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  • libraries are a treasure and should be treated as such.

  • the snack pack does golden ears

    A small Velo Orange Neutrio bicycle lays against a farm gate. It is a small 20 inch wheeled bikeA bike rider holds a pack of Goldfish snack.A specialized rockhopper bicycle leans against a tree with a bunch of camp gear included.A Norco Bigfoot from the 90s leans against a tree.A man in a colourful shirt flexes his muscles on the beachA cyclist looks off into the distance on a beach wearing a cycling cap.A picture of a lake at sunset.A camp cup that says Bicycle Coffee has an Aeropress on top of it.A Swift Industries saddleback is shown with a rainbow reflector hanging off of it.Two cyclists bike on a dirt road in the heat.A cyclist rides their bike on a forest service road with a bag of cans hanging off of the backAn empty forest service road is shown.A veggie burger with two patties is in the hand of a cyclist.A cyclist stands in a river. Only their legs are shown.A cyclist lays on some rocks in a river as they cool themselves off during a hot day

  • a friend just made me a pocari sweat bike bag and i am obessed. this is truly an amazing community.

  • just realized i like bikes because they make me feel like a mech pilot.

  • coffee outside – 2023/08/10

    Cyclists sit on the ground making camp coffee at rainbow parkA cyclists looks off into the distance while chatting with friends at a parkA Velo orange bicycle is on a kickstand in the morning at a playground for coffee outsideA group of cyclists sit and drink coffee in the morning. There is a walking bridge above them and another cyclists holding a coat in the background.A Velo Orange Polyvalent bicycle sits on a kickstand in a park.

  • unfucking the internet #2: tolerating inconvenience

    Last week a new shiny browser (Arc) was released. It is by far the best browser that I’ve ever used. It’s well organized, fast, feels like an OS for the web (a great line from their marketing, btw).

    I won’t be using it.

    september 2024 goblin here: i am definitely now using it, lol. it’s honestly great. i hope firefox steals every one of their ideas. until they do, i am sticking with arc on mac. i still pay for mozilla’s vpn & relay though. they are still the only browser i am actively giving money to. so ya, arcs great, but mozilla is better for the internet. using opera gx on windows atm, because my aesthetic growth was stunted at 14 and i still love rgb-gamer-core.

    There is nothing wrong with Arc, they aren’t some secret evil corporation that makes money solely off exploiting its user’s data (at the moment*). The more competition in the browser space, the healthier the internet is. It isn’t even because it’s built from Google’s open-source browser engine like Chrome and Edge.

    It’s because they are in the business of making money first and foremost. This will always complicate the ethics of products, regardless of their profit model or mission.

    I love Firefox and it will stay my primary browser (although I have switched to Brave for a few productivity tools that keep crashing Firefox) because Firefox is built by the Firefox Corporation, which is owned by the Firefox Foundation, a non-profit guided by some pretty awesome guiding principles.

    In my current attempt to unfuck the internet, the first thing I’ve learned is being intentional online means dealing with a lot of inconvenience. Nothing is simple when you start to remove yourself from the buffet of media and services available online.

    Currently I am downloading the vinyl and tapes I own and adding the mp3s to my phone. Sometimes it’s simple, other times, the sites that used to host those files no longer exist. I just bought a cassette assuming that it would come with a download code, but no luck.

    Trying to stream albums from bandcamp, attempting import mp3s into my phones music app, all of this is can be super tedious.

    Recently I removed Messenger from my phone. Which means missing messages as I remind folks that I have transitioned to SMS, Discord, and Signal.

    The thing is, I think it’s worth it. We’ve grown so accustomed to such an easy, cheap online existence that we’ve never really questioned what we are trading in return.

    We are trading our data, our privacy, our attention, our behaviour, and little bit of our identity.

    Hear me out.

    Music is a huge part of my life. Same with anime. Same with some of the shows I really, really adore (the owls are not what they seem). I learn a lot about people through their interests and their collections. Recently I had a vinyl night with a friend and I felt I knew them better as I flipped through their record collection, excited to share in their passions.

    So ya, using a browser has a vision I believe in is inconvenient at times. Ya, losing access to all the music ever is inconvenient.

    I think the trade offs are worth it. In return we get: software that is more ethical, a better sense of ourselves, and a better sense of each other.

  • n+1, but for black band t’s.

  • november by tyler, the creator is an s-tier bop.

  • vhs tapes were soft, and i like that.

  • intentionally online

    Life on the internet is real life. They are not separate. They affect each other, they inform the actions in each sphere, and how we operate in both matters.

    We may operate differently, interact differently, and consume differently online, but our interactions have lasting effects on our lives outside the internet.

    Social Media’s business model is built on the connection between the digital and physical. Ads and influencers have to directly correlate with the increased sales of products, services, and ideas (this one is the most troubling) for them to be worth the investment.

    I believe it was Jarod Lanier who purposed that all social media is built on behaviour manipulation as a business model. The more unconscious, the better.

    This is not a good thing for internet users, and unfortunately, we have very little power in relation to large corporations that build the products we interact with.

    What we do have is the power to choose how we use the internet and the products we use. Much like consumer capitalism, we have the choice of where our dollars and our attention is spent.

    I believe the free flow of information, communication, and software is a deeply inherently good and powerful thing. A thing that we should protect. That the internet should be used to for those things, rather than the exploration of its users.

    The first step is awareness and intention.

    Are we aware of how we are using the internet? Are we aware of how the companies that build the products are using us and our data?

    Are we using software we truly intend to? Is it good for us? Or are we using software as a reaction? What does it look to intentionally use software?

    Are we deeply considering our choices and what kind of internet they contribute to?

    Most importantly, how do our choices affect other human beings online and off?