CRIPPLING DEPRESSION

Deleted account by mistake. Here's my new one! :D

[lesbiansforboromir]

You actually cannot skip to being good at a creative endeavour that you haven't put much practice into. You cannot trick your way out of the 'knows that your work is not what you want it to be but don't know how to improve it' stage by planning or reading or talking about it really really hard. At some point you just have to craft through it until your brain finds it's own unique way back to the 'everything I make slaps' stage and be prepared to start the cycle all over again. You just have to make that project you're excited about slightly less good than you want it to be. (Says this standing in a pool of blood and covered in blood and also coughing up a little blood)

[lesbiansforboromir]

everyone stop reblogging this I hate to be reminded of my own good advice

[aromantic-journal]

"everyone should get more aromantic" can appeal to tumblr's sensibilities but I genuinely think everyone should also get more asexual. I don't mean everyone stop having sex, what I mean is

Sex is not essential. You can live without it. Full stop.

Not having sex isn't shameful or a sign of failure. It also doesn't make anyone boring.

You are not entitled to having sex with anybody and nobody is entitled to having sex with you.

Sex is not what makes someone an adult.

Nobody's worth is defined by how much sex they have or don't have.

Sex is not equally important to everyone.

You can have fulfilling and happy relationships without sex.

You should only have sex on your own terms, not because you feel like you owe it to someone, or because you feel like you'd be incomplete without it.

Know your boundaries around sex and be firm about them. Know how to respect other people's boundaries.

The previous point also applies when it comes to discussing sex. If someone doesn't wanna talk about it or hear about it you have to back down.

Anything can be sexual but not everything has to be sexual.

[kawuli]

random PSA, I know a lot of people use duckduckgo as a Google alternative search engine, but it always kind of annoyed me when I was using it because it felt like No Name Brand Google

I have switched to using Startpage.com and vastly prefer it. for one thing, instead of displaying an "AI summary" at the top of the search results (unless you turn it off, yes I know), it displays the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, with link, whenever it finds one that's relevant.

also a waaayyyyy better sense of design than duckduckgo

also private, European based, least annoying search I've used lately (RIP old "don't be evil" Google)

[yomikoreadsbooks]

Keeping a list of Google alternatives just in case…

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

i have one of those, scraped from multiple different rec posts:

Search Engines

Infinity Search is an alternative search engine with a special focus on privacy

DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for those who value their privacy and are put off by the thought of their every query being tracked and logged. Uses bangs, ![site] for in-page search (sells your data to microsoft and draws from fucking bing)

WolframAlpha is a privately owned search engine that allows you to “compute expert-level answers using Wolfram’s breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase, and AI technology.” A data search engine.

Boardreader is a search engine for forums and message boards. It allows you to search forums and then filter down results by date and language.

Based in France, Qwant is a privacy-based search engine that won’t record your searches or use your personal details for advertising. Uses “&” as a bang search.

Another privacy-based search engine is Search Encrypt, which uses local encryption to ensure that users’ identifiable information cannot be tracked. Metasearch across multiple engines. 

Offering unbiased results from several sources, SearX is a metasearch engine that aims to present a free, decentralized view of the internet. Can be self-hosted. 

Gibiru’s tagline is “Unfiltered private search” and that’s exactly what it offers. Requires AnonymoX Firefox add-on for privacy. 

Disconnect allows you to conduct anonymous searches through a search engine of your choice.

Swisscows provides fully encrypted searches to protect your privacy and security. Built-in violence/porn filter cannot be overridden. 

MetaGer offers “Privacy Protected Search & Find” through its anonymised search. A plugin will allow it to be made a default.

Gigablast is a private search engine that indexes millions of websites and servers real-time information without tracking your data, keeping you hidden from marketers and spammers. Variety of filtration and refinement options for searching. 

