Occupy Wall Street

The ‘Occupy’ movement is intriguing.  The idea of social and economic equality is a continuation of equality movements that have spanned over the past 150 years.  I’m not writing this to argue and protest against The Man and corporate America playing a role into the toilet flush of the world economy.  Instead I want to discuss this movement in terms of this supposed ‘change’ that so many believe or have been talking about with the approaching magical date in 2012.

I’ve written about 2012 before, both debunking and informational posts on the many beliefs, facts, and theories behind it.  To say the least, I’m intrigued, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m a hard core believer – especially when you get all into the alien and sci-fi aspect of it.  If I was to ‘believe’, then I would say my beliefs stem more from the theories of discovery and enlightenment of the Human race that are clearly around us all today.  The ‘Occupy’ movement, Human Genome Project and the advancements in the understanding of our genetics, the exponential advancement of our technology, and the unexplained occurrences: Massive animal deaths (as mapped on Google Maps), increase in major natural disasters (According to the EM-DAT, the total natural disasters reported each year has been steadily increasing in recent decades, from 78 in 1970 to 348 in 2004.), etc.

As far as the ‘Occupy’ movement, the huge global participation is directly attributed to today’s internet and technology.  The internet, in some respects, is the collective subconscious of this planet.  Never before has information been so easily distributed and readily consumed.  One could argue the increase of natural disasters is also a result of internet and technology – 1. We can now live in places never before habitable. 2. News of every natural disaster reaches millions.  So, it’s no surprise how the ‘Occupy’ phenomena has spread so quickly to 1500 cities worldwide.

Is the world finally becoming enlightened and demanding a global change?  Social and economic equality makes sense, but how can that be achieved?  Can the ‘Occupy’ movement really force global change?  All great questions that have yet to be answered. The timing is impeccable though with 2012 right around the corner when mentions from ancient civilizations, modern day spiritualists, and even scientists all theorize one similar concept: Change is upon us.

The invention of the smartphone is a mixed blessing for wireless companies. While the devices have boosted data plan sales considerably, they are threatening to kill another revenue stream ($9 Billion) dead in its tracks: text messaging.  And their cellular call sales are next in line.

T-Mobile recently announced that its Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) app will now be available on Android phone.  UMA allows cell phone users to use a WiFi connection to make phone calls with – bypassing the cell network, therefore not using cell minutes!!  It seems the day is coming where the data plan will be all you need to have full access to the world from your cell.

Don’t get too excited though.  It’s going to be a while before major metropolitan areas will have city-wide WiFi access allowing us to completely bypass the cell networks, but first up to the electric chair is the SMS text.  Dozens of smartphone applications offer “free” text messaging services, which allow wireless customers to send and receive texts by piggybacking on their existing data plans. That means people who download those apps — such as GroupMe, Google Voice, Disco, Beluga, Kik and WhatsApp — are able to bypass the expensive texting plans offered by wireless companies.

What’s more, an increasing number of free text messaging services are being baked into the smartphones themselves. Research In Motion (RIMM) offers BlackBerry Messenger, which allows BlackBerry users to text one another over their data plans. Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) plans to introduce its similar iMessage app in the fall for the iPhone.

Texting growth has slowed in recent years, according to CTIA, but the trend has grown more dramatic in recent months. The number of texts sent per U.S. subscriber actually fell for the first time ever in the first quarter, said UBS’ Hodulik.

That’s a concern to Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500), AT&T (T, Fortune 500) and Sprint (S, Fortune 500), which each offer text messaging plans priced at 20 cents per message or up to $20 per month for unlimited messages.

The challenge people still have is that not every contact in their phonebook necessarily has one or all of these apps downloaded on their phone.   Inevitably there is someone in your phonebook who you still have to send an old-fashioned text message.  So for a while, SMS texts survives to live another day.

Think back to when you were born.  How different are things nowadays?  Well now look back 100 years ago.  It’s crazy to think about how much has changed.  Even crazier to think about how much things will change in the next 100 years.

They say that technological advancement is exponential.  Well with that in mind, looking at these changes in the past 100 years, it’s crazy to even imagine what we will see the rest of our lives!!

The year is 1910.
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!

