Red Dead Redemption 2 Finally Got Good

For the past several months I have been playing Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2 on my PS4. It took a long time for me to start enjoying the game as much as I enjoyed the original Red Dead Redemption. The story seemed to indicate that I was starting to get close to the end and I felt disappointed that I didn't enjoy the game earlier. As I finished up the main story this week, I noticed that Rockstar seemed to put a lot more effort into the game ending and I really got a lot more into the story. The music got better, the writing got better, and the characters finally became more likeable.

The main story ended and I found myself playing the Epilogue as John Marsden. He is the main character in the original game and I really like him. Perhaps it is because he has a son and I can relate to that (as can Kratos in the fairly recent God of War game from Santa Monica Studios) as well as a few other likeable characteristics. Ultimately I found myself wanting to stay up late so I could continue the game last night and had to force myself to go to bed so I wouldn't be a zombie at work today.

I will try to provide a complete review in the near future but wanted to report that I am now finding the game worth playing. Should you be wondering if it is worth your time, I would suggest hurrying through the main part of the story to get to the Epilogue. All of the original story side quests and missions are still available and you can give them a play. I will try to provide an update in the next few days so you can decide for yourself if it is worth playing.

Collaboration Across Three Continents

I have started a new project at work where I need to collaborate with colleagues in my own office as well as those in Europe and Asia. There are technologies that make things easier but there are still a number of difficulties. The most obvious problem is the timezone issue. Trying to coordinate a conference call with teams in North America, Europe, and Asia means that one continent has to join a meeting in the middle of the night. I hate it when it is me.

Recently we have started using the Meeting Owl from Owl Labs. It integrates nicely with WebEx and allows you to see all of the participants in a conference room. I have not tried the device with other conferencing software but I understand it works with them as well. Personally I am not a fan of video conferencing as it means I have to dress professionally even when I am taking calls at home. However it is always nice to be able to put a voice with a face.

I also use a lot of e-mail to coordinate efforts between teams. The only problem with e-mail is that often times, someone will get left off the distribution list and fortunately there are other technologies that might be better. One that we use is Confluence from Atlassian. In June I will be hosting an internal company conference put the agenda into Confluence. Now if anyone has any questions, they can check the system and don't have to sort through old e-mails. Furthermore I can update the schedule with minor adjustments and don't have to send out a ton of needless e-mails.

Part of my job requires that I work with data. Sometimes I am performing complex analysis and other times I am just trying to manipulate it so someone else can do the analysis. For that I like to use Jupyter Notebooks. They allow me to include comments and sample code with countless graphs and other visualizations so that others can see what I have already done. While I doubt anyone will gain any great coding pearls from me, I like the ability to borrow work done by others.

Finally there is the good old airplane. I am writing this as I wait for my flight back to Salt Lake and can't help but mention planes as I am staring into the cockpit of one right now. There was a time when we thought technology would allow us to do away with travel. Sometimes you just need to get on a plane and visit people in person. At least for the moment.

Uber at Disney World

My wife and I took a trip to Disney World last week so we could do some research for a potential future family trip. We found a great place to stay on AirBnB that was supposedly on the Disney World property. One advantage of staying on property is that you can use Disney's excellent transportation between your hotel and the different parks.

We arrived in Orlando on Monday and took Uber to the hotel. During our check-in, we asked about getting to the park and were told that a rideshare was the least expensive way to get there. At that moment I realized that any cost savings by inexpensive accommodations could easily be negated by trips back and forth. Fortunately my wife and I could leave the hotel in the morning and not have to return until the evening. Anyone with small children requiring naps would require two round-trips instead of our one.

Ultimately we had a great visit but were glad that we hadn't brought the entire family. We did have our youngest daughter with us but could all fit in a single car. With small grand-kids and ten adults we would have spent a fortune with Uber or Lyft.