Facebook and Privacy and Ways It’s Used Against You
Between the words Facebook, privacy, and yourself, which one does not belong with the other two?
That depends on how you look at the situation.
If you value your privacy, then Facebook is excluded. But if you value a public lifestyle on Facebook, then remove your privacy.
It seems that once every few months we learn of yet another way that Facebook is either involved with shady business practices (such as tricking minors to rack up ridiculous charges in games), to a more recent story about how some with the company. It’s also been known about how the company also likes to track your constant location whether or not you actually use the “check in” feature. But don’t worry, now there’s an easier way to tell the company as obviously as before.
Yeah. Sure. Okay. Whatever you say, Facebook. Yep. 100% complete faith in your system.
I’m supposed to believe you this time, just like how I’ve checked the “do not notify me of new friends” option yet you still keep notifying my phone of new friend suggestions at least once a day, almost all of those people that I’ve never met.
The end result though is still the same.
Facebook wants to know EVERYTHING about you to the smallest detail, from your location to your health to your spending habits. And once you’re snagged by one of its tentacles, your fate is sealed.
But why? Read more…
Categories: Uncategorized Tags: Facebook, society
Do You Remember . . . The Alliance of American Football (AAF) League?
A few weeks ago our local news station did a brief story about a new football league that was about to premier called the Alliance of American Football (AAF).
The concept of the AAF basically being a lower-level developmental league of professional football with all of the hard hitting action of the pros seemed promising. It’s similar to how baseball and hockey have lower professional levels to help train new players and rehabilitate upper-level players coming off an injury or surgery. In this case, it’s one more chance for undrafted and former NFL players (and coaches) to prove their abilities without resorting to the Canadian Football League, the Arena Football League, or playing football in Europe.
Unlike the developmental leagues for baseball and hockey, the AAF plays in an entirely different season than the NFL. Here we are in late February and the AAF is already in its third week of the inaugural season. Normally this time of year is dominated by coverage of NBA and college basketball, and if you live up north, ice hockey as well.
And apparently it’s still that way.
Here in Atlanta we have an Alliance football team (the Atlanta Legends and their 0-3 record), and despite their losing record, there’s virtually no news coverage of the team. This is a major city that cherishes its football, from high school to college to the NFL. It didn’t matter if the Falcons had a bad season. Each week there was still plenty of news coverage of the team, whether you liked it or not. Friday nights in the fall had highlights of high school football teams, and Saturdays were dominated by college football. Read more…
Gatlinburg, Tennessee – trip report part 9 – Diamond Resorts Sales Pitch
On Sunday morning we started the day very early. After waking up at sunrise, showering and dressing, we had one final breakfast at our hotel. Then we quickly loaded the car and checked out. It was time to head home, but first we had to make a mandatory stop for our timeshare sales pitch with Diamond Resorts.
As it was explained earlier, the sales pitch was the entire reason for our almost spontaneous trip to eastern Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains. Without it we would not have gone at that point in time. But Diamond’s “free” trip offer was interesting, so we gave it a fair shot.
Diamond Resorts – Gatlinburg, Tennessee
Traffic was extremely light and the sun was still rising as we easily drove south through Pigeon Forge and quickly made our way into Gatlinburg. Although our timeshare sales pitch meeting place was classified as being in Gatlinburg, the actual location was over ten miles away from the heart of the town. It was a bit of a drive getting there, but we made it just before our scheduled appointment.
A strange part was that when we made our appointment for this trip, we chose the Pigeon Forge vacation option. Our hotel was in Pigeon Forge, and that part was great. No problems there. But our sales pitch was not only in Gatlinburg, but it was at a place way outside of town. Later during the meeting, the salesman did mention that Diamond did have a newer location in Pigeon Forge. Why we weren’t scheduled to meet there, we’ll never know. Read more…
Gatlinburg, Tennessee – trip report part 8 – More Ripley’s Attractions
Returning to the October 2018 trip to Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains, after finishing Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium, we continued with our tour through Gatlinburg.
The weather was fantastic, the streets were getting busy, and our stomachs were getting hungry for some lunch. We made our way down the street and dined at a national fast food establishment. It wasn’t anything special, but it did its job of being inexpensive as well as satisfying our appetite. Once we were finished, we kept walking down the street until reaching the Ober Gatlinburg tram station. This was our turnaround point, so after checking out the building we crossed the street and began our long walk back towards the north side of town.
We still had two more attractions to visit as part of our Ripley’s multi-attraction ticket. Up ahead we spotted the building for Ripley’s Haunted Adventure, so we decided to try it out. My wife and I love haunted houses, and each year we always visit Netherworld here in metro Atlanta. I remember seeing the website for Ripley’s Haunted Adventure before we left for the trip, and it sounded promising.
RIPLEY’S HAUNTED ADVENTURE
We approached the ticket window and scanned our attraction tickets to enter the attraction. Then we walked down a short path that ultimately led to a waiting area for an inclined tram. The theming in this area was decent and it helped build the suspense for a spooky trip through the ghost house. Read more…
Categories: travel Tags: Ripleys, Tennessee, travel
Bumble & Serene Williams Super Bowl Commercial – It’s Not About Equality
Last night my wife and I were watching the Super Bowl featuring the Patriots versus the Rams.
Yes, for those of you wondering, I’ve eased up on my NFL boycott from last year. While I’m still not anywhere close to ever wearing any team apparel (or selling it on eBay in my online store), I’ve been casually watching games this past season, though mainly as TV background noise while I’ve been working. My TV antenna works great for picking up games on the local broadcast channels for free. Neither the NFL or its main sponsors will still (intentionally) get a single penny from me.
Anyway, early in the Super Bowl there was a TV commercial starring tennis champion Serena Williams. I’m definitely not a fan of hers, but being interested in marketing, I still watched the advertisement to see what product they were pushing on us viewers. And the end result was . . . rather confusing.
Serena Williams: Bumble Commercial
What in the hell is Bumble, and what does that have to do with Serena Williams basically telling girls to go out there and be fiercely aggressive in life? As it turns out, the message in the commercial and the product being sold are at two different ends of the spectrum. Read more…
Categories: marketing Tags: marketing, society, TV commercial
Should Georgia Eliminate “Common Core” In Schools?
Today’s local news topic deals with the state of Florida announcing that it will be removing “common core” from its school systems. Our local Fox 5 Atlanta news station is asking viewers if Georgia should do the same.
Should Georgia remove “common core”?
Absolutely. The “common core” system is incredibly damaging to our youth, and it needs to be removed immediately.
Without going into too much detail right now, common core is basically a way of simplifying math equations (namely simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) so that students can have an “easier” way to reach the answer. The steps even go as far as teaching children how to draw boxes and number lines to help them reach the final answer. The biggest problem is that common core unnecessarily complicates the process severely, adding many additional steps that not only confuse a lot of students, but it leaves many more places for them to make errors.
Right now this is still a huge push in Georgia’s elementary schools. Guess what happens though when the students reach math class in middle school! There’s NO COMMON CORE in middle school! The middle school teachers have to basically re-teach elementary school math all over again, going back several years. Read more…
Categories: Uncategorized Tags: school, society