Life User

I've moved

2011-12-19T06:42:00.000-05:00

They say you have to do bad work before you can do good work. This blog is an example. Just like actors and film directors, bloggers sometimes produce spammy, second-rate work when we're young and need money. Come read my newer, better writing at http://softwetware.blogspot.com. This blog will no longer be updated.

When Scholarships Interfere With Education

2010-05-24T08:13:00.000-04:00

(This article was originally published on Associated Content on November 22, 2008. Since AC is now excluding most writers outside the USA, I've moved it here.)

I've come to the realization that my Trent University Board of Governors' Leadership Scholarship is decreasing the quality of my education.

There are a number of courses at Trent, where I'm in my second year as a Computer Science major, that would make my education more well-rounded and that I'd like to take, but can't afford to -- not because they have higher tuition fees or expensive books, but because I might get B's or C's in them, which could drop my GPA below 80% (GPAs are measured only on a percentage scale at Trent) and cost me my $4500 for the following year. To be financially secure, I have to avoid rocking the boat and instead stick with the narrow range of subjects I know I can do well in -- computer science, economics, math where it's required for Comp Sci, and Spanish up to second-year level -- and every semester will be more of the same, in what's supposed to be the experimentation stage of my life.

The implications are staggering. If I'm choosing my courses too cautiously for purely financial reasons, so must every other scholar from a working-class family in Ontario whose scholarship depends on maintaining a high average. Combine that with things like a requirement in Ontario that all BSc's include 14 science credits (where 20 credits is a four-year degree, and Trent's joint-major humanities require 8 non-science credits), and employers who don't respect BAs, and we get a system that punishes people for going outside their specialties. I'm trying to imagine how Leonardo Da Vinci could have contributed to anything but engineering had he been in my position in school. (His mom was a peasant.)

In Canada, we have two types of post-secondary schools: universities and colleges. Training for specific narrow occupations traditionally happens in colleges. Universities are supposed to be for a broader education with broader applications, some of which aren't in the graduate's career. Whereas college teaches a student how to wire circuits or build a wooden frame for a house, university is supposed to teach how to succeed in several different careers, how to decide how to vote, how to spend free time, how to raise a family, and what to write for Associated Content.

University scholarship committees, please stop requiring a high GPA to maintain the awards you grant. Let it be enough that we pass all our courses; if you must require more than that, require that we take a diverse range of subjects. That way, your hard-fought money will help students understand the world and how they fit into it, not just the narrow specialty required for a particular career.

Associated Content closing the border

2010-04-30T14:24:00.000-04:00

Associated Content recently announced that it will no longer be able to pay international authors for the page views our articles, songs, photos and videos earn, unless we qualify as Featured Contributors. Even Featured Contributors will have to earn at least $100 before they see any money, while everyone in the US still enjoys a $1.50 threshold.

Associated Content staff claim this is because of a recent review of their policies against tax laws. But tax laws haven't changed, and neither AdSense nor Bukisa nor PayPerPost has made any similar changes lately.

Combined with the Featured Local Contributor program, which only people living in the US can qualify for, this suggests to me that AC is deciding they just can't monetize articles by writers outside the US.

Conservative Americans are known for asking their liberal opponents, "Why do you hate America?" Given recent events, AC must answer a slightly different question: "Why do you hate everyone but America?"

As a student, I probably won't have time to research and write an article on the same subject every month (I certainly couldn't do so this past school year), which is among the requirements of a Featured Contributor. I probably also don't have enough expertise on any of the topics to qualify.

But if AC doesn't want my work, I'll gladly take my business elsewhere. I'd previously been giving AC exclusive rights to five articles, but next week I'll repost them here on Life User.

Affinity Click: A Refreshing Change in Pay-per-Click

2010-04-09T11:05:00.000-04:00

AffinityClick, my sponsor for today's post, is a new pay-per-click ad network that looks interesting for two reasons.

First, every ad it shows is for a specific retail product, and a product is chosen based on the blog post where the ad appears. To achieve the same depth of targeting with AdWords, the advertiser would have to create a different Ad Group for each product in its catalogue. Amazon Associates does this sort of product targeting already, but it's pay-per-action rather than pay-per-click (which shifts more of the risk onto the blogger, who usually has the shallower pockets).

Second, it guarantees to pay the blogger 70% of the advertising revenues, whereas Google doesn't tell AdSense advertisers what percentage it pays. I've read rumours that Google adjusts the percentage to artificially smooth out earnings figures. I'm not sure I believe this, but I bet a fixed percentage means steadier income and less risk.

In short, AffinityClick ads for blogs look like a refreshing change for those of us trying to make money blogging. I've applied to join the program myself, and I can't wait to try it. Maybe it's time to give pay-per-click another chance.

PayPerPost Not The Answer for Low-Traffic Blogs

2010-04-04T20:43:00.000-04:00

When I first started accepting sponsored-post commissions from PayPerPost.com, I thought I'd found a revenue model that would work for Life User.

Since I was paid a set amount for each post, I reasoned, the sponsors would have an incentive to drive traffic to the posts. What I was being paid for was my ability to write, not (as with cost-per-click and cost-per-impression ads) my limited ability to drum up traffic on my own. Since I'm better at writing than at attracting traffic, this would have meant PPP made sense for me.

Alas, it still didn't work. I've earned more so far from PPP than from AdSense, but I'm also having to do more work. AdSense would allow my archived posts to just sit there while the blog was dormant.

While my previous sponsors were all selling reasonably uncontroversial products or services, today's sponsor sells payday loans. I'm sure payday loans have gotten working poor people out of a lot of financial crises, especially in places where credit cards are hard to get, but where I live they have a long way to go ethically, charging transaction fees that put the effective APR well into the hundreds of points. Plus, I'm only being paid US$0.99 for the post (I've had previous jobs pay up to US$7.50), at a time when exams and final projects mean I need to use my time selectively.

I also tried another pay-per-post marketplace site called Blogsvertise, but didn't get a single assignment.

So if no other sponsors have presented attractive offers by the time my payment for this post is cleared, I'm going to close my PayPerPost account. (Apparently they will waive the $50 cash-out threshold for bloggers who are doing so.) This blog will still be available as an archive, but I won't update it anymore.

The Kindness of Strange Sponsors

2010-03-23T00:24:00.000-04:00

The post sponsorships I've been offered since I joined PayPerPost in the fall have been a weird mix. Three on vision correction, one on chocolate, one on TVs, one for a Web design firm (who's much more local than my readership is), one on religious views, and tonight, one on real estate. But so far, I've always been able to figure out what the sponsor was selling easily enough. Not so with tonight's next sponsor.

The sponsor's products are Matter Management, Legal Hold and E Billing. I've managed to figure out three things about them:

They're software.
They're available both as software-as-a-service, and through the type of old-fashioned off-the-shelf licences that open source is rapidly killing.
They're meant to help lawyers manage their firms or departments.

