So far:
- Chuck Norris
- TaleSpin
- Abiogenesis
- True Story Swear to God
- Final Fantasy XIII
- Hetalia: Axis Powers
- Gorgeous George
- Ex nihilo
- Costa Concordia disaster
- List of unusual deaths (I sometimes read this when I’m bored)
- Adolfo Tapia
- List of websites participating in January 18 SOPA protests (d’oh!)
- Sliders
One clear lesson from this event is that I can kind of live without Wikipedia, which may run counter to the stated goal.
Also: If you try visiting any of Wikipedia’s pages, you’ll notice the article appears in full for about half a second before the standard blackout message appears, without redirecting to a new page. That would suggest the blackout is being implemented with client-side scripting, and that I could probably override the whole thing with GreaseMonkey. But that’s too much work just to check who replaced Jerry McConnell in the last season, or whether the guy on Sliders was even named “Jerry McConnell.”
Related Articles
22 users responded in this post
Wikipedia workaround, from their FAQ: turn off javascript, or access via a mobile device (implying “use the mobile site,” as in http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Norris )
You can press Esc while the page is loading before it switches to blackout mode.
It is, indeed, being implemented with client side scripting (it’s actually a very special form of our “fundraising” banners – just one that blanks everything away).
There’s another pack of technologies in the mix, mind you (such as a special extension we wrote for doing lookups on congressional representatives) and editing restrictions, but mostly it’s client side.
The name of the fine chap you’re thinking of is Jerry O’Connell and the guy they got to replace him was his brother who I don’t know the name of because, well, I feel it’s obvious why I don’t know.
I find it more strange that I know these facts without seeing an entire episode of the show. I just can’t think of a reason why I know these things.
Adblock http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:BannerController&cache=/cn.js&303-4 .
Note that this may break banners! Just, you know, as an added bonus.
Are you too good for the imdb or something?
I second Stefan’s comment. Cultural osmosis is an amazing thing. And seriously, how you be too fancy for imdb? And now that i think about it, why isn’t there an imdb-type database for kittens?
Wikipedia was trying to make a point. A lame point perhaps, but there it is.
I was personally hoping Google and Facebook and YouTube would follow Wikipedia’s stance, but they’re all for-profit businesses, and likely couldn’t risk pissing off the people who’d already paid them for ad space.
“Jerry O’Connell and the guy they got to replace him was his brother who I don’t know the name of”
Actually, no. O’Connell got his brother a role on the show (as his character’s brother no less)after becoming exe producer on the show. This is also the point at which the show did it’s eff’n huge shark jump plot wise. O’Connell and his brother both left a season or two later and were replaced by some random dude. Fuck why do I know this?!
I was irritated by Sliders after they made the Cromags a recurring villain. Then they got rid of John Rhys-Davies and I lost most of my interest in the show.
There’s a list of unusual deaths?
Go look it up, William. Hah!
I was going to leave a note saying I don’t actually care what the guy’s name was, it was a joke, but I figured “That’s mean, they’ll figure it out.”
https://twitter.com/herpderpedia
And lo, Wikipedia went black, and impotent was the gnashing and wailing of high-school kids the world over when they actually had to use the second-or-lower internet search term.
One clear lesson from this event is that I can kind of live without Wikipedia
Yeah I say this kind of thing when I go an entire day without a cigarette.
Another clear lesson: had I not watched TaleSpin over and over when I was 4-6, I probably wouldn’t ‘t have become a student of Comparative Literature.
…What?
I wanted to look up several things yesterday, some of which were for research. While I can of course live without Wikipedia, it’s a nice starting point for a lot of searches, and for a great deal of minor pop culture stuff it’s pretty much perfect, allowing you to look up the bit of trivia you wanted and get the fuck on with your day, not spend 25 minutes trawling poorly laid out fan sites to dredge it up.
Besides, the whole “I can live without it.” thing is a cop out, you can live without a great number of things, including a kidney and a spleen, but most people would rather not if it can be avoided.
There’s something to be said for at least taking a stand, but the world needs information about Krakow, Poland and who won the Norris Division in the 1992-1993 NHL season. Without that at the stroke of a key, all is lost.
Vladimir Konstantinov, king of the plus/minus rating!
A former classmate has a poodle named Chuck Norris. Her FB entries on the poodle’s behaviors are hilarious when you think of the actor doing them.
Jerry O’Connell. Started out in “Stand By Me”, moved on to “Sliders”, finished up having fish eat his dick. Hey, it’s a career, and there certainly have been worse ones.
For some reason the Wikipedia pages for SOPA and PIPA were not blacked out.
Does that count as irony, or just good sense?