Ketxup’s hedonic treadmill

[holy-spockamole]

is this porn. i feel like im watching porn.

[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

[smute]

i think the most upsetting thing about american-flavor puritanism is how fucking patronizing it is. it's 2026 but the whole world still has to deal with a cultural hegemony grown from the gnarled vestiges of victorian-era paternalism. tax-paying adults with passports and the right to vote are treated like wayward children because of the antiquated idea that authorities must protect the weak minds of the unwashed masses from depravity and corruption. the average american can send a fellow citizen to the chair, but they can't piss in a ditch without being declared an outlaw. american entertainment media is saturated with sex, but you can't talk about it online without getting your account suspended. it's such blatant censorship at a universal scale, but because sexual content is framed as inherently dangerous, this restriction on basic adult autonomy, this blanket denial of moral and intellectual adulthood, can be reframed as protection, an expression of care, a moral duty. "won't someone think of the children!" I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN!

[smute]

thank god that the video game that features slow motion animations of graphic gunshot wounds and is rated 18+ has a profanity filter in single player offline mode. thank you for protecting this 33 year old mind from the corrupting influence that is a horse named apple slut

[tazetta]

some fandom spaces eventually reach a state i like to refer to as "yaoi toxicity", where the primary way the fanbase engages with women is not by interacting with the (sometimes admittedly few or poorly written) women in the text, but rather by instead reimagining the main yaoi ship as women. interestingly, this form of genderbending rarely involves imagining these male characters to be transgender women or considering the implications thereof, but rather seeks to address misogyny in both the text and the fanbase by just rule 63-ing the whole endeavor. the fact that this in and of itself is still misogynistic wrt the original material, as the genderbent characters and their resulting popularity as a pairing are still due to the privileging of even alternate-universe interpretations of the text's originally male characters over engaging with the originally female characters (if any) in any capacity, is often completely unaddressed.

i don't think there's anything inherently wrong with drawing or writing boy characters as girls or liking those kinds of fanworks, in fact sometimes i do it myself and quite enjoy it. i also recognize that a significant portion of fandom creators are female and/or lesbian, and are in part likely seeking to project their own identities onto the characters comprising the main yaoi ship (often some of the strongest and most-developed characters from the source media). however when this becomes widespread as a phenomenon i personally cannot help but think of it as a version of (largely) sfw a/b/o - of trying to subvert or vent about the struggles of misogyny via fanworks without addressing the underlying misogyny in the space itself; a way of achieving "women without women".

this is why the fact that these interpretations are usually contextless genderbend alternate universes and rarely explicit specific trans headcanons is particularly significant to me. in my mind, an obvious way to imagine "what if this male character was a woman" would be not to necessarily create an entire alternate universe where this cisgender male is her cisgender female "opposite", but instead to consider the implications of the idea that she was a closeted woman all along, and what effect this would have had on the narrative. however, this necessarily involves confronting misogyny and specifically transmisogyny in the text and in fan spaces, something that many genderbends seem unwilling or unable to do.

again. im not saying you're a bad person if you do or have done this, i literally have also done this, or that anyone should stop doing this for some implied moral reason. god knows fandom was built on the backs of women writing yaoi where one of the boys is the girl. im just saying that gravitating towards genderbend as a source of female representation instead of trans headcanon or getting interested in the text's intended female characters in the first place doesn't always strike me personally as a particularly interesting interpretation

[byjove]

I love helping everyone rediscover the fact that the opening passage of My Immortal is a parody of the opening passage of The Vampire Lestat and not just a generic exaggeration of the typical fanfic Mary Sue introduction. One of the many delightful goth kid Easter eggs the author planted for the audience.

[byjove]

let the audience decide…

it was a deliberate nod to the opening passage of The Vampire Lestat (1985)

it was accidental

Remaining time: 5 days 2 hours

[byjove]

Anne Rice COULD write and she made excellent use of narrative voice. Lestat is egotistical, less intelligent than he believes himself to be and above all, deeply unhinged. This is absolutely what his internal monologue would sound like and you have to read her other works to contextualize that. I think it is the same for the author of My Immortal and the fact that they’ve never (actually) come forward to claim ownership makes me think they enjoy the ambiguity.

[bebsi-cola]

actually pigs shouldn't be at pride even outside of uniform. fuck those guys

[starlightxraven]

Nobody needs AI to search the Internet, court says in ruling against Google

Google AI Overview court loss in Germany could spell doom for AI search industry.

[appalachian-werewolf]

"Google AI Overview court loss in Germany could spell doom for AI search industry."

It fucking better.

[mrsjdavis]

Like to charge, reblog to cast?

[doublism]

they used to make smackable technology. you used to be able to hit your tv when it didn't work good.

[servicebunny]

It just shifted to spanking your puppy’s ass, to make them take that thick knot. Like the good little play thing they are.

[doublism]

i don't really think it's like that at all

[cheaphalloweencostume]

“be gay do crime! but sex is yucky and crime is wrong!” ass website

[cheaphalloweencostume]

[bowlifecomics]

It makes me happy when they listen

[cheap-pink-mints]

[bowlifecomics]

YES. YES YES YES THANK YOU

[cuntylestat]

🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

[dmtruther]

I really love Jacob Anderson

[kinkydorah]

troy and abed with the vaaaaaampires 🎵

[clacy2812]

Muah

Support me on Kofi or Patreon

[samglyph]

Funny when someone introduces you to something, you get really into it, and then they lose all interest in it. Oh so you’re just going to abandon me at the party you invited me to. Dude you were my ride.

[samglyph]

Alright gang pack it up a friend from high school just sent me a YouTube short with someone reading this post over Minecraft jumping because they recognized my name. We can move on now.

[doyoulovethewayzeylily]

doomscrolling tiktok together and I turn to you and ask, "why doesn't your algorithm recommend any videos with Black people?"

[doyoulovethewayzeylily]

doomscrolling tumblr and I turn to you and ask, "why don't you reblog anti-racism when it makes you feel uncomfortable?"

[footlongdingledong]

their polyamorous swag

[cant-think-of-a-good-one]

ah fuck im imagining it

[cant-think-of-a-good-one]

sorry

[vodam46]

why are the windows 7 minimise maximise and close buttons fucking on my dash

[m0thmancore]

it’s genuinely fucking absurd that cis people have any goddamn say at all on trans healthcare

[m0thmancore]

“oh yeah i mean im not diabetic but i dont really know how insulin works and i think its kinda freaky that you gotta poke your finger all the time so im gonna go ahead and say insulin is illegal”

thats how it sounds.