A quote I’m pondering
“This feels hard because it is hard, not because I’m doing something wrong.”
– Dr. Becky Kennedy, Clinical Psychologist, on the topic of helping children build resilience
A real treat of a podcast episode
Every so often, Tim Ferris – one of my top 3 favorite podcast hosts – releases a special “Random Show” episode with his close friend and Internet entrepreneur, Kevin Rose. This recent episode was no letdown.
Kevin has his finger on the pulse in several industries. Is he an arbiter of truth in the stock market? Eh, no. But he’s far more informed in a few subjects than I am, so I listen carefully. Noteworthy Kevin Rose prediction: Bitcoin (about $99k at time of this writing) could reach $250k per coin “in the next couple of years.” No, this isn’t investment advice. That’s just one guy’s opinion.
Of course he also mentioned a documentary on the Varginha Alien Encounter. Scroll down to the clickbait for more on that. He also predicts that ChatGPT-creator OpenAI will launch a product similar to Apple’s AirPods that has AI capabilities built-in. This episode is worth a listen, with a warning: there is some sexual, locker room-style guy talk in this episode.
Making Google squirm
When I get emails from Google saying:
Lawmakers in state capitals across the country are proposing regulations that could make it harder and more expensive for you to reach customers online. You can stay up to date on potential regulatory changes and make your voice heard by signing up below.
it sheds a bit of light on what makes a massive monopoly like Google squirm with low-grade panic.
Professionally, I’m a marketer. So I see laws and marketing challenges like advertising costs, etc. as landscape features, like mountains, that all marketers and agencies must cross for their clients. And these cost increases are passed on to the clients, then ipso facto passed on to the customers, the people, the voters. But in this case, it’s a change aimed at protecting individual consumers, so there’s value to the people.
When these types of changes happen, yes it does affect everyone: the advertiser, the marketer, the customer, and Google. Who it benefits the least is Google. Think of it this way: if laws changed to make it impossible for marketers to reach customers with ads, promotions and sales messages, how much time would pass before some clever marketing firm or one of the giant agencies found a way to legally promote to customers? It’s inevitably going to happen, even if we have to resort to the cup-and-string phone.
The situations we really want to avoid are the ones where the monopolies of the tech industry lobby to change laws to their favor, or garner greater access to and control over individuals’ private, identifiable data. Privacy is a far more important concept than the Average Joe today believes but I find that society is changing to accept this new and essential individual responsibility to protect one’s privacy.
Clickbait: The Varginha Alien Encounter
Thanks to the recent “Tim Tim Kev Kev” episode on Tim Ferriss’ podcast, I discovered the 2022 documentary, Moment of Contact, and my wife and I have been absorbed in it the past few days. What we’re talking about here is a 1996 alien encounter event following a UFO crash in a small Brazilian city called Varginha, where several residents independently witnessed, saw or otherwise encountered multiple extraterrestrial beings. Much like Roswell, New Mexico, the town itself has also embraced its notoriety with ET and UFO symbols found all across town. Still, it’s impossible to know exactly what happened and what’s true and real.
What is real and remains unquestioned, is the Brazilian government’s rapid takeover of the situation and following rejection of journalists’ right to record. Many accounts exist of unassociated people corroborating the same story of armed military personnel demanding (in some cases, with threat of death) people back down, go away, and forget what they’ve seen. Following this, there are accounts of plain-clothes Americans from the United States government in Varginha, following the incident.
There are skeptics, let it be known. I haven’t decided yet if I’m among those who believe it all to be a farce. Have a watch, and get back to me. I’d love to hear what you think.
In the meantime, I generated an interactive article on the Varginha Alien Encounter that you can participate in (and comment, after a quick user account creation).
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