Generic Feed - NoseRub Feed

The Rise (and Fall) of the Apocalypsemobile at the Enduro Smashup Race [Apocalypsemobile]

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:00:00 CET

On New Year's Day, while you were complaining about the Gregorian calendar or nursing a wicked hangover, I was hurtling around a snow-covered racetrack, en route to destroying a perfectly good Saturn station wagon.

After all the months of preparation, we finally hit the track with the io9 Apocalypsemobile, running in the 4-cylinder class of the Hangover 150 at Ransomville Speedway, just north of Niagara Falls, NY. You can probably tell from the photos, but just to drive home the point - it was really really really really really freaking cold that day. When I woke up, the temperature was 4. Degrees. Fahrenheit.

But before I get into the fun stuff, there's a bit of bad news. The track officials assigned numbers to everyone. Therefore, I couldn't use io9 as my official number, and had to paint out the 'o' to make my number 19. I was disappointed, but it was either that or not race.

And race we did. Previous years, it has been cold and snowy, but a within a few laps the cars had churned the dirt track into a quagmire of half-frozen mud. This kept speeds slow and made getting stuck more of a concern than crashing. There were also lots more cars in the past, so many that sometimes they ringed the entire track four deep at the start of the race. This year, those factors were not in effect. The cold had frozen the track solid, and the four-inch coating of snow was packed flat by the fifth lap. Car counts were down as well, perhaps due to general economic malaise. There were fewer than 40 cars in the 4-cylinder division. The fast track and open space meant the cars could really build up speed - a lot more speed than I expected.

If there's one thing the Apocalypsemobile had plenty of, it was speed. With a dual-overhead cam engine, it had in the neighborhood of 180 horsepower, and by the time I'd stripped the interior, it weighed significantly less than a ton. Of course, as soon as I climbed in it was probably back over a ton, but still, it had some serious kick. Once a I got a feel for it, I could blast down the straights, kick it sideways in the turns and dive past slower competitors with ease. Cars were spinning all around me, fading in and out of view through billowing clouds of snow (which occasionally blew inside my helmet, which was unpleasant). I avoided them all, becoming increasingly confident and aggressive.

And that, naturally, is what lead to the Apocalypsemobile's downfall. The photos probably tell the story better than I can, but here's how it went down: I went into turn one very fast, making an inside pass on a white minivan. I figured to slide high once I was past him, letting the front wheel drive vehicle's natural push carry me through the corner. Except someone had spun out and stopped near the wall directly in my path. I slammed into his rear corner hard. Hard enough to give myself a headache, even though I was wearing a helmet. Hard enough to destroy my right front tire, bend the front frame rail, and shake something loose in the engine (the leading theory involves the ignition system). The car still ran, but the engine pulsed rather than running steadily. As it sputtered, I could only manage about 20 or so mph, which felt terrible after the estimated 40-50 I'd been doing. The Apocalypsemobile and I soldiered on for quite a few more laps until someone spun me out in the turn. I ended up stuck in the snow at the bottom of the track, up against another car.

That would have been fine were it not for the fact that my driver's side door was facing oncoming cars. Oncoming cars that were careening through the turn at high speed, barely in control. There were some moments of extreme terror as I pondered the effect of someone slamming into me. Then someone did, but luckily they hit a few feet behind my door. Resisting panic, I judged the amount of space available between my passenger window and the car I was pinned against. Enough space? I hoped so. I undid my shoulder belt, unlatched my lap belt, threw myself across the front seat (somehow remembering to grab my disposable camera in the process), then flung myself out onto the other car's hood. From there, I reached the safety of the infield.

Not 30 seconds after I got out (I was still taking my helmet off), a black Camaro slammed its rear corner directly into the spot I'd been sitting in. Close one.

Before we get to the photos, I have to thank some people for helping me make this whole Apocalypsemobile thing happen. This was easily the craziest, most fun thing I've ever done, and I could never have managed it on my own.

Thanks to:

My dad, who did enormous amounts of work on the car, contributed huge amounts of automotive knowledge, bought the battery, towed the car there with his truck, and acted as my squire in the pits, arming me for battle and making sure my trusty Saturn was mechanically sound.

