Science works as a set of principles which, when applied as a methodology, gives us information about reality. These principles are based on assumptions about how we think reality might operate at a fundamental level.

Unfortunately, there are some who insist that Science’s claim on reality is much stronger. In this view, scientific understandings are asserted as absolute truths about the nature of reality. Assumptions about the underlying structure of nature are treated as known facts, and anyone who questions them is deemed ignorant.

This dogmatic view is not what Science is about. To put it in simple terms: Science doesn’t dictate reality; Science describes reality. The discoveries we make through scientific methods are conclusions we have come to based on our previous assumptions about how the world works. As soon as something happens which occurs outside these assumptions, our ideas about reality must be rethought, revised, and possibly removed as we refine our understanding of reality. Some might say this process is a weakness. However, it should be viewed as a strength.

The universe, in all probability, does not operate in strict accordance to the laws of Nature we have created to describe it. These laws are simply (often extremely) accurate depictions of how we think the universe works according to observances and experimentation. While it may certainly seem like our understanding of the universe is improving based on our advances, we have no standard with which to compare our progress other than with the progress itself.

Science is not an infallible process. At its foundation, it rests on a set of principles which are held on faith. To think of Science as anything more than this is to step outside of the world of methodology and into the realm of metaphysics.

I pay roughly $100 a month for my phone’s plan. This is nearly how much we pay on our car loan. That’s insane! If I went back in time and told my 12 year old self that in the very near future I’d be paying $1,200 a year on cell phone service, I would have called myself an idiot (and ask if I could have that money to buy LEGO sets).

Now, all that money isn’t wasted. I talk on the phone about 200 minutes a month and send roughly 800 texts. But the most concerning statistic I found when looking at my history is how much data I use. It’s not what you’d expect: I use, on average, just 0.5GB of data a month. How do I use such little data? Aside from the terribly slow 4G Sprint offers, I only use my phone’s data when I’m walking around or on the train. Everywhere else—our apartment, the office, restaurants—I am able to use WiFi for all of my data needs.

So why do I waste so much money every month on a cell phone plan I barely use? I hate wasting money! After looking around online for cheap alternatives, I came across a little thing called Karma.

The Experiment

I have decided to run a week-long test where I use this device for all of my cell phone needs. There will be things I will have to get used to, like using Google Voice for all my calls. If after a week I’m not sold on this new way of using my phone, I’ll return the Karma and jump back onto my expensive cell phone contract. If, however, I like it, I will cancel my cell phone contract and never look back.

Follow me on twitter for updates!

Note: The title of this post is an homage to cutting the cord. I realize I’m not actually cutting the cell towers out of my phone’s service. Instead, think of the tower as a metaphor for the monolithic cell carriers who continue to trap us into crappy contracts with ridiculous rules, costs, and fees.

Often referred to as tip-of-the-tongue, this failure to recall a piece of information is quite common. First described (although not in name) by William James in 1890, it was also discussed by Sigmund Freud, who postulated that it was due to unconscious thoughts and impulses. Research published by Roger Brown and David McNeil in 1966 is seen as the foundational study for this phenomenon.

So then, what do we know about presque vu? Very little. We do know it’s universal, or in other words: It occurs across all cultures, even if a particular language doesn’t have an equivalent idiom. Even people who use sign language report “tip-of-the-hand” experiences. There are many theories which attempt to explain the cause of why this failure to recall happens, but none have yet proven true.

All of this is very fascinating, but one thing leaves me curious:

Say I have forgotten the name of a popular actor. I know the names of several movies he appears in. I can recall how he appears, acts, and talks. But I cannot remember his name.

Have I completely forgotten his name? Or, is it stored away in some inaccessible part of my mind, only to be renewed once I come across it in writing? What if my mind then retroactively tricks itself into thinking that it remembers his name, but in actuality it didn’t?

The thought that our brains could trick us into believing something that we didn’t actually know is, to put simply, quite scary.

These are not easy questions; They have no easy answers. Until we can come to a better understanding of how the brain works, the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon will remain a mystery.

My memories are from that of a former self with whom I can no longer consider to be one and the whole the same as my present state. So then: Who am I?

The current thing which I define as “me” is a continually changing conglomeration of memories, thoughts, and objects which occupy space and time. Although I have memories of my past to remind me of who I once was, my future self is something I can’t even begin to describe beyond mere guesses.

