Reblog if its ok to spam you with boops

I don’t know, but it can’t hurt.

Supernatural

Supernatural

Supernatural

Who called?

So, Microsoft is terrible. Yes yes, the oldest claim in the world.

But specifically... I just hate how Windows 10 tries to conflate and confuse web searches with things on one's own computer. The start menu should never do anything related to web-searching, especially if it purports to try to give examples of things that are on my hard drive!

This will make old, computer-illiterate people more malware-vulnerable. You have to maintain a strong distinction between "things that are on this computer (and maybe even included in Windows)" (safe, one hopes, or you already got pwned by it, probably), and "things on the web" (scary, dangerous, not to be trusted at all).

Eroding that barrier in the UI is awful. It just FEELS like a violation every time I start typing into the start bar, and it tries to show me ANYTHING web-related. My computer is NOT just an internet-portal! It has tons of stuff on it, and when I'm interacting with the OS, I ONLY want to see things that are already on here!

If I wanted to see something online, I would go to my browser! All the online stuff should be segregated into the browser!

Specific programs can access the internet; that's fine. But my OS's functions and interface should JUST be about the things that are already on my computer.

#someone in the notes mentioned shut up windows 10.

https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 

i haven’t used this myself but i’ll be looking into it

Literally spent multiple hours lobotomizing my Windows reinstall when I upgraded recently, the amount of awful shit they had in nowadays makes me long for the age of win98, when software was merely bad, rather than actively harmful.

the exact setting in shutup10 for this issue is "Disable extension of Windows 10 search with Bing" it's at the very bottom under misc.

There are 2 programs that will turn Windows 10 from an advertising riddled, bloated mess into a useful tool.

10AppsManager

With one click, this will remove ALL THE BLOATWARE Windows comes with. Seriously, you need NONE OF THESE apps, and if you do, you can just uninstall all the ones you don't need individually.

Winaero Tweaker

This program will give you almost complete control over Windows 10's behavior. Disabling the web search in the start menu, op rightfully complained about, is just one of the many things this thing can do

For example, with a single setting you can turn off any ads from microsoft, system-wide

It is a powerful tool, but it can be a bit overwhelming. Luckily every single setting comes with an explanation about what it actually does, and most settings can be easily reversed.

Tech tip from my personal blog

reblogged in the hope that i'll eventually both remember AND have the executive function (AT THE SAME TIME) to actually sit down and deal with this. win10 really is terrible.

Also, if you’re like me and utterly unable to handle the weird tile-style menu and just want to go back to the days of lists that make sense, check out OpenShell https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu

It’s a very simple program, and it turns the tile menu on win10 into something much more logical like this

Which i will never be able to live without, so it goes on every win10 machine I have to use regularly.

everyone in this post goes directly to heaven

[wanders past the whole post with Terrified Linux Bystander face]

❤️Ask Game: Love Edition ❤️

❤️Rules❤️

a. Reblog or like this post.

b. You can pick only ask 1 question.

c. You can ask for yourself or for a celebrity. If you are asking about a celebrity, you must let me know the name of that celeb.

d. The question that you ask must be one of the following:

4. For anons:

a. Give me your initials and at least 2 different emojis to represent you.

b. You can only pick 1 question. (Anons, you only have 4 qs to pick from. If you go as non-anon you get more qs to choose from.)

c. You can ask for yourself or for a celebrity. If you are asking about a celebrity, you must let me know the name of that celeb.

d. The question that you ask must be one of the following:

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.

AO3 has written about what they’re doing (and what they’re not able to do), and they recommend restricting your work to AO3 registered users only. [Instructions here]

This gross misuse of the archive by techbros is why I’ve locked down my fics for the foreseeable future. I recommend the rest of you do the same.

Omfg, I left it when it was going to enter in chapter fifty somenthing, I'm going downhill when I start again

my writing fundamentally changed forever ten years ago when i realized you could use sentence structure to control people’s heart rates. is this still forbidden knowledge or does everyone know it now

?????? *raises hand* I’ve been writing for years and don’t know this trick by these words! do tell?

