Tek-Bull

Safety First, is it Really Worth it?

Security has been used in several different ways, one of the main ones is currently found all over the internet in the shape of internet security. But really, what most people are concerned about is safety. The safety of people, children, parents, animals, etc. HelenKeller once said:

“Security is mostly a superstition, it does not exist in nature. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

and really it got me thinking about a whole bunch of things. For starters, it got me thinking about my cellphone usage, I’ve dealt with a couple of people that answer the phone just to scream “hold on a second I’m looking for my head set!” a couple of minutes go by and they scream back out “hey I’ll have to call you back I can’t find my head set!” about 20 minutes pass by and FINALLY they return my call. Only to say, sorry it took me so long, I just don’t know about these cellphones anymore, I don’t want to get brain cancer. I mean come on, we live in 2011 and that myth has been going around for several years now.

So here is the real deal, cellphone “microwaves” are a little to big to damage any type of brain cell. It is true that microwaves give you cancer but they have to be a specific kind of wave. The wave has to be extremely small, small enough to take an electron from one atom and then throw that electron onto another atom. Get enough of these waves around and then you’ll get cancer.

But the waves from cellphones are just to big to do any actual damage. There have been hundreds of studies to figure out if Cellphone usage gives you cancer, and to this day, no cellphone wave has ever been tied up to a cancer of the brain. Plus, think about it for a second, it is estimated that almost 90% of US citizens have cellphones. Would you not think that by now, everyone would have brain cancer? The main reason this myth is still around, is because of the people that sell you things. They make infomercials that everyone falls for and then they trick you into believing that cellphones will give you brain cancer, therefore, you need to buy their cancer blocking ear pad. In my friend’s cases, $80 head sets that prevent radiation from entering your brain.

These same friends of mine are the ones who for one reason or another stopped eating Broccoli, spinach, and even steak, when the whole ecoli and the dreaded “mad cow” disease epidemics were breaking out… which to me was retarded, but who cares? more steaks for me right? If you start to do some research on the whole “mad cow” problem there were 137 cases of people dying from a variation of the Mad Cow disease. For the most part, the disease never jumped species, meaning that humans never got infected by the “mad cow” disease, instead they got infected by something from the same family. It’s like saying – I don’t eat tomatoes because tomatoes are from the same family as arsenic – It just doesn’t make sense.

Out of 6 billion people in the world, from 1996 to 2010, only 139 people were infected with the Mad Cow virus, and like I said before, it’s not the “mad cow” virus, it’s a virus that is very similar to that of the “mad cow.” We still don’t know what it is, we just know that some cows, have a mutated version of the virus that attacks the human body. In reality, you could go and eat hundreds of steaks from cows infected by mad cow. Since the virus does not jump between species, you are practically 100% safe… unless you get that one mutated virus. But let’s think about this for a second, there are about 10 cases of mad cow per year… globally! so your chances of getting infected by the virus are about 1 in 800,000,000 IF you get lucky. Otherwise you are looking at 1 in 1 billion or even more.

Heck, look at swine flu, you guys remember the whole scare about how people were going to start an epidemic and the disease was unstoppable etc. at the end of everything, we figured out that Swine Flue was just another media hype. And really this is just a conspiracy but one of my friends told me once: The beef industry was attacked by the chicken companies that said Cows had “mad cow” problems. Once the beef went under the scope, the chicken became the new meat. After chicken companies began to make money, beef companies started to complain about the “bird flue!” and the chicken went under, making Pork the new white meat! before they got attacked by the swine flue virus… it’s really just a joke.

All of these safety myths prevent people from living a normal life, if you look at the statistics, you have a higher chance of dying inside your home, than outside in the public. People don’t drive because they are afraid of crashing and dying. They don’t walk because they are afraid of getting ran over. They treat themselves and everyone around them as a statistic. More people die each day from a computer malfunction where the monitor explodes than by eating cheese on a pizza or some other weird myth. The list goes on and on and on. The small statistics below will make you think twice about what to worry about. For all you know, you will live your life secluded away from your family because you are afraid of getting hurt outside. Regardless of what you do, the day you were born, you were put into the list of statistics. You’ve heard the saying of “the first breath is your first taste of dying”? well.. I’m not a superstitious guy or anything, so I’m not going to sit here and tell you that your path has already been created since well before you were born. But when you die, regardless of what it is, you will instantly be put into a statistic.

Heart Disease 1-in-5
Cancer 1-in-7
Stroke 1-in-23
Accidental Injury 1-in-36
Motor Vehicle Accident* 1-in-100
Intentional Self-harm (suicide) 1-in-121
Falling Down 1-in-246
Assault by Firearm 1-in-325
Fire or Smoke 1-in-1,116
Natural Forces (heat, cold, storms, quakes, etc.) 1-in-3,357
Electrocution* 1-in-5,000
Drowning 1-in-8,942
Air Travel Accident* 1-in-20,000
Flood* (included also in Natural Forces above) 1-in-30,000
Legal Execution 1-in-58,618
Tornado* (included also in Natural Forces above) 1-in-60,000
Lightning Strike (included also in Natural Forces above) 1-in-83,930
Snake, Bee or other Venomous Bite or Sting* 1-in-100,000
Earthquake (included also in Natural Forces above) 1-in-131,890
Dog Attack 1-in-147,717
Asteroid Impact* 1-in-200,000**
Tsunami* 1-in-500,000
Fireworks Discharge 1-in-615,488

I’m not saying that you will live a perfectly safe life, but you have higher chances of getting killed on the road alongside the other 200 people who die on the street’s each day from automobile accidents, than you do of contracting a disease or worse yet, getting brain cancer from calling your friends. Life is not made out of Plastic and Bubble wraps, it’s made out of hard edges and sharp corners, but if you play your cards right, you’ll make it through without getting to hurt.