#remove chromium

[lucabyte]

Moomin!Ali returns alongside their siblings in the slightly manic later pages of my recent sketchbook.

[nullapophenia]

im going 2 foam at the moooouuuuuuuuuuuthh

[ranidspace]

there's a lot of fear mongering around the new firefox terms of service and privacy policy and most of all of it is bullshit and, just fear mongering. One thing that is concerning however is the following:

Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.

Before this would only apply to mozilla services such as the matrix chat, firefox send (rip), the vpn, or whatever, but now they are saying it is applied to the browser as well.

And one of the things you shouldn't do according to the policy is, you guessed it:

Upload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality or violence

So mozilla (perhaps accidentally, companies love to do this but also mozilla is kind of stupid), just said you cannot use firefox to browse porn. If it is intentional and they double down on this (which I'm really not sure if they even can, firefox is a program running locally on your computer, it's not a service they can just ban you from or anything like that, again, mozilla is a bit stupid), it's not a reason to use chromium. In the terms of service they also write:

These Terms only apply to the Executable Code version of Firefox, not the Firefox source code.

"the Executable Code" is vague, like does it count if you build it locally on your computer, or is it just the mozilla packaged versions of it downloaded from official sources or whatever idk.

But i think it would make sense forks don't count as the terms apply to "Firefox" and not anything else. So here's some alternative browsers which aren't firefox, but are firefox based:

Librewolf: just firefox, all the crap removed, and lots of privacy features turned on as well. Google is disabled in the search bar, but you can enable it again with a bit of a hack, and by default, history and cookies is cleared when you close it. You can turn that off easily. Basically identical to regular firefox otherwise, it's what i'm currently using.

Zen: Very new but gaining popularity quickly. kind of buggy due to it's recency, but people seem to love it. Main focus is customization, but with improvements in privacy, and speed. Pretty different from other browsers, but that might be what you want.

thats. basically the main two rn. i dont think anything else really would be good for most people and even as someone who really likes to get into things deep with privacy and security and shit i think librewolf is just fine. there's lot of other options but they're kinda all in the categories that these two cover.

While nowhere near in a state to be used as a regular browser, i would keep your eyes on Ladybird which is undergoing the insane challenge of making a web browser from scratch; it's not based on chromium or firefox. The first alpha version is projected to come out next year and it seems very promising.

[tribow]

So Firefox has a new ToS and an updated privacy notice that does not look like good news.

I'm sure you have seen some posts about it already. It seems like Mozilla now has the right use whatever data you upload through Firefox for their own purposes.

In a blog post, Mozilla insists that this doesn't mean they "own" your data and that they aren't they aren't selling your data, but that's not reassuring me that this isn't a breach of trust. The ToS sure seems like it allows them to sell user data. If Mozilla doesn't own the data then they can be sued, but only if they're caught red-handed.

Even if they aren't selling user data, they could very well be using it to train their generative AI. That's not exactly better Mozilla.

So what? Is there no safe haven with browsers? Pfft, no are you kidding? There have been Firefox alternatives for years. Anyone paying attention to Mozilla could see they weren't exactly the bastions of privacy that they claimed to be, but luckily, Firefox is built on the open-source browser engine called Gecko! If you don't want Mozilla, cut'em out!

There are many forks out there to use. Just off the top of my head there's uuuuh

Waterfox

Librewolf

IronFox (for Android)

Floorp

Mercury

GNU IceCat

Tor Browser

There's more, I know it. Use whatever works for you! I personally settled on Waterfox just cause it functions very very similarly to Firefox with all of Mozilla's bloat removed. (all of the options remove Mozilla bloat anyway. Increases performance!)

Librewolf and Tor are way more privacy focused if you're into that.

I don't know much about the rest, but I know people who use them and I've yet to hear anything particularly bad about any.

You're not stuck with chromium.

[guiltiest-gear]

"Um acktually [insert non-firefox browser] is better than Chromium" Actually shut the hell up it's fucking Chromium, it's all fucking Chromium

Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, whatever fucking browser you can name, it's all fucking Chromium, they even fucking put Chromium on the desktop with Electron

Use firefox or a fork of firefox goddamn

I am no longer asking

If any of you Chromium boot-licking chuds try and defend anything Chromium-related I will block on sight

Double goes for the Apple boot-licking chuds who try and talk about Safari

Here's download links to useful and actually up to date firefox forks (and of course vanilla firefox)

The vanilla:

The hardened fork:

Even more hardened fork:

Edit: Palemoon has been removed due to citations of security issues

Use firefox, shut up about Chrome and Chromium, fucking die you stupid fucking Chromium feds

[traegorn]

Want to keep using Ad Blockers? Stop Using Chrome, Switch to Firefox.

