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    <title>Michael E. Gruen • Now</title>
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    <pubDate>Mon, 04 May 2026 11:49:55 +0000</pubDate>
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      <title>Now</title>
      <link>https://michaelgruen.com/now/2026-05-04/</link>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

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          &lt;p&gt;Firstly, happy Star Wars Day to those who celebrate. Secondly, a bigger update: we have a kid. If this is the first you’re hearing about it (and we know each other personally) we likely e-mailed you; but, as we bothered to individually mailmerge personalized messages along with the basics (photos, weight, height, name, etc.) your note may have been classified as spam. Oops. Also, if you read my...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Firstly, happy Star Wars Day to those who celebrate.</p> <p>Secondly, a bigger update: we have a kid.</p> <p>If this is the first you’re hearing about it (and we know each other personally) we likely e-mailed you; but, as we bothered to individually mailmerge personalized messages along with the basics (photos, weight, height, name, etc.) your note may have been classified as spam. Oops.</p> <p>Also, if you read my last update, it should go without saying that kid content will <strong>not</strong> be on bigco social media <strong>nor</strong> the public internet. So you wouldn’t have found out that way, either.</p> <p>So we have a kid.</p> <p>You will (read: won’t) be surprised to learn that the kid has their own website on a private, hand-rolled technology stack[a] built by yours truly (in collaboration with LLMs).</p> <p>Write for access.</p> <hr> <h1 class="no_toc" id="the-usuals">The Usuals</h1> <ul id="markdown-toc"> <li><a href="#upcoming-travel" id="markdown-toc-upcoming-travel">Upcoming Travel</a></li> <li><a href="#vocational-notes" id="markdown-toc-vocational-notes">Vocational Notes</a></li> <li><a href="#avocational-notes" id="markdown-toc-avocational-notes">Avocational Notes</a></li> <li> <a href="#content-consumption-abbreviated" id="markdown-toc-content-consumption-abbreviated">Content Consumption (Abbreviated)</a> <ul> <li><a href="#televisionmovies" id="markdown-toc-televisionmovies">Television/Movies</a></li> <li> <a href="#books" id="markdown-toc-books">Books</a> <ul> <li><a href="#childrens-books" id="markdown-toc-childrens-books">Children’s books</a></li> <li><a href="#non-childrens-books" id="markdown-toc-non-childrens-books">Non-Children’s Books</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#games" id="markdown-toc-games">Games</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#sundry-notes" id="markdown-toc-sundry-notes">Sundry Notes</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="upcoming-travel">Upcoming Travel</h2> <p>(While updating this section, I realized I have not left New York since August 2025, which is probably the longest stretch of time I’ve been in one place since I was enrolled in College. Whoa.)</p> <ul> <li>Berkshires (Massachusetts)</li> <li>UK (England, Scotland)</li> </ul> <h2 id="vocational-notes">Vocational Notes</h2> <p>In what was meant to be a relaxed parental leave, sitting out the most transformative months industry has seen since the invention of industry itself felt—to put it mildly—fiscally irresponsible.</p> <p>Simultaneously caring for a newborn while learning how to tame an alien, errant form of intelligence? Not on our bingo card, but we are making it work.</p> <p>Without ego, I’m getting pretty good at both. [b]</p> <p>LLMs work at incredible speeds[c] but their outputs don’t necessarily constitute <strong>good software</strong>.[d] Or that a product, process, or workflow translated into software is worth anything at all.</p> <p>Software is a liability as much as it is an asset. Good software is good in that it can run consistently and predictably without failure, and—more importantly—in that it can be changed quickly.</p> <p>This is what I’ve been doing with nearly all non-family awake time: learning how LLMs can build high-quality, highly-malleable, highly-secure software, quickly and reliably.</p> <p>“But isn’t software dead?”</p> <p>Short answer: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox">no</a>.</p> <p>I continue to invest here because the great promise of the internet has yet to be realized, and the speed and capabilities that LLMs unlock for the competent practitioner put so many “that will never be economically viable” projects squarely into “fuck it”-levels for viable investment.</p> <p>In whatever working hours I can find, I’m making basic tools to replace commercial software that no longer meet my feature needs or privacy requirements. While I’m building these for myself, I plan to release some for public consumption, either freely or commercially available. Likely both.</p> <p>We’ll see.</p> <p>Of note, I have recently “capped” my working hours to 40 per week, with no LLM-driven coding allowed after 7pm. (See “One More Turn” from above.) Weekends are for friends, family, and (non-tech) projects.</p> <p>Lastly, I have been placing some small bets on some small(er) companies and startups as the opportunities present themselves. (n.b., I am <em>not</em> a professional investor.)</p> <h2 id="avocational-notes">Avocational Notes</h2> <p>Having recently gotten out of baby (and vibecoding) jail, I have started to wade back into a gym routine. The time off was not inconsequential and I’m hopeful “it” will come back quickly.</p> <p>Otherwise, between work, newkid, and seeing friends, there hasn’t been much available bandwidth other than what can be accomplished on a tiny pocket screen.</p> <p>Balance is important.</p> <h2 id="content-consumption-abbreviated">Content Consumption (Abbreviated)</h2> <h3 id="televisionmovies">Television/Movies</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_(TV_series)">Silicon Valley</a> - Believe it or not, never watched beyond the first two seasons despite knowing the memes. (e.g., hot dog / not hot dog)</li> <li>(Omitted: slate of should-only-watch-while-on-parental-leave drivel)</li> </ul> <h3 id="books">Books</h3> <p>Scant time blocks and drained willpower between trudging through LLMs’ daily Franzen-novel’s worth of generated text and hands-on kiddo care means that this section is going to look a bit different for a bit.