Why it's a good idea not to start a photography business

Once in a while, during the course of an ordinary life somebody will look at the photographs somebody takes and say: "You need to go into business doing that. You're very good". Feel free to pick up a baseball bat and hit them repeatedly over the head until they regain their senses.

Who are the clients for a photography business? When was the last time you hired a photographer? Hmm - I'm stumped on that one too. Sure - I paid a minimum wage clerk in the corner drug store to do a passport photo for me a few times. That's not a photographer though.

So, let's look at some local photographer's websites and see who they think their customers are. So, trying a few search terms...

• Local photographer. The first entry comes up as The Knot which is some kind of wedding magazine. The next is some photographer in St Louis Missouri. That search didn't go well.
• Columbia Photographer produced a list of photographers. A few came up with Google location pins on a map. That's worth pursuing.

The Google location map came up with 7 photographers. Without naming them or directing traffic to their websites, let's have a look at what they offer

1. Oh dear. It's a flash site that took forever to load. The site description says "newborn photography". Odd that - I thought most parents did their newborn photos with an iPhone. Navigating the site there was a page of portraits that looked very nice but was so terrible in operation and so sluggish in use, I ended up closing the browser. Not promising and I severely doubt with a site that bad she would get any customers. The portraits I saw all appeared to be of the same person - probably the photographer.
2. Oh dear. It's another sluggish flash site that takes forever to load. The site description says "wedding photography". The site had a boudoir section that was automated and slow. After suffering that for a minute or two, I moved on. The boudoir section did not look very boudoirish. It looked more a case of draping a woman wearing a bra over a sofa. Not promising and with a site that bad, probably no customers.
3. The next site was a wedding and portrait photographer. That loaded faster but as it was a blog format, pictures from below the bottom of the screen took longer and longer to load. The pictures were nice attempts but not dynamic and not sharp. The focus had clearly been missed. There's a difference between soft focus and out-of-focus. 
4. This site loaded faster band offered weddings and portraits. The portraits had been air-brushed to Hell, rendering the people looking less like people and more like Manga characters. The wedding photographs were excellent. Some of them technically stunning.
5. This site offered weddings, maternity and family photography with the site being described as wedding photography. The pictures were so-so and the pictures in the sections bore little resemblance to the sections. It was impossible to tell why pictures had been put into different galleries. Again, it had a flash slideshow that was infuriating as it totally lacked control.
6. This site also had an annoying flash setup but loaded faster. It just seemed to be random images of random people. The photography was good but the point of the photos was lost. It was clearly somebody whose interests lay elsewhere, trying to scrabble for crumbs selling photography. The site was described as South Carolina Photographer. The aim seemed to be portrait, wedding and engagement with some wacky random stuff thrown in. Not easy to navigate.
7. This site skipped from its own domain to Facebook which was confusing and necessitated logging into a long dormant Facebook account. The site is listed as being the owner's name and "photography". Clearly not something that a lot of thought has been put into. The photographs didn't seem to adhere to any one particular genre of theme. The head of the page said "wedding photography" and it was a blog page that went on forever. The last bit of the page I looked at said engagement photography.

So... There are seven local photographers and none of the sites were exactly good. They were hard to navigate, full of annoying flash slideshows. It really wouldn't have been too hard to load iWeb onto the computer and to design a tidy website. Having said that,the themes coming out from the mess were the following:

• Newborn photography
• Wedding photography
• Maternity photography
• "Family" photography (whatever that is)
• Boudoir photography
• Portrait photography

Now the questions for you. When did you last have portraits (passport photos don't count), wedding, maternity or boudoir photographs done of yourself? I'll skip family because it's not clear what that is. For myself, the answers are never, never, never, never, never.

As a guy, I'm unlikely to want to pose in fishnets, sexy panties and a sexy bra, draping myself over a sofa while sipping a Martini and looking at the photographer through heavily made-up eyes. As a guy, I would be very surprised to find myself pregnant and in need of maternity photography. Immediately you can see the problem. Boudoir and maternity photography are types of photography that 50% of the population cannot possibly have. The market has been cut by 50%.

Newborn photography is pretty much of a scam - any photographer can photograph babies. Most parents do this with their iPhones. In fact most "family" photographs have no interest to anybody at all outside of the family. Thus, unless it's a wizzing contest between couples as to who has the "best" photographs, any photograph that is well exposed will do perfectly for the wedding/engagement album.

So many people were going for portrait photography that Sears photo studios went bust. Picture People went bust (or was that Picture Me). Anyway, you get the idea. There's no money in portrait photography.

Wedding/Engagement photography - when was the last wedding you attended? That long ago? I think the last I attended was probably 2009. That's as a guest too. More people are invited as guests to weddings than are asked to photograph weddings. I can't say that I even know of anybody who recently got married let alone engaged.

So... Who are these mythical clients? Clearly it doesn't bother the people with the websites that nobody can navigate the sites. They get no trade anyway. This is what aphotoeditor has to say about photography as a career. Yup - you read that correctly:

Laurence’s conclusion: “I actually can’t think of a worse business than photography.” And the bottom line: “from a wealth-creation standpoint, photography is a lousy career.” Yikes!  

 Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, I’m different, I’m going to become the next Dan Winters. Sober up for a second and read his post (here). The key here is not just making a living at photography, but a career: enjoy life, raise kids, retire and die happy.

 Are you still going to start a photography business? Do you have stupid written all over your face? This is the worst possible business to start. If somebody's pressuring you to start a photography business then stand back - do you need that somebody in your life? What's their angle? What are they getting out of it or what do they think they're going to get out of it?

Neighborhood of the Living Dead

Zombies shuffling across the landscape, dogs baying and running from the zombies. People huddled behind barricades, shooting zombies with an ever diminishing supply of ammunition. One shot per zombie and save the last for yourself. No - Columbia is not quite that bad but it's getting close. It has become reminiscent of the abandoned towns of the Wild West with tumbleweed blowing down long abandoned streets.

 This was a dollar shop - it closed recently. There is nothing to replace it. Many shops in the centre of town lie abandoned. Indeed some were demolished and the land grassed over in order to disguise the lack of prosperity from the inhabitants.

Businesses cutting back hours. This place is open just one day per week. This is reminiscent of the 3 day week in Britain in the 1970s when during the Arab oil crisis, electricity was rationed severely with cooking possible only between certain hours and candle-light becoming used again. It is questionable whether an establishment can pay rent based on single day opening.

Malls lie abandoned. This has a few tenants but not many. There have been rumors that the tenants don't pay any rent and are just there in order to lure real businesses to the mall. Indeed, there's a photography studio there that's always closed. The lady that runs it has a real job that she spends most of her time doing as photography just doesn't pay the rent.

The state of the roads around Columbia are pretty appalling. This "road" is nothing more than a dirt track. There are literally hundreds of roads like this around South Carolina. It is indeed very reminiscent of the Dukes of Hazard.

Owen's Field, Columbia. It's a functioning airport but the hangers certainly need some work. This looks like it will collapse into a pile of rusty rubble at any moment. It's hardly the jewel in the crown of the capital city of the state.

Proof positive that the place is dying. This used to be a bookshop. At about 25,000 square feet and in a prime retail location, trade should have been way more than the reported $9k a day. The last shops to close in a recession are bookstores (cheap entertainment), banks and food stores. Several food stores have closed recently.

The economists might not think there's a recession, viewing the figures and the human misery through rose-tinted glasses but the reality on the streets is very different. This is just Columbia, South Carolina. Other cities and towns in other states tell pretty much the same sad story.

The ideal camera for the ideal photographer?

Does such a thing really exist? Is there a Mr Perfect or a Miss Perfect? How about a Mr and Mrs Average with their 2.4 children. I've always wondered whether Mr & Mrs average should be prosecuted for having 0.4 of a child. What did they do with the rest? Is it perhaps the content of the mystery meat in McDonald's Big Mac? Perhaps the Big Mac is actually the McSoylent Green burger? Is the 0.4 of a child perhaps a time-share child that is shared out between various members of an unsavory group?

Nevertheless, this article is actually about the ideal camera. Increasingly, the ideal camera is a cellphone camera. This is actually a really good choice most of the time for most people. Let's face it - the images are uploaded automatically to cloud storage and can be sent via email, instant messengers and to websites or any form of social media. The downside is that posts with banal images appear. How much more banal can one get than this?

Without knowing the whole story behind the picture, it's another bizarrely angled image of an abandoned store, taken from a parking lot. In actual fact, this was an image sent to a friend when commenting that yet another dollar shop couldn't make ends meet in the empty heart of Lexington, South Carolina.

Since photography went digital, the number of photographs taken every year has rocketed. It's not possible to say anything about quality as that's subjective. This was an excellent image for its purpose which was illustrative.

Wedding photography has plummeted downhill in quality since digital came to the scene as people now take hundreds of photographs rather than a few dozen and making each picture count. Going back to the Mr and Miss Perfect, it doesn't really matter as by the time the couple get their pictures back, they're already considering divorce. Clearly there is no such thing as a Mr or Miss Perfect.

What about cameras? Well, there's no such thing as the ideal camera just as the ideal couple doesn't exist. There are, however, cameras that can be worked around. Just as a couple should work around their issues, camera owners should work around the issues of their cameras.

Constant desires to upgrade to a better model usually hide something else. The desire to get a different camera usually hides another problem. Now that any camera over 6 megapixels will produce an image that will print very nicely to the most common sizes, there's no reason to use resolution as a reason. That reason can be ruled out completely.

How about size and weight? Certainly a big, chunky DSLR is heavy and the lenses are big and heavy. Carrying several bodies and lenses make walking - particularly in the heat of the South - into an arduous task. It's not necessary to carry everything from 10mm wide-angle to 5,000mm telephoto. It's possible to use all of them in a single trip but it's just daft to try to carry it all for fear of missing out on that one "special" picture. Such "special" pictures are usually so fleeting that the right lens would have to be on the body with the camera primed and ready otherwise they're another gigantic fish that got away.

On a trip to Key West, the lens taken was a Tamron 17-35 which is more than adequate for seascapes and local scenery. Sadly, the boat in the background would have required a much longer lens. Having said that, the crowd jostling around when the picture was taken would have made a telephoto image quite blurry.

It would have been nice to zoom in on the ship and have it fill the frame but without carrying huge quantities of lenses and inflicting that weight one one's body in 40c/90F, it was not possible. This 100% crop is the best obtainable from the photograph.

So, clearly a DSLR isn't the ideal camera. It takes interchangeable lenses which are heavy and bulky. Whatever camera is in use - whether it's a cellphone with a single fixed focal length lens or a DSLR or something in between, there is no ideal camera. If there were, there wouldn't be so many manufacturers out there manufacturing contenders for the best camera crown.

During the days of film, many street photographers used to use the Leica M4P as it was fast into action and unobtrusive. The Leica M cameras made it to Vietnam for the war in Vietnam and up Everest due to their rugged nature, simplicity, compactness and light weight. Many photographers used solely one lens - the standard 50mm lens though some used the 35mm and the 90mm. This was probably the ideal camera of the 1940s to 1970s. 

Have things changed? Why do people now want lenses ranging from 10mm to 5,000mm? Really and truly, it's just birdwatchers and sports photographers that truly *need* longer lenses. Just about every other photographer that has one truly does not need it. Most are gadgeteers who buy gear with the intention of using it, use it a few times and then put it to one side for "future" use. In photography there are a lot of gadgeteers who buy things and swear by them but who rarely if ever actually use them.

When it comes to camera clubs and online groups, photography takes second place to gear bragging and wizzing contests about gear. Most people in online wizzing contests rarely if ever actually own the equipment that is claimed.

So, the ideal camera? The jury is out on that one though one would have to go a long way to beat the Leica M digital series. At $7,000 it is not as expensive as it first sounds. As was said years ago, what with changing systems and changing cameras, people pay the price of a Leica without ever actually owning one. 

What on Earth were they thinking or were they thinking?

For those that don't already know, some years ago, Barnes and Noble brought out their appalling Nook eReader. The original was so appalling that it sold solely to the kind of people that wanted to have the latest gadget. The poor suckers that bought those lemons must surely be regretting it now.

The Nook 1st edition was black and white with no backlight. Instead, a ridiculous clip-on reading light was sold to go with it. The whole thing was a ludicrous milking exercise where people would enter the store thinking they were going to leave with a functional eReader for $270 that would allow them to download their books via a 3G connection. By the time the salesmen had finished working on them, the poor souls had spent $270 on their Nook 1st edition, $50 on a cover, $20 on a protective film to fit over the screen, $50 on a warranty and $20 on a light. That's a total of $410 on an eReader that was sluggish to say the best.

In a vain attempt to please the masses, a web browser and some games were added to the Nook. The web browser was described by one and all as worthless though the games were better designed for it. Huge numbers of the first edition were returned because the screen flickered, because the 3G or wifi didn't actually work and because they just locked up totally.

Having survived a disastrous start in eReaders, Barnes & Noble (who one individual described as pretentious on the basis that a non-technology company thought it could compete with the technology big-boys) followed up with a color Nook. That too was appalling - in a room with the slightest humidity, the device would go bananas with automatic page flipping or going dead to the touch on its touch screen. The work around was to sell the suckers that bought it, a protective screen at $20 that should have been given away free as a fix for the problems of the device.

After their debacle with their first two eReaders, more eReaders were forthcoming including a huge 10 inch color device that was competing with the Apple iPad on quality and failing and with the cheap 10 inch devices from Walmart and failing.

Seriously - with a tablet there are two ways to go; either buy the best that money can buy which will be either an iPad 10 inch or a Nexus 10 inch or get the cheapest that money can buy and put up with the flaws. With constant updates, the cheaper tablets will become as sluggish as the cheapest fairly quickly while the top of the range models will keep on going for far longer.

Recently, Barnes & Noble gave up their pretence that they were a technology company, having spent hundreds of millions of dollars on what was essentially re-inventing the wheel. Books A Million and Borders both got technology right - off the bat. Books A Million just sold somebody else's eReader, knowing full well that they were selling devices and not content. Borders simply rebadged Kobe's eReader.

While a great many people will buy their books on a B&N Nook device, most will get them elsewhere. Searching online finds a lot of books available in both PDF and ePub formats. As has been seen on this blog, eBooks are reviewed. These are reviewed from PDFs and ePubs that are free downloads. The company is essentially selling a tablet but not eBooks.

Now it appears B&N has almost (but not entirely) seen the light. The B&N Nook color tablet is now a Samsung Galaxy Tab (which gets dire reviews). B&N still makes its appalling b/w eReader.

