Rowan The Nerd

They/she/he, fan of lots of things, my main interest shifts constantly so, just follow along for the ride I guess

[ravioliet]

"why can't they just be friends?" not in the homophobic sense, but in the "in your need to center romance in everything you are missing the whole point of the media in question" sense

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[hypokeimena]

#'this is present in the text' is often a good first step #but those second and third ones (naming it; describing its function) are vital (via @elucubrare)

[scheidungsgrund]

from twitter user deejaygeejaygee

[galecstatic]

it just gets better

and better

[goingonanadventuremaybe]

[funnyfroge]

[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

[special-lucky-chosen-one]

I fucking hate it here

[some-sort-of-ecologist]

For those of you with android devices, you can use the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) standalone app control program to get rid of all the bloatware, data mining, and AI crap - no coding needed!

[d-e-w-p]

save

[clatterbane]

There are also Android-based alternatives like GrapheneOS and LineageOS, which are pretty easy to install. These are unfortunately available for a more limited range of devices (Graphene is ironically Pixel only, while Lineage supports more), but it's very worth checking out whether one of them might work for your phone.

GrapheneOS: the private and secure mobile OS

GrapheneOS is a security and privacy focused mobile OS with Android app compatibility.

LineageOS Android Distribution

Typing this from Graphene now, in fact. But, both of those take the Android Open Source Project, without all the bloatware--and largely de-Google the whole thing. They give you much more control over privacy and what the apps you choose to install can do and access on your phone.

I know Graphene sandboxes everything, including the optionally installed Google Play Services which a lot of apps unfortunately require to run. (Lineage uses an alternative to Play Services instead.) So, you can install what would normally be unacceptably intrusive apps and just lock them away from pulling any funny shit with your data, or phoning home. Including the couple of Google things I do still keep around.

I also prefer running much more transparent, privacy-respecting open source apps where possible. Besides the transparency, I'd rather avoid the shitty tech corps entirely where I can. There are pretty good alternatives available for a lot of the usual suspects.

AlternativeTo lets you find apps and software for Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, iPad, Android, Android Tablets, Web Apps, Online, Windows Tab

An alternative app store:

F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository

F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy

[clatterbane]

Also just going to leave this here.

ReVanced

Continuing the legacy of Vanced.

GitHub - ReVanced/revanced-manager: 💊 Application to use ReVanced on Android

💊 Application to use ReVanced on Android . Contribute to ReVanced/revanced-manager development by creating an account on GitHub.

This lets you pretty easily patch some of the worst offender corporate apps to make them behave better.

[sunnynabons]

Man also RIP Sir Arthur Conan Doyle you would've loved House MD

[geeoharee]

Conan Doyle drew this when he passed his medical exams

description: a simple doodle of a man in a pea-coat, jumping for joy. he's holding a piece of paper headed DIPLOMA. underneath him in cursive, it says 'Licensed to kill'

[niightegoblingtyime]

“Aroace Ryland or BloodyMary?”

Both are true to me, and not even just in a queerplatonic way, but in a multifaceted, this is what fandom is about, I enjoy everyone’s ideas and I’m just here to have fun type of way.

Reading a post about aroace Ryland Grace and how he’s so relieved that he’ll never have to deal with relationship bullshit now that he’s never going back to earth? Hell yeah I love it.

Reading a post about Grace and Simon having a queerplatonic connection, some secret third thing that isn’t romance but isn’t friendship, undefinable love in the form of a human who understands him when he never thought he’d see another human ever again? Hell yeah I love it.

Reading a post about Grace and Simon pining after each other and Rocky trying his very best to get his stupid human to just kiss his crush already? Hell yeah I love it.

This is what fandom is about! I love not picking just one interpretation! All interpretations are valid AND I am playing with them all at the same time!

[iwishiwasplayinglegorightnow]

game changer season 8 premiere

[pinkinink]

Fighting to stay alive

Close ups!

[fenrir-kin]

Seen a few posts on this and thought I'd put in my two cents.

Whilst it's correct that tumblr has no control over the ID thing, what they do have control over is their mature content filters. If you weren't before, now is the time to get really fucking insistent that they fix their extremely broken mature content filters.

Politely.

