Lori M Olson OPED — Lori’s Unvarnished Opinion
I’m running on empty this week, folks. Dealing with some family medical emergencies, so I’ll just say…take care of each other!
FITS — Featured in the School
Things are pretty busy at the WNDX School this month. The paperback release of the bestselling book of which I’m a co-author is fast approaching, but if you can’t wait for it to appear on Amazon, you can do a pre-order here on my site, and I’ll send you a personally signed copy!
Meanwhile, I’m preparing for another sold-out webinar edition of 6 Pack Apps starting next week. This time I’ll be co-teaching with Norma Wolfchild of the Blood Tribe (part of the Treaty 7 territory and Blackfoot Confederacy) through the Rural Women Entrepreneurs in Tech program for Indigenous women entrepreneurs.
If you are interested in the 6 Pack Apps program, hit reply and let me know which edition (Developer or Entrepreneur), and I’ll send you a link.
APP — All Things App
Here’s another great example of being hip to a trend just a fraction of a second before the rest of the crowd and jumping on it. If you haven’t heard of Pickleball, you’re going to—that is, the next time you visit your folks (or grandfolks) in Palm Springs or on the Costa del Sol. Because it’s what fit, hip older folks are playing. So what this older new world needs is a way to keep score, right? Enter Pickleboard to which we were alerted on Mastodon recently.
Oh, and before you get all “yeah, right…sure” on us, look who’s investing in Major League Pickleball. Now we bet you wished you had coded up that idea as quickly as IfThenDev did. Carpe diem.
TALK — Talk of the Tech
Here are our selections from the two most widely attended RubyMotion/DRGTK chat spaces, respectively:
-
Discord — One of the more common mistakes made in any creative endeavour was summed up by Voltaire, when he said “le mieux est l’ennemi du bien” which roughly translates to “the better is the enemy of good”. In other words, while you’re trying to come up with something better, the rest of the world is settling for good enough and—candidly—getting things done. It’s in that spirit you really need to celebrate those first tries!
-
Slack — The trickle of ticklish problems with Apple silicon continues. This time, a persistent error message triggered: “Anything special required to use
gen_bridge_metadatawith Apple Silicon?”. As is so often the case, everyday superhero Amir Rajan has a quick ‘n easy fix.
GAME — All Things Gaming
It’s easy to forget that virtually limitless graphics rendering power has not always been the case. We were reminded of this recently when we were pointed in the direction of a beefy .png file consisting of all the background images from the Creatures (1996) video game. That was interesting in and of itself, but that discussion led to the origin story of the images themselves. It’s fascinating. Our only hint is that when reference is made to a development model we can almost guarantee it isn’t what you think. Those were the days.
The next item is cool not for what it is but rather for what it’s not. Yep, it’s time for #notGDC again, the “game development non-conference, for everyone!” It’s coming up March 20-24—just a month away. Submissions are already underway on the conference website.
SPOT — Spotlight On…
Want to weigh in on a new game proof-of-concept? It’s a clever one which combines real world activities with virtual ones. As described by author Lucas Haley “you team up and run around in real life and you can place virtual markers. Those then define areas on the map using Voronoi cells. The team with the most area over the most time wins”. Okay, we’ll help you out: Voronoi cells. Now, join the conversation so you can either inspire or be inspired.
On a completely different note…by the middle of February, all the ‘Happy New Year’ stuff has pretty much run its course. At least it should have. Except for one thing: Amir has rolled out the DRGTK Roadmap for 2023. Now, if only we had one of these for RubyMotion… 🙄
TWIL — This Week I Learned…
This is not a Ruby item, but if you are one of the ‘getting the hell off of Twitter‘ crowd you might find this Twitter Archive Parser pretty useful. “It lets you view your tweets in a nice interface.” Oh and did you hear the one about the world being divided into two: those who have left Twitter, and those who soon will?
“Yeah, datsa good one”, Margie.
HAHA — And They All Laughed
Yep, worked there.
The World’s Best DragonRuby Newsletter can be delivered to you—at least it will be if you subscribe! Follow the WNDX School on Facebook, and don’t forget to follow WNDXLori on Twitter and Instagram.
If you enjoyed this issue of the DragonRuby Dispatch, please forward to a friend and ask them to subscribe, too…we really appreciate it!
“Present opportunities are not to be neglected; they rarely visit us twice.” — Voltaire