KULUGARY'S CORNER

there is delaware (state) and delaware (river) 

both are equally strange

the state is a tiny little cryptid thing

the rive is a monster that spans new york, pennsylvania, new jersey and delaware. also washington crossed it once and that was like kinda a big deal i guess. like crossing the rubicon in rome.

Source

Video of Tama

^Nitama majestic, and below with Yontama

Yontama.

The shrine of Tama Daimyōjin (Great gracious deity Tama), next to the Kishi station where she worked.

And they are announcing the winner of the “up and coming god” award, and of course, Yato thinks it’s him.

But no-

Nitama and Yontama are still alive and still working. Gotama is Nitama’s second assistant.

Also, there’s not enough pictures of Sun-Tama-Tama in this thread, so have this one:

Printers are notorious for claiming they’re out of ink when they haven’t come close to the suggested number of prints, and their cartridges literally still have ink in them. So after a bit of googling I found out how to ‘reset’ a cartridges automatic stopping system (its literally 1 physical wheel on the cartridge that you gotta turn back). The only downside is that I don’t get a digital ink monitor, but since it told me it was empty when still half full, I don’t mind. 

Like, you can just jiggle with some shit and solve one of the biggest money making scams in the post-industrial world and I don’t think people realise its that easy. 

Or, like, repairing your own technology. A few months ago, I swapped out my sister’s laptop screen. Did it myself, I removed maybe 4 screws, no vital parts were exposed and it cost me $40. I even got a choice of matte or glossy. 

1) ThePirateBay is still functional. (It’s not the same pirate bay that it was back in the day, but let’s not get into Theseus’ ship territory. It’s still here and it still works, that’s all that matters.) There are plenty of torrent sites around, more than there were 10 years ago – although overall traffic has plummeted. Now as then, it’s a whack-a-mole game.

2) Why was it “leagues easier” a decade ago? Some countries, not all (not north America, for example), now mandate ISP blocking of torrent sites, but this new complication can be bypassed with one (1) step: a google duckduckgo search for proxies. No government agency or ISP can possibly keep up with proxies, it’s yet another whack-a-mole game. So yes, it was technically easier before, but I don’t see “leagues” anywhere.

3) It was safer before? Are you shitting me? Have you lot forgotten that the legal departments of MPAA and RIAA sued torrent sharers (not even uploaders) and asked for millions of dollars for damages? AND GOT THEM? (By which I mean they didn’t actually get millions since the people they sued didn’t have any, but said people were convicted and ruined and that was the goal in the first place. It was a deeply amoral and cynical scare tactic.) Well they stopped doing that at some point, and focused on hunting P2P and torrent sites. Running a site is certainly less safe today. Using one, though? Depending on where you are, the ISP may be allowed to block you after repeated instances, and that’s it. You’re not getting in trouble with the law or into crippling debt. And either way there’s only a minuscule chance that any of this will come to pass, which becomes zero (0) with a VPN. (Safety of course depends on the country, and in some cases piracy is the least of your concerns. Let’s not get into that.)

4) Ten years ago there was no Sci-Hub, and Library Genesis was in its infancy. If today it’s harder to find PDFs on google, it is orders of magnitude easier and more reliable to find them elsewhere. People just have to unstick their minds from the notion that stuff is either on google or doesn’t exist at all. Geez.

5) P2P still exists. IRC (the sharing channels in particular, #bookz and the like) still exists. Torrenting functions like it always did. All these methods are exactly as easy to use as before, i.e. not necessarily a piece of cake, there’s a learning curve. But it’s the same learning curve it was 10 years ago.

6) So what have we lost? Only YouTube (meh, the film/tv quality was appalling anyway, and music is still there) and direct downloads (at least the permanent ones: there are plenty of them still around, but files expire and you need to keep track of what goes up when. So this goes beyond knowhow, it’s about internet communities. Let’s not get into that either, it’s a huge subject.) It’s a loss, sure, but I wouldn’t call it a terrible blow.

7) And in exchange for that loss, we got streaming sites. This is piracy, too, and it’s much much easier than torrents, and tons of people do it. Any “piracy has declined” narrative either implies that we’re excluding streaming from the discussion for some reason, or is flat out wrong. Ten years ago, grandpa couldn’t possibly torrent a film, and it’s debatable if he even knew how to open the file you helpfully sent him. Now, as long as someone has set up kodi or similar, grandpa can watch it on his tv and it just feels like cable.

