Random thoughts 11/19/2024

Good evening, my friends.

I had the urge to write tonight, but did not have a clear topic in mind, so I shall just write about whatever floats into my head while I’m sitting here.

💀- The weird in-between time

We’ve entered a weird time between the election and Trump’s inauguration. The Deep State is preparing for his return, and they will do everything they can to slow him down and stop him.

Biden’s approval of long-range missile attacks by his pawns in Ukraine is deeply disturbing. It won’t change the fact that the Russians are winning, but it shows you how much Trump is hated by the Neocons. They will do anything to hand him as big a mess as possible.

My hope is that Putin, shrewd dude that he is, knows what’s going on and will temper Russia’s responses so it doesn’t escalate into WW3. But it shows you how the Neocons are pure trash and utterly evil. If they can hurt Trump, they’ll risk WW3 to do it.

Speaking of Trump, I mostly approve of his picks for various jobs. I was going to write an article about it, but so much has been said that the topic quickly grew stale, and I could not be bothered to do it.

I have noticed the Trump Doomers and Nitpickers are out in force, bitching up a storm. Well, what did these people expect? That Trump would be elected and everything would be wine and roses? That isn’t how life or politics work, and they show their childish natures by expecting otherwise. 🙄

💀 - Substack banning people?

Somebody got banned yesterday, though nobody seems to know why. I have heard that there has been an influx of woke communists from X here, and perhaps they are reporting people to get them banned? I do not know, I had thought that Substack’s management had stopped listening to those people, but maybe something has changed? 🤔

I saw some person that had reported somebody on Notes for “transphobic hate speech” or some such blather. I had thought we were done with that crap, but the hatred of Elon has driven the woke commies off of X and apparently some have set up shop here on Substack. 🙄

I do not know what is going on. As a precaution, I turned the paywall back on and anything over 30 days is now protected by the paywall, with no preview shown. I don’t think I’ve written anything that would get me banned, but I have written more than 300 articles, so I don’t want the woke commies to be able to view it easily and then report it.

If you are a free reader and want to view content older than 30 days, you can buy a paid sub that gets you a permanent 30% discount. Plus, you can post comments, etc. It’s a pretty good deal since you will always get the 30% discount as long as you are a paid subscriber, so it’s $3.50 per month or $35 per year.

I have made it a point to keep the pay wall off, but if Substack’s management is going to crack down on people based on the babble of the woke commies, then I shall make greater use of it, with no content previews, to keep the marxist turds at bay.

💀 - Elon Musk tried to buy Substack

I discovered a few days ago that Elon Musk tried to buy Substack a while back, but the people running Substack said no to his offer. I mention it here because there seemed to be some bad blood between Elon and Substack. I didn’t really understand it back then, but I think I do now.

When Substack refused his offer, it pissed Elon off. He wanted Substack’s business and talent stable for X. I can understand why since political newsletters seem to be the top sellers on Substack, and would have been a killer combination of X and Substack had Elon been able to buy Substack.

Of course, Elon could try to duplicate Substack’s business, but his head is up his ass. Did you know that to write articles on X you have to pay for X Pro or X Pro Plus or whatever it is? 🙄

No, Elon, I’m not going to pay you to write articles on your site. You should only make money when I do, I should not have to pay you for the privilege. I can’t speak for anybody else, but I can’t afford $16 per month or whatever it is now so I can write on X.

X also isn’t very good for newsletters anyway, most people there have the attention span of a gnat. So reading longer content isn’t a priority for most X users, I guess.

💀 - Is Notes a detriment to Substack?

Somebody posted about Notes being a detriment to Substack by diverting readers attention away from newsletters and toward social media. Ironically, the guy who posted this did it on Notes, but whatever, right? 😂

I know that Notes (and to a lesser degree X) have both sucked up time I used to spend reading newsletters on Substack. My attention span has wilted, and I can no longer read most longer newsletters. I wonder how many others feel the same, and what exactly is this doing to subscription rates on Substack? Are people skipping being free or paid subscribers because they spend all their time on Notes now?

Another issue with Notes: Followers don’t seem to convert well to subscribers, free or paid. I have around 3200 followers on Notes, but about 1850 subscribers to my newsletter. I tried once to get my followers to convert to subscribers, free or paid, and it had little effect.

Did Substack screw up by launching Notes? Is Notes turning out to be a boon or a bane to Substack’s primary newsletter business? 🤔

💀 - On the road a lot lately

I have been very busy the last two days. I had one route the day before yesterday that was 130 miles, and today’s route was only about 100 miles. The first route was bungled completely by the computer, and so I did it in a different order to shorten the time spent driving. Sometimes computers do the stupidest things and make the route longer than it needs to be for the driver. 🙄

On the upside, I haven’t been attacked by any dogs lately. We are on the cusp of real winter, and so the dogs will soon be cooped up in the house more than they are in the warmer weather. That is fine with me as it means less of a chance of being bitten, though Sting is always with me anyway.

Well, that’s about it for me tonight. I will do these random thoughts posts whenever I have things running through my head that might not translate well to full articles. My attention has been scattered lately anyway, and I’m rather tired after my drive today.

I hope you are all doing well tonight, my friends. 👍🏻

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