FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

for me it seems to be that growing plants (seed) and the furnace don't work when i am too far away

i use the mod travelnet to teleport me to ca. -900

after an hour i came back and all was like before.

i don't know if this has something to do with travelnet.

No this is not bug but feature. You need to be near furnace to make it work..

why is it so?
is there a sense for this feature?

Imagine the obvious lag that would be caused if every block was active all the time. When you go away, nodes and entities are deactivated to keep the game light.