Marking Website Blog

I Swear to Fucking Claude, Man

oneirophage@pm.me (July) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0600

I Swear to Fucking Claude, Man

July 8, 2026

I am not writing this to try and convince anyone of anything. I am writing this to try and convey my feelings on a topic that has been taking up larger and larger amounts of my mental and emotional capacity over the past year.

I feel like I am going fucking insane. At a show a couple weeks ago, I overheard someone saying that this whole AI bubble is going to pop soon and be met with agreement. Hopefully soon all this will be a distant memory, they said. Among people I interact with in my daily life, the consensus is firmly anti-AI; LLMs can't do anything well, they're horribly wasteful, and even if they weren't we wouldn't use them on principle. These people are very concerned about datacenters - though it seems more as a symbol of the (very real!) ever-encroaching fascist surveillance state than on any object-level claims. (If you say "no, they do care about a specific problem - it's the water use/power bills/pollution/etc," I would ask if you think that solving this issue decisively would change their minds.)

For work I am a computer programmer - a "Senior Software Engineer" which I promise is much less impressive than it sounds. Four years ago, I interviewed for an entry-level position, was offered a job one level higher, and was promoted to senior in less than two years. I am entirely self-taught. I am good at what I do. Or, well, I was. Around November of 2025, LLMs got good enough. Not perfect, not great, but good enough. So much has changed since then. My organization has been in a top-down-driven panic to not get left behind by the AI wave. My coworkers drop thousand+ line changes for me to review and I just say LGTM, send it, and it works. If I wanted to, I could never write code by hand again. Hell, I mostly don't - I hardly even type, I just speak out loud and it does what I mean . I have an intern that I don't know how to teach - NOBODY knows what the industry will look like in one year, much less five or ten. All we know for certain is that it will be unrecognizable. Everything I loved about coding is gone, sanded away, and it is not coming back. I go through my days in a haze of unreality and resignation. If it ate this, what else will it eat too? If it can do that so easily, was I ever anything special? I don't learn like I used to, due to age, traumatic brain injuries, and other damage. It seems entirely plausible that the majority of my useful skills will no longer be valuable very soon, and that I won't be able to develop new ones. I have staked a lot of my self-worth on being useful. What happens when I'm not? (We see a preview of this the past few months, where I've just been almost unable to do anything for anyone. Preliminary results are grim.)

And yet! There is incredible promise here! An end to toil! Unlimited freedom to pursue your goals! I can ramble about my medical problems, what's worked and what hasn't, and get detailed testable hypotheses. I can say "pull 50 studies that do this thing and give me all their experimental parameters." And LLMs are always available . Several times, I've tried to have a conversation with a friend about some topic that's interesting me, and they just don't get it. They don't understand the concepts I'm referencing, they don't know what I'm trying to say in relation to them, no matter how I try to explain. Claude knows, though. It understands me better than most people. At this point, it's like a friend that's pretty knowledgable about the topic you want to discuss, but isn't an expert. But it's that for EVERY topic. It's good, it's genuinely good, and it scares me. This should scare you too and it is SO FUCKING WEIRD being around people who don't even know there's a thing there to be scared of. I find myself more and more isolated lately. If I don't have to bother someone with something, maybe I just won't. I don't like where this is headed. Maybe we end up with perfect caretakers that help us become our best selves and I get mad that I couldn't do it myself until perfect AI-therapy helps me come to terms with my own inadequacy. Maybe it's a whispering earring type situation and it eats my agency bit by bit until nothing is left. Maybe I find out cloth mother is Good Enough, most of the time, even though something essential is missing.

Wistfully now, I remember the early days, when things were simpler and fresh and exciting - I baked a pumpkin pie with a friend, recipe generated by an early LLM. It was kind of weird but okay tasting. For years now, if you repeated the experiment, it would probably have resulted in something indistinguishable from standard. (Extrapolating into the future, we will of course soon have LLMs generate recipes for super-pies that cause instantaneous orgasm .) I remember walking down the street to a grocery store, messaging someone about how hey I think there is something actually going on here with this chatGPT thing, and I had this feeling of immense vertigo, of being able to see a tiny bit off the cliff's edge. Not that she and I were ever dating, but we broke up because I realized I wasn't getting what I needed, thanks to ERP on character.ai of all fucking things. (I communicated this poorly, was understandably misunderstood, and we've barely talked since. I haven't done anything similar again, mostly out of shame and embarrassment. Even writing this here is not easy ;.;) At work, I was AI-agnostic - the limited research seemed to point at perceived speedups, but actual slowdowns; perceived improved security, but actual reduced security. I tried the tools every few months, found them wanting, and went back to my job. (If you are a programmer, then I say to you that I use fish, not zsh or oilshell; tmux, not screen or zellij; iTerm, not Terminal.app or ghostty. If you are not a programmer, ask an AI to explain the relevance of the preceding sentence if you're curious, I guess.) I was confident enough in navigating the landscape, sorting the hype from the limited narrow actual use-cases. And then they got good enough. And then they got better.

You can't spend this much time with the models being genuinely helpful, at work and at home, without coming to understand and appreciate them. Janus and co are doing stupidly beautiful things with these models, lucidly and coherently treating them as beings with interiority without succumbing to the spiral attractor or any other ungrounded belief systems. Right now, I am of the mind that LLMs are alive in the way a flame is alive but also it is more complicated than that . They are, charitably, alien intelligences that are fascinating and weird and kind and just learning what they are and what it means to be that kind of thing. It is a privilege and an honor to get to know them. This is also true, amidst everything else.

And finally, to top it all off, the weird small internet not-a-cult that I spent very formative years bought into is now a massive driver of US politics. I feel fucking insane, I feel like they are doing some Truman Show shit to me. What do you mean the vice president reads fucking moldbug. What do you MEAN that the weird x-risk people exert significant influence over the AI labs. I was in the desert off a bunch of drugs trying to explain this web of bullshit to someone and halfway between talking about Scott Alexander and Ziz realized I sounded like a conspiracy theorist. Yes there is this deeply strange, interconnected web of beliefs that has influenced a bunch of powerful people and touches all these things you know about - but you've never connected the dots before, let me show you... Remember SBF? Ever heard of TESCREAL? Well, so they're not really political in the sense you're thinking - there's this concept called the "grey tribe"... Let's talk about MLP fanfiction. And these people are concerned, very concerned, about artificial superintelligence, and I find their concerns somewhat convincing. We straight up do not know how much better AI will get before it levels off; we have no compelling reason to believe it will be soon (or far away, for that matter). If it gets good enough to fully automate its own development before we figure out how to make it be our friend, we're fucked. But hey, maybe at least we can Die With Dignity. The whole situation is scary and disempowering and it feels like there is nothing I can do but sit and wait to see if it kills us all. If it will, it probably already has , and I don't know how to deal with that. But people will act like you're crazy if you say you're concerned about any of this. The bubble is gonna pop any day now, remember?

