Catching Up

Two weeks ago, a friend pointed out the cobwebs on my site. “I enjoyed those Formula 1 data articles,” he said. He lives in Argentina, the home country of a driver currently on the grid, so I believe him. And he's right, you know, I went from writing almost biweekly to not typing a single word last year.

A few things led to that.

First, and this is subjective and purely my perspective, the data scene feels less exploratory than it did a couple of years ago. Large language models (LLMs) dominate the conversation (understandably; they’re incredible), and many conferences circle the same questions: how to use them, how to train them, how to live with them. It's exciting, but it also means my favorite offbeat topics get less stage time. Many of my ideas were inspired by these events and the knowledge I gained from them. Now that I'm less active, I've struggled to find that "whoa, I'd like to play around with this technique" moment.

Second, time—the classic excuse. Let’s be real, the first reason is a bit lame. I could’ve searched for new communities, but between reading (a lot), learning more statistics, trying new tech, enjoying late-afternoon walks, photography, and playing Pokémon, I didn’t make the effort to attend or participate. That part’s on me.

Third, I’ve been working on longer projects. I’ve been tinkering with microprocessors, mobile development, and home automation. Some projects are half-baked or not quite worth sharing yet, but others are getting there.

Several are now far enough along that I’d like to write about them. To get there, I probably need to take a small break from Pokémon and Duolingo and get back to producing the kind of posts I used to love writing. And no, I probably won’t be writing about Formula 1—unless Lewis Hamilton stands on the podium.