Today’s meme is Friday Five.

This is where I shall post a friendly reminder to the past five Friday posts.

This is to avoid actually doing a substantive post today.

Clever, eh?

Last Friday: “Masterpieces vs. Cheap Knock-Offs”

Friday Before That: “Improving Your Concentration”

The Friday Before That: “So-and-So Has Viewed Your Profile”

And The Friday Before That: “Blue Curtains for You!”

And the Fifth Friday: “The Missing Digit”

So, there you go. The first two (the most recent Fridays) are good stuff. The two after that are largely drivel filler. And the last one gets by with a little help from my friends.

So, now your chance to comment on these hot Friday posts if you missed out on commenting on them before.

Have you ever wished you could go back in time, way back, to your childhood and try things again? Fixing past mistakes and trying to make sure things work out better this time around?

Many people do, and there are many tv shows and films based on that concept.

The character has a really bad day, thinks back to some turning point decades ago and goes to bed wishing he could have a do-over in life.

Then, the next morning, he wakes up in his childhood bedroom, and he’s back in grade school or high school again. After a short period of confusion and adjustment, he gets back into the swing of things and trying to set things right.

But, do you know how confusing that would be?

I used to remember my school schedules. I used to remember my classes, my teachers, my bus number and so on.

A lot of that is one big blur.

I can remember my 6th grade homeroom, but no others. If I were to wake up and find myself back home and school-age, if I were in any grade but 6th, I would have no idea where to go. And, even if I were in the sixth grade, I’d have no idea where to go after homeroom. Sure, I could follow friends around and hope I remembered correctly who was in my classes, but would I be remembering that we shared the same sixth grade class, or seventh or eighth grade?

And, what about high school? I’m not sure where I’d need to go. I remember 10-12th grades better than freshman year. I think my sophomore year, my last three classes were study hall, language arts and Latin, in that order. But, the first three classes? I can’t remember. Homeroom? No idea. Or, did we only have five periods? I don’t remember that either. Five or six. One less than they have now, but I don’t know how many they have now.

Sure, you’d have the benefit of all the knowledge you have as an adult, but a lot of the specific knowledge is gone. I’ve occasionally had to go back to old computers, with old software, to look up some old file I needed. It could be a computer and software I used everyday. Stuff that I knew like the back of my hand. But, since it’s been years and since it may be a lot different than what is used today, it’s almost like starting new again. You have the basic idea, but the specifics are long forgotten.

So, if you woke up one morning and found yourself back in school, you’d probably be really disoriented. It’d be like the first day of school, only it’s the middle of the school year and you’re the only one that has no idea what’s going on. Plus, people will think you’re nuts because you’ve forgotten things that, to them, happened the previous day.

Better hope you don’t wake up on the day when you have a pop quiz or, worse, a major test!

You might have a real hard time “setting things right” if everyone thinks you’re a dork, especially a worse dork than your first time around.

So, “The Law of Unintended Consequences” post from yesterday attracted nothing but spam comments.

Law and legal related spam.

On top of that, the comment made no sense. Who in their right mind is going to hire a lawyer that cannot even compose a coherent comment on a blog post?

Granted, these spam messages are likely posted by spambots that just pick up keywords and post something generic or random in the hopes of getting a backlink.

Goodness help us all when spambots reach the computational power of IBM’s Watson computer. We may not know if a comment is being left by a dumb human or stupid computer!

Also in my comments-to-be-moderated queue, i.e. spam comments, are comments from Kylie Minogue and Diana Ross. Wow. Who knew they had the time to comment on blogs? LOL.

But, the spambots posing as celebrities do a good job of making them look stupid. Fortunately for them, it’s easy to tell these are comments from spambots and not real people. Plus, in what reality would Kylie Minogue or Diana Ross be commenting on my blog? Try harder next time, stupid spambots.

