Some Knowledge

I like Impressionistic art.  I think Claude Monet is perhaps the greatest painter who ever lived.  I love the vibrant colors, the contrast, the common subject matter, and the beautiful landscapes depicted in Impressionist art.

Painting has been around since long before the dawn of history.  Modern man painted game and images of himself on the walls of caves with charcoal and earth pigments.  Art is one of the defining activities of modern man.  Through the ages it was considered a mark of greatness in art if your work represented an object in close detail.  The Romans used to paint scenes on their walls resembling window views of the countryside or bowls of fruit.  Floors were decorated in elaborate mosaic tiles.  Representational art became the standard by which art was judged.

In the middle ages a more stylized art became the norm.  People were represented in certain poses and with certain gestures.  Art was very much a province of the church, and the place where most people were able to view art was in the churches of the times.  Thematic elements relating to the religious beliefs of the time became the standard form of art.  In the Renaissance a more secular art developed, and rich patrons supported artists.  With the discovery of perspective, art took on a more realistic quality.

The invention of the camera and photography in the nineteenth century caused many changes in the way art was  perceived.  It was no longer thought high achievement to make a mechanical representation of some scene, a simple device could do as much.  Impressionism developed as a trend of representing how an artist perceived some scene.  The view was filtered through the mind of the painter and was given a life distinct from the original scene.  At first, this outraged the art critics, who saw the whole movement of Impressionism as decadent.  Still, the new arthad a life of its own and independent showings of these artists became popular with the art buying public.

One of the things I like best about Impressionism is that up close the paintings tend to look like just so many blotches of color, but from a distance they look like an organized scene.  It is almost like magic how this effect is achieved.  The vibrant, unmixed colors have a life of their own and mix in the eye of the viewer.  An impressionistic painting has a living quality in it not seen in more realistic representational art.

I enjoy looking at impressionistic paintings.  I have several books that detail the history and objectives of the movement and which reprint many of the most famous examples of paintings in this style.  If I had a few billion dollars I might even invest in some of the better paintings for my own personal collection.  I find impressionistic paintings have a very calming, comforting effect on my psyche, unlike the disturbing imagery of the modern world.   If I ever get around to making a serious study of art, I would like to learn to paint like the Impressionists.

We live in a world in which we are surrounded by hype.  Advertisers and other people trying to change our opinions or attitudes are everywhere in the media.  Politicians, salesmen, sports stars, celebrities and news people all want to change the way people think and act.  How do they go about this?

Since the invention of the printing press, man has had access to some method of mass media.  Any form of communications that can reach large numbers of people can be used to generate hype for some person or product.  Today we not only have books and newspapers, magazines and radio, television, movies but also the vast sea of knowledge that is the Internet.  We are surrounded by mass communications on all levels of our lives.

In order to get a message out to large numbers of people you will need a channel that is viewed by many persons.  This usually means a medium with an established customer base, like newspapers or television channels.  The usual means of approaching these services with some story you want to tell is with a press release written for an editor.  The editor of a paper, magazine, or television channel has say in what gets placed in his publication.  You may want to call the different services you are thinking of promoting to in order to ask where you should send a press release.  A press release is just an article detailing what it is about your product, service, or person that is of interest to a general audience.  What benefit will the thing you are promoting have for the readers of that particular paper?  You must be clear and specific with your information.  Point out reasons why your offering is valuable to this publication’s viewers.

If a news service or television program is interested in your release they may have a writer contact you to get more information on your product.  You should know everything you can about what makes your service so interesting to people.  Tell them how you started out, or how many people already own your product, or what it is about your offering that is different from anything else.  If you are promoting a person for political office you should know their policies and opinions on the key issues, as well as know things about their personal history that will appeal to a voting public.  It is important to have concrete information that can be used by the writer to generate a story.

Any medium that reaches a lot of people can be used to generate hype.  This includes popular websites.  If you are promoting your own website, surf around the net for similar sites.  Send email to the webmasters of the different sites and ask them if they would be interested in trading links on their page with your site.  Cross-linking to popular sites in this way can generate a lot of traffic for your site.  You want to get your message out to as many eyes as possible.  Think about where people might go who are interested in your product.  If you sell coffee you might approach coffee shops to see if they will let you post fliers in their establishments.  Post classified advertisements for your product in newspapers and in free online ads.  Post comments in forums online and leave a link to your page.  It’s a lot of busy work doing small time promotion like this, but when the word starts spreading and your promotion goes viral it will all pay off.

The general principle in generating any kind of hype is to have a message and then convey that message to as many people as possible.  If you are trying to end world hunger you can certainly generate interest in this idea by writing a compelling story and suggesting a cure for this condition.  If you are trying to sell crystal fairy statuettes, think of an angle that will make people want to own your product, such as how happy it will make them to have such a beautiful article in their home.  If you are running for president, try to convince people that you will be the best person for the job.  The news media is constantly searching for items it can report on.  If you can make your offering seem worthy of a spot in the national news, you will generate a lot of interest and free publicity for your product.

You’ve had a long day at the office.  The drive home was stop and go all the way.  When you walked in the door there was a stack of bills waiting for you.  Your day was one long series of problems.  There is one sure fire way to de-stress yourself.  Take a good hot bath.

If you don’t have a tub, this article is not for you.  A shower is nice and will get you clean, but nothing beats floating in a pool of hot, fragrant water and melting all your cares away.  If you have a tub with hydro therapy massage jets you are all set.  Fill up your tub with steaming water.  Add some bath salts or a couple drops of a nice essential oil.  If you have some pain from pulled muscles or are just sore try adding a handful of Epsom Salts.   If it is evening you might want to have candelight in the bathroom.  Get some nice relaxing music on the stereo, turn down the lights, get naked and soak yourself.

Floating in a tub of hot water is not only relaxing, it is good for the body.  You get clean, your muscles relax, the weight is taken off the bones and joints of your skeleton.  Just lie back and let the heat from the water penetrate your frame.  Forget about all the troubles and obligations you might have had during the day.  This time is for you.  If people bang on the door and want you to finish up, just ignore them as best as possible and don’t let it get to you.  If the phone rings let it go to voice mail.  Unless the house is on fire let nothing disturb your bath.

When you are done with your bath dry off and put on some comfortable clothes.  The relaxed feeling will be with you for hours after you finish.  Go about your evening’s business and do what you have to do for the day ahead.  A good bath will leave you clean and refreshed for the day ahead.  A bath is like having a personal massage therapist at your home.  A bath will not leave you with a drunken stupor like too many drinks will.  This is the best way to cope with stress and physical pain.  Allow yourself the time to relax and you will find yourself enjoying life.

If you want to save some money gardening you can start your own sets indoors.  This will give you a head start on your Spring gardening, and will also bring a bit of summer into your home.

You can buy peat pellets for starting seeds, or you can get little trays to fill with soil, or even peat pots.  My favorite way to start sets is in old egg cartons.  Cut the lid off empty egg cartons.  With a kitchen knife, cut an “X” into the bottom of each egg compartment.  Set the egg carton inside the lid, which is now the drainage tray for your sets.  It’s a very simple and cheap way to start plants.  Fill your trays with clean potting soil.  Potting soil and seeds will be your only expense for this method.

When you have your trays full of dirt, make a small indentation in each compartment with a knife.  Plant your seeds one at a time in the hole you dug for them and firm the soil over the seed with your thumb.  When all your trays are planted, water the trays well and set them on a sunny windowsill so that they get plenty of heat and light.  In a few days the seeds will germinate and your sets will be on their way.

It is important that your sets get plenty of light.  The sun is a strong source of light, but if you don’t have access to a sunny window suspend a fluorescent fixture over a counter and use artificial light.  It is best to hang the light on chains so it can be kept close to your plants and be raised as they grow.

Before transplanting your sets into the garden you will need to harden them off to the night air.  Set the trays out on a porch or on the ground near the house on nights when there is no danger of frost.  It is important to harden plants this way against cool temperatures before you transplant them because they will get some shock from transplanting and the extra stress from cold nights can kill little plants if they are not used to these temperatures.

Growing your own sets can save you a lot of money over buying sets at the garden center.  You will also get the enjoyment of starting early on your summer garden.

