Brainwashing

  În ultimul timp, pe măsură ce ma maturizez și îmi formez principiile și idealurile, tot mai des îmi dau întrebarea  "de ce?" - ceea ce e perfect normal. De ce lumea în care trăim e așa cum este? De ce noi oamenii din prezent suntem influențați atît de substanțial de alți oameni (mai concret - aspirațiile și modul lor de a exista) care au trăit pe această planetă zeci, sute și chiar mii de ani în urma? E vorba de astfel de lucruri ca eticheta, comportamentul admis în societate, confesia etc. - lucruri formate pe parcursul anilor. De ce cînd pentru prima data vedem lumina zilei, ne este prescris pe care cale s-o apucăm în viață, cum să ne comportăm ca să nu ne simțim excomunicați, în ce sau cine să credem, ce este corect și ce nu? Răspunsul e simplu : sistemul e de vină. Societatea, dacă vreți. Dar nu în întregime ci doar una din fundațiile acesteia - precondiționarea. Ar fi haos și anarhie totală dacă sistemul nu ar exista dar în același timp libertatea deplină promisă nu e decît o glumă. Cît de liberi nu am fi, ne vom simți limitați de legi, de aceeași etichetă etc. O altă problemă este că noi oamenii credem în acest lucru din toată inima și aproape niciodată nu ne întrebăm de ce anume facem ceea ce facem și dacă ar trebui să ne ocupăm cu altceva în loc anume din cauza că sîntem pre-condiționați să o facem.Exemplu :de ce impunem copiilor credința din primii ani de viață? Religia este o chestie deosebit de personală pentru mine care nu trebuie nici într-un caz să fie determinată de istorie, tradiții familiale sau să fie impusă prin propagandă activă sau oarecare altă metodă, deoarece anume astfel copii cresc cu creerii spalați și pe măsură ce se dezvoltă intelectual, cred că ceea ce le-a fost spus în copilărie e perfect valabil și corect din toate punctele de vedere și că oricare alte alternative sunt irelevante. Mă bucur că părinții mei nu au fost la fel ci din contra m-au lăsat pe mine să aleg cine vreau să fiu și cui să mă închin. E o calitate de admirat pentru fiecare părinte. Nu m-am referit exclusiv la creștinism sau oarecare altă confesie la nivel specific ci la întregul tabloul al religiilor. Brainwashing-ul însă nu se limitează doar la religie dar afectează și multe alte aspecte a vieții sociale a persoanei de rînd. E vorba de propagandă, publicitate și altele. E important să ținem cont de faptul că nu există decizii, principii sau convingeri greșite sau corecte ci doar raționale și iraționale. Care sunt care - decidem fiecare în parte.

P.S.
Nu uitați să vă întrebați "de ce?" mereu. Numai astfel veți fi salvați de brainwashing.Noapte bună.

Cine suntem noi?

  Animale, mamifere, cum doriți. Nici mai mult , nici mai puțin. Omul, ca specie, e doar rezultatul unei serii îndelungate de reacții chimice ce au avut loc în decursul evoluției. Suntem copilul perfect al elementelor din tabelul periodic.Și baga mi-aș picioru în adepții umanismului care susțin ideea supremației speciei umane, omul și valorile sale fiind mai presus ca orice. După rolul pe care îl ocupăm în natura nu suntem mai presus decît aceleași insecte, decît orice alt animal terestru sau aerian.Și anume, rolul nostru de baza este de a inventa întrucît posedăm darul rațiunii pentru a crea și pentru a ne face viețile mai ușoare pe zi ce trece.Însă privind la întregul tablou al existenței, tot ceea ce creăm noi e pînă la urmă irelevant.Inclusiv și arta care e doar o altă invenție a omenirii cu funcția de a ne încînta organele de simț sau de a transmite un oarecare mesaj.Explic: toate acestea nu au sens, dacă ar fi să privim la specia noastra doar ca la una din numeroasele creații a naturii.Comunicarea între noi , creațiile - toate se rasfrîng doar asupra noastra (în mare masură) ci nu asupra planetei , a naturei în întregime. Suntem doar animale cu instincte animalistice - de a supraviețui, de a ne înmulți etc.. Restul sentimentelor și trăirilor sunt doar rezultatul unor procese interne în organismele noastre care au importanța exclusiv pentru omenire ca specie.( Nu pricep sensul expresiei "Ascultăți inima". Lume , lăsați inima în pace. Ea doar pompează sînge.Înțeleg că e metaforic dar o variantă mult mai plausibilă ar fi "Ascultăți creerul" ) .Chiar ceea ce fac acum , tipărind acest articol, nu are sens global ci e doar relevant în contextul speciei mele. De aceea și nu agreez persoanele care se autopraclamă drept regi ai naturii sau drept ființe divine sau supreme. Da, suntem cele mai dezvoltate ființe din punct de vedere intelectual de pe această planetă , însă dupa cum am mai menționat mai sus, ponderea noastra în ecosistemul naturii e relativ egală cu ponderea altor ființe vii.

