Category Archives: Uncategorized

Nature v Nurture

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Admittedly I’m not much for caring about celebrities or people in the public eye. I’m more annoyed at the police roadblocks, road closures or even just longer commutes because someone needs their protection detail.

It annoys me seeing people getting paid millions upon millions of dollars for an episode of tv or a sports game when kids don’t have proper meals, people don’t have places to sleep and teachers are spending their own money for school supplies. The masses continue to be distracted from being in the real world, the modern colosseum. But for some reason I have more respect for a fictional character.

If pressed, my favorite ‘celebrity’ that I would root for would be green lantern. I saw the alternate time line of superman where his craft deviated and ended up in the soviet union instead of the Kents and he ends up being less ‘honorable’ and without stereotypical american ideals.

Nature: On his planet as a baby he was a dud. Nothing special but his parents who were intelligent and wise. No fast speed unless he developed erectile dysfunction issues. No heat vision, X-ray vision, freeze breath, flight, etc. Nada! (Same with Hal by the way).

Somehow the family knew about the radiation properties of our yellow sun and that this radiation would make him super. Once he was here he was able to be more than this initial nature. The powers are nature, his upbringing on krypton and earth are nurture.

Nurture: Hal Jordan was a test pilot. He was a nice guy. I don’t know much about his upbringing. Naturewise he was a dude A cool test pilot dude but a dude nonetheless. Whatever nurture happened though is what made him special. It was because of his nurture, his heart, that led to the ring choosing him for the chance to be in the lantern corp. He rose above others in his being.

I like the idea that both guys are good guys from the nurture aspects. But something about being chosen appeals to some ego place inside me. Maybe I want to believe without super dna I might be super enough on the inside that the ring could have chosen me.

-SFA

Apple special event march 21 2016

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No iwatch version 2
Smaller iphone 6
Larger memory for ipad pro and a smaller 9.7″ version.
IOS 9.3 today at some point. The jailbreak f.lux is now taken by apple and called night shift.
tvOS updates.
Health updates.

Probably other things as well. Overall a bust for me. I was hoping to see an updated iwatch as well as updated macs.

-SFA

48 hours and 20 minutes

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Recently I had to get a new phone because I was stupid and got my other one wet. Wet like I went swimming with it. I had been using a galaxy note 2. It was a fine phone even with the note 5 out so I really didn’t have plans on upgrading. But with a replacement now much needed for work use I had to do a bit of research. It turns out to have been an easier decision than I would have thought. Once I looked deeper at the note 5 I saw that it only had a max of 64gb. Yes i’ve heard the argument that 64 should be enough and that things can be stored in the cloud. That’s all fine if you’re constantly hooked to the internet and you have a lot of cloud space to store on. Travel somewhere without wifi or good cell coverage and you’re screwed. Samsung also chose to go the apple route and not only make the battery non-replaceable but they also took out the slot for the microsd card. The battery thing I could deal with but only putting 64gb with no option to upgrade was a kick in the nads.

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moving on

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Making a change that many people would say is ‘life changing’ should probably make me anxious.
Any life changes that are drastic enough probably generate at least some amount of anxiety.
Making this decision to begin with was both challenging and easy.
At first I was forced to examine myself and my life. I agonized over making a change to upset this precarious balance and my view of an easy lifestyle.
But as I went through the pros and cons the decision shone brightly and clearly and seemed almost overwhelmingly simple.
It was time.
In the near future I wonder if I’ll look back and regret what I’ve done. The fear of change would account for that.
But what I know right now is that I actually feel a great sense of relief now that it’s over and I can’t look back, nor change my decision.
The opportunities that I have in front of me are vast and deep with challenges that I am sure will likewise be just as wonderful.
I wake up this morning with a renewed sense of purpose and for the moment at least, a direction to head into.
A comforting thought for now.
Dad, I should have done this sooner to fulfill at least one promise I made.
We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. – Walt Disney
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. – Steve Jobs
-SFA

new kindle paperwhite – 300 dpi – wifi only

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I’ve gone through my share of kindles at this point. Some damage was my fault. I would carry them around everywhere. Early to an appointment, pull it out and read. Someone else running late, pull it out and read. On the train, on the plane, but I didn’t eat it with green eggs nor ham.

Twice, the damage wasn’t my fault. The last time I was trying to be discrete and placed my relatively new 2nd gen paperwhite under a towel poolside. It seems someone mistook my chair for theirs and yes, sat on my kindle. They must have noticed something and they took off. This I was told by others sitting near me. The person didn’t come clean.

Today I received the new 300 dpi paperwhite as I’ve grown tired reading on my ipad mini, primarily because of outdoor reading. I was hoping to leave a review on amazon’s site, but it seems no one can right now. Perhaps because they want to sell them without people saying anything negative. Oops. Guess that was a spoiler.

