2026-02-09 09:02:58
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how to unite two parts of my life that are seemingly disparate, opposite, irreconcilable, etc.
One is the fact that I've been working on a single endeavor, Write.as, for 11 years now — longer than I've worked on any single thing in my life. The other fact I'm trying to square is that these days, I spend a lot of time on things that have absolutely nothing to do with this, whether art, writing, photography, organizing meetups, or just grabbing a long lunch or taking the day (or three) off.
In a conversation with a friend last weekend, while I was in Brussels for FOSDEM, it finally clicked for me.
He put it plainly: some projects you do for a long time — for him, ten years was about right — and others are simply for pleasure; a long night of great conversation, a good meal with friends, etc. The former makes up the purpose in life that keeps you grounded, and the latter is life for its own sake — and nothing more.
Maybe it sounds simple, but somehow I’d never heard it put this way before. At least in the US, the options in the tech industry seem to be: either take a steady paycheck, or launch a startup, raise some money, and grind until you hopefully make that sweet payday for you and your investors.
All are valid, of course. But there are fewer words spilled about what I’m doing with Write.as: building a small software company that sustains itself for several decades. Yet, “Where is the hustle? Why aren’t you working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week?,” I hear the grindmaxxers and hustlebros cry from across the tubes of the internet.
I’ve never worried about these hardcore 10X-er brogrammers before, but I have started to feel odd in this industry building something where its only goal is to… just last a long time. And obviously keep the people that use it happy.
…is that you have do one thing for a long time. And if you’re the type of person who does that in the first place, you probably have more interests in life. And, well, you might get tired of doing that one original thing for so long. You feel yourself change; life changes from under you, and days pass by, expecting you to adapt right along with them.
It’s also easy to say “I’m going to do this forever” on day one — it’s all so new and exciting! there’s so much to do! It’s less exciting to say this after 11 years, after all the battles fought, won, and lost (even if it was never really that bad).
Enough time, and other things start to look appealing, like taking a long walk instead of responding to emails, or taking up a bartending job because you don’t have to worry about AI bots in real life (well— debatable), or starting a new meetup for writers (like I did last month), or making zines and writing poetry and taking pictures of street trash and so on.
So this is the general limbo I’ve found myself in regarding Write.as, really for the last three or four years (at least). Besides the business, over the years there was plenty that took a toll on me — relationships that came and went, the pandemic, the death of my brother and my dog. And there was all the good, too: moving to New York turned out to be all I wanted and far more; I’ve been able to travel and speak about the things I make all over the world; I’ve found myself in communities of creative people and builders and connectors all around me, all around the world. Some days I’ve wallowed in an unmotivated limbo, tired of running this marathon, and on others I’m proud of what I’ve built, and I know how lucky I am to have made it this far.
Sometimes it takes a good conversation over a pint in Brussels to remember that.
By now, I know the perils of writing about how enthused I am about some new perspective I have on life and Write.as, both so intertwined, before having anything to show for it. So this time I’m just getting to work, and if you’re writing here, you’ll simply notice the progress. Keep up with the big updates on our big Blog (@[email protected]), smaller updates on our Changelog (@[email protected]), and everywhere else you can find us on the social web:
Lastly, in case you missed it, we’re celebrating 11 years on the web with a sale on our 5-year Pro plan through February 16th, to help support our small bootstrapped business for the next five years and beyond.
Thanks to all who make this space such a great corner of the web — and all who bear with me through my own internal ups and downs :)
Thoughts? Drop me a note @[email protected], or Discuss... on Remark.as.
2025-10-02 04:07:30
Hello again, from the Write.as office in New York. I haven't posted in a while, partly because I've been trying to fit my thoughts into a box of what I think people expect out of my writing here. To release myself from that, I figured I'd share a jumble of what's been on my mind lately.
A fading love for the internet.
It's probably mostly a reflection of my current mindset and the state of the world that has me looking at the internet as a source of misery. I use it often to pass the time; I scroll social feeds across a few networks that largely show me either today's news, often bad, or the latest thing they're doing with AI, usually not great.
So I pine for the old days of the internet, when the digital world was smaller and we all just shared what was going on in our little lives, and we were content. We could simply exist in this new space, and what we did was often of little consequence, whether positive or negative.
Now we create “content” for the masses, and consume others' commodified lives; we self-censor and are careful not to post. The light, fun space the internet once was is now heavy and consequential. It's easy to see how the migration to more private digital spaces is driven by the public internet we've built, and what people have done with it since.
But there's still real-life.
