One thing that I have said lately is that the value of Hive is the faith I have in this chain to keep my data for the future me and to keep my thoughts, opinions, reviews, analysis, dreams, and hopes. So this is sort of a letter to my older self. I have been blogging since blogging was 'a thing', back in 2003–2011 with WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and closed commercial platforms like Digg, Blogger, Tumblr, etc.
Why did I get into blogging? During the 2000s I was a big open-source/free software guy—still am—but I was more involved with FLOSS communities. Most devs had incredible technical blogs, and I sort of knew a lot about the community and needed an outlet to document the day-to-day community activities in OpenOffice.org. I realized that a lot of people in the community didn't have as much background information as me, so talking about this would materialize that knowledge, and people could benefit from the information as much as I did. Other reasons also supported this decision, as I am a big follower of other things like hip-hop, NBA basketball, and later on, crypto and blockchain. So having my own blog sounded like a great way to vent. Not for nothing did I call it Rants and Raves.
When Steem first came out, I had a blog that had some setbacks. Even though I was blogging on a WordPress.com page, I also had a WordPress.org app running on a server; but not being able to keep paying the hosting, I folded back. Before WordPress, I also had a self-hosted app built in PHP that had a very simple blog, which I also used for a long time. Eventually, I realized that blogging was hard to maintain, not just because of the actual posting, but the code, the host, the domain, and everything in between.
That said, now let's get on to a snapshot of what my situation is right now. I have the fortune to be able to live life on my own terms. I enjoy having good health—although it could be better, I could be in shape, and I should be losing weight—and I haven't even experienced a single flu or setback in the better part of a year.
I am currently living in Central America, trying to enforce my plans for a passport portfolio, and would love to get my first alternative passport as soon as possible. I have made a bunch of friends mostly from the expat community. I wish I could be more active building relationships with locals, but it has proven quite challenging. Maybe I should put more of myself into it.
I am getting ready to go to my 5th Hivefest and looking forward to meet old friends from the community. I missed the last one due to a technicality so I really wish I could be on this one. I also want to reconnect with my FLOSS community and looking forward to go to Akademy in Graz, Austria. I hope it's like the one I went in Spain almost 10 years ago. Meet people from KDE and see how things have evolved since those days.
My expectation is that I keep living a simple life and get to enjoy my retirement with good health and communication with my virtual friends and my friends from my past. I want to touch base with friends from childhood, college, and places I have lived, and also continue to make a life in new places in the future, especially Europe, as it will likely be my next move.
I am still a big Hiphop head although the hiphop game has been getting worst. And even the underground is hard to discover new people. Even the so called new people, have been on for ages, and we need to get fresh blood. Griselda, Roc Marciano and others have been going on for more than 10 years now. I wish I could listen to something fresh, but that hold the lyrical skills like the style I appreciate. I have also dwell on other genres like Soundscape, also known as Ambiance, and been trying to make some research on key groups like Carbon Based Lifeforms, as well as other sub-genres like ChillHop, JazzHop, etc.
On the basketball front, it has gone from playgrounds to videogames. I have played 2K games and enjoy the seasons, but I keep them offline, so I guess there is not much competition outside of the computer's own AI. I'm also getting back into videogames that I heard about but never tried, like Mario games and other oldies that I might have missed during the huge gap I had with gaming. I'm not sure if I even want to catch up, but so it goes.
As an NBA fan, I have been diligent with LeBron's games and hope he can still go on for the next two seasons, but things are looking like he will call it quits anytime soon as well. He has already achieved everything, and the drive to keep playing is a bit slim. I still support him, and looking into the new players, I am still undecided on who will fill his shoes once he is gone. I like some players, but they aren't as good as LBJ ever was. The game itself has also changed, turning mostly into a three-point contest with very soft plays, which has been disappointing for most old heads.
Just like with music, I am also trying to learn more about and follow other sports, like tennis. I would love to start watching those matches and learn about the whole ATP and WTA tours. So far, I have learned that Coco Gauff is queen and that there are also new star sensations to follow.
On the tech side, right now crypto is experiencing the end of a cold bear market, so the hype is not fully here yet. AI is also in full effect as most IT attention has gone toward it, but now capital seems to be drying up there, while crypto has a brighter outlook regarding adoption by nation-states, such as the Clarity Act in the US. Let's see how that goes. You know I am an anarcho-capitalist and I really wish governments would stay away from crypto, but we all knew this day could come.
I am still looking for projects to build in the future, more like an online business to generate some revenue. I don't want to rely solely on trading, but rather work on having income from more continuous sources. E-tail is calling me as the best solution, especially empowered by AI, but the growth has been too slow. I might need to get some mentorship and pay the cost to be the boss, though it might be easier to take those steps in a bull market instead of a just-recovering one.
Finally on the tech side, I have just recover some old accounts, my KDE ID, Gitlab account and my GnuPG keys, and recover some old dotfiles that I can re-access from my old desktop. I also been active on Hive with these Quests streaks and allow to post everyday, comment and curate content, including this post. I reactivate my accounts on BCH with read.cash not too long ago and been also mildly active on BCH Nostr website, and of course Memo.cash. I am interested into building a raspberry Pi cluster, as well as a PiPhone but that might be a very relaxed plan as I would need to get a bunch of wiring issues fixed for that. Also wanting to get some paid AI that I can really experience with agents and such as I have pushed back a lot on that.
