Disagree. It is entirely possible that a human vetted page of topic specific links is way more relevant and useful than what you might get on a google first search robot created page of links. I mean, you've never gone to say a hobbiest or enthusiast board and seen their "useful links" collections? There's a big difference between an algorithym generated page of links and a page where a set of human eyeballs has verified every link there as being useful and on topic. How about DMOZ? Is that a link farm?
To be clear, I am not defending those typosquatters sort of link farms, or those bogus DNS redirects you see sometimes from ISPs, but this isn't an example of one of those. We need two different names here, people are equating two different things as the same, that's the part I disagree with, aloing with the completely obvious fact/data/reality that the only thing google does is to index then supply a link farm to you, and they fund it by selling advertising. They do it big scale with so-so results on your first search, he is doing it very small and niche scale with loads more accurate results, because he individually verifies his links as being relevant, with google you sort of have to keep working at it a lot of times to get to something relevant.
If google was tasking a human being with verifying any random page of links they serve to you, I could see it being the same, but they don't, he does, *that's* the difference. If he buys or sells ads, etc, as far as I can see, he didn't violate any contractual terms, he isn't doing anything different that happens say on the forex exchange daily or the futures markets. That's business, buy (or produce) low, sell higher, do it quickly and efficiently and that's it, that's how that works.
Google does sumular, they sell high value words to the highest bidder, they aren't "fair", they go for maximum profits. Google just didn't like it because he embarrassed them, his page of topic specific links is much better than theirs, and he made more money than they do on a page. Sometimes you just got to say tough shit, that's it, he did better and certainly got rewarded for it.
And google ain't nuthin but a money machine for the folks there, let us not forget that either. Instead of ranking the guy and penalizing him they should have hired him, he obviously is smarter in some respects than they have been. And as to "links to links", that's what the internet is! A huge collection of hyperlinked pages! So what? You've never followed a link and found a similar page that has some different links then maybe some of the same links? This isn't uncommon at all, it's how it works sometimes, especially within some smaller specific niche. How about topic specific web page "rings"? You can click on "next" in some link ring, or go to any of the sites in the ring usually and see all the links at once. What's wrong with that?
Sorry, google just got beat at business in this case, stuff happens. He used a bog standard business technique called arbitrage, nothing at all unusual about that at all, it is by far one of the more common things in business. And he combined that principle with building a web page that was relevant enough that it got a ton of traffic.
A page of google search results is nothing but a link farm with some ads. This is like the old pot calling the kettle black. An individual does a single web page with topic-specific related links...that's the same thing google does, just they generate their's on the fly based on search words. I am not seeing any huge difference there with what the human sees on the screen once the browser renders it, it's a page with topic related links.
..and so on, like so many tech advances out there, but if you want an alternative *now*, you can get a DC powered Sundanzer refrigerator or freezer and power one of them from a single solar panel. They are conventional compressors, but are built loads better with much more insulation than most other units. I don't need either now, a fridge or freezer, ours are both still pretty new and functional, but next time I need a new one, that's going to be it.
Oh, I understand what you are saying and agree with it, I am just bowing to real politics and macroeconomics on the ground. The fatcats want it, so you'll get it. Peons voting has little to do with any sort of domestic or international policy. The vote (which is now hacked to pieces anyway with blackbox voting) is a political psychodrama sop to keep the "we the people" folks (as opposed to the "we the big transnational corporations) faked out that they are in any way relevant to the process. I still do, but it is only from inertia and so I can bitch about politics.
Experiment: Pick *any* subject at all now, determine what the bulk of the joe sixpacks out there would probably want..now look to see what the law says or what is political reality.
No, what the article makes clear is the way the stockmatket is run now has nothing to do with "investing" in a company because you think they offer good products or services so they will grow and prosper in the future, and everything to do with it being it a big stupid gambling casino that has zilch to do with traditional investing. A congame run by charlatan conmen to take advantage and leech off the suckers. Goes hand in pickpocketing hand with those big financial "industry" thieves who are quick to grab megaprofits when they successfully con people into taking their toxic waste pieces of paper, and right there with those same hands out taking tax payer bailouts when they run up against serious losses because of their overwhelming greed being the most important aspect to their "busy-ness".
It is called "payola" and most of those big distributors should have been broken up by now, put out of business in other words, over it. Not all stations or DJs participate in it, but enough over the *decades* to show it is the main reason you hear the same stuff all the time. When they get caught,they pay a little fine, next day, back to business as usual again.
The main reason why you see the US and some other big nations really push for more strict copyrights and longer terms and things like software patents is because they have gone way out of their way to trash traditional wealth production. They are trying to replace it with this nebulous "IP" and alleged services as the basis for the economy. It's a big fat and collapsing now mess. All those IP styled paper financial "products" they think up and tried to sell all over the planet are another similar type example. They will cling to this lame business mode alleged thinking to the point of absolute absurdity because they don't have anything else now. The expression is "screwed the pooch".
How about better real time teleconferencing as opposed to sending humans on expensive jet airplanes all over to meetings, or for workers who can work at home instead of physically commuting daily to the office?
You outsource everything, eventually the folks you outsource to will realize all they have to do is stick their own label on the same exact thing they are building and be able to sell it cheaper than the original company ever could,. and they will just cut the original company out, they won't need two complete sets of upper so called management, and they for sure won't be firing *themselves*. Heck, I have seen it happen within a few years in the trades, joe local big fatcat contractor is going to beat the local competition and save some money and hires a buncha recent arrivals at really cheap rates, well below even normal cheap rates *wink wink, nudge nudge*. They work hard and steady for awhile, learn the trade, and the next thing you see is "recent arrivals contracting inc" signs on brand new pickups, with both the old fatcat contractor and his competition standing in line for food stamps wonderung what the hell happened to their scheme.
Couple years in the trade, or 20 years for all the manufacturing, it is the same deal though.
Outsourcing or insourcing via fast labor arbitrage is a very short term way to increase profits, but eventually those bloody wogs and natives you are exploiting to squeeze out a few more pennies get hip enough and rich enough that they don't need your "guidance" any more, and they will want all the money, not just a smidgen of it. They will and are gonna take your lunch money, no way around it.
