We bring you a story how bots beat humans, the birth of modern news, John Roberts graduation speech, and videos of free diving and must watch Awaken!
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I slow down blogging down in the weekends, just some selected links that made an impression to me during the past week. Now only on Sundays!
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The Bots Beat Us, Now What?
This theme about robots has been present in my blog for a while…They are now beating us in all board games, what is next?
Every single computer scientist who works on games whom I’ve ever spoken to has uttered to me, often with a twinge of contrition, the phrase “test bed.” It’s not about the game, man, it’s about what comes next. Here’s a more or less complete list of what exactly they’ve told me all this game work has been a test bed for: airport security, antiterrorism, auctions, biological adaptation, business negotiations, cancer treatment, crime prevention, cybersecurity, diabetes treatment, DNA sequencing, finance, legal work, PTSD treatment, robots, steering evolution and warfare.2
What Goes Up
If you are not going to read this long story, at least click on it and see the home page with the chopper spinning…You are in for a treat. This is the incredible story of Jerry Foster. Who you may ask? Yeah, so did I. This is the guy who is probably responsible for the birth of modern news as he was the one who started it all by getting to the news event FAST with his helicopter. Just a fascinating life story…
Supreme Court Justice John Roberts’ Unconventional Speech to His Son’s Graduating Class
Well, if you want to read about farting incidents you know where to go. But I like to post eclectic stuff in my blog and sometimes even inspiring. This speech by this guy is inspiring indeed. You can read the text of the speech in the link or you can watch the video. Please fast forward through one of the longest and most boring intros ever and even the beginning of the actual speech. Start at about 9 minutes in. “I wish you bad luck”. You are in for a treat!
The Advice Trap
The byline of the article tells you exactly what it is about. And it is right on in my humble opinion! I long for the days that credit card salesmen bloggers will have a legal duty to place YOUR best interests first. And no I am not going to bet that this will happen in my lifetime, sad!
Financial advisors want to rip off small investors. Trump wants to help them do it.
Maybe one day I will do a post with the most preposterous destructive “advice” I have seen in this industry. And you thought encouraging people to open seven travel rewards credit cards all in one day when you just wanted one cash back card was bad…
Ranking the Most Popular Websites by Demographic
This one has fascinating data! Like the table below. Conservative101.com first, WTF!
Awaken
This is a must watch. A documentary full of arresting imagery. You will be stunned, I guarantee it! If not, I’ll give you your money back! Oh…wait.
3 minutes of pure beauty. Goes perfectly with my blog #wink
Free diving the world’s deepest indoor swimming pool
This pool is outta of this world, wow! It is in the hotel Terme Millepini in Italy. Yet another link that will be the subject of own blog posts around the blogosphere littered with affiliate credit card links while I get the praise with clicks I can count in one hand. And that is starting to really bother me after almost five years…
Y-40 “The Deep Joy” pool first opened on 5 June 2014 and was designed by architect Emanuele Boaretto. It is 40 metres (131 ft) deep, making it the deepest pool in the world. It contains 4,300 cubic metres (1,136,000 US gal) of thermal water kept at a temperature of 32-34 °C (90-93 °F). The pool features underwater caves and a suspended, transparent, underwater tunnel for guests to walk through. It includes platforms at various depths, ranging from 1.3 metres (4.3 ft) to 12 metres (39 ft), before the walls of the pool narrow into a well-like funnel which plunges straight down to 40 metres (131 ft). The hotel offers tickets to freedive and scuba dive.
And I leave you with this…
Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs To Ignore
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First. Weekend warrior.
You know it!
Regarding #AADO
what did I miss here?
@rapidtravelchai is keeping us chuckling along with giving great info. Looks like I need to bulk up my UA miles again
https://twitter.com/konorth/status/888850412601782272
Stefan gave a phenomenal presentation about traveling to/in Africa. Maybe I should look to burn some miles there while we can…
Ariana got stuck with ridiculous travel delays so Stefan jumped in and saved the day.
To everyone: This DO still has the old hobbyist feel , no need to pay $249 and transportation/lodging to listen to bloggers and get run over by slick booths of salesmen hawking their merchandise.
Remember everyone how that Points Miles and Martinis blog “broke” the “news” about the diverted plane due to a farting passenger (which was not by the way). Anyone care to guess how many page views it drew? 150k. Do the math $$$. If this blog drew that many, imagine how VFTW raked it in. And this ladies and gents shows the National Equirer -ization of this hobby. Selling credit cards and Kardashian type shit.
