Category: Technology

Do the Freemasons Run Facebook?

Happy Sunday morning everyone!  I love Sunday mornings.  It’s a time where the family sleeps in and I spend some quiet time reflecting on the past week and preparing for another exciting seven days.

There’s nothing like a good conspiracy theory to get the mind thinking about all kinds of crazy stuff.  I shared the following on Facebook a few days ago & have thought about it ever since.

From a profile of Mark Zuckerberg on Forbes.com:

What the CIA failed to do in 60 years, Zuck has done in 7: knowing what 800 million people–more than 10% of the world’s population–think, read and listen to, plus who they know, what they like and where they live, travel, vote, shop, worship. U.S. users spend more time on Facebook–on average 6.3 hours a month–than on any other site.

Is it possible that Facebook (a once private Social Network) is run by the Freemasons (a private Social Network)?  Of course it’s possible and Zuckerberg could be at the 33rd level.

There have always been strong ties between the US Government and the Free Masons.  The “All Seeing Eye” is on our currency after all.  It isn’t surprising the US Government (CIA, NSA, et al) have a HUGE interest in the information we all freely share with our “friends”.

On episode 353 of the “No Agenda” podcast Adam discussed the similarities of the “Two Ball Cane” to the Facebook logo:

Sometimes the truth is staring us right in the face every day

So what do you think?  Is Facebook just another company that’s found its Niche in Society or is it part of a greater evil that’s taking the opportunity to gather as much information on you as possible?

As an aside (and a bit of humor) you can see below it’s easy to change an existing logo to make a new one with a completely different meaning:

I love the Death Star/Wikipedia comparison

 

Shocker – Netflix Needs Cash

After a summer of mistakes Netflix is finding itself short on customers and cash.  They are trying to raise $200 million through the sales of bonds.  I think that should cover the lost revenue from losing 1-million customers in a quarter.

Click image to read the story

I used to LOVE Netflix but a 60% membership hike and a dismal choice of streaming content made canceling my subscription very easy.

The WordPress Game Show – Jeopardy Style

I’ve been using WordPress (WP) for a while now & thought I knew all of the ins and outs. After playing this game I’ve discovered I still have a lot to learn.

Click the image to play the game for yourself!

I’m thinking about changing the look and feel of the Blog again.  Unfortunately I can’t seem to find a theme that I completely like.  That’s where the flexibility of WordPress comes in; I can design my own!  Now I just need to set aside the time needed to research, develop, test and implement.

 

Review – Minecraft

I’ve always liked video games and it all started for me with Pong.  Next came the Atari, Apple PC, Windows PC, Nintendo, Playstation, and X-Box.  First Person games have always been my favorite, whether it’s a shooter, driving simulator or sports game.  As long as it looks like I’m in the middle of the game I usually like it.

Enter Minecraft by Swedish creator Markus “Notch” Persson .  It’s a first person game with an unusual twist, you create the game within the game.  If you’re expecting cutting edge graphics you’re going to be in for a bug surprise.  Although “simple” the game actually takes a little computer horsepower to run smoothly.

Minecraft starts you off in a randomly generated world with nothing in your inventory.  Your first priority is to survive through the night:

Afterwards you start collecting materials to make more materials.  Stone, iron ore, coal, etc.  It’s a pretty addictive concept that is fun for any age level.  I will warn you that this game can be a time suck.  My son & I have spent hours on our respective computers building our own worlds.   There are mufti-player options as well but we have not gotten that far yet.

Minecraft has monsters that come out at night that you have to defend yourself from and animals and plants you can grow or harvest for food.  The more you get into the game the more you start to realize the unlimited potential the game has.

The process of mining is where the game gets interesting.  Once you build the right tools you can set out to find more building materials.  Sometimes you come across a cave which opens up into an underground world (complete with it’s own monsters and surprises).  Other times you can just start digging and see what you can find.

YouTube has thousands of videos online that show you what can be done.  There are people who have created full size replicas of the Starship Enterprise and others have created a Fleet of Battleships.

Minecraft can be played for free (older limited version) on the Official Website.  You can purchase the game for ~$30.  There was an IOS (Apple) version just released and an XBox edition is slated for release in Spring 2012.

As far as games go, I’m going to rate this one an 8 out of 10. It’s a new concept for me and it’s been a big hit with both myself and my son.

From NASA – Astronaut’s Photography Manual

Although somewhat simple and dated this manual is a relic of the space age that’s coming to an end.

I’m sure photography in the vacuum weightlessness of space has it challenges, especially when orbiting around the earth at 15,000+ MPH.  With that kind of speed your lighting is going to constantly change and you really need to understand your camera.

A lot of the images we associate with space travel were taken with Hasselblad equipment it remains the main tool for ultra serious photographers.

If you’re interested in learning more about exposure settings and composition this 40-page manual is worth checking out.

WebMatrix from Microsoft = Awesome!

[Time for a nerdy post]

If you like to “tinker” with the web Microsoft’s WebMatrix tool just might be for you.

I’ve wanted to set up a development copy of the IndyScan.com blog at home but standing up a Linux server with PHP and all the other tools to make it work just seemed like to much work (I’ll admit I’m lazy sometimes).  Enter WebMatrix.  With this tool you can run a “virtual” web server inside of an application on your desktop.  It reminds me of the old days when I used to edit IndyScan.com offline with Dream Weaver and “publish” the changes via FTP at the end of each editing session.

I’m using a virtual machine to do this but you can just as easily install the application on your primary machine.  Once you install the WebMatrix application you can choose from dozens of open source content management and blogging tools.  It’s as simple as downloading the tool and walking through a wizard to set the base site up (including SQL databases).  You also have the option to develop the site from scratch (old school) and publish to your web server.

Once I installed WebMatrix I activated the WordPress package, exported my live site, and imported the XML file into the WebMatrix site.  within 10 minutes I had a fully functional clone of my production site.  Pretty cool!

So far I’ve had a lot of fun playing with alternatives to WordPress and seeing if my HTML/PHP coding skills are still up to par.  If you are looking for an inexpensive (free) development platform be sure to check out WebMatrix.

[Nerdy post complete]