Archive for April, 2012

Samsung’s Smart TV – Is Technology Being Used Against Us?

Recently I saw a television commercial for Samsung’s new Smart TV.

The TV commercial showed off a variety of features from voice commands to gesture control technology.  Visiting the company’s website allows us to see that the features go way beyond that.  Apparently the built-in camera can go as far as recognizing users and logging them into Internet-based applications such as Facebook and Skype.

The TV also comes with an abundance of features and applications, and additional ones can be downloaded from Samsung’s website.  Without a doubt, this is the next generation of high-definition, Internet accessible televisions, something that will set the standards for future televisions.

As a whole the Samsung Smart TV sounds pretty slick.

But when you look a little bit deeper, these features can easily be used against you as a person and as society as a whole.

Samsung Smart TV – TV commercial

Does this advancement in television seem like innocent entertainment, or do you see other issues that seem downright sinister?

Read more…

Great Plains Tornado Outbreak Aftermath – April 14-15, 2012

Two days ago, an area from northwestern Oklahoma to southeastern Nebraska and Iowa experienced a deadly tornado outbreak.  The damage occurred right in the heart of the Great Plains and its infamous “Tornado Alley.”

Storm Prediction Center storm reports – April 14, 2012

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Storm Prediction Center storm reports – April 15, 2012

So far the National Weather Service has confirmed 41 tornadoes out of the 156 reported during the outbreak.  The vast majority of tornadoes struck central and southern Kansas.  The only reported fatalities came when an EF3 tornado hit a mobile home park in Woodward, Oklahoma, killing six people.

Tornado probability outlook issued on April 14, 2012.

What makes the April 14-15, 2012 Great Plains Tornado Outbreak interesting is that the National Weather Service began issuing statements warning of extremely dangerous weather two days in advance of the outbreak.  Normally those kinds of warnings are only issued 12-24 hours before the weather develops. Read more…

Just A Little Bit of Luck . . .

. . . at some point.

That’s all we need right now.

My girlfriend and I have been going through quite a few tough times lately.  Not with our relationship, but rather events in general surrounding us.  It doesn’t help matters that pretty much all of those events are out of our control.

For a moment I was actually believing that something good was on its way.  There were a brief series of good events, a minor setback or two, a full day in the hospital on Easter Sunday, and then slow progress and improvement this week.

And then in the mail today — BAM!  More bad news.

There was no explanation for it.  No reasoning behind it.  Just plain old bad news.  It’s hard to blame it on bad luck since this kind of news has been semi-frequent for the past few months.  It’s just that this particular case seems so odd since the events leading up to it went so well.

Throw in the fact that today is Friday the 13th and there you go.  While I’m a superstitious person with some events, I don’t consider this to be an evil day in general.

At some point we need a little bit of good luck to help us out of this rut.  That’s all.  We can make the rest of it work from there.

Until then, it’s time to keep working on the problem(s) and see if any positive solutions materialize.