Storage @techrefs - Tumblr Blog

Posts

crap-userrname16

not-available-for-comment

Haven’t had a chance to watch the tutorial yet, but I’m seriously considering making this for my gf’s niece

desfraisespartout

One of the commenters (@halahala3967) transcribed the pattern:

Lizard coaster Pattern

Body - 00:00:45

R1: MR ch2, 10 dc in MR, slst, ch 2 [10] R2: 10 dc inc, slst, ch 2 [20] R3: (dc, dc inc) *10 slst, ch 2 [30] R4: (dc, dc inc, dc) *10 slst, ch 1 [40] R5: Reverse sc in every stitch

Tail - 00:10:30

R1: MR, ch2, 4dc in the magic ring, slst, ch 2 [4] R2: (dc, dc inc)2, slst, ch2 [6] R3: 6 dc, slst, ch2 [6] R4: (2dc, dc inc)2, slst Cut off long tail for sewing [8]

Mouth (red yarn) - 00:16:47

ch 10 R1: skip 1st st, 8 sc, (3 sc in 1 st), 7 sc, inc, slst, ch1 [20] R2: inc, 7 sc, 3 inc, 7 sc, 2 inc, slst ch 1 [26] R3: (sc, inc), 7 sc, (sc, inc)*3, 7sc, (sc, inc)*2 [32] Cut off and weave in yarn

Tongue (pink yarn) - 00:27:52

In the third stitch from the red chain, ch 10 skip 2 st, 8 hdc [8] slst and cut off extra yarn, weave in from behind

Head (green yarn) - 00:31:00

R1: ch 14, slst in the first ch making a circle R2: ch1, hdc2tog, 10 dc, hdc2tog, slst ch 2 [12] R3 dcinc, 2 dc, 6hdc, 2dc, dcinc, slst ch 2 [14] R4: 2 dc, 3 hdc, 4sc, 3 hdc, 2 dc, slst ch 1 [14] Cut off yarn

Upper lip - 00:40:15

At the 5th st from the head, insert green yarn R1: ch2, dcinc, 6dc, dcinc [10] R2: ch2, turn dc2tog, 6dc, dc2tog [8] R3: ch2, turn dc2tog, 4dc, dc2tog [6] R4: ch2, turn dc2tog, 2dc, dc2tog [4] ch1, cut off extra yarn

Lower lip - 00:47:44

R1: ch1, 6 hdc [6] R2: ch1, turn hdc2tog, 2hdcdc, hdc2tog [4] ch 1 turn Attach red mouth piece and tongue by sc in every stitch, slst, Cut off extra yarn and weave in Stuff in

Eyes (white yarn) x2 - 00:53:40

R1: MR, 6sc in MR [6] R2: slst, ch1, 6 sc [6] slst and cut off extra yarn Glue on eyes and heads for pupils Attach head and tail at opposite ends, Put stitch marker 4 st away from each direction for limbs

Legs x4 - 01:01:24

ch7, slst, skip 1 st st, 2 slst, (ch2, skip 1st st , 2 slst) *2, 4 sc, slst Cut off and weave in yarn

Abbreviations + additional links under the cut

#fiber #crochet #lizard coaster

yorgen-sh

The Chinese shoe manufacturer decided to demonstrate the indestructibility of their shoes

liobits

Good evening friends and enemies, it's time to learn how to source unsourced videos instead of perpetuating the chain of missing attributions that progressively obscure the original source with each repost. 😃

STEP 1: Take a screencap of the video, preferably while it's playing so that the PLAY button isn't blocking the image.

STEP 2: Reverse image search of choice. To my chagrin, I tend to end up resorting to Google's Search by image because Tineye keeps failing me and I haven't gotten around to doing a deep dive into currently available reverse image search services.

If you use the Firefox desktop web browser (untested: other desktop web browsers, Firefox mobile web browser) you can combine STEP 1 & STEP 2: Feel free to repost the video to Tumblr first, preferably as a draft or private post to prevent people from reblogging the uncredited vid, because this method doesn't work as well on Reddit videos.

Right-Click on the video. In the right-click menu, look for "Image Search Options" and hover over it to bring up a list of search options. I'll have to try out some of the other options later, but for this demonstration I used Google.

The search engine should open in another tab.

