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I have a Canon A410 camera for more than 4 years now, and I have used it for everything. It is a small silver camera that can fit into most pockets easily. This camera results in me getting unwanted attention. I went to a mall a few weeks ago with that camera to take some pictures. The security guards felt that it was their life duty to not allow me to take pictures without them in the background. After about 20 minutes of me walking around in the mall looking for a good shot of either some object or a store, I was approached by a security guard and was told that “You’re not allowed to take pictures in the mall.” Every day you see dozens of tourists coming to malls and taking pictures to which no one objects. However, if you are not a tourist and have a light-looking silver camera, you probably cannot take a picture.

Last week I went to the same mall with my new Sony A300 DSLR camera. It is a big black camera that gets unwanted attention itself and makes sure that I get almost no attention at all. At the mall, I started taking a few pictures with it. During the course of an hour, I noticed no security guards shadowing me. I walked around for a while to look for some security guards, and as I found them, I took pictures of them and things around them. Interestingly, none of the security guards had any problem with me taking pictures with a black camera. Even the same security guard, who had previously told me that I was not allowed to take pictures in the mall, looked and carried on with his job, as if I was going to publish his photo in a magazine called “The people who keep our malls safe from silver cameras.”

Example 2: Only non-free software is good

We can apply the same small-silver vs. fat-black camera to the idea of using software online. Someone told me last year that anyone who uses free products in web development is not a serious professional in the online field. I do not understand the logic behind such a claim, though I do understand the flawed notions that probably amount to such claims being used: something that is being offered for free is not good enough to be sold, as people will not buy it. Thus, in such a logic, inferior software is given away for free while superior software is sold.

So what happens when a cheaper or a free software is used? For this article, please forget the mass hysteria after being open-source¹. The concept of something you take for free, by paying through time and other actions, and not by paying actual tender cash for it, has not been yet understood correctly by many people. If you upload files to your site server with a free FTP² software, and I upload files to my site server with a paid FTP software, would my site be considered better than yours based on the fact that I paid cash money for that FTP software? It should not, since if you want to judge, you judge based on the end result, which would be the site, and not on the monetary value of the tool being used.

Paying for a tool results in a better perception?

The above mentality is a form of a separation where those that can afford a higher priced item can differentiate themselves than those that cannot or will not buy a higher priced item. In fact, those that do not have more complicated or sophisticated tools and pursue a hobby or some kind of other work, have more passion and sincerity than those that have a hobby that is made simpler, easier and possible only due to a more expensive tool. It should be noted that this stereotype is also applied to the concept of feelings, emotions and relationships on a massive level: maybe I will discuss that in a future thought.

Give an idiot a high tech 8-megapixel camera and tell him or her to go take pictures. Many of pictures, if not all, will come out looking superb in many forms. In contrast, give the same idiot a 1 megapixel or a 3.1 megapixel with no auto-focus or other built in functions and tell him or her to go take pictures. Then see if many or even any of the pictures look cool.

Today someone online asked me to show him pictures from the new camera, since “the canon was just ok not that good.” I thought about it and showed him a few pictures taken a few years ago with my Canon, but I told him they were all from the newer Sony camera. His reaction? He said the pictures definitely looked better than my previous pictures and finally showed my real talent. I am actually thinking of not sharing my pictures directly with such or many people anymore, or to hide the identity of the tools used so that the focus can be on the actual process and the result itself and not just the tool, since it is a waste of time to have a passion for something like drawing and then have people praise you not for the drawing but for the expensive pencil you used. Better to have a secret passion than to expose the passion and listen to people praise it based on things they do not understand and for things that should not be praised.

What do you think?

What is your opinion on this? Does the monetary value of the tools define the worth of an action? What if someone cannot afford a higher priced item and wishes to use a free alternate? What if someone is focusing only on the actual process and maybe the result and not on the tools being used? The tools may very well be the right tools, but does the rightness of a tool depend on its price? Or is it the mentality of the society, that wants attention and differentiation through means other than actual work or intelligence or passion, that depends on the actual monetary cash price of an item to try to show itself as being superior or to show someone else as being inferior?

Thank you for reading about this thought, which was written in a free text editing program and then in a paid text editor program, then edited on a free online software, on a very strange website³, on a $499 operating system, on a $700+ laptop filled with both free software and software that costs more than $5000. And on a table that if I wish to sell one day, would probably require me to pay the buyer some money for him/her to take the table away.

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Obligations of a shipping company during shipping delays

For me, keeping both me and the sender in the dark about the reason for the delay is something that should not happen. As a customer, you are assumed to have an obligation to make a payment before the shipping company will take your package. The shipping company itself, however, does not feel obligated to some things it should do for customers or the package. Behold below the 4 obligations that I think shipping companies like FedEx should feel responsible for, when it comes to delayed deliveries:

1. Notify the sender after they make a payment

   Did you notify either the sender or the receiver about the reason for the delay after the sender pays for the shipment? Simply saying “On route for delivery” for 2 days in a row through the online tracking system tells me nothing. I know it is on route for delivery: that is why I am paying to have the item shipped. What I want to know is what kind of a route is causing the delivery of the package to be delayed, and I want you to tell me immediately, automatically, when any delay happens.

2. Notify the sender before they make the payment

   Did you notify the sender of any possible delays in the shipment of an item before they paid? If the shortage in staff has been going on for “weeks“, as FedEx told the sender’s secretary, would it not have been responsible for FedEx to tell the sender, before they placed the shipping order. The shipping company can say something like “You are sending this item overnight, but we have to tell you that because of the shortage of staff in the area where this package is going, we may not be able to deliver this item faster than the regular post office.”?

