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pebblysand · 4 years ago

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[writing rant - on the monetisation of fanfiction]

a couple of months ago, when i updated my long fic, one of the people on the comments wrote to me the nicest possible review (one of the ones that you keep in your feel-good 'saved' emails - you know the ones), which, amongst other things also said: 'If I could pay you for this...believe me, I would.'

in the moment, i kind of smiled and laughed, and thanked the person for their kind words before moving on with my life. yet, since then, i have to admit that this sentence has kind of been living rent-free in my head. i think it is also because since diving back into fandom a few months ago, i've noticed something that kind of shocked me at first: more and more fanfiction writers seem to be monetising (or attempting to monetise) their craft.

now, back when i started writing fanfic, we wrote fanfic on ffnet and livejournal. it was accepted that thou shalt never (ever) charge money for your writing or else the author and their mean, angry lawyers will come after you for damages and you will die a slow and painful death. we wrote disclaimers at the start of all of our posts and thanked the gods every day when we did not get sued.

i have seen this change gradually over the years. first, in the mid 2010s, the disclaimers went. then, i noticed that people were getting 'tipped' for fanart, sometimes even charging commission. from what i understand (though, don't quote me on this, i'm not an ip lawyer and this post is not intended as legal advice), this is because the way the concept of fair use is framed under us law makes it easier to monetise fanart than it does fanfiction. maybe this is why visual artists came first on this trend. later still (and more recently) i've noticed fanfic writers, doing the same thing.

to be fully honest, the first thought i had when i saw this trend, considering the fear of god (and his lawyers) that was instilled in me in the past, was: how on earth is this even possible? (i'll come back to that in a bit). the second, though, was: fuck, i wish i had the guts to do that, lol.

because, yeah, i will admit, the idea of getting paid for writing what i love to write does appeal, to a certain extent. i won't lie. dear fanfiction writers who've tried to do that recently: i one hundred per cent get it.

looking back at the last fifteen years, i would say that for me, writing fanfiction has been (in terms of time commitment and energy consumed) the equivalent of having an on-and-off part time job. a job that i have held for one or two years at a time, then quit for a while, before coming back to it when i needed (wanted) it again. i obviously can't realistically give you a number re:the actual total of hours i have spent at this since i started out, but i can give you an idea. recently, i started clocking my hours out of interest and calculated that a chapter of my current long fic takes roughly between one hundred to two hundred hours to produce (and they're around 10,000 words). at that rate, i'm probably working 20 hours a week-ish? sometimes more, sometimes less? something as small as a three-sentence fic (like this for instance), takes roughly two/three hours. i'll be honest, i have cancelled plans to write fic. when i'm working on a long project, i do tend to organise my life to give myself the time to write, so i opt for socialising after work during the week rather than on weekends, as i've found this is when i write best. i won't lie: it is - for me (i know some people write quicker, bless them) - a huge time suck.

so, yeah, i understand, in the capitalist society we live in, wanting to make that time count. our world has unfortunately, repeatedly taught us that time is money and getting more does seem like a nice bonus (as long as you have an audience for your art that's willing to pay, obviously). after all, year after year, i've seen a lot of my friends try and monetise their passions as side hustles, with varying success. at first, glance, i look at the time i spend on writing fanfiction and think: man, i wish i could get a bit back from that too. i couldn't even draw a stick figure to save my life but i assume that the time commitment and energy put into that kind of work is roughly similar for visual fanartists as well. i thus very much understand the sentiment, both with fanart and fanfiction.

additionally, though i appreciate this is a bit tangential, the fact that fanfiction is free, i would argue, hinders its potential to be as representative as it could be. it's a bit sad because on the one hand, the fact that it is free makes it completely accessible to the masses but on the other, it makes fanfiction quite exclusive to rich, privileged people who can afford to spend the time and energy putting content out for free. if i spend this much time writing fanfiction, just because i like it and it makes me happy, it's because my full time job pays me enough to cover my bills. if it didn't, i probably would have to forgo writing and get a proper side gig. if you look at my periods of inactivity on ao3, those also kind of coincide with the times in my life when i had to have more things going on to put food on the table.

so, now, assuming that monetisation is a thing that, as a fic writer, one might want to look at, the next question is: how do you go about monetising it? obviously, the law hasn't changed since the days where we were all terrified of getting sued (although enforcement has been quite lax over the years) so it's more about finding workarounds around the law as it is, rather than actively seeking payment for fanart.

from what i've seen: two main solutions seem to exist.

first, there's the tipping/buy-me-coffee technique. as i understand it, this involves either setting up a page on one of the dedicated websites or just putting up your paypal account link on your tumblr posts. with these links, people can then send you however much money they want (however much money they can afford/think you deserve?) on a one-off basis. they're not actually paying for fanfic because there is no actual exchange of services, it's basically like them giving money to charity, except that charity is a fanfic writer/ fan artist whose work they enjoy.

there are two main issues i see with this: one, legally, i'm not sure how much ground this actually holds. assuming you're quite prolific/successful, if every time you're producing new content, you receive dozens of tips, although you're not actively charging for your fanart, making the argument that your content isn't what these people are actively paying for seems hard. imo, the fact that this method sort of holds is that realistically, you're going to make very little out of this. even if you're really good, you might make what? a couple hundred dollars. now, sure, that's a lot of money for a lot of people but in the grand scheme of things, no one sues anyone for such a low amount. as long as you're not making 'proper' money from it, it is highly unlikely that anyone would come after you.

this being said, the second issue, from my perspective, is that this is not in any way, shape or form, a reliable income. it also does not represent, at all, the cost of the time and investment actually put into said fanfiction (or fanart, i assume). for example: if you're going to tip someone who's worked on something for, say, fifty hours, ten dollars, that's very good of you, but that isn't going to be 'worth' their time. it is only worth their time if tipping is done at as scale, which imo is quite unlikely considering you're putting your content out for free anyway. there are kind souls who will tip you, but not that many, meaning that ultimately, you're not working for free anymore, but you're still working at a huge loss.

additionally, because this income is not even reliable on a monthly/weekly basis, it isn't something that anyone can actually rely on, even if only to fund their coffee habit. it's nice to have, don't get me wrong, but from my perspective, is the legal risk outlined above worth the trouble for the $20/30 tips i'd get every once in a while - not really. such low amounts also don't help diminish the class issue that i talked about earlier. again, if you're going to spend fifty hours on something, you might as well work a minimum wage job - even that will pay you more and will be dependable.

second, there's patreon (and patreon-like sites). here, the income is monthly, people pledge on a subscription basis, which does solve the last point above. it might not be much, but at least it's regular.

the main issue i see with patreon is that it is contingent on the author providing more services on top of what they already provide. in most cases, the author will keep putting their usual content out for free + provide their patreons (depending on tiers) with more content, specifically for them. this, to me, makes this scheme even less appealing than the previous one because a) if i can't provide fanfic to potential patreons (again, you can't sell fanfic), i'm not sure what on earth i could give them (original content? that's not really the same market) and b) that's even more work on my plate. honestly, considering the amount of time i already spend writing fanfic, i have neither the energy nor the willpower to provide extra content for an amount that, regardless, will probably pay me less than a part-time job would. again, you'd have to scale this (i.e. have enough patreons) to make it all worth your while, and even in very big fandoms, even for someone waaaaay more successful than me, i doubt it would be likely.

lastly, as a side note, both of these "methods" are solely accepted if they occur on tumblr/writer's own website, rather than on the writer's ao3 page/fic. there was a post going around explaining why that is (nutshell: it endangers ao3's status as a non-profit archive) but as with all things, i seem to have lost it. [if you do have the link to that post/know what i'm talking about, hit me up and i'll rectify this]. this, regardless, supposes driving traffic from wherever you post your fics towards tumblr/your own website which, again, decreases your chances of scaling this.

so, in the end, where does that leave us?

i think, at this point, we've kind of reached a crossroad. ultimately, i see two ways to look at this:

option one: if you believe that fanfiction writers should be paid for their art, you also probably agree that the methods outlined above, while they do offer some sort of solution, are less than ideal. the ideal solution (for this option) would obviously be to allow fanfiction authors to be properly paid for the publication of their work through 'normal' publishing/self-publishing deals, without the need for a licence from the author (bar - perhaps - the payment of royalties). that would create a proper 'market' for fanfiction, treating it as any other form of writing/art form. it would mean a complete overhaul of the laws currently in place, but why not? ultimately, in a democracy, laws are meant to be changeable.

this being said, though, while my personal knee jerk reaction would be to shout 'hurray!' at this solution, i do not actually think i want this. or, maybe, only part of me does. the part of me who has been writing fanfiction for free for fifteen years is like 'hey, yay, maybe i could get paid!'. but then, there is another part of me that would like, maybe, one day, to write more original fiction (i already do a bit, but not much). that part of me is feels frankly a bit icky about giving up her ip rights.

would i be comfortable with people writing fanfiction of my original work? hell yes. that would be the dream. imagine having your own ao3 fandom, omg. however, would i be comfortable with people profiting from writing fanfiction of my work? honestly, i'm not sure. to me, the answer to that is: it depends (how much time investment was put in? how original the concept is? etc.) which, in fact, kind of brings us back to the current concept of licensing. and yes, maybe the current frame imposed by copyright law has also shaped the way i view the concept of property, and maybe i should be more of a communist, free-for-all kind of person, but unfortunately, i'm not that revolutionary.

also, and slightly tangentially, i find it interesting how profiting from fanficition/fanart is seen as more acceptable i certain fandoms rather than in others. taking the hp fandom for instance, even prior to jkr expressing her views on transgender rights, i often read things like: 'ah, she's so rich anyway, she doesn't need the money.' now, that argument has not only gained traction but is also reinforced by: 'ah, she's the devil and i don't want to fund her. it'd rather give my money to fanfic authors/buy things on etsy.'

while i completely understand the sentiment and do not, in any way, shape or form, support jkr's views, i do find that argument quite problematic. if you set the precedent that because someone is too rich, or because they've expressed views you disagree with, you don't believe that they should be entitled to their own intellectual property rights, i do wonder: where does this stop? this being justified for jkr could lead to all sorts of small artists seeing other people stealing/profiting from their original work without authorisation. 'i don't pay you 'cause i disagree with you,' would then act as a justification, with i find highly unfair. the fact of the matter is: jkr created hp. knowing that, the choice of buying hp products, regardless of her opinions is completely and entirely yours, but buying the same stuff unlicensed, from people who are infringing on her copyrights seems, to me, very problematic as this could potentially be scaled to all artists. either we overhaul the entire copyright system or we don't, but making special cases is dangerous, in my humble opinion.

option two: we choose to preserve copyright law as it is, for the reasons outlined above. this means that most people will not get paid for the content they put out and that the few that do will operate on a very tight, legal rope, and work for tips that are a 'nice bonus' but not a proper pay. this sort of perpetuates the idea that fanfiction is 'less than' other art forms, because in our capitalist society, things that don't generate money (things often made by women, may i add) are not seen as being as valuable as things that do.

for me, personally, while getting paid to write fanfiction sounds lovely (and makes my bank account purr) in theory, i think i side to preserve the current system. as an artist, i think that intellectual property protects us and our concepts from being ripped off by others, including by big companies who might find it handy to steal a design, a quote, anything, without proper remuneration. this is even more important for smaller artists who wouldn't necessarily have the means to defend their craft otherwise.

this being said, i do appreciate that it depends on why you're writing fanfiction. i think that topic probably deserves a whole different post in its own right but ultimately, most people write fanfic because it's fun. we know it's for fun, and not for profit. and if that's the case, then we're okay to receive compliments, reblogs and sometimes, for some people a little bit of an awkward tip for our work. for me, fanfic has been a space to make friends, to get feedback, to learn and to experiment without the pressure of money being involved. that's why i don't particularly mind doing it for free, and wouldn't even bother setting up a patreon or tip-me jar. i love being able to do it just for the enjoyment of myself and my five followers (lol), without worrying about scaling it, or making it profitable. not every part of our lives, not every passion has to be profitable. as we say in ireland, you do it 'for the craic' and nothing else.

this, though, as i already said, also depends on your means and level of privilege. to me, writing for free is fantastic and a bloody relief - it means being able to do exactly what i want. original fiction writing is full of rules, and editors, and publishers. in fanfic, i can write whatever i feel like, and i'm willing to forgo a salary in exchange of that freedom. again, i have a full time job that covers my bills. this does mean, though, that i don't have as much time to dedicate to writing as i would like to.

and also, the thing is: i'm a small author. i happily write in my own little niche. bar that one comment, it is highly unlikely that anyone would actually want to pay me (or even tip me) for my content. but when you look at very successful people, like the author of all the young dudes, i could see how they'd want to get paid for their art, and why they'd feel differently.

bottom line for me is: the flaws of the current systems of remuneration combined with my strong belief in copyright law as a means to protect small, original creators, means that i don't really think it would be right for me to get paid for fanfic, even if i was the kind of person who had the market for it. whilst it would be nice, this very long rant has, hopefully, explained why.

#fanfiction #writing #archive of our own #monetisation of fanfiction #fanfiction theory #this post is waaaay too long and the author regrets everything #pebblysand rants

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typinggently · 5 years ago

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Monsterfucker Bruce get fucked by Killer Croc #feralbrucehours

:0 I woke up to this and half-asleep me went “ohhhhhhh” and immediately went to go and do research on crocodile mating rituals.

However, this was super difficult because I couldn’t decide whether Bruce actually would go for it?? Not because Croc could like…eat him… I feel like that’s not really all that important to him. But I also don’t know whether he’d actually go for a villian? Like - will he look at Croc and go “HMMMMmmm yeah that looks like the fodder for my fantasies for the next two months”? Absolutely. but will he actually make a move?? I simply can’t say.

What I *can* say, however, it what that would look like.

Warning: Nasty. I use the term “swamp daddy”. Monsterfuckery.

First things first - speaking of looks: what croc design are we thinking?? I honestly haven’t read much where he made an appearance and as impressive as the costume builders were at designing his looks in suicide squad… that look wasn’t very höt, was it? So I went and had a look around and found the Stjepan Sejic comic and?? That’s top tier monsterfucker content, that’s absolutely incredible.

Sejic really went “he’s big and green and heavy and scaly and fucks Enchantress” ?! Absolute power move. Nothing but respect. Wow.

But I also love the design where he has a full on croc head like damn. Damn. Swamp daddy.

So in general, what I’m thinking: Green. Very big. Scales and spikes and black claws. Needly-sharp teeth.

The setting: It’s night, Bruce is on his way to track down Croc who’s found himself a suitable home in the abandoned spa at the edge of town. The sewers are too nasty to fuck in, so I had to get creative. It used to be a luxurious place, so we have high ceilings, stucco and fountains, mirrors and tall windows, mosaics and statues. But everything is overgrown and falling apart - the glass ceiling smashed in places, the headless statues still holding up the conches that used to spill hot water.

And Batman slipping through the shadows, walking along the edge of the pools to try and peak into the water, see if he can make out movement underneath the surface.

What’s very important to me is that Bruce is into it. I know it should be obvious but i just want to make it clear again because he’s getting pulled in by the ankle (of course he’s wearing the sexy shiny mid-thigh black boots. I love them so much) and Croc has very sharp teeth. And there’s something to be said about getting pulled towards a water-dripping creature at the edge of a pool at midnight.

But you know. He’s into it. Obviously. Since he knew exactly why Croc has found this place, so far away from his usual sewers – it’s mating season babeh!!!!

Croc’s spending his days splashing around his territory, growing and sweating out hormones. I say since he’s part human, the scent could actually be used to attract humans? Not that Bruce needs the added stimulation (can I just stress again that he went ‘Hm Croc needs to fuck…better go say hi’), but it goes a long way to get him from ‘silently vibrating with interest’ into ‘full on overdrive’.

Boy lets himself be pulled over the edge of the pool and is wrapping his thighs around Croc’s waist as soon as he’s close enough.

Considering Croc has a ton of sharp teeth and no lips, kissing is pretty much out of question, but you know what Bruce can do? Whine and deepthroat that tongue, that’s what. Croc was probably down for a midnight snack when he caught sight of Batman dancing along the edge of his pool, but now that the guy has his muscular thighs wrapped around his thick waist and is eagerly sucking his tongue down, he guesses he could also go for a snacc.

