====== Linkspam ======
I regularly post collections of random interesting links to my Dreamwidth journal. This page is a collection of those entries; feel free to click around as much or as little as you'd like! If a link is broken, please let me know by leaving a comment on the corresponding journal entry.
Current linkspam is on this page. Linkspam from previous years can be found here:
[[links:linkspam:2018|2018]] | [[links:linkspam:2019|2019]] | [[links:linkspam:2020|2020]] | [[links:linkspam:2021|2021]] | [[links:linkspam:2022|2022]] | 2023 | 2024
{{ ::pinkribbondivider.png?nolink |}}
===== 2025 Linkspam =====
Please leave a comment on the original post if you wanna discuss something. :D
==== wonderbread manatee, solarpunk discord, marginalia (2025 April 21) ====
Original post: https://tozka.dreamwidth.org/143080.html
First up, art! Here's a [[https://oddarette.tumblr.com/post/779104872709718016/i-think-i-can-comfortably-say-that-i-am-the-only|wonderbread manatee]] from oddarette (Tumblr)
Next, links!
Business Insider has an introspective article about [[https://www.businessinsider.com/long-sad-decline-lonely-planet-america-coolest-travel-guide-2025-4|the decline in quality of Lonely Planet guidebooks]] over the years.
[[https://lwgrs.bearblog.dev/podcasting-101/|Podcasting 101]], which has all the stuff you'll need to just get started-- not worrying about making a commercial product or whatever, just getting your podcast off the ground.
I liked this [[https://grubz.net/2025/04/12/keep-talking.html|post about realizing that human interaction has value]], and that "Google it" isn't always the best thing to say.
From formlessvoidbeast (Tumblr): [[https://www.tumblr.com/formlessvoidbeast/746769248911867904/newbie-fic-authors-shooting-themselves-in-the|I am King Big Dick of Fanfic Mountain]] (h/t The Rec Center) (also saved to [[https://www.pixietails.club/notes:king_bd_fanfic|my commonplace notebook here]] because I liked it so much)
Here's a [[https://www.reddit.com/r/solarpunk/comments/1k2f1vi/a_solarpunk_discord_for_the_technically_inclined/|tech-focused solarpunk Discord server]] to explore. I like how they have activities that aren't just coding (or whatever).
A new Project Gutenberg release that caught my eye: [[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75893|The up-to-date sandwich book: 400 ways to make a sandwich]] by Eva Greene Fuller! Definitely downloading and adding it to my cookbook collection.
I found another "old web search engine": [[https://marginalia-search.com/|Marginalia Search]]-- but it actually pulls up newer stuff-- and it even pulled up a Dreamwidth post! I NEVER see DW posts on Ecosia or Google or whatever, unless I specifically look for them.
Finally, some RSS feeds I've subscribed to recently:
[[https://cloverpoe.bearblog.dev/feed/?type=rss|clover.poe]], a "a literary blog dedicated to submissions of #poetry, #prose, #essay, #photography and other digital artworks by internet users."
The [[https://indieblog.page/rss|IndieBlog directory]] has RSS feeds where you can get random posts for the day or week from blogs in its collection.
[[https://anhvn.com/feed.xml|anhvn.com]] -- her weeknotes posts are charming!
My [[https://listenbrainz.org/syndication-feed/user/heytozka/listens?minutes=30|ListenBrainz account has an RSS feed]]...so I guess if you want to see what I'm listening to, you can do it without needing an account there! I have that feed set to show the latest 30 minutes of listens, but if you adjust the minutes you can see up to 8 hours' worth of music.
{{ ::pinkribbondivider.png?nolink |}}
==== ai tarpit, free books, citrus con (2025 April 16) ====
Original post: https://tozka.dreamwidth.org/140833.html
[[https://www.citruscon.com/|Citrus Con]] is a free online BL/queer fan convention happening June 20-22, 2025! Grab your ticket before June 19, 2025.
