What does it mean to define?

I shall approach this blog entry with a slightly more informal (i.e. more personal) tone today. One of the reasons being that today has been one of the most hectic and peculiar days that I have experienced thus far. Not only do I know why I feel this way, but I also do not know why. As if I was there but not really there. As if time passed without my knowledge, and the very essence of motion and energy simultaneously sped up and slowed down. As peculiar a feeling it may have been (or still is), it led me to ponder, and think about a multitude of things that had not previously crossed my mind.

What are definitions? For some reason, and today only, I came to think how on earth the English language or any language for the matter, could develop a word that defines itself? It is like a lexical form of inception to me. Define chocolate: noun [mass noun] a food in the form of a paste or solid block made from roasted and ground cacao seeds, typically sweetened and eaten as confectionery - but is that the definition? My definition of chocolate is different to that, same with the millions of others who would conjure up some other sort of definition should they be told to 'define' the word. So what is definition?

The exact meaning of a word.

Really? The exact meaning of a word. Is there such a thing as the 'exact meaning of a word.' I do not think so. I feel that there is art to be found in the defining of terms, actions, events, and any other phenomena that exist in the world today. To define something exactly is impossible, therefore it requires great skill and precision.

The way we define things, it results in the way we treat, react, and respond to terms...because of what they mean. Dull means unimaginative, boring, monotonous, dry etc. that is why when someone calls you 'dull,' you react in the way you do. It is the literary connotation that dull has with these negative expressions that determines the way we respond to it. 

Now I just realised that this whole blog entry may seem totally confusing or disconnected or appear as something like that of a rant by someone who feels as if they just made a revelation of some sort. But I do hope that what I tried to convey in this whatever-you-want-to-call-it has been slightly understood and its meaning possibly appearing through the text.

L. 

Image source: http://melissadileonardo.tumblr.com/post/65127182175/two-things-that-define-you-patience-and-attitude

Our Food In Half

I live in London, therefore there is always a myriad of restaurants and cafés to choose from when stuck in a moment of hunger. Be it Chinese, Thai, French, Italian, Pan-Asian or whatever, such an extensive array of cuisines in one city means that it is incontrovertible to say that you can not find a place to eat.

Stemming off of that intro, I found a photographer who takes pictures of the food we eat,  but with a twist. The twist being that all the food is cut in half. Some of it I don't quite understand how she does, like with the cup of coffee that sits in a styrofoam cup with its swirls of caffeine still evident to the human eye. Therefore I deduced from this interesting find that I should present it to you,

Cut Food by Beth Galton

I have had my fair share of experience with photography and found myself many a time in a quandary over something that looked so cryptic and convoluted at the same time. But I must say that these photos do leave me feeling extremely hungry. With the second photograph not appearing to aid in my obsession with caffeine and preventing me from going to the kitchen right now and turning on my Nespresso machine for yet another vanilio and caramelito coffee.

Rest assured, there is nothing disingenuous about my intentions in showing you these five meticulously taken photographs of cut food. It is also not another effort of mine to appear overly pedantic in teaching 'oh this and that' about the wonders of art in photography. It is simple, lucid and mouthwatering. 

I came across these photographs upon my efforts to procrastinate in times of exams, projects, research papers etc. But I don't think it was an overly effective procrastination for I ended up doing something related to work. Nevertheless, this is to foster both my and any other individual's efforts in seeing the creative side to the Internet. For I believe that increasingly so, the Internet is being projected into a light of social networking, newspaper websites, trash feeds, and thought of in a solely negative manner. But it isn't any of those things (well it is but...) it is so much more. 

Source: http://colt-rane.com/cut-food-by-beth-galton/

We Like To Pass (not waste) Time

As I have said so many a time before, art does not only involve a paintbrush and canvas. It is so much more. To me, I have come to think of the word 'art' as an extremely convoluted term that can branch off into a myriad of other terms/genres/groups etc.

Would you say the creation of a website is art? Well, why not? I think it is.

This is where my procrastination comes in...countless times I have found myself sitting on a dark cloud of dull, opaque and frustrating matters that are endlessly time consuming. And in such protracted moments, my inclination to procrastinate is almost inevitable.

What is procrastination? Is it you sitting there, looking at one website then finding yourself clicking on another website followed by another and boom you have a multitude of tabs open and you find yourself thinking, 'wait it's 8:30PM...and my dissertation is due first thing in the morning of which I have barely finished...hmmm...oh well let's continue procrastinating.'

