URL: http://www.gotthegeek.com/content/view/231/1/

Have you ever felt as though you just didn’t want to go into work because there was no use in doing so because every day is the same thing? You’re not alone. In fact, millions of people feel this same way each and everyday that they go into work.

Recently I have noticed myself having a lessened sense of motivation on all fronts of my life – both professionally and personally. I have noticed my enthusiasm towards work dwindling and my devotion to weight lifting almost have no meaning at all. I have taken it upon myself to begin to read up on self-motivation skills and find out just what goes on inside of our minds that lead us to believe that sleeping all day is the right course of action to cope with our lack of motivation.

What lies ahead is a collection of ideas and thoughts that I have gathered while reading countless articles on self-motivation, as well as trying a few different methods over the last several weeks while at work, at home, and generally out and about. Ok, well maybe not countless articles. But a fair amount.

Be honest with yourself
Personally, I think the first step towards effective motivation in the work place is simply being honest with yourself. Ask yourself this string of questions: “Is this really what I want to do? Is this a job or a career? Is my personal life and my professional life congruent with one another?” The answers to these questions should begin to shed light on to whether or not you can truly be motivated to the point where the benefits of the work you produce serve as motivation to you. If you can honestly say that the results of your work motivate you to produce more work of the same caliber, then you have found your calling. Think of this calling like a turbo but instead of utilizing exhaust to produce more power, more motivation leads to more passionate motivation and it feeds on itself.

If however, you only see your job as a job and not a career, and don’t allow your personal and professional lives to be congruent with one another, then it might take some outside motivation to help you realize that the job you are working is indeed a career and should be allowed to intertwine with your personal life. This doesn’t mean that any “job” can be turned into a “career”. Being a police officer isn’t for everyone, just like being a professional football player isn’t for everyone. You have to use your own judgment when it comes time to call it quits and move on to hopefully finding the career that’s meant for you.

Have a positive attitude
Motivation and attitude go hand in hand. If someone has a poor attitude towards whatever it is they are doing, then most likely they lack motivation as well. If someone has an eager “can do” attitude towards what they are doing, then they most likely have the motivation that is needed to be successful in life.

This is something that I suspect almost all workers do from time to time: Complain about their place of work. People tend to complain about customers, co-workers, superiors, and even the environment in which they work.

This is probably one of the worst habits that a person can pick up aside from hard core drugs that create an attachment stronger than a mother has towards her child. Take weight training as an example. In order to be able to lift 300 pounds, you must first work your way up to 100, then 120, then 140 and so on. By doing this you are conditioning your muscles to be able to endure the weight and stress of the object you are trying to lift. With that same thought process, by continuously believing that everyday at work is the worst day of your life you are conditioning your mind and body to believe that it’s true. For those of you familiar with psychology, this idea is very similar to learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is a condition in which the subject has learned to believe that it is helpless in a particular situation when in fact there are solutions to the problem at hand.

How can you expect to be motivated towards something that you have conditioned yourself to dislike and/or hate? If Olympic athletes told themselves every morning when they woke up that they hate the sport that they have so passionately trained for countless hours in order ascertain a feat that only a hand full of individuals in the world can relate to, would they be able to succeed and become world class athletes? Most likely not.

Instead of having a negative demeanor, challenge yourself to do the following: When you are woken up in the morning by your alarm clock, resist the urge to proclaim, “Oh god, another day of work from hell!” Instead make an effort to reinforce in your mind that the day ahead is going to be a good day. Make this a conscience effort for a month; Everyday for one month. By the end of a one month period, you should no longer have to force yourself into thinking that the day ahead of you will not be a day from hell, but instead be the first day of the rest of your life. If you need help accomplishing this goal, keep telling yourself that you will think positive thoughts about the next day upon waking up before you go to sleep. Keep repeating this mental reminder for several minutes while you are trying to go to sleep.

Set Goals
Before I go on about goals, it’s important to note that the way in which you construct your goals determines the outcome in which you will likely derive from that goal. If you make your goal too broad then the chances of you achieving that goal during the allotted amount of time are greatly reduced. If your goal is very specific and you are honest with your own abilities, then the chances of you achieving your goal are greatly increased.

Setting goals is a good idea because it gives direction. If you go into work everyday and you don’t know what you are working towards, then you have no purpose, and without a purpose, you most likely don’t have any motivation to get the work done. Setting goals solves that problem of not having a clear direction in which to work towards.

Think of goals having a structure that is shaped just like a triangle. At the pinnacle is your definitive goal which is impossible to reach without the goals that are below them – This concept is very similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in which in order for self-actualization to take place (Which is located at the tip of the triangle) the needs below it must be fulfilled. What you decide as your definitive goal is up to you, and the height of the triangle depends on that very same goal. The more outrageous the goal is, the higher the triangle will have to be in order to accommodate such goals. If you find that you have a somewhat difficult goal at the pinnacle of the triangle, yet the height of the triangle is very short, your lower level goals may be too broad and you might be setting yourself up for failure before even starting.

