Idyll Ramblings

Our Dangerous Dependence on GPS

2011-05-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

It's becoming hard to imagine a life without GPS. In our quest to find ourselves and connect with others, this tool offers instant results and emergency assistance. However, as recent events and reports point out, there can be a terrible price to pay for relying too heavily on our guardian satellites.

Garmin GPS by caribb

You may not have thought much about it, but satellite systems like the US-based Global Postioning System (GPS) are widely used commerically - not just for car navigation and smartphone apps. According to a recent Raw Story article, GPS is used even in opening train doors upon arriving at a station, in addition to the more obvious cases of commerical flight, emergency response, and cargo tracking. In fact, the British Royal Academy of Engineering cites a European Commission study showing "that six to seven percent of economic growth in western countries [in the EU] ... is already dependent on such navigation."

So what happens in the case of a GPS techincal failure or malicious signal jamming? Planes and doors can still be operated safely, but the sudden loss of tracking and navigation information on a wide and persistent scale could cause a cascading effect of lost productivity and efficiency. Financial impacts could be substantial - and that's just now in 2011.

Even if the sky isn't falling, the rising trend of blind obedience to GPS navigation is still unsettling. I'm not the first to recount the recent fiasco of Albert and Rita Chretien who became lost and stranded in the Nevada wilderness earlier this year. Attempting to take a GPS-suggested shortcut through unfamiliar mountain territory, the couple turned onto an unforgivingly muddy road and disappeared. Forty-eight days later, a weakened Rita was found by hunters in the area; Albert is still missing. "I think that GPS really screwed them up," said Ryan Stowell, whose family owns the ranch where Herman [the hunter] made the 911 call. "There's no reason for us to be up there."

Those of us keeping to city streets may not be in mortal danger from GPS over-reliance, but there is still an unfortunate side-effect. Take my former roommate, Adam, who could drive to the same place six times and was still not able to do it alone for the seventh because there was no nav screen telling him when to turn. Or my recent coworkers who spent two hours getting to work six months into the job when a simple city street detour would cut the drive to 75 minutes. If you're only watching arrows or listening to "turn left ahead," you'll never learn how to read a map and make your own, often better, decisions.

As far as navigation goes, I'm a strong proponent of choosing your own directions and taking control of - and in the Chretiens' case, possibly saving - your life. But I have to admit I think the way GPS has revolutionized commerce and social media is pretty amazing, all dangers aside.

What are your thoughts on global satellite positioning systems? How would a loss of signal affect your life? Comment and share to keep the discussion going. And subscribe via Email or by RSS if you like this blog!

Photo credits: GPS IIR-M by Lockheed Martin
i got your turn left! by deidra_morrison

Netflix and Pandora Scratch Your Most Basic Itch

2011-05-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

Why settle for filling a niche when you can cater to consumers' instincts and take it much further? Streaming media services Netflix and Pandora help sell themselves by scratching a basic human itch.

Sleepless Night by Herlifewithin

Your project barely made deadline (only thanks to your unpaid overtime), and traffic crawled all the way home. You kick off your shoes, heat up the left-overs, and settle into the couch for some mindless entertainment. Or maybe the guy you've been dating has been "crazy busy" at work for a while now and suddenly won't return your calls. You shoot a dirty look at your phone, change into PJs, and collapse onto the couch with a bowl of Rocky Road ice cream.

You want to feel a certain way, and you want to feel it now.

You might check your DVR queue or channel-surf with your fingers crossed, but more and more people are turning to Netflix. Currently, 23.6 million people subscribe to the service, and Citi forecasts 50 million subscribers by 2013. By current estimates, that's one-in-five rising to one in every two households having a Netflix subscription. That's because when we really want to feel, we want something new.

You probably stopped crying through The Notebook after the third or fourth view, and the jokes in Hot Tub Time Machine likely get a lot less laughter now. Music works much the same way. The same song that turns you into a shower-time karaoke master or a car-dancing commuter now will have you shouting, "Next!" in a couple weeks.

Netflix and Pandora circumvent this natural media immunity by analyzing what you like or dislike and suggesting something in a custom genre that will carve new paths through your brain and satisfy your immediate need to laugh, cry, chill, scream, or sit on the edge of your seat.

In addition, it requires very little effort to find the desired content. Movies on Netflix are sorted by genre and suggested by modifiers like "with a strong female lead" or "dark and cerebral." Songs on Pandora are generated per-station, each station being seeded by a song or artist that gives you the right feel. No need to search titles, no need to think - just state how you're feeling, and let them do the work.

dancing to the beat by generationexe

This basic human instinct to continually find new ways to feel the way we need to feel is no longer limited to home entertainment, either. Both Netflix and Pandora offer smartphone/tablet apps for mobile streaming, and each are wildly popular. Pandora, for instance, sees more than 50% of its total listener hours streamed mobilely. With 800,000 songs to choose from and 3.9 billion hours of music streamed last year alone, that's a lot of traveling new music.

The bottom line: Humans always want something new, and feelings turn wants into needs. Netflix and Pandora offer instant gratification of these emotional needs and help us to avoid the diminishing returns of permanent media ownership.

Do you agree? What other products or services really scratch your itch?

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Resurrecting The Jukebox With Mobile Phones

2011-02-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

While some old favorites, like Pogs, are probably well and truly faded, some, like jukeboxes, are just waiting for the right new technology to rescue them from dusty obscurity. In particular, the rapid expansion of wi-fi and smartphones paves the way for the revival of this magical music box.

Mini Jukebox by donkhuth

Almost ubiquitous in '50s-style diners are the miniature jukeboxes sitting at each table, promising aural joy for only a nickel. As convenient and fascinating as these boxes can be, pocket change is going the way of the diner itself. Most people pay with cards, and even those who carry cash often eschew the smaller coinage.

The answer lies in the growing prevalence of wi-fi hotspots in popular public places and the burgeoning market for niche smartphone applications. It would be simple to create a standard, cross-(mobile)platform application that would present connected users with an iTunes Remote-style library of available tracks for a particular location. The musical offerings would be stored on a wi-fi-connected database operated by the company offering the app. Customers could then queue songs for a quarter in the style of an in-app purchase.

Sharing Tunes 3 by muffett68

To take it further, the queue order could be affected by "premium" usage fees, frequency of per-customer visits, and promotional events. Adding elements from iTunes Genius and Pandora could yield song/artist recommendations and opportunities to purchase the music instantly if you like it. Another step further, and your app could direct you to other patrons of the establishment who share your musical tastes. A match made in music.

An app like this might already be in development, but if it's not, it should be. What else would you add to it? Where else can you see a concept like this being applied?

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Letting Go Of Hope

2010-08-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

It's hard to think of hope as being a hindrance. We're taught from a young age to hold on to our hopes and our dreams no matter what happens in our lives. While this may be generally good advice, there are times when holding on simply holds us back.

'inner demons' by Drew Cusick

The following poem is the first I've written in quite some time, and I feel it encompasses this concept quite well. As they say, "Hope springs eternal." In this case, the eternal spring was trapping me in a what-might-be that echoed a long lost what-might-have-been. To step forward, we must let go of the past's ghosts.

A many-headed demon hunts me;
Vanquished again and again, it seems,
Only to rise and roar and rage
And wound me from within.
I thought I killed this damnable hope
The first time years ago - in answer
To a sundered love and parted lives.
And yet, I find in retrospect
A reticence to yield my heart
Disguised in strength and folly.
And I'm left with a sordid truth:
All along I've fed this demon
The shreds of dreams I once shared,
The freedom I felt I didn't deserve.
And the only way to live
Is to let it go.

