Brickmuppet Interactive!
Congratulations loyal readers! As a free perk of reading Brickmuppet Blog, you get to take part in cutting edge technology decision making.
Click here and tell me what you see, what you hear, what browser you are using and if you got the harem ending.
For those who do not wish to partake in such a meta exercise, here is some scenery pr0n.
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In Safari, I don't see or hear anything. Instead, clicking on the link downloads a "webm" file. In Chrome — Dick Dale, Homura and I all expect an apology. At least there's no "harem" ending.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun May 3 02:21:55 2015 (TJ7ih)
4
Chrome, duplicate of Don's findings there *in the Chrome tab*.
IE 11 for me directly opened media player with the same file.
No harems were harmed, or shown, in these tests.
Posted by: Doug O. at Sun May 3 04:16:29 2015 (XIFuK)
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I should mention that I don't have WMP installed on my system because it was causing me a lot of trouble. I don't know what a ".webm" file is, and apparently nothing on my computer does either.
6
Chrome mobile; I get a prompt to open a media file with either Chrome or VLC. Open with Chrome and I get a streaming Madoka AMV that uses Misirlou and ends on pocky.
7
Thanks to everyone who participated. Apologies to Don, Dick Dale and Homura.
.WebM is interesting, but it looks like the support isn't really there yet.
Kind of like .APNG
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun May 3 16:53:29 2015 (ohzj1)
8
".WebMis interesting, but it looks like the support isn't really there yet."
IIRC, Microsoft has said they aren't planning on adding support for it in the browser, so it probably isn't ever actually going to get there. (You supposedly can make them work with an extension from Google, but I'm too lazy to try it out.)
Posted by: RickC at Mon May 4 19:24:25 2015 (0a7VZ)
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Also--ugh, sorry for hosing up that comment. I did a copy and paste out of your post, and I guess the editor took the link. I meant to just put in text.
Posted by: RickC at Mon May 4 19:25:01 2015 (0a7VZ)
Oh! Now this is interesting! The comment looks fine to me in Epic. Chrome, Opera and Safari. What are you seeing and what are you seeing it in?
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon May 4 22:20:14 2015 (ohzj1)
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In both Chrome and IE, the wiki link survived--I didn't just wind up copying plain text. I didn't realize it until I hit Post, and I was afraid it would cause the kind of ugly bare link that Wonderduck hates.
Posted by: Rick C at Tue May 5 13:53:19 2015 (ECH2/)
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(and, just in case you don't like them either, I wanted not to do it. I forgot that sometimes browsers copy+paste more than just plain text.)
Posted by: Rick C at Tue May 5 13:54:11 2015 (ECH2/)
3
It doesn't seem to have been a hack so much as a spoof. The actual E-mail addy is not mine.
OTOH it was good to be reminded after 12 years that I still had a Yahoo account.
Thanks for the heads up though.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Thu Apr 23 09:22:11 2015 (ohzj1)
4
The important point was that they managed to steal your address book.
6 More Days
Tuesday is the last day of classes and I still have about 13 pages to write spread over 4 different research projects. Thus, I'll remain scarce for a bit.
In the meantime, here is some mundane mechatronic móe by Sukabu.
After finishing my exams Friday, I got a replacement for the Blackberry that was destroyed during the blizzard. One of my E-mail accounts got hacked within 7 hours of the activation..which involved accessing my AOL account from the Verizon store.
There is an inscrutable, deeply hidden lesson in that story somewhere, but I am too tired to spot it .
Anyway, I've had a week, so, while I recover, here is what appears to be a still from a low budget Kaiju movie.
Browser Compatibility Test
Let's try captioning this picture of Hanako.
Because Hanako is awesome.
Well, the superscript function doesn't work in Midori either.
Now some spoilers...
Holy crap! Blake is a catgirl!
(Who could have POSSIBLY seen that coming?)
Now lets see if we can highlight some quotes without breaking the blog.
