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TV Tropes Erects a Paywall for Private Browsing Users

Posted by Pino P on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:36PM (#2676)
11 Comments
Techonomics

Popular literary analysis wiki TV Tropes has become a pay site. Please consider using All The Tropes instead.

In this comment, c0lo wrote:

you'll have to admit that forced work camps still fit your wording.

From the linked page:

This is page #1 that you have viewed this day

Please consider creating an account or whitelisting our site on AdBlock so that we can continue to remain free for all users.

Allow ads on TV Tropes | Buy an ad removal pass

I'm not using an ad blocker. I'm using the tracking protection feature built into Firefox. This feature is enabled by default in Private Browsing windows, and there is an about:config setting to enable it throughout Firefox. When I followed the "Allow ads on TV Tropes" link, I got instructions for how to disable Adblock Plus. As I have never used Adblock Plus, I followed the "Don't see the red octagon" link and chose "Firefox Private Browsing" from the menu. This gave the following instructions:

If you are using Firefox Private Browsing with Tracking Protection, a shield icon is displayed to the left of the Firefox address bar. Tracking Protection blocks ads from being displayed.

  1. Click the shield icon to the left of the address bar.
  2. Select "Disable protection for this session".
  3. Click "Done" below to close this window and refresh the page.

This is oversimplified. Tracking Protection doesn't block ads from being displayed if they're hosted on the same domain as the website. It blocks only third-party ads based on tracking each viewer's behavior across websites to infer his or her interests in order to stalk the viewer with creepy "retargeting" ads. And these third-party ads have been associated with malware transmission far more often than self-hosted ads. I'm not disabling antivirus just because a website can't fall back to self-hosted ads.

Fortunately, a backup of TV Tropes was taken in early July 2012, prior to TV Tropes' switch from the free CC BY-SA license to a non-free license in likely violation of its contributors' copyrights and its short-lived experiment with assignment of copyright in contributions. This backup was used to seed a fork, called All The Tropes, which is hosted on Miraheze. Instead of carrying advertising, projects on Miraheze are supported the same way as Wikimedia projects, namely through voluntary donations from readers.

The corresponding article on All The Tropes is Literal Genie.

Las Vegas Shooter: Stone Cold Vampyr

Posted by takyon on Monday October 09 2017, @06:01PM (#2673)
2 Comments

HTML lists

Posted by fyngyrz on Sunday October 08 2017, @02:04AM (#2670)
12 Comments
Soylent

Powers-that-lurk:

Tried to incorporate an <ol> list in a post today, but it failed to work properly. I wrote:

<ol type="A">
<li>Thing</li>
<li>Another thing</li>
</ol>

What I got:

1. Thing
2. Another thing

What I should have gotten:

A. Thing
B. Another thing

I request that you fix the tag so that this works. I presume the original HTML tag construct is preferable to allowing limited CSS styles, but if that was also available, that'd be okay too. I'm also making the assumption that CSS styles are not currently available, which I suppose could be wrong. :)

If you're in there making <ol> work anyway, probably should also address "start=X" and "reversed" as well.

One of the things I really like about Soylent is that it works better than That Other Place. More, please.

Thanks.

The Motive

Posted by mcgrew on Saturday October 07 2017, @04:24PM (#2669)
16 Comments
News

All the cops and newspapers are searching for a motive in the horrific mass murder in Las Vegas last week. No connection to any terrorist groups, no indication at all that it would happen, and the newspapers are all asking “Why??”

        The answer is simple and I can’t figure out why nobody else can figure it out.

        For well over a century the line between fame and infamy has been blurred. The eighteenth century James Gang were murdering thieves, but still well regarded. The reason was the hated Pinkertons, hired by banks who were also not well liked. The Pinkertons did some horrific things themselves, like killing an innocent fifteen year old mentally challanged boy. The Pinkertons’ infamy caused the James gang to be famous despite their foul deeds.

        In the 1930s there was Bonnie and Clyde, also murderous thieves, but the people they murdered and stole from were bankers, who were hated more than anyone in the country, having taken away people’s homes, crashing in 1928 to 1930 leaving the country in poverty.

        By the twenty first century, actually before, the words “infamy” and “infamous” have almost disappeared. We think of Mark David Chapman, the man who shot John Lennon in the back four times, killing him in 1980 not as infamous, but famous.
        It’s simple. The mass murderer last week did it to become “famous”. Because he knew full well that the media would release his name, and by all accounts he wanted everyone to know he was the perpetrator.

        The media should stop printing the names of these monsters. But they wont; I a href=" All the cops and newspapers are searching for a motive in the horrific mass murder in Las Vegas last week. No connection to any terrorist groups, no indication at all that it would happen, and the newspapers are all asking “Why??”

        The answer is simple and I can’t figure out why nobody else can figure it out.

