Due to economical downturns and other various reasons, a lot of people are finding themselves having some extra time. For me, it’s the normal yearly cycles. I’m in tax and financial services. I thought I’d use my extra time to research ways to make some extra bucks, for myself and for all my readers. Yes, it’s a bit different from the topic I initially thought this blog would be for. But musicians often need some other non-musical gigs to save ourselves from starving. So there’s still a connection heh heh …
The top two paid-to-click programs used to be ClixSense and Neobux. That’s what a lot of Web pages used to recommend up until a couple of months ago. But NeoBux has fallen by the wayside. I will explain.
ClixSense :
ClixSense’s got a long history of paying members, since 2007 actually. That’s one advantage. Another big advantage over Neobux, is its Referral Structure. The clear deciding factor is Amount Earned Per Click: 1 cent at ClixSense.
Neobux:
The only thing that’s interesting at Neobux is that you can “rent” your referrals. It then becomes like a game. The chances of winning though, is very low. Because the most of the times they pay only 0.001 cent per click. The minimum “cashout” is low, at $2. But that doesn’t matter much at such low per-click rate.
With Newbux’s low rate, the referrals you rent don’t get much motivation to keep clicking. The chances of those rentals paying for themselves are quite low. What about clicking the ads yourself? You can do the math. To make $2 minimum cashout, you’ll have to make 2,000 click. There are about 10 ads a day. It’ll take you 200 days just to make the amount of money that people give to waiters as tip. That’s pretty crazy.
And on their site’s help page, it used to lead you to believe that they pay mostly 1 cent per click, with some exceptions. To me that was close to being fraudulent. Now at least that’s changed. The help page now puts the different kinds of ads in a table, ranging from “extended exposure” at $0.015 to fixed advertisement at $0.001. But I can tell you, rarely do you see ads that pay more than $0.001.
The above is for the standard membership. What about the Golden and beyond. I”m not the expert of that. I’ll let you know when I learn something there.
So the clear winner for the free membership is ClixSense.
ClixSense “premium” membership, at $14.95 also costs much less than Neobux’s “Goden” membership, at $90.
If you think that was helpful. Sign up for ClixSense through me. I will give you some more guidance if you ask.
How much can you earn through ClixSense?
We all need motivation once in a while. As I mentioned, the best thing about ClixSense is its referral structure. So here’s the potential income you could have, if you could find 5 premium members, and that they could also each find 5 premium members — which is not all that unreasonable. But you gotta work it!
YOU
Premium Members
Multiplied by
Earnings for
Total Earnings
Commission Rate
This Level
Level 1
5 members
$2 each
$10
$10
Level 2
25 members
$1 each
$25
$35
Level 3
125 members
$1 each
$125
$160
Level 4
625 members
$1 each
$625
$785
Level 5
3,125 members
$1 each
$3,125
$3,910
Level 6
15,625 members
$1 each
$15,625
$19,535
There are actually two more levels of referrals you can have. But you’ll need to be a social super star and a motivational speaker at the same time to achieve that. If you are, go ahead and calculate the potential earnings yourself
And if after reading this post, you still want to experiment with NeoBux, you’re welcome to sign up through me. It doesn’t cost you anything extra. And there are some other things you need to know to get properly credited for your referral clicks. Like I said, it’s like a game. It’s still better than playing other online game that you don’t get paid anything for. Plus, it gives you something to do while viewing the ClixSense ads. (Use alt-tab to alternate between the windows.) Please share with me your experience after that.
Some of my friends have started noticing the different spellings of the same things, things that are “Chinese.” In the title of this note there are two examples: tofu vs dofu, and Kung fu vs Gong fu. Last month I was looking for a Taichi class to take. I couldn’t find it at first, because my HMO spelled it as Taiji.
In San Francisco, there are a lot of Chinese residents whose family immigrated from Canton –or is it Guangdong?
So far we have four pairs of examples:
Tofu vs dofu
Kung fu vs gong fu
Taichi vs Taiji
Canton vs Guangdong
(It is said that Canton really refers to the city of Guangzhou, but the sound is related to the province of Guandong)
I know many of you may have not seen the versions in the 2nd column. Then how about:
Peking vs Beijing
Ahh…. you’ve heard of Beijing, right? Have you heard of Peking, as in Peking duck? If you haven’t tried the Peking duck, you should. And yes, Peking and Beijing both refer to the same city – the capital of China.
What’s going on here?
I did my graduate study in linguistics. So this is an interesting question for me to try to answer.
