About two months ago, I started getting sick of tobacco. I couldn’t beat the nicotine addiction, but I also couldn’t stand cigarettes. I enjoy smoking them with friends, or taking an occasional smoke break to relax, but I wasn’t able to keep it there. 2 Cigarettes a day became 4, which became 10, which turned into a pack. It was gross. I genuinely felt sorry for those who had to be around me and smell tobacco and papers on my clothes, skin, and breath. However, I managed to stumble across this article on Gizmodo that’s no longer in existence. The article was reviewing the best disposable electronic cigarette, and while the term is somewhat subjective, the review was still great. With a full box of American Spirit Organics in my pocket, I wasn’t ready to drop $50+ on a good electronic cigarette kit, so the disposables were the way to go.
my father, hip-hop, and my upbringing
It’s fairly common knowledge that I have a love for hip-hop music. I find it excellent on many levels. Don’t get me wrong; there’s hip-hop music, or rap, that I can’t stand at all. In fact, some of it makes me fear more for the human race than any other genre of music combined, save for possibly radio pop, but even that’s a stretch. My love for hip-hop is twofold in nature: I can relate to most of it, and it’s the only type of music I can really feel and embrace.
Let me help you set up Square, Watkinsville
I spend a lot of time with small business owners and hear thousands of complaints a day, but the topic I hear most often is the topic of credit cards, POS systems, and having to deal with fees for both. I feel owners’ pain, and want to help out. Sure, I always pitch the Square method, but nobody ever takes me up on the offer. Everybody thinks they know what Square is: that little white box that plugs into the iPhone or iPad and lets you swipe credit cards. While this is accurate, it’s not even close to the whole picture.
Crumbling ItsLavishBitch’s Facade
When more than 100,000 people follow your Instagram account, it may not be obvious that you’re a hated individual. And, quite realistically, I can see why it would be hard. However, when it comes to Instagram user “ItsLavishBitch,” an alleged 17-year-old male, living in San Francisco with a net worth that causes him to treat Kim Kardashian like a homeless person, people have trouble determining whether or not the account is a troll account, a parody. I’ve spent a couple of days researching the account and its owner and although everything has not become transparent, there’s a lot to be learned.
Mailbox, an intuitive mail client for iPhone
iOS is often known for its full-featured and robust applications for nearly every type of situation, including the mundane task of managing one’s inbox. The iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch all ship with a mail application baked into the operating system, but many people have issues with it. On one hand, it’s integrated into the entire platform fairly well. It fits and is equally consistent, graphically. On the other hand, its way too boring. Mailbox seemingly finds a great middle-ground, looking awesome and functioning almost as well.
radioactive blessings
I say some pretty silly, and at times, worthless material. The things that spew out of my mouth often attract stares or glares, especially from the mothers of 18-19 year old females. However, one thing that always makes me smirk a little is hearing someone pray, asking their god to bless the food in front of them. I just can’t seem to swallow the words without, at the very minimum, a brief grimace.
Why on earth would someone ask the spiritual entity that they pray to, likely God, to bless the food? The mental picture I gather from this is ludicrous. I always imagine this glowing, radioactive food floating through someone’s body, X-ray style. As if the food is the only blessed part of the picture.
violating users’ privacy with Facebook’s new search
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
About a week and a half ago, social networking giant, Facebook, rolled out a new search feature. It’s still in a waiting list only mode, and as a general rule, I don’t like to write about your general beta in the world of technology. But the new Facebook search, Facebook Graph Search, seemed to interest a handful of avid Facebook users, especially those who remain stressed over privacy.
attempting to solve Apple’s porn problem
We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today. ~Stacia Tauscher
Most nerds who follow Apple news have come to the realization that Apple can’t continue banning some sexually explicit apps from the AppStore and permitting other to thrive. The smartphone company is fighting a war that will inevitably lead to defeat unless some type of middle-ground, or truce, is conceived. Like in the real world, some problems only exist if one turns them into problems.
Apple clearly has their own set of morals, allowing the company to hold developers and applications to double standards. Although, as a company, they can do whatever they want when it comes to morals, the double standard is a worthless use of their power. They need to set stricter terms and stand by them. If 500px was pulled because the user can find images that weren’t marked explicit, so be it. Instagram has the exact same types of pictures before they get marked or flagged by users. Twitter is filled with them. Vine has nothing but male genitals. Why remove one and let the others thrive?
stepping back
“A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points.” — Alan Kay
This past week, I vanished for a bit. There were a few reasons, most of which came after the fact that I wanted a vacation. As the time to stick my bags in the back of the Honda drew nearer, the desire I had to escape, to get away, grew phenomenally stronger. I was genuinely looking forward to spending time in the middle of nowhere with hardly a person in sight, let alone cellular service or useable WiFi. The time was incredibly well spent.
Fighting depression: social networks
Self harm and all related forms have always been terrible. They’ve always been gruesome and, to a degree, heartbreaking. Although it’s a horribly touchy subject, I find it fascinating. How can these people, your average person like you or me, be helped? What can be done? And the answers are never the same; every person is remarkably different. The answers that were available years ago are, for the most part, not the same answers we need today. For that matter, the questions aren’t even the same.
Self harm’s been around for quite some time, but it managed to avoid books and public studies unit 1913 when L. E. Emerson wrote a study on the subject, diving into some interesting aspects of it.