Oh hell.
I’ve gone and not published this newsletter for, what? Four years? I can’t imagine anything that might have caused that. Totally fine, here. I’m not sure that I’m back, mind you- Substack (where this thing is hosted, after the last host went belly-up) has just announced they’re perfectly fine with Nazis being on the platform, and, well, that’s clearly not acceptable to me. I don’t know if/when/where I’ll migrate this thing to somewhere else, again. I’ve been feeling like getting back to this a bit more, recently, but we’ll have to see if that sticks. To that end, I’d fully expect a bunch of bouncing emails when I mash send on this, given the time since the last one. That’s fine. I’m not trying to make a newsletter my job or anything- I’m trying to help show off some neat stuff I find that might be helpful.
Forward this to friends (or enemies!). Send me an email to say hey.
Zines
http://zine-machine.glitch.me/
Want to make a zine? Want to make a zine out of a web page that prints into a neat little fold-up booklet? This web page does that, and explains how to build something similar. The resulting zines print on a single sheet of paper, and with a bit of folding and cutting, you get an adorable tiny 8-sided booklet. It’s a fantastic thing. If you’re looking to get into the Zine game more “for real,” there’s a bit of software over here that’ll help with the layout and color layers if you’re going to print your run on a Riso machine.
Social Networks
Make and run your own social network with this fantastic guide. It’s based on the Mastodon engine, but it’s about some of the technical hurdles (which are small, honestly), and the social hurdles (which are considerably larger) involved in creating and curating a functional online social network. I’ve long been interested in the idea of smaller, more focused networks of people- places where you can get away from the global (and often ugly) “conversations” on places like twitter and Facebook. Anyway: this is a brilliant guide- and even if you’re not interested in starting your own network, the insight into what works and doesn’t when it comes to managing diverse groups is likely useful in classrooms. If you’re looking specifically for a way to experiment on Mastodon/Fediverse with your own server (and all that comes with that), there’s a lovely tool called Shuttlecraft that Ben Brown made that’s pretty slick.
Decker
https://beyondloom.com/decker/decker.html
Listen, I’ve been obsessed/dismayed by the cancellation of Hypercard by Apple. Nevermind that it happened in 1998 (and maybe I need to work on getting over things). It was a powerful, versatile, and low-entry tool that let all sorts of creative things happen. Heck, Myst was built in Hypercard. Anyway. Decker is a lot like Hypercard except that it runs in a browser and is modern (sorta?) and, you know, exists. I’ve been looking for something like this for a long time.
XOXO
Tim