Darkoshi

I came across this old ad for a Cisco Systems user conference amongst Qiao's things and thought it amusing. (Cisco makes networking equipment.)



Text of ad:
I attend 3 keynotes.
I sit through 12 breakout sessions.
I visit 75 Cisco partners.
I transform business.
(And I still can't figure out the digital alarm.)
Networkers 2003
Register now

Those particular annoying ads on YouTube finally convinced me to install a browser add-on that lets me blocks all the ads. It also lets me disable video autoplay without needing to be being logged in, and has other nice features too.

Enhancer for YouTube

It shows my age, but I'm still impressed by things like this. With the way other things are lately, I can only hope that cultural/social/legal acceptance continues to improve.

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This WebMd article has not only one, but two photos of masculine individuals in emotionally intimate poses: Things That Suppress Your Immune System
(Lack of sleep is the first thing listed.)

The first photo might depict two close platonic friends, one expressing caring concern for the other. The second photo is less ambiguous, unless it's two *very* close platonic friends.

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I gave my nieces this graphic novel for Christmas:
The Secret Garden on 81st Street

As it looked interesting, I read it myself first. To my pleasant surprise, a gay male couple were among the main characters. Surprising, as it wasn't mentioned on the back cover or inside jacket flaps. It's nice that gayness is treated as such a normal thing that it doesn't need to be mentioned, even in a young adult book. In the old days I'm sure that would have caused an uproar. (It probably does still in some circles, but whatever.)

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Of course, there are many other examples, including ads.

Here's a nice video, even though it's not my kind of music: Kalen Allen: Christmas Lives Within You, ft. Michaela Jaé Rodriguez

Ah, this one is more my style, though not as sentimental:



Video title: Santa Slay (Official Music Video)
Posted by: The Kalen Allen
Date posted: Dec 13, 2020

I like this commercial, especially the "little Peggy" parts.

Video title: Start Your Impossible | Never Stop | Toyota
Posted by: Toyota Global
Date posted: May 30, 2021


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I'm back to watching the Olympics opening ceremony. That was in one of the commercial breaks. It caught my eye enough that I stopped fast-forwarding thru the commercials and backed up to watch it.

I'm also back to cringing internally when seeing people on TV not wearing their face masks properly, or wearing ones that aren't fitted properly to them. So many masks slipping below noses. Quite a few purposely pushed down.

The male Iraqi flag bearer was wearing a face mask but the female flag bearer was smiling broadly without a face covering. What's up with that? My web search didn't find an answer on her masklessness, but instead found this:
Mask-shy Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan rain on COVID-compliant opening parade


The way they have the stadium seats randomly covered in different colors sure makes a good imitation (from a distance) of the stands being filled with people.

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Oh gosh, this cat commercial is good too :D



Video title: 2021 Chevy Silverado – Cat | Chevrolet
Posted by: Chevrolet
Date posted: Jul 23, 2021


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Well, I'd better stop the recording again for now and go to sleep.

Privacy checkup: Limit Ad Tracking up 216% on iOS, but down 85% on Android (March 2020)

That makes sense as I didn't even know there was such a setting in Android.
It is under Settings - Google - Ads - "Opt out of Ads Personalization".

There is also an option on that page to "Reset advertising ID". The Google Advertising ID (GAID), from what I understand, is a way for advertisers to track your ad-related activity across different apps.

That said, I'm leaving the personalization on for now, as I use very few apps with ads, and don't recall being annoyed by any at the moment.

That commercial clip must have been done by putting a camera on the middle of a jump rope and spinning it around the actor while they jumped rope. Nifty idea.

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Standing by an open window as a car happened to drive past, I heard someone inside it exclaim, "Hoo hoo hoo! This is so cool!"

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Paper wasps were trying to build a nest under my front porch overhang today. I shooed them away with a broom and sponged away the tiny beginnings of nest they'd made, but I'm not sure how long I can stay vigilant. I read now that they don't like light, so I'll keep the porch light turned on bright during the day to see if that keeps them away.

There were at least 3 different wasps that came and loitered in the same area, a couple at the same time, which confused me as I thought each nest was built by one queen. According to The Wasp Life Cycle, "it is possible for several Queens who survived the winter – normally all from the same previous nest – to start construction of their new nests in close proximity to each other", so that may explain it.

Via duskpeterson:


TK Maxx Xmas 2020 - The Lil' Goat

“The Greatest Gift” | Xfinity 2020 Holiday Commercial

Mog’s Christmas Calamity | Sainsbury’s Ad | Christmas 2015

"Come Together" - a H&M Holiday Short Film directed by Wes Anderson

John Lewis Christmas Advert 2016 (Buster The Boxer)

Trump Facebook Ad Openly Using a Nazi Symbol For “Political Prisoner”

The ad being referenced has this text:

Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem. They are DESTROYING our cities and rioting - it’s absolute madness.
...
Please add your name IMMEDIATELY to stand with your President and his decision to declare ANTIFA a Terrorist Organization.

The ad has an image of a big downward-pointing red triangle, which is a symbol Nazis used to represent people whom they had imprisoned for political reasons.
The ad gives no reason or explanation for the red triangle, but given the Nazi association mentioned in the above article, along with the implication that all anti-fascist protesters should be labeled terrorists and imprisoned, it is very disturbing.

Facebook has taken down the ad "because it goes against Facebook Advertising Policies."

The other ads I see posted by the same sponsor, Team Trump @officialteamtrump, do not blatantly display Nazi symbols, but they are likewise repugnant to me. Very negative, Biden-bashing; calling Biden "Sleepy Joe" all over the place; purporting that the Democrats are out to gut Social Security and health care rather than the other way around.

