Assorted Things

Magpies collect shiny things.. Here's my collection

[stuckinapril]

I saw people do this & adopted it myself, and it’s actually been super helpful—set a daily reminder to do your arab.org click of the day. It has been said ad nauseam at this point, but if each person in the thousands of people who engage on palestine posts clicked on this, we’d be raising thousands in revenue towards humanitarian aid. Don’t think your one little click is unnecessary. It adds up fast—but only if you actually do it.

A lot of people asked how they can help if they don’t have funds to spare. This is the most passive way to raise donations towards Palestinian aid.

[ms-demeanor]

So You Need To Buy A Computer But You Don't Know What Specs Are Good These Days

Hi.

This is literally my job.

Lots of people are buying computers for school right now or are replacing computers as their five-year-old college laptop craps out so here's the standard specs you should be looking for in a (windows) computer purchase in August 2023.

PROCESSOR

Intel i5 (no older than 10th Gen)

Ryzen 7

You can get away with a Ryzen 5 but an intel i3 should be an absolute last resort. You want at least an intel i5 or a Ryzen 7 processor. The current generation of intel processors is 13, but anything 10 or newer is perfectly fine. DO NOT get a higher performance line with an older generation; a 13th gen i5 is better than an 8th gen i7. (Unfortunately I don't know enough about ryzens to tell you which generation is the earliest you should get, but staying within 3 generations is a good rule of thumb)

RAM

8GB absolute minimum

If you don't have at least 8GB RAM on a modern computer it's going to be very, very slow. Ideally you want a computer with at least 16GB, and it's a good idea to get a computer that will let you add or swap RAM down the line (nearly all desktops will let you do this, for laptops you need to check the specs for Memory and see how many slots there are and how many slots are available; laptops with soldered RAM cannot have the memory upgraded - this is common in very slim laptops)

STORAGE

256GB SSD

Computers mostly come with SSDs these days; SSDs are faster than HDDs but typically have lower storage for the same price. That being said: SSDs are coming down in price and if you're installing your own drive you can easily upgrade the size for a low cost. Unfortunately that doesn't do anything for you for the initial purchase.

A lot of cheaper laptops will have a 128GB SSD and, because a lot of stuff is stored in the cloud these days, that can be functional. I still recommend getting a bit more storage than that because it's nice if you can store your music and documents and photos on your device instead of on the cloud. You want to be able to access your files even if you don't have internet access.

But don't get a computer with a big HDD instead of getting a computer with a small SSD. The difference in speed is noticeable.

SCREEN (laptop specific)

Personally I find that touchscreens have a negative impact on battery life and are easier to fuck up than standard screens. They are also harder to replace if they get broken. I do not recommend getting a touch screen unless you absolutely have to.

A lot of college students especially tend to look for the biggest laptop screen possible; don't do that. It's a pain in the ass to carry a 17" laptop around campus and with the way that everything is so thin these days it's easier to damage a 17" screen than a 14" screen.

On the other end of that: laptops with 13" screens tend to be very slim devices that are glued shut and impossible to work on or upgrade.

Your best bet (for both functionality and price) is either a 14" or a 15.6" screen. If you absolutely positively need to have a 10-key keyboard on your laptop, get the 15.6". If you need something portable more than you need 10-key, get a 14"

FORM FACTOR (desktop specific)

If you purchase an all-in-one desktop computer I will begin manifesting in your house physically. All-in-ones take away every advantage desktops have in terms of upgradeability and maintenance; they are expensive and difficult to repair and usually not worth the cost of disassembling to upgrade.

There are about four standard sizes of desktop PC: All-in-One (the size of a monitor with no other footprint), Tower (Big! probably at least two feet long in two directions), Small Form Factor Tower (Very moderate - about the size of a large shoebox), and Mini/Micro/Tiny (Small! about the size of a small hardcover book).

