May 09 2012
10 Comments
Culture, Government, Life

From My Perspective, Homosexuality

In light of the events that occurred this week, one would imagine that this post would be somewhat relevant.  Or, at least, that was my original goal.  Honestly, though, I couldn’t care less about North Carolina’s decision or Obama’s view.  The commotion surrounding those two events is absurd.  Homosexuality isn’t something I genuinely care about, but, @AppleSpectator, via Twitter, asked me for my opinion on the subject.  Naturally, on a subject like this, I wasn’t able to adequately characterize my views in 140 characters.  Plus, this way is, in some ways, more permanent.

First, as a Christian, I have been led to believe that homosexuality is immoral.  Looking into the subject myself, I found numerous verses that, to me, appear to be banning homosexuality.  For example, Leviticus 18:22 - “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination”   Now, one can definitely argue that verses can be interpreted differently.  And, I agree.  Don’t take my word for it; here’s a list of suggested bible verses – List.  Any verse is subject to error in translation, and, also, every verse is also very likely to be interpreted differently by different people.  People argue that since homosexuality is not outlawed in the Ten Commandments, it isn’t a sin.  I’m open to hearing people’s arguments on this, though, after the New Testament, the Ten Commandments are not directly required.

But, one may argue that the whole nation should not be placed under the moral code of a single religion.  And, naturally, I agree.  The First Amendment of The U.S. Constitution is the Freedom of Religion.  Basically, this allows any religion to be practiced, so long as it doesn’t interfere with the freedom of other individuals.

Not legalizing same-sex marriage should be a decision made independent of any religion.  The beliefs of a religion should not restrict those who do not affiliate themselves with a religion, or, those who’s religion does not outlaw homosexual marriage.  Hopefully, states make this decision based on other factors.  And, I believe that they do, sometimes.

Though we live in a free country, I believe that some people, in government, still make choices that are, basically, selfish.

But, allowing homosexual marriages would pose some difficult questions that would need to be ironed out.  For example, how would it affect adoption?  As of now, only a few states permit same-sex couples to adopt a child.  And, often, it’s done in a case by case basis, inherently denying same-sex couples from adoption.  Scientifically, it has been proven that a child does not develop the same way with two parents of the same gender as he or she does with a parent from each gender.  Whether this should be considered or not, children are the next generation, and, likewise, are our future.  Placing our future in a home where they lack attention needed from the mother they don’t have (or father) might not be the best elicit.  Again, on this point, I’m open to discussion.

On a personal level, I find homosexuality repulsive.  I don’t like it.  But, at the same time, I respect the views and beliefs of other people.  If a man loves another man, I’m not one to judge.  In the long run, I do think we, as a country, should respect the views of others, as long as they don’t intrude on the beliefs of others.  I do not really believe that homosexuality or same-sex marriage trample on my views as a person, or, my views as a Christian, but, for some people, it may.  I’d be interested to see what y’all have to say.  I encourage your judgement.

 

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Apr 22 2012
6 Comments
Life

The Great Chasm

Growing up in a complete, upper-middle-class home certainly has it’s benefits.  All of my needs were almost always met.  I pretty much got anything and everything that I ever desired.  But, I’m not writing a post to brag about how good my life has been.

With parents who kept me entirely sheltered for half of my life, I was not shown any of the horrors of this world.  I knew of them.  I heard stories.  But, everything I had ever heard was distant.  I was never told that the stories and what I essentially believed to be rumors would – someday – intrude into my world.  My life.

Believing that the majority of this world was in a condition similar to life of my family was a mistake.  It was a mistake that I made, and, also, a mistake that I fear all of my siblings are living.

Naturally, in a situation like mine, the real world comes at one rather speedily.  As a young kid, I was still in my own world.  I lived in the small circles of people that had similar lives and mindsets as my parents did.  Not knowing any better, I assumed that the majority of America was, indeed, quite similar to this.  But, like classic parents who shelter their children, the people, groups, and schools that I was allowed to associate myself with were, essentially, handpicked by my parents.

I lived in a world without crime.  As a parent, this would be the most optimal setting to raise a child in.  (Or, in my parents’ case, 7 children.)  And, honestly, I’ll probably end up sheltering my children extremely.

