Freelancer's Office » Technology

Newt Gingrich Has Promised America the Moon, But Can He Deliver?

FreelancersOffice.com — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:38:14 +0000

Scientist-astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt stands by the American flag during a moonwalk on the Apollo 17 mission.

In his speech to Republican voters in Cocoa, Florida on Wednesday, Newt Gingrich addressed the issue of what he intends for the future of America’s space program if he is elected president of the United States.

In his commentary, Gingrich promised, “By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon, and it will be American.”

In addition to his desire for a permanent American base on the Moon, Gingrich wants to make the Moon the 51st State in the Union.

In talking about Governor Romney’s opinion of Gingrich’s plans for the Moon, Gingrich told an audience in Cocoa, Fl, “The weirdest thing I have ever done, and I am going to tell you all, because sooner or later his researchers will find it. At one point, early in my career, I introduced the Northwest Ordinance for Space. And I said when we got, I think the number was 13,000, when we have 13,000 Americans living on the Moon, they can petition to become a State.” He went on shortly after that with a promise, “And I will, as president, encourage the introduction of the Northwest Ordinance for Space to put a marker down, that we want Americans to think boldly about the future and we want Americans to go out and study hard and work hard and together we’re going to unleash the American people to rebuild the country we love. ”

There are a few obstacles to Gingrich’s dream to transform the Moon into the 51st State of the Union. Once the issue of financing such an undertaking has been overcome, and the logistics of colonization has been sorted out so that colonists can begin to sign up to be taken to their new lunar homes, there is still the small matter of ownership of the Moon. Can Gingrich promise the American people the Moon?

Nevada entrepreneur Dennis Hope might have something to say about Gingrich’s proposal. Hope is the head of the Lunar Embassy Corporation, and his corporation has sold land to over 3.5 million Lunar land owners.

In 2004 Hope started his own Lunar government to assure the property rights of his customers were protected. Hope claimed in a July 2009 National Geographic article that his government had a ratified constitution, a congress, a unit of currency and even a patent office.

“We’re now a fully realized sovereign nation,” Hope said.

While Hope has expressed his confidence that his claim on the moon is a secure one, the Lunar Embassy Corporation is not the biggest obstacle to Gingrich’s plans.

Beyond the Lunar Embassy is the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). The UNOOSA website has a PDF version of the United Nations Treaties And Principles on Outer Space which was adopted by the United Nations on December 19, 1966 and entered into force on October 10, 1967.

The formal Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies is a part of the treaty and deals with specific concepts included in the 1967 treaty. Adopted on December 5, 1979, it entered into force on July 11, 1984.

Of significance to the issue is Article II of section A of the treaty:

A. Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities
of States in the Exploration and Use
of Outer Space, including the Moon
and Other Celestial Bodies

Article II
Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to
national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or
by any other means.

Article XVII
This Treaty, of which the Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts
are equally authentic, shall be deposited in the archives of the Depositary Governments.
Duly certified copies of this Treaty shall be transmitted by the Depositary
Governments to the Governments of the signatory and acceding States.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned, duly authorized, have signed this
Treaty.
DONE in triplicate, at the cities of London, Moscow and Washington, D.C., the
twenty-seventh day of January, one thousand nine hundred and sixty-seven.

Another, more clearly worded part is to be found in Article 11 of section E:

E. Agreement Governing the Activities of States
on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies

Recognizing that the Moon, as a natural satellite of the Earth, has an important
role to play in the exploration of outer space,

Desiring to prevent the Moon from becoming an area of international conflict,

Article 11

The Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind, which finds its expression in the provisions of this Agreement, in particular in paragraph 5 of this article.

The Moon is not subject to national appropriation by any claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

Neither the surface nor the subsurface of the Moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person. The placement of personnel, space vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations on or below the surface of the Moon, including structures connected with its surface or subsurface, shall not create a right of ownership over the surface or the subsurface of the Moon or any areas thereof. The foregoing provisions are without prejudice to the international regime referred to in paragraph 5 of this article.