Kurt, for letting me borrow his helmet. Without it, I have no doubt I would have cracked my skull in the crash.

Annalee, for being really supportive and enthusiastic, and sponsoring me.

My wife, for putting up with me keeping this thing in our garage for half a year, and not totally freaking out about the potential of me getting hurt.

My brother, for lots of enthusiasm and some excellent photographs.

Jim Mercurio, for letting me use his old drag racing seat belts.

James "Mac" McParland and www.titzenbeer.com for coming on board as an early sponsor.

io9er FredicvsMaximvs, who also sponsored the Apocalypsemobile.

Finally, here's the photo gallery. For reasons I cannot fathom, the photos appear in the gallery in random order, thus defeating my careful chronology. Still, they express the triumph and tragedy of the io9 Apocalypsemobile quite effectively. You can also check out the official race photos, as well as an excellent Youtube video that is well worth the watch. My favorite part starts around 1:10. The crowd's reaction is priceless.

Monoculture Is Bad For Business

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:49:56 CET

It's been demonstrated over and over again, but businesses refuse to learn the lesson: Homogeneity is its own punishment in the world of business. From the Washington Post today:

[T]he experience of the past year suggests that we desperately need to bring more women into leadership positions on Wall Street, in politics, in regulatory bodies and in American life generally. For decades, corporations and financial firms have sponsored expensive training programs to promote more women into their ranks. They have launched much-needed maternity policies and flexible work arrangements. Most of these initiatives, however, have been pursued to make life easier for the women involved — or, more cynically, to remove the threat of lawsuit or adverse publicity for the firms.

The financial crisis has exposed a quieter but equally pressing concern: We need women in leadership positions not only because they can manage as well as men but because they manage differently than men; because they tend — over time and in the aggregate — to make different kinds of decisions and to accept and avoid different kinds of risk. We need women who will say no to bad decisions based on male-dominated rivalries and clubby golf course confidences. We need women to blow the whistle when risks explode and to challenge the presumptions that too many men, clustered too closely together and sharing a common worldview, can easily indulge.

As the constant wail from Wall Street should remind us, diversity isn't just nice in theory. It makes for better business.

There's a related question here which no one is asking, which is whether the economic catastrophe facing the global marketplace is a result of a failure of white culture in America. The media is always quick to ask whether problems like violence plaguing minority communities are symptoms of a toxic culture in that community, but I haven't seen any questions to that effect in regard to this financial meltdown.

I've written a good deal about monoculture on this site over the years; The correlation between diversity and success has been repeatedly demonstrated.

Re: Schlaf

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:22:01 CET

So am I.. and most people I know, too.. :)

@paavei: Ah, it is so wonderful. :)

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:23:05 CET

@paavei: Ah, it is so wonderful. :)

preparing cheese fondue. #yumyum

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:19:12 CET

preparing cheese fondue. #yumyum

Ruhe da vorne! Movie-Mania 2009 (4)Heute: Zack and Miri make a porno

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:22:26 CET

USA 2008. Regie: Kevin Smith. Darsteller: Elizabeth Banks, Seth Rogen, Jason Mewes, Katie Morgan

Ahhh, Kevin Smith - gefeierter Indie-Filmer, selbst wenn er für die Hollywood-Studios zweistellige Millionenbeträge raushaut. Da weiß man, was man kriegt: pubertäre Charaktere, die nicht erwachsen werden wollen, endlose Dialoge über “Star Wars” und Sexpraktiken, und hässliche dicke Jungs, die am Ende unerreichbar bezaubernde Mädels kriegen, weil sie viel netter sind als die gut aussehenden reichen Stinker.

Fällt das noch unter Masturbationsphantasie - oder geht das schon als Science Fiction durch?

