ublock didn't block anything. Then I realised that this site allows auto-playing videos so at some point in the past I seem to have disabled JavaScript on this site.
I wish it was easier to control JavaScript usage as the visitor. It's either very complex or just 'turn it all off and go somewhere else if nothing works'.
Perhaps the second option is the 'correct' response though.
If you're using Firefox and you want to keep JavaScript enabled but stop auto-playing videos, you can go into about:config and set media.autoplay.enabled to false. I'm not sure if other browsers have a similar switch, but this works in any current version of Firefox. It only affects HTML5 video containers; Flash and Silverlight video containers may still auto-play.
I do this, but also be prepared for video you expect to play to no work as expected. For instance, a video might appear to be frozen or "loading" until you click on it.
I wish it was easier to control JavaScript usage as the visitor. It's either very complex or just 'turn it all off and go somewhere else if nothing works'.
Perhaps the second option is the 'correct' response though.