I've never written about the legal profession before, and I doubt Life User will ever attract more than its share of lawyers or legal staff as readers (at least, I hope it won't :-) ). Why the sponsor wants to buy this post, then, is anyone's guess, but I'm sure someone had what at least seemed like a good enough reason. Marketing departments work in mysterious ways.

AdWords and a Real Estate Sponsor

2010-03-22T23:51:00.000-04:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Today's first sponsor is a service directory for people buying homes in the United States. They provide local quotes on home appraisal and pest inspections, as well as a closing cost calculator. It seems odd that I'd attract such a sponsor, since I've never posted about real estate before, but a posting job's a job.

Maybe part of the reason I'm attracting such sponsorships is that I'm now on AdWords, and am telling prospective sponsors so. Yes, you heard right: Google offered me a free trial coupon for AdWords, so starting last night, I've been trying to use it to help Life User reach its full potential as an engaging, widely-read and financially successful blog.

To monetize the new traffic, I chose my review articles of the best Manowar and Machinae Supremacy songs as the landing pages for my text ads, since those posts still have Amazon widgets specifically tailored to them. To ensure visitors can actually read my reviews and buy the songs, I've chosen to limit the targeting to English-speaking adults in the US. Because Blogger still has some issues displaying on cell phones, I chose not to target phones.

Even with those restrictions, they've managed to show my ads over 48,000 times in about 24 hours! That figure drives home how huge Google is, much more effectively than market cap, usage share, revenue or employee headcount ever could. What's surprising, though, is that only about 1,000 of these impressions were in Google search results. Another 8,000 are with "search partners" (apparently this includes parked domains), and the rest are from "content" (which I assume means other AdSense sites).

I've had 14 clicks for CAD$2.60 of the trial credit, a cost per click of $0.19. (Compare to the US$0.35 per click I've averaged to date on AdSense, after Google takes its unspecified cut.) I'll be interested to see how the clickthrough rates — currently very low — improve as AdWords' algorithms gain experience with Life User.

Until then, happy house shopping!

Seeing The Glasses as Half-Full

2010-03-03T20:25:00.001-05:00

Apparently, Zenni Optical was very satisfied with my last sponsored post about their eyeglasses, since they're sponsoring a second post less than two months later. At this rate, they'll have paid for my next pair by the time I need it!

Image via Wikipedia

My fellow Canadians will be glad to know that they can ship to Canada for just US$6.95 per order. (They don't mention this on the site, but this was the answer I received to an e-mail inquiry.) That's only $2 more than US customers pay, and it's nice to finally see a US online store that doesn't screw its north-of-the-border shoppers over on shipping. An order can include any number of pairs. Be aware, though, that the glasses are made in China and therefore subject to a tariff in Canada; ask the site for a quote from their customs broker.

I'm glad to see I've finally found a revenue source to which Life User is suited. AdSense is still barely working, and Amazon Associates isn't working at all, but this is my sixth sponsored post, and once I finish it I'll have earned US$20.20 on PayPerPost in less than three months.

Silicon Valley North: Why Ottawa and Not Toronto?

2010-02-25T02:34:00.000-05:00

My sponsor for this post, Web design Joomla Ottawa, is an Ottawa website design firm, which reminds me of a question that's been bugging me for a long time. Why does Ottawa, and not Toronto, have a big enough IT industry to be called Silicon Valley North?

Image via Wikipedia

Not only does Toronto's metropolitan area have 4.5 times the population of Ottawa's, but we also have five times as many people who speak English, the language on which almost all programming languages are based. Plus, without Canada's national capital, we don't "need" as many politicians or lobbyists, leaving more brain power for such industries as IT. We're also closer to Ontario's technical universities (Waterloo, UOIT and Ryerson).

Come on, Toronto! We can do better!

Bringing the Ads Back

2010-02-17T08:01:00.001-05:00

When I decided last month to stop running ads on Life User, the decision was based on two assumptions that turned out to be wrong.

Image via Wikipedia

The first was that an ad-free blog would be more appealing to Blogsvertise, PayPerPost and Sponzai advertisers. It appears that isn't the case: since I dropped the ads four weeks ago, I've only received one $0.50 offer across all three sites (to buy a space on my blogroll, where you'll find them under Dark Chocolate).

The second was that AdSense wasn't making me any money; it looks like they must have corrected some sort of click-tracking error and found they actually owed me $0.20 for a click I received.

It's true that I'll never be able to live off my AdSense earnings as long as Life User is my only site. It's also true that I probably won't have enough to cash out any time soon. But even if I only earn one dollar a year from my blog archives (I made $0.27 in the fourth quarter of 2009), that still means I'll be able to cash out a little sooner once I have a real AdSense-viable site (which I expect I will, even if it takes another five or ten years). And that's worth the very little trouble it takes; I'd rather get paid for my blogging efforts gradually over the course of a few decades than not at all.

No More Google Ads on Life User!

2010-01-22T16:06:00.001-05:00

Good news if you don't like banner ads: now you don't have to see any on Life User.

Revenues from AdSense (the "Ads by Google" that were appearing in blocks on the sidebar) have been almost nothing over the past few months, so I've deleted them. Hopefully, this will make Life User more attractive to post sponsors (which are where all the real money's come from lately), since they won't have to compete with the ads for your attention. Maintaining the archive doesn't cost me anything, soit makes sense to give it away to promote post sponsorship.

I also tried AdBrite for a while. Revenues were a little better, but it took so long to manually filter the ads that it wasn't worthwhile. If I didn't filter the ads, two thirds of them were unacceptable. I suppose Life User isn't well-suited to the pay-per-click (PPC) revenue model. Apparently theme blogs do better in PPC, but I'm not ready to start, maintain and promote a theme blog.

Apart from sponsored posts themselves, no ads will appear alongside posts made after September 27, 2009. (Older posts that had Amazon Associates links and widgets will still have them. Even if they continue not to make any money, the widgets are useful because they either illustrate how to set up widgets or provide licensed samples of the songs reviewed.)

Reincarnation, karma, and what makes sense.

2010-01-20T20:27:00.000-05:00

reincarnation makes more sense to me than heaven or hell, which would waste whatever the universe is ultimately made of, but I don't believe in a karma system either.

My sponsor this time is a Fictional movie site for believers in karma and reincarnation.

Eyeglasses: As Much as Meets the Eye

2010-01-15T08:52:00.001-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

Once again, I've been sponsored by a merchant of vision correction. This time, though, it's a store selling good old-fashioned eyeglasses in the United States (and I'm waiting to hear back on whether they ship internationally).

It's nice to see high-index wearers such as myself finally getting some attention: refractive indices from 1.57 to 1.67 are available (though only the basic 1.57 for bifocals), with prices well within the double digits including shipping.

