Dreamland

I left tumblr and deleted the app in a bit of a rush during a basically/somewhat mental breakdown and my brain has been pretty consistent garbage since then with my ocd in super overdrive mode, and honestly I’ve been pretty relieved that I haven’t been on tumblr. I haven’t really missed it. Like, whenever some world/national news thing happens I keep being thankful that I don’t know whatever tumblr is saying about it. Not to mention my ocd had gradually been getting worse in the months before I left and tumblr was really not helping giving me access to far too many easy ways to trigger myself in a self-destructive spiral and I’m sure that would be exasperated by 1000x now. Just like... taking a quick peek into tumblr like this, writing this post, is pretty badly stressing me out, tbh. Idk if anyone will see this but... there’s my update.

I don’t think I’ll ever delete my blog, however, I’m unsure if I’ll ever return to using it regularly and leaning towards a strong ‘no.’ I have no clue what my follower count is atm but if anyone wants to unfollow me, that’s fine. I’m certainly not posting any fandom content rn, nor can I see myself in the future, at least not back in the same fandom. Fandom itself is a whole other can of worms I really can’t even think about right now, and my current feelings on that are a strong ‘absolutely not.’

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.

Could not initially tell Merry & Pippin apart but made an effort to learn their names & can now tell them apart: Aragorn, Boromir

Try as he might cannot consistently tell Merry & Pippin apart: Gimli

Can absolutely tell Merry & Pippin apart but pretends not to be able to: Gandalf

What do you mean you can’t tell us apart, I’m much taller??: Merry

I know the average person doesn't think that hard about how much data their computer and phone are sending to various entities (who then sell the data to shadowy entities), but they need to think harder about it before jumping on the Ban TikTok train. Yes, I know China is ooOOooOOOoo scary but so is Mark Zuckerberg.

In fact, Zuck and Bezos and all the other billionaires who control most of our technology and internet access have done more harm to me personally and put me in more danger personally than China has. Maybe China is a bit ahead of these goons in doing harm to entire societies and countries, but only because the CCP has been in control for many more decades than these companies have existed.

Like, oh no, China is using TikTok to spy on us??

Only the American government and the oligarchs that control it are allowed to spy on me, thankyouverymuch.

Long version with links re: the RESTRICT bill:

There’s a lot that's bad about TikTok culture and the algorithms that promote the worst of it (misinformation, dangerous “pranks,” and apparently, videos that promote self-harm, for example) as fast as possible. I have the app because my sister likes to send me things on it, so TikTok is not an abstract boogeyman to me; I really dislike it as both a medium and a platform, but I have used it, and I can confirm that it does have a lot of garbage. I also understand that I’m the one who agreed to use this app and watch these videos. Also-also, I’m a total hypocrite who reblogs TikToks posted here that I enjoy. Don’t like it, don’t use it; grumble about those kids today on your (my) own time.

(Also, yes: Facebook is a scourge of misinformation and YouTube's algorithms are equally malicious. And Twitter is just... I don't want to talk about Twitter.)

Handing over even more power to the government through a bill with VAST overreach is not the solution to any of this.

It may be easy to dismiss the bill, but RESTRICT is as broad as the existing Patriot Act. In fact, many online privacy advocates have been drawing parallels between the two. Some even refer to RESTRICT as the "Patriot Act 2.0." It is also worth noting that the bill does not even mention TikTok by name, despite that being the original intention behind its drafting.

Answer: It leaves the possibility of criminalizing VPNs open. Also:

Warner's "Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act," or the RESTRICT Act, doesn't specifically mention TikTok or ByteDance. Rather, it would grant the U.S. secretary of commerce the broad power to "identify, deter, disrupt, prevent, prohibit, investigate, or otherwise mitigate … any risk arising from any covered transaction by any person, or with respect to any property" that the secretary determines to pose "an undue or unacceptable risk" in several different areas. These include federal elections, "information and communications technology products and services," and "critical infrastructure or digital economy," as well as "coercive or criminal activities by a foreign adversary that are designed to undermine democratic processes and institutions or steer policy and regulatory decisions in favor of the strategic objectives of a foreign adversary to the detriment of the national security of the United States.

[…] Hence anyone using a VPN to access TikTok would be in trouble—specifically, subject to up to $1 million in fines, 20 years in prison, or both.

[…] We've seen many times the way federal laws are sold as attacks on big baddies like terrorists and drug kingpins yet wind up used to attack people engaged in much more minor activities.