favorites of october 2023

content/post/2023/10/achievement-fatigue.md

@@ -5,11 +5,11 @@ categories:
   - braindump
 ---
 
-For decades, I've been trained to optimize my thinking in terms of numbers. I've been pushed to be more productive, and enjoyed being more productive, which in turn led to searchers how to be even more productive. I've accomplished things and felt good about it, motivating myself to accomplish more things. 
+For decades, I've been trained to optimize my thinking in terms of numbers. I've been pushed to be more productive, and enjoyed being more productive, which in turn led to searchers on how to be even more productive. I've accomplished things and felt good about it, motivating myself to accomplish more things. 
 
 But I've always been quite bad at stopping and reflecting back on the accomplished thing. I rarely compliment myself, I usually think the things achieved are nothing special, and I keep my eyes focused on the future, where more things need to be produced, optimized, and accomplished. There's barely time left to breathe, let alone pat myself on the back: that time is better spend doing more stuff.
 
-Yet sometimes, I suffer from what you might call _achievement fatigue_: I question my motives, I ask myself what the hell I'm doing or supposed to be doing, and sometimes, I cut myself some slack. I'm clearly over-exaggerating here to make the point come across: I'm not a workaholic---far from it. I detest working after 5 PM (nowadays even 4 PM is a stretch) or working more than 38 hours a week (nowadays even 30 hours is a stretch). I have that luxury precisely _because_ I trained myself to be highly efficient and productive. I published more by doing less. 
+Yet sometimes, I suffer from what you might call _achievement fatigue_: I question my motives, I ask myself what the hell I'm doing or supposed to be doing, and sometimes, I cut myself some slack. I'm clearly over-exaggerating here to make the point come across: I'm not a workaholic---far from it. I detest working after 5 PM (nowadays even 4 PM is a stretch) or working more than 38 hours a week (nowadays even 30 hours is a stretch). I have that luxury precisely _because_ I trained myself to be highly efficient and productive. I publish more by doing less. 
 
 Yet sometimes, I suffer from what you might call _achievement fatigue_: I question why I publish, what I'm supposed to be publishing instead, and why I keep track of the things I've achieved. On the one hand, I'm proud of myself for having done the things I did, but on the other hand, one voice in my head says it's nothing special (it really isn't---see?) and I should get off my ass to do more.
 
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ Yet sometimes, I suffer from what you might call _achievement fatigue_: I questi
 
 I shouldn't be too hard for myself, as in modern society, it's very _very_ hard to get out of the achievement loop. Every single thing we come into contact with every single day subconsciously pushed everyone to achieve more: from the mundane clock that is ticking to job descriptions, superficial conversations about job descriptions on cocktail parties, any news article on any website, newspaper, or TV station, every single ad that gets shoved down our throats, ... 
 
-I've been in teams where going home at 4:30 PM is being frowned upon, even though the obligatory eight hours of sitting behind a computer for that day were thankfully over: it's cool to compete with colleagues in the battle for the best workaholic. It's not cool if you've got other interests or hobbies. I consider myself lucky that after rejoining academia and ending up in a small research group where nobody cares about anyone's whereabouts or work status, I can do whatever I want at my own pace. Yet in academia, the general work pressure and focus on numbers is arguably even more unhealthy than in industry. If I meet colleagues who ask whether or not it's busy at our faculty/campus, remember that that isn't a question: they won't listen for the answer---it's a resounding yes. It's always a yes. Busy busy busy. If you're not busy, you're simply a slacker. 
+I've been in teams where going home at 4:30 PM is being frowned upon, even though the obligatory eight hours of sitting behind a computer for that day were thankfully over: it somehow is cool to compete with colleagues in the battle for the best workaholic. It's not cool if you've got other interests or hobbies. I consider myself lucky that after rejoining academia and ending up in a small research group where nobody cares about anyone's whereabouts or work status, I can do whatever I want at my own pace. Yet in academia, the general work pressure and focus on numbers is arguably even more unhealthy than in industry. If I meet colleagues who ask whether or not it's busy at our faculty/campus, remember that that isn't a question: they won't listen for the answer---it's a resounding yes. It's always a yes. Busy busy busy. If you're not busy, you're simply a slacker. 
 
