NowNow

Nurturing this website

Over the years my personal website has taken many forms: a slapped-together portfolio to sell myself to an employer ahead of an interview; a random domain where I could anonymously post angsty poetry; and the beginnings of a blog, with the intention of regularly publishing thoughtful, provocative long-form writing. These ideas started with good intentions, but for reasons like a lack of time or motivation - or a desire for perfection - they ended up fading into nothingness.

Now I feel I've reached a critical mass in terms of confidence in sharing what I have to say, while keeping a light-hearted attitude towards a weird, imperfect work in progress.

I'm focused on carving out my own corner of the small web, and I'm more willing to throw things out and see what sticks. There is still some tension in deciding where my time goes: building the software versus writing and publishing, and aiming for something that is good enough for now rather than endlessly polishing. But I hope this website continues to grow and change over the long run.

Settling back home

For the first half of 2025 I was anticipating a move to San Francisco. The year began with the majority of my life packed up in preparation. Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, waiting for the immigration office to issue my visa. My home was primed for hibernation and the act of making future plans was on hold; any day the word would come and my boxes and I would be off to occupy a new space.

Unfortunately the current administration seemed happy to ghost this white guy in tech, and that plan was scarpered. I was left stuck in place, with few plans and little direction. I responded like any normal person would… I took custody of my mate’s camper van and went off-grid for a few months to explore more of my country, ticking off the Edinburgh Fringe and Scafell Pike from the bucket list.

But now I am back at home. Having unpacked those boxes, I get to put some focus into making the place more homely and optimising it for comfort. For example, I've upgraded my home automations… now the colour temperature of the light bulbs follows the position of the sun! ;p

And I get to engage and explore once more with my home town… I'm currently on the lookout for this year's uncomfortable-creative-challenge, by finding an improv class.

Intentional consumption

I've accumulated a long backlog of stuff that I want to read, watch, or listen to. Yet I keep ending up back on algorithmic feeds. I've got a read-it-later list, notes on books I have an appetite for, and scattered reminders of recommendations I've been given. Intentional nourishment awaits - and yet, I dwell on my YouTube recommendations and Reddit feed. Why? Because it's easy: a quick route to juicing those neurons.

I miss the days when I'd fire up Google Reader and peruse a set of sources a past self had deemed worthwhile. It was curated by design: you chose what to subscribe to, and pruning the list - changing your mind and clicking unsubscribe - was part of the ritual. I miss the sensation of a slower, more deliberate mode.

I'm trying to make that curated approach as easy and frictionless as the commercial feeds. Transitioning back to using RSS is part of that. I've recently jailbroken my old Kindle, and now have the means to sync various content streams auto-magically onto this dedicated device. I'm working on ironing out the process of syncing my highlights and notes into my second brain.

Finding work

I have been out of full time employment for around 6 months now. Ever since the age of 13, I've basically always had some form of regular work and income - so this chapter has been pretty novel. I've tied myself over by doing a stint of contracting, as well as picking up some odd jobs for my existing freelance clients. However, now I must get serious about picking the next path in my career.

I'm toying with the idea of being my own boss. I found a couple of interesting people with some business and product ideas. We dabbled with the early stages of starting them up, but each one fizzled out because their commitment and intensity didn't match my own. I'm curious about finding a co-founder; committing myself to being a solo-entrepreneur sounds too risky.

I'm wondering if I can return to my freelance roots. I've put together an idea of trading under a new moniker of Friendly Computer. I have some strong views about how to effectively design, build and test new product ideas.

I think a likely outcome is that I will join a new company. I have started the hunt for a software development role that suits my skillset, as well as a team that share my beliefs and attitude towards organisation and collaboratively building stuff.

Please reach out if you have any leads!

Fixing the consistency and redundancy of my data

A few months ago I lost a laptop and, with it, some data - most notably, a chunk of my font collection. I did have a continuous backup system in place; however, I hadn’t included that directory in the source set. I was able to piece together most of the library - finding email receipts to re-download, and spelunking the backed up downloads folder - but the process was messy and arduous. The end result was losing some important files, and an inability to completely itemise what was lost. It was stressful and heartbreaking.

It left me with a new belief: I should live in a continuous state where any of my computers could spontaneously explode and I could simply grab another and continue where I left off. However, it quickly became clear that fulfilling a dream of perfectly backed up and accessible data would require me to pay back the debt of years of poor organisational habits.

Over time, my data had sprawled across machines and tools, with no clear rule for what to keep, what to delete, or where a new file should go in the moment. I'm glad to say I have nearly reached my data consistency, redundancy and accessibility nirvana over the last month by standardising on a repeatable setup (snapshots, off-site backups, and sync) and forcing myself to swap between machines to prove it works. It’s been a big project, but I'm already starting to see the system hold together as I enter the final stretch. My aim is to share notes on what I’ve learned, along with open sourcing the two utilities I’ve written.