Certainly an interesting topic. I think how people define who their ‘friends’ are is pretty telling. Like ‘Tell me how many close friends you have, and I tell you how superficial you are’ This whole thing is even more interesting since distance doesn’t matter that much anymore, thanks to Twitter, Skype/FaceTime and - *sigh* Facebook.

In podcasts, you hear the hosts/guests discuss from time to time that they never have met, or like once or twice, but would consider the other person a friend. This may represent the modern version of a pen friend, differing from a ‘classic’ friend just in the lack of a meeting in person. There are friendships that may ‘exist’ in school, for example, but really develop without its social glue and over distance. They may have developed anyway, but distance doesn’t hurt. But not every friendship is made out for that, obviously.

I really don’t use IM anymore, but back when I did, before being a nerd became cool the least, I had long and deep conversations via ICQ, MSN, Jabber.¹ Today, this also works via Skype. I would include the classic landline telephone as well, but the voice quality really sucks. You only notice it switching from Skype, but it’s a tremendous difference. It’s like uncompressed audio vs. shortwave. Well, I’ll cut the tech talk here.

Really, it’s a tremendous difference.

Here’s something more general: Sometimes, I find myself thinking that a person I just met and had a good conversation with is very interesting, just to discover that the person obviously didn’t value the conversation that much or isn’t interested in any contact whatsoever. That also applies to a greater context, think many good conversations on many occasions, then the circumstances change, the occasions go away and the conversations with them. I don’t want to whine about dried up friendships-to-be now: What strikes me about that is that I have no idea how it’s gonna work out before it does or doesn’t.
The great thing about that is that it’s just a symptom of one of the greatest things about studying: Meeting an awful lot of different people, obviously. And not just like ‘Oh, nice talking to you, bye’, but with you having a say in it. Even though the peer groups’ fluctuations are kind of a crowd sourcing product everyone has an unconscious part in, you naturally are more likely to have contact with people you like. But that whole thing is a complicated process with a lot of moving parts, just like yourself.

A symptom of that change is how the peer groups developed from the first semester onwards. Everyone was so frikkin’ anxious not to find any friends that everyone pulled his or her model-son/daughter-in-law a-game. This resulted in peer groups whose members, without the glue of civilization, would’ve killed each other sooner than the kids in Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’. So, they held up a few weeks.
It’s somewhat similar to romantic relationships: In my opinion, every relationship can last three months, regardless of how unequal or dysfunctional it may be in the end. Till then, it’s all new and, if not too disgusting, interesting. After that, the work begins.²

Back to the peer groups: They were torn away by their member’s differing interests, maybe some solid two-person-friendships made it out of that early state. After that, there were new groups, and then they changed again, and then the changes slowed down to a ‘normal’ speed, according to people’s personal development. That took a little over a year. For me, it somehow represents how everyone (in this case, obviously: me) found himself in a whole new part of life, its demands, the field of study and so on.
That’s my interpretation of my experience. Maybe it differs a lot from the experience others had, maybe law students manage it totally different from the pedagogues or people doing cultural studies, doing less weed and stuff, I don’t know.

1. Anyway: The vast majority of the time, I used it to provide tech support to my classmates. Maybe that’s why I still despise IM somehow.
2. You really shouldn’t listen to me talking about (possible) long-term-relationships.

In August 2009, when I got my iPhone 3GS, it was something special. Here in Germany, the iPhone was T-Mobile-exclusive back then. Way too expensive for me on a monthly basis. The Italian ones, due to legal restrictions, shipped without SIM-Lock, like all the current ones. So, I ordered mine on eBay. From an Italian guy. I really got it, what surprised me.

Just when I got it, I dropped it. And continued to. In a case at first, but since about half a year, I went caseless. The iPhone has some scratches now, but isn’t further damaged. I had to have the battery exchanged once, a few months ago. The iPhone would just go off or restart randomly, really weird. But I’m blaming the weird power grid in my flat for it, it already wrecked some PSUs. Now, I’m all voltage protected and the iPhone works fine again.

So, why am I dedicating a whole blogpost to my 2-year-old iPhone? Because I’ve been using it every waking minute of every single day and think it’s a damn fine piece of hardware. Twitter, Mail, blogging, taking photos, music/podcasts, googling something, calendar, calling people (sporadically), notes, alarm, texting (despisingly), stalking and texting people on Facebook, gaming (sporadically), get directions, just everything. Only challenged by pen and paper and the iPad. You’re probably looking for that Stockholm Syndrome article, but that’s ok for me.

