2020! The future is literally now
Gary's 2019 in review, the decade ahead, NASA, shame, and BioShock
When I first started reflecting back on my year, I was like there’s not really much to say about my year. I tend to think of life in day-to-day increments, and each day seems just as normal and chill as the last for me. But then when I started listing out the things that actually happened, I realized 2019 was my most significant year of probably the last five.
I really want to share a few things that happened in 2019 for me:
I got to visit San Fransisco not one, not two, but three times
I spent almost the entire year living in a penthouse with my best friend
Visited London for the first time
Met the loml in Vancouver
Started saving money using Wealthsimple (affiliate link), proceeded to put away over $5K
Learned weight lifting, gained more confidence than muscles
Moved away from my home province, and now live in Vancouver
Started this newsletter!
I’m so happy to be here in 2020. I’m happy we’re alive and get to be smart humans with brains and legs and and thoughts and cute haircuts. I’m happy you’re here reading this.
2020 is here. Let’s get started.
future
It’s 2020 and you’re in the future
Wait But Why describes that 2020 feeling:
We’re now in charge of making this a cool decade so when people 100 years from now are thinking about how incredibly old-timey the 2020s were, it’s old-timey in a cool appealing way and not a boring shitty way.
Let’s make the 2020s cool and appealing and not boring or shitty, k?
space
How we are going to the Moon
NASA released this incredible animated video recently announcing their new initiative to put humans back on the Moon. They describe the video as such:
While Apollo placed the first steps on the Moon, Artemis opens the door for humanity to sustainably work and live on another world for the first time. Using the lunar surface as a proving ground for living on Mars, this next chapter in exploration will forever establish our presence in the stars.
We are returning to the Moon – to stay – and this is how we are going!
This got me so fired up. Please watch it, it’s just fantastic. And exactly what we need for 2020.
design
Yes, I Will Shame the Workers
Mike Monteiro is the author of one of my favourite books from last year, Ruined By Design. He also writes a bi-weekly Medium column called Dear Designer that I’ve been enjoying lately.
The most recent entry in the series focuses on the theme of highly paid designers at tech companies feeling entitled to objectively make people’s lives worse because of their “right to make a living”.
There are a few quotes from the article that stuck out to me:
Yes, I will shame workers. Because, Lord — some of these tech workers should be ashamed of what they are devoting their time to. And if they don’t have the sense to feel that shame internally, I am happy to provide it for them.
And:
When a highly paid tech worker tells you they have the right to earn a living, there’s a phrase missing: “…in the manner to which I’ve grown accustomed.” You do have a right to earn a living, but so do the refugees and immigrants cataloged in the database tech workers at Palantir built for ICE. You don’t have a right to earn a living by denying others their right to earn a living. And you don’t have a right to earn a living that’s a hundred times better than everyone else. The most important word in the phrase “Everyone has a right to earn a living” is everyone.
And finally:
Tech workers complaining about the high cost of housing is not unlike a cancer cell complaining about a host body deteriorating.
💀
gaming
The new BioShock has apparently been in development for years
Back in 2007, BioShock was an influential game in the lives of my brothers and I. Along with Portal (which was released only two months after BioShock), it taught us that first person games don’t have to be brutish dumb games where the story is an afterthought to the gameplay. BioShock’s world was just so fully realized and engrossing, it’s an experience I won’t ever forget.
The fact that a new game is in the works comes as a surprise to me because I thought the team that made BioShock was disbanded years ago. But Kotaku reports this new game is being made by a new team. And though it won’t be out for years from now I’m looking forward to jumping into the BioShock universe again.