When I started this online journal, one of my goals was to use it in place of social media. So, the idea was to post photos or videos here, instead of on Facebook or Instagram. Video game clips in particular was something I shared on Instagram. I no longer have a public Instagram account. And I'm running out of space on OneDrive because of my growing backlog of video game clips. So, I'm going to start a new series on here: Game Clips. These are going to contain video game clips from the various games I play/played.
To start off, I'm sharing a game clip from The Division. Before the release of the second game, this was one of my “go to” games. It is an online open-world tactical shooter that you can play solo. The story is engaging. The cover system in this game is really good, which makes combat enjoyable. It is a good game.
I cannot remember where I saw it. It could have been on the Good Books website, or a recommendation on Amazon. Either way, I found a link to the book and checked it out. The book seemed interesting as I've been trying to find ways to instill more discipline in myself. Specifically, discipline in my diet and exercise. I read a review that mentioned how Part 2 of the book focused on fitness and health. It also mentioned that the author gets up everyday at 4:30am to workout. And that he proves this by posting a photo on Instagram every morning. I checked out his Instagram account and it was true. So, I was like, I need to know how he does it every day. So, I bought the book.
I find that working out with free weights stresses my body in a good way. I get a similar but less potent feeling when working out with the Total Gym. I don't get the same feeling when working out with the Bullworker. Does it mean that it doesn't work? No, it works. I can see myself getting stronger on it. It just doesn't feel like I'm working out. I feel that working out with free weights like dumbbells are the way to go.
I'm also starting to be more selective of the exercises I do. I try to do ones that mimic everyday movements. If an exercise moves my body or uses my muscles in a way that will never happen in real life, I'm going to skip it.
We were supposed to get the Kullen dresser from Ikea. When we finally saw it in person, we found that it was smaller than expected. It was also cheap because they decided to do some cost cutting on the roller mechanism for the drawers.
In my last play-through, I made a huge mistake of not keeping my army up to date. I went with defending cities with one Legion unit. Some cities had Pikeman units, and others had ancient Warrior units guarding them. This happened because I was taking a pacifist approach to the game. I was trying to win the game through religious victory. To win with a religious victory, you have to convert all other civilizations to your religion. You don't have to capture or invade cities belonging to other civilizations. So, my army was only for defense. I never started any wars against other civilizations. After clearing out the barbarians on my home continent, I let my guard down. I didn't notice that Japan, my next-door neighbor, was amassing Samurai units beyond my borders. Their target was my capital city of Rome.
A really good introduction to the sacraments of the Catholic Church. It also covers the first sacrament, the sacrament of Baptism. Questions like: What are the sacraments? Why are they the most important thing in the world? What is the fundamental sacrament? What happens when people get baptized? How is grace tied in to the sacraments? And more questions are answered in this episode.
One of the most enlightening parts of this first episode for me, was when Bishop Barron talked about the duties of a baptized Christian. As a baptized Christian, we are priest, prophet and king. What does it mean to be a priest? How do we live out our prophetic duties in today's world? And what are our kingly duties in modern society? All those are covered in this episode.
Was working on a Glitch app that can show the most popular posts (most views) on my online journal. To verify that it was working, I displayed the view count beside the post title. I almost got sucked in again into the number of a views a certain post got. Made me wonder why other posts were more popular than the rest. It is a slippery slope that I fear will lead me to writing to an audience instead of for myself. Thankfully, I was about done with the app and was able to stop displaying the view counts soon after.
In case you're wondering, the Popular Posts app is embedded at the bottom of my About page.
Have had this open on a tab on my browser for awhile now. I finally got to it. Good list of apps, tools, utilities and even tips for Windows users. There's also some information on alternatives if you're on MacOS.
Somehow, I did not discover Alt-D until 2018, which means that I had spent the entirety of my 24 years since triple-clicking to select every single URL I’d ever copied. I built a media company this way, and I can’t believe nobody told me about this shortcut. Open any given web browser, use Alt-D, and your selection will move to the URL in the address bar on top of the page. It’s very possible this will be of little use to you, but anyone who regularly shares or copies links will save themselves so much time.
Interesting read on “the Spotify model”, why Spotify themselves don’t use it and neither should you.
While Spotify gave teams control over their way of working, many people did not have a basic understanding of Agile practices. This resulted in teams iterating through process tweaks in blind hope of finding the combination that would help them improve their delivery. People lacked a common language to effectively discuss the process problems, the education to solve them, and the experience to evaluate performance. It was not really agile. It was just not-waterfall.
Huh, this seems awfully familiar.
When Agile Scrum introduced new meanings to a bunch of words like burn-down and sprint, it did so because it introduced new concepts that needed names. Spotify introduced the vocabulary of missions, tribes, squads, guilds, and chapter leads for describing its way of working. It gave the illusion it had created something worthy of needing to learn unusual word choices. However, if we remove the unnecessary synonyms from the ideas, the Spotify model is revealed as a collection of cross-functional teams with too much autonomy and a poor management structure.
When I first learned about “the Spotify model”, I loved the idea of getting to work in a tribe, squad or guild. I thought it sounded pretty cool. I bet it appealed to most developers who've played MMOs before.
Watched more episodes of The Witcher than I intended to, but damn that show is good! Some of the dialogue the characters have were hilarious. Even Geralt's one liners were funny.
The Bard character, Jaskier, is great as comic relief for the show. Some of my favorite Jaskier scenes were the ones in the episode with the Djinn. There was one scene where he was with Yennefer and he was singing, “Toss a coin to your Witcher, oh valley of p....” You'll have to watch the whole scene to understand, but I laughed so hard at that one.
The songs they composed for this show, the original soundtrack is very good. Even the ones that Jaskier wrote for Geralt were good. Looking forward to watching more episodes.
Finished watching Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates. Interesting insight into what makes Bill Gates tick. I've already mentioned in a previous journal entry that one of the things I've learned is that he reads a lot. To expand on that, he reads 4-5 books on the same topic to get a good understanding of it. An example shown in the documentary, was his collection of books on “Climate Change”.
While he was working at Microsoft, he worked hard. Probably worked harder than anyone else in the company. That was one of the factors that helped Microsoft stay at the top as one of the best software companies in the world. It probably would have sucked to work for Microsoft during their formative years. I say this because of how much they valued “hard work”. When I say hard work, I mean the kind of work where you come into the office early and leave late. Sometimes not leaving at all until you finish what you are working on. The kind of hard work where work-life balance tilts heavily in favor of work. The not fun type of hard work. My impression was that Bill expected this kind of work ethic from everyone who worked in the company.
Finished reading the book