Anything But Coffee

The film Edge of Darkness is out in the theaters now and as usual actor-director Mel Gibson is out promoting his new movie.
Unfortunately for him, during one interview, the reporter seemed to be more interested in Mel’s past performances then his current one.

 

Mel did a pretty decent job for the most part, side stepping the questions and trying to steer the reporter back onto the subject of the real interview but reporter Dean Richards just seemed hell bent on bringing up the past.

I’m not trying to justify his actions but the truth is, Mel Gibson did what he did and said what he said almost 4 years ago. He paid his legal price to society and even more so then most people in the public’s eye usually have to. Hell, all he did was say some drunken remarks, Chris Brown beat the crap out of Rhianna and society has already forgiven him.

As far as for the “A-hole” comment at the end of the interview, maybe Mr. Gibson could have waited to make sure the camera was off, or maybe he was just doing what every human’s reaction would be when broadsided with an interview from a reporter with ulterior motives.

Randy Home Dean Richards, Edge of Darkness, Mel Gibson

Tonight I’m watching a show on the History channel called “After Armageddon” and it got me thinking; how would I survive if society failed in the wave of a pandemic.

Our society has become so dependent on technology and organized city structures, most people do not have the necessary survival skills that we once had just as little as 100 years ago.

Do you know how to hunt? Do you know how to farm? Do you know how to make shelter or do you know how to tell the difference between wild growing berries and plants that are safe to eat or deadly to you? Can you purify water to make it safe for drinking? Remember the human body can survive 30 days without food but only 7 days without water. Do you know what to do?

Supplies Would Be Scarce

Supplies would be difficult to come by. The interstate trade of food, water and other goods would become more and more scarce if not stopped altogether. No local deli’s, no super markets, no fast food or fresh water. The power stations would shut down, the lights would go out. No sanitation services to manage our sewers or trash. More diseases would spread. More people would be sick. More people would die. No services to clean up the mess or even remove bodies. People would be lay dead rotting in the street and inside their homes thus more diseases would spread.

No cell phones, television, radio or internet for you to communicate with people or learn the fate of friends, family or even the rest of the country. Short wave radios would be the only source of long range communication but honestly how many people do you know who have a short range radio?

There would be mass looting. Gangs and roaming groups of “not so nice people” would quickly take advantage of the opportunity with the lack of law enforcement and unfortunately would find it more easy to steal, rob or hurt the average person, thus making them a constant factor to worry about.

Money would quickly become obsolete because face it, without electricity you cant access your bank accounts, credit cards are pointless and ATM’s wont dispense any cash. People will start to go back to the barter system. Precious metals and other useful tools would become the source of major trade.

Medicine that we are used to having access to wouldn’t be available. Hospitals would close, no paramedics to come save you. A simple cut on your hand could become infected and spread to the rest of your body and turn to something worse, possibly killing you.

Self preservation and protection would become the only thing that is important. Everyone would become armed with weapons. Most would have hand guns or rifles but blunt objects and fixed blade weapons such as knifes, swords, machetes and ax’s would become more practical. Bullets run out and guns jam. A fixed blade can be used for self defense as well as a tool for farming or irrigation.

So What Is There To Do

Basically everything we are used to and have come to expect in our day to day life would be gone. We would have to relearn how to live. We would have to learn how to survive off the land like the settlers of the 1800’s.

With all of these things to think about it would be smart to read a survival book or at least buy one that you can take with you and use if you ever find yourself in any of these scenarios. Possibly even prepare a couple backpacks and clothes with supplies to take in case you ever have to evacuate your city.

Keep in mind, a virus could spread in a mater of hours across a city and days across the country with the social life style of our culture. One person sick in a theater or shopping center can spread it to any number of people. One person on a plane can transfer the virus across state lines in just a couple hours.

Remember SARS, Avian Bird Flu and most recently Swine Flu. Anyone remember the Black Plague of Europe or Smallpox? This has happened before and can happen again. Knowing what to do and how to survive is the only way you will survive if society collapses.

Do you thing you would be able to survive?

Randy Home disease, pandemic, society, survival, survival lessons

Most women never wish to have breast cancer but one Texas woman went out of her way to fake having breast cancer in hopes of raising money for her breast implants.

