Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States (the fourth Thursday of November). Since at least the 1930s, it has been regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the US, and most major retailers open very early (and more recently during overnight hours) and offer promotional sales. Black Friday is not an official holiday, but California and some other states observe "The Day After Thanksgiving" as a holiday for state government employees, sometimes in lieu of another federal holiday such as Columbus Day.[2] Many non-retail employees and schools have both Thanksgiving and the following Friday off, which, along with the following regular weekend, makes it a four-day weekend, thereby increasing the number of potential shoppers. It has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005,[3] although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate,[4] have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time.[5] Similar stories resurface year upon year at this time, portraying hysteria and shortage of stock, creating a state of positive feedback.
In 2014, spending volume on Black Friday fell for the first time since the 2008 recession. $50.9 billion was spent during the 4-day Black Friday weekend, down 11% from the previous year. However, the U.S. economy was not in a recession. Christmas creep has been cited as a factor in the diminishing importance of Black Friday, as many retailers now spread out their promotions over the entire months of November and December rather than concentrate them on a single shopping day or weekend.[6]
The earliest evidence of the phrase Black Friday applied to the day after Thanksgiving suggests that the term originated in Philadelphia, where it was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic that would occur on the day after Thanksgiving.[7][8] However, a widespread belief is that the term represents the point in the year when retailers begin to turn a profit for the year, thus going from being "in the red" to being "in the black".[7][9]
For many years, it was common for retailers to open at 6:00 a.m., but in the late 2000s many had crept to 5:00 or 4:00. This was taken to a new extreme in 2011, when several retailers (including Target, Kohl's, Macy's, Best Buy, and Bealls[10]) opened at midnight for the first time.[11] In 2012, Walmart and several other retailers announced that they would open most of their stores at 8:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, prompting calls for a walkoutamong some workers.[12] In 2014 stores such as JCPenney, Best Buy, and Radio Shack opened at 5:00 PM on Thanksgiving Day while stores such as Target, Walmart, Belk, and Sears opened at 6:00 PM on Thanksgiving Day.[13][14] Three states, Rhode Island, Maine, and Massachusetts, prohibit large supermarkets, big box stores, and department stores from opening on Thanksgiving, due to blue laws.[15][16]
There have been reports of violence occurring between shoppers on Black Friday. Since 2006, there have been 7 reported deaths and 98 injuries throughout the United States.[17] It is common for prospective shoppers to camp out over the Thanksgiving holiday in an effort to secure a place in front of the line and thus a better chance at getting desired items. This poses a significant safety risk (such as the use of propane and generators in the most elaborate cases, and in general, the blocking of emergency access and fire lanes, causing at least one city to ban the practice.[18]
The Collidoscope is a prototype synthesiser designed by researchers Ben Bengler & Fiore Martin. Based on a granular synthesiser engine the instrument can be played by two performers at the same time (as they stand opposite one another on the sides of the unit) using the 2 built-in sets of keyboard, gooseneck microphone, colour display and controllers. The Collidoscope samples from the microphones (or line inputs) and displays in real time a waveform of the sample and allows it to be played back instantly. The main sliding knob positioned below the waveform allows for the visual selection of a portion of the sample to be played (by moving it horizontally), and for the modification of the size of the portion being looped (through rotating the knob). - See more at: http://www.doctormix.com/blog/collidoscope#sthash.1I3wtrQm.dpuf
The things that have ones so enamored—the perfect love, the perfect child, the perfect income, the perfect house and job and town to live in—are the very things that keep so many from God. Humanity has become so brainwashed by what the collective whole says are the ideals and attainments for which to strive. If they are an end, in and of themselves, each one of those items is a false god placed before your Lord God and Creator.
The same dynamic can be found in the New Age movement. The pursuit of enlightenment, ascension, bi-location, teleportation, etc. are all pursuits of false gods. They are attachments and distractions of the mind. Desires are acts of Separation. Inherent in one's desire for anything is the belief that one lacks something and, therefore, needs something. Thus, desire places an object of pursuit before God which, in turn, distances one even further from God.
