“Instead of planning for a vacation, create a lifestyle you don’t need to take a vacation from”. Helped me decide to pick low stress jobs most of my life, and I’ve noticed for me things have been phenomenally better than for most of my friends
OtaKing Animation gives a step-by-step rundown of one method to combine 3D and 2D to animate spaceships, cars, planes, etc.
Acerola makes a bunch of great graphics programming videos. In this one, he tries to simulate the ocean without tiling
If you don’t think AI is changing things at a fundamental level, witness what is possible with voice models trained by ordinary people like ThereIRuinedIt:
Or Johnny Cash singing Barbie Girl
How? There’s a number of different ways you can try this yourself – but the list grows daily at this point, so do some googling and see what’s available.
A Ghost Story for Christmas was a series of annual British short television films originally broadcast on BBC One between 1971 and 1978, and revived sporadically by the BBC since 2005. The majority of the stories were from the collections of classic English ghost stories. Authors like M.R. James and others.
They’re definitely worth checking out, and it turns out a lot of them are online. You can also see them on Britbox. A Warning to the Curious is particular well done favorite of mine.
| Broadcast order | Title | Air date | Video link | Christopher Lee’s Ghost Stories for Christmas | Audiobook version |
| 1 | The Stalls of Barchester | Dec 24, 1971 | Here | Here | Here |
| 2 | A Warning to the Curious | Dec 24, 1972 | Here | Here | Here |
| 3 | Lost Hearts | Dec 25, 1973 | Here | Here | |
| 4 | The Treasure of Abbot Thomas | Dec 23, 1974 | Here | Here | |
| 5 | The Ash Tree | Dec 23, 1975 | Here | Here | Here |
| 6 | The Signalman | Dec 22, 1976 | Here | Here | |
| 7 | Stigma | Dec 28, 1977 | Here | ||
| 8 | The Ice House | Dec 25, 1978 | Here |
The series ended in 1978. Maybe because of the two less than stellar final two entries: Stigma and The Ice House. Sadly, most of these are not online, but you might be able to find them via BBC and BritBox.
| Broadcast order | Title | Air date | Video | Christopher Lee’s Ghost Stories for Christmas | Audiobook |
| 9 | A View from a Hill | 23 December 2005 | Here | Here | Here |
| 10 | Number 13 | 22 December 2006 | Here | Here | Here |
| 11 | Whistle and I’ll Come to You | 24 December 2010 | 1968 version | Here | |
| 12 | The Tractate Middoth | 25 December 2013 | Here | ||
| 13 | The Dead Room | 24 December 2018 | |||
| 14 | Martin’s Close | 24 December 2019 | Here | ||
| 15 | The Mezzotint | 24 December 2021 | Trailer | Here | |
| 16 | Count Magnus | 23 December 2022 | BBC iPlayer | Here | |
| 17 | Lot No. 249 | TBD | Here |
If you’re looking for a really reasonable playlist, try this YouTube playlist by bonpourvous.
Otaku no Video is a cult classic that every classic anime fan should see. It was partially based in the personal life of the original creators of Gainax, who started their careers as otaku during the late seventies and the beginning of the eighties. Anime was in its infancy. Anime was a very niche and tiny subculture – largely unknown to most people and considered a very nerdy past time.
The 80’s and 90’s were definitely the wild west days. Just about anything went and there was everything from animation, manga, garage kit models, costumes, military enthusiasts, martial art fans, and just about any other activity and product you can think of. Anime houses developed tons of these kinds of materials and products to see what would become a hit, and which would fall flat. It was an exciting era of great highs and tragic lows.
This is where Otaku no Video shines. It captures the rag-tag glory of those days. It does this brilliantly through the main character – a regular guy named Ken Kubo who is socially active, plays tennis, practices martial arts, has a girlfriend, has good career prospects, and is an all around ‘normal’ guy. He runs into his former friend Tanaka who is into animation along with some other odd characters. Ken gets sucked in and becomes less and less ‘normal’ and more infatuated with becoming the ‘King of Otaku’. In his quest to become the king of otaku, we watch him develop his garage company into something bigger by producing all kinds of new characters and products – all of which were things anyone of that era would recognize. Through the narrative format of following his journey, you get to see the insiders view of the business environment and working with those passionate coworkers.
