DEV Community: Garrett / G66

Every game needs a GDD

Garrett / G66 — Sun, 22 Sep 2024 11:43:46 +0000

This is a submission for the Web Game Challenge: One Byte Explainer

Explainer

Every game needs a game design document (GDD).

A GDD only needs:

Title
Genre
Platform
Overview
Mechanics
Story

It also helps to list all required game assets, including art, music, and sound effects.

A GDD is not static and can change.

Additional Context

One of the first things I learned while getting my degree in game design from IRSC was that you need to have a plan. In games, that plan is a Game Design Document (GDD).

A lot of folks online making games without a plan. They often get lost in the development and never finish their project.

I wanted to provide a super simple GDD to help people not just get started, but complete their game projects.

Submission by @garrett (me).

A REAL Front-End challenge for Earth Day.

Garrett / G66 — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 15:22:08 +0000

Both of the April DEV challenges are antithetical to Earth Day.

Here's why:

Background

In case you missed them, there are 2 April challenges that just ended:

Websites are unnecessarily BIG and consume TOO MUCH energy.

The Internet currently consumes roughly the same amount of electricity as the entire United Kingdom, which is approximately 300 TWh/year (about 2% of the entire world's electricity usage).

By 2030, projections indicate that the Internet could consume around 21% of the world’s electricity.

This is due to several factors, the most prevalent being:

Websites are just too dang big in the first place.
The Internet of Things (IoT) continues to grow.
The use of generative AI (more on that later).

How to Calculate a Website’s Carbon Footprint:

Tools like websitecarbon.com estimate the carbon footprint of any webpage.

The calculation looks at:

Data transferred when a webpage loads.
Energy source (is the hosting service known to offset, etc).
Current average carbon intensity of electricity.

My current day job website, which I'm working daily to improve, is built on WordPress and scored an even C; "cleaner than 51% of all webpages globally."

It was a D when I started on it and I'm hoping to get it to A before the end of June (2024).

How to minimize the carbon footprint of your website

Energy efficiency isn’t solely technical.

Sure, it helps to be using a sustainability-focused server.

But, design and content play crucial roles.

These are often not thought of when working on the sustainability of a website:

Image compression.
Minimizing unnecessary scripts.
Efficient code practices.
Choosing sustainable hosting.
Even SEO optimization.

AI is often unnecessary and consume TOO MUCH energy.

My confessions

I still use AI for some things, and I'm a big fan of WordPress which certainly is not the lightest website builder out there.

I'm not saying this stuff is evil. I was just on a website that I know took a lot of JavaScript et al. to work, but it was simply beautiful.

I just feel like we should be working on minimizing it as much as possible.

When a website is simply information, it doesn't have to be fancy.

First and foremost, a website needs to be able to convey the information it is meant to share.

My Challenge To YOU

Here's the original code in case they take the page down:

<body>
<header>
<h1>Welcome to Our Earth Day Celebration!</h1>
</header>
<section>
<article class="facts">
<h2>Did You Know?</h2>
<p>Earth Day was first celebrated on April 22, 1970, and now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EARTHDAY.ORG including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries.</p>
</article>
<article>
<h2>Why Celebrate Earth Day?</h2>
<p>Earth Day is more than just a single day — April 22. It's a day to remind us to take action in our communities and beyond, to protect the environment, restore damaged ecosystems, and live a more sustainable life.</p>
</article>
<article>
<h2>How You Can Help</h2>
<p>Join us in making a difference! Here are some ways you can contribute to preserving our planet:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reduce, reuse, and recycle.</li>
<li>Volunteer for cleanups in your community.</li>
<li>Conserve water and electricity.</li>
<li>Plant a tree.</li>
<li>Educate others about environmental conservation.</li>
</ul>
</article>
<div class="action-call">
<h2>Take Action Now</h2>
<p>Join our Earth Day quiz to test your knowledge and learn more about what you can do to help our planet!</p>
<a href="#">Start the Quiz!</a>
</div>
</section>
<div class="testimonial">
<h2>Inspiration Corner</h2>
<p>"The Earth does not belong to us: we belong to the Earth." - Marlee Matlin</p>
<p>This Earth Day, let's remember we are part of a larger ecosystem and our actions have a profound impact on our planet.</p>
</div>
<div class="events">
<h2>Join an Event</h2>
<p>Participate in local and global Earth Day events to take action towards a sustainable future. Check out <a href="#">events near you</a>.</p>
</div>
<footer>
<p>Happy Earth Day! Together, we can make a difference.</p>
</footer>
</body>

Here's my submission:

On CodePen.io.

The code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="ie=edge">
    <style>
      body {
        margin: 3%;
        font-size: 21px;
      }

      p {
        margin-left: 3%;
      }

      h1 {
        font-size: 55px;
      }

      h2 {
        font-size: 34px;
      }

      .testimonial p:first-of-type {
        margin-left: 13%;
        font-style: italic;
      }
    </style>
    <title>HTML 5 Boilerplate</title>
  </head>
  <body>
  <header>
    <h1>Welcome to Our Earth Day Celebration!</h1>
  </header>
  <section>
    <article class="facts">
      <h2>Did You Know?</h2>
      <p>Earth Day was first celebrated on April 22, 1970, and now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EARTHDAY.ORG including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries.</p>
    </article>
    <article>
      <h2>Why Celebrate Earth Day?</h2>
      <p>Earth Day is more than just a single day — April 22. It's a day to remind us to take action in our communities and beyond, to protect the environment, restore damaged ecosystems, and live a more sustainable life.</p>
    </article>
    <article>
      <h2>How You Can Help</h2>
      <p>Join us in making a difference! Here are some ways you can contribute to preserving our planet:</p>
      <ul>
        <li>Reduce, reuse, and recycle.</li>
        <li>Volunteer for cleanups in your community.</li>
        <li>Conserve water and electricity.</li>
        <li>Plant a tree.</li>
        <li>Educate others about environmental conservation.</li>
      </ul>
    </article>
    <div class="action-call">
      <h2>Take Action Now</h2>
      <p>Join our Earth Day quiz to test your knowledge and learn more about what you can do to help our planet!</p>
      <a href="#">Start the Quiz!</a>
    </div>
  </section>
  <div class="testimonial">
    <h2>Inspiration Corner</h2>
    <p>"The Earth does not belong to us: we belong to the Earth." - Marlee Matlin</p>
    <p>This Earth Day, let's remember we are part of a larger ecosystem and our actions have a profound impact on our planet.</p>
  </div>
  <div class="events">
    <h2>Join an Event</h2>
    <p>Participate in local and global Earth Day events to take action towards a sustainable future. Check out <a href="#">events near you</a>.</p>
  </div>
  <footer>
    <p>Happy Earth Day! Together, we can make a difference.</p>
  </footer>
</body>
</html>

Is "webmaster" still a thing?

