п»їKeystroke Lotteries: A Speculative Essay Part I
Keystroke Lotteries: A Speculative Essay, Part I
How much work would you do for a lottery ticket?
By Bruce Swanson
You are at work, at play, at home, in transit. You have a second, a minute, an hour to kill.
You log onto a website where you find a list of typesetting, proofreading, copy editing, or translation projects. Each requires a specific application, such as Word or Excel. All of them are commonly available.
You choose a PDF file containing images of 100 pages of handwritten text of no interest to anyone but the owner, who is offering $100 to have it all typed by midnight.
It's now 9 p.m. You start work.
But within a minute you are too bored to continue. Without hesitation you click the browser window closed and three hours later the full $100 is deposited to your Paypal account.
It's not a mistake.
Some days later, reading about a recent local murder, you realize that you knew the victim and who her murderer might be. But you don't want to risk going public with the information. And you don't trust the police and the courts to safeguard your identity.
You log on to a secure website that allows you and the police to exchange messages securely without them ever knowing who you are. Nor can they ever know unless you tell them first. You give them your hunch.
Within a week your suspect has been arrested. A year later he is tried and convicted.
Upon that conviction you begin privately receiving online a steady stream of big-payout lottery tickets. Because you were the only one to inform the police, you'll keep getting the tickets until one of them wins.
"Everybody, almost, can and will be willing to hazard a trifling sum for the chance of a considerable gain." — Alexander Hamilton
A keystroke, mouse-click, or touch-screen response is a trifling sum of work that everybody on the Web, almost, would be willing to hazard for the chance of a considerable gain.
In the hypothetical situation described above, you began to type out handwritten text that had been scanned into a PDF. But so did hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others. Working simultaneously, many quitting just like you did as others joined in, the 100-page project was completely typed with time to spare. The funder of the lottery not only got a great deal at a page-rate of one dollar, the work was finished much faster than could have been done using conventional pay-arrangements. And the capacity to automatically count and record the total number of different keystrokes you and everyone else typed all but guaranteed a numerical keystroke-consensus per written character.
In effect, the document was proofread as it was typed.
That has never before been economically feasible, and the implications of that are what makes the keystroke-lottery concept revolutionary.
You can see why someone would fund such a lottery: programmatic redundancy is always best in data entry and proofreading. It is often good in copy editing, and might even be good in certain kinds of translations, such as non-stylistic, non-literary efforts where speed and legal intelligibility alone are paramount. Redundancy is the principle behind crowdsourcing, defined by Wikipedia as the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a "crowd"), through an open call.
Because the total amount of money offered ($100) was rather small as compared to conventional lotteries, during the auction (which was for a place in the site's work-queue), the owner of the pages guaranteed a winner and specified no lower limit on the total quantity of keystrokes per person needed to win. That means to play, you needed only to type the minimum number of keystrokes sufficient to establish a context on the page, verifiable by enough others typing the same keystrokes to represent the same handwritten letter or digit. In this example, had the document started with A, then that single keystroke would have earned a chance to win the payout.
The thesis of this essay is that growing ease and universality of visual communication must and will eventually turn chance itself into compensation for certain distinct kinds of online work. That chance — to win money for minimal work—will guarantee access to a world-wide virtual crowd of Web users whose sheer numbers will free them to participate as little or as much as they want, when they want, hazarding their time and typing in the lottery associated with the project on which they have chosen to work. Group keystrokes from around the world would repeatedly wash in real time like a digital aurora over a given document, page, paragraph, sentence, or Captcha-like word-picture in play at the moment. Conventional work-schedules and commitments and piecework-schemes would be unnecessary.
A subtle but important point to be understood is that each typist would be working not specifically to be accurate, but rather to achieve consensus with others. Because only a consensus-validated keystroke could win, for the typists there would be no correct keystrokes per se, only consensus-validated ones. The document would be intently followed to achieve that consensus as quickly and easily as possible, and only documents that showed a reasonable chance for the money offered of achieving a consensus would be accepted by the crowd. Thus, keystroke lotteries could just as well be called consensus lotteries.
The need for consensus also dictates that typists will select only projects in which they have the necessary expertise. They would not be maximizing their chance of winning if they were not so selective. Thus, projects requiring a critical amount of recondite knowledge would cost more to fund because fewer typists would be interested in gambling their time on them. As with jobs like the one pictured above, documents trafficking in obscurity would have to radically increase their offered winnings to generate enough interest to provide meaningful consensus.
That point understood, gambling would quickly go to work. As in the hypothetical case above, to make more interesting a small payout for snippets of typesetting or proofreading (crap in printing-parlance), an appeal would have to be made to immediate gratification with an instant guaranteed-winner upon project completion. As is the case in traditional lotteries, larger payouts wouldn't require a guaranteed winner per drawing. (Insurance, funded by micro-lending members of the public who prefer that form of gambling, might be offered to those needing higher payouts than they are personally willing to risk.) Crowdsourcing would mean crowdpaying, and the pay would be the lottery tickets earned when individual eyes, brains, and fingers acted in sync with a crowd changing by the second, yet remaining unchanged in its specific purpose.
