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Digressions

How Technology Has Helped the Medical Industry

Improved patient care and treatment

The reality is that medicine hasn’t always been the kindest to patients in the past, and this is especially true in the psychiatric units. History has shown us a need for renovation and it has finally started to take hold with improved patient consideration and advanced treatments that are thoroughly tested to be safe. 

Categories
Digressions

3 Reasons to Try Out Handwriting Again

In this technologically evolving world, it’s easy to forget about the technologies that got us to where we are today.

Many of them aren’t obsolete in the way the floppy disc or cassette tape is. Simple inventions like the ink pen continue to be as relevant today as they were when they were first introduced. They continue to have a very important relationship with humans, and the way we think and record our thoughts and feelings. Here are three reasons to think about making handwriting more a part of your life, as well as a suggestion to let uni-ball provide the pen you use to do it.

(1) Handwriting is the most tactile form of recorded communication. There is something about putting a pen to paper and using it to map out each character that represents a thought, which is useful in turning that thought into a memory. Typing just doesn’t have the same physical connection to higher thought. Perhaps this is because handwriting is so difficult to learn for the first time. Children labor at it in school, trying to get their clumsy fingers to mimic the motions necessary to craft neat print and cursive.

(2) Handwriting is personal. It’s a uniquely human form of recording words. Computers can generate their own text, but an individual’s handwriting is as unique as her fingerprint. When communicating from the heart, nothing works like handwriting.

(3) Handwriting is beautiful. Handwriting can achieve a nuanced beauty that a typeface never could. There is a place for both, of course. But without handwriting, written communication becomes tragically uniform.

UNIBALL

Uni-ball is trying to reclaim handwriting for a new generation, providing the best pen experience you’re likely to have. Click here to see some of the pen options that uni-ball brings to the table. Next time you need to make a note or write a letter, do it with uni-ball.

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Mostly Everything

Working Remotely: There’s More to a Benefits Package than Healthcare

Offering a comprehensive benefits package is one of the best ways to attract your industry’s top talent. In fact, many job seekers–especially those with highly sought after skills–have said that it is the benefits package that plays most heavily into their decision whether or not to seek employment with a company. Sometimes the benefits package is even more important than the offered salary!

Unfortunately, many employers–especially new small business owners–limit their benefits packages to the most basic health care options allowed. Trust us when we tell you that offering vision and dental coverage does not qualify your benefits packages as “extensive.” If you want to offer a really great benefits package, consider the following options:

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Mostly Everything

Real or Fake: Pirate Bay announces it will start hosting using low orbit servers

Say what you want about software pirates but you cannot deny the fact that software piracy is building the future of computing tomorrow, today. Think of the most popular application for distributing your movies and music — torrents — and how it is being used to share information in the most convenient way possible. My take on piracy has always been a functional one more than a financial one: i don’t mind paying for my media. What I don’t mind is the hassle of going through hell just to install something i legitimately bought.

Today. the Pirate Bay has once again taken computing to the next level. They are set to be using drones to hover their servers in the air:

TPB LOSS

We were down a few hours earlier today. There’s no need to worry, we haven’t been raided this time. We’re only upgrading stuff since we’re still growing.

One of the technical things we always optimize is where to put our front machines. They are the ones that re-direct your traffic to a secret location. We have now decided to try to build something extraordinary.

With the development of GPS controlled drones, far-reaching cheap radio equipment and tiny new computers like the Raspberry Pi, we’re going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air. This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war.

We’re just starting so we haven’t figured everything out yet. But we can’t limit ourselves to hosting things just on land anymore. These Low Orbit Server Stations (LOSS) are just the first attempt. With modern radio transmitters we can get over 100Mbps per node up to 50km away. For the proxy system we’re building, that’s more than enough.

But when time comes we will host in all parts of the galaxy, being true to our slogan of being the galaxy’s most resilient system. And all of the parts we’ll use to build that system on will be downloadable.

Low Orbit Server Stations. That’s mind-blowing. Is this an early April Fool’s joke or a lot of amazing technology at work (for those curious, this is done via Magnet Links) to prove a point about the free Internet?

Categories
Mostly Everything

DiscOVIries Week 3 Contest: Display Your Gadgets

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The photo above illustrates 75% of all the gadgets under my custody. I own 50% of that. Inside the boxes and crates are more gadgets, chargers, cables, and over 10 lenses for my SLR. Not seen in the photo are my podcasting equipment (mic, desktop and boom stands), 2 portable drives, ACER desktop, two MacBooks, all in one printer, Quad Core rig, my dive gear, my Randall amplifier, and extra LCD monitor.

I run a tech blog with a pinch of travel and food here and there. Before blogging, I was a tech journalist and have, in sum, reviewed hundreds of gadgets. Several dozens of reviews and 7 years later I’m still doing what I love to do. I’ve written 60 issues worth of tech-related articles and overflowed the rest into 2,500 blog posts across various sites.

I salute the more established tech journalists who have done so much more! 🙂

THEME: Display Your Gadgets

Show me yours and I’ll show you mine! The photo above is an example. Take a shot of all your gadgets and tell me your story. For such an impersonal piece of amalgamated plastic and aluminum, there is always a good human interest story somewhere there. That’s what I want you to narrate.

P.S. You know, the term “gadgets” isn’t limited to tech. If you’re a beauty blogger, show us your loot! If you’re a travel blogger, show us your gear. Show off your passion!

[UPLOAD HERE]

My favorite gadget thus far was a freebie from a press conference. It’s what I use to communicate with Art Samaniego. Clue: it’s not the mic.

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The contest rules can be found here. This will run from today till Sunday 11:59 PM.

Have fun!

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Hannah

I’d like to announce the winner of my contest for the second week. The winner is Hannah Villasis of FlairCandy.com. She wins a P2,000.00 GC from Ayala Malls and a chance to win a Nokia phone at the end of the contest period! 🙂

Sorry Carl I know you uploaded a ton of photos during the latter part of the week, but oh well. Better luck next time! 😉