Hard to answer if we really don't know the density of the atmosphere way back then. We obviously had a lot more larger land animals at some time, why not now? We do know from the fossil records that a lot of insects were much larger, I don't know about turkey sized mosquitoes, but there were whopper dragonflies with 2-3 foot wingspans. There has to be some extreme environmental reasons why such sized insects and land animals and flying reptiles could have existed, and a much denser atmosphere might be one of them, that could have helped against normal gravity (guessing, I don't know).
I'd like to hear that too, good to know if you are in the used and cheap laptop market. Computers I can't tell you, guns I can, used to fix them. For shotguns, cheap to buy and very good quality, you can't go much wrong with a remington 870, tough as nails.
The younger generations now that are growing up with cellphone cameras are about all posting wild ass pics of themselves online. "Employers" are going to have no choice in hiring, once everyone they google and check on pretty much has party pics to find. And for that matter, those kids BECOME the employers of tomorrow, they are going to not hire themselves? The previous generations going back to caveman days all did similar, it just wasn't as easy to take digital snaps and stick them someplace. And like, who cares really?
Dr. Phil is "entertainment", not science, and not economics. And any employer out there today who doesn't want to hire someone merely based on whether or not they party or are actually like young people fooling around and having some fun at one point is most likely a hypocrite. And verily I will say unto you: I am in the boomer generation,and will attest that any boomer employer right now who is still that stuck up is (odds > 99%) both a liar and a hypocrite along with being just stupid. Or just really really strange, someone you wouldn't want to work for anyway (every generation has it's share of 'tards). And that goes for boomer politicians, business leaders and so on. If they didn't party, they were some really weird people. And if they claim they didn't party, don't leave a room you are in with them without checking if you still have your wallet...
You hire people primarily based on whether or not they can do the job for you. To think they aren't human outside of worktime is looney tunes.
ha! Historical parallel. My dad used to razz me unmercifully in the 60s about what I looked like and so on, UNTIL my aunt, his older sister, showed me a pic of him dressed in a *zoot suit*. DAMN that was some funny stuff! I showed that to him, that's it, he never razzed me again!
Natural gas-no net increase because the demand for it is offset by replacing natgas powered gennies with wind farms in the pickens plan. the natgas goes to power some vehicles then, reducing demand for imported petroleum. ya, I know he's making money off of it, it is still a nice package deal that has merit to it because it is doable, not pie in the sky. We have the natgas and the wind, might as well use them to help offset oil prices.
China and india shrinking in population? 100% wrong, they are both increasing. china is basically purchasing africa with their extra money now, buying up farmland and strategic minerals and metals and energy sources. India is trying the same but is loads poorer, they won't be able to do as much in the future, they waited too long to heavily industrialize.
And I predicted and wrote about this sort of thing happening 30 years ago! I also said it would completely destroy the US economy by enriching those genocidal maniacs on mainland china. Worst economic mistake ever, strategically a disaster as well, they WILL be holding the planet hostage at some point now and we could very well be facing global war over their expansionist plans they got coming. That political party and system killed millions of their own people, I see them no different from [godwin reference]. If it was up to me, I'd cut that trade off immediately before it is too later to go back to having a more balanced economy inside the US. the wallstreet pirates pushed that stuff, not ME.
Tax issues-a big subject, complex, but my bottom line (I have some more involved essays floating around on this, an open currency system model) is the entire system is a scam because they use a *fiat currency* system. Taxes are therefore not necessary except as a cudgel to control the population, government is self funding when they print the money up. as long as we went back to a balanced budget and didn't over inflate the money supply-no income taxes are even necessary. Now taxes are necessary when you have a resource backed currency of some sort, because that is a true scarcity model that is dependent on productivity gains. Totally different deal there.
Food-US exports of food put millions of poor farmers out of work in their own nations,all over the planet, worst idea out there. We sell food here and I think it's nuts on humanitarian grounds to wipe those folks out, we are destroying other nations abilities to feed themselves. Now we are forcing those patented closed source seeds and relying on expensive chemicals and spray for those people, double nuts crazy. Just NAFTA put millions of mexican campesinos out of work, which I think is horrid. I'm as compassionate as anyone, it's not all "me me me" with me, that's why I like ideas that work, not "feel good" crap thought up by academics or politicians who never did a lick of real work in their entire lives
As to being a dumb redneck, I'm just an old "mother earth news" type hippie, been into alternative energy (and conservation and personal sovereignty) for decades now, worked on my first solar project in 1968, then on and off with it for a long time, at times professionally. I've built methane digesters, various home made solar thermal, compost heat powered stuff, worked in a superinsulation business, solar hot water and a lot more.. Worked a lot of conservation issues in the past, worked civil rights days for human rights for everyone and took the gas at demos. I'm also a non interventionist, perhaps you missed that part, I DON'T want to exploit other peoples and lands for their resources. I don't want to invade them, and steal their stuff and put dictators in. Self defense, yes indeed, offense for profit? nope...
I get by on a lot less than most folks because my needs and demands are small, I rearranged my reality so I don't need to "make money" to live as much as a lot of other people do, I own practically nothing other than my tools clothes and food supplies. My newest vehicle is a used one I bought for 450 bucks from 1981 that gets clos
Well, that's a very nice reply to my post with the historical references, but I was only pointing out the obvious that the civil war was a nasty war with a high attrition rate and they used what tech was available at the time extensively. Along with the concentration camps. I only included stats for the US in war figures reference, I wasn't trying to compare it to all the totals, just to show that the US actually lost more folks fighting internally than they did in the next two large wars, which was supposed to emphasize how bad and extensive the US civil war was from a US perspective. sorry that didn't come across adequately.
As to being anti war, my cred is pretty good there, I've been opposed to the bulk of the conflicts the US has been in since as far back as I can remember, because they are for the most part banker's wars, wallstreet blood profit's wars. I can't see where I was "excusing" anything with what I wrote.
Quite true. some do,. some don't, but I would wager a decent sum we could have millions more people telecommuting right now and just that would go a long way to solving a lot of the energy and conservation issues we are facing.
