azashenya

[azashenya]

Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023

Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!

Sejda - Free online PDF editor.

Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it’ll give you recipe ideas.

Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.

Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I’d recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.

12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.

Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.

TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn’t read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.

OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can’t for the life of you remember the actual word.

My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You’ll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.

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.

PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.

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.

I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.

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.

Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It’s genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.

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.

For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.

[azashenya]

one of the most important lessons I have learned is the importance of stopping and learning when to stop. specifically, I mean when to stop doing an activity you typically enjoy, because it has stopped being fun. even if it normally is fun, and you want it to be fun again, it can be really important to stop when it actually stops being fun. try again later instead. make a conscious effort to stop for now.

a lot of fun activities are as much of escapism as they are entertainment by their own right. something you do when you want to have fun. but you can not always force more fun. and trying to force there to be more fun when things have stopped being fun can make there be less fun in the long term. you might start to associate the fun thing with bad feelings, frustration, and having a bad time. which is not ideal for something that should be fun.

sometimes keeping an activity fun in the long run means stopping while you are ahead. keep fun things fun. stop when you stop having fun. trying to force fun can make there be way less fun. and that is no fun!

[azashenya]

ancient humans were also just some guy, if you got a baby from 60,000 BC and raised him in the 21st century he’d just be another teen boy named logan who tech decks off your arm

[azashenya]

Just saw a tweet like "REAL libraries check for quality!" as some kinda gotcha at AO3?? But I'm a librarian, so... heads up that "quality checks," AKA "weeding" or "pulling," means looking for damaged books or ones that haven't circulated in a few years to clear up shelf space. We don't Quality Check for if the library books have nontoxic romance or good grammar. :U I assure you every library in your area has absolute ABOMINATIONS of bad storytelling as well as your favorite pop lit.

[azashenya]

Let’s talk about something called the “sunk cost fallacy”.

Say that you’ve bought a concert ticket for $50 for a band that you don’t know that well. Half an hour into the show, you realize that you don’t actually enjoy the music and you aren’t having a good time - instead of leaving the concert to go do something else, however, you sit through the remaining hours of the concert because you don’t want to “waste” the cost of the ticket. 

Congratulations, you’ve just fallen victim to the sunk cost fallacy.

The “sunk cost fallacy” is something that all humans are prone to when we make decisions. Simply put, it’s the human tendency to consider past costs when we make choices, even when those costs are no longer relevant. When you’re deciding whether or not to stay at that concert you aren’t enjoying, you will likely consider the cost of the ticket when you’re making your decision - for instance, you’d probably be a lot more willing to leave a $5 concert that you aren’t enjoying than a $50 concert that you aren’t enjoying. But taking the cost of the ticket into account at all is a mistake. 

When you’re making a rational decision, the only thing that matters is the future. Time, effort and money that you’re spent up until that point no longer matter - it doesn’t make sense to consider them, because no matter what you decide, you can’t actually get them back. They are “sunk” costs. If you decide to stay at that concert, you are out $50 and you’ll have a mediocre evening. If you decide to go leave and do something more fun, you are out $50 and you’ll have a better evening. No matter what you choose, you have lost $50 - but choosing to leave the concert means that you haven’t also spent an evening doing something you don’t like.

The sunk cost fallacy is sometimes also described as “throwing good money after bad” - people will waste additional time, resources and effort simply to justify the fact that they’ve already wasted time, resources and effort, even if it leaves them worse off overall. 

Common examples of sunk cost fallacy in everyday life include:

refusing to get rid of clothes that don’t fit or that you never wear because they were expensive

going to an event that you no longer want to go to because you already bought the ticket 

spending more and more money on repairing a car or computer (or something else that depreciates in value over time) instead of buying a new one because you don’t want to waste the money you put into earlier repairs

continuing to watch a movie or TV show you aren’t enjoying anymore because you’ve already watched part of it 

finishing a plate of food that you’re not enjoying or are too full to enjoy, because you don’t want to waste it

refusing to get rid of unused, unwanted or broken items in your home because the items were expensive

Perhaps the most damaging example of sunk cost fallacy in everyday life, however, is relationships. 

People often use the length of a relationship to justify staying in it. You’ve probably heard this logic - you may even have used it yourself: “I can’t break up with him or the two years we spent together will be for nothing.”

“If I leave her, it will mean I wasted the five years I spent with her.”

The reality, though, is that staying in a mediocre relationship doesn’t “give you back” the time you’ve already invested in that relationship. It just makes the relationship longer. If you stay in a bad relationship for five more years to avoid “wasting” the first two, you haven’t actually made those first two years worthwhile - you’ve simply spent seven years of your life in a bad relationship. There’s nothing we can do to recover time and effort (and in most cases, money) that we’ve already spent. But we can forgive ourselves, and we can stop letting our past mistakes continue to define our futures. 

[azashenya]

I feel like I now have a need to read a scene where they try to use it for that and end up greasy piles of uncontrolled laughter. Possibly with a follow up scene of foraging for something more appropriate. With bonus points for either an embarrassing conversation in a shop or a sequence of wilderness-foraging and processing of ingredients.

hello new D&D movie fans who are writing fic! we’re glad you’re here. as a semi experienced D&D player I feel the need to make a PSA. to wit: while they may appear to be viable options, the Grease spell, and by extension the Oil of Slipperiness, generate enough grease to cover ten square feet or an entire humanoid. this is too much grease! unmanageable and unsexy quantities of grease. “can’t get anything done because we’re sliding around too much” quantities of grease. please opt for mundane lubricants. thank you for your time

[azashenya]

There is something mystical in the feel of this shot, like watching someone being lead out of the underworld.

