Aetherial Vox

The End

nobody@vox.com(cjkarr) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:40:50 -0500

I wanted to drop a note and let everyone (all three of you) know that I'm quitting this personal weblog in order to simplify things a bit and to focus on some of my other projects. This blog will remain open indefinitely, but I have no more plans to post anything to it.

Its purpose has been eclipsed by a variety of other project-specific weblogs and web services that I've been using over the past few months. Twitter tracks my day-to-day doings, while I stay in touch with people via Facebook. My musings on my major projects can be found at a variety of specific weblogs.

If you'd like to continue following me online, I've created a FriendFeed page that aggregates all of the activity mentioned above. The FriendFeed page has it's own web-browsable URL and RSS (Atom) feed. As I add and remove sites and projects, I'll add and delete them in FriendFeed.

Thanks again for reading this weblog while it was around and I hope to see you all (3) elsewhere on the Internets.

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Tweaking the summer structure

nobody@vox.com(cjkarr) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:35:11 -0500

In my last post, I described my scheme for getting stuff done over the summer by blocking out times to work on particular projects and other work. Overall, the scheme worked well - I was quite productive - but it needed a few tweaks. Going forward into this week, I've made some of the following changes:

1. Shortening 2.5 hour morning workout time to 2 hours. I found that I had way too much time left over in the mornings, so I'm shortening my allotted exercise time by half an hour. I should still be able to get in plenty of walks and runs in the shortened time.

2. Using smaller blocks of time. Last week, I had a number of 3-4 hour blocks for particular projects. While it was nice to have the time to focus on things, I found myself losing interest before the block was up and forcing myself to plow through the work. This week, instead of having 3 and four hour blocks, I'm using more 1.5 - 2 hour blocks.

3. Working in slack time. While last week's schedule was productive, I was also excessively stressed. While the fundamental cause was beginning of summer jitters, I also think a lack of slack "decompression" time also contributed to the problem. I can usually use my time on the train for this purpose, but now that I'm home most of the time, I need to work that time in. I've assigned myself some domestic chores and other to do's throughout the week that will allow me to take some mental time off, while still getting something done. (For example, on Thursday, I'll be cleaning out my closet for items that I can sell on eBay or Craigslist.)

4. Add designated buffer time. Late in the week, I like to devote Thursday afternoons to "Visit the Beach". I don't plan on spending an entire afternoon on the shores, but it is useful to have "disposable" time that I can use to reschedule other blocks of time when emergencies pop up. For example, if I needed to devote Wednesday morning to fighting fires, I could relocate all of the things scheduled for that time to the "beach" slot without screwing up my whole schedule. Last week, I used "beach" time for a last-minute meeting with my advisor in Evanston. (And should "beach" time roll around without having been used for something else, I will indeed head out to the beach [weather permitting] with a book in hand.)

Given that it's getting late here, I'm going to wrap this up with that last point. I think that the tweaked schedule should be as productive as last week while eliminating more stress. I'll post updates as needed.

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Structuring the summer

nobody@vox.com(cjkarr) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:01:40 -0500

I wrapped up the spring quarter late last week and I've been thinking about ways to be productive over the summer. I'm probably already overbooked in terms of projects, and I want to be sure that both my personal, professional, and academic goals are met during this (wonderful) period of somewhat unspoken for time over the next three months.

To this end, I've decided to try and set up a pretty robust schedule for each week that tells me when I can work on certain projects and not others. I've made time for personal goals (such as exercising and taking in the city during the summer), professional goals (working on the Audacious Software web presence, getting some iPhone apps out, and continuing the Books project), and academic goals (writing a paper for the CHI conference, working on my master's degree project, wrapping up some Web Use projects). My goal is to be able to train myself to respect the calendar and be strict enough to be able to switch projects when scheduled. Below is an image of my schedule for the upcoming week:

Week's Schedule

The schedule isn't immutable and it's able to change as circumstances dictate, but I would like to establish a fairly regular routine so that I don't go nuts trying to fight fires in an ad-hoc fashion throughout the week.

One other thing that I've done is set aside specific times for reading and responding to e-mails. I have three periods scheduled, each corresponding roughly with a meal time. This should be more than sufficient for me to keep a handle on my e-mail, so the major challenge will be getting the people who treat e-mail as a synchronous messaging channel to recognize that I may not respond to a query within an hour and if it's urgent, to call.

This should also allow me the opportunity to begin applying some of my context-sensing research in earnest to determine how well it supports this style of working. In some respects, I've already laid out what I expect some of those contexts to be in general sense - the fun comes in looking at how well those work in practice.

I'm not changing too much with respect to my to-do list management. OmniFocus will continue to serve as the manager of all of the things that I have to do. It's worked well in the past and I see no reason to alter what I'm doing.

