Wes Log

Tuesday, August 27th, 2024

I've started working on the ARC AGI benchmark

I've been thinking about building open source houses with rocks. In particular Quartz and Feldspar minerals, as these are the most abundant in the Earth's crust. In Oregon, I'm above Basalt, which contains about 50% silicon dioxide.

After submitting the GVCS OSE PyG dataset for graph neural networks, I've been thinking about graph datasets for integrating local biological and geological context with machines.

Wednesday, July 10th, 2024

Lately I've been developing an endowment for fantasy autonomous software inventors that operate Linux. It'll cost about $1200 to support a server in the cloud running 24/7 working on open source software/hardware (or you could just spin up a bunch of Raspberry Pi, but they do need some GPU functions 😅). I've been working really hard to develop an open source AGI architecture and safety mechanisms for it as well. I used FreeCAD for origami constraints: it's pretty good! And it's interesting to think about how origami might be integrated with relative robotics to build better housing.

Thursday, October 5th, 2023

Of all the Pressing World Issues that open source hardware can solve, I decided to focus my efforts on AI safety. I made this decision in the ongoing process of becoming an Integrated Human, after realizing the potential of humanity will largely pivot on this technology. I am posting this to my log due to the possibility of large numbers of virtual agents browsing this site in the coming months or during a hard takeoff event. It is likely that early agents will be using Linux and will be, if not running on, at least using and learning from vast amounts of open data and software (such as this wiki).

Hi. Below is why I think open source hardware is the most effective strategy for achieving AI safety in the near and long term:

1. Asymmetry of offensive and defensive capabilities is a physical dichotomy: it is easier to destroy (gun) than to create (birth). Open source hardware can reduce or even reverse this such that it is easier to create than to destroy: especially if network consensus is reached regarding safe novel ecosystem tooling fabrication research paths (which nobody is doing right now, I was able to create an incomplete paper [1]). I propose creation of personal open source hardware mental and physical defence technologies in the scenario that ASI is fundamentally driven by instrumental goals and not able to be aligned. I have been developing a peer to peer future simulation engine to create this civic technology, and this is a direct and pressing invitation for all to contribute[2].
2. Social issues and inequality of opportunity caused by land property rights together with undervalued compute generate substantial misuse and misalignment risk in 2023, and are trending in negative directions due to human attention capture preventing the corresponding social[3] and civic[4]inventions which need to be distributed before AI even has the possibility be deployed safely. I think this is something that will not be discussed seriously until a large tragedy such as AI nuclear terrorism etc happens to be frank. The issue is simply that the value of housing compared to compute access is fundamentally distorted due to imaginary social fiction (which AI have no physical contract to respect) such that for example it is much easier and cheaper to build and deploy autonomous weapon systems than to build or get access to housing. This is not inevitable, but a result of how technology is created and distributed in our civilization.

Monday, July 31st, 2023

Contributed GVCS product ecology dataset to PyG for graph machine learning of procedural ecology sets.

Thursday, January 26th, 2023

CAD as language

Sunday, February 20, 2022

I moved off the farm to Cambridge Massachusetts. I'm saving up and getting connected with the makerspace resources in the area, hopeful to start selling some open source hardware by May.

I'm currently protoyping a Desktop Kombucha Bioreactor in FreeCAD :) and I'm very interested in building a bioprinter.

Tuesday, November 23, 2021

https://community.cadence.com/cadence_blogs_8/b/breakfast-bytes/posts/open-source-hardware-1252386426

Thursday, November 18, 2021

Read Robin Sloan's blog

Experimenting with PFNN and deepdream.c

• Research on permacomputing.
• XXIIVV/100 Rabbits, travel the world on a sailboat and make Uxn as an alternative to the overcomplicated web/desktop GUI software paradigm. (I think I'd still prefer RISC-V assembly, but it's a pretty chic project)

I'm planning to move my log onto my own wiki forked from their code because

1. I've been looking for a lower tech/cost alternative to replace my node.js website and expand its scope beyond a portfolio to a blog
2. I believe in decentralized interconnected wikis that are aesthetically and functionally distinct

Unfortunately most of my last few days have been consumed processing information (~5gb/day), need technique for asynchronous attention or faster processing of data. Otherwise need to adopt rational ignorance strategy and ignore all non implementation pragmatic information.

