Oct 16 While there are many advances in mobile technology, there is none more prominent (nowadays anyways) than the Apple iPhone. Subsequent to its release in June 2007, it has made a definite mark on society. It has created huge lines, buzz in media, envy in people’s eyes, and a huge increase in revenue for the companies involved. Despite much hype and doubt, it has been a game-changing device for the smartphone world.
It has a user interface that is the standard to which all others are (now) compared, it is sleek, it is expensive enough to stay out of the hands of the less privileged (like Coach purses for girls), and it has an entire fanatical subculture to support it. There are some people who use it for its useful features, others who just want it so that they can be hip with the times, and others who will probably say that it’s an essential part of their life.
The thing is, I think that we need to help these people. Their iPhones are taking over their lives. Here we thought that Attention-Deficit Disorder (although this has been replaced by Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in psychology as of DSM-IV, but I could not apply the hyperactivity to iPhone users) was something that we could treat. Unfortunately it seems like we are inducing it in people. And while I am talking specifically about the iPhone, the general principle still stands that people are getting worse at maintaining their concentration on tasks at hand. They have instant messaging that they’re always connected to, text messages that encourage deplorable grammar, and the ever annoying Twitter (dumb as far back as 2007), which combines all of these things at one time.
Most people with iPhones seem to have an incessant need to check them. People need to stop this. They need to start living lives that do not involve the Internet. Let us move onward from our digital slavery!
I am slightly amused that I am writing such a thing for a couple of reasons:
- Hello this is a blog, which is an entirely digital medium.
- I am in front of a computer at least 8 hours a day as a software engineer. Usually more like 10, including off hours personal time.
Oct 9 Nobody likes to pay for health services. And health services are not perfect at all. They (medical professionals) charge more than what seems reasonable, and they do not seem to have to answer to anybody except for the health insurance companies because they only listen to the money. It would be nice to have personal doctors and nurses to tend to your every whim. And it would be nice if you did not have to pay anything for it.
But this is not how the world works. For one, medical professionals are people as well. I am talking about doctors, not the rank and file like staff and assistants. These are individuals who have gone to school, invested hours and nights to their profession. (Well at least I hope that they have. The ones that have not are not ones that I would ever want to go to.) Their work is indeed important, and it is at times worth the cost.
People sometimes claim that a single entity watching over the entire operation here in the United States will be more efficient. More efficient? Since when did a government project ever win awards for efficiency?? Yeah that’s a pretty crazy health plan chart, isn’t it? It is only a guess at what the new health government would look like, but it sure is a scary one.
If everyone has access to all of the doctors, people are going to take as much as they can. Do you think that you will get to pay the best doctor what he/she is charging? Well when everything costs the same for everyone it just logically follows that the best doctors are going to be as busy as people can schedule appointments. People dismiss the supposed “death panels” that will decide on life and death decisions for everyone, but if there is a shortage of supply (doctors) compared to the increase in demand (patients) then some of those patients will have to be left out. There is just no possible other way for that outcome to be different.
It is pretty debatable whether or not other countries have succeeded at this or not. That is not really the question. The question is: do I really want to cede more control over my life to the federal government? To that I say no, I am still a huge fan of the 10th amendment.
Oct 2 I was watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail recently with some other people. I thought that the movie was amusing. It was not uproarious, but I was definitely amused. It was just in line with Monty Python and the Flying Circus (the TV show), of which I occasionally partake of. A TV show very well remembered for its SPAM.
However everyone else did not find it amusing at all. As in, they thought the 90 odd minutes spent watching it were painful.
Non sequiturs, absurdism, plays on words, and more. These are all things that make some people SPAMMILY laugh. And apparently some people cannot endure it at all.
Humor is a strange thing. It is not the same for everyone. Often there is overlap. However other times there is something funny to someone and not funny at all to someone else. Sometimes the only way that we realize that we are alone in our humor is when we are laughing before we receive social cues that it’s not funny. Some people don’t even have any sense of humor at all.
I don’t have any answers. I’m just asking the SPAM SPAM SPAM questions.
Sep 27 I was having a hard time with this recently. Maybe I’m dense or maybe this will be helpful to someone out there. If you have a Garmin GPS device, and it gives you an error that says “Can’t Unlock Maps” then try:
- Register online at myGarmin
- Find your unlock codes
- Connect your device to your computer
- Create a file gmapprom.unl and paste the unlock codes into it, one to a line
- Put the file onto the Garmin device inside of the Garmin folder
- It is probably also a good idea to install and update software as necessary
It was a very odd error because it seemed to happen out of nowhere. One minute the device was working fine, and then turning it off and on seemed to somehow allow that file to magically disappear. Not good, Garmin, not good. Don’t let it happen again!
If that fix doesn’t work out for you, you can check out some of the latest and greatest new Garmin devices instead. They look pretty snazzy.
Sep 24 I enjoy a board (or sometimes card or tile) game just as much as anyone else. They are good clean fun that often test particular skills and attributes. There are games like scrabble and speed scrabble, which test your vocabulary and literacy; chess, which tests your planning capabilities; and Nertz, which tests speed and awareness.
While I enjoy the games, I do not always enjoy the people that play the games. I mean what is up with people that take games too seriously? Games are fun, and I will play as hard as I can. But it is never appealing when things get out of hand.
In particular there are some games that I cannot stand playing with other people because they tend to get much too involved in them. Settlers of Catan is one of those games. Since so much of the game is the relationships between the players in the game, it is extremely susceptible to antagonism, back-stabbing, and bitterness. All lovely attributes. It is an excellent game if you want to see the ugly in people, that’s for sure. People cannot help but reveal themselves a little bit when it gets competitive.
I will always remember a friend that I knew who was willing to give up a game (in that case basketball) because he was enticed to behave badly while playing. He thought that there were more important things in the world, namely his Christianity, so he gave it up. Admirable and encountered far too little nowadays.