The Soulshard

Welcome to the Pub.

[thezombiegeekinthehawaiianshirt]

[mariekanker]

visual gags that are well made and smart

[bogleech]

Maybe this is a bold statement and this wasn't even one of my favorite cartoons back then but there's honestly been very little television animation as alive and involved as Ed Edd and Eddie either before or since. John K's era of Ren & Stimpy still gets upheld by some of animation fandom as the most cartoonest cartoon ever cartooned but it's like stiff yogi bear tier animation when compared to any single minute of Eds.

[ropnolcart]

Ed Edd n Eddie's slapstick and visual gags are god tier and they're only further enhanced by quite possibly the most unique sound design out of any cartoon, so much so that it's been made a meme in recent years.

While Ren and Stimpy was being incredibly by the books with its sound effects, Ed Edd n Eddy was adding stock burp sound effects to impacts or yodeling for offscreen characters moments before they crash into shot. It's incredibly surreal even to this day and nothing has ever quite come to match it!

[krudman]

It's crazy how many Ren and Stimpy imitators there were after that show came out. There were lots of what you could call "Spongebob adjacent" shows too, and you can still see the influence of Ren and Stimpy there. Nothing for the Eds though, and I imagine that's just because it would be a herculean task.

The closest thing I've ever seen to how creative Ed, Edd, and Eddy gets with their physical humor is probably just Uncle Grandpa, which, as off the wall as this clip is, Uncle Grandpa is more absurdist and nonsensical. I do love that, but I find this to be so much more clever.

It does this stuff so naturally, but writing it alone had to require so much effort and confidence (I can imagine one of the storyboard artists reading this and going 'what? we were just goofing off lol'), and then they had to animate it on top of that. So many of these gags are an equal mixture "Oh my god I would've killed to animate that" and "animating this would have been hell". I really don't know when we'll see another show like this.

[unprettyextra]

What the heck is "&udm=14"? A new search engine strips AI junk from Google results

It's the work of Ernie Smith, who describes &udm=14 as the "disenshittification Konami code" for Google.

[unpretty]

here’s a direct link to the site:

A quick way to get an AI-free search without any extra work.

here’s his explanation of how it works and ways you can change your browser settings to make the default google search be text only:

How I Made Google’s “Web” View My Default Search

Forget AI. Google just created a version of its search engine free of the extra junk it has added over the past decade-plus. You just need o

[pyloncreature]

Couldn’t figure out how to apply those to firefox android so this is how I did it, so far seems to work out

[donjuaninhell]

So You've Finally Switched to Firefox: a Brief Guide to a Some Very Useful Add-Ons.

This post is inspired by two things, the first being the announcement by Google that the long delayed Manifest V3 which will kill robust adblocking will finally roll out in June 2024, and the second, a post written by @sexhaver in response to a question as to what adblockers and extensions they use. It's a very good post with some A+ information, worth checking out.

I love Firefox, I love the degree of customization it offers me as a user. I love how it just works. I love the built in security features like DNS over HTTPS, and I love just how many excellent add-ons are available. It is a better browser than Chrome in every respect, and of the many Chromium based browsers out there, only Vivaldi comes close.

There are probably many people out there who are considering switching over to Firefox but are maybe putting it off because they've got Chrome set up the way they like it with the extensions they want, and doing all that again for Firefox seems like a chore. The Firefox Add-on directory is less expansive than the Chrome Web Store (which in recent years has become overrun with garbage extensions that range from useless to active malware), but there is still a lot of stuff to sift through. That's where this short guide comes in.

I'm presently running 33 add-ons for Firefox and have a number of others installed but disabled. I've used many others. These are my picks, the ones that I consider essential, useful, or in some cases just fun.

Adblocking/Privacy/Security:

uBlock Origin: The single best adblocker available. If you're a power user there are custom lists and scripts you can find to augment it.

Privacy Badger: Not strictly necessary if you're also running uBlock, but it does catch a few trackers uBlock doesn't and replaces potentially useful trackers like comment boxes with click-to-activate placeholders.