Drugs, again, for example, were something that I believed only existed in distant worlds.  I thought they were things that only terrible people do to harm themselves.  I thought murder was only done in third world counties.  I believed that only the people who die from drug overdose get drunk.  And, of course, I believed that everyone who used some sort of illegal drug died of an overdose.

Being sheltered for my childhood was, at times, a good thing.  I won’t deny that.  But, for me, it created an extremely unrealistic gap between the fictional world created by my parents, and, the real world that I would have to live in.

And then the real world hit me.  I didn’t know how to react.  I did what I had always done best.

I took the defensive.

For some, that would explain part of the way that I am now.  I’m not blaming my parents for the nutcase that I’ve become, but, being extremely sheltered clearly contributed the way I am.

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Apr 03 2012
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Government

Correcting the Correctional System

The justice system in America is terrible.

The death penalty, a form of capital punishment, has been used by most nations and societies throughout the entire history of the world. Even as far back as biblical times, people were being punished for crimes.  Today, only 58 nations still actively practice forms of capital punishment.  Many nations directly oppose any form of capital punishment.  I, in most cases do oppose it, but not for the same reasons.

The first problem with the death penalty is the process.  If one is to be executed, I believe that it should be done as quickly and fluidly as possible.  Due to the extremely liberal human rights groups, it can take years and years for the day when you’d be executed to come.  In some cases, from the day that you’re given the death sentence to the time where you’re actually executed, it can take four years.  Four years is without any problems in the paperwork, system, or equipment.  A single mistake in any of the previous entities can add as much as a year to the execution date.

One can argue that a length of time is needed to ensure that the correct person gets their life taken away, but, in the many years where the person is sitting in confinement waiting for execution, the court isn’t making sure they have the right person. And, even if they did do all in their power to ensure the accuracy of the sentence, it wouldn’t take that much time.

The death penalty lends itself to the same problems that large prison sentences have; in most cases, the convicted people can be of use in the community.  In prison, they sit around, stab people of other races, and do all types of unsavory things. While, they could be doing something to help the community out.  We are paying for their stay in prison; it only makes sense for them to actually do some work.  Sure, in prison now, there are the few spots where a handful of convicted people are able to work.  The point is that the working positions are of the minority.  This makes sense in the current justice system because it isn’t set up for large numbers of potentially dangerous people to have any amount of freedom.

It’s scientifically proven that hard labor forces the anger and hatred from people.  Making children work outside is often used to calm children.  I remember, when I would get angry as a child, mom would make me go ride ten laps around the neighborhood.  Starting off, I was angry.  I would think about how everyone had wronged me and I would essentially ruminate on everything that made me heated.  By the end, though, I was happy.  I couldn’t even hide or contain it.  All of the anger was gone.

In most cases, hard labor would be ideal for people in prison and people who would be on death row.

The prison system sucks anyway; at least half of the people that make it out of prison continue to break the law.  According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, at least half of them end up in prison again.  For most of the crimes, there is a 70% repetition rate.  Redesigning the prison system to be a labor system would possibly take many more guards/CO’s, but, in the end, it would actually correct a much greater number of people.  The people that came out would actually be different people.  They would be able to raise a family, they would have a skill to set them on their feet.  They would know how to work.

For example, if a prison system was set up as a car factory.  Sure, they eat and sleep in a regular prison facility, but, during the day, they actually make something useful.  The cars would be sold and could cover at least part of the cost that the prisoner charges the American people through tax dollars.  One might make the argument that the people in the new system would have a greater opportunity to do harm.  I would recommend that the CO’s and prison guards be upstanding citizens.  At this moment, they are bribed, they abuse inmates, and they turn their backs on crimes.  If you look at the statistical average of prison guards, one would see that nearly 90% of them are Police Academy dropouts.  People who drop out of the Police Academy are, for lack of a better term, dumb.

If smarter people were hired, you would avoid the idiotic moves that they take.  The guards need to be upstanding citizens. As of now, most of them are cons themselves.  Though a rapper, a good example of this point would be Rick Ross.  He was a CO that quit and has been arrested on multiple illegal drug and firearm charges.  Also, he raps about all of the above.  He is a good rapper though.  The CO’s of today are as bad as the people who are in the prison for crimes.

In some cases, there are psychopaths that actually are not able to stop killing.  No amount of work or help can change who they are.  These people actually may need to be put to death, or, stuck in a jail cell to rot.  (See T-Bag)  I’m only making this argument for the general populace of prison.