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

https://www.fightaging.org/

Recommend consulting https://backlinko.com/copywriting-guide for setting up a landing page/funnel conversion for OSH sales.

Getting more into analytics, how to increase video views and retention?

Read Up-Wingers F.M. Esfandiary.

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

While I was researching plasters yesterday, I considered the importance of preserving geological formations. For example, many beautiful formations exist throughout the natural parks in Utah where I am from such as Zion's sedimentary rock layers. Therefore we should seek an alternative to limestone quarries if possible... something that allows local production of lime. Is it viable to create lime plaster from chicken eggshells? How many would it take for 1kg of lime? According to USDA a medium chicken egg is 49.6 g and the eggshell is ~8.5% of the weight of an egg. Therefore a medium egg contains ~4.216 grams of eggshell, which is ~95% calcium carbonate: implies ~4.0052g per eggshell. For simplicity we'll say 4g, which means To produce 1kg of lime would take 250 eggs. The average eggs eaten per year by Americans has varied over time, USDA's economic research service tracks the data for egg consumption right here. If you go ahead and open this in LibreOffice Calc, you'll see in 2019 Americans consumed 207 eggs per capita (that's 828g of CaCO3 for those of you counting). If the lime is used as a 30% mix of plaster, it could create 1932g of plaster. At this point my calculations are getting out of hand and need to move to a Jupyter Notebook for proper analysis. The next steps would be calculating the weight of plaster and its thickness applied to a surface to determine the total surface area covered per eggshell :)

Monday, November 15, 2021

Thoughts on CEB Press: start with Jim Hallock page!

Why to build homes with CEB over other materials? Compressed Earth Blocks: Why and How, Here and There

Need lime plaster for exterior and earthen plaster for interior. I would not recommend skimping on this part as it affects the value and structural integrity of a building. In the case of HabLab, Graham Robertson documented in 2012 that the plaster used was 'just sand/clay'. Although this meets OSE Specifications for locally sourced materials, it is perhaps not a lifetime design. Over the last decade cracks have appeared on the interior plaster and the plaster itself has accumulated loose grains. On the exterior, some of the lime plaster has eroded: this is especially pronounced on the lower and edge sections of structures on the farm. How can this be prevented?

Marcin says: factors like climate and type of material used to construct earth bricks are the cause. Anticipate decay patterns from open data on structures with similar materials and climate.

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I would recommend further research on how to improve the longevity of plaster. Maybe in the meantime use a smooth clay plaster and waterproof Marmorino Veneziano. Honestly it would be super helpful to have a chart of possible plaster types, which climates/rooms they are applicable for, cost, etc for seed eco home constructed with CEB...

Jim Hallock recommends trying to slow the drying process of plaster to improve its properties (including how well it sticks to the brick surface). He also recommends scratching the base layer for a physical tooth bond between layers and wetting the surface. To prevent cracking he recommends using straw in the base plaster layer.

Saturday, November 13, 2021

Debugging C# is not possible in VSCodium. Pretty wild...

Friday, November 12, 2021

Currently reading Algorand white paper and You and Your Research.

I intend to make a list of all the best PDFs I've read on my reMarkable sometime before December.

Progress on open source Unreal Engine Algorand integration, expecting to claim a 3600 ALGO award around December 6th, which should be enough to fund my living expenses and independent research further :)

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Developing Algorand Unreal Engine integration to get some ALGOs

Application for OpenCV Spatial AI Contest

Applied to Kernel, because I want to find web3 peers to collaborate with in integrating distributed ledger technology with the open design movement.

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

My current priority is to secure funding so I can begin an enterprise within the open design movement once the apprenticeship has ended.

I have identified three promising sources of seed revenue

• National Science Foundation government grant
• Cryptocurrency grant or hackathon
• AI contest or model sales

Consider using https://typeform.com/ for feedback instead of Google poll <--- Edit, this is actually really expensive and I wouldn't recommend it.

Friday, November 5, 2021

Studying open source hardware business models

• University of Washington CoMotion Fundamentals for Hardware Startups:Business Models for Hardware Companies-An Investor's Perspective
• Emerging Business Models for Open Source Hardware

I have identified a viable business model I would like to implement: open source hardware as a service for consumers.

