dex

1.5M ratings
277k ratings

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
fixyourwritinghabits
lifehacksthatwork

Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023

Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!

Sejda - Free online PDF editor.

Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it’ll give you recipe ideas.

Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.

Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I’d recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.

12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.

Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.

TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn’t read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.

OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can’t for the life of you remember the actual word.

My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You’ll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.

Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.

Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.

PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.

Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.

Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.

LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.

Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.

Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.

CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.

Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.

I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.

Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.

Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.

Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.

My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.

Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.

Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.

Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.

Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.

Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.

Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.

Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.

This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.

Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.

BitWarden – Free open source password manager.

Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It’s genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.

Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.

ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.

Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.

Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.

Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.

myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.

DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.

Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.

For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.

Pinned Post
thebibliosphere

cicada-s asked:

I love how transparent you are about what its like to be a self published author in this day and age, and i was just wondering if there was a difference on your side between amazon ebook/paperback and audible - and also if Scribd is any better, because i use it as an alternative to amazon whenever possible (and whenever the library doesnt own a copy of whatever im looking for) is it functionally all the same? What is best for you?

thebibliosphere answered:

Thank you!

I actually did a huge long post a while back when I got the audiobooks produced and uploaded to various platforms. I included Scribd in the breakdown after people falsely claim that Scrib is better for authors than Amazon/Libraries.

A lot of people were not happy when I burst that particular bubble by showing that Scribd paid me 97 cents out of the 19.99 price tag. Which is less than what Audible paid me.

Now, obviously, Scribd is different because it’s a subscription service, and you’re paying for access to multiple things with that subscription. But saying it is better than libraries is just false because I also showed the numbers for that, and my income from libraries was several times higher than both Scribd and Amazon combined (for audio), which is why authors are always begging people to request their work in libraries.

Libraries pay us better and are usually free. Not always. I know it depends heavily on the country, but for most of my English-speaking audience, that is the case.

Now, this is not to say people shouldn’t use services like Scribd. If Scribd is what you can afford and it gives you access to things your library can’t fantastic. Please continue to access our work through that legal option. I would much rather earn 97 cents than zero.

But uh, yeah, Amazon pays me more than Scrib for digital stuff and I really don’t like when people who aren’t on the author side spread misinformation and frame it as some more “gotcha.”

The sad truth is Most retailers pay us the same or within the same royalty range. The difference I earn between Kobo vs Kindle is literal pennies with Amazon coming out on top. I make my work available on multiple platforms to give people options, but unless you’re buying directly from my personal storefront, it’s all roughly the same.

I do actually earn more from Amazon paperbacks than I do any other retailers (for self-pub, paperbacks are a flat rate regardless of how much a retailer is charging), but the difference is about ten cents, so I always tell people to buy from wherever is best for them.

I like bookshop.org because they give some of the profit on their end to indie bookstores. Same with libro.fm for audio.

Audiobooks are just a whole fucking nightmare. Audible sets your price point for you and takes 80% of your royalties. And because Audible does that, I have to then use that price tag on all other platforms or risk being fucked by the algorithm gods. Other audio retailers take about 60-70% in royalties, most of them veering toward 70%.

As we say in radical acceptance therapy, it is what it is—fucking end-stage monopoly driven capitalism.

Now, speaking personally, when it comes to digital media, I earn the most royalties from my Payhip store where I keep 90% of my income.

That’s the best place for me.

It’s also why it’s worth looking up an author you like to see if they have their own storefront. It doesn’t help our sales rankings or put us on any bestseller lists, but frankly after launch week, who cares. I’ll take being able to feed me and my dog.

I hope that helps!

jahloveangel

Genuine question, is there anything we the consumers or the writers can do to get better deals from Amazon, Audible, etc? Even 70% of your royalties seems like highway robbery.

@thebibliosphere

thebibliosphere

Ideally, the author unions (there are a few) would push for change, but access to said unions is prohibitive for many with lower sales or lower incomes. So basically, anyone in self-pub or indie-pub. This means they focus a lot of stuff on the problems of trad-pub issues. Which is totally understandable because, y'know, that's the majority of their membership, but... I don't know.

The whole publishing industry needs to be shaken to the ground and built back up again. Because yeah, Amazon is scummy, but it's not like publishing was a fair industry before they rolled in and opened up the self-pub market (arguably a lifeline for many marginalized authors trad-pub wouldn't allow to the table). They just exposed more of the holes and avenues of exploitation.