Desire not the fruits of life with God. Desire, instead, life with God.
Life with The Beloved is not about enlightenment. It is about falling so completely in love with Creation that you are in Oneness with everything in any given moment. Then the next moment comes and you fall in love all over again. What if it is God's will that you do not attain enlightenment in this embodiment? Does that mean you fail? No. The only desire worth having is to become consumed by God's love. Place no conditions upon what that looks like. God is love. Thus, yearn to know love, to feel love, to express love, and to become love—beyond limit. If that means enlightenment, then accept it. If it means being married, single, gay, straight, rich, poor, with or without kids, famous or unknown, accept that too. It does not matter. Those titles, positions, and attributes are simply what God needs to play this game of chess with your lives. Furthermore, all those attainments of the material world are gone forever in the instant you transit your physical form, from a life whose entirety only amounts to one blink of your soul's eternal eye.
God does not need six billion people enlightened in this decade, or in this century for that matter. God needs a surrendered, willing heart that says, "Use me according to Thy will." There are countless people who are not enlightened Masters, yet live so completely in rapture with God, and it blesses everything they do. I have seen many working in hotels and restaurants. The love I see oozing out of them almost brings me to tears. Some of them are going home to screaming children, no money, and fifteen people living in a one-room box of a house with no windows; yet, they walk in grace because they feel the love of God constantly in their hearts. They see it, and insist on seeing it, in every single thing they do. That is the magic which helps them transcend their circumstance. Many of them have never read a book on ascension and might think enlightenment is what happens when you flip the light switch on a wall. Do you think it matters? Do you think they care? Their focus is on God, not on His gifts.
Love is what everyone is seeking. The irony is that all have the power to have it in any moment. Many just do not give themselves permission, partly because they do not believe that they can have it. Most have been taught that life is about having to attain something. Others believe that, once they become enlightened, then they will have that love. But it is the other way around. It is the love which leads one into enlightenment.
No moment lives beyond the confines of itself. All that matters is to fill each moment with the highest amount of love you can muster, then ache to give even more. It is in these moments that you are in Oneness. It is in these moments that you are living life with The Beloved.
- Louix Dor Dempriey
- See more at: http://www.louix.org/life-with-the-beloved/
The iPad Pro: A better way to work? Photo: Leander Kahney / Cult of Mac
iPad Pro Diary, Day 2: I have a shameful confession to make. Even though I’ve been using an iPad and iPhone for years, I haven’t really been using them.
I do a few things that haven’t changed for donkeys. I read on the iPad all the time and send the odd email. I play songs on Sonos. I played Kingdom Rush a few times. I watched a Netflix video. That’s about it.
My iPhone I use more, but nothing heavy duty. Messaging, email, photos and maps. The odd phone call.
But now that I’m forcing myself to use the iPad Pro for work — to see if it really is a PC replacement — I’m discovering something unesxpected: That the iOS ecosytem is far deeper, more productive, and better integrated than I knew.
Not only is work easier on the iPad these days, it’s a lot more fun.
I was going to talk about adding a keyboard to the iPad Pro (which I talk about in the video and a review of the keyboard), but the real lesson is how powerful and integrated the iOS ecosystem is.
Yes, I know it’s rather sad, but I used iMovie for iOS for the first time on the iPad and it was a revelation. I was able to make the above video pretty quickly and I’m delighted. Not with the results, which are comically amateurish, but the experience of putting it together.
The video was shot with my iPhone 6 and the footage transferred to the iPad via AirPlay. It was DEAD EASY!
The last time I did any video work, it was painful. I can’t remember precisely, but it involved plugging a camera or iPhone into the compuetr with a cable, or using a memory card or other hard media to import the footage. It ate giagbytes of hard drive space, and although older versions of iMovie were touted as easy-to-use, they really weren’t. At least the way I do things, which is steadfastly refusing to open a manual. If I can’t figure it out right away, I’m done.