Remember goals are like pennies: A penny is a penny, 100 pennies make up a dollar, and so on and so forth. Each large goal is broken down into many other smaller goals that can be reached on an almost daily basis. Wouldn’t it be nice to score a goal everyday rather than once every several months? Winning is a good way to boost motivation, so do yourself a favour and set some goals that you can score.

Learn from your mistakes and failures
If there’s one thing I’m good at while at work, it’s learning from my mistakes. Each and everyday on my way home from work I think to myself what I could have done differently in order for things to gone better. I make a mental note of that and the next day that I work I make it a point to work out that issue before it becomes a problem. This doesn’t mean I just focus on the negative things that have happened during the day – I take time to reflect upon the positive things during the day. Though it almost goes without saying that in order to improve on something I must be able to honestly identify points of weakness.

Don’t be afraid to admit to yourself and to others that you have done something wrong. You’re better off owning up to your mistakes when your boss inquires as to what went wrong rather than trying to lie or place the blame on someone else. Make sure that you learn from your mistakes though. Don’t let them haunt you for they are likely to be the first thing that you think about the next day when that alarm clock goes off and it’s time to get ready for work again.

Switch things up
Vito Whitlach has said this before in his weight loss blog: “The only thing that shouldn’t change is change itself”. Avoid becoming burnt out by doing different things at different times of the day in a totally different order than the previous day if at all possible. This will keep your mind on its toes trying to guess what’s going to be the next thing around the corner.

The idea behind this is to make the idea of working more appealing if you find yourself having a hard time staying motivated and focused on the task at hand. This idea of constantly changing the order in which you do things works great when weight training. If you’ve ever tried lifting weights for several weeks straight you’ll know what I’m talking about. After several weeks of conditioning your body to lift a certain amount of weight after doing a certain sequence of exercises, it’s no longer breaking down muscle in order to endure the strain of such lifts. In this case your muscles have effectively become numb to the daily grind of the same work out routine that you have been following for the last several weeks. In order to overcome this, simply switch the order in which you do things along with changing the amount of resistance, and you should start to see improvements once again.

I have added a new feature to the forums: Referral tracking.

You will notice in your profile that there are three new statistics that the forums now track:

Referrals: The amount of members that have actually signed up as a result of you directing them to the forums.

-Referral hits: The amount of times people have thought about signing up for a membership as a result of your efforts.

-Referral link: This link can be placed on a web page, email, another forum, etc in order to have new members sign up and give you credit for the registration. Prospective members have 60 days to sign up for a membership before the cookie will expire.  Of course, if the user clears their cookies, you will not be credited for the sign up.

In the future I plan on having referral contests to see who can send the most members this way. We're talking quality members here. Not Bobby Dodgerson type members.

URL: http://www.gotthegeek.com/content/view/225/1/

Ricky Anders is the personification of “average”. He’s your typical 23-year-old overly-ambitious American male who just finished college with a degree in pottery. Since birth he’s always managed to maintain an average lifestyle: Average height and weight, average grades, average daily calorie intake, average hair length. Ricky was as average as taking the mean of a set of ten numbers that are all the same.

Perhaps one of Ricky’s only somewhat unusual traits was his ability to come up with somewhat unusual ideas for having fun. Ricky’s idea of fun has never simply been drinking a few beers at a party with his friends. Instead, Ricky has always been a thrill seeker and stops at no end to get his adrenaline pumping.

It’s was your average day in May – just the way Ricky liked it. The sky was clear, the air was warm and free of humidity and there was a slight breeze from his back which made a large grin appear on his face. The wind gave him reassurance that he was sure to make it into the Florida record books with his next jump. He was as ready as he was ever going to be for the jump of his life, and the jump of his life was as ready as it was ever going to be for him.

Ricky gave the signal to his friend in his work van to slowly accelerate towards the ramp at the end of Grant Street. As he did the nylon rope he was holding in one hand began to grow tighter as it bore the entire weight of his somewhat muscular 145-pound body. As Ricky and his BMX stunt bike began to pick up speed, Ricky noticed that the bike’s front assembly was wobbling because it was not meant for such fast speeds. Though not sure of exactly how fast he was traveling, Ricky thought that he at least hit 40mph right before hitting the ramp. As he got closer to the ramp Ricky began to have second thoughts about the jump, but realized that to abort the jump now would mean total disaster; The brakes on the BMX weren’t made to stop it from going 40mph, not to mention nearly all of his friends were looking on waiting to see him make the jump or bite the dust.

3, 2, 1… Ricky hits the jump and as he’s looking down he sees a blue chalk line and two Xs about 5 feet from where the jump was positioned. He and his two friends calculated that at that exact distance from the building he would make it with a foot to spare. But if he remembered correctly, the ramp was supposed to be on the marks, not after them. It was too late. Just as Ricky looked up to see where he was in relation to the building, the building was already in between his front and rear wheel and the next thing he knew he was looking up into the clear blue sky from a row a bushes.

