Seven Crazy Conspiracies?

I've been thinking about doing some research on conspiracy theories. There are a lot of them out there and people believe they are being watched or controlled by the government. Some of the things I've heard might be probable but I'm not sure how realistic they are.

What if the government was forcing you to consume fluoride. We are taught at a young age that we must brush our teeth 2 to 3 times a day. We're not supposed to swallow toothpaste with fluoride in it. it's supposed to be spit back out when we're done brushing. The water that we drink that comes from the city is supplemented with fluoride. The government tells you that you need this chemical to help strengthen your teeth. Some people think fluoride is a chemical the government uses for mind control. It makes the population more susceptible to following directions. People think the government is using fluoride to cut down on civil disobedience and help everybody to fall in line.

Fingerprints are unique to every person. Whenever a crime is committed fingerprints are the first thing the detectives are looking for to point a finger at the person who committed the crime. Not everyone has fingerprints in the system. I was thinking about it the other day. Most of us, as kids, were taken to the police station for a field trip. We were all fingerprinted and a pack made for parents in case we ever were lost or kidnapped. I wonder if these fingerprints they took were put in a national database so if we ever did commit a crime they would be able to find us just by searching the database and matching our fingerprints to what they have on file.

We are on camera numerous times throughout the day. There are cameras at traffic lights. There are cameras at all the banks and many stores. It's almost impossible to go a day without being recorded in some fashion. What if the government was keeping tabs on us by watching us on these video cameras. What if they have access to 99% of the cameras in the market. All they have to do is pull up the footage of where we were and follow us from street to street to see where we ended up at. They are able to find you no matter where you go.

Almost every new car built these days have some sort of Wi-Fi or satellite connection capabilities. You can send and receive signals from your car and many of the services that provide this functionality can control different aspects of your car. I have heard of policemen calling OnStar to kill the engine of a car they were pursuing. This means all they have to do is make a phone call and your car will stop dead in its tracks. There will be no more long police chases. The other thing that scares me about this is people can hack into your car. What if someone decided they wanted to use your car to stop someone else. If you're driving somewhere what's to say you don't lose control of your car because the hacker hacked into your system and started driving your vehicle to where they wanted to. It's kind of like auto cyber hijacking.

Most of us use credit cards every day to pay for food and gas and anything else we need in life. We don't think about the fact that everything we purchase is documented. There's even a documentation of each specific item at each specific store. This means if the government wanted to they could take the information from each store and connect it to you for the course of your lifetime. They can figure out what you buy and make assumptions as to who you are and what you're capable of just because of what you purchased. So if you're a gun or knife enthusiast they will watch you more then someone who buys yarn and tinker toys. I would not be surprised if this is what our FBI and CIA do to keep our country safe. It might be a breach of security but is it something they can do and they might do on a regular basis.

How advanced is our government? I think about the fact that the Stealth bomber was a secret for 15 to 20 years before we actually knew it existed. It makes you wonder what other technology they have today that we don't know about. Maybe they've already created an artificial intelligence that can make decisions on the fly. Makes me wonder if they have been going into space more than NASA and the other space agencies have let on. Maybe the government already has a base on the Darkside of the moon waiting to take action on unexpected aliens or even other countries. I wonder if the Internet is really a government creation to create an artificial intelligence that grows biologically through the electrical impulses of the network. Maybe they have a way to control that AI.

Subliminal advertising was proven effective and then banned from use because of the brainwashing capabilities of the technique. The government would be able to control 300 million people with the use of television and radio people listen to every day. Can you imagine all the government would have to do is put a subliminal message on the emergency broadcast system and the majority of people would follow that directive. Even if they're not putting the subliminal messages in the advertising, what they could be doing is replaying over and over and over again what they want you to see. That's why I think it's a big point for presidential candidates to play their commercials as many times as possible. The more publicity they can get and the more you see them, the more likely you will be to vote for them. They are trying to sway the vote by getting people who really don't care who wins the election to vote for them. If they can get their name in their minds more often, the more likely they are to vote that way.

I'm not sure any if this is really happening. They are conspiracies that I have heard about and know people who believe them wholeheartedly. I just try to live my life and hope that the government doesn't try to take advantage of me as a person. The government itself is powerful and much bigger than one single person. I'm not sure what they are capable of and whether or not they would truly do something like that to their people.

Why Do People Get Crazy When the Weather Gets Bad

I work at a grocery store. Every time a bat storm rolls in, people scatter and buy out all the basics like milk, water bread and eggs. The storm that moved in yesterday caused nearly twice the sales as normal. It was great for business but meant everyone had to work twice as hard to provide adequate service. 

There are several reasons people go on a buying frenzy when the weather threatens. They might feel the don't have enough food to last for a few days. I know a lot of people don't cook at home anymore. Families keep little food in their pantry because they order out everyday.  When they realize they will not be able to order out for a day or two, they feel they must buy enough food for a week or two, just in case. 

If they would always keep about a weeks worth of goon in their pantry, they would be fine during a storm. There are a lot of canned foods and rice and pasta that will keep for a long time. They might get tired of the foods if that is all they have to eat for a week, but it will keep you alive.

People rush to the gas stations before storms. Many of these stations run out of gas and can't help their customers. If they would refill their tanks when they get to a gal tank, then they will be ok when a storm shows its teeth. They could keep a 5 gallon gas can full at home. Use it when your tank gets a little to low.

There are other things you can do when a storm comes. Fill your tub or 5gallon buckets with water. If you lose power or the city water gets contaminated then you will have water to drink. 

