Monday, June 07, 2010

Farewell, Blogspot

From Jenna Orkin

Friends:

As of tomorrow, this blog will be appearing at CollapseNet.com. I trust most of you will come along for the ride. Those for whom $10 a month is a hardship have the option of bartering your way in. CollapseNet needs information on what's happening locally vis a vis "lifeboat" building and offers access to the site in return. See Collapsenet.com for details. I have also recommended that translation be accepted as a medium of exchange. So as you can see, this is an evolving sphere in which the dollar is not the only currency; your talents and unique perspectives can be put to inventive uses.

At worst, you will be able to receive the information collected for this blog after a lapse of thirty days. Perhaps it will feel like receiving a package a month after it was sent but "map-making" does not become obsolete, though it may morph into charting history. Much of what I know about how the world works came from studying fromthewilderness and oilempire.us archives as well as whatever offshoots - books or other websites - they sent me to.

So I don't consider this a farewell to anyone but blogger software to whom I say Thank you and please don't freeze this post.

Headlines
Nato Warns of Strike Against Cyber Attackers
Why A New Natural Gas Deal Between Turkey And Azerbaijan Is A Game Changer
US $13 Trillion Debt Poised to Overtake GDP
Clinton Expects Iran to "Pull Stunt"
12 Ugly Charts That Scream COLLAPSE
Business Can't Rely on Oil After Deepwater Horizon
They're blaming the BP disaster for Peak Oil whereas in fact it's just the catalyst, but still, the message leaks out.
Russia: Our Mini Submarines Could Stop Your Leak, But They're Busy In Irkutsk
The "Discrimen" Of Change Is Near, As The Bernanke-Geithner-Keynes-Japanese Experiment Comes To An End
U.S. Air Force: Here Are The Threats That We're Really Worried About
Panicked European banks flood ECB with record deposits
Should This Be the Last Generation?
A hypothetical piece but an odd question, no?

Economy
Euro continues to fall, plummets below $1.20 against U.S. dollar
The Growing Underclass
Why This Is Starting To Look A Lot More Like A Bear Market Than Just A Correction
Crisis moves to Hungary?
There's a slow train coming
Job Ad: "The Unemployed Will Not Be Considered"
Canada's radical solution to tackle Britain's debt
Cameron Prepares U.K. for Budget Cuts That Will Hurt `Every Single Person'
In 5 Years, UK Will Be Spending More On Interest Than Schools, Climate, And Transport Combined
Bomb Proof Accounts - from Vantage Point
Iran's Bank Melli opens first women-only financial institution

Terror/Intelligence
Chinese peasant fights off home demolition with his own cannon
Medical Ethics Lapses Cited in Interrogations
From Secrecy News:

The U.S. Army has arrested Spc. Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland for unauthorized disclosure of classified information. Among other things, he is suspected of having provided the video of a 2007 Apache helicopter strike in Baghdad that killed several civilians to the Wikileaks web site, which published it online in April of this year. The story was reported last night by Wired's Threat Level blog. See "U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe" by Kevin Poulsen and Kim Zetter.

Spc. Manning is currently being held in pre-trial confinement in Kuwait, according to an Army statement obtained by NPR.His arrest is the third known apprehension of a suspected leaker during the Obama Administration, after Shamai Leibowitz and Thomas A. Drake, and seems to reflect an increasingly aggressive response to unauthorized disclosures of classified information.
How Tight are Clapper and Gates?
What exactly is the blockade of Gaza? from Vantage Point
Sarah Palin Aide Fred Malek Helped Richard Nixon Dump Jews from Government
Australian police investigate Google

Oil Disaster/Science/Environment
Severe Space Weather--Social and Economic Impacts
How events in space could affect the grid, navigation, etc.
Oil Spill Cleanup to Extend Into Fall
BP held by ethical funds
"Environmentally-friendly funds may not be as green as you think."
Countryside in Crisis: how dairy farmers are milked dry -UK
Crying Over Raw Milk
Central Europe battles floodwaters, at least 20 killed
Study: Organic food may not be as good as you thought
To Save The Planet, Nature Publisher Democratizes Science

And...
Rat fur: the latest fashion accessory - from Rice Farmer

26 comments:

businessman said...

