So, we discovered that Facebook carried out some psychological testing to see what happened when people got bad news, and when they got good news. Unsurprisingly, people were generally in better moods themselves when their newsfeeds were full of good news, and vice versa. It's all very interesting, and I'll put to one side the outrage over Facebook doing "secret testing" on over half a million people.
Let's think about this. What else could they do as a result of this?
Imagine if you had a college essay coming up. The weeks before you could see lots of creative posts like this:
Or if you wanted to lose weight, it could help you out by showing you posts like:
However, we all know that advertisers are the heart of Facebook. So, when we're in the market for some new bedroom furniture, we're far more likely to see:
I had to resort to doing some chores today, reluctant though I am to dabble in household arts there was simply no option for me but to buckle down and do stuff.
When I was changing the bedding on my sons bed, I happened to glance at the information label on the mattress.
I'll save you from reading all the notes, but two bits stood out to me.
One - "Manufactured without the addition of Phosphorous, Antimony or Arsenic".
Well, thanks for that. Yes, that last item was Arsenic, well known as a poison, and is classed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a "class 1 carcinogen". So that's a bad thing (although it does have many uses apart from killing biological species).
Not entirely sure why they felt the need to write that on the label. The only assumption I can make is that it is commonly used in mattresses - if that's the case, perhaps it's time to wear some pyjamas to bed.
And the second point I'd like to flag up is a large warning towards the bottom of the label. It says...
WARNING: THIS MATTRESS DOES NOT SOAK UP VOMIT
Who buys a mattress that is good at soaking up vomit? Can you imagine how hard it would be to clean a vomit soaked mattress? And if you did frantically need to clear up some vomit, how many different materials would you choose before thinking "Well, there's nothing else for it, better throw a mattress on it"?
(Of course I do understand issues around babies being sick and the need to ensure that it is dealt with appropriately, but even then I can't imagine any reasonable parent, having spent the morning investigating a variety of beds and mattresses, finally saying "Let us buy this mattress, it actively absorbs vomit so if little Hercules is unwell we don't need to worry - it'll suck that sick straight out of our baby and contain it safely within its springy interior"
As an aside, I have a new video up on my channel, feel free to check it out here (or watch it below), I've ranted about shaving and how razors and shaving gel are not up to the task.
This is really just a quick thank you to everyone who has read my blog in the past, and especially those that for some reason continue to read! According to Blogger I am currently at 99,949 views, which means that by the morning I should have passed 100k views. Now to be fair a lot of those views are from bots and robot crawlers and things (i.e. not real people) but there are a fair few of you that do come and check out my posts and I do really appreciate your time. Thanks!
It's about a year ago that I went to the Little Weighton Steam Engine Rally, and the photo below was taken. I hope to replicate it on Saturday when the rally takes place again (not to mention sampling the beer and cake in the refreshments barn!)
I do have some more videos upcoming on my YouTube channel which hit 50 subscribers the other day, thanks also to all of you that subscribe and I hope to provide more mediocre videos there!
Yes, I'm tired. It's been a busy (but good) weekend, although it has included a fair portion of shopping and cleaning the house, which, whilst certainly needing to be done, doesn't quite get me excited.
Plus, I've had to water the garden.
I have a certain opinion about the garden. I believe that as the garden is essentially nature, and nature has the rule "survival of the fittest" where elderly and infirm animals are generally eaten by a wolf (or me), that plants shouldn't need watering. If they need watering on a regular basis, I do think that they ought to be left out to die as they clearly aren't suitable for their location. You wouldn't put a sunflower in a cave and then take a sunlamp in there to give it the light it needs to grow, so why water plants every day?
Of course, it isn't as simple as that - the plants do indeed look nice (certainly nicer than if I did leave them to their own devices), and all through the winter don't really need any maintenance so five minutes with the watering hose (which has a rather cool gun attachment) isn't overly onerous.
If you haven't noticed, the summer solstice was yesterday. Putting aside the theological aspect of this day, basically it means that we're heading for winter and Christmas now. Having baked myself whilst driving this afternoon I can't say that it really feels as though winter is coming, but nevertheless it is. I just wish that it had come soon enough to keep the beer on my desk cold.
I have published a new video today, with some reviews of alternative milks - as part of our bid to become healthier, the family have given up cows milks. While in the video I do talk about oat milk as being my favourite, we are actually now all on almond milk, and I must say that it is very nice indeed.
Finally, whilst mucking about on my YouTube channel (I'm on 48 subscribers and 9,942 video views - I'd love to make those figures up to 50 subs and 10,000 views if you feel the need!) I noted that I could enable Live Events.
So I did.
So, I can now do live events. I have no idea of any live events that I could do, or even if I did do an event whether I'd do it on YouTube or on Twitch, but it's nice to have the option. If anyone does have any ideas for live events, or video collaborations, or indeed blogging collaborations, do get in touch, I'm always keen to hear from people and work together on stuff. It makes this creating thing fun.