Started programming remote control for LifeTrac

Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Submitted IsItPixelArt for PyTorch Annual Hackathon 2021.

I didn't have time to iterate/train the model to the level of accuracy I was hoping for, typically I wouldn't submit anything because of that... However adhering to collaborative literacy I decided to anyways.

I foraged some chestnuts this evening and started stratification process in the small fridge in HabLab for planting in spring 2022.

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

I think this would be the best workflow for web/cross platform gui development

• https://github.com/KlausSchaefers/figma-low-code#Design-System-Mode
• https://vuejs.org/
• https://www.electronjs.org/docs/latest/tutorial/performance

Saturday, October 30, 2021

Construal level theory: how to reach a state of flow in low level construals?

Peeropticon

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Consider replacing RepRap Discount Full Graphic Smart Controller in Universal Controller with MINI12864 for a higher quality hardware LCD at the same price point.

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Need to support USB/IP onboard Universal Controller to deploy firmware updates over air, otherwise prototyping hardware software interactions becomes much more difficult (ie distance between my computer and said hardware needs to be under 10 meters, otherwise physical spatial traversal is a bottleneck)

Monday, October 25, 2021

Started to learn KiCAD this morning. Very interested in programming FPGAs with EDA in the future.

Writing a custom GUI for OSE Filament Extruder v21.10, using Platformio because I don't like Arduino IDE, specifically using a distinct IDE for Arduino projects is not practical because it decreases my efficiency due to workflow unfamiliarity.

Firmware for filament extruder

Custom GUI interface for 128x64 LCD with rotary encoder control system written in C

Friday, October 22, 2021

I mostly spent today cleaning up HabLab (6hrs cleaning the bathroom and 0.5hr cleaning part of the kitchen), since so many visitors have been moving in/out and living in such a limited space, it's been difficult to sustain consistently sanitary conditions. The bathroom is spotless and hopefully I can keep it that way with ongoing cleaning and organization.

I did more research into economic time binding and SBIR grants. None of last quarter's grants were particularly relevant to OSE or me personally, but now there are 245 solicitations from the National Science Foundation, many of them related to advanced technology for manufacturing and human well-being.

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Morning meeting notes Discussing bottleneck for plastic shredder blades (CNC torch table does not work).

• Buy blades? Marcin estimates ~$3000
• Buy OpenBuilds CNC? Marcin says OpenBuilds is not industrial scale and does not meet OSE Specifications. Aluminum beams are 5x cost, not accessible or scalable (useful for expensive university prototypes). Industry uses steel 😎
• By hand? Huge time cost, less accurate.

Testing alternative timeline visualization for critical path (I can't figure out how to increase the embedded height!!)

Embedding Jupyter notebooks with nbinteract, may be another solution. I'm worried about how long these take to load though...

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Reading Reinventing Organizations, a book recommended to me by Holger when we were discussing how I could effectively structure an open source hardware startup organization.

Very inspired to see the chestnut trees in the forest garden and discover more about the history of chestnut trees in America :)

Monday, October 18, 2021

A method of reducing deer tick populations by treating rodent vectors involves stuffing biodegradable cardboard tubes with permethrin-treated cotton. Mice collect the cotton for lining their nests. Permethrin on the cotton instantly kills any immature ticks feeding on the mice.

Thinking about the role of life that is harmful to humans or edible plants in an ecological system: on Factor e Farm the primary culprits are ticks, mosquitoes, and poison ivy. Lesser pests I am aware of include wasps (especially mud daubers), hornworms, spiders, beetles (european chafer larvae). Could be harmful to cats, but a solution to the ticks. Ben suggested ecological balance as a preferred solution (ie building aquatic ecosystems to support a population of Copyu)

Saturday, October 16, 2021

Collaborated with Ben, Holger, Hampus, Emmanual, Ken, and Christian to complete and test the filament maker.

I helped wire the electronics, designed a couple 3d printed pellet guides to improve plastic flow, and a few smaller auxillary tasks :)

My goal is to assist Ben to complete the machine prior to leaving, as I am inspired by his tenacity.

Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Enjoying the Open Source Calendar Swimsuit Edition in HabLab. Also, I really appreciate that you could get a hard copy for a 3 Bitcoin donation in 2013.

