Nudged by @cweber's post about The DIY FOSS cyborg (Emacs and Guix, yay!), and this Mastodon conversation, I wanted to revisit the ideas of wearable computing now that tech is a lot more wearable.

It was a very different world when I first experimented with wearable computing in 2002, and my life was also very different from what it is now. I remember mostly wanting to:

• Capture notes on the go
  • I can jot things down on my smartphone now. Also, with WhisperX speech recognition being pretty accurate and fast, dictation is now a way I can get lots of stuff down.
• Learn about interesting things, even when I can't read
  • Podcasts are still fairly niche even today, but YouTube was founded in 2005, and there are plenty of videos now. Back then, it wasn't as easy to find interesting things to listen to, so that's why running text-to-speech on info manuals and text files was helpful. I liked the ease of navigating between pages and chapters, and sometimes I even searched for specific text. Podcasts and videos aren't quite like that yet, but maybe someday.
• Look up stuff
  • … and now we've got smartphones that respond to voice queries (unless I'm recording, in which case I just add an audio placeholder and then look things up on my phone or at home). Finding stuff on the Web is still relatively straightforward, although AI slop might make that iffy. Publishing as many of my notes as possible makes them a little easier to find if I search manually. Searching private notes can usually wait until I get home. It'd be nice to have good private search someday.

Here are my current off-laptop computing opportunities:

• Maybe a 30-minute solo walk, or some audio braindumping if I'm doing chores by myself, or a listening opportunity if I'm doing chores while other people are in the same room. This needs to be mostly hands-free.
• Possibly an hour or two of waiting at playdates, where I usually like to stand and listen to the other grown-ups chat or walk around to get my own exercise; frequently interrupted by A+'s desires for hugs, especially if the other kids are playing tag or other games she doesn't enjoy. I might be able to use a small input device in my pocket. Alternatively, I can knit or crochet at this time.
• An unknown length of time when I'm waiting for A+. Sometimes we're at home and I can squeeze in some writing or coding on my laptop or some drawing on my Supernote. Sometimes we're outside and I can record or write on my phone.
• Doing an audio braindump or a quick review as part of my evening routines or before I go to bed.

When I have a moment, I tend to prioritize untangling my thoughts or writing more than listening. Coming up with a list of things to think about is fairly easy. I can think of many things off the top of my head, and if I somehow manage to exhaust that list, a quick browse of my inbox or a search for the todump tag will turn up more. Some things that I want to think about are best thought of in front of a computer where I can try out source code and look up manuals. Still, even if I'm out walking on my own, there are things I can think through.

Audio braindumps help me figure out what I care about enough to write more about, so that when I actually get some writing or drawing time, I can focus on the thoughts that have some depth to them, where I have something to say.

I'm not very smooth at thinking out loud. I meander. I rephrase. I interrupt myself and go on tangents. I'm slowly getting better at collecting a phrase in my head before I say it. I'm working my way up to sentences and eventually paragraphs. But I definitely don't talk in a straightforward and coherent manner. Then again, I don't write or draw in a linear manner either. I jump around. That's what editing is for. I'm working on learning how to structure things better up front (figuring out a quick outline aloud, or maybe jotting things down in my Orgzly inbox; declaring the sections using keywords; mentally rehearsing my sentences and phrases; marking new paragraphs with "new paragraph" to add line breaks) so that I need to do less editing.

Sometimes an idea bounces back and forth between audio, words, and drawings. An audio breakdown might help me identify the rough outline of things that I want to talk about, the drawing helps me figure out the order and the relationships between parts, and then looking at the drawing while I braindump helps me then flesh it out in even more detail. Then I can edit large parts of that transcript into the text that will go along with the sketchnote. (Example: How do I want to get better at learning out loud? Part 1 of 4: Starting, of which I've only managed to do one part so far…)

When I'm recording audio, I'm not looking at the recording or the lapel mic, so it can be hard to tell if I've run out of battery. I haven't lost anything I missed – mostly just ephemera – but it would be nice to be able to trust in the system. I'm considering upgrading to a lapel mic set that comes with a charging case, two microphones, and a battery level indicator so I can be reasonably sure I'll have a charged lapel mic.

If I use the lapel mic to record on my phone, the Google voice assistant doesn't work, so it's a bit of a tradeoff. I mostly use the voice assistant to set timers, check the time or weather, and do quick conversions. If I shift audio recording to a separate device, I can still use voice interactions with my phone. I have an Olympus WS-311M digital voice recorder that uses an AAA battery and transfers the recorded WMA files via USB. I can try putting that in my overalls pocket or on a lanyard, and I can see if the recording quality is good enough to be transcribed. If there's too much noise from clothing, I can get a lapel mic with an audio jack. A few wireless lapel mics with charging cases also come with a combination receiver that can plug into either an audio jack, USB C, or a Lightning port. Since I'm not sure yet, I'm going to hold off on upgrading my lapel mic until I get a sense of whether the external recorder works for me.