Otaku no Video references TONS of culture of the time. The people, themes, and references were almost directedly related to anime culture and developments of the time. For those who found anime in the 80’s and 90’s, it gave an industry insider view into these events. Everyone at the time would have known just about every event that happens.
Recently I learned a few new things. One of the themes I picked up on related to the character Ken Kubo creates with his company: Misty May. It turns out, that too was related to a trend of the time: the incredible spinoff madness of magical girl shows started by Minky Momo. These deals created huge franchises that resulted in albums, merchandising deals, spinoff series, manga, garage and model kits, video games, fan creations, and just about anything else you can image. They were cash cows, and every studio wanted to try their hand at them.
So, it’s no wonder Ken’s company tries to do the same with their character Misty May. In fact, Misty May (above) bears a striking resemblance to Magical Emi – one of the many actual Minky Momo spinoffs:
This video by Kenny Lauderdale (who has some amazing coverage of early anime in his videos) gives some great insight on the madness and money behind the magical girl franchises at the time, which can help you understand what it is comically plausible that they launch a theme park in Otaku no Video.
Definitely give Otaku no Video a try if you want to see what anime culture was like in the 80’s and early 90’s before it became mainstream. Also check out some other videos by Kenny Lauderdale to learn more about the era as well.
I bet a lot of you played this marble game when you were younger. The labyrinth marble game was developed by BRIO in Sweden in 1946. It was introduced to the United States around 1950. While many take hours to get good at it, the world record (with video proof on the site) is held by Lars-Göran Danielsson at 15.95 seconds.
But an AI called Cyberrunner, which was connected to the marble labyrinth with a camera and servos, trained for just 6 hours and managed to finish with a new world record of 14.48 seconds – almost 10% faster than the current record. During it’s learning, it even discovered cheats to cut the maze (though the new record was set without using any of those illegal shortcuts).
Read more about Cyberrunner at their project site, read the technical paper, and the source/hardware are about to be open-sourced. Or you can watch it below:
Bill Evans is considered one of the best jazz piano players that ever lived. He created a whole host of new jazz piano forms and methods, but Blue in Green has to be one of my favorites.
Written in 1959, he later performed it on the Mile’s Davis album Kind of Blue. Miles largely took credit for the song on Kind of Blue and wasn’t exactly cool about it, but it is largely understood that Bill was the genius behind the melody.
Evans had a troubled history with drug use, disease, and personal loss, yet created some of the most beautiful music in jazz. Give Blue in Green a listen.
Want to know what ‘progressive’ activists are like in Portland? Here’s an interview with one: Adam Egelman.
Adam Egelman of Safe Street Rebel is referred to as leader of “a new breed of tactical urbanism that has sprung up across the U.S. and is transforming city streets without the permission of city governments.” “Direct action gets the goods,” reads the title of a panel Egelman participated in. The group participates in confrontation and illegally blocking and modifying roads without working with city transportation permission. One of the activities they were involved in was disabling self-driving cars in San Francisco with traffic cones.
Other quotes:
“Safe Street Rebel is explicitly anti-police.”
“We say ‘bullying works.’ “
“It can be tense with…people who favor car access, or, you know, [people that] oppose safe streets”
I have a serious problem with people like Egelman. They like to break the rules when it suits them, then go running to the cops when it doesn’t go their way. The behavior is designed to silence other voices, and…well…as he says: bully people. This works great when others follow the rules – but as we’re seeing right now in our country – it creates an environment in which ‘might makes right’ and rules and laws are just for chumps. His kind of thinking is how we descend into violent chaos.
Radicals like Egelman encourage others to see following laws and rules as pointless. If people see that you can do whatever you want, then they’ll start doing the same. His kind of thinking is common for extremist of both left and right groups such as the Proud Boys.
Bullying is an act of violence and behavior that unquestioningly harms individuals, harms communities, harms cities, and harms society. We don’t accept bullies at schools. Nobody likes working with bullies. Bullies destroy the best ideas coming out. Bullies don’t listen to others – they silence dissenting voices. We should stand up against bullies and for those oppressed by bullying.
It’s an incredibly arrogant stance to think your opinion is far more important than scientific evidence, community discussion. It’s a profoundly damaging thing for social structure as a whole. It teaches people to ‘do whatever you want’.
It’s the classic ego trap common with activists. Activists that often act more like cults than intelligent civic leaders.
