Interesting stuff you should know

On February 20th the United States Geological Survey (USGS) released a statement on their website that said, "Earthquake Catastrophes and Fatalities to rise in populous in 21st Century". I bookmarked it because I planned to post about it with some questions. I went back today to the link and the article was removed from their website. I have no idea why; but, I had read the article and found it strange. Basically they said there would be more earthquakes and more people would die because the world has more people.

They never explained why we would experience more earthquakes, we are indeed experiencing more; but, are told it is just a fluke and nothing to be concerned about by the media. The second part is also interesting, that we would see more deaths. We should see less deaths and let me explain why. Most deaths occur from building collapses and non-structural earthquake hazards (your refrigerator falling on you). I live in earthquake territory and the fact is, cities in these areas tend to make buildings to withstand such quakes. The worst building to be in are made of Un-reinforced masonry (bricks without metal rods keeping them together through their middle). I am sure someone else picked up this story; but, I didn't look.

Next, we have this from Wired - 3 Radical New Brain-Mapping Tools Obama’s Plan Could Deliver. They are coming to map your brain, we want to know what you are thinking so that we can duplicate it with a machine and we don't need you anymore. The Obama administration is proposing a multi-billion dollar program to map out the brain in the same way they mapped out the genome. I am lazy so you will have to do an internet search for that one, I forgot where I read it.

Funny, when I was a kid they still gave people lobotomies. They used to take a needle and poke it into people's brains to cure them of their mental illness. There is a song that jokes about it, the singer says, "I would rather have a bottle in front of me then a full frontal lobotomy." What if they could identify the individual neurons that allow you to be unhappy, would you want them to? It wouldn't effect anything else, you would still be you would never be unhappy. When I got divorced my therapist (yes, I actually went and saw one and he was wonderful, for all I know he still reads the blog) thought I should consider taking some pills for anxiety. I saw the doctor and he wanted to give me something for long term depression, which I did not have. I opted for something short term that I only took as needed and at the lowest dose possible. My comment was simple, it is okay to be sad when circumstances call for it. The idea of being only happy is depressing, we would miss out on so much of life and learning and life is about growing.

Then we have this from the New American - Killing the Dollar: G20 & IMF Push for Global Fed, Global Currency. Basically, the 20 largest economies wish to create an international reserve bank. I have written about this enough in the past that my regular readers will understand. It is pretty simple, we are going to have a global currency and any currencies that appear to be local will not truly be so because international regulation will set their value.

MyFoxNY - Net providers begin warning of illegal downloads. Again something I have been talking about for years, when I first said how this would happen, I was called a conspiracy theorist. I have to say something, my most read posts were both highly unusual for my blog. The most read was about the dear Pastor Daniels and the second most read was about how Stephen Hawking is a douche. The vast majority of my posts are about corruption in the pension funds and news about technology. While I have written follow up posts regarding the dear Pastor, I don't think I have written about Hawking again. It makes me wonder if the people that came here because of those two subjects, just hated the rest of what I write about.

TIME - Finally, Tattoos That Let You Control Objects with Your Mind. Have fun with this article.

Wired - Freescale’s Insanely Tiny ARM Chip Will Put the Internet of Things Inside Your Body

The articles I link to are the ones that will really change your life, not the Academy Awards, these things will change our lives and not enough people seem to care; but, enough do. Have a great week.