>First, We’ve Discovered That About A Quarter Of All The Internet Connection In Or Out Of The House

My son has set the house up with a Pi-Hole. It’s a raspberry pi running Ad blocking on the whole house’s network. 

We’re a few hours in and we’re seeing effects, as well as some teething problems.

— Simon McGarr (@Tupp_Ed) August 11, 2022

>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.

>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.

>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.

>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.

>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.

>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.

>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.

For you can do it too!https://t.co/l1SLzPrzp6

— Simon McGarr (@Tupp_Ed) August 11, 2022

>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!

They show your your stats on a neat little dashboard. pic.twitter.com/RQB39IvnKD

— Simon McGarr (@Tupp_Ed) August 12, 2022

>Lemmings problem now solved.

>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.

>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.

>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.

>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.

There’s a handy explanatory video from Dr. Johnny Ryan which sets out how we could end up with Just So Much ads.

Each webpage load can potentially run an auction (with you as the prize pig on the block) sending data to loads of different brokers. https://t.co/wUosBLjM3f

— Simon McGarr (@Tupp_Ed) August 12, 2022
Privacy International has a short and clear guide to what hardware you can use for setting up a Pi-Hole as well as some setup instructions. 

Ad-blocking (home surveillance thwarting) is a human rights issue too!https://t.co/1vphCsaug1

— Simon McGarr (@Tupp_Ed) August 12, 2022

>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.

>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.

This has proved a popular thread. I have no soundcloud, and the things I sell are not of general use. 

But you can always follow & support Digital Rights Ireland (who once knocked down a state surveillance law for half a billion people) @DRIalerts https://t.co/vrAPYsxjP4

— Simon McGarr (@Tupp_Ed) August 13, 2022

More Posts from Library-of-alex and Others

1 year ago

Btw much as I love to make fun of twitter and reddit's business decisions, I have 0% trust in tumblr's management to not go a similar route so this is your gentle reminder that you should regularly go to your blog settings to export your blog. That's a fancy way of saying you can download a backup of your blog so if everything goes down you'll still have a backup of your posts & convos.

1 year ago

Send me a Ship and a Number and I will Write a Kiss

…good morning.

…goodnight.

…goodbye.

…where it hurts.

…where it doesn’t hurt.

…on a falling tear.

…to shut them up.

…in secrecy.

…in public.

…desperately.

…in joy.

…in grief.

…discreetly.

…casually.

…passionately.

…lazily.

…to distract.

…as encouragement.

…for luck.

…on a scar.

…on a place of insecurity.

…in a rush of adrenaline.

…in relief.

…in danger.

…as a ‘yes’.

…as an apology.

…as a suggestion.

…as a lie.

…as a promise.

…as comfort.

…after a small rejection.

…to wake up.

…forcefully.

…to pretend.

…to gain something.

…to give up control.

…without a motive.

…because they’re running out of time.

…because time’s run out.

…because the world is ending.

…because the world is saved.

…out of pride.

…out of greed.

…out of lust.

…out of anger.

…out of envy or jealousy.

…out of spite.

…out of habit.

…out of necessity.

…out of love.

1 year ago
Link To The Gay Porn Library Of Alexandria.
Link To The Gay Porn Library Of Alexandria.
Link To The Gay Porn Library Of Alexandria.
Link To The Gay Porn Library Of Alexandria.
Link To The Gay Porn Library Of Alexandria.
Link To The Gay Porn Library Of Alexandria.
Link To The Gay Porn Library Of Alexandria.
Link To The Gay Porn Library Of Alexandria.
Link To The Gay Porn Library Of Alexandria.

Link to the gay porn library of Alexandria.

Happy pride.

1 year ago
Exercises For All The Homies Who Want To Have A Long Career Drawing.
image
image

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)

2 years ago

for writers new to AO3—you know how people sometimes leave comments in their bookmarks? did you know you can search for other people’s bookmarks of your own fic, so that you can view them all at once and don’t have to manually go through each fic’s individual bookmarks page? and even better, if you don’t want to figure out the search parameters for that, you can just go to this handy lil web page;

AO3 Bookmark Viewer
Fandom Stats
AO3 Bookmark Viewer
For Writers New To AO3—you Know How People Sometimes Leave Comments In Their Bookmarks? Did You Know

^ just enter your username, click the second box for ‘bookmarks with notes only’, and there u go. all* bookmarks of your fics with comments in one easy to view space

*obviously private bookmarks won’t show, but it also won’t show bookmarks that only have added tags and no comment

2 years ago
FAMOUS AUTHORS

FAMOUS AUTHORS

Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.

The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.

Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.

Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.

Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.

Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.

Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.

Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.

The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.

Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.

Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.

Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.

Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.

Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.

TEXTBOOKS

Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.

Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.

KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.

Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.

Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.

MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.

Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.

Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.

Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.

eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.

MATH AND SCIENCE

FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.

Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.

Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.

Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.

FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.

Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.

Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.

International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.

Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.

Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.

Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.

The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.

Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.

PLAYS

ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.

Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.

Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”

ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.

MODERN FICTION, FANTASY AND ROMANCE

Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.

The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.

Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.

Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.

Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.

The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.

Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.

John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.

SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.

Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.

ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.

Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.

Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.

Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.

KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.

Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.

Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.

Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.

Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.

Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.

Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.

Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.

CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.

Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.

HISTORY AND CULTURE

LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.

The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.

Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.

Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.

Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne.

RARE BOOKS

Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.

Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.

Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.

2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.

Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.

Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.

Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.

Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.

MYSTERY

MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.

TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.

Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.

POETRY

The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.

Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”

Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.

Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.

Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.

QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.

CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.

PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.

MISC

Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.

World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.

DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.

A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.

Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.

ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.

Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.

Prize-winning books online: Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer winners.

1 year ago
What 9/11 Did to One Family
Bobby McIlvaine was 26 when he died in the attacks. Two decades later, his loved ones are still grappling with the loss.
image

(And read about Jen’s refusal to give the diary back… in her words.)

This is a fucking powerhouse article and I strongly, strongly recommend it. It’s not really “about” 9/11, it’s an article about the faces of bottomless grief. 

2 years ago

Fanfiction Trope MASH-UP

Rules: Send me two (2) tropes from this list + a ship and I’ll describe how I’d combine them in the same story. 

Historical AU 

Royal AU 

Modern AU 

Coffee Shop AU 

Bar/Restaurant AU 

Bookshop AU 

Florist AU  

Hospital AU 

Dance AU 

Airport/Travel AU 

Neighbour AU 

Roommate AU 

Detective AU 

Bodyguard AU 

Criminal AU 

Prison AU 

War AU 

Circus AU 

Summer Camp AU 

Teacher AU 

Dystopian AU 

Space AU 

Performer AU 

Soulmate AU 

Fairy Tale AU 

Massage Fic  

Sick/Injured Fic 

Proposal Fic  

Wedding Fic  

Holiday Fic  

Birthday Fic 

Pregnancy Fic  

Baby Fic 

Vacation Fic  

Bathtub Fic 

Text/Letter Fic 

Coming Out Fic   

Grief Fic  

Survival/Wilderness Fic  

Almost Kiss 

First Kiss 

The Big Damn Kiss 

Dance of Romance  

Flowers of Romance 

Chocolate of Romance  

Blind Date  

Not a Date  

Fake Dating 

Fake Married 

Arranged Marriage  

Accidentally Married 

Marriage of Convenience 

Mutual Pining 

Secret Relationship  

Established Relationship 

Awful First Meeting 

Forgotten First Meeting  

Accidental Eavesdropping  

Interrupted Declaration of Love 

Poorly Timed Confession 

Love Confession 

Love Confessor (Character A confessing their love for Character B to Character C)  

Everybody Knows/Mistaken for Couple 

Star Crossed Lovers  

It’s Not You, It’s Me 

It’s Not You, It’s My Enemies  

Character in Peril 

Heroic Sacrifice 

Flirting Under Fire 

Locked in a Room 

Twenty-Four Hours to Live  

Stranded on A Desert Island 

Stranded Due to Inclement Weather 

Huddling for Warmth 

Bed Sharing  

Did They or Didn’t They? 

In Vino Veritas  

Above the Influence  

Anger Born of Worry  

Green-Eyed Epiphany  

The Missus and the Ex 

Second Love  

Intimate Artistry  

Married to the Job  

Innocent Physical Contact 

I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On 

Aroused By Her Voice  

Erotic Dreams 

First Time 

Unexpected Virgin 

PWP 

Kink 

Makeovers 

Hair Brushing/Braiding 

Sleep Intimacy 

Scars  

Time Travel  

Curses 

Magical Accidents 

Accidentally Saving the Day   


Tags
1 year ago

In the spirit of encouraging people to comment on fanfics while also making it easier to do so, I feel obliged to share a browser extension for ao3 that has quite literally revolutionized the comment game for me.

I present to you: the floating ao3 comment box!

From what I've seen, a big problem for many people is that once you reach the comments at the bottom of a fic, your memory of it miraculously disappears. Anything you wanted to say is stuck ten paragraphs ago, and you barely remember what you thought while reading. This fixes that!

I'll give a little explanation on the features and how it works, but if you want to skip all that, here's the link.

The extension is visible as a small blue box in the upper left corner.

(Side note: The green colouring is not from the extension, that's me.)

In The Spirit Of Encouraging People To Comment On Fanfics While Also Making It Easier To Do So, I Feel

If you click on it, you open a comment box window at the bottom of your screen but not at the bottom of the fic. I opened my own fic for demonstrative purposes.

In The Spirit Of Encouraging People To Comment On Fanfics While Also Making It Easier To Do So, I Feel

The website also gives explanations on how exactly it functions, but I'll summarize regardless.

insert selection -> if you highlight a sentence in the fic it will be added in italics to the comment box

add to comment box -> once you're done writing your comment, you click this button and the entire thing will automatically copied to the ao3 comment box

delete -> self explanatory

on mulitchapter fics, you will be given the option to either add the comment to just the current chapter or the entire fic

The best part? You can simply close the window the same way you opened it and your progress will automatically be saved. So you can open it, comment on a paragraph, and then close it and keep reading without having the box in your face.

Comments are what keep writers going, and as both a writer and a reader, I think it's such an easy way of showing support and enthusiasm.

2 years ago

Random mansion generator

Random Mansion Generator
Random Mansion Generator

The Procgen Mansion Generator produces large three-dee dwellings to toy with your imagination, offering various architectural styles and other options. Each mansion even comes with floorplans:

https://boingboing.net/2019/07/12/random-mansion-generator.html

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library-of-alex - Library Of Tumblr Resources
Library Of Tumblr Resources

A side blog dedicated to all those cool info posts i find

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