Sunday, April 24, 2011

Zeitgeist: is it possible?

The simple answer to the questions "is zeitgeist possible?" keeps staring at me every time I deeply think about it and specially talk about it with certain people.

First, for those who don't know what I mean by zeitgeist, as defined by Wikipedia  "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age." but I am actually talking about the ideas of both Peter Joseph of which ideas he learned from Jacque Fresco. Anyways all the information is out there and I wrote about it so I hope you know what I'm talking about by now (ask in the comments if you are unclear).

Second, I see that the answer is no and I'll try my best to explain why I don't see it possible in the very near future although plausible and I really do hope it happens, I will help it happen in all the ways possible by me and of course I am a big believer in this Resource Based Economy ideas brought forth by the two I discussed above.

It comes down to a few variables in my opinion that are still far from being solved, there's much more then money at stake for the ones with money and why they would not give it up for anything else in the world, even a better world for them. This would of course mean a better world for everyone else also. They are in control, they feel in control and they really are for the most part. I'm not suggesting that they want to be a dictator like the many violent ones in the past but to be honest it is not much all that different from those dictators that we have seen in history killing millions of innocent people.

You see all people are not made equal. This is a fact. Some people have a much higher drive for certain different things. Others have various things that make them 'tick'. The top one percent is the one that is in certain power, they have been for many years, in fact probably decades or centuries that had power passed down from generation to generation in secret societies.

But there's some people whom only more recently came into 'power', this power is brought forth by the money, ownership or wealth that they acquire(d). There is certain control in our modern societies, the western civilization is run by control, and by no means am I talking about monarchy or socialism of any type, we are not living in a prison state (yet) but it is very similar in the way we have control above us, there are at least 3 levels of police everywhere in north america. this is easy to show as we are all very aware of this: there is local police which is normally the city or town (if it's big enough) then we have the provincial police (yes I'm in Canada) or State police if you live in the US, and finally there's the federal police or national type of police (RCMP for us in Canada).

So you really have to be fully blind to the fact that you are in control. When you shift your thinking your eyes really open (as it did for me recently and why I'm writing this). Of course there's a need for this in THIS society, and in this environment and economy it is very necessary and this is how things run right now, the problem is because they run like this and they are well enough for us this will continue. Let's explore this further and see if you can follow; we have lots of freedoms, they mostly consist of certain choice, the choice to do or not do things and choose between things that sometimes considered good or bad. The police follow the control system, they obey the laws that were set forth by the other entities, they certainly don't make them. being as they are followers, they will blindly obey those laws and their job is to enforce them upon us, the citizens.

We are full of controllers that enforce things upon us as we see above and in real life all the time. And knowing that this form of control would not happen at all in the zeitgeist or RBE system this is probably one of the biggest fears that people will have; if there is no control who will protect them, but you are truly blinded if you think the police protect; in reality you are much better off not having police at all. I'm not suggesting to fend for yourself in the current system but in the RBE based system the ideas that spawn from it are very promising. There will be a much better way to deal with issues, for example rather then cuffing, and imprisoning people we would have intuitions to deal with the problematic people (if there will be such people out there), it is most likely that there will be issues and so the solutions should be based on real science and real psychology and real research instead of what the current system deems as inappropriate, illegal or intolerable for whatever reason they decided these laws which are not based on scientific facts or research or psychology or in fact any research of anything.

The laws are molded to help society remain functional, productive (but in a monetary sense) and meet the bottom line while remaining as civilized as possible to the big medias of the world. They are essentially heartless and just try to have good PR there is no real care in such people, millions will die and they wouldn’t know about it. We can see that by the wars that we wage, let’s not go into any conspiracy we do know for a FACT that people, American and Canadian people, die from these wars in the middle east. This is a true fact and we can see that they have no care in the world to stop these wars in a peaceful and graceful way, because this is still acceptable by the citizens and until there will be a huge uprising there will be no action to change this. Take action and invest your money in changing the way the world works, all controlling civilizations have too much power of the rest of the world, not only their own people and citizens.

Why do you think there are 3 levels of police for YOU? the answer is: It is for YOU, to control YOU. If you get out of line, as we see in the big protests where they harmless people that have no weapons, no protection stand against armed police with full body and head protection, yet they shoot at the people that have nothing. This is happening in our own backyard and we can’t seem to do a damn thing about it. Let’s re-evaluate everything we are used to and change this for a better world we can all enjoy, not just the top one percent or the rest of the 90 percent that either blind on purpose because they don’t want to care and don’t want to think about the way things are or are really too dumb (which I refuse to believe).

Finally I’d like to leave you with a quote but before I find a good one, here’s mine. You need to learn and action what you see with the time and money that you have simply invest it into getting the truth out there, educate your friends and your family get everyone around you to agree that things must change so we can all do it together.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments or email theborisedu at gmail dot com

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Interview with internet millionaire

My recent friend had a fast found riches that is now in shables and I wondered all these questions (how, why, when etc) about it, after spending some time asking various things I got an interesting picture and maybe some of the readers will find it interesting.

Background:
Male in mid twenties now, dropped out of high school at 16 and became a quick millionaire for a few years [update: he was making only about 100k per year for at least 4 years - never really reaching a million in total but living it up by spending as you will find out], but after the expensive lifestyle the business died (you will find out why below) and now is just a normal guy with interesting story and a few expensive toys (which he has trouble paying for now).

The business was internet website(s) that focus on satellite hacking. Got started by being a vendor of satellite hardware (receiver and/or satellite).

For those unfamiliar (like me) here's how it works: In order to get the satellite service you would need to pay a monthly subscription (along with the hardware cost of the satellite itself and receiver box that connects to your TV), but hacking it became very simple (he described it as easy as sending an email) to circumvent the monthly subscription cost and simply get a free signal.

Bottom line, if you can hack the satellite you can get it for the cost of the hardware itself and there is no need for monthly subscription. The hacking would sometimes have to happen quite often as the system would change things roughly every month, so the users have to come back every month. The business worked on the principle of the traffic of visitors - displaying third party advertising and sponsorships that work with the site directly (find out more from the interview below). Another stream was premium users would pay a smaller fee then monthly cost of satellite subscription and get the hacks faster than regular users which got a delay to create this new stream of revenue (smart).

