Lu Wilson
patreon
TODEPOND PONDCAST: This is a shepherd
🕑 Added 2024-06-16 15:04:04 +0000 UTCWelcome back welcome back! To another weekly episode of the...
🐸 TODEPOND PONDCAST 🐸
What's new this week?
Shepherding
Me and Dave Ackley had a call with each other, discussing how to proceed with our submission to Onward. We were conditionally accepted, and we need to make changes to get fully accepted. And of course, we both want to do that. It's actually nice to get a chance to make some changes, and make it better. We only have to address certain reviewer comments, but we'd be foolish if we didn't take the chance to address some of the others too.
The essay itself is very meta and self-referential and fourth-wall-breaking and all my usual rubbish blah blah blah. So we can lean into that in a way. We can make changes based on reviewer comments, and explicitly state that we're doing that, inside the essay.
We had a call with our "shepherd" who's going to help with that process. He seems very friendly and helpful so I'm feeling positive about the upcoming work! And he seems happy for us to continue on the meta stuff, and that's part of what he liked about it, pending some cuts here and there!
Step by step.
Blockers
I've also been working on my Arroost submission for LIVE, which will happen at the same event as Onward.
I've been trying to structure my essay and potential presentation. I've been trying to nail down the premise of Arroost. Why does Arroost need to exist? And what does it demonstrate? I think I've figured it out.
Arroost is all about blockers.
When a human is trying to make something— anything, whether it's a creative thing or not, they might encounter some blockers. Blockers are obstacles— things that stop you from making the thing— from completing your task.
Blockers come in all shapes and sizes. They can be purely practical, like you don't have access to the tools or materials you need. Or they can be physical— perhaps you're too tired or hungry to think straight.
With the rise of computers, many blockers can be gotten rid of. You don't need an orchestra of instruments to make classical music! You just need an iPad and the right iPad app. You don't need to be a maths genius anymore. You just need a calculator.
And you can do all sorts of new things. You're no longer blocked in making a simulation or an animation or a living thing. You can make your drawings come alive— make a living fish that reacts to what you do— that follows your finger, and blows bubbles too.
It is my opinion that computing tools have focused too much on a very specific kind of blocker. There are larger— as yet unsolved— blockers, that stop people from making what they want to make. And Arroost tries to point towards them, and how we could consider unblocking them, through the use of a live programming environment— a wacky way to make music.
But we'll see how it goes.
Magritte?
I finished making a little Future of Coding video!! It should come out very soon.
It's a video adaptation of a segment of the Elephant episode. I basically put images to the existing audio. And I chose to stick to static images. I played around with a few different approaches at first, and this is the one I went with. It's easy to make, and I also like how it seems to match the podcast format somehow? Like, the fact that the images are static still makes it a primarily audio medium. You still need to fill in the blanks yourself, and use your imagination to picture what the speakers are speaking about. We'll see how it goes!!!
Related news, I got sent a brand new flashy microphone, paid for by the Future of Coding patreon. I'm not using it yet — I need some more cables first. But it should make me sound better. Though I do like the slightly crappy quality that I usually use. So I'll only use it sometimes — it's another tool in my belt.
And I have more to share— more that I've been working on— but I'm out of time... I'll loop you in next week :)
And of course the Top 99 Ways To Make Sand video is chugging along. So thank you very much for all your support!!! Welcome to all the new supporters this week. Quite a few of you joined this week — I guess because of tldraw's recently virality. And welcome back to all the old-timers. Thank you for being here! And wherever you are in the world, whatever you're doing... I hope you have a great week.
Days since tode fell asleep: 528
Days since bot went missing: 493
Days since berd flew away: 156
Back to the pondcast.
