Ride The Spiral

Things We Wish We Didn't Know

2006-09-10T03:44:00.000-06:00

Do you know that right now, at this second, hundreds of follicle mites are living beneath the hair of your eyelashes? They're a little like fleas, only they're microscopic and they don't jump as high. Aren't you glad you know now? There's nothing you can do about it, either.

Insects can be a lot of fun. There's so much that people don't know! For instance, did you know that common houseflies have taste buds in their feet? If they land on something that has a high sugar content, they simply extend their mouth parts and regurgitate to liquefy the food so it can be absorbed. Isn't that great? Did you ever think of that while you were shooing a fly off your hot dog roll?

There are all kinds of things people would probably rather not know. Take that hot dog. If it's like most hot dogs, it contains residues of more than 100 pesticides--many of them carcinogens and mutagens and neurotoxins and agents of liver failure. Based on a standard government formula for assessing risks, it is estimated that 1032 of the 43 million Americans who regularly eat hot dogs will develop cancer from the pesticides in this food alone.

We have a way of overlooking certain facts that don't conform to our idealized images. After all, if the all-American hot dog is actually bad for us, what other foundation stones might be loose? Truth is, the truth can be hard to take sometimes. Perhaps we can let discrepancies among a few of our historical and cultural icons slide. So what if the Pilgrims didn't really land at Plymouth Rock; and who cares if George Washington never threw a dollar across the Potomac? But when it comes to the natural world we live in, it's hard to face the facts. For instance: For 100 days each year, you can't even see across the venerable Grand Canyon because the air above it is so polluted.

When it comes to water pollution, Toronto photography student Jeremy Lynch tries to make the best of things. He has successfully developed photographic film in the chemical-laden waters of Lake Ontario, the Hudson River and Love Canal. (Surprised?) You shouldn't be. After all, a single gallon of spilled gasoline can contaminate up to 750,000 gallons of groundwater.

And then, there's solid waste disposal. On an average day, the U.S. egg industry discards 550,000 live male chicks. (What do they do with them?)

In 1990, one out of every $11 spend on food in the United States paid for packaging---more than the net income of the farmers who produced the food! Think about the volume of orange-juice containers used up in New York City every morning. It would save several tons of packaging if all those people squeezed their own juice from fresh oranges--but then again, the peels--in just one day would weigh about 107,000 tons! And what would they do with that?

Humans have a strange fascination for other animals. (Perhaps because we differ from apes in one only one percent of out genetic makeup.) It's such a fine line that the Enviromental Protection Agency has determined certain acceptable levels of insect parts and animal waste in our food--an average of two maggots per 17.5 ounce can of tomatoes, say, or 35 fruit fly eggs per ounce of golden raisins. You can have one live insect in each of two containers of green coffee beans or two dead bugs in five containers. Or one rodent hair in 100 grams of chocolate. You know what the best part is? You've already eaten it!

To be fair, insects actually add protein and other nutritional value to the food in which ther happen to appear. The same insects that make Americans blanch are crunchy delicacies in other countries. Some etomologists have pointed out that if the EPA would just relax and double the limits, farmers could drastically reduce their use of pesticides.

Finally, we come nearly full circle, back to mites. Not follicle mites, but dust mites. Millions of them, microscopic and right in your own home. Think about it when you go to bed. Close your eyes, and know that as many as 250,000 of them can fly around in one gram of house dust, filling the air with their tiny, dust-mite fecal pellets.

Breathe deeply. Sleep well.

2006-09-07T16:14:00.000-06:00

The Evil Church Of Scientology

The Church of Scientology is a vicious and dangerous cult that masquerades as a religion. Its main goal is to make money. It practices a variety of mind-control techniques on people lured into its midst to gain control over their money and their lives. Its aim is to take from them every penny that they have and can ever borrow and to also enslave them to further its wicked ends.

It was started in the 1950s by a science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard in fulfillment to his declared aim to start a religion to make money. It is an offshoot to a method of psychotherapy he concocted from various sources which he named "Dianetics". Dianetics is a form of regression therapy. It was then further expanded to appear more like a religion in order to enjoy tax benefits. He called it "Scientology".

