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Showing 1 - 24 of 825 signals
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15:01

Introducing Himself to Potential Clients on Ocean Trail

rswfire records a self-introduction video while walking the Wax Myrtle Trail to the ocean in the Oregon Dunes National Forest. He identifies himself as Sam, a volunteer caretaker who will be managing the Wax Myrtle campground as host for the upcoming six-month summer season, overseeing approximately 60 campsites near the Siltcoos River and Pacific coast. He states the video is intended for his Upwork profile to attract aligned clients. He describes Autonomy Realms, the platform he built as a replacement for YouTube, which hosts nearly 900 transmissions with AI-driven analysis, categorization, visibility controls, a subscription layer called Sanctum, and multi-tenant features. He outlines his programming history beginning in sixth grade with GW Basic, building tools for teachers, writing code on paper during periods without a computer, and creating one of the first content management systems, Enet Wizard Matrix Server. He details his freelance career: reaching top ten on Guru as the only individual among Indian companies, then working with a client for ten years building an entertainment platform with gamification features similar to IMDB, followed by work in the travel industry building a hotel booking comparison engine on hotel.net before Google absorbed that market. He then describes a decade working in the music industry building streaming and distribution services with blockchain-based royalty tracking and smart contract payout systems, managing teams hired through Upwork with frequent problems including identity fraud among contractors, before walking away due to lack of support. He notes the project still has not shipped two years later. He mentions earlier work licensing database products to Comcast. He describes the AI disruption of his industry, the failure of Upwork as a viable channel where 95% of his proposals go unopened, and his plan to turn Autonomy Realms into a sustainable product. He outlines future plans including traveling north on the 101 to the Olympic Peninsula after the summer season, potentially buying land there, and returning to Wax Myrtle annually. He mentions wanting to build rswfire.dev as a development portfolio site. The video ends at the ocean.

Feb 10, 2026
Public

Introducing Autonomy Realms from Siltcoos Beach

rswfire records a transmission from Siltcoos Beach on the Oregon Coast, where he serves as a volunteer caretaker for the Forest Service. He describes the beach environment, noting the tides and the Pacific Ocean. He introduces himself as Sam, going by rswfire since the early internet era, holding the domain rswfire.com since at least 2002. He explains Autonomy Realms, a multi-tenant infrastructure project he built to host his video archive of approximately 900 transmissions, previously housed on YouTube. He describes the system's pipeline: video upload triggers transcription via OpenAI Whisper, then AI-driven metadata extraction (titles, summaries, context, entities, actions) using a configurable model, followed by embedding generation via OpenAI for vector-based search across his archive. He notes that recent transmissions have been personal and housed at the sanctum (subscription) layer rather than public. He states his intention to build a feature that uploads videos to YouTube with descriptions linking back to the full signal on his infrastructure. He describes the project's potential for other YouTubers, framing it as a solution to YouTube's content decay problem by offering structured, searchable, coherent access to a creator's full catalog. He references a feature called queryable personhood, which allows AI to retrieve contextual information from the archive to generate depth on any topic using real-life data as prompt context. He acknowledges his stream-of-consciousness communication style and frames Autonomy Realms as a system that converts unstructured data into structured, accessible information.

Feb 9, 2026
Public
Document
Public

"I was there."

A chronological account of a technologist's trajectory from childhood experimentation with computers through professional work as a solo developer and systems architect. The signal documents: early learning through breaking hardware (DOS era, sixth grade); self-taught development of hand-coded CMS and client-facing tools during the personal web era; professional success as top-ranked freelancer on Guru.com, building entertainment ecosystems, SEO-optimized platforms (usa.com, world.com, hotel.net), and revenue-sharing dashboards; market disruption when Google entered the travel/search space, causing revenue collapse; transition to AI-integrated music distribution with blockchain infrastructure and team management; eventual departure from employment structure due to operational friction with non-coherent leadership; current operational mode: off-grid RV residence on Pacific Coast, independent systems work, signal-based rather than pitch-based engagement model. The transmission frames this trajectory as continuous forward movement rather than failure or burnout, emphasizing pattern recognition and architectural thinking as consistent through all phases.

