Previously on Phil’s Newsletter: We met The Boss, I released an album of music (sorta), and we upgraded RetroStrange TV.
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This week’s guest on OpenCV Weekly was the returning Brandon Minor, CEO of Tangram Vision. Brandon’s second appearance on the webinar was more-or-less a followup on his previous ep: Sensors for your Sensors. There’s a ton of sensors in everything now, and they’re noisy as all get-out. Tangram is trying to fix that. It was a fun chat with an old colleague.
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An Off Week
This was another one of those (surprisingly rare) “Phil has jack shit for the newsletter” weeks. I just totally dropped the ball on this one. Too much work, too much cooking for myself, too much playing with my new guitar.
I went to a pub for the first time in a year and it was cool. I went back. I should probably chill out on that. Anyway this week’s newsletter has a new episode of Sticks and Fists, Bobby Bonilla Day, and a new book from one of our pals. First some Marketing:
New #OAK2021 Highlights Post and Press Release
Over on the OpenCV Blog, I’ve posted Part 5 of our highlights and interview with 2 more teams participating in OpenCV AI Competition 2021. There are some extremely cool video demos in this one, and some teams are nearly done with their projects.
We also dropped a hot new press release focusing on the size and scope of the competition, and the teams therein. Go like and share this stuff, it makes me look good and keeps me drinking Jameson.
Sticks & Fists play Legend of Mana
This week on the beat ‘em up stream we played one of my all-time favorites- Legend of Mana. It was recently re-released for the Switch and M2 did an awesome job porting it. The audio is kinda noisy here but it’s for a good reason: We were live and playing couch co-op! I know shit cannot get “back to normal” yet, with the delta variant hospitalizing even fully vaccinated folks, but it was nice to spend time playing video games in person with a friend.
Legend of Mana still has one of my all-time favorite soundtracks, and some of my favorite little stories and characters in all of video games. It’s a steal at $29 for Switch.
New Releases: Red X by David Demchuk
Friend of the Newsletter and Canadian Spookypants Author David Demchuk has a new book available for pre-order! Check it out if it sounds like something you might be interested in. He provided the following description:
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A hunted community. A haunted author. A horror that spans centuries. David Demchuk’s new horror-novel-slash-memoir arrives on August 31st from Strange Light, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
David writes: “RED X is about a series of disappearances from Toronto's gay community over a 40-year period (actually over 200 years), and the efforts of surviving friends and family to find out who or what is responsible. It also tells my story, and my relationship to this story.”
Oh, and it’s pretty fucking scary.
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If you’ve got something being released soon, or just released, hit me up and maybe I’ll share it with the Phil’s Newsletter audience. I am not getting paid for this, I just like sharing new stuff from my friends.
Divergent League Signups Still Open
We’ve got 9 manager signups so far for Divergent League Baseball Season 5. I’ll probably cut things off at about 15- more than that is too hot to handle for little ‘ol Commissioner me.
I can make the following announcement: Divergent League Update, the surprisingly popular podcast, will return this coming season, and may have a special episode before we start. Speaking of special…
Happy Bobby Bonilla Day!
Shout out to Robert Bonilla, on this the 10th annual Bobby Bonilla Day. What is Bobby Bonilla Day? Glad you asked. You see, a-way back In The Year 2000, the Mets decided to buy out the remaining contact they had with Bonilla, and then…
[…] instead of paying Bonilla the $5.9 million at the time, the Mets agreed to make annual payments of nearly $1.2 million for 25 years starting July 1, 2011, including a negotiated 8% interest.
At the time, Mets ownership was invested in a Bernie Madoff account that promised double-digit returns, and the Mets were poised to make a significant profit if the Madoff account delivered -- but that did not work out.
We don’t celebrate many holidays here at the Wizard Tower but BBD is definitely one of them. How does one celebrate you ask? Easy: By spending too much money on baseball.
There Are No Good Links This Week
Due to a Notes.app catastrophe the doc that had this week’s good links got nuked. I’m sorry. I’ve fired myself in retribution.
OK just one: S.F. is getting the world's first 'cultured sushi' tasting room, where fish is grown in a lab. You know I’m gonna be in line for that shit…
That is all for now. I am tired and have Legend of Mana to play. Next week will be… different. Better? Perhaps, perhaps not.
— Phil
Wizard Tower Gamma, South of Market, San Francisco, California, United States of America, Earth
07.01.21