Extra Future

Hi, I’m Phil Nelson, a writer, developer, and audio-visual maker of stuff. I have been making stuff online for over 25 years. I run RetroStrange and Set Side B. Good to see you.

Blog Archives

Tag: work

  • Come To My Computer Vision Conference on May 12

    Please excuse my marketing, but I’ve got a huge event coming up and I need to make as much noise about it as possible.

    The OpenCV-SID Conference on Computer Vision and AI is a 1-day event this May 12th in San Jose, CA. We’re hosting it as part of Display Week, the premier international event focusing on the latest advancements in display technologies. I’ve booked the guests, designed the signs, and I’ll be at the OpenCV Pavilion in the Expo Hall (Booth #1108).

    The OSCCA lineup includes notable figures from the tech industry, here are a few of the speakers:

    • Gary Bradski – Founder of OpenCV and renowned for his work on the DARPA Grand Challenge-winning car, Stanley. He literally wrote the book on OpenCV. Bradski has been instrumental in advancing computer vision research.
    • Satya Mallick – CEO of OpenCV, with a passion for AI, computer vision, and deep learning. Mallick’s leadership has driven OpenCV to new heights, and his website LearnOpenCV remains an essential resource.
    • ​Ethan Rublee – CEO and Co-Founder of Space-ng, Rublee is a veteran of the AI and robotics world, who’s team at Space-ng recently helped land the Blue Ghost rover on the moon!
    • Kartik Venkatraman – Head of Perception at Intrinsic (part of Alphabet), where the team develops state-of-the-art vision technology for robotic assembly automation.
    • Monica Song – Product Manager at Google AI, working on open source frameworks like Keras and JAX. Song is a graduate of Harvard with a background in computer science.
    • Jose Benitez Genes – Founder and Director of AI at Intuitivo, whose work in Autonomous Point of Purchase (A-POP) has garnered recognition, including being named an MIT Innovator Under 35 in 2022.

    Please come! Or at least, share the link for me. I appreciate it.

  • Phil’s Newsletter: “Twenty Twenty Fuck”

    Originally published on my Substack newsletter.

    Hey there. How’s it going? What are you looking forward to this year? I mean it, click over and post in the comments when you read this. I wanna see something.

    Checking In

    Some housekeeping to start: I’m trying to move this newsletter off of Substack for various reasons, primarily that many of the people they platform are harmful shitheads. Here’s a reminder: You don’t have to take everyone’s money.

    As a result I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at other software like Ghost, and the WordPress Newsletter plugin. One of the big goals for 2025 in my wizard tower is to self-host as much as I can, and get off the big platforms as much as I can. Currently this means I’m using Debian a lot more than I used to. This is overall a good thing. 

    I’ll give you some notice before we change, but believe me when I say it is in the works.

    Work Work Work

    Things are going pretty well at OpenCV. Our YouTube channel @OpenCVOfficial just passed 100,000 subscribers and 150 episodes and I get a fancy award to hang on my wall. You bet your ass I had them put my name on it. Photo shoot coming soon. We recently also just launched a new competition. This one involves robot arms and as such is awesome. I made a little trailer to introduce the concept and the prizes:

    I’m working on a DIY “cyberdeck” using a low-cost, low-power single-board computer as a side project lately. I’m going to use Armbian, it’s a work in progress with a custom 3D printable case. Photos soon, promise.

    Phil Nelson’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

    RetroStrange

    RetroStrange has quietly expanded a bit— In addition to RetroStrange TV we now have a 24/7 Halloween Channel, taking over from the not very popular RetroStrange Select. It plays Halloween-y stuff all day every day. 

    We also now have RetroStrange Radio2, a 24/7 audio stream which plays the (now public domain) hits of the 1920s.

    Our next RetroStrange Movie Night is on my birthday, February 1st! If you want to buy me something, here’s my Amazon wishlist.

    Phil’s Good Links return next week…

    Thanks for reading,

    Phil Nelson

    Wizard Tower, SoMA, Earth

    2025.01.15 +8UTC

    Follow me around:

    Phil Nelson’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

  • Talent Has Never Been Enough

    Alex Sujong Laughlin for Defector, which I should finally get around to subscribing to…

    Netflix’s new eight-episode docuseries Pop Star Academy is an exploration of the delicate balance of talent, dedication, and charisma required to craft celebrity. Part American Idol with the cutthroat edge of Korean survival shows, Pop Star Academy documents 20 young women as they compete against each other for nearly two years for one of six spots in a new K-pop–style girl group called KATSEYE.

    This is a hell of an article.

  • New Client Work: OpenCV AI Kit – Lite

    Like last year’s campaign, I created the video for this amazing spatial AI device. Now available on Kickstarter.

    Back For $89

  • Now Available: Magnetic Interference – Reverb-heavy Drum Beats

    Magnetic Interference is an album of music produced here in the Wizard Tower, using my KORG Volca Beats, Monotron Delay, and Monotron Duo. They’re meant to be used in your own projects, royalty free. My Patrons get it for $0, but even if you aren’t a member of my Patreon you can listen to it on Bandcamp or buy a copy for $3.

    It’s been fun using this little drum machine to make chilly, relaxing beats to put on while I work on client stuff. Expect more.

  • Phil’s Newsletter-mania, And So On

    This week on Phil’s Newsletter, it is Wrestlemania, but then again, every day is Wrestlemania.

    Our Discord sever is now a community server, which means I want all of ya’ll in there. This is a year for making new friends. Join today and watch some wrestling, or play some video games, or just lurk: https://discord.gg/uNahVCDU

    The introduction video I wrote for OpenCV.ai is now live! It’s a tight 2 minutes of no bullshit pitching.

  • I’m Available For Freelance Work Again

    Having run the $1,350,000 campaign for OpenCV AI Kit, I am now stepping away from that project while they focus on computer vision development, manufacturing and fulfillment. They’ve got a big job ahead of them and I wish them the best of luck.

    This means I’m available for freelance again, after several months of that project taking all my time.

    My dance card is filling up rapidly, I guess that happens when you raise a million dollars, but I still have space for projects in the realm of 1-2 weeks of work. If you need video production and editing, voiceovers, UI/UX design, web development and infrastructure consulting, or have some other wacky idea- hit me up by emailing phil @ this domain name.

  • OpenCV AI Kit Campaign Final Stats

    6,564 backers pledged $1,358,318 to close out the OAK campaign at just a little over the pledge total of the other massive 3D sensor campaign I worked on in 2015… and 2x the number of backers.

  • Introducing The OpenCV AI Kit

    For the last several months I’ve been helping OpenCV ready their biggest launch ever, and today it’s here. The OpenCV AI Kit is now available on Kickstarter.

    A Spatial AI platform so small, it’s going to be huge.

    The best press mention so far has been Devin Coldewey’s piece for TechCrunch: OpenCV AI Kit aims to do for computer vision what Raspberry Pi did for hobbyist hardware

    The campaign has been up for a little over 4 hours, and we’ve passed 500 backers, smashed our goal, and are about to cross the $100,000 mark.

  • New Work: Introducing megaAI, a 4k 60fps AI camera – Now on CrowdSupply

    The last month or so I’ve been working with a new computer vision / AI startup, Luxonis. megaAI is the first project we’ve worked on together. I named it, designed the logo, wrote a lot of the copy, and wrote/shot/edited/narrated the launched video. It’s a tiny but powerful camera built for Raspberry Pi and other embedded / low power situations.

    Get one: You can get your own megaAI on CrowdSupply right now for $169.