Thursday, March 20, 2025

Currently Listening To: Borderline // Tame Impala


Day 1: Touch Base

I was able to get some code roughed out yesterday. I'm not entirely happy with where things currently sit... like I said it's really quite rough. My goal is to get to a version 1 that crosses off all the requirements that I set forth in on Day 0. Right now it's too crude to commit to my repo. I'll keep working this afternoon after I get some work meetings out of the way. 

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Current Trajectory: Day 0

I'll share a detailed breakdown of the overall vision soon, but right now my priority is successfully navigating day one of restarting this project. At this point I've put in more than enough... 6 months of prep work, and I want to ensure I'm not getting lost in the big picture. Today we start. The goal is building from a strong foundation by tackling small, manageable pieces first.

Current Objectives:

  • Unified Entry Point: A single, streamlined file to effortlessly launch and halt the entire system.

  • Dynamic Timing/Metronome: A centralized process managing timing, where system state updates occur based on defined cycles.

  • Persistent State: Maintain stability with at least one variable securely saved to survive unexpected shutdowns.

  • Function Registry: Automatically populate eligible actions by pulling from a dedicated 'functions' directory.

  • Multithreaded Action Queue: Enable concurrent execution of queued actions, independent of system timing cycles.

  • Example/Test Functionality: Create a simple, verifiable function to ensure foundational components are working correctly.

Over Thinking

 As I'm getting prepared to start drafting out my plan ~ I can't help but watch as my mind runs away from me. Thinking about far off edge cases and how I might handle them. I keep comparing myself to enterprise solutions or worrying that what I'm working on will be irrelevant in a short time or even before I finish. 

I need to ignore the noise. Stop listening to the 'AI' tech news. It's time to put my head down and get something basic launched. I have the tools and the path to any information that I could need... Nothing's stopping me but me at this point. 

It's time for me to get out of my head and out of my way. One step at a time. 

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Decision: Language - Python

 I'm going to write this as a python framework. For the most part I do my programming in Python. I like that if I need to I could push down into C++ or, god forbid, C. 

However, there are many other reasons Python seems like the path forward. 

1. Most of the AI/ML programing the cool kids are doing is happening in Python Notebooks ~ so it should be an easy fit for those developers. 

2. It's super easy to read and write in Python

3. Python continues to be well supported; however, with how popular it is, if the general community were to leave python someone will make a tool to port code to the new cool language. 

The Premise


I'm not a "computer scientist" in a credentialed sense. At this point it's mostly self styled. A lot of what I've done is curious hobby tinkering. I've done my fair share of systems automation and completed a few coding courses. However, I haven't published anything lasting or that anyone but me is using long term (at least, that I know of). I would honestly like to be considered a Computer Scientist in some career applicable sense. So, it would seem that I need to publish some Computer Science.

I have had some ideas for what feels like a 'novel' implementation of a machine learning driven for a framework that would allow humans to more naturally interact with 'robots'. I've actually been working on, studying and testing these theories since last october, but I've been to anxious to publish. It feels like there are 1000 reasons why I shouldn't. I'm not using Github well enough, how can I be sure this is novel, why would anyone use this framework? 

At this rate I've had to look the beast in the eyes and decide that it's time simply to start from square one, but this time I'm going to put it all out there. There's no telling what the future will hold for this project or if I'll ever be considered a 'Computer Scientist'.

Forward

Writing is hard. When I'm not writing publicly, I scratch my conscious thoughts into my notebooks. I personally struggle when I think my work will be on display. Even now as I write this - I've cleared the line 5 or 6 times. Simply because I fear not putting my best foot forward when I'm presenting my work, and by proxy myself. It used to paralyze me to think that people might find my writing in 5.. 6.. 10 years and think... what was he doing? Why would he say that?

At least, this all used to paralyze me. I chose to move forward. I'm no longer pre-emptively ashamed of being wrong so long as I'm actively working to improve. Things change and time shifts our perspectives. Someday our assumptions and things we regard as common knowledge will be proved wrong in some way. Things we take for granted now were avant garde or heresy not long ago. Think about Galileo ~ simply saying that the earth revolves around the sun in his book made him an enemy of the state. 

So I'm just going to go for it. I'm not going to overly proof read or spell check. I'm just going to spew onto the page.