I lost interest in project hCCh about 12 hours after I posted the blog message. The idea was to submit hocus articles to sites like digg to drive people to read—without prejudice—hocus' site and see what the response is. However I found his articles quite difficult to categorize since they're often about forum behavior and seldom about finance, or at least so vaguely about finance as to be impossible to summarize. Plus it seemed like if I were going to spend effort to drive traffic to a site then I might as well put the effort in for a more direct benefit to me besides hocomanic entertainment.

And then, as sometimes happens, I simply lost interest in hocus. I've only clicked back a few times to see if anything noteworthy seems to be going on. I'm not saying I'm through with hocomania; I just have just almost completely lost interest for the time being.

When I created this site there was so much traffic on the then-REHP-now-BoH forums that the more interesting events got lost in the mix of threads, but that is not the case now. Then this site was useful to post significant developments and hocomania summaries. Now I think the main appeal of this site is the hocoblog feeds.

So I am thinking of putting the hocoblog feeds in the big center column instead of the blogs. Any thoughts? I won't get rid of anything, just put the hocoblog feeds—possibly with summaries—in the center.

As a side note, I know all the "—"es and "’"s are annoying. If I get some time I'll see if I can fix that. The safety features of the feed software prevent those from getting coded into their proper characters.

I'm just starting project hCCh: "hocus Community Come home". hocus hasn't been able to reach the community, so I'm trying to bring the community to him. Basically I'm going to try to increase traffic to his blog and/or site without offering the readers my prejudice. The thinking is that fresh readers will bring fresh comments and new interactions with hocus (which have been quite entertaining in the past). And the most fun part is that it is what hocus thinks he wants, and at least the readers will be voluntarily--if unknowingly--entering the fray. I'm not sure how easy or hard this will be, and it will give me some practical experience in bringing traffic to web sites which may help me in a more practical way in the future.

I'm also noticing that the old REHP forums--now rebranded Rob Bennett's Best of Hocomania Discussion Forum--is continuing to drop posts. I have made efforts to link to original material whenever I refer to hocus' writings here or elsewhere so readers can verify the original and judge it in context, but in my occasional checks of material I am finding that posts linked from here are steadily disappearing from the forum. The instance I just stumbled upon is the stealing of the term "bloviating" from M*; that thread has lost the early posts to it. In the recent pasts I have browsed my quotes section so I could link the original quote but found it missing.

I am reading The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, which by the way is a wonderful book so far.

I am a practical, results-oriented person who doesn't fully trust my own immediate perceptions, so I tend to assume others do the same. I have noticed in the past that my own memories can change, and sometimes I am not sure if a memory was a dream or if it really happened, so I am skeptical--at times even of my own thoughts. But at times I realize many others are simply not the same, and this book refines that thought for me.

Many people define Truth by how it feels to them, and once they have felt "Truth" (or a "truth") it is nearly impossible to convince them otherwise with evidence and facts, for they Know what the Truth is. (Note capitals.) Several chapters of the book summarize similarities between unscientific and pseudoscientific beliefs and scams (faith healing, charms/talismans, transcendental meditation, visions of Mary/saints/aliens, ghosts, speaking with the dead, etc.). One common thread among those who experience and spread these things is their unwavering faith in their belief and that they serve as a channel between our reality and their belief. (Note that the common theme is that they are privy to a special truth and are specially chosen to deliver it; furthermore you need to interact with them--uncritically--to learn the truth for yourself.)

So naturally I thought of hocus. Here is an avatar or man that intuitively felt something amiss with discussions of SWR and returns even though he fully admits a lot of the math is beyond him. Over time he refines his feeling and at some point feels Truth. Now He is here to help us understand this Truth and is invulnerable to evidence challenging the Truth. How are we to learn the Truth? By joining his Community and conversing with Him, He who discovered and channels this Truth.

I found and added the feeds for "A Rich Life"s blogs and comments, so we're ready for his new blog software. Over the next couple of days I'll figure out if I want to mingle them with the Financial Freedom Blog and comments or if I want a separate category for them. I'll probably mingle them.

Unless hocus removes his old blog--which, knowing him, is possible--he may still get new comments occasionally, and it would be nice to see them in chronological order here.

UPDATE: The old and new blogs and comments are all mingled together in the left sidebar under the renamed heading "hocus Blogs and Comments". In that list everything should appear roughly in the order they are posted. If you click around on the tags/categories you'll find that both blogs are under the same category and both comment systems are under the same category. The comments will probably be titled differently now, but we can't tell for sure until someone bothers to "put forward" a comment on the new blog.

UPDATE 2: Ah, good. The "A Rich Life" comments are titled as "Comment on [...]", so they still stand out from the blog entry titles. Oh, and "F1RST P0ST!1!!!11!" on hocus' new blog comments! (If anyone reads Slashdot...eh, this isn't the crowd, is it?)

Down for three weeks due to a server crash, a busy me and the need to do several updates before brining it back online. It's back and seems to be working at least superficially. I anticipated some troubles with the RSS links, but they seem to be working okay.

I still need to set up the periodic check and make sure nothing major is broken, and then there are some optimizations, but at least we're back.

I went and looked this up to include in my previous blog but wasn't quite sure how to fit it in. I think it's related but can't quite explain how at the moment:

hocus has in the past indicated he thinks some things are owed to him by his community: [link]

That thread includes some of hocus' favorite posters--those that he claims support him--taking him to task for his presumptive arrogance and indicating they don't agree with him on several things.