To actually make the correctional system work, there are many steps that need to be taken.  The most important is the correctional officers and guards.  There needs to be more of them, and, there needs to be constant checks in place to prevent the abuse of power.  Prison guards and CO’s have always been scraped from the bottom of the pot.  This should no longer happen.  Secondly, there needs to be some sort of universal correctional system in place, such as hard physical labor.  It works with children and it works with adults.  Thirdly, there needs to be a way for the inmates to earn their stay, or earn money for when they finish serving their time.  Sure, we as Americans use our tax dollars to keep the dangerous ones off the street.  I’m cool with that, but a lot of that money we pay just…disappears.  Fourthly, there should be an actual reward system in place.  The people in prison should actually be allowed to cherish and enjoy a day of the week where they can rest.  It gives them hope.  Fifth and lastly, they should be treated like people.  Most of them are.

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Mar 23 2012
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Movies

A “The Hunger Games” Review

 

As a general rule, the book will be better than the movie.  This is often the case due to a large number of deciding factors per book.  Generally, in the book, one has a picture of the events/setting/characters that exist in the book.  While reading, a mental picture is created.  In my opinion, this movie was certainly less of an enjoyable piece of art than the literature was, to me.

I was extremely hyped about The Hunger Games.  One could say that I had set my expectations much too high for my own good. I often go into a movie with my expectations set unrealistically.  Sometimes they’re much too high, but, sometimes they’re much too low.  The latest Sherlock Holmes was a movie I had entered into with less than optimistic expectations.  That movie turned out to be my top movie of 2011.

The theater I was privileged to be able to view the movie in had a technical error in the first room, so we had to move.  We had to move to a room that’s movie had already started, causing me/us to miss the first handful of minutes.  This wasn’t an entirely tremendous ordeal, but it most likely did contribute to my experience.  I was also cramped throughout the entire movie.  A small point, but, any variables should be placed into consideration, I guess.

The actual movie was excellent.

The first thing that one will notice is the exquisite camera-play.  Every scene was shot excellently.  If I were to film and direct a movie, this movie would be it.  All the angles were done strikingly.  They didn’t reveal too much or too little.  Any good film shows you enough of what one wants to see to where you want to see more.  It leaves the viewer watching very attentively.  In Katniss’s district, District 12, the shots of the reaping were so perfect.  You get shots of the soldier’s legs as they walk by.  Blurry shots of Katniss or Prim from behind the crowd were common, too.

In the arena, the camera was also done skillfully.  Naturally, in the arena, there’d be cameras in every other tree, making it easy for the games to be watched.  But, in the forest, the camera was 1st person, but of a different, irrelevant character.  Sometimes the scene is viewed from Katniss’s perspective.  The action scenes were shaky.  In order to keep the movie at a PG-13 MPAA rating, I assume they had to keep out the graphic-ness of the violence.  The Hunger Games are a serious matter.  In the books, not many punches are pulled.

I would recommend seeing the movie just to see the excellent camera-play.

Well cast, it was.  Nearly all the actors were excellent.  I love Jennifer Lawrence.  She’s an amazing actor.  I do not think that she fits Katniss Everdeen at all.  Katniss was from – what I believe to be – the poorest district, District 12.  Though, Jennifer didn’t look like she had been underfed at any point in her life.  Not by any means am I saying that’s she’s overweight, in general.  For the role she had to play, I don’t the she was underfed enough.  She looked like she’d never missed a meal.  Maybe, in order to make the Katniss character more likable to the general audience, they had to value the attractiveness of Jennifer over a true-to-the-book other actor.  I won’t go into detail, but Rue, Amandla Stenberg was the same way.  She was supposed to be even thinner than Katniss was.  By an age/size ratio, she was. Other than that, though, Amandla was excellently fed.

Possibly the most amazing actor was the man who played Caesar Flickerman, Stanley Tucci.  He was astounding.  Though he had a minor role, he was still an excellent actor.  Peeta was better than average.  Cato also played the part very well.  In general, it was very well cast.