Back to the story, from the vendor website (selling hardware) he made good but not great money, when a satellite company bought one of the top satellite hacking forums (let's call it X forum) there was another top satellite hacking forum up for sale (lets call it Y forum). Since the X forum seemed to have a bias as it's owned by a satellite company he decided to buy Y forum for the asking price of about 10 thousand dollars cash.

He made several changes to allow for more topics and was able to get the major moderators on board to Y forum from the X forum. When X forum started censoring the topics, discussions and even the spelling name of Y  forum. The moderators, top contributers and hackers switched fully to Y forum and of course the regular users followed there to make Y forum a huge success.

Now that the story seems clearer (I hope) here's some more details that I asked him and I formated it into and interview format and paraphrased the answers to make an read:

How did you get started in the website/satellite business?
A high school friend introduced me to satellite hacking (direcTV and free to air), got really obsessed with the stuff, spent days studying it and learned everything about it.

When did you start?
The satellite idea around 2004 and the website in late 2005-2006, made the most around 2007-2008
In late 2008-2009 the hacking was stopped because of the huge investments (millions) the satellite companies spent on security of the system, after that the traffic stopped.

Where did the traffic come from?
Visits mostly North America (USA and Canada). The hacks probably come from South Korea or somewhere in Asia.

How much did the advertising pay?
Thousands from private ads (sponsors) for satellite equipment and thousands more from third party (adbrite, since adsense was running but never paid - it shutdown saying there were invalid clicks) every month.

Where was it hosted?
Malaysia

How much was the hosting?
$1,500/month

Was there other forms of revenue?
Yes, premium accounts that got the hacks faster were paid for by some users, there were also many donations received.

What technology/programming language did it use?
vbulletin - php/mysql forum (not free or open source)

--------
My understanding is the business was run from Hong Kong and funneled the money back through a local one. The expensive lifestyle is not one I would choose with this income but it makes for an interesting story. Leasing an 05/06 Dodge Viper that he still hopes to pay off among other toys, stories and things that shell remain anonymous.

If you have any questions you would like me to ask/answer please leave in the comment or email theborisedu at gmail dot com

Let me know what you think!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Medical Marijuana for Migraine

After watching a new documentary about Medical use of cannabis, not only did I find yet another documentary about this and all the facts tend to point to the same conclusion; marijuana is great as medicine and should be legalized.

I got inspired to look into a specific treatment for Migraine because it's a topic that is close to me and wanted to get some facts from reliable sources. This is not as discussed in depth on Wikipedia so I decided to check their references and turns out theres quite a bit of research done. This paper reveal another research paper that is full of references throughout the time of the history of usage and treatment specifically for migraine relieve.

(page 41, hemp for headache)"The advantages in its use over that of opium consist chiefly . . .
in the absence of prostration and nausea after its ingestion, and in
the partial lack of soporific power which it possesses as
compared to the opiate, for in certain cases sleep is not always
desirable when pain is to be removed"

There's simply all the facts and research in those papers so the easiest is for me to point you there, so please read and allow for research and if you come to same conclusion as most medical doctors and researches you must also support legalization.

Thank you.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Zeitgeist not stupidity

I came across this BBC documentary called Stupidity (watch) and although I didn't think there would be much new just interesting stuff, I did learn a lot; there has not been much research done on the topic of human stupidity.

This is something that we seriously have to look at much closer, we have to consider why we act the way we do, and what to do about it along with the numerous unanswered questions there is about this topic.

After watching the film I also realized why we don't have things the zeitgeist movement talks about, why we are not implementing ideas from Venus project and in general why so many people agree with human stupidity yet can't really do much about it. The fact is most people are stupid. They rather watch Jackass Movie or read about the new baby Brad and Angelina adopted, or hear some jokes about racism in America, than do something about world hunger, invest and use alternative energy instead of paying billions (not millions) to fund a war in the Middle East for the oil rather then switching to alternative energy as a starting point to stop or at least reduce our dependence on oil.

It's easy to understand why we tend to ignore the faults of our own countries, societies and humanities but ignorance is not bliss when there's so much human potential that is being killed. Humanity is therefore stupid as a whole and although we do have superior intelligence to any other animal on this planet we also have the best technology and knowledge of any other animal but that doesn't make us the best we can be.

I believe we have much more potential then meaningless jobs to make money which allows a small percent of human population to live well, tiny population to live amazing and a huge percent to be poor, hungry and die from war, disease (that we can cure) etc.

Well those are my thoughts, they are backed up by facts.
Let me know what you think in the comments below

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Boxee - interesting concept, not there yet

I recently found this interesting thing called boxee.tv you can either purchase some pre-installed boxee unit or just install on your computer of choice [Linux, Windows or Mac] (and it's free). I made a login (also free) and tried to use it, I have to say tried because I gave up after about 10 minutes. Install is 40mb, not huge but those of use with bandwidth caps we want to limit unnecessary downloading, specially to watch a few things online... easier to go to a good divx streaming website in my opinion.

Anyway just out of sheer curiosity I had a peak inside this app on my xp box, cool enough if you want to navigate using the mouse only (didn't have to in my case)... a little slow for most video cards and worst of all; doesn't play what you ask!

I tried to watch 'South Park' just cause it seemed to be on top of the list, found some episode I think I haven't seen and... after some waiting... tosh.o comes on! [/facepalm]
Yes some show I never watch comes on instead of what I ask... great job guys. Good effort but that's an F for failure!

I like the ambitious effort and it would be quite nice if it works but the fact is, it's just easier to use a streaming website! the toughest part is installing divx web player, or flash player and watch youtube or something.. certainly better than this.

Sorry for the folks at boxee, I hope you didn't invest too much but unless I'm the only one that thinks this (and I hope so for your sake) but unless the issues are fixed, and there's loads of content that we just can't get elsewhere you will not have the edge, and unfortunately may not even survive.


But that's my opinion, let me know what you think in the comments below!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Zeitgeist First Steps

Assuming you have read my previous posts, or at least understand and agree that the current money system is inherently problematic, the easy answer is yes we need to get rid of money and go toward a resource based economy.

The hard question is how can the entire world turn their heads upside-down overnight?
The answer is no they cannot, and they will not. Change will be slow but sure to come because it's easy to see if you just open your eyes. Things like Wikipedia and Linux were the beginning (decades ago), now we see Wikileaks and the Tunisian and Egyptian protests. We can see changes around the world ARE happening, and I think that's the most important part.

The more complex answer is how will these changes manifest? what direction will they take? and ultimatly we WILL, without a doubt, end the money system. One way or another.

As I said to the stubborn entrepreneur I had conversations with about this topic, it is not a question of 'if' it's more about 'when' and 'how' and we can see some of those answers as well already.

As with the zeitgeist movement they have many good answers and suggestions but they often don't have them all and so I think they should really ask the public (they have 500k people signed up) for more inspiration in their forums.

Motivation or incentives - specifically for complex tasks or problem solving it is proven that monetary rewards are almost never (90% of the time) solved fast, high quality and rewarding (to the person) by money rewards. [Reference: "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" watch it on TED]

More conversations and more thoughts have gone on in the past few days and I have taken in more knowledge, here is another documentary along the way that explores how humans exploit resources (tar sands - oil)  for monetary gain without any consideration for the precious ones that we really depend on to survive (water) http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2011/tippingpoint/

But I hope you have basic understanding by now so will continue to explore a different system.
As a side note one discussion with immigrants from the former soviet union led them to believe that Zeitgeist is a Communistic Idea. After reading up on it, yes it has many similarities but also many exceptions such as politics and money. Also please keep in mind the soviet union was not communist it was socialist with the goal to get to communism which never manifested. Which led me to believe that the soviet union may have never intended to be truly communistic since I know they had many of their own agendas in place and kept many secrets from its people. After seeing the similarities I thought 'maybe communism is not such a bad idea after all...'

More importantly, we really have to remember is to forget about labels and strict ideas or ideals and to simply work out a new system that will solve our problems and it will never be perfect so we will always keep solving new problems as they come along. That's the only way to make a better system for all of us while not destroying what we have left on this planet in terms of resources. All we know now for sure is the current system really is very bad and it must change. And it will change.

Once we can work out a way for all of us to get physical (or physiological) needs such as clean air, clean water, and nutritious food. Second we need to get our safety needs (that doesn't mean surveillant cameras everywhere!) a warm shelter that is comfortable enough. And now we can start solving real problems like how to reduce our wast or resources, energy and consumption in order for everyone to have a chance to live well and also help solve these problems! (there are many of them; how to reduce toxic use, advance technology and all of that without ever worrying about money).

Some of you may have learned it in school as Maslow's hierarchy of needs, at least in my case I learned it in a high school business class of all places. We distinguished from needs and wants. We learned that in order to sell unnecessary products we have to create the need of those products when really they are simply wanted (you will not die without an iphone - literally you need food and water first and after you have it all else is just a 'want'). Anyway we really need to explore the knowledge we have and technology can accelerated the learning and problem solving along with brilient minds that study the fact that reward of money will not make us happy, nor will the money itself. Problem solving for a purpose, say real world issues that are actually useful will!

Okay, give me your thoughts and comments below.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

How to upload over 10-15 minutes on youtube

Have you ever had some long documentary and thought:
How do I post over 10-15 minutes of video on youtube?

Well there are actually two possible answers:
1. Split the video into 15 minute parts.
This could get long process that may be frustrating and technically difficult - I may explore this in another section for those that are interested in the future. Also note that now anyone can post 15  minute videos because the minimum was raised from 10 to fifteen recently.

2. Get on good terms with youtube!
Here's my print screen that shows I am now allowed to post over 15minutes!
But what is my limit? does it mean I'm unlimited? maybe....
More importantly how did I do it? there is no trick, I never contacted them nor did I ever ask for it.
I had many videos (50+) that never infringed on anyone's rights because it was simply me filming some pets and animals (in my backyard or elsewhere) and I presume that because of this 'clean' record with youtube this account was raised and I am now allowed to post videos longer than 15 minutes.

Yey now I can my a documentary of an hour and a half for everyone to watch in one bulk instead of 20 parts :)

Thanks youtube/google.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Zeitgeist Resource Based Economy

It's amazing from the time I saw the third Zeitgeist film (about 3 days ago) I have been thinking a little more about these ideas but what's more is I was talking about them much more and interestingly enough for all the questions from people although I didn't have the answers right away I was finding them more and more every day.

Looking at all the problems from a money based system we can say, ok this is a problem but how do we fix it? and there are many more in-depth detailed questions about how a new, money free, system will solve these issues without creating new ones. The answers have been popping up right in front of me over and over again so I can't let this opportunity slip and my train of thoughts are showing me that one day not too long from now, maybe no more than a few years, we will live in a much different world and be thankful for this new systems and technologies while remembering back on how we USED to live and be in awe how it stayed like that for so long.

The StoryOfStuff is what came to me first and I saw the clip on the website and saw that I'm certainly not alone in this, someone (Annie Leonard) already done the research and put it out there in this amazing project initiative to tell the the story of where we get our 'stuff'. She explains the linear path of which stuff go through and while watching this right after 'Zeitgeist: moving forward' it was a really easy link to see that money drives the problems of the excessive creation of stuff with toxins and resources are simply being wasted.

After discussing the ideas of RBE(Resource Based Economy) with an entrepreneur the question 'how will people be motivated?' came very quickly and because I always taking things with a grain of salt (including RBE) I had no real good answer but I did explain the concept of Wikipedia which amazingly was new to him. If you are not familiar you have to watch Jimmy Wales videos (founder of Wikipedia) and read about the ideas and how it runs with literally thousands of volunteer editors that do it for simply the joy of doing it and for no monetary gain. Also I went on to explain about open source projects and the free ideas of Linux technology and how it compares and in most cases is much better than a commercial software like Microsoft yet has no corporate offices nor corporate jets as one film put it. But I also had an understanding with the entrepreneur that these people are numbered (even if by the thousands, we compare to the billions living on the planet today) and it takes a certain individual to do something like that (volunteer editing or programing for free).

Today I finally stumbled upon the answer that will truly apply to everyone when it comes to motivation WITHOUT money. I watched in amazement the short interview with Daniel Pink and continued to research about his book 'Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us' and I found a >> ted video << which is really a must to see to understand what is the true motivation in people and how creativity is actually stifled by the motivation of money (proven in countless experiments for over 40 years). So while you watch that video it will discuss a lot about today's business and companies but keep in mind we do live in this world now and that's the problems he is addressing but why not take out the money altogether and now you see that we are simply better off without it!

Let me know what you think.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

New Google ad spot in gmail

Noticed this in some emails probably a few weeks ago, just had a chance to take a screen capture and post it here for anyone interested in what google is up to these days.

The new spot shows up in email "conversations" bottom where there used to be nothing. But this is not always there and as you may know you don't always get too many ads so I find it a good fit, it's not disruptive or anything, google knows how to do ads.


Monday, January 31, 2011

Zeitgeist followup

First I wanted to review the movie but since it's been done and everyone has their opinions, mine is that I agree with about 90% of the film and their respective opinions.

The facts that are backed up and true are totally worth looking at and because they are facts and not opinions I will not argue anything there, what is still left to opinion is the change from the momentary system to the resource based system.

The part that I still have to disagree is that computers will run everything, sure the sci-fi movies are becoming reality (technology wise) but it will only happened slowly and that's not how we should go about thinking. What we should do instead is focus on how to change over the minds of everyone and that's what I intend to do in this post.

I decided to put together a list of problems around the world, just from my experiences that I think would be solved if we stay away from a monetary system to a different one, say a resource based economy.

1. Copyright
We all know this is supposed to 'protect' rights of copying materials, but who does it protect? the people who 'invent' or 'create' things that unique enough to say that they own the copy rights and no one else can 'copy' it. This topic is important to me because we all know copying is NOT stealing, and it should never be thought of this way. In fact the only cost to copying is the copying itself, and when we have technology that can copy thousands or millions of digital files for free why should anyone, anywhere be charged for it? think about the resource based economy model and understand that knowledge should be, and will be, public one way or another. Wikipedia comes to mind when talking about public knowledge and a great resource like knowledge should never be thought of as a crime for simply reading, listening or watching any type of information. Entrainment or education it should all be public and free.

2. Piracy
Specifically the peer to peer file sharing in this case. Think about the word 'peer to peer' this sounds great, people talking to other people, sharing information, free, and communities are always good. Well guess who doesn't think so? companies who profit by selling those files (movies, music, software, etc) of course again it comes down to money, and back to the topic of copyright it's very much the similar and the same solution, no copyright laws, no problems. Or even better, no money system, no problem.

3. Drugs
Specifically, plants should never ever be considered a trademark (Monsanto comes to mind - they patent genomes or genetically modified seeds of crops that die after one year in order to produce more profit) and they should never be made illegal because if they don't cause harm to anyone there's no reason to do so. How can a plant harm anyone? with education and knowledge like the tribes that pass down information to valuable plans that heal, feed and help us survive there should never be a problem with natural growing plants (for example a weed that has been proven to be medicinal and recreational called cannabis or more commonly known as marijuana should not be outlawed). Again this comes down to money and the more we think about a problem the solution becomes clear, money is the problem therefore get rid of money system = get rid of the problems.

4. Net Neutrality
This is about internet service providers (ISP) throttling (slowing down) internet use of peer to peer communication, the pressure is clearly applied from companies that produce and distribute music, movies and more which is being shared through these means (Bit torrent for example). Although they claim it's in order to conserve bandwidth, we all know that there is more than enough bandwidth to go around and it's increasing as technology get's better. Another fairly recent change is happening here in Canada and some ISPs in the US is the bandwidth capping - we are being limited to a monthly limit of say 60GB per month (both upload and download combined). This is also the same issue as throttling when you look at the big picture, although I have noticed there is much less throttling since if you go over the limit you pay big bucks (between 1 to 5 dollars per Gig!) So their claim is again that it costs them too much but we know it's just not true, again it's a money thing and in a system that shares resources efficiently rather than for monetary gain it will never happened this way.

5. Government
We all know now, and for a long time that Governments are also interested in money, and very much so. How do we see this? because they not only cooperate but they bend over backwards and change their own laws to obied by big-corps in order to get big funds from them! politicians in general that act in the interest of financially successful corporations (aka big corp) are always getting lots of money back in order to have lots of expensive campaigns which in tern help them win more votes with the public. This system is clearly messed up!
Of course some can argue and say that they are power hungry when they go after different nations, but again this power is delivered through the means of money as we know it, so preventing this power is the best way and removing the monetary system for a better resources based system makes a lot more sense.
Do you agree?

6. Violence
This is discussed quite a bit in the third Zeitgeist movie (very recommended by the way) from psychological aspects to social aspects so the best way is to discuss some hard facts. From the studies that were presented in the film we know there is no violence in tribal communities that share their resources and really live as a community. But there is a lot of violence in monetary based run cities and countries because one way to get money is by using violence if you take the money factor away why would people use violence? they don't it's a proven fact. This brings to the next point...

7. Theft & robbery
With no money system there would be no theft or robbery. But what will we use? the best products ever made in recent history. This means that now we make the worst things? Yes.

8. Products & services
Right now products are made in a way that is cheapest to produce we all know that but if you don't, think about it you want to pay the LEAST so you have more money left for other things. But if you think about resources we are using them up very quickly with lots of toxic chemicals and it's bad for the environment but as long as we get cheaply made and sold products we pay less this is good for us in the monetary system but that is why we need to change the system. Watch story of stuff it tells it best about the cycle. So consider instead using the best possible materials, the best possible technology and make the best product in the monetary system it would cost a lot but in a resource based system we wouldn't pay we just make them for ourselves and use it endlessly because it should last as long as possible. And everyone can and will use these products because they are made so well there is no reason to have one of each! think of cell phones, how many have you gone through in the last 5 years? my guess is at least 3 (that's what I had) if not much more than that, and the old ones are so useless now they are just junk!
In a resource based system there is no junk, there is only things we give back to the environment like a dead tree decomposing naturally adding nutrients into the soil.
With the current scientific facts we have we can run the plant much better but only if we have the minds of the people first.

