Phil's Newsletter Volume 2 Issue 3
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Previously on Phil’s Newsletter: I wrote about John Prine’s excellent first album. We continued fixing my awful calendar habits with Calendly.
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In this issue we’re talking about my dumb feelings, I streamed some vintage video games on the original hardware, and I’m working on a game show pilot w/ OpenCV and Intel. The good links are back this week, too!
Quick Hits
Last week’s episode of OpenCV Weekly Webinar saw Satya showing us how to build a snowman detector with AI. It’s up on the OpenCV YouTube channel.
If you missed that episode, we dropped TWO bits of big, big news. First: OpenCV has created a new course called Deep Learning with Tensorflow and Keras. You can hop on the Kickstarter campaign now.
This week’s episode is about a LEGO and AI-based Petri dish scanner! Science is cool. It’ll be live on YouTube, Twitch, LinkedIn Live, and Zoom at 9am on Thursday (that’s tomorrow).
Not only that, but I’m working on the pilot for The OpenCV AI Game Show, sponsored by Intel. It is slated to premiere on March 17th, 2022 and will feature 3 well-known figures from the world of computer vision and AI as contestants playing to win money for the charity of their choice. We’ve found a great host. Sign up for more info on how to watch and how to apply to be on the next episode!
Ugh, The Feelings Section
Had a pretty cool project get cancelled by the client midway through- and it always sucks. For someone with my particular brain worms- anxiety, on the spectrum, depression, etc- it sucks A LOT. Especially because work is so intertwined with our lives, and a direct requirement to eat food and sleep somewhere indoors unless you were born into lazy-wealth privilege or hit the lottery.
I also recently had a woman I liked a lot ghost me, in the parlance of our times. Just quit responding after talking a lot for awhile. It’s funny-sad how these two events are now fused together in my mind.
Working with a client and pitching ideas and getting them approved but then having production stopped because they aren’t feeling it is a lot like getting dumped. With my brain, in any relationship between myself and other humans, the all-encompassing fear. It comes out like this:
“They’ll get bored with you just like everyone else has.”
“Once they see how you really are when you are feeling TOO safe or TOO overwhelmed and the mask slips they’ll leave.”
After enough experience in love and in business you’ve had The Worst happen so often that it’s hard to argue with the logic of it. All previous experience points to those things being true! I think I am past silencing that shitty fear-voice in my head that says these things, and instead I ask “So what?”
Perhaps this is as close to “healing” as one gets when you can’t afford therapy or medicine.
Anyway, I played guitar about it. It’s fine. Maybe the coming times will be so bad that these will become the good times in hindsight. So what?
The RetroStrange Content Drop
New on RetroStrange.TV: 35 short subjects hand-picked by our stalwart curator, Noah Maher. This crop features everything from industrial manufacturing films, an RCA series about how to use this newfangled invention called the television, and even some cartoons. The content spans the years 1936-1954 and they’re all in the live rotation on #RSTV right now!
See the full list on the RetroStrange blog. Don’t forget to follow on Twitter to see what’s playing when.
I Played Some Guitar On The Internet And Didn’t Die (Yet)
I posted an except of me playin some of the ‘ol gee-tar on Instagram. Enjoy, or don’t:
If you know you know, my little vikings.
Sticks & Fists: Original Hardware Times
Me and John have returned to playing beat ‘em up games on Twitch every other Friday, under the show title Sticks & Fists. I recently acquired an old school tube TV and have gotten my vintage consoles hooked up to it. So far the roster is Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, Famicom and a busted Atari 2600.
Last time we played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game, on the original Famicom hardware. It was a fun. We also busted out some Mega Man and the original Famicom Disk System version of Legend of Zelda.
The Good Links Return
A small crop, but a crop nonetheless.
Today’s newsletter was written while listening to this upbeat Apple Music playlist made by @thetrudz. Post your playlists in the comments! I want ‘em.
Did you know the Game Boy Advance could make video calls in 2004? See all about it on The Retro Future deep-dive video.
Brad & Will from the Brad & Will Made a Tech Pod podcast are teaming up for a new one focused on Free, Open Source, Software: The FOSS Pod
— Phil Nelson
Wizard Tower Gamma, South of Market, San Francisco, California, United States of America, Earth
02.16.2022
P.S. We’ve been watching AEW Dynamite together every Wednesday on my Discord server, and if you’re a friend or well-wisher who hasn’t gotten into pro wrestling but are interested in it, please drop by! The show starts at 5pm Pacific. We love talking about and educating people on the One True Sport.