Can you believe it’s the end of the year already? Soon, I’ll be recapping 2016 and posting my most popular articles of the year, but for now, here’s some stuff I wrote this month.

Why Cheap, Outdated Android Phones Widen The Digital Security Divide (Reveal News)

This Tabletop Game Forces You To Confront Humanity’s Future Threats (Motherboard)

The horrors of the future, from nuclear proliferation to plagues, are on full display in Eclipse Phase–a post-apocalyptic sci fi/horror tabletop role-playing game with transhumanist themes.

7 Bold Burgers To Try Before You Die (Made Man)

These burgers from Shamrocks Irish Nook, Solly’s Grille, Esme, 821 Cafe, Taco Bamba, Crown Burgers, and The Anchor Fish & Chips will blow your mind.

A Meditation Primer (Performance Menu, paywalled)

Meditating can be one of those annoying things that you already know they should do, but never get around to doing, like flossing, or changing your oil. But since you’re a Performance Menu reader, you are of above average intelligence, and likely already take great care of your teeth and car. Add some meditation to the mix and you’ll be all set.

[Podcast] Monday Morning Dumpster Dive: College Football Edition

Violence against women, drunken coaches, and good old-fashioned cheating. For the college football-themed episode of our podcast, we spoke with former Vikings punter Chris Kluwe about the disturbing video of Joe Mixon punching a female student, Steve Sarkisian getting hired on as a coach despite some baggage, and the Wakeyleaks scandal.

[Podcast] Monday Morning Dumpster Dive: Russian Interference in the U.S. Election

We spoke with Ethan Heilman, Network Security Researcher at Boston University, about the latest.

[Podcast] Monday Morning Dumpster Dive: Friday Night Flight Dump

We spoke with Melanie Zanona about Norwegian Air operations in the U.S.

Today is my seven-year freelance anniversary! That means that it’s been SEVEN YEARS since I took the plunge and became an independent journalist.

On my four-year freelance anniversary, I shared 20 things I learned the hard way—and they’re still just as relevant, especially if you’re looking for tips to stay afloat financially (without losing your sanity). The following year, I wrote about defining success for oneself, and how even unpaid work that feels meaningful can be more fulfilling than high-paying work in odds with your own sense of integrity. Last year, I focused on the underbelly of hard stuff about freelancing that people don’t often talk about.

This year, I’d like to focus on seven things I’m thankful for.

Amazing Clients

When I first started freelancing, I was not at all selective about clients. Over time, I developed pretty stringent standards for the type of people I like to work with. Still, it can be hard to drop high-paying clients offering steady work even when their values don’t align with mine and they’re draining to work with. This year, I finally broke the curse and can say that I truly love every one of my editors and clients.

Editors that have your back when companies push back against accurate reporting are worth their weight in gold. How clients react when you negotiate contracts will tell you everything you need to know about them as people. And, interestingly enough, some of your dream publications may not be all that. Some have poor working conditions, editors that are consistently late with revisions (but don’t change your deadline), unreasonable expectations, toxic power dynamics, and scope creep. Others are everything you’ve ever dreamed of. I’m thrilled with all of mine.

Having clients that you’re super stoked to work with makes all the difference in the world.

Amazing Writers And Sources

I’ve had the opportunity to edit dozens of writers over the years, and am always impressed with their creativity and expertise. And being able to pick people’s brains–whether on the record or on background–has not only improved my work but given me an increased understanding of the world.

Strong Support Networks

Having friends to connect with to discuss freelancing challenges and goals has been invaluable. I have two amazing friends (waving to Elina and Susan) who I connect with regularly over email and we talk about our struggles and our goals. I call them my Jedi Council. With their support, I’ve dropped awful clients, negotiated for better contracts, and gotten a handle on balancing non-work goals while maintaining the quality of my work. They are also quick to offer a bit of tough love if I’m about to make poor choices.

I’ve also connected with local freelancers at various meetups and in my coworking space, over countless Slack and Semaphor channels, and at conferences across the country. And I’ve networked with hackers and privacy experts and some of the smartest minds in the fitness industry over the years, which is a nice job perk.

Whether it’s online, in person, or a combination of the two, finding support outside of harried/overworked editors is crucial.

Making My Own Schedule

For many years, freelancing to me was about staying up until I could barely keep my eyes open—2AM or so—and then waking up and hopping on my laptop before even thinking about breakfast.

But this summer, I realized my health was beginning to suffer from my insane schedule. After an injury kept me from swinging by evening classes at a Brazilian jiu-jitsu gym (as I’d intended to do), I joined an amazing gym and started training three days a week—during prime time. Between the driving and the training and my dilly-dallying, I probably spend 3 hours during the day on each of these days just focused on my own fitness.

The surprising thing for me was that switching from working 60-80 hour weeks to around 40 hasn’t really impacted my income. I’ve also noticed that I’m far more productive during the hours I do work if I’m not burning the candle at both ends. And I don’t mind working a few evening and weekend hours if it means I get to block off time to go to the gym or even attend events during the day.

Freelancing allows us the luxury of making our own schedules—good to take advantage of it!

Apps & Tools

I don’t know where I’d be without Basecamp, my favorite project management tool. Freshbooks is a god-send when it comes to invoicing (and even sending out reminders for past-due payments). Strict Workflow helps keep me on task. I just started using Grammarly, which can be really helpful. And I’m very grateful for free tools (like Privacy Badger, HTTPS Everywhere, Do Not Track, Signal, and even PGP) and paid tools (password managers and VPNs) to help me keep my information secure.

