PREVIOUS RANDOM SITES OF THE WEEK

The links below all open in the same window or tab as this page by default. Clicking the star (★) at the end of the entry will open the headline link in a new window or tab instead. This seems to me to be the best way to make it a bit more convenient to visit random sites without closing or losing this page while not making it a surprising or annoying default. Based on my tests so far, the new tab should pop up to the right of the parent tab, and the new window on top of the parent window.

Another thing to draw attention to is that this feature began in 2018, and so some sites have changed a great deal over the past several years. If you want to be sure to get a sense of the version of the site that originally featured on The Moonspeaker, it is worth looking the link up on the wayback machine and dialling back to at least the year of the random site date. This is especially important for multi-author, political projects and their associated blogs, which will inevitably reflect changes in personnel and other outside pressures. With politics also come accusations of various types of malfeasance, which may or may not be well-grounded when made or at the time the site was encountered, so it is all the more important to check the source.

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• Language Creation Society (2018-12-27) : A serious ongoing non-profit society intended to promote and support the construction of languages. It is evident that it has expanded into a somewhat wider remit than this, with strong ties to linguistic research and study of language change. There is an excellent resource listing including links to some useful books and materials, and best of all link to the adjunct blog fiat lingua, an archive of longform conlang articles. ★
• Through the Flower (2018-12-20) : The Feminist organization founded by Judy Chicago "to educate a broad public about the importance of art and its power in countering the erasure of women's achievements." It started as a way to fundraise for the monumental Dinner Party project, which to this day is lauded and pilloried by turns, yet is one of the greatest works of Feminist multi and interdisciplinary history ever realized. ★
• Rogue Classicism (2018-12-13) : Another great and idiosyncratic resource online, this one written and curated by David Meadows. The site is full of good links, posts about greek and roman literature turning up in surprising places and adapted by people who might not be who you would expect. He updates fairly regularly, and has been building up listings of useful podcasts as well. ★
• Get the L Out (2018-12-06) : It is a sad fact that the only people looking out for lesbians is lesbians, and this is a key source for information on new developments as lesbians leave the so-called "LGBTQT+ good for anyone but women" movement. Great links and important information on recent protests that doesn't repeat misogynist talking points provided by people claiming to that stating the facts about being a lesbian is "transphobic." ★
• Memory Alpha (2018-11-29) : The prime fan-built and fan-maintained site for star trek fans. They are entirely ecumenical, covering the latest movies as well as the short-lived cartoons and various comic book and tie-in novel series. To date it shows no sign of the unfortunate editing wars and problems that wikipedia has to deal with, and I find it generally more navigable than memory beta which positions itself as focussed on non-canon works. ★
• Warrior Publications (2018-11-22) : A site serving many purposes, to "promote warrior culture, fighting spirit, and resistance movements" in Indigenous Nations, to provide analysis and news coverage of anti-colonial struggles, and a historical archive of relevant articles and documents. Well worth reading for an Indigenous perspective on current important anti-colonial developments. ★
• Derrick Jensen (2018-11-15) : Prolific author and environmental activist. He is among the very few non-Indigenous people who looks directly at mainstream culture and states bluntly that "civilization" not only has to end, it is ending, and the question now is how humans are going to cope with that. I have encountered strange claims that he is misanthropic, but this term can only be applied to him if the only way we can imagine humans being is as valuing money above all other things and ways of being right down to the basics of life itself. ★
• Julie Bindel (2018-11-08) : A major Feminist activist who works to end violence against women and children, co-founder of Justice for Women, and prolific author of books, articles, and papers. Her work is well worth reading and thinking through, regardless of whether or not you agree with her because she is an excellent writer who sets out her arguments in a clear fashion, which is all too rare in this strange age of "queer theory." ★
• Prickly Paradigm Press (2018-11-11) : One of several attempts to reestablish critical pamphlet literature in the relatively mainstream press, this one a reincarnation of a small press founded by anthropologists Keith Hart and Anna Grimshaw in 1993 in england. This version is based in chicago and run by a small team of scholars supported by university of chicago press. The range of topics is wide, and more of the pamphlets are being made available as free pdfs over time. See David Graeber's on Anarchist Anthropology. ★