So with the rollout of Manifest V3, Google Chrome is pretty much crippling all ad blockers on Chrome. Effectively, ad blockers can no longer update their lists without fully updating their plugins. It's pretty shitty.

And you may be asking yourself -- what can I do? The answer is simple:

Switch to Firefox. Now.

Now I've been a Firefox evangelist for a long time, I know, but it's a free, open source browser made by a nonprofit org. It's literally the most ethically developed any software could possibly be. It's on every major desktop platform, and it's just... good.

Why would you use a browser made by a corporation that literally removed "Don't be evil" from their mission instead of this? I know that, like, a long ass time ago Chrome was faster, but that's not remotely true anymore. Heck, on Mac Chrome eats way more RAM than Firefox. It's ridiculous.

That's not even mentioning the fact that the amount of Chromium engine browsers out there is kind of ruining the web. Mozilla has their own rendering engine built on open web standards, and diversity in rendering engines helps everyone.

So yeah. If you're using a computer, go get Firefox. They have an Android version too. (They sorta have an iOS app -- but that uses Webkit because of Apple's limitations on third party browser engines -- but it will let you access your sync'd Firefox passwords).

Make your life better.

[usafphantom2]

Paint it Black! Making one of the first titanium airplanes was difficult .

Titanium was corrugated to make room for expansion when the titanium heated up at top speed of 2200+ mph. The skin panels were fastened to the underlying structure with oblong holes which would allow the skin to expand and contract without the fasteners causing buckling. And the skin over the wing was also corrugated to prevent warping during expansion, this is actually quite noticeable, you can see the sections that are corrugated quite clearly here in this artistic photo.

Titanium makes up 93% of the SR 71 structure. It’s strength to weight ratio, or specific strength, is better than Aluminium. Yet today very little titanium is used in everyday objects. Planes primarily use aluminum, not titanium.. why is it not used?

The development of the A-12 the Skunk Works, a small division of Lockheed discovered that making the blackbird out of titanium was going to be anything but easy

Titanium is expensive because its refinement process is a nightmare. To make Titanium, we start with a feedstock in the form of Titanium Dioxide, with this chemical formula. This oxide ore called rutile can be found in high concentrations in dark sandy soils.

Build the SR-71 the US needed to buy vast quantities of the mineral from the Soviets. To do this they purchased the material through ghost organizations to hide the final destination of the material. One of the companies that were made up was a company to make pizza ovens supposedly… the Russians believed this story!

Had the Soviets known what they were helping build, they would not have sold the material. However, the US likely could have just purchased the material from mines in Australia. This is a relatively common raw material and is primarily used as a white pigment for paints and is even found in sunscreen lotion as ultraviolet radiation blocking pigment.

The primary titanium alloy used in the SR-71 was thirteen percent vanadium, eleven percent chromium, and three percent aluminum. Both Chromium and Aluminium form thermally stable oxide layers on the outer skin of the metal. Which prevents oxygen from diffusing further into the metal and causing it to become more brittle.

Which raises the max operating temperature of the metal!

Vanadium acts as a stabilizer for a crystal structure referred to as the beta phase. This leads to a material with higher tensile strength and better formability. Through trial and error and problems that were solved by the geniuses that worked at the Skunk Works. They discovered that their cadmium plated tools were leaving trace amounts of cadmium on bolts, which would cause galvanic corrosion and cause the bolts to fail. This discovery led to all cadmium tools to be removed from the workshop.

This article just proves what we already know today when people work together and work hard to solve problems. New ground was broken with the formulation of titanium that led to the success of the SR 71 and the tremendous heat and strength that this magnificent airplane needed.

As Ben Rich head engineer and later, he replaced Kelly Johnson as the head skunk said in his book called the Skunk Works. ‘’I volunteered some unsolicited advice about how we could use a softer titanium that began to lose its strength at 550° to paint the airplane black

From my college things I remember that good heat absorber was also a good heat emitter it would actually radiate away more heat then it would absorb through thick friction. I calculated the black paint would lowered the wing temperature 35° by radiation think of how much easier it will be to build an airplane using softer titanium.

It was my father Butch Sheffield’s boss Ben Rich, who saved the Blackbird program time and money, with his idea of painting it black.

wisconsinmetaltech.com/titanium-and-t… is my Source and SkunkWorks by Ben Rich

Linda Sheffield

@Habubrats71 via X

[lith0000000]

Is privacy important to you?

