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<title>NTOPIX</title><link>http://www.NTopix.com/index.php</link><description>So Many Topics So Little Time&#x21;</description><dc:language>en</dc:language><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><dc:rights>Copyright 2009 </dc:rights><dc:date>2009-11-29T15:57:06-05:00</dc:date><admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.realmacsoftware.com/" />
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<lastBuildDate>Mon, 11 May 2009 12:10:05 -0400</lastBuildDate><item><title>Billions Of People Infected With Potentially Deadly Disease</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Religion</category><dc:date>2009-11-29T15:57:06-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Billions_Infected_With_Faith.php#unique-entry-id-44</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Billions_Infected_With_Faith.php#unique-entry-id-44</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[	In our lifetimes we&rsquo;ve all seen or read about diseases that once killed millions, reduced to a minor inconvenience that can be avoided with a simple immunization. ...  This set of easy to follow rules provides the framework for any cure that has ever been.   The experiments themselves may have been too complex for the layman to understand, however this simple framework that takes us from hypothesis to proof can be easily understood by almost anyone.   This methodology has served humanity so well in fact, that I can only wonder why it hasn&rsquo;t been applied to tackle the grandaddy of infectious disease; the most prolific epidemic to ever be set loose upon planet earth. 

...	In a post nine-eleven world, I need not site myriad examples of how faith can lead to fatality.   The basic idea is that the more religious a population, the greater the possibility that extreme fundamentalist ideas, (like ethnic cleansing, genital mutilation, slavery etc.) will be tolerated or accepted. 


	In truth we all know the solution to wiping out faith once and for all is deceptively simple. ...  If we could manage to do that we could wipe out religious faith in perhaps one or two generations.   This would yield a society based on secular ideas, filtered through the purifying process of the scientific method.   At each new stage of our development, we could stand and rest on the best possible knowledge in any given endeavor. ...  Can you imagine a world where we actually listen to the world&rsquo;s foremost experts on any given topic?   A world where all of science would be freely allowed to hypothesize, struggle through a process of falsification and then, after the rigors of this process are over, reach a proof as close to the truth as humanly possible?   Even in those instances where the hypothesis is wrong, we learn new facts, unearth new questions and thus our understanding could potentially grow in the process.   In short can you see, in your lifetime, a world where humanity begins to reach anything like our full potential?


	Well, I&rsquo;m sorry to say that I can&rsquo;t, and I can say with some certainty, neither can you! ...  Well, it&rsquo;s because we know that any time the findings lead us away from that which is written in the articles of faith, we&rsquo;ll find we&rsquo;re on a path riddled with land mines. ...  It&rsquo;s hard to concentrate with all this noise distracting us from proceeding in an orderly fashion.   Instead of doing battle with the problems that we all face, science is in a constant battle with the infected. ...  And so, we waste valuable resources on a constant skirmish with a disease for which we have a cure.   If it&rsquo;s true that the medicinal properties of reason are wasted on those infected by faith. how can we proceed?. 

...	It should be the goal of Atheists to marshal our collective political muscle before it is simply too late.   If we are able to exert enough secular pressure upon governments to make more difficult, or illegal, the practice of infecting children with faith, we can begin to create a society capable of tackling the problems we face. ...  We must ensure that our governments will not fund any religious pursuit, and lobby for religious organizations to pay the same taxes as any similar secular counterpart would have to pay. 


...When those infected by faith site the holy texts to refute science, we must show those who are susceptible to the cure how one simply cannot compare that which is written in an ancient scroll with tried, tested and factual scientific evidence.   It must be shown, again and again that the process that produces scientific evidence is as close to pure as we can make it, while the holy texts are based on outmoded ideas that have long been falsified.   We must also recognize how the infection causes the faithful to act in any debate on the subject of religion versus science.


...When it&rsquo;s an argument on something specific, the holy text itself usually forms the basis of it&rsquo;s own undoing.   At this point most theists will divorce themselves from the text by inventing a non-literal interpretation of it. ...  Since holy texts are not written in our current vernacular, these multitude of interpretations can go on ad-infinitum. ...  Therefore the only useful goal of debate is to make free thinkers of those who are at risk of infection.   This increases the likelihood that the children of those hedging their bets will at least be spared contact with religioniogenic ideology, for the most impressionable stages of early childhood.   Anyone who enters any such a debate should ask themselves if the format of the debate will allow this objective to be achieved.   If not, the format will need to be altered, and when this cannot be done, the invitation to engage in debate must simply be declined. ...  Douglas Wilson, a pastor from Moscow Idaho, in the documentary film &ldquo;Collision&rdquo;, actually provides some intelligent and thoughtful points in favor of his variant strain of the disease known as christianity.   He does this so eloquently in the film that you almost forget that he is infected.   However when he says that he does not take the bible literally word for word, but nevertheless believes it to be absolutely true, it becomes very clear indeed that he must be counted as one who has been stricken.   Pastor Wilson is one of a very few infected whose faith has not dissuaded him from thinking.   After all it&rsquo;s his faith that allows him to believe absolutely what he cannot take literally.   So even he, one of the best examples of a thinking man&rsquo;s theist, must cross an ideological bridge to allow him to have this absolute belief in the bible.   It is unfortunate for him that this bridge of faith has absolutely no substance on which he can stand.   He may invoke the name of god until he is blue in the face, but until he can prove the rationality of faith, he can only pretend to cross this bridge.   It is obvious, to me at least, that it is only a world view warped by infectious faith that allows him to see his feet planted firmly on the other side.   


...Those who are more educated and more intelligent than I am must engage themselves to this end.   I only suggest here that the scientific method is the most likely candidate methodology for the rectification of this pandemic.   However before we can go forward here all Atheists and Anti-theists must have a common set of objectives. 

...The mixture of two reactive chemicals (for instance) at standard temperature and pressure yields the same results for anyone, regardless of ideology.   This transparency and independent verifiability is what makes science uniquely able to unify all the peoples of planet earth.   The only reason that the pandemic of faith continues to propagate itself is that the majority of the population does not understand the science and cannot give the evidence the proper weight. 


	Victory over this viral infection will only be achieved when the vast majority of people realize,  that even though for the time being science is a somewhat leaky vessel, it, unlike faith, holds water long enough to allow one to have a drink.


<div class="js-kit-comments" uniq=&rdquo;BillionsInfectedWithFaith&rdquo; permalink="http://www.ntopix.com/files/Billions_Infected_With_Faith.php"></div><script src="http://js-kit.com/for/ntopix.com/comments.js"></script>
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Sigmund Freud Versus God</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Religion</category><dc:date>2009-11-18T11:29:07-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Sigmund_Frued_V_God.php#unique-entry-id-43</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Sigmund_Frued_V_God.php#unique-entry-id-43</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Religion is festooned with a plethora of bad Ideas, false promises and doomsday predictions.   These belief systems expend vast amounts of our time, energy, blood and money.   This has been going on for centuries, and as our ability to make war has increased the danger from religious extremism has escalated exponentially.   There is a hidden hierarchy here that I begin to see more and more as I delve into research, watch documentary films and read articles on faith and the lack thereof. 


It seems that, religious ideology in society, has a pattern akin to Freud&rsquo;s model of the human psyche.   Religious extremists dream up the really crazy stuff, they take their holy text to mean literally anything that allows them to support their agenda.   Many holy books are amazingly flexible in their ability to support the most barbaric acts known to man in the name of god.   In this example this part of Freud&rsquo;s hierarchy could be considered the ID. 


Of course religious extremists are always wanting  to spread these ideas far and wide and so when word reaches the masses a discussion often follows.   The bulk of the population acts as a filter, applying their own morality to these extreme ideas.   In most cases the danger of extremism is at the very least diluted if not destroyed altogether.   When, in rare instances these ideas pass through this filter unchecked the results can be horrific.   Wars, Ethnic Cleansing/Genocide and the like are all examples of what happens when this sort of &ldquo;filtration system&rdquo; for ideology fails to do the job.   When this happens, the process of non-thinking called &ldquo;faith&rdquo; is usually to blame.   This is the reason that even moderate religion can be a danger.   The greater the level of faith the more likely this mechanism akin to Freud&rsquo;s ego will fail. 


We humans are basically good on the whole.   We&rsquo;ve learned our morality over thousands of years and as time goes on we are able to employ our innate morality to an increasing degree.   One might even argue that this concept is at the root of the rise of atheism or the plague of &ldquo;lazy faith&rdquo; depending on your personal perspective.   However you choose to spin it our collective consciousness functions as the superego of society.   In many cases the transition from a theistic to an atheistic world view has to do with an objection to the shameful moral teachings inherent in most religious texts.   This is the reason there are so many denominations in religion.   Deplorable ideology from the holy text is discarded or explained away so that faith can live on with a new brand name. 


Religion is, in a way is like cigarettes.   It doesn&rsquo;t matter if you smoke regular, light, extra light, menthol, with or without a filter, it&rsquo;s all bad for you to varying degrees.   Although the jury may still be out on secondhand smoke there&rsquo;s no denying that the aroma of it is often enough to entice those who have quit to relapse back into being a smoker.   This is why the focus should be on children.   Kids raised in religious doctrine, are more likely to relapse into faith later in life even if they break free from religion earlier in life.   This is because once a core ideology is installed into the human psyche and deeply rooted into the unconscious mind below the level of awareness, it is forever there to &ldquo;inform&rdquo; the conscious mind which believes most of what it is told no matter how ridiculous.   This is how people like Francis Collins can be perfectly rational, and be brilliant in an area of science that conclusively proves evolution by natural selection and yet remain religious.   The religiosity comes from religious ideology placed in his subconscious mind in childhood.


So in conclusion, the simple solution that may prove nearly impossible to implement (in the short term) is to fortify the ego!   It may happen naturally.   As humans evolve we may gradually abandon religion and become better and better equipped to filter out extremist ideology in society.   If we want this to happen faster we need to keep religion away from children until they reach an age when they are able to appreciate it for what it is.   It is essential that our children&rsquo;s moral compass be set by the best ideas we have at the present time, not bronze age mythology, fear and totalitarianism.   Science doesn&rsquo;t currently have all the answers, but we know more now than at any other point in our collective history.   Our best chance lies in using the best information we have.   This information, never has, and never will come from religion.


<div class="js-kit-comments" uniq=&rdquo;SigmundFreudVGod&rdquo; permalink="http://www.ntopix.com/files/Sigmund_Frued_V_God.php"></div><script src="http://js-kit.com/for/ntopix.com/comments.js"></script>


      ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>You Cannot Blame Atheism for the Holocaust</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Religion</category><dc:date>2009-11-04T14:42:25-05:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/You_Cannot_Blame_Atheism_for_the_Holocaust.php#unique-entry-id-42</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/You_Cannot_Blame_Atheism_for_the_Holocaust.php#unique-entry-id-42</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[	In nearly every religion versus atheism or god versus no god discussion or debate I see on You Tube or elsewhere, the forces of religiosity invariably trot out Hitler and Stalin.   The claim is that they were atheists who were trying to rid the world of religion by killing the faithful.   By all accounts one could make a case that Stalin was on some level an atheist, but Hitler, was not.   However even if he was in fact an atheist he would have had to round up all the Jews pretty much by himself because 99% of the population of Germany were Roman Catholics at the time!   So the idea that Atheism played a major role in the Holocaust just doesn&rsquo;t hold any water whatsoever.   Religion however did play a role. 


	At the heart of all types of religion lies the idea that it is a virtue to believe without any sort of proof.   When this idea is at the foundation of the belief system of any group, this group becomes easy to sway into actions that are immoral, hateful and in this case genocidal in nature.   This underlying misguiding idea of faith as a virtue is reason enough in my opinion to rid oneself of any kind of religious belief.


<div class="js-kit-comments" uniq=&rdquo;CannotBlameAtheismForHolocaust&rdquo; permalink="http://www.ntopix.com/files/You_Cannot_Blame_Atheism_for_the_Holocaust.php"></div><script src="http://js-kit.com/for/ntopix.com/comments.js"></script>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Trouble With Twitter</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Twitter</category><dc:date>2009-08-04T13:32:53-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Trouble_With_Twitter.php#unique-entry-id-41</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Trouble_With_Twitter.php#unique-entry-id-41</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[	Despite myriad problems, glitches and lack of any real structure, Twitter has been championed by celebrities and has risen to the upper echelon of social media sites.   However just because you can tweet doesn&rsquo;t mean you should!   Twitter has become the Mos-Isley space port of the internet, you may never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy!


Security Problems


 As I write this one of my Twitter accounts has been Hi-jacked and the activities of the Hijackers has caused the account to be suspended.   This has become a common theme in the Twitterverse.   I never thought it would happen to me but it seems that the real culprit is the right arm of the very outfit that is now my executioner.   I am speaking of the Twitter API.   The API is a bit of software that programmers and hackers alike can use to create applications for Twitter.   The API actually allows you to create applications that are specifically designed to violate Twitter&rsquo;s own terms of service.   IT also contains several loopholes the size of a jumbo jet through which your account information can be stolen, and your account used to post advertising, phishing links and links to questionable material.   In a post 911 world it may not be the best idea to use a service that opens you up to a situation where virtually anyone can speak ostensibly with YOUR VOICE!   One might argue that this can&rsquo;t happen unless you give out your user name and/or password, but it seems like pretty much ALL of the addon API generated services out there require this information and a growing number of these services are turning out to be completely and utterly bogus!   Do you really want an account with your name on it to be hijacked and used to spread propaganda or worse sound the rallying cry for those who would seek to undermine the very fabric of American society?   On top of all this you can very easily find yourself with a virus on your hard drive.   You think your professor/boss will buy that the Trojan ate your homework again?


Could you be more vague?


It&rsquo;s not as though Twitter makes no attempt to combat these problems, but it would be nice if they didn&rsquo;t also cause most of them.   The rules regarding what you can and cannot do with your account are extremely vague.   You won&rsquo;t know if you&rsquo;ve crossed the line until it&rsquo;s too late and your account is suspended.   These suspensions are to last a MINIMUM of 30 days according to the Twitter web site.   Some sort of warning might be a good idea or perhaps if they re-tooled their setup so it flat out does not allow any of the activities that could possibly warrant a suspension.    This sort of problem seems to be the scourge of the web 2.0 world, where the applications seem to create more problems than they solve.   Secondlife has the same problem with its search application.   Users are gaming the current search system so rather than fix the search, they impose restrictions on everyone regardless of any wrongdoing on the part of the individual user.   This creates an insurgency if you will, people who are now using Twitter to bash Twitter and tarnish the experience of its user base.   This very article will be tweeted into Twitter by anyone using a service like Twitterfeed or Twit Robot to tweet the titles, descriptions and urls of my blog posts!   I also might mention the fact that I am already looking for alternatives to Twitter and there are several out there that seem to have more features and guidelines that are much easier to understand and follow. 