In terms of sticking to the book, the movie did excellently.  I haven’t seen a movie that was more true to the book in ages.  This movie rivals the Harry Potter series.  If there was an event that mattered, it was in the movie.  As a trade-off, they cut out some of the much less important scenes.  There was an interesting way of cutting them, though.  Instead of just plain leavening them out, they’d be started, and then forgotten about.  For example, Peeta would ask Katniss a question, Katniss would turn to answer, and then the scene would change.  I assume that most people would know what comes next, making it even more wonderful.  Leaving the human mind to fill in the blanks is a magnificent tactic.  It makes the movie much more memorable.

The one thing that makes the movie less enjoyable than the book, for me, is the lack of emotion.  In the book, one had all of Katniss’s thoughts.  Also, in the book, the thoughts are all taken for granted. In the movie, without the thoughts, it’s surprisingly dull.  Not the action being dull, but, the emotions.  Surprisingly, that was half of the book right there.  Her thoughts and opinions couldn’t be so easily portrayed in movie, naturally.  I think, with her thoughts, there would be more of everything in the movie.  Humor and the love struggles would be abundant.

Sure, they had to cut a huge amount of film to make the mere two hours and thirty minutes, but, I believe that her thoughts, if the actually could be displayed, would be essential.

The movie was over before I knew it, so, I know that I did enjoy myself.  It surely didn’t feel anything similar to two and a half hours.

It was well worth my $9.50.  Go see it.

Oh, due to the technical failure, I got a free ‘Emergency’ ticket.

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Mar 16 2012
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Government

Athens-Clarke County, GA Republican Delegate Fraud

I was much too tired to write this post on my own, but, I knew someone needed to do it, so, I asked my good friend Matthew to do the honors.  This post, in it’s entirety, was written by Matthew Hall, not by me.

On March 10, 2012, an act of blatant corruption occurred in Athens, GA. The Clarke County Republican Party convention convened to decide on its delegates to be sent on to nominate a candidate for the 2012 Presidential Race. A speaker was called to read the names of the two men who had been nominated to be these delegates. Rapidly after the names were read, two members who were seated on the front row created and seconded a motion in favor of the two nominees. Immediately, calls for division ran through the chamber as other members of the Clarke GOP refused to accept the proposed delegates and demanded a vote. They were completely ignored. The party bosses then illegally and immediately closed the meeting without having voted on the nominees or voting to close the meeting. This is the type of corruption that makes blood boil and chills the fervor of all those bringing new ideas to the Republican Party. This is not the first time this has occurred. Similar cases of corruption occurred in Maine earlier this year when the vote was thrown to Rick Santorum with many cities and counties completely ignored or listed as sending zero votes. If this corruption is not put to an end swiftly, there is little hope for the future of the Republican Party. All things are meant to change, all parties must conform to the new ideas of incoming members. Illegally refusing to submit to your own rules and members is political suicide.

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Mar 09 2012
4 Comments
Apple

Bypassing Apple And Your Carrier: Tether

In 2007, Steve Jobs told developers to make web apps.  He stated how useful they could be to users.  While web apps never took off, developers use web apps to bypass Apple’s strict app store policies.  A few years ago, carriers started charging extra for tethering.  Using your phone’s data connection for a device that is not your phone qualifies as tethering.  Due to the steep prices attached to tethering on many carrier, users jailbreak or try to find other methods of using their phones data on their laptops.

The same company that released the tethering app on the appstore that relied on proxies to tether the phone’s internet connection, iTether, released a web based tethering service for iPhones.  The web based tethering service from Tether, a tethering company responsible for tethering the internet connections of phones from many operating systems, also relies on proxies.  But, unlike many proxy based tethering apps in the appstore,  Tether for iPhone is very simple to use.  It’s intuitive.

At the website, create an account.  It’s $15 for the first year, and $30 for every year after that.  After creating an account, you’d need to download the Mac application.  Installing it is quite straightforward.

On the phone, travel to tether.com/web and sign in.  Save the link to your home screen.  In settings, connect to the SSID the Mac app created.  Open the web clip again and give it a second to connect.  After the connection to the server and your Mac is successful, your default browser will open to a Tether.com start page.  The web is yours.

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Mar 07 2012
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Apple, Tech

Apple Service Packs

As a friend and fellow tech enthusiast noted, Apple does have a fatal flaw.  I do agree, I even go as far as to say that Apple has more than one fatal flaw.  I think the prior events today demonstrated some of the flaws in the path that Apple has chosen to take.  Naturally, after Steve Jobs death, people are quick to blame Tim Cook for the errors and misconceptions that the company entertains.  This shouldn’t be the case; Steve Jobs, if alive, would have made the same choices that Mr. Cook has been making.