3. Refund the wasted money

   Did the shipping company reimburse the sender for the money they paid for an overnight delivery that took 4 days to deliver in reality? Sure, telling the sender that no overnight delivery is 100% confirmed is a good protection idea, but if you know you are not going to have enough staff to deliver items beforehand, how about reimbursing the sender some of the money they could have saved by shipping using a slower shipping method? The sender paid for overnight delivery, and the package got delivered after 4 days. The sender paid money for a service they did not get because the shipping company hid the fact that there could be delays due to staff shortage.

4. Apologize voluntarily and sincerely

   Imagine someone takes your money in order to do something for you, but the thing they actually do is not worth the money you gave to that person. That someone never apologizes to you until you inquire about the situation, to which they say “Oh yeah, the people I knew could not be found, thus the result was not what you expected. You should have expected it since anything can happen. Sorry”

   Would you consider such a reply to be an apology? If you do not think it is sincere or even an apology, why would you accept a similar apology from a shipping company? How many of us are not robots who would love to hear a sincere apology without us asking for it? An apology is not needed because of wanting emotional attention. An apology because you hid information from me so that you could wast my money, time and plans for your own gain. Very few businesses realize that: that is why most businesses simply keep saying sorry without feeling guilty or even knowing how the customer was affected.

Shortage in staff does not always have to amount to the suffering of the customer

The above points are what a shipping company should keep in mind. Simply being short on staff, which can either be signs of an innocent struggle or bad management, does not mean the only one suffering is the customer. In the above case, FedEx got all the money knowing full hand there would be delays, delivered the item late, and did not notify either the sender or the receiver about the reason for the late delivery. In the end, the winner was FedEx which got more money than what it actually provided in return to the sender and the receiver. In the end, the people who suffered were the direct and indirect customers: the sender who paid for the overnight shipping and the receiver who received the item late.

What do you think?

What do you think? As a customer, do you think a shipping company can do anything differently than what FedEx did above? If you owned or worked for a shipping company, what would you have done in a similar position? Would you have acted the same, or differently?

Oh, before I forget, I went to a FedEx Kinko’s store on Thursday to send a package overnight, and saw around 12 staff workers. 7 were working, while 5 were laughing and talking to each other in different areas. Maybe those 5 should be turned into drivers who can deliver packages in case of “shortage in staff.” The package did get delivered by Friday noon, which was good.

Thank you for reading.

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In this series and whenever I say poor, I am referring to someone who will become happy or happier saving a couple of dollars or their local currency every month or every few days. Without such a saving, that person would not be able to afford rent or food or something very basic and essential to survival. If you wish to know a bit more as to what does and does not qualify as being poor, my article titled “5 Reasons You Are Not Poor In 2007” may help. I will be updating my poor guide to a 2008 definition very soon.

The below steps and ideas are not technical steps, nor are they the exact steps that you must take in order to save money by changing your electricity usage habits. All of the below steps have worked for me sometime in the past all the way up till today, though with varying degrees of results. If you are poor and desperately in need of saving money, this can help you get started along with anything else you have in mind. This first part of the series focuses on reducing your electricity bill expenses. As you read along, you may realize that each and everything described here is an extremely simple concept, so simple that you yourself may have thought of it but may have never gotten around to actually thinking about implementing it. I have subdivided different parts so that it can be easier to get the concept also.

Measure your meter first please, if possible

Before you do anything, it would be extremely good if you can go this very moment and take a look at your electric meter. Since you are focusing on your electricity usage, it is a very good idea to look at your electric meter. This meter is usually located at the side of houses, or at the back of the apartment complexes; it has to be located in an easy to find location, yet not right in front of the house all the time, so that the electric company technicians can have easy access to it when needed. Simply walk around your building or unit and you will see it sticking onto some wall, usually facing outside¹.

This is a meter which will have a revolving dial on it that measures the rate of electricity consumption in your very unit; this should be a very thin silver dial, and it will be moving. The faster the dial, the higher the electricity consumption is. Take a look at this dial and take note of any kind of a mark on the dial that you can use to see how many seconds it takes for the dial to rotate one full cycle, meaning the amount of time it takes for that mark to disappear and reappear at the exact same place.

Also, please remember the days and dates that you perform the below steps. Making a note of such dates and days will help later in figuring out whether or not you save electricity consumption in the end.

5 Practical steps to survive with different electricity usage: Unplug things

It would be an amazing thing if you could make a mental note of everything that you pay the electric bill for. This includes all the wall outlets, all things outside your house like outside lights and patio lights, the built-in microwaves which cannot be turned off easily, the electronic heat thermostats, and more. Knowing every available option that can be used to consume your electricity helps in realizing what is using electricity and how.

1. Unplug your hungry-for-electricity kitchen.

   Except your fridge if it has food in it, disconnect everything in your kitchen including your oven, microwave oven, toaster, and any other electronics from the wall outlets when not using them. Simply turning them off will not be sufficient many times. Many things like ovens and microwaves keep consuming electricity even when not in use.

2. Unplug all chargers.

   Disconnect all cell phone, laptop and any other chargers from the wall outlets when not charging or when they have charged completely. Many chargers keep consuming electricity in the form of discharges to the electronics they charge, while others consume electricity in order to show a small light which lets you know that they are connected to a power source. Either way, they keep consuming electricity if plugged into the wall outlet.

3. Make computers, monitors and televisions love the black screen of rest.

   Instead of using screen savers, simply turn off your monitors, computers and TVs whenever not in use and unplug them from the power outlet. Leaving the monitor on during the night still consumes electricity, unless your monitor can turn itself off after some time of inactivity. Why not turn it off directly? Turn off your computer completely at night if possible. If you must watch TV to fall asleep, set it to turn off automatically with a sleep timer. You will need to think how long it usually takes you to fall asleep and program your TV accordingly.

