Janet and I are geocachers. We're Chris and Janet. We passed 500
caches found in August '04 about 16 months after we started. We haven't
done any geo-caching recently other than to maintain some of our existing caches.
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I work at Agoric, which is building a platform for secure smart contracts that can reach across multiple blockchains. Until May, 2019, I worked for Google in their Privacy and Security group, developing and maintaining the Transparency Report . I previously worked for Niantic, who have since spun out of Google. They build geo-mobile social apps that run on Android and iPhone. One is Field Trip, which watches where you go and tells you about interesting stuff nearby. I worked on Ingress, a massively multi-player map-based augmented reality game. It was a lot of fun to work on. After Niantic spun out, they developed Pokemon GO, which is also a massively multi-player map-based augmented reality game, this time based on Pokemon, which gave it a huge head start in attracting players.
I worked on Prediction Markets (AKA Idea Futures) for several years. It started as work on my own time, and evolved into a position with CommerceNet. I've been interested in these markets since the late 1980s, and have been participating (at the Foresight Exchange) since '92 or '93. I helped run a private real-money market in 1999, and wrote sofware to implement them from 2003 through 2009. I built Zocalo, an Open Source toolkit for Prediction Markets, hosted at sourceforge. From March, 2005 through July, 2006, I worked on this project in CommerceNet's research lab as Principal Investigator. After my stint at CommerceNet ended, I continued to pursue the project for a couple more years, working with groups at MIT and Chapman University.
In 2003, I worked on an implementation of Idea Futures in E. I used it to explore some of Robin Hanson's ideas on how to support conditional claims. It is probably mostly of interest to people who are interested in learning E, or are very interested in the details of Idea Futures. Early in 2004, while working as a contractor on an Extreme Programming project, I discovered the power of the Idea Java IDE. I started over building the present version of Zocalo in Java. This version focuses on integrating book orders with an automated market maker.
In my spare time, I'm a rock climber, I play ice hockey (I took a class in the spring of 2003; it had been twenty years since I played pick-up hockey in college.) I'm playing doubles volleyball again at Google, and read Science fiction. (I was the president of the board of the Libertarian Futurist Society from 2002 to 2011 and am currently Treasurer.) I'm in a reading group that used to meet in person, but has been meeting via Zoom since the beginning of 2020. This replaces a previous group that has since disbanded. I'm an inveterate game player. I play games via email hosted by a few different zines: Variable Pig (Jim Reader), Dane's Games (Dane Maslen), Back of the Envelope (Tom Howell) where I'm now running a game called Fuzzy Borders, and SOB (Chris Hassler). I keep track of the Maps for the Railway Rivals games I play using SeaShore and usually post them here in case other players are interested.
I also like to watch Hockey, and Bike racing. (Since we don't watch TV, we only see sports we're willing to watch in person.)
I read Edge whenever a new edition came out. (It seems moribund now.) This was smart people talking about recent explorations and developments in science and technology and their implications to an educated lay audience. I read several blogs regularly. (I use Net News Wire, an open source tool for OS X.)
Here are some comments on my favorite local place to see great art. I've turned it into a geocaching site as well as created several Ingress portals there.
I've been signed up for cryonics for a few years now. I wrote up some of the reasoning behind my decision. Please let me know what you think of my arguments.
My newest carefully presented pictures are of the trip Janet and I took to the four corners area and the slot canyons and other rock features we saw. This immediately followed a backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon (my second), which is why there are a few pictures from the Grand Canyon as well. My pictures from the previous week-long off-trail backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon are still up. Late in 2000, we went to Australia with Janet's sister and brother-in-law Eileen and Alan.
My Father passed away in 2010. I spent a fair amount of time curating his art and presenting it on a web site. He was an architect as well as a painter, photographer, and sketch artist.
Janet and I were at the Gala at the RSA conference, and one of her co-workers took this picture using my camera.
We went to Año Nuevo in January 2000, and I used the camera with good results there as well.
We have a new dog, Angus, an Australian Cattle Dog mix. Here's a video the animal shelter did of him before we adopted him. He's a good-looking dog; he likes to chew on things. Here are some photos of our previous dog Cobi. Here she's laying on a blanket looking cute. In these three she's jumping for a treat Janet is holding. And here she is resting during a hike.
In January 2000, we went to watch the Cat's Hill Criterium, an annual bike race on the streets of Los Gatos. I captured some good sequences. (My camera will snap up to 9 pictures in under a second.)
I've also created a short page about a WWII Japanese document a friend found among her father's possessions. If you can help us learn anything more about it or its original owner's family, I'd appreciate the help.
Here's a list of organizations which I support with my tax-deductible contributions. I urge you to consider supporting them as well.
My mother worked on geneology for several years, but she doesn't spend any time on it any more. (For a while, her license plate was an amalgam of her first name--Jennie--and the word Geneology.) She sent me the sources for a book she wrote based on the information she collected. I've converted it all to html and GIFs. I've (finally!) integrated all the material. Here is the root of the geneology material.
I had prevously posted the material in GEDCom format, converted with ged2html. If you preferred that format, please let me know.
I used to do privacy-related volunteer work as a member of CPSR.
I maintained the Usenet FAQs on Social Security Numbers, Junk Mail, and also a list of Privacy-related addresses.
If you want to see what kind of information your browser is
sending about you along with your request, look here.
I am a co-inventor on 19 patents. Seven resulted from work Agorics did with Sun Labs between 1994 and 1997. Three result from work Agorics did with Sun and with IBM on ECheck. Nine were for work at Niantic.