If you are concerned about space you are much better off getting a MicroPC and a bracket to put it on your monitor than you are getting an all-in-one. This will be about a million percent easier to work on than an all-in-one and this way if your monitor dies your computer is still functional.

Small form factor towers and towers are the easiest to work on and upgrade; if you need a burly graphics card you need to get a full size tower, but for everything else a small form factor tower will be fine. Most of our business sales are SFF towers and MicroPCs, the only time we get something larger is if we have to put a $700 graphics card in it. SFF towers will accept small graphics cards and can handle upgrades to the power supply; MicroPCs can only have the RAM and SSD upgraded and don't have room for any other components or their own internal power supply.

WARRANTY

Most desktops come with either a 1 or 3 year warranty; either of these is fine and if you want to upgrade a 1 year to a 3 year that is also fine. I've generally found that if something is going to do a warranty failure on desktop it's going to do it the first year, so you don't get a hell of a lot of added mileage out of an extended warranty but it doesn't hurt and sometimes pays off to do a 3-year.

Laptops are a different story. Laptops mostly come with a 1-year warranty and what I recommend everyone does for every laptop that will allow it is to upgrade that to the longest warranty you can get with added drop/damage protection. The most common question our customers have about laptops is if we can replace a screen and the answer is usually "yes, but it's going to be expensive." If you're purchasing a low-end laptop, the parts and labor for replacing a screen can easily cost more than half the price of a new laptop. HOWEVER, the way that most screens get broken is by getting dropped. So if you have a warranty with drop protection, you just send that sucker back to the factory and they fix it for you.

So, if it is at all possible, check if the manufacturer of a laptop you're looking at has a warranty option with drop protection. Then, within 30 days (though ideally on the first day you get it) of owning your laptop, go to the manufacturer site, register your serial number, and upgrade the warranty. If you can't afford a 3-year upgrade at once set a reminder for yourself to annually renew. But get that drop protection, especially if you are a college student or if you've got kids.

And never, ever put pens or pencils on your laptop keyboard. I've seen people ruin thousand dollar, brand-new laptops that they can't afford to fix because they closed the screen on a ten cent pencil. Keep liquids away from them too.

LIFESPAN

There's a reasonable chance that any computer you buy today will still be able to turn on and run a program or two in ten years. That does not mean that it is "functional."

At my office we estimate that the functional lifespan of desktops is 5-7 years and the functional lifespan of laptops is 3-5 years. Laptops get more wear and tear than desktops and desktops are easier to upgrade to keep them running. At 5 years for desktops and 3 years for laptops you should look at upgrading the RAM in the device and possibly consider replacing the SSD with a new (possibly larger) model, because SSDs and HDDs don't last forever.

COST

This means that you should think of your computers as an annual investment rather than as a one-time purchase. It is more worthwhile to pay $700 for a laptop that will work well for five years than it is to pay $300 for a laptop that will be outdated and slow in one year (which is what will happen if you get an 8th gen i3 with 8GB RAM). If you are going to get a $300 laptop try to get specs as close as possible to the minimums I've laid out here.

If you have to compromise on these specs, the one that is least fixable is the processor. If you get a laptop with an i3 processor you aren't going to be able to upgrade it even if you can add more RAM or a bigger SSD. If you have to get lower specs in order to afford the device put your money into the processor and make sure that the computer has available slots for upgrade and that neither the RAM nor the SSD is soldered to the motherboard. (one easy way to check this is to search "[computer model] RAM upgrade" on youtube and see if anyone has made a video showing what the inside of the laptop looks like and how much effort it takes to replace parts)

Computers are expensive right now. This is frustrating, because historically consumer computer prices have been on a downward trend but since 2020 that trend has been all over the place. Desktop computers are quite expensive at the moment (August 2023) and decent laptops are extremely variably priced.

