9 ms·

They Live (1988) inspired Adblocker

563 points by tokenburner 5mo ago

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
dostick 5mo ago
Cool idea!the font weight should be extra/heavy, and not true black, dark gray.
- kilna 5mo ago
  The heavier weights of League Spartan would be a good match.
minisini 5mo ago
I LOVE for someone to make a version of this for Apple Vision Pro. In fact I would put down $500.
- HerbManic 5mo ago
  If AR ever makes it big, I think we have the first ad blocking idea already fleshed out. Would be kind of fun to see.
- rickdeckard 5mo ago
  A $500 app for those $1000+ glasses which shuts people off from reality and create the impression for others that they look into their eyes (while in fact looking at a rendering of your eyes). There's some irony in here somewhere...
tlhunter 5mo ago
My personal tagline, "I came here to kick ass, build web applications, and chew bubble gum. And I'm all out of gum." came from this movie.
- DeathArrow 5mo ago
  And Duke Nukem.
  - hnlmorg 5mo ago
    That “kick ass & chew gum” line has been hugely borrowed, reused and parodied many times throughout the following decades since the release of this movie. In fact the whole movie is almost a parody of itself now due to how many scenes have since become a meme.
- sdenton4 5mo ago
  I came here to kick ass and deploy microservices... And I'm all out of ass.
  - GCUMstlyHarmls 5mo ago
    I came here to shitpost and deploy microservices... and github is down.
- sumtechguy 5mo ago
  I want to see the outtake lines they didnt use. Roddy Piper had tons of one liners he would use for wrestling.
- ndsipa_pomu 5mo ago
  I came here to drink milk and kick ass... and I've just finished my milk
robot-wrangler 5mo ago
Watch it if you haven't already. I accidentally landed in the middle of it while doing some illicit late night channel surfing when I was a kid.. this left quite an impression. I think it was a healthy formative influence for me and primed me for rejecting fads / peer pressure, distrusting authority, etc. Probably also helped me to resist the more unhealthy aspects of a religious time/place, and I was even doing light reading on Cartesian skepticism a few years later, which got me into math. Didn't figure out the name of the movie until years later when it was a big meme. This is not advice but I definitely advise you to show your small children this movie before they are old enough to think it's corny. They may have a schizophrenic episode or descend into solipsism sure, but they may also get scared as hell by monsters and learn some mental judo, and thank you for it later.
- shrubby 5mo ago
  Nice pitch. I'll stream it right away! I've been watching Andor as a instructional manual recently and this seems like a good addition to the reality based manuals out there. Idiocracy, War INC etc.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
- riffraff 5mo ago
  My dad pitched this movie to me when I was a kid, as he was a Carpenter fan. Beyond the somewhat "obvious" message (for a grown up) it's just an eminently entertaining movie.
- HerbManic 5mo ago
  What I find funny (only not really) is the wildly different interpretations of this film people have, for many they seem to be primed by other things to see in it what they want. Basically skeptical of common forms in modernity, that is very clearly the intention. However, I have also seen that in extreme far-right communities this film represents how Jewish people control the world... somehow I don't think that is what Carpenter was going for. Alas, once your works are in the wild it is out of the creators control in how they end up being used.
akkartik 5mo ago
I never found the Matrix very impressive, because I'd been inoculated by this movie.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- fedeb95 5mo ago
  they are two very different movies, especially considering all three of the matrix movies.
- the_af 5mo ago
  Did you watch The Matrix on cinema, without knowing anything about the movie? Back when The Matrix first opened, it was still possible to go to the cinema without knowing anything about a movie. I watched it like this and my mind was blown. I thought I was about to watch a techno thriller about a hacker who resisted authority! I don't think I would have enjoyed the movie in today's hyperconnected internet culture, where we know what every movie will be about months and sometimes years before release. Wait, I'll make an exception: say what you will about The Force Awakens, but I totally thought -- based on the trailers -- that it was going to be about Han Solo and Chewie. When it turned out to be about a new character, Rey, I was completely and pleasantly surprised. Well done, trailer editors!
