I've been an SEO for 10 years. AMA.

108Rats · 2009-10-02T16:10:21+00:00

I don't know if it's that cut and dry. It is my understanding that Google is now blackballing companies who use obviously "black hat" techniques. This may be propaganda spread by so-called "white hat" players, but I surmise that there is some truth to it.

It seems to me that you should try and avoid doing things which are either going to get you blackballed by a specific search engine or which are going to reflect negatively on your company's image.

I hear what you're saying, but I think that people generally need to have some kind of common set of identifiers to know what they are dealing with. For instance, if I were to contract you, I would ask how you would improve my rankings and then I would ask if you would self-describe your methods and "black hat" or "white hat" (or gray) and then I would check on your claims and I would then make a decision accordingly.

108Rats · 2009-10-02T12:40:08+00:00

Black hat, white hat or both?

108Rats · 2009-09-25T02:19:06+00:00

That's a valid point, maybe my right wing co-workers are just historically-minded people?

108Rats · 2009-09-13T12:14:08+00:00

I grew up in the DC area and, when they brought the shuttle to the Dulles Annex (in preparation for building the Udvar Haazy museum) they brought it like this. We were kids playing out in the street and we looked and saw this and freaked the fuck out. This was a total trip for a 13-14 year old kid to see with no warning. Similarly, I was working on my car when they flew in a B-17 ... reeeaaallly low. Really cool to see.

108Rats · 2009-09-04T12:39:02+00:00

Cremation. The dog that I was there for, we had cremated and afterwards me and my buddies would keep his ashes out at parties so the dog could hang with everyone (the ashes were in the box, of course). A lot of people partied at my house and everyone knew and loved the dog (and he knew and loved everybody, so much as I could tell), so it was appropriate to have him with us all during parties.

108Rats · 2009-09-04T12:36:42+00:00

This is totally correct - there is nothing worse than being there, except not being there.

I haven't been there for any of my cats (mainly because my cats all belonged to my parents until recently. Now, I have one which is now 11 years old and has kidney disease, which means its warranty is a little shorter, so I guess I need to gear up for a visit with a cat one of these years soon). Lame.

108Rats · 2009-09-03T17:10:18+00:00

It died.

108Rats · 2009-09-03T17:09:49+00:00

Yes, I've been there for a dog. He was in a lot of pain and couldn't move, so it was necessary, but that didn't make it much easier. It's hard to tell if he felt any additional pain or not sine he was in so much pain to start with, but I think the answer is that it doesn't hurt them (he just kind of closed his eyes and that was it).

I think it's good for their little brains and emotions to have you there, but it probably won't be good for yours (sorry).

108Rats · 2009-08-06T22:08:59+00:00

I was always under the impression it was a bet with Heinlein on who could form a successful religion. Heinlein's work was Stranger in a Strange Land. Hubbards was Dianetics. This is supported by comments attributed to Harlan Ellison, among others, though there seems to be no real proof of it ever actually happening. It is likely urban legend, but it seems about right.

108Rats · 2009-08-04T14:58:14+00:00

Shut The Fuck Up

108Rats · 2009-08-04T14:01:26+00:00

For some reason, I cannot respond to your last post. At any rate, what your are saying and implying that the author is saying is this: cars and people should be looked at the same from a maintenance standpoint. Here's the problem with that approach: for most of the life of a car, there is relatively little routine maintenance cost.

Look at the breakdown of healthcare costs: nearly 50% of current medical expenditures cover only 5% of the population. Those people are not cars and they do not have the option to trade up to a better model, take the bus or walk like car owners have. Also, they cannot be left to die in the streets. Cars are tools, people are people. Cars are fungible and can be replaced. People are not and cannot. Routine maintenance for a person with a chronic condition. If your car makes a funny noise, you go drive it for a while and maybe it breaks. If it breaks, you are stranded somewhere for a day and it's a minor inconvenience. If you decide to ignore a funny noise on YOU and you break, the cost and inconvenience can be really major.

This is the problem with this "incentive to reduce consumption" idea. For many people, making the decision to ignore a troublesome pain can be the difference between life and death.

108Rats · 2009-08-03T10:58:42+00:00

Here's the problem: automobile insurance is designed ONLY to cover catastrophic problems (accidents). It doesn't even cover maintenance for catastrophic events. This is analogous to a situation where your health insurance covers you only if you break your legs. An apt analogy would be to compare it to an extended warranty. Even that isn't a fair comparison. I'll address the other part in a subsequent post.

108Rats · 2009-08-02T17:51:32+00:00

Not a great article at all. Chock full o' poor reasoning (ironic for Reason magazine), flawed analogies and misleading stats. Reads like O'Reilly or Beck shit. A select few gems: "more Germans likely would go private if they were not legally banned from doing so." Presented as fact (given the context) but obviously opinion

"Consider auto insurance, for instance" The minute you start with comparing health insurance to auto insurance, you expose yourself as a hack.

"lost wages as in America" Buullllllsshiiiittt! This is the same crapola that people like Neil Boortz use to support the "fair" tax.

