blake-watson
Forum Replies Created
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It’s finally working for me again!
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oh no… that seemed to work but I just got an error when I tried to reply. Might be on my way to getting lock out again.
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@tiberius I use the built-in macOS Accessibility Keyboard, albeit heavily modified. If you click the tiny ellipses button in the top-right corner of the keyboard panel, you will get a menu with numerous options for tweaking the keyboard—including a full blown keyboard panel editor which enables you to create just about any kind of keyboard you want.
This is a little dated now, but here is a writeup about the modifications I made to mine:
https://blakewatson.com/journal/writing-and-coding-with-the-macos-accessibility-keyboard/
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Have you experienced any awkward dating moments that helped inspire the story? ????
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SPOILERS!
I like what turned out to be a controversial story arc with some readers—the PCA crush. Harris obviously likes Nory, but he has an “intimate” relationship with Miranda in that she is with him many hours in deeply personal ways. It’s an easy feeling to develop, especially given the teenage milestones he was going through in the story.
It was admittedly unhealthy in many ways but that’s what made it interesting. I’ve definitely had crushes on PCAs before. I’m much better at catching that before it starts these days but it’s a thing and I was happy to see it in the story.
My only complaint about the story—and it’s a minor one—is that I thought Harris was a bit hard on Miranda when she returned. If I read it right she was working with him for free (????), she had just nursed him through a terrible illness, and she thought it was her fault he was hospitalized (because of the marijuana/vape thing). Yes, bailing on him was crappy but when she asked if they could still be friends, he said:
“Maybe someday,” I said. It was a gentle lie, but so was everything else I’d thought I once had with Miranda.
Just seemed a little harsh to me. It’s not like their whole friendship was fake, and while Harris made some poor choices, it doesn’t mean they were all Miranda’s fault.
Anyway, minor gripe.
The relationship with his family was great. His mom seemed really cool. And the whole thing with Nory was super cute. ????
I definitely felt seen in many of the situations he found himself in. ???? It read like an authentic account of someone with SMA to me. And I loved that.
I’d be lying if I said the book didn’t leave me a bit wistful at the end. Made me think about some of the almosts in my life and made me wish I’d made different choices. But that’s life for you. ????
Having sung the book’s praises, I’ll say it didn’t satiate my hunger for characters with SMA. If anything it made it worse. I’m craving more fiction with SMAers after reading The First Thing About You. Great work, Chaz!
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I wrote a year-in-review post yesterday and ended it with goals for 2023. This is what I came up with:
- Read 5 books
- Write 5 articles
- Make one game
- Keep a journal
- Write one work of fiction
- Make (or start) a new app for money
- Be more social
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Cool, looking forward to this! Is it going to be a text-based thing or something like a Zoom meeting?
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He Amelia! You came to the right place then. Quite a few peeps with SMA ’round these parts.
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Hey Simone! I’m Blake. I also have SMA type 2. I would be freezing if I lived where you are. I’m in Mississippi.
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There is a web developer meetup. I’ve gone to it a couple of times. I need to find some other stuff to get involved in.
Yeah, like you, some days I’m just like whatever it’s fiiiinnneee. Other times I’m like [insert All by Myself chorus here]. 😆
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Discord is a social media platform (I guess) that operates similarly to a chat room. People create “servers” (ie, groups) that people can join and each server has a number of “channels” (ie, rooms) that people can chat in. It’s kind of like a discussion forum but optimized for realtime communication instead of asynchronous communication (like in this forum).
Servers are usually topical in nature. I’m in an SMA Chat server on Discord, for example, among others.
It’s basically like a whole site that’s just Facebook groups with extra features.
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I used to be. Last year I made it a goal to not pay for any dating apps (at the time I had a few subs). So I dropped those. Then I just stopped checking them altogether.
I guess I was hoping that, if I was going to meet someone online, I could meet them in a place where I’m already active around people with common interests (like Discord, say) rather than a dating site that prioritizes snap judgments on random people.
But it hasn’t worked out that way yet. I’ve thought about getting back to it but none of the apps seem particularly attractive (heh). So for now just sort of aimlessly drifting.
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No I def need to get out more. I made it a goal for 2023 to be more social. Not doing as well as I wanted to. I have hosted 2 SMA meetups on Discord, which is something I wanted to start doing since Cure SMA dropped the ball.
Still would love for you guys to do some on Zoom!
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omg that’s brilliant!
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That’s cool. I’ve been thinking about trying that as it works with the software I’m already using for speech recognition, https://talonvoice.com/.
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Ooh, I want to know this too. I use a mix of onscreen keyboard and speech recognition.
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Yeah that makes sense. I can definitely appreciate the work that went into that. <3
Bro I’ll take all the SMA characters you got. Bring it!
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Don’t look at me, look at what I’ve made.
Oh man this is me 100%.
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That’s fair. My 2022 started similarly. I was like, “Goals for the new year: experience less suckiness.”
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Actually that’s bad wording on my part. I just mean make some sort of for-profit app. It could be about money, though! Who knows? I’m kind of keeping my eyes open for something I wish existed but doesn’t.
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…busy myself with projects…
This is my favorite thing. ❤️
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Yeah sounds awesome. Yall just let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.
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Wuuuut… definitely gonna check this out.
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Close! I live in Mississippi. It gets pretty warm here. I would never last in the northeast, though. I already have to keep a space heater on my desk to keep my cold SMA hands functioning pretty much all year around.