The visceral reality that Steve Jobs evokes in his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University might be recognized by those who have had near death experiences or been diagnosed with terminal illness. It is exactly those stark, utterly naked moments of impending demise in which one is truly awakened to the wonder of life and the infinite possibilities that lie before every one.
So many times it is easy to become muddled in the everyday worries and continual bombardment of media but underneath there is some deeper realm of understanding and connectedness. There have been countless references to this phenomenon in popular culture over the years but so many times the true nature of the experience becomes clouded by gross misrepresentations and the preconceived notions of the interpreter. The impression of the near death, or psychedelic, or mystical, experience or whatever term one uses to describe that fleeting frame of mind, is clearly visible in the stories Jobs chose to tell at the Stanford ceremony.
Steve Jobs brings us as close as he can to understanding the impermanence of life and the primal desire to fulfill one's greatest potential. At the perceived end of life, each person asks how he will be remembered. Jobs likely first posed that question to himself in a serious manner after his first psychedelic experience. He answered the question with a life dedicated to his visions in which he never lost faith. In the depths of the psychedelic experience it is possible to see through limitless frames of mind and what Steve Jobs saw, he brought to us as best he could.
It is the hope that one day the mystical experience will not be perceived as witchcraft for degenerates, and punished so brutally, but rather an essential part of the human experience. Alas. If Steve Jobs can drop acid and be a productive individual, why can no one else?
Friday, October 7, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
iPhone 5 or the iPhone 4S, does it matter with the A5?
The iPhone 5 will not be coming out in September as earlier reported by Reuters. This, according to Peter Misek, an analyst for the Jefferies Group. However, if you were counting on the new iPhone as your next phone purchase, you are in luck. The new iPhone 4S will indeed have the A5 processor--the very one currently found in the iPad 2.
It has been said that a group of developers have been given access to prototypes of the next-generation iPhone. The units seem to be typical iPhone 4 models retrofitted with a version of the aforementioned A5 processor. The developers will likely be optimizing apps to better take advantage of the enhanced capability of the new hardware.
The new iPhone 4S, if that is its real name, will likely come with more than just a faster processor. Better 8 megapixel cameras and HSPA+ support are also likely to enhance the experience, although not as much as expected. Unfortunately, the anticipated 4G chips will not be ready for some time.
The iPhone's movement away from wireless carrier monogamy will continue its course as Sprint, T-Mobile and China Mobile join the two carriers that are currently supported, AT&T and Verizon.
Attributions: businessinsider.com
It has been said that a group of developers have been given access to prototypes of the next-generation iPhone. The units seem to be typical iPhone 4 models retrofitted with a version of the aforementioned A5 processor. The developers will likely be optimizing apps to better take advantage of the enhanced capability of the new hardware.
The new iPhone 4S, if that is its real name, will likely come with more than just a faster processor. Better 8 megapixel cameras and HSPA+ support are also likely to enhance the experience, although not as much as expected. Unfortunately, the anticipated 4G chips will not be ready for some time.
The iPhone's movement away from wireless carrier monogamy will continue its course as Sprint, T-Mobile and China Mobile join the two carriers that are currently supported, AT&T and Verizon.
Attributions: businessinsider.com
Friday, May 13, 2011
Conservative red herrings, Ron Paul and the New Politcal Paradigm
Most people who paid any attention to the 2008 Republican primary race remember Ron Paul. He was, and is, against the free reign of the Federal Reserve in the American economy. He decries the brute force "diplomacy" that the United States has exhibited for decades. He is against what has been called the war on drugs. Ron Paul is often seen as the bastion of true conservatism against the Empire of the United States and its debt-ridden, over-reaching ways.
Ron Paul is not a part of the faux divide that permeates modern American politics. He is one figure of the paradigm shift that has yet to be fully realized--the shift from the dominant function of dysfunction that defines politics today. That dysfunction distracts policymakers from not only finding real solutions to America's most dreadful ailments, such as extreme budgetary shortfalls, but from the ability to even discern between real problems and the contrived misnomers. Those distractions, such as the "deficit hawks'" targeting of the most trivial aspects of the federal budget, often detract from real progress in addressing the nation's woes. The proposed defunding of public radio and television, namely the Corporation for Public Broadcast, and Planned Parenthood are so obviously motivated by a desire crush what is seen by some as a leftist agenda.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is the not-for-profit entity that distributes funds directly to your local public radio and television stations. Those stations, in turn, produce original content as well as purchase the rights to air certain programming. There is nothing insidious or deceptive about this process but there are those who feel that informing the public without divisiveness and for-profit interest is not a worthy cause. The 2011 federal appropriation to CPB was $430 million.
Planned Parenthood is another target of those self-proclaimed, but outwardly lacking, conservatives who would rather mislead the public to believe that the organization is an abortion factory than admit that they actually help women and families. Only about 3% of Planned Parenthood's actual services are abortions. The rest consist of mammograms, vaccinations, screenings for cervical cancer and distribution of free contraceptives. The approximately $75 million for the funding of Planned Parenthood is but only a fraction of Title X, the greater allocation to family planning which is about $317 million annually. One would think, in a nation facing such tight budgetary constraints, that taking the funding from organizations that offer free contraception would be counter-productive.
