Thank you (Patreon)

G’day Folks,

Welcome to my end-of-year note to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a happy New Year, and also to give you an idea of what I have in store for the channel over the next year.

To begin, much groundwork was laid this year that will begin to deliver dividends next year. Some of that has been about personal skill development, and has revolved around me learning to do some new things, and work with new materials. You’ll have seen the engine turning, investment casting and enamel work that I have been learning over the past year, and you can expect to see more of all of that over the coming year as I share what I learn.

A main focus of the channel will always be in releasing interesting project videos. A top priority this year has been to develop a pipeline of projects to give me a clear direction for the future. Some of these projects have a long development arc that stretches over several years; others are more immediate. The Dial Indicator project for example (and its associated side projects) are ready to go now, with prototypes complete, and the main series underway. Others will land much later, with the overall intention that in total, they will make up a coherent set of high quality projects.

The main Antikythera project will continue to progress, as will the Fragments series. You will have come to realise, as I have, that this project is no longer just a reconstruction project, but now a genuine research project as well. The contribution we can make to the field is modest, but I hope worthwhile, if only to get more people interested in the machine and what it means. My intention is to let our independent research set the pace of the video releases, to make sure that what we deliver is both meaningful and entertaining. The videos never come as fast as I would like; I truly wish I could crank them out faster! But I will make sure that they are each worth the wait.

The other groundwork laid this year is in the continuing development of the platform I have spoken of a few times over the last 18 months. That the world has changed enormously over the last 2 years needs no explanation; the platform in development is a knowledge sharing tool designed to be something of an antidote to the worst aspects of that change, and to some extent capitalise on the few positives. I will share all of the detail on this as soon as I can.

Clearly it has taken a lot longer than I had expected to deliver. Partly, this is because it has grown beyond the simple idea I and a few other Patrons were kicking around in mid 2020, and partly because it’s so very time consuming to get this sort of thing right. In any event, my intention is to do everything possible to get this thing launched in its minimum viable form within the first half of this coming year, and then develop it further from there. So keep an eye out for that.

As for right now, I am working on the next (main series) Antikythera video and will be online over the whole of the holiday season. So if you want to say G’day, feel free to drop me an email or a comment, or better yet join the Clickspring Discord and get to know your fellow Patrons. You have a standing invite to the weekly chat that I host every Sunday at 2200 UTC, and there is much activity at all other times of the week, on all manner of subjects.

Thank you for your loyal support over the years folks, none of this is possible without you, and I am so very grateful to have that support.

Again, all the very best of the season to you and your family, and I look forward to spending another year with you, doing more of this thing we love, in 2022.

Cheers,

Chris.