Garrett / G66 — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 15:47:55 +0000

The term "webmaster" popped back into my head a few days ago, and I've been thinking about it ever since.

It seems like that's not really a thing anymore.

The web has become so complex that skills have been siloed.

Webmasters used to design, build, and manage websites on their own. Sometimes they hosted the site, too.

But websites have mostly become too complex for that.

I don't even see the term "web designer" used much anymore.

A web designer now has 3 parts:

UI designer
UX designer (often the same person as the UI)
Front end developer (rarely designing anymore)

This has just been what I've seen and felt lately.

What are your thoughts?

[Update]: I just found this post, coincidentally posted today
https://zeldman.com/2024/04/03/the-more-things-change-or-whats-in-a-job-title/

How (and Why) to Switch from Twitter to Mastodon

Garrett / G66 — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 00:22:07 +0000

There has been a mighty exodus from Twitter, and you may have seen some people and even major news sites like CNN talking about Mastodon.

But you looked at it and you have no idea what's going on.

It's kind of tough to explain so to get some inspiration, I went on Mastodon and I asked:

"If you had one elevator ride to explain to my mom (non-techie; uses an iPad and doesn't own a computer) what Mastodon is and how it works, how would you do it? Assume she knows what Twitter is and has used it once or twice, but is mostly a Facebook user." source

You can click on that and see all of the public answers.

But I also wrote this far more in-depth post:

So, what is Mastodon?

The technical answer is:

Mastodon is a decentralized Twitter alternative built on a communications protocol called ActivityPub.

I know that's a lot, so I'll break it down:

By decentralized, what we mean is that the servers are distributed and self-hosted by volunteers rather than "silo'd" and owned by one entity.

With Twitter, there are servers all over the world, but Twitter owns them all. They are used to run the Twitter platform. If a server goes down, another one picks up the slack until it's sorted out.

But when a single Twitter server goes down, most people won't notice anything because there are so many servers running the Twitter platform.

If the Twitter platform itself goes down, no servers are working. Everyone notices because they can't access it at all.

So, if a Twitter server goes down, you can still use Twitter, but if Twitter itself goes down, you can not.

With decentralization, it's the opposite.

Mastodon as a platform can not go down, ever, as long as one server is still running somewhere.

While Twitter can choose to shut itself down, Mastodon will never go away as long as one person somewhere in the world is using it.

But individual servers can go down and may affect your use (more on that later).

It's actually more like email than anything else you've probably used.

With Twitter, you can only communicate with other Twitter users via the same platform: Twitter.

But with email, you can have a Gmail and I can have a Hotmail and they are different companies, each running their own servers, but we can still communicate to each other.

For the sake of simplicity, we can say Mastodon servers operate in essentially the same way as email servers. The only difference is the communication protocol -- Mastodon uses ActivityPub and email uses SMTP (and you don't need to know any of that to use them).

Another way to think of Mastodon servers is that each server is a town.

In fact, many servers call themselves towns.

You can choose what town (server) you live in.

But you can still use the Internet to communicate with people in different towns.

And you can move to another town if you decide you don't like the one you're in.

What makes decentralized social media better than centralized (or silo'd) social media?

To be a part of the ActivityPub ecosystem, you don't have to be on Mastodon. You can be on any platform that connects to ActivityPub. This is what we call "Fedi," which is short for "The Fediverse," which is short for "The Federated Universe."

Federated apps are like this: imagine you love Twitter, but your friend loves Facebook. Right now, if you want to follow someone on Facebook you have to be on Facebook, or if your friend wants to follow you on Twitter, they have to be on Twitter.

ActivityPub doesn't operate this way.

There are tons of options of apps you can use to access the ActivityPub ecosystem. There's a great list here: https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous/.

Let's say you and your friend decide to move to the Fediverse but want apps similar to your current preferences.

One of the more popular ActivityPub/Fediverse apps close to Facebook is Friendica. One of the more popular apps close to Twitter is Mastodon.

So, your friend joins Friendica and you join Mastodon, and you can still follow each other and talk.

Even though they're wildly different apps.

Now lets throw three more friends into the mix: a musician, a videographer, and a photographer.

Your musician friend can join Funkwhale (instead of SoundCloud), and you can follow them from Mastodon and hear their new music.

Your videographer friend can join PeerTube (instead of YouTube), and you can follow them from Mastodon and watch their new videos.

Your photographer friend can join Pixelfed (instead of Instagram), and you can follow them from Mastodon and still view their new photos.

So, if you really want to know why decentralized social media like ActivityPub is better than the big silo'd giants:

It's because you could use Twitter and still follow your favorite Facebooks, YouTubes, SoundClouds, Instagrams, even Twitches (OwnCast) all from your one account. And they wouldn't have to have to manage a bunch of accounts everywhere, either.

You don't have to run your own server.

Most people don't run their own servers.

There are tons of servers you can join for free.

Those servers are run entirely by volunteers.

Most of them operate on a per-donation basis.

They might just ask for you to send them via Paypal or something.

Or some of them run Patreons and Ko-Fi's.

My home server, Hackers.Town, does limited-run merchandise and the profits go towards running and upgrading server hardware.

Some smaller servers don't ask for anything and just pay out of pocket.

How to find a server.

My advice for finding a server is to start on one of the biggest ones.

Mastodon.social is run by the guy (Eugen) who created Mastodon. I generally recommend starting there, but since the Twitter Exodus he's had to close registrations for a bit while servers get upgraded (this is a downside to ActivityPub, yes, but it's actually pretty rare to have such sudden large spurts of user growth).

My second favorite is Mstdn.social which is run by a dude named Stux.

First and foremost, I recommend getting an account on one of these. You probably won't stay, but it's good to keep a backup account (more on that later) on one of these anyway.

An alternative option is to go here: https://fediverse.party/en/portal/servers/ and pick one from a category or theme you like. Categories include stuff like Academia and Journalism to Anime and Furries.

Either way, pop up an account somewhere either big or that appeals to you categorically.

It doesn't actually matter because:

You'll probably find a sever within the next couple months that suits you better, and
It's VERY easy to export your data and import it onto a new server, which means you move and you don't lose your friends.

Whatever you choose, make sure you read their About and TOS (which are usually found at [name.domain]/about, for example, https://mastodon.online/about).

What to do when you find a server you like more than the one you first chose.

The good news is, it's relatively painless to move servers.

