I love playing video games but haven’t played many since I had kids about a decade ago.

In the past year, I did squeeze in a bit of time and replayed a few old favourites (like an older person who never gets past the music they discovered as a teenager, which is also true for me). I played through the Half-Life series and the StarCraft series. Both were filled with nostalgia and were fun.

I also got in a much newer (by my standards) game, Sayonara Wild Hearts – which I loved.

In addition to having more limited free time, I’ve noticed another change in myself over the last ten years: the idea of simulating shooting other people for fun feels deeply problematic.

What I enjoyed most about these games is the simple sense of progression and accomplishment. I’m not looking for an “open-world” experience where I can do anything – I get enough of that ambiguity in my life. When I’m playing a game, I want to be told what to do, do it, and then get a pat on the back for it.

I’m not sure it’s healthy to seek a sense of accomplishment from video games, but there are worse vices.

After finishing up a nostalgic replay through the campaigns in StarCraft II recently, I turned to a different source for the sense of accomplishment and progression: online web development tutorials.

I’ve come across a lot of talk of “gamification” in my work as a Web designer. I’m automatically skeptical when I come across a new term. I’m especially skeptical about gamification as it was often used as a euphemism for ‘manipulating people into using our thing’. One notable exception is Duolingo, which I see as a positive and effective example of using game-style achievements to help encourage learning a new language (disclosure: I have worked with Duolingo through my job, and they do make money when you use their service).

I’ve found that a simple Web development tutorial seems to hit the same spots in my brain that a good game does. I worked through the NextJS framework tutorial and the RedwoodJS framework tutorial. Each took less than an hour (which I did in 10 or 20 minute blocks with frequent interruptions).

I found the NextJS tutorial particularly well written and designed. It was written at a level that I could handle (my strengths are in HTML/CSS and design, not in JavaScript or other programming languages). It didn’t feel needlessly “gamified”, except for a goofy “points” system they encourage you to tweet about. This was easy to ignore.

What I learned here is that a well-architected learning pathway can be as engaging and rewarding as a great video game. There’s also less simulated violence.

Today I learned about the “birthday rule” in the insurance industry. As described in the Web interface to my health insurance provider:

All insurance companies use the “birthday rule.” The parent with the date of birth that’s earlier in the year submits the claim to their plan first. Then the other parent submits the leftover amount to their plan.

~ Giant insurance company

I’m pleasantly surprised to learn of such a simple consensus having emerged in an industry I don’t associate with simplicity (sorry insurance-folk).

I’ve run into an issue working on a side-project with the CSS Grid. I’m not sure if it’s something I don’t know how to do, or if it’s not possible given the constraints I’ve got.

I’ve created an example and explanation on CodePen. I’ve also posted the question on DEV.TO, based on the suspicion that the cool kids over there, not here on my blog.

This delightfully simple no name® branded cocoa powder made clear something I had never realized: The English and French spellings of cocoa / cacao just swap each “o” for an “a”.

Now you know.

Free marketing tip for Daimler Chrysler:

Take your minivan, stick the iconic styling from the front of a Jeep (O||||O) on the grille, and call it Jeep Family™. Profit.

If you try to sign in to the Canadian government tax service website this month, you’ll be greeted with with a polite request to wait your turn:

I’m fascinated by this on several levels. First, I like that it’s a simple request. If you have an urgent need, you could ignore it and sign-in anyhow. It didn’t involve a complex new sign-in management feature in their web application.

On the other hand, I’m curious about what the bottlenecks are, and why is it OK for anyone to sign in on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays?

I’ve noticed that most financial market charts in the news zoom in on the area of change, rather than start with a base of zero. In some respects, this makes sense. When you’re discussing a sudden change, focusing on that part of the chart can highlight the change and illuminate details within it. However, with focus comes a loss of perspective.

Take these graphs, for example. They are based on Dow Jones closing averages from January 2 through March 20, 2020 (from the trustworthy-sounding source: Yahoo!) and are made with the Numbers app for macOS.

Changing the baseline

Charts A and B both show the exact same source data. The only difference is that the baseline of chart A is 0, while the baseline of chart B is 19,500. One looks bad, the other looks like the end of the world—like all wealth has evaporated. Chart B highlights the change, but also hides the vast bulk of value hidden below the baseline. Which looks worse to you?

Changing the scale

Charts A and C are also based on the same source data and both share the same zero-baseline. The only difference here is that chart C is squished to about half the height, while keeping the same width as chart A. The drop in chart C looks much less significant, but the numbers are identical.

Changing the baseline and scale

Let’s combine our two methods of distortion. Chart B and chart C still show the same source data. The only differences between the two are the baseline (chart B starts at 19,500 while chart C starts and zero), and the height of chart C is squished to half the height of chart B:

Always look for the baseline.

I listen to a lot of podcasts. I love them. Many of them are dedicated or adjacent to American politics, even though I live in Canada. Among these are The NPR Politics Podcast, Pod Save America & Lovett or Leave It, and The Ezra Klein Show.

While all Canadians live in the long shadow of American politics, we have no direct influence on the US political system. It is against US law for me to contribute to US campaigns. Occasionally, I’ll get outraged to the point of being driven to make some kind of small action or donation locally.

A recent episode of The Ezra Klein Show spoke to my situation. In the episode, Are you a “political hobbyist”? If so, you may be the problem., Klein interviews Political scientist Eitan Hersh about their book, Politics Is for Power (which I haven’t read). They discuss the concept of the political hobbyist.

Paraphrasing Hersh, a political hobbyist is a person who follows politics, knows a fair bit about it, but doesn’t contribute meaningfully to it, and the interest is mostly self-serving. This is me.

The concept and discussion rattled me. I know my relationship to ‘current affairs’ can be a bit like eating junk food. It’s more than that though — it’s like eating something you think is good for you, but isn’t. It’s like those granola bars that are just candy-bars in healthy-looking eco-packaging.

I haven’t made any real changes yet, and I’m not even sure I will. It continues to rattle around in my head though.

On a more positive note, I do find some real joy in podcasts. When I look at most of the podcasts I enjoy, political or not, they tend to share a common trait. They’re built around a person or small group talking about something about which they care deeply. I don’t even have to care about the thing — what matters is that they care and that makes me care too. It can be politics, movies, running a digital agency, or front-end Web development. The key is that the host love what they’re talking about.

If you had asked me how much it cost to drive a round-trip from Charlottetown, PEI to Halifax, Nova Scotia, I would have guessed about $80. Google Maps estimates the drive is about 3hr 30m.

If I thought about it a bit more, I probably could have come up with a more accurate estimate. A recent short road trip on this route gave me the exact numbers, and I thought I’d share.

This table shows the basic costs of driving from Charlottetown to Halifax (and back) on January 27, 2020 in Canadian dollars, including tax. The car was a Mazda CX-3 with all-wheel drive rented from Budget.

I didn’t include the cost of the car rental from Budget (two days for $109.26) or the taxi ride to the car-rental lot ($17). Though I suppose it’s technically possible to make the trip without Junior Mints, they are very refreshing.

Idea for the nerdiest TV show ever: A high-budget HBO-style series about an alternate history where the only difference is that Apple bought BeOS instead of NeXT.