Caring Less

A lot of writers I know don’t read the comments on their posts, which is a shame—sometimes there are corrections in there. In fact, many of the sites I write for have turned off comments since they can be a bit of a cesspool (and since everything’s moving to social media anyway). I’m one of the writers who reads every single comment, and I sometimes even scan Twitter and Facebook and Reddit to see what people are saying. At some point, I stopped caring so much because I ran out of energy to care. (I call it “Better living through exhaustion”.) Now I can look at comments in a more detached, objective way—which is probably a lot healthier.

The Opportunity To Remake Myself

A few years back, I decided to move away from health and fitness writing and towards investigative reporting on technology (specifically, privacy and security). This year, I’m moving a bit back towards fitness. I also decided I wanted to balance heavy-hitting work with stuff that’s less exhausting, including a bit of brand work. And I started a podcast. Sometimes I don’t approach events as a journalist—I’ll go to a hacking conference just because. Sometimes I’ll come across something that’s not in my beat and report on it anyway, because it’s fascinating. Being able to remake myself at whim is one of my favorite things about freelancing.

These seven years have been an amazing ride! Here’s to seven more.

It’s a short and sweet roundup of posts I wrote that were published in October. (There are about five more in purgatory, though, and I have a half dozen assignments on top of that so November should be a doozie!)

Why Scribd Changes Copy-Pasted Text To 104-Point Comic Sans (Motherboard) I noticed this while cutting and pasting from a legal document to prep for a podcast, and had to investigate.

Figure Out The Best Training Option For Your Unique Circumstance (Performance Menu, paywalled) If you want to get your sweat on but can’t decide between following a workout program from a book, signing up for group training, splurging for personal training, and so forth, this article will help you figure out the best option based on your specific situation.

Podcasts

Texas Withdraws From Federal Refugee Resettlement Program (Interview with Dylan Baddour, reporter for the Houston Chronicle)

The CIA’s Not-So-Covert Plan For (Cyber)War With Russia (Interview with Trevor Timm, executive director at Freedom of the Press Foundation, and columnist for the Guardian)

Friday Buyouts From The Wall Street Journal (Interview with Jennie Phipps, independent writer and editor and the owner of Freelance Success)

But First, Coffee And Puppies

I was also a guest on Episode 31 of the This Makes Me Happy podcast.

This month, I spoke at Tales From the Cybercrypt,  a Jewish tech journo panel moderated by Alan Zeichick, alongside Howard Cohen and Esther Schindler, and Arizona Jewish Life wrote a post about me before the event. Monday Morning Dumpster Dive, my new podcast with Jimmy Jenkins, made it to KJZZ’s podcast page! Check out our old episodes on our page there.There’s also an RSS subscription. My husband and I beat the heat with a quick trip to the White Mountains (hiking! cabins! unplugging due to poor WiFi!), and I started training at an amazing gym with an amazing coach. And yet, I somehow managed to get some work done… Here are nine posts of mine from five different sites that went live in August.

• Interview: Meet Kor Adana, The Man Who Keeps Mr. Robot’s Hacks on Point (Forbes) The writer and tech producer, a former network security analyst himself, explains how he keeps the hacks on the show real, deals with legal issues, and balances the show’s riveting storyline with accurate technical details.

• Mr. Robot Season 2, Episode 5: 5/9 Truth: Wake Up Sheeple! (Forbes) Four tech experts discuss the smarthome hack, two-factor authentication, and Fsociety’s sometimes lax operational security.

• Mr. Robot Season 2, Episode 6: Angela Moss Becomes A Skiddie (Forbes) This episode, we discussed femtocells, Signal, credit card cloners, rubber duckies, and what to do when you get caught committing espionage. (Don’t try this at home, skiddies!)

• Mr. Robot Season 2, Episode 7: What Is Real? (Forbes) This week, we discussed the nature of reality, evil-coin, and the episode’s big reveal. (YES, there are spoilers.)

• Mr. Robot Season 2, Episode 8: Darlene Takes Off The Heart-Shaped Glasses (Forbes) In this episode, we discussed dead body opsec, hacking passwords, conference calls, Stagefright, phone forensics, messaging tools, and so much more.

• Building An MVP That Works (Dice Insights) Determining the right time to release a minimum viable product isn’t easy. You have to be careful not to pack in too many features.

• How VR Will Help Sculpt The Athlete Of The Future (Motherboard) Virtual reality has the potential to improve how elite-level athletes prepare for the big game.

• What Happens At The Gym Stays At The Gym (Performance Menu). The first of a two-part series, focusing on protecting people’s privacy at the gym. (Part two will include technical solutions for gym owners. (This post is paywalled but you can buy the issue for $5.99 or an annual subscription for $30.)

• Coping With Suicide Through Old Chat Logs (Daily Dot) I wrote about what I learned about my friend’s death by reviewing our Google Chat message history.

Jimmy Jenkins and I started a podcast covering Friday news dumps so they don’t get buried. We almost got buried since there were five (count ’em) news dumps last Friday. In our fifth episode, we looked at Manafort’s resignation from the Trump campaign, Ken Starr’s resignation from Baylor, Arpaio being recommended for criminal contempt charges, Baltimore terminating its contract with a government lawyer accused of past neo-Nazi ties–and the man who hired him resigning, and the latest on South Mountain Freeway expansion court battle.

Make sure to listen, and please help spread the word.

Jimmy Jenkins and I started a podcast covering Friday news dumps so they don’t get buried. In our fourth episode, we spoke with attorney Aaron Williamson about a federal judge overturning the conviction of Brendan Dassey for the murder of Teresa Halbach.

Make sure to listen, and please help spread the word.

Jimmy Jenkins and I started a podcast covering Friday news dumps so they don’t get buried. In our third episode, we spoke with NPR Business Correspondent Sonari Glinton about Tesla’s Gigafactory woes. We also discussed Trump’s endorsement of Paul Ryan and John McCain.

Make sure to listen, and please help spread the word.