Go to your User Preferences, and then scroll down to the Import and export tab.

Export each CSV on the list and then Request Your Archive.

You'll see you can only export CSVs of Follows/Following (not Followers), Lists, Blocks, Mutes, Domain Blocks, and Bookmarks.

Requesting your archive gives you your posts and any media you uploaded.

When you Import on the server you are moving to, you can only import Follows/Following, Blocks, Mutes, Domain Blocks, and Bookmarks.

So, you don't get to import everything, but this is still significantly better than what you get from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc, which is that they don't let you export and import anything at all if you decide to move accounts.

I do recommend leaving an account on a second server as a backup.

Update 2022-11-07: How to migrate from one Mastodon server to another without losing followers (via Eugen himself ):

Sign up on new server
On NEW server: Go to Account -> Moving FROM another account
Enter old account's handle
On OLD server: Go to Account -> Moving TO another account
Enter new account's handle and submit

Why have a "backup" account.

A downside to decentralized social media is that sometimes a server goes down and doesn't have a backup running to replace it immediately (like in big silo'd social media).

Usually, servers don't just mysteriously disappear. They're only down for a short while, sometimes a day at most.

During that time, you can hop on your backup account and still communicate with folks.

This is still a bigger benefit than Twitter, if you remember back in the first couple YEARS of Twitter, where it would go down for hours at a time and you had no alternative, because ALL accounts were down for hours at a time.

This went on for the first few YEARS (not months) of Twitter.

3 years in and we were still experiencing Twitter being down for entire days sometimes.

With decentralized social media, that's not a problem. Just hop on to another server for a little bit until your main comes back on.

BONUS: Many artists are making more money on Mastodon/Fediverse/ActivityPub than they have elsewhere.

I am one of them.

I used to put my music online for the suggested price of $7 per album and $1 per song (on Bandcamp and never got any sales.

I have a decade and a half of experience internet marketing. I've used the internet to make A LOT of money for my clients.

I know what I'm doing, but selling music online is difficult with so many musicians putting their music online now.

When I switched to Mastodon, I also set my music to Pay-What-You-Want, Creative Commons, and posted links on my account.

I've had people voluntarily pay as much as $50 for an album I used to (unsuccessfully) sell for $7.

At this point in time, all of my sales have come from Mastodon (or elsewhere on the Fediverse, following me on Mastodon), if not from someone I know in meatspace (thanks Mom).

BONUS: Suggested use for corporations:

Every corporation should self host a Mastodon (or other Fediverse app) server for their employees to work from when representing the organization.

Especially journalists.

I recommend setting them up as a subdomain and having your employees use their accounts there whenever representing your establishment publicly on the internet.

Example: Installed at https://masto.YourPublication.com and the employees would be @JournalistName@masto.YourPublication.com.

What I learned in my first week buying, selling, and making NFTs.

Garrett / G66 — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 14:33:31 +0000

Photocopying a Magic the Gathering Card does not mean you own the card.

You can right-click and save all images of the best MTG cards, take them to a printer, and have a deck made up for yourself.

They would look identical to the real thing.

No one would know the difference except for the most discerning eyes.

But you still wouldn't have the cards.

They would still be fakes.

When NFTs first started becoming popular, I thought the idea was stupid.

I was one of those "right clickers."

Actually, I didn't save anyone's NFTs that I recall.

I didn't even want copies because I wanted nothing to do with it all.

But then some things changed my mind.

That's what this post is about.

How the f do I get back to town?

It's hella fun.

All the NFTs I've bought were not with my money.

Sort of.

I bought a bunch of cryptocurrencies several years ago.

The best of them was Ethereum ($ETH).

Since then, my $ETH has tripled.

I turned those gains into Tezos ($XTZ), keeping the original amount invested in $ETH.

Then I spend only from those gains.

And dang, is it fun.

It's hard to restrain myself sometimes.

The purchases I made in the first week were all a part of the learning experience that has led to this blog post.

There are two ways to get the NFTs:

Buy it straight out.
Mint a new one.

When you buy one, you know what you're getting.

When you mint one, it's probably going to be randomization from a series.

It's exciting when you hit the mint button, and it generates a totally unique NFT for you.

My first buy and first mint were both CyberKidz Club, which also has a fantastic community.

The communities are very welcoming.

You'll be hard-pressed to find any NFT communities not being welcoming.

The communities are generally built out of people who own an NFT from that project.

As mentioned earlier, my first was CyberKidz Club.

The folks in that community taught me most of what I know about NFTs (that I didn't discover the hard way).

I'll talk about creating my first NFTs later.

The quick story is that I tried to make mine on the $ETH blockchain.

I discovered the gas prices were too damn high.

A friend in the CYBR Magazine Discord recommended I check out Objkt.com.

Objkt is on $XTZ, and it's significantly cheaper.

So, that's where I put my first NFTs.

While browsing around, a CyberKidz Club caught my eye.

I checked out the website and was more intrigued.

There was a link to their Discord, so I joined.

I didn't even own one yet, and they were immediately kind to me.

Because of that first impression, I immediately bought that Kid NFT that caught my eye.

They taught me a lot and led me to mint one, too.

Later on, I won the third Kid.

I check in at least once a day to say hi to everyone.

Hello would you like to buy an NFT??

You get hit with a lot of spam and scams.

As soon as you start to post about NFTs on social media and join Discord servers, you will get hit with a lot of spam.

And a lot of scams (more on that later).

It doesn't seem to happen much on Twitter for some reason.

On Instagram, I get several messages per day from scams.

The same has happened with Discord.

On Instagram, whenever I post something, I get comments that tell me to share it with some other Instagram account that is based on NFTs.

It seems to work on growing those accounts, so that's why they keep doing it, but I find it annoying.

As much as I care about growing in the Web3 space myself, I don't want to be one of them.

I also noticed a Twitter growth technique that I mentioned in Issue 002 of Metaversian News.

The Twitter algorithm will boost posts that get a lot of interaction.

Twitter will even show them to people who may not follow that particular account but follow the subject.

People have figured out a way to game that and grow followers.

They post that they are going to buy NFTs and ask people to share theirs in replies.

This gives the post a lot of interaction which boosts it in the algorithm and shows it to people who are not already following them.

And then a percentage of those people follow them.

The next time they post it, it gets more interaction, and the cycle repeats.

I don't know if they're even actually buying the NFTs or using it as a trick to get more followers.

It's not something I would do, but if you do use that tactic to grow your following, I recommend actually buying some NFTs so that you're at least honest.

It's easy to fall for a scam.

I'll admit: I fell for a scam.

It was one of those situations where all the signs were there screaming "scam!"