But this "Team Trump" advertiser has spent (only) $1.87 million on Facebook ads during the last year.

By contrast, Donald J. Trump @DonaldTrump has spent $44.5 million on Facebook ads in the last year and $1.2 million in the last week.

The ads from the @DonaldTrump account aren't as vitriolic as the other ones, but they are also unpleasant, and some of the same ads are shared by both accounts, so they are undoubtedly linked.

The red triangle ad was (apparently?) shown on both the @officialteamtrump and @DonaldTrump pages (I'm not quite sure how to interpret all of this yet):
https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?id=591999094784607
https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?id=681677109057568

Each of those links shows there are 30 versions of the ad (each with its own IDs for both accounts). But when you scroll through the versions, they all look alike. Most other ads also show multiple identical-looking versions. So I guess the difference must be in to whom they are targeted, or some such.

For comparison, here are Joe Biden @joebiden's Facebook ads.
He has spent $23 million on the ads in the last year and $1.2 million in the last week.


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General Notes on the Facebook Ad Library:

Main link: https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/

When you search on a term such as "Team Trump", the drop-down may display many matching pages for that term. This may include pages that haven't done any advertising.

Once you select a item from the drop-down, it will show info on that page, and the ads it has ... (Showed on its own page? Paid for? I'm not sure. Aren't there some ads that are targeted to Facebook users via their timeline, without showing up on a particular page?)

To save a URL to a specific ad, after opening it, click the 3 dots up near the top, by the sponsor's name. The URL will include the ad ID which is also displayed in that top section.

To get information on the entity that paid for the ad, after opening it, expand the "Information from the advertiser" section.

After opening an add, the top shows how many versions of it there are, and has left/right arrows for you to scroll through them.

I don't see a way to search for ads shown during a certain timeframe. If you want to see what ads were shown a month or year ago, it looks like you have to scroll down through all the other ads that were posted since then.

Ads that were taken down because they went against Facebook advertising policies are still listed on the above page, but their images aren't shown until you click the link to open the specific ad. So that's an easy-ish way to find them - keep scrolling down until you find one that doesn't include an image. (Unless this is only for the cases where the image was found to be objectionable, but not the text? I'm not sure.)

Per this page, unless an ad has appeared on your timeline, you can't get details on what demographics an ad was targeted at.

When you open the main ads page for a particular (page / organization/ whatnot), there's a "Page Transparency" section at the top. It's "See More" link gives info on page name changes, the country /region from where people manage the page, and the organizations that manage the page.

Dictionary.com's word of the year is "existential". But the runner-up was "nonbinary". Woo!

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It was pointed out to me that when political pollsters call, they may show up as an unrecognized number. So if I want my voice to be counted in those polls, I'd need to start answering unrecognized numbers again, for the very slim chance that they'd call me. I'm not even sure what I'd answer about who I'm planning to vote for in the primary.

Based on this page about the debate qualifications, the candidates need to get at least 4% in 4 polls to qualify. Yang has 3 qualifying polls so far, so would I answer Yang, hoping to help him get the 4th necessary poll numbers? Or should I answer Castro or Booker, both of whom haven't even reached 4% in a single poll yet?

I was surprised and disappointed to hear that Kamala Harris dropped out of the race, when she had been doing better than my favorites, number-wise. Should I finally admit to myself that there's no feasible chance at all for Yang, Booker, or Castro to win?

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My left wrist has been aching a lot this week; I'm wearing a wrist brace again to reduce strain while on the computer.

My lower back started aching a lot yesterday while I was out shopping. So much that I considered sitting down on the floor right there in the store, before I remembered the benches in the shoe section.

Before this, it's been quite a while since my wrists or back bothered me. These problems seem to keep coming for a while and then going away for a while, and I can't figure out what the triggers are.

My last two periods were 16 days apart, and now it's been almost 5 weeks without signs of the next one. Yay, peri-menopause.

I wonder if it is all related.

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Before my back started aching, I took a look in a store named Five Below. They had a section of bulk loose candy for 10 cents each. These included both Zotz fizzy candies and Goldenberg's dark chocolate mini Peanut Chews! I was glad to find those because Qiao, who only rarely eats sweets, surprised me by eating up ALL the peanut chews that had been leftover from Halloween without me noticing until after they were all gone. I didn't take THOSE to work because I like them too much to give away.

So I got myself some candy for St. Nikolaus' Day.

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Aww... This is a rather impressive Christmas ad from the German store Edeka. The robot is cute enough to be from Star Wars.



The newspaper headline shown is "Humans flee from artificial intelligence!"
The text at the end says "Without love, it is only a fest / party".

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I was really searching for the song, "Lasst uns froh und munter sein" (Bald ist Nikolaus Abend da). Nikolaus Abend (St Nikolaus' eve) is when kids in Germany would put a boot out by the front door for St Nikolaus to fill with sweets and treats overnight.

Mainly for myself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT1dNkDW9i4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcDAR71W0xg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auwgXNMwIMI

There are various versions of the song lyrics. Some sing it as "Weihnachtsabend" (Christmas Eve) instead of St. Nikolaus' Eve, and with "Christkind" (Christ child) instead of St.Nikolaus, etc.

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/lasst-uns-froh-und-munter-sein-let-us-be-happy-and-cheerful.html

https://www.german-way.com/history-and-culture/german-language/german-christmas-carols/lasst-uns-froh-und-munter-sein/