What Barnes & Noble should have done was - instead of pretending to be a technology company and going in all macho to tussle with companies that have been doing technology for decades - to simply rebadge somebody else's eReader. In fact, B&N should have worked out a deal with Apple to rebadge the big iPad. The screens on the itsy-bitsy little 7 inch models is just too small. The screens on the 5 inch B/W models is just laughable. Try reading a PDF!

Right at the beginning, when the B&N development people came out with the Nook 1st edition, the Project Manager should have looked at the creation, asked if the developer was joking and hurled the thing at the wall. The Nook first edition was terrible and set the precedent for the whole range. In a final bit of good sense, the Nook is now a rebadged device built and developed by a technology company. It's way too late to save the brand and probably too late to save Barnes & Noble.

The joys of hiring staff

Once in a while, when running a business, it's necessary to hire staff. That can be fraught with a whole range of issues. It's amazing how many interviews end with the applicants discounting themselves from the process. Let's have a look at several that applied for a position as a facepainter back from when my business was going to branch out into facepainting and photography.

The concept was simple enough. My business already had a business license. The venue had liability coverage. The venue was a Barnyard Flea Market where stall rental was a mere $15 a day - which my business would have covered as a business expense. All the facepainter had to do was to show up and paint faces. My business would provide the photographs both as a 6x4 print on the spot and larger sizes downloadable from the internet. This was not about making a profit - this was about advertising.

A nominal fee would have been charged in order to cover expenses (and a bit of money for the facepainter) but other than that it was free advertising for both the facepainter and the photographer. Thus, the advert went onto Craigslist and into the University of South Carolina Careers Office for a facepainter with the stipulation the facepainter had to be local. It was even made more attractive for the facepainter by calling it casual work so that they were responsible for declaring their income and paying their own taxes.

Four applications were received from Craigslist. None were ever received from USC students. Of those four, they ranged from awful to abysmal:

1. Applicant number one rang to book an appointment and then on the due day, half an hour in advance, cancelled and asked for a new date. She was given a new date. Half an hour before the due time on the new date, she rang and cancelled and asked for a further date. She was given a further date. Half an hour before, she rang to change the date upon which she was informed that as she could not make 3 interview dates, it was highly unlikely that she'd be able to show up for work. She began to argue which was when the call was terminated. Thank Heavens she never rang back.
2. Applicant number two - the interview went well - then half way through the interview she announced she was a lesbian. Well, so what? What did that have to do with facepainting, photography, a business relationship or the price of tea in China? She was quite promising otherwise and swore she had face paints. Needless to say, a day before we were due to go and start work, she texted to say "I don't think this is going to work out for me. I'm not coming". 
3. Applicant number three - she was so far away she would have had to drive for an hour just to get to the venue. Clearly she had not read the stipulation about needing to be "local".
4. Applicant number four - she interviewed well and was ordering her facepaints later in the day. Every time she was asked had her facepaints arrived, they never had. Quite what the score was there, is really unclear.

So, what on earth can one make of all that? As one friend said "You can't give work away". It wouldn't have been documented. It would have made them some money. It would have been great advertising for both of us. It was entirely up to them if they paid their taxes. I'd have paid mine but wouldn't have "employed" them officially - merely paid for their services. 

It can't be that all facepainters are complete flakes. It can't be that all women are flakes. The problem is probably more basic than that - people just are not prepared to work. People are not prepared to put effort into doing things for themselves to build toward the future. People want to be spoon fed all the time. Those four people (and others) wasted an entire summer during which two people could have happily been doing facepainting and photography, making a little money but crucially building business relationships with the public and getting into the mind of the public. 

How not to run a business in 10 easy steps.

Every once in a while, somebody will say "you should do that as a business - you're very good". Certainly - basket weaving might be your passion and you might indeed be very good at basket weaving but there are a few steps in between basket weaving as a passion and basket weaving as a business - perhaps enough to turn the average person into a basket case. Thus, straitjackets at the ready, we shall begin.

1. Listen to your friends when they tell you, you should start a business. They know more than you about how much money your hobby - from which you probably make a tiny amount of money occasionally - will make. Your friends are never wrong about how your should run your affairs.
2. Listen to the people that try to sell you advertising and produce impressive figures on how 1,000 junkmails will produce 3 transactions and how junkmail will make you loads of money.
3. Buy advertising space in newspapers, magazines and online. You have to spend money to make money and this is the only way to make sure your presence is seen. Don't question whether your potential customers will see the magazines, newspapers or online adverts.
4. Get advice from the business advisors at business advice centers without questioning how the advisers can be such experts without actually owning a current and successful business. 
5. Take out a loan to buy equipment - when you get customers the equipment will soon pay for itself - if you actually get customers.
6. Don't look to see how many of your future competitors are going bust for lack of business. They must be awful and you're not because you're new and inexperienced.
7. Of course there're enough people in the local area to support another business doing the same as what half a dozen others are doing. They're only barely making money because they're awful and you're going to be so much better straight from the start.
8. Listen to the credit card companies. Credit card payments are so much easier to take than actual money and so much easier than checks. Ignore the fact they have a large monthly fee plus a high percentage per transaction - your future customers will pay for it gladly.
9. Everything is tax deductible as a business. Remember you can claim lunch with your girlfriend is a business meeting and you can claim it as a legitimate business expense. Ignore the fact the tax office might get a bit narked and come after you with a baseball bat. Ignore also that it's totally immoral and that you'll only get 20% back as a deduction.
10. Your business equipment is an investment. You need to buy the best and you need to buy it all brand new. You need to listen to those that tell you that you need backups of everything and backups of the backups, just in case a couple of things fail on a big day.

OK. That's how not to run a business. Notice it's all about listening to what other people say about running a business and all about spending money to make it all happen. Throwing money at a problem never ever solves the problem - it masks it and makes it feel like something has been done.

Notice of appearance in court‏

Notice of appearance in court‏

Notice to Appear (custsupport018@mesotheliomalawyersonline.com) 3:01 AM

To: <withheld>

From:	Notice to Appear (custsupport018@mesotheliomalawyersonline.com)
Sent:	Thu 8/21/14 3:01 AM
To:	<withheld>
	1 attachment | Download all as zip (89.2 KB) &#1057opy_of_Document_ID6614.zip (89.2 KB)

Notice to Appear,

The copy of the court notice is attached to this letter. Please, read it thoroughly.

Note: If you do not attend the hearing the judge may hear the case in your absence. 

Truly yours,

Clerk to the Court,

Nancy Mason

Highly entertaining. Sometimes I just find spam to be hugely entertaining. The idea of somebody wanting me to download a zip file (probably containing a Windows virus) with a supposedly scary message like that just cracks me up. I suppose somebody would have fallen for it - despite the fact that all summonses in every country have to be served by an actual human who will bear as witness that the act has been performed.

Lustful single chick who stays in your area to do absolutely everything for you!‏

Kayla (xieping@zust.edu.cn) Add to contacts 8/20/14

To: <withheld>

From:	Kayla (xieping@zust.edu.cn)
Sent:	Wed 8/20/14 1:03 PM
To:	<withheld>

Zippy single chica residing in your area to go wild with lust with you!

<website removed>

The idea that somebody should be lustful and who wants to stay in my area to do absolutely everything for me is also very amusing. The last person that did everything for me was my mother, when I was a baby. Since then I have learned to wear shoes and not make messes in the house. Of course, I could always hire a maid who would do all that for me without being lusty. Somehow I think my girlfriend would disapprove of my having a lusty maid.

