The Ultimate Question Of Battery Life, The Universe And Everything

Yes, I'm an Apple Fan Boy.

Yes, I love Apple products.

Yes, I actually use them.

And this last statement is actually the source of my rant as for the last five years, I have been constantly obsessed with the battery life of my iPhone (from V1 to 3G to 3GS to 4 to 4S and finally iPhone 5). Each new iPhone with each new iOS iteration brought more features, less power consumption but more or less the same battery and in the end the same battery life.

What Apple failed to realize is that releasing a less power hungry chip doesn't compensate for the increase in use and functionality when coupled to the same battery.

All the talk about great battery life is just marketing BS to me. The iPhone has great battery life if you don't use it. But isn't the point of having a shiny iPhone to actually use it? What if you're heading to the airport after a long day of work (or actually a short day of work) and realize that your boarding pass stored in Passbook won't be available when you get to the airport because you don't have enough battery left?

Well, that's my life and the following picture is what I fear the most and yet see very often:

I Can Has Consciousness

I'm in the habit of listening to podcasts while driving. As a matter of fact, I've come to hate most of my local radio stations as I find it rather depressing to listen to news which are usually focused on one sole thing: keeping their audience by tackling fearsome topics. I've found myself to be in a much better general mood since I decided to let go of local radio stations and started to pick the shows I wanted to listen to while driving.

I've only discovered "The Skeptic's Guide To The Universe" recently and must say I really enjoy it.

The last episode I listened to (Ep. #358) dealt with theories of consciousness which I find to be a much more interesting topic than the global economy. Facts & theories were presented in a very clear manner and left for the audience to decide towards which side they personally leaned:

Cosmic Entanglement, Consciousness & Bodily Existence

Witnessing the last moments of existence of a living being only reminds us that our existence, in this world that we call ours, is transient and fragile. Although we spend most of our days not thinking too much about it, we are bound to face this reality from time to time and ultimately at the time of our death. It is, in fact, both appalling and essential that we avoid such concerns on a daily basis for our existence would be otherwise flooded with angst and sorrow.

However, in these moments when we are faced with the vanishing of life, we sometimes, feel that we can grasp a short preview of what our existence and the universe are all made of. Of course, such realizations could arguably be described as vain attempts at dealing with grief. I like to think that, though pointless, these moments can only help our understanding of the universe or whatever that might have a purpose in it.

Does it seem so far-fetched (which religion or philosophy isn't?) to think that our bodily manifestation is nothing more than a mere puppet remotely controlled by our true self emanating from a different plane of existence through some sort of cosmic entanglement?

Death could be conceptualized as the simple action of severing this cosmic connection, disconnecting our true self from our "puppet". I have such a hard time believing that our material existence is the only reality. There has to be a more transcendent explanation than simply accepting our condition as it is.

How can we believe that either there is nothing else than the creation of our consciousness and its destruction at the end of our life? Or that something magical and/or religious is there to explain it all? Can't we theorize something in between? Why wouldn't there be something linking our physical universe to a spiritual one obeying our yet-to-come understanding of science?

Isn't there something transcendent in all creatures able to ask themselves such questions? And by that reasoning, can we reach some sort of partial conclusion that we, or part of us, can exist in so many different planes of existence that our true essence does not vanish but only evolves through multiple states and connections?

How To Put An End To Wars

Doesn't it strike you as odd that, as children, we all spend an awful lot of time studying wars at school? Why would any sensible mind think that it is a good thing to teach children about wars? Some might argue that the History of humanity is important and has to be passed on. Some others might say that studying wars might prevent more wars to come. To the latter, I would respond that they are obviously wrong. I would even go as far as to say that I don't see why that aspect of History should overshadow other aspects such as laughter and humor. Wouldn't it be better to teach our children how to make beautifully articulated jokes than to surreptitiously plant in their minds the idea that going to war is, sometimes, a necessity?

Wouldn't we live in a better world if world leaders were to play jokes on one another instead of bombing ordinary citizens?

If there are other intelligent beings in our universe, I wonder if they're affected by the same plagues than we are. If they're not, I'm sure they would admire a lot more our species for its ability to laugh than for its self-destructive tendencies.

The Necessary Stupidity Of Our Daily Lives

As a highly intelligent (at least we like to think so) animal, we were granted the ability to be self-conscious. Such a gift can also be considered a curse as it can plunge us into the abyssal anxiety of death. We all are aware that it will happen to us one day, we all witness it around us and yet, we tend to discard any thought related to that metaphysical question.

