Assorted links - July 2026
Some link titles have been slightly modified for style.
Entertainment
It's not about physical vs digital games, it's about ownership
Popcar explains why digital ownership is important in the gaming community.
On K-pop and generative AI
(CW: AI-generated imagery)
Some personal thoughts from gogumapizza about the cover art for Red Velvet's Velvet Summer, as well as South Korea's obsession with AI.
TV's TV (1987) and TV Games Encyclopedia (1988)
Matt Stephon's guide about Fuji TV's late-night program about video games, along with its printed tie-in.
Indie web and online life
Blogging with Magic Unicode: Simple Doesn't Have to Mean Boring!
Brennan shares some CSS code snippets and tricks for a visually enticing blog.
Google is locking down Android, and it needs to be stopped
The Frugal Gamer encourages anyone to keep Android open and de-Google their devices as much as possible.
I need my phone to log into everything
Same, Melinda... In my case, I mostly need it for online banking and shopping. Anyway, I love what she said about intentional smartphone usage:
I get it. You feel like you waste too much time on whatever and that whatever is easily accessed on your phone. It's easy to change the device first to change your behavior. But once you've lost the constant urge to "check" stuff, you don't have to log back in. It's possible to have a smart phone that allows you to communicate with others without scrolling through the dopamine casino.
I regret to inform you that Gmail is now a spam farm, or why you should really get that dedicated email address now
John Scalzi's post title is already self-explanatory. The professional author discourages AI-assisted writing in emails, which is a big plus in online communication.
Iocane (the AI scraper poisoner) is Good, Actually
Rachel Kaufman sets up Iocane to protect bots from visiting and crawling her website.
Online Popularity
Kestrel writes why persistence does not equate to success, especially in sharing fan works to the public.
You don't have to blog like me
An open letter from Dan Q about individuality in blogging.
Slice of life
Thank you, Canada
James Zhan lists some positive things about the Canadian society.
Things I would like to tell my 10 year old self
A bunch of useful life advice from Winnie Lim.
We need more calm companies
Thanks to Justin Jackson via Bluesky for letting his son showcase some human-made art! Anyway, I will just quote what he meant by the term calm company:
A calm company's purpose is to provide exceptional service to customers while simultaneously improving the lives of the people who work there.
Writing
My Gen-Z Sitcom
(CW: Mild language and drugs)
Teddy Wayne's short story about the zoomer lifestyle, but make it a script for a TV sitcom.