Spam, spam spam spam


I have read in several different articles, blog posts etc that 10% of the twitter population are responsible for 90% of the content!   This is not social networking it&rsquo;s broadcasting.   And the message seems to be all about what people are eating for dinner or one simple trick that burns fat without working out!   Twitter claims to be trying to limit the presence of aggressive online marketeers, and yet they still make up the bulk of Twitters regular users.   Most of my new followers are trying to sell me something and they almost never respond to any message I send them, even then most time it&rsquo;s an automated response.   Twitter IS essentially spam for the most part.   Except for updates from celebrities most tweets aren&rsquo;t of interest to anyone anywhere.   The more people you follow the more you seem to put yourself on the firing line where countless morons fire non-sequiturs into your personal space.  


So in the final analysis you may ask yourself if subjecting your computer and yourself to Twitter is worth the potential downside.   There are closed twitter like services like Shout em&rsquo; that allow you to have a twitter-like experience with in a network of friends that are there by invitation only.   This is much more secure way to go.   Also since this type of service is not open to the general public, you can pretty much run it however you like. 


<div class="js-kit-comments" uniq=&rdquo;troublewithtwitter&rdquo; permalink="http://www.ntopix.com/files/Trouble_With_Twitter.php"></div><script src="http://js-kit.com/for/ntopix.com/comments.js"></script>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>My Verdict on #Secondlife </title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Secondlife</category><dc:date>2009-07-17T04:34:27-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Secondlife_Verdict.php#unique-entry-id-40</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Secondlife_Verdict.php#unique-entry-id-40</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[	Well I&rsquo;ve been an active participant in the online world known as secondlife for just shy of three years now and I&rsquo;ve reached a few conclusions.   I thought I would share them with you so that maybe those of you who are new to SL or thinking about starting a Secondlife business can get an idea of what might work in Secondlife.   I hope this helps.   Let me say something up front.   IF you make a lot of money and you can easily afford to buy yourself land and play and that&rsquo;s all you need to have happen that&rsquo;s cool go for it. it&rsquo;s fun!   What I write here is for people who are looking for some sort of income from their Secondlife experience.   This is, like most other posts on this blog, my opinion, and is based on my experiences.


1) Don&rsquo;t spend any money in Secondlife.   In other words don&rsquo;t ever spend real money to buy Lindens (secondlife currency) or rent land unless you absolutely have to.   If you make products for secondlife like hair, clothing, dances/ animations or scripted items you can sell them online on SL Exchange.com.   This is a much better way to test what will sell or what won&rsquo;t and you won&rsquo;t pay a dime for land rentals or tier fees.   For those of you who don&rsquo;t know tier fees are like property taxes.   Renting land is expensive and owning land is like a noose around your neck that creates a situation where if you don&rsquo;t make money you lose money.   Land ownership is a surefire way to put yourself in a situation where you&rsquo;re throwing good money after bad.   Don&rsquo;t ever spend money in Secondlife that you&rsquo;re not willing to lose, because I&rsquo;m telling you right now, it&rsquo;s gone! 


2) Whatever you do in Secondlife always try to limit the complexity of it.   Secondlife is extremely buggy.   If your business plan requires Secondlife to work perfectly most of the time it&rsquo;s time for a new business plan.   One of the few business models that seems to work on a regular basis is giving away product to get someone to look at or be aware of something.   This is assuming that creating awareness of a product outside of Secondlife is worthwhile and part of a business plan that makes money elsewhere so you can use Secondlife as a write off.   If you&rsquo;re looking for a place to lose money Secondlife is a literally a virtual gold-mine! 


3) Don&rsquo;t open a club.   They don&rsquo;t make money.   Never did, never will.   Not only that they are a pain in that ass to run and maintain.   Ditto Art galleries.   In order to run a live music venue you must own an entire simulator of 65535 square meters.   This will cost you between $200 and $300 Us dollars per month.   If you own any less than a full sim you will be limited to 40 people in your venue.   So you&rsquo;re $300 bucks in the hole before you even begin, now you have to pay DJ&rsquo;s or Musicians or whatever.   I&rsquo;ve heard live music venue owners have spent $1000 plus a month on their venue and I&rsquo;ve seldom heard any of them say they broke even on a given month let alone made any money.


4) Secondlife is great place for social networking and making people aware of your internet-based content.   The opportunities to interact with people from all over the world are many.    You can hook up with people who have the same interests or engage in the same sort of business as you do.   It&rsquo;s also great place for film-makers to make visual storyboards.   I&rsquo;ve seen quite a few print ads that use Secondlife avatars and scenery.


	I don&rsquo;t mean to sound negative but don&rsquo;t ever put all your eggs in the Secondlife basket and then complain that there aren&rsquo;t any eggs to eat to stay alive!


<div class="js-kit-comments" uniq=&rdquo;Secondlife_Verdict&rdquo; permalink="http://www.ntopix.com/files/Secondlife_Verdict.php"></div><script src="http://js-kit.com/comments.js"></script>
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Notes on Sci Fi&#x27;s Sanctuary</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Television</category><dc:date>2009-07-14T05:01:16-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Notes_ON_Sanctuary.php#unique-entry-id-39</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Notes_ON_Sanctuary.php#unique-entry-id-39</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[When a friend told me premise behind Sci Fi&rsquo;s new show Sanctuary I was very interested in seeing it.   Overall I think I like the show, but there are some things that really take me out of the moment and they seem to happen with alarming regularity. 


Most of these problems revolve around the character of Dr.   Will Zimmerman.   The character who looked alarming identical to Harry Potter (until partway through when he gets himself some contact lenses) is an ex &ldquo;Agency&rdquo; man who finds himself working as a police profiler.   Will looks like a man in his Early 20&rsquo;s so I don&rsquo;t really know how he had time to accomplish all of this but let&rsquo;s give him that.   Here is a man that worked for the Agency which in most cases indicates CIA or FBI and was on a police force and yet he is completely inept with firearms, and appears unable to make a fist to save his life.   I can only assume that the writers and producers of the show wanted to boost ratings among women by having the only fully human male character on the team play the role of supreme pussy.   Basically any time you see Will in a situation where brute force is required or any kind of physically challenging task is to be performed you can more or less assume he will fail, and then somehow get a second chance to think his way out of the situation.   I fail to see why he would have been chosen to be part of a team of &ldquo;Monster Hunters&rdquo; when the other characters have to keep rescuing him from dangerous situations sometimes more than once per episode.   This character is in serious need of testosterone and fast.   I am not saying he&rsquo;s got to be a jock, but he could throw a punch every now and again.   It also wouldn&rsquo;t hurt if he didn&rsquo;t ask so many really stupid questions.   In short the Zimmerman character doesn&rsquo;t make any sense.


Next let us discuss the character of Henry Foss, the team&rsquo;s techie.   Henry is in charge of the security of an enormous facility that houses a huge diversity of abnormal species.   Pretty much every time Henry is asked to do anything his equipment malfunctions in the process.   My guess is that this is supposed to be the comic relief.   It&rsquo;s not funny, it is predictable and happens in nearly every episode.   It reminds me a little of Star Trek Voyager&rsquo;s shuttle craft.   Every time the crew are in shuttles they either crash, take fire or something else bad happens.   I am hoping that his new found abilities make his character more formidable and a more worthy member of the team. 


Now let&rsquo;s look at the toughest member of the team.   Ashley Magnus is pretty much the only character who can really hold her own in a fight.   Since the show employs green screen and wire work for many of the stunts there&rsquo;s a tendency to go overboard.   Some of the early episodes feature 120 - 140LB Ashley throwing monsters around that would appear to be at least twice her weight and size.   Perhaps it might be better for her to use speed and agility (and hey how about some knives?)   to defeat her foes.   It would be more realistic to have her defeat the enemies with her superior skills because it flat out looks silly to see her throwing people around like rag dolls. 


The other issues with the show are largely technical and as they seemed to improve with every show I will reserve commenting on them until I look at the second season.   Most of these were about the CGI shots looking too obvious. 


In short, ramp up Ashley&rsquo;s Kung Fu, Give Henry some cooler toys to play with that actually work and inject Will with something that causes him to grow some balls! 


That&rsquo;s my take, for what it&rsquo;s worth.


<div class="js-kit-comments" uniq=&rdquo;/Notes_ON_Sanctuary&rdquo; permalink="http://www.ntopix.com/files/Notes_ON_Sanctuary.php"></div><script src="http://js-kit.com/comments.js"></script>
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Hey&#x21; What are you looking at&#x21;</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Society</category><category>Pop Culture</category><dc:date>2009-07-14T02:05:06-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/What_Are_You_Looking_AT.php#unique-entry-id-38</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/What_Are_You_Looking_AT.php#unique-entry-id-38</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[What are you looking at?


Do you really want an answer?


There are several instances that we get asked the very pointed question "what are you looking at"?   It's a phrase that is most often shouted or spoken forcefully.   Many times the answer to this question marks the start of some sort of argument.   Think about this, do you really want an answer? 

...One segment of society that seems to make frequent use of the question in question are people that some would say have a freakish appearance or exhibit freakish behavior.   People with 15 nose-rings and a tattoo of an aardvark on their neck sort of spring to mind.   I don't personally have any tattoos but I will admit some of this artwork is simply amazing.   What I can't fathom is why you would spend 8 hours being repeatedly stabbed by a needle in order to have a beautiful rendition of an aardvark on your neck,... if you didn't want people to look at it!   I mean you can't see it yourself without a mirror.


...Punk rockers (the real ones) feel that by expressing thoughts contrary to societal norm that they are expressing individuality.   So they rush out for an aardvark to the neck which any normal sane person would find strange and look at with puzzled expressions.   The next step is to forever use this aardvark to make normal people feel bad for finding this tattoo and it's placement odd somehow.   The part the average person unfortunately doesn't get to see when they walk away is the following conversation:


Punk 1 - HAha I made that guy feel like an idiot!


...Punk 3 - Yeah but dude you have a F@$king AARDVARK ON YOUR NECK!!!!!


Those of you that have really cool tattoos that don't mind people looking at them are the ones that are really expressing yourselves.   The fact that you are so into the artwork that you are consenting to allow the artist to use your body as a canvas is a level of commitment that few people reach.   It's not for everyone and you accept that fact so bonus points for you!


...If you can find a place to park you can go club hopping on foot because every other building has a bar in it.   Summer and winter alike the clothing is scarcer than an original thought in Hollywood!   Sometimes when I go out for a walk on a Friday or Saturday night my eyes feel like ping-png balls from the over activity.   Occasionally I see a woman who is just extraordinarily beautiful and I just can't help but stare. ...  On even rarer occasions a woman such as this will catch my gaze and smile back at me.   At this point she is officially out of my league because she was able to look at my expression, realize my appreciation of her beauty and make the decision to be flattered. ...  Strikingly beautiful intelligent women seem to steer clear of unknown Musicians, non best selling writers and guys that need to spend some time in the gym. 

...Other times an amazingly beautiful woman looks back at you and says "What the F@$k are you looking at"?   For some reason I can't explain, they go from awe inspiring beauty to fugly in 0.0000043 seconds flat. 

...Just once I would like to have the presence of mind to say something biting and witty but I'm afraid my remark would lose all it's power when I have to explain what I meant...


...If you have a girlfriend and she's attractive, my looking or seeming to look at her should not be taken as an insult to your masculinity.   If you're that insecure that you think I can walk up, and whisper "let's go" in her ear and steal her away from you, I'm probably not your biggest problem.   You may need to do some self esteem work or your girlfriend may be looking to escape your relationship.   It could also be that your girlfriend is extremely eager to please!   In either case if I am really stealing her away I am doing you a favor.


It's more likely that the two of you are standing at the bar and I'm trying to get the bartender's attention so I can order a drink.   This also explains the side to side body motion that is causing me to rub against her.   She's tall and I have to look over her shoulder first to her left,...then over to her right to see the bartender!   If this offends you just imagine I'm doing it to you!


...I was crossing the street less than a block from my apartment and there were two morbidly obese women in wheelchairs one of whom had both legs amputated just below the knee.  Yes I understand that it's difficult to stay fit when confined to a wheelchair I mention their weight only to paint a picture of the actual situation not to make fun of people who are overweight.


...I was facing their direction and looking at the lights waiting for them to change so I could cross the street. ...  Now it's not like I leered at her disabled friend or made some expression of shock or horror at the sight of her.   Often times when I see someone with a disability I wonder how I would cope if I were disabled in the same way.   I think that's an honest reaction really, but perhaps I'm wrong.


What makes me angry is this stupid cow, this unlikely union of a bloated Fembot and a Daleck actually thinks that I'm looking at her friend and thinking things like "haha I've got legs and you don't".   Here I am waiting for the light trying to empathize with the plight of a disabled person, doing all of this in my head of course which makes it my own business!


...This is the very reason people resent disabled parking spots!   When they see that the only parking spot within a quarter mile of the shop they want to go into is reserved for the handicapped they don't think of the decent kind and considerate differently able person (which is the vast majority of people that need to use these spaces) they think of Attila the rolling hun on the street corner blocking the entire sidewalk yelling "i can stare longer than you can".


<div class="js-kit-comments" uniq=&rdquo;/What_Are_You_Looking_AT&rdquo; permalink="http://www.ntopix.com/files/What_Are_You_Looking_AT.php"></div><script src="http://js-kit.com/comments.js"></script>
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>How to Spot a REAL #Celebrity on Twitter</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Twitter</category><dc:date>2009-07-12T17:13:26-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Spotting_Celebrity_Imposters_on_Twitter.php#unique-entry-id-37</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Spotting_Celebrity_Imposters_on_Twitter.php#unique-entry-id-37</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I&rsquo;ll be honest, which is a rare thing on the internet.   There is no way to 100% know that a celebrity is really actually typing every tweet.   However there are some ways to spot an account that is all-together fake. 


The easiest way is to look at their twitter page.   While a normal user might follow a ton of people in hopes that some will follow back, a celebrity can usually amass quite a following without following anyone.   So if you see on their Twitter page that they follow many more people than are following them, it&rsquo;s probably a fake account.   If you follow a celebrity and they try to sell you Britney Spears sex videos,.... also a fake! 


Don&rsquo;t be fooled by people who put &ldquo;THE&rdquo; or :THEREAL&rdquo; in their name.   This doesn&rsquo;t mean it&rsquo;s not the real McCoy, but it certainly doesn&rsquo;t mean that it is either!   If it looks like there&rsquo;s a good chance that the account is legitimate follow for a while.   The celeb in question may post pics of themselves in different locations and whatnot, or give other clues as to the validity of the account. 


A number of celebrities are now getting their accounts verified.   Remember that even when a Celebrity announces their Twitter account name on live TV, they may or may not be typing every post.   The account may also be controlled by an agent or publicist so don&rsquo;t ever think that every tweet as coming from John Q Celebrity. 


