The SOPA act (Stop Online Piracy Act, methinks (arrr…)) that is currently going through Congress is looming huge in the minds of people that produce content, such as myself. This bill could be an income killer… say… SOPA decides to shut down Yahoo! Voices or Squidoo because some idiot on the sight decided to upload something that was copyrighted. I think that these fears are legitimate, but we never know how things will work out in reality. I’m glad that I have material up on several different web sites.
The main people that I think that these laws are trying to target are web sites like Pirate Bay, who facilitate a lot of theft of copyrighted material. While ending blatant, purposeful theft is admirable, the law looks like it goes a little too far. However, if they soften this bill just a tad before publication, there is a small chance that this bill could help honest content producers. We’ll have to wait to see whether this will have a positive or a negative effect, but a podcast that I was listening to today made me realize that there could be some beneficial effects to honest people.
The podcast that I was listening to normally uses a song in its intro. They refer to a web site that visits other sites and cuts and pastes large sections of other people’s articles into it. All that is gone now. They have a new web site that has many links and shorter paragraphs describing the links. The podcast begins with some music that is not identifiable as any copyrighted song that I know of.
Since I set out to make money through content production, I’ve been pretty careful about not using other people’s copyrighted work without permission. I use a lot of Creative Commons work, a smattering of my own photos, and works that are in the public domain. On occasion, I do use an image under the “fair use” provision, such as when I’m writing about a company and use a logo. There have only been a few times that I have knowingly used copyrighted material without asking. I do my best to be honest.
As a result, I don’t have to change much if/when the upcoming law is passed. In addition, the people that at one time were cutting and pasting articles from other places now have to do exactly what I am doing, which puts us more on an even playing field.
There are many things that cannot be copyrighted. For example, you cannot copyright a list of ingredients, like what you would find in a recipe. Me and my lawyer-to-be husband had an argument about using a clownfish and a Dory-like fish in an aquarium together. The list of fish, I argued, cannot be copyrighted, but if you decided to arrange the tank like the one at 42 Wallaby Way, then you could have an argument for copyright infringement there. Similarly, summarizing a news story in your own words also cannot be copyrighted.
I’m not in favor of something that can put me out of business, or even bite into my earnings, obviously. However, if SOPA in it’s final form is written so that it makes it harder to shut down a web site (investigate complaints and give infringers a chance to fix any copyright issues that they might accidentally have a problem with), then there is a small chance that SOPA may not be as bad as it looks like. I’m not getting my hopes up, but if everybody that is trying to be legitimate but changed their ways as far as copyright infringement goes, then that might be a good thing for legitimate content producers in the end.
Those of you who think that Coca-Cola is being really generous by helping out the polar bears might want to take a look at their bottle of Coke. According to the 2-liter bottle of Coke that my husband picked up for me, they only want to save the home of ONE polar bear.
That’s right, they only want to save ONE polar bear. If you notice, my Coke bottle says “Protect the Polar Bear’s Home”. Anybody who has taken a third grade English class knows that if you want to indicate the homes of PLURAL bears, you would write “bears’ “, with the apostrophe on the end. As a homeschool teacher, I know that you teach this in third grade English class, because I taught it to my daughter last year.
In most cases, I wouldn’t bother to point out a simple grammatical mistake like this. When someone makes a grammatical error on their blog, a message board post, or in a small business situation, I can sympathize – we all make grammatical mistakes once in a while. When a larger publication, like the New York Times or some book publishing house, allows a grammatical mistake to slip by them, I shake my head, wondering how they could let the mistake pass the grammar checkers.
However, I really wonder how a mistake like this could end up going through the checks of a BILLION dollar corporation. Coca-Cola’s packaging more than likely goes through focus groups before it hits our store shelves. A lot of people look at it before it leaves the factory, yet nobody noticed this mistake? It really makes me fear for the future of the English language and for the education of our country.
I was thinking about war recently, and about how war affects the economy.
When people go to war, the whole country starts to work hard (if the people want to win). For example, in World War II, women went to work in the factories, many of the men went to war, and even the kids got in on the act, collecting things to recycle and use as war materials. People are also willing to sacrifice luxuries and save their money during times of war.
If the wartime economy booms when we are at war because people work hard, wouldn’t economies of the world boom if more people worked harder? I have heard so many people complain over the years about how so many people don’t know how to work hard. Of course, there’s the whole issue of “how do you work hard if you don’t have a job to begin with” that many unemployed people are facing these days. I’ve written articles before about jobs that people can create for themselves. It does take creativity to think up your own job, but it is possible.
