Hey, As some of you might have expected (a friend told me the “writing has kinda been on the wall”), I’m going to take a break from this community. I’ve been feeling the encroach of burnout again, and want to give myself some space and time to rest. Here’s what that’s gonna look like. I won’t be checking the Slack regularly. If you need to get in touch about something urgent, you can reach me via email: [email protected]. @Jimmy Miller is still here, and has moderator powers, so if there’s an urgent issue he’ll also be able to handle it or ping me. (Realistically, the only “issue” we tend to have is some startup doing a drive-by spam post once or twice a year.) I’ll no longer be hosting monthly virtual meetups. If someone else would like to take that on, let me know and I’ll help you get set up. I’ll keep paying the hosting bills for our various domains and servers and other such things, and make sure that stuff keeps humming along 🫡 I am gonna continue making monthly bonus podcast episodes with Jimmy. These are fun and thought-provoking and a good creative / social outlet for me — and they’re usually low effort and fit comfortably into my life (though every once in a while I do an hourlong, intensely-edited video, oops). The main episodes… we’ll see. Gonna try and figure out what to do there over the coming months. (Kinda fitting that they stopped this year right when I transitioned. So if they come back in some form, there’ll be a “new host” in that I’m kinda a new person. I enjoy this thought.) I’ve also quit social media, and am making a bunch of other changes in my life, so I’m gonna be a bit of a ghost with respect to the internet. That said, if you identify as queer, or feel drawn to the queer community for any reason, send me an email! I’d love to stay in touch. (… of course, anyone is welcome to email me at any time for any reason. I just wanna especially invite queer folks to connect.) At the risk of being saccharine, I want to thank everyone here for being here, sharing your work and your thoughts, and making this a space that has brought me so much joy and inspiration over the years. I’ve loved meeting so many of you in person at various events, and also seeing your faces on the virtual meetups. This community has been a significant piece of my life and my sense of self, and I’m sad to now be distancing myself from it like this. I hope to return in fine form, perhaps in a year or so, we’ll see. Until then, please keep exploring the weirdest fringes of computing and sharing what you learn with everyone around you, to inspire them to do explorations of their own. Warmly, Ivy

Thank you Ivy and take care!

Thank you for making this such a great community. Hope you get some good time away. Burnout is hard!