Another journal

This time the tabs weren’t open necessarily so I could organise them into other, better, folders. They were just open because I wasn’t getting around to reading them. But there was some good stuff here, so sharing again!

la la la more link cleaning

On not being a naturalist – but being one anyway over at Scientist Sees Squirrel, a lovely look at what being a naturalist means and how it is more about interest in the natural world than knowing a lot of IDs.
status: finally read

Preserving the USC Optical Sound Effects Library from The Freesound Blog, a very cool dive into vintage optical sound effects and how they worked and were created. Gosh I love archives and people who archive, and the way we learn when we archive.
status: moved to TO-DO: Sounds

The Animal Photo Reference Repository, a very cool site of loads of reference photos, strong anti-generative AI stance. There’s also a gallery of work created from these reference photos! I collect photo reference libraries then never use them, that’s fine.
status: moved to REF: Draing & Pose Reference

Art of The Great Mouse Detective from Art of Animation. This one has been making the rounds but it’s very fun and cool stuff!
status: looked at and admired

The Terror of Blue John Gap from the ACD Society. I’m no Arthur Conan Doyle-head, I think I got to this via reading about some interesting minerals (oh! it was link jumping from something in a recent newsletter from Failbetter Games), but it’s an interesting site layout and an interesting project, plus scans of Doyle’s manuscript!
status: moved to *absolutely random shit

The archive saving home sewing history from the trash over at The Verge, which talks about sewing pattern archives–notably the Commercial Pattern Archive. I found this via a post somewhere about the big four sewing pattern brands getting sold to a liquidator (more info here), which puts everybody in a pickle, because physical patterns are vital not just to sewists but to smaller pattern makers who use the same large-scale tissue paper printing machines.
status: moved to REF: Fibre & Sewing

E-COM: The $40 million USPS project to send email on paper over at the Buttondown blog is a delicious little slice of history that I feel will be haunting my back-brain for a bit for several reasons.
status: moved to *absolutely random shit

New Game Series – Art & System: Games for Expanded Play is some very cool archiving happening by Central Michigan University Press with crowdfunding upcoming.
status: signed up to be notified when they launch

We’re Really Just Going Through With All This, Aren’t We by Luke Plunkett is really such a mood (negative). It’s about how game releases etc. are approached, but my job has me looking at TV and film release cycles and it’s just!! Ugh.
status: haunting me

Which is what makes it incredible to behold that this week we are just carrying on through it all, as though nothing has changed. We’ll all be subjected to too many trailers to remember even a fraction of them. We’ll all create and digest the same console launch coverage we always have, with midnight launches, photos of people rushing home with their Nintendo-branded shopping bags, first impressions, review scores of a machine breathing only its first breath. We’re cosplaying as the 2000s, when these things meant something and were built for the occasion, even though literally everything around us–the economy, the industry, the platforms and ways we learn about and experience games–has changed radically.

A Radioactive Pen in Your Pocket? Sure! over at IEEE Spectrum is a fun quick look at some concept pens from the late 1950s. Love a Concept Object (TM). A cool thing that then led me to Parkercollector.com, which is one of those unchanged gems of the internet.
status: moved to *absolutely random shit

Okay so I guess, I am not going to get better at tab and link usage so I am going to do these more often, hmmmmmm, will think of a naming process next time.

I do not keep one million tabs open on my browser. I keep simply several dozen across multiple devices. And, since I also do normal, long-ingrained maintenance things like turning off my computer once a week, I can’t just let them fester in there forever. So what I do is make horrible little bookmark folders. It’s a bad habit! This isn’t even looking at inactive tabs in my mobile browsers! So, as I clean my tabs, let’s look at some cool stuff.

Advanced Marionette Making Techniques over at Storm the Castle. It’s a seven string marionette walk through! Very cool stuff. I am still learning marionettes, I had a couple as I grew up but was not good at manipulating them. I’ve made a couple recently but they were more about aesthetics than function. Function next! Hence having this tab open.
status: moved to Ref: Craft (Paper/Costume/Miniatures)

NBOS Character Sheet Designer. A free and very cool way to design character sheets. I encountered this through a tumblr post that is now somewhere deep in my 400+ item queue about blorbos/OCs, and using a character sheet as a template for understanding your story’s main character is genius. NBOS in general slaps.
status: moved to Ref: Assorted, downloaded and installed

Do You Maze. This is a really cool site with printable mazes, but most importantly, guides on drawing mazes. I’ve been adding mazes to my zines as I lay them out, this is where I am learning!
status: moved to Ref: Art Collab & Drawing Tutorials

In that same vein, Super Teacher Worksheets and Discovery Education Puzzlemaker are both incredibly dope ways to make cryptic puzzles and stuff. Also using those in zines (and for fun).
status: in general TO DO folder for easy access

Basic Sprang Moves at Solrhizaarts. I do NOT need to learn or fall in love with new to me fibre arts but dang I am all :eyes: about sprang. I do not have space for this in my heart or day at this moment, I need to close this tab.
status: moved to Ref: Fibre and Sewing

Skink Zine from BlackMudpuppy. Skinks! Zine! Love pics of these little guys, this looks fun.
status: moved to Want: Books

Queer Palestine from Pinko. A zine curating a “small archive of queer Palestinian life”. Obviously relevant to me.
status: moved to Want: Books

Appalachian Transsexual by Kyrsten Nerys Hodge. I actually already bought this (physical copy) I just need to close the tab.

My Tuesday Author Interview over at Night Beats. This was rad! I love Night Beats and Zilla is a joy.
status: linked from TAG Serialised page

Both The Art of Future War and Pulled From the Deep are articles I have open so I can read/finish reading them. Both incredibly topics I am always curious about.

One link, for https://its-behind-you.com, is no longer working since I had it up. It was some really lovely personal site for a Panto actor who had recently passed. I’d set it aside to go through it more later, there were pictures from shows, and history and all the lovely stuff one finds on that sort of thing. I’m guessing the domain is no longer being paid for. A loss!
status: moved to ARCHIVE: Dead links I want back

Okay, I think that’s it. Whew, thank you for coming along as I cleaned things up. I need to do this (blogging and link cleaning) more often. Oh! Speaking of links, I have added a pal’s blog to the Links page! Go check out Groove Pit! You know you love spreadsheets and TTRPGs.