I have more work available to me than I could possibly do, running my business.
Wealth is not a fixed pie, where if one person has part of it, somebody else goes without. Wealth is created when people create things. Whether they are producing food, art, content, electronic gadgets, or inventing new and better ways to do things, the more people do, the more wealth we all have. It is true that there is some amount of competition, but we all know that monopolies don’t produce the best results (think DMV).
Do something productive today. Or tomorrow (because today is Sunday, a day of rest for many).
The East Coast of the United States was hit with a snowstorm this weekend, including New York City, home of Occupy Wall Street. They’re allowing tents there now though. I have poor tolerance for cold, which is why I have a cold weather sleeping bag, but I think that this would be pretty cold. Still, it looks like people are still hanging on.
Interestingly enough, the last time that the entire East Coast was pummeled with snow this early on in the year was during the Civil War. We were also in the Little Ice Age back then. So we’re repeating weather conditions that haven’t been seen since the Little Ice Age, but we have to worry about Global Warming. More interesting about the connection than that is that the economic conditions, the ideological split, and the division that we are seeing resemble the time before the Civil War – except that it is on a global scale.
If you have a subscription to GBTV, I recommend that you watch Thursday’s show. The information that he is giving out is SO important. I learned more than 16 years ago that the end times were upon us, and I’ve been learning and preparing for the times ever since. I’d do more if I had the means and if I could. The information that he gave out today is vital for your survival, if you haven’t been in the preparation mindset.
That being said, I think that tomorrow’s project that I need to accomplish is to write a free eBook about preparation. If you can’t get GBTV, then my eBook will be available. I usually would make a web page about topics like these, but this document is going to probably be several pages long – much more than I can comfortably handle on a web page. You can’t copyright ideas, so I should be safe with creating a book from today’s notes – especially since I have more to contribute than was in this show today.
I have difficulty finishing some of the larger projects that I’ve been working on, but I should be able to finish this one in about a day. If you’ve been looking for information about how to prepare for the last days, then look for my book in the next few days. I know that a lot of us Christians are hoping that the Rapture occurs before things get too bad, but things could potentially get REALLY bad before the Tribulation starts. Back in 1995 when I first learned about all the stuff going on, I estimated that it would be about 10 years before things got really chaotic and the rapture occurred. My estimated date was six years ago. We can’t count on the disappearance of Christians to spark the Tribulation. We may see it get so bad before we leave, that when the Christians are taken from the world, nobody notices.
There is nothing to fear as long as you stay with God. While we may have trouble on this Earth, nothing will happen to us that God doesn’t allow. I’ve seen so many instances where God miraculously protects people, even from certain death, because he has more for them to do.
Last week, the world lost a great innovator: Steve Jobs. People on Wall Street are trying to change the world through protest. People from Mother Theresa to Ghandi have been changing the world for centuries. Here are some things to keep in mind if you want to change the world:
1. Start with yourself. It won’t do you any good to change the world, even to gain the whole world, if you lose your soul. Evidently, Steve Jobs didn’t do this, as he claimed to be a Buddhist, but if you don’t repent of your sins and develop a relationship with Jesus Christ, you will find out that everything that you do in life amounts to nothing in the end. Sure, you might still change the world, but you’ll regret not taking care of your soul first. Just like the pilot will tell you to put your air mask on first before helping a small child, it’s important to take care of yourself first. In addition, becoming a follower of Jesus will help you prevent making ethical mistakes that can bring all of your hard work down in the end. Ask Bernie Madoff, or any politician whose adulterous relationship was discovered.
2. Take care of your family. Families might not be glamorous like being on television can be, but like the proverbial butterfly whose wing flaps cause a hurricane halfway across the world, creating a strong family can change the history of the world forever. For example, a girl recently traced every president’s ancestry (except one) to John of Lackland. Even President Obama’s ancestry goes back to him. Some people see this as a conspiracy, but millions of people (including myself) can trace their ancestry to him. Think about what would have happened if John of Lackland didn’t take care of his kids and let them camp out in front of the palace instead of teaching them to work hard? While John’s career did have quite a bit of corruption, at least he had enough sense to make sure that his kids were taken care of.
