>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.
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>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!
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>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.
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>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.
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fastest reblog in the west
Yeppers. :)
reblogging for study later AND to spread the info.
Couple of tips on some bird things for art! Some which people rarely touch on in their own tutorials or tips, mostly the first and second one! If there’s any specific things you’d like some tips on just let me know with an ask~
Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.
Might I add:
The defeat of the wizard who made people choose how they’d be to be executed
The woman who raised the changeling alongside her biological child
The human who died of radiation poisoning after repairing the spaceship
The adventures of a space roomba
Cinderella finding Araura (and falling in love)
I don’t know a snappy description but the my nemesis cynthia story certainly lives in my head
hilariously, these are almost all in my fic tag. so, a compiled list from the notes (and some extras):
ICYMI, there was fear that companies were scraping public AO3 fics to train their AI without the consent of AO3 or its users. That fear has been confirmed.
“superman knows everyone’s secret identity because he can see through masks and eavesdrop anywhere, batman knows everyone’s secret identity because he’s the world’s greatest detective, and wonder woman knows everyone’s secret identity because she has a magic lasso” is fine and all but i think it’s funnier if clark makes an active effort not to look through masks because he thinks it’s rude, bruce knows despite making no effort because they’re all actually terrible at keeping secrets, and whenever diana wants to know someone’s identity she just asks bruce and it never occurs to him not to tell her
47 more free and helpful things, that everyone can take advantage of
Music
Gnoosic is your place go for new music recommendations. It asks for three of your favourite bands, and based on them, spits out an artist that you might like. You can also “like”, “dislike”, or mark it as something you aren’t familiar with – which further refines the results.
NoCopyrightSounds is a copyright free / stream safe record label, providing free to use music to the content creator community. NCS Music is free to use for independent Creators and their UGC (User Generated Content) on YouTube & Twitch - always remember to credit the Artist, track and NCS and link back to our original NCS upload.
Radio Gardentake a trip ‘round the world’s airwaves! Just pick a city — literally any city — and Radio Garden will play you whatever its local radio station is broadcasting.
RadioooooRadio Garden walked so Radiooooo could run. This site adds a timeline function so you can listen to radio from not just anywhere, but anywhen. Get down to those 1910s Germany bops!
Art
Krita free and open-source raster graphics editor designed primarily for digital painting and 2D animation.It is made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and Chrome OS
29a.chinteractive site that lets you color what looks to be a map of the cosmos, but I’m honestly not sure. Whatever it is, it’s mesmerizing.
Games
Patatapis an interactive website that responds to the keys on your keyboard with a sound and a brief animation. Now imagine hammering in entire sentences – and you got an explosion of sounds, colors, and movement! Once you start typing in random paragraphs, it becomes almost hypnotic, in a way.
Drench a very simple browser game, Drench gives you a board with different colored tiles, and you use the buttons to flip the colors around. Do this until your board is full of tiles of a single color only.
River Styx an interactive point-and-click game that takes you through the river Styx and the Underworld. You will meet many Greek Gods and Goddesses here, and you will also be learning a lot about their myths and legends.
2048this website lets you play a game called 2048, which is kinda like Tetris but with addition. Use your arrow keys to try to combine numbers until you reach 2048, or go ~beyond~ and try to reach 4096.
Little Alchemy 2fun little time killer. As its name suggests, the website deals with the process of transformation you achieve when you start mixing different things. You start with Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. The goal is to create as many different materials or objects as possible. For example, earth and air will form dust. There are no rules just mix and match your creations to create new ones. You will not even know where your time went.
Akinatorwebsite is magic or rather feels like one. You can think of any character in this entire world and through a series of question, it will deduce the name. Don’t believe me, go try for yourself.
Find the Invisible CowYou’re going to want to make sure your sound is on in this fun finding game! Find the invisible cow in this laugh out loud version of hot and cold.
CookieClickerHow fast can you click for cookies? Level up and become a cookie pro with this fun time-wasting website!
Knowledge
ZooniverseA really neat website that brings people together to create one of the largest platforms for people-powered research. Volunteers come together to assist professional researchers. There is no need for a specialised background or training; all you have to do is to answer simple questions.
Cool Huntingis a really cool publication platform that uncovers the latest in design, technology, style, travel, art and culture. If you are into art, architecture, and culture, then this website is perfect for you.
OCEARCH Shark TrackerThis one looks right on the money for the folks who can’t get enough of sharks! With OCEARCH Shark Tracker, you can keep a track of tagged sharks as they are busy swimming around the deep ocean. Moreover, the website also lets you zoom in on a particular location to check where sharks have been swimming for the past year.
Ad Astra-appAn essential tool for every astronomer. The star atlas and skyguide that makes it really easy to pick the best objects, make your own observation list and use it when you are outside
100,000 Stars is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen on the web. It shows a representation of galaxy with stars inside it. You can take a tour which starts from the Sun and takes you to the outer edges of the galaxy while teaching you valuable insights in between.
wikiHow is an online wiki-style publication featuring how-to articles on a variety of topics. For example: How to make ginger ale, How change a lock or How to survive an encounter with an ostrich.