So I'm taking solace in the real-life connections I have. In the city, it's so easy to get light touches of humanity no matter where I go. There's the local deli guy that knows me and the small pleasantries we exchange. There's the busy neighborhood outside my co-working space, where I regularly run into people I know.
Most recently, I stepped out for a break and heard a saxophone player down the street. When I got closer, I turned the corner and was pleasantly surprised to see a friend I hadn't seen in a long time — it turned out the sax player was his friend! They were having a day, making music and playing on the street corner. We both listened and chatted for a while as the tourists strolled past, some dancing, others pulling out their phones to record or stopping to listen for a while, too. It was a wonderful, serendipitous moment.
I also run into a lot of people from my photography meetup, NYC Photo Stroll, here. It's a popular neighborhood for street photography. So we stop and chitchat, and then part ways feeling good for the little bit of human interaction.
Speaking of the Photo Stroll, I've been attending our walks again and helping keep everything moving smoothly. On Sunday, we went out to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge for a hike, and 35 people showed up. We walked for miles. A friendly park ranger told us about the migrating birds. Two weeks earlier, about 50 of us walked around the West Village — most passersby thought we were looking for celebrities (we weren't).
At each of these walks, I try to chat with as many people as I can, welcoming newcomers and catching up with regulars. I check in on the walk leader, and add people to our private group chat. My role is ultimately minimal: coordinating with our other organizers and gently supporting the event on the day of, if needed.
But at the end of these walks, I often hear about how much people enjoy the group and appreciate the easy-going vibes. It always feels good to hear this, and to see that the events go off without a hitch. People come away with new friends, and over the last three years, a lovely community has formed. A few people told me this weekend that they regularly run into other members of the group out in the wild, just like I do. My role in this little non-commercial, just-for-fun meetup is small, but it's so nice to have a small hand in helping people come together.
I hope to bridge the two soon.
As I mentioned in my plans for the year, I'm working toward running some in-person writing events. We seem to have found a good formula for running these community-oriented meetups (I should write about it in the future), and I'd like to see what we can do when I help bring writers together too.
That's it for now! I hope to be back with more updates soon.
2025-07-15 07:06:43
Yesterday was my thirty-fifth birthday, and the annual marking of a new year for me brought the chance to reflect a bit on where I am in life.
I've never made a very big deal of birthdays, except maybe over the past few years, with a larger group of friends. However, this year was quieter. I celebrated with someone very close to me, H., and went to the Poetry Festival on Governor's Island. I ran into some old friends, no longer so, and sat in the grass in the shade listening to poets read their work. I decided, just for my own work, it's not a poem if it takes 15 minutes to read — but I enjoyed it all still. Then we had a nice, languorous meal and watched the sun set behind the Statue of Liberty, caught the smell of campfire as evening turned to dusk, and got on the ferry back to the city before retiring for the night.
In the early morning of my birthday, something in my body pulled me, inconsiderately, out of my rest. I mistook the street lights outside for early dawn, before the clock told me it was only 3am. My mind wandered. Where am I actually going? For someone who thrives on challenges and variety in life, I'd chosen a single professional pursuit for the last decade of my life. Should I do something new? Was I stagnating? Maybe. I've never had a one- or five-year plan, like everyone says you need. I've always just had a general direction to go in, a gut feeling I faithfully followed. Only lately have I come to terms with that, and come to own it as part of my identity, whenever I feel the need to explain myself.
Later in the morning, H. and I caught a ferry to Rockaway Beach. The clouds were low, like a ceiling over the city as we got farther and farther away from its towering columns. We talked and felt the breeze and the sun as we left the clouds behind. I was tired but wide-eyed. We went past Lady Liberty again, this time closer, and then all the buildings growing smaller in Brooklyn. On the beach, we found a spot for our things and jumped in the cool water. The sun burned our skin as we talked and watched the planes overhead. At dinner, overlooking Jamaica Bay and the distant skyline tinted blue, we talked about what the year might hold. I said I hoped to accept this less-conventional life. I hoped I'd keep trusting my gut.
These days, I just tell people I meet that I'm a writer. I always have been, since I was young. Just no one ever pushed me that way, so I fostered my interests in computers, instead. It has given me a comfortable life, despite how much I despise digitizing all of humanity. Sure, time marches on and change is inevitable, but we always seem to have the biggest assholes pulling all the virtual levers that now shape so much of our reality. Of course, it is the same as always — a building goes up where there was once a public park; a Whole Foods goes up where there were once small markets. But every day I see how technology can rot culture faster than any gentrifying neighborhood, as we continue to see with the latest cash-grab, like today's “AI.” It is dispiriting, as someone who doesn't value the same things in this industry. But it also means I can keep building this tiny shack on the web; an oasis and little hidden gem for those who feel the same, and want to write about it.
