Greetings, friends. (VII)

Greetings, friends! This is entry #7, which means it’s been a whole week since I promised myself I would write 750 words or for 15 minutes every day. I will give myself a modest pat on the back. I can only aspire someday to match Rick’s 800-plus series of journal entries. It would seem contrary to my habits, but I’m already working on an 890 day Duolingo streak. Y pues, ya puedo hablar un poco español. I am an aging and lazy man, but I am finding the development of new habits of self-care extremely satisfying.

As of today, my memorial to Aaron Swartz has gotten 90-odd likes on Facebook, whereas my invective-filled rant about creeping white supremacism has gotten 11. I am permitting Facebook to leverage my journal to sell ads for your eyeballs, and undoubtedly a slightly sentimental recollection of an old friend is better for user engagement than a dark political screed. Apparently the almighty Algorithm values one over the other at a ratio of at least 8-to-1. It’s weird to see AI shadowbanning in such stark relief. All hail the mighty Algorithm!

Accordingly, I have pulled the covers off and made the journal public again. I wanted Quinn to be able to read my earlier post without having to sign up by email. I want Iván to have his RSS feed. I’d like my crotchety old Dad to be able to peer in now and again.

I am still a little worried that a future employer or a foreign government considering a travel visa or some 4chan babies might take my extended ramblings amiss and make me regret it. I probably shouldn’t worry. I’m not important in any conceivable sense, and with a name like mine, I can hardly hide on the Internet. I have always and will always stick out, literally and figuratively. The possibility that some friend might benefit from reading these thoughts outweighs the extremely hypothetical risk.

So let’s shake off the shadowban and talk about something fun for a bit! I mentioned yesterday that I would rather be bad at blacksmithing than talk politics.

In fact, this is extremely correct. I am very bad at blacksmithing. But I love it. For a kid who has spent his life dealing with the purely ephemeral - and software is painfully ephemeral - it is incredibly satisfying to work with tangible objects. To bend hot steel to my will. Sort of. Mostly the hot steel does what it wants to. I am not very coordinated, and, while the motions of blacksmithing largely follow cause-and-effect, I am still impatient and not that good at foreseeing the effect of a given hammer blow.

I got into blacksmithing during the pandemic while mindlessly watching YouTube videos. At some point, YouTube decided I wanted to see a video of someone making a sword. Why, yes, that seems interesting, I will watch a video of someone making a sword. Click.

Give the almighty Algorithm a single click and it will come back nagging like a dog in search of a treat. Watch someone make a knife? Sure. Click. How about an axe? Click. How about some throwing stars? Why not. I have a whole pandemic to kill. Click.

So I got pretty deep into the back catalogs of folks like Shurap and Alec Steele, and, when you watch enough of these videos, you start to get a sense of the stages of crafting a thing like a simple knife. Heat the billet in the forge and work it over the anvil. Rough out the shape of the blade, and narrow down the tang. Let it cool down and then take it to the grinder to bevel the blade. Normalize the blade in the oven, then heat it up again and quench in oil. Sand the blade to refine the edge. Handles? You got at least three basic options just for a start.

The next thing you know, of course, you start to think, hey, maybe I could do this. And voilà, you’re signing a lease on a container at the Box Shop and driving all the way to Willits to buy up a farrier’s anvil and forge.

Well, that was about a year and a half ago. I haven’t made much in that time — mostly blacksmithing tools, like anvil dies and a couple sets of tongs. Last winter I made a bottle opener that I was quite proud of, but which snapped the neck clean off a bottle of beer the second time I used it.

Largely, the challenge has been a lack of time. The Box Shop was a long way from my apartment in San Francisco, and I spent the last six months on the move with one thing and another. Now that I am starting to settle down in the Portland area, I’m hoping to start making some progress.

I’ll have to tell you more about that later. I’m at double my time budget again. If you’re reading this, I send you my love. Ceterum censeo pro vigilum imperdiet est. I hope you have a wonderful day!