Personally, I am just getting tired with those giant office towers and the urban centric bias so many people have, when they apparently haven't stopped to think we just might not need to make cities bigger when so many people apparently really do *not* want to go there, they really do prefer the burbs or even rural, but are forced to by past business inertia. And by past I mean when bob cratchet had to sit under an oil lamp with a quill pen and all meetings had to be face to face and so on. that just isn't true today, yet the old "commute to the office" remains completely intact for the most part. That whole notion to me in this alleged digital age is just as much of an energy hog solution as issuing everyone an SUV. It's not the "how" of commuting, it is the "why??" of commuting that is the much larger issue, and one that isn't hardly on anyones radar at this point,w e are all blindly stumbling along in some belief that it just "has to be this way". Why, because in great grandpas day it was the only way?
I look at those obscenely large corporate constructs, all to have folks sitting in front of screens pushing electrons, and it is mind boggling how much sheer wasted energy and resources go into that. And us rural folks get ranked and dissed all the time because we have pickups! Plz, if that ain't the pot callin the kettle black! The actual travel to and from theose ego towers is just part of it, just building those monstrosities must take huge amounts of resources and energy, then they have to be turned on and run and expensively maintained forever, and they are designed on purpose to waste x-amount of human productive time just to travel back and forth to them, like they are ancient pagan temples or something. Lunacy, IMO.
I can see actually having to go to a factory to build something, but not to go sit in front a screen that is basically a match for the one sitting in the home office.
Anyway, no solutions today, but it has been a fun Labor Day kvetch-fest! I *enjoy* my commute now, bang open the front door, step outside, at work!
Well, ya, that's Europe. That's why I made a point of saying I was only speaking of the US. We've already invested gawd knows how much to build a fantastic road system. Flaws and all, you can drive most anyplace and it is already paid off. Building x-thousands of miles of new rail lines here is just not going to happen, especially as they just went way out of their way the past buncha years *tearing rail lines out*. And from what I am reading in the UK press your folks are hurting and this winter is going to be an energy pricing shocker. Your fuel prices are already nutso, way beyond sustainability. You leader goofballs are just as nuts as our fearless leader goofballs. That might have something to do with more passenger rail traffic, you are pricing people out of their cars and soon to be out of winter heating. Good luck with that. Me, I burn firewood cut right off this property now. No more paying through the nose for wallstreet profits fuels.
I made a point to be loud and bitch about that tearing out already established rail lines several times when it was proposed way back (which really annoyed a lot of my enviro friends but they can't think past one step it seems in a lot of cases, much as I like bicycles, established rail lines are more important), but they still got tore out -which shows how much bitching can accomplish, even combined with some practical long range economic outlooks, absolutely nothing, but it is fun to be right later on I guess...say toldyaso. To all those 'tards...toldyaso!)
The US and giant corporation inc., short-sightedly and quite *stupidly* destroyed on purpose a pretty fair and well built railroad service, we had a lot of passenger rail and cargo (when I was a kid I had a job sweeping at a passenger rail station, that is long gone now), now we only have a pittance of passenger and still good cargo for rail. You see, I *was* a rail supporter..back when we still had all the track in place, it used to connect about every little burg out there, sidings galore..now mostly gone.
The people have spoken, we want cars and planes.
And verily shall it be.
And we'll give up planes before we do cars if it gets too expensive. Just the way it is. A few big metro areas have commuter trains and subways, this will have to suffice. We have both some intra city and then a sort of national busline, it works for what it offers. That'll be it.
There's just slap no money for such a huge national new rail project, nor much of a will. You'll find a few people willing to give up their cars for rail, but not too many. It just isn't as flexible as a road system with personal vehicles. Europe may build more trains and stuff, but the US and Japan will be building 50 mpg cars soon for the US market, that is the forward look near as I can see.
The US may be *slow* to change, but once the collective "we" decides to change it goes fast, you should see the sheer number of gashogs around here sitting with for-sale signs in the windows out in front of people's houses. It's freekin medium amazing.
High speed rail outside of a few really niche lines in the US is DOA. We will be buying better mileage cars, going to electric cars, diesels, along those lines. Scooters, gee whizz they are popular now, seeing ten times as many this year as last year zipping around. I mean, geez, even rail cargo is dropping fast as the economy tanks. They are parking-mothballing-thousands of freight cars right now. We are keeping our roads, just gonna change what we drive on them.
This "economy tanking" part is just not sinking in yet to enough people, but it will, give it some more time. There aren't going to be *any* big huge expensive boondoggles soon, you can't do squat when you are bankrupt, and for all practical purposes the US is bankrupt right now, the fed gov is bankrupt, all the states are bankrupt, hardly any pension systems public or private can realistically pay off, that
"what would they do"? I'd put them to work hand building levees and planting trees on the edges of deserts, stuff like that. Sorting through mountains of electronic waste for the scrap metals. At minimum wage. With no benefits. And every day I'd warn them that we could import workers who could work twice as hard for half the pay. Over and over on loudspeakers, just an endless loop. At designated 800 calorie gruel ration time periods, say once every ten hours, they could listen to broadcasts of rush limbeau telling them to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and realize they are competing globally now so they better work harder if they want to stay competitive. And how they are falling behind with their interest payments for the small square of ground they are allowed to sleep on, so they better figure out where to get the money to pay for that privilege and soon, or they will go to a real debtor's work camp. No "writing down" debt around these parts anymore.
Besides that, maybe they could be used for biofuel?
I disagree, and it is because we are not effectively using a lot better technology that we have developed already.
A ton of this commuting, millions of people, doesn't have to be done if we put in good fiber optic internet more places. That would do more than any amount of better cars or commuter trains. All this commuting to go sit in an office and type at a computer doesn't need all this commuting, it can be done at home. No need to drive or ride some train then.
We need to give up this notion that having huge corporate office towers with giant lit up signs advertising to the space aliens all night long is somehow a wise idea. Those are corporate dick waving towers, that's it for the most part in the internet age. We should be working hard to eliminate the *need* for commuting, not arguing over rail or more roads, we need to eliminate millions more people driving big distances twice a day, or riding some equally expensive and time wasting train, five days a week just to type up stuff and attend meetings and show each other power point presentations.
