Dean's Newsletter #5
Processing, Productive Searches, and Perfume Genius
Howdy!
Here’s this week’s sampling of 5 things I find useful and interesting.
The Coding Train
🚂 - I’ve only ever had the word “programmer” in my job title for a year or two in my working life, but I’ve always loved programming. I especially love the combination of creativity and art with programming. In 2008 I first saw Robert Hodgins’ sound responsive visualization of Radiohead’s Weird Fishes Arpeggi.
I found out this was created generatively using a programming language called Processing so I bought a book and jumped in.
One of the earliest influences in my Processing learning path was Daniel Shiffman and his book The Nature of Code. It introduced me to particle systems, evolutionary algorithms, cellular automata, and more. He’s an amazingly effective teacher and now for the past 7 years has been teaching creative coding tutorials on YouTube. He teaches coding basics all the way up to machine learning concepts in multiple programming languages. When I’m looking to learn new things I still find my way back to Daniel Shiffman and his Coding Train series.
Custom Chrome Search Engines
🕵️♂️ - I highly suggest using Chrome’s custom search engine tools. Here’s an overview:
Some of my most used custom search sites (and therefore most visited sites) and keywords:
SITE | KEYWORD
-------------------------
Amazon | a
Ebay | e
Google | g
Google Images | gi
Google Maps | gm
Instructables | i
Just Watch | jw
KSL | ksl
Processing | p
Reddit | r
Stack Overflow | so
Touchdesigner | td
Ultimate Guitar | ug
Wikipedia | w
Wirecutter | wc
Wolfram Alpha | wa
YouTube | ytSo now when I want to search cat videos on YouTube I go to the address bar (Cmd+L) and type “yt cats” and it takes me right to my search results.
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe
🎧 - Of all the podcasts I listen to, the one I have listened to for the longest amount of time is The Skeptics Guide to the Universe. It serves as my weekly news update for all things science and skeptical thinking. Their weekly COVID update is my most reliable source on the topic. Listening to this podcast will help you be a little less wrong about things.
Listen
🎵. - Loving this track this week.
My appreciation of Perfume Genius started after watching this Tiny Desk Concert. It’s worth a watch.
Quote
What fools call “wasting time” is most often the best investment.
Previous Posts
Thanks for reading. If you’re new, check out my previous posts: