Phil’s Newsletter Volume 2 Issue 6

Philtendo Direct

Ahoy hoy. It’s me, Phil. You know, from school. Things have been awful quiet on the newsletter front for the last *checks notes* cripes it’s been a month. I honestly don’t know why. I used to like writing but lately doing anything except the stuff I need to do in order to pay rent and buy food has been a real struggle.

Last week I spent a morning and an afternoon as a talking head for the upcoming Microsoft Build conference. You’ll see my face talking about the OpenCV Spatial AI Contest which just concluded. There’s still time to vote by choosing your favorite from the top 10 teams, which will enter you to win 1 of 5 free OAK-D-LITE AI cameras!

In related “Some Personal News” I am now the Director of Content and Creative at OpenCV. Ain’t that some shit.

Let’s try to get back in the saddle.

Set Side B, A New Gaming Blog

Along with one of my favorite games writers John Harris I’ve launched a new independent gaming blog called Set Side B. The name comes from a common Famicom Disk System screen message, which meant to instruct the player to flip the disk over.

At setsideb.com you’ll find news and original articles from “the flipside of gaming,” curated by John aka ‘Rodneylives’ and contributed by a cast of characters that is still being assembled in our Discord server. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me!

The first original content is the continuation of @Play, a long-running series on roguelikes (buy the book!). The first new articles are focused on the little-known Alphaman (1995) a DOS-based roguelike with a lot of modern-for-the-time referential humor. Read Part 1 of that article on the site right now, ad and tracker free. Part 2 drops tomorrow!

Behind The Scenes of OpenCV AI Game Show

The 9am (Pacific) weekly show I run with OpenCV, OpenCV Weekly Webinar, is now available live every week on YouTube. This week’s guest is Vikas Reddy, and we’re going behind the scenes of OpenCV AI Game Show to see how the virtual production worked. I’ll be talking about about producing the final audio and video and talking about what, specifically, I fucked up on!

We’ll have questions from you in the audience as well. It’ll be fun, you should watch.

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Phil’s Newsletter is free to read and subscribe to but you can support me by paying for this newsletter or becoming a monthly patron. Phil’s Newsletter is brought to you by paid subscribers Jessica Nelson, Jeff Powers, Vikas Reddy, David Demchuk, Ian Scott, and Kat Angus. You are each, individually, the best.

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Modding Vincent aka CPN-001

Those rare moments where clarity and motivation meet for me have been spent on customizing my $110 Les Paul Special, Vincent. I acquired Vinny way back in Phil’s Newsletter Volume 1 Issue 12. In the last few weeks I’ve added:

• Custom knobs

• Locking tuners

• A new gold bridge

• A custom neck plate with the model number (CPN-001) and name (Vincent)

These are all color matched to a kind of rose gold, which I like with the bright red finish of the body and neck. All-told I’ve spent about $120 modifying this $110 guitar. I’m very smart.

I can’t really explain it, but I like playing this guitar a lot more now even though what I’ve done really doesn’t affect the tone. I did lower the action a bit, and properly “set up” the intonation for the first time and that has to be responsible for the main difference in feel.

Right now it looks like this with all the upgrades. It sounds like this with my pedals and whatnot hooked up. My next plan is to replace the p90 pickup in the neck with a telecaster-style one that fits the color scheme.

Divergent League Baseball 1999: Unpause

One of the benefits of having an asynchronous, atemporal, sports league is that you can kind of… pause it if you don’t have time for a few weeks. Good news, everyone: the Divergent League Baseball 1999 regular season is continuing this week! We should be at the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby by the week after next.

No Good Links Today, I Am Too Mad

An abortion should be available to anyone, at any time, full stop. This isn’t up for debate. Support or join a mutual aid network in your area because things are about to get worse.

— Phil Nelson

Wizard Tower Gamma, South of Market, San Francisco, California, United States of America, Earth

05.04.2022