I know that there are some productivity-minded people who have subscribed to my RSS feed. If anyone has any comments, thoughts, or suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them. As I see it now, I have three months of time where my day-to-day activities aren't externally determined. I also have a ton of things to do, so I need to make the most of my newfound "free" time.

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Research Update: Pennyworth

nobody@vox.com(cjkarr) — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:10:33 -0500

ST:TNG - An Exocomp

I spent the remainder of Memorial Day getting through Season 6 of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". The first episode that I watched was "The Quality of Life". In this episode, a scientist working on a mining platform develops small semi-autonomous robots that serve as mechanics and troubleshooters on the platform. The episode takes a twist when one of the robots (called an exocomp) "malfunctions" and fails to fix a plasma leak (or a similar type of Trek accident).

The episode takes a turn when Data speculates that the devices are "alive" and the malfunction was really the device exhibiting self-preserving behavior and that the devices are living organisms, entitled to all of the considerations and rights due to sentient beings. The episode is interesting because it takes an interesting perspective on the nature of life and free will.

In my own research, I've been working on my Pennyworth system that uses a machine learner to deduce its user's activity, location, and social context. Over the past few weeks, I've been adding features to the learner that makes it much more robust when faced with continuous values or bad information (noise).

Sometime over the weekend, I finished a feature that limits the ability of the system to "overtrain" itself and render itself unable to generate general predictive models of its user. I had just wrapped up coding and was beginning to test the system when I began to notice that the system was "refusing" incorporate the noise I was giving it and was falling back on other mechanisms to avoid paradoxes that I was attempting to introduce. For a few minutes, I sat perplexed in front of my computer, wondering how I would be able to trick it in order to test the new code. Eventually, I had to resort to wiping the system's memory and test with a fresh learner.

Now, I am not claiming that my system is "alive" or anywhere near as sophisticated as the fictitious robots described above. However, there was a similar instance of the machine refusing to comply with its users intention that I found quite interesting and thought-provoking. Sometimes I feel that I'm deep enough into the black box that any "intelligent" behavior is routine and completely expected. However, I was pleased that there are still things in my work that can jump out and surprise me.

Independent of the philosophical nuggets, my work on context sensing is going quite well. The Pennyworth system is functionally complete and I'll be working this summer working on a project that uses its context-sensing features to build assistive technologies for students at the university. The plan is to identify a handful of students with a variety of impairments (sensory, motor, and cognitive) and enroll them as co-designers to create context-aware technologies that restore or enhance functionality that has been lost due to the impairment.

I've also been working with the Growl project to implement the necessary functionality (AppleScript API) that will allow Pennyworth to control and adapt the notification settings to work with your context. A scenario that I've already implemented is downsampling notifications when I'm busy and my attention is completely committed (read: playing the Battlegrounds in World of Warcraft).

If any of this sounds interesting, you can download and begin to play with Pennyworth by visiting the website and reviewing the documentation. I'm interested in recruiting more users and exploring the range of applications that could benefit from context sensitivity. In addition to assistive technologies and notification management tool, I'm interested in exploring new communication technologies (context-aware IM clients), productivity tools (time trackers & workspace management), games (context-sensing within WoW), and so on.

The program is free ($0.00) and open source, so give it a spin. You'll be helping me get my degree.

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Wrapping up the New Mexico trip

nobody@vox.com(cjkarr) — Sun, 18 May 2008 07:06:36 -0500

Southeastern Colorado

Today is my last day in New Mexico. I arrived two days ago at Raton. Since then, I've visited with old friends and family, attended a high school graduation (almost exactly 10 years after I graduated), built blanket tents for 2 and 4 year olds, and caught up on the local news and gossip.

I'll be heading out later this afternoon as I catch the 5:30 Southwest Chief back to Chicago. I've already finished up one book and knocked out a decent number of Star Trek episodes, and I'll probably do the same on my way back. I'll be traveling a bit given that I've delivered the iMac G5 to my folks.

In the short time that I have left, I need to school my parents on the use of iMovie, head out to the hills with my little brother to try my hand shooting an AR-15 rifle (the civilian version of the famous M-16), take care of some Chicago-centric todo's, and find some interesting New Mexico "stuff" for Willie. I expect that it will be a busy day.

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48 hours on a train

nobody@vox.com(cjkarr) — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:05:02 -0500

Steam Locomotive

Over the next five days, I'll be spending at least forty-eight hours on Amtrak's Southwest Chief as I travel from Metropolis Chicago to New Mexico for my little sister's high school graduation. Traditionally, I load up on books and movies. I'm planning on doing it again this time. (In particular, I'm looking forward to using my Sony Reader to avoid carrying 50 pounds of books.)