The United States entered into an agreement over 40 years ago that the Moon, and all celestial bodies, should belong to all mankind and to all nations. It was recognized in that treaty that no single nation should ever have the capability to lay claim to an area of such significant scientific importance to all mankind.

Given the commitments made by the signing of the UNOOSA treaty, and its specific negation of ownership of the Moon and other celestial bodies, it is difficult to see how Gingrich could promise that the Moon could be made the 51st State of the Union.

Surveyor 1's shadow on the Moon on June 2, 1966.

The Internet on Strike 2012

FreelancersOffice.com — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:17:55 +0000

Read part one of this article series

On December 21, 2012 the Mayan long count calendar will end. Many see this as an indication that the world will either end or be significantly changed on that date. We can not be certain what will happen, if anything, as this year comes to a close, but we do know that the year started with an online glimpse of what the future might look like. On January 18th select websites all across the Internet went dark in an online strike to protest censorship on the Internet.

Among the sites that went on strike the most significant may have been Wikipedia. For 24 hours the online encyclopedia went dark to its English users with the graphic shown here.

Imagine a world without free knowledge.

The move was a protest against what some saw in SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. To find out more about the bill and why so many prominent websites protested it, see the first part of this article series Justice Department Megaupload and Anonymous… what happened and why.

Those who were using the Internet on the 18th may have encountered a number of sites that went on strike. And, in full disclosure, several websites associated with Freelancer’s Office also went dark; including this website, Phantascene.com, Alaskan Home & Garden, and Mars Station One.

Some of the websites that joined the strike, either by full blackout or a display of visible support, include:

Area907.info
Boing Boing
Craigslist.org
The Escapist
Google
ICanHasCheezburger
imgur
Internet Archive
Mars Station One
Minecraft.net
MoveOn.org
Mozilla.org
Namecheap.com
Nedroid.com
The Oatmeal
O’Reilly Media
Post Secret
Reddit
Tech Crunch
TwitPic
Webmusher.com
Wikipedia
Wordpress.com
XDA Developers
xkcd.com

The above list of 25 websites are only a sampling of the websites that joined in the protest, and even more sites helped to spread the news that the sites would protest and why the persons in control of the websites felt it necessary.

Some sites, such as Nedroid, presented the very serious issue in their own unique manner, often incorporating humor to encourage the visitors to read the notice:

Some of the sites that went full black as Wikipedia, include: Craigslist, MoveOn.org, and the Internet Archive. (click images for larger views)

Perhaps the most visually striking of the websites to be seen, or not seen, on January 18th was WordPress.com, a very popular blogging platform which is used by Freelancer’s Office. What greeted visitors to WordPress.com was a very visually striking view of what online censorship could look like in comparison to other forms of more well known censorship.

Justice Department, Megaupload and Anonymous… what happened and why?

FreelancersOffice.com — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 10:12:33 +0000

So, by now most people know that on Thursday the leaders of Megaupload were arrested by New Zealand authorities acting on request of the United States Justice Department, and that persons swayed the decentralized group that identifies itself as Anonymous to launch multiple retributions against a variety of targets that included the Justice Department website, the FBI website, Universal Music, RIAA and MPAA websites.

But what actually happened and why?

Throughout Wednesday, January 18th, there was a coordinated effort on the Internet to display, in an exceptionally visual manner, what the Internet could look like if bills such as SOPA and PIPA were to be passed in Congress. At the heart of the Internet strike was freedom of the Internet. One of the most notable effects of the strike was the complete blackout staged by Wikipedia. Other sites, such as Google, simply placed a blackout bar across their name and allowed users to continue to make use of the site’s services.

So why the huge protest? SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) are trying to do good things, the problem is that they are trying to do good by doing a lot of possible harm.

SOPA is more formally known as “H.R.3261 — Stop Online Piracy Act”. You can find it on THOMAS, or check H.R. 3261 – Stop Online Privacy Act which is where I located it as of the time I am writing this, or the THOMAS entry for SOPA at the thomas.loc.gov website.

The first thing you see under the heading of the bill is the mission statement of the bill:

“To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by
combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.”

The first thing I have to think is – what other purposes?