So recently, I've seen an uptick of people interested in privacy regarding electronics (phones, pc, what have you). When I say people, I'm referring to non-techy people, like myself. I know my way around my computer and can do some basic troubleshooting for hardware/software, but beyond that, I'm sort of helpless. I don't know anything about hacking or cybersecurity and the only coding I can do is some html. I'm below a novice haha. So, if you're that sort of person, then maybe this could be of interest to you. What I am about to discuss involves no coding or really any in depth knowledge regarding technology. You don't have to be Elliot Alderson for this.

>Why does privacy even matter?

The answer to this question will vary from person to person. I, for one, do not like the idea of any corporation hoarding my data to sell or store or do fuck all with. If this does not bother you, I'd consider asking yourself if you're comfortable with, let's say, something like Google knowing everything about you. And I mean everything. Suppose that doesn't bother you, then okay. Maybe think about how it would feel if your classmates or coworkers knew what Google knows about you. Corporations also extend to governments because they're jerking each other off, so something to keep in mind. And individuals, people like you and I, work for these entities. And these people can abuse your data. For any reason.

Your data is a tool for them to control you. You might not realize it until it's too late. I'm being a little vague here because this point alone could be an entire wall of posts.

Additionally, something to consider is the level of privacy that you may require. If you are someone who attends public protests or is part of some sort of organization that criticizes your government, you are at risk of potential scrutiny or harassment. Obviously, but I mean specifically from a lack of privacy practices. Maybe from your government or somebody who opposes your views, etc. And depending on how you've been communicating about these gatherings or communities, you're potentially putting others at risk as well. If you're one of the people who's in charge of organizing or playing a large role, some of the methods I will be going over will likely not be enough to protect you. Activists and journalists need a different level of privacy that I can't begin to match.

Listed below are some videos that I watched that really helped me to understand why this is important.

“I Have Nothing to Hide” – The Dangerous Myth About Privacy

Is it impossible to be private online? (Eric's channel has been very helpful for me personally because his explanations do not alienate the tech illiterate)

>So...Where do I start?

Luckily, there are small steps you can take to prevent some information about you from being hoarded. And I say some, not all. Unfortunately, the only way to completely avoid all of this is to live out in a cabin in the middle of nowhere and never use the internet ever. Which I can assume you don't want because you're reading this on a website right now! You will have to make some compromises for some of these options, and if you can't replace all of these and only some, that's fine. Most of these can be adjusted in just a few minutes, if that.

General

Oh my god, stop using chrome. I'm serious, please stop. If you are using chrome to read this, close out of this and download firefox. or brave or chromium or whatever. I use firefox, and the second you download firefox, download ublock origin. Ads on the internet are completely out of control. Firefox is not foolproof either, other add-ons can provide not just a more private experience, but also a much smoother one. ClearURLs removes tracking elements from urls. And it's open source. There are a few others, but I don't know everything lol. There are VPNs you can use, but I only ever use one if I'm away from home and using the Wi-Fi at work or something.

Stop using google search engine. In firefox, you can set something else by default. I just use duckduckgo, but there are alternatives. You can also turn off the ai bullshit. Find one that works best for you and your needs.

Email. So this is one I have not moved yet. I still have gmail for my youtube account. I also have to use gmail for my university. I do have a protonmail, though, that I've been slowly moving over to. This could be an easy fix for some people, while impossible for others. This is something that I am willing to compromise on. Again, you can't have it all with how things are set up. I'm sure there are some ways to circumvent this, but I am not aware of it. For things like drive and docs there are also some alternatives, but I don't use drive all that much, so finding an alternative isn't that pressing for me. There's proton drive, which functions similarly, and several paid options, but I'm trying to keep this process free for people just starting to be privacy-conscious.

Signal is a good messenger especially if you're moving from something like facebook messenger, instagram, whatsapp, whatever. It's end to end encrypted and pretty modern (so stuff like emojis, reactions, voice messages) You do need a phone number though, but again, better than just whatsapp. More people are moving to it now, so you might have an easier time introducing friends to it.

Cellphone

Alright, so this is going to depend on a few factors, mainly whether you have Android or iOS. I had an iPhone for a long time, up until last year. I was never an Apple fanboy, it's just what I had, but I wasn't deep in the ecosystem by any means. I've always used a Windows computer, so I didn't have a Mac or apple watch or whatever. I had an ipad but sold it to a friend last year because I transitioned to using my Wacom full time on my PC. I only say that because if you like your apple products just keep in mind that while you are secure (apple does have great security), you may not be private. iOS is closed source, so it's more difficult for third parties or hackers to get your data, but apple has it. And apple can do whatever. Also, you are limited to the ways you can customize your phone.

