Category: technology

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People Describe What They Actually Used Their Personal Computer For In The 1980s

During the Super Bowl of 1984, Apple debut a commercial inspired by George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. The commercial was announcing the release of their first personal computer called the Macintosh.

But was the computer actually used to keep “Big Brother” and the threat of totalitarianism at bay like the commercial said it would?

We went to AskReddit to find out what people were actually using their new computers for in the mid 80s.

Redditor incrementaler asked:

“People that had a personal computer in 1984, what did you actually use it for?”

Here’s a list that’s sure to spark some nostalgia.

The games.

“Lode Runner.” – John-Musacha

“And Wizardry!” – OneSidedDice

“And Archon.” – hossbeast

“I’m actually trying right now to get Lode Runner to work in my PC emulator I’ve been writing….” – valeyard89

“I remember a good friend of mine introducing me to that game. I can’t recall how many levels there were, but I think we made it in to the 120’s? We would challenge each other by making our own maps. That was a great game!” – MickeyRipple

“My father has a Mac SE with a Rodine hard drive that still works and plays lode runner (as long as you have the license disk!)” – stevebri

“Hunt the Wumpus.” – fireshitup

“Adventure international expanded on that if I remember correctly…” – Eticket9

Zork.

“Got my first computer in 1983. A Commodore 64 with a 1541 disk drive and a dot matrix printer. I used it for homework (writing papers), but mostly for games. First game I ever played was Zork and the second was a game called Blue Max. (flying/shooting game)”

“By 1984, I also had a 300 baud modem and went online, calling BBSs and joining Q-Link in 1985. Q-Link would, in 1989, become America Online. But, it was mostly BBSs, because Q-Link cost money and the BBSs were free.” – BranWafr

“Zork is a text adventure, something that would’ve probably cost around $40. The computer itself was $595 at launch, but various retailers have cut the price down to around $99 in the 1990s.”

“You’ll also need a disk drive, which costs around $400 for a 1541 disk drive. The price would be just a little over a thousand dollars, at $1035. You would also want a display device, but normally you can use your home TV if it has an RF or composite output.” – pixdoet

“I loved Blue Max…that was a great game! I typed in SpeedScript from Compute’s Gazette magazine and used that word processor through high school and my first year of college.” – sdtopensied

“I remember seeing commercials for something I think it was called prodigy.” – Jolly-Idea-5079

“At the time the big, national online services were Q-Link, Compuserve, and Prodigy.”

“Soon after there was also GEnie, which I joined and where I discovered Babylon 5 since Joe Straczynski was a GEnie member and was talking about the show as he created it and filmed the pilot. That was a lot of fun…” – BranWafr

The bulletin boards.

“Games, using bulletin boards.” – SlimChiply

“That’s about all there was then. Oh, and learning how to write code.” – jcpmojo

Writing you own software package.

“Games mostly. But I also wrote a bowling league software package my dad used for around 8 years! Trs-80, Coco 3, Commodore 64.” – hagemeyp

“Yeah, I had my trash-80 as well. But it was a real computer. Originally has a cassette device for loading and saving software and ultimately hit a disk drive.” – Stay-Thirsty

“I had Trash 80s at school and a C64 at home. And my friend had an Apple IIe. I got to cover all the bases.” – BranWafr

Learning to code.

“Learning to code in good ole BASIC. Playing games that you typed in from the back page of a magazine.” – xilog

“Spending hours typing them in, only to have it crash, then spending another hour going through line-by-line and finally finding one misplaced comma.”

“Of course, that’s assuming the programs worked in the first place. More than a few had typos, and those were the worst. Especially since the code normally wasn’t commented, which is a terrible practice to teach kids.” – APeacefulWarrior

“I had a commodore 64. I used it to print basic word documents that looked like a typed page and spent hours typing in program code from a book so I could see 3 balloons float across the screen in different directions.” – Dapper-Dance5549

“I remember when I was a little kid hearing stories of my grandpa spending loteral hours and hours typing a code just for a ‘song’ to play like 5 notes on repeat.”

“It was beeps also. Not atcual music like today. Sounded like those old Nokia ring tones. But just 5 beeps of a different pitch.” – TaintedTruth222

Homework.

“I was in college and set up a Radio Shack TRS80 with a dial-up modem that connected to the University mainframe. While other kids were stuck in the computer lab (think rows of dumb terminals) late into the night, I sat in my apartment and did assignments any time I wanted.”

“Game changer.” – dartdoug

“Games, typing essays for school.”

“My teachers hated my dot matrix printer.” – I_only_eat_triangles

Definitely not that.

“Not porn.” – TheFutureIsAlmostNow

“No back then it was a tape.” – Jolly-Idea-5079

“You didn’t have copy of Strip Poker by Artworx?” – Amiiboid

“I also didn’t wait for it to download line by painstaking line.” – theriveryeti

An oversized calculator.

“Tried to calculate 2+2. Somehow, I got a 5 as a result.” – EarlyGalaxy

“I had one at work as a process engineer for an electronic component manufacturer. On Lotus 1-2-3 (spreadsheet), I had to set calculations to manual mode from automatic. It would keep the machine from getting paralyzed after each keystroke.”

“I was tasked with getting an ultrasonic scanner mated to a fancy new x286 computer To replace our 1960s vintage analog scanner. What junk.”

“Way too much data for it to work. The cutting edge in computers was pretty blunt.” – Apical-Meristem

Writing letters.

“I received a Commodore VIC-20 as a birthday gift in 1984. It didn’t even run on floppy disks; it had a cassette drive.”

“I used it to play Hangman and Galaxian and a couple other crappy games.”

