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When I see those I like to close my eyes, take a deep breath, check in with my thoughts, did I leave the oven on? no? okay, another deep breath, reopen my refreshed eyes, and continue reading.
I get a microbreak, and the advertisers are convinced some BB reader is really digging those godforsaken ads 
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Every now and again, a company will come up with a product “innovation” that seems to deprive people of their free will, driving great masses of internet users to look for Pokemon, or tend virtual farms, or buy now with one-click, or
I’ve noticed on YouTube the preview frame for some videos will display a nice ass in a bikini. And on occasion this has compelled me to click on the video. Already I have been manipulated, but the real misfortune is that the ass is rarely if ever featured in the actual video!
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but any given marketer knows that if they don’t use the technique to exhaustion, some other marketer will, so each marketer “overgrazes” the land (that is, us), in order to beat the others.
This is the definition of capitalism, and the core problem affecting our ability to act on climate change: “Sure, everyone should do something, but we should do slightly less than everyone else to maintain our advantage” – Your country, probably.
Left to the market, sustainability is impossible. Unregulated, it’s always a race to consume resources first. (And “unregulated” includes “regulated, but not enforced”. Even worse is “regulated, but unevenly enforced” – that turns quickly to corruption.)
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I bought a product from a website I like once, but now I am inundated with endless “Free shipping ends soon!” messages. Which might be convincing, except free shipping was also offered just last week. And I’m pretty sure it will be offered next week too.
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Fraudulent poster frames are really common on Facebook clickbait videos, and there is no “Report fraudulent poster frame” option on FB. 
I’ve never used a custom poster frame on YouTube. A quick Google says the feature isn’t even available until you turn on “monitization”. 
Seems like a bad idea to give them that option, but Google wants people to watch the videos, too, so they have an incentive to aid or condone some clickbait.
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Well those videos also must have turned on “moon-itization”, I tell you what!
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Academia is a good source for interesting papers. (Also pirated books). However, it’s built around t he conceit that users are academics who want to know when they are cited, and will pay for the privilege. So every so often, I get a note that
Someone has mentioned @jerwin. Find out who by upgrading your account.
My name apparently is attached to a Supreme Court brief back when DVDs were the hottest thing on the block. Thus the citations.
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I do use an ad blocker, but I whitelist Boing Boing and a few other sites that are worthy my time and eyeballs. They’re worth the small aggravation (though I, too, would like to put in a comment about ads that don’t open until most content has already loaded, pushing what I’m clicking on down so I end up clicking on the ad. . . not good design).
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I’m glad other people immediately made this connection. I really do believe the StackExchange / Discourse folks have good intentions, but they are clearly smitten with this sort of “hey, let’s program people to have better conversations!!!” thinking. And I really wish they would grok how any attempt to mechanically manipulate human behavior fills people with inchoate subliminal rage.
The very good mobile game Leap Day is a fascinating case study. Every day you get a procedurally-generated level, which is about 15-30 minutes of gameplay, and that’s it; you come back tomorrow for another level. I mean, you can replay previous days, but there’s no reward for it and the levels aren’t designed for replay value. And since levels are generated from a large but finite bin of parts, it’d get repetitive if you played 10 in a row. Also, since the main menu is a real-life calendar, it has the opposite effect of not having clocks in casinos, deliberately reminding you how much of your life you are spending on this game.
I would be interested to know the story behind this. The developers are obviously conscious of player-manipulation strategies. Were they aiming to make people relate to the game in a healthier way? It’s a very effective way of keeping it playable for years (well, it’s worked on me), and if for some insane reason you never paid to disable ads, perhaps that means it’s more lucrative than a game that burns out in a month? All the titles from that developer (Nitrome) come with fairly aggressive ads but are fine once you pay $3 or whatever – there’s no in-game-currency shenanigans – which I take to mean that they are not out to milk people.
Anyway, I find it oddly comforting, because it shows that it is possible for games – and the internet economy in general – to work in a low-stakes, humane, non-toxic way. I get to pleasantly zone out for 20 minutes a day, and (what happens to be) a local small business gets to pay its employees to make something they enjoy.
I think that people who can afford better than the lovely and talented Bel Air Motel in Austin tend to be kinda stupid.
[erm, I lived there for quite a spell]
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You must have stories.
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Oh, yes.
For one thing, there was an obscure film featuring this place at the beginning. Called M.O. of M.I. Trust me, it is odd.
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I was seldom in that part of town but something about it said “South Congress.”
Buy it now, before the Disney Vault closes!
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Heh, I still have an unwatched Disney VHS I bought back in the day because of Disney’s roughly 7 year artificial scarcity re-release window. :-/
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I think I watched my VHS copy of Fantasia a grand total of twice. It’s still sitting on the shelf.
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I’m actually more susceptible to the “wink technique”.
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Or something completely different.
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