But I wanted that NFT so bad.

The site said they were selling out fast.

And it was an NFT I could afford!

My own piece of digital land in the metaverse!

I could get started at my own place in a costly spot where only the wealthy play.

And all for just one easy payment of $100.

I knew I should double-check the domain name, but I didn't.

The Discord server for the project already had it listed as a scam.

I didn't check there either.

It's easy to get really excited and fall for a scam.

Don't be like me.

Free is for me.

You can get free NFTs that are not scams.

Often, you can join a Discord for an NFT project that you do not yet own.

Most operate this way and have a section for non-owners and a private section for owners.

Many of these will give away free NFTs in these Discords.

It's a great way to get into a project for free.

From there, you can see if you want to get more involved or not.

I recommend not immediately selling any free ones you get.

That's rude.

Don't be like that.

People who already have an audience do way better.

This is a rule of the internet that everyone should know by now.

If you already have an audience, you will do better.

These aren't newbies like me when you see NFTs selling for big bucks.

They're people who already have a big following.

Of course, you can build a following over time.

And then you will be able to make big sales.

Assuming the NFT bubble hasn't burst by then.

Not a tulip bulb situation.

If NFTs are a bubble, there's probably nothing to worry about.

During the "Dot Com Bubble," a lot of money was made in buying and selling websites and domains.

Then it "crashed."

Yet there are more websites than ever.

And they're still making money.

I encourage you to look at NFTs, the metaverse, and Web3 in general as the new normal.

Likely, many NFTs do not make it to stardom.

Most won't.

Some NFTs you buy will lose value.

The approach I'm taking is this:

I buy the NFTs I want, not to invest with intentions of selling later for a big payoff.

The ones I buy that are just art are just art.

They will decorate my metaversian home(s).

It's the same reason I buy a poster or painting to hang on my wall at home in meatspace.

Some NFTs have a purpose (more on that later).

There are NFTs now that are games that generate more cryptocurrency for you.

Clubs are popping up where you have to have an NFT to be a part of it.

They're very welcoming clubs, too!

If you're buying NFTs, buy them to be involved in the project.

This is the long term.

It can be hella expensive.

Since it feels like a bubble right now, a lot of the metaverse is costly.

Part of this is because the blockchains take time and literal energy to process transactions.

A transaction could be someone buying, selling, trading, even minting a new NFT.

All of that costs time and energy.

And it creates a queue of transactions waiting in line.

The energy is "paid for" with something called gas.

In many situations, the more gas is spent, the higher up you move in the line.

This creates substantial gas fees and long transaction times.

That's what happened with me when trying to make my NFTs on the $ETH blockchain.

My goal is to create "Five Dollar NFTs," but it wasn't possible with gas prices on $ETH as high as they were.

It would cost me more than five dollars just to make each one.

I had to find a better way.

It doesn't have to be hella expensive.

Ridiculous (IMHO) prices led me to $XTZ, which is significantly less expensive than most other blockchains.

It's also "clean NFT," which is part of why it's less expensive.

Or instead is a result of it being less expensive.

I don't really understand the technical stuff, but it requires significantly less time and energy for transactions.

Which in turn makes it much cheaper.

And because it uses significantly less energy, it's better for the environment.

At least compared to the other mainstream NFT blockchains.

Now, we just need to wait for stuff like Decentraland and The Sandbox to be built on the $XTZ chain.

Or build it ourselves.

There are worse things to collect than NFTs.

These are the types of NFTs I look for:

After all that I learned in this first week, I've figured out what I like to look for in NFTs before buying them.

First, the NFTs I have bought:

Artwork to decorate my metaversian living space(s) (once I have one).
CyberKidz Club because I liked the lore and the Club was very welcoming to me as a newbie.

Next, I'm looking to buy:

NFTs that have PlayToEarn (P2E) qualities.
Metaversian real estate that I can develop into a place to hang out virtually.

Some metaversian real estate also doubles as P2E.

Those don't really look like they can be experienced from a virtual reality standpoint in the way Decentraland is.

This means to me, they are not virtual real estate.

They're just tokens in a game.

Which is cool, too.

I'm down to play some games.

But what I'm really excited about is having a virtual place I can call my own.

Until then, I explore and write blogs like this.

NFTs provide a new funding model for free-to-play games.

Garrett / G66 — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 14:24:12 +0000

NFTs are a potential funding model for free-to-play games.

You can decide whether or not that funding model is suitable for you.

NFTs are highly debated, maybe even more so in the games community.

I'm not interested in arguing about NFTs.

If you're against NFTs in video games or against NFTs at all in any capacity, stop reading now.

And definitely don't waste your time commenting just to hate on NFTs.

That said, I do appreciate the honest discussion.

Discussing ways to fund game development is vital to the industry, especially for Solo Game Devs like me.

And I would like to have an honest discussion.

Please, poke holes in my ideas here.

Help me make them better.

We can figure this out together.

First, let's address some funding models of the past.

Self Funded Games

Self-funding games are how the first games were made and how many indie games are still made today.

This is usually people building small games in their free time.

Or big games in the case of Stardew Valley.

This is still going on today and will probably go on forever.

But it's not ideal.

It sucks to work a day job 40 (or more) hours every week, build a game, and still find time to play games and spend time with friends and family.

Investor Funded Games

Some people can get funding from investors.

This means someone is paying you to build your game for a cut of the profits.

I don't think this happens very often, but I know it does happen because I have been approached by investors wanting to fund my games.

This isn't ideal for me because I don't like being accountable to someone in that way.

Crowd Funded Games

Crowdfunding through platforms like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo is a currently popular way to get the ball rolling, but I have found most of these fail.

There are games I have put Kickstarter money into almost a decade ago that still haven't come to fruition.

To be successful in crowdfunding, you first have to have a large following.

It's infrequent that something on Kickstarter takes off without already having a decent-sized audience.

People are much warier of crowdfunding now because many don't make it to total funding, and often projects that do make it never end up getting finished.

I don't think most projects are maliciously trying to make money and run.

They just mismanage or underestimate the money needed to finish the project.

How to Use NFTs to Fund a Game

Now let's look at the pros and cons of using NFTs to fund your game and how to do it right.

First things first, the controversy around NFTs.

Anyone who has a problem with NFTs is not your target market.

So forget about them.

I frequently have to explain to my marketing clients that you can't be everything to everyone all the time.

"You can't please everyone" is a well-worn refrain I'm sure you've heard.

It's true, so don't try.

Focus on the people interested in NFTs in games, and don't worry about anyone else.

Next, you need to be fair about the NFTs.

Building a pay-to-win game is not sustainable.