</p> <h4 id="childrens-books">Children’s books</h4> <p>Given fierce shelf space competition at your local bookstore, you would think most kids’ books—typically made of thick “board book” stock—would be of quality. Surprisingly not true.</p> <p>When I’m running bedtime, here are the titles I continually reach for and can recommend to those reading to a baby:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="https://lizgartonscanlon.com/books/picture-books/all-the-world/">All the World</a> - Liz Garton Scanlon, illustrated by Marla Frazee</li> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Bear%2C_Brown_Bear%2C_What_Do_You_See%3F">Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?</a> - Bill Martin Jr., illustrated by Eric Carle</li> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Want_My_Hat_Back">I Want My Hat Back</a> - Jon Klassen</li> <li> <a href="https://www.plppublishing.com">Pandas Love Pickles</a> - Liz Lynch</li> <li> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17237023-stick-and-stone">Stick and Stone</a> - Beth Ferry, illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld</li> </ul> <p>(This list will expand over time. Recommendations welcomed.)</p> <p>Top gripes about other books include:</p> <ol> <li>Lazy scansion and/or rhyming schemes when attempting lyrical prose</li> <li>Low-contrast text on glossy-print pages (which is difficult to read by nightlight)</li> <li>AI-generated slop (amazing how quickly this infiltrated the market)</li> <li>“Coffeetable Quality”: if only the authors spent half as much time on the content as the trappings (children’s books are meant to be read many, many, many times over… not flipped through once and looked at from afar—have some pride in your craft, please!)</li> </ol> <h4 id="non-childrens-books">Non-Children’s Books</h4> <ul> <li> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35074096-mythos---the-greek-myths-retold">Mythos</a> by Stephen Fry. “Reading” this one on audiobook, narrated by the author, as he is uniquely capable of reanimating very, very played-out stories. My 6th grade teacher famously tasked each one of his students to retell the stories of the Greek gods in a singular assignment, with no submission to be shorter than 60 pages on double-spaced 12pt font. It remains the most tedious assignment I’ve ever completed—but insanely effective. Decades later I still remembered how the pantheon came to be.</li> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification">Enshittification</a> by Cory Doctorow. Also via audiobook, also narrated by the author. (I linked to Wikipedia because it contains a very nice summary, but you should also read the book and donate to the <a href="https://www.eff.org">EFF</a>)</li> <li> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20821241-the-happy-sleeper">The Happy Sleeper</a> by Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright. Highly recommended to me, and for good reason. Last physical paperback I’ve read in over six months.</li> </ul> <h3 id="games">Games</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="https://arcraiders.com">ARC Raiders</a> - I have yet to try this, but it has been purchased and downloaded.</li> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatch_(video_game)">Dispatch</a> - I don’t do the narrative/dialog-tree genre, but this was very well written and accessible.</li> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanity_(video_game)">Humanity</a> - A nice puzzler with a good soundtrack that wasn’t too difficult to complete while forcing myself to stay up for the kiddo’s last nighttime feed. (We’re now sleeping through the night. Game changing.)</li> <li>At any time I have a dozen <a href="https://chess.com">Chess.com</a> and Crossplay (NYTimes’ Scrabble knock-off) games going on. Message me directly for my usernames. (One is easier to guess than the other.)</li> </ul> <h2 id="sundry-notes">Sundry Notes</h2> <p>The Formula 1 TV on Apple TV is still a bit glitchy. I remain concerned.</p> <p>I’m also a fan of the new regs. Fight me.</p> <hr> <p>Hat tip to <a href="https://nownownow.com/">nownownow.com</a>.</p> <hr> <p><strong>Notes:</strong></p> <ol class="endnotes" type="a"> <li>Building one’s own CMS (Content Management System) is a rite of passage for technologists, up there with building one’s own TODO list, notetaking app, and (increasingly) one’s own LLM orchestrator. But this CMS (codename: <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">Cassette CMS</code>) is pretty good—good enough that I’m thinking of making it FOSS. It’s a combination <a href="https://substack.com/">substack</a>, <a href="https://exposure.co/">exposure</a>, asset library and mobile authoring app that you can run on commodity cloud hardware for a few $/mo.<br><br>It’s easy-to-use and built to prevent accidental content leakage.<br><br>It also fits into my thesis about how this AI thing plays out given the growing distrust in bigtech and their proprietary algorithms, and the increasing value in private online communities.<br><br>(More on this soon.)</li> <li>The biggest challenge to me (and other AI-pilled folk) has been in what’s called “One More Turn”, referring to the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/53rxku/i_used_to_think_just_one_more_turn_was_a_joke_and/">addictive nature</a> of Sid Meier’s video game series Civilization in which you manage and command an ever-growing dependency graph of resources in the pursuit of world domination. In the kid’s early days, when sleep was more abstraction than an old reliable, there was no end and no beginning to any day. Writing and reading in LLM context windows is what I did when I wasn’t sleeping, solo-caring for our child, or having quality family time.</li> <li>For a wild demo, check out <a href="https://chatjimmy.ai">Jimmy</a> and ask it to write some code for you. It is still live as of writing, and “printed” the open-source Llama 3.1 8B LLM model direct to silicon and produces 15,000 tokens/second, which is about 1,000 times faster than your laptop computer. Whew.</li> <li>Most interesting to me is that thousands upon thousands of engineers, thinkers, and tinkerers are all trying to figure out how to best work with these LLMs. Happily, the industry is converging on the same best practices that were true for the preceding decades. And not because these LLMs were trained on computer code designed for human authorship, but because the design patterns work.<br><br>Software is part creative pursuit, part factory. LLMs amplify skill… or lack thereof.</li> </ol>]]></content:encoded>
    