4. Unplug your heaters and A/Cs.

   Turn off and disconnect from the wall outlets all heaters and A/Cs when they are not in use. You will have to depend on your body feelings and not on the thermostat or automatic sensors to keep changing the temperature.

5. Unplug the pluggable house

   Disconnect everything else from the walls in the entire house when not in use, and turn off everything that cannot be disconnected easily. This means that all the wall outlet sockets must be empty unless they have something inside them that you are currently, actively and directly using at that very moment. This applies to air fresheners, night sensor lights, fish tank lights², exhaust fans, empty fridges and freezers, printers, modems, lamps, vacuum cleaners, etc.

   By anything, I mean anything. All the wall outlets of any kind should be completely unused unless something that you absolutely need is turned on fully and working. Everything in the house that cannot be unplugged and that is not being used should be turned off.

The above wall-socket-disconnection steps will overall save you at least about $1 to $4 a month in the United States, and a different amount in other countries.

If such kind of a saving seems to be too low for you to even try it, you are probably not poor or desperate enough, or you are poor and have needs that unfortunately do not allow some of all of the above steps to be taken. Please let me know if that is the case and I will offer suggestions based on your situation.

9 Practical electricity-conservation lifestyle trends:

With practical steps come the philosophy that dictate these steps and vice versa. You need to change your living habits and any habit that involves electricity. The following tricks will help you change your life style so that you will make different electric usage habits a part of your current life. You can start experimenting with these trends immediately. I am using a simple explanation approach throughout this article, if you have not already noticed.

1. Steal electricity from your car

   Use the car charger to charge your electronics in the car. Places like Radio Shack sell a lot of car chargers for different electronics, ranging from laptops to cell phones to mp3 players³. Buying a charger may cost you around $10 to $15, and saving the electricity in your home will save you around $1 to $2 for each thing you charge at your home. Some universal car chargers allow a lot of different things to be charged using the same chargers. If the charger is expensive or over $20, you should figure out whether using the charger at home or other places [described below] will be a better option.

2. Deceive your laptop into giving you electricity

   Use the laptop to charge your electronics. A lot of electronics like newer cell phones and mp3 players come with USB cables for syncing. Majority of these cables also charge your electronic devices while they are syncing. Leave your device connected to the laptop until you see that the battery charge icon on your electronic device is showing a fully charged notification.

3. Create the concept of public electricity at public places

   Use the public libraries or educational and cafe outlets to charge your electronics. Places like many Starbucks will gladly allow you to use their wall outlets in return for you buying their coffee or something else. Buying coffee costs also, so using colleges or public libraries may be a cheaper option.

4. Make daily places that you visit the venue for your daily tasks

   Use your nearby university or college for different stuff. For example, you can not only charge your electronics at public libraries or other places, but you can use microwave ovens at colleges and universities. You can also use the computers at the public libraries and nearby community colleges and universities to browse the internet or do other computer stuff. Many places allow you to print up to a certain amount of pages for free each day, while also allowing you to use their computers as much as you wish. This will save all the electricity that is needed to use your microwave at home for small things or things that can be delayed, and also for many computer and printing related tasks.

5. Start dating only rechargeable and free batteries

   Use rechargeable batteries only and recharge those batteries in your car or the laptop. Many places now sell batteries that you can recharge using a USB plug or a car charger. Buying them will save you money in both battery costs and also in recharging those batteries through your laptop or in your car.

   Stop recharging batteries at your home, if you have rechargeable batteries, and get free batteries. I read an article somewhere a few weeks ago which talked about batteries present in all disposable cameras that you can reuse; I cannot find the link to that article again, unfortunately⁴. You can open up a disposable camera after you are done with it and use the actual batteries inside it for your normal use. You can even ask photo labs to get your or other people’s unwanted disposable camera batteries to you after the photos have been grabbed from them⁵

6. Give your electronics some life support only when they are near their deaths

   Plug in your laptops and cell phones with their chargers into wall outlets only when they are within 20% to 15% of their empty life capacity. This goes for both your own and other wall outlets. Not leaving the laptop and the cell phones connected to the wall outlets all the time saves electricity. Forget the advice that leaving new cell phones connected to their chargers all the time improves battery life by a few percentage points: while that advice is true, your focus here is to save money by saving electricity, and not to prolong the life of the battery, even though that is a noble cause too. Your cell phone battery should easily last you a year or two with regular usage.

7. Fire the fan; hire the window

   Instead of turning on the A/C or even the fan during summer, open each and every window in the house about half way, and make sure nothing obstructs them directly. You can put a small cover or even a notebook for privacy if you wish. Leave all the inside doors open in the house. With air coming in from every room in the house and all the rooms open, the circulating air will create a very nice flow of air in about an hour unless your unit is built or blocked like a stuffed labyrinth. Make sure you close any doors to any rooms that do not have a window, like closets, bathrooms with only ventilators, laundry rooms and more.

   In winter, instead of turning the heater or the A/C with a heater on, close all the windows and the doors of the rooms with windows in them and instead open up the doors to places like your kitchen, your closets and your laundry room. This will rotate the cycle and allow more closed/hot areas to be able to waste the cold air.

8. Build seasonal relationships with your rooms

   Adapt your habits around rooms with the least power consumption. For example, if during summer one of the rooms is the coolest and you are feeling too warm, move your most active activities, like doing your homework or using your laptop, to that room, while making sure that you limit any introduction of new electricity usage into that room. Do the opposite during winter, moving into the hottest room of the house if you are feeling too cold. Leave most doors open during summer, and leave most doors and windows closed during winters.

