Solid reporting. I guess it takes a "real" news source like the Boston Globe to write an article that is fitting of the man.
Thanks Ross Kerber.
Last night I had a moment of reflection. Driven by a comment a friend made yesterday in response to a dinky question. I wandered over mentally to think about Saint Sheldon. What strikes you about the pages? Sure it is old code, but it is effective and functional. Aside from the umbrella of Harris Cyclery, there aren't really any adds.
Why so curious? A few folks (including the Rat) have been suggesting I stick some google addsense up to take advantage of the visitor flow and generate some cash. But I think, "what would sheldon do?"
And I contemplate what my wife's Uncle said once regarding some Football team owner who was being reported as a really great nice guy: "who did he exploit to earn his billions of dollars."
Sheldon wasn't an exploiter. He allowed his knowledge to be exploited. He willing shared information that helped thousands of others earn money (bike mechanics mostly), yet charged nothing. He offered advice unconditionally. He allowed people to exploit his knowledge.
Yogurt Boy. Ask his dedicated wife, "Is Matt allowing himself to be exploited for the good of others?" I would wager the response would be a smiling yes.
Not to pick on Yogurt boy, lets look at Results Boy. Or many many others.
At what point does charging for a service/product become exploitation?
Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, Dupont, Nobel. Family legacies of fortunes amassed from exploiting others. Certainly the directed charity work of those can be balanced against it, but, ponder for a moment: What if they took all the profits at that moment and gave it back to the folks who's labor, sweat, lives made the wealth? That's what Sheldon seems to have done with his life. Yes, he worked for a living. Most of us know how much even the most experience shop rat gets. But with his vast knowledge he could have sheltered it away and made it exclusive. Writing manuals, charging for lessons, writing books, who knows what. But he didn't.
And that is a very noble model to follow.
Allowing yourself to be exploited for the good of others, in a conscious way, not out of need or someone else's greed/deceit is the definition of selflessness. There isn't really a difference between the two except in connotation. There are hosts of negative sides of exploitation, but when it becomes active on your part, they way Sheldon and others operate, that is active selflessness/exploitation.
Sure, idealistic musings.
And yes, it does really come down in a sappy manner to what Randy Travis's song says. It's what you leave behind when you go.
But maybe it should be tweaked slightly:
It is what you leave behind as you go.
Don't wait for the end, for your will to determine where everything goes. Do it as you go.
Selflessness. A trait more people should cultivate.
Heddwch
G
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10 comments:
What exactly would 'yogurt boy' being having exploited?
do you mean to say how is yogurt boy being exploited?
just casually observing your extra-curricular activities...
the Biggest Moover team leader...
hockey coach, champion of the local farmer beyond the call of duty required by your occupation
sort of an intangible label that i toss out with great respect on a gut call...
Google AdSense does not equal exploitation of your readers, silly. It's more like the equivalent of building a flour mill on a riverbank.. The water always flows endlessly.. it's foolish not to harvest it's power and make something useful.. like flour.. which we use to make bread.. which we put on the table to feed our family..
Sorry but you lost me with all the 'nobility' of this fellow Sheldon (peace be upon him). Probably didn't know what AdSense is or even a single line of code..
At any rate.. your traffic is about equal to my Amerikan Turk blog. If I told you that Google Adsense would pay you enough money to put an extra loaf or two of fine bread on your table every day, for your family, would you then crinkle your nose and call it exploitation? Or what if you just let the money in your Google account accumulate for your girls to use later on for their education or for something to surprise the wife with or to simply send to charity? Exploitation? Have I missed your point? Maybe so. I'm a selfish SOB; most serious athletes are selfish by design. But I don't blog from work, I do it mostly from home, often on my family's dime. So I'll be damned if I'm going to pass up getting some cash for all I've poured into my sites. I know you're not a wealthy person. Neither am I.
Look at it this way.. to have the nice traffic volume that you have is a big achievement.. you didn't fall ass backwards into it, lots of work is involved.. similar to a podium finish at race.. but I highly doubt you would have refused the prize money from winning the Canton Cup, eh?
So Murat, are you really friends with us, or do you just comment on the blogs to drive traffic to your sites so that you can make more money? You now have a built-in incentive to base your blogs (along with its links and comments on other blogs) all on driving traffic, not writing with integrity.