If you want to make money with photography, you will need some basic equipment.  You will need a camera.  Most modern photography is done with digital single lens reflex cameras.  You will want to get the highest resolution you can afford.  A camera with interchangeable lenses is preferable to one with a single fixed lens.  Eight mega pixels is generally considered bottom of the line when talking about professional photography.  You may have to spend seven hundred dollars or more to get a decent camera.

You will also need a computer.  If you are reading this you probably already have a computer, but you will also want to have image editing software.  Photoshop is considered the industry standard.  If you are going to sell prints you will either want to have a good quality photo printer, or more likely, you will send your photo files out to be printed at a lab.  The cost of printing will of course be passed along to the customer.

There are several kinds of photography businesses you can operate.  You can set up a studio and take portraits.  You can specialize in wedding photography.  You can take shots at newsworthy events and attempt to sell them to newspapers and magazines.  You might want to specialize in travel photography or in shooting landscapes.  Some of these businesses are considered stock photography, because you will assemble a stock of photos and attempt to sell them to various buyers.  You can sell prints or copyrights to your work.  If you want to persue photography as a business you should investigate your markets and think about how you are going to sell your work.

If you are more interested in artistic photography you may be able to interest a gallery in your work.  You should have a portfolio of slides or a CD of your photos that you can use to query galleries.  A gallery will take fifty to sixty percent of the sale value of your work for representing you, it is very much like a business partnership.

There are many resources available online or in book stores to get you going on your new career as a photographer.  You will probably want to set up a website to display your work and arrange for online sales.  Any amount of publicity you can get for your work will help you make more money.  You might look into making up some framed prints and then asking local shops or restaurants if they will display your work in their establishments.  If you specialize in weddings or other occasions consider getting an advertisement in the yellow pages or placing classified ads in the news.

Running a photography business can be a rewarding occupation.  Establish a reputation as a knowledgeable and reliable photographer and you will be on your way to financial independence.  It takes some investment in equipment and learning to get started, but, this will pay off once you start getting jobs.

I’m sitting here at my computer trying to think up something to write about.  I just got done looking over the long list of things people search for on Google Trends.  Number three on that list was the tuatara.  Apparently, the tuatara, which only lives on a few islands surrounding New Zealand now that imported rats and cats and dogs have made it extinct on the big islands, is more closely related to the dinosaur than it is to modern lizards.  The creature has some very interesting aspects.  The tuatara lives for 60 to 100 years.  It has a third eye below the skin of the top of its head that may regulate its sleep cycles.  The tuatara also has supposedly the fastest rate of evolutionary change of any animal, which is odd, because it hasn’t changed much in a couple hundred million years.

Well, this was all interesting material, but, I did not feel like writing some kind of report about some odd endangered reptile.  Mind you, I like reptiles, just, why would I copy the report on the Discovery channel site for my blog like I saw done three times on Google Trends blog results?  Do people just copy stories they find on the Internet for their own posts?  This seems really lame.  Almost as lame as Private Label Rights articles.

I found a website yesterday that gives away free PLR articles.  I said what the heck, check them out.  So, I left my email with their autoresponder and after their email made it through the spam filter I confirmed my membership in the five article a day free PLR club and downloaded my free prize of a hundred articles and the five for the day articles and unzipped them and looked them over.  It was very interesting material.  Is anyone interested in the evolution of teddy bears?  I am not even slightly interested in that.  I read one of the articles about aerobic exercise?  Do you know that if you do aerobics you can lose weight?  Not even worth printing my name on that one.  No wonder this stuff is free.  Talk about boring generic articles.  I wonder how many people visit random blogs looking for interesting content for their own blogs?  I’ve seen stuff posted to different blogs that looks exactly the same.  That’s the problem with electronic media, it is as simple as point and click to make a copy.

Every once in a while when I get really bored I will look for jokes on the Internet.  You have to read a lot of lousy material to find even one good joke.  Sometimes you hit a rich vein of humor and find several jokes all on the same site.  Usually, you end up reading the same thing over and over again.  It would be easier to just make up my own jokes.  I have a book on writing comedy.  The book is pretty lame.  Most of the jokes in this book are not even funny.  I don’t know who writes all this un-funny humor.  It gets on television too.  Lame jokes are a curse that spreads like a plague.

