In a little over three years I’ve gone to being almost a full-time Apple user. I still have a PC for playing games and a few other uses, but it stays off almost all the time. Most everything else is done on my iMac. And when I’m on the computer there’s usually a browser window open¹.

I like Firefox’s extensions, especially adblock plus and flashblock, but the Firfox experience on the Mac is severely lacking. Camino is more mac-like but still feels…weird, I don’t know how else to put it. It’s just not right for me.

Safari works beautifully, except for the lack of extensibility to really make it mine (and no, I don’t mean “skinning” the UI). I have SIMBL installed so SafariStand can save my tabs for the inevitable crash or force quit (lots of tabs open for lots of time leads to some sticky situations), but SIMBL is a hack².

Here’s the three things my browsing experience can’t live without now that I’ve found them:

1. Glimmerblocker is an http proxy that runs in the background. It intercepts calls made the the outgoing port of your computer and if they match the blacklist, doesn’t send them on. This is different than an inputmanager to the browser as it sees it as a failed request (the server is down) instead of a modified system command.

Glimmerblocker installs as a System Preference and includes Sparkle for self-updating (if desired). It can’t interact with your browser, as adblock plus does, so right clicking a site won’t allow you to view ads, but you can modify the filters in System Preferences. Some non-annoying ad services (eg. The Deck) are not blocked automagically, so sites that use those services can still get their ads through and you can still support them.

[Updated] I installed a few additions to the default glimmerblocker filters. For Gawker-media sites (gizmodo, io9, lifehacker) and nymag.com I added a global transform “gb.zapScriptElements();”. I don’t know what else it breaks, but it strips their damn comments off. Caveat emptor, blah blah.

2. clicktoflash is relatively new (at least to me, but it seems like it is to everyone as well – the original google code project is gone so I don’t know how long it’s been around). It installs as a legitimate Webkit plugin (like Flash or Java). When a page loads with a flash movie, clicktoflash intercepts the call and draws a grey box with a flash symbol inside. When you click the box the flash loads and plays normally⁴. This automatically disables the most annoying of ads and causes many sites to render faster (initially).

Clicktoflash has an installer that also uninstalls and updates the program. [update: you can also remove the clicktoflash.plugin from ~/Library/Internet Plugins and restart Safari to remove it.] If you right-click, or Control-click, a flash box clicktoflash will allow you to whitelist that site so the movies always load, or edit the whitelist (to remove a site).

Clicktoflash solves an annoying problem (to me) where a site throws an exception because their servers aren’t up to snuff to stream video. It also keeps network monitors from constantly requesting permission to load outside sources to a page⁶.

3. A custom css file that tries to ditch as many comments as possible. The social web reveals just how much most people should be punched in the throat at a constant rate until they stop making noises. There are exceptions, but, unfortunately, they are few and far, far, between.

Mine looks like this Feel free to use it, but please notice that I’m standing on the shoulders of giants: Mark Damon Hughes and Steven Frank. I modified stevenf’s to not be self-updating, but he’s a cool cat and trustworthy so feel free to trust his version. I just prefer to have only myself to blame if stuff doesn’t work right.

I wrote it in Textmate (textedit works fine too), named it wikihide.css and threw it in my Documents folder. Then, in Safari > Preferences > Advanced, I chose it and it alters every website that contains those style calls.

But what does it do? The first two alter Wikipedia to remove the annoying boxes at the top that tell you if an article is under consideration for cutting, or if it needs sources, etc. I can usually tell a fradulent article pretty quickly, so now I can just get to the meat of the article right away. The others modify facebook so it appears relatively ad-free. I had some others in there, but it broke the UI and made facebook unusable. I’m not on there that much but all the ads to tone my abs, make $$$ off real-estate and free government grants and win free MBPs were grating. [UPDATED: the previous still holds, the file is commented]

Now my web browsing is much cleaner and more pleasant. I can still support sites through ad-viewing, by choice, and damn the rest.

¹ One, with many, many tabs.

² It usually works fine, but if something goes wrong somewhere with any program the interference from an input manager will throw all chance of tracking down the issue out the window.³

³ SIMBL, and all input managers, intercept all calls to the system and parse them to see if they need to act. If it relates to their function they alter the system call and send on their modified version. If I installed this surreptitiously on your computer it’s called a trojan or spyware.

⁴ More information here. How this works means that at some point people will start programming to avoid it I’m sure, but for now and the immediate future⁵ it helps a lot.

⁵ And what more do we really have on the internet than the immediate future?

⁶ An idea that should be smashed with all haste. [begin rant] If I embed a video from youtube the user has to click to view it, implying permission to visit youtube’s server and download the relevant data. If I embed an akamai stream it loads silently in the site so it appears it comes from my server and not from somewhere else. With S3 et. al. getting so inexpensive I’m sure this will continue to be an issue (for me at least), but injecting data into a website from an outside source should be considered a security threat and not a goal. [end rant]

These were all in my feed reader this morning from the same site, Barking Up the Wrong Tree. I don’t like his habit of posting large chunks of what he links, but the finding-ability is amazing.