STEP 3: The Search. This part will be a mix of luck, tenaciousness, and deductive skills.

For Google, I recommend going to the "Exact matches" tab because it presents matches and their information in a much more condensed format than the other tabs. "Exact matches" is a misnomer, as is apparent in the screencap below. This search actually pulled up images from at least two separate videos by the same woman hanging from the same tree: one where she's wearing a slate grey pencil skirt and blazer (as in the video reposted by OP) and one where she's wearing a pale grey long-sleeved dress.

Ideally, a functional search engine would let you sort results by useful variables such as "date posted". Google is not such a search engine, and with its progressive enshittification you may or may not be able to bully Search by image into limiting results to certain date ranges. Luckily, these videos have been less flagrantly reposted than some, so I didn't have to scroll through too many.

When searching for a source, one of the primary things to pay attention to is date. Obviously, the original source has to be older than any of the reports. Unfortunately, not all the Google results have dates, so the earliest dated video isn't guaranteed to be the original.

In this case, the earliest result was of the grey dress video variant posted on Instagram on Jan 17, 2026. However, upon checking the link it became apparently that the Instagram account was not the originator of the video and their repost was unsourced.

If the date check fails you, keep an eye out for any undated results that clearly stand out from the rest. In this case, I picked up on the following:

Which has the following unique traits:

A new outfit! This is the only result that features the woman in a pale brown blazer and pencil skirt.

Dimensions. This result is 1080 x 1920, while the majority of results were smaller in size. Reposts are more likely to be downscaled from the original than upscaled, so if the initial date-check fails you, you're better off checking the largest undated results first.

Specific username (Liang Li (@liangli521)). A lot of the other results just have captions or titles in various languages. Depending on the website, these are usually either captioned reposts or random search terms that don't even link to the actual video. Results with specific usernames are rarer and thus worth checking out, though some of them may turn out to be reposters.

In this case, I hit the jackpot! There they all were: OP's video, the grey dress video, the brown blazer & skirt video, and many, many more!

Legitimately, Liang Li's whole thing seems to be going ham in skirts, dresses, and frequently heels. Possibly for advertising purposes? Very beautiful. Very powerful.

Bonus videos:

Cool lights!

Obstacle courses and playgrounds with friend!

H-hot damn, ma'am...

#reverse image search #sourcing

stinkard

Hello. I clean houses for a living. Here are some places in Your Dwelling that it's probably been a while since you've thought about cleaning. This is a judgement-free, non-exhaustive list of crap you should maybe get around to soon 👍

Bathroom:

☆ Front and base of the toilet (they get nasty and dusty really quick)

☆ Faucet (take a toothbrush and some all-purpose bathroom cleaner and give it a scrub to remove plaque from toothpaste and hard water buildup, then a wipedown. You will literally be shocked by the difference if you haven't cleaned it in a while)

☆ Consider removing the toilet seat and cleaning underneath it/getting at the hinges with a grout brush (in case you didn't know: it's fastened to the toilet by two large usually plastic screws under the tabs at the back, with nuts on the underside. Just unscrew the nuts and you can pop the whole seat off)

☆ Sink drains: they gather gunk and pink mold around and underneath the rim. You can loosen shit and scrub it away with some all-purpose cleaner and a toothbrush/grout brush (PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND BUY SOME SMALL GROUT BRUSHES)

☆ The floor: Mop that damn floor. Get in the corners and wipe down your baseboards too. This is best accomplished on your hands and knees if you have that capability. If not its whatever

Kitchen:

☆ Underneath your range hood! Theres grease filters under there that you can soak in degreaser and then scrub clean in the sink. Grease also likes to just hang out in that area, but if you spray it down with Fantastik or Method heavy duty degreaser it'll wipe right off.

☆ If you have stainless steel appliances, consider buffing them out once a month with stainless steel cleaner and a dry cloth. Wiping off those fingerprint smudges and fridge water drip stains is soooo satisfying

☆ Sink! Wash that sink! If it's stainless steel, use Bar Keeper's Friend powder on a wet surface to buff it out, with a Scrub Daddy or something, and get it looking shiny and new again. This can also be done on ceramic sinks - dirt magnetizes to any minor scratches in white ceramic, and giving it a scrub will erase those dark scratches.l

☆ Cabinets. Wipe that shit down brother. Especially the cabinets closest to your range!! If you have heavy grease buildup on your cabinets, try using something scritchy like a Scrub Daddy with some all-purpose cleaning spray to try and get it off. Failing that, do a spot test with some Fantastik etc degreaser spray to make sure you wont irrevocably fuck up your cabinets (theyre technically not meant to be used on porous surfaces like wood but sometimes a little rebellion is necessary) and if it doesnt melt the paint off then spray a cloth with it and give them a wipedown.