Money is The Problem.

I will expend the list as I get more time, maybe go into each topic in their own posts in the future but I hope you get the picture if you're reading this now, and please spread the word to the world about this idea = money is the problem, solution is to get rid of the money system once and for all.

Read or watch videos about Zeitgeist and the Venus project

Saturday, January 29, 2011

ZEITGEIST 3 review


Please watch ZEITGEIST: MOVING FORWARD

Great video, not only is it informational, factual and scientific it also is very entertaining.
But that's not the point, it should wake up the truth and show you what this world is like.

I recently watched interviews with Peter Joseph and thought 'when is the next one coming out?' and here we are this one is great and you don't really need to watch the first two if you have not already, this one will do the trick.

The independent made film that has been screened over 300 times around the world in sold out theaters and freely available to anyone to watch, distribute and remix if they wish - reiterates on the information brought forth in the first two with loads of new information and new ways of understanding, new interviews with intelligent and credible people.

More breakdowns and reviews about it will be coming soon... it's a long video but very important watch for EVERYONE.

Comment below and spread the video as much as you can.

Friday, January 28, 2011

WinSCP scripting example

From here it's very easy: http://marionote.wordpress.com/2009/12/12/winscp-script-sample/

"c:\Program Files\WinSCP3\WinSCP.exe" /script=c:\winscpscript\testscript.txt /log=c:\winscpscript\log.txt

Then, create a script file (in this example, c:\winscpscript\testscript.txt.)
# Execute with winscp.exe /script=this_filename /log=logfile.txt
option batch abort
option confirm off
# Use the ip address of your SFTP server, instead of 127.0.0.1
open sftp_login_name:the_password@127.0.0.1

#In order to "cd" or "lcd", use these lines.
cd server_side_directory
lcd c:\client_side_directory

# Normal GET
get Get_This_File

# If you want to save as another filename:
get Get_This_File Get_This_File_local

# If you want to remove the remote file after downloading:
get -delete Get_This_File c:\client_side_directory\Get_This_File_local

# Upload sample script line
put upload_this_file remote_filename

# If you want to rename the remote filename after uploading:
mv remote_filename remote_filename_renamed

exit

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Good Small Business Router

Since I really like the Gargoyle firmware and used it on my WRT54GL I wondered if there was a better quality hardware to use with this firmware to get a better performance and even good enough for small business use.

The answer is yes there is plenty of hardware choice when it comes to this (and many other) open source firmware that matches if not surpasses the quality of competing brands such as snapgear and sonicwall firewalls.

Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH can be widely found (amazon shipped fast) and fairly cheap for the hardware you get. Note you even get a community firmware with the router already (dd-wrt.com) but I preferred the gargoyle firmware for many reasons (easy interface + great features) so I wanted to upgrade it but it turns out you will need to do a few tricks to get it on this one!

There's a choice of two possible ways to upgrade, using tftp (the method I used) and some other command line method. I normally like the command line but these were new commands to me so I tried the TFTP method and after about 30minutes to an hour I got it! Here's my definitive guide to get it:

1. it is recommended that you connect to the router through a switch (or a router with dhcp turned off - turning it into a switch) this is necessary step for me since my NIC will be turned off until the right upgrade moment has passed.

2. once connected through a switch I played with the arp command on my windows xp PC and figured out that the easiest is to simply do arp -a and copy the mac of your router (for this example purposes I will use 00-23-69-25-aa-aa)

3. now you prepare the arp command in this cmd window while opening another cmd window for tftp. arp -s 192.168.11.1 00-23-69-25-aa-aa is your command that you keep queued up we will need this later.

4. download and locate the right file which is named something like gargoyle_[version#]-ar71xx-wzr-hp-g300nh-squashfs-tftp.bin - get it from Gargoyle download site by choosing Atheros AR71XX from "Select Architecture" menu.

5. in the new cmd window prepare the tftp command which will be something like this: tftp -i 192.168.11.1 PUT gargoyle_[version#]-ar71xx-wzr-hp-g300nh-squashfs-tftp.bin
(keep in mind you will either need to move to the directory of download in command prompt or place the file under the default location that you are in.)

6. Finally, unplug the router, plug it back in and execute the arp -s command queued up in step 3, try the tftp command, and again if it was timed out, it worked for me after once failed as you see in the image below but keep in mind there were a lot of playing until this stage so check arp -a if it shows the router as static. Also note I was unable to ping the router even though it uploaded the image so that appears unreliable but once uploaded leave it be for at least 5 minutes to do it's work. Done!

Enjoy!

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Google Chrome's spell check issue

Ever forget the spelling of a word while typing in a web browser?
You notice this red squiggly line under the word to help correct it. See example >>

Spell checkers have made many lives easier, whether you are are still learning English or were born in English speaking family and still have some spelling mistakes from time to time. I'm not sure their real origin but I do remember Microsoft Word's spell checker first, then it was Firefox and Google search, finally now it's Google Chrome... kinda.

This issue happened many different times, you spell a word just wrong enough for Google Chromenot to suggest what you need!
But that's not the funny part, Google search will actually give you the exact word you wanted:

Anyway if you want to see it in action check the video:


Here's what other people had to say: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?fid=127a69ac5fddee0300049a730630fc0f&hl=en

Thursday, January 13, 2011

The Union Synopsis

Ever wonder what British Columbia's most profitable industries are? Logging? Fishing? Tourism? Ever think to include marijuana? If you haven't, think again. No longer a hobby for the stereotypical hippie culture of the ’60s, BC's illegal marijuana trade industry has evolved into a seemingly unstoppable business giant, dubbed by those involved as 'The Union'. Commanding upwards of $7 billion Canadian annually, The Union’s roots stretch far and wide, directly and indirectly affecting all areas of our society. With 65% to 85% of all 'BC Bud' being exported to the United States, it's clear that the BC marijuana trade has become an international issue with consequences that extend far beyond our borders. When there are record profits to be made, who are the players, and when do their motives become questionable?