So, how does anyone think up things to write about?  It would have to be something that interests or concerns you.  I’m trying to think of what interests or concerns me now.  I’m interested in making money, who isn’t?  I’m interested in how the web is going to look in a few years.  Will it turn into a sewer of advertising like television?  Probably, but there is more to the Internet than business.  Do I have any hobbies that may be of interest to other people?  Yes, I used to enjoy experimenting with radio-frequency electronic circuits.  Kind of a niche topic.  Not everybody is interested in how wireless works.

There’s an interesting term, wireless.  They used to call radio wireless when it was first invented.  This was because all they could send was Morse code and Morse code was commonly used on the telegraph, so when radio came out it was competing directly with the wired communication system.  Wireless is the old Victorian term for radio.  They started using the term again when they came out with cordless phones that did not have to be wired to the wall, and wireless computer networks that worked without LAN cables.  An old term for new technology, how interesting.

I suppose I could write about all the interesting and useful knowledge I have gained about how computer networks operate from reading a huge thick book I bought months ago about computer networks.  Well, I could write about it if I could remember much of what I read.  There is just too much information to remember without studying and using it every day.  Networks work on many different levels.  You plug them in and they work.  What’s to know?

I suppose I could go fictional and just post stories.  Fiction blogs are not going to be real popular, unless I was JK Rowling and writing my Harry Potter books online for people to read in real time and make suggestions on.  Why would I do that when I could write a book and sell it to people instead?  I have thought about the idea of making up fictional stuff and putting it in a blog entry.  I have a fictional blog on Livejournal, which nobody even looks at.  I know how popular fiction is.

If this were a professional blog people who hire me to write articles or pieces for them could give me some subject to write about.  There are pay per post blog sites that operate this way.  You write a post about some article or other that somebody is trying to sell.  Essentially you would be advertising.  My blog here does not get enough traffic to justify selling advertisements yet.  So for now, I am just typing away trying to think up random things to write about.  It’s an enjoyable way to pass the time.

I occasionally write up posts based on news stories or just things I find in doing web searches.  This is about as good a way as any to get information for a bit of writing.  I thought about writing something about cars.  Cars are popular.  Do I want to be an unpaid cyber-advertiser for the auto industry?  No, the unpaid thing is uncool.  I was reading a book last night called “The Well Fed Writer” about freelancing, and it seems like a lot of trouble to get involved in.  You have to drum up business.  You have to do all the work.  Then you have to try and collect your pay.  On top of everything you have to keep all the records.  You have to figure out all your taxes.  You need to keep track of all your hours.  That’s a lot of work.  With a blog you sit at your computer and type about anything that crosses your mind.  Your opinions do not have to be any good at all.  You can be a complete idiot and still keep a blog.

This is a very long entry.  If anyone reads this I hope you didn’t come here looking for ideas to write about, because I’m fresh out.  Pick up some random item off the floor and write about that.  It’s no wonder people write about teddy bears and greeting cards.  There’s a lot of stuff in this world that would be the perfect subject for any kind of an essay.  Nobody knows if it will be interesting to anyone.  Write whatever you want and if they like it, they will come.

Twenty five million dollars.  All you have to do is find a way to take all the carbon dioxide generated by man out of the atmosphere.  Sir Richard Branson announced the “Virgin Earth Challenge” last September.  I read the fine print on this contest.  It’s not going to be as easy as you might think to get any of this money.

If you wanted to just scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere all you would really have to do is to plant a lot of trees and then save the wood from them somehow so that it did not decompose.  You could make thick paved wooden roads, log cabins for everybody, build great wooden cubes as modern art.  The important thing is just to get the carbon dioxide out of the air and into a stable form that nobody will burn.  Of course, the amount of wood you would generate would be greater than the amount of fossil fuels ever burned on earth, and that is a lot.

