#buy ios installs

[myrxellabaratheon]

Not me trying to see how the gif making app of my iPad is because I need to gif some specific scene from apology tour but I don’t have space on my pc for Photoshop

[danielnelsen]

someone was recommending an app for android and i asked if there was an ios equivalent and got the whole “apple sucks, just get an android” like…….buddy where am i getting this new phone from? are YOU gonna buy it for me? i’ve had one phone in my life that wasn’t second hand and that was my first flip phone. if my current phone died right now, i just wouldn’t have a phone until someone i know got a new one and was nice enough to give me their old one. are you expecting me to just turn down their offers until someone just gives me an android?

[hardtchill]

Your cheat sheet to every VERY LEGAL stream to watch Olympic events

First of, don't worry, streams are very easy for the Olympics. Some will even be free in your own country even if those aren't always the highest quality. Anyway, for people living in countries that require you to buy a subscription to watch i have a VERY LEGAL way to watch the games anyway.

These are websites that will help you find a stream, just make sure to instal an adblocker extension (i would suggest ublock origin but others work as well) before you visit these websites.

Freestreams https://freestreams-live.my/ is my go to atm for basically any sport. The bigger sports and games you can easily find by entering the name of the country (in case of football) or the name of the sport in the "search event here" bar. Most games come up right away and you simply click "watch" and then the stream you wish to watch. If your game/sport doesn't come up and it's within 4 hours of it starting you need to go another route. Google on what channel your event will be broadcasted and go to the 24/7 TV tab on freestreams. Find the right channel and voila, you're set.

4streams If Freestreams can't provide my next stop is usually to go to https://4stream.watch/, this website sometimes has streams that are a little bit more niche. Again just use the searchbar and press watch when you find your event. 4stream will open up a new tab and link you to tv247365. If the first stream doesn't play, click on the next one under the black screen.

Sportfeed24 https://www.sportsfeed24.com/ is another website i sometimes use. I'm not quite as successful as with the other two websites but sometimes it does. It focusses on US sports so not as much variety but still a handy website. Soccerstreams https://top.soccerstreams100.io/ another useful site at times. A little bit more annoying to navigate sometimes but it usually has plenty of streams and includes the names of the channels (when something is shown on different channels or different countries). Useful when you're trying to find the right language. Again, US focussed so has a particular focus in sports.

There are plenty more VERY LEGAL websites, but these i currently use. If you can't find what you're looking for sent me an ask and i'm sure i will be able to find it for you. I have 5 weeks off so challenge me with some obscure sports please or my brain will turn to mush.

[gsedh]

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[sreegs]

I was only recently made aware of this Mozilla tool that came out last year and it's great. In a nutshell, Fakespot can analyze reviews from popular shopping sites (amazon, ebay, walmart, shopify sites, sephora, and best buy are featured as supported) and figure out the most likely "real" ratings by identifying bot ratings. It uses AI to do this but it's run on their servers, not your computer (a good use of AI for once).

You can install browser extensions or use the app. The iOS app is kinda lousy from my experience but the site works great.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The antitrust case against Apple

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and beyond!

The foundational tenet of "the Cult of Mac" is that buying products from a $3t company makes you a member of an oppressed ethnic minority and therefore every criticism of that corporation is an ethnic slur:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Call it "Apple exceptionalism" – the idea that Apple, alone among the Big Tech firms, is virtuous, and therefore its conduct should be interpreted through that lens of virtue. The wellspring of this virtue is conveniently nebulous, which allows for endless goal-post shifting by members of the Cult of Mac when Apple's sins are made manifest.

Take the claim that Apple is "privacy respecting," which is attributed to Apple's business model of financing its services though cash transactions, rather than by selling it customers to advertisers. This is the (widely misunderstood) crux of the "surveillance capitalism" hypothesis: that capitalism is just fine, but once surveillance is in the mix, capitalism fails.

Apple, then, is said to be a virtuous company because its behavior is disciplined by market forces, unlike its spying rivals, whose ability to "hack our dopamine loops" immobilizes the market's invisible hand with "behavior-shaping" shackles:

http://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

Apple makes a big deal out of its privacy-respecting ethos, and not without some justification. After all, Apple went to the mattresses to fight the FBI when they tried to force Apple to introduced defects into its encryption systems:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/fbi-could-have-gotten-san-bernardino-shooters-iphone-leadership-didnt-say

And Apple gave Ios users the power to opt out of Facebook spying with a single click; 96% of its customers took them up on this offer, costing Facebook $10b (one fifth of the pricetag of the metaverse boondoggle!) in a single year (you love to see it):

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/facebook-makes-the-case-for-activity-tracking-to-ios-14-users-in-new-pop-ups/

