Meh

they/them born in '98 (it's like that so i don't gotta worry about updating it)

[mattpresents]

How do you know you're not Asexual? Maybe you just haven't met the right nobody.

[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

[salmonsammun]

I was in a draw-something mood, so I decided to draw some of my marine critter darlings! I may like to color anime stuff, but my personal style skews much too cartoony.

The fish is actually from a shitty little video game I made but no longer have the source files for.

[alxnxllix]

Reblog if you're grateful for your internet friends

[kaereth]

Commission for @bored3nby ;v; a follow up/sequal to another piece from 2020 (included the old on beneath the cut!)

[probablysomethingtm]

Lmao we have to fucking destroy this company are you fucking kidding me with this shit

Google Search as you know it is over | TechCrunch

Google is transforming Search from a list of links into an AI-powered experience filled with conversational answers, autonomous agents, and

[probablysomethingtm]

Remember that xkcd about how Google searches are shit now? What if we made them even worse for no reason?

[probablysomethingtm]

I will vote for any candidate who promises to go scorched fucking earth on every tech company. Break every single one of them up into companies based around a single product and then split those in thirds. Weaponize existing antitrust laws to the hilt and pass the most draconian versions of them ever seen on this planet. Nationalize google search specifically. Pass consumer privacy protections strict enough to kill the data harvesting industry for good. Make all of these fuckers go bankrupt for this rent-seeking shit

[probablysomethingtm]

[fromthemindofatwentyorotherlycan]

I can't even read the article about how tech is becoming more horrible because they want me to disable my adblocker

[what-even-is-thiss]

You shouldn’t date or become serious friends/partners with someone if you can’t stomach the thought of being stuck in a car or train with them for 16 hours.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Here’s my logic:

You should be able to work together to solve unexpected problems like fixing a flat tire or getting lost in an unfamiliar station

You should feel comfortable and safe enough around this person that you can sit in comfortable silence

You should be able to keep each other interested and deal with each others boredom in a healthy way

If you’re gonna form a long term partnership with someone you should probably be able to tolerate each other while locked in a small box for a few hours

[what-even-is-thiss]

These tags are hilarious even though I don’t think you intended them to be.

[rosesforwildwitches]

*pulls European closer* The most populous countries in the world are China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Brazil in that order, with these seven nations alone making up 48.16% of the world population. You may note with the aid of a map that many of these nations are quite large, and would take several days of travel to go across either in cars or on boats. Almost half of the world's population lives in places where you can travel in a cramped vehicle for days and still be within the country. Your worldview is limited and Europe is a tiny outlier in travel time and standards for international relations.

[creative-anchorage]

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

once my friend made a drink he called turpentine that tasted like every worst college night out rolled into one and felt like getting whacked in the head with a hammer, and I woke up in my own apartment with my phone wallet keys clothes and absolutely zero memory of the night before, and when I checked my watch I'd walked over 60k steps.

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

60k steps in the middle of the night in heels for reasons entirely unknown to me. what was I doing. where did I go. where did I come from. cotton eye joe. or whatever.

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

people are theorizing what happened so here's what I know:

the club we went to closed at 2am and 45kish steps were after 2am, meaning I wasn't still dancing at the club. we got there at 11:30pm. I don't know when we left.

none of us had any charges on our cards or venmos after getting into the club and none of us were missing cash

we all woke up with all our things and no injuries except some bruises (to be expected from a night out)

I woke up smelling like salt water which would make me think I'd ended up in the ocean(??) except my hair was still straight, none of my things were water damaged, and I was completely dry

from our camera rolls we know we were all together until around 4am, but not where we were because they're all too dark to see, which is fucking weird because we live in a city with tons of lights all night

I didn't wake my roommates up when coming home, managed to take out my contacts, cooked mac n cheese, and passed out on the living room floor

me and everyone else who'd been wearing heels had crazy blisters

my friend found a bunch of rocks in his pockets

two of my guy friends were wearing each other's shirts when they woke up (in their separate apartments)

we all got back to our apartments around 6am which we know for a fact because we all texted pictures of ourselves being home safe to the group chat, so being unbelievably hammered didn't stop us from having enough common sense to make sure we were all okay

if we'd been able to sherlock holmes together what happened it'd just be a funny night out but the fact we all have no fucking clue means we have conspiracy theories about it. and we don't let my friend make turpentine anymore.

[crazyneutral]

OP went dancing with the 12 dancing princesses pass it on

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

everyone go home this guy solved it

[trcunning]

@professorsparklepants

[rumismira]

What do you mean this isn’t canon? (12/?)

[kosmogrl]

[praple-art]

i have ghost boy brainrot

[kaereth]

This blog has been so inactive I need to post more! xD What would you guys want to see me draw more of? idk what anyone follows me for currently!

[bored3nby]

I've been binge watching My Hero Academia lately and I think your art style would do it lots of justice!

[josephbrassey]

“Haha remember when murder-hornets were gonna be a thing? What a nothingburger.”

Yes, because the Washington state government activated like a sleeper-cell and ruthlessly, systematically hunted them down and annihilated them.

“Y2K came to nothing amirite?”

Yes because an army of software engineers working around the clock, losing sleep, and busting ass till the last minute prevented it from happening.

“Remember the hole in the ozone layer?”

You mean the one that was fixed through rigorous world wide government action?

One of the root problems of our society is a refusal or inability by media to articulate that all those “it’s gonna be an apocalypse” disasters were not disasters because we collectively did something about them.