Since the iPhone 3Gs, Apple has been surreptitious in the marketing area.  All companies do this, but, it’s irked extremely well for Apple.  Most people buy into Apple’s flaw that Jason Pensill mentioned, the product refresh.  So far, people loved the 3Gs, even though, superficially, it’s not much different than the 3G.

That was, in my opinion, the only time that Apple has fully gotten away with a minor refresh.

The 3Gs was replaced by the iPhone 4, which, superficially, is much different, but, internally, it’s nearly identical.  Even though the internals where similar, this was a big upgrade to the people.  It was huge.

People had heard rumors of a totally redesigned iPhone 5.  They, and I speak for the majority of the tech community, were disappointed on that day.  For a company that makes the best phones, the iPhone 4S wasn’t light years ahead of the competition.  People were actually mad at Apple for the minor update.  Updating the processor and the camera, sticking some half baked software into it, and acting like it was revolutionary was what Apple did.  It wasn’t revolutionary, but, due to Apple’s marketing, people bought it.

Look at Android handset makers.  A new Android handset is released every month.  The company changes one tiny thing, adds a letter to the name of the phone, and ships it.  It’s not complete, yet, they market it as a new, complete phone.  One should think of the Android update cycles like service packs.  Microsoft fixes bugs in Windows and pushes out a service pack.  They may do it too often, but they don’t totally ship a new OS, normally.  Users would feel cheated.  Ripped off.

That’s what’s happening with Android phones.

Unfortunately, after the 4 updated to the 4S, that’s how people are starting to feel about Apple.  They’re feeling stretched.  There’s a point where it’s okay when a company tries to make the most of product cycles.  Android handset makers have taken that way too far.  Apple is on the edge.  If they update the technology so frequently, they need to change some features that can actually turn it into a new device, not a service pack on an old one.  That’s not fair to the consumer.

The picture: Yeah, I know.

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Feb 27 2012
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Culture

Conformation

Contrary to common beliefs, I believe that conforming to and with society is not always harmful.  In some ways, it may be a good thing for a person or a group of people to live and think like as other people do.

Individuality may, in some cases, be important.  Being an individual gives you the ability to stand out, make your own choices, and think for yourself.  When you aren’t conforming to the pressure to conform, you’re in a minority.  This is not always a bad thing, but I’m arguing that conforming isn’t bad, so I’ll stick with it.

If the larger people group is doing something correctly, you will benefit from going along with them.  Instead of an individual trying to do it one way, the larger people group may actually be doing something correctly.  For example, if the larger people group, the culture, or nation has one way of raising a child that works, then it would be foolish to try another method, unless, of course, you had a good reason of why they were doing it incorrectly.

A larger people group has not only more people, but, also more experience. Think of it like the pioneers; they had to pave their own way through the Midwestern United States.  I use pave in the figurative sense, of course.  There was no books for those pioneers on the Midwest.  They didn’t have people to go to, as a general rule.   They didn’t have anything to help them through with the Midwest, specifically.  This is how it would be as an individual.  You would have to figure things out on your own, without the help from people who have already had experience and, maybe, training.

Sometimes, the individual is not wanting to conform for the sole reason of being different.  If this is the case, they are focusing on how to do things differently, instead of focusing on how to do things the right way.  This is a rather impending hindrance that seems to go along with stubbornness.  The individual may not even realize that he or she is insisting on being different, even when he or she is wrong.  This leads to many problems down the line, especially when it comes to a case where the larger people group is, for lack of a better term, right.  You end up doing something, again, for the lack of a better term, wrong.

Conforming as a group may have its downfalls, too, but one might agree that thinking and living like other people could potentially solve a lot of problems.  I conclude that the best option is to think for yourself, but take outside opinion.  There’s always someone who’s wiser than you are; one shouldn’t pretend that this isn’t the case, no matter how smart you may be.  Individualize yourself to the point where you aren’t a lemming, but conform yourself to where you can learn and grow from the mistakes of the larger people group.  As a culture, we need to learn from the mistakes of everyone around us, but, also, try to find better methods, ideas, or actions, if they exist.