9. Make your home the backup home

   This is also one of the most practical steps that can also change your life from the day you start doing it: move most of your activities out of your house. Go to the library to study or use your laptop there or charge your phone there. Go to the nearest public garden or something else that may help you relax. Use public computers to do your MySpacing or whatever it is that you do online to stalk others or be stalked. Exercise outside, even in your patio or in the parking lot somewhere early in the morning or late at night if you are shy or want to hide yourself while exercising⁶ If it is summer, go to the library and enjoy the nice cool atmosphere there. If it is the winter, do the same and places like a library or university buildings will be warmer than the outside.

The above brief guide is a practical pointer to some very basic things that can help curb electricity consumption immediately. The batteries step alone will save you around $8 to $25 every year or so, averaging to about $1 to around $2 of savings per month that you get usually every 6 to 9 months, depending on how often you usually buy batteries.

Measure your meter and observe your detailed electric bills

After about 12 hours of following any of the above lifestyle tips, go back out and recheck the electric meter. Measure its speed again using the same exact measurement and compare it to the previous 2 measurements. Has the dial slowed down? While this is not the perfect measurement to see whether or not you are consuming less electricity, the dial itself should hopefully let you know that you have started to save electricity. The next electric bill should reflect that change also.

If you wish and if your electric company allows it, you can request a detailed daily summary bill that will tell you the daily consumption by your apartment or house. That way, you can see how the electric consumption had been for about 20-50 days before you tried the above steps, and how it turned out to be after you tried any of the above steps. If you want to plan even more, you can perform different steps or combination of the above steps every 2 to 3 days and then see the detailed bill to see how big of a drop in electric usage each step or combinatorial step brought for you every 2 to 3 days.

If you pay your electricity bill directly to a landlord of any sort, let that landlord know that you have reduced your electricity consumption and ask them if you could work out a lower electric bill by looking at the bill. If the landlord does not wish to share the bill, have them analyze it to see the drop in the electric consumption.

Thank you for reading. Do you feel the poor electric shock yet?

I hope the above article helps you in even the least form to save some money by changing your habits that revolve around electricity consumption. Remember, being poor is a blessing that can be further changed to become a blessing with money, but wasting money can be one of the biggest curses, specially if you do not have enough money for things that you consider basic and essential to your survival.

What do you think of the above steps or guidelines? Do you think some or all of them could work in most or all situations? Do you have any experience with any of the above? Would you recommend or not recommend anything? Do you have any tips, suggestions or comments of your own? Please let me know what you think.

The next time we continue this series, I will show you the Poor Practical Guide to Surviving Without Much Money by selling stuff that you already have.

Thank you for reading. Long live the poor and the not so poor!

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I would like to list below 5 random bad trends of online friendships that I have experienced myself directly.

1. Business transaction means a friendship in progress

   Almost every few days I hear people referring to their business partners or people they are doing business with as friends. It is funny how for such people, the existence of money or business contract or knowing someone famous automatically results in a friendship bond being born.

   People do not know each other’s secrets, each other’s good and bad personal things, and people cannot rely on each other outside of business. People do not care about each other’s happiness or suffering, and no one is willing to make any sacrifice. Yet, such people still call their own kind of people online friends. It is hilarious. It is pure nonsense.

2. People do not know what others expect from the friendship

   A lot of time people who are immature or confused or a combination of those things will get into online friendships and not realize what they want. In every friendship, there should be a small sense of what each one expects from the other. Things that can be expected may include, but are not limited to, trusting each other with secrets, having someone to cheer the other one up in bad times, having someone to help each other during bad times, helping each other achieve something, etc.

   Simply texting or writing one another e-mails seems ok, until someone gets upset about something or until boundaries are crossed. Then, instead of knowing how to apologize or how to let the other person know their personal thoughts so that the friendship can continue, people argue while sticking to their pride and while not realizing that their online actions can also hurt others, both in and outside friendships.

3. Good and bad things related to friendship do not get enough attention

   Some people simply ignore the signs of bad things in an online friendship. Similarly, some people simply ignore the good things in an online friendship. While it can be considered all right to ignore things, a friendship cannot continue until different good and bad elements about it are kept in mind.

   Your online friendship may consist of one person feeling really happy, while you may simply act normal. That can hurt the other person. Your online friend may be really sad because of any random factor, even if that sad person is the one who is always cheering something up. If you do not notice such a thing or do not react to it in any manner, then you have to explain to yourself why you consider such a relationship to be an online friendship.

4. People focus on the online mediums of communication, instead of the friendship itself

   Majority of the online people that I see and run into focus more on the online tools of communication instead of friendship. People focus more on MySpace, and not on MySpace friends. If an online friend deletes their social networking site, all their so-called friends stop keeping in touch.

   A person has to focus mainly on the friendship, and not only on the medium of communication in a friendship. Focusing only on the medium of friendship will result in friendship being reduced to only an online way of using communication tools where we all pretend to have friends, when in reality we do not act like friends. Greeting each other is not a sign of friendship, by the way. If you follow that rule, you can automatically realize that majority of the so-called online friendships are in reality mere interaction sessions between strangers and nothing more.

5. People give friendship advice simply because it is easy to do so online

   This can be the most deadly trait of all traits. I am noticing more and more people giving other people friendship and relationship advice. People start giving advice simply because they are asked for advice, or simply because they feel they can type a lot. Any friendship or relationship advice must be carefully thought of. Many people do not realize that giving advice in situations such as online disputes means that we have to consider all sides of the story.

