#1 Hey!
Hello everyone, and welcome to the first edition of Rico’s Roundup! Since this is the first version of this roundup, one more sentence about me: I’m Rico, a 26-year-old software developer from germany. So enough, that should do it. I think if you want to learn more about me, just check out my web presence on various channels. Currently, I’m most active on Instagram and on my website. Meanwhile there are a few content snippets to see and read to learn more about me and my work.
Thank you for stopping by, let’s dive into my March recap!
Created, Crafted, and Shared
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Created and deployed my new Website: I am excited to share with you that I have created my new website! You can check it out at https://ricoklimpel.de. Well, probably you are reading exactly this text on my website. Instead of using Wordpress, I decided to build it from scratch using the framework Astro and deployed it as a static website. It was a fun experience and I really enjoyed the process of creating it by hand. As a software developer, I always want to have control over every aspect of my work, and building my website from scratch allowed me to do just that instead of browsing wordpress themes.
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Uploaded >100 content snippets: I recently uploaded all of my content that I’ve shared as “snippets” in the past few months to my website, in a new category called just like that: “snippets”. These are short texts that I’ve posted on Instagram in the captions, on Twitter, or on my website. Think of it as a collection of short daily writings based on my daily activities, thoughts and learnings. These snippets feature short and concise happenings, ideas or thoughts that I encounter throughout my day. Check them out here: Snippets on my Website.
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Blog article - Over 10 years of desk setup evolution: I wrote a long blog article where I take a trip down memory lane and showcase the evolution of my desk setup and tech over the past 10+ years. I dug through my old photos to find pictures of my desk setup and tech from the past decade and beyond.From old pictures to new, you’ll see how my setup has transformed over time. Read it here: 10 years of desk setup evolution
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Daily Recap as Instagram Story: I’ve been experimenting with sharing more of my day-to-day life on Instagram, and I created a highlight reel to give people a quick recap of what I’ve been up to. Basically just short stories with a summary of the previous day or days in bullet points. You can check it out here
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Test Da Vinci Resolve for video editing: I recently tried out Da Vinci Resolve, a free video editing program. Why? Because it’s fee. Ha. I don’t want to pay a lot of many for a tool I may never have in constant use. And yes, I realized that filming is a skill that needs to be learned as well. As video content seems to become increasingly important, it’s essential put my hands on it and gain some experience. As a result, I made a reel as first test, you can find it on Instagram.
Discovered, Consumed, and Enjoyed
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Test you knowledge with javascript interview questions: While scrolling the web I found this article on dev.to that lists 70 JavaScript interview questions. If you work with JavaScript or TypeScriptit’s great to test your knowledge. As I was going through the questions, I realized that I didn’t know a good answer to a lot of them, so I’ll definitely use some time to brush up on my skills. Check it out at dev.to.
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Brief look at Machine Learning: I’ve been bumped the world of machine learning lately as part of my job. At work we’re developing a data management system and it has a small amout of experimental machine learning component that we use for e.g. detecting outliers in measurement data. However, we had very little documentation on how it works, and the people who took care of it are no longer in the project. We had a meeting at work where some things were explained to us quickly so that we are not lost if something happens with it. However, afterwards I still studied the topic a bit myself. I did some research and stumbled upon an great video on neural networks for recognizing handwritten digits on Youtube.
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Real-World data for video game creation: I stumbled across this YouTube video and found it fascinating. The creator uses real-world data to create a video game, and it’s a great example of how technology can be used in creative and unexpected ways. You can watch the video “I Tried Creating a Game Using Real-World Geographic Data” at on Youtube.
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Gaming with Dice Legacy: This game was a blast to play, and I was particularly impressed by the unique game concept. The game combines dice rolling and strategy elements to create a fun and engaging experience. If you’re a fan of strategy or rather build-up strategy games, I highly recommend checking it out. You can find it on Steam.
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Creating Graphics on iPad: I’ve been using an iPad app called Concepts to create graphics for my social media posts, and I’ve been really impressed with its versatility and ease of use. Check out Concepts Website
Thoughts, Ideas, and Questions
At this point a few unanswered questions that go through my head:
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How can you avoid the desire to learn everything at once? It’s common to feel overwhelmed by the vast amount of knowledge out there, but it’s essential to prioritize and focus on one thing at a time. How can I force myself not to do too many things at once?
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With the increasing use of AI in software development, how can we keep up and take advantage of new opportunities without falling behind? As a software developer, what skills and knowledge should we focus on to stay relevant in the industry? At what point do you need to just cut yourself off from all the hype?
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And a last one concerning AI: how can we prevent the (~overstated) collapse of society because no one knows what is true or false anymore? With the rise of AI-generated content, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to distinguish between real and fake news. How can we develop strategies to combat this problem and ensure that society remains informed and educated with real, true and good content?
Outro
Thank you for taking the time to read my first roundup. I hope it was informative and enjoyable. Don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter to receive future updates straight to your inbox. At the moment I use Substack to publish this Roundup as Newsletter. You can find it on Substack here. Also, if you’d like to stay in touch, you can follow me on Instagram or Twitter. And please feel free to reach out to me via email at contact@ricoklimpel.de with any questions or feedback you may have.
Have a nice day!