      
      
      
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      <title>Now</title>
      <link>https://michaelgruen.com/now/2025-11-02/</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 02 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

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          &lt;p&gt;While big tech has been letting me down, technologists themselves—especially the old guard—have been doing anything but. 1. The Let Down In what should have been a welcome upgrade, iOS 26 and MacOS Tahoe over-prioritized style at substance’s great expense. For the first time in over a score a a. 20 years is a long time. I reverted. Hard. It’s not just the watered-down skeumorphism that nobody a...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>While big tech has been letting me down, technologists themselves—especially the old guard—have been doing anything but.</p> <h3 class="no_toc" id="1-the-let-down">1. The Let Down</h3> <p>In what should have been a welcome upgrade, iOS 26 and MacOS Tahoe over-prioritized style at substance’s great expense. For the first time in over a score[a] I reverted. Hard.</p> <p>It’s not just the watered-down skeumorphism that nobody asked for: Apple’s “liquid glass” overhaul leaks memory, reduces battery life, and wastes screen real estate on distracting and immutable visual effects. As someone who spends his career and life interacting with Cupertino-designed screens—whether this is a good use of a life isn’t the point right now—the degradation is noticeable, undesirable, and painful.</p> <p>While it’s not all bad, [b] it does encapsulate the term enshittification[c] quite well. Big tech companies have been slowly boiling the frog.</p> <p>It might be time to jump.[d]</p> <h3 class="no_toc" id="2-the-anything-but">2. The Anything But</h3> <p>I am far from alone in my frustrations, and between the confluence of functional codegen and accelerating enshittification[e] there is renewed interest and investment in alternatives.</p> <p>And, with the industry moving away from desktop apps and towards webapps—and soon, AI-centric user interfaces—the verenable operating system needs a rethink. Mobile and desktop both.</p> <p>Over the past six months, I’ve noticed more engineers and engineering leaders daily-driving Linux[f] over MacOS and Windows. I expect this trend continues as open source operating environments rapidly approach parity with their commercial counterparts… who aren’t doing themselves any favors.[g]</p> <p>Last time Linux was my daily driver I was an undergraduate pursuing a computer science degree. Like the major itself, one had to enjoy a sustained slow-drip of seemingly disconnected informational nuggets that one day (maybe) pay huge dividends in aggregate deployable knowledge. Similarly, unless you were highly-motivated to go open source, Linux offered limited advantage over commercial offerings in exchange for the pain.</p> <p>Last month I installed Linux[h] on a 5 year old, $300 refurbished <a href="https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/featherweight-x1-nano-is-lightest-thinkpad-ever-1-pioneering-thinkpad-x1-fold-is-now-available-to-pre-order/">Lenovo X1 Nano</a>. It weighs 1.99 lbs and runs quicker and boots faster and <em>looks better</em> than my 10×-more-costly MacBook Pro M4 Max on MacOS Tahoe.</p> <p>Thanks to the efforts of those dedicated software engineers,[i] we’re approaching the point where learning the nuances of a do-it-yourself operating environment is less frustrating than working around the limitations of commercial offerings. To boot—pun!—LLMs now make the complex configuration files that allow users to get exactly what they want out of their experience accessible and easy without risk of a quarterly earnings goals moving their cheese.</p> <p>Good work, team. Thank you, and keep it up.</p> <p>(Mobile phones <a href="https://librephone.fsf.org/">are soon to be fair game</a>, too.)</p> <hr> <h1 class="no_toc" id="the-usuals">The Usuals</h1> <ul id="markdown-toc"> <li><a href="#upcoming-travel" id="markdown-toc-upcoming-travel">Upcoming Travel</a></li> <li><a href="#vocational-notes" id="markdown-toc-vocational-notes">Vocational Notes</a></li> <li><a href="#avocational-notes" id="markdown-toc-avocational-notes">Avocational Notes</a></li> <li> <a href="#content-consumption-abbreviated" id="markdown-toc-content-consumption-abbreviated">Content Consumption (Abbreviated)</a> <ul> <li><a href="#televisionmovies" id="markdown-toc-televisionmovies">Television/Movies</a></li> <li><a href="#books" id="markdown-toc-books">Books</a></li> <li><a href="#games" id="markdown-toc-games">Games</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#sundry-notes" id="markdown-toc-sundry-notes">Sundry Notes</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="upcoming-travel">Upcoming Travel</h2> <p>Between the government shutdown, air traffic controllers calling in sick, and some other stuff going on… it’ll likely be a bit before we get on a plane. Expect we’ll spend a few weeks on Block Island sometime over the winter.</p> <h2 id="vocational-notes">Vocational Notes</h2> <ul> <li>Current foci include: <ol> <li>Environmental Impact and Sustainability</li> <li>AI-enabled Workflows</li> <li>Anti-social Networking and Mass Customization</li> <li> <a href="/fractional/">Fractional</a> work continues with ~8hours/week capacity available.</li> </ol> </li> <li>The idea list continues to grow. While the speed with which I can codegen increases, the time-to-execute budget remains constant. Actively soliciting collaborators.</li> <li>Looking to support another non-profit following <a href="https://literacytrust.org/blog-post/closure-announcement">Literacy Trust</a>’s wind-down.</li> </ul> <h2 id="avocational-notes">Avocational Notes</h2> <ul> <li> <del>Lifting 3-4 times per week.</del> It has been a cardio summer. Lifting resumes <del>this week</del> this winter (whoops).</li> <li>Have had limited Go-Karting time this fall but it is still the best. If anyone is into motorsports and lives in Manhattan, do reach out…</li> <li>Still having a blast with LLM-powered codegen and TUIs—textual user interfaces. (I’m so over GUIs.)</li> </ul> <h2 id="content-consumption-abbreviated">Content Consumption (Abbreviated)</h2> <h3 id="televisionmovies">Television/Movies</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taskmaster_(TV_series)">Taskmaster</a> - Your time starts now.</li> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One">Formula 1</a> - <del>And no, I haven’t seen the F1 movie.