Little Things That Irk You VI: The Rage Awakens

[fishbowlhead]

Facebook have also been reading all your texts on Android as well, no doubt on iOS too, they just haven’t been caught yet on iOS.

As for not listening in, you bet you last penny they are. Oh whooops must of been an algorithm accident, slap on the wrist and they go on there merry way doing whatever they please.

[Dogg Thang]

But that implies that Cassius was getting ads for kitchen tables all the time and just never noticed.

[endo]

No, I don't think it's enough to get the timing THAT perfect.

That's the main thing: the timing of it. I take the point we all probably see hundreds of ads daily that make no impression, but a super-niche product just after she picked up some apples? Of course, it could all be a coincidence, but it's not the first time it's happened. And, this was the first time she'd had this particular ad. The product is so niche that both of us would have noticed it before. When I get served ads that seem way off in terms of targeting, I usually notice.

[Asura]

But that implies that Cassius was getting ads for kitchen tables all the time and just never noticed.

Yes; I'm saying this is what is going on. There might have been other factors, like tracking his browsing (e.g. has he ever looked up anything new for his kitchen, ever?)

[Dogg Thang]

He said he wasn't looking for any of it online so I'm inclined to take him and Endo at their word.

[Asura]

He said he wasn't looking for any of it online so I'm inclined to take him and Endo at their word.

He doesn't need to have googled "Kitchen Table". He just needs to have visited sites that are often visited by other people that are tangentially related to the topic of new furniture or new stuff for a kitchen.

When you advertise on Facebook, you can choose from user profiles for your targeting, and these are worked out by Facebook's algorithms. It isn't just about recording stuff and showing related things later (that's called "retargeting"), it's also about profiling people based upon the stuff FB knows and trying to predict their behaviour. Right now, FB might "think" that a user wants one of a hundred thousand things based upon those groupings. Every so often, it gets it unnervingly right, in between getting it wrong hundreds of thousands of times.

[endo]

He said he wasn't looking for any of it online so I'm inclined to take him and Endo at their word.

I can honestly say that neither of us have ever searched online for an apple collecting device of any kind. As I mentioned in my original post, I didn't even know you could get such a thing and it's really not like we have a problem with apples. And we don't go on gardening sites either. All the gardening stuff we now have, I got when we moved into the house a couple of years ago. Went down to an actual physical B&Q store to buy it all too, nothing online.

[Asura]

Bear in mind, I'm not trying to dispute that FB is recording more than people realise and abusing that information. I think that's absolutely true (and it's one of the many reasons I don't use it). I'm just saying that you don't need to know a lot about someone to, from time-to-time, guess when they might want an obscure product.

[Anpanman]

The being a student once tax , i often wonder how we went from a system where uni places where free and you got a student grant to a system where you pay stupid amounts to go to uni and you have to take out loans that just about cover your rent/halls of residence.

Probably because it's only fair those who want further education pay for it themselves and not expect the general populace to foot the bill for them.

it's just way that the older generation is screwing over the younger one, Brexit, house prices/mortgages, wages, the list goes on and on.

All I know is I left school at sixteen in 1981, a week later I started a job, at seventeen I was paying tax and NI and have been employed ever since.
The thing that keeps me awake at night as regards our daughter isn't whether she will get a job or not but how the hell is she going to get a house and pension, however even though I am a member of the 'older generation' I've paid more than my share into the public coffers, if the politicians have wasted my tax pounds that isn't my personal fault that for example enough houses haven't been built etc.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I feel i should expand...

Me and the wife have been discussing getting a new kitchen when we have our extension done. We have a bit of space in there at the moment for a table at a squeeze but we don't need one just yet. On the weekend we are near a furniture store so we just pop in to check styles and size etc. At this point neither of us have looked online for anything because we don't need to buy one yet.
On Monday I go on the Daily Mail site (to my shame). For those who have been on the daily mail site you will know it has tailored advertising space, which up until Monday was showing me adverts for shoes (because i have been web searching, and subsequently bought some shoes). These adverts have now been replaced with Table adverts...in the space of 24h of being in the shop.

The only explanation I have is that my Android phone is logged in to google, my location service is switched on (which it isn't), and its recorded where I have been and logged this somewhere.

[fishbowlhead]

I feel i should expand...

Me and the wife have been discussing getting a new kitchen when we have our extension done. We have a bit of space in there at the moment for a table at a squeeze but we don't need one just yet. On the weekend we are near a furniture store so we just pop in to check styles and size etc. At this point neither of us have looked online for anything because we don't need to buy one yet.
On Monday I go on the Daily Mail site (to my shame). For those who have been on the daily mail site you will know it has tailored advertising space, which up until Monday was showing me adverts for shoes (because i have been web searching, and subsequently bought some shoes). These adverts have now been replaced with Table adverts...in the space of 24h of being in the shop.

The only explanation I have is that my Android phone is logged in to google, my location service is switched on (which it isn't), and its recorded where I have been and logged this somewhere.

Google tracks your location 24/7 even when location is turned off, came out the other week. No you can’t stop them.

[Asura]

Probably because it's only fair those who want further education pay for it themselves and not expect the general populace to foot the bill for them.

I believe spreading the load of further education across the population via taxation is similar to spreading the costs of the NHS across the population. Everyone benefits from the presence of improved education (that applies to schools as well as further/higher).

[Cassius_Smoke]

Google tracks your location 24/7 even when location is turned off, came out the other week. No you can’t stop them.

There we go then. Pretty scary.

[Lebowski]

Probably because it's only fair those who want further education pay for it themselves and not expect the general populace to foot the bill for them.



All I know is I left school at sixteen in 1981, a week later I started a job, at seventeen I was paying tax and NI and have been employed ever since.
The thing that keeps me awake at night as regards our daughter isn't whether she will get a job or not but how the hell is she going to get a house and pension, however even though I am a member of the 'older generation' I've paid more than my share into the public coffers, if the politicians have wasted my tax pounds that isn't my personal fault that for example enough houses haven't been built etc.

An educated populous is far more valuable than an uneducated one you'd know that if you stayed in school (joking)

Saying that governments not investing in property isn't your fault isnt true, we elect the government they work for us, I'm in a decent position with my job and house and was lucky enough to be able to buy cheap, but i feel its pretty selfish to sit there and ignore the issues facing the younger generation.

The mass wholesale removal of council property's via the right to buy scheme is still having effects decades latter. Successive governments ignoring these issue resulting in incidents like Grenfell tower show how property like education and health has been moved to be more about making money first and people second.

[Anpanman]

I believe spreading the load of further education across the population via taxation is similar to spreading the costs of the NHS across the population. Everyone benefits from the presence of improved education (that applies to schools as well as further/higher).

We'll just have to agree to disagree then.

An educated populous is far more valuable than an uneducated one you'd know that if you stayed in school (joking)

Saying that governments not investing in property isn't your fault isnt true, we elect the government they work for us, I'm in a decent position with my job and house and was lucky enough to be able to buy cheap, but i feel its pretty selfish to sit there and ignore the issues facing the younger generation.

If you read what I put up earlier re our daughter then you should see I'm not ignoring those issues however I think it's wrong to blame me and those of my age group for all the social ills of today.

As for staying in school, some of us don't like education and wanted out asap, not everyone wants a degree. Just because I worked bloody hard doing a job instead of being at college or uni shouldn't mean I'm in any way beneath anyone else or a second class citizen because I haven't got the brains of someone who has stayed in education.