Coders

Coders, The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World

Coders is the latest book I read. Its about computer programmers. What it takes to be a programmer, what programmers actually do, which could be blue-collar work, hackers, etc. The book takes a much darker tone at the ending chapters about the rise of AI in modern society. 

Coders is written by Clive Thompson, a longtime contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and a monthly columnist for Wired. A tech writer. 

The book starts out with a chapter titled The Software Update That Changed Reality. This, of course, is Facebook. Clive goes on to talk about how the Like button feature came to be. Its interesting but the Like feature itself is kind of a dumb feature. Then there are The Four Waves of Coders which basically tells the history of coders starting from the female lead 1960s to the rise of the nerdy male dominated field programmer in the 1980s, to today, where the field is being filled with just slightly more women and minorities. 

Myspace is mentioned as an important happening in the early 2000s but isn't given nearly enough attention. Likewise, gaming is only mentioned in the Neopets context until the very end of the book. Not saying much about gaming makes this book a little lacking, because for the most part gaming has become the most popular entertainment system in the world, surpassing movies even in revenue and sales. That makes it worthy of a entire chapter in this book.

There's a great chapter called 10x, Rock Stars, and the Myth of Meritocracy which basically states that there's a myth of the rock star programmer, who by himself, is better than 10 or 20 coders. Surprising some of the best programs and software have been written by only a one or two person team. This rock star myth can be true but Thompson goes to lengths to state that this "better than thou" attitude 'great programmers' are hard to deal with, and besides, most companies need a team of programmers to do their work. Sometimes its difficult to get these rock stars to work well with the less sophisticated co-worker.

The last couple of chapters gets more philosophical. The Rise of AI, Scale, Trolls, and Big Tech. These are the more dystopian aspects of the book. How Facebook got used by Russian bots to swing American perceptions during the 2016 election, possibly swaying favor to Trump. How Twitter is used by white nationalists to spread hate. Machine learning algorithms have taken a big role in modern society but there are inherent biases in therein. When Google tried to create a face recognition software it scanned a picture of a black person and labeled it as 'gorilla', which is, of course, laughable because you realize how incredibly machines and people are but its also horribly racist. There are some leaders in tech who think if the real world is racist then shouldn't these things reflect that? Of course, this brings a lot of ethics into the equation. Which is the reason why we need more women and minorities in tech. The general consensus is that having white programmer dudes create everything we use is a bad idea because they've made mistakes like not thinking of the rise of hate on their platforms, like how Twitter ended up being used by white nationalists and such. Programmers tend to be pretty mixed with their political beliefs. Some are libertarian but for the most part, accept the democratic policy. There aren't many conservative programmers. A lot of them think government should get out of the way but still apply social policies. They see through their work that a person shouldn't be shunned because of their race, gender, sexuality, rather by the strength of their code. This is a good thing. 

The book ends with Blue-collar Coding. At the very end, he mentions how the creators of the videogame Minecraft wanted to create a game that was fun. But kids were doing more interesting things with Minecraft than what the creators expected. Kids were learning how to build all kinds of grand buildings and displays using the game's lego block-style engine. At the end of the day the coders of the future might not all come from 4-year college institutions, but rather milennials/middle age folks looking to change their careers, young gamer nerds that want to code their own games, and people who do it a lot in their spare time for fun. In some ways, the programmer of the past resembles that of the programmer today because in both contexts the programmer's credentials don't matter, only great coding skills. It's one of the only jobs where you can find an employee with a college degree working with another employee who has no degree. Of course, if a programmer was trying to get a job at Google that college degree wouldn't hurt. 

No doubt this is a pretty boring nonfiction book not nearly as exciting as my science fiction novels I go through. However, this book got me more interested in programming, learning some programming languages, maybe trying to create my own games and apps, or find a job where I can tinker around writing code in whatever context. There's a future in programming and I'm in front of the computer a lot anyways so I might as well look into it. I also find it fun and exciting. Another book that is similar to this one is Steven Levy's Hackers, a very good book about the early computer revolution going back to the 1950s and into the 1980's Apple II computer and it even has extensive chapters on videogames like the first MMO [massively multiplayer online game], Richard Garriott's Ultima Online. That book was very engaging and exciting whereas this one was more informational. Now I have a very good idea of what it takes to be a programmer: good knowledge and experience of the languages and error messages, logical thinking skills, patience, ability to deal with frustration, and the ability to find and fix bugs, an act known as debugging. 

This is a new book from 2019 May. Definitely worth the read if you're into tech and interested in programming.

How Questing Alone in World of Warcraft Made Me Appreciate the Single Player Experience

So I recently started playing World of Warcraft again mostly because my long time friends from Wisconsin play it and my best friend even said he'd give me gold to buy those game time tokens, which means I won't have to pay to play. If he doesn't help me out the game is a whooping $14.99/month which is pretty extravagant pricing. Pretty excited about that. I started off with a night elf demon hunter but I figured I should play a ranged caster dps with my friends (based on their recommendation but I also like priest class and always wanted to roll one) so I boosted a shadow priest to level 100 and haven't looked back. Mostly because the entire leveling experience that is 100 to 110 (max level is 110) has been a blast. I've actually gained a new appreciation of the single player experience by questing in wow by myself.

