the future

As of today, I’m not working for my former employer. I worked there for 7 years, good and bad, and it’s been an important part of my life. I stuck through a lot of commercial endeavors in the hopes we could get back to the pure research I was most interested in, but it seems that’s not going to happen. I’ll be the first to admit I was not the most enthusiastic on our current customer-focused projects, and that’s what’s going on right now, so perhaps this is for the best.

I’m overwhelmed at the moment at all the possible actions I could take next. I’ve spent so long with a checklist of responsibilities in my head every morning and other people’s goals and pressure on me that I barely know how to imagine what I want to do next.

This is a shock, but I knew this situation was coming sooner or later. I’m not responsible for anything anymore but my own actions, and while this is about to be a financial adventure, it’s freeing in other ways.

I’m giving myself until Monday, but then I’m making a list. There’s a lot of stuff I have thought about doing over the last few years, and here’s my chance to grab a few and do them properly.

CRASH Space has been operating with the soul of a non-profit. We’ve kept costs as low as possible for classes that don’t get taught much of anywhere else, or, when they are, cost an arm and a leg. We run a skin of our teeth budget for the space. I’d say 90% of what’s in there is donated or on loan from people who are excited about sharing their passion and expertise with the world. Everything we do is brought about by the hard work of volunteers. However, it won’t be official until we complete the process to obtain 501(c)3 status.

Help us become an official non-profit

My sister, Jessica Nicole Corwin, is dead. She was 27 years old, and I will miss her for the rest of my life, howsoever long.

Recently I've been concerned that I've been putting time into projects in ratios counter to my priorities. So I took my off hours time and some calculations, and wrote out my top few projects in hours per week.

CRASHspace/RadioMondays 8hours
LiveActionLife 4hours
Aesir Academia 4hours
toydecider 1hours
holonic simulation 1hours
rationalizer 1hours
aaattention 1hours

I'm hoping to get or make a good timeclock to make sure I keep track, and adjust my hours in ratio for weeks with more or less off-time. We'll see how this goes!

New Years Eve.

So, it is the fashion to reflect and project today. My 2010 was pretty great, I thought. It's been a good year at a2i2/SmartAction, we're making money and deploying customers. If I haven't been able to do as much AI research as I'd like, it's balanced by the knowledge that my work now contributes to the long-term stability of the company.

Work remains my #1 priority. With the bulk of my energy and intelligence going into it, I haven't had the energy and time to work on outside projects. I have been happy to note that the Lifeboat Foundation, SIAI, SENS, Seasteading Institute, St. Judes, and other organizations working in areas I'm interested in have also had a good year. I'll have to try to get involved there more in the coming year.

My one major outside project this year was Crashspace. We really have done well in this, our first full year of operation. We've made a name for ourselves, and put together a lot of cool stuff. I'm proud of what we've accomplished. Most of what I've done is just show up when I can, and teach classes in areas I'm already familiar with, but it's been a lot of fun. My goal in this is to help build up a community with diverse technical and problem-solving skills, and also to have access to high-tech tools outside the normal marketplace of consumer geegaws. I think it could be important, going forward. You have a lot more flexibility if you can build your own solution. And Crashspace, with our classes and talented membership (and laser cutters and CNC-machines and soldering tools) is starting to give us that. Teaching Radio Mondays has improved my lecturing, moderating skills, and quick research capability. Plus I've built a nice little group of new skilled friends. This next year should be pretty awesome.

In Art, 2010 has been a fallow year. Other than the fun of working with my hands again at crashspace, I haven't been doing much. I failed NaNoWriMo, and haven't been drawing much. I have one project in 2011, but it's dwarfed by the continuing technical work I need to do. Most of my creative work continues to be underground and unpublishable. More notes and plots and plans.

Another watershed moment in romantic history, I broke with Crystal this fall, for a variety of reasons. It's sad, but we're still talking. It was as amicable as these things can be. I've been dating her, on and off, for a good few years now. It is strange to think of continuing without her.

Looking forward, 2011 should be a good year at work, make or break. I have two significant outside projects just starting up, one Art with collaborators to be determined, one Business with my brother Aaron. I have good feelings about both.

I don't have conventional resolutions, so I'll just reprint my list of things I wanted to do before I am 30, with updates. Should still be doable, I think. It just takes my putting all my notes and collected drabbles and code into functioning prototypes so I can mark these things done and move on to bigger and better.

Things to do before I'm thirty

• Be financially secure
• complete:
• Attention (time-management, desktop interface software, ver 0.1 existed)
• Grayswandir (wearable computing interface/hardware design)
• Jack of Shadows (communications interface)
• DocDesignr (XML document design meta-tool, ver 0.0.1 existed)
• Rationalizer (bayesian statistics visualization tool)
• toy_decider (utility hypothesis bot)
• Dr.Know (tutor/research bot)
• Attitude Adjuster (modular airship design)
• Home One (factory ship design)
• be romantically secure
• have some idea what the state of the possible art in AI is.
• be incorporated
• be physically stable
• have published my papers on decision theory as high dimensional vector analysis
• have participated in every nanowrimo
• have had at least one satisfying computer or computer-mediated rpg experience
• have experimented with consulting