</del> Thankfully, actual racing is more fun to watch.</li> </ul> <h3 id="books">Books</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babel,_or_the_Necessity_of_Violence">Babel: An Arcane History</a> - R.F. Kuang. Finished this recently and highly recommend.</li> </ul> <h3 id="games">Games</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="https://www.vimgolf.com/">VimGolf</a> - Related to my efforts to regain fluency in the command line (and <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">vi</code> which clearly won the command line text editor[j] war).</li> <li>Chess <ul> <li>Elo ~1100 (Daily). Write me if you want my <a href="https://chess.com/">chess.com</a> username.</li> <li>I’m steadily getting <del>better</del> worse.</li> </ul> </li> <li>LinkedIn Mini Games recently added a leaderboard and it is humbling how good some people are. (Queens is the best game, IMHO.)</li> </ul> <h2 id="sundry-notes">Sundry Notes</h2> <p>One. Apple recently bought the US broadcast rights to Formula 1. I am concerned.</p> <p>Two. My work increasingly involves telling a fleet of agentic LLMs (like OpenAI’s Codex and Anthropic’s Claude Code) what to do. These agents (at least the better ones) do their work best in the command line. Thus, the command line is where I spend most of my time managing features and quality <em>while writing almost none of the code myself</em>.</p> <p>When building software my role is 99% tastemaker, 1% typist. The bulk of the engineering lift happens in an a compute cluster somewhere domestically and, notably, <strong>no longer on my local machine</strong>. <em>That work</em> I orchestrate in <em>yet another computer</em> that can outlast my laptop’s battery life and/or network connection (and/or attention). Consequently, not only am I on the command line, I’m connected to a remote machine in a terminal-friendly text editor like <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">vim</code> more often than I am a GUI like <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">vscode</code>. [k] Yes, it’s exactly like that movie Inception.</p> <p>Presently, my main workflow is to <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">ssh</code> from wherever I am (home, office, or on my mobile phone) into a $600 base-model <a href="https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini/m4">Apple M4 Mac Mini</a> that sits in my office. Once on the Mac, I run <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">tmux</code> to an attached virtual (containered) Debian Linux server, and let the commercial LLMs inside of those virtual computers go wild. As the models improve and local inference becomes more economical, I bet I can do this all on my own wholly-owned silicon… which means managing yet another layer down.</p> <p>Given that these LLMs work best on, well, language (n.b., stuff that’s written down), it behooves one to get faster at editing and manipulating code and getting my Operating System to work with me instead of against me.</p> <p>So I’m now relearning <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">vim</code> and having a blast.</p> <hr> <p>Hat tip to <a href="https://nownownow.com/">nownownow.com</a>.</p> <hr> <p><strong>Notes:</strong></p> <ol class="endnotes" type="a"> <li>20 years is a long time.</li> <li>Apple’s hardware teams are still killing it.</li> <li>When services become progressively worse for user in pursuit for profits. <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/gruen.us/post/3m3sygav6ms2j">This talk</a> from Cory Doctorow, who coined the term, explains it well… as well as what to do about it.</li> <li>Not just out of Apple’s boiling pot. Last month Microsoft dropped support for Windows 10 turning <a href="https://www.404media.co/the-end-of-windows-10-support-is-an-e-waste-disaster-in-the-making/">400 million computers</a> into security timebombs. Meta continues to shovel AI slop and ragebait into social feeds to increase engagement to sell more advertising, while Google continues to kneecap search results to do the same: more time on-site means more ad investory. Technology should move humanity forward, not backward.</li> <li>Annoyingly, Microsoft Windows and MacOS/iOS both now deliver advertisements directly in the Operating System’s core workflows-Windows being the far more egregious of the two as it’s an OS you pay ~$100 for the privilege of commercial advertising in the Start menu.</li> <li>Not just Omarchy, either.</li> <li>20 years ago came Ubuntu, a free and (relatively) user-friendly alternative to MacOS and Windows. Created by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu is a distribution of the Linux operating system, which was created as a Free and Open Source alternative to the very expensive and difficult-to-use Unix. Until Ubuntu came along, running Linux was an exercise best left to enthusiasts, not end users. Since its release, Linux adoption increased and is now the primary operating system on <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-has-over-6-of-the-desktop-market-yes-you-read-that-right-heres-how/">6% of laptops and desktops</a>.<br><br>Because Linux is free-as-in-beer, it enjoys incredibly high market share in the space I occupy vocationally: technology (and technology-enabled) startups and scale-ups. Every-yes, <em>every</em>-engineer I meet and work with runs some flavor of Linux <em>somewhere</em> in production. It is so common that Windows now comes with Linux installed, or trivially-installable called WSL.<br><br>WSL, or Windows Subsystem for Linux, is a bit of kernal hackery allowing Windows-based software engineers to use the same tooling locally as they do in production servers. Even though Linux represents such a large part of their workday, historically engineers still ran Windows and MacOS on their desktops.</li> <li>Arch, by the way</li> <li>Not me.</li> <li>I was fluent in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">emacs</code> when I was in college, but it’s not as universally installed as <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">vi</code> is.</li> <li>As I also like to let my LLMs run amok (dangerously skipping confirmations) I prefer to keep them in their own little jailcells called “containers”, which I also out of paranoia tend to run on a server rather than my laptop as to not have it accidentally erase my daily working environment, or introduce new and exciting security holes.</li> </ol>]]></content:encoded>
    

