What's Caleb Doing Now?

This is a Now page. It's where people put what they've been up to the last year. A now page is:

an overview of what’s going on with you — what you’d tell a friend you hadn’t seen in a year

-- Derek Sivers

Overview

I live in Taiwan, because I believe it's the best place to live on Earth for most people. Things I like to do here include going to g0v hackathons, taking pictures, riding motorcycles in the mountains, recording ambient sounds, contributing to open source streetviews with Mapillary, riding ubikes on the riverside, coworking at cafes with people, and many other things.

This year my focus is on growing my contracting and consultancy firm 508.dev, as well as finding a way to generate revenue outside of selling my labor. I also hope to make many FOSS contributions this year.

Family

I'm engaged to be married, in October. My parents left Taiwan in November and are planning on returning as soon as they can. I have several fish tanks, mostly filled with shrimp.

Career

Last year, I finished with a YC startup, and intended to take a sabbatical. However, I was hired on for some contract work at a frontier AI lab you've heard of, which was impossible to turn down. That's finally wrapped up, so now I'm focusing on FOSS work, learning Mandarin, and finally picking up some of the programming languages I've wanted to for years. I'm growing a software engineering contracting and consultancy firm called 508.dev. We're always open to new members joining, and also have plenty of time available across our engineers for more contracting work. I'm also hosting coworking events and hackathons, as well as trying out some content creation, with subjects such as ambient coworking videos, and life in Taiwan.

Travel

In the last year, I've had the following trips:

• Currently traveling from Copenhagen to London for a wedding, then finishin in Paris. I'm taking a series of trains and then a ferry to get to London, because I think flying is an awful, dehumanizing experience.
• A "split the sweet potato" huandao where I went straight down the middle of Taiwan on my motorcycle, finally making it across the "Southern Cross Road." It was beautiful.
• A trip to Japan for Colive Fukuoka, followed up by Japan Burn.
• Another trip to the UK to hang with Reactwise, with a wedding in London followed with a train ride across Europe, stopping for several nights in Brussels, Amsterdam, Hamburg, then Copenhagen, then popping over to Lundt in Sweden to visit some friends.
• Japan with my fiance
• Japan with the bois
• Huandao with my family
• A motorcycle trip to, and attempted (failed) hike of Qilai
• A trip to the UK to hang with the Reactwise team, and after a short trip to Paris and Barcelona

My upcoming trips are:

• London June 19 to 22nd
• Paris June 23rd to 26
• Japan, Sendai late july
• British Virgin Isles, Christmas

Hobbies

Since I have ADHD, I will always have too many hobbies I'm persuing at once, and the hobbies will always change. Right now:

• Motorcycling
• Drumming
• Reading
  • "Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance" by James C. Scott
  • "A Memory Called Empire", by Arkady Martine
• Photography
• Self Hosting
• Fishkeeping
• Contributing to open data about music,
• Gaming, retro gaming, homebrewing
  • Advance Wars 2
  • Cyberpunk
• FOSS programming
• Documenting car-driver law breaking and getting hit by cars

Philosophy, Ethics, Politics

I'm definitely even more obnoxiously leftist than the last time you talked to me.

Recent protests:

• Taipei Climate Walk
• Vision Zero Taiwan: Pedestrian Rights (2x)
• Ride of Silence
• General protest against "black box legislation" by the KMT and TPP ("Bluebird Protests")
• End Genocide of the Palestinians (multiple)