<div class="js-kit-comments" uniq=&rdquo;SpotCelebsonTwitter&rdquo; permalink="http://www.ntopix.com/files/Spotting_Celebrity_Imposters_on_Twitter.php"></div><script src="http://js-kit.com/comments.js"></script>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>How To Get Famous #Followers On Twitter</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Twitter</category><dc:date>2009-07-12T16:04:33-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Getting_Famous_Followers.php#unique-entry-id-36</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Getting_Famous_Followers.php#unique-entry-id-36</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Okay this one will be short and sweet.   There is a simple trick that you can use to possibly get some real life celebrities to follow your Twitter account.   It will really help if you have a blog, are a musician, or create any type of media.   This may also work for those of you whose sparkling wit is the talk of the Twitterverse as well. 


This is not guaranteed!   If I could guarantee success I would be selling this for real money! 


It&rsquo;s a simple idea that many people may have stumbled upon.   Search for famous people and follow some of the people that they follow.   Which ones?   The ones you never heard of, in short you follow the ones that might follow you back.   What does that get you?   Well if this person follows you back and you say something witty or post a great link to your latest blog post, this person might Re-Tweet your tweet in which case there&rsquo;s a chance that your famous person may see it, read your tweet, read your blog post, listen to your song and like it enough to follow you for more of the same. 


It&rsquo;s a long shot I know.   But if you&rsquo;re going to follow a bunch of people anyway why not pick these people?   If you can get these &ldquo;Followed by the Famous&rdquo; people in your following you have one degree of separation from a celebrity.   Now I will warn you that many celebrities only follow other celebrities, this makes your task near impossible.   You will most likely want to restrict yourself to those celebrities that follow some people that may actually follow you back.


Why do you care if celebrities follow you?   Well, if they re-tweet a link to your content if could create a huge influx of interest.   You would also be able to send direct messages to them, or possibly engage them in a conversation.   Having fans of what you do that are in a position to help your career is always a good idea!


If you are lucky enough to snag yourself a famous follower, don&rsquo;t abuse this new connection.   Don&rsquo;t send them direct messages 19 times an hour, if you send them a direct message at all.   In any and all communications with them talk to them like you would talk to anyone else.   It&rsquo;s okay to be complimentary, just don&rsquo;t be that stereotypical gushing fan who has nothing better than &ldquo;Oh my god I can&rsquo;t believe it&rsquo;s you&rdquo; to say! 


Good luck networking with the stars!  


<div class="js-kit-comments" uniq=&rdquo;/FamousFollowers&rdquo; permalink="http://www.ntopix.com/files/Getting_Famous_Followers.php"></div><script src="http://js-kit.com/comments.js"></script>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>We Are All Victims Of The Consumer Shakedown.</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Business</category><dc:date>2009-07-07T22:20:01-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Victims_of_Consumer_Shakedown.php#unique-entry-id-35</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Victims_of_Consumer_Shakedown.php#unique-entry-id-35</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[	In the last century we got really good at making things.   In this century we are focused on marketing things, so much so that the products themselves have become secondary.   These days it&rsquo;s ok if a product is far less than perfect as long as a low enough percentage of consumers don&rsquo;t demand their money back.   This is especially true of E-Products.   E-Products exist only in the digital domain, and can be downloaded.   This eliminates shipping/handling/packaging costs and provides content for rock bottom low prices.   Most of the time these products, are not returnable and so there are no refunds. 


	This scenario means that if you are so inclined you can come up with a brilliant marketing plan for a completely shoddy product knowing full well that your mostly disappointed clients will have no real recourse.   Let me tell you something right now, this is by far the fastest growing legal scam on the internet.   I know cause I have fallen victim to it more than once already.   Check out some of my other blog posts cause if I haven&rsquo;t already shouted about it, I am more than likely going to shortly. 


	This is the sort of deliberate methodically planned scam that&rsquo;s been around forever.   It&rsquo;s a kin to the classic pigeon drop and when it happens to me I have shrug and say &ldquo;well you got me&rdquo;.   What I am more concerned with is the current trend towards lackluster customer service and insufficient product testing.   How can they be testing these software packages that have obvious features missing, poor functionality and flat out don&rsquo;t do what they are supposedly designed to do. 


	The other weird trend is this whole idea of allowing anyone who can string together a few lines of code, make a product that works with yours.   It&rsquo;s great if those third party programmers know what they&rsquo;re doing but many times these add ons are buggy, horribly designed nightmares waiting to happen.   So you buy a cool program because there are all these great addons for it, only to find that the addons are more trouble than they are worth. 


	Bottom line, don&rsquo;t buy any of these programs or addons unless there is an ironclad money back guarantee.   And give them hell if the product doesn&rsquo;t deliver.   I am going to do my bit by posting here about any of these disappointing products I find.


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	 ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Vinyl Isn&#x27;t Coming Back&#x2c; It&#x27;s Festering&#x21;</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Society</category><category>Pop Culture</category><dc:date>2009-07-03T04:29:09-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Vinyl_Isnt_Coming_Back.php#unique-entry-id-34</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Vinyl_Isnt_Coming_Back.php#unique-entry-id-34</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Lately I have seen a number of articles declaring that vinyl records are making some sort of comeback.   It might seem this way but I surmise that this so-called resurgence is little more than a mirage.   The fact that teenagers are picking through dollar bins in used music stores looking for music is the result of a few things that are happening right now.


First of all, most major label music sucks!   The upshot of this is that listeners are turning to other outlets for musical enjoyment.   Since there is an amazing back catalog available in the used music shops it&rsquo;s easy to see why people would be attracted to the selection and the low prices.   Let&rsquo;s keep in mind that this is product on the resale market and only a diehard few vinyl fans are buying newly manufactured LPs.   New Vinyl averages at $25 -$45 per Lp.   So really the resurgence here is in use of turntables rather than new music sales.   I&rsquo;d also like to point out that most of the music from the 80&rsquo;s and first half of the 90&rsquo;s featured better recordings of better musicians than we typically find today.   Don&rsquo;t believe me?   Take a typical 80&rsquo;s band, let say Tears for Fears, and listen to the quality of the recording versus a typical band from today, let&rsquo;s say Fallout Boy.   See what I mean?   There is a very good reason for this discrepancy in sound quality.   In the 80&rsquo;s and early 90&rsquo;s music (even indie music) was mostly recorded in studios manned by actual recording engineers.   The average album took between 6 weeks and 3 months to produce.   You could afford to do this because you would then have a product that had value that you could sell.   Today music is recorded (in many cases) just as quickly and cheaply as possible, many times in makeshift home studios by people who aren&rsquo;t as adept at producing a high quality of sound.   So what we have is the following trend: 


  	The end product is worth less and, so knowing this, bands and labels put less effort and money into the recording process. 


Remember when you were a kid and it made you so happy that you had a baseball card, or an action figure or anything little Billy across the street didn&rsquo;t have?   A similar thing is at play here.   Since much of vinyl available at your average used record shop was never released on CD it&rsquo;s not all that difficult to find great music that isn&rsquo;t available on the internet for download.   This means you have tunes that little Billy doesn&rsquo;t, and he&rsquo;s gonna have to go search for another copy of the LP if he want&rsquo;s to own it!   Current music is available on the internet, so even if little Billy is too lazy to track it down for free he can just pay the $.99 and get the songs from iTunes. 


I think this so called resurgence will keep getting press until we finally find a solid way to monetize music.   When the bottom line improves for the people who create music, my guess is so will all aspects of the quality of the music itself.


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Michael Jackson&#x27;s kids will be adopted by winners of reality TV series&#x21;</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Fake News</category><dc:date>2009-07-01T14:51:25-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Thriller_Children_Epic_Adoption.php#unique-entry-id-33</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Thriller_Children_Epic_Adoption.php#unique-entry-id-33</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Earlier today an un-named television executive leaked news that negotiations were underway to create a reality TV series centered around the adoption of Michael Jackson&rsquo;s three children.   She had the following to say:


&ldquo;In a few weeks, after there has been some time for healing, those seeking custody of MJ&rsquo;s kids will be offered the opportunity to become contestants on a new reality television program&rdquo; 


Apparently there are legal precedents set by television programs like &ldquo;The Peoples Court&rdquo; and &ldquo;Judge Judy&rdquo; for having legal disputes argued in a public forum.   Assuming all concerned parties agree, the show would air as part of this years fall schedule.   When asked about the possible format for the show the exec answered.


&ldquo;The format would be based on the same ideas as &ldquo;Who wants to marry a millionaire&rdquo; and &ldquo;Survivor&rdquo; except that a Judge and a panel of social workers would have the ability to council the children through the decision making process.   Contestants will not be allowed lawyers on the show and will all undergo stringent background and drug checks.   The viewing audience will also periodically be asked to vote a contestant off the ranch.   All in all a fun experience for the home viewer&rdquo;


Such a show would undoubtedly get huge ratings, so much so that opposing networks might simply run infomercials opposite this possible media juggernaut.   It is rumored that 30 seconds of advertising during the program will cost twice as much as a one minute advertisement during the Super-bowl!   The executive also revealed other possible features of the alleged show.


&ldquo;We are of course feverishly looking for ways to augment the program by giving the viewing public more of a say in what ultimately happens to MJ&rsquo;s kids.   One of the things we have in development is a sort of Blackjack game in which the viewing audience can split the children up, but we&rsquo;re stuck on what would happen if the viewing public decides to double down.   Poker is very hot right now so we might include a poker event in the show.   To win custody you would have to &ldquo;Go all in&rdquo; and so fourth.&rdquo; 


When we questioned all the major networks they denied that any such show was in development.   This can only mean that there is a code of silence surrounding the show.   This of course never happened.   We here at NTOPIX were shocked to find out that this show was planned by MJ himself prior to his death.   MJ claimed that the show would bypass the legal battles that would ensue in the event of his death.   The final revelation in this bizarre tale was yet to come.   According to the executive,


&ldquo;The first episode will begin with a scene in which the children, contestants, judge, social workers and a man in a bear suit will be standing around a replica of MJ&rsquo;s casket.   The casket will then be lowered into the ground, the bear suited man will cast some earth unto the casket thus declaring the contest has officially begun&rdquo;


In further conversations it was also revealed that the bear suited man would not speak, which started a firestorm of speculation as to the identity of this bear suited person.   We also learned that the bear suited man (or BSM) would be a recurring theme-based feature of the show.   In order to keep the true identity of the BSM a secret, 12 celebrity BSM impersonators will arrive at the ranch each day but only one will be the real McCoy.   There is a long list of possible BSM impersonators from George Clooney to Jeff Goldblum to Mark Hamill to Kevin Smith, the list goes on and on!   What challenges will face the BSM?   Will the real BSM be revealed to the viewing audience?   Find out this fall on the soon to be hit fictional television series &ldquo;Thriller Children - Epic Adoption&rdquo;


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Joe Jackson Admits he doesn&#x27;t &#x22;Really&#x22; want the kids.</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Fake News</category><dc:date>2009-06-30T20:15:56-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/JOE_JACKSON_CUSTODY_SCAM.php#unique-entry-id-31</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/JOE_JACKSON_CUSTODY_SCAM.php#unique-entry-id-31</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[In an interview that Joe will claim never happened (probably because it didn&rsquo;t) Joe Jackson clearly acknowledged that his recent attempts to gain custody of Michael Jackson&rsquo;s children is part of a plot to bypass the fact that he was left out of the will.   Father of the king of Pop Had this to say:


 &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t even know who I am do you?&rdquo; 


&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want anyone else&rsquo;s children.&rdquo;


&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what you&rsquo;re talking about.&rdquo;


 It&rsquo;s obvious that Jackson is suffering from some sort of mental illness and periodically forgets about his son and grandchildren.   When we asked him about the family and how they are holding up he seemed somewhat angry as he said: 


&ldquo;My publicist told me I was here to talk about my music.&rdquo;


 We had some time to kill so we asked him about his music.   What followed was a lengthy discussion about his fictional career.   He claims to be a recording artist who has released 18 or more studio albums dating back to the Seventies.   In our haste to get this article published we failed to verify any of this.   We allowed Mr Jackson to talk and talk for about 45 minutes before we again asked him if he would honor the will left by his recently deceased son and he exploded into a rage saying amongst other things: 


&ldquo;This interview is over!&rdquo;


  &ldquo;Are you a fucking moron?&rdquo; 


Once we finally calmed him down we asked him to pose for this photo and he very reluctantly agreed.


We were scared at this point and didn&rsquo;t ask the remainder of our questions.   As Jackson left he shouted the following back at us:


 &ldquo;If I am Joe Jackson, the father of Jacko, why am I posing in front of a piano?&rdquo;


&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not even an african american!&rdquo;


 This was strange because I would have been thinking the same thing if this purely fictional interview had ever taken place.   It of course never did.   This is a total work of fiction.   I&rsquo;m totally super serial.   However if you look closely you may be able to detect the family resemblance.  


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Making Twitter Better</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Twitter</category><dc:date>2009-06-28T13:18:51-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Making_Twitter_Better.php#unique-entry-id-30</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Making_Twitter_Better.php#unique-entry-id-30</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I have some ideas for making Twitter better that I&rsquo;d like to share with you.   If you like these ideas please twit about this blog and maybe the Twitter folks will take notice and think about implementing them. 


1) If you&rsquo;re like me you&rsquo;re becoming frustrated by people you&rsquo;ve just blocked showing up with tweets.   You un-follow them, you block them and you feel like that should be the end of them!   They aren&rsquo;t supposed to be able to follow you anymore but then you use some software to follow everyone that&rsquo;s following you and WAMMMO there they are again.   My solution to this is to use Tweetdeck to intentionally Ignore most people and focus just on people I have deemed tweet-worthy.   Now I know what you&rsquo;re going to say, &ldquo;why follow a bunch of people that tweet things you don&rsquo;t like to read&rdquo;.   Well it&rsquo;s called the scientific process!   You do a huge random sampling of a bunch of people and then go through a process of elimination by which you end up with only those you find interesting.   Un-follow and Block are the mechanisms that should be making this possible, but they&rsquo;re not functioning at present.   Twitter needs to address this.


2) Tweetdeck has a rather nice feature that allows you to create groups, what would be even nicer would be the ability to converse with members of that group only.   This would be a great courtesy to those who are following you but they aren&rsquo;t part of the current conversation you&rsquo;re having.   These groups would have to be easy to create on the fly and it would also have to be easy to add new people to the conversation.   There is a service that does something like this called &ldquo;Shout em&rdquo;.   So I guess this would be like that but inside the confines of the Twitterverse.  