And, heck, why don’t I throw in some more keywords for the spambots to chew on? I’ll waste their time a bit like they waste mine and everyone else’s. So, here goes: law, legal, divorce, nursing school, straw hats, root beer, dating, dating sites, relationships, how can I get my ex back, naked frogs on logs rolling in the bog, babyback ribs, born this way, Justin Bieber, Lara Logan, warships, Natalie Munroe blog, teacher, teaching, bad kids, FOX News, Bed Bath & Beyond, ghosts in the machine, hunting ghosts, Iran ships, Suez Canal, Egypt, whoa nellie!, harpsichord, banshee, badminton, party time and how I met your mother while hot in cleveland on a trip with a modern family from Wisconsin–politics aside, they had a Scottish deerhound.

There, that should keep the spammers busy.

Years ago, some child stars from TV and film were poorly treated. They were treated like a product, and not as kids. They were often deprived of their childhoods, sometimes not entirely at their own choosing.

So, changes were made to make sure that kids get treated better.

That they get an education.

That they aren’t forced to work long hours.

And so on.

As a result, the additional rules made things more difficult for productions involving children.

So, as a result, I think they moved toward using more adult actors to play children.

And that, I think, is why you see teenagers in film and TV often being portrayed by actors and actresses in their 20s.

But, these actors and actresses are in their 20s.

They’re adults.

And, off-screen, they often behave and dress like young adults.

Their fans, who are in the age groups of the characters they portray, want to be more like the stars they adore.

So, they want to dress and act more like young adults.

Which, in turn, tends to rob them of their childhood.

Such seems to be the law of unintended consequences.

And, maybe why we need to think more than one step ahead when making decisions, so that those decisions won’t result in a greater problem than the initial problem we were trying to fix.

Just moments ago, I de-linked my blog from Facebook, so my blog entries will no longer appear as “Notes” on my Facebook page.

You see, I have viewed social networking sites as a way to reach new audiences and bring more people to my sites.

Facebook doesn’t do that for me. Instead, it sucks people away.

If you look at my comments, I don’t receive as many as what I used to. But, I do get comments, but what happens is a fair number of people comment on my “note” in Facebook instead of on my blog here.

I don’t need to drive traffic to Facebook. They do well enough on their own. I need to get traffic here.

On Twitter, for example, you can’t put up an entire blog post. So, you put up a link, and, when I do that, people come here.

So, why do I want to put my content up on Facebook so that Facebook can keep its users on their site? It’s a good tactic for Facebook, but one which gives me no benefit. In fact, it proves to be more detrimental than beneficial because comments on Facebook don’t appear here, so less conversation happens here. And then people think it’s a ghost town and fewer people participate.

It’s a win for Facebook and a big lose for me.

It may be different if I didn’t have a full-feed RSS, which I have for the benefit of people that read blogs with RSS readers. In order to comment, they still have to come here. But, not so with Facebook. But, there’s no way that I can see of offering a full-feed to RSS readers and only a summary feed to Facebook.

So, rather than shut off my full-feed RSS, I’m just de-linking it from Facebook.

And, yes, I did take a look at my traffic to see how much traffic Facebook sends me. So far for this month, that’s been a grand total of 4 people, which may include me from when I was examining the blog feed.

Think of last week, when lots of bloggers were upset at the Huffington Post for selling out to AOL and the founders getting big bucks while the bloggers themselves, many of whom had apparently been providing their content to HuffPo free of charge. How is this that different?

I encourage you to take a good hard look at your blog and its relationship with Facebook. If you have your blog feeding into Facebook and it’s giving a larger benefit to Facebook than it is to you, consider de-linking it.

Facebook is reportedly worth something like $50 billion. Are you getting your fair share considering what you’ve provided Facebook in terms of your content?

Scientists and science-fiction writers alike postulate that it may one day be possible to transfer our consciousness from our brains to a computer.

Would that be possible, we could live in the physical world with robot bodies or completely exist in a virtual world of our choosing. Perhaps a shared virtual world.