But as we've seen with many games such as Roblox, Guild Wars 2, Fortnite, etc., people are willing to spend real money on aesthetics even if no advanced power comes with it.

On top of that, you should design a game where skills are more important than power.

Diablo III's real-money auction house was not a good idea because it's a game based on power.

Plus, the gameplay loop is Kill => Acquire Loot, and the auction house removed the need to Kill.

The design of your game is essential when adding something in that can be purchased with real money.

Another thing you can do to keep it somewhat fair is not sell any of the NFTs yourself as the game developer.

The players can sell them to each other, but someone has to earn or unlock them first.

That way, people who want to spend real-world money to acquire things can't flood the market by just buying the item off of the developer.

There may be some really awesome-looking armor that is very difficult to obtain.

When you see someone running around with that armor, you know someone there worked really hard to get it.

The person wearing it right now in front of you may have just paid for it.

But someone out there worked very hard to get it.

Which increases the value of the item by a lot.

This is where I think NFTs in games really shine.

The developer makes money off of the trades.

With enough players trading enough in-game, this could easily fund continued development and allow a game to be free to play.

It's essential to maintain a fair percentage of the trade as well.

Too small of a percentage, and your game won't be funded.

And if it's too large, players aren't incentivized to trade.

This also gives players a direct stake in the game that is much bigger than just being a player.

I don't know if Play-to-Earn games will ever reach a point where the average player can earn a living wage.

But if I'm going to play video games anyway, and I enjoy a game, and I can get some real-world money out of playing it, that's the game I will choose.

Even if it only affords me ordering a pizza once a week.

And giving players a reason to help grow the player base will make your game successful.

In fact, I would work in some sort of referral incentive for players to bring their friends in.

Long-term referral incentives would be great.

That way, it's not based on how many people they bring into the game, but how long those people actually stay active.

Comments are open, but as I said, if you're just here to complain about NFTs, don't bother. You'll just get blocked.

Legit discussion is encouraged!

The first thing everyone learns in JavaScript

Garrett / G66 — Thu, 30 Jul 2020 06:25:50 +0000

I've tried and failed to learn to program many times in my life.

I've spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours.

Enough is enough.

Now that I'm focused on privacy and OSINT, it's time for me to really learn to program.

I have lots of ideas for tools to make my job easier.

Here I am learning Javascript.

I will also be focusing on learning Python in the future.

Right now I'm focused on Javascript.

The first thing everyone always learns is "Hello World."

But I found three ways to write Hello World in Javascript.

I'm sure there are at least 100 more ways, but these three seem to be the three most important places to start.

All three will be used heavily throughout our lives programming.

If you're brand new to programming, they're called functions.

In JavaScript, we always end with a semicolon ;.

First, we start with `console.log()`.

console.log("Hello World!");

The function console.log() is important because we will use it a lot for testing.

Having a message display in the console doesn't modify the page at all.

We can have it return information to confirm our code works as intended, or return errors if it doesn't.

Sometimes pieces of our code won't have any other way of clearly displaying whether it's working as intended or not.

We use console.log() to return messages with information in the browser console.

Just type console.log() and then, in between the parenthesis, add your message in quotes "".

Don't forget your semicolon ; at the end.

console.log("Hello World!");

Play with it on Codepen (click the "Edit on Codepen" and then delete the // before the console.log() line):

Next we move on to `alert()`.

alert("Hello World!");

While we use console.log() to notify us, the programmer, of errors, alert() is one thing we can use to notify the user of an error.

The alert() function creates a small popup window with brief message.

Just like with console.log(), add your message in quotes "" between the parenthesis of alert().

And again, don't forget your semicolon ; at the end.

alert("Hello World!");

Play with it on Codepen (click the "Edit on Codepen" and then delete the // before the alert() line):

We close this lesson with `document.write()`.

document.write("Hello World!");

The function document.write() is just one of the many ways to modify a web page with JavaScript.

It's just as easy as console.log() and alert(), but it will make a visible change to the web page we are viewing.

Just like with console.log() and alert(), add your message in quotes "" between the parenthesis of document.write().

I keep repeating this because it's a common problem people have: don't forget to end with a semicolon ;.

document.write("Hello World!");

Play with it on Codepen (click the "Edit on Codepen" and then delete the // before the document.write() line):

This has been pretty boring so far.

This is only the first post.

The first thing we've learned.

It will get better.

I'll kick it up a notch for the next post.

Please follow me on Dev.to and join me on this journey of learning JavaScript.

Garrett / G66Follow

Interested in Creative Commons media and Open Source software.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

We can't wait for inspiration to strike.

Garrett / G66 — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 12:38:39 +0000

We must make motivation happen.

Notes from Chapter 9 of Overlap by Sean McCabe.

Someone said “I write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes at nine every morning.”

I don’t know who said it because when I search it online, a lot of different author names appear.

It sucks that whoever said it doesn’t get the proper credit.

I digress.

I don’t feel inspired to write this right now.

The reason I’m doing it is because I know that when I’m done, I’ll be glad I did it.

I heard from two people recently who said that when they started writing every day, their income grew exponentially.

They were Sean McCabe who wrote this book, and Nathan Barry who wrote a great book called Authority.

Right now, that’s what I’m working on.

Writing every day so that I can grow my audience so that I can grow my income.

We can’t wait for motivation to come to us.

It doesn’t.

I know, you have felt times where motivation struck.

I’ve felt them, too.

Sometimes it just hits and you can knock out some work with a smile on your face.

We’ve all been there.

But how often does that happen?

If you only worked when that happened, would you be getting much done?

I know I wouldn’t.

I don’t even think that happens once a month for me.

I have to make inspiration strike. I have to make motivation happen.

Strangely enough, once I sit doesn’t and get started, the motivation flows easier.

Getting started is the hardest part.

Sean shares his three steps to defeat a lack of motivation:

Start with a commitment.
Make yourself accountable.
Take the first step.

In episode 17 of the No Alarms Club podcast, we Set A Big Goal (1. Start with a commitment).

In episode 21, we Got People On Board (2. Make yourself accountable).

Now, we’re Getting Motivated (3. Take the first step).

We don’t have to be motivated. We just have to show up.

The easiest way to get started is to remove all barriers that stop you from getting started.

One option is to schedule a time of day you write.

Since I’m living a #NoAlarmsClub life, I don’t do a whole lot of scheduling.

 What I do to remove barriers on writing is that I plan out my writing ahead of time.

I know what I’m going to write about when I sit down, so all I have to do is start typing.

Last post I mentioned a goal tracking calendar.