If you are looking for a decent, upgradeable laptop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

14" Lenovo - $670 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD

15.6" HP - $540 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

14" Dell - $710 - 12th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

If you are looking for a decent, affordable desktop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

SFF HP - $620 - 10th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD

SFF Lenovo - $560 - Ryzen 7 5000 series, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

Dell Tower - $800 - 10th-gen i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

If I were going to buy any of these I'd probably get the HP laptop or the Dell Tower. The HP Laptop is actually a really good price for what it is.

Anyway happy computering.

[tournevole]

rose and raven

[emmaharwoods]

you can click on this button once daily to help palestine and support other causes in the middle east for free. it takes literally 5 seconds and could help save lives so please take the time to click and share this link.

[grelliam]

#oh it raises money thru ad revenue and ur click confirms the value to advertisers. neat

[mylastbraincql-deactivated20210]

wen yuan smiles  ♡＾▽＾♡ (aka babey time)

[tricklingsand]

ahhhhhhh 💖💖💖💖💖💖

[buried-in-stardust]

打鐵花 (da2tie3hua1; struck iron fireworks) is a traditional folk firework that began in Henan and Shanxi, first arising in Queshan county, Henan and later circulating through the whole country. It had first appeared during the Northern Song dynasty, and was most popular during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

For Queshan struck iron fireworks, a two-layer pergola is built and covered with willow branches for performances, under which the molten iron is struck up with two willow sticks to create a rain of fire.

[eng by me + edited an ad out]

(On top of the information in the video, I have some more about its recent history under the cut.)

*Also, a note about one of the subtitles: I realized later that "going into battle without a shield" actually just meant going shirtless. I was only confused about this phrasing while translating because she didn't go shirtless, although that is for obvious reasons

Queshan struck iron fireworks had almost been lost before Yang Jianjun unearthed it again in 1988. It had almost died out in the early years of the Republic of China being established, after which there had only been three performances until 1988: 1952, 1956, 1962. Yang Jianjun had seen the 1956 performance as a 7-8 year old and later on as the director of a cultural centre, began digging up the skill and its history. In the process, he became an apprentice to Li Wanfa, who had been the last head of the Queshan Struck Iron Fireworks Society. He practised with sand and water, learning of its historical origin, its ancestral inheritors, craftsmanship and performance arts, but didn't touch the real thing until 1988. Through Yang Jianjun's efforts and investment, the first struck iron fireworks performance in more than 25 years took place in Nanshan Square (then a deserted area) in Queshan county.

Queshan struck iron fireworks are different from other struck iron fireworks in that it requires a wide area to perform, whereas others only needed a wall or could be hit straight up into the air, and it costed much more money to set up.

The names of inheritors are difficult to trace, and can only be traced back to the Qing dynasty during the Qian long period, making Yang Jianjun a sixth-generation inheritor, and Jiang Xunqian (OP) the first woman and a seventh-generation inheritor.

[buried-in-stardust]

This is a comment by OP:

Ever since two years ago when I saw the stunning iron fireworks, the notion of striking iron fireworks has always lingered in my mind, but I never made a firm resolution, scared that after an accident, I wouldn't have to ability to bear it. After communicating with Teacher Yang Jianjun's iron fireworks team, they never had much confidence that I could strike them successfully. Teacher said in the past thousand years, struck iron fireworks had only been passed down to men, never women, and he had never taken in a female disciple.

After seeing myself, he thought it was even less possible, and the kindhearted Teacher Yang was particularly afraid of the iron fireworks injuring me. The shixiong* in the iron fireworks team also particularly looked after me, and attentively instructed me how to strike so that the large chunks of molten iron wouldn't splash on my body. My camera operator was completely equipped with 1500 degree fire resistant protective clothing, and we had even searched up the closest hospital's address before starting. Under the pergola we prayed for Taishang Laojun** and grandpa to bless and protect me hahaha

The good thing is all of it went very smoothly, although my clothes now have a lot of holes in them, I have some small burns, and some of my hair was also burnt off, but all of this was worth it. I've finally become the first female disciple in the past thousand years, and a seventh generation inheritor of Queshan struck iron fireworks! I hope everyone who sees this video can be courageous, and I hope the iron fireworks blesses and protects everyone to be safe, sound, happy, and for all things to go smoothly!

