likes

things listed here are in order of remembering

terminology:
- free: the program is free to use
- source available: you can get the source code but you can't use it as you please
- foss: you can get, modify, redistribute, sell, pretty much anything else with the program and its source code

preferences

this is where most people would call me weird, boomer, dumb, paranoid, a british meatball or mentally ill. skip to the next h2 tag if you want to read the stuff i use

software

preferably gpl or other copyleft licenses. i have a small fear of the devs changing the license and screwing me over

software that works 100% offline unless it was made to use internet since my internet connection is kinda bad. and if i really really need too use it, but it has a trial version, i can to the extent permitted by law hack it and use it. although im still dreaming about this day coming, there is alternatives for pretty much anything

lightweight stuff, even if it has less features. i value performance a lot since my computer is kinda bad and i really enjoy switching fast from program to program

games

i don't enjoy games that require registering an account

i prefer singleplayer games. but multiplayer games which don't require me talking to anyone is also fine. i like being in my own corner

i prefer indie games. they are usually short, free, don't require any account to play, usually lightweight, are very diverse and open to everyone. they remind me of flash games

keyboard > mouse > drawing tablet > controller > mind control > just watching > touch screens

general preferences

no bluetooth. i just don't like it

no internet connection, unless made for it tvs are the worst offender of this. your only job is to display colors

no radio connection, unless made for it the only example i have seen is cars with antennas

no geolocation connection

i prefer glass, metal, wooden, cotton and such instead of plastic and polymer stuff. although there is usually no way around it. i don't like plastic because it is a carcinogen and i get really paranoid about it

ol' reliable instead of trendy stuff. most people don't know about what they are talking about and buy stuff they don't need, inferior to older, well established stuff, or simply don't know the difference. examples: wireless headphones, "smart" stuff like refrigerators, microwaves, dishwashers, etc., whatever apple is selling nowdays

speakers / wide-area audio emission devices. i love music but loud sounds bother me a lot

no exposed branding. if i have something then it is because i worked for it and bought it. samsung never gave me anything. nike doesn't pay my rent

no flags / symbols from foreign nations like a us flag in a mug or a russian flag in a shirt. i don't know these nations, i have never gone there, i don't have family in there. its just as bad as using a shirt from a band you don't listen to. chronic poser behaviour

since i just talked about it, no stuff related to an artist / franchise / etc. i don't know. im not a poser

music

daws / audio editing software

fl studio: daw i use the most. too expensive imo but their default plugins are really great. has a weird interface but it is manageable
- main page https://www.image-line.com/

zrythm: foss daw. it is really new. it is usable, but i don't think it is really stable yet. has some awesome features like a chord / scale marker. supports various plugin formats
- main page https://www.zrythm.org/en/index.html
- source code https://gitlab.zrythm.org/zrythm/zrythm

ardour: another foss daw. this one is a bit old. very stable but lacks smooth curves for automation which makes me sad. has a option to import a video which is interesting but i haven't touched it. has confusing payment system which i dislike a lot but it is free if compiled from source. has support for lua scripting but i don't know it's capabilities
- main page https://ardour.org/
- source code: https://github.com/Ardour/ardour

tenacity: foss audio editor. fork of audacity. one of the few programs i have never seen crash. although i don't use it that much. i use this fork instead of audacity because a long time ago there was some attempts at adding telemetry stuff so i hopped on one of the forks. i have no idea what is the current status about the data collection so you might want to check it out for yourself
- source code: https://codeberg.org/tenacityteam/tenacity

bespokesynth: divine intellect foss daw. you make music, instruments, effects, anything audio related by connecting blocks to one another. really really really awesome stuff here. sadly it crashes a lot and doesn't have the best performance. it was made for live performances so it is kinda weird to use it to make songs. i fell in love with it when i learned you can modify the program configuration like you do with any other parameter
- main page https://www.bespokesynth.com/
- source code https://github.com/BespokeSynth/BespokeSynth/

plugins

keyzone classic: lightweight free piano virtual instrument plugin. i enjoy the sound of it a lot, it is one of the plugins i use the most in my songs. it comes with 5 piano presets to choose from. sadly, the version i use doesn't seem to be available for download anymore and the new version is paid
- original page, redirects to the new website https://bitsonic.eu/keyzoneclassic.html
- snapshot of the original page on the internet archive http://web.archive.org/web/20180202031405/http://www.bitsonic.eu/keyzoneclassic.html
- new page, beware of ai images its all fake https://vstplug-ins.com/keyzoneclassic.html
- some alternative site to download it. i haven't tested it so use it at your risk https://plugins4free.com/plugin/2848/

