California’s Alo Slebir Unofficially Broke the Big Wave Surfing World Record
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A California surfer, Alo Slebir, unofficially broke the big wave surfing world record, sparking discussion about the sport, its culture, and the challenges of measuring wave height, as well as criticism of the article's clickbait title and website.
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Sep 12, 2025 at 8:45 PM EDT
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He rides BEHIND surfers in the barrel. Absolutely nuts.
It’s not easy to measure ocean waves unless you have a jetski riding right on the crest or a LIDAR system on shore which is expensive.
Clickbait title, interstitial ads, floating vid, back jacking, newsletter, notification...
When I open the page it's only a third that's content -- and that's only the clickbait title.
What garbage...
But I had to comment on how obnoxious this website is with my NextDNS mistakingly disabled. What have we done to the Internet! 3 popups to sign up for paid, newsletter and web alerts. scroll down to see auto playing videos, ridiculous full-banner ads.
wow
It doesn't always work though, I assume the major publishers are employing some counter-measures. Also generally javascript heavy websites.
I wanted to add that every time I use the internet without a blocker, it's so depressing to realize this is how a lot of people, mostly older, experience the Internet. Very sad as someone in the industry.
Which reminds me that I need to pull a RPi off the shelf and provision another Pi-Hole for the camper now that there’s a Starlink attached. I’m not paying by the byte to have ads delivered.
It just has to be better than selling your nonprofit’s contact list to other nonprofits.
Turns out you really can't make a lot of money that way. Especially now. If you don't offer re-targeting and bespoke ads, no one wants to pay you money for ads.
But even then the perpetual problem in business is that what people are willing to tell you they want isn’t what they want or need, and they will shift the goalposts on you after they sign up. Cognitive dissonance will become deafening.
Years ago we used to talk regularly about firing customers. My read was that was always about ridding yourselves of the ones who pushed you into becoming someone you couldn’t stand to look at in the mirror. Eventually some of your customers will want the same cyberstalking features they see advertised by another vendor and they will forget why they can’t have it. They’ll sign up with someone who lies to them better than you do.
My dad still uses yahoo for all of his news. I've realized it's not uncommon to hear people use Yahoo as the front page of the internet still in 2025. I get it. Also, it's depressing. (left for the reader to see why. just go to yahoo with blockers off).
That is rather wild.
I did surf big waves, but certainly not Nazare nor Mavs. That's just too dangerous.
Why is such a wave so big? Because the coast is extremely shallow suddenly. Normally 1m-50cm, but when a big wave comes, all the water in front of the wave is sucked into it back, which makes it about 10-20cm deep. And it is sucked back really fast, because it is not deep. So if you miss such a wave and fall down, you end up there in the impact zone, which is also the shredding zone. There are either rocks or coral reefs, both extremely unhealthy when being shredded along, even if you still have your board. Normally not. And then you are sucked back into the next wave impact zone with high speed, which is un-nicer, because then you are not just shredded along, but also hit big from above into the ground. Where you usually break some arm or leg, or just hit your head into the rock and then drown. The few people who survive this do have professional help by the jet skiers, who try to catch you before the next impact. Your only chance is to get your board from the leach as soon as you get up, and paddle as fast as possible to the side, across the stream to survive the next impact.
It's not interesting at all, pure danger. Like running across a highway without looking.
I'd imagine we would have a method closer to surveying techniques by now.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/swot/us-french-swot-satellite-...
just took lessons recently with Matt from Lucky Dog Surf School. super chill dude, lots of fun.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazaré,_Portugal
However Mavericks is definitely the "nicer" and gnarlier wave of the two imho, Nazare is massive but has no shape, so they just surf the shoulder for 5 seconds and kick out. Mavericks has much nicer lines.
I see the headline here changed, it used to be: [Calif. construction worker unofficially broke a fabled world record]
Source: (also the awards show is embedded here as a video)
https://www.coastsidenews.com/review/news/santa-cruz-surfer-...