The Stop Online Piracy Act, hereafter referred to as SOPA, was introduced in the House of Representatives on October 26, 2011 by Mr. Smith of Texas for himself, Mr. Conyers, Mr. Goodlatte, Mr. Berman, Mr. Griffin of Arkansas, Mr. Gallegly, Mr. Deutch, Mr. Chabot, Mr. Ross of Florida, Mrs. Blackburn, Mrs. Bono Mack, Mr. Terry and Mr. Schiff.

What concerns manyof those who oppose the bill is the manner in which SOPA seeks to stop online piracy. It is a long bill, so I will pinpoint areas I have seen that others have discussed, however, I encourage you to please read the bill for yourself.

I will be referring to the H.R. 3261 – Stop Online Privacy Act link in the following points:

Page 10.1 —-

Sec. 102 Action by Attorney General to protect U.S. customers
and prevent U.S. support of foreign infringing sites.

Sounds okay, right? I mean, we want our government to protect us, right? And they do have a few pages there that discuss how they find the owner of sites and order them to stop doing what they do not like. Then we get down to page 13, lines 21-25, and page 14, lines 1-10:

(i) IN GENERAL. — A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) that is subject to the order, including measures designed to prevent the domain name of the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) from resolving to that domain name’s Internet Protocol address. Such actions shall be taken as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order.

Move on down to page 15, lines 11-20, and we have…

B) INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES.—A provider of an Internet search engine shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order, designed to prevent the foreign infringing site that is subject to the order, or a portion of such site specified in the order, from being served as a direct hypertext link.

Now it is possible that your favorite picture site will be compliant and remove all images that infringe on any copyrights, but if they don’t then the entire site is likely to be blocked by search engines so you can’t find them via a search engine anymore. And, even if you do have them bookmarked or the URL memorized so do not see why them no longer showing up on a search engine is a bad thing, page 15 line 21 kicks off another reason why you should be worried about SOPA.

That is where they specify that if you pay to use the legal parts of a website that has illegal content on it, that your payment network can still block you from making subscription payments to that service. Ending your ability to subscribe to it from within the United States.

What is of concern to manyis that by providing any sort of service where persons can communicate (think about your favorite forum or social networking site), or post content for others to download (think about your favorite file or document or image sharing site), the site owner can be held liable if their site is used for illegal purposes. Not the entire site, if just a portion of it is used for illegal purposes.

It is good to have someone make sure that your site is are not being abused or used for pirating, but as SOPA stands now, I would have to completely close my sites to comments (including my forums) so I could read EVERY comment before it was posted or I would face a $2,000,000 fine and prison time. For multiple cases a $5,000,000 fine. (And note that the same bill has $5,000,000 as the fine levied for someone that intentionally causes harm or death to someone or who shares military or government secrets – WHY is murder and treason comparable in fine to sharing two songs online????? Shouldn’t murder and treason be a bit more serious than an artist losing the sale of a .99 cent song???)

If I just leave my sites (as I have been known to do – a LOT), and someone posts links to where a movie can be downloaded (which BOTs do, a LOT), then under the SOPA bill I am held liable and fined multiple millions of dollars, plus whatever the entertainment industry decides to fine me for their lost income.

I’m in the US, and as far as I know all of my sites are too, but if a site is not in the US, and the site owner is not in the US to be dealt with personally by the laws of the US, then the Attorney General can order search engines to block your ability to see the site. (Section 102(c)(2)(B) as indicated in excerpt above – (Page 15, Lines 11-20)) That means the Attorney General decides to black out sections of the online world to US citizens. For their own good of course.

The scary part is, we, the people of the United States, would be giving our government the right to decided what sites need blocked from us. How easily could that power be abused?

And that is just part of what makes SOPA scary. I can’t go into full details in this post, so for a very good look at just what SOPA would mean, check out Why SOPA Is Dangerous byChris Held over at Mashable. He breaks it down into easily understandable language, but you still owe it to yourself to read the full bill and see just what it has to say for itself.