Here are some of the U.S. statistics for the Year 1910:

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47

Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama , Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.

With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!

The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour.

The average U .S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year ..

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,

a dentist $2,500 per year,

a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and

a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home ..

Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had no college education.

Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as “substandard.”

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.

Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!!!

Crossword puzzles , canned beer, and ice tea hadn’t been invented yet.

There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn’t read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores.
Back then pharmacist said, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.” (Shocking!)

Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.

There are rapidly growing concerns on the energy crisis as we wrap up this first decade of the 21st century.  This crisis concerns more than just people getting to and from work, flying to remote resort destinations, or conflicts in the middle east over oil.  The lifelines of the human race, such as water and food distribution, will be severely threatened in the next few decades.  We simply consume more energy every year at a exponential rate that our current energy production cannot keep up with; not to mention the destruction our current energy sources are doing to our ecosystem.

Just to give you an idea of the crisis in the U.S.:  In 1999, the United States consumed 95 quadrillion BTUs of energy, while producing 61 quadrillion BTUs. The result being a 34 quadrillion BTU energy deficit. We use far more energy than we produce domestically. To keep the lights on and the wheels rolling, we make up the shortfall by importing energy, mainly in the form of tanker-upon-tanker of pricey OPEC oil. And that, is the heart of the energy crisis.

Clearly we need to find an alternative energy source.  One that is non-destructive to our ecosystem and one that is not in danger of being depleted completely.  The answer is algae.

Gene scientist Craig Venter has announced plans to develop next-generation biofuels from algae in a $600m (£370m) partnership with oil giant Exxon Mobil.

His company, Synthetic Genomics Incorporated (SGI), will develop fuels that can be used by cars or aeroplanes without the need for any modification of their engines. Exxon Mobil will provide $600m over five years with half going to SGI.

“Meeting the world’s growing energy demands will require a multitude of technologies and energy sources,” said Emil Jacobs, vice president of research and development at ExxonMobil. “We believe that biofuel produced by algae could be a meaningful part of the solution in the future if our efforts result in an economically viable, low-net carbon emission transportation fuel.”

Algae is an attractive way to harvest solar energy because they reproduce themselves, they can live in areas not useful for producing food and they do not need clean or even fresh water.  As a biofuel, algae is essentially an organic solar panel.  In addition, they use far less space to grow than traditional biofuel crops such as corn or palm oil.

“Algae consumes carbon dioxide and sunlight in the presence of water, to make a kind of oil that has similar molecular structures to petroleum products we produce today,” said Jacobs. “That means it could be possible to convert it into gasoline and diesel in existing refineries, transport it through existing pipelines, and sell it to consumers from existing service stations.”

The Carbon Trust, a government-backed agency that promotes low-carbon technologies, has forecast that algae-based biofuels could replace more than 70bn litres of fossil fuels used every year around the world in road transport and aviation by 2030, equivalent to 12% of annual global jet fuel consumption or 6% of road transport diesel. In carbon terms, this equates to an annual saving of more than 160m tonnes of CO2 globally with a market value of more than £15bn.

Ben Graziano, research and development manager at the Carbon Trust, said that alge-based biofuels offered the potential for “major carbon savings”. “Exxon Mobil is estimating that algae could yield just over 20,000 litres of fuel per hectare each year, which is in line with our own forecasts. However, producing biofuel from algae on such a massive commercial scale is a major challenge, which will require many years of research and development.”

Venter, who is best known for his role in sequencing the human genome, said the new partnership was the largest single investment in trying to produce biofuels from algae but said the challenge to creating a viable next-generation fuel was the ability to produce it in large volumes. “This would not happen without the oil industry stepping up and taking part,” he said. “The challenges are not minor for any of us but we have the combined teams and scientific and engineering talents to give this the best chance of success.”

The research program will begin with the construction of a new test facility in San Diego, where Venter says different techniques to grow and optimise algae will be tested. These will include open ponds as well as bioreactors, where the algae are grown in sealed tubes. “We will be trying out these different approaches … using newly-discovered natural algae to test the best approaches we can come up with to go into a scale-up mode.”

