# Finding inspiration at a game dev conference and a choir evening

# Intro

Making good use of my new four-day work week, I attended the Playtopia (opens new window) game developers game conference today and went to watch the Stadskoor (City Choir) (opens new window) tonight with a bunch of friends from my old football club.

While I've never developed a game in my life (other than a Rush Hour (opens new window) clone for a first year computer science project) and nor do I sing, I admire the people who can do either of these things.

# Community and creativity

Leia French's talk today stood out for me today. She spoke about the rise of techno-fascism. It is something that has been on my mind (and in my podcast feeds) a lot recently. Leia urged us to reclaim our freedom from techno-fascists using creativity and community. She ended with a powerful sentence that I unfortunately can't recall exactly, but which went something along the lines of:

Books would not have been banned and art would not have been destroyed if we weren't dangerous.

Chipzel, too, emphasised the power of creativity and community in her talk. Her talk's abstract ends with:

We can love the machine and hate the system.

This sentiment resonates with me, because earlier this year, I started to wonder about what my role as a software engineer is in this world of techno-fascism. The one thing I've realised so far is that tech per se isn't bad, but it is, of course, the way in which we use tech that can be bad.

While I probably won't be developing games any time soon, I hope to dive deeper into self-hosting as a form of resistance next year. (Never Post's latest podcast episode (opens new window) on self-hosting is an inspirational one if you're curious about self-hosting yourself)

# Playtopia's arcade

I can't mention Playtopia without mentioning the amazing arcade they set up. I've honestly never seen anything quite like it before. A room full of screens of all shapes and sizes with all sorts of games to try out, some with some very unconventional controllers.

Funnily enough though, despite all of the very impressive games, my favourite game was the simple Line Wobbler (opens new window). It kind of looked like it was still just a prototype, so I thought it was an experiment made just for Playtopia, but I'm delighted to note that it has won several awards world-wide!

# Stadskoor

After Playtopia, I met up with a friend for a drink, before going to watch the Stadskoor in a school hall. I've spent many a hour in school halls for our weekly 3ish-hour long school assemblies. I disliked it, because it was exceedingly boring. However, being in one again for the first time after more than 10 years with a bunch of friends and listening to a choir singing old South African favourites served up a special kind of nostalgia for me. The conductor even pulled out a trekklavier (accordion) for Laurika Rauch's Kinders van die Wind.

# The fun continues tomorrow

Tomorrow, I'll be attending BSides Cape Town (opens new window). I sadly skipped last year's BSides because of my social anxiety, but I'm confident and excited about attending tomorrow's conference. I'm very grateful that my year of in-person classes, friends, and community at AIMS has helped immensely to boost my self-confidence around other people. Now, I can happily and confidently attend events and feel a special sense of community!