Bruce Schneier has a name for this practice: "feudal security." That's when you cede control over your device to a Big Tech warlord whose "walled garden" becomes a fortress that defends you against external threats:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#manorialism

The keyword here is external threats. When Apple itself threatens your privacy, the fortress becomes a prison. The fact that you can't install unapproved apps on your Ios device means that when Apple decides to harm you, you have nowhere to turn. The first Apple customers to discover this were in China. When the Chinese government ordered Apple to remove all working privacy tools from its App Store, the company obliged, rather than risk losing access to its ultra-cheap manufacturing base (Tim Cook's signal accomplishment, the one that vaulted him into the CEO's seat, was figuring out how to offshore Apple manufacturing to China) and hundreds of millions of middle-class consumers:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-vpn/apple-says-it-is-removing-vpn-services-from-china-app-store-idUSKBN1AE0BQ

Killing VPNs and other privacy tools was just for openers. After Apple caved to Beijing, the demands kept coming. Next, Apple willingly backdoored all its Chinese cloud services, so that the Chinese state could plunder its customers' data at will:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html

This was the completely foreseeable consequence of Apple's "curated computing" model: once the company arrogated to itself the power to decide which software you could run on your own computer, it was inevitable that powerful actors – like the Chinese Communist Party – would lean on Apple to exercise that power in service to its goals.

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese state's appetite for deputizing Apple to help with its spying and oppression was not sated by backdooring iCloud and kicking VPNs out of the App Store. As recently as 2022, Apple continued to neuter its tools at the behest of the Chinese state, breaking Airdrop to make it useless for organizing protests in China:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/11/foreseeable-consequences/#airdropped

But the threat of Apple turning on its customers isn't limited to China. While the company has been unwilling to spy on its users on behalf of the US government, it's proven more than willing to compromise its worldwide users' privacy to pad its own profits. Remember when Apple let its users opt out of Facebook surveillance with one click? At the very same time, Apple was spinning up its own commercial surveillance program, spying on Ios customers, gathering the very same data as Facebook, and for the very same purpose: to target ads. When it came to its own surveillance, Apple completely ignored its customers' explicit refusal to consent to spying, spied on them anyway, and lied about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Here's the thing: even if you believe that Apple has a "corporate personality" that makes it want to do the right thing, that desire to be virtuous is dependent on the constraints Apple faces. The fact that Apple has complete legal and technical control over the hardware it sells – the power to decide who can make software that runs on that hardware, the power to decide who can fix that hardware, the power to decide who can sell parts for that hardware – represents an irresistible temptation to enshittify Apple products.

"Constraints" are the crux of the enshittification hypothesis. The contagion that spread enshittification to every corner of our technological world isn't a newfound sadism or indifference among tech bosses. Those bosses are the same people they've always been – the difference is that today, they are unconstrained.

Having bought, merged or formed a cartel with all their rivals, they don't fear competition (Apple buys 90+ companies per year, and Google pays it an annual $26.3b bribe for default search on its operating systems and programs).

Having captured their regulators, they don't fear fines or other penalties for cheating their customers, workers or suppliers (Apple led the coalition that defeated dozens of Right to Repair bills, year after year, in the late 2010s).

Having wrapped themselves in IP law, they don't fear rivals who make alternative clients, mods, privacy tools or other "adversarial interoperability" tools that disenshittify their products (Apple uses the DMCA, trademark, and other exotic rules to block third-party software, repair, and clients).

True virtue rests not merely in resisting temptation to be wicked, but in recognizing your own weakness and avoiding temptation. As I wrote when Apple embarked on its "curated computing" path, the company would eventually – inevitably – use its power to veto its customers' choices to harm those customers:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

Which is where we're at today. Apple – uniquely among electronics companies – shreds every device that is traded in by its customers, to block third parties from harvesting working components and using them for independent repair:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks

Apple engraves microscopic Apple logos on those parts and uses these as the basis for trademark complaints to US customs, to block the re-importation of parts that escape its shredders:

https://repair.eu/news/apple-uses-trademark-law-to-strengthen-its-monopoly-on-repair/

Apple entered into an illegal price-fixing conspiracy with Amazon to prevent used and refurbished devices from being sold in the "world's biggest marketplace":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/10/you-had-one-job/#thats-just-the-as

Why is Apple so opposed to independent repair? Well, they say it's to keep users safe from unscrupulous or incompetent repair technicians (feudal security). But when Tim Cook speaks to his investors, he tells a different story, warning them that the company's profits are threatened by customers who choose to repair (rather than replace) their slippery, fragile glass $1,000 pocket computers (the fortress becomes a prison):

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/

All this adds up to a growing mountain of immortal e-waste, festooned with miniature Apple logos, that our descendants will be dealing with for the next 1,000 years. In the face of this unspeakable crime, Apple engaged in a string of dishonest maneuvers, claiming that it would support independent repair. In 2022, Apple announced a home repair program that turned out to be a laughably absurd con:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/22/apples-cement-overshoes/

Then in 2023, Apple announced a fresh "pro-repair" initiative that, once again, actually blocked repair:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

Let's pause here a moment and remember that Apple once stood for independent repair, and celebrated the independent repair technicians that kept its customers' beloved Macs running:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/29/norwegian-potato-flour-enchiladas/#r2r

Whatever virtue lurks in Apple's corporate personhood, it is no match for the temptation that comes from running a locked-down platform designed to capture IP rights so that it can prevent normal competitive activities, like fixing phones, processing payments, or offering apps.