Tumblr (or rather its parent company Automattic) is having some [[https://newcomers.dreamwidth.org/25169.html|recent troubles]] (also [[https://bisexualbaker.tumblr.com/post/780207822100119552/minor-technical-correction-dreamwidth-does-have|here]]) and laid off 16% of its staff.
A few new guides posted to @newcomers recently:
@soc_puppet wrote [[https://newcomers.dreamwidth.org/26707.html|a guide to mood themes]], how to [[https://newcomers.dreamwidth.org/26520.html|back up your Tumblr account]] and [[https://newcomers.dreamwidth.org/26193.html|alternatives to talking in the tags]]
@ysabetwordsmith wrote about [[https://newcomers.dreamwidth.org/27097.html|how to post fiction or other writing]]-- a really good resource for people who are used to only posting on AO3 or other similar websites-- and [[https://newcomers.dreamwidth.org/26091.html|how to find your Tumblr friends on DW]]
I've really been enjoying @rachelmanija's [[https://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/tag/book+review|book review posts]], and have added several of them to my wishlist/TBR list. (She writes really good books herself, too!)
Here's a few recent releases on Project Gutenberg that're available for free download:
1. [[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75859|The intelligent woman's guide to socialism and capitalism by (George) Bernard Shaw]], yes that GBS. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intelligent_Woman%27s_Guide_to_Socialism_and_Capitalism|Here's the Wikipedia article about the book]].
2. [[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75864|"This was a man" : A comedy in three acts by Noël Coward]]
3. [[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75869|A doctor enjoys Sherlock Holmes by Edward J. Van Liere]]
Isis Unveiled by H. P. Blavatsky (Helena Petrovna Blavatsky) [[|Volume 1]] and [[|Volume 2]] ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis_Unveiled|Wikipedia entry here]])
A few AI-related links:
@erinptah posted a great [[https://erinptah.dreamwidth.org/2025/04/15/alarming-confidence.html|LLM (AI) news roundup]] from the past few months.
From Bloomberg: [[https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-ai-romance-factory/|The AI Romance Factory]], about an AI startup trying to flood the romance book market with dreck. (h/t The Rec Center)
[[https://hazeldomain.tumblr.com/post/771300424833777664/you-can-fight-ai-in-indie-publishing-by-leaving|You can fight AI in indie publishing by leaving reviews]] from hazeldomain (Tumblr) (h/t dduane (Tumblr))
And an article from Ars Technica: [[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/ai-haters-build-tarpits-to-trap-and-trick-ai-scrapers-that-ignore-robots-txt/|AI haters build tarpits to trap and trick AI scrapers that ignore robots.txt]]:
>Aaron clearly warns users that Nepenthes is aggressive malware. It's not to be deployed by site owners uncomfortable with trapping AI crawlers and sending them down an "infinite maze" of static files with no exit links, where they "get stuck" and "thrash around" for months, he tells users. Once trapped, the crawlers can be fed gibberish data, aka Markov babble, which is designed to poison AI models. That's likely an appealing bonus feature for any site owners who, like Aaron, are fed up with paying for AI scraping and just want to watch AI burn.
A few RSS feeds I've added to my reader this week:
* [[https://www.reddit.com/r/Frugal/.rss|r/Frugal]]
* [[https://www.reddit.com/r/composting/.rss|r/Composting]]
* [[https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/posts/index.xml|Low-Tech Magazine]] (English feed)
{{ ::pinkribbondivider.png?nolink |}}
==== pagan websites, windows 11 foolishness, solid toiletries (2025 April 2) ====
Original post: https://tozka.dreamwidth.org/139370.html
[[https://rennybu.tumblr.com/post/754737835561598976/this-is-what-happens-when-you-watch-tos-for-the|Super cute retro Spock & Kirk fanart]] from rennybu (Tumblr)
>He was as tall as he was tall, and his eyes were the color they were. To describe his hair one would say that he had some. His face had all the features you’d expect, and none of the ones you wouldn’t. “There he is,” people would often say of him, but only when he was there. And they were right.
from theotherwesley (Tumblr) ([[https://theotherwesley.tumblr.com/post/771120254109777920/he-was-as-tall-as-he-was-tall-and-his-eyes-were|OP]])
[[https://www.tumblr.com/rainewynd/726852335927705600|How to turn off Group Policies in Windows 11]] so it'll stop tracking you as much as the default settings want to.