This is social networking. Putting up ads is like having people over your house under the premise of a party and then trying to sell them tupperware. They're left wondering if you invited them as company or it's just a business to you.
Maybe write a little bit about controversial topics to, as Gewilli says, "stir the pot?" Do I even mean what I'm saying, or is this all just part of an elaborate scheme to rile people up and start drawing traffic to our lucrative ads????
Click here for hot lesbo action...
Come on SB.. If I was interested in driving traffic to myself, I'd go leave comments at blogs where daily visits are 50,000 not 500.
I now make $2-$5 a day on Google AdSense.. (Remember, I have four blogs..) Like I said it amounts to a couple of loaves of bread a day.. or annualized, a couple of car payments. I haven't cashed it out in a year so I look at it as a piggy bank for my son. No one has ever questioned my friendship or the sincerity of my writing because of advertising. Well.. until now.
The fish are swimming. Cast your net.
Hey Murat, I understand. When you're shelling out $55 a pop for bad haircuts, you need to pull in money any way you can. But don't belittle Ge for seeing honor in staying a writer rather than a salesman or a marketer. No matter how you slice it, everything you write is suspect when you're selling stuff. With Ge, we know these wacked out ramblings are genuine Introspection Section confusion. And I just wanted to agitate you to get your blood flowing for that test you're doing today.
So by your logic, every single published writer out there collecting a paycheck or a royalty or residual income is a potential fraud?
My heart's always on my sleeve. You know that.. and I don't craft my words in order to attract traffic or boost my page rank.
All I'm saying is that making a few bucks using Google Adsense takes as much work as flipping a light switch. The current's there, all ya gotta do is complete the circuit. Costs you nothing, costs your readers nothing. To waste it in the name of avoiding "exploitation" is a joke to me. Every blogger out there is selling themselves. All of them demand attention, put themselves out there to find an audience and feel appreciated by same. Why is there nothing suspect about this? We all sell something: ourselves. What difference does it really make if I have Google ads for vaginal rejuvination on my blog, or not? You only visit to see if my tendon has finally ruptured anyway.
Murat, I feel bad about taking over Ge's blog for our debate, as he doesn't access the web on weekends and can't even moderate. "Fraud" is deception for commercial gain. Advertising is not deception by definition. I never said you or anyone else was a fraud. I don't think Ge was saying you exploit your readers either. Paid writers are certainly influenced by those who pay them. You can dispute that if you wish, but get real.
However, the web and blogging have made possible free (free as in free beer AND free as in free freedom) publishing for all without any influence from commercial interests. Some of us see that as something of tremendous value, far greater than the $200/month your ads pull down.
By all means go ahead and keep the ads. It's your blog.
Every blogger is out there selling themselves?
Are you effin kidding me?
Seriously?
And writers often get paid for writing what they want. Sure there is a drive to write what you can get paid for, but with the diversity of publishers and editors, you can write pretty much anything and make it pay.
Exploitation is a pretty hard emotional word. But in the pure analytical sense, it is appropriate i think. Socially maybe it is over the top. But it strikes a cord.
yes. the thought that i could pull in a few dollars a month is some what enticing.
but, in my heart, i would see the adds and feel a bit sold out. A bit cheap. If i'm making money then Google is making more. They've got enough cash flow, i don't but the amount of money it would take to clean the guilt is in the thousands/month, not hundreds, and even then. It would become pressure.
FnF might be a big effin pain in the ass sometime, but we're on a pretty similar wavelength when it comes to this, that and he's good at explaining it (better than me).
You pull the flour mill example and it is what, a way to get free energy so you can grind more flour. Is it your grain that is being ground?
no pretty soon you are grinding everyone's flour and people are paying you to grind theirs and before long... you are a slave to the mill... never letting the stones stop grinding... And then you become dependant on that flow for a few extra $$, what if there is a drought, then you have no water, no wheel spinning and well. Not good.
I'll prefer to grind my grain by hand, the old fashioned way.
I'm only a PITA sometimes? I'll have to work on being more consistent.
Maybe you could always get *almost* anything published, but blogging represents a revolution. Never before could *anyone* reach such a potentially large audience without involving commercial interests. This IS publishing. Forget about what used to be.
googleads may be relatively benign, but staying free of commerce not only makes your blog less ugly, it's an opportunity too rich to squander for a few bucks.
Now I'm going to go start an anonymous blogs, stock it with ads, and get rich the easy way...
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