Month: May 2012

Page bloat:

The average web page is now more than 1 megabyte (MB). … To put things in perspective: [last December], the average page was 965 KB. That’s 8 percent growth in just four months. Doesn’t sound like much? Then consider this: Back when the HTTP Archive started tracking page stats in November 2010, a mere 18 months ago, the average page was an already hefty 702 KB. Pages today are almost 50 percent bigger than that. If pages continue to grow at this rate, the average page will hit 2 MB by 2015.

How it can affect you:

Not only does a 1 MB page take forever to load, it can also deliver a nasty case of sticker shock when you get your phone bill. To give you a for-instance, earlier this month I was traveling in Europe. Before I left home, I bought 25 MB of data from my provider for $100. In other words, I’m paying $4 per page.

Today on the Dish, Andrew continued his examination of Mormonism's role in shaping Romney's worldview (follow-up here), pointed out the confluence of "marriage, marijuana, and millenials," took insights from social psychology to explain partisanship and equality polling, and declared Fox and the RNC to be one. He also jumped all over the "Polish death camps" controversy: first, he was shocked that it was a such a big deal; second, he assessed the blogosphere's reaction; third, he pushed back against Frum's "hyperventilation;" and, he finally issued a call for some perspective on the matter. We explained why Obama wasn't Carter, trumpeted the beginning of the general election in North Carolina, surveyed the arguments for dumping Trump, made room for an anti-Wall Street Romney campaign, celebrated a drug warrior's defeat, used incentives to explain why there weren't more anti-drug war politicians, saw climate change advocates Heartland collapse, flagged a gutsy, honest gambit by Dan Savage, and wondered if the President should decide who lives and who dies. Ad War Update here.

Andrew further fretted over the "neocon' terrorists" MEK and, in keeping with the Poland theme, flagged an instance of disgusting contemporary Polish anti-Semitism. We dove into the politics of the Eurovision contest, checked on another intra-European status contest, and listened to William on Elizabeth. Women stopped getting raises after a certain age and readers debated the male body and objectification. Lobbyists disrupted rational health care, religious rattlesnakes posed health risks, and Skinner made you skinny. Teens didn't fall for absurd drug crazes and humans acted like ants. Angry blogging was epistemically defective, Facebook's value divided tech experts, and Kardashians measured your internet worth. Readers sounded off on Southern Idol winners and we built a whole test city. Ask Bruce Bartlett Anything here, Yglesian Award Nominee here, Quotes for the Day here and here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

– Z.B.

I noted recently that Republican voters were actually getting more hostile to marriage equality over the last year, while Independents and Democrats were close in their support. I wondered if Obama's support was more central to a jump in Republican opposition than the substance of the issue itself. Social psychologist Dave Nussbaum points to several studies showing how close to incapable we are of analyzing or judging questions devoid of partisanship. A case in point:

In a pair of studies published in 2002, Lee Ross and his colleagues asked Israeli participants to evaluate a peace proposal that was an actual proposal submitted by either the Israeli or the Palestinian side. The trick they played was that, for some participants, they showed them the Israeli proposal and told them it was the Palestinian one, or they showed them the Palestinian proposal and told them it came from the Israeli side (the other half of participants saw a correctly attributed proposal). What they found was that the actual content of the plan didn’t matter nearly as much as whose plan they thought it was. In fact, Israeli participants felt more positively toward the Palestinian plan when they thought came from the Israeli side than they did toward the Israeli plan when they thought it came from the Palestinians. Let me repeat that: when the plans’ authorship was switched, Israelis liked the Palestinian proposal better than the Israeli one.

Forget the ants. We really are primates in the end, aren't we?

As Romney gains among women, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund endorses the president and pours $1.4 million into West Palm Beach, Des Moines and Northern Virginia:

Meanwhile, the DNC uses Facebook to target Romney's jobs record in Massachusetts, among other things: 

The Romney campaign marks World Multiple Sclerosis Day. 

Previous Ad War Updates: May 29, May 24, May 23, May 22, May 21, May 18, May 17, May 16, May 15, May 14, May 10, May 9, May 8,  May 7, May 3, May 2, May 1, Apr 30, Apr 27, Apr 26, Apr 25, Apr 24, Apr 23, Apr 18, Apr 17, Apr 16, Apr 13, Apr 11, Apr 10, Apr 9, Apr 5, Apr 4, Apr 3, Apr 2, Mar 30, Mar 27, Mar 26, Mar 23, Mar 22, Mar 21, Mar 20, Mar 19, Mar 16, Mar 15, Mar 14, Mar 13, Mar 12, Mar 9, Mar 8, Mar 7, Mar 6, Mar 5, Mar 2, Mar 1, Feb 29, Feb 28, Feb 27, Feb 23, Feb 22, Feb 21, Feb 17, Feb 16, Feb 15, Feb 14, Feb 13, Feb 9, Feb 8, Feb 7, Feb 6, Feb 3, Feb 2, Feb 1, Jan 30, Jan 29, Jan 27, Jan 26, Jan 25, Jan 24, Jan 22, Jan 20, Jan 19, Jan 18, Jan 17, Jan 16 and Jan 12.