While this poem was inspired by the relinquishing of a long-past relationship, there are many instances in which we hold ourselves back because of the hidden hope of regaining or retaining some cherished situation. Our fond remembrances and subtle denial of the loss lead us to invent excuses to not try something new or to be overly critical of what might otherwise be a profound new experience or life path.

The idea of letting go is almost cliché, but have you considered that the reason you're stuck is because you're too optimistic? That some part of you believes, against all logic, that what was lost will be returned to you? Try keeping in mind that letting go of the faded good things will make room for the newer, vibrant good things in your life. Only by clearing out the half-empty spaces in your heart will you be free to fill them with new sources of happiness.

Cheesy? Yes, but true.

How have you dealt with this in your life? Comment and share to keep the discussion going. And subscribe via Email or by RSS if you like this blog!

[uTweet.it] Powerful Instant Presentation Feedback

2010-04-11T14:00:00.000-07:00

You’re standing on-stage, in front of three hundred seated and raptly-staring people. In your hand: your iPhone, remotely controlling the brilliant presentation you’re giving. Suddenly, a little red box catches your eye from the laptop screen on the podium.

My second post at uTweet.it details a way to integrate emerging technology with large presentations to more effectively monitor instant feedback and help you more specifically address your audience. Read an excerpt here:

The next, and coolest, step for the application would be to rate each comment on a spectrum from positive to negative and (perhaps) from mild to outspoken. By analyzing the content of each blurb similarly to Facebook’s happiness index (rates positive, neutral and negative word usage), a value can be assigned as to the author’s feelings toward your current topic or product point. By taking into account use of expletive punctuation or excessive capitalization, the comments can be indicated as being mild or urgent.

Displaying these scrolling comments on tinted, say, green, grey, and red backgrounds according to their rated values would provide a highly digestible and glance-ready metric for the status of your presentation. The finishing touch would be to throw in a larger box with rotating popular keywords from the currently aggregated feedback and a background colored to reflect the overall/average mood rating. (Read more)

Click through to read this article, and take the opportunity to sniff around this awesome site.

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Get More Power From Your Nap

2010-04-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

We say it as much for ourselves as we do for our kids: "nap time." Theories abound as to the best way to nap, but honestly most people have never looked into the science behind the ritual. A deeper understanding of the short sleep we call a nap can help us to benefit much better from it.

There are several reasons for napping. Most commonly, we experience a natural energy low in the early afternoon, roughly eight hours from the time we woke. This, in fact, was the basis for the Dr. Pepper marketing campaign, "Drink a bite to eat at 10 o'clock, 2 o'clock, and 4 o'clock!" (Flaherty). The idea was that a dose of caffeine and sugar in this crucial early afternoon period would help you get back on your feet and be productive at work. To explain this natural energy low, many studies point to the body's circadian rhythm - the internal body clock that controls periods of rest and wakefulness. The thinking is that we are bi-phasic sleepers and naturally need two (or more) periods of rest.

We also feel a strong tendency to nap when we are sick or fighting sickness. The body encourages us to get more rest, which in turn allows it to dedicate more time and resources to fighting the invading pathogen. In today's busy world, we also use naps to counteract the so-called, "sleep debt." The idea being that we accrue a "debt" of lost sleep over time if we get any less sleep at night than our own bodies naturally require.

A brief explanation of sleep itself helps illuminate the nap. When we sleep, our bodies tend to go through certain stages, each with its own characteristics. First, we enter the Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) Stage 1. As we transition to this stage, we oftentimes experience the "hypnic jerk." This is that annoying, panicky feeling (like you are suddenly falling through air) that causes you to jerk or spasm as you are trying to rest.

Day 15: Aug 20, 2008 by KeileighOh

We then progress through NREM Stage 2 (shallow sleep) to NREM Stage 3 - where the deepest, "slow-wave" sleep takes place. It is in this stage, about 25-30 minutes after lying down, that we finally begin to dream, though the majority of our dreams occur in REM sleep. It is believed that once we enter the slow-wave sleep of N3, we have begun a period of potential "sleep inertia." If we are suddenly awakened now before the sleep cycle completes itself, we often experience profound grogginess, lack of coherence or motor coordination, and an intense desire to return to sleep.

After making it through a stage of N3, we often re-enter NREM Stage 2 and then transition to the more widely-known Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. This stage accounts for about 20-25% of our nightly sleep, and it is the stage in which most dreaming (and the most memorable dreaming) takes place.

This progression of sleep stages completes a sleep cycle. Current wisdom holds that a sleep cycle lasts for roughly 90-100 minutes. Ergo, if your nap lasts more than 20-30 minutes (where the deep N3 begins), you should aim to sleep for no less than the full hour-and-a-half for fear of sleep inertia.

Ergo, the power nap, a term attributed to social psychologist James Maas. Allowing yourself to rest for 20-25 minute periods so as to benefit from NREM Stages 1 and 2 but avoid falling into Stage 3 constitutes a power nap that is said to revitalize and rejuvenate you. On the flip side, some practice power naps at 90 or 180 minute intervals, but the key is to avoid waking in the middle of a cycle.

Polyphasic sleep is the practice of using these power naps at regular intervals throughout the day to supplement our standard nightly rest. Wikipedia has a great summary of polyphasic sleep if you're interested in learning more. It gets quite complex.

An interesting way to make power naps more powerful is to have a strong dose of caffeine (i.e. espresso or a good amount of coffee) immediately before one of these 20-30 minute naps. It takes caffeine just about this long to produce its alerting or 'wiring' effect in the body, so as your nap alarm wakes you up, you feel both the biological and chemical boosts.

Lastly, it can be difficult to achieve a restful sleep in only 20-30 minutes if you are not accustomed to the practice. Many people spend longer than this tossing and turning at night before they even can sleep. I have personally found binaural beat sound tracks such as those produced by the Pzizz program to be incredibly effective and helpful for this. Binaural beats, simply put, are deeper tones that coax the brain into deeper levels of rest (or trance) more quickly. I use my Pzizz iPhone app daily, but there are many solutions out there.

Hopefully, with a deeper understanding of naps and how to most effectively use them, you'll be able to get more done during the day with more energy and creativity. Although in today's working world the line between home and work blurs, people are recently getting even less sleep as they work harder to make ends meet through the recession. May this article help you, your friends, your family, and your coworkers!

Do you have any tips to add or share?

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Photo credits: 365.24 by kpwerker
Nap #2 by * Yumi *
digital-drug-binaural-beat by digitalbob8

Facebook Slices Your Bagels!

2010-04-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe not that, but it sure does do everything else. Through expanding Facebook integration for outside content and the rapid development of internal apps, Facebook is becoming a more ubiquitous and interactive home for the internet user.

Facebook addicted by Vasjen Katro

For most people, Facebook is simply a way to keep connected with friends and family. For a growing number, Facebook becomes almost a news source, as users can contribute interesting articles, pictures, music, and videos from all over the interwebs. What few people have truly explored, however, is the astounding depth to which Facebook can infiltrate your life and your web activities.

"Hey, are you on Facebook?"

It doesn't matter what your sign is, and it's starting not to matter what your number is - at least, not when you first meet. More and more people interested in a cute girl/guy are asking for a Facebook add and pursuing that inroad to meeting up or eventually getting a number. It makes practical sense: both parties can "vet" the other by scanning profile details and interaction with friends, and the pursuant can send non-invasive messages that the pursuee can answer in his/her own time.

"23/m/CA ISO pure hotness, is that u?"

To take it a step further, Facebook offers dating applications (you knew it would), the most popular of which being Zoosk. After a quick look through Zoosk, I find I am impressed. We've all seen the "Hot or Not" type apps that are shoddy, buggy, and loaded with adverts. Zoosk, however, is fast, clean, well-designed, and a pleasure to interact with. I imagine it will become more and more popular as a quick and free alternative to sites like Match.com - especially since it's built right into facebook.