  - akkartik 5mo ago
    "Did you watch The Matrix on cinema, without knowing anything about the movie?" Yeah, that's what I mean. I went in not knowing anything, never having seen any trailers. And halfway through I went, "oh this is They Live, but the skeletons wear sunglasses."
- onemoresoop 5mo ago
  I wasn't too impressed by Matrix as much as I was impressed by Animatrix [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Animatrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Animatrix
deng 5mo ago
Oh the irony: "They Live", a movie famously about alienation and dehumanization, and you let AI do all the coding.
- xnx 5mo ago
  Interacting with a computer in natural language is much more human than typing in special codes and punctuation.
  - deng 5mo ago
    So telling someone to make a table for you is more human than making it yourself, because you're using natural language instead of saws and hand planes?
    - GCUMstlyHarmls 5mo ago
      I would say yes, conversing between two humans, maybe even collaborating, is more human than a solitary human using inanimate objects.
      - anthk 5mo ago
        Even if the table collapses down badly instead of doing a proper one with a good set of tools?
        tclancy 5mo ago
        Have you seen me work?
        spacebacon 5mo ago
        I can't know how To hear anymore about tables
        HeatrayEnjoyer 5mo ago
        But the extension works, not "collapses down badly."
xnx 5mo ago
An idea probably as old as ad blockers themselves. Here's one from 8 years ago: https://imgur.com/i-wear-sunglasses-night-uF4fy42 https://imgur.com/i-wear-sunglasses-night-uF4fy42
- nephihaha 5mo ago
  "Content Not Available Content not available in your region. "Learn more about Imgur access in the United Kingdom" The irony!
- tokenburner 5mo ago
  The blog post was from 2015 https://proceduralgraphics.blogspot.com/2015/04/they-live-adblock-mode.html https://proceduralgraphics.blogspot.com/2015/04/they-live-ad...
iririririr 5mo ago
on the same line, but less pop meme replacements https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/artificial-clippy/?utm_content=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/artificial-cl... it replaces terms used to exalt Artificial Intelligence to what they really mean, and some tongue in cheek jokes against things that are used to pass billionaires/tech as friendly (e.g. replacing bill gates with his actual name)
- logicprog 5mo ago
  That's so obnoxiously stupid and annoying, wow.
  - ares623 5mo ago
    That's how most people feel when presented slop btw
    - logicprog 5mo ago
      Well yes, I'm well aware. They're both obnoxiously stupid and annoying, lol.
- autoexec 5mo ago
  "Automated Incompetence" is probably better than "Artificial Incompetence" since the incompetence is 100% real.
  - iririririr 5mo ago
    send a patch :)
- desdenova 5mo ago
  A very good alternative to this vibecoded slop.
- derintegrative 5mo ago
  Caution - At one point I was running a greasemonkey script to replace religious words with funny alternatives. Had a bad time when I installed it and forgot about it and it replaced my manager's first name, Christian, with the funny alternative.
riedel 5mo ago
Replacing ads reminds me of the eye tap AR stuff by Steve Mann https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44406552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44406552
- walrus01 5mo ago
  These days he's helping to remediate polluted waterways https://cottagelife.com/general/this-toronto-professor-took-an-e-coli-infested-lake-basin-from-unswimmable-to-crystal-clear/ https://cottagelife.com/general/this-toronto-professor-took-...
throwaway2037 5mo ago
For any one not familiar with this cult classic film from the 1980s, you can view the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeB3vdxF_jM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeB3vdxF_jM In short, aliens have invaded earth, but wear a special skin to appear human. To average people, they appear and sound identical to real humans. The lead character discovers that special sunglasses can show the aliens without their human-like skin. (They look a bit like the aliens from "Mars Attacks".) When wearing the sunglasses, most outdoor adverts are replaced with bland single-party-state-style propaganda encouraging people to consume, work hard, and follow the rules. I can honestly say that the trailer does no justice for the film. It is much better than the trailer. When I saw first saw this, I was genuinedly spooked. One half of the film is good fun 1980s alien invasion beat 'em up, and the other half is a thoughtful commentary on the age of consumerism.