3) I would like to see personal Twitter pages become more customizable.   It would be great for people to be able to put more information about themselves, embed media etc.   Myspace and Facebook are emulating some of the things that Twitter is doing I think turnabout is fair play here!   It might make for more interesting conversations if we all had a little more information about each other.   This would also be a great avenue for self expression as well.


All great web services and applications tend to evolve, I really feel that incorporation of these ideas need to be incorporated into the next evolution of Twitter.


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Honour MIchael Jackson by learning from his life&#x21;</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Society</category><dc:date>2009-06-27T15:12:33-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Michael_Jackson_Lessons_Learned.php#unique-entry-id-29</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Michael_Jackson_Lessons_Learned.php#unique-entry-id-29</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Okay folks, enough is enough!   It&rsquo;s been a couple days now and I think many of us are missing the point.   Michael Jackson was a man who was literally programmed by his father to become a superstar.   It worked.   However all the money, the houses the exotic pets that his boatloads of cash bought him never gave him back his childhood.   Those of you out there who schedule every second of your kids lives in an attempt to live your dreams vicariously through them should take serious note here.   Let your kids be kids.   If you don&rsquo;t you will create an empty void inside them that can never be filled.   Jacko literally destroyed his life in the attempt.   That is one of the lessons here.


Another important lesson is for those of you who are on a path to stardom.   People who tell only tell you how great you are and only say what you want to hear are probably lying to you!   Keep your ties with friends and family who know who you REALLY are!   This will keep you grounded in some sort of reality.   This will prevent you from booking yourself on a 9 month 50 date concert series at age 50, when you&rsquo;re so depressed you can barely move!   It may also keep you from having to self medicate yourself into oblivion! 


The last thing I&rsquo;d like to say is that, in a way MJ was murdered.   Slowly tortured and driven to suicide by his fans.   I mean he wrote and recorded a song called &ldquo;Leave me Alone&rdquo; for a start.   I&rsquo;m sure he felt that the only time anyone ever listened to him was when he was singing.   If you could afford 700 euros for a VIP package to one of the sold out shows I really hope that if you get that money back you donate it to a worthwhile charitable organization in MJ&rsquo;s name.   It would be a fitting legacy for the real man none of us ever knew. 


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Was Sarah Palin the cause of McCain&#x27;s loss?</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Society</category><dc:date>2009-06-19T11:03:31-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Sarah_Killed_McCain.php#unique-entry-id-28</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Sarah_Killed_McCain.php#unique-entry-id-28</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Are you out of your freaking mind?   OF COURCE SHE WAS!!!!   I think the video recorded by Matt Damon says it all (look for it on Youtube).   Americans were terrified that if McCain fell Ill during his administration the entire country would be run by a soccer mom!   Now, is there a soccer mom out there who could run a country ABSO-FREAKIN-LUTELY, Palin is simply not the droid we&rsquo;re looking for! 


Hindsight being 20/20 it almost seems like Palin was chosen because the Republicans wanted to lose.   Your whole campaign is about experienced leadership and Palin is your choice for VP?   Was your campaign run by Alfred E Neuman cause somebody&rsquo;s logic is certainly cracked up here!   I&rsquo;m sure some people gave Sarah the benefit of the doubt and waited to hear what she had to say.   They listened to that broken record play it&rsquo;s long and languished tune over and over again.   It kinda reminded me of those sound effects machines used by hack morning drive-time radio jocks, only hers only had about three buttons on it!   Check out the Katie Couric interview (also on Youtube) for evidence of that! 


At every turn Sarah Palin displayed a lack of experience, almost zero grasp of important concepts, and a strange air of arrogance one can only assume was borne of ignorance!   Stop asking the question &ldquo;Did Sarah Palin lose the election for the Republicans&rdquo;.   The real question is, &ldquo;knowing how screwed up the economy was/is and how horrible US relations are with much of the world, did the Republicans intentionally lose the election in order to give the impossible task of governing to the United States first black president&rdquo;? 


Cause it seems like the Republicans are very good at making it seem like they&rsquo;ve failed to execute a plan when in reality failure WAS the plan.   Google 911 to see what I mean.  


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Palin v.s. Letterman - This time it&#x27;s personal&#x21;</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Society</category><dc:date>2009-06-17T06:46:38-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Palin_vs_LEtterman.php#unique-entry-id-27</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Palin_vs_LEtterman.php#unique-entry-id-27</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I really try not to follow entertainment news.   I only watch TV shows when they come out on DVD in part to avoid the insanity.   Until recently I thought a Kardashian was a type of cashew nut.   I used to watch Letterman and Conan almost every night but I found that TV was just taking up too much of my time.   However being someone who works with the internet on a daily basis it&rsquo;s difficult not to get constant updates on the Sarah Palin / David Letterman saga that seems to get more absurd every day.   I watched video of &ldquo;the joke&rdquo; and although it was an unusually low blow for Dave, I&rsquo;ve seen pretty much every other late night host go as low or sometimes even lower.   All the press surrounding &ldquo;the joke&rdquo; seems to be turning sheep into bloodhounds, pretending to run far afield to sniff out the truth of Dave&rsquo;s intent and coming back with finely crafted republican false-logic in their ever gaping maws! 


For the record just in case you didn&rsquo;t notice, David Letterman is a comedian and a television talk show host.   He is not a head of state or a political opponent.   There are far more important issues to deal with right now but of course good ol&rsquo; Sarah who is still smarting from a crushing defeat has got her fangs out and there&rsquo;s no telling who will wind up with teeth marks in their ass.   This is a clear illustration of why Palin should not have been Vice President of the United states.   America really dodged a bullet here.   All americans should count themselves lucky.   This woman has blown a joke out of all proportion for no other reason than to stay in the public eye.   It&rsquo;s a shameful display.  Her camp invented the idea that Letterman was talking about her 14 year old daughter rather than the 18 year old daughter even though anyone with half a brain would know better!   Is it any shocker that a bunch of people that voted for George W Bush not once but TWICE would take up the torch of stupidity once again to run this fools errand against Letterman?  


I see blog posts and article comments from people saying they will never watch Letterman again.   These people either never watched the show in the first place or are simply so easily swayed that something will sway them back in a month&rsquo;s time.   I wouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if ratings are up due to this fake scandal.   To give you an idea of how much of a joke most americans feel Palin is, I bet it would be quite a tight race if Letterman ran for office against Palin.   I&rsquo;d vote for Dave in a heartbeat given that Palin was the only other option!   Before you ask, no it&rsquo;s not because she&rsquo;s a woman!   If Letterman ran against Ellen DeGeneres that would be quite a battle let me tell you.   Absurd you say?   Either one would be a better choice than Palin by orders of magnitude and I haven&rsquo;t even thought about what they might be running for! 


So here&rsquo;s what happened in a nutshell.   Dave told a groaner of a joke at the expense of Palin and family which is certainly nothing new.   Palin and company took it as an opportunity to stir up some muck and go out with a bang.   This might also have been an attack on CBS in general due to Palin&rsquo;s deer in the headlights routine during her interview with Katie Couric, which some say had much to do with why the recent election was lost.   They are probably sitting around saying &ldquo;we may have lost the election but man did we carve that Letterman a new one&rdquo;!   If that&rsquo;s really something to hang your hat on Sarah, you don&rsquo;t deserve to be in charge of Girl Scouts much less Vice President of the United States! 


I know it&rsquo;s good for a politician to be a media whore, but then when the camera is actually on you it&rsquo;s a good idea to have something coherent to say.   The reason why Sarah lost McCain the election  is because she kept repeating what needed to be done, &ldquo;shore up the economy and make America strong again&rdquo;.   It&rsquo;s great to say that, over and over again as if it were your name, rank and serial number, but you&rsquo;ve actually got to have some sort of idea how to achieve that.   At the very least you have to look like you know how to achieve it! 


One thing in defense of Sarah Palin.   Anyone in politics that was offered a chance to be Vice President would jump at that chance.   I&rsquo;m sure she never expected to be asked, but it&rsquo;s an offer you don&rsquo;t refuse in politics.   The reason for this is that the mechanism of political office often propels ones ego outside the boundaries of reality.   Despite all good intentions and a real willingness to do some good, had she the aptitude to stop and assess her own limitations she would have declined the offer. 


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Follow Tons of People on Twitter Right now for FREE&#x21;</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Twitter</category><dc:date>2009-06-16T11:12:36-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/mass_follow_on_Twitter.php#unique-entry-id-26</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/mass_follow_on_Twitter.php#unique-entry-id-26</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Ok folks, If you&rsquo;re like me you&rsquo;re getting sick and tired of all these rabid dog marketers selling solutions to follow or auto follow hundreds of people on Twitter.   They claim that these software packages target specific people.   Most of them just scan all of Twitterland and follow people who have used a certain keyword in one of their tweets!   Let me ask you this if you&rsquo;re selling chocolate do you want to follow someone who tweets the phrase &ldquo;I hate chocolate&rdquo;?   I wouldn&rsquo;t have thought so but that&rsquo;s what people are doing when they use this software that they have paid good money for! 


The thing is that if you want to target and follow certain types of people in the hopes that they&rsquo;ll follow you back there is an easier more effective way and you don&rsquo;t need anything more than your browser and the Twitter site itself.   I&rsquo;m going to lay this out for you and you&rsquo;re going to kick yourself that you didn&rsquo;t think of this.   I am of course assuming you didn&rsquo;t. 


Following


Step one


Find someone on Twitter that has the same/certain interests or sells a similar product as you and has many more followers than you. 


Step Two


Click the link to see their list of followers.


Step three


Click each person&rsquo;s &ldquo;Follow&rdquo; button to follow all those people.


Step Four


Rinse and repeat as needed!


Un-Following


After a few days you will want to unfollow all those who don&rsquo;t follow you.   You can do this manually. 


Step one


Go to your Twitter page and click the link to view your followers.


Step Two


Unfollow or remove the people you can&rsquo;t send a direct message to.   You see you can only send a direct message to someone you follow who is following you!


There is a free site that automates this process, you can find it at Http://www.  Huitter.com  However once you go over 500 followers it becomes a paid service.


Why do it this way?


You may be asking yourself why would I do it this way when I can pay some money and get 10,000 followers.   The answer is simple many of those followers will be automated accounts that auto-tweet the phrases that the software is looking for.   If you cherry pick only those people that someone your respect is following most of them will be real people!   Bot don&rsquo;t buy stuff!


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Rapidblog for Rapidweaver - Half a Thumb up&#x21;</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Rapidweaver</category><dc:date>2009-06-12T06:36:21-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Rapidblog_for_Rapidweaver.php#unique-entry-id-24</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Rapidblog_for_Rapidweaver.php#unique-entry-id-24</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I recently purchaed Rapidblog for Rapidweaver.   Let me say right from the start is that the only reason you would want this plugin is if you needed to blog via email or from a remote computer.   It would also come in handy if you are collaborating with other people and you need them to be able to post to the blog as well.   The basic idea behind this plugin is to mirror your blog on a blogger page so that you can add the functionality of the blogger page to your own hosted web site.   You can redirect people who navigate to the blogger version of your blog so that they end up hitting your regular rapidweaver blog.   Sound confusing?   IT IS! 


The folks at logohound have found an extremely convoluted way to give you less features.   Here&rsquo;s what you give up when you use Rapidblog:


   1.    RapidBlog has no podcasting module


   2.   RapidBlog handles date formatting differently


   3.   RapidBlog doesn't support smilies (tragic, I know)


   4.   RapidBlog doesn't allow custom permalinks


   5.   RapidBlog only supports 'categories'.   The built in blog supports both 'categories' and 'tags'.


Not only that the direct links to individual blog posts look like this:  


&nbsp;http://www.ntopix.com/index.php?  id=7164719949441523464&nbsp;


That&rsquo;s a big bowl of wrong!    it&rsquo;s the text equivalent of visitor repellent! 


However there were some nice features that I did like.   One of them was the interblog option which allows you to insert text, pictures or ads between your posts.   This is something the regular Rapidweaver blog doesn&rsquo;t do.   The import feature was nice as well.   The truth of the matter is that this had the potential to be a good product, it&rsquo;s just not finished yet.   I don&rsquo;t know if Logohound is still developing Rapidblog but if they are I would hope they address these issues.   One would think the idea would be to produce a plugin that does everything the stock plugin does and then adds some features.   There are certainly easier ways to collaborate on a blog, you could use a password protected php form to allow others to blog for instance. 


Unless you&rsquo;re very tech savvy and can add code to right the wrongs it is my opinion that you should steer clear of this plugin.   The really sad thing is that other would be Rapidweaver plugin creators might not be doing a blog plugin because they feel that between the stock plug and Rapidblog that base has been covered.   For the time being at least it most certainly has not. 


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Death to Twitiots&#x21;</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Twitter</category><dc:date>2009-06-12T06:29:14-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Death_to_twitiots.php#unique-entry-id-23</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Death_to_twitiots.php#unique-entry-id-23</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It&rsquo;s been a couple weeks now since i got my Twitter account.   At first I didn&rsquo;t know how people could stand all the useless crap you have to wade through to get some useful information.   The problem I see it is the lowest form of Tweeter, I am talking about the infamous Twitiot.   These are people that tweet a play by play of a sporting event, or post 17 pictures of their cat.   These are people that ONLY post to sell stuff on accounts that are completely automated for the sole purpose of following as many people as possible in order to gain more followers.   Is there any area of our lives that can remain free of advertising.   Is there anyplace left where you can escape some marketing person from getting at you in order to get you to spend money you don&rsquo;t have? 


I have news for those of you who look at Twitter as some sort of gold rush!   People are becoming more and more adept at spotting automated accounts that are created for the sole purpose of marketing.   Even the ones that get through are instantly unfollowed after the first tweet.   The incredibly bad downside is that bands, artists and other creative people who want to create a sense of community around what they do often get lumped in with these rabid marketing dogs. 


A quick web search will show you that there are tons of people out there selling all manner of services software and gimmickry to get you to give them money in order to get an assload of followers on Twitter.   There&rsquo;s a service out there called Widgetbox that has a service to get you 1000 targeted followers for $999!   What that really means is that they are offering you 1000 suckers!   People who are going to buy what you&rsquo;re selling whatever it is!   I really don&rsquo;t think this is why Twitter was created.   Besides when you&rsquo;re dealing with people who are smart enough to understand what Twitter is, even if they are suckers now, they won&rsquo;t be for long! 


As I type this a web radio DJ has been tweeting the name of every single song she&rsquo;s playing as she plays it.   No commentary,  or why she&rsquo;s playing it.    I just responded to one of her posts, I&rsquo;ll let you know if she responds.   Am I missing the point or is all this advertising just the price you pay for anything that&rsquo;s &ldquo;free&rdquo; these days?  


If anyone has any idea on how Musicians can create a community around their music while at the same time identifying themselves as an artist with something to share rather than a steely eyed marketing entity please clue me in!   I could use the help.