Get People On Board -- Or You Could Fail Entirely

Garrett / G66 ・ Jul 14 '20

#books #reading #notes #career

Sean talks about the idea in this chapter of the book. He got the idea from Jerry Seinfeld.

Yeah, the comedian.

Seinfeld says,

The way to be a better comic is to create better jokes. The way to create better jokes is to write every day.

He hung a big calendar on his wall. One of those ones that has every day for a whole year visible.

Then, he started marking a big red X on every day that he wrote.

For each day I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.

Sean says we have one job: to not break our chain.

Get People On Board -- Or You Could Fail Entirely

Garrett / G66 — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 23:15:02 +0000

You need to tell everyone your goals.

It’s not enough to just tell them. You need to hire a plane and have it written in the sky sot hey see it. Every day.

I’m just kidding. That would be terrible for the environment and your bank account.

Seriously, though, you need to make sure everyone around you knows your goals.

They can’t just know them, they need to support you.

I don’t mean support you financially. Just emotionally.

They need to be on board with your goals.

If they’re not, they’ll be dragging you down.

That’s unacceptable.

We can cut some people from our lives, but not everyone.

If there’s someone who absolutely will not support your goals, you need to cut them from your life.

If you can’t cut them because they’re a family member or adjoined twin, you’ll have to minimize your time dealing with them.

Luckily, most people are able to be brought on board.

Chances are, the bulk majority of folks in your life will be in that camp.

They might not be on board now, but we’ll get them there.

It all starts with communication.

I’m going to use the example of your partner for the rest of this, but you can replace that word with whoever it is in your life that this episode makes you think of.

It could be your mom or dad or partner or best friend.

For the sake of simplicity, we’ll use partner as an example.

You have to communicate you goal with your partner.

You pretty much have to tell them every day until they can repeat it back to you.

Sean says it’s enough only when you hear your goal come out of their mouth.

I haven’t tried this with my partner yet, but I will after this episode.

Another thing I’m going to do is put a big personal goal tracking calendar next to our shared wall calendar.

Our shared calendar is where we write all of our appointments and such.

This other calendar will have my goal written at the top of it, and a space to draw a big X on every day that I do something working towards my goal.

We’ll talk more about that calendar in the next post. The idea actually comes from the comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

We previously talked about our list of 20 things that will get us closer to our goal.

We need to do one of those each day.

That’s what the calendar is for.

It will also be able to remind my partner and myself what my goal is.

To reinforce it, I’ll be saying it out loud to her.

If you can’t communicate your goal, that’s your fault.

If your partner just doesn’t get it, that’s your fault.

The burden of communication is on the communicator, not the receiver.

If they don’t get it, you need to find a way for them to get it.

Reword it.

Repeat it every day.

Write it somewhere they’ll see it every day.

It is your responsibility to get through to them. Don’t stop until you do.

They don’t get it until they can repeat it back to you.

Repeating your goal back to you isn’t enough. They have to be on board.

The best way to get someone on board with something is to invest in them first.

Invest completely in your partner first.

Invest in their goals. Their dreams.

Sit down and find out what these things are and invest in them first.

It might take weeks, months, years.

It doesn’t matter.

We’re not going to be selfish. We’re going to be patient.

We will put everything into our partners goals until they achieve them.

Then, our partners will do the same for us.

We’re gonna do this right.

I just said this, but it’s worth repeating: It doesn’t matter how long it takes.

If we’re going to pursue our own goals, we’re going to do it right.

We want our partner on board because if they’re not, things might not turn out great.

That’s not a risk we are willing to take.

You might achieve your goals at the cost of your relationship.

Then you won’t have them there to enjoy the success with.

That’s not an acceptable outcome.

We will invest in our partners until they have achieved what they want, and then they will invest in us.

If your partner doesn’t have goals, make sure they’re on board with yours.

My partner has been discussing going back to school for some time, but hasn’t decided on what to study yet.

When she does, I’m all in on it.

I already told her I’d be willing to take on more hours so that she could work less if she has to.

For her to get out of the current job and get into something better, it’s totally worth it.

Until then, I’m going to keep working on my goals.

If there’s something I need to do to make her goals more achievable, I’ll do it.

It doesn’t matter if my goals get put on hold.

We’re going to do this the right way, or not at all.

The last part of sharing goals is getting accountability.

Sean points out three types of accountability:

Public
Partner
Personal

With public accountability, we tell the world what we’re up to.

This could be through a blog or article like this, or a podcast.

Maybe you post daily on your social media about it.

That’s public accountability.

It’s also a really great way to grow an audience, which we talked about in episode 13 of the No Alarms Club podcast, titled “Practice In Public.”

Partner accountability is what we’ve been talking about this whole time. Getting your partner on board, but also them holding you accountable.

My partner knows when I need to get something done, she’ll do what she can to motivate me to go back into the office and do it.

It’s really great.

Sometimes it’s something silly like “you’re not allowed to kiss me until it’s done.”

It’s a win for both of us when I finish, but it’s a lose for both of us until then.

That’s how you know someone’s on board.

They’re willing to be right there next to you suffering for the goal.

Personal accountability is being accountable yourself.

A lot of people don’t do this.

I’m terrible at it.

I can’t hold myself accountable for crap.

I just don’t care about letting myself down.

It’s fine; I’ll do it later.

I say that to myself all the time.

What I don’t want to do is let others down.

That’s when I get motivated.

That’s how most people are.

We still need to learn to be help personally accountable.

We need to stop letting ourselves get away with unnecessary failure.

Today, we get out there and get publicly accountable.

This is me being publicly accountable, right here.

Don’t you dare let me stop showing up.

Defeat Scarcity Mindset -- Before It Kills Your Passion

Garrett / G66 — Sat, 11 Jul 2020 02:47:19 +0000

Scarcity mindset is what happens when you quit your day job, put all your eggs into your Overlap, and then struggle to make money.

Scarcity mindset kills your passion fast.

We don’t want to be stuck in a position where we take on jobs we hate just to pay the bills.

That’s why in the last post, we talked about keeping our day job until our Overlap takes over 100% of our financial needs.

Don’t Quit Your Day Job -- Yet

Garrett / G66 ・ Jul 10 '20

#books #reading #notes #notebook

That’s the first and strongest way to defeat scarcity mindset.

One thing we discussed last post is cutting your expenses so you can cut your hours to spend more time working on your day job.

A response I got to that was:

What if you can’t cut your hours?

It’s likely that some people will not be able to cut hours due to needing the money, even if they cut expenses. Maybe their expenses are already cut.

If that’s the case, I also mentioned in that post that you can work on the Overlap before you head to your day job.

