Amazon wants me to WEAR NAPPIES?! But I'm a 40-something MAN I am a very lucky man: Amazon is offering me a 20 per cent discount. The cynics among you might try to claim that everything at Amazon is offered at a 20 per cent discount because of its advantageous tax arrangements but that would be the result of confusion. My 20 per cent discount has nothing to do with VAT being 20 per cent …
quote: "err, do your guests know you are making them wipe their mouths and hands on used nappies?"
I spot a distinct lack of trust in standardised washing processes (including machinery and detergents). They are good enough for me, and I would happily use a freshly washed cloth regardless of it's previous role.
I also happily eat sausages and drink tap water though, so YMMV ^^;
We tried cloth nappies with our first son, 5 years ago. Really, we did. We were pro-planet, cloth is better for baby, who cares about the initial cost because we save money in the long run parents.
But, he would soak the nappies and any clothes he was wearing at the time.
That doesn't sound too bad, except he did this almost hourly. Even with the extra inserts and the "waterproof" cover.
Disposable worked out cheaper because with them we managed to keep our sanity.
> Amazon, Google and all the others have been assiduously tracking, carefully storing and relentlessly re-using information about us.... for years
And still they make a total balls-up of analysing it. So imagine what a mess a government run tracking scheme would be. Without even the incentive for getting it right, of making a profit?
Yet this is what we get. With all the surveillance, meta-data, guilt by association and treating all their citizens like criminals: even before they start correlating the data they get from our everyday activities.
They say that if you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide. The problem, as this example illustrates, isn't that the bad things you (may) have done will come to light - it's the incorrect conclusions and false-positives that get drawn from poorly analysed data collections. Even from the world's best commercial operators.
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<snip>
"Maybe the spammers know something that I don't. Have I really been deluded thinking I was a woman for the last 40-odd years?"
My favorite spam of all time was about twenty three years ago. It was a spam arranging a dating club with people that had herpes ! A commendable act I thought but where did they get my address from?
I don't get spam any more! is that sad?
That's the problem with Amazon recommendations and advertising - if I only bought stuff for myself I guess their only failing would be for things I'd just bought, e.g. why keep pushing TV adverts at me when I've just bought a brand new TV from you?
However, the reality is that my Amazon purchase history is a mish-mash of personal purchases, things I've brought for work, things my kids or relatives have asked me to buy for them, presents I've bought for people ranging from babies to 80+ year olds. No wonder Amazon's targeted ads seem to be aimed at the wrong target!
I am against nuke plants, vehemently, or anything nuke and I am a Brit ... facebook served me an ad for a career on a nuke carrier (the US navy) ... Now, I don't fancy killing kids from the "safe haven" that is a nuke carrier, thank you very much.
As for Amazon, they always serve me ads for stuff I recently purchased and, obviously, have no need to purchase again - the MUM5 works a treat, not sure why anyone would want a second one ... No I do not have ad block, I click on the ads to help finance my favorite websites (el Reg included) ;-)
Will I get a bonus from el reg ? No, shit, I'm anon ... oh well ...
" Will I get a bonus from el reg ? No, shit, I'm anon ... oh well ... "
You only think you are anonymous. ElReg knows your login handle/password, which is required to post here. In turn, they are tied to your current IP address (by definition). You are not as anon as you (seem to) think you are.
HTH, HAND weekend :-)
You do realize that all the criticisms you had about spotify are clearly untargeted ads EVERYONE sees, right?
They're not saying "you would like this".
They're saying "these are CURRENTLY TRENDING AND ARE REALLY POPULAR".
Are you sure you're actually the only one to recieve this nappy discount? I can't take the premise of the article seriously anymore.
@gloucester Are you using the Humpty-Dumpty Words Means Whatever I Want Dictionary? This is what I find in reputable sources. And, no, I haven't omitted a second definition from further down the page.
OED 1. Very loyal and committed in attitude and 2. (Of a wall) of strong or firm construction.
Cambridge always loyal in supporting a person, organization, or set of beliefs or opinions.
Collins 1. loyal, firm, and dependable, 2. solid or substantial in construction, 3. (rare) (of a ship, etc) watertight; seaworthy
Merriam-Webster 1a : watertight, sound, 1b strongly built: substantial, 2 steadfast in loyalty or principle.
I'm afraid my knowledge of Old French isn't as good as yours, but some dictionaries appear to concur in your view that "staunch" derives from a 13C verb meaning "to stanch". If people are going to post to El Reg in archaic foreign languages, it would help to add some indication of which language they are using.
Hmm, an American correcting English on an British web site? I had to look up the word stanch as I'd never come across it before, thought something was amiss when firefox put a red wiggly line underneath it, this is what google had to say:
stanch1
stɔːn(t)ʃ,stɑːn(t)ʃ/
verb
US
1.
variant spelling of staunch2.
"Sanitary napkins work even better. Tampons, with their applicators, can even help staunch a deep puncture wound."
<snip>
Sanitary towels are great for wounds, good for keeping sweat out of eyes in tropical climates and jungle. Tampons are superb for puncture wounds and particularly bullet wounds. Brown unbleached ones are best due to TSS but any port in a storm.
Not just the same thing, but often from the same supplier.
Its this that proves that targetted advertising is utterly pointless. In a world where we can search for stuff we know we want there is no point showing adverts for that stuff. I'd guess it has a higher click-through rate, however I'd expect the actual extra sales generated to be less than random ads that actually stood a chance of showing you something you weren't already going to buy anyway and may not even have known you wanted (or that it existed).
Ah, but if the ad-service can lose the detailed time-ordering when reporting, the vendor might see an apparent higher hit-rate for their ads: ad pushed (afterwards) to a buyer might easily be mis-analysed as an ad pushed to someone who bought ... especially if the vendor doesn't have access to detailed buyer/ad-target data. This would make the ads seem more useful than they are, and so help to encourage future ad orders..
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