December 2017 – The Procrastination Pen

Gravatar

For some time now I have found my blog decorated with something that detracted from the look of the site.

When I create blog pages I see this in the blog page:

This seemed to me a waste of space and I wanted to get this removed from the page.

I made an enquiry with WordPress technical support.

The feedback was that this was part of the theme design and only a custom design (at some cost) would get rid of it.

On setting up the site I spent a disproportionate amount of time selecting the “theme” (which for me is 2016).

Having spent a long time with the theme choice; I was not keen on a redesign or for the cost of having a custom design done.

If I was stuck with this – could I make better use of it than I have done to date?

It turns out that the icon is a placeholder for a Gravatar:

https://codex.wordpress.org/How_to_Use_Gravatars_in_WordPress.

Gravatar is a Globally Recognised Avatar. Wherever you make a posting an icon will appear identifying that posting as belonging to you.

Given my posting history consists of one blog; this is overkill. But I have an icon on my page which I need to do something about.

The above article states that WordPress.com allows access to the Avatar through the settings part of the site:

In fact I access by clicking on the tiny icon at the top of the page:

Selecting this enables access to my profile and to change my Public ID and picture:

I reasoned that if I was going to do this then I should put some things about me as well:

After which my blog site now appears like this:

Audiobooks

Not that long ago I decided that I would explore the world of audiobooks.

Some of my friends use audiobooks.

I spend a reasonable part of each week driving. I thought having something playing in the background would allow me to make best use of that time.

To me the obvious place to start was an audiobook download from Amazon.

After a while I had listened to the book and I thought that my niece might like to listen to it after me.

I own the book and I reasoned that this should present no problem.

I determined that there was no way to export the book from the playing interface. I couldn’t record it or indeed to pass it on by a method such as via email or file sharing service.

I contacted Amazon support and they told me it is forbidden to do what I was proposing.

Amazon control what you do with your audiobook.

When I owned a CD I could package up the CD and send it on to someone else. The CD belonged to me.

When I owned a book, I could take it to a charity shop and they could sell it; that was my right because the book belonged to me.

I discovered that in the world of downloads you do not own the item that you have bought. The closest relationship I can equate it to is a rental agreement in which you make a one-off payment.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/05/digital-media-licensed-not-owned

This seems a shift in the power of ownership which few people seem aware of.

So far I have not met anyone who is trying to fight it.

I have decided that I will continue to buy physical media such as CDs because, at present, they belong to me.

What I want to do is to rip the CD to digital audio such as MP3. This convoluted approach is inefficient but at least I own the audiobook.

This means that I am not downloading audiobooks.

Recently I have discovered that there are some services where you do not pay for the audiobooks. Such as this one:

http://www.openculture.com/freeaudiobooks.

For those who love eBooks there are also free download services for these such as:

https://www.bookbub.com/ebook-deals/free-ebooks.

If large companies constrain how you use something you own there are ways to fight this.

One approach is to gain access to digital media for free.

Any stance which resists this trend seems to me appropriate.

If, for example, you decide to keep purchasing physical items companies would adapt to maintain their profits.

The alternative is to resign yourself to a future where your behaviour is controlled.

The Apology

I can remember as a child being forced to apologise to people when I hadn’t any feelings of being sorry. In some cases I actually believed the other person was at fault.

I found that apologising has to come from within. Apologising when you do not mean it is empty and encourages feelings of revenge.

Research indicates that refusing to apologise is as beneficial as apologising. Refusing to apologise allows a person to feel more powerful and energised. The worst position is to sit on the fence and do nothing.

Some research shows that people who fail to apologise are happier than people who apologise.

In some circumstances apologising is damaging for the other person. For example if you reject someone with an apology this is more hurtful than plain rejection. The person is feeling both hurt and the need to forgive in the same moment. They need the time to process the hurt before considering forgiveness.

There are some benefits from choosing to apologise however. People prepared to apologise are viewed as more trustworthy. (Even where they apologise for things they cannot be responsible for – such as the weather).

Choosing to apologise may not be without consequences. These can range from embarrassment to admission of guilt. Admission of guilt can lead to other consequences: job loss, imprisonment, court cases and so on.

Every apology has to be considered. If you decide to apologise then at the very least you want your apology to be effective.

