🔗 morality police, flipphones, aging solo

Happy Friday! I’ve got another linkspam post for y’all, made of a combo of really old tabs and some new stuff. I’ll get down to a reasonable amount of tabs eventually…

First up, some major shenanigans are happening on itch.io, the indie game/book/zine platform. Basically, a Christian morality group (in Australia) put pressure on itch.io’s payment processors to block “NSFW” (including SFW LGBTQ content) from being listed on the website.

Creators have been shadowbanned (deindexed) and in some cases removed entirely from the platform, with no warning. The Transfeminine Review has an overview of what happened, including specific titles that got removed.

HTML Day 2025 is coming up on August 2nd, and there’s lots of in-person events happening around the world! If you’re interested in making something with HTML in a group setting, check it out!

A few zines that popped up on my radar recently: The FlipPhone Manifesto (in 6 colors!), Sick of Spotify?, and Birds of a Feather Destroy Flock Together.

Also here’s a bunch of interesting DIY zines from Iffy Books, including a Printable Diceware List for generating secure passphrases using 6-sided dice. They (Iffy Books) also host a Neo-Luddite book club each month which has an online version; the book club website has some great resources linked as well.

Marginalia Search’s Explore page is a fun way to find new websites. Here’s some I found: MapHistory.info, a cartography website maintained by a former Map Librarian (since 1996!); CopyFree.org, an alternative to copyright/copyleft licenses; CryptoParty.in, a community focused on digital privacy and not cryptocurrency.

How I Experience the Web Today highlights exactly the trap we’ve gotten into between trying to make money online and trying to use the internet for anything, well, useful.

This Terms and Conditions Game is a bit of a hellscape but also quite fun.

An interesting discussion on Ask MetaFilter about how to age successfully solo (minimal family support). Some suggestions are to be active in your community in a hobby or area you enjoy, stay physically active, and prep your living space with accessibility stuff.

Anybody up for a blogging challenge? 100 Day to Offload is one, with the goal to publish 100 posts on your personal blog in a year.

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.

🗨️ thrifting in the midwest

This past week has been very busy and very fun. I spent the weekend between catsits in Milwaukee and Chicago, mostly just wandering around looking at interesting buildings…and thrifting!!

Milwaukee (and Chicago) have AMAZING thrift stores! Even the Goodwills have great stuff for decent prices– compared to California Goodwill prices, anyway. And the selection is really good! I did quite a bit of shopping.

I’m currently working on building up a wardrobe of mostly-natural fibers (linen, silk, merino wool, a little cotton) because I find them most comfortable to travel in. I’m also determined to not buy any new things this year (except for stuff like toothpaste), so I really wanted to find thrifted items.

Unfortunately, most of the stores I’ve been to this year have been sparse on either fabric, size, or style choices, but in Milwaukee and Chicago I somehow hit the jackpot. I didn’t particularly look for name brands, but I’m familiar with the ones that do linen/silk/whatever so that’s what I ended up with more of. I made sure to stick with either 100% natural fabric, or blend with other natural fabric (so like linen/cotton and not linen/modal).

images in above graphic stolen from various online listings so I don’t have to drag my camera out, etc.

My haul:

  • Cashmere/silk blend pashmina
  • 3 sleeveless linen tops (Karen Kane, Jones & Co., J. Crew)
  • Pure J. Jill linen vest
  • Eileen Fisher silk top (with a weird collar that I don’t like, so I’ll be selling this)
  • Sanctuary linen t-shirt
  • Soft Surroundings cotton t-shirt (I thought I put this one back lmao)
  • Eileen Fisher silk long-sleeve shirt
  • Banana Republic merino wool cardigan
  • Eileen Fisher linen long cardigan
  • Christian Siriano linen/cotton blend trousers
  • Columbia windbreaker/raincoat
  • Coldwater Creek “denim” blazer (feels way lighter and foldable/packable than regular denim)
  • Keds sneakers (white)

I also got a book (travel memoir set in India) for $2!

Total cost: roughly $100. If I’d bought these things new I’d definitely have spent closer to $500-700, if not more! Yay, thrifting!

As a bonus, linen and silk pack down very small, so I think I’ll be able to fit more clothes into my suitcase than I currently have with my mostly-cotton/polyester clothes. And they’re lighter than cotton, too, so maybe I’ll ease up on some luggage weight as well!

I’m not 100% sure I’ll be bringing everything with me on my next leg, but I’m going to be wearing and testing these things this month to see how I like them. I may also be dying a few pieces as I don’t like the original color and luckily natural fibers dye well.

