A Well Run Dry

There is nothing that makes fury more furious than impotence.

But really. Putting aside gender metaphor, is there nothing more that infuriates you than knowing that you are right, but not having the words to express your rightness?

I feel much like many have before me, an unwilling soldier in an unwanted war. But all I can do, as I fire my rifle at endless enemy after endless enemy, and stab at the unending necks and chests if of my foes with my bayonet, is continue.

I really do feel as though my options have run dry.

Has the well of my creativity run dry so soon? And if so, where to did it vanish?

Make It Happen?

I absolutely love electronics. Especially small electronics that are portable or pocketable. In fact, any pocketable piece of nifty technology generally makes me weak at the knees.

A huge part of what makes our species so powerful is our ability to harness technology. And the idea that I could take a small sliver of that power, be it in the form of a smartphone, e-reader, or multitool, and slip it into my pocket makes me uncommonly happy.

Marvelous. Totally marvelous.

My trusty old kobo e-reader's screen cracked recently. I liked using it for book reading over my iPad when my eyes got sore from glassily gazing into the LED screen and giving me headaches. The excellent battery life of a week (or even two) between charges was the result if its super low power e-ink display. The only thing I ever really disliked about it was that:

1. It wasn't backlit, making it impractical for nighttime/bus reading.

2. It didn't have a touch screen, which rendered it difficult to use for books with footnotes or picking particular chapters.

Therefore, when I was scouting the web for a replacement reader, I got unreasonably excited over the new 'kindle paperwhite' which has an in-built easy-on-the-eyeballs screen light and a capacitive touch screen.

For those that don't know, there are generally three types of touchscreens in modern devices.

1. Infrared.
This is generally considered to be the worst kind of touchscreen, it uses a series of cris-cross infrared lasers over the screen to tell where a finger or stylus is breaking the pattern, and responding to it. The disadvantages to this are that the screen has to be set in, making the device's thickness increase. It's also not that responsive. But it has a great power consumption rate, which made it popular in e-readers and mid nineties PDA's that ran on AA batteries. A pretty clever trick, considering the comparatively pitifully short battery life of most modern smartphones.

2. Resistive.
This is form of touchscreen works by having a slightly squishy screen that can tell where it's being poked. It has a whole lot of pressure sensitive dots underneath the screen, which will react to fingers, pencils, pens, anything. My girlfriend used to have a phone with this kind of screen, and she liked it because she could text with the ends of her long pretty fingernails. This sounds great in theory, but in practice it means the screen itself is often rather ugly as it can't be made of nice clear glass, but some kind of plastic. But it worked well enough that it was the screen used in many old android phones, and loads of PDA's. Great with 'digital drawing' devices that some artists use.

3. Capacitive.
This is the kind of screen iPhones, Samsung Galaxy's, iPads, and android tabs. A very responsive, attractive glass screen, it functions by running an electric current through the glass itself. Our bodies constantly have a slight bit if electricity in them, and our fingers, when they touch the screen, zingle through it letting the device know where they're touching. It also works with electrosensitive rubber/foam, which is what the ends of iPad styli are made. Nine out of ten touchscreens are this type.

So here's what I want to make.

A touchscreen e-ink mini laptop just for writing. Super long battery life and only basic documents, email and browsing capabilities. Plaster the outside and inside with solar panels. Voila. Perfect travel companion for the writer, student who needs a reliable machine for note taking, or anyone who wants to be able to email their family back home when traveling overseas. Frequently when traveling charging devices is tricky, as you can't always get power adapters to fit foreign ports. So long as you have light, this thing will charge. Fit it with free 3G like in many kindles, and it's still low power enough for great use of the solar panels. Who needs a colour screen if all you're going to do is write on it? All flash storage, it's essentially a kindle paperwhite with a keyboard attached.

Anywho, we have the technology to make all this happen. We just need to apply it.

I love the modern age.

Folks

People may rape each other, and fuck the earth with oil spills, be racist, hate truth, love lies, kill things for no reason, and generally engage in acts of savagery and barbarism, but when you meet them, get to know their lovers, have a drink or two, find out what they fear and desire and are desperate not to be, you can't help but like them.

That's how I feel anyway.

The need to feel

Is it this bitter wind,
That blows in from the south,
That strips our skin and flesh,
Eats our hearts, livers, lungs
Or is it only sensation?

Do worms feast upon us, as we writhe?
Or is it just us, pretending we feel them?
Is there truth to pain,
Or do we make our own?

Is it joy that brings sunshine to us?
Or does the sun rise first?
And if the sun rises first,
Why feel joy at all?

Is it loneliness that shakes us?
Or is just that we need people to work?
And if we aren't really lonely,
Why do we shake?

Do we lust because we like to?
Or do we lust because not to means death?
Are we driven by desire?
or are we driven by species wide desire for preservation?

Are we greatest of apes,
Gods of our world?
Or are we wooden puppets, dancing on string?

Invest In Science

"Sarah Palin has repeatedly stated that she wishes to see creationism taught in our schools. I believe that every Christian (and indeed every American) should be opposed to this. What science has taught us does not invalidate religious faith, and to those evangelical Christians who believe otherwise, I would respectfully say that you are placing too much faith in the power of science. Not that science isn’t powerful: We now know, thanks to rational thought and the testing of hypotheses, that evolution was the driving force behind the breathtaking diversity of life in the world. And we know that the earth has existed far longer than we have. Science has given so much to the experience of being a creature on this planet. But it does not render our spiritual lives irrelevant.

The anti-intellecutalism that has become the hallmark of religious conservatism in contemporary Christianity (and many other religions) will only set us back–not only economically and politically but also spiritually. We must invest in science; we must teach our children the scientific method; we must share with them the myriad discoveries that the scientific method has brought us. And we must do all of these things in classrooms that are in the business of teaching children how to learn, and not in the business of teaching that faith in God is incompatible with the intellectual rigor and creative innovation that have been the glory of our nation’s past. Christianity loses in that bargain, and so, too, does America."

- John Green

The King in the North

Not long, not long my father said
Not long shall you be ours
The Raven King knows all too well
Which are the fairest flowers

The priest was all too worldly
Though he prayed and rang his bell
The Raven King three candles lit
The priest said it was well

Her arms were all too feeble
Though she claimed to love me so
The Raven King stretched out his hand
She sighed and let me go

This land is all too shallow
It is painted on the sky
And trembles like the wind-shook rain
When the Raven King goes by

For always and for always
I pray remember me
Upon the moors, beneath the stars
With the King's wild company

- Song of the King in the North

Armpit Hair

So it's been raised times over the last couple of days among my friends. Seems to be a hot topic among us for some reason.

Apparently (stress on the apparently) some women are choosing not to shave some of their hair off their bodies. Such as legs and armpits.

I'm going to say it once,

I straight do not give a shit. I'd be a pretty crappy libertarian if I wanted to make women shave themselves. But personally, I feel a lot of women do feel more confident if they get rid of 'unsightly' body hair, put on make up, and all that flim-flam.

When I want to feel confident, I put on a fitted suit jacket. Maybe it's the same thing. If it is, go for it. If you don't want to, don't.