Passive Income in Australia: Update on Gomez Peer

After a brief foray into passive income using the Gomez Peer application, I have decided to uninstall it. Here's why.

In an earlier post I described why Gomez Peer could be a suitable passive income opportunity for Australians. However, I've since decided to uninstall the Gomez Peer application. My reasoning is as follows:

It's been about 10 months since I initially installed the program and I am still yet to be activated, despite having over 230,000 minutes of online time accrued (160 days) and over 72,000 minutes (50 days) of processing time (i.e. about 30% of my online time was spent processing - see below). Although they state that "account activation depends on how well your system characteristics match our current testing needs", I'm not sure how factual this is. In the time since I've had the program running, I've lived in three different places (some distance from each other) and had two different connection types (DSL and Fibre). Additionally, I would consider a 30% rate of processing time to online time to be evidence that my characteristics match their testing needs (though I have no hard data to compare against). I have attempted to make contact with the company to seek a timeframe for activation, however the contact form on their website doesn't appear to work, nor did they respond to a Facebook message left on their page. This has reignited some of my earlier skepticism.

While I knew that this avenue was only ever going to offset some of the running costs of my computer, I have since decided that I'm just going to modify my behaviour (i.e. turning off my computer when its not in use) rather than leave it running 24/7. A quick Google search for "software to turn pc on off automatically" nets a wealth of information on how this process can be automated. I'm considering just having it turn itself on for a few hours in the morning and evening on weekdays, and I'll turn it on when I need it on the weekends when I have the time to wait for it to boot up.

I think there is a certain danger of giving into the sunk cost fallacy with this program. That is, it's very easy to say "I've got all this online time/processing time now, maybe I'll just leave it running just in case I get activated". I think it's worth assessing the up and downsides though: The upside is quite small - a passive income stream tied to having your computer being on and online - while the downsides are larger in comparison - the longer your account is pending, the more potential income you forgo while continuing to pay the running costs of your PC to remain ready to undertake processing. If the activation process had of been quicker, it may have enticed me to stay with the program - however, the experience has made me realise that I'd be much further ahead if I just turned my computer off when I'm not using it.

I've now removed the links to download Gomez Peer on my blog and in my earlier post.

Announcement: Taking a break and launching a new website

I know I haven't been as active on here lately. I've moved from Newcastle back to Canberra and I'm trying to get settled back into a bit of a routine. In the meantime, I've also been clocking up the kilometres to play gigs with Tortured and Namazu between Newcastle, Sydney and Canberra lately, which would be great to do an update on when I can. Not the least of which because I got to play with two amazing bands: The Black Dahlia Murder, and one of my favourite technical death metal bands, Psycroptic.

I just wanted to write a quick announcement to say I'll be putting my personal blog on hold for a little bit, while I shift my focus to another endeavour. Namely, getting my SAS Base Programmer certification. The exam is in November, so I'm going to be studying my arse off the next couple of months. I've started another blog/website to share my study notes with the world. The address is https://learnsasprogramming.wordpress.com/ if you want to check it out. You might even learn something yourself!

I've still got plenty of stuff churning through my brain that I want to write about, but I'll have to postpone for a little bit while I focus on getting my SAS qualification.

Cheers!

Four reasons Pole Dancers are like Metalheads

Last weekend, I went to watch a friend compete in the North NSW Pole Dancing Championships and it got me thinking how much people who are into pole dancing have in common to people who listen to and play metal. I thought it would be interesting to draw some parallels between the two, so here are four things pole dancers have in common with metalheads.

1. Both are subcultures that sit outside of the mainstream

Most people can't understand the appeal of loud, distorted guitars, blast beats and guttural vocals. Liking this sort of audio torture is not generally considered "normal".

Image credit: By Alex pole dance lyon (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Most people wouldn't consider swinging around a pole in your underwear in eight-inch stiletto heels normal either.

2. Both are extremely passionate about their hobby

Metalheads will tell you at length about the particular metal sub-genres they like, as well as the many that they do not. They can name numerous bands within all of these sub-genres. God forbid you get a group metalheads playing and sharing music with each other; they feed off each other and can continue to queue up songs into the early hours of the morning - well after everyone else has passed out.

Pole dancers are very similar; they can talk pole for hours, discussing routines and manoeuvres, professional pole dancers and workshops. They also put their money where their mouth is, sometimes spending vast sums of money on pole clothing, costumes, shoes and other paraphernalia.

3. Performing requires a very high level of skill and a dedication to the craft

Metal is one of the more technically complex genres of music. It requires a hell of a lot of practice to build up the speed, coordination and stamina to perform a full set of metal songs.

Likewise, pole dancers require a great deal of physical strength, flexibility and endurance  to gracefully execute some of the moves they pull off.

Image: Demonstrating a knee hold (Source, licence and credit)

4. They both have a stereotypical look

Image: Slayer at the Fields of Rock Festival, 2007  (Source, licence and credit)

Black band shirts, long or shaved hair, piercings or tattoos, leather or denim jackets with or without patches, camouflage. Whether you like it or not, metalheads do have a stereotyped look - though there are quite a few different types (see here).

As do pole-dancers, but it's usually not very much: crop tops and Blackmilk tights or pole shorts. But they do wear them anywhere.

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Short post today. If you can think of any other parallels, let me know in the comments.