We live in a world of corporate high flyers who have de nuded the world of money and resources for personal control and gain and we still aimlessly buy their products complaining only of the high prices. The gulf fills with oil and we sit back and blame one company as if they are the only ones risking our lives, do we even stop buying fuel from their stations or demand that our politicians end the reliance on oil as the only source of energy? No we sit back, read the news, shake our heads, mouth off to our friends about it or post in useless blogs like this one, thinking that somehow, someway, saying something is good enough and after all its not our fault is it? It’s those guys at the top who run everything.

Why is it that we allow the ‘people at the top’ to take our money and then work against our interests? and actually criticize the people who criticize them? We look at the tragic failing economic situation in the world and don’t dare to wonder why there are so many extremely rich people in the world while most of us can hardly pay our bills. Where do we think the money actually comes from for those people to be rich in the first place? Who do we think allowed them into such extremely spoiled positions in life? Why do we not demand that our leaders explain their misjudgments, miscalculations and lack of respect for their own communities?

We instead seem to give them the benefit of the doubt, we allow them to think they are trying their hardest and actually working in our best interests. How is it in our best interests to be scrambling with little or no money to get by while more and more money is taken out of the system to pay the already extremely wealthy? Whose money is it? Where does money actually come from? Think about it, it comes from you and I working for a living and having enough to spend on the things we need… and just as importantly having enough to spend on the things we like, want or desire that we don’t really ‘need’. Without the second part to this equation, there is no wealth to be shared. So when we allow our leaders to take more and more of the personal pie to get by, we are also allowing them to place the world and the economy in jeopardy.

Simply put, the more money the average person has to spend, the more money there is to fund the economy. When we reduce the personal pie, we crush jobs and growth. The trickle down effect from wealthy to poor is one of the greatest fallacies of all time, strong economies utterly rely on a trickle up effect. Weak and collapsing economies always result from having too much money at the top of the tree.

So, do you think our leaders and politicians really do know better than you? do you think that corporations have your interests at heart because they provide jobs? Which side is your bread buttered on? Can a corporation exist without you having the ability to spend? Can a government provide the services you need without you having enough money left in your pocket to help pay for it?

So why do we let our politicians screw us for more while siding with the leaders of the corporations? Why? Why do we decry those who stand up and demand better from our leaders? Why do we not demand it ourselves? Do you have the same benefits and income as your local politician? why not? What have they done that deserves more than you? Why do you allow the coin to be turned in favor of them rather than yourself, your family and your community?

It is time we all stood up and demanded that the focus of the economy, our leaders and our public servants be turned directly and accountably towards the public as a group of individuals who pay for them, not the other way around. We need to be treated as valued individuals again, not as a seething mass that has to be controlled, beguiled and lied to at all costs. Freedom is a big word, but it always requires your participation, it starts and ends with you!

The dispute between Google, Apple and Adobe took a new and perhaps final turn today. All the major Browsers for web and mobile are supporting WebM video… that is, so far, except Apple!  Steve Jobs has a lot to get his head around now. Why will anyone choose H.264 and risk copyright restriction when WebM is being released with an open source license?

HTML 5 combined with WebM video codec also threatens the slow demise of Flash as new built in apps are developed,  the one area that flash still will hold ground is in its Animation abilities and layout, but I am sure independent and alternative apps will appear soon enough… Interestingly, Adobe jumped in very quickly to say it will support WebM and native HTML 5

Will Apple chooses to go it alone and still demand its closed system and H.264 for all its devices? I certainly hope not, it could see Apple fade into the background again, as it has with its share of the PC market… it seems making extremely bad tech decisions is Steve Jobs constant nemesis. His marketing is brilliant but I can only wonder where apple would be today if they had a truly open policy on hardware and tech development. Jobs got it right on HTML5 but completely wrong on H.264 and Flash.

The final frontier will be browser integration of 3D simulators like Opensim, combined with html 5, the web will finally be able to go full 3D where required or needed. This is probably going to be the biggest leap forward so far in web technologies. Apple and Adobe better stop playing games or they will get left behind in the rush.

