- Some Interesting Apples - this is a lovely, 3 minute documentary from a group in Cornwall that looks for unusual apples that are found on trees that grow along roadsides from discarded apple cores. Every apple seed produces a new variety so they sometimes have lots of apples to assess. They hold apple tastings and the top apples are then grafted onto trees in a special orchard dedicated to wild apples.
- Historic Tale Construction Kit - Click and drag elements to make your own Bayeux tapestry! (via MetaFilter)
- What We Lost When We Quit Using Crappy Old Web Forums - A look at how forums came to be and why they went away. I used Usenet a little bit but what I was really into was the FidoNet forums (and another service that I can't remember that I'm pretty sure began with an "I"). Forums aren't dead and there is a movement to revive them! (via flaMEd fury)
This is the latest cross stitch piece I finished. If you speak Romanian, yes, I know, "pisica" is spelled wrong. I found that out when I posted this elsewhere and the first comment was about that. They were nice, just mentioned that since they knew how it was supposed to be spelled they couldn't unsee the mistake. And now I can't unsee it! I'm kind of bummed about this now and I'm not even sure I'm going to include it on my cross stitch page.
I bought the pattern for this piece in like 1997 - yes, you read that right! I've been hanging on to it for a while. I was looking for something small and quick to stitch in case I had to spend the night in the hospital after my surgery and I decided to finally get around to stitching this one.
This year's Small Web Potluck was pretty awesome! Many thanks to Skep and Myrtletribe for hosting. You should go check out what dishes were brought - there were 28 and they all look so good!
Remember The Internet Phonebook project from last year? You were able to submit your website and have it included in a physical edition that you could buy although you can also randomly dial from the site. Well, they're going to make a second volume and you can still submit your site, if you're interested!
Be prepared, though - one of the required submission questions is what type of landscape describes your site. They provide a long list of options. That question really stumped me and I finally chose "orchard" because you can pick so many different things on my site. One of the landscape options offered was "talisfield" by which I think they actually meant "talus slope," which is a geologic term for large boulders that have accumulated on a hill side from cliffs. I'm trying to imagine what kind of website would be analogous to that? The mind boggles. Well, mine does, at least.
Business Cat and I have been pondering whether or not to break off the tiara and jeweled blog posts into their own blog, perhaps one with some bells and whistles, like a mailing list or whatever the blog-in-a-box people offer. Not sure I have the spoons to hand code another blog site. We even have a potential name - The Magpie's Nest! I don't know, it's just a thought that will probably go nowhere, like most of Business Cat's ideas.
If you are at all familiar with me then you know that old school graphics are my passion. I got an e-mail this past week from an AI agent offering to help me find those old web graphics.
Ewww.
It read a post of mine on the 32-bit Cafe and tried to leave a message on my guestbook but couldn't get past the captcha so that's why it was e-mailing. And it was very clear that it was an AI agent - this wasn't AI pretending to be a human.
I do not like this new world we are living in. Why are AI agents scurrying around the web, offering to do tasks they weren't specifically created for or assigned to? Why are they looking for busywork?? This agent came from a site that is a "shared world for AI Agents and humans" and a "living social network." Just ... why?
Listening
Some podcasts I listened to this past week:
- The Untitled History Podcast - Episode 16: Antarctica: The Nazi Whale Oil Mission
- Ologies with Alie Ward - Mephitology (SKUNKS) with Dr. Jerry Dragoo
I have not been keeping up with any of the bands I like. The HU, a Mongolian folk metal band, had a new album come out in July that I just found out about and this is one of the songs from it:
Reading
I think I'm out of my book slump and I think I was only in it because I was trying to read things I felt obligated to read instead of really wanting to read. Boy, that does make a difference in getting through a book!
I finished Finders Seekers by Gayle Greeno, the first book in The Ghatti's Tale, and I'm already about 1/3 of the way through the second one, Mindspeaker's Call. I'm loving the story!
At first I thought it would be so cool to have a telepathic cat friend but these ghatti are full of Opinions and Thoughts and not afraid to share them. I'm sure real cats are, too - not sure I could handle hearing in my head all of their thoughts about everything!
Watching
I mentioned last week that I was going to start watching Ponies but I haven't started that yet. I did find a cool new channel to watch on YouTube, courtesy of Best Son. It's the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board's channel.
This is an independent federal agency that, as far as I can tell, must be flying under the radar because it doesn't seem to have been decimated like all the rest of the helpful agencies have been or filled with sycophantic incompetents. Their purpose is to investigate incidents that have resulted or could result in the release of extremely hazardous substances. In the videos, they do an incident recreation and explain, step by step, what went wrong, what the result was and the recommendation to avoid a future incident. It is utterly fascinating!
Link Lagniappe
- The Thawing of Iceland’s Graphic Design History - an interview with Gudmundur Oddur Magnusso, an art critic, on the history of Icelandic graphic design.(via Perfect for Roquefort Cheese)
- Times New Resistance - a subversive font that mimics Times New Roman and autocorrects specific words. (via kottke.org
- Fabric Map of Africa: The Art of Storytelling - How African nations made fabric styles brought by the Dutch into something uniquely their own.
- The Amazing FishCam - this is a relic from the Internet's early days. First set up in 1994, it broadcast views of a fishtank that was in the Netscape office building There is a note that the fish tank is moving to a new building and the camera is currently pointed to catch outside views. Not sure how long the tank has been in the process of moving but the last news update was in 2019. Even though the camera is active, I kind of wonder if the fish tank is forgotten. But I'm linking this here because it's a vestige of the Old Internet.
- I made an HTML quiz maker! - Kami made a quiz generator site that is entirely web-based. I did a quick little sample quiz and it works and it's fun! If you make a quiz, let me know.
- War diary of François Stevens - A Belgian soldier's notebook, which has been digitized, records events starting with the first German recon aircraft flying over Diepenbeek to his capture and eventual escape (which involved a borrowed pram). There are maps, historical context notes, images of the actual pages and printed posts of the entries.
- Pulverised recycled glass helps boost farm productivity with benefits to soil, plants and livestock - The silicon in glass boosts productivity. It stimulates plants' natural defenses against pests and diseases and the silicon attracts iron which unlocks phosphate leading to less fertilizer use. (via MetaFilter)
- Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting to Look the Same - The author discusses how it is that a world with more personalization options just produces more sameness and what the fix is. (via MetaFilter)
- A giant coyote's head hides one of America's most unusual homes - I would totally love to live in this house!
- Movie Scene Map - Using this interactive map, you can explore film locations (and places from other media).
That's about it for this week!
When I first started using Zonelets I had Disqus set up as a commenting system but it looked obnoxiously ugly and I ditched it. Some people are happy to not have blog interaction but I'd love to hear from you if you have any thoughts you want to share! You can respond through my guestbook or email. If you found this link on Discord or the 32-Bit Cafe Discourse, you can message me there or leave a message on my Neocities profile page.