I have not been keeping up with this the way I should, for which I apologize; I’ve been very focused on content creation and leveraging the blip of radically increased visibility from having a Facebook status briefly go viral plus Wired.Com linked to an article over at JohnHenry.US (“Screw Your Tiny House And The Tiny Horse It Rode In On • John Henry“) which bumped traffic there separately for a minute. All of that is good, but I’m only one person and documentation isn’t my highest priority 🙂
I’m not even going to try to backfill a list here and now, there’s a ton of new content and curated stuff from the past and exciting things happening right now, and it has been.
- I’ve found myself getting plugged in to a circle of indy musicians on Facebook which has been driving some growth in old, neglected directions.
- I’ve started a monthly “paying it forward” initiative where for one week we set a $300 fundraising goal and if we hit the goal I buy a domain name and hosting for an independent creators whose work I enjoy and who needs a site, set ’em up with a basic WordPress install and make sure they have what they need to make it work, and do the same thing the next month. There’s a whole list of what-if’s and so forth to be had there; I’ll develop the project page to address all of that over time (some already is, but in my typical fashion I just infodumped it and I need to go back and organize it and clean it up).
- There is now a growing line of JH-related merch with various little aphorisms and graphics available as “perks” – rewards for your support of my work here and across the ‘net. Just various little incentives for people who choose them, plus it helps organize and structure all the other ways to contribute. Most of the content on this subdomain is only visible to supporting contributors. The absolute best, fastest, easiest way to ensure you get the access and “perks” to which your support entitles you is to make your contribution through one of the options at Funding & Support • John Henry
- (As I was writing the prior bullet point I realized/found that there were some things broken on that page, particularly the Patreon login, which had originally been linked via a tool that no longer exists. I ended up stepping over and adding the login forms back to the sidebar across the whole site plus fixing the link on the Support page previously linked.)
- About a dozen curated articles from the 2009-2012 era republished.
- Much new content including a new thing for Custode that I’m calling ‘Know Your Troll.’ This will be a series of “infotainment” bits describing various tactics and strategies of disinformation and propaganda in a frame of online “trolling,” which of course is just human behavior and existed long before anything or anyone was ever “online.” I’m not trying to maintain a schedule on this or anything right now; there are always examples to draw from and it’s one little project among many. The first: The Bad-Faith Interrogator – Custode (BETA)
- A few “big” articles in process. One which should go up in the next day or so will be all about Universal Basic Income, the ideas and concepts which surround it, an overview of the arguments around it, and what it takes to make the whole idea work properly. Still picking away at that whole article about the Reigle Report as well; there’s a LOT of information involved there. It’ll definitely be a minute before I’m finished there.
- Personally still very much struggling and things may get worse soon as my roommate’s financial situation changes. Eating is often problematic at this point, and I’m not sure how secure I am in my housing. Unfortunately that means a lot of energy is going in to fundraising right now, which I’d rather be putting into creating more and better content. Please engage often!
Et merde. This whole set of tools – the project tracking and management stuff, including this subdomain and all the information on it – has badly lagged during a period of heightened productivity and need for energy elsewhere. I’m going to try to get back on it and get it cleaned up and in order again over the next week or so, but “productive” content has to take precedence.
Mentally I’ve been struggling pretty seriously with depression, but I’m still working and still active on social media. Please please please remember to stay on the engagement, let’s keep things growing and keep reaching out in new directions. It’s been a long, hard haul to get here and it’s not even easy staying here, but moving forward is the only option; sitting still will definitely be the end of me. It’s heavy stuff, and sometimes it gets to be an awful lot to carry with a smile and a song and a dance. Such is life.
That’s the current situation as it stands, thanks for reading and we’ll see you soon.