The site does have a few drawbacks. You need to already have a prescription, which can be expensive if you don't have insurance that covers eye exams (although one review reports that low-income Brooklyn, NY residents can get eye exams for $15-$50 at Lutheran Medical Center). Designer frames aren't available. Shipping can take up to a month, even within the US. Also, the lenses are made in a lab in China, so I'm guessing they aren't sweatshop-free.

An interesting question, though, is why two of my three sponsors to date have been in the vision-correction industry, given that I don't normally write about eyesight. Do they think people with 20/20 eyesight are never into heavy metal or high tech? Or is it just that the optical industry is one of the earliest adopters of blog marketing?

40-Inch TVs and Failed Referral Marketing

2009-12-31T13:16:00.002-05:00

My sponsor for this post described itself (or himself or herself, but I'm assuming it's a genderless business entity) as a price-comparison site for 40 Inch TVs in the UK. But all the prices it shows are from Amazon.co.uk.

This isn't the first time I've seen an Amazon Associate run an "online store" that was just a front for Amazon and had no other real content. But it is the first time I've seen such a store pretend to be a comparison site. (It doesn't even provide a table or anything to compare the features of the different sets.)

Two months ago, The Electron Plumber wrote about what not to do when trying to make money through Amazon Associates. I was surprised to see Life User had made the list, for not having a fixed theme. (I've since taken my site-wide Amazon ads down; no point bugging you the reader with ads that won't make any money.) But unlike the sponsor, I had avoided the one bigger mistake: failing to offer content other than ads. Even in a sponsored post like this one, I find something to say.

When human eyesight isn't good enough

2009-12-28T07:43:00.003-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

My sponsor for this post, Stahl Eye Center Garden City NY, informs me that LASIK (laser vision correction) is now the most common surgery in the United States. This factoid may seem rather mundane, but consider the implications for transhumanism.

Wikipedia cites studies in peer-reviewed journals that say 1 in 4 people in the United States have myopia (nearsightedness). WrongDiagnosis.com estimates that almost another 1 in 4 have hyperopia (farsightedness).

Needing corrective lenses, then, is almost part of being human. By undergoing vision correction, consumers are deciding that, at least when it comes to eyesight, being human isn't good enough.

Both marketers and public policy analysts should take note of what this presages. Just as consumers are tired of needing glasses or contacts, one can guess that we'll get tired of all the other limitations of human nature, seeing them not as part of who we are but as problems to be solved. Once biotechnology and cybernetics deliver more ways to be better-than-human, many if not most consumers will jump at the chance. Any marketing campaign that appeals to this desire will succeed, and any legislation that interferes too much with it will be unpopular.

Zemanta Tags and Life User

2009-10-14T12:00:00.000-04:00

I'm now letting Zemanta choose tags for my past, present and future posts on Life User. I may choose a few manual tags additionally, but I won't turn down any Zemanta suggestion, no matter how irrelevant it seems. This is intended as a form of search-engine optimization, meaning it's meant to increase the chance of (hopefully interested) readers finding and visiting Life User from a search result page.

You may think it black-hat of me to knowingly include, for the purposes of search-engine optimization, tags that are apparently irrelevant to the post. But consider the following:

Tags aren't like a book's index. They're not used mainly for browsing within a blog, but for searching across blogs. Thus, it's important to use the tags people are actually searching for, rather than the tags I'd choose in a vacuum. Sure, this makes the tag cloud a little less useful as a research aid, but who uses a tag cloud as a research aid anyway?
Relevance isn't black-and-white. My last post, a review of The Lawnmower Man, is highly relevant to the film, moderately relevant to virtual reality (which uses it as a plot device) and Pierce Brosnan (one of the stars), and only tangentially relevant to Stephen King (whose short story it was falsely advertised as an adaptation of). Its relevance to a combination of two or more of those terms, which could easily occur in the same search, is even fuzzier. Yet I can't choose to weakly or partially apply the Stephen King tag: I have to either apply it fully or not at all. (This is a great example of where fuzzy logic and fuzzy set theory should be applied but aren't.) Tags can thus only be a rough guide to a post's subject matter anyway.
Relevance is in the eye of the beholder. Web surfers' search terms don't always exactly match the intent of their searches, because the intent can't always be boiled down to a set of keywords (especially when considering only the surfer's limited vocabulary).
Serendipity has always been and will always be important as a way of finding content the readers didn't know they wanted. An occasional irrelevant tag leads to serendipity.
I'm not a perfect tagger either. I may unintentionally incorporate recurring themes into my writing, across a wide range of nominal subject matter, and not be aware of them. Zemanta tagging reveals them not only to me, but also to interested readers and advertisers who might not otherwise find my blog. Also, despite my best efforts, I end up applying a lot of tags that will only ever be used once, because it turns out I don't have much to say about the corresponding topic. Zemanta is the only truly objective and impartial judge of what my blog is about, and what it says about who I am.
Search-engine optimization is the fuel that keeps Life User running. There's no point in writing articles that nobody will ever read. I need to get a certain amount of social feedback and/or ad revenue each month if I'm to keep dedicating much time to the blog. Getting feedback and ad revenue depends on getting traffic, and Zemanta knows better than I do what tags will and won't help get me traffic. While it may sound unsavoury, doing whatever it takes to get traffic is what will let me keep providing all of you with a steady stream of quality writing.

To keep the tag cloud manageable in size and reasonably useful to humans, I've set it up (using a Cascading Style Sheet rule) to hide tags that apply to only one post. As of this writing, 155 of my 185 tags fall into that category. I figure topics that occur in only one post are better found through the Search This Blog bar.

The Lawnmower Man: an Underrated Classic Movie

2009-10-11T23:58:00.009-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Welcome to the first installment of Underrated Classic. In this new occasional feature, I'll review an older movie, album or book that deserved a lot more critical acclaim than it got, and a result can be picked up on the cheap.

When director Brett Leonard's science-fiction movie The Lawnmower Man was released in 1992, New Line Cinema tried to convince us that it was based on Stephen King's short fantasy story of the same name. It wasn't, and I think this is the main reason why such a great film opened to mixed reviews.

Pierce Brosnan is Dr. Peter Angelo, a scientist experimenting with a combination of nootropic drugs and virtual reality to increase the intelligence and aggressiveness of chimpanzees, apparently so that they can serve as soldiers when human volunteers are in short supply.

After a chimp kills several guards and escapes, pacifist Peter quits his job at secretive Pentagon contractor Virtual Space Industries, and moves the experiment to his garage. He plans to eliminate the "aggression factors" and focus on intelligence boosting and its civilian applications. Wanting a human subject, he recruits mentally-disabled assistant gardener Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey).

The experiment on Jobe is a great success; before long, he's straightened up his appearance, ceased to be a target of bullying (including whippings by his Catholic priest), and lost his virginity.