I've also been contemplating getting a new audio recorder. Many audio recorders can now also connect to phones via Bluetooth in order to record calls. If I get one, it'll be easier to interview my mom and collect stories. This is low priority at the moment, though.

Anyway, I think I record more than I can efficiently process at this point. The bottleneck isn't really getting things in, it's processing things and turning them into things I can share.

Most of the things I want to look up can be handled on my phone or saved for when I get back to my laptop.

These days, looking things up in my personal notes on the go is mostly a matter of checking my people.org file to help me remember the names of grown-ups and kids at the playdates, and to keep some notes on their interests. I still have a hard time remembering names or telling some people apart, so I try to jot down details that can help me remember. If I want to get even fancier (and less stick-figure-y), it could be interesting to try using those police-sketch-type apps to capture a sense of someone's likeness without taking a picture of them with my phone.

It's easy to find things to listen to these days, but it's also easy to think that I'm learning something but not actually absorb it. I want to think about stuff while I'm listening to it or shortly afterwards, connecting the ideas with other things I've learned and things I want to try. I like braindumping after a podcast or book, but I'd like to get better at capturing quotations and more specific thoughts. u/LordLuvMuffin recommends recording audio while listening to a podcast, which should work pretty well with my current workflow for braindumping. If I rewind a bit or pause, I can note some words to find in the transcript.

Reviewing might be a better use of my time compared to listening to podcasts. I've been recording 1-minute Emacs notes for myself so that I can shuffle them and remember things I've been tinkering with.

Spaced repetition is even more effective than random shuffling. That's where some kind of reliable eyes-free input might be helpful. For that, I might be able to use Anki (possibly with org-anki), org-drill, or org-fc. People seem to like using the 8BitDo gamepad together with Anki, and the 8BitDo Micro looks small enough to tuck into a pocket. I might even be able to use the buttons with thin gloves. I can imagine having speech-synthesized questions to jog my memory, pressing a key to hear the answer, and then noting whether I got that right and how easily I answered. (Apparently there are also multi-button rings people like to use as Tiktok remotes. Another possibility…)

I can start with the hardware I've got. I like the idea of the triple-tap headphone gesture that snipd uses to save key moments. The Indy Evo earbuds I'm using support triple-taps and apparently I can assign Tasker to handle that, so I can probably figure out some kind of Tasker profile that does some useful thing. Maybe I can triple-tap to hear a random speech-synthesized review/thinking prompt extracted from my Org files. Tasker is a little cumbersome to work with, so if I can get Tasker to send an intent to Emacs (maybe via Termux, if I set up Emacs on Android and Termux correctly?), maybe I can do more of my automation within Emacs.

Also, the micro:bit can act as a Bluetooth human interface device (keyboard, mouse, media keys, or gamepad) for my Android phone and maybe the laptop, which is promising. I have a gamepad and a board that has a bunch of buttons on it. I think tinkering with hardware would be a good skill to develop (and model for A+), so that's probably a good step. If I can get that working, then I can see if I can make it pocketable enough, and whatever UI I come up with along the way will probably still be translatable to something like the 8BitDo Micro if I decide that's smoother.

There's also this interesting Reddit thread about hand-held devices that people run Emacs on, if I want something more easily tweakable than my phone.

I'd love to have Emacspeak working on my phone (or failing that, a device I can tuck into my vest). Espeak works on Termux, so it might be doable. I think that could lend itself to lots of fun experiments. Hah, worst-case scenario, I could maybe SSH to my virtual private server, get Emacspeak running on it, and maybe use icecast to stream the audio from it to my phone. Wouldn't that be crazy?

If I leave the recorder running while I'm doing chores, I can try to build a habit of narrating a quick note when I'm putting things away, especially for things that are infrequently used or are not in their usual place. Alternatively, I can make a quick voice-to-text note in Orgzly so that it's more searchable and so that it doesn't get lost in my transcript inbox.

For stuff, I should probably do an inventory of the house anyway. It could be a good opportunity to declutter.

Getting smart glasses with speakers/microphones is tempting, because then I don't have to fuss around with a lapel mic or earbuds. The ones with cameras might be fun for capturing quick moments, too. I have a small face, though, so it might be the sort of thing to try in person. Also, privacy and tweakability, hmm…

• Practise thinking in phrases, then sentences, then paragraphs.
• Experiment with using a separate voice recorder so that I can also try out voice interfaces.
• Slow down and capture more notes. Do an inventory and declutter along the way.
• Improve workflows for braindumping and review
• Experiment with simple speech synthesis and input:
  • Triple-tap, Tasker profiles
  • micro:bit as Bluetooth keyboard
  • Consider Bluetooth gamepad if I want something more polished/pocketable
• See if I can figure out Emacspeak on my phone.

One of the things I'm trying to practise is limiting the scope of a blog post when I notice I'm starting to get carried away. =) There's plenty for me to think about and follow up on in this one!