  
Spre final, un sfat: Nu fi ipocrit. Cunoaște-ți locul.   

Steve's Story

  It's 2 hours until the deadline and Steve , just another typical worker in an office of a huge-a** company , still has all these tasks to do in order to carry out that damned monthly report for his much hated boss. Soon after ,Steve began inevitably questioning himself , asking the same thing over and over again : why on Earth couldn't he buckle up and finish those tasks earlier ? It's no big deal for him, since Steve is still a skilled asset to his firm . But, doing something from which one derives sheer enjoyment is quite tempting (nobody denies that). As a matter of fact, Steve decided he'd let it slide this time too and ignore all those sheets of paper filled to the brink with boring monthly data (the most obnoxious thing in the world , seriously ) , until he'd be feeling in his element to get to work. 

  The catch is: he did it the next time , and then again and than another time . Long story short , Steve had lost himself completely in the vicious battle against routine and boredom , while being unaware he wasn't meeting the time requirements set to him . How lazy of him . As a side note , all that he became now is nothing short of a heavily problematic worker with more shortcoming rather than achievements, with no sense of responsibility whatsoever and with a mess of a schedule to cap it all off.

  After taking a huge glance at all this s*** Steve is currently knee-deep in , he came to the over-arching conclusion : it all could've really been avoided , if not for the PROCRASTINATION he was into . 
  Don't look at the capped word like that . I'll explain everything in due time . 
 Basically , Procrastination is a psychological act of replacing high-priority tasks with lower-priority ones or postponing them to a later period of time in order to engage in a more joyful and pleasant activity . 

  It's time for the morale of the story: Don't be Steve. Don't procrastinate. Get your stuff done in time, than you're free to do whatever you desire.

Why I despise Apple

Hello World !

 Bold statement incoming ! I hate Apple for two things : the fanboys and the policy . Now let's get our facts straight.

The Buyers

 There is this notion of an Apple Evangelist.Long story short ,these are individuals known for over-promoting Apple products (You know,all the "i" stuff) with sheer exaggeration.What I'm trying to tell you is that there is certain cult formed over the years among the ranks of these groups.They like to call it The Cult of Mac.The members of that cult's idiosyncratic loyalty to the company in cause has been widely described as having religious traits with a somewhat atheist behaviour towards common religions.The Cult of Mac is believed to be an entire system that helps worship technology in the world by praising and nearly sanctifying Apple's now deceased renown founder -Steve Jobs.He is often compared to God and called a saviour, his life being woven into different ancient religious myths.A martyr, even. And perhaps most importantly, Apple fanboys simply don't bother of knowing of the existence of other tech-based companies besides Apple Inc. believing their products are absolutely the best they can possibly find while ignoring Apple's utterly horrendous policy.I surely don't want to become of the freaks.

Mac cultist, rear shot.

The Policy

 Here's where stuff gets really muddy. In my book, Apple's way of treating it's costumers is one of the most self-righteous, pathetic and arrogant I've ever seen in my time of existence. If you do the simple action of googling "Why people hate Apple" you'd be amazed at the myriads of articles, public opinions regarding people dissing Apple's way of doing business.I will point out some of the most prominent examples to you:

• iTunes . Speaking of online sales , customers are free to choose where they wish the purchase their content from , whereas in the case of i-products , consumers are forced to use the application in cause , whether they like it or not . Consequently , iTunes restricts purchases to the country from which the customer's payment details originated . This creates a monopoly within the market . 
• The First-Party Connectors. Only Apple certified accessories can be connected to an Apple device . Are you serious ???
• Banned or blocked apps. You can't download Google apps on an iOS device . Also , better Wi-Fi detectors that Apple's woeful variant are prohibited. 
• Little to no customization . Apple want us to use their devices the way they would like to. Why would I bother being thought dumb by the company that provides me with such handhelds ? It is a freaking smartphone. It is meant to provide freedom of use .
• A lot of more stuff you can feel free to read :
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Apple_Inc.
  http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/26-reasons-apple-fanboys-have-got-it-all-wrong-689379
  
  One of my close relatives owns an Iphone 4S and to be honest, for that price it is a disaster mainly because of Apple trying to combat piracy or who knows what with their crappy polic .I bought an app for 1$ with a pre-paid virtual Visa card and now I'm not able to either update any app or buy a new one because "the payment was not confirmed" somehow.Why did it allow me to download that app,then? And this is the best-selling smartphone in the world ? Nah :<

For now, I'll stick to my trusty Android device.There's hope that the guys running Apple will learn the notion of being true to their costumers.Might feel like a rant article but that is just how I see things : )

Have a nice day !

My humble opinion on the Ouya console ...

Hi for the fourth time today.Feels great having a blog,you know.It's like a canvas for all the thoughts that are being given birth up there in my brilliant head . 

So,the Ouya (pronounced like "ooya")...
 The strangely named Ouya is a recently announced video game console powered by Android 4.0 which will cost 99$ at launch.If you want to get more familiar with the details feel free to visit the console's Kickstarter page or watch the video below:

Kickstarter :  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console



Kickstarter :  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console

Just look at that controller!

Box design ?

  Now look,a cheap console,build essentially for free-to-play model based games,running on a highly customizable operating system? This kinda looks like the right console for low-budget gamers who are not shy to try their strengths at hardware modding.That is great! Assuming this thing sports a quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and other great stuff like an ethernet port, built in wi-fi, bluetooth, 1080p HDMI connection, the Ouya could be quite the treat for modders to squeeze everything out of this device. I'm not talking about only games. It also boasts a solid potential to be used as a full-fledged media box of sorts, but with a ton of awesome free games on it .The controller, with its metallic finish also looks dope and positively futuristic and utopian. Though, I'm a little bit skeptical concerning the form factor of the console itself. I would really like to know whether the unique box-like form factor will offer some other commodities besides saving up some extra space in the living room.With all that being said, I'm almost sold !But..there's always the but in the end.One thing I can't get over.I'm 80% certain that when people will buy this thing (and they will),they'll expect an abundance of AAA game titles on it, that is for sure.And in my opinion, disappointed will be they. As far as I understand, not every huge dev will want to port his best selling title to an Android device. And not everyone will incorporate the infamous Free-to-play model to their game (I'm looking at you Call of Duty ). I might be mistaken, but time will show. For me personally, it's a safe bet that I'll end up buying this Ouya to satisfy my and my little brother's casual gaming needs. I already have an Xbox 360 so I'm not looking for another place to play my big budget titles. If you do, than Ouya isn't for you.
P.S: Another thing I wonder about.Will the internet services like multiplayer gaming be free of charge or not ?

Discuss !
FireWalker out .

Chrono Mirages

Hello World Again! 

  Weird , strange , miraculous things can happen in this world , no doubt . As far as I'm quite interested and intrigued by such anomalies , I've recently watched a TV documentary about a very dazzling type of anomaly . It's called a Chronomirage . Basically it is a mirage , or an optical phenomenon , that can be observed in real time containing images , persons , entire events that happened in the past or would eventually happen in the future . As bizzare as it sounds , these were confirmed sighted by people all around the world who were horrendously fascinated and at the same time frightened to experience them . There is literally a ton of these chronomirages reported , some of them even do repeat with shocking consistency . Moreover, the shift in time can be gigantic . We're talking about hundreds of years here .

  There is a common hypothesis regarding the fact that the notion of time is nowadays one of the most mysterious properties of the physical world , capable of having a profound effect on things like space as an infinite term .
  While trying to explain the nature of the chronomirages , scientists have come up with the notion of psychic energy that saves itself within space . After years it is capable of releasing itself back in , thus recreating the events of the past . Many ufologists do note that "alien spacecraft" sightings can probably be chronomirages as well , possibly representing human aircraft from the future . Yikes!