Basically, I don't know. I'm honestly too tired from trying to keep my head above water to think about it. Which I'm sure is the case for many.

But as a consumer, check to see if authors have their work available on their own site. It won't change the industry, but it'll help keep us fed.

If that's not an option, buy our work from your preferred retailers because money is still money, and we can't live without it. (This is an instance of where boycotting doesn't really help because it means we just don't get paid. A mass industry boycott wouldn't really work unless you're actively throwing money at authors through other means to keep us afloat.)

Support us through libraries.

Talk about the books on social media. Leave reviews, rec them to friends. Be really enthusiastic about the things you love because, honestly, even for trad-pub, authors' careers live and die by word of mouth.

But, yeah. The change has to come from the industry. It's not something that can be fixed with buyer habits. Would that it could.

unadulteratedsuitphantom
phantomrose96

To me, honestly, the biggest thing Tumblr has going for itself is the fact that no one uses it.

Originally I was thinking, in terms of "why do I use Tumblr and not other sites?" that the thing going for it is that it's a Post Anonymous Bullshit site. And this is true, and important, but also Tumblr isn't the only Post Anonymous Bullshit site.

I think the key power that Tumblr holds over me is that it's the Post Anonymous Bullshit site that no one uses.

And the reason that's so clutch is because of how much safety it adds. No matter what kind of office or acquaintance small-talk spirals into the direction of social media, which, perhaps in an unthinking moment, causes you to mention you use Tumblr. Even if your conversation partner acts interested in this detail, they won't follow you. Twitter? Tiktok? Fuck man, the person could whip out their phone on the spot and look you up. Tumblr? No way in hell. They'd have to download an app. Make an account. Check it regularly? Just to see you posting "happy fuck him flat friday"? No.

And on the absolute off chance this person does have a Tumblr, and does follow you, well they probably have all the same problems you do that's led them to be active on this site in 2023 so you should be pretty safe in a very girl what are YOU doing at the devil's sacrament kind of way.

atom-bomb-baby
onetwothreemany

FEMA is doing an emergency alert test on all TVs, radios, and cell phones on October 4, 2023, at approximately 2:20pm ET.

If you live in the US and you have a phone you need to keep secret for any reason, make sure that it is turned off at this time.

Yes, I'm doing this months in advance, and yes, my blog has very little reach, but I figure better to post about it more than less.

Please reblog and add better tags than mine, I'm bad at tags.

absurdistraccoonsterrorizelocals

OCTOBER 4, 2023

TURN OFF YOUR OTHER PHONE AND DO NOT TURN IT ON AGAIN UNTIL YOU ARE ALONE AND SAFE BECAUSE THE ALARM WILL COME THROUGH AS SOON AS THAT PHONE IS POWERED ON.

AGAIN I REPEAT:

OCTOBER 4, 2023

THE ALARM WILL COME THROUGH AS SOON AS THAT PHONE IS POWERED BACK ON.

SO ONLY POWER IT BACK ON WHEN IT IS SAFE TO DO SO.

OCTOBER 4, 2023


If this doesn't make sense, then good news it's not for or about you but still reblog it because you never know who may need to know this.

Reblog and add more tags.

whatbigotspost

There’s just a whole lot of reasons someone may need to be aware of/prepared for this, so boosting

ifiwereafish

HEY. be careful out there today.

TIME ZONES:

around 2:20 pm EST

around 1:20 pm CT

around 12:20 pm MT

around 11:20 am MST (Arizona)

around 11:20 am PST

around 10:20 am AST (Alaska Standard Time)

around 8:20 am HAST (Hawai'ian-Aleutian Standard Time)

Please stay safe and shut off what needs to be shut off.

RB THIS PLEASE

atom-bomb-baby
rthko

I know "walkable cities" is considered a buzzword and urbanists are increasingly seen as preachy liberal wonks, but we're literally right. If you spend enough time in an American city outside the literal bubble of your car you will see people carrying groceries along the shoulders of freeways, running for their lives to cross a street, or waiting for an hour to catch a delayed bus. If you read local obituaries about pedestrian and cyclist fatalities, they're not white tech bros in spandex but people in redlined neighborhoods without proper sidewalks. You spend enough time trying to own the urbanist nerds and oops, you start condoning a status quo that is overtly cruel and racist.