We have the internet, a 21st century way to move ideas and data, lets use that instead, as much as possible,. way more than we are now, it is a lot cheaper than building roads or rails to move humans when there is no absolute necessity other than past historical inertia.
We had passenger rail service a lot all over the nation, people abandoned it in droves to..err...drive. And that's it. People vote for what they want with their wallet. Building a ton more rail lines wouldn't work, people will still drive. What will be happening is just better and more fuel efficient cars will be built for the roads that are already built. And for that matter, a whole heaping bunch of the same folks who want more rail now went way out of their way to encourage rails to trails, ripping out rail lines to put in bike paths. They can't even make up their minds but want everyone else to jump fast and pay for the scheme of the week. So let them ride their bikes now where those ripped out rail lines went.
We have a wonderful highway system that works, and better vehicles will be here shortly, every major manufacturer is on the hybrid or plugin hybrid bandwagon now and pure electrics and good small diesels, etc are "coming soon". Another trillion dollars for more passenger rail lines (figure pulled out of the aether) is spending money unwisely at this point, and we need to conserve *cash* now, the nation is going broke. We don't need anymore massive boondoggles. I'd rather see that trillion (if it was spent) go into something like two-three billion solar panels all over the nation on most of the roofs..just as a for instance. That would do a lot more good. We need more energy, not more ways to use energy. We are already moving fast to being more efficient with our energy uses, people are juiced over better mileage cars and stuff like going to LED lighting and so on, all good stuff.
The US is primarily a car nation, *that isn't going to change*, and people huffing and puffing it is the same as Europe so we can be like Europe isn't going to change that, so they should just give it up on that point, let it go. We have enough rail and trains to move a lot of bulk cargo, it's already a done deal, after that we use trucks, and people want to fly or drive when moving their persons.
The train is an expensive sort of compromise that is neither as fast as flying when you need to save time, nor can it be a substitute for the whole family and their stuff in the car going on vacation, so it won't work. That passenger rail has long ago fallen out of favor *here* for the universal people moving deal, although it is popular elsewhere. Where it is practical for commuting or in the extremely large urban areas, we already have it and it gets used, again, it is a done deal. It is not necessary any place else at this point. It is expensive enough maintaining the roads as it is and there would be no way to pay for establishing thousands of miles of new tracks and trains in addition to the roads, and they *won't* be tearing out roads or abandoning them.
China can do this crap because they make a trillion a year surplus, the US loses that amount, we go into debt that much, that's why china can build expensive toys like a high speed rail link.
The US civil war had concentration camps (both sides equally and wretchedly, little to no rations meaning starvation, no clothes or shelter winter or summer,just whatever uniforms they were caught in that soon turned to rags, and that's it, disease was rampant, etc) and a lot of generic genocide involved with it, especially the rape of the south, Sherman burned everything, farms, cities, he didn't care, total war as he went, he burned and hung. And both sides used what weapons they had extensively. The only reason they didn't use poison gas is it wasn't invented yet. The weaponry though was still horrific, and medical care started out with no pain killers and went downhill from there. Causalities, direct battle deaths or later on from injuries and disease, was around 600,000 for a combined around 4.5 million soldiers. For comparison, WW1 - 115,000 US deaths, WW2 400,000.
The US civil war was a *big deal* not to be discounted as some little popgun war.
do what all corporations do now, offshore it. Send the head outside the country to nation-x which will accept it, have it tested there. If the guy wants to sell to korea and japan, let them do the test, critter by critter..
It works both ways. You don't think, take for example China (although I think it would apply to most foreign nations), that all those students and business people in the US from there don't grab as much tech and data as they can get and transfer it back home?
The bottom line is everyone spies on everyone else. Even so called "allies" spy on each other. Then you have pure outside of government corporate espionage. Then you have "free lance" spies and crackers who find data and sell it to whomever will give them the most for it.
Ha! It's big business, the economy might collapse without it! snicker
Anyway, them foreign folks thinking they will be safer because they host someplace else..uh huh. That's a nice *theory* I guess....The US gets a lot of press because it is a big dog nation, that doesn't mean all these other nations don't try just as hard with the resources and access they have. Their various citizenry may want to *believe* they aren't being spied on, that's about it.
All governments and big corporations go corrupt, just the way it goes, too much power and money to be made.
Backups are really practical. I had a bad accident at work once, really impacted my takehome income. My food stores helped a lot, one thing I didn't have to sweat. Here on the farm without backup generators we'd be hosed, bankrupt, the broiler houses all have big diesel gennys and they get used. We can't take more than 10 minutes without power or the chickens could croak inside the houses, they need active venting to keep the air moving in there, and the power goes out often enough so those gennys get used.
I got into this way back when I was a teen and we had a blizzard that shut everything down for two weeks. 4 feet dumped in one storm then drifts, and this was in the days without a lot of snowmobiles so most people were just stuck. heck, a lot of folks got stuck in their cars, my dad had to walk the last several miles home when he evacced from work, he about froze his feet though, only had regular shoes on.
Luckily I made it home on the school bus when they shut everything down at around 10 or so in the morning,(8 am no snow, by 10 going on two feet deep!!! Never seen anything like that before or since) but a couple of my younger siblings got stuck in school and didn't get home until the next day, I had to go get them with the snowshoes and tobaggon. My folks ran out of fuel oil and no deliveries could be made, but we had a fireplace, so that kept us from freezing. We had enough food, but a lot of people locally didn't, the national guard dropped food stores from helos and a friend and I took turns with the same snowshoes and his tobaggon and got the food and went around and delivered it to people near us and checked on them. It was a bad storm, really intense, the accumulation was too much even for all the big snow plows and stuff. Drifted over our two story house, that sort of bad (of course being a kid we all thought it was nifty cool) Ever since then I have been into "practical preparedness" or survivalism, backups for most everything and trying to be as independent as possible. Cool thing from that storm, a freekin arctic owl showed up on the lines connected to the pole in our backyard! I got super 8 movies of him, a big birdie! heheh, he was sagging that telephone line bad!
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Is that like how the FCC auctioning off the public airwaves to the same telco cartel makes us a wealthier FCC?
