Feeling Fresh

by . .

computing hands indieweb rsi

It's been a long time since I've written here. In 2022, I was fairly busy with my master's studies and attending Recurse Center. Then, from fall of 2022 all the way through to the end of 2023, the lion's share of my time went to writing my master's thesis. Because I'm still dealing the hand injuries I sustained in 2019 and 2020, I often had to limit my time spent at the computer to just what I needed for working on my thesis. Writing for recreation was a no-go zone.

However, over the course of 2023, voice-to-text AI applications took a dramatic leap forward in quality. After a bit of practice, I was able to write by voice with a speed and fluency that was completely impossible with the crappy last-generation dictation systems previously available on my iPhone and Mac. The main content of my master's thesis totaled 200 pages. I wrote virtually all of that with my voice, and I'm dictating this post into a local speech-recognition application (Superwhisper) which would have felt like magic just two years ago. That feels like a tremendous gift. It is a tremendous gift.

Once again, I am capable of recreational writing. I'm going to make damn sure I take advantage of an opportunity I thought I'd never have. In that spirit, here are the things I'm currently working on:

  • I revamped this website to look a little prettier. It's not going to win awards, but it's not longer a sea of text against a pale orange background.
  • I'm editing two books. One of these is a project which I can't discuss publicly. The other is The Streetvendor's Guide to Worldbuilding, by Alexis Smolensk. This RPG supplement book, due to be published next year, explains every aspect of material culture that you can think of, across dozens of industries, with detailed descriptions of the market goods that those industries produce. The book even takes into account the changes in the technology that took place from the 12th to the 17th centuries, to accommodate fantasy game worlds that resemble different historical periods, such as the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, or the Early Modern period.
  • I'm planning my 30th birthday party, to be held August 24th (my birthday's the 27th.)
  • I'm upgrading my website to participate more fully in the Indieweb. I've just finished my Micropub server, and I'm really looking forward to getting back into the IW community!