David Brew
Career in IT . Completed third psychology course with OU. Interests are keeping fit (cycling) and my organic vegetable plot. Visit disabled people to help with IT. www.davidbrew.co.uk
Location Lisburn, Northern Ireland
Activity
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David Brew made a comment
As a volunteer visiting disabled people who need help with IT, I keep a record of the visit and some data about the person to facilitate research and ongoing work with the person. As such I'm a Data Controller and a Data Processor. I prepare a newsletter which is sent to a database of 'interested parties' , that is , people that I think may want to refer...
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David Brew made a comment
My client prepares a publication and issues updates to it . We have a mailmerge file of names and addresses. So, so far , we are not affected by GDPR. The subscribers to the publication are, in the main, businesses, but there would be the odd 'natural person' , perhaps a student. We have discussed creating a database to permit targeted marketing at which point...
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David Brew replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
I've always assumed that it meant Information and Communications Technology
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I've always assumed that it meant Information and Communications Technology
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David Brew made a comment
I read recently about a surgeon who was doing research into brain implants. I think the work was in connection with neurological disorders. While it is a scary prospect, imagine the conversation with an elderly confused person, is it a logical progression for the topic we are discussing?
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David Brew made a comment
My only 'phobia' is associated with the direction that global capitalism will take the technology.
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Having someone care about you and sympathetically listen is, in itself, therapeutic. Privacy is now a major concern and already there have been instances of hacking of IoT devices.
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Graeme, are you aware of initiatives within the (UK) health service addressing the role of IOT in changing the 'hit and skip' model that pertains?
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Kimberly, wouldn't it be interesting to have the tutors' thoughts on essential oils? On the surface it would seem to be the antithesis of the technology that we are learning about.
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David Brew made a comment
A close relative has Parkinson's; she has embraced social media with enthusiasm (maybe too much?) but has resisted wearing a wrist alarm. I suspect that some of the issues that will impair adoption of technology are psychologically based.
I visit elderly and disabled people, on a voluntary basis, to help with problems they encounter with ICT. -
David Brew replied to Kenneth Smith
I was thinking about a mechanism whereby I could keep in touch with people met on Futurelearn courses but presumed a URL wouldn't be permitted in a profile. Anyway, I write to say that there is an 'h' missing from your URL in your profile.
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David Brew made a comment
I'm sure Neil Patel had some words of wisdom in
'how you could master pay per click marketing right now ' but it was tricky to maintain any concentration while being bombarded with advertising, some of which was probably PPC -
David Brew replied to Kay Miller
I use some sites that rely on advertising for revenue. Freecycle in the UK noticed that I had an ad blocker and I received an automated appeal to allow advertising. I guess that, as consumers, we want to have some control. On the other side of the fence, as promoters, we want people to see our message.
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David Brew replied to Fionnuala S
I agree that there was minimal input from the tutors and an evangelical approach overall. Of course, one must temper any 'criticism' with the observation that this excellent source of information was free.
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Thanks for the response Fionnuala. If your business grows, and you want it to continue growing (not everybody does) you could revisit social media later.
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Tom, I think the answer might be that you don't. There's a danger that we may be fixated on the idea that without social media you can't have a successful career/business. But you can. And there is a possibility that by expending your energy trying to be heard above the cacophony that is social media you will endanger your business. The big lesson, so far, is...
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David Brew made a comment
Optical character recognition. Machines are available that will read written text (e.g. a book or document) and voice it -it's possible that these may be available on smartphones. Programs like Jaws , screen readers, will voice content of a computer screen.
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David Brew made a comment
Secondment with disability organisations, volunteering, mentoring a disabled person, training a disabled person, having a disabled person deliver awareness talks
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David Brew made a comment
I'm an IT Practitioner and a volunteer with AbilityNet - our volunteers visit disabled and elderly people in their homes to help resolve IT problems
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David Brew made a comment
Might there be a case to require updates to first be given to an independent team of hackers with the instructions to 'break this'?
We don't have to slavishly allow vendors to automatically update our systems, although the update may be to fix an earlier security issue, but , of course, if everyone did this then the vulnerability would not be... -
David Brew made a comment
Many of the comments touched on the ethics of what the firm was doing and what their clients were doing. If we assume that a proportion of people/firms will act unethically then is it legitimate for individuals to make the judgement that they should be exposed, either by leaking information from within, or hacking from without? What are the risks of damaging...