Venter has spent several years trawling the world’s oceans in search of environmentally-friendly microbes that could be used, in one way or another, to bring down the world’s carbon emissions. The organisms he has found include those that can turn CO2 into methane, which could be used to make fuels from the exhaust gases of power stations, and another that turns coal into natural gas, speeding up a natural process and reducing both the energy needed to extract the fossil fuel and the amount of pollution caused when it is burned.

Welcome to the future.

Los Angeles is a ridiculously big town with way too many different industries for me to even begin to mention.  Regardless, being here 5 years, I’ve been around the business block and seen some sights.  Last week I attended two ‘mixers’ that had absolutely nothing to do with each other, yet had lots to do with each other.  I saw a lot of the same faces at both places.  Let me explain…

The LA Tech Crew LA in all it’s glitz and glamour has been and still is the entertainment capitol.  Although technology is clearly a large party of some of the Hollywood blockbusters we all know and love, people wouldn’t necessarily refer to LA as a ‘tech town.’  Well it seems the times…they are a changin.

First, on Thursday, I attended an event at place called Blankspaces.  Blankspaces is a pretty innovative idea for today’s entrepreneur.  Let’s be frank, LA isn’t your typical ‘suit and tie’, ‘slave in an office for 10hrs’ kind of town.  Why?  “Oh the weather outside is weather.” – It’s too damn nice out to be stuck in an office.  Alas, to be a good entrepreneur you must have an office at some point in your work week (there are exceptions of course).  Enter Blankspaces.  For as little as $475 a month, you can “lease” office space at their complex.  That is the basic price, but the maximum price that I saw on their rate page was 1100 for a private office unlimited use for just 1 month.  Obviously if you buy in bulk, your rate is cheaper.  They have day rates as well, so basically, any solution to your office needs.  Pretty nifty idea if you ask me.

Back to the event…It was really quite amazing; the turnout was great and there was free food and drink (always the way to a crowd’s heart).  They had Shira Lazar hosting it (which only strengthens my argument that LA is becoming more of a tech town…afterall, Shira is the ‘hot tech girl’…duh).  Asahi was providing the beer (although I’ll admit I was too hung over from the night before to enjoy any of it), and there was live music and lots of networking going on. 

There are two sponsors I remember, one being a company called the Xbrand Group – another interesting idea.  You’ve seen it with water…take a bottle of water and slap your company logo on it and you got your own brand of water.  Well, take that idea and apply it to energy drink.  Now you can throw your own parties and tell Redbull and Rockstar to f#@% off!!  Actually this is a great idea for events where title sponsors want to own everything…even the energy drink.  I know you event industry people are feeling me on that tip.

TheScene.com was the other sponsor showing off the Hollywood Prom landing page and the technology behind it.  People are starting to get the idea that nightlife can be social.  If you are curious as to what I mean by that…I will explain soon in another blog post.  But for now, just visit: www.hollywoodprom2009.com.

On to the second event…the Tubefilter Meetup.  Before I get into this, take a look at this highlight video so you can get an idea of what I’m about to talk about.

After the Streamy Awards, Tubefilter kept the momentum going by producing this great mixer (what they call a ‘meet-up’) at Avalon in Hollywood.  Here again you see the influence of tech as Tubefilter’s  existence was born with the web television industry and the technology that goes behind it (ok…the art too).  The sponsors on board were a tech company out of Canada that has this cool iPhone app that brings web television shows right to your iPhone.  I’m behind the times because I don’t have a cool smart phone like that (I’m waiting Helio) so I’m not qualified to speak on such technologies.  But it seems as if the iPhone is turning into a portable entertainment center/computer.  Not bad.

So there you have it.  Proof that there is life on Mars..I mean…for the tech biz in Los Angeles.

If you clicked expecting to read about God’s word on the solution to surviving this economic decline, then you might be a little bit disappointed.  In this post, I will be outlining a few channels in which I manage to strum up business, but the bottom line is:  Regardless of what ideas I give you, it still takes consistent hard work on your part to take advantage of what I’m about to share with you.  You control your own destiny.  Remember that.

With that, I give you:  How to Make Money in This Bleeding Economy for Professional Service Providers.