Zoosk party by sarshet

"I got this. You can pay me back later."

Need to send money to a friend (or one of those hot dates)? The application, Buxter, lets you send small to moderate amounts of real money to Facebook friends with the click of a button. Running on the ClickandBuy.com platform, the app promises to expand the micropayment and revolutionize the way we use social networks. I was able to sign up with this service, but as of this writing Facebook now "restricts" me from accessing it - it might be UK only for now.

"So, like, who am I?"

If you're not sure who you are, or if you just want to share more of yourself with the world, Facebook offers tons and tons and tons of quizzes and tests. From legitimate Meyers-Briggs personality tests to silly, "Which Care Bear are you?" quizzes, you can find any answer you never knew you needed to know. These have been around for a long while, but they deserve a mention.

The License Plate You Want by Sam Howzit

"Save the manatees! Feed the hungry baboons!"

Perhaps less fun but equally ubiquitous are the social cause applications on Facebook. You can broadcast your involvement, sign petitions, and donate money for almost any cause you could dream up. Sometimes the requests get a tad annoying, and sometimes you don't support the cause - but there's great potential for aid and support (as we've seen with Twitter) for those that you do.

"zOMG, his voice melts butter."

Speaking of support, why pick up your phone to cast your vote for American Idol? Now you can do it from Facebook - where you're probably sitting while watching the show, anyway. Don't lie. Yes, thanks to Ribbit, a web-based phone service, you can now cast your votes online whenever you like, and the service will dial them in when the lines open up (and share your vote on your page in true Facebook fashion). Then, your friends can unfriend you because you voted for her...

"Look how easy it is to spend money!"

If you thought that was revolutionary, how about getting your iPhone apps from Facebook? The company, Vitrue, brings this Apple wonderland to your Facebook page. And again, the key here is in the social interaction of it all - you can just as easily "share" a favorite or interesting app as purchase it. They really don't want you to -ever- have to leave Facebook again.

Binary Game - Facebook Connect by yonnage

"Read it, and weep."

Last, but not least, the Facebook Connect feature allows for seamless integration of outside software. From iPhone games and social apps to sharing your YouTube favorites to accessing your friends' Facebook profiles from within Yahoo Mail - all roads lead to Facebook. The focus is to allow any information to be shared on Facebook, from game scores to news articles, so that people can connect, share, and compete all in the same, enormous network.

I love Facebook and Google for tapping into every aspect of daily life and making everything smoother and simpler, but I'm not blind. The more we stick to the same network or service, the more likely we are to contribute to its advertising revenue - and advertising rules all media. Still, as long as we acknowledge that truth, I think the growing demesne of Facebook could prove an interesting playing - and living - ground.

What would you like to see on Facebook?

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[uTweet.it] Future Typing: Four Ways to Input Text

2010-04-04T14:00:00.000-07:00

The physical QWERTY keyboard is, and will be for some time, the most common way to input text to a desktop or laptop. With the expansion of tablet and slate computing, however, these bulky, mechanical devices are sure to go out of style. Or are they? Let’s look at the currently available options for text input and what might stick around.

This was my first article for the online magazine, uTweet.it. In it, I discuss four popular categories for text input in computing devices and what we can expect from each in the future. An excerpt:

In spite of this, virtual keyboards have many benefits. One less physical component or accessory is always a good thing in going mobile or saving on production costs. A screen can also be adapted to show any manner of keyboard options in the same space – allowing multiple language layouts or game controls on the same device at the touch of an icon. Anything digital is also customizable, and I guarantee you’ll see custom-color and designer keyboard layouts available by download or hack. This option for text input is widely regarded to be the immediate future of typing, but it will have to overcome resistance from physical keyboard lovers. (Read more)

Click through to read this article, and take the opportunity to sniff around this awesome site.

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The [uTweet.it] Series

2010-04-02T18:00:00.001-07:00

As some of you may know, I have been writing a weekly article for the startup online magazine, uTweet.it. For the sake of better exposure for both the magazine and my own articles, I'm going to start posting summaries of each article here. First, though, some information on the publication.

Conceived by Paul Clarke in late 2009, the online magazine, uTweet.it, serves as a portal for original staff articles and the most interesting popular content circulating the Twittersphere. The covered topics truly run the gamut, but they consistently pertain to the Twitter community and often deal directly with Twilebrities and other Twitter personalities. The staff includes:

@Axleuk - Paul Clarke (Founder, Editor and Writer) "Founder of uTweet.it Social Media Ninja - Keen photography enthusiast. A Twitter servant, information provider."
@Teeco71 - Tommy Geraci (Writer) "Just your average entertainment junkie. Senior Payroll Analyst by day, by night I am a total radio/tv/movie junkie.Love to read and write.http://utweet.it/"
@MichaelOwenHill - Michael Owen Hill (Writer) "'Solitudine non e essere soli, e amare gli altri inutilmente.' Artist. Web writer. Snark. Marketing/development consultant: law, industry, arts, nonprofit"
@SylviaSwann - Sylvia Swann (Writer) "Assistant director/producer & actress. Norwegian. British. Always doing things I can't do. That's how I get to do them"
@Braernoch - Wade Burch (Writer) "A union actor and blogger in LA. I get most excited about technology, politics, and industry news (not gossip). Tweet me!" [That's me]

I was invited to write with this awesome group about a month ago, and I've been putting out a weekly article (so far on technology) each Monday. Over the next couple weeks, I'll catch up on posting summaries of my contributions here and continue to release one each time my uTweet.it articles are released.

I hope you'll follow along and use the chance to check out my fantastic co-writers' work.

As always, email me directly for any questions or comments, comment and share to keep the discussion going, and subscribe via Email or by RSS if you like this blog!

Google Is The New God

2010-04-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

When times get rough, where do you turn for answers and support? Some people look to family and friends, some people listen for the voice within, and some people pray to a higher power for guidance. Chances are, though, your first stop is the electronic Gaia we call the Interwebs.

Prayer at dawn by Java Cafe

This topic first came to my attention through a comment left by an Idyll Ramblings reader on a previous post about how much we turn to Google for guidance. Sandra Nauert wrote:

"This was interesting since I just read it after reading a devotional ... about listening to God before making decisions. Maybe Google is the new God for our modern world? (read with a sardonic touch)."

The point is fairly clear, but let's look at not just how much, but also how deeply we rely on all the internet has to offer in our tumultuous lives.

The first and most obvious is the Google search. As this was covered in the previous post, I won't go into too much detail (the link is above if you wish to review). Suffice it to say, we are a society that does not like to make uninformed decisions, and Google offers the first and easiest access to the wealth of knowledge and opinion stored in the vast internets. Google is not alone - many use Yahoo and Bing as well - but it is certainly the most prominent.

Grief Support Group by Feeling Croppy

Once we have all the facts and third-party recommendations, we can often decide on the spot. In that case, the internet acts as our only source of input and consideration. For decisions with weightier and more lasting impact, however, we then turn to our friends and family. While this is still largely done by text or in person (occasionally by email or phone call), we are increasingly relying on Facebook and Twitter.

With the ability to see which products our friends are fans of; the Facebook chat, wall post, and messaging system to ask questions; and the groups and sub-communities any member can join, Facebook offers support and more personal/credible opinions for our deeper inquiries. Twitter also provides a quick and effective way to sound out opinions, but tweets and DMs are a bit limiting for full conversations.

