internet: federation – Pixietails Club Blog

knitting typeface, sass witchcraft, reclaim tech

Hello, happy Friday! Some links for y’all:

Crafts & Hobbies

Here’s a bunch of really artsy, really cute witchy/pagan printables including coloring pages, grimoire pages, and idea lists.

And here’s a typeface for people who love to knit— and it doubles as a pattern, too!

Pride Radio Network, which is “a multi-mode amateur radio repeater network created by and for the members of the LGBTQ+ community and their allies.”

Zines & Books

Some intriguing zines I found recently:

For An Anarchist Radio Relay League (PDF direct link)
SASS Witchcraft Zine (“secular, agnostic/atheist, skeptical, and science-seeking”)
Collection of fanzines from nonasuch on Tumblr
Free digital zines from Alexa Kari on various topics, including one about museum controversies!

Also ZineMap.com which has zine libraries, stores that sell zines, etc. listed in an easy-to-use directory.

Internet Culture, etc.

Sacha Judd writes about how the internet is broken for groups/communities, not just individual users. She didn’t mention forums at all, BUT they have everything needed for a vibrant community space except the problem is cost: hosting, plus time/emotion/effort for moderators to keep things running. One reason Discord has taken off for fan groups is because it’s free, you can do mod things, you can search for history more or less, and so on. It’s basically like a slightly shittier forum mixed with IRC. Anyway…

Streetpass for Mastodon — a fun browser extension where it automatically finds Mastodon accounts for websites you visit. It’s a spin off the Nintendo 3DS’ StreetPass feature!

A short but informative video presentation about ReclaimTech, a community movement away from corporate web/social media. Here’s their main website which has more info and resource links.

Here’s a little thing about the downsides of open source software licenses (h/t alisx).

Two modes of Internet use by Tracy Durnell:

I’ve found my relationships are healthier when I keep my offline-first relationships offline (e.g. not following each other on Facebook or Instagram) — following someone’s Instagram makes it feel like I know what’s going on with them without interacting. Following offline friends on social media can reduce what used to be normal friendships into parasocial relationships.

[…]

I suspect bringing offline relationships online is responsible for a lot of the loneliness people feel — social media looks like you have all these friends… but no one you could ask to feed your cat while you’re away, because one-to-many broadcasting replaced direct interactions 😿 Essentially, the offline relationship became an online one.

US Politics

“Former library director awarded $700,000 after she was fired for refusing to remove LGBTQ+ books” — yay!

Need more stuff to read? I’ve compiled all previous linkspam posts here on my website, or you can explore the linkspam tag to find more.

🔗 planner pages, river circus, portland punk

Happy Friday! I recently found out the homeowners’ sink does sparkling water using the nubbin on the other side of the faucet from the regular water handle. I coulda been having fizzy water this whole time!

On Dreamwidth

dolorosa_12 shares a warning about AI scambots from AO3 infiltrating Dreamwidth.

beepbird has written a book about plurality/multiplicty titled “For the Many,” and it’s available for free download (EPUB/PDF) at the post, or on their website here.

Summary:

Plurality is the experience of having more than one self in the same body. There are few guides written for those who don’t fit into “one person per body”, and it can be hard to figure out how to live a life where you’re never alone, especially if you struggle with internal conflicts or trust issues. For the Many offers over 100 pages of guides on self-discovery, communication, and developing an internal community.

(via ysabetwordsmith)

matsushima at longreads posted a selection of interesting articles and podcasts, including quite a few grouped under “AI is Bullshit.”

🔗 ai spams fediverse, zine library, permacomputing

Happy Saturday! It’s absolutely beautiful outside and I sat for several hours this morning under a tree, reading Moby-Duck…

Some links for you:

Aphyr wrote about an ongoing issue on Mastodon where AI spam accounts are signing up and getting through the initial checks; these are small, super-specific servers for tiny groups of people (queer/kinky/cozy fans even) and the bots use language with specific keywords and phrases to seem human enough to get through. The comments have some discussion about what this could mean for moderation/community engagement and how small communities survive on personal recommendations.

The Locavore Guide to Shopping New York City is a (physical!) directory of small indie shops with amazing local good! The writer does fun TikTok videos of her tracking down specific foods (and other stuff) and recently came out with this guide. There’s a website version too but honestly the book is so cute and would be great to carry around while sightseeing.

This is an AMAZING project: a directory of Georgia pagan groups from 1996-2025, WITH contact info and links to websites and so on. The author (Munušninanna) built it using data from WitchVox (RIP) and other internet sources; they include a great sources page, and even a 90s pagan webring page! Really a fab effort and I’m seriously considering doing one for California. (I do have an in-progress Pagan Links page with some stuff listed, in the meanwhile.)

Somebody’s uploaded a bunch of 90s dELiA*s catalogs images to Tumblr! Nobody at my middle school dressed like this, but we all wanted to.

If you’re a dumpster diver, or a wanna be diver, then Dumpstermap.org may be helpful to you.

Some zine links: Sherwood Forest Zine Library has a digital branch with tons of interesting zines; Echo Zines wrote a great review of Wort, a journal dedicated to herbalism through the lens of intersectional activism; The Zinester’s Guide to Staples and Stock (PDF version) is available from Cracked Egg Press for $3, or $1.50 with coupon ILOVESTAPLES until August 3rd.

Couple new releases from Project Gutenberg that caught my eye: On Old Cape Cod by Ferdinand C. Lane; The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Issue 2, April 7, 1832; and A Tour in Mongolia by Beatrix Manico Gull.

@tamaranth wrote a great review of The Scandalous Letters of V and J by Felicia Davin, a queer fantasy romance which I’m adding to my TBR ASAP.

A few computer-y links:

Permacomputing is “both a concept and a community of practice oriented around issues of resilience and regenerativity in computer and network technology inspired by permaculture.” Be sure to check out their library and projects pages, too!

DistroWatch.com tracks Linux releases and projects.

PrePostPrint “highlights experimental publications made with free software” which in practice seems to be a mix of text production and ways to make the web into a text production, more or less. Some very interesting things in the resources list!