Tech update and, well, something else...

I have recently discovered Flipboard. If, like me, you were skeptical, give it a try; it's kind of neat. I've discovered lots of neat stories with it. It was installed as a default app on my new phone, which is why I recently tried it, and I think I like it. You can get quick synopses of various stories, and then focus in and read the ones that interest you. I'm even starting to like the flip interface, which I thought stupid on another app I tried recently, but it actually works fairly well for the flipboard concept. Welcome, me,  to fairly leading edge tech. :)

There are also some other neat features of the new phone (a Samsung Galaxy 4s, which was on sale at Sam's Club mobile in our store). The phone can detect your finger hovering over the screen and react to it (like expanding headlines in the flipboard app), and has features to, for instance, keep the screen on while you're looking at it. Cool. Speaking of Sam's mobile, if you're in need of an upgrade, give them a try; the prices were better than both Verizon and Best Buy Mobile in store prices (and the Galaxy S3 we got for my wife was 96 cents). I hadn't expected to get the Galaxy, and was instead thinking something like the new LG Enact at the Verizon store, a new but low end phone (it does have a full slide out keyboard and is thicker but smaller than the S4), but the price on the S4 at Sam's was too good to pass up. I also (so far, anyway) recommend Invisible Shield screen covers. Looks terrible initially installed, but unlike pet screen protectors I've used in the past, the bubbles worked themselves out after half a day and it looks great, pretty much invisible.

So, anyway, I was reading a story on flipboard about Molly, the street name for a version of ecstasy, and was somewhat flabbergasted by what I read. For instance, a girl with a master's degree in public health with a specialty in habitual substance abuse, who currently works in public health, is a frequent user and thinks we should be focusing on making recreational drugs safer rather than preventing their use. But what really got me was the closing of the article, where it talked about another user's positive experiences with the drug and ends the article with the line, "who wouldn't want to feel like that?" In other words, encouraging use of the drug. Besides briefly mentioning several recent deaths attributed to the drug's use, the article mostly seems to focus on the supposed positives of the drug's use.

And this is where we are today in society. Yay.