As with any group working together, there would have to be a mechanism for a single typist or minority of typists to forge a new consensus in the face of the majority. That mechanism would probably be a kind of side-bet. A typist, realizing that the document contained a factual or stylistic error, might offer a correction and then flag it. That flag would attract the attention of others looking for consensus. So the dilemma for those other typists would be whether to validate the flagged change with their own keystrokes, or ignore it. They might ignore it at their peril, if newer typists logging on saw the flag and decided to back it up. Participants might even bet their earned tickets on the outcome of a flag. Typists might allow a public record of their corrections, thus lending credence to their flags. Thus would typeset-led proofreading morph into copy-editing, a mechanism that might also make group translations possible (of which, see below).
Because all this activity would be taking place in a digital environment, it might be possible to select projects that offer odds modeled on popular conventional lotteries. This would allow participants to learn the practical meaning of the odds that such lotteries offer, but without paying cash for the lesson. It might also be possible to set parameters to price participants' typing as an hourly wage up to the amount that they would have paid for a conventional lottery ticket. The program would notify them when they reached their pre-set limit, at which point, to the keystroke, they could quit. In any case, as many chances beyond their customary daily or weekly ticket-purchases as they would earn at their keyboards, most people would still never win a significant payout — even as they watched a news-ticker roll across their monitors announcing the names of winners around the world who had.
So a keystroke lottery could be educational enough — California Lotto revenues are supposed to help education — to make conventional cash-purchases of lottery tickets unappealing to larger and larger numbers of players. More and more of them might switch to keystroke lotteries, or even — the more perceptive among them — quit lottery-gambling entirely. That said, few players have ever won lotteries, but that has always been enough to regenerate interest for a given payout. A chance for the money, as always, is the attraction. Quitters would return to the fold.
The Wikipedia Example
If Wikipedia's business-plan had first been posted online for general review, most readers probably would have accepted its theoretical potential, but not its chances for practical success. What most surely would not have predicted is the spontaneous growth and increasing complexity of Wikipedia's participatory culture — that growing body of knowledge, experience, foresight, governance, and enforcement that have come to characterize the experience of using and maintaining it. (Wikipedia may be the first and only effective form of mass communism the world has seen thus far.)
Because gambling is (arguably) based on psychology as much as mathematics, world-wide keystroke lotteries probably couldn't be computer-modeled to the point of foregoing all funding for further development in the manner of, say, cold fusion should any given model indicate failure. Only by trying it in real time with real people winning enough real money could its technical feasibility and potential popularity be determined. Until that happens, one sees nothing in the idea of keystroke-lotteries that would cause any reasonable person to state outright that they couldn't work, that a culture similar to Wikipedia's couldn't arise.
But there is another fundamental point: Wikipedia offers no compensation because it doesn't have to, being viscerally attractive to huge numbers of volunteers. By contrast, the website Distributed Proofreaders (for example) also offers no compensation, but isn't remotely as popular as Wikipedia because the work it offers isn't creative at any level and is thus fundamentally uninteresting to too many people. The prospect of proofreading a given book by keyboard may interest you personally, but without the prospect of financial reward it won't interest the general public. This is why DP is a useful but tiny part of the Internet, its momentary slashdotting in 2002 notwithstanding. But putting a gaming front-end on equally uncreative data-entry work could put keystroke lotteries on par with Wikipedia in popularity and impact, attracting millions of disinterested strangers willing to do their best working together solely for the chance of winning a payoff. If the result efficiently lowers cost and reduces production time — in other words, if it works — who could object?
The federal government might object. It follows the laws set by Congress, so that body's gaming-industry contributors could be expected initially to fight any lottery system not already fully described and permitted by law. More locally, there are states with lotteries and states without them. It's possible that both would oppose a keystroke lottery, either from fear of a loss of state-lotto earnings or out of opposition to any legalized form of online gambling. In that event, the first keystroke-lotteries inevitably would move offshore. On the other hand, all interested parties might co-opt keystroke lotteries as a promising revenue-source.
Legal objections notwithstanding, keystroke-lotteries are surely well-within our technical capability. Economics are another matter: we must consider the marginal cost of each additional lottery-typist versus one staff proofreader or freelancer hired by the hour who could be counted on over time to miss more mistakes than a crowd would. That marginal cost would no doubt vary from project to project, but in general it probably would rise to a prohibitive point, reflecting the fact that once you've gotten the crowd to a certain size for a document of a given perceived complexity, the wisdom of that crowd would not be economically increased by adding any more people to it. But when would that additional typist would become prohibitive, and at what point would a game not need a guaranteed winner? An auction would provide the answers.
