Huge thank you to Squarespace for fucking automatically opting peoples' websites in to let AI train on our site's data without letting us know. Real cool.

ARTISTS WHO USE SQUARESPACE, HERE'S HOW TO DISABLE AI CRAWLERS ON YOUR SITE!!

That’s real dirty, squarespace.

It's not dirty. It, in fact, makes total sense.

You can't outright ban webcrawlers without banning normal users too. What you can do is write a file called "robots.txt" that politely asks webcrawlers not to look in certain files or directories. It's a request is all. This is pretty much standard on the web, and you should read more about it (wikipedia) if you run a website.

So what squarespace did is they wrote up a robots.txt policy targeting AI webcrawlers. They can't guarantee that their users want that, so they did the next best thing, which is to set the toggle to parity with how your user experience was before they added it.

They're not "opting you in". You opted yourself in when you made a website. They're just finally giving you the option to opt yourself out. How should they notify you that they added this option? They probably put it in their update notes, where it goes. After all, it's not changing anything to leave it alone.

Important info addition from someone who knows more about how websites work than I do (you should still opt out if you don't want ai picking over your shit, but good to know that having the option to is a step in the right direction)

Also don’t buy nasty pasta from her company Goodles.

For anyone in the area looking to protest the LA screening live, it will be held at the Museum Of Tolerance on November 8th, 2023. Here's the address:

9786 W Pico Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90035

Article abt it says entry is "invite only" but afaik nothing stopping ppl from protesting outside the location.

Very important, but Palestinian groups recommend NOT protesting at this event unless you're white or jewish! It seems to be a trap to take photos of protestors of color to accuse them of antisemetism. Jewish Voice for Peace and other orgs WILL be holding a protest, so if you're jewish, you are highly encouraged to protest! Please stay safe! Wear a mask!

Hey— Serious post for a second

The House of Commons in Canada has initiated a petition for a ceasefire in Palestine. Canadian followers and Canadian Tumblr users as a whole— please take a few seconds to stop and sign this.

After you sign, you'll need to confirm your signature through the email you provided on the form. It may not come through immediately, but make sure you do so, or your signature will not count.

Here's the link to the petition.

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

Since the sell by date wasn't for another 4 days I returned them. I was checking out at the store and I was like "i'm not sure you want to take them out of the bag" and he did and a passing manager was just like "That looks like a bomb, I'm just gonna take it to the back" and was off like a shot.

Okay but seriously, if you have a package of food like this or especially if you have a can that is bulging like this, it is literally full of poison, do not open it and absolutely positively do not eat it under any circumstances.

Any food packaging that is bulging has to be considered unsafe to eat. A lot of people who might be living on their own for the first time don't know what that looks like, and this is a really, really extreme example, but yeah if the top of a can has become slightly domed from internal pressure that's going to kill you, don't eat it.

If you live in the USA and you're pleading for donations to pay your rent, bills, or get food then dial 211! Please dial 211 before the last minute!

It's a toll free service with people who will help you find programs in your community to pay those bills, find food, and find housing! They will give you numbers to call so you can get help.

It is not 100% foolproof. Their job is to direct you to a program they believe will help your current issue, but it's still a step up from praying random strangers online will give you enough cash before a deadline! The added benefit of these community programs, which get funded by the local government most of the time, is if there are more people using them then they can get more money to help more people.

You're not taking resources from other people if you use your community services. Your taxes pay for them. Use them.

Dial 211 first to see if they can help, and if for some reason they can't, then make your donation posts!

https://www.211.org/

Fellow epileptics, I have some fantastic news for you. There’s an add-on that makes the internet safer for us. It’s called Epilepsy Blocker. The creator had me test it out, give feedback, he made adjustments, and it works great. It may even help those with migraine disorders that are triggered by the same thing that messes with those of use with photosensitive epilepsy (mine is a case of being absurdly sensitive).

This is the only add-on I’ve encountered made specifically for those of us with epilepsy. It’s not a well known add-on, but I hope to see that change.

So uh….some dude apparently recreated Adobe Photoshop feature-for-feature, for FREE, and it runs in your browser.

Anyway, fuck Adobe, and enjoy!

Give credit to the 30-year-old who worked on this for free and offers this service for free!

WHAT?!

I study graphic design and my tutor recommended and used this in his classes at art college last year, it’s so good it has SO many features for free, I really recommend it, even if you’re just trying to learn the basics of PS, such a wonderful thing <3

Photoshop is still considered an industry standard for commercial art so if you’d like to learn how to use it without breaking the bank, here’s a great tool for any artist hopefuls!

oops i tripped and dropped my

youtube frontends

oh no this one has sponsorblock support

oopsie poopsies this one is its own standalone client

aw fuck my android boy!!

hewwo android users who likes vanced before they kicked the bucket and couldnt get revanced to work :3

Glaze is out!

