Phil's Newsletter #32

Tired-eyed and drag-assed

Previously on Phil’s Newsletter: I got a old new cassette deck, we beat River City Ransom, and it was the last Movie Night for awhile.

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This week’s guest on OpenCV Weekly was the returning Joseph Nelson (no relation), CEO of Roboflow. He talked about the popular YOLO (You Only Look Once) AI model detection method. The episode will be up on the OpenCV YouTube channel soon. Phil’s pro wrestling shirt of the week: Wrestling Is Gay

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This week has kicked the shit out of me. I am sleeping like a non-sleeping thing sleeps: not very much. I get up at 6am every day, and am fully out of gas by noon. Keeping my eyes open in a struggle. Putting words on the page is a struggle. Cooking is a struggle. Right now it seems like suddenly everything is a struggle.

I’ve got my first haircut in over a year scheduled this afternoon with the same barber who cut it last time- I’m glad he managed to survive the pandemic personally and professionally. It’s funny that the only thing resembling stability in my life is the barber. I still do not know what I am going to have him do to my hair.

I got some new cassette tapes, including one I’d been eyeing for awhile: The 4-tape collection of the BBC Radio version of the Hobbit. Also picked up a Yaz tape, because I love Yaz and they just seem to… belong on cassette. Upstairs at Erics. Don’t question it. Also, it’s pride month so I bought some gay wrasslin shit from Effy:

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RetroStrange Movie Night is on Hiatus

After last week’s Dick Miller tribute night, we’re taking a break. I wrote a little heartfelt speech for those of you who tuned in. Watch it on YouTube:

Me telling you how great you are starts at 5m45s. Thanks for watching. We shall return. You can always catch every movie we’ve featured along with a bunch of hand-chosen old time TV episodes and serials on RetroStrange TV, streaming 24 hours a day.

Sticks & Fists: Don’t Stop Us Now

There was a segment in last week’s episode of Sticks and Fists that just screamed for a specific bit of musical accompaniment:

This week we played Double Dragon II, but didn’t get far because of two reasons: 1) OBS updated and hosed most of my settings. It took like an hour to fix. and 2) Double Dragon II is fucking MEAN. You can watch us fail on http://twitch.tv/extrafuture

Too Much Reverb and a Drum Machine

Me and my Korg Volca Beats machine are making some kind of noise. It is therapeutic. Here’s one of those, a barely-a-demo I am calling “Last Day At The Leper Colony”:

Yes I lost my tempo at the end, and yes I am comfortable with that.

Phil’s Good Links

I am so tired.

• SOUL OF THE BEAST is an Atari 2600 game inspired by an Amiga classic.

• From the Philip K. Dick files: AI is being used to track people by their head vibrations

• My Sticks & Fists partner John wrote up his method for extracting baseball stats for Divergent League screenshots of the game

• Motherboard goes deep on a $70 million PUBG cheating empire

• Back in 2020 an autonomous drone hunted down and (likely) killed a person without intervention by humans

• Firefox finally embraces sRGB, designers rejoice

• Peppers ghost, CRT, synthesizers, this post has it all…

• Christian Billionaires Are Funding a Push to Kill the Equality Act, happy pride month everyone

• Super into this game called Viewfinder, where you use 2d photos to create 3D objects in game. Clever

• There is an extended cut of Super Mario Bros (1993) on the Internet Archive, and I am saving it for a special occasion. Reminder: The creators of Max Headroom directed it!

• A rare 1-4 line out off the pitcher’s foot in MLB The Show 21

• Seems like every week some more horrible practices are uncovered and proven at Amazon. This week: Amazon’s Cost Saving Routing Algorithm Makes Drivers Walk Into Traffic

• A new “smart lamp” that watches kids while they study in case they, you know, let their minds wander like children should do. It’s important to sew intense distrust in your children as early as possible

• An Internet Archive library of nothing but VHS logos and bumpers. Feels good.

• Oakland Police Chief Armstrong admitted that his claims of protesters preparing Molotov cocktails at last year’s 6/1 George Floyd protest were wrong.

• You were right, Aaron. Too little too late.

Brain tired. Long week. Talk next time.

— Phil

Wizard Tower, SF, CA, USA, Earth

6.3.21

extrafuture.com