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Rapidcal for Rapidweaver - Two Thumbs Down</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Rapidweaver</category><dc:date>2009-06-12T06:27:59-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Rapidcal_for_Rapidweaver.php#unique-entry-id-22</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Rapidcal_for_Rapidweaver.php#unique-entry-id-22</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I recently shelled out the 15 bucks to buy Rapidcal a Rapidweaver plugin that is supposed to allow you to add a calendar to your Rapidweaver site in the same style as your chosen theme.   I followed their instructions but could not get the trial version of the product to work when published.   This led me to believe that this was a limitation of the trial software and that a purchase was required to see the calendar on the actual internet.   So I paid my money and followed the instructions and nothing.   I contacted Rapidcal, they sent me to the same instructions page that I had used to set up the program in the first place.   I contacted them again and they were like a broken record.   This apparently is their idea of customer service, I was not impressed. 


My next step was to ask for a refund, they refused. 


This is basically a scam in my opinion.   They give you an extra long evaluation period which leads you to believe that the software is legit.   At the same time they make the demo look like you need to pay for it to be fully functional.   Of course once you pay you&rsquo;re screwed. 


On a positive note I found a free calendar php script that will work directly with your Mac iCal application.   It has many more features, looks better and is easier to read!   You can get it for FREE here:  


	http://phpicalendar.net/   


 It&rsquo;s quite customizable and allows you to merge many calendars together.   It even has the capability to display multiple calendars one at a time.   The user simply selects from a menu which calendar they wish to view.   It&rsquo;s very well thought out and well executed. 


This script comes with instructions which are easy to understand.   You have to edit a php file and copy a few files to your server but its a piece of cake with any basic ftp program. 


Who needs to throw away money when this awesome calendar script does an amazing job for free!    It&rsquo;s even RSS capable so your visitors can subscribe to your calendar! 


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>#Recording 101 - Arrangement</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Home Recording</category><dc:date>2009-05-23T16:40:10-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Recording_101.php#unique-entry-id-20</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Recording_101.php#unique-entry-id-20</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The microphone techniques and placements, the equalization and so forth become what most home recording enthusiasts seem to focus on.    However there is another consideration that is just as important to a great recording that takes place before you even plug in the microphones, THE ARRANGEMENT.   All this really means in terms of a modern rock or pop songs is what you have your instruments doing at various points in the song. ...  This is because guitar and bass guitar have their greatest energy at different parts of the audio spectrum with bass having greatest energy at around 400Hz and Guitars having most of their weight in the mid and upper midrange.   As long as you mix the guitar in such a way that it does not overwhelm the vocals you&rsquo;ll be just fine. 

...If you&rsquo;re a guitarist in a trio with bass and drums you have more freedom to use wild effects, play louder and take up a ton of space in the mix, because it can sound hollow if you don&rsquo;t!   The problems can arise when you add another instrument to the mix.   Certain instruments will cause you little grief, for instance ad a trumpet or other brass or woodwind to the mix and not much of a problem because they are usually either playing a solo when the singer is silent or they are playing short accents or stabs that hang around for long enough to step on anyones toes.   It&rsquo;s when you add another instrument that is capable of playing chords that more care must be taken in the arrangement of the songs. 


In many guitar based rock bands it&rsquo;s the blending of the two guitar sounds to create an overall wall of guitars that is important and so the fact that the guitars mask each other a bit is ok especially with heavily overdriven or distorted guitars in songs that use power chords to chug through riffs.   In a solo situation you will usually have one guitar playing chords and the other playing single notes.   That&rsquo;s all good because guitar solos in mixes are usually given more volume and a midrange boost to the eq so that for the duration of the guitar solo the lead guitar takes the place of the lead vocal as the focal point of the sound.   When blending of two rhythm guitars is not desirable you can always pan one into the left speaker and the other into the right and because both are guitars a sort of balance is achieved.   Just when all is well in the universe that is your band in walks the keyboard player, and to make things worse he or she wants to play one sound and use BOTH HANDS!


So now what you have is a keyboard player wielding the instrument that can make the widest range of frequencies known to man!   With their mighty left hand they mask the bass guitar and with that devastating right hand they create a cacophony of confused mess in the midrange. ...  The other option is to find more effective ways to use the awesome power of your band for good!   This is where the arrangement your songs comes into play. 


All you need to do is to learn to listen to what your band mates are doing and contribute to the overall sound in ways that don&rsquo;t detract from what the others are doing.   In other words lead by example and at the same time take an opportunity to be selfish in terms of volume. 

...Many times I have done live sound for open mic nights featuring mostly solo acoustic guitar and vocals.   It always just seemed natural for me to adjust the sound so that the guitar could be good and loud and at the same time the vocals could be clearly heard.   I guess I felt if there&rsquo;s only one instrument and one voice the sound should be as full as possible.   The way I achieved this was to reduce the midrange on the guitar so that I could crank it up and everyone could still hear the vocal.   Seemed like a simple and easy way to get the sound I was looking for.   What amazes me is the number of times I walk into an establishment featuring the same kind of performance and hear very strange sound design indeed.   Sometimes the &ldquo;sound guy&rdquo; had cranked the midrange on the vocal to violently force it through the wall of guitar. ...  Sometimes I&rsquo;d hear the vocal loud and proud and almost no guitar, other times the guitar was good and loud but I was left wondering if somehow the microphone was broken or something.   I could sometimes hear a vocal but don&rsquo;t ask me what they were singing. 


So if I knew the performer or the owner of the venue I would ask if I could fix the sound.   All I would do is set the Vocal eq to flat, set the guitar eq to flat and then set the mid knob on the guitar to the 9 O&rsquo;clock position and balance the volume between the two.   Then I would use the eq fairly sparingly (most times) to make things sound more natural. ...  For this alone I earned a reputation as a kick ass live sound guy! 


I guess the lesson to take away from this is: Guitarists, if you take some mid out of your guitar sound you can play louder, the overall mix will likely sound better and your band mates won&rsquo;t hate you (as much).   I am picking on guitar players because I am a guitar player and so I feel I can, hope this isn&rsquo;t a problem!   Another thing that you can do as a guitar player is play on a different place on the fretboard than the other guitar player. ...  If the other guitarist is strumming chords, why not pick some single notes out of the chords or play a melodic single note run.   If they zig you zag, and now you&rsquo;ve teamed up to crush zigging and zagging under foot it&rsquo;s time to gang up on the keyboard player.


...There are many creative things you can do to add to a killer arrangement. ...  Listen to the Police song &ldquo;Every Breath You Take&rdquo; the synth parts in that are a big part of what gives the song it&rsquo;s power.   &ldquo;SYNTH PARTS&rdquo; they don&rsquo;t even HAVE a keyboard player!   Seriously if you took out the string wash in the background the mood collapses and you are left with a very small sound stage.   I could go on and on about this stuff but the basic idea is this, you have the power of greatest versatility in terms of sound, if you use it to complement the other musicians you become more than an add-on.   The world is full of &ldquo;also ran&rdquo; keyboard players and that&rsquo;s a shame, but you don&rsquo;t have to be one of them because what you play is up to you!   If you are going to play some left handed bass, get together with the bass player and play some things in unison, or play things that reinforce the bass line.   If you find yourself in the midst of a wall of guitar why not try some things that compliment the vocals.   If you sing you could even use your keyboard to drive a vocal harmony device or vocoder. 


Musicians in a good band do things to compliment each other, it&rsquo;s not a volume duel to the death.   Since home recording is the method by which most bands record now it doesn&rsquo;t hurt to learn more about these things.


If you would like more information on home recording please visit http://www.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Almost Nothing&#x2c; it&#x27;s a state of mind&#x21;</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>The Future</category><dc:date>2009-05-14T23:22:13-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Almost_Nothing.php#unique-entry-id-18</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Almost_Nothing.php#unique-entry-id-18</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Is it Something or isn&rsquo;t it?


Nothing is the absence of anything.   Almost nothing I would characterize as something slightly more than that.   I mean it's only like a tiny sliver more than nothing, small enough that it's difficult to call it something.   I suppose for those who deal in absolutes it would be something.   I guess I feel that there is a certain expectation there when you say "this is something".   The danger of course is that if you present it as something and someone calls you on it and says "Hey that's almost nothing", you have to make a choice there as to whether or not you want to make a argument based on semantics.   You could for instance say that anything more than nothing is something and you'd be right.   However you could hardly blame a person for being somewhat disappointed when you offer something but then what they get is almost nothing.   See what I mean?


3 things you should know about Almost Nothing 


1) Almost nothing made Jerry Seinfeld extremely wealthy.


2) Thousands of amazingly brave young people have died and are dying in Iraq for almost nothing.


3) The top 10 percent of the population have all the wealth leaving the rest of us almost nothing.


Do some research!


Why not do some research on the concept of almost nothing.   It takes almost no time and will cost you almost nothing.   This is important because in the future you will find that you must be satisfied with almost nothing most of the time.   We all might as well get used to it now because almost nothing good is going to happen in the future unless we are able to take almost nothing and turn it into something.   That is going to require a new way of thinking.   You're not going to get away with doing what everyone else does if you want something more than almost nothing.


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>How To Write Song Lyrics</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>How to</category><dc:date>2009-05-14T23:18:59-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/How_to_write_song_lyrics.php#unique-entry-id-17</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/How_to_write_song_lyrics.php#unique-entry-id-17</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Sometimes I think that the world would be a better place if everyone wrote songs.   It's a great creative outlet and will help you take out your aggressions in a positive and cathartic way.   Let's break it down into steps so that it becomes easier to write a song shall we?   I think it's always a good idea to oversimplify things that I am good at.   That way you think I am really talented when you can't produce a great song by following my instructions.   Not to worry, you won't write an epic hit your first time out.


An overview 


I am first going to show you how to have an original thought.   Now I know that 1/2 of all new songs are remakes of old songs and most new music all sounds the same but what the hell!   Let's be different!   If you get any major label attention you can always substitute any word longer than 5 letters with the word "baby" or "ooooohh" or some other such moan oriented utterance.


Materials you'll need 


Some paper, a pencil or pen, a tape recorder might be nice, a guitar or keyboard might come in handy as well.   You'll also need a quiet room where you can be alone this will prevent your friends from laughing at you.


Step 1: Get Inspired 


Watch a movie or read a book and jot down some interesting ideas or phrases.   One of them will likely become the title.   I know this doesn't seem original but wait.   I have more to say and if you just shut up i'll get to it!


Step 2: Messing with the context 


Take each phrase and re write it in a different context.   See what I'm doing here?   What you want to do is mix your contextes.   So that at times the song is about the movie or book and sometimes it's about something entirely different.   It doesn't matter if it rhymes or not but if you're trying to sell it to the masses you simply must take drooling idiots into account.   Drooling idiots make up about 75% of the population.   So if you're going for the big time go broad and make it rhyme.


Step 3: Find the Phrase the Pays 


Okay now you are going to take your phrases and arrange them into three groups.   One of them will repeat so make this one your best and most thought provoking.   This will be what is known as the chorus.   Then take the two next best ones, these will be the seeds of the 2 verses and then take one that seems like an incomplete thought, this will be the bridge.   Now re-write them on a new page in the following order


Verse


chorus


Verse


Chorus


Bridge


Chorus


You have now written out your lyrics.


SO there you have it you've written your very own song lyrics.   Wasn't even that hard.   By the way if they don't make any sense don't worry!   If you get to the point where you're setting them to music just sing them in a way that people can barely understand what you're saying.   If you don't know what I mean go download any Radiohead music that was recorded after OK Computer.   It's almost completely unintelligible and yet it still sells!
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>EBAY - Let The Seller Beware</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Business</category><dc:date>2009-05-12T03:13:21-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Ebay_let_the_seller_beware.php#unique-entry-id-15</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Ebay_let_the_seller_beware.php#unique-entry-id-15</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I remember what Ebay Used to be.


Yesterday's Ebay used to be a great place to sell those items that you no longer use.   The fees were manageable and it was quite a hassle free experience all round.   Buyers and seller alike were held accountable for their actions in a free and open marketplace where almost anything could be had and usually the price was more than fair.


Today's Ebay is like some sort of horrible joke.   If you're a seller, the joke's on YOU!


Let me tell you about the fees! 


Does the phrase "Highway Robbery" ring a bell?


The Ebay fee structure has always been setup so that they take a cut of whatever you sell your merchandise for.   This cut has steadily increased since the inception of Ebay.   The last item I sold on Ebay sold for about $800usd.   By the time it was all said and done between Ebay and Paypal i was out nearly a hundred bucks.   That is selling this item on Ebay cost me a hundred bucks.   This despite the fact that they did no more work for me than they did for the guy who sold a DVD on Ebay for 10 Bucks!   It's out of line and it's the reason why savvy sellers have already abandoned Ebay.


Feedback is now a one way street 


Buyers can ruin your good name with absoute impunity.


In the good old days both buyer and seller had equal rights in terms of the feedback system.   If a buyer took a long time to pay or didn't pay at all, as a seller it was your right to leave them negative feedback.   Not anymore!   Now sellers cannot leave negative feedback for buyers.   This means that you could be a model seller, provide great pre and post sale service and the buyer can turn around and leave negative feedback against you and there's not a damn thing you can do about it!


Ebay protects the buyers, not the sellers.   This is an error in business practices because it's the seller that pays all the fees.


Ebay's great service will bend you over! 


So you can take chargebacks where the sun don't shine.


The other wonderful thing about todays new Ebay is the lack of flexibility in receiving payment.   Unless you have a merchant Visa/Mastercard you MUST use paypal.   Paypal service is not free.   Ebay owns Paypal for those of you that weren't aware.   They even try to rook you into paying money for a shipping label with the customer's address on it.   I mean it's a digital picture of a shipping label that you have to print out yourself!   As if I can't write that on a piece of paper with a wide tipped magic marker!   If you don't use their shipping label service they may even use it as an excuse to delay the customer's payment to you.   In many cases they hold your money until you provide a tracking number for the shipment.   Sending the item via trackable shipping is also an added expense for seller whose customers want to save money by choosing cheaper shipping options that don't normally include tracking service.


The real problem here is that anytime someone buys from you using a credit card they can simply wait until the item arrives and then deny they ever got it.   Once phone call takes the money out of your paypal account and puts it back in their credit card!   I have heard many stories about sellers who shipped product and ended up with no money and no product!   Even after they contacted the shipping company and obtained proof that the item arrived and was signed for, neither Paypal or the credit card companies did anything to help.


This is why many sellers demanded to be paid with money orders.   This was the only way to protect your self from scammers.   Ebay has basically made this impossible now with their new policies.


