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How did I get here?

Wednesday 3 June 2026 at 15:11
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Edited by Martin Cadwell, Thursday 4 June 2026 at 07:11

All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.

I am not on YouTube or social media

silhouette of a female face in profile 

It is all your fault

[ 8 minute read ] 1814 words

They're blown again!

I just plugged in a pair of speakers into the earphone socket of my laptop; I have done it before and there are even an identical set currently plugged into an identical laptop in the same way right now. The speakers I just reconnected had blown some months ago and one of the speakers had separated itself from its lead. However, I thought, before I throw these away I shall just test them one more time just to settle any doubts as to their usefulness. Since I don't have any music stored on the laptop I went to YouTube for The Who - 'Baba O'Riley'.

More often than not, these days, YouTube videos start with an advert. Everybody wants to monetise their videos so the video-makers click on 'Allow as many ads as possible' or something when they upload their video file to YouTube. Even though the first word of the ad I was subjected to did not start with a percussive sound, it was louder than the following words. My speaker because there are three volume levels to set (YouTube; laptop; and in-line speaker wire), which I did not monitor, was instantly blown. The only volume setting that was not at maximum was on the laptop (master volume, if you will). Whose fault is it that my speaker got blown? Law students studying Tort Law would recognise this sort of question in a heartbeat.

There is more though; but only because this is not a finite exam question. There is marketing and sociology lurking in the background.

Marketing: The key goal is to stand out from the competition or the rest or an environment, such as  by using 'foregrounding', 'framing' and 'contrast'.

Sociology: an acceptance of intrusive digital content AND heightened personal interactivity.

These, obviously, are not definitions of the subjects. They are only markers to signify where I am going with this. If this was an essay they would be in an introduction.

Romeo at the laundrette.

If you fall asleep watching Romeo and Juliet on your telly, and after a while Romeo starts talking about washing liquid lumps and Juliet responds with how wonderful her life is, and how white her clothes are because she uses those same washing liquid lumps, you probably won't wake up.

Advertisers need to jolt you awake, or at least change your mental attitude. Of course, if Romeo and Juliet did start talking about blobs of detergent it would be 'product placement' which is marketing by the back door, and foregrounding is not used. Foregrounding is when something is brought to the fore and the rest, the background, is left limping behind. I believe it to be 'contrasting' in the main.

That annoying chipper voice that we sometimes hear to advertise stuff is used to foreground the product. If we all spoke like that then it would be David Attenborough trying to sell us lawnmowers, power-tools and Dormeo mattresses. 

One of the easiest way to jolt us into paying attention is to use a raised voice. Consider a scene in a bedroom where a long married couple are in bed quietly discussing their day. Then, an advert comes on. If the volume is loud then we MUST pay attention, even if to just be annoyed at the interruption. That is what the advertisement on YouTube hoped to do when I tried to test my speakers by clicking on a 'The Who' video on YouTube, by starting with a very loud word, which gave no warning beforehand for me to turn down the volume settings on my set-up. 

Have technology, will use it?

In our current world nearly all of us have SmartPhones or at least mobile phones; some retro-style phones, such as the new Nokia 3310, launched in 2017 (originally September 2000), have 5G capability but no internet capability.

In recent marketing, most businesses decided to foreground themselves from their competitors by adding services. Once upon a time, we would order something and it would arrive and we, the customer, would be forgotten (except that the business needs to keep a record of its transactions for tax purposes). This record became an integral part in developing Customer Relationship Management or CRM. After-sales contact with customers had long been around before we all started to get texts to tell us nonsense about our purchase. If you bought a Rolls-Royce decades ago, perhaps even 100 years ago, the dealer would keep in contact with the customer, at least for a couple of years. This after-sales personal interaction is a 'value-added service'. 

In the modern world, we have no 'quibble returns' as a value-added service. But what else could a business do to add economic value to a product? They thought for a while over tea and biscuits and came up with, since nearly all of us have a phone, pre-emptive texting. They sent us a single text to say the order is on the way. They then, when they all started doing it, decided that they needed to foreground themselves from their competitors and so they sent us texts and emails to let us know precisely the stage at which our order was at. This isn't strictly true because when we order something it does not necessarily come from the business we ordered it. There is a chain of businesses, including financing businesses, the 'supply chain' that is involved in making sure we get what we order. Most of these are given our telephone number or email addresses so they too can tell us what they are about to do, or have done with our order. This, incidentally, is why we are always asked for our telephone number AND email address; because no-one in the supply chain knows what information another business in the supply chain needs to irritate us with their idea of a 'value-added service'.

A case in point: I ordered a replacement bank card. I received an email stating that the 'lost' card was cancelled. Great idea! I then received an email saying a new card has been ordered; and then another email saying the order has been received and it will be dispatched within seven days. Many of us might find all of this useful to know; even that it will be delivered to my home (which email included the full address). Whoops! An email that pertains to a bank card delivery that has my full name and address in it! Who among us missed the relevance of that amidst all the emails, and the medley of other emails that swathe us so tightly that we have no room to ponder or think? It is indicative of a supply chain (The bank doesn't make the card).