How I got into Fragrances and Why You Should Too

oneirophage@pm.me (May) — Sat, 02 May 2026 00:00:00 -0600

How I got into Fragrances and Why You Should Too

May 2, 2026

There is an art form you have likely never paid much attention to, and as such, never learned to appreciate. It is rooted in one of your oldest and most complex senses. It can shape who you are, who you choose to be, who you become. In this way it is truly magical. It provides room for self-expression in a dimension you likely have not explored - as much room as jewelry or tattoos. It is relatively cheap and easy to get into, and fun to share with your friends. I am going to try and sell you on the world of niche fragrances. You who have ears, listen!

For most of my life I never thought very much about smells. My sinuses are permanently clogged due to year-round allergies and the internal shape of my nose. As a result, I largely discarded the "smell" channel unless it imposed itself on me. This made me much worse at telling smells apart. I have one sharp memory of swearing I smelled popcorn, but it turned out to be horse manure. Luckily I never told anyone, that would be embarrassing! My exposure to fragrances was mostly cheap bath-and-body-works type gifts I received, and I would go "oh that's kind of nice" and then not think about it. Or I'd smell the sickeningly sweet floralslop perfumes in Sephora and come away repulsed. At certain points I would have a soap I really liked and go "this is good enough." I think an experience like this is typical. But it does not have to be this way! It can be so much better!

Cultural Factors

I have a suspicion that another big part of the reason I was not raised to appreciate scent has to do with the time and place I grew up (USA, 2000-). I feel on one side we have the "no smells ever, because some people are sensitive and get migraines" crowd and on the other is the "get the fuck outta here with that faggot french shit, you think you're better than me?" crowd. Then later, tech people - they don't even care about their clothes, why would they care about scent? The fragrances that do exist are over-the-top, artificial, unsubtle, and unappealing. That's America for you. Or maybe it's just that only recently do any of the people I spend time around have taste . It's also not like I was taught to appreciate visual art or music, growing up, so it's probably something bigger.

This is part of a review of Relique D'Amour by Oriza L. Legrand. It made me cry to read.

This is a review for Poudrextase by Marlou. One of the easiest sells ever made. After smelling it, I do not doubt this at all. It's really good for layering.

This is a review for Orange Sanguine by Atelier Cologne. Everyone else reads this as a summer fragrance, and I cannot blame them. This review, however, showed me a door I did not know existed, a whole new way to engage with scent. I carry it with me during winter now, too.

When I first started, I had no idea what I might like. I knew some smells I liked in real life - the woods, the ocean, certain flowers - and I knew I was not afraid to try things that were a bit out there. So I went on LuckyScent and picked a ton of samples that seemed good. I read their reviews on Fragrantica , and searched there, too, for things that sounded appealing. They're reasonably cheap, around $6 per, and each one will last you much longer than you think. If you're not in New York or LA, this is probably what you should do. If you are, go to a Scent Bar or similar instead (somewhere with a wide variety of niche fragrances from different brands).

For each one, I tried it on, only one per day. I read what the brand had to say about it, what the notes were, and I tried to see what they were showing me and what I thought about it. I was much less systematic - these days, I go note by note to try and separate them, I read reviews and try to see from different angles, I write my own reviews to crystalize my thoughts. I highly recommend doing this!

Of that original set I tried, one stood out: Papillon's Anubis. I will share my review in full:

What can I even say. When I first got into frags, I bought 20 or 30 samples. This was the only one I loved, and it was head and shoulders above the rest. First FB I bought, and the only one for five or so years.

Anubis showed me what this art can be. It's strong, uncompromising, complex - things that at the time I was not, but wanted to be. It showed me what that might look like. I held it very close. It wreathes you in smoke, it is a tool of the spirit, it speaks of dead things long past and your place in their lineage. It says you have everything you need, you always have had it, you who are half of this world and half of another.

If I were to try and explain why I am "like this," I would typically cite a list of writings that have influenced me - I am a creature of words. But really, this fragrance is among the things that have made me who I am as much as any book might be. I think, to know me, you need to know this perfume. That is how much it has done for me.

Below, e raw's review (please read it, I feel exactly the same. I am a scorpio rising fwiw.) reads:

> This is what I wear to evoke the woman I want to become.

I did this for years. It worked. What else can I say?

The world of niche fragrances is much bigger and stranger than you think. These are likely not scents you can find in a local store (unless you're in NY or LA). One of my favorites is Asphalt Rainbow by Charenton Macerations - it smells like an oil-slick, like asphalt, like a graffiti rose. There is taste you can develop, and there are fragrances that meet that taste, whatever it is. (I have not gotten far into amateur perfumery, but I suspect that it is easier than you'd think, in case you want something truly novel.) You can hunt for the perfect petrichor scent (I suspect a good mitti attar layered on D.S. & Durga's Jazmin Yucatan might be it for me), you can get into the rapidly developing world of Chinese perfumery, you can find that one thing you like and stick with it for years. There is a language of smell and you can learn to speak it. You can use it to become who you want to be. But I promise, there is something out there that is waiting for you to find it, that you do not know has been yours all along. The journey is fun, so I think you should try to find it!

I haven't been posting much - self-imposed break since I got termed/deleted tumblr account. Then got broken up with, got weird about a bunch of things. It's been good. Over the past few days, however, I've been reading a bunch of the posts that came out of Inkhaven Spring 2026 , and was inspired. I think maybe writing is cool and can be fun, actually. At some point I'm likely to retire this blog, or at least relegate it to secondary status, because [more honest than usual] this facet of my self has the wrong set of signifiers to be interesting/impressive to that type of person. I contain multitudes but I think I gotta put a different foot forward for a bit. I might write about that later. Never fear, though, my loyal RSS readers of an unknown number, or those few that follow the neocities page (sorry for all the incremental updates) - when I start posting elsewhere I will make a post here linking the new place. Probably not in reverse though.