It’s small. It’s pretty. The back light is nice. I guess the letters are nice and sharp but I’ve always thought they were sharp to begin with. I do miss physical buttons to turn the pages with. The three big problems I have with this one are 1. I already had to do a hard reset to get the swiping to work, 2. The menus seem slow. I think this is the slowest kindle I’ve had so far or maybe because it is more complex. I don’t know. And 3. Quality control. It seems like there is dirt/dust/something under the top layer that reflects the light in a few places. Kinda looks like a pixel on the monitor that’s bright white. Small but intermittently annoying and over time I imagine it will be one of those things you notice more and more.

My first reaction was to be upset that after trying for months to read on my ipad I finally decide to drop a large sum on the paperwhite and it has all these flaws.

It’s not even a day old in my hands right now. I’m going to give it time tonight actually reading instead of downloading all my books again (just once I’d love to see a ‘download all’ option, that also applies to you zinio). I’ve also taken it out for the first time from the plastic sleeve it came in so I can charge it up. All that downloading on wifi chewed up the battery. For reference, while I have not bought digital versions of the majority of my paperbacks, the digital books I have show 86 pages in the cloud and 92 on the device. I also wish I knew of a faster way to scroll through the books. As someone that rereads books, shocking for many people I’ve learned, I don’t delete them when I’m done reading. And searching doesn’t work so well since I don’t always remember the name of the book nor the author since I can be working through 2-4 books at one time. I tried the one book at a time thing but it didn’t last very long. Keyword searching can work if it is are unique.

I hope to wake up refreshed and loving it just so I don’t have to return it and order a new one. Then I’ll have to download the books again, something that will start off with a negative mindset.

-SFA

Father’s Day

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As this day creeps to a finish, I’ve found myself over the last couple hours thinking.

Today is father’s day. Most celebrated days just pass me by usually. I can’t say what stopped me today. Maybe it was the person at work recently asking me about my plans today with my children.

I do know that I’m glad I did take some time to think.

I started to reflect on my life, as long or short as it has been, time being relative to who is looking at me.

When I see someone with full on white hair and hunched over I feel young and my life is ahead of me. Then I see their grandchild and feel old, slow and fat.

I guess I am in a potential prime of my life. I have a steady job. I put money into savings. I travel. I can still get into better shape. Friends. Family. Check, check, check, check.

But who am I in this time and place? Of course this is purely subjective.

I was pondering the ‘deep’ question wondering if I measure up. To myself, to others, to my parents, and specifically today to my father. Do I meet whatever standard he holds inside himself, not only of me but of himself?  This is an unusual question for me since I usually don’t care about measuring myself against others.

Am I disgrace? Have I exceeded his wildest dreams? Both of these carry a set of questions.

Is the standard low so I have exceeded it or have I not yet made it? Is the standard high and I still haven’t met it or did I make it through?

I’m not much into pleasing others for the sake of their ego. I’d bet this attitude gets me into trouble quite often. Power is perception and will always remain so. The POW being tortured that doesn’t give in. The grunt worker slaving day after day to put another meal on the table. Being fired because you told the truth. The opposite also happens. You give in to fears real and otherwise. I may object but would have a hard time faulting the grunt worker that cuts corners to make it to the family meal or someone telling a small lie to keep their job, a roof over their head and pay another semester of tuition.

I try and hold true to my principles as they are. I think the core me overall isn’t so bad even if I am working to change something others may see as positive but I feel is a negative.

I wish I could say that all my pondering before and as I was writing this led to some great epiphany and I know myself better than ever. I’m left scratching my head and more off balance, or in a more positive light, my complacency had the shit kicked out of it and I’m forced to face reality again.

Who was I to make who I am to shape who I will be? Are we ever past our ‘prime’? It all depends on what prime I choose to pick on. Maybe it’s time to pick a new prime or revisit an old one and push those boundaries to see just how much strain they can take. Without knowing the standard my father set means I get to imagine one. The bar that my fingers can graze feels about right. I can feel it right there. It is in my reach and I just have to push for it. I don’t know if I’ll feel at some point that I did good and he is truly proud. Perhaps I’m not meant to because that might mean I lowered the bar to me instead of continuing to push ever higher.

Deep thoughts and a tired mind. To rest I go.

Love you dad.

-SFA

WWDC 2015

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Apple’s WWDC was probably more directly exciting for the developers, as it should be, than for me. I will benefit from the ‘improved’ apps that will come out. iOS9 will have have stability improvements. As well power use will be decreased and the overall size will be smaller than iOS8 which is good news for a device without a changeable battery nor can you add memory to. As an android/iOS/windows/OSX user, iOS 9 and El Capitan will be bringing ‘new’ features that I already have in android and windows such as being able to have two apps running side by side. Apple Notes will be more like Evernote and Apple Maps will be more like my Google Maps. I don’t use carplay, I don’t develop apps. I don’t have an iwatch (which requires an iphone) so those enhancements aren’t as important to me for now. Apple Music seems to be the biggest thing to come out of this. I’ll wait for it to come out before I decide if it’s worth getting excited over. I still hope to see new ipods and a new apple tv this week at some point.

-SFA

being super

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I wondered if I could be a superhero. That really is how this starts, but that’s only the start.