The only question is whether this is intended as satire
(hmmm... that didn't work right)
Let's try that again.I filched it from Pixy's blog where it looked like this.
The only question is whether this is intended as satire
The italicized "intended" seems to have broken the attempt to italicize the whole thing...first let's see if we can italicize something in Midori without italicizing the whole paragraph.
OK that worked (at least in the dashboard), now lets try the usual workaround in the quote field...
The only question is whether this is intended as satire
....which broke the blog yesterday.
Finally I'll try another work around that only just now occoured to me....
The only question is whether this is intended as satire
Finally, I'll try the same workaround on a hidden tag.
This revelation about Mikoto's musical abilities may not be entirely accurate.
This Hanako looks a like someone pushed Hetalia Hungary into the campfire. But yes, Hanako is awesome.
OT: I'm guessing your aol email is no longer canon? I wasn't kidding that'd I'd a B-day present for you, but I need a way to get it too you via this series of tubes, filled will rumors.
Posted by: Clayton Barnett at Tue Jan 13 16:50:24 2015 (lU4ZJ)
12/13/14
A couple of people have noted that this is the last time we'll have a sequential date like that this century.
The significance of this milestone cannot be understated, thus, to prevent this post from being a complete waste of time, here is some Christmas cheer from Mana Kakkowara.
Note that although a tiny bit of pulled pork shoulder cooked in the can has been visible over the last few days, I've observed a truly vast number of such comments have been caught by Pixy's improved filters. Of course, most don't see what gets stopped, so be aware that Pixy is slaying the villains for us with considerable verve.
With November volume at UPS in full swing, surgeries and vacations in our building have left us short of people qualified to do certain tasks. It looks like I'm going to be working double shifts this season.
1
Aww, man. I got my $4 Angela CD delivered by FedEx today.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Wed Nov 19 00:18:20 2014 (RqRa5)
2
You're Christmas picture reminds me that I haven't had my RWBY fix in a while. I'm starting to have withdrawal symptoms...
Posted by: Siergen at Thu Nov 20 21:22:23 2014 (r3+4f)
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I am not a Christmas picture. However, your comment reminds me both that I need to publish the most recent RWBY post....and dat it remains in draft bekawz it still needs sum poof reeding.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Thu Nov 20 22:28:43 2014 (DnAJl)
Layers of Fact Checkers...That Work
I haven't played online RPGs to any great extent and am unaware of the nuances of the cultural tics of those that do. Likewise, I've pretty much given up on dating because I simply do not understand the female of the species.
A couple of our readers have helpfully taken the time to intelligently fill in some of the vast amounts of context related to those matters that I missed in a recent review.
"Midlife crisis my arse"
See? The comments here are not just for practicing katakana and reading about knockoff footwear!
It's a mistake to think of spammers as one group-mind that can learn. It's more like a disease, operating mindlessly and taking advantage of any opening.
Over on Metafilter there's a pattern of people who join the site, make a couple of comments on existing threads and then make a spammy front page post. It happens again and again and the mods always spot it and delete the spam. You might wonder why "they don't learn" but the reason is that each new guy who does this isn't aware of any of the others, and thus can't learn from their mistakes.
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There's also the question of their incentive to learn. I mean... at the end of the day we're talking about spamming operations. There's no "reputable spammer". They're fly-by-night operations by design, because the moment you nail one of them down they get dropped on a million ban lists anyway. That said, what's their incentive to provide "effective" SEO rather than crappy SEO? It's easier to flail around, run some automated spam-attack scripts that generate a few pages you can point to, cash your check, and then go find the next sucker... and if it doesn't actually sell more handbags, what do they care?
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Wed Sep 17 17:07:21 2014 (zJsIy)
Comments Issue
I've been informed that some people are having difficulty commenting. Specifically, I'm told that comments are being sent to moderation and I'm not approving them.
Well, I don't moderate comments. In fact the blog does not even have it as an option, so something is amiss. I tried commenting myself and had no problem so this may be specific to certain users.
