Links

This page contains links to my other presences on the Wired (well, I’ll post them eventually), and links to websites we find useful and/or interesting.

Web Design Resources

• Brackets
  Open-source text-editor built for web design, features live page previews.
• Can I use…
  Check browser compatibility for numerous features.
• CSS-Tricks
  Articles on how to build websites and implement specific features.
• FatCow’s free icons
  Cute icons under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
• Hex Hub HTML Color Codes
  Over a thousand named colours and their corresponding hexadecimal codes.
• High Performance Browser Networking
  A free online textbook on web performance.
• JSFiddle
  Test your code here. Allows real-time collaboration, too.
• Open Graph Protocol
  <meta> tag protocol established by Facebook. This is how you get attractive previews when you share links on Facebook or Discord. Preview your Facebook links here.
• Sublime Text
  One of my favorite text editors. Shareware. —Ansel
• Twitter Cards
  <meta> tag protocol used by Twitter, includes properties unique to that platform. Preview your Twitter links here.
• W3Schools
  Free tutorials on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and more for web developers. Not affiliated with the W3C.
• Yusuke Kamiyamane’s free icons
  Cute small icons under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Cool sites

• Dr Yi-Hui Chen
  If you’re thinking of designing an academic CV, you should look at this.
• Fionn’s Hotline Café
  Personal site of musician and game developer Fionn, hosted on Neocities.
• GIBIATE PROJECT
  Nice, modern mobile website design for a creative project. Loads fast, uses video embeds responsibly, form compliments content and vice versa, and it has the neatest “hamburger menu” I’ve ever seen. Too bad the anime’s a piece of crap. —Ansel
• The Horror GIF Necronomicon
  Collection of spooky GIFs.
• Mebious
  Let's all love Lain.
• Men’s Pulp Mags
  Outlandish, bizarre, and thrilling illustrations for men’s pulp magazines.
• My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Episode Guide
  Whether you watch the show or not, this is a fantastically built, information-rich and usable episode guide. The webmaster has posted the source on GitHub.
• Seraphinelle
  I live for this girl’s Lolita fashion and aesthetic. —Ansel
• Unlikely Stories: A Cloud in Trousers
  English translation of Vladimir Mayakovsky‘s poem, A Cloud in Trousers, by Andrey Kneller.

Other useful places

• The Adversity Within (archived)
  A blog on grief and cultivating resilience in the face of all forms of loss.
• Astronomy Picture of the Day
  Discover the cosmos one photo a day, with an explanation written by a professional astronomer.
• Baka-Updates Manga
  Information on mangaka (manga authors), manga, and scanlations. With an account, you can make your own reading lists and rate manga.
• Dig Deeper: How to choose a browser for everyday use
  Brief reviews of numerous web browsers and their forks, with an emphasis on user privacy.
• EDGE of Existence
  Research and conservation of the world’s most Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered species.
• Imagine, A Center for Coping with Loss
  Grief resources for children and youth.
• Key Middle School Library Bibliography Guide
  I always thought this guide was really concise. Easy for kids to understand, too. —Ansel
• McKechnies - Diseases and Medical Terms
  Definitions of dated and archaic medical terms.
• Online Etymology Dictionary
  One of my favourite websites. —Anatolij
• ViPER’s Audio
  Free audio driver for Android and Windows.

Humour

• Donald W. Obama
  Facebook page lampooning the American two-party political establishment. Five terms and running!
• ClickHole
  Satirical feed-like website. My favourite story: “Not Very Scary, Honestly: This Little Girl Is Possessed By The Spirit Of A Normal Guy”.
• Duffel Blog
  All about America’s armed forces. HOOAH!
• Existential Comics
  Twitter account largely consisting of left-wing quips.
• Gomerblog
  Work in healthcare? God, I pity you.
• NOT A WOLF
  Twitter account of a human man who is most assuredly, not a wolf.
• Oglaf
  NSFW fantasy comics. Lots of sexual content. You’re really not meant to masturbate to them, though.
• The Onion
  Real events! Real coverage!
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
  Daily webcomics for anyone with an interest in science.
• Shen Comix
  Life is unrelenting harshness and suffering. Cute comic.
• Zero Punctuation
  Video game review series by Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw.

News

• Defense One
  News and analyses on US foreign policy and national security, aimed at policy makers.
• Gamasutra
  Video game industry news and design essays.
• Nursing Times
  UK-based publication on nursing news.
• PLOS One
  Peer-reviewed, open access journal published by the Public Library of Science.
• ScienceDaily
  Aggregate of research headlines and press releases.
• The Intercept
  Exposés of American politics. Brasilian edition here.
• World Socialist Web Site
  News, commentary, arts reviews, and essays on history written from a Trotskyist perspective. Published since 1998.

Free books

• Documenting the American South - University of North Carolina
  Primary resources for the study of Southern history, literature, and culture. Recommendation: Autobiography of Williams Wells Brown, former slave.
• eBooks@Adelaide (archived)
  Ebook library formerly hosted by the University of Adelaide. Free to read in your browser or download. ePub and Kindle versions available. Recommendation: The War with the Newts
• Faded Page
  Over 5,000 books in the public domain in Canada. Recommendation: Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Famous (and forgotten) Fiction
  Focuses on classic adventure fiction and pulp stories in the public domain. Recommendation: The Scarlet Plague
• HathiTrust Digital Library
  Digitised books academic and research libraries from around the world.
• International Children's Digital Library
  Children’s books, many available in multiple languages. Very useful for language learning. Recommendation: Nobody’s Dog
• Internet Archive - Books
  Many books are available for either free download, or digital borrowing. Recommendation: Ames’s Guide to Self Instruction: Practical and Artistic Penmanship
• LibriVox
  Public domain audiobooks.
• MetPublications
  Publications from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Many of them are available for free public download! Recommendation: China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200–750 A.D.
• Oxford Text Archive
  Various texts and datasets for literary and linguistic scholars. Contains some works available in HTML.
• Poem Hunter
  Free poems from around the world. Very good collection of classic works. Recommendation: “Dulce et Decorum est”
• Project Gutenberg
  Over 60,000 public domain ebooks. The vast majority are in English, though the library does have original non-English works, such as Bernhard Kellerman’s science fiction drama Der Tunnel (German). Recommendation: Gulliver’s Travels
• Sacred-Texts
  Archive of world religion, mythology, folklore, and esoterica. Recommendation: Mark Twain’s satirical “Letters from the Earth”, written by Satan to his friends in Heaven
• Wikibooks
  Collaborative, open-content textbooks.
• Wikisource
  Source texts and translations thereof.
• Writings@CSU
  Open-access textbooks and resources for writers, supported by Colorado State University.