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Panhandler&#x27;s Guide to Riches From Rags</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Society</category><dc:date>2009-05-12T03:09:32-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Riches_From_Rags.php#unique-entry-id-14</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Riches_From_Rags.php#unique-entry-id-14</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[In these uncertain times, downsizing, companies closing down and mass layoffs are on the horizon for thousands.   Our governments don't seem to care so perhaps a tax free income appeals to you. ...  If you have to resort to begging for money on the street to pay the mortgage, I feel for you.   I have luckily never been there myself, but I do live in the downtown of a fairly large city and as a curiosity, I have observed the panhandlers and buskers.   The ones that do well have some things in common.   So I thought I would share them with you here. 

...If you really want to make the big bucks as a beggar you've got to look and act the part.   If you don't, people will notice and you don't want to waste valuable time doing nothing without being paid for it! ...  If you're asking for handouts remember the three D's:


...Do I look like a derelict?   Do I feel dejected as if society has no place for me? ...  In other words do I look disheveled enough that people will take pity on me to the tune of a handful of spare change?


...Wear Ratty clothing, the more holes in it the better.   People won't give money to someone who is wearing better shoes than they are.   You're going to want to bathe but it's a good idea to wear clothing that you may have worn the day before or slept in the night before.   Don't iron your clothing either, that's a dead giveaway.   Irons need electricity and if you want to appear homeless it makes sense that even if you own an iron, you don't have a place to plug it in! ...  First, the perception is that if you can afford mouthwash you can afford a sandwich.   Second, people might think you're drinking mouthwash to get a buzz and people are less likely to give you money if they think you just want to get drunk


...If you're overweight, don't be a panhandler.   People will have a hard time believing you're hungry.   Go on welfare or join Amway or something like that if you're overweight.   I am not making fun of overweight people here.   I am just pointing out that people won't give you money unless they think you need it for food.   It's ironic because it's a fact that thin people are considered more attractive. ...  So in reality it's the overweight people that really need help.   Unfortunately if society doesn't like the look of you, you're screwed!   Busking might be a better way to go for the overweight individual. 

...How you ask for money is very important.   Avoid calling people "buddy" or "big guy" or "Sir" or "Ma'am".   Stick with something simple like "could you spare a few dollars for a bite to eat".   It's always good to be somewhere where there are lots of people so you aren't putting any one person on the spot, unless it's a guy who is walking with a woman.   If it's a new relationship he might toss you some coins to appear generous because he thinks she'll be impressed. ...  Don't get mad when people turn you down or ignore you, concentrate on the next person.   You're going to be rejected 96.5% of the time, so don't let that get to you, it's a business like anything else.


...If you have a problem with begging, busking might be a good alternative.   If you sing or play a musical instrument, juggle etc, you can do this on the street to earn money.   Some places prohibit this so check the laws in your area.   Some cities actually require you to get a permit or a license of some sort to engage in busking.   If you are good at your particular skill people will be impressed and will be less likely to care how you look.   You can wear better clothes than a panhandler as well.   A street performer is a few rungs up the ladder from a common beggar as well, so you can take a little more pride in what you are doing.   However if you are rail thin and have the ability to look like you're near death for lack of food, you can't really beat begging.


...There's an older native north american gentleman on the corner most days. ...  He has about three teeth and he doesn't even have anything for people to put money in.   He just sits on the pavement with his arms extended, hands cupped and his head down. ...  I don't think I've ever actually seen his eyes.   Perhaps this is part of his business model. ...  Anyhow he wears the same torn jeans and the same blue fleece hoodie every day. 

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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Buying Your First #Guitar</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Guitar</category><dc:date>2009-05-12T03:06:14-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Buying_Your_First_Guitar.php#unique-entry-id-13</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Buying_Your_First_Guitar.php#unique-entry-id-13</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[This can be a very rewarding and empowering experience if approached in the right way.   This site is designed to help you make the right choices and avoid wasting your time and money.   There's a myriad of choices out there, guitars come in all shapes sizes and colors and it is very difficult for the uninitiated to choose wisely.   In many cases the sales staff at your local guitar shop can guide you but it doesn't hurt to have some background knowledge, just in case you run into a salesperson who doesn't have your best interest at heart.


...When you hold the guitar in a playing position the neck should feel comfortable in your hand and you should be able to easily wrap your fingers around the neck, touching your index finger to your thumb.   Unless you have unusually short fingers you should be able to find the right fit for you.   Fortunately most guitar shops will allow you to play a number of guitars to see what will work for you.


Without getting into a complicated explanation you want to have a look at the strings.   Ideally you want the distance between the fretboard and the strings to be the same all the way up and down the neck.   If the the gap between the stings and the fretboard increases as you get towards the body of the guitar this can be a sign that there are problems with the instrument.   If you are looking at purchasing a used guitar privately, it may be a good idea to take an experienced player along with you to ensure you don't waste your money on someone else's junk.   Have a look at the links at the top right of the screen for more information to guide you. 

...There are several things to consider when purchasing a guitar for a child. ...  In teaching guitar lessons I found that many younger students simply do not yet have the attention span to focus on learning the guitar.   The danger there is that some unscrupulous guitar teacher will take advantage by allowing you to pay for lessons even though your son or daughter may not be getting anything out of the time and money spent on lessons. ...  Kids absorb an alarming amount of information in learning who they are going to be and so it may be perfectly fine if they are not ready to learn to play guitar.


If your child is too small to get their fingers around the neck, you may want to let them grow a little more as well.   It is difficult enough to learn to play an instrument, let alone a giant guitar!   Because of this a number of guitar makers make small scale guitars with younger, smaller students in mind.   However it is a far better idea to let the child grow into a full size guitar.   Once the young student reaches a point where it is possible for them to play a full size instrument, steps can be taken to make the guitar easier to play.   For instance an Acoustic guitar can be strung with electric strings.   Electric strings don't have anywhere near as rich a tone and the guitar won't be nearly as loud, but it will be easier to play.   You can also have the guitar set up by a professional guitar technician in order to make the guitar as playable as possible.


Long story short, timing is very important and forcing a child to try and learn the guitar too soon may discourage them from playing at all!   Keep in mind when buying a first guitar for a child, that one of two things is likely to happen.   1) After gaining some mastery of the instrument a student may decide to buy a higher quality instrument and will likely want to trade in this guitar against a newer better one.   2) The student decides to abandon the guitar, in which case you may decide to sell it to help finance something else like skateboarding or hockey!   This is why it's a very good idea to buy a brand name guitar and keep it in good condition in order to maximize resale value.   It's also a good idea to avoid guitars with crazy paint jobs for the same reason!


...Many new guitars players have chosen to pick up the guitar because they have become inspired by a popular musician.   In some cases pop musicians play acoustic guitars but it's more than likely they play an electric.   I have to tell you that many experienced guitarists that learned to play on electric guitars will tell you that they wish they had learned to play on an acoustic.


Acoustic guitars are considerably harder to play, and a basic acoustic guitar doesn't have the wide array of sounds available to an electric guitarist via effects stomp boxes. 

...It is more important to gain strength and dexterity than it is to make cool sounds that involve little talent! ...  You can get some cool sounds out of turntables, but they are not a musical instrument!


Having said that if a student simply won't have any desire to play an acoustic guitar, if it's electric or nothing there are some things to take into consideration.   Avoid guitars with locking systems that keep the guitar perfectly in tune no matter what. 

...When your are playing scales attack the string on the first note with a downward motion and then attack the string for the second note with an upward motion. 

...If you press too hard when playing chords you can actually make the chord sound out of tune, even if the guitar is tuned perfectly. ...  This is one of the harder things to master so don't be surprised if you don't get it right away.


...It can give you some encouragement to know that even if you're not the best guitar player who ever lived, at least you are better than you were a few months ago.


...Once you've learned a few chords you will find that you can play some classic rock songs. ...  This also causes you to learn new chords as you go as new songs introduce you to new chords.   This is great because you apply what you have learned right away.


Take every opportunity to jam with players who are better than you are.


...You learn things just by watching them and at the same time it gives you something to shoot for. 

...As you begin to develop your lead guitar skills, you will begin to think about what you're going to be playing 5, 10, 15 seconds from the present time.   Being able to hear the pitches you want to play and associate them with places on the fretboard will allow you to unleash your creativity in your lead work.


...That's all for now If I think of anything else I'll add it here!
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>When the Levee Breaks the #downloads will cost ya&#x21;</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Computers &#x26; Tech</category><dc:date>2009-05-11T13:19:48-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/When_The_Levee_Breaks.php#unique-entry-id-12</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/When_The_Levee_Breaks.php#unique-entry-id-12</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Well it might be true that the RIAA thrives on conflict but even they cannot deny that the masses want their media content online.   Be it music, movies, software, television, you name it, it&rsquo;s online.   This is just the entertainment business responding to the demands of their customers, namely, you and me!   The internet is the most convenient way to find the content you&rsquo;re looking for, after all it was designed to be that way from the very start.   So why are some factions of &ldquo;Big Entertainment&rdquo; resisting this change?   I&rsquo;ll tell you why.   The big media companies are scared to death, I mean shaking in their expensive designer boots, scared of a level playing field. 


Big Media doesn&rsquo;t want to compete with you and me, and in the past they haven&rsquo;t had to.   It was nearly impossible for the average person to get a show on TV or get an independent film out to the widest possible audience.   Not anymore.   Sites like YouTube have made it possible for anyone to make a show on their own terms and put it out to the entire planet.   So things are changing but lest we forget that the huge multi-national conglomerates that own the media companies also own your internet service provider!


And so, in case you haven&rsquo;t noticed most internet service providers now impose limits on your monthly bandwidth.   The upshot of this is that if you make the internet your primary source of home entertainment it&rsquo;s going to get more and more expensive.   Some service providers offer several plans at various prices, all the plans in reality feature the same upload and download speed.   The only thing that really changes is how much you can download and the cheaper the monthly cost the more you pay per gigabyte when you go over your limit.   Sometimes these plans are so out of whack that you can find yourself paying more being on the cheapest service that you would be on a service that is several rungs up the service plan ladder!   Not only this many service providers have software in place to slow down your connection if they think you are downloading things you shouldn&rsquo;t be.   This software is so heavy handed in it&rsquo;s application that it causes problems with online gaming and other perfectly legitimate uses of the internet.   This process called &ldquo;throttling&rdquo; is prevalent in the ISP industry.


So what is all this subterfuge about?   It&rsquo;s about what will be, dare I say what must be!   One day in the not so distant future there will be a levee imposed on the internet.   It will be a fee that you will pay to your internet service provider as part of your monthly bill.   This money will go into a giant pot.   Anytime you download a movie, mp3, software or whatever it will be counted.   This information will be used to determine what cut of the pot all the content creators will get from everyone downloading their stuff!   It&rsquo;s simple and the right people get paid.   The better or should I say the more popular your content, the more money you can make.


In the meantime if you want to avoid bandwidth limits and throttling look to the smaller internet providers.   They are less likely to impose these limits on your internet experience.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Listen to your Room and make your #stereo sound better&#x21;</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Electronics</category><dc:date>2009-05-11T13:17:29-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Listen_to_your_Room.php#unique-entry-id-11</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Listen_to_your_Room.php#unique-entry-id-11</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Many high end audio enthusiasts spend countless hours and a fist full of dollars in order to get the ir stereo system to sound as good as possible.   The right source, the right preamp and amplifier all way out to a great pair of speakers.   Next the pain staking search for interconnects and speaker wire begins and in most cases it never, ever ends.


Oddly enough when you walk into the listening rooms of most audiophiles you see some very strange things.   Big glass coffee tables, bare hardwood floors, high backed listening chairs in rooms that have reflective surfaces like windows to the left of the system and something less reflective to the right like drywall.   All this despite the thousands spent on equipment and accessories.   The most overlooked component of a stereo system is the room itself.   A $10,000 stereo in the right room can easily outperform a $25,000 system in the wrong room.   If you don&rsquo;t address the room you&rsquo;re listening in you are literally wasting your money!


Ideally you want a rectangular room with the seated position a third of the way into from the rear wall and your speakers a third of the way out into the room.   If when you do this you are sitting closer than 7 or 8 feet from the speakers, try towing them in towards your listening position.   The only problem with this is that there might be a lack of bass sitting that close.   This setup is less than ideal so you can try and make the best of the situation by moving your listening position and the speakers further away from each other.   There are two things you&rsquo;re trying to avoid here.   First you don&rsquo;t want reflections from the wall behind you to make it back to your listening position, so the closer you are to that wall the more of a problem this will become.   This is also why high backed listening chairs are a bad idea.  The other problem occurs when you back your speakers into a corner.   Bass frequencies are not as directional as midrange and high frequencies, when the speakers are too close to a wall they tend to be amplified causing the bass to be boomy and lack dynamics.   This is especially true when speakers are right up in the corner of the room.   The problem can sometimes be so bad the the extra bass actually masks the midrange and the system can sound dark and murky.


So, what can you do in small room?   Well there are quite a few things you can try.   A bookshelf behind your listening position will break up the high frequencies and prevent them from reaching you.   There are also sound panels you can buy to diffuse the high frequencies as well.   If you have too much bass in a room a large cardboard box full of chopped up foam rubber and shredded newspaper.   If this works you can either buy some bass traps or decorate the cardboard box to match your decor!


Another problem that plagues rooms both large and small is first reflections.   When sound hits a hard surface it bounces off and speeds up.   These sounds then travel to your listening position arriving just before or just after the direct sound coming from the speakers.   This will rob you of focus and detail.   If you were to place a mirror on the side wall and move it to a position to where you can see the speaker while sitting in your listening chair, this would be a good place to put a sound absorbing material to prevent these first reflections from reaching you.


So now that we&rsquo;ve eliminated reflections from the side walls and the wall behind you, all we have left are the floor and ceiling.   Since there&rsquo;s not often many things we can do with the ceiling lets make sure that there&rsquo;s carpet on the floor.   If there&rsquo;s no carpet it might be time to invest in an area rug.   All this is designed to stop stray frequencies from bouncing around your room and arriving at the wrong time.   The overall goal is to limit all but the direct sound coming from the speakers.


Bottom line you can get a much bigger bang for your audio buck by addressing problems with the room you&rsquo;re listening in!
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Making #DVD Audio Discs from CD&#x27;s</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Electronics</category><dc:date>2009-05-11T13:15:48-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/DVDA_from_CD.php#unique-entry-id-10</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/DVDA_from_CD.php#unique-entry-id-10</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[ I have seen several forum posts regarding making DVD Audio from CD&rsquo;s and/or the value of increasing the bit depth and sampling rate of .wav or .aiff audio to make 24 bit versions of the files.   The prevailing wisdom seems to be that even though the resulting files have more data representing the audio the apparent quality won&rsquo;t be any better because you can never improve upon the source material.   In a perfect world this would be true.   Unfortunately when it comes to optical media like CD&rsquo;s and DVD&rsquo;s there are other factors at work.


