Last updated: 2025年11月7日

What I’m Doing Now

This is a /now page, popularized by Derek Sivirs. It’s a snapshot of what I’m currently up to in life, giving you a high-level view of what has my focus right now.

What I’m working on professionally

I’m working at Cloud Security Alliance, creating best practices and practical guidance on Information Security. We’re a non-profit organization, and the white papers that we release are available to download for free off the website.

• AI Safety is a major focus, as both companies and individuals rush to take advantage of the hype surrounding recent advances in technology.
• Data Privacy is another topic of interest, and I’m in the middle of consolidating a few various working groups into one overarching group on Privacy.
• We’re expanding from just white papers as a deliverable type to also covering open source software and reference architecture. This is something I’m personally very excited about, as it ties back into my software engineering background and provides a way for developers to participate even if they don’t like writing papers.

Personal projects I’m excited about

NixOS

I’ve recently delved into the rabbit-hole that is NixOS, and have been thoroughly enjoying the declarative paradigm of system management. The biggest downfall of NixOS, however, is the documentation. To be blunt, it’s god-awful. Errors are esoteric, documentation outdated or missing, and it took me three “try-give up for 2 weeks-try again” cycles before I even could get myself started with it.

But, complaining about something without offering assistance is generally not useful, so I’m planning to do my part to help in the spirit of Open Source Software (OSS). I’m cleaning up my personal NixOS config to be reusable as a template, and planning to do a series of Getting Started videos and companion blog posts to help others get started. In particular, I’m wanting to show folks how to switch from Pop! OS to using NixOS with Pop Shell (functionally equivalent), and a few explanation videos with Manim for covering how Nix itself works.

Hobbies I’m focusing on

Photography

I got a pretty good start earlier this year, expanding from just landscape photography into also covering portrait photography. Two things I’d like to continue focusing on in the near future are:

• Portraits that highlight both the subject and the location — in preparation for my trip to Japan next year.
• How to pose subjects, and create portraits focused entirely on the person and telling their story — in preparation for taking cosplay photos at upcoming conventions.

I’d also like to continue to update my photography portfolio, both pulling older photos that I’m proud of from my digital archives, and taking some new ones with my friends, family, and significant other. I took a few street photography portraits, inspired by Justin Veenema’s Stranger Project, but with it being cold and wintery I’m not sure that I’ll be able to easily continue that effort until next Spring.

Cosplay

Cosplay is something that I’ve wanted to get into for a while, but haven’t been able to dedicate the time into doing. So, to fix that I’ve decided to go to a few conventions (like ECCC and PAX West) with some friends, and create a Helldivers 2 cosplay.

Other significant activities

Updating my web presence and portfolio

I’ve had my personal website (joshbuker.com) for a while, but I haven’t really updated it or made it particularly organized and presentable since creating it.

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.

— Anonymous

There are several areas of focus when it comes to my web presence:

• Updating and expanding my personal website / blog (joshbuker.com).
  • Adding Japanese translations.
  • Creating new blog posts on various topics.
  • Creating a /now page and updating my /about page.
• Creating my digital garden (notes.joshbuker.com).
  • This allows me to publish my personal notes more easily, and work with the garage door up.
• Updating my photography portfolio.
  • Improve the look and feel of my photography website (photography.joshbuker.com) so that it can replace Instagram entirely.
    • Switch from ThumbsUp to Hugo to make it look modern and clean.
  • Migrate all of my photos off of Instagram and redirect it to my personal website instead.¹
• Updating my GitHub profile (github.com/joshbuker), and my top repositories.
  • I’d like my profile README to include more graphical elements, be up-to-date with my latest projects, and generally be more presentable.
  • I also want to do a pass on the README’s for each of my favorite repositories and make sure those all look good as well.
• Update my social media and leverage them for reaching out to new like-minded people.
  • Update my LinkedIn and Mastodon profiles, ensuring they’re reflective of my latest efforts.
  • Link my blog posts/videos on LinkedIn and Mastodon to improve my reach.

Cascade STEAM

We’re launching a bunch of new programs, and I want to get more involved again. Hopefully I’ll be able to tie in some of my other active efforts (like NixOS) into some of our community groups.

Trip to 日本国 & Learning 日本語

I’m finally planning a trip to Japan! It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and now it’s going to happen. As preparation for the trip, I’m brushing up on my Japanese and practicing photography techniques to get some fun photos while visiting with my significant other.

Social life

I’ve been spending a lot of time playing games, going to shows, dancing, and generally just enjoying life with my friends and significant other.