Friends         | It's a plan. I never said it was a good plan. 
Geoff: Someone tweeted an image outlining how dire the minimum wage is in the US by trying to compare it to Bob Cratchit's wage in A Christmas Carol, which Dickens handily defines as "15 bob". Their maths is off by a lot. Mostly, I think because the person doing it is American and doesn't understand what a "bob" is. They thought that Ebenezer Scrooge was paying the equivalent of $27k a year to the epitome of poverty, in a book written by someone who one of the biggest SJWs of his time. The fact is that Cratchit's wages would have been about $7k/year in modern US currency, based purely on inflation and current exchange rates. A better comparison is that in 1843 when the story was first published, the average wage for an unskilled worker was around 15 bob. That, of course, doesn't take into account that numeracy and literacy to the degree required to be a clerk weren't as common back then (something else Dickens campaigned about), so "unskilled" hardly applies to Cratchit. The whole situation with the misunderstanding did lead me back to one of my favourite quotes from Good Omens, which appears in a footnote. --- NOTE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND AMERICANS: One shilling = Five Pee. It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system: Two farthings = One Ha'penny. Two ha'pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea. The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated. View all 5 posts  Geoff in reply to fustler: "Old money" (as it's still referred to in the UK) hasn't been a thing for half a century. One of the best things membership of the EU did for the UK was forcing shops to use metric (although they can still use pounds and ounces if they really want to, they just have to have it metric as well). I don't think anyone under the age of 50 regrets that. Geoff: FSotD: Magna Carta is mostly about the rights of barons and I think the paragraph you're referring to is specific to trout streams. View all 5 posts Geoff: The general consensus amongst the involved Twitterati is that these protesters are "hoofwanking spangletwats" and deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for taking up the time of hardworking medical professionals. Geoff: Found Definition of the Day: Fractal Wrongness: The state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. From a distance, a fractally wrong person's worldview is incorrect; and if you zoom in on any small part of that person's worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview. View all 5 posts  Finger5: Maybe this will stop in 2024 when the right wing nutjobs think "their president" has completed his second term. No, i doubt it too. Geoff: "I don't care what Starfleet regulations say about dancing on the bridge, it's nearly Hallowe'en and I need to practice!"   Geoff: See... I am so used to euphemisms from Sam that this sentence just made me wince. It wasn't even meant in that way, but it 's still Sam Riegel.  View all 4 posts  Corwin: Donaly Trumpton. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. I wonder if that's what if fact happened. Geoff: Keyleth: "What's the difference between us and the Briarwoods at this point?" Grog: "We're not fucking vampires." Geoff: The latest Hinged issue is live. With half a dozen wonderful tales. https://hinged.press/hinged-press-creative-writing-prompt-268-479b2d47903e |
Fucking Google! Your algorithm is not as smart as you think it is!
They changed their algorithm and an Ads account I have been carefully nurturing for three years just got entirely fucked up.
Very precisely targeted ads are now being shown for completely irrelevant searches, even after I made damned sure that there were negative keywords in there to prevent such things happening. The new algorithm just completely ignores the negatives.
"Mailing Box" is not the same as "Mailbox"
"Packaging Box" is not the same as "Packing Box"
"Large Letter Sized Box" is not the same as "Large Letterbox"
I am on the verge of telling this client that their ads campaign which has averaged £20 ROI for the past three years is now a waste of money. All because Google decided that there's no such thing as nuance.
Rant over.