Oscobo is a search engine that protects your privacy while you search the web. By not using any third-party tools or scripts, your data is protected from hacking and misuse. Has a Chrome extension to allow use in toolbar. 

https://search.marginalia.nu/ an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. Use old-school searching rather than query-based for the best results. 

https://www.mojeek.com/ 

https://wiby.me/ - It’s goal is to index as many personalized websites as possible, and NOT commercial sites. 

https://4get.ca/ it works a lot like SearX, but honestly better. It doesn’t have its own index, but pulls from many others. I think it’s the best for research, since it allows you to search for answers from different indexes, is easy to configure, add free, and avoids censorship as much as it can.

https://www.searchenginemap.com/ for more on how search engines relate to each other.

https://yep.com/ is a crawler

https://www.etools.ch/ retrieves from Google, Mojeek, Bing, and Yandex, like Searx

https://www.dogpile.com/ 

https://searxng.org/ (next gen Searx)

https://luxxle.com/ - possibly conservative?

https://presearch.com/ - good for academic?

https://kagi.com/smallweb - free/randomised Kagi.

Other Searchers

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.https://cosine.club/ is an electronic music similarity search engine

[000l]

[shrewreadings]

like to charge, reblog to cast.

[musubiarte]

The other day I was surfing the internet and I found this specialized painting colour wheel, it shows how real paint colours relate to each other. 

Outside: the purest/brightest colours.

Inside: naturally muted or earthy colors, like browns and ochres.

The Center: dark neutral tones used for mixing shadows.

The Lines: the lines connect colors that are opposites, if you mix them you neutralize the tone creating clean grays or browns instead of muddy puddles.

I want to share this with you because I think it is really illustrative!

Reference: “Quiller Wheel” by Stephen Quiller

[licenseddoctor]

Hey kid you want a job?

Great get online and go to a job board. Indeed, Linkedin whatever. Now you're gonna search for a role that's in your city, fits your qualifications, and doesn't seem like a bad time.

See that easy apply button? Don't hit it they just throw those in the trash. Now you're gonna want to go to the company's website and check their careers page.

Oh? That job doesn't exist anymore. Cool go back to the job board and find another one.

Great you found another job, you're on the company's career page and the job exists!! So you're going to need to make an account on the career page website. They're using Workday, the same site as the last job you applied for? Who cares? You need to make another account for THIS job's workday page.

Now you're going to upload your resume. That'll autopopulate about 15 boxes with everything on your resume, except formatted wrong and with tons of errors. So just go through and painstakingly check the dates on all of that and rewrite everything you already laid out in an aesthetically pleasing format on your resume.

Ok time for the cover letter, explain why this specific job and company are deeply important to you. You love their mission statement and wouldn't even laugh if their ceo was gunned down in the street. You'll really want to reiterate the things you just spent the last 20 minutes filling out on the resume section

(Remember to include language from the job description, people who work in HR are lower than dogs and they need patterns or they get confused.) Write about a page, but hey don't sound too desperate or robotic this is where they judge your character!

Maybe add your portfolio site at the end here, who knows if that helps no one has ever clicked mine haha.

Anywayyy time to hit apply! Congrats! You'll see that confirmation email come in and you should be getting the rejection letter in about 2 weeks. Unfortunately your resume didn't have the right buzzwords and the AI auto rejected you :(

Time to start again and try not to kill yourself!

[your-werewolf-boyfriend]

Listen to me

Listen very closely

The above is exactly why half of my friends come to me, and cry they're suffering, and I get to bestow my job hunting knowledge on them. I love this shit, it's a game.

For credentials my fastest job hunting time has been 1 week. I searched for 1 week, got an interview, and was hired within a week. My slowest was 1 month, while out of work, while telling ALL my interviewers that I quit my work without notice (I was testing my interviewers to see how shocked they'd get when I'd tell them why, anyone who wasn't shocked I would tell them at the end that I will keep them in mind (not)). My entire average is 2-3 weeks.

Firstly, what you're gunna do is pick a job sector. You're gunna pick a few of these by the end, but for now pick one. Maybe you wanna do bookkeeping, maybe you wanna do something in doggy daycare. Maybe you're a sous chef. Idk! Figure out what abouts you want first. Do not apply to anything yet. You're gunna look at the job description, I've picked out a few for bookkeepers below.

Now what you're gunna do is you're gunna look for "buzz words", or rather words that are gunna appear commonly and indicate the tone for that job. I've highlighted some, but not all in my examples below

Just look at that snout at how similar those descriptions are!