Working in a Hi Fi stereo shop for some years I began to notice that inexpensive CD and DVD players seemed to be better at reading scratched media than their higher quality counterparts.   Upon doing some research on the subject I realized that cheaper players employ more error correction.   This is because they use cheap transports and other cheap components that don&rsquo;t read the media and interpret the data as well as higher quality players, and so more error correction is needed.   In other words whenever you play a disc some of the data that is encoded is lost and either replaced by silence when it&rsquo;s just a sample or two or dither noise when more than a few samples are lost.   It&rsquo;s this dither noise that causes the &ldquo;harshness&rdquo; or &ldquo;digital grit&rdquo; that audiophiles complained about when the CD format was first introduced.


High end audio manufacturers soon realized that by making more rigid transports and dampening the vibration caused by the spinning disc the laser could to a better job of reading the disc.   They also found that by reading the disc more than once and comparing the results(oversampling), and taking steps to ensure that the samples play back in the correct order(jitter correction), less error correction will be needed and the sound is dramatically improved.


When you take the 16 bit 44.1 Khz file you extracted from the CD, resample it up to a 24 bit 96 Khz file and burn it as a DVD Audio disc, you are not actually improving the quality of the audio.   However by having more samples there to represent the audio even if twice the samples are lost, there are still tons more left available to recreate the original audio.   If you are a person that listens to music as an activity, and by that I mean you&rsquo;re sitting the correct distance from properly towed in speakers in a room that has been optimized for listening to music there will be quite a noticeable difference.   If you&rsquo;re listening to music as you do housework, or listening on plastic computer speakers this is not something you even need to consider.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Dirty Sales Tricks used by retail outlets.</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Electronics</category><dc:date>2009-05-11T13:13:36-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Dirty_Sales_Tricks.php#unique-entry-id-9</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Dirty_Sales_Tricks.php#unique-entry-id-9</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The &ldquo;Repack&rdquo;


Sometimes, for what ever reason a customer returns something that isn&rsquo;t broken.   They got cold feet or their spouse disagreed with the decision to make this purchase.   More often then not this customer will get a refund minus a restocking fee.   This fee usually ranges from 10% to 20% of the purchase price of the unit.   The rationale here is that the product is now technically used and can&rsquo;t be sold again as new.   This is completely fair as long as the unit is actually sold to the next customer at a discount!   My second day on the job I was shown how to do a &ldquo;Repack&rdquo;.   Basically I was shown how to place everything back in the package in such a way that it looked factory sealed.   This was done so that the item could then be sold again as new and for the full price.   Some even go so far as to open the box from the bottom when they remove product for demonstration purposes.   I have actually seen demo equipment that&rsquo;s been on the sales floor for over a year, cleaned up, repacked and sold as new!   You can sometimes spot a repack.   Manuals will be dog eared and creased, tie wraps around cables won&rsquo;t match.   If you&rsquo;re thinking you can even look at the box if you can see two layers of tape on either the top or the bottom there&rsquo;s a good chance it&rsquo;s a repack!


The Warranty Shuffle


Things always seem to break down just as the warranty expires!   In some cases, if a shop has a good relationship with the distributor they can ask to have something fixed under warranty even though the warranty has recently expired.   Sometimes this works out for you and the shop passes the savings on to you.   Sometimes they tell you that there&rsquo;s nothing they can do because the warranty has expired.   Then after having it fixed under warranty, charge you an arbitrary amount in order to make some quick cash!
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Bullshit Buzzwords that induce people to buy.</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Electronics</category><dc:date>2009-05-11T13:12:34-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Bullshit_Buzzwords.php#unique-entry-id-8</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Bullshit_Buzzwords.php#unique-entry-id-8</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Here are some examples of jargon, buzzwords that mislead or are meaningless.


Musical


Quite often when a salesperson wants to convey that product X is better than product Y that costs quite a bit less, and there is no real difference, they will claim that product X is more &ldquo;musical&rdquo; I guess it&rsquo;s not really a lie, I&rsquo;m sure the extra money they want you to spend is music to their ears!   Whenever you hear the word musical used in a description of an audio product just substitute the word bullshit and you&rsquo;ll do just fine.


Noise Floor


A huge amount of products are sold on the premise that by reducing the amount of noise present you&rsquo;ll hear more music.   The idea being that if you get rid of noise, small details will become more apparent to your ear and the music will sound better.   Hey it makes sense right?   Less noise equals more music.   The unfortunate thing is that more often than not they&rsquo;re SAYING they are lowering the noise floor when in reality they are using a device that is widely used in the recording industry called a compressor.   A compressor is like a super fast robot that turns up the volume when things are quiet and leaves the sound unchanged when the music gets louder.   This has the effect of making anything processed in this way to sound more detailed and live.   However it limits the dynamic range of the music so the difference between the loudest sounds and the softest sounds is in some cases dramatically reduced.   A good example of this is commercials on TV.   Ever notice how they sound louder than the shows you are watching?   The people who produce these commercials employ compression to achieve this effect.   It is also used to make dialogue in movies crystal clear despite all manner of other sound effects happening at the same time.   When you employ compression to Jazz, opera and classical music all of which avoid using compression in the recording and production of the music, it works astonishingly well, the subtle aspects of the music jump out and tickle the ear drums.   The problem comes when you want to listen to some good old rock and roll.   Crunchy overdriven rock guitar is already as compressed as you can make it and still have it be pleasing to the ear.   Compress it any more and it turns to mush!   Long story short, if you like to rock out with your system occasionally be very careful with products that claim to &ldquo;Lower the noise floor&rdquo;


High Bandwidth


This one isn&rsquo;t used as much as it used to be, but you never know when it will creep up again.   All this means is that the product in question can reproduce very high highs and very low bass.   Since most audiophiles are at least pushing 40 years of age it is unlikely that many can hear a frequency higher than 18 or 19KHZ.   This is because most people begin to lose the ability to hear the very highest frequencies by the time they reach age 40.   You would also require a room that allows you to sit up to 28 feet away from the speaker to most accurately reproduce 40Hz let alone 20Hz!.   That&rsquo;s a pretty big room as most sound experts will tell you that it is good to have the speakers away from the wall at least a few feet and it is also ideal to have some space between you and the wall behind you!   So keeping all this in mind a sound system that can reproduce sounds from 20Hz up to 50,000 Khz is not worth paying extra money for!   In fact it may cause problems!   You see your speaker system will try to reproduce any signal you send it and this can have a negative effect on the overall sound you&rsquo;re hearing from the speaker.   For instance if a woofer has to slow down to try and reproduce something at 20 Hz it can&rsquo;t simultaneously reproduce the rest of the signal as faithfully and so this becomes a detriment to the sound.   Basically it&rsquo;s like part of the music you can hear is being masked by a sound your speakers can&rsquo;t even reproduce!


High Resolution


I have seen some speaker wire and interconnects described as being &ldquo;High Resolution&rdquo;.   Good quality speaker wires and interconnects can have a positive impact on the sound but they can&rsquo;t raise the resolution!   A CD plays back at a higher resolution than an MP3 because more information derived from the original recording is present and available to recreate the music.   An up sampling digital to analog converter takes digital information and converts it to a higher bit rate in the digital realm before converting it to the analog sound you hear, thus raising the resolution.   Cables merely transfer a signal from one place to another with varying degrees of accuracy they cannot raise the resolution of the sound.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Hifi Trickery. 95&#x25; of HiFi is BS&#x21;</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Electronics</category><dc:date>2009-05-11T13:09:38-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/HIFI_Trickery.php#unique-entry-id-7</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/HIFI_Trickery.php#unique-entry-id-7</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Shopping for High End Audio?   Choosing the right components can be a daunting task at the best of times.   So many conflicting theories and ideas about what sounds good, and what sounds less than good.   Salesmen spewing out well rehearsed phrases and using sales techniques that are designed to sell you expensive product which will ultimately do nothing to enhance your enjoyment of music!   The purpose of this web site is to expose some of the tactics used by the Hi Fi industry to rook you into a cycle of diminishing returns where good money chases bad money right down the drain!


&ldquo;Sales Tactics&rdquo; deals with the ways in which stereo salesmen confuse you into buying things that may not be right for your system in your room at home.   Some of these you will recognize, some will have you scratching your head and saying &ldquo;So that&rsquo;s why they do/say that!&rdquo;.   The second section &ldquo;BS Buzzwords&rdquo; is reserved for confusing jargon.   These are the buzzwords and catch phrases that are often used in Hi Fi ads to get you interested in certain products.   These words when you really analyze them, are often misleading or meaningless.


We&rsquo;re not trying to ruin what can be a fun and rewarding hobby.   However, once you put all the BS aside you can concentrate on what will really and truthfully help you enjoy your music. 


Sales Tactics


Tell em&rsquo; what they&rsquo;re gonna hear!


Let&rsquo;s see if you find this familiar.   You&rsquo;re in a stereo shop sitting in front of a stereo system.   Before he puts the music on, the salesman describes for you what you&rsquo;re going to hear.   He then puts on a selection of music, and before you can really even begin to enjoy it, he then describes what you&rsquo;re hearing.   The salesman then turns the music off and proceeds to tell you what heard!   This is a very old trick that uses the power of suggestion to lead you to the foregone conclusion that you should buy whatever the salesman is trying to sell you.   This may even be a subtle form of hypnosis!   Once the music has started to play, if the salesperson begins to talk simply turn to them, look them right in the eye and say &ldquo;would it be alright if I just listen to the music&rdquo;?


...You ever notice that most &ldquo;Audiophile&rdquo; recordings are very sparse arrangements featuring very few instruments?   When I think back to my days working in a stereo shop and remember the music the owner used to love to use to sell equipment.   It was always, a single vocal, and a single guitar or a Holly Cole song featuring her voice, a standup bass and some sparse piano.   Another shop in town used to use a recording of Japanese Taiko drummers, nothing but drums.   There is a very good reason for this.   The more you have going on in a recording the harder it is to accurately reproduce.   So the thing to do is bring your own demo music with you and make sure to bring some more complex layered music with you and use that as part of your comparison.   Always bring a good selection of music that you listen to when you&rsquo;re out shopping and auditioning audio.   Ask yourself, why would you ever evaluate a stereo system with music you&rsquo;ve never heard before?   You see I know from experience that the sales staff in Hi Fi shops will tweak the systems to sound great playing their chosen demonstration music.   So if you use their music to evaluate a system the whole presentation has been staged, it&rsquo;s a foregone conclusion and you will be misled.


...When you walk into a High End Audio shop for the first time, the staff checks out your shoes, your watch, your clothing in order to &ldquo;qualify&rdquo; you.   This process determines what is likely to be in your wallet!   Then the fun begins!   If a salesman decides that you can afford the best stereo in the shop, he&rsquo;ll let you have a listen to that system first.   Nothing else you hear that visit will compare.   Every other system you do listen to during that visit to the shop is reinforcing the idea that you should buy the highest priced system in the shop.   If you have so much money that you don&rsquo;t care that&rsquo;s fine.   If not, you may want to shop around or at the very least leave the shop and come back on another day with fresh ears and simply refuse to listen to any system or component that is out of the range of what you&rsquo;d like to spend.   Another good practice is to ask what things are selling for before you listen If the price is out of line with what you&rsquo;d like to spend, ask to move on to something more affordable.   If the salesman refuses, they are wasting your time and it is time to leave.


&ldquo;Bad Recordings&rdquo;


The function of a stereo system is to playback music whether it be a Vinyl Record, a CD or whatever.   So then assuming that you&rsquo;re listening to music that you enjoy, if the sound of the playback is Bad, bright, dark, or in any way less than ideal, it&rsquo;s the fault of the stereo system NOT the recording itself.   Whenever this happens during a stereo demonstration the salesman will attempt to blame the recording and then insist that he play you a &ldquo;better recording&rdquo;.   If you are in fact buying a stereo system for your personal enjoyment, shouldn&rsquo;t it sound good playing the music that you actually listen to?   If the salesperson insists on using their demonstration music simply say &ldquo; I have a better idea, let&rsquo;s try to find a system that sounds good playing this music, because this is what I listen to&rdquo;!


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Reality Of This Point in History?</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Society</category><dc:date>2009-05-11T12:51:11-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/History_Reality.php#unique-entry-id-6</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/History_Reality.php#unique-entry-id-6</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The Reality of this point in history?


For years now, for some inexplicable reason I have tended to gravitate towards the practice of sleeping all day and working all night.   I never quite new why until recently.   I used to think it was because I used to perform in bar bands for so many years that it seems like nothing for me to be awake and functioning at 4am.   Seems plausible right?   Well the other night I went for a walk around 4am, there was almost nobody on the street, all the doors on all the shops were shut tight and locked until morning.   The traffic lights meant nothing to me I could cross the street with impunity.   There was something eerily peaceful about it.   And then, like a bolt of lightening it hit me.


All the doors were locked, I could walk all I wanted to and there was no place to go.   There was no communication possible.   It's not that there were no rules, it was that there was no one there to care if I broke them.   In that split second in time, I felt like the universe was finally being honest with me.   It was saying:


"you're on your own"


"all the doors are closed"


"You will always be trapped outside"


"there's nowhere for you to go"


Is This how everyone feels?


Or is it just me?


Doesn't it seem like there is some unseen force that's going to somehow negate anything positive you try to do?   You see people on the street during the day and they just feel like non-player characters in some sort of bizarre video game?   It's like you're ok, or at least that's how it seems but there is something very wrong and you can't quite put your finger on it?   It's like you forgot something, and if you could just remember what it was it would explain everything.   If you could just remember, there would come the realization that this isn't actually your real life.   You would suddenly realize how to get from where you are, to where you've always wanted to be.   Are you awake or asleep?   is this a nightmare or a dream?   And if it's a dream, maybe it's a lucid dream that you can control, but for some reason you're afraid to even try.


And then you realize that somewhere along the line you lost the ability to impose your will on your surroundings.   Somewhere along the line you stopped trying to make the world work for you and you started to learn to live within the narrow beam, a line on the ground that you walk like a slave to governments and organizations, and churches and banks, and traffic lights......


Are you a slave with delusions of freedom?   Or a free person that feels like a slave?


Ask yourself this,....  Is there really any way to know for certain?


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Apple&#x27;s MobileMe - Insanely Not That Great</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Computers &#x26; Tech</category><dc:date>2009-05-11T12:47:27-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/MobileMe_Sux.php#unique-entry-id-5</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/MobileMe_Sux.php#unique-entry-id-5</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Think Microsofty


It's about that time.   My yearly subscription to Apple's Mobile Me is due and now that i've replaced most of the MobileMe services with cheaper or free services from places like Google etc It seems I am paying over $100usd for an email account!   Seems kinda pricey for a single email account with 5 aliases!


In for a penny, in for a hundred bucks!