I will link a video on someone who discusses privacy on iphone but aside from the few things I listed above I can't really help you much further than a few other points. Sorry.

A brief guide to privacy for iPhone

If you have an Android based phone you are in luck. Most Android phones allow you to put a different os on your cellphone since you can access the bootloader (unlike iphones) BUT your phone in most cases has to be OEM unlockable. Phones from carriers like Verizon aren't able to be unlocked because Verizon is weird and kinda treats their consumers like shit lol. I own a Google pixel 9 and I will admit I splurged on this phone by buying it brand new. It was on sale, I got a bonus at work and hey what can I say... Also my iphone 12mini was shitting itself so it was time for a new phone. The money must have been burning a damn hole in my pocket. In retrospect though, the smarter thing would have been to buy used or an older model. Which I will be doing in the future. Back on track though.

You're probably scratching your head here: if he was just complaining about google why the hell does he have a Google phone?

I'm glad you asked, hypothetical voice in my head.

Grapheneos is a os that is only available on Google pixels (I believe from 6 onward). What it does is basically degoogles your phone. So removes google services. And the thing is, you can redownload these services but refuse network permissions and limit what they can and cannot do or have access to. Or tweak settings that you would not otherwise have access to. You have control over your device and it actually somewhat feels like your device. It's easy to install...like, modding a ds takes longer than installing graphene on your phone. Here is a video that I watched that goes over specifics and installation.

Here is the grapheneos website

For non google phones there's calyxOS but I have no personal experience with it. But both of these OS give you back some ownership on your device by letting the user control how their cellphone functions and not a company. Also, it can help your phone feel a little smoother because it removes a lot of proprietary apps that companies like Samsung add to android. If your phone can't be unlocked, then start by switching to alternative apps and delete as many proprietary apps as possible. Watch this video on fdroid.

Remove face ID if you're able and remove fingerprints as well. It might be a bit inconvenient but it's much safer. I understand that these may be great accessibility tools for some so just do what you can. Turn off location when you're not using it. With graphene, you can give map applications your approximate location, not your exact location. There are also map options that can be disconnected from network, and you can save routes, but I use public transportation and really need to see when my bus is going to arrive. My cities bus app is so shit sometimes. Again, another example of compromising that is going make you ask what's important to you, and if you're willing to risk your privacy for it.

If you watch most of these videos, you'll hear a lot of these points are going to overlap.

I was considering discussing what you can do for your PC, but I'm a complete noob. I've been using Linux mint for a little bit now, and I avoid the terminal most of the time because I'm a little baby. Even still, I recommend getting away from windows if you're able. Especially if you have a windows 10 computer since Microsoft is dropping support this fall iirc. Linux mint is super beginner friendly and much lighter on your computer, so even better if your PC is older.

Some videos that might help you decide if Linux could be a good alternative for you.

Switching to Linux: A Beginner’s Guide

Why Linux is Better Than Windows 11

Linux Mint 22: Excellent Distro for Windows Users

Linux Mint for Gaming (2025) | Linux Gaming Setup (for Beginners) Pt. 1

This privacy stuff can go so deep and you'll feel kinda crazy lol. Once you learn about what people can do with this data, and read about how people's lives have been ruined by it getting into the wrong hands, it'll never leave your head. But it's important to start small. And start sooner rather than later.

Social media was something I considered discussing but I think it could be added to a later post since this is kinda long already. I hope this is somewhat helpful, I tend to ramble a lot of the time. If you're someone who is a bit more savvy than I, then please reply with any info that you think could be important. But remember that this post is for basic beginners who are just now learning about this stuff so keep it simple. Thanks for reading!

[alicepao13]

Hudson and Rex Episodes

It has come to my attention that Hudson and Rex episodes are not easily accessible to a lot of people, despite it being broadcasted in many countries. I was looking for a place to archive the episodes myself in good quality as a backup but up until recently, the 1080p rips were huge so it was an impossible feat. I finally found some mkv ones that are not as ginormous as the others, and I'd like to share them with the fandom.

Disclaimer: I did not do these rips or the transcoding. I haven't checked the episodes one by one to see if there are any faults with them, just a few as random tests, I also watched a few, and they were all good, subtitles were working and in sync, etc.

What you need to know before downloading:

The files are in mkv format and Mega, the host I've uploaded them on, does NOT have a player to play MKVs online. The links are for downloading, or alternatively transferring to your own Mega account, not for online streaming.

The video codec is HEVC, which is why the size of the episodes is not huge. That might affect some older computers which may not have this codec, though. Read about HEVC here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding and if it's missing, you can add the HEVC codec.

