🌟 Overview of the Week
Still working out an emotional funk. There are things that I know help every time that I am resistant to, like always.
I find it easy to dive into focused flow mode on coding projects, but I need to do it better in two different ways. I need to focus my energy, so when that rare incredible spurt of focus comes, I am aimed in the right direction. I also need to do a better job of recognizing the ongoing chores, the ugly pieces of maintenance that need to be done before I can move on to the things that excite me. This all sounds so basic when written down, but I keep finding myself in loops that defy any logic.
💻 Projects Worked On
Setting the studio up with a CRM
I've been freelancing as an individual for over 10 years, so my client management system has always been a tornado of post-it notes, anxiety, and email, and I had never considered there would be a better way to do it.
Running a studio means scaling up a lot of processes that I have been doing on my own and turning them into real documented processes. So we're trying out the Hubspot CRM for client management and tracking the status of our various projects- got that all set up this week.
Hudson Valley Guide: knowhv.com
I want to make a little website to highlight some of my favorite places in the Hudson Valley. I intend to use it as motivation to check out more places and do a better job of documenting and taking photos and giving love to some of the people and establishments that I think are really building incredible things.
I am thinking that it will include food, nature experiences, and other cool stuff and really focus on having a beautiful map and really well-photographed and designed mini-essays on different places and what makes them special.
There are already tons of guides to the Hudson Valley, but they are very tourist centric, designed for people driving up from the city or in from Connecticut, and I want something that focuses more on new places, young chefs and farmers, and the community that is creating a new era in the Hudson Valley post-pandemic.
Refactoring Electology
I have been working on Electology for multiple election cycles now. I have rewritten the fundamental behavior multiple times. In each rewrite I find myself oscillating between the front end and the back end. On the front end, I find new interactions and visualizations which require fast, performant data. So then I turn to the backend, gather, chop up, and pre compute a bunch of data that opens up visualization and analysis capabilities. Then I jump back to the front end and take advantage of my new data, on and on.
Well I am in the portion of that cycle where I am refocusing on the backend and data storage.
Redesigning my Scrapbook
I keep a rolling feed of my latest bookmarks, mastodon posts, and are.na blocks on ejfox.com/scrapbook - it is mostly designed to be a tool that I can use to find things that I find interesting. It is also useful to see, in retrospect, a record of me collecting artifacts and inspiration around particular areas of research
Lil Fox
I've been working on Coach Artie, our GPT-powered AI Discord Studio Assistant, for over a year now. I'm extremely proud of the progress we've made and the many functionalities he has- so proud, that I want one of my own.
The capabilities and training for a studio assistant and a personal assistant are quite different, so I am start from scratch. The plan is to ingest all of my notes, bookmarks, health data, calendar events, etc and use that data to provide personalized advice and feedback, maybe on an hourly basis.
There are a few associated ideas that I think Lil Fox will interact with or power
- A background information display / dashboard of important things I should know, ideas, inspiration, and anything else the AI wants to communicate
- An iOS app to serve as my "first screen" as opposed to news and social media. This will serve as the first app I interact with in the morning, provide an easy way to record my mood, summarize news headlines, and help start my days off with good intentions.
Experimenting with Tres js
As I have been prototyping some visual elements for the new studio site, I have been playing around with Tres js, which is a Vue wrapper around Three.js and also offers a Nuxt Module.
After working out the kinks of getting the project set up and the proper imports imported, it is surprisingly easy to hook 3D scenes into Vue’s reactivity system.
📘 Learning & Development
- I have been enjoying watching some of Oki’s Weird Stories documentaries https://youtu.be/qW5wOXijJjE?si=YVsqA5i0QQKUDLVo
- Channel 5 released a new video in their series, focusing in Kensington Ave in Phillie, and continues to be some of the best journalism our current generation has to offer: https://youtu.be/925wmb-4Yr4?si=eOvNdWbzOg_BhUzI
- Shane Torres new stand-up special blue eyed mexican was very good, I thought
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