Document Or Live?

Technology is Great, but Are We Forgetting to Live?

This article validated what I have been doing unconsciously all these years. On any given trip there was a feeling that I could have taken more pictures. I almost felt guilty for allowing the "big moments" of my life slip by without recording them for future reference. Well, turns out I had done the best thing with these "moments" -- I lived them.

For me there is always the danger of going into extremes. Hopefully this article will not prompt me to stop recording things altogether. Rather, I will learn to make better decisions about when to take pictures and to put down the camera.

CD Album Info

Today I dug up an old CD, I Don't Want To Miss A Thing by Aerosmith. The case it came in was previously stuck and wouldn't open, but today I managed to fix it. Having taken the CD out of the case I decided to give it a play on my laptop.

So I fired up Windows Media Player 11 and out of curiosity tried to retrieve the album info online. Usually I can't get the album info because I mostly own Chinese CDs. I thought this time would be successful because the CD is English and popular. Wrong.

WMP11 found the album alright, but its record showed only 3 tracks instead of 4 (track 2 was missing). Even WMP tells me my CD has 4 tracks, but it presents to me an album with just 3. How stupid is this?

After mucking around in WMP a little longer, I found the correct album in one of the last search results. It had 4 tracks! Except it had no album art. And the year was wrong (1989 instead of 1998, probably a typo).

So today I found out what crappy software/service MS was producing, especially since this tiny CD ripper will get the correct info first try, without any clicking or choosing the right album from a list.

Screen Capturing

Just read this from a newspaper column:

Taking screen shots from a Mac is dead easy: three, and sometimes four, taps on the keyboard and you have the image captured forever...[p]ressing cmd-shift-3 takes a snapshot of the screen.

- Page 43 of Livewire, The Age, 23-10-2008

Have they never heard of the print-screen key on a PC keyboard?

Pre-crime

CCTV cameras which can 'predict' if a crime is about to take place are being introduced on Britain's streets.

The cameras can alert operators to suspicious behaviour, such as loitering and unusually slow walking. Anyone spotted could then have to explain their behaviour to a police officer. 

Source: MailOnline

Firstly I would like to know accurate these cameras are. If it gives out false alarms half the time it will only overwhelm the CCTV operator, who would simply turn off the alarms.

Secondly what are you going to do to the man lurking suspiciously in the alley? Even if he really is about to commit a crime he hasn't yet done so. Sending the police after him does nothing since they can't arrest him for standing around doing nothing constructive. Suspicious activity is not illegal activity.

Finally, and most importantly, this whole concept just will not work and here is why. If you tell would-be criminals cameras are tracking and analysing their every move, they will just do their evil deeds in some other place where the cameras can't see them. Alternatively they will figure out how to carry out their crimes without triggering the alarm. The key point here is people can change their behaviours if the rules are changed. A system that relies on spotting specific behaviours will therefore not work.

Praying for a Stranger

Today a couple from a nearby Christian church knocked on my door. They went through a brief introduction about themselves and their church. After that they did something very special. They asked if there was anything they could pray for me. Naturally I told them my exam in four days, thinking the "prayer" would be performed when they returned to church. Instead they began praying right there, outside my front door. Being a Catholic myself I am no stranger to these kind of prayers so I too bowed my head and listened to the man pray. He delivered the prayer so eloquently it was hard to believe we had known each other for less than five minutes. I could hardly tell my wants to God better than he did.

After they left I felt almost indebt to their kind actions. What stopped me short was the realisation that I too have the ability to do the same thing. Instead of repaying them directly I can do to others what they did to me: spread the Good News, pray for strangers. The prospect of actually carrying this out scares the hell out of me. It is simply not in my nature to start a conversation with a complete stranger, nor is making a request (praying for them) that has a high probability of rejection. Also I am rather slow with creating words. Slower if it is to be used in a prayer. Even slower if I have to make up stuff from thin air. However I do not totally deny myself of this wonderful task, shall the opportunity arises. Part of believing in God is about, well, believing in Him, that he will not give me a task I cannot fulfill.

Despite our (slight?) differences in beliefs, I felt our prayer had been heard. And they left me with such an emotional reactions! God bless them for sacrificing their time for such a wonderful cause. They shall always be in my prayers.