Trista Joy Lathern, age 24, of Waco, Texas successfully was able to fool over 100 concerned citizens, friends and family members to believe she was suffering from breast cancer and actually raised over $10,000 in donations at the same time.

Lathern said that she needed the money for her reconstructive breast augmentation procedure to help cover the cost of her breast implants because she didn’t have health insurance and had no way to pay for them. She even went as far as to shave her head to help simulate the results of chemotherapy.

McClennan County Sheriff investigators said that when she went in for a breast augmentation consultation with a local plastic surgeon; who just happened to know about her recent fundraiser, she never mentioned having breast cancer. This caught the doctor by surprise considering breast cancer is a serious medical condition that one would disclose and have on her medical records.

The surgeon quickly notified his attorney who in turn notified the local Sheriffs Department.

Lanthern then went to a second Houston breast augmentation specialist in Texas for her procedure which ended up costing $6,800. She was arrested on Nov 4, 2009 but was able to make bail and was released.

Additionally she was later arrested on an out standing warrent and is now being charged with the crime of “theft by deception” and is currently awaiting a court date.

Randy Home breast augmentation, Breast Cancer, Breast Implants, Fake Breast Cancer, Trista Joy Lathern

So call me paranoid but I think Google is just going to far with their information gathering.

For those who don’t know, Google announced on their blog last week on December 4th, 2009 they are now offering personalized search results for everyone who uses Google.

What’s so special about personalized search results? Well here’s a little history for those who may not know. Every search you do on Google is documented and tracked. Up until now your information was only stored if you chose not to opt-out of this program by turning off your search history in your Google preferences. Not many people knew of this. Google “claims” they only use your stored information as a metric to be able to return to you more relevant results based off of your search history.

Now, as of their announcement, Google is storing your information whether you want them to or not. You have no option to opt-out of this information tracking system anymore, which I feel is a violation of personal privacy.

How and Why is Google Tracking Me?

How are they doing this you may ask? Well that’s a great question.

Every time you visit Google they install an anonymous cookie on your computer which will track your search history. Every time you you search anything on Google it will now return websites they feel are more relevant to what you are looking for based off of the past 180 days of your search history.

The only way to prevent this from happening is to actually disable cookies being allowed on your computer. This sounds ok but realize that a large portion of websites wont work correctly if you don’t allow cookies to be installed.

Cookies them self are not bad, although some have been flagged as “spyware” by some anti-virus software, it is a fact of life on the internet. But Google still should give you the option to allow them being installed on your system or not, especially since it will 100% affect your experience with using Google.

The idea of personalized search results isn’t really a bad thing. I’m all for getting the right answers to the questions you are asking;  it’s more the way they are tracking your information that makes me uneasy.

Google, for the past 10 years, has been documenting search history and internet browsing habits of everyone in the country. When you make a Google account; or an account for any Google owned property such as Gmail, Blogger, Google Health, YouTube etc… you now have to give them your cell phone number for SMS verification and to activate your account. They say this is for fighting spam but it’s possible there are other reasons behind this.

The Google / White House Connection

Think about it for a minute. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the U.S. Government has mandated that all cell phones have built in GPS tracking added to them. Most every cell phone in this country now has GPS installed on them and assigned its own unique serial number. As long as people have their cell phones on, the devices continuously send signals to cell phone towers. Cell phone company operators and government agencies have the ability to know exactly where each cell phone user is at all times, as long as their cell phones are on.

There are even rumors that the government has mandated that even if the cell phone is turned off, it still sends out a reserve signal to the GPS system so people can still be tracked. Even further, there are rumors that the cell phone can act as a monitoring device where, through the speakers and mic, the government is able to listen in anytime they want. I really don’t know if that last one is true but if you are worried then its best to physically remove your battery from your phone if you ever want to tell any secrets.

Google Health is another Google product to be concerned with. Google Health, says Google is a place to “store your information securely and privately, but you always control how it’s used. We will never sell your data. You are in control.” This sounds good because people always want access to their personal and confidential medical records but here is one example of how electronic health records could have potentially life threatening results. Also, notice the terminology. They promise not to sell your data but make no mention of sharing your information with any government agency. By actively participating in the voluntary use of Google’s products you agree to their terms and conditions which may or may not state how they choose to use your information for their information gathering and/or sharing.

