Better late than never, but yes... Merry Christmas, guys.

Checked off the obligatory "watch A Christmas Story at least once during the 24 hour marathon" early Christmas even and didn't do a damn thing yesterday. It was glorious.

How are you gentlemen? All your base are belong to us!

A couple of guys over at Bloomberg put together their predictions for the upcoming new year, and my main take away from reading through it is that they are still upset that Hillary lost the election. They are pretty much saying that since one man - Trump - won the 2016 Presidential Election in the US that the entire world as we know it is going to cease to exist.

Certainly, I will admit that he probably wasn’t the best candidate that the Republican Party could have nominated, but the sad reality is that come late January of 2017 he will be president whether we like it or not. Unless of course enough college kids skip class the day after he takes office. He might be forced to then step down or face the reality that because he took office millions of college students aren’t going to graduate with super useful pottery and ultimate frisbee degrees and cease to keep piling on to the tremendous student loan debt that will never be repaid. China will hate us if this happens since they own most of our debt, anyway.

Regardless, I highly doubt that we’re going to see that much change in his first term. I think people are giving modern day Washington too much credit thinking that stuff is actually going to get done for a change. Not going to happen. Sorry, folks. That’s like giving them credit for covering up aliens - do we honestly think that these guys can keep that a secret? Bill Clinton couldn’t even keep Monica Lewenski a secret.

But these guys at Bloomberg got me thinking… What is really going to happen in 2017? Is it going to be all doom and gloom like they want us to believe? No, I don’t think so. I reckon that it’s going to be a great year - I think there are going to be a lot of breakthroughs that are going to change the planet for the better. Here are my predictions for the upcoming new year.

Eradication of Gluten Intolerance
I took a trip to the local grocery story tonight and saw a twenty-something year old woman struggling in the bread aisle to find a loaf of bread that was gluten free. I’m guessing she had a severe gluten allergy, and so did her infant in the shopping cart.

Gluten intolerance has become an epidemic and is really starting to negatively impact the lives of people. It’s gotten so bad in fact that there are even online dating communities dedicated to those who have gluten intolerances. I’ve heard rumors that they are even developing a site similar to LinkedIn for professionals who have gluten intolerances and want to share their accomplishments.

A few researchers from Norway have recently announced that they are on the verge of eliminating gluten from all foods once and for all. They have been doing small scale studies in large abandoned warehouses in which they pump a special gas into the ventilation system and it actively works to destroy gluten in the foods in which it comes in contact. Researches say that if they could retro-fit commercial airliners with special tanks and release them mid flight it should provide enough coverage to stop the epidemic once and for all. They do, however, recommend that people wear tin foil hats when this happens because people are likely to think that planes are leaving behind what are known are “chem clouds”. Also, jet fuel can’t melt steel beams.

This stack of US currency represents the entire cost of tuition of just two Ultimate Frisbee graduates.

Elimination of All Student Loan Debt
It’s really no surprise that student loan debt is out of control in the United States. What did we expect was going to happen when colleges claimed that everyone should go to college and then society agreed and more or less shamed all young adults to go to college regardless of whether or not they should have actually went. How do we honestly expect an 18 year old kid who can barely even wake up before 10am on their own accord to make such significant financial decisions so early on in their life. They do not understand the weight of a 60, 70 or in some cases 100,000 dollar loan. Then to make matters worse, they major in something like ultimate frisbee and wonder how they’re going to pay back $100,000 with crazy interest rates.

But not to worry, 2017 is going to be their lucky year when Donald Trump takes a page out of Bernie Sanders’ book and mandates that all universities in the United States will be free for all and all outstanding student loan debt will be forgiven. Nevermind the immediate downward spiral the global economy would take because of such an event, but thank god almighty universities are finally free for all. Bring on the endless cry ins, free tacos, and exams that you may or may not have to take!

But how is this all going to be paid for? Don’t worry - Keely Mullen has a plan to make it happen that she so eloquently laid out on national TV in an interview with Neil Cavuto. We’re going to tax the 1% at an unheard of tax rate of 99% in order to make up for the inequality and unjust loans in the country. Unfortunately, this still leaves a fairly large gap that still needs to be covered. Maybe the problem lies within the tremendous increases in tuition? Just a thought.

Police Forces Turning in Their Weapons
In a strange turn of events in 2017, Trump is going to slowly but surely take away the guns from our men and women in uniform and instead give them rape whistles and wooden pistols to stop the bad guys. We can thank the 2010 movie “The Other Guys” for this.