One person that didn’t take care of their family was Eli in the Bible. He may have been a great mentor to Samuel, and might have been a wonderful High Priest, but he didn’t take care of his kids. They turned out so rotten, in fact, that God killed them. On the other hand, the Pilgrims have some pretty successful descendants (they are not in my family tree, but I can trace my ancestry to Jamestown).
3. Serve others. This may seem like it’s backwards, but it’s true. People didn’t buy iPads because they liked Steve Jobs; they bought iPads because they are a good product. People watch Glenn Beck because he entertains them and provides them with information. While you can fool some people for a short time through manipulation, in the end, people will see through it.
Serving others can start with small things, like doing the best at whatever job you are in. Make it a point to smile, even if you’re the check-out person at Wal-Mart. You never know how you will affect someone. If you have time, help someone at your church or volunteer at your local school. Again, you never know how you’re going to change someone’s life.
If you’re doing these things, you never know what opportunities may await. Rosa Parks never meant to stir up trouble when she refused to move on the bus. Steve Jobs might not have imagined how much the computer would change the world. If you’re doing the right thing and the opportunity presents itself, seize the day. You never know what will happen.
A couple of days ago, I made a post asking “are you a producer or a consumer?” These days, there are some people who would like to be doing something but just can’t seem to find a job. I do know how hard that can be; I had a difficult time getting a job out of high school (so I joined the military). If things are bad on the job front, you don’t need to sit around and wait for things to get better. While you are looking for a more permanent job, you can be working, earning a little money, and gaining experience right now! You may decide that you don’t want to return to the regular workforce, or you might use your experience to get another job. Here are some ideas that you might want to try.
I started working from home as a way to earn money while still homeschooling my kids. I’ve tried many of these ideas. Some of them worked for me, others were miserable failures. Since your skills are different than mine, you may succeed in areas that I had trouble in.
Ebay: My aunt makes pretty good money selling things on eBay, although I never had much luck myself. The good thing is, nobody has to hire you for you to make money on eBay. You just have to have an eye for a bargain and know how much something is worth. My aunt goes to the Goodwill Outlet store to get most of the things she sells on eBay, but other people find things other places.
Home Party Sales: This is another area that I have tried (and failed) at, but I know a few people that actually do well with this kind of business. You can find a home party business in almost any category that you’re passionate about, from candles to scrapbooking supplies to cookware. If you’re not very outgoing or can’t sell ice cubes to a thirsty guy in the desert, this may not be your cup of tea (that is why I don’t succeed here). Almost every one of these businesses require a small investment; if you are good at sales though, it might be worth a try.
Content Production: This was the opportunity that I was looking for. I can write, at least well enough that some people want to read my stuff. I got my start writing for Associated Content, but I also write for places like Squidoo, List My 5, and Hubpages. If you like to write, this kind of work can provide you with a steady stream of income, and can give you experience that might get you hired by someone else (that did happen to me, although I no longer work for that company). The pay can be low, especially at first.
Designing Stuff: If you are an artist, then you might want to open up an Etsy shop and sell your original pieces. You might also want to consider opening up an account at Zazzle. I know a very talented artist; I suggested that he open up a Zazzle account. He hasn’t done much with it, and doesn’t make much money. I am not a talented artist, but I know how to do some things, and I do make some money at Zazzle. There are other companies that you can design for, but I don’t know much about them, so I can’t recommend them.
Amazon mTurk: My main way of earning money is by producing content and designing for Zazzle, but when you earn money there, you are dependent upon people reading your stuff, buying from you, and clicking on your links. After a while, the income is fairly predictable, but it takes a while to really grow your business. If you’re looking for a bit of extra income but can’t wait to grow your business, you can sign up for an Amazon mTurk account. At mTurk, there are thousands of small little jobs to do, like rewriting sentences, categorizing products, or answering surveys. Most don’t pay much, but they don’t take a long time to do either.
I recently wanted to earn enough money to get a Roku box to watch Glenn Beck Television on, but the money I earn from designing generally pays for my daughter’s gymnastics. To earn extra money, I worked for Amazon mTurk. Between the mTurk assignments and the Swagbucks Amazon gift cards I earned while conducting web searches to complete these assignments, it took me about three weeks, in my spare time and while watching GBTV, to earn enough for a Roku box (I bought the more expensive version). I plan to continue to do some of these assignments in order to afford some other things that I would like. It’s not great money, but I work when I want, and for how long I want.
