OCT 31 = DEC 25

Computer and electronics sideblog of Airsikhness

[formlab]

Hewlett-Packard PDP-10, 1971

[theelectricdreamsofddx]

Hey, wanna make music? Yeah? Got a buncha money? No? Well that's perfectly fine, check this free stuff out:

Vital - A powerful wavetable synth, my personal favorite VST synth, very easy to figure out creating new synth sounds, with the help of the plenty of tutorials that are out there for the plug-in. (There are paid versions but they are completely unnecessary to get 99% of the features of the plug-in.)

Synth1 - A classic piece of synthesizer software.

Pendulate - An interesting, chaotic synth that you can make weird little sounds with.

Native Instruments' free plug-ins - Various cool VSTs, including the Komplete Start pack.

The Free Orchestra - A set of orchestral instruments for Kontakt Player (see previous link).

BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover - More orchestral stuff! This one has its own player so you don't have to download a separate VST to use it if you don't want to.

Magical 8bit Plug - A chiptune plug-in, intended for producing sounds like that of 8-bit systems like the NES and Master System.

Genny - A synth VST made to emulate the soundchip of the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive.

MT Power Drum Kit - A nice rock n' roll style drum kit plug-in.

This guy's weird VST collection - 6.4 gigabytes of weird VSTs, including some you might know, like Delay Lama and MeowSynth!

sforzando - A free player for soundfont files.

Musical Artifacts - A resource I mainly use to find soundfonts, on which you can find other various things as well.

Kilohearts Essentials - 30 effect VSTs including reverb, delay, compression, pitch shifting, transient shaping, ring modulation, phase distortion, and more.

Xfer's freeware VSTs - Exactly what it says on the tin, including the one and only OTT compressor.

Illformed - The good ol' dblue Glitch 1.3, Crusher, Stretch, and TapeStop.

Hysteresis and Fracture - Two interesting glitch effects, one being a delay and the other being a buffer.

Codec - A cool digital audio degradation effect.

Le Phonk - A slick distortion plug-in.

MAIM - An effect that mimics the sound of MP3 compression.

Soundly Shape it and Place it - One is simply an equalizer VST, the other is an effect that emulates a speaker (ex: a radio) and a space (ex: a cave).

Fresh Air - An effect that adds high end information to your sounds, to provide brightness.

ValhallaSupermassive - A combo reverb and delay plug-in that sounds quite big.

UnplugRed - A collection of various interesting VSTs, most of which have free versions.

Chowdhury DSP - I can't personally speak for all of these but their tape model effect is great for some lo-fi style effects.

TAL-Chorus-LX - A thick sounding chorus, good for "retro" sounds too.

Polyverse Wider - A great effect for widening sounds up, really simple too with only two controls.

Freesound - A good audio file resource, mainly for foley recordings.

Cymbatics Dubstep Starter Pack - A little sample pack with some good drum and synth samples.

fishmonger drum kit - A pack of samples from the album 'fishmonger' by Underscores!

WangleLine's sample packs - Free samples put out by my awesome mutual WangleLine!

aaand I might as well include this set of drums I made awhile back :P

As for DAWs, it's been a long while since I've used anything other than FL Studio (not counting Audacity, which I still occasionally use for specific purposes), which, while being the only one I can directly recommend, is paid. However, I've heard good things about Reaper which has a "free trial" that you can technically use forever, akin to WinRAR. Additionally, I've also heard some good things about Waveform Free.

[garbagefunnel]

PSA for anyone with public wishlists on Amazon, they’re making some changes that might reveal your shipping address. 404 has a write up with more info

Amazon Change Means Wishlists Might Expose Your Address

Amazon is allowing gift senders to choose items from third-party sellers, which could open recipients up to new privacy risks.

[sunbentshadows]

This IS really bad - people are going to be doxxed, people are going to be stalked. This is a privacy nightmare.

Basically:

Amazon allows public wishlists for individuals, previously fulfilled through Amazon. This was a fairly private way to receive items anonymously from donors/fans/people online

Amazon is now allowing these lists to be fulfilled by third-party sellers.

Amazon will provide your name and address to said third party sellers

Third party sellers may or may not post tracking updates (aka: your address) to the person who ORDERED the item from your wishlist

Third party delivery companies may also post their delivery photos - of your front door and house number - and send them to the person who ordered the gift.

If you use public Amazon wishlists, turn them private or remove your address. The only private way to use these going forward will be via PO box (unless they roll back this change).

[bideogaymes]

this is especially pertinent for sex workers and leftist grassroots organizations that use these wishlists to provide aid to marginalized & struggling people in their own communities. these edge lords would love to dox these people.

[utopicwork]

Might need to fundraise for a lower end proper 3D printer soon, it seems like they are trying to put laws in place that would make new printers verify every 3D print and I would rather avoid that

[str-ngeloop]

what?? :(

[utopicwork]

https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/19/californias-new-bill-requires-doj-approved-3d-printers-that-report-on-themselves/

[jennplanet]

I wish people were treating this as serious as discord asking everyone to permanently tie their account to their real life face and government ID

It is literally just setting the legal precedent for putting a back door into every private digital and electronic device you own.

[lastoneout]

I wonder if this has anything to do with people 3D printing anti-ICE whistles...

[johnny-depp-is-loved]

I’m barely on TikTok but. Yikes. Be careful y’all

[excusethequality]

While watching a DVD from the library my TV popped up a message saying to press a button if I wanted to watch this from additional providers.

