Funny
Gem-Tech made a tongue-in-cheek homage to a famous advertisement. I was amused.
On Ads
I really, really, really dislike online advertising.
I find the claims made by many ads1 to be offensive to my intelligence, and I am not remotely interested in teeth whitening or novelty means of losing weight2. Fad diets and colon cleansing are right out.
No, I don’t want to punch the monkey or, for that matter, Osama bin Laden. I don’t want poorly-made faux Windows XP ads warning me that my registry isn’t optimized. I am certainly not the 1,000,000th visitor to a particular site, and I know I have not won any sort of prize. See “Free Lunch, No Such Thing As A”. Making them blink, flash, or vibrate around in ways that induce seizures will not make me click them. Sites that host such ads will likely have me take my eyeballs elsewhere.
I understand that advertising is an important means of funding the operations of many sites, large and small. I don’t begrudge non-intrusive advertising that tries to be somewhat related to what I’m reading. If I’m reading a page that’s talking about, for example, astronomy, advertisements for telescopes would be on-topic and related. So long as they’re not obnoxious, don’t blink, flash, pop-up, expand, make noise, or cover/crowd out content, I’m ok with that. If ads for teeth whitening or weight loss come up, that irritates me. If I’m reading a gunblog and there’s an ad for ammo, that’s fine…indeed, I might click the ad to see if the site in question has good deals. If the ad’s for some new TV show, I could care less.
Over the last few years, I’ve routinely used Adblock Plus, an outstanding Firefox add-on that allows one to block ads on pages one views. All this time browsing the web ad-free has been fantastic, and really sped up my browsing.
However, I realize that my actions may have resulted in a financial loss to several of the sites I visit, so I’ve decided to do an experiment: I’ve turned off Adblock Plus and removed the “opt-out” cookies from various advertisers3 so they can “target” ads toward my “interests”. Google makes it really easy to view and modify the categories and interests that Google associates with your ad-viewing habits. Cool.
First impressions:
- Holy moly, there’s a lot of obnoxious ads out there. I really don’t care that George Clooney and Anne Hathaway are “geeks”, nor is it relevant to my interests that a site exists for “Geek 2 Geek Dating”. Such ads are not remotely related to my reading of the news. Flash ads can go die in a fire, as can ones that play sound.
- On the other hand, there’s a lot of great, on-topic ads. Take, for example, this page. The site allows car owners to enter information about their fill-ups and does some neat stuff with it. On the left there is a color-and-style-matched Google text ad that blends in with the overall layout. At the time of my browsing, it was showing subtle ads for Honda Civics (hey, the page it’s being displayed on is about the Civic! Fancy that.), Hyundai Elantras (a competitor to the Civic), and a few other car-related ads. Not obnoxious at all, and relevant to the topic at hand. I approve.
I’ll continue this experiment for the next week or two, after which I’ll turn back on the various protective measures. Based on my results over the experimental period, I’ll consider allowing ads on specific sites that I frequent and that don’t have annoying ads. Those that have irritating ads will be blocked.
Additionally, I’m going to make the following statement: unless it’s absolutely necessary from a financial/operational standpoint4, I will not display ads on this site. In the event that I do display ads, they will be subtle and as on-topic and relevant as I can make them. Fortunately, this site requires on the order of $20/year for hosting, domain costs, and other related expenses, so such expenses are barely worth talking about.
That said, I do use services like SiteMeter, Google Analytics, and QuantCast to get some interesting information about visitors. Basically, I like to see where visitors are coming from, mostly so I can edit a post to say “Hi, visitors from [referring site]!”. That, and I like looking at shiny graphs. Having a third-party service do this is far less of a hassle than analyzing server logs, though I’m considering turning off Google Analytics, as it doesn’t do quite what I want it to. I don’t seek to gather any personal information. Hopefully this is not objectionable.
- “Obama wants you to go back to school!”, “Obama wants you to refinance your house!”, etc. [↩]
- If I was, I’d be talking to my doctor, not clicking an ad. [↩]
- This add-on for Firefox makes your choices permanent, even if you clear cookies. [↩]
- Or someone is willing to give me an absolutely outrageous sum of money. [↩]
Survey
My friend Doug1 is doing a survey for his evolutionary psychology course at the university and is doing a paper on what reasons people have for becoming a firearm owner.
Although he would personally like to get several thousand responses and ask 30+ questions, the course requirements are such that he is only allowed to ask a few questions, and they are rather broad.
I would be very much obliged if some of my gentle readers would be so kind to go to his survey and answer the few brief questions.
He’s looking at closing the survey within the next few weeks, and so would appreciate answers sooner rather than later.
Thanks!
- Who is a fellow gun-owner, and has appeared numerous times in previous range trips that I’ve documented here. This survey is not some sort of sneaky trap. [↩]
Calling Designers
After using a generic blog theme for some time, I’m looking at using a custom theme (nearly all canned themes don’t seem to work).
Unfortunately, my graphical skills are slim-to-none.