   Many times, people go online and read a supposed friend’s site or something, and start giving advice without asking any questions or without thinking much about it. Even more stupid are the people who actually take such advice. Would you rather think on your own, or would you rather take and follow the advice of an online person who knows nothing about you, who is only giving advice to pass time, and who does not even care about checking later whether or not their advice helped, or whether or not they should feel responsible for something that happened because of their advice.

The above are 5 random bad trends that I am noticing more and more people follow online. From calling people who give us money friends to not knowing what to seek in a friendship, to not paying attention to important things, to focusing more on the online nature of friendships than the friendship itself, and giving advice simply because it is easy to do so, all of these things contribute to the the concept of friendship being abused more and more, resulting in more fake friendships where friends do not sacrifice anything for someone else. Have you noticed anything similar in your own experience?

What do you think? Thanks for reading.

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1. Allows more people to work anytime they wish
2. Usually costs less in setting up a lot of things, including setting up selling channels like websites, compared to physical offline stores
3. Cheaper to market products to more customers
4. Easier to allow more customers to buy anything online at anytime the customer wishes
5. Online communication skills can be exercised more

5 random benefits of making money offline

1. Allows more customers to feel secure when it comes to big transactions
2. Allows professionals and experienced people to find solutions to business disagreements, conflicts and issues more realistically
3. Allows certain people to apply their entire character and personality into a customer and their work, since there is more possibility for you to be more physically visible and approachable to any customer
4. Allows more human control over sales
5. Real offline communication skills can be exercised more

Do you prefer the online or the offline world when it comes to making money?

If you were doing something either online or offline to make money, and that something did not depend on the internet or the offline world to exist, would you prefer making money doing the same thing online or offline?

Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think, or what your answer is.

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In their purest, unmodified forms, blogs like those run by Sawai, Valerie, Sidney, Stacee, Ronald and Jess, aim to do one basic thing: convey an opinion. Some of these blogs are highly opinionated, while some of these blogs talk about anything experienced in the life of that blogger. At the most basic form, the most selfish thing these bloggers can do at this moment, including me on this very site that you are reading, is to manipulate the readers to prefer an opinion or to sympathize or agree with what is written. Even though I may be wrong, as far as I know, earning money through the blog is not an agenda for any of these bloggers, or at least the main agenda.

That means, in my view, if these bloggers earned no direct or indirect money whatsoever and they could not control or manipulate their readers in any shape or form through their blogs, they would still continue blogging. In the purest and simplest form, a real personal blog should aim to be felt by at least one other person in this world, and nothing else. That feeling should be the only purpose of the purest, simplest, personal blog. Whatever that real personal blogger does to make sure the other person hears them in any form, in turn becomes the simplest form of manipulation possible, for the personal blogger intends only to be heard, and feels no need to turn such an attention into a sale or any kind of generated money for themselves or their partners.

Example: This very site can probably still be considered manipulative, albeit in its smallest form

For example, this very article you are reading was written by a writer who hopes that you will understand what the writer wants to say, and that writer also hopes that if the writer is not wrong in the writing presented here, that you, the reader, will agree to what the writer is saying. It is an unconscious feeling that simply exists. I can easily control it to not let it affect any decisions, since control is one of my skills because this is my life.

Since this is my personal site, everything I write and do on it gets an emotional backup from me, and thus I value it a lot. That can be considered a basis for some kind of manipulation on this site. That is why I can limit the manipulation on this site to the very basic: writing in ways that express both what I want to say and in ways that you will understand exactly what I want to say. For me, anytime someone considers anything other than the original message, is considering manipulation. Not all manipulation is bad. It is just that almost all of the manipulation in the world is bad. Some people may say that me writing content in ways that make readers understand the content more clearly is not manipulation: however, if we want to stick to the definition of manipulation, such things also fall under that meaning, fortunately or unfortunately.

The same way a person dresses nicely to manipulate the public feeling of looking professional while going to a party, when at other times they always dress differently, a personal bloggers or a writer can write a message clearly and then try to manipulate it a bit in order to make it more understandable, without altering any of the content or reason or intention or anything related to the message. It is a very rare quality to have, to not alter the reason why one expresses themselves while trying to appeal to others, though when it happens, it can still be considered one of the simplest forms of manipulations, even if it is not bad and in reality is good for both the writer and the reader.

Even though there can be manipulation in the writing itself, a personal blog nature can give you a few things that other blog types cannot: the ability to write anything. I can write about kidnapping whales and stalking squirrels while eating with cats, and I can still be happy. Many other bloggers cannot, since for them, every post must bring in a lot of readers or else they may upset their advertisors or their site may lose value and they may lose credibility, in the eyes of those who pay. It is simply the reason why one blogs that sets everyone apart.

What sets me apart: realizing the importance of reason behind everything.

For me, reason is everything. That is why this site is called The Reasoner. I am not here to make money through this site, period. If I make money while doing what I want, awesome. So far, that has proven to be hard. For example, I was recently offered a few thousand dollars to either delete a post I had written a few years ago, or to close it down and not allow any more comments on it. I rejected the offer, and the post is still open, upsetting some businesses and some ethnic groups since I wrote what I observed and they do not like that being in the open.

What would have happened if I had been offered a million dollars to delete that post or turn it off along with its comments? Today, in 2007, a million dollar solves monetary woes for life for many people, whereas a few thousand dollars solves monetary woes for only a few weeks for those same people. You can see the dilemma when it comes to having answers that apply to every situation. That is why in real life, using real solid logic and reason which majority of the bloggers simply ignore because they do not understand it and because they wish to have smaller type of roles in life or anything to earn money with, it can be and usually is very hard to find out the definitive answer to anything, including the question of whether or not personal blogs are the least manipulative or if they are the most manipulative when it comes to wanting to control the blog and readers in such a way that the blogger earns some kind of money. All of these and the importance of reason itself are why manipulation is a very important thing for me to track and observe on all sites, if I am aware of it.

