DrJoolz Snapshotz on Life

I am going there tomorrow so I may not blog for a while.
I took this photo last time:

The weather is a bit warmer than in Sheffield. Phew!!

But shall I still take a coat?

kids at play

Originally uploaded by themexican.

In mexico

You may make up your story around these relevant images.

There is not much choice for you.
Now you know how I feel.

It was quite sunny today so I was able to test out my new tea cup in the garden.

I felt extremely English.

I thought of the Queen and of Wimbledon and of Roses in bloom.

This picture which I put on my blog yesterday elicited 18 comments and 47 views on Flickr, which I think is quite strange.

I put the photo in some groups, including ‘my everyday life’ and T’he new domesticity’. I really like these groups at the moment. I enjoy the way people in some of the Flickr groups make it like a kind of club. For example the group admins (people who set up the group) are careful to welcome new members and they praise their photos. It feels REAL.

It’s GREAT, a real buzz.
I think that is why Flickr is addictive.

There is a whole reciprocity thing going on.

I like the groups where people draw you in and where the boundaries between the offline and online spaces start to blur. This seems to happen in the ‘place’ groups (Sheffield; Bristol; Nottingham etc). But also in some others like The new Domesticity’ and ‘Everyday Life”. There is aslo the Thrift group where this happens.

It seems to happen in groups where people are presenting images as if they are glimpses of a life ‘caught in the moment’; they want to offer their perception of their reality as they see and experience it. People in these kinds of group particularly, seem keen to present online identities that cohere with off line selves (whatever that means).

Danath and Boyd talk here about ‘Public Displays of Connection’. And I really am thinking about this in relation to what Guy found in Benkler’s work about ‘thickening social relations’. I love that phrase.

Danath and Boyd talk about the significance of the way in which our online relationships are on public display - so I think we need to look OK all the time, from all angles really. So we reciprocate favours - such as making each other contacts, or puting each other on blogrolls. We have to always be on polite good behaviour and ensure our reputation remains intact as far as all our ‘contacts’ are concerned. It is quite difficult doing all this ‘people-pleasing’ without sounding totally gushing and cheesey I think.

I think that many online relationships are very temporary whilst others become quite deep.
The reciprocity in the relationships can be quite formulaic; gestural; ritualistic in some. You say something nice about my photo, I say something nice about yours. With others it is more than that and I think when it is more than that you can break out of the ritual routines and the politeness.

I am thinking about how that happens.

I have found out that you have to stick to the rituals until people know you otherwise they get offended and then you have to grovel your way out of the hole you dug. (I did that today.)

PostScript - added Monday 24th April:
This photo hit most interesting yesterday(23rd)!! Look here.

Looks like Anya and I are BOTH into e-bay at the moment. She got this.

I have just received this:

As Anya says, it is so cool on e-bay, when you buy something, they tell you that you are a WINNER.

I am bidding on this and “>this as well as other stuff.

So addictive.

Wow how exciting!!!

Hairy Potter took this photograph and put it on Flickr, asking for help in identifying where it was taken.

Roger B went off hunting and came back with the answer which he posted on Flickr here.

Hairy Potter used to live in Sheffield but now lives on the West Coast of Canada. He is part of the Sheffield group though and I guess it is nice for him to keep in contact with the place through the people who post their Sheffield shots there. After several meetings of some of the Sheffield Flickr Group, we have now set up a blog!! (Yes, I know …) which is here.

So interesting .. it all goes to strengthen the idea that we thicken our social relations through our online activities, and vice versa. (Guy wrote about it.) And he even gave a link where you can dowload the whole of Benkler’s book on networking.

Just one more litle point … when I met a few people from the Bristol Flickl group, one of them talked about how she hated it when people joined the group and ’spammed it’ with photos of all the tourist places in Bristol, and left again without contributing to the group at all. Fascinating really that there is a sense in some of the ‘place based’ Flickr groups of the LOCAL and that people are keen to get a community feel from it. It is not just ‘another group’. Popular groups on Flickr have people who really strongly interact and for them the other groups are not as good. The personal is crucial in all of this.

So Roger B and Hairy Potter - I reckon they are friends from way back in time when HP lived in Sheffield.

Inglan is a Bitch

Originally uploaded by brendadada.

Love this. Nice museum piece. You need to click on the picture to see it properly though … (or click on this. .)

I like the title as a well, because it sounds hip.

