Archive for July, 2008

denial what does it mean to you?

Saturday, July 26th, 2008
Rod G asked:


what is your idea of denial below is mine

The noble path of Truth is more like recognizing necessity that which is offered from society within each country as the mother of invention and managing to decide that you will content yourself with Truth as you go unless you havent been given a fair handshake and have an addiction illness or live on the street, even if you think killing the whole world would be an act of mercy still you are content with this in your anger, etc.. (until the universal law chooses to seek justice) so perhaps this is a foolish view but it isn’t a matter of victory/defeat, for the fool there is only victory, (remember to prepare incase your higher power judges you before your ready) they are ever happy and this is their power, hinging of course directly on their knowledge, (in this situation its a gamble of loosing all power and knowledge from those people that have been given the keys to do so) and is thus the ground of their responsibility: to be noble, which is simply to say to affirm one’s existence, (passthe buck ritual is placed here) and therein the primary pulse of existence that is benevolent as opposed to malevolent(or speaking more impersonally, most workable/liveable as opposed to not) with strength and panache; as opposed to denying existence which is a sentiment that can only hinge on stray desire that obscures the clarity of one’s vision of Truth, as well as ultimately deprives one of immortality, individual sovereignty, existence. (also known as the concept of denial first deny higher powers exist,lie cheat do anything in your power to hide this truth even utter blasphamous things even until you believe in the denial, for it is better not to know how pissed off your higher powers can get because you may start believing mankind has no purpose or choice only to be a puppet) we cant forget the escape goat throw it all upon the shoulders of religion because they have strong shoulders

June

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Posted in Religion & Spirituality | 1 Comment »

Casual Games

Friday, July 25th, 2008
nobles games
Bas’ka asked:


What are casual games?

As it is written at the official website of Casual Games Association, they are ‘developed for the general public and families, casual games are video games that are fun and easy to learn and play… They’re nonviolent, arcade-style games that involve puzzles, words, board and card games, game show and trivia.’

I would rather say these games are developed just for fun. A casual game player does not need much room at his/her PC, much time, much money or super abilities to play them. Statistics shows that it is over 200 million people play casual games each month over the Internet, and women make up 51,7% of casual game players. Usually casual games are played at lunch time or in the evening to make a break after working hours, or just during a day to relax and switch from a day routine. A casual game is an isle of rest and enjoyment for a housewife while her children are at school or sleeping, it is a tool which can entertain a teen while he/she is waiting friends or traveling, a casual game is a source of few minutes rest and silence at office.

Arcade, puzzle, word, action, and card casual games are the most popular today. Of course, we cannot say that these are the most popular casual games genres, as there is no precise classification of games genres. There is a great amount of different genre mixes existing in this field, that is why to describe a casual game one can say: it is a match-3 with hidden objects elements and mini game, for instance.

Casual games can be played on personal computer, cell telephones and others. A player may find his or her favorite game through the Internet and play online, buy and download it, or it can be a “free-to-try” game. Today there are many portals and ordinary website who distribute casual games. They can be official websites of the games developers or just affiliate websites.

Let me give you some examples of casual games.

Speaking about casual games types I would like to tell a few words about arcade games. A game with fast action where hand-eye coordination is the primary skill needed to beat the game.

An example of a good arcade game can be 3D animated game Chewsters, brought by 3D Relax. The game of Chewsters is a funny casual game, in which a player needs to make groups of three or more aliens of the same color to make them disappear. The game features 50 original levels, each representing a real world city with a world famous skyline, with their real architecture and famous landmarks recreated in 3D.

Caribbean Riddle game from 3D Relax can be a spectacular example of match-three casual game with mini game. This is a love story about a poor journey man who fall in love with a girl of noble birth and who had to set sail to find a treasure. A player should be clever and quick to conquer all obstacles in the game. Save a fish from the carved golden cube and one more sea inhabitant will help a player to find the treasure!

These games are easy and pretty bobbish to play! You may find lots of awesome casual games through the Internet and I will tell you about them next time, but now I need to hurry up to play my beloved casual game out!



Ron

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Search Engine Algorithms: It Has Always Been A Cat And Mouse Game

Thursday, July 24th, 2008
nobles games
Melih Oztalay asked:


I remember ten years ago when we were designing websites for our clients that we used to play around with the keywords, descriptions and a variety of content related methods to help our customer get a high ranking on Yahoo. In some cases we were successful enough that not only were all the pages indexed, but they would come up consecutively.