•Why is marijuana illegal?
•What health risks do we really face?
•Does prohabition work?
•What would happen if we taxed it?
•Medicine, paper, fuel, textiles, food, etc. Are we missing 

something here? Follow filmmaker Adam Scorgie as he dives head first into Canada's most socially acceptable illegal activity. Along the way, Adam demsytifies the underground market and brings to light how such a large industry can function while remaining illegal. By interviewing experts from around the globe, including growers, clippers, police officers, criminalogists, economists, psychologists, medical doctors, politicians and pop culture icons, Scorgie explores the cause and effect nature of the business behind getting high. 

Nobody's innocent in this exploration of an industry that may be profiting more by being illegal. Join Adam Scorgie as he unravels the mystery of The Union. [Source]

www.theunionmovie.com 

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Ajax Upload working example

My application is a little different but the principle should work for most situations.

Here is the coolest ajax upload code, it includes multi upload, continues (meaning you can keep uploading with it after one or multiple you can upload again) it has progress-bar and even the amazing drag-and-drop in firefox and chrome browsers (why use any other browser anyway right?)

Anyway the usual instructions are to include this code where you want the upload button to appear:

<div id="file-uploader-demo1">
<noscript>
<p>Please enable JavaScript to use file uploader.</p>
<!-- or put a simple form for upload here -->
</noscript>      
</div>


Keep in mind the id of the div, the javascript to include can be done anywhere at the top header or even before this div.

Now here is where I differ from the author's instructions because of my needs; place this function included ajax javascript files:

function createUploader(){          
var uploader = new qq.FileUploader({
element: document.getElementById('file-uploader-demo1'),
action: 'upload.php',
debug: true
});        
}

And since the way I generate the forms, the user clicks on a button which triggers onclick and the onreadystatechange will generate responsetext inside the javascript will not execute as usual so I simply add :
setTimeout('createUploader()', 500);

after the:

xmlHttp.onreadystatechange=thefunc;
xmlHttp.open("GET",url,true);
xmlHttp.send(null);

<place above line here>

So this setTimeout waits for half a second and loads the function of the upload button and iframes associated all on it's own!

Hope someone finds this useful, leave a comment if you do, or have questions, etc.

Friday, December 31, 2010

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Wikileaks and Simpsons

After all the buzz around wikileaks I have been following the stories and got reminded of a very funny episode of the Simpsons that resembled this situation.

The Simpsons season 12 episode 06 called "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes" (2000) when Homer got a computer and made a webpage, to get content on it he wrote a rumor about the mayor using money for street paving to build his private pool! (fox published this webpage with all the articles here: www.mrxswebpage.com).

Mr X. is like wikileaks and Homer Simpson is like Julian Assange! great to watch the old episode again, check it out here: www.icefilms.info/ip.php?v=46979.

Enjoy and tell me what you think!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

How to watch streaming video on icefilms.info

1. Install and open Chrome (or Firefox with greasemonkey)
2. Install the older version of divx web player (also linked from icefilms)
3. Install the quick stream script for icefilms (also linked from icefilms)

You should now be ready to go!

Note: set the "ask to update" preferences of divx player to "once per month" instead of "once per session" because you don't need the new version (always cancel if it asks to update).

Let me know how it goes.

Monday, December 27, 2010

How to delete scan to destination email

HP LaserJet M1522

1. Open the scan software from start>all programs>HP>HP laserjet M1522>Scan

2. Click Setup > Delete existing destination > Next

3. Choose the one to delete click next, confirm and your done!

Friday, December 17, 2010

DivX Streaming website evolution

We came a long way from relativly slow bittorrent downloads which cannot be streamed (because the pieces are not downloaded in-order) and I thought this history is worth mentioning somewhere so here is my version of how it came to be with high quality divx/xvid/avi video streaming websites, also a good way to conclude the end of this year 2010.

1st generation:
It all started when DivX, Inc. created what appeared to be an answer to youtube, a competing video host/streaming site called stage6.
An ambitious idea indeed, actually I thought it was great and hopped it would take off and really be something great. I actually think they could have evolved it further the way youtube started working with copyright holders, record label companies and movie production companies/film studios. Anyway as the webpage says "Stage6 Is No More", they opened up the market for other hosting companies to arise on February 28, 2008 [1] and initially they recommended veoh which did mostly flash based video but with their own spyware software would allow downloading divx, that died in popularity with the HQ lovers like me.

2nd generation:
As it happens stage6 search engine sucked and when it came to copyrighted files (be it music videos, movies or shows) they got deleted often when names were obvious so the tech-savvy users renamed them and posted to private community type sites. One of these sites which I liked a lot was joox (still active). When stage6 announced it goes down, or when it actually went down the search for another host has begun and megaupload (also still active, still the best file host) had the biggest file size limits at the time. This was used with joox for some time until it had some issues and was offline for a long time which brings us to 3ed gen...

3ed generation:
A new search has started and there were (and still are) many websites coming up, going down all the time but this focuses on what I liked the most but in this case it was so widely liked that ninjavideo(no longer active) became a household name like MTV or something. They still used megaupload as the host but they had a very special virtual software that was run on java (not to be confused with javascript), once accepted the warning by opening the "ninjavideo helper" normally followed by a version # which means it was activly being developed, this allowed you to stream divx/xvid avi videos in blazing fast speeds. This special embedding was so good that the only way I found out it uses megaupload is by sniffing the packets and looking up the IP addresses, in other words users would never know where they are hosted.
This was honky dory until the domain name was seized by the united states government on grounds of copyright infringing.

4th generation:
This brings us today to icefilms, yet again using megaupload (notice a common denominator?) and being very useful with searching (google's custom search) and organizing which goes by movies, shows, genre, popularity, real release date and by added to the site date they are all very convenient. There are also great features that I enjoy which is page scraping from imdb, linking to imdb and to youtube for trailers (searches youtube!). All this and even great speed at adding videos from forum posting (unlike ninjavideo's judgment ridden forums). Great speed at new releases and also a great decision is to avoid CAM movies which I hated on ninjavdeo.... just cause it's out there doesn't mean I want this low quality video!
This is all possible with a special "ICE Quick Stream" greasemonkey add-on script which takes the megaupload pages and turns them into embedded divx web player type pages. But I still enjoy using the manual streaming with VLC when installing the plugin script isn't a good option.