Bunch of interesting zine-y links at this [[https://www.metafilter.com/208206/Folding-paper|MetaFilter thread]], ty conuly for the link
A couple fun websites I found while strolling the indie web:
https://thecozy.cat/
https://mec-v02.nekoweb.org/
Plus if you're of the pagan persuasion you might be interested in looking through the sites on the [[https://magical-ring.neocities.org/|Magical Ring Webring]]. They also have an [[https://magical-ring.neocities.org/magical-ring.rss|RSS feed]] you can stick in your reader to get updates from all the sites.
Here's an [[https://garlic.garden/yg_archives/|alterhuman Yahoo! groups archive]]. I always appreciate finding archives for small communities that would otherwise have disappeared when the hosting got deleted or whatever.
r/HerOneBag put together a [[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19suV8hzO2x2zo2A0QhphM1cCnPiABQMtkefR6COUnJA/edit?gid=376786570#gid=376786570|solid toiletries spreadsheet (Google Sheets)]] with recommendations from the community. [[https://www.reddit.com/r/HerOneBag/comments/1jo5gqi/announcing_the_solid_toiletries_spreadsheet/|Add your rec here]] if you're so inclined.
siderea wrote a [[https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1875174.html|good breakdown of Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny is bad, actually]], and why people are misinterpreting the "don't obey in advance" advice.
[[https://handsoff2025.com/|Mass protests scheduled for Saturday, April 5]] fyi!
{{ ::pinkribbondivider.png?nolink |}}
==== gardens, notebooks, field recordings (2025 March 7) ====
Original post: https://tozka.dreamwidth.org/134040.html
Happy Friday! Here's some links:
This [[https://beep.town/@blog_challenge|Blog Questions Bot]] on Mastodon toots questions you can use as blog-writing prompts.
[[https://soatok.blog/2020/06/08/furward-momentum-introduction/|Furward Momentum]] is a guide for transitioning into a tech career. It was written in 2020 and maybe you don't want to have a tech career nowadays, but it's still got good strategies for making a career pivot.
[[https://spasic.me/posts/take-a-walk-in-nature-bring-your-notebook|Take a Walk in Nature, Bring Your Notebook]] -- I've gotten out of the habit of handwriting a journal but have been thinking of doing something similar to "morning pages," and combining that with a walk outside seems like a very good idea.
[[https://www.cuttersguide.com/galleries/catalogues/|The Cutter's Guide]] is a collection of vintage catalogs you can download in PDF format.
[[https://tracydurnell.com/2025/03/03/decolonizing-my-garden/|Decolonizing my garden]], an analysis of the ways that colonialism has infected our gardens and how to turn things around.
Here's a new [[https://www.womenandthewind.com/thedocumentary|documentary about three women sailing the north Atlantic ocean]] that's making the film festival circuit soon and I hope will be available somewhere I can watch it, eventually.
Here's a [[https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-field-recordings/the-best-field-recordings-on-bandcamp-february-2025|list of field recordings]] on Bandcamp. Field recording is one of those things I've always been interested in doing myself, but I don't have the patience for it so it remains a dream.