“I could also write letters and print them out on the archaic dot-matrix printer. One page took about five minutes to print.” – filthy_lucre

“Making greeting cards and posters.” – throwawayb122019

Union work.

“Xerox that ran CP-M. Had a really primitive spreadsheet program we used to keep track of union membership, dues, and print mailing labels. Still have it. Still works. Including the printer.” – ccie6861

“That’s funny. If you buy a printer today it will not last long.” – Jolly-Idea-5079

There wasn’t a lot people could do back then, because the technology was so new.

Games were still incredibly huge back then, but the internet hadn’t really started to get even close to what we know it to be today.

So much has changed in the past few decades.

It’s incredible to think we only used computers for coding, games and essays. Now, we hold them in the palm of our hand.

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People Explain What They Miss Most From The Early Days Of The internet

Do you remember when the internet was new? We had grunge, and dial-up and the computer was a mystery.

Can you believe how far we’ve come? Now the internet rules the world.

Those who can think back, admit it, we all kinda thought… “This will never last.”

How wrong we were.

But with growth comes massive change.

Redditor ransom0374 wanted to discuss the good ole days of the internet, a much simpler time.

They asked:

“What do you miss from early internet times?”

Do you remember the time?

All that was new…

“I miss the wild unknown frontier that the internet was.”

“It seemed there was so much discovery to be had on the internet. And if you were good at the internet ‘Hackerman’ you were like a God amongst your peers.”

“It seems like there isn’t anything ‘new’ on the internet anymore. No discoveries to be made.”  ~ SmallTownJerseyBoy

It had the look…

“I miss the look and aesthetic of old websites. Now everything is so clean and boring.”  ~ LucianaLeak

“I personally like the designs from 2003/2004 for example. If you go on sites such as Spacehey or YTMND, they look very unique with the basic layouts of text and GIFs.” 

“The moving text and how damn smooth it is, also appeals to me.”

“It looks very satisfying and futuristic. The crispy gifs always feel homely. And you could copy and paste images and icons that the site had.”

“But many modern sites, just not the “high-end” ones still allow you to do this.”

“Sites made for a Windows XP computer do look better than sites made especially for a phone.”  ~ KappaMazinksy

Ads, ads and ads… I hate ads. 

“Variety. There’s a popular tweet that says something like ‘the internet has turned into four websites where on each one people share screenshots of the other three.’”

“I miss when you could search a term and there would be dozens of sites dedicated to it or forums especially for it. Now it’s just ads, Wikipedia, and Reddit.”

“Oh, and not having ads shoved down your throat every time you search a term or navigate to a page.”

“I know there were pop ups and banners, which weren’t any better.”

“There was a few years there where you could Google something and half the first page wasn’t sponsored ads, that had nothing to do with what you looked up, and you could go to a website and it didn’t block the page with a full screen ad asking for your email to join their mailing list, or save 10% on their merchandise.”  ~ SociallyInept2020

Use responsibly…

“How people used to treat it.”

“The internet was, not just a novelty, but an amazing piece of technology that let anyone share anything.”

“It was so wholesome and loving, with everyone still being amazed at what we could do now.”

“Now? There’s so many websites that are designed to make you angry and radicalise your beliefs.”

“It’s quantity over quality. There was a time when nobody on Reddit shared politics, when Facebook was for socialising, when YouTube was where people uploaded stuff they were passionate about.” ~ CameOutAndFarted

Silly language…

“AIM away messages saying stupid crap like ‘BRB going to get some bagel bites.’”  ~ fluffy_boy_cheddar

“Don’t forget to update your personal profile with Blink 182 lyrics and the initials of your school sweetheart and some ASCII.”

“Browse for a new inappropriate buddy icon and strike up a convo with SmarterChild.”  ~ YOLOswagBRO69

“It was dumb and fun.”

“That all the webpages were just random people trying to figure out HTML.”

“There really wasn’t a corporate presence at all. You could click on a button and make a cardboard hand wave at someone’s cats.”

“You could dispense a coke from a machine in some dorm. It was dumb and fun.”  ~ diegojones4

Too much to know…

“The learning was endless.”

“There were almost an infinite source of information from all over the world.”

“If you wanted to find something all you had to do was search for it in Ask Jeeves or whatever and you’d find any website that had ever mentioned that thing.”

“There were more than 10 different websites. And at least it didn’t feel like I was being forced to sign up for a subscription after every click.”

“There were so many fun, cute stores to shop. Now it feels like everyone dresses and decorates the same.”

“I miss a lot of things about the early internet. I’m probably wrong, but it just felt safer than it does now?”  ~ thatgirlfromthething

Let’s chat

“AOL and Yahoo! chatrooms.”

“And the Population Zero forum (I think it was a forum). It was for a local band that attended Orange Glen High School in Escondido, California.”  ~ Reddit

When times were good…

“I was in my late teens when the internet was becoming accessible to everyone.”

“Our one household computer was in the kitchen & facing in a way so anyone coming in could see your screen.”

“I remember looking at someone’s website and my Dad passing by to get something to eat, asking me if the person on the website was my friend.”

“I miss those old days! The internet seemed endless & friendly.”  ~ LusciousofBorg

Now it’s a business…

“I miss when streaming was a hobby and now everyone wants to make it a career.”

“Meanwhile for every streamer that makes a living, there’s tens of thousands with 0 viewers, or 1 if they’re logged into their own stream.”  ~ Shadow_Bannedit

Crazy at my fingertips…

“The pure unadulterated wildness of it. This was the first video I was ever sent. Blew my damn mind. Lol.”

