The Burning Questions

     Facebook.com is quickly becoming one of the most popular ways on the internet to reach people.  Originally starting out as a website for college students, Facebook has taken the internet by storm in the past year or two.  Google the subject and you will see the millions and millions of keyword hits associated with Facebook.com.

Along with connecting with people from the past and present, Facebook has become one of the most profitable ways to advertise products and content on the internet.  It seems Twitter has reached its capacity for spammers and microbloggers alike and Facebook will be taking the role of the newest way to spam the internet with useless garbage such as affiliate marketing, news programs, and other worthless content.  There is certainly money to be made with the right approach to the use of facebook as a platform for marketing and advertisement.  With a good product and a lot of “friends”one could potentially make millions just from setting up at this one free website.  Even the television companies have gotten in on the game.  As I stated above you can even befriend your favorite news programs on the site now.  This is all about ratings and money, of course.

Why in the world would one go to such a site to check up on the news in the first place?  That is what your homepage is for, oh, and television, and radio, and so on.  Facebook was designed for people to interact with each other, not for logging in to see what is going on with world and local news shows, right?  Besides news shows, one can find the latest fad for internet marketing being spammed as “friendships.”

How long will it take for this site to become old hat?  I am guessing once it reaches the point where hackers and spammers find it so attractive that they overrun the site as they have begun to do with Twitter and MySpace.  I guess we will see in a year or two when the “new car smell” wears off and people are looking for something different.  Facebook is certainly going to stick around for a while, but soon it will be overcrowded and irritating like Black Friday at the mall and people will be looking for the exits.  I wonder which site will become the next big thing…

  How many times a day do you hear about someone getting shot?  Probably at least once if you watch the news on television.  It is quite alarming to hear that this person got shot or that person shot this person for whatever reason.  It is a fact of life, though.  People get shot every day.  EVERY DAY.

The thing that gets me is when somebody shoots their self.  Not like a suicide…just a dumb or freak accident.  It is hard to fathom that someone could disrespect such a thing as a loaded gun enough to unload it upon them self.  I mean…what about this ?  How does that happen?  I don’t know for sure what that guy was thinking.  There was even little children in the room!

Now, this next one could happen to anyone.  Glad this has never happened to me!  Anyone ever had any thing like that happen?  I hope not.

What about this …Is it really that funny?  I would want to learn gun safety or etiquette from this group.

This is just a small portion of the ridiculous video footage of people who shoot guns that obviously need a refresher course in safety with weapons.  It is not recommended that anyone follow by these examples.  However, I believe that everyone is entitled to own a weapon and without the terrible restrictions that our government is attempting to place upon one of our most important freedoms.

There is legislation soon to be acted upon namely HR1388 and HR 45 that will limit our rights as citizens of the U.S. to bear arms.  There is too much information to simply scan through to understand it all, but I do believe that this legislation is detrimental to our way of living and our freedom.  You may want to check into this and send a message to all representatives that you can contact to voice your opinion.

In light of all of the crazy changes going on in the world today, the question “Will robots take over the world?” is a quite valid one.  In fact, at the rate mankind is going to destroy all that is wonderful about the world, robots should take over.  However, what’s real in the world of robots is this .

Do we REALLY want that to happen?  I say hell no!  It is bad enough that many of our children are taught by the television and video games.  What the heck are people thinking…having Robots teach kids! This can only lead to job loss and dehumanization.  If someone were to tell me that my son were going to be taught by a robot…Oooh…I’d have to let them in on a little secret-No robot is going to teach my kid how to do anything, except maybe how to destroy robots that are trying to take over human jobs and tell humans how to think!

Okay enough of all that.  Now I would like you to see this .  Is it really important that we all have a personal robot assistant in the future?  I don’t think I would ever enjoy the “Jetson’s” lifestyle even if I were able to afford it.

Next thing would be this.  You need to read the article below the huge-breasted robot chick with no hair!  Sega is about to release the first plastic girl that can pucker up for the creepy ol’ perverts!  I was sickened by the whole thing, although you may get a girl to have some sort of sex encounter with jealousy from only one of the two “women”?  Not my kind of thing, but to each their own, I guess.

