Altidude is ToddZ

Dear Every Site That Paginates Articles

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:22:22 -0600

I’m sure you split stories like this into two pages for a good reason: to save my bandwidth. After all, the remaining 3,126 characters of the story’s body (1,530 bytes as transferred with gzip compression) would have increased the page’s total size by 0.32%.

No, I’m just yanking your chain. I know you’re double-charging your advertisers for the same story by artificially inflating your pageview count. It’s just like the old auto-frame-refresh trick, but this one’s better because most of the ad networks haven’t banned it yet. That’s their problem, right? Why should you leave money on the table? You’re a business.

But it doesn’t really work as well as you had hoped because only a tiny percentage of viewers will actually read page two. You know that, but you don’t care, because you won’t give up a chance to make a few extra cents. Who cares if it annoys the crap out of that tiny slice of your audience? Who are they, anyway? The people who actually read your content thoroughly instead of skimming the headline and moving on? That can’t possibly be your most important audience segment — they’re just the most involved and attentive. Repeat customers. You already have their “eyeballs” that you can sell to your real customers. And these dupes get their eyeballs double-counted. What a steal!

Keep up the great work, publishers.

It's bizarre that I want to try Wave so much, since I will probably just use it to share things with you people.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:42:27 -0600

themattsmith:

Real life friends who give a shit about computers? What’s that?

I’d help you out Matt, but I don’t have your email address…

smartercities: adrifting: Solar Roadways The Solar Roadway...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:47:50 -0600

smartercities:

adrifting:

Solar Roadways

The Solar Roadway Panel (TM) is still on the drawing board, but it does promise lots of ambitious features. For instance, it will have smart LED lights to serve as lane markers or spell out messages. It will sense animals on the roadway and warn drivers (deer totally love the idea). It will be heated so as to prevent icing. You can stop and plug your electric car into it if you ever run out of power. And oh so much more.

via infrastructurist

This is absolutely incredible!…Still I think investing in transit is a better idea, but retrofitting all of our roads to create power would be so perfect!

Click through for a neat gif.

Hey smartercities & adrifting, did you read the whole referenced article? Try again, and take note of all the parts where they detail all the obvious reasons why this idea is not, in fact, absolutely incredible and perfect, but “totally batshit crazy.”

(And look up the word “dubious” while you’re at it.)

This is Why You Were Bored as a Teenager

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:32:33 -0600

psychotherapy:

newsweek:

From NurtureShock:

In his new book, Dr. Joe Allen has concluded that our urge to protect teenagers from real life – because we don’t think they’re ready yet – has tragically backfired. By insulating them from adult-like work, adult social relationships, and adult consequences, we have only delayed their development. We have made it harder for them to grow up. Maybe even made it impossible to grow up on time.
Basically, we long ago decided that teens ought to be in school, not in the labor force. Education was their future. But the structure of schools is endlessly repetitive. “From a Martian’s perspective, high schools look virtually the same as sixth grade,” said Allen. “There’s no recognition, in the structure of school, that these are very different people with different capabilities.” Strapped to desks for 13+ years, school becomes both incredibly monotonous, artificial, and cookie-cutter.

Strapped to desks for 13+ years, school becomes both incredibly monotonous, artificial, and cookie-cutter. No shit, Sherlock. Any teenager could tell you this. 13 years of classroom drudgery preparing for 4, 6, or more years of collegiate classroom drudgery isn’t real motivational.

soupsoup: Chrome, you’re pretty and all but you can’t be...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:04:00 -0600

soupsoup:

Chrome, you’re pretty and all but you can’t be monopolizing my resources like that. A separate process for each tab? Do I look like i’m made out of RAM?

Soup, that’s a major feature of Chrome: when a page crashes it doesn’t take down your whole browser, just the tab that was running it.

themattsmith: forever-insatiable: GPOYW - Quarantined with...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:06:55 -0500

themattsmith:

forever-insatiable:

GPOYW - Quarantined with H1N1 edition. Yes, seriously.

Oh no, Milwaukee is infested!

Noooo! Ugh, get well soon Mel!

forever-insatiable: btothed: ummwhat: absurdlakefront /...

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:34:20 -0500

forever-insatiable:

btothed:

ummwhat:

absurdlakefront / axelrod / woodswoodswoods

A sign of the times. Also filed under: brilliant.

danielholter: mikehudack: johncarney: thedailyfiona: (via...

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:11:50 -0500

danielholter:

mikehudack:

johncarney:

thedailyfiona:

(via moneyissues)

Your anti-gun argument is invalid.

McCain introduces bill to block Net neutrality.

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:37:21 -0500

McCain introduces bill to block Net neutrality.:

soupsoup:

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) introduced a bill in the Senate on Thursday that would effectively allow Internet service providers to slow down or block Internet content or applications of their choosing.

Well of course - we don’t want to make our poor little struggling telecom companies invest in upgrading their infrastructure so they can actually deliver the services for which they continually blanket the airwaves with advertising to sign up more consumers with outrageously expensive contracts.

thedailywhat: Shop of the Day: If Where the Wild Things Are was...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:22:18 -0500

thedailywhat:

Shop of the Day: If Where the Wild Things Are was produced by Dreamworks.

Ha! Accurate.

Also: Maurice Sendak would likely hunt down and disembowel every last person involved.

[via.]

reynen: owl in box

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:08:40 -0500

reynen: owl in box

Apparently “foam” is one of the 10 worst dining...

