Sustainable Long-term Plans for Mali

I've been looking into Mali geographically, economically, and politically lately. I started to think, what's the point of just finding problems without making an attempt to figure out how to solve them?

I'm not an expert or anything, I just mainly write for fun, but if someone reads it and finds it interesting to them, then that's nice.

Ok, here goes...

In this essay we shall be lookin' at the following aspects of problems in Mali. I think I'm going to just not deal with the Islam Mafia stuff...that has enough articles about it anyhow. Islamic Mafia groups in the region could take up the whole article itself and make it really boring. Anyway, let's look at:

A) Mali is almost 100% Landlocked

B) Agiculture needs revamping

C) Water Filtration Improvement

E) Hydro Power

F) The Closing of Areva's highly exploitive and inefficient (both economically and ecologically) Uranium mines.
   
    
Landlocked Hindrance
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Mali)

Right now, Mali is landlocked and its situation is not the same as being a landlocked state in a highly developed economic area. When you are landlocked in Africa...you truly are. The hindrances are far greater.

Mali's only access through river to a port is by Koulikoro river down to Abidjan in the country of Cote d'Ivore. If there is some sort of trouble in that country or relations sour they are rendered 100% landlocked.

Mali has rails and roads but the only access to a port through that means seems to be the port in Senegal. If cooperation between Mali and Senegal were to ever sour or breakdown, Mali would lose that option as well.

Natinonal borders in Africa are not very practical. People should know that borders in Africa were all drawn up by colonial powers following World War I, and if I may say, I think they were either divided up haphazardly or purposely badly in order to hinder Africa. European colonization into Africa in the 1800's prior to the borders being drawn was very brutal and its legacy still lives on today.

This is a good article which sums that up from a website called "Freak-o-nomics" which includes a .pdf of the paper that they reference: http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/12/01/the-violent-legacy-of-africas-arbitrary-borders/

Personally, I do not always see the benefit of being a "nation" and especially since these "nations" were divided up in highly questionable circumstances by Europe after World War I, I don't see why Africa should make a big deal about these borders. It would be highly beneficial for Mali, Cote d'Ivore, Senegal, and the rest of West Africa to form one co-operative union.

Actually, forget Mali, Senegal and West Africa working together as one nation...possibly even a Pan-African Union would bring about optimum circumstances.

Agriculture

As of now, 90% of Mali's residents are farmers. They grow subsistence crops and export crops. When there is no rain...Mali suffers droughts and extreme famines.

The answer to this problem is to irrigate the farmlands from the Niger River, which is on on-going but highly necessary process. Information released from le Office de Niger (the agency in charge of the irrigation of Mali farmlands and the building of canals) is reporting progress. Having a fully functioning irrigation system is the only answer for droughts which often cripple the country.

Right now Mali's main export crop is cotton but I've read an interesting suggestion the other day on what Mali's future cash crop should be. The next cash crop in Mali...should be Hybrid Sorghum.

Hybrid Sorghum: http://www.agra.org/AGRA/en/what-we-do/hybrid-sorghum-now-reaching-farmers-in-mali/

Sorghums

What should they do with Hybrid Sorghum? According to this article I read on "eco-rex" they should farm sweet sorghum to manufacture Ethanol Fuel. Why? Because it is 100% the optimum place to do so.

Brazil for example, the world's largest exporter of ethanol fuel, is NOT the prime place to do mass ethanol production. The mass deforestation of Brazil and the Amazon rainforests to make the land suitable for mass agriculture is a large cost in exchange for ethanol. Is the rain forest and its carbon capturing capabilities (after factoring albedo effect which would doubtfully off-set it) worth trading away for ethanol? Personally, I don't think so...I think Brazil is better off with the rain forest.

Mali on the other hand...is already a veritable desert with no trees and certainly no rain forests. It's the perfect place to begin the mass planting of Sweet Sorghum and the manufacturing of bio-fuels and bio-diesels.

Mali will have fuel to power its automobiles and the vast excess bio-fuel would be exported for profit.

Not bad.

Water Filtration

Here's an article from Christopher Vaught from 2004 on water filtration in Kayes, Mali :

http://cee.eng.usf.edu/peacecorps/5%20-%20Resources/Theses/Water/2003Vaught.pdf

Vaught concludes in his research that,

"The people of Kayes are struggling to afford the water they need to live. The local operators barely have the expertise and resources to manage their water treatment plant. Yet the people of Kayes are succeeding at providing one of the best water supplies in the country of Mali. People coming from around the country enjoy the luxury of tap water after spending many hours of every day for many years pulling water from a well. The people of Kayes are most limited by their lack of financial resources. Major upgrades to the water treatment plant must come from outside sources. This leaves the local people without control over their own water. As the general population is struggling just to pay for the water they do have available, an upgrade is out of their realm of possibilities. In the hottest city in Africa people regard water simply and cherish it."  - Vaught, C.

Second only to irrigation, water filtration plants are the top priorioty task for development in Mali. They need a sustainable source of food and water before you can even talk about anything else.

What about Uranium mines, you ask? Uranium is NOT a priority above food and water.

The Need to Close Areva's Operations in Mali and surrounding regions

France's Areva Corp's uranium mines are not a benefit to anyone. They really aren't. Mali isn't getting anything by working for $1 an hour as slaves to keep a shit power source like nuke energy going.

The future really doesn't have a place for the highly dangerous power source anyway. You could try and argue that money and economy will prevail over all, and that greed for energy profits will win out....but you'd be on the losing side of that argument. Have you seen Areva's stock and net profit recently?

Areva posted a 2.4 billion dollar net loss in 2011, and no one's predicting a positive 2012. It seems since the latest nuclear meltdown in Japan...nuke power just isn't that hip to anyone anymore. One earthquake and bam...radiation everywhere. A lot of nations are not touching nuke power any longer.

Nuclear energy is not looking as hip as it did when the oil companies first bought/stole the patents for it from the American taxpayers all those years ago.

     
Hydro Plants

Kainji hydro

So, to segway out of nuclear power and into a cooler one. Can the Niger river basin support hydro-electric plants to give Mali sustainable and clean power generation? According to some info I've read, yes. In fact there's already hydro-electric production in the Sahel region so why not make more?

There's nothing wrong with low-polluting and highly-efficient power generation.

(http://www.worldbank.org/projects/P093806/niger-basin-water-resources-development-sustainable-ecosystems-management-project?lang=en)


Conclusion

Top Priority Tasks:  
-Irrigation of the Sahel Region and Niger River.
-Water Filtration plants (the uprading of the existing ones and buidling new ones in towns with none) 

Second Priority Tasks:
-Extended co-operation with West African regions and access to import/export from ports.
-Highway network to facilitate goods from to-and-from ports

Third Priority Tasks:
-The increase of hydro power generated from the Niger River Basin
-The implementation of Surghum manufacturing to produce Mali's new #1 export that the future craves...Bio-Ethanol fuels.


