I decided to start by listing all work-related and household-related "annoying tasks"
and start to think, how can I animate them to become "motivational GIFs".

This is the "motivational GIF" it will play,
once I have emptied the biowaste bin.

I set it so, that it only plays the GIF once - to see it again, refresh your page.

These are to be VERY simplistic - the focus being "kawaii" (i.e. "super cute"),
rather than "very good art".

We are after the "hormonal response" (oxytocin, and maybe some dopamin as well),
not "oh what great art" response.

I got a good list of "very annoying tasks" done,
and some ideas how to draw them.

Trash cans are easy to draw, so I started with them.

I used ezgif.com GIF maker, to join my individual .png files to a GIF.

I also managed to write a html page, actually playing them.
Only playing them once I have pressed a button.
And stopping playing when the gif has played once.
And playing them AGAIN - if I press the button again.

The images in the html page are jumping to "wrong places" in the layout, for some reason.
Have seen this before, so probably some obvious reason. Omitting that for now.

Here my current web page for it :

So - baby steps in Javascript : succesfully accomplished.

Here my baby steps code :

The html part :

<p>

<img id="biowaste"
     src="images/biowaste.png"
     width="237" height="340"
     align="left"
     alt=""/>

<button onclick="reloadBiowaste()">Biowaste done</button>
</p>

The javascript part :

function reloadBiowaste() {
    document.getElementById("biowaste").src = "images/biowaste_gif.gif";
    setTimeout(function (){
        document.getElementById("biowaste").src = "images/biowaste.png";
    }, 8000);  
}

Less "flow" makes you more desperate

The real issue is - that I am now truly entering the "busy years" of life. This leads my attention being much more scattered, multitasking being sometimes the only option even for coding - and it is increasingly urgent to solve this issue as soon as possible. Coding while distracted is incredibly annoying, and some real solutions are needed for this.

However - life has happened to other people as well, and I have seen many people continuing coding well into their 60s (even though they most definitely did have parents and kids and other people to look after - all people older than 40 do have them), so this should be a solvable problem.

This year my creativity has been in decline. My trade mark "insane strikes of genius" leading to coding sprees of several weeks, and resulting in quick production of great quality code, have simply vanished. I have tried all I can imagine. It seems I simply have "too little free time" to let my mind actually relax, to allow for that level of subconscious creativity. A couple of times I have at least "coded in my sleep" (my another trade mark : I get bug fixes and complete subroutines in semi-lucid dreams, normally around 6am in the night). But - no long coding sprees.

My current plan is settling for the second best alternative : looking for a way to work, which would keep me addicted. Addicted on daily basis - not addicted in "sudden several-week-long coding sprees". This resembles a lot the model all "easy to learn" internet games ( Candy Crush, PackRat, etc), offer to us. These games provide 1) collectibles, 2) sound and visual effects, 3) tasks, 4) rewards, and 5) cuteness. Instant rewards, and "nagging feeling" of "could do a little better here".

How cool would that be - if I would have something exactly similar, to help me work when distracted. As the hardest part is to "get back to it" - it is so incredibly unrewarding trying to "pick up" the project for the fourth time in a week, as all previous tries got somehow ruined. And if there would be some "automated way" of storing your progress in "minute chunks of achievements" - which would actually help you, not only serve as "trophies".

Something combining the addictiveness and rewards of a web game, to
the "post-it notes" and "github archives" of your day-to-day work.

Maybe far fetched ? - but, I am going to try.

Web games may have perfect solution to "control me"

I get really easily addicted to the "easy-to-learn" web games. I wean myself out every now and then, but always get hooked on to another one relatively soon. My current addiction takes me basically all my free time.

Not getting sucked into the rabbit hole

I always select games which don't kill your character, if you stop looking at the screen.
I am not willing to sacrifice the discussions and interaction with my loved ones.
You can't plan life - and if I am "in the middle of something", that comes out as Incredibly Rude and downright misogynistic. My games don't have interactive parts - even though they are full of visual effects. This avoids me becoming the ghost person who "just sits there and plays the game". You can always fully and instantaneously wake up from the "stupor" of the game - and not regret, as the game remembers "exactly when you left".

Ingenious and inspiring psychological tricks

These web games play tricks on you, naturally. Usually the game has a "timer", which gives you one more life every 15 minutes. Your lives replenish in 1 hour - giving you essentially 20 min game time every hour. This makes it incredibly tempting to "remember to log in once an hour" as you will see the pleasant sight of full lives in your life counter. If you "run away" and only come back after hours - it doesn't yell at you "where have you been" but welcomes you with rewards.

