Unrealistic expectations

Sports anime theorist, gamer, collector of random skills and adventures. Writes stuff.

[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

[gummybearattacktheworldofdespair]

[cannibalcaprine-deactivated2024]

[littolgayfish]

the more you listen to it, the funnier it gets

[boogerwookiesugarcookie]

Audio: dramatic piano. The husky screams along, vaguely keeping the rhythm but not the tune

[madamewesker]

That last ROO always gets me

[kuma-kami]

Visit Original Link

[snowdaysforever]

DELETE THIS POST

[theoldspaceevibes-deactivated20]

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

[froborr]

*clicks play in morbid curiosity*

*hammers reblog button*

[chongoblog]

I think I find this post every April Fools Day and I am so happy that I do

[parsnippety]

@the-nephelococcygian

[the-nephelococcygian]

🥸🎶

[ragsy]

"Adopt don't shop" and "that's a 10 year commitment" style PSAs except instead of being aimed at would-be irresponsible pet owners it's for people who want to start yet another long-term ttrpg campaign

[ragsy]

now I'm thinking about a petfinder type service where would-be GMs browse through lists of abandoned or surrendered campaigns with hopes of finding a loving but skittish party of adventurers and their bbeg to adopt

"Where did you come up with this convoluted plot?"

"It's a rescue 🥰"

[lethesomething]

I've been having fun playing Expedition 33 and it strikes me, as someone that can speak french, how... Kind of silly a lot of the names and places are. There's an enemy called, essentially, Big Head ( he's a big head). Other enemies are called the french word for like dancer or dude who is on fire. One of the levels is just called Faces (it's the one with all the faces).

It makes me wonder if that's what a lot of Japanese people feel, when there's an enemy in a game or whatever that a western audience considers cool and mysterious, and they're just called the Japanese equivalent of 'blue guy'

[habken]

bébé…

[eatmorebikes]

[everrgrreeen]

the monsterfucker website has yet to let me down

[strawberrysat0ri]

I like to think Tendou has 2 very loving parents who are really supportive of him no matter what and are happily married, and probably the really in-love, clingy type of couple. He's just like that for the shits and giggles.

[eldritch-aces]

i have so many diaspora thoughts about the unbelievably powerful and kind way the orcs are depicted in cr4 but i think it goes without saying that the multilayered ethnic experiences being brought to the table really come alive in a way that is really the beating heart of the themes of araman. brennan is bringing a lot of irish diaspora thoughts to the table (the entire wake sequence was extremely irish) and i think in equal measure aabria is bringing a lot of black diaspora angles as well (aabria has talked about how hal and thaisha's conflict over the theater is VERY analogous to modern discussions about surviving plantations and other monuments to black suffering which is very VERY necessary subtext for analysis), and as we see more of orc culture i am very excited to see how both of those perspectives continue to interconnect and branch out.

i think the reason that a lot of diaspora minoritized folk like myself are drawn to orcs in general is because the orc as the social construct is the greatest macrocosm of how barbarism justifies violence against minorities. the orc in fantasy is something inherently evil, uncivilized, tribal, warlike and stupid, and the mechanics of fantasy ttrpgs encode this racial messaging into hard mechanics and make racist ideology mechanical and biological reality. And something that I think that a lot of progressive game masters have always struggled with, even in critical role's first campaign setting, is trying to reconcile the inherent racist text of what orcs represent while also toeing around that inherently unfair mechanical reality that's been enforced over decades of orc tribes being racist shorthand for fodder your good-aligned party is allowed to kill.

and if you're an ethnic minority anywhere, you know this narrative very intimately, because it's the same textbook being used to justify your suffering, day in and day out. and if you're a brown person at a dnd table, especially surrounded by white people, you feel it constantly. if you don't have friends that are willing to listen to you, you have to sit there with the constant reminder that while they accept you, and while they might accept the half-orc you play, the full orcs and the goblins and the kobolds are allowed to get killed without question. because they're savages, and it wasn't like they were up to any good anyways, right? it's escapist fantasy for all the white people at the table, and the only way you can escape with them is to leave your identity, the way you were raised, and the people you love at the door, and pretend you're nothing like them.

i think a lot of misguided attempts to humanize orcs make them goofy and noble, ultimately reinforcing that implied reality that orcs are still ultimately tribal and stupid compared to other fantasy species, just not worthy of death because of it. to the white liberal writer and audience, this is generally enough, and i think is where we get stuff in the vein of "humans are space orcs" and such. but, the underlying subtext is still that orcs are the best at being brutes, lovably stupid, best in slot to become a barbarian and probably not worth dedicating the stats to pursuing magic. they are still simpler and lesser than their peers.

