Podcast Transcript

This transcript is automatically generated. If you notice any errors, please contact the the guy with no title.

Matthew Baptist
We’re Normally very good friends and talkative people, but we would ride back home in just utter silence by the end of like, six days in and it wasn’t out of any hard feelings toward each other, we were just so drained.

Intro music plays

Matthew Baptist
Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of the SummerTech podcast. Today we are joined by Steven Fink the founder of SummerTech.

Steven Fink
Hello, hello,

Matthew Baptist
And Ben Ehrlich who needs no introduction and has no title.

Ben Ehrlich
So good to be here, Matt.

Today in Gaming

Matthew Baptist
To get us started. Have either of you seen any stories about tech in the news this week or anything sort of at the top of your mind?

Ben Ehrlich
Microsoft just bought like a whole bunch of companies. And that’s going to be interesting in gaming,

Steven Fink
All, gaming companies they bought and the big one is Bethesda .

Ben Ehrlich
Yep. That’s the one I’m excited about at least

Steven Fink
You’re confident that with all of the issues that Bethesda has, and all of the bad press, they get you think Microsoft will do a better job.

Ben Ehrlich
Microsoft’s got a bad rap because of the whole Rare thing. But I think they’re a pretty good company. And I think the Elder Scrolls is in good hands. When I’m talking about Bethesda, the only thing I care about is the Elder Scrolls.

Matthew Baptist
I think this really could be changed to a Skyrim podcast.

Steven Fink
That’s Fallout too right there. Fallout?

Matthew Baptist
And Fallout.

Ben Ehrlich
Yeah, they have Fallout as well.

Matthew Baptist
So I think I think Microsoft gaming in general has done a good job, right? I don’t necessarily see anybody complaining about where Minecraft is. And the state of that.

Steven Fink
I mean, I have an Xbox.

Ben Ehrlich
There you go. Say no more folks.

Steven Fink
I mean, I did have PlayStation. And I switched. I don’t know why. I think I just donated my PlayStation to camp and then thought, Hmm, what about an Xbox and then bought that, but I only really play one game. And I don’t play that much anymore. So I’m not the gamer I used to be.

Ben’s Busted BYO PC

Ben Ehrlich
I told you guys this in person. But the listeners of the podcast who were waiting with bated breath to get the update do not know. So I’m building this computer. And I was waiting for my brother to bring me the CPU that fits with the motherboard. And he brought it to me after waiting like a couple weeks, and I’m very excited, I take it out, I go to put it in, and it’s about half of the size of the slot. And I realized that he has not brought me the CPU to the computer. He’s brought me the CPU for my grandma’s old laptop. So that was just not going to work. So that was about a week ago, and today in the mail I got my CPU. Interesting mislisting on Amazon, it was the Xeon I5, which isn’t a thing that exists, but I went for that one because it sounds cool.

Steven Fink
So you got everything you need.

Ben Ehrlich
Everything I need. Come Saturday, I’m getting this puppy going,

Matthew Baptist
You know, only in your house, would you find your grandma’s CPU.

Ben Ehrlich
Whenever someone gives me tech, I say maybe I’ll have some use for this. So I take the stuff out of it. Like here’s this DDR-1 RAM, this is really going to come in handy when I get my next you know, IBM ThinkPad.

The IBM ThinkPad hasn’t been a product since the early 2000s, when IBM sold the ThinkPad brand to Lenovo.

Steven Fink
So when do you anticipate putting this all together and starting up?

Ben Ehrlich
Probably tomorrow night or this weekend?

Steven Fink
Nice.

Ben Ehrlich
I’m so excited.

Steven Fink
And what’s the first game you’re going for?

Ben Ehrlich
Maybe someone Man’s Sky?

Steve has been trying to convince Ben to play No Man’s Sky for the past 3 months

Steven Fink
There you go.