HTML5 offers some beautiful new functions that will challenge Flash

(see video below)

SVG (scalable vector graphics) and Canvas functions of HTML5 hold great promise for a host of creative and entertainment applications as well as the more obvious  information and technical functions. It will provide the ability to easily create and draw vector graphics with alpha transparency functions too, all within easy to code HTML tags! Mouseover and keyboard functions combined with extended javascript will open a host of new apps, games, and creative pieces… oh and yes of course it will make the techs and scientists happy too, but hey, fun and creativity is important!!

Video tags provide a host of cool functions… the ability to contain and provide access to multiple source files in one window, inbuilt Control function calls, the ability to draw over video, to scroll it, warp it, twist it, create live thumbnails,  Matroska like containers. Also support for the Ogg Vorbis audio format providing far superior audio to mp3. The list goes on and is still being developed.

Other functions will include easy inbuilt Database and extended Caching abilities allowing web pages to create and run far more detailed functions and calls. Providing a way of sustaining and running offline apps from your browser while minimizing data loss if you loose your connection. This is particularly important for wifi inconsistencies and droputs, but also for extending the raw power of browser based computing. There is even a function called Webworker that manages running tasks in the background so that your browser is not slowed by a function or process.

Finally, the new geolocation functions will speed development of location based apps and I can’t wait to see the games and creative uses artist and developers come up with!!

View this great video tute for more info..

Anisphere.com Virtual SIMs for Professionals

Virtual worlds have begun to move away from the games industry and are firmly planting roots in Architectural design, Education and even scientific visualisation. The launch of AniGlobe consultants and AniSphere hosting last month saw the virtual world move into the professional arena providing consultants and servers for establishing your own tailor made virtual world simulator.

These amazing simulators allow architects to create 3D models and mockups of their designs that their clients can walk or fly around in full virtual 3D environments. The terrains and landscapes can be tailored to emulate the real world environment and the project can be viewed at any time of day.  The building and modelling tools are simple and any architect with a basic knowledge of CAD can quickly provide simulations and alternatives for their clients to view.

AniGlobe.com consultants setup SIMs for Architects

Tradtionally, Architects provide 2D images or drawings of their designs for the client, but 3D simulators take this to a whole new level allowing the client  to actually move around, walk or fly through the model, see it from any angle or at any time of day. All of this is done over the internet on the clients own pc or laptop and is available 24/7. The architect can discuss, build or change the design from his own office pc and the client can view it in real time while meeting with the architect online whilst standing in the actual model!

Live meetings online with clients

The technology used takes its core from the same software used in the games industry in products like secondlife.  AniGlobe takes these tools and applies them to the professional arena. AniGlobe provides all the expertise  digital media, assets and consultancy services to get the simulators setup and working for the company and advises on the best hosting or server options. Anisphere provides inexpensive and ready to go island spaces for those who simply want to rent space rather than establish their own Sims.

These virtual world solutions are quickly being adopted and developed by all sorts of industries and the big companies like IBM and Intel are already making footprints in the virtual worlds too. Allyson Kerr, from Aniglobe Consulants says that alongside Architects and Designers they are now dealing with ‘live meeting’ companies, Rock  bands wanting virtual clubrooms and Families wanting  a virtual home online to meet and talk with each other. 

“Virtual worlds are expanding the possibilities and potentials of social networking sites like Facebook. Even rock bands are realising the potential for streaming their music or video clips live to their fans in their own 3D clubhouse.”

Virtual Clubhouses for Rock Bands

It seems the possibilities for virtual worlds are virtually endless! Anisphere.com provides simple rentals of islands for people to get their feet wet… or not as the case maybe! Aniglobe provides professional consultants to help design, install and establish a dedicated SIM and provide companies with all the tools and expertise they require to get started.

Contact them at these sites
http://anisphere.com
http://aniglobe.com

Meanwhile, think I might just pull a chair next to Anizia and Xo  to take in the virtual surroundings for awhile…. ah the possibilities are endless indeed!