*师兄 - older martial brother, used for men older than yourself who learned under the same teacher

**太上老君 - lit. The Supreme Lord Lao, one of the main gods of Daoism and the reincarnation of the philosopher Laozi

On Bilibili, OP expands on the significance of the pergola design:

Let me explain to everyone the pergola of the "National Level Cultural Heritage Queshan Struck Iron Fireworks".

The Supreme Ultimate: The whole pergola.

Yin and yang: The upper and lower layers.

The Three Powers: The two layers of the pergola plus the pole going through the centre. The three spaces are a total of 15 metres tall, containing the meaning of "Heaven, Earth, Humans". This type of expression can also be found in "Mawangdui Han Tombs No. 1 Silk Painting" (马王堆一号汉墓帛画)

The four constellation groups: The four directions.

The five elements: East is wood, south is fire, west is metal, north is water, and the centre is earth. At each of the five directions, five flags of green, red, white, black, and yellow are inserted to represent the five elements.

The eight trigrams: The pergola is separated into the upper and lower floors, and the two sets of four corners are staggered to create eight corners, the same shape as an eight trigram compass.

There are three dos and three don'ts for iron fireworks. Don't strike during bad harvest years, don't strike during national mourning, don't strike during war. [T/N: The three "dos" are do strike during good harvest years, do strike during happy occasions, do strike during prospering years.] In the recent past, natural calamities and man-made disasters have extended into several decades, and the chaos of war continuing year after year. The Daoists had passed away, and no one could build a pergola anymore.

The style of the pergola you see now is because of Teacher Yang Jianjun spending more than ten years doing textual research from all sides and reviving it from that.

[translated by me]

Pictures of comments and a picture OP included with her comment under cut:

[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.

Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.

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.

[icykalisartblog]

DDoS Attack Against AO3: Correcting Misinformation

Normally I don't make any posts like this, but I have an interest in cybersecurity and sadly I've seen people are being really ignorant about this recent DDoS attack against the site AO3 (Archive of Our Own), so I thought I'd remind people of a few things:

Anonymous Sudan appears to have no actual link to Sudan at all, or to any previous hacktivist groups that once operated there. This masquerade is probably based in anti-immigration and other racist sentiments, and utilizing those sentiments in other people to scare people and set up Muslims and Sudanese people as a target. This should be obvious from the language used in their note, but this was already known prior to this particular attack.

This so-called Anonymous Sudan has actually been very active recently—remember that they claimed to attack Reddit, Flickr, Riot Games, a huge number of Microsoft web portals like OneDrive and Outlook, etc. before AO3, so AO3 was totally a logical target for them since they've gone after smaller entities before. DDoS attacks like this are easy for any script kiddie to set up, so it's not weird that they'd go for a smaller target like this.

Honestly this group of posers probably just wants money, everybody. They sent AO3 a ransom note asking for Bitcoin (and just in case people don't know, do not pay a ransom if at all possible if this ever happens to you).

My advice to people who've noticed this attack is two-fold: calm down since this is part of a larger pattern that has literally resulted in basically no loss for the end-user of any of the sites, and... I don't really know a better way to put this, but don't believe everything you read. A religiously-motivated hate group wouldn't use terms like "LGBTQ+" and "smuts," and it's so blatantly obvious that the timing of every single one of these attacks is being used to smear Muslims and Sudanese people if you think about current events for like. One second. And if you look up Anonymous Sudan, you'll see their string of attacks and how all experts know that they have nothing to do with Sudan at all. Even AO3 itself told everybody that the group is lying about their motivations... though I think I'd go further than that personally because even their name itself is almost certainly a total sham.

