Posted in howto, random

How to view Wikipedia during the 24 hour SOPA Blackout (FYI – i still don’t support SOPA)

So in my attempt to research “dependency injection” tonight, I was met with this wikipedia page:

Don’t get me wrong – I totally support Wikipedia in raising awareness as so many of my friends had no idea WHAT SOPA was, and why it was harmful to the internet as we know it (ironically, check out this wikipedia link, which of course works during this 24 hour black out, to learn more)

But in case you still needed to view the wikipedia article (as was the case for me) I found a quick workaround:

Just before the data is finished loading for the wikipedia page you want to go to, simply click on “ESC’. Yup. It’s that easy.

On safari, you can tell as the blue bar in the URL is almost done loading:

As a caveat, it worked for me on Safari 5.0 on a macbook air running mac osx Lion – YMMV.

As for SOPA, the idea to stop piracy is definitely good. However, I believe the private sector is much more equipped @ solving this issue (think iTunes, Netflix, Hulu) then simply legislation that could cripple so many potential web startups. I like what Alexis Ohanian (reedit co-founder) said on CNBC:

“I just can’t understand why congress can’t seem to agree on anything the matters in this country, whether employment or the deficit – they’re totally deadlocked. But when Hollywood lobbyists pay them $94 million dollars to write legislation, people from both sides of the aisle line up to co-sponsor it?”

Here’s the CNBC link w/ ads
Here’s the YouTube link w/ out ads (which would be illegal if SOPA happens)

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