When Apple rolled out the App Store, Steve Jobs promised that it would save journalism and other forms of "content creation" by finally giving users a way to pay rightsholders. A decade later, that promise has been shattered by the app tax – a 30% rake on every in-app transaction that can't be avoided because Apple will kick your app out of the App Store if you even mention that your customers can pay you via the web in order to avoid giving a third of their content dollars to a hardware manufacturer that contributed nothing to the production of that material:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Among the apps that Apple also refuses to allow on Ios is third-party browsers. Every Iphone browser is just a reskinned version of Apple's Safari, running on the same antiquated, insecure Webkit browser engine. The fact that Webkit is incomplete and outdated is a feature, not a bug, because it lets Apple block web apps – apps delivered via browsers, rather than app stores:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/13/kitbashed/#app-store-tax

Last month, the EU took aim at Apple's veto over its users' and software vendors' ability to transact with one another. The newly in-effect Digital Markets Act requires Apple to open up both third-party payment processing and third-party app stores. Apple's response to this is the very definition of malicious compliance, a snake's nest of junk-fees, onerous terms of service, and petty punitive measures that all add up to a great, big "Go fuck yourself":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/#dma

But Apple's bullying, privacy invasion, price-gouging and environmental crimes are global, and the EU isn't the only government seeking to end them. They're in the firing line in Japan:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-crack-down-on-Apple-and-Google-app-store-monopolies

And in the UK:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-wins-appeal-in-apple-case

And now, famously, the US Department of Justice is coming for Apple, with a bold antitrust complaint that strikes at the heart of Apple exceptionalism, the idea that monopoly is safer for users than technological self-determination:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline

There's passages in the complaint that read like I wrote them:

Apple wraps itself in a cloak of privacy, security, and consumer preferences to justify its anticompetitive conduct. Indeed, it spends billions on marketing and branding to promote the self-serving premise that only Apple can safeguard consumers’ privacy and security interests. Apple selectively compromises privacy and security interests when doing so is in Apple’s own financial interest—such as degrading the security of text messages, offering governments and certain companies the chance to access more private and secure versions of app stores, or accepting billions of dollars each year for choosing Google as its default search engine when more private options are available. In the end, Apple deploys privacy and security justifications as an elastic shield that can stretch or contract to serve Apple’s financial and business interests.

After all, Apple punishes its customers for communicating with Android users by forcing them to do so without any encryption. When Beeper Mini rolled out an Imessage-compatible Android app that fixed this, giving Iphone owners the privacy Apple says they deserve but denies to them, Apple destroyed Beeper Mini:

https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-moving-forward

Tim Cook is on record about this: if you want to securely communicate with an Android user, you must "buy them an Iphone":

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23342243/tim-cook-apple-rcs-imessage-android-iphone-compatibility

If your friend, family member or customer declines to change mobile operating systems, Tim Cook insists that you must communicate without any privacy or security.

Even where Apple tries for security, it sometimes fails ("security is a process, not a product" -B. Schneier). To be secure in a benevolent dictatorship, it must also be an infallible dictatorship. Apple's far from infallible: Eight generations of Iphones have unpatchable hardware defects:

https://checkm8.info/

And Apple's latest custom chips have secret-leaking, unpatchable vulnerabilities:

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/03/hackers-can-extract-secret-encryption-keys-from-apples-mac-chips/

Apple's far from infallible – but they're also far from benevolent. Despite Apple's claims, its hardware, operating system and apps are riddled with deliberate privacy defects, introduce to protect Apple's shareholders at the expense of its customers:

https://proton.me/blog/iphone-privacy

Now, antitrust suits are notoriously hard to make, especially after 40 years of bad-precedent-setting, monopoly-friendly antitrust malpractice. Much of the time, these suits fail because they can't prove that tech bosses intentionally built their monopolies. However, tech is a written culture, one that leaves abundant, indelible records of corporate deliberations. What's more, tech bosses are notoriously prone to bragging about their nefarious intentions, committing them to writing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Apple is no exception – there's an abundance of written records that establish that Apple deliberately, illegally set out to create and maintain a monopoly:

https://www.wired.com/story/4-internal-apple-emails-helped-doj-build-antitrust-case/

Apple claims that its monopoly is beneficent, used to protect its users, making its products more "elegant" and safe. But when Apple's interests conflict with its customers' safety and privacy – and pocketbooks – Apple always puts itself first, just like every other corporation. In other words: Apple is unexceptional.