Hmm, food for thought

Probably not, news is not that easy to hide from in this electronic age! What amazes me most is that the so called empire builders of the past era like Murdoch and his buddies are bleating like sheep with blinkers lost in the wilderness at night…  ”oh what will happen to the free world without us?”,  ”Oh what can we do if no one wants to pay us anymore?” I mean really! Leaders of the world of free enterprise? They’ve all become soft and dull in their over paid old age.

New Markets await! New means of distribution are beckoning.  New ways of attracting those pretty pennies are already chinking on the digital front lawns in every suburb! Have you really no clue how to get those cash registers chiming again? I thought you were supposed to be intelligent, ahead of the pack and media savvy? Think beyond the square, backroom boys and girls. It was all so easy in the past, find some news, get a journo to make it read well and look good, find some advertisers, buy some paper and print the sucker! You didn’t have to worry if anyone would buy it, the public had no choice…  and in any case you could always do some furtive little deals with your political and business buddies to keep all your pockets well fed. Well perhaps that part hasn’t changed too much, but you can be sure the rest has!

Ok, that’s enough of the media mogal bashing, lets get down to tin tacks and newpaper racks.  Back in the early 90’s when the internet was forming I was a digital media consultant (still am I think lol) I was asked to consult to a large newspaper publisher. They wanted to know how the internet was going to affect their industry and how they could prepare for it.  I held up a vision to them that made their eyeballs wobble in their sockets. I told them that within the next 20 years the paper news print would become redundant. That new newspapers would be online, that people would be able to click on advertisements and be transported directly to the advertisers site, that all newspapers would use electronic content management systems to make their newspapers and most of their news sources would come in over the net and simply be rewritten, formatted and re distributed.

Yeh, I know everything looks correct in hindsight! But this is a true story and it was in 1995. Well, you should have seen the looks on their faces! They sat back with a mixture of shock, horror and virtual disbelief. The meeting lasted 3 hours, at the end they thanked me with a cool courtesy and a look like they had just spoken to the devil. They walked out the door and in my innocence I felt sure they would be calling me with a large contract within weeks. I never heard from them again. 4 years later they amalgamated their morning and evening papers into one and produced a small tabloid format. 8 years later, the whole operation went into liquidation and officially died.

Why was it so hard for them to accept? Did I tell them their journo’s were crap? or that people were sick of news? of course not! People consume news more than ever and journalists skills and worth are just as highly valued as they ever were. So what’s gone wrong? Why are the jobs for journo’s shrinking when there is more news accessibility, sources and access than ever before? What’s wrong with this picture?

In a couple of words… Cost and Distribution! you either evolve or you become extinct. Yes, I know, I know, that sounds obvious! Yes publishers are not so stupid that they don’t understand their own business and markets and many are fiercely online now too. But they are still bleating that they can’t get anyone to buy their services and advertising revenue isn’t enough to pay the very real costs of gathering, writng and distributing their newspaper online or off!

Well, thnk about what I said, cost and distribution, then think outside the square (way outside, no not twitter you twit!). Think how you distribute and most importantly think how the user gets your paper and reads your news… (please stay away from the bleeding obvious like put it on an SDRAM!) and when you’ve done that… Call me! I’m not so stupid the second time round either that I’m going to give you the answer in a free blog or even for a highly paid 3 hour consultation fee. When you’re ready, call me… I’ve seen the future, that’s my job and I’m bloody good at it and I know what’s coming and how you publishers are going to need to deal with it. There is another fortune waiting to be made and everyone involved in the industry is going to love the solution and the result!  Chew on that one Rupert!

SEO’s are the modern day used car salesmen, and we know what’s happened to that market! I have pages that have no keywords or even a description that rank higher than perfectly sculpted w2.0 pages. I have pages that have excellent content and no ads that rank lower than pages with high ad content. Imagine if I’d paid a SEO to manage them all for me. What a waste of time and money!

