Star Wars day marks one decade since I got my first full time job. There was a time when I thought I would never be hired because of my disability. I decided to celebrate the ten year milestone with a writeup about how I got here.
Microblog
I’ve had Crazy by Gnarls Barkley stuck in my head for two weeks. And I keep thinking about this dramatic monologue:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DA2qD00Mh7R/
Before you watch it, think twice. That’s my only advice.
Websites are a miraculous hodgepodge of design, programming, IT, marketing, writing, art, and diplomacy.
I love videos that demonstrate the scale of things in the universe. I could watch these types of videos for hours. I decided to share a few of my favorite ones.
https://blakewatson.com/journal/im-fascinated-by-the-scale-of-things-in-space
Seeing as I'm in a wheelchair, I would just like to announce that I will be missing all future standups.
…
I will see myself out.
Takes antibiotics and chases it with probiotics.
*Mortal Kombat voice* FIGHT!
Don't let AI take our sparkle emoji. Make them pry it from our cold, dead fingers.
This is very much part of the inspiration for HTML for People. https://htmlforpeople.com/
https://mstdn.social/@aworkinglibrary/114382848355812422
I've been using Superwhisper for Mac, especially when chatting in Slack or Discord to prevent me from doing so much typing. The problem is it likes to capitalize things like LOL, which makes me look like a serial killer or something.
My PCA told me that God debuffed me because he knew I would be too powerful.
I have mixed feelings about what I’m calling “AI guilt.” On one hand I see incredible accessibility applications, but also the corrosive side of the technology.
I’m not sure if I’m down with blaming end users. I can see where people are coming from, but anyone driving a car or using a smartphone or a computer or literal sausage is “pretending not to know how the sausage is made” so I don’t think it’s as simple as “use AI === bad.” That’s not a consistent, compelling argument to me.
*ducks*
Whisper transcribed “monospaced” as “mono-based” and I’m not even mad.
Trump: hello yes, there seems to be something wrong with my economy
IT support: try turning it off and turning back on
Trump: ok done
You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.
Is there a menu bar app for mac that will yell at me if I’m suddenly burning through my battery life?
Do more. Write less.
I’m coming up on ten years of being employed full-time (May 4, Star Wars day). I'll do a blog post on that day, but it’s been quite a ride. I’m lucky to have been born at a time when (and a place where) there was enough technology available to make working with spinal muscular atrophy possible. And I'm fortunate enough to have had help and support from so many people.
I'll have a lot more to say about it come Justin Timberlake's favorite month, but I wanted to put something out there now. (3/3)
Toward the end I wrote:
> I make websites. And not having a job right now isn’t going to take that away from me. I still have my dreams. One day, something big is going to happen. I’ll land my dream job. Or I’ll become a successful freelancer. And even if neither of those things happen, I’ll at least keep volunteering for charity, working on personal projects, and contributing some of my creations to the world.
I think I wrote it to *will* myself to believe it—not because I already did. (2/3)
In 2011 I was on year 2 of being unemployed out of college (it would go on to be 6 years). When a company ghosted me after a promising interview, I was pretty down. Some things happened which jolted me out of the gloom. I took to my (now archived) blog to write about it. I'm a little bleary-eyed reading it now. I'm glad 2011 me didn't give up. He definitely wanted to many times. (1/3)
https://blakewatson.com/ihs/we-still-have-our-dreams/index.html
My brother tried his hand at blogging in Spanish (with an English translation).
https://www.mattwatson.org/blog/20250330-palabras-y-personas/