Phil's Newsletter #28
Previously on Phil’s Newsletter: A Bunch of Stuff Happened.
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This week’s guest on OpenCV Weekly Webinar was Ye Lu, of Team Cortic Tigers. They have a cute Lego robot named Charlie who can do all sorts of smart things and is programmable with a drag & drop interface. It was awesome. The episode will be uploaded to the OpenCV YouTube channel soon. Phil’s wresting t-shirt of the week: New Japan Pro Wrestling G1 Special, San Francisco
Just before newsletter time I published another OpenCV AI Competition 2021 update on OpenCV’s blog. It’s currently at #19 on Hacker News. Huzzah.
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Sticks & Fists Clean Up The Streets of Rage
Last night we recorded episode two of my Beat ‘em Up series with John Inacay, Sticks & Fists. We beat Streets of Rage for the Genesis in about an hour and 20 of your earth minutes. Topics covered: Jumping side kicks are for kicking people off of horses, Journey to the West, and botched suplexes.
The best way to watch these is to subscribe to my Twitch and YouTube channels.
Next week we’ll be playing Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Movie. I don’t know how John convinced me to do this one. In my defense I was still processing AEW Blood and Guts.
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Did you know that Amazon owns Twitch? Because of their connection, if you have Amazon Prime you can give me free money. Here’s how to use your free Prime subscription to subscribe to my channel at twitch.tv/extrafuture. You’ll unlock no-ads-mode and get a shout out during our broadcasts, plus some other perks we have not announced yet.
Since it’s Amazon, you have to re-do this step every month, which is annoying. Thanks so much to those of you who have hooked us up.
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1993 Divergent League Baseball World Series Update
The San Francisco Giants pulled off a dramatic win in Tuesday’s game, taking a bite out of the White Sox series lead with a swing of Matt William’s mighty bat. “Rags” had both of Giants RBIs in the ballgame.
Frank Thomas crushed a 451-foot moon shot in the losing effort.
Can the Giants tie up this series, or will the Sox prove it was a fluke? Find out when Divergent League Baseball returns Friday, May 7th, and 5pm PDT for Game 4!
RetroStrange Movie Night Season 1 Countdown
RetroStrange Movie Night is going to be taking a hiatus after our 26th episode. That is just one episode after the next one which broadcasts on May 15th.
We’ll be taking in The Phantom Planet, which has an awesome trailer, and The UFO Incident, which does not. The UFO Incident does, however, feature James Earl Jones and the grandma from Rosanne. So it’s got that going for it.
We’re cooking up something special for the Season Finale, and some interesting Hiatus Activities. Stay tuned.
This hiatus does NOT affect RetroStrange TV, our 24/7 streaming internet TV channel, or LOFI SCIFI, our 24/7 streaming Old Time Radio science fiction station.
At Last, The Good Links
All I want is to have my peace of mind.
I loved this vintage Giants commercial, Frank Robinson don’t play
This bit of Dan Harmon’s writing advice is pretty similar to that John Swartzwelder quote going around this week but stereotypically longer-winded. I’ve found it true, though- re-writing is a hell of a lot easier than writing.
Let's talk about the moral hazard of crypto and how it incentivizes fraud in tech companies
A lesser-known story tale of Atari’s shrewd moves back in the day to set up a stealth distributor and fool competitors
Fake-real band history doesn’t begin and end with Spinal Tap. I learned about a few new ones in Making the (Fictional) Band
MIT Technology Review: “The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms.” Those of us who grew up on food stamps already knew, but thanks.
Cannabis strain Zkittlez is finally being sued by Skittles.
SFGate has a story about the Bay Area Rapid Transit luchadore- BART Man.
Secure messaging app Signal, continuing a series of absolute bangers, shows off the ads that they created on Instagram informing viewers about the data the platform has collected on them. Instagram of course rejected these ads. There is not and never was any room for truth in advertising.
This volumetric lighting effect tickles my brain meats
It’s almost 2pm! D’oh. I’m just gonna send this, don’t mind me.
— Phil Nelson
San Francisco | 5.6.21