Remote Work is the Future

As previously mentioned in my little note about not missing game development any more, a major factor in my quality of life increase has been the removal of long commutes and heavy overtime from my life. Now comes a Wall Street Journal article about how companies are cutting back on remote work. To my mind, this is movement in precisely the wrong direction.

Speaking for myself, I won't be going back to a long commute unless I'm desperate. The quality of life increase realized by not spending two to four hours trapped in a car is something that mney just can't buy. Meanwhile, tech hubs like San Francisco , Los Angeles, and Seattle keep having their average commutes get longer, sometimes while passing laws that directly make commuters' lives more miserable and expensive.

And what are the main reasons cited for shoving these remote workers back into their cars every day? The near-mythical hallway conversations revered by productivity consultants everywhere, and the far more tangible managerial oversight beloved by insecure control freaks. If only there were some way for groups to have conversations together while in separate locations, and for managers measure productivity without needing to hover over their employees' shoulders!

Oh wait, there are. Slack, Skype for Business, even Discord can provide remote collaboration for groups. To say nothing of email and even that old classic, the telephone. (Remember telephones? And voice calls? They still exist, and still work for people who don't want to type!) Given a few more years, I expect that the HoloLens or other similar Mixed Reality devices will make effective telepresence a much closer reality too.

For managers, the answer is objective, measurable performance indicators. A manager who doesn't know or understand what his workers are doing, needs to fix his ignorance, not pull workers back into the office.

Don't get me wrong, physical presence is nice for some people. Folks who enjoy the social aspects of an office, find the home office too distracting, or simply don't have the space or hardware to work at home need an office location to go to. But for many others, there's just no reason to go into an office location every day.

If I have my way, I'll never work a job that's more than twenty minutes from my house again. I don't mind going to work with a short commute, but if I ever have to leave my current company, it'll have to be for a place that's either local, or offers a remote option.

Let's Play Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance - B2M3 - Kill K'Armyn Viraxo

Like MK says, it's time for some payback! This mission puts Ace back at the controls of the Otana, headed for a rendezvous with the infamous head of the Viraxo family.

Of course, things don't quite go smoothly. As Admiral Akbar would say, "It's a trap!" K'Armyn Viraxo's yacht is unmanned, with a half-dozen R-41 Starchasers waiting to pounce on you!

Fortunately, the R-41s, and the follow-up Z-95s and Muurian Transports, are no match for a YT-2000 like the Otana. It's a relatively simple mission to make quick work of the enemies, destroy Viraxo's yacht for good measure, then get away before Imperial entanglements arrive.

Navy Blows Stuff Up Good!

When my siblings and I were all in our teen years, our long-suffering mother decided she needed to better understand these strange, smelly, awkward things that infested her house, ate all her food, and generally acted like half-feral savages with alarming regularity.

She turned to The H.I.M. book, a guide to Highly Identifiable Males, a seriously tongue-in-cheek (but still highly accurate) book for dealing with men who are, well, men. Anyway, it starts off with the theory that part of what makes H.I.M.s the way they are is that sometime around age three, we lose part of our brain (probably the unimportant part that deals with processing lots of emotions) in an explosion. We spend the rest of our lives looking to get that part of our brain back, usually by viewing (or better yet, creating) bigger, and better explosions.

I don't know if that's true. What I do know, is that the Navy sure knows how to make, and film, some good explosions.

(h/t to www.thedrive.com for showing the original video.

I Don't Miss GameDev Any More

I'm as surprised as anyone. We're hosting two camp councilors for our church this week, and one of them asked me if I missed being a game developer. If she'd asked me a year ago she would have gotten a different answer.

Almost two years of short commutes and predictable hours have had a pronounced effect on my attitude.

Let's Play Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance - Battle #2, Mission #2 - Ensnare Imperial Prototypes

Time to start hunting down a few of those weird TIE variants that popped up in the last mission. For this run, you're going in with Z-95 Headhunters armed with Ion torpedoes. Why they couldn't have sent some old Y-Wings rather than burning through their limited stock of Ion torpedoes is a question for high command. We just do as we're told.

The mission is to disable at least one each of all enemy craft attacking the bait convoy. Keep in mind that this includes the Escort Transports! The modified TIEs go down easily, so you'll want to save at least three or four torpedoes for the ETRs. Those things will chew your ship up with alarming speed!

Take your time, and be patient making runs at the ETRs, and you'll eventually get their shields down. Then close to point-blank range, and fire a pair of torpedoes to disable them.

All that's left then is to wait for the Heavy Lifters to haul one of each type out of the combat zone. Clean up the rest of the disabled fighters, and head for home to learn what secrets have been found out about these craft.

10K Training - Week 1 Complete

One week down, five more to go before I'm "ready" to run a 10K race. My Runkeeper app failed to capture one of my training days this week, but it looks like my best day was 6.35km, or 3.94 miles. The grand finale of each training week on this program is a distance run of increasing length, culminating in the sixth week where you're running a full 10km. For the end of Week One, though, the distance is "only" 5km. I'm pretty pleased by the fact that I ran at close to last October's race pace, finishing at 31:18.

Not especially fast by pro-runner standards, but a good mark allowing me to aim higher.

Not me, and not how I feel when running. (Image credit Runners World)

I can't say that I enjoy running, so much as that I endure it for the sake of amazing post-run beer. However, seeing visible progress and becoming more proficient at something physical and tangible always feels good.

Me after a run. I am not smiling, but I am better at running this week than I was last week. Next week I will be better at running than I was this week.

Let's Play Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance - Battle #2, Mission #1 - Flight Staff Transfer

It's moving day! You're being transferred from the Defiance to the Liberty and going anomaly hunting in the Outer Rim. Your first task is to ferry a replacement fighter over, while flying cover for the shuttles carrying staff members and squadron gear. Don't think too hard about how the Otana gets there.

On your way to the Liberty, your group receives a distress call from a convoy that's under attack by unidentified fighters! Your flight of four splits off, with you and one wingman jumping to the aid of the convoy.

Once there, you find some odd looking new TIE designs. Destroy them, defend the convoy, then jump back to the Liberty to complete your mission. The one difficult enemy will be the Escort Transport. Some hit and run maneuvers will allow you to take it out without too much difficulty. Just be patient and avoid being too aggressive.