Now that you've got your buzzwords, you're gunna slap those babies into your resume! You see, since your resume is usually read by a computer first, you're gunna trick the computer into giving it to a person. Really what the computer is scanning for is how similar your resume is to the job description. Remember your bullet points, and to keep it short, try to only have 3 to 5 bullet points per job:

- Processed over 500 invoices a day in an efficient and accurate manner

- Curated reports for management review by utilizing available data

- Monitored and recorded over 100 submissions each day increasing accuracy by 50%

These are some great, made up examples I pulled from those buzz words. You might notice I added some numbers into there. That's something you'll wanna try and note for yourself, how much of something you can do, how accurate, how much efficiency you increased, these look GREAT when your resume gets past the computer and is moved in front of a real person.

Now you have your sector-based resume with lots of buzzwords. This is great! Now for the easy part. You're gunna channel your inner "IDGAF" And you're gunna send that to every listing you like on indeed. Filter for "Apply on Indeed" and spam that shit. Sometimes you gotta answer a few extra questions, but if they give me more than 5 quick questions I trash the submission and move on.

Don't waste your time jumping through hoops, streamline it for yourself and use the same methods companies are using. Push MASSIVE amounts of average quality resumes out. The more opportunities taken = the greater the chance of success. For every opportunity taken you've now pitched a chance of success, for every resume you cannot submit because you're piddling around on their stupid website or answering 50 interview questions online, you send out a 0% chance of success.

So go, try this, and see how it works for you.

Some additional things to consider:

- Add random shit in your resume, I added my "Board Game Club" (BDSM group) into my resume for hobbies and discussed how I got my start using sparklines there

- Never underestimate the flair of a little Clipart fleur-de-lis or something on your resume. Never put colored Clipart, but a little floral or swirl design located somewhere nice makes it stand out

- if you don't have a degree that doesn't mean they won't pick you, twice now I've come to a job without a bachelors and being honest that I was only getting an associates before I think of my next steps

- Embellish, do not lie. Jargoning your job description to make it sound cool and professional is GREAT. Do not give me a resume saying you can use CNC machinery when you've only used a 3D printer. Just tell me you know how to program and manage a 3d printer and want to learn CNC machinery.

- Keep. Your. Resume. To. Two. Or. Less. Pages. You don't need EVERY job, only the relevant ones, if your interviewer asks about the gap, tell them what job you had during that time (or if you wanna lie say you were taking college courses and were on a break, you dont need a degree to say you took courses) and that you only wanted to showcase the most relevant ones

- I'm serious on that last one I'll eat your fucking resume

[oceanabylonianshell-deactivated]

Reblog for a miracle to happen tonight

[gemike]

[creativepromptsforwriting]

the vibiest masterposts

the most romantic masterpost (over 100 prompt lists + advice)

the fluffiest masterpost (over 20 prompt lists)

the most hurt/comfort masterpost (over 10 prompt lists)

the angstiest masterpost (over 40 prompt lists)

the angriest masterpost (over 5 prompt lists + advice)

the happiest masterpost (over 5 prompt lists + advice)

If you like my blog and want to support me, you can buy me a coffee or become a member! 🥰

[callese]

refseek.com

www.worldcat.org/

link.springer.com

http://bioline.org.br/

repec.org

science.gov

pdfdrive.com

[growing-yet-into-magic]

Worldcat is my bestie and my one true love!! Not only does it tell you what library a book is at, but it also price compares different used book sites against each other for easy view! It's how I got Tarot For the Master for $10!!

[growing-yet-into-magic]

Oh, and since I have your attention: z-library (books and textbooks) and sci-hub (gatekept scientific journal articles.) I just ripped a textbook for class off z-library and snatched a required reading from sci-hub. Life is good and education should be accessible at every stage and station of life.

[mckitterick]

information wants to be free

[seedingsolarpunk]

Anna's Archive is an open source mirror library

The world’s largest open-source open-data library. Mirrors Sci-Hub, Library Genesis, Z-Library, and more.

[torstherapy]

[tinsnip]

Per @spoonstrek

[wheeloffortune-design]

When I was 15 I was very negative. Of course I was, I was 15.

But I noticed I was negative. And I didn't like it. I didn't like the way it felt inside to be me, and to live like me, with all those negative thoughts all the time.

I had read somewhere that you could train yourself to be happier. That you needed to force yourself to think positive thoughts, until it became a habit.