So he flips Bruce over and starts tearing at the cape (it’s in the way!) until Bruce, who won’t stop making those hungry little sex noises, helps and finds the clasp to get the thing off so he can push his ass against Croc’s crotch. And that’s a massive cock. Bruce can’t see it, but he can feel the size through the material of his trousers and he wants to turn around and have a look so badly, but Crock’s got him pinned to the edge of the pool and he can’t move.

The pool is, by the way, deep. Bruce can’t stand. Croc can, of course, so he can manhandle Bruce however he wants, while Bruce has to try and cling to the edge of the pool (slippery tiles + gloves) while Croc makes short work of that suit.

Now, did Bruce fuck himself before getting here because he knew he’d be a horny dumbass otherwise? Yes. Is he still a horny dumbass right now, but with the added benefit of a soft, well-prepared hole? Also yes.

Croc pinning him against the edge of the pool with his big, hard body, fitting his rough, sharp-clawed, cold fingers into him while his growl vibrates through him? Heaven. Bruce is a whiny mess. He can’t really move or he’d already be doing the splits on that cock.

Speaking of which.

Big, thick, ribbed. Bruce can’t breathe, cheek pressed against the slippery tile, mouth falling open while Croc works that monster into him. And that’s just the beginning.

After all, Croc is inhumanely strong. He’s got his hands on the edge of the pool for leverage as he fucks into Bruce and the tiles crumble under his hands. Bruce is pushed up, but Croc just pulls him back on his cock, pushing his face into Bruce’s neck, teeth and all, and growls happily.

“So hot” Croc growls at him – of course! He’s cold-blooded, after all, so Bruce must feel like heaven to him, all soft and hot, clenching around him – “I’m keeping you right here ‘till I’m done with you”

Bruce shivers in delight. He’s way past words at this point, merely mewling in delight, clenching down. And let’s blame it on the sex pheromones Croc is producing, but he gets it up for at least three times, letting Croc move him however he pleases, happy to get pinned and fucked however Croc feels, only moving to try and find purchase so he can fuck himself back on that cock sometimes.

And Croc needs it. It’s mating season, crocodiles mate multiple times, so he’s not letting Bruce go until he’s fucked at least four loads into him, until his hole makes sloppy-wet noises whenever he pushes in. And even then, he makes sure to come inside again, holding Bruce up and against his chest. Just to make sure.

(Of course he knows he won’t knock him up, but damn is it nice to push your claws into some Kevlar and fuck into a soft-hot hole with abandon while your mate mewls and sighs and writhes in your arms, trying to fuck themselves back against you like they’re hungry for your cock (they are))

My sources varied on how violent male crocs are (ranging from “cute cuddle sessions” to “he might kill her and still fuck her after”), but I say Croc’s sweet enough to make sure Bruce doesn’t drown and has a nice, refreshing nap (still impaled on his cock, of course. It’s too nice and soft to just give it up like that)

Once they’re both more or less back to their true selves, Croc goes “I could eat you up right now”. But!!! Bruce is back to his true self! Which means he goes “I want to suck your tongue again”

And that’s how they fuck again. Sloppy MESS.

…anon… I hope this is somewhat close to what you had in mind…I swear Feral Bruce Wayne is not just a sex puppet but this was such fun to write…I do love Bruce lusting after his villains, but Croc had never occurred to me so this…a fun adventure…

#filth #I think I have to tag this differently #monsterfucker bruce wayne #it's still very much feral bruce though #I'll have to figure it out.#ask #it's past 2 am #I did not proofread this.#I am going. To Bed.

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obliterus · 6 years ago

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REVERSE AU//MVA part 1

It’s been a while, but now it’s coming back. Some things have been completely re-vamped, some things have gotten darker and more sinister here. I’m going to begin re-telling the story of this AU on this blog since Shion will be involved, and then offer all other exclusive in-depth character profiles (several key characters that are vital to the plot, and who I want to write again or introduce) on my upcoming multi-muse blog. Since... I’m sure there will be questions and there will be answers.

WELCOME TO MY VILLAIN ACADEMIA!

Please enjoy your stay and remember to do your best, because an attempt isn’t tolerated. Let’s get started, shall we?

Everything that you’ve come to love and cherish, those storybook heroes and their happy ever after endings don’t exist here. This is a story in which raw power and glory run the show and all that heroic bullshit? Well, let’s just say it doesn’t exist! In this world, your abilities dictate your entire life, how you attend school, and even the friends you make! If you’re born quirkless, from the moment you take your first breath, life will be especially hard for you, because you’re as good to dirt in this society. Villains are the top dog here, and your life can only get a little bit better if you entrust yourself into the hands of those with abilities greater than your own. You’re considered a disability to the system if you’re quirkless, you may as well just kiss your life goodbye or die trying!

There are no happy endings here, only the struggle to come out on top, and become the best Pro Villain you can. Corruption is encouraged, using your abilities to get ahead and manipulate are all welcomed here, so is physical violence. Not too much though, we don’t need to mop up blood off campus every single hour on the hour. We have a battle arena if you need to fight out your differences, but please book that in advance. Most of your peers will be anywhere between Green and Orange ranking, so please respect them once you encounter them and their ranking. This is the opposite of the hero stories you’ve come to understand, so please make sure you’re familiar with all of the rules and where you, yourself fall! Have a GREAT year!

My Villain Academia is an alternative universe in which tells takes the canon storyline and completely reverses it! Yes, that’s right. Everyone you know and love is actually a heartless villain in training in this. I shouldn’t say completely heartless, but they’re pretty close. Also, your heartless canon villains are actually morally wonderful underground Heroes. UA Academy is a school that prides itself on producing some of the best Villains not only in Japan but across the globe. With its excellent selection of courses and rigorous acceptance exams, one can only dream of being accepted to UA. The story is narrated by the resident King of UA Academia, Midoriya Izuku, and his journey in becoming a Pro Villain.

The school is separated into two classes when it comes to the Villain Course, A and B. These are considered some of the top aspiring students in all of Japan. They’ll do just about anything and everything to get ahead, but they will not turn on each other. They are required to work together in some fields because powerful quirk users combined can be a beautiful thing in the face of battle, or in establishing dominance, right? It’s designed to set you on the right path and separate the powerful from the weak hearted.

General Studies is offered to students that have failed the Villain course exam but still have the potential to join the Villain course during the spring of their following year. However, General Studies students can usually be seen in one of two lights: Scrubs and targets, or potential villains based on how students present themselves in those classes. They’re sorted into C and D, and E categories.

Support Course are students that have been gifted with extreme knowledge and craftsmanship. These are the individuals that instead choose to support their future pro Villains along their course by designing weapons that can enhance not only their quirks but their combat abilities. Support students are highly treasured at UA, and often shown an extra level of respect so that villain course students can ultimately get what they want to be made. There is no limit to what they can make, and their stock room is filled to the brim with assorted tools. Some legal, some very illegal. Anything goes when you’re in support course territory! They are sorted into F, G and H categories.

Lastly, but certainly not least, the Management Course. They are the individuals single-handedly responsible for starting a Villain’s career. They deal with all marketing, opening up agencies, and provide a line of direction for newborn villains. They are sharp individuals, with great problem-solving skills and are masters of working the system in their favor. They’re a more isolated group of students, who choose to keep their secrets to themselves. They are sorted into I, J and K categories.

Much of the Discourse that should arise in UA isn’t handled by the teachers but handled by the ranking system that is established among the Villain Course students. It is called The Royal Flush and composed up of a King, Queen, Jack, Ace and Ten of Hearts. Each title is worn by a Villain Course student, and with it, comes specific duties that are to be obeyed around the school. Before I outline who this is made up, I’ll explain how society’s ranking system works based on what type of quirk you’re born with. Or NOT born with.

When a child’s quirk manifests, they are immediately classified into a color that will dictate how the rest of their life will go. Let’s start from lowest to highest! Now, these are subject to change if a quirkless child is a late bloomer and their quirk manifests later, OR an individual that was already sorted has a quirk change or an enhancement in their abilities that calls for them to be sorted into a different classification. This is done by the government in which the person goes through a series of tests to be passed on to a different classification.

COLOR QUIRK CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM ;;

QUIRKLESS (Black) If no quirk manifests in a child, they are tapped as black and are donned as a disability to the society overall. They are shunned and mocked, these are the people who have a very hard time finding suitable jobs and education for themselves. They tend to stick together to survive and are virtually non-existing to society unless they do something to prove themselves. A lot of them do the services that many quirk users do not want to do, and this buys them protection and a safe space. The highest suicide ranking is among the quirkless.

LOW TIER (Blue) The weakest on the quirk totem pole. Low tier quirk users are registered under the color blue to signal their ranking. These are the people who are offered the lowest ranking jobs and education. They have a chance to climb up the pole if their quirk changes after they’ve already been tapped as a child. Otherwise, these are the people who are easily taken advantage of and who often deflect for the Hero underground.

MID-TIER (Green) The middle of the pole. Once sorted into this category, I would consider this the middle class of the quirk ranking system. A lot of citizens are mid-tier users. They have the ability to hold decent jobs, can become advisors to higher ranking quirk users, are offered good education, and are respected enough to be left alone. They don’t help the weak if they know what’s good for them and their safety. A lot of UA students are Green users that are trying to advance to Orange if their ability allows, but honestly, being Green is a good thing. It doesn’t get you looked at like the Blues, and it takes some of the pressures of Orange off you.

HIGH TIER (Orange) The second highest ranking on the quirk pole. They are the world’s leaders, offered the highest ranking jobs, exposed to the absolute best education system. The police tend to turn a blind eye to high tier users who act out in society because they are seen as the best of the best. Their power isn’t something to be questioned. High tier users can offer protective services to mid-tier users.

SUPREME TIER (Red) Extremely rare. 5% of the population. These are people that are considered walking Gods because of their quirk abilities. Both feared and praised, they are hunted down for their abilities and turned into lethal villain machines. They can offer protective services to just about anyone they choose and it will -never- be questioned. It is very much a thing that children born and tested as Red, will be registered as Orange and their quirk abilities fairly suppressed.

Now that that’s outlined, going back to The Royal Flush squad. The Big Three were the top dogs of UA while they were there, Mirio becoming King in his second year, along with Nejire as Queen and Tamaki as Jack. The Big Three came to dominate the school, they were the people that aspiring individuals looked to for advice. They handled a lot of disputes, while not only increasing their profiles as Villains but also letting people know that they were not the ones to be questioned. Izuku inherits the King title, reluctant to do so after he inherits his ability, None for All, and was now tasked with building his own elite team to wear the Royal titles through the years at UA. Izuku is the only one to become King during his first year.

Who he picks are a total secret, and one you’ll come to discover later on.

Now, what about the Hero Underground? Is there a silver lining in all of this? Of course! The Hero Underground, known as the League of Heroes, is a widespread society that was started by one man, known as All For One. However, in the Villain realm, he’s known bitterly as Robin Hood. He can steal quirks from the most sinister of Villains and gift them to aspiring Heroes who are desperate to try and make society a better place. There have been rumors floating around forever that Shimura Nana has killed him, but in reality, AFO is safely hidden in an unknown location that’s under intense security.

The League of Heroes fights for everyone. They do not discriminate against Quirkless and Low Tier users and are always welcoming to any Villain that chooses to deflect. Once somebody chooses to deflect, they are stripped of their ranking and are considered as good as dirt to society. Heroes are seen as vermin, with their want for equal rights among everyone else and to have quirks liberated rather than controlled by the government and other systems. Hero Agencies exist in locations spread all over Japan, some greatly hidden behind walls, underground, within a maze of tunnels, or through extensive passwords.

Three misfits, ostracized and hunted for their abilities joined the Hero ranking and own one of the most successful Agencies of all time. (Also a real pain in the ass for the Villains of the society) Chisaki Kai, Todoroki Touya, and Shigaraki Tomura. Three individuals who were born RED, who deflected from villain society and built an Agency from the ground up in honor of liberation. They are walking messiahs to those on the lower end of the deal, and they’ve already saved countless people. They have dodged great difficulties to get to where they need to be. The question is, the government wants them, but more so have been forced to turn the other cheek. The system is just as much afraid of them.

They operate out of an office that’s disguise as a Speakeasy, hidden behind a door with a peephole that Touya maintains. Those looking for their aid are given specific instructions to this door, and will only be let in if their password is said correctly. This office also operates as a safe house for those who just are looking to escape the gruesome system they were born into. Welcome to the Hero world! Let Todoroki Touya be your guide.

(Part 1 end)

#MUSINGS. || a place to lay my head #verse || my villain academia.

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technewsbow · 6 years ago

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Moto G7 Motorola's turn-cellphone-stimulated foldable might be producing all the buzz, however the Lenovo-owned logo is arguably nevertheless high-quality acknowledged for its mid-range Moto G smartphones. This is now not an awful issue, both. Every year Motorola dutifully churns out some of the first-rate pockets-friendly smartphones you'll discover, and with the creation of the new, $299 Moto G7, that streak appears to be going sturdy in 2019. With all that said, although, Motorola's mid-range plan this year is not exactly good as regular. For one, it seems like Motorola is trying to steer clear of a glut of exchange display information through saying its new stuff in advance of this 12 month’s mobile global Congress. And extra importantly, we are getting three new Moto G smartphones proper off the bat. There's the G7 itself, plus versions at the subject: the $199 G7 Play for consumers on a tighter price range and the $249 G7 strength for individuals who need insanely lengthy battery existence. In years beyond, Motorola gave G-collection phones inside the same family extraordinary processors, but that has changed too. every model of the G7 coming to the united states packs considered one of Qualcomm's octa-center Snapdragon 632 chipsets, albeit with exclusive RAM allotments — the Play has 2GB, the power has 3GB and the pinnacle-tier G7 has 4GB. That electricity parity became a nice surprise, and all through a few arms-on time at an event in the big apple town, all three felt lots responsive. (It genuinely does not harm that everyone three devices run near-inventory variations of Android nine.0 Pie). These cellphones are not going to run identically, however they seem close enough that a smartphone consumer doesn't want to fear an excessive amount of approximately buying the incorrect one. This year, Motorola appears extra worried with giving people the right phone for the proper context. The G7 Play, as an instance, is the cheap version geared towards individuals who pick smaller gadgets. It packs a 5.7-inch, nineteen by nine ratio MaxVision show going for walks at 1512x720, at the side of 32GB of internal garage, a microSD slot that takes cards as huge at 512GB, a headphone jack and a by and large-simply-adequate 13-megapixel camera. Of all the new G7 fashions, the Play is the maximum relaxed to apply because of its noticeably compact layout, and until you had your nostril pressed proper up against that notched show, you probably would not have the ability to tell it become jogging at much less than 1080p. As noted, it is quite snappy inside the performance department, too, although the 2GB of onboard RAM mean the Play is certain to slow down more fantastically once you've got plenty of apps strolling. All instructed, it's a wonderfully serviceable choice for folks that certainly do not need to spend an excessive amount of on a phone, but the Play is without difficulty the least interesting of Motorola's new devices. Motorola clever charge, the G7 energy sits in the middle of the p.c., but its standout function gives it a clear edge over the relaxation of Motorola's new line-up. notwithstanding being only marginally larger than the more top class G7, the energy packs a whopper of a five,000mAh battery, which Motorola says is rated for up to three days of use off a single rate. That Motorola controlled to squeeze this sort of massive battery into a frame that actually would not experience that massive is a feat worth admiring, even though it made me want the corporation had finished the identical for the G7. Squeezing 3 days of use out of a telephone required a few compromises, though: the power's 6.2-inch display is just as huge because the G7's but it runs at 1520×720, so individual pixels may be on higher side when you get surely near the show. To be clean, the notched screen here is still more than good enough for each day use, and for individuals who care approximately battery existence greater than anything else, the exchange-off is without difficulty really worth it. The 12-megapixel digital camera is not half of horrific both, and at the same time as it technically shoots at a decrease decision than the inexpensive Play, the energy's sensor has large pixels for progressed low-mild performance. Throw in an extra gig of RAM compared to the G7 Play, 32GB of storage (once more expandable with micro SD cards), a headphone jack and a first rate eight-megapixel front-dealing with digital camera, and we're left with a tantalizing twist at the G7 formulation. That leaves us with the normal G7 is the satisfactory one of the lot. The G7 additionally takes place to be the prettiest of the phones that are coming, for some essential reasons. Rather than an extensive, Apple-style notch to residence the speaker and front-dealing with camera, the G7 uses a now-not unusual teardrop reduce-out to hide its eight-megapixel the front digital camera. the nineteen:9, 6.2-inch display additionally runs at complete HD+ (2270x1080, for those maintaining track) making it the nicest G7 version to in reality have a look at. The bezels going for walks around that display screen are the thinnest you may find on all the new G7 versions. And whilst last 12 month’s Moto G6 had a frame blanketed mainly in Gorilla Glass three, the G7 provides an attention grabbing steel body it truly is also quite high-quality to hold onto.

http://www.technewsbow.com/2019/02/moto-g7-budget-friendly-phone.html

#Moto G7: A budget friendly phone http://www.technewsbow.com/2019/02/moto-g7-budget-friendly-phone.ht

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feinstone · 3 years ago

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Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) absolutely baffled me the first time I watched it.