This post is VERY long, so I am going to break this discussion into a series of posts. Tomorrow I will tackle the next part of it: the Internet Strike and what happened with websites all across the Internet going dark for a day. I think if you read SOPA between now and then, you will understand why the sites felt it was necessary before I can get that post made, but come back anyway, I have some pictures of some of my favorites that I will share in tomorrow’s post. Then tomorrow or Monday I will get to why the Justice Department took down Megaupload and what you should know about Anonymous’ strike back, and why everything might have just been poorly timed events that snowballed to create the chaos it did.

Rent A Center Frustrations

FreelancersOffice.com — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:37:52 +0000

A couple of months ago someone’s dryer stopped working so I suggested they try to get a new one at the local Rent A Center. At their request I called the place to find out if they had a dryer, and identified myself as a current customer since I thought I recalled that they would give a store credit for referring new customers. My first referral. KEWL! Or so I had thought.

The first month, payment time on the dryer approaches and I get a call to remind me to come in and make a payment. Wait… what? No. I am not the one that got the dryer, someone ELSE rented it I should not even be on that contract. What happened? I got it sorted out – until the next month, when I was called again. I keep trying to sort it out, and so does the person that has the dryer, but Rent A Center does not comprehend that I am not the person who rented the dryer.

They just called me again.

Me: Hello?

Her: This is ___ at Rent A Center, this is just a courtesy call to remind you that you need to make a payment on the dryer.

Me: …. what dryer?

Her: You rented a dryer.

Me: No, I did not, ____ rented a dryer, not me. You should call them.

Her: Oh.

Me: What number do you have there?

She rattled off my number and said it was marked as “Courtesy call.” And another number and said it was marked as “Courtesy call.” Then she read off a third one, the right number.

Me: And what is that one marked as?

Her: Call about dryer.

Me: That is the number you should call.

Why can they not comprehend the basic detail that I am NOT the person that rented the dryer, it was someone ELSE. Both me and that person have asked, on multiple occasions, for them to call the person who rented the dryer, to list that person as the number one contact about the dryer, but the local store can not do that. I’ve even talked to the manager and explained the situation to him and asked him to please fix it – but he can’t seem to correct the referrer being listed as the renter.

I don’t get my free rental time as a referrer and instead I have to face the headache of having them calling me to talk about someone else’s rental. It is really starting to annoy me and tick me off. I’m not renting anything from them again, I’ll go to the other rental place in town and give them all of my business and future referrals. Rent A Center just can not seem to understand my only part in the dryer was to ask if they had one and then hand the phone to someone else as a referring customer. I never signed anything or even saw the store people in person when the dryer was rented, and it was not delivered to my house, so they need to stop harassing me about it unless they can not contact the person who rented it. PLEASE, can they just try the other number first for ONCE?

Daz Studio 4, 3D creation program – Get it for Free!

FreelancersOffice.com — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 08:51:19 +0000

Well, so much for sleeping anytime soon. I just finished downloading Daz 3D from the Daz website. I’m not sure just how long their limited time has been or will be going on, but when I just downloaded the program it was marked down from the normal $49.95 to free, they say until October 31, 2011.

If you check the Daz Studio 4 page for the basic Daz Studio 4 program it has a 100% markdown through October 31st. I just went through the full checkout process and sure enough, downloaded for free and it is now up and running on my computer.

So, why, you might ask, do I need Daz if I have Blender? Well, I got it because I was looking for how to use Poser files in Blender and someone had said that Daz can open Poser files and export them as files that Blender can read. So Daz is my bridge between the multitude of things that I can find to get for Poser but that are not available for Blender.

I’m still not certain what else Daz will be used for, but it looks promising for my plans to create character representations and mini movies for my websites.

Out of the work day and into the Blender

FreelancersOffice.com — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 02:06:45 +0000

Blender 3D that is. For those who do not know, Blender 3D is a program made for creating 3D models. You are likely most familiar with the concept if you play SIMS, since The Sims is made up of little figures that are manipulated as 3D figures. Blender 3D is the kind of program that makes the stuff in games like The Sims. It is also an exceptionally powerful film making program for the creation of 3D films.

