unique/candidate-sources.md

Candidate sources

Newly nominated sources awaiting review before promotion to sources.json. Each entry says where it came from and the case for adding it. Vet manually, then move to the main list.

2026-05-04

• Tokyo Paladin — https://tokyopaladin.substack.com/ — surfaced via Daring Fireball Linked List crediting their post on Noir, the Yamazaki "Japanese Oreo." Substack focused on Japanese consumer products and cultural curiosities, in the vein of "things you can only buy in Japan that quietly outclass their global competitors." Substack feed should be curl-friendly via the standard /feed pattern. Strong candidate for the gifts and general-delight buckets.
• PetaPixel — https://petapixel.com/ — surfaced via Kottke link to NASA's Artemis II photo dump. Long-running photography publication; coverage spans gear, photo essays, and historical archives — overlaps general-delight (photo finds) more than tools. WebFetch-friendly historically. Vet for noise-vs-signal across topics before adding.

2026-05-03

• Robin Good's "Best Curated Newsletters" — https://robingood.substack.com/ — surfaced via WebSearch. Annual list of curated newsletters; less a daily-find source than a yearly source-of-sources to scan once and harvest. Worth checking the most recent edition for newsletters in our brief that we don't yet track.

Full-sweep capture round (apple-tips, quotes, dad-jokes new topics)

• Simon Willison — simonwillison.net — https://simonwillison.net/ — surfaced via Kottke's link to the Talkie LLM post. Daily-cadence link blog focused on developer tools, LLMs, and small clever software. Strong overlap with the macos-apps and tools brief; technical but consistently surfaces underrated open-source projects. Probably WebFetch-friendly.
• This Is Colossal — https://www.thisiscolossal.com/ — surfaced as the originating credit on Kottke's Unruly Play post ("via thisiscolossal.com"). Long-running art and visual-culture publication; would expand the general-delight bucket toward artists / installations / oddities. WebFetch-friendly historically.
• Daily Dad Jokes podcast / newsletter — https://www.iheart.com/podcast/867-daily-dad-jokes-89110830/ — surfaced via WebSearch. Weekly roundup curated from r/dadjokes; might just duplicate our existing r/dadjokes feed but the editorial pruning could give a higher-signal alternative if the JSON is accessible.
• Dad Says Jokes (Beehiiv) — https://dadsaysjokes.beehiiv.com/ — surfaced via WebSearch. Newsletter dedicated to dad jokes; Beehiiv's RSS feed should be curl-friendly via the standard /feed pattern. Vet for actual originality vs. recycled Reddit content.
• The Mac Power Users podcast (Relay FM) — https://www.relay.fm/mpu — surfaced via WebSearch for apple-tips. Long-running Apple-platform podcast; show notes pages list the apps and tips discussed each week — those notes are the actual source-of-sources value, not the audio. Probably WebFetch-friendly.
• TheMacU — https://themacu.com/ — surfaced via WebSearch. Tutorial-heavy macOS site with weekly newsletter; seems tutorial-thicker than our taste demands but worth a single vetting visit. May overlap too heavily with OSXDaily and 9to5Mac.
• Selkie Design — https://selkie.design/ — surfaced as the Hour by Hour developer site. Single-developer / single-app site, not a feed source. Skip nomination — flagged here only to keep the trail.

Gift-focused round (Amazon-leaning)

Goal of this round: expand gifts coverage with sources that lean Amazon-purchasable, and probe whether Amazon's own surfaces (Idea Lists, Influencer Storefronts) are usable as feeds. Note up front: Amazon does not run a unified consumer discovery blog — the closest native equivalents are user-curated Idea Lists (amazon.com/ideas/...) and Influencer Storefronts (amazon.com/shop/{handle}), neither of which has a central "browse new" feed. Discovery there is per-curator. All US-locale; src/lib/affiliate.ts only tags amazon.com today.

