post: now page for march 2024

posts/now-march-2024.md

@@ -14,10 +14,97 @@ Thanks as always, Raph!
 
 ### Work ###
 
-I've been spending a lot of time these days working.
-In January, I began a contract with [Rock Rabbit](https://rockrabbit.ai) to help them with their infrastructure.
-Rock Rabbit (RR)'s mission is to accelerate building electrification.
-Buildings are a large portion of overall carbon emissions, up there with transportation and industry.
-(I am considering power generation to be
+Direct emissions from just residential buildings are [almost 6% of all CO2 emissions](hhttps://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/global-co2-emissions-from-buildings-including-embodied-emissions-from-new-construction-2022) -- that's 2x the emissions from aviation.
+Indirect emissions -- that is, energy use in residential buildings -- are another 11% of **all** emissions.
+The solution to these issues is to electrify buildings, starting with homes.
+The [IRA](https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/inflation-reduction-act) has a number of provisions to accelerate building electrification.
+For instance, sections [25C and 25D](https://assets.ctfassets.net/v4qx5q5o44nj/3FYfJiYMILiXGFghFEUx0D/279f180456183d560d9c68d4de8baa67/factsheet_25C_25D.pdf) provide generous tax credits for moving to heat pump or geothermal home heating.
 
+Besides the federal tax incentives, there are also local incentives at the state, county, city, and utility provider level.
+Combined, these can make the cost of projects like replacing fossil-gas furnaces with heat pumps much cheaper.
+However, actually getting these incentives is a complex process.
+There are barriers at every step of the way:
+* Finding out about the incentives
+* Understanding the requirements
+* Applying for the incentives
+* Budgeting and executing the actual project
 
