Yesterday, I switched to searching for things with noai.duckduckgo.com, and everytime I type “No AI” in, I imagine myself side-eyeing an increasingly irritated Google. I am just one person, I doubt my refusal to use Google’s “search engine” will make a difference in their numbers, but man, does it feel good to IMAGINE that pointed side-eye.
#Ramblings#I have to keep it open as a tab on my phone though#So I don’t automatically type a query into my browser’s url bar#Which will direct me to Google [via @o-lei-o-lai-o-lord]
*emerges from the woodwork* *cracks knuckles*
Unsolicited advice incoming, for whoever happens to be reading this and happens to be tired of seeing AI summary results at the top of their every web search. There is a way to set searching via noai.duckduckgo.com to be your default search engine, without having to change your browser or keep search tab open perpetually or any of that stuff. I.e., you can just. search for things. in your browser's url bar. And it will just automatically run the search in the NoAI version of DuckDuckGo.
For anyone who doesn't know how to do this and wants to, the process for adding it as your default search engine in both Firefox and Microsoft Edge is under the cut. Unfortunately I've cut ties with Google Chrome enough that I uninstalled on all of my devices, but I imagine that the process is similar enough to these two to figure out.
(Also, my sincere apologies, o-lei-o-lai-o-lord, for hijacking your post.)
Version 1: Mozilla Firefox
Step 1: Go to your search settings. Easiest way to do this is by clicking the search engine icon on your URL bar
and selecting Search Settings
Step 2: Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and find the section called Search Shortcuts. Now click the Add button (ignore the fact that I already have NoAI DuckDuckGo added; it's fine)
Step 3: Add noai.duckduckgo.com as a search engine
The search engine name doesn't matter, but the URL is very important. You want to type, exactly: "https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?ia=web&q=%s" (excluding the quotation marks). Once you've entered that, click Save Engine.
Congrats! You've added a search engine to your web browser.
Step 4: Set your newly-added search engine to be your default. Scroll back up to the top of the page, click the drop down menu under Default Search Engine, and select your new NoAI DuckDuckGo engine.
Firefox saves settings automatically, so you've now successfully configured your browser to run all of your browser URL searchs in noai.duckduckgo.com without any additional effort on your part.
Version 2: Microsoft Edge
Step 1: Go to your search settings. Edge is annoying, so search settings are harder to get to. One way is via the meatballs menu at the top right:
clicking on Settings and then running a search in the browser settings for "search engine":
Click on the "Search engines" result and then into the settings menu itself to get to this screen:
which has all of your search engines listed.
Step 2: Click on the "Add search engine" button indicated in the image above and add noai.duckduckgo.com as a search engine:
Again, the search engine name doesn't matter. The shortcut needs to be "noai.duckduckgo.com" (excluding quotation marks) and the URL needs to be, exactly, "https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?ia=web&q=%s" (excluding the quotation marks). Once you've entered all of that information, click "Add."
Congrats! You've added a search engine to Edge.
Step 3: Set your newly-added search engine to be your default by clicking on the meatballs menu beside the search engine name and selecting "Make default":
You've now successfully configured your browser to run all of your browser URL searchs in noai.duckduckgo.com without any additional effort on your part.
I don't have an explicit step-by-step process for any other browsers, but this should give a pretty good idea of how to manage it if you're interested. The query URL is really the most important part, so if you've got that and you can find your browser search engine settings, you should be fine.
I don't need the chatgpt random algorithm to write emails for me because I already have a custom and 100% flawless algorithm called "writing the exact same three emails with the names changed"
#1: "hi [landlord], hope you're doing well! [apartment thing] is [broken/a problem]. we need it [fixed/replaced/handled] by [date]. let us know when you'll send someone over so we can be here to let them in. thanks so much, [op]"
#2: "hi [professor], hope you're doing well! unfortunately, I'm [sick/stuck at work/dead] and won't be able to submit [assignment] by [due date]. could I please have an extension? if not, is there anything else I could do to make up this credit? thanks so much, [op]"
#3: "hi [customer service person], hope you're doing well! unfortunately, [product] [didn't arrive/is broken/wrong color/gave me a rash/poisoned my crops] and I'd like to receive a [refund/replacement]. here is the documentation of the order and photos of [broken thing/wrong thing/my rash/dead crops]. thanks so much, [op]"
Writing an email is so easy and I will tell you how it's done. This is the advice is for everyone with an email job, but you can apply it to normal human interaction.