And I am writing again — offline, in notebooks and on spare sheets of paper. My daily routine revolves around it. I wake and finally leave the apartment for a place to sit and write. On the walk there, I notice the light and the trees and the people and the weather. Sometimes I notice myself within it all. Then I write, maybe a journal entry or a small poem or story. Overall I still feel like I'm clearing the cobwebs, but it's all getting me somewhere.
I don't care much for the number of years I've seen, as a number. But as humans we mark each year alive with a celebration of someone, as if to say, You were born into the world on this day! We're happy for it, we're glad you're here. For me, the one celebrated this time, I'm glad to be here, too. Glad for the many lives I've lived within my one. Glad to have marked the occasion, lucky enough to not care about anything more than, I am here, and you're here with me, seeing it too.
2025-05-23 01:25:25
It's been a while since I've really thought about what's most important for Write.as. It's been 10 years since we launched, and the internet has changed a lot.
As an issue that's top-of-mind for many people, I've seen privacy take a back seat to AI and its consumption of the web to feed the hungry models that will generate the digital slop of tomorrow.
What hasn't changed, and what I think will become even more important in this age, is our need for self-expression and forming real human connections.
So I'm orienting our road map around this: facilitating more writing, and helping people connect and build their own community.
Our apps have always been built to help you get your words down with nothing in the way. That's why Write.as always opens to our editor — so you can start writing immediately, and not get distracted by notifications, comments, and superfluous things like how many “likes” you received. But there's more we can do.
Over the past few months especially, I've become more interested in real-life writing spaces and workshops that make a normally solitary process of writing more productive and less lonely. Even in some of these spaces that merely provide dedicated time to write in a room full of people quietly doing the same, I've found myself getting words out that I probably wouldn't have if I was left to my own devices. I've easily struck up conversations with strangers who leave me with new inspiration.
This could take many different forms for us that I'm still working out. One could be new tools built into our platform that gently push you to write, whether you're trying to reach a certain daily word count or number of posts published, or you need a little prompt to get the creative juices flowing.
Another form could be in-person events like the ones I've attended, whether in New York or elsewhere. I imagine these being loosely associated with Write.as, and more about writing in any form you like, rather than a particular form like blogging. This is going to take much more planning and collaboration, but if any of this interests you, whether as attendee or facilitator, please reach out to me.
In this same vein, I want our platforms (including WriteFreely) to enable more connection with your audience and fellow writers around the world.
As always, we remain dedicated to doing this on the open web, instead of building more walled gardens like Twitter/X, Instagram, and Substack. So we're continuing to deepen our ActivityPub integration with the fediverse and open platforms like Mastodon, Ghost, and all the rest. This will include supporting comments (finally!) and more social features for people who want them.
Ultimately, our core values remain the same after all these years: we're here to help more people write — and to do it in a digital space they control. I'm excited for what this year will bring!
Stay tuned and subscribe to get future updates as we continue evolving our little independent space on the web.
What do you think? Want to help? Let me know on Remark.as (Discuss...) or the fediverse @[email protected].
2024-09-06 08:17:08
Last year, I joined the crowdfunding campaign for a neat little 7-inch, open hardware laptop called the MNT Pocket Reform. After much anticipation, I finally got it in the mail a couple days ago, and absolutely love it so far. Here are some first impressions.
As someone who uses computers every day for work and life, I’ve gone through many devices over the years. I’ve taken old ones apart when I was young just to see how they worked, upgraded others, and kept others nice and sealed up so I could just use the thing.
I was interested in the Pocket Reform because I wanted an ultra-portable device with a real keyboard that I could take with me on a day out in the city or an extended trip into the woods, and always be within reach of my business — communicating with customers, accessing servers, or doing some emergency bug squashing. (Plus I still miss my circa-2010, 10-inch netbook from college, may it rest in peace.)
These days, I don’t tinker with the inside of computers unless I absolutely have to. It can be fun, but I mostly need them to just work, and I don’t want to have to send them off if something fails.
The Pocket Reform really has me covered here, since it works almost perfectly out of the box, and is very friendly if I need to open it up, due to its open hardware design. This is a tinkerer’s dream device, but it still works great for me as someone who doesn’t want to get too into the weeds, hardware-wise.
