I burn with discontent. One of the greatest driving forces in my life is that I am constantly burning to know more, to keep challenging myself. I believe that human beings, much like sharks, must always be swimming, learning, or we slowly sink down into that deep, dark abyss that is irrelevancy – to drown. I say fuck that.
Last year I tasked myself with writing an article every month, a feat I was very proud to accomplish, but this year I wanted more. I needed more challenges for myself, so I tasked myself with rebuilding my website from scratch in ruby. Why Ruby? Why not. It was a challenge to overcome – and, three months later, I did.
It is with one part sadness and two parts exultation that I say I am officially moving this website to a new location: www.flark.net. The move is not yet complete, but it will be finished up shortly. Staying with wordpress would afford me a great many things, I admit, and what I have coded up on my new website does not come close to matching those features. But it is mine – created by me – and I love that feeling.
Accomplishing things we set out to do, however minor, is a fantastic feeling. And part of this journey has been to practice what I preach: executing on the things we want to accomplish. Building a website is no easy task, as I quickly learned in this process, but I stuck to my guns; even though crunch, my altdev commitments, and, at times, a tiny social life. You don’t find the time to work on your personal projects, you make the time. There will never be that “perfect” moment you hope will eventually appear.
I am incredibly sorry for the inconvenience it causes by changing domains, as all favorited links are now cobwebs of the tube, but part of building things up is the catharsis in burning away the old.
I will end by saying that I haven’t taken a break from my writing, and I have a big article in the works. My long absence from posting comes, for the most part, from this new article’s extreme length; so long, in fact, that I’ve been forced to break it up into multiple (possibly five) parts. So, if you’re dying for more system design stuff, stay tuned in the coming weeks. I have plenty more stuff to say, and now I have a fresh new place to say it.
Huzzah!
Hope you’ll also tell something about building a website. And Congratulations.
Flark,
I know the feeling you’re talking about. Making something yourself gives you that proud feeling. Next to my incredible curiosity and desire to always be learning (much like you described), I also have a thing for taking great pride in my work–which it also seems you have.
I’ve been reading a lot of your articles lately and I am soaking it all in like a child, eager to know what every candy in the candy store tastes like. What I especially loved was the “Know the Game” section of your current website. That collection of articles is a treasure trove that I would encourage any academic of game design to make full use of.
I noticed that your new website didn’t have this section. Please, please, please, keep those articles in a place all together, as I expect I will need to refer back to them frequently in my own designs for online games.
Better yet, collect them into a book and I’ll buy the first copy.