Desperate Freelancer

Some friend of mine.. yes, I still have a few friends despite my bad temper. Some friend of mine, I was saying, who happens to have a job in the Financial sphere, tried to explain me what all this Subprime Crisis is about.

Needless to say, he miserably failed.

So I asked my butcher. It was a bit more understandable, but not much.

So I asked my daughter but she couldn't help crying about her last boyfriend who has gone to bahamas without her and with all the money he made just before the crisis.

I was still puzzled about the whole mecanism of the crisis. So I started some investigation on the web, and I found some nice explanation for dummies like me.

1. A funny educational slide show

Apparently, it has been a moment, this powerpoint has been circulating on the net. Yet it is still pedagogic and fun.

Hope you will enjoy.

2. Another quite clear and hilarious slideshow with drawings

I really liked this one for its waspish and insidious little comments along the explanation.

3. The crisis explained to a fourteen years old girl

If you still don't get it. You can read this explanation from a charming protective brother to his Fourteen years old sister. Through a clever and daring comparison with pokemons..

4. And another caustic video

2 English people in a masterpiece of nonsense and wild satire, proving this country is still at its best in this kind of sport.

5. and last but not least : Subprime Crisis explained with Champagne

You know why I love this one.

If, in the end, you still don't have a clue about what is the financial crisis about, you are hopeless.

You need, as I plan for the dark months to come, to make a serious reserve of Champagne.

Every blogger dreams of reaching Digg Homepage. But if you don't have a picture of Kevin Rose naked, what can you do ?

Here are a few suggestions from the Dark Side :

1. Blog about Digg

Digg users feel concerned about Digg. So blog about Digg, talk about Digg, reveal something new about Digg, launch rumors about Digg, say anything but make it refer to Digg.

What else ?

2. Get friend with Kevin Rose's friends

Kevin is already too much whipsawed. So you have to cling to his friends. Explore the friends list of the Guru and make sure to get close to every one of them.

You will get the King's attention.

3. Have a title and description that are worth clicking

Most Digg users don't read all the stories, they just click and click as quick as they can, in order to satisfy their own social network so that they could submit their own news and be dugg in reward.

So put write an effective title and description set and pray only few dudes will read your creepy article.

Be semantic if necessary.

4. Upload an attractive picture

Most diggers are male. So pretend to be the most gorgeous girl ever seen on earth and wait.

if you look like an easy bitch, you will get people going to your profile and digg your news.

5. Corrupt a top user

It doesn't cost so much and is quite worthy. Forget about morale. Netscape did, so why can't you ?

6. Don't submit your own posts

You would get buried. But make them be submitted by someone influent. Someone with a network.

Don't forget to be grateful, you will soon have another nugget to offer.

7. Spam quick and loud

Hack a mailing list somewhere and send your Digg link to thousands of people, promising a reward (like an iPhone for example). You will get a few diggs from the most naive ones.

If it's quick enough, you will pass to the upcoming section, and a good part of the job is done.

8. Hijack a chinese gold farm

You know.. these strange businesses in China that farm Gold for Wolrd of Warcraft in order to resell it to US gamers.. Well, they can digg your news, can't they ?

9. Make a top 10 list goddamn it !

It's proven that top 10 list ALWAYS reach Digg Home Page.

So it is said in some many blogs. It's got to be true.

10. Beg for mercy

Say it's 10 years that you are trying and ask people to be understanding. Everyone deserves this pride once in his life.

Yes, it's not 10 years Digg exists. But most Digg users don't know it was launched in 2004, for they just can't imagine a world without it.

Of course, all this list of tips is about things you shouldn't do. Because you don't want your server being crashed by your blog reaching Digg Home Page.

Literature, sources and inspiration :

http://copybrighter.com/blog/how-to-make-the-digg-home-page

http://calacanis.com/2006/12/13/how-to-get-on-the-netscape-homepage-every-single-day/

http://www.topclickmedia.co.uk/top-click-media-staff-blog/how-to-get-on-the-digg-home-page-pt2

http://popfail.com/technology/recommended-flaw-31-of-digg-homepage-submitted-by-10-users/

http://www.thenewbusinessblog.com/miscellaneous/is-digg-broken-beyond-repair/

http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/using-digg-and-netscape-to-get-traffic.html

http://www.netbusinessblog.com/how-to-get-digg-frontpaged/

http://www.eggrage.co.uk/how-to-get-3000-diggs-in-24-hours/

http://onemansblog.com/2007/09/20/white-hat-digging-3-myths-tips-and-tricks-for-understanding-and-submitting-to-diggcom/

http://www.seopedia.org/tips-tricks/social-media/the-digg-algorithm-unofficial-faq/

Sleep is becoming a real problem for most of you, dudes. Not for me thanks, because at my age, I don't need much sleep. But you guys, who are surfing on the web, reading blogs and spending time on Facebook, and most of all, working hard to grab some money from the system.. well, you are lacking in sleep.