Es gab mal eine Zeit, da wollte Smith ernst genommen werden - er schrieb ein Skript für “Superman”, sollte “Green Hornet” drehen, und lieferte mit “Jersey Girl” eine Romantic Comedy für die Tränendrüsen, nicht aber die Lachmuskeln ab. Der Film floppte, und Smith sah ein, dass Nerds wie er am besten darin sind, Nerd-Filme zu machen. Von Nerds, über Nerds, für Nerds.

Wenigstens wird er immer besser darin.

Worum geht’s? Zack und Miri(am) sind seit der Schule befreundet, und leben in einer WG. Ständig pleite, geht ihnen nach dem Geld auch der Strom und das Wasser aus. Die Popularität eines launigen Clips von Miri in Oma-Unterwäsche auf YouTube bringt Zack auf die Idee, mit einem Porno Geld zu verdienen. Das glorreiche Konzept: “Star Whores”. Nur leider ist es sowohl für ihn als auch für Miri unerwartet schwierig, nach Jahren der Freundschaft Sex zu haben - vor der Kamera, in einem schmierigen Pornofilm…

“Zack and Miri make a porno” ist trotz des Titels und des Themas nicht annähernd so rüde und knallig wie die “Jay & Silent Bob”-Filme. Dafür stolpert Smith bei den romantischen Verwicklungen auch nicht so sehr wie in “Chasing Amy” und “Jersey Girl”. Tatsächlich gelingt es ihm hier erstmals, die Balance über 90 Minuten zu halten - eine Romantic Comedy, die romantisch und komisch zu ungefähr gleichen Teilen ist.

Strukturell ist der Streifen allenfalls eine Fingerübung, die scheinbar obszöne Grundidee wird genau so konservativ durchdekliniert wie jede andere Romantic Comedy auch. Manchmal wirken die krasseren Gags (inklusive der einzig wirklichen Entgleisung - Thema Durchfall beim Analverkehr) wie eine Konzession an die Fanbasis von “Clerks”. Dazu paßt, dass Pornostar Katie Morgan alle “harten” Sachen machen muss, während Miss Banks nicht einmal einen Nippel zeigt. Hinter all der Slacker-Lässigkeit steckt bei Smith nämlich mittlerweile ein Spießer, der auch nie vergißt, seine wenig bemerkenswerte Frau mit einer Rolle zu versorgen.

Wirkliche Überraschungen hat “Zack und Miri” also nicht zu bieten. Das ist aber letztlich wurscht, denn durch die flotten Sprüche und die aberwitzigen Ideen legt der Streifen ein erstaunliches Tempo vor.

Dabei hilft ihm eine exzellente Besetzung, allen voran Seth Rogen und (die komplett umwerfende) Elizabeth Banks. Doch auch Außenseiter-Figuren wie Jason “Jay” Mewes und Pornodarstellerin Katie Morgan liefern überzeugende Leistungen ab.

Einen Extrapunkt gibt es für die Verwendung von Jermaine Stewarts wirklich entsetzlich schwulen 80er-Dance-Hit “We don’t have to take our clothes off”.

Ob man den Film mag, ist vermutlich eine Frage der Herangehensweise: man kann “Zack and Miri” für den weiteren schleichenden Ausverkauf eines einstmals grandiosen Indie-Talents halten - oder für die reifste Arbeit eines Mannes, der mittlerweile 38 Jahre und verheiratet ist.

Der Trailer vermittelt einen guten Gesamteindruck - wer das hier nicht mag, braucht auch kein Geld für die Kinokarte abzudrücken:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In Deutschland hat “Zack and Miri” bisher keinen Starttermin - trotz der kleinen Schwächen eine Schande. Ich habe mich nämlich ausnehmend gut amüsiert. Aber ich bin ja auch schon 40, und ein Spießer.

Twitter-Accounts von Spears und anderen Berühmtheiten gehackt

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:01:00 CET

Ankunft im Mainstream? Twitter-Accounts von diversen Berühmtheiten wurden übernommen und Fakemeldungen in ihren Namen gepostet.

Nach der twply-Sache und den Phishing-Angriffen vor ein paar Tagen geht auf dem Mikroblogging-Dienst Twitter bereits der nächste Skandal nieder.