Scientology is a confused concoction of crackpot, dangerously applied psychotherapy, oversimplified, idiotic and inapplicable rules and ideas and science-fiction drivel that is presented to its members (at the "advanced" levels) as profound spiritual truth. The results of applying their crackpot psychotherapy (called "auditing") is to weaken the mind. The mind goes from a rational state to an irrational one as the delusional contents of the subconscious mind are brought to the surface and are assumed to be valid. It also makes a person more susceptible to suggestion since it submerges the critical thinking faculties of the mind into a partial subconscious state. It results in a permanent light hypnotic trance and so from thenceforth that person can be more easily controlled. The person will, to a much greater extent, believe and do whatever they are told. And of course this is used to the full in persuading them to hand over further money and dedicating themselves further to the cult.

The results of applying their oversimplified and inapplicable rules in life is to lose the ability to think rationally and logically. A person loses the ability to think for themselves and so they lose the ability to challenge incorrect ideas. This makes them easier to control. It also isolates and alienates the person from society so that they withdraw from normal society and into their "Scientology" society. This further increases their susceptibility to the influence of their group. They end up being afraid of society, believing all society to be controlled by a group of drug companies, psychiatrists and financiers all of whom report to more remote masters. In other words they are in a state of mass paranoia. They therefore avoid reading newspapers and the like since they fear it will disturb their safe Scientology world. It is a downward spiral into madness.

The science fiction content of Scientology is revealed to them after they have reached the state they call "Clear", meaning freed from the aberrations of the mind. However, perhaps "brainwashed" would be a more applicable word to describe the mental state of someone who has survived the near entire delusional contents of their subconscious mind brought to the surface and presented to them as "truth". On the "advanced" levels (called OT levels) above the state of "Clear" they encounter the story of Xenu. Xenu was supposed to have gathered up all the overpopulation in this sector of the galaxy, brought them to Earth and then exterminated them using hydrogen bombs. The souls of these murdered people are then supposed to infest the body of everyone. They are called "body thetans". On the advanced levels of Scientology a person "audits out" these body thetans telepathically by getting them to re-experience their being exterminated by hydrogen bombs. So people on these levels assume all their bad thoughts and faulty memories are due to these body thetans infesting every part of their body and influencing them mentally. Many Scientologists go raving mad at this point if they have not done so already.
On the surface the Church of Scientology seems reasonable. The insane content of it is only revealed to a person when the early stuff has done its work and made them more susceptible. After a short while a person "believes" that Scientology is doing them good. They are then persuaded to help their new-found group further by donating money and/or working for the organization for almost no money. Many people do exactly that.

"Ethics" is used to good effect to trap a person. A person’s natural tendency to do good is worked upon. Yes - they want to be more ethical, but what is ethical? This is where a clever trick is pulled! "Ethics" is redefined by Scientology in such a way that to be ethical is to be a better Scientologist and obey the "church". Young people, not yet made cynical through the machinations of life and politics, are very keen to contribute to the world and to be ethical. So the "ethics" trick works easily into persuading them to join the "church". Many of them join an elite group called the "Sea Org" where they become brainwashed slaves. There they work a hundred hour week for almost no pay. There they are subject to every cruel whim of their masters. It is a living hell that they endure because of the conditioning they have received and this now perverted sense of ethics that they have accepted. The "Sea Org" is the ultimate in brainwashed slavery. They are expected to work harder and harder to achieve ever higher targets of production. If they fail to meet their targets there are various penalties. One of them is to be put onto a diet of beans and rice and to miss sleep. Another is to be sentenced to a period on the RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force). This is the equivalent to "hard labor". Such is the extent of their brainwashing that they actually write "success stories" when they complete their sentences.
In 1978 L. Ron Hubbard ordered a group of his followers to infiltrate government agencies, including the IRS, in order to find out about Scientology's critics and remove "false" incriminating info about the church from the records. 11 high ranking Scientologists, including Hubbard's wife were indicted, charged, convicted and jailed. they had been breaking into the IRS for years, stealing documents and tapping phones. It remains as the single largest infiltration of the U.S. government in history. After this L. Ron Hubbard is convicted of fraud and sentenced to 4 years in prison. he had stolen $200 million from the church and died hiding as a fugitive.

Many people have had their lives ruined because of Scientology, do not be apart of this wicked cult and keep your self aware of the crimes they have committed.

2006-06-23T21:48:00.000-06:00

Poker bots In Party Poker? Competing against each other?

I saw an ad earlier advertising poker bots on the net. Apperantly, these poker bots will play for you in various gambling sites consisting of card games, primarily poker. Sounds like a good thing especially when you can be doing something else while it plays for you. Popularity with a certain product or service is always a good thing for the seller, but can go either way for the buyer.

