Mr. B showing off his new bow tie.
Remote
Steph Vee 
🇨🇦
@st3phvee@mastodon.social
mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06Posting nerdy stuff on the internet since the advent of the 56k modem. 🤓
You can find my website at stephvee [dot] ca
Unless they're linked to my blog, my posts auto-delete after a week to foil the AI data vampires that are sucking the internet dry. 😘
My profile pic is a pixel art drawing of my eldest tabby cat taking a nap (drawn by myself in Aseprite), and my header picture is an extreme close up of that pixel art drawing.
194 Followers
69 Following
23 Posts
Joined August 08, 2025
My Pronouns:
She / Her
Basket Cat is ready for delivery.
I love reading /uses pages on the #indieweb, but I always want to know more about WHY people use what they use... so I made sure to add that information to my own /uses page. 
🔗 https://stephvee.ca/hobbies/
I've been slowly chipping away at this page on my days off, and it's finally finished! Check it out!
I can't stand what social media has done to the hobby scene. I know so many people on/offline who feel like they can't "waste time" on hobbies, especially if they can't use them to make a few bucks on the side.
Hobbies can be *so* beneficial to your well-being, so I say screw side hustle culture! Do fun stuff for yourself!
🔗 https://stephvee.ca/blog/cats/my-cat-has-dementia/
Time for a little update on Mr. B... It's not great news, but it could be worse.
🔗 https://stephvee.ca/blog/updates/the-scraping-problem-is-worse-than-i-thought/
The extreme amount of unethical #scraping that's occurring all over the web right now *definitely* won't be solved by limiting nice features for good-faith visitors; for that reason, I've reinstated my full-text RSS feed. Apologies for truncating it in the first place -- that was dumb of me. More about that in my latest blog post.
🔗 https://stephvee.ca/blog/computers/new-os-old-memories/
I recently installed Linux on a laptop that was collecting dust, and have mostly been using it to revisit SimCity 3000. I've been having an absolute blast with it!
🔗 https://stephvee.ca/blog/crafts/early-efforts-in-sticker-making/
New blog post! I’m teetering on the brink of middle-age, and I’m dealing with that like any Mature Adult would by … uh, making stickers for my laptop. Lots of them.
Yeah, so I'm never posting anti-AI thoughts to my blog ever again. A post I made yesterday ended up gaining WAY more traction than I ever thought it would after it got shared to HN. While it generated some good discussion, it also led to some pretty nasty comments/personal attacks and retaliatory behaviour.
It's at times like these when I feel like retreating from the internet altogether. The #SmallWeb is supposed to be a refuge, but all it takes is one link share on a big site to ruin that.
… OK, Winter, I think you’ve made your point. You can stop now.
(That is a picnic table and two chairs, by the way.)
#winter #snow #ineedittobesummer
🔗 https://stephvee.ca/blog/updates/my-rss-feed-is-now-excerpt-only/
After thinking more about the worsening data theft /scraping problem, I've decided to strip my RSS feed of full-text content. 
I did not make this decision lightly, and am frankly incredibly annoyed about it. We shouldn't have to worry about this sort of stuff...
🔗 https://stephvee.ca/blog/rewinds/rewind-mar-2026/
My latest monthly rewind is up! Included are links to my March blog posts, as well as a new recommendation (Maxis' 2024 port of SimCity 3000 on Steam), and some new bookmarks. I also briefly discuss the reason why I've removed links to my Bluesky account from my website, and vaguely allude to my latest anti-scraping efforts.
🔗 https://stephvee.ca/blog/updates/a-clean-redesign-for-2026/
I gave my website another makeover! I'm still using the same palette (which automatically respects your dark / light mode preferences), but I've cleaned things up considerably. As always, don't forget to boop the cat ... he reacts now! 
🔗 https://stephvee.ca/blog/rewinds/rewind-jan-2026/
My latest rewind is up, where I summarize the blog posts I wrote this month, recommend some entertainment titles worth checking out (including The Pitt and The Studio, among others), and share a few interesting links.
🔗 https://stephvee.ca/blog/artificial%20intelligence/how-safe-are-our-rss-feeds-from-ai-scrapers/
Some quick thoughts about the relentless bot onslaught so many of us are seeing on our personal websites, and what this likely means for our RSS feeds. 😔
If anyone has any ideas on how we can protect our feeds from data thieves, please feel free to chime in. I'm at my wit's end with this crap...
I recently finished "The Raven Scholar" by Antonia Hodgson. There were some neologisms that irked me a bit, and the book probably could have been at least two hundred pages shorter, but it was enjoyable enough. It's difficult to find modern fantasy these days that ISN'T romantasy, so I appreciate it for that alone.
I've now moved on to "Slow Horses" by Mick Herron. I'm a big fan of the TV series, so I'm looking forward to finally reading the novels.
🔗 https://stephvee.ca/blog/cats/my-elderly-cat-is-slowing-down/
TW: discussions of pet aging and illness
RE: @pre@boing.world
Yet another #TediousBastard chiming in: if you don’t want your Mastodon posts scraped and fed to an LLM by Laurie without your consent, block him and his entire instance.
🔗 https://stephvee.ca/blog/rewinds/rewind-feb-2026/
My rewind for February is up! I take a look back at the blog posts I wrote this month and the other new additions I made to my site. I also link to some interesting sites / blog posts I found recently that you may enjoy.
New recommendations this month include: Pluribus (TV), A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (TV), and Cult of the Lamb (Video Games).
#indieweb #blogging #recommendations #pluribus #aknightofthesevenkingdoms #cultofthelamb
ClaudeBot is making regularly scheduled requests for my sitemap. It's completely ignoring robots.txt.
Enjoy your 403 errors, ClaudeBot!
I don't think I've *ever* blocked an account that quickly before. NO, I'M NOT SORRY ABOUT IT. Bluesky just keeps on giving me all sorts of reasons to stop using it completely...
(CW: references to sexual abuse material and unsafe working conditions)
Sorry for the re-toot, but when I finished this blog post last night I was ... a little concerned, I guess, that I might attract too much negative attention from AI boosters with it, so I shared it here on quiet public. I'm feeling braver about it this morning, so screw it, full public it goes! This is a story that needs to be told.
Replying to
@keefeglise@mastodonapp.uk @Skylon@mastodonapp.uk Hopping on this thread to ask a similar question: is it normal to borrow a book in the Libby app on your phone and then NOT see it on your Kobo, even after syncing?
I find it easier to use the Libby app on my phone, as it's so much simpler to filter out books that are currently not available to borrow ... but so often, it seems like books that are available to borrow on the phone app aren't registering on my Kobo! Don't know if it's an ebook compatibility issue, or what...