blog created as an archive of posts i would want to save for various reasons
154 posts
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.
Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.
saw a post abt HBO removing shows that suggests ppl just “burn dvds” but everyone doesnt know how to do that so here is one way to do that
- get blank dvds (Both +R or -R work), these are not very expensive for the amount you can get in bulk (if you are in the US 100 of them is about 30$ at walmart)
- an external DVD drive that plugs in via usb is also around 20-40$ (it tends to be closer to 20)
- download DVDFlick (free)
- if you don’t already have the mp4/mpeg of whatever media you want to burn, you can download movies/shows off of sites like gomovies.sx and soap2day
gomovies.sx will have a download button that looks like this
below the video you can choose one of these
if you click streamlare for example and then the download button it will take you here where the mp4 is
(if you’re on an iphone/ipad, clicking download will save it to your files app)
- if you cant find the download button on soap2day you can also install a video downloader extension which will find the movie for you
- at this point you can drag and drop it into a google drive or keep it on your computer but if you still want it on dvd ->
- open dvd flick, drag and drop the video
- click “project settings”
- give it whatever title you want, you can change encoder to “normal” (default is below normal if you are doing other things on the computer). you dont need to change target size or thread count (unless you want to)
- insert a blank dvd into your drive, make sure you click “burn project to disc”
- click accept then click “create dvd” next to menu and project settings. it will create a destination folder and this dialogue box will pop up when you click “create” on more dvds, just click “yes” and then “okay” on the box that appears after it
it’ll take a couple hours, once its done take a sharpie & write whats on it and stick it in a case . or dont . im not ur mom
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.
Just go download Firefox.
Hey I saw your tags on a prev post, can you tell me how you pirate content safely? (you can publish privately) thanks!
ok im going to start out that im not the 'end all be all' of piracy im like. constantly improving my craft (lol) but i'll explain everything i do to make sure i dont get caught while extensively downloading media
before that though if you just want to stream media and not torrent it you can just go to r/piracy's megathread and click the links through there
i WAS going to put this all under a read more but i was trying to link additional resources and this post has most of their explanation under a read more and since they deactivated their account you can't access it anymore. so on the off chance i deactivate i want to keep this post accessible, sorry its so long lol
some of this tutorial is only truly accessible if you have a computer that can stay on 24/7, which i know is not viable for everyone, so i went ahead and highlighted the things you need a computer thats always on for in blue
(honestly, you probably do all the things you need an always on computer for with a raspberry pi but i dont know jack shit about those (yet) so you'd have to look elsewhere on how to do that) i do all of my piracy on a windows desktop computer
i personally don't trust any vpn sponsored by youtubers to not sell you data to companies for profit, so i use ProtonVPN since i use their mail service and their servers are based in Norway i believe which has EXTREMELY strict privacy laws. they have a free version of it but it doesn't allow you to torrent.
NEVER USE A FREE VPN FOR TORRENTING EITHER! they are like. the least secure vpns in the world . a vpn is expensive but basically all of them are for plans that last well over a year so its a worthwhile investment
i personally use qbittorrent and it works great. DO NOT USE UTORRENT. while their are some versions that don't have a cryptominer attached to it, basically all of the versions do at this point so its better to just steer clear
once you have your torrenting client downloaded, you will want to set it up to only be able to connect to the internet through you're vpn. the images below show you how to do it in qbittorrent
(image descriptions available in the alt text)
once you've done the steps in the image, click "apply" and then "ok" in the bottom right of the settings tab
the next part is only necessary if you are going to seed torrents (which i recommend you do if you can)
if you ARE going to seed torrents, you are going to need to enable port forwarding in your vpn and connect your torrenting client to the port specifed. the following images will show you how to do that with ProtonVPN and qBittorrent
(image descriptions available in the alt text)
once you've done the steps in the image, click "apply" and then "ok" in the bottom right of the settings tab. you will want to make sure that connection status button, located two buttons to the left of your displayed download speed is a GREEN electrical cord plug. if it is red then you cannot download or seed. if it is yellow then you can download, but you cannot seed. it will take a couple of minutes for the specified port to update and the connection status to turn green.
