practice

12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.

My Fridge Food – No idea what to make? Tell this site what ingredients you have on hand and it will give you recipes to cook.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Anyone you’re dating who gets upset upon learning you’re bi is doing you a favor by disqualifying themselves from the list of People Who Get to Date You.”

I think it can be said that for the entire introverted community, the holidays can be the most stressful time of the year. It can also be said that it’s an introvert’s worst nightmare in terms of what the holidays bring along. LOTS and LOTS of unwanted interaction with family and friends. Oodles of attempts at figuring out that one family member that remembers you from when you were young, but you can’t remember who the hell they are. Family members inquiring as to what you’re doing, where you’re going to school/university, your current job, significant other, and tons of other questions you wish they’d just keep to themselves. And then there are the holiday parties filled with laughter, plastered-on fake smiles in front of employees and bosses. The incessant chatter about things and topics that hold no interest to you. And as you take your annual spot in the back of the room, you silently wish to yourself that you weren’t here. You wish you had nothing to do and that you didn’t have to be at this stupid party or exhausting family gathering. We’ve all been through this before. And we’ve all thought and even wished for the same thing. We’ve all wanted to have nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to needlessly interact with. For any introvert, that is the best thing we could ever hope for when the holidays roll around. Doing nothing for the holidays is a paradise.

Being brutally honest, having nothing to do for the holidays is something of a rarity for most people. Since we live in an extrovert-oriented society, it can be difficult to bow out of family gatherings and annual holiday parties at the office. And that is hell for any introvert trying to cope in a world full of social static. There is nothing more soul-wrenching than to spend the holidays out and about rather than

in your house where you really WANT to be. However, when the opportunity to do nothing during the holidays shows itself, we introverts seize it like a perfect cup of tea or coffee.

As a fellow introvert (an INFJ to be exact), I find it exhilarating when my family doesn’t have any plans or gatherings they want to attend. I don’t have to map out an escape route or blend in with the walls of my house to get away from all the interaction and overstimulation of my introverted brain. I find it truly blissful when I get to be by myself and do what I want to do. I can wear my comfortable sweatpants, make myself a good cup of coffee or tea, catch up on my reading or watch one of my favorite shows on Netflix. Or I can simply retreat into my mind and wander around in there (though I tend to get lost sometimes). I can enjoy my solitude, never speaking a word to anyone or anything (my cats being the obvious exception because they will always have my full attention). What I do is up to me and me alone. I’m not being judged or put on the spot for staying home and indulging in alone time during the holidays. Not that I’d listen to any of that negativity. I know that I need time to myself to recharge and to just enjoy my own presence, something I need a lot of if I want to function somewhat normally. I don’t have to apologize for not making small talk, having meaningless conversations, or for not talking altogether at gatherings. I can take solace in who I am as a person without being harassed for it.

I’d like to take this time to say that I have nothing against my family. I love my family to bits and would do anything for them. Except sacrifice my alone time and introverted pastimes for their sake. I spend as much time with my family as I can stomach. But there are many times where I must leave them alone, times where I don’t even want to be bothered with them. And I simply must be alone. I get like that around the holidays all the time. However, I’m usually at a family member’s house surrounded by noisy kids, loud holiday music I fail to tune out, and nowhere to hide from it all. Luckily, this Christmas I am at home. No family gatherings or parties to go to. I’m not completely alone since I still live at home and not on my own, but it’s a Christmas miracle (pun intended) I am thankful for. I can only look forward to experiencing true introverted paradise when I am on my own.