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One of my day-to-day responsibilities involves troubleshooting problems with banner ads. You might not realize what goes on when your browser loads a page full of ads; most of our brains have been trained to ignore these things. But wow, take a peek under the hood sometime. You'll find some of the hairiest stuff around.

A few folks know what to do: create clean, compatible, polite javascript that degrades nicely. Most create abominations that well... make me reach for my revolver... Today I found something spit out of the 'industry standard' adserver that I had to share with a dood I know. Chat transcript follows...

ME: dood?

DOOD: yo

ME: I think I'm surrounded by the worst technology in the world

ME: ever get that feeling?

DOOD: yes

ME: I get that when I come across this kind of thing:

ME: document.write('<noscript><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v8/378a/3/0/%2a/d%3B209144603%3B0-0%3B1%3B23113405%3B3454-728/90%3B29241525/29259404/1%3B%3B%7Eokv%3D%3Bkw%3Dgamechannel%3Bgame%3Dgamechannel%3Bgenre%3Dstrategryrpg_game%3Btile%3D2%3Bdcopt%3Dist%3Bsz%3D728x90%3B%7Eaopt%3D2/1/7b/0%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://clk.atdmt.com/TGM/go/125488438/direct/01/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://view.atdmt.com/TGM/view/125488438/direct/01/5298130" /></a></noscript></iframe>');

DOOD: !

ME: does that juse blow your mind

ME: OR WHAT?

DOOD: who wrote that? Someone on our team or a 3rd party?

DOOD: I mean your team

ME: some 3rd party

DOOD: amazing

DOOD: they don't get anything

ME: some 3rd party WHICH IS AN INTERNET STANDARD. THE CADILLAC OF AD SERVING

DOOD: wow

ME: we're doomed

ME: as a species

DOOD: totally

ME: just thought you'd like to know.

ME: enjoy life. the end is near.

DOOD: I just spent 2 months working with one of the the world's worst engineers. They canned his ass last week

DOOD: this guy was an imbecile, yet he commanded a huge salary and concessions because we thought he was an 'expert'

DOOD: I spent all of my time re-writing and debugging his crap code

DOOD: some of the worst programming I've ever seen

DOOD: and it made me doubt the future of mandkind, as we are all brothers.

ME: I'm there.

ME: document.write('<noscript...

DOOD: that gives me an idea for a netscrap feature. Have a contest where people submit real source code that can never execute

DOOD: this is a plum example

DOOD: there are others

ME: that's a good one.

DOOD: but they have to be real, culled from real source.

I guess the reason this gets my goat is that I face this question every day: does it matter if software is 'done right'? Ultimately it seems that the true measure of 'rightness' is whether the business is succeeding, not the correctness of the minutiae. For a guy whose background is QA, this is a tough pill to swallow.

Anyway, Dood -- good thinking about the netscrap feature. So toss a few things onto the scrap heap (put in the Tech category) and I'll put them up.

PS- For those of you not in the know, one way javascript puts things on the page is through document.write. In this case, the code is using javascript to put a <noscript> tag -- which usually contains something for the browser to show if it doesn't support javascript. Use javascript to deliver the payload to use if you don't use javascript. Boom!

I offer a few recordings tonight: Sing the wolf song is to the lyrics that eve wrote me the other day. Apologies in advance if you listen with dogs in earshot. I added a few more tonight since Eve & I were sitting around with the mic on. We recorded " Always on the Sunnyside" which is something she sings at school, you're supposed to tell some kind of joke in the breaks... something I screwed up of course. This led us toward the ban ana knock-knock, which I also screwed up horribly.

Last night's tune 'i had nothing' was recorded at a rehearsal space with my bandmates (weekly jam-mates?). I basically said, "When I hit record, just start playing." woomp! there it is.

Thanks a bunch for all the notes you've sent me on these things.

Finally, I updated that web page. It's a klunker, but:

• you can get to everything without digging through directories
• you can listen to everything through the doodad.
• the feeds will let you get a ping if there's a new tune.