Same goes for your tv if you choose to play them in one (although you probably can't add the codec there). I generally recommend downloading one episode as a test. If it plays in your device, they all should play in that device.

Most of the files have forced English subtitles on them. I am unfamiliar with forced subtitles in general. You may have trouble removing them on a tv, maybe. I've tested them only using VLC on my computer and they can appear and disappear just fine when I choose so like normal subs do. Forced subtitles are not hard-coded subtitles.

Episodes S01E01 - S06E06 were all transcoded by one team as it was a pack, the rest by another, as the first pack was uploaded during this winter hiatus and there was no other upload by the first team for the rest. I only see small differences between the episodes, not worthy of a mention. I've kept the original file names, so you will know when the teams change if you're interested in that (team name is the last input on the title of the file).

The size of all the episodes in total is around 92GB. When you go to download them, each file will also display the size of it.

How to download (skip this if you've downloaded from Mega before):

Even if you have set your browser to ask you where to download the file, Mega will download the file you requested entirely before asking you were to save it. It's how their cloud service works. You don't need to download anything else to get these files, just right-click a file and click Download, and then Standard Download when the submenu opens. You do not need to download the Mega Desktop App, unless you want to download the entire folder at once as a ZIP file. I don't know how many concurrent downloads a free user gets on Mega, or limitations regarding the GBs per day on free users.

Mega suggests users download using Chrome or a Chromium based browser, however downloading the files one by one should work in any browser.

If you have a download manager, just load these folders in it and it will do the job better than your browser.

If you attempt this with a smartphone, then I highly suggest you download the Mega mobile app. I don't think the files will download to your phone otherwise.

Links:

These lead to each season's folder of episodes. Only copy the link below, do not copy the season identifier at the start of each line. Make sure you copy the entire link especially the S4 one which apparently continues in a second line.

S1: https://mega.nz/folder/1ZMTlbpY#DqS2V2KKgeajbINzx8c6Pg

S2: https://mega.nz/folder/kZE1yTTC#p29HrvXgahGXW-0rlzx77Q

S3: https://mega.nz/folder/0Bt3gBJL#hcX7tjU1GScmprTc0nkc0w

S4: https://mega.nz/folder/UQFD3SZZ#nbGJeLzH2IHLVpVFyK750A

S5: https://mega.nz/folder/ARkzUQbS#eS1Yy11x_DEPg3T2bD5ozw

S6: https://mega.nz/folder/lBUFnBwb#WszZvKLzfpRKVvuz5B78Nw

S7: https://mega.nz/folder/kJlEFCLJ#exM6rRVhPtNSULhvsjHWZg

About Season 7 rips: I will upload the first rip that is up so that we won't waste time, this is usually a HDTV rip by the release team SYNCOPY (so basically the episode as seen on tv without ads, usually with the promo, in 720p, no subtitles - subtitles will be added on the same folder in separate link, if any). Later, this will be replaced with 1080p links. Please, check the link periodically to find more links. The goal is to have 1080p Webrips around 1GB for each episode.

Other information:

I'll try to keep the links up as long as I can but I suggest keeping your own copies. Mega does not offer that amount of space for free, so this is a paid cloud service. I'm not looking for anyone to participate on the upkeep but there might be a day when these links will be taken down for any number of reasons. Personally, I don't trust the cloud. Keep local copies of anything you don't want to lose.

If these are reported, I will not be reuploading them and I assume that reporting may also take down my account with them so I will probably also not be able to be a paying customer of their service either way. So, keep the sharing of the links within the fandom. I will not tag this post, but I highly encourage reblogging it to spread the info.

I suggest that anyone who wants to share this with a lot of people should make their own cloud backup. The purpose of me uploading these links is, ironically, not piracy. The purpose is to make the episodes easily accessible to fans.

I will not upload these in other cloud services, if anyone wants to go upload these in google drive, for example, I'm not willing to risk it but of course, anyone else willing to do it is welcome to.

If anyone has questions or concerns, I'll be glad to answer them. Not everyone is familiar with hosting sites, but this is easier than a torrent. I'm sure I've forgotten things which to me may seem simple.

[lucabyte]

9 and 10 for the ask game!

(For (x), list of characters here (x))

9 - what oc of yours has had the most drastic redesign?