It’s no surprise that the media wants us to believe that it’s all over if you get pulled over by the police. They want you to think that you’re going to get shot up for speeding or not using your indicator when turning. In fact, rumor has it that some countries are actually issuing warnings to their citizens that they advise against traveling to the United States if they do not have to. What the media doesn’t tell you, however, is that if you are speeding, pulled over, and then give them a hard time and lead them to believe that you have something to hide you’re more likely to be viewed in a negative light by law enforcement. How it unfolds from there is between you and the police officer, but you probably shouldn’t let it ever get to that point. I will agree that there are crooked cops out there just as there are crooked teachers, doctors, etc, but the media has blown this out of proportion.

The police paranoia has gotten so bad, in fact, that people are actually calling the police well... on the police. You’re a cop trying to take college courses by attending courses right after a shift but don’t have time to change out of your uniform? Watch out, the professor is likely to stop the class and dial 911 because you’re an armed police officer in class. Obviously, in this situation, the police refused to show up citing that the police officer was well within his rights to open carry while in class. If anything, wouldn’t those in class feel more safe with a police officer given how many school shootings there have been recently?

Not to worry, Trump is going to pass an executive order prohibiting all police officers from carrying any type of real weapon with them lest it’s a rape whistle or wooden pistol. This should put an end to the rash of killings carried out by police with itchy trigger fingers. The proposed order will state that until the score is even between civilians and police, they will not be able to carry firearms. Once even, they then will be able to carry a pistol with a special one round magazine.

Google Image Search for 'skull cap'... Close enough, I guess.

All US-Based ISPs Imposing Asinine Bandwidth Caps
Thinking about being one of the millions who are “cutting the cord”? Think again. It’s no secret that cable companies in the US absolutely RAPE their customers. Between outlandish costs to “rent” their crappy equipment, about four minutes of commercials per ten minutes of live content, and them throttling traffic from Netflix and other streaming services, it doesn’t take an industry expert to understand that they have a virtual monopoly on digital content consumption in the US, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. And they know this.

Going to cut the cord? Fine, go ahead and do it. But they will just put some insanely low bandwidth cap on your connection and then charge you X per gig over that limit. Why? Because they have to (want to) come up with that lost income somehow and that’s the way that they can do it. And what do you know? Come the end of the month your bill will almost be exactly the same as it was prior to cutting the cord.

I would wager a fair amount of money that many major ISPs in 2017 will be implementing lower and lower bandwidth caps until the FCC has to step in and mandate it. What’s next? ISPs are going to start filtering out what they believe to be “fake news” since it doesn’t promote their agenda and their respective party they are backing in Washington?

Under no circumstances am I to be held liable should any of the above actually happen or not in 2017. I think this is the same for every year that goes by, but 2016 shouldn't be a really hard year to overcome. 2017 doesn't have big shoes to fill, that's for certain. I for one, however, am anxious to see what the year 2101 A.D. brings us.

This winter isn't going to fool me. I predict another late blooming winter here in the north east. And I welcome it this year since I get to work from home.

That's ok though... I'm sure power will be knocked out for at lest a week to make up for it, though.

Thanks, Chris. Truth be told, these are all terrible themes, but at least the blue ones don't make me want to rip out my eyes.

LOL! I know what you mean. I'm tempted one day to edit the CSS to mimic the old school Hcker Network theme from the early 2000s. To be honest, SMF really isn't the most user friendly, so we'll see what happens.

Honestly, I hate the theme and want the option to change it back. I understand the appeal of dark themes, but black & yellow? What is this, a construction company?

The sidebars bug the shit out of me - but those I can hide.

And unless I'm blind, I don't see a way to participate in the shout box. Must be an admin-only thing.

Ahh, I missed that check box for allowing user to select their own themes. Yous should be good to go now.

I'll check out the shot box issues... thanks for the heads up!

Edit: I think we're good on the shot box issue, too.

Pepe stole it

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: eek: : mad: fffffhop dopjeo
esporadico_eximio@ hotmail .com
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Main stream media - aka "the news" is reporting that fake news - aka "the news" - might have played a bigger part in the recent presidential election that was previously thought. They're blaming Facebook for propagating fake news which fueled Trump's rise to power because people who were on the fence for Hillary decided they read one too many negative news articles about her and thus voted for Trump. Obama is hinting at censorship to combat this problem, but I think the real problem is the fact that we actually have enough people in society now who are relying on a site like Facebook for their main source of news.

