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I built this mixed reality instrument back in 2019 I believe. Affordable AR headsets didn’t exist yet so I build my own with a VR headset from Walmart and Arduino parts.

The player sees synthesizer controls overlaying a video feed from the little camera at his third eye. He holds lights in his hands which are tracked and trigger the various controls. The software is what I call “semi-generative.” The player makes big picture musical decisions about the general direction of the music while the computer intelligently fills in the individual notes and rhythms.

New project time!I’m starting a new project that I’m really excited about. It’s an augmented reality tribute to Stanislov Petrov, the Soviet officer who literally saved the world from WW3 in 1983. I was already fantasizing about this project several months ago and had it on the backburner, but with the global stage being what it is, I decided the time for building it is now.

It’s going to be an interactive installation, experienced via smartphone, tethered via GPS coordinates to a particular area outside the United Nations building in New York City (you’ll also be able to “teleport” there with the app if you happen to not actually be in NY). My buddy Andrew Benson is helping with 3D modeling, I already own the metaverse real estate I plan on using, and I’m starting design work now.

I’m considering using crowdfunding to help pay for the project, it would be REALLY nice if I could physically go to New York to digitally map out the area.

The tentative name: Stanislov’s Dilemma: A tribute to Rational Thinking and Moral Courage

Stanislov’s Wiki page

You have writer’s block my friend. That is the name of what you are struggling with right now. That’s why you can’t lock in on a video topic and why you can’t decide on a YouTube channel structure. You’re getting caught in the weeds. You’re over analyzing. Let me tell you a few things.

You’ve dealt with this before. And you know how it works. The rule is, if you’re not ready to make something good, make something bad. That is the formula for getting out of writer’s block. Writer’s block comes from one thing: It’s when your expectations, rules, and formulas for creating art are creating so many obstacles, stifling the creative process.

From my experience writer’s block is never a lack of ideas. It masquerades as a lack of ideas but you always already have ideas if you’re reasonably creative. What’s going on is that you’ve created various rules and standards regarding your work, which is good in moderation, but at some point lots of expectations become obstacles. That’s what writer’s block is.
That’s why the phrase if you can’t do anything good, make something bad, embodies the point. It provides creative drano. You have to let go of your expectations. You have to let go of your standards. Learn your craft, then forget the rules.

As I learn about the metaverse, cryptocurrency, and NFTs a question which keep arising in the back of my mind is what has value? What is value? Why does something have a particular value and another thing different value?  

I think the answer here is that value on one hand is grounded int the subjective experience of the individual. Pizza has value to me; I like to eat it. If you have a pizza and it has absolutely no value to you at all you might just give it to me. On the other hand there’s a good chance it does have value to you, in which case you might want to keep it, or we might have to work out a deal.

That’s where currency comes in. Let’s say I like pizza and you don’t. But there’s other foods that you like. In a vacuum since the pizza has no value to you you might just give it to me but if you trade it for currency you’ll be able to trade that currency for something you value. That’s the heart of currency, currency has no value in and of itself without a relationship with other things that have value.

That gets us into cryptocurrency. Crypto is interesting because it’s very difficult to trade crypto for goods and services that you value but you can trade it in for other forms of currency such as dollars that can be traded for stuff you value. 

So we’ve got this chain reaction. I value pizza, because I value piizza I’m willing to give you some currency to get your pizza. Because you value other things, let’s say popsicles, you value the currency that I give you for your pizza. Now let’s say I’ve got some cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. I can’t very easily trade Bitcoin for pizza but I can trade Bitcoin for USD, and then trade that USD for pizza. So the value of Bitcoin is doubly separated from the pizza that I actually subjectively value. So the cryptocurrency is a layer on top of the conventional currency and the conventional currency is a layer on top of the actual goods and services that we actually value. 

And then you’ve got market forces. With market forces you have all of these feedback loops where things that don’t have bottom layer value but do have higher layer value end up gaining or losing value in chaotic patterns almost like the weather. And because they are so far removed from any bottom layer pizza that actually tastes good, they “real” value is essentially impossible to peg.