MMM okay. so part of my design process for ocs is often "can i wrangle a new original guy out of xyz thing i made in a character creator" or "can i make a guy inspired by xyz injoke" so I don't think those should really count. otherwise we'd have to deal with 5-Tonne and Bugsquasher being based on my splatoon player characters LOL. And like, slightly too many characters who were pulled out of being pokemon ocs when i was 12. that's cheating i think

(Similarly, "The Fence" is based on a particularly wide creation from one of the PS2 WWE games)

I try to go into these using the basis as simply Prompts, and treat these as the first "real" designs... So since the whole point of these is to make something unrecognisable I won't count that LOL.

HOWEVER. what I can do is point at characters who have been either subtly rejigged over the years, since my style has evolved for a long while, or talk about the redesigns during my 2021 Overhaul(tm), where I ran through the whole cast and gave them a new fullbody ref. Yes, all basically 70ish (at the time) of the fuckers.

But I think the two highlights from that era of redesign are two dog characters who were really languishing in design back then. Copper and Harley. I wanted to keep them recognisable as a challenge, and I think I did, but man I really cleaned up their designs...

wait stop the fucking presses i just remembered what 2015 tabitha and chrome looked like again. every time i forget. good lord. good lord. 10th birthday soon boys.

10 - name an obscure piece of trivia about any character

Hmm... obscure trivia....

Okay sure. Gabriel was created from one of Lupus' ribs like eve from adam.

or to be more specific: back in 2014, Lupus had a "mean and snarky with a heart of gold" characterisation, which is NOT true now. Now she's a dumb jock who's a delight to be around. this is because when I wanted to design her a Rival Counterpart, I cleft her in twain.

I took her "good-hearted blockhead" traits and kept them, and gave the "sarcastic snark" to Gabe. Eventually the two diverged in characterisation even further and don't even really foil each other anymore, but this along with some other things, mean Lupus is related to several other ocs in an origin-of-species manner.

Damon was also born from Lupus in an attempt to make a rival even earlier on, but was dropped even sooner and shares absolutely nothing but the name. And Lupus being a dog at all comes from her splitting from my lucario pokesona back on roleplay forums (a character who did not survive past 2012 i think). She retains a few traits that are references to this (... her height being one of them. and her aroaceness LOL) but other than that she's very different to me now. I hardly relate to her at all outside of being generally a pretty jolly person.

My current sona comes from that pokesona's mlp form! Not that it even shares their colour pallete!!! That horse is such a ship of theseus...

So i suppose this maybe also counts as a character who is very different from their original design! Just, whatever is going on here.

[reddpenn]

came for the art, stayed for the rocks(and the art)

i was wondering and figured youd be the blog to ask, do you know how/why alexandrite changes color like that? i know i could look it up quite easily but my brain is not wanting to cooperate today

This optical effect is called the Alexandrite Effect!

Alexandrite’s chemical structure contains a metal called chromium. The atoms of chromium in alexandrite absorb yellow light. So when light hits the stone, only green, blue, and red wavelengths get bounced back to our eyes. Cutting out all the yellow has some interesting optical results, because it completely separates green and red light, putting them on different teams and making them fight to the death.

Sunlight and fluorescent light contain a lot more blues and greens than reds. So in that lighting the stone is sending way more blue and green light to your eyes, which overpowers the small amount of red light and makes the stone appear blue-green. The opposite is true in incandescent light or candlelight. Those light sources contain way more red light, which overpowers the blues and greens and makes the stone look red! In a mix of both lights you might see both colors existing separately, depending on which angle each light source is hitting the stone.

Something cool to note is that this only works because of how photoreceptors are set up in the human eye. Humans with normal color vision have only got like three types of cone cells, so from our perspective removing the yellow light creates a pretty drastic change in how we perceive a color! Shrimps though? I don’t know what alexandrite looks like to shrimps.

[maypop-the-dragon]

PSA: Free Software

Reading this may really save your time, privacy, and money! Reblog or share to spread awareness!

Folks often use software that’s expensive and sometimes even inferior because they don’t know there are alternatives. So to those unfamiliar: basically, free and open-source (FOSS) or "libre" software is free to use and anyone can access the original code to make their own version or work on fixing problems.

That does not mean anyone can randomly add a virus and give it to everyone—any respectable libre project has checks in place to make sure changes to the official version are good! Libre software is typically developed by communities who really care about the quality of the software as a goal in itself.

There are libre alternatives to many well-known programs that do everything an average user needs (find out more under the cut!) for free with no DRM, license keys, or subscriptions.

Using libre software when possible is an easy way to fight against and free yourself from corporate greed while actually being more convenient in many cases! If you need an app to do something, perhaps try searching online for things like:

foss [whatever it is]

libre [whatever it is]

open source [whatever it is]

Feel free to recommend more libre software in the tags, replies, comments, or whatever you freaks like to do!