Your business is underperforming!‏

Freelancer.com (noreply@updates.freelancer.com) 8/20/14 Newsletters

To: <withheld>

From:

 Freelancer.com (noreply@updates.freelancer.com) Microsoft SmartScreen classified this message as junk.

Sent:

Wed 8/20/14 4:29 AM

To: <withheld>

Hi SPW2,

Has business been slower lately? Looking for ways to give your business a quick boost? Don't worry, Freelancer.com has you covered! 

We've gathered the best ways to help your business thrive, so you can increase your revenue. Best of all, trying these techniques is quick and easy when Freelancer.com has experts ready to help you get started. Check them out and give them a go!

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Get started with these quick and easy ideas on Freelancer.com today, and watch your business grow!

Kickstart your Business

Regards,

The Freelancer Team.

© 2014 Freelancer Technology Pty Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Level 20, 680 George Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia 

Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions

Hmm... I didn't know I had a business. Maybe that's why it's underperforming? Well, if it's underperforming so badly that it's not making me any money nor costing me any money then I think I'll just continue on as normal.

Date a Boatload of Single Women…‏
AnastasiaDate (mail@anastasiamailing.com) 8/20/14 NewslettersTo: <removed>
From: AnastasiaDate (mail@anastasiamailing.com) Sent:Wed 8/20/14 4:16 AMTo:<removed>
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A boatload of single women? How big is this boat? Is it a rowing boat? Is it a toy boat? Is it a canoe? Is it the Titanic? It sounds like it could well be the Titanic. It also sounds expensive.

We all get junkmail and it's such a laugh to read through it all sometimes. Full marks for today's load of baloney. It kept me entertained for a full five minutes before I pressed delete on it all. The sad thing is that a small minority of people are stupidly going to fall for all that rubbish. Didn't PT Barnum say "there's one born every day". It's so true. There are so many so very obvious scams that people have to be fools to fall for them. It's not something I can quite wrap my head around.

Meanwhile, as it's now heading toward election season, I expect our inboxes will rapidly fill with garbage from electoral spam machines just as our telephones ring with voice spam from the electoral voice spam machines. Every time I get spam from a candidate, I strike them off the list of people I'd vote for.

The alluring power of total bullshit

What's that I smell? Is it perfume? Is it food? No - it's total bullshit. It overwhelms me every time I go near the internet. It's at its worst near the crowdfunding websites. How much of this crowdfunding is genuine? There was a crowdfunding campaign for Solar Roadways which is what I'd call a bullshit campaign.

If this link is followed, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obS6TUVSZds there's a video on just why one fellow says solar roadways are bullshit. But why is it so alluring?

A good scam has to fire the imagination and get people interested and involved. The solar roadways project is absolutely not about building solar roadways. It's all about one fellow earning a living off donations while producing some psuedo-science along the way that looks promising but which even he knows will ultimately fail. When it fails, he doesn't care - he's been developing the thing for years and has been living, paying his pension and his rent for that number of years while producing absolutely sod all.

Solar Roadways are just a total scam. The project is not about ecology - it's about one guy putting food on the table until the gravy train ends. He'll then move onto his next scam which will probably be water turbines run from the drains on urinals.

It seems that a lot of crowdfunding is not about completing an actual project but more about getting free beer money. Crowdfunding makes the news when a project actually gets some funding. The vast majority don't get any funding whatsoever. For a bit of fun I put up a crowdfunding project called "Save the rare wongatan". In that, I made up a rare beast called the "wongatan" which was a cross between an orangutan and a wombat. It was so rare that only 100 breeding pairs were left in the wild. Sure - I put up some photos too but crucially left the payment fields blank so that I wouldn't be taking money under false pretences.

What was the result of the Wongatan campaign? Zero - as expected. Nobody viewed the campaign at all. That leads to the question - does anybody actually view these things? Sure - some people probably get funding but it's the weirder wackier stuff that fires the imagination that is broadcast as having received funding. Maybe in order for that kind of thing to work, you have to be a scammer.

The whole internet is full of very alluring total bullshit. The problem is navigating between the fact and fiction. The one inescapable fact is that social media is very alluring but total bullshit. How many of the "friends" you have on Facebook have you ever met? If you haven't ever met or spoken to them then you cannot call them friends. The best you can call them is pen-friends. The beautiful lady with whom you correspond could be an ugly-looking guy just out of jail. The handsome man with whom you correspond could be a prostitute having a laugh.

Wikipedia is another fine example of total bullshit. There is no editorial control - anybody can edit it. I've edited wikipedia myself to correct errors and then somebody has re-corrected after me to put the errors back. Those were errors that could be identified easily if somebody opened a damn book and read the text instead of relying upon regurgitated misquotations from somebody else's regurgitated misquotations based upon what somebody read in a book 10 years ago in 3rd grade.

There's no getting away from it - the internet is full of bullshit. Take the online games people play - as soon as the game comes out somebody works out a way of cheating. As soon as a game comes out somebody clones it or produces one with a slightly different name. I believe there was a game called flappy bunny which then got copies as fuzzy rabbit, knobbly elephant etc. It's all bullshit and a waste of time. If somebody's cheating then it's not a game but rather a waste of time.

No wonder people were more productive and happier before the internet became so widely used.

The Power of Social Media

Roll-up, roll-up, get your snake oil here. Lovely snake oil. Cures all ills from club foot, malaria to toxic mother-in-laws. Roll-up, get it now while it's cheap. Prices are going to rise next month as we have to switch suppliers due to a police raid. Our snake oil is still the same great value it has always been, get it now before prices rise.

The newspapers are full of stories about how social media has saved the world and how it brings people together. That makes people curious and makes them want to buy the newspaper to find out how the people in the tale managed to get social media to work for them. People want to learn how to make social media work for them - usually having failed spectacularly to do so by themselves.

According to The Guardian, "The #BringBackOurGirls campaign has shown that social media is more than just pictures of meals and cocktails" yet the girls in the story are still missing. That doesn't sound too successful! It sounds more like a load of people sitting in the back room of a bar, drinking beer and agreeing how they would run the country while finding excuses as to why they shouldn't run for office.

The Huffington Post comes out with a real gem when a little way into the article, the writer states "social media is a huge part of our culture". Yes, it probably is - like heroin, crack, cocaine, ecstasy, cannabis, qat and opium are and probably just as endemic.

Perhaps the best comment came from copyblogger who wrote:

If you’ve been reading the news headlines about social media for the last few years, you may be tempted to think: 

• Merely opening a Twitter account will triple your revenue this year 

• You’re only one blog post away from a guest spot on Oprah 

• If you build it (a Facebook/LinkedIn/Tumblr page), they will come (in hordes) 

Then you look around at the real world and realize that, sadly, none of this is true.

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Foursquare etc are great time-soaks and nothing more. Sure there are people that claim to use social media for their businesses but what exactly is their business and how are they using social media? Usually, they have a social media page that gets a lot of curiosity views or views from friends but which gets them no extra income.

Copyblogger also made the following astute observations:

• The first thing we all realize when we start playing around with social media is that it can be a brutal, ugly time suck. And too many bloggers never get past that point. They lose hours every day “being social” without anything to show for it.
• Social media demands a huge investment — not of money, typically, but in time, which of course is worth much more than money.

This blog has been running for around a year. During this time it has transitioned from a photography website via a photography blog to a business blog with photography. Reader numbers have always been hard to ascertain though it does get widely distributed via Twitter. Or - it seems it gets widely distributed via Twitter.

