folkrav
Man, I dip it in ketchup like a literal toddler.
An app “talks” to server through some interface (what they call an API). If the interface is known, another app can use the same interface. Telegram goes as far as providing code that interfaces with their protocol and full API documentation to explain how to use it. The base app is open source too, so developers can even peek at how the official app does it for inspiration.
It was self-fulfilling for me. I started self-hosting and messing with networking before I went into IT. I thought I’d be in a very different field until ~10 years ago.
As a general rule, I tend to focus on a title or a series of {books,tv,movies,games,musician,etc}, consume it to death over the course of a handful of weeks/months, then lose interest and never touch it ever again.
I had a big Soulslike phase in the middle of the pandemic. Before that it was Rocket League. I’ve gamed very little these last months in between a million consecutive life events, but the little time I had to play was almost exclusively on Monster Hunter (I just reached Iceborne in MHW).
The one game I had a legitimately problematic relationship with was Counter Strike, as a teen and young adult. Nowadays, I still have the general game sense but the reflexes and skills are long gone, and I don’t have the time to dedicate to getting to a level I’d feel good at.