Slowly Starting to Exercise Again

11:37 PM

The whole day yesterday (Monday), I didn't feel like doing anything. It was also a U.S. holiday, so I just relaxed at home all day. I mainly just played video games and listened to podcasts. I don't think it was a productive use of time, because I didn't work out or do any exercises either. On Sunday I also didn't exercise or work out, so that was two days in a row in which I didn't.

There was this one podcast episode that was very interesting, and very humanizing. It was an interview with James Altucher. I think I have heard his name before, but I learned so much more about him and his past. In the early 90s he worked at HBO and the Internet was this niche thing that wasn't very popular yet but was gaining traction. He told a short story of how he had to convince the HBO CEO to buy hbo.com, and that they had to have a website and everything. He was telling stories of how everyone was ignorant about the Internet and how everyone called it a fad.

I only remember the late 90s and early 2000s era of the Internet, I was around during those times. I made my first website in 2002 as a 9 year old, and my website "coolmegg.tk" from 2003 is archived on the WayBack Machine or web.archive.org, with its earliest archive entry from June 2004. So yeah even though I was a kid at the time, I would say I knew more about the Internet than most adults. I had a website earlier than most adults, even adults working in the field. Even today right now, it would be remarkable for a 9 year old to make their own website and domain, it was superbly amazing for a 9 year old to do it back then.

Anyway, yeah. The late 90s and early 2000s era, most adults knew nothing about computers and the Internet. Neopets was a big hit, so was Runescape, the first version of it which I think they now call "Runescape Classic". I was actually around when "Old School" Runescape was in Beta testing, and I may have done beta testing on it. What got me hooked on Runescape Classic was the fatigue system, your character had to go to sleep to recover. and to me that was so interesting. I liked how the game was in 3d as well. The developers for Runescape are geniuses, just two brothers made the game. Even with all my effort today, I don't think I can remake anything close to the original Runescape game, even with technology from 20 years in the future.

That's the thing, we think that because we have technology today we are so much better and smarter than people in the past. It doesn't matter if you have advanced technology or more education. I doubt most college graduates could recreate Runescape Classic no matter what. Neopets is a lot easier to recreate. I could recreate the entire Neopets site myself on my own, as a solo person, but not the flash games or anything, I think that would be harder. Game development is the hardest field I think, it is incredibly difficult, I think only talented geniuses can do it, and they make it look and seem so easy, when it is so incredibly insanely difficult.

I've seen some "Devlog" videos and they just make game development look so easy. It is incredibly difficult and challenging. I don't think there is anything more difficult to make than a video game. Of course the game development tools such as Unity and Unreal Engine and Game Maker and Godot, these tools of course make it easy to make games. But I'm talking about games from the early 2000s. These game making tools, they weren't around back then, actually Game Maker was around back then but it wasn't used in any professional capacity from what I remember, not for xbox games or consoles or anything. People had to make games from scratch, making the entire game engine such as the physics system and what loads music and graphics, and the input sensors and everything, from scratch, and that was incredibly challenging.

Anyway, back to James Altucher. He is the main topic I wanted to talk about. That podcast episode was so fascinating because it was so humanizing. The fact that he had to go up to his boss and try to convince them about the Internet, that's such a human thing. He then made websites for the biggest companies and celebrities at the time, like hundreds of websites, and became very successful. He then lost everything, and then recovered everything back again, and then lost everything again, and then recovered again. Yeah, that's why I listened to his episode, because I wanted to hear downfall and recovery stories, and his was fascinating.

Anyway, I need to get back to exercising. Today I did some exercises, but barely any. They are listed below. I forgot very early in the day that I had any exercises to do at all, so I forgot to do them the rest of the day.