☆ You need to do a fridge cleanout. I know you do. After you clean out your fridge, take advantage of all that newfound space and wipe down the shelves with my best friend Fantastik and the sponge side of a Scrub Mommy. Im not sponsored or anything the shit is just goated

☆ Also on the list of shit you really dont want to do but need to: Clean the oven. Do not use the self-cleaning function, it gets way too hot and has a chance of actually ruining your oven in the long run. Take the racks out and soak them in warm baking soda water in your bathtub for, I dont know, as long as it takes to clean the rest of the oven? Usually 30 min-an hour. Spray the oven down with oven cleaner and LET IT SIT!!!! for as long as the product says it needs to sit. Then take a stainless steel scrubbing pad or some steel wool and go to town on that bitch. Some of the shit will not be coming off unless you are a professional oven cleaner, so just focus on getting out the crust and the really bad burnt bits (the flammable shit)

☆ Range: For an electric range, those drip pans are probably in need of a scrub. You can remove the heating elements and take out the drip pans beneath them to soak in the sink, then get at em with a stainless steel scrubber. For a gas range, I'm so sorry. Just take the grates off, spray some degreaser on the surface, and wipe it down. As far as the grates go, God went ahead and abandoned us on that one, but if you must - degreaser soak and a stainless steel scrubber.

Bedrooms:

☆ When was the last time you dusted your ceiling fan?

☆ When was the last time you got at those baseboards?

☆ Bedsheets and bed linens: I know, me too. If it's been more than two weeks, change your sheets - and if you've got a duvet, it's probably time to wash it and the cover you've had on it for way too long. I am calling myself out here basically by name.

☆ Bedside tables: It's time for a declutter and a dust. Put things in jewelry boxes and medicine cabinets where they belong, wipe shit down, and have a beautiful clean place to put your phone at night

General:

☆ If you want your Zone to immediately look 50% cleaner, vacuum your rugs and carpets and wash your wood(/laminate/LVP/etc) floors

☆ I'm telling you man. Baseboards. Especially if you have pets, those things can get SO nasty. A wet wipe of your baseboards will make a world of difference.

☆ I highly recommend buying something you can dust up high with. Get at those cobwebs and the caked-up dust on your ceiling fan. Also super useful for a quick baseboard dust - you can just run that shit along without having to bend over

☆ These are all things that really only need to be done once every couple months at most. Dont break your back making any of this a part of your regular weekly-to-monthly routine.

#cleaning #housekeeping #tips

klapollo

I heavily recommend getting very good at spotting Meta glasses. Like I'm talking so good all you need is a glance. Otherwise, I would go about public life bearing in mind that more and more people are wearing expensive camera glasses that can record you without you realizing.

klapollo

Learn how to identify smart glasses through visual cues, behavioral patterns, and recording indicators. Handle privacy concerns with this pr

Ready or not, the smart glasses future is upon us.

With smart glasses, there are concerns around being recorded. Fortunately, you can watch for indicator lights and certain movements as a way

Here are some basic primers. If someone is wearing what look like Meta glasses, they usually have a small circular camera in the outer corners of the lenses, like the one on your phone.

I would also regularly check their own product pages so you're on top of what the models look like. They tend to have larger frames, but come in a variety of shapes and colors.

Shop every style. Every color. Prices from $299 to $499. Browse Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta AI glasses and sunglasses to find your pair.

klapollo

The creator of Nearby Glasses made the app after reading 404 Media's coverage of how people are using Meta's Ray-Bans smartglasses to film p

A new hobbyist developed app warns if people nearby may be wearing smart glasses, such as Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses, which stalkers and harassers have repeatedly used to film people without their knowledge or consent. The app scans for smart glasses’ distinctive Bluetooth signatures and sends a push alert if it detects a potential pair of glasses in the local area.