In the past when I played Wow I just clicked on every quest as fast as I could and just skimmed everything. Now when I play I read every quest and ponder upon every nuance, sentence, story, and lore. Every quest is an important part of the overall picture. Like a million pieces to a puzzle. There's probably more than a million quests in wow and people worked to create them. Not reading and enjoying it would be a waste of their efforts.

At first questing alone was boring. But then I began to love questing in Azeroth. Somewhere around level 102 on my demon hunter was when I realized that although this is just basic leveling, its still an important and fun part of the game. It teaches you everything: how to do rotation for your character, the story and lore for all kinds of story lines, and all the various parts of Azeroth. It takes a long time to level up but I actually feel like just doing basic quests is the fastest and easiest way to level up. Dungeons don't really give too much experience so they're mostly only good for gearing up (which you still need to do). So questing is the default way to level up. It's going to take me a super long time to hit 110 on my priest but when I do I'll be thankful for the fun journey.

Sometimes I'll run into other players slaying enemies for a "kill all those guys" quest and its fun when I end up helping them or vice versa. Questing has given me a new appreciate for the whole single player experience. I'm down to play some other single player games that I haven't played much because for a super long time now I've been a multiplayer only kind of guy. I'm looking at you Skyrim and Fallout 4!

Now that I'm not so focused on playing Overwatch all the time I feel refreshed. I still play it but Wow has become my main focus, at least for a little while when I wake up in the morning. Nothing like waking up and questing out in Azeroth before I head to work. For an mmo (massive multiplayer online game) Wow sure has a spectacular single player feel. I'm sure things will be much different when I hit 110 and I'm pvping as shadow priest.

I can't wait to wreck some people with unholy magic!

Lok'tar ogar

So I saw the new Warcraft movie w/ my brother yesterday. And what a great movie it was. The reviews online are saying that its okay or that its bad but I think its pretty good. I would go so far as to say this is the best video game movie ever made. Better than any of those cult fan made films and definitely better than any other gaming stuff Hollywood has produced. Blizzard has outdone themselves with a true masterpiece. That might be going too far calling it a masterpiece but I do think the movie was above average. On a scale of 1-10 I would give it an 8.5, pretty high by my standards. Let's talk about what could've been better, and what was good.

Okay, first of all, the movie had several problems. The biggest one of all is that there's a ton of characters and we don't get to know them, their names (too many nerdy names to remember), and they just get thrown at us without any backstory or much introduction. There's the main orc chieftain named Durotan, head of the Frostwolf clan, Khadgar the young human mage, and there's the human general that I forget his name. Those are the only characters that we really get to know well and care about. There's all these other characters but in the scheme of things they all are minor characters. Everyone else is pretty much a minor role. There's so many characters that none of them really get the airtime that they deserve. Instead they shove as many characters down our throats as possible and for the most part we can't remember their names. So the characters were kind of not thought about or planned out very well.

In addition, the fighting scenes in this movie are very short and anticlimactic. There's a fight at the end after the big battle where the human general takes on the orc warchief. Its the most anticlimactic fight ever. The human guy wins the battle in one sweeping motion. However, the orcs are proud of the human for defeating the warchief in one of their grand rituals so that was super cool how noble the orcs were. Brownie points!

There was this minor love interest thing in the film that just led nowhere. It could've done without it. Basically an orc woman and the human general kind of have a thing but not really a thing, ya know? Like they were close but they never got too close or even kissed. So what was the point? I have no clue.

Anyways, I also thought the movie was too long. Its 2 hours and 3 minutes long-way too long for me. I guess that's standard Hollywood time lengths but they could've cut out so much of the dumb stuff to make the movie shorter and more cohesive. For example, they could've completely skipped the dumb fight w/ Medev's golum that turned out to be super weak anyways. They could've also skipped out most of the lame talking parts. A lot of this movie was just the Alliance peoples talking and the Orc peoples talking about what they were gonna do. I know that's plot and setting up suspense and drama but it got old fast. By the second act I'm tired about hearing what they're going to do. When there's little action the movie gets boring. When the action gets going and peaks that's when things get good. Which leads me to my next point.

The fighting scenes in this movie are phenomenal. The orcs are huge as they should be and they absolutely just annihilate the Alliance soldiers when they first meet them. I was rooting for the orcs the whole way until I realized I was an Alliance guy in World of Warcraft XD. The humans aren't afraid of the orcs even though they are weaker and can get slayed easily. There's some brutal scenes in this movie where Alliance soldiers get their heads crushed, orcs get stabbed through their backs, and Guldan just straight up mass murders tons of people using fel magic. Fel magic is basically demonic magic that Guldan, an orc warlock was using throughout the movie to open the portal to Azeroth. Which brings up my next point.