“It was funny, crass and anti-establishment. It was crap my parents wouldn’t, in a million years, let me watch.”

“But here it was, unrestricted and at my fingertips.”

“One thing folks born with the internet will never get to experience is that moment of pure joy when something as simple as a low quality and crass cartoon just blows your damn mind because of all the POSSIBILITIES it represents.”  ~ Vanviator

All the popular kids…

“I can’t remember what it was called, but Yahoo had this great music video program where it showed popular artists, and some very unknown folks.”

“I discovered some of my favorite artists having it play in the background all the time.”  ~ AtheneSchmidt

Oh, the good old days—they were wild and fun.

The internet is our bread and butter now. Can you even imagine life without it?

Do you want to?

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7 Fun Facts About Snapchat that Would Leave You Pleasantly Surprised

If you are not a Snapchat user yet, there’s a lot to catch up on. But, if you’re a Snapchat user, you’re going to love this list of fun facts we are about to present. Read on and enjoy! Before that, you need to keep these three-pointers in mind: You can share photos and videos using this insanely popular social media app. Your content is not stored permanently, however. Content once viewed is gone forever and cannot be retrieved. Well, that’s what noobs believe. Now, here is the fun part: 1.  You Can Retrieve Lost Messages Apps like Dumpster and

The post 7 Fun Facts About Snapchat that Would Leave You Pleasantly Surprised appeared first on Factual Facts.

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People Explain Which Scientific Advances May Sound Futuristic But Are Actually Reality Today

The future is now. There are so many advances happening on the daily, it’s impossible to keep up.

Science seems to be moving at warp speed. Everything we thought would be possible is now more than possible.

Soon, we’ll all be in space.

Well, those of us with billions of dollars of course.

Redditor emeister26 wanted to discuss all the fascinating facts about life and science that are already upon us by asking:

“What is something that sounds futuristic but is happening now?”

It’s all about the T…

“CAR T cell therapy.”

“They take the T cells out of a cancer patient. They train the cells to kill the specific type of cancer that the patient has and then they put them back in.”

“This therapy doesn’t work 100 % of the time, but when it does it does miracles.”

“(It’s also expensive as sh*t for now)”.  ~ strange_socks_

“I currently work in this field, and am currently commercializing my second CAR-T product in my life (my first was Kymriah).”

“It doesn’t always work 100% of the time, but the next generation of CAR-T’s have shown 100% remission rates.”

“Example of 100% remission.”

“CAR-T is roughly the same price as a monoclonal antibody, Amgens Blintocyte is $300k roughly, and Kymriah and Yescart are about $220-350k depending on where you are in the world.”

“So it’s pretty competitive.”  ~ arabidopsis

How many types are there?

“I’ve been a type 1 diabetic since 1982.”

“Back when I was first diagnosed, I had to pee on a stick and match the color up to colors on the vial to see approximately what my blood sugar was a couple hours ago.”

“Now I have an anamatronic fish that tells me what my sugar levels are and I don’t even have to prick my finger! We truly are truly living in the future.”  ~ rhett342

A.I. is upon us…

“Robotic prosthetic limbs. I know a guy who lost his arm from a construction accident.”

“He now has an arm that has a fully articulated hand, and is good enough that he can even write with it, though not very well.”

“He said it’s worth about half a million dollars, and also it has done wonders for his ability to hook up with women.”

“I guess a lot of people are curious and that starts off the conversation.”  ~ Youpunyhumans

“There are actually some amazing innovations in the robotic prosthetic scientific field that have JUST been published!”

“Scientists have been able to make a prosthetic arm with a sense of touch! This is very important, as it allows for better gripping of objects.”

“The test subject was able to pour a glass of water in half the time it took him with a non-feeling prosthetic.”

“It also allows people to enjoy the sensation of feeling, which is pretty awesome!”

“Also, piggybacking because it’s somewhat related, scientists have also recently discovered a way to allow a paralyzed man to type and control computers with only their thoughts!”

“The outside of the brain is the part that deals with bodily motion, so they surgically implanted electrodes and asked him to imagine hand-writing letters.”

“Then, a little bit of machine learning magic, and boom! He was able to write on a computer!”

“He was able to write 90 characters a minute! Kinda the ultimate “look ma, no hands!”

“Links to articles:”

“https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/20/998725924/a-sense-of-touch-boosts-speed-accuracy-of-mind-controlled-robotic-arm“

“https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/medical-advances/553323-in-amazing-first-paralyzed-man-is-able-to-type”  ~ cancer_dragon

Photos and texts of the future.

“A program that is able to generate almost any (!!!) photo using short text input.”

“A San Francisco street? Done. Avocado chair? Yes, why not. A photo of buildings of Poland? YES, it can do that.”

“It can generate almost any stock photo you can imagine, like any any, you can add parameters, lighting, ask to specific picture in the room.”

“It uses 12 billion of pictures and descriptions to do this. There are two downsides of course: the first one is lots of lots of computational power.”

“The second is that the program is losing the track after few parameters.”

“Also it can do only 100×100 pixels at the time but it will change fast.”

“It’s called DALL-E and was premiered this year. It’s an AI made by OpenAI. Terrific and amazing at the same time.”  ~ umotex12

Know the Survey

“I’m fourth generation of an excavating company and some of our surveying techniques now are unbelievable.”

“When we started in the 60’s you used a contraption called a theodolite and prism (a fancy level used to measure the distance and elevation change of the prism).”

“One of the fondest memories I’ll ever hold happened two months ago shortly before my Grandpa (the founder) passed away.”