In other clothing news: I finally ditched the trail runners I’ve been struggling to wear comfortably for 2 years. I think they were meant more for actual running, and not just walking around a city for 5 hours. They constantly make my feet/legs hurt and I hated to wear them.

I’m currently just going around in my Teva sandals (super comfy) and once it hits winter temps again I’m tempted to just put on a pair of wool socks and call it good.

The new-thrifted shoes (white Keds) are fine for short walks but I got them mostly for style/photos– the trail runners make me look like I was going hiking up a mountain every day and tbh I’m just not that outdoorsy. The new shoes, plus the new clothes, should move my “look” closer to an urban setting, which is where I mostly travel anyway. I figure if and when I need actual hiking shoes, I can borrow some.

📘 reading wednesday

2025 Reading Log | 50/200 yearly goal (+9 from last update)

I drafted this last week and then forgot to post it! So, rapid-fire book thoughts:

First up is the Tarot Sequence books 1-3 by K.D. Edwards (titles: The Last Sun, The Hanged Man, The Hourglass Throne) which is a queer paranormal/fantasy series with romance and a bit of mystery. I really enjoyed these books, as they all have a sort of found family quality to them that I love. The main plot is basically the MC gaining personal power back after a traumatic event as a teen (murder/SA), with magical shenanigans. The author is currently writing the next few books and I look forward to picking them up once they get released.

Then I read two books in the Tithenai Chronicles by Foz Meadows (titles: A Strange and Stubborn Endurance and All the Hidden Paths), a queer fantasy romance which I LOVED! A whole lot! The first book is about an arranged marriage between two people from different cultures, so there’s fun cultural stuff to get through. Also political intrigue!

The second book (with the same people) has more political intrigue and also murder attempts, and while I enjoyed it as well I did think the personal developments sort of backslid from the first book just a bit. Also tbh I didn’t like side characters with the intense BDSM relationship. But overall I liked this series and I’m definitely going to be moving the other FM books up on my reading list.

Another banger: Yield Under Great Persuasion by Alexandra Rowland. Oh my GOD I loved this book! Another queer fantasy romance, because it’s my fav genre, with an interesting fantasy setting. But the focus is on the characters and not necessarily the magic/setting.

Several scenes made me laugh so hard I had to take a break to recover. I really liked how the MC and his love interest were stupid in different ways, and how they worked through their problems together (sometimes by just screaming at each other).

Then I have a few books I read on long bus rides between cities (I’m in Ann Arbor now, btw!). I read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott on the bus between St. Paul and Milwaukee. It’s a sort of how-to writing book but I was more interested in the memoir bits.

Lamott is a funny writer without going over-the-top, and I enjoyed this book enough that I’m interested in reading her other memoirs. I’d gotten this book from a Little Free Library so I dropped it off at a hostel bookshelf to pass it on to another reader.

Then on the bus between Chicago and Ann Arbor I finished A girls’ guide to India by Louise Wates, a fun book that’s a mix of practical (and detailed) advice about traveling in India and travel memoir. I have a slightly older version so it may be a bit outdated by now, but I still really enjoyed it and I’m sure many of the tips will be useful when I visit India myself.

I paid slightly too much for this at a used bookstore in Milwaukee so I’m keeping it for my collection and will be dropping it off at storage when I visit it in the fall.

Oh, and I also read The Miracle of Morning Pages by Julia Cameron which is a sort of supplement to the Artist’s Way, which I’m trying (and already failing) to do. It’s basically a Q&A about her morning pages idea and it’s a little hilarious because in the main book she says there’s no rules, and then in this book she makes a bunch of rules. *shrug emoji*

🔗 punk 101, star trek web clique, business borg

Hi, happy Friday! Here’s some interesting links that have been lurking in my tab collection (some of them since MAY):

Here’s a bookmarklet for copying IMDB info for quick updates or review posts or what have you. It ends up looking like this:

🎬 Cold Comfort Farm: Directed by John Schlesinger. With Eileen Atkins, Kate Beckinsale, Sheila Burrell, Stephen Fry. A recently orphaned young woman goes to live with eccentric relatives in Sussex, where she sets about improving their gloomy lives. 🔗

Cute!

National Parks Travelers Club is for people who love visiting US nat’l parks! They have meet-ups and stuff too, super fun!

Punk 101 Masterlist which links to various things that may interest punks (or those who admire punk ethics), including zines!