Some of the most famous encountered chronomirages :

-1815, Battle of Waterloo . Napoleon's forces were defeated . Some weeks afterwards, the battle was being observed once again by the inhabitants of a nearby belgian town .
-Pskov region , Russia . Reported sightings of monarchs walking in the distance that do not resemble contemporary priests . Attempts to take pictures of the figures always fail ( there is always a huge spot of lights instead of the figure of a man on the pictures)
-Moscow suburbs . A young pair camping in the forest has reportedly heard gun shots and german banter at night . The man eventually got out of the camp and saw an injured man in a Nazi uniform . Days after , he found out that 60 years ago , a World War II battle was fought in these woods .
-Different places around the Globe . People are barely seeing again old towns or cities that were destroyed either by fire or in battle centuries ago .

Weird stuff , ins't it ? That's why I dig it .

If you know russian , I have a video for you right here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jJaWqsa_qKc

ARTISTIC VISION or ARTIST VS AUDIENCE

Hello World!

  Here is one of my first articles ever written and I heard enjoyed it . It is something that popped into my mind after experiencing the uproar caused by the ending(s) of Mass Effect 3 (great game , btw ).  Hope you liked it . If u come across bugs , report in and we'll try to troubleshoot ))

  Say you‘ve just walked out from a movie . You enjoyed the script , the acting , the camera work and the action sequences but the feeling that the ending was somewhat lacking just can’t creep out of your head. It just didn’t quite deliver. As a result, you feel somewhat disappointed, even your most blurry expectations being betrayed, leaving you pondering everything it could have been, yet sadly never will be.

   You then look it up on the Internet and eventually find out that the outspoken majority also shares your point of view . You then join the movement , waiting desperately for the film makers to come up with a more satisfying closure . And here it is , you get it . An alternative ending just showed up and everyone seems to be happy , now ready to move on , speaking words of gratitude to the director/producers . But , wait , something isn’t quite all-right about all this…

    First of all , we can all agree on the notion that a movie , besides being a product is also an art form , an embodiment of someone’s visionary thoughts , a distinct way in which we , people , express our feeling or concerns upon a certain topic , problem or reality or maybe just a great pastime and an effective time-killer . The question is , what specific role do we, the audience , the criticizing source of feedback , possibly have in the process of influencing and even creating art ? Who are we to organize reckless backlashes against certain artistic visions that didn’t happen to be perceived the way we wanted to ? A dilemma , isn’t it ?

    Take ,for example ,Charles Dickens’ novel s that were used to be published in monthly or weekly installments . This convenient format allowed him to evaluate the feedback from his readers and ,basically, modify the plot keys and character developments , according to these very reactions . Hence ,, most great art forms practiced nowadays have to face peer/public review .

   There is a whole plethora of cases when relevant creations have been changed or improved upon based off of public opinion. Here is a short list of movies and books  that have certain plot moments changed due to negative reception:

        – Titanic

        – The Abyss

        – Bladerunner (about 15 times)

        – Harry Potter (book and movie )

        – Dune (book and movie )

        – Multiple James Bond movies .

   The list goes on and on…

   Who is right ,in the end,then, the artist or the audience ? Shouldn’t the author(s)be fully responsible for his ways of delivering art ? Isn’t he independent of all public opinion regarding his work ? Or should he focus his attention on receiving feedback ,whether positive or negative , in order to face the music and take action in favor of his audience? It’s a double-edged sword really.

   On one hand, art is a personal expression, it’s his own vision and he could do absolutely anything he wants with it .On the other hand, listening to public opinion and addressing their concerns is probably the only way for your art to work commercially. And that is the very problem we have to face concerning art and its place in our flawed society.

   It may sound clichéd but the thing is :the world can sometimes be a very crude place dominated by self-righteousness and arrogance . Those with power come on top of those that lack it . That happens to be the natural order of things , unfortunately .  And power usually comes with…you guessed it , money , usually,lots of it . And yet again unfortunately , a good bulk of art forms nowadays have shaped into nothing less that just “products” meant to be prioritized towards satisfying the customer base (in this case, the audience) while ultimately gaining profit . 

   The lust for money does drive people , even into assuming that art is just means of material benefit , fact that nearly killed art as we knew it . There is still hope , but nowadays ,stereotypically speaking , in the battle between the artist and the audience , it all comes down to money…