I wanted to try this [[https://github.com/krateng/maloja|self-hosted music scrobbler]] but I don't understand Docker enough to be able to install and run it, so I guess I'll try [[https://listenbrainz.org/|ListenBrainz]] instead. I'm determined to dig out my iPod when I return home in a few weeks and see if it still works (hopefully yes, but probably needs a battery replaced and if I'm doing that I might as well upgrade the harddrive and then suddenly it's [[https://wherethingsareborn.wordpress.com/2020/05/02/building-a-1tb-ipod-classic/|a whole project]]) and get back to listening to music instead of just ambient noise videos on Youtube all day.
{{ ::pinkribbondivider.png?nolink |}}
==== wtf is up with mozilla/firefox this week (2025 March 1) ====
Original post: https://tozka.dreamwidth.org/132135.html
Link: [[https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-news/firefox-terms-of-use/|distilled (Mozilla blog)]]
>UPDATE: We’ve seen a little confusion about the language regarding licenses, so we want to clear that up. We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example. It does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice.
>We’re introducing a [[https://www.mozilla.org/about/legal/terms/firefox/|Terms of Use]] for Firefox for the first time, along with an updated [[https://www.mozilla.org/privacy/firefox/#notice|Privacy Notice]].
>Why now? Although we’ve historically relied on our open source license for Firefox and public commitments to you, we are building in a much different technology landscape today. We want to make these commitments abundantly clear and accessible.
Some of these changes are weird (antithetical to Mozilla's founding principles) and people are freaking out. Basically, it sounds like they're trying to excuse themselves from originally saying they'd never sell our data, so they can sell our data. Also some strange things about not uploading adult material through their services, without defining what a service is (is a browser a service?).
Mozilla made another [[https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms-of-use/|blog post here trying to explain]]:
>In order to make Firefox commercially viable, there are a number of places where we collect and share some data with our partners, including our optional ads on New Tab and providing sponsored suggestions in the search bar. We set all of this out in our Privacy Notice. Whenever we share data with our partners, we put a lot of work into making sure that the data that we share is stripped of potentially identifying information, or shared only in the aggregate, or is put through our privacy preserving technologies (like OHTTP).
Related links:
[[https://tech.lgbt/@iamada/114081211872050523|Discussion on Mastodon with iamada]] which breaks down the top 4 weirdest points
[[https://mastodon.social/@sarahjamielewis/114078061987172475|Discussion on Mastodon with sarahjamielewis]] and why she's ditching Firefox
[[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43185909|Discussion on Hacker News]]
I've used Firefox since the early 2000s, so if this is really the direction they're going then that's very disappointing.
{{ ::pinkribbondivider.png?nolink |}}
==== arbonaut, kewpies, free books (2025 February 25) ====
Original post: https://tozka.dreamwidth.org/131013.html
The amount of open tabs are about to make my computer explode, so this will be a proper linkspam post for once!
[[https://nestflix.fun/|Nestflix]], a collection of fictional movies within movies
Get free ebooks each month at [[https://www.queeromanceink.com/join-our-email-list/|Queer Romance Ink]] and [[https://www.queerscifi.com/join-our-maillist/|Queer Scifi]] by signing up for their mailing lists.
[[https://www.rebelbadgestore.com/|Rebel Badge Book]]: merit badges for adults! Get badges for completing challenges in subjects like Crafts, Hobbies, Sports, Wellness, and the Outdoors.
[[https://store.steampowered.com/sale/nextfest|Next Fest]] is currently going on over at Steam, where you can try different demos for upcoming games for free.
[[https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct5nyv|My life as an arbonaut, explorer of the treetops]], audio interview with "Canopy Meg" Lowman.
[[https://jamesg.blog/2024/02/19/personal-website-ideas|100 things you can do on your personal website]]-- some of these would be great for a Dreamwidth-posting challenge here, too!
[[https://ballonlea.net/articles/stamp|A Brief History of DeviantART Stamps]]-- do you remember these? I do!
[[https://www.rileygrae.com/blogs/news/a-brief-history-of-kewpies-and-the-revival-of-kitschy-housewares|A BRIEF History of Kewpies (Suffrage, Mayo + Sonnys)]]