Still on a geographical theme, I saw this new toy on SarahofSheffield’s blog. It shows a map of the world and where you have been. You get it from here.

create your own visited countries map

I think it looks a bit like boasting. (Although in fact I am not boasting as I have only been to places if someone else has taken me there. So I am just a parasite really).

And for me it is neither use nor ornament as I cannot tell what the countries are unless they have little labels on them.

Biggest person …

Originally uploaded by evissa.

I would refuse to go on this ride if I had to sit in the biggest person seat.

There is a really annoying thing to do with computers. When I changed my blog from this site to this one, I did the work on my pc. I messed about to try and get the pictures as dammit to the same size as each other. It took a few hours I reckon. Then, I checked what the whole thing looked like on my Apple Powerbook. When I looked on the Powerbook, the beautifully arranged pictures above the title bar were all squashed up and looked horrible. So I fiddled about quite a lot more with the photos and got them OK again. So phew.

But.

Today I went into the office and checked out the blog and it was all over the place there, with the layout all higgledy piggledy. I messed around with it and changed the screen resolution and it looked OK again. So now I am thinking that the blog might look crap on most people’s machines. And this is one of the places where books win over screen based text as it will always look just one way.

This is what my blog looks like on my pc:

Maybe on your pc it does not look like that and you are wondering why I have switched to a nightmare layout.

Just to bore you some more, with another example… ..

I have just written a report for the DfES using the new fangled but not very nice looking Sheffield University font. (Yes , we have our own font as well as a ridiculous new university crest). And I wrote that report on my apple powerbook. I bet you can guess what is coming. After doing all the contents pages (took ages again as had to use loads of bullet point number thingies) I then e mailed the report to the DfES . And when I opened the attachment to check it was AOK, I found that that pathetic and not very attractive, new font does not travel well on e mail and all the page numbers went everywhere and margins screwed up etc etc. So that is rubbish too.
Why did the university not test if it would swop from one platform to another?? (Please not how we have to write ‘The University Of Sheffield.’ with a capital ‘O’ in ‘Of@ and end it with a fulltop!!!!????)

And why do you have to have a stupid font just for the uni???

I am not using it again.

It is rubbish.

Hmmph.

So, am I the only one this type of stuff happens to?

Yesterday evening I was, as we used to say at my school, ‘Cream Crackered’. However, I was persuaded (really cajoled) into going to the Sharrow Lantern Festival that had by then been postponed three times due to rain. This is last year’s festival.

As usual TT was right (well not really, ‘as usual’ but I am trying to be kind) and we had a really nice evening. We had to wait around a bit for the parade to begin, don’t know why, maybe to wait till it got dark. But is was sweet to see people arriving with their precious lanterns, and a bit of fun to follow the parade around the streets (led by some mystery people wearing weird clothes and playing drums).

This kind of event makes me feel nostalgic, but I have no idea why as it is of a type that certainly never happened when I was a kid. For me, these community affairs are new fangled; as are lights, lanterns and costumes. Perhaps it reminds me of being in school plays, but those tended to be boring, because as a ‘good reader’ I always seemed to be the flaming narrator.

It was nice watching the people arrive anyway, just seeing everyone excited about it all…. some people might say it was marvellous that we were not all stuck at home watching the box. Or doing stuff on the Internet.
But of course I would not have known about it without the Internet as it was through Sheffield Flickr that I heard of it at all … and of course we met people from Sheffield Flickr group there. Then went back home and uploaded photos for all the other people to see.

My dear son Miles came with us which was nice. And I see Guy went too. More photos here.

And just to keep you informed, TT has left for Sydney today and hopes to meet Anya. Wish I was going too.

was the reason I went to Bedford.

TT heard of Caitlin through the e music site he belongs to. She was listed as someone you would like if you enjoy:

Gillian Welch
Dar Williams
Laura Cantrell
Lucinda Williams

Anyway I completely loved the music - it was better than the CDs we had bought … so well done to The Star Rowing club for getting such a good band!

I had my hair straightened and I think it looks a bit weird and won’t have it done again… I posed for the camera and smiled away with a drink in my hand. We were in a hotel that had the ring of 1950s Butlins about it. It was filled with guests from Camarthen. For breakfast there was cornflakes, cups of tea, toast etc. There was none of that new fangled fruit you get in the snobby places. The carpet was very fancy in green orange and purle geometric patterns.

This is Caitlin:

She was wearing excellent funky red boots and I would like some. There are more photos here.