This blog gets distributed via four Twitter accounts. At least 3 of those accounts seem to have followers that completely lack that human touch. The fourth account has little to no interaction either. Let's have a look at the Twitter accounts.

• 3326 Tweets, 34 followers, hardly any interaction - operated manually.
• 18K Tweets, 3778 followers, zero interaction - operated mostly automatically though I do monitor and would respond to replies if there were any.
• 14K Tweets, 1959 followers, zero interaction- operated mostly automatically though I do monitor and would respond to replies if there were any.
• 18K Tweets, 2956 followers, zero interaction - operated mostly automatically though I do monitor and would respond to replies if there were any.

So, what I have is 8727 followers none of which is actually human. To add insult to injury, for each of these 4 Twitter accounts, I receive pointless advisories from Twitter like this:

Who on earth is @ParkJockeyNYC - I've never had a single message off them whoever they are. I really don't care that @worduptotonto, @jetar9 or @rogerbezanis followed them. I don't know any of them and don't care to. 

This is the whole problem with social media - it's antisocial. Just as email was destroyed by spam, social media has been destroyed by spam. This kind of Twitter twoddle is just spam as far as I can tell. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. The only thing it's not doing is trying to sell me viagra (yet).

Ages ago I bought a book called "The Power of Foursquare" or as I prefer to call it "The power of making money from snake oil". Social Media is nothing but snake oil. Facebook is often touted as a success but is it really? It took off like a rocket and because of that it's regarded as a success. That's a very narrow use of the word success. Success is something that keeps on going and Facebook has reached its peak and is now on the way down.

The real power of social media is for those that can write books or blog entries about the subject. Such books or blogs are regarded as bibles by those seeking desperately to make money from something of no value. After buying and reading "The Power of Foursquare" by Carmine Gallo, I had very much the feeling that I'd just bought Brooklyn Bridge.

The beauty of research. A list of the top ten sites.

The too good to be true offers - we've all had them. We're looking for something and think we find it online and then we investigate and often waste gas and time on a hoax. This is not specifically about online purchases but more online deals and more specifically employment. All photographers need a main job to supplement their hobby job of photography.

Research is what is needed and to aid with that, the internet has a veritable plethora of review websites ranging in prowess from good to abysmal. These are two sample reviews that were located today (August 14th).

Without naming any agencies, the following are comments seen online:

• <agency name removed> are temp staffing agencies in the Portland and Beaverton area. They require lengthy at-home testing programs from your personal computer that require downloading of their programs on all Microsoft office skills testing. After you have completed the alpha-numeric, typing and ten-key tests, you are taken to the Microsoft testing.  Unfortunately, as my computer did, it refused to allow such a program and came with a warning that this program "may be harmful to your computer" and not to proceed. Which I did not. Then, a phone number is given so that you may "report a problem". You simply reach that receptionist, who tells you that you can come into the office for testing. Since I have no Microsoft skills, that would likely be a waste of time. With a 4 yr college degree and over 20 years experience in my field, there's no way I'm about to play their game. Especially when the job I was being referred to was already listed with Oregon Employment Dept, for free. the receptionist at <agency name removed> (a male) told me that the clients they refer people to require that those tests be taken. What a LIAR! I called the clients directly and they told me that they do not require anything more than a resume and interview. I am done with temps as they all seem to be pathological liars.
• I submitted my application one morning and a few hours later, I received a phone call to schedule an interview for the position that I applied to. During the phone call, they told me to dress professional and to be there for a specific time. I wore some nice black slacks, a button down polo, and some black dress shoes. During my interview, the HR woman told me that I would not be a good candidate because it was a dirty job. I went on to tell her how I have worked on oil rigs and railroads. She mentioned other job openings on the telephone but during the interview, she was eager to let me know that I was too clean for the mechanic job, and apparently, she forgot about all of the other job postings. She also told me that since I had majored in music on an online program, that I would also be unfit for the mechanic position. I just feel like I was totally stereotyped! After my experience and reading other reviews, I see that I made a mistake trying to find a job through them.

There are many such stories littering the internet - tales of woe about companies. The whole point is though that they're searchable. Research before spending money on fuel and time. Only the other day, somebody rang from an agency in Spartanburg. No message was left on the answerphone which was curious. After calling them, it was apparently essential that an interview be attended. Never once was the position mentioned. Upon enquiry it transpired that it was a position that was entirely unsuitable. Then the research was done. Many had complained about that agency calling to interview people for jobs that either didn't exist or that were unsuitable. In fact there was a litany of complaints - all recorded online. 

Care has to be exercised reading both negative and positive reviews. Because one person, one time had a bad experience does not mean the company is bad. They could have had a bad day and the recruiter could have had a bad day. People, being human, do have both good and bad days. Similarly good and bad staff come and go.

To read reviews constructively, ask two questions:

• Has the reviewer potentially been the problem with unrealistic expectations?
• How recent is the review? If it's over 6 months ago and there are no fresh negative reviews, does it represent the current state of the business?

Returning to the plethora of review websites, the following is a list that is generally pretty good

1. www.resellerratings.com
2. www.bbb.org
3. www.ripoffreport.com
4. www.eopinions.com
5. www.glassdoor.com
6. www.consumeraffairs.com
7. www.yelp.com
8. www.pissedcustomer.com
9. www.yellowpages.com
10. www.indeed.com
11. www.whitepages.com <-- This is a BONUS link. This is very useful for checking up on phone numbers of who called. If it comes up as VOIP or mobile and it's supposed to be a business, forget it. It's not genuine.

There are other sites but that's a generally pretty decent line up of what are probably the top ten - in no particular order. Before you rush off now to write your angry review, stop. Think about it. Your review could be the review that drives the company out of business and puts everybody out of work. Your angry review now could be regretted bitterly in the future. Be careful with reviews as some are not removable. Your name, your signature on a review could lead to legal action by the business or individual concerned. Be careful.

Top ten tips for staying safe buying and selling via online sites

Browsing the internet one day, via a favorite website, an item is spotted that looks wonderful. It fulfills exactly the need. The price is either low or something that can be worked with and it's not too far away. Stop! This is where everything usually goes completely pear-shaped. It doesn't matter what the item is - whether it's a camera, an antique fairy cake a computer, a camper, a car or a pair of earrings. Stop right there!

The four main ways of getting secondhand goods are via Amazon, eBay, Craigslist and Facebook. Each has its own individual hurdles for both buying and selling. Different types of precautions are needed for both. Each one has its fair share of oddballs, misfits, criminals and idiots. Let's look at some examples:

• Amazon - Who exactly is selling the goods? Is it a private individual, a store, a private individual running a psuedo-store (these guys usually buy the leftovers from yard or estate sales)? Are they reliable - how to know they're reliable? Sure - there's a "ratings" system in place but they can be skewed easily by having a buddy make a lot of low value purchases and give high ratings. As an example, if on the first sale the seller gets a zero for supplying broken, faulty or stolen goods and a buddy then buys 20 separate postage stamps at 10c each then the bad rating becomes 1 of 21 ratings. Thus a single zero-star and 20 five-star ratings gives the rogue seller 4.76 out of 5. Are the items on sale legitimate?
• eBay - again - who is selling the goods? Have the ratings been skewed? As with Amazon, it pays to pay particular attention to the wording of the item. Is there any way that the item could be as described yet still non-functional? There are so many horror stories of eBay purchases and eBay scams that it would seem foolish to use such a rogue system.
• Craigslist - This site is synonymous with scams, crooks and worse. The Craigslist Killer is just one such example. The only time (and the site even says this) that a deal should be made via Craigslist is when the deal is made in public and when other precautions are taken, including having burly friends along or being armed.
• Facebook - This is pretty much like Craigslist. There's no telling whether the item is legitimate or whether the buyer is legitimate. Anybody can set up a Facebook profile and claim to be anybody. There are enough photos on the internet for somebody to claim to be somebody they are not. In an earlier article, Veritassium was mentioned. The fellow behind Veritassium revealed there were many fake profiles. Having said that, it's often prudent with social media to work under a pseudonym. Thus an anonymous account doesn't mean anything of itself. The same precautions as for Craigslist need to take place with all Facebook transactions.
• Paypal - The number of frauds involving Paypal are immense. Best just to avoid Paypal since it's not actually a bank and does not have to abide by banking rules.