- euroderf 5mo ago
  I'd say it's got more than a bit of documentary, considering current progress in terraforming.
  - throwaway2037 5mo ago
    This is a great reply. Not exactly a documentary, but I will grant you "mockumentary" similar to Spinal Tap.
  - whynotmaybe 5mo ago
    And the massive irony that it the clothing brand "Obey".
- yard2010 5mo ago
  There is a good video that this cool philosopher made, I can't remember the name.. zazik? Edit: Slavoj Žižek. As always, phenomenal and humble take. "I’m already eating from the trashcan all the time, the name of this trashcan is... ideology" Slavoj Žižek on "They Live" (The Pervert's Guide to Ideology) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVwKjGbz60k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVwKjGbz60k
anthk 5mo ago
UBo Lite pales against the original UBo, it doesn't matter if it's a cool fork.
- charcircuit 5mo ago
  I don't see ads with ubo lite. From my perspective it does just as good of a job.
khafra 5mo ago
Should be able to use the local LLM to generate a short "They Live" style phrase based on the content of the ad.
- lproven 5mo ago
  Is the pervasive advertising not bad enough already that you want to waste time and energy inventing fake advertising using plagiarism bots? I can't offhand thing of a worse idea in the context.
specproc 5mo ago
I came here to block ads and chew bubble gum.
- ZeljkoS 5mo ago
  And I am all out of bubble gum.
bloke_zero 5mo ago
I wish I could upvote this 10 times! I love the film - blew my mind when I saw it on cable just after it came out.
- nephihaha 5mo ago
  One of the messages has changed of course. Nowadays it tends to be "stay fearful and do not reproduce".
  - rschiavone 5mo ago
    No it doesn't.
    - nephihaha 5mo ago
      Stay fearful is the constant message of the mainstream media. I could name dozens of such stories. There is always a story or two in the media at any given time to spark fear and anger and primal instincts. We are encouraged to sleep around, and both workplaces and pop culture discourage having a family by differing means.
  - ryanmcbride 5mo ago
    Nah the ruling class still wants poor kids who can grow up into wage slaves and soldiers, that's why they keep making contraceptives and abortions harder to access.
    - nephihaha 5mo ago
      I can get hold of "free" condoms from multiple sources. It is not hard to access contraceptives in much of the developed world except in remote locations.
      - ryanmcbride 5mo ago
        I'm not sure what point you're making. The organizations giving you free condoms are in opposition to the people who are trying to restrict access to contraceptives.
desdenova 5mo ago
It's slop though, which is even worse than the ads.
- moffkalast 5mo ago
  > Each blocked ad gets a single phrase, picked at random from the list. The least it could do was classify images to some categories with a small vision model smh. They stopped using AI too soon.
- matula 5mo ago
  Looking at the code (https://github.com/davmlaw/uBlock/commit/fa2de61ae69927591dbc44a8aab5857ca26c5496 https://github.com/davmlaw/uBlock/commit/fa2de61ae69927591db...), there's not much I would do differently writing by hand. It breaks some formatting/style conventions from the rest of the file, which I would probably flag in an organizational code review... but otherwise the logic is solid. So is this "slop" simply because it's written by an LLM, even if the output is solid? Would it NOT be slop if it was worse code, but written fully manually? Honestly, I'm not sure I know the answer.
wowczarek 5mo ago
I came here to chew bubblegum and say this ad revealer is a great idea, and I'm all out of bubblegum.
aruametello 5mo ago
perhalps ublock origin could merge this as an easter egg in the config? (like a very poorly maintained easter egg, not a problem if is broken by something else)
- shevy-java 5mo ago