Google is what google does. Many people are starting to run multi engine searches these days, their day in the sun will only continue as long people ‘buy’ into the delusion. My highest access hit pages come from word of mouth, social network friends information link sharing (SNIFLS! lol put that in your pipe and smoke it!), good products and good content produces results. Not nerdy apple bite tinkering with code, people buy or visit material that works. You can even do a phd in SEO these days, a world lost up its own code hole if you ask me!

I don’t like google either but its like saying you don’t like sharks, its an ocean and they are a big part of it, so lets just start giving them and their symbiotic ultra code suckers (SUCS!) a big miss on searches and return the web search to an information tool rather than a fecal used code spam yard (FUCSY)

Web Pro News - Google Woes and SEO flatulance…

You are highly at risk if you have recently had an illness are over tired or rundown. The young and the elderly are often most vulnerable, however the curuios thing about this strain of Swine Flu is it seems to be affecting people between 20 and 50, this is very unusual. There is no Vaccine for the Swine flu yet, it is a new strain. If you get sick, don’t wait, go and see a doctor immediately. Keep your hands clean before touching anything, watch where you cough, do not kiss or have close intimate contact with anyone and avoid being in close spaces with other people.

Lastly, Don’t worry! the vast majority of people recover from this flu, the number of deaths is unusual, but far more people are getting it and then recovering.

Nausia, vomiting or diarrhea, may also occur but this is more common in children or the elderly. Make sure you keep up your water intake regularly and make sure it is clean and you don’t share your glass with anyone!

Below you’ll find a description of the most commonly understood headache types and some treatment options.

Please note: All frequent headaches should be investigated by a doctor.

Chronic tension headaches are the most common of all, they can come from emotional stress, anxiety or depression, fatigue, bad diets, alcohol, smoking or other environmental pollutants. Most commonly, they stem from physical musculo skeletal strains that are aggravated by one or more of these. The tension and inflammation in the muscles of the neck and shoulders rises to a point where the free and easy flow of lymphatic fluids and blood is relatively impeded. A congestive state develops leaving you feeling vague, irritable, distracted and unable to concentrate.

The tension also pulls on the attachments of muscles and tendons to your cranium and cervical spine causing them to become inflamed and tender. This inflammatory process tends to aggravate the initial symptoms even further so the overall ‘headache’ can become quite distressing. Chronic or recurrent tension headaches may also accompany periods of emotional depression or anxiety.

Many patients report they are often relieved by gentle musculo skeletal articulation from professional practitioners in Osteopathy, Physiotherapy, Chiropractic or Massage. Other treatments by professionals in dentistry, acupuncture or naturopathy also offer approaches and treamtents for common headaches. We need to make sure that our musculo skeletal balance, diet, physiology and general lifestyle are not conspiring to create the circumstances for a headache to occur.

Migraine Headaches are not the same as Tension headaches and although they can share many of the symptoms, their onset, physiology and course are quite different. Migraine headaches often start with some disturbances to your vision, like flashing lights or blurred spots of vision or they may begin with the sense of an odd taste or smell, or even some tingling in your face or limb. This can be very alarming to the patient and it can mimic or seem like a cardiovascular stroke when severe.

This initial stage called a ‘prodromal phase’ usually resolves in about 15-30 minutes but is most often followed by severe pain on one side of the patients head. This pain can last from anywhere between 3 and 36 hours! Some people may even experience pain and nausea for days on end. All severe migrainous attacks should be investigated by a doctor. However, most migraines resolve completley and do not show a distinct cause or any underlying pathology.

The cause or reason for the two phases has been observed as being the result of some blood vessels in the brain constricting for a short period of time, depriving the surrounding tissue of an appropriate blood supply. This ‘Vaso-constriction’ is followed by a ‘Vaso-dilation’ and the pain sensitive nerve endings in the vessel walls are triggered by the increased blood flow. The causes and processes of migraine headaches vary tremendously from hormonal, diet, allergies, muscolo-skeletal, liver function, cardio-vascular etc… Most migraines can be managed by the use of appropriate medication.

