Notes for July 11, 2026

My Retirement Uniform via Concrete Lunch

Before that trip to Cavender’s I ordered a leather belt off Amazon. When it arrived one of the little snaps where you change the buckle was already broken. ENSHITTIFICATION. I returned it for a refund. Cavender’s was 95% stuff I would never wear. The whole country/western/cowboy aesthetic doesn’t appeal to me...BUT – the merchandise was super nice! My style or not, man, being in a store full of quality clothing and intelligent employees made me feel like I was in the right place! At least for a plain leather work belt.

I feel this SO MUCH lately. Everything is shit. It's almost impossible to find real leather shoes, belts or even wallets in most department stores anymore. And I, too, wear Doc Martens to work every day. Even though, as Bob mentions in this post, they're made in China now, they're still the only dressier shoes I've bought that haven't fallen apart after six months. I need to get a good belt now too.

You paid me, a long-time Linux user, to use Windows 11 exclusively for a month: here’s how it went via OSnews

This goes about how you'd expect 😆

For someone used to desktop Linux, where respect for the user, consistency, customisability, and performance are still held in high regard, Windows 11 feels like an endless string of punches in the face.

HyperTexting is now available on the App Store via HyperTexting

I absolutely love this! I geek out over anything with an emphasis on RSS. Especially since everything has an algorithm now, and it's constantly trying to manipulate your emotions and attention so you spend more time in their app, or buying things from ads.

It feels a bit like a Twitter or Bluesky timeline, only everything is pulled from RSS feeds. No login necessary. It looks like they're working on letting you post from your Hugo, Wordpress or Ghost blog eventually too, so that's cool. Anything to make the web more human is cool with me.

The Tiny Awards, celebrating the best personal, independent, non-commercial, and newest websites via disassociated.com

Founded by Matt Muir, Matt Klein and Kristoffer Tjalve, who is also a co-publisher of the Internet Phone Book, the Tiny Awards celebrate the independent, quirky, and utterly unique. Something even a cursory glance at the previous three winners quickly makes apparent.

That's what blogging is all about: being your authentic self instead of posting for clout or ad views. We're all unique and have our own quirks. I love community stuff like this that showcases awesome indie bloggers you'd probably never find otherwise.

Let's call doomscrolling what it is via saiyan's corner

We are drowning in an endless stream of things calling for our undivided attention.

I had to delete TikTok off of my phone recently because it became such a vampire with my free time. If I have something to do in two hours I'm like fuck it; I'll just scroll TikTok until it's time to leave. Or if I'm bored at work, sitting in the drive through waiting on my order, up late on a Saturday night after everyone went to sleep... whenever I had free time, I was doomscrolling.

That's what I love about the small web/indie web; whatever you wanna call it. It moves slower and more intentionally. You might actually have to do a little digging and exploring, but what you'll find is authentic content without an endlessly scrolling page. There's a pause after you read a blog post — an opportunity to tune back into the real world, instead of feeling like you're going to miss something the second you look away.