This is exactly what I am doing at this very moment in time. Procrastinating.

I read an article on www.mashable.com that displayed a list of other websites to aid in my efforts to procrastinate.

1) http://hackertyper.com/

Want to sit at work and appear as if you are toiling over some tediously laborious project? 

Well this may be the site for you (or your secret enjoyment of simply going awol on your keyboard for the joy of it).

2) http://www.theuselessweb.com/

This site takes you to other websites. It's almost like the inception of the Internet. Here is my blog, one website, where I recommend visiting a variety of other websites to check out, that in turn, take you to even more websites. 

Yes, please do take me to another useless website and further distract me from what I should really be doing. Thankss.....

3) http://www.sleepyti.me/

Having trouble over when exactly you should wake up? Want a calculator that identifies a restful night?

This website is the place to be for you. (Haha, I sound like a real estate agent...)

4) http://www.onreadz.com/

This site provides free e-books, may be useful for the studious individual...

5) http://www.ineedaprompt.com/index.php

For the very unimaginative man that simply cannot come up with an idea on his own.

6) http://www.thisissand.com/

Reminds me of weavesilk.com (another interactive website that I wrote a blog about a really long time ago)...this may be interesting for the crafty person who likes procrastinating by drawing/painting or other such artsy activities. 

I could go on but I simply thought that if I was procrastinating (as I am now) that I should try to be productive and/or helpful to myself and others and suggest ideas to other individuals who may be procrastinating too as they read this blog. 

L. ;) 

Source: http://mashable.com/2014/05/02/websites-to-waste-time/

Ridiculous Wearable Technology

I have always been one to never judge a person's creation, simply out of respect. However that does not go without saying that I am not left feeling confused, bewildered, or creeped out by the numerous creations that have been invented by tech-savvy individuals. There is a place and time for everything, but when it concerns an object, or piece of clothing that I must wear then all the circumstances change.

1) http://www.drumpants.com/

I have gathered a variety of interesting yet quite ridiculous inventions intended for the woman or man like myself to wear.

This may seem extremely useful and/or intriguing to the individual who is simply crazy about music or involved in some sort of band or what not.


What do you think? Would you like to walk around the park and tap on your skinny jeans simultaneously creating music as you do?

2) Sproutling - the fitness tracker for babies

Think of it, the baby is just born, barely able to walk yet but you are worried about the chubbiness of your baby's legs...(I know it's natural but for this case let's assume you are worried).

He or she may now go and order a Sproutling for their newborn to track their baby's everyday fitness regime. Imagine all that time and effort trying to teach your baby various yoga or pilates exercises is now wasted for Sproutling can obviously do the job? Right?

But apparently it is to detect the newborn's breathing patterns, movements throughout the house, and so on...


For more information on Sproutling go to -->

http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/16/wearable-baby-monitor-developer-sproutling-raises-2-6m-from-first-round-and-others-to-raise-parenting-iq/

Nevertheless, what is the meaning of 'wearable technology?' Should it be renamed to 'sensible wearable technology?' What renders something successful in its ability to be helpful to the individual? Many questions posed for much expected unanswered replies.

It is not hard to find hundreds of sites talking about the 'marvellousness, ridiculousness, recklessness' of so many different types of wearable technology. Same with how there are so many different discussions and debates circling around the topic that people are just not interested in wearable technology right now.

I, if I am to be totally honest, feel quite indifferent about the concept but if something out there is released that I feel may genuinely aid me in whatever I am doing then I will gladly pay for it. Otherwise, keep the inventions coming.

The Evolution of the Home

Let's meet Stan. Stan wakes up in the morning, takes a shower, turns on the television that automatically presents him with his favorite news channel, and then heads into the kitchen. He makes his toast, his coffee, but wait where is the milk? So Stan walks over to the fridge and realises that his beloved skimmed milk is nowhere to be seen. Neither is his beloved butter for the toast nor is his much needed box of organic eggs for his daily quiche. He didn't know that all these ingredients were missing when he went out to the store yesterday and currently he feels to lazy to make the trip.

But what if yesterday, prior to going out to the store, Stan had a remote or some sort of device that told him exactly what ingredients were in refrigerator, and upon typing out a recipe, that same device told him what ingredients he needed. Wouldn't that be convenient?

