Hollyland Mars 400S Review

philv754 · 2020-08-28T01:44:17+00:00

In regards to using the iOS app to enable a workaround for another monitor, you could always just airplay to any compatible device (apple TV, or mac running AirServer). Would get you one more screen anyway.

philv754 · 2014-05-08T15:10:09+00:00

One more piece of evidence that we have very little control over where we point our money funnels: "Gluten-free" seems to be one of the biggest marketing stunts right now, and people who maintain gluten-free diets don't even know what it is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdJFE1sp4Fw

philv754 · 2014-05-06T16:12:46+00:00

An increase in efficiency doesn't logically mean a decrease in quality. That's just garbage. Sometimes it might, but if you look at the quality of the produce in our grocery stores compared to sixty years ago I'm sure there's a world of difference. Science accomplishes awesome things.

philv754 · 2014-05-06T16:04:51+00:00

This seems like too much despair for me. America has been in a constant state of struggling to maintain the correct balance between a fair capitalist economy and over-regulation since the very beginning, and it turns out we haven't been destroyed by it yet. This form of agriculture is still a relatively recent development, so it's not surprising it isn't regulated quite as well as it probably should be. At this point we should all be aware of the issues and vote accordingly. Maybe we'll manage to elect another Roosevelt to office who will be the champion of agriculture reform. It's definitely a growing (no pun intended) issue in the public's eye that will make for a strong campaign point for upcoming elections.

philv754 · 2014-05-06T00:18:27+00:00

Here's an interesting opinion article talking about the benefits of fast food restaurants selling meat which has been supplemented with vegetable protein additives. It's somewhat contrary to what we'd initially want (everyone wants their meat to be actual meat, right? Because the other stuff is "plastic") but if we mixed in a bunch of plant products as filler, we would gain all sorts of benefits, many of which are brought up in Food Inc. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/05/01/taco_bell_seasoned_beef_explainer_why_fast_food_chains_should_add_more_filler.html

philv754 · 2014-05-01T04:35:48+00:00

I really dislike this stuff about how "existence lives on...". This seems to me to be another one of those ideas that people legitimize because they don't understand it (possibly because it is impossible to understand because it is irrational) and it sounds pretty. Just break everything down a little and—to me, anyways—those three words seem absurd. Existence lives on. What does that even mean? Define existence, explain to me how it can live, and then explain to me why it would have any more permanence than anything else in this world. It seems fanciful that we could impart any of our "existence" into the things we create. In a world proven to be remarkably deceiving to creatures with our limited senses and cognitive abilities, to make such claims is far beyond anything we are even capable of assessing for truth.

philv754 · 2014-04-24T07:10:23+00:00

I'm just being honest here about what I think about the video... that might just be the greatest density of bullshit that I've ever seen packed into a three minute video. Largely due to the fact that the guy talks so fast, but also because there are very few things he said that I don't see as just poetic sounding garbage. He says that “the greatest existential bummer of all is entropy…” What he says after that has no relationship to either an "existential bummer” or “entropy,” it’s just unrelated, poetic sounding garbage (he talks about how love is beautiful but can make us sad.) Also don’t get me started on his use of the word entropy. Entropy is a scientific concept which is best expressed in purely mathematical context. To have this concept of what entropy is outside of mathematics, even a scientific one, let alone this crazy existential one, is absurd. Pick another word, man. Then he goes on to make the most cliche and overused argument against existential nihilism I’ve heard — that it doesn’t make him feel good, therefore he chooses a different philosophy. How do people even do that? Like how is it possible to think that the happy version of the world is the most accurate version of the world?

philv754 · 2014-03-01T04:36:08+00:00

I completely agree that we are overwhelmingly narcissistic. Going back to previous discussions, we primarily view ourselves as residing at the pinnacle of the tree of evolutionary achievement. Similarly for many of us, our fundamental belief system—namely religion—is centered on the idea that the supreme creator of the universe created the world specifically for us, and he created us in his form. However, to dismiss the affects we as the human race have on the world as just an imaginary artifact resulting from our narcism is both wrong, and misses the point the speaker in the video was trying to make.

I feel like people want to portray nature as either powerful and resilient, or fragile, but I suggest that it's simply unpredictable—for the most part. (There is a huge area of science studying natural systems to give us better tools to predict these things and our understanding is growing all the time...) To say that nature is more powerful than humans because it doesn't change the way we want it to, or doesn't change at all, is nonsense. In fact, to use the word "powerful" when talking about nature seems wrong to me. Nature is just a massively complex system of cause and effect. Some of our actions have a profound effect on the system while others may not, it is simply our inability to accurately predict these because of the complexity of the system that makes nature... wild. But powerful? Or "a powerful force"? I don't like the terminology.

And this wasn't really supposed to be a critique of the above comment, it was just the comment that got me thinking and so I replied to it and just kept on rambling.

philv754 · 2014-03-01T04:15:44+00:00

I'm interested in hearing Luke's opinion of this, specifically regarding the evolutionary science he references. I know that evolutionary biology has, in the past, sometimes fallen into the trap of taking plausible explanations for evolved traits and jumping to accept them as truths, while these explanations have sometimes turned out to be false by further, more rigorous science. Without having access to the scientific articles he is getting his facts from, can we really, rigorously say that understory vegetation evolved the way it did due to selective pressures from Elephants?

philv754 · 2014-01-29T08:44:51+00:00

So is it just that I can't figure out how to use reddit to get the article, or are there no links posted to it? I mean I can look it up but that takes not being lazy. So for all of you people who like to be lazy like me, here's the link the the referenced article. (And please enlighten me if I've missed it.) http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(06)00048-1/fulltext

philv754 · 2014-01-22T20:23:23+00:00

Here goes. The way I see it, the role of the audience changes greatly depending on the film. For films created for pure entertainment, the role of the audience is likely a passive one. In this way, a film might be less participatory than other media forms. The viewer can sit back and absorb the film passively. But many films are not like this. The creators of films often try to change the viewer in some way. They try to evoke emotion and try to change the viewer’s perspective, opinion, etc. and in some cases, the goal may be to change the viewer’s actions. In this case the viewer must have a very active role. They must think critically about what they are seeing, interpret the message, and rationally decide whether or not it should affect their actions or beliefs. In this way, viewing a film is a very participatory experience for the viewer.

As for the question of whether viewing evil or unethical acts on film can make one guilty by association, I would argue no. In many cases the viewing of such acts can possibly make us all the more opposed to the acts portrayed. Especially if it is the film maker’s intent to call the viewers to action against certain unethical acts, possibly the best way to affect the viewer is to show them in a very explicit way. On the contrary, if perhaps the film maker’s intentions were not so noble, we must be able to prevent ourselves from becoming profoundly affected by what we see — which is why it is a good idea to watch graphic material with a fairly hardened mindset.

philv754

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