(Okay, so I know something like this isn't very practical considering the Islamist and European thug groups battling for dominance there....but if saner non-mafia type people were running the world I think that would be a pretty good template for the future of Mali....but then again...what do I know?)

Speculations (and/or) Prognostications on Phase II of Montreal Baseball Project

This time of year (hall of fame votin' time) always makes me start thinking about Expos again. There's only one legend left for the Hall of Fame now but I still wait for the vote every year. I hope Rock makes it in soon.

Some time ago, I wrote about the Warren Cromartie led Montreal Baseball Project and on the righteous effort to revive the Montreal Expos baseball team:

(https://writingsonsubjects.blogspot.com/2012/04/after-34-years-serious-heart-attack.html)

Re-reading it now, I said some dumb things. I really thought that the possibility of getting another Major League team here was slim and was talking in that article about maybe a Can-Am team or something. I think it was the fact that when baseball left Montreal the minority shareholders sued the league and I'm sure that must have left some bad blood between the city and the league.

However, now that Loria has gutted the Miami Marlins and screwed Miami taxpayers out of about 500 million bucks...people may be looking at the Montreal situation differently. Maybe people are now wondering, "hey, did Loria screw over Montreal too?"

Even that Taiwan news channel that takes popular news stories and turns them into computer animations jumped on the Loria hate-train,

I think the whole baseball world is now starting to understand why the minority Expos shareholders sued the league in a RICO suit. It's because this guy Loria is a real art-dealin' trickster something fierce, I tell you.

I think now that Montreal can get a Major League team back and no one says it better than Cromartie himself on his blog at www.warrrencromartie.com,

"And, by no means am I trying to be a hero. I’m just trying to do the right thing. I know for a fact that Montreal is not an independent league town, and that it’s not a minor league town, either. Montreal is a Major League town. Montreal has a population close to 4 million people." -Cro

He goes on to elegantly state that,

"And so, as someone who played for the Expos and played in the city of Montreal, who was proud to play for the Expos and who loves the city as much as I do, I’ve taken the bull by the horns and (rather than man up I’ve) Expo’d up: I’ve decided to try and do something about bringing baseball back to the city of Montreal."  -Cro

Yes, the Cro has "Expo'd up" and everyone knows when someone Expo's Up...serious business is afoot! I can't help but think of a superman type scenario where in order to indeed "Expo Up" you'd need to run into an empty telephone booth, rip open your business shirt to reveal the Expos uniform waiting underneath, and then fly through the air at top speed of 100-200 miles per hour.

In another article, he claims that Montreal is a "five-tool" city for the following reasons:

"1. HistoryMontreal has a very long and rich baseball history. The Royals played their first season in the Eastern League in 1897. In 1939, the Royals became the Brooklyn Dodgers’ farm club and it’s here that Jackie Robinson played the 1946 season one year before breaking the color barrier in the Major Leagues. The city embraced Robinson in the only year he was here, and after he helped the Royals win the Junior World Series, fans stormed the field to carry him on their shoulders. You can go to the corner of Delorimier Avenue and Ontario Street East, and stand in the place where old Delormier Stadium stood, in the place where some of baseball’s elite, like Don Drysdale, Roberto Clemente, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Tommy Lasorda, and Sparky Anderson, made their marks as very young men. It was only fitting then, that in 1969, Montreal was awarded the first ever Major League franchise outside the United States. So many great players wore Expos’ uniforms over the years; Hall of Famers Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, and possible future Hall of Famers Tim Raines, Pedro Martinez, and Vladimir Guerrero are just the tip of the iceberg. And, as I well know and am so proud of, in 1981, the Montreal Expos were the first non-U.S. team to make it to the postseason.

2. Population

Montreal is a big city with a very large population. According to a Conference Board of Canada report prepared in 2011, one of the “market pillars” needed to support a Major League Baseball team is a population of at least 2.5 million people. Montreal has almost 4 million people.

3. Passionate fan base

Montreal is known the world over for its multitude of festivals that are so well-attended each and every year. The Montreal Canadiens are an enormous success in terms of attendance, as are the Canadian Football League’s Alouettes, and the Impact, who have graduated this year to Major League Soccer. Montrealers are passionate about their teams and their events and I know they miss baseball dearly.

4. Corporate presence

By the same Conference Board report, we know that Montreal is home to 98 of Canada’s 800 biggest companies. Only Toronto and Calgary have more. And, with the Canadian dollar at or near par with the U.S. dollar – something that was far from the case throughout the history of the Expos – we are definitely living in a new and brighter era.

5. Me

Hey, Montreal’s got Warren Cromartie! A passionate former Expo who wants dearly to bring the team back to Montreal and put things right. Okay, I admit, Warren Cromartie alone cannot bring back Major League baseball to Montreal. Warren Cromartie alone cannot build a stadium fit for the new Expos. But Warren Cromarite, together with the fans and business interests, is going to try his damndest to do it!

I am loving this journey."

-Warren Cromartie, from www.warrencromartie.com

The key tool I will be focusing on in this article's prognostications/speculations is the 4th tool, that of corporate presence and thus the possible future shareholders of a revived Expos team.

The Best Possible Scenarios

1. Power Corp. 

This is sort of a pipe-dream, this company has never invested in local sports franchises and I doubt it ever will. It's kind of the greedy stereotyped conglomerate you'd see as the villain in movies.

Though, if they were in fact the owners (an 100% unlikely a scenario mind you) the Expos would have some pretty deep pockets. Power Corp. generates about 1 billion dollars a year in transparent on-shore reported net profits (wow). The average MLB team payroll is about 80 million bucks...which would cut into only 8% of their yearly earnings to field a competitive baseball team in their home city.

Obviously these guys would be in it for the profit and not the civic pride of winning a World Series, so let's crunch some more numbers here to arrive at some tangible profits,

According to Forbes magazine, the yearly revenue generated by a major league baseball franchise is in between 148 million (Marlins) and 439 million (Yankees). 

Our Olympic Stadium is fully payed for now, meaning the main operating expense is the player payroll, which is on average about 80 million. So, if it's done successfully and the team is competitive and profitable...they can make good money on this venture.

2. Québecor Media

This would be a far more likely scenario. Just like Rogers (the media conglomerate who owns the Jays), Québcor is a media conglomerate based in Montreal.

