Welcome to my 2025 life update! My previous now page is here. Here is a permalink to this page.

Work

I'm still working at Rock Rabbit. Work has been pretty interesting and fun. The core problem at the company is how to model the crazy world of incentives.

Incentives have really complicated eligibility criteria. You have to get only specific equipment, with specific efficiency ratings. You might only be eligible if you're replacing an existing appliance of a specific type. There are different programs for emergency repairs vs. planned replacements vs. new construction.

It's also pretty complicated to show you how much money you might be eligible for. The total might depend on everything from the number of condensers in your HVAC unit to whether you've programmed the appliance to make use of TOU rates. Claiming the money is another exciting adventure. Programs have all sorts of documentation requirements, and they range across the board in terms of systems for submitting and validating your claims. Sometimes, you send your application to Susan, and she lets you know if she approved it. Other times, there's a complicated portal, which requires a CAPTCHA for every interaction.

Finally -- the most interesting wrinkle is that we're not encoding all of these rules in software. Instead, we have a team of analysts who are building and maintaining the incentive model. The software has to provide mechanisms for analysts to express the complexity, and then the UI and functionality is driven by the metadata they construct. This is the most interesting component of the system, and is keeping me pretty heads-down trying to figure out how to build meta-UIs and storage systems.

Philanthropy & Thoughts on Climate

For the past few years, I've been trying to figure out how to effectively deploy philanthropic (501(c)(3)) funds in the climate space. I've gone through interesting values-alignment exercises with Founders Pledge. I joined SV2 as a partner. I did a lot of personal research, and found worthwhile organizations like Rising Sun, Rewiring America, or Climate Cabinet.

At SF Climate Week 2024, I heard a great talk by Dan Stein and Giving Green. I bought their core premise -- that a lot of climate innovation is downstream of policy, and that funding policy advocacy orgs can be a big lever. As a result, a lot of my donations in 2024 were to Giving Green-recommended organizations: The Good Food Institute, Project Innerspace, and Clean Air Task Force.

Regime Change & Information Ecosystem

We had an election. I had a pretty strong sense that Trump was going to win, and felt fairly disengaged around my options in the opposition party. I remain a strong proponent of the Biden administration -- it accomplished a ton of amazing policy work, and it's pretty sad how little credit those people get for their enduring accomplishments, especially the IRA. However, neither Biden as candidate, nor his appointed heir Harris inspired much confidence for me, and I felt fairly disengaged throughout the election. Now, I, along with everyone else who was similarly disengaged, get to watch in horror as the incoming administration tears apart not only those accomplishments I was so happy about, but the entire federal government, plus the rule of law to boot.

My focus on climate change over the past decade was two-fold. I love the natural world, and feel especially drawn to help protect it. But also -- I've been viewing the climate crisis as both foundational and especially time-sensitive. If people are missing health care, we can still pass health care policy next year, and those people will get health care. If we wait a year on climate change, some things might change in irreversible ways. Maybe the coral reef never recovers from the next bleaching event, or another species goes extinct. Climate change itself becomes harder and more expensive to solve -- even more warming locked in, more stranded assets deployed, more infrastructure lock-in. Plus, climate change is a tax on the world, making other problems harder to solve. As we spend more resources on cleaning up from the next hurricane or mega-fire, we have fewer resources for all other problems, including the problem of climate change itself.

Watching the new regime take the reigns, not only administratively but in the culture, has caused my thinking to jump another abstraction level. While a lot of problems are downstream of climate change, climate change itself is downstream of the problem of the mess in our information ecosystem. Epistemology is out the window, now. We cannot hope to solve any problems without knowledge, consensus, and attention. These resources are now under the control of a few demagogues, who will use them to centralize their own power.

I'm re-thinking my philanthropic commitments, and would love to re-direct my available funds towards projects that aim to build a strong information commons. I've already been supporting some projects in this space -- notably, local journalism through CalMatters, CitySide Journalism (publishes BerkeleySide), or Mercury News. However, now that the Trump administration is actively attacking information sources, I think there might be room for more structured defense of journalism, knowledge, and truth.

I'm open to recommendations, both in terms of orgs to fund, and in terms of places were technologists can contribute to the problem domain.

Projects

A big project over the last few months has been moving back to Berkeley. This has involved getting settled in a new house, and especially setting up a new garage. I'm still working on getting my workshop settled; I got a WallBoard!

I'm still working a bunch on my self-hosted setup. Some big new additions have been Rallly for a self-hosted Doodle alternative, and Vikunja as a self-hosted task tracker. I tried to deploy a self-hosted temporary file sharing tool, but ran into issues.

For real-world project ideas, one thing I noticed is that there are some really dark blocks in Berkeley. I'm plotting how to install guerilla light installations, possibly powered by solar panels and batteries. I now have some experience in unattended electronics after installing the Peter Bench in the deep playa at Burning Man 2024.

I'm also plotting a sound-reactive light project for Priceless 2025.

Shop Talk

Now that I'm living back in Berkeley, I'm really enjoying the chance to connect more with people. I'm really interested in connecting with people over their ideas and creative projects. I think it's helpful to create spaces like this explicitly -- I certainly often feel awkward getting deep into work or politics or philosophy with people, especially when other folks in the conversation might not be down for it, or if the context is not such that we can really get into it.

I'm hoping to spin up a recurring event called "Shop Talk". I want to focus on one or two people presenting what they're working on, followed by Q&A and discussion. Let me know if you're interested!

Reading

Last year, my big epiphany was that the Bobiverse books are really good, despite having an uninspiring title. This year, I similarly discovered that the Murderbot Diaries are really good -- I binged these books very quickly. I really enjoyed finally reading This Is How You Lose the Time War. I can also recommend the new Robin Sloan and the new Adrian Tchaikovsky. Fantasy books haven't been appealing to me for the last few years, so I was surprised to enjoy the Licanius Trilogy, which I devoured on vacation. Finally, I re-listened to the Delta-V series by Daniel Suarez. This was in the aftermath of the election, and provided amazing copium -- maybe we'll solve our terrestrial problems through space industry?

In non-fiction books, I enjoyed Dopamine Nation, which helped me better understand my own addictions (CANDY!) and have a language for the tools I use to control them (chronological, physical, and categorical self-binding). Having previously read Seeing Like A State, I picked up Against the Grain, which is another grand-narrative type deep-history book in the style of Yval Noah Harari or Bradford Delong. Speaking of Harari, I'm still working through Nexus, which is full of amazing ideas and provides a way to conceptualize our current slide into Autocracy in information-network terms. I think it's one of those books that I could focus on better when reading, vs. when listening.

Finally, I spent a few months this past year working through The Power Broker. I have a lot of thoughts on this book, which I want to write up as a separate blog post.

Future

I'm feeling done with climate tech as a field, and feel ready to move on to something else, even while recognizing that I'm currently in the midst of solving interesting and useful problems in the space. I'm still feeling a little over sitting at a computer all day, too, though I'm also feeling trapped by my comparative advantage in the space. I'm really not sure what happens next! Open to possibilities and suggestions!