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School of Thought: Existentialism | Hri-Write

Existentialism is a philosophical school of thought that deals with human existence, trying to explain the purpose of a human life. Existentialism, like many other schools of thought, is of course only a speculation and something we made up, take what you read here with a pinch of salt ( after all, I don't know any more about life than you do! ) If I were to try to explain existentialism easily, I'm afraid I'll lose out on its intricacies, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Existentialism, at its most fundamental level, says that every person is responsible for defining their own purpose in this world and that we are governed by our free will. Existentialism says that we are not here to 'find purpose', but rather to 'create our reality and purpose'. It sounds simple, but that's because I've tried to break down roughly a few centuries worth of study and philosophical evolution into four sentences. Existentialism originated as a school o...
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Tech Spotlight: Why you should be using IFTTT right now!

I usually don't do a lot of tech blogs, personally because I feel there's so many out there, but this one, I simply cannot avoid. This is a website you definitely should check out, and it's one that after a long while I can vouch for as the most ingenious app/service devised yet.


What is IFTTT?

IFTTT, a clever acronym for 'If This, Then That.', is a free to use website which features a plethora of applets. These applets are made to perform tasks based on triggers, which trigger actions. For example, the applet I'm using right now posts on facebook every time I publish an article on my blog. Coincidentally, this very post has been published using IFTTT.
It works based on two things: Applets and Services.

Applets are the pieces of code written to bring you services and combine the power of these services.
Services are the apps/devices that you use daily (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even smart home tech.)

Quote from their Wikipedia page:
IFTTT is a free web-based service that allows users to create chains of simple conditional statements, called "applets", which are triggered based on changes to other web services such as Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. IFTTT is an abbreviation of "If This Then That".
How it Works:

 Users and corporations create applets with various services to perform different tasks. They are dynamic and mostly anything can be done with your personalized applets.
For specific services, you must login and grant access to IFTTT, but after that, you're all good to go.

IFTTT employs the following concepts: 
Services (formerly known as channels) are the "basic building blocks of IFTTT", they mainly describe a series of data from a certain web service such as YouTube or eBay. It can also describe some actions controlled with certain APIs like SMS. Sometimes, it can represent information in terms of weather or stocks. There are particular triggers and actions in each channel.
Triggers are the "this" part of an applet. They are the items that "trigger" the action. For example, from an RSS feed, you can receive a notification based on a keyword or phrase.
Actions are the "that" part of an applet. They are the output that results from the input of the trigger.
Applets (formerly known as recipes) are the predicates made from Triggers and Actions. For example, if you like any picture in Instagram (trigger), the photo will be sent to your Dropbox account (action).
Ingredients are basic data made available from a trigger. For example, the data that are available from the email trigger include subject, body, attachment, received date, and the sender’s address.  
Usage examples
IFTTT can automate web-application tasks, such as posting the same content on several social networks. 
Marketing professionals can use IFTTT to track mentions of companies in real-time in RSS feeds.


Get Started:
Sign up for IFTTT: https://ifttt.com/join
Getting started collection of applets: https://ifttt.com/collections/getting_started

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