Since it also owns Sun Media which is a nationwide tabloid network and publication, it would have nationwide visibility for the team.

One of the things that really cut into the Expos profits was giving up the national broadcasting rights. The only data I have on hand (print, no link) is from 1982, when they were getting about 5 million in local broadcast revenues and about 2 million in national revenues. I guess at some point they thought they didn't need to keep the national rights and let the Jays have them. Which was not smart, because broadcasting revenues in baseball skyrocketed exponentially over the last 30 years and that 2 million they gave up on is worth a whole lot more to Rogers now.

Airing Expos games nationwide on Sun could create unwanted competition and maybe some sort of agreement between Rogers and Québecor on baseball airing rights. It could be in their best interests to work out a deal where Sportsnet would broadcast both Jays and Expos games (SP-1 for Jays, SP-2 for Expos) and create a nationwide two-team fever/buzz generating system.

Sun is a tabloid that thrives on scandals and sensationalism. I wonder if their ability to fan flames and create fervor amongst readers/viewers could translate into optimum buzz generation for a sports franchise.

3. Molson

Beer. Man do they make money at parks on the beers. I go to Alouettes games sometimes and drink like 12 beers and they cost like 9 bucks each. That's $108 right there.

This would also mean that the Expos and Canadiens would be under the same banner and could merge marketing strategies (winter and summer would then be all around beer sellin' season for Molson) and they would not be in direct competition when the two teams overlap schedules (only briefly during the end of hockey season and maybe at the start).

I read in Bill Veeck's book that he made so much more money off of concessions than he did off tickets any day of the week (even Sunday). That's why he made so many free night gimmicks and give-a-ways. He'd give tickets away for free just to fill the stadium (anyone remember $5 night at the Big O near the end times? You'd get 20-30K on that night and they'd all buy concessions).

There's 60K seats in the Big O, and what I could suggest for a Molson operated franchise is to make the ENTIRE upper deck FREE. Free as night, free as day, and free as AIR. You'd pay good money to sit in the 30,000 good field level seats, but the tickets for the other shitty nose-bleed upper-decker 30,000 seats would be handed out at the door for FREE! We'd call it the Les Expo Super Fan Club Zone and it would have cheerleaders and a beer vendor at every section. Better yet...the cheerleaders would SELL THE BEER! I buy beer when I don't even want it all the time just because the waitress is hot.

Say even 5,000 free loaders show up to hang out in the upper deck, if only half of them even bought beer at like 7 bucks a unit, and a fourth of them bought many beers (i.e. 4). You're talking a supplemental per game income of $48,000 which over 81 games would equate to just about 4 million dollars to add to your gate and regular concession revenues.

Could a Les Expos Super Fan Club Zone evolve into the summer pre-party hot spot for young people? If it's done right then I wouldn't see why it couldn't. If it does you could get even 20,000 beer drinking freeloaders per game, which would bring in a prognosticated $192,000 per game...and supplement 16 million dollars of income per season. Yes, 16 million dollars on giving away FREE TICKETS if it is done correctly and the hottest of chicks are found to hawk the beers.

To contrast the party zone, another area of the field (third base side facing the bullpen) will be quartered off as the Extreme Family Values Zone where kids under 6 and little babies can accompany their parents for free (at a maximum of 3 child units per family).

Yes, the key to a Molson run Expos team would be to take advantage of the space in the Big O to get maximum people in the stadium to purchase maximum concessions.

The Pen-Ultimate...(wait...no) The Super-Ultimate Case Scenario

The share-holder percentages of my prognosticated Golden-Super-Ultimate Case Scenario would be the following:

Power Corp: 33.333333334% 

Québecor: 33.3333333334%

Molson: 33.3333333334%

Within this tri-forced tri-umvirate lies the ultimate balance in Expos shareholding ownership. Each point of the Expos-World-Series-Profit-Generating-Dynasty-Making Tri-Umvirate will take a key role in the on going and sustainable success of the franchise.

1. Power Corp. will cover the payroll and player salaries.

2. Québecor would need to create a nationwide tabloid saturated buzz-generating Believer Fever which would subsequently be caught by human after human in successive turn. The ad campaigns must generate extreme hype, and the resulting media-saturated Expos fever should spread province-to-province, state-to-state, and country-to-country like WILD FIRE.

3. Molson must transform the Upper Deck Nose Bleeds into a veritable party central. This would be easier with a downtown park where the post-game exiting fans could file out and go straight to St. Catherines or St. Laurent, but at present state in any case the metro ride from Pie-IX to downtown will probably be pretty intense. Molson must do this by maximizing their beer vending and beer advertising capabilities and bring them to new levels. All kinds of gimmicks! Stuff like special guest celebrity beer vendors even.

and finally...

4. Warren Cromartie should be given the honorific title of President of the Expos and be the iconic face of the New Generation Expos.

oh and...

5. Gary Carter should be posthumously honored as Guardian Deity of the Expos, and a statue should be put in center field of him looking down on the field to protect the Expos from misfortune of all kinds.

Conclusion

You can call me crazy, you can call me a dreamer, you can call me weird, you can call me dumb, you can call me Ray, or you can even call me Jay, but one thing you can never say about me is that my prognostications are fundamentally unsound...

....because my prognostications are usually fundamentally sound.



(Edit: APRIL 9 of 2013): This  article gets some decent hits still (but a lot of spam-bot advertisement comments). For any new hits to this article I'd like to spruce it up a bit....so here's some Cro-bama posters for all you readers (unless you're spam bots then nevermind):

On Some Super Cool BOINC Stats and on the Optimization of BOINC

BOINC is just a synthetic super computer. It basically (figuratively, not literally) takes everyone's home personal computers around the globe and combines them together to create a veritable Voltron of Science. It doesn't cause slow down to your computer either, it just uses spare CPU resources when they are available. The three most popular programs on BOINC, I believe, are World Community Grid, Rosetta@Home, and Seti@Home.


I'm just going to focus on the two most popular for the sake of simplicity (in making my argument following the presentation of the cool cool statistics).

Ok, so now here are the basic stats of BOINC's current computational power levels:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What does the scouter say about BOINC's power level !?

Total BOINC processing power (average recorded as of Dec. 14, 2012): 7.3 petaFLOPS

Total processing power of Seti@home (average as of Nov. 12, 2012): 597 teraFLOPS

Total processing power of World Community Grid (average as of Dec. 6, 2012): 501 teraFLOPS

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alright, what's a "FLOP" you may ask? It stands for "floating point operations per second" and it is a measure of computational speed, or a power level if you will. A "peta" is a flop to the 15th power (meaning fifteen zeros after the number) and a "tera" flop has only 12 zeros after the number. So, a "petaflop" is 7300000000000000 floating point operations per second. Pretty snazzy eh, all them flopsy-mopsies?