Host a Radio Show: I haven’t done this one, although I’m thinking about maybe doing an occasional radio program. You may have listened to podcasts from BlogTalkRadio. Anybody can host a program, and the only equipment you need is a computer and a phone. There is a way to earn a share of the advertising revenue from your listeners, along with the opportunity to get your name known in order to help support any other business ventures that you have. If this is all that you are doing, I don’t think that it would earn a great deal of money at first, but it can be a great way for you to get your name out and get people to visit your other web sites.
Those are some ways that you can earn a little spare cash, even if nobody out there is willing to hire you. Of course, you’re not limited to just this kind of work. If you’re creative, then you can probably think of something else. There’s no reason to cry and say that there’s no work out there. It may not pay what you would like, but if you’re between jobs, what else do you have to do? Working independently does give you experience that you can put on your resume and perhaps land you a job at another company, if that’s what you are looking for.
I’ve been reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged over the last few days and it’s been hard to put down. I don’t know why, but it seems like I often read the right books at the right time. Rand is almost prophetic in some of the things that she says. Right now, her book seems to fit in nicely with the whole Occupy Wall Street crowd.
In Atlas Shrugged, there are two kinds of people: the looters and the producers. I’d have to guess that most of the people occupying Wall Street, Los Angeles, Seattle, and wherever they’re occupying, are looters. They think that they have the right to other people’s work. They’re unhappy not because the government is taking too much from them, but because they aren’t receiving enough from the government.
There are some services that it makes sense that the government provides. Roads. Courts. The military. We all benefit from them; we all need them. Should the government provide schools? I know that they started out with good intentions in mind, and perhaps it makes sense that local communities get together and provide local schools (or at least provide financial assistance for those families that can’t afford private schools), but this doesn’t have to be done on a national scale. Do we really need the FDA telling us that aspartame and vaccines are good but raw milk is going to make us sick? Couldn’t we create a private organization, like Consumer Reports, to do that sort of work?
I was struck by one chapter in the book where one of the main producers, Dagny Taggart, quits her job and goes to live in a cabin in the country. She quit because the government passed a set of laws that basically took away all of her freedom of choice about whether to work or not (just wait, I can see situations where that could be coming to the United States).
In isolation, her character remained the same. She saw problems at her little house and decided to fix them, repairing shingles, creating a walkway, and planting flowers. The nearby town didn’t receive a grocery store shipment because it had rained, and every time it rains the road becomes impassable. She asked, if the road always washed out when it rained, why didn’t they just fix it? Not being one to just sit and complain, she started thinking about fixing the road herself, after she fixed up her little cabin a bit.
While Dagny might have been a railroad heiress, her success didn’t come because her family was rich. Even without all of her monetary possessions around her, she was still getting things done and making improvements to her surroundings.
So what are you? Are you a looter or a producer at heart? You can’t tell by how much money you have now. When you face a problem, do you whine because it’s hopeless, or do you do your best to fix it? Do you want to rely on yourself for the things you need, trading your hard work with others fairly, or do you want others to provide things for you? I realize that sometimes people need a little help, especially in this economy, but when you receive help, is it your goal to get to the point where you can make it on your own and perhaps pay it forward, or are you happy right where you are at?
After I left the military several years ago and time had passed for a few years, things were looking pretty dim for me, in my eyes. My husband’s job wasn’t paying that much, and it didn’t look like there was ever hope to get paid anything above mediocrity. We were having trouble paying bills. We had a string of job losses and our house caught on fire. It was a very difficult time in my life.
Things started to look up. Dh started going to college (he’s now in law school). I started my own business. Dh helped start a business. Good things have started happening to us. Dh was accepted into the Alliance Defense Fund’s Blackstone Fellowship, and today he received an email from somebody asking if he would like to apply for a student assistant position at a law office. I don’t know if he will get the job or not, but the fact that someone is seeking him out asking if he wants to apply for a job is pretty good.
In the past few years, I’ve seen so many ways where people can create incomes, even if they can’t find a job. Maybe they’re not high paying, but they help out, and you can put them on your resume if you still want to work for someone else (I put my Epinions experience on my resume when looking for a writing job; I did get the job). Often, you don’t even need money to start out. Perhaps, if you’re crying for someone else to come save you financially, you might want to think and try to figure out ways that you can start producing.
