except for the pedestrian crossing morphing into the lane and the horrible airbrushing of everything, and straightening the tires so it doesn’t look like it’s turning properly

ah yes, LIUCONN, a famous bus maker dthat exists.

personally, I’m wary of totally-not-Russian companies operating from Cyprus.

https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls#mobile-os

blocks all ads device-wide for free. the “base” profile should be good enough for most people. note: while this is provided by Mullvad, a trusted VPN company, the solution above is NOT a VPN.

I don’t even think AI was involved, probably compression + someone increasing contrast before uploading it to their Instagram @funnymemeslol page to make it POP

but it doesn’t POP on the social media feed you have to make it POP

Capy Reader or ReadYou on Android, FreshRSS website in the browser on desktop.

you don’t read every article when visiting the website either, do you? so you’re already doing the sorting.

no one’s forcing you to read all of them, either set a short expiry time for the feed so the unread ones get deleted after a day or week or whatever, or mark them as read so that they disappear and move on. some readers allow you to set filters to e.g. ignore articles with certain keywords in the headlines, if you’re feeling a bit extra.

Canadian winter.

the catch is that lots of the stuff on the internet is now centralised on big platforms that try as hard as they can to steer you into their apps, so that you consume the content the way they want you to rather than the way you personally find convenient. what used to be blogs and small hobby websites has become Facebook fan pages or Instagram accounts, and while both Facebook and Instagram used to offer RSS feeds for public accounts at some point, it hasn’t been the case anymore for a decade or so. there are workarounds that let you get RSS for some pages that don’t offer it, but not for all of them and they vary in difficulty from “put the name of the account you want to follow and generate a special feed address with one click” through “pay a small monthy subscription for a company to generate a feed for you”, to “self-host some software that manages the feed”, and all of those can break at some point. still, for me personally there’s enough stuff that offers the feeds that are ready easy enough to access to make it worth my time.

nope, I use the official https://www.404media.co/rss/ link. sometimes it pulls the entire article even though I’m on a free tier, and sometimes it doesn’t and I just open it in the browser instead.

eli5 rss feeds

it’s like podcasts, but for websites. you add websites that you want to follow and get notified when a new post or article appears.

• Youtube channels that I’m interested in, so that I don’t have to use my Youtube account or the app, and just open the links via Invidious (Invidious offers their own RSS feeds, as well, but since the instances can be a bit finicky from time to time, I feel like that’s the safer approach)
• World News and Europe feeds from BBC, Deutsche Welle and Reuters
• https://restofworld.org/
• 404 Media and The Verge
• GamingOnLinux, Steam Deck HQ and Boiling Steam for gaming things
• updates on some software that I use - CalyxOS and LineageOS blogs, KOReader’s Github releases since my Kindle stays offline 99% of the time, modified port of Google Camera that I use on my phone
• a few TikTok people whose videos I then open through https://offtiktok.com/
• release updates from the artists I’m interested in (currently Spotify-based, but I’m in the process of moving those to Music Butler)
• https://reasonstobecheerful.world/ because I need to know how reintroducing beavers to London has improved everything
• several webcomics, Tumblr blogs, and one newsletter from the Nazi-hugging newsletter place
• http://miniature-calendar.com/

several of those are possible thanks to RSS Bridge which adds RSS feeds for websites that don’t offer it by default or offers improved versions.

remove all the screens and the charging port and I’m sold.

ligns

that’s a fascinating typo.

It might shock you, but content on YouTube gets paid

similar fraction of pennies as in Spotify’s case, and often the people who receive the money aren’t the people behind the content, especially when it comes to older or less popular music, because it’s been uploaded by some random guy 14 years ago.

you are basically saying what? Listen for free, middle finger to authors, and buy merchandise? As opposite to listen legally, authors get something and buy merchandise?

no, my good guy, I say middle finger to Spotify and their warmongering, slop-embracing, Joe-Rogan-loving business, and spend money in a way that skips at least one middle man which hopefully results in the artist getting a bigger cut, and in you actually owning something even when the company you’ve bought from goes down, rather than renting it.

But hey, I’m glad that you speak for authors.

right back atcha!

okay so this next bit might shock you, but there’s already a HUGE amount of music available on Youtube for everyone to search through and listen to with just a few click. and in addition to that, there’s the Soulseek network, countless torrent trackers – both public and private – that let you download entire discographies, as well as Youtube download tools, websites and tools that let you rip music from streaming services. and all of those are free! more than that, they have been around for years! and before that, people would download songs from Limewire or Kazaa or Napster, tape songs from radio, or buy bootleg albums. and somehow, there’s still people buying music and T-shirts from their favourite bands, and paying to attend their concerts. absolutely bonkers.

a few years ago, back when I was still using Spotify, I checked my Wrapped and apparently I was using Spotify more than 99.5% of users in my country, and when it came to my most listened artist, I was in top 0.05% listeners worldwide. doing some back-of-the-napkin math with the data I got online about Spotify’s payouts, it turned out the money the artist got during that year from me amounted to less than just a bit over a dollar.

if you’re really concerned about supporting artists, use the money you’d pay for your music streaming subscription and buy their album or a piece of merch every two months.

k

no