This is a post I have been waiting to write for some time, and today is as good a time as any. I feel good finally doing another product review, it has been FAR too long since I did one, and I have gotten new toys in that time, so here comes what will hopefully the first of many reviews in the next little while. For those of you who are familiar with my previous posts, I love anything that incorporates Bluetooth technology, be it a phone, computer or peripheral device. I own 3 different computers or “smart” devices which have Bluetooth connectivity, and I use Bluetooth technology more than once per day on each of these devices. However, when trying to leave the house to do something that required I not take anything with me, I found I was at a bit of a loss in terms of listening to music.
I have Bluetooth headphones (on-ear), but when I take them off they take up a lot of space, and can’t easily just be put away anywhere, which is inconvenient for running errands or places where I don’t have a bag or place to put things. Alternately, the first pair of Bluetooth earbuds I bought (which I decided did not even merit a review, more on that later) have a dongle at the end which contains the battery and Bluetooth transmitter. While this does allow for wireless listening, it does not make the experience any less bulky or cumbersome. The whole issue I have with wired headphones and wires in general is that they are prone to tangling, and the more wire you have, the easier it is to tangle. This leads nicely into my review for today, which is for Plantronics’ newest Bluetooth earphone model, the Backbeat Go. These earbuds are as simple as it gets, with all redundancy having been removed. Aside from the actual cord which holds together the earbuds and which carries in-line playback controls, these are essentially as minimal as earphones can get.
Normally, at this time in a product review which starts off saying how simple a concept and design is, this would be the place for a caveat about sound or manufacturing quality, but such a drawback doesn’t exist for these earphones. They sound incredible, and are built very solidly, with no visible failure points. Another concern with earphones, especially ones which are not mechanically connected to any device, such as by a 3.5 mm connection, is that they might fall out of your ears and be lost forever. This doesn’t seem to be a concern with these headphones, as they also have detachable earloops on the buds which are perfectly designed to be flexible, but rest against the inside of the ear, feeling comfortable, but snug.
The in-line playback controls under the right ear are absolutely perfect for changing tracks and volume, as well as answering calls and activating voice control (another wonderful product, Siri, also becomes much more useful when you don’t have to take your phone out of your pocket to pick new music, text, or make calls). I should do a review on Siri soon, though it would be more reflective than a review, as it’s been thoroughly reviewed in many other places. Is it against the rules of writing to refer to something in parentheses once you’re outside of them? Oh well, creative liberties…
The cord connecting the two earbuds is also quite high quality, far above the plastic you would find in regular earbuds, and it is also thick in one dimension, resembling linguine. This means that the cord can really only bend in one dimension, and as such, there are far fewer tangles in the cord than would be found in normal gauge wire. While on normal headphones implementing this would be far too heavy, in practise on these headphones, with the weight of the wire resting on the back of the neck, there is no pull at all on the ears, and so no increased likelihood of the headphones to fall out.
These earbuds have a battery life of anywhere from 5-8 hours continued use in my experience, and will last with minimal battery loss for several weeks. They charge by micro-USB, which is behind a flap on the right bud, and take about an hour to fully charge.
When these earbuds were first announced several months ago, they were not available in Canada, and having them shipped here was almost prohibitively expensive. Now, however, they are available in Canada for $100 dollars, and if you are on the move a lot and like listening to music, I highly recommend these. If you have ever fumbled with earbuds and a shoulder bag of any kind, these are your sanity’s salvation!
