What I’m Working On Now

Hello from Poulsbo, Washington! It has been almost a year since my last one of these – so grab a cup of coffee, this is a big one.

I’ll be honest: I kept meaning to write this and then kept getting on airplanes instead. So rather than march through every single thing, I’m going to group it up and link to the longer stories. Let’s go.

Travels

It was a year of a lot of miles. The headline trip was a two-week adventure to South Africa and Lesotho in February. It started with a work-related opportunity in Cape Town (more on that below) and turned into one of the most memorable trips I’ve ever taken – wine country around Stellenbosch, the mountains of Lesotho, a proper safari, penguins and Table Mountain, and a sobering, important visit to Robben Island.

Inverdoorn Private Game Reserve, northeast of Ceres, Western Cape, South Africa

We also rang in the New Year on the other side of the world, with a trip to South Korea and Guam over the holidays – rail bikes, Nami Island, a lighted garden, and ringing in 2026 with (of course) New Year’s donuts.

Gangchon Rail Park, Chuncheon, South Korea

Closer to home, I got out a lot more than I expected to:

• New Jersey – a week on the Jersey Shore with Lisa to visit family (and yes, I ate a dog in Buttzville – you’ll have to read about that one).
• Sunshine Coast – a solo weekend road trip up the coast northwest of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I’ve been curious about that stretch for years and the scenery did not disappoint.
• California – a week of relaxing and a conference, with a gorgeous detour up the Mendocino coast.
• A Long Weekend in Victoria – Lisa and I slipped over to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and rode a very small ferry (maybe 20 cars?) around Brentwood Bay.
• California, again – another spring visit out west.

east of Bowen Island, British Columbia, Canada

Mendocino Headlands State Park, Mendocino, California

Digging Back Through the Archives

The years-long project to revisit and re-edit my entire photo library rolls on – I’ve been editing photos from 2013 to early 2016 lately, which means I keep getting to post old new things from trips I took long ago. A few of the latest additions:

• Europe 2014 – a long trip through Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein, anchored by Photokina in Cologne.
• A Western United States Roadtrip (2014) – two weeks down through California, across Nevada, and into Arizona for a Tucson photowalk.
• Europe 2015 – narrow, winding roads through Monaco, Andorra, Barcelona, and Portugal.
• A Butchart Gardens Christmas (2013) – the holiday lights in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
• Madeline Island (2015) – a quiet corner of Wisconsin.
• And I’ve just started posting Sri Lanka and India from early 2016 – more of that to come.

There are a few more in there (a week in Germany, a photo workshop weekend, a California mission), but those are the highlights.

Work

The big news: in November I was promoted to Principal Scientist at Adobe. In this role I lead standards development for the Creator Assertions Working Group and I lead the team that builds the Content Authenticity Initiative’s open-source SDKs. It’s the kind of work I care deeply about – giving creators and audiences a way to establish genuine, provable connections with each other – and I’m grateful for the chance to do more of it.

That work took me to Cape Town in February, where I was an invited keynote speaker at did unconf:africa – the trip that kicked off the South Africa adventure above. I also attended both the 41st and 42nd Internet Identity Workshops, one of my favorite gatherings in this space – my running session notes from IIW 41 and a fresh take on Content Authenticity 101 from IIW 42 are on my dev blog. And in January I gave an overview of the content provenance ecosystem at a First Person Network partner workshop.

I also started a new project: How I Code, an opinionated guide to how I write software – covering language and naming, sentence case, treating untested code and shortcuts like “credit cards” of technical debt, formatting, and failing fast on errors. It’s a living document; I add to it as I find words for things I believe.

And I wrote a piece I’ve been chewing on for a while: Social Media 2010 :: AI 2025? – on the joy that early social media brought, how it curdled, and what that might (or might not) tell us about where AI is headed.

Personal / Art

Two essays over on ericscouten.me this stretch. On Anger and Force Multipliers is an invitation to ask yourself a question: when anger, anxiety, or fear shows up around you, do you amplify it – or do you work to dissipate it? And Today We Celebrate is a piece I first wrote years ago, newly re-published, about a college mentor who asked me – back in 1988 – whether I supported same-sex marriage.

On the photography front, I added a couple of new local images to This Is North Kitsap – a Seattle morning and a Suquamish sunrise – along with some re-edited favorites.

What I’m Listening To

Two songs on repeat lately, and they’re just about polar opposites – which feels right for a year like this one.

Nacar by Parra for Cuva (featuring Nathan Ball) has a fast-paced beat that somehow never feels overwhelming – perfect for a long editing session.

And on the other end of the spectrum, To Be Kind by Alela Diane. I love the sentiment, and the lyric that keeps sticking with me:

I need you to be kind.