Emergent Noise

The Readability Experiment lets you restyle web pages for better reading. They offer “Bookmarklets” that one can click to re-style a given webpage so that it is easier to read.

Ubiquity is an “intelligent” command-line and natural language parser for Firefox. Its hard to explain because of its ubiquitous features( everything from Twitter posts to Maps and email), so I’ll leave that to the excellent screencast on their site.

I thought it would be cool to have a Ubiquity command that uses the Readability project and fixes your web-based reading material. Turns out, its easy to have it, and the results are very satisfactory to me.

 

The screenshot shows how a cumbersome page can be viewed cleanly using Ubiquity.

Ubiquity can be downloaded from Mozilla Labs . Once Ubiquity is installed , Ctrl+Space (be default) opens the Ubiquity panel.

For an easier method to start using the Readability command , just visit this page , and in the bar where Firefox tells you it has found Ubiquity commands, click “Subscribe”.

You can manually add the command to Ubiquity as well. To install custom commands such as this one : type command-editor in Ubiquity, which will take you to your custom command editor page.

I’ve been around the forums a bit, and have gotten used to the fact that you have to have pretty thick skin if you are going to state your opinion on the internet. As any veteran on internet discussion forums will tell you, “Argumentum Ad Hominem” is a common method that people fall back on.

Wikipedia defines it as : An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: “argument to the man”, “argument against the man”) consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the source making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim. The process of proving or disproving the claim is thereby subverted, and the argumentum ad hominem works to change the subject.

But in this particular case, that terse and proper definition doesn’t do justice to the hilarity of some of the hate I’ve received :

The Euphemist

Speaking as a woman who is currently 9 months pregnant and enduring physical challenges you cannot even imagine, I have many possible responses to what you’ve said about pregnancy and estrogen. However, since nearly all of them use obscenities or blasphemies, I shall refrain.

At : Isis the Scientist blog

The I-don’t-agree-with-you-on-purely-subjective-issues-and-therefore-must-insult-you form :

I wrote : “that is her biological function”

They wrote : What the fuck are you smoking, asshole?

I wrote : “ I think it would be much more constructive for women to acknowledge the special treatment, accept and utilize the privilege rather than demand it as a right.”

They wrote :

Nash, please give me some of that cheap weed that you are smoking. You have no motherfucking clue what you are talking about. 6-8 weeks of maternity leave is a privilege?!? Hahahahahaahaaaa! Let me tell you how I’d love to pass this “privilege” on to my husband any day of the week. I am astounded by the sheer motherfucking ignorance of what you say.

At : Isis the Scientist blog

The Confessor-in-Denial

Strangely, you seem to be attempting to convince me of something by rational argument against my throw-away reaction. What?

At : Twitter

The I-am-asking-to-be-pwned category

Where the hell did you get the news that Hindi is not official National Language? Its seems that you did not get your primary studies in India or may not very well aware of Indian constitution.
Please DON’T SPREAD MISCONCEPTION AMONG INDIANS.

At : Jai Hind Blog

And I am quite sure there will be more to come. Don’t hesitate to post your own experiences in the comments.

xkcd – A Webcomic – Correlation

You have to be a geek to get this

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UPDATE 4th July 2009 : Due to lack of time and the fact that similar and much better scripts have been written, I recommend everyone install the Gadget-supported Gmail (ad-less and wide) script.

I myself use this script now, and it is done much better. The author also commits to updating the script periodically.

Cheers and thanks for the support !

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UPDATE : While I myself do not use the ThreadLinks box (New, Expand all etc.) and don’t miss it, a couple of users have written in asking that it be implemented. Iain was kind enough to point me to jtulloch’s version, which used the Gmail API to put the Threadlinks box into the left-side nav-pane.

I’ve arrived at a quick and absolutely dumb solution, which is to simply merge jtulloch’s script with mine , thus nuking ads in a fell-swoop while retaining the ThreadLinks box using his code.

So to all those who’d like to use the ThreadLinks box , you can download a newer version of the script here.

The older version is still available for people who don’t want to mess with their navPane.

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I love Gmail, I hate ads. I use Gmail for syndicating all my email. It is perfectly legitimate of Google to expect some revenue; but when they put ads in a space that they allot to me as personal (such as my inbox when reading an email), it irks me to no end.

So I whipped up a small script that will remove advertisements in the message reading pane and widen the concerned pane to take up the full area that was intended for it. You will need the Greasemonkey extension for Firefox, to use this script.

You can obtain Greasemonkey here .

After installing Greasemonkey, click here to install the Remove Gmail Ads and Widen Message view script, for a cleaner Gmail.

You can also right-click the link and choose to see the source.

 

*the title of this blog post comes from a review on cell biology my supervisor wrote, titled ‘Pimp my Cell’