Here is a paddle ball game that I wrote the coding for. The programming was all done in a software called “Processing”. It was quite interesting working on this project. I had to get used to using “classes” in Processing language which helps to speed up the production work flow. I had to rethink the way that I was used to programming code.
Here is a video of the game:
Paddle Ball Game from Dennis Malcolm on Vimeo.
Partial Code:
Interface Class – Reading Reflections – Generation Why?
In the article “Generation Why” by Zadie Smith, it talks about the recent movie “The Social Network” directed by David Fincher. Smith talks about the opening scene a bit & how Harvard kids will remember their time on campus with Mark Zuckberg. Zuckberg was sitting at a table with his then fictional movie girlfriend trading zingers at each other. Smith talks about Zuckberg’s character having weird & twitchy body language & not being able to comprehend certain social norms. His girlfriend was trying to break up with him but for some reason he did not get it. Smith called Zuckberg a computer nerd who is a social “autistic”. Smith believes that the reason why nerds work hard is to make money, become popular & to inevitably get girls with their new found success. Zuckbergs character, pisses off the people closest to him when building his empire & they in turn one by one try to sue him for various reasons. Zuckberg tells them if they were the true inventers of Facebook, that they would have created Facebook & dismisses them. He becomes successful, rich & at some point after, is not satisfied enough with the millions of dollars in the bank he earns creating Facebook, he goes on to try to rake in a billion dollars for a better lifestyle that he believes would be a slice of heaven. Smith feels that Zuckburg is to blinded by his goal to realize that he is actually in hell with the life he created around him. Obsessed with the celebrity lifestyle is familiar to us it’s pitiful, it pains us, and we recognize it. However would Zuckerberg realize it as well?
Although it is widely know that this movie distorted reality of what actually happened to sell tickets. The film makers had to contend with how to get across the contentment of programming (the actual motivation to creating Facebook)— if such a pleasure exists—in a way that is both cinematic and comprehensible? Zadie believes that most movies have a difficult time in expressing the simple joy of the process of the creation of art or programming in this case. Zuckberg didn’t create Facebook for the money or the girls or the power he accumulated, but instead did it for the love of programming.