Last week my AdSense earnings skyrocketed, my server dropped on its knees before I activated the WP-Cache plugin. What I did?
Simple answer: I leaded a trend.
Ronaldo’s ex-girlfriend, Daniela Cicarelli, showed up on a Spanish TV gossip show, her very own sex tape. Sure, far more classy than Paris Hilton’s one, but still a sex tape.
Making it short, she was filmed making out with her boyfriend at a beach, it gets hot and they both go to the water, where they finished what they started, 3rd (underwater) base and all.
Tons of blogs and news sites are harvesting hits, republishing the same story. Is it a valid strategy? Or are we deceiving our visitors? Should a blog jump in that wagon?
I’d say yes.
If you reblog a meme, you’re just creating noise, but if you write about the meme, it’s another whole story. It’s a showcase, a bunch of new readers will find your blog, read your ideas and sample your content.
They’re focused about the subject, if you’re good enough, they’ll acknowledge it. I received a lot of compliments about my articles on the Cicarelli affair. Including a 50% bounce rate, it means only half of visitors coming from Google went away after reaching the article. The other half choosed to stay and explore a little.
Even the most focused bloggers now and then write about irrelevant subjects, and if you can indulge yourself once or twice, why not do that for a noble cause, a huge amount of new visitors, fortune and glory Thru Google AdSense?
A good writer can write about anything, and if everybody is writing about something, you’ve a lot of research material; you can gather the common sense, work your text around it and be truly original.
Why nobody uses Macs outside USA? we, foreigners don´t like apples? Well, we love them, but not if they cost an arm and a leg. The magazine MacMagazine released the new, lower official prices for Apple Hardware in Brazil. Can you spell 100% more expensive?
Sorry, Steve, but $313 for a 2GB Nano is way too expensive. Everybody wants your toys, but we love our wallets, too. I know a lot of the price is taxes, but unless you do something, your international sales will always be irrelevant.
Dell Brazil charges only US$27 for XP Home, bundled with new computers. Does Microsoft charges the same in USA? I doubt it. They´re rewarding consumers worried about piracy, charging a nominal fee, but creating loyalty. Dell also sells a basic desktop for less than US$400,00.
My notebook died a few months ago, I wanted a MacMini, but hey, they cost US$1300 here. I can by a whole notebook for less than US$1000, totally legal, with warranty, CDs and lots of cute labels.
Do I want to have an Apple? You bet. You I buy one? No way. I love your products, but I love my money more.
Item
Brazil Price (US$)
Mac Pro; 2 Intel Xeon 2,66 GHz; 4 cores; RAM 2 x 512 MB; HD 250 GB
Coming from nowhere, a Federal Highway Police helicopter landed, in the space between the lanes, at Avenida Atlantica, using a pedestrian cross area as a landing pad. Some people thought it was an emergency landing. Big mistake. The 75th Interpol Conference will be hosted nearby, and the bird will stay there as long as the Conference goes, from Sep. 19 to Sep. 22.
The local neighbourhood association filled a complain, claiming it was a dangerous and unnecessary landing, and the place they choose as a landing pad endangers pedestrians, because it´s not well isolated (notice the red cones) and a take-off could hurt someone.
It´s the same all the time. People with badges think it grants them a license to do anything, and they are pretty sure the Laws don´t apply to them. Unfortunately, here in the Jungle, they are right.
About the operation in itself, it´s useless, a stupid show-off. A landed chopper is only a target, and a landing pad with no infrastructure is only, well, a painted target. If you´re landed with no infrastructure it means you have fuel enough to take-off and go to a real helibase. So do it, don´t keep your damn flying machine in the middle of the road. Or are they afraid, only because the local drug dealers are equipped with AT-7s and M72-A2 RPGs? (sorry, link in Portuguese).
This post is part of Project 2996, in honour of the victims of 9/11
I had to write about a guy I never knew, Shashi Kiran Lakshmikantha Kadaba. He was a software engineer, like myself, and a hell of a good one. While people from countries not much poorer than his India plotted to kill him, Shashi studied, because that´s the best of all ways if you want a better life for yourself or your kids.
He worked at Wipro, a multi-billion dollar software company in India. But he was just too good, and travelled a lot. Japan, Singapore and the United States were places where his work was appreciated and recognised. He was not a poor immigrant, he was a smart young professional making money and bringing know-how to his own country, as so many Hindus do. But he was more, he was a living proof of the real American Dream, where smart people succeed.
