Ostankino and VDNKh in Moscow Today

Here are photos from Ostankino and VDNKh today January 22, 2020.

Boat station.

Ostankino pond.

Golden ear fountain.

Ice rink.

All You Need to Know About Google's AdSense

This is really what you need to know about Google's Adsense if you are a small publisher and content maker.

So what's the going rate, dumbSense?

Oh yes, I see - 0.00$ per click!

Unpacking China Fei Yue 飞跃 sneakers green triangle LO CLASSIC WHITE pair 3

Дни затмения / THE DAYS OF THE ECLIPSE

Love it or hate it, but this real cinema...

How Elon Musk and Other Self-Driving Nuts Threaten to Deprive Humanity of One of Their Most Positive Activities.

Here is how Elon Musk and other self-driving nuts and various other "do-gooders" are threatening to deprive most of us of their most rewarding activity.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (read: chick-SENT-me-high), expert on flow states and optimal experience and author of Flow and Finding Flow, inter alia, says that driving a car is one of the most enjoyable activities that humans will ever do and one that often produces flow and optimal experience.

Here are some quotes from the latter book to back the point:

Driving a car ... is a surprisingly positive part of life. While neutral in terms of happiness and motivation, it requires skill and concentration, and some people experience flow more often when driving than in any other part of their lives.

For many people, driving a car gives the most consistent sense of freedom and control; they call it their "thinking machine" because while driving they can concentrate on their problems without interruptions, and resolve emotional conflicts in the protective cocoon of their personal vehicle.

Driving a car. That driving is one of the most enjoyable experiences in many people's lives was suggested by one of our ESM studies (Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre 1989); a more in-depth ESM study sponsored by Nissan USA revealed many unanticipated details, some of which are reported throughout this volume.

Driving a car is so good for us because it requires skills perfected to automation, concentration and other states of the mind conducive to generating optimal experience while at the same time banishing boredom, anxiety and psychic entropy.

Now, if Elon Musk and other proponents of self-driving cars have their way, where will we be?! 

We will be deprived of all that flow and optimal experience (which is hard to come by in most people's lives) and instead will be thrust into doing nothing while the car drives which will at best lead to passive consumption of redundant information from the car entertainment system and at worst to boredom, anxiety, panic attacks and other manifestations of psychic entropy usually descending on an unoccupied mind.

Thanks, Elon!

Avtozilla: How Elon Musk and Other Self-Driving Nuts Threaten...: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (read: chick-SENT-me-high), expert on flow states and optimal experience and author of Flow and Finding Flow , int...

Ostankino TV Tower Moscow in Nikon P900 Zoom

How Stupid and Greedy is Youtube?

Youtube has again demonetized my Youtube channels even though they re-monetized them themselves about a month ago.

And this is on top of a multitude of other problems I am having with the Google thing and its services and products as I believe I mentioned elsewhere on the blog.

The reason given for demonetization is Re-used content but when I joined up there was no mention of re-used content in their policies.

Also, I don't believe I have any re-used content as all videos are mine but those with others' works are not monetized by me anyway as they are monetized and claimed by rights owners or groups representing them.

So, it apparently is all down to Youtube's greed pure and simple and it's unwillingness to pay up and pay to small creators.

So here is a question (and the answer):

How Stupid and Greedy is Youtube?

Has YouTube grown too greedy under the idiot CEO Wojcicki (whatever) and outlived its usefulness to small YouTube creators who are an overwhelming majority on the platform?

Since 2018 something very wrong has been ongoing at YouTube.

YouTube under CEO Wojcicki has been engaged in deceptive practices and even what amounts to fraud in its dealings with small YouTube Creator channels.

YouTube's MO now seems to be to get as many people as possible to upload videos while denying channel monetization to the overwhelming majority of uploaders who happen to be small creators.

As far as YouTube is concerned, it works very well as they still can and do make money on unmonetized videos by making them available to paying viewing public subscribing to YouTube Premium.

But they still like to dangle the carrot of channel monetization in front of people with small channels so people keep uploading and watching videos on the platform and, to this end, greedily lie that new YouTubers can have their channels monetized once they get 4,000 hours of views and over 1,000 subscribers.

But the reality is that they are lying and most channels reaching 4,000 view hours per year and 1,000 subscribers will never be approved for monetization -- ostensibly for the reason of failing YouTube's review of compliance with their policies, for example, because "re-used" content will be found on such channels (without specifying what that content is and in which videos it can allegedly be found), and you can count on the fact that Re-Used content will be found; if not, they will come up with some other reason not to approve monetization or will just suspend the decision for ever.

Also, YouTube's so called policies, against which new channels are supposedly reviewed, are changing every month in line with the dictates of YouTube bosses' all-consuming greed and with a view to getting more content for less and less in outlay and expenditure.

It is important to remember that in 2018 YouTube already demonetized tens if not hundreds of millions of small creator channels that had been fully in compliance with YouTube's so-called policies in effect at the time. Their only fault was YouTube's unwillingness to pay those channels for content anymore, however little that pay was per individual channel (still amounting to hundreds of millions over all such channels).

Also, over the same period, YouTube deprecated many extremely useful features, claiming they didn't see much use - but they were lying here again because the principal motive force in these deprecations was again greed pure and simple - the desire on the part of YouTube bosses to reduce expenditure and to make YouTube smaller and cheaper to run with less features.

It is therefore hard to avoid reaching the conclusion that YouTube is now greedy, rotten to the core, stinks and is nothing but a criminal gang of greedy thieving capitalists, appropriating people's videos for own commercial use (over YouTube Premium if nothing else) and as ever operating outside the spirit and even the letter of applicable laws in most countries while faking concern over topical issues and using them as a pretext to squeeze YouTube uploaders even more.

So, in light of the above, my suggestion is not to upload videos on YouTube anymore and even not to watch YouTube at all but if you still do, don't ever pay them for anything, especially for YouTube Premium, make them work for free, and use a good ad blocker too.

So, has YouTube been going in the wrong direction starting in 2018 or maybe even earlier? Discuss in the comments.

Winter Sparrows

Winter sparrows and some oats.

Sparrow action portraits.

Soapbox photos: Sparrows in Winter: Sparrows feeding in winter on some oats.

Bear cub

Solyanka and Kotelnicheskaya in Moscow on January 14, 2020

Solyanka and Kotelnicheskaya in Moscow on January 14, 2020.

Old apartment houses on Solyanka.

Stalin's skyscraper on Kotelnicheskaya.

No snow well into January.

Foreign literature library.

Bear in a city

Bear today

Bear today... I mean saw a bear cub today.

Best photos don't need focus.

Some beers

Some beers recently!

Cheap Casio F-91W FAKE??? FAKE!!! Exploring a Fake Casio F-91W

Zaria Moonphase Wristwatch Black Dial

Here is my Zaria Moonphase wristwatch running on a Poljot 3105.01 caliber.

This watch was bought in 2012 but I only got to recording it on the blog now.

It's quite rare as it's out of production as is the movement - Poljot 3105.01 moonphase.

Also one of the most affordable mechanical watch with a Moonphase complication!

Out of production for the last 7 years at least.

The moonphase indicator is at 6 o'clock, the moon picture shows the current moonphase while the little hand shows the moon calendar day.

This is the movement - the Poljot 3105.01

 And the base 3105 Poljot caliber movement:

More photos will be added as they are made.

Burgers and Beer

Is there a war a-brewing?

I am ready! Bring it on! (not really...)

The two burgers are new McDonalds fare here in Russia: a double Big Mac with 4 meat patties and a Big Mac Tomato Bacon and something else.