January 17, 2014

I'm just noticing Best of the Web's "Question and Answer" feature.

I'm noticing it because I'm noticing that I got a link, under one of BOTW's longstanding headings "Hey, Kids! What Time Is It?" (for my post, quoting Gov. Christie saying, "It Is Time to Lengthen Both the School Day and School Year in New Jersey"). I'm very pleased to get a link under such a classic BOTW heading, especially since I also recently made it to BOTW's classic "Questions Nobody Is Asking" heading. (For "Does Ezra Klein Really Have a Following, the Way Nate Silver Had a Following?")

Anyway, the new classic heading is "Question and Answer," with a headline from one place answered by some headline somewhere else. Yesterday's BOTW column had 3 examples:

"Why Is Australia So Hot Right Now?"--headline, Guardian website (London), Jan. 14
"Just in Case You've Forgotten, Half the Planet Is in the Middle of a Sweaty Summer Right Now"--headline, Puffington Host, Jan. 7

"Where Are the Jellyfish, Exactly?"--headline, New York Times, Jan. 16
" 'Spineless' England Face Backlash"--headline, Australian Associated Press, Jan. 6

"What if Satan and Hitler Opened a McDonald's in Hell?"--headline, Wired.com, Jan. 15, 2014
" 'Big Mac' Remains Red-Hot"--headline, HernandoToday.com (Tampa, Fla.), Dec. 17, 2013
When I finally get done laughing about that, I notice — I hope you're enjoying this meandering story of the order in which I notice things — that the main topic of that column is something I've been talking about for a long time: free speech values beyond the First Amendment right. The constitutional right is held only against government entities, but we can and should demand that private entities show respect for the freedom of speech. BOTW, i.e. James Taranto, is weighing in on the "Duck Dynasty" controversy and defending Bobby Jindal — who said "I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment" — against mockery.

UPDATE: LOL. Taranto winks at this post.

18 comments:

Wince said...

I'm noticing two things when I've visited Althouse in the last two days.

1.) Chrome now displays a speaker icon on the tab when auto-play audio runs on a page. Yea! Great when you've got a lot of tabs open.

2.) Althouse will now intermittently run an auto-play audio ad (with no related video or ad copy that I can see). Chrome displays the speaker icon on the tab. Right now the ad is about 20 seconds long for a cat product.

Anyone else see that?

Wince said...

Or. more precisely, hear that?

Carl Pham said...

Adblock Plus FTW, EDH. I haven't seen a Web ad in years. Guess I'm missing out on some fantastic shopping opportunities, though, ah ha ha ha ha ha.

Ann Althouse said...

"Althouse will now intermittently run an auto-play audio ad…"

Really?!

I've never experienced that.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Firefox + Adblock Plus. I don't see ads. No Youtube ads, either.

Sorun said...

"Althouse will now intermittently run an auto-play audio ad"

I get that also with Opera.

kimsch said...

Ditto John Lynch.

Ann Althouse said...

I guess I need to get rid of that BlogAds ad that serves up things I don't get to pre-approve.

Ann Althouse said...

I guess I need to get rid of that BlogAds ad that serves up things I don't get to pre-approve.

Wince said...

Again, I don't see anything. Just audio.

I just clicked this post on a different computer than this morning. The speaker icon appeared in the tab and I heard three beats of a timpani drum. No ad played though. Speaker icon disappeared thereafter. Weird.

Ann Althouse said...

If someone can figure out what in the code is making that happen, I will try to remove it.

MDIJim said...

I use Chrome and it never happens.

MDIJim said...

I can't believe it! Just now you noticed BOTW's bottom half? I have linked to BOTW from your blog for years and usually end up laughing out loud when I get to the bottom half.

Steven Bunten said...

Ann, you are only now noticing the Questions and Answers section of BOTW? JT has done it for years but it's not as common as "Questions nobody is asking" probably because the two headlines to make the Q&A don't show up as often (or get sent to him by his faithful readers). But they are usually funny.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Ann, Taranto has left you a special present today in response to this post.

Danno said...

I think I found out about Althouse from BOTWT and Taranto is always a great read. I have contributed links I found that meet his categories in the past but haven't had time for a couple years.

p.s. - I use Chrome and haven't noticed any audio.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
KLDAVIS said...

I haven't had the issue when loading Althouse for awhile, but I solved the case of the mysterious audio for another blogger this morning, so thought I'd post my findings here, as I recall being quite annoyed by it in the past...apparently SiteMeter is the culprit.