Gotta Let Off Some Steam

[Gotta Let Off Some Steam]

[toastyglow]

'kids these days are weirdly scrupulous for no reason'. WRONG not for no reason. grew up on increasingly de-anonymized internet, being available to everyone all the time, data tracked, google sees all, digital panopticon, etc. less and less space to explore and form own opinions without judgment from broad public audience. lack of privacy can be deeply traumatic and cause intense paranoia, obsession with thought crimes, morality, etc. not good.

[Gotta Let Off Some Steam]

[theoraekensnotsosecretlover]

Ah yes, the autistic experience of being more mature than your peers as a child/teen, and then less mature as an adult. The window of opportunity to relate is... not there

[Gotta Let Off Some Steam]

[bugsinthebayou]

worst part about getting angry is how much it makes you want to be mean

[bugsinthebayou]

sorry i said something dickish. a few mildly frustrating things happened to me in succession and it turned me evil

[toastyglow]

[Gotta Let Off Some Steam]

[april]

today is the rare trans day of visibility / easter crossover

reblog to crack an egg

[Gotta Let Off Some Steam]

[benthesoldiersjeanshorts]

[Gotta Let Off Some Steam]

[mapsontheweb]

The black areas represent the remaining natural dark skies in the United States

[largedad]

[impossiblepackage]

I’ve been in the middle of the ocean at night and now live in texas and it is so hard to explain to people that no, they have not ever seen the night sky. It is so hard to explain to people that what they think is a proper night sky is fucking pathetic. A disgrace.

People talk about how you can’t see stars in the city and yeah, that’s true, but their concept of “seeing stars” is being able to make out orion’s belt.

So, so few people have see the sky in all its glory and it’s not sad. It’s a fucking crime. Seeing a perfectly dark night, no clouds, not a hint of light pollution? That’s a fucking religious experience.

The sky the vast vast majority of us grew up with is not the sky that inspired us to look up. It is not the sky that inspired constellations. You can’t even see most constellations.

Your ancestors looked at the night sky and said “surely, that is where the gods must live.” And you might be lucky if you can see hardly more than a handful of stars.

The sky is full, fucking FULL, of stars, and you’ve never seen them.

[anarchistmemecollective]

light pollution is also actively harmful to many species of birds, mammals, and insects

[neil-gaiman]

I took these photos on the Isle of Skye, in a place with no light pollution. Skies can look like this.

[Gotta Let Off Some Steam]

[kendallroy]

must a fictional relationship be “healthy” or “functional”? is it not enough to simply watch two made up people destroy each other, hand in unlovable hand???

[girlcreator]

hey what the fuck is wrong with you people

[kendallroy]

idk, what is wrong with me? i’m in a healthy and stable relationship with a great partner, i’ve had lots of therapy that has helped me establish strong boundaries and recognize red flags, and i have an active social life and fulfilling career. could it be that i just… like to read books and watch movies and tv shows about dysfunctional people??? you tell me, tumblr user girlcreator!

[derelict-stranger]

You’re a bourgeois degenerate who wants to see shitty despicable & violent relationships for your disgusting sense of entertainment— and you should feel fucking ashamed of yourself.

I agree with @girlcreator but I definitely know there’s something wrong with you. People like you are a huge red flag to me. Bad vibes, for sure.

[kendallroy]

can you weirdos just smoke some fucking weed

[annabellioncourt]

shakespeare frantically rewriting macbeth’s marriage to be healthy and adjusted becuase no one will ever want to watch the original 

[lucy-wf]

reblog if you’re a bourgeois degenerate who wants to see shitty despicable and violent relationships for your disgusting sense of entertainment (and you should feel fucking ashamed of yourself)

[Gotta Let Off Some Steam]

[azuremist]

Google is going to start scraping all of their platforms to use for AI training. So, here are some alternatives for common Google tools!

Google Chrome -> Firefox

If you’re on tumblr, you’ve probably already been told this a thousand times. But FireFox is an open-source browser which is safe, fast and secure. Basically all other browsers are Chrome reskins. Try Firefox Profilemaker, Arkenfox and Librewolf! Alternatively, vanilla Firefox is alright, but get Ublock Origin, turn off pocket, and get Tabliss.

