When the prices change daily ...

There I was, cursing the rain for yet another day when I'd be unable to head out for a walk. It's been too long - drizzling, cold days, and cutting winds.

I switched on the TV and there it was, the solution to my problem of not being able to go out for a walk. The iWalkPro!

The advert, showing a couple of lovely shapely young ladies with perfect bodies who don't need a treadmill, bouncing away showing us how good it is. Simply mesmerizing.

All the reviews describing how users sleep better, have lost inches or kilograms, simply by using the iWalkPro.

If you call an 1800 number and order it, you can get it delivered for $14.95. And they'll throw in a $500 air fryer to boot.

I need a treadmill, not an effing air fryer.

But nowhere, even in the fine print could I see the total price. Like, $14.95 is loose change, but when a price is omitted, it worries me that it's probably either inordinately high, or ridiculous for the goods you're buying.

Down the bottom of the page was the "Ask us a question" offer. I asked the question and it was obviously too difficult as this is the answer I received. 

The answer did come in a remarkably short time, and on a Sunday too.

Unfortunately, the answer was a non-answer.

Which other company changes their prices daily? 

Maybe I need to ring up every day for a week and see whether today's price is better than yesterday's.

I figure that with a treadmill, I can do two half-hour stints to total my one-hour walking target daily instead of doing it in one session.

All I need to do is call to see if I can afford a treadmill.

Robin

Sales Blurbs that Never Seem to End

In the 90s I had an online business where, among other things, I published ebooks. At that time ebooks were king of the internet. Everyone was producing ebooks about something. Many were free written by so-called internet gurus.

I read prolifically. Some ebooks I purchased, others I downloaded to learn about marketing methods, how to use AdSense, keyword maximisation and plenty more. I still have most of them tucked away in a folder somewhere.

Many of the internet marketing gurus like Cory Rudl, who had made his wealth selling one ebook about how to buy a used motor vehicle, opined that the long marketing message was superior to the short marketing message.

The long sales message was supposed to convince readers to buy or subscribe to whatever was being sold. I disagreed. Why?

Every time I found a long sales blurb, I'd read a bit at the beginning, scan most of it and head straight to the end. At the end of the day, what one wants to know is what is being sold and how much it costs.

Life is too short to read through a lengthy discussion about how much you need someone's product, how it will change your life, and why you should buy it immediately, if not sooner.

With written sales text, you could head to the end and return to the body text if that's what you wanted. The current crop of video presentations prevents that.

You're trapped.

You see an advert about something you're interested in, say something like, "10 Reasons You Can't Lose Weight."

So, you click the link only to find a video and some self-designated "expert" who will tell you the 10 reasons. But what happens is you have to go through a lengthy diatribe during which the expert keeps telling you they are going to reveal the 10 reasons, but it never happens.

The video goes on and on and eventually, bored shitless, you escape. You never find out anything about the 10 reasons.

If you do stay and watch the whole half-hour blurb, ultimately, there will be an offer to buy the latest weight loss tablet at a discounted price for the next few hours. Or there will be a book or ebook for sale.

It's really annoying and I wonder just how successful a marketing strategy it is.

What do you think?

Robin

Do you follow the sheeple on climate change?

Climate change is largely related to the sun's activity or inactivity and is cyclical, not linear. 

Dr Tim Ball exposed the global warming deception in his title, "The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science." Since then, many other scientists have shown how the IPCC has been deceiving us for years for reasons having nothing to do with climate.

Australian scientist, Dr John McLean issued an audit report on global warming data in October 2018 and his findings showed that the data upon which anthropogenic global warming (AGW) were postulated were defective and unsuitable. His report here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/11/bombshell-audit-of-global-warming-data-finds-it-riddled-with-errors/

At present the sun is in Solar Minimum 25 leading us into a new mini-ice age and global warming since 1979 and last month was about +0.44 of a degree Celsius. (drroyspencer.com). Hardly a catastrophe and expected to drop.

Those with a vested interest in promoting AGW as a cause for climate change have actively ensured anyone with a dissenting view is deplatformed, sacked, disparaged, or otherwise kept out of the mainstream media. The same people who claim C02 is a killer gas, won't allow nuclear energy in Australia which is completely C02 free.

Instead of believing what is being promoted and follow like sheep, please do some of your own research to at least find out what thousands of deplatformed scientists are saying. 

Even without the benefit of scientists telling you the truth, you can research it yourself rather than following like sheep.

What research have you done on weather and climate change?

Robin

When someone assumes your identity

 

We've all heard about the scams, identity theft and so on that occurs online, but we don't always experience it. Well, a few days ago I experienced it.

A friend messaged me and asked if I had changed my profile on Instagram. She sent me the screen capture shown at left: my name, my photo.

It wasn't my account, but had my name and a photograph of me on the profile. The name isn't such a problem as there are literally dozens of Robin Henrys out there, but none looks identical to me and has the same shirt I bought from Tintagel Brewery in Wales, UK.

I'm not the most handsome man on the planet which makes you wonder why they would use my photo and not that of someone more handsome, and perhaps younger.

Who knows?

What I do know is that they messaged my followers asking them to re-link to them. So, this is a word of caution. If a friend asks you to relink, suspect that someone has replicated their site.

I reported the incursion to Instagram and within a day or so, they advised that the dodgy profile and account had been deleted.

About 10 years ago I had someone copy a whole blog site of mine, using years of content for their own sales purposes. My site had tens of thousands of visitors and that's what they wanted. I managed to have that shut down too.

For many years now, I habitually and invariably encrypt files, use encrypted end to end email, install a Virtual Private Network (VPN) on my devices, protect them with ZoneAlarm, use LastPass password manager, and take other precautions including shredding documents with identity and other important personal information on them.

What do you do to protect your devices, files and personal information?

Robin

PS: I don't use Facebook because of the scrutiny and security issues either.