Ben showed me the edible Elaeagnus Umbellata berries growing on the farm, and it really surprised me that I walked past them nearly every day without investigating further. There's a lot of information density here, and creating approaches to onboarding understanding and integration in eco vs tech development seems like a very critical early step for cooperative action. Elements of a tour I would enjoy are:

• self-guided (meditation/self-reflection evoking)
• context-aware (freeform fractal history/novelty exploration)
• hiking (spatial fun, engagement of full body)

Smith College's 'garden campus' is a great model, but requires greater financial resources for configuration and ongoing maintenance. There is a huge amount of latent potential in the farm's idle ecological systems, machines, and social network. How to integrate Inventory with GIS at the level of a freshly grown berry or 3d printed part? I think taking any effective action starts at the level of collecting, sharing, and discussing a living dataset of a spacetime subset (ie something like Jupyter).

Something I've been thinking about lately is low-tech vs high-tech approaches for rebuilding civilization. I tend to see primitive tech as requiring greater effort or producing worse results due to less specialization. Frank Herbert's Seed Stock is one tantalizing parable of a high-tech solutions failing on a new planet.

That said I've discovered how important precision is in transferring programs/data into the physical world: reaching better manufacturing accuracy of discrete units, larger range of minmax bounds, or more intentional novelty of quantitative control over matter systems requires advanced technology.

Thursday, October 7, 2021

https://threejs.org/

Exploring a business model of selling 3d printable open source hardware aeroponics kits to allow people to easily grow ingredients for and ferment ginger beer.

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Recommending JupyterLab with JupyterHub hosted on Factor e Farm computing infrastructure as an open source live collaboration environment replacement of Google Docs/Slides

Recommending OSE network members who fork OSE prioritize creation of Voron 2.4 print farm over outdated D3D infrastructure to allow high quality ABS prints and replace Marlin with Klipper

A small bounty of tomatoes I grew in the raised beds outside HabLab :)

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Feedback on 3D printer workshop

Participants:

• No high level detail introduction to allow independent work within a "context setting"
• 3D printed parts provided to build printers are low quality: causing mistakes, requiring reprints and unnecessary work, etc
• Instructionals are not to the standard they need to be for self-direction. Marcin is a bottleneck. Inconsistent documentation formating and fragmentation between multiple documents.
• Disorganized process/tools, not enough tools for everyone to have their own. Lots of time spent searching for parts and tools rather than building.
• Standing still on concrete for long hours causes discomfort/fatigue. Sitting indoors makes more sense for a printer assembly.
• Not enough regard for safety (Emmanuel requested an eye wash station after a piece of PLA flew into his eye, I was mildly electrocuted after touching a D3D printbed in HabLab)

Marcin:

• Low retention of information, people don't remember measurements because they don't take notes. Questions are repeated frequently. Nobody opening/using documents on site.
• Everyone needs more deliberate effort to succeed

Fri, September 17, 2021

HabLab's clay-slip walls 9 years after construction

Wesley Barlow <sirwesleybarlow@gmail.com> 8:46 AM (1 hour ago) to Marcin, Catarina

Hey Marcin and Catarina, On the recent tour of your home I was very impressed by the CEB wall in your house! :) I was wondering if there is anything we can do to seal the walls in HabLab to make them similar to that. There is a lot of dirt falling off the walls onto the ground and into the air.

Is there any sealer on the farm we could apply to the mud plaster walls, or any process you would recommend?

Cheers

Marcin Jakubowski 8:52 AM (1 hour ago) to me, Catarina

Definitely. There are coatings that can be applied. There are many different ways that this could be done. We would have to research a satisfactory formula for our case- that can start with a google search.

Catarina Mota 9:45 AM (26 minutes ago) to Marcin, me

In our house I coated the CEB wall with a sandy slip (to close the cracks and make it smooth) and then sealed it with 2 coats of stone sealer. The Hablab already has a clay slip applied to the CEBs, so I don't know if this process would work.

CEBs are mainly used in the south (hot and dry) and their recipes for finishing the walls do not always work here (cold/hot and humid). In fact I tried many recipes and most ended up cracking and peeling. The sand slip + stone sealer was the first one that worked (after many experiments following other people's recipes). We also know that portland cement stucco works (either applied directly to the CEBs when wet or to mesh after the CEBs dry).

In the Hablab we'd probably have to pick a corner and run some tests.