To be clear: this post isn't targeted at anyone in particular. I've just seen a lot of people falling for this overall or not realizing this is part of a pattern, and I also wanted to remind everyone that this isn't anything to be concerned about. What is something to be concerned about is not doing research or thinking critically and then unwittingly spreading racist ideas.

[shirozen]

Happy Dragon Boat Festival! Here are some dumplings I’ve grew up eating

[shirozen]

How to wrap sticky rice dumpling (zongzi) for Dragon Boat Festival 

[ziggy-solarecreator]

Proper boundaries

[sonnetscrewdriver]

so if I'm getting this right, not only did Elon Musk just essentially publically admit that he fired a guy from Twitter because the guy has muscular dystrophy, but said guy was literally on a Do Not Fire list because he'd sold his company to twitter, took it as wages so he'd pay higher taxes to give back to his home country's welfare state, AND his contract stated that twitter would need to pay him millions of dollars if he was ever terminated?

we've passed beyond absolute scenes. we're in the realm of Ultimate Scenes.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

[sonnetscrewdriver]

tfw you’ve just been bollocked by your phalanx of lawyers

[francesderwent]

wish list for people who don’t want anything

aka possessions which are just possessions, but which have noticeably improved my quality of life: for when people ask you “what do you want for your birthday/Christmas/graduation” and you instantly transform into St Francis and pledge fealty to Lady Poverty because your mind went blank

nice. new. sheets. I cannot emphasize this one enough. if you’re still using the same sheets you had in college, you should probably get new ones. get yourself some 100% bamboo rayon sheets—they’re silky and perfect for summer and great for sensitive skin! or, if you’re cold all the time, flannel sheets!

kitchen knives. or even just one really good kitchen knife.

new curtains—blackout if you are a creature of the night like I am

fleece lined anything, but especially sweatpants and hoodies. wool lined socks are also good. if you don’t have the option of coming home after work and putting on an entire outfit that is loose and fuzzy, you should change that, because you deserve that option.

cookie sheets with a layer of air between the top and the bottom. the bottoms of your cookies will never burn again.

kitchen scale!!! no more leveling off flour with a knife and getting it all over the table!! now all your measuring is just shoveling stuff in and out of bowls like you’re at the beach. baking is both more accurate and also way more fun.

coffee bean grinder. if you want to upgrade your coffee experience, this is a great one-time purchase. just-ground beans have a much better flavor than pre-ground.

CDs!! ask for a gift card and expand your physical music collection! or a collection of the DVDs for your favorite show!

[motleysaint]

A few more things!

Good luggage. Whether it’s a suitcase or a duffel bag or even just packing cubes, it’s all helpful!

Good art. If it’s someone you trust, you can ask them to surprise you with a piece they like, otherwise you can have a few back up suggestions of ideas (I saw a framed piece of just the hands from Michaelangelo’s The Creation of Man and have not forgot about it since)

Good good pillows or fluffy blankets to go along with those nice new sheets from above

Office supplies. Pens, markers, sharpies. All the sharpies.

Coffee travel mugs (can one have too many?). If they say they still want more ideas, also ask for a bag of their favorite beans/tea

Look around your house, what do you have that is still from college? Ask for a better one of those.

[mademoisellesarcasme]

And for the future planning, especially if you’re me and forget things: make a document of “things I’d like but don’t want to buy for myself frivolously” and then select items from that for a wishlist.

[killyouranxiety]

hobbies masterpost!

a really excellent way to reduce anxiety is to pick up a new hobby. find something you’re interested in, learn it, then use it as a healthy and productive way to cope.

