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If anybody wants to see how that entire creative process went, there's a "game" called "The Making of Karateka" on Steam that is a nice interactive experience telling the story of Jordan Mechner's start in the games industry and how Karateka came to be.

It's a fun media experience with a lot of playable prototypes.

Seems I'm not the only person doing something like this then.

Personally i started a "To Remember" playlist in about 2009 and have been adding every single track I've liked enough since to said playlist. By now its 4127 songs!

With the timestamps its a great way to relive past periods of my life, and also I can put it on shuffle and get the soundtrack of my life. Been a great boon in my life for a very long time.

Also, to keep track of albums I've listened to i keep a "Where I've Been" list where the first track of every album I've listened to in its entirety goes. Its a small way to fight the ephemerality of listening to an album in the digital environment.

I actually i scrolled through the entire list just two days ago and bathed in the memories, was fun to see all the places I had been and forgotten about.

I really do miss having a rack of CDs to let my eyes float over for the memories, and the digital "equivalent" is a brittle substitute, but it has enhanced my life in many ways so I've come to accept the tradeoff.

I got started on Duolingo back when it was still a "Help translate the world" app. I've always liked it for getting to dip my toes in a language and learn some basics whilst exploring the language myself through other methods, and I've shown my support of it by paying for Duolingo Super or whatever they're calling it for years on end whilst hopping on and off my language tracks.

But it's just so horrible now, constant gamification, attempts to pull me in with streaks and freezes and notifications and "did you know you can have us nag you even more"-breaks between the lessons I'm actually there for. It's gotten to the point where I'm just done because I've already paid for the service and i just want to be left alone to do the exercises, but they never let me get from one exercise to the next without having to go through at least two or three of those annoying "gamification and engagement" attempts.

mixcloud has been great for this for me. so many people post their mixes and their radio shows there that there is always something new to explore, and searching for something slightly off that i know i like leads to people using that in a mix so i know we're at least partly on the same wavelength when i start to listen. And then eventually you end up with a list of mixtape makers/DJ's/radio show hosts you trust which is cool, really feels like a world radio show at times.