A recent counselling article indicates that apologies should contain the following elements:

Acknowledge the offense clearly – for example I did drive your car without your permission.
Explain it effectively – for example I waited until you went to work and took your keys from the dresser.
Restore the offended parties’ dignity – for example – it’s your car and I understand you will be mad that I used it.
Assure them they’re safe from a repeat offense. – I will not take your car again.
Express shame and humility – I feel very bad that I did this to you.
Make appropriate reparation – I will pay you for using the car and for the petrol.

Research indicates that apologies should offer assurances that the behaviour will not reoccur. They should contain sympathy for the victim. (An acceptance of responsibility coupled with a request for forgiveness).

The request for forgiveness may need to be withheld in some cases – when the victim needs time to process feelings and may not feel at all ready to forgive yet.

The timing of the apology is important. Apologising too soon may not have left the victim time to process feelings. Too late and the apology might appear to be insincere.

The key to a great apology lies in 6 key components:

Expression of Regret I’m sorry I ate all the French fries
Explanation of what went wrong I was hungry and ate them all
Acknowledgement of responsibility It was entirely my fault
Declaration of repentance I am really sorry
Offer of repair I will buy you some more French fries
Request for forgiveness. (However this is not applicable in every case – see text) please forgive me

These can be summarised as:

Tell the person how you feel I feel bad about what I have done
Admit the mistake and the impact of the mistake I ate the French fries and you went hungry
Repair the situation I’m going to buy you some more French fries

There are several examples of apologies that did not contain these key components. These have made the situation worse and/or made the victim(s) feel worse than prior to the apology.

A poor apology can lead to a desire for retribution by the victim. This could lead to a worse situation than if no apology had ever been offered.

The best apologies take into account the needs of the victim. This will require humility and empathy.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/02/how-to-apologize/470457/
https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-saying-sorry-73298
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-best-way-to-apologise-discovered-science-a6982966.html
https://news.osu.edu/news/2016/04/12/effective-apology/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200207/the-power-apology
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/good-thinking/201304/are-you-big-enough-apologize
http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Brooks%20Dai%20Schweitzer%202013_d2f61dc9-ec1b-485d-a815-2cf25746de50.pdf
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/advantages-of-not-saying-you-are-sorry/
https://blog.frontiersin.org/2017/09/14/frontiers-in-psychology-sorry-apology-social-rejection/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/people-who-never-apologize-are-probably-happier-than-you-12584567/
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_three_parts_of_an_effective_apology
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/making_peace_through_apology
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_make_an_apology_work

EXIF

People share their location, by uploading images to the Internet, and in most cases do not know they are doing so.

For example, “I know where your cat lives”: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/i-know-where-your-cat-lives-feline-photo-mapping-website-exposes-how-easy-it-is-to-track-the-owners-a6743621.html

And:

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vvb7yx/this-guy-is-cyberstalking-the-worlds-cats-in-the-name-of-privacy.

Every image taken with a modern camera (or smartphone) has embedded in it the location where it was taken.

If you take a photograph in your garden – tools on the Internet can reveal where your house is:

https://www.pic2map.com/.

For other data that is embedded in photos read this:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-ways-to-remove-exif-metadata-from-photos-and-why-you-might-want-to/.

Wherever possible I like to recommend tools that are free or low cost.

One of my favoured image editors is a tool called GIMP:

https://www.gimp.org/.

This is both free and open source (all the code used to write GIMP is freely available).

The Gimp interface currently looks like this:

If I take a screen shot (an image with no embedded metadata), paste this into GIMP and select File – Export:

Give the file a name:

Click Export (the name of the file determines which options you see here – I will show the options for JPEG).

Expand Advanced Options.

The “Save EXIF Data” option is greyed out (the screenshot contains no EXIF data).

However, if I open a photograph with GIMP and follow the above steps, the “Advanced Options” looks like this:

The “save EXIF data” option is available (this is because the image contains EXIF data).

To remove the EXIF data from an image before uploading it to the Internet, follow the above steps. (Ensure that you export the image with a different name to that which the camera gave it by default – to avoid overwriting that original image).

Take the tick out of the “Save EXIF data” box as pictured above and click the Export button.

Your image now contains no information that can be used to identify you or your camera. The image is therefore safe to upload to the Internet.

There are of course alternative methods of removing EXIF data. This article details some of those:

https://www.howtogeek.com/203592/what-is-exif-data-and-how-to-remove-it/