Like ‘Tension headaches’, many patients report their symptoms are often relieved by gentle musculo skeletal articulation from therapies such as Osteopathy, Physiotherapy, Chiropractic, Acupuncture etc… Also, there are many herbal or naturopathic preparations available, like ‘feverfew’, that many patients report significant relief from use. It is important for you to see a doctor first if you have experienced true migraines before and have not consulted a physician. Migraines can sometimes be a result of another underlying condition and seeing the doctor will eliminate any more serious conditions.

Other types of Headaches:

Sinus headaches: Often occur after a cold or condition that may have caused a sinus infection. Simple massage and cold presses can relieve the symptoms but an ongoing infection should be investigated by a doctor.

Hormonal headaches: Can be similar to migraines, they both may affect only one side of the head and are often accompanied with nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to lights or noise. A lot of women experience these headaches during the monthly menstral cycle or during the onset of menopause. These should be investigated by a doctor.

Cluster headaches: These come in groups of 1-4 in a day, often in a set cluster period that can occur over a few of days but could also extend to months. These should be investigated by a doctor.

Pathologic headaches: These are rare headaches that result from a skull or brain abnormality. These could include benign or malignant tumors, meningitis, infections, aneurisms, encephalitis or a brain abscess. These conditions are usually only found during medical examinations.

The web is full to the brim of ‘I make 5000 a week!’ marketeers with their bogus claims and tasteless websites. If they weren’t enough, there are 100’s of thousands of bogus dummy pages with nothing but google ads littering the net and getting in the way of your searches… all for a few cents from the grand addy daddy Google. But is that all there is to the web? A bunch of ads clothed in a few lines of barely relevant text? Is it just the big boys that can make money from the web?

Well, it depends on how you see it. Are you trying to make money ‘from’ the web or ‘through’ the web? Because that subtle distinction is the key. Making money from Google is never going to pay your bills, face it, its in your own interest to realize that the numbers just don’t add up.

Think about it… To make a $100 per day, the amount of people you need to visit your website[s] and then to actually click on your google ads at an average of even 10 cents per click, at a click rate of around 1% (that’s very high) is 100,000! per day!… or to make $1 you’ll need 1000 people to visit AND 10 of them to click. All that pre supposes your website attracts the people who’ll click, that google supplies relevant ads and that the advertisers pay 10 cents or more, most clicks return about 3 to 6 cents! It’s a mug’s game or pocket money that helps to pay your hosting costs that’s all and to achieve that you will spend hour upon hour trying to get the traffic and tailoring your site so it suits Google!

As to the ‘I make $5000 a week’ low lifes… you have to pay them first to get your information… Really, how do you think they make money, from their expert instructions or from you sending them $29.99? As the saying goes, ‘there’s one born everyday’ and the web is heaven on a stick for the creeps ready to take your money and give you nothing in return.

So, how do you make money on the web? As I said before you make it ‘through’ the web, not ‘from’ the web. You use it, not let it use you. People use the web because it’s cheap, it’s easy and it’s a lot better than television! They use it to research something they are looking to purchase or find something cheaper than they can get it offline.

Traditional skills, services or products never go away. We all need a plumber, or food, or a particular part, or entertainment. So your job is to make it easier, cheaper or more entertaining to use your website to find, or buy or research what they are looking for.

Let me give you an example of a highly successful web business started by people with little or no web knowledge.

We all know that meat in supermarkets has become both expensive and of highly variable quality. We also know that local farmers get only a fraction of the money you pay to the supermarket.. who wins? well, the supermarket of course. So, a group of local farmers got together and decided to make a site to sell their best produce to the local community by simply placing a regular order online. Wham! instant success! The consumers are getting top quality local produce at a saving of over 50% on the supermarket prices, even with delivery! Result, happy farmers making lots of money, happy customers saving stacks of money and eating restaurant quality meat!

Get the point?  They weren’t web guru’s, they were people ‘Using’ the web to make money from customers they couldn’t access without going ‘through’ the web. Lesson: A good product sells its self, the web is just the contact point and cash register.