These social matters are inconsequential when it comes to America's greater fiscal outlook. While those honest conservatives like Ron Paul might not agree with the funding of many institutions such as CPB and Planned Parenthood, he is also not afraid to question the true nature of America's debt.
The annual cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars are about $200 billion annually, which is only a small part of the approximate $1.4 trillion that is spent on defense each year. While America undoubtedly needs to have an active military, its practice of occupying foreign nations is not only costly in terms of dollars and lives spent, but it also tends to incite further anger towards the US. In many ways, such military operations contribute more to anti-American sentiment than they could ever reduce in aspiring terrorism.
Yet another aspect of the budget that is not questioned by most of the so-called conservatives serving in Congress today, or in the recent past, is the funding for what has been called the war on drugs. A more apt description of federally-sanctioned prohibition goes something like this: a borderline unconstitutional, intrinsically inhumane, and downright draconian attack on the personal freedoms of not only US citizens, but the citizens of all countries. In 2011, the US will likely spend approximately $23.5 billion to enforce cruel and outdated federal drug control policies. That money will go to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to catch, prosecute, convict and cage drug offenders. A significant portion of these drug cases turn out to be low-level cannabis offenses. This scenario, coupled with the fundamental question of whether federal agents should have a say in what American's consume, would seem like a natural place for conservative policymakers to promulgate ideas of personal freedom and fiscal constraint.
Alas, Ron Paul seems to be the only one with the guts to question such long-standing norms in American politics. Those who claim to be fiscally conservative yet back some of the most outrageously expensive, in dollars and opportunity cost, policies in history will eventually have to answer the voting population. Let's hope they look for sincerity instead of pandering to those more divisive social issues.
Ron Paul is not a part of the faux divide that permeates modern American politics. He is one figure of the paradigm shift that has yet to be fully realized--the shift from the dominant function of dysfunction that defines politics today. That dysfunction distracts policymakers from not only finding real solutions to America's most dreadful ailments, such as extreme budgetary shortfalls, but from the ability to even discern between real problems and the contrived misnomers. Those distractions, such as the "deficit hawks'" targeting of the most trivial aspects of the federal budget, often detract from real progress in addressing the nation's woes. The proposed defunding of public radio and television, namely the Corporation for Public Broadcast, and Planned Parenthood are so obviously motivated by a desire crush what is seen by some as a leftist agenda.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is the not-for-profit entity that distributes funds directly to your local public radio and television stations. Those stations, in turn, produce original content as well as purchase the rights to air certain programming. There is nothing insidious or deceptive about this process but there are those who feel that informing the public without divisiveness and for-profit interest is not a worthy cause. The 2011 federal appropriation to CPB was $430 million.
Planned Parenthood is another target of those self-proclaimed, but outwardly lacking, conservatives who would rather mislead the public to believe that the organization is an abortion factory than admit that they actually help women and families. Only about 3% of Planned Parenthood's actual services are abortions. The rest consist of mammograms, vaccinations, screenings for cervical cancer and distribution of free contraceptives. The approximately $75 million for the funding of Planned Parenthood is but only a fraction of Title X, the greater allocation to family planning which is about $317 million annually. One would think, in a nation facing such tight budgetary constraints, that taking the funding from organizations that offer free contraception would be counter-productive.
These social matters are inconsequential when it comes to America's greater fiscal outlook. While those honest conservatives like Ron Paul might not agree with the funding of many institutions such as CPB and Planned Parenthood, he is also not afraid to question the true nature of America's debt.
The annual cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars are about $200 billion annually, which is only a small part of the approximate $1.4 trillion that is spent on defense each year. While America undoubtedly needs to have an active military, its practice of occupying foreign nations is not only costly in terms of dollars and lives spent, but it also tends to incite further anger towards the US. In many ways, such military operations contribute more to anti-American sentiment than they could ever reduce in aspiring terrorism.
Yet another aspect of the budget that is not questioned by most of the so-called conservatives serving in Congress today, or in the recent past, is the funding for what has been called the war on drugs. A more apt description of federally-sanctioned prohibition goes something like this: a borderline unconstitutional, intrinsically inhumane, and downright draconian attack on the personal freedoms of not only US citizens, but the citizens of all countries. In 2011, the US will likely spend approximately $23.5 billion to enforce cruel and outdated federal drug control policies. That money will go to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to catch, prosecute, convict and cage drug offenders. A significant portion of these drug cases turn out to be low-level cannabis offenses. This scenario, coupled with the fundamental question of whether federal agents should have a say in what American's consume, would seem like a natural place for conservative policymakers to promulgate ideas of personal freedom and fiscal constraint.
Alas, Ron Paul seems to be the only one with the guts to question such long-standing norms in American politics. Those who claim to be fiscally conservative yet back some of the most outrageously expensive, in dollars and opportunity cost, policies in history will eventually have to answer the voting population. Let's hope they look for sincerity instead of pandering to those more divisive social issues.
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