Anyway, if you are having any problem commenting, please leave a comme.....
Wait...
Oh well. While our crack team of datapixies work on that problem, I can at least do my bit to help my readers avoid heartbreak. In 1992, I learned to my considerable dismay that the following line does not, in fact, work.
2
In some browsers, if one is not logged in, then comment just disappears. I don't remember about Chrome, but Midori is like that for sure. This leaves an impression of moderation in action.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sat Sep 13 14:08:27 2014 (RqRa5)
3
Hmm, one wonders if the ample supply of "science babes" might not be distracting our host from his studies...
Posted by: Siergen at Sat Sep 13 17:50:10 2014 (r3+4f)
5
I get logged out a lot, but the name, mail and web lines appear filled in. But if you don't see the "Hello (name), you are logged in to Minx" line under the preview and post buttons, you're not logged in, and after you hit post, the page reloads, the text box is cleared, and the comment doesn't post.
This can cause a lot of confusion.
Posted by: Mauser at Sat Sep 13 19:22:02 2014 (yigXr)
The "getting logged off" thing was something Pixy fixed last year. But when we had the meltdown and recovered to an earlier backup, that fix wasn't in the code we retreated to.
Aw Come ON!
I didn't put in any pictures, center anything or use an animated .gif inside the spoiler tag of the last post and yet the spoiler tag put every bit of text that was inserted into it, on the outside.
3
Actually, this isn't due to my code directly, but mostly due to changes in browsers. I think I've found an editor that will work nicely with Minx's BBCode though.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Fri Aug 22 11:03:06 2014 (PiXy!)
test post
Just checking to see if we can
replicate the foul up in the recent RWBY post.
To that end we'll post a random picture, (of a World War 2 Thai gunboat) and center it...
We'll also caption it, mentioning that the ship carried four 8 inch naval rifles on 2300 tons full load. That's smaller than a Fletcher class destroyer.
Next, we'll express our confusion and discomfort at this animated .gif
Seriously guys...What the HELL?
Then we'll bring about an end to the spoiler tag text by typing [ / s p o i l e r ] but all scrunched up like so
Now we'll type some text outside the spoiler tag and just for good measure we'll post some surreptitiously taken footage of Steven Den Beste enjoying his hiatus. However, out of consideration to our readers we'll put it behind a NSFW tag...
Aaaaaand let's see if it works....
UPDATE:
The blog does indeed seem to be broken.
(Though thankfully the NSFW tag still works.)
Let's try a simple spoiler tag with only text inside it here
It wasn't Scotty. It was REDJACK!
UPDATE 2: It looks like the hidey tags just don't like centering. Of course I eliminated the centering on the RWBY post at one point but that did not fix the problem.
Now I'll try de-centerizing the images and captions and see if that works.
UPDATE 3: Nope. That did not fix the problem. All but the first line of the spoiler text is still visible and now the formatting just looks bad. Obviously the blog is possessed so we'll re center everything and call in the exorcists from Oceania.
Be advised gentle readers that Tiki torches may present a burn hazard.
4
I can see the problem; the WYSIWYG HTML editor combined with the BBCode tags is producing what is known as "tag soup". That's when the tags overlap each other, like this:
<i>This text is italicsthis <b> is italics and bold </b>and now your browser throws a fit.</i>
This is tricky to prevent at the source, but I think I can fix it in post.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Aug 17 09:11:50 2014 (PiXy!)
5
On second thoughts, nope. That didn't work at all.
Hmm...
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Aug 17 10:46:45 2014 (PiXy!)
6
Well, just to nit pick a little, what you posted wasn't overlapping tags.
Posted by: RickC at Sun Aug 17 15:42:42 2014 (0a7VZ)
7
Meanwhile, Russian naval otaku seem oddly interested in a 5-second fragment of a video, which seems like a first glance of some kind of new destroyer (could be a pipe dream of a shipbuilding company).