• Spinifex Press (2018-11-04) : A Feminist press founded in 1991 by Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein with over 200 books in print in multiple formats. Among the first presses to have a website and online ordering, Spinifex takes a firm Feminist position and has taken a leading role in organizing in Feminist publishing, helping bring it through the 1990s backlash. They have recently established a pamphlet series, "Spinifex shorts" to provide solid introductions with references to a range of topics from publishing to surrogacy. ★
• Exploring European Folkdance History (2018-10-27) : Elizabeth Wayland Barber is an archaeologist, philologist, choreographer, and dancer whose remarkable corpus of work includes books exploring the deep history and development of textiles, how knowledge is encoded and handed down in oral tradition, and the ways we can cautiously reconstruct aspects of the most ancient cultures via careful linguistic analysis. She has a dry sense of humour and no mercy for nonsense, which makes all of her books, including the formidable Prehistoric Textiles wonderful and absorbing reads. Her website is an excellent introduction to her work. ★
• Shekon Neechie (2018-10-20) : An absolutely brilliant Indigenous history website built and contributed to by Indigenous historians using multiple media, Indigenous scholarship, and where constructive, mainstream sources and approaches. It debuted in june of this year, and contributors needn't be academically affiliated, quality of work is what counts, and that includes work that may use non-mainstream presentation approaches. ★
• Sheila Jeffreys (2018-10-13) : As you would expect, Jeffreys' official homepage, featuring her books and a range of articles. It includes video and audio recordings well worth the time spent with them. She has been an active lesbian Feminist for many years, and continues to serve as a key gender critical speaker and writer since her retirement from academia. The current most recent update is from 2014, but there should be new postings soon because Jeffreys has a new book coming out in august 2018. ★
• Lesbian Herstory Archive (2018-10-06) : An american, grassroots lesbian archive founded in the 1970s by a feminist collective and supported to this day primarily by thousands of hours of volunteer work and dollars of donations. This amazing work of lesbian herstory recording and archiving is more important everyday, and especially now in a time of resurgent attempts to delete any acknowledgement whatsoever of lesbian existence. ★
• First Nations Periodical Index (2018-09-29) : An index of journals dealing mainly with Indigenous scholarship by people working in Turtle Island between 1999 and 2006. In effect, it was updated as part of a Saskatchewan Indian Federated College project as the college transition into the First Nations University of Canada. It does not appear to be updated, although it remains freely available for use. ★
• ProjectEuclid (2018-09-22) : Founded as an affordable platform for small scholarly publishers to make work electronically available in mathematics and statistics by cornell university library in the early 2000s. Since then, it has developed a significant open-access component, according to its documentation more than 70% of the journal articles are available for any interested person to read online. ★
• jasonhickel.org (2018-09-08) : Blog of london-based anthropologist and author Jason Hickel, who may now be most famous for working hard against the manic insistence that the only way to stave off the collapse of the environment we humans find easiest to live in is to double down on extractive economics, especially late stage capitalism. He is well worth reading because he provides citations and actual arguments rather than hand waving and faith statements. ★
• LowImpact.org (2018-09-01) : A more regularly updated complement if not alternative to lowtech and notech magazines, both of which are not as critical of the absurd perpetual motion machine model of economics so rampant currently. Includes extensive useful blogposts and links to free, used, and new books that help share information. The blog is the online face of an ongoing on-profit organization and cooperative community in england. ★
• Database of canada's[sic] Early Women Writers (2018-08-25) : An excellent project, slightly problematic title aside, that will take the curious browser well past the usual tiny number of women writers held up as examples in english classes, in many cases including women who were certainly writers but would contest any attempt to characterize them as "canadian." Carole Gerson of SFU recently wrote an excellent brief introduction to this database and its origins. I can't believe there isn't a parallel project for women writers in french within canada at least in the developmental stages. ★
• Provisional Government of Assiniboia (2018-08-18) : Another website by Norma Jean Hall, though I am not quite sure why it is a whole separate site. Regardless, her purpose, which is "Acknowledging the Contribution of Original North American Peoples to the Creation of Manitoba" is a striking one. Besides articles and analyses that the reader may of course have many questions about, she has scanned and uploaded primary sources plus transcriptions. At the moment this is one of the best places to find additional parish and area maps from the period of the northwest resistance. ★