  Well - while I like the movie, I'd also not want to see these slogans. I use ublock origin to get rid of unwanted content. I also simplify user interfaces a LOT. My default youtube view I have removed a lot of stuff from (hopefully one day I no longer have to use youtube; I don't want google in my life, but I haven't yet found enough motivation to degoogle my life completely); same with old.reddit.com back when I was still using reddit. So I think your proposal, while not bad in its own right, may not be ideal either - I'd not consider this an easter egg but rather content I'd want to block, so ublock origin would not do its job properly if it were to show this to me (and keep in mind I like They Live). I had a similar problem with Nate when he abused all KDE users with his "donate-now-or-else" daemon (https://old.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1f42sew/kde_is_asking_for_donations_in_plasma/ https://old.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1f42sew/kde_is_asking_...). I never ever want KDE widgets to pop up and pester me (that does not mean I have anything against donations; I have a lot against people who abuse the user base though, such as pestering them via unwanted pester-widgets. Sadly when you point this out on reddit, you get banned from #kde, same as when you critisize systemd on #linux - reddit censorship is out of hands).
shevy-java 5mo ago
They Live was such a fun B movie. It is also kind of timeless. It is far from a perfect or even very good movie, but the key messages are great and simple and the "chew bubblegem" scene is one very actionable scene. Long live Roddy.
dueltmp_yufsy 5mo ago
They Live is such a good metaphor for so much of the modern world. Once you see it, cannot unsee.
Something1234 5mo ago
Waiting for this to show up as a pi hole extension.
AdmiralAsshat 5mo ago
Misread the title to mean that They Live inspired the concept of adblocking in general. Which would have been an interesting coincidence, since it did inspire one of the early Mozilla logos. [0] [0] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/they-live-and-the-secret-history-of-the-mozilla-logo/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/they-live-and-the-secret-hi...
- dnpls 5mo ago
  Did something nefarious happen to your link?
  - AdmiralAsshat 5mo ago
    I guess JWZ has some sort of referral check that instantly black-holes any traffic coming from HN? And interestingly, the WayBackMachine snapshots are similarly boobytrapped: https://web.archive.org/web/20260115112314/https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/they-live-and-the-secret-history-of-the-mozilla-logo/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260115112314/https://www.jwz.o... So I guess google "They Live Mozilla Logo" if you want to see the article. Sorry about that!
    - matheusmoreira 5mo ago
      Just open a new tab and paste the link in.
      - ge96 5mo ago
        or another browser
      - biofox 5mo ago
        Ugh... that worked, but I gave up once I got to the home page. To quote the late, great, Ray Arnold... "I hate this Hacker crap!"
      - PhilipRoman 5mo ago
        It also sets a HN=1 cookie, so you may need to clear that or use incognito
deleted 5mo ago
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EvanAnderson 5mo ago
Back in the late 90s I stood up a webserver in my office that returned fake banner ads for 404's. I used the in-house DNS server to vector "*.doubleclick.net" over to it. We'd get amusing banner ads for things like cocaine-based nasal spray, renting pigs, and other vaguely off-color things in place of real ads. It was very, very amusing. I didn't tell anybody I was doing it and got some real laughs when people submitted helldesk tickets asking about the ads. It got the axe when a technician printed some Mapquest directions that included off-color ads and left them laying around at a Customer site. Aside: The fake ads came from a website called "Bannertown", (if memory serves). I believe it's long-since defunct. I'd love to find the ads today. They were very amusing.
- arm32 5mo ago
  Hey Evan, get ready: https://web.archive.org/web/20001019032519/http://www.chickenhead.com/bannertown/1.html https://web.archive.org/web/20001019032519/http://www.chicke...
  - EvanAnderson 5mo ago
    That's the ones! Great find. I remember "Bannertown" but "chickenhead.com" slipped my mind. As soon as I saw your URL it came flooding back. Thanks!
    - arm32 5mo ago
      It was a huge nostalgia bomb for me too, nearly knocked me off my seat. Thanks for reminding me of it.
- arm32 5mo ago
  Cocaine nasal spray: https://web.archive.org/web/20001019042034im_/http://chickenhead.com/bannertown/images/coca.gif https://web.archive.org/web/20001019042034im_/http://chicken...
deleted 5mo ago
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noctads 5mo ago
[dead]
lifeisstillgood 5mo ago
Please add “Chew Bubble Gum” to the ad list … Love the idea
bobbyjay007 5mo ago
[flagged]

