• rational_lib@lemmy.world
    22·
    4 hours ago

    A little late but OpenTaxSolver - free desktop tax software that gives you a printout of tax forms that you can mail in. And it includes a few states too. Way easier than the annoying corporate sites that constantly log you out and charge a fee for every little thing.

    Edit: To my non-American friends, you don’t need to worry about this

    • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
      6·
      9 hours ago

      Since you mention states and the site mentions federal taxes and the IRS, I assume this is for the tax system of the USA, it’s funny that it isn’t stated anywhere though.

      • nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        11 minutes ago

        the USA is the only country that I know of that requires such ridiculous measures to file your taxes tbh

    • Hyphlosion@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      5 hours ago

      Thanks! I was pretty annoyed at having to pay TurboTax over $100 something to have my taxes filed. Opportunistic assholes.

  • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
    684·
    5 hours ago

    Closing your eyes, slowly taking a deep breath, and calmly, breathing in, and breathing out, while focusing on the sensations in your body, and how much more relaxed you’re feeling right now

    i.e. meditation

  • dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    19·
    19 hours ago

    Maybe this is sorta dumb, but meditation is a free way to feel good and spend time, and also a free method of stress relief and to reduce suffering.

    It’s not free in terms of your time & energy, and it might cost some money to learn, but the best meditation manual I know of is free online, or at least it used to be - it looks like it was locked down on archive.org (where it used to be freely available), but you can still find it on Anna’s Archive, and you can probably find it at your local library. Either way, you can learn to meditate for free, that’s how I did it.

    Running is likewise relatively free (you do generally have to pay for running shoes, and athletic clothing can be expensive, but it’s relatively cheap over the lifetime of those items, and it’s cheaper than most other activities). A great and accessible way to feel good and stay healthy.

    • metaphortune@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      21 hours ago

      Plug for Medito, which is a free non-profit for guided meditations. Not sure if the apps are open-source but still, they’re a good organization in stark contrast to the many other meditation companies that are very much for-profit.

  • ElectroVagrant@lemmy.world
    149·
    24 hours ago

    In terms of fully free, obligatory mention:
    Your library may offer more than books alone, depending on how well supported they are. Borrow music, movies, sometimes even video games. For music and movies they may also offer these to borrow digitally as well via online services they coordinate with.

    • Mist101@lemmy.world
      21·
      23 hours ago

      The library of things is also something many public libraries have now. Not just media, but tools, power tools, cooking pans and equipment, pod casting equipment. Definitely worth a look.

    • Bonifratz@lemm.ee
      19·
      22 hours ago

      My library offers art! Like, original art pieces (paintings and sculptures) by local artists which you can borrow for up to three months.

    • Jtee@lemmy.world
      19·
      23 hours ago

      Our library does audio books, 3d printer, sound recording (like a small studio), and passes to provincial parks. Some can offer a lot!

    • grasshopper_mouse@lemmy.worldOP
      14·
      23 hours ago

      I moved to a new town in 2022 and I STILL haven’t been to the local library. I need to get on that. I went to libraries so much as a child and in my teens.

      • KittenBiscuits@lemm.eeEnglish
        8·
        22 hours ago

        You might be able to apply for an account online and not have to go in, unless you just want to meander through their not-book- things available to check out.

        My library has a lovely assortment of things. Anything from camping gear to ghost hunting “equipment” like a spirit box or emf meter. My city doesn’t have a fully outfitted maker lab tho, but I am eligible for an account at the neighboring city that does have a kickass maker lab (3d printers, laser engravers, sewing and embroidery machines, Cricuts, and even a professional recording studio).

  • Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org
    961·
    23 hours ago

    Making sure to keep it legal, right?

    Let’s stick with Project Gutenberg - Public domain ebooks and other media, spanning centuries. They’re incredibly important for keeping our literary past alive.

    I might have more later.

    • some_designer_dude@lemmy.worldEnglish
      111·
      17 hours ago

      How is it different than Plex?

      Does it find the movies for me, or do I still need to figure out the Usenet or BitTorrent?

      • kassiopaea@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        23·
        16 hours ago

        Jellyfin Is completely open source, fully self-hosted, and free. With Plex the software still has to phone home to a central server for authentication and some features are locked behind a paywall.

        No streaming software is going to find movies for you (without paying for content they’ve licensed) because that would be a sure fire way to get the project taken down for copyright violation.

      • swampdownloader@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        18·
        16 hours ago

        It’s a FOSS plex alternative… yes you will need to stock your own library Then install SonArr, RadArr, some other Arr 🏴‍☠️just learn Linux nub. Jk but not really

      • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        9·
        16 hours ago

        It’s Plex but free and without a central login server handled by a third party

        It’s also got a few fewer/not as functional features and no live TV (whoopty do?)

        The Arr Suite are what you’re looking for to find content, works with either Plex or Jelly in (or others)

      • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
        4·
        13 hours ago

        Aside from the FOSS that people love.