I know it, because, I have been spying at the freelancers who are working next to me, in the small office I rent. They are all looking exhausted. They are so tired of working late and making hours and hours for their clients, that they sometimes look like zombies to me.

So, I remembered my old days, when I really belong to the labor forces, sweating all my fluids to survive and make something of my life. I was lacking in sleep too. Having one or two jobs, raising my daughter, fighting with my wife (already) and trying to get some peace in drinking wine with friends in "bistrots" was too much for my day time.

From this not very good old times, I dug out some good tips to gain sleep during your day. Tips, I have experienced myself for my own sake, and that did prove their efficiency.

Yes, you can have at most 2 hours sleep more in your day time. 2 hours that would be beneficial to you for the rest of your activities.

1. Sleep during your transport time

Do you really need reading that bullshit newspaper providing news of disasters from countries you know nothing about ? Do you really need to listen to that bogus and mercantile music ? Do you really need to look at this awful landscape of your industrialized city ? No, you need sleep. So get it here. You have generally from 10 minutes to 40 of transport time. Twice a day. Use it to snore at little bit.

It's only valuable if you take public transport of course. But, what if you get someone to share your car with and you sleep alternately while the other is driving ? That's worth the try ?

Gain : from 20 to 80 minutes

2. Sleep during meetings.

Yes, it's possible to sleep eyes open. If you can't, you can just stick these false eyes on your eyelids, it will make do :

Without doubt or feeling of guilt, you can sleep during meetings. Everyone agree that meetings are mostly unuseful in many cases and you can easily retrieve at least half an hour everyday.

Gain : 30 minutes.

3. Sleep during your lunch time.

Instead of going out in the jungle of bad expensive restaurants and even worse fastfoods, save energy time and money by doing the simple thing every day : buy yourself a natural plain sandwich (or better get your meal prepared in advance) eat it in half an hour and win 30 minutes of sneezing.

Gain : 30 minutes.

4. Sleep while reading your mails ?

Modern workers and executives receive so much e-mails they just can't read them all. Studies have shown that people spend from 20 minutes to one hour each day to read their mails. So why not take it for granted that email has become an inefficient way to communicate ?

Just settle filters, automatic answering machine or ignore rules in your mailbox, get rid of this pain and get this time back for sleep.

Gain : 20 to 60 minutes.

So, please, use some of these techniques. Get more sleep and stop acting like undead freelancers. You need to be more present to what you do.

Usually, I am not keen on discussing about politics. But, tomorrow is a special day for Politics and the world in general. And even, an old fool like myself can't be blind to such an event.

As you know, it's the day the United States of America are going to chose their new president after 8 Years of W's leadership.

It's the day where they will able to elect the first black president in their history...or not. Even if Obama is ahead in the polls, can the nation be able to take up this challenge ?

If they do, it will be a great change for a country were racism is still deeply rooted, decades after the abolition of slavery, where black community is mostly still left apart from the American Dream, where a young black guy on nine, aged between 20 and 34 is in jail, where a quarter of the black population is living below the poverty line.. and so on .. and so on...

Far away from the current major problems the country is facing with, that is to say war in Irak and economic crisis, the great challenge for United States is to reconstruct the unity of a Nation. The election of the first acknowledged black president, would be a first step towards this goal.

Now, the question is : can he win ? Can he beat the Diebold voting machins ?

Let's googlefight the two challengers to find it out.

Google Trends is telling us the same thing :

As a frenchie, whether he wins or get pushed out has not much meaning to me, It won't change my world anyway. I would still be a desperate blogger in a country trying to imitate USA with almost ten years of delay. But I guess for many American people, the election of a dude like Obama could really change the perspective in a country that had been ruined by its elites.

If some are reading my blog, I would appreciate their opinion.