"Take a washing machine, for example. A 20-year-old model will function fairly similarly to its modern counterpart: It gets clothes clean. Compare that to, say, the cellphone, a crowded technological landscape obsessed with making the Next Big Thing,

"Legacy home appliance companies are the old guards of the technology world: respectable businesses with reliable products everybody needs."

The question that stands now is do we want these new, convenient, technological advancements? Or, do we want to stay as we are with our safe, reliable, legacy companies that have provided our families with what we need for decades?

Are we willing to consider trade-offs? Would we be afraid of the general population gaining weight as a result of the increased laziness that would arise as a result of this new technology? I don't know. 

Personally, I would love it if before I got out of bed every morning, I could lean over to my phone and have it send some sort of message to my coffee machine that said, "make me a vanilla and caramel coffee with no milk and no sugar." 

L.

Sources: 

http://mashable.com/2014/04/26/smart-home-appliances/

http://freeallsoftwares.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Home-Automation-for-iPhone.jpg

Movies with BAD CGI effects

I feel like I have continuously focused on the more generic, and obvious aspects of art but what just occurred to me was that there is so much more. Why have I not been talking about films or radio or music? Aren't those all part of the term 'art.' My point being that I feel as if I have delved into the inescapable route of looking at something in one perspective.
I know and this new perspective of mine is just making you go all:

Ha ha ha...funny right? This is my fatigue speaking. Nonetheless, I assume that a majority of the population has watched a movie, and one with special effects. Some movies have excellent CGI whereas others make you want to slowly walk out of the room whilst slowly shaking your head. Movies are movies, we pay ridiculous amounts of money for them (like the other day I went with a friend to a movie at Westfield and we wanted to sit in the VIP seats. Well, we ended up spending £35 on the chairs.) So isn't it fair enough to say that we expect to be intrigued, impressed, emotionally touched by what we are paying to see. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. 

This little Youtube clip by WatchMojo.com's channel displays in a consecutive sequence the worst CGI used in movies. Surprisingly (or I was surprised) even high budget movies, screen pictures that we always assume to have the best of everything (the best actors, the best scenery, the best camera shots/directing) can have the most dire and diabolical movie effects. 

But there is a reason why some movies may have cheap looking effects:

THE MONEY :)))

What does CGI cost?

Some companies charge $5,000 per second for their work on a movie etc. This is why cartoons, movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, Spider Man 3 etc. are so expensive to make. These films run into the $100,000,000+ range in their budgets! So it really is no wonder why some films simply can't afford the full cost of good movie effects.

Sadly it is an expensive world we are living in, and mostly everything today that is good quality, worth seeing, or worth our time is the most expensive thing. 

Time is Money and Money gives Results.

Sources:

http://gif-my-emotions.tumblr.com/page/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZlOn9V_MmE

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/money-gif

Has technology changes us as a people?

If someone were to ask you if technology has changed you as a person from the moment you began to use it to the current day, what would you say? That it has, or has not?

Now we all know about the site called debate.org where people can add in their say on various forums, and debates that they may find interesting.

Well...has technology changed us as a people? Has it made us more narcissistic? More conscious? More anxious as we are so easily notified about the horrors that continue to occur in the world every single day?

90% said YES. 10% said NO.

http://www.debate.org/opinions/has-technology-changed-us-as-a-people

Note: all below quotes are submitted anonymously. 

YES:

"It has made us rely on off-storage memory. For older folks -- remember how you'd memorize phone numbers before cell phones? Now it's the same thing with everything, Google being the cell-phone analogy. We're offloading memory storage and memory filtering off the cloud, be it Google, Bing or whatever. Doesn't make us dumber, but reliable on instant internet access. Kind of scary."

NO:

"No I think we have just become more of what we are and have always been and generally will always be. Humans are inquisitive by nature and our inquisitiveness has led us to the brink of destruction. We want to know absolutely everything but unfortunately we don't want to use our knowledge to create a better world, life, or existence first. Mankind's imaginations are continually evil. Technology is great when it is used to promote unity, goodness, health and safety." 

(I must say I am left slightly confused by the person who argued NO's argument)

We use technology in schools now, we use it in our art, science, math and history classrooms. Where do we not use it now? In the shower? I mean seriously...

Sources: http://a.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/inline-large/inline/2013/03/3007034-inline-inline-facebook-nbc-what-difference-8-years-makes-st-peters-square-2005-and-yesterday.jpg