It has incredible practical effects, coupled with writing that wildly oscillates between vain semi-self-aware dull nonsense and borderline-parody (I mean come on gang, really with that "cancelled" line?), and it really confused me how it could have consistently pretty good direction, as well as some of the best practical horror effects I've seen come out of an American film in recent years, but also have such a bland script. Then I learned that Fede Álvarez was a producer and the style and quality of the practical effects clicked into place.

As a whole, (in my opinion, as a fan of horror movies and the TCM series) it doesn't do enough right for me to label it as a good movie, but it also doesn't do enough wrong for me to call it objectively bad, or to saddle it with the elusive So Bad It's Good. It doesn’t really hit either end of the Good-Bad spectrum with enough force or consistency to stand out from the rest of the TCM series, or any of the million other mid-tier slashers in general.

It just kinda... is. It's a movie. An extant movie.

There's something about the combo of the kills and the script that just puts it as a big ol' question mark for me. Seeing the kills independent of the rest of the movie would sell me on it being a pretty good flick; hearing the dialogue without the well-crafted practical effects on the kills makes me think of Deadly Detention, which is a viewing experience I would rather not repeat for a fourth time. The two put together results in a movie that I wouldn't say is bad, but also wouldn't really describe as good.

Now, I've watched my fair share of horror movies, and my fair share of mediocre movies, and more than my fair share of mediocre horror movies, but I would even hesitate to put it in that list. The highs are too high for me to consider it mediocre or below, but the lows are so irritating to me that it drags the whole experience down. Mathematically, that should make my ranking the average between the highs and lows, but me labelling it as mediocre wouldn't do it justice. It's well directed, has moments of really great cinematography, excellent practical effects, and (most of the time) the actors are putting in work to try and sell the lines they are given, but overall it just feels kinda... empty? Like it's just a vehicle for getting to the kills, with this thin veneer of social commentary that doesn't actually do any social commentary, outside of pointing at things that happen/exist and saying "Hey! Y'all heard about how these things happen/exist? Anyway, here's someone getting their head caved in."

Honestly, despite my many gripes with the script, I've watched and read a lot of bad scripts, and I wouldn't even say that this one is a contender for a place amongst them; it's just a bog-standard slasher script with a handful of less-than-phenomenal lines in the mix. My personal irritation with the way the dialogue and characters are written doesn't mean that it was objectively bad.

Really, it's one of those movies that should be watched with friends. For me, watching it the first time with a group of friends resulted in it being a stupid fun time where we made fun of the stupid parts and celebrated the spectacle of viscera. Watching it again by myself, I ended up coming away feeling more like it was pretty unremarkable outside of the kills.

I would describe it as "competent and violent". Whether that is a positive or a negative is up to interpretation.

#sweet.txt #long post #listen #i write reviews for stuff in my phone notes app sometimes (all the time) because i like talking about things i recently watched/read/played #am i weird for posting this one? perhaps

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nameless-articles · 6 years ago

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A Delayed Topic: Budgets in Video Games

I’m naked in my Japan dorm eating Pocky, yet I’m disappointed in myself. Not because of my current activities, but because in waiting (really working on other projects) to write my article on mid-tier budgets I missed the boat before other big-name video game people sailed off on it. Nonetheless, it’s a topic I’ve had on my mind for a while now, and to scrap the project just because some other people have tackled it would be silly. So without further ado, I present to you my thoughts and hope for video game budgets going forward (though of course whatever I have to say will have little influence on what publishers do).

A while ago, my brother and I got into a heated discussion over the price of video games. He believes sixty dollars is too high a price for a newly released game, while (though of course I’d much rather pay less) I find it to be a fair price. However, for any readers ready to judge my spending habits, I should remark that I only buy perhaps one or two new games a year (in actuality, I haven’t bought a newly-released game in 2018). It takes a game a fair amount of effort to win me over enough to drop money on launch; the best way for a game to earn goodwill is to be created by a developer that has a good track record. While some people find this habit (that of buying games from trusted developers) as a risk not worth taking, I have only been truly upset over maybe one new game purchase in my life (that honor goes to Mass Effect 3). In my experience, that game has stopped me from not only waiting to buy future Bioware titles but has stopped me from buying them altogether. In the long run, I believe the customers’ (not as individuals but as a collective) happiness will determine whether a developer will succeed or fail. That being said, it isn’t stopping publishers from doing everything in their power to fight that reality. There’s only so much we can say about predatory practices in video games. At their core, these practices are forced into a game with little consideration for how it affects the mechanics or overall flow: The majority of modern AAA games are designed to make money, nothing else.

The question is not “does the price of the game reflect its quality?” Video games are art, and, with no malice, if a painting can sell for millions I don’t see why video games can’t do the same. That might seem like I’m arguing against my point, but I’m not. For us to consider games a form of art, we need to reconsider how we view the cost of that art, and the cost of art is not solely determined by the work put into producing it.

Take Battlefront II for example, by technical merits it is quite the achievement and all the detail packed into it must have taken the developers countless time to create, yet I wouldn’t consider paying over ten dollars for it because, as a customer, the experience on offer is not one I value greatly. On the other hand, if the asking price for Drakengard 3 had been eighty dollars, I would’ve at least considered it. I don’t believe this is how most people think of games, despite having often heard claims that people would’ve spent two hundred dollars on Skyrim if they could (although given the recent controversies concerning Fallout 76 that might’ve been a bad idea, too). Most people make such claims with one particular game when they have become infatuated with it (someone might make that argument for me), but I think the scope of this lens should be broadened to every game we consider purchasing.

Of course, we need to consider the mass-marketed and laborious nature of video games. Visual art like painting and photography can afford to have higher prices precisely because they are limited in quantity. In addition, video games take countless hours from multiple people through different departments, and they all need to be compensated somehow. No developer should expect to work for free (that said, practices like crunch time which recently got brought up again for Red Dead Redemption 2 still occur), and I am all for making sure they get their fair share.

However, a significant chunk of a big games budget is spent on marketing the game, with less than a majority fraction going to actual development, and this trend is only growing. While I understand the importance of giving your game a good amount of coverage, the fact that more money is spent letting people know a game exists rather than ensuring the quality is a recipe for mediocrity, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. I want to give the video game industry the benefit of the doubt and believe the goal is to create a product worthy of the consumer’s money, but trends like massive marketing budgets and locking in game items on the grounds of player choice speaks more to the capitalist perversion of the craft. It might sound like I’m taking video games too seriously, but I believe we are seeing a shift in the industry that is going to change the way video games take risks, and I would argue in a manner that is ultimately limiting the artistic possibilities of the medium.

With budgets as inflated as they are, these projects can’t fail. I don’t mean fail the way publishers mean fail, wherein they expected a decent game to become the next Call of Duty or where only a couple million sales means the investors didn’t make the massive profits they expected (though still made a profit). Big budget games are less likely to try out new and experimental ideas because more often than naught consumers want something they know rather than new mechanics or odd stories. While this has always been the case to some degree, games like Metal Gear Solid 2 are less likely to be created today than they were two console generations ago. Ironically enough, Death Stranding is looking to be such an experience and the only reason it’s able to do this is because the game is being designed as a console exclusive, which Sony banks on selling more consoles than actual units (in the sense that the game might sell a couple million but many of those buyers will probably get one of their consoles just to play it). Games like Bloodborne are meant to give people a reason to own a console by pushing that system as the only means to get such an experience (in some sense it matters less how that game sells). Of course, Sony is expecting a Hideo Kojima exclusive to sell very well, but they are still taking a huge risk by giving him a good amount of money considering the kind of experience it seems to be (at this point, a story-based open world exploration (admittedly this is not the most unique general premise but the story seems to suggest otherwise)). We could never expect a publisher like EA or Ubisoft to take such a risk, though to give them credit they do bankroll much smaller games that tend to mechanically and narratively experiment more than the Battlefields and the Assassin’s Creeds that give EA the profits to test things out on a smaller scale.

It might sound like I’m giving these larger publishers some slack, but I think this approach is still rather tamed and limiting the possibilities video games have. I don’t see this setup of high-budget-destined-for-profit games to pay for the experimental smaller games as giving the most variety of gameplay and narratives. I think it’s better than only big budget games, but these other projects tend to be closer to indie games, which, though they have their place in video games, have to be limited in scope and technical prowess in order to exist. For example, Undertale is an amazing game that I’m glad exists, but imagine what Toby Fox could do if he had a couple million to spend rather than fifty thousand. These are the experiences lacking in the industry, multi-million dollar budgets with the heart and mindset of an independent project. This isn’t to say such experiences don’t exist at all, but that I believe they offer the best compromise between publisher greed and developer freedom. While this might have already been expected, I’m going to talk about how Drakengard 3 is close to an example of such a product.

While full of plenty of flaws and lackluster gameplay elements, the entirety of the Drakengard/Nier series is enjoyed on a cult level because it offers something that is hard to find in other games: that is, a balls to the wall crazy story that, for the sake of the memes, really makes you think. I find the lore of the series interesting, but I mainly play them because they offer stories that for once give me a chance to reflect on my own perspective and have me consider why I believe what I believe. Yes, games like that exist elsewhere, but there is a specific type of craziness and intrigue that comes with these games that I have yet to see replicated in other series (by all means, feel free to mention some). Back to Drakengard 3 in particular, I’ve already talked about why I believe the final boss is one of the best moments I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. Such an ending risks alienating countless players, and it’s the kind of choice you’d probably never see attempted in today’s AAA titles because it’s far too risky. However, you’d also never find it in an entirely independent project, because they lack the funds to even try and attempt an ending of that scope. For that reason, I believe the AA (a couple million, maybe ten or twenty million at most), offer the best space for games that want to push the artistic bounds of the video game medium.

One argument to be made against this proposal is the fear that such games won’t have the level of polish present in higher budget titles. While this can be true, it doesn’t account for what the reality was two generations ago. Games like Metal Gear Solid 2 and Silent Hill 2 (it just seems like the second game is always the best of a series) were expensive in their day, but even their budgets look small in comparison to what’s being spent on games today. While the graphical prowess of AAA games has increased vastly since then, do modern games come across as mechanically or narratively more engaging than two generations ago? I tend to think not, though games like Nier: Automata give me hope that interesting narratives can still be constructed and built upon in a world of higher budgets. Nier is by no means a high budget game, but it costs more than anything an independent studio is able to muster, while at the same time turning a profit for their publisher and bringing their developer from the brink of death. All while giving players an enjoyable and engaging game.

There’s been the idea floating around that games need to cost more than $60. The rising costs of video games is the main culprit, proponents of an increased price say, however I want to lay blame on the consumer for a moment. Gamers appreciate flashy graphics, and these graphics don’t come cheap. It makes sense for publishers to make certain elements of a game top priority if players demonstrate that these features are the sort of things they want to see. Most consumers want more of the same, yet love to complain that every game is trying to be the next [insert current leading genre here]. Players flock to these games, at least enough to allow publishers and developers to make a quick buck off of making such a game.

More than any other artistic medium, video games are highly iterative, which can be to its advantage at times. However, as a result trends take awhile before they die, and in that time there will be countless games of a popular genre that take up time, money, and space from games that are doing different things. Consider how many forgotten first person shooters existed last generation, consider how many forgotten open world games exist this generation. Now imagine the countless battle royal games that are either out or coming out in the future. All of those games devote resources away from a potentially game-changing project. I’m losing focus a little bit, but it’s worth remembering that the problem is not merely concerned with budgets.

In order to give players what they want, publishers and developers have to find monetization methods to make these games and make a profit for their investors, for whom (unfortunately) the creation of big budget games is often times merely a profit-driven endeavor. Money has always driven the creation of art, and only recently crowdfunding and other supportive methods have taken off. However, the vast majority of the population isn’t rich enough to support multiple games with thousands of dollars like some of these investors can, so until then this method of game production will persist. Since players are (rightfully) against a flat price increase of video games, we’ve seen growing use of microtransactions and lootbox systems that, as anyone should know, do not justify the cost of what they give but rather subsidize the other costs of the game. Players buy these microtransactions, and in some cases the overall amount spent on in-game microtransactions have earned a company more money than other games or even the game its sold within. Publishers know this, which perpetuates the cycle of spending more money on marketing to ensure they can get enough whales that will sink a ton of money into the game so they can make their profit regardless.

The saddest part about the current situation is that it might not even be enough to “vote with your wallet” as is often repeated, because most players don’t engage with these monetization practices, but those who do engage in such a way that it’s worth it for the company to alienate a vocal minority of their players in favor of exploit the small amount of players who will pay to play. A complete boycott of these games might not be enough to convince publishers to change their monetization methods. At this point, they know how much money they can make through the nickle-and-dime processes that even if games had a higher starting price it would hardly incentivize them to drop it altogether. Given the number of deluxe and super deluxe editions many games release with which only give access to maybe a few other missions and cosmetics for a quarter of the cost of the real game, some might argue is already the case.

Why did I bother writing all this if the outlook appears black. I’m certain no developer will ever read this, and given my general reach on this site is minimal at best, it’s very unlikely that this will get any traction that leads to some grander change. Still, I find it important for people to see and understand why games are monetized the way they do, and in this instance the burden is on the consumer to inform publishers the kinds of experiences we want to see. I’m fully aware that what I want from video games is not what other people want to see; if it was, then there would be no reason for me to make this post. But I do find the experiences I want lacking, and I believe more AA budgets will give the best range for those types of experiences that will push gaming in a new direction. It is not the Red Dead Redemption 2’s of the industry that will revolutionize gaming, but the smaller, humbler experiences that will shape the artistic future of games to come.

There is still much room for video games to develop as a medium. Whether it’s in traditionally controlled games or virtual reality experiences, there is still plenty for us to learn and develop how the immense amount of player-controlled interactions influence the final product. Expensive-to-make games cannot afford to fully explore these bounds, making them the least opportune avenue to expand, reshape, or break how we understand player interactivity in an artistic sense. While there are developers who do push bounds on higher budgets, most do nothing that hasn’t already been done (sometimes even better) by a project on a lower budget. I guess what I really want to say is that I want something to challenge me and my understanding of player agency as much as the Drakenier series, and I doubt it will be something that cost over fifty million that will change that.

P.S. I understand that what I seek for the future of games, whether narratively or mechanically, is not necessarily the priority of other players, let alone publishers and developers. Perhaps in the future I’ll go more into what I look for in video games, and why I enjoy playing the games that I do.

#video games #budgets #criticism #lootbox #microtransactions #essay

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johnboothus · 3 years ago

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VinePair Podcast: Are We Overselling Terroir?

On this week’s episode of the “VinePair Podcast,” hosts Adam Teeter, Joanna Sciarrino, and Zach Geballe take a look at the emphasis on terroir in the winemaking industry and how the importance of person and place come into play. They also break down some of the best drinks and moments from last week’s Bar Convent Brooklyn.

Geballe kickstarts the conversation by musing on a new Napa Valley winemaking project that departs from the emphasis on place, focusing instead on the prestigious winemakers behind them. The three discuss what makes the project unique and how the industry has shifted away from highlighting winemakers in favor of focusing on grapes and regions from which wines are produced. Plus, Teeter considers whether this is a good thing, and how the focus on terroir might be representative of a more general move away from higher education and expertise in America.

If you have thoughts about how terroir stacks up against winemakers and whether the trend is part of a larger societal shift, please send your ideas to [email protected].

