Targeted Ads done correctly provide value. I found my favorite clothing company, for example, thanks to an Insta ad. I also appreciate well crafted copy. Mindless firehose ads, however, aggravate me. (I use Kagi).
Public speaking plus blog posts did more for my career than my advanced engineering degrees. They lead to my past three places of employment. I did a talk or wrote a blog post, posted it to LI and then the decision makers reached out to me. This got me employment at workplaces I loved. I only write/ talk about things I enjoy, and they needed people with skills in the topics I wrote/ talk about. Perfect fit. I highly recommend this approach.
Exactly what I was going to say. I didn't even see it in the still photo until I looked carefully. The eye focuses on the main action, and that area is relatively small. The brain "fills in" the detail around your center of vision. Illusionists exploit this regularly.
There was a post here maybe a month ago that exposes how small the actual "high definition" center of vision (fovea centralis) is. You can really see detail only in a small area at the center of your vision. Outside of that, the brain fills in what it thinks should be there.
I own and make my own website. But Google search stopped ranking me high about two years ago (down from 3k/day to about 70), and sometimes I feel that my life's work just gets reduced to small icons at the end of GenAI responses. But I continue to do it because I love to write and create, and sometimes readers (if they find my site) reach out. I got a "thank you" from someone in the Congo!
The market for High Horology (vs. mass market watches like Rolex) hit high water marks the past couple of years. F.P. Journe, for example, released a (Quartz!) watch, the Elegante that retails for $12k and sells on the secondary market for $100k. Maybe rich buyers moved on to celebrating a different type of artist.
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