The above anecdote plays out over and over again on almost what seems to be a daily basis now that services such as YouTube and Google Video (Which happen to be nearly the same thing) allow people to share videos of them doing things that they think are amazing but turn out to be complete failures. Before the advent of YouTube and Google Video, only the dumbest of the dumb ever became famous because in order for their videos to get out to the general public they relied on major news outlets to broadcast them.

There must be some significant driving force behind these people that motivates them into attempting such unrealistic stunts that not even Jackie Chan or Chuck Norris could perform even on their best days. It’s apparent that there’s something more than just fame driving these people after they bite the curb and then get back up and go for it again. We’ve set out to uncover some of the reasons why people attempt crazy and stupid stunts and post their results – successful or unsuccessful - on the internet.

The Adrenaline Rush:
Epinephrine, or “adrenaline” as it’s commonly known throughout the non-medical world, is a hormone that is quickly released in the body during periods of stress. This stress may be a result from threatening environmental factors such as like being 100 feet in the air and knowing you’re not going to land safely, as well as increased levels of excitement and anxiety – Such as the anxiety of knowing you’re not going to land safely.

Adrenaline has almost identical effects on the body as some drugs that are available from pharmacies and street pharmacies around the world. Such effects include an increased heart rate and stroke volume, dilated pupils, and arterioles become constricted both in the skin and the gut. Not to mention adrenaline serves as a great way to break down lipids in the body, so those of you who have trouble losing weight may want to think about jumping off of buildings in an effort to slim down for the summer.

For most stuntmen, doing bat shit insane stunts is like a heroine addict doing as much heroine as they can possibly get their hands on within a 24 hour period. Sure, they may overdose and die in the process, but it’s the rush that they get while doing it that they enjoy the most.

Many describe the rush that they get immediately before a stunt to be almost euphoric in nature – a natural high that the police and DEA can’t bust you for. Perhaps it’s this natural euphoric rush - which also happens to be legal unlike the million other drugs they probably take leading up to the initial thought of jumping the Grand Canyon on a tricycle – that is the main driving force behind such stunts.

The most common response heard when asked “why” is “it’s the rush I get”. Our research shows that this is the most common reason why people do such stupid things while on camera. The fact that it was caught on camera is nothing more than coincidence. Furthermore, the fact that it’s now posted on YouTube or Google Video allows the entire world to laugh at other people’s sheer acts of stupidity.

We weren’t totally satisfied with this one reason as to why there are over a million stupid videos out there that depict people doing stunts that even God himself could not perform so we kept looking for the perfect reason which might explain it all.

Fame and Possibly Fortune:
We went on to discover that some dream about becoming rich and famous after successfully completing a record setting stunt, or a stunt that is so unique that no one has thought about performing it yet. One young man mentioned that the stunt of all stunts to perform would be to somehow fabricate a bike that would be able to travel fast enough to enable the rider to jump over the Atlantic Ocean and land safely on the other side. He added that if someone could achieve such an accomplishment, they would surely win the Nobel Peace Prize. He failed to realize that there is such a bike that can do just that, but it’s no longer called a bike when it travels nearly 500 miles an hour and altitudes of 20,000 feet – it’s called a plane.

Every stuntman can only dream about being as popular as the late Evil Knievel once was. We all know that Knievel was very popular with the ladies and had a plethora of money to go around which enabled him to buy a nice double-wide mobile living unit, a nice car, and most importantly, a new set of hips and various other body parts that he broke over the years while attempting to get into the record books.

Take Gary Brolsma – “the numa numa guy” - for example. Though he didn’t exactly perform a stunt in the traditional sense he became an almost instant internet celebrity when his video was published on Newgrounds.com on December 6th, 2004. Gary has sense went on to published another two numa numa type videos in which he makes himself look like a total moron again. On purpose.

Boredom:
We continued our search for finding out exactly why people insist on doing insane stunts that they know are nearly impossible to complete successfully without taking a trip to the emergency room for a dislocated shoulder or even worse a dislocated head.

The answer was almost right in front of us the entire time: Boredom. When people have nothing else better to do than to sit around at home and think about what they could do with their free time, they begin to think irrationally. “I wonder if I can jump over my garage if I built a big enough ramp” are the types of thoughts that plague the minds of those who have too much time on their hands.

This seems like the logical explanation as to why there are so many videos of people trying to do stupid things on YouTube and Google Video. The vast majority of those who are in those videos are between the ages of 16 and their early to mid twenties. Between those ages young adults are still attending school while living with their parents. They most likely don’t have a job, nor do they have any other responsibilities other than attending school on a regular basis. Once Friday night hits, they are free and clear of such obligations and so the irrational thinking begins.

When we emailed one young adult who was shown trying to grind his way down a flight of stairs that was 25 feet in the air but instead found his head ground against the pavement why he attempted the stunt, he replied that him and his friends were sitting around and had nothing else better to do. He went on to say, “My friends turned around and said, ‘Hey Matt, I bet you can’t grind down that hand rail along those steps over there!’ This wasn’t something that I could let go being as young as I was at the time. They dared me to do it, and I wanted to show them that I was man enough to do it.”