The Blame

Now then. In the modern world, in which we amalgamate ourselves with normal practices, we now have an expectation of a pre-emptive text as a warning or advisory comment before something happens. Should YouTube start every video with a short (two second) piece during which we can set the volume on our equipment?

Should the advertiser not start the advert with a very loud first word? But who are they to know whether their advertisement is the first thing that will be heard on a device that day? We might ask, 'Do they care about our equipment?' Definitely! They do not want potential customers to have bad experiences due to their business and advertising practices.

Should I use more expensive equipment when I know that it was an advert that was overly loud, that came on while I was watching a YouTube video, that destroyed the internal speakers on my laptop, that necessitated buying external speakers, which were blown the same way? That begs the question: Should there be an automatic volume limiter on all laptops?

Should I have made sure the master volume (laptop) was turned down before I started the YouTube video, when, used to not having to think for myself due to the constant stream of advisory texts and emails, I just clicked 'Go'? Have I been brainwashed into being a zombie? 

I am a victim of my environment

I am sometimes surprised that students ask questions in online forums when the answers are easily found within the course text. I am irritated when in Open University Forums contributors submit less than 100 words. 

I own three laptops. I frequently use two simultaneously. About once a month or so I will access all three simultaneously. They run different operating systems and have similar software on them. They can all access the internet via a hub. This means I can have three Open University web pages visible at the same time (four, because I also have an external monitor). Each laptop can have multiple Open University web pages open. Realistically, I only open or view up to six pages at the same time, though that is rare. The screen sizes are 15 inches and I use font-size 10 or 12 for normal work. I, obviously, have a keyboard, and a mouse, for each laptop. I can search the internet on one laptop and still view three Open University web pages. We might say that I am not constrained by either visibility or function.

It has become plain to me that my fellow students are using SmartPhones to study for a degree; and only SmartPhones. What made them think this is a good way to proceed? As contrast, I can see one static draft of my intended assignment submission, search the internet, type a new draft, and view the Open University guidance for the assignment simultaneously, while flicking through the Open University module books.

I used to consider that it is foolish to only use a SmartPhone to access a degree level module and, I suppose, write their assignments on. However, it is also foolish to start a YouTube video without checking the volume levels of my equipment. Let's face it; I have three areas which I could check and I only need to check one to save my speakers from being blown. I know marketing practices. I know YouTube videos are monetised and I know music videos are usually not interrupted by adverts so they are at the beginning of the music video.

How did I get here?

'And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house" 'And you may ask yourself, "Am I right, am I wrong?" [...] And you may say to yourself, "My God, what have I done?".'

Talking Heads, 'Once in a Lifetime', Written by: Brian Eno, David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison, Christopher Frantz, Sire Records, 1981.

Tags: blown, speaker, blame, zombie
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Possessed

Saturday 14 March 2026 at 06:10
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Edited by Martin Cadwell, Saturday 14 March 2026 at 06:39

All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.

I am not on YouTube or social media

silhouette of a female face in profile WARNING!  Addiction

This is about spirits and the spiritual world through a lens of addiction

 

Who or what is behind me?

[ 8 minute read ]

 

My local shopkeeper, in my village, was, like everyone else it seems to me, suddenly on guard when I told him I was about to gamble on a horse race; the Cheltenham Gold Cup. I could see him stiffen and think, 'Addict!'

Many people balk at horse racing. I am never going to put up any strong and consistent argument against other people's perceptions, sympathy or empathy. Everyone approaches everything from their own perspective; a point of view that has been moulded (Amer. molded) by their environment, and crucially, their ability to hear an 'inner voice', or even a disembodied voice that they think is their conscience.

A long time ago, my friend, Mark, told me that the day passes in segments that have areas of separation. He thought that instead of the light fading at the end of the day, it instead dimmed in a series of blocks; each block of the end of the day almost imperceptibly darker than the one before, but he could detect it happening. He used to say some weird stuff, but now I recognise that something interesting was going on in his mind. He allowed himself to consider that he didn't know how to perceive the environment he existed in simply because he had inherited rules and heuristics from everyone around him. He was able to suspend belief and consider a wide scope of possibilities. Interestingly, he wasn't afraid to tell anyone he trusted what he thought was going on, from young ideas of conspiracy theories, to aliens and physics.

Often, I get a distinct feeling that there is someone watching me. When I bring the thought to the fore I experience a chill, a little shiver. I can't help but think that there is a primitive part of the brain that is triggered when ideas of supernatural activity is considered to be apparent. The 'everyday functioning brain' asks a different part of the brain for specialist assistance; a part of the brain that, I suspect, has a radar for activity in the spirit world. I might consider that people who like horror films are having a part of their brain stimulated that is there to deal with the supernatural. It might be a bit of a leap of thinking if we consider that there are only psychopaths in horror films, but not for me, because I know that people with no sympathy or empathy for other living things would make great hosts for entities that want to manipulate and destroy.