So there are many ways that robots are preparing to take over humans’ positions in society.  That just means more rich people will get to keep their money and more poor people will have less due to the lack of medial positions open to humans.  Robots don’t sue for worker’s comp, they can’t bitch about company policy if they aren’t programmed to, and if they give you too much trouble, you can melt them down-if they don’t get you first!

Here’s a list of robot-type stuff just for fun..(Click on them)

N.A.I.R.

EATR

ASIMO

 I am sure there are lots of us who simply hate our car, but try not to do what this teen did.

A New York teen is facing arson and reckless endangerment charges after he set fire to his BMW. Long Island police have quoted the boy as saying his motive was “he hated the car”. Now typically I would say “Who cares”, its his property,  however surveillance vidoe showed the vehicle was parked directly next his aprtment building at the time he set fire to it, like less than five feet.

The sad thing is, half the country is offering “Cash for Clunkers” the thing would have likely brought him in two or three thousand in trade somewhere! Now thats burning hatred here on The Burning Questions.

  Lately, there has been many references to countries defying the United Nations and its nuclear armament policies.  Iran, Syria, and North Korea are at the top of the list.  Reports that undeclared nuclear material surfaced in the Syria yesterday.  North Korea has reportedly tested nuclear devices recently, although there has been no findings of radiation to my knowledge.  Iran has, of course, been a nuclear thorn in the world’s side for a while now.  Is there cause for alarm?

Intelligence officials state that Iran has possibly a few years to go before being able to overcome technical issues having to do with the assembly of an atomic bomb.  It does not seem that the U.N. is very concerned with North Korea’s latest attempts at disturbing the world with their antics.  Many believe that they are really just trying to extort money from the world’s leading nations.  Syria has had two instances in the past couple of years (including the most recent) where minute amounts of nuclear material have been discovered, but no real evidence of anything more than traces of undeclared material.  Does this mean there is no real threat?

There are many countries with nuclear capabilities other than these three examples.  Fact is: we really don’t know how many.  After the Soviet Union fell, there were many sites with nuclear devices that were unknown, possibly even unmanned.  How are we to tell who has what any more?  It is possible that many countries have “nukes” that we have no idea about…Even the ones that we think we know about may have far more or less capabilities than we believe.  Is this cause for concern?  Absolutely.  Is there much we can do about it?  Not without having the entire U.N. at our disposal.  There is no way we as a nation will get much support for searching out nuclear issues any time soon.

So what do we do?  Sit on our heels and wait to see what happens?  At this time, I would say yes.  It is impossible for us to do much more than wait and see.  If we spent as much time and money on developing our own new technologies, though, as we do waiting to see what the other guys does next, we may not need to worry as much about the other guy.  This is one instance where I would have to say that Ronald Reagan was on the right track back in the 80’s.  SDI was a great idea and we could use that kind of thinking in today’s world once again.

  I searched last night for the official New Moon Trailer and found that there were a ton of sites out there that claimed to have the trailer before its release.  The problem was that none of them actually had it.  There were some that had teasers and/or unofficial content that was related to the subject, but none had it before the release on MTV music awards.  My wife wanted to see Edward and Bella so bad I had to keep trying, only to find the one kiss scene that she had already viewed.

So should I be abusing the search engines to get my views as others are doing?  Is this the way of the future Internet?  Claiming to have something that one does not have?  I know, I know…My title is misleading as well.  However, I do not claim to have something I do not have.  I am simply trying to deal with a question that could make the Internet a place that consists solely of spam and useless content.  For example, I peered at least twenty sites that came up in the first pages of my search for the New Moon Official Trailer and found not one trailer.  I did find one teaser in that twenty and close to ten widgets that claimed to be a countdown widget that would allow me to view the trailer as it was released.  A bunch of possibly illegitimate poster pictures and several pictures that were claimed to be extracts from the movie also appeared with those sights.  There was absolutely no official trailer.

