How the future is the past in better packaging

I know that people often say that people in the present live better than the royalty of the past. I've never felt that way, on good days and bad, through happy and sad.

We always expect the future to be better than the past. No matter at what time of life, and under whatever situation we always hope that we escape our crummy situation and everything will solve itself. The future is this wonderful place that can do things that even the best super heroes can't do. Heck, it can even travel through time (forward, that is). No matter how pessimistic, life is always leaning towards the bright side, even though it seems like we have more and more problems being added to our daily routines.

There's a problem with that. History has shown that the past repeats. After all, that's the number one reason why people say to study history to (ironically) stop repeating the past. Now, if the past repeats, then the future must behave just like the past. Here's were we hit a snag. We can't expect a better future knowing that our crummy pasts will just keep repeating.

Now some people will think that our lives don't completely repeat. There's are many things that were here now in the present that did not exist in the past (such as this amazing iPad app). That's correct. But this follows the pattern in history where people create new things. I'm not trying to talk about the new ever changing crap that people have, but rather how people act and organize themselves.

I have to ask you, disregard all of the meaningless material waste you have and think about how much your life has actually improved. Do you really think that your life has gotten better in the last 10 years? Think about the fun you had 10 years ago, the worries that you didn't have and the ideas that you thought would carry you into the future. The more information you have about how the world works, the more you realize how lost the world really is. It's been 2012 years (give or take) since Christ was born! Just like you, people two thousand years ago were hopeful too. They hoped for better futures, because it's really hard to change the past. It's pretty hard to say how much better your life will be when the past is so miserable. With enough time, even the most distant futures will eventually transform into the past, and then we can remember how miserable we were back then.

This brings up why people even bother to try if there is little evidence that it will do them any good. Because people have no choice. Like the people buying lottery tickets even though they know it won't do them any good over 99.9% of the time, there's always that .1%. Everyone, myself included, always focus on our own statistics. It doesn't matter if someone is one in a million because that someone might be you. More to the point, it doesn't matter if the average score is 75%, as long as you yourself get above 90%. Population statistics don't apply to the individual and even the smallest chance is one chance better than there was before.

None of us can beat this bitter reality and false sense of hope that the future will automatically bring us happiness. Life is a questionable animal, one with more questions than it has answers.

Joli OS

I've been using Joli OS for roughly a month now. Here's the meltdown of it's pros and cons:

PRO
Great simplicity. Easy to use and set up
Fast
Goes well with various cloud services, google drive, skydrive, whatever
desktop can be accessed from any browser

CON
Perhaps a bit too cloud oriented. The computer is essentially rendered useless you have an internet connection
I wish that local apps were a bit more emphasized.
The entire desktop is a browser page, kinda slow at times


Overall great desktop. It's really great for old laptops that can't handle new software and need a facelift. This OS seems to have various drivers already built in so you don't have to hunt for drivers. Overall great idea, but maybe it's a little bit ahead of its time.

Too Close

Internet Explorer: the browser to download another browser. (I'll talk about FTP another day so you guys will never have to open up IE ever again.)

The reality is that IE is the browser of choice for absolute idiots computer illiterate people. It's installed with Windows and nobody who wants to watch funny cat videos or checks their email  on a semi-yearly basis cares about using a better browser. But for the rest of us, IE has a special place in our hearts. Namely, the outside.



I love the song that goes with the commercial for IE. It reflects how we are so close to IE yet we never love it. IE is a bloated standard oblivious browser that killed off the browser Netscape and stripped away everything that came with it (I loved the blink tag, perfect for annoying even the most indifferent people) It was a web developer's nightmare. Many of the standards shared among other web browsers were plainly ignored and webpages needed two sets of code: one for the monster, and one for all the browsers that had consistent behavior.

Now that Microsoft has somehow decided that IE should become standard-lovingish and less-bloatingish, it's a bit too late. There are so many different browsers which people have already switched to.

Why tablets

No. Just no. I love using a desktop pc

Actually for most other people, tablets probably would be a pretty good idea. The only things that they would need from a computer is to surf the web and to read documents (notice how they don't write any documents, just read). And that's pretty good, but I don't know if it justifies the hype that people have been giving them.

