GAME CHANGING Android Phone or Tablet Tip of the Day!

Okay guys this Android tip is pretty simple, but it is one that is not typically advertised, so most people do not know, and I find incredibly useful.

It is the two finger swipe down, if you are familiar with it you are probably shaking your head, remembering the first time you upgraded from a 1 finger to 2 finger swiper, and saying to yourself ‘yeah, that’s a good one.’. 🙂 .

For those of you unfamiliar with the very simple but very useful two finder shortcut… here it is…

Swipe down, from the top of your phone or tablet display//menu area, with two fingers at same time and this will display more info than what you were seeing, swiping down with just one finger.

One finger will show you time, date, power level, and that your wifi is on, and a list of any notifications.

Using two fingers (at same time) will display additionally a menu that shows you the specific name of the wifi you are connected to (very useful), and the ability to adjust brightness, turn blue-tooth on and off, airplane mode, auto rotate, and location controls. Wow. That is a handy feature to have all that info with just a swipe down.

I personally love this tip. Try for yourself. If new to this tip, you’ll be wondering why you didn’t know about this, or figure this out by yourself sooner. It is that simple, and that useful of a shortcut.

If you liked this tip, and would like for me to continue providing more tips then please give a like, and if you have time subscribe to this blog and/or leave a nice comment.

Finally give some love to my sponsor below.

Thanks all, and have a great day!

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THE PSYCHOPATH TEST and 2012 American Election Results!!

I’ve been listening to Jon Ronson’s simply fascinating THE PSYCHOPATH TEST. A book that has the staggering central premise, that a telling percentage of the people in positions of power, heads of business, captains of industry, even presidents of nations, are psychopaths. Not just calling them names, or using the term as a throw-away appellation, but meaning many of these people who scrape and claw for positions of power are true, dyed in the wool, clinically diagnosable… psychopaths.

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

Psychopath is defined by Webster’s dictionary as : a person with a psychopathic personality, which manifests as amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc.

Bloody hell, if that is not a spot on description of too many people who have run, and in many cases ascended to positions of influence from the United States to Israel to Britain to Greece. 🙂

So the PSYCHOPATH TEST espouses that the type of men (and women) that gravitate to such positions of control over the lives of many, often exhibit the same psychosis, check all the boxes, as those who seek the violent and criminal control over individuals. It takes, in both cases, a disregard for the individual; and seeing the other as something to be used for the controller’s own selfish ends and needs. The only difference is in degree, and that one does it, under the guise of lawfulness.

Listening to the audio book in the build up to the election, and in the wake of the American election results, it becomes clear just how much psychopathic behavior is part and parcel of the people who would seek and struggle and claw for positions of control over our lives. And more, how much psychopathic behavior flourishes in the camps that get swept up in the rigged game that is the American political process.

The Obama/Mitt Romney nonsense was from the first a rigged game. Both on the payroll of the same big business/industrial war complex machine, whoever lost between those two fabricated opponents, Big Business wins and the American people lose. Clearly given Mitt Romney as a choice, Obama comes off as the lesser of two evils, and the knee jerk vote if you’re programmed to vote either Democrat or Republican (I’m not).

But lesser of two evils or not, only a fool or a liar could look at Obama’s record in the past four years and see it as anything but Bush-lite. The expansion of the same war and big business and eradication of civil liberties that Bush’s reign consisted of.

So such is the power of the spin, and mass media, and lies as truth, they can get liberals to embrace a dark colored but well spoken conservative posing as a liberal, and they can get conservatives to hate a man who is doing what the conservative party has always done, which is support big business at the expense of the middle and working class; and thereby manage to move the conservative party from conservatism to totalitarianism just to find some distance in ideology between two candidates who are both clearly in the pay of the same conservative interests.

Forget the bullshit, issue-obscuring, bills that were tossed up for the American people to believe they were voting on something of meaning; on the real important issues of America, War, Corporate Welfare, expansion of government powers and surveillance, Obama and Romney are kissing cousins. It was a mainstream presidential election, without any true liberal candidate represented by the big 2.

Being someone who doesn’t let mass media pick my options, I voted for a candidate that wasn’t the lesser of two evils, but one I could feel good about voting for. A third party candidate, with experience and a platform and a stance I liked, I’m speaking of former Governor Gary Johnson.

But the mass of America, so programed to not seeing anything beyond what the media wants them to see, saw only the two evils presented them.

And that, in the fullness of time, may be a shame… and a tragedy.

In many ways it’s far better to have the winner of an election be, the open conservative rather than the hidden one. Because people make apologies or just fail to see the rampant conservatism of Obama’s reign, something they would have galvanized against if Romney had ascended to the Presidency.