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sun Aug 17 22:40:01 2014 (RqRa5)
Sincerest Apologies
...to all my readers who are not members of the Mee.Nu blog hosting service.
I just deleted over 30 pages of spam comments that took the form of a cascading cornucopia of katakana. At least for the time being, I simply have to switch to allowing comments by registered users only.
Note though, that it's real easy to become a registered user. Just click on this hyperlink and fill out the form. After that, you can just log in and comment away!
I know it's scary, but it's perfectly safe!
You don't even have to use the free blog you'll receive, so it's just like registering for disqus or any chat forum,.
It's not just the ease of registering though, because now, more than ever, there are good reasons to become a Mee.Nuvian.
For instance, if you have a Facebook Page and find yourself asking the question "What can a Mee.Nu blog do for me that Facebook can't?" then I assure you, gentle reader, that you are asking the wrong question.
The correct question is "What awful stuff is Facebook doing to me that a blog based in Naru and managed from Australia absolutely won't?".
Unless you get ALL you're news from a Facebook feed, you may have heard about some of this. However, if you did you were probably afraid to say anything because deep down inside, you know that Facebook is run by the sort of people who thought that Police song was charming and romantic. Well, fear not , because as a Mee.Nuvian, you would be able take off your mask....
... be yourself, and not worry about your every interest, donation and keystroke being recorded and sold to those who would spam you, scam you or struggle against you...at least you wouldn't have to worry about it being done by Mee.Nu.
You see, Mee.Nu is run by Pixy Misa, a champion of justice who fights evil from his secret bases in New South Wales and Niue. Facebook is run by Baron Von Zuckerberg... a super-villain who feeds on the souls and personal information of his customers.
It should be noted that in Australia such acts of villainy are actually frowned upon by the media, providing another layer of security for people who use an Australian affiliated service.
But wait. There's more!
Mee.nu has all manner of spiffy keen features that are exceedingly easy to use via the user friendly and intuitive dashboard widgets.
For instance, YouTube video's embed just as easily as on Facebook...
On top of all this, since Mee.nu is a Niuean domain managed from Australia, every time a Mee.Nuvian gets online they are visiting exotic locations on the far side of the world!
But without the scorpions!*
I'll try to get the matter resolved ASAP but signing up for Me N' You is pretty much a win/ win...
*Mee.Nu is absolutely guaranteed not to cause scorpions to menace those at or near one's computer work station, However, Mee.Nu cannot and does not claim to remove preexisting scorpions from ones domicile. If you currently have a scorpion infestation, please contact a licensed exterminator...immediately after signing up for Mee.Nu.
2
Sorry about the trouble. Getting pattern matching to work on spam in a language I can't read is a bit... Fiddly.
Oh, and it's Niue, not Nauru. Nauru got saddled with .nr, which is far less interesting.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Mon Aug 4 23:09:08 2014 (PiXy!)
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Can't complain, those spammers have been really fierce lately. (What a waste of effort...)
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Tue Aug 5 02:08:52 2014 (ZeBdf)
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I knew it would come to this. Heck, I got a mee.nu account LONG before I ever started using the blog (frankly, I had forgotten about that part) simply to post.
Although to be honest, I don't recall too many posters of comments here who don't already have mee.nu accounts.
Posted by: Mauser at Tue Aug 5 02:25:06 2014 (TJ7ih)
5Steven, Pixy, thanks. for pointing out those errors. I've corrected the post.
"NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!"
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Tue Aug 5 10:38:57 2014 (DnAJl)
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Well, I was one. Meh, I guess it won't hurt to have yet another blog sitting around I never update.
Posted by: Mitch H. at Tue Aug 5 14:09:48 2014 (jwKxK)
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LJ used to have a bunch of comment-only accounts. As long as they don't have a "welcome" post that attracts spam, they don't draw Pixy's resources much.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tue Aug 5 16:54:48 2014 (RqRa5)
8
"A runabout! I'll steal it! No one will ever know!"
My favorite line from that cartoon. But I have to wonder if it was a reference to something.