Overall this forth generation is the best right now, it does worry me a little that it's using a common denominator (megaupload) but we should change our copyright law's anyway and this will not be a huge concern.

Let me know your thoughts!

Thursday, December 16, 2010

YouTube slow on Rogers Internet throttling

So for some time these has not happend but recently made me quite angry so had presed the print screen button and now reporting back on the internet inequality of Rogers, also known as throttling of bandwidth (or something).


First screen shot shows how slow youtube loads this video Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg Interview

Notice the network utilization is very slow to load this youtube video, to prove that it's isolated to youtube we can use the speed test.
Point A is the first attempt, point B is the second, it's between 6 and 10 percent network utilization compared to barely 1 percent with youtube!


[update: it's getting a little faster at times, at least fast enough to keep up with the video...]

Us Now film review and thoughts

Us Now is a documentary film that asks "Can we all govern? Us Now looks at how 'user' participation could transform the way that countries are governed." [vo.do]. I highly recommend seeing it soon as you have a spare hour (and maybe a few minutes to ponder afterwards). [Watch it on watch.usnowfilm.com or youtube/usnowfilm or download using p2p & bittorrent from vo.do/usnow]

While I always knew about collaborating, helping and sharing ideas and work are great in projects such as Wikipedia, Linux and open source software, rideshare and more, I actually never heard of coutchshare, momnet, management of a soccer team (in England) and even amazingly funds and investments through individuals, helping bands get gigs and even albums made by commenting on good tracks and even contributing some money for them to get studio or air time. These examples only scratch the surface of what can, will and IS being done by collaborating, helping and sharing ideas, work and decisions.

These collaboration tools are really amazing when it comes to those individual things described but this can be much more powerful when applied to bigger impact things such as Government spending, policies and so on. There can be many, many useful places to think about collaboration of thoughts, ideas and even work as we see with many, many projects already happening everyday and probably since the dawn of time!

I think this will play a large role in the future of not only our society but dare I say our humanity and civilization as a whole. Sharing our ideas, knowledge and experiences not only makes our life great but it also benefits everyone. The right and qualified people on particular subject matter are always needed but I also think that any average person can have enough experience and knowledge to contribute to those kinds and more of the conversations, topics and help in decision making or simply question things from their perspective. Having devil advocates always proved a good thing in small groups, imagine having the entire world to help in whatever you can imagine! 

This is an amazing time to be alive, our human population is large and growing thanks to our technological,  medical, chemical, biological and, well, all the topics in the world (and the universe) that we have made serious advances in. This is only possible by our collaboration, sharing our knowledge and learning, experimentation and further observation and advancing our science, engineering and so much more!

The only thing that seems a little lacking is the field of our governing ourselves (and religion but I will not get into that). Most of those ideas are from ancient history and even those things that have been adopted are still very lacking. It's very clear that there will be a new way for us to manage ourselves in the future. True democracy will come when we can accept decisions that a majority agrees on, transparent systems using web technologies that are open and standardized. But I'm sure these will be finally tuned as we grow in the new society.

I think it makes a lot of sense to combine some of the ideas from Future by Design which I reviewed much earlier this year. Although it sounded more like a pipe dream at first, after seeing 'Us Now' it makes much more sense when thinking about resources based economy, together with these sharing technologies that really wire us all together, and help decide collectively as opposed to 'mechanically' as they said in Future by Design or how it is done now and for the past 100s of years, decisions are made by few elitists at the top that, for what ever reason, got there...

When we put our minds together we can accomplish anything, think about how the internet, the truly global network connecting all of humanity together can really take this civilization further and into the future into a much better place for all of us. I think many already agree that so many things are wrong in our civilization (money and government being the top problems), so we really all need this type of system and I think it's not a matter of IF it will be implemented but rather, when and how it will happen.

We all know the saying that two heads are better than one, will in this case we have the entire population (that can access the internet - for now 1 or 2 billion).

Let me know your thoughts!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

how to do a lease take over

Couldn't find the simple step-by-step details so here is what I have so far:

1. Get the credit check application from your leasing company (this is a financial company or manufacturer, ask your dealer if you don't know)
2. Fill the application and send to the company (fax or mail is probably acceptable) = $25 (charged from your usual lease payment method
3. As this happens or before this happens (bear with me as I find out, I will update this step) you need to get your car proof from the provincial ministry (or state organization if in US I assume) to prove the car was not in accidents. = $not sure yet
5. Upon approval I assume the transfer can be done (didn't get this far yet, will update once I do.) = $500 (sent by check from my understanding)

And this is as far as I got so far, if you have any tips or different steps, comments, etc leave them below or privately to my email.
Thanks for visiting!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

How to change IP address

The real answer (for me at least) is different from the most common tutorials on the net, so here's how to do it successfully if you have a cable modem and possibly some DSL (untested) internet service providers.

1. If you have a router gateway, login to your router (this is done by browsing to http://192.168.1.1, use the default password if you don't know it - google search your router model's default password.)

2. Find the MAC address on your router configuration pages, (if you are wired directly to the internet directly from your computer without a router you will need to do this on the computer instead)

3. Change the MAC address even by one digit and Save/commit your changes.

4. Once the saving is done you may require a restart of the router but your IP should now be changed (check via whatismyip.com or similar websites or on the router itself)

Since every router is very different interfaces, default passwords and configurations this is hard to provide in screenshots or otherwise so the major ideas are here but if you have issues feel free to leave a comment.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

MySQL get Query took seconds time taken

Took a bit of time to find this online so here's what I found that works.
This is suppesdly from phpmyadmin (which is where I should've looked) but I was lazy to check there so found it online and worked great!

