What I’m doing right now

Last updated 1 week, 6 days ago from a cafe in Matsumoto

I've been in Japan for the past two weeks. We started off in the big cities then did a 5 day hike up the Nakkasendo trail, the historic road that connected Kyoto and Edo (Tokyo), stopping each night in well-preserved post towns. This country has been beautiful, interesting, and has given me an appreciation for well designed and implemented infrastructure.

It's interesting how Japan can have 30 years of economic stagnation and still be a significantly better place to live than the USA, which has had serious economic growth over that same time period. It goes to show how important it is for governments to have a people-centric approach, instead of a purely economic one.

During this time Bear has been in maintenance mode where I answer support emails and do moderation, but little else unless it's urgent. It's my first proper "vacation", but I'm still doing about an hour of work a day. Once I’m back in Cape Town mid May everything will pick up again.

Refining and improving Bear

Bear is growing by the day, and my focus for the next few year is to ensure the longevity of the platform. Currently this work revolves around scaling the infrastructure, and making sure that the discovery feed doesn't become too cluttered and remains a cozy virtual neighbourhood for the Bear community.

I wrote The Bear Manifesto which details my philosophy and plans for the platform.

Autonomous agents are becoming a problem on the internet, and my job has had to evolve to combatting them at scale from slopifying the platform.

Other

I'm currently reading Going Postal by Terry Pratchett.