Deconditioning fluffy rambles

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For the last few days I’ve been feeling anxious and having an elevated heart rate. That’s not just subjective, that’s what my heckin' Apple Watch has recorded. I keep on waking up in the middle of the night with a pounding heart, too. It’s hard to tell if it’s anxiety raising my heart rate or the other way around, but either way, something’s got to change.

The last few months I’ve been particularly sedentary due to a bunch of things (mostly chronic pain but also generally just feeling Meh and not wanting to do anything) and time has been slipping away from me very quickly.

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What is the IndieWeb? General Articles

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Over the past several years, you’ve probably heard me or other web geeks talk about the IndieWeb, but just hearing about it doesn’t necessarily tell you what it actually is, exactly. The reality is that it’s both sort of complicated but also, at its core, really simple! If you do anything online with other people it’s definitely worth understanding and knowing more about.

At its core, the idea of the IndieWeb is that rather than participating in the public web on sites owned and operated by others, you do it on your own website, managed using whatever mechanisms you are most comfortable with, with some fairly-simple protocols for sites to then communicate with one another.

It’s not really any one specific thing, so much as a set of ethics and standards to follow to give people control over their own experience online. It’s people driving practices, which inform protocols. There is no one specific piece of IndieWeb software that you must run in order to participate; instead it’s a set of loose agreements about how to participate, with some simple, mostly-optional protocols to make it work better.

But I know that’s extremely vague and unhelpful, so here’s my attempt at writing a practical guide for what the IndieWeb is and how you can participate in it!

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It sure would be nice to not be in pain all the time fluffy rambles

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There are so many things I’d like to be doing with my time, except every time I start on any of them I get a major pain flareup. And that makes it really hard to get into what I’m doing, and then the moment I have any minor setback (such as a problem with the tool I’m using) that just makes the pain explode even further and then all I can focus on is how much I’m hurting.

I’d love to be making 3D models for VRChat or drawing comics or making music, but all of those things just feel so inaccessible to me right now. And even playing games hurts, and even hanging out in VRChat can be pretty painful too because even standing up for an hour at a time is awful (and doing VRChat while sitting down has its own share of issues).

I’m grateful that I don’t have to worry about money so much, but gosh, there’s more to being productive than making a living. Quality of life is important and that feels just so lacking right now.

I just feel like so much stuff is locked inside my head and screaming to get out, and I sure wish I could just like. Not be like that.

Native Instruments Intel/Silicon Update fluffy rambles

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Previously I’d posted about an update to Native Instruments' Komplete Kontrol plugin wrapper that made it no longer work with Intel plugins on Apple Silicon machines. After I’d posted that, Jeremy from Native Instruments posted a link to download Komplete Kontrol 2.7.2 which can be used as a temporary workaround to fix the issue, with a warning that it’d be better to update KK and then run Logic under Rosetta instead.

I failed to notice this update from them since NI’s forum never manages to actually send me notification emails for some reason, but in any case, this is a nice solution to keep things working until Reaktor and Battery get updated for M1 (hopefully in just a month or two).

Anyway, hopefully this is helpful for folks who need it.

Relaunching my Patreon fluffy rambles

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I continue to not be a fan of Patreon but it’s, unfortunately, the easiest way to try to get recurring support from folks for the things I do. So, if you’re interested in throwing a few bucks my way every month, here you go. $1/month gives you access to the subscriber-only section of my Discord, and $3/month gives you downloads of all the things I release digitally (albums, comic collections, etc.) going forward. I’ll also probably backfill my existing releases there at some point.

I also of course have a ko-fi. It currently doesn’t support the exclusive-access downloads thing (because ko-fi charges $6/month for that ability) but I’ll definitely enable that if I have a few people sign up there. I’d definitely prefer folks to support me via Ko-Fi rather than Patreon, if they can; it’s a much nicer company.

But regardless, I appreciate whatever support people feel like sending my way, and any suggestions people have for what I should be doing with my time (within my abilities and interests, of course).

Cascara experiments Coffee Talk

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I recently bought some Colombian EA decaf from S&W Craft Roasting, as well as their sampler pack and a bag of cascara tea. The order shipped immediately and got to me within just a few days, and I am pretty happy with the decaf.

But let’s talk about the cascara!

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Estradiol, patch form fluffy rambles

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Back in November of 2017 I had a pulmonary embolism, the result of a DVT which was the result of a combination of risk factors. At the time that it occurred, the insistence from the hematologist was that I’d have to cease the use of estradiol entirely, and this led to the worst month of physical and mental health that I can remember. I was basically going through menopause. A month later, a different hematologist said there was no reason I couldn’t keep taking estradiol, especially since I was on a course of warfarin to clear up remaining clot.

A couple years after that I had another minor DVT, and this led to needing to be on blood thinners, so now I take Xarelto daily, and likely will for the rest of my life.

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