Disagree. It is entirely possible that a human vetted page of topic specific links is way more relevant and useful than what you might get on a google first search robot created page of links. I mean, you've never gone to say a hobbiest or enthusiast board and seen their "useful links" collections? There's a big difference between an algorithym generated page of links and a page where a set of human eyeballs has verified every link there as being useful and on topic. How about DMOZ? Is that a link farm?
To be clear, I am not defending those typosquatters sort of link farms, or those bogus DNS redirects you see sometimes from ISPs, but this isn't an example of one of those. We need two different names here, people are equating two different things as the same, that's the part I disagree with, aloing with the completely obvious fact/data/reality that the only thing google does is to index then supply a link farm to you, and they fund it by selling advertising. They do it big scale with so-so results on your first search, he is doing it very small and niche scale with loads more accurate results, because he individually verifies his links as being relevant, with google you sort of have to keep working at it a lot of times to get to something relevant.
If google was tasking a human being with verifying any random page of links they serve to you, I could see it being the same, but they don't, he does, *that's* the difference. If he buys or sells ads, etc, as far as I can see, he didn't violate any contractual terms, he isn't doing anything different that happens say on the forex exchange daily or the futures markets. That's business, buy (or produce) low, sell higher, do it quickly and efficiently and that's it, that's how that works.
Google does sumular, they sell high value words to the highest bidder, they aren't "fair", they go for maximum profits. Google just didn't like it because he embarrassed them, his page of topic specific links is much better than theirs, and he made more money than they do on a page. Sometimes you just got to say tough shit, that's it, he did better and certainly got rewarded for it.
And google ain't nuthin but a money machine for the folks there, let us not forget that either. Instead of ranking the guy and penalizing him they should have hired him, he obviously is smarter in some respects than they have been. And as to "links to links", that's what the internet is! A huge collection of hyperlinked pages! So what? You've never followed a link and found a similar page that has some different links then maybe some of the same links? This isn't uncommon at all, it's how it works sometimes, especially within some smaller specific niche. How about topic specific web page "rings"? You can click on "next" in some link ring, or go to any of the sites in the ring usually and see all the links at once. What's wrong with that?
Sorry, google just got beat at business in this case, stuff happens. He used a bog standard business technique called arbitrage, nothing at all unusual about that at all, it is by far one of the more common things in business. And he combined that principle with building a web page that was relevant enough that it got a ton of traffic.
A page of google search results is nothing but a link farm with some ads. This is like the old pot calling the kettle black. An individual does a single web page with topic-specific related links...that's the same thing google does, just they generate their's on the fly based on search words. I am not seeing any huge difference there with what the human sees on the screen once the browser renders it, it's a page with topic related links.
..and so on, like so many tech advances out there, but if you want an alternative *now*, you can get a DC powered Sundanzer refrigerator or freezer and power one of them from a single solar panel. They are conventional compressors, but are built loads better with much more insulation than most other units. I don't need either now, a fridge or freezer, ours are both still pretty new and functional, but next time I need a new one, that's going to be it.
Oh, I understand what you are saying and agree with it, I am just bowing to real politics and macroeconomics on the ground. The fatcats want it, so you'll get it. Peons voting has little to do with any sort of domestic or international policy. The vote (which is now hacked to pieces anyway with blackbox voting) is a political psychodrama sop to keep the "we the people" folks (as opposed to the "we the big transnational corporations) faked out that they are in any way relevant to the process. I still do, but it is only from inertia and so I can bitch about politics.
Experiment: Pick *any* subject at all now, determine what the bulk of the joe sixpacks out there would probably want..now look to see what the law says or what is political reality.
No, what the article makes clear is the way the stockmatket is run now has nothing to do with "investing" in a company because you think they offer good products or services so they will grow and prosper in the future, and everything to do with it being it a big stupid gambling casino that has zilch to do with traditional investing. A congame run by charlatan conmen to take advantage and leech off the suckers. Goes hand in pickpocketing hand with those big financial "industry" thieves who are quick to grab megaprofits when they successfully con people into taking their toxic waste pieces of paper, and right there with those same hands out taking tax payer bailouts when they run up against serious losses because of their overwhelming greed being the most important aspect to their "busy-ness".
It is called "payola" and most of those big distributors should have been broken up by now, put out of business in other words, over it. Not all stations or DJs participate in it, but enough over the *decades* to show it is the main reason you hear the same stuff all the time. When they get caught,they pay a little fine, next day, back to business as usual again.
The main reason why you see the US and some other big nations really push for more strict copyrights and longer terms and things like software patents is because they have gone way out of their way to trash traditional wealth production. They are trying to replace it with this nebulous "IP" and alleged services as the basis for the economy. It's a big fat and collapsing now mess. All those IP styled paper financial "products" they think up and tried to sell all over the planet are another similar type example. They will cling to this lame business mode alleged thinking to the point of absolute absurdity because they don't have anything else now. The expression is "screwed the pooch".
How about better real time teleconferencing as opposed to sending humans on expensive jet airplanes all over to meetings, or for workers who can work at home instead of physically commuting daily to the office?
You outsource everything, eventually the folks you outsource to will realize all they have to do is stick their own label on the same exact thing they are building and be able to sell it cheaper than the original company ever could,. and they will just cut the original company out, they won't need two complete sets of upper so called management, and they for sure won't be firing *themselves*. Heck, I have seen it happen within a few years in the trades, joe local big fatcat contractor is going to beat the local competition and save some money and hires a buncha recent arrivals at really cheap rates, well below even normal cheap rates *wink wink, nudge nudge*. They work hard and steady for awhile, learn the trade, and the next thing you see is "recent arrivals contracting inc" signs on brand new pickups, with both the old fatcat contractor and his competition standing in line for food stamps wonderung what the hell happened to their scheme.
Couple years in the trade, or 20 years for all the manufacturing, it is the same deal though.
Outsourcing or insourcing via fast labor arbitrage is a very short term way to increase profits, but eventually those bloody wogs and natives you are exploiting to squeeze out a few more pennies get hip enough and rich enough that they don't need your "guidance" any more, and they will want all the money, not just a smidgen of it. They will and are gonna take your lunch money, no way around it.