Google Search -> DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo very rarely tracks or stores your browsing data (though they have only been known to sell this info to Microsoft). Don’t use their browser; only their search engine. Domain visits in their browser get shared. Alternatively, you can also use Ecosia, which is a safe search engine that uses its income to plant trees! 🌲

Google Reverse Image Search -> Tineye

Tineye uses image identification tech rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks to find you the source of your image!

Gmail -> ProtonMail

All data stored on ProtonMail is encrypted, and it boasts self-destructing emails, text search, and a commitment to user privacy. Tutanota is also a good alternative!

Google Docs -> LibreOffice

LibreOffice is free and open-source software, which includes functions like writing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, formula editing and more.

Google Translate -> DeepL

DeepL is notable for its accuracy of translation, and is much better that Google Translate in this regard. It does cost money for unlimited usage, but it will let you translate 500,000 characters per month for free. If this is a dealbreaker, consider checking out the iTranslate app.

Google Forms -> ClickUp

ClickUp comes with a built-in form view, and also has a documents feature, which could make it a good option to take out two birds with one stone.

Google Drive -> Mega

Mega offers a better encryption method than Google Drive, which means it’s more secure.

YouTube -> PeerTube

YouTube is the most difficult to account for, because it has a functional monopoly on long-form video-sharing. That being said, PeerTube is open-source and decentralized. The Internet Archive also has a video section!

However, if you still want access to YouTube’s library, check out NewPipe and LibreTube! NewPipe scrapes YouTube’s API so you can watch YouTube videos without Google collecting your info. LibreTube does the same thing, but instead of using YouTube servers, it uses piped servers, so Google doesn’t even get your IP address. Both of these are free, don’t require sign-ins, and are open source!

Please feel free to drop your favorite alternatives to Google-owned products, too! And, if this topic interests you, consider checking out Glaze as well! It alters your artwork and photos so that it’s more difficult to use to train AI with! ⭐️

[yomikoreadsbooks]

Helpful internet stuff!! ✨

[Gotta Let Off Some Steam]

[paxamericana]

you’re hearing it more and more

[kyrare]

Spotify Premium ad: “Imagine playing music without interruptions!
Infinite skipping! Replay the song you want! And even do it offline? No ads! Whatever songs you want! For a small monthly payme-”
Me: *nods, turns off Spotify and turns on my MP3 player and does all the things they offer, but for free and with songs they don’t even have*

[jimtheviking]

For those of you who might not know how to do any of this:

• To convert CD audio into mp3s, you just follow the steps here
• To play mp3 files, you download an mp3 player like Winamp here and away you go
• On mobile? There are plenty of free mp3 players for your phone available, too, so check them out

You don’t need to be tethered to an online streaming service for your music. Be free.

[eroticcannibal]

You can also rip audio files from youtube and find files all over the internet. It is far easier to come across great and lesser known music if you dont limit yourself to spotify.

[n7punk]

Here’s a tutorial on how to get the music and playlists you like with unlimited listening/downloads. This is a free way to do it that I believe is a balance between cost, time, and pros & cons:

If you have the CDs, it will be easier to rip them. Most music managers include this feature and you will have all the track information loaded into the file. There are also pirate websites where you can download entire albums with their metadata attached, but there could be risks associated (I would worry more about viruses than lawsuits these days, though). Deciding a method for acquiring music is a balance of the required time, the alternative costs, and other pros/cons like supporting the artist or taking the risk of pirating sites.

1. Find the song on Youtube. YT has pretty much every song at this point, usually in comparable quality to what you would get on a streaming service.

This is great if you already listen to music on Youtube, but there might be a better method for going direct from Spotify, though this will work either way. The main downside to this method is that official music (and even lyric) videos sometimes have non-music portions so you might have to listen to the whole thing to be sure. SponsorBlock will highlight non-music sections for most artists, so if you have it installed you can tell at a glance if this is the case.

2. Download the audio from YT. There are many ways to download YT videos completely for free. It’s probably against the YT terms of service, but you’re not going to get sued.

I like y2mate for downloading YT videos (or their audio in mp3s) because it’s a simple, ad-free website. You just paste in the URL for the video you want to download. Sometimes it’s laggy and you have to come back later, but usually after a few moments the video loads, you select your download quality (the highest), and then save it. For easy file management, download everything in folders for the Artist, and then sub folders for the Album, and name the MP3 file the “song name”.mp3.