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:05:00 -0500

Apparently “foam” is one of the 10 worst dining trends of the last decade - chicagotribune.com

I’ve never seen “foam” on a dish but agree that it’s a bad idea. Infant barf is not appealing garnish.

Surprisingly, concealed carry has a shot

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:12:06 -0500

Surprisingly, concealed carry has a shot:

See if you can spot all the contradictions in Eugene Kane’s latest column about concealed-carry.

He describes how back in the day, his own father and other men in their rough neighborhood carried concealed handguns peacefully and uneventfully, then paints todays concealed-carry advocates as “champing at the bit for the first chance to blow someone away.”

He sneers that “They are all apparently convinced that in an unexpected encounter with nefarious individuals outside their home, they will be able to summon up their inner Dirty Harry to save themselves or others from harm,” but exempts his father from such condescension.

Rather than try to refute statistical claims that concealed-carry laws result in violent crime reductions, he dismisses them with a cynical platitude.

Kane frets that “Police officers in some of the meanest parts of urban America aren’t excited about the possibility of going out on streets with no way of telling if the person being pulled over or stopped on the street is armed” — as if they can tell today, either in Chicago and Milwaukee or in the 48 other states where some form of concealed-carry is permitted.

Like his father, Kane has mellowed over the years but this flimsy column is just a half-hearted assertion of his own emotionally-driven preconceptions.

Cell-Phone Users Can't Spot a Clown on a Unicycle

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:18:26 -0500

Cell-Phone Users Can't Spot a Clown on a Unicycle:

People who walked in pairs were the most likely to see the clown [compared to solo walkers talking on the phone]. “So it’s not the conversation that’s the problem…” Hyman told LiveScience. “It’s something about a cell phone conversation is where the problem is.”

He speculates, as do other researchers, that when talking to someone in person you both can modify your conversation based on the environment, so if a clown, say, pops up you can both look up. …a cell-phone conversation is just harder to maintain; it takes more effort; it’s harder to understand the other person; it’s harder to get the timing right. It’s just a much more difficult task.”

I’ve always recognized that this is why a phone conversation while driving is much more distracting than live conversation in a car full of people. I thought it was obvious. Maybe I should be an Applied Cognitive Psychologist?

"It’s funny, celebrity actors don’t get stopped as much as people on Food Network do, because it’s..."

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:39:06 -0500

“It’s funny, celebrity actors don’t get stopped as much as people on Food Network do, because it’s like—okay, you see Johnny Depp in the airport, you don’t know Johnny Depp. You’ve seen characters he’s played, but you don’t know anything about him. Those of us on the Food Network, that’s us, so millions of people assume they’re intimate with us. And because of that, they walk right up and bombard you with questions about why their pot roast is bad.”

- Alton Brown | TV | The A.V. Club

crap

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:07:56 -0500

themattsmith:

chronicfail:

I get into O’hare at 7:15am on Friday, my friend was supposed to have the day off work. Not anymore, gets off work at 6pm.

What to do with my time. What to do.

Got access to a car?

Take the Blue Line train into the city and do stuff. Have your friend meet you there.

"While the U.S. speeds plans for the ultimate bunker-buster bomb and President Obama prepares to send..."

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0500

“While the U.S. speeds plans for the ultimate bunker-buster bomb and President Obama prepares to send another 45,000 troops into Afghanistan, 44,789 Americans die every year from lack of medical treatment. National Guardsmen say they would rather face the Taliban than the U.S. economy. Little wonder. In the midst of the worst unemployment since the Great Depression, US corporations continue to offshore jobs and to replace their remaining US employees with lower paid foreigners on work visas. The offshoring of jobs, the bailout of rich banksters and war deficits are destroying the value of the U.S. dollar. Since last spring, the U.S. dollar has been rapidly losing value. The currency of the hegemonic superpower has declined 14 percent against the Botswana pula, 22 percent against Brazil’s real and 11 percent against the Russian ruble. Once the dollar loses its reserve currency status, the U.S. will be unable to pay for its imports or finance its government budget deficits.”

- Paul Craig Roberts (via azspot)

"Jim Cramer just told Chris Matthews that we are going to have a great retail season this Christmas...."

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:56:06 -0500

“Jim Cramer just told Chris Matthews that we are going to have a great retail season this Christmas. Given Cramer’s track record, I’d start preparing for a complete economic collapse somewhere around Thanksgiving, complete with people jumping from buildings, mass layoffs, hyper-inflation and bread lines.”

- John Cole (via azspot)

EXCLUSIVE: Foursquare Launches in 15 New Cities

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:08:57 -0500

EXCLUSIVE: Foursquare Launches in 15 New Cities:

themattsmith:

forever-insatiable:

mashable:

Whether or not you’re actually playing the incredibly addictive location-based game Foursquare [iTunes link], you’ve probably seen the buzz surrounding it and heard something…

Welcome to Milwaukee, Foursquare! I’m signing up for you tomorrow.

Oh look, now we Milwaukeeans can leave little annoying location updates as well (he says as if he’s not signing up for it right now).

I just hope people don’t pipe them into Tumblr via RSS. The LastFM weekly playlist updates are bad enough.

Before we get too obsessed with this silver balloon...

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:09:34 -0500

soupsoup:

floggeddeadhorse:

Let’s not forget what else happened in the news today: JP Morgan Chase reported $3.6 BILLION in profits in the 3rd quarter. Goldman Saches reported $3.2 BILLION. Major US Banks and securities firms are planning on paying $140 BILLION in compensation this year. Goldman alone will be paying $20 BILLION in BONUSES ALONE. That’s an average BONUS of $700,000 per employee. For fuck’s sake.