Since Cuba has been dealing with Peak Oil for years now and people have been growing gardens there in the inner cities, has there been any die off there due to people not being able to get enough food for themselves?

Unknown said...

I'm living on less than 10,000 a year at the moment, and volunteering my time in other (important) projects so I think this may indeed be good bye.

The only skill I think I could lend is that of a copy editor, which from some of the formatting and spelling issues in the last few posts, may be of value.

Conchscooter said...

The fact that one is unable to register at collapse.net doesn't change anything then and this valuable site will be gone by tomorrow?

Margaret said...

I work for one of the more successful internet marketing companies, and I can offer you this advice: you need to get a sign up and details on how much, etc on your collapsenet homepage asap- even before the launch. You could have captured interested parties as they came in, and then started charging June 8th as you launched. Right now, you may be losing interested parties when they go to the site and don't see a way to sign up and become a paid member. So they leave, and sometimes for good. Just my two cents.

v said...

Jenna, Mike and all others:

Good luck with the new site! This blog opened a lot of new eyes, as well as the movie 'collapse'. I'm a fan of Mike and his work since 2005, and I consider 'Rubicon' as the bible :-)

I don't have a credit card at the moment, so I will see how to get acces to the new site.

Take Care

GrTz,

V

Vic-chick said...

Will there be information regarding sign-up? I have what is quite possibly the crappiest internet in the developed world. I get 'timed out' a lot. Really need to be able to find you, without a lot of searching. Thanks for all the hard work and great info.

Kieran UK said...

Mike and the team....

Thank you for CollapseNet and all the work you're doing and have done for many years.

I watched your talk you gave in 2005 and you said amongst other things, "protect your wealth, buy gold".

I did, and thanks to you, I still have savings!

You'll get many messages like this, I have no doubt, but this is a community across the globe. I feel privileged that I understand, and that I can teach others.

But I have to say, I am no longer trying to convince others, it's too much effort. I cannot help those unwilling to even listen, never mind helping themselves.

So $10 a month is a small price to pay for the information I have learned from you. "Crossing The Rubicon" changed my way of thinking. It made me realise there are many tiers, and how insignificant I am, but now I'm empowered and ready for it. I may not make it, but my goodness I'm going down fighting hard.

I'm rambling now so I'll get back in my box.

Good luck and best wishes. I'll contribute as much as I can as well as a subscription.

Kieran, from across the pond.

Lamb said...

Ten bucks is definitely a hardship here. Currently unemployed and job prospects for a 53 year old broad aren't looking too good around here. Best I can do is send you observations from the Gulf area when the hurricanes start around here.
Or I can teach you to quilt...make soap....dehydrate food...butcher out livestock or wild game...forage for food...use herbs for medicinal purposes and all sorts of "old time" skills.
Hell, read my blog...
Here's the post I made after Hurricane Ike:
http://droptheshoe.blogspot.com/2008/12/long-time-between-posts.html

Unknown said...

Dear Mike et al...

I think we should be allowed a free trial-run period of two weeks for collapsenet. Pay sites are tricky to get people on board without showing them what they're paying for first. In other words, if its going to be a continuation of re-posting other stories from around the web like this blog does now...it doesn't really seem worth paying for since the sites you link to are already free. That being said, I'm sure you guys have MUCH more in mind and we all look forward to seeing what that is. But considering the state of the economy...if we're going to commit to a monthly membership, I think it's only fair to let us "window shop" before we buy in.

Most of us have been with you for a long time. Perhaps not as vocal as others...but here nonetheless. It's just that some of us don't have much to offer but our willingness to learn and "row" the lifeboat.

Unknown said...

How do I sign up for the $10. a month fee to be able to be part of Collapse.net

Elmo said...

Gardening With Elmo

Just thought I'd share.

Butch said...

Hi Jenna and Mike--

I would happily trade you translation for access. I can do from Spanish and French to English. I also have functional German.

Good luck with your new project!

chris stolz

chris.stolz@gmail.com

juanito68 said...

Regarding "Britain to emulate Canada's radical solution to tackle debt"...

It's surely a good thing to get your house in order but i can tell you that here, in Québec, we still suffer from those radical cuts in the mid-90's.

They close whole hospital floors, put many nurses on retreat, put many people who had "light" mental disorders on the street, just to name a few.