The magic of Google, Facebook, and Twitter is that they truly do begin to resemble some kind of electronic lifeforce, connecting everyone's experience and knowledge both from the past and in real time. Just like the Eastern tradition of calling upon one's ancestors, the web preserves the thoughts and opinions of people long-passed. And much like the Gaia concept so beautifully illustrated in the recent movie, Avatar, from almost any place on Earth we can be connected to the living, breathing, and dynamic digital output of humanity.

In short, religions and spirituality are mostly pursued for answers, support, and community involvement. The spread of Wi-Fi and 3G/4G networks allows the internet to fill most of these needs quite handily for a growing number of people. While life's mysteries and hardships drive many people back to a higher power as they age, much of the younger generations simply have less and less need for any organized religion or its rituals. Instead, Google is their G-d, the place they turn to first.

What do you think of society's reliance on the internet, search engines, and social networks?

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Photo credits:Living a spiritual life by B℮n

Optimism: Do You Make The Choice?

2010-03-31T18:00:00.000-07:00

For most, optimists are people who always see the proverbial glass as half-full. In truth, however, optimism is not a passive way of looking at life - it is an active, daily choice. Read on to learn about the word, 'optimism' and how to apply it to your own life.

The dictionary definition of optimism is "an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome." I disagree with this on two very specific but important points; the first being that optimism is not simply being 'inclined' to think favorably or anticipate the best. Optimists must constantly choose the harder road of believing and adapting.

To support this, consider that the word optimism comes from the Latin optimus, meaning, "best" - a fairly obvious connection - which in turn comes from the Latin optare, meaning, "to choose or prefer." Optimism is, therefore, actively "opting" to see the potential in any situation. Which brings me to my second point: optimism is not just about "anticipating" outcomes or interpreting events. Instead, true optimism is choosing to find the potential in every situation.

To give a recent, personal example, a best friend of mine desperately needed a ride at 6am last week - the morning of my day off from work. Now, it's a long drive, and I'm not a fast waker. Which is why I was up and fumbling with the coffee maker...at 4:30am on my day off. Yes, I know, I'm such a great friend. But the point is that despite the inconvenience, I drank my coffee with a smile and started mentally sifting through topics to explore for blog posts when I got home.

The optimism here was not in anticipating a good outcome - nothing amazing was going to happen in the hour drive into town or the hour drive back. Nor was it in simply "feeling good" about said drive. Rather, I chose (knowing that I needed coffee to survive the highway but would not be able to get back to sleep after drinking it) to see the unexpected wakefulness in the morning hours as a chance to get some fun and productive writing done.

Optimism by lisa eatsa pizza

Everyone in an unfavorable position must make a choice. You may sigh and do nothing, you may expend your energy railing against your circumstances, or you may choose to believe that there is some fortune to be had in your situation. Grumbling is perfectly normal, as is cursing your luck, so long as you can move forward.

By practicing this actively and consistently, you will actually create opportunities that would not have been available without the perceived misfortune. And before long it will be your default reaction, and you will be a much happier and 'luckier' person.

What negative situations have you managed to turn positive?

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Photo credits: Gruber: Glass half-full by jenny downing
Nice day in L.A. by tnachtrab

The Geekiest Tattoos You Ever Did See

2010-03-30T18:00:00.001-07:00

I don't even remember why I'm writing this post; I've been lost in pages and pages of geeks and inks for the last couple hours. Here are some of the geekiest tattoos you've ever seen:

"Leslie" must be so proud.

If you really love the Fibonacci sequence.

Endless love; End of hate.

Where the head ends and the body begins.

BSOD! Shades of 1998 *shiver*.

Probably my fav, but XML !friendly.

This is kinda hot. #JustSayin

It's the Golden Rule!

Oh, I'll connect your dots...

Pen tool, ftw!

Maybe the hardest-core, given where it is.

I want some red/blue glasses to try this one out.

A popular font name in...itself.

A little disturbing, but very cool.

Gotta have a Mario tattoo.

--Reader Submitted--

"Whitney" in binary by...Whitney

General Grievous by James

Yoda by James

Well, I hope that was as fun for you as it was for me. Do you have any particularly geeky tattoos you'd like to add? Send them to me, and I'll add them to the post!

What do you think about the tattoos featured here?

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A Twitter Portrait of @Alyssa_Milano

2010-03-29T18:00:00.001-07:00

A number of Twitter tools and apps exist to help us visualise the millions of tweeple and their billions of tweets. I kept toying with one for a while, and I found it particularly well-suited to generate a snapshot of the foundational Twitter celebrity that is Alyssa Milano.

This particular Twitter tool is called, "Twitter Spectrum." To use it you enter two words, separated by a comma, and it will populate the graph with a cloud of tags, usernames, and keywords that occur commonly in the moment with your search terms. There are five colors of cloud terms, each representing different stations across the spectrum between your two words. I stressed "in the moment" because it is a dynamic tool, and your results will vary each day that you use it.

Using the Twitter Spectrum, I graphed "Alyssa,Milano" and payed particular attention to the middle three colors to see what terms are most closely associated with her full name. Using this tool in this way generally only works with unique and widely-used full names - you and I would not have focused enough results to paint any real picture. Here is how Twitter visualises our Ray of Twunshine:

The most common words associated with Milano on this day are: video, hope, always, day, today, love, lol, fun, time, news, boston, red, sox, best, next, full, long, and women. The general positivity of these words speaks to the caring and generosity we've all come to know and appreciate in our Twitter Big Sis. The prominence of "lol," even among the other major keywords, suggests an ebullient and enthusiastic character. In being so connected to the Boston Red Sox, I'm guessing (!) she likes baseball. Lastly, her interests align heavily with women and with the news - suggesting she's a strong social advocate and is politically aware.

Our major words for the second day include: beautiful, live, call, thanks, tomorrow, awesome, world, lol, know, love, watch, @alyssa_milano, right, bad, pizza, fun, don't, and haha. The same general trend emerges from these mostly positive keywords about life and love. We can also see that her Twitter name is @alyssa_milano; I would imagine she likes pizza; and once again, between the large "lol" and "haha," we can see a lively and engaging spirit.

Sticking to the larger words (some interesting extras popped into this one), we see: @alyssa_milano, watch, show, romantically, challenged, abc, lol, update, fun, times, great, charming, need, and party. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we see that our Voice of Positivity is associated with fun, great times and apparently needs a party. Perhaps that party is for the show we should soon watch - "Romantically Challenged," on ABC, starring @alyssa_milano!

I would like to point out that the only major keyword that carried across all three of our snapshots was, "lol." Whether she herself is laughing, she inspires us to laugh, or a likely combination thereof, the conclusion is that Alyssa Milano is ever and always surrounded with laughter in the Twittersphere. While each glimpse illuminated different aspects of her personality, the other constant was her unfailing positivity - a pillar of character for all who tweet.

In all fairness, I must admit that my cropping of the focused snapshots and resultant analysis might be biased a bit by what we already know of Alyssa Milano through being active in the Twitterverse and by my own love of her. But seriously, who doesn't love our Twiamond in the Tweets? (<-- Too much?)

Take a look at the full pictures, as well; what else can you add to the portrait? Who else would you like to put through the Twitter Spectrum?

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I stumbled upon this tool thanks to Khayyam Wakil and his Bit Rebels post, "You Venn Some. You Lose Sum." Thank you, Khayyam.

Google, Should I?

2010-03-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

I'll be the first to say that I love Google, and I run to it for information on just about anything that crosses my mind. Therefore, I include myself in the next statement: It's moderately ridiculous how much we depend on Google to help us live our lives.

I don't remember what I was searching for, but I went to my Google search bar in Firefox and typed "should ," and these apparently popular suggestions popped up:

Should I get the H1N1 vaccine?

We ask Google how to take care of our health and that of our children. We trust that Google will offer articles with unbiased explanations of medical terms, reasons for and against treatments, and images and descriptions of phenomena to diagnose ourselves. Google will also connect us with communities that discuss these questions and offer anecdotes and support.

