Link Roundup: Curiosities
Feb. 1st, 2026 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kradeelav* “Food JPEGs” in Super Smash Bros & Kirby Air Riders - if you've ever played the Smash games you might remember the way the food-as-healing-items looked slightly different; neat little historical documentation of those items here.
* "The Monster Knife of John Fox Potter" - history can have incredibly based and interesting characters times.
* this tumblr blog (NSFW, queer history), while subjective, is one of the better leatherdyke documentation/archivists i've seen around. back when i was poking around leather history circles, finding anything on leatherdyke history was exceptionally difficult. not sure how long the tumblr will stay up, so grab what you can.
* i was briefly researching medieval seals on parchment for an illustration, and this was such a fun primer article on what they were actually for. essentially a password/encryption/anti-tampering system! the fact they mention the native american version (wampum) in addition to the european version was so neat, and how sometimes they were included together.
* have you ever wanted to see a video game moveset from different angles for quick animation reference? this entire channel is nothing but VG animation references. sekiro, elden ring, so on.
* (viaarmaina just now) - blocking claude (LLM) with one html string, will test on my site in the next update!
* I'll end on an article ("text is king") that i'm still thinking about. surprisingly cautiously optimistic, given the times.
* "The Monster Knife of John Fox Potter" - history can have incredibly based and interesting characters times.
* this tumblr blog (NSFW, queer history), while subjective, is one of the better leatherdyke documentation/archivists i've seen around. back when i was poking around leather history circles, finding anything on leatherdyke history was exceptionally difficult. not sure how long the tumblr will stay up, so grab what you can.
* i was briefly researching medieval seals on parchment for an illustration, and this was such a fun primer article on what they were actually for. essentially a password/encryption/anti-tampering system! the fact they mention the native american version (wampum) in addition to the european version was so neat, and how sometimes they were included together.
* have you ever wanted to see a video game moveset from different angles for quick animation reference? this entire channel is nothing but VG animation references. sekiro, elden ring, so on.
* (via
armaina just now) - blocking claude (LLM) with one html string, will test on my site in the next update!* I'll end on an article ("text is king") that i'm still thinking about. surprisingly cautiously optimistic, given the times.
Thoughts that can survive being written into words are on average truer than thoughts that never leave the mind. You know how you can find a leak in a tire by squirting dish soap on it and then looking for where the bubbles form? Writing is like squirting dish soap on an idea: it makes the holes obvious.
That doesn’t mean every piece of prose is wonderful, just that it can be. And when it reaches those heights, it commands a power that nothing else can possess.
I didn’t always believe this. I was persuaded on this point recently when I met an audio editor named Julia Barton, who was writing a book about the history of radio. I thought that was funny—shouldn’t the history of radio be told as a podcast?
No, she said, because in the long run, books are all that matter. Podcasts, films, and TikToks are good at attracting ears and eyes, but in the realm of ideas, they punch below their weight. Thoughts only stick around when you print them out and bind them in cardboard.
I think Barton’s thesis is right. At the center of every long-lived movement, you will always find a book. Every major religion has its holy text, of course, but there is also no communism without the Communist Manifesto, no environmentalism without Silent Spring, no American revolution without Common Sense.
That doesn’t mean every piece of prose is wonderful, just that it can be. And when it reaches those heights, it commands a power that nothing else can possess.
I didn’t always believe this. I was persuaded on this point recently when I met an audio editor named Julia Barton, who was writing a book about the history of radio. I thought that was funny—shouldn’t the history of radio be told as a podcast?
No, she said, because in the long run, books are all that matter. Podcasts, films, and TikToks are good at attracting ears and eyes, but in the realm of ideas, they punch below their weight. Thoughts only stick around when you print them out and bind them in cardboard.
I think Barton’s thesis is right. At the center of every long-lived movement, you will always find a book. Every major religion has its holy text, of course, but there is also no communism without the Communist Manifesto, no environmentalism without Silent Spring, no American revolution without Common Sense.
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