You may not realize it, but you may fall under this category.  If you offer marketing, web design, sales, PR, or IT consulting services, then you obviously offer professional services.  But in addition, things like dog walker, baby sitter, adult care, rehabilitation, physical training, catering, personal chef, writer, or even nightlife promotion all fall under the category of a service provider.  It’s just up to you to utilize the tools that the web offers to turn yourself into a professional.

How do you go about getting people to know who you are, what you do, and to hire you??  That’s the hardest part.  Good thing we have this thing called the internet that has millions of resources to utilize.

Craigslist.org

By now if you haven’t heard of craigslist, then you probably haven’t realized the internet is on computers yet (to quote Homer Simpson).  I wrote a little blog post about craigslist perpetuating the spread of Bed Bugs.  Don’t let that deter you from using the site (other than from buying used furniture!!) though.  Craigslist is one of the best resources there is to strum up new business.

Now here’s my theory on why this is a great resource.  Companies struggling in this economy can’t afford to hire someone on a full-time basis providing medical benefits, paying employee tax, insurance, etc.  But they have work that needs to be done on a specific project they are working on.  If they can’t afford to hire someone on full-time, they need someone to work as a 1099 contractor.  But, as many of you probably know, finding good contractors is not an easy task.  Many times the project requires some specific knowledge of the business and expertise in what they are executing.  A head-hunter is way too expensive to pay to find someone (remember they can’t even afford to hire someone on a full-time basis).  So more and more of these companies are turning to craigslist as a cost efficient and effective means of finding someone.

Go on craigslist now and look in the job postings or even the “gigs” postings.  You will find requests for all kinds of work.  Now, the trick then becomes, getting them to notice your response with the other thousands of responses they are getting.  That my friend is up to you.  I have my methods…but you’ll have to pay me to get me to reveal my secrets!!

www.Linkedin.com

Linkedin is another interesting story.  It’s probably the most successful social networking sites that targets the business audience.  When it first came out, it was just another friend connector.  I really didn’t use it that much.  But with the user base growing as large as it has combined with the upgrades and improvements they made on the site, this can be a great resource for finding business.  The job posting section is the main resource I’m referring to when finding business.  Like craigslist, businesses that can only hire on contractors on a project-by-project basis are posting their needs on Linkedin like crazy.

What’s great about Linkedin is that because you have your own profile, you have a lot more resources to utilize to sell yourself.  You can post much more than just your resume, you can link to websites of projects you worked on, list organizations your involved in, and simply paint a picture of who you are as a business person.  Let’s face it, we’ve all had instances of working with someone that was an “expert” but miserable to work with.  With Linkedin, this can be avoided.

There’s also a feature that allows you have people “recommend” you.  This can range from friends to family to colleagues to previous clients.  And nothing is a better testimony of the quality of your work than a client success story…written by the client!  Not only is this a great feature to have when seeking work, it’s almost a necessity.  I see a lot of the posts out there noting that they prefer candidates with strong recommendations.

You will face the same challenges as you did with craigslist:  Thousands of people reply to job postings.  So again you have to be creative in your ways to get through to that person reviewing all these replies.  And again…no I won’t share my secret!!

So there are a few ways I wanted to share with the world on how I strum up business.  It’s a tough world out there now and we all need to love and support each other so that we all make it out on top when the economy (and it will I promise) turns around.

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New Scientist magazine reported a story on a single-cell organism that absorb electricity and emit methane as a bi-product.  This methane gas can be collected and saved and used by humans.  It’s a revolutionary break-through down the long road of searching for renewable energy. When living on the cathode of an electrolytic cell, the organism can take in electrons and use their energy to convert carbon dioxide into methane.

Tom Curtis at the Institute for Research on Environment and Sustainability at Newcastle University, UK, says that the use of microorganisms, rather than conventional catalysts, is a plus. “There are no noble metals involved, so it should be very cheap,” he says.

Of the energy put into the system as electricity, 80% was eventually recovered when the methane was burned – a fairly high efficiency. “You don’t get all the energy back, but that’s a problem with any form of energy storage,” says Curtis.

Apparently this system is very scalable, so there may be major developments in the near future.  It’ll be interesting to see what sort of a imprint this will make on a grower energy crisis.  May not be the end all, be all solution…but it might take us down the path to finding that solution.

