Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Quora fail



I was transitioning to work full time for Quora. I'm glad I didn't. They banned me. I'd recently lifted my question count from 10 a day to 30 a day. It doesn't become financially worthwhile unless it is about 80 a day. I tried to keep my questions conservative and relevant, tethering them to articles from News.com.au with extras from FB finds. Most Quora responders would openly brag of being able to silence conservatives.

It took about six months, an hour a day, to build the 10 questions a day. This returned about 20 cents a day. When I lifted to questions I got about a dollar. 30 questions returned about four dollars. But, that never happened as I was banned before I was paid for it. 

I managed to place all my Bible Quotes onto Quora. Initially, I'd referred the questions to Biblegateway. Quora community complained that site was spammy. I then referred the questions to my site. I tried to amend the older questions to my site too, but Quora said my site was spammy. Basically Quora felt the Bible Quotes were theirs and they didn't want me work on them. Quora tried merging quotes with different verses together. They complained that my wording was strange. One person complained when I wrote it was not compassionate to drown people. 

I considered outsourcing for approval. Posting 80 questions a day with links. Thing is Quora does not know in advance which questions their members will arbitrarily reject as being inappropriate. 

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

People we support .. Artsy

got an email asking to point to "our new collection page on Andy Warhol's Soup Cans: here, to your post: http://conservativeweasel.blogspot.com/2014/07/people-we-support_9.html."

I don't see the point of posting an amendment to a five year old page.
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Artsy do some amazing art work. Check it out.
https://www.artsy.net/collection/andy-warhol-campbells-soup-can

Saturday, May 18, 2019

Australian Federal Election 2019

The polls have not closed yet, but no one will be bothered by this opinion piece now, so I can make my prediction and watch it come true. Press are anticipating a close election. I'm not. I believe the Liberals will be tossed out of office and ALP will have a sizeable majority. UAP will be irrelevant. As will Pauline Hanson's One Nation. There will be lots of finger pointing for the Libs as the ALP, and media celebrate Bill Shorten's PM win. Some will say Shorten has good characteristics that have been disguised. But the real reason the Libs will lose is because Peter Costello's leadership transition theory is wrong. Conservatives need to be led by conviction politics of which Turnbull had none and Morrison has the wrong type. Libs need economic conservatives, not social conservatives.

On the positive side, not many Liberals will be in opposition. Hopefully Abbott will still be around. Hopefully Warren Mundine won't have been fatally compromised. UAP will have proven the folly of throwing money at elections. The compromised and inept electoral office will claim that voter fraud did not matter. It would be nice if Bernardi's conservatives did well, but they ran on mainly a social conservative agenda too. Australia will feel a lot of pain as Shorten and left wing ALP run their agenda. But in three or four years, they will have to face a Liberal leader running on conviction, fighting for freedom. Putting forward a small government agenda as economic conservatives.

Here are some social conservative moments I've seen on campaign. A Liberal candidate in the state election running for what should be a safe seat, advocating book burning a child's story book about friendship because he'd identified it as being pro gay. A Liberal candidate in an ALP seat saying she felt Julia Gillard was a poor PM because she was 'barren.' In fact, Gillard was a hopeless PM because she had awful, Shorten like policies which hurt Australia and promoted corruption, nothing to do with her personal choices.

Thing is, social conservatism is something ALP does well in taking for granted. No social conservative is going to favour Libs over ALP. It is dog whistling for people who might feel like voting Libs, but won't as they are being too prescriptive.
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Update. I was very happy to be very wrong. Sorry for the loss of Abbott, but he will be useful elsewhere, now.
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https://www.facebook.com/LiberalPartyAustralia/videos/435853813856891/?t=2

Sunday, May 12, 2019

Eduard Jacobs, Cabaret Performer and great great grand uncle

Ezekiel (Eduard) Jacobs (Amsterdam, 2 April 1868 - there, 6 December 1914) is regarded as the first Dutch comedian . 
Birth registry

On This Day site

Discography

Moulin Rouge portrait

He was originally a musical diamond worker of Jewish descent. At the age of 22 he left for Paris where he earned his living as a pianist. He came into contact with the vaudeville and the cabaret , in particular in the famous Moulin Rouge, where after 1890 he also acted as accompanist (piano) for some time. 

After his return to the Netherlands in 1894, he worked for some time for the Gebroeders van Lier as a contact person for French artists. From August 19, 1895 to 1903 , he performed at the meager nightclub "Het Wapen van Habsburg" in the Quelinestraat no. 64 in Amsterdam, as a pianist / singer of realistic songs. He thereby imitated the way Aristide Bruant performed . 

His repertoire consisted mainly of translated chansons. A characteristic of Jacobs was that he played the piano while standing and sang his songs. One should generally consider the cabaret of that time, which was neither almost completely unknown in the Netherlands at the time, as more than a chat with a song in between the major performances / shows. However, Jacobs did this with the necessary satire and ridicule and also responded to current events, for example in the song "Letter from the last Amsterdam tramp horse". Jacobs preferred to sing about the woe of the (Chinese) prostitutes on the Zeedijk and the Oudezijds Voor- and Achterburgwal in Amsterdam ("Limonadehoertjes"). Because the audience increasingly appreciated these texts, which were quite straightforward before that time, Jacobs became quite successful. He composed a large number of songs, of which recordings were put on gramophone record and was therefore one of the first Dutch-language comedians to be recorded on record alongside Koos Speenhoff. 

Jacobs's initiative to bring critical cabaret to the Netherlands was increasingly opposed by the government and in later years he focused more on popular entertainment. He was also in poor health and a tour through the Dutch East Indies in 1912 wrecked him physically. He died in 1914 at the age of 46. 

Jacobs's oeuvre has lived on in the Jordaan cabaret for a while. Among others Mimi Kok ("Op de Ruysdaelkade"), Aunt Leen ("Die good old mother") and Willy and Willeke Alberti ("Love only") had songs from him in their repertoire. 
Via https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Jacobs_(cabaretier) and google translate 
Hear him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II8xKyAKw2Y 
Discography https://www.discogs.com/artist/1195435-Eduard-Jacobs?filter_anv=1&anv=E.+Jacobs