I’ve been preparing a few posts that have been in the works for a while, tending to break away from my typical topics from this forum, instead allowing me to express some thoughts on topics that are a little more serious and reflective. I’d really appreciate any feedback you have on these posts, which I will label with Reflection so that they can be easily grouped together. I have been doing a lot of thinking in the last few months, as I am transitioning from my teenage years into a university student, and recently into what I’ll call a real person. As this transition has happened, I have also moved several times, and with those relocations I have also enjoyed more and more independence. From when I was born until 18 years old, I lived at home (as is true of most anyone reading this I’m sure). I didn’t particularly like this fact, but I understood from a very young age that it was certainly in my best interest to follow the rules and align myself to be able to move out for university. I certainly didn’t and don’t detest my parents or their home, but I knew that my parents did some things quite differently from the way I would do them, and from the way I think they should be done. To their credit, I did learn a lot from my parents, and I think I was raised very well, their values and morals passing on to me in due course. However, I also found that there were certain things I learned from my parents and then altered to suit my own needs and ideas. I think that this is probably the most important part of growing up, coming to the realization that while parents are a great source of information and advice, their opinions and assistance is greatly biased, and should be taken as suggestion rather than as infallible fact. The idea that our parents are the final word on anything in life is a very antiquated notion.
I don’t mean to say that the respect of my parents doesn’t mean anything to me, it’s actually quite important to me that I have their respect and that they respect me and the decisions that I make. This is most important when my decisions are different than the ones I know my parents would make. If I can explain my reasoning to them, it actually reinforces for me that I have made the right decision, even if it isn’t a decision they would make. There are also definitely paths I have taken in life, especially since I moved away from home, that I haven’t shared with my parents. It’s not that I am keeping anything from them, but there is nothing I would share with my friends that I wouldn’t also share with my parents. Some people find this type of openness very odd, but I stand firmly behind the decisions I’ve made. For me, getting the approval of my parents does not stem from following their expectations to the letter, but from their acceptance of my lifestyle choices regardless of what they would do in the same scenario. I love both of my parents very much, and I know they also love me, even though we are across the country from each other for 95% of the year. If I thought for a second that anything I did repeatedly and intentionally would cause them to disapprove strongly enough that they would love me any less than they do, I would be strongly questioning their roles as mentors and guides (aka as parents). I have complete confidence that my parents would stand by me unquestioningly in anything I choose to undertake, so long as it is not illegal. Moral reprehension is another story which is more of a grey area, as some people have different views on morals, but having different moral standards than your parents is a good thing, and certainly should not be punished or cause for irrevocable disapproval.
Thank you, mom and dad, for showing me right from wrong and teaching me to make my own decisions. I have grown into my own man, and I want nothing more than to make you proud with the way I live my life.
I would like to start off by saying that I am a pretty laid-back person. I am the first person to avoid discussions of religion, simply because I know that some people take it very seriously, and in the history of most religions, hereticism is considered a major party foul. I feel as though this discussion will probably raise the ire of some people, so consider this a warning that if you continue to read, I am not responsible for your reaction. I sincerely hope that you do stick around, because I consider this very important, but I understand if you don’t.
Alright, now that that is out of the way, I’d like to discuss a little about how I feel pertaining to religion and its impact on morality. As a bit of background on me, I was raised Anglican and baptized in my early teens. I spent quite a few Sunday mornings in church, as well as my share of Christmas Eves. I have attended a number of religion-based camps in my youth, and my entire family, if I have to generalize, is religious. So trust me when I say that I have a little bit of experience here.
One thing I will say, having read many of the interesting parts of the Bible when I was growing up (and at that time, they couldn’t print words fast enough for me to read them), is that I don’t really see what all the hype is about. I suppose if one were to interpret the Bible (I’ll use that text as an example, as it’s the only religious work with which I have any familiarity) as literally being historical fact (at least the parts where that is possible), that it would be a pretty incredible story. But from what I have seen and heard and read, and what I believe, the Bible is not to be interpreted literally. It’s meant to be a moral guide and a compelling narrative about the human condition and our desire to aspire to something more. I’m given to understand that most religious texts are calls to bring people together under one set of agreed-upon laws and conditions and to be able to live harmoniously based on those individual documents.
The problems with relying on an ancient text for this kind of morality don’t necessarily have to extend to religion to see that there are some major problems with doing so. For example, the British Bill of Rights, and the US Constitution, are written for the time they were created in. There are many things that change in the world, in a way that no one document or group of authors can ever anticipate or account for.
