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

Ada Lovelace Day

http://www.smartaction.com/

my company's new subsidiary, selling our technology.

for talk like a pirate day:

"In th' mirrors o' many judgments me hands be th' color o' blood. I be a part o' th' evil that exists in th' world an' in Shadow. I sometime fancy me-self an evil which exists t' oppose other evils. I destroy Melkins when I find them, an' on that Great Tide o' which prophets speak but in which they do nay truly b'lieve, on that tide when th' world be completely swabbed o' evil, then I, too, will go down into tha dark, swallowin' wannions. Perhaps e'en sooner than that, I na ken. But whatere... Until that time, I shall nay wash me hands nor let them hang useless."

--Corwin "Th' Cannons o' Avalon" by Roger Zelazny

Today I turn 27!

I'm happy and alive and working, and making progress. So now it's time for my favorite game, comparing myself to historical figures!

People who accomplished cool things but died at/before 27:
Évariste Galois(20)
Emilio Jacinto(23)
Selena(23)
Keats(25)
Manfred von Richthofen "The Red Baron" "Ace of Aces"(25)
Jimi Hendrix(27)
Jim Morrison(27)

People who I admire who had not yet done anything by 27:
Che Guevara (didn't meet Fidel until he was 27-28)
Norman Borlaug(went to Mexico to research crops at 29)
Alexander Fleming(discovered Penicillin at 47)
Buckminster Fuller(began his "experiment" at 32 after losing his daughter)
Francis Bacon (wrote no major works until he was 36, political success even later)

Ok, narcissistic comparison ended. Yay for birthdays.

another pointer, I really have been tumbling a lot, and haven't kept this one up.
Justin Corwin's "outlawpoet -aggregator-"

every body needs to see this:


as I said on my tumblr:

"”Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould” is the first movie that I can remember making me cry. I cried like a fucking baby at the end of it, when he’s walking away, and he just disappears in the distance. They didn’t say anything, but I knew he was dead."

I have been remiss in writing in general. I have a script for a comic, that if I finish I'll retroactively pretend was for Script Frenzy.

I HAVE been link blogging over on tumblr. It's very simple, and easy to share.

Gary Gygax died today. He and his intellectual children had an enormous, incalculable effect on my life, and lives of many others. I am saddened.

AFP: Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US

I just got this from, about six sources in my newsfeed, they all seem to think it's either meaningless, fascinating, revolutionary, or bait for the USGov to come down hard on these latter-day AIM folks.

I can't really decide what I think will happen, but good on them for daring.

Eeextremely Eeenticing: a review of the Asus Eee PC: Page 1

My next laptop, hopefully. Maybe after christmas.

I know some of you need a cheap new computer because the old one is getting long in the tooth. This looks like it does all the basic stuff you need computers for, and is actually quite capable in the multimedia and writing/programming department, which I'm interested in.

It's running IceWM default with a custom desktop, although full KDE is available as well. (for power users)

Interestingly, it also comes with a bunch of very good free educational software. You know, for the kids.

$399, with no deals or crapware.

I'm off to Utah for a weekend visit.

Overcoming Bias: 9/26 is Petrov Day

Today is Petrov Day!

Today in 1983 Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov saved the world.

The link for more details, but suffice to say that on his personal authority, he countermanded the automatic response to ICBM launches from the US. It was a sensor error, but he had no way of knowing that. He decided not to respond, and because of that, we didn't have a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union.

after
Originally uploaded by boo d

the internet is a scary place. sometimes you see something you wish you hadn't.

but once you've seen it. you can't unsee it.

Anne Corwin

I have a relative, who is an engineer! Who is also a transhumanist apparently.

Her focus is life extension, which is cool. I wonder how/if she's related to me.

Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry is one of my favorite entertainers. Smart, and funny, he represents a huge swath of intelligent civilized people who too often are overshadowed by their boorish and less talented cousins.

His show, QI, is my favorite scored gameshow, now that Win Ben Stein's Money is off the air.

And he's opened up a blog, where he opens, aggressively establishing internet cred, with an exhaustive dissection of the various attempts at mobile computing via smartphones. Very interesting stuff, and in inimitable Fry style. His feed goes on the dashboard.