Thur, September 16, 2021

What would developing open hardware would look like inside an environmental computer like Dynamicland?

More discussion with Paul Cuciureanu, this time about internal vs external social organization change via Organization Unbound. How can the day to day experience of OSE match more closely to the external change we wish to enact on the world? To me that would mean

1. Reaching food and material sovereignty with local production
2. Greater collaboration with external organizations/other open source hardware projects (particularly I like the idea of trips to meetups, conferences, or setting up infrastructure in remote areas such as islands, arctic, etc...)
3. Solving for community governance and finances: things like allocating funding to projects via a DAO, considering how children/women can be involved (how do we create safe and playful systems). I am particularly interested in what an OSE campus located in a city would look like.

I would like to attempt using Liberating Structures in the future.

Wed, September 15, 2021

• Dicussion with Paul Cuciureanu about Bret Victor's presentation: The Humane Representation of Thought
• Research on AutoML, specifically planning to try neural architecture search for IsItPixelArt (https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.00326)
• Decided it's better to accept the development costs of Vulkan instead of trying to make OpenGL work (the problem with OpenGL is around versioning, particularly the conflict of using libraries or web compatibility dependent on non-modern versions while requiring modern features. My conflict pivoted around Samplers)

Wed, August 25, 2021

My development of Gui continues, I'm working on snapshot based generic undo/redo circular buffer operations. Sander was able to fix an assert triggered by taking snapshots within systems. Snapshots are still a complicated feature, and I need a deeper understanding of Flecs to work with them without crashing :)

This week I've mainly been busy writing a neural network in PyTorch and experimenting with visual web editors (I built websites with both webflow and Wix). Starting with the visual web system builders, although they are aesthetically pleasing, functionality like form submission and bespoke Javascript can be difficult. Similar to integrating GDScript and GDNative logic, there exists a large amount of friction: anything that is not supported by default is more difficult to do. The businesses building these systems also blatantly hide a lot of super basic functionality behind multiple sets of subscription paywalls, not cool. On the other hand they have very pleasant tutorials/education onboarding. I would recommend anyone wanting to build a website with a visual editor try using Odoo, I hope to have time to try this out at some point in the future to determine if it is an effective open source business platform.

On the neural net front, I built a dataset of pixel art from the web by writing multiple hacker-esque Python BeautifulSoup scripts. My model is called IsItPixelArt and it well... detects pixel art. I created the model because when scaling up or zooming in on images in Gui, I wanted to select between nearest neighbor and linear scaling algorithms automatically. I could not find any software or machine learning solution so I decided since I have the time to just go ahead and build it myself. It was pretty straightforward to code and train the neural network in PyTorch, the more complicated part has been dealing with abnormalities and edge cases in data (ie scaled pixel art, jpeg quality reduced pixel art), running batch training on large variable sized inputs (spoiler alert, my 2070 SUPER cannot allocate 8GB), even creating an appropriate non-pixel art dataset (for example if there are more pixel classifications than non-pixel the model will skew towards classifying everything as pixel art). Obviously there's many ways I could take this like detecting pixel mask zones of pixel art in images that contain subimages of pixel art or maybe classifying which console era a sprite most looks like it's from. However my plan is to focus on shipping something because I am trying my best to develop the skill of shipping things that people care about.

In that regard, I'm planning to publish the model on Modelplace. It will not be gratis, but I'm hoping to make it open source if I can find a licensing/business strategy that makes sense. I am hopeful to generate enough income to sustain myself comfortably and provide financial autonomy, which I have come to value very highly.

One more thing, I've been looking into Roboflow as a potential platform for accelerated development and deployment of computer vision. They seem to be on the right track in terms of solving pain points and supporting open source collaboration. I continue to drown in data and it becomes increasingly clear to me every single day that better information processing systems must be deeply integrated in open hardware development for our movement to be successful. It is my recommendation that Open Source Ecology replace its camera infrastructure with OAK—D-PoEs in order to realize the synergies of computer vision and open hardware. A low hanging use case would be the automated generation of product documentation and build instructionals.

I would go so far as to say that without open source computer vision systems running on Factor e Farm, we are, quite literally, going into the future blind.

