Updates - 10 July, 2022
White noise iPhone, deep fake performances, and a Roald Dahl book
Discovering
Apparently iPhones have a built-in white noise feature
This… was a super handy discovery for me because we’ve been playing white noise to Charlotte every night to help simulate sounds she heard when she was still in her mother’s womb. We have a dedicated sound device for that but sometimes we don’t bring it with us when we’re out and when she inevitably needs a nap in the pram. I can imagine myself using this feature even if I wasn’t a parent when i’m trying to focus on work. Nifty!
Simon Cowell’s deep fake performance on AGT
I was most surprised how the almost perfect AI-generated deep fake was getting buffered on the fly during a live performance on the AGT stage. Second most surprising was the fact that this was an accepted format for the competition!
Doing
I’ve finished reading Matilda by Roald Dahl
This is a lovely short book about bullying and how to emerge from it stronger, seen through the lens of a gifted five year-old girl. I loved it and will share it with Charlotte when she’s old enough to read. (It’s a children’s book, I know, but I’d never read it. I have not read many children’s books and I thought why not start reading now since we have a kid?)
I’m 30% through the EpicReact course by Kent C Dodds
The EpicReact course by Kent C Dodds is awesome. As someone who used React daily at work back in 2016 to 2018 but dropped off for a while before coming back to it now in 2022, I’m finding the course to crystal clear in instruction and design. This guy knows how to teach a course! Though I got mine licensed through my employer Shopify, I believe I would pay to get this great curriculum, especially if I need to use React at work.
Thinking
The Odyssey Plan by Stanford Design Lab
I came across this reading Ali Abdaal’s punchy self-improvement newsletter and I’ve been trying to find time to do it because it feels like I need it (it purportedly helps you understand which direction you should head in life - big claim). I’d start with the YouTube playlist of short videos. If you have done it or eventually do it please let me know how you felt!
Writing 30 short stories?
After reading Matilda by Roald Dahl and now listening to Harriet The Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, I’ve become quite itchy to try writing fiction again. I’ve tried writing a novel before and failed miserably. Short stories might be more achievable? Anyway, if I really work on this, I’m thinking of naming the anthology "30 shitty short stories” to help me approach this with a light touch and not get all serious and botch the thing. This is (once again) inspired by beeple_crap (Mike Winkelmann), who has published digital art every single day for 5,500 days so far.