Net pay changes for university staff

My drop in net pay was actually slightly better than I had feared so at least my budgeting has been sufficiently conservative. With the increase in pension contribution and changes in both taxation and national insurance codes occurring simultaneously it wasn't easy to estimate perfectly. If I am lucky then whatever cost-of-living increase we get later in the year will cover the additional voluntary contributions I elect to pay in order to get what employer matching I can.

I had forgotten that many others were in the older pension scheme: it transpires that their net pay is not much changed. They used to pay plenty into a better pension scheme and I used to pay less into a worse pension scheme. Now we all pay more into a worse pension scheme. Still, it remains a far better deal than my previous employer's 401(k).

Acceptable advertising

On the one hand, intrusive advertising I find sufficiently annoying that I simply avoid the source completely. Similarly, Amazon.com's current moving lady to entice us to the dress shop I actually find very annoying: I want my webpages to be static. On the other hand, despite the fact that I would rather make micropayments than suffer advertising, if the advertisement isn't unduly distracting then I can certainly live with that as an alternative revenue model for the source. Monthly subscriptions aren't acceptable to me because I use a wide enough range of sources that I would be paying an awful lot of subscriptions.

I am noticing increasingly many websites refusing my browing because I have Adblock Plus enabled. They ask to be whitelisted but I don't need them that much: instead my memory that the website existed at all will slowly fade. What surprises me is that I actually have Adblock Plus' "allow some non-intrusive advertising" enabled. The Adblock Plus people have willingness to whitelist a non-animated ad, clearly labeled as such, that does not interrupt reading flow and I would expect that advertisers would benefit from this in their non-intrusive advertisements thus being among the fewer that I do see.

I wonder how aware the actual websites are of this acceptable ads initiative and if it is the leading one of its kind.

On a related but incidental note, I would be willing to make small payments to watch individual episodes of shows from the many providers who do not make enough worth watching for it to be worth a monthly subscription to the whole service.