Undoubtedly, everything has changed over the past 10 years, but the question still remains the same. Why would we spend so much time trying to beat the search engine algorithms? The answer is very simple, we are all trying to make a living, earn money, support our customers and insure their success. There is indeed one assumption in this writing. That is to say the website we are talking about are regular business websites. Not scams, not fraudulent services, not spam websites. Nothing of the sort, just everyday normal business websites.

The Internet by its very electronic nature has introduced the idea of lower cost marketing, more efficient marketing, measured marketing, and broader marketing. Naturally, a business would indeed seek these methods to get new and more business. Considering most businesses are small business, we run into the issue of not enough time in the day to do the work and certainly not enough money to outsource the work either. You can read “Internet Marketing and the Small Business” article at the URL provided at the end for reference.

Over the years the Big 3 - not automotive - but search engines Google, MSN and Yahoo have continually tried to provide better quality responses to visitors searching the web for information. A noble idea and certainly much faster than the early days of “Archie” and “Veronica” searching. They have introduced a variety of methods in this quest with the algorithms. As the algorithms change, well so do the tactics of Internet marketers and webmasters. The tactics follow some general rules - how do we circumvent the algorithms for the success of our clients and most notably, how do we make it easier, faster, more efficient.

This cat and mouse game can be best exemplified using “Links” that have become such a crucial part of ranking and popularity. In the early days it was simple, exchange links with other websites and the more websites with your link the more popular your site and therefore the higher your ranking. How tough can that be? Everyone is now chasing link exchanges; however, the process is time consuming. Not only to get the link exchange, but then to ultimately get more traffic to make money “now” (not tomorrow) is taking time too.

First request for the link exchange, then wait to get a confirmation, then add their link to your site, send a confirmation, wait for the response that your link is now on their site and finally confirm the link. Having done all that, let us not forget to check every 30 days that the link exchange still exists at the other website. Therefore, we need to know the exact url of our link on the other website and keep track of all this information using….well…something besides hard copy.

Along come services to make this process easier. This would include software and web based services. These services allow you to process the link exchange simpler and even go as far as creating the link web page for you and uploading the web page to your server. There was still one aspect that was not addressed with these services and that is the time to complete the link exchange. In some cases you’re waiting 30 - 60 days. We certainly are not willing to wait this long to start making money.

Services now took the process even a step further and link farms are created. Register your site and put their code on your web page(s). Voila, you have instant link exchanges and the time for the process has been eliminated. Now it was strictly waiting for the search engines to index the information.

As you can imagine, this did not sit well with the search engines, especially Google. The next step is to modify the algorithms to identify link farms and other “un-naturally” occurring links. Yep, the issue of naturally occurring links was emphasized. You cannot have too many too quickly. You cannot use link farms. Your links have to be related to your industry. Inbound only links have a higher value than reciprocal link exchanges. More rules, regulations and policies being imposed upon the business, however, each of these rules bring about the next creativity, specifically about inbound only links.

The idea of selling text links on already high ranking websites emerges. Websites sell the text links directly or you can use brokers. Not only can you purchase the text links, but even within a single website you can have choices of how much to pay based the ranking of a particular page. You can spend a few dollars per month, pay mid-range between $25 - $50 or above $100.

Absolutely amazing how many sub-industries were created from the link exchange process. All the rules, regulations and policies in an effort to make for the search engines to provide more quality information to searchers and for website owners to make more money faster. What a circle-jerk!

The latest development, as you can imagine, is the purchase of text links is now going to be frowned upon and your site rankings will be down graded. Unfortunately, I cannot say that the search engines will do a good job of identifying purchased links versus legitimate advertising links. Nonetheless, whatever they do identify and however they decide to identify this it will hurt you.

So, the cat and mouse game continues. Link exchanges will probably not have a significant value in the long run. Inbound links will be scrutinized and these new sub-industries will refocus upon the next service they can provide to help website owners make money and do so faster.