563 points by tokenburner 5mo ago

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

dostick 5mo ago

Cool idea!the font weight should be extra/heavy, and not true black, dark gray.

kilna 5mo ago
The heavier weights of League Spartan would be a good match.

minisini 5mo ago

I LOVE for someone to make a version of this for Apple Vision Pro. In fact I would put down $500.

HerbManic 5mo ago
If AR ever makes it big, I think we have the first ad blocking idea already fleshed out. Would be kind of fun to see.
rickdeckard 5mo ago
A $500 app for those $1000+ glasses which shuts people off from reality and create the impression for others that they look into their eyes (while in fact looking at a rendering of your eyes). There's some irony in here somewhere...

tlhunter 5mo ago

My personal tagline, "I came here to kick ass, build web applications, and chew bubble gum. And I'm all out of gum." came from this movie.

DeathArrow 5mo ago
And Duke Nukem.
- hnlmorg 5mo ago
  That “kick ass & chew gum” line has been hugely borrowed, reused and parodied many times throughout the following decades since the release of this movie. In fact the whole movie is almost a parody of itself now due to how many scenes have since become a meme.
sdenton4 5mo ago
I came here to kick ass and deploy microservices... And I'm all out of ass.
- GCUMstlyHarmls 5mo ago
  I came here to shitpost and deploy microservices... and github is down.
sumtechguy 5mo ago
I want to see the outtake lines they didnt use. Roddy Piper had tons of one liners he would use for wrestling.
ndsipa_pomu 5mo ago
I came here to drink milk and kick ass... and I've just finished my milk

robot-wrangler 5mo ago

Watch it if you haven't already. I accidentally landed in the middle of it while doing some illicit late night channel surfing when I was a kid.. this left quite an impression. I think it was a healthy formative influence for me and primed me for rejecting fads / peer pressure, distrusting authority, etc. Probably also helped me to resist the more unhealthy aspects of a religious time/place, and I was even doing light reading on Cartesian skepticism a few years later, which got me into math. Didn't figure out the name of the movie until years later when it was a big meme. This is not advice but I definitely advise you to show your small children this movie before they are old enough to think it's corny. They may have a schizophrenic episode or descend into solipsism sure, but they may also get scared as hell by monsters and learn some mental judo, and thank you for it later.

shrubby 5mo ago
Nice pitch. I'll stream it right away! I've been watching Andor as a instructional manual recently and this seems like a good addition to the reality based manuals out there. Idiocracy, War INC etc.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
riffraff 5mo ago
My dad pitched this movie to me when I was a kid, as he was a Carpenter fan. Beyond the somewhat "obvious" message (for a grown up) it's just an eminently entertaining movie.
HerbManic 5mo ago
What I find funny (only not really) is the wildly different interpretations of this film people have, for many they seem to be primed by other things to see in it what they want. Basically skeptical of common forms in modernity, that is very clearly the intention. However, I have also seen that in extreme far-right communities this film represents how Jewish people control the world... somehow I don't think that is what Carpenter was going for. Alas, once your works are in the wild it is out of the creators control in how they end up being used.

akkartik 5mo ago

I never found the Matrix very impressive, because I'd been inoculated by this movie.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
fedeb95 5mo ago
they are two very different movies, especially considering all three of the matrix movies.
the_af 5mo ago
Did you watch The Matrix on cinema, without knowing anything about the movie? Back when The Matrix first opened, it was still possible to go to the cinema without knowing anything about a movie. I watched it like this and my mind was blown. I thought I was about to watch a techno thriller about a hacker who resisted authority! I don't think I would have enjoyed the movie in today's hyperconnected internet culture, where we know what every movie will be about months and sometimes years before release. Wait, I'll make an exception: say what you will about The Force Awakens, but I totally thought -- based on the trailers -- that it was going to be about Han Solo and Chewie. When it turned out to be about a new character, Rey, I was completely and pleasantly surprised. Well done, trailer editors!
- akkartik 5mo ago
  "Did you watch The Matrix on cinema, without knowing anything about the movie?" Yeah, that's what I mean. I went in not knowing anything, never having seen any trailers. And halfway through I went, "oh this is They Live, but the skeletons wear sunglasses."
onemoresoop 5mo ago
I wasn't too impressed by Matrix as much as I was impressed by Animatrix [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Animatrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Animatrix

deng 5mo ago

Oh the irony: "They Live", a movie famously about alienation and dehumanization, and you let AI do all the coding.

