Month: May 2012

The death of curiosity—the death of learning and education.

I don’t know if this has been said before, but…

The lack of curiosity of a civilization leads to decline in education, which ultimately leads to the end of said civilization.

I don’t see much curiosity to learn anymore in America, or to be broader, Western civilization in general. People seem to be content with what they know, and rather think the gift of knowledge to be a burden that is better not used and thrown away than used to in effect make that “baggage” ligher. We need to be more curious as a whole, especially in this day and age when it’s possible to learn so much online, be it via Wikipedia, Khan Academy, or any other resource.

Update: my English teacher sent me this video, thought it was very relevant.

Artist of the month: Paramore

What I do to music is this: listen to one specific artist for a month, then move on. So, I commence my “Artist of the month” posts with Paramore.

What do you like about Paramore?

  • Female lead vocal
  • Lyrics I can relate to
  • Alt-rock
  • All band members hold microphones properly!

What do you not like about Paramore?

  • They haven’t released new music in a while
  • Band members have changed—their musical style may change from now

How did you find out about Paramore?

Randomly browsing YouTube and friends.

Best of

“That’s What You Get”

This is the video that I think Hayley Williams looks the cutest in. I give extra points for holding the microphones correctly.

Before I watched the video, I knew that the lyrics were good too. Kinda played on repeat when I went through some nasty girl problems.

“Misery Business”

Like “That’s What You Get,” good lyrics. One of the messages is that we shouldn’t be hiding behind a mask and be ourselves so we don’t deceive others and hurt them and ourselves.

“Ignorance”

Same as the songs above. Good lyrics, awesome sound. Seems really relevant these days because there are so many ignorant people in the world.

So, that’s my “artist of the month.” If you like their sound, you should follow Paramore on Twitter. Hayley Williams has her own Twitter—you should follow her too.

Only two things are infinite.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.—Albert Einstein

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.—Albert Einstein

What I’ve noticed recently is that I have a “get off of my lawn!” mentality towards many people, real life and online. I judge people based upon intelligence and/or their activities. I’m a Christian, and judging people is a bad thing that I recognize and should be making an effort to put a stop to.

I believe this quote summarizes what I’m experiencing recently. We’re just tiny specks of dust on a tiny speck of rock in a vast, as we currently know it, infinite universe. In that infinite universe, we have an infinite amount of human stupidity around us on that tiny speck of rock we call Earth. Even Einstein isn’t sure of the infiniteness of the universe, as all matter must be finite outside of any supernatural powers.

“Instead of building mac…

“Instead of building machines, if EVERYONE contributes a little to NOT throw away things in the middle of the street, take action to turn off a light, and use renewable energy, the world would be a way better place.” —Christopher Martin

Instead of building machines, if EVERYONE contributes a little to NOT throw away things in the middle of the street, take action to turn off a light, and use renewable energy, the world would be a way better place. —Christopher Martin

A change in direction of this blog

Until now, I’ve been posting personal world views as this blog was started for my world views class. I think I want to take it to a more personal and casual direction, with things like product reviews, things I like, etc.

See you next time in my revamped blog!

002SH review

I have a 002SH by Sharp on SoftBank. Sadly, it’s not performed up to my expectations.

Why did I get it?

1. Waterproof.

2. Good camera.

And that’s about it. Everything else I dislike.

1. No apps. Duh, it isn’t a smartphone, but things could have been better.

2. Yeah, it has TV built in, but the interface is crap and really makes you NOT want to use it.

3. The web browser is crap. I tweet a lot as you can see in the sidebar, but the browser interface is terrible.

4. The touch screen is crap. Mistouches, annoying bumps to confirm input (although I can turn it off), very choppy scrolling. All things could have better execution.

5. Touch screen input is terrible. The on-screen keyboard, if you choose to use it, is very unnatural and takes so much getting used to that I’m just sticking to the hardware inputs.

6. Speaker position is awkward. I can’t put the speaker in my ear naturally and have to move the phone around so I can hear people on the other end of the phone.

7. Everything’s too quiet. Because it’s waterproof, everything is quiet. I can’t hear the ringer when it’s in my pocket. The vibration motor is weak. I can’t feel it vibrating when it’s in my pocket.

8. To take out the Micro SD card, you have to remove the battery pack. I can’t transfer files with Bluetooth, and that’s bad considering the number of photos I take with my cell phone. It makes you not want to deal with importing photos, which delays the enjoyment of photos, despite its nice camera.

9. One complaint about the camera: it’s very noisy even when the ISO is at 800. I won’t complain about the lack of optical zoom because most cell phone cameras don’t have optical zoom.

Conclusion

Don’t buy a 002SH (although I doubt if it’s still on sale as they already finished production when I bought this several months ago) because it’s not worth it. You could almost get two iPhones for the price of this one (90,000 Yen). Yes, I’m paying for it with my own money because I work, but I really regret getting this phone.