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id: now 
title: NOW 
content-type: page
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_(This is a [now](https://nownownow.com/about) page, and if you have your own site, you should make one, too.)_

### What really matters 

I am an extremely happy husband and father of a lovely baby girl (she's growing up very fast, but she'll always be my baby!). Essentially, I have _two additional bosses_ outside of work, but I don't mind: I love spending time with my family and I hope I can be the best husband and father in the world for them. 

### $dayjob

I am currently working as a Technical Product Manager and Product Owner for a fairly well-known industrial automation company. I do love my job and working with my teams, even though I am working 100% remotely (most of the people I work with are either in India or the US). 

Because I have worked as a tech writer, developer, and architect in the past, people say that I'm not the _typical_ product manager, as I tend to deep dive quite a bit into the technology and programming side of things. I love programming after all, and even if I don't get to do it at work that much, I still do it in my (very little) free time.

### H3RALD ecosystem

I've recently collected what I call the _H3RALD Ecosystem_ on [code.h3rald.com](https://code.h3rald.com). It is a collection of my own tools, mainly for my personal use, that may also be useful to others. Every project is open source, and every project is either a standalone, self-contained command line tool or something equally minimal. You can obtain the source code of each of these tools via [code.h3rald.com](https://code.h3rald.com), [Sourcehut](https://sr.ht/~h3rald/ecosystem/sources), or [GitHub](https://github.com/h3rald) (even though I am thinking of progressively [giving up GitHub](https://sfconservancy.org/GiveUpGitHub/)).

In particular, I am more frequently tinkering with [min](/min), [mn](/mn), [LiteStore](/litestore), [HastyScribe](/hastyscribe) and [HastySite](/hastysite). Projects like [pls](/pls) and [nimhttpd](/nimhttpd) are fairly _complete_, so changes are going to be more sporadic, but I am using them literally every day as well.

### Permacomputing, frugal computing,  Solarpunk, artisan engineering...

In July 2023, I stumbled across a [thread](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36734445) on Hacker News pointing to [the Uxn ecosystem](https://100r.co/site/uxn.html). I became fascinated by this, and started researching more on [frugal computing](https://wimvanderbauwhede.codeberg.page/articles/frugal-computing/), and similar concepts. Around the same time frame, I also joined the Merveilles [webring](https://webring.xxiivv.com/) and [community](https://merveilles.town) — it has been a wonderful and eye-opening journey so far.

I have always felt a bit uneasy at the apparent _necessity_ of our day-to-day life to rely on [walled gardens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_platform) and overly-bloated software for our day job and even for leisure. By contrast, I have always been obsessed with finding _the right tool for the job_, or — better — even make my own [nifty tool](https://nifty.tools).

Right now, I am focusing on:

* Making my web sites (this one in particular) smaller and less bloated, because [the small web is beautiful](https://benhoyt.com/writings/the-small-web-is-beautiful/])
* Learning about [Uxn](https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/uxn.html), the [Varvara](https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/varvara.html) computer system, and the [Uxntal](https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/uxntal.html) assembly language, with the aim to contribute to this ecosystem and leverage it to create my own _sustainable_ applications.
* Learning more and more from the members of the Merveilles community

### Semper exploro

When it comes to science fiction and utopias, I am a devote follower of anything concerning the [Star Trek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek) franchising, from TV shows to movies, and even games to an extend. Star Trek portrays an ideal future in which humanity finally managed to _sort itself out_ (well, for the most part), and where people can focus on their own self-improvement and contributing to the progress of society.

_Semper exploro_ (I am always exploring) is one of the mottos of Starfleet, and I think that summarizes my very own way to see the world and the universe.