Weekend Thoughts - 6.10.17

Image by Ed Schipul, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. Although gardening can be a rewarding experience, identifying and pulling weeds is not always fun. That's why the creators of the Roomba are hard at work developing the Tertill, a robot that automatically weeds your garden for you. After placing protective collars around your plants, the solar-powered device will use sensors to identify small weeds and chop them down. The company, Franklin Robotics, will be launching a Kickstarter on June 13th to raise funds for this project.

2. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to settle a digital rights privacy case that will determine whether police will be required to obtain a warrant to get access to your cellphone location data, which is archived by wireless carriers. This will be an interesting case to follow, as it will decide once and for all whether a police officer can request access to private details of our lives without a warrant.

3. Dubbed "Subway Libraries", the New York Public Library has outfitted 10 MTA subway cars with downloadable ebooks that will be available to riders for free during the next six weeks. I'm all for encouraging reading, and if I was a New Yorker I would be all over this!

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

Weekend Thoughts - 10.15.16

Image by bernissimo, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. Although for many years I strongly preferred physical books to eBook, as a recent Kindle adopter, I've really been enjoying the experience of reading eBooks. New data has come out showing that eBooks will most likely surpass print books in the U.S. over the next couple of years. In fact, while the print industry is currently worth $4.3 million more than the eBook industry, by 2018 the eBook industry is expected to be worth $800,000 more than the print industry. I've been voting in favor of print books in an annually-conducted poll asking whether readers will ever buy mostly eBooks for the past few years, but this will be the first year that I vote in favor of eBooks. Judging by the general trend, it looks like I may not be alone.

2. This article about how police surveillance is being used to target activists starts with a terrifying quote: "It goes without saying that speaking out against police violence or government overreach shouldn’t land you in a surveillance database. But it can, and it does." It turns out that police departments are using a social media surveillance tool named MediaSonar to identify people who are posting hash tags such as #BlackLivesMatter, #DontShoot, #ImUnarmed, #PoliceBrutality, and #ItsTimeForChange. Even more frightening, it seems that there have been no reports of public notice, debate, community input, lawmaker vote, or publicly-presented policies from the police on how they plan to use this technology. The dynamic that makes law enforcement's utilization of social media surveillance tools extremely ironic is that some nonviolent protesters are being labelled as potential threats and receiving violent treatment in response to advocating for peace.

3. When Playboy asked Stanley Kubrick about why life is worth living during a 1968 interview, the interviewer probably wasn't expecting this introspective off-the-cuff existential response regarding the meaninglessness of human life. The primary nut of Kubrick's answer is that since life is meaningless, we are possessed with the privilege and responsibility of creating our own meaning. I especially appreciate this quote that caps off his answer: "The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light."

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

Weekend Thoughts - 1.2.16

Image by Wayne S. Grazio, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. The Washington Post published an article about how used bookstores are making a comeback across the country, despite fierce competition from websites like Amazon. There are several factors that come into play here. Many book lovers enjoy browsing a physical store and serendipitously finding the perfect match for them, rather than shopping for books online. The profit margins on used books are better than new ones. And even the latest generation of kids born directly into the digital age has found reading books printed on paper to be preferable to reading them on a screen. All around, this is great news for print books, which are one of my favorite physical media (and pretty much the only one I collect any longer). Go visit a used bookstore today and be sure to support your local shops!

2. One of my favorite food documentaries, Food Inc., was recommended in an article on High Existence. The film covers various aspects of the overall food industry, including the inhumane treatment of animals, the economic and environmental repercussions of our current industrial production model that is used to grow vegetables and grains, and how the industry's economic and legal forces actually encourage an unhealthy diet. I would definitely give the film a strong recommendation—check it out if you are able!

3. It turns out that the NSA is not only surveilling American citizens, it has also been spying on members of Congress and Jewish American groups, according to an article published by The Wall Street Journal. To make matters worse, the security administration blatantly lied to Congress when directly asked about this accusation in 2014 by current presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

Weekend Thoughts - 11.7.15

Image by Akban Martial Arts Academy, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. The United States Presidential Election season is upon us, and I have been inundating myself with political coverage to remain somewhat-aware of what is going on. I've always taken issue with the way most of the people I know view the political system—as a choice between two opposing parties. In reality, the "differences" that the Democrats and Republicans try to present are clearly designed to distract us from the truth that they are essentially two similar-yet-different flavors of the same giant turd. I have often chosen to vote third-party, to the chagrin of my friends and family who insist that voting for a third-party candidate is a "waste of a vote". I definitely don't agree with this sentiment, and was encouraged to see an article this week describing how the Internet has made it possible for third-party candidates (and political "outsiders" in general) to get noticed and gain traction in a political race. More so than ever before, it is possible for third-party candidates to have a real chance of entering the political scene and make an actual difference, and I applaud that wholeheartedly. Perhaps the Internet will even bring an end to the (vastly) two-party system that we currently live under.

