I liked this video. He talks about how Gen Z grew up in a world where no one actually owns anything. From a Kindle library to music, movies/TV shows and even video games, we don’t really own our media anymore. I have exactly four physical games for my Switch and I think two or three for the PS 4. The rest, adding up to a sickening amount of money, are all digital copies that I’m not guaranteed access to forever.

Remember when the internet was still new, and you could spend hours digging through random websites, stumbling on weird little corners full of esoteric info you couldn’t find anywhere else?

Lately, that’s what RomHacking.net has felt like for me. There are tons of mods and hacks that breathe new life into classic console games we’ve all played a million times. I’ve been on an absolute rampage—patching ROMs and loading them onto my Anbernic SP clone nonstop these past few weeks. Here are a few standouts I’ve been hooked on lately.

Really good interview with Kevin Rose on the Digg revamp and making the web more human. Honestly I feel some social web vibes here… Like it’s not really indie I guess but anything to humanize the web is a win for me.

Most of us are here because we’re sick of what social media has turned into over the last couple of decades. A lot of us only ended up on Reddit because Digg went away.

With AI slop taking over more of the web every day, it’s good to know some of the big names in tech are working to preserve a little bit of that old school community vibe from back in the day.

If you read this blog, you know I’m going through an obsession with retro gaming right now. If you’re on the indie web, you’re probably a fan of old tech like RSS. There are plenty of algorithm-driven, much newer, much more high tech alternatives, but RSS is so simple and yet powerful.

I’m still on my Pico 8 kick. It kills me how many hilarious demakes there are for this little fantasy console. You can play all of these right in your browser – you even get touchscreen controls if you’re on a phone or tablet but certain ones like Linecraft and Pico Zombie Garden aren’t really playable without a mouse.

This is a video of my pink toe tarantula, Alucard, going after two crickets. At first I thought he came in too hot and just missed both of them, gave up and went back to his web to sulk.

Then I came back a few minutes later and one of the crickets made its way to the ceiling of the enclosure and started twisting and contorting for a while until he ended up all sprawled out and paralyzed. It was pretty gnarly! 😱

He finally came back out to eat after a bit. I never get sick of watching this furry little guy!

Once I finished Blasphemous 2 on the Switch, it was clear that I was smack in the middle of a brand new addiction. An addiction with no real side effects, aside from blind rage when things seem impossible. And the only withdrawal symptoms are intense cravings when I’m busy with meaningless, repetitive every day tasks like holding down a job.

Ever since I picked up my R36S handheld a few months ago, I’ve been obsessed with these Chinese emulator consoles. They’re tiny Linux computers that can run anything from the Atari 2600 up to Nintendo DS and even ports of more modern PC games like Stardew Valley.

Retro games are my jam. Anything with at least 8 bits, a sword, and a dungeon to escape can usually keep me occupied for hours days. Lately, I’ve been going through a Metroidvania kick on the Switch, but yesterday I started playing with my R36S handheld for the first time in a few weeks when I discovered something I never saw coming…

I was surfing different streaming apps last night when I realized Peacock has the entire backlog of Saturday Night Live available to watch. My favorites were always the 90’s stuff, so I started with one that Tom Hanks hosted back in 1992, just a few weeks after the Rodney King riots.

George H-Dubya was still president but Ross Perot and Bill Clinton were campaigning hard right before the elections that November. Watching the Weekend Update with Kevin Nealon for the next few episodes was like stepping into a time capsule.

You can just open your laptop, go back in time and get a taste of what was happening around the world any given Saturday for the last five decades. I think that’s pretty neat.

It got me thinking about blogging. I’ve heard a few people on the indie web say something to this effect, but the longer you maintain your own little website,...