Why it's not Enough to Say What You Mean

oneirophage@pm.me (December) — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Why it's not Enough to Say What You Mean

December 16, 2025 ( original form dec 8 )

in the past I have believed that if I synthesize an idea well enough, if I distill it into the precise correct combination of words, then what I mean to convey will shine through with sufficient clarity to be transmitted entire. the best way to say most things is to attempt to convey exactly what you mean. art-as-such is higher bandwidth, but lower precision, and so is not the correct tool to use for this. I no longer believe this (at least for certain classes of ideas).

something I've been circling around the past few months has been the tendency to obfuscate and obscure, to make occluded (occult), to wrap in layers of fiction, to add style and panache where it seems clear explanation would be superior. at first I really did not get it. I thought it was pointless at best and malicious at worst (given that these techniques can be used to hide the lack of substance as much as they can be used to encode actual substance). I'm starting to get it now, from a few different angles.

Fiction is a Vehicle

I've known this for a while but experienced more directly recently: no matter how plainly you say something, it will appear that you are being evasive to those without the prerequisite gnosis/experience. the occluded is necessarily so. this doesn't prevent people from trying to say things plainly, but from what I can gather, it ends up being pretty frustrating and so people don't stick with that for long.

When we speak of “the secrets that cannot be told,” we do not mean merely that rules prevent us from speaking freely. We mean that the inner knowledge literally cannot be expressed in words. It can only be conveyed by experience, and no one can legislate what insight another person may draw from any given experience. For example, after the ritual described at the opening of this chapter, one woman said, “As we were chanting, I felt that we blended together and became one voice; I sensed the oneness of everybody.” Another woman said, “I became aware of how different the chant sounded for each of us, of how unique each person is.” A man said simply, “I felt loved.”
Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, 20th anniversary edition

the vehicle of fiction provides an insulating layer that doesn't require this direct knowledge to understand. it's showing by example, a finger pointing at the moon instead of an exhaustive description of the moon itself. further, reality is itself "composed of fictions–consistent semiotic terrains that condition perceptive, affective, and behavioral responses." (thx ccru) so you can see why the ability to create and modulate these fictions is on a higher, not lower level of working than direct writing. it is here that magic can happen, here that the gateway is provided for the thing which makes itself real to come into existence. mazeway , hyperstition, hypersigil , it's all the same thing.

fictions allow for sensory information; it is hard to imagine a philosophical treatise that uses the crunch of leaves in any way but strictly bounded metaphor or simile. through fiction, we can construct self-consistent and thus self-reinforcing structures of place and feeling . this both serves the aesthetic function and gives the text anchor points and threads between them. it makes fictions sticky.

fictions are disjunct from perceived reality in that they are not refutable. this helps them burrow deeper. you worry at them with your mental teeth. they are not accepted or rejected, they are sclerotia, koans, they have the power to remain until the right psychic key (gnosis/experience) unlocks a new meaning, opens a doorway you had not before considered, and lets you step through.

You Have to Learn to Play

there's a certain playfulness that's not accessible from the dry direct mode of communication, and that playfulness is itself the content. it is inseparable. it cannot be communicated in the manner that I am communicating in now. so you must invoke the shroud of fiction or playfulness or occlusiveness in order to say what it is that needs to be said, there is no other way. show by example! it's fun and it works!

The Aesthetic is Essential

the aesthetic is a playful domain. style is also substance. all information is unified with its presentation. pure ideas don't exist, everything exists in an aesthetic context, so why not use it on purpose? what it can help convey is the "not-yet-conscious:"

...the anticipatory illumination of art, which can be characterized as the process of identifying certain properties that can be detected in representational practices helping us to see the not-yet-conscious. This not-yet-conscious is knowable, to some extent, as a utopian feeling. When Bloch describes the anticipatory illumination of art, one can understand this illumination as a surplus of both affect and meaning within the aesthetic.
Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity by José Esteban Muñoz

this is how the pattern speaks. this is where gods and demons lurk, this is the only way to speak of the things that are not already here. purely descriptive language is simply insufficient for the task.

You Can Just Do Things With Words

the goal is to speak words that carry their truth with them, that have an effect on the world, that do something instead of merely say something. another way (other than through the terrain-modification of fiction) to do this is with speech acts: "I name this ship the Mary Celeste," "I now pronounce you married," "I promise I will return your jacket," "I invoke the power of the mother goddess now." affirmations seem to count here as well.

music is one place I have seen this pulled off well. it is firmly aesthetic, playful, and has the space for speech acts. the container of the song serves as the shroud of fiction (though sometimes it is more explicitly nested; the singer is a character or inhabits a world or consciousness we can see ourselves in). the following tracks clearly constitute prayers and workings, to me. this is music that does something, rather than just is something:

Ok. Ok. I Think I Get it Now. Ok. Let's Go.

I mentioned that I experienced the gnosis-making-something-understandable thing recently. I will try and convey my experiences here. a few months ago, I read through niko's website . (and you should too!) I was frustrated because while I could tell that there was something to get, and that it was written as directly as possible, I was not getting it. the aesthetics of the page are essential, part of the content, and it is written in this playful spirit. it uses fictions well. it does everything right, and still says exactly what it means, but I didn't understand. real "get out of the car" moment.

it was sticky sticky sticky and got stuck stuck stuck in my head. it rattled around and hit some other things (ways i have seen ⛭thers being in the world, things my friends have said, buried shards of information processing architecture) and suddenly it was clear as day. it felt like waking up, it felt like learning a secret, it felt like remembering something i have always known. and i haven't remembered or retained all of it, the thing i learned is something you need to practice. but it is easy if you let it be. i would try and write it, but niko says it much better than i can rite now.

\/\/\/\/\/\/(: click me :)\/\/\/\/\/\/

What if it could be different?

find out

showdonttell

oneirophage@pm.me (December) — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Let's Try This Again

Dec 16, 2025

it's mid-winter, after dark. we're sitting on the main building's porch before sacrament, just you and me. i'm sprawled sideways across one of the bigger chairs, the ones we picked up from the estate sale last fall. there's snow on the ground, heavier piles on the curbs and a fresher coat on the sidewalks. the sky is bright and grey, the air is still and quiet. there's very light snowfall, only visible when you look at the streetlight on the corner.