“I showed him how to survey a 30 acre site with a drone in about 45 minutes (all automated), something that would have taken a crew well over a week in his time.”

“I then took the data, had it processed, and showed him the prints of the site right on site with my laptop. He cried.”   ~ cmde44

Visualize it and See it!

“I work in the construction industry.”

“Technology has really made projects easier to plan out and do. Like back in the day, paper blueprints were how you visualized a job.”

“Big huge paper rolls that were a pain in the a** to carry around and store, and the prints were easy to damage because well… they’re paper.”

“If there was ever a change to the prints, you’d have to wait for the drafters to draw them, print them, and send them to your job.”

“Nowadays the foreman or project manager carry an iPad with all of the blueprints, both in 2D and 3D CAD drawing and can look up every detail of the drawings in seconds.”

“And if the drafters have to make changes, they can email or message the site foreman and give them new prints in a matter of minutes.”

“This isn’t your dad’s construction site anymore.”  ~ Mercurydriver

Just think reeeeal hard!

“Being able to control objects with your brain. I know it’s still in its infancy but the fact that we can even attempt do stuff like that is crazy.”  ~ Cruise_alt_40000

Year One

“A blood test to diagnose Alzheimer’s.”  ~ Geekla

“It was on Jeopardy tonight, actually, yes! I’ve been reading about it.”

“It’s less than a year old, just getting started and I’m guessing just the first version of more to come, but it’s real and it made my whole day to hear it.”  ~ Geekla

Body Parts

“3d printed organs.”  ~ turn_your_compote 

“I really hope that one day they can just scrape a few of your stem cells, and 3 weeks later they’ve grown you a new heart, liver, kidneys, etc.”  ~ Diligent_Slide

The lifespan of light…

“Something I just noticed the other day.”

“CFL light bulbs became popular and all but got replaced by LED bulbs all within the lifespan of a single bulb.”

“I was replacing a bulb the other day that was a CFL and I remember the last time I replaced it, the previous bulb was an incandescent.”  ~ Restil

The Good Landing

“Rockets landing upright… to me it looks like bad special effects, because it was never in any good movies.”  ~ redmaybe

Technology and science, two things I’ll never understand. But two things I can’t avoid.

We are close to living in The Jetsons.

I can feel it. Can you?

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People Divulge The Most Surprising Computer Skills That People Still Don’t Know How To Do

It seems like the younger generation is often the generation in charge of having basic computer skills and walking our older counterparts through how to use them.

Teaching them how to save something as a pdf, or how to install a firewall and how not to download creepy solitaire game from third party websites takes up a lot of our time..

Eventually, though, you expect they will pick up some skills of their own.  When they don’t, it can be incredibly frustrating to go through what you consider a simple process again and again and again.

So when Redditor anushitech polled Reddit:

“What is one computer skill that you are surprised many people don’t know how to do?”

People saw it as an opportunity to vent.  And vent they did.

Cyberspace: The Final Frontier

“I remember my aunt wondering why her document wasn’t in the My Documents folder on our family computer.”

“She had saved it in her own My Documents folder on her own computer the next town over and apparently assumed there was only one Windows 98 communal My Documents folder in existence.”-b*ttboy3

“I taught a computer course several years ago.”

“I remember the biggest thing for most completely-new computer users was not looking at their hand while moving the mouse, and being terrified of breaking the computer by accidentally closing a window or something.”

“Oh, and knowing whether they should single click or double click – this was a major preoccupation for some.”-timmyrey

“I teach web design at the college level. Used to teach community weekend workshops. Html and css with some expected knowledge of computer basics.”

“Local workforce development group would enroll people to update their skills, but would never actually check for prior knowledge. Had to teach how to hold a mouse, that right-click meant use the right mouse button.”

“Had to teach how to open and save files. That the web was not loaded onto a computer and that you needed to connect to the internet first.”

“Not a lot of actual html taught some weekends, which was a shame for those who really wanted to learn. Waste of time for everyone.”

“I started sharing curated resources for web design. started pointing people to a basic into to computer class that should be taken before mine.”

“Kept making requests to have someone vet the students before putting them in my class.”

“Finally gave up when i had a student who wanted to use her ancient flip-phone so she could take work with her.”

“No internet on the thing so made her user a school computer. She got pissy when something wasn’t working.”

“Turns out she was trying to go online with Windows calculator. No idea how she even got there. She eventually went ballistic when the code she typed in her email wouldn’t work (again, wanted to save the work to take with her).”

“I have almost eternal patience, but couldn’t take an irate woman screaming in my face because aol email won’t work for writing code.”

“The class was supportive and I patiently let her leave early. I decided teaching those weekend workshops weren’t worth it after that.”-mister-chad-rules

Going The Long Way

“I once had a guy send me a picture of his desktop. I asked for screenshot of his screen as it was generally easier then asking for the IP address which our company puts on the desktop.”

“Guy couldnt figure out how to screenshot his desktop wallpaper but figured out how to take a photo with his phone and attach it to an email.”-pixxie84

“Working in phone customer support, the number of times I’ve had an old person do a Google search for a web address instead of going to the url has made me realize most middle aged and elderly have no idea what a browser or address bar are.”

“‘Type “site url” into the address bar,’ I say. ‘I did! The page isn’t here!’ they say.”

“9 times out of 10 they were just on a Google page and I lost a week of life expectancy.”-taburde

“I’ve tried to incorporate spreadsheet skills into the chemistry labs I teach, and at the intro level some of them are REALLY uncomfortable using it for repeated calculations, and instead want to just work it all out one by one.”

