shwenthey are sus

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox or librewolf (open-source fork of firefox) instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega instead of google drive

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

get free stuff with the help of r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH, r/piracy and r/roms

use trakt (for shows and movies), letterboxd (just movies), or TMB instead of IMDB (owned by amazon).

use storygraph instead of goodreads (owned by amazon).

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause, ecosia, or ocean hero to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, or tuta instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use project gutenberg for free public domain books, and librivox for public domain books and audiobooks

use the seal app (android only) to download video and audio

use ellipsus instead of microsoft word or google docs

use mastodon instead of twitter

use peertube to create a network of small video hosting providers (disclaimer: not a 1:1 alternative to youtube)

use threema and signal for encrypted communication, on mobile and desktop

use qwant and startpage for secure internet browsers

use syncthing to securely transfer files between devices

learn how to jailbreak your kindle/ereader if you have one (wiki and video walkthrough)

use riseup’s email and VPN for secure communication (aimed towards activists)

use cryptpad and collabora instead of the microsoft office suite

use google takeout to export the data on your google account

use library extension to look for books on online stores and find them at your library

remove paywalls with removepaywalls

install the open-source adblocker ublock origin

install sponsorblock to skip sponsored segments on youtube videos

use bookfinder to look for the cheapest available listings of books, including textbooks

learn a language through mango (duolingo laid off some of its employees and now relies on AI translations) for free with a library card or through your school

edit photos with photopea

edit pdfs with foxit and sumatrapdf

download music with doubledouble

take notes offline and collaborate securely with obsidian

for android tv, use smarttube and cloudstream (ad-free, open-source)

change your OS to linux

someday my prince will come

It means everything

It’s interesting how Olivia originally had black hair like Orville before becoming a platinum blonde as early as her little childhood. Was this the color of her mother’s hair?

There’s some Loss of Innocence vibes I’m feeling with this pilot as a whole. Not just LoI for our protagonists disillusioned by Park Planet but also with Gwen as well. It’s clear Gwen was created as… some sort of replacement for Olivia’s mother.

But how can you be a mother to the one who made you? That’s not how it works. Perhaps some commentary on adultification. Gwen’s entrails almost resemble an umbilical cord here and the way she clutches her abdomen as the cord trails all the way to her “child” at the end. Blood leaking. It almost feels like a metaphor for childbirth? For breaking the water?

She was just made and already she’s being made to bear children and be a mother. It’s implied Sparky’s plan was to sell Gwen as a sex doll. Something something the way young girls are thrust into womanhood immediately. Sexualized at a young age. Olivia becoming a mother to her own machine at a young age.

And now she’s an elderly lady raving on about Gwen like she’s her daughter who’s run from home, who will be exposed to the dangers of the outside world! The loss of innocence for her daughter! The daughter fleeing from the isolated tower where she was meant to be a mother. I’m thinking of how early Disney had Snow White as a teenager and yet she was almost like an adult in her portrayal and being all but set up to marry Florian at the end.

I dunno just this like. Sense of perversion of childhood innocence and the transition to adulthood. Gwen has escaped Olivia yet Frankie and Andi are still seen by her as these two girls to take care of. But they’re adults now. Frankie protecting Gwen because she represents her childhood innocence which makes the refusal to hand her over as an implied sex doll. But Gwen has already been “tainted” and she’s already lost that innocence and Frankie and Olivia don’t recognize it? Frankie’s fondness involved fixing Gwen as a kid, she’s supposed to repair and fix her to be happy again!!!

It’s interesting how Olivia originally had black hair like Orville before becoming a platinum blonde as early as her little childhood. Was this the color of her mother’s hair?

There’s some Loss of Innocence vibes I’m feeling with this pilot as a whole. Not just LoI for our protagonists disillusioned by Park Planet but also with Gwen as well. It’s clear Gwen was created as… some sort of replacement for Olivia’s mother.

But how can you be a mother to the one who made you? That’s not how it works. Perhaps some commentary on adultification. Gwen’s entrails almost resemble an umbilical cord here and the way she clutches her abdomen as the cord trails all the way to her “child” at the end. Blood leaking. It almost feels like a metaphor for childbirth? For breaking the water?

