Graduation pt. 2

My graduation ceremony was supposed to have two parts on the same day: one arranged by the university, and another one arranged by the faculty. However, the latter was delayed because one of the volunteers tested positive for COVID-19. Thus, I had another ceremony on Saturday.

More front-end stuff

It's the second week of my full-time job. I wrote more React code to implement the layout of a few pages and their API integration. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it!

On the side, I also learned how to use the SWR library to apply the stale-while-revalidate HTTP cache invalidation strategy when calling APIs. I used it to implement a Now Playing widget that shows what track I'm currently listening to on Spotify. You can see the result on my about page.

Cloud storage

I don't have a lot of experience working with cloud storage APIs. In particular, S3 or S3-compatible APIs, which seem to be what people use nowadays. I feel like I need to learn more about them, but I don't want to spend a considerable amount of money on S3 just yet.

I explored some cheaper options. I found Backblaze B2 and Wasabi to be the most affordable. The latter requires you to pay for 1 TB minimum, while the former gives you 10 GB for free. Both options use the PAYG model after that. I chose B2 because I don't have a lot of data to store yet.

I want to use the B2 to store some database backups. I also might use it to store images for this website so that I don't bloat the git repository. Still, I need to learn how to use this thing first.

Video games!

I used to play video games a lot. I don't play as much anymore. When I do, I mostly play single player games. I finished Red Dead Redemption 2 around two weeks ago and really enjoyed it.

A few days ago, a friend of mine invited me to play World of Warcraft. I don't think I've ever played an MMO game before. I've always felt a bit intimidated by the complexity of such games, so I never bothered to try. However, I figured maybe it's a good idea to try at least once.

So I did. It was pretty fun! I got a bit overwhelmed by the game's complex UI at first. The game does quite a good job of explaining the menus throughout the game. I've only played for around 2 hours and haven't completed the intro stage, though! I might revisit the game next weekend.