Some Highlights
Before we start out, this was a tough year. Not only for me but also for many people. I got to watch lots of people forced to makes changes to their lives they never thought they would need to. But, from hardship we learn a lot - and I learned some lessions this year.
The first would have to be that nobody believes you if don’t already have something. Much of the respect that gets given to me is due to others watching me fall into problems and then come out the other side with solutions.
But, in my own personal life I don’t have problems. There is no drama or technical limits I run up against on a daily basis; there is no Technology Stack which I need to reach for to solve anything. I’ve managed my life so well and so ruthlessly that I could sit here and read without much of a single real problem of any kind to disturb me. This is excellent if I want to spend time fiddling around but not so great if I want to grow beyond where I am.
As I work to condense my old lectueres notes from previous classes, I realize how much knowledge sat around to gather dust. I have plenty of books on Apache Spark or building a Database from scratch but I have no Cluster nor Database to my name. I have used some of what I have gained with respect to my job but nothing compared to slid my fingers across. When was the last time I used an ROC curve for anything? Literally never.
I know that I can pick up any one of these books at implement anything in them without too many problems. I have lectures and code examples for building Algorithms to setting up Machine Learning Pipelines. I can do these things even if I run into them in real world; I have already in the internal projects that I have applied some of this too. But, if I cannot point at a website or a repository or a blog post showing I have done this and can do this then it means nothing. Too many people lie about what they are capable of to get into roles they want; too many people sell well beyond what they can actually do. I need public works for the topics I am touching or I mind as well not have taken the class - or read the book - at all.
The second would be Leisure time is a must - even if we think otherwise. I’m a workaholic and I enjoy spinning the wheels. It doesn’t even matter much if I’m going anywhere as long as whatever is getting them spinning is novel in some way. And, that’s where you end up in burn out. Even if it is something you enjoy doing, you can still burn out. This is a really hard lesson for someone like me who likes pushing on boundaries. I sleep less than I should: purposefully. I will work even when my body literally is fighting me to do otherwise. I’ve been at work doing my job with migraines so bad I have to actaully cycle between keeping my eyes away from the screen which hurts me back to trying to solve whatever it is I’m working on. Don’t do this. Projects might be fun but they’re not freinds.
Next would be If you haven’t actively used something recently, then sell it off to someone who will. As I work out how I’m going to move to different state, I am sorting everything. I have repeat books and motherboards which I never needed. I always kept them under the impression that I would make more servers out of them. I kept a rule in place where if the first server I built never made me money then I wouldn’t build the others; I never obviosuly made anything from the Server I had. We keep so much clutter around we don’t need that others certiainly could put to better use. I shoul of sold these motherboards long ago to someone who would actaully use them.
Anyways, on to the review.
Read 50 Books: Failed.
At this point, I think I am somewhere around 25-30 books but I have not really been keeping track. I realized that the pressure to meet this goal was causing me to pick books that I would not otherwise. I started caring more about page counts then the importance or quality of the books I was reading. If I’m going to read this Encylopedia of History to fill in a lot of gaps then how many history books is that worth? Is it worth only one - and if it is then what does that number really mean? This is basically a Quality vs. Quantity argument and I am coming down on the quality side here. I wont be carrying this goal forward.
I will note that the hack I talked about in the previous post - using a Browser Text-To-Speech Reader - no longer works and soon after I wrote that post it stopped working. But again, I have Audiobooks on audible and extra credits. I also found a solid podcast which does readings of historical books and documents which was a nice find.
Three Streams of Income: Failed.
My normal job is still fine for now so we’ll skip to the other stuff.
Streaming
I have been streaming for a while now and it’s hard. I am not surprised that people fail so often at this. There is so much against being successful in this. And, I mean just making any kind of money at all let alone living off this. I did an analysis of some channels at random around the 50-100 viewer average and they really don’t make that much. Granted, I can only judge based on the gifted subs and bits since I cannot see how many people actually subscribe. But, you just don’t make that much. And, that assumes you can even get off the floor and have people continue to show up. Getting someone to follow your content is hard; getting them to come back is even harder. This problem is not better on Youtube either. The general idea is to funnel people from different platforms around but you would need impressions on those other platforms. No wonder content creates jump to any new platform as fast as they can; if you’re the first few then you can funnel whoever is around easier.
Splitgate is dead at this point. They are ending development on it to do a proper release of it as a new game sans the technical debt they incured while making it. The numbers for streaming it were not that great anyways which is too bad since it was fun to play. I believe there is a post around here about why I quit the game: they lied about the number of real people in my games. I may come back around to that at some point when I rediscover the code I wrote to detect this.
Web Design
I strongly dislike Web Design but also the amount of competition here is expansive. I dislike it for the same reason there are so many people doing it: it is boringly easy most of the time. The repetition is painful for me as I get bored too easily of it. Of course, this is excellent from money making perspective; you solve a problem and sell the solution with minor updates to others who need the same problem solved. I should start looking into paid APIs since that could be something interesting that could be a second income. I still want a second income.
Logo Design
I did a solid amount of drawing practice but am still not very good. I would be very happy to be able to do this as a side gig of some kind. Maybe I could mix Stable Diffusion with some photoshop skills to make some cool ideas.
36 Blog Posts For The Year: Passed.
I counted out the posts and I counted 32 at the time of writing. This will be post number 33 and I have at least 3 other posts being written now. I’m getting much better about writing these and applying what I learn. I expect this to continue as my prototyping skills and ability to plan these posts is stepping up quickly.
New Job Title: Failed.
This has much to do with forces outside my control. My plans were to move up in my present company but this is no longer a realistic goal. I have waiting too long for this and I will be immediately proceeding with a new title.
Secret Project
The Secret Project was a Video Game. I really tried to get this working but it just did not really get off the ground. There were a lot of lessons learned - namely make sure that people are able to do the work before adding them to the project. Or, at least provable that they will do work and learn. I now realize exactly why companies give out tests to see if people can even do work.
Frankly, I refuse to give up on this one. As soon as I have soemthing a bit more stable, I’m going to start working on the smallest possible subset of systems necessary to do this alone. That means: 1. Simple character models. 2. Simple game design. 3. Simple music and sound effect design. 4. Simple level design.
What I plan to do is to take Children’s Stories from The Junior Classics and convert them into small games. As I work through each one, I will hopefully solve a single problem or two more and add them to a collection of solutions for larger projects. From that, I will slowly build up into more and more complicated games.