xnx 5mo ago
Interacting with a computer in natural language is much more human than typing in special codes and punctuation.
- deng 5mo ago
  So telling someone to make a table for you is more human than making it yourself, because you're using natural language instead of saws and hand planes?
  - GCUMstlyHarmls 5mo ago
    I would say yes, conversing between two humans, maybe even collaborating, is more human than a solitary human using inanimate objects.
    - anthk 5mo ago
      Even if the table collapses down badly instead of doing a proper one with a good set of tools?
      - tclancy 5mo ago
        Have you seen me work?
      - spacebacon 5mo ago
        I can't know how To hear anymore about tables
      - HeatrayEnjoyer 5mo ago
        But the extension works, not "collapses down badly."

xnx 5mo ago

An idea probably as old as ad blockers themselves. Here's one from 8 years ago: https://imgur.com/i-wear-sunglasses-night-uF4fy42 https://imgur.com/i-wear-sunglasses-night-uF4fy42

nephihaha 5mo ago
"Content Not Available Content not available in your region. "Learn more about Imgur access in the United Kingdom" The irony!
tokenburner 5mo ago
The blog post was from 2015 https://proceduralgraphics.blogspot.com/2015/04/they-live-adblock-mode.html https://proceduralgraphics.blogspot.com/2015/04/they-live-ad...

iririririr 5mo ago

on the same line, but less pop meme replacements https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/artificial-clippy/?utm_content=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/artificial-cl... it replaces terms used to exalt Artificial Intelligence to what they really mean, and some tongue in cheek jokes against things that are used to pass billionaires/tech as friendly (e.g. replacing bill gates with his actual name)

logicprog 5mo ago
That's so obnoxiously stupid and annoying, wow.
- ares623 5mo ago
  That's how most people feel when presented slop btw
  - logicprog 5mo ago
    Well yes, I'm well aware. They're both obnoxiously stupid and annoying, lol.
autoexec 5mo ago
"Automated Incompetence" is probably better than "Artificial Incompetence" since the incompetence is 100% real.
- iririririr 5mo ago
  send a patch :)
desdenova 5mo ago
A very good alternative to this vibecoded slop.
derintegrative 5mo ago
Caution - At one point I was running a greasemonkey script to replace religious words with funny alternatives. Had a bad time when I installed it and forgot about it and it replaced my manager's first name, Christian, with the funny alternative.

riedel 5mo ago

Replacing ads reminds me of the eye tap AR stuff by Steve Mann https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44406552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44406552

walrus01 5mo ago
These days he's helping to remediate polluted waterways https://cottagelife.com/general/this-toronto-professor-took-an-e-coli-infested-lake-basin-from-unswimmable-to-crystal-clear/ https://cottagelife.com/general/this-toronto-professor-took-...

throwaway2037 5mo ago

For any one not familiar with this cult classic film from the 1980s, you can view the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeB3vdxF_jM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeB3vdxF_jM In short, aliens have invaded earth, but wear a special skin to appear human. To average people, they appear and sound identical to real humans. The lead character discovers that special sunglasses can show the aliens without their human-like skin. (They look a bit like the aliens from "Mars Attacks".) When wearing the sunglasses, most outdoor adverts are replaced with bland single-party-state-style propaganda encouraging people to consume, work hard, and follow the rules. I can honestly say that the trailer does no justice for the film. It is much better than the trailer. When I saw first saw this, I was genuinedly spooked. One half of the film is good fun 1980s alien invasion beat 'em up, and the other half is a thoughtful commentary on the age of consumerism.