The top tips for staying safe with all these transactions

1. Low prices indicate something is amiss
2. Agreeing to meet in a public venue then changing the location at the last minute indicates something is amiss.
3. The venue is off a dirt track or well out into the countryside or a disreputable area of town indicates something is amiss.
4. Insistence on meeting privately and unaccompanied indicates something is amiss.
5. Unusual payment methods being required eg Western Union indicate something is amiss.
6. Payment by check with a payment for overmuch money requiring a refund indicates something is amiss.
7. Payment is made as a person to person fund transfer on Paypal. This indicates something is amiss.
8. Payment is made to one country/person and goods are shipped to/received by somebody in a different country. This indicates something could be amiss.
9. Use of an Escrow service is suggested. This definitely indicates something is amiss.
10. Proof of ownership of the item cannot be produced or the seller is "selling it for a friend" indicates something is amiss.

There are more indicators of criminality such as somebody being shifty but these are harder to describe and need to be assessed on an individual basis. Remember - missing out on the "bargain of the century" is not a big deal. Getting ripped-off, mugged or murdered is bigger problem - well perhaps being murdered just means your problems are over in this world!

Endemic bribery in South Carolina

Think of bribery and images come to mind of dark and dusty countries with bags of money being exchanged for customs officers and other officials to look the other way when convoys of trucks carrying elephant tusks, ivory, arms and ammunition rumble across the borders. My own experience of bribery was the way in which things were done in the former USSR when working there. Many times, people would sweeten deals and smooth their way through bureaucracy with gifts of expensive wines and expensive chocolates.

Bribery is here too in South Carolina and it affects everybody at some point in their life - whether it's bribing somebody in order to get a job, bribing somebody in order to gain preferential treatment in order to gain a contract or deeper, darker business.

Recently there have been two cases of bribery that came to light. The first was of a National Guard Officer that pled guilty to taking bribes. This is the FBI Press Release. It is unusual for people to be prosecuted for bribery because usually they pay their way out of it. Clearly this fellow had fallen out of favor or somebody else had paid more to get rid of him.

Even the police are not immune to bribery. Though not yet convicted Lexington's own Sheriff Metz has been charged with bribery. The basics of the case are that money allegedly changed hands in order to let illegal immigrants remain working in Mexican cafes etc. This is what USA Today has to say about the case: Sheriff faces bribery charges.

It's not just one agency or two but just about every agency and business that runs on bribery and coercion. An official at a SC based adoption agency, according to South Carolina Radio Network, has pled guilty to bribery.

The image the world has of the South of America is not too far off the truth. It is seen as an area of endemic bribery, drugs and racism. The South is infamous for its Ku Klux Klan and use of low-waged black labor. Little has changed since the days of slavery. Instead of being tithed to an owner, the descendents of slaves are now paid $7.25 an hour which doesn't even cover essentials like housing, food, transport and medicine which the slave owners provided as part of maintaining a slave. Indeed, one could say that life as free men has not benefited many of the descendents of former slaves.

The classic television series, The Dukes of Hazard, was derided for showing the South in a poor light. It showed corruption in the South that lacked the glossy disguise that normally conceals it. Driving through various areas of Lexington county and beyond, a friend was pointing out the areas that one should never enter. The usual comment was "this is full of meth labs". Indeed, my friend once lived opposite a meth lab but didn't realise it was a meth lab until the building exploded and burned to the ground. Apparently meth labs like racism, sexism, bribery and poverty are endemic in South Carolina. 

During a court case, another friend was shushed by their lawyer. The opposing party had apparently been engaged in racist abuse of their employees and potential employees. That party had also apparently been engaged in consuming medicines prescribed for others. The lawyer simply said "shhh... It's South Carolina". No more was said and no more needed to be said.

How to survive 3 days without modern technology

On Friday, driving to another city, there was a terrible thunderstorm. It looked for all the world that the car was heading straight into Armageddon. The hail on the roof sounded like the pounding of the hooves of the four horses of the Apocalypse. The sun was shining but the sky was as black as night though the photo below doesn't show it so, having defaulted to a mid grey.

Upon arrival at the destination, the weather was worse. So torrential was the rain that it was impossible to venture outside the vehicle. Even if it had been possible, it would not have been wise as lightning played around the area so it was just a case of waiting the storm out. Crash went the thunder and another bolt of lightning hit nearby - time after time. The lights of my destination dimmed and went out several times, such was the ferocity of the storm. Eventually after about 45 minutes imprisoned in the vehicle it was possible to emerge.

The rain and lightning had taken out all the electronics. The TVs were dead, the internet was dead. Indeed, only basic things like a conventional stove and electric lighting worked. Everything else was dead. Hundreds if not thousands of dollars of electronics had been destroyed. Were it not for the fact that there was electric lighting and electric cooking appliances, the place would have been time-warped back to the 15th century. As it was, it was time-warped back to the days of my youth for those were simple times with no television, no internet, no computers. Everything was done by hand. Calculations were performed with a pencil and paper.

It was not possible to do anything at my destination other than talk, play cards, eat and drink. There was no alcohol so drinks were nothing of which even the most devout religious guru would have disapproved. But what to do for the duration? Using the sole working mobile telephone for even the land based telephones had been annihilated, it was ascertained that the company responsible for the telephones, internet and television would only be available to fix them on Monday. It was now Friday. The prospect of a chasm without any form of connectivity to the internet yawned, bleakly and forebodingly with all the entertainment value of a root canal.

In actual fact, everybody had a great time. Instead of sitting individually in front of separate consoles, people talked and interacted. Things were done. There were no calls of "later - after this game". Talking, it was discovered that the good ladies of the house needed one of the shower stalls to be refitted in order to render the place ready to be rented out. First the narrow shower doors had to be removed in order to replace them with a more open curtain that would thus allow more generously proportioned people to enter. This was a task handed to me to which I set about with gusto. After a few false starts when nothing seemed to shift the screws that held the door frame to the walls, it was ascertained that they could simply be pulled away as the attachment was no more secure than a screw going through a hole drilled in a ceramic tile and embedded in plasterboard (sheet rock). Thus after a couple of hours taken trying to dismantle the unit nicely, all it took was a few minutes with an iron bar. 

 One thing leading to another, the floor of the shower needed to be concreted in order to support tiles. As there was already a liner in place - the original owner of the home had started to do the shower before shuffling off this mortal coil - it was just a case of laying concrete. Cue my friend's sister's boyfriend who donned his cape and leapt into action as Construction Man. Within hours, the cement was laid even including a further trip to the hardware store for a second bag by yours truly.

