Category: other

All posts that do not belong in the categories of buddhism or philosophy goes in here. Please check tags for more details about what the post is about.

All track pads are equal. Some track pads are more equal than others.

Warren Tang2 Comments

A track pad is a track pad is a track pad. Not.

Take the Apple MacBook Pro 2015 and the Microsoft Surface Pro 2018 – they both have touch or track pads. But on the MacBook pad is fixed. This might sound ridiculous and unusable but really it means that there are less moving parts and less likely to break. The workaround for this is an incredible haptic feedback system which taps back against your finger making it feel like some kind of movement. The illusion is simply quite amazing. The Surface Pro still uses a traditional traditional track pad. While it has become multitouch like most of today’s devices it still means it feels old. The verdict – MacBook‘s track pad is simply an experience. Unless one uses tries similar but different things one does not know the subtle differences between them. Direct experience is important, in every sense.

Perception colours reality

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I am in no doubt that there is only one reality, and it exists with or without being perceived. For this reason perception colours reality rather than changes it. Different perceptions (not different realities) are the root cause of all misunderstandings.

Why I care about the new iPhones?

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So Apple announced its new products today. Why do I care? Considering the amount of time I spend on my phone, the amount I use it for photography, productivity, entertainment, etc, it makes sense that I invest in it. It is the primary technology I use because if its usefulness. It is my main camera and Filofax. I blog from it more than I blog from my computer. I entertain myself with chess and watch live broadcasts from it. I reply to emails and messages from it because it is more convenient and efficient to do.

The new iPhone Xs and Xs Plus is nice but it isn’t worth a replacement for my X. The Xr however is worth it as a replacement for my wife’s old iPhone 6s, which was originally mine. It looks like Apple is moving towards to phase out Touch ID in favour of Face ID by not introducing iPhone 8s at this time.

While I can see that they will probably bring out the 8s later as their low end model (phasing out their iPhone 7), eventually they will do away with it also. Furthermore, people still love the Touch ID. It is a slick piece of security that had little fault. I liked the fact that multiple fingerprints of more than one person can be registered. I had access to my wife’s phone by registering mine. I couldn’t do that with Face ID, which allows only one face as ID.

Overall, the Xr is a good replacement/upgrade for the 8. Keeping the LED display, but upping the camera, security features, size and a new A12 Bionic chip (which is supposed to be much faster than the previous A11 Bionic chip in the X).

Is recycling in Japan a sham?

Warren Tang2 Comments

Screenshot 2018-09-11 14.47.33For all the trouble we go through separating plastics at home for recycling, where does it all go? This video will show you what is really happening to the plastic in Japan. A far cry from this post I wrote in 2006.

 

My 9-11

Warren Tang1 Comment

i woke to horrors others
had seen with their eyes
and i, only through
this tiny screen

but still
it was terrifying
to watch the heat &
the synchrony of it

that evening waiting
on a sydney pier
waiting for a friend
to arrive by jet plane

i watched this
faraway yet near
not dear skyline
in unnatural fear

The difference between a ‘k’ and ‘d’ in Ikea

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I love Ikea (for all its faults).

It is frustrating that I cannot order online anything from Ikea. That I have to drive over 200km just to get to my nearest store is simply ridiculous in this day and age.

While I understand there is nothing like the experience of the walking through an Ikea store, it may also be impractical to get to for many.

This could only mean they do not want my business bad enough. They must be doing fine without my support. :P

Trade offs

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Chess is like life: the trade offs are never one-to-one and never black and white. Sometimes they are similar trade offs. At other times they can be for material, temporal or positional advantages.

Waste not a single moment

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Chess is like life: you must not waste time and start to prepare from the very first move. If you get behind you may find it hard to catch up later.

Sensation and perception

Warren Tang2 Comments

There needs to be a differentiation between sensation and perception. Sensation is purely sense data, and perception is processed data. Sensation can one of five (there are more) basic sense data from the eye, ear, nose, skin and tongue, in the form of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. Perception is the processed from these five senses as well as from the mental data (thought and concepts).

A video camera and its connected monitor is like sensation. The video camera thinks  nothing of the signal coming through its system, only to pass it down a wire to a monitor to be displayed. Certain limitations are placed upon the data through how it is displayed on the monitor but nothing more.

A processing unit attached to the monitor then can analyse, organise and categorise the data in the form of light that is formed as a representation of the external world. A video/monitor unit is useless without the processing unit. And the processing unit is useless without some kind of data.

In this way, the video/monitor unit is the experiential component while the processing unit is the rational component of the transcendental idealist model.