I’m sorry, this just completely cracks me up. I don’t know whether to label that link “NSFW” or not. We have got to find some way to replace every obnoxious nasty animated gif on the planet with this one. Then humanity may have a shot at redemption.
Steve Jobs has been quoted as saying that a video iPod is not in the works, arguing that watching videos is a foreground activity whereas listening to music is a background activity. It’s true. Reading books is another foreground activity and I was just now annoyingly having to drive a car when I really wanted to be finishing up this silly techno-thriller novel that has snagged me.
Anyway, this may be true of watching videos, but what about recording video?
How about this: A video cell phone with a microdrive. Networked, maybe with third-generation technology. Enables wireless videoconferencing with other users of the device as well as all iChat AV clients. Can record 30 fps video at some reasonable resolution. Also has regular iPod audio functionality. It wouldn’t do much more than that. No web browser, for example. Okay, maybe you get a mail client. Packaged with Apple’s design sensibility and marketing muscle.
Predictions about Apple’s moves are a favorite hobby of geeks. I’m probably not very good at it, since I don’t really keep up with all the latest gadgets. I don’t know what’s already old news on the video cell phone/PDA front, and probably lots of people have already thought of all this. But as far as I know videophones haven’t made a big splash yet. It just seems that Apple is in a unique position to make it happen. IChat, iSight, Quicktime with H.264 compression, etc.
Okay, back to my silly techno-thriller novel.
Just writing these down for my own amusement, not as if I am actually a representative of anything like this. Mostly things gleaned from aikido training, and other things. Blah blah blah, yadda yadda.
Respect inertia.
Things take time. Mass is a fact of life. NB: Wise philosophers once said, “TIME! is marching on. And time! … is still marching on.”
Each moment is new.
Let experience guide, but when the present clashes with experience, the present wins. It’s useful to let go of assumptions and hone awareness in this respect. Pay particular attention when your butt is being kicked. Practice helps.
Accept onrushing positive and onrushing negative with the same attitude: meet them half-way and embrace them.
Quite a responsibility, but there you go. Running from them may not work anyway. Flip the latter into the former, if you can. (They’re not unrelated, it turns out.) Practice helps.
Move from the center out.
If movements originate at the center, the rest will follow naturally. No need to force it, no need to fight. Practice helps.
Listen to your body.
It’s the result of billions of years of intense research and development, and happens to belong to that class of things which are constructed wholly from raw principles of the universe and which are ultimately utterly inexpressible in words, just like you. It might “know” a thing or two on its own. Practice helps.
Tools are your friends. Use them.
Don’t get hung up over which tool is trendy, or which tool your ancestors used. That’s so pre-modern. Use the tools that work for you, now, and leave behind the ones you’ve outgrown or that never fit you to begin with. On the other hand, see the point about each moment being new, and also your ancestors may have been pretty sharp.
Don’t forget the value of sin and failure as tools. You know, don’t be a cosmic asshat, but don’t deny yourself a tool just ’cause some authority said no. Especially if you’ve already fucked up. Use it.
Laugh.
Uh, but not like this. I mean, unless you want to.
Keep trying.
Practice helps. Another wise philosopher once said, “Time is a lever long enough and strong enough.”
We have baby fish in our pond! Judging from their size (uh, note that they’re not pictured here), they’re a few days to a week old. Judging from my highly scientific survey, there are several hundred of them.
I never thought I would consider fish “cute,” but these little guys are pretty darn cute. They look like a pair of eyes attached to a tail and they shoot around in little bursts of energy.
We’ll have to see how many survive to winter, and then how many survive winter.