LISTEN ONLINE

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

OR CHECK OUT THE CONVERSATION HERE

Adam Teeter: From VinePair’s New York City headquarters, I’m Adam Teeter.

Joanna Sciarrino: I’m Joanna Sciarrino.

Zach Geballe: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the “VinePair Podcast.” Zach, we missed you at Bar Convent Brooklyn. And since we got to drink fun stuff, why don’t you tell us what you drank first?

Z: Bar Convent Brooklyn looked like a lot of fun. Maybe next year. There’s an ever-growing number of very cool cocktail and bar festivals that I’ve never been to. I’ve got to work on that and get out of my northwest corner of the U.S. I haven’t made it up to Tales of the Cocktail in Vancouver either, which is obviously very close to me. What have I been drinking? I’ve had two interesting things in the last week or so. I had a really interesting white wine from a winery that was pretty far northern in California, in the North Yuba mountains area from a winery called Frenchtown Farms. It was a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Roussanne, which are not two varieties I’ve seen blended together very often. It’s very cool. It’s one of those wineries that makes you think, California is enormous and has so many different agricultural and viticultural areas. This is not completely different from other places I’ve been, but it’s just very remote. I lost cell phone service out in the vineyard. I think you’re technically in the state of Jefferson, the proposed breakaway republic up in the north part of California. It was a world away from the glitz and glamor of a little further down, in Napa and Sonoma. It’s an interesting wine. It’s a natural wine. It’s definitely on the funkier side, but not overwhelmingly so. It had a bit of partially fermented apples to it. Maybe that’s just because we have an apple tree in our yard and it’s dropping apples like crazy, so I’m constantly surrounded by the smell of, like, partially fermented apples, but it had that sense to it. I dig that in a white wine from time to time. It was good. Did you guys have any standout things at BCB or anything else that’s been a highlight?

A: I’ll let Joanna talk about BCB.

J: I think I had more gin and tonics yesterday than I’ve had in my entire life. Gin was a really big focus.

A: There was a lot of gin there.

J: A lot of gin, right?

A: Yeah.

J: Yeah. Outside of BCB, we stopped by Torch and Crown Brewery in Manhattan, in SoHo, this weekend. Adam, you had chatted with John Dantzler last year when they opened up, right?

A: Yeah.

J: We got some beers to go from there. I really enjoyed a saison that they had right now. We also got a sour that was just a little too sour for me. Maybe I’m just getting old.

Z: I’ve noticed that, as I’ve gotten older, my tolerance for very sour things has decreased for sure. I’m sorry, we’re not reaching a younger demographic. I love really sour things.

A: This podcast is brought to you by AARP.

Z: Soon enough, man.

J: And Tums.

A: I love Tums. There was a lot of gin and tonic, though, at BCB. I also agree with you, Joanna. For me, it’s always been sour beers that I’ve always felt like I can’t do. I can have one, then I feel like I’m not enjoying them. I don’t want to fight with my beverage. I thought BCB was a good time. There were definitely less big brands that have been there in the past. It was missing some of the larger brands. It was actually kind of nice. There were more mid-tier and emerging brands, which was cool. They got more of the spotlight, which I think is always great for those brands. More people will then stop and see them. It still has a really great amount of talent in terms of the bartender community that was making drinks. You could tell everyone was just really happy to be there. They did it as safely as they could. There were multiple vaccine checks, so it felt safe. Everyone had their masks on for the most part, besides when they were tasting. A lot of people spent a lot of time outside. It was cool. Also, my parents were in town this past weekend.

J: Right.

A: Yeah. We had some fun drinks. I made some cocktails. I made my parents the Last Word, which they had never had before, so it was fun to share it with them. We went out for dinner one night to Lorina Pastificio, which was just a great meal with really cool wine. My parents had COS for the first time.

Z: Oh, cool.

A: We had their orange wine, which was delicious.

J: I’ve never had that.

A: It was really great. Then, we just hung out at home and had some fun times. It was all BCB yesterday. The one thing that I had never had before was RumChata.

Z: Oh!

A: I had never had RumChata before. It was actually pretty good. I was a little suspect. Myself and Aaron Goldfarb both walked over together.

Z: This is right up Aaron’s alley. It’s basically just eggnog.

A: Aaron loves eggnog. Aaron also loves a spirit that none of us in New York are talking about. We walked over, and we were talking to the team. They asked us if we wanted to try a RumChata. It was pretty delicious. They brought out fresh nutmeg. They said that RumChata is apparently one of the largest purchasers of cream in America, or milk in Wisconsin. I don’t know. I didn’t get the full facts, so no one quote me on this.

Z: You might have had some RumChata before they told you the facts, so the recollections might be fuzzy.

A: That was cool. There was so much good stuff, just stuff that made me go, wow. I spent some time with my bingo card at the Sazerac table. They had a pretty fun ploy that turned out to be a ruse. It was, apparently if you tried 10 different things, you would get a taste of Pappy. Josh and I were like, we’re going to do this. For just a little taste, come on.

Z: Yeah.

A: We get to the end and they tell us, “Oh, there’s no Pappy. We messed up. We actually don’t have Pappy today.” They said, we do have George T. Stagg, and I was like, that’s fine.

Z: I’ll take it.

A: It was actually pretty humorous. I did get to try a lot of really interesting things in that portfolio, including an Indian whisky, which I had never had before.

Z: Oh, interesting. So it wasn’t Amrut? It was another one?

A: It was another one. Now, the name escapes me. They’re starting to bring it to the U.S. I guess Sazerac has part ownership of it.

Z: OK, cool.

A: It was a really interesting whisky. They had one that was super aged and they’ll sell it in the U.S. for around $300 a bottle. It was really interesting stuff. That’s what I’ve been up to. Zach, you’ve got today’s topic for us. What are we going to chat about?

Z: This topic has been prompted by a couple of things. I think it’s been prompted by some press releases. Those are sometimes good fodder for podcast topics. Adam, you and I were talking about this a little before we recorded, by travels and what we see in the wine space in particular. The thing I wanted to get both of your perspectives on, is that I recently got a press release about a new Napa Valley wine project. It’s keeping in a lot of what you might historically associate with Napa Valley. It’s Cabernet Sauvignon-focused. It’s got three very high-profile, well-established winemaking consultants attached to it. There’s an eye-popping price tag, etc., etc. What’s interesting to me in this, is it’s the first thing I’ve seen in a while where its whole marketing pitch is that, we’re not going to tell you what vineyard it comes from. We’re not going to extoll the quality of the grapes. What we’re going to focus on is that we’re paying these very well-known winemakers a lot of money, presumably, to make this wine. We think that you, the audience for these wines, which granted is very small and elite, are going to be more interested in that in a recitation of the specific values of the sites where the grapes came from. Granted, it’s still Napa Valley wine. It’s not like they’re making it in the middle of North Yuba, Calif., say. What’s interesting to me, and what I wanted to get your take on, is that we have been in a certain period of time in wine for the last decade or so, if not longer. Everyone, from producers in the most established regions to some of the most new or obscure, have focused so much in their communications to the public, the press, and the trade about the nuances of their site, their terroir, and of the value of this specific plot of land where their grapes come from. They’ve really diminished the importance of their winemaker and the winemaking in a lot of cases. I’m wondering, do you think that pendulum’s swung too far? Are we at the point now where the conversation is tipped towards the discussion about the place or vineyard where the grapes come from, and so little is said about the winemaking and the winemaker? That’s a little bit how I felt. I’m not ponying up $8,000 for these wines, but there was something about that that resonated with me. It’s interesting. Maybe there is an audience for, not necessarily anti-terroir, but a non-terroir focused wine.

A: I do think that there is a move towards the idea that everything starts in the vineyard, and it’s less about who makes it. I definitely think there is somewhat of a tension there. We’re going to really get into it. I might piss some people off. Let’s go. I think there is a tension here that exists among trained winemakers. These are people who have either gone and gotten a degree, so they’ve really worked their their asses off. They’ve gone and gotten their master’s, some have Ph.D.s, and they’ve really learned a lot in terms of winemaking at one of the great enology schools. The other group is those that have apprenticed for a really long time under other winemakers to really learn. You can always sense a little bit of annoyance in their voices when they talk about this topic, because they care about the site, too. They also believe that skill is the best steward of that site. I think that the site has become so much more talked about than it used to be. That has then fed the movement where anyone feels like they can just buy that fruit crusher, and it’s going to be just as good as if someone who actually trained had made it. I don’t think that’s true. I think that’s pretty much crap. We’ve seen that reflected in a lot of wines that get made by novices. Like, I can bake bread. I learned how to do it in the pandemic, but it’s nowhere near as good as bread that’s been baked by a world-renowned baker, even if I use the same ingredients. I think that a lot of what we’re seeing is that discussion of sites because we are seeing so many amateurs who are making wine and then selling it at the same price as people who have really perfected their craft. That’s a little bit ridiculous.

J: Do you think that these amateurs are using the land, the terroir, to sell it?

A: Yeah, they use that story. The fruit comes from this amazing site. For example, I can go to the farmer’s market and buy the same caliber fruits, vegetables, etc., on Saturday in Fort Greene that the chefs in Brooklyn go and buy. I like to think of myself as a pretty decent home chef. I like to cook and play around, but I would never charge you $30 a plate for it.

Z: Sure.

A: I’ll charge you by having to deal with my company.

Z: You’ve got to help clean up.

A: Yeah. Besides that, though, I’m not charging. What’s been so crazy in wine is that there’s a lot of people who have gotten into it who are able to have access. At the end of the day, the person selling the fruit just wants to sell the fruit. You can get access to some of these, except for the really renowned vineyards. But, there’s some great sites where you can be a “hobbyist” and get access. You can have a graphic designer friend who can make you a label. You can go buy bottles. You can then be on the market at the same price. There’s some distributors who, I would argue, have made a career in representing hobbyists. There’s a thirst for hobbyists.

J: Craft winemakers.

A: Craft winemakers. Exactly. I think that you can’t tell the story of the winemaker as much. We all love wine, but you can’t tell the same story that a winemaker with decades of experience, or even a winemaker straight out of school who has gone through the ropes of learning how to make wine and has done the work, can. That has shifted there. That’s my thought process. I think I’ve talked a lot. Joanna, what do you think?

J: I have a question. Zach, you said that you got this press release about this. I’m wondering if we know of other instances of this happening. It feels kind of gimmicky to me, a little bit, like you’re using these names. Now, after hearing Adam chat, I’m wondering if we’re swinging towards both. You need both things, right? For really good wine.

Z: Oh, for sure.

J: Grapes, the fruit, and then the winemaker as well — unless we think we can make the case for a winemaker turning bad grapes into really good wine.

Z: No, I don’t think you would necessarily say that. Including these specific winemakers who are named in this in this project: Their reputation was built in the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s because they were a cadre of sorts, flying winemakers. They had projects all over the world. They would make the wine or at least consult on the winemaking. The thing you were, frankly, paying them for, if you were a proprietor, was just the reputation that they lent to your project. Their specific know-how and technique mattered, along with the cachet that it gave you. That isn’t gone. We certainly have seen plenty of examples of winemakers now who launch multiple projects and move from wine to wine. Take someone like Dave Phinney, who founded The Prisoner. When The Prisoner was founded, he was lauded as a person who understood the winemaking side of it to some extent, plus the marketing side of it, and the idea of creating a brand. He created this iconic brand out of nothing, sold it, and went on to do other things. Somewhere along the way, in elite wine circles, that wine and concept became taboo. It was anathema. There was the thought that this is the opposite of what you should do and that the greatest winemakers are people whose names you may never know. The vision of a great winemaker was someone who ideally had their own little patch of land, planted weird obscure varieties, and made these wines that had no commercial purpose to them.

J: Very romantic.

Z: Yeah. They had this tortured genius notion. I’ve had some of those wines. Some of them are great. Some of them suck and a lot of them are in between. The thing that was refreshing to me about this notion, and that I’ve been trying to push back against a little bit when I talk to people, is this idea that wine is not a natural product in the sense that it does not occur naturally. All wine is unnatural in the sense that you can’t just go into nature and gather wine. You can pick grapes. If you pick grapes and press them, you will have a fermentation and then you’ll have vinegar or something that’s rancid. Wine is an arrested part of the breakdown of grapes. We love it. It’s great. But no, it’s not natural in a true sense of that word. Some of it is more unnatural than others. In the process of making wine, people do everything from growing grapes, choosing to plant it in a certain place, growing it, cultivating it, training it, trellising it, picking it, and making wine from it. All those things are human actions. I agree there’s a sort of gimmickry in this specific brand. I don’t deny that. What I found refreshing was a recognition that wine is a human product. We make it. To your point, Adam, and I agree with you, it’s the same way that bread is a human product. Bread doesn’t grow on trees. The starting raw material, wheat, takes a lot to get to the point where it’s a delicious sourdough loaf or whatever. We would never think to say that a baker is not the most important person and an agent in bread. The person growing the wheat matters and maybe the quality of the wheat matters. I wish I had more opportunities in life to have artisanal wheat made into bread by skilled bakers. That would be delightful. Bread doesn’t ship and store the way wine does, so I don’t get as many chances to do that. We would never deny the skill, agency, and the absolute necessity of a talented baker in giving you the highest expression of that wheat. Yet, a lot of people in wine have really sought to to diminish the role of the winemaker, including winemakers themselves in some cases, which I really don’t understand. A lot of people outside of that have really sought to strip out the role of the winemaker.

A: Answer a quick question before I want to take this conversation to a crazy place.

Z: Oh, let’s go.

A: In terms of winemakers who diminish, I think a lot of winemaker’s at the end of the day are just like brewers and distillers. They just want to sell their product. If they think that right now, what the buyers want to hear is that it’s all about the vineyard, they’re going to sit there and say it’s all about the vineyard. Whatever you want to hear, they’ll tell you, so long as you buy the wine so the winemaker can survive. I do want to ask a larger question. Do you think that this movement comes because of the fact that we as a society have become anti-education?

Z: Oh.

A: Education has become expensive. It’s astronomical. A lot of us have massive student debt. We come out of college, and a lot of us don’t make salaries that can help us pay off that debt pretty quickly. We think we should be paid a lot more than we are paid. We have our generation, millennials, and Gen Z making less than our parents made at our ages, which is crazy. Across the country, there’s this movement about how, if education is not going to be free, then forget it. We have the whole VC world saying, who even needs to go get an education? Just start your business. We have this whole movement that’s almost anti-expertise. Or anti-education to gain that expertise. Is that also fueling everything? I don’t know. It seems like we have to think about where else we are getting messages in society. I feel like I hear this happening even when I hear people talk about certain fashion designers who are “self-made.” No one wants to think about whether or not those people had apprenticeships. There’s artists who didn’t get degrees, didn’t get MFAs, etc. It’s interesting, as a thought experiment, to think about whether this is a larger idea of us as a society turning against education. Joanna? You take this.

J: So, you’re saying that we don’t value craftsmanship.

A: No, I think that, to become a lauded winemaker, a lot of those lauded winemakers have these degrees.

J: Ah. OK.

A: We turned away from the idea of the winemaker towards the site in large part because there are people who are devaluing education because education has become so expensive. For example, if we were to say that the winemaker is really important and, to be a successful winemaker, it’s really important to get a degree. There’s a lot of people in our society that could not afford to do that. Education is insanely expensive. If that is also the case, is the discussion of the site as its own thing a reaction to the fact that it’s not just about thinking about the romanticism of everything? It’s also that, if I want to do this thing and I can’t afford to gain the knowledge to do this thing or to be poor as an apprentice to do so, I’m just going to go do this thing and tell a different story. There’s the thought that, I may not have the skill set right now, but I sure as hell don’t have the money to get that skill set, so I’m just going to continue to fail as I learn.

J: I think that’s a very valid point to make. As a result, are we turning towards highlighting terroir? Or is that not even a part of this argument?

A: I think that’s why you try to highlight terroir, because you can’t lean on your own expertise because you don’t have it yet.

J: Gotcha.