Decentraleyes: A supplementary tool meant to run alongside uBlock, prevents certain sites from breaking when tracker requests are denied by serving local bundled files as replacement.

NoScript: The nuclear option for blocking trackers, ads, and even individual elements. Operates from a "trust no one" standpoint, you will need to manually enable elements yourself. Not recommended for casual users, but a fantastic tool for the power user.

Webmail Ad Blocker: The first of many webmail related add-ons from Jason Saward I will be recommending. Removes all advertising from webmail services like Gmail or Yahoo Mail.

Popup Blocker (Strict): Strictly blocks ALL pop up/new tab/new window requests from all website by default unless you manually allow it.

SponsorBlock: Not a fan of listening to your favourite YouTuber read advertisements for shitty products like Raycons or BetterHelp? This skips them automatically.

AdNauseam: I don't use this one but some people prefer it. Rather than straight up blocking ads and trackers, it obfuscates data by injecting noise into the tracker surveillance infrastructure. It clicks EVERY ad, making your data profile incomprehensible.

User-Agent Switcher: Allows you to spoof websites attempting to gather information by altering your browser profile. Want to browse mobile sites on desktop? This allows you to do it.

Bitwarden: Bitwarden has been my choice of password manager since LastPass sold out and made their free tier useless. If you're not using a password manager, why not? All of my passwords look like this: $NHhaduC*q3VhuhD&scICLKjvM4rZK5^c7ID%q5HVJ3@gny I don't know a single one of them and I use a passphrase as a master password supplemented by two-factor-authentication. Everything is filled in automatically. It is the only way to live.

Proton Pass: An open source free password manager from the creators of Proton Mail. I've been considering moving over to it from Bitwarden myself.

Webmail/Google Drive:

Checker Plus for Gmail: Provides desktop notifications for Gmail accounts, supports managing multiple accounts, allows you to check your mail, read, mark as read or delete e-mails at a glance in a pop-up window. An absolutely fabulous add-on from Jason Saward.

Checker Plus for Google Drive: Does for your Google Drive what Checker Plus for Gmail does for your Gmail.

Checker Plus for Google Calendar: The same as the above two only this time for your Google Calendar.

Firefox Relay: An add-on that allows you to generate aliases that forward to your real e-mail address.

Accessibility:

Dark Reader: Gives every page on the internet a customizable Dark Mode for easier reading and eye protection.

Read Aloud: A text to speech add-on that reads pages with the press of a button.

Zoom Page WE: Provides the ability to zoom in on pages in multiple ways: text zoom, full page zoom, auto-fit etc.

Mobile Dyslexic: Not one I use, but I know people who swear by it. Replaces all fonts with a dyslexia friendly type face.

Utility:

ClearURLs: Automatically removes tracking data from URLs.

History Cleaner: Automatically deletes browser history older than a set number of days.

Feedbro RSS Feed Reader: A full standalone reader in your browser, take control of your feed and start using RSS feeds again.

Video Download Helper: A great tool for downloading video files from websites.

Snap Link Plus: Fan of Wikipedia binge holes? Snap Link allows to drag select multiple hyperlink and automatically open all of them in new tabs.

Copy PlainText: Copy any text without formatting.

EPUBReader: Read .epub files from within a browser window.

Tab Stash: A no mess, no fuss way to organize groups of tabs as bookmarks. I use it as a temporary bookmark tool, saving sessions or groups of tabs into "to read" folders.

Tampermonkey/Violentmonkey: Managers for installing and running custom user scripts. Find user scripts on OpenUserJS or Greasy Fork, there's an entire galaxy out there of ingenious and weird custom user scripts out there, go discover it.

Browsing & Searching:

Speed Dial 2: A new tab add-on that gives you easy access to your favourite sites.

Unpaywall: Whenever you come across a scholarly article behind a paywall, this add-on will search through all the free databases for an accessible and non-paywalled version of the text.

