Training the Algorithm

So, this morning's cool, cool temp was 28 (F).  Yes, there is fog.  Yes, it has frozen to the windshield of my car.  And yes, this is the coldest day we've had so far heading into winter.  Temps are predicted to climb in the the mid 50s (F), but more rain is on the way.  With these temps and rain, you can bet your bottom dollar every leaf will have fallen.  But then, we are a month away from Winter.  And only 4 months away from Spring.  My, aren't times moving fast.

Yesterday, being Wednesday, was a bit meh and a bit good.  My workout went well.  I was pleased.  Several loads of laundry were washed.  I patched a pair of work jeans with an iron on patch. And I baked a loaf of bread.  Those are nice accomplishments, but then there were the stretchy moments when I didn't want to do anything, not even scan down social media on my phone.  That was the meh part.  

I have to work this afternoon.  If they didn't pay me so well, I'd cut back my hours, but every time I see my paycheck I think:  Wow, now I can buy something nice and new.  Statements like that make people think my house is cluttered with useless, shiny bright things.  It isn't. The truth is I end up throwing more stuff out, or giving it away if anyone wants it, than I buy.  Sometimes people hold on to stuff simply because giving it away, or throwing it out is like cutting off a piece of their lives.  Believe me, these things are not part of your life.

One of the truly terrible things about social media is the advertising.  I Threads.  I also know that given the chance Meta will inundate me with ads, so I've started training their algorithm.  How do I do this?  Every time I get to an ad, I tap the 3 little dots in the upper right hand corner.  This opens a small menu.  I then click on the "not interested" and the ad disappears.  The more you do this, the fewer ads you'll see.  The same is true for Instagram.  If we could get everybody to do this for just one day, Meta would lose a fortune in ad sales.

My bare leaved Gingko.

So, Orangie signed the legislation to release the Epstein files.  He has 30 days.  A lot of people think that these files consist of thousands and thousands of manilla folders filled with written documentation, this is not entirely true.  There are also thousands of hours of audio recordings, and thousands of hours of video recordings.  These are extremely difficult to alter.  Also, there is more than one copy of the files.  The UK has a large number of the files, which is why Randy Andy is no longer a prince.  France has a large number, too.  Also, don't forget there are thousands of victims, and while many will keep their mouths closed, there are many, many more who would like to taste revenge.  Orangie and his team will release files that hurt Democrats, however there are so many with Orangie's name in them, they will use a different method to keep from releasing them.  National Security, or an ongoing Federal Investigation will keep the worst ones hidden from the public.  Keeping files secret will hurt Orangie almost as badly as releasing them.

The jobs report is out for September.  Don't believe it.  Every other source has said that September was a catastrophic month for jobs.  Orangie's administration is saying there was a surprising uptick in jobs.  Remember, they lie.

Toot Your Own Horn

 When I climbed out of bed this morning the sun was shining.  Much has changed.  The clouds have come rolling in, and later this afternoon, or at least so I've read, showers are going to move into the area.  Temps will be in the low 70s (F) and that won't be bad, but these constant showers are making it difficult to mow my lawn.

Looking at my chore list for today, it looks like it's chock full of things that need to be done, however, the time involved for each chore isn't heavy on the minutes.  The longest is mowing the lawn, if the clouds don't decide to bless me with drizzles, and even that's only about 20 minutes.  I mow fast, though the height of the grass may slow me down, so maybe that should be 25.  None of the tanks need to be cleaned, but I need to run to the post office, and then to my local Giant supermarket.  That errand will consume the most time.

The area rug I bought for the living room arrives today.  I'd like to get that laid, but there are other things I need to do to prep for it.  I'm going to need assistance in moving the desk, unless I take all of the drawers out, then I think ;I can move it, but that's going to be a chore in itself, so I'm planning on getting that done next week.

Yesterday, retail was oh, so slow.  Believe me, it was a long 8 hours.  I did manage to get a small sale, and that's fine.  How good are my sales?  The other part-time associate has racked up $46,000 in the last 6 months, while I just topped $180.000, and I'm only $26,000 behind the full time specialists.  Believe me, I do let management know that, too.  Many years ago, I had an Human Resources manager tell me that you need to "toot your own horn," because no one else will.

And Michael Cohen was tooting his horn yesterday.

Evidently there was some concern that he was going to come across as a jerk, since most people view fixers as the underbelly of the beast.  Let's face it, working for the Orange Anus, Cohen has truly slithered his way through mountains shit.  Evidently, nobody likes him, except possibly his family.  He is not the loving Father Knows Best kind of guy.  But, to the prosecution's relief he was pleasant and well prepared.  he brought the receipts.  Cohen knows where the bodies are buried, and he dug up a few yesterday.  

I'm also seeing a lot of consternation from people who are looking at the polls and seeing Biden behind in many.  I find it fascinating that in many of these reports the cite how Trump over performed the polls in 2016, and how Democrats over performed in 2018, 2020, and really over performed in 2022.  Remember 2022?  When Republicans were predicted to smash whatever strength the Democrats had because, traditionally, the party that loses the presidency gains seats in both the congress and the senate in the next election.  Ooops.  Tradition was upended, so were the polls.  The truth is that polls will never recover the accuracy they once had, but news sources are desperate to create drama in order to generate the number of clicks advertisers want to see.  I hate to say this, but they are generating fake news, but it's not just Main Stream media, it's everybody.  This is what happens when you abandon truth for advertising dollars.  

