Greetings, Pilgrims!
As you should surely know by now, Conrad loves him a good few Youtube channels, quite a few of which have been covering the war in Ukraine. Not all of them, Adam Savage's "Tested" is one such, usually going on about the background to 'Mythbusters', and there's also 'Legal Eagle' with the extremely droll attorney Devin Stone, and 'The Critical Drinker', whose on-line persona is that of a sardonic, drunken Scot who reviews and hates all films and television series.
Here an aside. TCD - usually Drinker for short - hang on, Art?
Drinker in typical pose
His real name is Will Jordan, and his YT channel originally started off as a side-gig, because in real life he's an author who writes spy thrillers.
ANYWAY one of the go-to YT channels about the war in Ukraine is 'Jake Bro', whom I've mentioned several times in the blog. Jake originally started his YT channel in 2019 and back then he was giving financial advice. Here's an illustration of his metrics back when he was a humble newb. Art!
Back then he had 75,000 subscribers. In early 2023 he's got 323,000 subscribers, so he has grown the channel. Back then he said it was rather demotivating putting up a video only for YT's algorithm to ignore it and only get 12 views. Viewers, I know how he feels. Come November he hit YT's monetization criteria, which is 1,000 subscribers/4,000 views - a fact I never knew before. Having done that, he accrued all of $687 in December, which is nice as pocket-money, not anywhere near enough to retire on. Art!
You can see his annual total for the next year, 2020 - $23,683 - which is a respectable side-gig yet still not enough to retire on. At this point Jake was still an officer in the South Canadian Air Force (more accurately, a Nuclear Missile Operations Officer) and only doing YT financial presentations on the side. He realised if he quit his job and went full-time on YT, he'd be able to generate a really serious income.
So he did. Art!
His annual YT income for 2021 was just shy of $80,000, which is a very respectable chunk of change and if you can maintain that balance, you might indeed be able to retire on it. However, doing this was quite a gamble and it would make anyone's stomach flip a little if you're giving up a guaranteed salary of about $90,000 per annum. It also means that you need to adhere strictly to YouTube's content policy, which means you can't show things like a tank on fire, nor use words like 'kill' or 'death', otherwise your vid will get de-monetized.
Jake further broke down this income with the 'CPM', which is the amount of revenue generated by adverts - again, new concept to Conrad. This stood at $36.67. However, this isn't what he sees as revenue, as YT take a 45% cut of the CPM. What he ends up with is the 'RPM' left over, in this case $19.57. This is a very high rate, thanks to his primary audience, which is South Canadian, the audience that most advertisers are trying to reach, and also because his videos are over 8 minutes long, meaning he can add another advert half-way through the video. Again, not info Your Humble Scribe was privy to. Art!
Audience by location. The totals only add up to 90% so there must be another 10% scattered between low take-up in other audiences. Jake also posted a list of his most popular videos, which, if Art will put down his bowl of coal -
To his surprise, non-financial stuff was up near the top of the list. This became critically important in 2022, because, yes, you guessed it, Bloaty Gas Tout invaded Ukraine. Jake promptly switched to doing videos analysing on and reporting about the conflict. I'd love to see what his metrics and numbers were for 2022.
So there we have it, an inside look at how YouTube's algorithms work in real life.
Snow And Sand
Conrad read with a sense of disbelief that a collection of reptiles in human form were descending on the beaches of Northern France, along the Normandy coastline. No, they are not souvenir hunters. Art!
They are there because approximately two tons of cocaine have been washed ashore, of which 850 kilos have been recovered by police. Just picking up one of these packets will earn you 10 years in jail. Not only that, the stuff is about four times more potent than the extensively adulterated stuff sold by drug dealers, and it's very easy to overdose on it.
One wonders what happened to the hapless gang trying to smuggle the stuff. 'Lost at sea' or 'fell out of a window' distinct possibilities.
TEA!
Here's a little 70-ton something that'll have Ruffian tank crews needing new underwear. Art!
In the Comments section someone added: "A recent newspaper report about the Ukrainians training on Challengers said one thing that impressed them was that each tank comes with a kettle for making tea."
Of course - obviously! - some gobby rascal had to add their bit.
I was once in conversation with a chap who'd been a crewman in a Centurion tank during National Service. One of the other crewmen hated doing NS, hated authority and hated the Redcaps (military police). They were driving down a long road, with Redcaps stationed every so often to keep them on course. This chap emptied the dregs of the crew brew from the Boiling Vessel over one of the Redcaps as his protest at being conscripted. Art!
TEA!
"The Sea Of Sand"
Sarah has had the ghastly experience of having a wounded Free French pilot literally die in her arms. Is she going to turn into a snivelling wench?
That was the
last sound he made, and they buried him alongside the recently-dug grave of
Sergente Capriccio. Sarah wept openly at
the grave, crying into a grubby handkerchief Roger offered her. When her tears finally stopped she felt
hollow yet steeled by a bitter determination.
‘That’s it!’
she hissed, after a long series of curses.
‘Miss Smith!’
exclaimed Albert.
‘There were a
few words I’ve never heard in there,’ muttered Davey to Tam.
‘We get ready
to defeat those monsters while the Doctor is gone!’
‘He warned us
not to attack them,’ said Dominione when she translated. He stood in shirtsleeves, having discarded
his uniform jacket, stained with the pilot’s blood.
‘Not
attacking. Defending! Lieutenant, I want that tank dragged to face
eastwards, with plenty of shells for it.’
Roger
considered telling her that the A13 still weighed a hell of a lot even with the
engine gone, and with the engine gone you couldn’t drive it – he considered,
and decided not to. That Miss Smith was
a most determined gal when she put her mind to it!
‘Then
we need a barrier, a method of concealing ourselves. A smokescreen, for instance.’
Davey
paged through the collection of flimsies left to them by the Doctor.
‘Here we go – smoke candles. Stack E3.’
I think that would be an emphatic NO. Bio-vores beware.
Finally -
In appreciation at the books I got from Emmaus Mosley yesteryon - which I still haven't detailed yet but don't doubt you'll get a description O yes indeed - let me put up their website link.
Emmaus UK | the charity working to end homelessness
And with that, Vulnavia, we are done. Done! Also it's time for tea.
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