Happy New Year! The days are starting to get longer, but winter feels like it is just getting started in New England. Nature feels dormant, but I’m glad that birds still call on us, the moss is still green on hillside rocks, and the cats are less aloof now that they want some body heat.
No resolutions, no promises, simply staying open and active, grateful and creative. 2025 promises to be quite a year regardless of what I do, so how about doing something that feels like it’s adding a little more good into the world?
I’ve been trying to teach myself how to code GLSL shaders lately because they can make beautiful graphics, and I’m not understanding any of it right now. I don’t know if it’s my approach, if I don’t have the right resources, or if it’s beyond my capacity to understand. I’m stepping back for now, and will have to try again at some point.
It reminds me of getting Douglas Hofstadter’s book Gödel, Escher, Bach as a gift when I was a teen. The book explores deep ideas in mathematics, art, and music through clever analogies and storytelling, making it a fascinating yet challenging read. It was wonderful right until I reached the point where I realized that I was lost, and couldn’t get past it.
Being faced with intellectual limits is hard. Was it really too difficult, or did I give up too soon? Am I dumber than I think? That could end badly. I wonder what reading it would’ve been like if I had an LLM by my side!
My Picks
Here are some recent discoveries that caught my attention:
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Steven Johnson’s interactive forensics game and post about how he used AI to make it changed my thinking about interacting with Large Language Models.
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YouTube videos shown in subject-based channels, you get dumped in the middle like old-school cable TV. It’s nice to surf from time to time.
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A GitHub repository for learning new skills via printable pages that feature progress tiles, starting with basic at the bottom and becoming more advanced as you ascend. The variety of subjects is impressive, and I love this gamified approach to learning. I liked exploring the Comic Artist tree, it starts with basic shapes and ends with a 30-page comic.
Recently Published
If you’ve missed it, here’s what’s new on the site:
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These are extensive personal notes about the music and video for each song on my latest album, giving credit where it’s due and discussing my thoughts about the creative process.
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What I Learned from my First AI-Facilitated Assignment
I finally got the chance to take a new student-focused AI Assistant system that I created for a spin, asking my students to use it for final reflections about their project work in my class. I was stunned by the quality of the results, and surprised by a lot of what I found.
In the Groove
This month, I’ve been working on:
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Updating the Galactic Console
I call my collection of external music-making gear The Galactic Console because it’s so over-the-top grandiose and cheesy that it amuses me (ahem, Infinite Omphalos…). It’s where I control and shape my compositions, and where I mess around and have fun with sound. I’m in the process of updating the console’s gear with an eye toward an eventual live performance.
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Optimizing a Live Performance Set
My dream is to be able to put a bunch of samples into a template, and then start jamming with them – adding creative effects, breakdowns, buildups, and a little live instrument work with as little fuss as possible. I’ve got the basics down, and am trying to explore possibilities while making it as useful and accessible as possible. It’s not there yet, but there’s a lot of promise, and I’m excited to see where it ends up.
Until Next Time
I’m so glad that I started this newsletter to connect with everyone. The month ahead is all about learning new things: I have a brand-new web development course to create, and that work starts in earnest when my current class ends at the end of the month. Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you in February!