People seem to intuitively hold a coherent view about ourselves and who we once were, are, and will be. But, as with most things, it’s a little more complicated than what we naïvely hold to be true. We are a framework of particles, molecules, and systems which move through time and space, with many of these things being partially or completely replaced over the course of our lives.

At face value do I consider myself to be the same person who was born years ago? Certainly. Can I point to any one thing and say “This is what has remained constant throughout”? Not exactly. Instead of trying to point to my body, brain, or appeal to a metaphysical soul, I look at the process of introspection itself to find who I really am.

It is the act of attempting to define who I am where I come to this conclusion: I am the sum of my parts. Although this sum is in constant flux, it persists through time and space.

Before I say anything else, I want this to be clear: The first generation Retina MacBook Pro is amazing. Its performance has far exceeded my expectations, especially having come from a 5 year old MacBook. I can definitely see this thing as my main machine for another 2-3 years, at least.

First impressions

This laptop is the first electronic device I’ve had that I could consider “new.” All of the computers I had before it were at least a few years old or put together by myself, so it was an exciting to finally have something at the cutting edge. Needless to say, I was very excited to have something that could take everything I threw at it without throwing down a single waiting cursor.

Unfortunately, after a few weeks of using it I started to notice a problem. When moving a window around the screen, a ghost image of the window would be left behind. After doing a quick Google search I found out that this problem was something that was affecting other Retina MacBook Pros. Here’s what it looked like after having a window set in the same spot for about a minute:

It’s faint, I know. And you might say it doesn’t look like a big deal. But, imagine that all the time, over everything you do. Working in Photoshop for a bit? Those control panels are now practically burnt into your screen (like they were for me). Writing a paper while tabbing back and forth between Word and your web browser? You now see stuff from the browser on top of what you’re trying to write. I guess that could be handy, but I don’t consider it a feature!

Apple fixes everything for free, unless they decide it’s not a problem

After reading some online success stories of other people getting their faulty screens replaced, I set up a meeting at my local Apple store. I went in, explained my problem, and had my computer swapped out for a brand new one straight from the box.

I left the store with laptop #2 and headed home to transfer over all of my backed up files. That night, while copying files over onto my second brand new laptop, I realized it had the exact same problem. On this screen, the image retention was even worse than the first. Upset and frustrated, I scheduled another meeting at the local Apple store for the very next day.

I arrived at the Apple store, explained my problem to the guy behind the genius bar, and within about five minutes I walked out with laptop #3. I went home, opened it up, and instantly noticed the screen had a very noticeable yellow tint. It was weird, but I told myself I’d get used to it. There were no signs of image retention.

Fast forward a few weeks…

After getting used to the yellow tint, I began to notice the image retention again. Ugh. I felt bad about bothering my local store again, so I scheduled a new appointment at an Apple store in Chicago.
After explaining my problems to the guy behind the genius bar, I could tell something was different. He asked to see my laptop so he could perform a few tests on it in the back of the store. About 10 minutes later he came out. This is what he said to me:

“This is normal, expected behavior. Use a screensaver if it bothers you.” — Apple genius guy

Hearing this was upsetting. Hoping for the best, I asked to speak with a manager. The manager came around and said that what I was experiencing was expected behavior for all Retina MacBook Pros, and that they did not see it as an issue. Crap.

After the manager left, I talked with the first guy for a bit. He told me that he knew the image retention was a problem, but there was nothing (in the official sense) that he could do to help me. He even said it was the single reason why he wouldn’t buy one himself. I left the store feeling defeated.

Finality (maybe)

In the days after that frustrating time at the store, I tried to be positive and make the best of it. I knew what I was getting into when buying a new piece of technology. The image retention didn’t make the screen unusable. Even still, after a few more weeks I decided to try my luck again at the local Apple store.

Like the previous two visits to that same store, I was in and out within about five minutes with a shiny, brand new laptop #4. I took it home and…there were no signs of image retention! Finally, after about two months I had a laptop that worked.

A whole new world (of problems)

Or so I thought. The laptop worked flawlessly for about a month. As I said in the beginning, this laptop’s performance is incredible.

