Contents

Artists

  • Paul Rickards collects and uses vintage pen plotter devices to use with modern computers and code like Python to create new works of art. I’ve got a bunch of Rickards stuff up at home.
  • Leagh Gardner started oil painting in 2020 and by 2021 was a working artist. I’ve got an original pigeon at home.
  • Oliver Leach (Bakkooonn) is a photographic artist. I’ve got a few of Oliver’s pieces.
  • Deth P. Sun is an artist who makes paintings and drawings and zines and stickers and prints. We have a great print of Sun’s Secret Histories Map of San Francisco in the main floor bathroom so that guests can examine it undisturbed. I’m constantly finding new things in it myself. Sometimes I feel bad when guests who live in the Portola neighborhood are over and I remember it isn’t on the map.

Authors

Patreon posters

Video stream and VOD posters

Apps and services

  • 1Password — 1Password has been the best of the bunch for years and I’m happy to be all in on a family plan, we use it all the time.
  • AllMusic - I RSS various bits of music crit from lots of places but I pay for AllMusic and almost always start there when I want to know where to start with an artist, what their influences might have been, who they themselves influenced, and so on.
  • AllTrails – I use this a few times a year but pay because I never know when I’ll want to get to a trailhead and have a map of it.
  • AmpliTube – I live in the city and, short of going to a rehearsal space, can’t really move air much. I still usually route through my pedalboard to a USB interface to my Mac and it gets the job done for that.
  • Anylist – Our family plans groceries and menus in Anylist. I’m super bummed there’s no export as I’ve got a hundred recipes or so, but it works reall well so whatever.
  • bandcamp – “at the show”, “wherever the artists says to buy it”, “bandcamp”, in that order. I try to remember Bandcamp Fridays but usally aren’t that patient.
  • bandsintown – get notified when artists you like are playing in your town. This is what I used to use last.fm for before that got crappy and I deleted it for reasons I forget. It’s merely OK, and unfortunately mostly legacy acts, and the mac app is buggy as hell. But, the service works ok when I remember to keep adding artists to it and I see a few shows a year I wouldn’t have noticed without it.
  • CityStrides – I’m trying to walk every street in SF so I pay CityStrides to import my Strava, who I also pay but don’t list here, to keep track. I would skip the Strava step if I could.
  • CyberChef - computer stuff. I honestly forget I have it and never use it so this is here to remind me, which it will fail to do.
  • Fastmail - I finally stopped hosting my own mail and switched to fastmail in 2013.
  • Guitar Pro - I subscribe to GP because if I want a shortcut and my ear isn’t getting me there, they probably have it.
  • Home Assistant - “I’ll never use home automation nonsense” disproven immediately.
  • inoreader - Google Reader → Feedly → inoreader.
  • iReal - Jazz charts. Like a bottomless fakebook.
  • Ivory - Everyone’s favorite Twittter client, Tweetbot, now a Mastodon client.
  • Kagi - “Our mission is to humanize the web, making it more accessible, and centered around your needs.” I subscribe monthly and use their browser, Kagi, for lots of things too.
  • Macrofactor Workouts - After a few years on Fitbod, which is ok, I switched to Macrofactor Workouts. I think nearly everything about it is better? Like Fitbod, I tell it what gym equipment I have handy and what my goal is and give it about an hour a day, six days a week.
  • Macrofactor - Or, Macrofactor Nutrition? Inspired by a few people in my life who started tracking what they eat and benefitng, I gave it a shot, learned a lot about what’s in my food, and lost 30 pounds in a year.
  • Marked 2 - Weird that OS X doesn’t natively render markdown, but whatever.
  • Patreon - Where I tend to fund the people in other lists on here.
  • Pocket Casts - I pay for this so that I can upload stuff from the Internet Archive to it and so that I can RSS a bunch of patron-only feeds.
  • Put this on - Menswear finds on e-bay. I pay their monthly and have picked up a few cardigans for cheap and learned a lot from their selection choices.
  • Rectangle – A Mac tiling window manager thingy. I use full screen and split screeen only.
  • Signal Messenger -
  • Strava - Annoying growth mode nonsense but there isn’t much else like it.
  • Sublime Text - Vintage mode although more and more I’m just using VS Code.
  • Transit - How I catch Muni.
  • YNAB - My wife and I have a share our budgeting and YNAB helps us keep on top of it. Lovely. Really wish it could do more, but in a complimentary way.

Podcasts

Magazines

  • Clarkesworld - I pay for the paper delivery and try to finish it before the next months.
  • Dwell - I pay for the paper delivery (and don’t read it) so that I can use their website for inspo.

Music streams

Music Assistant is the only interface I use for all music. When I find a radio station or stream I like that doesn’t have a native integration, I find the url and stash it there manually.

  • BAGeL Radio - GenX rock pop as likely to play Led Zeppelin as Weezer as Alvvays DJ’d by a real person who has great taste. Used to be a based in SF and a SomaFM station, moved to NYC, went independent.
  • Jazz Groove - Most mornings.
  • KCSM - “The Bay Area’s Jazz Station to the World”
  • KMHD - Jazz Radio, Portland
  • Le Mellotron - When I don’t know what to listen to, I put on Mellotron. It is my default bicycling-in-SF music, making dinner music, chilling on the patio music, etc.
  • NTS - I usually proceed directly to “Expansions”, but the two live streams are often also good.
  • qobuz - I put off subscribing to one of these infinite-catalog sites until 2025 and when I finally gave in, I just looked for whatever paid artists the most.
  • Radio Nova - The Beach, Classics, New, Night, Reggae, Soul: all good and what I put on when I don’t like whatever is on Mellotron.
  • Radio Paradise - The Rock Mix is generally OK.
  • SomaFM - PopTron, Indie Pop Rocks!, Heavyweight Reggae, and Left Coast 70s are in my rotation.
  • WFMU - “Independent freeform radio broadcasting at 91.1 and 91.9 fm in New Jersey and New York City, and at 90.1 and 91.9 fm in the Hudson Valley, with gobs of online offerings.”
  • WTUL - “WTUL is a progressive/alternative FM radio outlet in New Orleans, Louisiana, operating at 91.5 MHz with an ERP of 1.5 kW and established in 1959. The station, operated primarily by students of Tulane University, offers a mix of cutting-edge progressive, electronica, classical, New Age, straight ahead jazz, folk, blues Latin, world reggae, show tunes, kid’s show and an eclectic mix of a variety of genres.”

Websites

Or Bloggers, and Magazines, and stuff like that? This list is synced with my Inoreader account every day to keep up with new stuff but I don’t make much of an effort to remove innactive feeds.

My webring

A bunch of people I shoot the shit with from time to time, that I internet-know, and some real pals I like, actually go get dinner with also have old sites like this one. Good for us.