Meetups are Better Than Meetings

I admit it, I don't work well in crowded and noisy areas. I can't set up my laptop at the coffee shop and get anything done. I like silence. Unlike many people, I can't focus when there is music playing. Does that make me strange? Probably. I need solitude to really accomplish much of anything.

Despite that, I went to a Meetup tonight in a local co-working space where I tried to work on an issue with my webcomic framework. There were lots of people around having lots of conversations. I frequently stopped what I was doing to talk to someone about what they were working on or what I was working on. Even though I didn't really get much done, it was still a positive experience.

Why? Because it exposed me to new people and new ideas outside of what is typical for me. For example, I have been curious for some time about algorithms that procedurally generate terrain in games, but I didn't know anyone who had actually worked on something like that. Tonight, I met someone who had made a game with randomly-generated areas and he told me about Perlin noise and how it is used. It was great!

So in this short post today I'd like to encourage you to find a similar group in your area and participate in it. Sites like Meetup.com are good places to look for them. If you can't find one near you, maybe you should start one!

In other news, my parody of the Canterbury Tales is still going at Amphibian.com. Today, Science Frog tells his story:

Amphibian.com comic for 24 April 2015