Month: February 2020

Newsletter #5 – Video game analogies, Live life asynchronously, and MakeCode Arcade

Brian T. Jackett Newsletter

“The goal isn’t just to finish the race of life, but to finish the race with nothing left to give”
-John R. Wood: Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Mission

Video game analogies

Thought experiment time.  If you had to describe your life as a video game (pick a gameplay mechanic, theme, story, character, etc.) what would you choose?  For me it would be one of the earliest games I ever played, the “Mario Bros” Game and Watch multi-screen game.  In the game (pictured below) you control Mario and Luigi at a bottling plant filling boxes that are moving back and forth on multiple vertical levels before finally loading them on a truck.  The gameplay mechanic of controlling each brother up and down separately, thinking ahead to when a box would need to be caught by one of the brothers, and the patterns of movement clicked with me from an early age.  How do you see your life as a video game analogy?

TinyLetter-5-3

Every week / month I hear developers, public speakers, etc. discussing “don’t live your life by default“, “start with why“, and more.  I’ll propose my own “phrase to live by” into the mix.

Live life asynchronously.

Live life asynchronously

Let me expand upon this idea a little bit further.

Asynchronous means not occurring at the same time, as in computers and programming when a method begins but releases control until it signals back to the system that the asynchronous method is finished.

In real life there are many tasks that can be started and then picked up when they have completed: laundry, cooking a meal, charging batteries, compiling code, etc.  The interesting part is to figure out when you can start one task and know that it will be ready to pick back up when it is done.

Personally I know that I can start a load of dishes in the dishwasher right after dinner and have them ready to put away shortly before bed.  When I get home from work I can play a game of chase around the house with my older kids and find toys / books / clothes that need to be picked up (doubles as some exercise for all of us).

The other aspect of doing things asynchronously is that it forces you to think about your future self (and others).  By doing X now I know that in Y hours / days / weeks I’ll be ready to finish it.  This ties in to investing (financially, academically, etc.) as well.  I could buy a fancy new electronic gadget now, or I could put that money towards my retirement account / kids’ school costs / donation to charity or plenty of other future needs.

Despite the natural tendency for some folks to minmax the optimal set of tasks that can be completed in a given 24 hr period, the first two words of the phrase mean the most: “live life”.  I’ve never thought to myself “I’m glad I fit in those additional 5 chores around the house today at the expense of spending time with my wife or kids”.  Go on and live life with people first.

MakeCode Arcade

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Recently I found a cool retro game programming platform called MakeCode Arcade.  MakeCode Arcade is free, open-source, and entirely accessible through a browser with no installs required.  Similar to MIT’s Scratch offering you can build games using predefined blocks (or JavaScript if you feel like going advanced) that include game logic, sprites, animations, controller input, and more.  You can also play your own games or a whole host of community games through the browser or download your games to a number of hardware devices (most cost less than $40 last I checked).  If you feel like collaborating you can also share your projects on GitHub for others to enjoy and work on.  I’m looking forward to introducing MakeCode Arcade to my daughter this year to see what she comes up with.

On a similar note I’ve also grown very interested in chiptune music and how it is created.  One of my favorite “artists” is Rich Vreeland who goes by the name Disasterpeace.  I highly recommend these albums:

If you are interested in creating your own chiptune music you can find a handful of tools below. Even though this article says for Windows 10 there are offerings that also have versions for Mac and Linux.

Chiptune music creators for Windows 10
https://www.ilovefreesoftware.com/19/windows-10/chiptune-music-creator-windows-10.html

Have you tried out any fun retro gaming platforms or found good chiptune music?  Share back if so.

-Frog Out

Looking Ahead To 2020

Brian T. Jackett Personal

For many of the past years I’ve written a retrospective (2016, 2015, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010) or look ahead (2019, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010) post to walk through my goals.  This year I am a little behind but with some encouragement from my mentor Sean McDonough I will look ahead at what I have planned for 2020.

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Ahead in 2020

Live life for others

A clip of Keanu Reeves on a late night show answering the question “What happens when we die?” has been popular on social media lately.  If you haven’t gotten to watch this short clip take a minute to do so now:

In the clip Keanu doesn’t focus on himself (or his future self.)  Instead he talks about those who love us and how their lives will be impacted by our passing.

This has been something that I’ve thought about more in the past years as my children have been born.  I enjoy taking an hour or two once a week to do something with one of my kids such as going for a swim at the local gym, a library visit, grocery store run, or similar activity.  I could / should do this more often, especially activities with my wife like our monthly date nights.

Hobbies (and music)

Speaking of my wife, we recent went to a marriage ministry event at a local church.  In one of the videos for the night the couple presenting discussed keeping a dreams journal together.  This dreams journal would contain things that you would like to do in the near term as well as the long term.  My wife and I discussed each of our personal and collective dreams which opened some interesting insights.

For me personally I would like to get back into playing a musical instrument.  In my younger years I played piano for 8 years and guitar for a few.  I won’t claim to be good at either today, but I’ve always been drawn to music as a means to relax or inspire creativity.  I’ve tossed around ideas of starting up drumming but that may wait until my kids are older and we have space to put equipment like that.  For now though I’m looking into creating chiptune or MIDI music on my laptop.

Chiptune music creators for Windows 10

https://www.ilovefreesoftware.com/19/windows-10/chiptune-music-creator-windows-10.html

MidiPiano

http://www.midipiano.net/

STEAM education for girls

Now that I’m the father of 2 girls (in addition to my son) I’m interested in ways to encourage both of my daughters in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) education.  My oldest daughter is already very interested (and good at) art and math.  As for the other areas we’ve bought a few Elenco Snap Circuits kits and I’m looking at a few coding applications that she can use in a year or two.

At a broader level, the Stir Trek Conference that I help organize has a related Stir Scholarship that is awarding young women with scholarships to enter into a degree in software.  If you feel inclined, please donate and spread the word about this scholarship.  I look forward to helping this program grow and continuing to encourage all young women to explore a STEAM education.

Stir Scholarship

https://stirscholarship.org/

Building community at work

In addition to my normal customer work I have also been involved in building an internal community of sorts around Microsoft Graph.  This community is focused on answering questions from my peers in the field as well as connecting people with product group members.  Aside from the technical aspects of this community I’ve also been interested in helping others contribute to documentation (primarily Microsoft’s).  In 2018 I wrote a blog post on the topic but I’m also looking at doing a workshop or recorded video to help others see the process.

How To Edit Microsoft Documentation on GitHub

http://aka.ms/HowToUpdateMsftDocs

Conclusion

While this list is not complete nor are they all measurable goals, this is a starting point for the direction I’ve pointed myself in for the 2020 year.  If you have set your own goals or personal directions I’d love to hear what they are.  Feel free to leave a comment and share.  Thanks and have a great start to 2020.

-Frog Out