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Death to Bullshit

deathtobullshit.com

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Re: Death to Bullshit

#91

Post by stevesearer »

Killswitch wrote: post #81
interesting_att wrote: post #79

I was just thinking yesterday how inundated we are by ads these days. You see ads on television, the radio, the internet, billboards, public transportation, sports stadium/jerseys, magazines, guerrilla marketing, product-placements and celebrity endorsements, and not to mention PR (which is just advertising by other means). Talk about mental pollution!

So I got my start in ad based websites. If it wasn't for ads, I would have never really gotten into what we do. I'd have done something away from the internet because I never grew up with a computer and wasn't fascinated by them as a young child. So because of that, I had always been in favor of ads. Not as in I'd plaster my site with ads, but if a site displayed ads, I would endure them because if I wanted the conte…

Someone should make a list of websites that have both great content as well as good advertising practices and have it sorted by the topics: general interest, technology, cooking, etc...

Re: Death to Bullshit

#92

Post by TeMPOraL »

tkiley wrote: post #42

One person's "bullshit" is another person's "positioning", and positioning is arguably one of the most important communications skills for founders. I sympathize with the author but I'm not really sure what to make of this.

Positioning is still bullshit, and just because something is an "important communications skills for founders", doesn't mean it's good, especially for ones on the receiving end. A lot of things that go as standard marketing practice would earn you a punch in the face if you did it to a friend and they found out. It's ironic how we turned lying to each other into respectable occupation.

Re: Death to Bullshit

#93

Post by TeMPOraL »

Eupolemos wrote: post #46
afarrell wrote: post #9

This page talks mostly about interface bullshit, but people are also tired of content bullshit. To paraphrase from Harry Frankfurt, this is content produced not to conceal truth, but without regard for for it whatsoever. If to lie is to murder truth, to bullshit is to manslaughter it. Producing bullshit is more profitable because it still attracts eyeballs (and therefore ad revenue), but is much less costly to produc…

> If to lie is to murder truth, to bullshit is to manslaughter it. I believe "manslaughter" and "murder" should be switched around here. IIRC, Harry Frankfurt argued that bullshit was worse than lies, since it corroded this simple but for-society-to-function-in-the-long-run incredibly important distinction (or aspiration).

I like a quote by Steven Kaas:

"Promoting less than maximally accurate beliefs is an act of sabotage. Don't do it to anyone unless you'd also slash their tires."

Re: Death to Bullshit

#94

Post by nickledave »

Worth reading the follow-up post: http://bradfrost.com/blog/post/living-with-bullshit/ He's not against ads. He's against shitty ads that piss off customers.

Anybody know if there actually are any studies that show that these ads (1) help businesses attract clients and (2) do so without alienating more clients than they attract? Or are they all just for businesses that don't care about keeping customers anyways (e.g. weight loss fads)

Re: Death to Bullshit

#95

Post by halotrope »

notahacker wrote: post #17
halotrope wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well he totally forgot to fluff the actual content. Instead of just framing it differently.

I wish he'd at least spread it over six pages, with a link to the next page positioned less prominently than a [mocked-up] Google AdSense ad-unit with arrow.

Yes. I think the chrome added by ads and "bullshit" can be mitigated by adblockers, reader modes and careful selection of content. The sometime abysmal STR of some articles is far worse. Usually you have to invest at least a little time into figuring out if something is legit or a complete waste of time.

Re: Death to Bullshit

#96

Post by TeMPOraL »

mojuba wrote: post #54
tjohns wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably worth distinguishing between QR Codes used for advertising, vs other uses. For example, I print QR codes on the back of my business cards containing a VCard record, to make it easier to import them into an address book if needed. Or at home, I have a QR code that automatically populates credentials for my WiFi network when guests come over. It's also the easiest way to add a TOTP code to Authy or Google…

Shouldn't the uses you mentioned be covered by NFC and iBeacon in this day and age?

Getting an NFC tag inside a business card requires special effort, while QR code is just different pixels for the printer. Even if you opt for NFC stickers, it still costs lots of money (if you want to do hundreds of cards) and effort (you have to stick and program them).

iBeacon is bullshit. I sincerely hope it'll turn into something useful with time, but for now, it's just a toy for advertisers.

Also, solutions add up. In our local Hackerspace, we often used a combination of QR code, plaintext credentials and an NFC sticker for things like Wi-Fi access and switching lights on/off wirelessly.

Re: Death to Bullshit

#97

Post by halotrope »

Well actually I like the "bullshit" on pages (that being of course, an exaggeration) because it makes it far easier to filter pages that have content with a low signal to noise ratio. I think content consisting of only bullshit with low substance is the far worse disease and it seems to spread just as quick.

Re: Death to Bullshit

#99

Post by TeMPOraL »

MichaelGG wrote: post #89
tjohns wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably worth distinguishing between QR Codes used for advertising, vs other uses. For example, I print QR codes on the back of my business cards containing a VCard record, to make it easier to import them into an address book if needed. Or at home, I have a QR code that automatically populates credentials for my WiFi network when guests come over. It's also the easiest way to add a TOTP code to Authy or Google…

>QR codes on the back of my business cards containing a VCard record Isn't this almost certainly done better with a link to a vcard file?

QR code can store the entire vCard, thus enabling you to read it off-line.

Re: Death to Bullshit

#100

Post by mojuba »

qwtel wrote: post #87
mojuba wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certain types of bullshit (if not all) are built on the phenomenon of Eternal September[1]. There are always those who are clueless enough to trust a spam/scam email or who'd believe that the hamburger on the billboard would be as beautiful in reality. The rest of us who already have the experience and skills for separating the seeds from the fluff, suffer only losses from the bullshit that surrounds us. But the prof…

> But the profit made on the few clueless ones keeps the bullshit economy going You make it sound like the clueless ones are always the same people though. I certainly paid for my share of BS (and guilt-tripped my parents into paying before that) and now I feel like I'm not doing that any more (even though there was no point when I didn't feel this way..).

The clueless ones are usually newcomers e.g. to the Internet. Everyone of us got caught up in a scam at least once.
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