The synthetic Voltron super computer is currently running at 7.3 petaflops, and it is running about a dozen programs on it. Programs like Seti@Home, Rosetta@Home, MilkyWay@Home, World Community Grid, and others.

The two most popular programs that home users are setting their BOINC up to are Seti and WCG.

That's the basics.

Optimizing BOINC

Okay, now I'll get into my opinions on optimizing BOINC which are as follows,

(A) Get More People On BOINC
(B) Make Faster Processors
(C) Stop Giving a Fuck about Greasy-Ass Aliens that you're Never gonna Find

Firstly, (A) there are currently 2.5 million users who have connected their personal computers to the BOINC network. That's not half bad.

Yet, it is estimated that the total number of personal computers in human households is nearing the 2 billion mark (likely by 2014). So, that means only about 0.125 % of global humans are contributing to BOINC presently.

If BOINC is generating a pretty decent 7.3 petaFLOPS off of 0.125% of the total computers in households around the world then what would it run at on 100%? It still has 99.875% of its theoretical potential at this juncture. That's really interesting, it's not even running at 1% of its capabilities.

Yes! Yes! I Feel like 5.84 exaFLOPS!

Theoretically, with 2 billion household computers Voltroned-up to the grid...it could run at 5.84 exaFLOPS (which is one level higher than a petaFLOP). Cool.

Nextly, (B) is sort of obvious. If new processor chips are designed to speed up computers...then obviously it would compound the compounds of each unit and increase the floppage.

It's (C) that's the one I think is the least obvious and most controversial method of optimzing BOINC....

Stop Giving a Care about those Silly old Aliens

Out of the 2.5 million or so users that are hooked up to BOINC, more than half are running Seti@Home. About 1.3 million boinc users run seti.

What is seti? Researchers send out high frequency radio signal into the darkest coldest regions of outer space...and hope aliens hear them and respond.

The ones on Seti are likely the most hardcore geeks too with the fastest home computers, and they are using up 597 teraFLOPS of BOINC's current power level to try and find some greasy-ass dirty aliens in outer space. Yeah, I dunno 'bout this.

When I first got BOINC I looked at the @homes they had, and back then it was mostly space stuff. I chose Milkyway@home which is trying to map out the known universe. I never gave one iota of interest to Seti@home. I thought it was dumb. I know that statement will make a lot of geeks very mad, but it's true.

When I first heard about IBM's World Community Grid and how it uses BOINC flops to conduct research on diseases, clean energy, plant proteins, and other more down to earth things...I immediately downloaded it and left just a few resources for milkyway@home and gave most of my computer's idle resources to World Community Grid.

No. Let's not...

Down to earth research is far more interesting sounding and beneficial. Using global computational power to search for aliens is a huge waste and I think everyone pretty much knows that.

Jodie Foster isn't gonna find some alien signal from shooting out radio waves, a Vulcan isn't gonna come down to earth and teach us how to make spaceships, or anything like that. That's just in movies guys, not real life.

Getting the 1.3 million Seti@Home users to switch onto a less pointless program (go to MilkyWay even if you want to stay in an outer space one), is another great way to optimize BOINC. I truly believe that Seti is a big waste, sorry....but it's true.

Forget stupid aliens...


END NOTE: If you are interested in BOINC, you might want to find out what sort of power your geographic area runs off of. I've been reading lately (thanks to a heads up from a friend of mine) that keeping computers idle in an area where the grid runs off of coal (or other fossil fuels) is highly inefficient and highly undesirable. Coal is the most pollutant form of energy production and since some BOINC programs are even about pollution reduction and clean energy research...it would be ironic to run BOINC off of energy from burning coal.

Places like South Africa, Poland, China (though the Three Gorges Dam is a GREAT start to help them get off of coal), Kazahkstan, India, Japan, Germany, Russia, both Koreas, Australia, parts of the United States (Texas and Ohio are almost all coal powered, whilst Vermont and Rhode Island are coal free), and parts of Canada (Alberta is all coal for instance, while many others are coal free).

It's possible that a globally interlinked, highly efficient, up-time/down-time fluctuation-calibrated, minimal polluting hydro-electric power grid would be desirable for the optimal optimization of the BOINC network.

While one half of the world is awake, the uptime is calibrated to their hemisphere, while the other side sleeps the downtimed lesser-load would be optimal time used for computations and calculations benefiting science and humanity (and vice-versa while the other half of the world goes to sleep at the end of their day). Thus exercising the utmost efficient use of energy in order to balance both the rat-race-to-and-fro world and the calculations/research necessary to the advancement of science and the livingry of humanity.

Good and (more importantly) FREE Video Games on the Old Internet...

I'm a cheap man. I am a cheap-ass fucking guy. I love playing video games, but I don't like spending my geldt on that shit. The last game I spent money on was Suikoden III which wikipedia tells me was released in 2002, so I haven't spent money on video games in a full 10 years now.

That's why when there's free video games to be had, I'm all over them like a crazy man. Free is my favorite four letter word. I think what I like best about free games is that I don't have to pay for them. The following are the best free games I've played on in the last while...

Mega Man versus Street Fighter

Mega Man is fun. For his 25th anniversary Capcom made a new-old-school style Mega Man where he fights Street Fighter guys.

If you play it please do it in the following boss order (it will help you win the day): Dhalsim -> Blanka -> Rose -> Rolento -> Urien (he's hard but his stage music is nice and catchy though) -> Ryu -> Chun-Li -> C. Viper. There's more levels after this but I haven't beat them yet, I died at Vega just now and got angry, started swearing like a little child, and switched to writing this blog thing.

Mega Man

Rating: 7/10

Play it: http://www.capcom-unity.com/mega_man/
(the website might be slow because millions of geeks are probably getting this free shit right now)

Abobo's Big Adventure

Abobo was the big tough guy (and sub-boss/jabroni-boss/green-boss) in the Double Dragon games. Here he finally gets the spotlight in his own game where he has to save his son (aptly named Abo-boy).

If you're a fan of the old NES then this game will feel like home for you. Abobo makes his way through Double Dragon, Zelda, freakin' Balloon Fight, that wrestling game with the lizard man from Brazil, Mega Man, Super Mario, Contra, Kung Fu, Punch Out, and...Urban Champion (yeah Urban Champion).

Abobo is not presented as an anti-hero though, Abobo is a hero-hero. He saves his son and...well, I don't want to spoil it...but the ending is very touching in an emotional and free way. 