I wonder how many sights there were out there that used this bait to lure in viewers to a sight with claims that were basically false altogether.  Most had some sort of way to avoid being called a flat out lie, but few actually told the truth.  If I searched only a tiny portion of the possibilities but came up empty-handed with the top results, how many were actually out there claiming the same thing?  The numbers had to be staggering if it were crammed into the category of a statistical poll.  People sure are hard up to get clicks these days.

What would happen to the search engines if people stopped viewing the first page of results, instead linking to the last page and checking out the sites there?  It would probably cause some sort of search engine mass hysteria!  Google and Yahoo would terribly confused by that, now wouldn’t they?

Is it inherent that news be bad?  Turn on the “boob tube” and someone somewhere is telling everybody about all the death and destruction in the world.  Change the channel, and they’re talking about how someone was sexually assaulted or their child was molested.  Another channel, another tragedy.  What the…?

Are we addicted to the bad news?  Would we really rather see about Britney’s next poor decision?  Is there anyone out there that turns off the television when it seems to be nothing but bad?  I know I do.  I have a hard time understanding what the deal is.  The news broadcasts obviously get better ratings for bad news or they wouldn’t produce such lousy information.  Why do they get better ratings?  Because most people would rather watch the crap that these broadcasts smear all over the backs of their retinas than learn of something beautiful or inspirational.  One answer I received for these questions was “That kind of stuff should be on the learning channel or PBS.  The news is for telling us what is wrong with the world.”  WHAT?  Is this really the way most people think?  I have no idea…but I have to do something about this way of thinking.

I’ll make up my own good news!  The following are fictitous representations of what I believe would be good news for today…Today in North Korea, an explosion blew up the nuclear weapons production facility…no one was hurt except for those that believe they were doing a good deed for society by producing such devices…Next, a wildfire saved a family…their campfire got out of hand and spread rapidly across the wooded area in which they had setup camp…they were all thinking how much of a pain in the ass this last ditch effort of a camping trip was until they had to work together to save themselves and the forest…they now realize how important life and family can be and will take care of each other from here on out…One more…in the news today:  People threw out their televisions.  Digital converters will no longer be needed as all people threw out those infernal televisions and went outside to see the world.  There was a massive amount of happiness and reflection as the general public realized that television news was sucking the life out of them and rejected it.  Good job, World!

  When starting out an online persona, one wonders who do I follow?  Where should I set up my profile so I can follow who I want?  What sites should I bookmark?  What are the social networking sites that will get me the most exposure?  All are valid questions.  All have answers as well.

When one is simple and not of the long attention span, Twitter and Stumbleupon come to mind.  These are both simple places to use and highly trafficked.  One can follow Oprah Winfrey’s tweets and  Ashton Kutcher(@aplusk) tweets as well.  Of course, there are many more people to follow around on the internet.  There are many more sites to see across the vastness of cyberspace;)

More involved and more difficult to navigate are sites such as LinkedIn or MySpace.  LinkedIn has a plethora of professional profiles to search through.  One can use this information to help with the setup of a more defined profile.  MySpace is the place to meet a variety of personalities to gain friendships and promote your work to people outside the confines of your average social site.

There are many places one can sign up to see what others are up to and/or promote one’s passions.  All one has to do is look around. Once you’ve found the places you understand and enjoy, sign up!

  Chrysler recently announced it’s closing of nearly 800 dealerships across the United States.  This is part of the plan to save the manufacturer from closing its doors.  They seem to be in the worst shape of “The Big Three” as they have also been working with Fiat to salvage their struggling company.  GM intends on releasing their list of dealerships that they intend on closing on May 16.  Ford has already come to terms with the reductions necessary, but are not obligated by government monies to give details.

The deal with closing all these stores is that this will mean that many more jobs lost to this destructive economic situation.  Thousands of salesman and office personnel will soon be out on the street with the millions of others searching for a new job.  This will lead to even less people able to purchase such things as new automobiles.  Chrysler will be giving jobs to Fiat employees as well if things go the way they plan.  The government is forcing cuts by GM and Chrysler in return for the loans they need to continue operating.