And, if we were to “live” in such a digital domain, everything we experience there would be as real as it is to us know.

Foods would taste like the foods we know.

Flowers would smell like the flowers we know.

Things would feel and sound like the things we know.

All within a virtual world.

So, what becomes morality in such a world?

A world where death is but an inconvenience—a simple matter of a simple reboot or restoration or some such thing.

Here in the real world, we know that killing is wrong. Once you kill someone, they’re not going to be back. But, in a virtual world, they will be. Whether it’s moments later or the next day, they will be back.

Mind you, I’m not talking about a permanent virtual death—one where you might completely delete all electronic traces of such a person—but one in which they are restored. You’re sitting with your buddy, watching TV, and you decide to shoot and kill him.

Moments later, he’s back.

And, you knew all along that he would be back.

So, is it immoral to “kill” your friend like that, knowing the impermanence of such a death?

Does “death” in such a virtual world become nothing more than a practical joke, a temporary inconvenience, a way of expressing displeasure?

“I’ll kill you if you say anything!”

How many times have we told someone that? Of course, we didn’t really mean that we would kill them. We only meant that we’d be very, very upset.

But, in the virtual world, you could act on your threat, knowing they’d be back.

Would that be wrong?

Augmented reality is just around the corner and, in some respects, is already here.

You can, for example, look up a restaurant on your cell phone and see their menu, reviews and other information available on the Internet and decide if you want to go there.

In the not too distant future, it is expected that you’ll be able to take a photo of a building with your cell phone, and image recognition technology (perhaps combined with GPS) will be able to look up the building, and present you with all sorts of available information on it.

For example, you might spot a place that looks like maybe it’s a restaurant and snap a picture and you’ll find out what kind of restaurant it is, see its menu, read reviews and so forth, as with my opening example.

Or, maybe you’ll spot an abandoned building and have your phone look it up for you. You can find out it was once a dance hall, and see assorted videos of people dancing from when the place was still opened. And, you’ll be able to get all sorts of information on it. You can see the abandoned building as it once was and compare it to how it is at that moment.

Some people consider that augmented reality.

But, I don’t see that big a difference between that and a tour guide brochure. The only difference is that you don’t have to carry a bunch of brochures with you where ever you go. Just your phone. The difference is in the convenience and extent of information available. On a brochure, you can only list so many sites and features. With a digital device, you have access to every bit of information on the place available publicly online.

So, it’s not really a new idea. Just an idea that’s been updated with modern technology. It’s not really augmented at all in my view.

Now, let’s move on to a related topic, that will be unrelated at first, but bear with me.

Eating a hamburger won’t kill you, unless it’s tainted or you have some allergy or something. But, for the most part, consuming a properly prepared burger isn’t going to kill you. Nor will eating a pizza with pepperoni, sausage and a double helping of extra cheese or whatnot. Potato chips won’t kill you either.

Eating anything in excess may be harmful to your health, however. Water, which is often considered one of the healthiest things you can drink, can be harmful if consumed to excess. You can even die from drinking too much water!

So, too much of anything can be bad. Most foods are perfectly fine in moderation.

However, there are lots of people that would prefer eating a plate of sirloin steak to a plate full of beets.

Now, what if you could modify beets so they had the taste and texture of beef?

That would be fine with lots of people. Imagine, you wouldn’t have to kill a cow to get beef. Just toss a beet seed in the ground. Well, it’d be a little more work than that, of course. The plants would need to be tended and so forth. But, the bottom line is that you wouldn’t have to kill any animals to get beef.

That would be appealing to a lot of people. It’s not like there are droves of cow hunters out there. Who hunts cows? No one that I know of. No one goes into the woods to hunt cow. They go to the grocery store. The only people that slaughter cows are the people that sell beef to the markets.