Now put these three things together. Google is able to associate your cell phone number with your online profiles across multiple websites, your search history, your medical records  and even pinpoint where exactly you are at any given minute of the day.

Why does a search engine need to know this information about it’s users?

Well let’s not forget, Google is very friendly with the current White House administration. President Obama actually appointed former Google Public Policy Chief Andrew McLaughlin as the White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer. It’s a fairly safe bet that Mr. McLaughlin still stays in touch with some friends at Google and is a key person to know the inner workings of Googles search history database.

Considering Google dominates the search industry with owning 70% search market share, could Google be gathering information for the government about its citizens as a way for federal agencies to side-step privacy laws?

We probably will never know but like it or not, there seems to be no end in sight for Google’s hunger for information.

Randy Home Google, Personalzied Search

When it comes to search engine optimization or search engine marketing, more traffic and more inbound links are the two factors that make the difference between success and failure.

Depending on your niche or the subject matter of your website or blog, finding more and more reliable sources of generating trusted links can be a very difficult task. I came across this website recently that will help you do just that and for free.

Visit this site and just submit your website to them and that’s it. They will then automatically generate a sample directory of your most recent blog posts or web pages which helps to generate more exposure for your site and provides more links to them directly.

As a bonus you will be submitted to the links on the left that self generate links back to your site. So again more traffic and more inbound links to your site.

The only catch is that after your listing is up, you have to be sure to promote it somewhere so Google will find it quicker and start indexing the links. So a quick status update on Twitter or any social networking site should help with that.

Search engine optimization is hard enough as it is with all the spammers out there, and algorithm changes that seem to be taking place. And with the social networking being a huge factor in Google Caffeine which is coming out after the first of the year, hopefully this is something that can help. All we can do is wait and see.

Randy Home Inbound Links, More Traffic, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Sorry Yahoo but I sort of have to disagree with you on the last post about how the Full Moon Triggers Wacky Behavior.

It’s not that I don’t believe what Professor Lilienfeld of Emory University in Atlanta is saying but there seems to be one thing that he possibly has over looked; that the human body is about 60% water.

You may be asking yourself what does the percentage of water that makes up a person and the full moon have to do with each other and the answer is quiet possibly a lot.

The Moon controls the rise and fall of all the tides in our oceans. Now ask yourself, what are the oceans made up of? You guessed it, water. And about 70% (326 million trillion gallons) of our planet is covered by our oceans. That’s just 10% more then what makes up the Human body.

So if the cycle of the Moon, which is about 238,857 miles away is able to have such an impact on the water covering our planet, couldn’t it possibly be able to have an effect on the chemical make up of a person and cause them to act a little crazy?

Randy Home Full Moon, Human Behavior, Myths

According to the site CoreofCorruption.com there were four German and Austrian art students illegally living inside the World Trade Center Towers months before the attack on September 11, 2000. What is more disturbing is that they were living on th 90th floor, and had temporary construction permits to work on the towers, and were arrested and detained days after the terrorist attack and found to have connections to terrorist groups.

Watch the video and draw your own conclusions. Conspiracy or not, this is pretty interesting development.

Randy Home 9/11, Conspiracy, CoreOfCorruption.com, Terrorist Attack, World Trade Center Attack, YouTube Video

Today I get to work and like many other office workers in America, first thing I do is log into my social networking website of choice. In my case it was Facebook. Now keep in mind I am a search engine optimization specialist so social networking is part of my daily routine but that’s besides the point.

So as I’m catching up on all the early morning postings of all my friends, I start to notice how they all seem to be bitching and moaning about the same problem; how none of their Facebook aps are loading up. I guess an hour without their YoVille or Mafia Wars is just too much for them to handle.

And then I started thinking how dependent we have become on our social networks.

We use social networking sites to stay in touch with family and friends. We use them for entertainment. We use them to stay up to date with news and celebrity gossip. We use them to stay ahead of the game for new developments in technology and medicine. We have become so dependent upon social networks that we don’t know what to do when they go down or aren’t available every second of the day that we want them.