As for collusion, it would surely be uneconomical at any scale. One would have to organize a ring of typists and split the (rare) winnings with them, all the while knowing that the keystrokes of enough unorganized players would swamp the conspiracy. Also, typists might (in some lotteries anyway) be able to see what other typists are doing in real time. Software could also detect suspicious patterns and block IP addresses. Endless waves of cheaters would inexorably realize that they might just as well spend their time doing what everyone else is doing, given the tiny chance of winning. As with any lottery, tiny input, tiny chance; much larger input, very slightly larger chance. Cheating would add to the real work necessary to theoretically win, and would probably have to limit itself to the smaller-payout lotteries with fewer participants. But even then, keystroke lotteries would still be premised on the little amount of work required of any one person to participate. So protective levels of participation might be a given even in lotteries with small payouts. As a further measure, projects might be graded by a statistical measure showing the theoretical effort required to cheat it, a measure that would certainly be reflected in the project's bidding level.
"You can get it cheap, fast, or right—but only two out of three."
— Print-shop maxim
Small, neighborhood convenience-stores can charge premium prices while remaining competitive with bigger-box stores located nearby. Likewise, keystroke lotteries would not necessarily be less expensive than work done conventionally. They might even be more expensive, especially before they became ubiquitous enough to induce sufficient competitive bidding among massive numbers of participants. Instead, keystroke lotteries would be a radically cheaper and faster way to deliver the highest practically attainable levels of quality for a given volume of work within a given deadline. In other words, attaining such quality on time under traditional methods would be radically more expensive than using a keystroke lottery. Understanding this distinction is critical. Initially not everyone would be willing to pay the premium for that quality as a function of time. But those who were willing would get their job done cheaper, faster, and righter than ever before. Cheaper, faster, and righter would eventually define cheap, fast, and right. The above-quoted maxim would be overturned as a consistent principle for the first time in the history of printing.
It obviously remains to be seen how quickly the public would understand exactly what a keystroke lottery isn't. The key selling-point would have to be consensus, a requirement limiting creativity although not (as indicated above) prohibiting it entirely. Thus keystroke lotteries may not be expandable to polls and advice-giving, formats not based directly on a template. However, it might apply to certain forms of creative copy-writing, such as found on Trada.com. There, crowds of ad-writers try to write ads that merchants want written but don't have the time or expertise to write themselves. That merchant might specify a maximum price-per-click of $1.00. A writer in the Trada crowd who can write the merchant an ad that gets clicks at below a dollar is paid the difference (minus the Trada fee). It may be that that kind of competitive writing bounded by strict space and content limitations (keywords and creative URLs) will attract people willing to write complete but short Google ads, with the money they collectively earn going into a pot that one of them would win.
Another recent try at crowdsourcing is Gigwalk.com, in which smartphone users are paid to provide local bits and pieces of mapping or pricing information too expensive to obtain conventionally. The rate starts at $3 per gig. But how much work would someone do for that three dollars? And how much work would they do if a lottery ticket for a thousand-dollar pot cost $3, funded by pooling a day's or week's or month's worth of $3 gigs? To ask that question is to repeat what I initially asked at the top of this page: how much work would you do for a lottery ticket?
For perspective on the question of overall acceptance, imagine that keystroke lotteries were first in the history of lottery gambling. Then someone came along and proposed the following: instead of having people access to work-games from the convenience of their homes, offices, and cellphones, why not have them trek to the corner liquor store? And instead of having people gambling on the outcome of real work, why not have them gamble on colored images of fruit? And pay with their own cash for the privilege?
Would the general public reject keystroke-lotteries even if there was ready money available to be won merely by logging on and typing for a few seconds or minutes at a computer where they already happen to be, and are going to be, hour after hour, day after day? It doesn't seem likely, when a single keystroke or mouse-click could (statistically speaking) win, and the wider public's general forbearance would — to its quick realization — merely advantage a comparative handful of early-adapters.
Translations
"I have at last discovered the right way to translate Onegin. This is the fifth or sixth complete version that I have made. I am now breaking it up, banishing everything that honesty might deem verbal velvet and, in fact, welcoming the awkward turn, the fish bone of the meager truth." —Vladimir Nabokov, The Nabokov-Wilson Letters, 1940 –1971.
Nabokov believed that no honest translation could aspire to, or pretend to achieve, artistic unity with the language of the original work. Although his own novels were conventionally translated for commercial reasons, he put his philosophy rigorously into effect in his own literal translation of Eugene Onegin, by Alexander Pushkin. Nabokov's model has not caught on with the public, and today there is considerable discussion about what the future holds for professional translation-services. Even for the strictly monolingual (such as myself), it seems reasonable to suppose that a document translated by a keystroke lottery would create enough consensus on which to base a lottery while simultaneously producing significant differences (fifth or sixth complete version). But given the digital environment of a word processor, those differences could be retained as separate documents, or expressed by color coding, typefaces, or type sizes (take your pick); or abstracted statistically and displayed in charts and graphs. Degrees of consensus could be indicated by a number on a scale, and documents could have that number appended to them. All this would be an advantage where the highest degree of "accuracy" (I think Nabokov would approve of the quote marks) would be needed as quickly and/or cheaply as possible. It should be remembered that the whole point of the process is consensus and nothing else, so individual expressions of style might persist as typists realized a non-literal construction that was also likely to suggest itself to other typists, to the point of flag-betting for it or against it. Nabokov followed his own sense in deciding when to finish his book, a sense no doubt informed at least in part by the dictates of time and money. Those same dictates would govern typist-translators, albeit within a radically different format. Keystroke-lottery translations would not likely be popular as literature, but literature would not always be wanted or needed, either by the writer or the reader.