Matthew Baptist
I also want to appreciate the fact that you started out that story by pointing out that you had told Steve I already and we still live reacted when you brought the wrong component. We still gave exclamations of surprise,

Steven Fink
There’s a little bit of new information in there for us. So that was that was interesting. But that’s very cool. It is a fun game I popped into it yesterday, my little world where I built my little resort has changed dramatically. It’s pretty cool. But I would, if it were me–I guess I am me. If I could do what I wanted, I would do these sort of I don’t know if it’s haptic or whatever. But you can do VR, No Man’s Sky without the helm. Like I wouldn’t want to do the helm. I don’t want to be sitting there with a goggles on but you can do everything with your arms, which is cool. And like when you’re in your ship, you don’t see you see your controls in front of you, but they don’t move. But apparently when you strap all that on, hands show up and it is doing everything. But just you know, go all out on graphics because man it is gorgeous.

Ben Ehrlich
I definitely do not have the hardware to go all out on graphics. I think I just scrape above the minimum requirements.

Steven Fink
Sell grandma’s CPU!

Ben Ehrlich
I took out the motherboard from the case that I’m building this and it was my friend’s old XPS from like 2008 and I’m putting in the motherboard of a computer I built in like 2014 so maybe I’ll sell the DDR-2 ram and the Pentium CPU for for high profit on the black market.

Steven Fink
Well, I think you’ll enjoy the game. It is a time sink for sure.

Ben Ehrlich
Maybe I’ll just play World of Warcraft instead. You know I don’t know if I can devote that kind of time to again.

Matthew Baptist
Let’s do it.

Ben Ehrlich
No.

Steve, Matt, and Ben were formerly in a World of Warcraft guild together, and wasted countless hours in-game.

Among Us Reforged

Steven Fink
I’ll tell you what I want to talk about in gaming. This Among Us game seems to be taking over right now. Right It seems to be the hottest game right now.

Matthew Baptist
Have either of you played it?

Steven Fink
I have not tried it yet. It is like PC right? I see it on the phone but I don’t want to play it on the phone like I can get it on Steam?

Matthew Baptist
Yeah, it’s PC and mobile but not Mac.

Steven Fink
Okay, well then I’m out.

Matthew Baptist
Yeah, it’s a shame but you can if your Mac is like, up to date enough, you can get a program BlueStacks and play the sort of mobile version on your computer and the experience is still pretty good.

Steven Fink
But I can’t play it through W.I.N.E?

Matthew Baptist
Oh, maybe you could give that a try?

Steven Fink
Because it’s probably not very–

Matthew Baptist
It’s five bucks.

Steven Fink
I don’t mean that. I mean, just intensive, right? It’s probably pretty.

Matthew Baptist
Yeah.

Steven Fink
Low graphical… I’m just talking like I know anything. I’m just making up words now.

Matthew Baptist
You know, it’s yeah, it’s not that resource intensive. No, it’s it’s a lot of fun. There’s actually been some pretty recent news in the Among Us sphere, where they had been announcing that Among Us 2, was, you know, going to come out in like a year and a half time or something like that, and come with new features and stability updates and stuff like that. And they ultimately just yesterday, cancelled Among Us 2, and said they would just release those features for Among Us 1.

Ben Ehrlich
How do you feel about that?

Matthew Baptist
It made me nervous. You know, I have now some bad experiences with remastered games. You know? I don’t want this to be among us reforged.

Ben Ehrlich
So can we talk about Warcraft Reforged? Just for a minute?

Matthew Baptist
Yeah, Ben.

Ben Ehrlich
Just for a second,

Steven Fink
please.

Ben Ehrlich
How do you take a beloved game that is working that has a community and just rip it apart? How do you do such a bad job making a game look nice that you make it unplayable?

Matthew Baptist
Pretty insane.

Ben Ehrlich
It’s horrible, it looks terrible. It plays horribly, it’s invasive. And it’s like 30 gigabytes. And even if you don’t have the Reforged version, you still have to download like 30 gigabytes of files.

