web, technology, design, etc

Hey - I have just discovered this new tool that we can use to track each other’s views and ideas on any topics of interests.

We can see each other’s posts, comments, and ratings for other post in the topics that matches our interests. Click the link below and check to see if you want to track any of my stuff and do let me know when you start using Smallaa so that I can track some of your stuff too.

Cheers.

Pavel

Bloggers, have you ever got paid $10000 for a single post?

Richard Weberg got $10K for a simple question: “What would you do if you were elected president of the united states? I know the issues I would like to see changed. What would you do? What would you want to change and why?“. Not bad, huh?

Johnny Virgil also got $10K for a simple link to his own hilarious post about his experience with a sewer guy.

Smallaa says, anybody from US can participate. I’ll keep track on this competition. So far it looks promising.

A new start-up has just launched beta (Promo page).

From the site: “At Smallaa, you can track and post information, even create a community, on just about any topic you want.

Our users decide how important a post is – whether a note, a question, an event, a video, a picture, or a link – to a community interested in the same topic.

They also get their community to alert them when an event of particular interest happens. It can be something as general as “Alert me when the price of oil drops to $50 a barrel,” to somehting as specific as “Alert me when Bill Gates moves out of Seattle.”

As soon as users notify our community that a requested alert took place, Smallaa will notify you by e-mail or SMS. Of course, you too can get to notify others on their alerts. It’s the simple way Smallaa lets its users tap into the knowledge of the world.”

Also, to encourage lots of fantastic posts, every Wednesday Smallaa be giving $10,000 to the person our users voted as having supplied the best stuff. Winners will be announced on this page, smallaa.com/contest.

This story is amazing.

It started on September 1st 2008 when one of leprosoruim.ru blog users escorted to school his younger sister and noticed some teacher he found kind of hot. He took a few pictures of her and published them on leprosorium.ru blog, with the following comment:

“Yesterday I took my sister to her 1st grade, then got flu, all the night I felt like a vegetable, now I’m OK, more or less, I can walk… but this is not important, I wanted to ask something:  The best school in Butovo, elite, this is her first teacher:” Continue reading →

Yes, let them fail.

These lenders, who were cheating the system with “Bad credit? Not enough income? No problem!” mantra.

These bankers, who were wrongly transforming sub-prime mortgages into prime mortgages (in other words, presenting junk as quality).

…and these house buyers who bought homes with little or almost no way to pay. They knew that they cannot afford to buy a house. They knew that APR will jump and they will not be able to pay it. They were neglecting common sense, they were too greedy or too stupid.

How to fix all this mess? I say, let them fail. All of them.

People need to take responsibility for what they have done. People should pay for their own mistakes. They were hoping to take profits solely, weren’t they? Then why they are not taking losses solely? Let them face consequences of their actions.

Why me and other taxpayers should pay for somebody else mistakes? I don’t want to. Estimation of total bail out cost is close to 1 trillion (some say $700 billion, some say $500 billion, others say one trillion). There are about 130 million individual taxpayers and 110-120 million of them have nothing to do with housing bubble. We will pay 7-8 thousand dollars each.

What would happen if we let them fail?

Certain banks will collapse, but not all. Many houses will be foreclosed, they will lower housing prices to the level it would make sense (simple: if you rent the house it should pay up mortgage and provide enough for maintenance and generate some profit).

Example: house, which you may want to rent for $2000 per month, should have mortgage payment much less than that, about one thousand, which makes the price assuming 30-year mortgage at 8%, about 140 thousand. Many people would argue, that they would prefer to buy a house and pay a thousand per month. Well, after this crisis, surviving banks will not offer “zero-down” mortgages, they will probably ask 20 to 30% down. Most probably, banks will also take into account other debts and they will prefer customers with little or no credit card debt.

Now, ask yourself, how many households will be able to pay about $40 thousand in cash for down payment and have almost no other debts, especially credit card ones? I doubt that could be many. That means, big chunk of nowadays “home-buyers” will not have other than renting option in future.

Let them be responsible for what they have done.

Google officially announced Google Chrome, a new internet browser and explained in a form of comics, what it is and how it is going to work.

I’m sure that within a year Google Chrome is going to take 5 to 10% of the market, and within five years will take more than 50%.

This is why:

1. Today, most of what people use is in the web and the only one company is dominating in the internet space, Google.
2. Google Chrome is going to address real problems which users experience: performance, security, usability.
3. Google has literally “all the web” at its disposal for testing, so Chrome suppose to be the most reliable browser.
4. Google Android project uses the same core Chrome uses, Webkit.
5. Google makes sure that Javascript will be fast in Chrome. Really fast. Much faster than we experience in other browsers.
6. Chrome adapts to user behavior and makes really easy to use favorite websites.
7. It’s integrated with GMail.
8. It’s going to be an Open Source project.

10:10 am, intersection of Lawrence Expwy and Homestead Rd. (Santa Clara)
A coach bus (6-wheeler, creme color), hit 3 cars: Jeep Wrangler, Toyota van and Toyota Matrix; nobody seemed to be injured, however, the bus didn’t stop, crossed intersection on red light and kept going. See picture for details. There was no license plate on the back of the bus.

Continue reading →

The same car, different soldiers…

See all 34 pictures of “Shadows of Lenin” →

Continue reading →

According to South Ossetia source, US citizen was captured along with other Georgian saboteurs in South Ossetia .

Source:

“According to our sources in Tskhinvali, in Zar town, which is situated on the “road of life”, - Zar road,  there was captured a group of Georgian saboteurs. One of them, it was discovered, is a citizen of US, afroamerican. Most probably he is one of the NATO instructors. Currently, he is transferred to Vladikavkaz for interrogation about his presence on the territory of South Ossetia Republic.”

Quote:

По сообщениям из Цхинвала в районе посёлка Зар, который находится на ”дороге жизни” - Зарской дороге, были захвачены в плен группа грузинских подрывников. Одним из них, как оказалось, является гражданин США афроамериканец. Скорее всего это один из инструкторов НАТО. В данный момент он переправлен во Владикавказ для выяснения всех обстоятельств его нахождения на территории Республики Южная Осетия.