0 A.D.

Today’s post will be fairly short, for a few reasons. First, I’ve been busy, and don’t feel like writing a lengthy post. And second, I have been distracted playing 0 A.D., a free and open-source game of ancient warfare, akin to Age of Empires.

I’ve heard of the game prior to today, but it was brought back to my attention via a post by Kev on Fosstodon. And so, after work, I downloaded it and started to play.

RSS For The Win!

I love reading. I have read ever since I can remember. Before I was around computers, I read physical books. When our family got a computer in the early 2000s I continued reading books, but also began reading news online.

Fast forward to the early 2010s. My reading habits had not changed much, although I added some digital books and magazines to my reading collection. But then, I discovered blogs.

Improving My Zoom Audio Qualtiy

Zoom: The New Normal

In mid-March, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect daily life, many companies (including the one I work for) began having all employees work from home that could with reasonable efficiency. For me, this meant taking what is a fairly social job (of the 8-9 hours I’m at work a day, 1-2 hours tend to be impromptu or scheduled conversations) and moving it almost 100% online. Fun…

Unwinding

As I start writing this blog post, it’s already 8:50p. Normally I try to at least come up with what I’m going to write about earlier in the day. But today I kept busy enough that I only thought about blogging once or twice.

I started out working from home this morning, but then something came up with work that required me to head in to the office for the afternoon (first time in around 2 weeks). After a few hours of beating my head against a wall, I managed to find the issue, and push a fix. By that time it was already after 5p, and so I headed home, while keeping up with Slack chats along the way (and throughout dinner).

Monday Miscellany

I was struggling a little today with deciding what to write about. So instead of one large topic, I have 4 mini-topics!

Into The Storm

First up, a podcast I’ve really been enjoying recently: Into the Storm. Technically part of the Froning and Friends podcast (made up of Rich Froning and others in the Crossfit community), Into the Storm is currently a weekly podcast where the hosts take a passage/chapter from the Bible, read through it, and discuss it. It’s not highly structured, nor is it deeply theological. Rather, it’s just a good discussion, and is something I am looking forward to listening to every week.

Book Review: Console Wars

Earlier this year I began to renew my interest in video games, the culture surrounding them, and the all of the work that goes into their creation. One of the books that I heard about while listening to a gaming-related podcast was Console Wars by Blake J. Harris. And so, as I have a habit of doing, I immediately pulled out my phone, opened the Amazon app, and ordered a paperback copy of the book.

Turns Out, I’m an Introvert!

I consider myself an introvert. There’s never been a time in my 30 years on this planet where I didn’t think of myself as an introvert. But over the past few years, as I became more and more involved in both work and church, I started to believe that maybe I was some kind of introvert/extrovert hybrid, or that I was evolving into an extrovert. I still enjoyed time by myself, but I was constantly going places with people, chatting with friends (in person and online), etc. And then the COVID-19 pandemic happened.