Now, a beef beet would hurt the cattle industry, but no one else would really care. If beet beef was just like cow beef, few people would care. You may have some purists, but, even with the purists, the likelihood is that you would have smaller cattle ranches to cater to the purists, and everyone else would probably be happy with the beet beef. And, some of the beef producers could switch from raising cows to sowing beets.

Of course, some people will be fearful of genetically-modified foods. But, we’ve been genetically-modifying foods for centuries. We domesticated cattle. We picked the desirable traits in cattle that we wanted and selectively bred them for those traits. We crossed different types of plants and so on to get the desired plants we wanted. The only thing different about genetically-modified foods is that we are more able to pinpoint the genes we do and don’t want.

We do have to be careful, but we also had to be careful with breeding animals and crossing plants as well.

At any rate, the question will boil down to whether beet beef is any healthier than cow beef. Will it be? Maybe. Or maybe it will still have the same properties as beef, and excessive consumption of beet beef would be no different than that of cow beef.

So, where does that leave us? Well, let’s go back to “augmented reality.”

We’ve all seen virtual worlds in science fiction. People will “plug in” to these virtual environments, and enter a virtual world with a virtual body that is almost indistinguishable from the real world. You can touch and feel things–even taste them–but none of it’s real.

But, what if you could blend the virtual world and the real world in a selective way? I think that would properly be called “augmented reality.”

Let’s say you’re having dinner. But, you’re plugged in to this augmented reality. Well, you could have a small bowl of carrot slices in front of you. However, what you see is a plateful of potato chips, just the way you like them. They feel like potato chips and, most importantly, they taste like potato chips.

And, it’s because you’re “plugged in” to your own semi-virtual world. You see your friends and family at the table (unless, of course, you want to replace them with virtual characters of some sort) but, instead of carrot chips, you see potato chips. And you enjoy them like you would potato chips.

The main dish? A salad. But, what you see is sirloin steak. A side of tofu? Nope, you see and taste macaroni and cheese.

You have a glass of water to drink. But, instead of water, it’s Coke or red wine or beer.

And, you can eat like that every day! You can eat healthy foods but think you’re eating your favorite foods each and every day, as often as you like! You could drink a six-pack of beer every night, and go to work in the morning without a hangover because you were really drinking plain water.

Now, what if you really really crave something real, not virtual? Well, imagine that you eat your virtual junk food six days a week. Once a week, you could indulge in your favorite foods. Real foods. Not augmented at all. And, you’d still be healthy for it, because you’d still be eating those foods in moderation. You might think you had good beef six days a week and superb beef one day a week, but you really had a plate full of vegetables six days a week and real beef once. It’d be a win-win.

Now, that’s augmented reality!

Imagine if you had an artifact in your possession–some priceless treasure that was hand-crafted and one of a kind. It was made by hand and perhaps took the artist months to complete. Let’s say it’s a vessel of some sort, a very classic vase. It was etched in fine gold and signed by the artist on the bottom, scrawled with his own finger into the soft clay before the vase was fired in the kiln.

You could see that something like that could be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars. Maybe more.

Now, let’s say it’s an important historical artifact. Someone comes along and makes replicas of the thing.

To the untrained eye, they may look alike. Someone may hold the original in one hand and a replica in the other. They might say, heck, this $10 one is just as good as the original.

Of course, we know it’s not. Because, to the trained eye, they are not the same. They don’t look the same. They don’t feel the same. The same quality of materials did not go into both. The same level of craftsmanship and quality did not go into both.

And, that’s where we are with a lot of content online.

In a discussion forum I visit somewhat regularly, a frequent topic of discussion is the value of articles.

There are plenty of people there that can’t see where an article could possibly ever be worth more than $30. And, plenty more think that no one should pay more than $15 for an article.

They look at articles they buy from their writers, and they think that what they get for $30 is just as good as what a high quality website or magazine might pay hundreds of dollars for. And, there are those that think the articles they get for $5 are just as good as those that people paying $15 or $30 get.