For our topic here, the issue of how to finance the costs of hosting and running a blog are not important. Our sole concern, at its simplest, is the absence or existence of any kind of manipulation done to earn any form of direct or indirect money.

Some other blogs that come close to the simplest forms of personal blogs do not focus on earning money themselves in any manner

Many personal bloggers simply want to be heard, whether it is by a 1000 people every day or 10 people every week. The most basic and simple personal blog blogs because it is a personal thing to do. In contrast, non-personal bloggers can have some more self interests in their blogs in their simplest blogging styles. They may be blogging for earning direct money, or they may be blogging in order to persuade someone to take some action, like a political blog urging everyone indirectly to vote for someone in the elections. In theory, a blogger can have a blog that helps others earn money, while not aiming for and not earning any money whatsoever, directly or indirectly, through the existence of that blog. In reality, how many of such blogs do we know exist?

Similarly, some bloggers may be blogging to indirectly promote their online or offline business, while other bloggers blog because they want to figure out some way to earn money in the future.

Still, there are some few types of bloggers who come as close as possible to being true personal bloggers. Hobby Bloggers, who blog about their hobbies, can come close to being the least manipulative in their blogging, if they focus solely on promoting or talking about their hobby without manipulating anything or anyone to earn more money along the way. Similarly, bloggers who simply blog, without having any direct or indirect financial or self interest in what they write other than to be heard, come very close to personal bloggers when it comes to the least manipulative tactics that can be seen on different kinds of blogs.

Are Marketing and Advertising blogs and bloggers the most manipulative?

Contrary to popular belief by many people, not all marketers, advertisors and sales people wish to throw down products in your view. However, many marketing and advertising blogs and bloggers do usually apply more sales techniques on their readers, writing articles that attract more readers or claiming to be beneficial for the readers, with the sole purpose of being more popular and earning money either directly or indirectly. The reason why one starts blogging is very important to me. A personal blog that starts blogging simply to express opinions is more important and honest than a blog that starts blogging in order to indirectly advertise one’s skills or business in order to directly or indirectly make money. For me, a personal blogger appreciating readers simply because they like those readers reading that blogger’s writing is more sincere and less manipulative than a marketing or some other blogger appreciating readers because doing so will result in more attention and more business and money in the long run, and vice versa.

A marketing or advertising blogger running only a personal blog and not advertising, directly or indirectly, his or her services or skills, and not promoting any writing in order to benefit in any manner, directly or indirectly, other than to be heard by at least one person in the world, can have a blog with the least manipulation. Of course, by its very nature, it is very hard to find many blog kinds out there which limit themselves to writing only to be heard by only one person and nothing else. The closest kind to such a thing can be anonymous online journals that do not want to, nor do they, make any kind of direct or indirect money for anyone other than the readers, including the anonymous online journal owners. One can easily say and argue that if money is involved, then manipulation may happen. Let us assume that in our case, the readers make money, and that the people producing the content that helps reader make money are not influenced at all by the readers making money: they write anything, including things that do not appeal to anyone, all the time. There are still many people out there who do not allow comments on their site, and all they do is write about different things without advertising or without earning any money. They simply want to be heard or they simply want to express themselves.

I am myself very closely related and tied to the marketing and advertising field, though I have made sure that I am tied to it indirectly. It is not that marketing and advertising blogs are manipulative and personal blogs are not. Many marketing and advertising blogs usually tend to be more manipulative than personal blogs. Personal blogs do have some manipulation, in the form of sometimes not sharing the entire story about something or putting emphasis on a single thing, in order to sway the reader to agreeing or sympathizing with what the writer wants to say.

Thought: Are personal blogs less manipulative than other kinds of blogs?

So I wonder, all the time, the same way I wonder about a countless number of other questions. Are personal blogs the last standing blogs that have any chance of having the least manipulative tactics than other blogs?

As always, I also wonder whether the answer is absolute or relative.

As I said before, reason is everything to me, and that is why I like being called The Reasoner. Now that I think of it, I may also like names like The Hungrer, since I am also usually always hungry. I have to stop writing for now, since I it is near midnight here and it is time for me to hunt for food.

Thank you for reading.

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Many people consider any rich blogger to be a successful A-list bloggers. Any blogger who does not disclose the amount of money she or he makes, or does not appear to be making money, is not considered an A-list blogger by those same people. Similarly, a website given a very high rank through services like “Technorati Popular Blogs” list tend to be called and considered A-list bloggers. How many blogs can you find on that Technorati list that you like reading on a regular basis?

Non A-list Blogs

In contrast, take the ever-changing “The Reasoner Links” list, which is going to receive another fresh review soon. There are different reasons why a site may be listed on that list. I may find some sites interest, while other times the blogger may be trying something new with the concept of blogging. Some of the sites listed are of other bloggers from the original blogging days who helped define blogging and related, yet now they are not considered A-list bloggers by many people, because those bloggers either do not make a lot of money or they are not considered that important by services like Technorati.

Do you prefer A-list blogs over other blogs?

So, in your view, do you prefer reading A-list blogs over non-A-list blogs? Why or why not?

I would love to hear any opinion on this. Thank you for reading.

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The 12 year old won’t give me my $8 back

The 12 year old kid by the street sells me cookies, takes my $10 first and then, only after I have taken the first bite, says that he does not have the $8 change, and that I should come back tomorrow to get discounted cookies from the money he owes me; cannot damn him, since the cookies are either really good or they have drugs in them. The sub-sandwich store gives me a $5 coupon valid for 3 days only for a new sandwich they have, and this sandwich costs $8 more than their current, most expensive sandwich.