This game was a collaboration from I-Mock, Pesto Force, and Pox Box. I-Mock would have had another game listed in this entry, a game they made where Ivan Drago battled his way to the top (fighting dinosaurs, thugs, Rocky (in a wheel Chair)...and you could play as Apollo Creed who had a crescent energy wave super move...it was soo coool). The Drago game was ordered to be removed from the site by whoever owns the rights to the Rocky films, which sucks because that was a really well made game (and a very very FREE game to boot).  I forget what it was called and all mention of it seems to have been removed from I-Mock's site.

I love you so much Abobo, I wish we could be friends in real life...

Rating: 9.5/10

Play it: http://www.abobosbigadventure.com/

I Wanna Be the Guy

This game is about a kid who wants to be the guy. It's really hard, personally I've never made it to the end and don't really want to. It's too gimmicky. You can save your progress at almost every intreval which makes it easy, but I got tired of trying to make my way around all the traps, gave up and never went back to it. I didn't really want to be the guy, I guess. It's too gimmicky I think. I get the joke that it's funny to die in ways you didn't think you could die, but the novelty kind of wears off eventually and it just becomes boring.

I remember there was this weird-ass cat game (mostly white everywhere) that I think did the weird-ways-to-die-in-a-platformer gimmick first but I can't remember the name of that game now. Oh wait, nevermind, I searched for "cat mario" in googles and found the game, it does indeed set the tone for this gimmick indeed. (Cat Mario video: Here). Now I'm not saying "Cat Mario" or whatever it's called is better than I Wanna Be the Guy, I'm just saying the funny-ways-to-die gimmick wasn't anything particularly new.

Mike Tyson

Rating: 6.9/10

Play it: http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/

Dikembe Mutumbo's 4 1/2 weeks to Save the World

This is an ad campaign for Old Spice but it is still nice and free though. I'm not sure this is gonna get anyone to buy Old Spice products but it's a pretty decent game. When it first came out I thought it was gonna be the coolest shit but it didn't really live up to its potential.

When I first heard that Dikembe Mutumbo was providing the voice of Dikembe Mutumbo, I thought this game was going to be amazing. It wasn't exactly what I expected it to be but it's still good none-the-less. The levels are as follows: Battle Toads (The one where you go down), Donkey Kong Country, Mega Man (?), and Ikaruga. The Ikaruga one is by far the best one, it has Dikembe flying through space and shooting lazors at shitty internet memes (or "may-mays" as Dikembe pronounces it).

Now, Is he finger wagging the opposing player or the crowd in the selection screen?

Rating: 6.4/10

Play it (I think it's still up): http://www.oldspicesavestheworld.com/

Hacked Mario Games that Are too Hard for me to Beat

I take my Mario games serious. I can beat Mario 1 in about 5.5 minutes, Mario 2 in a little over 10 minutes, and Mario World in about 10 minutes. I have it down to a formula and a tee, and even tried doing it with my eyes closed with somewhat success.

4:58 !? You cracked the big 5 !?!?!

I even at one point thought I was the best at it. Until I heard about Twin Galaxies and Speed Demons Archive (reputable institutions who keep track of gaming feats of strength and records).

Turns out some guy named Andrew "The Greek Mystique" Gardikis beats these games many seconds faster than I can. Last year, The Greek Mystique even cracked the 5 minute mark in Mario 1 and beat it in 4:58. He's amazing, the way he handles the birds in 6-2 in Mario 2 for example is un-fucking-canny.

He's so good at Mario right now that he's akin to the Greek god Icarus who upon gaining his wings flew too close to the sun. No mortal man should crack the 5 minute mark in Mario 1 , Gardikis is truly flying too close to the sun at this point. You're playing with fire Gardikis! With fire!!!!

Truth be told, those games are really easy. People have made hacked versions of Mario games in recent years to increase the difficulty (Mario X, Super Talking Time Brothers, and countless INSANE Japanese ones). I like these games because they are nice and free. Here's two videos of examples to finish this article...

Wow I haven't seen this first video in a few years but looks like it's up to 25 million views now:

Hit da bloopa and inta da hole!

Kaizo Mario is really hard. I can't play it on a keyboard because you have to short hop (half press the jump button) too much, I'd have to buy a USB SNES controller to beat this and that means it wouldn't be free enough for me to play it.

Wait, one sec, hold up (edit)...

I mentioned I-Mock's Ivan Drago game that was removed by MGM pictures as being worthy of being known as both a "good and "free" game. Seems like you can still play that great game on Newgrounds though!

Ivan Drago Justice Enforcer !!!

On Tim Raines and the Hall of Fame (again)

Last year prior to the Hall of Fame voting period, I wrote a piece about Rock Raines:

https://writingsonsubjects.blogspot.com/2011/12/the-baseball-hall-of-fame-is-incomplete.html

I just want to add another statistical analysis to that piece for the upcoming vote this year. I want to take the interesting statistics from the Montreal Expos 1985 season. In that year, the leadoff man (the "run scorer") of the '85 Expos, Timmy Raines put up these stats:

Should-be Hall of Famer Tim Raines

AVG: .320
OBP: .405
SLG: .475
R: 115
2B: 30
3B: 13
HR: 11
SB: 70
CS: 9

Okay, so those are Raines' impressive stats. Now let's state the "RBI Guys" stats of that year. Meaning, the 3-4-5 slot power hitters who are supposed to drive in runs.

Hubie Brooks: .269, 13 HR, 100 RBI (in 605 at bats)

Hawk Dawson: .255, 23 HR, 91 RBI (in 529 at bats)

Eli Wallach: .260, 22 HR, 81 RBI (in 569 at bats)

Now, those are not those players best years that's for sure. The most interesting stat out of these is Hubanoid Brook's 100 runs batted in while only hitting .269 and hitting 13 homers. How did he manage to crack 100 ribbies while hitting quite below average? Because of Raines.

Raines was on base 40.5% of the time he got to bat this season (hence the .405 OBP). Since he hit leadoff and further in the game after the pitcher he usually had the bases open for him (this also as mentioned in the last article as the reason why his own RBI stats are low due to hitting in this position). Raines not only reached base 40% of the time, but stole 70 bases (only caught 9 times), hit 30 two-baggers, 13 triples, and homered himself home 11 times. So, not only was Raines making it safely on to the bases 40% of the time, but he was in scoring position by his own means many (or most) of those times. He'd draw a walk and steal himself into scoring position (even steal second and third sometimes), or he'd hit a double or a triple and be in scoring position too. Basically, Raines was the easiest guy, due to his speed, for an RBI guy to drive home. In some cases they just had to ground out or hit a fly ball to the outfield and Raines would score from third or tag up from third with his speed to score a run. Yes, sometimes Hubie, Hawk, and Eli only had to make an out to drive Raines in and get credited with an RBI. That's how Hubie could have had a 100 RBI season while hitting only .260 and hitting only 13 homers, he was often making outs and getting RBIs out of it thanks to Rock.