As the experiment continues, Jobe's intelligence gain accelerates. Soon, he's acquiring a four-year degree worth of education every few days, while still working diligently and full-time to mow lawns. But when he begins (accidentally, at first) to read minds and perform telekinesis, Peter fears he's moving too fast.

This prophetic film is the first I've seen that combines the full-immersion virtual reality of the Matrix Trilogy
with the mind uploading of Ghost in the Shell to create a paradise where people can live forever, and where hacking skills can be parlayed into godlike power. It's the sci-fi device I find most interesting and most promising in real life.

The animation is also excellent for its time, though understandably dated (particularly the low-polygon virtual reality landscapes), and it integrates well with the live-action sequences. Fahe does a great job making Jobe's transition from victimized idiot to successful genius to avenging demigod clear and plausible.

There's no attempt to explain how Jobe can parlay his newfound intelligence into psychic powers; apparently it involves secrets that occult mages have long known, but no exposition of magick is provided. While I like to see an occult flavour and a dash of Clarke's Third Law in my science fiction, I found these powers the least plausible aspect of the film. This is a shame: a few well-written scenes about the computational nature and hackability of the universe could have kept them well within the realm of hard science fiction. It's also unclear what phenomenon Jobe plans to exploit to convert himself to a digital form.

Quibbles aside, though, The Lawnmower Man was an excellent film. Calling it a Stephen King adaptation was a deplorable act of fraud, for which King rightly sued and won. But a movie can't be blamed for bad marketing decisions. It must stand or fall on its own merits, and The Lawnmower Man stands tall and triumphant.

The VHS release appears from the image at Amazon to be the director's cut (which other reviewers have said is better, and which isn't yet available on DVD), but check this with the third-party seller before buying.

Policies for Manually Reviewed Ads

2009-10-10T19:54:00.003-04:00

These are the policies to which ads I manually review for approval (such as AdBrite ads below the posts) will be subjected. They will be updated from time to time.

The following types of products or services cannot be advertised:

General

Anything being sold using false or misleading claims.
Anything containing plagiarism or copyright infringement.
Anything that is illegal or unavailable in the targeted country, and does not state this in the ad itself (e.g. a "USA and Canada only" footnote).
Anything that is likely to expose the viewer or anyone else to malware, spam or compromised security.
Pages with little or no original content that are themselves supported by advertising, except those which advertise themselves as, or are well-known as, classified ad directories.
Tobacco.
Weapons whose sole or primary purpose is to kill or torture.
Alcohol or gambling, targeted to people who are below their local legal age to consume it.
Casual-sex dating sites, unless they take extensive care to verify users' age, sex, appearance and marital status, are unlikely to be used for prostitution or crime, and (unless they are specifically for same-sex dating) take care to attract both sexes in reasonable balance.
Peer-to-peer file-sharing tools that cost money.
Amazon.com affiliate marketing (since it competes against me).

Health

Alternative medicine or spiritual healing.
Health or weight loss advice, unless written by medical doctors and provided by a government or registered charity.
Drugs, supplements or "natural health products", unless manufactured by a major pharmaceutical company, with the following exceptions:

Energy drinks. A natural health product is an energy drink if it has at least 80 mg of caffeine per dose, it is marketed only for the purposes caffeine has been clinically proven to achieve, all of its ingredients are generally recognized as safe in the amounts present, and it is intended to be taken orally.
Smoking cessation aids containing nicotine.

Pharmacies that do not have a licensed brick-and-mortar location in the targeted country.

Employment, business and finance

Child labour.
Jobs or get-paid-to sites where it is not realistically possible to earn the greater of the targeted country's minimum wage or US$1 per hour.
Multi-level marketing, except where it is realistically possible to earn the above amount without recruiting new marketers and by selling only products that meet these guidelines.
Pyramid schemes (including "cash gifting" and "inverted funnel") or Ponzi schemes.
Recommendations of specific stocks, unless made by a licensed stockbroker (to prevent "pump and dump" schemes).
Tools for unsolicited bulk communication.

Books

Self-published e-books that are not viewable for free on the web without disclosing personal or contact information, and which have not been reviewed by a reputable source.

Games

Gambling games that are rigged to increase the house's advantage beyond what would be calculated from the rules of the game.
"Free" games (other than those advertised as "free demo" or "free trial") where it is not realistically possible to experience the game fully without paying real money or providing real and otherwise unpaid labour.

Mobile phone content

Anything that requires the user to have a mobile phone, where the ad does not make this clear.
Anything that is advertised as being for any mobile phone but does not support all makes and models that have been in production within the past five years, or does not support all service providers that operate in the targeted country (including service providers that do not provide incoming e-mail to SMS gateways).
Ring tones based on copyrighted music and not authorized by the musicians.
Anything that requires the user to make an ongoing paid subscription but is advertised as being free or a one-time purchase.

Supernatural beliefs

Any religion or cult. (Agnosticism, atheism and pantheism are allowed.)
Intelligent design.
Anything based on paranormal beliefs, including astrology, witchcraft and psychic readings.

Politics

Political advocacy based on religious, cult or paranormal beliefs or conspiracy theories.
Advocacy of war, capital punishment or the violent overthrow of a government.
Conservative politics, or the fiscal aspects of libertarian politics.

Ad style guidelines

In addition, ads cannot contain the following:

Plagiarism or copyright infringement.
Malware or security exploits.
A message that appears to come from an operating system or application the viewer may be running, or from an acquaintance of the viewer.
Nudity or anything else that would require me to put Life User behind an adult-content warning.
Pop-ups or an attempt to extend beyond the space I have allocated to them.
An attempt to alter or delay the display of blog content to the user.
An attempt to mislead the user concerning what the ad is for.
Anything that appears to be, but is not, a button whose function is to hide the ad or replace it with a different one.
Sound that activates without the ad being clicked.
Elements that blink more than once per second or jump-cut more than once per 2 seconds.
Jittering text or images.

Geeks Need a New Loyalty Program

2009-10-07T23:25:00.002-04:00

I'm in a lot of loyalty programs, and none of them have succeeded in getting and keeping me excited about shopping, or in making me feel like I really get something back when I spend. It could just be that I'm a full-time student and don't shop as much as most people, but I think the real reason is that no loyalty program really caters to the needs of technology enthusiasts and those with correlated interests. And I can suggest a solution.

Air Miles and Aeroplan, while they're not as focused on flying as their names would suggest, are oriented toward people who travel every chance they get (not me). Petro-Canada Petro Points and Canadian Tire Money are for people who drive (again, not me). Shoppers Optimum is for people who buy a lot of cosmetics and personal care items (mostly women and seniors). HBC Rewards are for people who buy a lot of clothes and furniture (mainly families with kids). Scotiabank SCENE is for people who go to the movies often (I use BitTorrent instead).