I return a defective electronic item I buy at an electronic store to get back my $389 in cash, since I paid cash, and I am told to either wait 5 weeks for a refund check, or to get their store gift card with $389 on it, which I can only use to buy more electronics from the same store.

You want me to pay you to lure me in? Sure.

The funny thing is that despite all the typical bias many people have against businesses and entities which take your money, each one does provide me with a service before trying to lure me in. Maybe I like paying people to seduce me?

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1. You own an iPod, or something similar.

   Think of the iPod as a luxury. Majority of the world cannot afford to buy food once a day, yet you have an iPod. You could have gotten the iPod as a gift from someone, or you could have bought it yourself. Now, how does this make sure that you are not poor? If you ask someone to lend you $100, while your iPod can be sold for $70, it means you want someone else to be inconvenienced by them giving you their money, while you do not want to give up listening to your iPod. Similarly, if you have something along the same lines, like a new laptop, and cannot part with it, you may not be poor. You can easily sell a laptop and get some money for it.

   Exceptions: Your job may depend on the laptop, or in some very rare cases, the iPod. Someone close to you may have given you the iPod and thus you cannot sell it, or else they will be greatly offended. Your iPod may probably be so old that you can only get $5 from it while you do not have money to pay the rent, which costs a couple of thousand dollars, etc. Of course, I can also say that if you can get $5 from your iPod, it means you are doing your best to make sure you utilize every resource possible before feeling that you are helpless and poor.

2. You can afford to buy a home or pay rent

   Home is another important factor that people and society have worked together to create. If you can afford to buy a home or pay rent for your current place of living, you are most probably not poor. Some ways to save money could be to cut off on living expenses: using less electricity, finding a cheaper place, selling off the home, renting a room to someone, etc.

   Exceptions: Even if you find a cheaper place, you may still not have the money you need. You may also already have the cheapest place anyone could get, unless you had a gun to force the landlord into lowering your rent. However, a gun usually costs money, so a really poor person may not be able to afford that. Unless, however, you use a knife to get a gun, but a knife costs too. Unless you use…..ok, never mind.

3. You can buy large combo meals from fast food places every day

   Food prices are a good way to measure the performance of an economy, and food is also a good way to measure the strength of your bank account, if you have one. If you can buy at least 2 large combo meals at McDonald’s or Carls. Jr.s every day, you are probably not poor. Why? You can buy cheaper stuff at grocery stores and cook things yourself for weeks, saving more than half the money you spend in a month on fast food.

   Exceptions: You don’t know how to cook, you do not have a kitchen, you get gift cards or coupons for the fast food purchase, etc.

4. You can buy the things you want

   The things you need are usually different than the things you want. Wanting to eat food daily is something you need. Wanting to buy coffee and chocolate everyday, in addition to other kinds of food, can be something you want. If you can afford to buy things that can be avoided on a regular basis, chances are you are not poor. Paying for a blog, host, design and extra features for your site just for a hobby also means that you are probably not poor since you can afford such a thing.

   I knew this guy once who would drink coffee 3 times a day, finish a pack of premium cigarettes every day, buy food supplies and also eat at fast food places multiple times a day. On top of that, he would ask from time to time to lend him something so he could pay his rent. I calculated his expenses with him and in front of him, and figured that he was spending around $250 for the things I just listed above. How much did he want me to lend him? Around $100 or so. I told him about this, and he stopped being friendly after that.

   Exceptions: You are addicted to smoking. By addicted, I do not mean that if you do not smoke you feel weird. No, feeling weird for not smoking is an excuse for people who want a lame excuse to keep spending money. By addicted, I mean if you stop smoking or drinking you feel extreme depression, or you get seizures and have to go to the hospital, etc. Also, without things like coffee, you may actually get literal headaches throughout the day resulting in you getting admitted to the hospital. Also, things like blog may maintain your sanity by allowing you to express yourself, and without that, you would be poor and insane, though some can say that such a reason is simply an excuse to spend on your blog while you do not have enough money for offline things.

   Another important exception to this rule is if you are Bes: Bes needs and wants chocolate every single day; no exception to this rule. Period. Bes used to give packs of chocolate to homeless people before someone threw it back at Bes and yelled “I want some change! What the HELL am I gonna do with that?” Bes apologized and moved on, and ever since, Bes has been thinking of never giving away any chocolate, but keeping it in the fridge to devour while writing posts at night.

5. You can buy things for others

   If you can buy things for others, you are most probably the opposite of poor. You may be rich. There is nothing wrong with buying a $500 watch for your boy/girlfriend, but there is something wrong with buying a $500 watch to impress someone and asking someone else to lend you $200 for your car payment at the same time.

   Exceptions: You feel your job or some relationship depends on you buying something for others so much, that you do not even have enough money for some personal things, like your own rent, enough food, etc. Sure, such an exception means you do not know how to have a good relationship and are in touch with the wrong people, but it also means that you may be poor and cannot help it. Another exception may be that you are raising a child or someone, and you want that child or anyone depending on your financially to be really happy, and thus you are sacrificing your own financial happiness.

I hope this list helps you realize whether or not you are really poor. Also, if you want to borrow money from someone, you may think twice before asking someone to part with their money, while you do not part with yours.

Can you think of more things to add to this list?

A good next topic could be “5 situations in which you wish you were poor.” Thanks for reading.

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Earning money directly:

You can put ads on your site, referral links, or even write paid posts for companies, among many other things. Such actions result in you doing something on yoru blog and earning money directly through those actions.