The app comes as companies such as Meta continue to add AI-powered features to their glasses. Earlier this month The New York Times reported Meta was working on adding facial recognition to its smart glasses. “Name Tag,” as the feature is called, would let smart glasses wearers identify people and get information about them from Meta's AI assistant, the report said.

ozarkthedog

I am against Meta and everything they stand for but I’m curious if peoples’ opinions would change about someone wearing them as a disability aid?

viridian-dagger

Not necessarily, because Meta has military contracts (source 1, source 2, source 3), is testing surveillance tech on their own employees and their customers (source 4, source 5), and there are at least two class action lawsuits against them for privacy violations (source 6, source 7, source 8). There is also some sketchy stuff about workers being forced to review material, which may or may not be used without the customer's permission, that is sensitive, graphic, and/or pornographic (source 9).

The American Foundation for the Blind has said that "The Ray-Ban Meta glasses are an accessibility tool only by coincidence. That makes them more affordable and, in many ways, unaware of the needs of users with reduced vision" although they do have seemingly positive views on Meta Glasses as a whole. (source 10). It also seems like their marketing push as accessibility devices began last year (source 11).

But to add even more into the nonsense, Meta is now toying around with adding a "limit" to the functionality of their glasses unless their users pay for more access (source 12). AND, as stated above, Meta has officially added facial recognition code in their glasses and only admitted it after being called out, which is basically the death of privacy as we know it (source 13, source 14, source 15). And oh look another lawsuit because of it (source 16) THAT THEY LOST (source 17)!

Long story short: I don't begrudge someone using them as a disability aid overall, but ultimately both their privacy and other people's privacy are being disregarded by Meta and that is not and should not be acceptable by any means.

I understand there is no ethical consumption under capitalism but there is a level of personal responsibility someone has to take when using them if they truly truly need them, such as opting out of sharing information, not filming strangers without permission, not posting footage of strangers online, opting out of facial recognition if possible, etc.

Disabled people deserve assistive technology AND privacy rights, and Meta is not the solution.

#identify smart glasses #privacy

livedpoetry-deactivated20230925

from Salish Sea Black Autonomists

anarcho-dykeism

legit if you want an understanding of black anarchism - you should be following them

loveamongthesailors

link to the article from the last tweet

standwithdaanes

People should read the full article (it is very brief) but this part in particular got to me (BLMC is the group that wrote the article and became Mass Action for Black Liberation)

Before the trip to St. Louis, in the summer and fall of 2015, BLMC attempted to work with the Rice family (from a distance) to build momentum for the fight to jail the cops that killed Tamir Rice. Samaria Rice’s sheer will to get justice inspired tens of thousands across the country. Grass roots formations across the Midwest and South began to respond to these efforts, led by Samaria Rice. BLMC raised hundreds of dollars to rent busses, local unions were contributing and making plans to attend what was shaping up as a regional protest, steadily building into a national one. Several churches in the South were beginning to get busses and organize their congregations to attend. Chicago and Boston activists were mobilizing support as well. The family — rightfully so — reached out to BLM national for additional help. What happened next was treacherous. First, the open phone conferences organized to plan the #YearWithoutTamir action were shut down. BLM national, through a local leader they assigned, set up a new conference call where no one could speak but the moderator. They alienated churches who planned on sending support from the South. They refused to declare a firm day for a mass action, despite repeated requests from BLMC and numerous other groups. This made it impossible for unions and other organizations to zero in on a key day to bus people in. That single action destroyed union, regional and national support. At the last minute, a protest action day was called, but by then it was too late. The result was that only a couple hundred people — mostly from the nearby region — attended the action, when the stage (through the work of the Rice family) was set for many thousands more on a scale we saw later during the Philando Castile actions. The BLM leaders of that debacle then blamed local Black residents for low attendance at an event that was not built in any serious way and not geared towards mass participation.

On the topic of nonprofits, I really recommend everyone check out the book The Revolution Will Not Be Funded by the grassroots group INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence, which does a very good job critiquing what they call the "Non-Profit Industrial Complex."

#revolution will not be funded #black liberation #blm

kedreeva

Any pointers/links to reputable sources on pawpaw planting? (Just knowing whether the sources the Wikipedia article links are good would be great; I'm just not even sure where to start researching!)