While these programs do offer smart phones and gaming hardware, these things cost a lot more points than I'll earn in the remotely foreseeable future. For instance, I've earned a total of 196 Air Miles since I enrolled two years ago, and a Nintendo DS — the cheapest game system on offer — costs 1650.

To be fair, I have made, and expect to continue to regularly make, grateful use of PC Points to acquire free groceries. Choosing a type of reward product that everyone uses — and that appeals to a basic biological need — is smart business. But there's nothing exciting about groceries, despite grocery chains' herculean efforts to convince us otherwise, and a loyalty program is supposed to get people excited about shopping.

(The ideal loyalty program for a broad market would be one where the rewards both excited consumers and appealed to a basic biological drive. Unfortunately, people already get free porn.)

I know a few sites, such as ThinkGeek, do have their own loyalty programs. But ThinkGeek doesn't sell computer parts, Magic: The Gathering cards or any of a number of other geek essentials. Their shipping to Canada (which can easily increase an order's grand total by 50%) is also way too expensive. For a loyalty program to serve the needs of me and my ilk, we'd have to be able to both earn and redeem the points at a wide range of stores. (Ideal would be the ability to earn points anywhere using a credit card in addition to some store sponsors.)

A good list of sponsoring stores might include the following:

Electronics stores.
Discount computer-part sites (e.g. TigerDirect, NewEgg).
Comic/game stores.
Technical publishers (e.g. IDG, O'Reilly).
Campus bookstores (especially at UOIT, Waterloo and MIT), or bookstores specializing in fantasy and science fiction.
ThinkGeek.

Possible rewards could include:

Gift certificates and featured products from all of the above.
Certification courses.
MMORPG subscriptions.
A broader selection of laptops and smart phones, possibly laptops with a la carte options (e.g. a RAM upgrade for an extra 300 points).
Video games and game consoles.
Energy drinks by the case.
Alternative vehicles (such as Segways or cutting-edge electric mopeds).

And because geeks know how to comparison shop and don't believe in name brands for food or clothing, we'd need to be able to earn at discount stores. We're smart enough to know if we're paying more in higher prices for our reward points than they're worth (e.g. Air Miles at Metro supermarkets).

Geeks have a lot of unusual interests, but with the right reward program, we can all have at least one mainstream interest: an interest in shopping.

In The Night Sky: A Tragedy of Astronomical Proportions

2009-10-04T17:05:00.003-04:00

(This is a revision of a short story I wrote for Grade 10 English class, the last class I ever got to write one for. If it's well-received, Life User will feature more short stories, probably with stronger science-fiction elements, in the future.)

"David is failing math."

Aerospace engineer Roger Joyson could hardly believe his ears. His son David, who had always anted to be a scientist or engineer, had the science grades and intelligence to do it, and generally made B+s and A grades in school, was failing fifth-grade math.
As Roger sat in shock with his mouth gaping open, Joanne elucidated.

"Ms. Rainesworth says he isn't too solid on his multiplication tables. Today, he showed her his steps for multiplying 26 by 16, and he said that six times six was thirty-two. I pointed out that he's never been very good with rote memorization, and she wondered if the two of us could go over multiplication tables with him.

"But he always does his homework by the time you get home, and I'm not much of a teacher when it comes to anything. I'll ask him how he got his answer, and I won't be able to understand his answer. Sometimes he's mumbling, sometimes I can't concentrate hard enough to understand his process in my head and what's wrong with it. Other times, I'll ask him to try a question three times, and he'll get three different answers and think they're all correct, l tell him the answer will always be the same, he'll ask why, and I won't know the answer."

"Well, then I guess it's still up to Ms. Rainesworth," said Roger.

"And luckily, there is a solution: I'm going to put him in the after-school remedial group on Mondays and Thursdays," said his wife.

Roger was aghast. "Not Thursdays!” he abruptly shouted, bringing the car to a screeching halt at a red light. “The junior astronomy club meets Thursdays! If we take him out of that, how's he going to learn about the universe around us? The school curriculum sure isn't helping much! Put him in for Mondays, but leave Thursdays alone!”

“I don't think he really enjoyed astronomy anyway," was Joanne's reaction. "I know you just love sky watching, but I don't, most people don't, and David doesn't either. Besides, arithmetic is far more important."

"No, it isn't!" Roger argued against this latter point for quite some time, but was eventually convinced. Still, he resolved to ask his son that night what he really thought of astronomy. He would do it at dinner, so that Joanne could hear it firsthand.

But first, there was a far more important matter to be dealt with. Chiron, Saturn and the moon would all be in perfect conjunction that night. Roger, an astronomy enthusiast whose mind had been on the conjunction most of the day, hoped he could set up his new high-end telescope in time to watch it and take a photograph.

The telescope could zoom in by a factor of half a million, detect and amplify the light of eighth-magnitude stars, compensate for all but the thickest cloud cover, send photos and coordinates to a connected computer and identify 20,000 objects in its database. It was the greatest thing an enthusiastic sky watcher could hope to own.

When he arrived home, Roger assembled the telescope with amazing speed and precision. But when he came to the dinner table that evening, he had two pictures in hand.

The first was the conjunction. Joanne glanced at it briefly and gave it an unenthusiastic "mm-hmm," and David revealed his true opinion of astronomy by yawning. Roger would have been dismayed were it not for his excitement about the second photo: a rocky planetoid.

"This object isn't in the database," he said.

"In the what?" David had never heard of a database.

"The telescope doesn't know what it is," his father translated, "which means it's something rarely seen! I sent the coordinates to my computer, so I can look it up online later."

As they continued to eat, the topic of conversation soon changed to David's math grades and the remedial sessions he would join the next day (a Thursday). When Joanne finished eating and excused herself to check her e-mail, there was little for David and Roger to talk about.

"The Internet connection's down again," she called out. This was bad news for everyone: Joanne never wanted to miss a day's worth of e-mail, Roger had hoped to research his planetoid immediately after dinner, and David had hoped to play some online games with his friends. Roger, though, was probably the least affected: he kept himself pleasurably occupied exploring all his telescope's features. He was amazed at how clearly he could see all the planets and their moons, at the resolution and clarity of the telescope's photos, and at how every heavenly body he had ever heard of was in the database.

Before dawn, though, Roger was reminded of his mysterious minor planet by a nightmare. He was in his yard watching it on his telescope, when a passing comet struck it. It began growing larger, and Roger had to zoom out to keep it in view. Knocked off its orbit, it began streaking toward Earth. Roger only had a brief glimpse of it before it struck him on the head, knocking him out.

Roger awoke panting and drenched in sweat. He glanced at the time on his mobile phone: 4:40. He had slept less than four hours, but his tiredness was blocked out first by fear and then by excitement. He leaped out of bed and booted up his computer.