It's never done that before so I looked it up and turns out Roku TVs have added all sorts of creepy things in the privacy section since I last checked.

One of which being they take screenshots from what you're watching and send them to third parties to identify it.

Fucking hell! Remember when every fucking device in your life wasn't a spy implanted in your home and working against your interests to try and sell your data? Remember how nice that was??

Remember when the TV was just a tool that would play the things you plugged into it?

Why must the future suck SO much?

[excusethequality]

How to Turn Off Smart TV Snooping Features - Consumer Reports

TVs collect a huge amount of data. Here's how to use privacy settings to limit the surveillance on TVs from LG, Samsung, TCL, and every othe

A good rundown on what each brand of TV is up to and which settings you should turn off.

[beemovieerotica]

ok this is insanely cool

[beemovieerotica]

the organization that runs it is called Helping Hands, here's their website and how to join tutoring sessions in their world!

https://helpinghands.gg

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

GitHub - zoicware/RemoveWindowsAI: Force Remove Copilot, Recall and More in Windows 11

Force Remove Copilot, Recall and More in Windows 11 - zoicware/RemoveWindowsAI

[maxofs2d]

Firefox is adding an AI kill switch

Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, CEO of Mozilla, announced that AI will be added to Firefox. Public outcry prompted Enzor-DeMeo, and then Jake Archibald

Additionally, here are some interesting comments from a Mozilla employee who's been working on these features:

[thelegendofsqam]

[wrenchinator-central]

No, you should definitely keep calling it a kill switch. It helps describe my feelings on the matter.

I would also accept ai throttle. Not because I want to use levels of activity between fully on and fully off, but because I want to throttle the ai with my bare hands.

[technician-the]

The WorkBoy!!

legendary unreleased gameboy accessory, modeled in blender

[beardedmrbean]

[thoughtportal]

Open Printer

Finally, an open hardware printer you can actually understand, repair, and upgrade

Open Printer is an open-source, repairable inkjet printer designed for makers, artists, and anyone tired of throwaway hardware. Built with standard mechanical components and modular parts, it’s easy to assemble, modify, and repair. You can print on standard sheets or paper rolls and choose between black or color cartridges, refillable at your convenience.

This project aims to reclaim our everyday tools. As such, it features no proprietary drivers, no cartridge DRM that locks you to a single vendor and is designed to never become obsolete. The Open Printer is built for longevity and customizability, ensuring that it remains fully under your control.

[excusethequality]

While watching a DVD from the library my TV popped up a message saying to press a button if I wanted to watch this from additional providers.

It's never done that before so I looked it up and turns out Roku TVs have added all sorts of creepy things in the privacy section since I last checked.

One of which being they take screenshots from what you're watching and send them to third parties to identify it.

Fucking hell! Remember when every fucking device in your life wasn't a spy implanted in your home and working against your interests to try and sell your data? Remember how nice that was??

Remember when the TV was just a tool that would play the things you plugged into it?

Why must the future suck SO much?

[excusethequality]

How to Turn Off Smart TV Snooping Features - Consumer Reports

TVs collect a huge amount of data. Here's how to use privacy settings to limit the surveillance on TVs from LG, Samsung, TCL, and every othe

A good rundown on what each brand of TV is up to and which settings you should turn off.

[anarchistmemedistro]

[parentheticalaside]

My most old-school internet opinion is bring back chunky scroll bars! I don't want some scroll bar so discreet I can't even find the fucking thing. I want a nice Windows 98-level of obviousness.

[commodorez]

@medjoul put this in the comments for the Firefox users, and wow!

In firefox there are three about:config entries you can set: widget.non-native-theme.win.scrollbar.use-system-size – Set to "False" ["True" is the default] widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.style – Set to "3" (4 or 5 will also work but give square scrollbars) 0 is the default, which sets the scrollbar to match your OS platform. widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.size.override – Set to 20, or whatever number is big enough.

I went with style 4, size 30, and for me, this is a vast improvement!

[techav]

What documentation exists for these controls is available in the source: https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/modules/libpref/init/StaticPrefList.yaml

These are the options for the widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.style option:

0. Default Platform scrollbar style 1. MacOS style 2. GTK scrollbars 3. Android style 4. Windows 10 style 5. Windows 11 style

In all, these are the controls I changed to get decently-sized rectangular scrollbars with a border and sometimes even up/down arrows:

layout.css.scrollbar-width-thin.disabled true prevent websites from making scrollbars smaller

widget.non-native-theme.gtk.scrollbar.round.thumb false use square ends instead of round on GTK style scrollbars

widget.non-native-theme.gtk.scrollbar.thumb-size 0.9 set the margins on GTK style scrollbars

widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.size.override 30 set the scrollbar width

widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.style 2 use GTK style scrollbars

widget.non-native-theme.win.scrollbar.use-system-size false allow manually settings scrollbar size

It's not perfect, and it's inconsistent whether the arrows are shown, but it's much better than the defaults.

My kingdom for real usable UI to make a comeback!

[ladyaldhelm]

HOW TO TURN OFF GOOGLE AI in GMAIL:

Open Gmail in your browser

Click on the Gear Icon ⚙️ in the upper right

In the General Tab, scroll down to "Smart Features" and UNCHECK THE BOX. It is about halfway down.

Then, right below that is Google Workspace smart features. Click on the "Manage Workspace Smart Features" and make sure both toggles are OFF

[arcadebroke]

[ether--net]