Do you see where this is going? It will never end. The search engines will create impositions. The process will become more complicated. In the early days it was Meta Tags, then Link Exchanges. Now we’re looking for content, authority websites, landing pages, comment tags, header tags, image ALT descriptions, Anchor Titles. It really does not make a difference. The search engines can throw out any rule, regulation or policy and there will always be a way around the “system”. After all we are in the electronic medium and there is nothing that a computer cannot do that money and time cannot buy!



Gertrude

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Relax Deeply in Puerto Vallarta

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
nobles games
Editor-123 asked:


 

Puerto Vallarta is one of Mexico’s most popular resort destinations, and with good reason. Set on Banderas Bay on the Pacific coast, the city boasts any number of amusements, from the breath-taking (a canopy tour) to the more mundane (shopping for groceries for your Villa Rental Puerto Vallarta). Even those entertainments that seem fairly common are exceptional; a round of golf, for instance, is just different when you’re playing beside the ocean. The same holds true for relaxation; somehow, it’s easier to relax deeply in this environment.

 Wisdom from the Aztecs

 It’s not hard to find someone to help you relax in Puerto Vallarta. The city has its share of superb spas; there are plenty of traditional facilities built into resorts for those who are most comfortable with the familiar. For those who want something a bit different, however, something that’s uniquely Puerto Vallarta, a visit to Terra Noble might be in order. 

 Terra Noble, which sits above the city on Avenida Tulipanes, is a spa set up to make the most of its surrounding environment and designed to “awaken the senses.” Visitors call it “quaint” and “unpretentious,” and swear that the experience is like none other. The spa’s full name, Terra Noble Arts and Healing Center, explains a bit more about the experience. In addition to their main-stream treatments, visitors can enjoy the Temazcalli ceremony, drawn from traditional Aztec healing arts, to discover a path to inner relaxation, as well.

 Chocolat + Massage = Aaah

 The rustic, outdoor experience is not for everyone, and that’s not a problem in Puerto Vallarta. A visit to Metamorfosis Day Spa in the Zona Romantica, just a couple of block from Los Muertos Beach, can be totally soothing and restorative in a more traditional setting. The staff are experts in the arts of massage, and they also do facials, manicures and pedicures. And you can’t help but relax from the scent of their Chocolat Treatment, while your skin soaks up the benefits as well.

 Perhaps most relaxingof all is the opportunity to bring a massage therapist directly to you. Many visitors who stay in a Villa Rental Puerto Vallarta contact Yin-Yang when they want special treatment but they don’t feel like going out. The company will visit your villa and deliver a  massage at home; and of course, they also do aromatherapy and body treatments. Their clients say the service is great and the prices are extremely reasonable.

 The message in all of this is simple: Puerto Vallarta isn’t just fun and games. The city is set up to deliver the most relaxing vacation possible, and if you choose wisely, you won’t have to stress about the price.

 

 

 



Renee

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Casino, Sports Betting, and Lottery - a Comparison of the House Edge

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
nobles games
Melkam Dirset asked:


The house edge, which is the commission that a gambling agent such as a casino, a sportsbook (bookmaker), or a lottery administrator charges, is a yardstick that measures how a specific gambling game is fair and reasonable.

It is one of the most important factors that every player should consider whenever he/she is engaged in any type of gambling, inasmuch as it indicates how much of the money wagered goes to the gambling agent’s pocket and how much is redistributed to the winners. Indeed, a house edge cannot be zero since casinos, sportsbooks, and lottery administrators have to make some money in order to cover their expenses, and to make some profit as well. Yet, a high house edge simply means that the players are unecessarily being ripped-off, and as a result, any gambling game with a high house edge should certainly be avoided by a knowledgeable gambler.

In this article, we shall compare, in the simplest way possible, the house edges of a roulette, an evens-odd betting, and a Cash 3 lottery game as representatives of the three major gambling categories.

The Equation

The easiest way to compute a house edge is to compare the actual winnings that are paid by the respective agents to the winnings that would be paid in a fair game or bet. A fair game or a fair bet is one in which no commission is involved; an obvious model is a game between friends. Therefore, in percentage form, the house edge is obtained by subtracting an actual game winning from a fair game winning and dividing the result by the fair game winning, finally multiplying by 100. Thus,

House Edge = [ (fair game winning - real game winning) / fair game winning ] * 100

Roulette

Because of its simplicity and popularity, we shall consider the roulette as a representative casino game. A European roulette wheel has grooves marked by the numbers 0 to 36; the American wheel (also called Las Vegas wheel) has an additional groove marked as ‘00′. So, the European wheel has a total of 37 numbers, while the American wheel has 38. Internet casinos usually make available the option to select the type of wheel the customer prefers, but the brick and mortar casinos normally offer only one type. The winning number in a roulette game is the number corresponding to the groove where a spinning ball lands.