The cement having dried, the next day was the day to lay the final layer of tiles before the floor tiles. It just seemed a good idea to finish the walls before the floor in case the floor needed a further layer of cement. Thus, the tiles having been mounted with tile cement, it was time to conclude for the day. Sadly, the next day, the tile cement (which had to be applied thickly) was no sufficiently dry to allow the tiles to be supported solely by the cement. Thus, the majority still needed to be propped up. 

And so went the weekend. Was the internet really, truly missed by anybody? No - it was not. The television was not missed and nor was the telephone. The sole mobile phone which was an aged flip-phone of pre-historic vintage was the sole means of outside communication. Life was good and infinitely more productive.

This leads to the main question - how would you survive the absence of modern technology? What more would or could you do that you could not normally due to the technology addiction you don't realise you have? For us, there was life beyond the internet. Indeed, there is much talk of cancelling all of the three services and keeping just one small, solitary flip phone for emergencies. There is even more interesting talk. There is talk of retreating to the countryside to raise chickens given the state of the economy since people will always want food. There is even talk of one member of the group running for office as a write-in candidate for the Gubernatorial election in November. Watch this space very carefully for further updates.

10 Ways to avoid looking like an asshole online.

"OMG, I've just seen Joe's Facebook page - he's just taken Geoff's wife on a weekend trip - just the pair of them in the mountains. No wonder I saw him going into the sex shop and buying a case of condoms!" This is the kind of thing that's rife online. Avoiding negative publicity is essential in today's over-connected and ill-considered online world. Recognising the pitfalls and avoiding them is essential. In this article the 10 worst offenders will be exposed and ways of avoiding them while keeping your job will be explained.

It doesn't matter who or what you are - any online presence has to be considered carefully. Is it negative or is it positive? How can it be misconstrued and will it be negative in the future? The old saying "Switch on your brain before putting your mouth into gear" is very appropriate these days. More so than it ever used to be. Even announcing political affiliations can lead to great difficulties. This bus driver was illegally sacked for being in an unpopular political party.

It doesn't matter whether you have committed an egregious sin or not. Any employer can make up grounds and dismiss you. The key is not to give them any ammunition at all. Anything posted online has to be plain vanilla or it is likely to give somebody ammunition. If somebody announces they have just been to a country party where a freshly killed pig was roast on a spit for everyone to eat, this would have the following people up in arms:

• Members of religions that forbid the eating of pig-meat. Jews, Moslems and a few others.
• Animal rights people.
• Anti-gun people if the pig was shot.
• Anti-bloodsports people.
• Radical vegetarians/vegans that don't believe in eating meat.
• Various other groups that have been omitted.

Each and every action published online has to be considered for its possible ramifications. The ramifications might not be that obvious when the item is published and might only become apparent later. Thus, the 10 ways to avoid looking like an asshole online are:

1. Publishing intimate images online. This should be avoided. Nobody needs to see a half-naked body or an image of somebody in bed. It sends the wrong message. Even an image of somebody in a passionate embrace sends the wrong message. To an employer it says "this person is promiscuous". After that the employer may fear lawsuits from employees that suffer unwanted approaches from that individual or might perhaps see the person as an easy conquest and a notch in his or her belt. Even posting pictures with a glass of wine in your hand can get you fired.
2. Publishing an online location. Using geolocation services is not a good idea so don't do it. Everybody appears to use Facebook - including muggers, burglars, rapists, pedophiles. Once a location is published whether it be a home address or a present location, somebody can be found or found not to be home. An announcement that somebody is not home is an invitation to a burglar. It's also rather hard to say to somebody "Oh, I have a headache and I'm lying down" if one's geolocator (active on all smartphones that have the Facebook app installed) tells a different story. Best to play safe and NOT announce any geolocation for the whole world can see it when it is published.
3. Publishing anything online under a personal name. A pen name is much preferable but that pen name should be kept very quiet. Was the author of the badly-written porn trilogy, 50 Shades of Grey really called EL James? No - her real name is something else. That's just a pen name. With a pornographic trilogy, how many employers would want her looking after children or working with vulnerable adults? The fear is there that she would be a predator. Anything political or which could be construed as political could be a reason to pass over an applicant too. Remember - employers use the internet to research applicants. Once your real name is out there - anonymity is gone forever.
4. Videos - how embarrassing are those? Who in their right mind would put up anything but a very plain vanilla instructional video? The most exciting video on this blog is a humor skit about a camera filter that can see through my shirt (but amazingly not through a reflector I hold up in front of myself). Instructional videos on how to do things are fine - until they become controversial. A video on how to skin and prepare a possum for the cooking pot might have people looking askance at the individual if they applied for a job in an office or a retail outlet. Similarly, people seem dead set on putting up videos of their medical procedures online. This is not just bad taste but the question is that person going to start discussing their medical procedures in the office and causing problems with other staff. Just do a youtube search on - for example dentures - and there are hundreds of videos of people showing them off, taking them out etc. That's not to mention the more gruesome medical procedures where invasive elective and nonelective surgery is performed etc.
5. General photographs and discussions of personal matters. Who really wants to see what somebody had for lunch. Who really needs to see that? By way of example - a sandwich. No explanation why it's there. Who on earth wants to see something so utterly banal? More than that, unless it's there with a really good explanation, there's no reason for it to be online. Don't put up ridiculous and frivolous images. These images could have somebody judged as being frivolous by somebody that means something for example an employer. Don't do it!
6. Discussions of work. Work is work. Home is home. The two are entirely separate. Work is what you do to earn money so that you can enjoy your home life. Events at work might be frustrating and annoying but that's work and should be addressed during work time. Discussions online of work issues enter into a whole new kettle of fish. There's probably a clause in the contract that is entitled "use of social media" which specifically governs one's conduct regarding the company. This is one area where the first amendment will not protect people. In any case, even if the employer is in the wrong, it all has to go to court to prove it and get compensation which can take years. Better just to keep fingers off keyboards during periods of frustration.
7. Posting personal opinions. This is an area that gets into a whole load of hot water. For exercising one's First Amendment rights - freedom of speech and freedom of the press, it's possible to get fired. Keep the internet impersonal. Fight ideas and not people. It's permitted to state that "group x seems to be dominated by nuts that get the rest of the group to do evil things so let's try to get people out of group x into group y". It's not a good idea to say "all group x members are evil and must be eliminated". Though the two things indicate reduction in the size of group x, one way is permissible and one is not. This is called tact and diplomacy. Online activities need tact and diplomacy. If somebody can't be tactful and diplomatic then they're better off not going online.
8. Using LinkedIn. This is not something specifically that can get people fired. It can get them assigned to other duties and sidelined. Employees looking for work start LinkedIn accounts and when they're employed they delete them. This is a known cycle. If you need to look for work then just bypass LinkedIn. It's the kind of thing that lets people know you're looking for other positions. LinkedIn abuse can lead to being fired.
9. Politics and religion, race, creed and culture, gender, sexuality or sexual orientation; All these things are very contentious topics. Any views expressed on those could earn the person expressing those views a quick trip to the boss's office followed by the imprint of a hobnail boot in that person's buttocks as they leave the office for the last time. Such views could equally well be blown out of all proportion by warped and twisted individuals to such an extent that the person who expressed their views could be invited to spend an all-expenses-paid holiday in a secure state residence alongside Bubba who will be their new best friend for the duration.
10. Flame wars. When somebody says something that makes the blood rush and eyes turn red with rage or steam to come out of the ears, walk away. Don't send that angry retort. That merely exacerbates the flame war. Walk away and come back, 24 hours later. Don't fire off that angry retort. Instead respond "I'm sorry you feel like that" or "how can we reach an amicable agreement" or "would you care to explain further" or "My goodness. I didn't mean to upset you, how can we proceed from here". Throw the ball back into their court with an offer to receive it if they throw it back. Participating in a flame war just makes the participants look like idiots.

