When I sit back and think about what I’m doing with my life and where I’m heading, I start to reexamine what my importance in the world is. I always seem to fall back to this question: where is the human race going? What progress are we striving for? As far as I can tell, the only thing that seems to matter in this world is who can dig shit out of the ground, efficiently turn it into some sort of product and then try to sell it to each other. This seems to be the only thing we really care about. Are we going to keep trying to do this for the next 10,000 years? Just get better at conducting commerce? Wow that’s really pathetic. And it’s boring.

Our buddy Solrac found an interesting solution for iphone users:

A perfect subject that came up during Mike’s recession birthday party about being raped by insane iphone charges.

I am happy to say I have signed up for a new plan:

T-Mobile + Skype + Google Voice
$43 / month total
Unlimited calling to any phone (Skype)
Unlimited text (Google voice)
Unlimited web (T-Mobile)

You sign up for T-Mobile’s $30 / month plan for 500 minutes. This is their cheapest plan. No text or web.
Then you can add $10 for unlimited web. This makes the total with T-Mobile $40.
Next, you sign up for unlimited calls with Skype Out. ($3 / month)
Finally, you sign up for google voice, and set it up to forward all texts to your email.

On your iPhone you get a Skype client so you can make calls over wi-fi. With a jailbroken iPhone you can make wi-fi calls over 3G as well. (Makes it think that 3G is Wi-Fi.) You also get a Google Voice client so you can check your texts and voicemail. You also install an optional piece of software called Prowl so that you can get real time notifications of texts that are sent to your Google Voice.

This will save me $140 per month. ($1,600 per year.)

BAM!

This post is not about whether I believe in the theory of Global Warming or not.

What this post is about, is the interesting and healthy mind-frame evolution characteristic of the American public. What I noticed about people who argue that Global Warming is more of a conspiracy theory, is that they try to discredit scientists and government authorities claiming that Global Warming is a serious threat which must be dealt with. The strange beauty I find is that people are starting to not trust so called “authorities”. This is a good thing!

The reason why it is a good thing: It is time for people to realize that the power of being an “authority” can be manipulated. Remember the days before the Iraq war? Remember all the “authorities” and government officials trying to illustrate a solid case for invading Iraq? A large percentage of Americans believed what they were telling them. So did Congress. And now that the facts have been released, we the public know that the reasons for invading Iraq have been manipulated and in some cases were complete lies.

The point I’m trying to make is, not trusting authorities is healthy for our modern day society. It forces the public to ask questions and to finally do the research themselves. Brain stimulation is a good thing! Yay - Finally!

So that was the end of the post….but…
For those who want to know, whether I believe in Global Warming or not:

This is how I look at this issue: I haven’t sifted through all the data and have yet to come to a strong determination where I feel confident to say; “Yes - Global Warming exists and it’s completely man made”.

Now hold on!

That doesn’t mean we should unnaturally increase the amount of green house gases in the atmosphere. We don’t need to make more C02 and Ch4 and release it into the atmosphere. First of all it’s a waste of energy and thus dollars. It’s as simple as the fact that being more efficient is more profitable, both personally and for the nation.

I completely understand why the planet Venus is incredibly hot. It’s because of their “greenhouse gases”. And my natural instinct is to say that humans are warming up the planet. I was a mechanical engineer at one time, and I know what the products of combustion are. For every gallon of gas combusted, 20 gallons of breathable air are turned into C02, water and some other nasty molecules. So, yeah - we are pumping out tons of C02 every day. In addition, when one analyzes ice samples from the polar ice caps, we can see the increase in the amount of C02 every year - so, in my mind it’s definitely pointing towards the fact that Global Warming is occurring and it is man made. But there are still mountains of data to go through and other factors to consider. So, speaking as a scientist - I can’t make any conclusions just yet…