http://www.searchrascal.com/report?q=searchrascal

Thanks also for your comments on our blog.

To address your points:

If the site gets popular, it IS going to be hard keeping up with the number of keywords people are tracking. It takes about 30s each day to gather the data for each keyword. There are about 1440 seconds in a day, which means we can track about 3000 queries with one server. That’s not too much. Not to mention that we need to host the website front end, etc, on a server too.

We have some ideas to handle this… in no particular order:
(1) Get a paid members server launched ASAP. At something like $10 per member, it would take about 10 members to support 1 server or 3000 queries.

(2) Maybe we won’t update every keyword/query every day. Especially if a query already has a week or so of data, we might be able to get by just updating every week instead of every day. That’s 7x more queries.

(3) Of course, we will make sure to update daily any keyword in a member’s list. However, we’ll probably limit a member’s list of queries to 100 or so and charge more for more queries.

Also, your chart idea is great. We’d like to offer members more reports based on the data we’re gathering, including something like you are envisioning. I see someone entering a QUERY and a URL and then seeing a line chart of how the ranking changes over time. That would be very useful.

We’re waiting to get more approval and feedback from the community before building out the site, but we will be able to push it out quickly once we’re ready.

Keep your fingers crossed. Thanks again!

Jason Coleman
Stranger Studios, SearchRascal.com

Real decent video cards are more affordable than they’ve ever been, and the selection of games to choose from is large, but unfortunately not that diverse.

In my opinion the reason PC gaming is such a niche market is because so many people are buying up the $400 Dell budget PCs. They think to themselves “Alright, I have a brand new computer lets go get some games!” Then all of a sudden they realize they’re system isn’t equipped for today’s detail rich games, and write of PC gaming as a bust. That’s the majority of people.

But there’s still a good amount of us that know you can put together a respectable PC for $600-$1,000 that will keep pace with any of the consoles. What PC gaming needs is better marketing. And not these crappy $6,000 gaming PCs, those aren’t mainstream. Those hurt PC gaming more than help it, just because the price tag shocks so many people.

So sit tight for the time being. You might have to go elsewhere for your Madden fix for now, but if the industry can try to expand from FPS games and MMORPGs to attract a wider variety of gamers, I think it’ll be back in a few years.

Businesses do NOT save 22% on this nonsense, they can NOT lower their prices 22% because of this farce.

Look at Ford and GM for example. IF you think they can lower their prices 22 percent, because they wouldnt pay corporate income taxes — you are insane. They don’t pay corporate income taxes NOW. They haven’t for years — cause they are losing money.

Almost no airline has paid corporate taxes for years either.

Yet Fairtax would RAISE the prices of their products to absurd levels.

How will taxing renters 30% on their rent help our economy?

How will taxing cancer victims 30% on their surgery and chemo help our economy?

How will taxing nursing home patients 20-30,000 a year help our economy?

How will taxing people who buy new homes 50-200,000 help the sale of new houses?

Fairtax is actually absurd nonsense. Not only would it be the worlds HIGHEST sales tax — it would be a tax on things no other country even taxes — medical costs for example.

But the biggest absurdity of this farce – and fairtax is literally a farce — is that Fairtax would make the FEDERAL government pay 800 billion a year — TO ITSELF. Which is about as dumb as you can get, and still be able to exhale. The federal government CAN NOT POSSIBLY pay itself 800 billion or more a year. Or even 8 dollars a year.

Neal Boortz writes in his Fairtax (Farcetax) book, page 148 “The federal government ITSELF would become a MAJOR taxpayer.”

Nonsense — utter nonsense. When the federal government “pays” itself, it has to WRITE the check that it CASHES. Where on earth do you think the money will COME from, when it PAYS those checks?

This absurdity is how Fairtax can make fools believe the tax would “only” be 23%. Take away this absurdity, and the REAL rate would be over 50%.

SO Fairtax can’t possibly BE 23-30 percent, which would be a disaster anyway. It would be much higher.

Imagine a 50% sales tax on a new house. Imagine what THAT would do to new home sales. Imagine what a 50% sales tax would do to new car sales, to nursing home patients.

This lunatic fairtax is on car insurance too — health insurance, utility bills, gasoline, phone bills, cable bills, food, everything you buy.

What do fairtax groupies think will happen to new home sales, when they tax it 30-50%? Here is a clue — new home sales would plummet. Who in their right mind would pay 500,000 for a house that would otherwise sell for 300,000? Not many. New home sales would go into the toilet.

And BECAUSE they would go into the toilet, fairtax would have to rise even MORE, to make up for that lost income.

And other parts of the economy would ALSO go into the toilet,like auto sales, so Fairtax would have to rise even more.

I actually hope it passes. Its so stupid, so insane, so absurd, that maybe if we pass it, we can learn something about economics in this country.

But the real funny thing about this Farce tax, is that its leaders know its bullship. They know you can’t really make the federal goverment pay itself 800 billion a year, they know that new home sales and car sales would go into toilet, they know that nursing home paitents and cancer victims aren’t going to pay this huges sale tax.

They know Fairtax can’t possibly collect half as much money as it needs. They don’t care. They aren’t really trying to pass it. THey are trying to fool gullible people — to get elected, to sell books, to get attention. And that part is working.

IF Fairtax leaders really believed this nonsense, why havent they done more to actually pass it? It has over 50 sponsors in Congress. It supposedly will be the biggest economic wonder in the history of mankind. It supposedly will save American companies five hundred gazillion dollars — why hasn’t it passed?

Cause its NONSENSE, and its own “leaders” know it.

It shows Creative just had a scheme to make people buy new hardware when their old soundcards (but still current ones) wouldn’t work on Vista – even when they should.