Friday, December 31, 2010

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