Published in Invisible Illness·PinnedMember-onlySpoon Theory and PracticeSimple tasks for mental health in stressful times — Hobbies are Important My friend Andrew Dacey and I tend to have weirdly overlapping hobbies. I mean, that was part of why we became friends in the first place, but then it built weirdly from there. We both worked IT, we both liked role-playing games, he was a talented photographer and I wanted…Mental Health4 min readMental Health4 min read
Published in The Writing Cooperative·PinnedMember-onlyStrong Female Characters vs. Strong Characters that are FemaleThe phrase Strong Female Character has become a term of derision… and probably rightly. For the most part, writers who are creating Strong Female Characters are doing so with the intention of creating Strong Female Characters, which usually leads to creating underdeveloped characters. So, what makes a character a Strong…Feminism4 min readFeminism4 min read
Mar 9My Mom’s BookIt’s about making websites that people will actually use — Today is my mother's birthday. A few years ago, she wrote a book. It never really caught on, which is a shame, because it’s a really useful reference for web development. The title is 5 Keys to Building a Clear & Usable Website. There isn’t much in the way of…UX2 min readUX2 min read
Jan 27Member-onlyHow Automation Enables CreativityThe robots are coming to help you make cool stuff! — I saw an ad a while back. It was for voiceover work for video… but it wasn’t the usual kind of ad; it was for computer-generated voiceovers that are indistinguishable from human voice work. We’ve all heard this in practice — sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn’t. A few…AI6 min readAI6 min read
Sep 22, 2022Member-onlyWhy the Furor Over AI Image Generation Copyright is MisplacedA technical perspective, not a legal one — Right now AI art generation is making the news all over the internet — it started with the incredible images produced by Dall-E 2, then MidJourney hit, and it was a game changer. AI art started showing up everywhere. The next thing to appear on the scene was StableDiffusion, an…AI5 min readAI5 min read
Aug 19, 2022Member-onlyAn Experiment in AI Content Generationwill AI take over writing? — An AI text generator wrote the article below. I think it’s based on GPT-3, but I’m not sure. I know that they have GPT-3 based tools, but they don’t have a content warning, so I can’t be certain. It’s pretty generic and a bit shallow, but easily as good as…AI6 min readAI6 min read
Jun 17, 2022Member-onlyMoving Email List to MediumAn experiment — I’m moving my email list from Mailchimp to Medium. Maybe this is a bad idea, after all, I’m putting all of my eggs in one basket. …Writing2 min readWriting2 min read
Published in The Partnered Pen·Apr 13, 2021Member-onlyThe Pressure to WriteHow one event stalled my writing for a year — He said it was okay, he could go now — the things I was writing were saying what he wanted to say to the world. A little over a month later he was dead. My father called me for Christmas 2019. He lived half a world away and we didn’t…Mental Health3 min readMental Health3 min read
Published in Writers’ Blokke·Mar 26, 2021Member-onlyDependence is Learned BehaviourStop yourself from disabling your loved ones — Driving Forces I like driving stick. Manual transmission, it’s a thing — it feels more connected, like you have more control over the car. Many years ago my then-partner and I decided to buy a car together. She had never driven a vehicle with a manual transmission, so we talked about whether…Mental Health5 min readMental Health5 min read
Published in Writers’ Blokke·Mar 24, 2021Member-onlyADHD Meds are the Starting Point, Not the CureLearning life skills you missed is a crucial step — Late Diagnosis I was diagnosed with ADHD in my forties. I don’t think it was much of a shock to anyone who knew me, but it was still a long time coming. After 4 decades of struggle, of failing to quite fit, of not being able to do the sort of thing…Adhd6 min readAdhd6 min read