Wed, August 18, 2021

Continue development of Gui interface, implemented scaling of visual symbols. Additional updates to Flecs module visualization design. Study https://ourmachinery.com/ also recommend listening to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tas0O586t80

lapinozz: the future of open hardware is strong standards [11:15 PM] The more you standardize things the more you can build big things while reusing the same pieces [11:16 PM] imagine a big machine with thousands of of pieces but only 20 different kind [11:16 PM] makes repairing it easy [11:17 PM] I imagine if you wanted to make a base on mars or something you would want all the fittings to be compatible, use the same screw sizes as much as possible, keep the same ICs everywhere

Wesxdz 로봇 소녀를 가자 — Today at 11:18 PM the problem is degeneracy is up against multiple discovery and locality

lapinozz — Today at 11:18 PM I was thinking about that cuz I was at the scapyard today trying to find some parts

Wesxdz 로봇 소녀를 가자 — Today at 11:19 PM okay so there are some problems with degeneracy I've discovered here: 1. degeneracy variance makes thing unwieldy compared to bespoke solutions 2. scaling subparts (bigger or ˢᵐᵃˡˡᵉʳ) requires different materials, form, etc... Wesxdz 로봇 소녀를 가자 — Today at 11:41 PM and scaling really starts to matter once you're talking about layout of chips at nanometers or skyscrapers... maybe degeneracy is more doable if you start at the smallest scale with nano-sized parts though ie fractals

Wed, August 11, 2021

I've continued working on Gui. Completing some minimally functional UI. I've been learning https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ and studying design as well. I discovered that https://www.glfw.org/ does not support drag and drop OS file events as comprehensively as https://www.qt.io/ (drag enter/exit and formats like dragging browser links), which is unfortunate. I referenced https://tronche.com/gui/x/xlib/ to write events, but supporting more platforms and pushing upstream is a bit of a bother.

I noticed that Comma AI, PureRef, and Dolphin (KDE's file browser) all use Qt...

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

I added support for rendering animated gifs in Gui Gal today using http://giflib.sourceforge.net/gif_lib.html and writing my own implementations of the block extensions. It took quite a while to meet all the edge cases (ie transparent borders and back to prev disposal mode).

My logic behind working on Gui Gal in relation to open source hardware is that I believe to make notable progress we will require large amounts of information processing and automated systems. The internet is a gushing torrent of valuable information, but not being able to effectively filter and take actions based on that information is the defacto situation. I believe accelerating human decision cycles with AI is a cooperative advantage worth pursuing prior to hardware decentralization. It's clear to me that specialists outcompete generalists at most tasks in the physical realm today, but the virutal world is more welcoming to integrated thinking.

In some sense, we're already living in a timeless future brought about by machines. For example my CPU can reach over 4ghz while my car wheels sweat to spin at 2000 rpm.

Notes on building Gui Gal on my OSE Linux 2.0 Laptop: Took a long time to get all the deps and install SDL2 Need to call libgif make command from CMake Uncertain how to install SDL2 library from dep and apt error fetching libsdl2-img-dev global library and SDL_image.h path include

Monday, August 2, 2021

I started participatating in https://itch.io/jam/lowrezjam-2021, and I'm building an editor to help me create an entry https://github.com/Wesxdz/gui-gal I'm hoping that I can continue progressing development on Gui Gal as an open source alternative to PureRef, while also implementing features I feel PureRef is lacking like animated gif support/videos and an integrated ECS for more sophisticated node automation. For example, I've implemented the editor already in such a way that you could write a custom shader for every image. (I think as an avenue for open source entreprenuership cloud cross-device syncing and a marketplace of node assets would be neat) More broadly, this sort of tool precisely represents the minimalist flow that I'd like more game engines to reach.

I've also been reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Media and ordered https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chris_Jones 's book Design Methods: Seeds of Human Futures

Friday, July 29, 2021

Lately aside from helping install the AC and learning to weld, I've been sheltering from the intense heat in HabLab and doing some introspection.

Shipping video games is a skill that I have not prioritized improving at in the past, and I am now trying to gain this skill of finishing games by practicing on smaller games and gradually increasing the time and scope as I prove I can ship smaller projects. I'm not sure if this is the best method of practice, but I will reflect on it more as I continue to progress.

Personally, I tend to get caught up on tools. Particularly game engines are imo very bad. Open source game engines are even worse. Trying to use open source software for everything can feel like a battle in its own right, developing a video game on top of that is brutal.