It was bad enough having to sift through the biased news articles on CNN's and FOX News' website because there were always considered to be questionable, but now we have people thinking Facebook is a real source for news? What's next? People are going to start relying on people's internet dating profiles for their autobiographies? That seems kind of crazy, right? Why? Because we all know that what people write on the internet is just one big lie to begin with.

"I read it on the internet, it must be true" was always a sarcastic dig at the internet's credibility up until about November 8th 2016 when Americans actually believed that because they read it on the internet, well, then it must be true! But what about before November 8th? Was fake news a problem then? Were there internet hoaxes before then? Of course there were! But people were mostly too smart at the time to fall for them.

Share this picture and BMW is going to give away a brand new BMW!

Share this picture of a BMW and win a new BMW!

I have probably seen something like this at least 500 times on social media in the last few years. Actually, since it is close to the holidays, my news feed is long over due for one. And it usually isn't just BMW giving away one car, they some how made exactly 22 too many of a certain model and need to get rid of them so they're going to be giving them away to a random 22 people who like and share the image on Facebook.

Back in 2007/2008 when this sort of thing was tried not many people fell for it. Sure, there weren't as many people using social media at the time, but it just feels as though now people are more gullible and believe something like this more than they did in 2007/2008. Who knows though, maybe companies like BMW and RV companies are doing so well that they're willing to give away some free stuff. Hey, it's worth a shot, right?

What's the worst that can happen? Most of your friends will see that you shared it and think you're gullible. No. Don't be ridiculous - they're going to share it as well.

This guy who just won the Power Ball is going to give away $10 million!!!1

How many times have we seen this right after a big drawing? You know, the one that no one wins, yet somehow some asshole claims that they won and tries to go viral by posting a picture of him holding up a Photoshopped lottery ticket. The gimmick is that if you like and share the picture he or she will randomly select someone and see to it that they get $10 million dollars of their earnings.

I'll tell you what... If I just won a Power Ball drawing worth $300 million I would not be advertising to the world that I won and I wouldn't be advertising that I fake won, either. $300 million is a lot of cash and people will actually kill for that amount of money. That isn't just "well off" money, that is money that can start to shape local economies if used correctly.

This is almost like the people who are protesting Trump winning yet didn't even vote. Why would you do that? You got your chance at democracy and you blew it. If you actually win the lottery and then advertise it to the world that you won then you blew your chance at actually being able to enjoy the money.

Methodus Toolz

Pseudo Hacking Toolz for l33t h4x0rs

Talk about a blast from the past, Methodus Toolz was a program from 1999/2000 that was used to "hack" AOL accounts and give other users viruses if you felt inclined to do so. If I recall correctly, one of the features included a "hard drive spinner" that would make your hard drive spin wildly out of control and burn up and burn your entire house down while in the process.

Users of the program believed this so much that they would use it at the first hint of an argument in a chat room. Didn't think Britney Spears was hot? Get ready to get h4x0red!

What they failed to realize was that the program itself (Methodus Toolz) was more than likely some kind of virus that allowed its coders to gain sensitive information. The only down side about the whole plot was that the developer didn't realize that 12 year olds don't have bank account information on their computers.

The list can really go on and on. This is nothing new. It didn't take the internet to suddenly fabricate fake news or other fake stories. The problem is people's overall willingness to believe what they're consuming and taking it literally at face value.

People - you need to wake up. You can't rely on The Onion for news, nor can you rely CNN, Fox News, a website with the term "3 percent" in the domain name, or a site like Jezebel to deliver unbiased news. Use multiple sources and most of all use you common sense. Jesus.

It's been a very, very long time since I've done anything with any of my web-based stuff. True, I've gotten a lot older (Read: wiser) since I was introduced to the internet at the ripe old age of just 14 and some things that were once important to me just aren't even on my radar anymore. If you're reading this and you're 14 or 15 (Do they even teach kids how to read these days?) this concept might not make sense to you now, but give it another 10/15 years and you will have that magical "ah-ha!" moment when you look back and ask yourself "How did I ever once give two shits about that shit?"

I'll admit, web development was one of those things that kind of went by the wayside. I had (and still have) tons of other stuff going on in my life that really trump (No pun-intended!) developing new web content, not to mention staying on top of the endless software patches that are needed to operate a website/server. Within the last week or so, I have since migrated all of my web content to a much cheaper host and have fixed up the forums so they are now working once again. It's my intention to stay on top of this shit since I am at a much more stable point in my life now than I was over the last several years.

