Gwyneth Llewelyn
@GwynethLlewelyn

Hi!

You might have seen my avatar, or my name, somewhere on the Internet, at least since 2004, when I first created my avatar on Second Life. Since then — and although I'm still very active in Second Life! — my account has sort of followed me everywhere, from GitHub to YouTube, from Reddit to Medium.

Although I have a formal higher education in computer science (currently doing a PhD which mixes virtual worlds, artificial intelligence, and virtual archaeology), I dab into philosophy, sociology, psychology, queer/gender studies, Vajrayana Buddhism, politics & economics, literature and even music. I'm a voracious reader, offline and online, and contribute to several Wikis and forums. I'm a bit tired of so-called social media (Twitter, Facebook, & friends), where I also used to be very active when those technologies were new, bright and shiny, and, most importantly, friendly. These days, they're a complete mess, deliberately confusing to follow in order to maximise profits for their owners. Even the fancier, newer-tech alternatives — such as Discord — are just cleaned-up, polished versions of things invented and being used since the late 1980s (at least); I've seen them all (or almost), and I'm tired of them; there are far better ways to waste my time...

... namely, by participating in online communities (in Second Life, where else?) and contributing to open-source projects, including my own. Consistent with my tagline, I've written code in practically all sorts of programming languages, but, naturally enough, I have my personal preferences (and personal 'hates'). Sometimes I contribute with code; sometimes with translations; sometimes with documentation; and sometimes just by answering questions or participating in discussions about a certain open-source software application.

As a consequence, my mailbox(es) is constantly overflowing with all sorts of notifications from a hundred (a thousand?) services; it takes superhuman abilities, nay, a collective of superhumans, to be able to deal with all of that. So, naturally enough, I just filter most of these messages to 'archives', in the hope of answering them some day. I do have a handful of messages to reply to dating back from at least 2006; I occasionally reply to messages over a decade old without even realising how old these are!

Anyway... unfortunately, in spite of having so many diverse skills and abilities, there is a fundamental skill that I totally lack: the ability to convert my work into money. You know, that thing that supermarkets demand when I shop for food. It's a knack I simply don't have. In fact, I even lease computer hardware where I host lots of sites and projects, even a streaming server, to be used by non-profits, small businesses, or collectives of individuals who simply cannot afford the cost of having their own website. Dubbed as Poor Providers' Platform, it's a place where all sorts of small-scale projects and communities can find a place to call their 'home in cyberspace' with contemporary designs and modern technology, at zero cost (if you wish to apply, get in touch with me!).

The long working hours — often nearing 20 hours a day! — without getting a single cent in return are terribly frustrating. Inflation is on the rise, and, while curbed, it already eats on the meagre savings I've got. Alas, as an independent, self-employed worker in IT (not to mention the PhD, of course, but at least that one is dirt cheap — the advantages of living on a welfare state), I do not receive any sort of fixed income. Every now and then, some generous customer drops a few dollars out of their purse, and I have to make sure to stretch it out over months, sometimes even years, until I stumble upon someone else willing to pay for my work.

Needless to say, like everybody else on the planet, I have regular bills to pay. The power & water & internet companies do not care if my income — in the years I have one! — is 'regular' or not. They will charge every month, no matter what, and will not care the least about any sort of 'excuse', such as 'but I have a customer who agreed to pay something next month!' They'll just shut power or water down until I pay. It's not a way of life for the faint of heart: every day I have to cross my fingers and hope that the next bill doesn't hit an empty bank account. Not to mention that the local tax authority is highly suspicious about persons who get a few thousand Euros one year, but nothing on the next year; more often than not, they're prone to 'guesstimate' how much income I might have in a year and charge me an arbitrary value. Sometimes they do that for past years — without ever consulting me, of course, they just 'send the tax bill' so to speak and expect me to immediately pay (or start seizing what's left of my individual property — currently, just an old car, which is up for sale, because I simply cannot afford its maintenance and fuel, at the current prices...). Pay first, ask questions later, that's always their policy.

So... here is my hope. Who knows, perhaps I get a few hundred people who have read my (many) blogs, forum posts, tutorials, or downloaded some of my open-source code, or even have benefitted from any of the websites hosted by me... and decide, in a display of generosity, chip in with a few dollars every month. Who knows! Miracles happen, especially when you do not count with them. It's up to us to create the conditions for those miracles to happen, of course — thus my presence here on Liberapay!

Take your time going through my (social) accounts and see what I've done in the past, continue to do in the present, and hope — especially with your kind and generous support — to continue to do so in the future. And if you think that whatever I'm doing is worth my time, I'll be glad for the tiniest slice of a coin that you can spare :)

Thanks for reading so far! Cheers, and all the best to you :)