Free COVID-19 Cure

This sign was just too great. 

Advertisement with the little slips at the bottom to tear off. 

Free Cure for COVID-19.
Please take an information strip below

And what do the strips say:

Stay the F**K at home

I wonder why no one took any of the strips? LOL

Like every meaningful issue, we have people on both sides of the aisle fighting it out what is the right thing to do. 

And when it comes to life and liberty, passions certainly run high. 😉

(Credit Photo to my son-in-law Itzchak for sharing this with me from his friend in California)

Advertising Platforms As A REAL Business Model?

So I read in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that 3 major technology companies get over 80% of their revenue from advertising:

These companies and their percentage of advertising revenue are:

Facebook – 98.3%

Twitter — 86.4%

Alphabet (Google) — 86%

It’s a wonderful thing how advertising pays for the wonderful free Internet services. 

Looking back to when I was a kid, I guess that how we got all those marvelous TV shows without having to pay for a cable subscription. 

But what I always wonder in the back of my mind is whether collecting advertising dollars is a REAL business. 

Yeah, sure these companies are mammoth and have made themselves and their shareholders gazillions of dollars.  

But somewhere I keep telling myself this doesn’t quite add up. 

If you make something of value then someone is willing to pay for it. 

If it doesn’t have value then you have to give it away for free. 

If facebook or twitter actually charged money for their service, I can’t imagine anyone would actually pay squat for it.  

Google is another story, but if they started to charge, you’d just go to a service like Explorer or Safari that doesn’t.

So if the only way to provide the service is to shove advertising down your customer’s throats, again I have to ask is that really a business. 

If I can’t see how a company can sell something based on the VALUE they are providing, honestly it’s not something that I can really get myself behind. 

Out of the three companies–Google is perhaps the only one that I can see as a real something. 

As for Facebook and Twitter, despite the Presidential tweets and Russian interference in our elections, I don’t see the underlying greatness. 

Maybe I am way wrong, but if you don’t want to pay for it then what the heck is it really worth! 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Makes My Heart Sing

Just thought this was really beautiful. 

The yellow butterflies with the background of the blue from the sky and ocean, and the white of the soft clouds. 

Feeling like this makes my heart sing. 

Sort of like love. 

It’s simple, but so clear. 

We’re free and flying alone, but together.

We’re one with the universe and also with each other.

Butterfly, butterfly into the wild blue yonders. 

No worries, just soaring, at peace, happy, and oh so free. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

A Beautiful Crane

I took this photo in Lake Needwood yesterday. 

A most beautiful crane.

Such a long neck, skinny legs, smooth feathers, and a yellow beak.

When it took flight, it was so amazing. 

It’s wingspan was huge. 

And it soared and glided through the trees and into the sky. 

I wish I could have caught it all on video. 

So free, elegant, and graceful.  

There was something almost heavenly about it. 

Imprinted it on my memory–loved it. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Data Like Clouds

So data is like clouds…

Clouds want to be free roaming the wild blue skies similar to how data wants to be searchable, accessible, useful, and so on. 

But with data, like clouds, when it rains it pours–and when data blows about with the windstorm and is compromised in terms of security or privacy, then we not only come away wet but very uncomfortable and unhappy. 

Then, as we actually end up putting our data in the great computing clouds of the likes of Amazon, iCloud, HP, and more, the data is just within arm’s reach of the nearest smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer. 

But just as we aspire to reach to the clouds–and get to our data–other less scrupled (cyber criminals, terrorists, and nation states)–seek to grab some of those oh so soft, white cloud data too.

While you may want to lock your data cloud in a highly secure double vault, unfortunately, you won’t be able to still get to it quickly and easily…it’s a trade-off between security and accessibility. 

And leaving the doors wide open doesn’t work either, because then no one even needs an (encryption) key to get in. 

So that’s our dilemma–open data, but secured storage–white, soft, beautiful clouds wisping overhead, but not raining data on our organizational and personal parades. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

We Can Fly

Totally awesome viral video.

Looks like 3 flying people.

Really they are drones in the shape of human figures.