Have games ready to play with your family. If it's going to be cold, turn up your heat in case the power goes out. I don't like candles, but make sure you have plenty of flashlights. 

4 Things You Can Do When One of Your Favorite Celebrities Die

We have lost some significant actors this week. It can be like losing a grandfather or an uncle when a celebrity we watch and fall in love with dies. Sometimes we feel like we need to do something, make some sort of statement about how we feel about the deceased. Here are a few ideas:

1. Write about him. Tell us a story or two about his work has affected your life. What did they act in that affected you in a  profound way. Post this story on Facebook or on a blog to let the world to read. Your story might touch someone else.

2. Donate money to his favorite charity. Research what he was passionate about and make a donation to the cause.

3. Get together with friends and watch those movies he was brilliant in. Enjoy them. Talk about them and make them relevant to your lives.

4. Visit a landmark made famous by your celebrity. Find his star on Broadway. Visit a theater he acted in. Go to the theme park that has the famous school of witchcraft he taught at for 8 movies.

Stop Flooding My Shed

I have an old shed. It came with the house. It's in pretty good shape other than it doesn't put up with a lot of rain. The roof itself is in good shape. There are no leaks in the roof and most of the time it's nice and dry inside. .

I've noticed it floods every time it rains hard. Water seems to puddle up around the base and seep into the sides. There are some boards missing on the outside base of the shed. The plywood near the ground has started to rot away. This means water and small rodents can get inside the shed.

Standing water will damage things in the shed. Anything I have sitting on the floor will have water damage. Right now there are metal tools and plastic storage containers sitting on the floor. I think I can create some kind of storage apparatus for the tools. I haven't done it yet but it should be an easy project when I take the time to do it. 

The storage containers, I have figured out a way to get them off the ground. There were some edging pavers that the last owner of the house left in the shed. I was able to line them up on the ground and place a storage containers on top of them. This allows them to stand off the floor about 4 inches. I expect water will not be able to touch them.

I want to find a way to get the lawnmower and the pressure washer off the ground. Eventually water will damage the wheels and I will have to replace them. That's not something I want to do so I'm thinking about building some kind of ramps to lift the lawn equipment. I also have several gas cans and an empty propane tank that will get damaged if they sit in water too long. I have to figure out a way to handle that as well.

I think the reason the shed is  flooding because there's no gutter system on the roof.  I think the water is running off the roof, landing into big puddles along the side of the shed and then seeping inder the walls. The water does not drain away fast enough to keep from going where it's not wanted. I thought of several ways to handle this water. I thought about getting a drainage system outside the shed under the ground but that seems like a lot of work. I think the best idea would be to install a gutter system that hangs off the eve of the shed and collect the water as it runs off the roof.

I also need to re-trim the outside. It looks like somebody has pulled off the old trim along the base of the shed. I'm guessing it rotted and came loose. No one ever replaced it. That's something I need to do. Once I replace this it will also help keep the water out of the shed.

If I can get these repairs done or said will be useful again. I have stuff in it now but if I don't get these repairs done in a timely manner the stuff in the shed will start to mildew and crack and and the stuff in the shed will be ruined. I need to make these repairs within the next week or so.

Dangers of everything being on the cloud

The cloud has become very convenient. We keep everything there these days. We like the ability to get to our music and documents and movies from any computer terminal or cell phone or tablet that we have at the time. If we keep all that information on one computer at home it would be difficult to get when we needed it, where we needed it. 

Almost all music, books and movies can be found on the Internet. We can find just about anything we want these days if we search hard enough. We can find movies and books and music and PDFs about any subject that we want to learn about. Many places it's perfectly legal to download either for free or we might have to spend a little money to get them. If we were not the most honest people we could search and download these items for free without paying for them. Many people do but it's not necessarily the right thing to do.

What happens if the Internet dies. My question is what happens if something causes the Internet to disappear. I know it's very unlikely because the Internet is based upon millions of computers linked together but there are couple of scenarios I think could happen, could cause a massive breakdown of the World Wide Web.

There are plenty of people and organizations who have the ability to create a Super Internet virus, to design a piece of software that would go in and dismantle every machine connected to the Internet. There are other groups and organizations who are working their hardest to keep this from happening. What if one day someone gets this virus moving and the Internet takes itself apart from the inside out.

A massive EMP is unlikely to wipe out the electronics of the entire world. There are many people who have created back ups and protection to keep their machines from being affected by EMPs. There is one EMP that could destroy all the technology we know today. I think it will come from a solar flare, a solar storm that can radiate and cause huge damage to the way we live today. If we do have something of this magnitude happen, I think we lose the majority of humanity, life being extinguished from the radiation. The loss of all the information on the Internet may be the least of our worries.

if we lost the Internet completely, I think the event would rival the loss we had from the fires in the library of Alexandria. The Library of Alexandria was a place created for learning, a center for thinkers and artists in the Greek and Roman times. Over the course of 300 or 400 years, the information there grew to huge proportions. Several different times it was partially destroyed and in at one point, stories say it was almost completely destroyed. It was considered the greatest loss of human thought and information collected up to that point.

I think something like this could happen to us since were putting everything in digital format. I wander if something will eventually happen that will destroy all the digital information or cause a massive loss of the bits and bytes that are only kept in one or two places. Is it something we will lose and never get back?

I wonder, How can we back up the Internet? The biggest way would be to have multiple locations for the same information. If one place gets destroyed, you have the back ups in other places. I think it would be a good idea to keep books in a printed format. Maybe in a hundred years someone will find it and be able to read it.