After about a month or so, however, I started to notice a problem where the screen would flicker. It happened in an instant, and for a while I thought I was just seeing things. Sometimes it would happen a few times in a day, but other days it wouldn’t happen at all. Here’s what it looked like during a particularly “bad” attack:

It got to the point where, on bad nights, the screen would do this about once every five seconds. Hardly ideal when trying to get work done (or surf the internet for cool pictures of sloths). After a few weeks with no signs of it stopping, I scheduled yet another visit to the local Apple store.

After explaining my problem, and sharing with him my fear of getting a replacement computer with a bad screen and being stuck with it, the genius I talked to was very understanding. Him and I actually talked about the manufacturing process, the two main screens used in the laptop, and what Apple is doing about it (not much). He ordered a new logic board and display cable and said I’d get a call when the parts came in. One worry we had was that the problem was with the screen. If it was, then it would need to be replaced, and the odds of getting a screen with image retention were about 50/50.

A few days later the parts came in and I dropped my laptop off for repair. Two days later I got a call: They were able to locate the source of the issue in the logic board, and they replaced it no problem. Yay! Although the entire logic board was replaced, the casing and screen were not, so I like to call this laptop #4.5.

After picking it up, the guys at the local Apple store jokingly told me they hoped to not see me again anytime soon. Yeah, me neither.

That’s my story (so far)

Would I do it again? Probably, if I knew it would get fixed eventually. Although having the latest technology has been fun, it’s also been extremely frustrating at times.

If you were keeping track, Apple has now completely replaced my first generation rMBP three times and replaced the logic board once. Is this normal for first generation devices? I hope so. Otherwise, it seems like Apple’s quality control has really gone down the drain.

I am addicted. Not to drugs, or anything requiring an intervention. I’m addicted to something more subtle but oftentimes just as damaging: The American Dream.

People love to spend money. Things like credit cards exist to make us spend money even easier than ever before. There are all sorts of gadgets, iPads, and cell phones we need to buy to keep up with the times. Beyond that, we have a sense of decency to maintain. Eating out, driving a new(er) car, keeping up with clothing trends, nice gifts come holiday season—All of these things and more we take for granted because we so easily see them as something to be expected.

Keeping up with the Joneses has become a calling card for the American dream, but today it is being taken to a new extreme. The advent of social media sites allows us to see how awesome other people are with their new cars, phones, electronic toys, and big expensive vacations. Instead of seeing our neighbors get a new car or put in a pool, we see hundreds, if not thousands (depending on how many friends you have), of people constantly bombarding our wall with their life events, new toys, and vacation photos.

This post is about making changes. Specifically, changes in our spending patterns. Right now we’re managing O.K. with our income and savings levels. But, there are lots of things we could cut out of our budget and still live a happy life while saving for the future.

What will change

For us, the biggest way to save money would be to stop eating out. This month we spent over $300 on eating out, and I alone spent about $200 on lunches downtown. If we cut out those two avenues of expenses entirely we will be saving nearly $500/mo by simply making all of our own meals. Right now we have a car loan that will be paid off sometime in the year 2015 if we keep making our monthly payments. However, if we directed this extra money into it we could have it paid off in just six months! There are other places where we can reduce our spending, but our first step will be with our food budget.

Aside from the car loan, we have a credit card that was opened up to purchase my laptop. Although it still has 0% interest until July of next year, I would like to have it paid off as soon as possible. Once this card and the car loan are paid off we will be ready to tackle student loans and then finally be completely debt free.

Being realistic

I don’t expect us to get rich. In fact, I don’t even want that to happen. From what I’ve seen, having more money doesn’t seem to make you happier. Instead, I want to make sure we make smart decisions now in preparation for whatever the future might hold. We will probably end up splurging on things here and there, but the end goal is to become wholly conscious about all of our spending.

I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions. I think they’re doomed to fail and rely too much on psychological tricks. Recently, however, I learned to recognize the psychological impact a fresh year can have, and because of that we’re going to put this budget plan into effect January 1st, 2013. I may give updates along the way about how we’re doing, and hopefully they’ll be good!

Want to join us?

If you’ve done something similar, or want to do the same sort of thing, feel free to comment below or send me an email. We’ve been using Mint to track our finances for years. If you’re in to frugal living, Mr. Money Mustache is an excellent place for finding out how to save money and spend it wisely. If you have any links to share on helping to manage your money better, share them below!