euroderf 5mo ago
I'd say it's got more than a bit of documentary, considering current progress in terraforming.
- throwaway2037 5mo ago
  This is a great reply. Not exactly a documentary, but I will grant you "mockumentary" similar to Spinal Tap.
- whynotmaybe 5mo ago
  And the massive irony that it the clothing brand "Obey".
yard2010 5mo ago
There is a good video that this cool philosopher made, I can't remember the name.. zazik? Edit: Slavoj Žižek. As always, phenomenal and humble take. "I’m already eating from the trashcan all the time, the name of this trashcan is... ideology" Slavoj Žižek on "They Live" (The Pervert's Guide to Ideology) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVwKjGbz60k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVwKjGbz60k

anthk 5mo ago

UBo Lite pales against the original UBo, it doesn't matter if it's a cool fork.

charcircuit 5mo ago
I don't see ads with ubo lite. From my perspective it does just as good of a job.

khafra 5mo ago

Should be able to use the local LLM to generate a short "They Live" style phrase based on the content of the ad.

lproven 5mo ago
Is the pervasive advertising not bad enough already that you want to waste time and energy inventing fake advertising using plagiarism bots? I can't offhand thing of a worse idea in the context.

specproc 5mo ago

I came here to block ads and chew bubble gum.

ZeljkoS 5mo ago
And I am all out of bubble gum.

bloke_zero 5mo ago

I wish I could upvote this 10 times! I love the film - blew my mind when I saw it on cable just after it came out.

nephihaha 5mo ago
One of the messages has changed of course. Nowadays it tends to be "stay fearful and do not reproduce".
- rschiavone 5mo ago
  No it doesn't.
  - nephihaha 5mo ago
    Stay fearful is the constant message of the mainstream media. I could name dozens of such stories. There is always a story or two in the media at any given time to spark fear and anger and primal instincts. We are encouraged to sleep around, and both workplaces and pop culture discourage having a family by differing means.
- ryanmcbride 5mo ago
  Nah the ruling class still wants poor kids who can grow up into wage slaves and soldiers, that's why they keep making contraceptives and abortions harder to access.
  - nephihaha 5mo ago
    I can get hold of "free" condoms from multiple sources. It is not hard to access contraceptives in much of the developed world except in remote locations.
    - ryanmcbride 5mo ago
      I'm not sure what point you're making. The organizations giving you free condoms are in opposition to the people who are trying to restrict access to contraceptives.

desdenova 5mo ago

It's slop though, which is even worse than the ads.

moffkalast 5mo ago
> Each blocked ad gets a single phrase, picked at random from the list. The least it could do was classify images to some categories with a small vision model smh. They stopped using AI too soon.
matula 5mo ago
Looking at the code (https://github.com/davmlaw/uBlock/commit/fa2de61ae69927591dbc44a8aab5857ca26c5496 https://github.com/davmlaw/uBlock/commit/fa2de61ae69927591db...), there's not much I would do differently writing by hand. It breaks some formatting/style conventions from the rest of the file, which I would probably flag in an organizational code review... but otherwise the logic is solid. So is this "slop" simply because it's written by an LLM, even if the output is solid? Would it NOT be slop if it was worse code, but written fully manually? Honestly, I'm not sure I know the answer.

wowczarek 5mo ago

I came here to chew bubblegum and say this ad revealer is a great idea, and I'm all out of bubblegum.

