How-To: Connect to Chromecast on Public Wifi, Hotel, or University Network in 3 Steps

You will need:

-- PC with Connectify Hotspot software installed.
-- Chromecast
-- Ethernet cable
-- Smart phone

1) Connect PC to internet LAN using ethernet cable.
2) Install and run Connectify to create a wifi hotspot server.
3) Use Chromecast app on your smart phone to setup the Chromecast and connect it to the wifi network that you created with Connectify.

That's it. You should be ready to stream content.

NOTE: Mac users are able to do this by installing VMware Fusion or some other virtual PC to run Windows, and then follow the same steps.

For any troubleshooting, leave a comment, and I will do my best to resolve the issue.

Fatal Paradox: The Global Economy's Addiction to Overconsumption

My freshmen year of college, I began to consume every kind of documentary videos that I possibly could; I found them to be both captivating and thought-provoking. College is a transitionary period to contemplate and understand the world around you as well as your role in it -- and that is exactly what I sought to do, and I absorbed, read, analyzed, and studied more information than I ever have in such a short time. Only after I had completed my freshmen honors seminar, however, and been shown the works of the greatest thinkers in history -- Socrates, Plato, Homer, Machiavelli, etc. -- could I honestly say that I attained wisdom from all of that information, which are not to be confused. And I vividly remember Facebook messaging one of my very liberal, intellectual-type of high-school teachers, expressing my disgust with the public school system that I had not been exposed to any real knowledge until I paid for it (though, to be fair, I was lucky enough to receive a full-tutition scholarship, so I suppose I can't be that mad about it).

So, what's the point?

Sometime throughout my first year, I stumbled upon a documentary relating to macroeconomics and the structure of the economy as a whole. And in that documentary, I was exposed to a cruel realization, which I'm sure all of us have contemplated at some point, but never been fully to articulate: the entire global financial system is essentially the most elaborate, intertwined, disguised, and sustained Ponzi schemes ever. 

I realize that I likely just caused any Republican or individual with an Ayn Rand-based ideology scratch their eyeballs out and leave this page. But it's true. Despite the comfort that having money in our pocket or our bank account may give us, it doesn't actually stand for anything. 

Don't believe me? Nixon even stopped backing the U.S. dollar with gold reserves in the 70's (https://www.richmondfed.org/faqs/gold_silver/). 

However, at this point, we are way too deeply dependent upon this archaic system, which was established at a MUCH different time period in human history. Capitalism is great, do not get me wrong, I enjoy it just as much as the next person. It works so perfectly and is in beautiful in so many ways; the intricate nature of the relationship between supply and demand precisely balancing out the value of any product. 

But.. it's nowhere near perfect. And it's only getting worse, with the advent of technology increasing the disparity between the rich and the poor to historic levels, which has resultantly allowed for the formation of Mega-corporations which have amassed such vast wealth and power that it is unfathomable for the everyday person. Our unwillingness to change reflects a natural human inclination, however, we are too intelligent of a species to allow ourselves to blindly walk down the path of our inevitable demise. 

Let me explain what I mean. Today, in our overly-Capatilistic global system, there are people who are constantly working to produce products that already exist, just for fractionally smaller production costs, attempting to undercut a company providing reliable and functional products. This is simply not an efficient use of our resources: time, energy, and the environmental impact. 

We must stand up to the big oil and other natural gas-related forms of energy production which are archaic, inefficient, expensive, and damaging to the atmosphere and humans. While I understand that these are just people who must provide for their families and ensure their own financial stability, that is the sacrifice that has to be made, as the free market does daily anyways, in order to preserve the well-being of our planet and species. We must stop thinking in our closed-minded, complacent, consumeristic society and allow ourselves to see the bigger picture that is becoming clear. We can no longer afford -- and have absolutely no excuse anymore with the wealth of data that exists -- to continue pleading ignorance. It is a new day, and as change is the only true constant in life, we must adapt as we always have, and fiercely and relentlessly encourage the development of alternative, renewable sources of energy. 

Free your mind. Forget the system. Save our species.

Cosmos In Recent Popular Culture

Reading many, many articles from a vast amount of sources on a daily basis is something that I find to be extremely gratifying and rewarding. The discovery of knowledge only increases my desire to pursue it even more intensely -- a positive feedback mechanism for any biology geeks who may stumble upon this post. And of all the different types of things I enjoy reading about, I cannot think of a topic that is more cerebrally thought-provoking and makes you contemplate Life itself (life at it's most fundamental levels -- removing the societal lens and our internal biases to attempt to understand the meaning of our existence on a much higher level of consciousness) than the cosmos.