        For well over a century the line between fame and infamy has been blurred. The eighteenth century James Gang were murdering thieves, but still well regarded. The reason was the hated Pinkertons, hired by banks who were also not well liked. The Pinkertons did some horrific things themselves, like killing an innocent fifteen year old mentally challanged boy. The Pinkertons’ infamy caused the James gang to be famous despite their foul deeds.

        In the 1930s there was Bonnie and Clyde, also murderous thieves, but the people they murdered and stole from were bankers, who were hated more than anyone in the country, having taken away people’s homes, crashing in 1928 to 1930 leaving the country in poverty.

        By the twenty first century, actually before, the words “infamy” and “infamous” have almost disappeared. We think of Mark David Chapman, the man who shot John Lennon in the back four times, killing him in 1980 not as infamous, but famous.
        It’s simple. The mass murderer last week did it to become “famous”. Because he knew full well that the media would release his name, and by all accounts he wanted everyone to know he was the perpetrator.

        The media should stop printing the names of these monsters. But they wont; I wrote about this two decades ago and nobody listened. Nobody will now, either. I wrote about this two decades ago and nobody listened. Nobody will now, either.

I linked the article but something is going wrong with this page; neither links nor italics are working today. The article is in Random Scribblings titled is Quake a killer – or are the mass news media killers?

I'll try to link it in a comment.

Bladerunner 2049

Posted by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday October 07 2017, @11:11AM (#2668)
4 Comments
/dev/random

Of course I had to go see it on opening night. Mind you, I did not have high hopes. That was a good thing.

The movie itself, were it a standalone bit of film, wasn't bad at all. Neither was it remotely worthy of the Bladerunner name though. It's like it was written and directed by someone who watched and enjoyed the original many times but wasn't quite bright enough to understand why it was so awesome. You won't see any Baysplosions but neither will you see any well-crafted subtlety. It may not have been Highlander II but it was most definitely not The Empire Strikes Back either.

My advice, get good and drunk before you go see it if you really feel you must. You won't miss any nuance from your impaired cognitive abilities, I promise.

[Edit for testing something]
Looks fine to me...

Calm Before the Storm

Posted by takyon on Saturday October 07 2017, @05:58AM (#2667)
16 Comments
News

What Did President Trump Mean by ‘Calm Before the Storm’?

President Trump was clearly looking to make some kind of news, but about what, exactly, was not clear. And the mystery, as it often does with a president whose statements baffle even his staff, only deepened the next day.

On Thursday evening, the White House told the presidential press corps that Mr. Trump was done with his public schedule for the day. But around 7 p.m., Mr. Trump summoned reporters who were still at work to the State Dining Room, where he was throwing a dinner for military commanders and their spouses.

Gesturing to his guests, he said, “You guys know what this represents? Maybe it’s the calm before the storm.”

“What’s the storm?” asked one reporter.

“Could be the calm before the storm,” Mr. Trump repeated, stretching out the phrase, a sly smile playing across his face.

“From Iran?” ventured another reporter. “On ISIS? On what?”

“What storm, Mr. President?” asked a third journalist, a hint of impatience creeping into her voice.

As the generals shifted from foot to foot, Mr. Trump brought the game of 20 Questions to an end. He praised his beribboned guests as the “world’s great military people” and excused the stymied reporters, who returned to their workstations to start another round of: What was the president talking about?

By Friday, the White House was still unable to shed light on the matter; several of Mr. Trump’s aides said they had no idea what the president meant. But the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, wanted to make one thing clear: Mr. Trump wasn’t just teasing his favorite antagonists. He was sending a message.

“I wouldn’t say that he’s messing with the press,” Ms. Sanders told reporters. “I think we have some serious world issues here. I think that North Korea, Iran both continue to be bad actors, and the president is somebody who’s going to always look for ways to protect Americans, and he’s not going to dictate what those actions may look like.”

Suddenly, Mr. Trump’s preprandial banter took on an ominous tone. Maybe he was foreshadowing war with North Korea, which he has already threatened with “fire and fury” if the reclusive country aimed its missiles at the United States. Or perhaps he was predicting a clash with Iran, a week before he is expected to disavow the nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor, Barack Obama.

“He certainly doesn’t want to lay out his game plan for our enemies,” Ms. Sanders declared.

Anheuser-Busch wants your thoughts on its NFL sponsorship

Posted by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 05 2017, @02:02PM (#2665)
33 Comments
News

Anheuser-Busch wants your thoughts on its NFL sponsorship in light of protests

By Kara Berg

kberg@bnd.com

October 02, 2017 9:42 PM

Anheuser-Busch wants to know how you feel about the NFL.

If you call 1-800-342-5283 and press one, you can tell the company how you feel about its sponsorship of the NFL, which has been under fire lately after an unprecedented amount of players kneeled or remained in the locker room during the national anthem.

When you call, you get this message:

“At Anheuser-Busch, we have a long heritage of supporting the nation’s armed forces, veterans and military dependents. The national anthem is a point of pride for our company and for the 1,100 veterans we employ. Please feel free to share your feedback after the tone.”