Speaking of which - I tried to make a new video the other night, but it didn't work out due to my smartphone auto-focusing halfway through (it's one where I need to do some special effects so it makes it really bad) and not having quite the right area in shot. But it involved shaving foam and a bottle of cognac. Ideas on a postcard (or in the comments below!)
There are two heros from my childhood that stand out in my memory. A sparse two that, through string theory and dimension travelling, have not one, or two, but three things in common.
I am of course referring to Doctor Who... and the Milky Bar Kid.
If you are not familiar with the Milky Bar Kid, basically he's a young kid who goes into some kind of ruckus in the wild west, and handles the situation thanks to a few bars of milk chocolate.
If you're not familiar with Doctor Who, well there's just no hope I'm afraid.
Here we go!
3 - They save people
The save people, of course. Doctor Who has saved the planet more times than can be remembered, generally on Christmas Eve, and particularly focusing on London. He is suspiciously inactive in other parts of the world. I'm not sure if he's ever been to Swaziland.
But he doesn't just save people, oh no - he saves them through bizarre and fantastical actions.
This one is pretty obvious. There has been eleventwelvea lot of doctors in the fifty years that Doctor Who has been on the television, which is a good job really because otherwise the doctor would really be getting on by now, and the same for the Milky Bar Kid - an aged man in a white suit offering children chocolate bar gives the wrong impression I would feel.
And this comes to...
1 - They've both been around for ages
Both Doctor Who and the Milky Bar Kid first appeared in the early 1960s, and have shown up in various forms ever since, taking the odd break now and again. The Doctor has been away from our screens for thirteen months, and we haven't seen the Milky Bar Kid for a few years... but he'll be back.
In other news, I've got my latest YouTube video up for my series of trying to get fit. It's a late night update where I managed to fight off the temptation to eat junk food, and I yawn quite a bit.
I am typing quite quickly at the moment, having dashed upstairs for a swift 15 minutes blogging during half-time of the France vs Honduras World Cup match - I didn't intend to watch it, but was quickly sucked in to the game and am waiting to see by just how many goals France will beat Honduras by, both teams are also quite... physical... shall we say, with some assertive tackling going on.
Anyway I digress! I have been nominated by Tony Payson of The Writers' Bloc for a Versatile Blogger Award, which is very nice of him - thanks Tony! Although I'm certainly not in the nature of blogging as a living or anything else (which is a good job as it does not form a large part of my income!) it is nice to know that people do look at my blog now and again, and more importantly think that it is of least vague interest. I'd strongly recommend checking out Tony's blog.
Congratulations of course to Tony for his nomination, very well deserved.
In turn I would like to nominate the following blogs, which is nowhere near the 15 blogs I'm supposed to:
Andy at BadDogGaming - Andy is an old friend of mine, participant in my World of Warcraft parody video, and a very funny and smart guy. He tends to blog mainly about computer gaming, but also delves into other (often dog-related!) topics.
Duncan at Nobodys Reading Me - Duncan is a brilliant writer, and very entertaining. Someone I aspire to be in the fullness of time.
Tim Clark of Life, Explained. Tim in some ways I almost think of as a kindred spirit, as a producer of blog posts that I would like to, if only I had the talent Tim does! Probably my most regular read.
And now I have to tell Tony 7 things about myself. Well, I may as well say them here rather than just emailing him, or leaving a list on his doorstep (plus it's less effort to be frank), so here we go:
I was educated at home, with my first experience of formal education being 3 years full time at Hull College.
I can't swim. I've never needed to swim, I do vaguely think that I ought to learn, in case I see a drowning toddler or something, but haven't got round to it.
I can't ride a bike. This one I see less point for learning, yet I get more people telling me that I should ride a bike. But I have legs, and if I need to travel further than is practical to walk, I also have a car. I see little advantage for a different form of transport which seems more dangerous than a car, less comfortable and slower than a car, yet makes you sweatier than just walking.
I technically hold three degrees - a Foundation Degree in Information Communication Enabling Technologies (which is actually more like a HND) from the University of Lincoln, a Bachelors in Computing (Information Systems) also from Lincoln, and a Masters Degree in Construction Project Management from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. I remember thinking once "who would be a doctor, and have to spend seven years studying", and then realising that between 1998 and 2012, I spent 12 of the 14 years studying. Damn, I could be a doctor by now.
I dislike moldy fruit intensely. Honestly - I absolutely hate it. My other half can threaten to throw a moldy apple at me and I will run out of the room screaming.
And I scream like a girl.
Seventh thing? I don't multi-task at home particularly well. It's strange, when I'm at work I believe that I can multi-task when necessary (although I certainly prefer to focus on a single job at a time), but at home, if I'm doing something like cleaning the kitchen, and then have to stop to put the dinner on, I get really stressed because the kitchen hasn't been finished. Very odd.