 I try very hard to be a slacker while keeping my productive engine online, and for the last five years, that has worked out pretty well. But still, to what end? Why do I have to dance the dance or to compete in the first place? I find it very disturbing that nobody is asking these questions. 
 

content/post/2023/10/september-2023.md

@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ Yes! I mean, _yes_, I finally made some time to pick up a game or two.
 - [Jazz Jackrabbit](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/pc/jazz-jackrabbit/) was the DOS Game Club's August game I finished 2 days overtime. I used to love the shareware episodes. Now I think it's a mediocre Sonic impression on PC. The soundtrack still rocks, though.
 - I'm going back to retro shooters or retro-inspired ones, with [Quake (2021 Remaster)](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/switch/quake/) as the first I thought I'd enjoy less than I did. As a Duke 3D fan, I never really played it back in 1996 (and I probably didn't have the Voodoo card that helped run it). The remaster is awesome, and the new expansion map pack alone is worth its ridiculously low €10 price. I collected some thoughts and screenshots, so be sure to give click on the above link.
 
-After _Quake_, I wanted to play _DUSK_, a more recent shooter with _Quake_/_DOOM_ influences that's supposedly very _very_ good, and also a good fit for the Month of Spookiness. But then I bought _Nightmare Reaper_ instead---after years of secretly admiring gameplay footage, but without access to a console port. I'm almost done with it: boredom is setting in.
+After _Quake_, I wanted to play [DUSK](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/switch/dusk/), a more recent shooter with _Quake_/_DOOM_ influences that's supposedly very _very_ good, and also a good fit for the Month of Spookiness. But then I bought _Nightmare Reaper_ instead---after years of secretly admiring gameplay footage, but without access to a console port. I'm almost done with it: boredom is setting in.
 
