What I’m doing now

(This is a now page, and if you have your own site, you should make one, too.)

Updated April 21st, 2024, from Taipei.

Almost finished writing “Useful Not True”

If you want advance access to give me some feedback, buy it now at sivers.com

I’ve been working on this almost full-time for two years, and I’m so excited to be almost done. I’m super-happy with the book.

surprised at the comfort of Shanghai

Just spent five days in Shanghai, China, and it’s so nice! Especially the French Concession, one of the nicest neighborhoods I’ve ever experienced in any city in the world. Cycling around every day on shared bicycles.

The people are kind. The trains are efficient and not over-crowded. The streets are clean. Trashcans (+ recycling) everywhere. The AliPay and WeChat systems for QR mobile app payments are surprisingly great.

And biggest surprise of all: it’s quiet with relatively clean air thanks to every motorcycle and most cars being 100% electric. The motorbikes especially are absolutely silent. 50 of them will go right by you, completely inaudible. Amazing. Intriguing. Makes me want to learn Chinese and spend more time there, getting to know many of the cities. But especially retuning to that adorable French Concession.

visiting every /now page from nownownow.com

I’d written automatic bots before, but those can be wrong. So now I’m visiting all 2000 /now pages listed at nownownow.com to see who’s current.

learning the Go programming language

I’ve used mainly Ruby for 20 years now. But for the next 20+ years I think Go is for me. (Combined with the PostgreSQL database and its built-in PL/pgSQL functions.)

I’m learning from the book “Let’s Go” and loving it.

the pet mouse lives another day

Our pet mouse is now three years old! That’s like 100+ in mouse years. (To be clear: she’s been our beloved pet that whole time.) We take her out in nature to play. She swims at the beach, digs in the sand, climbs trees in the forest, eats with us at the table, sits on my son’s shoulder as he reads, and has spent many hours in his (or my) hand or pocket.

Many times a day we check to make sure she’s still alive, and are so thankful she is. Her younger siblings have all died of old age. Mice are good pets.