Let's say Hubie, Hawk, and Eli were hitting their best that year, how many runs would Raines have theoretically scored if they were? I assume Raines was left stranded at second or third an unusual amount of times in this season. If these three were hitting at their best documented levels, it's not farfetched to say that Raines could have had 130, 140, or even 150 runs scored that season.

With the heart of the lineup putting up off seasons, he still managed to score 115 times in the 1985 season, which is amazing, really.

Years ago, sabrematrician Billy James thought up a cool stat called Win Shares, which tries to isolate the team's overall success to the actions made by individual players during that season. Here are the win share ranks for the 1985 Montreal Expos:

1. Tim Raines 36
2. Vance Law 24
3. Tim Wallach 23
4. Andre Dawson 16
5. Bryn Smith 16
6. Hubie Brooks 15
7. Tim Burke: 13
8. Jeff Reardon 13
9. Joe Hesketh 11
10. Gully, Webster, Danny Driessen 9

Despite Hubie's 100 RBIs (which is a stat hall of fame voters would fall in love over), Hubie only has 15 win shares. As was shown above, due to Raines' speed, Brooks was getting RBIs on outs and that factors in to the win share formula and is representable in the data. Meanwhile Rock is credited with 36 win shares a full 12 more the second place Vance Law. So, yeah, I dunno any other way to say it. My father coined a good term once, where when a hockey goalie wins a game for his team despite his team being outplayed by the other team. He used to say, "that goalie is standing and his head to win it!" and I think that's the term that would apply to Tim Raines' 1985 season with the Expos. He was literally standing on his head to get them victories.

(note: I am as surprised as you are that Vance Law was second in win shares in '85. Could be from Vance's magic underwears he and those other mormon guys wear)

And to close this article out, for good measure here is the historical Montreal Expos all time win shares:

1 Raines, Tim ,,,,, 268
2 Carter, Gary ,,,,, 239
3 Dawson, Andre ,,,,, 216
4 Tim Wallach ,,,,, 211
5 Rogers, Steve ,,,,, 182
6 Guerrero, Vladimir ,,,,, 166
7 Vidro, Jose ,,,,, 119
8 Martinez, Dennis ,,,,, 111
9 Bailey, Bob ,,,,, 110
10 Cromartie, Warren ,,,,, 106
11 Grissom, Marquis ,,,,, 103
,,, Walker, Larry ,,,,, 103
13 Fairly, Ron ,,,,, 94
14 Parrish, Larry ,,,,, 92
,,, Staub, Rusty ,,,,, 92
16 White, Rondell ,,,,, 91
17 Galarraga, Andres ,,,,, 90
18 Alou, Moises ,,,,, 89
,,, Cabrera, Orlando ,,,,, 89
20 Smith, Bryn ,,,,, 83
21 Lansing, Mike ,,,,, 82
22 Burke, Tim ,,,,, 79
,,, Valentine, Ellis ,,,,, 79
24 Speier, Chris ,,,,, 76
25 Vazquez, Javier ,,,,, 76
26 Deshields, Delino ,,,,, 74
27 Brooks, Hubie ,,,,, 73
28 Renko, Steve ,,,,, 72
29 Reardon, Jeff ,,,,, 71
30 Rojas, Mel ,,,,, 69
31 Hunt, Ron ,,,,, 67
32 Fassero, Jeff ,,,,, 65
,,, Martinez, Pedro ,,,,, 65
34 Gullickson, Bill ,,,,, 63
35 Jorgensen, Mike ,,,,, 62
,,, Singleton, Ken ,,,,, 62
37 Fryman, Woodie ,,,,, 61
,,, Webster, Mitch ,,,,, 61
39 Cordero, Wil ,,,,, 59
40 Marshall, Mike ,,,,, 58
,,, Wilkerson, Brad ,,,,, 58
42 Urbina, Ugueth ,,,,, 57
43 Schatzeder, Dan ,,,,, 56
44 Owen, Spike ,,,,, 53
45 Stoneman, Bill ,,,,, 52
46 Sanderson, Scott ,,,,, 51
47 Fitzgerald, Mike ,,,,, 50
48 Perez, Tony ,,,,, 49
49 Law, Vance ,,,,, 48
50 Lea, Charlie ,,,,, 47
51 Fletcher, Darrin ,,,,, 45
,,, Wetteland, John ,,,,, 45
53 Hermanson, Dustin ,,,,, 44
,,, McGaffigan, Andy ,,,,, 44
55 Foley, Tom ,,,,, 43
,,, Foli, Tim ,,,,, 43
,,, Grudzielanek, Mark ,,,,, 43
,,, Segui, David ,,,,, 43
59 Walker, Tom ,,,,, 42
60 Hernandez, Livan ,,,,, 41
,,, Martinez, Dave ,,,,, 41
,,, Schneider, Brian ,,,,, 41
63 Hill, Ken ,,,,, 40
,,, Oliver, Al ,,,,, 40
65 Santangelo, F.P. ,,,,, 37
66 Torrez, Mike ,,,,, 36
67 Berry, Sean ,,,,, 35
,,, Cash, Dave ,,,,, 35
,,, Rodriguez, Henry ,,,,, 35
70 Barrett, Michael ,,,,, 34
,,, Ohka, Tomo ,,,,, 34
,,, Scott, Rodney ,,,,, 34
73 Morton, Carl ,,,,, 33
,,, Murray, Dale ,,,,, 33
,,, Palmer, David ,,,,, 33
,,, Perez, Pascual ,,,,, 33
77 Armas, Tony ,,,,, 32
,,, Jones, Mack ,,,,, 32
79 Andrews, Shane ,,,,, 31
80 Foote, Barry ,,,,, 30
,,, White, Jerry ,,,,, 30
82 Nabholz, Chris ,,,,, 29
,,, Perez, Carlos ,,,,, 29
84 Stevens, Lee ,,,,, 28
85 Hesketh, Joe ,,,,, 27
,,, Sosa, Elias ,,,,, 27
,,, Taylor, Chuck ,,,,, 27
,,, Telford, Anthony ,,,,, 27
,,, Widger, Chris ,,,,, 27
,,, Youmans, Floyd ,,,,, 27
91 Calderon, Ivan ,,,,, 26
92 Day, Boots ,,,,, 25
93 Lee, Bill ,,,,, 25
94 Chavez, Endy ,,,,, 24
,,, Mangual, Pepe ,,,,, 24
96 Henry, Butch ,,,,, 23
,,, Stanhouse, Don ,,,,, 23
,,, Woods, Ron ,,,,, 23
99 Bateman, John ,,,,, 22
,,, Francona, Terry ,,,,, 22
,,, Fullmer, Brad ,,,,, 22
,,, Kline, Steve ,,,,, 22
,,, McAnally, Ernie ,,,,, 22
,,, Stewart, Scott ,,,,, 22

Yes, Raines was responsible for more Expos victories than any other player in Expos history according to Billy James' formula. It's nice to see Cro up there at number 10 too.