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Feb 16 2012
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Tech

OSX Mountain Lion Review

I was hoping for a new experience; I’m sick of Lion. Sure, maybe I haven’t done a clean install, but my 2011 Macbook Pro came with OSX 10.7 installed. One shouldn’t have to do a clean install to get it to run more smoothly than before. In Lion, I can’t type a sentence without some sort of lag. One should be able to see why a new experience would be optimal for me.

I get to school in the morning, bringing only my 4S and my iPad 2. Normally, I bring my Macbook Pro, and, of course, I wish that I had brought it today. Throughout the two classes I take, I was waiting to get to my Pro, so that I could install some of Apple’s new software. I first heard, on Twitter, that “Mountain Lion” was out. Of course, my first assumption was to believe it was a joke, but no – Apple really released a new operating system that, according to Wikipedia, is the same as Puma.

Seeing a tweet from @chronic, I saw that we had finally gotten iMessage for OSX, something I had been looking forward to for quite some time.

When I got home, I immediately installed iMessage for Mac, or, as Apple says, “Messages” for Mac. I assume it’s called Messages because it’s not only iMessage, but, also, the same functions that iChat had. Plus, the app on the other iOS devices is called “Messages”, instead of “iMessage.”

It finally installed, but it didn’t meet my expectations. First, the contact pane isn’t integrated; it’s a separate window. The app had an overall lag about it, consistent with the rest of Lion. The default color for the chat bubbles, in Mountain Lion, was pink. Inconsistent with the default color on the iOS devices where you can’t change the colors. It gets the job done, but it isn’t even up to spec with Apple. Of course, remember, it’s in beta.

Following the popular method, I created a separate partition to install Mountain Lion. It installed.

Throughout the years, Apple has been trying to iOS-ify Mac OSX. I don’t mind; I think iOS is great. One will first notice that in the OSX startup. It’s just like the startup screen when turning on an iOS 5 device for the first time. You have your iCloud settings, your Find My Phone (Mac) Settings, and the sort. It’s nice, and for those who hate the iCloud aspect, it’s not required.

The first thing one will notice when turning past the startup screen is the extra icons on the dock. Placed on your dock, in the middle, are three of the new app’s icons. They are, in order, Reminders, Notes, and Messages. Of course, one

may argue that Notes.app isn’t new, but, actually, it is new. The previous Notes app was integrated in the mail app. The new Notes.app isnt really anything special; you can make notes, edit them, add photos and links, print and share, and that’s really about it.

There’s the expected “share” icon at the bottom where users can share the notes via various forms of communication. One of said forms of communication is via messages.app. Odd.

It can embed pictures into the notes, a thing that the iOS versions of notes.app can not do. When sending an iOS device a note from Mountain Lion with pictures in it, the pictures do not seem to make it onto the iOS devices.

Next boring feature is Reminders. It’s big, boring, and ugly.  Frankly, I like the iPhone version best of all, with the iPad version very close behind.

The color schemes are, for lack of a better term, gross. Sure, they match the iOS versions, and I like that. The one thing is that the reds just don’t seem to fit. They’ll grow on me, no doubt. In the app, you can set your usual reminders for a time or a location. If you have iCloud set up, which you do, the reminders will automatically appear on your iPad, iPod Touch, or iPhone running iOS 5+. I don’t envision anyone taking their Macbook Pro to the grocery store with a grocery list, but I could see someone making the list on the Macbook to use on their iPhone before they run out the door. Useful.

The reminders you set appear in the…notification center, which, naturally, should be the next big point.

Like iOS, Mac OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion comes pre-installed with a notifications center. To activate it, you either swipe with two fingers from the edge of your trackpad, or, just as effective, provided your’e not in full screen mode, you tap the little circle-inside-a-circle that appears next to the spotlight search icon. I imagine that I should mention that, when you have a notification, the circle turns blue. Blue is an odd color, provided that the notifications icon has always been a red dot inside of a grey circle, but at least it’s consistent with the rest of the operating system.

When you get a notification, like Growl, there’s a pop up on the right side of your screen with the details. It has the icon + name + descriptive text about the notification. For example, if you got a notification regarding a new email, you’d see a small box. The box would be about the size of the standard growl notifications, but it would be a grey-white ish color. It would have the mail icon and the subject line of the email, as well as three to four lines of the email. Tap the notification, and it slides to the right into the notification center.

iMessage, or “Message” notifications are similar; they have the icon, name, and most of the message from the sender. They are, indeed, useful, but in a rapid IM conversation, they certainly could get in the way. Either way, I’d rather have them than not.