      
      
      
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      <title>Now</title>
      <link>https://michaelgruen.com/now/2025-08-24/</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 24 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

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          &lt;p&gt;Summer, usually slow, has been anything but. In early June, Althea and I traveled to Europe (London and Portugal). I took 1,200 photos but only managed to edit one of them. It’s been a low-output summer for me. On the input side, well… Between work and tinkering, I have gone deep on what’s popularly called “Agentic AI”, especially on its use in software engineering. I have about 3 half-baked di...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Summer, usually slow, has been anything but.</p> <p>In early June, Althea and I traveled to Europe (London and Portugal). I took <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">1,200</code> photos but only managed to edit <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/photo.gruen.us/post/3lre2elid224u">one of them</a>. It’s been a low-output summer for me.</p> <p>On the input side, well…</p> <p>Between <a href="/fractional/">work</a> and tinkering, I have gone deep on what’s popularly called “Agentic AI”, especially on its use in software engineering. I have about 3 half-baked <a href="/d/">dispatches</a> I’m trying to finish[a] with one I’m targeted for Labor Day that goes into greater detail.</p> <p>In the meantime, some general observations:</p> <ul> <li>Talented software engineers are getting <em>really good</em> at orchestrating fleets of coding agents. Watch this space.<br><br> </li> <li>Properietary foundational LLMs (e.g., Claude Sonnet 4, ChatGPT 5, et al) yield less marginal utility every release. While I have no insider knowledge here, I’d be shocked if Anthropic wasn’t training a foundational software engineering model that eschews most general knowledge in favor of high-quality programming knowledge. When that’s out (or someone else beats them to it) everything we do today will look extremely hacky and computationally wasteful by comparison.<br><br> </li> <li>Speed to delivery is increasing, but not nearly at the rate as advertised by talking heads and AI companies (who are in the business of selling you on their future). In essence: computer code exists because it’s the most efficient way for humans to express complex, specific logic that a machine can run reliably. Human languages, like English, are exceedingly long-winded and imprecise… and while AI-enabled tools and agents can make software development more accessible to more people, it does not—and can not—reduce the burden of having to express oneself with precision or novelty. It turns out figuring out <em>what</em> to build against <em>what works</em> continues to be difficult. Dave Farley <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A6uPztchXk">nails it here</a>.<br><br> </li> <li>Similarly, live experimentation is now cheaper. This is a good thing.<br><br> </li> <li>Consequently, “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_slop">AI Slop</a>” is now everywhere. This is <strong>NOT</strong> a good thing. Our lizard brains are unable to parse the deluge. (Put in LLM terms, our own brains’ <a href="https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/build-with-claude/context-windows">context windows</a> cannot keep up, and reading summaries from a <a href="https://stevekinney.com/courses/ai-development/claude-code-compaction"><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">compact</code></a> command is a chore. Our brains like to think about stuff and get into the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)">flow</a>, not swivel-chair all day.)</li> </ul> <p>Also, I may have fibbed about the low-output summer.</p> <p>In truth, I’ve been <a href="https://github.com/gruen">building</a> a few software tools—some solo, some with collaborators—that should be ready in the fall.</p> <p>Here’s one project that, except to untangle some design and UX mistakes, I built without writing a single line of code by hand: <a href="https://hanewa.com/">HANEWA</a>. My codegen process has garnered some interest from colleagues, so a write-up will follow.</p> <hr> <h1 class="no_toc" id="the-usuals">The Usuals</h1> <ul id="markdown-toc"> <li><a href="#upcoming-travel" id="markdown-toc-upcoming-travel">Upcoming Travel</a></li> <li><a href="#vocational-notes" id="markdown-toc-vocational-notes">Vocational Notes</a></li> <li><a href="#avocational-notes" id="markdown-toc-avocational-notes">Avocational Notes</a></li> <li> <a href="#content-consumption-abbreviated" id="markdown-toc-content-consumption-abbreviated">Content Consumption (Abbreviated)</a> <ul> <li><a href="#televisionmovies" id="markdown-toc-televisionmovies">Television/Movies</a></li> <li><a href="#books" id="markdown-toc-books">Books</a></li> <li><a href="#games" id="markdown-toc-games">Games</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#sundry-notes" id="markdown-toc-sundry-notes">Sundry Notes</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="upcoming-travel">Upcoming Travel</h2> <ul> <li>Hudson Valley, NY (although if it’s weekend trip under 2 hours away from home, is it really considered travel?)</li> </ul> <h2 id="vocational-notes">Vocational Notes</h2> <ul> <li> <a href="/fractional/">Fractional</a> continues to suit; I have about ~5hours/week capacity remaining. Current foci: <ol> <li>Environmental Impact and Sustainability</li> <li>AI-enabled Workflows</li> <li>Anti-social Networking and Mass Customization</li> </ol> </li> <li> <a href="https://teamassemble.app">Team, Assemble!</a> still needs a product/technical lead. (Maybe this is you?)</li> <li>Like many founder-types, the idea list is becoming longer than the time-to-execute budget. Working on a solve for this that trades money for execution time and will list opportunities there. (Domain names have been purchased, this relates to number 3.)</li> <li>Looking to support another non-profit following <a href="https://literacytrust.org/blog-post/closure-announcement">Literacy Trust</a>’s wind down. Currently thinking about what that should look like and actively soliciting ideas.</li> </ul> <h2 id="avocational-notes">Avocational Notes</h2> <ul> <li> <del>Lifting 3-4 times per week.</del> It has been a cardio summer. Lifting resumes this week.</li> <li>Electric Go-Karting is still the best. If anyone is into motorsports and lives in Manhattan, do reach out…</li> <li>Abandoning this <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/devlog.gruen.lol">small project</a> until hands-on coding work settles down. (Even with generative AI, I can only stomach coding so many hours in one day.)</li> </ul> <h2 id="content-consumption-abbreviated">Content Consumption (Abbreviated)</h2> <h3 id="televisionmovies">Television/Movies</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="https://www.sonypicturesanimation.com/projects/films/kpop-demon-hunters">KPop Demon Hunters</a> - As previously stated: <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/gruen.us/post/3lw4qozwr4s2n">Perfection</a>.