The story is great. It basically follows everything that happens before World of Warcraft and Warcraft III. So basically if you know the first two games-Orcs and Humans and Beyond the Dark Portal you pretty much know everything that's going to happen in this movie. Basically the orcs are from a different world called Outlands and the humans live in Azeroth. Guldan is able to open up a portal that takes the orcs to Azeroth, where they're supposed to conquer the entire world through war. So Guldan brought all the orc clans together to do this and the Alliance has to find some way to stop the orcs from killing everybody. They rely on Medev, this all powerful mage guardian but it turns out he's been corrupted by the fel magic too. That's where things get interesting because he turns into a demon that looks like Illidan from Warcraft III-way cool! It's pretty entertaining once the ball gets rolling. The whole plot builds up slowly and works its way up to many climaxes. It was quite thrilling.

Another thing I'd like to say is that the weapons and armor looked terrific. It looks straight out of the games that I've played-World of Warcraft in particular. Seeing it all on the big screen took me back to my WoW playing days. The orcs had these massive cool hammers that just crushed the humans. And the humans had the same armor in the games as well as these cool swords. The orcs had wolves that they used for transportation as well as to fight. The humans had gryphons to fly on as well as horses. The orcs threw their horses at them and stuff. It was funny.

Lastly, one of the best parts of the movie was the credits when I heard the World of Warcraft game music playing. Nerd chills man! Go see this movie. Blizzard has really outdone themselves by creating a great movie for their beloved gaming series. This movie makes me want to resubscribe to WoW and start playing everyday even though I don't have the time for it. That's how good it was. I might sound like I'm being paid to talk about how great this movie was but that's just how cool it was. I don't think there will be any video game movies that are going to be better than this unless there's more Warcraft movies. Go check it out at a local theater near you. For the Horde!

A return to Azeroth

     

     So about two days ago I started playing World of Warcraft again. For some people this game is super addicting (not for me) and for others they stay subscribed for like 10 years without really playing it too much. I'm super excited to be playing the game again after a two year hiatus playing other games that aren't MMO's. The main reason I quit WoW was because I felt the most recent expansion was boring. At one point I did try to replace WoW with another MMO called Starwars the Old Republic. Let me tell you right now that Swtor has some really good pvp! The stuns and crowd controls aren't as strong as they are in WoW so the actual lightsaber battles are actually super fun and intense.
     Anyways, I'm not big into stories in MMO's and I don't care for the whole Garrison and building my own base thing. I've always played WoW for pvp combat (player vs player). My first character was a Troll Fury Warrior and once I got him to max level (90 back in Cataclysm) I just pvp'd forever until I exhausted it. Then Mists of Pandaria came out and I wasn't impressed by the pandas at all. I thought of Mists of Pandaria as a let down. I messed around with a healing Panda Monk for a while but I eventually got bored and stopped playing. Then Warlords of Draenor came out and I had a lot of fun with the story at first. I was playing a Worgen Death Knight (my current main character) by then and I felt like I had really found my favorite character. I still like the Warrior class but part of the fun of playing WoW is trying out all the classes and leveling up all your toons (characters). What I'm trying to say is that the game can be fun and at other times it can get boring, and then at even other times it can be a total waste of time that takes up all your time if you let it consume you. We've all heard the countless stories of WoW players that play 12 hour sessions without eating and all the bad publicity the game has gotten over the years. Despite all that WoW is still one of the greatest games ever made and still the best mmo (massive multiplayer online game).
     Its great to be back in the world of Azeroth again. And I couldn't have picked a better time to pick it up again because the next expansion (called Legion) is coming out later this year. This next expansion is going to focus on Illidan's demon hunter people where you'll be able to play as a new demon hunter class. In addition, the level cap will be increased to 110. I can't wait for the new expansion but first I have a lot of work to do on my current toons.
     The main thing I've been working on so far is just having fun pvping in battlegrounds on my Death Knight. I know this won't really get me anywhere because the new expansion will bring new levels and new pvp gear but for the time being I'm having a ton of fun just playing battlegrounds, getting honor, and getting together the new pvp gear sets. It's just something for fun that I'll work on a little bit.
     The other thing I want to work on for sure is to level up my other secondary toons. I've got a level 90 Undead Rogue and 90 Troll Warrior just begging to be leveled up to 100. Getting those two to max level will be great because then I will be able to play with my old buddy from Wisconsin. He's a huge WoW freak but we haven't really been able to play together because my Death Knight is Alliance and he only plays Horde. Initially I started out playing Horde but once I saw that my brother and his guild played Alliance I decided to main a Worgen Death Knight.
     Lastly, I'll probably mess around with my even more secondary toons. I have a level 60-something Blood Elf Paladin, 40-something Night Elf Druid, 40-something Panda Monk, and a bunch of low levels like an Orc Frost Mage and a Toren Shadowpreist. As you can see, at one point I put a lot of time and effort into this game. Hopefully, as I play it more I can regain that fun spirit and atmosphere that it had when I first started playing. Its a great game and I'm glad Blizzard has been keeping it going for over 11 years. Who knows, I might even pre-order the next expansion just to get a free toon to level 100 and to get early access to the demon hunter class. I still plan on playing other games but I will definitely be immersed in this huge open world mmo. That is, until it gets boring again. If you ever want to play arena doubles or arena 3v3's add me my battlenet tag is Megaman with the #1597. Me and my buddies all play on the Emerald Dream server. I'll cya in Azeroth! For the Alliance!