Matthew Baptist
You know, the amazing thing about Warcraft three, the Frozen Throne and the original, were how well optimized these games were, you know, like, part of their endurance and its spread and why people were able to make all these custom maps and stuff like that is because this game could run on everything. You know, it is remarkable that the remastered has just turned this–what is it? 20 year old, well optimized game into…

Ben Ehrlich
Flaming garbage?

Matthew Baptist
Yeah.

Warcraft 2: Orcs and Movies

Steven Fink
Yeah, I did. I did download it. And I, I don’t know why I just got like two seconds in. And I haven’t really given it a real try. But I also didn’t want to after talking to you about it. I’ll tell you what I’m excited about is the idea that maybe the Warcraft 2 movie comes out. Because a little SummerTech history: We had a little party when the Warcraft movie came out, and I rented a theater, and we all sat there and watched it.

Ben Ehrlich
It was really beautiful.

Matthew Baptist
It was but I think I was so because I was the host of this thing, I could never really relax and get into it. So I feel like I didn’t really watch the movie until it came out on cable or wherever I found it. And then I dove in. It’s really good.

Ben Ehrlich
It is!

Matthew Baptist
Like I it’s strangely good. Like, I don’t get why people are panning this movie so much. I don’t think they’re really watching it or they’re or they’re just coming into it with an eye roll already. It’s also I have one of those TVs that can do 3d which is amazing, but it’s also terrible, because nothing really offers 3d anymore. It’s just like a few things. I think a PlayStation does, but VUDU does. V-U-D-U, and Warcraft the movie in 3d is available there. Let me tell you that changes everything.

Ben Ehrlich
That’s really cool.

Matthew Baptist
Yeah, that I love that movie. I’ve seen it several times now. It’s damn good. It also really, I’m also one of those people that sort of is lazy and doesn’t get into the lore enough. So while I played Warcraft for years, I never fully understood the lore. So watching the movie really kind of helps with all that.

Ben Ehrlich
I feel like if you have no concept of Warcraft lore, and you saw that movie, you would be wildly confused. I think that’s probably where the negative reviews come from.

Steven Fink
Yes, I mean, there’s nothing more thrilling than the first time they fly into Stormwind. And it’s this real place, and you’re like, “Oh my god.” Yeah, that is awesome. And to see the main characters that you’ve known for so long, come alive and you know, have emotions is fun.

Matthew Baptist
I was more of a Warcraft lore person when I was playing Warcraft 3 than World of Warcraft lore, but it was very exciting and I think now playing World of Warcraft or having played it I would have more of an appreciation too for the movie and seeing those places like you know, get that reaction when you see Iron Forge stuff like that.

Steven Fink
Yeah, I mean because back in the day when World of Warcraft came out. I mean you spending days of your life in Stormwind and Iron Forge. I mean, they barely even touch Iron Forge in the movie, which is a bummer.

Ben Ehrlich
It’s a cool moment when it does show up.

Steven Fink
Yeah, yeah, and it’s just right to right he’s sitting there by the Forge.

Ben Ehrlich
Yeah, you can recognize where he is.

Steven Fink
You spend so much time in a game like that. You really–it becomes a real world to you. It’s it’s pretty wild, like memories of being in certain places in a game is just bizarre.

Matthew Baptist
I was just excited by the Harvest Gollum.

Ben Ehrlich
Yes!

Steven Fink
Wait, in the movie?

Matthew Baptist
Yeah in the movie!

Ben Ehrlich
They go to Westfall at one point.

Steven Fink
There is… See now I gotta watch it again.

Matthew Baptist
Yeah, there are some harvest Gollums as the orcs are invading Westfall.

Steven Fink
Yeah, but is there anything worse starting a new character and getting to that quest? Is there just anything. It’s just like getting to these guys again.

Ben Ehrlich
Old Blanchy’s Feedbag.

Westfall is a low-level questing area in World of Warcraft. Old Blanchy’s Feedbag is an item obtained from a notoriously boring quest.

Steven Fink
Yeah, Westfall is like lovely and I have great memories, but doing it every time. It’s like, Okay, here we go.