How times have changed.
iMovie on iOS is a ton of fun to use, and amazingly powerful. I know my video has bad lighting, bad sound and way too many stock graphics, but I was delighted that I figured it out with minimal help (I Googled two things). I was amazed that the app does fairly complex things like video overlays with one click (or rather, finger press).
There’s also amazing and seamless integration between apps, devices and various online services. Swapping video via Airplay was fast and flawless. Uploading the finished thing to theCult of Mac YouTube channel was so shockingly easy, it made me suspicious I’d done it wrong.
I know I’m just scratching the surface. Thanks to iOS 9, there’s a lot more cross-app integration than ever before. iOS 9’s Share Sheets bring up a wide variety of apps and services to work with, from Facebook to Evernote. Routine tasks like emailing an attachement are as simple as choosing the email app in a Share Sheet.
I knew a lot of this, of course, because I use iOS devices every day. But I’d never used them in a work context, to get things done, and I’m discovering that things have come a long way.
As I say in the video, a keyboard is essential to making the iPad a computer replacement. But I’m also discovering the joys of doing things with multitouch instead of a trackpad and keyboard. I’m discovering how rich and powerful it all is. It’s a better way to work — easy, intuitive and fun.
The Tstand redefines what it means to Netflix and chill. Photo: George Tinari/Cult of Mac
If you’ve had an iPad for at least a couple of years now, you’ve probably noticed one of the major ergonomic issues with it: there’s no perfect way to hold it. You can hold your iPad to use it which always feels just slightly awkward, place it on a table which hunches you over and strains the back of your neck, or put it on your lap and fold your legs up which just feels ridiculous. A Kickstarter project called the Tstand aims to solve this problem.
The Tstand is a new, adjustable tablet stand that can dramatically decrease muscle tension when you’re trying to do something as simple as watch a show on Netflix. The stand has a foldable, clamshell design that can match any viewing angle you need.
If you rest the stand on your stomach while you lay in bed, you can watch a show without having to lift your head or keep your arms up. You can also position the stand so that your iPad elevates right next you on the bed while you lay on your side.
Swivel the bottom half of the stand behind the tablet and you can set it up to act as a computer monitor on your desk. Just slide a keyboard underneath and reach up to touch the screen as necessary. The stand will perfectly position the tablet at eye level so you don’t have to slouch over.
Slip underneath the Tstand to use your tablet while laying down. Photo: George Tinari/Cult of Mac
I was sent a pre-production model to test out how well the Tstand works and I have to say, I’m totally impressed. I didn’t realize how often I do put strain on the back of my neck when I use my iPad. It’s my computing device of choice when I’m leaving my home, yet it often winds up on the table with my Smart Cover folded up for a slight angle. Still, the angle requires me to put my head down and stare uncomfortably.
My favorite use case for the Tstand is easily in bed. While I imagine someone out there will probably take advantage of the Tstand for naughty purposes here, I quite enjoyed watching an entire episode of How to Get Away with Murder on it, which by the way is a fantastic show. I didn’t need to prop up my pillows or hold my iPad up. I just angled the Tstand so the iPad was aimed right at my face while still remaining comfortably distant. I enjoyed using it at eye level on my desk for a bit too, and also found it makes a great tripod to film with the iPad or FaceTime while sitting.
If you don’t have an iPad, the Tstand adjusts for any tablet as small as seven inches and as big as 13 inches, so that includes the new iPad Pro and Microsoft Surface Pro 4 too.
Reversing the Tstand turns your tablet into a monitor. Photo: George Tinari/Cult of Mac
I did find that the build quality of the Tstand could be a bit better. It’s not bad, but getting my iPad mini in and out of the holder made me nervous that it would snap somehow. The mechanism for adjusting the angle isn’t as buttery smooth as I would prefer either.
Still, I loved spending time with it. In many ways, the Tstand feels like the missing piece between a tablet and the way we all try to interact with one. It also does wonders for my neck. With just a little over a week left in the Kickstarter campaign, you can head over there to fund the project for as little as $37.