If Carter and Dawson are Hall of Famers, then Tim Raines is 100% worthy to be in with them. Because, hey, Raines was better than both of them. It's becoming a December tradition for me to write about Raines and the Hall of Fame, I hope this December traditional doesn't go on for 10 years...I hope he gets in soon.

Young Humans and the Art of Coping

Coping means (as stated by the Wikipedia) "constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing" or "exceeding the resources of the person."

Coping is how you take all your troubles and worries, and deal with 'em. That's coping.

Every month there's a new story somewhere about some troubled asshole coward loser who can't cope with life and goes and kills people or themselves (or both). We then all collectively wonder how some fucked up maniac could do such a thing, and we wonder how we can prevent it in the future from happening again.

In terms of preventive measures, some point at measures like outlawing guns, some point to censoring violent video games. Those topics are well covered, but the one I think that is most important, in my opinion, to stop this from happening again is to teach kids the art of coping.

Whenever I see a story where some maniac like that loser in Connecticut has lost it and went on a shooting rampage, I have to wonder what could have possibly made this kid go over the edge. These kids aren't living in a famine-ridden third world country with no way out. They are always regular healthy looking rich enough kids, what was possibly so bad about their lives that they had to lose their fragile minds?

Whenever there are reasons provided behind the stories in all cases the reasons are absurd. Sometimes a kid shoots up his school over being unpopular, or because someone called him a name, or some pointless thing. People are going on shooting sprees for the smallest of first world problems.

There's stories about kids killing themselves because their parents took their X-box away, or a story about a kid who killed himself because he lost his Iphone, or a story about a lady killing herself because some Australians made a joke about the queen of England. People are killing themselves over the silliest of issues.

To me, it all seems to boil down to the ability to cope.

How to do Coping

This is all you have to do to cope, when problems arise, this is how you should mentally respond to them:

When someone calls you a mean name: "Who cares?"

When someone makes fun of you: "Who cares?"

When you lose your Iphone: "Who cares? Fuck that I-Phone. Steve Jobs was a shitstain anyway. What does that billionaire need my money for?"

When your parents take away your x-box: "Fuck X-Box. Bill Gates is a shitstain anyway. What does that billionaire need my money for?"

When someone pokes fun at Royals: "Hahaha, good one!"

There, that is how you cope. That's it. When these problems arise, you don't need to start terminating lives (either yourself or others)...you just need to cope a bit, that's all.

I Love Coping

I've been a mellow person my whole life, and the trick is hardcore coping. I actually personally don't care about anything...AND IT'S GREAT!

If you want my secrets to coping, well, I'll give them to you. Because it seems so many young people can't cope with even pointlessly meaningless problems. If you are a young human and you are reading this, please listen to these following three videos...they may save your life. They are mantras to play in your brain when worries take over.

Firstly, when I was six (young age) my parents showed me the movie Meatballs and it was real funny. There's a part in Meatballs where Mr. Bill Murray teaches young campers how to cope with shit:

The Mantra of "It Just Doesn't Matter" stuck in my young brain forever. "It" really doesn't matter at all. Whatever "It" is that is bothering you...Bill is right...it does not even matter. Are you worried about something? Some stupid thing? Well guess what....It Just Doesn't Matter, bro/sis. This is some of the truest shit anyone ever said, and I'm not even exaggerating...it really is. This shit is TRUE.

Nextly, when I became a greasy teenager-style human, I found some coping potential in this song sung by crooner Robert Wright,

Forget Your Life is pretty true too. What is it that you are worried about? It's Nothing. It not only just doesn't matter at all... but it's actually Nothing. Your worries and troubles are Nothing. It's similar to Just Doesn't Matter but thinking your troubles are Nothing is an even stronger dose of mental cognitive coping.

Finally here's the greateast song I ever heard, it is called "I Don't Care,"

Oh man, this song is so true it's not even funny...and there's only like 10 words in the song so it's really easy to turn into a Mantra that can play in your brain endlessly (I might even be playing this song 24 hours a day subconscoiously in the back of my brain for all I know). It's so simple man...but it's SO TRUE.

Lyrics by Joey Ramone:

I don't care
I don't care
I don't care
About this world
I don't care
About that girl
I don't care
I don't care
I don't care
About these words
I don't care

Conclusion

So, in closing, please youth...don't lose your shit over pointless fucking things anymore. When life is getting you down just cope a bit. Life is easy, it really is...there's never a point to buy guns and go do that sort of thing. Life is a pretty sweet fruit...when you don't care about shit.

Edge-Joo-Mah-Cay-Shun

I wrote an article on a kooky guy named N.D. Sickels once (here). I found the old man's writing to be very honest (though pretty crazy). Due to it's quaintness and honesty, his book written in 1919 called "The Universal Panacea" has remained relevant to modern kook researchers.

Another equally quaint and honest manuscript by a bored old man, back in 1990, which has remained relevant for many years now is the one by Ernest "Free" Mann. He shares many things in common with Sickels (utopian, honesty, quaint) but Mann is less crazy than Sickels (yet he's also a far more boring writer than Sickels). Mann was an old retired guy with a lot of time on his hands, who sat down and wrote his thoughts on life and then offered it free of charge as a newsletter through the mail (this was pre-internet of course).

Mann's Manuscript, Free I Got: http://mountholly-lamano.com/freeigot.htm

It's very long and you'll notice right off the bat, it's very utopian and unrealistic. In fact, respected kook researcher Ivan Stang assesses Mann's manuscript in his work High Weirdness by Mail as follows,

Definitely the most idealistic, and arguably the most naive set of pamphlets in our Archives. The author's plan for total world utopia involves, simply, everyone working for nothing; all competition would be abolished. Work without pay - is that too much to ask? It's a pathetic halfway measure, though. We'd still be working. Otherwise, it might be a great idea...on some other planet, using some other race besides humans. [The price of the newsletter is] Free, of course.

