I held a skillshare on 3/28 over Zoom to talk about how we can make shows safer from COVID (and why that's important)! I'm proud of how my slides came out, and the structure of the presentation, but I'm excited to keep improving upon it. If you're interested in joining for the next one, you can sign up for updates here.
I also recently completed the Tempest air purifier build, with the help of my partner! It is SUCH a sturdy guy, built to last thru any Boston hardcore punk show. So now we have 3 CR boxes (classic style), 1 Tempest purifier, 1 set of Far-UVC lights, and 1 Vitalight CO2 Monitor to lend out to shows and events in greater Boston. Sign up here to reserve.
So those are my most recent updates, but I might edit this when I get home to include pictures. Turns out, getting in the habit to blog is harder than I remembered.
3/12/2024
These are FAN-CLUB updates;
I brought the CR boxes and far-UVC lights to a show at Deep Cuts! The staff were supportive and I spoke to sooo many people throughout the night about the project! I don't normally go to shows where masks aren't required, but I really want more people to know about these tools and how they can borrow them. So I took a risk, did what I could to protect myself and my friends, and I'm glad I did. Even if one of the CR boxes got a little damaged in the process :P
NUKIT/the Cyber Night Market, MY HERO, donated one of their TEMPEST air purifier kits to the Fan Club. I am so so excited to add another air purifier option, especially one that is a little quieter and more portable than the CR boxes. I launched a fundraiser on Twitter and Insta yesterday, and the outpouring of support has been incredible. We surpassed the goal amount for buying the additional parts for the TEMPEST, and have been able to pay myself back for some of the money I've fronted for other items (CR Box parts, Far-UVC lights, etc). I can't wait to start builting this thing!!
We will be lending fans to a couple of drag shows coming up, and our Far-UVC torches are currently on tour with a solo artist. It's so great to see word spreading all over the Boston area so that more people can these mitigations in action. Soon, we'll have more air purifier options, and another set of far-UVC lights to lend out, so that availability is as reliable as possible.
Finally, I'm working on a mobile version of the site. It will also work on desktop if you find all my silly buttons and boxes distracting!! Recently, I've also added a photo gallery, cleaned up the FAQ a bit, and just tweaked things here and there...it's a work in progress and I enjoy the learning process that building this site has been giving me.
Thanks ya'll for the support!!!!
2/11/2024
Sorry for the lack of updates. I've recently been focusing on another site ... to spread the word about events in support of Palestine. It's MA-focused, but includes some remote actions as well. If you'd like to check it out, it's here: http://abac.neocities.org/.
I'm going to finally add the BLIS K12 probiotics to this site shortly and also get some for myself. I'm starting an in-person temp job and freaking out about the added risk involved. I assume I'll be the only one masked, but we'll see next week. Fingers crossed there's good ventilation at least.
2/2/2024
OK Fan-Club is on instagram now, but don't expect us to post much lol.
1/17/2024
I decided to get over myself and just make an instagram for Fan-Club, but it got suspended within just a few days. I know that it's because I took some extra steps to protect my data/privacy and to not have it immediately associated with my personal account or other unrelated projects. I signed up on a VPN, with a different email address from my other accounts, and did not log-in on my phone until I had logged out of my other accounts. I also did not give my phone number. It's the phone number that got me. I cannot appeal the decision without a phone number; and they say explicitly that they need this data both for pushing ads and suggesting accounts. I am torn about this. I obviously want as many people to see this project as possible, but I also 1. don't want to manage more social media and 2. don't want to keep feeding META's disgusting data hoard. Idk. There must be a way to do a project like this without instagram...right?
1/11/2024
The show I helped out with last weekend went really well. Here's a thread on twitter I wrote about it with some photos and stuff. tldr; we set up the far-UVC lights for the first time!! And I set up an info table where people could learn about far-uvc, air purifiers, etc (and grab free masks and tests and zines). 
