Segments

Katy Perry kissed a girl, I turned my internet life over to Google. Tomato, to-mah-to.

A few years ago, I began using Gmail as my webmail provider. At the time, I didn’t think much about the change—I had been bouncing around different e-mail addresses since I figured out how to sign up. I probably thought it was cool to be on Gmail because, at that time, you could only get an account through invite only. Special, right? A friend hooked me up, and off I went—bound to piss off all my friends, who were bound to be thinking, “Goddammit, Mike, why can’t you stay in one more than one place for five minutes?” Looking back, I’m glad I made it to Gmail, and the greater world that is Google.

Since I’ve been with Gmail, they’ve added many special features (for more on this, check out what my friend Erin had to say). Aside from the one-two combo of filters and labels, for my money, instant access to both Docs and Calendar may be the most useful bit of Gmail…well, outside of the actual mail service itself. /end promo

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I’ve been thinking about updating my computer somehow—the cheapest method being to increase RAM from 512 MB (I know, sad, but I was rockin’ in 2004) to 2 GB, and the most expensive method being to give my current machine to my sister and buy myself a Mac Mini (this option, of course, wouldn’t happen tomorrow, but perhaps within the next year. I also reserve the right to tinker with the product).

I’ve had the same hardware since my initial purchase in October 2004. I’ll admit, I didn’t always keep my computer pristine, and had to reformat it once when a virus made its way inside, but over the last two years my brain has developed a sense of what it needs and wants from the technological triumvirate of machine, software, and the cloud. In addition to that, I feel fine asking friends who are more tech-savvy than me for pointers; more often than not, being humble and taking the few minutes to ask a question saves me hours of headaches down the road.

I’ll probably end up upgrading the RAM in this machine and buying the Mac Mini. I would feel bad giving my sister this computer without making it run as quickly as it can (removing personal files and software would help). Of course, in the time it will take me to save up the money for the Futurebox, Sis could easily buy a computer of her own, forcing me to take a second look at what I have. Depending on what’s available, I could pump some cash into new software/hardware. We’ll see how it goes.

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“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”  —Kurt Vonnegut, Sirens of Titan

Knowing that Vonnegut was a humanist, this quote (from one of my favorite books, which was written by one of my favorite authors) seems fitting. It sums up the idea of humanism—at least, the way I understand humanism, it does.

I don’t know what’s controlling us (us being the human race, Earth, or the general population). What I do know is that, regardless of what happens after we die, during this life—the only one of which we have irrefutable proof—we should act decently toward one another. You know, the one thing that all faiths agree on. I keep changing my mind when it comes to spirituality/religion/faith, but this belief, the belief that we should treat others with courtesy, has never left me.

This topic probably deserves its own post(s).

More to come…