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David Brew made a comment
TMI Too Much Intake ( I made that up), but, I guess, you can have too much of a good thing so guidelines about whether or not , and to what degree, exceeding RNI, say, would be detrimental to health.
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David Brew made a comment
Unsure if the murky waters of weight loss has been explored elsewhere, and it must be a subject that is important for many older people - how to safely lose weight. This sentence then might usefully be clarified.
'Without enough supply of dietary energy from carbohydrates and fats, the body preferentially uses amino acids for energy production at the...
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Motivation is such an important factor. The course has given us rational reasons for activity, but will that help at the decision point I wonder? In cycling we have an app called Strava which connects people, records your activity, and gives you an opportunity to encourage others. There may be something similar that you could try.
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David Brew replied to David Brew
That's good Jon. Maybe we should also think about the other muscles in our body; we cyclists tend to think first about our leg muscles but I'm now shifting my thoughts to the heart and maybe this will come up in the course later, but maybe not - don't know if it is considered part of the musculoskeletal system.
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David Brew made a comment
Ouch! This article answered the question that had motivated me to take this course. In youth I was a competitive cyclist. A couple of years ago my son entered me for a cycling sportive (60 miles) so I thought that I should do some training. In training everything felt more or less the same, except, I was travelling at half the speed. I persevered over several...
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David Brew made a comment
A neighbour introduced me to her friend and her friend said 'oh, you're the man who cycles'.
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David Brew made a comment
With reference to the novel the writer says something which the reader reconstructs in their mind, in an active way, based on their individual life experiences – in that sense they are active. A ‘good’ story, I imagine, assumes a level of sameness in the readers, the audience, otherwise the original ‘message’ is dissipated – the writer will want most people to...
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David Brew replied to Christa Blackmon
I see what you mean. Mr Moffat certainly seemed passionate - but what he appeared passionate about was whether or not the story 'worked' . I guess, on his terms, this might mean a show that had high ratings. If your passion happened to be a 'cause', or the resolution of injustice, say, then your story has to work in a different way, surely, wouldn't you want...
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David Brew made a comment
There's a TV ad for a car - I remember the ad but not the car
Message:
I've got several different characters/moods ( to match the versatility of the vehicle I'm driving?)
Forget about traffic jams, pollution, deaths on the roads caused by 'playful' drivers, with this car a whole new seductive world opens up before you.
Emotions:
Playful, naughty,... -
David Brew made a comment
Just added something
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David Brew made a comment
Twitter
Jeep Twitter feed is mostly pictures and gifs of Jeeps in pristine natural environments - places that many people might feel would be best left to nature and walkers and climbers. The story is about the journey and adventure but avoids the prospect of despoliation of the beautiful places that are being invaded.
Instagram
This follows the same... -
David Brew made a comment
The Brand is Jeep Cherokee
The archetype is 'Voyage and Return'
The archetype fits the brand because the Cherokee , in the fantasy world occupied by many motorists, offers freedom, freedom to travel ( in this fantasy world you travel over empty roads devoid of traffic, people and any obstacle , maybe a bit of gravel, with unpolluted blue skies and... -
David Brew made a comment
Why have you decided to work on this brief?
Some background.
I work with a group of volunteers who visit disabled people in their homes to help with computer problems. There are lots and lots of people out there who need our help but I don't know how to reach them. There are lots of volunteers willing to help but who become demotivated when their offer of... -
David Brew made a comment
These comments are offered after skimming:
CSR Activities and Impacts of the Automotive Sector, RIMAS Working Papers, No. 3/2011
http://www.sustainability.eu/pdf/csr/impact/IMPACT_Sector_Profile_AUTOMOTIVE.pdf
Eighty percent of the environment impact of automobiles occurs during usage.
An important development has been the regulation of end-of-life... -
David Brew made a comment
The markets have given us the burning of forests in Indonesia for palm oil plantations ( ' a cry for help from planet Earth', Lucy Seigle), and planned exploration for fossil fuel under the melting ice-caps - 'Given the implications , speculative drilling for oil in the Arctic may one day be seen as a crime against humanity', John Rockstrom, The Observer, 15...
