Somsnosa

[hideousocean]

I'm finally reading The Grey House (about 10 years later than I should have. it's amazing), and tonight I dreamt up that I'm also reading a spinoff book about a girl from the House called Sherlock. She had already graduated, and kind of protected the House's kids from the outside. I guess in my dream the genre shifted from magical realism to straight up urban fantasy? I ended on the part where she was preparing a suicidal attack against a couple of graduates with actual magic powers (one's name was Qilin, the other I forgot, but it was matching, some other regal magic beast) who were running a roadside inn where they enslaved and zombified the guests. It was wild.

What's the most infuriating, I didn't get to read it to the end even within a dream, because there suddenly was a party, and they just lost the book I was trying to read. The nerve!

Anyway, if I'm ever at the Dream Library, I'll look it up.

The Dream Library exists, my mom was there.

In a dream, of course.

[the-kaleidoscope-kitten]

DEAR FRIENDS, WELCOME TO CATLAND!

This is a blog created by @pika-threestars for a multitude of purposes:

Honoring the artwork and legacy of Louis Wain

Sharing their own Wain inspired art and other such things

Appreciating humanity’s beloved feline friends!

We give thanks that you chose to visit Catland and hope that you enjoy!

“He made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.” - H.G. Wells

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

Reblog if you love “—” and have never used ChatGPT

[hideousocean]

Alt+0151

Alt+0171

Alt+0187

In my heart, forever and ever.

[hideousocean]

So I bought a back pillow. Not sure why, but it looks kinda sus.

[hideousocean]

Got myself a new mini (not sure if I should paint it, or leave it as is). It's called "a thoughtful debate in the free marketplace of ideas".

[hideousocean]

Ah, old anime...

[emeraldcity1900]

I like how the homestuck pilot stuff is just giving everyone a rude awakening that a lot of indie creators know each other and respect each others work and that your individual cringe does not exist in a vacuum. And that at the end of the day you’re all clowns.

[nebby-the-not-protogen]

united we stand

[butchfemmespuffy]

close enough, welcome back superwholock

[hideousocean]

United we Stuck

[hideousocean]

I've finished reading Iliad, and I'm surprised how little of it actually ended up in our day-to-day culture. Most of the well-known myths from the Troyan war come from different sources. Judgement of Paris? Mentioned in passing. Abduction of Helen? Briefly discussed. Trojan horse? Nope, that happened later. Laocoon and his sons? Don't show up. Achilles's heel? Not even mentioned, his death is forshadowed, but is not shown in the poem. Cassandra's truth? Nope, though she makes a brief appearance. I went in blind, assuming it's the full account of the Troyan war, but nope, it's just a 50-day episode from year 9 of the 10 year long war: Achilles's beef with Agamemnon, a series of skirmishes between the Achaeans and the Troyans, death of Patrocles that makes Achilles return to the battlefield and kill Hector, then it ends with long depictions of the burials of the both heroes. That's it, everything else we know from elsewhere. But also, I was surprised to find a bunch of amazing story bits that didn't make it to the popular culture, despite being absolutely amazing. The only two episodes from Iliad that I know from popular culture are the list of ships (actually the list of tribes, ships aren't named) and the farewell of Hector and Andromache. Maybe also Achilles's beautiful shield. But there's so much more in there, amazing stuff, just as deserving to be a part of our daily lexicon! There's a moment where Achilles talks to his horses, and they, to his surprise, talk back. There's the whole thing about the Achaeans building a wall around their ships as troyans fight back and almost break the siedge, the wall absolutely loathed by the gods for some reason -- it's depicted as a disgusting building that needs to be destroyed, and the earth where it stood washed after it's gone. In an alternative world, we would use the "Achaean ship wall" as a shortcut for some building we hate and wish was raised. There's the moment where Achilles kills so many Troyans that their corpses jam the flow of the river Xanthus. The river cries to Achilles to maybe go murder people somewhere in a field, then, as he tells it to shut up, becomes angry, leaves its bed and goes to beat the hero, and gives him such a thorough beating that it takes a direct divine intervention to save him. Again, in a different world we would use it as a shortcut for an ecologic disaster caused by human hubris, the nature itself fighting back, and Xanthus would be a powerful summon in Final Fantasy 7. Actually reading the source materials, books that that people mostly know from quotes and cultural osmosis, is a miraculous undertaking. For each well-known quotable moment there are several just as amazing, but overlooked by the culture. I'm getting to the Odyssey next, and I can't help but wonder what unquoted wonders I'll find there.