For those who can’t cut their day job hours, but are able to cut expenses, I suggest you put that money into savings.

It is possible that you can save up enough to quit your job outright and work full time on your Overlap to build success.

Sean recommends you do this with 6 months of expenses in the bank.

I was going to attempt this, but I was afraid of being sucked into scarcity mindset, so I was going to do 6 months of my current lifestyle expenses.

That’s about 50% more than my living expenses.

Ultimately I decided that this would put me into scarcity mindset anyway.

For me, quitting my job before my Overlap is making 100% of my cost of living, even if I have 6 months of expenses in the bank, is too stressful.

Stress is what puts us into scarcity mindset.

We get that stress for money and we start taking on jobs we don’t want to do.

Any job that will pay.

Then we start compromising on price.

We just need that extra $250, right?

Oh, you can only pay $150? That’s fine, I guess.

Then we’re burning out because we have to work 80 hours per week just to make ends meet.

At this point, we’re working way more than we should, making way less than we should, and this cycle continues to repeat.

This is scarcity mindset killing our passion right in front of us.

We must not let this happen.

Another thing Sean recommends in this chapter is that you might have to put your passion on hold for a little while.

If you’re in a situation where your job sucks and you’re not energized when you get home, you need to find a new job.

But that takes time. Finding a job is tough.

This is the time to put your passion on hold.

This is the time you need to spend your extra hours on looking for a new job.

Maybe you’re unqualified for anything else.

Use that time to pick up a new skill in a new industry.

It sucks to put your passion on hold, but sometimes it’s the right thing to do.

Sometimes it’s the only way to keep your passion alive.

Sometimes it’s the only way to beat scarcity mindset.

Don’t Quit Your Day Job -- Yet

Garrett / G66 — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 03:37:42 +0000

This starts Part II - Protect Your Passion.

The quickest way to lose your passion is to jump in too quickly.

Monetizing your passion too early is going to kill it.

I’ve experienced this myself multiple times.

Don't Worry About What People Think - They're Losing Anyway

Garrett / G66 ・ Jul 8 '20

#reading #books #notes #career

I didn’t know that was the problem at the time, and it took reading this book more than once to realize it.

Before we turn our passion into a full-time job, we need to make sure we have a full-time job during the growth phase.

The growth phase is the part of our Passion-To-Career path where our passion isn’t able to pay for 100% of our financial needs.

We need to have a day job that covers 100% of our financial needs.

There are a couple ways that I have found to speed this up.

First, get good at your day job.

You need to be productive enough to keep your bosses happy.

The more you can get done in less time, the better.

Second, you need to cut your financial needs.

Cut out any extra spending. Cut out any subscriptions you don’t need.

I realized today I’ve been paying for Apple Arcade for a while but haven’t touched any of the games in at least a month.

I canceled it.

That’s another $15 per month going back into my bank account.

My partner got me a coffee maker that can make up to 12 cups of coffee at once.

It says 12 cups but they mean literal cups, so it really makes about 6 coffee mugs of coffee for me.

That’s great and it’s a way cheaper coffee maker than the Keurig I was using before.

Plus, with working from home since the COVID situation, I don’t go to Starbucks near as much anymore.

In fact, I don’t really go anywhere right now if I can help it.

The third thing to do is cut hours.

I’m lucky enough to have a boss that’s cool with this.

The trick is to make sure you’re still getting enough work done to keep the bosses satisfied.

After cutting expenses, I figured out I could work 30 hours per week and still pay all my bills.

I’m not putting as much money into savings as I was before, but this is getting me closer to where I really want to be in life.

It’s given me extra time to focus on my Overlap.

This is not something Sean mentions in the book — Cutting hours. At least not so far.

He does say it’s important to make sure your day job covers 100% of your financial needs and that you are putting absolutely no financial stress on your Overlap.

I agree with this and I’m making sure my day job and Overlap abide by those rules.

Something Sean mentions in this chapter that I don’t agree with is that your Overlap and your day job can not have any sort of cross over.

He says your day job and your overlap need to be completely different.

I understand what he’s saying, and why, but I don’t agree it’s the case.

Something he says about this is,

If you come home from your day job bursting at the seams with energy for pursuing what you’re passionate about, that’s the right day job. The right day job will charge you for your passion. The wrong one will drain you and deplete the kind of energy you need. Are you coming home exhausted, or are you coming home charged up and excited to work on your side projects? That’s how you know.

I can not agree with that more.

It has nothing to do with the industry you’re in and you’re overlapping to.

I have known plenty of people who did a day job and overlapped to the same thing.

They did it successfully without issues.

I have done it myself in the past.

What’s important is what he says in the quote above.

Are you coming home charged or not?

Regardless of industries, if you’re not coming home from your day job motivated to work on your Overlap, something has to change.

Right now, I’m writing this after my day job.

I don’t want to be, really.

I mean I’m enjoying it while I do it, but it took me a while to get started.

I really didn’t want to do it today.

But I have a totally different day job than my Overlap for the most part.

Though much of my day job is marketing and much of making an Overlap successful is marketing so those two things have quite a bit of crossover.

The thing is, I’m still motivated to do this and I’m still sitting here happily typing way because I’m motivated to succeed.

I love my day job, but I love helping people in need even more.

I’m going to become a privacy consultant and OSINT investigator.

I’m going to help find missing persons.

I’m going to help victims of abuse escape their abusers.

This is what drives me to write every day.

This is what drives me to record my podcasts.

I’m charged.

If you’re not charged by your day job, try working on your Overlap in the mornings before you go to your day job.

Be careful that this doesn’t negatively affect your day job.

My best piece of advice is to find ways to make your day job improve your life skills that will affect your Overlap.

Sometimes the dislike for your job is just a mindset problem.

I have found it helps a lot to view your job as a paid learning experience.

Find ways to spend as much time at work practicing something that benefits your Overlap.

And again, as Sean says, if you’re not coming home charged to work on your Overlap, you need to get a new day job.

Don’t let the golden handcuffs get you.

You might be like me and have a great day job.

I know my job well.

I’m productive and happy. I like who I work with.

I like what I do.

I don’t have the best benefits in the world, but they’re good enough that I’m happy.

I’m wearing golden handcuffs.

Realistically, I could do this for the rest of my life.

I could put my head down and get to work for the next 35 years getting better and better at this.

There isn’t really a salary cap for me.

The more money I can make the organization, the more money I can make myself.

The thing is, I’m not in it for the money.

Well, I am, right now.

Like I said earlier: I’m going to be a privacy consultant.

I’m going to be an OSINT investigator.

I’m going to help find missing persons.

I’m going to help victims of abuse escape their abusers.