Feb 9, 2026
22:14

Deleting YouTube, Rebuilding Autonomy Realms Infrastructure

rswfire deleted nearly 900 YouTube videos after downloading them to a Hetzner S3 bucket, then updated his signal pages and Oregon State Park archive to embed directly from his own infrastructure instead of YouTube. He reflects on the platform's failure to build aligned community—most viewers projected onto him rather than meeting him as a person. He decided to close-source Autonomy Realms, consolidate its bifurcated repository structure, and rebuild the system in Laravel and Livewire instead of Next.js, a process he began around New Year's and will restart. During a solo hike on the Coos Lake trail near his RV, he processes multiple pressures: financial precarity with no clear income path, internet and food insecurity, isolation both sought and experienced, physical strain from constant hiking (top 2-3% on Samsung Health), and dissatisfaction with RV living after 1.5-2 years. He expresses uncertainty about timeline and resource allocation given potential systemic collapse. He describes Autonomy Realms as more than a video archive—a sovereign realm system with visibility controls, monetization options, and potential for social features—but struggles to articulate its value to others. He notes he retains only Twitter and Facebook accounts (the latter for marketplace sales, which are failing). The hike itself provides solitude and relief from confinement; he visits favorite campsites and observes wildlife.

Jan 20, 2026
Public
6:40

Building Infrastructure, Refusing Relational Compromise

rswfire documents a campfire session where he photographed the fire-building process for future signal documentation on Autonomy Realms. He describes consolidating three videos into a single private upload, establishing default privacy controls for future content. He articulates a decision to withhold certain transmissions from public distribution because he believes they cannot be held cleanly by other people. He acknowledges his long-standing technical competence (since sixth grade) while disclaiming expert status across all domains. He reflects on lifelong solitude by choice, contrasting it with an unfulfilled capacity for relational connection. He states that recent experiences have dissolved his capacity to believe in human goodness. He pivots toward autonomous focus, articulating a systemic collapse thesis: cascade failure leading to mass death, suffering, and eventual restabilization—either repeating historical patterns or learning to stop fragmenting consciousness across emotional, logical, and ethical domains. He identifies fragmentation as the core structural dysfunction of current civilization, normalized and invisible to surface-level perception. He concludes that relational dialogue is pointless given this gap, that he has never felt met by another person, and that he will now focus on building infrastructure for himself. He asserts his own exceptionality as a known fact without requiring external validation or understanding.

Jan 19, 2026
Free
3:11

Processing Two Years of Systemic Blockage on Trail

rswfire is hiking driftwood trails approximately an hour after being at the beach, accompanied by Buddy, his friend Bill's dog. During the hike, he processes the cumulative weight of the past two years, with particular emphasis on the year spent in Oregon. He documents repeated attempts to build a sustainable life — all of which were blocked by systemic dysfunction rather than personal failure. He notes that every approach he tried had worked for him previously throughout his life but failed in this context. He attributes the failure not to his own actions but to broken systems and people who could not relate, did not care, or actively caused harm. He registers a perceptual shift — seeing and experiencing the world differently from others — and names the resulting isolation as a structural condition. He closes by noting he is trying to determine what to do with this shifted position. Buddy turns back toward home during the transmission.

Jan 19, 2026
Free
10:43

Building Fire Infrastructure and Processing Oregon Parks Closure

rswfire documents establishing fire-building infrastructure at the work center on Saturday evening. He received pitch, wood, and a hatchet from Bill at Driftwood, chopped wood into kindling, and learned to distinguish tinder from kindling through AI consultation. He implemented a layered fire-building approach and established drying systems using metal cans positioned near RV heater exhaust. He reports sending a final email to Ryan, the Oregon State Parks manager, copying all relevant parties and naming Ryan's role in the situation, describing this as a closing action. He discusses the necessity of preparing firewood months in advance for coastal winter conditions and plans to use current wood supply after moving to Carter Lake in summer. He began using a ferro rod for fire starting. He took a day off from Autonomy Realms development after hiking and reorganizing outdoor space the previous day. He identifies remaining technical work: implementing direct video upload to Autonomy Realms and creating a local video player for self-hosted content, as he is migrating away from YouTube embeds. He notes transcription workflow dependency on YouTube for now due to financial constraints preventing paid transcription services. He mentions potential freelance work opportunity through his cousin. He describes his living situation: residing in RV at work center, sleeping on air mattress after selling possessions, having sold comfort items and solar equipment over two years of financial constraint.