The Cult of Mac denies this. They say that no one wants to use a third-party app store, no one wants third-party payments, no one wants third-party repair. This is obviously wrong and trivially disproved: if no Apple customer wanted these things, Apple wouldn't have to go to enormous lengths to prevent them. The only phones that an independent Iphone repair shop fixes are Iphones: which means Iphone owners want independent repair.

The rejoinder from the Cult of Mac is that those Iphone owners shouldn't own Iphones: if they wanted to exercise property rights over their phones, they shouldn't have bought a phone from Apple. This is the "No True Scotsman" fallacy for distraction-rectangles, and moreover, it's impossible to square with Tim Cook's insistence that if you want private communications, you must buy an Iphone.

Apple is unexceptional. It's just another Big Tech monopolist. Rounded corners don't preserve virtue any better than square ones. Any company that is freed from constraints – of competition, regulation and interoperability – will always enshittify. Apple – being unexceptional – is no exception.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/22/reality-distortion-field/#three-trillion-here-three-trillion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

[fashion-foxy]

EVER AFTER HIGH AND MONSTER HIGH MOBILE GAMES DOWNLOAD AND INSTRUCTIONS

CURRENT GAME LIST : Baby Dragons , Charmed Style , Tea Party Dash, Minis Mania, Monster Salon(it's a knockoff but still interesting), Ghouls and Jewels (for issues, warning, ect related to specific games, check the section I wrote on them)

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, PROBLEMS, CONCERNS, ECT DONT HESITATE TO DM ME

INSTRUCTIONS (Android only sorry Apple users but IOS is hard to work with)

Download the game(s) you would like to play. Then there will be a pop-up that asks if you want to open it with package installer, click yes.

Then it will tell you that for your safety, you can't install unknown apps by default. Go to settings and click allow. (Or if it doesn't come up go to setting search "unknown" then go down to unknown apps installer. Allow Chrome, My Files, and Drive to install. Then you should be good to go!

Also, some of the games relay on you running an old version of android to check what version your device runs on yo to settings and search "version," and it'll tell you.

ONCE YOU INSTALL A GAME, MAKE SURE TO DISABLE PERMISSIONS (some ask to see your contacts for dead social features.)

Most of the Content for these games are locked behind a paywall. Don't worry I'm working on it.

BABY DRAGONS INSTRUCTIONS :

This is an old outdated game. Here are the things that break it:

Upon leveling up, the game tries to display 2 items that don't exist. Pick the one that does, then check, then close the game.

Don't go to the chest armor tab in dress up or the game will lag and won't display any armor.

Don't close the game while you're playing a minigame, or when you open it back up, Braebryn will spawn inside the first egg and you'll have to uninstall the game to play the it again.

Don't open the shop button on the main menu. The game will lag really bad, and you'll lose control of the screen, close the game, and reopen to fix it.

The daily reward doesn't work I don't know why.

Don't try to buy anything with real money. You'll get scammed.

Ads don't play at all so you need to use gems to skip adventures.

CHARMED STYLE INSTRUCTIONS :

From what I can tell this one runs great! Just don't buy things (The game wont let you anyway).

TEA PARTY DASH INSTRUCTIONS :

The only real problem I've run into so far is that when you install it, it makes sure to tell you not once gut twice that it's not compatible with modern android. For the the android version I'm running, no issues but if you have above 14 (15 isn't out yet I don't think so don't worry about it quite yet) should be fine.

Just standard don't try to buy things and you should be fine

MINIS MANIA INSTRUCTIONS:

Prepare your ears for a nightcore remix of the frightsong being played on repeat. It has near identical game play to Tea Party Dash. Minis Mania was actually released after Tea Party Dash, so it is interesting that Mattel made an eah game before a mh one and remade it but monsterized.

MONSTER SALON INSTRUCTIONS:

OK, so unless you have an android device running 7 or less, the game won't even install, let alone run. The game asks you to connect to a server, and it is safe to connect to select connect. The game runs extremely slow and doesn't respond at times. Also, Draculaura does have a system for liking her hairstyle, but I don't know what hairstyle she wants.

GHOULS AND JEWELS :

This app was built for Android 8. It won't install if you have anything above that. Before you start, just make sure to turn off the game reading your contact list. This is a match 3 game so not the most interesting thing ever, but you do get to use the coins you make from matching to dress up your character and at some point get to use some of the g1 ghouls as avatar.