So instead we have four more years of the American people losing EVERYTHING to corporate interests, but because we’re getting hit by a silk covered fist, we concentrate on the silk, and ignore the knuckles that are knocking our teeth out.

In many ways Obama’s reelection is far more damning to Civil Liberties than Romney’s could ever be. The latter would have galvanized opposition, the former elicits protective excuses. I don’t care if you are Black. I care if you are a tool for big business, and an agent for destruction of the middle and lower classes.

And this Obama has been.

If the halls of our political process are filled with psychopaths, as the book THE PSYCHOPATH TEST hints at, then perhaps the only thing more dangerous than voting for an obvious psychopath, is voting for a reasonable man, in the pocket of psychopaths.

Time will tell. For all of us.

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Art Book of the Day: GRAPHISTES WORLD ARTBOOK 01! CONTEST– Win this Book!

This is a review of the GRAPHISTES WORLD ARTBOOK 01, subtitled BOOK OF CREATION, it is published by Oracom Editions and compiles selected artwork from a French on-line artists collective.

First impressions, presentation. It’s a sizable SC book at 11″ x 9″, and feels substantial at 220+ pages. Nice striking cover image, on a nice pull out gate-fold cover. It’s a matte type paper stock on both the cover and the interior pages, and utilizes a sewn binding (initially had thought it was glued, but is a sewn binding. Pretty spiffy for a soft-cover.).

The Matte paper stock, I can appreciate its use on the darkly illustrated cover to help minimize finger-prints, however on the interior pages I’m not a fan of it, as I think a gloss paper stock would have better worked to showcase the images on the interior. I’ll go into that in more detail in a bit,

Now getting into the content, the actual images themselves, there’s more than a bit of crossover in terms of style and theme and subject. The images are mostly computer generated imagery, a lot of video game like landscapes. Much of it is a bit dark for me, in terms of actual brightness not content. I think this is the printing job, rather than the images. Because the images viewed on-line look great (as in the ones I post with this blog), but in the actual book the images appear muddy and un-dynamic.

It may be what the artists are going for, but I’m inclined to think it’s printed a bit dark. So that is where a glossier, brighter, higher contrast interior paper stock could have helped the images come alive, and not fade into the background as much.

It’s definitely a preference argument, but generally I feel glossy paper works much better for art books, and that this particular art-book, because the images are so dark, would have benefited from a higher-contrast glossy paper stock.

Mainly because the dark muted images, lots of purples on blacks, one after another tends to reinforce the need for a more varied palette. The detail in the images just get lost. There are a lot of images I think I would like, if I could see the detail in the images.

But just when you think the similarity is getting to you, you turn the page and there is a burst of artistry and an unexpected, thematically intriguing image to bring you back into the book.

Among such standouts are [the creator or studios nickname is listed with the image, but the table of contents gives their full name] :

28162 has a lush and beautiful and vibrant image with PINK DREAM and SANS UN DEFAUT

Kiko has a wonderful, futuristic landscape scene with IN THE MORNING, but I do think it looks a bit dark, muddy

Mr. Xerty has a nice collage like work with JING

Pim does the lovely LIGHT PULSE

3mmi Design has several intriguing images with DELIVRANCE and TONIGHT IN HELL

Maliciarosenoire offers us the nicely composed INCERTAIN

Graphic Traveling bring us the imaginative NYX

Grivetart’s NEW YORK 2030 and EXPLORERS are both quite excellent

Graphaddict’s offers us the well composed and lit SPACE MOUNTAINS

Pezcado’s MAINS DANS LA MAIN is quite ingenious

BeautifulReal brings us the sumptuous and strange LAST TRAVEL

KarimDesign’s offers us the attention getting LAST BREATH

Aiven’s 5 PAR is likewise imaginative and compelling

Todavia’s DEATH OF A SIREN

Lord K’s POLAR SUMMER

So these are some of the ones that stand out, and make the book well worth a viewing, despite my issues with the printing. Beyond the brief French introduction, the book consists of all images, so it can be enjoyed by all. Final Grade: B-.

******

CONTEST! WIN THIS BOOK!

This book isn’t currently available on Amazon US, but is available from Amazon UK and Amazon FR. It’s like $50.

But wait a minute! For being a Heroic times follower, I’ll tell you how you can win it for free.

It’s really, really easy to win this review copy they sent me.

Be the 15th person (follower, you have to be a follower of this blog)to comment on this post, you win the book.

Put contest in the comment, include your email address so I can get in touch with you. Comments do not get posted if you put contest in it, and they come right to me.

The 15th person, maximum of 3 attempts per person and consecutive attempts not counted. 15th person (follower) to leave a comment saying “you want this book and love Heroic Times”… wins the book.

Pretty simple.

Okay, that’s all folks. Go hug somebody.

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