</li> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andor_(TV_series)">Andor</a> - Currently in Season 1. (No Spoilers, Please!)</li> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One">Formula 1</a> - And no, I haven’t seen the F1 movie.</li> </ul> <h3 id="books">Books</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babel,_or_the_Necessity_of_Violence">Babel: An Arcane History</a> - R.F. Kuang. I’m halfway through, but this is such a compelling read that even if it falls apart in the back half I’ll be still glad I found it. H/T <a href="https://islandboundbookstore.com">Island Bound</a>.</li> </ul> <h3 id="games">Games</h3> <ul> <li>Chess <ul> <li>Elo ~1100 (Daily). Write me if you want my <a href="https://chess.com/">chess.com</a> username.</li> <li>I’m steadily getting <del>better</del> worse.</li> </ul> </li> <li> <a href="https://www.toukana.com/dorfromantik">Dorf Romantik</a> - I cannot play this before bedtime as everything starts to look like a hexagon that need to be properly places (like the Tetris/tetromino <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect">phenomenon</a>) and my legs get restless.</li> <li> <a href="https://blippo.plus/">Blippo+</a> - The <a href="https://play.date">Play Date</a> is such a gem.</li> </ul> <h2 id="sundry-notes">Sundry Notes</h2> <p>Earlier this summer I learned of a city named <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/Utrecht,+Netherlands/@52.084158,5.0000916,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x47c66f4339d32d37:0xd6c8fc4c19af4ae9!8m2!3d52.0919255!4d5.1229572!16zL20vMGQ5czU?entry=ttu&amp;g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDgxOS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D">Utrecht</a>. Notably, the road networks were designed so that it’s easier and faster to walk and bike than it is to drive.</p> <p>As a New Yorker and cycling advocate, it’s proof of what’s possible when you build for micromobility. Not only because it’s clear how much more agency and freedom of movement children have (unburdened by having to always ask for a ride from an adult), but of how much nicer it is to live in a place where <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">car</code> is not the default.</p> <p>People are generally supportive.</p> <p>Alas, invariably someone will proffer:</p> <blockquote> <p>“But these delivery guys / Citibike bros on their e-Bikes. They go too fast and reckless… one nearly killed me the other day!”</p> </blockquote> <p>Unfailingly, similar anecdotes become the conversation in the way that shark attacks make for better headlines than heart disease.[b]</p> <p>The thing is: in the US, more people drive cars than ride bikes. And because driving is more familiar, people are more willing to forgive drivers—<em>and tend to forget any incidents</em>—where they were “nearly killed”, which affects how they think about micromobility policies at their own safety and our collective peril.</p> <p>A friend calls this “car brain” because when you look at <a href="https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Public-Safety/Motor-Vehicle-Collisions-Crashes/h9gi-nx95/about_data">the data</a>, it’s not even close.</p> <p>This chart shows what happens to pedestrians in NYC vehicular collisions since 2012 (when the city started tracking this stuff in earnest). It <em>does <strong>not</strong></em> include the fates of any persons involved <strong>except pedestrians</strong>.[c]</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Vehicle Type</th> <th>Pds. Injured</th> <th>Pds. Killed</th> <th>Total</th> <th>Fatality Rate</th> <th>% of All Casualties</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Large/Commercial Vehicles</td> <td>3,974</td> <td>254</td> <td>4,228</td> <td>6.0%</td> <td>3.6%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Other/Unknown</td> <td>2,218</td> <td>58</td> <td>2,276</td> <td>2.6%</td> <td>1.9%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Van</td> <td>2,156</td> <td>40</td> <td>2,195</td> <td>1.8%</td> <td>1.9%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Motorcycles</td> <td>1,345</td> <td>20</td> <td>1,365</td> <td>1.4%</td> <td>1.2%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Passenger Vehicles</td> <td>95,082</td> <td>1,170</td> <td>96,252</td> <td>1.2%</td> <td>82.1%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Taxi/Livery</td> <td>7,056</td> <td>55</td> <td>7,111</td> <td>0.8%</td> <td>6.1%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Bicycles/Scooters</td> <td>3,826</td> <td>25</td> <td>3,850</td> <td>0.6%</td> <td>3.3%</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>All Vehicles</strong></td> <td><strong>115,657</strong></td> <td><strong>1,621</strong></td> <td><strong>117,278</strong></td> <td><strong>1.38%</strong></td> <td><strong>100.0%</strong></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>Bicycle ridership has gone up 60% over the last 5 years. Collisions per bicycle mile involving pedestrians have overall declined, down by nearly half since a high in 2022.</p> <p>Are e-bikes more dangerous to pedestrians than pedal bikes? Absolutely:</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Bike Type</th> <th>Total</th> <th>Pds. Injured</th> <th>Pds. Killed</th> <th>Fatality Rate</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Traditional Bicycle</td> <td>1,421</td> <td>1,414</td> <td>7</td> <td>0.5%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>E-Bike</td> <td>943</td> <td>932</td> <td>11</td> <td>1.2%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>E-Scooter</td> <td>562</td> <td>558</td> <td>4</td> <td>0.7%</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>All Bicycles</strong></td> <td><strong>2,926</strong></td> <td><strong>2,904</strong></td> <td><strong>22</strong></td> <td><strong>0.8%</strong></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>…but they still do not harm pedestrians as much as traditional bikes, or—<em>oh, right!</em>—<strong>cars</strong> do… which account for 90% of pedestrian casualties and 50× the fatalities.</p> <p>In short, the shark discussion about e-bikes detracts from the larger heart-disease issue: we need to invest in better public transportation and reduce the amount of large, vehicular traffic into the city.</p> <p>If you don’t believe <a href="https://github.com/gruen/pedestrian-casualty-by-vehicle-analysis-nyc">my analysis</a>, here’s <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-05-09/nyc-s-streets-saw-serious-injuries-rise-as-traffic-returned">another take</a>.</p> <hr> <p>Hat tip to <a href="https://nownownow.com/">nownownow.com</a>.</p> <hr> <p><strong>Notes:</strong></p> <ol class="endnotes" type="a"> <li>While generative AI and LLMs could be helpful here, I refuse to use them here except to proof-read my missives. Future LLMs will need <em>someone</em> who can still write without spellcheck and autocomplete. (Maybe.)</li> <li>In the US, sharks kill ~1 person each year. Heart disease? ~1,000,000.</li> <li>It’s not that I don’t care about what happens to everyone else, but the charge is often levied at the dangers riders pose to pedestrians, not the other way around.</li> </ol>]]></content:encoded>
    