As a brief aside, I'd like to mention that the recent film Interstellar, despite my disdain for Matthew McConaughey, was, in my opinion a brilliantly done film, and definitely one of the best modern sci-fi films I've seen. While Hollywood has never been known for it's scientific or realistic accuracy, this movie was able to avoid that. It managed to feel very realistic and certainly represented a world in the not-too-far-out future in which there was a strange wind that seemed to have ill effects on human population, and Matthew is tasked to find another planet sustainable for human life. All the concepts and scenarios that play out throughout the film seemed to be very plausible and encouraged the viewer to form their own informed opinions regarding our subsequent action for ensuring the perpetuity of our species.

After watching the film, I started browsing through the NY-Times articles relating to the space and cosmos. (Note: if you do not already, I'd highly suggest reading the NY-Times, as their comments are some of the most insightful and well thought-out comments on the web). The article was discussing some new super telescope that would be capable of seeing many, many more planets very deep into our galaxy, and it was suggesting that as our capability for viewing interstellar space increases, we have continuously found more and more planets that seem like they have similar atmospheres and proximity to their star, and therefore we deem as potentially habitable.  Some of the comments were examining the possibilities of reaching these far away planets -- and after reading many comments -- I learned that our effort to see further into the galaxy at this point is relatively futile at this point, as we are not nearly close enough to having the technological capability of reaching any of these places. Currently, we can travel at only a fraction of the speed of light (something like 1% I believe), and even if we were able to travel at the speed of light, it would take us 26000 years to reach them.

This is where you will begin to see that what I have said previously reigns true: the acquisition of knowledge only increases the appetite for pursuing it. The proceeding comments began to discuss the nature of space and time and their interaction -- which was seemingly the only problem that Einstein couldn't even fully grasp -- although he did give us plenty of insight and theories. Interstellar touched on this idea as well -- they mention in the movie that there is a discrepancy between time experienced at different levels of gravity (i.e. 1 year in space was actually 7 years of time on Earth). This led me to conclude that the galaxy is an infinite and continuous cycle, whereby black holes both serve at absorbing matter and marking the end of life, but also creating violent bursts of energy which spawn entire galaxies. Thus, Time is the only truly limiting factor that renders different forms of life isolated from each other in space. Time impedes our ability to contact another form of life elsewhere, as well as their ability to contact us. This leads me the the conclusion that the universe and life are essentially infinite and perpetual, recycling and regenerating transfers of energy throughout time, forever.

So next time you're not satisfied with your selfie, rest assured.. cause when it all comes down to it, odds are, our existence is, for all intensive purposes, entirely meaningless anyways in terms of the overall framework of nature.

For movie buffs, specifically sci-fi, Lucy was also a fantastic film that is sure to stimulate your mind a bit.

Brave New World

2015 is, in every sense of the phrase, a "Brave New World". Increasing concerns over privacy, an alarmingly widening income disparity, Soma (Big Pharma), heightened societal pressures and stigmas, demanding private lives, higher cost of living, unprecedented rates of violence, the looming threat of climate change, all combined with the most volatile, uncertain, and rapidly-changing economy in recent history (quite arguably all of history) -- there are certainly plenty of problems facing our modern World.

It seemed only yesterday that the world was so much simpler and held more substance than it does today. Granted, this is partially so because I held a much more innocent, ignorant perspective on life and the modern world. But there must be some other underlying factors -- societal, cultural, religious, generational -- which also are contributing to the disastrous state our World is in presently. In this post, I outline a multitude of factors which I think have all played a role in altering our modern society into our social Darwinist moral wasteland whereby individuals possessing any sense of moral virtue are immediately crushed by their uncaring and self-consumed peers at any given opportunity.

1) Society and Corporate America Imposing Individualistic Values Onto Us
 -- for the purpose of allowing individuals who are benefitting the most from the current system to gain some comfort in the belief that, somehow, they have been deemed superior by the god of the "Free Market" economics.

2) Social Media Promotes an Individualistic Attitude and Focuses on Superficial, Visible traits rather than actually important ones -- which are internal and thus cannot be seen in a picture or 120 characters.

3) Everyone is dependent on "the system" and must maintain their own foothold within that system at all costs.

--this allows us to be puppets of the corporate conglomerate and perpetually enslave our bodies and minds.

4) The technological revolution -- although it has empowered many people to achieve financial success who otherwise would not have been able to -- it also facilitated the extreme wealth disparity that is becoming more evident each day, as Google, Amazon, and Facebook combine to control the world.

Welcome to The Sporadic Wealth of Knowledge!

This blog is intended to serve many, many purposes, and I am not exactly quite sure exactly what I am going to utilize it for the most. It will initially begin as a collection of my thoughts and ideas that I find myself contemplating constantly, and hopefully as I gain somewhat of a following/community of like-minded young millennial (or not, either way really) thinkers who are also able to collaborate with each other and spread the ideas to spread knowledge and wisdom in all facets of life. 

Furthermore, I intend to use this blog as a repository in order to provide assistance and how-to guides for certain areas, with a focus on technology and lifestyle/money tips; in a sense, I intend to provide "life-hack" sorts of information for the general community.