Hard to answer if we really don't know the density of the atmosphere way back then. We obviously had a lot more larger land animals at some time, why not now? We do know from the fossil records that a lot of insects were much larger, I don't know about turkey sized mosquitoes, but there were whopper dragonflies with 2-3 foot wingspans. There has to be some extreme environmental reasons why such sized insects and land animals and flying reptiles could have existed, and a much denser atmosphere might be one of them, that could have helped against normal gravity (guessing, I don't know).
I'd like to hear that too, good to know if you are in the used and cheap laptop market. Computers I can't tell you, guns I can, used to fix them. For shotguns, cheap to buy and very good quality, you can't go much wrong with a remington 870, tough as nails.
The younger generations now that are growing up with cellphone cameras are about all posting wild ass pics of themselves online. "Employers" are going to have no choice in hiring, once everyone they google and check on pretty much has party pics to find. And for that matter, those kids BECOME the employers of tomorrow, they are going to not hire themselves? The previous generations going back to caveman days all did similar, it just wasn't as easy to take digital snaps and stick them someplace. And like, who cares really?
Dr. Phil is "entertainment", not science, and not economics. And any employer out there today who doesn't want to hire someone merely based on whether or not they party or are actually like young people fooling around and having some fun at one point is most likely a hypocrite. And verily I will say unto you: I am in the boomer generation,and will attest that any boomer employer right now who is still that stuck up is (odds > 99%) both a liar and a hypocrite along with being just stupid. Or just really really strange, someone you wouldn't want to work for anyway (every generation has it's share of 'tards). And that goes for boomer politicians, business leaders and so on. If they didn't party, they were some really weird people. And if they claim they didn't party, don't leave a room you are in with them without checking if you still have your wallet...
You hire people primarily based on whether or not they can do the job for you. To think they aren't human outside of worktime is looney tunes.
ha! Historical parallel. My dad used to razz me unmercifully in the 60s about what I looked like and so on, UNTIL my aunt, his older sister, showed me a pic of him dressed in a *zoot suit*. DAMN that was some funny stuff! I showed that to him, that's it, he never razzed me again!
Natural gas-no net increase because the demand for it is offset by replacing natgas powered gennies with wind farms in the pickens plan. the natgas goes to power some vehicles then, reducing demand for imported petroleum. ya, I know he's making money off of it, it is still a nice package deal that has merit to it because it is doable, not pie in the sky. We have the natgas and the wind, might as well use them to help offset oil prices.
China and india shrinking in population? 100% wrong, they are both increasing. china is basically purchasing africa with their extra money now, buying up farmland and strategic minerals and metals and energy sources. India is trying the same but is loads poorer, they won't be able to do as much in the future, they waited too long to heavily industrialize.
And I predicted and wrote about this sort of thing happening 30 years ago! I also said it would completely destroy the US economy by enriching those genocidal maniacs on mainland china. Worst economic mistake ever, strategically a disaster as well, they WILL be holding the planet hostage at some point now and we could very well be facing global war over their expansionist plans they got coming. That political party and system killed millions of their own people, I see them no different from [godwin reference]. If it was up to me, I'd cut that trade off immediately before it is too later to go back to having a more balanced economy inside the US. the wallstreet pirates pushed that stuff, not ME.
Tax issues-a big subject, complex, but my bottom line (I have some more involved essays floating around on this, an open currency system model) is the entire system is a scam because they use a *fiat currency* system. Taxes are therefore not necessary except as a cudgel to control the population, government is self funding when they print the money up. as long as we went back to a balanced budget and didn't over inflate the money supply-no income taxes are even necessary. Now taxes are necessary when you have a resource backed currency of some sort, because that is a true scarcity model that is dependent on productivity gains. Totally different deal there.
Food-US exports of food put millions of poor farmers out of work in their own nations,all over the planet, worst idea out there. We sell food here and I think it's nuts on humanitarian grounds to wipe those folks out, we are destroying other nations abilities to feed themselves. Now we are forcing those patented closed source seeds and relying on expensive chemicals and spray for those people, double nuts crazy. Just NAFTA put millions of mexican campesinos out of work, which I think is horrid. I'm as compassionate as anyone, it's not all "me me me" with me, that's why I like ideas that work, not "feel good" crap thought up by academics or politicians who never did a lick of real work in their entire lives
As to being a dumb redneck, I'm just an old "mother earth news" type hippie, been into alternative energy (and conservation and personal sovereignty) for decades now, worked on my first solar project in 1968, then on and off with it for a long time, at times professionally. I've built methane digesters, various home made solar thermal, compost heat powered stuff, worked in a superinsulation business, solar hot water and a lot more.. Worked a lot of conservation issues in the past, worked civil rights days for human rights for everyone and took the gas at demos. I'm also a non interventionist, perhaps you missed that part, I DON'T want to exploit other peoples and lands for their resources. I don't want to invade them, and steal their stuff and put dictators in. Self defense, yes indeed, offense for profit? nope...
I get by on a lot less than most folks because my needs and demands are small, I rearranged my reality so I don't need to "make money" to live as much as a lot of other people do, I own practically nothing other than my tools clothes and food supplies. My newest vehicle is a used one I bought for 450 bucks from 1981 that gets clos
Well, that's a very nice reply to my post with the historical references, but I was only pointing out the obvious that the civil war was a nasty war with a high attrition rate and they used what tech was available at the time extensively. Along with the concentration camps. I only included stats for the US in war figures reference, I wasn't trying to compare it to all the totals, just to show that the US actually lost more folks fighting internally than they did in the next two large wars, which was supposed to emphasize how bad and extensive the US civil war was from a US perspective. sorry that didn't come across adequately.
As to being anti war, my cred is pretty good there, I've been opposed to the bulk of the conflicts the US has been in since as far back as I can remember, because they are for the most part banker's wars, wallstreet blood profit's wars. I can't see where I was "excusing" anything with what I wrote.
Nice link for you about spying potential
Quite true. some do,. some don't, but I would wager a decent sum we could have millions more people telecommuting right now and just that would go a long way to solving a lot of the energy and conservation issues we are facing.
