Fullmetal Alchemist

A lesson without pain is meaningless

for you cannot gain something without sacrificing something else in return.

But once you have overcome it and made it your own…

you will gain an irreplaceable fullmetal heart.

Safe is Risky

“Always do what you are afraid to do.”

Booked

Recently I’ve been seriously considering getting an ebook reader. As a Law student, having to print mountains of cases becomes not so much daunting as annoying when they begin cluttering the room, this despite my best efforts to be well organized. Organization alone simply can’t make the huge masses of text disappear, unfortunately.

An ebook reader would be a real treat indeed – e-ink which is not as glare-inducing as LCD screens, and the ability to store dollops of text in such a slim format. Style, portability, and strain free. What more could one ask for?

Well if that one happens to be me, a lot.

To me, annotations are crucial. I can’t figure why nobody has paid any attention to them in the development of ebook readers. Whether I’m reading a book, journal article, academic text, or anything with words, I need to be able to scrawl on it, to make it mine, if you will. The reading experience considerably dims at the prospect of not being able to do so.

Furthermore, e-ink readers are currently very slow. I prefer having the ability to flip through text quickly and efficiently. And yes, this preference stands even if it is at the expense of more paper cuts. The truth is, it is rather conducive to reading when I’m able to browse more quickly and at will, rather than having to navigate and wait for each page to load.

Moreover, I like the fact that books open up to two pages, or that articles are a full A4 in size. Sadly, the current screen sizes of e-ink readers are claustrophobia-inducing.

And worse, some developers are still using LCD screens. Rather my laptop than a pathetic iPad, any day.

It seems that the time has yet to come for me to invest in an ebook reader. Sure, it would be nice to have a compact e-reader. But reality refuses to allow me to be fooled. So it looks like I’ll be returning to good ol’ books, paper, and pencil. Don’t get the wrong idea – I do love them very dearly, but if anyone has a solution for the clutter, do pass the salt!

On Pantheism

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.

Albert Einstein, 1954