“Some of these students are the same ones who complain that I give way too much work…”

“That’s not to say I’m not still learning new functions in Excel (just learned about sumifs and countifs recently, which def simplifies my gradebook calculations), but I really feel like everyone should have a grasp of the super basic stuff and have a concept of what a spreadsheet can be used for.”-caffeinated_tea

There Are More Ways To Do One Thing

“I was training a new 22 y/o coworker and noticed a lot of her typing mistakes involved both the first and second letter of a sentence being capitalized.”

“I inquired about it and her response was ‘sometimes i don’t turn caps lock off fast enough’… i was puzzled but kept it cool…”

“I decided to watch her type a little later on and sure enough she would hit caps lock every time she needed a upper case letter followed by turning caps lock back off…”

“When I told her what the shift key did she was genuinely ‘mind blown.’ She had just graduated college.”-Satanic_Nightjar

“People are generally pretty computer illiterate. I’m not a tech guy whatsoever but a basic understanding of shit will save you so much time.”

“I used to work at a Planet Fitness and good god do the managers need basic training in computer skills.”

“I was treated like a god for knowing how CTRL+F worked and having a basic understanding of Snipping Tool for printing out QR codes.”

“They used to really push us to sell Gym Essential Kits and when writing reports on how much they sold they would bring up the report and count one by one.”

“I was a front desk guy and had to show my regional training manager that if you just press Control + F and type in an individual employee’s name, however many times it came up minus 1 (it showed the employee’s name one extra time) was how many they’d sold.”

“This saved us hours over the course of a week. In typical manager fashion, he went ahead and took credit for this and promoted his real-life friend who was bad at their job.”

“F**k that place. I’ve never seen a company with that much incompetence at a manager-wide level.”-PrecariousAchiuwa

“As a teacher, I’ve been saying this for years. Kids and teens these days aren’t as tech savvy as they claim to be, or rather we claim them to be.”

“They grew up in a world populated by apps, very user-friendly apps.”

“90% of apps have the same structure- the lines or dots to indicate the menu, same style controls or swipe methods, etc..”

“They know which apps to find and can navigate them very efficiently; however, ask them to do intermediate level tasks on a desktop or even successfully using their browsers when researching and they struggle quite a bit.”

“Things I learned in tech/computer class in the early 2000s is not really taught anymore.”

“Instead, it’s heavily focused on programming and apps, and while very cool and likely a marketable skill, they seems to skipped basic functions and tools.”-ElZarigueya

“Google how to fix their problem. Apparently I have some superpower where I see the error code or know the name of the software and a brief description of the problem and get helpful google results with little effort.”

“Everyone else seems to just say ‘I don’t know how to find that…’ and then treat me like some kind of mystical wizard afterwards.”-anon_e_mous9669

The little tips disclosed here about computer use could really save you time and work one day if you didn’t already know them, so it might be a good idea to break out that notebook and write some of these down.

At the very least, we can all avoid becoming another story on AskReddit.

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People Talk About Free Resources on the Internet That We Should All Know

Even though it might feel like we live in a reality where things are overpriced and we’re getting charged for pretty much everything, there are still a lot of good FREE things online that we should be taking advantage of.

And today we’re gonna get a little bit smarter!

What are some free online resources we should all know about?

AskReddit users shared their thoughts.

1. A whole treasure trove.

“I found this out myself, Wikimedia, the non-profit that runs Wikipedia, has many more things than just articles!

Wikimedia Commons has various pictures and media, all of which is free use

MediaWiki is free source wiki software, and it has guides and a help desk to help you

Wikibooks has free textbooks on a variety of subjects, including computing, engineering, languages, math, science, social sciences, and a few others.

Wikiversity is the specific one for textbooks and learning materials, including videos.

Wikinews offers free news.

Wikisource has poetry, laws of numerous countries, general literature, and original content.

Wikivoyage is a travel guide, which is helpful especially if you’re planning on traveling during COVID-19.

Other things that are not Wikimedia related:

Coursera, which has free classes for computer skills, different languages, certificates, etc;

Open Library, which has free books online for you to read, in various languages, although they don’t have everything;

HubSpot, which has free marketing and other business tools (you can get a premium account, but you can also get a free account)

Ambient Mixer, which has free ambient sounds from horror to Harry Potter.”

2. Math stuff.

“Wolfram Alpha.

Wolfram Alpha was a lifesaver for checking answers when taking Calc 1-3 in college.

Definitely useful for all sorts of answers, but answers for science and math questions, it’s great.”

3. Good to know!

“Google Scholar.

All scholarly work.

If you type in “volcanoes”you will get a ton of scientific documents about volcanoes, research that is being done on them, and papers that have been written about them.

Next time you write a paper for a science class check out Google Scholar!”

4. Try it out!

“Creddle.io – a free resume builder site.

You fill it out like an online application and it generates your resume in different styles for you.

Landed me a couple of jobs after I started using it.”

5. Very useful.

“10minutemail.com

If a website is asking for your E-mail, and you don’t want your original E-mail to be spammed, you can use the E-mail found on this website that self-destructs after 10 minutes.”

6. Wow.

“Alternative To.

It is a site that shows you alternatives to any software you are looking for. If there is a paid application you would like to use? You can find a free or open source version.

Do you like a program but it slows down your computer? You can find a lightweight alternative.”

7. Great stuff.

“Archive.org

Tons of free music, audio books, news reports, newspaper scans, video games, software and movies.

If you haven’t already, please look for anything important you have saved on a USB stick or on your hard drive and archive it here if you find it important or interesting enough.

This site is awesome.”

8. So cool.

“If you’re ever feeling stressed, or feeling the itch to travel when you can’t, you should try Window Swap.