[is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not]

[grumpygryphon]

[rowscara]

She runs and she explodes! Loved doing this, what a treat. She's available as a sticker too!

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⛔Please, if it's not your commission, do not repost anything I tag or say is a commission without asking me first! Reposts of my commissioned/serious works are not ok - meme images though are alright for sharing⛔

[homunculus-argument]

This counts as vent art.

[hideousocean]

Finished painting all my Trench Crusade starter sets. I had a blast working on them, and the rules look fun. Now to find someone to actually play with... ^_^'

[whitepeopletwitter]

[commandtower-solring-go]

There are a lot of really dog shit things in the world of tech that can be solved with a bit of time, some stubborn googling and maybe some special hardware and piracy is only the tip of the iceberg. 

Printers are notorious for claiming they’re out of ink when they haven’t come close to the suggested number of prints, and their cartridges literally still have ink in them. So after a bit of googling I found out how to ‘reset’ a cartridges automatic stopping system (its literally 1 physical wheel on the cartridge that you gotta turn back). The only downside is that I don’t get a digital ink monitor, but since it told me it was empty when still half full, I don’t mind. 

Like, you can just jiggle with some shit and solve one of the biggest money making scams in the post-industrial world and I don’t think people realise its that easy. 

Or, like, repairing your own technology. A few months ago, I swapped out my sister’s laptop screen. Did it myself, I removed maybe 4 screws, no vital parts were exposed and it cost me $40. I even got a choice of matte or glossy. 

My point is, any walls that capitalist technology presents you with will be a false one. And one already broken by a dedicated community of interesting people working hard for free to break down that wall.

[buckskinblues]

kids these days will be all “be gay do crime” and dont even know how to watch a cartoon without paying for it smh

[thedreadvampy]

IN FAIRNESS

piracy was definitely leagues easier a decade or so ago when thepiratebay was functional, megaupload was still running, and YouTube and Google made only the most cursory attempts to block copyright content. like let’s not pretend that the internet hasn’t got a lot more corporatised in the past decade or so. piracy is still possible and you can and should do it but it’s a LOT harder to do safely and reliably than it was.

[thebroccoligoblin]

^thank u

[theoutcastrogue]

Sorry, this is all wrong.

1) ThePirateBay is still functional. (It’s not the same pirate bay that it was back in the day, but let’s not get into Theseus’ ship territory. It’s still here and it still works, that’s all that matters.) There are plenty of torrent sites around, more than there were 10 years ago – although overall traffic has plummeted. Now as then, it’s a whack-a-mole game.

2) Why was it “leagues easier” a decade ago? Some countries, not all (not north America, for example), now mandate ISP blocking of torrent sites, but this new complication can be bypassed with one (1) step: a google duckduckgo search for proxies. No government agency or ISP can possibly keep up with proxies, it’s yet another whack-a-mole game. So yes, it was technically easier before, but I don’t see “leagues” anywhere.

3) It was safer before? Are you shitting me? Have you lot forgotten that the legal departments of MPAA and RIAA sued torrent sharers (not even uploaders) and asked for millions of dollars for damages? AND GOT THEM? (By which I mean they didn’t actually get millions since the people they sued didn’t have any, but said people were convicted and ruined and that was the goal in the first place. It was a deeply amoral and cynical scare tactic.) Well they stopped doing that at some point, and focused on hunting P2P and torrent sites. Running a site is certainly less safe today. Using one, though? Depending on where you are, the ISP may be allowed to block you after repeated instances, and that’s it. You’re not getting in trouble with the law or into crippling debt. And either way there’s only a minuscule chance that any of this will come to pass, which becomes zero (0) with a VPN. (Safety of course depends on the country, and in some cases piracy is the least of your concerns. Let’s not get into that.)

