If You Want Good Publicity, Black Death Is A Surprisingly Good Idea
I have a Google News alert for Crossrail and today, it flagged up nine stories on the web.
Eight of these were about the story I reported on yesterday, about the finding of a cemetery for plague victims.
Usually, companies try to disassociate themselves from death and other dark stories.
If you’re wondering the other story, was about Crossrail driving up residential property prices. But then rising property prices are a good news story in many peoples’ minds.
On Line Loan Applications
Someone just tried to put a link to an on-line payday loan company in this post on my blog. As you can see the post is about wind power, so why would someone interested in wind power and Ireland, click away from the page to some dubious on-line loan provider?
I deleted the comment, as I always do with those that aren’t constructive to the blog.
But it got me thinking!
So I typed.
online loan application
Into Google to see what turned up.
The first page had about twenty links, of which only half were for legitimate sources in my view. The rest were in my view the on-line providers, that I find dubious.
I’ve also looked at my spam and note, there are quite a few payday loan companies trying to advertise using my site, but they have been stopped by the spam filter in WordPress.
A Million Items Short Of A Full Search
A new search engine called Million Short has arrived on the Internet.
You search, just as you would with Google or your preferred search engine, but it cuts out a required number of results, like a million or a thousand, from the most used web sites.
Click here to try the search.
It might tell you something useful, but on the other hand it’s fun!
Why Has Google News Got Worse?
When I want details on something, say like Dalston Junction station, I will use Google to search for it. Then for any news, there used to be a simple button, which repeated the search on just the news.
That seems to have disappeared and now in most cases I have to open up Google News and start the search again. I supose, it’s an improvement setup by some idiot just out of nappies.
I also find that it always wants me to sign in to my GMail account to store my alerts there. But I prefer them on my standard e-mail, which has nothing to do with GMail.
I suppose they are annoying me, so I use my GMail account, which can then be processed to send me all sorts of spam for products I don’t want.
As they don’t pay enough tax in the UK, I think I might look for another search engine, that does pay the proper rate.
“Local Business Lending Partnership” Gets Hijacked
Lancashire and Funding Circle have called their partnership a Local Business Lending Partnership.
But type that into Google, even with quotes and you get adverts for Wonga and Lloyds TSB.
Click here to see what you get!
Not what you’re looking for at all!
Don’t You Just Love The Internet
The Internet is the natural home of all those who see reds, blues and oranges under the bed and want to further all sorts of wacky causes.
As an example type.
Adolf Hitler Angela Merkel
into Google.
You get enough rubbish to fill every skip in London.
The only trouble is that many believe these sorts of stories. There are millions born every minute.
Do Advertisers Get Value?
I wanted to read a report on the Ipswich match at Birmingham on Saturday, so I typed “Birmingham Ipswich” into Google.
I got a few serious reports from papers as I expected, but I also got an advert trying to sell me a cheap flight from Birmingham to Ipswich.
I assume they meant Ipswich in Australia.
All very helpful.
How Good Are The Companies You Deal with?
I found this on a financial forum, but it applies in so many fields. The guy is talking about where he invests his hard-earned money.
One criteria for me was to Google Maps the address of each company (a crazy idea maybe but try it). put the yellow man on and walk past the firm
Is it a big corporate office or is it above a pizza take away (as one is).
Whilst offices might not mean a lot (Equitable Life,Alba,Northern Rock,Icelandic banks etc)
it is one yardstickI aren’t giving my money to a firm that is not filthy rich.
I’ve tried it with a few people I deal with in various areas. In one case the results surprised me.
How To Find Those Born On Your Exact Birthday
I was searching for those, who were born on or around my birthday and I’ve found a pretty sure way. Suppose, you’re looking for someone born reasonably famous born on the 30th September 1960. You just type.
wiki “born 30 September 1960”
into Google. Make certain you get the quotes right.
A Stray Airliner?
In my exploration of the Gospel Oak to Barking line, I decided to follow the line on Google Maps. All went well and I was able to see where the electrification stopped and kicked in around South Tottenham. And then I found this image, as the railway passes south of Seven Sisters station.
I wonder how many stray planes are available to view on Google Maps?
Can anybody identify the tail to determine the airline? Judging by the silhouette, it looks like it’s some variant of Boeing 737.
If you want to find it, type “Seven Sisters station” into Google and then select maps. The plane is just south of the station.
As someone, who has over a thousand hours in command of an aircraft, you are taught under Visual Flight Rules to fly with the line feature on your left. So it could be they’ve taken off from Stansted and they’re following the railway. But then, they wouldn’t be under these rules over London, except in very special circumstances.
Identifying the airline would help solve the puzzle!
The Anonymous Widower 