I just love to argue with people who don’t understand how a smartphone is better than a ‘regular phone’¹. Better: How it’s a whole different thing. And how some of them even have a 600€ phone and still argue that a 1,60€ App is too expensive.²

1. Why not call them ‘the Nokia ones’, hugh? I’m always embarrassed when I catch myself saying ‘dumbphone’.
2. With this one, actually, I’m just speechless. Don’t even know where to begin. Apps extend your phone’s purpose exponentially. Every Android user would be glad to find an App that actually costs money and doesn’t advertise the user to death. Maybe the 1,60€ will even pay for a warm supper for the starving Android developer.

I started to meditate on a daily basis. At first, I planned to release this post one month into it, but decided to get it out there to motivate myself. Also, I had an empowering talk about meditation that reminded me of the power of sharing.¹ A talk that, and this I find quite amazing, just developed because I ‘hearted’ two articles about meditation on Instapaper, which was publicized in my Twitter stream and then seen by my dialog partner.

Meditation. Seriously? Like my best friend would say: ‘You’re such a HIPPIE!’

For information about the specific type of meditation (Vipassana) better jump to the section at the end and read Dan’s articles. However, what I do is: Sitting, eyes closed, breathing in and out, counting from one to ten for 15 minutes.

On the first day, it was hard for me to sit up straight. When I sat on my bed, eyes closed for more than 2 minutes, I felt like I tilted to the right. Also, I couldn’t get my legs in the right position. The counting and breathing was the least I worried about.
On the third day, I realized that 15 minutes feel like a very, very short time. That may indicate how many thoughts there are in my head that keep me from getting bored, like I probably should. When the bell rings, I’m much more settled than before. Checking Twitter, Mail, ordering espresso, having breakfast, packing the right books, checking for new podcasts, all that stuff, that are my mornings until now. Information overflow, a self made pressure of keeping everything up to date, clean and as I ‘would want it’: Guilty as charged.
A real #firstworldproblem that even #ProjectEarlyBird doesn’t solve entirely (even though it gives you the best starting position to do so yourself). But after I meditate, I feel settled down and more focused on what I want and should do to feel good, what the day might keep for me and what I can get out of it. During the day, I’m almost excited for the session the next morning.

On the fourth day, I couldn’t get the ‘flow’, as you might say. I didn’t lose count, that wasn’t the problem. My thoughts wandered away, and every time I hit ten, I remembered that I was counting and shouldn’t be thinking. Then, I started to concentrate on my in- and deflating chest while breathing. That made it easier (Concentrating on a part of the body sensitive to your breath was a tip from an early ‘Back to Work’ episode). It worked better than when I tried to visualize the numbers.

On the fifth day, I really struggled. It felt like I could’ve aborted the meditation right in the middle and nothing would’ve happened. I didn’t lose count, but in the periods from one to ten, my thoughts jumped around like a Duracell bunny on LSD. But again, the fifteen minutes felt like five, and all of that shows how much psychological load² I’m carrying.

On the seventh day, I didn’t lose count either, but also didn’t feel very focused. Well, a bit more than on the fifth day. Patience, here I come.

##Notes## The articles mentioned above are the first two about meditation in Dan Benjamin’s blog Hivelogic. Here they are.
Recommended across the board: Mindfulness in Plain English. Yes, a book. It’s free. PDF, ePub, Amazon, no excuses. Great stuff in it. Maybe some passages from it will make it in a ‘Quotes’-Post.

1. No, I’m not on drugs, it just came out that way.
2. I’m inclined to say ‘trash’ to emphasize that I don’t have much to worry about, and instead concern myself with thoughts that are really just junk.

Hypercritical #25, 30:20

Siracusa:

You’d be shocked at the number of people who do not know how to go to someone’s twitter page. Nobody knows how to type ‘twitter.com/username’ except for people listening to this show. I guarantee you they just go to twitter and search or something.

He sure is right about that. It’s an example of how, for us geeks, unbelievably cumbersome most people interact with technology. Like typing ‘www.twitter.com’ in the google search mask, google.com being your welcome page, ignoring the separate firefox google search bar.¹ Or using the Google Image search to find your new (sports car) wallpaper. Good luck with that.

Build and Analyze #34, 04:20

Marco:

You know how on American Cheese they can’t actually call it cheese […] so they have to call it ‘pasteurized processed cheese food’. I think the kind of coffee that comes from the vendor with the green mermaid logo should be called something similar […] I’m going with ‘coffee inspired beverage product’.

I can’t recall by whom it was, but I recently read a piece in which the author said he actually liked that people call the short Italian coffee shots ‘Expresso’, cause in most places the shot you get doesn’t deserve the name ‘Espresso’. Marco’s idea is likely spirited: Preserving a name for the things it actually describes, not what most people just call it. I like that. A little arrogant and nitpicky, but correct and sophisticated. Also, it’s a great way to make fun of people who just don’t get it without even having them noticing.

1. I, of course, use Chrome. I just sketched what I believe is the average user.