Web Archives: Come across a dead page? This add-on gives you a quick way to search for cached versions of the page on the Wayback Machine, Google Cache, Archive.is and others.

Bypass Paywalls: Automatically bypasses the paywalls of major websites like those for the New York Times, New Yorker, the Financial Times, Wired, etc.

Simple Translate: Simple one-click translation of web pages powered by Google Translate.

Search by Image: Reverse search any image via several different search engines: Google Image, TinEye, Yandex, Bing, etc.

Website Specific:

PocketTube: Do you subscribe to too many YouTube channels? Would you like a way to organize them? This is your answer.

Enhancer for Youtube: Provides a suite of options that make using YouTube more pleasant: volume boost, theatre mode, forced quality settings, playback speed and mouse wheel volume control.

Augmented Steam: Improves the experience of using Steam in a browser, see price histories of games, take notes on your wishlist, make wish listed games and new DLC for games you own appear more visible, etc.

Return YouTube Dislikes: Does exactly what it says on the package.

BlueBlocker: Hate seeing the absolute dimmest individuals on the planet have their replies catapulted to the top of the feed because they're desperate to suck off daddy Elon sloppy style? This is for you, it automatically blocks all Blue Checks on Twitter. I've used it to block a cumulative 34,000 Blue Checks.

Batchcamp: Allows for batch downloading on Bandcamp.

XKit Rewritten: If you're on Tumblr and you're not using whichever version of XKit is currently available, I honestly don't know what to say to you. This newest version isn't as fully featured as the old XKit of the golden age, but it's been rewritten from the ground up for speed and utility.

Social Fixer for Facebook: I once accidentally visited Facebook without this add-on enabled and was immediately greeted by the worst, mind annihilating content slop I had ever had the misfortune to come across. Videos titled "he wanted her to get lip fillers and she said no so he had bees sting her lips", and AI photos of broccoli Jesus with 6000 comments all saying "wow". Once I turned it on it was just stuff my dad had posted and updates from the Radio War Nerd group.

BetterTTV: Makes Twitch slightly more bearable.

Well I think that's everything. You don't have to install everything here, or even half of it, but there you go, it's a start.

[donjuaninhell]

Addendum!

I forgot to add, Firefox has skins and themes! And many of them are good! And of the many small creators making themes and skins for Firefox, my favourite is MaDonna an 85 year old great grandmother who's just making browser skins for fun. She's made thousands of them. I'm using one of her creations at this very moment, Dark Polygon.

[animentality]

[atlantahammy]

Pssst if you have ublock: https://github.com/laylavish/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

we're so back

[lilithtransrights]

No way companies will go back to actually letting you own anything

[magz]

The image is the article headline of this PC Gamer article:

Researchers have developed a Very Big Disc™ that can store up to 200 terabytes of data and may represent a return to optical media for long

You can't keep a good disk down, it seems.

Article Date: February 23, 2024.

Article excerpt:

Essentially, the process involves stacking hundreds of data-recording layers a mere one micrometer apart, all while keeping the overall thickness of the disc the same as a traditional DVD or Blu-ray.

This much denser physical storage format makes use of 100 layers, which is said to result in a maximum data capacity of 1.6 petabits, or roughly 200 terabytes of storage. That's a gigantic leap over even the most advanced quad-layer Blu-ray disks, that currently top out at around 128 GB of data.

It should come as no surprise that this solution is primarily being developed for enterprise storage. The researchers hope to reduce the space needed for a high-capacity data centre down from a gigantic facility to a single room by switching over to an optical storage solution, which would not only make the centres themselves cheaper to build but also cut down on the associated heat and energy issues that data facilities can currently struggle with.

So it's for making data centers more practical, without overusing space and energy so much!

The article also mentions that the Big Disks, can potentially last 50 to 100 years, vs Hard Drives generally lasting 10 years. So it could be more sustainable and less wasteful.

Consumer-grade Big Disks could be possible once it is more developed, but there would have to be an affordable advanced disk reader made compatible with them since the data is so densely packed.

