Plutonic Rainbows

BBC picks up on the story of Apple investors calling for limits on how long children can use their smartphones.

Jana Partners and the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) called on Apple to consider the impact excessive use of smartphones had on the mental health of young people. The two are worried that if Apple does not address growing concerns about smartphone use, its stock market value and general reputation could become damaged.

According to a Reuters report, half of US teenagers believe they are addicted to their mobile phones and feel the need to respond immediately to messages.

Spent today writing as I haven't kept up with that this past week. It's pretty sunny outside but the wind is strong.

Today is Epiphany. It also makes me think about this excellent track from the 1991 David Sylvian & Russell Mills collaboration - Ember Glance: The Permanence Of Memory. I particularly have always loved the spoken word samples on this, especially that of Irish Poet, Seamus Heaney, whose words are lifted from A Northern Hoard.

I should to spend some time this weekend going back over the first seven sessions as I find it has become very complex quite quickly - at least for me.

formatter = "%r %r %r %r"

print formatter % (1, 2, 3, 4)
print formatter % ("one", "two", "three", "four")
print formatter % (True, False, False, True)
print formatter % (formatter, formatter, formatter, formatter)
print formatter % (
    "I had this thing.",
    "That you could type up right.",
    "But it didn't sing.",
    "So I said goodnight."
)

Central Processing Unit announced another new album, Alph4 from Maelstrom. It's also available on a limited 12 inch. It comes out on 16th February.

• Followed exercise six, creating multiple strings and text in Python.
• Two hours of written Japanese

Today I learnt that you need to use single quotes when inserting text (that you have not declared as variables) into strings.

print "Mary had a little lamb.
print "Its fleece was white as %s." % 'snow' (not a variable - so I use single quotes)

• I tried to follow a tutorial on how to write variables into strings. I also made conversions from imperial to metric values.
• Studied Japanese for two hours.
• Went walking in the woods.
• Some more Japanese for an hour.
• Took photos of decorations and the outside lights.

The main thing for today is writing variables to strings.

name = Gail
print "%s is a good girl." % name

• Worked through a Python introduction, explaining simple math, the Print command and basics of variables. Built a simple monthly payment calculator.
• Wrote two thousand words for writing project
• Went through kanji cards.

I am learning Python this year.

• Harlan Ellison - Angry Candy
• Carl Sagan - Cosmos
• M.R James - Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary
• Donna Tartt - The Goldfinch

Looking to the year ahead, I am going to try and post more on books and films as well as music. Hopefully there will be some great new things coming in 2018.

Best wishes to you for the new year.