This is the true power of the web and why the web will drive the new economy. The times have changed, before it was more efficient to have a large corporation doing all the sales, distribution and marketing, now it is often easier or more efficient and therefore cheaper to move as much of your admin, point of sale and marketing to the web. We are deconstructing the very models and ideologies that made them top heavy and created instability in our economies. We are moving them back to more simple diverse and local control.. but overseen by a common point of sale and open market called the web.

So think about your own products or skills and put your efforts into finding a way to make them available ‘through’ the web, rather than just thinking what you can make from the web. This is the new economy and as usual, it’s first come first served.

Want to start your own blog with your own name.sqwark.me?
Visit sqwark.me home page
We install wordpress or b2evolution for free, hosting only $25.00 per year!

As far as the cyber eye can see profits are tumbling in virtual currencies and real dollars too. Yet there exists a corporate mentality that believes when times are tough more people turn to entertainment. But they forget one important point.  When times are tough COST matters, the only reason people flocked to the movie houses during the big depression was for CHEAP entertainment.

Quite inexplicably, Second life recently created a cyber riot by doubling the costs of owning an ‘Openspace’ island. This is in a cyber property market that had already crashed through over supply. Talk about how to shoot yourself in the foot!  Since then, residents have been dumping their properties and leaving the Sim. Consequently less and less people are spending money and all the stores that supply the gadgets, clothes and tools are feeling some real world depression… which is kind of funny, since most people seem to use secondlife as an escape from their real world problems!

Picture Supplied by Anizia

Most people are astounded at the decision. It would seem obvious to even a half brained avatar that the way to make money is to make the experience available to more people than less! At the moment it costs around L$32,000 Linden dollars (approx $120 USD) per month to own an open Sim island! and this is one of the cheaper options they have, with a little over 3,200 prims to use.

It would seem to me, if you wanted to get people to buy into the game rather than just visit and look, you would make the islands price under at least $10.00 USD a month. Hell, you can get your own full hosting service for $7.50 as month! The argument is about blatant profit, not about smart business or marketing. Disney is making healthy profits on some of its virtual kids worlds because they understand their own market but the new corporate hierarchy at Linden Labs in San Francisco seem lost up their cyber sphincters!

Picture supplied by Anizia

I spoke to Anizia Jewell who runs her own specialist texture and art supply store called Anizia Graphica in Second Life, in real life she is an animator and fx artist and Second Life is just a hobby.

Anizia: “I only run my store to pay the costs of owning a little island, I used to make enough to buy clothes and things, but since the costs have virtually doubled, I am barely making enough… It makes me think about if its worth staying here”

Picture supplied by Anizia

Admin: “But is whether you make money the only reason you go there?”

Anizia: “No, I meet friends and its a great creative space and its a natural part of my work skills, I like making great textures on SL or RL, but the charges are really high these days and most people only have just So much to spend.”

We will interview Anizia and her friends in the next article

It’s important to remember that these worlds have robust internal economies and we’re not talking play money. 100’s of thousands of real dollars change hands every week and many larger shop owners actually make a real life living. Linden labs of course get the largest cut of all with tier fees, classified advertising, upload charges. I might also make it clear that you do not have to spend or buy anything to use Second Life… but its pretty hard to avoid if you want to have any ‘real’ fun!

Picture supplied by Anizia

If you haven’t visited these worlds, go ahead and give them a try most are free to visit. Secondlife is the master of the universe at this stage and has a legitimate claim to be a true alternative virtual world, rather than just an MMO Console  Game. at SL there is no plot or gameplay, you simply explore, meet, greet, make or buy clothes, create and build your dreams or dance to live streaming music. Flying or teleporting to wherever you want… its a very big world inside those networked  CPU’s! It’s like the real world only um… more colourful, trippier, stranger?