And everyone kissing ass hoping to get page views…
And this is why I don’t belong in Boarding Area…
Where did that 150k number come from? Must be bull.
Even TPG (7m page views per month, but across about 250 new articles and a huge amount of back catalogue stuff) wouldn’t get that for one piece.
For comparison, our most read piece last week got 8,000 views out of total weekly views of 260,000 total page views.
The number is true. I trust this source.
We like farts across the pond man it appears, sad!
Chess piece is wonderful. Thanks for the link.
My Sunday links are all wonderful. You mean to say the chess piece was more wonderful than the rest of them? 🙂
You are welcome!
Buzz-
I missed the farting story. Do you have a link to the PMM write-up?
Thanks in advance, and have a great Sunday.
I think you are messing with me…
Right?
No linking to blogs on the Ignore list——->TBB management policy 🙂
Well, that USC Med school dean is getting fired. No way he was going to stick around after what was reported online…
I think he “resigned” before the story came out to “pursue other opportunities”, how conveeeeeniet!
More heads will role at USC. The medical school had an ethical responsibility to investigate years ago. Too busy drooling over money.
People in this country have become soft and ridiculous. I call it the absurd liberalization and politically correctness that has consumed the country. The guy was doin his thing. He didn’t let his personal life affect his professional life AT ALL. So who gives a fuk?! The guy liked to party and had some vices
I am all for vices and keeping things private. BUT, you are right, in this country the media (fake news medial lol) is nozy and will dig up dirt. So this guy should have been more careful; instead, it sounds like he was super reckless! And talk about hypocrisy, soliciting money for science to develop drugs while he was abusing them at the same time, talk about some balls!
I don’t give a fuk myself but I thought the link was TBB worthy. Sure beats the farts and bare feet in airplanes 🙂
Oh no dude I LOVED the article. It was fascinating. But the media blowing it up and him having to answer to personal life choices that he made that did NOT get in the way of his work.
Sorry wasn’t ranting against you
Ok, no problem…
After a while doing all these drugs gotta affect performance 😉
I was told to be more mindful of how I treat bloggers and must always separate the blogs from the bloggers…
Well, when bloggers post shit like this…it is REALLY hard to do it…now watch this copied elsewhere trying to get clicks…
BARF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Man Checked a Bottle of Deoderant as Luggage on American Airlines. Guess What Happened Next. – View From The Wing
How thought leader-ish hey?
Who the hell told you that, Randy? lol I don’t see any real separation between the blog and the blogger when they’re one and the same. Sure it might not be in good taste to cast aspersions on non-blogging personal aspects of their life but if the blogger is posting or talking about it, fair game IMHO.
You’re totally right about that Italy swimming pool dive piece – the pimping bloggers would cite that and then create a whole post (or 2 or 3) about how you can get there using their handy-dandy CC links!!
That Awaken trailer just blew me away – incredible! Can’t wait to see the full feature.
Well, there should always be separation. At the end of the day, these blogs are businesses and the ones operating them are businessmen. I always try to make the distinction. BUT, and here is where it can get a little foggy and usually misconceptions arise…The miles and points blog space is DIFFERENT. Because so many of us lay it all out in our blogs…so it is REALLY fuking hard to keep the separation intact! I mean, I miss the mother in law rule so much you guys 🙂
So, if these businesses operate the way they do, just like in Yelp or Swarm, there will be feedback because it is the fuking Internet and that’s what people do online! This is why many are NOT cut out to be bloggers. They can be very sensitive with negative and sometimes ridiculous commentary on their blogs/them. This blog is not RenePoints. I am not responsible what people comment. I abhor censorship and only done it a few times (with heavy heart, not proudly!).
To all: Please make respectful comments. Do not give anyone even the slightest opportunity to call my blog an angry nest of hate or other stupid shit like that. Because it is not. But if some perceive it to be this way, wtf can I do? I am not going to make an effort to please them. I ‘ll just do my thing and let chips fall where they may.
Just a little rant once in a while makes me feel so much better. So thankful for TBB for providing a forum to let all out lol.
Both of the videos I posted today are just super amazing. But I am biased I guess 🙂
Well said and I agree with everything you wrote! I definitely wasn’t implying anyone here should be hateful, ad hominem, unsavory or anything! You do a fine job walking the sometimes tricky line of not censoring unless really necessary but also encouraging dialogue.