“Honey, what are you doing?” Joanne had just awoken.

“I just had a nightmerrible— I mean terrible nightmare,” said Roger rapidly, in a manic flurry of words. “I have to planetoid thing on look up Web.”

“What planetoid thing?” asked Joanne.

“The one I found last night,” Roger said, opening a web browser.

“Honey,” said Joanne, tired and annoyed, “what’s the big deal about some stupid chunk of rock a billion miles away from here?”

Roger didn’t seem to hear her. “WHAT? what do you mean, server not found?” he shouted at his computer. The Internet connection still wasn’t working. After a few frantic attempts at resetting it, he eventually returned to bed, but he could not fall asleep again and instead read his new issue of Stargazer Magazine.

While reading the six pages of feature articles about the previous night's triple conjunction, he felt triumphant at having captured it in a digital photograph especially when he learned that it would be the last one visible in Toronto for thirty years. Between the magazine and a particularly demanding engineering problem, he eventually managed to forget the unknown object for the rest of the day.

When he arrived home for supper, the discussion centered on three topics: the malfunctioning Internet connection, plans for the weekend, and David's first day of remedial math. Roger could not even get a word in edgewise about the news from Stargazer, but he was consoled by the knowledge he could discuss astronomy on Saturday: this was when his astronomy club met.

When the time came to pack for his meeting, Roger took his magazine, knowing that it was a good conversation piece, and reached for his conjunction photo. Finding the planetoid photo as well, he was struck. Of course! That thing. He knew he had to show it to his friends at the club. Packing it, he knew he would be the life of the party, bringing everyone lots to talk about.

Another thing that cheered him was the certainty that the planetoid could be identified with the club's reference books, which far exceeded the ones in the house. He was so zealous about his day at the club that he packed two lunches without realizing it, ran three red lights along the way, and parked his car on the wrong size of space, at such a sloppy diagonal that it occupied three.

Roger then rushed into the building as quickly as he could and shouted, "Guys! Guys! Look at this thing!" He showed them his photograph. "Anyone know what it is?”

"Oh, that's the asteroid Gaprix," said the club president.

"No, it's one of the moons of Mars," said another member.

"No, it's asteroid Alpha-17, from the Alpha Centauri system." was the vice-president's opinion. Everyone in the club thought it was something different, but when Roger tried to settle it using the reference books, he proved them all wrong. The coordinates of his planetoid did not match those for anything they named ... or any other object listed in any of the books.

"What if it was unknown?" suggested Roger, hit with a flash of inspiration. "Maybe I’ve discovered a new asteroid!"

"Don't be ridiculous." said the club's president. "Everything close enough to Earth for a backyard telescope to see, at the zoom factor you've got recorded, would have been picked up by a big observatory ages ago."

Roger was ready with several examples (though none of them all that recent) that contradicted this point. "But what about—"

"Look, we don't have any more time to spend on this. We have a four-hour agenda, and we have to get through it all!”

Even though there wasn't time to discuss Roger's planetoid, there was plenty of time to discuss the conjunction, and all the articles in Stargazer. After the agenda had been finished, Roger was glad he had packed a second lunch, because he missed afternoon tea and would be late for supper as well.

Still, when he pulled out the photo of his planetoid again, everyone seemed to agree with the president's earlier response, and pointed to the fact that he had not been able to check an Internet database. This was, luckily, the only bad thing that happened all day, and Roger drove home generally happy.

The next morning, when he came to breakfast, Roger had exciting news. The Internet connection having been fixed the previous day (although, after club and supper, Roger was too tired to use it), he had confirmed his suspicions.

"Wow! That's totally cool, Dad!" said David, upon hearing the news.

Roger hugged him. “Ahh,” he said. “See, maybe you do like astronomy after all.”

"David, I hate to burst your bubble," said Joanne, "but your dad's wrong. The observatories have the entire sky covered, and their telescopes can see a lot further than any amateur's telescope could."

Roger countered, "But this is the best telescope money can buy!"

“It's not," Joanne said. "It's the best telescope money can fit in our backyard, and that isn't the same thing at all."

"What if Dad's right?" said David. He did not understand what his mother was saying.

“That's the spirit, son," said Roger, patting David on the back.

His wife would have argued further, but she had a lot of cleaning to do around the house that day and needed to get started: instead, she resigned herself to waiting for someone to show — at least to David — that Roger was wrong. Mrs. Rainesworth would succeed at this task when David brought it up in science period the following day.

The excited man took breakfast into his room and phoned NASA. When he gave the coordinates, a woman told him that the object he was talking about did not, could not, exist, and that his telescope must not be working properly. On the one hand, Roger was angry that NASA had jumped to conclusions so readily, and seemed unwilling to even consider the possibility of an amateur making any discoveries. Still, he had to admit that the operator might be right.

Through the rest of the morning, afternoon and evening, he remained quiet about the topic. During lunch and dinner, he had trouble listening to the table conversation, and said nothing. He enjoyed the matinée movie they went to, although unlike most movies he watched, he remembered very little about it afterward.

But after dark, Roger could test the accuracy of his telescope's coordinate-measurement system. The tests were rather simple, and almost every telescope-owning enthusiast knew about them. (Even those who didn't had a chance to learn them every April, when the steps were reprinted in Stargazer.) He was vindicated! His telescope was working.

He e-mailed everyone at his club whose address he knew, as well as astronomy professors at the local universities. In his e-mail, he described the reaction from NASA and sent all the photos and coordinates that he'd brought to the club, and the ones for that night. He explained that on Saturday night it had been too cloudy for even his telescope to find the planetoid. He had difficulty sleeping or working during the first half of that week, as he eagerly anticipated responses.

Editors of the local newspapers responded on Monday and Tuesday. Two said their readers weren’t interested in astronomy; a third said she would have to confirm the story with a reliable source, which was not possible just yet. This made Roger all the more anxious to have one of the professors confirm his discovery.

The club president was next to respond, with CCs to the whole club, saying: "Since you sent your e-mail, 14 of the 31 club members, myself included, would like you to leave the club if you continue to insist that you discovered this planetoid yourself. Many believe that your photograph is actually a known moon of an extrasolar planet, and we all think you must have either fudged the coordinates or did a poor job of checking their accuracy. If you do not retract your statement, we will vote at the next meeting on whether to expel you."

Roger's infuriated reply was, "If this is the club's attitude to new discoveries being made by members, 1 will save you the trouble of expelling me: I resign from your club." (He put the last five words in red text, having decided it would make a stronger statement than the usual bold, italics and capitals.)

Only two of the professors that Roger wrote to responded. One wrote, "I need to see proof that these coordinates are real. Unfortunately, I won’t have time after dark in the foreseeable future to check them. You have no idea how much work it is to chair the curriculum committee."

The second, however, said, "Suppose I come to your home the next clear night, and you show me the object that you claim is unknown."