Some Libre Software I Personally Enjoy…

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is an office suite, much like Microsoft Office. It includes equivalents for apps like Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, which can view and edit files created for those apps.

I can't say I've used it much myself yet. I do not personally like using office software except when I have to for school.

OpenShot

OpenShot Video Editor is, as the name suggests, a video editing program. It has industry-standard features like splicing, layering, transitions, and greenscreen.

I've only made one video with it so far, but I'm already very happy with it. I had already paid for a video editor (Cyberlink PowerDirector Pro), but I needed to reinstall it and I didn't remember how. Out of desperation, I searched up "FOSS video editor" and I'm so glad I did. There's no launcher, there's no promotion of other apps and asset packs—it's just a video editor with a normal installer.

GIMP

GNU Image Manipulation Program is an image editor, much like Photoshop. Originally created for Linux but also available for Windows and MacOS, it provides plenty of functionality for editing images. It is a bit unintuitive to learn at first, though.

I've used it to create and modify images for years, including logos, really bad traceover art, and Minecraft textures. It doesn't have certain advanced tech like AI paint-in, but it has served my purposes well and it might just work for yours!

(Be sure to go to Windows > Dockable Dialogs > Colors. I have no idea why that's not enabled by default.)

Audacity

Audacity is an audio editing program. It can record, load, splice, and layer audio files and apply effects to them.

Audacity is another program I've used for a long time. It is not designed to compose music, but it is great for podcasts, simple edits, and loading legacy MS Paint to hear cool noises.

7-Zip

7-Zip is a file manager and archive tool. It supports many archive types including ZIP, RAR, TAR, and its own format, 7Z. It can view and modify the contents of archives, encrypt and decrypt archives, and all that good stuff.

Personally, I use 7-Zip to look inside JAR files for Minecraft reasons. I must admit that its UI is ugly.

Firefox

Firefox is an internet browser, much like Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Safari. While browsers are free, many of them include tracking or other anti-consumer practices. For example, Google plans to release an update to Chromium (the base that most browsers are built from these days) that makes ad blockers less effective by removing the APIs they currently rely on.

Aside from fighting monopolies, benefits include: support for animated themes (the one in the picture is Purple Night Theme), good ad blockers forever, an (albeit hidden) compact UI option (available on about:config), and a cute fox icon.

uBlock Origin

As far as I know, uBlock Origin is one of the best ad blockers there is.

I was on a sketchy website with my brother, and he was using Opera GX's ad blocker. Much of the time when he clicked on anything, it would take us to a random sponsored page. I suggested that he try uBlock Origin, and with uBlock Origin, that didn't happen anymore.

Linux

Linux is a kernel, but the term is often used to refer to operating systems (much like Windows or MacOS) built on it. There are many different Linux-based operating systems (or "distros") to choose from, but apps made for Linux usually work on most popular distros. You can also use many normally Windows-only apps on Linux through compatibility layers like WINE.

I don't have all four of these, so the images are from Wikipedia. I tried to show a variety of Linux distros made for different kinds of users.

If you want to replace your operating system, I recommend being very careful because you can end up breaking things. Many computer manufacturers don't care about supporting Linux, meaning that things may not work (Nvidia graphic cards notoriously have issues on Linux, for example).

Personally, I tried installing Pop!_OS on a laptop, and the sound output mysteriously doesn't work. I may try switching to Arch Linux, since it is extremely customizable and I might be able to experiment until I find a configuration where the audio works.

Many Linux distros offer "Live USB" functionality, which works as both a demo and an installer. You should thoroughly test your distro on a Live USB session before you actually install it to be absolutely sure that everything works. Even if it seems fine, you should probably look into dual-booting with your existing operating system, just in case you need it for some reason.

Happy computering!

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Microfluidic sensors enable real-time detection of multiple heavy metals in water

A group of researchers from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has designed and developed advanced microfluidic sensor arrays that use fluorescent probes to simultaneously visualize and quantitatively detect multiple heavy metal ions in environmental water in real time. "This innovation provides a powerful new tool for monitoring water quality and ensuring water safety," said Prof. Jiang Changlong, who led the team. The study is published in Chemical Engineering Journal. Heavy metals such as mercury (Hg2+), lead (Pb2+), chromium (Cr3+), and copper (Cu2+) are common pollutants in our water systems. These contaminants are difficult to remove and can cause serious harm to both ecosystems and human health.

Read more.

