#i recommend firefox

[melyzard]

Time for a new edition of my ongoing vendetta against Google fuckery!

Hey friends, did you know that Google is now using Google docs to train it's AI, whether you like it or not? (link goes to: zdnet.com, July 5, 2023). Oh and on Monday, Google updated it's privacy policy to say that it can train it's two AI (Bard and Cloud AI) on any data it scrapes from it's users, period. (link goes to: The Verge, 5 July 2023). Here is Digital Trends also mentioning this new policy change (link goes to: Digital Trends, 5 July 2023). There are a lot more, these are just the most succinct articles that might explain what's happening.

FURTHER REASONS GOOGLE AND GOOGLE CHROME SUCK TODAY:

Stop using Google Analytics, warns Sweden’s privacy watchdog, as it issues over $1M in fines (link goes to: TechCrunch, 3 July 2023) [TLDR: google got caught exporting european users' data to the US to be 'processed' by 'US government surveillance,' which is HELLA ILLEGAL. I'm not going into the Five Eyes, Fourteen Eyes, etc agreements, but you should read up on those to understand why the 'US government surveillance' people might ask Google to do this for countries that are not apart of the various Eyes agreements - and before anyone jumps in with "the US sucks!" YES but they are 100% not the only government buying foreign citizens' data, this is just the one the Swedes caught. Today.]

PwC Australia ties Google to tax leak scandal (link goes to: Reuters, 5 July 2023). [TLDR: a Russian accounting firm slipped Google "confidential information about the start date of a new tax law leaked from Australian government tax briefings." Gosh, why would Google want to spy on governments about tax laws? Can't think of any reason they would want to be able to clean house/change policy/update their user agreement to get around new restrictions before those restrictions or fines hit. Can you?

SO - here is a very detailed list of browsers, updated on 28 June, 2023 on slant.com, that are NOT based on Google Chrome (note: any browser that says 'Chromium-based' is just Google wearing a party mask. It means that Google AND that other party has access to all your data). This is an excellent list that shows pros and cons for each browser, including who the creator is and what kinds of policies they have (for example, one con for Pale Moon is that the creator doesn't like and thinks all websites should be hostile to Tor).

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

i'm begging you guys to start pirating shit from streaming platforms. there are so many websites where you can stream that shit for free, here's a quick HOW TO:

1) Search for: watch TITLE OF WORK free online

2) Scroll to the bottom of results. Click any of the "Complaint" links

3) You will be taken to a long list of links that were removed for copyright infringement. Use the 'find' function to search for the name of the show/movie you were originally searching for. You will get something like this (specifics removed because if you love an illegal streaming site you don't post its url on social media)

4) each of these links is to a website where you can stream shit for free. go to the individual websites and search for your show/movie. you might have to copy-paste a few before you find exactly what you're looking, but the whole process only takes a minute. the speed/quality is usually the same as on netflix/whatever, and they even have subtitles! (make sure to use an adblocker though, these sites are funded by annoying popups)

In conclusion, if you do this often enough you will start recognizing the most dependable websites, and you can just bookmark those instead. (note: this is completely separate from torrenting, which is also a beautiful thing but requires different software and a vpn)

you can also download the media in question (look for a "download" button built into the video window, or use a browser extension such as Video DownloadHelper.)

[leveragehunters]

Google Germany blocking AO3 in search results

I haven't seen anything on this cross my dash, and I thought it was worth bringing here with as much accuracy as possible. (I first encountered it on Reddit.)

Currently (24.12.2022) Google is blocking AO3 from search results in Germany as a result of a complaint.

It is only Google, not other search engines. The government did not request it. It has nothing to do with copyright. It does not impact access to the site itself. ETA: If you use Chrome, it may not let you bookmark AO3 URLs (reports are mixed).

I tested it using a VPN set to Germany, searching for my AO3 username. This is a Google search for leveragehunters showing no AO3 results while connected to a German VPN:

The same search from Australia, with the first result AO3:

A DuckDuckGo search for leveragehunters while connected to a German VPN - AO3 is the third and fifth hit.

The bottom of the Google search using the German VPN states:

In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 2 results from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at LumenDatabase.org. This is the link to read more: https://lumendatabase.org/notices/9415.

What was the complaint? You can read it here (and it is seriously light on information): https://lumendatabase.org/notices/9415, but it says:

A URL that otherwise would have appeared in response to your search was not displayed because that URL was reported as illegal under German youth protection laws.