      
      
      
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      <pubDate>Mon, 28 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

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          &lt;p&gt;Now that my /now page has some entries in it, I’m starting to see some patterns emerge on how I like to structure these sorts of things. Navel-gazy, yes. But also practical. I don’t want this to feel like a blog, but some blog-like features are becoming emergent. After all, the idea of a /now page is to record: “… what you’d tell a friend you hadn’t seen in a year” — nownownow.com/about And I’m...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Now that my <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/now</code> page has some entries in it, I’m starting to see some patterns emerge on how I like to structure these sorts of things.</p> <p>Navel-gazy, yes. But also practical.</p> <p>I don’t want this to feel like a blog, but some blog-like features are becoming emergent. After all, the idea of a <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/now</code> page is to record:</p> <blockquote> <p>“… what you’d tell a friend you hadn’t seen in a year”<br> — <a href="https://nownownow.com/about#:~:text=Think%20of%20what%20you%E2%80%99d%20tell%20a%20friend%20you%20hadn%E2%80%99t%20seen%20in%20a%20year.">nownownow.com/about</a></p> </blockquote> <p>And I’m getting to the age where not seeing some friends for at least a year <em>is</em>, in fact, a regular occurrence.</p> <p>There are things I’m thinking about (like the below note on Congestion Pricing) that might one day warrant a <a href="/d/">dispatch</a> essay; but, that’s a place I prefer to leave mostly-complete thoughts and not active, in-flight observations. (“Hot takes” one might say.) Alas, I have enough spinning plates on my, uh, plate and an ever-growing bucket list of more plates worthy of spinning.</p> <p>So anyway: <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/now</code> now has a table of contents so the content reads more like an indexed data update rather than a slowly morphing narrative; and because the industrial complex has conditioned us and our LLMs to think and read in bulleted lists for maximum comprehension, why fight it?</p> <p>Up top I’ll probably continue to include a note just like this. Less meta-note, and more note-note, which at least for this update you can find under <a href="#sundry-notes">Sundry Notes</a>.</p> <p>Next time may look different, but today (and in the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/now</code>) I’m liking this structure.</p> <p><br> – Michael E. Gruen</p> <hr> <h1 class="no_toc" id="the-usuals">The Usuals</h1> <ul id="markdown-toc"> <li><a href="#upcoming-travel" id="markdown-toc-upcoming-travel">Upcoming Travel</a></li> <li><a href="#vocational-notes" id="markdown-toc-vocational-notes">Vocational Notes</a></li> <li><a href="#avocational-notes" id="markdown-toc-avocational-notes">Avocational Notes</a></li> <li><a href="#sundry-notes" id="markdown-toc-sundry-notes">Sundry Notes</a></li> <li> <a href="#content-consumption-abbreviated" id="markdown-toc-content-consumption-abbreviated">Content Consumption (Abbreviated)</a> <ul> <li><a href="#television" id="markdown-toc-television">Television</a></li> <li><a href="#books" id="markdown-toc-books">Books</a></li> <li><a href="#games" id="markdown-toc-games">Games</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h2 id="upcoming-travel">Upcoming Travel</h2> <ul> <li>Block Island - my <a href="/resources/how-to-get-to-block-island/">guide</a> now has updated information!</li> <li>UK (late Spring)</li> <li>Portugal (late Spring)</li> <li>Berkshires (late Summer)</li> </ul> <h2 id="vocational-notes">Vocational Notes</h2> <ul> <li> <a href="/fractional/">Fractional</a> work seems to suit me well; have about ~10hours/week capacity remaining. Current foci: <ul> <li>Environmental Impact and Sustainability</li> <li>AI-enabled Workflows</li> <li>Anti-social networking</li> </ul> </li> <li> <a href="https://teamassemble.app">Team, Assemble!</a> launched! <ul> <li> <a href="https://youtu.be/XI5B8v9J3TM">demo</a> and <a href="/d/2024/cat-herding/">write-up</a> </li> <li> <em>Still</em> looking for product/technical lead to take myself out of the loop. (Maybe this is you?)</li> <li>Active TODO: write up a <a href="/d/">dispatch</a> on this process. Many learnings.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Actively looking to partner with and hire some full-time folks to help build against projects not listed here.</li> </ul> <h2 id="avocational-notes">Avocational Notes</h2> <ul> <li>Lifting 3-4 times per week.</li> <li>Electric Go-Karting continues to be a fun hobby.</li> <li>Stalled work <em>again</em> on a <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/devlog.gruen.lol">small project</a>; will be picking this back up once I get some key hires done for the other revenue-generating projects, hopefully by mid-summer.</li> </ul> <h2 id="sundry-notes">Sundry Notes</h2> <p>In this household, we live an evidence-based lifestyle: congestion pricing in NYC is clearly working.</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.tomtom.com/newsroom/explainers-and-insights/the-data-behind-nyc-s-congestion-pricing-success/">Reduced Travel Times</a></li> <li><a href="https://transpomaps.org/projects/nyc/congestion-pricing">Reduced Accidents and Injuries</a></li> <li> <a href="https://www.mta.info/press-release/icymi-traffic-down-business-governor-hochul-highlights-progress-made-under-new-yorks">Increased Public Transit Ridership</a> – justifies increased spending</li> <li> <a href="https://www.earnestanalytics.com/insights/congestion-pricing-impact-on-nyc">Consumer Spending (in Congestion Zone) increased</a> – note: despite international tourism <a href="https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/tourists-are-staying-away-from-the-us-what-does-that-mean-for-nyc">being down</a> </li> </ul> <p>Also, I wonder if there’s any value in structuring this <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/now</code> a bit more formally and federating it into a distributed, open-source social network that <a href="/d/2024/human-dns/">operates outside of</a> the commercial ones you may have heard about. The <a href="https://nownownow.com/">nownownow.com</a> page <em>kinda</em> does that, but lacks any guiding format. Maybe I can help there.</p> <h2 id="content-consumption-abbreviated">Content Consumption (Abbreviated)</h2> <h3 id="television">Television</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severance_(TV_series)">Severance</a> - The Work Is Mysterious and Important</li> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythic_Quest">Mythic Quest</a> - The best part of this show are the one-offs</li> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One">Formula 1</a> - The 2025 season is shaping up to be great</li> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Creatures_Great_and_Small_(2020_TV_series)">All Creatures Great &amp; Small</a> - 2020 remake of a classic; cozy, summer viewing.</li> </ul> <p>AppleTV+ is still killing it.</p> <h3 id="books">Books</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="https://amzn.to/4lNDl86">The Death and Life of August Sweeney</a> - Samuel Ashworth (n.b., I know the author, so I’m hardly impartial.)</li> <li> <a href="https://amzn.to/3SaD0Pf">Careless People</a> - Sarah Wynn-Williams (n.b., If you work in tech leadership this should be required reading.)</li> </ul> <h3 id="games">Games</h3> <ul> <li>Chess <ul> <li>Elo ~1150 (Daily). Write me if you want my <a href="https://chess.com/">chess.com</a> username.</li> <li>I’m steadily getting better, but lack the will (and talent) to become a GM.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_2077">Cyberpunk 2077</a></li> <li> <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/2660460/Aviassembly/">Aviassembly</a> - A cozy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerbal_Space_Program">KSP</a> </li> <li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubb">Kubb</a> - Getting lawn game season-ready</li> </ul> <hr> <p>Hat tip to <a href="https://nownownow.com/">nownownow.com</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
    

      
      
      
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      <pubDate>Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

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          &lt;p&gt;Keeping an eye on this. (Early data looks good.) Previous version of this page had too many emojis. Removed. Vocational Notes Actively performing technical advisory and fractional roles. Medium capacity (10 hours/week for ongoing retainers, burst-able to 30+ with notice). Current foci: Environmental Impact and Sustainability AI-enabled Workflows Anti-social networking Official Team, Assemble! l...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        
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      <pubDate>Fri, 10 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