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David Brew made a comment
The word ’sustainability’ cropped up for the first time in a slide near the end, so , no, it wasn’t a theme running through his talk, but the subtext was that that gaps carried costs in stress and other health issues and the suggestion was that this is not sustainable.
The connection that I see, after a bit of rumination, is that the consumption patterns of... -
David Brew made a comment
Ouch. Apocalyptic. Became increasingly depressed as the ad progressed. Then, because I had never heard of what they are selling, had to rewind, and look it up. The brightness, at the end, didn't alleviate the gloom engendered by the scale of the agri-food industry they portrayed so affectingly.
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David Brew made a comment
Goal 7 Affordable and clean energy and goal 11 Sustainable cities and communities may be paired in the sense that it is not sustainable to continue to burn (dirty) fossil fuels while cities are major consumers of energy - presently generated by burning fossil fuels.
The theme I would use to link all of the seventeen goals is 'Politics' because none of the... -
Sustrans '..is a charity enabling people to choose healthier , cleaner and cheaper journeys'.
As mentioned by Dr Chadborn (Sustainability and exercise) if you walk or cycle to your destination it is both healthier and more sustainable than using a car.
It also touches on one of my 'hobby-horses' that planners are contributing to car dependency; as an example... -
David Brew made a comment
Ah! The sixties. I remember them well, some people don't (for reasons I won't go into) , the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Carnaby Street, the founding of D&AD. The Beatles famous 'Yellow Submarine' , if it had been made out of pencils would have been difficult to submerge, but yellow pencils are, in fact, the chosen premier award the D&AD hand out for...
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David Brew made a comment
I wanted to weep during the Sainsbury ad - the futility of war, decent men reduced to barbarians, plus a little wave of revulsion that this might be used to sell groceries.
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David Brew made a comment
A question for the engineer(s). If I weigh 200 lbs and my car weighs , say, 3000 lbs, and I travel from A to B in my car , has 90% of the energy used in that journey been employed in moving the car from A to B?
Dematerialisation won't make a big dent in moving these air-conditioned safety-cages capable of 120 mph, fashioned to massage our egos and feed vast... -
David Brew made a comment
In our household we appear to have two diametrically opposed relationships with food. I will bring home fresh, organically grown food from my plot, to find that my wife has purchased 'similar' produce from the supermarket.
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David Brew made a comment
The car horn in the night. I started to think about the psychology of the motorist who carelessly woke me with what was intended to be an alarm signal. People have to walk on the roads to get past cars parked on the pavement; some motorists idle their cars unnecessarily polluting the air. Many cities are choked with traffic while local facilities, factories,...
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I think that most of us associate our cars with freedom, both real and imagined, and any attack on freedom is fraught with the potential for hostile resistance. I think that nudges would initially have to be 'gentle' and reasonable and start the process of adjusting the psychological contract that society has with motorists. For example, parking on pavements;...
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David Brew made a comment
My picture of a toy car may be thought to be frivolous ( I didn't move it to the futurelearn flickr group for that reason)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/belfastbrew/22304730363/
I gave it to my child, but now recognise the cradle-to-grave motoring culture that I have participated in.
Can we trust global capitalism to come up with more sustainable methods... -
David Brew made a comment
It's difficult to know if our local policies might have a global impact other than to opine that the per capita pollution must be about the same as any developed country. Any contribution that green energy initiatives, mostly wind-farms, make, must be negligible as the bulk of our energy requirement comes from imported fossil fuels. If our policy makers look...
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David Brew made a comment
This was tricky. Maybe one of the windswept Donegal beaches with the Atlantic breakers coming in? The view of a snowcapped Slieve Croob on a Sunday cycle? It the end I chose my vegetable plot, because of the physical work to create and sustain it, and an antidote to chemical fertilisers, pesticides, food miles, and out-of-town supermarkets.
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David Brew made a comment
The (shocking) answer is 'very little'. I pass Duneight Motte and Bailey regularly, and have looked it up , to discover that it dates from around 1000 AD and was a fortified encampment of one of the barons of Ulster. The Lagan river, with its' source in the Dromara Hills and estuary in the port of Belfast would have been an attraction for early settlers and...
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Are these models useful? It's hard to say. I didn't spot any time element, and we may not have a lot of time to work with. If warming can be kept around two degrees centigrade , I believe, we have some chance of averting catastrophic climate change and avoiding unpredictable feedback processes.