Unprovable assumptions about the way the world works must be made in order to give any sort of intelligible account of reality. A few ideas about how the world works have remained consistent throughout history. We hold to these assumptions not only because they are necessary in order to say anything about nature, but also because they have remained reliable in their results over millennia and countless trials. These are known in Science as the first principles:

• Nature is orderly and consistent
• Natural events are the result of natural causes
• Natural events can be understood and used to explain other events

Using these principles, we arrive at conclusions that are freed from subjective bias and can be used to form an objective account of reality. We form postulations about how the world might work, which are then scrutinized based on their repeatability, accuracy, testability, simplicity, and explanatory power. After much testing and observation, if a postulation still accords extremely well with the information we have gathered it is elevated to the status of scientific theory. Because of these assumptions about reality, we are able to form theories which in turn allow for even more discovery into how the world works.

However, we must remain honest in remembering that these first principles and theories are assumptions and nothing more. These assumptions should only be taken as a method for understanding the world. If evidence were given to put into doubt one of the scientific first principles, then our method for understanding the world around us would change. Some might say this is what makes Science weak, but this self-correcting nature is actually what makes it strong. Put simply, the scientific first principles and theories derived from them reflect our current and best understanding of how the world works, but they in no way should be asserted as truths about the fundamental nature of reality.

Scientific faith

Now, one might be quick to categorize these first principles of science as faith beliefs. However, a distinction must be made when using the word “faith” in different contexts. Scientific faith is that of the first principles and conclusions made from them which are held as methods for understanding the world. From these first principles we can extrapolate things such as the laws of nature (like those of thermodynamics), or produce expectations about the world (“I believe the Sun will rise tomorrow”). It is crucially important to remember that, while one may rationally live their life as if these assumptions are true, one shouldn’t hold them as anything more. In other words, while the universe may very well always and everywhere adhere to the law of electromagnetism, one can’t be certain about that being the case. Some assumptions about reality must be made, but we should remain honest about how these assumptions are held.

Religious faith

On the surface, a belief like “God exists” might seem equivalent to saying something like “The Sun will rise tomorrow”. However, there exists a subtle but sharp difference between scientific faith and religious faith. While a scientific faith is treated as a method for understanding the world, a religious faith deals with the fundamental nature of reality, and more often than not posits the metaphysical existence of god(s) with certainty. Even though both types of faith are taken on as assumptions, religious faith goes a step further and is assumed to be a literally true description of reality, one which asserts that the assumption made is an objectively true fact. This is the distinguishing feature between scientific and religious faiths.

Another way of explaining the difference between the definitions of faith is by looking at how one refers to a faith belief in context. For example, an honest scientist would say they live their life as if gravity were a fundamental truth about nature. On the other hand, a religious believer would say they live their life according to God because he exists. Scientific faith leads to expectations about reality while religious faith asserts its fundamental nature.

Lastly, almost all religious belief systems allow for (and even require) God to create, modify, or break the scientific first principles stated at the beginning. A believer would therefore at minimum hold to the following assumptions about reality:

• God exists.
• Nature is orderly and consistent, unless God chooses otherwise.
• Natural events are the result of natural causes, unless done by God.
• Natural events can be understood and used to explain other events, unless God intervenes.

A believer who holds to this second set must, at all times, be aware that everything around them may or may not be coherently understood through purely natural explanations. Gravity might be completely explainable by the theory of gravity at one time, but in another instance be explainable by divine intervention which brought about intelligent falling. By adding the assumption that God exists into the set of unprovable assumptions about the nature of reality, the believer seems to have made the first three propositions incoherent, or at the very least open to doubt and reassertion at any point in time. Even when holding God’s existence as a method for explaining the world, certain precautions must be made to ensure that God’s actions do not conflict with the other assumptions made about the world.

In conclusion

A religious faith is demanded by almost all religions. In Christianity, it’s impossible to please God without believing and knowing that he actually exists. Believing in God’s existence as anything but literally true is insufficient. In contrast, a scientific faith is a belief that is held as a method for understanding the world. While the word “faith” can be used to describe both scientific and religious beliefs, the meaning of the word when used within these contexts is quite different.

A design for the web should look good on all sorts of platforms, devices, and screens, and be usable for all of its users. In short: A site shouldn’t just look good, it should work. Although recent trends in web design have tried to answer this challenge, they all seem to only focus on a part of the problem.

