Monthly Update: November, 2024
A few more AI-related posts, a successful post on titles and a few updates.
Hey folks, what a busy October has been! We are more than halfway through the semester, and things are moving in every direction. There’s already too little light during the day here in New England. The sky gets dark around 4:30, but the weather has been amazing. Fall is really incredible here. 🍁
So what happened in October? This month has, once again, been filled with AI-related posts.
We started the month with the publication of my long video chat with Tyler Sloan. Tyler walked us through a whole session demonstrating how he uses ChatGPT for data science projects. The video is a bit long but totally worth it. I keep being blown again about what these machines can do.
Later in October, I published a short review of a second event on AI and visualization we organized at Northeastern University. This time, the focus was on the use of generative AI in visualization. We had three excellent panelists, and the conversation was very balanced and insightful. The recording can be accessed from the post below.
The month ended with a core data visualization post. No AI this time! I started a mini-series on the use of titles in visualization. In this first post, I focused on some empirical evidence I extracted from scientific papers on the relevance and use of titles.
I was positively surprised by how much interest this post generated! People left many comments and reactions both here and on LinkedIn. I am not exactly sure why this post gained so much traction, but I suspect that this format, where I summarize the existing science on a relevant topic, could work really well for future posts. I will certainly try again. If you want to see more of this kind of post, please leave a comment below. This will help me get a sense of what my readers enjoy the most.
The next posts of the mini-series are being prepared. I think I’ll show more scientific evidence before moving to my personal categorization of types of titles and their pros and cons.
On a completely different note, you may remember I put my name forward to be elected as part of the steering committee of IEEE VIS. Unfortunately, I have not been elected, but I want to thank all those who voted for me. I truly appreciate your help. There is a chance I’ll try again next year.
The online version of my Rhetorical Data Visualization course is almost completed! Next week, I’ll meet a few FILWD readers for a second pilot. They will take the second part of the course and meet with me over two days. Once this is done, I will provide way more information about the course, and the pre-registrations will open. I am incredibly excited about publishing my first course here. If you want to receive notifications specific to the course, add a comment here, and I’ll add you to the mailing list.
One last thing: I have been meaning to turn the FILWD chats into a podcast so that you can listen to them using your favorite apps. Substack makes activating a podcast really easy, and it’s only a matter of turning it on. Before doing that, I am curious to hear what you think. Would you be interested in having more regular chats (probably one every month) and being able to access them as a podcast? Please let me know by leaving a comment below.
Before concluding, I want to mention a fantastic book I finished reading this month, The Goal by Eliyahu M Goldratt. Have you heard about it? What an incredible book! It’s a business novel, a genre I did not know well before. Goldratt introduces the “theory of constraints,” a theory he developed for the management of industrial plants that can be extended to many other domains, including personal management. The interesting thing is that instead of writing a textbook or a technical book to introduce his ideas, he developed a whole novel, including romance and adventure. In a way, it reminds me of Ayn Rand’s books in that she also wrote (super long) novels to introduce a particular idea. I am now curious to see if there are other books like that. Is there anything that comes to mind? If you have suggestions, please let me know.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!