An Anheuser-Busch representative told Fox2 that the company was receiving a high volume of calls after many on social media asked the company to sever its sponsorship with the NFL.

The company released the following statement about the addition of the phone line.

“At Anheuser-Busch we have a long heritage of supporting the institutions and values that have made America so strong. That includes our armed forces and the national anthem as well as diversity, equality and freedom of speech. We proudly employ over 1,100 military veterans and we work every day to create an inclusive environment for all of our employees. Because only together can we achieve our dream of bringing people together for a better world.

The Anheuser-Busch phone line has always been available for consumer inquiries on a variety of topics, but we are not conducting a survey regarding our NFL sponsorship.

We have many long-term sports partnerships, including our NFL sponsorship, and while we may not agree on everything, we still believe in the power of sport to bring people together and overcome their differences. We have no plans to end our NFL sponsorship.”

Americans are sharply divided on whether NFL players should be allowed to kneel during the national anthem, according to a CNN survey. Overall, 49 percent say kneeling players are doing the wrong thing and 43 percent say it’s the right thing. But these views change sharply with age and race. Older white Republicans were more likely to say the players were doing the wrong thing, CNN found.

http://www.bnd.com/news/local/article176690196.html

U.S. House of Representatives Passes 20-Week Abortion Ban

Posted by takyon on Tuesday October 03 2017, @11:06PM (#2661)
34 Comments
News

House passes 20-week abortion ban

The measure passed heavily along party lines, 237-189.

The bill allows exceptions in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the woman and wouldn't penalize women for seeking to get abortions after 20 weeks.

The legislation is likely to face a tough sell in the Senate. A similar bill passed the House in 2015 but was blocked by Senate Democrats.

With only a 52-seat majority it would be unlikely Senate Republicans could gather the 60 votes needed to move the legislation to President Trump's desk.

The House just passed a 20-week abortion ban. Opponents say it's “basically relying on junk science.”

Skin Flutes

Posted by takyon on Sunday October 01 2017, @06:39PM (#2657)
5 Comments
/dev/random

Semen-contaminated flutes might have been given to children, California school officials warn (archive)

Several school districts in Southern California warned parents this weekend that flutes and recorders given to children through a nonprofit music program may have been contaminated with bodily fluids. At least one district specified that those fluids could have been semen.

Local, state and federal agencies were investigating a male music teacher who visited schools in Southern California through a program called Flutes Across the World, according to updates from the Saugus Union School District, which serves the Santa Clarita area.

“The performer distributes a flutelike musical instrument made of PVC pipe or bamboo to students during a music lesson, and the allegation is that he contaminated some of these instruments with semen,” Saugus Union Superintendent Joan Lucid said in an email to parents on Saturday. “These allegations are deeply concerning, and I realize they raise many questions.”

The California Department of Justice and the U.S. Postal Service were among the agencies investigating the program, the district said. Lucid said children were never alone with the music specialist, who was not a district employee.

School officials allege flutes used in children’s music program may have been contaminated with semen

Flutes "stained with a man's bodily fluids" issued to California schoolchildren

Flutes Across the World: Japan Edition.

The Walmart subsidies

Posted by khallow on Sunday October 01 2017, @08:35AM (#2656)
19 Comments
Rehash
Related to the universal basic income debate is the claim that various companies are being subsidized by current operating welfare programs. In the US, this claim originated with a study of a Walmart Supercenter. The study then extrapolated to the entire US by multiplying the alleged subsidy ($900k in alleged benefits from food stamps and other poverty addressing programs in the US) of that store by the number of Supercenters in the US (roughly 3000). This study was later popularized by the Americans for Tax Fairness organization which claimed as a result that such welfare-derived subsidies were over $6 billion per year.

The argument has since spread all over the place and been used to rationalize all sorts of taxes, minimum wage increases, etc.

There is a rat's nest of nasty deception in this argument which needs to be considered. Even if we ignore that this is based on a sloppy propaganda white paper (extrapolating from a single store to the entire US) by a political faction, we still have some really big flaws with the argument.

The first is simply that the point of subsidies is to encourage behavior we want. Walmart is employing poor people. Usually, that is a desirable goal, particularly for the ideologies that spin this as welfare subsidies, but notice how in this case virtue is transformed rhetorically into vice.

Second, anyone who employs people who receive welfare is by this argument receiving the subsidy. The only way to avoid the alleged subsidy is to employ people who never receive any sort of welfare. Thus, anyone who employs poor people can be accused of this vice.

Thus third, it can't be fixed as long as one pays out welfare benefits of any sort. There is no correction that can ever get rid of the alleged problem because either someone will always employ poor people on welfare and run afoul of the welfare subsidy or no one will, creating a permanent unemployed class of people.

I see this causing problems for universal basic income schemes because since everyone receives the income, every employer can be considered to be "subsidized" and thus subject to whatever crazy scheme or punishment that can be rationalized. It's another failure mode that needs to be considered with UBI systems.