Fix Your Algorithm

            

The company selling these is SaferingzUSA

             If I were to be honest then I would have to tell you that Google and Facebook are getting on my nerves.  A few weeks ago, I realized that the car seat I have for my young grandson is too small and so I googled some carseats, and went to the Wal-Mart website. The following day I bought one, installed it and now when I take my little grandson out, he'll be more comfortable and safe. Every day since then, on everything I do online I receive information on toddler car seats of every color and design imaginable.

                About five months ago, I was in the throes of writing my fifth book, a second novel. In one of the chapters, there is a wedding scene, and a honeymoon afterward. It's been a while since I've been on a honeymoon, and so I looked up online some of the rooms and what potential packages were available in the specific place that my characters had planned to go.  For five months now I have been deluged with ads for honeymoon packages, not only for the place I researched briefly, but for lots of other places as well. I have also been getting a fair smattering of ads for ethical diamond engagement rings, and even for conflict-free diamonds. Tell me, if your diamond is conflict free, will your marriage be? Is that the unspoken promise here?  I have also been deluged with ads for silicone wedding bands. Silicone wedding bands ? Really?  I am at a loss as to how to tell Google that not only am I not getting married, but no one in my household is either.

                 Recently, because two of my friends have rheumatoid arthritis and I am aware of much better treatment options now, I looked up the current protocols for treatment. I am a registered nurse and a couple of years ago I took a continuing education course on it. It wasn't at all a strange thing for me to be looking up one time only.  Now, I am deluged with coupons and information from drug companies trying to sell me on their drug for rheumatoid arthritis.  I am also receiving offers from major medical centers to be part of a study for experimental treatment.  I am getting so much mail on RA, I am beginning to think they know something I don't.

                I understand that algorithms used by Google, Facebook and other companies help to target the ads and information I receive, but for writers especially, this is excessive.  What happens if I look up thermite and seek a recipe for a book project ?  What happens if I do some research on an AR-15 because my character wants a quality weapon rather than an inferior substitute ?   What happens if I look up gonorrhea ?  Does a public health official arrive with a shot of Rocephin ?

               It might be good business to send information concerning hotel rooms to anyone looking at them, for up to a week.  It might be a good idea to send information on toddler car seats to parents and grandparents for a week after an inquiry has taken place.  There is no way I should be getting some of these ads when the book being researched is now completed, edited, getting its cover, and then is about to be released.  Google and Facebook, fix your algorithm !

About Facebook

      

       If I were to be honest, I would tell you that although I appreciate blogger, e-mail and Linkedin, that I really don't enjoy Facebook much.  Because my new book "Portsoy Woods" has been released, I committed with the publisher to spending six hours a week on social media in its promotion. Only in Facebook can you arrive, be spammed with hundreds of people you don't know wishing to friend you. I accepted them, because this is how you make connections and sell books. Within minutes, two men claimed to love me (based on my book cover picture), one Middle Eastern man wanted me to deposit money in his account, and one man became angry because "I wasn't spending enough time with him online".  Only on facebook can you lose rating by not responding to your "new friends" quickly enough.  Yesterday, I was signed up to a pornographic group there without my permission.  With twenty minutes twice a day spent there, this is just a chance I will have to take. I don't know if this is translating into books purchased or not. A lot of the people who contact me don't seem to read or respond in English very well. It might be that the book would be too much of an effort for them to read in the first place. I don't really understand how spending time on what seems to be a dating site is going to help my book sales. But then, that's just me. Your own mileage could vary.

           If you are genuinely interested in the book, "Portsoy Woods", these are links which would enable you to read about it or purchase it. I would actually converse with someone who wanted to talk about that !

http://booklocker.com/books/8874.html

www.portsoywoods.blogspot.com

 https://www.facebook.com/Janebecomesanauthor/







 

I Cannot Recollect Such a Contentious Election

          

Photo: Science Daily

   My parents had a rule in that they did not discuss politics or religion in public. Of course, they discussed various aspects of both with friends, but not in public places within the earshot of others.  I used to think their stance was excessive, but now, I am thinking how bright and wise they both, in fact, were.

                This week, in numerous public places people have begun arguing with one another regarding Trump and Hillary Clinton.   Clinton supporters can't believe that others would be in total support of a man they think is a racist and anti-woman, and some Trump supporters can't believe that others would be in support of a woman who sold influence during her tenure as Secretary of State, allowed State Department employees and a diplomat to be killed when no aid was sent to them in Benghazi, and who illegally used a private server to keep her state department e-mails from the prying eyes of government oversight.  In many places such arguments have become insulting, loud and progressed to fist fighting. Police have been called.

               Yes, it's a crucial election.  With the US in 20 trillion dollars in debt, and with Russia actually verbalizing that gearing up for war against us, people are on edge and they are less than rational.

