It’s pretty sad but it seems about half of the comments on my videos lately are asking if I’m ok and checking in that I’m still in good health. The answer is thankfully yes, though Life things have come up and I did end up spending a lot of time this last year not working directly on videos for several unrelated but important reasons.
I am happy to say, I ALSO spent a lot of time working on videos. Several in fact. Three of them were derailed by the weird state of the world, but others are moving ahead.
However, these videos take a *tremendous* amount of time to research and make. Way more than I ever imagined and while it’s truly a joy to do and the biggest reason why I do it, I still have a different full time job so I only get to spend a few hours most days working on my videos. I often find I spend an entire evening researching one sentence I’m going to write to try and figure out what is ‘fair’ to say as I have to check many sources and try and decide which ones are ‘most’ correct (as often there are contradictions), or, as the video below says, try and find an expert to talk to which is a whole other rabbit hole. It’s really that slow.
When this video came out today, which is not mine but CGP Grey’s, the first six minutes (though I do recommend the whole thing as it later touches on other important points) sum up extremely well what the process is and all of the pitfalls. I highly recommend you check out at least that much to understand what goes on behind the scenes as it is laughably similar to what I’ve gone through. Each topic does indeed become a fractal that goes ever deeper and it’s also true the moment you publish a video every expert imaginable turns up. Still worth it though.
The latest video I’m working on has now actually split into 4 videos because there is just that much material to cover, and ever more the more I research. I’m in the final script stages now of a video that can’t be screwed up by the state of the world and other ones to follow so I hope you have something to enjoy quite soon!
And I hope you are healthy and doing well, too!
I love your videos. Although Mark Twain may have said ‘if I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter’, the first written version of this quotation is from Blaise Pascal:
“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time” (Provincial Letters, Letter XVI, December 4, 1656). (Originally, of course, written in French.)
Twain is often given credit for pithy statements he never made, but this understandable as he was a pithy guy who had much to say and everybody love Twain, or so it seems. I for sure do.
Excuse the pedantic response–just thought you would appreciate this knowledge especially since Pascal is so important to the scientific revolution as well as philosophy, empiricism, geometry, mathematics, statistics, physics, Pascal’s Wager, prose writing/rhetoric, inventor of the first or one of the first mechanical calculators, social sciences, and rhetoric (he had much to say about language). He is worthy of one your videos.
Your videos are treasures–I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.
Thank you for the kind words. Pascal does show up in one of my videos where I talk about his pascaline. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a few in person!
https://youtu.be/waEqmfH7z2Y?t=294
I see you are a very smart person and I am a knucklehead for not watching the video to the end. Indeed, we all love Pascal!!!! Well done!
I am so pleased that you are still healthy and working. I only discovered your videos a few weeks ago and I find them entertaining as well as educational: this is a key to getting people to learn. My father was a lecturer in Geology and his lectures were always dotted with funny reminiscences and examples to reinforce the points he was trying to cover. My mother snuck into one of his lectures and was amazed at how full the lecture theatre was: standing room only because not only geologists, but geographers, historians, chemists, they all came because he was such a comic. And they learned a lot!
So thank you for making your beautifully produced films – I work in one of the side aspects of the entertainment industry, I can tell high quality production at fifty paces and I see it with your films.
Here’s looking forward to your next one and please do keep up the good work!