Of course, just like iOS, one can control the notification’s settings in the settings/configuration app.

Oddly enough, Mountain Lion comes with Game Center. Considering the fact that nobody gives a single thought about Game Center in the first place, this shouldn’t be a biggie for most people. In an attempt to unify the OS’s, I imagine that it would have to come sometime.

The app, in ML Dev Preview 1, is broken. You have to sign in; your picture isn’t there, your games aren’t there, your friends are gone, too. It probably wasn’t high priority in the developer preview yet. It has an interesting future; potentially turning Macintosh towards a gaming side. Maybe Macs didn’t appeal to children.

It’s just about how one would expect it to look; the same green poker table background with the – obviously – fake wood accents.

After this, I guess I ought to make a note of the Twitter integration, which happened to be one of my favorite features. (I love Twitter).

You have your Twitter settings in the Mail, Contacts, and Calendars settings, oddly. (In there, you also have your Vimeo settings and such, odd) Sign into your Twitter account, and you’ll be able to tweet from anywhere that you see one of the “share” icons.

The Tweet UI is nearly identical to the iOS version. The screen turns a shade dimmer in the background, and, in the foreground, appears the familiar Twitter tweet sheet. You have the object you’re tweeting paper clipped to the right hand side. The Tweet is in the middle, adding location is on the bottom left, and send/cancel are on the bottom right.

Safari is faster, much faster. Switching between tabs is near instantaneous, and closing and opening it doesn’t take very much time either. It’s looks remain nearly identical to the previous version, except for the unified search and URL bar, similar to Google Chrome. This is a move that I’m very thankful for; switching between browsers with and without unified bars can get aggravating.

And, of course, you can share from Safari now -

That just about wraps up the new features in this build, except for the new Spotlight that’s inside launchpad. Tends to be more useful than one would assume.

One major thing I was looking for that is beyond all of the new features is a new, smooth performance. Honestly, it’s a different performance. Opening and closing anything is snappy now; there’s not much waiting while a memory heavy application closes. I truly did see the ever so annoying sinning wheel much less often. The animations, however, tended to be much more laggy and jumpy than on the previous OS. On Lion, I have an Xcode window open, a CS5 window, a full screen Safari, Twitter.app, multiple finder windows, and iPhoto open. I didn’t get the chance to try to Mountain Lion with all of those apps running at once, but I imagine that the outcome would be unsatisfactory for me.

I need to be able to use my Macbook Pro for more than Twitter. I’m a fan of Twitter, but I am positive that the computers are meant for more than just the single social network. I hope that the final build of Mountain Lion will make a difference.

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Jan 18 2012
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Entertainment

Why I Don’t Play Poker

Notice that I didn’t say I didn’t like poker; I said that I don’t play.  This, in and of itself, isn’t entirely true.  I do play poker on occasion.  In general, though, I dislike it for one reason.

The one main reason is that I have no concept of being done.  I win a hand, maybe I even win a lot of chips or a ton of money, but I feel like I can always do better.  This isn’t only the case with poker, as I feel like I can always do better or get more in anything; poker is just the case where I end up losing in the end.

I even like the casino environment.  I truly love playing poker.  I love bluffing and reading the other players.  One could say that I’m even skilled at poker.  Not knowing when to stop is a huge flaw, though, that hinders my ability to come out successful, ultimately ruining my experience.  For example, I’d be playing fairly well, have a terrible hand, bluff, win the $2k pot, and then keep playing for more.  When I had started the game, coming out with 2000 dollars would be amazing.  A dream, even.  My gut tells me to pull out, but I think to myself that if I could turn $100 into $2000, why couldn’t I turn $2000 into $4000?

I think that there must be a scientific process to this.  My best guess is that I become too cocky and arrogant after being rather successful at first, I forget to read and analyze the other players in the same way I had done before.  Interestingly, if I pay attention and focus in the game, I can almost always win.  After that, though, I’m off my game.

I have no problem with poker in and of itself.  Just as other card games, it’s a fun and enjoyable game when, in my case, is done in moderation.

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