The Opposite Sex:
Those who attempt bat shit insane stunts are predominately single males who wish they had a boyfriend, or in some rare cases, a girlfriend.

Young children do this type of thing all the time. They think that in order to get a girl’s attention they have to do something insane to win them over. However, they are no longer little kids, and they are no longer thinking about jumping off the monkey bars at school. They’re thinking about jumping buildings and other tall objects that don’t move when you hit them.

When they fail, they can only wish that the girl they were trying to impress will rush to their aide and give them mouth-to-mouth even though it’s not necessary. But most of the time what winds up happening is the girl of their dreams laughs, exclaims “what a loser” and walks away while the would-be stunt man is lying on the ground bleeding profusely from every orifice of his body and is about ready to go into shock because of the extreme blood loss.

We can thank the creators of YouTube (and Google Video) for giving the morons of the world a medium to share their blunders with the rest of the world. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be able to see and know about half the things that we do today. Well… some of us anyway. Not all of us spend our entire lives on YouTube and Google Video.

We now have people who have used the search string "gay videos" on Google and various other search engings somehow finding this place among the search results.

I hope you're proud of yourself!

URL: http://www.gotthegeek.com/content/view/221/1/

Here's how you become a millionaire online: You don't.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: The internet is a great place. It's a great place because not only can you obtain information that would be almost impossible to obtain without the invention of the internet, but it's also great because you can mask who you are in real life. Almost instantly you can go from being a fat 27-year-old male who enjoys playing D & D in his parent's basement with his other loser friends to being a successful 27-year-old business entrepreneur who is soon to start his own venture and enjoys lifting weights and going to beach in his free time... You know, a real man’s man. Oh, did I mention he also drives around in a brand new BMW?

There are thousands of people that have put together websites online that claim to sell you their sure-shot methods to making hundreds, thousands, and even millions of dollars online so as long as you buy their stupid e-book that will tell you how to do it step-by-step. I don't buy that, though. (No pun intended, guys.)

Instead, in this article I'm not going to tell you how to make millions online, I'm going to outline how you can make yourself look like an online millionaire - for free! These methods are tried and true - more than half of all online millionaires use these methods to make it look like they are rich each and everyday. You know, it's kind of like putting a rolled up sock in your pants. It's alright until it's time to show the goods for real.

1. Put together a semi-professional looking site:
The first step in the process of becoming an online millionaire is establishing an online presence. In doing so, avoid site designs similar to this. Sites that are designed like that give me the impression that the designer simply took their Microsoft Word document and used the "Save as web page" function in order to generate HTML coding to slap on their web server. And that's assuming that they know how to even login to their web server's FTP site. Having a sleek web design, a fast loading page, and a catchy logo will help to ensure your readers believe that you are in fact a true internet millionaire.

2. Create a catchy name, logo, and slogan:
This almost goes without saying: Every major organization in business today has their very own unique logo and slogan that they use to achieve brand awareness. Your fake organization should be no different. Take the time  to come up with a catchy name for your internet fortune, as well as a logo that will be sure to stick in your reader’s heads, and a slogan that will make them think, “Man, I wish I thought of that first!” If your logo is good enough you might be able to print it on t-shirts and have readers buy them off of you. If you’re really lucky you might be able to get a few hot females to send you back pictures of them wearing your logo. But don’t get your hopes up.

3. Make yourself sound credible:
When you go to a doctor's office 9 times out of 10 you see the diploma's and the certifications of the doctor hanging on the wall. You need to employ the same tactics online in order for people to believe that you know what you're talking about.

Create an "About" page on your site and list reasons why people should listen to what you have to say. Make up a fake story about how you almost didn't finish college because you were short on cash but were able to finish due to your online endeavourers. Tell your readers that you have been published in Time Magazine as well as the New York Times - they're not going to know whether or not you're telling the truth. Doing this will establish that you are a well established millionaire in the industry and they'll want to listen to what you have to say because, well, they read it on the internet, so it must be true.

4. Post fake pictures of your fake possessions:
This is possibly the most important part to becoming an online millionaire. In order to show the rest of the internet that you really have wealth and have bought items with your wealth, you need to show the internet the fruits of your labor. Use Google Image search to find images of two high priced cars, a nice house with an in ground swimming pool, and a few pictures of a home office that you can call yours. Be sure that they go together. You don't want to use a picture of a house surrounded by snow, and then two pictures of cars with snow around the wheel well.

5. Write believable success stories:
This might be easier said than done for those who don't have the ability to write clearly, but it will certainly seal the deal in terms of having your readers believe that you really are an internet millionaire. In order to get a feel for how it's done by the pros, browse through other millionaire sites and look at their success stories. Notice how they list specific dates, numbers, and other data throughout the page. Pretty convincing, right? These pieces of data are crucial when it comes to getting the attention of your audience.