So if you're reading this now and wonder what the hell I'm talking about - I'll give you some background. I registered this domain name back in early 2001 and developed it into what was then known as an E/N website - Everything and Nothing. They were old school "blogs" that weren't run by whiney wine-guzzling-hippies like today's blogs. They were run by down to Earth chill people who just wanted a little slice of the web to their own. And I was one of those people. Back around 2008/2009 I simply had too much stuff going on in my life and could not really afford to dedicate any time to my side projects anymore. Sadly, I just kind of let the place die off. The software/content management systems started to break since they were neglected and that was pretty much the end of it.

That being said, let me bring you up to speed on a few things that attributed to me not having time between 2009 and 2016 to devote myself to my web-ventures.

Work and College

Combined these two things took up the bulk of my time. Looking back at my course load in college and how much I worked, I honestly don't know how I did it. I always took a full course load, and I usually found myself to be working between 60 and 70 hours a week in the restaurant industry as a general manager. So here we are in 2016 and I can now confirm this is a rare thing these days - you know, to work full time and go to college full time. I will say, Bernie Sanders was the closest thing everyone has had to not having to endure juggling work and college courses at the same time. Unless of course you have rich parents who buy you everything. Don't worry though, if you're one of those special snowflakes it might seem awesome to you now and you might try and rub it in your friend's faces, but give it enough time... they are doing you a disservice and you will one day realize this. Let that sink in now.

Lifting Shit

This is kind of what happens when you tear a pec. This is also kind of not me.

I'm pretty much the text book definition of a geek. But the one part I do stray from the norm when it comes to traditional geeks is that I like to lift. And I'm not talking about just showing up to the gym for a few minutes to get a few sets in and then leave just so I can tell myself I went to the gym that day. No. I'm talking about power lifting at the competitive level. It might have started out as me just going to the gym for the sake of going to the gym but then some time in 2009/2010 I got into power lifting thanks to a guy I met in college who convinced me to start switching up the way I lifted. I competed about 8 times and placed 6 times out of those 8. In 2015 it was going to be the first time I would compete in the 220lb weight class but I tore my left pectoral 5 days prior to the competition. Surprisingly it did not hurt as much as one would think. I tell people it felt like someone took a bendy straw and pulled it apart so the accordion piece was stretched out. For those of you who MUST have numbers: I was able to squat 450, bench 380, and dead lift 500 right before the injury. I'm still on the road to recovery today.

Life

Last but not least... I've been busy living life. You know, finding the right woman of my dreams, finding a house to move in to, all that fun stuff. So now that I have all of that stuff out of the way, I can not afford to spend a little more time doing side projects such as this. Besides, this is way cheaper than some other hobbies or things I could be doing with my free time. If money ever gets tight, I guess I could always go on Craigslist and find a part time or full time protesting job in my nearby city.

I realize it's a long road ahead for me to get this place kind of running again. I'll work on getting some of my older content migrated over, as well as get the color scheme and theme locked down. I'll try to keep BS posts like this down to a minimum. After all, this was always intended to be a spot for biased and unbalanced news.

TIL: The metropark police aren't messing around when it comes to curfew and the new (but not yet open) mountain bike trail.  They let me off with a warning.

GIS for "stop resisting meme"

Alright so I've made a few changes to the look and feel of the forums.

Everyone should now be on a dark retro-ish Geek Forum-style theme. If anything is broken let me know in this thread. Also... I couldn't resist re-installing the shoutbox. What the hell.

Some of you guys might have to update your bookmarks.

geekforum.org now redirects directly to http://www.geekforum.org/index.php?action=forum which is the URL for the forum index.

gotthegeek.com now redirects to http://www.geekforum.org/index.php which is a Slashdot-like home page where articles can be posted and certain threads can be "promoted" to the main page.

Update your bookmarks accordingly depending on how much BS you want yourself to be exposed to. By combining things this way I can just focus on one site rather than two. Half the trouble, double the fun. I think.

Creed

I'm going to have to watch this. My father was ranting and raving about this one when he first saw it.

...Jersday - you know... Thursday nights when new episodes of Jersey Shore would air :shudder:

Also - why does my hair have to grow so fast? I've resorted to cutting my own hair to save money since it seems so frequent now.