She was just made and already she’s being made to bear children and be a mother. It’s implied Sparky’s plan was to sell Gwen as a sex doll. Something something the way young girls are thrust into womanhood immediately. Sexualized at a young age. Olivia becoming a mother to her own machine at a young age.

And now she’s an elderly lady raving on about Gwen like she’s her daughter who’s run from home, who will be exposed to the dangers of the outside world! The loss of innocence for her daughter! The daughter fleeing from the isolated tower where she was meant to be a mother. I’m thinking of how early Disney had Snow White as a teenager and yet she was almost like an adult in her portrayal and being all but set up to marry Florian at the end.

I dunno just this like. Sense of perversion of childhood innocence and the transition to adulthood. Gwen has escaped Olivia yet Frankie and Andi are still seen by her as these two girls to take care of. But they’re adults now. Frankie protecting Gwen because she represents her childhood innocence which makes the refusal to hand her over as an implied sex doll. But Gwen has already been “tainted” and she’s already lost that innocence and Frankie and Olivia don’t recognize it? Frankie’s fondness involved fixing Gwen as a kid, she’s supposed to repair and fix her to be happy again!!!

this was it LMAO

aw man so like

this is so stupid

So there's a chess tournament going on right now, the Sinquefield Cup, all of the best players in the world are playing in it, including Magnus Carlsen, the current world champion and arguably the greatest chess player who ever lived. Also playing is kind of a random dude: Hans Niemann, a new grandmaster who wouldn't ordinarily have qualified to play in the event except that the guy who should have been there (Ding Liren) is Chinese, and right now China has a ton of travel restrictions in place that made his attendance impossible.

Hans Niemann is the lowest rated player at the tournament. And he beat Magnus Carlsen. He is the first person in 53 straight games of classical over the board chess to beat Magnus Carlsen.

The next day, Magnus Carlsen withdrew from the tournament (this hardly ever happens), and made a tweet that implied that he thought Niemann had cheated. No formal accusations of cheating have been made: Carlsen has made no further comment on the topic.

So of course everyone's lost their minds about it. It turns out, Niemann has a history of cheating...online, as a teenager, which like, enh, but okay. When the best chess player in the world suggests you might have cheated, like - you can't just write that off, you know? He's also gained, like, a lot of rating points over the past year. Like a lot a lot. Idk if the numbers mean anything to you, but he's gone from 2484 to over 2700 since January 2021, which is kind of nuts.

On the other hand, he's genuinely a really talented player. And there's no actual evidence that he's cheated. Like, people have come up with all kinds of stupid theories for how he could have cheated, from "someone on Magnus Carlsen's team leaked Magnus's prep to him" (which is so unlikely, a top performing chess player's team is an incredibly tight knit group, and what would they stand to gain?) to "Hans Niemann had inserted ceramic vibrating anal beads up his ass that were telling him the best moves in morse code" which like, I think is just a meme?? but god knows.

- “chess has drama??” yeah dude chess has loads of drama, at the top level it’s a tiny group of the same ~25ish high-strung arrogant supergeniuses competing for hundreds of thousands of dollars several times a year, you could make an anime about this shit.

- “how do you ‘cheat at chess?’ shouldn’t top level players be able to adapt to their opponent cheating and outplay them anyway?” computers, you dingus. artificial intelligence. Leela & Stockfish (the two most powerful chess AIs) are way, way, way better at chess than any human will ever be. It’s been like 25 years since human players could outplay the best AI chess engines. if you have someone running a chess AI and feeding you the AI’s moves, you can beat anyone, including Magnus Carlsen.

- “chess is a sport?” I mean, if you think e-sports are sports, then sure, chess is a sport. it’s run like a sport and has championships like a sport and prize pots and sponsorships like a sport. And there’s a physical component to it for sure. like, these classical over the board games can last over 8 hours. having the stamina to stay focused for that long requires incredible endurance. that’s why most of the top chess players are young.