Around The Internet Today
03/07/2024
Hello and welcome back to 'Around the Internet Today'! Today we have at least one tutorial, some fun extensions for Firefox, and a couple of neat articles.
Have you ever wondered how to...
- Use an RSS Feed?
- Stop GoogleDocs from auto-adding the @ symbol every time you make a new line?
- WikiHow is also full of (mostly good) tutorials on whatever you might need to do!
- What it all comes down to, never be afraid to ask questions. Can't ask someone IRL? Ask DDG how to do something. If your problem doesn't come up in the first search, try asking it a different way! The internet is full of knowledge, get out there and find it!
Browser doesn't do what you want it to? There's an extension for that!
- First of all, please use Firefox. If you don't want to use Firefox, then use LibreWolf. Note: I haven't personally used LibreWolf, but I have seen it reccomended. Remember, kids, do your research!
- The BIG DADDY of extensions for me is, as always, uBlock Origin. I love her. I would die for her. She blocks ads for me and I can never do anything as meaningful for her.
- I installed Privacy Badger earlier this week and it's been wonderful. It's a script blocker to grab any nasties that my beloved uBlock doesn't catch. I got this wonderful notification earlier this week and I am delighted:
- Need an RSS feed reader for the tutorial I posted earlier? How about Fraidyc.at! It's the one I use and so far it's been great!
- Do you also think that Youtube is a total bummer these days? Same. How about we make it a little better with Youtube Search Fixer and Youtube Watchmarker. Search Fixer filters out all of those pesky search results that Youtube tries to foist on you when you're trying to find the perfect video to describe how it feels cleaning before company comes over. Watchmarker can mark any video that you've watch in a variety of styles. I have them greyed out so I can quickly see videos I've already watched. It's handy for seeing where you left off in a long playlist.
- Are you as tired as I am of CAPTCHAs? Buster has your back. This is a great resource if you're like me and can never select the square with a motorcycle in it accurately. It does have certain limitations (you can use it too many times and get locked out), but it's still a handy extension to have.
All right, class, open your books and turn to page 42!
- The Old Internet Shows Signs of Quietly Coming Back by Cheapskate's Guide - An interesting article about the rise of the indie web.
- Oblisks of the World - I can't remember where I found this page, but it's a series of articles by someone who's made it their mission to see all of the oblisks in the world and it's fascinating.
- So it turns out that the new Twilight TV series is going to be animated!!
- The 2023 Hater's Guide To The Williams-Sonoma Catalog. Enjoy.
And, to end tonight's edition:
03/05/2024
Hello and welcome to the first edition of 'Around the Internet Today' (also known as ATiT [ha]) on its own page! Today's roundup includes... some more anti-ai goodies, my newfound interest in e-sports, a couple of neat articles, and some open source goodies I refuse to gatekeep!
Anyways, fuck AI.
- @leidensygdom's post brings up some interesting points about how it's likely that the site was scraped before the opt out toggle was even introduced.
- @phantomkinoc13 made some anti-ai banners that are F2U.
- In the spirit of Directly Poisoning AI, I've already found two Tumblrs that are taking matters into their own hands.
- Artshield.io is an alternative to Nightshade and Glaze for artists with computers that can't handle the process of glazing or poisoning their art.
- Ever see a cool piece of art by "Emile Corsi"? Well, turns out he isn't real.
- I just started using this list for uBlock and it blocks... so much bullshit. I love it.
- Predictably, Tumblr's meme game is... perplexing.
Me? E-sports? It was only a matter of time...
In 2020, while I was stuck at home for a month because of the pandemic I watched the 2020 Hearthstone World Championship and it was one of the wildest things I've ever watched. I was playing Hearthstone semi-regularly at the time and I thought I had a fairly good grasp on it. Until, that is, I was introduced to strats that I'd never even conceived of. But, I suppose, watching anyone who plays a game at a competative level is like that lol.
This past summer, however, my boyfriend got me into another brand of e-sports: Age of Empires 2. And, I gotta say, I'm hooked. We watch T90 mainly and I've been devouring his videos lately.
T90 is in the middle of hosting Hidden Cup V. It's a competition where the identities of the contestants are a secret. There are sixteen top level players in the tournament and no one, not even T90, knows who's who until the end of the competition. I'm still making my way through the qualifiers, but I'm super excited to see where it goes!
Some other faves of his are: Low ELO Legends (a series where he casts regular players' games as if they're also champions, which they are) and Community Games (so much backstabbing and so many explosions).
Do I read articles now? I guess I do.
One thing I've actually been trying to do more of is actually read articles. I always see blurbs and headlines, but I never actually read them. Possibly a side effect of social media and the tendency to think you know everything about something by the title and possibly a side effect of my (alleged) ADHD. Who can say which? Certainly not I.
- We're all lurkers now by Kate Lindsay brings up some great points on how social media comtinues to get less and less social as time passes.
- In a similar vein, this article by Cheapskate's Guide talks a lot about the gradual movement away from big social media sites. Something that they pointed out was how a lot of people are just migrating to group chats and forsaking most social media altogether. I've definitely noticed that change, especially in myself. I deleted my Facebook in 2021, my Instagram in 2023, and I find myself using Tumblr less and lessas time goes on. But you know where I am active? Texts, Discord, and, to a lesser extent, Snapchat. There's a common thread there: human connection.
- I know I've linked this blog post by the ever-lovely Melon, but it feels wrong to have a page dedicated to sharing cool links and not reference it again.
Free? Sign me the fuck up, my guy!!
- Sick and tired of whatever-the-fuck Microsoft Office has going on? Great news, LibreOffice has you covered. They have the full suite of office programs and they're all open-source and free as the day they were born. I've been using it since I realized that merely buying a Microsoft machine wasn't enought entitle me to their word processor. Also it's a subscription service now so like. Fuck that.
- LBR, I was never going to pay for photoshop and I'm too stupid to pirate it without nuking my PC so. It's GIMP time. GIMP does pretty much everything photoshop does and, just like the subheading says, it's free.
- LibreSprite is an open-source pixel art program. I haven't used it yet, but I'm excited to see what it has to offer!
- I love LOVE MusicBee. It's everything that Windows Media Player used to be and should have been. I'm using the Cassette Tape Theme because you can either press the play button or press the little cassette into the slot. Shook.