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January 20, 2006

And now, a message from our sponsors
Posted by Teresa at 03:16 PM *

Bored? Stuck on the phone? Waiting for another tab to load? Consider clicking through on one of our sidebar ads! Nothing very bad can happen to you, it encourages repeat business from our advertisers, and it might be interesting!

No guarantees, of course.

Comments on And now, a message from our sponsors:
#1 ::: Aconite ::: (view all by) ::: January 20, 2006, 03:40 PM:

Nothing very bad can happen to you

Hello. My name is Aconite, and I clicked on one of the sidebar ads. It put my eye out, but I'm discovering that life can be all kinds of two-dimensional fun, so it's all good.

#2 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: January 20, 2006, 04:24 PM:

Nothing very bad can happen to you...

Define 'bad'. Oh, and give a scale of the degreees of 'bad', with examples, so that we can tell what 'very' implies.

#3 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: January 20, 2006, 04:46 PM:

Did! (and Lulu is very fast!)

#4 ::: Janice in GA ::: (view all by) ::: January 20, 2006, 05:15 PM:

I recommend Escape Pod. Nothing bad has happened yet.

#5 ::: Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little ::: (view all by) ::: January 20, 2006, 05:31 PM:

"Yet" being, of course, the operative word.

(I second the Escape Pod recco.)

#6 ::: Steve Eley ::: (view all by) ::: January 20, 2006, 05:56 PM:

I assure you, the Escape Pod ad is absolutely safe to click on. Our researchers have subscribed ten thousand laboratory rats to the podcast feed, and not a single one of them developed any aberrant growths.

(Didn't hurt our download numbers, either.) >8->

#7 ::: rhandir ::: (view all by) ::: January 20, 2006, 07:20 PM:

You know that annoying thing that happens when you click to look at posts, and every once in a while (but sometimes several times successively) the page advances to a blank page with the first couple lines of ad text on it?

I, ah, found a workaround. It's an extension for firefox called noscript, which lets you selectively enable javascript by domain name.* This page for instance, has javascript included from blogads.com and nielsenhayden.com. When I disable blogads...

...well, you get the idea.

I'm sorry, mine hosts. I feel like I'm being a bad guest by not loading the ads.

-r.
*this is a very good extension for user security purposes. By default javascript is off, so cross site scripting attacks don't work. You can selectively allow which sites you want to do what, and what kinds of alerts you want to have appear, if any.

#8 ::: Jacob Davies ::: (view all by) ::: January 20, 2006, 08:49 PM:

Ack, I don't want to be the Comic Book Guy who's all "I Have Forever Blocked All Ads From Entering My Consciousness" but I literally read that post and thought, "Ads? What ads?" After checking, I do unfortunately use Adblock to block anything from blogads.com.

How about a Paypal link? (Unless I have somehow blocked one out that already exists, in which case I will feel doubly stupid.) I know some people don't like to post one because it feels weird to just ask for cash (not that I am saying that is your feeling!), but if so maybe you can have a special Making Light "subscriptions" account it goes into along with the blogads fees.

If there was a way to make a recurring periodic payment (Paypal doesn't seem to have it) that would be better yet. Not that I am some great philanthropist, but I can never remember who I gave money to & when.

#9 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: January 20, 2006, 11:15 PM:

I personally recommend Jim and Debra's Peter Crossman stories, which are in fact almost more fun than mere humanity can bear.

#10 ::: Mez ::: (view all by) ::: January 20, 2006, 11:19 PM:

There is some way to do periodic payments/subscriptions on paypay [Darn! But I do like that typo.] I get a monthly email receipt from them for an online project I'm supporting.

Possibly the receipient has to set it up specially. Anyway, it's not out of the realm of possibilities. Even if not for here, it might be an idea for other people who might consider it for their onlinearity.

#11 ::: John M. Ford ::: (view all by) ::: January 21, 2006, 01:09 AM:

It put my eye out, but I'm discovering that life can be all kinds of two-dimensional fun, so it's all good.

Your two ravens will be dispatched shortly. Please do not object when, on arrival, they test your monocular vision (through means that are only briefly terrifying), as many questionable requests are received. Their names are Smartass and Google, though you may change this if you prefer.

Yours sincerely,
loki@beefroast.no

#12 ::: mk ::: (view all by) ::: January 21, 2006, 01:59 AM:

I clicked the ad for the Peter Crossman collection and am now waiting for Lulu to process my payment. $0.72! Why, it didn't hurt at all!

...although the waiting is beginning to itch.

#13 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: January 21, 2006, 11:13 AM:

For some reason, my mind processed 'Paypal Link' as 'Papal Link' and I wondered what Peter's Pence had to do with it.

#14 ::: casey ::: (view all by) ::: January 21, 2006, 11:37 AM:

OK, not a comment on the ads, but I noticed that the copyright notice might need updating?

#15 ::: TexAnne ::: (view all by) ::: January 21, 2006, 04:44 PM:

Fragano: well, 72 of them will get you a nifty book on monasticism.

#16 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: January 21, 2006, 04:54 PM:

TexAnen:Make that militant monasticism.

I heard a guy on the train the other morning saying he was doing research on the Knights of Templars. He hasn't done nearly enough research, IMHO.

#17 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: January 21, 2006, 05:11 PM:

Thanks for the suggestion, TexAnne.

PJ: The Knights of Templars might be a society set up by the children of 'The Saint'.

#18 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: January 21, 2006, 05:24 PM:

Okay, I'll go along. Didn't know he had any children, but then there's a lot of books I haven't read.

#19 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: January 21, 2006, 08:19 PM:

PJ: There are a lot I haven't read either, but I don't recall children in any of them. ST, however, was sexually active, so they are a likelihood in that space between the text and reality that characters seem to inhabit when we aren't reading about them.

#20 ::: Sisuile ::: (view all by) ::: January 23, 2006, 02:28 PM:

John, that hurt.

And now, I need to go explain to the lab tech that I'm really very sorry I got water all over the keyboard and screen and will he forgive me and not ban me from the labs? *sigh* i should know better than to be drinking anything while reading this blog.

#21 ::: abi ::: (view all by) ::: September 07, 2008, 03:16 PM:

He'll have to find his own source. Gone, and thanks.

#22 ::: Summer Storms sees pharmaceutical spam ::: (view all by) ::: September 07, 2008, 10:47 PM:

Uh oh, someone's trying to sell us something...

#23 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: September 08, 2008, 09:02 AM:

EClaire @ 21... Last year, after my youngest newphew was born, I mentionned to his mother that he has the same birhday as Rush, and she exclaimed "Gross!"

#25 ::: Jon Meltzer sees a message from our spammers ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2008, 12:27 PM:

Gone soon?

#26 ::: abi ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2008, 01:01 PM:

An' he writed this here: "Muster Flannigan:
Off agin, on agin,
Gone agin. - Finnigin."

#28 ::: abi ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2008, 05:14 PM:

And the hits just keep on coming.

And going, much like a karma chameleon.

#29 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2008, 05:37 PM:

Maybe the thread name is attracting them.

#30 ::: Jon Meltzer ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2008, 05:59 PM:

They really want to spam us. They really want to make us cry.

#31 ::: liza ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2008, 06:40 PM:

[ Spam deleted 207.61.213.196 ]

#32 ::: Mary Aileen sees more spam ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2008, 06:55 PM:

Time to close this thread?

#33 ::: john ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2008, 07:03 PM:

[ Spam deleted 81.180.65.6 ]

#34 ::: P J Evans sees still more spam ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2008, 07:07 PM:

I suppose that changing the thread name might discourage them. Or at least confuse them a little.

#35 ::: kris ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2008, 10:44 PM:

[ Spam deleted 201.86.70.162 ]

#36 ::: Vicki sees yet more spam ::: (view all by) ::: September 13, 2008, 10:57 PM:

I think it may be time to close this thread, alas.

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