The latest threads sidebar will be back online as soon as we can get to it.
Regarding the replacement of the footer content, this is a one-month promotional campaign by Autodesk to collect some feedback on their products, using a free trip to their conference as a prize.
In the past we’ve relied on the job posting revenue stream to finance operations, perhaps a bit too heavily. These days we need to be earning our living from every available source we can, and advertising has actually been a bright spot for us. We try to keep it in line with our audience. So at least it is an ad for Autodesk rather than a run-of-network thing (a.k.a. punch the monkey!).