Polish x3 Winding Down

content/english/news/winding-down.md

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-**Our conferences are coming to an end. I am re-evaluating how we socialize.**
+Our conferences are coming to an end. I am re-evaluating how we socialize.
 
 Dear Handmade folks,
 
@@ -44,15 +44,15 @@ These days, most people wait until the last minute to buy tickets, which puts al
 
 2. **Personal Trauma**
 
-In the last Handmade Seattle I made a mistake with the balance of content. It was definitely jarring to have little in the way of old-school technical presentations. This caused a 50-50 split of positive versus negative feedback: the positive commentary came largely from newcomers, while the negative came largely from veterans. I made other genuine mistakes too; the reader can visit [older](/news) blog posts where I apologized and asked for feedback.
+In the last Handmade Seattle I made a mistake with the balance of content. It was definitely jarring to have little in the way of old-school technical presentations. This caused a 50-50 split of positive versus negative feedback: the positive commentary came largely from newcomers, while the negative came largely from veterans. The reader can visit [older](/news) blog posts where I apologized and asked for feedback.
 
-However, I stand by all my speakers (read: their right to speak their mind unencumbered) and refuse to add disclaimers/warnings inside published recordings. It should be obvious me giving speakers air time doesn't mean I endorse all their views. In any case, the most controversial talk by far was Andrew Kelley's keynote on [Day One](/media/seattle-2024/hms-day-one/).
+However, I stand by all my speakers (read: their right to speak their mind unencumbered) and refuse to add disclaimers/warnings inside published recordings. It is obvious giving speakers air time doesn't mean I endorse all their views. In any case, the most controversial talk by far was Andrew Kelley's keynote on [Day One](/media/seattle-2024/hms-day-one/).
 
 I received a barrage of vile essays in my Inbox and Discord DMs, calling me a communist (what?) for platforming Andrew's message. I lost good friends, including Ginger Bill, the creator of Odin:
 
 {{<youtube eoNJfoFR2CE>}}
 
-Warning: This is very dark stuff, and he torched our relationship along with Andrew's. Criticism is one thing but this is something else. Dozens of people inexplicably saw it before me. This was my 1-minute 30-second response to his half-hour video:
+Warning: This is very dark stuff, and he torched our relationship along with Andrew's. Criticism is one thing but this is something else. A lot of people inexplicably saw it before me. Here was my 1-minute response to his half-hour video:
 
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 #### Nature is healing
 
-Handmade meetups are generally awesome and keep growing. We help local programmers find work or make new friends every month. I train and mentor hosts, then they take the reins, so the scene is decentralized and self-sustaining. Meetups are cheap or free to run so I don't have to chase big revenue. Meanwhile, building Terminal Click as an indie dev is therapy compared to wrangling humans for a living.
+Handmade meetups are generally awesome and keep growing. We help local programmers find work or make new friends every month. I train and mentor hosts, then they take the reins, so the scene is decentralized and self-sustaining. Meetups are cheap or free to run so I don't have to chase big revenue. Meanwhile, building [Terminal Click](https://terminal.click) as an indie dev is therapy compared to wrangling humans for a living.
 
 A growing number of people who ended their friendships with me have apologized. A couple of examples follow (you may need to open them in a new tab):
 
@@ -89,9 +89,9 @@ Regardless of what you think of this, I forgave both of them and I'm opting to p
 
 #### Could things have been different?
 
-Maybe. Without social media or certain incentives for online drama things could've gone differently. A meetup member in Seattle called me a “young grasshopper” as a community organizer. That surprised me until I looked around. Big events take time: TED existed for four decades before YouTube made it huge, DEFCON is thirty years old, and many open-source conferences spent twenty years figuring things out. Wrangling humans is slow and messy.
+Maybe. Without social media or certain incentives for online drama things could've gone differently. A meetup member in Seattle called me a “young grasshopper” as a community organizer. That caught me off guard until I looked around. Important events take time indeed: TED Talks have existed for four decades and then YouTube made it huge; DEFCON is thirty years old; many open-source conferences spent twenty years figuring things out. Wrangling humans is slow and messy.
 
-I’m done running conferences though. Besides the reasons above, they feed the egos of a few “anointed” ones and require a social-media hustle I won’t play. I’m opting out. I’d rather build stuff that gets people offline: better meetups, our own server racks, and self-hosted tools that help folks make a living with serious Handmade projects.
+I’m done running conferences though. Besides the reasons above, they feed the egos of a few “anointed” speakers and require a social-media hustle I won’t play. I’m opting out. I’d rather build stuff that gets people offline: better meetups, our own server racks, and self-hosted tools for programmers making a living with serious Handmade projects.
 
 I’ll keep publishing newsletters [here](/news) and on [Terminal Click](https://terminal.click/posts), and occasionally on my [personal](https://abner.page) website.