[mirqmarq428]

Replying to @fzf

I have no strong personal feelings about mint. It happened to be a good first distro for me, and i like the colors. My disrecommendation of it comes in bullet points:

Mint is touted as a "windows-like environment" on account of the Cinnamon desktop. However, Cinnamon and windows 10 have deceptively little in common beyond the general layout - iv said this before and I'll say it again: don't give people a knockoff of what they're used to, give them something new to learn.

Mint disables, disallows, discourages, and distrusts snap packages. While iv seen a huge amount of hate for these, and the technology had a rough start, they're not any more of a pain than flatpak (and way better than appimages, yikes). In fact, removing them from what was otherwise an Ubuntu system causes more problems than it fixes - for months last year it was a pain to run Chromium on mint because the Deb was broken and snaps were disabled (iirc - might be misremembering. either way the snap war is not a good cause imo)

Release speed - when i got started with Mint in march of 2020, I downloaded mint 19.04 cause that was the version on the website. Mint 19.04 is based on Ubuntu 18.04 which had a 4.18 kernel. Everyone else in 2020 had a 5.2 kernel at least. There is a balance between stable and up-to-date, and Ubuntu has mastered it. Mint, by necessity, lags behind Ubuntu. Heck, there's even the time the mint devs had to beg users to update because of a security issue, and found that most users had never bothered updating!

Ubuntu (gnome) is different from both macos but windows interface in obvious ways that encourage a paradigm shift in desktop usage.

Snap packages are extremely meh, but they ain't here to steal ur freedums (yet).

Ubuntu has the second best software compatibility of any Linux (best is Arch), and a lot of pkgbuilds in the AUR are just extracting debs from Ubuntu ppas anyway so it's really close. Ubuntu tells you to update and makes it easy with the popup which you can close or banish.

So yeah. Mint is just slightly worse Ubuntu

[notanotherzerofan]

More Degredation of the Internet

Okay, so, I'm obviously late on all of this and other unsavory stuff has happened since then, but keep in mind I'm not a reporter and can't keep on top of everything. 

I'm also not going to go into deep details with everything as I honestly can't (don't use Discord for art and never used any of Meta's services). Either way, I suggest you watch the videos for more info as they probably explain things way better than I could (again, not a reporter).

Discord AI apps:

Originally learned about this through Reddit (r/ArtistHate)

Basically, Discord added apps that allow for modifying anyone's posted images without any sort of opt-out or way to remove said apps. 

Best thing you can probably do at the moment is report these apps (though considering I just learned today they're planing to try to go public, it may be a good idea to look into alternatives now; I've personally been considering Revolt for a while if I ever decided to make a server).

Instagram TOS Update:

Link in video: Instagram’s New Terms of Service — What You’re Giving Up in 2025

What I took away from all this is that Instagram is pretty much making it so that they can use anything you post for whatever without compensation and directly compete with you with no repercussions.

There's also the issue of data collection and whether you can opt-out or not (surprise, if you're American, you can't :/).

Honestly, my take on all this is just ditch anything Meta, but at least also link where you're moving to if you do.

Firefox TOU Update:

The initial vid I saw regarding the Firefox update:

(Keep in mind this is only the first video I saw and things have changed since then)

Alright, this I actually have the most to say on because I've been using Firefox since the late 2000's and have been looking up as much as I can on this.

So, let's not kid ourselves; Firefox hasn't been as private as people thought it was for a while, hence all the more privacy-oriented forks. Makes sense as they've had a deal with Google for years now.

From what I'm understsanding of this, the only reason they seem to be adding a TOU now is to cover their bases for what other different places consider sale of data. Unfortunately, they also did it in the sloppiest and least transparent of ways (and a lot of stuff with all this is still not clear).

Now, ever since this news dropped, I've been looking for info anywhere I could and also looking at different takes on all this, with some downplaying all this, others switching forks, and others just going Chromium. Personally, I think the best option is looking into one of the many forks, or if you can't switch at the moment, harden your copy of Firefox.

On top of this, I'm going to keep an eye out for any changes with all this, but I'm most likely going to be jumping ship first chance I get.

That said, I also recomend you do your own research and do what's best for you.

Also, going to add this here since this I haven't seen this talked about much and didn't know where else to put it, but Mozilla not making it totally clear whether Firefox counts as a 'service' or not is concerning, especially when they say 'you can't use our services for nsfw and violent content,' especially when nsfw and violent content are common in a lot media and have been for years.

Edit: Forgot to add this over here yesterday...

So, it's been brought to my attention that last part has already been a thing since about 2014 and likely a non-issue.

[michaelrotonal]

take chromium, remove HR, and put pend in the midlde. the resultant word is compendium.

someone make a cryptic crossword clue out of this