See…

I worked with Blender long ago, over 5 years ago at least, and am back into relearning it and expanding on what I had learned back when I first tried it out. I want to take some of the short stories I have but never got around to getting published, polish them up a bit, and try my hand at turning them into short 3D films.

It is going to take me a while to get to that level of skill, but I am fairly excited to see what I can do and it meshes perfectly into my original love of wanting to get into making movies. At the very least, I can make up all of the characters from my Heir to Magic world and start getting them loaded up onto that website. That is my first goal.

For now, Blender 3D is a very good fun toy for me to dangle at the end of the work day with a promise that once my work is all done I can play in Blender.

You searched for it, you must like everything about it. Right?

FreelancersOffice.com — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 22:51:01 +0000

I had something pointed out to me by a friend a little while ago. A new “You like this!” element that I had not noticed Google using. When I search for something on Google, I get a result like this…

When my friend makes the same search, her search result page comes back looking like this….

Note the specific differences between two entries for the same website…..

I do not know why my friend’s search results in an automatic +1 to EVERY entry on the search page, or why I have never noticed that before in my searches. I also do not know what the green checks are for. So far, there seems to be something about MacAfee that others have said was a culprit for them.

I’ll be investigating this and seeing what I can dig up on what it is and why it’s happening. Google has a page on the +1 button, and on the +1 Button privacy. I have not yet found why it seems to do the default “Like all results” in a search.

Deactivate Facebook Account, or just stop sharing so much?

FreelancersOffice.com — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 21:35:10 +0000

Facebook takes a lot, but what does it really give in return?

I made an announcement a little while ago on my Facebook account informing people that I was going to be leaving. Not my house, as so many people seem to think the world needs to be made aware of on social networking sites. And it was not just the standard “Well, enough for now, I’m off” or “Goodnight” or even “Dinner time, I’m outta here” types of posts that so many people post as their Facebook status updates.

No, I posted that I was leaving Facebook and told my friends and family and the world where they can find me if they need me for anything. I’ve gone back to my own websites. I have not, however, deleted my Facebook account.

Why not?

Well, within a few moments of having posted my farewell post I was tagged by a cousin, who I only ever get to catch up with through Facebook, who told me to keep in touch. I might not want to have the time sink of Facebook taking up most of my day, and I really can not afford the bandwidth that Facebook eats up as it watches for someone to update their status, so, I am not going to be hanging out on Facebook anymore. I will stop in on the site a few times a week, hopefully once a day, just to scroll through all of the status updates and see if there is anything I need to see. I do not think that my world will be adversely impacted, though, if I no longer know my grand-niece is home bored and wants her friends to hang out with her. Nor do I think I will be adversely impacted if I no longer know that one of my bosses has left on a business trip. I certainly will not be adversely impacted by the lack of timely updates on the life of someone that I only met through a social networking site’s games.

So, why stay on Facebook?

Because I like to keep updated on things that are important to my sphere of friends and family. I love to read the movie reviews that actor Jim Beaver posts on Facebook and have found a lot of great movies to watch based on his recommendations. I enjoy the amusement of the pictures my friends post from the I Can Has Cheezburger site. Although all of my friends know my phone number (or what friend they can get it from), I have family on Facebook that I would never have known or spoken to if it was not for connections through that website. I have other family that I only ever hear what they are up to through Facebook – even though they only live five miles from me.

And, while there are a lot of reasons to stay on Facebook, there are also a lot of reasons to leave Facebook.

I want to be able to update my own sites with information, but by the time I finish talking about it at Facebook, there seems to be little or no reason to talk about it again on one of my websites. That leaves me in a constant loop of looking things up, sharing them, looking up something else and sharing it, but never actually getting much worth sharing onto my websites or into my blogs. That is a trend that has to stop. Anyone that wants to see what I have wrote can visit my websites. I will be posting links over Twitter, which posts an update to Facebook, so it is very easy for anyone that wants to see what I have posted to locate it, even without having to leave Facebook.