[akkivee]

HOW ARE YOU WATCHING THE DIVISION FANMEETINGS I’m a hypster member so that’s not a problem I just get an error when I click on the link and I lowkey need to watch mtcs or I may pass away

lol i’ll apologise upfront about this ask, this one is a monster topic

ight so the fan meetings are actually not at all streamed on hypster!!!! all lives, stage plays, and most hypmic extra content are streamed on abema. the fan meetings cost like, ¥4400 a ticket and i think???? they take international credit cards???? idk about that one actually, i usually just buy tickets on my phone 😭😭😭

thing is tho, abema has probably one of, if not thee strictest region blocking system on the planet i feel lmao, like you can’t watch a lot of content on that site if you’re located anywhere outside of japan. which means you’re going to need a ✨vpn✨

i use two different methods of watching abema content and they both lead back to vpn gate!!!!

the landing page is important if you’re on mobile, but i’ll get to that later. what you need for pc is to go to the download link at the top of the site, and hit the first option

on the download page, download the first option

and install!!!!! or i think it’s run application after you extract the files lol

i highly recommend you follow the instructions on the site to get connected lol, but once you run the app, let it do its installation thing and once it’s done, let the program open up and it should look sumn like this

double click the option that’s boxed in the pic and it’ll bring up a BUNCH of vpns to use!!!! double click on any one that says japan, hit yes until it starts connecting and once it does, you’re in, you’ve done it, you’ve learned basic vpn connecting lmao

except i meant it when i said abema has the strictest region blocking on the planet 😌

a lot of the vpns on the app are pretty old, and the first couple dozen or so (they have the ip 219) are actually blocked by abema. the older the vpn, the more likely it will not work on abema. try to aim for any that’s been up for a few hours, two days at max and it should circumvent the block. the host tho may close the connection at any time so sometimes you may get disconnected mid stream (or that you’ve been relying on that one connection for a very long while only to discover you can’t connect anymore either bc of the host or abema themselves blocking the ip but i don’t think you’ll have to worry about this specific problem lol). if you get disconnected, just find a new one as quickly as you can so you don’t miss anything lol

if you’re on mobile, i can only help with iphone stuff!!! but you’ll need to have these things:

the openvpn app

the abema app

a jp itunes account LOL and jp itunes gift cards bc apple won’t let you add an international card iirc

the abema app is only available in jp itunes so if you don’t want to google how to make one real quick, feel free to stick to pc lol. but if you already have one download the two apps 😌

to run a vpn on your phone, i again recommend you follow the instructions on the site lmao (tho it was made using ios ‘old as dirt’ so the interface looks a liiiittle outdated lol. should be the same tho) but go back to the previously linked landing page and click on the link in the boxed section of your chosen vpn

on that page, there’s typically four links; you’ll want to choose either of the bottom two, but i’ve found tcp links works more frequently. click the link and it’ll download the file. once it’s downloaded, pull it up and it should offer to open via openvpn. the app will redirect you to a tab that looks like this in the app

hit add, then hit connect, and it’ll go back to the connections tab in app and start connecting. if it connects, it’ll be all green and you’re good to go!!!!

more times than not tho, it’ll fail LOL just repeat the steps until you find one that works 😭😭😭

my hot vee tip is that sometimes when you’re connected, videos might pause mid connection. idk what’s causing it, but my gut says it’s likely bc of the ping you see in the line quality section (or the ping section on pc). go for a high mbps and very low ping if possible for less interruptions on both pc and mobile!!!!

that’s all i got for ya lol good luck i’m sorry we have to fight everyday to enjoy and support this fcking franchise ✌️

[trashexplorer]

BLCD Review: Nikurashii Kare

Title: Nikurashii Kare (憎らしい彼)

Author/Artist: Nagira Yuu

Shop: CD + Manga

Release Date: 2021/07/23

Cast:

Ono Yuuki x Saitou Souma

Morikawa Toshiyuki

Matsumoto Takuya

Matsui Akiha

Maeda Hiroki

Tonozaki Yuusuke

Horie Shun

Sahara Io

Miyama Mari

Kumagai Mirei

Yamane Masashi

Tamano Shouyo

Miki Shinichiro lmaooo so random

Synopsis: Second installment of the series.

Review Proper

My brain too smooth for this. Don't get me wrong—it's good, but I don't have the patience to sit through three CDs of this. 😂 I fell asleep 5 times. A new record!

It would've been better if Hira just stopped talking to me in formal Japanese 'cause it makes my brain crash. He says a lot of deep things when he can't even grasp the shallowest of concepts. I also have a love-hate relationship with Hira's train of thought 'cause how can he jump to all these conclusions but never the right ones? He's still absolutely sad in the head, but idk, I'm here for it lmaooo.