Now, the health system is saturated and can't answer the need. We lack nurses, doctor, funds etc. If you don't already have a family doctors, better forget about it.

Try to get a appointement with a specialist -it won't be before 6 months even in some urgent cases.

Also, the provinces in Canada have much more responsabilities and power to taxes then in the US.
So most of the cuts the G of Canada did were just sending the problems to the provinces.

Loading your wife credit card to pay yours is not the way to go (except maybe if your divorced!)

Keep that in mind when you ear that we're doing so "well" in Canada. The debt of Canada as it is usually presented doesn't include the debt of all the provinces and territories...

If you count everything we borrow in all level (provinces, country, citys etc), we're not in such a good shape.

I'm not familiar how Britain is manage... so i wonder how it's possible to just shuffle the dirt under the carpet as Chretien did in the 90's. It sure did look good for Canada but for Québec (and probably others provinces) it was hard to swallow and we still try to manage the results.

Secus said...

I can find no working link to sign up on http://collapsenet.com and http://collapsenet.com/index.html gives me a 404 error.

rjs said...

ill miss you...

Unknown said...

Nice looking garden, Elmo. Looks like you have some raised beds?

PS: Poor rabbit, but I understand.

Bench said...

I hope the horrid white text on black background color scheme is only on the collapsenet front page, or is configurable by the user. I find it very hard to read, especially when moving from those colors to pages with black-on-white, and back.

I would like to know this before I commit my $10/month. (currently unemployed here)

Unknown said...

Secus et al,
CollapseNet.com is now live. Try this secure link or this regular link.

"e Brutto" said...

Thanks for the links page I will have to create my own now.
I saw MCR's video when the page was up the other day.
I have had some fun here, there are other options if you are tech. savvy have a look at free webcrawler technology like HarvestMan.
Demagoguery or 'demigodery' seems to be peculiarly American so doesn't appeal, I am going to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On.
It's the British way.
http://groups.google.com/group/olney-transition

Best of luck eyeballs - I like to have read all available sources before expressing an opinion and take care when commenting...
The Koran is one part of Islamic law it has no writ on its own, need I go on.

Jeromey Lockwood said...

What about allowing members to "donate" a member ship for others. Maybe if people are willing to demonstrate their hardship you can match them with others who can afford more.

Kieran UK said...

Please have PayPal as an option guys. It removes the responsibility of you having to keep credit card and address details. I guess there's many like me that prefer to keep their details in as few places as possible.

Sebastian Ernst Ronin said...

The nature of my own "work" has translated into negative cash flow for about a year now. I need not tell you that the "investment" on this stuff seldom pays a financial return and the good will cannot be eaten.

Basically, my capital bleeds from month to month. Ten dollars is not the end of the world, but if I choose to not make that $10 purchase five times a month, that comes to $50. You have no idea how far I can spread that 50 bucks.

I believe a have a couple of months left on my "beta account." Best of luck...and that goes out more to those who will not be joining CollapseNet as it does to the CollapseNet folks.

navid said...

I second Margaret's comments on having a signup page before you close out your readership here.

Second, I HIGHLY recommend you keep a portion of it free after the 30day or so timeframe. There are blogs where the free portion is even 3 days later. What you need to think about is not instant reward but building a massive base of people who WILL GENERATE THE VALUE FOR YOU MANY OF WHOM WILL GENERATE CONTENT, so you should be willing to do whatever it takes to build a free readership.

Another model that might work for you is $36/year for slightly delayed access with the goal of GETTING MASSIVE NUMBERS and with good marketing you can do that. Then the $120/year will target the people who are already sold on your content (far less than the masses).
You have to think in terms of tiers of people, what those people will pay, and what they will do for you.

Putting in a one-size fits all, and not realizing the value of your readership might Titanic your effort from the start. I am not joking about this. Don't be naive.

Unknown said...

businessman,
You might find your Cuba answer in a movie called "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" (2006).

I haven't seen it (yet) but read about it on this page, which I found on CollapseNet's recommendations list.

businessman said...

Thanks, Mitchell. I own that DVD and it's worth watching. But I don't recall any mention of any of the population dieing off in it.

Hotspringswizard said...

I like your ideas there navid on the tiered access format!