        I will add something real world. I have Plex and Jellyfin running. Now Plex works fine for the most part but certain codecs when I am watching on iOS just has issues and freezes a lot so I have to use Jellyfin, but the UI in Jellyfin is pretty sparse and not as polished.

      • BlackAura@lemmy.world
        4·
        6 hours ago

        Since no one really answered you, there are generally two routes.

        If you use newsgroups you can run sabnzbd, which is a service that downloads from newsgroups. I’ve been out of the loop for a while but there used to be something like CouchPotato for movies or SickBeard for TV (which migrated to SickChill, though you shouldn’t use that anymore as it installed a crypto miner last I heard). Lastly you sign up with a news indexer (look up Nzb.su or nzbgeek.info). CouchPotato could be linked to your imdb watch list.

        Plug all of those together with API keys, and now movies on your imdb watch list just show up in your plex library as they become available.

        Now if you use Torrents instead of newsgroups, there are similar things that all exist, I’m just less familiar with them.

        • some_designer_dude@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          5 hours ago

          Ah, interesting. I’m actually only (barely) familiar with torrents, insofar as I have downloaded qBitTorrent and enabled its embedded search. I search for thing, sort by most seeds, and choose first relevant one. Usually it all goes well. Plex on my Mac watches the downloads folder, and the TV has Plex installed.

          It works, but at least from my limited view of its search results, the seas seem to be drying up. I feel like there are better, non-default searches I could be adding. There was some kind of Jacket plugin that refused to load so it’s just disabled.

          Am a very inept pirate 🏴‍☠️

    • Mavytan@feddit.nl
      1·
      11 hours ago

      Does a pi hole combine with a VPN? I assume the pi hole can’t see what’s in the VPN traffic and therefore can’t block anything?

    • Libra00@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      23 hours ago

      Good call on that one, calibre is one of my favorite pieces of software. I, uh, acquire ebooks through creative means and use calibre as both an ebook catalog and format converter to then load them onto my kindle.

      • mesa@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9·
        22 hours ago

        I try to support publishers that give you the full ebooks like baen library.

        Calibre helped me back up my entire amazon library in a way my kobo can now read instead of just kindle. Both are excellent devices, but I wanted a backlight after 7+ years with the same ebook reader. And I’m not about to purchase all those books aain for the privilege of using the kobo bookstore. Plus Calibre makes it so no matter what you get (pdf/ebook/proprietary format) you can get a good old fashion ebook format for future preservation.

        • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
          2·
          12 hours ago

          You should probably note, the functionality you’re describing now requires modding/plug-ins and not the “search and enable” kind, the download from third party sites and run random install scripts kind. It also since February requires you use your Kindle to download and copy every book you own (a chore if your family buys a lot of pulpy urban fantasy novels)

      • Flagstaff@programming.devEnglish
        4·
        15 hours ago

        I tried so many other podcast apps, at least 3 of 4 others. The only thing I dislike is that about AntennaPod is that there is no comprehensive removal button that deletes, marks as played, and removes from queue—but all the other apps failed at even consistently downloading eps or playing them back. AntennaPod crushes all competition by light years.

    • Rose@slrpnk.net
      4·
      9 hours ago

      Let me be perfectly honest: If you like AntennaPod, just stick with it, OK? You’ll save a lot of frustrations and headaches.

      I used to use AntennaPod and listened to lots of podcasts.

      Then one podcast host mentioned some other app, I tried it, and liked its Web interface, even when it didn’t have all of the AntennaPod features. I think it didn’t have “stop playing a podcast at the end of the episode, even if it’s queued”. (I like to queue stuff and listen to them at no particular order. I’m a whimsical girl like that.) Then I think this app got discontinued/went pay only, I can’t remember.

      Went with Google Podcasts. It was a pretty limited and janky experience (also no ability to stop at the end of the queued episode), but it did its job and I hoped it’d get better over years. It didn’t. It got discontinued. Google sometimes can’t do a good thing.

      I manually migrated my subscriptions to some other app. (As one last hurrah Google then implemented OPML takeout.) Wasn’t happy with this app. Couldn’t help but notice my podcast listening habits were drying up due to all these minor snags. ADHD thing I’m sure.

      Then I remembered AntennaPod and how perfect it was and how happy I was using it. I wanted to export OPML from this other app. It had OPML import but no export of any kind. Shit.

      So I imported my subs manually again. And screw me if I ever have to do that again. But I’m happy again and that’s what matters. I don’t think I’ll need to migrate again, I’m glad AntennaPod has nice backup features. (Which I already used to move the app from my tablet to my phone.)

  • traches@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    37·
    23 hours ago

    I know lemmy is social media for people with a favorite Linux distro so I’m preaching to the choir here, but so much software is free as in speech it is truly wonderful. It’s like the only thing I love about being a millennial

    • ElectroVagrant@lemmy.world
      22·
      23 hours ago

      Gonna take this as a jumping off point to mention some software.

      Wanna get into video editing? Shotcut’s pretty solid in my experience.
      Into mind-mapping stuff? You might give Freeplane a look.
      Have a drawing tablet & want to use it to take handwritten digital notes? Check out Xournal++.
      Cross-platform Notepad++ alternative? Might give CudaText a try.