One thing I want to point out here is that these poker bots are not in anyway an approved service from any poker site, especially partypoker.com. If anything, your account may be terminated if they find out about you using the software. As bad as it might seem, I really don't think these applications are illegal. They will probably just get you banned from certain poker sites. I really don't know how long these bots have been advertised on the net. One thing I think is that the early stages of selling this product can be profitable to the consumer. In the long run if the bots gain enough popularity, people will have their pc's competing against each other only to see which bot is smarter and faster. Then it would be a bad thing, seeing as everyone will have the same app running in the poker tables on the net. Unless poker sites can create better security programs to catch these fake players, you might be losing to a bunch of programs next time you play on the net.
Feel free to leave comments about this subject.

2006-06-21T22:55:00.000-06:00

Marlboro Myth
"This is the legend of the cigarette, this is the legend of the Marlboro cigarette. On every Marlboro cigarette there is a line and if your able to compact a cigarette with out damaging the tip under 12 lines, you may submit that cigarette to Marlboro. Once submitted and considered legitimately packed, you will have cigarettes for the rest of your life until they kill you. That's if you can complete that feet." -Frank Smith

This was once said on a really drunken night by an old roommate. Whether this is true or not, this raises the question of the credibility of all urban myths.
This was actually the first time I had heard such a story, but sounded like an urban myth that might be going around. Some myths do prove to be true, while others tend to be full of crap. Maybe myths out there that are crap, were probably started by drunk imaginative individuals.

2006-06-21T16:31:00.000-06:00

PSP HACKS

I've had my PSP for a little over 5 months now. Sony's hand held system not being as advanced as the latest home gaming consoles, is the best in its class defeating all other handhelds. Especially the fact that you can play games with similar graphics to the PS1, maybe a little better. With my time using the PSP and some research on the net, i have found out how to hack it!

It all started with my brother getting his very own PSP about 5 months before i got mine. Just the idea of being able to watch movies,listen to music and play games all on a hand held system was awesome enough at first.Then I found out through him that you can run emulators to play roms on the PSP. I saw that many older games from other platforms were playable on the system.
After doing a little fact finding on my own about hacking PSPs I learned that there were limitations with the version you get. I learned that in order be able to do the most hacks on a PSP I was to acquire one with the firmware 1.5 or even better, 1.0. The firmware that is currently out on PSPs in stock at retailers is probably higher than 2.7. Some games you buy will actually offer an update for the firmware. NEVER UPGRADE unless your willing to shell out the cash for a mod chip that just recently came out. The firmware updates are pretty much security updates that will prevent you from doing most of the hacks you can do on a 1.5 PSP. Their are ways to downgrade on some versions but not all, but like I said you can always get a mod chip. I acquired mine through EB games as a used one, as the 1.5 versions are kinda the older versions and harder to find new.
The first thing i tried with my psp was putting some emulators for the psp i downloaded. The emulators I placed on my 1 gig stick were, sega, gamboy, nintendo, and super nintendo. i had these all at once on the memory stick along with tons of roms. The roms are games run by the emulators i downloaded. Playing super mario, sonic, pac-man and a whole lot of other games whenever i wanted were ever i wanted was and still is fun. Then I started finding other hacks and applications I could run on my PSP.
Their are many applications on the net that let you a lot of cool stuff on your psp. A more interesting one was an app to use your psp as a remote control to use on your tv or vcr. I really didn't use it though because I mastered the trick of not losing the remote control anymore. Another app I had let you raise the volume on your psp way past its normal settings while you listen to your mp3s off of it. I thought it was great because it had several vvisualizers
to go along with the music. One app that i found actually let you use your psp like a pc. This app puts the interface of a pc on your psp along with a mouse and folders to click on like you would a pc. Their are way to many apps out there to talk about on here so I would suggest looking them up yourself.
Right now though all I really have been doing is downloading ISOs off the net to play. ISOs are pretty much just back ups of purchased games for the PSP. To run these you need to get a loader to load the ISO off the PSP. Their are different loaders for different ways the ISO files are copied. Right now though im using a loading app called DAX to run compressed ISOs to save space on the memory stick. Also for the ISOs
a good size memory stick is recommended because you will keeping the ISOs on the memory stick, a 1gig is good enough. Just like everything else I've been talking about here you can look all these things up in a search engine. Once you get the hang of loading ISOs on to your PSP you will probably never have to buy a single psp game ever again!
Remember though, any hack to your PSP carries the risk of bricking and rendering it useless to use, so always be carefull and mindfull of this fact. So I guess I'll go now and play my copy of Grand Theft Auto LCS that I downloaded on my PSP!