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Obama Gets the Nerd Vote

Many of us at HostGator were curious what the ‘nerd vote’ looked like so we went ahead and ran our own poll amongst employees. We limited the choices to either Mccain or Obama in order to keep the results realistic.

Here’s a breakdown of the results:

98 Texas employees participated
55 nerds voted for Barack Hussein Obama II
34 nerds voted for John Sidney McCain

The remaining 9 votes were disqualified for failing to follow the strict directions of selecting one candidate or the other. For the sake of being democratic, here are the results of the 9 votes that were neither McCain nor Obama:

1 vote for “in your moms box” – Whatever this means….
3 votes for “neither”
1 vote for “ray” – Ray, you’re a loser if you voted for yourself.
1 vote for “Ron Paul”
1 vote for “cocktail party” – If you voted this, please come see me for psychiatric help.
1 vote for “Brent Oxley” – Your vote may have been disqualified, but you will still be getting a raise for having such wisdom.
1 vote for “Cbar” – I think this vote was an attempt to spell “brent”, but got mixed up on the spelling.

Obama dominated with 62% of the votes versus McCain’s 38%. This nerd vote took place at the HostGator office in Houston, Texas which is one of McCain’s strongest states! I can only imagine what these results would have looked like had HostGator employees been from somewhere more liberal, like San Francicso.

I personally voted for McCain with the belief that he is the lesser of two evils. I disagree with McCain on a few key issues such as withdrawing from Iraq, and having preconditions before meeting with foreign leaders. This, of course, seems much better to me than Obama’s relying on the United Nations and resolving issues in a “diplomatic” way. The U.N. is a joke, which is why major atrocities and genocide are happening in places like Darfur and Burma. The diplomatic route is the best way to go, but you can only talk so long until action is necessary if the talks are fruitless.

The Iraq war is costing Americans roughly 147 billion a year. This is a ton of money, but when you consider our current deficit is at $438 billion, you can quickly understand the war isn’t the main or only problem in America.

We have a few major problems in America right now. The consensus majority would have you believe that it’s the economy. I believe the biggest problem we have is our nation’s debt, which is about ten and half trillion dollars! To pay this off: every man, woman, child, and baby would need to pay about $35,000 in cash today. Even if our economy was going strong and we withdrew from Iraq our debt would still be increasing!

Both Mccain and Obama have the same plan to fix the economy by adding another trillion dollars if not trillions in further debt to America. To summarize the politics:

Mccains plan is to keep taxes the same
Obamas plan is to tax the rich further.

And here’s the problem…

In 2007, Forbes Magazine reported 946 billionaires in the entire world, with total accumulated wealth of $3.5 trillion. So even if somehow we said screw all you billionaires of the entire world we are now taking 100% of your money to help pay America’s debt it would still only put a small dent in the total $10.5 trillion America owes. This isn’t even taking into consideration that most of their wealth is in assets which means if everything was liquidated the market would be so flooded that the $3.5 trillion would probably be worth much less than half.

If you took 100% of the money and assets excluding real estate of every single person with one million dollars or more in both America and Canada this would still only be somewhere around 7 trillion dollars.

America needs to start being run like a business and Obama’s socialism is not the answer.

If a business is struggling would it be wise for them to raise the prices on its best customers?

No!

Your best customers would be the last ones to receive the price increase. You can’t penalize a customer for doing an increased volume of business with your company. If you do they’ll do less business or find someone else to do business with altogether.

If you raise the taxes of United States businesses they will become less competitive and the world is going to find someone else to do business. This will result in both fewer jobs and less government income. The middle class and the poor will suffer the most.

It’s a fact that the last time the capital gains tax was increased the government brought in less revenue. It’s a fact that the last time the capital gains tax was decreased by Bush the government’s revenue increased!

When Obama was asked about this he said: “I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness“. Instead of looking at the capitals gains tax for what’s going to make America the most revenue, Obama is going to raise it due to what he calls “fairness”. That doesn’t make any sense to me.

The truth is that the rich and small businesses are America’s best customers who are already paying the highest percent in taxes.

The rich fall into the 35% tax bracket.
The average household falls into the 25% tax bracket.
And the poorest fall into the 10% tax bracket.

So, basically as a business owner that’s increasing wages and adding jobs to America I’m already paying about 50% more in taxes than the average citizen.

