Musings: On The Self

The number three appears all over in Western history and thought. The trinity is a fundamental concept to Christian theology (father, son, holy ghost), our view of time is broken into three parts (past, present, future), philosophers often break their thoughts down into "trichotemy" (Plato, Aquinas, Kant), a musical chord is made up of at least three notes,  psychology speaks of three part psyche (id, ego, and superego), and all throughout other fields (art, science, geography, etc), the number 3 holds great significance.

However, perhaps the greatest significance it has, and the reason why this simple number has become so important to us, is that a traditional viewpoint of the self consists of three parts: the body, mind, and soul.

NYE 2012 Reflections

New Years Eve is always a time of reflection, contemplation, and looking to the future. You're supposed to reflect on the previous year and make resolutions for how to better the next. You're supposed to stay up late and celebrate with those you're closest to and enjoy each others company as you bring in a new year. You're supposed to hug your friends and kiss your loved one as the ball drops and the next year begins. 

Although I'm definitely contemplating this past year, I'm not surrounded by friends and I don't have someone to kiss. So, instead of enjoying the night like most of you, I decided to write down some thoughts on this past year to try and start 2013 on a better foot than 2012 is ending. 

The 27 Club

I've never liked birthdays very much. Mine is sandwiched between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and almost always falls on the last week of school (which, ever since 9th grade has meant Finals Week). However, this month marks the start of my 27th year on this planet.

It's a big year for me because, growing up, I idolized those members of the infamous "27 club"... and since I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, a part of me always said, "if you don't make it by 27, you're never going to." Although I no longer believe that, those echoes still faintly bounce around in my head; barely audible, but there to remind me, in quiet, lonely times, that I still haven't found myself.

A month with Windows 8

I jumped on the Windows 8 boat pretty early; launch week in fact. This isn't typical for me. Normally, I wait until the first Service Pack before I get the newest Windows installment, or advise anyone I know to upgrade, but there was something about this radical change for Microsoft's OS that I didn't want to wait to get my hands on.

Maybe it was the prospect of the old, dated, traditional GUI being phased out; maybe it's that I've been a pretty big fan of the Metro design-language since the Zune; or maybe my early-adopter impulses just won out this time... whatever it was, I'm happy with the decision.

So, I figured that with a month down, I would highlight some of the things I like, dislike, and am hoping for in future updates. I mean, having a whole month with this product on a laptop and desktop has given me a pretty wide scope of the new Windows and how it works in work, school, casual, and gaming environments.

Touch. Every. Screen.

I was not always in favor of touch screen devices. In fact, I viewed the early stages of this revolution in user interface with some disgust at it's first major inklings.

Part of it had to do with the DS requiring a stylus to be of any real use and, of the early touch games and apps, none using the new touch interfaces in ways that made sense with this new input device. In the phone space, it had to do with fingers covering the viewable area and a lack of muscle memory like we have with buttons (eg: you can't text and drive safely without a physical keyboard, because you have to look down).

However, in the 6+ years that have passed since touchscreens invaded our world, I have gotten so used to touching my viewing area that any devices screen that doesn't respond to my press, flick, or swipe throws off my balance, as if I was unwittingly thrown into a timewarp and ended up back in the early 2000s.

Nerdgasm: to LTE or not to LTE...

If you're part of the Android army, today was a big day as Google just announced their new flagship phone today, the Nexus4 by LG, and it is a beautiful slab of a phone. It's got the newest flavor of JellyBean (Android 4.2), wireless charging built in, a beautiful new screen that makes other Android phones look stupid, and the best internal (or external) hardware specs you could ask for in an Android device.

However, there was one tiny little thing that was left out while building this beautiful device: LTE (otherwise known as, 4G).