Not-so-smart people blamed America for their own problems, and did what they do best. Actually, the only thing they are good at: Killing. But guess what, Osama; you can kill one Shashi but you can´t kill all of them. His friends are still around, and right now a lot, and I mean a LOT of kids in India, Pakistan and lots of other countries dream about living and working in America. They still believe in the American Dream. They dream about making big money, train their skills, and guess something else: They WILL manage what you´ll NEVER get: To conquer America.
I´m sorry, but I don´t see long lines of immigrants trying their luck at Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. FREE people don´t want to live there, they want to live in America. Your only chance is to force YOUR ideas, but free people don´t listen to you. You´re preaching in the desert, and soon we´ll find you. Then you and your merry men will have to answer for the life of Shashi and so many others.
The one thing you´ll not answer is his Dream. Because no bomb in the world can kill a dream. Shashi´s alive, it´s a dream shared with every single student that arrives in America, including so many Arabs and Muslims that believe in peace and despise you, Osama. As I do. Because Shashi was a fellow geek, and even never knowing him, I feel closer than I´ll ever be with your crackpot ideas and religious nonsense.
You´ve hurt a geek, a brother. And geeks never forget. Worse, geeks program and create the smart weapons you´re so much scared about. Keep it in mind. When the day comes and you hear death from above, that missile will be programmed by some of Shashi´s brothers.
There’s a small little secret about learning another language: Don’t overthink it.
The more you translate, the less you get it. A word-by-word translation WILL lead to a major misunderstanding, sooner or later.
I’m watching an episode of American Dad right now. The main character is complaining about his co-workers at the CIA. “I’m telling the President on you”.
That’s a hard call. If you think in your native language, i.e. Portuguese, the phrase makes no sense. If you translate it word-by-word, makes sense but not enough sense. The secret is:
You understand the context and the meaning of the expression. It does not translate exactly but you KNOW the meaning. Lots of common words work this way. “mastermind” has no direct translation, but anyone with basic English skills knows WHAT it means.
People don’t take it easy, they think one must translate EVERY word and then, by magic, you are understanding another language. Of course the result is a patchwork of words that don’t sound right. With a single look at a single line of those words, one can say if the words were written by an English-born speaker or not.
Obvious? Sure, but you will not believe how gullible people are. A friend of mine, a professional translator, could not realize that the text of a so-called U.S. School book about Amazon was clearly a fake. Her anti-Americanism blinded her. Actually the story was on headlines a few years ago, and even Brazil’s top military organizations didn’t got it as the fake it was.
I had a friend that after 5 years of a very intensive English course couldn’t speak himself out of a Starbucks. Oh yes, he had no idea about what the hell a Starbucks was.
Wanna learn another language? A few hints: grammar, syntax, are the beginning, not the end. If you want to speak more (but never exactly) like a native, you must understand the culture, the slang, the daily gossip.
If you think you know English and don’t understand expressions like “third base”, “mooning”, “corn dog” or “one of these days… Right in the kisser”, I’m sorry to say but you never got it. You can speak like a well-trained robot translator but you’ll never, ever pick up a girl at a party.
Am I being harsh? Maybe, but there’s no other way. Most of the local English schools train people to translate words, not ideas.
It results in people with English degrees demanding for subtitles, and not exercising their English skills unless it’s absolutely necessary. If with related western cultures it leads to a LOT of misunderstandings, I can’t even start to realize how hard Chinese translation can be.
Multilanguage bloggers must check their real language skills. There’s a thin red line between a cute foreign speaking the language and a plain useless rant from someone who doesn’t have a clue about writing in another idiom.
If you want to check someone’s skills, try the simple phrase, from another American Dad’s episode:
“want me to Irish that coffee for you?”
If your test subject can’t explain the meaning of “Irish”, ditch him.
Hey! hurrah! Elections again! Time to enjoy all the intelligent debates, smart people exchanging ideas and lots of well-prepared candidates exposing their platforms-no, hey, that´s Brazil. Where the VERY weird think they can (and sometimes they manage to) get elected for any available position. This year we´ve LOTS of strange figures, and by strange I mean people like this lady, she dresses like a super heroine and her slogan relates to her number, 7001. “two eggs and a stick”. Yes, Exactly what your dirty mind imagined. She runs for Congress.
The guy at the video above, nicknamed “HULK” uses a comic-book style video, where people talk about their rage against the current politicians. I hope the Senate Chair he´s trying to get pays enough to cover the expenses of the big-ass lawsuit Marvel Comics will throw at him.
Not to mention this guy, his slogan is “retired people are not dead yet”. Good, Specially because he sings his speech, while inside a coffin. No, he´s not from the Vampire Party.