2. This company started its reign in the publishing industry by putting mom and pop shops out of business via its massively successful online store, and now Amazon has opened its first physical bookstore in Seattle, Washington. The thing that is really intriguing to me (in addition to the fact that Kindles and Amazon tablets will be featured alongside the books and there will be a level of curation that traditional bookstores can't match because of Amazon's enormous ratings database) is that the books on the main shelves will be front-facing. Only the "overstock" books in the highest level of the shelves will have books featured spine-out. It strikes me as reminiscent of the user interface of an app store. We'll have to see how the stores fare, but I'd definitely be interested in checking one out if I ever get the chance.

3. I am by no means a philosophy buff, but I did enjoy this collection of 18 rare Friedrich Nietzsche quotes to make you question everything on High Existence.

4. One of my favorite beers from before my days as a vegetarian, the Irish beer Guinness is going to stop using a fish organ byproduct in the brewing process. For decades, the company has been using isinglass, a collagen harvested from fish swim bladders to filter impurities out of the brew. Apparently there was enough pressure from vegetarians and vegans that the company has decided to introduce a new filtering process sometime in 2016. This change shouldn't affect the flavor whatsoever, as isinglass is only used to filter the beer rather than flavor it. Personally, I can't wait to have another Guinness next year!

5. This article on the dark side of clean eating explores the concept of taking "healthy eating" too far. Excessive healthy eating and a strong desire to maintain a low body weight is classified as orthorexia nervosa and is considered by many to be an eating disorder. This can be a serious disorder and some victims have died from malnutrition. The article also discusses the Blonde Vegan, who turned her back on veganism after experiencing malnutrition and obtaining an worrisomely-low body weight. Sadly, she received a lot of criticism from the vegan community, including death threats from former fans who believed that she was betraying the lifestyle. The article goes on to discuss the effect that social media (where many people attempt to portray themselves in a positive-yet-distorted light) has on eating disorders. My two cents: I believe that it is possible for someone to become unhealthily obsessive/compulsive about eating habits, but that shouldn't stop someone who wants to become healthy from implementing positive changes in their diet, even if they contradict mainstream dietary opinions. I am saddened—but not surprised—to hear that the Blonde Vegan experienced a violent and negative reaction from her former vegan fans. Vegans have a tendency to come across as holier-than-thou and are not easy to let someone leave the community, but I believe that people should do what they feel is best for them with regard to their diet. And I also agree that social media presents a difficult (and sometimes unrealistic or even unhealthy) body frame for people (especially young girls) to try to imitate.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

Weekend Thoughts - 9.26.15

Image by Ron Shoshani, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. This may be a long shot, but the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead coincides with the NFL's 50th Super Bowl, and a petition has been created asking for the band to play the halftime event. Please consider signing to show your support for the band!

2. An argument that Western universities do not adequately cover Chinese (and other non-Western) philosophers in their philosophy programs. I'm of the opinion that the issue extends outside of universities and into the realm of everyday life. The average person I run across is not well-versed in schools of thought external to the Western tradition, and ought to peruse some of the highly-influential and important works penned by Eastern philosophers.

3. Musicians (and advertisers, I suppose), rejoice! At last, the "Happy Birthday" song is finally in the public domain. In one of the most stunning reversals of copyright claims, presiding Judge George H. King ruled that the original copyright filing only pertained to specific arrangements of the music, not the actual song. "Because Sunny Co. never acquired the rights to the Happy Birthday lyrics," he wrote, "Defendants, as Sunny Co.'s purported successors-in-interest, do not own a valid copyright in the Happy Birthday lyrics."

4. E-book sales have taken a dip, leading many to believe that print is far from dead. As someone who much prefers to read books on paper rather than digitally, I breathed a sigh of relief after reading this article. Although I consume large amounts of digital content, I firmly believe that long-form books are best read on paper, with the ability to notate by hand if desired. I have gotten rid of many other forms of physical media—CDs, DVDs, magazines, etc.—but I don't plan to get rid of my print book collection anytime soon, if ever.

5. A Michigan man died in jail after 17 days of disregard and lack of care from the officers on staff. He was brought to jail for a 30-day sentence after neglecting to pay a traffic ticket, and was forced to suffer in a brightly lit cell. Although he was a drug addict, he was misdiagnosed as mentally unstable and his withdrawal symptoms were not addressed. He was denied clothing, lost 50 pounds, and suffered convulsions and hallucinations from his lack of treatment. The entire experience was caught on jail surveillance footage, and he was supposed to be under self-harm watch. Either the jail officials weren't watching him or they simply didn't care. His family is suing the county, but a lawyer for the county said that the suit "lacks legal merit". This is both an example of the broken "justice" system and pure evil.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.