I did a quick calculation on what would be needed to save the earth from the greenhouse effect by growing trees.  There are approximately 3 billion acres of arable land available on the surface of the earth.  If all this land was planted with evergreen trees, they would produce on average 5.4 billion tons per year of wood.  Given the formula for cellulose, the major chemical composing wood, this equates to 2.4 billion tons of carbon sucked out of the atmosphere on average for 24 years of growth.  Trees grow faster as they get larger.  A big tree has more leaves to photosynthesize sunlight.  At 24 years of age, your three billion acre forest will draw 8 billion tons of carbon out of the air per year.  Current use of fossil fuels equates to 7 billion tons per year of carbon ejected into the atmosphere.  After 24 years, your forest will actually draw more carbon out of the air than man emits into the air.

Now, the cost.  Assuming you can get the three billion acres of land for free (it is after all a humanitarian project to save the earth) it would cost about $250 an acre to plant these trees.  That is $750 billion to plant the trees.  To maintain the forest in a healthy condition it would take $100 an acre per year.  That is $300 billion a year for upkeep.  Total cost to save the earth from global warming with a forest, $7.95 trillion dollars over 24 years.

According to the rules for the $25 million dollar prize, you have to have a working system demonstrated in operation doing a certain large percentage of the carbon dioxide cleanup before you get any of the prize money.  The problem with cleaning up carbon dioxide is that it takes energy to put the CO2 into a form that is stable and will not re-disperse into the atmosphere.  Once you have the forest established you would have to pay workers to cut the mature trees, form the wood into something useful, and preserve the wood so it will not decompose.

If you want the $25 million dollars feel free to use my idea to save the world.  It will cost you far more than you win to implement this idea.  Personally, I think the only reason Branson offered this prize is because he knows it is un-winnable and he would get a lot of publicity for free for his business.  Me, I like global warming.  I like the heat in summer.  Ice is not my friend.

By the way, I left my email address with this site in case they ever start this competition.  I want to see if I can get Virgin to fund my proposal to save the world by planting forests.  I have not heard from these people in months and they have not even heard my idea yet.  Good luck thinking up any ideas of your own.

Outside of the energy available from the fission of radioactive elements, earth gets all its power from the sun.  The sun is a star that generates power by nuclear fusion of hydrogen into heavier elements.  Solar power reaches the earth in the form of sunlight.  This energy drives the weather cycles of the planet and provides energy for plants to photosynthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water.  All the energy that modern man derives from fossil fuels is just stored solar energy captured in the distant past by plants.

We have the technology right now to capture significant amounts of solar power directly from the sunlight that reaches the earth.  The only problem is that the technology is expensive and consumes a lot of energy to fabricate.  Silicon solar cells are the most common technology used to convert sunlight into energy.  Solar cells typically have a conversion efficiency of ten to fifteen percent.  This means that nine tenths of the solar power that falls on a solar panel is lost as heat.  Still, it would not take a large percentage of the land covered in solar panels to provide all the energy we need.  In Germany they are already subsidizing solar panels and placing them on farms and alongside the autobahn.  It generally takes five years of operation for a solar cell  to produce as much energy as is consumed in its manufacture.  Solar panels have a long lifetime, as they use no moving parts and are fairly rugged.  Improvements in efficiency and cost of manufacture are leading to better solar cells that use less expensive silicon.

Solar thermal power plants are usually built in desert areas because there is more available sunlight in these regions.  Solar thermal plants can have efficiencies approaching 40%.  There are three basic types of solar thermal power plant.  There is the tower system, in which flat mirrors track the sun and reflect sunlight on a central tower which boils water and uses the steam in a turbine to run a generator.  There is the parabolic trough system in which curved reflectors track the sun and focus the sunlight on a pipe that carries high temperature silicone oil which is heated and then used to boil water for steam generation.  Finally, there is the parabolic dish system in which a parabolic dish reflector tracks the sun and focuses the sunlight onto one side of a sterling cycle engine that turns a generator.  These solar thermal power stations are expensive to construct and require large areas of land.  It is an existing technology that works, though the power it generates is costly.