CTR and the Fail situation

Years ago, when I first started blogging, I had thought if you become popular enough you can actually make money by sharing your opinions.  It didn't turn out that way.  The first blog I had was through Typepad and I was not impressed with the Ads, neither were the people who read my blogs.  As a result I dropped the ads and eventually Typepad, moving over to Blogger.  I could get ads here but don't really see an in point in that.  Advertising only pays if people click through your ads, and by people I mean multitudes.  Being the inquisitive sort of person I am, I educated myself because you never know, some day advertising may actually be relevant... probably not.  You see there is something called a CTR or Click Through Rate, which is the % of readers who actually click on the Ad.  The average CTR on an average blog for a Banner Ad is about 1.1%.  This means that for every 500 readers you can expect 5.5 people to check out the Ad, which earns you nothing.

The whole thing is rather interesting.  If you have a high volume blog where millions hit, advertisers will actually pay you for space.  Then the CTR is their worry, and CTR's are usually low.   But then, to the rescue, comes "The Impression."  For all of those people who are looking at the Ad and not clicking through, there is a formula for calculating how big of an impression the Ad is making on them.  Think of it as subtle brainwashing.  It's been around for years.  You see Impression advertising in print and on television and now tacked on to videos on the Internet.  Any time you click on a video at a news site you're going to be tortured with a commercial.  In fact they are every where.  Muting them out doesn't help because in the Advertiser's minds they're still making an impression on you.  You may not need to buy a car right now, but when you do they're betting if you've seen enough Toyota Ads you'll consider buying a Toyota.

Do a Google image search and you'll be amazed at how many charts have been published detailing all sorts of minutiae about the CTR.  Some of them are amusing, like this one which shows that Ipad and Iphone owners click through more often the Android users.

This information is important to Advertisers because it lets them know what kind of Ads to place on what kind of blogs or websites.  What's sad is this information is based on 45 billion monthly impressions.  To this means advertising on the Internet is pretty much a fail / fail situation.

Facebook goes to Hell

Hey, remember when Facebook was nice?  Not the puppy dog, kitty cat nice, but nice meaning free from hard core commercialism?  Back then you actually had to look for something to 'like.'  You know, your favorite musical group?  TV show?  Movie?  And once you did choose to 'like' it, nothing really seemed to change much.  Boy, those days are shot to shit, aren't they.  No matter where you go on the Internet these days, you are being asked to "like us on Facebook."  This is because everybody and his fricking brother is selling Ad space and the only way to generate revenue is to have you and all of your friends start clicking on their ad.  As you all know by now, every time one of your friends likes someone, everybody on his friend list finds out.  What's really funny is sometimes I look at these 'likes' and can't help but wonder what in hell is going through my friend's head.  And then I wonder, should I really have this guy as a friend?  I mean, look at what he likes!  Yikes!!

And it isn't only your 'friends' who are making recommendations.  Hell no.  Facebook does it.  You see they have this monster computer buried away under a giant mountain which is constantly reviewing your profile.  Constantly.  You see Facebook wants to make a lot of money selling Ad space too, so every time this giant computer infers even the most vaguest of links between your profile and some commercial venture willing to pay them big bucks, Facebook will suggest you 'like' a page.  Do I ever click on their recommendations?  Hell no.  Let's be perfectly honest, my profile is rather vague, so no matter what they suggest it's most likely not going to pique my interest.  Will they every stop sending me recommendations?  Hell no.  You see I have  pudding head friends who click first and think later.

Dealing with the hell that is call Facebook

One of the most insidious evils in today's society, and you might never think of it as evil, is, of all things, Facebook.  Remember when you could use it to find long, lost friends, or acquaintances you might want to think of as friends?  Well, you can still do that, however one of things which has changed is those people have not been given a platform on which to shout out their loves, their hates, and their grievances.  Facebook is not about catching up any more, or simple socializing, Facebook is about forcing your "likes" down as many throats as possible.  You are basically given three choices in dealing with these morons:  unfriend them, ignore them, or join them.  I've been doing the first, after a polite message from me to them explaining my reasoning.  Most of them provide me with an angry retort before they disappear forever.  My ego does not need countless friends in order to survive.

Another really major problem is the relentless advertising.  In case you don't know, if one of your friends clicks on an advertisement, you will soon be getting a little notification which starts off "you might also like..."  Facebook is not about making your life simple by giving you valid suggestions, Facebook is about creating revenue from advertising.  What is even more surprising is that there are all of these dumb shits out there clicking on things left and right without understanding Facebook keeps a file with their computer ID on it and every time they click they add a bit of information to that file.

I suspect Facebook's main goal is creating a hive mentality in our culture.  Try finding a product or a service which doesn't have the Facebook logo attached.  All it takes is one click and you've found them on Facebook.  In the end, what will save society is product overload.  It's already beginning to happen.  Just because you like something doesn't mean you're going to buy the product, or even visit the website more then 2 or three times.  Just because some moron out there likes 400 or 500 different companies doesn't mean that bozo brain is going to be spending his hard earned cash with those companies.  At some point in time the revenue spent to advertise on Facebook will out way the cash returned.