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While getting my morning fix of news from boingboing and slashdot I read this one post about the ultimate in YouTube videos of the year that is now coming to an end. I think it was on SlashDot, but I don’t quite find it any more, otherwise I would have added the link to it here.

This post had the shortcoming of not linking to those ‘most’ viewed-commented-influential-etc videos and I had to go hunting. Obviously that cost me quite some time because when on YouTube you not only watch that one video you came for – or am I the only one getting stuck all the time?

In order to save you some time I am now giving all these ‘most-ed’ video – can you believe 21 million views for the Battle of Kruger?

OK, let’s get going, the first I found was the Obama Girl, singing out her little heart about her crush for Mr. Obama with about 4.5 million views and nearly 14,000 comments:

Then I enjoyed Chris Crocker defending Britney Spears in his piece ‘Leave Britney Alone’. About 14 million had watched it before me and over 200,000 had commented:

As mentioned above, ‘The Battle at Kruger” had been watched way over 20 million times and I actually was one of them. I had watched it when it was going all over the internet, but I was not one of the only 19 thousand who had left comments:

And last but not least I watched a bit of Esmee Denters rendition of Justin Timberlakes “What goes around.” About 13 million had watched this one and about 60 thousand had had the urge to comment. First I did not quite get what the attraction of specifically this video is, yes, Esmee seem to have that spark in her personality and she certainly is pretty, but then I investigated some more, checked out her other recordings and I have to admit, she grabbed the opportunity and went with it. I have to say that I am impressed. And now, see for yourself:

I think these are all very nice example of the factor of ‘critical mass’ Flemming describes in his article appropriately titled ‘Critical Mass.’

Just trying to imagine how much time that has cost mankind. The battle at Kruger alone – 20,000,000 times 8 minutes – before you read on, just make a wild guess, how much time that is…

…

…

…

Over 300 years!

So, whattaya think, was that worth it?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a challenging field that I have myself involved in. It is like one big puzzle of little pieces of information how Google is doing this and how Yahoo is doing that. Once the pieces of the puzzle come together closer and closer we actually get an image of how this all might work.

Backlinks are the big item of highest value. A backlink is a link from another site to the one being optimized. Google sees that as a vote for the site – Google listening to the ‘word of mouth’ of the internet.

Now, if an ax murderer is talking highly about you that might not be considered a good vote for you and your character. That means Google is looking for ‘quality’ links, it is disregarding links from sites that just list one site after the other. The question is then what is a ‘good’ link, and this article is an attempt to find out.

• I am now offering you, Google, this link to a website I want to test: The Alpha to Omega of Website Linking.
• Dear Google, I am now very curious what you will do with this link.

I will report how it went.

That was interesting! I ran into some statistics that somebody had collected with the intend to awe us all when we compare these numbers with the numbers of today.

The most intriguing aspect of these numbers is to try to interpolate what we will see in the days of 100 years from now. Looking at Ray Kurzweil’s Book ‘The Singularity is Near’, we can safely assume that the speed of development will increase. Mr. Kurzweil even expect the speed to increase exponentially.

When I look over only my own lifetime I have to admit that that assumption makes sense, but this also means that I don’t have a chance in the world to predict how our world will look in one hundred years.

Now, in order to bend your mind a bit, here are the statistics from 1907:

• The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years old.
• Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.
• Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
• A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
• There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S. , and only 144 miles of paved roads.
• The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
• The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
• The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour.
• The average U.S. Worker made between $200 and $400 per year .
• A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist made $2,500 per year, a veterinarian $1,500 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
• More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home.
• Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had no college education.
  (Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and the government as “substandard.”)
• Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
• Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
• Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
  1. Pneumonia and influenza
  2. Tuberculosis
  3. Diarrhea
  4. Heart disease
  5. Stroke
• The American flag had 45 stars.
  (Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.)
• The population of Las Vegas, Nevada , was only 30.
• Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn’t been invented yet.
• There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
• Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn’t read or write.
• Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
• Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.”
• There were about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.A.

What struck me as notable was the fact that hundred years ago 20% of the adult US population could not read or write. Looking at todays numbers that was pretty good, even though we are supposed to come to the opposite conclusion.

