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 position
- 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.
Route legend
- Field Notes Practical lessons from IT leadership, automation, security, governance, and operations. 35 notes
- Builder Log Experiments, workflows, broken things, rebuilds, AI agents, home lab systems, and lessons learned. 26 notes
- Road Notes Motorcycle trips, travel reflections, food, photography, and places worth remembering. 49 notes
- Photo Notes Visual field notes from travel, food, motorcycles, and photography. 4 notes
- Decision Notes Choices, trade-offs, and the reasoning behind them — written down so future-me remembers why. 1 note
Latest notes
All notes →The Mount Tam Ride Every Bay Area Rider Should Do at Least Once
A tight, technical ridgeline run to Mt. Tam's East Peak via Panoramic Highway and Pantoll Road.
A Hacker Spent $50 Per Target and Let AI Agents Do the Breaking-In
A single attacker used open-source AI agents to breach 100+ companies at $50 per target. What this means…
Planning a Korea Trip for 2027? You’ll Need to Apply for a K-ETA Again
South Korea's K-ETA exemption for Americans ends December 31, 2026. Here's what changes and how to prepare for…
The AI Governance Tools Market Just Exploded — Nobody Can Prove Any of Them Actually Work
Five vendors shipped AI agent governance products in a 13-day window. Four questions to ask before trusting any…
Shadow AI in Small Organizations: A 30-Minute Discovery Checklist
Pax8's survey suggests AI building is outpacing review. A practical discovery checklist for small-business, school, and nonprofit IT…
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
All photo notes →