There are actually more than one reasons these words that represent the same things have different spellings. First is that, some derived from different dialects. Peking may have approximated Min Nan’s pronunciation. Min Nan is spoken in Fujian (or Fukian), a coastal province with a lot of emigration activities. And Canton, yes you guessed it, was spelled from the Cantonese pronunciation.
Hypothetically, if in the old days, they spelled the capital of China with Mandarin pronunciation, it would have still be spelled like “Peiching.” Similarly, Canton would be spelled as “Kuangtong.”
Let me replace Peking and Canton with those two hypothetical spellings in the side-by-side comparison:
Tofu vs dofu
Kung fu vs Gong fu
Taichi vs Taiji
Kuangtong vs Guangdong
Peiching vs Beijing
Can you spot a systematic difference now?
It’s (as far as my example goes):
t vs d
k vs g
p vs b, and
ch vs j
So, (drum rolls please), that other important reason is: in the old days, they used a more “typical” romanization system, one like the Chinese Postal Map Romanization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Postal_Map_Romanization. Then the government of People’s Republic of China developed a system called Pinyin. So the official spellings for those things and places changed from the ones in the first column to the ones in the second column.
The spellings of the established “foreign words” didn’t really care to change much, until China’s economical power rose.
I hope they leave Peking duck alone though. “Beijing duck” just doesn’t sound as tasty.
***
Here’s a more technical description of the “transition” that I just describe, from Wikipedia:
“An important GR innovation, later adopted by Pinyin, was to use contrasting unvoiced/voiced pairs of consonants from Latin to represent aspirated and unaspirated sounds in Chinese. For example b and p represent /p/ and /pʰ/ (p and p‘ in Wade).” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwoyeu_Romatzyh
This is going to be a continuously edited post. I am putting together the stories I hear from all over. These stories will serve as reminders that, our society benefits from granting equal rights to everyone.
I will post only new stories (some may not be new to you, but new to me anyway.) The are way too much evidence from history already, my little blog cannot possibly contain that many stories.
But first, my two-cents’ ultra-simplified analysis of why discrimination happens: people are "led to believe" that, because there are limited resources around, by restricting other people’s access to the resources, they get to retain or even enjoy more of these resources.
Who are doing the "lead-to-believing," or more appropriately, "misleading?" We can call them "bigots." Discrimination can occur based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, and disability, sexual orientation, and so forth. I personally feel that discrimination based on race, sex, and sexual orientation still occur a great deal, and the groups people who spread such discrimination have big overlap. So what is a more specific term for people who are homophobic, racist, and chauvinist? Since chauvinists are often called "chauvinist pigs," perhaps that helps me cut the term shorter to "homophobic-racist-pigs."
Stories will be categorized into two sections for constasts.
Stories from Societies that Homophobic-Racist-Pigs Have Great Influences:
I am dedicating this video "Paradise Of Love" to No-On-Prop-8 Campaigns. Help make sure that all californians have the right to marry by voting No on Proposition 8 in November.
It’s not just an issue that is of no concerns to you. Chances are, you, yes, you, are a member of a minority group in some way. Half the California’s population are women. Then there are ethnic minorities and minorities defined by sexual orientation. There are also the new immigrants v.s. "immigrants" who have been here for centuries. Doesn’t this "prop 8" agenda seem familiar? We have had it for centuries — it is DISCRIMINATION. Funny thing is, even if you are in the main stream group, you really don’t lose anything by granting others their euqal rights. In fact, we are all better off helping each other and working together. Our society can benefit from being united, instead of divided. And we have history on our side. More and more outstanding people are emerging from minority groups.
Learn the lessons from history. Embrace diversity!
Music – The Love Theme from the movie Cinema Paradiso , by Ennio Morricone
Italina text – by Alessio De Sensi
English text – by me, loosely based on the Italian text
Instrumental performance – by Itzhak Perlman and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, from the CD Cinema Serenade
Click the play button to play the video right here, or go to its YouTube page to watch it in higher definition (When you’re there click on "Watch in high quality" link right below the volume button.)
In my next revision of the video, I plan to change the sentence "Our love is as noble as theirs" to "Our love is as noble and true." This way the tone is more inclusive. This change was mostly recommended by my friend Brooks. I used a couple of his pictures in the video.
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
* Permanent California residents — simply vote No on prop 8 in November.
* Remind your friends and family to vote NO, by calling them, e-mailing them, talking to them when you see them. And please remember to clarify that, yes we are supporting same sex marriage and equality for all Californian families, but by voting No on prop 8. Prop 8, in short, is a proposed ban on same sex marriage. Therefore, we are saying No to the ban.