Diesmal wurden Accounts von gleich mehreren diversen (US-)Berühmtheiten gehackt.

Neben dem Account des erzkonservativen US-Senders Foxnews mit einer (Fake?-)meldung zu Fox-Moderator Bill O’Reilly:

hat es auch Rick Sanchez von CNN:

und Britney Spears erwischt:

Update: Alle Fake-Tweets wurden mittlerweile gelöscht. Ebenfalls gehackt war Barack Obamas Twitter-Account. Siehe auch die Berichterstattung in der US-Techblogosphäre.

(via FriendFeed)

iPod-Gedöns

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:25:39 CET

Tztztz, für einen Link einen iPod, wo gibt’s denn sowas? Dann doch lieber wie Teymur wild qypen…

Fox News Twitter Hacked By Bill O'Reilly

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:14:02 CET

This is currently the lead post on the official Fox News Twitter page. Hackers are cool again.

Hey Twitter, It's Not Just a Worm, It's an App

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:07:41 CET

By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Twitter/FriendFeed)

There's no doubt that the worm making its rounds on Twitter is a nuisance and a huge problem for all. The fact of the matter is, somebody has collected your usernames and passwords, and many of your accounts are now Zombies, spamming each friend on your friends list through direct message, turning more unsuspecting accounts into zombies, and spreading like wildfire. Louis has talked about the worm which has surfaced on Twitter, and the urgency of the situation and potential implications for OAuth and security for Microblogging.

I suggested plain text passwords could be to blame - after all, any application out there that collects your usernames and passwords could theoretically use those passwords to start such a worm, in order to gain access to people with similar bank account passwords and more. That would be the fastest way over, say, a single user trying to amass friends to dm. We're already seeing several of those compromised accounts sending iphone-related spam, so it would appear the worm developers could now be monetizing this, through your friends. At the same time, I keep seeing others criticizing the possibility that OAuth could have prevented this. I'd like to share my thoughts why.

Disclaimer

First of all, let me preface this with the fact that I am not a security expert. I have been developing software since I was 10 (I am now 31), and have plenty of real-world experience writing secure software. I've worked in health organizations requiring software to respect privacy around your health data, with e-commerce protecting your money, and I've written APIs. I understand what it takes to keep software safe. I also run my own business in which I also have to protect my users' data. I also understand that nothing's perfect. While security has not been my sole focus, I hope I can at least make some sense of the matter.

First Things First - This is an App

Let's set things straight here. Now, I could be wrong, but all evidence seems to suggest that this "worm" is actually an application, or possibly multiple applications, running on multiple servers around the world (the IP range also suggests that the same developers have targeted YouTube and Bebo in the past). After all, the only other way to log in on behalf of users and DM others would be to screen-scrape Twitter, simulating a user actually logging in via the Twitter.com interface. This is possible, but I would imagine we would see Twitter very quickly implementing some form of Captcha to slow it down. We haven't seen this yet so the most logical conclusion is that someone has written an App somewhere, which is taking advantage of the fact that you can login via plain text usernames and passwords. The same application is taking those usernames and passwords, and programmatically logging in on behalf of each compromised user and direct messaging their friends to collect more usernames and passwords.

Currently, the Twitter API makes it completely possible for anyone with your username and password to log in on your behalf, programmatically. Essentially, Twitter has given developers the key, and all keys open up the same lock. The only way to shut this down would be to kill the lock, which would shut off all developers. This is why the topic of OAuth continues to be brought up - to start off, OAuth forces any developer to use a protected key or token in order to log in on behalf of the user. The developer never has the user's username or password. The user himself keeps their own keys to Twitter without having to give a copy of those keys to developers.

It's not that simple though.

Why They're Saying OAuth Wouldn't Have Fixed the Problem

Assuming Twitter had implemented OAuth, let's assume no developer has your username or password and your information now feels secure. There is still nothing stopping those users from using those tokens to log in on your behalf. Essentially, while the developer couldn't screen scrape your data to log you in through Twitter with such a key, they could still use the API, just as these current Phishers are probably doing, to continue to send DMs and messages on your behalf. An OAuth token is just like another username and password essentially, intended just for API use.