Ihre Suche hätte in den Suchergebnissen einen Treffer generiert, den wir Ihnen nicht anzeigen, da uns mitgeteilt wurde, dass die entsprechende URL rechtswidrig gemäß deutscher Jugendschutzgesetze ist.

Like I said up there, this was not a government request. Government requests to remove material from Google say so on the notice (see, for example: https://lumendatabase.org/notices/30045178 or all of these).

Anyone can make a complaint to Google and ask them to remove something for allegedly violating local laws. I suspect what's happened is that someone has reported the top level AO3 URL to Google through their procedures and that Google, being the knee-jerk risk-adverse devil company that it is, has blocked the site pending investigation (AKA lawyers saying yes or no) or just went stuff it, a shoddy complaint's good enough cause we don't actually care.

The Reddit thread is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/zsgt6v/is_ao3_blocked_from_being_displayed_in_google_in/, but mixed in with the reports from German users is a lot of maybe not so helpful/accurate information so, you know, grain of salt and all that.

@ao3org

[dailyfatefigures]

Ashiya Douman - Memo Stand by Tentoumushi

[happistar]

what's ur favorite bmc fanfic ever

OOOH okay this is a good question.

Ngl I don't think I could give you a solid "here is the one (1) best fic ever" so here's a whole bunch that I've rated 5 stars in my fic document!

Stammer - Excellent 100k fic, if you're looking for something long. Basically it explores Jeremy and Michael's relationship from when they were kids til a bit after the events of the musical. Really good character piece <3

Jeremy drops out of college during December of his freshman year - REALLY REALLY GOOD fic-- one of my favorites from Beth Harker. Basically Jeremy undergoes a lot of panic attacks and self hatred (some brought on by what remains of the Squip) as he and Michael go to college together. About 10k words.

in the back of my brain, the voices all sound the same - Pretty short ~1k fic that explores the idea of the Squip changing shape into things like Jeremy himself. Forever thinking about the implications.

Play it in Reverse - Really cool podfic that brings in the musical aspect of bmc and acknowledges it! With the Squip's help, Jeremy tries to fix the events of the musical by changing the lyrics. About an hour to fully listen to.

flesh & bone - AU where Jeremy is an android and the Squip Squad find him and repair him. LOVE the dynamic of everyone in this fic, but it's unfortunately unfinished. About 40k words and still worth a read despite this.

Loaded, Recoded, Unsorted - Ngl I think this was the first ever bmc fic I read?? Anyways, it still lasts in my brain despite being unfinished with about 15k words in total. Basically, Michael slowly becomes a squip with all the fun psychological horror that comes with that. Honestly if you like this I'd recommend checking out more of Nez's work. Excellent squip horror writer.

The Mechanics of Compromise - Ngl pretty much everyone I've come across has read this fic and it shouldn't be a surprise that its on this list. Absolutely adore how they handle everyone's dynamics and manage to create a really fun plot as everyone recovers from the events of the musical. Another really good 100k+ fic.

Only One Is Mine - Holy shit this fic is almost coming up on 100k words. Anyways this fic is so so so good. Basically it deals with the rising squipocalypse after the musical as Jeremy accidentally fuses with his squip and has to learn what it means to be half human, half supercomputer. LOVE this concept so much and love how its handled. Honestly one of my all time favorite fics in general-- really cool stuff!! Shoutout to Jordan fr <3

Honorable mentions:

Ophiocordyceps nippon - TRAGICALLY short fic that meant i actually rated it only 4 stars but I thought I'd share because I am still thinking about it. Basically what if the Squip was a fungus.

Same As It's Always Been - I've only read 2 chapters, since it was coming out at the time I was reading it, but its finished now!! I really enjoyed what it was when it was coming out, so I'm sure it's still a good read. Basically Rich is forced to repeat Halloween Night-- time loop style.

[thephilosophersapprentice]

About a week ago I read the stupidest opinion piece I have ever seen from a philosophy professor who I will fortunately never have the displeasure of actually meeting due to me being 1) out of college and 2) living in the midwest rather than the east coast.

One of the points he made in his article was claiming that in the Lord of the Rings, industrialization is bad because it's industrialization.

No! Industrialization in the Lord of the Rings is bad because it damages the environment, it's following the same lines as real-world industrialization (aka exploited factory workers who often suffered horrifying injuries, the OSHA laws written in blood, the triangle shirtwaist factory fire!), the control factory owners chose to exercise over their workers being everything but legal enslavement, and it's making everyone miserable for all of those reasons!