I remember those few months of high school where I used to catch myself mentally complaining about something, and then forcing myself to find something positive to think about the person or situation. Again, and again, and again.

And it worked.

It became easier. And I became lighter. It was just nicer to be me, to live my life, to navigate through my days. I still remember the moment I noticed my life had become brighter.

And decades later, it still works. The muscle is still there. Now I know the word is neuroplasticity.

But at the time, it was just a 15 years old girl who was tired to be in the dark all the time, so she made light in her own brain.

[lilithsaintcrow]

"This week I discovered the same pattern, executed by Google. Google Chrome is reaching into users' machines and writing a 4 GB on-device AI model file to disk without asking."

Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. — Th

Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise t

[spockvarietyhour]

Google Chrome Secretly Downloads Huge Local AI Models

Google Chrome automatically installs local neural network components on user systems via default configurations. The browser downloads a 4GB

Procedures for disabling it

[pirateprincessjess]

Google Chrome has been installing an AI model on users devices without their consent.

[pirateprincessjess]

Since that file path is only on the screen for a second, the ai is located in

C:\Users\<YourUsername>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\OptGuideOnDeviceModel\weights.bin

[writtenoffantihero]

Google will block sideloading of unverified Android apps starting next year

Google says it’s no different than checking IDs at the airport.

This is just another form of censorship, control of what we can/can't see and engage with, and another means of getting our private information.

[monarchofmonsters]

Alternative forks of AOSP (Android Open-Source Project) which are not maintained by Google and will not be affected by this:

LineageOS (I use this one)

Graphene OS

Functionally they are virtually identical to stock Android. Android began as an open-source project, and these versions are built off of that.

Fuck Google.

[mordcore]

[amiibo-king]

for those like me who cannot install alternative android forks on their phone because the phone in question is thoroughly unrootable, I would recommend downloading anyapk on your phone while you still can. In their own words:

anyapk is a lightweight Android application installer that bypasses Google's developer verification requirements by using local ADB (Android Debug Bridge) connections. Smoothly install any APK file on your device without restrictions, gatekeepers, or corporate approval.

If you're reading this after Google's lockdown date and are unable to install anyapk the regular way, there is a method outlined on the github linked above which tells you how to install anyapk on your phone by plugging it into a computer with ADB installed on it. Once you have anyapk on your phone, you will not have to do that ever again (unless you delete anyapk off your phone)

[aromanticbastards]

[Description for the first image:

a tweet by @/Pirat_Nation:

From September 2026, all apps, including those outside the Play Store, must come from verified developers.

No more anonymous sideloads. No quick comebacks for malware gangs.

First: Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand.

end description]

[chromalogue]

[Description for the second image: a post from jrepin that reads:

"Sideloading" is the rentseeker word for "being able to run software of your choosing on a computing device you purchased". There is no reasonable case for an operating system developer having a say over what programs you run on your hardware.

--Eugen Rochko of Mastodon https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/115093185284473606]

[bump-of-whump]

Ref Recs for Whump Writers

Violence: A Writer’s Guide:  This is not about writing technique. It is an introduction to the world of violence. To the parts that people don’t understand. The parts that books and movies get wrong. Not just the mechanics, but how people who live in a violent world think and feel about what they do and what they see done.

Hurting Your Characters: HURTING YOUR CHARACTERS discusses the immediate effect of trauma on the body, its physiologic response, including the types of nerve fibers and the sensations they convey, and how injuries feel to the character. This book also presents a simplified overview of the expected recovery times for the injuries discussed in young, otherwise healthy individuals.

Body Trauma: A writer’s guide to wounds and injuries. Body Trauma explains what happens to body organs and bones maimed by accident or intent and the small window of opportunity for emergency treatment. Research what happens in a hospital operating room and the personnel who initiate treatment. Use these facts to bring added realism to your stories and novels.

10 B.S. Medical Tropes that Need to Die TODAY…and What to Do Instead: Written by a paramedic and writer with a decade of experience, 10 BS Medical Tropes covers exactly that: clichéd and inaccurate tropes that not only ruin books, they have the potential to hurt real people in the real world. 