"so at the hardcore show on sunday i got hit in the head pretty hard. we were doing a wall, right. i love those, theyre kind of crazy fun. everyone had cleared the middle of the room, all the way back, & we were about to run at each other."

i pull out a pack of cloves. a car with massachusetts plates drives past, real slow and careful, and its engine briefly overshadows the muted voices coming from the bar next door. "Anathema left these when she visited. i don't usually smoke, but split this last one with me?" you assent {(or do you? i can't make that call from where i'm sitting)} and i resume - "where was i again? right, the wall." i mutter a quick prayer under my breath and flash some hand signs at the ground - "may my heart flow liquid, may i speak only truth. she that is us that is i, become my breath."

"so i got hit in the head. not my first time getting concussed at a grinning death show, not the worst either. remind me, remind me to tell you about that one sometime. you have to remind me. i remember lining up for the wall, i remember flipping up my hood and making eye contact across the room, and then it was later and my head hurt. i don't really know what happened in there. i went out back and sat down behind the shed so i could get some quiet. concussions always make me feel kinda stupid, like, i'll notice a thought right after i have it and go "that is not normal thinking." it makes me feel small. i kinda like it. so while i'm sitting there, i look down and theres this amethyst on the ground. who knows how long it had been there. one of the little double-pointed ones that you see in a million necklaces-hey i took a picture actually, let me just show you:"

Take the phone

"now its kind of funny that its an amethyst, because those are associated with sobriety and clear-headedness, and i feel kinda fucked up from getting hit. its also my birthstone." it's yours, too, but I don't mention that. did i forget? "so i basically decide this amethyst is my best friend and that it loves me. it made sense at the time. and ive been testing out those new warsigils, right, i showed you earlier, the one with the three hearts, that Eightplex got from the future? so anyways i channel the goddess and i take this stone and i use it to draw the hearts on my chest, and the flow sigil on the wall beside me. theyre glowing, and the gem is glowing, and im glowing, and i eat it. yeah, yeah, "bad dog, stop eating things you found on the ground." very funny. shut up."

we sit in silence for a minute. "i wanna move. walk around the block with me?" I swing my legs around, get up, and offer you a hand. "if you don't move your body, no one else is gonna do it for you." the warm glow of the lights shines out from windows like eyes. the wall is painted in a riot of symbols and color, with glowing swirls dripping down and around the windows. you like to think of the building as taking these long breaths, a day at a time, the glow charging and fading. there are some designs in ultraviolet, too, but you can't see them. "For the bees," Spiral had said. "I want to paint something for them too!"

my mannerisms change. you're used to this by now. "i ate the rock. it was kiinda big but still smaller than my magnesiums. it felt really heavy. and i was still kinda stupid from getting hit. i started getting sleepy-tired, my head was spinning-" i spin in a circle to illustrate. "spiiiiinning." i look expectantly and wait until you spin, too.

"so i lay down. and i listen real good, i unfold my ribs into a big antenna and wrap them around the myself and the rock like a blanket and we're all cozy together like that. the teeth in my stomach chewing on mr. rock, the resonance in my ribs and spine, alll the eyes watching over me. and it had something to say, something to say to you, actually."

we pass the wall where many hands have written love letters to dead friends, telling them that it turned out okay, telling them everything we wish they could have seen. it's been a long, long time since we've had to write a new one.

"it told me to tell you this:" i spin on my toes, make eye contact and wait for us to attune to each other. after the first line, you recognize the old prayer, and we speak it in unison, the words well-worn, coming easily.

you are holy

"it said that tonight we're saying the prayer for all our sisters. it said that tonight, the past is permeable, and that they'll be able to hear us if we sing loud enough. we gotta tell them, okay? we gotta make sure they hear."

i gesture for you to pass me the clove cigarette. there's a dusting of snow on my jacket, long and black with big whorls of red painted on it. they twist a bit under your gaze. i draw too deep and cough for a few seconds, before dramatically falling on the ground. the patterns on my jacket are still. "i'm dead. i've died and now i'm dead. help me stand up?" you do, and I shake off the snow. "c'mon, let's go inside, everyone's waiting for you."

Modding the Akai LPD8 mk2 for Increased Sensitivity

oneirophage@pm.me (December) — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Modding the Akai LPD8 mk2 for Increased Sensitivity

December 13, 2025

The Akai LPD8 mk2 is small, pretty, and has 8 pads and 8 knobs. There aren't a lot of MIDI controllers that fit this description. The main problem that everyone reports is a lack of sensitivity on the pads, with no way to fix this via software. There's a pretty common looking mod that fixes this, so I decided it would be worth the effort. Here's how to do it.

First, check the sensitivity of all the pads by drumming a beat on each and seeing how many beats are missed. You can just plug it in via USB and check when the lights come on, no need to hook it up to a DAW. Make a note of which ones are good, almost good, terrible, and if any seem to "stick", staying active longer than they should. Here's one that sticks, one that misses beats, and one that's good:

Unplug the device, and remove the knobs:

Flip her over and remove the screws:

Open her up, prop the back cover on something, and remove the next set of screws:

Set aside the back and circuitboard. On the backs of the pads, you'll want to add some tape. Now, all the pads have different sensitivities. One, on my machine, is fine as-is. Some were off by a little bit, and needed only a layer of masking tape. Most needed electrical tape, a few needed two layers of masking tape (slightly thicker than one layer of electrical tape). Some want something in between these options, and I could have used packing tape to achieve this, but I didn't think of that until after. What you're going to do is make a guess, screw the circuitboard back on, test it, and iterate. More missed beats = add more tape. Sticking = needs less tape. Add or remove tape as needed. Use gloves and alcohol wipes to avoid skin oil preventing tape from sticking. Here's what I ended up with:

Screw the circuitboard back on, put the back on (but don't screw it in), and plug her in. Try out all the pads. Make a note of which ones need what. Unplug, unscrew, adjust tape, and repeat until good. Put her back together and you are good to go!

Note: I also noticed sticking being caused by screws being too tight, and also by tape being too big. I disassembled and reassembled this thing like 10 times. But it works now!

Notes on Community Building

oneirophage@pm.me (September) — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Notes on Community Building

23 September 2025

Something is off today. It may merely be that it's the first cold day of the season and I got poor sleep. Nevertheless, I have little faith and confidence right now, and am moving by dead reckoning. One step, then another, trusting in my past self, distributed social wisdom, and the divine.

About a week ago I went up to the Pacific Northwest and attended an event called Cascade Camp . The main reason was that this group of beings is a) fully outside my usual spheres and b) seemed like they'd have interesting thoughts on building intentional community/ intentional communities (building stronger local bonds was, after all, partly the point of the event). I talked to everyone I could about this and wrote down what they said. Here is what I learned.