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          &lt;p&gt;Happy New Year! 🎉 Roadtripped over the holidays. Great time. Photos soon. 🇨🇦 Also, congratulations to NYC for implementing congestion pricing in my absence. Will be keeping an eye on this as one metric. 🚙 Reminds me of a song… Using zed.dev as my code editor with Github Copilot as the inline autocomplete agent. It leaks emojis everywhere. Not my usual style, but maybe could be fun to use in lie...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        
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      <pubDate>Mon, 02 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

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          &lt;p&gt;Upcoming Travel Montréal (repeat) Quebec City (new!) Side note: have been finding much enjoyment using iOS’s Find My Friends. I’m not nearly as weirded out by it as I was before. Vocational Notes Actively performing technical advisory and fractional roles. Medium capacity (8 hours/week for ongoing retainers, burst-able to 30+ with notice). Current foci: Environmental Impact and Sustainability A...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        
          &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-12-02/&quot;&gt;Read more...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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      <title>Now</title>
      <link>https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-11-09/</link>
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      <pubDate>Sat, 09 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

      <description>
          &lt;p&gt;Upcoming Travel Miami Austin (50/50 chance) Somewhere—anywhere but here (late December) Side note: have been finding much enjoyment using iOS’s Find My Friends. I’m not nearly as weirded out by it as I was before. Vocational Notes Actively performing technical advisory and fractional roles. Medium capacity (12 hours/week for ongoing retainers, burst-able to 30+ with notice). Current foci: Envir...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        
          &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-11-09/&quot;&gt;Read more...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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      <title>Now</title>
      <link>https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-09-08/</link>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

      <description>
          &lt;p&gt;Today’s format inspired by Big Rocks. Boulders Back in NYC for the Fall. Upcoming trips: LA Nashville (+ Chattanooga) Miami (for a Wedding) Technical Advisory and Fractional work. Low capacity (10 hours/week for for ongoing retainers, burst-able to 20+ with notice). Building needed apps that don’t exist. Two recent efforts: Team, Assemble! - demo video here, write-up here Contact Management Too...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        
          &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-09-08/&quot;&gt;Read more...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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      <title>Now</title>
      <link>https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-06-15/</link>
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      <pubDate>Sat, 15 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

      <description>
          &lt;p&gt;Today’s format inspired by Big Rocks. Boulders Spending the summer on Block Island. Technical Advisory and “Fractional” work. Medium capacity (10-20 hours/week for for ongoing retainers, burstable to 40+ with notice). More on that here. Building needed apps that don’t exist. Two recent efforts: Team, Assemble! - demo video here, write-up coming soon. Contact Management Tool Pebbles Board Secret...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        
          &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-06-15/&quot;&gt;Read more...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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      <title>Now</title>
      <link>https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-05-23/</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="true">https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-05-23/</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

      <description>
          &lt;p&gt;Today’s format inspired by Big Rocks. Boulders Fractional CTO and tech advisor. Limited capacity (5-10 hours/week for for ongoing retainers, burstable to 40+ with notice). More on that here. Building needed apps that don’t exist. Two recent efforts: Team, Assemble! - demo video here, write-up coming soon. Contact Management Tool Pebbles Board Secretary Literacy Trust, a non-profit that improves...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        
          &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-05-23/&quot;&gt;Read more...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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      <title>Now</title>
      <link>https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-04-29/</link>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

      <description>
          &lt;p&gt;Today’s format inspired by Big Rocks. Boulders CEO and Board Member of exposure.co. I’ve been “on board” since 2015, but as of Fall 2022 have made it my primary focus. Building needed apps that don’t exist. Two recent efforts: Team, Assemble! - demo video here, write-up coming soon. Contact Management Tool Fractional CTO and tech advisor. Limited capacity (5-10 hours/week for for ongoing retain...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        
          &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-04-29/&quot;&gt;Read more...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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      <link>https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-02-14/</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

      <description>
          &lt;p&gt;Today’s format inspired by Big Rocks. Boulders CEO and Board Member of exposure.co. I’ve been “on board” since 2015, but as of Fall 2022 have made it my primary focus. Building needed apps that didn’t previously exist. One recent effort: contact.gruen.us. Next up: a quasi-stealth travel project for distributed team meetups. Fractional CTO and tech advisor. Limited capacity (5-10 hours/week for ...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        
          &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://michaelgruen.com/now/2024-02-14/&quot;&gt;Read more...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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      <title>Now</title>
      <link>https://michaelgruen.com/now/2023-06-20/</link>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

      <description>
          &lt;p&gt;While this site’s index.html page does a good job living up to its namesake (an index of my activities) I recently came across /now and loved it so much I thought to participate. Today’s format inspired by Big Rocks. Boulders CEO and Board Member of exposure.co. I’ve been involved since 2015, but as of Fall 2022 have made it my primary focus. Big plans. Fractional CTO and tech advisor. Limited ...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        
          &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://michaelgruen.com/now/2023-06-20/&quot;&gt;Read more...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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      <link>https://michaelgruen.com/now/2023-06-07/</link>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 07 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

      <description>
          &lt;p&gt;While this site’s index.html page does a good job living up to its namesake (an index of my activities) I recently came across /now and loved it so much I thought to participate. Today’s format inspired by Big Rocks. Boulders CEO and Board Member of exposure.co. I’ve been involved since 2015, but as of Fall 2022 have made it my primary focus. Big plans. Fractional CTO and tech advisor. Limited ...&lt;/p&gt;\n
        
          &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://michaelgruen.com/now/2023-06-07/&quot;&gt;Read more...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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      <title>Then</title>
      <link>https://michaelgruen.com/now/2023-05-01/</link>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 01 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      

      <description>
          &lt;p&gt;While this site’s index.html page does a good job living up to its namesake (an index of my activities) I recently came across /now and loved it so much I thought to participate. I suppose I should get on that.&lt;/p&gt;\n
        
          &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://michaelgruen.com/now/2023-05-01/&quot;&gt;Read more...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\n
        

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