Here are a few stories, posts, and resources I’ve read and enjoyed over the past month.
Hope you enjoy them, too!
What I Found Interesting
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If you have binoculars (or a small telescope), this month is the best time to view the Lagoon Nebula in the night sky. Preferably a night with no moonlight.
I had no idea Laguna Nebula is a stellar nursery, where new stars are constantly being formed.
Or that it spans an area in the sky three times the size of a full moon.
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Woohoo! It’s the first time in over 400 years that baby beavers have been born in urban London, Great Britain.
At least two kits (young beavers) have been spotted outside their lodge in the past few weeks.
Beavers used to be permanent residents in the capital, before hunting, habitat destruction and persecution led to the loss of the species throughout the UK.
In October 2023, the first five beavers were reintroduced in Paradise Fields in west London.
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If you’re like me, you’ve heard of Friendica, but weren’t quite sure what it is, The Future of Social is Here: a Show and Tell (part 3: Friendica) by Elena Rossini is an excellent introduction of what Friendica can offer you.
As Rossini explains, Friendica is a decentralized social network “a powerful aggregator of social networks and online content.”
Rossini shares her first impressions as she walks you through how she created her Friendica account and added RSS feeds as well as Threads and Mastodon accounts.
And gives high praise to Friendica’s user experience.
I can’t think of any other social network that gives you all these options.
Friendica’s unspoken message is: “you are in control.”
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The U.S. Library of Congress continues to impress me.
Their Prints and Photographs Division recently added the All Over the Map Flickr album highlighting a variety of maps found in photos of miniature golf courses, napkins, classrooms, war rooms, and more.
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For anyone involved with web design, CSS-Tricks was one of the top resources about web design, CSS, HTML, and more. It was my go-to place for years, where I learned about new techniques, discovered fellow designers and developers, and enjoyed the community.
After CSS-Tricks was sold to Digital Ocean in 2022, people wondered if it would continue as it had before.
It did for a while.
Until it didn’t. And people working on CSS-Tricks were laid off.
Well, I’m glad to learn CSS-Tricks is back again. With Geoff Graham. And a couple new writers.
And an invitation to the community to write an article.
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August 6th is the anniversary of the very first website, launched in 1991. Written by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the website contains information about the World Wide Web project.
And the very first website still works.