Earning money indirectly:

Your blog can be a way to seduce people who pay you indirectly. You can blog in order to advertise your offline business, or you could blog to showcase your offline skills and have employers people contact you for your résumé in order to hire you for offline work. Such actions on your blog result in other people contacting you to pay you for doing certain things for them outside of your blog.

Are you hoping to make money from your blog?

What is your opinion on this? Do you plan on making money through your blog? If you already make money through your blog, do you hope that you keep on making money through your blog?

Thank you for reading, I really appreciate it.

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Disclosure on business sites

A business can disclose how some association or a partnership can influence certain decisions. When it comes to a business, are simple disclosures really adequate? Just because someone discloses a fact does not mean that they will have a balanced judgment about something, so how can we know whether or not a certain disclosure is adequate enough for a business situation?

If a news agency like MSNBC discloses how it may be related to Microsoft, does any article containing such a disclosure automatically become balanced? Should MSNBC also disclose how every writer and reporter that it employs may be related to a certain company that is being covered in any news story?

How about a business blog that focuses solely on making money? For example, if bloggers talk about web hosting services on their blogs, and the sponsors on that site are also web hosts, would having a disclosure on who the sponsors are automatically mean that the bloggers are not being biased towards web hosts in their writing in any manner? Should you worry or not worry about being transparent to your readers in your disclosures?

Disclosure on personal sites

I have not yet seen an increasing trend among personal blogs where bloggers disclose certain things, like how they make money. I have, however, seen several personal blogs disclose such information, so I am guessing that since such blogs do exist, we may see a lot more similar disclosures on personal blogs as time passes. However, I have realized that personal blogs can be more challenging when it comes to disclosures because of the very nature of personal blogs.

Personal blogs are supposed to be dynamic, governed by the rules set forth by a personal blogger. How can, then, one decide what to disclose and what to hide on a personal blog? Should you disclose how you are friends with someone in real life and that is why you promote their blog or service on your site? Should you be disclosing or hiding the fact that you blog only to make money? Do you need to disclose how you had a good experience with a certain company and that is why you write nice things about that company?

Disclosures on blogs in general

On typical blogs, disclosures can be about many things, including monetary, religious or political affiliations. Many bloggers assume that the act of disclosing something automatically means that the bloggers are not being biased in their actions or judgment. In reality, however, disclosing a fact does only one thing: it reveals a fact, and nothing more. A blogger has to figure out whether or not his or her writing and action is balanced in a separate analysis by finding out how important transparency is for their their blog. Finding out how much disclosure is necessary for your blog can help you figure out which things you should keep in mind in order to actually be balanced in your writing and other actions.

What do you think? What is your opinion on this?

PS: I am not a giant squirrel, by the way.

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Stereotypes about money prompt many bloggers to lie that they do not blog to make money

Many bloggers will use different topics like death, charity or even personal family pictures to lure you to their blogs. However, these bloggers will usually not admit that they blog only to make you click on ads. Not admitting that fact is a sign of a narrow minded mentality, stemming from generations of stereotypes against the idea of someone being rich and good at the same time. Why would anyone want to admit that they post pictures of their parents and children only to make money, right?

Even supposed selfless causes depend on making money, so why would you hide the fact that you blog just for money?

Avoid portraying your blog as if it was a stereotypical Non Profit Organization (NPO) that focused only on helping others and not on making money. In reality, even NPOs have to make money in order to pay their employees and operations, so why would you want to feel guilty and hide the fact, through deception, that you want your blog to make you money?

The less you deceive your blog readers about your true intentions related to making money through your blog, the more transparent and comfortable you will feel in actually providing something useful to your readers.

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I was at the Mitsuwa supermarket in San Jose today to buy a rice cooker which I had recently managed to accidentally destroy. While I was in the parking lot putting the things I had bought into my car, I heard someone ask me from behind “Could you please spare two quarters? My sister was supposed to pick me up half an hour ago and I am still waiting.” I turned around and saw a guy in his mid 40’s smiling an uncomfortable smile. I reached into my pocket like before and gave him two quarters. The guy thanks me and walked off to a nearby pay phone, while I continued loading the things in my car. For some reason, I didn’t feel great. I didn’t feel as happy as I usually would. I simply continued loading the stuff into my car.

A picture I took of the guy who asked for 50 cents

Helping someone does not mean you will always be happy later

I thought about this later and found the low or almost nonexistent level of satisfaction I felt very interesting. There could be many reasons for such a feeling. May be I was in the middle of doing other things when this guy approached me. Maybe it was because the haircut girl that I helped before was cute and this guy was a guy. Maybe it was because this guy asked me for money whereas the haircut girl had not asked for anything. Maybe it was because I considered the haircut girl situation an investment while the guy I helped today will probably never remember me again.

It could be any of these reasons, since all of those reasons could make some people not feel happy afterwards. I felt happier giving someone more than $37 before than I did giving 50 cents today. I finally know the reason why I did not feel great in this situation, though I think the more important thing I should share with you is that I realized more than before that the reason you help someone may be as important as the satisfaction you get afterwards.

Do you help people in order to do a good thing or do you do it to feel great?

You can try to think why you help others. Is it because you feel great while helping others, or is it because you feel great after you help others? Realizing whether you help others because that is a nice thing to do or because of the feeling you feel afterwards is an important step towards discovering your own self and your understanding of the role you can play when it comes to helping others.

What do you think? Do you always feel the same when you help someone offline or online, or does the level of satisfaction you feel differ for each situation? Do you ever think or worry about the satisfaction you experience later on, or do you focus on helping someone since it is simply a nice thing to do?

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