Personally, I am just getting tired with those giant office towers and the urban centric bias so many people have, when they apparently haven't stopped to think we just might not need to make cities bigger when so many people apparently really do *not* want to go there, they really do prefer the burbs or even rural, but are forced to by past business inertia. And by past I mean when bob cratchet had to sit under an oil lamp with a quill pen and all meetings had to be face to face and so on. that just isn't true today, yet the old "commute to the office" remains completely intact for the most part. That whole notion to me in this alleged digital age is just as much of an energy hog solution as issuing everyone an SUV. It's not the "how" of commuting, it is the "why??" of commuting that is the much larger issue, and one that isn't hardly on anyones radar at this point,w e are all blindly stumbling along in some belief that it just "has to be this way". Why, because in great grandpas day it was the only way?
I look at those obscenely large corporate constructs, all to have folks sitting in front of screens pushing electrons, and it is mind boggling how much sheer wasted energy and resources go into that. And us rural folks get ranked and dissed all the time because we have pickups! Plz, if that ain't the pot callin the kettle black! The actual travel to and from theose ego towers is just part of it, just building those monstrosities must take huge amounts of resources and energy, then they have to be turned on and run and expensively maintained forever, and they are designed on purpose to waste x-amount of human productive time just to travel back and forth to them, like they are ancient pagan temples or something. Lunacy, IMO.
I can see actually having to go to a factory to build something, but not to go sit in front a screen that is basically a match for the one sitting in the home office.
Anyway, no solutions today, but it has been a fun Labor Day kvetch-fest! I *enjoy* my commute now, bang open the front door, step outside, at work!
Well, ya, that's Europe. That's why I made a point of saying I was only speaking of the US. We've already invested gawd knows how much to build a fantastic road system. Flaws and all, you can drive most anyplace and it is already paid off. Building x-thousands of miles of new rail lines here is just not going to happen, especially as they just went way out of their way the past buncha years *tearing rail lines out*. And from what I am reading in the UK press your folks are hurting and this winter is going to be an energy pricing shocker. Your fuel prices are already nutso, way beyond sustainability. You leader goofballs are just as nuts as our fearless leader goofballs. That might have something to do with more passenger rail traffic, you are pricing people out of their cars and soon to be out of winter heating. Good luck with that. Me, I burn firewood cut right off this property now. No more paying through the nose for wallstreet profits fuels.
I made a point to be loud and bitch about that tearing out already established rail lines several times when it was proposed way back (which really annoyed a lot of my enviro friends but they can't think past one step it seems in a lot of cases, much as I like bicycles, established rail lines are more important), but they still got tore out -which shows how much bitching can accomplish, even combined with some practical long range economic outlooks, absolutely nothing, but it is fun to be right later on I guess...say toldyaso. To all those 'tards...toldyaso!)
The US and giant corporation inc., short-sightedly and quite *stupidly* destroyed on purpose a pretty fair and well built railroad service, we had a lot of passenger rail and cargo (when I was a kid I had a job sweeping at a passenger rail station, that is long gone now), now we only have a pittance of passenger and still good cargo for rail. You see, I *was* a rail supporter..back when we still had all the track in place, it used to connect about every little burg out there, sidings galore..now mostly gone.
The people have spoken, we want cars and planes.
And verily shall it be.
And we'll give up planes before we do cars if it gets too expensive. Just the way it is. A few big metro areas have commuter trains and subways, this will have to suffice. We have both some intra city and then a sort of national busline, it works for what it offers. That'll be it.
There's just slap no money for such a huge national new rail project, nor much of a will. You'll find a few people willing to give up their cars for rail, but not too many. It just isn't as flexible as a road system with personal vehicles. Europe may build more trains and stuff, but the US and Japan will be building 50 mpg cars soon for the US market, that is the forward look near as I can see.
The US may be *slow* to change, but once the collective "we" decides to change it goes fast, you should see the sheer number of gashogs around here sitting with for-sale signs in the windows out in front of people's houses. It's freekin medium amazing.
High speed rail outside of a few really niche lines in the US is DOA. We will be buying better mileage cars, going to electric cars, diesels, along those lines. Scooters, gee whizz they are popular now, seeing ten times as many this year as last year zipping around. I mean, geez, even rail cargo is dropping fast as the economy tanks. They are parking-mothballing-thousands of freight cars right now. We are keeping our roads, just gonna change what we drive on them.
This "economy tanking" part is just not sinking in yet to enough people, but it will, give it some more time. There aren't going to be *any* big huge expensive boondoggles soon, you can't do squat when you are bankrupt, and for all practical purposes the US is bankrupt right now, the fed gov is bankrupt, all the states are bankrupt, hardly any pension systems public or private can realistically pay off, that
"what would they do"? I'd put them to work hand building levees and planting trees on the edges of deserts, stuff like that. Sorting through mountains of electronic waste for the scrap metals. At minimum wage. With no benefits. And every day I'd warn them that we could import workers who could work twice as hard for half the pay. Over and over on loudspeakers, just an endless loop. At designated 800 calorie gruel ration time periods, say once every ten hours, they could listen to broadcasts of rush limbeau telling them to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and realize they are competing globally now so they better work harder if they want to stay competitive. And how they are falling behind with their interest payments for the small square of ground they are allowed to sleep on, so they better figure out where to get the money to pay for that privilege and soon, or they will go to a real debtor's work camp. No "writing down" debt around these parts anymore.
Besides that, maybe they could be used for biofuel?
I disagree, and it is because we are not effectively using a lot better technology that we have developed already.
A ton of this commuting, millions of people, doesn't have to be done if we put in good fiber optic internet more places. That would do more than any amount of better cars or commuter trains. All this commuting to go sit in an office and type at a computer doesn't need all this commuting, it can be done at home. No need to drive or ride some train then.
We need to give up this notion that having huge corporate office towers with giant lit up signs advertising to the space aliens all night long is somehow a wise idea. Those are corporate dick waving towers, that's it for the most part in the internet age. We should be working hard to eliminate the *need* for commuting, not arguing over rail or more roads, we need to eliminate millions more people driving big distances twice a day, or riding some equally expensive and time wasting train, five days a week just to type up stuff and attend meetings and show each other power point presentations.
