Traffic Deduction

My previous post about the Luddite Dictator is getting a lot of traffic which is interesting because I have spoken and hash tagged him before so it must be one of the other tags causing this influx of traffic.

The tags used in the last post are:

• Dictator
• Finasteride
• Hair
• Immigration
• Loss
• Luddite
• Nasa
• Profit
• SubPrime
• Trump - used before

All the traffic is coming from Europe although most is coming from the UK.  If I reuse these tags will this post get the same amount of traffic.  Although I would be guilty of what YouTubers do, see below!

What really annoys me on YouTube posts, is the name of the video normally a BIG headline that turns out to be nothing to do with the video in question.  Yes I know they are designed to entice viewers still really annoying.  They love using adjectives in the extremist form possible.

A recent one I watched on Sunday was an interview with Edward Snowden, it said: "Everthing About Donald Trump"   Whilst Trump was mentioned a couple of times it most definitely not all about Trump.

This is how you drive traffic to your sites and it is also why Fake News sites worked so well, fiction is always more interesting than fact.  Please forgive me then for using the same tags again purely for testing purposes I will however add some extras for completeness sake.

Am I perhaps getting traffic from customers of Finasteride, sorry no help here.  Drinking hot water in the morning and evening is probably better for you, just my opinion I'm no Doctor.

I suppose it could have been down to the content of the post, I can only hope on that front.  It would be ironic though.

Adverts Denied!

Admittedly I did not really want them I was just curious as to what adverts would appear but Google Adsense sent me an email, excerpt below:

"It's our goal to provide our advertisers sites that offer rich and meaningful content, receive organic traffic and allow us to serve well-targeted ads to users. We believe that currently your site does not fulfil this criteria."

Oddly enough they cannot spell 'fulfill' correctly despite the fact Google spells it correctly for you.

Obviously I am not offering "rich and meaningful content" too bad!  This blog has always been about me putting my thoughts down when I want to.  If people want to read it fine by me,  I do like to share my wandering mind unfortunately it has been somewhat sporadic of late.  I blame my muse who is mostly likely holidaying is warmer climes.

The winter months are always quiet, pretty sure my mind avoids all forms of inspiration when its cold outside.  Probably a primal instinct, it tends stay in its cave.

It is currently snowing outside first snow we have had in nearly four years. 2010 & 2011 we had some snow, pretty sure I bought my snow shovel for the car from Amazon in 2011 which of course meant no more snow, til now.  It is meant to snow for four hours tonight and a couple tomorrow morning so perhaps finally my purchase will come in use.  Pretty big flakes too twas a pain to drive in, I hate driving in the snow.

Looking at the news is just pointless these days I mean what is fake news and what is real?  Intelligence agencies are leaking all over the place if you believe the news to be true, more like NOT!  Unless of course it is disinformation then it is probably true well false.  Oh! Hell! You know what I mean.

The Truth truly has become an Urban Myth!

I am sure Trump loves the irony.

Ads & Amazon's Grand Tour

Ads

Okay so may have noticed I have decided to put ads on my site (may not be there yet, they might not have approve me) not because I am expecting oodles of cash from it but purely from a curiosity point of view.  I hate ads I really do, I stopped watching terrestrial TV years old ago preferring to stick BBC iPlayer, Internet downloads and now in the last couple of years I use Amazon Prime.  All with zero ads that being said any where I go on the Internet ads are prolific but these at static ads YouTube being the exception, but I can choose not to look at them.

What is really interesting about Internet ads is how tech savvy kids in Macedonia recently made a bundle of cash and are still making it an average of $6000 a month by leveraging fake news websites mostly aimed at the American Presidential Election. Fake stories about Trump got more hits any Clinton which just goes to show there is no such thing as bad press in politics.

Questions have been raised about these fake stories on Facebook's news feed, could it have swayed the election.  Owners of Facebook say they a drop a in ocean but there is no definitive way to prove that except by comparing what stories the voters clicked on and asking the somewhat private question to each voter, how did you vote?  That information will never be forthcoming, those kids in Macedonia only do it for the cash reward they are not interested in the politics.  Now that the election is over they moving on to Sports so I suggest you pay particular attention in theory they could skew the odds.

We now exist in two realities, the real world and cyberspace.  Once upon a time everything in cyberspace mirrored everything in the real world in terms of facts and history. Now its cyberspace's turn with advent of Big data, social media and Ads.  The real world reality can created in cyberspace.

The Cold War had spies and misinformation today with have 16/17 year old's with fake news.

I am curious as to what happens next.

Amazon's Grand Tour

BBC's Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond left or were fired for various reasons involving steak I believe, lets not go there.  Amazon in their infinite wisdom and considering how big they are they must have some brought the team back together for twelve episodes of extreme fun with anything that has a petrol engine spread round the world.

Watched the first episode on the weekend.  They have junked the celebrities, kept the track (different one) and employed a American to drive the cars round a track.  Supposedly because Amazon wanted an American racing driver.  No Stig in evidence.  Despite the loss of the some of the original format from the previous BBC show it all still worked very well.

Fast cars going round racing tracks very fast what's not to love about that.  The banter between the Jeremy, James and Richard is just as good as ever.  Yes there were a number references to the old show but that is just typical British humour which worked because I laughed whether the audience laughed because someone held a sign up that said 'Laugh Now' is anybodies guess.

There is some rumours going round that the team have not liked working together on this series but you know what they say about rumours and fake news sites.  Although that being said the view from their big windows in the tent looks suspiciously like a green screen perfect irony for a show called: Grand Tour.

I am however looking forward to the next episode.

Correlate or Bust!

Since having started this blog I have found myself reading far more news than I used to, more for some inspiration in writing next the post.  What I have across is seeming unrelated news items that look like they are connected.  One of my favourite authors H.P. Lovecraft said in one of his novels:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”

As a concept he may be on to something although in this day and age of mass media it should be easier to correlate the data using data- mining tools and the computers can go insane with the knowledge.

The problem with coincidences is that nobody takes into account all of the other data out there, two news items just over week apart with similar circumstances would suggest they are related in some way but how about all the other incidents that were not reported because either they were not considered to be news worthy enough or that they happened to individuals.

Am I paranoid or just unable to correlate enough information to create a proper view of what is a coincidence and what is an anomaly.  If I am paranoid then I would be entering the heady domain of conspiracy theories.  What is odd about conspiracy theories is the extremes they go to for their explanations, a simple answer is better than a vastly complicated one and yet those that believe in conspiracy theories seem to prefer the complex ‘truths’ as opposed to the simple ones.

Conspiracy theorists say: They want to believe!

Well I prefer to know!  Belief takes us into the realms of religion which have no place in science.

I have read a far number of conspiracy theory websites and watched several on Youtube normally when I have been playing the Youtube game of bouncing between videos from the related videos pane. In some cases it only requires a couple of links before you find a video about a conspiracy theory from a start point of scifi shorts (no surprise).  Although Yubtube does seem to be somewhat saturated in them.  Their evidence either lacks body or basic common sense more often than not both. Much of their science is pseudoscience based upon misinterpreted concepts which I have done the same myself, it is quite easy to do.

I never take anything as true especially it is something I read or seen on the Internet, you should always fact check from as many sources as possible.  In the antique trade it is like having provenance for an item except in this case instead of an object we are looking at truths about the world.

Too often people watch a TV ‘documentary’ and assume everything said is true just because it is meant to be a factual programme.  Nobody questions the ‘facts’ of the programme.  Questioning seems to be going out of style but then I am generalising like I always do.

As I have often said: The Truth has Become an Urban Myth