The FIRST SENTENCE is the thing you want the recipient to do. Do not make them guess.
I want to let you know about ... (This email is to inform someone of something not to ask them to do anything)
Could you please do ... (This is a request. You want them to do something).
I'm looking into x and wondering if you can help me (this is also a request but for information instead of an action).
People do not want to read an email and even if they do read it, most people are skimming and not interested. Tell them what you want first, then provide context or other information (when you need a thing is often key). If the email is informational, you can even add "you don't need to do anything, this is just to keep you informed!" People will appreciate not having to figure out what you want from them.
If you can't articulate what you want the recipient to do with the message, you are not ready to email them. I read too many emails where I have no idea what the person wants from me.
Put the most important thing first and everyone will be impressed! AI cannot do this for you because it can't tell what's important! Only you know that, which is why you must write your own emails.
to everyone who wants help with emails: go through the notes of this post. there are ideas I've never thought of and plenty of scripts for all kinds of situations/jobs
So this one time I was in a hospital recovering from an emergency surgery on my leg, and had to be there long enough that they had to change my bedding, so, doped up on three kinds of pain meds and antibiotics my dad wheels me into the hallway while the nurses work.
"dad" I say, my eyes barely open "it's Colonel Sanders" while pointing down the hallway. He looks, and at the end of the hallway, there's a portrait of an old man, the donor who paid for the wing of the hospital I'm recovering in.
My dad explains as much to me, and goes "I mean the guy *kinda* looks like him, but why would Colonel Sanders pay for a hospital wing Mississauga Ontario? I think those drugs might me messing with you"
Then the nurse comes out of the room. I go "hey, who is that picture of?"
She looks at the portrait. She looks at me. She looks at my dad. She looks at the painting. She looks at me again.
I had to look this up, and it's true! Colonel Sanders lived in Mississauga Ontario for some time with his second wife while expanding KFC into Canada, and he funded several hospitals up there. He was also a freemason. Huh, you learn something new every day!
every fleetwood mac documentary i've ever watched is like "the band was at the height of their success, enjoying the fame rolling in from their #1 hit 'i know about the other woman, lindsey'. however, nobody could have sensed the tension brewing between members."
"the group initially disbanded immediately after the release of the single 'well get the fuck out if you're going to be like that', leaving thousands of fans shocked."
Once each semester, Grit Matthias Phelps, a German language instructor at Cornell University, introduces her students to the raw feeling of
Not only did this experiment prevent plagiarism, it also taught her students to become better writers and thinkers.
"No screens, online dictionaries, spellcheckers, or delete keys."
Concerning the AI papers she kept receiving: “What’s the point of me reading it if it’s already correct anyway, and you didn’t write it yourself? Could you produce it without your computer?”
From one of her students,
“ 'While writing the essay, I had to talk a lot more, socialize a lot more, which I guess was normal back then...it’s drastically different from how we interact within the classroom in modern times. People are always on a laptop, always on the phone.' Without a delete key and the ability to correct every mistake, he paused to think more intentionally about his writing."
"Most students found their pinkies weren’t strong enough to touch-type, so they typed more slowly, pecking at the keyboard with their index fingers."
Another student said,
" 'This thing I handed in had pencil marks all over it and definitely did not look clean or finished. But it’s part of the process of learning that you’re going to make mistakes'..."
All this in a college level foreign language class. I cannot imagine attempting to pass a language class using AI and then expect to somehow magically speak it! Why pay buckets of money to be taught something and then refuse to actually learn it?
Whatever, I'm going back to hand writing my stories because relying on devices that keep breaking down on me is nuts.
Doing a final project in my stats class, we have to pick a subject and collect data on it. We need at least 100 data points, and I figured this blog is big enough that a poll on here could get to that pretty easily!
Doing my project on if it’s more likely to be born in certain months :]
I have gotten the OK from my teacher to collect data using a Tumblr poll, btw. I’m also going to have to send her this post as proof of where I got the data from / proof I didn’t just make up the numbers. So. Behave
jacobvanloon
gummygunk
titsay
izzy806
vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