If only we could really fly that way–wow we! 😉

People Of All Colors

Not sure why I like this, but I do.

What comes to mind, is “the crazier, the better!”

And this is pretty nuts:

– The people have no clothes (but in a modest type of way).

– The men are covering their privates (with handbags), but why not the women?

– They people are sort of gray, yet have different colored ink blots over their feet, hands, eyes, mouth, and hair–almost like they are stymied or perhaps, the opposite, free to be whatever they want.

– They are similar, but yet all different, like us.

– Why these different colors–we don’t know; it is muted, but it is ALIVE.

It’s crazy and it’s people–you never know who or what exactly you are dealing with–but we are all G-d’s creations. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

It’s Not Bread

While a mitzvah (Biblical commandment) to eat Matzah on Passover…

With all due respect, during the rest of the year, they can’t even give it away for free. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Two Pictures From DC Today

These were two photos that I took downtown today.

Both photos represent contrasts of the reality with life in the city.

The first was a car junked-up and sitting on the sidewalk. It was quite out of place in front of the neat rowhouses and otherwise nicely manicured street.

The second was the “free samples” tray of delicious Pumpkin Munchkins at Dunkin’ Donuts with all the samples gone–empty–nothing there.

Perhaps, if we put these together in a storyline then it’s simple…someone wrecked their car, put grafitti all over it in some sort of artistic or social statement, made their way over to DD and in their anxiety ate up all the free munchkins, and left only a short while later to get over to the car dealship to look for a new set of wheels.

That’s a pretty full day even in Washington, D.C. 😉

(Source Photos: Andy Blumenthal)

Sears Couldn’t Sell An Appliance Let Alone A Rolex

So I was amazed at the depths to which Sears will go to try to save their horrible brand.

The Wall Street Journal (21 July 2013) described how Sears online has started a marketplace where they are now hosting the selling of high-end goods at their low-end department store site.

Sears which normally sells kitchen appliances, tools, and crappy clothing is now trying to market $33,000 Rolex watches and $4,400 Chanel handbags.

Good luck to that after their failed 2005 merger of Sears and Kmart–as if combining two lousy companies make one good one.

Since 2005, the company revenue has steadily declined about 25% from $53 billion to $39.9 billion and they lost $4 billion in 2011-2012. Yeah, that today’s Sears!

My own horrible experience with Sears:

I went online to order a range, and Sears botched the order over and over again and kept me holding endlessly throughout the miserable process and at each stage asking for my feedback and apparently doing nothing with it.

Problem #1: It started out pretty simply–I asked for some guidance comparing a couple of models, chose one, and they entered my order. However, when I looked over the order, they had entered the incorrect delivery date–when I wasn’t available. So I contacted Sears back to correct the mistake, but they couldn’t get their system to reflect the correct date–it would only show the original incorrect date–and this is a multi-billion dollar company? But I shut an eye when a supervisor finally assures me that it will arrive on the correct date.

Problem #2: The next day or so, I get a call from a Sears customer service representative who asks me whether I am the Andy located in XYZ (some G-d forsaken location)–ah, no! Well, they explain that’s where they have my order shipping to. They can’t explain how that happened, but promise Sears will fix it.

Problem #3: This time, I get a call from the Sear’s installation company. They are demanding that they will not come out to do the install unless I pay them a required inspection fee. But I explain that my order from Sear expressly states that shipping and installation are FREE. Sorry, they tell me free is not free, and if I have a problem, here’s a number to their national whatever line.

Three strikes, Sears is out–I contact them to review what had happened and to cancel this order. They refuse to cancel it–again, I think to myself this is a multi-billion dollar company? Over and over again this goes on, until finally they agree to cancel the order and refund my money.

All this nonsense literally wasted hours of my time.

Sears is no longer that brilliant mail order catalog of the early 20th century; now they are a dumpster diving junk company trying to sell brand stuff, but they are laggards to the brilliant Amazon and eBay retailers–and soon Sears will be out of business headed to the big retail trash bin of history.

The Rolex watches and Chanel bags are just another Sears circus sideshow. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)