The other criticism they're giving OAuth is that it still doesn't stop the Phishing. When the end-user authenticates through an OAuth-enabled website, they are taken back to a page on the originating site that, if they aren't logged in, asks them to log in, and that site in turn returns them back to the third party site with an OAuth token that can be used for access. Nice and simple, right? Well, the problem (which I've only seen theorized, but it is definitely possible) is that any third-party developer could create an app that redirects the user back to a page that just looks like the originating site (like Twitter.com, for instance), and pretends the user isn't logged in. The site could then collect the username and passwords of unsuspecting users, just as the current phishing scheme is doing now. The potential is still there to collect usernames and passwords, just as before.

The Advantage People Keep Forgetting

Let's ignore the last paragraph and just focus on the one before it. Even though an application can easily login on behalf of the user via the API, with OAuth, a site like Twitter now has full control over each and every application that runs on the API. OAuth has controls which allow API providers like Twitter to cut off any application using the API. So, assuming Twitter sets up some sort of manual approval process similar to Facebook's (I suggested this to Ev and Biz in the interview I attended with Scoble last year (end of the article), and they said they were working on this) to weed out the sketchy applications, it becomes much easier to just cut off the offending application. They now have record of the exact application sending these DMs, and can cut it off immediately. Currently, they're stuck chasing IP addresses, and trying to block various IP ranges, which are tough to block and easy to switch.

Back to the Problem

So, let's assume Twitter had implemented OAuth. We now have two possible scenarios: Scenario 1, said Phisher signs up to have an app on the API (or buys an app like Twply), and sends out DMs on behalf of users. (Note that the Phisher couldn't start as an individual and collect usernames and passwords in the manner this Phisher did in the current scenario because they couldn't send plain-text usernames and passwords via the API) The Phisher gets users' friends to login via OAuth, he collects the tokens to send out DMs on behalf of other users. Twitter's in-house alarms go off of such activity. Twitter shuts down said Phisher in a matter of minutes, and only a few people even see the worm.

Scenario 2 is a little more difficult, but less motivational for a Phisher on a site like Twitter. In this scenario, a Phisher creates a fake 3rd party app, accumulates a lot of followers somehow, and gets users to somehow think they are going to Twitter to login, and they collect the users plain-text usernames and passwords. The said Phisher can't do anything through the API, because it doesn't allow plain-text usernames and passwords. All they can do with it is screen-scrape Twitter, login on behalf of the user, and go about it that way. They also have to accumulate a decent sized following.

First, let's face it, there's not a ton of information that's not already public a Phisher can gather on such a site as Twitter, other than their username and password, which could also be used on other sites like banking sites. I really think most of these Phishers are more interested in spamming you, trying to make a quick buck off the unsuspecting sending spam to their friends (like the iPhone example above) - selling the data to spammers I'm certain is big bucks (at least $1,200, according to the sale of Twtply). Second, Twitter could easily implement a captcha system in such a case, and by that means they could at least slow down the Phisher or spammer. At that point, if the Phisher or Spammer is still diligent enough to get through, they have a much more controlled system, and they can then play the IP blocking game. Let's face it though - this isn't a banking site, usernames and passwords only go for a meager $1,200 from what we know, so most spammers ought to give up at that point. It's much less of a problem, and much easier of a problem to deal with than what Twitter is seeing now.

The Purpose of Security is to Make it Harder

As I said earlier, no security plan is a perfect plan, but the harder it is for a perpetrator to get through a system, the more secure that system is. Currently, there is no barrier between Twitter and those than can potentially misuse your usernames and passwords, other than you. As I said earlier, Twitter has only one lock for each user, and each developer you share your information with has the same key to that lock as you do.

However, despite the continued risk for phishing OAuth poses, as Lachlan Hardy suggests at the end of his piece here, it is still a step in the right direction, and I think would have prevented this particular worm. OAuth would have given Twitter the capability to revoke the keys of the offending phishers, enabling them to shut the worm down when it happened. After all, this isn't just a worm, it's an app, using the API, like any other developer, but in this case to spread malicious websites. I want to suggest that Twitter stop skirting around this issue, stop pretending OAuth wouldn't have solved the problem, and just implement something, quick.