• Smaller units…reduce the rate of consumption of that resource – or, take smaller portions of food and keep smaller bills in your wallet. The increased time for decision-making affects the final result.
• Coitus Interruptus is the Bestest? – “Six studies demonstrate that interrupting a consumption experience can make pleasant experiences more enjoyable and unpleasant experiences more irritating, even though consumers avoid breaks in pleasant experiences and choose breaks in unpleasant experiences. Across a variety of hedonic experiences (e.g., listening to noises or songs, sitting in a massage chair), the authors observe that breaks disrupt hedonic adaptation and, as a result, intensify the subsequent experience.”
• Positive illusions about your partner’s attractiveness correlate with relationship quality – I call partial bs on this one, as I don’t know whether they corrected for the initial phase of the relationship which only appears to be awesome because it is shiny and new.¹
• Nostalgia has positive effects on making individuals feel less lonely – In my day we didn’t need all these scientific studies to whassat?

All this leads to the conclusion that our consciousness is an illusion and most of the time we aren’t even in control of it! Or that science can prove anything given enough resources and a small enough sample set.

¹ It may actually be the best thing ever but neither party is acting with complete knowledge or honesty.

For future reference, and the world at large.

Makes crisp pickled vegetables – for softer pickles or brighter colours, blanch the vegetables first: Heavily salt a huge amount of water (in your stock pot), like ocean-salty, not make-you-want-to-retch-when-you-taste-it salty. Boil salt water, have iced water (large amount) at the ready. Cook the vegetables for a few minutes (less for green beans and softer veg.), then remove and ice bath to stop the cooking process. Proceed to next direction.

Collect 6 pint-size canning and/or other jars with lids; wash them. Yield: 6 pint-size jars filled with pickled vegetables, serves one especially hungry individual for several sittings, but more realistically serves 2-3 people per jar.

1 large pot boiling water. Boil jars and lids, especially if you’re unsure of how sanitary your dishwashing routine is – that is, boil the jars and lids, regardless of how clean you think you are.

Vegetables: anything hard-ish and delicious with vinegar, i.e. most anything.
Suggestions:

• carrots
• bell peppers (not green, they suck)
• green beans
• garlic cloves
• hot peppers
• celery
• radishes
• onions
• beets
• fennel
• butternut squash is a possibility but I’ve not tried it.
• asparagus (also an untested possibility)
• other root vegetables

Cut the veggies to fill the jars, pack them tightly, leave some space at the top.
Into the jars also: fresh herbs – dill , sage (I just tried it for the first time, so results are a mystery), thyme and bay leaves.

Pickling wonderment:

• 5 cups vinegar: I used a mixture of white and apple cider. White wine or champagne vinegar would also be nice. Dark vinegars will turn your veggies strange colours.
• ~2 cups water
• Spices:
1. Coupla tablespoons of salt. Adjust to taste – do NOT under-salt: that is a cooking sin and all will go poorly for you in the land if you do this habitually.
2. Likewise sugar. Adjust to taste.
3. Spice seeds: dill, anise(fennel), mustard, peppercorns – ‘bout 3 tablespoons total

Combine and bring to a boil. Do not stand directly overhead and inhale through your nose. Pour or ladle over veggies packed in jars. Seal the lids, let come to room temperature, then refrigerate – it may not totally cover the vegetables, but leave some space at the top. Let sit for four-plus days before imbibing.

These will last for a few months in the refrigerator. I just ate some out of the ‘fridge that are at least a year old and have no ill effects, but the vegetables will get softer with age and vinegar will be the predominate taste. An advantage to the non-blanching method is that the carrots are still crisp after many months. But seriously, eat these sooner rather than later.

DO NOT TAKE THEM OUT OF THE REFRIGERATOR FOR STORAGE – these don’t have pickling salt and aren’t properly processed to go on your great-grandmothers cellar shelf. If you don’t have space, throw away that almost-empty bottle of shitty, brand-name salad dressing. Also, the leftovers you’ll never eat. And take the empty Brita pitcher out of there. What is this! How long has it been since you cleaned this? Throw this away and this, put this in a smaller container (it saves space and has less air-space to both promote bacterial growth and dry out your food). There, now there’s plenty of room.

Serving suggestions: with eggs in the morning, over pulled pork on a sandwich, as a salad, whilst sipping mineral-y white wine in the park, as a digestive, as dinner, etc. etc. etc.

And a bright light did shine upon my liberated face and a voice did whisper a thunder: You’re free. Free of pointless preferences and finger-baiting adjustments.

neven

And thus did the masses finally learn the elements of good design in the same manner as geese learned how to make their livers delicious.

Force-feeding.

The lesson seems to be that to improve ourselves we need fewer choices.

Haiti’s voodoo priests are objecting to anonymous mass burials as an improper way to handle the tens of thousands of dead from the earthquake — and have taken their complaint to President Rene Preval.

via reuters

I had this thought this morning and thought it too gauche to point out. How long until the voodoo practitioners and first-world-spiritualists start complaining about the mass graves? Apparently, it’s six days. The rescue workers are trying to bury bodies quickly to fend off cholera and damper the stench of death. But do they risk creating a multi-limbed zombie-monster, imbued of all the body parts of the interred?

From a certain point of view this would be a perfect time for a long-term longitudinal study of voodoo beliefs and practices – some university social science and/or anthropology department should get on a plane and start interviewing the survivors and post a watch on the mass burial sites.