+To help with this process. I've joined [Rock Rabbit](https://rockrabbit.ai), so far as a contract software engineer.
+At RR, we've built a database of the available incentives, including their eligibility and application requirements.
+We turned this data into a wizard which allows homeowners or contractors to plan a project, understand how much money they'll get back in rebates or credits, and smooth the application process.
+In some cases, we can directly submit the application to an incentive provider and track the rebate progress.
+
+I've been playing a hybrid full-stack tech lead / eng manager role.
+On the backend, I've implemented CI, cleaned up our infrastructure and deployment process, and added tests to help us be more confident that we're returning the correct set of incentives for a project.
+On the front-end, I've built the scaffold for a web app (we've been mobile-only so far).
+I'm particularly excited about auto-generating an API client from our our FastAPI/OpenAPI spec.
+This allows us to keep backend Python types in sync with FE TypeScript types automatically.
+
+### Projects ###
+
+Besides this blog, my main project has been my self-hosted infra.
+In my ideal world, there are no giant cloud service providers who make money by selling my data and my attention.
+I generally agree with the likes of [Yuval Noah Harari](https://www.ynharari.com/), [Jaron Lanier](https://www.jaronlanier.com/), or [Cory Doctorow](https://pluralistic.net/) that those business model of the internet are unsustainable, unethical, and harmful to individual and collective well-being.
+
+Instead, I want small groups of friends to collectively run personal infrastructure.
+This is connected both with my ideas on electronic liberty, and also with my ideas of group cohesion and bonding.
+Traditionally, we've relied on our social groups for our survival.
+Today, we all work remotely for different organizations from our own bedrooms.
+When we have friends at all, it's merely for entertainment.
+I would like to bring back a world in which we depend on each other and collaborate to accomplish shared goals.
+Digital infra is a good place to start.
+
+My personal cloud started with an email server back in 2003 or so.
+We've been running a shared media collection with services like [Subsonic](https://www.subsonic.org/) for more than a decade.
+However, usability has been limited to my nerdiest friends.
+My goal over the past few months has been to both set up more services, and to make them more usable.
+
+Setting up more services has been much easier thanks to Docker and Docker Compose.
+Things got even better once I nailed secret management with [dcsm](/posts/secrets-in-docker-compose).
+For usability, I wanted to create an SSO system and a login portal.
+I brought up [Authentik](https://goauthentik.io/) for SSO, so now there's a self-service signup flow.
+I had to modify several services to get them to support SSO.
+For instance, I have [a PR](https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web/pull/2899) to [Calibre Web](https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web) to add SSO support.
+
+A big milestone was announcing the project to my broader group of friends.
+I did that a few weeks ago, and now have almost a dozen active users in the system!
+
+### Travel ###
+
+I'm still living in Sacramento, with regular trips to the Bay Area.
+However, over the next month I have some big trips coming up.
+First, I'm going to Cabo San Lucas for a cousin's wedding.
+I'm hoping to get at least a couple of days of scuba diving while I'm there.
+
+After that, I will be driving to Austin, Texas with a friend.
+We'll be at the [Texas Eclipse Gathering](https://seetexaseclipse.com/), and then road-tripping back home.
+Excited to do another long EV road trip, and am curious how the infrastructure has come along in the past year.
+Fingers crossed that Rivian rolls out NACS charging on the Tesla network and ships me an adapter before we leave!
+
+### Reading ###
+
+I've been reading mostly fiction lately.
+A big project for me was re-reading [Anathem](https://bookshop.org/p/books/anathem-neal-stephenson/8961850) by [Neal Stephenson](https://www.nealstephenson.com/).
+It's been a decade since I read it the first time, and I enjoyed it even more the second time around.
+It made me wish I was living in the Mathic world, spending all my time learning and debating ideas with my friends.
+I also enjoyed the mind-bending multiverse hijinks the concept of [Hylean flow](https://anathem.fandom.com/wiki/Hylean_Flow).
+
+I also re-read [Recursion](https://bookshop.org/p/books/recursion-blake-crouch/9597794) by [Blake Crouch](https://www.blakecrouch.com/).
+I pulled it up randomly in my library, and initially had no memory of reading it the first time -- a fun trip for a book all about memory!
+
+Currently, I'm reading [The Deluge](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-deluge-stephen-markley/18405115).
+The book is quite well-written, with realistic characters, a good understanding of climate policy, and lots of fun insider-baseball politics.
+On the other hand, is it explicitly a dystopian novel?
+It anyway feels like one, and there's enough catastrophe to go around in the book, both for the planet and for the lives of the characters.
+I generally avoid dystopian fiction, but now that I'm in it, I want to see how it turns out.
+
+In the last few months I also plowed through all of the [Bobiverse](https://bookshop.org/p/books/we-are-legion-we-are-bob-dennis-e-taylor/6389676) books.
+Just a fun, hard sci-fi romp through the galaxy.
+
+### Future ###
+
+I am still thinking about whether I want to go to grad school and do a career transition into energy engineering.
+I still really want to work on the transmission and distribution grid.
+I want to tackle [GETs](https://inl.gov/national-security/grid-enhancing-technologies/) and the problem of the [interconnection queue](https://www.utilitydive.com/news/energy-transition-interconnection-reform-ferc-qcells/628822/).
+I am sure there is a lot of work for a skilled software engineer in this space.
+If you work in the space or have ideas for me, please reach out!

src/lib/posts.ts

@@ -96,5 +96,4 @@ export async function makePostBody(post: Post) {
     .use(bootstrapize)
     .use(rehypeStringify)
     .process(post.content)
-
 }

src/pages/now.tsx

@@ -49,21 +49,33 @@ export default function Now({ post, body }: { post: Post, body: string }) {
               {post.draft ? 'draft' : null}
             </sup>
           </h3>
-          <small>{date.format('MMM YYYY')}</small>
         </div>
       </div>
 
       <div className="pt-3" dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: body }}>
       </div>
+
+      <small>
+        See more now pages <a href="https://nownownow.com/">
+          here
+        </a> or <a href="https://nownownow.com/about">
+          learn more
+        </a> .
+      </small>
     </main>
   </>)
 }
 
 export async function getStaticProps() {
   const posts = getPosts()
-  const nows = posts.filter(post => post.isNowPage)
-
+  let nows = posts.filter(post => post.isNowPage)
   nows.sort((a, b) => a.date.getTime() - b.date.getTime())
+
+  // potentially exclude drafts
+  if (process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'development') {
+    nows = nows.filter(post => !post.draft)
+  }
+
   const now = nows[0]
   const body = await makePostBody(now)