surge xt: foss synthesizer plugin. weird interface but it works
- main page: https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/
- source code: https://github.com/surge-synthesizer/surge

spectral suite: foss effect plugin. a bunch of very unique effects plugin based on frequency domain manipulation. my favorite is the phase lock
- main page https://www.andrewreeman.com/spectralsuite/
- source code https://github.com/andrewreeman/SpectralSuite

krush: free bitcrush effect plugin. i don't have much to say about it other than it just works
- main page: https://www.tritik.com/product/krush/

games

hollow knight: bug metroidvania. has a really great combat system. the art is really nice. exploring is fun and the areas are really memorable. i wish there was a second game for it. tomorrow for sure
- main page: https://www.hollowknight.com/
- steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/367520

just shapes & beats: bullet hell with abstract shapes. the music selection is great. its also very challenging but really fun once you get good at it. i wish there was more games similar to it. there is project arrhythmia but its in development for quite a few years now and i don't think its coming out any time soon
- main page: https://www.justshapesandbeats.com/
- steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/531510/Just_Shapes__Beats/

osu!: foss rhythm game. click the circles. maps are provided by the community. there are different gamemodes so its kinda like a 4 rhythm games pack. i wish i was good at this game
- main page: https://osu.ppy.sh
- source code: https://github.com/ppy/osu

celeste: plataformer game. has really great moviment mechanics. has a nice difficulty curve and the last level from the main campaign is soooo satisfying to beat. i wish i had more time to 100% it
- main page: https://www.celestegame.com
- steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/504230/Celeste/

lichess: foss chess. i like playing the puzzles to pass time. wish i was better at chess
- main page: https://lichess.org/
- source code: https://lichess.org/source

fnaf world: casual free rpg based on fnaf. i enjoy its simplicity a lot. i wish to make games like these in the future. i think its one of the best games of the franchise
- gamejolt: https://gamejolt.com/games/fnaf-world/124921

inscryption: turn based strategy card game. awesome mechanics. the ambience is really great. nice story although i think it kinda hinders part of the game, specially on the second act. another game i wish there was a sequel to
- main page: https://www.inscryption.com/
- steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1092790/Inscryption/

cell machine: cellular automata puzzle game. the original game isn't that impressive, but the remakes are really fun to mess around
- original game: https://samhogan.itch.io/cell-machine
- cell machine mystic mod: https://themysticlynx.itch.io/cell-machine-mystic-mod
- cellua machine: https://github.com/KyYay/CelLua-Machine (this is not the most up-to-date version, the dev releases new versions on discord apparently)
- cell machine mystic mod+: https://traloc-dheckoa.itch.io/cmmm

other art

drawing

krita: foss drawing program. better than most image editing software i tried, but its focused on drawing. its another software that never crashed there was that one time i tried to create a canvas of 16000x16000 but i think that was lack of hardware. the default brushes are awesome. my only issue is that i don't really like it for pixel art since its kinda bad to create palettes, compared to aseprite. although there should be some plugin for it, idk, i'm lazy to install plugins. also supports animations
- main page: https://krita.org/
- source code: https://invent.kde.org/graphics/krita

aseprite: source available under the work-for-free license agreement. used to be on the mit license. sadly no fork can even come close to it's performance so i'm kinda stuck with it. atleast it is really great for pixel art
- main page: https://www.aseprite.org
- source code: https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite/