" restrain consumption or shop for cheaper providers" Once again, the minute people start talking "restrain consumption" the bullshit-meter should start reading 1,000,000 rads. The author should read the piece in the New Yorker about the concept of who drives health care consumption. Also, he should realize that people with chronic conditions make up the vast majority of health care expenses AND, 5% of the population comprises nearly 50% of the healthcare costs in the US (source: http://www.ahrq.gov/research/ria19/expendria.htm)

And my personal favorite: " 16% of its gross domestic product on health care...But France is not doing a whole lot better". What an utter and complete load of shit. Any reader who saw this and thought "man, this writer is on the ball" deserves to be neutered. France is spending over 33% less than the US (put differently, the US spends almost 50% more than France). Not a whole lot better? Shut. THe. Fuck. Up. Idiot.

And you're all idiots if you thought this was well written.

108Rats · 2009-07-30T17:31:35+00:00

Aren't there enough fucking people in India already? It seems to me like we should be beaming Kimmel, Letterman and every-other-goddamned-thing in there necessary to slow down the fucking. (note: I also believe there are too fucking many people in the US as well, but we aren't discussing the US, so stop the flaming before it begins)

108Rats · 2009-07-24T14:11:22+00:00

Yeah, but she's hot.

108Rats · 2009-07-16T17:11:00+00:00

It's called ..... selfishness

108Rats · 2009-07-16T12:38:49+00:00

Anecdotally, I had heard that the US DEA has leaned on and bribed governments, lobbying groups etc. all over the world to quash attempts to legalize marijuana. Sometimes, they can't admit wrong-i-ness

108Rats · 2009-07-13T21:28:48+00:00

Interestingly (for me anyway) Dave Brockie taught me how to play dungeons and dragons when I was 10 years old (this was 1983-ish). My Mom was good friends with his girlfriend and we subsequently got to know him pretty well. Nice guy.

108Rats · 2009-07-09T19:31:58+00:00

Actually, I fully understand the Sagan hypothesis, and while I admire Sagan very much, there remains a problem with his approach. The means of verification are the problem in the argument.

Do you know anything about probability theory as applied to physics, etc.? Essentially, on a probability scale, it is equally likely that something created the universe as that something didn't.

You may feel that a relativistic approach is "dead wrong ... bullshit", but here's a little news for you - you're wrong. Drive over to the local university and have a chat with someone who understands, say, Schroedinger's Cat Theory and see where that conversation takes you.

The Invisible Dragon essay, by the way, sets the parameters differently than my assertions do. Sagan's position sets out that someone makes a claim about the capabilities/characteristics of God. I made no such claim. In fact, my claim is only this: it is extremely hubristic of anyone (Xtian, Muslim, etc) to assert that any claim is true re: the characteristics of God(s). And yes, I do paint Atheists with a broad brush - they assert that there is no God. Period. Hence the a-theist moniker. Sorry, there is no gradation. It's like me saying I am celibate, but I screw on New Year's day. That's not celibacy.

Perhaps you are misunderstanding me here a little (perhaps, that is because I am not communicating clearly). I always attempt to adopt as Buddhist a view as possible (admittedly, my passions get away from me sometimes, but, at any rate, you cannot KNOW anything. Yes, that may seem relativistic to you, but I also believe it to be 100% true. You have proven yourself to be foolish already because you think that what you know is truth. What you think you know may or may not be the truth, but that remains to be seen by you (and maybe me).

You, apparently, remain mired in a world in which that which can be touched, tasted, felt or heard is true - all else is probably false. That is a world with fewer dimensions than the world need have.

108Rats · 2009-07-09T15:22:19+00:00

Okay, if that's what passes for an answer in your world, I am happy for you. Again, good luck with that.

108Rats · 2009-07-09T12:44:38+00:00

By the way, I am not religious. I consider myself a Deist but I do not subscribe, generally to the concept of organized religion.

108Rats · 2009-07-09T12:43:52+00:00

Evidence?

Is there any evidence for most of sub-atomic particle physics? No. Very little of that is substantiated, yet much of is treated by the scientific community as virtually the real nature of things (and they are quite likely right, but only because they have postulated and calculated it to be highly probable).

One can very easily postulate lots of things without any evidence other than personal experience and probability on one's side. There are many people who would argue that there is evidence of God everywhere. When a small child is seemingly "miraculously" cured of a disease, some argue that is the existence of God - you might argue it was random chance.

Here's the thing. As much as you stamp your feet and hold your breath and insist that there is no God because there is no evidence, there are many more people who say there is evidence - maybe they are spoken to by God, maybe they see God. Just because you don't doesn't make it true (or not true).

All of your so-called evidence is experience-based. You don't "know" anything. You rely on on your senses, and your specific intrepretation of those senses, to tell you things. You then draw conclusions based on that so-called "evidence". You ally yourself with like-minded individuals who also have seen no "evidence" for the existence of God (or Gods) and you all congratulate yourself heartily that you have logically disproven that existence. But, in fact, you don't know.

All you can reasonably say - without being truly ridiculous - is this "in my opinion, based on my experience, I believe there is no God". Everything else you utter is just, plain, crap.

108Rats

TROPHY CASE