3. Upload to your music player/manager of choice. The file will currently be lacking metadata (Artist, Album, track number, etc) and will be added to the library as a song with its title set as the file name minus its .mp3 extension. Various music players/managers have different ways to add metadata (usually accessed by right-clicking the song) with varying ease.

iTunes is free and and logical if you have an iPhone, but limited in its capabilities. I do all my management/listening in MusicBee (free for Windows) because of its playlist and management features, as well as having a very customizable interface. You can set it to scan the folders you download music to so it will automatically load things into your library, or do so manually. Once loaded into MusicBee, you can batch edit an entire album’s metadata at once easily with Auto-Tagging. Auto-Tag can fetch the details from the internet and fill in artist, tracks, album artwork, etc and save that information to the mp3 file. You can edit this manually if needed too. Drag and drop the edited songs to any other player you may want to add them to so it can find the files.

4. Now you can use the player of your choice to listen endlessly, form playlists, etc. Some free music managers also have music discovery/recommendation features for expanding your collection.

MusicBee allows you to create playlists with folders, subfolders, and dynamic features. You can export these playlists for cross-platform play on other computers with MusicBee installed. I think the playlist features on MusicBee are better than what is on streaming services. You can create an auto-playlist of your recently-added music so you can easily find the ones that are new and might need need editing, adding to other playlists, etc. I have custom tags for music by LGBT artists, sapphic love songs, and more. I also drag-and-drop these playlists directly into iTunes so I have them on my phone too (you can do this to make a new playlist or just edit/add songs to a current one).

There are many music managers/players, including cross-platform ones with streaming, though they usually have fees for that feature. Because you aren’t streaming the music and rather storing it, you’ll need space on each device you want to play the music on, but memory is cheap these days.

You can buy a 2TB external harddrive for less than Spotify or Youtube Premium costs for six months, so having to store the songs isn’t much of a downside. Plus, the song will never “leave the service”, you can listen to it offline, etc.

I do encourage people to pay for art, especially from small, independent artists. You have to pay for art if you want to keep it alive, but there is debate over if streaming services are really “paying the artist”. Alternatives include buying and ripping CDs, purchasing merch or tour tickets (where artists make a lot of their money), etc to support them with something other than streaming views.

[night-dark-woods]

ID. a tweet from Don Hughes @/getfiscal dated Feb 18 21. it reads, “Started imagining paying for Spotify for the next thirty or so years and got a bit dizzy, cancelled a bunch of subscriptions, installed Linux on my computer and then pulled out my old CDs to rip. Going caveman.” End ID.

[uberguber89]

Originally posted by something-a-kin-to

[ryttu3k]

Seconding MusicBee! Also, you can use a library subscription to access Freegal, which allows (depending on your library system) up to five free downloads a week. Completely free, actually legal, yours to keep, no DRM or any crap like that.

For indie producers, always check if they have something like Bandcamp! Bandcamp lets you download as well, and has significantly higher royalties going to the actual artists (Spotify pays them… very little).

[fluffmugger]

Jsyk, winamp rips cds natively.  You can set whatever bitrate you like.  Been doing *that* since last century. 

[audacityinblack]

It’s that time again:

GitHub - Igglybuff/awesome-piracy: A curated list of awesome warez and piracy links

A curated list of awesome warez and piracy links. Contribute to Igglybuff/awesome-piracy development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

[wikdsushi-v2]

Don’t forget that you can borrow CD’s from your local library! Borrow, rip, repeat ad infinitum!

[jughead-is-canonically-aroace]

for playing mp3s on android - musicolet, very customizable, bajillions of options, and you can edit the metadata in-app including album art and lyric files

on firefox - there’s a youtube video downloader add-on that lets you do it from page, though only as video - but most video players have an export-as-audio option

[benevolentwanderer]

If you have installation privileges, I would strongly suggest Mediahuman’s audio downloader which, in addition to scraping youtube audio can also capture from a variety of other sites, is highly configurable, does not rely on a website provider choosing not to become malware, AND downloads/converts the audio in around the amount of time it would take that video to load?

[Gotta Let Off Some Steam]

[mamalibra]

Here’s to 2023, a year of as many little courageous kindnesses as possible. ♥️

[fluffingfloofs]

To a year of kindness in 2024