Read more by Jesse Stay at Stay N' Alive.

More: louisgray.com | RSS | FriendFeed | E-mail | Cell: 408 646.2759

@schneyra: Großartige Idee.

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:23:09 CET

@schneyra: Großartige Idee.

dreamseer: The perfect HTML2PDF solution

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:02:32 CET

I’m still looking for the perfect solution for converting HTML to PDF documents. This is what I want:

Use of common browser engines (Webkit, Gecko or Presto) for rendering HTML and CSS is a must-have, I do not want any obscure CSS implementation by the module itself.
Possibility to define pagebreaks with a custom element ( for example).
Possibility to define headers and footers that appear on all pages ( or something like that).
Page numbers.

If browser vendors put some more effort in their print CSS support (like Opera did long time ago), I would be even happier.

Re: Eneloop

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:12:32 CET

Hm, wo wird in der Einzelansicht kein Beitrag gezeigt? Bei mir sieht das so aus: http://skitch.com/dominik/byg1a/eneloop-lostfocus

Deine Beschreibung der Eneloops klingt ja ganz positiv - gerade für den Blitz würde ich sie nämlich auch einsetzen wollen...

@rednix: Steht Dir aber ausgezeichnet....

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:37:22 CET

@rednix: Steht Dir aber ausgezeichnet....

confused. #epiphany #nrw

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:12:03 CET

confused. #epiphany #nrw

Teaching people a lesson

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:04:00 CET

David writes in to point out that banks are losing a fortune on foreclosures because many frustrated homeowners are trashing the houses before they leave. This dramatically diminishes the value of the home and leaves scars all around.

Why not, he wonders, offer the homeowners $1000 in cash if they leave the house in great condition?

I can hear the objections already. "What! Why should we pay people not to break the law!" After all, if you do it this time, if you bribe people to behave, then you'll have to do it every time...

Every time? How often, exactly, do you expect to evict a person?

It's very easy to set up policies and procedures designed to give people what they deserve, to set a standard, to teach a lesson, to make sure they understand who's boss. And I think that for parents, this is an excellent idea. Bribing your kid leads to spoiled kids who don't get it. But businesses aren't parents and customers aren't kids.

"I can't let you in, because you didn't follow the procedure, and even though you're never coming back here again, if I let you in now, without having followed the procedure, you'll think that you can ignore the procedure the next time you do business with someone else..." It sounds stupid when you say it that way because it is stupid.

You can extend this all the way to how you hire people. Is penalizing a 40 year old by not giving her a job a way to teach her a lesson about studying harder for the SAT when she was 17?

Instead of worrying so much about establishing good habits among transient customers, perhaps it's worth figuring out what works best for both sides and doing that instead.

Slicehost - VPS Hosting

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:19:07 CET

http://www.slicehost.com/

A quote from Alex Payne

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:47:41 CET

The username/password key’s major disadvantage is that it open all the doors to the house. The OAuth key only opens a couple doors; the scope of the credentials is limited. That’s a benefit, to be sure, but in Twitter’s case, a malicious application that registered for OAuth with both read and write privileges can do most evil things a user might be worried about.

- Alex Payne

Talking about OpenID

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:46:57 CET

Talking about OpenID. “So a relying party walks in to a bar...”

Side project profitability

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:46:17 CET

Side projects are the small businesses of the web — the little projects people put their blood, sweat & tears into. Many side projects downright fail, some succeed wildly, and the rest just kind of sit there. I’ve been launching my own little side projects since early 2004 (and trying to create them since around 2000). I’ve had a wide range of successes and failures profit-wise making up 4%-25% of my yearly income.

Snook was talking on twitter about this post which went over his side projects, and I thought it’d be cool to post mine here. I’ve always been afraid (irrationally) about job security in the past when posting about the profit-side of my side-projects. But that’s not really a problem or concern of mine now, so here goes.