Computerized translations will continue to improve in all-around "accuracy" (quotes again), yet for documents of legal importance especially, human input will still be needed for a long time to come. I think that more and more translations via lottery will become contrary betting-games—that typists will scour documents for things to bet against, as described above.
The Question Answered
How much work would you do for a lottery ticket? Very little — at any one time. That's the whole idea.
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Cycling 5 days at Mekong delta will give you a general look into the lively land which is enriched by Nine Dragons river. We will cycle through many provinces. Tien Giang, Tra Vinh, Vinh Long, Can Tho, and An Giang. The in small road and village cycling trip will be divided into many periods so that we can cross small shady canals and branches of The Mekong River as well as visit green rice fields and lovely fruit farms, local floating markets which are the original symbol of MeKong Delta spreading its body through Vinh Long province. Enjoying boat trips on floating market and a rowing boat. Moreover, we will spend one night at a home stay family locating on an island.
If you like warm weather and a relaxed atmosphere, then Brisbane is a great destination for a visit. Depending on what your holiday needs are, there is a hotel in Brisbane to suit you. Brisbane accommodation ranges from low cost hostels and backpackers right through to high end luxury five star hotels and everything in between. There are hundreds of hotels to choose from, each featuring different services and facilities and each with its own positives and negatives.
For those looking for luxury, this top end of the market is well represented. Most of the global hotel chains are represented in the Brisbane CBD and there is also a good selection of independent hotels. Brands such as the Marriott, Sofitel, Hilton and the Sebel all have five star hotels offering accommodation of an international standard, with services and facilities to match. Many of the luxury hotels have swimming pools, gyms and fine dining restaurants.
Business travellers are also well catered for with most Brisbane hotels having Wi-Fi and high speed internet along with a range of business and secretarial services, including some hotels with dedicated business floors. The Brisbane CBD has well over 100 hotels to choose from.
Families visiting Brisbane may choose to stay in some self contained Brisbane accommodation. Serviced apartments are usually great value, and are often the same price or even less than a single hotel room. They also come with the added convenience of kitchen and laundry facilities providing savings for families wishing to prepare their own meals. Many apartment hotels still offer traditional services and facilities such as swimming pools, room service, gyms and restaurants so you won't feel like you're missing out.
Travellers on a budget are well catered for as well with a number of hostels and backpackers along with cheap pub style accommodation. For a private room with a private ensuite you can expect to pay a minimum of $100 but if you don't mind sharing, bunk rooms can be found for as little as $30 per night. The Brisbane City YHA was renovated in 2009 and won Best Backpacker Accommodation in the Queensland Tourism Awards 2011 and boasts a sensational rooftop pool, Wi-Fi throughout and a great value cafe/bar. The youth hostel also caters for large group bookings, couples or singles and has a reputation as a fun and social place to stay.
Brisbane accommodation is plentiful and varied and websites such as wotif and lastminute are a great reference point when researching hotel options. Websites such as these list star ratings, room facilities, hotel facilities, prices and availability in an easy to navigate, easy to understand way but beware, they do not always have the best prices as many hotels offer a best rate guarantee for bookings made on their own websites.
п»їHow to Win at Scratch Off Card Lottery Lotto Tickets
How could I know this? That's because I own a convenience store. From my observations, I've seen more lottery winners from the scratch off game than any other lotto game hands down. And the main #1 reason why is simple. It's not magic. You have to get this. It's not about . It's just simply that the scratch off tickets have the most favorable odds of winning.
So the next time you are thinking about playing the lottery game (hoping, wishing, and thinking about "Yes, I am going to win the lottery!") and you are about to spend that hard earned money, don't throw it in the big lotto. Don't even waste it in the fantasy 5, daily 4, or even the daily 4.
Because the odds are if you waste that hard earned money in those lottery tickets, you're going to throw away all your money. But you will have much more success and having a realistic profit on a consistent basis by using that money by playing the scratch offs.
You just have to get this. You got to know that every lottery does not have the same odds. And the game that has been proven and tested to have the best overall odds of winning is the scratch off lottery tickets.
That's one thing you have to know right there. But wait...it doesn't stop there! Because you must realize there are different type of scratch off ticket games when you go play the scratchers game in the convenience store, liquor store, or wherever you go.
