Pedantry

From a recent headline at Yahoo Finance:

Socks set to extend losses; BOJ's surprise move; Apple Pay pushes into China

By Yahoo Finance 1 hour ago

I'm constantly losing socks ... and now Yahoo Finance says it's going to get worse. Bummer.

Choose Wisely

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
Jim Rohn.

... so choose wisely. For those unfamiliar with Mr. Rohn's work, I've included a couple of links.

The day that turns your life around:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoW_jAzZKcs

The greatest advice ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IsO7Rm-sXA

See things that don't exist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr3xSIEFbaU

The Data They've Collected

I was happy when I saw Scarred Bark at the top of the search results from Bing; and now that I've started posting again, I'm on the way back to the top at Google. But I've never made it into the search results from Juno ... even though their search engine is "enhanced by Google" - whatever that means. So I tried to force Juno's search engine by typing the actual address for Scarred Bark into their search box: "http://scarredbark/blogspot.com". It still couldn't find my blog; but at the top of the list was the follow message:

Ads related to: http://scarredbark/blogspot.com

Insight To Hoarding
hoardertoheaven.blogspot.com/
Understanding A Hoarder? ClickOn My Blog To Follow My Story

... which contained the following description:

"Hoarder to Heaven
Understanding a hoarder is difficult. If you are a hoarder or a family member or friend of one, my blog will be helpful to you. I am telling my story through sequential blogs of my recovery from hoarding, depression and alcoholism as well well (sic) as a crippling disease from a virus I caught from my house. Please ask me questions. My intent is to help others understand hoarding."

My question is this: If you can only query the data you've collected, and my blog is not in your database, how can you find an ad related to my blog? And there was only this one ad. How did they come up with that? What are they trying to tell me? What a creepy strange world we live in.

And for the record, the correct address for Scarred Bark is: http://scarredbark.blogspot.com.

Remembering

I spent time Sunday re-reading my entire blog. It took much longer than I expected. I don't remember writing that much, but it was spread over a number of years. A lot of memories here, not too much redundancy. Some unattributed quotes and a "yea" that should be a "yeah", but generally speaking I'm satisfied. I found a few ideas for follow-up blog posts that I'll attend to over time. But for now I'll just leave you with a thought: Every headline you read today, re-read it with the prefix "On Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day ...". There are timeless lessons there ... ignore them at our collective peril.

I Must Be Getting Old

Does anyone remember when it was that common sense and decency went out of fashion?

The Problem with Economics

Two economists are walking down Constitution Avenue after the 4th of July Parade, when they come upon a pile of horseshit. The first economist says to the second economist, "I'll give you twenty thousand dollars if you eat that." The second economist runs his optimization calculations and decides that, yes, he will be better off; so he eats the horseshit and takes the money. They walk along a little farther and they come upon another pile of horseshit. Now the second economist - with twenty thousand dollars in his pocket - turns to the first economist and says, "I'll give YOU twenty thousand dollars if you eat that." So the first economist eats the horseshit and takes his money back. They walk a while in silence until the first economist says to the second, "We both have the same amount of money that we started with, but now we've both eaten a pile of horseshit." To which the second economist replies, "Yes, that's true; but you're overlooking the fact that GDP just grew by Forty Thousand Dollars!"

Paraphrased from a podcast by NPR's Planet Money