If you loved playing with your barbi doll when you were little, or love dressing up as a warrior… you’re gonna love the 3D virtual experience. But whether you’ll love the corporate hierarchy that runs these worlds will be another less enjoyable experience all together. Is the next step an open SIM 3d internet? many think this is the future and these are just the first stepping stones. How they get through the difficult economic times ahead will determine if a virtual world has any real legs to stand on in this reality.
Technorati Profile

Google started as a quirky name with a faster than average search engine, does it really deserve to be in such an omnipotent position in just a few years since its birth? Well, truly, the only reason it has that power is the average net user has developed a sheeple mentality to simply go where they are led. Am I against google? no of course not they are a very clever company and have leveraged a huge profit through pushing the boundaries. What I question is how this really benefits the web and its users. How has it ever been in the public interest to allow such massive companies like google and microsoft etc to have such control?

Content is king on the net and where does content come from? it comes from the intellect and creativity of individuals not corporations. We have already been through an era of music companies being in control of musical creativity and then the microsoft empire dominating the very word ‘pc’ Yet none of these companies ever actually invented anything, they simply saw an opportunity to make money and grabbed it with both hands. There is nothing wrong about that in a free enterprise system but giving large companies, whose only motive is profit, that sort of power has NEVER been in anyone else’s interest but the profit takers. Indeed, they invariably end up squashing the free development of alternative creative endeavour and actually hold back opportunity for anyone outside of their control mechanisms. You do it their way or you do it no way.

Now the large newspapers are in trouble due to the aggregation of their content. You may say, so what? they can either compete or perish. But News and the diversity of its content is vital to communication and it has a real cost to produce, reproduce and distribute. OK, so the user doesn’t want to or doesn’t have the money to pay for these services, so what’s wrong with a huge company like Google eeking out a profit from making it available to the general public? Well, in a word, Diversity.

Diversity is the key to creativity and further development. These large companies inevitably crush opportunity and diversity and lead to a sameness that is solely based on satisfying a mass sheeple mentality. In medicine we have an old saying, ’stagnation leads  to disease’ that is to say when anything stops flowing, pathology is a natural result. This is exactly what has led to music and the arts to be crushed into brand names, product identities and fake personalities  by those who seek to control and make profit from the things they are not capable of creating themselves.

So am I just jumping on the corporate bashing train? No, on the contrary, I am challenging our own stupidity as consumers and punters. It’s time we stood up and demanded diversity, demanded ingenuity and got off our arses to contribute to the process rather than  feed off the mindlessness that drives profit making empires. Every time you get something for free, someone else is paying the price and in the end that goes all the way back to the original creator. It’s harder than ever to make a profit from your work in any creative field.

Google claims to aid the community in the same way that microsoft claimed to be advancing the use of computers, and in some ways they are right. Did google ever invent anything but a search engine? NO it bought out other peoples ideas for huge amounts of YOUR money and paid individuals with the knowledge to create it for them. Microsoft has actually held back development, its inefficient and over burdened operating system has taken the idea that an OP makes computers MORE efficient and crushed it into a badly written resource hungry ‘program’ that runs other programs… a completely unnecessary middle man to  processes and functions… just another branding mentality that trades and profits from our sheeple mentality… and don’t think Apple is any better! they are just less successful!

If you apply the microsoft example to Google with  its desire to create cloud computing and own your computer time too, I predict, we will see the very same mechanism that seeks to control begin to crush all but the  middle of the road and the net will become a stagnant wasteland of lost opportunity for the individual who actually creates the content. A sameness will develop and begin to crush rather than invigorate. Will you come to hate the word Google? Well, lets wait and see, there are already far better uses of the english language!

How do we defend ourselves from all this? Support the individual, support Open source software development like Linux and above all else, try to PAY something, even a few cents, for things that individuals develop through their own creativity. Times are tough, why give what little you have to huge profit making megaliths? Look for ways to support individual growth and learn to pay a fair price to content creators, not the middlemen who feed off others. Ask yourself why you go to university or seek higher training? Just to see you hard work consumed by a thing called a GOOGLE?

Want to start your own blog with your own name.sqwark.me?
Visit sqwark.me home page
We install wordpress or b2evolution for free, hosting only $25.00 per year!