• doing canadian history n.0 (2018-08-11) : The web archive of documents, papers, and various related materials developed by scholar and visual artist Norma Jean Hall. Her area has a typical focus on the hudson's bay company, specifically its shipping. The few articles are long and fully referenced, and Hall has included several extensive bibliographies. She does not appear to update regularly, although she does keep an eye on the comments.. ★
• Hypotaxis (2018-08-04) : A much quieter corner of the blogosphere these days since Hypotaxis has already completed an important series of posts about the new misogyny and the ongoing and increasing violence it is licensing against lesbians, especially young lesbians struggling to deal with puberty and coming out. It is well worth reading somebody who points out that puberty is difficult and even more so in a misogynistic, capitalist society. ★
• Fair Play For Women (2018-07-28) : A group of volunteer women in britain who are deeply concerned about the proposed changes to the "gender recognition act" that would effectively redefine women and femaleness out of existence for the purposes of the law, eviscerating sex-based protections that are helping end patriarchy. Their research projects alone are remarkable, achieved when even their government claims the information involved is "too expensive" to collate from their own records. ★
• Daniel Heath Justice (2018-07-21) : Cherokee literary theorist, author, and historian, Justice is a key player in Indigenous speculative fiction, also known as Indigenous futurism. One of this major focii is how to revision the well-worn Tolkienesque fantasy novel with characters present and active who are ordinarily relegated the background or simply absent. Like Indigenous people and women, for starters. ★
• Kim Tallbear (2018-07-14) : Tallbear is as associate professor at the university of alberta who specializes in Indigenous peoples, their science, societies, and technologies. She has a certain advantage in this area, being Indigenous herself, and is already well known for her brilliant criticism of the uses and abuses of DNA testing in settler moves to innocence by attempting to claim indigeneity without being claimed by any Indigenous community. ★
• native-land.ca (2018-07-07) : A new project founded by Victor G. Temprano to help settlers learn about whose traditional lands they are uninvited guests on. It is based on a GIS approach, which means representation of traditional lands is a bit problematic at the moment due to inappropriately solid looking boundary lines, an issue he is working on now. Current coverage includes Turtle Island, Aotorea, Nunanagat, and "australia." ★
• Canadian Studies (2018-06-30) : Canadian historian Andrew Nurse's blog, which focusses mainly on politics, canadian history, and questions of education and the role of politics and facing challenging ideas in the classroom. His ongoing series of posts on "political correctness" is well worth the read as a starting point, drawing together issues of education, free speech, and the meaning of freedom among others. ★
• Michael Geist (2018-06-23) : Law professor and specialist in copyright law especially as it pertains to digital media, Geist also writes prolifically on "intellectual property" law and related matters. His blog is a treasure trove of quality pieces exploring canadian examples, coverage which is all too rare at present, alongside important critical examinations of the latest copyright and surveillance extension proposals. ★
• Purism Security Focussed Laptops (2018-06-16) : An intriguing and encouraging project to make something more like a secure laptop available to everyone, including eschewing tracking software for free and open software, careful hardware sourcing, and use of hardware switches to manage the microphone, camera, wireless signal, and bluetooth. Their hardware prices are improving all the time, but these are certainly not your bog standard $200 netbook, and they are explicitly designed to last. ★
• Elizabeth LaPensée (2018-06-09) : Site of brilliant Anishinabe multimedia developer and artist whose work is part of the growing explosion of works in Indigenous futurism, also known as Indigenous science fiction. LaPensée challenges preconceptions and makes settlers who don't want to have their racist ideas challenged deeply uncomfortable, and pushes videogames into doing deeper work than reskinning space invaders or doom. ★
• Public Medievalist, The (2018-06-02) : Take the concept of public history, history when people learn about it outside of an academic context, and focus in on "the middle ages" and among other results you may encounter this site overseen by Paul B. Sturtevant at the smithsonian institution. It appears to be at least two to three years old, and already hosts a fine crop of articles combining research and critical political analysis. Well, mostly critical political analysis. There are a couple of interesting areas where things seem to have gotten a bit tangled, and therefore are even more reason to have a look to see how those tangled questions can be handled in a civil way. ★
• Ellen Lupton - Thinking With Type (2018-05-26) : Companion site to the book of the same name, with many useful hand outs, illustrations, and a curated collection of helpful extras. Unfortunately Lupton provides very little information about what the site is for so it can be a bit disconcerting at first glance. Nevertheless, spend some time enjoying the graphics and typographic information, then check your library for Indie Publishing: How to Design and and Produce Your Own Book which is a fun read in itself with many practical points, although no companion website. ★
