Interesting Links for 13-05-2012

[andrewducker]

• Advertising People Are Not Normal
  (tags: advertising personality )
• When half a million Americans died and nobody noticed
  (tags: drugs usa death EpicFail )
• Is it time to stop writing headlines that end in question marks?
  (tags: media reporting funny )
• Why we're in danger of losing many good teachers
  (tags: bureaucracy teaching uk )
• 2012 vs. 1984: Young adults really do have it harder today
  (tags: housing inflation pay canada )
• I JUST LEARNED A LOT ABOUT BEES!
  (tags: advice nature bees )
• Fractal pancakes
  (tags: fractals food pancakes )
• The thing that people blame Joss Whedon for in the Avengers wasn't his fault
  (tags: Avengers movies JossWhedon comics )
• Civil marriages outnumber religious in England&Wales; 2-1. Remarriages too. Religion owns marriage?
  (tags: uk marriage religion )
• Top 16 Most Expensive Materials in the World
  (tags: materials money )
• Dell invites horrifically misogynist speaker to tell their female employees to shut up
  (tags: denmark misogyny dell )
• German police used less bullets in one year than the USA used against one unarmed man.
  (tags: germany usa guns police )

Comments

[nemryn]

Huh, I was expecting printer ink to be on the 16 most expensive materials list.

[andrewducker]

Good point. It probably should be!

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

the Dell post:
that floating 'repost' bar on the left side is the most irritating thing I have ever seen on a website.
As such I refuse to read the content

[kashandara.livejournal.com]

Really? I saw that someone in the comments had said the same thing, but for me it just sits at the side and scrolls down when I do, thus making it eminently ignorable. Ah the vagaries of browsers :)

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

Does it jump up and down as you scroll down the page? I find that happens in Firefox on some pages so I don't bother reading them because it's far too distracting and I end up wanting to punch the monitor. In Chrome it's stationary and not annoying. Of course it might vary from website to website.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

So, am I slutty drunk who used to like cocaine because I freelance for advertising agencies or do I freelance for advertising agencies because I'm a slutty drunk who used to like cocaine?

It's sort of chicken and the egg.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

A coding geeks in that line of work because they're logically minded, or does coding make you logical?

My guess is that it's never one or the other, the actions reenforce the tendency.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Also, just a note because my clients split test the fuck out of everything - articles with headlines that end in question marks get between 200 and 800 percent more click throughs.

If click through rates are part of your income stream/business model you are just doing good business by writing question headlines. When people see a question it makes them naturally want to click through to find the answer.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you've noticed, but I've included a small, italicised strapline at the bottom of my links posts now, which emulates the advert at the bottom of the iOS client's posts. I think it might be worth putting it on FTTT by default, I'd love to see more people using your tech!

[andrewducker]

Oh, that's awesome. What with the wedding and working weekends I have no time to work on it right now, but I shall add that to the default when I get some time. Meanwhile I shall go and steal it for my own!

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'm dubious about the Vioxx article-- it might be making a sound claim, but only if there's no lag effect on mortality when you start or stop taking the drug.