Tired of having your artwork used for AI training but find watermarks dismaying and ineffective?

Well check this out! Software that makes your Art look messed up to training AIs and unusable in a data set but nearly unchanged to human eyes.

I just learned about this. It's in Beta. Please read all the information before using.

Art thieves already hate it:

Dude, if you're stealing, you deserve to have the data poisoned. Because you could have asked and you didn't.

The link is only in the original post inside an image, not as text, so here it is as plain text: https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu/ and the paper about how it works: https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.04222

As links (because some of us are on mobile and can't easily copy and paste to our browser), those are:

https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu

&

A bit of a TLDR for some questions I saw in the notes:

The team that created Glaze is from the University of Chicago. Their names are each listed in full on the Glaze download website. (This group of students/professors did this for their SPRING BREAK 😱 so go give them some love lol)

It is free to download. No, they won’t ask for or raise money from/for this project.(stated by one of the lead professors of the project).

Glaze is designed to protect artists’ STYLE--which a bunch of ai people have been deliberately fine-tuning their models to mimic (and specifically of current living artists--small or big).

It currently does not protect against composition/trace-like theft (as seen when run through img-to-img) but that would be protected by copyright anyway while STYLE is not.

The University Team has stated that they are dedicated to continuing to improve the tool, like fixing bugs (like overheating older computers by taking up lots of energy when Glazing--it currently runs on CPU so they’re trying to change that to GPU, I believe) and expanding the type of protection given to artists (like working against img-to-img theft).

It currently only works directly on your computer (phones not advised due to current overheating issue, no tablets, or iPads, and no website runthrough since that would be insecure to breaches/scraping/hacks)

It currently works best on painterly artwork, but can still be used on other forms (team is working on improving this)

IT WORKS BY calculating the changes each image needs for the best protection against style theft by AI, and adds tiny changes throughout the piece, so that your style will, for example, confuse the ai into seeing van gogh. But the ai thieves will see a regular image in your style, feeding it into their model labeled as your work (thus starting the “data poisoning”).

Do not post the original unGlazed piece of your artwork after posting your Glazed version (obviously)

The Team worked directly with over 1,000 artists that were being impacted by the ai theft. Because the team listened to those artists, Glaze accounts for regular art thieves too (i.e. Glaze can’t be removed/cropped etc. like signatures or watermarks when reposted. It’s just part of the image, so even if it ends up on another site and scraped, the Glazing is still in effect)

When you run your artwork through Glaze, no information is sent back to the Team. (Aka, no scraping on their part. The app receives information from the Team (like updates) but no information from you is given to them through the app. Basically Team servers ---> You and NOT Team servers <--->You) One-way data street.

Brief misunderstanding happened over an open-source license for the front-end part of the app. (Used open-source coding for front-end, not knowing that code’s use-license states it is only for other open-source uses, not closed-source (the back-end code of the app is private to prevent counter-counter measure developments)). The Team took down the app until they replaced the front-end code with code written from scratch by the team. They are now not in violation of that open-source license since they are no longer using it. (you have 30 days to remedy a license breach once informed; they did so in 2)

The Team is currently in touch with Japanese artists to better expand the tool for use to protect their art styles

From what I understand of it, Glaze is an AI tool designed to be anti-AI (Think Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2: one Terminator robot vs. all the other Terminators 😂)

You can download it from their website and also contact them through email there with any questions, problems, or bugs. The website: https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu/

reblogging this every fucking time it comes across my dash

They recently updated it btw. They're also expanding its capabilities, if you go on their site's page. Hell ye

PSA, there's a really nasty Discord scam going around rn. If one of your friends DMs you, starting off with a simple "hello" "how are you", may even joke around a little, and then starts asking you to look at a game/project they're working on, don't click the link, don't download anything. If you can reach that friend through non-Discord means, reach out and let them know they got hacked.

One of my friends said the link takes them to a very convincing video game page that has in-game screenshots and stuff, and then gives you an option to download a playtest zip file or something. That download exploits a weakness Discord apparently has for password protected zip files and steals your Discord log-in and changes your account info to the scammer's account info. Two of my friends lost their accounts. Be careful.

Slight adjustment to this... Apparently the virus scrapes all your passwords and files on your computer, not just Discord... It just uses Discord to gain access... Friend had a picture of his license saved on his computer, and apparently the scammers even got their hands on that... So it's a nasty little hack...

Signal boost.