Just click the button and it will randomly take you to a recorded video of the view out random folks’ windows all over the world. You can even upload your own window footage for others to enjoy.

It’s so calming.”

9. Interesting.

“Library genesis.

Almost every science text book you could ever want for free. However, you’re not compensating authors/publishers for their work, so the morality is debated.

But if you want access to knowledge for free, there it is. I haven’t ever encountered any issues like viruses either.”

10. Just reach out.

“If you ever want to read a journal article behind a paywall, email the authors!

I do this and I’ve never not had one send me the paper. A lot of the time they’ll even send you supplemental data etc if you want, too.

Even if it’s something for your job.”

11. Time to binge-watch.

“FilmRise channels on YouTube.

Untold hours of free documentary tv series, including old school Unsolved Mysteries.”

12. Tons of stuff.

“Audacity – A powerful audio editor, ideal for music and podcasts.

Autodesk Fusion 360 – CAD/CAM software.

Bit Warden – Open-source password management service.

Blender – Free and open source 3D creation suite.

Cake Walk – music production software

Dark Table – Open-source photography workflow application and raw developer.

Dashlane – Cross-platform subscription-based password manager and digital wallet application.

DaVinci Resolve – Color correction and non-linear video editing application.

FreeCAD – Open-source general-purpose parametric 3D computer-aided design modeler.

GIMP – A powerful open source photo and image editing tool.

Godot Engine – A 2D and 3D, cross-platform, free and open-source game engine released under the MIT license.

Glitch – Build fast, full-stack web apps in your browser.

Glimpse Image Editor – A photo editor for everyone.

Greenshot – A free screenshot tool optimized for productivity.

Handbrake – The open source video transcoder

Honey – A browser extension that aggregates and automatically applies online coupons on eCommerce websites.

Hitfilm-Express – Video editing software with professional-grade VFX tools.

Inkscape – Free and open-source vector graphics editor.

KDEnLive – Open-source video editing software based on the MLT Framework, KDE and Qt.

Keepass – Free and open-source password manager primarily for Windows.

Krita – Free and open-source raster graphics editor designed primarily for digital painting and 2D animation.

Open Broadcaster Software(OBS) – Open-source software for video recording and live streaming.

LibreOffice – Open-source office suite.

LMMS – A digital audio workstation application program.

MagicaVoxel – A free lightweight GPU-based voxel art editor and interactive path tracing renderer.

MediBang Paint Pro – FREE digital painting and comic creation software.

Musescore – Create, play and print beautiful sheet music

Ocenaudio – Easy, fast, and powerful audio editor.

Opentoonz – Animation production software.

Paint.NET – A freeware raster graphics editor program for Microsoft Windows developed on the .NET Framework

Photopea – Web-based raster and vector graphics editor.

Pixlr – Feature-packed online photo editor.

QGIS – Open-source cross-platform desktop geographic information system application

Radio Garden – Explore live radio by rotating the globe.

RawTherapee – Free, cross-platform raw image processing program

Reaper -Digital audio workstation and MIDI sequencer software

ShareX – Screen capture, file sharing and productivity tool.

Shotcut – A slick open source program for advanced video editing.

SlidesGo – Free Google Slides and PowerPoint templates.

Switch – Convert and encode sound files quickly.

The Noun Project – Icons for everything.

TurboTax Sucks A** – Website that makes it easy to file your taxes.

Unity – Cross-platform game engine.

Unreal Engine – The most open and advanced real-time 3D creation tool.

Unsplash – Beautiful free images and pictures.

VLC media player – Open-source portable cross-platform media player software and streaming media server

VS Code – Free source-code editor.

Waveform – Fully featured, completely unlimited free DAW for all music creators.

Wavepad – Audio and music editor for Windows and Mac.

Wcostream – Anime and animated Tv-show/movie site with dubs and subs.

7-Zip – File archiver with a high compression ratio.”

Do you know of some more free resources people should take advantage of?

If so, talk to us in the comments.

Please and thank you!

The post People Talk About Free Resources on the Internet That We Should All Know appeared first on UberFacts.

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People Talk About the Statement, “Travel Culture Is Another Form of Flexing”

You know you have some people like this in your life…

They have a ton of money, they’re always traveling to amazing places, AND they’re constantly posting pictures of their adventures.

And some of these folks can be really shallow…you know it’s true!

Do you think travel culture is just another form of flexing and doesn’t make people any more enlightened?

Let’s take a look at how AskReddit users responded.

1. Here’s the deal.

“Many bash those who waste a lot of money on materialistic goods or who like activities that are considered “shallow”, like clubbing and partying.

Meanwhile, “traveling” is often portrayed as the enlightened way to pass your time. Of course there is nothing inherently wrong with traveling, but I disagree that people who travel a lot are automatically any less shallow than those who go clubbing or buy a lot of stuff.

First of all, “travel culture” is a form of flexing. It has become less acceptable to brag about owning expensive stuff, so people now brag about their trips. Especially on Instagram, it is obvious that many use their travels to flex and show us how “superior” they are.

“Traveling” doesn’t make you an enlightened intellectual in any way. I could maybe understand this argument 30 years ago but nowadays, anyone can find any information they want about any place they like.

They can use the Internet to explore a country, without traveling there and contributing to its destruction. (tourism can be very bad for the environment)

Also, people have fun with different things. Maybe someone thinks that buying a PS5 is more fun to them than going on some stupid trip. That is their business and their choice is not inherently inferior.”

2. Great experiences.

“I am an introvert but one of my best experiences was like, I am buying a ticket from London to Brazil…. Total bliss!