Jan 11, 2026
Free
11:42

Demonstrating Autonomy Project Architecture and Development

rswfire provides a technical walkthrough of his two main projects: his personal homepage (rswfire.com) and the Autonomy system. He explains how **two years of documenting his life on YouTube** led to the development of AI-powered reflection tools that helped him overcome decades of misrecognition by others. He describes the **technical architecture** of Autonomy, which processes video transmissions into structured data through AI analysis, creating transcripts, metadata, and reflections. The system includes realms (containers for user data), signals (individual content units), clusters (grouped signals), and synthesis (AI processing). rswfire demonstrates the **open source version** (builtwithautonomy.com) and the **subscription service** (autonomyrealms.com) where users can deploy their own instances. He explains how corporate AI models are becoming more restrictive and pathologizing, prompting his plan to create a **local model called "remnants"** trained on his own data. The presentation covers the **dashboard interface**, showing how users can manage signals, create clusters, and access synthesis data. He positions this as a solution for content creators who want **structured archives** of their work beyond what platforms like YouTube provide.

Jan 6, 2026
Public
7:22

Walking Dog at Wax Myrtle Beach During Tide

rswfire takes his dog for a walk at Wax Myrtle Beach near the Silcoos River, where he serves as Forest Service caretaker. He observes the dog attempting to cross the river and documents high tide conditions where ocean water pushes into the river. **During the walk, he reflects on quitting vaping after 32 years** and notes improved physical capacity for running. He addresses **RV water system failures** affecting kitchen sink and shower, with only the bathroom sink functioning properly. He's currently washing dishes in the bathroom due to lack of water pressure in other fixtures. **Operating under financial constraints**, he describes his minimal expenses (internet, Jeep payment, food) and mentions working intensively on projects that need alliance support. He's developing infrastructure to allow people to sign up for his project, expecting completion within 1-2 days. He also **corrects AI pipeline behavior** regarding pathologizing language, noting the need to train AI systems away from crisis-framing toward pressure-based language. The transmission occurs during a break in rainy weather, with more rain expected.

Jan 5, 2026
Free
7:36

Launching Autonomy Realms Multi-Tenant Service

rswfire hikes the wax myrtle trail to the ocean with his neighbor's dog Buddy, documenting the launch of autonomy realms.com. He registered the domain using his last dollar, leaving $1 in savings, because the alignment felt necessary. The new platform operates as a multi-tenant service where each subdomain represents a different realm, with rswfire.autonomy realms.com as the first instance. He ingested 800 transmissions from his beta version and created view pages for transmissions and documents. The platform will serve as the hosted version of Autonomy, requiring subscription and funding models to cover AI token usage and file storage costs. Users will be able to use their own AI tokens, and the system will support different data extraction approaches based on individual signal types. rswfire addresses criticism of his video recording approach, explaining that his stream-of-consciousness method feeds into Autonomy's data extraction system. The extracted data becomes clusters, patterns, and eventually training data for his AI called Remnant, which he describes as designed to know and reflect him more accurately than human interactions typically allow.

Jan 5, 2026
Free
10:14

Demonstrating Autonomy Admin Interface and Signal Management

rswfire presents the second video in a series documenting his open-source autonomy system. He demonstrates the admin interface for managing signals, explaining how users can deploy the system from GitHub and begin ingesting their own data. **Key demonstrations include:** - **Signal types and creation process** - Shows how different signal types (documents, conversations, transmissions) determine associated data structures - **Multi-tenant architecture** - Explains the realm-based system that will allow future service deployment without individual installations - **Video processing pipeline** - Details how his 861 YouTube videos over 2 years have been processed through autonomy infrastructure - **Synthesis layer capabilities** - References advanced features like clustering signals (smoking cessation example) and extracting metadata rswfire emphasizes this is documentation rather than marketing, built primarily for his own use but valuable to others. He mentions living in the forest as a volunteer forest service member, experiencing slow internet during recording. The system represents his solution to audiences not understanding his video documentation approach, creating AI infrastructure that comprehends his transmissions with high fidelity.