However, I figured that I would open the floor to other suggestions for how I should spend my time on the train. My current "media menu" consists of the following:

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Seasons 5 & 6
Stephen King's The Duma Key (+ whatever else is on my Sony Reader)
Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Guillermo del Toro's The Orphanage & Hellboy
Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth

Im also looking for other suggestions about how I should spend my time during this trip. If you know any fun things to do on the way, please let me know.

Similarly, if I owe you a phone call and you'd like me to call Thursday or Sunday evening, let me know by posting a comment or send me an e-mail. I'll try and make the call when I have cellular service.

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Blogging activity is inversely proportional to busy-ness

nobody@vox.com(cjkarr) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:47:39 -0500

Some random notes:

1. Ultimate X-Men is probably going to be my "best new comic discovery" of 2008. (X-Factor was 2007's winner.)

2. I have made YAWSFMP (yet another web site for my projects). You can see it here. Yes, there are privacy issues. No, I don't expect that it will wake up some day and decide to exterminate the human race.

3. What's currently on my plate at the moment: working on my master's degree, TA'ing a course on human-computer interaction (HCI), preparing for another study of Internet and media usage using text messaging, defining a project proposal for ad-hoc media sharing using cheap Bluetooth devices (think Zune's squirting), pondering how my work might be an interesting battleground between labor and management with regards to privacy (see above) and control, and integrating the new information from Providence into my Lovecraft work.

This is not a complete list.

4. Where did April go?

5. Pink Floyd's "The Wall" DVD will be the disc I use to calibrate my future home theatre system.

6. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" was a hoot. I especially enjoyed all the Kristen Bell self parody. They also need to make that Dracula rock opera into a real album.

7. I'm still trying to figure out how I wasn't screwed up as a kid, given that I loved "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" and it was directed and produced by the two most demented directors I can think of: Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna.

8. Robert E. Howard had a much better girlfriend than he deserved. I guess that's probably true for all guys at one point or other.

9. Information gain ratios are quite spiffy.

10. Cutiepi has been temporarily retired from the WoW battlegrounds.

11. As of this morning, I'm really starting to appreciate Korn.

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Providence trip: Day three

nobody@vox.com(cjkarr) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:36:58 -0500

I spent most of my last full day in Providence at the special collections at the John Hay Library at Brown University:

The John Hay Library

I continued to look through the Lovecraft papers and followed up on some threads in my research, including the Derleth/Greene conflict, George Wetzel's other work, and the correspondence between Farnsworth Wright and HPL. Wright (also called "Plato" to his friends and acquaintances) was the publisher of Weird Tales. Looking at the letterhead he used, I found out that his offices were located blocks away from where I now live in Chicago.I also had the opportunity to speak with the librarian in charge of the HPL collection about the history of the papers and whether there were plans to digitize the resources.

After I finished my work, I bid Brown farewell and went to downtown Providence to kill the rest of the day. I found two decent bookstores and managed to pick up some cheap books (including $2.00 paperback on Marvel Comics' bankruptcy) and some older books (including a 1960 textbook on the ALGOL programming language). I returned to the shopping center where I spent my first evening, ordered some mall Chinese food and read my new books until Will Farrell's "Semi-Pro" started. It was a nice evening and allowed my feet to relax a bit.

After the film, I returned to the bed and breakfast and finally read some proper Lovecraft. I first read "The Shunned House" given that I walked past the location on my way home on Benefit Street. I followed that up with "The Curse of Yig", since I'd seen a collectible book with that tale in one of the bookstores. After I finished my reading, I went to bed.

This will be the last of my entries from Providence. I'm passing on a "day four" entry because I doubt that any of you would like to read about my flight home to Chicago.

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Providence trip: Day two

nobody@vox.com(cjkarr) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:28:28 -0500

Today was quite a busy day as I enjoyed a wonderful breakfast with fellow travelers at the bed and breakfast. After the morning meal, I set out on foot to Swan Point Cemetery to locate and visit Lovecraft's grave. The cemetery is a remarkable place in its own right and I spent a good amount of time wandering about examining the various tombstones and mausoleums located there. After my feet began to ache, I focused on finding HPL's grave. I located it and snapped the obligatory photo:

H.P. Lovecraft's Grave

It's fascinating to me how humble the Phillips family plot was and how it was neatly tucked away among the many generations that lived and died in Providence. To be perfectly frank, this is the most time that I have spent in a graveyard and it prompted many thoughts that I had previously not considered. If I find the time, I will perhaps write about them at a later date.

After visiting Swan Point, I zigzagged toward the John Hay Library at Brown University. Along the way, I stopped at a local American fusion cuisine place and enjoyed a good mushroom soup, mushroom pizza, and a chocolate-banana cake. The food was very good, and I made some progress on the Robert E. Howard biography I've been reading.