4) Ten years ago there was no Sci-Hub, and Library Genesis was in its infancy. If today it’s harder to find PDFs on google, it is orders of magnitude easier and more reliable to find them elsewhere. People just have to unstick their minds from the notion that stuff is either on google or doesn’t exist at all. Geez.

5) P2P still exists. IRC (the sharing channels in particular, #bookz and the like) still exists. Torrenting functions like it always did. All these methods are exactly as easy to use as before, i.e. not necessarily a piece of cake, there’s a learning curve. But it’s the same learning curve it was 10 years ago.

6) So what have we lost? Only YouTube (meh, the film/tv quality was appalling anyway, and music is still there) and direct downloads (at least the permanent ones: there are plenty of them still around, but files expire and you need to keep track of what goes up when. So this goes beyond knowhow, it’s about internet communities. Let’s not get into that either, it’s a huge subject.) It’s a loss, sure, but I wouldn’t call it a terrible blow.

7) And in exchange for that loss, we got streaming sites. This is piracy, too, and it’s much much easier than torrents, and tons of people do it. Any “piracy has declined” narrative either implies that we’re excluding streaming from the discussion for some reason, or is flat out wrong. Ten years ago, grandpa couldn’t possibly torrent a film, and it’s debatable if he even knew how to open the file you helpfully sent him. Now, as long as someone has set up kodi or similar, grandpa can watch it on his tv and it just feels like cable.

8) On why torrents in particular have declined in recent years, see here. It’s a big subject and I didn’t cover all of it, but the main reason is that people had access to easier methods to get what they wanted (some legal and affordable, some illegal and free), so they didn’t need to learn how to torrent. Ergo, they never did. There’s more of course, and there’s definitely a cultural shift too, but that’s a very long story so let’s not get into it. The linked post also includes some thoughts on why torrents aren’t dead and doomed just yet, and ooh, I forgot a very important one: you can’t stream photoshop.

To summarise, internet piracy is NOT more difficult, unreliable, and unsafe today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. For reasons why people (young or otherwise) seem less versed in it, please look elsewhere. I have thoughts on that too, but this is already a very long post, so I’ll just leave you with the best kind of thought. I’ll leave you with a doubt:

ARE people less versed in piracy? Are they really? Or is it simply that 20 years ago, internet users were computer geeks by definition, whereas now everyone’s online? Perhaps the percentage of skilled pirates in the general population remains more or less the same, and the only thing that’s dropped is the percentage of skilled pirates to total internet users. I can’t be sure without statistical evidence, but it’s a possibility.

[pulchrabelle]

You can literally google “watch _____ free online” and find most movies but the third result just download Adblock or popup blocker and you’re golden it truly couldn’t be easier

[chickenmcnuggies]

I’ve been meaning to make a piracy masterpost for awhile and what better time than now?

Materpost: A curated Githup tutorial of links to more torrent sites, software, VPNs, uBlock origin filters, ect. Basically everything you could ever want starting out. Do be warned though it doesn’t appear to have been updated in awhile so a few of the links are dead.

GAMES:

Vimm’s Roms: NES era->ps3 era roms and emulators to play them. Has user ratings on games. Cons: slow download speeds.

NxBrew: Switch roms/game updates/dlc

nsw2u: More switch roms. Check here if nxbrew doesn’t have the game you’re looking for.

Hshop: 3ds games/updates/dlc. Very well organized and sorted by console region. Bonus ability to generate QR codes to scan with homebrew to begin download directly on your console.

Oldgamesdownload: Old 90’s-2000’s PC games and some gamecube games. Technically, all of the games here are abandon ware, meaning the original company/creator doesn’t sell nor make money from the games anymore period. If you’re into that.

Fitgirl repacks: Heavily compressed PC games, and other various consoles. Small downloads and faster speeds for the size of the games. Somewhat limited game selection.

Steam unlocked: Steam games with easy-to-use installers. Check here if fitgirl doesn’t have what you’re looking for.

Steam Underground: A user forum for piracy support, usually about installing cracked games. Does have some scattered PC game downloads.

Google doc of Skyrim SE creation club content.

