5 Things on a Friday: We’re STILL Talking Star Wars

Happy New Year, folks!

If you haven't read "Blog in Review: Top 20 Posts of 2015", go do that now.

We’re still talking Star Wars here, so if you haven’t seen the movie, there are **spoilers** after the jump.  I mention this because my buddy Ray is stationed in Africa right now, and he’s as big a nerd as anyone.  However, they still weren’t showing the film at his tiny desert outpost last I heard.

5 Things on a Friday: The New Dance is a Chicken Dance

If you came looking for the new Faith No More song, then I'm afraid you're bound to be disppointed.  But don't worry.  I've got something even better!

Let's do this.

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1. Saudi Arabia Is Fighting an Oil War. But Who’s the Enemy? (Slate)

“Ahead of an OPEC meeting in Vienna next week, there are some contradictory theories about why Saudi Arabia is content to keep oil cheap for the time being. One is that the Saudis want to nip the U.S. oil boom in the bud. American shale oil is more expensive to produce and needs high prices to remain competitive. As one analyst put it when the kingdom cut prices for U.S. customers earlier this month, ‘the Saudis have basically declared war on the U.S. oil producers.’

But there’s a competing narrative, or ‘conspiracy theory’ if you prefer, that the Saudis are waging war in cooperation with the United States, against their mutual enemies Russia and Iran.

The problem with this analysis is that there’s no “or” here.  The Saudis have the largest production capacity, and they are using it to control the market.  That’s it.  Oil production is their niche in the global economy.  They are using market power to defend their position.  That is not news, nor should it come as a surprise.  Nor, for that matter, is it the first time they’ve done it.  Their actions may well be the final proof of the success of American production—the market leader has had to take steps to bring its new competitor under control—but that’s still not telling us anything we didn’t already know.

I Made $10!

Yes!  That's it.  I did it!

We did it!!!

Yesterday, this blog finally, finally, FINALLY made it past the $10 mark in ad revenue.  Ten dollars is the minimum threshold Google requires your account to meet before they'll send you a check for your portion of your AdSense account's income, so...

Now they have to cut me a check!

Yes, no longer am I a mere servant to the man.  Now we're partners!

Seriously, when I signed up for Adsense, I really didn't give it a lot of thought.  I said, "Hey, I've got a blog; I might as well monetize it.  I mean, that's what they teach in B-School, right?"  Only, Google won't actually cut you in on whatever minuscule portion of revenue they earn on your blog until the blog itself earns enough money to be worth the effort, and it's not a bad rule, really, but it does leave you, the small-time blogger, in a position of utter exploitation.  It leaves you in a position where they're making money on your work, and they're not even cutting you in!

Well, I don't think I need to explain why that drove me bat-shit crazy.  So at that point, I realized that I was committed to this blogging thing, at least until I earned my $10.  'Cause I just can't be having somebody making money on my work, such as it is, without cutting me in.  That shit will not fly.  And now, finally, justice is served.  The universe is re-balanced, and my work, such as it is, is once again paying me--instead of somebody else.

Huzzah!  Today is a good day.

Google Feeds is Gone...

Now how the fuck am I supposed to figure out how many RSS subscribers I have?

I was up to thirty!  That may not sound like a lot, I know, but if you wanna see how many it really is, start a fucking blog of your own and see how long it takes you to get thirty subscribers.  It's not as easy as it looks!

The flipside of that, of course, is that the Google Feeds subscribers weren't driving any ad revenue, and that sucks because those were without doubt my most loyal readers.  And let's not fool ourselves.  Everyone loves ad-revenue.  Granted, it takes something like a miracle to get to the $10 that Google demands before they'll send you a check, but still.  I'm about a buck-thirty away, so...  Maybe I should be happy about this feeds thing?

But, y'know.  Meh.  I  mean, $10 is a good goal, and I've been looking forward to that check for like six months now, but even so, it's not like it's real money.  I think I'd rather have readers.

Eh...  Who am I kidding?  No one's reading this crap!  You'd have to be a mad person to come here.  Heh.