      Could list off more but will leave it at a few for now.

      • Flagstaff@programming.devEnglish
        2·
        15 hours ago

        Dang, I wish I knew about Freeplane years ago. Thanks!! I’m also entrenched in Kdenlive but I wonder if Shotcut has a better UI…

    • Flagstaff@programming.devEnglish
      1·
      14 hours ago

      I don’t have a fave distro because I must back up my PC’s stuff first. I plan to try Bazzite, due to issues I’ve heard that my laptop has with Mint…

  • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    36·
    21 hours ago

    Your neighbor’s trash. It’s stunning what I find and fix, refurbish, repurpose or sell. Had a friend that used to cruise her hood on trash day, her and her husband would load the truck, sell it back to 'em on a Saturday garage sale. 12-14 hours biweekly work, ~$400 every other weekend.

    My wife’s friends dumpster dive at Walmart, though I question how that’s possible. Most big box stores make that impossible. Dunno. In any case, it’s wild what these stores chunk out. If Lowe’s would let me, I’d haul home a pickup full every week.

    • Glitterbomb@lemmy.world
      20·
      17 hours ago

      People think I’m some sort of TV repair wizard but it’s very easy to fix up dumpster TVs if you have a little patience and space. Broken TVs fall into two categories - broken screen or broken board (doesn’t turn on, error screens, flickering). Stick to more popular models and when you find a broken screen, take the board and note the model. When you find a broken board of the same model, just swap it. It usually really is that easy. You can work in the opposite direction too and collect good screens waiting for good boards, but that starts to take up a lot of space quick because you’re storing whole TVs at that point.

      You will also inexplicably find a fully working 55" TV sitting at the dumpster 10% of the time.

      • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        12·
        16 hours ago

        You will also inexplicably find a fully working 55" TV sitting at the dumpster 10% of the time.

        People moving and can’t be bothered / don’t have the time for FB marketplace or similar

  • ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world
    35·
    23 hours ago

    lichess.org is a fantastic online chess platform for players of all skill levels. it’s free and—what’s more–it’s ad-free (unlike the parasitic organisation that’s squatting on the chess.com domain).

    it has one-on-one on-demand match-ups, tournaments, puzzles, user-published training courses, multiple chess variants, and so much more.

    it’s one of only two online resources to which i deem donating regularly worthwhile (the other being wikipedia).

    do check it out. chess is one really healthy mental habit to inculcate.

    • fubo@lemmy.world
      7·
      21 hours ago

      Lichess may be the best board game software for any board game ever. It’s that good.

    • ElectroVagrant@lemmy.world
      4·
      23 hours ago

      It’s great! Also for anyone that happens to be in the overlap of people that enjoy chess and go, and want to play go online as well, there’s online-go.com.

      I don’t know that it has all the features that Lichess does, but it does have puzzles, tournaments, custom games, and so on.

    • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
      4·
      17 hours ago

      I find the dynamics of lichess.org vs chess.com very interesting.

      They are similar in terms of features. Both have decent interfaces, puzzles, matchmaking, live viewing boards and broadcasts for tournaments, training programs, etc. But chess.com has ads, and features locked behind subscription paywalls where lichess.org does not. (Everything is free on lichess, except for the little logo next to a user’s name to say they have supported the site with donations.)

      But on the other hand, chess.com seems to have a higher number pro players; and probably a larger number of players overall.

      I think its very interesting to think about why that is the case. Why would more people choose the version that is more expensive, but does not have more features?

      I’ve thought of a few reasons, but I think probably the biggest effect is that chess.com has more money to splash around (because it sells ads, and asks for user subscriptions), and it uses big chunk of this money to advertise itself. eg. by sponsoring players and streamers, offering larger prizes for its own tournaments; etc.

      And although I definitely think lichess is better, since it is generously supplying a high-quality product without trying to self-enrich, I do sometimes think maybe what chess.com is doing is ok too: in the sense that it is not only self-enriching, but also supporting the sport itself a bit by paying money to players, events, and commentators. Lichess does this too - but less of it, because they have less money.

      (Note that chess.com also does some really crappy stuff, such as censoring any mention of lichess in the chat of their twitch broadcasts. That definitely does not help support the sport.)

      • Flagstaff@programming.devEnglish
        7·
        15 hours ago

        Why would more people choose the version that is more expensive, but does not have more features?

        It’s chess.com. We are the tech-savvy Lemmy weirdos who dig around for alternatives. I’d put my money on people just literally not knowing or thinking to check for an alt.

        • Bongles@lemm.ee
          2·
          12 hours ago

          I didn’t know lichess existed until I found an extension that opens my chess.com match review into lichess, since the review is free there.

  • thermal_shock@lemmy.worldEnglish
    361·
    19 hours ago

    What3words.com and app

    Basically the earth has been segragated into 10 foot x 10 foot squares that are easily identified by 3 words, super accurate, easy to tell emergency services. No more need to know lat/long to tell someone where you’re at.