I honestly wouldn’t mind my taxes being increased if it meant decreasing our nation’s debt. However it’s upsetting that Obama wants to raise my taxes to add further debt to America. You can only tax the rich so much, or heck you can take 100% of their money, and it’s still not going to be enough to pay off the debt. It doesn’t take a genius to see that on our current course America is going to have no choice but to bankrupt itself if something doesn’t change and neither candidate seems up to taking on this challenge.

A democracy fails when everyone votes to give themselves money, and that’s what this election is about. The middle class and the poor far outnumber the rich and Obama is winning votes by promising more money at the expense of the horrible small businesses such as HostGator. It may not be what’s best for the country but it is a great way to win votes! I mean after all who cares if the tax revenue decreases when you raise the capital gains tax since it’s a matter of “fairness”.

According to the Wall Street Journal — 40% of income earners pay zero, zip, nada, in income taxes. Obama’s plan is to give people paying zero in income taxes $1,000 a year for nothing. I can’t seem to comprehend why Obama is going to use hard working American’s money to pay someone who isn’t working hard and not even paying a dime in income taxes. This money is coming from all three classes the poor, the middle and the rich. Is that what he calls “fairness”? Sounds more like welfare to me.

What we need right now is a president that says we have harsh times ahead, but shows that we’re going to make cuts and get through this together. If you have thousands in credit card debt you can either squeeze a few more lobster dinners out of it or you can suffer and start eating Ramen Noodles. America needs to start suffering and start eating Ramen. This isn’t the time we should be voting for our last lobster dinner.

Sources:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/06/comparison-of-t.html
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
http://money.cnn.com/2003/06/11/pf/millionaire/millionaires/index.htm
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121910303529751345.html?mod=most_emailed_day

photo credit: the_real_cjs

Giving back with completely free web hosting.

HostGator has a history and tradition of giving back. In the last year, we’ve donated over $125,000 to charity, actively worked towards offsetting and reversing our environmental impact, and given free or
discounted web hosting to a countless number of web sites.

Today, we’re moving forward with our commitment to the communities and the people we serve with the launch of the HostGator Technology Grant.

Recipients of the HostGator Technology Grant will receive one year of completely free web hosting with our Swamp Plan, which offers 1,000 GB of space and unlimited bandwidth. If the Swamp plan does not fit the needs of the particular recipient, they can opt to take the grant as a $180 service credit to any other HostGator product or service. After the one year of free service, grant recipients can re-apply and if accepted again, continue to use HostGator web hosting completely free.

The HostGator Technology Grant’s goal is simple and straightforward: provide free web hosting to organizations and projects that serve the greater good.

Obtaining legitimately free web hosting for nonprofits can be an arduous process. Organizations should be spending their time doing what they believe in and what they set out to do, not hunting for
affordable and quality web hosting.

The wide scope of the grant is intentional – we wanted it so all types of organizations that serve the greater good could take advantage of free HostGator web hosting. Whether your organization is nonprofit community center or a cutting edge open source project, we want to hear from you.

The application process for the HostGator Technology Grant is simple. There are just a few questions and it shouldn’t take an organization longer than 15 or 20 minutes to complete the short application. Click Here to APPLY

Once you’re all setup, then you can do your actual job and get back to doing what you love. We want to make the web hosting experience less troublesome and more convenient for everyone, including those who are seeking to better society through their organizations and projects.

If you have any questions about HostGator’s Technology Grant program, please go to http://www.hostgator.com/nonprofit-web-hosting.shtml or email techgrant@hostgator.com. We’re more than happy to help.

What’s Lean, Mean and (now) Green?

Here’s something you may not know: the IT sector has a huge climate impact. At present, between 3 and 4 percent of all electricity (and the associated carbon emissions) used in the world goes to running data centers. If you’re one of the four and a half million registered users of Second Life, consider this: the average Second Life avatar consumes 1,752 kWh of electricity per year, or about two thirds that of an actual person (globally averaged). One server alone has roughly the same climate impact as a 15mpg SUV!

Climate change is real, it’s happening now, and we as a planet desperately need to reduce our IT emissions. And if we wait for the government to solve the problem, we’ll be waiting for a long, long, LONG time.

We’re thrilled to announce that HostGator has joined the ranks of many progressive companies including: Starbucks, IBM, and UPS to take action on addressing climate change right now.

HostGator has gone green, and it’s gone green in a BIG way.
We at Integrated Ecosystem Market Services are very proud to have worked with HostGator to develop a sector-leading program.

What makes HostGator’s program so special?
If you’re thinking about switching to green hosting, good for you! Green hosting is an important step in dealing with climate change. But be aware- once you start asking some questions you’ll find that not all of the .green. hosting options out there are nearly as green as they claim to be. HostGator’s program stands out from the pack for a number of reasons . . .

One, HostGator is using renewable energy to both power and cool their servers, whereas a number of green hosts only offset the electricity used to power their servers. That represents a big difference, because servers generate a lot of heat. For every watt of electricity that a server uses, 1-2 watts of electricity are typically required to cool it. What that means is that HostGator is investing in about twice as much renewable energy, on a per server basis, as those green hosts only using renewable energy to power their servers.

Two, HostGator has invested in Green -e certified Renewable Energy Credits (RECs). That means that all of HostGator’s RECs are verified, tracked and monitored. Sure, there are cheaper carbon credits out there, but HostGator wanted to go green the right way. HostGator can’t very well build a windfarm in downtown Houston, so it’s doing the next best thing and greening its energy at the source with rock solid RECs.

What the heck’s a REC?
Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) are tradeable credits representing all the environmental benefits of 1 megawatt hour of renewable energy. So when HostGator purchases 4,009 Texas wind RECs, it’s basically paying a Texas windfarm to generate renewable energy on HostGator’s behalf. HostGator doesn’t own the windfarm, but for every REC purchased by HostGator, that windfarm generates 1 megawatt of Texas wind power and puts it into the grid. When HostGator draws power from the grid, it can then claim credit for that wind power generated on its behalf.

Three, HostGator has purchased RECs for 130% of the electricity used to power and cool its shared and reseller servers. Good luck finding another green host that has gone this far. Believe me- if they had, they’d let you know it.

Four, HostGator has invested entirely in wind RECs generated in their home state of Texas. Even those green hosts that have opted for certified RECs are generally sourcing them from wherever is cheapest.

HostGator, on the other hand, is thinking globally and acting locally. By insisting on 100% Texas wind RECs HostGator had to pay more for their credits, but they (and you) can rest easy knowing that they’re doing their part for the environment and the local green economy.

So how did we develop and implement the greening program?
First, we calculated the total amount of electricity used by HostGator’s shared and reseller servers. Based on the total number of servers and the average amount of electricity used in a year to power and cool them, we estimated that HostGator would need 4,009 MWh of electricity to offset 130% of the electricity used to power and cool all of HostGator’s shared and reseller servers

Second, we looked at HostGator’s carbon offsetting options. We considered RECs, Certified Emission Reductions and Verified Emission reductions, as well as a number of offset providers. Ultimately, HostGator chose to go with RECs, and to purchase them from one of the best REC providers around: 3Degrees.

Finally, I should emphasize that the purchase of Renewable Energy Credits only represents HostGator’s most recent step toward sustainability. Prior to the REC purchase, HostGator had already begun the process of reducing their environmental impact at the office (recycling, minimizing paper use, etc.), and recently switched to higher efficiency servers.

What can you do to minimize your impact on the climate?
Well, for one thing you can switch your hosting company to HostGator, if you’re not already a customer of theirs! You can choose from one of their great shared or reseller plans.

Beyond that, there are myriad ways to go green in your personal life. Most of them are totally painless, for example turning off your computer at night, rather than leaving it in sleep mode. Many of them will save you money in the long run, for example using compact fluorescent bulbs instead of incandescents.

For a quick start, check out CarbonTracker.com’s list of 11 simple steps you can take to minimize your impact on the climate. For even more information, the Environmental Protection Agency has a ton of info on the subject:
(http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/index.html)

Help us spread the word!
Show the world you are GREEN too! You can place any of the images on any of the sites hosted with HostGator.

Shared Customers

1.	2.	3.

Codes:

1.
<a href="http://www.hostgator.com/green-web-hosting.shtml"> <img src="http://blog.hostgator.com/images/hostgator_green80_15.gif"></a>

2.
<a href="http://www.hostgator.com/green-web-hosting.shtml"><img src="http://blog.hostgator.com/images/hostgator_green83_72b.gif"></a>

3.
<a href="http://www.hostgator.com/green-web-hosting.shtml"> <img src="http://blog.hostgator.com/images/hostgator_green83_72.gif"></a>

Reseller Customers

1.	2.

Codes:

1.
<a href="http://www.hostgator.com/green-web-hosting.shtml"> <img src="http://blog.hostgator.com/images/250×90reseller.gif"></a>

2.
<a href="http://www.hostgator.com/green-web-hosting.shtml"><img src="http://blog.hostgator.com/images/83×72reseller.gif"></a>

Directions:
1. Choose from one of the images above.
2. Highlight the code under the under number of the image you would like to use.
3. Right click the highlighted text.
4. Left click copy.
5. Paste the code inside of the html of your site.

Note about the author:

Matthew Collins is president and CEO of Integrated Ecosystem Market Services (http://www.iemarketservices.com), a carbon consulting firm based in Chicago, IL.

Hostgator for Humanity

That’s right, the folding@home hostgator.com team is a reality and we’ve broken into the top 1,000 ranked teams!

Although we’ve kept this fairly low profile on our forum post here , we do have a large amount of users starting to come on board, so I’d like to present something a hosting company is doing to better the world.

The Folding@Home project by Stanford University is a distributed computing project used to create one of the largest supercomputers in the world. The client has long been used used as both a metric to measure processors and machines efficiency and also to help the cause. The project is distributed much in the way Seti@Home was, however, with a more direct human goal.

Just in case you’re wondering, “what is protein folding and why does this matter to me?”; the Folding@Home project simulates complex mathematical formulas about how these proteins fold, unfold, and misfold with the goal to hopefully one day learn better how many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes actually work and occur. Results? Darn right! The project has already come up with a number of notable scientific results, and is with our help and yours, continues to go somewhere tangible as you can see at Stanford’s whitepage papers

As for how this all came about; I was first introduced to the project when I was looking for something better to do with my Spare CPU cycles than let them idle. A lot of people are worried that clients like this will hog CPU, but the beauty of this software is it scales and re-nices it self so well, so you can be running it and it will use a defined amount of CPU at all times, but when any other process needs the CPU it will throttle itself. You can literally play high end games with the client running, as it will just scale back.

I really began to get involved in the project when I picked up a PS3. I wanted to put the powerful Cell processor through it’s paces so I immediately downloaded the client and started running work units. Now, as an administrator here I began thinking how helpful it could be if some of the machines we have that idle certain days of the week at HostGator were to fold in the background while the machine was not in use. NAS boxes were the perfect solution, and now we’re about to break the 1,000,000 point milestone.

So, do you want to help humanity and have a chance at free hosting? Well help us out and we’ll help you! Here’s what to do :

1. Go to http://folding.stanford.edu/ and download the appropriate client for your operating system, and if you have a dual or quad core make sure you get the High Performance SMP client. (If you have a PS3 you can install it directly from the PS3 crossbar interface)
2. Install folding@home and use team number 122600 , you can enter anything for your Donor name but we would prefer you use either your forum name so we can better contact you for your prize(or your wordpress login name)
3. Start folding and leave it running. Don’t be surprised if it takes a while for you to start getting work units (these things are huge), the more machines you have it running on and the faster the machines, the quicker you will break milestones.

Prize Details
Prizes will be calculated by contributions to the team based on performance. Dead line to see who can get the most milestones will be on 07/01/2008. At that time winner will need to claim prize by emailing sales@hostgator.com with their donor name.

1. GRAND PRIZE (1 winner)
The top contributor who contributes the most points to the team will get a free year of hosting on our Aluminum reseller plan or equivalent in credit to existing HostGator plan if already a customer.

2. FIRST PRIZE (1 winner)
Runner up will receive a free year of hosting on our Swamp hosting plan (or equivalent).

3. SECOND PRIZES (8 winners)
Following 8 runners up will receive 6 months of free hosting on the Baby hosting plan (or equivalent)

I’d like to extend a special thanks to every team member both from our employee pool and some of our very active forum members and customers currently active (over 345 active CPU’s) and especially to both our owner Brent Oxley and our CTO David Collins for allowing me to run this on each and every one of our network backup servers to create a huge grid.

Statistics links :

Python Driven Stats

Quick stats

Kakao Stats

Pearl Harbor Day Remembered

Whether your 16 or 86 years old, most remember the Attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii back on December 7th 1941. Today commemorates that fateful day 66 years later. There is something a bit different about today though. The Oklahoma, a ship that many men lost their lives aboard, was the second largest for the most amount of casualties than any other ship at Pearl Harbor except the Arizona. It is also the only battleship which has never been officially memorialized in Hawaii up until today. Below are some of the pictures of the original Pearl Harbor attack, in comparison to those of today. The last image is a topical from Google Earth.