Matt

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Last month I went to Brussels for FOSDEM, for the first time since 2020. While I didn’t go to many talks, I was able to connect with many people there, from WriteFreely users to old friends to many new people I met along the way.

It was late 2013 when I drove past a little dog head with big floppy ears attached poking out of the long grass in the backwoods of Florida. My girlfriend at the time said we had to go back and get him, so we did.

He was timid at first but friendly, and came right up to us when we approached. We took him home and fed him. I was reading a lot of Salinger then, so I named him Holden.

After taking a bit of a sabbatical in 2022, I’m back into Write.as and WriteFreely development. My views on the product naturally change over time, so I want to share where I’m at now.

Took an 18-hour train ride home from Jacksonville, FL to New York after some time in the snow out west and a friend's wedding down south.

It's been a while since I've written. Seems like the end of this year quickly fell away from me and now it's almost 2023. So what's been going on? (A microblog that turned into a macropost.)