The same goes with Kiyoi. Like boi, you're the only one with half of a functioning brain here, so idk, use it?

Kiyoi: "I don't wanna be with you anymore."

Hira: *leaves

Kiyoi:

Like in the first BLCD, I still can't figure out if I should feel concerned for him or Hira. I mean, if someone I knew had this relationship, I would personally ask both of them to leave each other and see a shrink. 😂 I dare say that their relationship would be the most normal one there is if Kiyoi wasn't such a tsundere and if Hira was just less of a weirdo.

How are we bringing your parents into this already when you have a wack-ass relationship???

But hey, nothing like a good kidnappin' and one mc almost dyin' to solve communication issues, right?

The things you do, Nagira Yuu.

As usual, the voice work is phenomenal. Saitou Souma won as best voice actor for Kiyoi at the chilchil 2023 awards while Ono Yuuki placed 2nd for Hira. There's just something special about Saitou Souma and Ono Yuuki in Utsukushii Kare. Their chemistry is good and so natural! It's like they bring out the best in each other. I especially love hearing Ono Yuuki come undone under Saitou Souma's Kiyoi but immediately get his revenge in disc 3.

I'm already nominating this as Souma's best match up in 2021. Sorry, Makonyan. Let's see if someone else rises to the challenge.

As for the accuracy...

So I've actually tried listening to this back in 2022. Yes, I'm writing this review in 2024, and this is the very CD that caused my burn out lmaooo. From what I read from the trial, it doesn't start the same as the novel, so I was confused. I didn't take the liberty of buying the whole novel, so I'm not sure if they really do have the same content. They do have the same name, though. Idk. Again, Hira speaks in formal/old Japanese, so the struggle made me put this off. 😅 And it just snowballed from there 'cause I'm loyal to my log. I don't keep up with the manga either, but I think the third volume is still at Utsukushii Kare and not Nikurashii Kare.

Long story short, I can't say if it's accurate to the source material, and I won't be able to recommend read-alongs for both Utsukushii Kare and Nikurashii Kare.

The two installments are equally interesting. Both are jam-packed with nicely paced content. I feel more comfortable with Nikurashii Kare, though, 'cause Hira made me uncomfortable in Utsukushii Kare, while it was Shitara who made me uncomfortable in Nikurashii Kare lmaooo. I loved Hira's little character development here, and I wish I could say the same for Kiyoi.😂The comedy and action were also good, and Moririn's presence made it 100 times better. It might not make my 2021 faves, but it's definitely one of the best-produced ones—it won best BLCD at chilchil 2023 for a reason.

Let's pray to god I survive the third installment. 🤞

[fluidangel]

ok since i've been sharing some piracy stuff i'll talk a bit about how my personal music streaming server is set up. the basic idea is: i either buy my music on bandcamp or download it on soulseek. all of my music is stored on an external hard drive connected to a donated laptop that's next to my house's internet router. this laptop is always on, and runs software that lets me access and stream my any song in my collection to my phone or to other computers. here's the detailed setup:

my home server is an old thinkpad laptop with a broken keyboard that was donated to me by a friend. it runs yunohost, a linux distribution that makes it simpler to reuse old computers as servers in this way: it gives you a nice control panel to install and manage all kinds of apps you might want to run on your home server, + it handles the security part by having a user login page & helping you install an https certificate with letsencrypt.

***

to stream my music collection, i use navidrome. this software is available to install from the yunohost control panel, so it's straightforward to install. what it does is take a folder with all your music and lets you browse and stream it, either via its web interface or through a bunch of apps for android, ios, etc.. it uses the subsonic protocol, so any app that says it works with subsonic should work with navidrome too.

***

to listen to my music on my phone, i use DSub. It's an app that connects to any server that follows the subsonic API, including navidrome. you just have to give it the address of your home server, and your username and password, and it fetches your music and allows you to stream it. as mentionned previously, there's a bunch of alternative apps for android, ios, etc. so go take a look and make your pick. i've personally also used and enjoyed substreamer in the past. here are screenshots of both:

***

to listen to my music on my computer, i use tauon music box. i was a big fan of clementine music player years ago, but it got abandoned, and the replacement (strawberry music player) looks super dated now. tauon is very new to me, so i'm still figuring it out, but it connects to subsonic servers and it looks pretty so it's fitting the bill for me.

