Scary advertising

The innocent product with the sinister ad

Every now and then someone asks me what I think about online advertising being targetted. (I don't know why they ask me, but they do.) You know the kind of thing. Instead of getting random ads, you are supposed to get ads for products that are more likely to interest you. So I might get book ads, or science-based stuff. I've always said I like the idea, and I do. In principle it should stop me seeing so much irrelevent stuff. But I've had two examples of doing this in a cack-handed fashion that make me wonder whether the technology can live up to the concept.

The first is those Facebook ads that are pseudo-targetted. The ones that claim to have a special offer only for people over {YOUR AGE-1}. I'm sorry, those are just pathetic. But the other kind is downright scary.

A couple of weeks ago I downloaded a trial copy of a program called iMindMap. I have a page on my creativity website dedicated to creativity software, and I hadn't mentioned this product, so I thought it was worth a go. As it happens it was one of the best I'd seen, so I updated the page accordingly, then let the trial software expire, thinking no more of it, as I already have mind mapping software I'm quite happy with.

Then the scary thing started. After my trial expired, about every fifth Google Ad I saw was a graphical banner for iMindMap. It could be a total coincidence, but a straw poll suggests other people haven't been getting this. It seems there is a mechanism to target me as a vaguely-interested-potential-customer. Now I find that a little scary. It's the advertising equivalent of stalking. I wouldn't mind if it had just popped up once or twice, as a vague reminder, but the constant repetition started to get wearing. It was like every time you turned a corner, there was the same strange person with an inane grin on their face. (It seems to have died down now after a couple of weeks.)

I really can't think of a better way to turn someone off a product. I did like iMindMap, and I suspect they don't know that this particular use of Google's Ads can be so scary - but it's not an option I would choose to encourage people to buy my product. So do feel free to take a look at iMindMap... but don't buy yourself this kind of advertising for your own products. Please.

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense

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