Easy way to turn off ads on Gawker.
I was looking through the ad display code in Gawker’s leak. Turns out the methodology to serve ads in their Smarty “upgrade” GanjaPHP is pretty simple really. (You can find this in the Ganjasmarty.php file FYI)
static function smarty_function_adDisplay( $params, &$smarty ) {
// load page without ads - for debug
if( $_COOKIE['noad'] == 'true' ) return '';
...
I couldn’t believe it could really be that simple, but I had a simple way of trying. Just opened up the console and put in the following:
javascript:document.cookie='noad=1; expires=Thu, 2 Aug 2021 20:47:11 UTC; path=/';
Works like a charm. Except for the first flash ad, the others all vanished. You can do the same by going to the site and running this bookmarklet: NoAds Gawker.
It doesn’t seem to work on Lifehacker. Feel free to try it elsewhere (you might have to refresh the page once though)
(For a clean conscience, I deleted the cookie after; besides, I don’t see the benefit of having no ads on a site I never read anyway).
Just got the best spam comment ever.
I’m currently being held prisoner by the Russian mafia penis enlargement and being forced to post spam comments on blogs and forum! If you don’t approve this they will kill me. penis enlargement They’re coming back now. vimax Please send help
Admittedly I almost approved that.
Saw Avatar Yesterday
Watched Avatar yesterday with the gf in Shinjuku. A few thoughts ran through my mind.
- Hayao Miyazaki is a hack. I’ve never seen any of the later’s movies that came close in any sense; any of his movies that are conceptually similar (Mononoke Hime, Nausicaa) suffer from muddled vision and the incapability of forming an opinion. None of Miyazaki’s movies have ever been entertaining AND thought-provoking – it’s usually one or the other. (I think the difference between Mononoke Hime and Avatar represent the difference between Japan and America, but that’s another story). Maybe it is just the fact that Miyazaki has never done anything but create, while Cameroon was a truck driver and a working man before he started his career.
- 2000 yen (24-25$) for a ticket? Ouch. :grr: My friend Usmaan reminded me that I could have purchased the tickets from one of those ticket re-sellers around Shinjuku, but what can you do?
- Being able to walk home from a late show in Shinjuku is one of the coolest benefits to living in Tokyo.
- The next 10 years will see movie producers concentrating on gimmicks like 3D to keep people coming to theaters. That’s depressing.
- Isn’t the reasoning used for stripping Pandora the same as outsourcing manufacturing to countries without environmental laws?
- “Sent back to their dying world” – ouch.
Glad I saw it, too bad I had to pay almost 55$ (if we include popcorn, 2 tickets and a coke)
Fun Time at Kebab-Ye Yesterday
I went to dinner at my favourite Kebab place yesterday with local Tokyo socialite/photographer (and awesome dude) Christopher Jue. I had originally planned on making small talk, when I ran into my friend Syed Hatoyama. The three of us started talking when a stylish girl walked into the store. She seemed to know Syed, and I started poking him about their relationship; he was visibly shaken and told me in a quiet voice that her boyfriend was in the store. The big guy had a sense of humor and we exchanged pleasantries before I got back to talking to Chris.
The weird thing happened about 15 minutes later. I had forgotten to remove Taluva from my backpack, and I suddenly realized there were just enough people to play the game. I pulled out the box and yelled “Hey dude, wanna play?” in Japanese to the two strangers (and Syed as well). Oddly enough, they concurred (as long as they could play as a team) and off we went.
Turns out the girl was a Japanese champion at Karate, and the guy was a math major / Karate blackbelt himself. He was a quick learner too; he won the game handily on his first go at it. We traded emails and I told him to come by anytime.
I don’t know why I’m even blogging this, except for the fact that this was the first time I had such a spontaneous event in Tokyo and this socializing through board gaming thing actually worked. (For those who aren’t in the know, I brought board games to Tokyo with me because a few of the guests at my house parties seemed to have a hard time talking to the other guests; light gaming seemed to be a good ice breaker to me.) I’m going to try this more often, maybe at the local Starbucks or something.
Sniper Attack!
I know posting something with a title like “Sniper Attack” will get me onto an FBI list, but this is worth it.