Now Departing From Platform...

Self-publicising and the need to keep everyone informed of what you are doing seems to me to the real driving force behind the rise of most social media platforms.  It's 'who shouts loudest wins' type of platform.
When Facebook first appeared I signed up quite enthusiastically, but within a year it was clear to me that the idealistic 'friends' and posting on each others wall were soon overtaken by the 'look at me' type of person who soon had a nice easy to use platform to shout at everyone.  My conclusion around 2010 was that Facebook was OK until everyone else joined.

Anyway, I'm sure there have been many doctorates earned on the merits, theories and downsides of social media so I don't need to go on too much.

If I could walk 50 miles then I could walk 50 more.

It's been well over 25 years since I last did a long run/walk/shuffle, but I managed to complete 50 in 14hrs 47mins without too much hardship.  I had a couple of blisters on the soles of my feet that threatened to spoil the party late on but they didn't seem to get significantly worse as the miles wore on.  I walked for the last 20 miles, after I caught up with another bloke who seemed to be intent on walking all of it.  I had started on a walk/run strategy with the emphasis on the walk part, but this soon became a walk only strategy with only s small reduction in overall pace.
I found someone to talk to really helped to make the miles go by although I was ready for the finish a couple of hours before it actually arrived.  Now to think what to do next.
According to the data, my pace dropped gradually over the whole 50 miles so I'm intrigued if my earlier jogging knocked back my finishing pace by much i.e. can I maintain a moderate pace for the whole distance or will I slow down just because it's such a long time?  My companion seemed to think that a steady pace was key to achieving a good time, so that's my next target I think.  Just need to find a suitable event.

Lucky For Some

Friday 13th.  What could possibly go wrong?
Well, quote a lot according to some strange people.  I can never understand superstitious people, the ones who always have their 'lucky jumper' on when their football team wins, the 'lucky socks' when they get a good golf score.  Come on!!! how the heck are they helping you?
I'm sure someone will have an accident today and blame Friday 13th, as if the accident couldn't possibly happen on another day.
Oh, and another odd phrase: 'everything happens for a reason you know'.  Yes, you're careless and you slipped.

A bit of RRR

I've signed up for the Round Rotherham Run on Saturday.  Rotherham as you probably know, is not so big, but someone created a 40 mile loop around it 35 years ago and it's still going strong every year.  It looks like some of it has been swallowed up by housing estates but there's enough greenery to make it 'rural', or at least that's what the website says.  I'll tell you about it next week.
Its called a run, but in actual fact it's also a long distance walk association (LDWA) event so my shuffling job/walk should fit nicely.  Last year's wining time was 6hrs 29mins whilst last one home was about 16hrs so there's room for me in there somewhere.

Web Enabled.

Its been a couple of months since I last poured out my heart to the online community, even though I know that the dozen or so hits every day are automated searches looking for goodness knows what.  I wonder how many robotic tentacles there are on t'internet? ..and they much be increasing every day to some extent.  I don't know, but I suspect the majority are advertising related 'bots hovering up data to use for targeted strikes against the innocent.
How long before we all our life is sucked into the web?

I read yesterday that the song intro is dying out.  What used to be an average of 20 secs is now 5 secs to try and stop us fast forwarding on Spotify (or similar) before the 30 second payment milestone is reached.  I didn't realise that this threshold existed, its just another web enabled part of our lives (well, some people's lives anyway) where the web has a direct consequence on something and thereby reduced the creativity as a consequence.

I'm listening to my first audible book.  Well, it's not my first one, that was a few years ago when it was a novelty, but my first book that I might have purchased in the paper format but decided to go for an 'Audible' version as an alternative.  I wonder if they suffer from the Spotify treatment and dumb down the first couple of pages to make sure you don't skip it entirely?