Wind power is not often thought of as being a form of solar power, but it actually is.  The winds are driven by solar radiation heating the surface of the earth.  Windmills are being built in many areas of the earth.  While the winds are not constant, they are also not affected by clouds and night.  Wind turbines are becoming a significant source of power for man.  Along with wind power, hydro-electric dams are also tapping a solar source of power.  Heat from the sun evaporates water from the oceans, and rain falls and fills reservoirs with water that can be run through a turbine to generate power.  A good portion of the electricity used on earth is already generated by dams.

Energy from bio-fuels is also a form of solar power.  If corn or sugarcane is grown and converted into ethanol to power an automobile, that automobile is using a solar power source.  There is much research being done into farming algae to create synthetic petroleum.  Plants are the original users of solar power and have changed the earth into the life-friendly place it is.

The one thing that all solar power sources have in common is that they are clean in operation and do not pollute the environment.  Aside from the waste generated in manufacture, solar cells emit no pollutants and only a bit of waste heat.   Windmills take some lubrication and materials for maintenance.  Hydro-electric dams flood large areas and create a different environment.  Even bio-fuels emit no more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they take from the atmosphere.  Solar energy is free energy from the sun that does not harm the environment as much as the present use of fossil fuel.  When the price of oil goes through the roof, the economics of solar power will become more attractive.  In the future, when the oil runs out, we will have solar power to run the machinery of society.

If you want more people to read your blog, you will have to give them more things that are interesting to them.  Nobody but a mathematician will want to read any long winded mathematical proof of some obscure theorem.  Lots of people will be interested in news about some popular celebrity.  You might not find a single reader for an article about the concept of energy, but you will get plenty of readers if you talk about something everybody likes, as in money.

If you want to appeal to a variety of people write a variety of articles.  If you think you can become an authority on some niche topic like knitting with alpaca wool yarn, by all means, specialize.   Chances are nobody is going to find your blog if you talk about the same thing over and over again.  If you have various entries about different things you will get visitors who find your site from different search parameters they enter into search engines.  If you write about something that is popular, they will find you.

Try to get your blog listed in the different directories.  Submit your URL to the different search engines so they can crawl your site and include it in their search results.  If you get really ambitious distribute your address in the media by advertising.  You may want to post fliers  or pass out business cards with your URL for people to check out what you are writing about online.  Always remember that your writing style is important in attracting any attention from the public.  If your writing sounds like broken English or reads like it was chopped up in a blender you might go back to school and study.  Try to convey your ideas as simply and clearly as possible.  You are writing to inform people of things, not to confuse them.

The subjects of your entries should have a broad appeal to people with different interests, but should also have good, specific information they can use.  People read blogs and websites for what they can get out of them, not just to fritter away the time.  If you are in doubt about some information you are writing about check it out on Google and get the correct information.  There is a vast amount of data available to anyone who takes the time to look.  Some people are looking for quick information on some subject, and if you are good at summing up a lot of data in concise terms you can supply a benefit to your readers.  People should get some value out of your posts.

Some of the blogs I have seen that are very popular are ones that use controversial ideas or sensationalism to increase their exposure.  Any absurd claim about money would also fit this category.  This is not necessary.  If you write things that are valuable to people or are interesting they will come back to see what else you have posted.  If you are really interesting they will tell their friends.  If you want people to read your words you better have something useful or interesting to say.

There are many ways to make a blog attract more attention.  Putting good content on your pages is perhaps the best way to gain readership.  If you try to create content that will not be affected by the passage of time, like most news stories are, you will be able to maintain a good basis of viewers for your work.

One of the things I did not like about World of Warcraft was the continual use of item binding.  Every decent item in the game was either bind on pickup or bind on equip.  This made it impossible to share items after you used or obtained them, or made you not be able to sell an item once you had equipped it.

I think the whole purpose of the item binding system was to maintain an inflated value for game gold.  This really annoyed me and was one of the reasons I quit playing WoW.  I had items I wouldn’t use or try out because I could not decide if I would rather sell them or keep them.  There is no physical justification for an item that can only be used by one person.  It was completely artificial and arbitrary and meant to keep players from getting gold for items they had the audacity to actually use in the game.

This system is becoming more popular in other games.  I even noticed a bind system on some items in a MUD I play that has just been implemented.  When are game designers and administrators going to realize that the system is there to give the players enjoyment, not annoyance?  Probably when everyone quits playing.