“The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be
subservient to the king, you would not have to live on lentils.’

Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils, and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’ ” – from “The Song of the Bird” by Anthony de Mello

I’m sure you wanted to know

For grins I took an online narcissist test, I scored a 23, which frankly surprised me.

“Your Total: 23

Between 12 and 15 is average.
Celebrities often score closer to 18.
Narcissists score over 20.”

The breakdown:

Narcissistic Trait
Authority: 6.00
Self-Sufficiency: 6.00
Superiority: 4.00
Exhibitionism: 2.00
Exploitativeness: 2.00
Vanity: 2.00
Entitlement: 1.0

So, even though I’m hardly vain, I don’t preen, nor do I act entitled, however I’m self confident and understand authority, I’m a narcissist.

Fine, but does this mean I’m also famous? Because I’ll start twittering my future locations so I can sign autographs!

But let’s dig a little deeper by looking the symptoms.

* Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

Nonsense, my superiority has been objectively confirmed numerous times throughout my career and even in my younger days with testing at school.

* Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

I have no idea how this fits in, I’m cognizant that since I am mortal, there are limits that I will never be able to surpass, so why fantasize about them being unlimited? Besides, I’m too busy making things happen.

* Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

Water seeks it’s own level.

* Requires excessive admiration

Define ‘excessive’. But no.

* Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

Ha! I get the respect I earn.

* Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

Nonsense. Now go wash my car. And change the oil, I’m busy.

* Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

Mostly because your tiny, insignificant life bores me. I do wonder how they determine this, I try not to be offensive or rude, but neither am I changing my life to suit someone’s mood.

* Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

“Envy”? Why would I be envious of others? Their lives are theirs, earned or no, and best of luck to them. Admiration of someone else’s successes or achievements isn’t envy.

* Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

Yes, well, that’s on the money. But I don’t think that is enough to peg me as a narcissist.

So there it is in a nutshell, I’ve got a personality disorder I didn’t even realize I had! And now I know what areas I need to improve, I really need to learn how to exploit people and show off more. I bet with dedication and work, I can raise my school by at least another 4 points.

“Building a Portal Turret”

Hmm, Christmas is almost here. I’m just sayin’
http://www.instructables.com/id/Building-a-Portal-Turret/step13/Finished-Turret-in-Action/

More reading

The Art of Manliness is one of my favorite websites, and they  recently posted two articles well worth reading.

Manvotional: The Gains of Drudgery

Lessons in Manliness from Charles Atlas

Today’s suggested reading

The Maverick Philosopher has a wonderful short post titled All is Impermanent? Impermanence and Self-Reference.

I’m not playing in the same league as him, so I always find it enlightening to read a educated piece like that which hits on things I have chewed on and lacked the wherewithal to properly examine.

On Phones

I finally got a smart phone, a Nexus S Android. It is really slick. Overall I am quite pleased with it. Some of the features are impressive, like the phone functionality, how much you can customize, Widgets on the screen allowing instant access to information; things like that set it apart from the iOS devices in good ways.

I’ve never had a phone that gets how I want to manage calls and helps me do it as well as this one. It keeps surprising me with litte tricks and useful approaches to contact and call management. For example, I set my wife as a favorite, and the first time I tapped it asked me which number of her’s should be the default. I chose her cell, and now when I tap that favorite it dials her cell phone. It’s things like that.

And having the intertubes on tap is addicting. And even sometimes useful!

But there are a few cons to the Android that I’m still trying to adjust to.

No iTunes. I know, I know, some people are cheering and toasting to an iTunes free future, but I like it. A lot. It made managing my music easy, easy to sync between it and my old iPod Touch, easy to sync photos, easy to keep track of playcounts, and iTunes U has been a source of delight and entertainment for me. All gone, and now I have to figure out ways to replace that functionality.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the music player. Compared to the awesome iOS player, it sucks. I mean, yes, it plays music. And it ties into the Google Music beta cloud storage. But there aren’t controls on the lock screen to manage playback, I have to unlock the phone to do so. There is no slick UI for scrubbing at different speeds, it doesn’t say how much time is left in a track, a feature I have found really useful for iTunes U podcasts among other things.

Android Kindle app isn’t as neat as the iOS version, no way of Tweeting highlighted passages yet. I hope they have plans for that, I had been keeping notes that way.

LDS Gospel Library app is another one where the iOS app is nicer, e.g. the footnotes aren’t as neat as the iOS version, no multiple windows, you can only hightlight the entire verse and not just parts of it, etc.

What Knot To Do In The Greater Outdoors by Columbia, awesome app, only for the iOS and I haven’t found anything as slick in the Android app market.

None of which are deal breakers, more like mild annoyances that I’m hoping will be overcome in the future.

One of biggest differences that I see in philosophy between Apple and Google is Google is mounting a big push to move as much as they can of your stuff onto their cloud servers and using your Android device as way to access and create content, and while Apple is moving to support storage in the cloud, they are still letting your desktop hold your stuff and using it to sync with iOS devices. Another difference is the Google ‘open market place’ approach verses Apple’s ‘walled garden’, but enough digital ink has been spilled over that already, no need for me to add anything else. It’ll be interesting to watch it play out.

I went with the Nexus because I like the open market app store, I like the integration with Google and I’ve always wanted my own replicant* Plus, Sprint was selling it for $50.

After using both iOS and Android, I can recommend either. Both are good, the iOS is more polished and I believe is a better user experience right now, but Android isn’t far behind and with Google buying Motoral Mobile, they are in it for the long haul.

* “More human than human.”

Sad news

Last night our Scottish Terrier passed away. She was 14 years old, and had been our faithful and loving companion for 12. She will be greatly missed. We’re doing okay, and we knew she was at the end of her life, but it’s still hard.

Today’s quote

“Do the best you can, with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“The Wreck of the Hesperus”

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It was the schooner Hesperus
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter
To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now west, now south.

Then up and spake an old sailor,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
“I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

“Last night the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!”
The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the north-east;
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable’s length.

“Come hither! come hither, my little daughter,
And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale,
That ever wind did blow.”

He wrapped her warm in his seaman’s coat,
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

“O father! I hear the church-bells ring;
O say, what may it be?”–
“‘Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!”–
And he steered for the open sea.

“O father! I hear the sound of guns;
O say, what may it be?”–
“Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!”

“O father! I see a gleaming light;
O say, what may it be?”
But the father answered never a word,–
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark.
With his face turned to the skies.
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That savéd she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,
On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Towards the reef of Norman’s Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between,
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf,
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand,

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool;
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she strove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared.

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman’s Woe!

A minor note

Since I’m not sure how many readers access Solarvoid through the magic of RSS or just have the WordPress blog linked, so I thought I’d mention I’ve revamped http://solarvoid.com/ to have a landing page of sorts for my sundry activities.