I’ve never eaten acorns and haven’t particularly thought of doing so before, but if you’re in the right part of the world you can apparently do just that. Here’s a guide for collecting and processing edible acorns from Edgewood Nursery.

Wikimedia Commons has a photo competition ongoing through July 31st. Basically they’re looking for photos of natural protected areas from various countries (full list on the site) and you can win a bit of money if your photo is chosen as the best.

I really enjoy Sacha Judd’s newsletter, “what you love matters,” which focuses on online culture– but the fun stuff! Basically it’s just a collection of interesting links and fun personal updates. It’s hosted on Buttondown, so if you don’t want another email coming to your inbox you can sub via RSS (which is what I did).

Here’s a Star Trek-themed web clique to join if you have a personal website! It doesn’t have to be a Star Trek website.

An excellent article about AI’s impact on culture: Generative AI and the Business Borg aesthetic by Tracy Durnell:

‘Why am I naming this after the Borg? Like Star Trek’s Borg, this is an aesthetic rooted in extractive consumption, assimilationist dominance, neo-colonial expansionism, self-righteous conviction, reductionist thinking, and proclamations of inevitability. It idolizes technology, often inspired by older science-fiction, and draws on cyberpunk aesthetics. The Silicon Valley Collective values groupthink and believes themselves superior to “the other.”’

This short documentary from Maximilien Van Aertryck and Axel Danielson via the New York Times has been making the rounds lately: Did the Camera Ever Tell the Truth? | Death of a Fantastic Machine which sounds like it’s a history of the camera but is really about how we interact with media (including AI images).

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.

🗨️ 5 things is a post

1. Had an awful dream about my gums/teeth where basically I would need surgery to fix whatever was wrong– I never have medical stress dreams EXCEPT about my teeth, which is very annoying because it’s always some exaggeration of something that could legit go wrong. I think my main issue right now is gum recession, probably because I keep sleeping with my mouth open which dries my gums out. So I’m going to find some mouth tape and see if that helps.

2. I found some great conductor POV train videos in the UK on Youtube. These are (I think) tourist train routes, so the focus is on beautiful landscapes and such which is more interesting than the warehouse views you usually see.

3. I also really like watching “walk around town” videos, especially in tourist destinations. It gives me more of an idea of what a place is like and whether I’d actually enjoy visiting it, or if it’s way too crowded and chaotic and I’d rather just avoid it. Like, Capri is beautiful but it’s practically wall-to-wall tourists so idk if it’ll be on my to-visit list.

4. My old iPod battery is finally kicking the dirt, as it’s charging but not showing that it’s charging. I’ve resisted opening it and replacing things because a) it’s hard to crack this one open and b) I’d want to replace the harddrive as well and that costs $$, so I’m hoping it can hang on for a bit longer so I can maybe source some discounted parts on eBay.

5. Currently reading the second book in KD Edwards’ Tarot Sequence and really enjoying it, though it DOES have a lot of (mostly off-page) trauma happening to a lot of characters, including the protagonist, which is tough to read. But I like the mix of fantasy and mystery (with a bit of romance) and the writing is very good. And it’s queer! Yay!

🗨️ trying out something new

So I’ve made a (WordPress) blog subdomain for my personal site (Pixietails Club) and I’ve installed @alisx’ JournalPress plugin to connect it to my Dreamwidth account. I should now be able to post entries on my personal URL which’ll crosspost automatically to my DW account, including friends-only posts! Yay!

The reason I wanted to do this is partly because I’d like greater control over my data, and it’s easier to do that when it’s on your own webspace. Obviously I really like Dreamwidth for the community aspect, so I’d like to keep posting there (here) and this seemed like a good solution.

Other positives: I find it much easier to write and format posts in WordPress (maybe just because I’ve been using it for like 15 years idk); I can make drafts and save them for later a little easier; I can scooch myself a little more into the small web/indie web space and use my blog domain for webmentions and other fun stuff; and I can upload/host my own photos without worrying about overloading the DW storage.

The only downside is I can’t figure out what to do for access-locked posts on the WordPress side of things. I think I’d have to make a membership…thing? And that would involve handling people’s data which is a whole other kettle of fish I don’t want to deal with.

So for now access-locked posts will only be available for reading on my Dreamwidth account (and then only if you’re on the list, obviously).

Next problem is figuring out how to import all my old posts over to my blog URL…I should be able to do it with this tool but I can’t figure out how to get the XML import running. 😔