Ironic Right Wing Shit Will Erode Your Mind Without Fail. I Don't Touch That Shit

had a minor crisis when 12ft.io went down yesterday and thankfully it's back now but this seems like a good opportunity to compile a list of similar paywall-evading tools in case 12ft ever gets canned for real:

12ft.io: the legend himself. definitely my favorite of the bunch by virtue of being the easiest to use (and the easiest url to remember), but it's configured to disable paywall evasion for a handful of popular sites like the new york times, so you'll have to go elsewhere for those.

printfriendly: works great; never had any issues with removing paywalls, even on domains that don't work with 12ft.io. since this site is literally designed to make sites print-friendly, it might simplify the overall formatting of the page you're trying to access, which can be a good or bad thing. my only real issue is that the "element zapper" (which lets you remove content blocks from the print-friendly preview) is a little sensitive if you're browsing on a touchscreen device, which means you might accidentally delete a paragraph when you're just trying to scroll. but if that happens you can reload the page and it'll revert everything back to its original state.

fifteen feet: basically a 12ft clone, minus 12ft's restrictions. haven't used it much since I only discovered it yesterday in the wake of 12ft's 451 error but it seems to do the trick.

archive.today: an archival tool very similar to the wayback machine, but it also works as a de facto paywall removal tool. (the wayback machine seems to remove paywalls as well, but archive.today has better UX imo and is way faster to use.)

and an honorable mention for sci-hub: only works for scientific/academic journals, not random news articles, but the other sites listed above only work for random news articles and not academic publications so you gotta have this one in your toolbelt for full coverage. pubmed is your oyster.

So I'm in France, celebrating my nan's birthday, and I decide "hey, maybe I should check the news. Maybe that would be a good idea". And the UK is on 300,000 cases a day. What the fuck. If I get stuck here I swear to whatever god is still listening I will lose my shit.

Asexuality 👍

Reblog if you think asexuality is a legitimate sexuality.

I'm trying to prove something.

Everybody do something.

My mum has colleagues in india who have had family members die because they couldn't get oxygen. I may be a bit late, I only started actively tumblring yesterday, but please...

Everybody do something.

So, India is dying.

Look, I know a good number of you are from the US and things aren't amazing there either, but my country is literally on the brink of collapse. So I'd love it if we could talk about that for a minute.

If you can't do anything else, please just read and reblog.

A second COVID wave has taken out the healthcare system. There are no more hospital beds. There's an oxygen shortage. There's a critical vaccine shortage. The Central Government has thrown its hands up and is passing the baton to the State Governments to do what they can.

There are over 16 million covid cases. A record 330,000 new cases reported yesterday - comparable to the US at its peak. 187,000 dead as of today.

There is no plan.

Mass cremations are taking place. The cremation grounds are running day and night and they are short on wood. People are watching their loved ones die while waiting for a hospital bed, and then they're unable to give them the proper burial rights.

Hospitals are overwhelmed. Patients are being confined, two to a bed. They're the lucky ones.

We are on the verge of people dying in the streets.

This is the second-most populous country in the world. The largest democracy. A country that encapsulates over 15,000 years of recorded human history and has endured everything from famine to invasion to colonisation.

We might be at the end. This might be the thing that does us in.

People are dying.

People are dying.

People are dying and there is no plan.

More good news? Variants are popping up. A double mutation strain has shown up. It is resistant to current vaccines. This will not go away. This is the devastation they warned of when the anti-maskers were out protesting the minor inconvenience of covering their face in public.

My country is on the verge of an emergency state. Our government has failed us. This is as dire a situation as it ever could be.

Look. I don't do much with my life. I write fics, some of you have read them and that's pretty much it. I spend my days with my head in the clouds because that's where I like to be.

But two days ago, my grandmother tested positive, had to be taken to hospital and the ambulance caught fire.

She barely made it to the urgent care she needs.

So, here I am, using whatever meager platform I have to cobble this request together. Because I have to do something.

If you can, donate.

Or spread the word.

Help. Please.

Ocean

go to this random coordinates generator and say in the tags how you would fare if you were dropped where it generates without warning. i’ll go first i’d be dropped in the middle of the fucking south atlantic ocean and perish

gone

Change a single letter and change the word game

I want to play a game with you all.

You have to make a new word by changing only one letter of the last word.

Dirt

Went to see Muse live on Sunday, and I could fucking explode it was awesome.