(Now if only the comment UI was a little more clear on whether you were logged in or not.)
Posted by: Mauser at Wed Aug 6 03:36:23 2014 (TJ7ih)
Woah.
Not sure what happened, but there was a glitch in the post below.
We have called in an expert who is so good that he regularly fixes IT systems WHILE UPSIDE DOWN!.
In the meantime, we have provided a compensatory beach bunny below the fold.
UPDATE: Fellow MeeNuVians, Thanks to our crackerjack team of antipodean technophiliacs, we have been informed that some formatting and visible HTML issues associated with cutting and pasting can be solved by turning off smilies.
Hobby Space News of the commercial space industry A Babe In The Universe Rather Eclectic Cosmology Encyclopedia Astronautica Superb spacecraft resource The Unwanted Blog Scott Lowther blogs about forgotten aerospace projects and sells amazingly informative articles on the same. Also, there are cats. Transterrestrial Musings Commentary on Infinity...and beyond! Colony WorldsSpace colonization news! The Alternate Energy Blog It's a blog about alternate energy (DUH!) Next Big Future Brian Wang: Tracking our progress to the FUTURE. Nuclear Green Charles Barton, who seems to be either a cool curmudgeon, or a rational hippy, talks about energy policy and the terrible environmental consequences of not going nuclear Energy From Thorium Focuses on the merits of thorium cycle nuclear reactors WizBang Current events commentary...with a wiz and a bang The Gates of Vienna Tenaciously studying a very old war The Anchoress insightful blogging, presumably from the catacombs Murdoc Online"Howling Mad Murdoc" has a millblog...golly! EaglespeakMaritime security matters Commander Salamander Fullbore blackshoe blogging! Belmont Club Richard Fernandez blogs on current events BaldilocksUnderstated and interesting blog on current events The Dissident Frogman French bi-lingual current events blog The "Moderate" VoiceI don't think that word means what they think it does....but this lefty blog is a worthy read nonetheless. Meryl Yourish News, Jews and Meryls' Views Classical Values Eric Scheie blogs about the culture war and its incompatibility with our republic. Jerry Pournell: Chaos ManorOne of Science fictions greats blogs on futurism, current events, technology and wisdom A Distant Soil The website of Colleen Dorans' superb fantasy comic, includes a blog focused on the comic industry, creator issues and human rights. John C. Wright The Sci-Fi/ Fantasy writer muses on a wide range of topics. Now Read This! The founder of the UK Comics Creators Guild blogs on comics past and present. The Rambling Rebuilder Charity, relief work, roleplaying games Rats NestThe Art and rantings of Vince Riley Gorilla Daze Allan Harvey, UK based cartoonist and comics historian has a comicophillic blog! Pulpjunkie Tim Driscoll reviews old movies, silents and talkies, classics and clunkers. Suburban Banshee Just like a suburban Leprechaun....but taller, more dangerous and a certified genius. Satharn's Musings Through TimeThe Crazy Catlady of The Barony of Tir Ysgithr アニ・ノート(Ani-Nouto) Thoughtful, curmudgeonly, otakuism that pulls no punches and suffers no fools. Chizumatic Stephen Den Beste analyzes anime...with a microscope, a slide rule and a tricorder. Wonderduck Anime, Formula One Racing, Sad Girls in Snow...Duck Triumphalism Beta Waffle What will likely be the most thoroughly tested waffle evah! Zoopraxiscope Too In this thrilling sequel to Zoopraxiscope, Don, Middle American Man of Mystery, keeps tabs on anime, orchids, and absurdities. Mahou Meido MeganekkoUbu blogs on Anime, computer games and other non-vital interests Twentysided More geekery than you can shake a stick at Shoplifting in the Marketplace of Ideas Sounds like Plaigarism...but isn't Ambient IronyAll Meenuvians Praise the lathe of the maker! Hail Pixy!!
more...
Holy crap! Blake is a catgirl! 
