about this site

september, 2023

this is a blog about obsessions. having a conversation, reading a book, seeing a video—something will make me stop and say, 'oh, really?' an idea will resonate with me and i will set out to experience it for myself. i will go deep and consume all the information i can, taking detailed notes, log my practice, and create charts and videos of my progress. this is a collection of writings and artifacts related to these experiences:

• ultrarunning, especially in the mountains of colorado
• movement practices like gymnastics, pilates, kettlebell juggling, and so much more
• living in a spiritual community for a decade
• living habitually barefoot and without furniture
• love of nature and exploring remote places, including caving, and cave conservation
• fractals and emergent systems, generative art
• the emotional power of music, especially rhythm
• unix and emacs, and a love for the computer language lisp

i feel like an alchemist standing in the confluence of these different obsessions. instead of transmuting materials though, i'm transforming myself through these experiences. i'm gaining me new skills and perspectives, and my approach to life is much different than it used to be.

what about that name?

well before the rise of the web, i was a teenager steeped in sci-fi and cyberpunk—obsessed with the internet and multiuser unix systems. late one night while playing a networked spacewar clone called xpilot with friends (we had snuck into the office i was working at to use the big x11 terminals), and this name came about and kinda stuck.

a benefit to a name like winkywooster is that it's unique. find that moniker anywhere and it's guaranteed to be me. ⊕you can represent any alphanumeric string as a number using base 36. for example in clojure you could write 36rwinkywooster which converts to a very large, unique integer: 4280100411606662115.

colophon

a custom static site generator written in clojure using tufte-css for layout.