Previous All Hallow’s Eve posts from me:
And here’s an old poster I made.
Happy Halloween!
Previous All Hallow’s Eve posts from me:
And here’s an old poster I made.
Happy Halloween!
Just got this email:
After careful consideration, we have decided to shutdown the BlogRush service. If you have the widget code on your blog you will need to remove it.
When BlogRush launched in late-2007 it spread like wildfire all over the Web. Thousands of bloggers were talking about it and the service exploded to become one of the fastest growing free services in the history of the Web. During the first year of the service it successfully served 3.4 Billion blog post headlines and the BlogRush widget could be found on blogs all over the world; even up until the moment we closed down the service.
BlogRush didn’t grow without its fair share of problems — from security issues to abusive users trying to ‘game’ the system to much lower click-rates than expected. We also had some problems with trying to fairly control the quality of the network, and in the process made many mistakes in deciding what blogs should stay or go. All of these issues, ultimately, limited the service’s full potential.
Our team worked very hard to try and build a service that would truly help bloggers of all sizes get free traffic to their blogs. This was our primary focus. Not once did we ever try to monetize the service with ads or anything else. BlogRush never made a single penny in revenue. We wanted to be able to help our users FIRST and then worry about monetizing the service later. Unfortunately, the service didn’t work out like we had hoped. (It happens.)
I want to say “Thank You” to all of the great bloggers that at least gave BlogRush a test to see if it would work for them. We sincerely appreciate you giving the service a try.
We have received several offers & inquiries about acquiring BlogRush, but we are choosing not to go that route. While many might think this is crazy, we truly feel it’s the ‘right’ thing to do for our users. Believe it or not, it’s not always about the money. In fact, BlogRush will have lost a small fortune when it’s all said and done, and it was by choice. There were many things we could have done to monetize the service but we wanted to make sure it was going to benefit our users first.
Last but not least I want to say that I hope the failure of this service doesn’t in any way discourage other entrepreneurs from coming up with crazy ideas at 4AM (like I did with this one) and from “going for it” to just try and see if something will work. Without trying there can be no success. And as we all know, ideas are worthless without action. The Web wouldn’t be what it is today without entrepreneurs trying all sorts of crazy ideas.
On behalf of the entire BlogRush team, we wish the best of luck to everyone with their own blogs, ideas, and crazy ventures.
Sincerely,
John Reese
http://twitter.com/johnreese
Nice idea they had, and I used it on rhonchi, though I’m not sure how much traffic it provided to me, or how much value to my readers.
Terrific Vampirella drawing by Cliff Chiang, who has a fun blog. It’s an homage to Rio, of course — by Patrick Nagel. Nagel was among my inspirations when I was a teenager. The technical craftsmanship, the acute graphic design sense inspired me.
Another great post from Thomas Barnett:
Ha! There’s always a media bias when you lose, and when you court the anti-intellectual, as the GOP is wont to do, then you’re mad as hell!
But guess what? Winners always charm the media to a certain extent–even Nixon in ’72.
So this is a bunch of whiney, smoke-blowing cry-baby-ism.
What is very clear in today’s world is that both the Right and Left have their dedicated media, so it’s false to claim a systemic bias. Only the unaware buy that BS.
If anything, people’s ability nowadays to live in the media bubble of their choosing make them far too irrational and Manichean in their world views–as in, “If my side doesn’t win this election, it’s the end of America as we know it!”
Yes, yes, the media’s pro-Democrat bias certainly must explain the GOP winning 7 out of the last ten White House elections. No, no, wait a minute! That was “good Americans” overcoming “evil” ones!
Or maybe Americans just vote for who they want, when they want them, and the media’s not nearly as all-powerful as it’s made out to be. Maybe Americans aren’t as stupid as many experts would believe.
End of America? Yet somehow we survive political shift after political shift, this being the sixth in my life. How does the all-powerful liberal media allow this?
But yes, go on and believe in your media conspiracy if you want.
Just go on to another blog where your whining will be tolerated, perhaps even celebrated, for this is the wrong bubble.
(Thanks: Rob Johnson)
Source: Jim Crow Laws: California
Marriage is a partnership of love and commitment. Yes, some people are attracted to people you might not be attracted to. This does not lessen their love or their commitment. Is marriage perfect? No, divorce is rampant, and marriage is on the decline. I say this from the perch of my second, happy marriage. The weakness of marriage does not mean that taking away the newly minted right of marriage from gay people is going to "restore marriage" or "strengthen families"–those are lies, and you know it. The thing that strengthens families is love and respect, and being strong in the commitment to YOUR OWN marriage.
Fellow Californians, please vote No on Prop 8. If you know a Californian, please encourage them to vote No on Proposition 8.
I got a question from a researcher in Germany about the history of these anti-miscegenation laws. Here is how Chuck Hartley responded:
I’ve never seen a single, unified work that discusses the history of marriage in California in a comprehensive manner. The story of same sex marriage and Prop 8 certainly remains to be written, particularly from my perspective.
When the Supreme Court issued their opinion last May they literally write the book on marriage. The combined opinions ran 172 pages. I think most of Michael’s historical questions are answered in III.A, pages 23-36 of the attached PDF.
That case refers to Perez, the 1948 case that legalized interracial marriage in California. There’s a good pre-Perez history in that case as well. Start with the first full paragraph on page 6 of the Perez PDF.
Note there’s really not much before the anti-miscegenation laws, which were passed in the early days of the state (1849 or 50). Before that the Bear Flag Republic lasted less than a year (1846), and before that status was as a Mexican and Spanish colony. I have no good sources for their legal systems in place under any of those regimes, though I’ll note that community property is a holdover from Spanish law, not an American or English originated system.
Also, a grammatical point for our German friend. Miscegenation is racial mixing. The laws were technically anti-miscegenation. Hyphen or not per your own conscience.
Awesome but awkward.