While Roger did not know if Professor Hiedels was serious about this proposition, he was only too happy to accept. Since a clear sky was predicted for Friday night, this was the day for which he extended the invitation. By the time the professor came over, Roger had already found the planetoid on the telescope. He had merely to point Professor Hiedels toward the place his telescope was set up.

"Hmm," the man said, looking at it. "Looks like a moon of Jupiter, or of one of the known extrasolar planets. The coordinates don't look quite right for any of them, but frankly I don't trust just anyone's telescope not to be tampered with. Let's set up my telescope, and you can find it for me there."

Roger inwardly reciprocated the professor's distrust, but when he came to the telescope he found his planetoid.

"Hmm," said the professor. "It's interesting, but it's probably not a new planetoid. It might just be a meteor that's going to burn up in some planet's outer atmosphere." Roger went into a lengthy explanation of why the object he had located couldn't be a meteor.

"Your proof isn't sound, I only have one trustworthy set of coordinates to go on, and there are a number of other complications," said Professor Hiedels. "Seeing as you did not even minor in astronomy at university, you have no credentials showing that you know what you're talking about. In short, you haven't proven the existence of a previously undiscovered planetoid. Good night."

Roger was crestfallen. Here was a university professor telling him that he was wrong. discounting his proof, and probably in a position to convince everyone else to do the same. There was very little hope that even his family would give him credit for his discovery. Worse, science might not have the benefit of even knowing about this potentially important object. Suppose his nightmare came true and it actually collided with Earth? The next night, he learned that he would not even be able to take any more photos of it for posterity, as it had gone under the horizon.

Perhaps it was best that the planetoid was under the horizon, for this helped it to fall under the horizon of poor Roger Joyson's mind. He began to focus his attention and telescope on other things. There was good news: he had just received a promotion and raise from work, and David progressed so well in math that he had been able to leave the remedial session (although he declined to rejoin the junior astronomy club). Roger would even get a three-week vacation during the summer school break, and have enough money for an unforgettable trip to Paris.

But a few weeks later, while reading the newspaper, Roger was unpleasantly reminded of his rejected discovery. A Yale University astronomer had just "discovered" the same object and named it for himself! The photographs were identical; the recorded coordinates (once adjusted for the different location of the telescope) matched. Roger hastily showed the article to his wife and son.

"These photos are identical! And look how closely these coordinates match!” he said.

"I don't understand the math around those stupid coordinates," said his wife. "And the photos look the same to me as all the other asteroids you've ever shown me.”

“Me too," said David. "I still think Ms. Rainesworth was right."

Roger was crestfallen. His friends from the astronomy club still did not believe him. He did not use his telescope ever again, and sent it to his Australian niece as a birthday gift. He canceled his Stargazer Magazine subscription and donated all his issues to the library. The pages discussing the new planetoid, however, he first tore out and destroyed with the office shredder. The former astronomy enthusiast considered them unworthy even of donation.

Over the next few nights, Roger found that looking up at the night sky brought him to tears, so he stopped doing it. Soon, David had to go into a remedial science group. He had begun to struggle once his class entered a unit on astronomy. After a few weeks of depression, he decided he needed a new pastime. He would learn to play chess.

Arts and Crafts in the Family

2009-09-30T21:05:00.006-04:00

In tonight's post, I'd like to return the favour to two talented artists and wonderful individuals who have helped promote Life User.

My mom is a talented impressionist painter and a budding photographer under her husband's tutelage. She showcases her pictorial work on her blog, Lunamoth, which updates one to five times weekly (no regular schedule) and is free of external ads.
She's also an avid and creative knitter, and has designed and published numerous patterns on her blog, all but one of which are free. Winter's just around the corner in the Northern Hemisphere, and her sock and scarf patterns will definitely keep you warm and gorgeous.

My stepfather is a semi-professional digital photographer specializing in landscapes (including an intriguing series of urban landscapes) and still life. While his focus on rust, decay and poverty will no doubt seem nihilistic to some, his site — which presents 77 photos ruthlessly culled from thousands of shots — explains how it is grounded in a deeply optimistic philosophy blending secular humanism with Buddhism. While his blog is currently inactive, its archives present some additional photos.

These two fine folks are among the best artists, and the best family members, anyone can hope to meet.

Updates every Wednesday and Sunday

2009-09-30T21:04:00.002-04:00

Experts say blogs that follow a regular posting schedule get more return traffic, so from now on, you'll see a new post on Life User every Wednesday and Sunday, starting tonight. Updates about the blog itself, such as this post, won't count toward this frequency (although technical tutorials resulting from my experience with the blog will).

The Sunday post will always contain at least 400 words that are previously unpublished. The Wednesday post will be at least 100 words and may include writing that I've posted elsewhere before.

Best Machinae Supremacy Songs Reviewed

2009-09-27T13:18:00.009-04:00

If there were any justice in this world, the Swedish electronic/metal band Machinae Supremacy would be among the best-known rock bands in the world. With both generic and specific references to video games, sci-fi animé and occasionally English literature, and a clear but not overplayed message to be different, think, learn and evolve, MaSu is a thinking young man's band.

Of the thirteen songs I'm reviewing and recommending, the band makes five available for free download, in your choice of MP3, OGG Vorbis or lossless FLAC. They are:

March of the Undead, Part 2: A theme song for every misanthropist who's "fallen out of phase / with whatever paused the evolutionary race" (Idiocracy anyone?) and for every geek, nerd and social outcast who's "pretty sure that I am not the one who's weird".
Origin: Seems to be from the point of view of a long-lived but mortal god or alien who doesn't feel its near-omniscience is as enviable as humans think ("you wouldn't ever wanna try / see through my eyes / you'd break like a child inside / if you ever realized"), and who is confronting its mortality and possibly other humanlike weaknesses. Faintly Lovecraftian. Samples from an obscure B-movie called Virus, but interpreting it as about the movie is a bit of a stretch.
Earthbound: The lament of someone who's tired of living on Earth ("a cradle of dust and stone") and possibly also of being human ("bound by my two feet / I walk the road paved by our evolution"). Ends on a note of hope: "a vision of ourselves as we leave this time and place behind".
Winterstorm: An excellent song that defies interpretation.
Fury: On the surface, this song is about an ancient, evil dragon that menaces the world incessantly and is the dark angel of nature's wrath. Singer Robert Stjärnström writes, "It's about a storm, yes. Or more epically about the power of mother nature, as demonstrated by a storm." A brilliant example, then, of the mundane being transformed into the fantastical.

The rest of the songs on my list aren't available free legally.