There are cheaper games like the $1 and $2 games. There are also more expensive scratch off tickets like the $5 and $10 games.
So the regular lotto player goes to the store and thinks "Oh...$5 & $10 games are too expensive! I'm not going to play those. I'm only going to play the $1 game." Well, almost everyone thinks this way because just like inside Las Vegas, there are different types of slot machine games.
There are casino games where the slot machine costs $1 to play. Some cost even cheaper. Some cost a quarter to play. Some cost 5 cents to play. Some cost only a penny to play. So the average scratch off player who doesn't know much about the casino games is attracted to the penny game because of the cheap price.
What they don't recognize is that most likely, they are not going to get a big winner and most likely, they are not going to make any money on those cheap penny slot casino games. Similarly, the scratchers game has the same construct. The one dollar scratch off game (the cheapest scratchers to play) has the worst odds of winning.
The average odds of winning for the $1 scratch off lottery are 1 in 9. So that means out of 9 tickets you buy, you will get only 1 winner. As the price of the scratch off ticket goes up, the odds of winning improves. And so many people don't even know this. They think all scratch offs have the same of winning. That's a big myth.
The truth is that you have much improved odds of getting a winner when you play the more expensive scratcher game. So the odds for the two dollar game are around one in five. The odds for the $3 scratch off lottery ticket becomes a little bit better and is usually are around 1:4. The odds of the $5 game gets a little bit better and is usually around one in 3.5. And the concept continues as the scratcher tickets gets more expensive.
And as the scratch off ticket game becomes more pricey, the chances of winning money become easier for you. So the next time you think about playing the lottery game, know this simple truth. The scratch off lottery game has much easier overall probability of getting a winner than any other lottery ticket game offered wherever you live worldwide.
So don't go dump your money in the other lotto ticket games. Instead, use that same exact spending to play in the scratch off ticket game and you will have much better results.
п»їBook Review: How to Develop and Promote Successful Seminars and Workshops
This book review is part of a series that covers the topic of Seminars and Workshops. Seminars & Workshops in self improvement allow people to learn the skills and techniques necessary to succeed, while networking with self improvement enthusiasts and experts. Jenny Hamby is the Official Guide to Seminars and Workshops.
How to Develop and Promote Successful Seminars and Workshops: The Definitive Guide to Creating and Marketing Seminars, Workshops, Classes, and Conferences, by Howard L. Shenson, is a valuable resource for people interested in Seminars and Workshops, and it is available through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
Book Description
A complete guide to succeeding in today’s burgeoning seminar business—from developing a program and market testing, to pricing, promotion, advertising, and more! How to Develop & Promote Successful Seminars & Workshops The adult education business—seminars, workshops, classes, conferences—is one of the fastest growing industries in the country and, for many, extremely profitable. Now, Howard Shenson shares proven-effective, research-based strategies responsible for filling more than one million seminar seats, to allow anyone with marketable knowledge to succeed in the seminar business. You’ll learn:
* How to select a marketable subject and test market any seminar for about $1,000 or less
* How to develop a dynamic program and effective program materials
* How to create a powerful, registration producing marketing strategy and design winning promotional materials
* How to assess promotional effectiveness and fine-tune marketing to increase sales
* How to evaluate and choose where and when to conduct your seminar or workshop
* How to select hotel and conference facilities
* How to price your program to ensure maximum registrations/profitability
* How to develop or obtain program materials and how to add to your profits through back-of-the-room sales of products and services
* How to creatively select and rent mailing lists, and maximize your direct mail response while reducing marketing expense
We've all done it. Every time we invest in new carpet, we take an internal oath and solemnly swear we will take care of this brand new carpet, and rightfully so. It doesn't take a mathematical genius to know that for most folks, the third largest investment after the purchase of our home and cars is the home's interior.
So we read the manufacturer's warranty and notice that it says to vacuum often. Daily might be the frequency in the high traffic areas. But who has time any more to spend maintaining carpets on a daily basis? The only time you see people vacuum that frequently is in the hotel and motel industry.
Rarely does one actually see the carpets being replaced at the hotel and motel industry unless there is a major remodeling project happening with new color schemes to match. So it would serve one well to learn from the hospitality business.
How do we usually buy carpet? In most cases it comes with the home already installed. It will either be a newly built or a previously owned re-sale home. If a new home was built, if you are in the beginning stages of construction, you have a choice to upgrade to the better carpet and padding offered. Or you can choose the cheapest carpet known to mankind commonly referred to as 'builder's grade' materials which also includes the cheapest, thinnest carpet pad also known as 'FHA grade' 2 lb. rebond.
Sure the carpet is fuzzy and comes in a light color and the padding might as well be called foam because it easily crushes to the sub-floor when any weight is applied on the carpet's surface. After all, carpet is just carpet and pad is just pad, right? WRONG. Once again the old adage "You get what you pay for" still rings true.