Hey no problem, just opt out of all those other services and just keep the email service right?


WRONG!


You have to take a minimum package that costs you over a hundred bucks.   Nothing is optional except,..of course if you want to spend MORE money on their services!   Apple used to offer email only accounts but suspended this practice some time ago.   Unless you were grandfathered in on that old system, you're out of luck if you don't want to pay for these extra, basically useless services.


Wildly Intelligent, but not very smart


I think Apple has lost sight of the big picture.   Nearly every day I get colourful ads from Apple.   I have no choice but to look at them because that's part of the deal with having an email account from Apple.   I really don't mind, it's always cool to see the new products coming out and the promotions and deals that are being offered.   The problem is that if I don't renew my MobileMe account I don't see those ads, and the thousands out there just like me also don't see those ads.


Pretend you're Apple's CEO Steve Jobs


Correct me if I'm wrong but those ads are very effective in helping to sell new products, so don't you want as many people to see them as possible?   Wouldn't it be smart marketing to have me pay some token fee like say $!  9.95 a year for an email only account so that you can keep sending me those ads?   I mean where's the downside?   I pay you money.   You stay connected to me so you can try and sell me stuff!   If you're into making money that's gotta be a whole lot easier than counting cards in vegas!   In fact that could almost be considered marketing genius.


Perhaps somebody's MENSA card got lost in the mail?


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Killing the Buzz - Eliminate Noise from your stereo or home theatre.</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Electronics</category><dc:date>2009-05-11T12:44:17-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Killing_Buzz.php#unique-entry-id-4</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Killing_Buzz.php#unique-entry-id-4</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[There are many reasons why you might get a hum or buzz from your stereo system or home theatre.   So let&rsquo;s so through some possibilities and see if we can kill that buzz once and for all.   We&rsquo;ll start by turning on all the components in your system.


Can you hear the hum on all sources?


By Source I mean anything that plays media or allows you to receive media.   Some examples are CD or DVD players, Radio Tuners, Turntables, Satellite Receivers or Cable TV boxes.   Is the hum constant when you switch from your DVD player to your Satellite Receiver or cable box?   Is the hum still there when you switch to the radio?   If you have hum all the time no matter what source you are using, the hum is likely the result of a ground loop.   If the hum is only present on one source, try plugging that one piece of equipment into a different wall plug that is on a different circuit in your home and see if that fixes the problem.   If this doesn&rsquo;t help, try using a different set of audio cables between the problem piece of equipment and your receiver.


Still hearing the buzz?


Here&rsquo;s another thing you can do if you have cable TV.   Try removing the cable the comes into your home from the back of your cable box.   If the hum goes away, the solution is simple, you need to make your way down to your local electronics shop and buy a device called a groundbreaker.   This works very well and about 90% of the time eliminates the hum when you reconnect your cable box using one of these devices.


If none of this has helped, try checking all the cables in your system, if they are the ultra cheap cables that seem to be packaged with your average stereo equipment, you may want to try better quality cables.   A higher quality cable will have better shielding that will be better at preventing noise from entering your system.   There are also a wide array of power bar products that can help to kill the buzz.


Another possibility is that your have old or faulty wiring in your house.   In large cities where there are many homes in close proximity the collective electromagnetic interference from all the electrical devices being used by your fellow citizens can kick up a lot of noise in your audio and video.   For this type of situation a full blown power conditioner may be needed.   There are many such products on the market.


There is also the possibility that something else in your home may be the culprit.   Try unplugging lamps, switching off anything on a dimmer switch, neon lights and lava lamps are often problematic.   Also try turning off anything with a motor or a fan as these can cause electromagnetic problems as well.


Other potential sources of hum and noise:


Faulty Power adaptors Ceiling Fans Air Conditioners, purifiers, ionizers Ceramic Heaters Humidifiers, Dehumidifiers Power Tools in use nearby Wireless Electronics


Once you have ruled all these things out only one possibility remains.   You actual stereo or AV receiver may be at fault.   Sometimes problems with the circuitry in your Stereo or Surround receiver can be the cause of unwanted noise!
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Kidney Stones Be Gone</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Health</category><dc:date>2009-05-11T12:42:15-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Kidney_Stones_Be_Gone.php#unique-entry-id-3</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Kidney_Stones_Be_Gone.php#unique-entry-id-3</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Kidney Stones Be Gone!


Here&rsquo;s a simple remedy that will hopefully save you from the excruciating pain of Kidney Stones.   It doesn&rsquo;t work for everyone but it&rsquo;s pretty harmless so you might want to give it a try.


What you&rsquo;ll need


A six pack of Coke


One bunch of Asparagus


You&rsquo;re more than likely going want to do this in the morning or you won&rsquo;t be able to sleep!   Also if for any reason you shouldn&rsquo;t be drinking Coke or eating asparagus, please search elsewhere for a remedy!


Instructions


Drink 1 can of Coke every 20 minutes for 2 hours.


As soon as possible after you&rsquo;ve finished the last can, boil the asparagus.   Don&rsquo;t overcook it.   Use a blender to puree the asparagus, you might want to add a little butter to improve the taste.   Eat the pureed asparagus, all of it!


This works best if done on an empty stomach in the mid-morning.   This will allow you to have more time to expel any by-products.   Drink a large quantity of distilled water immediately after eating the asparagus.   The water will flush out your body.   The qualities of Coke may dehydrate you, so the water helps to protect you from this.   Try to capture the silt that passes and bring it to your doctor, this may aid in preventing future kidney stones.   It&rsquo;s probably best to wait between a couple hours before eating for best results.   If the kidney stones are not all passed the first day, repeat the process in approximately 48 to 72 hours.   If you have a scheduled surgery, repeat the next day!


Please Note:


We strongly recommend that you visit your doctor to confirm your stone is gone.


Sometimes your pain will subside, yet the stone will still be there.   It's possible


that is has simply moved and become stuck elsewhere.   If that is the case,


additional procedures will be required to prevent a kidney infection, or UTI


(Urinary Tract Infection).   If you are not 100% sure of the stone&rsquo;s passage,please


visit your doctor to confirm your kidney stone has passed.


This remedy is in no way to be considered a substitute for proper medical advice.   Also don&rsquo;t assume you have kidney stones just because you have some of the symptoms.   Consult a licensed medical practitioner whenever possible.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Flax - The Seed of Good Health</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Health</category><dc:date>2009-05-11T12:40:35-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Flax_Seed.php#unique-entry-id-2</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Flax_Seed.php#unique-entry-id-2</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Flax - The Seed of Good Health


There is a simple food item that you can add to your daily routine that can really benefit your health.   Flax seed boasts a plethora of nutrients that can really improve the quality of your life while at the same time helping to prevent disease in the future.   Many experts claim that regular injestion of Flax seed can:


&bull; Help prevent Cancer


&bull; Help Fight Cholesterol


&bull; Help prevent Diabetes


&bull; Fight Constipation


&bull; Help Reduce Inflammation


&bull; Ease Menopausal Symptoms


&bull; Help prevent Heart Disease


&bull; Boost the Immune System


There are quite a few ways to add Flax to your diet.   You can use your coffee grinder to add it to your cereal or other food items.   It has a nutty flavor.   Remember that the seeds must be ground up before your body can absorb the nutrients.   You can also reap health benefits through use of Flaxseed oil.   This can be used in place or in addition to any other oils you use.   You can add it to any oil based salad dressing.   You can use it in place of oil, butter or margarine in a rice cooker to prevent the rice from sticking.   You can even use it in your Wok to stir fry meat and vegetables.   All in all flax is a very versatile food item that can have a positive impact on your health.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>False Idol&#x2c; - Rise of the Independants&#x21;</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Pop Culture</category><dc:date>2009-05-11T12:34:33-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/False_Idol.php#unique-entry-id-1</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/False_Idol.php#unique-entry-id-1</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Well, American Idol has been on for a few years now and it still boggles my mind that people are so excited about this show.   It may be a clever amalgamation of reality TV and a game show.   Some of the singers may actually be talented people.   Having said this I wonder how many of my favorite singers would actually even make it on the show, let alone win the competition!   I mean I do listen to some pretty obscure stuff, but I do count some pretty Iconic people amongst my personal favorites. 


Can you imagine a young David Bowie on American Idol?   There are few people who even come close to being as prolific or respected in the music industry.   He has got one of the most distinctive voices in popular music!   I can&rsquo;t picture him or anyone even close to him appearing on &ldquo;Idol&rdquo;.   So if that&rsquo;s the case, what&rsquo;s the point of it?   Some of the best singers in music history have voices that just won&rsquo;t do the acrobatic tricks that most of the contestants on American Idol trill out like well coiffed poodles jumping through hoops! 


When I think about popular singers in general even ones I don&rsquo;t particularly like, few of them are American Idol material.   Freddie Mercury of Queen perhaps, if he would have been willing to submit to some creative dentistry and severely tone down the &ldquo;gay thing&rdquo;.   I mean we all seemed to like him just fine the way he was and to this day I am in awe of his voice, but that&rsquo;s just not going to fly these days!   I get visions of Simon, telling Freddy to lose the bright yellow suit, giving him tips like &ldquo;be less flamboyant&rdquo; and so on! 


I think this is all an indication of the contrived nature of popular music these days.   No wonder the kids aren&rsquo;t paying for this stuff!   Fake tits, fake talent, audio plastic, 100% creativity free!   Every other song is a remake.   I don&rsquo;t blame the artists, why put your heart and soul into a piece of music that, if things go well, could be a really annoying ringtone!   And shows like American Idol present this type of music as the paragon of popular music.   It&rsquo;s sad but there is an upside.   I saw it at the skate park as I cycled by the other day.   No less than five kids all wearing Pink Floyd T shirts! 


I guess the point is this.   Are Shows like &ldquo;Idol&rdquo; an indication that something is wrong with people in general.   Is the popularity of the show a harbinger of doom for a music industry that is pretty much on life support as it is?   Should more of us be seeking out new independent artists who still have the courage to at least attempt to make a living by writing honest songs and presenting them in an honest way?   I have thought about this quite a bit, and if there&rsquo;s a bright future for music on the horizon, it&rsquo;s the independent artists NOT the mainstream major labels that we need to pay attention to.   When I was a kid we worshipped our idols, perhaps the time has come to start ignoring them!


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]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>#Seondlife - Living on borrowed time?</title><dc:creator>zedessex@gmail.com</dc:creator><category>Secondlife</category><dc:date>2009-05-11T12:11:33-04:00</dc:date><link>http://www.NTopix.com/files/Secondlife_Living_on_borrowed_time.php#unique-entry-id-0</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.NTopix.com/files/Secondlife_Living_on_borrowed_time.php#unique-entry-id-0</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I haven&rsquo;t been around in Secondlife as long as some people, but I&rsquo;ve been around long enough to see that things have been on a steady decline for quite some time.   Land values continue to plummet and it wouldn&rsquo;t surprise me to find that more land is being abandoned across the entire grid at this time than at any other time in the history of Secondlife.   The removal of in-world casinos was the first blow to what had been a thriving economy and the grid never recovered.   Philip Linden&rsquo;s stepping down as CEO of Linden Labs seems to have heralded an even more lack-luster enforcement of the rules regarding avatar conduct and protection issues for content creators.   Add to all of this the removal of the First Land program and the weekly stipends, and it seems like Linden Labs has been systematically trying to destroy the in world economy! 


For those of you who are unfamiliar or new to Secondlife, all premium members used to receive a weekly stipend, mine was 400L as I recall.   These stipends were of great benefit to the online economy as it enabled people to purchase items for their avatars without having to purchase lindens or find an in-world job.   This was a tremendous benefit to the thousands of merchants in secondlife, the very people that create everything you see on every sim.   Killing the stipends has created a society of scavengers who don&rsquo;t buy anything in the game.   This is because there are so many sims now that merchants have resorted to camping and freebies to bring people to their land.   The hope here is that by giving items away for free the traffic rating of their land will go up and attract paying customers.   This is seldom effective.   It is a desperate move by merchants to try and continue to do business.   If this is obvious to me it should be obvious to those who created Secondlife.   However, rather than reward or provide help for those who make all the cool stuff in Secondlife, Linden Labs has abandoned them, but why? 


The answer is that linden labs makes it&rsquo;s money primarily from land tier fees.   So as long as they keep selling sims they keep making boatloads of cash.


The other part of the plan is to keep a steady stream of new people coming into the game.   So as a merchant if you buy land and because of the adverse conditions in Secondlife you pack it in and sell your land to avoid the tier fees, there&rsquo;s always another sucker around the corner!   There&rsquo;s no point in making Secondlife a viable place to do business because it doesn&rsquo;t improve the bottom line.   These are not the ideals on which Secondlife was founded and I believe that this is part of the reason that Philip Linden stepped down as CEO of Linden Labs. 


The same major problems that plagued Secondlife when I first arrived in the game have never been addressed let alone solved.   Vehicles still have the same difficulty crossing sim barriers, transactions fail, inventory disappears into the void never to return.   Scripted items perform erratically not due to bad scripting, but because of server side glitches and grid instability.   In the face of all this Linden Labs just rolls out a never ending litany of new features, to sell the idea of Secondlife to new people as those of us who lose all faith in SL, either go back to basic accounts or leave the game altogether. 


If Linden Labs really cares about the in world experience of their customers they will have to dramatically change the way they do business.   Real and enforced protection for content creators must be established and maintained.   The stipends must be restored.   Creation of new sims must be reduced in order to increase and then stabilize the value of land.   Long time problems and stability issues must finally be addressed and dealt with. 


In the face of real world economic problems people will be less and less eager to invest time and money in activities that don&rsquo;t deliver.   It is my opinion that Secondlife is in serious danger of falling by the wayside in the increasingly competitive marketplace for online virtual worlds.   If Linden Labs wants to stay at the forefront they have to up the ante, but how can they do this? 


Well, up to date technology would be a good start.   Everything from the SL viewer, to the game engine to the models for the avatars is woefully outdated software that is only used because it can be obtained for free.   Current games employ the Havok version 7 software while secondlife has only recently begun using the Havok 4 engine.   Even the databases are slow and outdated versions of freeware server software.   It&rsquo;s ironic that it&rsquo;s against the terms of service in SL to resell freebies because in a way that&rsquo;s exactly what Linden Labs are doing! 


This is all the opinion of one secondlife user, but I know that I am not alone in feeling like Linden Labs doesn&rsquo;t care about me as a customer, a Secondlife merchant or a content creator.   As things currently stand, the second some competitor comes up with a viable alternative to SL I will be very interested in moving my business to a new world with new possibilities.   I am not the only one.   The clock is ticking Linden Labs, ball is in your court it&rsquo;s up to you to fix your world before the people who make it what it is simply leave you behind. 
]]></content:encoded></item></channel>
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