Somebody is very unhappy about the changes to the set of The Daily Show.

I have a message to “online marketing specialists,” just because the media that you are dealing with is different from traditional outlets doesn’t mean that human beings aren’t still human beings. This MediaPost editorial (free registration required) expressing surprise at the results of out-of-context placements is simply ridiculous.

Serving an ad in an editorial environment with NO relationship to the product may seem counterintuitive, but it is becoming hard to ignore. Case studies too numerous to count are showing surprising results from the targeted delivery of “out-of-context”online ads – delivering ads to qualified consumers within content areas that are “out-of-context” for the offer. For example, serving automobile ads to “auto buyers” in a site’s sports section, rather than in auto content. Quite frequently, the out-of-context ads will outperform those that are delivered in-context, sometimes dramatically so.

Imagine selling people cars within sports content – newspapers and TV have been doing it for years so why is this somehow amazing and unexpected? It’s called mass marketing and assumes that people with an interest in one thing are likely to have an interest in others – straight-forward demographics, people!

Whatever the reason, as more research and more case studies are developed in this area, this phenomenon could have a very significant impact on the online ad industry.

Marketing is a statistician’s wet dream and the levels of minutiae available for measurement and study online are close to infinite (depending on how much programming you want to do). But in marketing it always comes down to two things: the creative and the offer. Placement is really secondary because as we have seen if the creative and offer are strong enough your market will go viral in an Internet heartbeat. So measure that, stick it in your pipe and smoke it!

I don’t want anyone to think I’m squirrel-obsessed or anything, but this is pretty funny.

Seattle Bus Monster rocks. If you’re trying the Paulette channelling Sarah Vowell channelling Jimmy Carter avoid-your-car thing, this might help!

Oh, how to break this?

Lay’s Potato Chips have launched a Fernan Adriá potato chip in Europe. Apparently this is the “postmodern cuisine” outcome when Slow Food gets rear-ended by high-speed culinary capitalism. My only question: do they come with foam?

On a lighter note, Engadget has the scoop on the latest MIT innovation.

Current mobile communication devices do not grab our attention in a socially appropriate way. They could be disrespectful of ongoing social activity such as an important meeting or private dinner. To improve on this, I have built the Cellular Squirrel, a system where the agent that controls my cellphone is embodied in a small portable animatronic device, as a personal ‘companion’ for the user. This embodiment is able to use the same subtle but still public non-verbal cues to get our attention and interrupt us like humans would do (like eye gaze and small gestures), instead of ringing or vibration. The user can whisper and listen to her squirrel, receiving and replying to voice instant messages. If the user wishes, she can also bypass the Intermediary altogether and get into a synchronous voice communication with the caller by simply talking to the embodiment.

A propos of my sister Julie’s visit, allow me to indulge in an inside joke: If you put the squirrel in the folder it will serve as a hard-drive extension. Ask her–it’s a good story.

Another new category… great. It’s a reflection of my growing level of concern about environmental collapse–and our willed ignorance about it. I’ve never been a very good Sierra Club style environmentalist. But things like this–and Bush’s idiotic hem-hawing in the face of stunning scientific evidence of global warming–have me seriously worried. And seriously pissed off.

Anyway, courtesy of the NRDC: Natural Resources Defense Council, more bad news.

Scientists suspect that rising ocean temperatures and dwindling plankton populations are behind a growing number of seabird deaths, reports of fewer salmon and other anomalies along the West Coast.

Coastal ocean temperatures are 2 to 5 degrees above normal, apparently caused by a lack of upwelling – a process that brings cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface and jump-starts the marine food chain.

Upwelling fuels algae and shrimplike krill populations that feed small fish, which provide an important food source for a variety of sea life, from salmon to sea birds and marine mammals.

“Something big is going on out there,” said Julia Parrish, an associate professor in the School of Aquatic Fisheries and Sciences at the University of Washington. “I’m left with no obvious smoking gun, but birds are a good signal because they feed high up on the food chain.”

We may be “at the top of the food chain,” but if the bottom falls out it won’t be pretty. Payback, as they say, is a bitch.

I had never before actually read President Jimmy Carter’s famous “malaise speech,” though I had heard of it before and knew, as Sarah Vowell pointed out in today’s New York Times op-ed page that it often regarded as one of the worst presidential speeches on record.

So today, I went and read it. And you should, too. Because quite to the contrary, it’s a fantastic and honest and inspiring speech. It’s not some stupid “oh, don’t worry about it, just let us government folks do the thinking for you” kind of schlock we’re fed these days. The message of the speech, which focuses on basically the same problems we’re facing today is, “we’re in a bad situation, and we’re in that situation because as a nation we’ve become a bunch of selfish hedonists with no regard for the impact we have on the world beyond our own immediate gratification, and if we’re ever going to change that, we’re going to have to grow up and start acting responsibly for a change.”

Seriously. It’s a great speech. It outlines a plan that requires some major government effort and some major individual effort. That so much of it wasn’t implemented doesn’t go to show that Carter was wrong about the right course of action, just in his optimism that Americans at heart cared about anything but their own immediate gratification. Seriously. Would that Bush had the balls to say this to the country today. Would that he, instead of refusing to impose fuel efficiency requirements on new cars, said to the American people what Carter told them–look, we’re dependent on foreign oil and it’s gotten us into trouble and will continue to. You want the situation fixed. We want the situation fixed. So get off your asses and stop buying Hummers and SUVs and driving everywhere you lazy, spoiled, children. Stop whining and start taking a little responsibility for once.

And I’m asking you for your good and for your nation’s security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense — I tell you it is an act of patriotism.

That’s what Bush should be telling us. Not that shutting up and letting the government take away our liberty isn’t being patriotic–not contributing to our own problems is.

Let me repeat that last line again, because it is inspiring and empowering: “Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense — I tell you it is an act of patriotism.”

Because even more than challenging people to quit bellyaching and act like adults, it’s also reminding people that we’re not children under the care of our government–we have the power to make decisions which affect the country, the environment, our national security, and if we actually care about any of the stuff we whine about, we have the ability to do something to make things better.

I missed this item in the news as it went to press just after we left for Canada. That means I found out the hard way, by walking through Volunteer Park, which I do often as it’s just over THERE from my place, and coming across a great scarred stump and a handful of shellshocked neighbors. “I used to come and play under this tree when I was a boy,” said one embittered guy who’d taken to using the broad remains of the tree as a soapbox. He tried to engage me in converstation about how the city was cashing in on the wood from this giant maple, but I wasn’t having any. I was just too sad.

RIP, grand old tree.

Sometime back Jay posted this. I immediately thought of the title – “Good practice for America’s future as China’s bitch” – when I read this item in the China Daily.

Two excerpts:

Trade fury. There’s no better term for the atmosphere on Capitol Hill these days. It’s bipartisan, it’s increasing in ardor, and it reached a frenzy last month when the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed two measures aimed at slowing or blocking the purchase of an American oil company by the state-run Chinese National Offshore Oil Company. Ironically, the Chinese responded last week by lecturing Congress on the value of free markets.

When China invests solely in U.S. treasury securities–it now holds $230 billion of U.S. government debt, second only to Japan–few seem to mind. But now growing Chinese firms are flexing their muscles: This spring, Chinese computer maker Lenovo Group bought IBM’s personal-computer unit for $1.75 billion, and Haier Group, the largest appliance maker in China, has a $1.28 billion bid pending for Maytag.

Crack open a Tsingtao and stand by for W’s “ownership society” to be owned by China.