DuPont, one of the top four major fiber producers, conducted a study years ago about the behaviors of the consumer as related to the way they make a purchase decision when it comes to picking carpet. I suppose human behavior still has not evolved that much since. Please note that the following results are not a misprint.
They rank from number one to number five in order:
1. Color
2. Color
3. Color
4. Texture
5. Price
While not disclosed, the first three might have been trying to color match the hard surface flooring like tile, hardwood flooring or stone. The second might be for the paint in a given room and the last color match to compliment the home's other furnishings such as window treatments, and furniture.
Texture refers to the 'feel' also known as the hand of the carpet referring to how it feels when you touch the carpet by hand. It would also take into account the weight of carpet measured in ounces. For example, a carpet weighing 32 oz. per square inch has more carpet fibers then say a 16 ounce carpet. A good way to test this principle is to go to carpet a retailer and ask to see two different swatches.
For example with all things being equal, such as the same Carpet Fiber Producer manufactured by DuPont, same carpet fibers milled at Shaw Industries, same color dye lot, etcetera, you can perform this simple comparison test side by side.
Simply form your fingers like a claw and push directly straight down from top to the bottom of the fibers using your fingertips only. You should notice an immediate difference in carpet density. It will also reflect in the price per square yard. The difference is the number of stitches per square inch. On a much more dense carpet, it will be difficult to see down to the primary backing where the carpet is stitched in.
Here's the benefit:
If there are more carpet pile fibers, then each carpet fiber actually supports one another side by side on all four corners of the fiber forming a nap. The less pile there is opens up the potential damage for gritty soil to 'cut' the fibers at the base of the pile where the primary backing is. This cutting effect comes with every step, pivot and turn on the carpet nap's surface. This also causes thinning, pitting and marring of fibers making carpets dull in appearance even after restorative cleaning.
It is also worth mentioning that 60 percent of the soil that falls into the carpet can be removed safely and effectively with routine dry vacuuming of high traffic areas such as halls, stairs, entry ways and traffic paths in front of furniture. This single process alone can greatly extend the performance and life use of the carpet. Remember the hospitality industry housekeepers?
The second most fatal mistake a carpet purchaser can make is ignoring the quality of the carpet pad. Padding for the subfloor is like the spine of the carpet. It provides support to aid in preventing indentations left by heavy furniture legs after re-arranging a room.
It also has the job of holding water like a sponge whenever a copious amount water floods the room such as a broken water pipe. It provides the comfort under our footing so our feet and backs don't ache. This is the one place you don't have to worry about the color matching as the carpet will cover all the pad.
Pad is also measured in ounces and pounds. Once again, the higher the number, the more dense the pad. The density can range in feeling. By using a pinch test between the top and bottom of the pad you can compare densities. There is foam all the way up to feeling like a large pencil eraser. The higher the better.
Try to stay away from rubber based products like a waffle print as they have been known to dry rot where hot water pipes run through the concrete subflooring. They also don't provide any absorption for collecting water spills. In fact in a typical flood scenario, the water just continues to migrate further by saturating a greater area of carpet space.
It would also be wise to choose the right carpet for the right application. If you were born during Baby Boomer era, you would have ran into carpets that were made from polyester. Those fibers were dyed first before they were extruded as fiber. They never faded from the sun or bleach spills and lasted forever but were harder to clean.
Nylon came around and was softer to the hand and cleaned up better but spills could permanently stain the fibers and due to costs, generally come in lighter colors. Almost all darker colors will be more expensive to produce due to more dye in the process. More dyes prevented stains due to the lack of dye sites available.
Fourth Generation carpets removed the nuisance of static electricity when walking across a room and touching anything conductive to release a jolting shock.
Fifth Generation carpets involved the incorporation of stain resist carpets. The key to this technology was to create a transparent dye. Normally after dyeing half of the carpet's dye sites in a light color the remaining dye sites would be open for stains once installed. The solution was solved by re-dyeing the remaining dye sites with a transparent dye. Dye sites are like skin pores on your arm.
Benefit:
If all dye sites on a fiber are filled, then no stains could penetrate immediately. This would give the end user time to remove the stain later even if it dried on in many cases.
The last point to consider is the primary backing of carpets. For a number of years, India exported to the United States jute which is what ropes are made of. An unfortunate deadly industrial accident involving chemicals at Union Carbide's battery plant, cause strained relations between both countries and jute stopped being exported.
Jute backed carpets also occurred when they became wet from flooding. The natural fiber made of plant (organically)based material released a tannin dye similar to coffee and bled into the carpet's surface; thereby causing it to permanently discolor the carpet and ruin it.
It was also a food source for mold and mildew and if not treated quickly, it would dry rot causing the primary and secondary backing to delaminate and destroy the carpet.
Since the mid 1980's polypropylene backing has become the norm. It's a tough as fishing line and can hold up to most abuse end users give it. It's also cheaper to produce. In fact, 70 percent of all carpets involved in a clear water food damage loss can be dried, cleaned and re-engaged with no evidence of a pre-loss condition.
