No Foolin'
More News, Less Data Science
Despite what some may believe, I really have been trying to keep a positive outlook for 2018. I may gripe about things that annoy me, but as far as the big picture goals and efforts, I committed to maintaining a positive mental attitude that good things will happen in 2018. Basically, keep working hard, and good things will happen. I mentioned the new job and bonus in the previous post, and I have some more great news to share. When getting my annual review on Friday, I found out that I was promoted a salary grade! I had been under the impression that there was no chance of this happening anytime soon. So, I went about my business, grinding away at my work. Talk about a surprise - I was (and still am) blown away. I’m not posting this to brag or boast, by the way. It really feels good though, that my hard work and all the efforts of the past few years are starting to pay dividends. This is no time to rest on my laurels though. I have to keep doing the work and putting in the time and effort. What I really want / need to do is to get back on track with the fast.ai course in deep learning with PyTorch. At this point, I at least know how I want to apply this to the Flint Project; I just haven’t been able to create a workflow for getting it done. The next step is to look into setting up an account on paperspace, as that may allow me the flexibility to work remotely on my laptop, vs. having to use my GPU box. I’ll bounce back to my home machine when the opportunities arise. One other benefit / advantage to using paperspace, is that it gives me the opportunity to learn about using cloud computing systems, which can also bolster my machine learning / data science portfolio.
Other Diversions
In the past few weeks, I’ve been spending more time with my music gear. I have my setup dialed in pretty well right now. I’m really enjoying learning and getting used to the Digitakt and 0-Coast. Running the 0-Coast through a few effects pedals has produced tons of inspiration. The Digitakt itself is also an inspiring piece of gear. It has been exactly what I was hoping - an all-in-one box that I can pick up and create something song-like in a short session. Time is short these days, so if I can’t get something going quickly, I’ll get discouraged and end up not spending any time on a fun hobby. That’s the root of it, I suppose, it has to be fun, right?! At any rate, as the Sunday morning coffee kicks in, and the sounds of the family stirring start, I’ll leave you with a video of one my recent recordings. I think it’s the best things I’ve made using the Digitakt. I had a lot of fun putting these beats and sounds together into something that captures my music-making mood right now. Cheers.