                Do as much research on these people as you can.  Then make your decision. Keep your mouth shut while you are doing it, and this includes pollsters too.  Your choice is a private one, and your car shouldn't be torched for it, and increasingly, it could be.

My Recollections of Tim Kaine

                 

Tim Kaine and his wife Ann Holton, as hosts to Queen Elizabeth in 2007 / AP Photo/Bob Brown, Pool

              This morning I awoke to hear that Hillary Clinton had finally announced her vice presidential running mate. She selected Tim Kaine from Virginia. (She has selected a gun owner who opposes abortion.)

                        Even with the illegal and unethical use of a private server aside for a moment,  Hillary is a particularly unlikable sort to many. Therefore, the selection of someone who is perennially gracious to everyone is a good pick for her side.   Having lived in Virginia now for more than twenty-five years, Tim Kaine is familiar to me. Although I generally identify with Republican objectives, I am friends with a number of Democrats. I consider Governor (Lawrence) Douglas Wilder, for example to be one of the finest people to ever seek political office, and he is a Democrat.

                        For those of you unfamilar with Tim Kaine, those of us who lived for a time in the Richmond area, are very familiar with him.  Tim is a law graduate of Harvard who came to Richmond to work as an attorney.  Tim Kaine is a gun owner and most people who used him felt he served his clients as a fair housing law attorney, well. He is also fluent in Spanish.  He is catholic and he and his wife have attended a catholic church in Richmond which is mostly of African American membership.

                        Tim Kaine is married to the former Ann Holton, who has worked as a juvenile and domestic relations judge. They have three children.  Ann is the daughter of a Virginia governor.   I remember that in the mid nineties, Tim Kaine was elected to the city council of Richmond. This was a bit of a joke to us, since so many of them go on to serve jail time afterward, but Kaine made it work for him.  I remember seeing Kaine one day when I was in the process of parking at the Borders Books store on West Broad Street and Kaine exited walking across my parking space nearly getting hit.  My minivan was full of children and I remember hitting the brakes with all I had.  Tim Kaine turned around, realizing what had happened and was broadly smiling as he mouthed "Sorry !"   I have often wondered what would have happened to him had I not been paying quite such good attention that day.

                    Over time, we raised all four of our biological children and adopted another.  Tim Kaine continued up the political ladder. In 1998, he was elected as Mayor to Richmond.   By all accounts, even those who opposed him, said he was both personable and charismatic.  He speaks easily and gives the impression that he has all sorts of time for you.   In the early 2000s, I remember Kaine being elected as the Lieutenant Governor.  By 2005, two of my kids were in college, and Tim Kaine crossed a parking lot at my eldest son's college, where he was walking alone, simply to shake his hand and ask him for his vote in the upcoming gubernatorial election. Kaine won.

                  A friend of ours had worked for Kaine and done significant work there, and had been promised a position in the new administration, but that position was never offered.

                    I will never forget Kaine and his wife Ann in 2007 as they hosted Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip.  Kaine and his wife kept patting the Monarch and Prince Phillip on the shoulder. Each time they did, the Queen and her husband looked shocked, but the Kaines never seemed to catch on.   Seems they did not know that you don't touch the Monarch unless she reaches out to shake your hand.

                    Kaine was the Democratic National Committee chair in 2009, and went on to be a US Senator. All this time, he has taught law part-time at intervals at the University of Richmond.

                    Kaine has done a credible job with whatever the undertaking and even the opposition likes him as a person.  It's unfortunate that his chance to run as a vice-president candidate is marred by running with someone with an overwhelming amount of negative baggage.  Perhaps the Democrats can flip the ticket making Kaine the presidential candidate, as Kaine has no scandals, potential pending indictments, closet skeletons, medical issues which make him unsuitable to run, or impairments to the receipt of a top secret clearance as does his running mate.

Why I Spend Less and Less Time Online

  To be honest, in the nineteen nineties I spent a considerable time each day online. I was home with four children, one of whom was a baby.  The internet allowed me to research curricula for homeschooling, download educational and entertainment for my children, and to stay in touch with friends who were similarly encumbered at home. The internet was instrumental in my finding part time work which meshed with my responsibilities at home. It also allowed me to keep up with a considerable amount of medical continuing education with a minimal impact to everything I needed to do at home.

      After two thousand, I continued using it a great deal.  It can be an excellent research tool even when the information you have derived is anecdotal. It can, in those events, help you to formulate plans and identify areas in which more genuine study is required. The internet has also provided me from time to time, the chance to correspond with true leaders and front and center individuals in fields in which I have an interest.  It also became an excellent adjunct in home schooling and aided our children in research while selecting their universities. When I taught college, the internet allowed me to achieve much more in a short period of time.