Good luck on your next carpet purchase as you now possess more knowledge than most of the carpet cleaners and retailers in the industry. And don't forget to vacuum!
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Новости
Весна патриарха
На сцене Музыкального театра имени Станиславского и Немировича-Данченко (МАМТ) состоялся трехчастный гала-концерт в честь 50-летия первого танцовщика, народного артиста России Георги Смилевски, в котором вместе с героем вечера танцевали его дети и все ведущие артисты театра. "Третьей молодости" премьера-юбиляра не перестает удивляться Татьяна Кузнецова.
С 20 по 26 июня 2025 года на площадке курорта Красная Поляна, Сочи 960 состоится грандиозный Международный танцевальный форум "ПолянаАртФест", который проводится при поддержке Президентского фонда культурных инициатив, Министерства культуры Российской Федерации и Министерства культуры Краснодарского края.
В театре "Урал Опера Балет" завершилась открытая для зрителей репетиция новой версии "Каменного цветка" Сергея Прокофьева по мотивам сказок Бажова в интерпретации хореографа Антона Пимонова. Премьера - уже завтра, 4 апреля.
Международный танцевальный форум "ПолянаАртФест" - это уникальный проект, главной идеей которого является массовое вовлечение детей и молодежи в творческий процесс, создание пространства для коммуникации представителей танцевальной культуры. Форум пройдет с 20 по 26 июня в Сочи, Красная Поляна.
Балетмейстер и художественный руководитель известного парижского кабаре "Мулен Руж" Джанет Фараон скончалась в возрасте 65 лет. По данным французских СМИ, Фараон в последнее время серьезно болела.
Ансамбль "Донбасс" прибыл из ДНР в Ставрополь, чтобы поздравить местных коллег-музыкантов с 20-летием. С казачьим ансамблем песни и пляски "Вольная степь" дончан связывают давняя дружба и многократные совместные выступления.
В Северной столице состоялась - необычная балетная премьера. Во-первых, она была представлена на сцене Большого драматического театра (БДТ). Во-вторых, готовитовила ее для Петербурга московская команда, в составе которой сплошь звездные имена.
Балет Берлинской государственной оперы возобновил хит своего репертуара — "Лебединое озеро" в постановке Патриса Барта, творчески переосмысляющей классический балетный сюжет. По мнению Татьяны Кузнецовой, с новым составом исполнителей знаменитый спектакль-долгожитель выглядит на удивление свежим.
IX-й Международный фестиваль искусств "TURAN-IAF" предоставляет уникальную возможность погрузиться в многогранный мир культурного обмена. Мероприятие, проводимое с 02 по 07 мая 2025 года в живописной Анталии, Турция, обещает стать незабываемым событием для всех, кто интересуется искусством.
Через месяц площадка курорта Красная поляна, Сочи 960 превратится в город танца, станет местом коммуникации танцующих детей, их родителей, звезд танцевальной индустрии. С 20 по 26 июня 2025 года при поддержке Президентского фонда культурных инициатив, при информационной поддержке Министерства культуры Российской Федерации, Министерства культуры Краснодарского края, пройдет Международный танцевальный форум "ПолянаАртФест".
"Танцы, конечно, танцы!" — такой ответ услышит каждый второй родитель на свой вопрос: "В какой кружок отдать дочку?" Хотя… почему дочку? Танцы — это один из самых любимых видов физической активности как детей, так и взрослых — независимо от пола, возраста и темперамента. Занятия танцами помогают не только приятно провести досуг, но и способствуют физическому и эмоциональному развитию.
Инклюзивный бал как явление зародился в Самаре в 2014 году, в Москве же, такие праздники проводятся раз в году, начиная с 2022 года. Это возможность сделать людей с инвалидностью чуточку счастливее и здоровее — общение и взаимодействие дарит счастье и уверенность.
Легендарный танцовщик Владимир Васильев встретил свое 85-летие новым "Лебединым озером". Про его танец писали: живописует телом, когда летит - это поэзия, порыв духа. В его живописи присутствуют те же движение, динамика - которые видны сегодня в любых позе и жесте мастера, когда он что-то показывает танцовщикам...
Ведущая балерина Мариинского театра, звезда "Русских сезонов" Сергея Дягилева, первая исполнительница постановок Михаила Фокина, эмигрировавшая после революции в Великобританию, вице-президент Британской Королевской академии танца.
Шоу-программа – это уникальная танцевальная дисциплина, которая позволяет танцорам примерять на себя разные роли и демонстрировать сразу несколько стилей в одном танце. Сейчас танцевальные шоу популярны в медиапространстве в формате видеоклипов, набирают обороты соревнования среди профессиональных пар.
- Господи, как я волновалась! Меня так трясло, что боялась, как бы дрожь не заметили в зале. Но потом взяла себя в руки. Подумала: я же ради этого все затевала. Полгода тренировок и репетиций. Ну а раз назвалась балериной, то вперед на сцену.