you do this using Radarr (for movies), Lidarr (for music), Sonarr (for TV shows), and Prowlarr (as your indexer to manage what torrent hosting clients you want these applications to use). when you download these applications and install them, you are going to want to
you first want to download all of these applications using the links above. you can choose which applications to download based on the things you're going to be downloading, however for any of these applications to work you are going to NEED to download Prowlarr. for simplicity sake i will walk you through setting up all of these from the beginning of my list to the end, except im starting with prowlarr first because that's what you need to set up the rest.
however, when installing ANY of these applications, you are going to have to choose whether to install it as a system tray application or a windows service. I'm going to copy and paste from the Prowlarr wiki what the difference means, though it applies to all of the applications
A Windows Service runs even when the user is not logged in, but special care must be taken since Windows Services cannot access network drives (X:\ mapped drives or \\server\share UNC paths) without special configuration steps.
Additionally the Windows Service runs under the 'Local Service' account, by default this account does not have permissions to access your user's home directory unless permissions have been assigned manually. This is particularly relevant when using download clients that are configured to download to your home directory.
It's therefore advisable to install Prowlarr as a system tray application if the user can remain logged in. The option to do so is provided during the installer.
now that you've installed the programs you want, its time to set up prowlarr. i am once again going to show you how to set it up using pictures
(image descriptions available in the alt text)
that is how you add what torrent indexers (the websites that host torrents) you want to use to prowlarr. I only used TorrentGalaxy as an example, I don't actually use that site. I recommend being VERY careful and selective with what websites you use if they are a public tracker, as any of their torrents can host viruses. do your research before adding them. for convenience, however, I will list all of the public trackers I use so you can add them to Prowlarr if you like:
1337x
IBit
Internet Archive
Nyaa.si
Rarbg
Shana Project
SubsPlease
Torlock
YTS
you can also add private trackers, which is basically the same setup except you will have to input your username and password and/or an api key to allow prowlarr to access your account. I will explain private trackers later.
i will now show you how to connect prowlarr with the other applications you downloaded, once again with images
you want to do this with every application you're using.
that's the basics for setting up Prowlarr. you can further customize it with the help of the Prowlarr wiki if you'd like, but this is all I'll be covering in this tutorial.
setting up the other applications pretty intuitive if after setting up prowlarr, however if you do need help this is the video i watched to set up the rest. you only need to watch how to set up one of these applications to know how to set up the rest, and you can ignore literally everything this person is saying besides how to set up sonarr radarr and lidarr. seriously, don't listen to the rest of what this person has to say it will only confuse you. i have the video hyperlinked to where you need to start to learn how to set up these applications (the one she walks you through in depth is sonarr)
you can only download so many megabytes a second, and when you have a million torrents downloading at once it makes every single torrent download at a snails pace because of that. so, what you're going to want to do is set it to download only a certain number of torrents at a time, and queue the rest to download once one torrent finishes.
this setup is pretty self explanatory, so I won't use images and just explain it.
go back to the settings of your torrenting client, and click on the "BitTorrent" tab (this might be a tab specific to qbittorrent, if you are using a different client look for a tab that is called something similar) (you can alternatively just google how to set torrents to queue for your specific client)
click the checkbox next to the option "torrent queuing"
customize how many active downloads and uploads you want. I personally recommend having no more than 6 torrents downloading at a time so that way they can all download relatively fast. i have my seed (upload) limit set to 60 because I'm in private trackers (which i will explain more about later), but if you don't want to seed for whatever reason you can set that to 0 and it SHOULD (don't quote me on this) automatically stop your torrent once its finished downloading. this could also potentially throttle your download speed because torrents don't like it when you're not uploading them while downloading them, don't quote me on that either having downloads set to 0 is not something im familiar with at all
you can optionally also set your download and upload limits in the "speed" category of settings, though i recommend keeping them both at infinity
this part is really easy and ALSO technically optional but it makes your life so much more convenient so i really recommend doing it. we're going to set up Plex Media Server so it can auto sort through your libraries and organize everything.