Violator (Overworld): If you're Christian, you can see this song as about Islamic fundamentalism. If you're Muslim, you can see it as about Christian fundamentalism. If you're neither, you can probably see it most accurately as about all kinds of religious fundamentalism. I don't think it's any coincidence this song was recorded shortly after The God Delusion (which I highly recommend) was published in Swedish.
Edge and Pearl (Overworld): See my old review of the video.
Rise (Redeemer): Laments how reality TV, and by extension all mainstream entertainment, makes both its cast and audience seem superficial and all the same. The verses are pessimistic, but the chorus offers some hope of change: "Inside, somewhere inside / I'd like to find / a different kind of you."
Through the Looking Glass (Redeemer): An awesome song about knowledge as the ultimate purpose of life (which I hope it turns out to be, or at least turns out to be a choice as valid as any other). May be based on the writings of neo-Gnostic William Blake, from whose poem "The Tyger" it derives the phrase "fearful symmetry".
Reanimator (Redeemer): Some people say this song's about H. P. Lovecraft's short story "Herbert West — Re-Animator". I disagree: I say it's about how apathy, social inertia and conformity turn the average person into a zombie ("life force drains, to change takes more than to remain / therefore we lay back in the comfort of our chains"). Robert agrees with me.
Empire (Redeemer): Says a lot (though nobody's sure exactly what) with very few words. The two verses are 24 words between them, and the chorus and bridge add another 23 words excluding repeated lines.
Player One (Deus Ex Machinae): A perfect manifesto for gamers and, by extension, all escapists (particularly those of us with no religion), discussing why we need, and what we gain from, "a world beyond this one!"
Deus Ex Machinae (Deus Ex Machinae): A rare and intriguing venture into spirituality or pseudo-spirituality that calls on humanity to "rise above all dreams of aliens and gods" but still believe in "somewhere close but far away / where we are all forever." I suspect this relates to mind transfer, same general concept as the Matrix Trilogy but much more utopian.

Good news on ads: Category Filter

2009-09-16T01:57:00.003-04:00

I'm pleased to announce that Google AdSense has just extended the Category Filter to me. It's still in beta, but at Google a lot of things are "in beta" for years even when they work almost perfectly.

A Category Filter from a major player such as Google is the first step toward cleaning up the online ad industry as a whole. Granted, it will take a while for Google to refine the filter, for webmasters to become aware of it and for certain webmasters' audiences to pressure them into using it. Still, I think by the end of 2010, ads for dangerous or useless products and services will be the exception rather than the rule, Web-wide.

Some people are using the Category Filter only to block out low-earning categories and increase their eCPM ("effective cost per mille": income per thousand page views). Not me: I've got a social agenda to advance.

From now on, if the filter is working properly, you won't see ads in the following categories:

Drugs & Supplements
Get Rich Quick
Religion
Ringtones & Downloadables
Weight Loss

(NB: For those not in the know, most of the supplements and weight loss products you find online are of questionable effectiveness, even if they're held to strong safety standards.)

Note that the Religion category specifically excludes astrology and "non-denominational spirituality". I will filter astrology (and numerology, tarot, aura readings, etc. etc.) if it becomes an option, but I'm undecided about "non-denominational spirituality" since it may include atheism, agnosticism and pantheism, all of which I consider part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

I was disturbed to learn, while I was setting up the filter, that Get Rich Quick had accounted for 90.2% of recent revenue and 8.4% of recent impressions. This tells me something's seriously wrong with either AdSense's customer base or the targetability of my blog. (Each other category on the filterable list accounted for zero revenue and 0.3% to 0.8% of impressions.)

For some reason, a publisher can only filter out five categories right now. One category I considered filtering and decided not to was Politics. If liberal and conservative politics could be filtered separately, I would filter conservative politics. But I feel a blanket ban on political ads would hurt the cause of those who genuinely want to reduce poverty and oppression, make rich people pay their share of the taxes, control human impact on the environment, and have governments spend less of taxpayers' money fighting wars, enforcing unnecessary drug laws and spying on their own people. Thus, I will instead try to make sure my blog's text attracts mostly the liberal left.

As I wrote previously, please feel free to comment below if you continue to see ads for any of the filtered categories above, plus any of the following:

A product that's dangerous to you or your computer.
A scraper site.
Click fraud.
Pseudoscience, quackery, cults, conspiracy theories or belief in the paranormal.
Discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation or disability. (This doesn't include pride in and appreciation of a particular race's culture, or reasoned arguments about the relative merits of different cultures.)
Conservative politics.
An unaccredited college.
Something that isn't available in the English-speaking country you're accessing Life User from, but doesn't say so in the ad text (especially if that country is Canada).
Weapons with no legitimate defensive purpose and no genuine value as collectibles.
Anything being sold using dishonest or grossly misleading claims.

Disclosure of financial interests (update 12/31/09)

2009-09-16T01:36:00.004-04:00

I'm not trying to make a living writing Life User, much less become a millionaire at it, but I am trying to graduate from university with a little less debt. This article will explain what I'm doing to that end, and how it may affect the content and presentation of the blog.

My potential sources of income include the following:

Google AdSense
Amazon Associates
Paid blogging

Google AdSense

Google AdSense ads appear above the top post, between posts on the main page and archive pages, and in the sidebar. They will be a mix, decided by Google, of cost-per-impression (CPM) and cost-per-click (CPC) ads.

Amazon Associates

So far, the only affiliate links I run are from Amazon.com. Unlike AdSense ads, affiliate links are cost-per-action (CPA), meaning Amazon only pays me if you actually make a purchase after clicking an ad (although the purchase need not be of an item advertised). They appear as text links or widgets in certain posts, pointing to specific products that I've manually chosen as relevant to the post.

Paid blogging

I may occasionally accept a payment or a merchandise incentive to write a post about a particular topic. If I do, this post will have the label "sponsored."

No matter how much I am being paid, the sponsor will not be able to require that a review be favourable. If a sponsor rejects a review because it is unfavourable, I will still publish it, but I will replace links to the sponsor with links to neutral secondary sources, if possible; failing that, I will add the rel="nofollow" attribute to links so that they do not count toward search engine rankings. I also won't review a CD I haven't heard every single song from, a non-reference book I haven't read cover-to-cover, or any other product I haven't used (although I may discuss it without calling the discussion a review or passing judgement on any aspect of the product besides its general purpose and premise).

I will not make more than one sponsored post in a day.

For every US$10 in AdSense revenue which Life User earns, starting on January 1, 2010, I will commit to making one unsponsored post before I make another sponsored post, if I haven't already made at least four unsponsored posts in the past 30 days. An unsponsored post will only count if it contains at least 200 words of original content that is not purely about the blog itself.

Conclusion

I hope this makes it clear that I'm trying to make money off this blog in an ethical way, without letting it turn into one big ad. I want you to be satisfied with this blog so that you'll become a loyal reader, and I don't want this blog to attract only shallow consumerists that it has no hope of changing. I'm not writing just for advertisers, I'm also writing for you.