When I perceived my local shop-keeper stiffen when I, to him it seems, told him I am an addict of some kind, I am fairly sure he had passed information to the part of his brain that deals with threats, specifically spiritual threats. An addict, is, I believe, commonly thought to stop at nothing to feed their habit. To many people this is tantamount to being no different to a zombie or a psychopath. Indeed, if psychologists and psychiatrists used open and conversational language they might loosely sum up many addicts as being psychopaths. I might be crass and use umbrella terms like that but we all hope that people working in, and on, mental health issues are a little more circumspect about casting wet and clinging blankets of category over comparable attributes just to make them easier to file. If, like me, you found that last sentence tortuous, then consider, 'pigeon-holing' as just such a blanket term to replace the weird and kinked sentence. But spice everything up with a sense of irony too. (Note to self: I find myself disappointed at my limitations in being able to describe my thoughts sometimes - yesterday, fine; today, somehow circumscribed).

So, without realising it, I suggest, my local shopkeeper used a lens of perception to alert him to any spiritual threat. Perhaps that is why there is such a strong reaction to the discovery that there is an addict in the building, that I so often find. Are people really considering only a higher probability of theft, deceit and violence in the physical world? I don't think so.

I am not an addict. I can smoke cigarettes for months or years and then just stop. I can drink vodka for two weeks without a single day of abstinence and then not, I am no sop. I can gamble on horses or other things and not chase my loss. 

When I told my local shopkeeper that I had created a spreadsheet on which horse in the Cheltenham Gold Cup (horse race) had a good chance of winning and thus inferring that it would return a financial gain to me, I think he considered I might be chasing a large sum, such as at least £20 or £30. That is not what I do though. i don't seek the large win. I seek to beat the odds by hedging my bets and apply careful focus on variables. The win is merely a moment that allows me to congratulate myself for being perspicacious, perceptive, or focused.

Of course, having large amounts of free money is not intolerable for me to consider and so I also consider a win that actually returns more money than I have spent as being a little exciting too.

After the race, I had occasion to go back into the local shop and immediately told the shopkeeper that I had only lost £1.33 during my earlier mad gambling spree.

     'Well, that's okay,' he said. I suppose he was still thinking I had only a small amount of money because my card was declined when I tried to withdraw more then the daily limit through the Post Office. 'Declined' doesn't necessarily mean 'no money' in the account. It means money is not available.

I couldn't help smiling inside. I get it that many people may have gambled and lost £5, £10, £20, £50, or £100 in a single day. Me, I haven't lost £20 in total for the whole of my life, and that includes doing any national lotteries across Europe, and money disappearing down the inside of sofas. I simply don't chase money. In other words, the reward that many people get from smoking, drinking and gambling does not occur in my own life. I don't get the same dopamine hit that most people get.

Perhaps it is from considering the addiction to dopamine that almost everyone is susceptible to, that I might gain more understanding of how people judge each other. To my mind, when someone passes information to a part of their brain that deals with spiritual activity when they, rightly or wrongly, perceive an addict, they may also exhibit a tendency to ignore more common instances of spiritual activity or spiritual vulnerability, just as they ignore doing the National Lottery as an addictive gambling habit.

Yesterday, I transferred £5 to an online account to be able to bet on some horses. I had 20 pence left over, so, even though I can bet only 10 pence on some other thing, I decided to throw caution to the wind and cast my fate onto a game of chance; a national lottery. 

I told my shopkeeper that I might win £11.60 at six o'clock. He laughed and said if I do he would like to share it with me. He seems to only see the money. I see only the variance in my life as being a better goal. I wouldn't have withdrawn the money or said to myself, 'Woo hoo, party!' It would just sit in an online account and I would forget about it.

Weirdly, I did spend a further 40 pence on two more lotteries, one that might net me about £8 tonight and the the same next Saturday. There is no gain in that though. I am not engaged in it and dispassionately it is for the financial gain to allow me to, if I remember, spend another three hours studying the probability of choosing a probable winner in an environment or event.

Now that I have sought to gain money and have a hope attached to it,  I have to check my rear to see if there really is something or someone watching and influencing me, because throwing my fate on a game of chance really is uncharacteristic of me. Perhaps the shopkeeper saw something within me, or near me, after he asked his brain to check. Perhaps he was even prescient but lacks the capacity, or more likely, the experience, to extricate disjointed information from the cacophony of stimuli that is the physical world.

Perhaps then he really was surprised when I told him I had lost only £1.33. Strangely, I would be embarrassed to tell him I threw money at a game of chance. Perhaps he is right; for a brief moment I was a gambling addict; a lottery? A lottery that I would never even consider watching? I wasn't even seeking a dopamine hit from anticipation! Me? Really?

Tags: gambling, addict, spirit, possessed, zombie, psychopath, empathy, mental health, lottery, fate, dopamine
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