This is a big fucking deal: https://www.npr.org/2023/08/22/1195141913/borrowers-can-now-apply-for-new-income-based-student-loan-repayment

studentaid.gov/SAVE

As somebody who used to work in the industry (trying to unfuck peoples' loans, and also investigate frauds schools committed that screwed over stuents) the SAVE plan is one of the most generous options for repayment that's currently available. Which is to say, it sucks way less than many of the other options that exist in the capitalist hellscape we live in where people have to sell their souls to the government to afford an education. BUT, if indeed you are someone with government student loans, you owe it to yourself to look into this plan.

I still work in the industry and HARD seconding the above, it's far and away the most generous repayment plan out there.

HEY CALIFORNIA PEOPLE!

HURRICANE ADVICE FROM A FLORIDIAN!

Make sure you've got shelf-stable food and water for everyone in the house, including pets. The rule of thumb is a gallon per person per day. Freeze water bottles if you want cold water.

Make sure you have enough meds!

Make sure you have batteries, candles, flashlights, and a manual can opener. 

Make sure your electronics, including backup batteries, are charged. Unplug things you don't want fried in case of a power surge. 

Don't tape your windows, it doesn't help and you'll just be stuck scrubbing goo off of them later.

Put a mug of frozen water in it in your freezer with a quarter on top of it. If your freezer defrosts, the ice will melt and the quarter will sink and tell you you need to throw things out.

Get everything that's not nailed to a foundation out of your yard. That dead branch hanging on by a thread? Time to get it down (it was probably time to do that three days ago, but now’s better than never).

Park away from powerlines and trees if you can. Rain makes the ground soft and then trees fall over.

Have an evacuation plan to a shelter. Evacuate if they’re telling you to.

If you start to flood, don't go in your attic. You'll get trapped if the water rises too high and you can't hack through your roof. This happened to a lot of people in Texas and Louisiana. Get ON the roof.

Be safe, be well <3 

It's legit. Section 11.G "Opt out" explains how.

I just did this, and Etsy doesn’t actually tell you anywhere on the site how to find your username (it’s randomly generated), which you need to opt out, so here’s how to do that:

https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015653248-Your-Username the main point is “The URL of your profile page contains your username. It looks like this: etsy.com/people/[your username]”

Sims 4 page on Steam. Not to be controversial but I think the CEO of EA should be beheaded for this

if anyone got the game from origin heres an unlocker for dlc + links to the dlc files to download that an anon sent me a while back :] its worked perfectly for my game but jus make sure u have enough storage for the packs

AND REMEMBER, DO NOT SEARCH ANADIUS REPACK SIMS 4 DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE, BECAUSE THEN YOU WILL FIND AN EASY WAY TO DOWNLOAD THE SIMS 4 WITH EVERY DLC FOR FREE. VERY EASY TO INSTALL.

THAT’S ILLEGAL AND WE DO NOT WANT YOU TO PIRATE THIS GAME, DESPITE BEING SO INCREDIBLY PRICEY. NOPE. WE DO NOT WANT THAT. WINK. WINK.

AND THEY DEFINITELY DO NOT HAVE AN UPDATER FOR ALL SIMS 4 DLCS THAT WILL PRETTY EASILY ALLOW YOU TO ADD ALL THE DLCS YOU WANT AND THAT THEY CONSTANTLY UPDATE AS NEW CONTENT COMES OUT. DON’T LOOK FOR IT.

Nappy.co

You know how long I've been looking for something like this!?

To any sketch artist out there too.

[Image ID: a black woman wearing a plaid shirt and red bandana around her head. Her braided hair is coming out of the top od her head and falling in front of her. Text says "Did you know there's a black-owned stock photo company nappy.co that provides stereotype-free images of black people" /end]

the other day i was trying to find reference images of black people for art things but all i was finding were black-and-white images of white people! love this!!

Also! They accept submissions. If you’re a photographer and want to contribute, the button is on the bottom left of the webpage. 

P.S. active wear is 50% off at old navy today!

it's come to my attention that a lot of people don't know about bluemaxima's flashpoint and genuinely think they'll never be able to play their favorite 00s internet games ever again so i just want to remind everyone that flashpoint is a huge internet flash game preservation project that allows you to play just about any internet flash game/animation despite the death of flash. if they've got it in their database (and they probably do) you can play it. go forth and drink in the 00s nostalgia

even if you think there's no way they'll have the game u want. they probably do anyway. when i first downloaded flashpoint i thought for sure theres no way they will have the obscure flash game i played for hours as a kid that was only even available on the internet for like 2 months in 2006. but you know what. they had it. seriously, download flashpoint