Seriously, I am actually taking the time to ponder this stray thought and the ramifications if I ever come across a glowing green ring or radioactive spiders, perhaps even some gamma ray spewing machine. If there is someone reading this that is super smart and rich, I’d be willing to test drive any new power suits you may happen to design that would fit me. But call my AI Alex, just in case I want to change from a male to a female voice. (Note to Amazon, I want to be able to call my Echo Alex.) (PS: look up ways that supervillains have been made.) Moving on.

Villain or Hero. I can take out the super prefix and this still works.

How would I really decide if I wanted to do good or evil? Now I didn’t say BE good or evil. That would require brainwashing, chemicals, perhaps even mystical powers to change the personality or soul to be BE good or evil. I’m also choosing not to say good and bad. Bad would be putting a flaming bag of poo in front of someone’s door. This pondering requires a higher level of wrongdoing, hence, evil.

While there might be pure souls out there, I’d hazard a guess that most of us float around inside. By that I mean we are capable of doing both good and evil things. I can be humming a merry tune walking down the road and help that little ole lady across the street. Most people would consider that good. I could also choose not to help her. I would put that in the not good but not evil section. Maybe 49% good, 51% evil. If I didn’t see her I’d call it fair at 50/50. And pushing her into street would be an evil thing. I think these distinctions are clear. I do admit that trying to define the boundaries between hero/superhero and villain/supervillain is not so easy. I’m guessing it’s a status thing like being a star vs a superstar. Don’t forget to wash your hands if you found yourself grabbing your armpits.

If I use ‘classic’ ideas on this, the hero is usually self sacrificing and in general what would be called a ‘dogooder’. (Thor)

The villain on the other hand is the one who likes to cause mischief because they take pleasure in it. (Loki)

Setting ants on fire with the magnifying glass as a child may be misguided but seeking out another child to burn slips into the evil side. Think The Good Child. Creepy and good movie by the way. (Note to self, try and watch 7 again, even if it was uber creepy and nightmare inducing.)

The majority of those who walk down one of these paths will continue down that chosen path. The hero will continue to save the cat in the tree and the villain will continue to scare the cat right back up. There may be those rare few out there that switch sides. The hero’s beloved is killed because she was too trusting and shared her secret identity to someone that wasn’t as good about keeping it and now she’s on a murderous rampage. The villain might have had an epiphany and a single seed of rainbow juice crept into them to start them on the path into righteousness. Either could have also been in the closet about their true nature and just went with it. Peer pressure sucks in any situation.

I don’t think I have what it takes to be a villain let alone a super villain. The constant evildoing just seems like an awful amount of work but what do you really get out of it. I’d really need to attend an evil job fair to talk to some folk about this. Yeah the money is probably good but are there secret evil dance clubs or lounges? Where would I get my groceries? I assume the quality would be superb since I would just take whatever I want. Skipping the checkout lane would be a major bonus. Waiting in the 15 items and under lane with a full cart and just walking through  once it’s my turn… priceless evil.

Are there many villains that carry secret identities? I can’t imagine that a supervillain would want a secret identity unless it was part of a plan. They would want to flaunt their evilness. The superhero is probably getting sent gifts and invited to cool places and getting into the popular clubs, and getting laid. I almost left that last part out. At first I was thinking that would be an abuse of the position and would relegate said person to hero status instead but on reflection, that would be vilifying sex. (Why does vilifying only have one l?) If two people consensually decide to go for it, that’s an ok thing, even if it might be from ‘hero worship’. Looking up to someone is a gradation and hard for me to define the lower and upper limit. As well, two (or more) people have their own reasons, perhaps dare say, love. Using superpowers to attract the other person would be the no-no and abuse. It would be enough to knock someone right out of hero status. That’s not to say that the villains are being left out. There are assuredly evildoer groupies out there as well for the villain to get some action. Whether or not they need to, they are probably using their powers if they have them, it’s just more evil that way.

As I was pondering on this possible career change a problem occurred. Neither category works for me. Where my thinking went on this was that I would head down a third path. Including the evildoing above (who really wants to change identities just to pick up some milk?), I don’t get announcing myself before appearing to save the day. Doesn’t that just give the evildoers a chance to get away or set something up to harm me? What’s the point in that? Hmm… as I’m writing I’m seeing batman as a possible mentor. (Note to self, find the bat cave.) (PS: Without superpowers this would require me to be in naturally shape. Restart eating better and exercising tonight.) Just to make things clear, I’m NOT looking to be a sidekick. (What the hell is a sidekick, a kick to the side? Note to self, look up what kick might have meant. ?partner?). I’m also not looking to wear spandex. Too many people already wear it.

So where does this leave me? I already have one job. It’s keeps me busy and there is always more to learn within it. I’m tabling this job change for now, until/unless one of the prescribed methods of power acquisition occurs. There would be much more pondering needed should this happen. As well, what if I was given supervillain powers. I would then have to start pondering the intrinsic nature of said powers as to whether it is the power or the user of the power that would define one as hero or villain.

Anyone with superpowers please feel free to comment on this. It would be helpful research.

-SFA