Now, consider a fair game in which 38 friends are playing the roulette at home, and each one selects a number and places a $1 bet on the number (no two or more players wagering on the same number). When the ball is spun and lands in a groove, the number marking that groove will be the winning number. The person who has selected this winning number collects all the money on the table thus making him win $37. On the other hand, if the game were conducted in a casino, the winner would be paid only $35. The difference between the two winnings applied in the above equation gives us the house edge of a roulette game as

( 37 - 35 ) / 37 * 100  =  2 / 37 * 100  =  5.4%

This means that every time you spend a $100 on an offline or online casino roulette, $5.40 goes to the casino and the rest is redistributed to the winners. Evidently, there are quite a number of casino games and the house edge varies from game to game, many of them having a house edge less than that of the roulette. For obvious reasons, a good gambler always prefers games that have low house edges, while the casino itself loves those games with high house edges. For example, the house edge of craps is 1.4% which makes it one of the most preferred casino games by the players.

Even-odds Sports Betting

Again, because of its simplicity, we shall consider an even-odds betting as a representative of this category of gambling. By even-odds we mean that the event (usually a sports game) has equal chances of going either way. An example is a tennis match between two competitive players each of which has an equal chance of winning the match.

A fair bet, in this case, is just a simple bet between two friends who just pick one of the tennis player as winner. If these two friends wager $1 each, the winner will collect $2, thus winning $1. If instead the bets are placed through a sportsbook, the winner will collect only $1.91, since the odds of an evens game at most bookies and online sportsbooks is 1.91. If you are not familiar with the decimal representation of odds, 1.91 is the same as 10/11 in UK notation and -110 in US odds notation. Odds of 10/11 mean that you’ll win $10 when you wager $11; and odds of -110 mean that you have to wager $110 in order to win $100. Anyway, since the winnings paid by a sportsbook is only $0.91, the house edge of an even-odds betting will therefore be

( 1 - 0.91 ) / 1 * 100 = 0.09 * 100  = 9%

So, this is how sportsbooks make a living. Since several internet sportsbooks offer odds higher than 1.91 in order to lure bettors, the house edge could be smaller than 9%, which is one of the things that the bettor should be looking for when searching for a sportsbook. On the other hand, if the bettor is wagering on parlays the house edge would be significantly higher than 9%; for big parlays, it could go as high as 40%.

It should be apparent by now that the gambler is better off with casino games than sports betting. It should also be noted that while the house edge could be a major factor to consider while selecting a gambling game, it is by no means the only one. For instance, one should consider the fact that casino games are mostly games of chance, while sports betting also involves a learned decision in selecting a pick, consequently leading to a higher probability of winning a bet.

Cash 3

Depending on the state you are in, this lottery game may be known by a different name such as Pick 3, Play 3, Daily 3, etc. In this game, the player selects a three-digit number from 000 to 999, and plays the number as a straight or as a box. A straight play is a prediction that the number will come exactly as selected while a box is a prediction for the number to come in any order. For instance, if a player selects the number 672 and plays it straight, he/she will win if the number drawn is exactly 672. Instead, if the player plays 672 as a box, he/she will win as long as the drawn number contains a 6, a 7 and a 2, in any order (276, for example).  Obviously, a straight game pays much more than a box game for the same amount wagered.