Anyone out there have any graphical skills? I’m a bit tight on money and so can’t pay with cash, but eternal glory could be yours1!
- For varying levels of “eternal” and “glory”. [↩]
On Parcel Delivery
UPS seems to be extremely confused with parcel delivery to my apartment address.
About half the time, they deliver parcels properly.
The rest of the time, they screw everything up. Some examples:
- A few years ago, they delivered a package when I wasn’t here. Rather than leave it with my apartment manager’s office (who is authorized to sign for, receive, and securely store parcels on behalf of residents), they left it outside, in the rain, for three days until I got home. Fortunately, the contents weren’t damaged by the rain during this time. When I called to complain and ask them to deliver to the manager if I’m not available, they somehow misunderstood and marked my address as “DO NOT DELIVER” in their system and refused to deliver packages (though I could pick them up at the local UPS facility) for about a year until repeated phone calls finally cleared things up.
- On several occasions, they’ve attempted to deliver packages when I’m not here, and just take it back to the local facility rather than delivering to the apartment manager. (On one attempt, the manager’s office was closed and I was out, so they just took it back to the facility after leaving a note. That’s fine.)
- On a few other occasions, they just leave packages, including “signature required” ones, at my apartment doorstep.
- Finally, today, they left the package with my neighbor (who, while an amiable person who says “hello” whenever we run into each other, is not someone who is authorized to receive parcels on my behalf).
Is it really that hard for UPS to understand the simple procedure:
- If I, the recipient, am there, deliver package to me. Get signature from me if required.
- If I am not there, deliver package to apartment manager’s office. Leave a note on my door. This is SOP for this apartment, and UPS, FedEx, DHL, and the USPS usually know this.
- If neither I nor the apartment manager is there, leave a note and take the package back to the local UPS facility. I’ll come by that night to pick it up.
- Under no circumstances should packages be left in the rain, on my doorstep, or with unauthorized neighbors.
Easy, huh? Evidently it confounds UPS.
Don’t even get me started with the US Postal Service, though. When I file a “hold mail” request, that applies to all mail, not just letters. They should also hold any packages until I return to collect the mail, rather than repeatedly attempt to deliver the packages, fill my mailbox with “We attempted to deliver this package, but it’s too big for your box. We’ll try again.” and “We’ve attempted to deliver this package. Since we’ve been unsuccessful at delivering it (even though the mailboxes are attached to the wall of the apartment manager’s office -AR), we’ll be returning it to the sender.” notices, and eventually return the parcels to the befuddled sender.
I swear, my apartment complex appears to be located at some sort of weird nexus of package delivery suck. The only things that seem to get through without any hassle are letters and compact, heavy packages labeled as hazmat/ORM-D (e.g. ammo), probably because the latter scares the driver a bit.
Spring Cleaning
Ok, maybe it’s still winter here in Tucson, but whatever.
Anyway, with all the humidity in the air due to rain and whatnot, I should really clean and re-oil all the guns in the safe.
Of course, I should also go out to the range and shoot them, but I have no time. Whee.
Man With A Gun
Breaking News: A week ago1, a 27-year-old man purchased some motor oil, funnels, and paper towels at a local Wal-Mart at 10:00pm. He was openly carrying a Glock 19 in a retention holster.
While paying for his purchases, he noticed another man of similar age carrying a revolver of unknown make and model, also in a retention retention holster. This other man was at a nearby register, also paying for his purchases.
Although both men were openly armed, surrounded by numerous cash registers filled with money, with numerous families with children in close proximity, there was — shockingly enough — no gunfight, robbery, or other acts of violence. Strangely, neither man assumed the other was a violent criminal and neither opened fire. Indeed, none of the employees or patrons were visibly alarmed.
Both men noted the other’s presence and went back to paying for their purchases before going back to their separate vehicles. While walking to his vehicle, the first man walked past an idling police car that happened to be in the area, nodded to the officer, said “good evening”, received a nod in response, and continued walking.
Film at 11.
- Sorry for the delay. Been busy. [↩]
No Cussing
California lawmakers, having solved all the other issues facing their state, are attempting to declare a specific week to be “officially cuss-free.”
Naturally, I suspect this to be about as effective as laws prohibiting violent crimes, speeding, and not talking on the phone while driving.
On FIRE
No, I’m not on fire.
Rather, I’d like to direct your attention to The FIRE, The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a group dedicated to:
[D]efend and sustain individual rights at America’s colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience — the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE’s core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them.
They’re good people.
While neutral on various hot-button issues (including firearms on campus), FIRE is willing to bat for various individuals and groups whose speech is being repressed on campuses. Take, for example, their work on behalf of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus — an individual was denied the right to form a local chapter of SCCC when the administrators told the student that “such a group would never be allowed on campus and threatened her with disciplinary action for her attempts to inform her fellow students about the cause.” She went to FIRE, who lawyered up, and the college caved.
If you’re not familiar with them, I urge you to check them out.
Brady Scorecard
Arizona ranks #6, according to the Brady Campaign. We scored a 2 out of 100. Not bad, but we can be number one!