After lunch, I continued my walk and arrived at the library a little after 2pm. After meeting with the library staff, filling out the requisite paperwork, and going over the proper procedures for handling the documents, I began sifting through the Lovecraft documents in the reading room. I read up on Robert H. Barlow and gained a better understanding of the dynamic between him and people like August Derleth. I was also sidetracked by correspondences between Derleth and Winfield T. Scott and Sonia Greene (Lovecraft's former wife).

In these documents, I found the some concrete claims that Derleth made concerning the HPL works. Briefly, Derleth believed that the will of Annie Gamwell granted him and Donald Wandrei the full rights to the HPL works and disclaimed any knowledge of Gamwell's surviving relatives (letter to W.T. Scott 12/16/1943). In a prior note to Scott, Derleth made the same claim, but asked that Scott keep this information confidential (12/10/1943).

In the correspondences with Sonia Greene in 1947, Derleth told Lovecraft's former wife - who some contend was the proper inheritor of HPL's estate due to an incomplete divorce - that she could not publish her book about HPL without Arkham House's permission to include any quotes from the letters Lovecraft wrote to Greene during their association (letter to Greene, 9/18/1947).

I also followed up on the correspondence surrounding the publication of the J. Warren Thomas thesis and Derleth's response to the work. Derleth thought that the thesis was biased against Lovecraft, while Thomas acknowledged the bias, but claimed that it was necessary to counterbalance the excessive positive bias evident in the reminiscences and biographies published by members of the Lovecraft circle (letter to W.T. Scott, 5/2/1950).

All of these examples provide useful fodder for my project and it will be interesting to integrate all of these findings with my existing work. What is particularly interesting is that the dominant claimant to the Lovecraft works is Robert Harrall, but none of the correspondences surrounding the estate topic pay any heed to Ethel Morrish, through whom Harrall established his position as the estate administrator in the 1970's. I have some correspondences from Arkham House around that time, where the attorney managing the estate dismissed Harrall's claims. When I get home, it will be interesting to review that note in light of the new date information I have about the current estate.

I could probably go on about this topic, but I do need to rest up for another trip to the library tomorrow to wrap up my work.

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Providence trip: Day one

nobody@vox.com(cjkarr) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 07:15:35 -0500

Earlier this year, I decided that as a reward for finishing the winter quarter of school, I'd reward myself with a Spring Break trip to Providence, Rhode Island in order to continue work on my Lovecraft copyright project. Unfortunately, not all information is available online, so an actual physical trip to the city became necessary if I were to move my work forward. I have two main goals: discover the claims advanced by the H.P. Lovecraft estate on any of Lovecraft's written works (the actual Estate has repeatedly declined to answer my queries for this information), and to learn more about the events after Lovecraft's death - in particular, the activities of Robert H. Barlow and Albert Baker immediately following the writer's death.

So, earlier this winter, I booked a stay in the city from yesterday until Thursday. I am staying at the Cady House Bed & Breakfast situated in Lovecraft's old stomping grounds. I spent some time yesterday exploring the city, including wandering through Brown University and downtown Providence. I didn't take any pictures, but I'll be doing that later today.

In my wandering, I encountered the Providence City Hall much sooner than I anticipated, so I went ahead and visited the probate archives and began searching for the documents I needed. I'd never done this kind of research before, but the probate clerks and city archivists were extremely helpful and assisted me in locating the documents I needed. I went ahead and took some snapshots from the probate dockets that indexed the associated records:

Probate docket for H.P. Lovecraft (#37854)

The image above is the index to the public documents associated with the Lovecraft estate. The first lines deal with the immediate activities following Lovecraft's death in 1937, including a $2000 appraisal of the writer's estate. The documents I was particularly interested were those filed in 1974 when Robert C. Harrall was appointed the administrator of the estate. I obtained copies of the indexed documents (for the princely sum of $3) and I now have the documentation describing the succession of the estate, including an inventory of the estate appraised in 1974 for $1000:

Any and all writings of the late Howard P. Lovecraft which are not copyrighted or are not part of the public domain and all letters, photographs, and books whether published or unpublished and other previously unpublished material. All writings which though copyrighted may not have been copyrighted by individuals, companies, corporations or associations who possessed the right or authority to copyright said materials.

I plan on publishing electronic copies of these documents when I return to Chicago, but this one paragraph constitutes what I've needed for the past year or so. It raises some interesting questions, which I plan to address in an update to my work linked above.

My plan for today is to visit the John Hay Library at Brown University and to examine and retrieve copies of the correspondence between Robert H. Barlow and others, in addition to "Instructions in case of decease", the oft-mentioned document where Lovecraft appointed Barlow his literary executor. In addition to my trip to the Library, I also plan to do a bit more walking and to take some photographs of Providence. It's a rather beautiful city and I've been enjoying all of the architecture. If I have time for the walk later today, I may visit Swan Point Cemetery to take some snapshots of the Lovecraft family plots.

Stay tuned...

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