I don't think the fact that the "packaging" looks quite a lot like a used condom is going to help the appeal for a large portion of the potential customer base.

I much prefer the XKCD "What If" variety of footnotes to the ones that scroll you down the page to the end like they're currently using at this new 538. I hope they make the switch, checking sources in data driven analysis shouldn't be time consuming and tedious.

It's no more appropriate to say "bioinformatics" than it is to say "algebra" - they're well defined fields.

For a long time, like others, I limited my ad-blocking to sites where the ads were intrusive. Specific example being flash ads that opened when I read news stories at Yahoo News and blocked the article I had specifically attempted to visit. Then, I realized that the generic ads at the top of My Yahoo page didn't pertain to me at all. I mean, a portal site with a variety of user specified input where cookies are tracking every headline/movie review/weather forecast/search term I click on and they still can't target ads for me? I still didn't too heavily block ads at other sites I visited which had very specific targets. For instance, a particular web site that provided information about World of Warcraft items and quests was one I thought I could stand to see ads at. But, when they decided the ads I needed to see were for Everquest II they got blocked as well. Thank you, but I didn't go to the Mustang convention to see an add for a Camaro. Now, the very few sites I allow ads from include those where I am even more specifically targetted: for instance, a forum community based around the car I drive has ads from a variety of companies that make or sell parts to fit my car. The other category of ads I allow is at the web-comics I visit where half the time they seem to be ads to sell that ad space, and the other half the time they're for a random product that MAY interest me and are done in the same style of art as the comic itself. Basically, I've raised the level of ad specifity to the same level that I get in magizines. Buying Maximum PC puts me in a pretty specific category of people. So, the fact that they contain ads for Falcon Northwest, Newegg, Monarch PC, etc. doesn't surprise me and is often quite informative. At the same time, Sports Illustrated is generally targetting a different set of people--no I don't need a pickup that gets 15 miles to the gallon--but they're doing so in a fairly unobtrusive way, and ocassionally they do land on something that might interest me--Campbell's soup makes chili now? So, specific and relevant ads = 2 thumbs up. Stylisticly cool ads = 1 thumb up. Completely random and interfering ads = 2 thumbs down. Thus, when it comes to TV I thank God, Al Gore, or whoever else invented it, for TiVo and the ability to buy cool shows like Arrested Development on DVD. Advertisers-you have by and large jumped the shark.