I thought you were talking about some of the occasional comments for example on the EM&P Forum where folks cry that it’s not fair to ever criticize anything P&M bloggers write or have a skeptical view of them, because they’re just “Regular Joe trying to help people out with their friendly neighborhood hobby blog”.
A thick skin is good to have when putting yourself out there online that’s for sure.
>>>>>>>I thought you were talking about some of the occasional comments for example on the EM&P Forum where folks cry that it’s not fair to ever criticize anything P&M bloggers write or have a skeptical view of them, because they’re just “Regular Joe trying to help people out with their friendly neighborhood hobby blog”.
Oh yeah, those too. Amazing they think like that and businesses should just operate without any criticism/feedback at all.
I think I should create a short post with answers to “Should I start a miles/points blog?”. First one on the list will be:
Are you insane?
followed by:
Do you have a very thick skin?
Both must be answered yes to proceed to the next round 🙂
Buzz-
I read that The Points Guy (link here-http://travelbloggerbuzz.com) has an exclusive for the 75K offer on the Citi Prestige card, and I was trying to sort out the economics around the table.
Why would Citi give one blog an exclusive on a high offer? Maybe TPG took a reduced commission (say $700 instead of the usual $900, though those numebrs could be wrong). Still, they’re giving up coverage by the other Thought Leaders, Fly Boys, Struggling Moms, and all the rest. And I would think those others may be rather unhappy to see those conversion payments fly out the door.
Why don’t banks just post the good deal links on Reddit and just skip commissions altogether? Oh, sorry-I forgot. Banks are not smart.
I guess it could make sense for TPG since they can perhaps make up in volume whatever they gave up on price. Gets them bragging rights and all that “Read Here First” jive that runs in Titan veins.
I can’t recall another case with an exclusive, except a couple where the links were late to arrive.
Love your link by the way 🙂
You are rolling! >>>>>>>Maybe TPG took a reduced commission (say $700 instead of the usual $900, though those numebrs could be wrong). Still, they’re giving up coverage by the other Thought Leaders, Fly Boys, Struggling Moms, and all the rest.
At this point, I am not shocked by anything US banks do. To continue to do this…only explanation is that there are so many suckers that are roped in to this “hobby” by slick Titans who do it all to help family and friends travel for free lol.
TPG had the exclusive on the CSR, heck, his face is all over that bank’s intranet! And this is why it is so ridiculous for TPG folks to talk about integrity at all and I am called out by Ingy that I have no integrity whatsoever. Gosh, I miss that guy, I hope he is okay.
And the beat goes on…
I doubt TPG took reduced commission, they will have offered exposure.
What you forget is that this at least payment by results. Spend $100k on a TV slot and you can’t even quantify the result – and I bet your acquisition cost is over $300 if you could.
Right here, right now….TPG staff just finished a staff meeting titled:
999 ways to sell the Prestige card
ended by a team building exercise worshiping Jamie Dimon…
Is this cruel? Probably happened 🙂
No, I know it’s pay for customers delivered. But it’s the same for all the affiliated links, so why limit it to just one?
Do you think Citi believes they make more money on cardholders delivered by TPG, than they do on the Reddit crowd, or the convsersions from other Titans? You know-carry a balance, miss a payment.
Just askin’.
What’s the agreement? I assume more than just constant coverage for 7 days. Exclusivity rarely comes without a price.
Citi could easily have included two other Titans OMAAT and View from a fart and received greater coverage of the market.
I am seeing the Prestige links appear in other blogs now…Of course, I am last on the list.
I bet the ROI on clickers at TPG versus TBB are A LOT more profitable for the banks. It means no exclusives for me, so sad lol.
Brace yourselves for the posts making it sound like the Prestige card is the BEST card out there….It never stops…
I may take more than one bath tomorrow 🙂
Thanks for the story about Jerry Foster. I am a phoenix native an remember him being a very popular helicopter news pilot. I didn’t know too much about his life so I appreciate it !
Thanks
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
I saw the story and almost ignored it. There was something about that home page with the chopper so I gave it a scroll. And then I just had to finish it, what a life story!
You may be interested in what GringoLoco had to say:
http://travelbloggerbuzz.com/shopping-mile-promos-zip-line-places-buzludzha-ann-arbor-art-fair-do/#comment-403258
Small world!
Thanks