I dislike the lack of privacy that Facebook offers users. Take a look at the timeline over on the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) website that lists Facebook’s Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline to see just why I am displeased with the changes since I signed up for the site back in 2007. Back then, I had all the control over my personal information and I am a very personal person who needs people to approach her to do anything. Now… I had a guy friend me on Facebook because he said he found me via a page that I never would have clicked “Like” on. He had already looked through my pictures apparently, and I ‘have the body type he likes’. Chalk up one more reason to leave the site.

For me, stopping sharing so much on the site makes the most sense. If they are not going to let me pick what everyone can or can not see, then I prefer to show everything to everyone on my own websites – thank you very much.

I will still go visit the site, kind of like someone might stop by a party just to see a few of the people that are at it, then take off as soon as they had said hi to the ones that they know. I’ll stop in, socialize for a few minutes, check what movies Mr. Beaver has reviewed, see what TV shows I like have upcoming episodes I want to see, then get back off the site until at least the next day. No more time sink, no more lost bandwidth, and no more waiting for information that I really do not need.

Anything important can be sent to me via my forum at < ahref="http://www.thewritingoffice.com/forum.php">The Writing Office or, if it is really important, then you probably know someone that knows my phone number.

I’ll let you know if I change my mind and completely delete my Facebook account.

Day Two of desktops not loading sites

FreelancersOffice.com — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 22:09:25 +0000

Here it is on day two of having to update my websites using my cell phone and I am wondering if they sell keyboards for Motorola Milestones. These things need bigger keys on the keyboards.

I am at least grateful the phone loads the sites, even if it is slower typing on the phone.

I really need to figure out issue with desktops and loading my sites though. This is frustrating. I can not update sites on the cell phone.

How much is your time worth?

FreelancersOffice.com — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 17:01:39 +0000

I was looking for more work online and realized that Alaska’s $7.75 per hour minimum wage is by no means a low hourly wage. Anyone that thinks it is, just needs to try to earn some money as a writer.

Or as anything relating to writing and online researching. I was looking at a request for a virtual assistant, and in one of the ads I found the person wants to pay $30 for 25 hours of work. That means they want someone that will do all kinds of tasks for them such as writing and research and a variety of other listed daily activities, for at least 5 hours per day, and they want to pay them $1.20 an hour. That’s $6 for a full day’s worth of work. That might seem like a lot in some countries, but for me it does not even pay one month’s fees on my websites. I think my mom made more than that in the 1960′s working as a waitress in diners.

The online world, in particular the world wide aspect of the online world, has completely devalued the skills of anyone working online for a living. Average pay per word seems to have dropped down to $0.002 per word for writing. That means that to earn $1 online a writer needs to write 500 words. Average typing speed is, I think, around 62 wpm… going by that, if all they do is write, no research no pauses, solid typing at the computer, a writer can kick out around 3,720 words in an hour. And that does not account for any research or proofreading after the piece has been written. So, let’s be very crack-the-whip toward the writers and say that they can write 2,000 words in an hour, which includes a little research about what they are supposed to be writing and writing it, and proofreading, and since they are writing it for someone else that also needs to include the time it takes for them to send the writing back to the person who now owns it.

Yes, owns it. For that $0.002 per word the writer is giving away all rights to the piece and the person purchasing it owns all rights to it forever.

So, 2,000 words plus research plus sending them off to the person who bought them means the writer is working very hard to earn $4 an hour. An average of about half minimum wage in Alaska. Earning roughly $20 per day, five days a week makes it $100. So, writing their fingers off five days a week a writer can earn around $400 in a month, bringing the income for online writing up to somewhere between $500 and $1,000 if they work really really hard and can get enough work that they are not taking breaks or weekends off.

There is no room for the writer to take on a second job, because all of their time is spent writing to manage to earn what is basically rent for their home for the month. There is little if any time left for them to relax and enjoy time with friends and family, not if they want to hit the mark of possibly earning enough to pay the mortgage.

I’m not sure what a writer is to do when a world-wide market for skills means that even the best writers are competing for work that can be done by someone willing for work for $1 a month. And it is really bad that even $5 a week of guaranteed income is looking really good to me, no matter how hard I have to work for it.

So, what is the least you would take per word writing online? Has the online market caused a major undervaluation of a writer’s time?