Just An FYI For Trans People In The US Right Now

to anyone in the areas impacted by the wildfire smoke, my #1 biggest piece of advice as someone whos been dealing with wildfire smoke in the NW united states for years, is build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal Cube

they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!

i think it took us maybe a half hour to put ours together, if that, and we replace the filters every 3 months. it's really made a HUGE difference, both when the air quality is bad, but also with our allergies

ABOUT TIME!!! for those out of the loop homeowners’ associations in the US 1. suck horrendously in every way 2. were the beginning of the end of urban biodiversity

it's quick it's easy and it's free: piracy

my roommates are very, very good programmers. some of the most technically competent people in the world. and yet both of them flail around helplessly when it comes to piracy. one of them couldn't pirate rimworld and the other needed help getting howl's moving castle. how? perhaps not all people are gifted with innate knowledge of Crime?? i dont understand it, but ive decided to write this helpful guide for them and everyone else with no cyberpunk in their souls*

Helpful reference but too much information for your first time: r/Piracy megathread

Download vs Torrent vs Stream

There are three main ways to pirate things:

Downloading**: this is when you go to a website and click a button and then your browser firefox gives you a little notification telling you it's downloading a file. Then you have the file on your puter and you open it or run it or whatever.

Torrenting: this is when you go to a website and download a torrent file. Then you open that file with another program called a torrent client and it downloads the real file for you.

Streaming: this is when you go to a website and you press play on a video/song and it plays you the thing right there in your browser firefox. no file ever gets downloaded to your machine

Or in flow chart form:

Downloading: firefox -> website that has Movie (2022) -> download button -> wait for it to download -> Movie (2022).mp4 is in your Downloads folder -> you play Movie (2022) with a video player VLC

Torrenting: firefox -> torrent website The Pirate Bay -> search for Movie (2022) -> download the torrent file -> open the torrent file with qbittorrent -> it downloads Movie (2022).mp4 -> Movie (2022).mp4 is in your Downloads folder -> you play Movie (2022) with VLC

Streaming: firefox -> streaming website swatchseries -> you find Movie (2022) -> click play -> Movie (2022) plays in your firefox window

Security Shit

Will I get in legal trouble (in the US or Canada) (I am not a lawyer this isn't legal advice etc etc):

Downloading: No

Streaming: No

Torrenting: No, see fine print. If you use a VPN Mullvad, then no, definitely not. If you don't then: there is a small chance the copyright holder will notice and send a letter to your internet provider. You will get a scary letter from your internet provider (ISP). If that happens a lot there is a chance your ISP will turn off your service (I don't know anyone who has actually had this happen). There is basically zero chance that the copyright holder will sue you: they don't know who you are. They need to get that information from your ISP, and ISPs don't give that information out very freely. They would also have to actually successfully sue you, and that mostly stopped. Overall the risk is that your ISP gets mad at you, not that you get sued and/or go to jail.****

Will I get hacked???

Streaming: No. If you don't have ad block it'll probably open a bunch of annoying popups tho. Get uBlock

Downloading/Torrenting Data (Video/Music/Books): These will generally be safe. Keep your player/reader software updated. Make sure the file has the right extension (mp4, mp3, pdf/epub/mobi, etc).

Downloading/Torrenting Executables (Games/Applications): Not safe. People can and do insert malware into the executable. It will still run, but it will do things in the background you don't want. The way to avoid this is by downloading only from places that are well-known and vetted by the community. I recommend fitgirl repacks. If for some reason fitgirl goes down, check the r/Piracy megathread

Don't ever give anything administrative permissions unless you're really super duper extra sure.

And of course, standard internet security advice applies. See the r/Piracy list of untrusted sites if you're curious about a particular site.

Books

Use libgen. Note that every once in a while libgen gets kicked out of a particular country and that link will break. In that case you should use your favorite search engine to search for libgen and find the new extension

Scientific Papers

Use scihub. Same thing as libgen applies.

Movies/TV

I generally recommend streaming rather than downloading. There's less risk and it's rare that you can't find what you want. Currently I use 123 chill (use uBlock). You can also use Video DownloadHelper to download a video file from a streaming site.

Music

uhhh tbh I get music with a script I wrote myself. Good luck lads, try reddit???

Games

Get torrents from fitgirl

thread.

*I'm deliberately picking one program/site for each step to minimize complexity. please dont do anything unbearably silly like list 8 different torrent clients or get into the minutiae of Firefox vs Firefox Developer Edition***.

**inb4 someone says "well actually torrenting is downloading too". you fool. you absolute buffoon.

*** if you so much as mention chrome I'll download your car.

**** if you are torrenting a lot then maybe your ISP sells you out. if youre going to torrent idk every video game ever then get mullvad

Some thoughts on fitness and health in 2025!

The video is mostly just me riffing on the word "bodybuilder". It helps to know that people interpret the word differently:

A.) Some think of it as the apex of all fitness and the default fitness goal.

B.) Others don't like it as much and may say they prefer "functional" training, etc.

But I do think that if you are actively training towards a goal, then you should be building your body to be healthier, more functional, and more fit.

That leaves me with 2-3 main messages in the video:

1.) If you're improving, you're building yourself, and that's really cool. You're literally building an improved version of yourself.

2.) Your health should improve or maintain along with your fitness. If you're sacrificing health for "fitness", then it may not actually be fitness.

3.) Have a beautiful year!

Is your landlord invading your privacy? Is your apartment heated inadquately? Do your utilities keep getting shut off because your landlord isn’t paying? Have you been trying to get them to repair your dishwasher for five months and they won’t replace the spray arm part even though it’s visibly broken?

You’ve heard of employee unions using collective bargaining to force the bosses to provide better pay and better working condiditions. But did you know if you rent an apartment in an apartment complex, you can do something similar?

It’s called a Tenant Association, and it’s basically a union for renters.

Here’s an overview of the why and how of forming a tenant association

Here’s a more thorough organizing manual

When it comes down to it, you and your fellow tenants are the ones paying your landlord’s salary. Go remind them of that.

Hey kids, wanna learn what signs of botulism look like?

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and all endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

Thought I would share this here. Image is a clickable link that will take you to the account that posted it! ID has now been corrected, and is in alt text. It is also below, please excuse the redundancy:

—

Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) tweeted: “No one can make you stay in an unsafe worksite. Close up and walk out with your coworkers until management or nature fixes the problem. Contact us for help.”

EWOC quoted their own tweet and added, “If your boss won’t let you evacuate: Convince as many coworkers as you can to all leave together & contact us right away. You have the right to organize & leave an unsafe worksite. If they’re not bluffing & still try to fire you after the storm, we’ll help you fight it.”

Attached to the OP is a meme of a skeleton marching away, titled “Just walk out - you can leave!” It lists, “wildfire smoke, hurricane, flooding, no heat, powers out, no water, tornado warning, AC broke, weird fumes.” Bottom text reads, “Climate sucks… hit da bricks!” Overlaid is the meme’s author, “@/organizeworkers.”

End ID.