"Dear tumblr,

The combination of the new ID verification requirements, and the extremely janky mature content filters, means that tumblr is now unusable for me. Any posts that get tagged in error as mature will be completely blocked out, and I won't be able to see them.

It would be helpful if you had a function that allows the userbase to report incorrectly applied maturity filters for staff to remove, so that I can continue to enjoy my favourite site. Otherwise, I will be forced to leave the site until the ID legislation in my country is repealed/reversed."

Ta-da! That easy. Feel free to copy that text if you want. Feel free to mention you won't be going through ID verification due to concerns about the security of your data. Expand on it however you want, I'm not your parent.

But this is an opportunity to present a solution to something that's been pissing us off for a while now, and it gives us, the userbase, a better opportunity to combat report bombing of trans folks and black folks. I think we're morally obligated to push for this.

We got the reblogs rolled back. Time to leverage that unity for this as well.

[ro-doodles]

I love when people write Rocky POV fics and they use the International Phonetic Alphabet to write Graces dialogue before they can communicate. It’s such a clever way of showing the lack of understanding while still writing what Grace is saying.

[composeregg]

time loop fans when the loop slightly changes

[fa-i-ze]

time loop fans when the loop slightly changes

[gaylittlegraves]

time loop fans when the loop slightly changes

[eggboy1187]

time loop fans when the loop differs minorly

[ro-doodles]

time loop fans when the loop minorly differs

[picascribit]

There are 2 types of fanfic:

fanfic that I like

fanfic that is none of my business

[ro-doodles]

So my friend who actually watches hockey just told me that Alexander Ovechkin (the main inspiration for Ilya Rosanov) just got a PhD, which he was working on while being one of the most significant players in the league (in her words, he is “not a side character”/“important to the plot of the NHL”), so now I need a fic where Ilya gets a PhD. Could someone write this or point me in the direction of a fic like this? please and thank you

[astronomical-bagel]

god it’s so sad living in an allocentric world. There are so many relationships that are so complex and nuanced that are all put under the label of ‘romantic’ and immediately all the intrigue is taken from it. Like don’t you realize that these relations are actually ENHANCED by the fact that they are not romantic or sexual?

[astronomical-bagel]

NOOO DONT PUT THE CHARACTERS IN A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP YOURE TAKING OFF THE SEASONING!!!!

[astronomical-bagel]

[lighthouse-wizard]

"I would do anything for you; I would cross worlds for you; I would kill for you; I would die for you" etc in fictional romance= tired and expected

from a boss to their employee= what the fuck is happening there

[kushblazer666]

[aleshakills]

So on my posts about racism or transmisogyny, I often see tags that basically say “I don’t understand this but I’m going to reblog it anyway.” If you see a “social justice” type post that you want to reblog but don’t understand?

Don’t.

I know this goes against everything you’re used to hearing on this website, but listen. Reblogging posts you don’t understand is basically the equivalent of blindly repeating whatever you’re told. Even if you’re right, if you don’t understand why you’re right, you could be spouting utter bullshit and you wouldn’t even know it.

When I see “I don’t know what this means but I’m gonna reblog it anyway” it sends a lot of messages. It says that you care more about seeming right than being right. It says that you want good ally credit without any of the work of being a good ally. It says you’re on my side because I can make a post sound good, not because you actually agree with me on anything beyond the surface level.

So instead of just reblogging that post, save it for later. Like it, draft it, bookmark it, whatever. Go to the op’s blog and skim through a couple of pages, see if you can find some context. If the post is old, you could try asking for context in a non-condescending way. “Is this post referring to something specific?” is a lot better than, say, “Does this even happen? I’ve never heard of this.”

If that doesn’t help, do some more research. Google, search tumblr tags for recent posts on a subject, ask people who have EXPLICITLY stated they are willing to educate. Maybe in the process you’ll find more posts with a similar message to the original, but in easier to understand language. Maybe someone else already added a reply that adds useful information onto the op.

And maybe all of that takes a long time. Maybe, by the time you finally understand what the post was talking about, it’s months old and no longer relevant. Maybe you don’t even want to reblog it anymore. Who cares, fuck that post. You learned and grew as a person. That’s more important than looking good on a blog.