Maim Your Characters: How Injuries Work in Fiction: Increase Realism. Raise the Stakes. Tell Better Stories. Maim Your Characters is the definitive guide to using wounds and injuries to their greatest effect in your story. Learn not only the six critical parts of an injury plot, but more importantly, how to make sure that the injury you’re inflicting matters. 

Blood on the Page: This handy resource is a must-have guide for writers whose characters live on the edge of danger. If you like easy-to-follow tools, expert opinions from someone with firsthand knowledge, and you don’t mind a bit of fictional bodily harm, then you’ll love Samantha Keel’s invaluable handbook

[the-big-mood]

This is getting ridiculous

[beast-keeping-tendencies]

I’VE DEALT WITH THIS BULLSHIT BEFORE

Okay so the thing is the “Gmail” storage is actually ALL of your google storage (gmail, drive, photos, etc).

And the only way to view what’s taking up your storage is by going into “Google One”, which you can find by clicking on the “Google apps” menu and clicking Google One (or just look it up on google and click it there)

(Not logged in on my phone so it isn’t showing up in the apps but you get the idea).

Once you’re in Google One just click “Storage” and you’ll see what’s taking up the most space and then you can go into that app and clean up what you don’t need.

Also don’t be fooled, you don’t have to spend any money to see your storage, but google sure as hell wants you to buy more storage instead of cleaning it up yourself.

(The fact that you can only see your storage in the app that’s used to buy more storage is bullshit in it’s own right.)

[mikkeneko]

PSA to fan creators who don't have a lot of regular contact with children: They are almost always bigger than you think. A 1-year-old baby may already be walking. A toddler is likely already hip-high. A 10-year-old may already be taller than at least one of their parents. A 14/15 year old may already have reached their adult height.

[amarguerite]

Via @watertightvines

[wildjuniperjones]

Here's the link. It was actually not immediately easy to find, so I thought this might help.

[directactionforhope]

The fact that physical therapy is not a frontline treatment for chronic pain is a searing indictment of the global medical field.

[directactionforhope]

Seriously. If you have chronic pain, limits on how much you can walk/move, or both go see a physical therapist.

I have had physical therapy ELIMINATE the following medical and pain problems, solely or in large part:

Lower back pain so severe I could at first not even walk to the bathroom (sciatic)

Foot pain whenever I walked (plantar fasciitis)

Three years of a fucked up ankle that was at times seriously impacting me

Pain when typing (carpal tunnel), at least twice

Widespread nerve damage that caused massive chronic pain and left me housebound for two years

The physical pain/fatigue/other results caused by having to recover from that kind level of pain and inactivity (cough being housebound) for so long

I try not to talk too much about my health on here, for a variety of reasons, but I am being newly reminded of how much basically every single person with chronic pain should be referred to physical therapy imho

If literally nothing else, because being in that much pain for that long causes a lot of inflammation and makes your body get stuck bracing and moving in ways that ALSO cause chronic pain, so that has to be addressed too.

If you don't have access to physical therapy, there are some really good resources, exercises, and videos online that can at least get you started (but be cautious if you can't get assessed in person), but I'm not qualified to vet or recommend any of those.

But if any of this sounds like it might help you, and you can go to physical therapy, please go to physical therapy.

It has been life-changing for me and has (in conjunction with other things) given me huge portions of my quality of life back.

[lastoneout]

I will say, if you have EDS, POTs, or Long Covid and/or ME/CFS, please for the love of god make sure your physical therapist is actually trained to help people with those conditions. I've only had one who really was equipped to help with my issues and every single other therapist ended up making me worse in the long run because they had no idea how to effectively treat me.

Physical Therapy is good and helpful, but make sure the person you're seeing knows what they're doing re: your conditions, and while feeling a little worse in the short term is normal, if it genuinely is making you worse stop going and find someone else.

[jackironsides]

I have fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. I have just been seeing a physiotherapist for the last six months who is actually trained in pain science, and it's made an astounding difference. I've been seeing physios since I was a literal child due to my hypermobility (my mum was a physio, so when I had issues she knew where to take me), but the change between the care I used to get and the care I can get now that pain science has progressed is night and day.

However, if your physio subscribes to GET (Graded Exercise Therapy) and you have ME/CFS, find another physio. GET is deeply flawed and based on junk science, and is much more likely to cause lasting harm than help you.