Some of us find answers in religion, some think they do in science and some of us just accept it as a non-negotiable reality. The fact and the matter is that we all dread that last moment when our final breath comes and we leave our earthly existence to embark on a journey to the unknown. Clearly, living with that thought in our mind on a constant basis wouldn't be bearable and we might, ironically (if one can find irony in this), kill ourselves to avoid the thought of our own death. It seems odd and terrifying to me that the answer to this question that Evolution came up with was to give us the ability to be stupid and make it possible for us to forget about the most important question of all for 99.9% of our existence.

So, we go through our lives from one relatively pointless goal to another, without trying to figure out the big picture, blindfolding ourselves from our own insignificance and effectively denying ourselves the right to question the purpose of life or the anguish of death.

So my advice to you: embrace your stupid side and enjoy all these insignificant moments as they are part of the human condition.

The Hashtag Of All Hashtags #Daaaaaaaaaaaaa

Hashtags are unbelievably practical. I never use them to search for information on any social network but I do think that they are the virtual proof of the existence of a Higher Power in the universe. When Bergson wrote about the ultimate function of the universe as a machine for the making of gods, he probably envisioned the future and the birth of hashtags. So, now that our universe is fulfilled thanks to the proliferation of hashtags, we could ask ourselves the "what's next" anxiety-filled question?

Luckily, you're reading my blog and I have the answer! The true essence and purpose of all matter in the universe is to transcend hashtags and bring them to a new plane of virtual usefulness. As I am a pioneer in the field of Universe Understanding, I have been using this new kind of hashtag for a while. I named it the #Daaaaaaaaa hashtag. It has no meaning nor purpose and can therefore be added to anything and everything #Daaaaaaaaa (that was just an example #Daaaaaaaaa). The beauty in this hashtag is that you can artistically change the number of As in it in order to differentiate its non-meaning from another #Daaaaaaaaaaaaaa hashtag!

Please feel free and obliged to use it from now on and until the end of time in everything you write #Daaaaaaaaaaaaa. You also have my blessing to manually add it to every sentence in all books or magazines you might stumble across #Daaaaaaaaaaaaa

Testimonial:
Steve J., Cupertino, CA: "The #Daaaaaaaa hashtag is the new period #Daaaaaaaaaa I can’t think of a better way to end a sentence than with a #Daaaaaaaa It drives me nuts to realize that I’m not the one that thought of this first #Daaaaaaaaaa  I have hired thousands of engineers to work on an i#Daaaaaaaaa device #Daaaaaaaaaaa"

The Structural Antagonism Between Oral Pleasure And Health

As disappointing as this may sound to the reader, this post is not about oral sex but rather surprisingly about food (another form of oral pleasure). Has it ever occurred to you that most pleasurable food or dishes are usually not good for your health? Whether it is cholesterol-filled tasty sauce or rich nutrients, experiencing fine food at its climax is usually associated with the intrinsic notion of putting our health in a transient state of jeopardy. Refusing to acknowledge this fact can result in an increased risk of cardiovascular or metabolic diseases and hence premature death.

This leads to a rather profound question. Is our world or universe structured in a way that pleasure has to be linked with guilt or danger? Or do we, as human beings, find pleasure in risky behaviors? Should we see in this realization the essence of God or merely the perverted nature of our condition struggling to disavow the castration perpetuated by religion or education? Do we have to sin to experience transient happiness followed by prolonged guilt? Or was our universe so ill-conceived that most good things are bad for us?

Freud, Einstein, The Universe, Quantum Teleportation & The Future of IT

It turns out that I've been very been much interested in Quantum Mechanics lately. This isn't a new hobby of mine as I remember, when I was in High School, having a hard time deciding which studies I wanted to pursue. The fascinating world of Quantum Mechanics as well as my long interest in Astrophysics seemed as important to me as the exhilarating psychoanalytic theories of Freud.

If I had to name the most significant scientific figures of the 20th century, I would without any hesitation mention Albert Einstein & Sigmund Freud. They have both uncovered new fields of science and had the audacity and courage to question the established knowledge.

I can't help thinking that there are still great discoveries to be made and that our knowledge of the fabric of space and time is still very limited, probably in the same way that our understanding of consciousness is. My recent post about microtubules & consciousness shows that the world of Quantum Physics and the world of Biology are about to collide and maybe lead to a better understanding of who and what we are.

As for Quantum Mechanics & geekier concerns, I recently stumbled accross this news:

Scientists were able to successfully teleport information between 2 entangled photons across a ten-mile distance! This is an absolute great achievement and when you think of it, it might pave the way for unlimited bandwidth over unlimited distances! Imagine an Internet not limited by bandwidth concerns!

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/05/quantum-teleportation-achieved-over-ten-miles-of-free-space.ars