I don't know how anyone could read the chapters on Mordor, Isengard, and the Scouring of the Shire without taking away that Tolkien's message was partly environmentalist, partly that people deserve to be happy, that industrialization is bad because it's hurting everyone, not just destroying their way of life but making people miserable and leaving them to starve!

Anyways. I bet the professor citing the lord of the rings has never actually read the books and probably not even seen the movies because he puts out the sort of navel-gazing drivel that makes it obvious he thinks "frivolities" like fantasy are below him.

It's a good thing that I will likely never meet this guy, because I would throw hands with him in a McDonalds parking lot.

[flyin-shark]

Are you more a brick-through-the-window or a cutting-breaklines kinda guy with cop cars?

Wouldn’t you like to know, Firefox user? >:3

[arcaneyouth]

oh i love not using the tumblr mobile app anymore and getting out of context posts about updates. what do you mean everythings big what does that mean

[gallifreyriver]

not gonna lie, this is creepy

like I get the site needs money to run, hence "ad-free tumblr" and "tumblr store" and "blazed posts" and all the other money making stuff they've already rolled out...

but putting a banner at bottom of screen telling us you can see when we're using an ad blocker maybe isn't it and maybe kinda feels invasive when people install stuff like ad blockers and privacy extensions because we didn't like how websites/corporations could see and track what we were doing... just saying.

[charrfie]

Going to finally switch to firefox this weekend if I have time! I've been using brave for a while now and it's been fine but apparently it still operates on a chromium system and also is just generally crashing/slowing down a lot more frequently.

Point is: please give me firefox tips if any of yall use it!!! Whether that be good extensions, ways to customize, how to port bookmarks, or whatever else. All is appreciated :^)

[zerojanitor]

ok my new pet peeve is how a lot of people seem to be under the impression that ad blockers ONLY exist on firefox

[vulpinesaint]

god... so i don't use chrome anymore but i Do use this sticky notes extension from it that is the love of my life. it just needs chrome running in the background and then it's essentially its own app. not bound to the webpage not bound to the browser you can drag it all around open it over anything... however it has not been updated since 2016 (around when i first started using it actually. jesus christ) and my chrome updated the other day and now it's not compatible... mourning it so badly i don't know what to do i don't know how to live my life without my extremely convenient sticky notes by Suyambu. tears in my eyes for real this is so upsetting

[hychlorions]

hello! you are free to ignore but if you dont mind to answer, i want to switch to firefox, but i cant understand what search engine to use because it still uses google as a search engine but there arent really other options that i know of :(( do i need to change that or do i just keep google?? thanks and love your art :)

quick disclaimer that i'm not a tech person so some of this stuff may be wrong, but i've tried to switch to ecosia and oceanhero, which apparently won't collect as much data as google, but it doesn't really return good results for a lot of the more specific searches, like when you're looking for a phrase in a webpage instead of the webpage itself. that isn't really ideal for a student like me, so i haven't really switched away from google, which imo kind of defeats the whole privacy thing, but i've also got the firefox multi-account containers extension, which, in addition to letting you login to multiple accounts per site, apparently keeps separate cookies per container, so it's not really much of a dealbreaker for me to have to keep using google. otherwise, if you really would like to stop using google and the whole search specificity thing isn't really a bother for you, i've heard some pretty good things about ecosia and duckduckgo as well 030

tl;dr: what you decide to do depends on what you're looking for in a search engine. more specific searches = google; more privacy = ecosia, duckduckgo; microsoft rewards and uh... r18+ stuff? = bing, apparently?

[y-eontan]

i love sharing my edge history with this lady i've met like a handful of times

[p2ii]

feel like shit i just want her back (youtube how it was 5+ years ago)

[neige-leblanche]

hi hi Lu! do you have have any recommendations for someone wanting to teach themself Chinese (Mandarin)?

Yes, the Popup Chinese podcast, which has lessons from Absolute Beginner to Advanced!! This podcast was the talk of the town back when I started learning around 2011, and while they aren't active anymore, there are a ton of great lessons on the website (presumably still also apple podcasts, etc. too) that are both interesting and informative! I used to listen to these before bed as a kid which I attribute a lot of my pronunciation skills to :3

For reading, there's also Chinese Reading Practice, which lets you hover over words to see what they mean, and they're actively updating :3

I unfortunately can't give any resources I used on beginning to learn characters but afaik Duolingo now has a minigame/side section for that!