Locked, Loaded, and Ready to Go

The coming month is quite exciting, as Lock and Load EU is less than a week away, while UKGE is at the end of the month. Anyway, less of that for now, and time for a bit of an update.

Work

Programming in the world of AI is leading to a bit of a paradigm shift, and one where I can see the value of AI (just not for artistic endeavours). It all clicked when my boss said in response to me using AI to help me learn front-end Typescript, "Why bother? What we are doing now is akin to how Python interacts with assembly code". And that was the moment it made sense. AI for programming for what we do is not vibe coding. We work in the world of finance, and so you have to be bloody sure things work right. So what we code using AI is very self-contained. Developed with the data in mind first, how it must be processed, what those workflows must look like, and the services it will interact with, and what the testing should be. So while we are not writing the code directly, we are describing the architecture and orchestration, and as the "person in the loop", refining that process because the AI is not that smart.

The analogy I came up with is that it is like writing a rulebook for a tabletop game, only to have that rulebook used for the computer-game version. You need to add further specification to the rulebook, and then the AI does the task of making the code and worrying about the syntax. Of course, this all has a cost. And those costs are going up, and this year we are already seeing companies burn through their expected AI budget in just a few months. And I think at work, as these costs go up, our use of AI will have to be further refined, and prompts will not be sent to the AI agent before being properly reviewed.

Freelance

It's all quiet, save for work progressing on Trashumansim as the quickstart layout continues, plus more preparations for the code book.

Meanwhile, more reading continues for another project, and another small project has taken shape. All early days, but not much more to say. As a thanks to SFG for the free VIP ticket to Lock and Load, I will be working for them at UKGE on their booth on Friday, running demos of Warmachine. So drop by for a demo and say hi.

Hobby

Warmachine continues to be my game of choice and the Journeyman League rumbles on, though it's hard when others have kids to deal with.

But I have painted a host of things. First up, a third of my Gators, along with the Dracodile.

Next up the Behemoth arrived for my Khador Winter Korps

And what you will notice in a lot of these new shots, is the use of a smoke machine, something I will be using more as I up my game with taking photos of my armies for various games (look out Trench Crusade).

At Lock and Load, I'll mainly be playing in the narrative campaign games all weekend, but I will have some time to take video and chat with others, so come say hi. I will have stickers to give away.

And from Darker Days Radio this month....

And coming soon....