Will closing dealerships keep Chrysler and GM from shutting down?  Will they stay operational long enough to survive this drought?  Will the government’s money save them or simply prolong the agony which they are currently enduring?  Stay tuned…

  Since the inception of the worldwide web, we have seen technological advancements that have changed our world forever.  Originally designed for communications, the web has grown into a massive storage space for information.  The information contained is can be helpful, yet is all too often used as a tool of destruction.  People all over the world are using the “internet” as a weapon now.

Recently, there was news that our power grids had been accessed from outside the U.S.  First of all, why is there any possibility that this can be done?  Secondly, why is our nation’s power supply even attached to the internet?  I understand that it is key to be able to communicate effectively across the open spaces of our country to keep this industry running efficiently,  I just do not know why it can be turned on and off from the push of a button by a person sitting at a computer.  It is one of the life-bloods of our society.  To have one individual from anywhere in the world be able to access this system is  preposterous!  This is just one of the reasons that leave me to believe that our world is at the mercy of those fanatics that sit at the keyboard day and night attempting to destroy something with the push of a button.

How many other critical systems in the world are attached to this “communications” marvel?  Nearly all of them.  The power companies, fuel distribution systems, our own government’s computers, anything having to do with anything-all plugged into the worldwide web.  Is this a smart move on the nations around the world?  Massive chaos and unrest could resort from just one really persistent hacker’s clicks.  The world could be turned upside down in a matter of days if the power is shut down.  Food supplies would be destroyed.  Industries would shut down.  People would riot and loot.  Our world would be turned upside down in just a few days.

How can we sit back and wait for this disaster to happen?  The power companies and government both agree that there need to be better safeguards in place.  How about we simply disconnect these things from the web?  Go back to using people to fix and diagnose and run things!  That isn’t such a hard thing to do, is it?  The net has only been around for a short period of time, but has already become so ingrained into our key systems that there is no turning back?  I will not be forced into believing such nonsense.

There is only one solution to the problems we face with this dilemma:  UNPLUG IT!  Go back to using real people to take care of things that are important.  The internet was designed for communications.  Let’s leave it at that!  Play games, write a paper, meet people, but do not install the power buttons to our key systems on it.  I think whoever originally thought this was a good idea ought to get a swift kick in the…

  The Emerald Ash Borer is a foreign predator to a variety of trees here in North America.  It was imported to the United States in the recent past (rumored to have come here in infested packaging from Asia)  and has become a destroyer of one of the nation’s finest natural resources-our Ash trees.  There are billions of trees at stake.  This beautiful metallic-green bug has no natural enemies here in North America and is breeding at an alarming rate.  Soon, there not be a single state that has not been infected by this flying, tree-killing menace.

Image Source

What are we going to do about this problem?  So far it seems as though our nation has given up the fight and has resigned to fact that all of the stock of Ash trees in our National Forests is doomed.  The campaign that is prevalent amongst Ash Borer projects is one against the transportation of firewood.  That is what we are currently doing to deal with a problem that should be taken on as a war on our own soil.

Even the searches that I have done to find out about the bug at our government’s websites haven’t been much more productive than what I can find out by reading the flyer at the local gas station.  I could leave the links here to pictures and information, but I would like my readers to try to find out more about this problem.  What are we going to do about this problem?  Is there more on the table than a bunch of signs posted at localities to warn people not to move wood?  I would like to know all that I can about this topic.

I do know that the invader has infected the following states per information from the Forestry Service :

Michigan-2002

Maryland-2003

Ohio-2003

Virginia-2003…The pests were eradicated.  The EAB was reconfirmed to have infested the forests of Virginia in 2008.

Indiana-2004

Illinois-2006

Pennsylvania-2007

West Virginia-2007

Missouri-2008

Wisconsin-2008

That is ten states in six years!  This nuisance has also infected parts of Canada.  At this rate, we will be seeing this pest completely infecting the U.S. soon.  Maybe as soon as ten or fifteen years.  That is my personal opinion, of course, but how could I be wrong as fast as these things are spreading?  Simply stopping the transport of firewood will no longer be an option if our nation is to save this tree population.  There is a seed collection program, but I believe that is a cop-out.  We are far more capable as a nation of great minds than that.