8) On why torrents in particular have declined in recent years, see here. It’s a big subject and I didn’t cover all of it, but the main reason is that people had access to easier methods to get what they wanted (some legal and affordable, some illegal and free), so they didn’t need to learn how to torrent. Ergo, they never did. There’s more of course, and there’s definitely a cultural shift too, but that’s a very long story so let’s not get into it. The linked post also includes some thoughts on why torrents aren’t dead and doomed just yet, and ooh, I forgot a very important one: you can’t stream photoshop.

To summarise, internet piracy is NOT more difficult, unreliable, and unsafe today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. For reasons why people (young or otherwise) seem less versed in it, please look elsewhere. I have thoughts on that too, but this is already a very long post, so I’ll just leave you with the best kind of thought. I’ll leave you with a doubt:

Materpost: A curated Githup tutorial of links to more torrent sites, software, VPNs, uBlock origin filters, ect. Basically everything you could ever want starting out. Do be warned though it doesn’t appear to have been updated in awhile so a few of the links are dead.

GAMES:

Vimm’s Roms: NES era->ps3 era roms and emulators to play them. Has user ratings on games. Cons: slow download speeds.

NxBrew: Switch roms/game updates/dlc

nsw2u: More switch roms. Check here if nxbrew doesn’t have the game you’re looking for.

Hshop: 3ds games/updates/dlc. Very well organized and sorted by console region. Bonus ability to generate QR codes to scan with homebrew to begin download directly on your console.

Oldgamesdownload: Old 90’s-2000’s PC games and some gamecube games. Technically, all of the games here are abandon ware, meaning the original company/creator doesn’t sell nor make money from the games anymore period. If you’re into that.

Fitgirl repacks: Heavily compressed PC games, and other various consoles. Small downloads and faster speeds for the size of the games. Somewhat limited game selection.

Steam unlocked: Steam games with easy-to-use installers. Check here if fitgirl doesn’t have what you’re looking for.

Steam Underground: A user forum for piracy support, usually about installing cracked games. Does have some scattered PC game downloads.

Google doc of Skyrim SE creation club content.

Amiibo life: Amiibo bins, can be loaded with some homebrew to load in games without any external source, or, if you buy writable NFC cards, you can make your own free amiibos.

Books:

Library Genesis: a good all-in-one ebook finder. Has books, magazines, scientific papers, ect. Well organized and able to sort by Author, Genre, ect ect. Almost all books in .epub format

Calibre: Not piracy but a free software for reading said .epub files, and other ebook formats. Good for sorting your books.

Sci-Hub: Research papers, academic books, pdfs, ect. Helpful for collage students.

IT ebook: eBooks about learning programming languages.

audiobookbay: Audiobook downloads.

Booksonic: Audiobook streaming.

5e.tools: Dnd player’s manual, guide, ect.

Books on learning various languages.

Mangadex: Manga, Doujinshi.      

Headspace sleep audio.

Various books and manuals.

Streaming:

ustvgo: Free streaming of live tv, has most US cable tv channels.

tutturu: Spiritual successor to Rabbit, allows you to stream your screen with friends.

Yes movies: Movies

Kimcartoon: Cartoons/animated movies

aniwatcher: Anime

animedao: Anime

Computer software:

getintopc: Wide selection of pc (mostly windows) software of all sorts, and different versions. Can personally vouch for the site, I’ve gotten Photoshop, Maya, and Sony Vegas from here over the years.

Other:

the eye: An archive of old roms, OS systems, roms (non nintendo), comics, books, ect, ect. Cons: No search function and slightly hard to navigate.

1337x.to: Torrent site for movies, shows, games, comics, ect.

ThePirateBay: The classic.

the eye has been up since 2017 and in the last four years have accumulated 140TB of data (according to their own reports). Part of their growth is just their own work, part of it is absorbing other archives/open directories that were having issues: I know rpg.rem.uz used to be its own archive - gave way to The Trove, which is having its own issues right now unfortunately… - but now most-all of their content can also just be found on the eye. Same with a few dozen other archives.

And they have ‘old roms, OS systems, roms (non nintendo), comics, books, ect, ect’, but massively more than you might think just based off how this sounds. Like…

They have it all.

