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June 15, 2012

YOLO Redux

Holding People's Hand

Cute video, but I've watched it ten times and can't make out what the woman at just past 1:00 says to him. Someone please tell me. If you do, I'll hold your hand.

June 9, 2012

YOLO

YOLO= "You only live once." I saw this several years ago on a Facebook wall. The subject was the most daring things people had done and one guy said he and his girlfriend had climbed some mountain last summer and someone else said they thought that was crazy and the mountain climber replied "YOLO".

I wasn't familiar with that particular acronym, but it didn't take long to find out what it meant: You Only Live Once - Mainly used to defend doing something ranging from mild to extreme stupidity (That's from the website Urban Dictionary. I'm not linking to it because 90% of the definitions on the site contain some...or a lot...of profanity. I'm thinkin' it's more than fair that I cite the source even if I don't insert a hyperlink)

I don't think climbing a mountain is stupid;  I wouldn't do it, but I can think of a lot more stupid things there are to do.  The way YOLO is being used most of the time is stupid, though.

Since that time I've seen it hundreds of times on the 'net, on Twitter feeds and set as a Facebook status. It's becoming overused, much in the way Hotel California was played way too much on the radio. That song was great the first dozen times I heard it, but when it was played a dozen times a day....

It was like that with YOLO for a long while, then - thankfully - it fell into disuse. It wouldn't go away completely - there were the isolated incidents that would call attention to it again, such as when Zac Efron got a YOLO hand tattoo. It's making a comeback, though, and a search of the 'net will show that I'm not alone in thinking it's being used far too often and in the wrong context.

I was reminded of it again the other day when some doofus posted in a fan group something like "Me 'n a bud drank a fifth of vodka, polished off a case of malt liquor and smoked a whole oz. of some crazy kine. YOLO." Yeah, I thought. You only live once, but you'll also probably only live a short time.

I suppose you only live once, but I prefer to go by the haiku written by James Bond in Ian Fleming's novel You Only Live Twice:

You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face

I'm certainly not a spy nor a combat veteran, but I have looked death in the face, both literally and figuratively. That's for another blog post, though.

The following is from the 1967 James Bond thriller You Only Live Twice opening, sung by Nancy Sinatra. (The movie bears little resemblance to the novel, by-the-way) I love the opening bars of the tune.

June 6, 2012

Firefox 13.0

Firefox just released the newest version of their browser.  From Firefox 13 Tweaks Tabs, Home Pages, Speed and Security

Before the upgrade, when Firefox users clicked to open a new tab, they saw simply a blank page, unlike browsers such as Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer, which provide users with links to recently opened or favorite sites. Now, the Firefox homepage will feature icons that enable quick access to bookmarks, history, settings, add-ons and downloads. Additionally, when users click for a new tab, they'll see thumbnails to their most recently and frequently visited sites.

I really like the thumbnail part when opening up a new tab and it does seem a little faster.  Only one of my add-ons was not compatible, much fewer than with other releases. 

The funny thing about this is that I've almost always liked the upgrades Firefox has done.  I didn't like the last few MSN Group upgrades and don't like the new Facebook Timeline, so I take offense when people say I (or others) don't like change.  The changes Firefox has done are easier to get used to and are more useful than other "upgrades" I've gone through.  Even going from Windows98 to XP wasn't as bad as trying to get used to the new Timeline. (so that's why I installed some extensions for Firefox that hides it from me!)

I do wish my Windows Media Player on this Vista machine was more like the one I had with my XP computer.  It's definitely not an improvement, I don't care how much they try to convince me otherwise.

The very best upgrade I ever had was going from dial-up to DSL.  Who wouldn't want a hundred times more speed?  (I really need to upgrade to cable, though, but my speed is satisfactory for now)