What I'm doing now
A snapshot of current focus, in the sense of nownownow.com. Reading, watching, and writing below are read from my actual logs rather than retyped, so they are right even when the rest of this page is overdue. Reviewed November 2026.
Location
Currently based in Los Angeles, Building VivanceData and taking on a few AI consulting projects.
Building
Small AI systems for trades and field operations: after-hours calls answered and booked, permits and delivery paperwork read instead of re-keyed.
A modded Minecraft factions server on Fabric and 26.2, packaged so anyone can host it from one download. Season I: 7 November 2026.
A small Fabric mod where copper ages into different jobs and amethyst responds to music. Out now for Minecraft 26.2.
A rooftop stealth game in Godot about robbing the crown to keep a village alive. Still greybox, with a ten-night roguelite mode taking shape.
Scheduled agents open pull requests across my repositories rather than pushing. merge-gate decides what merges, and I review what it holds back.
In progress. It will be on the music page when it is out.
Reading
All books- Designing Data-Intensive ApplicationsMartin Kleppmann
- Don QuixoteMiguel de Cervantes Saavedra
- The StrangerAlbert Camus
- The IdiotFyodor Dostoevsky
- The Brothers KaramazovFyodor Dostoyevsky
- VinelandThomas Pynchon
Last watched
All films- The Princess Bride 1987★★★½
- Sicario 2015★★★★
- Taste of Cherry 1997★★★★★
- La Notte 1961★★★★½
- Breathless 1960★★★★
Writing
All posts- The Audit Only Checks What It Can Reach
My own site published a number that was false while the correct number sat four lines below it, and the reason generalizes further than software.
- The Rational Actor Is Dead
Homo economicus never existed but we still build policy like it does, and people keep getting hurt.
- Silicon Valley's Death Problem
Transhumanism is terror management theory funded by venture capital, and it is telling on itself.
- Boredom Is a Skill
We engineered boredom out of existence and lost something we cannot get back from a screen.
Thinking about
- Whether self-hosting is a technical preference or a political one, and what changes if it is the second.
- How much of what gets called productivity is really just legibility to someone else.
- Tools that degrade gracefully when the company behind them disappears.
- Why the interesting part of a recommendation system is what it refuses to show you.
This page follows Derek Sivers' /now page movement. It is a short answer to what I am focused on, not a complete list of everything I could be doing.