I can’t settle for the golden handcuffs.

I want to help people in need.

Don't Worry About What People Think - They're Losing Anyway

Garrett / G66 — Wed, 08 Jul 2020 22:08:20 +0000

The people that are closest to you are your spouse, some family members, and probably your best friends.

Let's say you live with your spouse.

You two spend only about 4 to 5 percent of your waking lives together.

Your best friends and even some of your closest family members get 1% of your waking life if they’re lucky.

Really think about this: if any of them don’t believe in you, how much of your life does that affect?

A minuscule amount.

So why bother being upset about it?

Prove them wrong.

Darren Hardy says there are usually one or more of five motivations when we set a goal: for our self worth, for our family, for contribution to society or community, revenge on someone else, or disgust with the situation.

If there’s someone crapping on your goals, use revenge to show them you were right all along.

You’re the only person who lives 100% of your life.

Do what you want with it, not what other people want.

Setting a goal.

There are lots of ways to set goals and we’ll get more into that later, but right now I want to share a goal Sean mentions in this chapter.

I am going to buy a Lamborghini in cash and I’m going to buy it when the price represents only 10 percent of my money.

This is a pretty cool goal. Not because of the car. I don’t care about the car.

What’s cool is how specific it is.

He knows how much the car costs. $400,000.

That’s 10% of $4,000,000 so he knows exactly how much money he needs to have before he buys the car.

And the car is the motivation because it’s a car he’s wanted since he was young.

This is what motivates Sean every day.

What we need to do is find our motivation and set specific goals.

A million dollars is not a lot of money.

 
Something Sean says a lot is

A million dollars is not a lot of money.

He says we need to get over thinking that it is.

No one in my family makes that much money.

I think my cousin’s husband might have that much as his total net worth.

If anyone in my family does, it’s him.

But otherwise, no one in my family has close to $1,000,000.

So it’s a lot of money, right?

Not really.

I realized this years ago before I started listening to Sean when Facebook bought WhatsApp for 19 Billion Dollars in 2014.

I had barely even heard of WhatsApp and I didn’t know anyone who used it.

But Facebook bought it for 19 billion dollars.

A million dollars was no longer a lot of money in my eyes.

At this point, a billion isn’t even that big to me.

The next 20 days of our life.

Sean wants us to go back to that list we made.

Set A Big Goal (And Make It Uncomfortably Big)

Garrett / G66 ・ Jul 4 '20

#books #reading #notes #notebook

We’re going to pick one goal.

Just one.

We need to pick the one that would make the most impact on our life right now.

If you could snap your fingers and a goal would be complete, which one would you pick? Which of those would improve your life the most?

Highlight it, underline it, bold it. Do whatever you need to do to make it stand out.

Now make a new note. Put it at the top of the note with the date. Not today. One year from today.

We’re going to complete this goal in one year.

Make a bulleted list of 20 bullets. Each one is going to be something you can do every day to make that goal a reality.

It’s going to be tough to come up with 20 things. Do it anyway.

If you can’t come up with 20, come up with 30.

Really stretch yourself to come up with your list of things to do.

Then, every day, you’re going to do one of those things.

I wish Sean had included an example list here.

The thing about this list is that in 20 days we’re going to have these things done and be that much closer to our goal.

Rinse and repeat.

This is what separates us from everyone else.
 
We have a goal. We have a plan. We have tasks to accomplish every day.

 We know where we’re headed and they don’t.

DEV Community: Garrett / G66

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A REAL Front-End challenge for Earth Day.

Background

Websites are unnecessarily BIG and consume TOO MUCH energy.

How to Calculate a Website’s Carbon Footprint:

How to minimize the carbon footprint of your website

AI is often unnecessary and consume TOO MUCH energy.

My confessions

My Challenge To YOU

Is "webmaster" still a thing?

How (and Why) to Switch from Twitter to Mastodon

So, what is Mastodon?

What makes decentralized social media better than centralized (or silo'd) social media?

You don't have to run your own server.

How to find a server.

What to do when you find a server you like more than the one you first chose.

Update 2022-11-07: How to migrate from one Mastodon server to another without losing followers (via Eugen himself ):

Why have a "backup" account.

BONUS: Many artists are making more money on Mastodon/Fediverse/ActivityPub than they have elsewhere.

BONUS: Suggested use for corporations:

What I learned in my first week buying, selling, and making NFTs.

It's hella fun.

The communities are very welcoming.

You get hit with a lot of spam and scams.

It's easy to fall for a scam.

You can get free NFTs that are not scams.

People who already have an audience do way better.

If NFTs are a bubble, there's probably nothing to worry about.

It can be hella expensive.

It doesn't have to be hella expensive.

These are the types of NFTs I look for:

NFTs provide a new funding model for free-to-play games.

Self Funded Games

Investor Funded Games

Crowd Funded Games

How to Use NFTs to Fund a Game

The first thing everyone learns in JavaScript

The first thing everyone always learns is "Hello World."

First, we start with console.log().

Next we move on to alert().

We close this lesson with document.write().

This has been pretty boring so far.

Garrett / G66Follow

We can't wait for inspiration to strike.

We must make motivation happen.

We can’t wait for motivation to come to us.

Getting started is the hardest part.

We don’t have to be motivated. We just have to show up.

Get People On Board -- Or You Could Fail Entirely

Garrett / G66 ・ Jul 14 '20

Get People On Board -- Or You Could Fail Entirely

We can cut some people from our lives, but not everyone.

It all starts with communication.

If you can’t communicate your goal, that’s your fault.

Repeating your goal back to you isn’t enough. They have to be on board.

We’re gonna do this right.

If your partner doesn’t have goals, make sure they’re on board with yours.

The last part of sharing goals is getting accountability.

Defeat Scarcity Mindset -- Before It Kills Your Passion

Don’t Quit Your Day Job -- Yet

Garrett / G66 ・ Jul 10 '20

Don’t Quit Your Day Job -- Yet

Don't Worry About What People Think - They're Losing Anyway

Garrett / G66 ・ Jul 8 '20

We need to have a day job that covers 100% of our financial needs.

First, get good at your day job.

Second, you need to cut your financial needs.

The third thing to do is cut hours.

He says your day job and your overlap need to be completely different.

Are you coming home charged or not?

Sometimes the dislike for your job is just a mindset problem.

Don’t let the golden handcuffs get you.

Don't Worry About What People Think - They're Losing Anyway

Prove them wrong.

Setting a goal.

A million dollars is not a lot of money.

The next 20 days of our life.

First, we start with `console.log()`.

Next we move on to `alert()`.

We close this lesson with `document.write()`.