The good news is this is actually quite correctable. I maintain my firm belief that we as humans are capable of solving almost all of our problems, when we decide to do so.

And I still think that’s going to happen. I don’t know when or how, but I do know that abandoning hope won’t help bring it about.

And I refuse to let the cynics own a chunk of my heart.

[humming-fly]

you ever have just like, a really bad idea

anyways if you like bad things here’s a postcard

[humming-fly]

I was trying to figure out why this post starting spiking recently and then I found out you animals had this queued for Mother’s Day

[morallygrayautisticscientist]

Wrong Hordak activates my maternal/paternal instincts. I don’t know why. But I see him and I need to hold him and bring him food and teach him to ride a bike. It’s important.

[pixieuni]

welp the people have spoken! here's some more

[stage-props]

Hey so if you haven't heard about this you absolutely should give it a read because it's just as satisfying as you're hoping

[onionsandleeks]

CEO Asks ChatGPT How to Void $250 Million Contract, Ignores His Lawyers, Loses Terribly in Court

The CEO of Krafton used ChatGPT to push out the head of the studio developing Subnautica 2 against the advice of his own legal team and fail

[gummiegooie]

Unpaywalled text under the cut

A judge ordered the reinstatement of a video game developer after he was fired as part of a scheme cooked up by a CEO using ChatGPT. Facing the possibility of paying out a massive bonus to the developer of Subnautica2, the CEO of publisher Krafton used ChatGPT to create a plan to take over the development studio and force out its founder, according to court records.

The Monday ruling details the bizarre story. Unknown Worlds Entertainment is the studio behind the 2018 underwater survival game Subnautica. The company has since been working on the sequel, Subnautica 2. In 2021, South Korean publisher Krafton bought Unknown Worlds Entertainment for $500 million and promised to pay out another $250 million if Subnautica 2 sold well enough.

Krafton’s internal sales projections for Subnautica 2 looked great, and looked like it would be on the hook for the additional $250 million. In an attempt to avoid paying this, Krafton CEO Changhan Kim turned to ChatGPT for help avoiding paying the developers the $250 million bonus. “As Unknown Worlds prepared to release its hotly anticipated sequel, Subnautica 2, the parties’ relationship fractured,” the court decision said. “Fearing he had agreed to a ‘pushover’ contract, Krafton’s CEO consulted an artificial intelligence chatbot to contrive a corporate ‘takeover’ strategy.”

Kim partnered with Krafton Head of Corporate Development Maria Park and the company’s legal team to work out options. He toyed with finding a reason to fire the founders. According to court records, Park pinged Kim on Slack and told him that attempting to avoid paying the bonus would be legally risky. “Hi CEO . . . it seems to be highly likely that the earn-out will still be paid if the sales goal is achieved regardless of the dismissal with cause,” the Slack message said according to court records. “Therefore, there isn’t much that we can practically gain other than punishment with a simple dismissal alone, whereas I am worried that we may be exposed to lawsuit and reputation risk.”

But the CEO would not accept defeat. “And so Kim turned to ChatGPT for help,” court records said. “When the AI chatbot responded that the earnout would be ‘difficult to cancel,’ Kim complained to Park that the [payout] was a ‘contract under which we can only be dragged around.’”

Kim pressed the chatbot for an answer. “At ChatGPT’s suggestion, Kim formed an internal task force, dubbed ‘Project X.’ The task force’s mandate was to either negotiate a ‘deal’ on the earnout or execute a ‘Take Over’ of Unknown Worlds. They looked to buy time,” court records said. “Kim sought ChatGPT’s counsel on how to proceed if Krafton failed to reach a deal with Unknown Worlds on the earnout. The AI chatbot prepared a ‘Response Strategy’ to a ‘No-Deal’ Scenario.”

This was a piece of ChatGPT’s “Project X” for Krafton:

“a. Preemptive Framing - Repeat that protecting quality and fan trust is the highest priority, undermine the ‘Large Corporation VS. Indie’ framing b. Securing Control Points - * Lock down Steam/console publishing rights and access rights over code/build pipeline through both legal and technical aspects. * For the earn-out freeze, keep room for negotiations through provision stating ‘immediate removal if specific development results are achieved’ a. Systematic materials for legal defense - Prepare contract interpretation memorandums, log all communications, seek external consultation b. Team retention - Operation of retention packages for key personnel and rapid backfill pipelines in anticipation of resignation/departure scenarios c. Two handed strategy - Create a structure that allows for both hardball (Legal+ Finance) and softball (Support/Incentives) approaches so moderate factions within Unknown Worlds can push for compromise.”

Kim followed ChatGPT’s advice rather than his lawyers’ advice, according to the court records. The first step was posting a message on Subanutica’s website to get fans on his side. According to court documents, Kim said the goal of the message was to “secure public support from fans and legal validation of our legitimacy.” He then suggested that ChatGPT write it for him. It achieved the opposite of his intended goal. Fans found the message bizarre and worried about the future of the game. Those fears were compounded when Kim fired the game’s original creators and entered into a legal battle with them.

The legal battle is ongoing, but Kim looks set to lose. The judge has ordered he reinstate the fired developers and has exposed the CEO’s flailing use of ChatGPT. Krafton told Kotaku that it was “evaluating its options” regarding the ruling and that it “puts players at the heart of every decision

[yuzupool]