I absolutely love getting to know places on my own and meeting the locals. I have had a lot of fun travelling on my own. Met great people.”

3. A competition.

“I was really interested in this girl that traveled a lot and I travel a lot for work so I thought maybe we had something in common.

When I found out that all she does is get a $30 Airbnb to sleep somewhere for the night and then go to the next place just to mark it on her passport but never actually enjoys any of the places, I definitely said pass pretty quickly.

I was wondering what the hell is the point of traveling that much if you’re not enjoying any of it. It was like she was on this competition to check in on Facebook to as many places as possible and then used that in all of her conversations to try to act like she was better than everyone else.”

4. Let’s go a bit further.

“Taking this point a bit further, traveling to do the same activities everyone and their mother does aimed at tourists isn’t enlightening

Traveling becomes enlightening when you explore the culture, mingle with locals, try their traditional food.

That’s not something you can google or check online, it’s something you experience.”

5. Street cred.

“Tinder and Hinge in my 30s is at least 50% women with only pictures of travel, and their desires are travel, and the profile describes how they are the traveliest traveler that ever traveled.

I’ve traveled for work and vacations. It is not my personality. It really does look like gaudy flexing to me.

The ones that really irritate me are the people who “vacation” to oppressive dictatorships and dangerous areas like warzones for the traveler street cred.

It’s like being some kind of weird upper-middle class adrenalin junkie.”

6. Never heard that term before.

“My husband calls these people “globe f**kers”.

As someone who has lived and travelled in many different countries because of my work, I’m hyper paranoid about sounding like a pretentious a**hole when I talk about my experiences.

Being well travelled is not a personality trait, but the worst have to either be the people who “backpacked” (drunkenly stumbled thru 3 countries for a month) and talk about it for the next 15 years.

Or the volun-tourism crowd who think they really made a difference during their 2 weeks at an orphanage in a country they dont speak the language, or building houses with zero skills.”

7. The straight dope.

“The benefit is really only for people that pay attention and keep an open mind.

My family has some very devout Mormons in it, and a weird Mormon thing to do is to spend at least a few hours at exotic temples when in the area. My aunt and uncle went to Italy a couple years ago and literally spent two days at the Mormon temple there, in which they play dress up and watch the same Adam and Eve movie as they do at their temple in the US.

I’m sure they still did a few cool things, but I think that perfectly highlights a bit of an oblivious emotional distance from their destination’s culture, and I really think they miss out on the beauty of it by having such a cursory and perfunctory approach to travel.

I can’t deny that people over romanticize it and it can become a classist bulls**t flex, but when you get to go to a new place and see the world a little differently or understand their way of life a bit better, I think it can improve your own worldview and increase empathy….but you gotta actually get out there and pay attention to it all.”

8. Don’t show off.

“Finally having the ability to do some limited travel has really opened my eyes to the rest of the world in a way the internet never could.

I’m in my late 40s now, and I know it’s expensive, but I wish Americans traveled internationally more. We’re so much smaller than we think, and no amount of internet can showcase that in the same way actually staying in a foreign country can.

I think your issue is not with travel but with the way some people talk about travel or show off on social media.”

9. A good thing.

“Maybe it’s a flex for some, but there’s is no substitute for seeing and experiencing the world for yourself.

It does change you and reading about it isn’t the same by a mile.”

10. Just fantastic.

“I think traveling and exploring the world is a fantastic way to spend your fleeting life.

I have made it a point to travel frequently and to some pretty awesome places. I don’t even have Instagram and only take pictures of animals and landscapes. For me, it’s mostly for the food and different species of animals, because that’s what Im into as a biologist.

My favorite was the Peruvian Amazon. 7 monkey species, macaws, all kinds of snakes. You can see them in books, but there is no substitute for in person.”

11. What’s the motivation?

“Saying “I like traveling” is the same as saying “I like reading” – it tells you nothing about the person unless you ask more questions and ask them to elaborate.

Someone who says “I like reading” but only reads books like “Twilight” or “50 shades of grey” is different from someone who reads history books or specific books about their interest – space, chess, math, you name it.

Someone who says “I like traveling” but only goes to Thailand or Bali to party and drink for 2 weeks is not the same as someone who cycles around the world for 6 months, or crosses half the world on a boat, or backpacks through Africa staying in villages and connecting with local people.

These are all different experiences. One of them is definitely more enlightening than the other. One is about just having fun without improving yourself as a person while the other one is more likely to give you some “food for your brain”.

The important part is the motivation behind these activities. Why does the person travel? Some travel for parties, other travel for sports (surfing, diving, kayaking etc), others travel for nature (hiking, camping), other travel for volunteering (helping with wild life conservation, preservation, beach cleaning), other travel for the cultural exchange (teaching kids in remote villages English), some travel for their own education (taking Spanish lessons in Bolivia).

Some people combine several of them (personally that’s what I do). There are many reasons to travel. If you think that every traveler is the Instagram traveler you are just stupid and shallow which is pretty sad actually.”

12. From a travel industry worker.

“I used to work in the travel industry and dealt with numerous ‘country counters’ (people who are trying to visiting every country in the world).

It felt like the majority of them were mindlessly trundling around the world, ticking off countries as if it was simply something to consume. If that’s not sad enough, some of these country counters even compete with one another using league tables or try to bolster their reputations by marketing themselves as the first *insert s**uality, insert gender identity, insert race, insert social class, insert nationality, insert whatever* to visit every country in the world.

I can tell you now, despite what these people like to think there’s no skill in visiting a s**t-load of countries for sightseeing. It’s not an achievement and nor is it remarkable. All that’s required is money, competent travel agents and local fixers.”

