2023 Wrap-Up

2023-12-28

Here's a wrap-up for 2023. Projects I worked on that are worth talking about, things I discovered during 2023, and ideas to pursue next year.

Projects and Accomplishments

30 Day FOSS Challenge

The 30 Day FOSS Challenge was certainly one of the best parts of my year. In it, I challenged myself and others to adopt as much FOSS as they can for 30 days, and wrote about my experience. You can find the wrap-up (and links to the other posts about it) right here.

I intend to do it again, and try to do it bigger, this next year. The first step is trying to re-write the main page to be more accessible to more people, possibly spinning it off into several pages for different audiences. Look for more info in March or April.

We Bought a House

My partner and I bought a house. That's fucking wild. It's been really interesting working on a place I actually own and can do whatever I want to. Look for posts about my garden in the near future on my mastodon or maybe even here.

St. Louis Urbanists

I've been involved in my local urbanists group since its inception late last year, co-facilitating the monthly meetings and book club, helping with the website, moderating the discord, and a few other projects. The last big project of mine was working with a couple other core members to create an official charter, that defines our non-hierarchial way of organizing and making decisions. I'm very proud of the work I've done, and amazed by all the cool things other members are doing. We've really got what feels like a growing grassroots movement.

Cool Things From 2023

Not everything here is from this year, but it was all new to me this year.

Games

Beecarbonize - An engine builder about fighting global warming. Solve the crisis through a variety of strategies, both social and technological. The gameplay is tight and exploring the different ideas is neat.

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist - A narrative about growing up in the first colony on a new planet with an existing ecology. Part RPG, part dating sim, with deckbuilding, a great scifi story, and reasons to replay. It's cute and refreshing.

Videos and Movies

I will link to youtube for these. However, I strongly suggest you check out Newpipe (for android) and yt-dlp (for desktop) if you want to access these elsewise. If you like a creator and you can, consider giving them money directly through patreon.

Plagiarism and You(Tube) - About once a year hbomberguy drops a giant beautiful video essay that I didn't know I needed or wanted. I'm not particularly glued to youtube, outside of a handful of very specific people. So an essay on youtube plagiarism would've probably just felt like a drama video to me if it was by anyone else. But the back half is not just about plagiarism, it's not just about rampant disregard for others, it's about how a system that rewards plagiarists can undermine the wonderful work of many other creators, especially those from disenfranchised groups. And in true wonderful hbomberguy fashion, the the finale of the video even includes attempts to right the wrongs that the video exposes.

This Video Isn't Just About Taylor Swift. It's About You. - I discovered Avila from the hbomberyguy video above. His work is great in general, but this one is truly excellent. An analysis of Taylor Swift and her fame, and the cultural reaction to her, as a product of neoliberalism. A mixture of music history, and marxist cultural critique.

The Kennedy Assassination: Inside the Book Depository - A very comprehensive dive into basically everything known, and speculated, about the Kennedy Assassination. The whole channel is fantastic too.

The Fall of Minecraft's 2b2t - Very specific but also fascinating deep-dive into a very chaotic part of minecraft's culture, and some extremely impressive hacking.

Podcasts

If you don't already have a podcast player, might I humbly suggest AntennaPod. It's FOSS and as an avid podcast listener, I can say it does everything I want from a podcast app.

You're Wrong About - This podcast dissects various narratives that have entered our collective conscious with wit, humor, and all of the facts. It's a really good way to re-analyze a lot of cultural moments that we have been misled on. There's many many topics, some of my favorites include Anita Hill, The Challenger Disaster, Enron, Homelessness, and The Stonewall Uprising.

Books

This has been a good year for me for reading. If you want to see all of what I read, check out my bookwyrm. Here's just a few highlights

Monk & Robot - This is a series of two books (so far). They are wholesome and lovely all the way through, focusing on person-scaled issues in a world that has largely freed itself of the grand issues of climate change and warfare and oppression. Cozy solarpunk.

Feminist City - As the name suggests, this book explores how cities help and hinder women. As someone who considers themself a feminist, but is not a woman, it was really eye opening. Things as simple as how much greater freedom a city affords a woman than a rural or suburban place, or how difficult it is to get around a city with a stroller. How media portrays (or more accurately, doesn't portray) women existing in cities. How these things could be improved to not only benefit women, but everyone.

This Book Could Help - A book about men's mental health, with a very accessible approach. It's written very plainly, and includes a lot of anecdotes from various men. My only complaint is it isn't longer.

Future Ideas

Digital Garden

I have been collecting old devices, primarily phones, to toy around with. Normally these would be discarded. I have been experimenting with running software from them, like a clone of my website (not currently up) and trying to keep them charged off of solar panels exclusively. My hope is to get more consistent with this project, and have some of my computing ran entirely off a solar and recycled devices, and document this process.

Garden Garden

As mentioned above, we bought a house. I'm working on getting a Garden going. Compost is already started, and I'm sketching out the plans for the rest. Look forward to more on that later.

More Local Organizing/Activism

This header is vague partially because plans are still being formulated, and partially because I don't want to promise anything until it happens. But St. Louis Urbanists has taught me a lot about organizing, and made me interested in pursuing organizing around issues that aren't strictly urbanist. Especially mutual aid, climate justice, permacomputing, and anarchist ways of structuring our world.

PS: Have thoughts about this post? Email me at nix@nullarch.com or message me on mastodon at @nix@social.stlouis.com.