Metal

• Blacksmiths Association of Missouri - Free Book Downloads
  Numerous manuals and volumes that have entered the public domain.
• Blacksmithing for Beginners: Hammers
  Guide on hammers for beginner blacksmithers. (Self-explanatory…)
• Damascus Steel—A Rediscovery? From R&D Innovator vol. 3, #10
  Account by Dr Oleg D. Sherby, Stanford Professor of materials science and engineering.
• Ivan Kirpichev
  Bladesmith making genuine watered (“wootz”) steel in the Russian tradition.
• Making Damascus Steel, by Achim Wirtz (RU)
  German metallurgist describes the process of making crucible watered steel.
• The Key Role of Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades From Journal of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society, vol. 50, #9
  Research paper by J.D. Verhoeven, A.H. Pendrav, and W.E. Dauksch.
• Military and Classical Sabre Group
  Historical sabres and fencing discussion and media. Get yer sword porn here.
• Moose Forge
  Notes on blacksmithing.
• The Mystery of Damascus steel appears solved From the New York Times, 1981.09.29
  Article on the efforts of Dr Oleg D. Sherby and Jeffrey Wadsworth.
• Nick Thomas’s Flickr
  Hundreds of sabre photos by the co-founder of the Academy of Historical Fencing in Newport, Wales.
• Peserey - Circassian Handicrafts
  Turkish smithy making beautiful sabres, knives, axes, and more.
• Raiders of the lost steel - Chemistry World
  Article on the history of wootz steel and attempts at historical reproduction.
• Reproducing crucible steel: A practical guide and a comparative analysis to persian manuscripts
  Paper by Manouchehr Moshtagh Khorasani.
• Rietveld Knives
  South African bladesmith famous for his forge-welded “Dragonskin Damascus”.
• Types of Polish War Sabres from the XVIth to the XVIIIth Centuries
  English translation of the research paper by Wojciech Zabłocki.
• Wojtysiak Weapons
  Polish blacksmith who specialises in forging sabres. Beautiful axes as well.

Game Design

• 10 Seminal game post-mortems every developer should read - Gamasutra
  Post-mortems of classic games including Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Diablo II, and Baldur’s Gate II by the old greats.
• Art Direction Autopsy: X-COM Enemy Unknown - GDC
  Conveying essential information without overloading too much, making things recognizable at a distant glance, etc.
• Blake Reynolds, pixel artist, renounces pixel art - Gamasutra
  Pixel artist explains the fundamentals of pixel art, and makes the point that game critics are artless hacks talking out of their asses.
• Codecks
  Collaborative management tool designed by and for game developers, with built-in Discord integration to collect and organize feature requests, ideas, and bug reports.
• Electron Dance
  Thoughtful commentary on PC games.
• GDC Vault
  Presentations from the Game Developers Conference, many of which are available for public viewing (no membership required).
• Lessons in Color Theory for Spyro the Dragon - Gamasutra
  One of Tolly’s favorite articles on one of his favorite games. Too bad the remakes don’t know anything about making a decent palette.
• Sand Rendering in Journey - GDC
  How do you make sand look sandy? Turns out you have to bend reality to make it feel real.
• Spore 35-minute demonstration from 2005 - GDC Europe
  What could have been. Has it already been fifteen years…?

Contemporary artists

• Drawing Armoury
  Bishoujo in historically accurate mediaeval European armour. Also has a Pixiv.
• K. Kanehira
  Human habitats, fantastically painted.
• Sinnykitt
  Cute, gory art.
• Kiryu
  Krogans.
• Nomiya (Drink Shop)
  True to their name, they paint sparkling illustrations of refreshments. Often with cute animals!
• saya
  Visually stimulating space, water, and shard pictures.
• Trevor Henderson
  Horror artist and creator of Siren Head.
• Waterhouse Gallery
  Santa Barbara-based gallery showcasing many plein-air artists with a focus on Californian subjects.

Porn (NSFW, obviously)

• [ ]
  Guro and cannibalism.
• Arsh
  Lean mean boys. Ansel’s type. (Don’t fucking say that…)
• Code:TK
  Shredded babes with killer abs. Also Ansel’s type.
• Dizdoodz
  Bara artist with superb technical skills.
• Jun Shou oOO / dokumushi
  Hot alien sex.
• K-niii—
  Gynoids.
• Lusty Lest’s Banana House
  Pornography and diary written by an insane person. Cute website.
• MADO GuchiMoto / RRadical
  Cute girls who murder and eat other girls.
• Po-ju
  Soft femboys and the occasional amazon. The rendition of the fabric…
• Shinachiku
  In case you like your shotacon with a side of diabetes. These are some of the sweetest coming-of-age stories…
• Sousuke
  God of dark-skinned warrior bara.
• Takuan
  Fujoshi (BL) artist. Painterly renditions of the human form.