April '25 Postcard
My public letter to friends to keep them updated
I couldn’t wait to get back to writing another one of these. I’m grateful for how the last few essays challenged me as a writer, but they also took me ~20 hours each.1
I need an interruption from what I’m working on to geek out on some of the things which have been occupying my mind as of late.
What I’ve been learning
I started my dive into the world of programming. I’ve been learning JavaScript for the last few weeks, and I’ve got the hang of some basic HTML. I figured with AI, programmers are going to be wildly productive in the future and if I can at least understand the basics I’ll be able to create some of my own projects.
First up, a website!
I’m a proud owner of a domain and I can’t wait to start writing on my own slice of the internet, a little world which I can call my own. Copilot can already build the whole thing for me but I’m making sure I understand how it works first so I can make changes later.
Something that’s giving me joy
I’ve been feeding ChatGPT photos I took while traveling and remaking them as sketches.
I had wanted to pick up sketching as another way (aside from photo and video) to capture some of what I’ve seen while I travel. Though honestly these come out so good that I’ll probably stick to photography and prompting for a while.2
I was disappointed with how my original photos came out for some of these locations, (left and middle) either the lighting wasn’t any good to work with or I just couldn’t get the “perfect” shot. I knew the viewpoints themselves had so much potential though. With a little prompting I get to transfer that potential into a different medium. What I fail to capture with a camera I may be able to improve with a poor picture and a prompt.
I like some of these so much, I’m printing them out to display in my home.
I can’t wait to see what some of my photos will look like as oil paintings.
What I’ve been reading
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - This is the first time I’ve opened up one of his books but man I LOVED it. He’s mostly known for writing The Martian though I suspect this one might gain even more popularity. I finished the whole audiobook (fantastic production) in just under a week. I teared up twice listening to it. If you like sci-fi this is a must read.
Last month I finished - Restoring Pride by Richard Taylor and Ultralearning by Scott Young
Ultralearning inspired me to take on the website project and to add some rotating constraints to practice my writing.
Anyways, thanks for reading.
Keaton.
P.S - I thought calling these “Postcards” were a perfect fit for The Wayfarer since these are meant to keep up with you guys. I love that it fits the travel aesthetic.
I’m taking myself through some learning material and paying as much attention as I can to the process of writing an essay. I know I can just dump a ton of time into it to make them good but I really really need to speed up by simplifying or learning to avoid some of the big time wasters I run into in the process.
I’m still going to practice sketching on my next trip just because I want to be able to do it, but this is my lazy shortcut for now. I originally hadn’t though about the angle for it to “save my bad photos” but I’ve found from playing around with it that for a few I genuinely like the sketches more. (Most photos are still better as photos but it’s cool to see)