Once documents like the Bible or the US constitution are written, problems inevitably arise. It is human nature and a core feature of the species that we are pack animals, and we are inclined to hear a good idea, propagate it and ultimately defend it. There is nothing wrong with that in itself, but over time, these ideas end up moving down bloodlines, potentially for several generations. Since the original sources and authors of the material are no longer around to assert their original intent, issues will arise when society continues to evolve.
The example I am going to use to hopefully demonstrate this point is one which some background reading (done just now, for context) shows is more correct than I could have ever imagined. The second amendment to the US constitution, which colloquially describes the ‘right to bear arms’, is one which is defended constantly by associations like the NRA, but which the average American also holds dear. To a completely pacifistic Canadian, this is just a ridiculous law to have on the books.
While there are several very good reasons for people to have guns and other weapons, the average person has no reason to actually own one. Even bearing in mind that there are people who use these weapons to hunt game, there is really no sport in shooting an animal with a rifle in 2012 (editor’s note: or 2016!). Going into the writing of this piece, I had it in my head that this law was written in the late 1700s, when an “arm” referred to my vision of a musket. It took around a minute to load these guns when trained and practiced, and each one fired a single round metal ball at a time.
These guns were just as likely to misfire or explode as they were to actually have the bullet leave the barrel. If the bullet did make it out, the gun was horribly inaccurate. These are not assault rifles with precisely machined barrels and laser scopes. Additionally, this was also a time in history when the Americas were in a time of great turmoil. Not only was the country trying to establish itself and declare its independence from Great Britain, but it was (is?) deeply divided between old and new ideas (resulting in a Civil War not too long after its independence). All of that being taken into consideration, it actually makes completely logical sense that:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Even these two sentences actually read very differently if you take punctuation seriously. In both cases, though, a militia whose purpose is the security of a free state is the reason for giving the people a right to arms. There is no inherent threat in the US today that would require easy access to, and everyday use of, a firearm. And there is not much weight to an argument that you can use it to defend yourself from having a weapon used against you.
In a country, like Canada, with few or no guns, the risk of finding yourself facing one is greatly reduced. Finally, there are many other, non-lethal, ways of defending yourself today in the event of an attack. This old law just doesn’t make very much sense today, and yet it is upheld constantly and consistently.
As it turns out, this argument can actually be taken back even further. As hard as it is to believe, the founding fathers of the United States had some background on how to run a country, and had some inspiration in coming up with the second constitutional amendment. Delving a little deeper into history, you can find that Britain passed its own Bill of Rights, back in 1689. This document also mentions something similar to the right to bear arms in its pages, though you’ll notice the wording is a little bit different:
That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law.
This document, which outlines the rights of British Parliament, was passed at a time when Protestants (those who maintained most Catholic beliefs but had issue with, or protested, some of the church’s policies) had had their arms confiscated by a Catholic king who took issue with the rising Protestant population in Britain. This law, which formed the foundation of current gun law in the US (and Britain to a lesser extent), is based on religious persecution. This decree simply served to allow citizens of any religion equal right to acquire and carry arms. Again, this was at a very difficult time in that empire, where the clash between powerful political and religious entities was causing a great deal of turmoil across all of Western Europe.
Remember that the Pope and the King of England were both considered to be one degree from God at the time. The writing of this document came at a time when the theory of divine right, that the monarchical bloodline was vetted by God, was coming into question and eventually abandoned. It is only logical that the unjust decree of a religious king be formally revoked afterwards, and it certainly shouldn’t apply centuries later, across an ocean, in cases all the way up to the US Supreme Court. To this day, religion and its morality enters into public debate about this sort of topic, even though it has been generations since the arguments were made, and they are in no way valid today.