If you want to try and homebrew alcohol, go check their stuff. If you want to try and read books that are out of print or otherwise in public domain (and some that aren’t yet in public domain), go check their stuff. If you want to run a campaign and can’t pay for expensive print tabletop books, go check their stuff. If you want to fuck off into the woods to live off the land (or research how that would work for a writing project), go check their stuff. If you’re trying to learn shit about drugs - any drugs, almost - go check their stuff.

Hell, if you want to go read what looks like literally every research paper on coronaviruses from 1968 up to Feb 2020, you can do that too!

As chickenmcnuggies said its a mess and a half to navigate through their collections, partially with how large it is and the fact quite a few folders were once whole other archives since absorbed by the eye…

scanned the low poly ballpoint pen kimharry from my sketchbook °❀.ೃ࿔*

So there's an alien research station in space. Humanity's worst attempts to destroy it amount to a bear turning over the trash can. Aliens occasionally abduct people and return them with a clean bill of health and an ankle bracelet. It takes them forever to figure out those bracelets are screwing with their data because humans who carry them are curve-wreckingly popular.

Disaster strikes somewhere, I dunno, Japan, and there's an uptick in abductions, but of people stuck in collapsed buildings, and yeah the giant octopus tree that looks straight out of Call of Cthulhu is scary but it's also using tech you can't even comprehend to find survivors and teleport them out of the rubble. You see humans with absolutely 100% deadly injuries wisked away and a good number of them even return. There is now a new consent form specifying if rescuers can take you to the aliens, because they will probably try to save you but if they can't your family will never get your body back. You decide if your life or your body is more important.

Little by little, pragmatism wins out. The aliens aren't attacking, but they ARE abducting and doing weird tests. But the survivors mostly return unharmed with a Big Mac in hand and a weird piece of tech. There have been less valid excuses to miss school. The aliens are clearly researching humanity just as much as we are researching them, and until communications are established this status quo isn't the worst.

Ofc, then one of them actually attacks. Knocks the statue of liberty clean off. The military starts to deploy fast, and even wounds the attacker a lot, but before they can shoot the second missle it bounces. And it turns on the shooter. Every military person in the attack dies, suddenly and through means you cannot comprehend. The other aliens whisk the attacking one away. Construction materials appear as if in apology, but that's it.

The attacker was a hooligan who thought destroying wildlife was fun, and ran into something they can't handle. But even if the bear is perfectly within its rights to defend its territory, the ranger will atill have to shoot it to save the stupid brat, and hope the idiot learned their lesson.

But the bear is still dead. And the forest critters who had just started getting used to the ranger are now having second thoughts.

But the abductions continue. There are no hooligans for a while. And what else can you do? This is your home, but if the invaders really want to take it, what can you do?

So you try to stay out of their way, if you are in some serious trouble and your chances are already less than 50/50, maybe you seek them out. Sometimes they help. Sometimes they don't.

And sometimes the abductees catch glimpses of something that looks like it might have been human once, but eyes and skin all wrong, speaking incomprehensibly, and rubbing its head on the alien's 'knees'.

THE REVIEWS ARE IN!

Charles Fort actually

literally believed.

Ayer a las 1:50 de la madrugada el Distrito capital, Miranda, La Guaira, Aragua, Nueva Esparta fueron bombardeadas por el gobierno de los Estados Unidos por el equipo de los Delta Forces.

cuando empezó nadie sabía que hacer o que iba a pasar entonces muchos venezolanos simplemente empezaron a postear videos y fotos, contactar sus familiares en Caracas y, para no entrar en el pánico, publicaron varios memes como solemos hacer, aquí les dejo algunas capturas de mi twt desde las 2:00 hasta las 5:00 más o menos

(obviamente el huso horario en los screenshots es diferente al de Venezuela pq me encuentro afuera del país justamente por culpa de esta dictadura pero por referencia las 7=1 de la madrugada) 👇

No tardamos mucho a darnos cuenta que los lugares bombardeados no eran random si no áreas estratégicas usadas por la dictadura chavista para oprimir a los venezolanos. Las áreas bombardeadas fueron las siguientes:

• El Valle, Los Próceres, La Pastora, 23 de Enero, La Carlota (Caracas), Higuerote (Miranda), Maracay (Aragua) y también bases en isla Margarita (Nueva Esparta)

la mayoría bases militares o aeropuertos privados

Una de las highlights para los venezolanos durante este ataque (y tuvimos varias) fue cuando la tumba de Chávez fue atacada

• Cuartel de la montaña 4F

obviamente les tengo que hacer ver las fotos, un edit que se volvió viral y las opiniones de los venezolanos 👇

La venezolanos, que aún tenían miedo pero ya habían entendido que y quien estaban atacando los gringos, empezó a sentir una esperanza que no sentíamos desde hace tiempo,

queríamos saber si iban a sacar (o matar) a Maduro, y por eso muchos de nosotros adentro y afuera del país nos quedamos despiertos esperando.

