Rootz's Blog

"Shakespeare" - It may be by a painter called John Taylor who was an important member of the Painter-Stainers' Company - Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shakespeare.jpg#/media/File:Shakespeare.jpg Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 tells us that, “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds[.]” But isn’t it? Isn’t it really? We quote these lines like scripture, hold them up as absolute truth, but is it really true that true love doesn’t change even when the object of that love does? Perhaps it is. Perhaps that’s the definition of “true love.” But maybe not the definition of just plain “love.” Which is where Shakespeare got it wrong. Because love does change. When a thing we love stops working properly or a person we love stops behaving in the ways that made us love him or her in the first place, our love alters. To be clear, I must define “alter” as used in this sonnet. What Shakespeare meant by “alter” I be

down-swipe -->  <-- right-swipe the two faces of search on iOS 9 I have to make this very, very clear: In my humble opinion (which is more frustrated than humble at this point) iOS 8 got the search feature right, and iOS 9 just killed it. Like, killed it, in a very bad, awful way. Yes, Spotlight Search and Proactive Siri are cool, and even Siri Suggestions is at times useful, but my problem lies with the way you access them. Either you can swipe down from the home screen or you can swipe right from the home screen. That’s the problem. There are two options. Why? Just, why ? They each offer slightly different features if you have Siri Suggestions on, but in the end, we will probably find one method more to our liking than the other. We will end up using only one . Why doesn’t Apple just give us the choice to disable one or the other? I don’t understand! Please help me to understand!! The only moderately good thing I can find in this whole two—way-search feature is t

I used an Android phone for only one month and was terrified by how quickly I got used to it. It was just so easy! My contacts synced with my Gmail, Google Maps worked like a dream, and Inbox was like digital narcotics. (Imagine: all my to-dos, reminders and mail in one place!) And that back-button! How did I live without a back-button?? But it couldn’t last, I knew. Android and I weren’t meant to be. I’d recently bought a MacBook Pro. I’d grown up with iPods and iMacs. My loyalty was with Apple, no matter how much I hated to admit it. And I did hate it. For an entire week, I hated my new iPhone. It would be fine, I’d told myself, you’ll just download all those Google Apps from the app-store and use them as before! The app-icons will look different, but hey! Except, it’s not that simple: Chrome is not (and cannot be, without a jailbreak) iOS’s default browser; Google Maps must give preference to Apple Maps; don’t you dare add a contact to Contacts, because there is no hope of syn

Trends guide us. They let us know what is cool, chic, hot-topic. They show us how to act and what to say and how to dress if we want to be "in." Trends exist because we follow them. And we follow them because they're convenient. It's easier to do what everyone else is doing rather than to beat a new path. We want to make safe choices.  And if someone, somewhere, says suede is chic this season, we'd rather wear suede than print, simply because we know there's a guaranteed fan-base for suede. Humans want to fit in and be accepted. It's a method of survival, ingrained into our DNA. But is fitting in all we want? We also want to be unique and interesting , right? Right. And that's why trends are not as great as we thought. Trends confine us to a set of "norms". They restrict us form thinking creatively and on our own. In a world of choices and limitless possibilities, trends are an outdated —— and potentially dangerous —— part of the past.

Cal Newport cured me. He cured me of doubt, fear and self-loathing. But, mostly, fear. I read this book just before I started my first job (at a greenhouse as a greenhouse-laborer). It was a tumultuous time for me. I wondered whether I'd like the work or if my tiny, skinny self could even do the work. I wondered if I'd somehow get stuck in the horticulture business instead of studying computer science like I wanted to. I was confused and swinging back-and-forth between having confidence in myself to outright hating the path that lay before me. I mean, I didn't even like plants! I was also suffering——and had been for some time——from what I call "creator anxiety". Creator anxiety is where you agonize over not being a creator and/or not acting on your ideas and/or not improving your life. What if I don't become successful? I kept asking myself. What if I don't live an interesting enough life? What if I don't leave behind a legacy of some sort?

When was the last time you capitalized the i's in your texts——without the help of auto-correct? (Seriously, if it weren't for auto-correct, most of us would text like Neanderthals with cell-phones.) Here's a theory: One day in the near-future, we will stop capitalizing the personal pronoun "I". Unlike when handwriting, texting or typing the word "I" requires an extra stroke: the dreaded shift-key. Sure, you have to add the two little bars up-top and down-bottom of the "I" when handwriting, but most people write quickly, and two tiny jots don't make much of a difference. When texting? Capitalizing does make a difference. Not much of difference, but still a difference. Especially when you're in a hurry. Or when you're competing with your friends to be the fastest texture. Or when you simply want to make your text as short and simple and efficient as possible. And anyway, what's the point or making I "I"

image source: https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/information-doctorow.jpg?w=738 Information Doesn't Want to Be Free is a must-read. I mean it. Everyone over the age of 15 has to read it. At least, everyone over the age of 15 who also uses the Internet. This book is full of unburied truths that matter to every conscious citizen of the world, no matter how old they are, where they live or what they do. It reveals the dirty secrets of copyright policy—and the dangers hidden in proposed laws like PIPA and SOPA. It shows, clearly, that publishers and distributors are more interested in their own short-term success than in the good of creators, let alone the good of the entire world. The book is separated into three sections, each titled after one of "Doctorow's Three Laws": #1: Any time someone puts a lock on something that belongs to you and won't give you the key, that lock isn't there for your benefit. Here, Doctorow w

source:  http://www.amazon.com/b?node=8037720011 Amazon's goal for its new service, Prime Air, is to be able to deliver customers' orders of less than five pounds in less than 30 minutes [1] . It believes this service will be up-and-running in about 4-5 years [2] . But with all that trouble from the FAA, how are they coming along? Last month the Federal Aviation Administration, gave Amazon the go-ahead to test its drones in the USA. Some of the restrictions the FAA has put on Amazon's drone-flights include: the drones must be piloted by FAA-authorized pilots, the drones can't fly higher than 400 feet or over densely populated areas, and the drones must remain in the pilot's sight at all times . [3] In other words, the FAA doesn't seem to be catching up with the times. In one instance, it took six months for Amazon to get permission from the FAA to test a certain drone, and by the time they received the permission, the drone model was obso

Gregory Maguire is a brilliant, conniving writer. He tricks you, for the first few chapters, into thinking his story is normal, that it's just like any other well-written novel set in 18th century Russia. But then, there you are, holding the book, and the story starts spinning out of control, slowly at first, then faster and faster. And you can't let go! Not until the end, when the wild begins to fade and you are landed, gently, back on the ground. The novel isn't perfect. I felt that the conflict in the plot (the chaos of an abnormally early spring) was too remote from the lives of the main characters to mean very much and did little except to drag the characters along (mostly against their will) into the story. And, unlike in most stories, the conflict is brought about by an entity that doesn't have a direct relationship to the characters. Sure, the whole world is affected by this change in the cycle of the seasons, but what except for chance has brought the mai