What are your thoughts about this topic?

Talk to us in the comments and let us know.

We’d love to hear from you!

The post People Talk About the Statement, “Travel Culture Is Another Form of Flexing” appeared first on UberFacts.

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People Shared Their Ode to Cool Libraries

Libraries are amazing, and they rarely get the credit they deserve.

My library for sure got me through the pandemic with a steady supply of ebooks.

They do so much for the most under-served areas of our communities every day.

So it was great to see Buzzfeed do a roundup of Reddit posts from the r/mildlyinteresting subreddit, entirely dedicated to library awesome-sauce!

Here are 18 of the most exciting things going on in libraries these days.

1. Cone of Silence

Keeping people quiet has always been an uphill battle for librarians, especially in a world of group projects and shared technology.

Cell phones just add to the trouble because people don’t always police their own etiquette and when you can be reached anywhere, you WILL be reached anywhere.

Now you can take your calls in private!

My local library has vault you can go into to talk on your phone. from mildlyinteresting

2. Self Monitoring

Like I said – group projects.

Sometimes it’s necessary to talk in the library.

And that’s okay, just don’t be screaming about it.

For those who need a little help with keeping an eye on their volume, technology can help!

Click on the image to see the full effect!

My school’s library has noise-level guides that change colour when it gets too loud from mildlyinteresting

3. Secret Complaint Line

Neighbor’s not monitoring their own volume?

Loud cell phone conversations interrupting your flow?

You don’t have to handle it yourself, and this library doesn’t expect you too.

This sign at my University with the number for the library police. from mildlyinteresting

4. When All Else Fails

Grab a pair of ear plugs while you wait for the librarian to sort the loudmouths out.

My library gives out earplugs on the silent floor from mildlyinteresting

5. Stools For All

Libraries are more than just a quiet place to work in solitude these days.

Now, instead of having to find a workroom with enough space for your group, you can just pull up a chair from anywhere.

Take one literally right off the wall!

My university library has a wall where you can quite literally take a seat from mildlyinteresting

6. Try It Before You Buy It

Or maybe you are working alone, but you need to be moving around.

Well now you can!

I have always wanted to try a standing desk or a treadmill desk, but I couldn’t quite commit.

Being able to do this once in awhile, throughout a long writing day, would be amazing.

Basement floor of my campus library has a treadmill with a computer, so you can exercise & study at the same time. from mildlyinteresting

7. Up-Cycle Aesthetics

When you’re tired of working and walking, this library invites you to put your feet up–on old discarded books!

Had a volunteer help me make these stools out of our discarded books for new library seating. from mildlyinteresting

8. Bee-Hive Yourself

If you need a break from working, mosey on down to the children’s section and check out this incredible living bee exhibit!

My local library has bee hive in the kids section, with a tube that leads to the outside. from mildlyinteresting

9. Bottoms Up

Libraries are changing, but they still have a great selection of books to check out.

They’re also finding unique ways to get books into the hands of eager readers.

Like turning the books on the lower shelves so that you can read the spines without doing squats.

The library places the books on the lower shelves on their sides so the titles are easier to read. from mildlyinteresting

10. Don’t @ Me

Librarians are also the best at coming up with clever book display ideas.

All to help books find readers, and readers find books.

When libraries troll their patrons. from pics

11. Spy On Your Neighbors

What better way to find your next big read than to check out what other people are reading too?

Word of mouth always was the best way to find the next great thing.

Library has "Recently Returned" section so you can see what other people have been reading from mildlyinteresting

12. LibGuides to Tough Topics

They’re sensitive to the fact that sometimes you need a book you don’t want to ask for, and not everyone knows how to use the catalog to find it on their own.

This library has a directory for topics people might be embarrassed to ask for. from mildlyinteresting

13. Surprise Me

For when you just don’t know what you WANT, but you know what you LIKE.

Because sometimes you don’t have the time or brain space to decide.

Let a librarian do it for you.

At my library you can pick up bags of books in a certain genre without knowing what those books are from mildlyinteresting

14. Marathon Movie Night

Sometimes you want to have a marathon, but you can’t get all the things.

Well now you can.

This library has grouped them together into marathon kits so you can binge to your heart’s content.

My library loans out themed "Binge Boxes" from mildlyinteresting

15. Book 1A Please

Available 24-7, book vending machines really are a thing now.

They’re quick, easy, convenient, and freaking brilliant!

This train station has a library book vending machine from mildlyinteresting

16. Rolling Library

If you thought the book vending machine was cool, check this out.

Libraries have always been great about meeting people where they are.

Remember book mobiles?

Well now there are libraries built into actual subway trains! BECAUSE WHY NOT?

This subway car in Seoul has a mini library from mildlyinteresting

17. Not Only Books

I’ve heard of libraries that will let you check out art prints to hang on your wall.

Well this library has figured out a cool niche.

After all, how many times is your kid going to want the Darth Vader birthday cake?

At this library in Philadelphia you can rent cake pans from mildlyinteresting

18. It All Adds Up

The value of libraries is continually debated and called into question.

You can’t put a number on many of the services, like story time for the kids and reading groups and meeting spaces and community events.

But some libraries are fighting back, finding ways to remind us just how much they are worth, when it IS quantifiable.

Amazing!

My library receipt shows how much money I’ve saved. from mildlyinteresting

I love these posts, and I think maybe “cool library things” need a dedicated subreddit all their own.

Everyone has a library story. Share yours in the comments!

The post People Shared Their Ode to Cool Libraries appeared first on UberFacts.