-

In the meanwhile, there's a whole world out there...

of physical media with existing CDs and Hard Drives;

ripping / re-encoding / burning on physical media with apps like "HandBrake" and "DVDstyler";

and backing them up. Along with other physical media lovers, non-drm enthusiasts, and digital hoarders.

As is your right to.

[mewvore]

"media illiteracy" covers a lot of things, but I think the one aspect of it that annoys me the most is when art is approached with the assumption that every creators' objective is to immerse you/make things feel "real" and as true to life as they can, and then failing to do so means its bad. Things like style, substance, and direction being subversive to reality are cast as some incidental quirks, flaws that couldn't be ironed out in the ambitious pursuit of copying reality

[the-future-now-deactivated20170]

That’s Louis Rossman, a repair technician and YouTuber, who went viral recently for railing against Apple. Apple purposely charges a lot for repairs and you either have to pay up or buy a new device. That’s because Apple withholds necessary tools and information from outside repair shops. And to think, we were just so close to change.

Follow @the-future-now

[dopeluminarydreamer-blog]

Reblog if you:

Have an iPhone and are in need of repairs

Have a friend with that problem

Hate Apple and are more than happy to spite them in some way

No one will know which is it

[weaselle]

This guy inspired me to repair my own macbook. First of all, you should know that I am not… like, I have to look up HOW to look up what my computer specifications are. Tech, that ware either soft or hard, is not a subject in which I experience comfort or competence. But my puppy peed on my keyboard, and I asked the apple store, or the fucking mac cafe, or the godsdamn Computer House Chill Zone or whatever cute ass name they have for their bullshit store, and they said it would be TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS TO REPLACE MY KEYBOARD. I’m not even exaggerating.

So I asked the internet, well how hard IS it to repair? And I saw this guy’s video, and while I am no techie, I AM fueled by spite, so I was all “oh, they do that shit on purpose specifically so they can charge me $1200 bucks or make me buy a new computer hunh? FUCK THEM” and I bought all the tools I needed for about $25 and I bought all the parts I needed for about another $25 and I watched a few tutorial videos, and I replaced my own keyboard.

So, once you are doing the actual deed, it becomes pretty obvious that they are finding creative ways to make this much harder than it has to be on purpose. On thing that stood out to me is, instead of all the tiny screws being the same size, there are about two dozen very slightly different sizes. They could easily be all the same size, or like, two sizes at most, but no.

These mother fuckers will take a panel that screws into place and they’ll use a different size screw for each corner. They are so close that you almost cannot tell them apart visually, but they each will only screw into the matching corner. Like, it’s a pretty clear “fuck you” to anyone trying to do repairs.

anyway, this guy is also fueled by spite, and doing holy work, and I have mad respect

[dragonfox-in-a-teacup]

This is awesome. Man is doing good ass deeds 24/7 because he’s giving people control.

[dantes-infernal-chili]

How dare you not leave a link to his channel, this guy is the savior of the modern world.

[krudman]

YOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

(U.S. only. posted Jan 29th; ends Jan 31st night)

[finder-plus]

[northerlygale-deactivated202307]

[throwitonthepile]

[sporifluorous]

Dave Brandt was so much more than a meme. He partnered with universities to experiment with and expand soil conservation and cover crop techniques, worked to educate other farmers through worldwide conventions and direct mentorship, founded the Soil Health Academy, and was called the "Obi-Wan Kenobi of soil health" by the chief of the USDA's conservation department.

There is no healthy planet without healthy ag practices, and this guy was a legend.

[prismatic-bell]

May his memory be for a blessing.

[keithstack]

[pacificrim-archive]

[rocketmermaid]

Giant isopods are so cool but what’s with the sexy funk music

[hussainthemvp]

most sexual motherfucker in the ocean. 

[kaijutegu]

It’s so fascinating to me that we’ve only been breeding Komodo dragons in captivity for thirty years. In that time, our understanding of them has actually really revolutionized the way we understand the social lives and behaviors of lizards in general, and it’s mostly thanks to this lady right here, who was born 30 years ago on September 13, 1992.