I was almost late for this show because I decided to build the third CR box DAY-OF + I wrote up how-to guides for the far-uvc and cr boxes. There's a printed one that I'm keeping inside the Nukit case as well. I updated our stock and the request form on the FAN-CLUB site so that's all accurate now! We haven't gotten any requests yet, though, so clearly I need to do more outreach.
(I am determined to not made an instagram for these projects but it's starting to feel inevitable...)
I'm going to add this to the links section but I just want to highlight this amazing resource on T-Cells I saw today from lizwhatsherface. I really appreciate the way that she organizes her information for anyone to understand and share easily. Be sure to check out some of her guides and share them widely!!!
That reminds me of just how much I need to update this site (We Have the Tools). Now that my coding is improving a little (and my knowledge on Far-UVC and other tools!!!) I have a lot I've been meaning to change and add to make this more useful. If there's anything that you'd like to see added or changed here, as always, please let me know. I really appreciate the feedback. I know it's a little slower than social media, and a lot of the amazing accounts that have been sharing research. But this site was started as a way for me to organize what I was learning, so I never want to rush to output info that I don't understand well or have sources for. I hope that by including the links section, and now this blog, it can help to supplement the info that I have here in the meantime.
xx
1/1/2024
MY NUKIT TORCHES ARRIVED! I bought the set of 4 far-uvc lights from Naomi Wu's Cyber Night Market to use at events I'm volunteering at/lend out to the community via Fan-Club. They came with a cute carrying case and pretty straight-forward instructions, so they're a perfect item to share among bands and bookers who want to make their shows a little safer. That said, it's still a newer/lesser-known technology so I'm thinking about how I can best spread the word and make sure there's a demand for them. It's hard because I go to very few shows now (just the ones I help out with where we have mitigations) so how to I talk up these things when I;m not really seeing people irl? One of the factors that made me put these projects off for so long. But it's started, and I have these tools to share, and it's a new year, so I'll do my best.
12/25/2023
Added a couple things to the links section; Julia Doubleday's blog, The Gauntlet... in BOOKS, "Phantom Plague: How Tuberculosis Shaped our History" By Vidya Krishnan (finished the audiobook a couple weeks ago, fantastic book and excited to dig into some of her other writing) and "Health Communism" By Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant of Death Panel Pod. I'm not finished reading that one, I put it down for a while bc I'm having trouble finishing non-audio non-fiction for whatever reason. I added an audio player to my fan-club page to share recent podcast episodes I liked. Idk if I should add the player to this site as well? Is that too much? Same code so it would be easy. hmm. Speaking of Fan-Club, I realized the zine I uploaded as a PDF didn't line up right with the images...I thought PDF would be the best way to make that work without ruining the images but I guess not. May need to just code it as a webpage?? IDK. I'm new. If you ask I'll literally mail it to you because that's more fun anyway (and I know most people don't even have printers anyway).
12/23/2023
Recent podcast episode I recommend: Live Like the World is Dying -- S1E101 - Leah on Disability and Preparedness
"...we just need to accept responsibility and fix shit. And that's the preparedness thing that you've been talking about is like, you look at your list of problems, and then you figure out how to do it, and you become really inventive about how to do it. And our problem is that Covid is around and so our solution can't be, "no more live music," because that is a part of living that we should appreciate. Right? But it also can't be "Pretend it doesn't exist." -Margaret Killjoy, host of the show. (Audio and written transcript both available)
Site updates: I don't think I'm feeling the sidebar. Going to keep playing around with the layout some more. Also need to add more mask recs now that Project N95 is closing...RIP. I've been thinking about how I'll use this blog/for what and also whether I can have the same microblog for both of my COVID-related sister sites (this one and Fan-Club). So expect some changes and maybe broken links as I figure it out.
Fan-Club Updates: I got another box fan and should be able to finish the third CR box this weekend. I added a donate button but I'm tryna think about more exciting fundraising I could do. CR box stickers? A virtual show? Stay tuned...
12/20/2023
added a sidebar and blog area for updates. added some articles to the "tools we've lost" toolbox. also fixed the spacing between elements within the toolbox.