Cooking
Cooking for Engineersis a godsend for those who love to cook. This website has it all, from recipes, to kitchen gear, to cooking tests, down to a handy dictionary. The best part about this website is its classic 90’s layout, which makes accessing the recipes and files intuitive and easier.
My Fridge Food at this point, your fridge probs has, like, three random items in it, and you’re starting to panic about meal options. Enter My Fridge Food, which inputs everything you have in your kitchen and outputs a recipe. Bless.
Work, or relax
Da FontTired of your basic Times New Roman? You can spend hours downloading new fonts from typography artists to spice up your new document!
A Soft MurmurIf you’re looking to create your own ambient background music to listen to while you work or read, A Soft Murmur is the fun website for you! Create your own mix of white noise and other natural sounds to relax and waste some time.
Rainy MoodGet all the benefits of rain without getting caught in it with Rainy Mood! This is perfect for setting a relaxed and chilled out mood.
I Waste So Much TimeThe website is designed to literally allow you to waste your time. There are no long articles, just funny pictures with embedded texts. A very good time waster for short breaks.
This Is My Website NowThe website truly kills your time. It is just a collection of small games which you can play on your browser. Effective for less than 10 minutes of usage, it’s good for a short break.
InstructablesIf you’ve always wanted to learn how to DIY but didn’t know where to start, try Instructables. They have community posts with step-by-step instructions to help you become a DIY master in no time.
OBS Open Broadcaster Software is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers. only downside to it is that you have a power director watermark in the corner of your video, but its not very large.
Sleepytimeis your sleeping schedule out of whack? This fun website calculates exactly when you need to go to sleep and wake up in order to get a good night’s sleep.
Boredom
MapCrunchGo on an adventure without leaving your home — because you can’t! This site plops you down in a random location on the globe, and all that’s left to do is explore.
List of Conspiracy TheoriesGet sucked down the dark rabbit hole of the internet that will have you denying history and wearing tinfoil hats. Wikipedia’s list of conspiracy theories will have you scrolling for ages!
This Person Does Not ExistIf AI and deep-fakes fascinate you, this is a website that will either make you very excited, or give you nightmares about whether ‘The Matrix’ is real, and if you, at some point in your life, took the blue pill instead of the red one. Either way, the website generates fake people using GAN (or generative adversarial networks), and displays them to you. You can refresh the page to see a different face. Also, if this interests you, you might also like:
This Cat Does Not Exist. You know, because why stare at human faces when you can look at cats instead.
The Useless WebWant to see what the Internet truly has to offer? Take a peek at The Useless Web to see what truly is out there.
Not Always RightHad a bad day at work? Did that one annoying, pesky customer or client who just wouldn’t shut up tried to give you a hard time, and succeeded? Then this website is just perfect for you! It’s a collection of stories about customers who just don’t know when to shut up.
Zoom QuiltIf you’re looking to be hypnotized, then check out this site, which is basically a picture that infinitely zooms in to reveal new pictures.
Just for fun
Tickldis your go-to spot for anything humorous and funny, for anything that’s really cool and interesting, or stuff that’s just plain WTF.
Paper ToiletJust because stores are sold out of toilet paper doesn’t mean you have to live without. This site features some interactive TP that you can roll up or down.
CoolThingsis a collection of cool things. From entertainment, to gadgets, to even toys and inventions, there is bound to be something here that will interest you.
This Is Why I Am BrokeThis is a great website for discovering new gift ideas which are distinct. The products range from a few dollars to a few thousand. There’s something for everyone here.
PostSecret is a very interesting website. Visitors are encouraged to send in anonymous postcards on which they write their secrets. There are all sorts of secrets on all kinds of postcards, and the variations make this a really interesting project. However, be warned – these secrets are very real… and very heavy.
NOIYS – Post, read, forget is a place to post an anonymous note to be viewed by many people, only to be deleted within 24 hours. It’s the perfect website for venting anonymously and not worry about the consequences, as it will be deleted within a day. The best part (or maybe worst) is that strangers can reply to your note, too. That way, you can have a running conversation with a complete stranger.
Scream Into the Void Take your outrage about our current situation (or any problem in your life) and throw it into the void. Just type out your feels and then click the “Scream” button, which does exactly what you think it does.
And lastly…
Dildo GeneratorWelcome, good citizens of the web, to my favorite site of all time. It’s right in the name: You can generate a custom dildo by length, width, base, contours, and so many more variables. Things get wild pretty fast.
EyebleachDid you see something on the internet that was just too scary? Or just need to get it out of your head? Click on Eyebleach to be fed adorable pictures of puppies, kitties, or babies!
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