A Very Abstract Philosophy on Life
By James | August 21, 2007
From birth to death, society guides us down the path of life. We are told that life is wonderful and we have much to experience. We set goals, we obtain knowledge, we embrace life, and we continue to learn throughout our lives. We gather knowledge every day of our lives, we collect things, experiences, information- until the end, as though we were going to cash those in or spend our memories somewhere for some material object. We lay on our death bed flipping through our metaphorical scrapbook of life, looking back at all of the wonderful and terrible encounters. We pass our collections on to future generations, so that they too can embrace what we have experienced.
What is at the end of the path? Why do we bother to learn and explore the world simply to obtain knowledge? We go on vacations to foreign countries to obtain knowledge of different cultures, be it art, history, or experience. We have interests in various things to learn more about them and embrace our fascinations. We get jobs to earn money, presumably to raise a family and afford hobbies or vacations were we may further our education and the education of our children. What will we do with all of this knowledge? Why do we feel the need to obtain more of it? Why do we feel useless when we are stupid? Why do those who don’t enjoy learning live life at all? If the main result of all of our actions is education, why survive at all? Survival usually assumes there is some higher purpose at the end of the path. Why do non-believers of an afterlife bother to take that chance?
Law of Attraction Myths
By James | August 17, 2007
If you keep up at all with self-development communities, especially financial development, you are probably familar with the Law of Attraction or atleast you might have heard of it. For those who don’t know, the Law of Attraction is a new age theory that basically says “you get what you think about”. It goes on the idea that your feelings, ideas, words, and actions influence the events that happen in your life and presumably control your destiny. This has gotten a lot of positive attention from spiritual or religious people; in turn, it has gotten much negative attention from more logical or rational people, or science communities at least. Let us examine why.
I am a more logical or rational person, I always have been, and I keep involved in science communities constantly; nevertheless, I spend a large amount of my time in spiritual and self-development communities as well, as I find them very helpful for entrepreneurship and thinking outside the box when it comes to my beliefs. I have noticed that many of the people of these communities stay away from each other; as a result, many misunderstandings have occured. Many of the “science-side” members have only come to understand the very basics of the Law of Attraction and are completely misunderstood.
Contest 1 - $20 Gift Certificate to Amazon.com
By James | August 14, 2007
This is the first of many contests for Small-town Big-shot. In this contest, you will submit a short story based on the chosen topic. I will hand pick five of my favorite stories and put them up for voting. You guys will then vote for your favorite out of the chosen five. Future contests will, of course, award greater prizes.
Prize:
The winner will receive a $20 Gift Certificate to Amazon.com
I will also choose one person from the entries and add their website or blog to my blogroll.
Deadline:
September 1st, 2007 (May be extended)
Voting will begin 1 day after deadline.
Challenge:
Write a comedy story involving at least 2 out of the following:
exorcism
mermaid
angry mob
black box
banjo
Rules:
Story must be at least 750 words (no maximum)
Stories must be your own original work
You must actively use at least 2 of the items listed
Try to keep it somewhat appropriate for this site
I will judge only on humor and creativity
You may submit as many entries as you like
Submit:
Send your submissions to james [at] smalltownbigshot [dot] com
You may paste your story inside the email or use an attachment
Include the following:
Name
Age
Location
Website (Optional)
Story
Yet Another Identity Theft Article
By James | August 8, 2007
Are there really that many identity theft articles? Well, yes, but instead of taking the advice, people still seem to just awe at the statistics then brush it off like “oh, that will never happen to me“. Perhaps it’s just laziness or people are still ignorant to the actual problems we face. You can actually do things to protect you, believe it or not, and the criminals are human, just like you- they aren’t some computer hacking cyborg that takes identities at random. If you think like them, you can help protect yourself.
The statistics are outrageous for the amount of money that has been taken through identity theft, social engineering, and hacking/phishing. A good source for some statistics is About.com : Identity Theft. And most of those cases could have been prevented if people took a little time to protect themselves and if companies would enforce better security procedures. The security problems are not because of the tools, but because of the people. For example, your anti-virus software is useless if you don’t update it, and your network is easily hackable if you don’t properly configure your firewall.
Last year I read a book called “The Art of Deception” by Kevin Mitnik and William L. Simon. The book talks about the security of businesses and how poorly trained staff and security practices have led to billions of dollars being stolen every year. Kevin Mitnik is a former hacker and social engineer, a world famous one at that. In this book he covers social engineering and the methods they use to con their way past security and in to bank accounts by posing as other staff members or high ranking executives. I suggest you read that book if you care how your identity actually gets stolen.