Rootz's Blog

We don't believe in magic anymore. At least, most of us don't. But if you stop and think about it for a bit, you’ll hopefully notice why this disbelief is not a good thing. Remember where magic came from: It came from, among other reasons, a need to explain what was not explainable (dreams, mental illness, the weather, the meaning of life, etc.). Magic and luck were the answers to everything that didn’t have an answer. Similarly, religion came of the need to give meaning and purpose to life. Why are we here, who put us here, who holds power over our lives that we should fear Him or Her or Them? Magic drove our curiosity. It proved that, as a species, we thought about the world and tried to explain it, just like we do today. Only, I argue, we do less questioning and explaining than we used to. The fact that we no longer need these fantastical explanations scares me. We seem to think, as 2017 approaches, that there aren’t any more unexplainable phenomena in the universe. W...

image source: link The Jaybird Freedoms freed me. They opened up a world of portable audio that wired headphones simply couldn't. The Freedoms are tiny, wireless and super light-weight, so even in my small ears they stay put, and despite the tiny drivers they sport, they sound pretty darn good. There is a catch, though: They are expensive. At the moment, they're $199.95 USD off of the Jaybird website , and they go for similar prices elsewhere. Question, then, are they worth it? I guess that depends on what kind of person you are. First of all, consider whether you have the means to dish out two-hundred on a pair of ear buds. If yes, then ask yourself if you'll use them enough to justify the money spent on them. If you listen to podcasts and/or audiobooks and/or music every day, then, yes, they will be worth-it if only because of how portable they are; wear them while you walk the dog or do your grocery shopping or wash the dishes. If you are even vaguely athlet...

"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 ...

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?...