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David Brew replied to David Brew
I'm not an economist, Michael, so these views are purely my subjective opinions.
Profitability: of course, organisations that make a loss will not survive, but what I'm highlighting is the rapacious seeking of profit, in the short term, by driving down costs (e.g. the supermarkets treatment of farmers), the closing of indigenous production capacity and the... -
I'm not sure if money would change a country's mindset, Laura, but money might have to be transferred from wealthier nations to countries that have made minimal contribution to global warming to enable them to adopt green technologies. This is a proposal of Bolivia's ambassador to the World Trade Organisation.
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David Brew made a comment
My motivation for taking this course is to try to understand the dynamics that allowed us to reach the point that our climate is probably going to change, and it is going to hurt, if not us, certainly our descendants, and to explore the steps (economic, environmental, and societal) that might be feasible to mitigate the upheaval.
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David Brew made a comment
At the top of the list of the jumble of things that come to mind is 'global capitalism' and climate change denial. The core values of global capitalism , profitability, innovation, productivity, extractivism, short-termism, free movement of goods and services, within a political environment of light regulation is the antithesis of sustainability. The earth has...
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David Brew made a comment
Hello. My main interest is personal transport; I cycle and walk but also have a polluting car. When I do use the car, I'm mostly on my own, so I'm using the energy to move a ton or so of metal around and that certainly doesn't seem to be right. I'm also starting to question whether or not the vehicle needs to be luxuriously appointed, capable of travelling at...
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David Brew made a comment
Must watch again, as I seemed to have missed any comments about effects on values and ethics.
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I had a similar experience, Jane, no thoughts came and I was happy, but curious about that.
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David Brew made a comment
The challenge I have attempted to address is, from a position of conviction about how someone should act, to mindfully listen to the other person's contrary arguments.
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David Brew made a comment
The burning question is when does gentleness slid into indolence? Ambitions are rarely realised without sacrifice, and testing oneself.
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I wonder if fight/flight is not an extreme description of what is being discussed which seems to be stress. There are many gradations of stress from irritation to life-threatening danger, and it is the latter the body responds to with the hormones temporarily equipping us to run away, or stand and fight. Although it's not clear, to me, the implication seems to...
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David Brew replied to Alison Traübe
Do you think there is a cultural component to our restless minds? Do all societies exhibit this trait, and is there evidence that our ancestors were similarly affected?
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David Brew replied to Joanne Fleck
Your pint about society is very pertinent - how did we arrive at this situation ? Could the tutors comment on whether or not our default mode has some evolutionary significance or is it something that we have learned during our lives?
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David Brew made a comment
Did anyone notice the 'health warning' in 3.6, I think it was, when Will Perron seemed to indicate that he was severely stressed at one point? Although I'm an IT practitioner the course has opened up a whole new world as it demonstrates how the technology has facilitated reaching into the community and describes the tools that may be employed.
Some of the... -
The pictures are beautiful - when you hover over the picture it would be great to see some more information about it, like the artist's name and the title of the picture, for example.
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David Brew made a comment
My interest is the sustainability of our current modes of personal transport. This is a global issue but will also have to be addressed at a local level. The psychological contract that society has with motorists permits abuses in the name of personal freedom (of motorists) . Challenging this contract will be fraught with hostile resistance. Let's take one...
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David Brew made a comment
The Sunday broadsheet habit hasn't changed and is a much-loved source of news, but rarely of a local nature. Social media I find unsatisfactory for local news - my reaction to most tweets is usually 'what does that mean?'. The major change for me is the consumption of e-news, where I have subscribed to a special interest distribution.
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David Brew replied to Connor Wright
I was saddened when I heard the comment about churches ( I'm not religious) but am attracted to the ethical and charitable philosophy of religious organisations. Perhaps the demographic of churches also leans towards the older generation, but that could be those of Christian faith only. If, as you say, these bodies could soft pedal the faith aspect then they...
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David Brew made a comment
Sustainability is an issue that needs to be addressed at an early stage. If the motivation is a desire for change, what happens when success is achieved ( or not ) ? I expect that a person would be the leader or driving force, and so it would be useful to have some sort of succession plan should that person run out of energy, or move on.
