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As Kiva.org recently added support for teams, I just created a team for pleonast users who are also Kiva lenders. I have already invited several of you that I know of, but if you are interested please visit our team page at http://www.kiva.org/team/pleonast.
If you don't already know about it, Kiva is a website that facilitates lenders who want to support microloan transactions in developing countries. It's super easy to invest money in development in countries that really need it, and it's a /far/ superior method to actually help people than just blindly giving money to foreign governments or to people, creating a dependency which is not healthy for growth. Since they are actual loans, the beneficiaries are required to pay the money back, and thus must have a valid business plan.
Kiva itself is very transparently run, with 100% of money loaned going directly to the beneficiaries, and operating costs being paid for by separate donations directly to Kiva.
I've been a lender for about six months now and so far about 50% of my loans have been repaid and the rest are still in repayment. Kiva works with institutions in the developing countries and they boast across the board a very low default rate.
You can start with as little as $25 to really make a difference, and you can choose where and to whom the money should go, based on location, gender, business, etc.
For the month of September, if you sign up for Kiva for the first time and join the pleonast team, I will match your first $25 loan with my own $25 loan to the "closest" person to your beneficiary (kiva loans usually get completely filled within minutes, so I can't promise to be able to loan to exactly the same person :) ).
With interest rates being lowered steadily, this is a real way to actually invest your money in making the world a better place!
Please drop me a line at kennon(at)pleonast(youknowwhatcomeshere)com if you have any more questions!
NOTE: If you make a loan for a first time and have it credited toward the pleonast group, please drop me an email the first time so I can know to login and match your loan. I can't view all of the information from your loans and the activity log lags a bit. Just let me know who you loaned to so I can match it - it's kind of spammy and I want to make good on my promise :) |
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I've been using Google adsense for the advertising on non-gold member blogs for awhile now, but their payout has been steadily decreasing over the past year and so I decided to try something different.
Today I turned on ads from "Project Wonderful", which is a transparent marketplace for ads which is based on an auction.
Basically I set up the ad spots and then on anyone can bid to show their ad in that space. Bids are based on a cost per day (regardless of click through) and is always given to the highest bidder.
Right now the high bid is $0.02 a day, but I'm hoping that competition will drive it up a bit.
The bidders only pay for each second that the ad is the highest bidder, so if you're outbid you only pay for the time that you were actually being shown.
One thing I like about this is that I can approve all ads that are shown; on Adsense you can only ban ads that have already loaded but you can't approve them beforehand.
If you, for instance, are interested in advertising almost anything across pleonast (and helping support the site!) you could do it right now for as little $0.03 a day. Just go here to sign up!
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An interestingly soviet take from 1984 on one of my favorite short stories, There will come soft rains by Ray Bradbury
This brought back alot of memories - during my stint in Florida College Forensics ('99) I competed with a POI (Programmed Oral Interpretation) on the theme of mankind and apocalyptic nuclear war that included excerpts from this short story, On The Beach by Nevil Shute, the poem by Sara Teasdale that inspired Bradbury, and quotes from J. Robert Oppenheimer (head scientist on the Manhattan project).
It was clearly over the judges heads, which is why I never even broke into a finals round with it, but it was and still is very meaningful to me. In general, the cold war has always been one of the most intriguing historical eras to me - perhaps it's in my blood, as my grandfather was a B-52 pilot in the Strategic Air Command (ever seen Dr. Strangelove? My grandpa was like the guy riding the bomb, just without the cowboy hat :) [editor's note: actually he did wear cowboy hats ... maybe kubrick was inspired by my grandpa]
I doubt that many people of my generation or younger realize just how close it came at some points in the 60s and 70s to all-out nuclear war, and just how serious we could have destroyed ourselves. I thank God that it never went that far, and perhaps He's the real reason it didn't.
There will come soft rains
and the smell of ground
the swallows circling
and their shimmering sound
and frogs in the pools
singing at night
and wild plum-trees
in tremulous white
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
if mankind perished utterly
And Spring herself,
when she woke at dawn,
would scarcely know
that we were gone.
Sara Teasdale, 1920
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