Сегодня посмотреть классический балет на сцене невозможно. Это будет не он, а позднейшие советские редакции редакций, с обломками подлинника. Чтобы разглядеть в этих редакциях настоящий классический балет, нужно хорошо знать матчасть
При словах Африканский танец, наверное, у многих появляется ассоциация с человеком, танцующим под звук барабанов и абсолютно владеющим всеми частями тела, которые умело подчеркивают ритм. Африканские танцы всегда имели сильную связь с землей. Как говорят сами африканские танцоры, они чувствуют пульс земли, и выражают его своими позами, жестами и шагами.
На сцене Музыкального театра имени Станиславского и Немировича-Данченко (МАМТ) состоялся трехчастный гала-концерт в честь 50-летия первого танцовщика, народного артиста России Георги Смилевски, в котором вместе с героем вечера танцевали его дети и все ведущие артисты театра. "Третьей молодости" премьера-юбиляра не перестает удивляться Татьяна Кузнецова..jpg)
С 20 по 26 июня 2025 года на площадке курорта Красная Поляна, Сочи 960 состоится грандиозный Международный танцевальный форум "ПолянаАртФест", который проводится при поддержке Президентского фонда культурных инициатив, Министерства культуры Российской Федерации и Министерства культуры Краснодарского края.
В театре "Урал Опера Балет" завершилась открытая для зрителей репетиция новой версии "Каменного цветка" Сергея Прокофьева по мотивам сказок Бажова в интерпретации хореографа Антона Пимонова. Премьера - уже завтра, 4 апреля.
Международный танцевальный форум "ПолянаАртФест
Балетмейстер и художественный руководитель известного парижского кабаре "Мулен Руж" Джанет Фараон скончалась в возрасте 65 лет. По данным французских СМИ, Фараон в последнее время серьезно болела. 
Ансамбль "Донбасс" прибыл из ДНР в Ставрополь, чтобы поздравить местных коллег-музыкантов с 20-летием. С казачьим ансамблем песни и пляски "Вольная степь" дончан связывают давняя дружба и многократные совместные выступления.
В Северной столице состоялась - необычная балетная премьера. Во-первых, она была представлена на сцене Большого драматического театра (БДТ). Во-вторых, готовитовила ее для Петербурга московская команда, в составе которой сплошь звездные имена.
Балет Берлинской государственной оперы возобновил хит своего репертуара — "Лебединое озеро
IX-й
92.jpg)
Через месяц площадка курорта Красная поляна, Сочи 960 превратится в город танца, станет местом коммуникации танцующих детей, их родителей, звезд танцевальной индустрии. С 20 по 26 июня 2025 года при поддержке Президентского фонда культурных инициатив, при информационной поддержке Министерства культуры Российской Федерации, Министерства культуры Краснодарского края, пройдет Международный танцевальный форум "ПолянаАртФест".
"Танцы, конечно, танцы!" — такой ответ услышит каждый второй родитель на свой вопрос: "В какой кружок отдать дочку?" Хотя… почему дочку? Танцы — это один из самых любимых видов физической активности как детей, так и взрослых — независимо от пола, возраста и темперамента. Занятия танцами помогают не только приятно провести досуг, но и способствуют физическому и эмоциональному развитию.
Инклюзивный бал как явление зародился в Самаре в 2014 году, в Москве же, такие праздники проводятся раз в году, начиная с 2022 года. Это возможность сделать людей с инвалидностью чуточку счастливее и здоровее — общение и взаимодействие дарит счастье и уверенность.
Легендарный танцовщик Владимир Васильев встретил свое 85-летие новым "Лебединым озером". Про его танец писали: живописует телом, когда летит - это поэзия, порыв духа. В его живописи присутствуют те же движение, динамика - которые видны сегодня в любых позе и жесте мастера, когда он что-то показывает танцовщикам...
Ведущая балерина Мариинского театра, звезда "Русских сезонов
Шоу-программа – это уникальная танцевальная дисциплина, которая позволяет танцорам примерять на себя разные роли и демонстрировать сразу несколько стилей в одном танце. Сейчас танцевальные шоу популярны в медиапространстве в формате видеоклипов, набирают обороты соревнования среди профессиональных пар.
- Господи, как я волновалась! Меня так трясло, что боялась, как бы дрожь не заметили в зале. Но потом взяла себя в руки. Подумала: я же ради этого все затевала. Полгода тренировок и репетиций. Ну а раз назвалась балериной, то вперед на сцену.
Сегодня посмотреть классический балет на сцене невозможно. Это будет не он, а позднейшие советские редакции редакций, с обломками подлинника. Чтобы разглядеть в этих редакциях настоящий классический балет, нужно хорошо знать матчасть
При словах Африканский танец, наверное, у многих появляется ассоциация с человеком, танцующим под звук барабанов и абсолютно владеющим всеми частями тела, которые умело подчеркивают ритм. 