Z: I think there’s probably two things happening here. There is something to the idea that expertise in general is being diminished in its value societally. Some of that is good. Sometimes, I think expertise, as Adam said, is not equally available to all people. The barrier to gaining that expertise is very high for some people more than for others. There are real, broader societal issues with that. I also think there’s another piece of this, which is that learning how to do something in school does not mean that you will inherently be good at it or great at it on your own. Winemaking is both science and art. I think anyone who’s good at it will tell you that, whatever their background. I think we have seen a rejection of the science part of it and of the technical side. We’ve seen that in a lot of camps, not just the natural wine camp, frankly. At the same time, what has also been going on is that a lot of people are recognizing that there is an opportunity with clever branding or a compelling personal story that might not be about your winemaking credentials or even maybe the source of your fruit. You can just skip over the learning to do it part or you can learn to do it while doing it. The reality is, because our understanding of winemaking and the science of it is much more complete than it used to be, you can read a book and probably not make something poisonous. You can make something that’s drinkable and maybe you can make something that’s even enjoyable and consumable to some people. I think that you’re right, Adam, that there is a part of this which is a broader societal trend. I also think there’s something specific to wine, which is a very specific backlash against the idea of all great wine being made by a few people. That’s what it’s felt like for a while if you’ve been paying attention, when we were early on in our drinking age. Now, there’s been this democratization, I suppose, of winemaking. It has come at the denial of the importance of the winemaker and the skill of winemaking in a way that is unfortunate for everyone. Yes, you’re right, Adam, that people want to be able to sell their product and maybe they don’t care what the angle is. But in the end, I think it gives consumers an incorrect impression of what wine is, how it comes to be, and how it makes it from the vineyard to your home or to the restaurant. It is such a human endeavor. That is part of its beauty. It is a synthesis of human technological prowess and of natural beauty. That is wonderful. I would not want to deny either piece of that in talking about wine.

A: Yeah, I think that’s a good point. It’s very interesting. You guys didn’t really answer my question.

Z: Excuse me for not having a sociology report ready for you. Geez. Do your own homework, Adam.

A: Fine, Zach.

A: No, I think you’re right. It’s unfortunate. I agree with the analysis that it’s a little gimmicky, the way that this one wine is marketing itself, but it is interesting to see that there are people who are starting to say, we’d like to be back in the spotlight a little bit and we’d like to talk about us as well. I think it’s both. It’s site and person. It’s not just the site. It’s what that person does with the site and how do they understand the site? How do they want that site to be expressed? There may be really skilled winemakers who want that site to be expressed through what we would say is a more traditional vein of winemaking where it’s much more about the purity of the fruit, but also wants to be known as the person behind that wine. They want to talk about their perspective on why they did what they did. It’s the same way that you want to hear from an artist and ask them, “Why did you do what you did on the canvas?” Not just it is what it is. It was all the paint.

J: I also just think, with how people respond to chefs, I wouldn’t be surprised if consumers become increasingly curious about the people who are making their wine.

Z: For sure.

A: I think that’s very true. Well, Zach, Joanna, this was really interesting.

Z: Yeah. Let us know what you guys think. Email us at [email protected].

A: Hit us up. Let us know. We want to hear what you think. If anyone can answer my question, hit me up. I’ll talk to you both next week.

J: OK, take care.

Z: Sounds great.

Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast. If you love this show as much as we love making it, then please give us a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or whatever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show.

Now for the credits. VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City and Seattle, Wash., by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing and loves to get the credit. Also, I would love to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all this possible and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tastings director, who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who are instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you again.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: Are We Overselling Terroir? appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/podcast-are-we-overselling-terroir/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/vinepair-podcast-are-we-overselling-terroir

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years ago

Text

What Makes a GPU a GPU, and When Did We Start Calling it That?

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

Names change. Perhaps the most jarring element of the recent, widely reported “alien” activity isn’t so much descriptions of sonic boomless sonic flight but that UFOs (unidentified flying objects) are now called UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena).

Companies rebrand; Google became Alphabet and the Washington Football Team decided that was a good idea. With technology, terminology tends to become antiquated as industries progress beyond understanding their own achievements.

With that in mind, let’s consider how changes to the GPU (now the graphics processing unit) acronym and how it harkened a new era of computing applications, while frustrating an obvious customer base.

An ad from Tektronix Interactive Graphics, an alleged forebearer of GPU technology. Or were they?

Most of the history of GPUs doesn’t really count

How mainstream consumers came to expect graphic interfaces to work with computers is a long, fascinating history covered by many books and at least one excellent made-for-TV movie.

While Windows and Apple were gaining acceptance for their point-and-click interface, hardcore computer users, i.e. gamers, needed those points and clicks to register a lot faster. They also wanted the graphics to look more realistic. Then they started asking for features like online multiplayer, instant chat, and a slew of other features we expect nowadays, but seemed like a lot in the early to mid-1990s.

One could contribute the increase in technically demanding games to the 1993 classic Doom, as well as its successor Quake, which drove consumer interest in dedicated graphics cards. However, after talking with an expert that’s watched the field develop from the beginning, the history of GPUs just isn’t that simple.

Dr. Jon Peddie first got involved in the computer graphics industry in the 1960s when he was part of a team that made 3D topographic maps from aerial photography, leading to the creation of his company, Data Graphics. By the early 1980s, he was considering retirement and a career writing sci-fi (sounds nice) when he noticed an explosion in the field that was hard to ignore. Practical applications for high performance graphics were initially driven by CAD (computer-aided design) and GIS (geographic information system) companies, though the video game explosion of the 80s would change that.

“Gaming was (and still is) the driver because of the volume of the customers,” Peddie said in an email. “The other users of 3D and GPUs were engineering (CAD, and molecular modeling), and the movies. But that market had (in the 80s and 90s) maybe 100,000 users total. Consumer 3D had millions. But, the pro market would pay more—thousands to tens of thousands, whereas the consumer would pay a few hundred. So the trick was to build enough power into a chip that could, in a final product, be sold for a few hundred.”

At this point in computing history, the acronym GPU had been introduced into the tech lexicon. This blast-from-the-past article from a 1983 edition of Computerworld details the Tektronix line of graphics terminals. But if you look a little closer, GPU didn’t yet stand for “graphic processing unit”. Instead, this iteration stood for “graphic processor unit”. Is there even a difference?

“None,” Peddie explains. “Tense at best case. English is not the first language for a lot of people who write for (on) the web.”

Okay, fair enough. But this isn’t actually the problem or even the interesting element of GPU history to consider, Peddie points out. It’s the fact that before 1997, the GPU didn’t actually exist, even if the acronym was being used. A proper GPU, it turns out, requires a transform and lighting (T&L) engine.

“Why shouldn’t, couldn’t, a graphics chip or board developed before 1997 be called a GPU?” Peddie asks. “It does graphics (albeit only in 2D space). Does it process the graphics? Sure, in a manner of speaking. It draws lines and circles—that’s processing. It repositions polygons on the screen—that’s processing. So the big distinction, that is a GPU must do full 3D (and that requires a T&L).”

Ultimately, like much of tech history, the story quickly becomes about competing claims between an industry leader and a forgotten innovator.

The Glint 3D graphics chip by 3Dlabs, arguably the first company to produce a true GPU. Largely used for “high-end 3D CAD applications”, it was released in November 1994 (still not the first “real” GPU but still a cool graphics chip). Though first to market, 3Dlabs would not enjoy the economies of scale available to their competitors, like Nvidia. Image: Jon Peddie

Bragging rights are claimed by the winners

Let’s get this out of the way since it’s a common mistake. The first PlayStation was not the first mass market GPU. That belief comes from the powerful marketing efforts of Sony and Toshiba. As Peddie explains, “The original PlayStation [had] a geometry transformation engine (GTE), which was a co-processor to a 2D chip that was incorrectly labeled (by marketing) as a GPU.”

Marketing is a big element in this era of GPUs, which is just before they actually came out. The breakthrough for a true 3D GPU was on the horizon and plenty of companies wanted to get there first. But the honor would go to a little outfit from the UK imaginitely called 3Dlabs. The specific innovation that gave 3Dlabs the title of first accurately named GPU was their development of a two-chip graphics processor that included a geometry processor known as a transform and lighting (T&L) engine. Compared with their competitors, 3Dlabs focused on the CAD market though it was trying to make inroads with the larger consumer market by partnering with Creative Labs.

The smaller size and professional focus of 3Dlabs meant there were still plenty of “firsts” to be had in the consumer GPU market.

The graphics-card sector was incredibly busy during this period, with one-time big names such as Matrox, S3, and 3Dfx competing for mindshare among Quake players.

But the winners write the history books, and a dominant player emerged during this period. By late 1999, Nvidia was ready to release the first mass consumer GPU with integrated T&L, known as the GeForce 256.

“That, by Nvidia’s mythology, was the introduction of the GPU, and they claim the invention [of it],” Peddie explains. “So you can slice and dice history as you like. Nvidia is at $10 billion on its way to $50 billion, and no one remembers 3Dlabs.”

(Side note: Nvidia is and always will be a noun and not an acronym despite the wide belief it is one.)

Pretty soon, the market would be loaded with competing GPUs each aiming at their own particular market niche. Canadian manufacturer ATI Technologies, which was later purchased by Nvidia’s biggest competitor AMD, attempted to differentiate their entry into the market by calling their GPU a VPU, or video processor unit, even though they were the same thing. This effort didn’t last.

“ATI gave up, they couldn’t stand up to Nvidia’s superior (and I mean that) marketing skills, volume, sexiness, and relentless push,” Peddie says.

By the early 2000s, major players like Nvidia had dominated the consumer market, quickly becoming villains to gamers everywhere. Interestingly enough, this exact market consolidation helps explain exactly why high-end graphics cards are so hard to find nowadays.

Behold! One of the most coveted items in the world. And it’s not even the top of the line.

So who do we blame for that GPU shortage, anyway?

If you’ve gotten this far into an article on GPU history and naming convention, I bet you’re wondering when I’m going to get to the Great GPU Shortage of 2020 (and probably beyond).

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, the gist is this: the price of higher-end GPUs has exploded in recent months, if you can even find them.

For example, the folks over at Nvidia have three models of graphics cards that are generally sought after by gamers:

RTX 3090: MSRP $1,499

RTX 3080: MSRP $699

RTX 3070: MSRP $499

The individual merits of these models can be (and very much are) debated relative to their given price points and performance. However, scarcity has made the resale markets for these GPUs shoot through the roof as supply becomes scarce. Current listings price the middle-tier RTX 3080 at $1,499, while the 3090 and 3070 are nearly impossible to find. One listing for a 3090 on eBay is over $3,000 at time of writing.

The AMD line of graphics cards also deserve a mention here. Though not as highly sought after because, traditionally, they haven’t been as powerful, AMD has nonetheless been affected by the supply chain limitations for GPU manufacturing. Like the Nvidia line, the AMD RX 6700, 6800, and 6900 models have seen similar price spikes in the secondary market with most models fetching more than twice their original values in resale markets.

(One extreme example of this: Ernie Smith, the editor of Tedium, bought a refurbished AMD RX 570 for slightly more than $100 in mid-2019, which he used in a piece about reusing old workstations. That same card, which is basically a budget model and was already a little old at the time I purchased it, currently sells for $599 on Newegg’s website.)

Clearly there is heavy demand and capitalism is usually pretty good at filling that gap. Like many things wrong with 2020, a good bit of the blame is being placed on COVID-19. Manufacturing hubs in China and Taiwan, along with most of the world, had to shut down. While much of the work in hardware manufacturing can be automated, the delicate nature of GPUs requires some degree of human interaction.

A flow chart describing the current shape of the GPU industry. Image: Jon Peddie

Still, this explanation oversimplifies processes that have been trending in the graphics industry long before COVID-19 hit. Again, I’ll let Peddie explain:

About 15 [plus] years ago, the manufacturing pipeline was established for GPU manufacturing (which includes sourcing the raw silicon ingots), slicing and dicing the wafers, testing, packaging, testing again and finally shipping to a customer. All the companies in the pipeline and downstream (the OEM customers who have a similar pipeline) were seeking ways to respond faster, and at the same time minimize their inventory. So, the JIT (just in time) manufacturing model was developed. This relied on everyone in the chain providing accurate forecasts and therefore orders. If one link in the chain broke everyone downstream would suffer … When governments shut down their countries all production ground to a halt – no parts shipped—the pipeline was broken. And, when and if production could be restarted, it would take months to get everyone in sync again.

At the same time people were being sent home to work, and they didn’t have the tools needed to do that. That created a demand for PCs, notebooks especially. [Thirty to forty percent] of PCs have two GPUs in them, so the demand for GPUs increased even more.

And then [crypto] coins started to inflate … Now the miners (people who use GPUs to monitor and report …) were after every and any GPU they could get their hands on. That caused speculators to buy all the graphics boards and offer them at much higher prices.

So, the supply line got hit with a 1-2-3 punch and was down for the count.

And that was him keeping a long story short. To put it plainly, companies that make GPUs were operating on a thin margin of error without the ability to predict the future. And this applies more to the general market for GPUs while tangentially addressing the higher-end customers.

Another point of frustration to add here was the unfortunate timing of the latest generation of video game consoles in 2020, which also meant a new generation of video games. The highly anticipated PlayStation 5 along with Cyberpunk 2077 was met with numerous supply and technical issues upon launch. Cyberpunk players reported inconsistent experiences largely dependent on hardware the game was being played on. On the differences between the game on a PS4 and a PS5, one YouTuber commented, “At least it’s playable on PS5.”

While Peddie expects the shortage to self-correct by the first quarter of 2022 (hooray …), he is not optimistic about the industry avoiding such missteps in the future.

“The [next] problem will be double-ordering that is going on now and so we have the prospect of a giant slump in the semi market due to excess inventory,” he concludes. “Yin-yang—repeat.”

There is a lot to learn from history even if it’s fairly recent. While it might be tempting to lean into market failures to meet demand, obviously the story is more complicated. Though GPUs have become required for billions on a daily basis, higher performance is left to a few with niche interests.

Still, the larger market should pay attention to frustrated gamers, at least on this point. Their needs push the industry into innovation that becomes standard in more common devices. With each iteration, devices gain a little more of those advanced graphics as they drip down to people who hadn’t noticed them before but now expect it.

After all, if it doesn’t have painstakingly realistic 3D graphics, can we even call it a phone anymore?

What Makes a GPU a GPU, and When Did We Start Calling it That? syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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davidschnuckel · 5 years ago

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New Glass Review 41

August 21, 2020

Juror’s Essay (first draft from mid-March 2020 )

As part of the deal in serving as a guest reviewer for New Glass Review 41, there's a lot of writing that follows the actual selection process. And I was most excited about engaging it. The task of writing 25 short blurbs to contextualize the selections I had made within the issue and a short essay in the back was not a chore, but a pleasure. But a challenge, for sure. Although I love writing - and see it as an opportunity to articulate things I sense, but don't know how to say - these New Glass Review tasks were a challenge for me. My mind is cluttered and busy...so being clear with words is a challenge. I have to take the long way when talking ideas or observations out to finally find the things I want to communicate and how to communicate them...so keeping to word counts is a challenge. And, of course, knowing that these writings would go down in print means that these words will be permanent and forever an extension of me...so having this overwhelming sense of vulnerability in mind when putting pen to paper was a challenge. I learned a lot in writing for the Review. And I learned that the way I would normally approach writing blurbs or essays do not translate well for all writing-based scenarios. For instance, the fact that I couldn't assume the reader knows glass and its terminology the way I do hadn't been a reality on my radar. The fact that there are different tiers of reading comprehension of those who engage this publication hadn't been a reality on my radar. The fact that there would be a lot of readers whose primary language is not English hadn't been a reality on my radar. The fact that my thoughts are not as clear to others as they seem to be for me OFTEN hadn't been a reality on my radar. In turn, the editing process was rigorous...and to accommodate all these things (and others like them) was an informative part of the process for me. I'm grateful for the experience of going through revision after revision with Silbert. It has made me a better self-editor in my writing ever since... In fact, I knew going into my first draft of the Juror's Essay that there wasn't much space available for it in the publication...it was crystal clear that the essay would need to be capped off at 500 words. Which isn't much. Especially for a rambling essayist such as myself. So, as a starting point, I allowed myself to write and write and write everything that was on my heart and mind regarding the jurying process, things I was paying attention to within the field over the past year (as both artist and educator), and where the moment might suggest where the field is going. I permitted myself to open the valve entirely and empty everything I wanted onto the page...just to see where it all landed. And then from there, rule number two would be to chisel it down in a smaller second draft (which was still huge) and then an even smaller third draft (which was still too big). The fourth draft was whittled down to 1000 words and was the one submitted for Susie Silbert's review and edits...which, of course, had to get chopped down even more. Ultimately, the essay that i drafted first back in mid-March was roughly 3300 words...which is not even close to the 500 cap I was required to abide by. A classic Schnuckel move. So the Juror's Essay of mine you may have read in New Glass Review 41 is the surviving content to a much larger piece that was simply too big to fit. Below is the draft of that essay in full...for better or for worse. In it you'll find grammatical mishaps and misspellings. You'll run into a handful of clunky spots. You'll find the occasional derail or two (or three). But you'll also get access to a broader consideration of my role and my perspective as a visiting selector to the Review than what the content in the publication would indicate. Please read in good health. And I mean that...especially as we linger even still within a global pandemic...