learn to play guitar

learn how to make interactive stories with the free program Twine

learn how to make pixel art

learn another language

learn how to build a ship in a bottle

learn how to develop your own film

learn how to embroider

learn how to make chiptunes (8-bit music)

learn how to make origami (the art of paper folding)

learn how to make tumblr themes

learn how to make jewelry 

learn how to make candy

learn how to make terrariums

learn how to make your own perfume

learn how to make your own tea

learn how to build birdhouses

learn how to read tarot cards

learn how to make zines

learn how to code

learn how to whittle (wood carving)

learn how to make candles

learn how to make clay figurines

learn how to knit scarves

learn how to become an amateur astronomer

learn some yoyo tricks

learn how to start a collection

learn how to start body building

learn how to edit wikipedia articles

learn how to decorate iphone cases

learn how to do freelance writing

learn how to make your own cards and

learn how to make your own envelopes

learn how to play the ukulele 

learn how to make gifs

learn how to play chess

learn how to juggle

learn how to guerrilla garden

learn how to chart your family history

learn how to keep chickens

learn how to do yoga

learn how to do magic tricks

learn how to raise and breed butterflies

learn how to play dungeons & dragons

learn how to skateboard

learn how to do parkour

learn how to surf

learn how to arrange flowers

learn how to make stuffed animals

[allstrangenature]

I can barely contain myself right now

holy shit

HOLY SHIT

[27dragons]

holy CRAP.

Artists, creators, students, and researchers of all types, take note:

Digitized photos and text. 2D and 3D object renders. Music and other sound files. Videos. Research datasets. Collections metadata.

On a Creative Commons Zero license: Take what you want. Use it. No permission or attribution required. Yes, even for commercial use.

There is a lot wrong with the world at the moment, but the Smithsonian… the Smithsonian is right.

[sartorialadventure]

The archive includes fashion images!

[zxcide-deactivated20230130]

i’m curious, so put in the tags where you grew up and how you learned the four cardinal directions. i grew up in the south in the usa, and we learned “never eat slimy watermelon.”

[tricklingsand]

I was in the UK where i learned Never Eat Shreded Wheat 🤣🤣🤣

But in Thailand, where I grew up till my early teens, we dont really have a rhyme for it...

#UK #Thailand #Where and How you learn the cardinal directions #Or not

[lesbiansitara-moved-deactivated]

I wish that ao3 had an option to filter warnings (and tbh certain authors) out like I will never ever want to read it and just seeing it puts me off so much that often I end up closing my browser because that content upsets me so much lmao

[darcylindbergh]

There is a way to do this but I can’t recall how to do it. it’s something you type into the box for “other filters” or something, I don’t remember. who knows?? It’s not a great option, and I don’t know if you can sort out authors that way, but it’s better than nothing if someone can reblog this with how to do it!

[fordeductions-blog]

Alrighty friends! It takes some specificity, but you can do this. Let me show you how!

So I started with going to the Sherlock (TV) section of Ao3. On the right we find this lovely section! ((I know I’m going over things you already probably know, but I figure this post may go to new Ao3 users, so bear with me.))

Underneath this, I chose sort by Kudos, because that’s a quick way to find most popular fics, for the sake of this demonstration. 

With those filters on, we end up with this being our first two results: 

As you can see, we have Nature and Nurture by earlgreytea68, and The Internet Is Not Just For Porn by cyerus. So what if I am utterly sick of seeing earlgreytea68 on my list? Let’s pretend I’ve read all their fics, or that I just don’t like her, or whatever. I want this author out. I go to this section on the right: 

In “Search within results” I type earlgreytea68 into the bar, with a minus sign in front. This gives me the following page, upon hitting the sort and filter button:

There goes earlgreytea68! But now I’ve decided that Crack is just not my thing, I’m sick of that, too, for heaven’s sake, I want something reasonable in my gay slash fanfiction about detectives that solve crimes about glowing dogs and irish megalomaniacs. Heaven forbid this get ridiculous.

Well, then I add this to my search:

Which gets rid of everything with that tag. My results are now:

Performance in a Leading Role is now my first result!

You can do this as many times as you want; the biggest problem I have is trying to filter out multi-worded tags. For example, “Secret Relationship” is hard to filter. Better to go with authors you dislike or with words like “DubCon”. 