Thanks again to Tony for the nomination and I hope the folk that I nominated are pleased for theirs :)
I'm really tired at the minute, because I've gone to the gym?
Why have I gone to the gym, of all places, on a Friday night? Well, I have a new video series started! And it's basically me tracking my "journey" (sorry, it's a bit of a fluffy word to use) while I lose weight over the next year in preparation for getting married. The videos are a bit different to my usual ones, they're a bit more serious (and the quality has gone backwards which is very annoying - got some black banners at the sides of the first couple of videos, I'll watch out for this on future ones) but hopefully it'll provide some regular stuff to watch.
In other news, I came across something slimy on the kitchen floor last night. I don't know what it was, but assuming that it was a small slug, I decisively plucked it from the ground (using a kitchen towel obviously, there's no way on earth that I'd touch it with my naked flesh) and lobbed it out of the window.
It might have been a bit of a pepper now that I think about it, but at any rate I dealt with it.
And of course I have to ask, are you watching the World Cup? As past readers of my blog may be aware, I'm not a huge fan of football, but the World Cup is a bit of a special occasion and I do try to make a bit of an effort to watch some of the games. Plus we've got a contest going on at work to see who could predict scores most accurately, and as things stand after 3 games I've attained four points out of a possible nine, which isn't perfect but it's a start, and there's a lot of matches to go. We're also doing a sweepstake and I got Chile, which I'm fairly happy with, I certainly think that they've got a chance of winning (although Brazil are definitely the team to beat!) and hopefully it'll make for some interesting matches over the next few weeks. Do comment and let me know who you're hoping is going to win.
On Sunday morning, I had the morning to create stuff.
Of course, when it came to it - I couldn't think of a damn thing to write, or record, or make in any way.
So I ate ice cream.
Actually to be precise it's Ben & Jerry's Greek Style Strawberry Shortcake Frozen Yoghurt, which we bought from the shops purely because I love the advert so much!
I have a new video up on my YouTube channel, looking at how to make a healthy taco snack. Apparently this is quite controversial, the only thing you can do with a taco is load it up with spicy beef, rice and cheese, but having never been to Taco Bell I'm unable to comment.
And unusually for me, I actually have videos spare! I have two videos unpublished and ready to go, including one which is going to be the start of a year-long series, which I hope people will get on board with. Stay tuned!
Hmm... I would like to spend it on some new video editing kit or maybe a new computer, but I'd probably just put it towards bills (boring eh!)
What is your favourite singer/group?
This changes regularly, Pink, Steps, Alanis Morrissette, Psy, Charlene Soraia... at various times in my life I've listened to all of these hugely. Steps is the most recent one, but as I write this I'm thinking that I haven't sung along to Alanis for ages...
If you had one wish, what would it be?
Guns. Lot of guns.
(Only joking - it would be for my family to be happy. Dull but nice!)
If you could meet anyone famous, dead or alive, who would it be?
Stephen Fry. I love his work and his intellect, I bet he'd be brilliant company.
Why do you blog?
It's an outlet for my creativity. And I guess in a way I feel "needed" because I do have people visiting my blog, and I like to entertain them. Needed is too strong a word because if I stopped blogging overnight I doubt anyone would be really bothered, but nevertheless I like to feel needed.
If you could give something up for 24 hours,what would it be?
Fat absorption.
If you had the chance to move to any country, what country would it be?
Difficult to say as I haven't experienced the place yet, but Canada would be high on the list, probably either Toronto or Vancouver. I can say that I had the most wonderful time in Paris (and sod what people say about Parisians being rude, almost all of the locals that I interacted with were great!) so it'd be one to consider. Dublin is brilliant too but I don't know if I'd want to live there - I think the pubs would be too much of a temptation for me!
First car?
A 1986 Nissan Micra Collette. I loved it.
First favourite pop singer or band?
First favourite - I remember getting my mum to buy me a Madonna album when I was very small. But that was basically just because I knew her name. I'd probably have to say Shaggy or 2 Unlimited.
What pop song would you not admit you liked?
I don't really go in for not admitting this sort of thing, I know that I have a dreadful taste in music! 2 Unlimited, Steps, B*Witched.... they're all great :)
Thanks again to the domestic goddess for the nomination. Also, thanks to Tim and Jay for their excellent guest posts this last week while I've been away in a caravan enjoying the sunshine! Thanks guys and if I can return the favour in the future let me know.
This was the vegetarian breakfast I had one morning while on holiday. With extra bacon.
I've recorded three new videos this evening and am in the process of editing them so hopefully my YouTube channel will show some more regular activity in the weeks ahead, I've got an idea for a new regular video that hopefully I can do several times a week too so fingers crossed for that.