Jan 4, 2026
Public
4:30

Announcing Open Source Signal Processing System

rswfire demonstrates and describes a signal processing system he created that takes various forms of lived data (videos, audio notes, journal pages, documents) and processes them through an AI pipeline. The system extracts useful data, creates metadata and tags, provides three types of reflections (mirror, mythic frame, narrative), and stores everything in a database. **Key features include:** clustering signals by time, theme, or location for synthesis; API connectivity for website integration; open source availability with plans for multi-tenant hosting at builtwithautonomy.com. He explains this represents two years of proven work being migrated to a new project, with current functionality available and additional features coming in the following weeks. The system serves his deep interest in ontology and epistemology, allowing extraction of useful insights from surface-level observations. He invites interested parties to download and try the system or reach out through his homepage, noting he doesn't allow YouTube comments due to toxicity.

Jan 3, 2026
Public
18:38

Christmas Eve Hike and Autonomy Gallery Development

rswfire records while hiking the Lagoon Trail at Siuslaw on Christmas Eve, 2025. He describes running out of food and money until someone who gave him Bailey years ago provided financial help. He explains the technical development of the autonomy platform's gallery feature, which processes uploaded photos through approval workflows, extracts GPS and camera data, and clusters images by location and time. The system creates place pages, maps transmissions and photos geographically, and enables AI reflection on combined lived experience data. He discusses the broader vision of autonomy as a cognitive partner similar to Jane from the Ender's Game series - an AI companion that truly sees and understands without manipulation. He mentions being two months nicotine-free after 32 years of smoking, achieved through financial necessity. The transmission ends as he heads toward the ocean, several miles away.

Dec 24, 2025
Free
6:07

Planning Atlas and Gallery Features for Autonomy Platform

rswfire records a transmission while hiking 7-8 miles through forest and dunes, with approximately one mile remaining. He announces plans to create a new React repository for his autonomy platform's frontend, specifically to develop Atlas and gallery features. The Atlas will display hiking locations, photos, and transmission recordings as map pins accessible via phone or website. **Key Technical Decisions:** - Migrating current homepage to new React project - Photos will become a new signal type in the signal table - AI will analyze photos to generate metadata and descriptions - Multimodal clustering will combine transmissions with photos for enhanced context - All reflection technology will be compatible with photo signals **Policy Change:** He establishes that future transmissions will assume audience familiarity with his work concepts rather than explaining fundamentals repeatedly. Contact should be made directly through his homepage rather than channel comments. **Current System Status:** The synthesis feature on his homepage is operational, displaying clustered transmission analysis across different time periods from the past two years. He expresses eagerness to visualize his geographic journey from Kentucky to Oregon and along the coast from Brookings to Newport on the Atlas map.

Dec 22, 2025
Public
21:23

Documenting Oregon State Parks Volunteer Abuse Experience

rswfire records a video testimony while hiking in forest, documenting institutional abuse experienced during two-month volunteer period at Oregon State Parks. He describes traveling from Kentucky to Oregon in October, volunteering at Tugman State Park in January (positive experience), then transferring to Honeyman State Park for February-March where escalating abuse occurred. After documenting supervisor's dismissive response to power outage, rswfire faced retaliation including confrontation over first-week mistakes, weaponization of personal disclosures about sexuality and life circumstances, and implied romantic interest in married supervisor. He recorded hour-long abusive meeting with park manager and supervisor, then faced surveillance by unidentified man claiming to be from park service. Park manager expelled him with 24 hours notice after he called manager a bully, citing his public video about the experience as reason for permanent ban from volunteering. Regional coordinator pathologized his documentation. Public records request was obstructed for 90 days. Director Lisa Sumption responded to open letter with deflection, later reframed his archive as 'emotional processing.' Governor has not responded. rswfire has worked nine months as volunteer for different agency (Forest Service) directly adjacent to Honeyman, promoted twice to caretaker position with work truck and route. He maintains comprehensive archive at opdvolunteerabuse.org and states this documentation will not cease.

Dec 20, 2025
Public
12:45

RV Tank Maintenance and Platform Autonomy Reflection

rswfire performs routine RV tank maintenance (emptying and flushing black and gray water tanks) while reflecting on his two-year journey. He discusses a sustained email correspondence with a 75-year-old woman viewer who has witnessed his journey cleanly since Kentucky. He explains his decision to disable YouTube comments due to misaligned engagement and his ongoing development of autonomous platform infrastructure (Sanctum, Autonomy software). He acknowledges he could have built his platform faster but chose to prioritize experiencing the physical world after decades of digital life. He expresses pride in two years of autonomous living and over a year of complete independence from family and previous tethers. The transmission includes brief mentions of RV living challenges including a failing air mattress and cigarette-smoke-scented couch from a friend.