Amiibo life: Amiibo bins, can be loaded with some homebrew to load in games without any external source, or, if you buy writable NFC cards, you can make your own free amiibos.

Books:

Library Genesis: a good all-in-one ebook finder. Has books, magazines, scientific papers, ect. Well organized and able to sort by Author, Genre, ect ect. Almost all books in .epub format

Calibre: Not piracy but a free software for reading said .epub files, and other ebook formats. Good for sorting your books.

Sci-Hub: Research papers, academic books, pdfs, ect. Helpful for collage students.

IT ebook: eBooks about learning programming languages.

audiobookbay: Audiobook downloads.

Booksonic: Audiobook streaming.

5e.tools: Dnd player’s manual, guide, ect.

Books on learning various languages.

Mangadex: Manga, Doujinshi.      

Headspace sleep audio.

Various books and manuals.

Streaming:

ustvgo: Free streaming of live tv, has most US cable tv channels.

tutturu: Spiritual successor to Rabbit, allows you to stream your screen with friends.

Yes movies: Movies

Kimcartoon: Cartoons/animated movies

aniwatcher: Anime

animedao: Anime

Computer software:

getintopc: Wide selection of pc (mostly windows) software of all sorts, and different versions. Can personally vouch for the site, I’ve gotten Photoshop, Maya, and Sony Vegas from here over the years.

Other:

the eye: An archive of old roms, OS systems, roms (non nintendo), comics, books, ect, ect. Cons: No search function and slightly hard to navigate.

1337x.to: Torrent site for movies, shows, games, comics, ect.

ThePirateBay: The classic.

Recorded broadway musicals. Verying quality.

[unyanizedcatboys]

Finally someone actually posted links instead of just bitching or saying “it’s easy”

[zoanzon]

Ok just want to plug the eye a bit more considering I lost a few hours in their yesterday.

the eye has been up since 2017 and in the last four years have accumulated 140TB of data (according to their own reports). Part of their growth is just their own work, part of it is absorbing other archives/open directories that were having issues: I know rpg.rem.uz used to be its own archive - gave way to The Trove, which is having its own issues right now unfortunately… - but now most-all of their content can also just be found on the eye. Same with a few dozen other archives.

And they have ‘old roms, OS systems, roms (non nintendo), comics, books, ect, ect’, but massively more than you might think just based off how this sounds. Like…

They have it all.

If you want to try and homebrew alcohol, go check their stuff. If you want to try and read books that are out of print or otherwise in public domain (and some that aren’t yet in public domain), go check their stuff. If you want to run a campaign and can’t pay for expensive print tabletop books, go check their stuff. If you want to fuck off into the woods to live off the land (or research how that would work for a writing project), go check their stuff. If you’re trying to learn shit about drugs - any drugs, almost - go check their stuff.

Hell, if you want to go read what looks like literally every research paper on coronaviruses from 1968 up to Feb 2020, you can do that too!

As chickenmcnuggies said its a mess and a half to navigate through their collections, partially with how large it is and the fact quite a few folders were once whole other archives since absorbed by the eye…

But goddamn you can lose an afternoon just going through all the stuff they have.

[auroraatra]

@ss-shitstorm yooo !!!

[demilypyro]

So wise. So true. The voice of the people.

[oldpaintings]

The Five Senses by Henri Guillaume Schlesinger (French, 1814-1893)

[hideousocean]

Amazing oldschool yuri, but also: #3 is so memeworthy!

[queer-here-and-in-fear]

shorthands for dumbassery that i have grown to love deeply

"how dare you say we piss on the poor" in response to someone misinterpreting your post

"_ isnt gonna fuck you" for suck up behavior

"woah. should we tell everyone? should we throw a party?" for who the fuck cares

"and what if the world was made of pudding" for when would this ever matter.

"and sharks are smooth both ways" for a group of people heatedly arguing with 1 guy who is fucking with them all

".. but its about a witch in the alps finding her lost cat" for someone trying to sanitize something to the point of absurdity

[queer-here-and-in-fear]

this is prime proof that this ENTIRE WEBSITE is autistic because nowhere else would a no tags post that's just an informative list about slang get this much traction.