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YouTube, Card games and Uber: My year in tech – Brendyn Lotz

When Nick Cowen told me I had to write a summary of my year in tech I struggled.

The primary reason for that is that because our jobs involve so much tech it’s tough to put your finger on your favourite things.

So make my life easier I thought I’d look at three things that augment into other areas of my life that are based on technological solutions.

YouTube as my primary entertainment source

Over the last few months I have developed a fascination with cameras based almost entirely on one man – Peter McKinnon.

For those that haven’t heard the name, McKinnon is a tattooed hipster that loves coffee, photography, cinematography and teaching people about those things. He also has a small YouTube channel that has grown to boast some 1.4 million subscribers.

McKinnon is but one YouTuber that has convinced me to trade out Netflix, Showmax and other streaming services for the content created by ordinary folks telling wonderful stories.

More often than not I find myself swapping out the latest Netflix obsession for a tutorial about how to make Tofurkey from scratch or learning how long it would take you to fall through the Earth.

Admittedly the platform is not without its problems whether it be questionable content being labelled as safe for kids or the great Adpocalypse that forced many creators to look for revenue outside of YouTube.

This year YouTube taught me that sometimes you just need to do something you want to do and who knows, maybe one day it could be your videos I’m watching as I go about my day.

The only card game

Another year has passed and I still find myself opening Battle.net and clicking that Hearthstone logo.

Destiny 2 was fun, my interest in Dota waned but Hearthstone has my heart.

This year was very much the year of the rise of the Priest with Lyra the Sunshard providing Quest Priest with a way to generate value consistently and then the release of the Shadowreaper Anduin Hero Cards which – when paired with Raza the Chained – has led to the domination of the Ranked play ladder by the class.

I also tried my hand at a few other card games including Eternal which reminds me a lot of Magic The Gathering. While it didn’t grab me as much as Hearthstone it is a fun game and its free to play.

The latest Hearthstone expansion (Kobolds and Catacombs) introduced a new single player mode called Dungeon Run and it is the most fun I have had in a game all year long.

This December I will be looking to improve my Ranked play position and just having a ton of fun.

Uber

What a year it has been for Uber.

After Donald Trump issued a ban on citizens from certain countries entering the US Uber decided that surge pricing in areas surrounding airports was a good idea. That kicked off the #DeleteUber campaign on Twitter and things have just gone downhill since then.

Shortly after #DeleteUber a female engineer who had left the firm came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct at the firm.

That seemed to kick of a festival of follies from Uber that has seen it being sued by Waymo, Travis Kalanick stepping down as CEO and more.

Locally – violence against Uber driver partners continued and government said that it would work with the firm to set up a task team to address the violence.

All tolled this year has been a bumpy rubbish year for Uber and to speak frankly I’m not all that sure how the firm has managed to stick around this long.

Perhaps its the convenience of the app or perhaps its just a matter of folks just simply not having the gumption to delete Uber and go through the “hassle” of having to sign up for a new service.

Perhaps the next year will be kinder to Uber though if I’m being honest a lot of the firms problems are self made.

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