Kraken was the first Komodo to be bred in captivity. She hatched out at GMU, but was raised at the National Zoo. Her parents were wild-caught dragons- there’s still WC dragons in the AZA today- and this one specific individual probably did more to revolutionize lizard care in professional settings than any other individual lizard throughout zoo history.

Until Kraken, social enrichment wasn’t a thing people thought about. It wasn’t something anybody felt was necessary for lizards, because they were just… lizards. Sure, some keepers would play with their favorites, but it wasn’t until the National Zoo started documenting what she was doing that anybody realized how much Komodo dragons like to play with us too.

Kraken’s not in that video, but she’s the one who inspired all of the social studies that have been done on captive Komodo dragons. When she was at the National Zoo, her keepers  started getting curious when, for no apparent reason, she kept gingerly stealing things from peoples’ pockets and tugging on their shoelaces. So they started giving her stuff- Frisbees, blankets, soda cans, anything she showed an interest in.

She played with them, just like a mammal might. The way play behavior is described in psychology is a given activity that’s voluntary, repeated, and conducted under “relatively benign” circumstances. Keeper staff found that her conduct during the study met all of these criteria. “Kraken,” they wrote, had clearly demonstrated “play-like behavior with objects and even with humans (tug-of-war).” Moreover, she “could discriminate between prey and nonprey” while showing “varying responses” with different items (rubber rings, shoes, etc.). (There’s an excellent book on Komodo dragons that has an entire chapter devoted to her.)

Kraken died several years ago, but her legacy continues today. There’s several of her descendants still in the AZA, and the intelligence and social needs she demonstrated led to the improvement of life for these guys- and other lizards. The Komodo dragon program has been an eye opener, not just for reptile conservation, but for understanding reptile intelligence and how this incredible clade of animals functions.

[spacelazarwolf]

[bixels]

Baffled.

[mysteriouslypleasantcat]

I mean the guy made a film about how awesome the guy who created the zero fighter was and how japan should take pride in that despite the fighter being used as a tool of Japanese imperialism. I'm not saying he is a nationalist but like it's kinda obvious he still has stuff he needs to work on

[bixels]

The entire point of the movie, like, its whole message, was how the guy who created the zero fighter was a misguided artist who ended up causing more harm than good. His entire story follows him repeatedly ignoring signs of poverty and war and death and oppression to follow his dream of designing airplanes. The Wind Rises is not about how awesome this guy was, it’s about how selfish and complicate he was in a war he benefited from, despite his “goodness.” There’s literally a scene where his best friend calls this out. “Poor countries want airplanes. And they pay us a lot to design them. It’s ironic.”

The movie ends with the guy watching his zero fighter—the thing he’s been working on for the entire film—succeed. Everyone’s cheering, but he’s lost looking across the countryside of Japanese because he’s just realized he’s lost everything. His wife, his country, his passion. It’s not a victory, it’s a tragedy. The next scene is the bombing of Hiroshima as he walks amongst a graveyard of warplanes; his legacy. He watches his zero fighters fly away and sadly says, “Not a single one returned.”

Also, Japanese nationalists famously hated this movie.

[yukinojou]

This is literally the guy who gave us the quote "Better a pig than a fascist." (Porco Rosso)

[katyspersonal]

Saving this thread as one of my favourite examples proving that no matter what good intentions and beliefs a person (creator most often) holds, there will always always ALWAYS be idiots that completely misinterpret them (in full 180 degrees) and jump to the worst conclusions about their character ignoring all the facts that redeem this person. I mean LOOK at this, some people are ridiculously confident to judge a very anti-nationalist guy as a nationalist all because they've missed the undertones of his creation and did not do any research on him. Never let someone's idiocy become your, or anyone else's, problem.

[j4v4r10]

Unrestrained winter fun

@todaysbird

[communist-hatsunemiku]

エビチャーハン! (You’re Telling Me A SHRIMP Fried This Rice?!) [feat. Hatsune Miku English]