Touchscreen computers have been around for a very long time. They even existed before there was Windows! Touch is a pain in the ass. You get the screen smudged. You might hit the wrong icon. The tap you may have made may not have registered. The swipe that you thought you made accidentally opened up something you might not wanted to show. They just don't provide the nice usage that you can get with a cheap laptop (yes, the laptops are cheaper) or a mobile phone (small enough to fit in your  pocket )

I personally find that interfaces for tablets should definitely be used for the general populace. These are people who need a design that is simple enough for a child to figure out because a lot of these people act like children. While I don't think that the touch screen itself is a necessary component, being able to easily open an app (btw, there were applications before tablets and smartphones), and share photos with the rest of your family will make almost all computer users happy.

Tablets: good for web browsing and document viewing. Don't expect to solve the meaning of life with it though.

Bringing life out of old computers

While I do like using the latest and greatest tech, sometimes it's better to use something older. Perhaps it's the keyboard that you can really type on or a touch pad that seems to rule above all else. (One of the most hated things that they do today are the island style keys on the more recent laptops. I much more enjoy the old thinkpad style keys. They are much better and faster to type on with so much greater accuracy.) Older laptops are also less likely to be stolen and you are much going to care much less you you accidentally drop it somewhere or lose it entirely. Plus, for simple web browsing, old computers are  still surprisingly effective.

The computer that I am typing this on is an old HP that I installed Linux on. More importantly, since I decided that this computer should be as cloud centric as possible was the decision to install a cloud based OS called Joli OS. It's wonderful HTML 5 design plus it's small overhead make this laptop (which has 2 GB of RAM, mind you) a joy to use.  I feel like taking this out with me to the library or a coffee shop, since I don't mind if I lose it or even it I crack the entire screen. That's what makes it so great

Another thing about old computers: optical drives. While I do think that there is no need for most people to use discs anymore, I still have a giant collection of discs that I use from time to time. But that will probably not be the case as I buy more flash drives to boot media off of.

We really shouldn't judge whether a computer is good or bad based on it's age. We should be judging it based on the usability of improving our everyday lives.

Food for the food

Did you know that the global food output is equivelent to over 3000 calories per person per day? Yeah, that's right. There is enough food that is currently available on the planet to cause a very chronic obesity.

The problem here is that there is too much waste. But imagine if we could cut down that waste. No longer would we need to find so many scientific breakthroughs in order to maintain the increasing population. No more need deal with world hunger. We could also use any surplus food for uses such as fuel and other things that we need to produce a productive society. There are so many possibilities, but the people in charge of such organizations are just too slow.

To address the waste issue, we must educate and spend lots of money in countries that do not have the farming capability that more advanced nations would have. Even though this may seem like money down the toilet, it's better to teach a person how to fish rather than to give him half a fish everyday. Plus, you would never have to deal with them again

The primary problem with this is finiancing, as mentioned before. One of the places that facilitates such deals is the world bank, but that implies that they must return the money. Let's just give it to them and make a deal that they will one day help us fight the problems that we now face as an entire population. Setting aside differences and working towards a common goal will allow us to figure out how to handle the future, helping people lead happier and easier lives.

My fake pressciption drug commercial

It's the ad transcript for my new drug called Cramming!

Ever feel that studying for many days for a big test just doesn't seem to work? Are you feeling that its really slow and that you have a tendency to forget what you were memorizing the week before?  Try Cramming, the only FZA-approved* drug for curing test forgetfulness. Cramming saves time, has better accuracy, and has no side effects on your long term memory. 89% of patients who take Cramming show immediate improvement on tests, and mango farming.

 Cramming is not for people with low self-esteem, or high blood pressure. Elderly patients should not take Cramming due to elevated risk of heart attack or stroke. Stop taking Cramming if you have vomiting or cramps in your lower abdomen. Some patients taking Cramming have reported severe pupil dilation after being awake for over 30 hours. This is a rare but serious side effect. Call your doctor immediately if you have any of these symptoms. Cramming is not for everyone.

Talk to your doctor about Cramming today.

*not approved to children under the age of 0
©1023 Yawn4 Pharmaceuticals

Side note: This is a joke. There is no drug called Cramming. If there is, it's probably not this one.