I think I'm somewhat caught up on the listening now.

Bruce-

• porches is just getting uploaded now. Really nice. I'll spin this a few more times tomorrow.
• migrain my brain is severly migrating my brain right now. Please tell me there was some loopation involved in that. The micro hemiola in the hectic part might induce seizures.
• walle vatoR nice touch here. I like the mood.
• silence is not too slient with that guitar erupting over there. Neat!
• thoughts almost takes off in a lee ranaldo direction. I like it. This made a great first impression.

Seth-

• Thanks for putting that itunes doodad together today, if the RSS thing I responded with won't work to pull in the latestgreatest, let me know and I'll cook up a dynamical version of your xml file.
• t he biggest risk is great. I like the way the energy kind of goes from 0- 60 in the prechorus. Also, nice organ moment, I missed that first time around.
• eve had a comment on decelerating repetition: 'that's not funny' when I played it for her right before bedtime.
• free from me is so nice. isn't it amazing how just an additional vocal track can kick up a demo recording?
• Also, sweet & flavorful AND i n my right time AND the plan in the same upload pile? wow. send more, what are you waiting for?

Peter-

• I'm in touch with your blog. I enjoy catching the recording detailz over there. I'm not really making too much of an effort to engineer any of my recordings. I'll start to pay a little more attention to this and put some factoids together.
• Lyudmila works! Is that a love song about this betty?
• I enjoyed stat ement of too. It comes across as very thought-out and deliberate.

Derek-

• It's been a treat to hear these gems. I mentioned this to you in an IM the other day, but I'll mention it here for the groop: Your recordings are so hi-fi! In a rush, I downloaded baker sfield to my phone while I was on the bart. I listened to it on the .5 inch speaker and wow... I heard all the backup vocals even...
• dow n the hole- I love it. It's serious! I don't think I've heard you open up like that before! Beautiful.

So I flaked out a little tonight. I was under a schedule crunch today... so I dealt with it through some guitar crunch: partial rock, maybe I'll finish off Drums & Vox along with another song on another day. Here's something... zvex nano head in the house! Mo re to Come

A few other notes on the recent gems:

• Derek- Baker sfield -- makes me want to hop on the 99 and head south. Way to go! Rub y On Rails makes me want to get this java crap out of my life. I think the ROR folks will go nuts about this one.
• Seth: be tter or worse -- We were all singing along with this one at breakfast. Amazingly catchy.
• Peter: I haven't heard Discipline (I lack) yet. I like Malice and Caprice more with each listen.
• Bruce: Thoughts and Silence -- I haven't spun your tracks yet, but I'll send some notes when I get to it.

Ok, so technically my 2/3 entry arrived on 2/4. But it's there. I was too beat to drop in the rippin' guitar solo in the 3rd verse so please imagine something good.

• Derek: Rub y On Rails -- it scales in so many ways.
• Peter: Malice And Caprice -- I REALLY liked this one.
• Me: If Yes, Then No -- more confusion.

Website housekeeping note: I moved everyone's ftp directories from /29/you to /29/players/you. I'll delete the other directories soon. This will help with a page that will do automatic updation as the files come in.

Seth + Peter: I too am really digging listening to everyone's songs. I can't express how psyched I am that youses (an EXTREMELY talented bunch) are kookoo enough to try this with me.

This week will be tough! It'll be our first time balancing this with work. Anytime you sit down to write, try writing two. Have a few ideas in your back pocket for those time crunches. Also, no penalties awarded for digging up something a few years old too.

Speaking of a few years old -- when I told eve about this she was interested in helping. She asked me to transcribe a song she wrote which I'll try to put to music on 2/6:

http://29.netscra p.com/29/players/greacen/lyrics.txt

Finally, Michael Tornatore dropped off a drum kit today, a loaner for the month. I didn't have a chance to use it yet but I'll likely switch from recording exclusively on the laptop to start using my 'studio' (finally) which means some elec-trific-o-rock-i-fication in my (and therefore your) near future.

Good luck this week!