Should I refinance my mortgage?

When times get tough, we turn to Google for financial advice. Which credit card should I pay off first? Should I refinance my mortgage? There are pages and pages of loan and interest calculators; strategies for investing, growing, and protecting money; and services that will manage your money for you.

Should I get a divorce?

Parenting and maintaining strong relationships are fundamental challenges of the human experience for which there are no official guidebooks. Thank gawd for Google. Want to know how a divorce will affect your kids or your finances? Need to know how to set boundaries for yourself, your husband, or your children? Blogs, columns, communities, and sales pitches abound in Google's search results to give you the answers.

Should I upgrade to Windows 7?

Almost a no-brainer. What better place to go for information on computers and the internet than the internet itself? Tech pages, tech services, and reviews out the wazoo are yours for the using for any tech questions through Google.

Should I call him?

This one makes me laugh. It's a very valid question, and one that we've all asked (or, "Should I call her?"). All the same, this used to be a question asked of your mom/dad, brother/sister, or best friend. The idea that we would turn to the internet's aggregation of the collective human relationship experience for such a personal and vulnerable question both stuns me and makes a rather loud statement about us.

Summary

I want to point out that the answers to several of these questions are life-changing. Decisions about finances, health, and relationships will affect us for years to come. While we do make the choices ourselves based on the input we get, I think it's amazing that we turn to an internet search result's collection of personal articles, stories, and opinions to help shape our lives. Instead of (or in addition to) turning to the people we know and trust, more and more people are reaching out to the vast interweb community of people they've never met to aid them.

I think this is both spectacular in a generation-y, we're-über-connected sort of way and scary in a why-are-we-so-cyber-dependent sort of way. What do you think? How do you use Google?

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What I've -Literally- Learned From Blogging

2010-03-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

We often hear about how blogging expands our creativity, social reach, writing proficiency, branding credibility, and general knowledge. However, I realized the other night when my brilliant topical explanation became a lecture that the general knowledge bit has really taken off. Here's what I've literally learned about from blogging.

Blogging Research Wordle by Kristina B

I must admit: I do not watch the news anymore. I rarely have time to watch television or movies in general - if I'm not working, I'm writing. Yet somehow through RSS feeds, Twitter, Yahoo, and Wikipedia, I've managed to learn quite a bit about a wide range of topics - and then write about them. Some include:

Global Online Freedom Act
The political tool of Reconciliation
Don't Ask, Don't Tell and Prop 8
Federal Budget changes for NASA
Entertainment industry union jurisdictions
The chemicals in gasoline and Windex
A new social marketing business model
Adobe AIR and HTML5
Studio deals for new movie releases
The rise of Google Energy
The FCC's plan for America's internet
How Flash media could replace DVDs
Why 1.5 volt batteries come in different sizes
Everything I ever wanted to know about tea
The evolving micropayment
Social broadcasting of sexuality
A huge aircraft carrier made of ice
Electromyography and silent communication
What we can do with water on the moon
Instant translation
How to make use of aposiopesis
The FCC's concept of digital citizenship
How Google champions the FCC's goals
The manly root of 'virtue'
The history of the ampersand
Linderhof Castle's eccentric beauty

It's sort of refreshing to step back and take a look at all the very important (and very arcane) things I've learned. I absolutely guarantee you that I would not have researched 95% of this stuff if I hadn't been ~~desperate~~ eager for a blog post topic. Ergo, go forth and blog, and learn many things!

On a side note: in taking this step back and reviewing what I've learned, I've come to the conclusion that this is, after all, a geek blog. Huzzah.

What crazy, important, or disturbing things have you learned from blogging?

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The Mad King's Underground Lake

2010-03-26T18:00:00.001-07:00

I saw a photo of this while thumbing through books at a local bookstore, and I just had to research and share. Only in bygone times of mad kings and laboring serfs could such a place be built. Come with me now on a journey through time and insanity.

Linderhof in Winter

The "Mad King" Ludwig II of Bavaria ordered the construction of three palaces, but he only lived to see one. The first completed and the smallest, Linderhof Castle features some of the most eccentric features you can imagine and what some consider to be among the best of palace garden design.

Assuming the throne at the tender age of eighteen in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-four, Ludwig Friedrich Wilhelm was young, handsome, and full of fantasy and imagination. While he is now referenced as the "Mad King," his original monikers were "Swan King" and "Fairy Tale King." It is believed that he was more eccentric, soulful, and artsy than insane, but he was deposed on the grounds of mental illness, and history is written by the victors.

Schloss Linderhof by Bluesky71

One of his first and most important acts as King was to summon and assume patronage of the now-legendary composer, Richard Wagner. Each had an intense respect and appreciation for the other, and each influenced the other dramatically. Richard Wagner might never have gone on to write any of his great works were it not for Ludwig's support. Ludwig, in turn, admired Wagner so much as to design parts of his gardens entirely around the composer's works. But let's look first at the castle...

Ludwig tore down the original structure, Königshäuschen, to build his palace in eighteen hundred and seventy-four. It was designed, for those who understand the references, in the style of the rococo period and modeled after the palace of Versailles (built for Louis XIV). The also-very-eccentric King Louis XIV was somewhat of an idol to the young King Ludwig II, though whereas Louis XIV considered himself the Sun King, Ludwig II instead fancied himself the Night King.

Hall of Mirrors

As any true Night King would (I sure did when I thought I was a Night King), Ludwig II slept through the day and awakened at night. To solve the problem of lighting, he spent a great deal of his time in the Hall of Mirrors - a room, as you might imagine, filled with mirrors. The already-abundant candlelight was nearly infinitely reflected in this room, giving him ample light by which to read and entertain himself.

Linderhof's Dining Room by sweetie18scc

Straddling the line between eccentricity and madness, it is said that King Ludwig II demanded four settings at his Dining Room table despite the fact that he dined alone. The story goes that he would hold imaginary conversations with the people he most admired at the time, including Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour, and Marie Antionette.

Linderhof's Bedroom

Stepping a bit to the side of eccentricity or madness and into the realm of pure ego, Ludwig II's Bedroom featured a bed raised upon steps in an alcove surrounded by a gilded balustrade - in the manner of an altar. The Night King slept soundly in his own holiness, and I'm sure any liaisons he had were uplifting and spiritual indeed.

While the features of the castle shock, it is the gardens that astound. Here, too, is Ludwig II's love of all things Wagner most keenly felt. He ordered the construction of the Gurnemanz Hermitage (based on the character Gurnemanz of Wagner's opera, Parsifal), Hunding's Hut (from the character in the opera, Die Walküre, of Wagner's Ring Cycle), and - we come at last to my favorite - the Venus Grotto (built as an illustration of Wagner's Tannhäuser).

Venus Grotto

The Venus Grotto is an artificial stalactite cave, built at the behest of King Ludwig II. It features a grand entrance, an underground lake, and a golden swan-boat. Wanting his very own Blue Grotto (a famously colorful and naturally lit cave near Capri, Italy), the King ordered the installation of colored lights. Believe it or not, the dynamo, or early electric generator, had been around for some forty-five years at this point and served to power the King's colorful display. Ludwig II would escape to this incredible hideaway to be rowed around in his golden boat. Not a bad way to relax and daydream!

I've always told myself that this is the kind of palace I would build (with secret passages, too!), but as my friend, Joshua, reminded me: things like this are not built in these days. Ah, well, I can dream - and maybe get rich enough to make it happen anyway!

What would you include in your dream palace? Where would you build it (woods, plains, desert, moors)?

