September 2024 (Nova Scotia, Ai Startup, Oiaf)

September, 2024

Hey there,

Once per month I write a quick post that covers what I got up to over the past ~30 days. This is that post for September.

Here’s the quick summary:

  1. I drove to Nova Scotia (14 hour drive) with 1 Day’s Notice
  2. I’m doing contract work for an AI <> Psychology Startup
  3. I attended the International Animation Festival in Ottawa

Driving to Nova Scotia with 1 Day’s Notice

On September 1st, a close friend of mine (Corbin) invited me to go on a trip with him to the Canadian East Coast in Nova Scotia. Naturally, I accepted with little details and we left from my house the next day around 5:00am.

It was a 14 hour drive, but I found it passes relatively quickly. We managed to cycle through all of our recent playlists on Spotify, and did some driving in silence. We arrived there and went to sleep.

The tide there was incredible. When we arrived in Nova Scotia, we drove over what I believed to be a river, but the next day when we crossed the bridge again, it had “dried up”. It was actually just a long gully, and when the tide rolls in, it fills up and flows West, when the tide goes out, it empties and the “river” flows East.

As you can see from the picture above, it’s a strange sight. That picture is taken 2.4 kilometres away from the coastline. I’m standing on the ocean floor. The ground varied between mud, sand, and rocks. Smaller creeks formed through the sand and flowed in the direction of the tide.

I don’t know of anywhere else in the world where this phenomenon occurs. Do you?

The AI <> Psychology Startup

I am currently doing contract work for an AI startup in the field of Psychology. I can’t write much about it now, but it is taking up a large portion of my time — I’m learning tons, having fun, and doing something cool.

We’re currently working towards our launch, and I will be able to share many more details in the coming months.

Attending the Ottawa International Animation Festival

On a yearly basis, Ottawa hosts an International festival for animators to come together and talk about movies, techniques, and the industry. For those who don’t know, animators are the people behind animated movies.

This is not at all my field of expertise, but I think it to be interesting nonetheless. When I used to participate in game jams (video game development competitions) I would do everything on my own, including animation.

There’s also a lot of talk about AI in the animation industry at the moment, mainly image generation models such as MidJourney and Sora. An interesting pattern I noticed is that long-standing industry professionals were not afraid of the new technology, whereas most of the fear and anger came from the up and coming animators.

That’s all for this September, thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

Nico