Thanks for putting this to words. Now that you mention it, it is incredibly annoying, though the content was really interesting. I looked for an 'x' button on

Thanks for putting this to words. Now that you mention it, it is incredibly annoying, though the content was really interesting. I looked for an 'x' button on the banners more than once but then gave up and continued plowing through. What is interesting is that I didn't get anywhere near the thought of commenting on this (or opening the chrome debugger or something to turn it off manually). So it's interesting that such visual noise can be a low-level annoyance without becoming a conscious thought. (Until your comment.) Visual designers must be trained to notice what to people who aren't doing it is just noise.