* * * * * * There were two things that really came into focus for me during the jurying experience for New Glass Review 41: that the contemporary glass field is still so, so very young in its development and still so, so very small as an international cohort. So young and so small, in fact, that anyone has a chance to have impact on its trajectory. And, in turn, anyone has a chance to be recognized within it. And I thought about things like this as I engaged my review process. In turn, it is important for me to indicate that my selection process was not in pursuit of supporting submissions that I necessarily “liked.” That wasn’t a metric for me. I didn’t approach this as a process of highlighting what I prefer or what I personally relate to in glass making and/or glass thinking, but as an effort to keep an eye out for submissions that represented an interesting quirk, conversation point, or important contribution to the field in this time and place with what work had been submitted. To assist that mission, I made the effort to only support submissions from artists who had not been recognized within the past 3 issues of the Review. Although difficult to pass by notable work by makers and thinkers I deeply admire in holding to this 3-year rule, it was important for me to use this opportunity to put my initials behind artists on the outer margins of our field who are enriching this moment that I didn’t want to get overlooked. Aside from that caveat, the work I responded to didn’t follow a uniform logic. In fact, the work I stand behind within this publication reflects many contradictions with one another. For instance, now looking back at my selections, I’m noticing a draw to ideas that implement polished excellence as a means to challenge those very things; but I’m also noticing a draw to ideas that rely on raw, loosely guttural methods of questioning, too. I’m see moments where I’m drawn to ideas where artists know glass so well that their effort to break its rules speaks of something provocative in equally spectacular fashion; but I’m also seeing moments where I’m drawn to ideas where the artist comes to glass formally untrained and, in turn, enables something accidentally innovative because of it. I found resonance and strength in quiet gestures. But I was also captivated by efforts where spectacle intersected with smart. It seems that I’m just as much a proponent for work that transcends glass making protocol as I am work that purposefully distances itself from it, dismantles it…even displaces it. Whether put forward as a visually complicated installation of things or a singular art object, these are just some of the various camps and categories of work included in the publication that compose the spectrum of what captured my attention. Even as incongruent as my selections seem to be with one another, however, I do sense one common denominator... If there is a tie that binds all the submissions that I connected with most it would be that each work collectively grounds itself in the present, but not without a recognition of the histories it extends from…and, in turn, presenting themselves as unexpected starting points to new trajectories and future advancements to both glass making and glass thinking. Some of my favorite moments in the field right now reside in work and research that doesn’t involve glass within its resolve, yet is manifested through ideas related to glass process and/or materiality. In a piece pursued from the hot shop assistant’s perspective, Josie Gluck illustrates this in pyrographic prints composed by the cast-off bits delivered for avolios in the production of stemware. The repeated gather and delivery of glass for the avolio serves as a method of mark-making in an abstracted gesture of cartography. The bit is discarded after delivery onto paper, falling however and wherever it might upon it. The measured and mechanically repeated step of the avolio process for the gaffer lends way to a wide variety of chance-based, combustion-prompted imagery for Gluck after the bit has been cast away. In an entirely different way, Shari Mendelson illustrates an interesting relationship to glass in considering it as a conceptual propellant culminating in a body of non-glass work. In this case, historical referencing and trompe l’oeil direct Mendelson’s upcycling of discarded plastics littering her neighborhood into exquisite deceptions of just about any vessel we’ve ever seen housed within the Greek, Islamic, and Roman chapters of an art history book. Conceptual parallels run abundantly within this glass-adjacent work between her objects and those of historical standing; parallels between materiality and making processes between glass and plastics; parallels navigated between commercial manufacturing and the independent making practice. In turn, this work holds a lens to ideas of the remnant and serves as a gesture to redirect the destiny of industrially-produced plastics from contemporary litter-hood towards one of the contemporary artifact. The many ways in which glass is being engaged directly right now that appeals to me mostly culminates in work that poses questions, not work that gives answers. Even when work relies on text and the literality of common phrasing. David Fox navigates abstracted ideas about language and coherency where words reveal themselves in a peculiarly glass-centric way; ways in which the hand-torch serves as pen and borosilicate tubing serves as page. Although invisible to the human eye, the memory of the written message is rendered visible through remembered strain and stress when subjected to a polariscope. What is said is much more conceptually layered than it lets on. And what is unsaid is mysteriously just as expressive and articulate. Previous performance work by Kim Harty that translated the glass objects catalogued in the publication of Old Venetian Glass (1960) through slow-exposure light drawings of them is re-contextualized in her 2019 exhibition Memoria Technica. A conceptual work of translation in 2015 begets even further translation within the past year – perhaps even coming full circle – in the effort to give selected light drawings a tangible life in thingness again under two fronts: in one, the digital hand meticulously renders a 3D print of the drawn vessel. In the other, the human hand attempts to recreate the drawing in the hot shop. In Harty’s case, historical glass is the pivot point in this continued exploration of mimicry by memory through various translation tactics in studio. In another instance where performance art intersects with glass practice, Judith Roux navigates an interesting angle to the notion of participatory work in The Space Between Us – My Warm Breath on Your Hands. A humble sheet of sandblasted glass serves as a translucent divide between the performer and the unsuspecting audience participant holding it. Efforts by the performer to expel hot breath or to lick the porous surface are in the hopes of establishing visible access to the participant on the other side – a perfect stranger – who is powerless to help as their side is still glossy and transparent. As a work that is one part messy, one part sexual, one part jinxed, and all parts vulnerable, Roux’s integration of glass is a very simple component to a provocatively ambitious interactive work driven by notions of desire and connection. It should be mentioned that as I write this essay for the Review, it is late March of 2020. I am quarantined here in the US, as is most of the world. The jurying process for this publication was just a hair over a month ago and yet the current day-to-day conditions of a COVID-19 reality make it seem that those few days spent in Corning were a lifetime ago. In this moment studios are shut down. Schools have gone online. Grocery shopping now gives us anxiety. Some of our jobs are now done from home. Some of us are now unemployed. Exhibitions have been postponed. Exhibitions have been cancelled. Summer programming at various summer-based glass institutions are up in the air. Some of us are sick. Some of us are scared. It’s a lot. And the level of uncertainty regarding just about everything as we move further and further into a life contextualized by a pandemic is the space where I’ve been writing this essay within. Writing this piece for the Review has given me an unexpected sense of calm. It has allowed me to dwell in the past tense; to write about an incredibly fulfilling and informative professional experience as a juror this past February in a time when life was what we’d describe as “normal.” (And to dwell in the past tense at the moment is an unexpected perk of this required writing, for sure.) But the quiet, the solitude, and the almost inactive status of a making practice while in quarantine has given me many moments of pause to consider the impact of this moment of lockdown on the future trajectory of glass. Both short- and long-term. For those of us who identify as artists who engage a practice where glass is a major component of our creative output, we know that we are a very high-maintenance kind of practitioner. Our making is based on a very hands-on, tactile working experience with material; one that is as high-maintenance as we are. Glass is a substance that relies on a very specific set of resources like specialized tools, equipment, and facility spaces to make the magic happen (…or the mess that may or may not lead to said “magic”). There are some of us who are self-sufficient on the resources front; those of us who have our own gear and our private studios and spaces to fill the time in quarantine with continued artistic output. Kudos to you. Go forth and slay. But there are perhaps a greater number of us who relied on having access to spaces and studios that have been closed down and, as part of the residual effect of the national lockdown, finding ourselves deserted as glass practitioners. In turn, I think about what kind of glass practice could be happening if a field like ours is cut off from the studio resources we typically rely on to conduct our work. Maybe some of us have been locating areas in our glass practice that could step in and take priority with what we know we can do from home: conceptual development through reading and research, formal development through drawing or digital rendering, writing, resume updating, or website redesign to name a few. Maybe some of us are locating alternative ways of creatively relating to glass without being able to “make” with it: maybe through capturing moments of glass-like phenomena through items found around the home with our phone or tinkering with glass-related processes that translate well in the kitchen (i.e. casting objects in ice in the freezer). Or maybe as one door closes another door opens; maybe some of us will be redirecting our expertise as makers into unanticipated career paths as published writers, sponsored podcasters, digital curators, or digital workshop teachers. But maybe some us just can’t right now, allowing ourselves to sit in a creative holding pattern until brighter days… It is no doubt that as glass-specific people, some of us being denied access to our usual resources can be seen as a real deal-breaker in our creative development and output. But, as a closeted optimist, I see this lockdown as a glass-making equivalent of constrictive writing. How many ways can those of us glass folks up for the challenge cultivate some sense of critical engagement with glass in this current moment of constriction and uncertainty? What innovative projects might accidentally be developed in response to some of us who feel shipwrecked and stranded? How far off the beaten path of conventional “glass practice” will those things take us? …and how could these constrictive gestures possibly change everything we thought we understood glass, glass making, glass teaching, and glass learning were all about? It’s a thought ripe with many yet-to-be-discovered solutions to the question as to how a glass artist maintains a practice – and a relationship with glass – when stripped of access to both a studio and to a material while under lockdown. Whether this is to be something short-term or long-term, it’s safe to assume that we’ll all come out of this COVID-19 experience as different makers and/or thinkers. Some of our evolutions may be enriched by this moment and its many limitations. Some may suffer. Some may cease altogether. My heart does break for those in our field whose livelihood relies entirely on orders, exhibitions, fellowships, teaching, and residencies that are now cancelled or put on indefinite hold; opportunities that were needed to keep their head above already turbulent waters whose sole occupation is that of an independent artist. But as I wrap up this essay, looking out my window into an overcast day in late March of 2020, I catch a tinge of hope for what might possibly turn out to be one of the most interesting moments within our field at the hands of artists, educators, and students who are naturally wired to make good use of a bad situation; folks with a knack for finding opportunity in limitation. I’m curious how sudden studio abandonment might possibly cultivate some sort of unforeseen innovation within our field. In whatever way that might mean... So, to bring back around the Review, I’m curious how this moment might rub off on the international glass field for those game to play along in this confined creative space we find ourselves in. I’m curious how this moment will be archived in the upcoming New Glass Review 42...hoping that, regardless of whether or not we are possibly STILL under quarantine through next February or not, the publication will still continue. If so, I’m curious about the contextual framework of how the Coronavirus impacts the work created within the dates of eligibility for the next issue. I’m curious how it will impact what work is submitted to the Review…and how diversified the notion of glass practice will manifest itself in those submissions through works which may have nothing to do with glass literally, but extend from glass figuratively through non-glass materials and methodologies. I’m curious what jurors will be invited in knowing that the game might’ve drastically changed because of the pandemic directly and indirectly; that a year in glass production not only may have been significantly affected by the virus by the time the call for applications roll out, but perhaps redefined “glass production” in ways that transcend glass, glass making, and glass art as we’ve previously defined those things as. I’m curious if the jurors will be chosen not only for their respective expertise, but the eyes to potentially see “glass” in a highly abstracted or figurative sense in the case that a lot of us within the field might be tasked to reinterpret a glass practice through non-glass means. I’m curious if that’ll even be allowed. I would hope so, and if true, I’m curious not only about what would be submitted, but what kinds of non-glass-but-glass-like work would be seen as fit for inclusion... But beyond the notion of being a resourceful artist under quarantine or speculating on the next issue of New Glass Review as influenced by the pandemic, I’m curious how COVID-19 will impact our various practices once life gets back to normal. And, for now, I still assume it will. Whether we flatten the curve or a vaccine is approved or a cure is discovered, I wonder what happens when we can return to the studios we were separated from and the equipment, tools, and materials we used to know and work with so well. Do we still make the things we make? ...like nothing happened? Have our questions changed that motivate our practice in the time away? As technicians, how rusty will we be? What will our bodies and hands forget? What of our processes will be remembered? Will I ever put my mouth to a blow pipe ever again? What will these small malfunctions hinder us from doing? …but what could they possibly enable instead? I expect that we will not be the same artist we were before the pandemic global hold, but, if we choose to stay the course, we will still be artists nonetheless. Ones who were forced to take an interesting detour from what we would normally do and, quite possibly, gaining new recognition in a practice that deviates from what we were originally all about or normally known for. There’s something kind of magical in anticipating just what that might be or how it might unfold. After all, an artist isn’t defined by what one can do, but how one can adapt. And, quite honestly, the job we as artists are truly tasked with is to make something meaningful out of any given moment, whether that be with things or circumstances. Especially in the thick of inconvenience… Just how long will we be on lockdown? …and how will we facilitate some sort of pro-active effort to continue evolving our practice and relationship to glass in this moment? ...a moment when our usual resources just aren’t available? Time will tell. And who knows…perhaps this solitary life and livelihood will be lifted a week or two after I submit this essay to Silbert in early April. Perhaps this moment is just a tiny glitch within the calendar year and we will all look back on it relieved that it was so short lived…almost as if it were only a bad dream. But maybe it’ll last the rest of the year. Or longer. Yikes. Regardless, I suppose this is a long way of saying that I hope some of us provide models of innovative response to a constricted glass practice due to this global hiccup when included in New Glass Review 42. I am so, so honored to have participated in the 41st issue of New Glass Review. I’ve studied the publication since first submitting to it back in 2002 and have thumbed through issue after issue many times over in my 20 year relationship with glass. I have been a student of its structure, its tradition, and its annual mission to observe and archive a year’s worth of advancements to the field. I’ve even made the trek to the Rakow many times over just to look into the work that didn’t get in within its archives…even when submissions were only accepted in slide form. For I know the sting of the Review’s rejection; applying 15 years in a row before knowing what acceptance feels like. Only to have the legacy of rejection pick back up the following year (and has continued up to this present moment). I know that the Review is a public and permanent document that some people place a lot of personal and professional currency in by being published within it. I also know that it warrants a lot of doubt, cynicism, and/or objection directed at the jurors by those who didn’t. All this is to say that, ultimately, I knew (and know) the weight of this responsibility that I took on as a juror to lend my voice and my perspective in making selections for it this year. And I took the honor seriously. In hopes of gracefully winding this essay down, I want to publicly acknowledge the leadership of Susie Silbert in guiding us jurors through the process as being so effectively and efficiently on point. It is important for me to be a mouthpiece to the broader glass community in saying that the organization, preparedness, and support of The Corning Museum of Glass staff was truly the epitome of professionalism and excellence in this experience. Thank you Silbert and All for this opportunity to bear witness to the most under-acknowledged aspects of this annual forum. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes before, during, and after the selection process that is thoroughly unknown to almost the entirety of our international community. Your dedication in facilitating it in the way that you do is both efficient and masterful…and I am humbled to have been a witness to it. Although the world primarily sees the New Glass Review as but a competition, the time spent behind the curtain confirms that it is better described as an annual act of care than an annual contest. The field owes you a lot of kudos and gratitude in orchestrating this huge annual undertaking.

-David Schnuckel (DS)

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thefirsttimpressions-blog · 6 years ago

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The Weekend Listen: 3/30/19 + 3/31/19

The Weekend Listen. Fun weather and fun stuff happening this weekend.

3/30

Pink Sweat$ / Volume 2 (EP) (2019)

First Pink Sweat$ album in my library and he’s actually an artist that I was not at all familiar with prior to a few months ago but Beats 1 has been playing “Honesty” from his Volume 1 EP as well as “I Know” from this release, and my interest was piqued. Volume 2 is a decent EP at just 14 minutes long and it’s much more of acoustic R&B than I was expecting. I was thinking that it would be more heavily produced like modern R&B is, but that’s not the case. There are faint Jeff Buckley vibes emanating from the opening “I Know,” and I dig the darker nature of “Coke & Henny, Pt. 2″ over the sunnier “Coke & Henny, Pt. 1″ A good deal of Volume 2 straddles the line between cheesy acoustic pop styles and getting it right. For now, it’s on the right side of that line for now, but it’s razor-thin close.