 ## Selected (blog) posts
 

content/post/2023/11/october-2023.md

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+---
+title: "Favorites of October 2023"
+date: 2023-11-02T10:00:00+01:00
+tags:
+  - metapost
+---
+
+It's spooky season! Wait, no, again. Spooky season is over! Or are we still in it? For just this week you say? I never really understood the Halloween craze and dismissed it as yet another Americanized craze that made its way to Europe, but after participating in a ghost hunt for children, I revised my opinion: it can be a lot of fun, both for the children and their parents. Luckily, our daughter is still too young to get frightened by the man with the creepy mask and hopefully dull axe. She looked at everything with great interest, including the gory props. Don't worry, there was still plenty of daylight left, keeping the truly horrifying jump-scares at bay.
+
+Somehow, last month's [Overlooked Reasons To Still Buy Physical Media](/post/2023/09/overlooked-reasons-to-still-buy-physical-media/) post recently blew up in popularity and made it to Hacker News. I'm glad to see others still fighting the fight as well. The comments on that site are... interesting. 
+
+Previous month: [September 2023](/post/2023/10/september-2023).
+
+## Books I've read
+
+Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer’s Brieven uit Genua (_Letters from Genoa_) is finished at last. Although the writing in _Genoa_ is as excellent and erudite as can be expected of a Pfeijffer work, I still prefer [Grand Hotel Europa](/post/2022/12/grand-hotel-europa/). 
+
+I tried getting into several books, such as John Cleese's _On Life And How To Survive It_, but the writing was surprisingly small (and unstructured). On top of that, the material isn't easy to digest just before bedtime, and as I realized I was in need of a good fiction work instead, so I switched to my twenty year old _Mallorea_ series by David Eddings. Judging by the yellowed pages and musty smell, it's been a long time since I've picked these up. I guess it's a good thing I can't remember the details. 
+
+## Games I've played
+
+Speaking of spooky season, I picked [DUSK](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/switch/dusk/) as the matching game to play during Halloween after finishing the perhaps even more bloody [Nightmare Reaper](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/switch/nightmare-reaper/). The latter employs procedural generation for its levels while the former boasts truly excellent hand-crafted level design. _DUSK_ might be my new favorite retro-inspired shooter, it's amazing, as is the flawless 60 FPS Nintendo Switch port. 
+
+For those of you living under a rock, Nintendo surprised us with a new 2D Mario game called _Super Mario Wonder_. In anticipation of its release, I (re)played [New Super Mario Bros. 2](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/3ds/new-super-mario-bros-2/) and [its 2006 predecessor](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/ds/new-super-mario-bros/) on the original Nintendo DS. They're fun, but the formula has been recycled to death, and the [cheerful theme song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOxqgLUPFHg) the Koopas and Goombas dance to quickly gets on my nerves. It's wonderful (ha!) that _Wonder_ finally moves on from this formula.
+
+In-between the horror shooters and Mario plumbing, my wife discovered a few small indie games on sale: [Freaky Trip](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/switch/freaky-trip/)---a disappointingly buggy single-screen point & click game---and [A Tiny Sticker Tale](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/switch/a-tiny-sticker-tale/)---a wholesome but too short scrapbook adventure.
+
+## Selected (blog) posts
+
+Not much this month. I haven't kept up with things on the internet, and it feels great. 
+
+- To keep up with the theme of this month, Wired put up a scary article: [How Google Alters Search Queries To Get At Your Wallet](https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/). Strangely enough, it has been removed because "it did not meed the editorial standards". I wonder what's behind that...
+- Niki summarized [the absolute minimum you should know about Unicode in 2023](https://tonsky.me/blog/unicode/).
+- If you want to have a laugh, try scrolling through Rock Paper Shotgun's [Very Important List of PC Games](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/topics/the-very-important-list-of-pc-games).
+- Florian Sauer over at Game Developer wrote a great piece on [how to deal with memory constraints](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/programming/bringing-dr-jones-to-the-infernal-machine-dealing-with-memory-constraints) using the _Indiana Jones_ port adventure to the N64 as an example. It's very old---both the game and the article---but still.
+- I loved Joel Chrono's [What's on my PSP?](https://joelchrono.xyz/blog/what-is-on-my-psp/). Reminds me to write a _What's on my 3DS?_ one as a response.
+- André Garzia shared how he hacked together a way to [share contacts using QR codes](https://andregarzia.com/2023/10/sharing-contacts-using-qr-code.html) without requiring a network connection.
+- Kev Quirk wrote [about his iPhone addiction](https://kevquirk.com/im-too-addicted-to-my-iphone), and the general smartphone usage a day numbers are staggering: "In 2022, users in the United Kingdom spent an average of four hours and 14 minutes per day using their mobile devices". Holy crap, we need help. 
+- Rach Smith's children asked her [if you could be anything, what would you be?](https://rachsmith.com/if-i-could-be-anything/), and she answered: "I would be exactly what I am, doing the job I do now, and being your mum, of course!" and asks herself whether or not that's due to a lack of imagination as an adult? I wouldn't know how to answer this either... 
+- Bix Frankonis emailed me a link to his [The Identity Of Blogging And The Blogging Of Identity](https://bix.blog/2023/Sep/25/the-identity-of-blogging-and-the-blogging-of-identity/) post as a follow-up to my [Blogging Nets More Than Just Text](/post/2023/10/blogging-nets-more-than-just-text/)---thanks!
+
+## Other random links
+
+- _Ion Fury_, the 2018 game running on Duke Nukem 3D's Build Engine I really liked, has got [an expansion called Aftershock](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWUIlOvgz3U)! I hope it makes its way to the Switch.
+- Did you know they're still building expansions for [Age of Empires II](https://www.resetera.com/threads/age-of-empires-ii-the-mountain-royals-dlc-launching-oct-31st.775529/) (Definitive Edition), in essence a 24 year old game? Woah!
+- [Invidious](https://docs.invidious.io/instances/) seems to be a good alternative for watching YouTube videos. 
+- Joel pointed me towards a few game-related podcasts I didn't know: [Into the Aether](https://intothecast.online) and [Retro Game Time Machine](https://www.retrogametimemachine.com/home).