I started to put this in the quotes section but decided it needs a blog entry instead. This is where Hocomania gets scary:

[link]

hocus seems be heavily invested in the idea that he is the founder and leader of a tangible community. This "community" consists of posters to public forums where hocus is now banned. He is also invested in the idea that his future income is to be derived from selling information either to or based on this community.

The scary part is that he views the "Goons" and intercst in particular as suppressing his community and by extension his life goals. Of course, his view of his leadership of a community are not in alignment with those he considers to be in his community. They are just public forum posters, and few if any miss his being around and posting at their boards. Many are glad he's banned. hocus seems to be unable to accept this.

If hocus the man really believes this, and if I am correct that the rest of his "community" doesn't see things his way, then eventually he is going to realize he is not going to achieve his goals. And who will he blame? Obviously intercst and the "Goons".

I've tried on several occasions suggesting alternate ways of using his skills that not only may make money but have made money for him in the past. But he is dedicated to his view of this "community" and his plans to make money based on that. He's not a man that has a Plan B ready.

I don't know how much our knowledge of hocus reflects on the real Rob Bennett behind the hocus. Several people seem to think his wife has left him and took the kids. He seemed to indicate this in a post recently, but it's possible that may have just been sarcastically reflecting others' guesses about his home life. I'm not sure if Bennett resides at the address we seem to think he does, but that house is listed for sale at nearly twice the likely market value. If both things things are real issues for the real Rob Bennett then he seems to be going through some rough changes and sliding downhill.

The quoted post above shocked me a bit as he has been pleasant to converse with the past day or two. He let out some information that I don't think he normally lets out, like some mistakes he thinks he's made, and he responded apparently in earnest to some unsolicited suggestions from me on his blog not getting the readership he wants and his writing style.

It's possible hocus is just a trollish avatar for a bored man or that Bennet has income and/or financial reserves he hasn't mentioned on the forums. But if his situation is based on the facts, beliefs and attitudes he's posted previously I think there is are some scary possibilities for when Bennett's world continues to crash down around him.

I'm semi-bored with hocus lately even though he's frothing at the mouth over at REHP forums. My perception is that he's very isolated and lonely due to bannings and presumably JWR having less time for hocus-related things now that he's a newlywed. So hocus is stirring up attention any way he can, even if it's attention from those who debunk him so well.

This thread is somewhat interesting. During its course hocus apparently tries to troll me by mentioning the community comments quoted on his calculator thingy. hocus has a quote of me there, and I have previously decried it as a partial, unlinked quote out of context and presented in a manner that implied support where in the original context it's clearly against everything behind the calculator.

Not being in the mood to argue with an idiot I briefly reiterated that the quote is presented deceptively.

hocus asked intercst if he agrees with my quote. Obviously hocus interprets the quote differently than everyone else. intercst replied by quoting his 1998 article on SWR. In my eyes my statement and what intercst said in 1998 say the same thing, but hocus' reply manages to misinterpret everything and thinks intercst didn't answer the question.

Intense hocostorms kicked off by perceived dissent at ERForums and formation of the Early Retirement Status forum. Hocomania has spread to the status form and even spilled over into ERForums.

We haven't posted anything about hocus here since shortly after he was banned from M* back in February. I guess he's been relatively boring since then...that is until recently. Currently he's on a manic roll apparently inspired by shakeups at ERForums and the formation of a new forum.

sgeeeee got banned at ERForums, and that was quiet for a while but has come up again in a mini riot about moderation, server reliability and changes at ERForum (which was sold to Andy R in the past few months). One moderator was let go and four more are quitting. T-Al thought he was banned because he couldn't sign in, and out of frustration he set up a forum reportedly as a method to monitor the functional status of ERForums.

One of the forums on the status board is titled "dissent", and a few people showed up to gripe. hocus started posting there, and somebody posted an updated version of his "I want to be your board general" rant from 2005. That set off a stir at the status board as well as ERForums and REHP forums which is still active on the topic.

Cute Fuzzy Bunny is posting animal & food pics again on all three boards in response to the hocomania uprising.

hocus keeps trying to fit the apparent rift between various posters into his vision of a revolution. Highly amusing.

The new hocofeed setup is working...mostly. Here are the new links to the hocofeeds on this site:

http://hocomania.bigmoneyjim.com/rob-bennett_hocus_blog
http://hocomania.bigmoneyjim.com/hocus_lunar-report
http://hocomania.bigmoneyjim.com/hocus_meteorological-report
http://hocomania.bigmoneyjim.com/noaa-storm-warnings
http://hocomania.bigmoneyjim.com/valuation-informed-indexing_google-groups

You don't have to remember these. I'm putting them here for search engine consumption until I get worked out how I want the menus and sidebar lists to look.

Although the blog and comments are separate feeds, I can now combine them into one list for viewing here. Cool, eh?

Hmmm, I seem to have lost the image in the moon phases. I'm not sure where that's getting filtered out now. I'll find it eventually. And I want to put back the "more" link on the lists on the left. (EDIT: "more" link is now back) We'll get there eventually.

As a bonus, the links to hocus' site are now configured not to help his search engine page rank. Not that my little site made much difference...