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Enjoy the photos below:

Front Garden by jl0dc

Linderhof Palace with cascade by Frank Kehren

Lindederhof palace grounds

Venus Grotto entrance by DdeJongh

Venus Grotto by MichaelDuquetteFowler

Schlosspark Linderhof by brewbooks

Panic! When The Digital Sky Is Falling

2010-03-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

We've all confessed it at some point or other - we'd be useless without our smartphones, and dead without the internet. A lot of our distress comes from our inability to make decisions without digital input. Here are some services we depend on and the trouble that ensues when we lose them.

So I was sitting in my curb-side parked car, facing the wrong way on a busy street in an unfamiliar part of town in the disorienting dark of night. No biggie - I have an iPhone. Out comes the phone, up comes Google Maps, and...PANIC! I see only taupe-colored grids surrounding the blue dot that is my car. No streets, no highways, and no indication of which direction I could or should be headed.

Now, I've always said that people who rely on GPS for directions are silly; I think everyone should know how to read a map (you, too, Diana!). But what happens when we rely on digital maps that will not load? My phone told me I had four bars of Edge network, but nothing was loading, and I was a bit fertummelt.

In the same vein, I often depend on Inrix's real-time traffic display to tell me which of LA's thirty-seven highways I should take to get home from work. Never mind the fact that I could mentally plot four or five ways to get home without a map - if the traffic doesn't load, I don't know where I want to go, and I'm a little paralyzed.

In fact, many of the decisions we make in our daily lives are based on internet connectivity, specifically research of reviews and product information. We are perfectly capable of acquiring some service or product to fill our immediate need, but we've become reliant on using our computers and smartphones to quickly browse, research, and comparison shop before we make a decision. To this end, there are barcode-scanning apps for phones that will retrieve product and pricing information for anything you're looking at. Even when we're standing right in front of our solution, we've been trained to stop and ask the web if it's a good idea.

The importance of omnipresent internet on smartphones is only growing. How many times have you checked your bank account balance before committing to a purchase? How long would you stand in the store isle debating the purchase if you didn't have access to that information? Think also of how many times you've referenced your email for meeting times/locations, store coupons, and working memorandums - all of which are time-sensitive when you're getting things done. If your Blackberry/iPhone/Android wouldn't load your messages, what would you do?

In addition to connected smartphones, we rely on uninterrupted uptimes at our computers. The recent outages of Wikipedia and YouTube and the fairly frequent downtimes of Twitter get me to thinking of how we produce and market content, in particular. Every moment Twitter is down, a potential referral or sale is lost. Every hour Wikipedia is down, thousands of Americans are forced to focus instead of daisy-chaining through articles when they should be working (me included). Oh, and students far and wide lose a valuable resource in composing essays and presentations. YouTube, as well, offers instructional videos and is even being used to market and showcase talents.

Lastly, with the advent of the PayPal iPhone app's "bump to send money" feature and the fact that in some nations phones are already very connected to bank accounts, I begin to wonder what will happen when we don't have service and need to, you know, use money.

The awful truth is that we don't even have to lose our phones or suffer broken computers to be stranded these days; all it takes is a burp in internet service or a void in effective cell service to leave us frozen and blinking blankly. What services do you depend on the most? How do you deal with information Voids?

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Photo credits: Gruber: Don't Panic by bobtiki
4-30-09 by chrismaverick
Productivity by fuchsphoto

That Funky Ampersand

2010-03-24T18:19:00.000-07:00

What kind of a name is "ampersand," anyway? Where did this funky symbol come from? Why does it mean, "and," and where is it still used? All these questions and more are here for the and-swering. (pun intended)

The ampersand as a symbol comes rather directly from the Latin et, meaning "and." In fact, the symbol as we know it is only slightly modified from the original ligature that evolved from that two-letter word. A ligature is the joining of two or more graphemes (letters) to form a single glyph (symbol). You can even almost see this joining for "&" in the modern "Et."

The origin of the word "ampersand" is a bit more complicated. The ampersand was once popular enough to be considered a letter of the English language in its own right - it followed Z to be the 27th letter and was pronounced, "and." When reciting the alphabet in the olden days, however, letters that could stand alone as words were preceded by the Latin phrase per se, meaning, "by itself." This included A, I, O (in the sense of Oh), and &.

Therefore, a student reciting the alphabet would speak, "G, H, per se I, J," until "X, Y, Z, and per se &." (instead of the modern "X, Y, and Z"). Because the letter & was pronounced, "and," it would be spoken, "Z, and per se and." It is easy enough to see how and-per-se-and became corrupted over time into ampersand.

Ampersand-redbarn by cultr.sun

The ampersand has mostly fallen out of modern usage except in registered titles such as for Barnes & Noble or just about any law office. In these cases it is incorrect to replace "&" with "and" when referencing, as the ampersand is still considered its own word, and the titles' words are registered.

Another surviving usage, though less common, is to type "&c" in lieu of "etc." Because the ampersand is derived from et, it is the same as typing et cetera. Apart from this and the titling usage, the ampersand has been requisitioned by computer programmers, and lives in our language through that new and very different incarnation.

What other symbols do you use but not know the history of?

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Photo credits: Typographic Ligature from Wikimedia Commons

Top 20 Signs That You're A Writer

2010-03-23T18:00:00.001-07:00

My Top 20 signs you're a writer. You know you're a writer if:

proofreading... by monsterpants

20. You settle down for some light reading, and your friend asks you what subject you're studying for.

19. You feel the same way about a cracked book spine as you do about a cracked Venetian vase (despite the fact that the book costs $7.99 at the local bookstore).

18. That $7.99 at the local bookstore hurts as much as the $3.00 gallon of milk at the supermarket and the $4.00 gallon of gas at the gas station - and is just as necessary.

17. Your lips quirk in a sly and silly smile when you unwittingly write with alliteration or assonance.

16. You know what assonance means.

Action Scene by ryan.brady18

15. You forget whether the scene in your head is from a movie you watched or a book that you read.

14. You play with archaic words and sentence structure to achieve a rhyme or meter - in your daily conversation.

13. Learning a new word is an opportunity, not a chore.

12. You always have a dictionary, a phone app dictionary, or a dictionary bookmarked on a mobile browser handy.

11. You've ever disagreed with that dictionary (or a thesaurus).

Post-it note things about Ansy by ansy

10. You'd rather write a note than speak to someone in the same house/apartment.

9. Your first reaction in the face of injustice...is to write a brilliant letter!

8. You keep a journal or notebook for random thoughts - and it's still stuffed with scribbled napkins and receipts.

7. You have a favorite pen that writes *just* the right way and feels *just* perfectly weighted in your hand.

6. Your friends refuse to play you at Scrabble.

Cx by tsallam

5. Those same friends beg you for editing and proofing help right before a deadline.

4. You know the names of more authors than you do of television and movie celebrities.

3. When one of those authors dies, the greatest tragedy is the unfinished book or series - not the death.

2. You feel like you give birth to a child every time you publish.

1. Your coffee's gone cold, you're beyond having to pee, and your stomach is growling furiously - well, heck, that's always. You'll take care of it after one more paragraph...

Coffee and 3 Notebooks by Coffee Stained Moleskine

Do any of these particularly apply to you? What else makes a writer?

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No Longer Okay To Be Camera-Shy?

2010-03-22T18:00:00.000-07:00

Now that every phone has a camera, and many can shoot video, I begin to wonder whether it's okay to be camera-shy. In the age of Flickr and YouTube, could those who don't love the lens still be relevant?

I have a confession to make. I am webcamera-shy. I know, I know - I'm an actor. So I'm supposed to be comfortable in front of the camera, right? And sure, when it comes to the Big Camera or even candid photographs, I've managed to get over my reservations. But when it comes down to sitting in front of a webcam, I'm just not comfortable.