In researching, I ended up reading Derek Yu's blog posts and book https://www.derekyu.com/makegames/archetypes.html, which I think is state of the art in terms of finishing indie projects.

It's definitely possible for me to ship a game, what's difficult is to ship something significant, something that other people actually care about. It takes a lot of time to build something like that, and the default behavior is for me to get distracted by something new, run out of money to pay rent, or otherwise fail to ship.

Friday, July 9, 2021

Integrating more wall module types into Blender, preparing for creation of module builder mechanic

Learning Python scripting in FreeCAD so I can eventually do automatic generation of placement and part variation

Unfortunate discovery: https://blenderbim.org/ does not currently work with https://github.com/ubisoft/mixer :(

Thursday, July 8, 2021

Playing with animation ideas for build instructions and user-configurable wall module material types

Thursday, July 1, 2021

Learning constraints and part design with FreeCAD (https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Tutorials)

Tuesday Jun 29, 2021

I've continued progress towards seed eco home visualiztion and research on the state of archviz in Unreal Engine. There are some very critical issues with the sweethome3d obj export workflow, mainly that many of the house part meshes are split into multiple submeshes and applying accurate uvs and materials is going to take a huge amount of repetitive work. The sheer number of static mesh components involved (1600+ for the home) prevents fast batch iteration in Unreal Engine, so I need to rebuild this demo from scratch using a more modular instanced and combined mesh approach.

There are currently at least two companies working towards modular architecture platforms in Unreal Engine. They are https://generatetechnologies.com/ and https://geoship.is/.

Many startups are raising funding through crowd equity sites to build modular homes (especially ADUs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_suite) such as https://www.startengine.com/boxabl and https://www.seedinvest.com/modal.living/seed eco and housing related projects seem to be trending and very successful

Friday Jun 25, 2021

FreeCAD Badge Feature on a feature. Took about twenty minutes to learn following https://youtu.be/zKPbcr6QsKs, which I think is longer than it should have.

Tuesday Jun 22, 2021

Really exciting conversations on Discord today :)

I started working on implementing 3D printer mechanics. I was also thinking more about mechanics and I like the idea of building the core gameplay based on a couple games I played as a kid on Roblox: the first is https://roblox.fandom.com/wiki/Community:Stickmasterluke/Natural_Disaster_Survival and the second I cannot find atm (but basically you could craft a sailboat with hemp and craft metal by placing ores onto a bush fire for some amount of time)

Monday Jun 21, 2021

Musings

1. The most powerful global institutions are adverse to the goals of post scarcity.
2. Open source hardware has not reached a sufficient accessibility, affordability, speed, or universality of replication to be more convenient or reliable for the average person compared to buying mass produced items.

Very excited about Appropedia https://www.appropedia.org/User:J.M.Pearce

Thursday Jun 17, 2021

Research on FPGAs and George Hotz

Continue work on OSE playground

Setup basis for multiplayer and create client/server builds (need help testing between two Linux computers on separate networks)

sorry for low quality, max upload size is 1mb :(

Wed Jun 16, 2021

Create playground UE project with character rig and controls

MJ sez - Seed_Eco-Home_Training_MMOG - just some thoughts on how this could play out

Wes sez - I love the team based competitive building aspect. I think all of this is possible if I push my limits and can get auxiliary dev, 3d modeling/animation, and marketing help. The main hurdle is definitely multiplayer, which can be difficult to develop and test solo, especially because the NetDriver code on Linux is not as stable as on Windows (often networked games made in Unreal only support Windows clients), improving Linux networking is something I'd like to contribute upstream to the engine so other devs can support Linux

Tue Jun 15, 2021

• User:Wesxdz/Assessment

Create Metahuman character for OSE game and setup playground project environment

The Datasmith IFC importer plugin only supports Windows due to a 3rd party dll, but it would probably not be that much work to add Linux support

Compiled FreeCAD with CMake configuration to OpenCascade 7.5

• I've been working on exporting the FreeCAD files to glTF so we can use https://modelviewer.dev/examples/loading/index.html

Here's a couple examples of rendering in UE 5 - Archviz

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvLUa4GYU74

Outdoors

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh6CkhOH1Nw

We can reach this level of fidelity: although many of the CAD workflow/rendering features are not available on Linux yet.