Instead of telling your audience how you simply increased ad revenue on your website, tell them how "In the last three months I have been able to increase my Google AdSense earnings from 50 cents a day to 500 dollars a day by positioning my ads in better locations, adjusting the color pallets that they use, and the key words that I am targeting in my content." Stating your findings in this manner will more than likely get your readers to want to know more about how you did it. Obviously when they are done reading what you have written, you want them to believe that you're indeed an internet millionaire.

6. Mention a staff that you employ:
...But of course don't actually employ. Any real multi-million dollar organization has to have more than one person operating it, right? So why should your business be any different? If you need to, search Google for a random name generator to obtain names that are unique but still believable. Next, create email addresses for all of them that all forward to your own email account this way you don't miss out on anything. If required, post a few articles here and there from each of your fake staff members in order to make the ploy seem more believable to your readers. But be careful; don't use the same mannerisms and styles of writing for all your staff members. Observant readers may catch on to your tactics and expose you to the rest of the world.

Google - The search engine that has still yet to sell out and have tons of ads and other useless crap on their homepage - is one of the masters of invention and innovation. Google is probably one of the only companies that is able to reinvent the wheel and have it be successful. They are known for their ability to offer a new service to public users every half a year or so. From the world famous Google Image Search (GIS for short) to Google Earth which attempts to photograph the entire planet (Including the inside of your house) they have certainly come up with some of the most unique ways of manipulating data over the years.

What you don't know, however, is the hidden agenda of Google. Information from the Googleplex has leaked regarding some of their upcoming services that they plan on offering to the public. We here at The Geekery were able to obtain a copy from an anonymous reader who doesn't wish to be identified in an effort to stay alive. We however, aren't afraid. But in an effort to stay somewhat under the radar, we will not be publishing this 209 page PDF file. Instead we will simply post up some of the juicy details of their upcoming products and services.

Google Food
Google Food will attempt to archive and share all different types of food found throughout the world. From Hot Pockets to fried calamari, Google Food will be able to instantly send you hot and fresh food upon request. Google proposes to invest $1.87 billion into researching and developing what they call "food printers" which will "print" finished food products by using special ink cartridges called "flavor cartridges" that only need to be replaced once a year for quality and food safety purposes - regardless of the amount of use the cartridge has performed.

Google plans on doubling revenues with the addition of this product since they will hold the patens necessary to produce the food printers. Any company, such as HP, that wishes to produce food printers will have to pay Google some form of royalty fee. Additionally, Google hopes to put fast food giant McDonald's out of business for good by allowing urban professionals the ability to bring lunch to the office without actually packing it.

This invention, if it becomes a reality, will change the way we live our lives much like the internet has changed the way we do business. Soccer moms who once were hard pressed for time and insisted on feeding their children utter trash from fast food restaurants will realize that this will save them time and money - both are a scarce in this day and age.

Google Gas
Just the name of this service is catchy - the utilization of alliteration helps to promote brand awareness since people are able to easily remember the name.

Google Gas will attempt to do several things for consumers. It will attempt to gather and index all fuel prices in the United States according to location (Town / ZIP code) and upload them in real time to your handheld device or GPS in an effort to save you money while on the road by telling you where the busy buy is in relation to where you are. Additionally, the developers of the Google Gas service have plans on developing a 100% synthetic and a 100% renewable fuel that has the same properties of gasoline. Though in the early stages of development, the document outlined how the process of making the new fuel will some how utilize the heat generated by the 20,000+ servers that Google currently operates.

This project will probably be kept under wraps for quite some time given the amount of money riding on an alternative to gasoline. World domination will truly be theirs if they are successful in finding a replacement without making any modification to the current gasoline deployment system already in place.

Google TV
Though not as complex as some of their other upcoming inventions, Google TV isn't very much different than most major cable providers. Google plans on allowing small businesses to advertise their products and services on a national level rather than the local level that only reaches several thousand viewers at a time. This advertising will be up to 50% more effective according to speculation since commercials will utilize a similar system to their AdWords service: Advertisers will set a maximum that they are willing to pay, and publishers will have air time that they are willing to sell. Whoever has the highest bid for the spot wins and their ad is aired. Most importantly, the ads will be targeted to viewers who are likely to be interested in the products that are being advertised.

Google Security Identification (GSI)
Similar to a social security number offered at birth by the United States Government, a GSI will be issued to all of those who wish to use the internet. In order to get online, users will have to authenticate with their system using their GSI along with several other randomly selected personal questions that only the user would know the answer to. Google hopes that this security will lessen the chances of identity theft, as well as lessen the amount of spam that is transmitted over the internet.

Google itself admitted in the document that the GSI system most likely will not take off given the United States Government will have to over-see its operation given it would restrict access to a service that is currently governed ('sorta' they said in the document) by the FCC.

GoogleCities
From the sound of it, this service is specifically designed to compete with Geocities offered by Google's enemy Yahoo!. Google plans on launching this service within the next year and will hopefully lure clients away from Geocities by offering up an impressive amount of free web space and an unlimited amount of transfer per month so as long as the content being transferred is in agreement with their TOS.

Google plans on sharing the user's web space with their Gmail account's quota. Most users enjoy around six or seven gigs of free web mail space from Gmail. This same space will then be shared with their GoogleCities account. Users who need more than their allotted free quota are welcome to purchase more for the price of $3.25 per gig.

Users who opt to use this service from Google will be pleased to know that their website will be automatically spidered by the Google crawlers daily since indexing will take a fraction of the time since the content is already on the Google network. This certainly will change the way things are in the hosting industry as well in the super saturated SEO industry.

URL: http://www.gotthegeek.com/content/view/209/1/

Believe it or not, the future is now! It always has been, and always will be, even when time ceases to exist. The distant future in which we used to find comfort in is no longer so distant. In fact, if you had to put things into perspective, it's like the neighbor's dog in you back yard picking through your garbage cans for food scraps. Luckily for me, I can legally shoot any animal that's on my property; even it happens to be my neighbor's dog. Though, me shooting my neighbor's dog doesn't help save us from the not so distant distant future (That means, "the close distant future, for all of you who feel compelled to write me an email telling me there's a typo). It might prevent him from coming on my property again, but it's not going to stop the future from happening. Wait. I stopped the future from happening to the dog. Maybe I'm on to something.

For decades we have been putting every thing off for the future. We all do this on a daily basis by saying, "Oh, I'll do that later!" (Like showering, for instance), but then of course you fail to do it later because you either have the memory of a gold fish, or you're just retarded. I can tell you from experience, the longer you wait to do things, the less likely they are to get done.

As gothics and atheists would like us to believe, the future has a grim outlook for society - War, fuel worth more than the automobile that it's in, violence and sex oozing from every source of media known to man, and obesity becoming more widespread than the water on our planet - are all things we have to look forward to within the next two decades if we don't act fast. In order to react to the problems of the future - just as if you were going to react to the problems of now - you have to understand the root cause of our problems, and the driving forces that enable them to become root causes.

Root Cause #1: The Media:
Our biggest and most obvious problem is the media. They're the ones who feed us all this propaganda about how the world is coming to an end within the next year and if we don't act now we're all going to hell afterwards. The media is a great catalyst when it comes to starting wars as well as starting bad habits such as meth.

All of the major news networks feed off of each other. If one says there was a train derailment in which two cars went off the tracks, the next news agency will say every car went off the tracks and one of them is believed to contain a missing nuclear bomb from the 1980s. The next news agency will top that by saying a train car went off the tracks, caught fire with a nuclear bomb onboard believed to be counting down towards destination and is currently rolling towards a preschool near you.

The media knows the general population will believe what they have to say because they broadcast their content on TV. They know that since the general popular heard and saw it on TV, they accept it as the truth since, well, it was on TV. The media would like us to believe that when we wake up tomorrow the oceans will be vast cauldrons of boiling mercury and a comet will be crashing into Earth within the next 10 minutes. They are right in the sense that we have problems here on Earth, but so does every other planet with life on it. Take Mars for example, Martians have yet to get out of the stone age. Talk about a set back.

Root Cause #2: The Internet:
Another key contributor as to why the not so distant distant future doesn't look so good is due to the internet. The internet is an amazing tool that has helped link the entire world together by allowing people around the world to communicate with each other as if they were in the same room. Not only has this given the media another entry point into your house in which they can attempt to ooze their subliminal messages through your computer, but it also has enabled the process of corruption to spread throughout the entire world in just under a decade.

Looks like SOMEONE forgot to press F7 to spell check

Congratulations, internet! You're partly responsible in the downfall of man kind!

Sources of corruption on the internet largely include the media (There's a recurring theme here), internet gaming (Specifically MMORPGs and Megaman), e-commerce, blogs, FaceBook and MySpace, and of course all flavors of pornography (No pun intended, scat lovers). If we took all sites pertaining to this material off of the internet, there would be nothing left, with the exception of Google and a few "I love my dog" pages.

The Internet is also responsible for fostering such tools as spell check, programs that can solve fairly complex mathematical equations in seconds, and search engines that have made traditional libraries a thing of the past. When used correctly, these tools are powerful assets to the business world and they help to make every day life easier for millions. Thanks to these tools, we now have a generation of children growing up that rely on spell check as a means for ensuring words are spelled correctly, they rely on their graphing calculators to find the zeros of an equation, they utilize search engines in an effort to plagiarize work. But who am I kidding, they don't know how to utilize spell check correctly, so it's not even an issue. In some instances, spell check fails to find words misused, such as "dew", "due", and "do".

The Internet has successfully dumbed down society, and we're going to be totally screwed as a result.

Root Cause #3: The "No Child Left Behind act"
Put into action in 2001 by the Bush Administration, the No Child Left Behind act serves as a way to ensure that no student gets left behind in the dust because they can't read, write, or add and subtract numbers like generations in the past had to do. It's indeed a noble idea to think that the United States' government is willing to invest as much time and money into a young child as needed until he or she is deemed proficient, but the system has some flaws. (Note, "some" might be an understatement)

This has caused nothing but problems in many school districts around the country, as well as many headaches throughout the internet as more and more uneducated people take to the net and spread their stupid across as many forums and websites as they can possibly find. It's not uncommon for children to move from the 8th grade to the 9th grade without knowing how to add and subtract fractions, as well as the inability to pronounce words such as "uneducated" without the teacher's help. We see this on an almost everyday basis in The Geek Forums when new members sign up for an account and insist on not using their shift or period keys.

For this deliberate dumbing down of America, we're even more screwed than we were before. In 20 years' time the kids of today will be running the global economy, yet they won't know how to read, write, or add and subtract whole numbers correctly. Though, I don't think we could get any worse than we are right now with some of the current leaders we have elected to office. The only requirements to graduate high school in the not so distant distant future will be to spell out "lol" and be able to send a text message saying "omg rly" in under five seconds without having to use the "clr" key because you made a mistake.

Root Cause #4: Rising Gas Prices:
Rising fuel prices are all the rage these days. With a gallon of gas going for nearly $3.60 on average it's no wonder why more and more people are looking into motorcycles, horses and teleporters like the once popular game Doom portrays. It's interesting to note that Doom also somehow portrays teenagers shooting up schools.

This is what our future might look like if we're not careful

During this time of economic uncertainty, the media would like us to think that gas will be going up to $10.00 per gallon just in time for this evening's commute. With much speculation, an increased demand, and a supposed lessened supply it's no wonder why gas prices are increasing on a daily (If you're lucky) basis. The price of fuel influences just about the price of any other consumer good we purchase since it's used in the production of such goods. Cars, cell phones, computers, food, and crystal meth all require machines during the production process. These machines are powered by oil, which is largely controlled by OPEC, which we all know is controlled by the Bush Administration, which is controlled by Bush Senior, who is controlled by his wife, who is controlled by Satan himself.

The media and certified experts (Who are actually Magical Wizards) have made it clear that if we don't fix these problems now, we're doomed - in fact, we already are doomed, but we could prevent ourselves from being even more doomed if we fix these problems now before it’s too late.

I have a bunch of songs on my mp3 player that I take to the gym with me that "get me pumped" and was wondering what songs get you guys going.

I did a Google search for what other people think outside of these forums, and they generally thought any song by Kelly Clarkson or Britney Spears were good songs to work out to. That wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

My mp3 player consists of stuff from (To name a few):

Atreyu
Rammstein
Flaw
Papa Roach
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Chevelle
Linkin Park

What about you guys?

I don't think I have ever gone more than a year without Gotthegeek.com expiring on me since I forget to mark my calendar as to when it's going to expire. I doesn't help that my administrative contact is my old @hackernetwork.com email address, either.

URL: http://www.gotthegeek.com/content/view/203/1/

The weather is getting nicer, the days are growing longer, and the girls are dressing even more provocatively than before. This could only mean one thing - summer is just around the corner for us in the northern sections of the globe. With the start of summer also comes the end of spring semesters in colleges around North America marked with final exams which could leave some students with a bad taste in their mouths from their professors depending on how tough they were when it came to making the final exam.

For some professors, final exams are a way for them to say "Ha! I got you" to their students one last time since they are most likely abused by their spouse (Or cat if you're a philosophy professor I once had who was probably the biggest 40-year-old loser I have ever encountered), while for others they might make it a simple final that is fair and relates to material covered in class as well as in the assigned text book. Each professor has their own way of doing things in the classroom - Some good, some bad, and some simply horrible.

For those of you who have attended college, or those of you who are currently enrolled, you'll know exactly what I'm referring to: The college professor, and the different flavors of professor that are out there. From the zombie-like professor who should have retired 15 years ago, to the shock-jock wanna-be professor who insists on pushing the buck as far as they can. Each and every university has them, and they have the key to unlock your future into the real world (So-to-speak). Some people are very happy lying bricks their entire life. That's fine with me. Someone has to do it.

The adjunct who is in touch with reality:
An adjunct is a professor who only teaches at a university part time. They may travel between two universities, some may teach a high school level class during the day and a college-level course at night, or some might have another full time job during the day and want to make some extra money by teaching at night. These guys know what it's like to be hard pressed for time. Most of them do, anyway.

With the cost of text books and tuition rising almost every year, along with rising gas prices, most college students have a hard enough time finding money just to finance their college education. The only way to get enough money to attend college and still be able to feed yourself in the process is to work - sometimes full time, others have to work more than 40 hours a week. I have even heard of several young women who have had to offer sexual favors in order to pay their way through college.

Working students don't want to have to put up with an instructor who thinks that their class is the only class that their students are taking. Most of the time adjuncts are the best when it comes to assigning realistic amounts of work for today's students along with exams that are relative to the material that was covered in class.

