Behind The Big E

If you’ve ever been confused about what exactly the term “ironic” means, this is possibly one of the best examples I have ever seen. I came across this while watching episodes of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and they had a story about Andrew Shirvell, the assistant attorney-general in Michigan.

They were talking about how Shirvell was making the claim of being harassed online about a blog he had started about Chris Armstrong, a student at the University of Michigan. At first we find this kind of funny, because Shirvell is supposed to be aiding in the fight to prevent cyber bullying, but not long into the interview, it becomes apparent that the situation is much more ironic.

As discussed on the November 1st episode of The Daily Show, and in a CNN interview, we find that Shirvell’s blog is actually attacking Armstrong. Why? Well, in the interviews we are told it is because Armstrong is known to be openly gay, and Shirvell has said that he does not believe that a “gay nazi radical” should be student assembly president at the university, which is the position that Armstrong currently holds. So basically it’s because Shirvell is a homophobic “bigot”, as he was so nicely labeled on CNN.

Now, because I watched this on a comedy program before seeing this anywhere else, I was convinced that it was a joke, and really, how could you not? It’s just too unreal. But when I realized that this was actually happening, I was speechless… and then proceeded to laugh and cry simultaneously.

The amount of irony in the whole situation is ridiculous. Here we have a political figure, whose job is to prevent cyber bullying, who is first off claiming to be victim of cyber bullying, but then is revealed to be doing it himself to a college student. Even better, he is publicly admitting that he has picketed the student’s house and also claims that he believes he is “Satan’s representative”.

Of course, now there are tons of groups and such that are trying to get the assistant attorney-general fired, which I think he should be, and mainly try to get his blog “Chris Armstrong Watch” off the net, where he has a number of outrageous photos trying to depict Armstrong as a radical, even though his “radical” ideas are mostly movements to modify the school’s regulations on sex coordinated residences. I mean, would make sense for him to do. Why shouldn’t gay residents of opposite gender be permitted to share a dorm?

Wow... really? So mature.

In any case, I would recommend that you watch the interviews (linked above), because it is just too funny.

I literally just found out about this yesterday, and was just blown back by it.

So probably everyone knows by now that google has their own web browser, chrome, which is, to say the least, pretty decent. It’s faster than my other ones, and the extensions available are good, but it has it’s drawbacks too. There is no integrated PDF reader, so you have to download all the online PDF docs that you read online, which is a pain for a lot of university students. I noticed that it also takes up a lot of RAM when you include all the workers and renderers. Overall for browsing, it’s pretty much the way to go.

So anyway, yesterday I find this site about Google’s new OS. Wait… wha? Can they do that?

Yes, apparently they can. Google has been making it’s presence known on the internet for some time, absorbing sites like YouTube, making ads, and putting together utterly massive projects like street view. (Honestly, the sheer amount of data that is involved in that blew my mind! I checked it out recently, and could not believe that there was a 360 degree view every few metres on nearly every street known to man, or so it seems.) They are seriously a crazy company.

So now, they have taken another step further and added themselves to the list of operating systems along with Windows, Mac and Linux. I mean, it’s not technically like its cousins, just because of how it is put together.

Basically how it works is your entire computer gets turned into an internet browser and nearly nothing else. They advertise that you can play games, write documents, listen to music and the like, but it’s way different than anything we’re used to from an OS. Pretty much all of your data is stored “in the cloud”, which essentially means that all your files are online, attached to your gmail account.

Consequentially, this means that a computer with Chromium OS on it will be useless if you are not connected to the internet, and you have to be pretty trusting of google, as they are storing all your stuff on your account.

So, all in all, this is pretty much for a cheap, secondary (or even tertiary) laptop that all you do is go on the internet with. One of their sell points is the outrageously fast start time from total system shutdown (around 8 seconds), which they say cuts down the time you are waiting to get onto your browser. I myself don’t really find this particularly useful, as I keep my MB pro on sleep, so it really takes me no time at all to start what I’m doing. I did however use Windows for much of my life (I still keep a windows 7 partition on my Mac for emergencies), and by the end of it I was going absolutely insane having to wait for it to start up, or randomly update before I could log in, and then I was furiously clicking on the internet explorer icon until it finally started and loaded the home page.

