Hello! Welcome to in the face of death, he was not afraid. My own little corner of the internet. You'll have to forgive me for all of the dust, I haven't cleaned in a good while.
You can call me Florian, I use he/they and I am very happy to see you. I am currently in my very last year of high school, which is absolutely terrifying. I am hoping to get into post-secondary school for music with a concentration, minor, or something in performance and history.
This blog is dedicated to one primary thing: academia. In whatever way it shows itself in my life, I will reflect and talk about it here...when I remember. However, I refuse to hold myself to one niche when I am much more complicated so do be prepared for me to go fully off topic.
My one rule is don't be an asshole, I can and will block people and will actually do it quite happily!
Thank you for reading, and I wish you all the best <3
weird ask but does anyone know of a good discord server for learning/practicing french that is active and doesn't use ai for every single photo? The one I am in right no, while good for forcing myself to actually practice, uses ai for every poster and has..a little bit of weird vibe to it that I can't place.
EDIT: THIS IS A CARRD NOW! it's updated and organized!!
use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.
use firefox or librewolf (open-source fork of firefox) instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).
use mega instead of google drive
get rid of bloatware
use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite
get free stuff with the help of r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH, r/piracy and r/roms
use trakt (for shows and movies), letterboxd (just movies), or TMB instead of IMDB (owned by amazon).
use storygraph instead of goodreads (owned by amazon).
use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions
use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp
make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge
use search for a cause, ecosia, or ocean hero to support the environment instead of google
use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)
use flashpoint to play archived online flash games
find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books
burn your music onto cds
use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe
use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, or tuta instead of gmail
remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X
remove bloatware on samsung X
use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta
use project gutenberg for free public domain books, and librivox for public domain books and audiobooks
use the seal app (android only) to download video and audio
use ellipsus instead of microsoft word or google docs
use mastodon instead of twitter
use peertube to create a network of small video hosting providers (disclaimer: not a 1:1 alternative to youtube)
use threema and signal for encrypted communication, on mobile and desktop
use qwant and startpage for secure internet browsers
use syncthing to securely transfer files between devices
learn how to jailbreak your kindle/ereader if you have one (wiki and video walkthrough)
use riseup’s email and VPN for secure communication (aimed towards activists)
use cryptpad and collabora instead of the microsoft office suite
use google takeout to export the data on your google account
use library extension to look for books on online stores and find them at your library
remove paywalls with removepaywalls
install the open-source adblocker ublock origin
install sponsorblock to skip sponsored segments on youtube videos
use bookfinder to look for the cheapest available listings of books, including textbooks
learn a language through mango (duolingo laid off some of its employees and now relies on AI translations) for free with a library card or through your school
edit photos with photopea
edit pdfs with foxit and sumatrapdf
download music with doubledouble
take notes offline and collaborate securely with obsidian
for android tv, use smarttube and cloudstream (ad-free, open-source)
change your OS to linux
changelog:
removed ground news (uses AI to summarize articles)
removed unroll.me (sells your data)
removed proton mail and drive (AI assistant feature, claims of CEO Andy Yen supporting Trump, please DM if you have proof I can add here)
removed NCH suite (only has very basic free features, puts watermark on anything saved)
notes:
this post blew up while I wasn’t looking (the end of my semester was hellish, and i recently came back from a 3-week family vacation). thanks so much for all the suggestions! <3
i included Ecosia because of their financial transparency. It’s physically impossible that they plant a tree for every search, but their profits still go towards projects including reforestation and solar energy. i view their actions as a net-positive
feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3
helloooo everybody! this week over on substack, i bring you an essay about the real truth of secret relationships. i really enjoyed writing this one, so i hope everyone else does too. i would love to see your comments. and if you want, you can buy me a coffee!! love you guys so much 💗💗
I just want to see people upload videos talking about the things that they love without the knowledge that the website is being run by a company that supports literal genocide
please let me know if you know of any, this has been pissing me off all day
the concept of personal curriculum is so fascinating! I will definitely be looking into this over the next week, when ever I have the free time to do so.
Although just throwing it out there, here are some topics I would be interested in looking into:
Sound waves and learning more about how they work
Chemistry basics but a concentration on food science
Cryptography cause that's cool as hell
I think it would be really funny if I taught myself precal
That's all I can think of right now but certainly expect me to be posting about it in the near future!
I would like to give a very special shout out to whatever saint scanned their copy of celebrate theory 8 and uploaded it to Anna's archive. I love you and I hope your piano never needs re-tuning, your reed never splinters, and your bow rosin lasts you till the end
something I want to do quite a bit this year is self-learning. Like learning my own things outside of school, just because I can.
The first topic I am going to be focusing on is music theory because I need to get myself to an RCM level 8 if I want to apply to McGill (which I do, I really fucking do)
If anyone has any recs for music theory studying tips or good rescources please let me know!
Inspired by wonderful strangers on youtube, I have made the decision to use my phone for as little as fucking possible. Mega corporations have been pissing me off and I refuse to become incompetent because of a silly little computer box I keep in my pocket.
Now, I can't get rid of my phone entirely. I need whatsapp for keeping up with my schools student council and use discord for keeping up with my schools GSA, every other social media is gone (yes, including tumblr).
Do I think I am going to struggle with this a bit? Yeah, of course. But! I have a bit of a strategy that I think will help me a lot.
Books. Literally all of the time. I am the kind of person that can really only read one book at a time and whatever book I am reading will come with me everywhere.
Similar to books, notebook! With the phone ban in my school and a lot of my teachers wanting to use as little tech in class as possible, I have just straight up started writing fanfiction in my notebook. Which is cool and makes me look kinda mysterious (I think)
Something I already did before but digital planner that comes with me. I usually only bring it to school with me but I would like to start bringing it with me everywhere.
Jailbreak an ereader. If there is a screen, ao3 will be seen.
watch more movies. Not edited clips of movies on youtube shorts but actual movies
On the note of movies: pirate!! everything!! As stated before mega corporations have been pissing me off and I want to make them hurt!
Anyway, this is my plan for the next little bit. I am curious as to how long this will last.
Something that I would like to clarify is that despite deleting all socials from my phone, I will have access to them via my laptop and will use them with varying frequency. Tumblr means a lot to me, not because it's a social media but because of the communities found here. To contrast, I get a lot of information about things going on in my school as well as my community from instagram. I also have a professional account for my music career and am unwilling to completely get rid of the networking that that account holds.
Let me know if you have any questions, and I wish you all the best <3