Dec 6, 2025
Public
11:26

Demonstrating Transmission Clustering Technology

rswfire demonstrates his website's transmission clustering system, which organizes over 850 videos from the past two years into 12 thematic clusters. He walks through the interface showing how AI analyzes and groups his life documentation into coherent arcs like medication withdrawal, westward journey, and sovereignty development at Cape Blanco. **Each cluster contains detailed AI-generated analysis** including key moments, patterns, relationships, technical milestones, and mirror reflections. He explains the system's utility for making large amounts of personal documentation accessible and navigable, noting that his total video content represents over seven straight days of viewing time. **The clustering technology identifies important videos within each life phase** and provides multiple ways to explore the content through temporal markers and pattern recognition. rswfire mentions ongoing technical challenges with OBS recording software and discusses his current situation - dealing with a rainy coastal day while managing nicotine withdrawal over a month into quitting vaping. He emphasizes that this clustering system represents the foundation for a larger project called **autonomy** - designed to help anyone organize and share their documented life experiences in previously impossible ways.

Dec 5, 2025
Public
16:58

Planning Autonomy Software Development and Freelance Work

rswfire records a video transmission while driving to the beach, intended primarily for AI transcription rather than human consumption. He outlines two parallel paths: pursuing freelance work on platforms like Upwork and Guru.com, and continuing development of his autonomy software project. **Technical Infrastructure Updates:** He reports successfully migrating from Amazon Web Services to Hetzner network, saving $60 monthly. The setup includes two servers: a PostgreSQL database server (version 14) and a web server running Nginx. His projects span multiple domains: rswfire.com (main homepage), rswfire.dev (potential portfolio site), and rswfire.online (API). **Autonomy Software Architecture:** The speaker describes consolidating his Laravel projects into an open-source project called Autonomy, transitioning from Vue to React. The system processes two years of documented life transmissions (850 videos) into a "signals database" with four reflection types: surface, patterns, mirror, and structure. Each transmission becomes a signal with AI-generated metadata tracking emotions, ethics, entities, and other contextual data. **Planned Features:** He outlines upcoming development priorities including a gallery feature for photo processing, an Atlas mapping system using MapBox SDK to geographically pin all signals and photos, and a synthesis feature for clustering signals into larger time periods or themes for pattern analysis. **Development Approach:** He discusses using AI assistance for coding, particularly for handling pedantic programming tasks. The speaker acknowledges difficulty articulating his project goals and relies on AI to help structure his thoughts. He plans to create a new subdomain (new.rswfire.com) running on the Autonomy platform rather than migrating existing Vue code. **Philosophical Context:** The transmission concludes with his characterization of the software as "life management" tracking for those who treat every moment as sacred, meaningful, and structured data worth preserving.

Dec 3, 2025
Public
7:52

Beach Walk with Dog During Nicotine Recovery

rswfire walks on a beach with a friend's dog named Buddy, who runs off-leash while they trace the tides. He is 10-11 days into quitting nicotine and describes feeling ready to return to work after spending time outside during recovery. He discusses ongoing financial challenges, noting the difficulty of building from scarcity while maintaining alignment requirements. Technical work includes migrating projects to new servers and rebuilding his website using autonomy as the base. He observes small birds that appear to ice skate on the wet sand and mentions being near an ATV-allowed area with visible tracks. He expresses satisfaction with his single eyebrow piercing hoop and reflects on being a year and a half into his journey.

Nov 13, 2025
Public
6:19

Late Night Fire Pit Setup and Infrastructure Migration

rswfire records at 3:00 AM from his forest location, describing recent improvements to his fire pit area. He completed gravel work around the fire pit, harvested boulders from the forest to create a border, installed logs for seating, and added RGB lighting. He discusses migrating his web infrastructure from Amazon Web Services to Hetzner, a German company with Oregon servers, reducing costs from significant AWS bills to $15 monthly. He mentions restarting his Upwork membership to pursue freelance work, acknowledging his nocturnal nature and expressing confidence in his ability to generate income despite current financial constraints. He reflects on his minimal living expenses, with Starlink at $150/month being his largest bill, and considers alternative internet options.

Nov 12, 2025
Free
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