Month of May 2023
Theme of the Month - Hackathon and Zelda
The questions that led me to the posts for May 2023 were:
What AI tools can I use today?
The news is depressing - is there a positive spin I can put on it?
I don’t want AI to replace my creativity - what can’t it replicate? Random experiences.
What do I buy at Costco?
This month started off strong with an internal hackathon. I learned Unity AR Foundation in 4 days with some help of chatGPT, Bard, and this awesome Learn Unity site. The result is this pretty fun NFTsight mobile app available on Android - the bigger idea is to create an AR NFT scavenger hunt so you can collect NFTs minted from regular users with photos that can add on to the value of the original NFT by photographing in the AR virtual world. It didn’t win, but I had a lot of fun. (The projects that did win were incredible and will be added to our product roadmaps).
My conclusion is: There’s no excuse for not learning anything. At first it was: “Just Google it” to find some online tutorials. Then it became: “Just find a video on YouTube” to follow someone teaching you step-by-step. Now it’s: “Just ask chatGPT or Bard” and it will create a plan and generate code for you. What a time to be alive!
The last week has been a little sleep deprived because we got Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I just beat the fire temple. Getting to the Wind temple through all the jumping and climbing took hours in itself. Yay video games!
The blogposts I’ve published this month were:
30 Practical AI Tools - I’ve experimented with an explosion of tools and even started trying some new LLMs besides GPT4. If you want the “SaaS” version of these tools then poke around.
30 Doses of Optimism - There’s still some hopium if you’re hopelessly optimistic.
30 Random H1 2023 Insights - This is still my favorite thing to do on a daily basis - listen to the world and takes notes. I did have a long stint of listening to standup comedy specials and writing down funny dad jokes.
30 Costco Food Buys - The algorithms have guessed correctly! I cook and love food shopping.
Some ideas for June 2023? After starting Wanessa Labs, Inc. I’m thinking about doing fewer lists of 30 and more 30 day challenges creating creative digital assets or growing a reputation by describing experiments. More of this to come. I may keep it to 2 posts per month so I can do chunkier projects.
40 under 40 - I have triumphantly completed my 30 under 30 but I’ve taken a bit of a break the past 6 years due to procrastination. I would like to set new goals and tackle them.
“Our Life in Lists of 30” Book - I really need to publish this second book. I already wrote so much, but I want to complete this stage of my life so I can move forward to “Her Life in Lists of 30”
Thank you for reading and I hope everyone stays safe!
Please suggest a list of 30 and I’ll write it! I’ve written 250+ lists of 30 and only publish ones that I think other people would enjoy. It’s my fun brainstorming routine.