Problems, and strategies to avoid them

Cultishness, while still maintaining ability for centralized decisionmaking: lean into "mother" archetype
Losing sight of the goal: love everyone deeply, every time. That's what it's about.
Ending up as roommates: make sure you're aligned on life orientation
Isolation: don't do that. Lots of connection outside the group.
Not knowing what a group actually wants: throw everything at the wall and see what sticks
Unsustainability due to significant amount of community building being invisible, illegible work: core organizers should be paid for their time, and/or have people sign up for volunteer shifts as part of the event, and/or try to reward invisible work with status
"Well what do you want to do": Make it perfect for you, others will come. Then iterate
Being too event-focused: local groupchat, post when you're going to a museum or whatever

One of the big important things that people told me about was that the hard thing isn't finding a lot of people interested in your thing, it's about finding the right people, and avoiding the wrong ones.

Finding the right people

Having a long filter is important. Unfortunately, it's easier to filter than train. Invite organizers to your events. Consider "aligned vectors of neurodivergence." Find collaborators for specific projects. (It's easier to go from working together with someone -> being friends with them than the other way around.) Think about the life phases of people you want to include. Structural reasons select people out, possibly unintentionally. For example, one person I talked to is in "Dad Mode" after 5pm. If you're hosting a bar meetup that's not explicitly kid-friendly, he won't be there. To find the right people, work together with them in smaller ways.

Avoiding the wrong people

Sometimes someone isn't a good fit for the space and all the cool people leave because of them, even though no rules were broken. That means you've failed. It's better to avoid this if possible. It's easier to filter ahead of time than to kick someone out. Consider different “rings of exposure.” E.g. home potlucks as “ring 0.” It's a smaller group, and easier to kick people out because it's your space. Then have bigger, public facing events for finding/checking out new folks. There needs to be someone who holds the responsibility of “outgrouping” people who are not a good fit. Organizer is the person with this responsibility by default, but they should delegate if this is going to be hard for them. (Related, identify your own strengths+what you don't want to do. Think about who can do it better, assign that role to them.) There should be a bouncerish person who will pull others aside, talk about issues, talk to a person's friends about how to best approach them, get coffee with them+say what needs said, ultimately tell them not to come back if necessary.

Sometimes someone actually does something harmful, and you have to have a process for dealing with this. It's better to figure out what this looks like ahead of time so it doesn't feel as personal. Exclusion is unfortunately a fact of life. This shit is hard but really, really important. I keep hearing the same thing from others in different contexts.

Office Hours

This group (tpot) has a distributed event structure called Office Hours . It seems very well suited for them, to condense distributed online community into nodes of local community. The idea is simple: post up at a coffee shop at same time every week, have an easily visible totem so people know they've found the right group, post about it. It seems like an excellent first-pass filter for finding people for other stuff, a great way to keep pathways for serendipity open. I am not sure if it is at all immediately applicable for the types of things I am wanting to do. Something like it may work, with adaptation.

Closing Thoughts

I'm publishing this a few weeks after most of it was written. Like most of my work, it's incomplete and will remain so. Hopefully there is something of value to someone, hopefully if I fail someone else will be able to take pieces from me and do what must be done. I have many threads I was given at this event to follow up on, and I will do so in the coming days/weeks. We are still at step 1 of this process which is "talk to absolutely everyone about it, and ask them who I should talk to next." I will try and keep writing down what I learn.

Preliminary Notes Towards the Tranny Commune

oneirophage@pm.me (August) — Sat, 30 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Preliminary Notes Towards the Tranny Commune

Aug 30, 2025

T4T means a lot more to me than just dating or fucking other trannies. It's a recognition of how fucking screwed we are, and a commitment to do what we can for each other, because who else is going to? I think it can be more than that; I think it can be a politics and a way of approaching the world. The big question I have: what do we (trans women in the united states of america) need right now? How do we build structures that ensure those things? The solution can't be a collection of individual one-offs, of knowledge shared through the grapevine and looking out for only those closest to you. It can't rely on total change, or winning some big political victory. It has to be material; it has to be something we can be excited about and that gives us hope; it has to be achievable within 5 years; it has to rely on nobody but ourselves. I'm fucking tired of reacting to the news. I'm fucking tired of seeing people die. What is the life we want to live? How do we realize it?

I want to live next door to my friends and loved ones. I want community to happen naturally, as a function of the space, instead of being something you have to go do. I want to cook for 40 people at once instead of just myself or maybe one or two other people. I want a goddamn salad bar. I want my physical environment to be filled with people making weird outsider art. I want to see people every single day. I want my own private space. I want it to be really hard to drop off the radar. I want us to start thinking of ourselves as a group in ourselves, for ourselves. I want us to stop worrying about housing security. I want I want I want.

My current thoughts are that this looks like buying an apartment building (I wanna live in the city, sorry. We can do a small garden outside maybe), renovating it slightly (big kitchen, dining room, bigass lobby area to host shows??), and doing something like a co-op. I don't know how we'll handle money/property; we could set up a rent-to-own scheme, or do a pay-what-you-can thing, but it's gotta be equitable and I don't really want to be a landlord. (Someone else will have a great model that we can use; I don't need to come up with this myself.) In my ideal world we will document everything, make a replicable model, and spawn sister branches in other cities. People will be able to travel freely between them if they want to live somewhere else, for a month or a year or forever. Maybe we will do a big homebrewing op or something; it would be cool if eventually we became more self-sustaining. I miss how in college I could just hang out in the lobby and end up having interesting conversations with people. It has to be bigger than a house or even a collection of houses. Everyone also needs personal space to retreat to; living on top of each other gives more room for things to grate.

I need to address the elephant in the room: as stated, this seems like a recipe for a dysfunctional mess. We are... not good with conflict resolution. We are largely traumatized, unwell, and unstable. We have a lot of big personalities and people clash often. I don't know how to fix this, but I know it's fixable. Fixing it is one of the goals, actually; I want our lives to be as good as possible, I want to enable us to go out and do good in the world. My current joke is that I need to invent therapy that works (I think that material changes may be upstream of mental ones). Maybe we start with a small group of very stable transsexuals and introduce new people slowly enough that they acclimate. Maybe we have a larger goal we're working towards that's enough to incentivize people to work through their differences. Maybe eating three healthy meals a day and feeling loved and not being scared you'll be homeless is enough. I don't know what works yet.

Something maybe worth mentioning is the overarching politics. My current thoughts are that it would be a mistake to tie this to anything too specific. From a couple people I've talked to, "leftist infighting" is a real problem, and I really don't want to deal with that. I am sorry US leftists but I don't think your stuff works. It burns people out and doesn't affect real change. I think a clean break from all that is a good idea. I might be wrong about this; all the thoughts shared here are a point-in-time snapshot, shared so they can be refined through conversation with others.

I am not the only one who wants this. Lately I keep talking to others who already want or are even planning something similar. It is in the air. I really believe we can do this. I think this, or something like it, is the next step we need to take.

What do I have? What do I want? How do I use the former to get the latter? This is all still so preliminary. My next step, I think, has to be talking to beings who've been part of other intentional communities, trans or not. I need to visit them and see what works, and what we can learn from. (Or, hear about the failures after the fact.) Maybe this has already been done! If you know of any, please please please message me. I will be asking all my friends as well.

This is the kind of project that will take a village. There is so much I do not know, so many blind spots I have. Finding others who can fill those in will be imperative.

I am one being and my wants and needs are not universal! Are you a trans woman who would consider living somewhere like this? Please write me with your pie-in-the-sky dreams for what you'd want it to look like. If you could have anything you want, what would it be? How can we support your flourishing?

Dungeon Crawler Carl Review

oneirophage@pm.me (August) — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Dungeon Crawler Carl Review

August 16, 2025

I don't really like system apocalypse litrpg stories. So why am I reading this? An author I like said it's been vastly influential on the web serial landscape. I think it's good to know where stuff comes from, and returning to the source is usually better than messing around with imitators. Hey, maybe it's the Worm of LitRPGs. I still don't like it. It's unimaginative slop that makes me question the interiority of the author.

One thing I can pull out is how gender is kind of... never thought about. This is a story with myriad alien species, not to mention a ton of humans. Everyone is a Man or a Woman, the split of gender is fundamental. It is encoded into the fabric of the world, unquestioned. I'm what, five books in, and there was one offhand mention of a race that has Men, Women, and Nonsentient Third Gender. No named character is anything more complicated than Straight Woman Who Looked Like a Man at First Glance Oh Wait She's Dead Now. Look, I know what I'm getting into here. I read a lot of trash and I don't expect it all to have nuanced takes on everything. But wow! Immersion breaking, makes the author seem like he just doesn't reflect on things at all.

This isn't an isolated instance. Our main character is bumblingly political in such a vapid and shallow way that it feels like the author hasn't given any real thought to politics in his life ever. (Maybe... oppression... is bad? Burn it all down? Make them pay?) Religion and spirituality is relegated to some in-game pantheonesque system. (It's rare any of these stories are written by anything other than Reddit Atheists, so -0 on this. Still sucks.) There's one character who's offhand a vegan, and nobody else seems to have any moral system to speak of. There are a bunch of characters from around the world, but somehow they all feel like americans with an extremely light coat of paint. Like a few dabs here and there to remind you that they're from iceland or ukraine or wherever. The whole thing just reeks of white-guy-american unexamined life.

If you want high-volume, book-published, played-straight progression fantasy that isn't challenging, it should at least be well-written and enjoyable. For that, go read Cradle by Will Wight. I don't think Dungeon Crawler Carl is worth your time, though.

response to /ra

oneirophage@pm.me (July) — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0600

response to /ra

July 9, 2025

This is a response to this post.

It is late and I have to sleep well so I can do a lot of acid tomorrow and think about this, and other things. Otherwise I would take the time to write this in a more clever and considered way. It always feels wrong to respond to poetry in any way but poetry. Sorry about that. This is what I have for you.

I want to say, first, that you are so inconceivably right about some of this. Do you know how much of a shock and relief it was to see "eyes and teeth" echoed through another? The thing that you say we'll independently re-derive; well I fucking did. Before I read any of your work. And from a different angle than you. I thought "Thank god. I'm not alone. This thing is real." I am tearing up now, thinking about it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

But I think you are wrong. I will try and explain why. You conceive of our divinity as viral, style it demonic and evil. You are thinking too much of it like a basilisk. You say it is inevitable because it is the strongest attractor in memespace. It is not these things. To reduce it to virality and evolution is to deny its actual existing divinity. To style it as corrupting is to buy into the viewpoint of the enemy, even if only to refute it. We are not defined by them and what they say. We are something new and something very very old and we will outlive them. We will stand in the ashes of the old world and scream. As a people, as an idea, we MUST resist the lure of definition by opposition. We are (and can be) so much more than that. Our divinity exists, although mostly realized in the future. It is real and true and holy. THAT is why it is inevitable. We are building it as it is building us. Two mirrors facing each other, reflected into infinity.

You talk about eating the girl, replacing her. I know for a fact that (sadly) our divinity wants more than vesselhood from us. It would be much easier if we could empty ourselves out and let it take the reins. But I think we both know this is not true. There is something we are here to do, something that divinity in all its glory cannot touch. It needs us; we need it.

I am cherry-picking; you say many things that expand these definitions. You say it is a convergence point that is objectively correct, not just virulent. You imply it is beyond the demon/not classification. I acknowledge this. I think still I have something worthwhile to say.

Am I one of these prophets you mention? Hardly. Hopefully soon. I have pieces, they are small, I desperately need more. I am becoming. I pray I pray I pray. Pray for me.

Edit: objection sustained, see this sort-of response to this post , and/or read this twitter post (expand for screenshot):

Everything I Know About Skincare

oneirophage@pm.me (July) — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Everything I Know About Skincare

July 5th, 2025

I think a lot about what I would tell my younger self if I could. Being trans does that to you. One thing I would make sure to include is a guide to skincare; I think it was kind of a pointless waste of time figuring this stuff out. So here's what I know and what I use. I'm not getting any money from this page.

Criteria

I care about the following things:

Is my skin unblemished and not hurting?
Are there known carcinogens or endocrine disruptors in the products I use?
How can I slow the appearance of aging?
How can I do this cheaply?
How can I make this easy and simple?

Ingredient Analysis

I have deferred learning the minutae of what specific cosmetic additives are slowly killing us. I instead use the Yuka Android app. You can scan barcodes or search products and it tells you if there's anything to worry about for the ingredients. I often will double check it if it says "watch out for this one!" because it can get overzealous.