Matthew Baptist
I mean, World of Warcraft is not a fun game until Wrath of the Lich King. I think it’s powered by nostalgia and the newness of it. But if you go back and just look at it, like a video game, it is not enjoyable until Wrath of the Lich King.

The History of Coditum: Our Main-ish Topic Today

Matthew Baptist
So for our main topic today, I was thinking we could discuss just a little bit of the history of codium how it got started, because I think Coditum has a long and actually kind of interesting history that I don’t necessary–well, I don’t know, interesting is a relative word, but it has a long history that I don’t know, everybody knows the ins and outs of.

Steven Fink
I’m happy to tell it.

Matthew Baptist
Yeah. So Steve, how did the idea to start Coditum–Where did the idea to start Coditum come from?

Steven Fink
You know, we started off as this tech camp, you know, and our classes would just run as they would run in whatever ratios we had, and they were pretty big ratios, 8:1, or 10:1 ratios. So often just one teacher per subject. And then as we grew, and we brought on more and more staff, and the leadership program came up, and I think we’ve talked about this on a previous podcast, we just got better and better at teaching coding. And so we got to the point, and I remember I remember being right outside, in front of camp, and a parent saying the words, “Well, where do we go now?” And it just, I never, it never even dawned on me before to do something during the year. So I thought, “Oh, well, why can’t we do this?” And I reached out to my contacts at the college and said, “Can we rent a lab?” And so that’s what we did. And we called it Code Craft. And I was like, that’s clever cuz Starcraft was huge. At the time. This was not pre Warcraft, of course, but but all of that, right? Starcraft, Warcraft was such a big part of our lives. So I called it Code Craft. I didn’t start a business, just you know, we’re gonna do this thing called Code Craft, where it’s just show up and learn how to code. And I think some of my early teachers were–

Matthew Baptist
First year was Nathan and Andrew Willis.

Steven Fink
You’re right, right. Right. Right. So we got the lab that was built in the old planetarium. They had this cool room that I loved. And one of the funniest parts of it was that these college computers–we were using the college’s computers–would wipe anything that you downloaded on them. So part of the day was showing up a few minutes early and–

Matthew Baptist
Downloading Eclipse on the computers.

Steven Fink
Right. Real fast, every time. And it was doing fine. You know, it was great, we’re still teaching in that three to one manner for the most part. My favorite thing about that room was when you stood right in the center of it had this crazy echo because of the shape of the dome ceiling. But I loved that little room that was in a different part of campus, that was never an area we went to at camp, it was like this whole other thing, weird little drop off place where you had to sort of meander through the building to get there and find the room. And then I went to see if I could trademark it. And sure enough, I couldn’t. It was well taken, I forget what they were even doing. But I couldn’t take it. And so one of the little phrases that we had always joked around was Codito Ergo Sum, which plays off Cogito ergo sum, which if you don’t know what that means, it means “I think therefore I am” in Latin, of course. And so Codito Ergo Sum was I code therefore I am, which of course is not a real word. And so I thought, you know, I’m trying to think of–in my in my genius, and it is genius, I think that is what I possess–I thought, “Well, what do we call this thing?” I’m like, “Well, what about Coditum?” The form in which we code? I regret it to this. I regret it every day that someone on the phone with, they say, is this Coad-it-uhm? Is this Co-dit-ium?

Steven Fink
Is this Cod-it-um?

Ben Ehrlich
Is this Cape Cod-itum?

Steven Fink
People who have been customers for years, don’t say it, right. So that’s been a little bit of a, you know, bane. And so you know. But here it is. And it has developed and changed to with the pandemic and all these things. So it definitely has a life of its own and it’s affected a lot of people at this point, which is pretty cool.

Matthew Baptist
Thank you guys for joining us for this week’s episode of the SummerTech podcast. Remember to like, share and subscribe to the podcast and if you’re interested in taking classes at Coditum you can always register or find out more information at www.coditum.com. Thank you!