• Butterick's Practical Typography (2018-05-19) : The online version of Matthew Butterick's opus on typography, which is as much an experiment in publishing without paywalls as in how to present a book legibly on the web. Personally I find the default font size ridiculously huge and the navigation design is a serious effort to drive a person through the text linearly, or else. Those quibbles aside, the content is top notch, gets updated with blog posts and responses to new research, and includes a tasteful and reasonable selection of suggested options for paying for the book and otherwise supporting Butterick's work. ★
• perl.org (2018-05-12) : And of course here is the main site for perl, the language that some people love and others love to hate, though I'm not sure why, that sounds like so much work. Anyway, this is a central place to pick up perl distributions, which is not too necessary since it is preinstalled on most OSes, thousands of extensions, and perl's generally excellent documentation. ★
• xiph.org (2018-05-05) : It is more important than ever to support initiatives that work to keep web and internet standards open and out of private control. xiph.org is a non-profit corporation that is most associated with work on visual and audio media standards, although they are also working hard on wider questions such as the right balance between copyright and private enclosure. A quirk of the site is that its "about" page has not been updated much over the past twenty years, which is surprisingly useful. ★
• python.org (2018-04-28) : Home site for python language development, python shares with perl an idiosyncratic founding creator with a wry sense of humour and distinct programming philosophy. It's well worth experimenting with, especially since most computers come with a python distribution already installed. This website will complain if you have javascript turned off, but is quite accessible without it. ★
• A Socialist in Canada (2018-04-21) : Roger Annis' writing home on the web, where he blogs on political, social and environmental issues. He is a socialist, trade union activist, and retired aerospace worker whose commentaries on recent high profile news articles are well worth reading in their own right. So also are his curated links added to the commentaries, which include links to writers at their original publishing points who both agree and disagree with him. This is a far too uncommon practice on a current affairs oriented site or blog. ★
• texample.net (2018-04-14) : Admittedly not wholly for the fainthearted, this site is maintained and contributed to by the TeX and LaTeX communities. Even if you have no interest in using either typesetting language, do spend some time paging through the TikZ and PGF examples, of which there are thousands of gorgeous ones in which the authors have pressed beyond just working out how to generate complex graphics and illustrations to real works of art. ★
• Herbert Marcuse Official Homepage (2018-04-27) : Marcuse is perhaps best known as a philosopher of the "new left" marxists of the 1960s and his sharp critique of consumer society and attendant new forms of social control. This site is wide ranging, including numerous transcriptions, pdfs, a selection of scanned photographs, and a series of indices of related multimedia, all maintained by his grandson. ★
• Wonders and Marvels (2018-04-20) : One of many solidly established and quirky history blogs, this one sprouting from an undergraduate course that grew into a larger project with many contributors. The earliest articles are in medical history, but since then it has expanded wildly into areas from cryptography to phrenology. The staff of regular contributors includes Adrienne Mayor and Jack El Hai. ★
• Steampunk Magazine (2018-04-13) : A now defunct publication originally available both online and off, although how long its archives will remain available is unclear, Steampunk Magazine did not focus solely on fiction, since steampunk has also developed into an aesthetic and maker movement, among other things. Its run from 2007 to 2016 was based on the dual premises of steampunk's diversity and political significance. Argument continues as always, as to whether steampunk is/was merely a fad. ★
• Banned By Trans (2018-04-06) : An important central summary of the ongoing efforts to silent gender critical or even just gender questioning people who are not active partisans of the current "transactivism" also known as "sexology 2.0" stream in what is still billed as progressive politics. What makes this site especially important regardless of whether you agree with it or not, is that it provides links to evidence and original sources so that you can read and make up your own mind. ★
• Partisan Review Online (2018-03-30) : A free to use archive of all articles from a major american literary magazine for its time, provided by the Howard Gottlieb archival research centre in boston. Its contributors included Hannah Arendt, James Baldwin, Franz Kafka, Doris Lessing, and Marge Piercy, among other now quite famous writers. Some may find its earlier issues from its start in 1934 to 1950 most useful to start with. ★
• Cora Buhlert Writer, Teacher, Translator (2018-03-23) : Another excellent blog by an active science fiction writer who also writes a remarkable number of lengthy posts on the state of science fiction, the world, and politics. A couple of great posts to start with include her most recent The Other Star Trek Show: Some Thoughts on The Orville, and her reflections on conformity versus free-thinking, Michael Burnham, Poe Dameron and the Decline of the Maverick Hero. ★