And this brings me to my next point. The majority of social networks, including the major 3, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, are all free to join. All someone needs is a valid email account and within minuets you have your new social profile up and running. Free to start your social networking addiction.

But greedy as society is; not content with all the free services that we are offered on these sites, now we expect fully functional technical support, 100% up time, zero bugs and all without any type of compensation to the people running the sites.

A Social Network is a Business

This stuff isn’t free people! It costs money to build these websites, design these flash movies and code all these cool function’s, features and games you love so much. Huge databases of images and profiles to maintain, immense amount of bandwidth to manage. You can’t expect to have all this and still not have any problems for free.

Facebook announced that they finally turned a profit in the second quarter of 2009, it only took them 5 years. Twitter has yet to show any profit on their own apart from what they make from investors.

Maybe its time people stop taking advantage of these social sites and give a little something back. The only way for a free membership based social networking site can make any money and continue to provide the services we have become accustomed to is through advertising. As this seems as the best way to go, it still has its problems.

Myspace has made all its money from advertising but at the users expense. Slow load up times with massive flash advertisements for movies, continuously bombarding people with ads for online dating sites or diet and fitness programs. Sure its easy to ignore but we should be allowed to turn those adds off if we want. Facebook uses ads to make their money as well and they have had their own problems such as letting developers use profile images of users in their ads for dating sites. But with advertising being the only source of profit, what else is there to do?

Maybe its time to start charging a small monthly fee for these sites. Considering Facebook has 300 million users, I’m sure if they carged $1.00 a month for a premium membership that would allow you special features such as turning off these ads people, well people might just go for that.

Now I’m not saying that a paid membership is the right way to go but we have to face the facts. If our favorite social sites arent able to make any money on their own, then investors wil stop giving them money and then they will be forced to sale the site off, stop fixing bugs or worse just shut it down completly.

Randy Home facebook, Myspace, Social Networking, Social Networks, twitter

Today at work I was setting up a Local Business Center account in Google and discovered yet another bug in their system.

As some of you have noticed recently, Google started forcing you to select at least one category from their suggested category drop down in order to move on to the next step of the local business center creation and verification process.

Since this listing was for a Laser Eye Surgery office I chose to select the LASIK Surgeon as suggested by Google’s drop down box as seen here

This example is a quick one I tested tonight with out much information but you can see clearly the auto suggestion is LASIK Surgeon all capitalized. The term LASIK (laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis) is often capitalized because that is proper name and accepted spelling for this procedure.

Now here is where the bug comes in. Google doesn’t allow excessive capitalization in their listings in an effort to help prevent spam and to make for an equal playing field for all local business listings as seen here

Just for good measure I even attempted to spell LASIK Surgeon in all lower case just to test this out but as you can see, Google just wont accept it as I can only imagine because of the capitalized version in their auto suggestion.

Apparently there doesn’t seem to be a way around this so unfortunately as for my clients listing I had to just go with a generic eye surgery listing as that was the only one that seemed to go through.

I havent tested this on any other categories but if anyone else has had a similar experience I’d like to know about it.

Randy Home Google Local Business Center, Google Maps, LASIK, LASIK Eye Surgery

Most people aren’t sure what the difference is between the legal terms DUI and DWI, hopefully this will help to explain in very short and simple terms the difference between the two. Keep in mind, each state may vary in the specifics of this so always be sure to check with your local law enforcement agency to know the laws of your state.

In most states the legal definition of DUI means Driving Under the Influence. Driving Under the Influence (DUI) doesn’t always just apply to alcohol. Under the influence can refer to an alcoholic beverage, illegal narcotics / drugs or even over the counter prescription drugs. Basically any substance that impairs your ability to operate a motor vehicle; and in some states like California, can even refer to your inability to operate a bicycle.

Now in most states the term DWI stands for Driving While Intoxicated. If you are arrested and or convicted of Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) then that means that you were in the act of operating a motor vehicle while at or above the legal blood alcohol level of your state; such as 0.08 in California.

Again be sure to check with your local authorities or even a local DUI Attorney or DWI Attorney to know what your legal blood alcohol content is for your specific state.

Randy Home DUI, DUI Attorney, DUI Lawyer, DWI, DWI Attorney