Swervedriver / Future Ruins (2019)

This is a record that I’ve unfortunately slept on, though totally unintentionally. There’s just so much music to listen to, you know? For anyone who considers him or herself a shoegaze fan, Future Ruins is a 2019 essential. “Spiked Flower” remains an elite-tier 2019 track, and other songs that stood out on this listen included the title track, “Drone Lover,” and “Golden Remedy.” It turned out to be a perect album for driving around on a sunny, 70-degree day, and though it maybe peters out the slightest bit by the end, 85-90% of it is so good that it’s not difficult to overlook that slight flaw.

The War on Drugs / A Deeper Understanding (2017)

Nice weather and driving around means that it’s time to pull out A Deeper Understanding. There’s not much that beats blasting one of the best records of this decade that features some absolutely mind-blowing Adam Granduciel guitar solos with the wind whipping by as you’re driving on an early spring day.

3/31

PUP / The Dream Is Over (2016)

I hadn’t heard of PUP until I saw them on Steven Hyden’s mid-year Best Of list for 2016 but I’ve been a fan since. Their new Morbid Stuff is out on Friday so a spin of this one was necessary. The Dream Is Over is a ridiculously solid record that’s basically aural caffeine, with the opening “If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will” standing as an upper-echelon piece of pop-punk. I’m also a big fan of “Dvp” and “Familiar Patterns,” while “Sleep in the Heat” really stood out to me on this listen. Really looking forward to Friday and more of that PUP-style energy boost.

Kacey Musgraves / Golden Hour (2018)

Already listened to the best album of 2017 in A Deeper Understanding, so why not wind down the weekend with the best album of 2018? Had to spin Golden Hour in part for that reason and in part because I noticed on IG that Saturday was the one-year anniversary of Golden Hour’s release. I still remember hearing it for the first time on the day it came out and being immediately blown away. “Butterflies,” “Space Cowboy,” and “High Horse” has already set a high bar prior to the album dropping, but I’ll be damned if she didn’t annihilate that bar. I’d been a Kacey fan for a few years, but Golden Hour was to an entirely new level compared to what she’d done previously. It would later become the rare case of the actual best album of the year winning Best Album at the Grammys, and it’s sure to stand the test of time as the classic that it is.

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shrimpkardashian · 6 years ago

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I am going to post this text which I used to make this 90-minute podcast where I ranked all of David Lynch's films. It’s close to 5,000 words long. Since I took the time to write all this out, I wanted to post it, edited for the page. Enjoy:

David Lynch has created ten feature films in forty years, specifically between 1977 and 2017. I am going to rank all ten films right now.

I’ve broken down the Lynch filmography into four tiers.

Tier #4 consists of two films that, while they’re not necessarily horrible, I’d be OK with never re-watching again.

Tier #3 is Dune, just… Dune… (crickets)

Tier #2 also consists of two movies, two features that are close to being really great, but are ultimately flawed for very different reasons.

And then there’s the Final Tier, Tear #1, ALL-TIME CLASSICS, of which, by my count, there are five. Not bad, considering that equals, oh I don't know... half of his filmography.

You might be wondering what constitutes an ALL-TIME CLASSIC... great question. In my book, it’s a movie that scores a 9.500 or higher on my highly scientific to-the-thousandths scale movie review scoring system. All ten of these feature films have been scored between 5.999 and 9.819. Using the thousandths scale allows for accessible gaps as I slowly fill in the list as I continue to compile my personal ranking of the greatest films ever made (and also... the not so great). I urge you to go to my website www.movies.myameri.ca to see the list of over 200 films that I've reviewed and ranked thus far.

Now, let’s get to the list...

#10

Perhaps, The Elephant Man––David Lynch’s second film, from 1980––doesn’t work for me because you can feel, in a sense, that he’s selling his soul. Sure, it's "good" and was recognized as such in all the ways and by all the metrics that the most mainstream critical pipelines assess and award art that is "good."

It's what I couldn't put my finger on at the time I recorded my initial review, and the truly repulsive thing about it: It's bad in the way these "good" films often are. It feels older than it is: a 1980 film about the 1920s that feels like it was made in the late 50s. It’s stylistic feel is both confusing and confused. The brief intrusions of Lynchian originality are present and welcome, but they’re all too quickly dispersed by stale set pieces, and performances that are either overwrought or stiffly boring. Only Freddie Jones, in the devious role of the elephant man’s original "handler," strikes a cord.

The look and feel of John Hurt’s titular character is effective, because it is grotesque. It is in no way fantastical, even if we’re looking at the height of movie magic, because this person existed. And through this realism, a sickening is induced. With every one of Hurt’s nasally slurps––while that’s surely the point, and it wholly succeeds on that level––the film becomes less re-watchable, a major tenant of my grading scale. Wherein Eraserhead’s baby is pure fantasy––a goofy, disgusting, horrifying little buddy that the viewer wants to spend time with––the Elephant Man is an abomination. Our horror with him, at him, over him, is both the movie proving its thesis, and shutting itself down.

David Lynch is on record as having been pleased with the film, but what amount of that pleasure has been framed by four decades of opportunity in large part because of its success, isn’t clear.

The Elephant Man was nominated for eight Academy Awards. No other David Lynch feature was nominated for more than one. It is his worst film by a wide margin.

It would be easy to dismiss 1999’s The Straight Story as a joke disguised. Here was David Lynch making a relatively, well, "straight" movie about a man named Alvin Straight and it was titled The Straight Story. It was released by Disney. When I rewatched this recently I imagined what the movie might have been like if it had the same plot but, you know, felt Lynchian. What it would be like if the entire film had the tone of my favorite scene, the "I LOVE DEER" scene... but, alas, it isn't that.

The film is just a feel-good story. Sometimes, when you peel back the layers, there's just more goodness hiding underneath, and nothing more. And maybe there's a kind of horror in that as well.

Dune stands alone.

Released in 1984, it's the only film among the ten wherein Lynch didn't have complete final cut. It's, by any classic metric, a bad film. At the end of the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune, which details one of the first attempts at bringing the best selling science fiction book of all-time to the big screen, Alejandro Jodorowsky describes going to see Lynch's version and being filled with a perverse glee that the movie was a failure, that it sucked. And it is definitely a failure.

The film is a god-awful mess. Do not under any circumstances attempt to watch the 3-hour "extended cut" version. Lynch had nothing to do with this and it does not re-insert anything by way of noteworthy lost footage. It merely accentuates the worst elements of the original theatrical cut. The biggest crime by far being... the dreaded voice-over, which plagues both versions.

In 2011, a YouTuber posted a 9-minute super-cut compiling all of these whispered voice-overs, which––if you aren't familiar––are meant to give more clarity to the story by presenting the audience an inside look at "the thoughts" in various characters' heads. But these "thoughts" do exactly the opposite: bogging down the story and actually making it harder to follow (in my opinion).

But even with all of its many, many flaws, the film is not without its charm. The look of it is extremely interesting, if not inconsistent. Some imagery looks dated, while other effects seem ahead of their time. The soundtrack, an amalgamation of Toto's overblown rock aesthetics and a nuanced main theme co-written by Brian Eno, is kind of awesome

But really Dune is just a huge mess of ideas. For example, in one scene the actor Freddie Jones is given a cat with a rat taped to its side, hooked to a contraption, and is told to "milk the cat" if he wants to stay alive. His character is never seen or mentioned again. These are the ideas of Frank Herbert told through the lens of David Lynch and filtered by producers who were so damn concerned whether or not the plot would make sense that they butchered the whole damn thing. What's left are pieces, intriguing pieces strewn about the 2-plus hours.

It would be easy to submit this film as the last place entry, #10 out of 10. But I just can't do that. I would re-watch this under the right circumstances. The strange convergence of wild visuals, bad editing and too-fast, too-big, too-soon nature of the production, puts this in a special category among the Lynch filmography. It almost hits "so bad it's good" notes, in a way. When Denis Villeneuve unleashes his high stakes, huge expectations version of Dune in 2020, David Lynch's third film will likely become nothing more than a footnote.... a grain of sand among the great DUNES of film history, one might say. (Sorry.)

Inland Empire is, technically speaking, the final film of David Lynch's career. Released almost thirteen years ago in 2006, it's certainly the most confounding. Three hours of lo-fi footage, welded together by a director whose contempt for the industry he was a part of had reached a boiling point. And that boiling point is INLAND EMPIRE.

For years, I attempted to watch this film in stops and starts. That, for quite a long time, I never got past the relatively straight, narrative-driven first hour is probably telling. Outside of a classic Grace Zabriskie appearance as Laura Dern's crazy Polish neighbor, not much really happens.

But it isn't so much that nothing is happening that's the issue. It's that nothing interesting is happening. An actress gets a role. Her co-star is a womanizer. Her husband might be jealous. There's some mystery concerning the development of the project. They have an affair. After a burst of imagery at the start, this all unfolds in a fairly normal fashion. The most noteworthy thing about it is how it looks. Lynch used a digital camera to film some ideas with Laura Dern one day and then decided to make a feature film out of it. He's stated that he had to keep using the same camera out of necessity. That he had to make it look this way, is a very Lynchian answer to the question "Why does INLAND EMPIRE look like garbage?" Because it does truly look like trash. You can get better video fidelity from any cheap Android phone nowadays. It has not aged well.

Some might point to this and say that's exactly why it's genius, why it's underrated... but I ain't buying that line of thinking, either. It's a misstep, in my opinion. The film is a bloated experimentation of a script written on the fly. It has only one true saving grace... Laura Dern.

Even if they hadn't reunited for the successful collaboration that was Twin Peaks: The Return, I think I'd be OK with this being the pair's final work together. The film only works because of Dern. The entire thing is a testament to her ability and it transcends the hardware that was used to capture it. When I finally got around to completing this watch, I was struck by how weird it got. Which is saying something about a David Lynch film! Without Dern this might play like someone's forgotten student project of the mid 2000s. With her, it's a strange bookend to an amazing career.

One that I have no other choice but to start, and stop, and start again. Someday.

Wild at Heart was produced at the height of David Lynch's success in 1990. Riding the high of Blue Velvet, arguably his most beloved work in a critical sense, even to this day, and filmed just as the world was experiencing TV’s Twin Peaks. Lynch's fifth movie arrived just as the concept of "Lynchian" was soaking into the cultural landscape. It's a brash, outrageous film that feels like the work of an individual who could no wrong. This cockiness both makes it fun, and provides its flaws.

While there seems to be "a point," however cloudy and/or veiled and/or vague, behind most things in every David Lynch film, Wild at Heart seemingly indulges in bombast for the sake of bombast. It's no surprise this Louis CK's favorite film and the film that nearly gave Roger Ebert a heart attack. (See this video)

I'd like to split the difference between those two sentiments, if I may. I don't agree that Lynch is always trying to "get off the hook" as Roger Ebert put it. But that may be the case with Wild at Heart. That it is the only Lynch film to take the top prize at Cannes, perhaps speaks more to the idea of Lynch and his influence in the culture at the time, then it does to the film itself. CK was right to read this film as a comedy, it's the only way it works. And Ebert was wrong to crucify it for being such. But It stands outside the top tier of Lynch's career for a different reason. With cockiness comes laziness. Lynch notoriously had his hands full during the development of this project, as he abandoned the TV world of Twin Peaks to make it. Wild at Heart feels half-baked as a result.

Sure, it has its moments. Willem DaFoe gets to hang his hat on the mantle of notable, completely over-the-top supporting characters in the Dennis Hopper / Frank Booth tradition. And Nicolas Cage and Diane Ladd are every bit as crazed in their performances as well. And yet, therein lies another problem: the movie has only one speed, out of control. The Sailor-Lula love story is meant to provide the downbeat, something earnest in a sea of chaos. But it falls short. You can't stop to smell the roses if the car never stops.

That half of David Lynch's filmography constitute all time classics is no minor accomplishment. I imagine there are only a handful of directors with a better batting average. And so, the order of these next five films is fairly insignificant. Certainly there are biases at play which have placed them into the positions you find them here. For example, I certainly haven't watched Eraserhead enough and I've probably seen Mulholland Drive too many times by comparison. It's also about timing. Maybe This Moment™ in My Life™ is more fitting for Lost Highway then it is Blue Velvet, for myriad reasons, and so on and so on.

The thing to know is this... These five projects have all stood the test of time, and any one of them is deserved of the top spot. Now, back to the countdown...

Eraserhead was exactly like I thought it would be.

I neglected to watch this film for a very long time. I kept telling myself "Now is the right time to watch Eraserhead, Jeff." What I didn't realize until I finally watched it is that the answer to that question is both never and always.

Eraserhead is a feat of nature. A film that took years to complete feels and flows like it was molded together over a single month. It almost feels silly to expound on the film at this point. It's been dissected to death. Even critics who fail to understand it can appreciate it on the most basic of levels. This. Is. Art. PERIOD. There's no denying that.

Wherein the surrealists who decided to make films couldn't get past the concept of the singular idea, confining their work to shorts OR a series of loosely connected "living paintings," Lynch was able to extrapolate the aesthetic to feature length and also tell a story.

It's soundscape alone is a work of art, and perhaps the most important facet of the film from a historic point of view. This world sounds exactly as it looks: manufactured, fractured, jarring and glum. What brief respite the Lady in the Radiator provides with her haunting, off-kilter serenade is all we get by way of counterpoint to the unnerving soundtrack of Lynch's debut feature. It took Lynch, working in tandem with master sound engineer Alan Splet, nearly a year to complete. From the 1991 book, Midnight Movies:

"The soundtrack is densely layered, including as many as fifteen different sounds played simultaneously using multiple reels. Sounds were created in a variety of ways—for a scene in which a bed slowly dissolves into a pool of liquid, Lynch and Splet inserted a microphone inside a plastic bottle, floated it in a bathtub, and recorded the sound of air blown through the bottle. After being recorded, sounds were further augmented by alterations to their pitch, reverb and frequency."

Lynch's first film is also his shortest, just shy of ninety minutes, and it's hard to find any flaws. Is the detour with the severed head at the pencil factory meaningless? How about the next-door neighbor character... unnecessary? Inside the Top 5, I won't be nitpicking just to do so. In the Top 5, everything is fine.

While I don't necessarily think Blue Velvet is the best film of David Lynch's career, it's hard to argue that it isn't the most important. It is the world from which all subsequent Lynch things are built. Following the creative and commercial disaster of Dune, Lynch's fourth feature is a dark psychological horror that both expands upon and completely blows apart the aesthetic of Film Noir. And there really isn't a single David Lynch film project after Blue Velvet which doesn't also explore this form to a degree.

The movie marks the debut of a pair who would turn out to be lifelong collaborators in the David Lynch cinematic universe: Laura Dern, acting here in one of her first "adult" roles at age 19, and the composer Angelo Badalamenti. Badalamenti would go onto write the scores for every subsequent entry in the filmography except Inland Empire, and his main theme to Blue Velvet remains one of the most memorable.

Blue Velvet is also notable as being a vehicle for Dennis Hopper's re-entry into mainstream cinema. Relaunching his career, Hopper's portrayal of the deranged Frank Booth remains as skin crawling as ever.

I think the fact that I have watched Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive more than any other of Lynch's films had a lot to do with where I've placed them on this list (that they aren’t higher). But I swear I'm not being contrarian for contrarian's sake. As I said a minute ago, all five of these films are worthy. When it comes to the movies of David Lynch, well, I guess you could say, "....HE PUT HIS DISEASE IN ME." (Sorry.)

The strange origin story of Mulholland Drive somehow eluded me for years. I only found out that this movie, Lynch's ninth, released one month after 9/11, was literally developed and shot with the intention to be a TV pilot for ABC. I found this out from the book, Room to Dream, by the way. The half autobiography/half biography of Lynch's life, which came out last year that I highly recommend. Only when it was clear that it wouldn't work for television did Lynch decide to re-cut and film additional footage to release as a feature. Though this was common knowledge, I managed to watch this many times over the years with no idea. When I rewatched it again recently with this information, I couldn't help but try to pick out what was filmed when in the timeline, and if I could see any inconsistencies... a true hellish way to watch a picture. I don't recommend it. But I digress..

