Pure Twaddle

Scene: Atlantic Avenue and Court Street, 11 p.m. Our Hero emerges from work and finishes making plans by phone with friends.

(Three black youths enter, stage right)

Black Youth 1: Let’s get that n____r!

Black Youth 2: Yeah, get him!

Black Youth 3: Get that n_____r!

(more…)

Popularity: 13% [?]

Mozilla’s highlight and right-click search is an indispensable part of my browsing. When I’m reading text and I come across a strange word or reference that’s way over my head, I right-click, search it in a new tab, learn what I need, then jump right back to what I was reading.

To my dismay the New York Time‘s blocks this functionality with a nasty little ToolTip script that forces you to research highlighted words with there terrible meta-definition system (in a pop-up, no less!). This script also blocks the ability to copy-and-paste text; probably a paranoid reaction by the Times that a blogger, heaven forbid, may want to blockquote some text from an article.

After a bit of digging around in the page source, I found the offending scripts and excised them with AdBlock using these rules:

||graphics8.nytimes.com/js/util/tooltip.js

||graphics8.nytimes.com/js/common/screen/altClickToSearch.js

Light testing shows these rules don’t break any other site functionality.

On a side note, when I first sought a solution, I searched Google for “new york times copy paste script,” which brought up Free Copy & Paste JavaScripts and other Scripts as a first hit, from About.com, which is owned by the New York Times company. At least one of their branches doesn’t fear basic information sharing.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Right after the harrowing stoplights of park slope past flatbush avenue and past the intersection where I was hit by a car at sixth and dean up the flat hill and just after the meaner, patient climb of Vanderbilt I hit the red but there was no one right or center so I took my time going left when the wind just stopped and I glided along in silence on a mountaintop along an empty trail turning a lonely bend and nothing but smooth, beautiful, soft, clean snow leading down any path I choose if I had the inclination but then another intersection with a green this time but a harsh cross wind at the cross street that turned the wheel on black asphalt I was back on the street in New York heading deeper into Crown Heights and onto my Glum Existence.

Popularity: 3% [?]

The Gothamist reports that the NYC unemployment rate hit 9%, especially “in the areas of ‘communications media, advertising and other information services…”

I chose a sweet time to move North and start my career in writing. I am currently looking for abandoned construction sites in Brooklyn in which to squat.

Popularity: 3% [?]