Before I go any further, I want to make this extremely clear: If a design doesn’t look right or work well, regardless of the way it was viewed, it’s your fault (You are a web designer, right?). If a browser is unable to render your design correctly, or a user is unable to navigate around it effectively on their phone, you have failed at your job.

Now before you call me crazy: It would be ridiculous to say that your fancy HTML5/CSS3 site powered by jQuery should work on your decade-old PalmPilot. However, by understanding your target audience you can make sure that your site works on all devices used by your visitors. If you have any sort of analytics set up on a site, this information isn’t hard to find. By using this information, and checking your site across a multitude of devices, you can make sure that all of your audience has the best experience possible.

If you’re at all current in the web design world, I’m sure you’ve heard about or used what I am describing below. Bear with me, though, because they all play a part in what I’m getting at.

Responsive web design

Yes, that thing with the @media queries. This is a great way to use web technologies how they were meant to be used: HTML for content, CSS for presentation. By making sure your site scales flexibly across a variety of screen sizes, you can cover a large portion of your audience.

Further reading

• A List Apart: Responsive Web Design
• What The Heck Is Responsive Web Design?
• MSDN Magazine: Responsive Web Design

Progressive enhancement

The opposite of graceful degradation. After creating a site that works on your audience’s worst device or browser, add in the enhancements that make it look even better on platforms that support the fancy stuff. Rounded corners is a great example of this. Don’t make a site’s HTML or CSS unnecessarily complicated just to make it look pixel perfect across every device imaginable.

Further reading

• Understanding Progressive Enhancement
• Progressive Enhancement: What It Is, And How To Use It?
• Browser Support? Forget It!

Universal Accessibility

Did you know that about 1 in 12 men are colorblind? Depending on your target audience, a fairly substantial portion of them may have trouble navigating your site because of the colors used.

Online services like this one make it extremely easy to check against any type of color blindness. Beyond color blindness: What about people who are blind? Is your site easily navigated by a screen reader? Making sure your site works for any user is not only easy, but it ensures a better experience for everyone involved.

Further reading

• What is Universal Accessibility?
• Wikipedia: Universal Design
• Cynthia Says

By our powers combined…

This much is clear: The web is in a state of constant evolution. Mobile use is on the rise and expected to overtake the traditional model of viewing the web in a few years (or sooner). Apple’s latest Retina MacBook Pros are dragging us forward into another new realm of pixel density. Amidst all this excitement, however, there are still a huge amount of users who are given a degraded or completely unusable experience when using the web.

A website in its presentation is no longer a fixed absolute, but more of a relative concept with similar features throughout its execution on all platforms. It doesn’t need to be pixel perfect across everything, but it should look good and work well regardless of screen size, pixel density, OS, browser, and whatever limitations a user might have. Although we have best practices to adress these concerns, they only seem to focus on a part of the main issue.

When used together as a coherent set of principles, however, we can continue moving the web forward.

A few months ago I was at Panda Express with a friend. This was not at all uncommon for me, since the restaurant was close to the office. As we often did, my friend and I talked about work for most of the time. He let me know that there was a position open at a place, and I let him know I would seriously consider it.

After finishing my meal, I noticed that they had given me an extra fortune cookie. Now, I know what fortune cookies are, and I know that the nice sayings within them are written by some copywriter in an office, not a genie who can see into my future.

I am a skeptical person with everything, and fortune cookies hold no weight or bearing on any of my decisions in life. I think they are nice, but that’s it.

Two fortunes

After eating my meal I cracked open my first cookie, ate it, then looked down at the piece of paper that had my fortune. It said this:

Huh, interesting. At the time, I thought the fortune in my cookie was a funny coincidence. Until I opened the second one:

Wow. What are the chances that I would receive two fortunes, both about the same thing, and both relating to what I was just then talking about?

There have only been a few moments in my life where I came to a quick and sudden realization that there must be something bigger going on, behind the scenes, from what I was experiencing. The closest thing I can compare it to is when a characters in a movie or TV show break the fourth wall. In the moment it felt as if I had just peered behind the fold of our everyday reality and seen a glimpse of what was going on beyond it.