This is before the query:
list($usec, $sec) = explode(' ',microtime());
$querytime_before = ((float)$usec + (float)$sec);

**query and execution here**

After the query:
list($usec, $sec) = explode(' ',microtime());
$querytime_after = ((float)$usec + (float)$sec);
$querytime = $querytime_after - $querytime_before;

I use functions so this is how I sent back the value:
return array("something" => $something, "qtime" => $querytime);

the function is called normally for outputing the results as well as the time
$thefunction = thefunction(whaterver);

inside the other loop I used this to collect the total queries time together:
$qtime = $thefunction['qtime']+$qtime;

After that, you can output it at the bottom of the page (or where ever):
<?php $strQueryTime = 'Query took %01.4f sec';  echo sprintf($strQueryTime, $qtime); ?>

The final output result will be :
Query took 0.00xxx sec

Let me know what you think in the comments

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Open directory folder via CMD in windows

I had installed the portable xamp version which was great for developing in various places!

Anyway this can apply in many cases but for this case I have to get to inside directory (F:\xamp\xampplite\htdocs\) as you can see it's far inside and takes many clicks, to save time I found a way to get there faster!

Simple: create a text file and type the following:
start xamp\xampplite\htdocs\

Save it as something.bat and place in the root of your flash drive, since they tend to have different drive letters it's best to keep the path relative instead of absolute.

When executed (double click or right click and run) this will open the folder in windows!

Great solution in my opinion, but let me know what you thought (in the comments below)

Appointment Tracking Calendar Program Software CRM

Been developing a CRM (customer relationship management) calendar software application program (in the cloud which means it's web hosted). The main goal of it is to track and manage appointments with additional components for customer relationship management.

It is currently in full production with the company, but we have a private beta version currently open so if you would like to know more please contact me at theborisedu at gmail dot com.

Mainly we are looking for feedback on the current version that we find extremely useful but we can customize the software further for specific needs.

Our main focus are small to medium business that has employees booking appointments for sales people. And if you are interested in a tracking software for both the sales people and employee organizational purpose, professionalism, mobility (anywhere there's a browser and internet: iPhone or other smart phones included).

Whether you (or someone you know) are in those categories and if you currently have a management system for some or all aspects and if you are considering switching or adding components of the business customer relationship managements. Or if you don't have any type of software management use at the moment and looking at options we think we have something great for you!

I would like to to hear from you or that someone you know, about your or their needs for the organization, more about the company and how it operates from a logistics and statistic level, and what kind of the organizing is done at the moment and looking for in the future.

Either leave a comment below or drop us a message (theborisedu at gmail.com) to get more information.

Thanks to everyone.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

How to use LogMeIn - connecting to remote computers

Found an old tutorial and though it's probably somewhat outdated, maybe you can get a general idea or something...

Last updated: April 5, 2009
You will learn how to:
  • Create a LogMeIn account
  • Log in to LogMeIn
  • Access computers with LogMeIn


Follow this this link; Sign up, then go to step 4.
If the link doesn’t work, then follow the following steps.

  1. On a web browser, type http://logmein.com and hit enter.

  2. Click on Create an account (Fig 1).
 Fig. 1

  1. Click on Sign up under LogMeIn free. (Fig 2)



 Fig 2

  1. Fill in your email twice, enter a password twice, choose Canada, and click Create Account. (Your email and that password will be used to login later – so don’t forget what you entered in this section!)
  1. Check your email and follow the instructions in the email to activate your account.

  2. You will receive an email with a verification link, click it. (fig 3)



Fig 3

  1. Once it is activated, let me know which email you used to register/login and which computers you need access to.

  2. Once I include your email in the permissions you will receive an email with the invitation to access the remote computers. (fig 4)
  Fig 4
  1. Click the link to accept the invitation. Enter you first and last name. (fig 5)


Fig 5
  1. Click Next. Now on the “my computers” page click the down arrow under Profile, and select Secondary user for boris123456@email.com. (fig 6)

   Fig 6

  1. Now you will see all the computers that you can log into. Click the computer name if it is online. You will be prompted for a username and password which will be provided by the administrator.

  2. Once logged into the computer, you can remote control it by clicking the “Remote control” button on the left panel.

  3. Click “ok” and “continue” when and if asked while connecting to the computer.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

How to record audio mp3 from computer

Thought this might be useful to someone...
If you have audio playing on your computer (even without speakers, just audio drivers installed) you most likely can recoding it. It's really simple!

You will need:
  • Working audio drivers (if listening to anything works - you have it!)
  • Audacity
1. make sure your audio works, if you hear any sound from sites like youtube, or even test using the sample music in my music folder, the speakers don't have to be in for this to work. Also check if you see the small speaker icon near the clock.

2. Assuming this works go ahead and install Audacity, once done open it and go to the drop down that will show 'Microphone' (or something else?) choose 'Line in' 

3. click the record button (big red circle near the play and pause) if you start playing something with sound (i.e. youtube, music) you should see the audio waves move on it. If not stop, choose the 'Stereo Mix' and try again recoding audio while it's playing. Every computer seems to have a different one that works for it and some have various options so play around until you get which works for you.

4. once done recoding what ever you can click the stop button (square) and now save by clicking file, "Export as MP3" (this may require some other dll but it's not hard to find on google.) name it and your done!

Now you have your mp3 of music from youtube or other places without relaying on third party websites to convert (although there's nothing wrong with them converting it anyway)
Enjoy and let me know what you think in the comments below

Saturday, November 6, 2010

change text color css onfocus onblur

this one seemed tricky but actually pretty simple, thought this code may look a bit clustered I admit there's probably a neater way since I only needed one place with this I didn't bother cleaning, if you do don't forget to hit me about it!

<input type="text" name="search" class="search" size="15" value="Search..." onKeyPress="if(event.keyCode == 13){ search() }" onblur="if(this.value==''){this.value='Search...'; this.className = 'unfocused';}; " onfocus="this.className = 'focused'; if(this.value=='Search...'){this.value=''};" />

This adds on to the previous post about search input text that will display "search..." and disappear when clicking it, this addition makes the text gray and back to black when use types into the box (on focus)

heres the css:

.search{
color:gray;
}
.focused {
color:black;
}

try it out and let me know how it goes!