download plex and create an account
launch the server and go to the settings page, indicated by the wrench icon in the top right
scroll all the way down the settings directory until you get to the 'Manage" subheading and click on "Libraries"
assign your media libraries to the folders on your hard drive. for this you are going to want to keep movies, tv, and music all in separate folders, and you are going to want to keep your tv shows within your tv folder separate as well.
click 'scan library files' and watch plex update your library in real time
there will be times where plex isn't able to grab the metadata for a piece of media you have, but i can tell you how to (hopefully) prevent that from happening:
in the settings menu, go to the "network" tab under the "settings" subheading
uncheck the box next to "Enable server support for IPv6"
thats it! it should be able to get the metadata for all your media now
this is honestly some Advanced levels of torrenting, and you shouldn't join them if you don't have a device that can be on and seeding 24/7
private trackers are torrent trackers that you can only use if you have a registered account with. they generally have a higher quality selection of torrents with faster download speeds due to a higher seeders to leecher ratio. each tracker has their own rules you need to follow, but they all have similar baselines
maintain your download-to-upload ratio (this will be specified in the trackers FRQ)
after you finish downloading something, you then need to seed it for a certain amount of time (normally a week) or else it will be considered a 'hit n run' and you will face the appropriate consequences
some things are free leach, which means you can download them without it contributing negatively to your ratio. if you seed and upload free leaches they will count to your ratio positively, however
most private trackers are invite-only, but some do occasionally have open signups which you can track on r/opensignups
when joining any private tracker, i recommend only downloading things that are free leach until you have built a good buffer between your upload to download ratio.
this is barely a drop in the water explanation of private trackers, but it's a part of torrenting that i feel like most people don't know about and/or don't know how to get started with, so i felt like it was worth mentioning. r/piracy has a more in-depth explanation (and a better "how to get started" guide on their megathread
linked below are some useful resources for torrenting and pirating in general that i have saved.
my favorite public torrent tracker
r/piracy megathread
r/roms megathread for video game console downloading (direct downloads mostly, not torrents)
r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH megathread
r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH beginners guide to piracy
nintendo switch roms (direct downloads)
nintendo switch emmulator
ns emmulator setup guide
sideload apps on an apple device
hacked spotify ipa (ios app) that you can use above link to sideload
a less convient way to sideload apps onto apple if altstore doesnt work for you
Exercises for all the homies who want to have a long career drawing.
The true problem with being an artist and drawing all day (as I wanted my whole life) is that human backs are not designed to hold that position, so it is very common for artists and designers to have really stiff shoulder blades, creating a chain of muscle strain towards the arm AND the back… and a lot of pain.
These are some physical exercises for artists and honestly anyone who works at a desk.
(all credit to my physiotherapist)
blog dedicated to categorizing and saving various posts i find helpful. main blog @venomgender ;
newly rbed posts almost definitely won't be tagged, but (in theory) they'll all be tagged within the month
tag explanations below cut:
#piracy - self explanatory. has both piracy tutorials and masterposts of pirated media
#digital privacy - posts dedicated to resources on digital privacy; has things ranging from browser extensions to google product alternatives
#cooking - cooking resources. both general how-tos and actual recipes
#trans - trans resources. more dedicated to transmasc than transfem posts just because im transmasc, but has several generalized posts as well
#art resources - self explanatory. has both tutorials and things like resource packs and stuff
#writing resources - self explanatory
#learning - learning resources, typically dedicated to masterposts about learning a specific "thing" (language, sewing basics, etc)
#media rec - media recommendations
#sewing - sewing resources. has both tutorials and sewing patterns
#tech - technology resources. stuff like removing windows 10 bloatware, switching to linux, improving pc performance
#video game resources - resources centered around making video games
#coding - coding resources. from basic language how-tos to how to make your own websites
#save - any other helpful post i see that doesnt easily fit into the above categories. typically has things that help with "adulting" but i dont like that word so im not making a tag for it.
#megathread - any post containing large amounts of links for different things. contains a variety of categories. mildly depreciated in terms of how often i actually tag things this...
#tutorial - posts that teach you things. normally will also be tagged with a more specific category. also mildly depreciated...
additionally anything tagged 'kinda' means it only sort of falls into the tagged category. i tag these things to in theory go through later and see if theres enough similar items to have them been grouped into a new one