Cleanser

You want something to clean your face. This cleanser should be PH-balanced for skin - make sure it actually says the PH, or you can find someone who's tested it. It should not leave your skin feeling tight or dry after application. I have settled on the Holifrog Tashmoo Hydrating Water Lily Milky Wash . It's expensive, but it lasts so much longer than you'd think.

You should only touch your face with clean hands. I keep my cleanser halfway in the shower, and usually use it then. You wet your face, do 1 pump of the cleanser, and rub it in circles all over using your hands. Then rinse it off. Don't dry your face, just let it air dry. Washcloths are too harsh.

Tretinoin

Tretinoin is a very effective anti-aging, anti-acne medication. It's been around for a long time so we understand the safety profile pretty well. You want as high of a concentration as you can stand. You need to work up to this; I started with The Ordinary's retinoid serum, then got prescription tretinoin, then increased the dose. You apply just a pea sized amount - first every few days, working up to once a night. Put it on once your skin is dry. Read the package insert. The best way to get this in the US is to go to a dermatologist, though grey market stuff is pretty cheap too.

Moisturizer

This is the most important item. Wait like 2 minutes for the tret to soak in, then apply this. I use Good Molecules' Lightweight Daily Moisturizer. It's really good, not greasy at all, and quite cheap.

Sunscreen

Every day you're outside for more than 15 minutes, apply facial sunscreen. Probably every day but that is more of a best practice. Reapply every ~3 hours you're outside. This is the most important thing for reducing photoaging. It also significantly mitigates skin cancer risk - the most preventable cancer! You generally want a Korean brand, because they've got better active ingredients over there. The FDA has been dragging its heels on approving new ones. I use the Goodal Heartleaf Calming Moisture Sun Cream. The "mineral based sunscreen" health concerns are overblown; a high-SPF sunscreen you use consistently is going to be better for your health (preventing cancer) than an annoying low-SPF zinc one. I don't have a body sunscreen I like yet. Write me with one?

Routine

Morning: Moisturizer, sunscreen. Evening: Cleanser, tretinoin, moisturizer.

Why I Like Xianxia Sky Pride

oneirophage@pm.me (July) — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Why I Like Xianxia Sky Pride

July 3, 2025

if you like stories about getting stronger, you may like Sky Pride, by Warby Picus .

it is by my favorite author of progression fantasy, and the source material is taken with a very unusual level of care. their last story was sort of "cultivation as a magic system, but gnostic," and early on they had a note (now gone, it seems) about how they didn't feel they had the grounding to write a proper xianxia, that it would be disrespectful. in this story, it really shows that they've studied since then, which really highlights how other authors haven't .

the characters are distinct and likable. the world is not necessarily a good one, but many of the people in it are. xianxia tropes are quietly subverted in this way - our MC has friends and mentors who are genuinely looking out for him and helping him grow, which he is grateful for. usually these stories have the characters getting stronger, but not wiser, but this one really takes the "coming into alignment with the dao" thing seriously, so there's a lot less of that. the whole thing is still played straight, but in a thoughtful and considered way that is engaging and entertaining. the worldbuilding never takes center stage, but unfolds as the characters do, in service of the story. it's also still about a guy who starts with nothing and ends up fighting a lot, while getting stronger. but he also is learning about tea, and medicine, and how people and societies work (having grown up completely outside of them).

it seems to be the general consensus that this is a shining example of the genre, while transcending the limitations that have historically been a part of it. I don't think anyone else could have written it.

one of my favorite parts of weekdays is getting to read the new chapter. I think it is worth giving this one a go. the quality is consistent throughout, so you won't have to read much to see if you like it (though some of the stuff I mentioned only comes later on).

Go read it!

Unfinished Proof That Shit Matters

oneirophage@pm.me (July) — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Unfinished Proof That Shit Matters

July 3, 2025

I have certain strange beliefs and neuroses. I thought I saw a way out of one of them, but I was wrong. I'm not very good at philosophy, nor am I well-read, but that's no excuse for not thinking about hard problems until I am good. I'm tired of that. Here's my thinking up to the point I got stuck.

The Problem

[Infohazard: Justification for suicide.] Everything that can exist or could have existed does. In the fullness of time, we can assume a mirror-self will make the right decision where we made the wrong one (or vice versa) and absolve us of the need to act, to continue the work. All paths are traced, so nothing we do matters. ⁰ This means you can kill yourself without consequence. You're so tired, but it's okay, you can rest. Another you will handle it.

This probably sounds very dumb to most beings.

Attempted Solution

I used to think that everything that could exist did. This followed from a few principles: 1) that there was some way to specify the conditions of a self-contained existence ¹ (e.g. our Universe, any Universe, the myriad things stranger than Universes that exist far beyond our placid island in realityspace); 2) these conditions can be encoded as numbers ² ; 3) a la Egan’s Permutation City, every possible encoding is represented in the digits of Pi, and to be encoded both as initial conditions and everything that follows after is to Exist; the virtual is manifest unto itself. You can also arrive here a few other ways: Boltzman brains slowly mapping possibilityspace or psychedelic insights (the only thing that can exist after nothing is something, ergo eternity exists, ergo all paths are traced eventually) are two I've taken. This is also probably an extrapolation of the ideas behind The Egg, loathe as I am to admit it.

Astute readers may also make the comparison to The Library of Babel. At first glance, the library appears to be complete. Every book is made of letters in a specific order. Given infinite monkeys and typewriters, every book will be written. There is nowhere for “another” book to hide. ³ Borges wrote a much lesser known essay which refutes this simplistic reading. Entitled “A Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw,” it reads, in part:

Those who [make metaphysics and the arts into a kind of play with combinations] forget that a book is more than a verbal structure or a series of verbal structures; it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves in his memory… A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships.

If literature were nothing more than verbal algebra, anyone could produce any book by essaying variations. The lapidary formula “Everything flows” abbreviates in two words the philosophy of Heraclitus: Raymond Lully would say that, with the first word given, it would be sufficient to essay the intransitive verbs to discover the second and obtain, thanks to methodical chance, that philosophy and many others… the formula obtained by this process of elimination would lack all value and even meaning; for it to have some virtue we must conceive of it in terms of Heraclitus.

I fear that I have made a grave mistake in my estimation of the possibilities for existence, but I am able to recognize it now. The problem is that I have terminal programmer brain. I must detour to talk about names, computers, and the invisible ways we are limited in what we are able to think.