We have the internet, a 21st century way to move ideas and data, lets use that instead, as much as possible,. way more than we are now, it is a lot cheaper than building roads or rails to move humans when there is no absolute necessity other than past historical inertia.
We had passenger rail service a lot all over the nation, people abandoned it in droves to ..err...drive. And that's it. People vote for what they want with their wallet. Building a ton more rail lines wouldn't work, people will still drive. What will be happening is just better and more fuel efficient cars will be built for the roads that are already built. And for that matter, a whole heaping bunch of the same folks who want more rail now went way out of their way to encourage rails to trails, ripping out rail lines to put in bike paths. They can't even make up their minds but want everyone else to jump fast and pay for the scheme of the week. So let them ride their bikes now where those ripped out rail lines went.
We have a wonderful highway system that works, and better vehicles will be here shortly, every major manufacturer is on the hybrid or plugin hybrid bandwagon now and pure electrics and good small diesels, etc are "coming soon". Another trillion dollars for more passenger rail lines (figure pulled out of the aether) is spending money unwisely at this point, and we need to conserve *cash* now, the nation is going broke. We don't need anymore massive boondoggles. I'd rather see that trillion (if it was spent) go into something like two-three billion solar panels all over the nation on most of the roofs..just as a for instance. That would do a lot more good. We need more energy, not more ways to use energy. We are already moving fast to being more efficient with our energy uses, people are juiced over better mileage cars and stuff like going to LED lighting and so on, all good stuff.
The US is primarily a car nation, *that isn't going to change*, and people huffing and puffing it is the same as Europe so we can be like Europe isn't going to change that, so they should just give it up on that point, let it go. We have enough rail and trains to move a lot of bulk cargo, it's already a done deal, after that we use trucks, and people want to fly or drive when moving their persons.
The train is an expensive sort of compromise that is neither as fast as flying when you need to save time, nor can it be a substitute for the whole family and their stuff in the car going on vacation, so it won't work. That passenger rail has long ago fallen out of favor *here* for the universal people moving deal, although it is popular elsewhere. Where it is practical for commuting or in the extremely large urban areas, we already have it and it gets used, again, it is a done deal. It is not necessary any place else at this point. It is expensive enough maintaining the roads as it is and there would be no way to pay for establishing thousands of miles of new tracks and trains in addition to the roads, and they *won't* be tearing out roads or abandoning them.
China can do this crap because they make a trillion a year surplus, the US loses that amount, we go into debt that much, that's why china can build expensive toys like a high speed rail link.
The US civil war had concentration camps (both sides equally and wretchedly, little to no rations meaning starvation, no clothes or shelter winter or summer,just whatever uniforms they were caught in that soon turned to rags, and that's it, disease was rampant, etc) and a lot of generic genocide involved with it, especially the rape of the south, Sherman burned everything, farms, cities, he didn't care, total war as he went, he burned and hung. And both sides used what weapons they had extensively. The only reason they didn't use poison gas is it wasn't invented yet. The weaponry though was still horrific, and medical care started out with no pain killers and went downhill from there. Causalities, direct battle deaths or later on from injuries and disease, was around 600,000 for a combined around 4.5 million soldiers. For comparison, WW1 - 115,000 US deaths, WW2 400,000.
The US civil war was a *big deal* not to be discounted as some little popgun war.
do what all corporations do now, offshore it. Send the head outside the country to nation-x which will accept it, have it tested there. If the guy wants to sell to korea and japan, let them do the test, critter by critter..
It works both ways. You don't think, take for example China (although I think it would apply to most foreign nations), that all those students and business people in the US from there don't grab as much tech and data as they can get and transfer it back home?
The bottom line is everyone spies on everyone else. Even so called "allies" spy on each other. Then you have pure outside of government corporate espionage. Then you have "free lance" spies and crackers who find data and sell it to whomever will give them the most for it.
Ha! It's big business, the economy might collapse without it! snicker
Anyway, them foreign folks thinking they will be safer because they host someplace else..uh huh. That's a nice *theory* I guess....The US gets a lot of press because it is a big dog nation, that doesn't mean all these other nations don't try just as hard with the resources and access they have. Their various citizenry may want to *believe* they aren't being spied on, that's about it.
All governments and big corporations go corrupt, just the way it goes, too much power and money to be made.
Backups are really practical. I had a bad accident at work once, really impacted my takehome income. My food stores helped a lot, one thing I didn't have to sweat. Here on the farm without backup generators we'd be hosed, bankrupt, the broiler houses all have big diesel gennys and they get used. We can't take more than 10 minutes without power or the chickens could croak inside the houses, they need active venting to keep the air moving in there, and the power goes out often enough so those gennys get used.
I got into this way back when I was a teen and we had a blizzard that shut everything down for two weeks. 4 feet dumped in one storm then drifts, and this was in the days without a lot of snowmobiles so most people were just stuck. heck, a lot of folks got stuck in their cars, my dad had to walk the last several miles home when he evacced from work, he about froze his feet though, only had regular shoes on.
Luckily I made it home on the school bus when they shut everything down at around 10 or so in the morning,(8 am no snow, by 10 going on two feet deep!!! Never seen anything like that before or since) but a couple of my younger siblings got stuck in school and didn't get home until the next day, I had to go get them with the snowshoes and tobaggon. My folks ran out of fuel oil and no deliveries could be made, but we had a fireplace, so that kept us from freezing. We had enough food, but a lot of people locally didn't, the national guard dropped food stores from helos and a friend and I took turns with the same snowshoes and his tobaggon and got the food and went around and delivered it to people near us and checked on them. It was a bad storm, really intense, the accumulation was too much even for all the big snow plows and stuff. Drifted over our two story house, that sort of bad (of course being a kid we all thought it was nifty cool) Ever since then I have been into "practical preparedness" or survivalism, backups for most everything and trying to be as independent as possible. Cool thing from that storm, a freekin arctic owl showed up on the lines connected to the pole in our backyard! I got super 8 movies of him, a big birdie! heheh, he was sagging that telephone line bad!