Disclaimer: many of these sites are now dead and the links will break. You can see most of them through the wayback machine if you’re curious

The Losers

Poetry with meaning

Poetry with meaning hasn’t made me a damn dime, and I don’t think I really care. The primary reason for this is that there’s no way to make money off the site. It’s been growing slowly since launch in 2005 and I’m currently working on the 3rd iteration of Rails code. It was the first site I wrote using Rails (0.8) and helped me learn Ruby.

The Hostr

The Hostr was a crazy site I built in one night to post about hosting sites. It sat around for a few months, never really got any traffic, and eventually got completely overrun by spam and bots. Effectively no profit.

The Peter-Outers

Drum Report (2004-2006)

It all started with The Drum Report. I launched the first version of Drum Report in 2004 — at the time I was in my 2nd year at Cal Poly. It was a review / article site built on Wordpress (1.0!) written by me and a few of my friends. I was making a little bit of money off adsense, but nothing to speak of. Sometime in early 2005 I implemented a feed-scraper (CSV baby!) of products from Zzounds. At first it wasn’t much, but soon I was bringing in 5-6k visitors a day just from search engines. I quickly launched a cheap imitation featuring only the products portion called Guitar Report to suck a little more traffic in. For a brief moment, I was on track to make a good amount of money (and doing around 20k uniques a day from search engine traffic). Then Google came down with the smackdown and killed off most of my traffic (in an effort to kill the Amazon clone sites).

The Drum Report really taught mes Wordpress in & out. I was doing a lot of crazy stuff at the time (which is dead easy now). It also taught me a lot about PHP and dealing with feeds through my scraper. I also learned a ton about SEO. Before Google laid the smack down, I brought a site from a couple hundred uniques to a few thousand uniques in a matter of months. SEO is much harder now.

2005 Revenue: $860 in comission, $104 in adsense
2006 Revenue: $102 in comission, $50 in adsense

Good Copywriting

Good Copywriting was a site I kind of wish I didn’t get rid of. I created it in 2006 as a test to see if I could make any money from blogging. I tried, and pretty much failed. A few months after neglecting it, I sold it on Sitepoint for $750. It sold immediately and I clearly should have raised the price much, much higher. The primary source of income was text-link-ads.

Text-Link-Ads Revenue (1 year): ~$100
Selling price: $750

The Winners

Hemingway

Hemingway was a theme I created for the original Typo blog theme contest and eventually ported to Wordpress. It’s something I’ve neglected, and I’m sad I have. In any case, it’s also by far my most profitable side-project. I offer discount codes to Dreamhost on the source page, and through those referral codes I ended up making a lot of money. (For the record, Warpspire is still hosted on DreamHost, and I honestly do recommend them if you’re into shared hosting).

2006 Revenue: $5,400
2007 Revenue: $3,100
2008 Revenue: $1,300

Total Spore

Total Spore was a random project i started after seeing the GDC video in ‘05. Over the years it grew slowly, to it’s peak in September when it brought in a quarter million pageviews. It’s still there, and I’ve unfortunately been neglecting it for a while. I need to spend more time on it, I really do. Income is a little fuzzy on this, but for practical purposes, all revenue is in 2008.

Another thing of note is that I was actually offered a great deal of money from a couple of companies who more or less wanted the domain & members and transition it to some horrid “social platform.” I refused because I didn’t really need the money, and it just felt mean to the members.

Affiliate Earnings: $500
Adsense Earnings: $700

Lessons Learned

I’ve learned a lot of lessons through my side projects. Much more than I could ever share. I’d say the brute of my web knowledge comes from my side projects: I learned to design, develop, and market through them to varying successes. But I’ve also learned some specific tips:

SEO is fleeting and not to be relied upon: Until you are getting a lot of visitors based on a lot of backlinks (coming from quality content), Search Engine traffic is not to be trusted. It maybe 10,000 visitors today, but it can easily become 20 visitors tomorrow with a simple algorithm change.
If you are relying on product affiliate earnings (from eCommerce stores), you have to make them a ton of money: I always thought that once I started making other people money I’d make more money myself. I’ve sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in products for other companies over the years and really not made much in return.
Mainstream advertising (adsense, banners, etc) really only works on anonymous users: Showing these ads to logged-in users will only drive down your clickthrough rate & earnings. Hide them, not becuase it’s nice — because it’s profitable.
I really don’t know how to make money through advertising: I just don’t have the knack for selling ads on sites. I don’t know what it may be, but I am just not engineered for it.
It’s really, really cheap to maintain sites: Earnings of a couple thousand dollars may not mean much in the grand sceme of things, but keep up your projects! Every one of my side-projects is hosted between a DreamHost account and one $70/mo Slicehost server (which is about double the horsepower I need).

The Future

I’m actively trying (no, really!) this year to make some of my side projects more profitable than the past. I know a lot of revenue streams, and I have about five new ideas every night. I just need to execute, execute, execute! My goal this year is to get to a monthly revenue of $1500/mo by the end of the year. The plans are:

Find out how to advertise my sites. I’m happy reinvesting, but I just don’t know how.
Figure out a way to monetize Poetry With Meaning
Grow Total Spore, find more revenue streams
Resurrect Drum Report if possible
Find a way to sell knowledge through Warpspire (mini-ebooks have been on my mind for a couple years now, but I’ve failed to follow through with those)

Oh yeah, and maybe work on non-side projects enough so I can pay rent and eat food :)

@Sillium: Du machst mich fertig. :)

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:42:04 CET

@Sillium: Du machst mich fertig. :)

@Dreamseer: Sogar noch weniger...

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:37:00 CET

@Dreamseer: Sogar noch weniger...

@Dreamseer: Als ob wir uns was zu sagen, geschweige denn zu chatten hätten.

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:31:43 CET

@Dreamseer: Als ob wir uns was zu sagen, geschweige denn zu chatten hätten.

@Dreamseer: Ich nenne es das "Du hast aber viel Zeit zu chatten."-Problem.

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:21:06 CET

@Dreamseer: Ich nenne es das "Du hast aber viel Zeit zu chatten."-Problem.

DLF und der Nerd-FAIL

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:12:15 CET

Achim Hahn und Susanne Luerweg haben für den Deutschlandfunk ein Feature über Nerds, Geeks und Freaks verfasst. Leider muss ich sagen: FAIL.

Obwohl sich die Autoren redlich bemüht haben und auch richtige Gesprächspartner interviewt haben - zum Beispiel Peter Glaser und Mareike Glöß - schlitterten sie über das subkulturelle Glatteis und kamen spektakulär vom Weg ab. Zwar haben wir in 55 Minuten jede Menge Aussagen zu Nerd-Klischees gehört, aber quasi nichts zur Nerd-Kultur. Die besteht nämlich keinesfalls nur aus Nerdcore.

Was die Autoren nicht verstanden, wurde durch Superlative ersetzt. Zum Beispiel die minutenlangen Lobeshymnen auf die ziemlich unbekannte und peinliche Werbekampagne einer SMS-Wissens-Community. Die kaum zu haltende These vom Super-Trend Nerd-Style. Oder der hingeworfene Schnippsel, dass irgendeine Autorin in irgendeinem Online-Magazin, die Liebhaberqualitäten von Nerds lobte. Oder dass ausgerechnet StudiVZ als ein von Nerds geschaffenes Angebot portraitiert wurde und sich jemand zur Behauptung hinreißen ließ, dass vor allem Nerds in den IT-Unternehmen reich geworden seien.

Was dem Feature völlig fehlte, war die Innenansicht des Nerd-Daseins. Nerd ist nicht nur das Fehlen sozialer Fähigkeiten in Verbindung mit Intelligenzüberschuss, Nerds sind nicht das Asperger-Syndrom. Nerd-Kultur hat viel mit Neugier zu tun, mit Experimenten. Nicht simple soziale Unfähigkeit, sondern das Ausarbeiten neuer sozialer Bindungen, einer neuen Debatten-Kultur, eines eigenen Werte-Kanons.