In Abraham Lincoln's own words: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.". In a worst case scenario, words can cause a war. In a best case scenario somebody rolls their eyes when they hear them. If at all possible - don't post online and don't add to the clutter of garbage that's rapidly accruing.

Photography as part of a pyramid scheme

Is the Internet the biggest pyramid scheme ever? Where does all the money go? Who runs the internet? Where is the Internet? What is the Internet? What happens to all the little investors? I'll have a go at answering all these questions for you. My initial feeling is that the internet is a massive Ponzi scheme with photography and photographers as one of its major victims.

Right at the top of the pyramid is ICANN which claims to be a non-profit organization. This organization distributes IP addresses, which are in the form xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx though this form may have changed with the change from IPv4 to IPv6 sometime in 2013. These are basically numbers and a domain name for example SidSnot.Net will be one of those numbers. As an example, Microsoft.net has an IP address of 134.170.185.46. There are other rules involved but that's the basis of it.

IP addresses are just numbers. There's nothing special about them. All ICANN does is sell blocks of numbers in the range 000.000.000.000 to 254.254.254.254 to anybody that want them. That's the first key - the numbers are sold yet they are just numbers. They are not manufactured. They could be given away free. There is no processing involved. They are sold though and this is the beginning of the fraud scheme. By the way, ICANN has assets of $98,000,000 and pays no tax whatsoever despite being a private company and not a government body. The head of ICANN makes $730,000 a year. I know a lot of people that could live on just 2% of that quite happily. ICANN income for the year is rather obscure. Their Annual Report makes it look as though they make no money yet if this was so then the CEO would not receive $730,000 a year. This is the guy at the head of the pyramid.

At the next level there are Domain Name registries that pay money to ICANN for the free numbers and who then sell these domain names to the public and to business. These are sold along with the illusion that to be anybody online, you need a domain name. Thus, domain names have been sold and resold and indeed oversold. Now that it has become hard for anybody to find a domain name since a new breed of criminal - the domain pirate - has appeared, a new layer of domain names has been introduced.

Originally a domain name was very simple. It was XX.TLD where TLD was the top level domain, for example a country code or .com for commercial. Because Domain Piracy is so rampant and because ICANN etc smile upon the activities of Domain Pirates, ICANN introduced a whole new range of TLDs. Now, a Domain Pirate is also known as a Domain Squatter - somebody that buys a domain name and then registers it to a bogus website then tries to sell the domain name. For example, a company called DigglyWibblit would want a domain name DigglyWibblit.com but because the Domain Squatter has already paid for the IP address associated with the domain name (which should have been free anyway), they can charge what they like to DigglyWibblit for the domain. It's akin to copyrighting the name Barrack Obama and then charging the US President for the use of his own name. So, now we have a whole load of new TLDs that are going to be pirated by the domain pirates.

By now, you're probably a bit confused so I'll simplify it.

• ICANN sells numbers that have no cost to ICANN and no intrinsic value to Domain Name Registrars.
• Domain Name Registrars re-sell the "free" numbers to Joe Public and to Domain Pirates.
• Domain Pirates re-sell the "free" numbers to business for extortionate sums.

So, where is the money going? Largely, everybody has leapt on the Domain Name bandwagon, selling things they do not actually own to everybody else. It's very much akin to selling Brooklyn Bridge.

The key point these days is nobody needs a domain name. If I want to find an architect in Bilbao, Spain, I type in "Architect, Bilbao, Spain" and up comes imbarquitectos.es which seems to be an architect. Indeed, if the fellow was just advertising on a second level domain such as architect.somedomain.com then I would still have found him because I used a search engine to look for him.

The key to a pyramid scheme is selling and continuing to sell garbage that nobody needs and convincing them they do and that it will help them to make money. Look at the number of domain name registrars that have sprouted (some less honest than others) and the domain pirates.

Add photography into the pyramid and it becomes even worse. Photographers are the most gullible individuals to walk the surface of the planet. Just because somebody compliments them on their pictures, they think they stand a chance of success. They don't ever seem to realise that they don't need domain names. They don't need social media. Nobody needs domain names. Not when a search engine can find anything, easily and quickly.

Why are the numbers so moronic?

I was looking today at numbers - not just any old numbers but my Twitter accounts and my auto-generated newspapers. I'm coming to the conclusion that none of that rot actually works. As I said a few days ago, it's all very promising and I can see things. It just always feels that success is just beyond my fingertips - I can almost touch it but not quite.

Let's crunch some numbers fairly quickly. I have the following.

• Twitter Account 1 - Zero Followers. No Last interaction 27 Newsletter Readers No Subscribers Account type Environmental (started this 3 weeks ago as an experiment)
• Twitter Account 2 - 346 Followers. 3 weeks ago Last interaction 103 Newsletter Readers No Subscribers Account type Gender/Erotica (supposed to be a gender paper but the erotica keeps being picked up by the generator)
• Twitter Account 3 - 1977 Followers. 5 weeks ago Last interaction 14 Newsletter Readers No Subscribers Account type Photography
• Twitter Account 4 - 2972 Followers. 18 months ago Last interaction 11 Newsletter Readers No Subscribers Account type Photography
• Twitter Account 5 - 3806 Followers. 2 days ago Last interaction 24 Newsletter Readers No Subscribers Account type Photography
• Twitter Account 6 - 15 Followers. 3 days ago Last interaction 110 Newsletter Readers 2 Subscribers Account type Medical
• Twitter Account 7 - 33 Followers. 2 days ago Last interaction 85 & 77 Newsletter Readers No Subscribers Account type Personal

All of the accounts bar 1 and 9 have 20 automatic tweets sent out daily. Account 1 just has the newsletter tweeted daily. Account 9 is used solely as a personal account with the only automated tweets being announcements of the newsletters.

The large numbers of Twitter followers were generated a while back using an auto follower adder. I just tweeted to followers "Is there anybody HUMAN out there? All I see is BOTS" and did not receive a response. 

Clumping things together, I have 3 purely photography accounts with very little interaction yet a total of 8755 followers each receiving 20 tweets daily and creating only 49 newspaper views. There's something wrong there.

Accounts 1, 6 and 7 have never used follower adders. Those followers are genuine (or very clever bots). 

What's going on does not seem immediately obvious. It seems to be more of a mish-mash of possibilities rather than anything definite. Given that the newsletters have been running for over a month now and are published daily, it's quite likely that the following is true:

• The three photography accounts are just junk - junk followers and nobody really looking at them. No point in bothering with them further.
• The Environment paper running for 3 weeks has no real following and nobody really interested.
• The Medical and the Personal accounts have little to recommend them either.

It just seems that Twitter is like screaming into the Grand Canyon and hoping somebody at the other end is going to hear you. Clearly Twitter works for hugely popular public figures but for the ordinary Joe, trying to get people interested in their blog/website, it does not. 

Perhaps more interesting is the fact that nobody seems to have the slightest interest in photography. There's no attempt to sell photography. There's no attempt to sell any photographic or business services. Not a single one of the photography papers gets much in the way of readers. Perhaps it's more of the same of what I'm used to, namely that the internet just doesn't actually seem to work the way it's supposed to.