After Dark Archives

14 01, 2017

Laser Pong 2: The Guinness World Record Revenge

By |2017-01-14T09:11:28-05:00January 14th, 2017|

In January 2016, attendees of the CodeMash conference helped set the Guinness World Record for Most People Playing a Single Game of Pong. Using laser pointers, 2 teams (Team Rad and Team Bitchin') managed to play to a cinematic tie game point with Team Rad pulling out a close victory. Due to an issue with the camera counting attendees as they entered the door, Guinness only gave us credit for 251 of our 379 players. In July of this year, the hosts of WiFi Wars, a British comedy TV show, broke the record with 286... Please join us as we [...]

14 01, 2017

The Mindful Developer: The Neuroscience of Successful Software Developers

By |2017-01-14T09:11:29-05:00January 14th, 2017|

Does your career as a software developer cause you stress? What are you currently doing to manage the negative health effects of this stress? Software developers are uniquely predisposed to certain stress-related mental-health issues. The key problem is that we evolved to survive in a wilderness context. However, these same survival adaptations are now in direct conflict with our modern high-tech world. In this session, we will learn about the behavioral neuroscience of mindfulness practices. We’ll discuss practices like meditation, biofeedback, cognitive reappraisal, organized skepticism, and egoless programming. In addition, we will learn how we, as software developers, can use [...]

14 01, 2017

Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy

By |2017-01-14T09:11:29-05:00January 14th, 2017|

You're on the cutting edge of technology. You dream a future filled with tech mere mortals can't imagine. Sparks of creativity fly. You want to write it all down, but you've never written a story in your life. So what now? This After Dark session will take a look at some of the great science fiction and fantasy writers, past and present, and pull those gleaming gems of wisdom from their stories that will help you finish your magnum opus. What makes a great sci-fi character? What plot pitfalls need to be avoided? What writing habits do you need to [...]