***

to download new music onto my server, i use slskd which is a soulseek client made to run on a web server. soulseek is a peer-to-peer software that's found a niche with music lovers, so for anything you'd want to listen there's a good chance that someone on soulseek has the file and will share it with you. the official soulseek client is available from the website, but i'm using a different software that can run on my server and that i can access anywhere via a webpage, slskd. this way, anytime i want to add music to my collection, i can just go to my server's slskd page, download the files, and they directly go into the folder that's served by navidrome.

slskd does not have a yunohost package, so the trick to make it work on the server is to use yunohost's reverse proxy app, and point it to the http port of slskd 127.0.0.1:5030, with the path /slskd and with forced user authentification. then, run slskd on your server with the --url-base slskd, --no-auth (it breaks otherwise, so it's best to just use yunohost's user auth on the reverse proxy) and --no-https (which has no downsides since the https is given by the reverse proxy anyway)

***

to keep my music collection organized, i use beets. this is a command line software that checks that all of the tags on your music are correct and puts the file in the correct folder (e.g. artist/album/01 trackname.mp3). it's a pretty complex program with a ton of features and settings, i like it to make sure i don't have two copies of the same album in different folders, and to automatically download the album art and the lyrics to most tracks, etc. i'm currently re-working my config file for beets, but i'd be happy to share if someone is interested.

that's my little system :) i hope it gives the inspiration to someone to ditch spotify for the new year and start having a personal mp3 collection of their own.

[live-emotion]

So ages since when the game hit I think u asked if people know how to bypass region locks for LE on ios . I can't remember if someone dropped a solution however if not I come with a solution, HOWEVER UNLESS YOU HAVE JP BANKING U CANT BUY STUFF. (Btw as a side note if anyone needs this, for android you can use Paypal to bypass banking, just DO NOT ADD A BANK CARD THIS WILL PLACE YOU BACK TO YOUR HOME REGION) So with ios you can switch in the app store your region to jp, you need to get an address but with enough searching round places you'll be able to put one down, this was the entry I used and so far it works, use at your own risk!! https://www.reddit.com/r/SuperStarBTS/comments/8moa6p/for_anyone_needing_a_japanese_addressphone_number/ . After entering all this your done and can install the game. You can easily switch back to your home region afterwards. All this is based on where I am which is the uk so I apologise if some of this may not work. Hope this info is helpful to some players! Happy idol note tapping!! <3

Info for ios users. Thanks~

[cuprohastes]

Hills to die on

If it's a JPEG or PNG it's not HDR. It's just tone mapping.

JPEG needs taking out back and euthanising. There are better formats and have been for like 15 years.

In any situation where there is a clearly better option, someone will contrive a way to fuck the situation up so massively that everyone will just keep using the shitty scenario. That someone is usually Sony.

GIMP and people who promote GIMP to unsuspecting would-be artists has done more to harm digital art than the cost of buying all the hardware.

Discord sucks ass. It won't ever not suck.

It doesn't matter what Android can do or how customisable it is, if you e.g. get a Samsung it's going to be so larded down with crap and cruft that any benefits over iOS will be lost.

Windows is not better than MacOS.

MacOS is not better than Windows.

Both are better than any Linux install that isn't running on a tablet.

For drawing, sketching, painting and generally enjoying things, an iPad with a ludicrously overpriced stylus is way better than a full PC with a Wacom...

... and the tablet's a better way to enjoy media.

Customer service agents are not paid enough

Customer service agents should be allowed to say "Jesus fucking Christ I asked what the problem is, not 'Tell me about your day' Shut. The. Fuck . Up. Now what is the problem. 6 words or less, or I'm hanging up and blocking your number".

CSATs and NPS are astrology anti-vax conspiracy theories for middle management. They're deeply flawed, harmful to everyone involved, a huge pain in the ass, and nobody wants to deal with them... apart from some middle manager who firmly believes they can boil down a human being and their entire job to two numbers every month.

Billionaires and politicians should be tried every year and if found guilty of being utter shits, be wired up for life support and encased in amber, and displayed to the public along with a list of the bad shit they've done. I firmly believe that these dinguses will see their comerades frozen mid scream in a big block of resin, while a machine keeps them alive in permanent hellish torture and still do the stupid things they do.

Nobody likes soft mozarella as much as block mozarella.

UBI and free cheese would probably solve almost all problems.

Nestlé are now so evil they're just doing it to see how far they can push things before anyone actually does something other than tut-tutting.

Most politicians should be guillotined.

[doamarierose-honoka]

Back in June 2017, SEGA announced its SEGA Forever initiative to bring its classic games to iOS and Android as free to start games with a no ads IAP. Each game was to be adapted for mobile while remaining faithful to the originals. We saw the service launch with five games with more coming every few weeks. As recently as this week, select SEGA Forever games have been delisted on iOS and Android. Shaun has most of them installed and spotted some of them getting updates recently with new notifications in-game alerting users that the support for the specific game has ended, with a link to find more info on other platforms to play it on. Currently, that link opens SEGA’s home page. Check out the warning screenshot from Shaun below:

SEGA Forever games launched with cloud saves, controller support, and more. Shaun’s covered many of them over the years, but it seems like the program is currently on hold or over. SEGA is yet to announce anything, but if we do get any official news around it, we will post about it. If you missed the original launch, watch the unlisted trailer for it below:

As of now, it is unclear when many of these were delisted, but some were done as recently as this week. The delisted games are: Comix Zone, Altered Beast, Phantasy Star Classics, Revenge of Shinobi, Vectorman, Decap Attack, Eswat, Ristar, Space Harrier 2, Beyond Oasis, Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy, and After Burner Climax. There are still some games available to play and buy if you didn’t own them before, but the ones above have been delisted. It is unclear if they will return. Check out the official SEGA Forever website here. Did you play any of the delisted games before and what would you like to see SEGA bring to the his program if they are continuing it?