-Stang, I. "High Weirdness by Mail", p.159

Ernest Mann tried to push a platform called the "Priceless Economic System" (or PES) in his newsletter and manuscript. This platform involved everyone doing what they felt like doing and work was done by people offering certain skills they had into a "skill pool" which would be shared by everyone.

I like to read these types of things because I like to synthesize many many different opinions on subjects before I develop my own opinion on them. Kook writings are great because you have a good chance of finding a view point that you haven't seen before, which may refine your opinion a bit more. Even if you conclude that everything they said in the article was wrong/bad/crazy at least you've hit another opinion vein. Even disproving an opinion on a subject is still refining your own opinion, it's not lost time.

The other great thing about kook writings, is the rare time, when something they said turns out to probably be right. In a manuscript this long, where probably a few thousand opinions have been released, it's rare that not one of them would be right.

Education

The following are excerpts from "Free I Got" and other writings in Ernie's "Little Free Mann Press,"

Have you ever wanted to learn something new? Like a new trade or profession? Then looked into the cost and time it would take to go to college? One can learn at the library through books, but most books are so vague that one must get more books to understand the first book. This way they make more money from books and classes.

When I bought my computer in about 1987, I also bought "Microsoft Word" one of the best word processor software packages. The 3" thick manuals that explained how to use the word processor, sometimes had such vague explanations that it was nearly impossible for a beginner to understand. Of course they had classes one could buy. Microsoft also sold a book that they wrote, explaining their manuals. No! They didn't include that book with the software! How do you suppose the Microsoft owner (Gates) got to be a billionaire in his thirties. Not by helping people, but by charging all the traffic would bear! This is just one of the tricks that people must play to get ahead in the Profit/Wage Economics Game. It is not bad people, just a bad Game.

I didn't buy their "extra" book and I didn't take their classes. The self teaching was really fun. It felt so good to re-discover the thrill of learning. There was agony too, but the thrills out-weighed them, so I succeeded.

What I'm trying to get at is, -- now we have a great new technology with computers for self-teaching. There is self-teaching software already, but the good stuff is very expensive.

When we start using the Priceless Economic System, my guess is that children and adults will prefer to learn at their own speeds and will mostly do it with computers at home. I bet it won't be too long before we have networks within our homes. Like each family member will have his/her own keyboard and monitor in their room and the power unit and printer will be in a central location in the home. I suppose the more affluent families already have this. We won't even have to go to the library to get the software. We already have modems that can copy the software from the library over the phone in minutes on to our own hard disks or floppy disks to keep in our home libraries. This sharing wouldn't cost the libraries anything. But you can see how the Profit/Wage Economic System (PWES) would object. (pronounced, pee wee's)

The only thing that is keeping this from happening is the PWES. Think of the Profit land speculators and industrialists make selling land and construction materials to the government to build school and college buildings, to fill them with furniture and fixtures, to sell them heat, air conditioning and light and to supply them with maintenance items. Think of the Profit the publishing industry makes on all the books. Student housing, clothing and busing industries get in on the bonanza too.

Even now, without the use of computers, parents who home-school their children, side-step the above expenses and some do it in less than two hours per day. Their children are able to pass the same tests as the kids who must spend their whole day in school plus have 2 hours of home-work. Tell me, which looks like the most sensible route to Progress?

-Ernest "Free" Mann, Free I Got, (1990)

For 1990, this is pretty good reasoning. Fast forward 22 years to 2012 and it looks like his prediction came true.

Is the university system a big scam? I think I agree with Ernest on this one. Are people now a days starting to learn at their own pace on the internet? Yeah.

I can't tell you how many times I've searched for how to do something and then learned how to do it from a video on the internet. A video that I watched for free, one that someone uploaded to the net simply to teach someone else how to do something. It seems people all over the world are putting up videos, writing manuals, and instructions on how to learn new things for free.

Wait a sec...

Is this the "skill pool" he was predicting? Was he right about that too? Why is everyone teaching everyone else how to do things for free?

Here's an example of the millions of "How-To" videos on the net right now:

The Precious KHAAAAN! Learning System

Okay, maybe how to tie a tie is not the coolest example of the learnable skills in the vast and deep skill pool of the internet.

This website, which probably everyone knows by now, Khaaaaan! Academy Dot Org (or http://www.khanacademy.org/) is a better example. Khan Academy is basically a High School diploma for anyone who wants one. Heck, it's even a college diploma for anyone who wants one. Who am I kidding, it's a university degree for anyone who wants one. Well, not really...you can't put Khan leaves on a resume so no one's going to believe you're smart even though you are.

It was started by a nice guy named Sal Khan who worked as a hedge fund analyst in the Profit/Wage Economic System (sorry, I'm still stuck in Ernie Mann viewpoint shock after re-reading Free I Got) who got sick of the bullshit, ditched the PeeWees, and started contributing merit to the Priceless Economic System.

Why did Khan ditch the world of sheisters and scammers, to devote his life to free education?

Khan

According to him,

"With so little effort on my own part, I can empower an unlimited amount of people for all time. I can't imagine a better use of my time."

-Sal Kahn
 



Time

That word, "time", comes up about a hundred thousand times in Ernest Mann's manuscript. As an old man putting his thoughts to paper, Ernie must have had time on the brain. Maybe as he was aging and starting to understand his time was in its waning years...maybe he started thinking about what actual contributions and merits he made to human history during his time being part of it,
  

"Knowing I'm 63 years old and counting. Even though I'm trying for 165 years, time is still precious. Realizing I have only "X" number of years left and starting right now to use them (this moments) for my own pleasure and happiness. "

-Ernest Mann

Similar to Khan, Ernest Mann was successful in the business world. He worked in the real estate business in Minnesota before getting sick of the rat race and dropping out of it at the age of 42.

In retrospect, maybe his ideas weren't as crazy as once was thought. Is scamming and squeezing more money from someone else for someone else really the best use of your time? Money which is just a human construct that doesn't even really exist? Probably not.

Are sites like Khan Academy proof that Mann's idea of a universal "Skill Pool" or his "Priceless Economic System" may actually hold some water? Possibly, at least it's interesting to think about anyway.

Conclusion

Sometimes observing subjects from a different perspective is fun. You can form your own conclusions on matters and maybe even alter your belief systems slightly.

"Since then [Mann] has had the time and space to observe economics from a different perspective and has had 21 years to travel to many countries; read, observe, discuss, think, evaluate and form his own conclusions about the economic situation, politics, religion, life and individual freedom. Now his belief systems are far different than they were when he was busily engaged in trying to keep his bills paid."

-Free I Got