        I noticed recently that people have started telephoning me at home again. In fact, what I noticed is that my voice mail was full on a couple of occasions. One of them told me, "I know you haven't been online as much".   Well, this is true.  Although I embraced Linkedin some time ago, and at one time I owned a number of Yahoo Groups, I have never been a member of Facebook. I dislike the potential for breeches in family security, and I don't like their terms of service. Yes, I actually read those.  It's fairly easy simply to read about someone on Facebook and actually compile quite a dossier on them, if you wished to.  I don't have the time to Twitter incessantly, although a few of my friends do.  Some of my kids have used Instagram.  I like Blogger, but a lot of the social media platforms have a great deal of chatter, but are not necessarily interesting or valuable to me.

         For a time I virtually abandoned the television and only obtained news online. Lately, I have found that a great deal of online news is simply incorrect, inaccurate, or massaged to advance a particular agenda, particularly when it's something I personally know a good deal about. The other reason I am spending less time online is that there is a great deal of communication hostility. Time online used to be fun. There have always been trolls online, but now, even on Linkedin, it can be difficult to express an opinion on anything without being stalked for a time by someone, using their actual name or a pseudonym, who needs you to fall in line with their opinion. They plan to harass you until you fall in line. I cannot recall a time in the past where your having an opinion which differed even slightly from someone elses was a cause for such attention, particularly when I don't really have unusual views.

       I know that my publisher has always wished I would embrace social media whole hog. I honestly can't see that happening.  What I see is more and more people pulling out of living their lives and failing to make needed changes in their real lives. More and more people live almost a half life online.  I have friends who photograph all their meals and place them online.  I am not saying that their recipe for meatloaf is not online worthy. I am saying that I don't know who needs to see their entire diet plus snacks including their calorie counts, which are off, by the way.   I also see that while people join online groups, they tend to join groups with the like-minded.  This way, the delusional reinforce themselves,  the progressives reinforce themselves, etc.  No one is getting better in their persuasive arguments with one another.  Too many times, their interactions with others is highly charged, emotional, and not well considered.

            I don't know what the long term effects to society, our culture and the world will ultimately be, but I am guessing that it's not good.  I also don't think that an unnatural dependence upon the cyber world is confined to millennials. There are plenty of people of every age whose interactions with people are almost exclusively online.  The internet is a tool, and it is indeed a promising one. However, we need to be more carefully considering how we use it personally. The online acrimony is likely to  worsen in an election year, as are the inaccurate news reports.   If it does, you may not see me online for awhile.  I'll just be at an undisclosed location working on a novel.

The Launching of a Sibling Blog

          

       You might think it strange that someone who already has four blogs has started yet another.  Doesn't she have enough to do, especially since she is nearing a deadline for yet another writing project, a paid one no less ?   The fact is that each of my blogs has a different purpose and each taps into a different place.  I don't eat in the living room, or sleep in the bathroom, so in the same vein, each blog is a different room of sorts where we address different ideas, thoughts, and sometimes feelings.  Rational Preparedness is a blog that was created as a consequence of my podcasted radio program where I talk about issues of preparedness. Listeners wanted a place where they could refer to the names of products and their contact information for things I'd mentioned in the preceding podcast. When time constraints made it impossible for me to continue the program, listeners asked that I, at least, continue the blog.  The blog continued, and shortly after, I wrote a book called Rational Preparedness; A Primer to Preparedness.  The Rational Preparedness blog then became an arm of the promotion of that book and in addition, a place where I could elaborate on and extend some of the ideas I had introduced in the book.

                 What I Learned from Daniel, was actually my first blog.  I started it a few weeks after my twelve and a half year old son's sudden death. It was a way of journaling, staying sane, and perhaps sharing the process of our recovery with those who'd also known  losses and might even be helped by my musings. I had no way of knowing where it might lead. This blog continues, but also became a book entitled    What I Learned from Daniel.  Whereas the blog is primarily about my life and the life of my family and remaining children following Daniel's departure, the book is squarely about Daniel's life while he was here on Earth.

                 Jane Becomes an Author is a light hearted and honest assessment of how difficult the life of a new author is, especially in a period of time in history where book publishing has radically changed in the digital age. I usually enjoy the writing portion of the tasks. I do not enjoy some of the promotion, the begging for reviews from famous people, and the rewrites of passages which might have seemed to me to be the best paragraphs in the book. These are my thoughts on the process of becoming a professional writer.

                Life After the Rescues is an informational blog concerning our farm and the animals of many varieties who came to us as rescues. It shares ideas about animal management and also our thoughts when their lives finally come to an end. Our lives have most likely been enriched by the animals even more than they have appreciated being here with us.

               I plan to continue all of these blogs as appropriate.  Sometimes a thought, an issue or a problem doesn't fit well in any of these other blog homes.  Then, there might be a comment, a complaint or a yarn here.  Thanks for coming.