aruametello 5mo ago

perhalps ublock origin could merge this as an easter egg in the config? (like a very poorly maintained easter egg, not a problem if is broken by something else)

shevy-java 5mo ago
Well - while I like the movie, I'd also not want to see these slogans. I use ublock origin to get rid of unwanted content. I also simplify user interfaces a LOT. My default youtube view I have removed a lot of stuff from (hopefully one day I no longer have to use youtube; I don't want google in my life, but I haven't yet found enough motivation to degoogle my life completely); same with old.reddit.com back when I was still using reddit. So I think your proposal, while not bad in its own right, may not be ideal either - I'd not consider this an easter egg but rather content I'd want to block, so ublock origin would not do its job properly if it were to show this to me (and keep in mind I like They Live). I had a similar problem with Nate when he abused all KDE users with his "donate-now-or-else" daemon (https://old.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1f42sew/kde_is_asking_for_donations_in_plasma/ https://old.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1f42sew/kde_is_asking_...). I never ever want KDE widgets to pop up and pester me (that does not mean I have anything against donations; I have a lot against people who abuse the user base though, such as pestering them via unwanted pester-widgets. Sadly when you point this out on reddit, you get banned from #kde, same as when you critisize systemd on #linux - reddit censorship is out of hands).

shevy-java 5mo ago

They Live was such a fun B movie. It is also kind of timeless. It is far from a perfect or even very good movie, but the key messages are great and simple and the "chew bubblegem" scene is one very actionable scene. Long live Roddy.

dueltmp_yufsy 5mo ago

They Live is such a good metaphor for so much of the modern world. Once you see it, cannot unsee.

Something1234 5mo ago

Waiting for this to show up as a pi hole extension.

AdmiralAsshat 5mo ago

Misread the title to mean that They Live inspired the concept of adblocking in general. Which would have been an interesting coincidence, since it did inspire one of the early Mozilla logos. [0] [0] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/they-live-and-the-secret-history-of-the-mozilla-logo/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/they-live-and-the-secret-hi...

dnpls 5mo ago
Did something nefarious happen to your link?
- AdmiralAsshat 5mo ago
  I guess JWZ has some sort of referral check that instantly black-holes any traffic coming from HN? And interestingly, the WayBackMachine snapshots are similarly boobytrapped: https://web.archive.org/web/20260115112314/https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/they-live-and-the-secret-history-of-the-mozilla-logo/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260115112314/https://www.jwz.o... So I guess google "They Live Mozilla Logo" if you want to see the article. Sorry about that!
  - matheusmoreira 5mo ago
    Just open a new tab and paste the link in.
    - ge96 5mo ago
      or another browser
    - biofox 5mo ago
      Ugh... that worked, but I gave up once I got to the home page. To quote the late, great, Ray Arnold... "I hate this Hacker crap!"
    - PhilipRoman 5mo ago
      It also sets a HN=1 cookie, so you may need to clear that or use incognito

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

EvanAnderson 5mo ago

Back in the late 90s I stood up a webserver in my office that returned fake banner ads for 404's. I used the in-house DNS server to vector "*.doubleclick.net" over to it. We'd get amusing banner ads for things like cocaine-based nasal spray, renting pigs, and other vaguely off-color things in place of real ads. It was very, very amusing. I didn't tell anybody I was doing it and got some real laughs when people submitted helldesk tickets asking about the ads. It got the axe when a technician printed some Mapquest directions that included off-color ads and left them laying around at a Customer site. Aside: The fake ads came from a website called "Bannertown", (if memory serves). I believe it's long-since defunct. I'd love to find the ads today. They were very amusing.

arm32 5mo ago
Hey Evan, get ready: https://web.archive.org/web/20001019032519/http://www.chickenhead.com/bannertown/1.html https://web.archive.org/web/20001019032519/http://www.chicke...
- EvanAnderson 5mo ago
  That's the ones! Great find. I remember "Bannertown" but "chickenhead.com" slipped my mind. As soon as I saw your URL it came flooding back. Thanks!
  - arm32 5mo ago
    It was a huge nostalgia bomb for me too, nearly knocked me off my seat. Thanks for reminding me of it.
arm32 5mo ago
Cocaine nasal spray: https://web.archive.org/web/20001019042034im_/http://chickenhead.com/bannertown/images/coca.gif https://web.archive.org/web/20001019042034im_/http://chicken...

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

noctads 5mo ago

[dead]

lifeisstillgood 5mo ago

Please add “Chew Bubble Gum” to the ad list … Love the idea

bobbyjay007 5mo ago

[flagged]