Previously on Phil’s Newsletter: We released a new Halloween song,
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How did this happen? 50 (mostly) Weekly editions of a newsletter from some guy here in San Francisco at the end of his rope. Almost a year worth of weeks. Real glad to have you all here.
Today’s issue features a ton of stuff in honor of Issue 50, including a review of a small moment spent with some Transit Pizza (not Niles, MI’s own Pizza Transit) from far-flung correspondent Jaime Woo. We’ll take a look at the upcoming episodes of the live show I do every Thursday, OpenCV Weekly and the next season of Divergent League Baseball. You’ll also find me in my feelings about The SF Giants and traveling back home. Thanks for being here for 50. Let’s go!
When The Lights Go Down In The City
The Giants won on Friday at one of the best and loudest ballgames I’ve ever been to in person. Every 5 minutes there was some chant echoing through the stadium, nonstop chatter at the Dodgers outfielders and a strong feeling of camaraderie among the orange and black faithful. Kris Bryant looked straight at me… and then hit a home run 15 feet to my left.
Then the Giants lost, then won, then lost, then last night they lost one more time and like that this season is over for them. In the cold light of morning it still hurts. The LA Dodgers are a blight that we must scorch from the earth.
OpenCV Weekly Webinar
Our guest next week for OpenCV Weekly Webinar will be John Keefe, director and co-founder of Draw & Code who I’ve known for years from my time at Occipital. D&C makes some killer experiences with AR/VR and combinations of both, and I’m super jazzed to have John on the show next week. Sign up to attend at http://opencv.live
Exclusive reveal, just for Phil’s Newsletter: Our guest for 10/28 will be entrepreneur and hardware hacker extraordinaire Jeri Ellsworth! I’ve been trying to get Jeri on the show for months, and it’s awesome to have a date locked in.
A Slice of Life by Jaime Woo
Grindr historian and dumpling fanatic Jaime Woo is an old friend of mine from the tiny Canadian fishing village of Toronto. I saw a picture of a huge pizza slice on J-Dubz Instagram story and just had to know about it. After some negotiation I secured for the Phil’s Newsletter audience this exclusive travel review. What follows are Jaime’s unedited words. — Phil
‘The train had stopped for good reason. Just minutes after pulling out of Gare Centrale in downtown Montreal, we unexpectedly stopped. Protesters, we heard. What kind of protest, and who exactly was protesting we wondered—because such things must be asked now. (It turned out to, thankfully, be a protest to support the Wetʼsuwetʼen.)
The train was originally to pull into Toronto around 10 and now it was going to closer to 2 in the morning. Around 11:30 pm, as the train passed Napanee, a voice over the PA mentioned everyone would be receiving pizza on the house. Sure, why not?
I asked for the vegetarian option, and I was unprepared for the monster of the slice I'd get. It was so big I had to take a photo of it, with my hand for comparison. I did not have high expectations for the pizza, but that was to be honest besides the point.
Rather, it was that somehow somewhere someone decided that the way to make it up for a delay was this monstrous slice of pizza. The person who made it likely referred to it as tossing 'za.
I took my first bite, and it was like the train itself: a functional, inoffensive vehicle that wasn't great per se but had a certain amount of comfort to it. It was melted cheese a top of salty, slightly rubbery dough, and I ate it all. Left and right I saw people tap out part way, sometimes just bites in, but I felt like I had to honour this slice, and everything we'd all done to get to this place.”
In lieu of payment Jaime has requested that I link to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s 94 Calls to Action in order to "redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation." You got it, bud.
Home Again, Home Again
It’s been a long time, two years in fact, but I am making my triumphant return to the American Middle-West. Catch me in Michigan for hangs October 20th - Nov 1st or be cursed. I’ll be around The NODE, and On Base Productions. I am far sexier and more unstable than ever before. You’re welcome.
Divergent League Baseball: 1999
Can you believe it? In Divergent League, my atemporal full-season fantasy sports league, we are zooming ahead from 1993 straight into 1999. So far we’ve got about 15 signups, for the 30 teams available. Join us by signing up! The cost will be $10 per player, which includes a hand-cut season ticket designed by me!
Can the White Sox become the first team to ever win back-to-back seasons? Find out by tuning subscribing to the YouTube and Twitch channels so you don’t miss a game.
RetroStrange Movie Night: Vincent Price Double Feature
Vincent Price is, more than any other actor save Peter Cushing, responsible for my love of horror movies. The late, great, VP is the next featured performer in our series of tributes, following the all-time great That Guy, Dick Miller. Facebook event invite coming soon, but rest assured we’ll be broadcasting live on RetroStrange.tv and from the NODE in Niles, MI on October 26th at 7pm EST.
Read the blog post: https://retrostrange.com/2021/vincent-price-double-feature-on-october-26th/
At Last, The Good Links
The good links are good again this week.
You either die a hero, or live long enough to become the hotdog space bar
The wealthy are becoming more unhinged, spending huge amounts on billboards trying to intimidate people into working for them instead of just paying more
Speaking of which, it’s worth remembering that Philanthropy Is a Scam
Merry Christmas to a certain kind of nerd: Internal photos of the Pippin concept prototype (EVT-1) just dropped
Episode 190 of the Humans of Gaming podcast has a big guest- a rare interview with Roberta Williams who made a ton of stuff for Sierra back in the day including Kings Quest, Mystery House, and Phantasmagoria.
"Special policemen should be stationed in the Park, armed with shotguns, to shoot the tires of automobiles exceeding the speed limit." The violent early history of cars in Golden Gate Park
Today’s exercise in looking the other way: Rotting Red Sea oil tanker could leave 8m people without water
Trying to include more music in the links, here’s a read to send you into the weekend the lost pop of 80s Yugoslavia
San Francisco’s streets sometimes even baffle the lifers, so I’m not surprised that a spot in the Richmond is seeing confused “Self-driving” cars from Waymo turning around every 5 minutes
AI datasets are going to keep being news. Most recently a new method shows that AI fake-face generators can be rewound to reveal the real faces they trained on which has huge privacy implications. We need to stop facial recognition tech right now.
That’s it. Next week’s issue will come to you from the Nelson Compound in Niles, Michigan. We’ll see you then.
— Phil Nelson
Wizard Tower Gamma, South of Market, San Francisco, California, United States of America, Earth
10.15.2021
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