Anyway, I guess we will find out what it really is like in practice once it’s released, but I will remain skeptical in the mean time. I’ve got one computer for everything right now, and would prefer to keep it that way just for my own convenience.

I’m sure that most of you have had moments where you were just stressed to the point where you could barely keep a level head. It’s not fun. A lot of us don’t know how to relax either. It seems to be an acquired skill. So, for those of us who are not as good at taking breaks, I definitely recommend music.

But not any music, no no. Most of you will not own any of this, or have heard of it, or maybe not have even heard the genre before. It’s very hard to come by music like this. I find it hard to explain, without actually listening to it, but the best way to describe it is that it is a mix between electronic and ambient, and that hardly does it justice at all.

If you have ever had a song that you can just… well… “feel” the sentiment behind it. You close your eyes, and instantly a scene or feeling takes over, whether it be the warm fuzzies, or like you’re under the soothing ocean current.

As The Stars Fall by The Cinematic Orchestra (make sure you have a woofer, or use headphones for this one)

I’ve tried to say this to people, and I get weird looks, and even sometimes when I manage to get someone to listen, they still don’t get it. You really need to make an effort to immerse yourself into the music, but at the same time, completely relax. As The Stars Fall is a pretty unique song, and I haven’t found much else by this artist so far, but if you want that warm feeling, then I’d recommend it.

The Daydream by Tycho

A couple of other artists that I have found that are awesome for this are Tycho, which is very ambient and very, very calming, and another if you want almost the same effect, but a little more “toe tap” is Yppah (don’t ask me how to pronounce it). It’s pretty good for doing air drums too… if you’re into that.

Cannot See Straight by Yppah

So, I would recommend that if you dig those two songs, then go check out some other songs by Tycho and Yppah, and then even try going to iTunes genius and explore a little. Try and find some Moby and Quantic if you can. It’s amazing how music can affect us in such a deep way, but it’s sad how few artists actually accomplish this.

This, people, is why the music industry is worth keeping alive.

So, I had to mention this, because it was not a one time anomaly. Maybe if was only the one time, but now I am suspicious that this may happen again.

To start off, ask yourself this: when do your most interesting conversations occur? If you said “at 2 in the morning” then that’s what I was thinking too.

Yes, it is odd, but if you think about it, it makes sense. Who are we hanging around, if we aren’t in bed, during these ungodly hours of the morn? Usually close friends… unless you are crashing a party, then it’s just people that want you to leave, but that’s besides my point. Second factor to consider: how much discretion do we have, compared to the rest of the day? (no you are not necessarily boozed up if you are hanging out this early… but it might be worth looking into) Probably not a lot, so we end up saying stuff that is rather… err… unusual. But then no one else really cares either, because they are equally as sleep deprived.

This all leads up to the potential to have some crazy profound discussions. Like about a month ago, I was hanging out in a friends room, with some other people. Everything was pretty chill, one of us playing Starcraft, and meanwhile (how I cannot remember) I started to have the most epic and profound talk with some girl, who I had never met before, about different types of  sexuality and their social impacts. It blew my mind. Daytime social standards be damned, because this is what university is about!

My second experience with this was… mmm… somewhat more exciting. I say that because I got into a heated (well as heated as things get during quiet hours on the dry floor) debate about sociology. To sum it up, I know next to nothing about the subject for debating purposes, except for the fact that I am considered an “idealist” which apparently means that all my social opinions are ridiculous and are impossible to implement. Also the fact that I was arguing with 3 art students didn’t help. I admit, they beat me pretty bad, and I guess I learned quite a bit, but I still remain in the position that the social world makes no sense, and that I don’t care much for it as long as people continue to act irrationally. I wish I had a formula for life, is what I’m saying, I suppose. Well that and doing a social “defragmentation” like you do on your computer so that things run smoother.

UTOPIA FOR THE WIN!

Hope you guys get to experience this too, if you haven’t already, because I’m hoping for it again, that’s for sure!