NOT a Guru!

The 4th of July Giveaway opened its doors on June 30.  You can visit at any time before the end of July to grab some free software, videos, ebooks and more.

One of the biggest areas of this giveaway event is PLR (private label right) content.  There are massive packages of PLR articles (ranging from 2000 to 15,000 articles) that you can download for use on your sites and blogs, as well as some specialized packets.  Niches include travel, health and wellness, and several more topics.

The 4th of July Giveaway also has some video-making downloads that I think I’m going to test out.  Here is an example of what you will find:

I think that this giveaway event’s strongest area is the PLR content.  You will find both ebooks and articles that you can use.

As with all of these types of events, it is free to join.

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Do we all share consciousness on some level, and if so, can it be measured?

Although it may sound “New Agey,” a group of researchers have been working since 1997 on the Global Consciousness Project, or GCP for short.

The GPC collects data from “eggs” (which are special data collection instruments) and then correlates random data to specific events.  The stream of data shows reactions in the human consciousness to global events, such as major news stories.  There are 65 of these “eggs” located in all populated continents, and in almost every time zone.

Sometimes the spikes from the normal data stream precede shocking events.  According to the GCP site, “Each is defined by a prediction that the data will depart from expectation during special times such as the celebration of New Years, shocking events like the disaster on September 11 2001, natural tragedies such as the great earthquakes in Turkey and the Asian Tsunami, and large-scale meditation and prayer events like the Kumbh Mela in India. The results indicate strong correlations in some cases and virtually none in others, but overall they show significant evidence that something remarkable happens when we all are drawn into a community of interest and emotion.”

While I don’t understand how the math or the eggs work, it is sort of interesting to visit GCP’s real time data site.  When there is a spike in consciousness, the program “gongs” for big spikes or “pings” for smaller ones.  Otherwise, you just hear a heart beat.  It’s hard to explain this — visit the Global Consciousness Project by clicking here for the real time data display and sounds.

For a better understanding of how this works, the Vacuum Genesis blog has a pretty good explanation.  A full disclosure of the project, including results and analysis, is hosted at Princeton University’s website.  For instance, they have have some information on the global consciousness reactions to Michael Jackson’s death and the elections in Iran.

There are over 100 scientists, artists and business people who are working on this study of human consciousness.  300 formal experiments have been registered for this year.

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Those of us who can see take the Internet for granted.  We use it for research.  We’re entertained online.  We get our news online.  We buy stuff online. And we use the Net to make money.

Can you imagine being blind?

One San Diego family is on a mission to the make the Internet more accessible to the blind. 

JAWS has given them a head start. It is a screen reader service that helps visually impaired people surf the Internet.  JAWS does a fairly good job, but does not work on a site that uses Adobe Flash or javascript instead of html links.  For this and other reasons, SEO Incorporated in Carlsbad changes codes on websites so that links can be accessed by the blind.

The news story below discusses the conflict between websites and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Amber, the young lady featured in the news story, is the plaintiff in a lawsuit against Target. She was able to surf Target’s site with JAWS but was unable to make a purchase.

My take:  We will all need to comply at some point, offering alternative pages for those portions of our sites that are embedded with javascript, AdobeFlash, or other programs that are not accessible with screen readers such as JAWS.

(It may take a couple of seconds before the video loads.)

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This week, I’m kind of on a “history” trend.  I’d like to show you another site that has cool stuff that you can use for research on your genealogy, history or travel sites.  It’s great for environmental and natural resource sites as well, particularly if you are writing about mining activities or other uses of public resources.  Best yet, it’s free.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has a federal records search service that allows you to access old homestead patents, survey maps, and mineral/land use reservations.

The patent searches often yield copies of the original land patents, signed by presidents.  Even if a copy of the original patent is not available, the site provides in-depth information about the original patent.

For instance, let’s say you are putting together a travel site about California and want to add some interesting pieces about ghost towns.  One of the ghost town areas in California is at the Salton Sea, which is littered with abandoned hotels, eateries and other buildings.

I don’t know who the original settlers of the Salton Sea area are, so I will need to look for patents by location.

You can get old homestead patents by searching for the township-section-range.  To find this information about the Salton Sea, go to the BLM and Forest Service’s “GeoCommunicator.”  Choose a map type (I choose Forests) and then search for your location.  As shown in the image below, you can search by place name, and then you’ll see the township-section-range information.

Using the data from the GeoCommunicator, I can now see if there are some homestead records.

Go to BLM’s Land Patent Search page.  The basic search lets you search by name of owner.  Since we don’t know the names of the owners, there is a standard search which allows for searches by location.  As you can see from the screen shot below, I used the Section 27, Township 10 South, Range 11 East description found on the GeoCommunicator map.

After typing in the location, I can see all of the homestead records and patents that were issued for this portion of land near the Salton Sea.  Except for the patent issued to the railroad, these are old patents, dating back to the late 1860s.

In this particular instance, the homestead patent was not scanned in; however, there is plenty of information to launch some interesting research for articles or genealogy stories.  Here’s an example of the wealth of information you can find in a patent.

From this information, we know that Lux and Miller had significant land holdings in the Salton Sea area.  This is a good launching point for a travel or historical article about the area.

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