After spending the day in my dressing gown building out my AI transcription pipeline, I'm feeling pretty good about this whole hermit-at-a-laptop lifestyle. I've just processed 35 gigabytes of audio from this year—conversations at chicken farms, numerology talks with energy healers, voice notes to myself I'd completely forgotten about—and watching it all get transcribed has been this weird nostalgic trip down memory lane.

But this episode isn't really about the tech (though I do geek out a bit about having this "army of assistants" to remember everything for me). It's more about realizing how little I actually need: somewhere to sleep, something to eat, and whatever mission I'm on that day. I'm thinking about van improvements (filtered water tap, better workspace ergonomics), reflecting on how subscription services bleed your money the same way social obligations bleed your time, and getting real about the anxiety I feel when people expect a piece of me just because I'm back in Perth. Sometimes I just don't tell people I'm in town, and yeah, I feel guilty about it, but I'm learning to protect my time the way I learned to protect my money.

Also: I'm apparently the eccentric artist type now, and I'm kind of okay with that.

Recorded: November 5, 2025