I'm so happy that Cave Rock down at Sumner is open again, it's the first time I've seen it accessible since the quakes more than a decade ago. I tried taking a number of photos in and around it while we were there but most of them suffered from me needing to know more about what I'm doing to make them work. Something to work towards :)

Taken March 2023

[azashenya]

The dark volcanic rocks down at Sumner make for dramatic photos against the sea and sky. Even more so when I managed to get the timing right on having waves hitting them and throwing up spray.

Although I'm not practiced enough yet to have the knack of catching the waves and keeping the horizon straight and not defaulting to middle-of-photo horizon. Oh well. That will come with time and practice.

[azashenya]

I didn't position this amazing clump of colours and shapes but I can't guarantee no other human didn't, yet it could have been pushed together by the tide. I couldn't resist the combination of colours and textures for taking a photo.

[azashenya]

the dehumanization of high-risk people at almost year 3 of the pandemic is so enormously scary and painful.

“high risk people will protect themselves” how? did you think about that? are we able to go grocery shopping? are we able to see loved ones? are we able to access lifesaving medical appointments? no! you refuse to protect us!

“I think you’re taking covid too seriously” I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! I’m a human, too, and I don’t want to die! Look at me — I’m a human!

[azashenya]

Next stop - The End Times. 🔥 

Good Omens Parody premieres May 10 on YouTube.com/Hillywood

[azashenya]

so i have a mildly popular “reblog and put in in the tags” post going around and its. very clear how many people don’t know how to interact with a tumblr post

so, first of all, tumblr’s culture has changed a lot in the past couple years. there’s a genuine community effort to not start any drama, and ironically a lot of the current hostility is an effort to keep things calm. there’s also a change in how people interact with posts, so if you haven’t been here in a while please skip down to the tags/replies/reblog with text section.

for newcomers: you should be reblogging posts about as liberally as you would like something on twitter. if you only like stuff, people will think you are rude/a bot. you’ve probably heard people talk about “cultivating your dash,” and thats because this platform is 100% centered around your dashboard. trending matters less, unfollowing and blocking in order to shape your dash into it’s best form is widely accepted, the majority of the content you’ll find and interact with will be because of your dash, and the only way to put things on your dash is to reblog them. tumblr users are deeply distrustful of algorithms and have largely turned off the “see posts your friends have liked” function (i recommend you also turn of the various algorithms in settings → general settings → dashboard preferences).

so, once you’ve reblogged a post, there’s three ways to add content to it. the tags, replies, and reblogging with text. all of them have different connotations

the tags: an inside voice. originally they were meant for organizing your blog (and they’re still used for this), but they’ve also morphed into a way to share thoughts that aren’t funny/insightful enough for non-followers to be interested in. when in doubt, put your comment in the tags

replies: basically talking to your friends in class. your followers have no way of finding your replies (they don’t pop up on the dash, nobody gets notified except for the original poster) so chances are, only the person who made the post is gonna see your comment. it’s for quick one-offs that you’re okay with other people overhearing, but really is only made for one person. they’re like a public dm

reblog with text: an outside voice. you’re getting up on a stage in town square and entertaining people. make sure it’s funny or insightful— bottom line, add something new to the conversation. you should use this the least

general rules of thumb: 

when in doubt, reblog. people will judge you if your blog is only personal posts and you only interact with other content by liking it.  

the only things people will judge you for reblogging are personal vent posts. leave a like to give a little virtual hug

if a post is asking about your personality/opinions (i.e: tell me what’s the last tv show you watched, that kind of thing) put it in the tags 

also if you see a nice edit, gifset, or art, reblog and say something nice in the tags! it’s that nice sweet spot of common enough that no one will notice but uncommon enough to make the artist’s day

[azashenya]

We moved this piece of driftwood into the water and watched as it got pushed around by the waves. While I have my favourites I also like the way the photos change from one to the next. It almost tempts to me write a kids story about a small snake having an adventure at the seaside.

Taken March 2023

[azashenya]

Sometimes driftwood forms amazing shapes, to me this one is a squid trying to get back into the water. I have other photos of the waves lapping it but I particularly love the combination of shadow and reflection in this shot.

Taken March 2023

[azashenya]

When Heather and I went to the beach the sand was strewn with this amazingly bright green seaweed, pulled into shapes by the retreating tide, which you can also see in the comet tails on the air-holes from small critters.

Taken Mar 2023

[azashenya]

I feel like part of the experience of going to the beach in New Zealand is seeing sprawling growth of ice plants. I remember they grew by the front fence of my grandparents bach at Pines Beach, which was much of my beach experience as a child.

Ice plant makes for some interesting textures and shadows for photography, helped along by our local volcanic rock. These two photos were taken at Sumner Beach.

Taken Mar 2023

[azashenya]

There is something fascinating about passageways made by paths shrouded by greenery. They are even more fun to photograph with direct control over where I'm focusing and how much is within focus.

This photo was taken on the Harry Ell track on the port hills while I was still learning to play with aperture mode. The same day as my happy-coincidence goblin-path photo.

Taken Mar 2023