• Imagine if work-related app could do this ?

If that is not enough, there is also "daily rewards", so every day you get extra stuff just for popping by. In addition to this, every time I "complete a task" from the little list in there, it gives a reward. I get a lot of cute characters, adorable sounds, a lot of easy tasks to complete. These kind of games have become my safety blanket giving me most of my "daily positive feedback".

• Imagine if work-related app could do this ?

I tried a couple of already-existing motivate-yourself apps, but they only had the "cute character" - no collectibles, no timers, no lists to tick off from.

The need for me to build a motivating game for myself, truly exists.
As I am a developer, what exactly would hold me back, if I would want to build just such a thing ?

But, building a web game is a real multi-expertise job, and I cannot boast in having all the skills in the bag. So, to complete this story, we need to find the rationale for "why should I learn how to build a web game". As I am a bioinformatician after all - why would I bother. Web development is a completely different game altogether.

Moving to a new field could be in order anyways

Nowadays, my plan is to re-direct my career a little. As the field of bioinformatics is maturing and moving more towards machine learning and statistical methods to manage large compendiums of data, the focus moves away from the things I am actually most intested. What interests me, is user experience, and training the user to the technology and science, while they are using the tool (having "training" as integral part of the program logic - so that nobody can use the program, and NOT accidentally also learn the science). I also want to keep the programs really accessible - so that I can reach also very inexperienced computer users - to train basically everyone. The more heavy-duty parallel computing and advanced statistics you need to do in routine analysis, the less sense it makes to build this kind of "easy-access" programs.

I have thus decided, it is time for me to start searching for new profession. Preferably in a field, which is the same way quite immature, as bioinformatics was, when I entered the field ten years ago. This would allow me to jump in to the "training" business again, once I have got the hang of the basic principles of the field.

What is a field just now emerging, then? (We exclude machine learning, for its ethical implications. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. Got rich. Felt guilty. Main use was in war, not in mining. Put his money to a fund, to start "Nobel prizes". As of now, I don't want to become a new Nobel - I have enough guilt in my life already).

The answer is super obvious - and there is a real lack of good work force in there. And it is a field, where (the same way as in bioinformatics) you can't really "over-train" people : the need of work force is so great at the moment, that no amount of training will fill the gap.

Full stack development.

Full stack development

Full stack development.
Now I have said it.
It still scares me a bit - as that is a tall ask.

The trick is - that this is a hard field. You need to not only be a "jack of all trades" - but "master of all trades". Know enough of pretty much anything, to lift up working interactive web sites (which basically all companies need now, to enable day-to-day comfortable customer interaction). Static web sites are no problem. Adding colors and visual effects is no problem. Databases are no problem. Analysis algorithms are no problem. Storage and clever use of computational resources is no problem. But - full stack combines all these. You would build super powerful web sites, which do what your command line code used to do - right there "on the fly" as that is what customers nowadays except from the websites they interact with. The expectation is there, and all companies are falling short "why is there not a button, where I can sort my monthly expenses by the biggest bills from my telephone company" in my internet bank. We all ask these questions. And this is why full stack developer is the hottest thing there is.

The part of full stack I am completely missing, is web development. I know html, CSS, some javascript, some jQuery. Some databases, but haven't ever integrated them to web pages. I know GUIs, but have done them in Java, not in web pages.

"Enableromatic" - a web game from me to myself ?

So - now I have a tentative plan to learn at least some of the wide field of Full Stack.

I am now planning to start a pet project which :

• Demonstrates wide range of "full stack" abilities
• Generates a web-game like interface ( could be just localhost, as I am the only user )
• The web game would be then used by me to motivate myself

So - I aim to learn how to integrate all the technologies I already know, and learn enough about the front end technologies, to build a web game like interface.

And the end product of this would be something, which I could use to move my addiction to the web games, to addiction of my self-built "web game".

This game would not be a real game - but more like elaborate combination of "to-do-lists"
and some kind of "well, good boy, well done" rewards for them. It would keep track of my last-opened documents, and enable "jump right back in" for routine coding tasks.

And hopefully - if can somehow do this - combine a properly-working pomodoro system into this,
so that it could also monitor my working hours ( for the times when I need to work from home, or do extra-curricular coding activities ).

This may all be just a pipe dream - but there is an interesting web course about web development, along with another course about "full stack development", starting in March 2020.

I am now planning to get my ideas written down by then, so to build some of the game components I need, as the coding exercises of these web courses.

