Absolutely fucking incensed by this ad. I can get unlimited months of unlimited reading and listening through Libby on my phone you dumb sack of shit Amazon I will not let you kill libraries I will not let you kill libraries I will not let you kill libraries
Listen to me. You can read any library’s digital collection via Libby in America and apparently in uh 78 other countries. If that doesn’t do it for you, the internet archive has two million digitized books you can access for free. The only thing I can’t help you access is books self-published through Amazon but even then sometimes they’re ALSO published through separate websites. Do not fucking give in to this amazon bullshit. Amazon has a vested interest in destroying libraries and replacing them with for-profit bookstores or book rentals. Do not fucking let them do that. It’s up to us to support libraries and keep literature free and accessible and we have to do everything in our power to act in that vein
Amazon can afford to throw money from exploited workers towards random shit like making an MMO and trying to destroy libraries. Libraries cannot fight that kind of financial might. It’s our job to see amazon, tell it no, and choose libraries instead. As often as we can.
If anyone has info on other ways to ethically access self-published books on amazon feel free to add it
Project Gutenberg is also a really useful source for free ethical eBooks! They’re volunteer run, and have free PDFs and eBooks for any out of Copyright book– both fiction and non fiction! So if you’re after a copy of Pride & Prejudice, or The Great Gatsby or The Communist Manifesto, that you want to download and keep – check them out!
HALT! Do you have sensory issues? Overwhelmed by sound in a messy environment? Desperately wanting to write that essay/fanfiction but your ADHD is getting on the way? In need of atmospheric sound for your tabletop game??
Please let me introduce you to MyNoise.net - a lifesaver on all aspects.
Mynoise provides an incredible index of noise machine generators with personalizing sliders to suit your every taste.
Missing the sound of a lively coffee shop during the pandemic? They have that. That specific, calming noise of a public park in a peaceful afternoon? they have that. Rain sounds? City sounds?Want to fuck around and listen to some uninterrupted Gregorian chants? They have that also!
According to the website:
“myNoise generators cover the whole audible frequency range, from 20Hz to 20kHz, over 10 color-coded sliders. Through a simple but accurate calibration process, all myNoise generators can be shaped to your personal hearing thresholds and compensate for your audio equipment and listening environment deficiencies, including the presence and nature of background noise. Calibration is unique to this website, and makes calibrated noise machines stand out from regular white noise machines. During the calibration process, we are able to measure your personal hearing levels, and adapt our noises accordingly. If you are suffering from age-related hearing, you’ll be surprised to hear frequencies you thought were lost.”
And that’s not all. When I say ‘incredible’ I really mean it; I’ve found myself using the website on multiple occasions, for work, creative and stress-related issues, and the variety of machines provided cannot be overstated. You’ve got animal noises, nature soundscapes, street sounds, meditation aids, melody-based lullabies, magical soundscapes, medieval ambiance, situation specific sounds, white noise generators– and a lot more!!! They even have noise to block out IRL sounds you don’t want to hear.
Just take a brief look at what the index page provides:
There’s something for EVERYONE. And it’s all for free! It’s been for free for years, and it is the creator’s wish that it remains accessible to everyone who might need this kind of aid in life. I am using it to write this post right now. Though if you read some of the above index, you may have noticed that the support for the website has been very low lately.
Which brings me to the reason I’m making this post. Mynoise is curated and maintained by a single person:
The Chrome browser exists to show you ads and track where you go so that Google can show you more ads. Please stop using Chrome. Firefox is open source, and while Mozilla is not perfect, it isn’t actively fucking evil the way Google is. It has a bazillion plugins, including various (FREE!) ad block plugins (I recommend uBlock Origins, which will even block YouTube ads – you can watch videos without interruptions again!). It will also function very effectively with a lot more tabs open than Chrome. I’ve got around 800 tabs open right now (not loaded, of course, except for maybe 2 dozen; it’s been a heavy browsing day), and my wife has between 2k and 3k at any time.
We are in the New Browser Wars. This time there’s a helluva lot of money up for grabs, because a lot of it is about running those ads. Monopolies are bad for consumers.
Firefox plugins I 100% recommend if you don’t want to be tracked (and want to cost corporations money)
AdNauseam is an adblocker that generates false clicks on the ads it blocks, which costs the corporations that pay for them money.
Privacy Possum messes with the tracking data collected about you, rendering it essentially useless
TrackMeNot generates random search terms across sites, meaning that any data collected about things you actually search is buried in a sea of random bullshit. Makes it very hard for people to figure out what you’re actually doing. You can block terms in the options, which means it won’t search for anything incriminating on your behalf (I think the word bomb is blocked by default)
WhatCampaign replaces tracking analytics used in website code with data that can’t be used to track you. I’m pretty sure it replaces it with “fuck off” by default.
I’m not adding links because tumblr will not show this up if I do, but you can search these on the Firefox addons site and they’ll come up.
Walk into your kitchen at 3am and this wizard is waiting for you, having drunk your beer and sampled, but disliked, your potato chips, hasn’t done the dishes, and he isn’t happy
What do you do?
“Really, Carl? Really? Christ, I knew the breakup with Cindy was bad-but not THIS bad! How’d you even get in my house? Why are the Utz all over the floor? Wh- how did you get in my house!?”
“Damn your fool’s mind, Randy, the mists of dream still you know my Amulet of Saros allows me passage through all portals, physical and arcane. I came here as this apartment provides protection from the mental ravaging of that dark sorceress, Cindy, gods blast her name! Your fermented beverages are all that have kept me from darkness this night, Randy, would you turn me away in this hour of terror?”
record scratch, freeze frame. bet you’re wondering how i got here huh? me too bud. well, let me take you back, to where this whole mess got started. footage rewinds…
haha, no keep going, we’ll get to this part later.
there it is. that’s me. innocent little monkey. wouldn’t hurt a fly. and that screen? well, that’s about to activate my mk ultra assassin programming.
meh