Alright, now with what is hopefully a strong case and some background on why I think that it is absurd that religious morality be strictly applied to modern society, I can continue to discuss my personal issue with some of the aspects of religion which I find most questionable.
It is important to note, again, that I personally have no problem with anybody who believes in a specific god, or believing anything they want for that matter. In the same way, when I’m walking down the street, and somebody tries to tell me about their pet issue, I find it hard to feel bad when I tell them that I don’t care about what they have to say.
I am not going to seek you out on the street and try to forcefully share information with you to which you have not consented, and I would appreciate if you would do the same for me. We have common, courteous ways of passing along information, as well as polite ways of engaging in discourse with a large group of people. I’m getting off topic here…lets try this again.
I am not going to get in the way of your religion, as long as you don’t tell me that I am going to hell, or getting no virgins, if I don’t agree with your system of belief. I personally have a strong set of beliefs about how the universe was formed, and how we came to exist on this planet, and that belief system also explains every religion on earth. In itself, this is more than can be said for most religions, wherein accepting the existence of other faiths hinges on the idea that those are “lesser” religions.
I can absolutely empathize with religious people. It is for this reason that I am not constantly getting into fist fights with people over things that they say or do, simply because they are different from what I say or do in my own free time. When somebody tells me that they are “praying” for something to happen, I know to interpret that as meaning that it is something they would very much like to see come to pass. I do it myself all the time, when I calculate the approximate odds of something occurring, and think to myself, I wonder if thinking about this a lot in my head will affect the external outcome.
I can also note that having done that several times a day for my entire life, it is pretty disheartening sometimes when the odds of something happening are VERY low. At those times, often all you can do to affect the outcome is to think about it silently to yourself. It would be, and presumably is, very reassuring to believe that there is somebody listening, and that through some physical manifestation of supreme power, the outcome of an event can be affected by the power of suggestion. In fact, there is solid evidence that psychologically, there is a process wherein knowing somebody (or many people) is (are) wishing very hard for you, for example, being able to fight off a disease, can actually impact your bodies defense of itself and impact the outcome of the illness.
In the general case, “praying”, followed by success, reinforces the idea that prayer works. On the other hand, a negative outcome would simply suggest that either you weren’t praying hard enough, or that you had done something bad, or been unsure of your faith in a way that meant that you didn’t deserve the outcome you wanted.
In any case, I will never be able to rationalize the argument for keeping your morality consistent with your religion. If I am miscalculating and have backed secularism in the mistaken belief that when you die, you simply cease being alive, I will have a lot of explaining to do. That being said, I think I’m okay with that. I personally don’t think I am going to be any worse off than anybody who claims strict adherence to religious ideals, even if those are few in number.
If, when it’s all said and done, we are all ranked and filed according to who followed a strict set of arbitrary rules the closest (no matter which religion ended up hypothetically setting those standards), I think I will have a lot of company in the afterlife. Personally, I choose to live my life on a case-by-case basis, solely based on what I have seen, heard, read, learned, tasted, smelled, touched and experienced. Some of that comes from religious teachings, some of it comes from my parents, some of it comes from friends, some of it comes from television and movies.
In the end, what I do alone is of concern only to me, or who I choose to share it with. Involving other people does get a little messier (instances of deceit, theft, or murder spring to mind) in coming up with a consistent morality for the whole world to follow. I think a good model for the American (or even the world’s) “Constitution” would be something similar to Wikipedia, wherein anybody can suggest changes at any time, in an ever changing document that is democratic and comprehensive. It will be effectively future-proof because it will never be “done”, but evidence suggests it will mature very quickly.
If everyone can accept that on some level, we’re really all the same, we could peacefully coexist without too much violence, war, or any such nonsense. Upholding long-standing religious beliefs on the idea that they are moral is a very slippery slope, one which we tiptoe around every day. We are all entitled to our own opinion, obviously, but differences of opinion can have consequences if they are baselessly upheld for too long.
On a side note, Googling morality can have some odd implications:
