By using technology every day, we are forced to interact with the world in a certain way. Some of us see the news feed and are shocked or entertained by what we see while others use their time online to do a bit of research. Smartphones being produced in bulk, every single year, for there to be many unsold devices, is basically a very good way of raising emissions and contributing to global warming. Yes, there are various other polluters, some bigger, some smaller, but wasted energy is still wasted, no matter the process of manufacturing. Could we use the internet to educate ourselves about the environment? Yes, we could, and to make it more entertaining, we could do it in VR. Here is how we can educate people about the environment using VR.

Not Using VR is the First Step

Do we want to teach people about the environment? If the answer is yes, then teaching them about emissions is the number 1 thing to do on the list. Emissions include all wasted energy to deliver a product. The vast majority of people do not have access to VR technology and will not for a couple of reasons. It is still relatively young and they are not interested in products that can literally make them sick. Explaining all of that plus that it would be wasted energy to make VR educational content when people do not even have VR headsets. Could people be educated in VR? Yes, they could.

VR Educational Content – Interactive Environments

The best way of educating people is by giving them an environment they can interact with. Farms, forests, all the areas of the world which suffer because of the emissions and global warming. Educational, interactive content, or rather, games, if you will, would engage people and still teach them about all issues environmental. 

Educational VR Videos – Watch it With a Dose of Realism

The best thing about VR is the immersiveness. You can be immersed in a world which is similar to our own and experience something like you normally would. VR videos are much easier to create than VR interactive content and require much less effort and time to be completed, thus are an environmentally friendlier way of education. Videos can also be watched on various cheap mobile headsets, without the need to purchase an expensive headset which has all those sensors for movement tracking.

VR can be used to educate people, the only problem being that VR is still not ready for that. The people do not have the necessary devices. You are better of making standard videos and interactive content, until VR becomes a bit more mainstream.

We rely on technology to do everything for us, from helping us bake a cake, to entertaining us in multiple ways. Some use technology to survive and have a job, others find that technology is their life, working on improving it or using it as a lifestyle. Regardless, it is integrated into the modern society and people with access to smartphones and computers, have internet access, meaning an endless source of information. How is it that we, as a species with access to a lot of information still have racial, ethnic and national conflicts and boundaries? Could we cross those boundaries or erase them with technology? We maybe could, and here is how.

Technology as a Source of Information

Remember using the internet to find out how to fix your car radiator, or replace it? What about opening that laptop to clean it? Yes, a lot of DIY people turn to the internet to help. Some consult doctors online, or just type in their symptoms to find a solution to what they consider is their problem. The internet has solutions and ideas about many problems which we deal with on a daily basis.

Learning about other cultures is an essential way of bridging gaps between nations, different ethnic groups and in the end, people. Learning is very crucial, because then they are not some foreign enemy with strange customs, but a group of people that do things their own way, a bit differently to that of our own, but are still people.

Finding Education – Courses and Therapy

For people to admit that they have a bit of disdain towards other people, not of their own country or ethnic group, is a first step in fixing the imaginary boundaries. Yes, they are imaginary, for they are formed when thinking that another human being is bad or evil just because they are doing something differently. Getting proper education, whether through online courses or by reading history books or social studies, is one way of fixing a problem which is racial and ethnic segregation.

Getting to Know Other Cultures in Person

The best way of getting to know another culture is by talking to their people. Online, you can meet new people and chat or talk with them. Once you get to know someone, talk with them on a regular basis, get to know their routines and way of thinking, you will most likely identify with some of their problems and situations, to the point where you will forget that they are of another ethnic, or rather, that you will accept them as they are. The internet can help us overcome many things, learn many things and get to know some wonderful people. Many people with poor social skills managed to get the necessary courage and drive to meet people through social media.

Technology can help us bridge a lot of gaps, including those between people, ethnic, racial and anything else that comes to mind.

The Culture of Football – Fandom

The biggest, most probably, part of football, is fandom. People unite and cheer for a team, whether national or a local club. Some people are fans of a team from another region or league, like Manchester United or Liverpool, for example. Both have huge fan bases worldwide, not to mention teams like Barcelona or Inter Milan. This fan culture can go beyond cheering and meeting at pubs. Some people have found shelter by being fans of a certain club, to the point of calling that club a family, as well as its other members. They can be incredibly supportive, in some cases much more than their blood relatives, even the closest ones.

The Other Side of Football – Sports Betting

This is not often talked about, or not often enough, but football and sports betting go one with another, in almost every case. Some people dislike betting and gambling in general, but others are far more willing to bet on their favorite team, some in hopes of winning money, others in hopes of supporting their team and rubbing it in the face of the losing rival. Sports betting is gambling, so people can become addicted and lose more than just their money. Be careful if you’re going to bet on your favorite team.

Football is Easy to Play for Everyone

All people can play football, because the rules are so simple. Since the sport is so accessible, more so than golf, polo, cricket even, not to mention ice hockey, everyone wants to play it and everyone can. With that, it is also a team sport and that means you get a bunch of people working together towards a goal (quite literally), and having fun at the same time. Everyone can play it, but not everyone can become a master, which is why we have elite footballers earning as much as they do.

Football is the most popular sport because it invites people and accepts them, as fans, recreational athletes and even family. It influences our culture in some positive ways and others which are not as positive. Regardless, our world is different thanks to football, which in itself is a good thing.

When we look at the world, we often see the best of it, from the small things that people do on a daily basis, like frequent video uploads, to grand gestures like purchasing someone a car of giving them a roof over their heads. Focusing on the positive is something humans do best, for most of the time.

The negative stuff, we all want to forget. But, some things are best remembered, as they can serve as a lesson to us all. War is one of those things. But, what about wars which were fought for the stupidest reasons of all? Yes, there were plenty of situations in history where a war was fought for the silliest of reasons, or it came very close to a war being fought. Here are those situations, in no particular order.

The Pig War

This is an interesting tale. Imagine a war being fought over a shot boar. The year was 1859, the location the San Juan Island, between the United States and Vancouver Island. British employees of the Hudson Bay Company were having tensions with US settlers. On June 15, a man named Lyman Cutlar shot a British-owned boar. The reason was the boar destroying his potato patch.

The American reported the incident to the military and received a captain, George Pickett. He declared the entire island a property of the United States, prompting the British to send a large naval force which stood nearby. There was a standoff which lasted until October of that same year. The two forces agreed upon joint custody of the island, thus ending the war without any bloodshed, save for a black boar.

The Pastry War

Mexico and North America, in general, was a troubled part of the world in the 19th century. In the year 1828, Mexico was ravaged by a riot. During that riot, a French chef named Remontel, lost his pastry shop due to the riots. He petitioned the Mexican government to compensate him, but he got nothing. He then petitioned the French. His pleas were heard, albeit 10 years later. King Louis-Philippe heard the man’s pleas and ordered Mexico to pay him 600,000 pesos for the shop. They refused. The king, angry because the Mexicans failed to pay a previous debt, sent a fleet which blocked the bay and started sieging the city of Veracruz. A retired Mexican general named Santa Anna came back to help the Mexican army fight off the French. In the end, the British intervened and a peace was brokered, with Mexico paying Remontel his 600,000 pesos.

The Toledo Strip

Michigan and Ohio are two neighboring states who went to war once, over a town named Toledo. Ohio decided to claim the small town, and Michigan refused, saying the town belonged to them. The two states rounded up militias and were on edge from 1803 until 1835, when president Andrew Jackson decided that Toledo would go to Michigan and that some parts of the Upper Peninsula would go to Ohio. Some people viewed this as a great injustice while others were happy. There was a report of a woman saying that she never liked the Michigan weather, thanking the Lord for such a change.

Wars can be fought for many reasons, like a woman, think Helen of Troy, or in this case, a town, a bunch of pastries or a pig, even. People will always find reasons to fight, most of which are not a reason to go to war and end thousands or millions of lives. Luckily, most of these wars were relatively tame, compared to other, bloodier wars.

Our world has lovely stories which people love hearing about, right? Then, there are the other stories which you never want to hear about, the stories of war, discrimination, crime, not to mention all the things that go around the Dark Web. In some countries or cities of our world, there are various such stories which you don’t really want to hear, but once you do, you cannot unhear them. In China, the Uighurs are being treated quite poorly, even though their region can be considered liberated and sort of improved. But at what price? That of severe monitoring and separation. Following is more on that subject.

Xinjiang Province Liberation Gone Bad

The Xinjiang province in China has an interesting and turbulent history. Populated mostly by Uighurs, who are also, interestingly enough, Muslim, the territory was assimilated by China in the 2000s. That being said, they were slowly but surely integrated into China during that decade. They got 3G antennas and internet access in 2011, built by the Chinese government. Not long after, cheap smartphones were available to everyone. The Uighurs apparently had internet access and a way to chat and talk with each other, apparently being the key word. It was soon clear that they were censored much more than regular Chinese citizens and that they had more restrictions in the way they used the internet.

Online Protests and Early Days of the Internet for Uighurs

Given that their briefly independent country was liberated, or rather, assimilated by China, the Uighurs weren’t happy, just as many people who lose their independence aren’t. They protested online, in forums who only those who speak Uighur could understand, which meant a lot of people, but very few, if any of them were the Chinese authorities.

There were plenty of protests in Uighur forums and lots of memes regarding their situation at the time. The problem arose from online Islamic teachers which paved a way for multiple people starting to pray much more often. The problem wasn’t in people praying, but rather China linking incidents to Uighur Talibanization, as they called it. That is when things got a bit more restrictive.

IDs and Smartphones – A Restrictive Liberation

Given what happened in mainland China, incidents which were, of course, linked to the Uighurs, the government started a surveillance network, designed specifically to follow the Uighurs. They started collecting all sorts of data on the Uighurs, from voice scans, images to DNA. special software was developed to track and scan the Uighurs’ smartphones, to determine whether they had any data which could potentially be harmful for the country. This way, they found untrustworthy people and sent them to camps, where they were monitored at all times. The Uighur internet merged with the Chinese one, but things have changed. They were constantly monitored, but also discouraged from using their native language, as well as celebrating their own history and culture.

Freedom is a word not to be taken lightly. Some people earn their freedom, others are liberated, but that freedom is a prison. Such is the world of the Uighurs in China. They have internet access but have to carry IDs and smartphones with them at all times. Their smartphones are often scanned and people found untrustworthy would be sent to internment camps. Not all freedoms are alike.

It’s Easy to Gain Followers

This should be taken with a huge grain of salt. It is never easy to find followers and retain them if you don’t have content daily and if you don’t advertise and sell yourself well. There are plenty of YouTube channels which have a lot of content but still didn’t even break the 100,000 subscriber count. It takes some luck, a lot of dedication and work, work, work. The easy part is because you have the internet and you can reach a lot of people with a couple of clicks and some well-placed advertisements.

They Are Entertaining

The successful internet stars are often one thing, entertaining. It is almost impossible to be famous if you don’t offer something to your followers. For most people, that thing is entertainment. Having that aspect can make someone’s day better just with a couple of clicks. It is one of the reasons why PewDiePie, for example, is very successful. It takes one click to watch one of his videos and laugh out loud, forgetting your problems for a moment. It doesn’t take long and you can start and end your day with laughter.

They Are Educational

Some people don’t have that entertainment factor, but can offer something others cannot, education. If you have the skills, whether teaching skills or simply the mechanical skills, for example, to play a video game better than your peers, people will watch your content. Granted, not all god-tier players or gamers have a following, nor people with a lot of education who share that, for free. Some are just more popular than others, whether through pure luck or a breakthrough. Some people deliver content in a much more cohesive way.

They Are Helpful and Relatable

Educational content is very good, but some people can be very helpful. You can easily relate to them and that is what draws us in, in the end. When you make a connection, you are instantly drawn in and want to absorb as much as you can. Some people can help us just by being there and doing what they do. 

They Are Always There

You might find it difficult to talk to your friends at 3 or 5 in the morning, when you are feeling sad. But your internet celebrities will always be there, to entertain you or help you find the motivation that you need to get through the night. That is something most of us could use on an almost daily basis, those 5 minutes of inspiration and confidence.

Internet celebrities are famous for the reasons mentioned above and more often than not, luck and novelty. 

People find ways of adapting to change. Remember when public transport was extremely slow and had lots of people so that you couldn’t even breathe? Do you also remember that taxi driver basically robbing you by making you pay an extremely unfair price on your fare? 

Then you must have been happy when services like Uber and Lyft, or Bla Bla Car in Europe, first appeared? But what about those services and environmental impact? Are they helping to save the environment or making everything worse? Stay tuned to find out.

Sharing is Caring

There is a reason as to why this saying is so popular and prevalent. Yes, giving someone that last piece of chocolate, even though you really wanted it, is a great thing to do. Not only do you get the satisfaction of giving someone that last piece, but also getting that warm and fuzzy feeling of sharing and empathy in practice. In order to show empathy to the environment, we should be using public transport or other ways of sharing a transport. This is where Uber and similar services come in. Why travel by yourself and spend lots of money on fuel, when you can travel with other people, share a ride, save fuel and the environment by traveling in a single car. Ideally, everyone would need to travel in a bus, as that reduces environmentally destructive emissions, but that is not a possible reality.

More Comfortable Bus Rides – A Different View on Car Sharing Services

Just like you would travel on a bus, sharing a car with someone would give you a first class experience, and you wouldn’t be on a bus. You are likely to rest more when traveling by car and you are likely to meet new people which you might stay in touch with. Who knows, your Uber driver might turn out to be the love of your life. The point is that by going with other people, driving with them, you do help save the environment.

Empty Car Sharing Cars Are a Problem

But what if nobody books a ride with you, and you end up going to your destination alone. Well, that would be the same as if you went alone without being an Uber driver. When a car is driven by a single person and the other seats are not occupied, it is wasting both money, fuel and damaging the environment. If all the other filled seats are going the same route, but in their own vehicles, then that is definitely having a bad impact on everyone.

Car Sharing Services Have Caused Protests

In some countries in the world, car sharing services have caused protests, most often from taxi drivers. The protests are often backed by reasons which are not realistic and based on the fact that most ridesharing drivers earn a lot more than taxi drivers. With that in mind, and the taxi drivers protesting, that means a lot of vehicles were out of work, and a lot of city streets were blocked, causing traffic to halt and emissions to rise.

For the most time, ridesharing services are helping the environment. There are occasions where they would not be helpful, but those are very rare and unlikely to happen.

When faced with new challenges, the world often finds a solution which is the most painless for everyone. Technology aided us in those times, and technology continues to aid us, in hard times, easy times and times where we have nothing else to do. But, counting on technology is a trap in itself. It can fail, leaving us somewhat powerless during those times. Well, people have already experienced that, especially during a single period known as the beginning of the new millennium. During that time, from December 31, 1999, to January 1, 2000, computers and software all over the world went a bit haywire and thus, the Millennium Bug or Y2K, came to be. Following is more on the subject.

The Problem of Transition – Computers During Those Days Were Problematic

In the year 1999, the fastest processor available to people was the Duron Spitfire with 800 MHz, from AMD. The speed of the processor, compared to today’s 5 GHz beasts is outdated, not to mention the various instructions added to newer generations of processors. But the problem wasn’t just in the processors, but rather the code itself, the operating systems and time keeping software. The problem arose out of expensive storage. Storage was scarce during those days and people who even had megabytes of storage were considered lucky or rich. Gigabytes were new and people having gigabytes usually worked for companies with large servers.

In order to reduce storage space, the date format, saved as DDMMYY, where DD stands for day, MM for month and YY for year. It was a six digit code. Yet, computers always prefixed the years with two digits, like 19 or the last two, in most cases, like 92, meaning 1992. When the rollover happened, programs couldn’t distinguish between 1900 and 2000. That caused a lot of software to go a bit crazy.

Y2K – The Name and Origin

Even in 1995, people were issuing out warnings as to what will definitely happen when the new millennium comes. David Eddy, a programmer from Massachusetts, sent an email in 1995, on June 12, which contained the numeronym Y2K. The Y stands for years, the 2 for the number 2 and the K for kilo, all in all meaning year 2000. He later said that people called it the Century Data Change or CDC and Faulty Date Logic or FADL. He also said that Y2K just came naturally to him, rolling off his tongue.

Plenty of software and hardware bugged on that day, various sensors sent alarm messages, in nuclear plants, communications networks, cash registers and most embedded solutions. The year 2000 being a leap year caused some problems on December 31, because that year had 366 days. All in all, nothing too serious happened.

All computers have bugs, at one time or another. The Y2K problem or the Millennium Bug, was an interesting phenomenon which took place when the world reached the year 2000, and computers failed to acknowledge that properly. We could have more such bugs, but the hardware and software today are far too advanced for such a simple bug to happen.

People love to travel, which is a fact that is true for most people. Going from one place to another means that you are exposed to a completely different culture, a world which is somewhat completely different to the one you live in, yet still similar. Humans are humans, no matter where you go. They will do their stuff, morning, afternoon and evening. Yet, travel is easier today, through technology, of course – just like betting is made easier by Betway Promo Code. With the internet, we have obtained endless information which we can access at any given point when traveling. Today, specifically, travel is easier through the use of VR and AI. Here is how these two technologies are helping change how we travel.

VR – See the World Before You Actually See it

Isn’t it great that we can explore our world before actually setting out to see it? Doesn’t that feel good, that you can see all the streets of the cities you plan on visiting before actually traveling over there and experiencing things in person? Yes, it does. This was made possible through Google and the use of their Street View technology. Their cars automatically take photos of the streets they drive through. That means getting to see a city through the perspective of a car, as well as most roads in the world. With VR, you can explore these streets and actually see them, meaning that you can explore the city you are planning on visiting. This is especially good for people who like to plan ahead and memorize their route in case their phone runs out of battery or they have a bad sense of orientation. Memorizing the monuments and objects on the road to your hostel can be time-saving.

AI – The Guide to the World

Artificial intelligence is applied in subtler ways than most people imagine. It often does something behind the scenes which makes our daily life easier. The search engines, for once, are powered by AI technology and use it to enhance their predictions and help us find what we are looking for. The predictive models are based on a couple of criteria, what you searched for, if you searched for similar things one after another, if they are related to your search query in a way, and many more things. The AI helps us find our way to a destination easier, every saved second adds up, and every time you avoid frustration is a very big thing, actually.

Virtual Tours – A New Way of Experiencing Something

In various museums and parts of the world, you can find virtual tours, which are like regular tours, except you don’t actually walk the grounds, but rather explore them through VR. This is especially important for history tours or tours of places that no longer exist, or are still a work in progress, like space.

Technology keeps changing us in ways we have yet to comprehend, but some are pretty easy to spot. VR and AI technology helps out almost everywhere and travel is no exception.

We all know that global warming is out there, probably a real thing. People would say that it is a myth, and they would quite frankly, be wrong. Global warming is an obvious thing, especially noticeable in the last 10 years. Our climates have never been this volatile and moody, every winter different, every summer different. Once you get a mild and temperate summer, the next year a hot one, without a rain cloud in sight.

People think that cars are a solid part of what’s making global warming worse. They are definitely a part of the problem. Buying the right car could help solve some problems, right? Yes, and here is how to choose the right one.

Buy an Electric Car

People have range anxiety, which is something all new electric car owners go through. They have no idea how long their car battery will last and they fear to go on longer trips, because running out of juice isn’t an option in an electric car. 

Overcoming range anxiety is easy for most car owners, because they can simply plan their route accordingly, looking up all chargers along the way, or using a Tesla which does it automatically. Electric cars are far better at emissions than other cars, even though their cost of manufacturing is often larger.

Buy a Hybrid

Some companies, like Toyota, have been offering hybrid cars since 1997, the first of their kind.

Hybrid cars run a combination of an electric motor and a petrol or diesel motor, but mostly petrol. These cars are complex machinery which do a lot of good for the environment. At lower speeds, only the electric motor is working, while at higher speeds, the internal combustion engine kicks in, giving the car the power it needs. It is a great combination, especially for commuters and those driving in cities.

Buy Extremely Efficient Petrol Cars

Diesel cars are known to have a worse effect on the environment. This is why most countries in the EU are getting rid of them, up to a certain standard. But, petrol cars can be very efficient, especially modern designs, and cause less harm to the environment. The problem is, not everyone has lots of money to spend on a new car. They are not as cheap as mobile phones are, so that they can be changed every single year any time in the future.

Saving the environment by purchasing a new vehicle is a possibility, especially if electric cars, hybrid cars, or very efficient petrol cars are purchased, in that order. Think about it if you’re planning on buying a new car.