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Showing posts from July, 2017

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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Why I use Reddit (and you should too)

As I click on the orange app that reads 'Reddit' on my iPhone, my eyes widen as I open to a barrage of dark humor from /r/imgoingtohellforthis. Laughing agonisingly as I get out of bed, I scroll further down to posts from /r/space and see what's making top news related to space and astronomy. I'm 203 days old. At least that's how old my Reddit account is. In those 203 days, I've seen, stumbled upon, laughed at and shared things that I've never seen and possibly would never if I hadn't signed up for it. And that's why I love it. Anybody that's spoken to me in the last 203 days has probably heard me talk about Reddit, and rightly so. Reddit changed the way I used the internet, because of its sheer size and diverse communities.  I've fallen in love with its early 2000s reminiscent albeit ugly homepage, its hierarchal commenting system, and its non-existent search feature. But that's what makes Reddit, well, Reddit. It wasn't made t...
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Here's why things you just discovered seem to pop up constantly

You know what I'm talking about, right? Have you ever learned a new word, one that you swear you've never heard before, only to find it popping up throughout your daily life for a few days after? There's a name for that: The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon . This phenomenon actually works on two major premises (or psychological processes, if you will): The confirmation and selection bias. The first of these two, the selection bias. It usually kicks in when we come across something new, something unfamiliar and/or something interesting. From this point on, your brain is actively looking for this, and that's why you seem to notice it so much more on a day-to-day basis. The second, the confirmation bias. This is a common statistical error our brain creates, because when it sees these random new words pop up everywhere, it wants to fit it into a rational idea. This feeds off the first process, but in this case, your brain is telling you, 'it's new to everyone, a...
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Where is all the 'alien life?' - Fermi Paradox and other theories

My first blog, ever, was about understanding the odds of alien life. I've gotten much better at writing blogs since then (or so I like to tell myself), and it would only be right if I reinstate the legacy of that one. We should openly admit that when we happen to be under a starry night and see a sight similar to this, we all have a react in a different and interesting way. Some people are left boggled by the immense size of the universe, others by the sheer glamour of the scene and if you're anything like me, you're paralysed by the sudden realisation that you have a negligible impact on the universe. The point is, we all feel something . When he looked up at the sky, Italian physicist Enrico Fermi too felt something, a thought that lingered around this question, "Where is everyone else?" It's been half a decade since Fermi passed on, but he left us with a fundamental query and idea. Fermi realised that in a universe as old and vast as this, there s...
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Why your digital footprint matters

Every second you spend on the Internet, you're actively involved in painting a digital picture of yourself. This portrait helps companies target content at specific markets and consumers, helps employers look into your background, and helps advertisers track your movements across multiple websites. Whatever you do online, you might be leaving digital footprints behind. ( http://www.internetsociety.org/your-digital-footprint-matters ) In short, your digital footprint is everything you do online. Social media activity, app usage, email records. Watching videos, visiting adult sites, using certain plugins, everything goes into this piece of art. Whether you like it or not, everything you do on the web can be tracked. A lot of people seem to think that using incognito features on browsers or routers does any good. It might hide data locally (on your system) but it does nothing to completely hide your presence on the web. A diagram of how your internet works The abov...
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'Kids these days', and Juvenoia.

The phrase 'kids these days', has been used since time immemorial by older generations to express their disappointment in the younger generations. We love to talk about just how different life was 'back in the good old days'. In that regard, you see a huge number of 'only 90s kids will remember...' on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites. George Orwell had a brilliant quote that went along the lines of this: George Orwell (1903-1950), was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. There's a neat neologism for this phenomenon, Juvenoia . The point is, it's an endless cycle. Let's examine this situation. A family is sitting around the breakfast table, all engrossed in their own digital life. It's a common situation nowadays, right? However, in 1907, the Journal of Education deplored, "At a modern family gathering, silent around the fire, each individual has his head buried in his favorite magazine." Let...
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