Scraps from 2025-06-18 to 2025-06-27

Posted on Friday 27th of June 2025 at 23:20

Last week was a poor week to start these scrappy little notes, because I've spent this week on vacation! Most of my infosec- and tech-related reading happens at work these days, so this edition is a little short on that front.

You'll be very glad to hear, if you haven't already, that Mike has returned to the throne with not one, not two, but three scrolls! What a relief, welcome back Mike! I can, after a single issue of Scraps, finally stop posting these :)

Wait, hold up. What's this? In the latest Scroll, Mike made a special mention of these scraps?! And LIKES it?! Well, dang.

Mike, thank you for the shout out and kind words. You've inspired a lot of what I do here on this site, and I share your opinion about human curated lists and the intentional decline/enshittification of search. The human touch is increasing in value and rarity on our ever-more LLM-driven web, so continue to publish I shall!

So, dear reader, if you're here for a scrappy collection of tangentially related and poorly organised links to stuff I found cool or interesting or worth sharing, read on. If you want something way better, check out Shellsharks' Scrolls (after ;)

Let's get the second Scrap going!

Spotlight

Xandra is at it again - she has reached version 1 on Riverton, a free browser based virtual pet and ranch simulation game - go check it out!

Indieweb, Fediverse & Social Media - people stuff

The human side of the web - some say the best side and I agree with them darn it.

If you're a fan of the fediverse, Jeff Sikes has your merchandise options covered with this awesome list
Jelloeater has consuming loadsa blog content down to an art, they write about the process here. Some management around this process would be useful for me since starting these scraps, and there's plenty of ideas for me in this post
One of the blogs I check every day, rachelbythebay, has been quiet of late. However, Rachel just posted a neat little tool, a rollover calculator which lets you determine the source of some of those magic numbers which seem to appear everywhere in tech for some niche reason
There are three things a man must do before he dies: plant a tree, father a child, and write a book. -- ReadBeanIceCream posts about hearing this quote and the realisation it unlocked within. It's a great read. Now, where's that book draft I wrote a decade ago...?
That reminds me, June's indieweb carnival prompt is "take two" by Nick. I hope you post! (And I hope I do, too!)
Speaking of indieweb events, this month is Junited - Ruben has shown his appreciation by listing some blog posts that interest him
There should be more events that encourage humans to do stuff, fight off the AI/LLM slop that is invading the web. But remember, you don't need an event to create something, whether it's written or drawn. And who cares if it's bad?! Bad art is GOOD now.
Publishing something is hard though, whether it's a book, a post, or artwork. Many of us find it difficult to post things online. SenFlyer writes about the fear of being seen.
Humans, we persist despite it all, and are still the best way to connect people, like this Mastodon thread by Andy Bell which connects freelancers, contractors and clients. Just like in the before-times! Ah, sweet nostalgia...
Nostalgia for the before-times is a powerful thing. I just learned about this project to make a youtube front end which looks like it came staright from 2009! Thanks to Jake for sharing this!
Time, and UI design, marches on, though. You may recall about 84 years ago (wait, it was only three weeks ago!?) Apple unveiled their new Liquid Glass UI. Well, it didn't take long before someone made it in CSS - only working in Chrome right now, mind.
Speaking of Liquid ~~Vista~~ Glass, Louie Mantia isn't sold on it, and I don't think many others are either... we'll see how it develops, I guess.

Infosec, sysadmin & code - tech stuff

When sysadmin is your job, you tend to switch off when you're on vacation. Which is where I've been for over a week! So we're a little short in this section this time around.

Cool tool: Nuclei - A free, open source, easily customisable, high performance vulnerability scanner. I've only just heard of this but I had a little play with it today and it looks pretty sweet.

Bonus

Some extra stuff. Why? I'll tell you why! Because, that's why!

Nexus Mods has been sold to a Venture Capital firm and let's be honest, that rarely goes well. Mod creator Leilukin doesn't hold out much hope for Nexus Mods to get better thanks to this.
If you question why you recycle when a hundred private jets attend bezos wedding, Thomas has the answer
.PNG is back - not that it went anywhere really! A spec update has arrived and... it looks pretty good actually.
And finally, here are a few more blogrolls for your consumption:

Light on the tech and infosec side this week. What, you wanted consistency in these scrappy little roundups? Oh.. you did... okay, I'll do better. Next time :) Until then, if you have any suggestions, feedback, wishes, dreams, homemade cola recipies, or bad jokes, please do let me know.