As the economic situation of this country seems to go down the toilet, more and more people seem to want to voice their opinion on “the poor”. The definition of “poor” is usually defined by the government as someone that makes under a certain income. Stuart Varney seems to have his own conception about how “poor” people get that way:
In the last week, the AP published a series of sob stories about poor people who were having trouble making it in today’s economy. It received a lot of criticism from Blaze readers (I personally like the Blaze, although not all the commentators).
Stop painting the poor with some broad brush. The “poverty” level is just a number. Do people realize that two different families with the same income can live completely different lifestyles?
It is true that there are people that spend years on welfare and never do anything about it. It’s also true that for some, “poverty” is just a bump in the road between years of prosperity. In my family’s case, we used to make the equivalent of six figures… and I expect, between my business, the business that my husband helped found, and the law degree that my husband is in the process of getting, that we will not be among the “impoverished” several years from now.
What makes Stuart Varney think that I am “poor in spirit” because I don’t earn much money? I go to church… in fact, I give to the church when I can, even though that means that I might have to put in a little extra hours working. I spend a lot of time with my kids – that usually happens when you homeschool. I read books by Gibbon and Geoffrey of Monmouth, and can converse with you on topics like the Little Ice Age and how to protect your emergency equipment from an EMP blast. I didn’t vote for Obama and I support the Tea Party. I don’t support the RINOs that seem to be the media darlings for the Republican presidential nomination either. I support small government, and support massive cuts in entitlements. I don’t use the entitlement that most people take to send their kids to a public school. So from where am I lacking this “richness of spirit” that Mr. Varney seems to think comes with a massive income?
People with the same incomes can live completely different lifestyles. We’re not in debt. We couldn’t afford credit cards even if we wanted them, because we couldn’t afford the payments. We own our two cars outright – one of my cars is 24 years old (I didn’t even have a driver’s license back then). The other car we once had a payment on, but I’m glad to get rid of that, because it was hard to afford. If there’s any way possible, I’d like to pay cash for our next car. I’ll have to save up for that one.
We cut back in many areas that most people spend a lot of money on. My cell phone is for emergencies only and is prepaid, so it’s pretty cheap. Cable and internet are free with our apartment, which is relatively inexpensive since it’s student housing. Those savings, combined with not having car or credit card payments, allow us to live fairly comfortably, even though we live below the “poverty line”. When we first lost the majority of our income, it was hard, but we’ve learned to live with it. I’d like more wiggle room, but we’re okay. We’ll be wealthier someday, more than likely. My main complaint is with people who think that “poor” people are Obama-supporting, high-school dropout, idiotic welfare cheats that don’t have jobs, just because their income happens to be under a certain level. That’s just not the case all of the time.
In some ways, I’m better off than when I was raking in the dough. Back then, we didn’t pay much attention to our spending because the money was always coming. I would spend a $20 like it was nothing. We constantly overdrafted our bank account as a result. That doesn’t happen now. I pay attention to my money. When dd accidentally dropped her tennis shoes in the water, I told her that I couldn’t replace them, and that she needed to pray for shoes. Well, we did, and God provided about 10 pairs of shoes within a week.
So please save your judgements for people based on their income levels. While I do know people who are having financial troubles because they made stupid mistakes, we are not in financial trouble. I know of other people who make less than me that are also not in financial trouble. Money is not a measure of how smart or kind someone is.
I’m sitting here without power, but miraculously, I have Internet for a bit. This I guess will be a miscellaneous post.
Hillary Clinton rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange today. The Dow Jones fell several hundred points. Is she bad luck? Gold and silver didn’t go up either.
Mexico, Southern California and part of Arizona had their power knocked out last night. Does that have anything to do with the solar flares that I wrote about the other day?
Speaking of power, my power is out. My dh has a phone with mobile wi-fi broadcast capability. I normally hate the amount of money he spends on that thing, but right now it is coming in handy. Until my laptop runs out of juice. Then I guess there’s not much to do except read. This power outage doesn’t have anything to do with solar flares though. I’m sure it was knocked out in the lightning storm.
There are armed security forces in New York City running around with machine guns because of the suspected terrorist threat. I’ve never seen military threats like those in the United States. I’ve seen them in Mexico, in Ecuador, in Colombia, and in Italy, but never in the United States. I guess that the times are changing.
Things are interesting. Hopefully the power will come back sometime tonight so I’ll be able to be productive tomorrow (because this battery will not last).
Will SOPA Help Some People?