The thing is that they are like the untrained eyes who cannot spot the difference between an original artifact and a cheap replica. To them, both articles look “just as good.” But, they’re not.

Quality writing is about more than putting a bunch of words on a page and calling it a day. It’s also more than just being accurate too.

Mind you, accuracy is important. You don’t want an article, especially one designed to inform, giving out inaccurate information. However, just because all of the information in an article may be correct doesn’t mean that it’s a good article.

It may read fine, it may be good enough, but it may be completely boring. It may lack substance that really engages the reader. It may lack the nuances in writing that separate high calibre writing from mediocre prose. It may lack the additional details that show the author to be well-versed in the topic, and know the ins and outs.

When you combine an article writer who is not a strong writer or is not a good researcher or is not a very well-versed expert on a topic with an article buyer who doesn’t know their topic that well either, it’s understandable why the article buyer thinks the article is “just as good” as a more authoritative piece, well-written by someone who readily understands the topic. The article buyer is unable to recognize what the article may be lacking by virtue of the fact of lacking that understanding of the topic.

Plus, if they are not heavy readers, if they skim rather than comprehend what they read, then two articles widely different in terms of quality may appear the same to such a person because they aren’t fully reading either one. They’re not looking at content with the critical eye of an editor or a traditional publisher. They’re looking at it and, if they don’t see any obvious spelling, grammatical or factual errors, assuming it’s “good enough.”

And, I’ve learned that there really is no arguing with that mentality. Real writing takes some work and effort. It’s a craft, not a commodity. Some people buy it like a commodity and, through the global marketplace, they may be able to purchase content at very cheap prices through writers in countries with lower standards of living, but that still does not necessarily mean the writing is any good. It may be grammatically correct. It may be spelled correctly. It may be factual. But, it may also lack in nuances. If, for example, your audience is an American audience, can someone who has never lived in America really understand what life is like here? Can they really relate to the reader?

It’s not just differences in nationality either, but differences in cultures and the subtleties of language. And worldviews. And so much more that goes into writing a piece.

That’s not to say that foreign writers cannot write well. That’s not true at all. I’ve hired writers from outside the U.S. before. And not $5 article writers either. The thing is that if they are capable of a higher level of writing, they are very likely going to be working for higher paying clients.

For example, let’s say that in a foreign county, $5 is considered a fair price for an article. And let’s say that here, in the U.S., $30 would be considered a fair price for a similar article. Because of different standards of living, that $5 article may be equivalent to that $30 article domestically. It may be the same percentage of a typical week’s wages, for example.

Now, let’s say that someone comes along, recognizes that U.S. writer does quality work and offers to pay that writer $300 instead of $30. It’s very probable that the writer is going to jump at the chance, no? If someone is willing to pay you $300 rather than $30, all other things being equal, you’d probably prefer to get paid $300 rather than $30, right?

So, the same thing would happen for the $5 article writer, right? If someone came along and offered him $50 an article, wouldn’t he jump at the chance? With his current buyers, he’d have to write 10 articles to make that $50. All other things being equal, wouldn’t you think he’d prefer to write one article for $50 than to write 10 articles for $50? Likewise, wouldn’t he rather write 10 articles for $500 than 10 articles for $50?

So, if a writer reaches that higher pinnacle of pay, they’re probably not going to mess around with cheap article writing anymore, right? As long as they can command $50 or $300 for an article, they’re going to stay at that level.

That means the likelihood of a $5 article being “just as good” as a $50 article is pretty slim, unless the writer happens to be trying to build a portfolio or hasn’t discovered his or her worth yet.

In most cases, that $5 will never be “just as good” as a $50 article. A $15 will never likely be “just as good” as a $50 article. The $5 and $15 article buyers may swear up and down that they are, but the chances are that’s merely because they cannot recognize the difference.

