I always wonder how many people read these sections. Anyway, let’s get into it.

My name is Peter Kis, better known as Sonko around the internet. Come think of it, in real life too. I’m a software developer by day, and even developerer by night. My main focus is the Java/SQL stack, and I have a strong enterprise background – worked in the finance/insurance industry for 10+ years, but no one cares, and this is not LinkedIn.

In October 2018, I had a lot of changes in my personal life. Got my degree, moved to a different country, that sort of thing. I wanted to publish and express myself for a long time at that point, but I did so sporadically before, and across a varying number of topics (I wrote articles about wargaming, medieval castles, tabletop rpgs, technical how-tos, and did some translations. Most of these are not in English). But I felt it was time to pick a focus, a passion that I can and will sustain.

StarCraft: Brood War AI came naturally. As a kid, StarCraft was one of my absolute favorite games, and played it endlessly. Somehow I always enjoyed the PvE battles more, where I can plan and think more, and not in a rush, and not badgered by others. Also, I kinda sucked at competitive play. I encountered the Student Starcraft AI Tournament by chance on some site I don’t even remember. For my thesis, I wrote an AI as well, and I felt it was just the beginning what can be done here, and stopping there would be a wasted effort. So I started working on it a bit more, and decided that hey, I might as well write about it.

So in October 2018 I started this blog. As for the name, it was inspired by a conversation I had with some dumbfuck a not so smart guy, who were adamant that even though he never coded in his life, he could comfortably do what I can, and just “sit in the office all day”. He asked what do I even do (if you imagined a do you even lift bro here, you are not entirely wrong). I started explaining that I work with internal-use enterprise applications, but he cut me off and said I was just using fancy words to confuse him, I should just tell it how it is. So I told him.

I. Make. Computer. Do. Things.

Well, that settled that argument. Anyway, I started blogging about developing my AI, which I named JumpyDoggoBot – following the paradigm that if you can’t find a good name, you should go with the stupidest one possible. I started interact more and more with the SSCAIT Discord community, and I thought – hey, why not do a podcast? All I need is microphone and some free time. So, the Undermind was born. Later, I commissioned the artwork (done by a dear friend of mine), the derpy Overlord, which has become a mascot, and the symbol of the site to some degree.

After that, I felt some momentum building. I wanted to work more and more on this scene, and tried to contact more and more people, work with talented individuals, and generally, bring more spotlight on.

I was honored when I was asked to do the weekly SSCAIT broadcasts. Although I still consider nepeta a better caster than I am, I gladly accepted, and since then, we do it in an alternating fashion. Check them out, I have many terrible jokes hidden there!

After a while, I realized that developing this bot is fun and all, but it’s only interesting to a niche audience, which will not likely to grow. The question was always how to begin, how to setup, where to get help, etc.

So I decided to write a goddamn book about it. At the time of writing this, it’s still in progress – I publish those in the order I write them. So far, my rate of publication has been oookaaayyyy.

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with live coding streams with other bot authors- you can watch those on Twitch, but it’s impossible to keep a schedule, since most of those fantastic fellows have a day job, and they are also scattered across the world. The recordings are on my YouTube channel, however.

I really love doing all of this, but time is always a factor – the stuff I did was mostly done beside my day job. This has changed a bit recently, as I’m working as a freelancer now, and have a bit more time. I would absolutely love to do only this, and make a living out of it, but I have no illusions. But I did start a Patreon, so if you decided to support me for some fucking reason because you’re a nice dude, you can do it here:

Oh, and about the shop: It is just a webshop that I set up for some friends, and I added some MCDT/Undermind merch there as well, because why not.

Contact

If you want to contact me, you can often find me on the SSCAIT Discord, but I respond to e-mails too at sonko (at) makingcomputerdothings dot com.