but I think what REALLY gives araman's depiction of orcs a lot of teeth is that they don't just stop at making orcs noble, or just like humans, and don't try to paint over the narrative that has haunted what orcs represent to the average tabletop player's fantasy of justified, senseless violence against a mindless foe. instead of trying to soften this reality, araman's worldbuilding really interrogates it. it takes the oldest story that justifies why the orcs are mindless savages that are safe to kill, the tale of the evil god-king who forces them to mindlessly do their bidding, and then asks why you accept the reality that god presented, then asks who benefits from that reality, then answers with why they had to lead the path to saving themselves and those around them. and in doing so, orcs arrive in the present with an extremely rich and complicated culture that arises out of this kind of survival, a survival that is not useful to new powers that be like the candescent creed.

i really like that not a single player character is a barbarian in this context, but ESPECIALLY our two orc main characters. hal is a well educated bard and playwright. thaisha is a potent and formidable druid, in a world where the cycle of life and death is a study and not the fancy of noble savages. and more crucially, they're not conditionally allowed into the party as half orcs, they are driving forces of their communities as extremely intelligent (and messy!) full orcs, and look it says a lot about how low the bar is in dnd spaces for that to feel like a big deal but it is!

the way orcs are being handled here is very nuanced and very delicate in a way that is so, SO important, and i really really hope it starts a trend in these tabletop spaces to fully interrogate where their subtext is coming from and create richer, more interesting worlds that are actually inclusive to players of color.

[sukebanfactory]

Like a Dragon Cosplay Ichiban Kasuga @RGG_K_Juichi

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[crocincrocsart]

unpopular opinion: Vimes is kind of drama queen

[mangaluva-deactivated20220930]

Sam “held a burning hot coal until it nearly took the skin off his hand while maintaining perfect calm and eye contact with the asshole in need of intimidation Just Because” Vimes? Sam “sitting on the stoop with a mug of cocoa and a cigar, cautiously aware of every inch of the scene he’s building” Vimes? Sam “could just tear his sleeve to show the mark of the Summoning Dark but instead tears off his whole goddamn shirt” Vimes? A drama queen? Reaching a bit don’t you think

[thestuffedalligator]

Yep, certainly doesn’t seem to describe Sam “pretends to eat poison as a power move” Vimes. Not Sam “buries an axe in the table in the Rats Chamber” Vimes.

[mangaluva-deactivated20220930]

I mean are we really talking about Sam “yes a whole room full of candles with wicks dipped in holy water is the best way to beat this vampire” Vimes, here? Sam “has fought bad guys on top of a speeding train AND a riverboat during a flood” Vimes, really? Definitely Sam “nearly gets shot in the head by a crossbow bolt that shatters his shaving mirror and then uses the bolt to prop up a shard of said mirror to finish shaving” Vimes we’re discussing here?

[davetheshady]

excuse me?????

vimes did not resign from his post in protest, observe the rest of the watch resign from their posts in protest, recruit them into a militia, sail to the country they were at war with, and attempt to arrest two different armies for disturbing the peace so you could sit here and call him a drama queen, as though drama was some myffic quality bestowed by an accident of birth and not the inherent right of every creatively petty and histrionic citizen of ankh-morpork 

vimes is a drama public employee

[discworld-heritage-posts]

Discworld Heritage Post

[freshcuntgrass]

I have never seen someone escape the cycle of suffering and reach true and perfect zen the way that one of my D&D players, an honest-to-god tenured college dean and professor, does when he inhabits his 7 INT bardlock elf prettyboy. Brain goes in a jar on the shelf for two hours. Nothing between those pointy ears but one jingle bell rolling back and forth. Refers to his patron as his "sugar mama" and That Warlock Cantrip as "Elvis blast." You can SEE the player knowing and suspecting things and gleefully not acting on them. I love it so much. Next week I'm gonna see if I can bait him into fucking a vampire milf. I bet it'll work

[freshcuntgrass]

UPDATE: despite the best efforts of the orc fighter/paladin, he did in fact fuck the vampire milf

[homunculus-argument]

"New Yorkers bite more people than sharks annually" is an excellent example of how statistics can be misleading. Like yeah no shit, do you have any idea how rare it is to even encounter a shark in the wild? They're not exactly urban animals. I'm pretty damn sure that if sharks were living in big cities like pigeons, just strolling down the streets looking for food scraps, you'd see a lot more news stories about New Yorkers biting them.

[akkpipitphattana]

if alphas in the omegaverse knew that we referred to it as the "omegaverse" and not the "alphaverse," they'd throw a fit

[strewbi]

Sir Terry Pratchett is a master of the written word but he ain’t shit for the way he trained me to accept dumb naming conventions because i got three missed calls on my phone from Scam Likely and I spent like half a day wondering who I knew named Scam. 

[discworld-heritage-posts]

Discworld Heritage Post

[typhus-andronicus]

Mr. Scam Likely of the Ankh-Morpork Thieves’ Guild

[lethesomething]

Heya,

considering the social media landscape keeps changing (and has changed drastically since last time we were like 'do we jump ship')

I've made a bluesky handle for blog and fan stuff in case things go down for realsies this time: