Yeah, the constant motion made it hard to focus on the text. The only way I could finish the article was by running this command in Chrome web dev tools:

$$('img').forEach((i) => i.hidden = true)

Wow, neat. Is `$$` some kind of jQuery-esque service that Chrome provides?

It's part of the Command Line API which most browsers implement in their dev consoles. http://getfirebug.com/wiki/index.php/Command_Line_API

It's actually just an alias for document.querySelectAll, so kind of like a very minimalist, modern-web jQuery.

I think you'll start to see more and more of this style of including poignant (if somewhat exaggerated) gifs in informal posts. In most colleges in the US, this is the de-facto format for email communication from student to student. I've started to see the inclusion of reaction gifs and other memes creep into the corporate world (I've worked at 2 of the Big Four tech companies, and I can't remember a design review or informal presentation that didn't include funny gifs). I personally think it helps keep the reader engaged, although that might be because I'm so used to it now.

Worth considering whether "poignant" is the word you want there. It denotes something evocative of sadness or regret, and derives from a root which means "to prick". So, that pricking sensation around your eyes when you feel yourself on the point of tears? Something which evokes that feeling, and that sensation, is accurately described as "poignant".

(Also possibly of interest is that "pungent" derives from the same root, for much the same reason. In this case, the pricking sensation is that caused by the irritating sulfoxides released when you cut up an onion.)

Huh. What a feeling, finding out that you've been using a word totally incorrectly for your entire life! I guess I was going for something more along the lines of "punctuating" or "relevant".

I know that feeling! I read a lot as a kid, and I'd pick up words from context but not get their meanings right, and that got embarrassing. So I talked my folks into getting me the biggest, meanest dictionary they could lay hands on, in order to avoid embarrassing myself further. Little did I know this would lead me down a path of linguistic pedantry from which I'd never be able to return.

Was the word you were after perhaps 'pertinent'?

Browser extension idea - gif freeze. Pauses all gifs by default.

Used to be in Firefox you could hit Escape after load to do that. Not any more. There's an extension to add it back, but it's too flaky to work well. So it goes.

For Firefox:

user_pref("image.animation_mode", "once");

Animation Policy does this: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/animation-policy/n...

For me the gifs only play during mouseover, with a ~300ms delay. I didn't notice them at all.

That's new since I read the article, and an enormous qualitative improvement. Kudos to the author for a quick, thoughtful bugfix!

Even Blue Steel?! :-)

For what it's worth, I though the gifs were funny and liked them. But there's the whole tradeoff of adding extra clutter.

I a few GIFs can definitely split up the article a bit and make it easier to read, but too many can also be distracting.

The Blue Steel has to stay

Even Blue Steel. (What's a Blue Steel?)

The first gif on that page, Derek Zoolander's famous look. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=blue%20steel

Maybe I'm taking crazy pills, but that looked more like a Ferrari or LeTigre to me.

You may be loco, but probably LeTigre. Definitely not Magnum though.

Ha - you could be right. I may have jumped to a conclusion.

It worries me how it's suddenly become acceptable to have 1MB+ pages (6.2MB in this case).