After avoiding the preparation of my thesis defense presentation for an embarrassingly long time, I got it together, put it together, and did a dry run with my advisor. All’s well.
Art seems to be reclaiming me after that dry spell, though who knows how long it’ll last. I gave my kids a short tour of Blender last night to showcase how animation works, and that sparked an idea which I’ll write about soon once I have a demo piece to show — probably tomorrow. (One could reasonably call it a very small breakthrough.)
I’ve been thinking (as I often do, because I am weird) about the flow of time in the consumption of creative arts. More plainly: looking at and initially comprehending a painting is fast. Almost instantaneous. But a book, a song, a dance, a film — all these require time to consume and comprehend. No conclusions yet; still mulling it over, trying to suss out any relevant meaning. Which may not be there, of course.
For fun, and to sharpen the saw, I’ve started working through some LeetCode problems. Mmm.
I haven’t yet started working on a new story or novel, but that will happen soon, just figuring out which ideas to use.
Several good video chats this week —family, friends, and office hours (of which I will post a writeup in the near future). It’s been a humanizing week.
It would be nice to have virtual audio backgrounds in Zoom etc. as well as graphical backgrounds. Mask out the crying toddler, add some concert hall reverb.
I have to say, getting back into blogging has been incredibly fun, and I’ve very much enjoyed my initial foray so far into working and learning in public.
Went on a family drive round the lake. The lake is much larger than I expected; the version of the world in my head is so much smaller than the physical world.
What’s caught my interest lately: PostGIS and cartography and map data. I love geography.