We've idly considered planting some at my parents' house to fill a overly Moist spot that's already killed a pear tree, but I don't know if it's even true that pawpaw like 'swamp' conditions...

They won't enjoy wet spots, as they need well-drained soil. If you have a low spot, I would recommend looking into a willow tree, or checking with a few nurseries to get ideas for other trees that will do well without rotting in the wet. But willows enjoy the wet, it's why they're often by ponds and river edges and stuff.

Some of the sites I looked at while I was learning:

This MASSIVE resource about (Michigan) Pawpaws

Michigan's DNR page

Kentucky State University's Guide

Cornell Univserity's Guide

LSU College of Agriculture's Guide

University of Georgia's College of Agricultural and Environmental Science's Guide

Ohio DNR's page

Project PawPaw

Blossom Nursery

Perry Pawpaw's on-site resources (this is where I got the first 4 from)

#paw paw planting #ag

samwisethewitch

Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won't radicalize you into a hate group

It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that's generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.

Unfortunately, these "self-sufficiency" skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the "good old days," a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.

In the spirit of building safe communities, here's a complete list of the safe resources I've found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.

Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:

Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)

Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)

How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)

Gardening

Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)

Country/Rural Living:

Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it's like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)

"Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy" by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)

Sewing/Mending:

Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)

Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)

Sustainability/Land Stewardship

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs -- in this case, indigenous American beliefs -- can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)

Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)

Avoiding the "Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline"

Note: the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use "crunchy" spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.

"The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline" by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)

Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it's a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)

These are just the resources I've personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!

#Homemaking gardening and self-sufficiency resources that won't radicalize you into a hate group

buffalo-tracks

Internet archive links to books I've started to recommend if you care about indigenous people and anti-colonialism.

The Wretched of the Earth

Discourse On Colonialism

Making Space for Indigenous Feminism

Settlers: The Mythology Of The White Proletariat from Mayflower to Modern

Red Skin, White Masks : Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition

Borderlands/La Frontera

As We Have Always Done

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

Books I couldn't find on the archive but still recommend you purchase or check out at the library:

#indigenous peoples #anti colonialism #reading list

unbossed-deactivated20251218

Wireless internet access is on the rise in both modern consumer societies and in the developing world. In rich countries, however, the focus is on always-on connectivity and ever higher access speeds. In poor countries, on the other hand, connectivity is achieved through much more low-tech, often asynchronous networks.

While the high-tech approach pushes the costs and energy use of the internet higher and higher, the low-tech alternatives result in much cheaper and very energy efficient networks that combine well with renewable power production and are resistant to disruptions.

If we want the internet to keep working in circumstances where access to energy is more limited, we can learn important lessons from alternative network technologies. Best of all, there’s no need to wait for governments or companies to facilitate: we can build our own resilient communication infrastructure if we cooperate with one another. This is demonstrated by several community networks in Europe, of which the largest has more than 35,000 users already.

byrdierose

Piermesh: Our Internet

Agie of @utopicwork is working on a LoRa mesh network that I’ve been keeping my eyes on for a while - similar concept.

She also needs monetary support to keep herself, her family and her projects alive. Pls check out Piermesh and consider sending her some cash if you can.

Support wizdev

#internet mesh

estro-boi

we gotta get back to torrent distribution, i just watched someone eat eight grand in bandwidth charges because they ran a direct-download piracy site with local file hosting through cloudflare. torrents were invented literally for this exact reason

estro-boi

torrents work like this

i have a file or folder on my pc that i want to share with other people. let's call it gayshit.mp3

unfortunately gayshit.mp3 is 750mb and im not paying for discord nitro so i need another way to send it

i put it into qbittorrent and it makes a torrent file. this is essentially a very small file that points to gayshit.mp3 so other computers can find it. kinda like a treasure map

i send this tiny file to my friend, who loads it into qbittorrent. their computer takes a moment to find mine over the vast expanse of cyberspace and then (as long as my pc is running and the file is still where it should be), it gets copied from my hard drive to theirs

this is the cool part: if somebody else loads that tiny file, they can download it from both of us. if i'm offline but my friend is on, the third person can still get it. this also means that if two people have separate halves of the file, they can download the other half from each other. as long as some combination of people have the pieces between them, they can all have the whole thing.

crucially this does not require a server!!! you can just upload the file to a few people and as long as they keep it, it's still accessible. as long as somebody, somewhere is still connected, it's available forever. the only way it goes away is if everybody disconnects from it.

please learn to torrent

macleod

An expert guide to get started using torrentsTorrents are one of the most popular forms of file sharing on the internet, accounting for over

always use qbittorrent, do not use bittorrent or utorrent.

#how to #torrent #tech

lifehacksthatwork

Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023

Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!

Sejda - Free online PDF editor.

Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it’ll give you recipe ideas.

Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.

Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I’d recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.

12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.

Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.

TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn’t read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.

OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can’t for the life of you remember the actual word.

My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You’ll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.

Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.

Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.

PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.

Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.

Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.

LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.

Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.

Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.

CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.

Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.

I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.

Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.

Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.

Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.

My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.

Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.

Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.

Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.

Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.

Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.

Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.

This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.

Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.

BitWarden – Free open source password manager.

Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It’s genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.

Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.

ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.

Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.

Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.

Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.

myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.

DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.

Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.

For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.

#useful websites

justsewwhat

#fiber #block printing #how to

datgreenmonstah

Still in the works, but nearly done with this, then hopefully will have the tutorial up soon.

datgreenmonstah

Here’s how to make one for yourself

💬 0 🔁 31 ❤️ 56 · Here is the tutorial, I don’t get paid doing this and I’m not an expert at this so please don’t think I can answer everyt

#how to #flapping pterodactyl

abalidoth

Can I ask an odd math question.

I'm a physics student and I am interested in math. But I've noticed a tension between how mathematicians talk/think about mathematics and the way scientists tend to use math. Like mathematicians seem to treat the way scientists do math as sloppy. Do you know what the deal with this is? And maybe do you know of any books that explain how math works that aren't just "here's how to do proofs for 1st year undergrads"

(I'm pissed I only think of these questions between semesters)

Hmmm

I know this varies a lot from mathematician to mathematician, and subfield to subfield. Like I know a lot of Lie theorists consider the way physicists do Lie theory to be somewhat obscene. Personally I don't really care all that much -- mostly because my subfield's closest applications are in comp sci, and comp scientists are basically just mathematicians in funny hats anyway. (Sorry comp sci people. I adore you but it's true.)

As for books... It really depends what you're looking for. If you want a rigorous introduction to a particular subject then you need to specify what subject first; "mathematics" is too vague especially these days.

But if you want to fall in love with math the way I did, and you don't particularly care about rigor to start with? Read the book that changed 12-year-old Tessa's life forever.

The Colossal Book of Mathematics by Martin Gardner. It's a collection of decades of his best Scientific American columns. It set me down my current path in life. And it's here on the Internet Archive:

#colossal book of mathematics #Martin Gardner #love math #resource

aceinthetrap

An ultra extended flowchart for identifying dynasties! Even identifying sub-periods of each dynasty. As always, this is a general guide ther

does the makeup look sad or happy? >>> goth & sad >>> middle tang dynasty [lmao]

#hanfu styles flowchart

pinnipetal

I do really think that the use of ChatGPT and genAI by students highlights the fundamental flaw of our education system focusing almost entirely on grades and test scores rather than generating curiosity and inquiry, which produces individuals who fundamentally do not understand that the purpose of an assignment is meant to be to learn *how* to do something, not simply to produce a product you can turn in to get an A+

anarchistmemedistro

doomdoomofdoom

that post with the yam experiments

the-jaffster-official

At the very start of the AI panic, one thing my Black History teacher said that really stuck with me was that AI being a problem in a classroom reflected on the teacher and the curriculum, not the students. If the most important thing for a student to do is bubble in correct answers, submit assignments at certain word counts before deadlines, etc., then AI certainly poses a threat to that teacher. If the class features the teacher genuinely interfacing with students in a way that lets them gauge their understanding of the course material, then they shouldn't need to worry about AI.

anarchistmemedistro

that is true and a good point. i would just add the caveat that many schools in many countries micromanage teachers to the extent that they have no control over the curriculum, the assessments, or the grading. ai poses a challenge to that system, and to teachers that have bought into the system that challenge will feel personal.

geekwithsandwich

Everyone should read Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich. and then some modern rebuttals to it bc it's from the seventies so it needs the update, but the core of it is still good.

Schooling as an institution has had this exact problem for a long time. it's just coming to a critical head right now.