not a child. She is in fact far more qualified to take photos than me as she has a degree in fine art and her final exhibition involved large photographs of tiny structures made of sugar crystal glued together with superglue.

The day is hot and we are in the garden of my sister-in-law and family in Nottingham. I am mostly reading the paper but I am also looking at my niece taking her photos. I have two main thoughts. The first is technical: noticing how she likes to use the manual setting and adjust both aperture and shutter speed - I rarely do that my tendency is to control one or the other and let the camera take care of the exposure. The second is a mixture of envy and regret. She moves about so easily - crouching, bending, and stretching with all the flexibility of youth. How I wish I could be so thoughtless about my body, knowing it would follow my intentions without any conscious effort.

My regret is at the process of ageing and how the body has to be managed - how you have to move more carefully and think about what you are doing. You can no longer take it for granted.

I know, for example, I really have to work at my flexibility. The trouble is there is a difference between knowing and doing. I have never, ever established a long lasting regime. Probably because it really does feel like work. It makes me feel uncomfortable and all the time I am confronted by my own inabilities.

It is just one of those things - if you have a bent for something you tend to enjoy it and keep going. If it is a struggle you are either very strong minded and exert your will, or you backslide. I am a backslider. There will be bursts when I tell myself I ought to do what is good for me but after a time my natural disinclination reasserts itself and the resolution dissolves.

Never mind the physical exercises its character building exercises I need.