For me, this was useful right away. To first turn the device on after getting it, you need to slide a switch in a tiny slot with a tiny pin, such as a SIM card ejector. I didn’t have one laying around, but I did have some screwdrivers. So I just removed two screws on a side panel and flipped the switch with my finger. If this wasn’t a device meant for modification, this would’ve been much more tedious.
Otherwise, it took only a little bit of futzing with things to get my new Pocket Reform working.
I actually had to flip the power switch twice to get it to boot up. The first time, only the system controller screen turned on, and I thought the device was just broken. But once I eventually reset the switch again and it started up, I was immediately impressed. The screen is bright and clear, and the backlit keyboard brilliantly came to life.
I went through the nice setup wizard that MNT put together, setting my timezone and default desktop environment. However, none of the settings I chose actually stuck — my clock was still on Berlin time instead of New York, and the default desktop environment wasn’t the one I selected. So I spent about 10 minutes Googling and digging into the command-line to change the timezone, as I couldn’t find a graphical interface for changing it, either. I’m sure this will be a minor pain whenever I travel, but it’s nothing I’m not used to as a Linux user 😅.
Overall, it was easy to get my normal apps installed and my settings set. This isn’t a fault with the device itself, but I only ran into problems with my preferred browser, Vivaldi. When I started it up, the screen started glitching out. I didn’t know what the cause was — maybe the device, or the desktop environment. I eventually narrowed it down to Vivaldi’s lack of Wayland support, and found this reddit thread, which only partially fixed it.
So I exported everything from Vivaldi and decided to just stick with Firefox, which works flawlessly.
From reading the MNT forums over the last few months, I knew about the dreaded Wi-Fi issues. And within about 30 minutes of booting up the device, I encountered this too. The connection dropped, reconnected, stayed dropped. Another time after booting, it didn’t connect at all.
When it is connected, the fastest speeds I’ve seen are around 800kbps, so the internet feels a bit like being back in rural Virginia on DSL again. But it doesn’t bug me too much, as long as I can actually connect to the internet. (Maybe I can improve the experience for Write.as users with slow internet connections, thanks to this device.)
Recent firmware and kernel updates seem to have improved stability just slightly, and MNT has released a new Wi-Fi card and antenna to address this. But I’m not excited to shell out more money / risk more issues for such basic functionality. So for now, I’ll endure and just hope for the best.
This is the first laptop I’ve owned that charges with USB-C, so I didn’t have the right adapter when the device arrived. Still, I was able to charge it a bit with my Nintendo Switch power adapter, and then bought a proper 30W charger to use permanently.
Using that, I was able to get the batteries up to 67% on the first “full” charge. Then after fully discharging and charging up again, based on other users’ advice, it hit 100% — no problem!
One nice thing about the Pocket Reform is that you can see your battery status without booting it up, thanks to the microcontroller screen. I regularly use this to see if I need to charge up before going out.
My only last complaint was the lack of a suspend capability. Apparently there are a few issues preventing this from working. But for now, I’m fine shutting down every time I’m done using the Pocket for a bit, or at least dimming the screen and keyboard to save some juice.
Some of these things are to be expected with a hacker-friendly device like this. But the joy of using it daily has vastly outweighed any initial issues.
The Pocket Reform is really a beautiful device. It’s thick and hefty, but really solidly built. I worry much less about breaking it (for example) than I would my flimsy smartphone, or even my normal ThinkPad. The hinge holds the screen firmly at any angle, and it all snaps together with a satisfying thunk. Some solid engineering has gone into this thing, and it shows from the second you see it.
Despite its small size, the keyboard is such a joy to use. I went with the Choc White keys, which are so satisfyingly clicky. They have way more travel than what you’d find on most modern laptops, which also makes it pleasant to type on. The keyboard backlight is easy to adjust by pressing Hyper and scrolling the trackball, and I find myself regularly changing the color to match my mood.
I’m used to an ortholinear keyboard layout, since I normally use an Advantage Kinesis keyboard on my desktop machine. But I’ve had a little trouble adjusting to the compacted keyboard layout, which is most problematic when working in the terminal. For example, the up-arrow key on the Pocket is where you’d normally find the forward slash (/) key on a standard keyboard, so I’m regularly hitting the wrong key when typing out a file path, for example. And the right-pinky key on the Pocket is the single-quote key instead of semicolon, which is constantly messing me up when trying to exit Vim.
I’ve read it’s possible to change the keyboard layout, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. For now, I just have to think harder while typing and live without that crucial muscle memory while on the device.