My good Twitter friend, @Nonglin, has twice invited me to a tinychat - a web service that hosts simple webcam chats, like a video IM. While I've been genuinely busy both times, I couldn't deny the feeling of relief I felt when I realised that I would not be sitting at my laptop in front of that camera. It got me to thinking: in today's camera-connected society, is it still acceptable to be any kind of camera-shy?

While there are plenty of people on Facebook and MySpace without abundant, candid photo collections, it seems the vast majority offer a complete still-life story to anyone browsing. Add to that the number of people with Flickr, Photobucket/TinyPic, Picasa, and - dare I say - YouTube accounts, and the idea of avoiding a camera begins to feel rather back-country and old-fashioned.

I can't say I'm surprised. Every phone, computer, and gaming device can now snap pictures and will soon be able to shoot video. Each of these can manipulate the captured media and instantly upload or broadcast it online. This accessibility has transformed picture and video into just another tweet stream. What are you doing now? Show us.

So back to the webcam. Gone are the days when video was taken on your terms, as in business videoconferencing and filming movies. Impromptu video chats (along with surprise iPhone video clips) demand that you either always be prepared or relinquish the need for control of your image (eek). As webcams and their streaming services proliferate, I imagine my old-fashioned insecurities will make me stand out like a stick in the mud.

Is it time to change with the times?

Um, that's me. =P

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Photo credits: Matching our decor like chameleons by tizzie
Demi by αℓℓ тнє яσѕєѕ ;

Why Women Are Not 'Virtuous'

2010-03-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

Words have a habit of evolving new meanings over time, particularly if they come from the older languages like Greek and Latin. A careful look at the evolution of words can give us insight into the cultures that created them and those that later altered them. For example, in the strictest and oldest sense of the word, women are definitely not 'virtuous.'

Virtue by beyondthegreyphotography

The modern word word virtue comes more or less directly from the Latin word virtus, which means "manliness" - because it in turn descends from the Latin noun vir, meaning "man." To give some context for exactly how virtus meant "manliness," let's run through the list of the Roman virtues, or the essential qualities that the Roman citizen (read: man) was expected to have (Wikipedia):

Auctoritas — "Spiritual Authority" — The sense of one's social standing, built up through experience, Pietas, and Industria.
Comitas — "Humour" — Ease of manner, courtesy, openness, and friendliness.
Constantia — "Perseverance" — Military stamina, mental and physical endurance.
Clementia — "Mercy" — Mildness and gentleness.
Dignitas — "Dignity" — A sense of self-worth, personal pride.
Disciplina — "Discipline" — Military oath under Roman protective law & citizenship.
Firmitas — "Tenacity" — Strength of mind, the ability to stick to one's purpose.
Frugalitas — "Frugality" — Economy and simplicity of style, without being miserly.
Gravitas — "Gravity" — A sense of the importance of the matter at hand, responsibility and earnestness.
Honestas — "Respectability" — The image that one presents as a respectable member of society.
Humanitas — "Humanity" — Refinement, civilization, learning, and being cultured.
Industria — "Industriousness" — Hard work.
Iustitia — "Justice" — Sense of moral worth to an action.
Pietas — "Dutifulness" — More than religious piety; a respect for the natural order socially, politically, and religiously. Includes the ideas of patriotism and devotion to others.
Prudentia — "Prudence" — Foresight, wisdom, and personal discretion.
Salubritas — "Wholesomeness" — Health and cleanliness.
Severitas — "Sternness" — Gravity, self-control.
Veritas — "Truthfulness" — Honesty in dealing with others.
Virtus — "Manliness" — Valor, excellence, courage, character, and worth. Vir meaning "man".

In the sense that manliness was exemplified by courage and valor (Note: There is a thin line between brave and bull-headed), which measured a man's worth in battle and in business, the word virtus came more to mean excellence and virtue in its modern sense than simply having a Y chromosome.

This older sense of virtus as "manliness" has come to us instead through the Latin virilis ("masculinity"), taking the form virile, which means having the properties or characteristics of an adult male. Unlike the Latin version referring to the brave and valiant male citizen of the empire, the connotation this word often takes is one of strength and sexual prowess.

Interesting to note: at the other end of the spectrum we have the word virtual - which seems to have nothing to do with men whatsoever. It does, however, come from the Latin virtus by way of the word virtualis. I suspect virtual derives its meaning of "in essence" from the concept of a Roman man's virtus being the essence of his manhood.

All this being said, I will grant that some women do indeed have courage, valor, and excellence - even in the "manly" sense. And there are many, many 'virtuous' women out there, in general.

But for the Romans, when the Latin word was first being used, only men had virtus, as only men are now virile. Sorry, ladies.

What other words can you think of that have entirely different meanings from their roots?

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Photo credits: La Domination Masculine by FontShop Benelux

Google: The American National Champion

2010-03-20T19:07:00.000-07:00

Google has been making headlines in almost every arena over the last couple years. From technology to philanthropy to infrastructure to research to international politics, the Mountain View, CA, company is managing to impact nearly every American in some way and is taking on the role of national champion to spread its influence far and abroad.

I first read about the concept of the national champion in Marhsall I. Goldman's excellent book, Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia. The national champion is primarily a tool of economic imperialism, or directly utilising domestic markets to spread national ideals and influence. Specifically, the national champion itself is a corporate entity being used by the national government to apply pressure or exert influence beyond the state's native sphere. A prime example (provided by Goldman) is Gazprom, Russia's state-controlled energy giant that manages to strong-arm those nations dependent on Russian energy trade.

While Google is far from state-controlled, its own ideals and policies are very much in line with those of the Federal Communications Commission - and by proxy, the U.S. Federal government. Chief among the FCC's goals where the great interwebs and their associated issues are concerned is the preservation of the open internet and consumers' "freedom to communicate and innovate without permission." The FCC has set up a website detailing its vision of the open internet where it lists some "high-level rules" it would like to establish to ensure that broadband providers:

don’t block consumers from accessing the content and applications of their choice
don’t deprive consumers of their entitlement to competition
don’t discriminate against or in favor of traffic
disclose basic information about broadband service

In addition, the FCC maintains another website dedicated to its national broadband plan (which I discussed in Every Home Connected), wherein it outlines six goals to be addressed in advancing the American population in the digital age. Two of these goals are particularly pertinent to this discussion:

Goal 1: At least 100 million U.S. homes should have affordable access to actual download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and actual upload speeds of at least 50 megabits per second.
Goal 6: To ensure that America leads in the clean energy economy, every American should be able to use broadband to track and manage their real-time energy consumption.

Google directly addresses these FCC goals with two programs:

Google Fiber: in hopes to make Internet access better and faster for everyone[, Google] plan[s] to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country.
Google PowerMeter: free software tool that allows you to view your home's energy consumption from your personalized iGoogle homepage [in order to] help you to save money and use less electricity.

And demonstrates its commitment to the aforementioned open internet cause through:

the current stand-off with China in order to uncensor search results
the current European Union court battle to preserve freedom of online ad display
its vast library of open source coding available through Google's Open Source Programs Office and showcased at the annual Google Summer of Code
its own use of open source coding for its Android mobile phone operating system
its open and active support of the open source HTML5 web standard

Note: "Open Source" is the practice of releasing and sharing the source materials for an application's end product so that anyone can learn from it, build upon it, and connect with it.

In Google We Trust by sonicbloom

In the sense that Google as a corporate entity works to advance the principals and interests of the United States Federal government both at home and abroad, Google is indeed a national champion. Granted, the government has no controlling stake in Google, nor has it placed any officials or cronies in the upper echelons of Google's hierarchy. But perhaps that serves to make Google even more of an American national champion - it serves the state's interests through altruistic idealism and the democratic spirit more than any underhanded coercion.