Readers continue a thread from last week:

Well, they're not exactly celebs, but a made-for-gay-men, uncensored Andrew Christian underwear vid has been making the rounds in a very female space and it's been received with open arms and wide open eyes. From one standpoint, this female ogling certainly delves into fetishistic behavior, but on the other hand, that's clearly the aim of all of these videos from AC – there are about ten more on their website – all VERY NSFW!

Like you, I tend to think that people who put themselves out there via sexualized videos and performances or professions kind of reap what they sow. Where it crosses the line is when the public persona is accosted in private without permission, which is never okay, whether male or female. I'm not going to argue about who has it worse, men or women, though. I'm too busy being a hypocrite and enjoying the eye candy.

Another writes:

I have advice for your reader who complains about being objectified: Wait.

Pretty soon, nature will take its course and no one will notice you. Your wishes will be fulfilled. Honestly, I have quite a short fuse when beautiful people complain about how burdensome their beauty is. First of all, they should count their bloody blessings, since most of us are hideous. And second, they should treasure their beauty, since it won't stick around very long.

Meanwhile, over at the Good Men Project, editor-in-chief Noah Brand bares all – literally:

My body is a testament to high testosterone. I have a body type one sees a lot: male pattern baldness, plenty of body hair, builds both muscle and fat very easily. You see guys like me all the time, with our wide shoulders and wider beer guts. Burly sonsabitches, often rocking the shaved-head-and-beard combo. It is not, it’s fair to say, a body type that is highly lauded by media culture. I didn’t always look like this. When I was a teenager, I was so skinny I won awards for dressing as Jack Skellington, which sounds like a joke and isn’t. When I was twenty, I dressed as Nightwing for a costume contest, and the woman MCing the show called me "the reason spandex was invented." That was a long time ago. Nowadays, I’m technically considered obese.

His NSFW gallery here.

A Palestinian farmer argues with an Israeli soldier as he is prevented from working on his land in the West Bank village of Tuqua, east of Bethlehem, near the Jewish settlement of Tekoa on May 30, 2012. Palestinians need permission from Israeli authorities in order to be able to access their own lands located near Jewish settlements. By Musa Al-Shaer/AFP/Getty Images.

With the help of smartphone apps, the psychologist's theory of behavior modification is making a comeback:

[T]oday’s electronic nudges and tweaks are identical in purpose [to Skinner's interventions]: use what you can control to affect what you can’t. The simple elegance of this concept flips on its head Chomsky’s suggestion that behavior modification treats people as if they were no more intelligent than animals. What distinguishes our intellect from animals’ is not that we can go against our environment—most of us can’t, not in the long run—but rather that we can purposefully alter our environment to shape our behavior in ways we choose.

This kerfuffle occurs after a BBC documentary yesterday on the rank racism and anti-Semitism of soccer fans in Poland and Ukraine:

It is striking to see masses of Polish soccer fans giving the Nazi salute and chanting at their opponents "Jewish Whore! Jewish Whore! Jewish Whore!". In 2012. No wonder minority soccer fans are not going to Euro 2012.

The NYT made the same adjectival mistake a year and a bit ago – and it led to a correction to the stylebook. But there is also, to my mind, a bit of denial about Polish anti-Semitism under the Nazis. To take one notorious example: the Jedwabne pogrom. A reader adds:

My grandfather is a Holocaust survivor. He was born and raised in Poland. To this day, he harbors the most resentment towards his “fellow” Poles for turning his family over to the Nazis. He refuses to even identify himself as Polish. Out of a family larger than 10, only he, a brother, and a sister survived.

The death camps in Poland were just as much Polish in their aiding and abetting, as much as they were German in fact. What Obama said did not embarrass me, even it was a slip. Poland, for far too long, has swept these atrocities under the rug.  I point to the book by Jan Gross, “Fear: Poland and Anti-semitism after Auschwitz“.

Interesting. But all this is really about a dumb error by a speech writer who meant no harm, and in fact, meant to honor a great Polish hero. Perspective please. This isn’t Bitburg.