I found the following quote:

According to a recent US government report, The State of Literacy in America, released by the National Institute for Literacy (NIL), there has been a significant growth in illiteracy in America. Over 90 million US adults, nearly one out of two, are functionally illiterate or near illiterate, without the minimum skills required in a modern society.

The holidays sometimes give us the opportunity to dig a bit into the past by looking into some old photo albums. In doing so I got reminded of my good old Maerklin trains that I had when I was a little kid.On my trip down memory lane and dug out those old pictures and came even up with some pre-Maerklin documents.

Doesn’t seem that long ago and now I have my successor already older than I was in these pictures. I guess I will have to equip him with some trains of his own. What would be even better – Hello Universe, this is a request! – if I would manage to get my old trains back over here from a friend – Hello Hermann – who has kept them faithfully for so many years but whom I don’t seem to be able to reach any more. But maybe this year he will answer our Christmas mail – just maybe.

First the pre-Maerklin era…

And then the Maerklin era…

And then the final state, or nearly so – the year after that a station was added, but I don’t have any pictures of that…

Thanks, Kathie, for forwarding this video.
I guess we have to spread it wide, don’t we?

It is amazing to me how much momentum Dr. Paul is gaining, so much in fact that even my favorite anarchist is pitching in with an idea for a great front yard sign. Here is is email messag…

Dear Subscriber,

I’m sending this message out because I’m lazy. I’ve been almost tempted to put a Ron Paul yard sign on my lawn, but the standard ones… well, they look too much like political campaign signs. (I have to hold my nose to support a “limited statist” at all, but I’ll save that rant for later.) So I designed my own yard sign, with a little more substance to it. You can see the design here:

In short, my lazy proposal is this: If anyone else wants to use that design to make some signs, send me an e-mail, and I’ll send you the full-sized image… and then I’ll ask you to send me one of the signs when they’re actually produced. (In other words, I’m too lazy–and too broke–to go to the trouble of getting a sign company to make them.)

My other idea is that, if someone else wants to have them made and sell them, giving all the profits to Ron Paul’s campaign, I’ll let my list know where to order them. And if more than one person wants to do it, that’s fine too. I’m just too lazy to do it myself.

Sincerely,
Larken Rose

 

I suppose there are still plenty of Americans that have not heard of Ron Paul yet, but I guess the latest publicity stunt will change that at least to a degree. They will have a blimp advertising Ron Paul for President.

So far the media has ignored or down-played Ron Paul even though in the non-controlled media, the internet, he is the big runner and there was a post in one of the very relevant blogs, that if statistics on the internet are any indication, Ron Paul will be president.

But I guess without the big press that will be very difficult because still a big part of the population gets its news feed from the mainstream media. Even if they are on the internet, they are probably getting their dose of news from CNN or ABC – and they apparently don’t like the idea of a government that is not that easily guided by them.

This is why I like the idea of the blimp so much – there will be many people who actually see it in the sky and they might be wondering why they haven’t heard about this in their trusted news sources.

A few days ago I got another news letter from Larken Rose, my favorite anarchist, and his thoughts fit in nicely.

Dear Subscriber,

Watching the mainstream talking heads “interview” Ron Paul is a combination of hilarious and infuriating. Every “question” is a thinly-veiled accusation or insult. “So, Dr. Paul, some people–not ME, mind you–say you’re an extremist, wacko, fringe nutcase. What do you say to that?” Just how stupid is the general public? Can they not see that every such “interview” is designed to demean and insult Dr. Paul? The most recent example (of many) was Dr. Paul’s “interview” with Howard Fineman (whose no fine man in my book). It was nothing more than an inquisition, trying to find fault with one point of Dr. Paul’s position after another.

But what’s really amazing is that, though time and time again he is subjected to such biased, malicious interrogations, every inquisition ends up making Dr. Paul look GOOD. (That’s got to annoy the status quo mouthpieces.) Still, if the general public has a brain cell or two, it should be patently obvious that there is no such thing as mainstream “reporters” anymore. The pro-establishment agenda is so obvious that even the dullest spectator shouldn’t be able to miss it. (But then, I’ve underestimated the stupidity of the American public before.)