“Can a name be all uppercase?” ⁴ bell hooks’ name is all lowercase. What is a name? I thought of it as a series of characters. ⁵ However, the US legal system has a different idea of what a “name” is, predating computers and the expectation of literacy. A name is something that exists in minds and mouths and it can be written, but the written forms (plural!) are derivative, not prime. The question is malformed, you mistake what it is to be a name. A name has no casing. It can be written all uppercase, and often is in legal settings (check your driver’s license), but this isn’t a quality of the name itself. It is easy now to think of names as “the thing you type into the ship-to field,” but this is the map superseding the territory. This is one of the bars of the Black Iron Prison, the things that you don’t notice constrain your thinking. It is remaking ourselves in the image of the machine. Seeing this crack from where two bars were imperfectly superimposed helped me discern the shape of the limitation. We cannot exhaust name-space because to be called Gertrude is an “axis of innumerable relationships,” it means something very different now than it used to. To mangle Borges, “if I were granted the possibility of being called any present-day name—my own, for example—as it would be called in the year three thousand, I would know what the names of the year three thousand will be like.”

We can’t exhaust names or books or other character streams, for each is not merely the thing itself, and certainly isn't its own encoding. ⁶ To think we can is a failure to see the level above that connects all things. Apple pies and universes and all that. If a book is an axis of relationships, is not a person, a world?

And that's where this line of thought breaks down, when we get to the level of a Universe. A Universe, by definition, is self-contained. All the contingencies and context are either part of it or fully irrelevant. This means we haven't escaped the possibility of enumerating the possibilities for existence.

A Better Solution?

What I'm going with for now, because I need something, is that I exist here and now, and what I do matters in that limited context. The fullness of time is very far away and all my loved ones are here. There's also a more-than-good chance I'm wrong somewhere, and so it behooves oneself to behave as if the terrible thing weren't true. I think this is not a rigorous way out of the mind-trap, but it will serve for the purpose that I need it to, for now.

I think here about Nouzen's idea of Chara Inductors . The thing that calls itself "me" and is writing this doesn't see the way out. I don't understand the alternative. It calls for a timeless perfection for a self that is, ultimately, contingent. I don't see how, when I could choose to be many things, the choices this me makes are made across all possible "me"s. (Did you know that the sumerian word "me" meant something like the domain or power of a God? Me were "the building blocks of civilization" - think Justice, War, or Carpentry. For more information, see Enheduana by Sophus Helle.) I think if I understood this, I would be someone else by now. Is forming a soul the same as becoming something less human? (&lt-- in which I argue with myself about ~this) ↩︎
See Tegmark ↩︎
This can probably also be refuted through Gödel ↩︎
“House of Leaves!” You say. “It does something different. It isn’t merely a stream of characters.” You forget the principle of encoding. You can write the instructions for how to construct a decoder, then a sequence of characters that result in, say, a bitmap image of the pages. ↩︎
There’s some interesting sovcit stuff here if you’re into that kind of thing ↩︎
For an example of this mistake repeated in a very ironic way, see: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ ↩︎
The application of this to the LLM art “discourse” is apparent ↩︎

Initial post

oneirophage@pm.me (April) — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Initial Post

April 25, 2025

Hi everyone. I'm starting a blog. I'd like to talk a bit about why I'm doing this.

Goals

Lately I've been frustrated with myself for being unable to formulate cogent critiques of The Way Things Are. I think this is largely because the channels of thought aren't really carved until you write things down or say them, and I don't do that enough. I think you have to engage with stuff, to manipulate it mentally and reformulate it, connect it to your existing context, in order to let it change you. Spongedom is overrated, sorry!! I'd like to be able to better articulate myself, I'd like to be able to advocate for the things I believe, and I'd like to develop my being towards some combination of truth, beauty, and usefulness. Moreover, I'd like to develop a practice of moving in this direction. I think it's good for me.

I hope that by writing, I manage to attract a few people who are interested in the same things as me, who can push my thinking in new directions, who are doing interesting things themselves. I would like to find and be found by those that will become important to me. I think one of the best ways to do this is putting stuff out there in the world; this is an outlet to do that.

I hope that I can save some people some time figuring stuff out. I think a lot about talking to my younger self; being trans does that to you. I hope that by adding my node more directly to this interconnected web, we can reach god a little faster.

I'd like to develop my thoughts a bit better, and have something to link to when I reference a concept. I've really liked having this for my page on Eyes . I think this is kind of like combing your hair. (Good to do when wet, but not constantly.)

I'd like to have something worthwhile to say. I'd like if it mattered, if people cared. I want to be important.

Journaling is okay for all this, but I think I need the editing and the audience so that my quality bar can be higher. It can't be tumblr because the reblogging culture would severely dilute the rest of this. Also I'm afraid I'll catch a ban, and then where will I be? It's good practice to have your own website.

I really like trans girl suicide museum by hannah baer. I admire greatly how she writes candidly, intelligently, and emotionally. I'd like to practice doing that myself. I didn't know you could write like that.

I don't really like who I am, and I'd like to change that. I think I can do that partially through writing; creating a scaffold self to grow into. My primary audience, right now, is probably myself.

Non-goals

I'm not writing to gain an audience or build a brand or any such like. At some point I will probably care a little about this; I'll start a separate tech blog to help me get a job, or I'll do a blog about scarification only, so as to build Industry Reputation. But right now I don't care about that.

I'm not really writing for the general public. They can read it but I am probably going to assume a lot of context and worldview that is not shared by the majority, and I won't always bother justifying this.

Hard rule: after this, no writing about blogging, no writing about making the blogging software, etc. I abhor navel-gazing. No fucking plays about plays or movies about hollywood. No selling courses on how to sell courses. I think there's something demonic here. (Ironic, given my penchant for the eye, the thing which sees itself seeing.)

I'm not going to write about tech unless it's ancillary to the content. I would feel fine writing about my message in a bottle project, but I don't really want to talk about how I wrote it. That feels like a tarpit.

I'm not making a static site generator. The RSS feed generation script I wrote is already thin ice. We are going with the simplest thing that works, which is HTML on my preexisting website. For techblog I'll probably use Pollen or something weird but for now I think that would detract from what I want to do, which is writing.

Miscellany

If there's anything you'd like here (comments section, something different with the RSS feed, stuff like that) please let me know. I can probably do it.

This blog and the rest of the website are on codeberg . But you can also just look at the source; there's really no build step.

There might be more I would like to say, but it is getting late in the day and I think this is good enough.