• Forgotten Books (2018-03-16) : As the site description notes, this is an english publisher based in london that specializes in bringing older books back to life on a print on demand basis. This is an excellent place to check for unusual and obscure items that may not already be included in the repositories at the internet archive. Their approach bears some similarity to the dover publications reprints series, but unlike dover, forgotten books also provides free to download pdf versions. ★
• Writing by Renee (2018-03-09) : Another excellent blogger who writes about women's rights, Feminism, education, militarism, and the literacy gap. Renee Gerlich is part of the growing numbers of women writing great long form pieces with excellent cross references and source links on controversial issues. In other words, contributing to the better and more useful parts of the internet. Gerlich has also established Dragon Cloud Press. ★
• University of Calgary (U of C) Press (2018-03-02) : The U of C has also joined the open access party, with an increasing back catalogue newly available in pdf format and an impressive subject range in its own right. For the more history and environment study inclined, check out especially the publications associated with the Network in Canadian History and Environment, which include early collections of HGIS papers. ★
• Athabasca University (AU) Press (2018-02-23) : Billed as canada's first open access scholarly press, AU press provides access to an impressive roster of monographs, collections, and pamphlets for free viewing and download under Creative Commons licensing. As we should expect, cover art is rarely part of the pdf version, and it is generally possible to order paperback copies if desired (hardcover availability may vary). ★
• SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System, The (2018-02-16) : One of several projects providing bibliographic databases and access to abstracts and full texts of science papers and articles, in this case of course, specifically astrophysical ones. It also tracks citations and provides access to related external resources. ★
• Orcinus - Spyhopping the Right (2018-02-09) : Longtime blog of David Neiwert, and investigative journalist based in seattle. He and contributing writers provide critical overviews and opinion pieces examining the rise of fascism, authoritarianism, and racism in america. Don't miss the historical articles that trace connections between business and extreme right wing organizations that may surprise you. ★
• 4thWaveNow (2018-02-07) : An excellent, sensitive site developed and contributed to by parents and friends who are "skeptical of the 'transgender child/teen' trend" and including more and more contributions by the young people impacted by this trend. Resources and relevant links are a key part of the articles, and the comments are well-moderated and constructive. These features are all too uncommon on sites discussing "transactivism" and the current "transtrend." ★
• Women's Liberation Radio News (2018-01-31) : Brilliant Radical Feminist news site founded in 2016, home of the WLRN podcast and music hours. The news, commentaries, and music hours are all volunteer-written, -created, and/or -curated by women. New volunteers are always welcome, and WLRN staff are open to women looking to build their skills in areas called for by WLRN's work. Among many great resources within the podcast notes and the overall WLRN site is the numerous references and titles of relevant books, articles, music, and films. ★
• FOSS Post, The (2018-01-24) : It can be difficult to find solid sources of information on "free and open source software" that are updated and maintained over time, and are not embedded within increasingly dubious fora like stackoverflow, redit, and even the message boards maintained by software companies like canonical. FOSS Post is a promising initiative, and so far is managing to keep tutorials, reviews, and opinions mostly separated from the articles, a huge plus. ★
• Let's Encrypt (2018-01-17) : A now firmly established effort to provide free TLS certificates to websites in order to help encrypt the entire web. This is an important effort to improve the security of the web at large, including not only encryption, but also breaking the exclusive control of private companies over certificate provision and verification. ★
• Digital Studies Journal (2018-01-10) : A refereed, open access academic journal focussed on examining how digital methods have been and are being integrated within the "humanities," meaning areas of study that deal with human cultures. Not all of the papers are equally legible, but it is well worth having a look at the many ways computers can be used for highly creative and challenging purposes. ★
• FreedomBox (2018-01-03) : This project is a free software project built on a debian linux core. Its purpose is to make free, secure, and safe communication available to people on-line independent of corporations and smaller companies seeking to become corporations. "Communication" here includes publishing web sites as well as encrypted email and social networking. It can be applied to similar purposes in principle to that of the PirateBox and LibraryBox, but its build does not include a portable router to self-host and self-broadcast. ★