3d

blender: foss 3d model editor. kinda hard to understand it at first but really awesome once you understand it. also has a video editor built in
- main page: https://www.blender.org/
- source code: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender

blockbench: foss 3d model editor but with focus on low poly. also runs on the browser which is nice if browsers werent so slow
- main page: https://www.blockbench.net/
- source code: https://github.com/JannisX11/blockbench

video

kdenlive: foss video editor. its great but lacks a more robust animation system
- main page: https://kdenlive.org/
- source code: https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/kdenlive

obs studio: foss screen recorder / streaming program. works great
- main page: https://obsproject.com/
- source code: https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio

natron: foss video editor based on components. has support for dope sheets and other types of animation systems. i think its more powerful than kdenlive
- main page: https://natrongithub.github.io/
- source code: https://github.com/NatronGitHub/Natron

technology

general tools

termux: foss terminal emulator for android. i enjoy coding on my phone to pass time
- main page: https://termux.dev
- source code: https://github.com/termux/termux-app

arch linux: linux distro i use. lightweight, comes with only the absolute necessary. usually considered one of the hardest systems to install but if you follow the manual and run man on the commands you don't know it will probably be fine. also helps a lot to be honest with your knowledge and search about what you don't know
- main page: https://archlinux.org/
- source code: https://github.com/archlinux/linux

temple os: public domain operating system. it is great for having fun but i don't think it is capable of doing much work. it features holyc, a programming language that unifies every aspect of the system, you can write applications with it but it is also the terminal language. the system was made in a way where every function can be called from any program, which makes the entire system available for you at any time. that also means you can call any function from any program (because a program is just a function) from the terminal. it is the ultimate modding system. maybe i'll write more about it later because it is a really fascinating os. rest in peace terry
- main page: http://www.templeos.org/
- source code: https://templeos.org/Downloads/

cinnamon: foss desktop environment that i use. it was made for linux mint but it works just as well in arch. its very customizable
- main page: https://projects.linuxmint.com/cinnamon/
- source code: https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon

dwm: foss window manager. i don't use it i just enjoy reading the source code
- source code: https://git.suckless.org/dwm/

librewolf: foss firefox fork focused on privacy. chromium sucks so i use this
- main page: https://librewolf.net/
- source code: https://codeberg.org/librewolf/source

editor

neovim: lightweight foss text and code editor. has support for lua scripting and it is very customizable. maybe even too much
- main page: https://neovim.io/
- source code: https://github.com/neovim/neovim

nvchad: foss configuration files for neovim. i don't enjoy spending too much time customizing stuff so this helps a lot
- main page: https://nvchad.com/
- source code: https://github.com/NvChad/NvChad

gamedev

godot: foss game engine. the editor is lightweight and the engine is very customizable. i just wish the programming language was a bit more thought out
- main page: https://godotengine.org/
- source code: https://github.com/godotengine/godot

raylib: foss game library written in c. really easy to use and there are bindings for pretty much every programming language. provides very basic functionality so you would need to use other libraries or code systems yourself. very modular, you can throw most of the modules away if you don't need them
- main page: https://www.raylib.com/
- source code: https://github.com/raysan5/raylib

sfml: foss multimedia library written in c++. a little bit more complex than raylib but it is still really simple
- main page: https://www.sfml-dev.org/
- source code: https://github.com/SFML/SFML

bevy: data driven foss game framework. written in rust. it is still in development but i like it. i hope the editor comes out soon
- main page: https://bevyengine.org/
- source code: https://github.com/bevyengine/bevy

dislikes

windows 10: operating system. too laggy. updates are forcefully installed. no way to know what the system actually does, which is a safety issue. bad software manager. too much advertisement. developing for it sucks. the default configurations for pretty much everything is bad, examples including: putting your documents, downloads, pictures etc in onedrive automatically, edge as default browser, having internet explorer installed, mcafee antivirus installed. terrible, unresponsive, unhelpful search bar. has great compatibility with old software. the windows api sucks. honestly a downgrade from windows 7

windows 11: operating system. has no improvements from windows 10. even more ads. comes with ai powered 24/7 1984 panopticon monitoring. doesn't work on laptops without webcam, or with laptops that do not have good cameras. downgrade from 10, which means its comparable to windows 7, except that windows 7 was an ok os and it did its job well. windows 11 does many things nobody needs and fumbles on the stuff that really matters

google chrome: closed source browser, so its highly unsafe to type any password or any other sensitive information. has this weird profile system which is based on your google acoount. has pretty bad default configurations, and even if changed can sometimes just go back to the defaults without any mention of it.

smartphones: just a dumbed down computer. not as customizable as a computer, usually has some really bad designs like some of them are built in a way where you can't take the battery out, microphones are builtin and cannot be disabled, front and back cameras. touchscreen is also really limited, i miss those old phones with a keyboard