Making complex systems more human.
Field notes on IT leadership, AI automation, systems, travel, and the road.
I'm Rico Tan, an IT and operations leader based in San Francisco. This is my public notebook for what I'm learning, building, breaking, fixing, cooking, riding, photographing, and thinking through.
Some notes are technical.
Some are personal.
Some are experiments in progress.
The common thread: making complex systems more understandable, useful, and human.
CURRENT SIGNAL
Mode
Building
Location
San Francisco
Focus
Practical AI automation, IT operations, and systems thinking
Question
How do we reduce context switching without creating another dashboard?
Exploring
AI agents, human approval gates, audit trails, motorcycle routes, and better coffee.
SECTIONS
/field-notes
Practical lessons from IT leadership, automation, security, governance, and operations.
/builder-log
Experiments, workflows, broken things, rebuilds, AI agents, home lab systems, and lessons learned.
/road-notes
Motorcycle trips, travel reflections, food, photography, and places worth remembering.
/photo-notes
Visual field notes from travel, food, motorcycles, and photography.
/now
What I'm currently exploring, building, reading, and learning.
LATEST NOTES
all notes →
Cimer Spa at Paradise City, Incheon: Complete First-Timer’s Guide (Day Visit & Overnight)
Cimer Spa at Paradise City, Incheon — pools, water slides, jjimjil rooms, 10 min from ICN airport. Complete…
I Built a Personal Command Center with AI — And It Updates Itself
What if your morning routine didn't start with checking five different apps? I stopped treating AI as a…
The Operating System Problem No One Is Talking About
AI has moved beyond chat interfaces into operational infrastructure. The next enterprise challenge is not just deploying more…
Your AI Financial Advisor Just Got Real (And It’s Watching Your Spending)
OpenAI just shipped something I’ve been waiting for — and honestly, it’s going to change the conversation around…
Adding Real-Time Web Search to Your AI Agent: Tavily, Exa, and What Changed
Tavily and Exa add dramatically better web search to an AI agent. What each does, when to use…
What Background Jobs Taught Me About Reliable AI Agents
Moving 18 scheduled AI jobs from cloud to local looks like a cost exercise. It is really a…
VISUAL LOG