Okay, so a few people have asked for me to cite the dark magics at them, and i’m super happy to share because it’s my favorite thing ever. 

so, let’s see if i can explain this the same way that i learned. read a sentence out loud. you come to a full stop when you hit the period, and you take a normal, breath. but, when you hit a comma, you take a slightly longer pause. and when you hit a dash - you take an even longer pause. 

this is a natural rhythm that we pick up when we’re first taught to read; we do it without even thinking. but when you start to think about it, you realize that it can become a tool.

think of your heartbeat. a period is badump. a comma is badump-dump. and a dash is thump badump. one breath. a longer breath. two breaths.

that means what you read automatically affects the rhythm of your breathing and your heartrate. which means that you can control the amount of physical tension your reader feels… by altering your punction and your sentence structure.

for fast paced scenes, you use short sentences. a lot of hard stops. mostly periods, with just a few comma’s thrown in for the full breath. your reader’s heartrate accelerates. their breathing is slightly and unintentionally, on their end, quicker. you hit the dramatic ending of the scene - and your reader’s body phsyically feels the gasp, the breath of fresh air, of these longer sentences.

now, read that paragraph again ant take note of your natural pauses, and how it subtly affects your breathing. 

the same thing can be said of comma’s and dashes. while they can be used as a breath of fresh air, they can also cause a new line of tension as they lead your reader to hold their breath. during this section, you should use longer sentences; breaking up the harshness of the pauses by using variations of punction. read this paragraph out loud from the start and take note of how long you go between pauses and full breaths. 

and then, comes the biggest trick.

the hard stop.

the paragraph.

because while the periods, commas, and dashes are variations on a short stop, the paragraph is a hard stop. you take a full breath. you pause for a moment, then move to the start of the next paragraph.

which means you can create an entirely new sort of dramatic tension. read the sentences that are in bold. see how you take a naturally longer pause at the end of each paragraph?

see how it makes you feel? 

how it makes you breath different? 

how doing it once, twice, or three times creates a different line of tension? 

this little magic trick can be used to cause a reader’s heartrate to speed up during a fight or chase scene. it can be used to cause their breathing to slow down during moments of dramatic tension, sorrow, or softness. and it can be used to create hard breaks that add a new level of physically felt emphasis to your written work.

i hope these examples make sense! it’s my favorite writing trick!

IMPORTANT PSA

Please share for UK residents!

The public alert will go off on Sunday 23rd April at 3PM (15:00) BST.

The decision to issue the alert was made against the advice of NGOs who warned this could put vulnerable people in danger. Please spread the message.

People who caught it put in the tags what year it was and how bad it was and if you had any side effects

Ok it’s a poll it’s not that serious but there is something funny about the non-writers voting the most and not reblogging the poll to get more results. Like that’s the most accurate representation of fic interaction on this website 💀

Are you frustrated you can't leave second kudos on AO3? or third kudos? or whatever-who's-counting kudos?

Well, have I got the html for you!

Plop any of these in a comment (by copy&pasting the code) to make an author's day and show your appreciation!

It will look something like this (and will be transparent with white outline on dark backgrounds):

Feel free to spread and use these as much as you like! (and if you have ideas for other variations, let me know ✌️)

So happy to see people enjoying these and spreading the love 💖

UPDATE with some suggestions from the replies! And bonus: cookie kudos.

HTML codes under the cut.

writers wishing they could draw whats in their head 🤝 artists wishing they could write whats in their head

Are you frustrated you can't leave second kudos on AO3? or third kudos? or whatever-who's-counting kudos?

Well, have I got the html for you!

Plop any of these in a comment (by copy&pasting the code) to make an author's day and show your appreciation!

It will look something like this (and will be transparent with white outline on dark backgrounds):

Feel free to spread and use these as much as you like! (and if you have ideas for other variations, let me know ✌️)

This user supports AO3

This user is anti-censorship

This user believes in “don’t like, don’t read”

This user believes in “ship and let ship”

This user believes that fiction tastes and preferences do not dictate moral character

hey if you're a UK resident can you sign this petition and if not please rb to spread the word

this is an official UK government petition that they have to respond to if it reaches 10,000 signatures

So, this one is actually a lot more important than reporting and blocking spam bots. That post has 20,000 notes rn, so it would mean a lot to me if you could give the same treatment to this as you gave to that (@neil-gaiman if you're listening).

If the petition gets 100,000 signatures they have to consider it for debate in parliament.

It's a crime that Gender Recognition Reform was blocked in England, but Scottish MPs voted it into law and that the UK Parliament overturned that is in direct contravention of democracy as a whole.

It's a pretty serious big deal. Please sign, or, if you're not a UK citizen, please boost.

PSA to New Tumblr Users

DON'T CENSOR YOUR TAGS. DON'T.

Write out 'Suicide' Write out 'Rape' Write out 'Abuse' & 'Assault' & 'Gore'

If you don't use the real words in your tags? People won't be able to filter those out and stay SAFE.

You need to tag properly to keep everyone safe.

Don't water down warnings just because social media has trained you to water them down.