The Pocket Reform uses a trackball for pointing, and it’s a real joy to use as well. It’s smooth, and even a little more enjoyable to use than my ThinkPad’s Trackpoint nub. My only complaint is how close it is to the bottom edge of the device, especially when working with the device on my lap, but this is very minor.
I’ve used the Pocket Reform every single day since I got it. Put simply, I love it.
I regularly keep it next to my couch while I’m out of my home office or watching TV, and already took it out for a night at my weekly writing group (where they all were intrigued by this funky little computer I opened up at the bar).
As I mentioned in the beginning, I really wanted a portable device with a real keyboard — and the Pocket Reform perfectly meets my expectations. From my couch, I can casually open it up and respond to some forum posts or fire off a quick email — all things that are painful to do on a phone. I can moderate Read Write.as, and access our servers. Out in the world, I can do some writing here on Write.as — the editor already looks great on its tiny screen — or do a little coding.
The constraints of the device itself are also helpful in some unexpected ways. Because of how small it is, I find myself being able to focus on the task at hand better. While I have probably 250 tabs open on my desktop computer, I’ll open no more than 6 or so on my Pocket Reform, and close them as soon as I’m done with them. I don’t waste my time scrolling articles or social media unless I need to. And since I have to shut the device down every time I take a break, I don’t open needless apps I’m not immediately using. It’s a calmer experience overall, even as a fully-capable computer.
My favorite part of the Pocket Reform has been how it replaces my smartphone for many of the things I need to do on a daily basis. I can better respond to Write.as customers, since I don’t have to slap my thumbs on a lifeless touchscreen to type out a message. I can research things across the web with the quickness you only get with a multi-input device like this. I can build and modify my software no matter where I am. And I can take it with me everywhere I go, just like I do with my phone. But beyond that, I can rest easy knowing this is an open, hackable device that will last me for many years.
Overall, I’m extremely pleased with the Pocket Reform, even after using it for just a few days. @[email protected] and the MNT Research team have done an incredible job putting this together and getting it out to everyone. Though this is my first experience with their work, I’m already an instant fan, and I look forward to what they come out with in the future.
2024-06-12 03:42:33
It’s funny to end up in June and realize how quickly the year has slipped by. But I’ve been keeping pretty busy, especially over the last few months.
Today I finished wrapping up things from the NYC Photo Stroll Portraiture Workshop we held at the beginning of the month. It was a blast, with some great instructors and a beautiful studio to shoot in. I learned a ton about lighting and direction, and got some great inspiration from our “experimental” class on the third day.
(Photo by me)
(Photo by @picturemanbob.)
I moved to another neighborhood in Brooklyn in May, and I may or may not still be unpacking.
It’s a smaller place, but in better proximity to where I spend most of my time. It’s nice having more stores and parks within walking distance, bumping into friends on the street, and just being in the middle of a lively neighborhood.
If I had to complain, it’d only be about these pesky cars passing down the street. Somehow, they must all have glue stuck to their steering wheel; or maybe just broken horns, making them blare all morning. I’m still getting to the bottom of that one…
These days, most of my daily Write.as work involves supporting our customers — and I’ve fallen behind lately. I’m catching up on a backlog of issues now (and if you’re waiting on me, I appreciate your patience!).
When I get through everything, I’ll turn my focus back to what I was working on in May: comments. I’m excited to make some progress, and see all it enables for everyone on the platform.
Beyond that, I want to update some aspects of the site that I haven’t given much attention to recently. For one, I want to launch a cheaper subscription plan again, so that more people can join.
In short, the current moment on the web demands more open social platforms, and I want ours to be as accessible as possible (while remaining sustainable for us).
Along those lines, I’ll release the next WriteFreely version (v0.15.1) soon. It’ll mostly include some important fixes that have been waiting around (once again, falling a bit behind). But after that, I should be able to get back to more significant new features and have another release ready this summer.
Speaking of WriteFreely, I went to the Netherlands last month to talk about it and the fediverse at the NLUUG conference. I haven’t done a talk like that in a while, but it sparked some great discussions. As always, seeing that kind of excitement around the fediverse in-person gave me a new boost of energy to keep building what we’re building.
After the conference, I managed to see some of Utrecht, and even meet up with Laurens for a tour around town (and some tasty beer) before I headed home.
(Photos by me)
(Photo by @[email protected])
Should I launch a search engine? I’ve been thinking of it lately, with Google seemingly trying to kill the web by launching their uh, misinformed AI assistant.
If I did, it would be small, in the style of engines like searchmysite.net or Marginalia, and only index the human-powered web. Just something I’m thinking about.
Discuss... or reply to @[email protected].