Now, on that note, they would argue that if they cannot recognize the difference, their readers will not either. But, you know, most people just know. They might not understand how to write a quality article themselves, but they can spot the difference. They may not be able to explain it or put it into words, but they can recognize that one article is a better read than the other.

A lot of these cheap article buyers buy articles on a regular basis, stuffing their blogs and websites with tons of cheap articles so they have plenty of content. But, one quality article can trump 10 or even 100 cheap ones. They might spend $50 to get 10 articles that are “good enough” but then not get as many readers as someone who spent $50 on a single quality article.

I’ve seen it happen. I’ve purchased articles for $30 and $50 and on up, and they keep getting readers year after year after year. Meanwhile, others buy tons of $5 articles month after month just to keep up. They see it as money well spent because they think they’re getting a good return on it. Maybe they are. But, maybe they’d get “just as good” of a return if they invested in fewer, but higher quality, articles.

But, of course, they cannot see how low quantity, high quality can be “just as good” as low quality, high quantity.

You may remember my gardening blog, that hadn’t been updated since like a week after I set it up.

Well, it’s gone now. I finished shutting it down a couple minutes ago.

I had planned to keep it up and it was part of my marketing strategy for a forthcoming book, but, you know, why send people all over when I can just send them to one place to view my content?

So, the content of the blog has been moved to my forums. I also moved the comments on those blog posts to the forums as well, if the commenter was a member of the forums. If the commenter was not, I just deleted the comment, though it is archived so if they ever do join, I can restore the comments if need be.

The domain name from the blog now points to the articles portion of my website, where there are currently no gardening articles but hopefully will be soon.

I plan to add more content to the forums, while I continue to work on the coding. I’ve got several new things to code, as well as previous things that still need fixing. This week, I updated my notes on the forums, so I know what I have finished and what still needs to be done. And, somehow managed to go from 20 pages to 24.

Fortunately, that’s not all things to do! It’s my documentation/progress manual. So, a lot of the extra pages were for things I’ve already added.

But, for the most part, the forums are functional. It’s just some portions of the navigation that aren’t quite fully working yet. Trying to find more people to join and get the conversations going, which will also help in finding any other problems so that I can get them fixed.

The subsidiary of Not a Mortgage Post has declared that mortgages are so bad now in this economy that they will henceforth be known as Mortages because people tend to leave off the “g” when typing anyway, and dropping the “g” will save in printing and signage costs for the entire Mortgage, er, Mortage industry.

Of course, the Mortgage/Mortage industry does NOT plan to pass those savings on to consumers.

They say, however, that consumers will benefit substantially by reducing cases of carpal tunnel syndrome by as much as 0.00371% by consumers no longer having to type or write that extra “g” in mortgage.

Experts disagree, saying that, since many tended to drop that “g” anyway, the actual reduction in cases of carpal tunnel syndrome is closer to 0.00284%.

Mortgage industry experts argue that “a little savings is still a lot of savings,” adding “just don’t think about it too hard.”

President Obama weighed in, saying he’d drop the “bama” from his name and henceforth be known simply as “O.”

Oprah Winfrey immediately filed a lawsuit against President O. Vice President Biden agreed to drop a “J” from his name, asking reporters to henceforth call him “Oe.”

Overstock.com is suing them all.

The O administration recommends that everyone drop a letter from their name, saying that doing so will save the government millions of dollars each year spent on ink jet ink. When pressed, O & Oe confessed the savings to taxpayers would really only amount to an extra $0.00216 per year, but added it was well worth the savings and potential confusion, saying “Who couldn’t use an extra 2/10ths of a penny in their pocket these days?”

President O’s spokesman, G, later admitted people wouldn’t actually see that 2/10ths of a penny in their pocket, but that they’d instead see their taxes rise only by $2,499.9979 next year instead of $2,500.00, but that they’d still have to round up to the nearest dollar, which he called a “bummer” but encouraged voters to remember those savings come Election Day.