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Although I’m a United States citizen, it’s stories like these that cast a shadow of doubt about our government agencies falling to the pressures of corporations.  First of all, let me state that I do not condone people pirating software, technology, music, or film/tv programming.  With that said, there has to be a line drawn that clearly states the limit in which a government can intervene in this war. 

Yes I agree corporate entities have a right to protect their assets, but we as humans have a right to our privacy.  Although the internet is a forum that allows file sharing to happen easily, doesn’t mean you can exploit it’s users.  That’d be like the secret service busting me for handing my friend the latest Chili Pepper’s CD to upload to his/her music library.  It’s just not right.

Sweden, who apparently hosts 8% of the global peer-to-peer file sharing traffic (Popular BitTorrent sharing site, The Pirate Bay, is based in Sweden), passed a new law, which is based on the European Union’s Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED),  allowing copyright holders to obtain a court order forcing ISPs to provide the IP addresses identifying which computers have been sharing copyrighted material.

That’s right, you share a file using a BitTorrent site, and you could be found.  Now, for us Americans, I don’t think there’s that much of an immediate threat.  But if this becomes a trend, we could be looking at similar legislation being brought to our House and Senate for approval.  We don’t get to vote on it people…we get to watch our elected officials decide for us.

I’m torn.  In one way, I see and understand the point of the law, but there’s a part of me that has a hard time swallowing the notion that my privacy may not be protected.  I’m curious as to what people have to say…you give a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” on this law??

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Recently there’s seems to be a boom on facebook with content posting.  Used to be that people just posted pictures and videos.  But now I’m seeing more and more postings of outside content like what people do on digg.com or reddit.com.

There’s a site I came across today that was posted on facebook.  It’s an iPhone app that basically serves as drunk dialing prevention.  Everybody is guilty.  Let’s face it, we all have had those weak moments at 1am-3am drunk from a night of partying trying to keep the mind off the ex.  You’re about to go home alone and keep staring at your phone.  You keep telling yourself not to, but alas the poor judgement that is blurred by the alcohol consumption allows you to press the call button and you either don’t get an answer and are pissed that he/she will know you drunk dialed…or they do pick up, come over, and the next day after they leave you’re kicking yourself in the butt.  Either way…bad news.

Well now there’s the BDB.  You can download the app to your iTunes through the site and install on your iPhone.  You can then pick any contacts out of your list that you want to block (for those of you that have multiple ex’s to worry about).  This prevents you from calling or texting them.  The next day when you wake up, you can remove them from the block list.  Simple as that (which means when you’re drunk, it’s just an extra step you have to go through – but you hope that will be enough to prevent you from the drunk dial!!).

Check out the site: www.baddecisionmaker.com

I just had my first experience streaming movies from Netflix.com on the Xbox system.  I can’t remember the last time I actually went to a Blockbuster to rent a movie because of cable Video On Demand.  Netflix, though nice, required me to be motivated and go to the mailbox to send my movies back.  Now Netflix has made life for the lazy even better.  This is actually a suprisingly pleasant, plug-and-play process.  The software add-on took just seconds to download and there was an easy to remember url (netflix.com/activate) where you went to and, while logged into your Netflix account, you enter an activation code that is given to you on your Xbox and, vuala, you are ready to rock.

The browsing process is even easy.  Netflix has a separate tab, “Watch Instantly”, that lists every movie in their library that you can stream.  And if you prefer to search through their whole library instead, it also conveniently lists a blue “Play” button on the movies that can be streamed.  You add as many movies as you want to the queue and now they are all available with ratings, reviews, and synopses.

From what I’ve read about it, there is a revenue share deal in place, but details seem to be private information.  According to reports, 1 million Xbox users downloaded and activated the Netflix add-on equaling over 1.5 billion minutes of streamed video.  Bravo guys.  That’s impressive.  It’s great to see successful business stories in the current economic struggle.

On a side note, PS3 has decided to develop their own VOD application.  Sony movies are currently excluded from the streaming application on Xbox.  There won’t be any sharing of revenue for them, but can they come close to the numbers that the Xbox/Netflix partnership is producing???  I highly doubt it…but only time will tell. Stay tuned…

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