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Invasion of the Black Slime and Other Tales of Horror

Invasion of the Black Slime and Other Tales of Horror

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Download the complete book copy I scanned here: Download Invasion of the Black Slime and Other Tales of Horror PDF here

When I was a kid, I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books. At school book fairs, I was always on the lookout for a good deal. There were various copycats series – such as the really excellent Fighting Fantasy series that I discovered in middle school. Which Way Books, however, never really received the accolades of Choose your own Adventure. Most of them were very mediocre to downright terrible. One book from the series, however, really stood head and shoulders above the others.

Invasion of the Black Slime and Other Tales of Horror was honestly one of the best scary books I read as a kid. I always loved adventure mixed with a tinge of the scary or fantastic. The book consisted of 3 main story lines you could choose between. The first storyline was to continue on to the supposedly invaded mountain town of Silverlode. The second involves visiting a lonely doctor. The third was one of the best which involved spending 24 hours in Uncle Harry Crispen’s haunted house to earn a million dollars.

There were some really great illustrations as well:

It is hard to find copies of this book today. The series was never terribly popular, and used copies of this book can run you about $35 – if you can even find one. I have never seen this book online anywhere; so I decided to change that. I bought a copy and scanned the whole thing cover to cover. It’s now here available as a PDF to download and enjoy.

Personally, I found the haunted house path contained some of the most terrifying stuff I read as a kid. Even today as an adult it holds up really well. There’s even a warning that you need to give full attention to the pages you read as you go into Uncle Henry’s house. I remember taking it seriously and going to my room and laying on my bed to read it. It was downright terrifying to 10 year old me.

If you’d like to hear some the book, here’s an audiobook version:

If you read this book as a kid, share your experiences with it. It was definitely one of my favorites.

Which Way Books #10
The Invasion of the Black Slime and Other Tales of Horror
Written by: R.G. Austin (pseudonym used by multiple people) – Gelman, Rita Golden (uncredited); Lamb, Nancy (uncredited)
Illustrator: Smith, Joseph A.
Format: Paperback
Published: January 1, 1983 by Simon Pulse
ISBN : 9780671460204 
ISBN-10 : 067146020X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0671460204
ASIN ‏ : ‎ 067146020X
Pages: 118

Download Invasion of the Black Slime and Other Tales of Horror PDF here

Links:

Watch Sumo Live!

Watch Sumo Live!

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Twitch has some great channels – especially if you like watching things from other countries.

One of my early favorites was Game Center CX ゲームセンターCX. The Game Center CX Twitch channel ran about 19 seasons of the TV show. GameCenter CX was a Japanese TV show that featured comedian Shinya Arino (a member of comedy duo Yowiko). He plays old home console video games from previous decades (his own childhood) and usually attempts to get the game’s ending within a single day. It’s made more entertaining by the fact he’s not a very good player and the attempts consist of marathon sessions in which he is clearly past exhaustion. He picked up quite a following and he would do adventures playing at local game centers (arcades) in different parts of Japan – many in mom and pop candy stores. While the Twitch gccxstream channel is rarely live these days, you can always watch the archived seasons anytime you want.

A more recent favorites is the Midnight Sumo Twitch channel that broadcasts live competitions and replays of the previous matches in the current season. Sumo runs all year, but in several distinct tournaments that happen ever 2 months. They live broadcast (usually late evening US time) whenever there is a tournament.

During the live broadcasts, there is lots of commenting and folks helping the casual viewer know more about the sport, the reason behind the little rituals they use, see the between match vignettes, as well as getting to watch great Japanese commercials that happen during the normal commercial breaks. Excellent and fun way to watch with others.

Other fun tidbits are how people explain things like the ring announcer (yobidashi) in his unique outfit. The outfit is based on an old style Japanese workman’s outfit, with leggings and split-toed tabi-like boots. In keeping with that workman theme, he does many odd jobs around the arena.

Drawing with Stable Diffusion

Drawing with Stable Diffusion

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arjan_M made a python script that gives you a canvas where you can paint on the right side and it will update on the left side. In the background it sends an updated image after every paint stroke to the API of automatic1111 and it uses the controlnet scribble model to generate an image. The video is in 4x speed, but it updates quite fast. It really depends on the speed of your graphics card and the controlnet model. It also works with controlnet 1.1 and that is a little bit faster.I can put the script online if anyone is interested.

Here is the github repo
houseofsecrets/SdPaint: Stable Diffusion Painting (github.com)


AI based Image Enlarger

AI based Image Enlarger

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AI is not only for just generating new images, it can also help you enlarge your original images by filtering missing details intelligently while upscaling.

Note that most of these ‘free’ applications will scrape and can use any image you upload for whatever purposes they want – so I wouldn’t upload anything sensitive on them.

How to be a thought leader

How to be a thought leader

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Pat Kelly narrates the format of every single TED talk in detail – and demonstrates how painfully easy it is to use form and style to portray yourself as being much smarter and your ideas as more important than they actually are.

It’s pure gold – because he nails all the little tropes exactly right. You’ll never be able to watch a TED talk the same way, or as seriously, again. Which is probably good – because it is a form of emotional and intellectual manipulation. TED talks show that even supposedly smart and sophisticated people are just as susceptible.

Emotional and intellectual manipulation like he demonstrates isn’t new. These exact same kinds of tropes exist everywhere. Paul E.T. shows how easily you can make a $70 Netflix documentary and can get your audience to believe any point you want. Most Hollywood movies use the Save the Cat narrative structure to make audiences believe or feel emotionally connected to whatever theme the narrative structure dictates. All of this without having an honest debate on the facts of the subject.

Today in startup culture we see stealth mode digital nomads iterate passionately and create paradigm shifting disruptive PoC’s that will transform a traditional marketspace with ephemeral apps and portals! They are the Uber for your laundry! We’re the Shapchat for your groceries! Yet, despite all the million and even billion dollar valuations, the majority of these Forbes 30 under 30 disruptors are now in, or facing, very real jail time for basic fraud and lies. It turns out so much was based on buzzy marketing with no substance. It should not have been a surprise either – so many of these ideas promised things that were not economically viable to downright scientifically impossible. Yet VC’s and the smartest people in the room ate them up.

The reality is that we are in an era in which FORM and STYLE are used to convey meaning and manipulate us into taking a side or believing an assertion more than actual facts. This isn’t just about fake news or biased social media posts, the fact this works on TED talk audiences shows that even those that consider themselves educated and refined can easily fall for this kind of emotional and intellectual manipulation.

Charter your private jet

Charter your private jet

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Flight prices aren’t as cheap as they used to be anymore. In fact, if you’re about to fly your family and friends of 5-7 people somewhere, you might consider picking up a private jet. It might actually be in the same ballpark for price.

How much? Charter companies like XO specialize in these sorts of chartered trips. If you have flexibility, they sometimes even offer discounts and special deals for one-way trips to get their planes back/to the next pickup.

Here’s a list of recent prices