Salió un comunicado oficial del gobierno chavista y la gente se RIÓ 👇

Y finalmente entre las 4 y las 5 salió el anuncio que habían capturado a Maduro y que lo sacarían de Venezuela

y así fue. Hoy tenemos fotos y vídeos de el en NY (y también su esposa, Cilia Flores, está con el)

Maduro cayó. Y los venezolanos después de 26 años de este infiero pudimos celebrar por la primar vez una buena noticia sobre nuestro país.

Claro la gente aún no sabe que hacer (sobretodo los que siguen en el país) y aun tienen que meter presos a los demás chavitas en el gobierno pero finalmente pasó algo.

Yo nací debajo del régimen chavista sin poder conocer la Venezuela de mi madre, no pude vivir en mi país y no he podido ni visitar desde que tenía 8 años, crecí sabiendo que el mundo nos había abandonado y que nadie nos quería, ví a mi mamá sufrir por años sin su familia, afuera de su país toda sola y tuve que pasar casi toda mi vida sin la mayoría de mi familia. Pensé toda mi vida que no iba a poder ver mi Venezuela otra vez y por eso empecé este blog para no olvidarme de lo poco que me quedaba.

Pero hoy aunque aún estemos en un momento crítico puedo decir que logré ver con mis propios ojos a Chávez morirse (otra vez) y a Maduro en la cárcel.

Sé muy bien que nadie entenderá que significa esto para nosotros y que todos creen que nos estamos inventando cosas para quedar bien o algo pero ya no me importa de lo que piense gente no venezolana, lo único que me importa es que nosotros estemos bien.

And it honestly looks like Aragorn is not only comfortable with this kind of physical affection, he’s used to it. 

Which makes me think that instead of looking at young Aragorn, and asking him to be more like an elf to fit in with those around them. Elrond looked at this kid and and thought to himself “how can I be more like what this child needs to thrive” 

Aragorn has been raised by Elves since he was only 2 years old. So if we’re going by Piaget’s theories of child development, that puts Aragorn, (who would have been called Estel at the time) in the pre-operational stage. Or somewhere thereabouts. So Elrond is raising this kid when he’s learning to talk. When he’s constantly asking “why?” about everything. 

Young Estel would have grown up surrounded by elves and elf children and just by virtue of not being an elf, he probably would have had to deal with feeling less capable than those around him. He wouldn’t have been able to do things like run across snow, and didn’t have the ability to see as far as they did with their “elf eyes” and I am imagining all manner of bruises and skinned knees as he tries to keep up anyway. 

And it would take some getting used to his new surrounding, but  I can’t stop picturing the first time tiny little Estel runs full tilt across the room and hugs Elrond’s leg. 

And instead of scolding him or asking him to be more like an elf to fit in, Elrond consciously sets aside his own discomfort in the face of what this child needs to thrive. And if what Estel needs is hugs, then hugs he shall have. 

Elrond picking up itty bitty Aragorn in a great big hug, and being just as uncomfortable about it, but hiding it well because this child was entrusted to his care and he will not let the boy grow up feeling unwanted or unloved.

And so Aragorn grew up surrounded by elves, but he grew up to be someone who naturally and unselfconsciously displays affection. 

I think that speaks volumes about Elrond. 

He raised this kid from age 2 to age 20 (so the majority of his formative years and well through his teens) and it was around then that Elrond’s own daughter gets back form visiting her grandmother Galadriel and meets this boy for the first time.

So I have NO IDEA what the various stages of child development would be for an elf, but I doubt their exactly the same.

And yet despite all that, he raised Aragorn with kindness. He met his needs, and raised him well, even though it had probably been ages since he was personally involved in human childrearing, and he raised him to be very affectionate and loving and stable even into his adult years, when he faced major challenges (and also Arwen)