Now consider 1000 friends (maybe in a club) selecting a number as a straight, each for $1, so that all the 1000 possible numbers are covered. When the winning  number is drawn, the person who has selected that lucky number will be deemed a winner and will cash in all the $1000 collected, so making him win $999. This is a fair game. In the case of state lotteries, however, the winner will be paid only $500 in most states. Some states may pay a little bit less, others may pay a little bit more, but $500 is more or less the standard. The winner therefore wins $499. The house edge for a Cash 3 game will therefore be

( 999 - 499 ) / 999 * 100 = 500 / 999 * 100 = 50%

This house edge applies not only to the Cash 3 game but also to all state lottery games such as Play 4, Cash 5, Mega, Fantasy 5, Lotto, Power Ball, etc. So, whenever you are playing the state lottery, remember that you are wagering only half of your money on the actual lottery; the other half, you are  just giving it away. Where this other half goes is not the gambler’s concern, since his/her main objective is to win some money in order to pay the ever present bills, or to get out of a miserable life, or to change his/her 20-year-old car. As regards contributing to education and other noble causes, there are other means of collecting money called taxes and charities.

Unfortunately, many states do not allow casino games, and furthermore, sports betting is illegal in the United States. The player is therefore left with no choice but to cross state borders in search of a casino, or more recently, to engage in online sports betting through the several offshore internet sportsbooks. Nowadays, there is a plethora of trustworthy online casinos and sportsbooks operating from Canada, the UK, Antigua, Costa Rica, and so on.

The Conclusion

As far as the house edge is concerned, it has been shown that casino games are the best choice for the gambler. On the other end, any state lottery is a pretty miserable game to play. Nevertheless, besides the house edge, there is also the possibility of winning to consider.

Casino games, like lotteries are mostly games of chance; the player just selects a number or numbers and waits to see what luck brings him/her. There is absolutely no basis to prefer one number to others. Some people try to analyze previously drawn numbers in order to see the trend and predict the next numbers. This strategy may work a few times, but not always. Keep in mind that it is the players, and not the machines, who remember the previous numbers. In short, the possibility of winning a roulette or the lottery entirely depends on luck.

While there is little or nothing that a roulette or a lotto player can do to initially select a possible winning number, the situation could be quite different in the case of betting. With a lot of information and some assistance from sports handicappers, it is possible to predict the outcome of a sports event with more certainty than predicting a Cash 3 number.



Loretta

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E-books, Boom or Bust?

Sunday, July 6th, 2008
nobles games
Linda A Lavid asked:


Kindle is out and sales are heating up, but how hot? Mum’s the word on details, but the buzz remains. Specifics: Amazon’s Kindle is an e-reader that holds 200 e-books, 19 newpapers and almost 400 blogs. Got enough reading material? Although estimates indicate they’re selling 40K units a month at $350 a pop, who’s buying? I don’t know anyone yet. But I live in Buffalo. We’re a meat-and-potatoes kinda place. No matter how wonderful this e-reader is, the price is not cheap. Heck, even laptops are less expensive. Still, like most electronic gismos, the cost is sure to go down.

Another concern is the actual number of books available for download. Publishing companies are scrambling to digitize back list books. But will there be water water everywhere and not a soul to drink? Surveys indicate that 82% of book readers prefer paper books. No surprise. Toss a book in your pocket, briefcase, purse and you’re good to go – no batteries, no cords, no online connections, no worries the device could be stolen. While most downloads cost $4 to $10, add that to the expense of the reader and you got some serious cash outlay. Especially when the public library is within walking distance.

Recently, I became convinced that e-book downloads were terrific for the international market where the cost of shipping books is prohibitive. So I uploaded two of my books to LuLu and one to Amazon’s Kindle. Uploading a PDF file to Lulu was seamless, quick and easy. The upload to Kindle was problematic. The PDF conversion was a mess: text hither and yon, weird spacing, dropped lines. Apparently, this is not unusual because specific directions followed that if the manuscript needed further formatting, it should be downloaded and reformatted in HTML. Huh? Anyways, I converted the PDF to Word and resubmitted. The file still had problems but paled to the PDF upload. I was able to make the corrections but it took another hour. Clearly some bugs remain.

In any event, Amazon is spearheading a movement, but will they be the only ones? Apple, Microsoft and any other computer-savvy company could take on the charge. Not to mention the other e-readers who have been schlepping around for the past ten years. Meanwhile online Barnes and Noble no longer offers e-books. Odd.

The end game? Stay tuned. This could be another revolution a la Gutenberg (they scoffed at moveable type, metal letters too) or end up like helium airship travel. Ka Boom.

Linda’s Website

Linda is the author of Composition: A Fiction Writer’s Guide for the 21st Century, yes an e-book is available… Download for $3.75



Angel

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