What do you think of Google's activity in domestic development and foreign politics? What other companies can you think of that serve the state's interests?

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I must again recommend Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia by Marshall I. Goldman. I greatly enjoyed this book on the energy industry in general and its development through Russian and Soviet history. You'll learn tons about the sources of energy, from where they come, how they're traded, and how this affects the political sphere. It's written well, and you can read it fairly quickly - and then pass it along!

Photo credits: Gladiators Wear Slips by manolinlao
Google San Fransicso by Laughing Squid

How To Use Love

2010-03-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

Love is a thing we're always searching for, but when we find it, do we know how to use it to best effect? When we're giving it, how do we hope it will be used? It's odd to talk about "using" love, but no one wants to see love squandered or abused. Here's how to let love make you shine.

Strength and Love by michkav

While studying Russian language in college, I wrote a short prose poem (in Russian) about my thoughts on using love. Below is the original text and the rough English translation.

Когда тебе угрожает тяжесть твоих забот,
не отдыхай безопасно в моих тёплых объятиях,
но крепко стой на основе моей любви,
и не поддавайся.

When the weight of your concerns threatens you,
do not rest safely in my warm embrace,
but stand firmly on the foundation of my love,
and do not give in.

It is far too easy to tell ourselves that love is the answer, that it is a simple solution to all our pressures and perils. We expect love to shine brightly, keeping the dark at bay and casting a rosy glow into every corner of our lives. The truth is: love does not shine; it makes us shine. Instead of looking to it for answers, we should use it to find our own. When we allow love to be our magical remedy, we covet it, pursue it, and ultimately strangle it.

Fortunately, love is a plentiful resource. It is given freely by many who seem to be fountains of caring and support, and it is discovered abundantly in places and times you'd never expect it. It is grown, too; it can be nurtured like a delicate rose, or like a weed, it can sprout where you really didn't want it. It need never be earned - that is simply against its nature.

sprout out of wooden guardrail by seppi_hofer

So do not grasp at love. Do not hold tightly to it in fear or use it as a shield against life. Do not hoard it, build walls around it, or put it on a pedestal. Instead, recognize that it is and will always be all around you. And knowing that it will always be there for you, use it as a foundation for your own strength.

Understand that people cannot solve your problems, and their love cannot do so either. You must stand strong and confront your issues, using the love you are receiving, discovering, and growing to support you.

How do you use love?

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Are You A Citizen Of This New Nation?

2010-03-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski, has been in the news a lot recently speaking about the future of broadband internet access in America and what we can do to develop it. One phrase being stressed is digital citizenship - are you an effective citizen of this new, digital nation?

Citizenship@MaRS by mars_discovery_district

To find the answer, we first must ask, "Why the concept of a digital nation, and how are we citizens of it?"

A nation is commonly defined as "a grouping of people who share real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin, often possessing or seeking its own government." (Wikipedia)

Loosely interpreted, this does apply to the many people who find community online. Denizens of the interwebs are increasingly using tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace to find and bond with people of like history, culture, or interest. The fact that all of these groups in turn share a common experience and environment with its own, very specific social norms contributes to the idea of a digital nation.

Google defines citizenship as "the fact of belonging to a community...and the duties and responsibilities that this brings." (Google)

The aforementioned social norms are quite specific to interacting online. With detailed profiles and elaborate branding, online presences increasingly reflect and serve to represent the personalities of their respective people in the real world. With the myriad ways for these online presences to interact (e.g. chat, posting, blogging, commenting), certain systems of etiquette and social structure are necessary and naturally developed.

Genachowski offers the definition of digital citizenship as "the values, ethics, and social norms that allow virtual communities, including social networks, to function smoothly." (CNET)

Genachowski, speaking for the FCC and the Federal Government, is specifically outlining a new commitment to instilling values and ethics in the younger generations - those that will have the most involvement in the online domain. In order for our real-world societies to run smoothly in the future, he asserts, it is necessary to teach our young ones how to conduct themselves properly and efficiently in our digital communities as well. Simply put, the quality of our digital citizenship will greatly impact the success of our physical nation.

Global Communication Kid by empirical_perception

In keeping with the federal focus, a website called DigitalCitizenship.net offers a resource for adults to educate youth on the proper online social norms as they pertain to nine major categories. These categories cover just about every major concept a developing nation would need to address:

Digital Etiquette: electronic standards of conduct or procedure.
Digital Communication: electronic exchange of information.
Digital Literacy: process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology.
Digital Access: full electronic participation in society.
Digital Commerce: electronic buying and selling of goods.
Digital Law: electronic responsibility for actions and deeds.
Digital Rights & Responsibilities: those freedoms extended to everyone in a digital world.
Digital Health & Wellness: physical and psychological well-being in a digital technology. world.
Digital Security (self-protection): electronic precautions to guarantee safety.

The idea that a virtual community could have so much influence on the real world is a relatively new concept. More specifically, the idea that our behavior and conduct as members of a digital nation must be structured and schooled from the federal level is positively mind-blowing. While I agree with the FCC on its future importance, I certainly never saw a government-led effort coming. What do you think about this concept, and where do you think we'll end up taking it?

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Photo credits: Tact and Etiquette by Valentinian

The Art of Becoming Silent

2010-03-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

Why, you little... Ever felt like you could say more by not finishing your sentence? Sometimes silence speaks volumes. There is a word for everything, and that includes the art of not using words - welcome to aposiopesis.

Enjoy the silence by Könrad

Coming from the Classical Greek, aposiopesis means literally, "becoming silent." In English, we describe aposiopesis as being "a rhetorical device wherein a sentence is deliberately broken off and left unfinished, the ending to be supplied by the imagination, giving an impression of unwillingness or inability to continue." (Wikipedia)

One of the strengths of aposiopesis is its capacity to indicate this 'inability to continue' through emotional stress. For this reason, the technique has been written into plays and screenplays aplenty. When the spoken word is driving a story (as in most plays, television, and films), aposiopesis allows the character a chance to show the internal struggles and heightened emotions 'winning out' against his/her self-control. Audience loves internal struggle, and there are few better ways to vocalise it.

In the same vicinity, aposiopesis is particularly effective in getting an audience hold its collective breath and hang on the edge of its seat. In pivotal confession scenes, this literary device supplies dramatic 'false starts' and comedic 'gotchas' to toy with viewers. In murder mysteries, this can also help to make the audience feel more involved, as they mentally fill in the vocal gaps with the conclusions they've drawn and then check these against the accused character's reaction.

From Virgil to King David to Mark Twain, the greats have employed aposiopesis to greater effect, and you can use it, too. Common usages include:

indicating shyness - "Oh, no, I don't think..."
intimating a threat - "If you don't stop, I'm gonna..."
conveying great difficulty - "I'm not...sure I can hold..."
portraying reluctance - "So you want me to just..."
exclaiming indignation - "Well, I never..."
dramatic revelation - "It was YOU with the candlestick..."
being naughty - "Gurrrrrl, you make me wanna..."

Given that you're not completing the sentence, it is imperative that the context of your half-statement be very clear. At best, a misunderstood aposiopesis can result in blank stares and furrowed brows. At worst, shyness can be confused with reluctance or threats with playful teasing - and you'll either miss out on opportunities or create ones you weren't looking for.

Most of us already use aposiopesis day to day; it's a device especially common in television and movies. But now you know what it's called and where it comes from, and knowledge is power. Go out into the world, and aposiopese abundantly!

Do you have a favorite story about this device? What is your favorite way to use aposiopesis?

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Photo credits: Self Portrait As A Stressed-Out Bride by Brittney Bush