[gothhabiba]

How to tell if your eSim has been activated: Airalo desktop

Navigate to airalo.com. Log in using the same e-mail and password you used when purchasing the eSim.

Towards the top right of the page, click "My eSims."

You will be taken to a page showing your current (non-expired) eSims. Choose a plan and click "details,” on the bottom right.

You will be taken to a new page. Scroll down to where it says "my packages" (under "usage").

An inactive plan will show an orange rectangle in the “my packages” section reading "not activated."

An activated eSim will instead have a green rectangle reading “Active.”

Don’t let a plan expire if data is still being used! Just before the validity is up, click the button at the bottom left of the plan that says “Top up,” click "Buy" on one of the plans on the "Buy Top-up Packages" page that comes up, then check out.

How do I know which plan is which?

If you’ve sent multiple eSims from the same app to the Connecting Humanity team, some are active and some aren’t, and you’re not sure which e-mail to reply to to tell the team that that plan is still inactive—

Open the details page of an inactive plan. Towards the top of the page under where it says "eSim Installation," there are two sets of instructions: one for Android and one for iOS. It doesn't actually matter which one you click.

Whatever you press, keep clicking "next" on the pop-up that comes up until you get to a screen showing you the QR code.

Now find the e-mail for an Airalo plan that you sent during October, November, or the first two weeks of December and visually compare to see if the QR code matches. If it does, then that means this plan is not yet active, and you should send a reply to this e-mail to let the team know.

If you can't visually compare QR codes, take a screenshot of both QR codes and upload the image files to an online QR code reader to get the data they're encoding in a text format; then compare the text to see if it matches.

[malexaaa]

Catching Up on Tech News

1. Foursquare's Strategic Shift: Foursquare recently underwent significant restructuring, laying off 105 employees, which accounts for 25% of its workforce. The move aims to enhance operational efficiency and financial stability. This isn't the first time Foursquare has faced layoffs, having experienced similar cuts in 2020 and 2022. The company has transitioned from a consumer-focused app to a provider of enterprise data services, with its future financial outlook remaining uncertain.

2. Google Pay Enhancements: Google Pay is upping its game in the digital payment sphere by introducing new features geared towards enhancing the shopping experience. These include smarter shopping with rewards, flexible payment options through buy now, pay later (BNPL), and improved security verification methods using biometrics or PIN. These updates empower users to make informed decisions, maximize rewards, and enjoy a streamlined and secure payment process across various transactions.

3. Microsoft's AI Innovation: Microsoft's Cocreator feature within Paint is revolutionizing digital art creation by transforming quick sketches into realistic images in real-time. With options like Layers, Cocreator, and Image Creator, users can blend text and sketches seamlessly, adjusting creativity levels and styles. However, this feature currently requires specific hardware capabilities, limiting its accessibility to Copilot+ devices.

4. Apple Addresses Photo Bug: Apple swiftly addressed a bug in iOS 17.5 that caused deleted photos to reappear on iPhones and iPads. The fix was rolled out in iOS 17.5.1, which users can install via Settings > General > Software Update. While the root cause of the issue remains speculative, theories include indexing glitches, photo library corruption, or synchronization issues with iCloud Photos.

[inverts]

A week... or two... ago, was the Global Game Jam of 2023. The theme was ‘Roots.’ In my typical fashion, although I began the jam by brainstorming with friends, I quickly latched on to an idea and shot off on my own to make a narrative game about it. The result has now been uploaded to itch io for anyone to play, for free, in browser, no download or installation required: https://inverts.itch.io/ground-down

This game, Ground Down, is a text based interactive fiction that I made using Twine. In the game, you are a farmer, and you are faced with your declining dental health, predatory neighbors trying to buy your farm out from under you, and idiot workers who refuse to listen to basic safety precautions. It is a horror story, a slow march toward a single, inevitable conclusion, told in second person. 

There is a full list of content warnings both on the itch io page as well as within the game itself. I’ll say outright that if stuff about teeth is really upsetting for you, then you may want to skip this one. But if all the above sounds intriguing to you, then please check it out!