Editorial curators (highest signal-to-noise, vetted gift voice):

• Wirecutter — Gifts — https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/gifts/ — surfaced via WebSearch. NYT-owned product testing publication; the gifts hub is a perennial source of considered, taste-driven recommendations, and most picks have an Amazon purchase path. Likely needs curl (NYT blocks WebFetch) or skip if paywalled — vet fetchability first.
• The Strategist — Gifts (New York Magazine) — https://nymag.com/strategist/tags/gifts/ — surfaced via WebSearch. Long-running gift-recommendations vertical with strong editorial voice; many picks Amazon-purchasable. Same publisher anti-bot risks as NYT may apply.
• Apartment Therapy — The Bazaar — https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/the-bazaar — surfaced via WebSearch. Home-and-living shopping vertical; lots of Amazon picks framed by design taste. Likely WebFetch-friendly.
• Girls' Night In — "The Cute List" (Alisha Ramos) — https://girlsnightin.substack.com/ — surfaced via WebSearch. Taste-driven curation of "delightful discoveries" (style and culture); gift-adjacent with regular Amazon links. Substack feed available, so the existing curl pattern used for Recomendo should work directly.
• Wirecutter — Deals — https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/deals/ — sister hub to Gifts; surfaces Amazon-discounted versions of already-vetted picks, useful as a "gift on sale" signal. Same fetch caveat as Wirecutter — Gifts.

Reddit communities (cheap to add — existing curl + JSON path supports them via top/.json?t=week&limit=25):

• r/AmazonFinds — https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFinds/ — community-tagged Amazon discoveries. Mixed quality (some TikTok-style slop), but the top-of-week filter should surface the genuinely upvoted finds. Vet for delightfulness vs. cheap-gadget noise before promoting.
• r/Gifts — https://www.reddit.com/r/Gifts/ — request-and-recommendation community; many resolved threads point to Amazon. Useful for "what to give X" patterns rather than discrete products. Vet noise level — requests outnumber recommendations.
• r/HelpMeFind — https://www.reddit.com/r/HelpMeFind/ — people hunting for specific items; resolutions often land at Amazon. Lower volume of pure gift content but high signal when a thread closes with an answer.
• r/INEEEEDIT — https://www.reddit.com/r/INEEEEDIT/ — community sharing surprising/delightful product finds, very gift-shaped. Strong overlap with the "delightful and distinctive" brief; many items are Amazon-buyable.

Amazon-native surfaces (experimental — fetchability uncertain, per-curator quality varies):

• Amazon Influencer Storefront — Alix Earle — https://www.amazon.com/shop/alixearle — surfaced via WebSearch (AmraAndElma roundup). Trial example of a storefront with unusual categories like "Gift Guides for a Partner's Parents" and "Amazon Luxury." Vet for taste fit — fashion/beauty leaning may be off-brief. Storefronts are SPA-heavy; both webfetch and curl may fail.
• Amazon Influencer Storefront — Julie Capozziello — https://www.amazon.com/shop/juliecapozziello — surfaced via WebSearch. 64+ curated Idea Lists across lifestyle, gifts, books, snacks. Trial example of breadth. Same fetch and taste caveats as above.
• Amazon Gift Finder hub — https://www.amazon.com/gift-finder — Amazon's own editorial gift surface. Expect heavy algorithmic + sponsored content; included as a baseline to evaluate whether Amazon-native editorial is worth tracking at all. Likely fails the brief on its own; useful as a control.
• Amazon Idea Lists search — https://www.amazon.com/gift-ideas-list/s?k=gift+ideas+list — there is no native "browse all Idea Lists" page, so a search-results URL is the closest thing to a discovery feed. Probably noisy; flagged for evaluation rather than confident inclusion.

Sources-of-sources (one-shot scan, not daily fetches — same pattern as Robin Good above):

• AmraAndElma — "25 Top Influencers with Amazon Storefronts" (2026) — https://www.amraandelma.com/top-influencers-with-amazon-storefronts/ — yearly roundup; scan once to harvest more storefronts that match the brief, then drop.
• The Influence Agency — "Top Amazon Storefront Creators" — https://theinfluenceagency.com/blog/amazon-storefront-top-creators-2025 — second curator-of-curators reference; harvest names, then drop.