Will keep you posted on this.

( don't worry I will always have some kind of obsession,
but this one has gone on for so long already )

When I started applying for jobs last Autumn,
I realised something had changed.
I listed to the employers "these are my terms, take it or leave it" ,
including a lot of "I am also a carer" and "is part time work a possibility",
"I need to travel a lot", and "I don't want to go down in salary" etc.
The only thing missing from my list was "and I want avocado toast every day to my vegan beans,
as I groom my beard biking to the hipster cafe" (naturally, for gender reasons, I don't have a beard).
They were like "OK, that all sounds fine".
I was like "whaaaat????"
Who did teach you all that ? That job seekers are NOT insane, if they mention "family" - and such things ?
And also - when did I become "force to be reckoned with" - so that I can state any kind of terms in any negotiations ?

And, then I realised that suddenly EVERYONE loved "creative lifestyles" and "crafting" and "meditation" and "recycling". And everyone loved "fake news" and "hated immigrants" and supported "animal rights" and "health and safety". And everyone was getting screwed by "flexible working" and "life-long learning". These all sound like problems of MY generation.

OK - the old ones are retiring now, so maybe that's what.

But wait - it is the Baby Boomers, who are retiring.
We are not the oldest generation - genX was supposed to take over !
The kids of the cold war should be now showing us what to believe.
Not the millenials.

And the aswer to all this is : yes, indeed the genX has taken over.
And as the central belief of genX is "practicality" - this is what we get !
They really don't mind "what do we believe in" - they are the "generation sceptical".
They never believed what their parents said, and the boomers were downright neurotic and hysterical to their opinion. And so are the millenials.

GenX has always been the one to "keep the world rolling" when someone else is trying to blow it up. Now they just have started to protect the Millenials, instead of Boomer generation.

This is why we now have "far right" versus "green" as the main dilemma,
instead of "labor" versus "conservatives". GenX doesn't care, as long as it makes sense.

If you think about the "charismatic figures" older than 40 (but not yet retired). Gordon Ramsay and Angela Merkel - sceptical and down-to-earth. As - genX doesn't care if they have the "crazy cool ideas".
They just want to keep the world working.

Thanks to them, we now have avocado toasts. And not grilled sausages.
We have men staying home to be dads - as their genX bosses "give in" and let us have them (as "there is no harm in this").

The whole axis turned, as the genX switched loyalty.
They are now pampering us - instead of the old ones.

This is why I feel weird - as all of a sudden nobody says to me
"ah, little girl, what do you mean I stole your code and broke it, and distributed it under my name,
and you needed to clear all that mess up, as people were getting their data broken".
You don't even need to mention "meToo" - the genX bosses have fully adopted.
The same people who still a couple of years ago said "oh, boys will be boys" will now be like "would you like to suggest some kind of disciplinary measures", while they fully welcome the True Rivalry between their male and female workers (as that brings more efficiency to the work place). The only thing which still goes undetected by some genX managers, are MEN who flirt as shamelessly as women used to (yes these exist nowadays - millenials are a cunning generation in all their "search of individuality"). Of course this is enhanced by the "natural transition" happening in coding at the moment - if most of your senior staff is women, there is not much you can do about "little girls taking over".

So - I say genX made it possible : for millenials to take over 30 years before they were supposed to.

As GenX is not a generation of "believers". They are a generation of RATIONALISTS - born between two generations of Self-Important believers (boomers and millenials). The voice of sanity, between two bunches of total nutcases and hysterical neurotics.
If you say "avocado is good for you" - genX will believe if you show them the science. Boomers wouldn't believe - they are a generation of believers "I have always eaten a sausage, try and tell me otherwise".
If you say "and this is how you fix a combustion engine" - genX will believe, and be able to fix the engine. Millenials would say "I don't see the health and safety agreement in this" and refuse to listen. Then panic and take a selfie, if the car breaks down.

GenX changed loyalties.
They are OURS now - and this is why everything changed
so suddenly.

Why it was "ok whatever" when I was applying for jobs
with my "very millenial" wish list of all things magical and if I could get unicorns as well.
They were like "oh, whatever" - and how shocking is that.

In the back of their minds they were thinking "but, I know you are happy with flexible working, let's see how far you can flex" and "you don't really believe in worker's unions do you", and "you don't believe in retirement, do you" - and that is how I will get the silver lining only.

But with avocado toast - and stay-at-home dads.

Thank you generation X - this will be an INSANE ride.
I don't think we are ready for this.
Better check my airbag (and take a selfie - while I am still intact).