Mind you, I’m not even in agreement with everything Dr. Paul says. (I’m in the 0.00001% of the country who wants MORE freedom than Dr. Paul advocates, such as NO “taxes,” ever, for anything.) But to watch the verbal combat between a man who has principles and believes in something (Dr. Paul), and the unthinking conformist automatons that pass as “reporters” these days, is truly amazing.

What does EVERY politician say he advocates? “Change.” But when’s the last time any politician OTHER than Dr. Paul was actually suggesting any change that would be even slightly significant? Well, there was the 1994 “Republican Revolution,” which consisted of lots and lots of “limited government” rhetoric, followed by a Republican House and Senate which did exactly NOTHING to reduce the size or power of “government.”

The establishment tyrants and their lapdog pundits use the “change” term constantly, because they know that the American people are fed up with the system as it is today. But do they actually want a bit of change? Hell, no. They want to pontificate, posture and preach, and then do what they’ve always done, because the system as it is gives them all of their power and prestige.

For example, various congresscritturs and presidential hopefuls have, for years, talked about doing away with the IRS. Did ANY of them mean it? Other than Ron Paul, of course not. Just watch the total panic the establishment goes into when someone says it AND MEANS IT. The talking heads knew full well that every other politician promising real “change” and “reform” never had any intention of doing anything of the sort. The only “change” they wanted was for THEM to be the one with the power and prestige. But the dead giveaway that the mainstream media KNOWS that Ron Paul is the genuine article is the blatant panic they display when HE talks about “change.”

Because they know he means it.

Sincerely,
Larken Rose

 

I had this situation that I once logged into somebody else’s paypal account (with permission, mind you) and since then this this login email address was apparently permanently burned into the login screen.

I just could not get rid of it and it became very annoying because I had to select it first before I could type the first letter of the my own email for firefox to allow me to select the right one from a list. Before that I did not have to do the selecting – just type that first letter.

Today – finally – I had enough and went on a goose chase. The things I had learned to make firefox forget remembered form entries – Shift Delete, or was it Shift Backspace – did not do anything good.

I wasn’t sure if it wasn’t a cookie kicking in so I deleted all paypal cookies – no go!

To make a long search short – here is what I found: The file signon2.txt in the profile. There were data blocks starting with a period and I got rid of all those blocks that had paypal in it – and that pesky login email. Also got rid of all the paypal URLs at the top of this file and – voila – pesky entry gone.

Hope this helps somebody.

I am still a bit away from having a teenager, but this picture here still resonated – maybe because I did not look forward to the future with a teenager with me, but instead back and remembered how I totally had agreed with this message.

During my daily browsing I ran into this video of the Russian fighter jet Sukhoi-30MK.

Here, take a look first before I vent off…

… OK, did you feel strange as well? A beating, booming sound track that really gets you in the mood to get yourself one of those.

I could not help wonder who made this video and which audience he had in mind. In marketing we learn that we should create in our mind an image of the person we want to sell to. OK, let’s see…

I imagine a room full of prospects, many of them in uniform, but all of them have their machine guns checked at the entrance, now they are sitting peacefully together. Not that they would have any quarrels with each other at any time, they know they need each other. Here they got together at the friendly local arms dealer to buy some new toys to play with.

The arms dealer VP for military sales comes on stage. He is a civilian and is not in this for playing, just to make a living to bring home some bread for his wife and two children, a boy of 11 and a girl of 8. Only a short greeting and how glad he is that they could all come on such short notice, that he does not want to take too much time out of their busy schedule and, please, let’s watch this little video.

The lights dim, the huge LCD monitor is lowered from a slot in the ceiling and the presentation begins.

Excitement is noticeably rising in the room, especially when rockets are launched and blow things up. When the lights come on and the display disappears in the ceiling the only task for the master of ceremonies is to direct the attendees to the back of the room where operators are standing by to take orders.

After the orders are placed, most of the attendees stay for a drink and plan some little wars where they can test their new toys. If there is one thing they all agree upon then it is their gratitude to all the tax payers around the world – some voluntary, some forcefully convinced – allowing them to buy all their toys and letting them play.

keep looking »