Summer '24 Update

I haven't updated this blog in seven months! I feel like a real personal blogger now that I've abandoned my blog for an extended period of time. I spent spring of this year extraordinarily busy due to an excess of unexpected crises both professional and personal, but have made it through them unscathed. It was a reminder that sometimes, in your adult life, you just have to deal with a bunch of bullshit that's out of your control. To be honest, in some ways it was nice to be, for once, fully assured that none of the things that were happening were my fault. And I take a certain amount of pride in getting through all of them without getting completely overwhelmed or making any major missteps. Still, I hope not to be dealing with so many things at once for quite some time.

The big news coming out of that period is that I have left my job at Eyebeam and am enjoying a bit off time off until starting some new adventures. This was by my own choice: I was feeling pulled in a few too many directions, and wanted to focus on my own work for a change. That said, I'll deeply miss the brilliant artists, engineers, writers, and others I worked with during my time there. I'm very grateful for the connections I made and the things I learned over the past two years.

It's a bit strange to be in a period of relative calm after a stormy spring (and a June spent finishing up some projects I've been working on for ages), but, as of this week, I'm trying to take my own advice and be bored for a little while. Seasoned readers of my blog may notice I am no longer doing granular self- or goal-tracking in this post, beyond a few general goals about how I use my time. This is because I'd like to take some time to let things come to me.

I've spent the last few years being very goal-oriented, and I've accomplished a lot that way, but, especially in the last year or so, I've occasionally found myself no longer sure why I'm working on something other than "because I said I would." This, combined with a few encounters with projects and people that exude joy, has made me want to recapture that spirit. Before I start pushing myself again I want to make sure I'm doing things because I want to do them, not out of a sense of obligation to some past version of myself. I am historically not great at being bored for any extended period of time - I was writing about these same things last December, after all, and that didn't pan out - so I may well fail in these goals, but I'm at least trying to force myself to be still for a while.

Some Stuff I Am Proud Of Doing So Far This Year

• Ran a series of hybrid events for Eyebeam, leaving my role on (I hope) a high note.
• Gave my first in-person talk since COVID at WordHack in June, about my general theory that AI eating itself will lead to the bubble bursting, and maybe even a better internet. Some content from this talk can be found below.
• Released a private demo of DataVille, my project for the Mozilla Creative Media Awards - public launch coming soon, but feel free to reach out to me if you'd like to try the playtest build.
• Built a live sensory machine learning pipeline for Opponent Systems' alpha demo at Betaworks.

Some Goals For The Rest Of The Year

• Focus on health! I was doing a pretty good job of this until the aforementioned shitstorm this spring, but three months of stress eating has taken its toll.
• Say no to things: I would like to keep my stress levels low for a bit, and give myself the space to:
• Start some smaller-scoped side projects. I've been caught up in long-tail work for a while, and I'd like to get back to making things for fun, with a small enough commitment that I can drop a project if I'm not getting enough out of it.

Screenshot Dump (AI edition)