Now, if you’re a fan of stories with happy, meaningful endings, you might want to stop reading now because I’m about to ruin this story with logic.

Post Hoc

Even though it would be extraordinarily easy, and seem to make sense, for me to say that the fortunes and other coincidences were a sign from something, all I can say is that it was a funny coincidence.

I have probably opened a hundred cookies, read a dozen fortunes about new jobs, and ignored every single one except these two because I happened to be thinking about something related to what they mentioned.

About two weeks later I actually did end up getting a new job. Although the fortunes in those cookies could have been placed there by any number of things or reasons, I have to accept that I have no reasonable way to determine what caused that to happen.

Although it would be easy for me to say “Because I got these fortunes, and I got a new job, there must be some force directing my life to bring these events into place”, I would be committing the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (“after this, therefore because of this”).

Humans are great at recognizing patterns, but often times our brains like to go a step too far.

One last fortune

To end this post I’d like to share one more fortune. This one I got years ago, and I’ve kept it in my wallet ever since:

Is it possible that some force actually did place those two fortunes there for me to know ahead of time that I would be getting a new job? Definitely. Should I conclude that it must be caused by some external force? No, and it would be irrational to do so.

Below I have chopped up the comment into relevant pieces. My own comments follow directly below each chunk.

Hello Web Admin, I noticed that your On-Page SEO is is missing a few factors, for one you do not use all three H tags in your post, also I notice that you are not using bold or italics properly in your SEO optimization.

First of all, what is “On-Page SEO”? The next part is wrong in two ways: 1) I actually do use the first three header tags in my post where this comment was given, and 2) There are actually six header tags, not three! Lastly, I use bold and italics where I feel it helps emphasize the reading of the text.

On-Page SEO means more now than ever since the new Google update: Panda.

If I agree with any part of this spam comment, it’s this line. Google’s recent update “Panda” has dramatically affected how sites are listed in search results. The only thing to keep in mind here is that the search world is always changing, and will continue to change.

No longer are backlinks and simply pinging or sending out a RSS feed the key to getting Google PageRank or Alexa Rankings, You now NEED On-Page SEO.

Backlinks? Go back to 1995 along with your email chains, web rings, and hokey animated construction GIFs.

So what is good On-Page SEO? First your keyword must appear in the title. Then it must appear in the URL. You have to optimize your keyword and make sure that it has a nice keyword density of 3-5% in your article with relevant LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing).

Isn’t this the sort of information you should be making me pay to have access to? On another level, it is interesting to see how I have no idea what On-Page SEO is, yet they don’t define it, and I am now supposed to understand what factors make it good. A good marketer is able to sell you on something you don’t need, except in this case I don’t even understand what it is that I don’t need in the first place.

Then you should spread all H1,H2,H3 tags in your article.Your Keyword should appear in your first paragraph and in the last sentence of the page.

I’m a firm believer that good SEO forms organically from the structure of the content. In a book you have at least three levels of important titles: The name of the book, the names of each chapters, and subchapters within those. This sort of SEO isn’t hard, or optimization in any sense; Writing well structured HTML should allow for good search result priority.

You should have relevant usage of Bold and italics of your keyword.

Is there any real data to back this up? I think it’s great to use bold or italics to provide emotive cues in an otherwise bland piece of writing, but I don’t think using them strategically for SEO purposes has any positive effect. I could be wrong, though.

There should be one internal link to a page on your blog and you should have one image with an alt tag that has your keyword….

I’m fine with linking to content on my own site, as long as it’s relevant to the topic of the page. Although I doubt there is a real limit to just one image, having graphics on a page seem to keep me interested in staying on a website.

wait there’s even more Now what if i told you there was a simple WordPress plugin that does all the On-Page SEO, and automatically for you? That’s right AUTOMATICALLY, just watch this 4minute video for more information at. [removed]

Ah…the hard sell. Sorry, but based on 1) You coming to my site and posting a scripted response to an unrelated topic, 2) You being terrible at selling your product/service, and 3) The high chance that your plugin contains malware, I don’t think I’ll be trying out your plugin. Sorry!

In all seriousness though: Spam comments suck. SEO can be useful, but only to a point. I believe proper use of HTML tags can go a lot further than some seemingly clever tricks. If you want to make an impact and reach an audience, write about a topic in a direct manner and use HTML tags how they were meant to be used.