Yes it's different, way different.
I was looking for a set of tires so I Googled, found what I wanted and bought them, case closed. But for the next 7 or 8 months tire ads popped up at all sorts of sites, not just tires but the brand and model I was looking for, so not a coincidence.

TV never did that, Newspapers never did that, this is a whole new ball game. That sort of personal targeted information isn't just available to retailers, it's available to researchers, political manipulators, the NSA, and anyone who will pay for it. Soylent anyone?

Here's the thing, though--that personalized information is honestly much less useful than people think it is. Case in point, you already bought tires. Throwing tire ads at you was less effective than throwing them at random strangers who might or might not have needed them, because you definitely didn't need them anymore. So they were banking on the possibility that you had browsed, failed to make a decision, and then were going to circle back months later? Data mining companies have pulled one over on the retail companies, because real people don't actually shop that way.

Hang on a second there. I shop online quite a bit --mostly browsing, researching, and occasionally making a purchase. Which means all my devices (not just the one I browsed on) are now littered with pretty pictures of things I probably want to buy, with links back to places where they can be purchased, easily and within minutes.

It doesn't force me to buy something, but it's as close to holding a lit match to a can of gas as they've come so far.



Anyway, I was talking about "dark ads" and news stories / headlines / photos being displayed differently to different data-mined groups --as powerful a use of money to purchase political opinion* as I think we've ever seen. Way more effective than a totalitarian authority enforcing one single, approved message.

* by altering what we perceive as reality

It is different.

Also hugely different is, now the newspaper knows what everybody is reading. What a surprise to some of them...

Every website owner out there knows what headlines we are clicking on. Every writer knows which articles got them readers. Every person knows what got them likes, retweets, favorites.

It occurs to me that, in certain public arenas, the study of why humans behave in certain ways may be replaced in necessary practice by the certainty that we simply know exactly how they behave, devoid of any need for, or even desire for having an explanation. This would dovetail with the rise of atheism--we'd simultaneously disbelieve any larger force is at play in the universe, AND within the individual.

But has it actually worked? I think it's got the allure of making you (and retailers) think it works--I mean it must work, right, because it's so insidious--but have you ever actually clicked one of those ads and bought the thing you were thinking about buying?

We're all too jaded for ads now. We have plugins to make them disappear on our browsers, and DVRs to skip them on our TVs. The only things that work these days are 1.) ads that are so unusual, they generate buzz as creative works on their own, and 2.) the ads we don't know are ads--news stories and political framing, like you said.

I have clicked on the ads because I know they are a link back to the sites where I like to browse/research stuff. Like, "oh yeah, I was shopping components for a half-finished project.. thanks for reminding me, pretty pictures of things"

True, they were wasting their time with me, but I suppose some people will be looking in the summer for tires they won't buy until fall/winter weather when they predict they'll need them. I suspect that a pretty small share though. They didn't circle around with me it was continuous though varied in intensity. I suppose if they caught wind of me searching for something else they may have given up on the tires. Of course I'm using the tires as an example, they've done it with other things.

Hmm, maybe I should do a porn search? ;)

OK, so it turns out USNS Comfort has helped 75 people doing hospital-type stuff, after two hospitals lost emergency generators:

http://wtkr.com/2017/10/07/usns-comf...n-puerto-rico/

And that's a job well done.

Helping these 75 people required...

Comfort is a seagoing medical treatment facility that currently has more than 800 personnel embarked for the Puerto Rico mission including Navy medical and support staff assembled from 22 commands, as well as over 70 civil service mariners.

She surely would have helped more people if she were there earlier; but, okay, that's a huge staff; and it turns out mobilizing 800 personnel from 22 commands takes a few days. and figuring out what you really need is hard as well.

Because in this case, as of what we know now, what was actually needed was two big-ass working emergency generators. And 2% of the fuel needed to get Comfort to P.R.

Millions upon millions have been spent to float this oil tanker to the islands with full medical staffs instead...

Ah hindsight!

Lots of information there, but it doesn't tell me whether I'm supposed to be mad at Democrats or Republicans. "Stuff is hard to do" isn't something I can boycott. Also, something about mansplaining.

Solutions always start by breaking a problem down into parts. Then discussing each part separated.

For example, BBC routinely noted one problem. Americans put their electric wires on poles. We spend massively on defense (which is larger than a next five militaries combined). And few resources into infrastructure.

This problem made even worse because Puerto Rico is an island. Other states (ie FL) get assistance automatically from power utilities even in New England. No other state can send such assistance without Federal government cooperation.

Best was to put all AC primary wires underground. Install cell phone towers that can survive what must exist and will happen even more often in that region - category 5 storms.

TX, FL, LA, etc got most assistance without Federal government intervention. That is impossible in Puerto Rico. Unfortunately they installed an infrastructure that assumed they were part of the continental 48 and that the president would authorize assistance.

An example of one problem. Who do you want to blame? America that now wants to get involved in or instigate all wars? A country that still does not install robust infrastructure? Top politicians who assumed what works in FL will also work in Puerto Rico?

Time to avert a disaster in 10 years must be implemented now. Did we learn from a near zero hurricane called Sandy?

Should PREPA give everybody power, or half(maybe less) the people robust infrastructure power with the funds they have to work with.

Wiki saysSee Trump is right, the government fucks everything up, free enterprise would have made it way better. :haha:

One problem is that there is a great urge to criticize Trump about every single thing, when he only deserves it about 90% of the time.

90% and he doesn't even have a MBA ... impressive!

No, but BS in economics, which sounds about right.