The department head who is out of touch with reality:
If you happen to get the department head as a professor, be prepared to get a nearly impossible course schedule filled with 10 chapters of reading in between classes, only two exams during the entire semester that each cover half of the material that may (or may not have) covered, one term paper discussing some obscure topic that was never even mentioned in the text book or class lectures. The department head expects their students to go home and study nothing but the subject that they are teaching. They do not believe in taking more than one class at the same time, and they also think that their subject is far more superior and useful than any other - even though the professor teaching in the neighboring classroom can be heard making the exact same claim.

Retired, then brought back from retirement professor who should have remained retired:
Depending on where you attended college, some of you may have had an instructor like this at one point during your college career.

Some guys just don't know when to give up. Here's a tip: When you can no longer hear your wife yelling at you to turn up Wheel of Fortune who is sitting three feet from you, you probably should no longer be teaching - just concentrate on staying alive - that might be hard enough. Even if the university begs you to come back because they are short on instructors, do us all a favour and tell them you can't do it because it conflicts with your bingo schedule.

Most of the professors that teach much longer than they should be teaching are usually clueless to what's going on and tend to teach next to nothing because they get side tracked very easily. These same professors then insist on handing out an exam even if the material hasn't been explained. Their defense: "Well, it's in the text book".

No need to worry, though. More than likely the exam that they are going to be handing out on the final day of glass has probably already made its way out onto the internet - it's had since about 1984 since that was the last time he bothered to break out the type writer and make up a new exam.

Don Imus wanna-be who just got tenured:
I'm fairly certain that there is one of these in every university in the United States. You know, the professors who push the First Amendment to its limits by saying things like, "all gays could go to hell, that's fine by me!" or "do people with Alzheimer's just forget to kill themselves?" These professors, whom you could call "shock professors", probably recently got tenured and want to start some controversy since the chances of them getting fired are slim to none. Unless of course they were to have sex with an under-aged student, but at the college level that is next to impossible.

Complaining to the department head or the dean of students about the shock professor most likely won't do much good. Your only line of defense is to come up with a quick and witty reply that will let the professor know that what they have said was out of line and uncalled for. If that doesn't work, play a nice long game of Doom in your dorm room or where ever you happen to reside while attending college.

Honest Joe who is just trying to make an honest living:
These are fairly hard to come by these days. Our writing staff here at The Geekery has unanimously come to the conclusion that a good portion of the professors teaching these days put their own spin on whatever it is that they are teaching. For instance, an accounting professor may decide to use a different type of table other than a T-table to log transactions, even though the assigned text book for the course only uses T-tables.

The Honest Joe on the other hand goes by the book and syllabus that was giving out during the first day of class. The Honest Joe will try their hardest to go by the book and stick to the course schedule that was attached to the syllabus. If any changes are made to the syllabus, he or she will let you know exactly what is changing, and mention it for several classes to make sure everyone is aware of the changes. The Honest Joe is teaching because they like teaching, and they want to see their students given a fair chance while in college instead of being fed to the wolves like in other classes.

This thread is reserved for the dumbest questions that you have ever asked / encountered. I'll start off with one of the most recent "no-brainers" I overheard.

My store lost power for about 5 hours on Good Friday. All of the equipment to cook food on / in had cooled off to the point where food could not be cooked on / in it. Upon power being restored, people immediatly tried to start ordering food.

Customer: I'd like to order a number 2.
Employee: I'm sorry, it's still going to be about an hour before we can serve food.
Customer: What do you mean? You have power! Why can't you serve me food?!

To whom it may concern:

It has come to my attention that many people use these pre-spring and pre-summer months to get into shape before it's time to bare all for the sun come summer time. Though a good idea at heart, as I don't want to be looking at your fat ass in a bathing suit while at the beach, but this act of dieting should be carried out year-round rather than just a few months leading up to summer.

Instead of going out to eat three times a week like most Americans do these days, try to only go out once or twice a month - if that. Instead of going with a diet coke and a large portion of food, why not just water and a normal-sized portion of food?

"Dieting" doesn't just mean trying to lose weight. "Dieting" is a set pattern of eating over a prolonged period of time. Therefore, you should be engaged in healthy and smart dieting all year, rather than just several months out of the year. Instead of always feeling tired and run down since you eat like a brute, you'll feel more energized as well as being healthier and better looking.

Also, daily exercise works wonders too. Instead of taking the elevator up two floors, why not take the stairs and save the elevator for someone who really can't walk up the stairs? Instead of using the automatic door, why not push or pull a door to burn a few more extra calories? Anything that requires you to expend more energy will help in your quest to look better.

Perhaps instead of trying to place the blame of your fatness and laziness on others, why not come to the realization that you're a human being that has the ability to reason and make choices. No matter what we do, we have a choice, even if that choice is to not make a choice.

Regards,
Chris.

P.S., Here is some motivation:



If that isn't motivation for you to eat right, then god help you.