Category: Personal

A nice gesture…

Arrived in the (e)mailbox today. A picture, from NYE 2023, where a table of 7 strangers soon became acquainted and decided, as a group, to share in a fantastic evening.

A couple that were at the table were experienced veterans of the party, and had brought enough masquerade masks for everyone. So we all picked out the ones that best suited our personalities, and put them on, and wore them throughout the night.

(or til midnight at least).

Dropped off the masks at their door the next morning, thanking them for the loan, and with an address where they could send the group pictures.

And today, they arrived! They’re very nice, though I can’t share them here.

But even though it took a little while to recover from the party (I highly recommend an extra day off after NYE. Doctor’s orders!), the photos still came through.

Very sweet. I’m touched. Thank you!

2024 Roadmap

What does 2024 look like, from the perspective of January 1st, 2024?

Here’s a rough map. I didn’t have a napkin, so some hotel stationery had to do.

January: we should be seeing the site overhaul taking place. It may take a bit of time to sort out the various sections, so it may look a little bare while the framework is filled out, but like should be grouped with like, which will make it a little easier to find things than in the constant flow of updates.

The focus will be on pages, not posts, grouping together the podcast and videos, and keeping the media stuff separate from the academic work. We’ll be publishing more of the previous academic work as I sort out the rights to it, and make it available here.

February: I will be head down working on finishing a book chapter, but there should be enough of a stockpile of episodes and posts that I’ve been working on during the holidays to carry us through.

March: starting several tutorial sections for teaching and learning. Some of this is for new skills that I’m trying to develop, documenting the learning process. Other stuff will see the academic writing should be coming through to the forefront, updating on topics I’ve research on and taught on before.

That takes us through to Q1. If the above goes well, then we should have a good framework in place for publishing online, and Q2 should see us start to kick into higher gears.

Sounds fun. Let’s go!

2023 Year in Review

16 podcast episodes

1000s of words in writing

Hundreds of pictures and videos

Many road trips

Four vacations or trips by plane

Many fantastic meals

Shared hours with good friends

And time spent with loved ones.

2023 has been a fantastic year, filled with challenges and personal growth from those challenges, but what I cherish most is the quiet moments spent with loved ones, those moments where a conscious decision might have been made to take a break or slow down a bit.

That doesn’t mean I want to stop. I want to do everything mentioned above and more in 2024.

But take a bit of time to look around once in a while too.

2024 will see big changes online for Dr Implausible, with more activity on social media and Youtube, and consistently putting out podcast episodes.

Can’t wait to share what’s in store with you.

It’ll be fantastic.

(Editor’s note: this was originally posted on the evening of 2023-12-31, but got stuck in mobile Limbo. Not sure what happened, some bugs to fix in the system.)

Happy holidays

Had a fantastic few days off, visiting with family and loved ones, and managed to get a few little things done. The first few days of the vacation have felt like a whirlwind though, and I’m looking to have some time to focus over the next few days. Let’s have a quick rundown of the agenda, and what we’re looking to accomplish:

  1. Draft of the book chapter. This is the big one, it’s due March 1st, and I’d like to have the first pass done soon with enough time to edit. February will be very busy and classes start soon too, so the draft has to be done right away.
  2. Getting the implausipod podcast and websites up-to-date. There’s a few missing transcripts, and a couple are missing their bibliographies as well, and those both need to be updated and current with the material. In addition, I’d like to re-tune the implausipod website to be more than it is right now, which is just a list of shows. It needs a pretty big upgrade, and might need to be separate from here too.
  3. Finish one or two of the episodes that have been in the pipeline for the last couple months. Goes without saying, but they need to be completed. There’s a lot more to discuss in 2024, and I’m excited to talk about it with you!
  4. Re-do this blog in terms of visuals and content. more images, more stories, and static content where it needs to be, and accessible.

Of course, this is somewhat focused on the online stuff. There’s a ton of other stuff to take care of as well, but this is what’s relevant to the audience here. Thanks to everyone for an amazing 2023, and excited for 2024 too.

Documentary filming

Met a friend for dinner, and old mentor who has become a dear friend, and the discussion, after the usual formalities turned to recent works, in this case photography and film-making. I updated him on my experience after having visited the Sphere in Las Vegas, which I documented on the podcast in Episodes 20 and 21.

And he had some great advice. We spent a bit of time discussing beginner photography equipment (or which more in the new year), and then shifted to film.

I know it’s hard to tell by all the images I have on the blog, but I’m a pretty visual thinker, and often have an image or film clip in my mind of what I’m trying to tell.

The challenge (for me at least) is to coax that out of what I see in the real world. AI-assisted art tools can help, somewhat, if you’re comfortable with the “prompt engineering” that goes behind creating the images you want. There are some significant drawbacks, however, including the sourcing of the training data, and the power that is used to run these algorithms.

The other option is to make it yourself.

That old adage of “if you don’t see what you want in the world, then you need to make it” (or “be the change you want to see”).

But that can be a whole other set of challenges. Gear, learning to use the tools, time, energy, travel, tools for editing, and the time to do it, and a whole host more.

But it is do-able. Thousands do it every day on the online video platforms.

And in this case, the goal of what I want to see is a documentary film.

So let’s document that process, and see what we can create.