* Make donation to the the major NoOnProp8 campaign by Equality For All.
* If you’re planning to make sizable purchases online, please shop through Cashback Planet Specify that you would like to have your cashback check donated to Equality for All / No on Prop 8. Please note: Even though Cashback Planet is run by a 501(c) 3 organization, donation to a political campaign is not tax deductible.
* If you have a Web site, please link to my site http://EricZen.com
Update: as of Oct 8th, the poll shows that the yes camp has convinced more voters than our no-on-8 campaigns. It is now more important than ever to spread the words!
Like Jay Leno said, our economy is in bad shape. But the religious groups are more concerned about taking away people rights than promoting peace and togetherness — which I always thought is the function and duties of religions, not division and hate. Let me first remind everyone that, same sex marriages actually HELP our economy. Last month, Lee and I went to the first gay wedding we ever attended. It was at a nice hotel. The grooms picked everything from the high end of the scale. There was a lot of wedding related business given to the our local economy. Even our neighbor state Nevada admits that same-sex marriage ban might be costing Nevada . Don’t let prop 8 take this business opportunity away!
Now I want to come back to the subject of politics and religions. It took many generations of lessons, to come up with the realization that, we are better off separating religions and politics. Every time a proposition like this that gets put on the ballot, is a waste of money and would only bring us backward. Religions, unfortunately, often do not honor diversity. Most religions think their god(s) are the only true god(s). In reality, we all need to live together. And the only way we can do that peacefully together, is by not letting religions mess with politics.
I am going to use an example that may upset some of you. And I want to say in advance, that the scale of this event was much much greater. But I think there is resemblance of these two "agenda" — An example of a religous belief being imposed onto others was September 11th. The suicide bombers thought they were doing great things for their god. While in the eyes of most other earthlings, it was simply murders.
I already got feedback for my choice of the word "faiths." I know it is not supposed to be used in plural form. I chose to do that because the word "faith" has often been used to substitute "religion." Bush’s "faith-based initiatives " look to me really are "Christian-religion-based initiatives" to me.
So what I mean is that, love should be above religions. If one thinks that her or his religion does not honor love, perhaps she or he should check the particular interpretation of the religion.
My favorite lyrics of all time is from Jewel’s "hands." The last sentence: "In the end, only kindness matters."
Please honor love, honor compassion. If the world continue to divide, these are the virtues that will save us.
By now, some of you are probably antsy to leave comments. Yes you are welcome to do so. After all, the structure of this site really is a "blog." But you need to either click on the title of this post, or simply click here to go to this post’s own page. Then scroll to the bottom. You need to register before you can make comments.
If you know me personally, you probably know that music is my passion, but I work as a tax professional. That’s why the Yes-on-8 camp’s lie about the churches’ exempt status is particularly offensive to me.
Here’s the quote from the TV ad:
Churches could lose their tax-exemption status.
It is based on IRS’ rule "against political campaign intervention by charities and churches." Well, then DON’T.
The best thing to do for any tax exempt organization, is not to get involved. If you have a tax-exempt organization, and you listen to the yes-8 camp’s claims, and advocates yes on prop 8 (or advocating anything political). Your risk of losing the status is actually greater. It will be a lose-lose situation. Don’t make the situation worse for yourself. And let your fellow Californians have their equal rights. Focus on what what true charities and churches should be doing (Check your mission statements! I hope eliminating rights for your family and your neighbors and not in there.)
Their first layer of lie is the twisted logic that, just by having a particular "belief" could get any churches in trouble with the IRS. That is simply false. Having belief is exactly what church goer do. That’s not getting involved in politics!
This part is so simple. As a Professor, Richard Peterson knows that he said on TV is simply untrue. Hmm, you probably know what the Bible says about lying …..
The second layer – the IRS’ prohibition against organizations’ participation in political activities have had a focus on endorsing "candidate," not "issues." This is quoted right from the IRS’ Web site :
… organizations may sponsor debates or forums to educate voters. But if the debate or forum shows a preference for or against a certain candidate, it becomes a prohibited activity.
A society who knows the benefits of the separation of church and state would probably have stricter rules. But that’s not the US. Not yet anyway.
So here you go. The truth. Now go enlighten those who maybe blinded by the lies, please. Thank you!
, by Ennio Morricone
This part is so simple. As a Professor, Richard Peterson knows that he said on TV is simply untrue. Hmm, you probably know what the