Taking it easy this weekend, but reminding myself of a few things to move ahead on.
The Ubercross Abecedaria, naturally. I’ll be tucking into the U-grid this week.
A new word list, which is related. My plan is to start by comparing various word lists I have, categorizing them as best I can, and trying to downgrade and upgrade based on what feels more “twenty-first century.” A lot of word lists keep outdated terms and pop-culture references, way past their sell-by date. Some references are perennial, or at least still familiar today. Others really aren’t.
More systems theory. The categories I laid out for wordplay were meant as a start. I’ve promised to give this some more thought and lay out a more detailed system. I’ll be making sure to live up to that.
Finishing the ChatGPT Cinderella tests. This one will be set in motion soon: a larger-scale poll to determine more conclusively whether human innovators beat ChatGPT’s most public wordplay feat.
Request new interviews. I don’t have an interview lined up for The Journal of Wordplay #3, but I have a few names in mind whom I’ll be contacting by the end of the week.
Publishing initiative. I can’t talk about this one too much just yet, but it’s likely I’ll be republishing—or helping to republish—an item or two that I’ve cited elsewhere in this Substack as remarkable.
Learning some Perl and R. This one’s likely to be tricky. Computer languages are not my forte: it’s been ages since the last one I picked up. But I have friends who are very into one or both of these, and knowing a modest amount could make a lot of things easier.
Getting cozier with the Library of Congress. I live in the D.C. area. It’s right there.
Making overtures to the academic community. For The Journal of Wordplay to thrive and grow, relationships within that community are important. And now that we have a couple of issues under our belts, there’s more to talk about.
Building a webpage for all the work in the Word Ways-Interim-TJoW lineage. There should be a place to download it all.
That’ll do for the next few months, I think!
A lot to look forward to! :)