I hope this helps! Also remember that googling site:archiveofourown.org and then adding search terms will mean google searches Ao3 for you, and sometimes that works far better. 

Good luck!

[darcylindbergh]

An excellent in-depth guide! Thank you!!

[eyesofmedusa]

omg changed my whole ao3 rarepair game

[stucky-ficrecs]

An excellent guide to filtering on AO3!

You can filter out phrases by enclosing them in quotes. For example, if ABO and Hydra Trash Party are not your things, try:

-“alpha/beta/omega dynamics” -”hydra trash party”

[possibly-an-obsession]

I have more advice!

Say, you’re in your random fandom- I went with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, since I’ve been reading Iron Man stuff recently. Tony Stark is awesome.

But anyway, you’re on the page, and you see that there are 174,774 works! That is way too many for a casual afternoon’s browsing.

And you see that the first one is Peter Parker/Tony Stark and that is not your jam. It doesn’t work for you, or it squicks you, whatever. Wouldn’t life be easier if you could browse without seeing that pairing (or whatever pairing you don’t like)? You can!

First, click on that pairing tag(You may want to open this in another tab, actually.):

and it’ll take you to the page for that pairing tag. Click this button:

and then look at the address bar! The actual page is unimportant. Copy the numbers located here:

and go back to the original search page! Down on the side, in the same place you can get rid of other tags, type -relationship_ids:”the number you just copied”

Then hit ‘sort and filter’ annnd… magic!

The fics with that pairing are gone! You can also do multiple pairings, get rid of any tags you don’t like, and sort it by date or length or kudos, or whatever.

Enjoy.

[irenkaferalkitty]

I’d just like to add that these sorts of search modifiers ALSO WORK IN GOOGLE AND MOST RESEARCH DATABASES. The more you know.

[itsmajel]

Just a quick reminder that AO3 uses Lucene as a search and index engine.

That means you can pretty much use all the Lucene Query Syntax in the “Seach within result” field.

I don’t think AO3 indexes the whole fic for searching but definitely it’s meta data. Combined with Lucenes awesome query syntax you can do pretty much every search you heart desires.

Addtional Lucene Query Syntax that has not been mentioned yet and you might find useful:

Wildcard Searches

You can use wildcard searches within single terms. For a single character wildcard search use the “?” symbol. For a multiple character wildcard search use the “*” symbol.

AND/OR

Lucene allows you to combin terms through logic operators. You’re looking for fics that are either “reunion” or “enemies to lovers”?

Just put in >“reunion” OR “enemies to lovers”< into the field

and you end up with all the stories that are either or but not both.

But wait, now you’re looking for fics that are both “reunion” and “enemies to lovers” at the same time? Now worries Lucene got you covered.

Just change it into >“"reunion” AND “enemies to lovers”“<

and you’ll get all the fics that mention both “reunion” and “enemies to lovers” somewhere in their meta data (note: it’s not just tags. It’s also title, summary …)

Boosting

You can also boost specific terms when doing a multi term search.

You can use the “^” Operator followed by a number to boost a specific term.

Say you’re interested in fics that are either “first kiss” or “bed sharing” but you’re much more interested in “bed sharing” fics and feel they are more relevant.

You can use the search >“first kiss” “bed sharing”^5<

to manipulate the order of your results in a matter that the score of every fic that contains beg sharing is multiplied by 5. Therefore all fics containing that term are given priority and shown at the top of the list.

You can also combine all of the above, target specifc fields (that’s what you did with the “relationsship_id:xxx”) and many more things.

For more info about the Lucene query syntax check out Apache’s Lucene Query doc.

[thefriendlypigeon]

^ sharing this because we all love fanfics and @itsmajel is a freaking nerd 👌

[purlturtle]

Some of these searches can also be achieved via the “exclude” function in the search bar - this offers you for each section (ratings, category, relationships, tags, etc.) the most commonly used metadata for these fics, to check or uncheck (and thus exclude or not) as you please!