From Blue Velvet on, each one of David Lynch's films (outside of The Straight Story) has had a longer running time. At close to 2½ hours, 2001's Mulholland Drive was his longest to date by a decent margin. It’s something of a misnomer that Lynch's films meander, as people mistake deliberateness for slowness or frivolity. Mulholland is filled with detours, inhabiting the film like micro movies in their own right. This also continues the loose Los Angeles trilogy (after Lost Highway and concluding with Inland Empire), which, at their heart, are films about coming to grips with who you really are. This might be the most direct lampooning of the film industry itself, but all three deal with being someone who you're really not.

Lynch has repeatedly stated his admiration for the 1950 film noir classic Sunset Blvd., another film about the film industry. In some respects, the naïveté of Naomi Watts' Betty is the counterpoint to Norma Desmond. In Mulholland Drive, her character says, "I'd rather be known as a great actress than a movie star. But, you know, sometimes people end up being both." Whereas, Norma Desmond portrayed by Gloria Swanson, has already reckoned with the true fate: "No one ever leaves a star. That's what makes one a star."

The arc of the characters—plural—Betty and Diane, and the power of Naomi Watts' performance as them both, is behind the wheel on Mulholland Drive. I found it odd that she took second billing in the opening credit crawl to co-star Justin Theroux. Was this because she was unknown to the masses at the time, or perhaps another piece of the puzzle to this movie's greater themes?

Mulholland Drive touches all the bases. At times bleak and bizarre. Sometimes bright and hopeful. In many ways, it's modeled after the next film on our countdown, as it can almost be read as two separate entities: converging, crossing and meeting together again? Well...

No film surprised me more during my recent rewatch binge then 1997’s Lost Highway. David Lynch’s seventh film might be his most divisive, in so much as it failed to ignite the critical response that really any of his other films did upon their release.

While it’s industrial rock heavy soundtrack perhaps dates the film to its actual era of production more than any other Lynch picture, it also works as an anchor. Outside of Inland Empire, this is easily his most abstract and seemingly rambling work. It is grounded through style and feel. And it might just be his best singular statement.

Bull Pullman is a revelation as the jazz saxophonist Fred Madison. His chaotic emoting on the stage through his blaring instrument is but another counterpoint, this time to his subdued, confused off-stage demeanor. Who knew the goofy President from Independence Day could pull this off?

My critique of Patricia Arquette in many of her other roles is that she comes across as lifeless. Well, with her performance here as a dead-on-the-inside beauty, that mode has never played better. She's tremendous, acting the conduit in this strange play, this circuitous journey that is often described as a theatrical möbius strip, where our leading man has quite literally been replaced.

And that brings up another interesting point: There doesn't seem to be a traditional main character in this film. Arquette in her dual role as Renee and Alice is functionally it, but she gives way to Pullman and Balthazar Getty's Pullman––a car mechanic named Pete––for long stretches, and its Lynch's most diplomatic film in terms of dolling out the heavy lifting in this regard.

And last but not least we have to talk about... Robert Blake.

In a sea of outstanding, intensely weird and occasionally unforgettable supporting characters throughout the Lynch filmography, Blake’s Mystery Man might just take the cake. That Robert Blake, more than likely an actual sociopath, instructed Lynch on his character’s look––which, let me remind you was such: Blake decided to cut his hair cut extremely short, parted in the middle, white Kabuki make-up on his face, and an all black outfit––might be the best example of the auteur trusting his instincts, and having it pay off completely. Only on screen for a handful of scenes, Blake, who would be arrested and acquitted for the murder of his wife just a couple years later, delivers a truly unsettling performance. In his final film role ever, he encompasses true evil more than Twin Peaks’ BOB or Frank Booth in Blue Velvet. The Mystery Man is the lurking, vile corruption of what’s good that Lynch has always been looking for.

But Lost Highway is not a “what’s beneath the surface” film like Blue Velvet or Twin Peaks or even Mulholland Drive are. The “point” of Lost Highway might just be that evil exists in plain view... and there’s nothing we can do about it. Gary Busey sometimes has to watch his only child disappear in a lightning bolt of spoiled meat and that’s that. When they reappear, broken and struggling, and falling down the same path until it happens again, well... that’s just life.

One of my favorite parts of the entire movie is a scene early on when a detective asks Fred Madison if he owns a videocamera. His wife, Renee Madison, portrayed by Patricia Arquette, responds, "no, Fred hates them." Fred responds, "I like to remember things my own way." The detective asks, "what do you mean by that?" Bill Pullman, as Fred Madison, replies, "how I remember them. Not exactly the way that they happened."

(DISCLAIMER: I’m sorry if you think it’s cheating that I am including the expanded Twin Peaks Universe as one single entry on this list. I’m sorry if you think the only thing that should count is Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me because that is the only Twin Peaks thing that is actually a “feature film.” But also: SORRY NOT SORRY.

This is my list and I’m putting Twin Peaks at #1, specifically: all of Season 1 of the original TV show, plus the beginning of Season 2 (until the episode where we find out who killed Laura Palmer) and the Season 2 finale. Then of course Fire Walk with Me, and the 18 hour MOVIE that is Twin Peaks: The Return, or Twin Peaks Season 3, if you will (I prefer the former as it gives the masterpiece the gravitas it deserves).

If you put a gun to my head and I ABSOLUTELY had to only include Fire Walk with Me, I would probably drop it to #4 or #5 and slide everything else on the list up a spot. End of DISCLAIMER.)

I was given the Twin Peaks Gold Box as a Christmas gift in 2007. The 10-DVD set had just come out and this was still an era when people treasured physical things like that. It was really important and meaningful to me, and I still own it despite no longer having a DVD player. Watching it for the first time was a treasure and a fond memory. The feeling I got when I heard that Badalamenti theme music start the show and everything in between...

...yes, even James in Season 2. I loved it all: the good, the bad and the ugly, the whole kitten caboodle. The original TV series is, obviously, far from flawless. Lynch stepped away for long stretches before going fully AWOL after it was revealed that Laura Palmer's father, portrayed by the great Ray Wise, is in fact her killer. After that, the show took a turn (to put it lightly).

But Lynch never gave up on the world. He returned to helm the stunning Season 2/de facto series finale. So much of the mythology that Fire Walk with Me and certainly The Return is built upon is ignited in that finale, fittingly titled "Beyond Life and Death." But really, the original series is most notable for merely existing at all. A precursor to the "golden age of television" that was right around the corner, there still hasn't been a network series remotely this daring. There's often much made, too much if you ask me, about the "cult of David Lynch." Critics of this “cult” say its followers are blind: The man can do no wrong. It's weird for weirdness' sake. And so on, they drone. Now, I'm a fairly big David Lynch fan (no duh). But I've always tried to remain grounded in regards to this. He's not perfect. But he has made near-perfect art. And I'm a fan of ART first. A practicer of admiration? Maybe some distant second, third, fourth or beyond. I see his infiltration of the masses with Twin Peaks as one of his finest achievements in the arts. How many powerful people had to be convinced that the mainstream was ready for something like this. It's baffling. That, of course, they weren't ready is kind of besides the point. Someone has to poke the bear.

If Lynch had closed the books on Twin Peaks with Fire Walk with Me, his sixth film released in 1992, that would have been fine. It's a polarizing feature and was a fairly significant box office bomb, even for Lynch. Fire Walk with Me nonetheless retains an otherworldliness among the filmography. Given the subject matter––you know, just your average super-violent father-daughter incest rape thing––it's hard to argue this isn't his darkest tale by a wide degree. It's perhaps not ripe for repeated viewings. In fact, I did not rewatch it for this review, the only film of the ten. Why? Well, I had given it a replay back in 2017, just before the debut of Showtime's Twin Peaks: The Return. And, to be honest, I just wasn't ready to return to this madness quite so soon.

Only David Lynch could mold one of the loftier aspects/thematic devices/main characters (?) of the long-awaited follow-up to perhaps his most beloved work on one of the most random, seemingly meaningless, toss-away lines spoken in a bad Cajun accent in a cameo role by David Bowie. "We're not going to talk about Judy at all..." Until, that is, the time is right... Say... 25 years later?

I just recently began to rewatch The Return and I'd like to say thank you for this, David Lynch. This needs to be put into the discussion with his greatest work, if it's not already there. I can recall after various episodes of its original run (May to September 2017), feeling a sense of awe and wonderment and confusion and joy. I say to anyone that's curious that this is an 18-hour movie. David Lynch made an 18-hour movie when it wasn't certain if he'd make any more movies again.

It would be dumb, if not downright foolish, to try and hash out the plot-lines or gush over Kyle MacLachlan's performance in not two, but three distinct roles. Here, the duality of man has fractured yet again in these modern times. And when I got to that final two-hour finale, I found myself on a family vacation. So I carved out a block of time to watch it at the house we were renting on my laptop, alone, in the dark, as the rest of my family enjoyed a sunny day at the beach. I filed Kyle and Laura Dern's Diane into one more sketchy motel and then onto El Paso, Texas, of course, just as everyone had guessed, and then back to Twin Peaks, Washington, where the series ends on a question... Special Agent Dale Cooper turns to Laura Palmer outside her childhood home and asks, "what year is this?" She screams into the abyss and the lights in the home spark off and the screen explodes into darkness. For a series that was, ultimately, about the passing of time as much as it was about the origins of evil in the universe or anything else, it was a fitting end.

#movies

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atthebeautycooler · 8 years ago

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Just the Tip Tuesday: Newsflash! There’s still Money in Makeup! 10 Tips to put you on the positive money path by Margina Dennis

photo: S. Reganato

This is a long one, so grab a drink and a snack! And I decided to make this blog post more about putting yourself on the money path than glamorizing the high end salaries at the very top. I recently did a social experiment in a group of professional makeup artists and enthusiasts and asked with they thought the top, top, makeup artists in the industry were making. The response, on average, was much lower than what the reality is in the industry. Top artists can be making in excess of $10K on a job. And yes they deserve it with the hard work, sacrifices, and abilities they bring to the table. They are able to create trends, create color collections for cosmetics lines and be creative directors. I am also talking about people who have been in the industry 20+ years, are with top artist agencies, and working on top advertising campaigns etc. There are also different tiers within those working on the very high end of the industry and they’re aren’t making $40K to do a runway show! So everyone isn’t making those kind of numbers for jobs’ but making $2500, $5K or $7500 for a job is nothing to sneeze at either. There are also alot less jobs at that level of the industry. I would consider myself someone who is on the high end of the mid-market of the industry who dabbles in the low end of the high market and is trying to dabble more. :-) Getting to where I am now, took many years and alot of hard work/sacrifice and I made mistakes along the way.

It also made me realize that this lack of understanding also contributes to the low rate thinking that is happening far down the makeup totem pole. $300 in one day might be more money that than many people are making in their full-time job in one day, but that is comparing apples to oranges. Let me introduce you to a reality that exists when you are working for yourself as a freelance artist: There is no guarantee of work - When you work for yourself, you will encounter slow times and busy times. I’ve personally had months where I have worked 20 to 28 days and others 4 to 7 days. You might have a great year one year and a very shitty one the next. This is why your rates should be based on when you are least busy, not the most. There is no way that you will have money in savings, for taxes, for a vacation, for a rainy day, for your kid’s college, etc if you are not thinking worse case scenario and planning for it. And your rates should not factor in your spouse's job, or that other job that you have. They aren’t part of your makeup business. Think like a boss to succeed like one!

Here are some tips to help steer you on a success path.

1. Save up ALOT of money from your day job and start looking to work on your craft on days when you are not working your full time job. What do I mean by alot? Ideally at least 6 months, a year if you can. And downsize if you can into a cheaper living situation; i.e. roommates, moving back home, etc.. Also put the steps in motion to create a flexible work situation for yourself, so that you have money coming in while you are building your makeup business. Whether that is working as a virtual assistant, bartending, etc. You will also be less tempted to work on a job where the rate is lower than what it should be. Doing big work for little money will hurt you in the long run and impact your ability to make more. Don’t be so anxious to run before you can walk.

2. Take business classes or read books on business. Also offer to pay to pick the brain of an artist agent or a successful working artist who is in a major market regarding the business side of the industry so you know what to expect BEFORE you start putting yourself out there. There are resources in our industry that will give you guidelines, but are not the end all because they aren’t current. I actually wrote about them in a blog post that you can find here: http://atthebeautycooler.tumblr.com/post/132411901634/fourgreatbooks

3. Study classic photography images like Richard Avedon, Man Ray, Helmut Newton etc. and see how their work influenced current top fashion photographers, Steven Klein, Steven Meisel, and Patrick Demarchelier These guys were masters with lighting and the structure of a photo that still stand the test of time. Below is a mixture of work from the photographers’ I just mentioned. You need to learn what good photography looks like so that you do not waste your time. And this does not mean taking a friend or a very commercial model and trying to pose her into fashion either. That will not result in a strong image for your book. Simple images that are lit well and cropped into a flattering image will make a stronger impact. Take some basic photography classes online from sites like Creative Live.

4. Learn to work with what you have in your market so that you can use that and invest in working with those that will create even better for your and your book. Sometimes you have to invest in traveling to get better images. I did that so I was able to get better jobs in my smaller market because my work looked stronger. But you have to have something to start with so that people will trust that you will deliver so that you can work up to getting better.

(this image is 18-20 years old and shot on film. I BEGGED this photographer to give me a chance and his girlfriend was a real model. This is bordering on fine art/fashion but is a great image and it helped me to get PAID model testing.)

5. Start creating work that will help you succeed. This is a big mistake that newer artists (myself included) make the mistake of doing and they waste a lot of time and energy. I’m going to show you some of my work that I did that was a huge time waste for many reasons. Some of these images are PUBLISHED IMAGES, even COVER IMAGES. They are now in the “what was I thinking”? hall of fame. But the sooner you learn and recognize this, the sooner you will be on your way to better images, models, and jobs. Here is a grid of “don’ts”:

Now I was very proud of these images and so were the team, but I so wish that someone had told me then what I know now! Edgy only works when you have the right skill level and understanding in place and the right team to execute it. Plus it was also a waste of time for getting real paid work. I know some of you are wondering what is wrong with that image on the top right and that was published in a national magazine for a beauty editorial that I actually produced. I had a good girl who was completely wrong for what I wanted to do; Plus, I was in way over my head with hair. I needed a strong hairstylist and I needed to sit my ass down. Such a wasted opportunity and that shoot could have been so much stronger if done differently. The bottom middle one ended up on a cover of a magazine that is still in existence here in NYC. It was straight up Michael’s Craft Store realness and not in a good way. And the prayer pose... not good. And I plead temporary makeup insanity on the image in the left middle. I knew it wasn’t working and I kept adding more, and more, and more. That image got entered into a makeup contest :-(

Here’s a grid of ”dos”. I have intentionally put up images created around the same time in my career but I started to get a clue that what I was doing wasn’t working. Some of these images were created by photographers still in photo school and not by “seasoned” shooters:

(I did all the of makeup and hair in the images except the Ducati one. These images are 12 to 15 years old! I also started investing in traveling to get stronger models too.)

6. Get off of craigslist, model mayhem, bikini photo shootouts, glamour shoots, etc. You gonna have to put in the hard work of actually finding the people who are working. Now model mayhem can be a place to start initially to get the ball rolling but you have to put in place what I talked about earlier: What to look for in good photography. You’ll have better odds seeking out photography students. The great jobs aren’t there either, they come from seeking out those who are doing these jobs and there are working photographers at every level.

7. Stop taking career advice from people who are as junior as you are. It’s like the blind leading the blind. You are not going to get the best advice that way. And when an artist who is doing work that you hope to be doing some day takes the time to help you, be thankful. Don’t get upset if it is something you didn’t expect to hear. Many of us in the beginning think we are much better than what we really are. We get caught up in the excitement. Instead, learn from what they are saying and use it to grow. When I first started doing makeup and was taking classes, one teacher I had was really tough on me when she wasn’t being tough on others. I finally asked her why she was being so mean to me. So told me she wasn’t being mean, but that she saw potential in me. From that day on, I took to heart what she said and worked harder. I am forever grateful for her honesty and tough love.

8. Figure out what type of artist you want to be early on and then focus on getting REALLY REALLY GOOD on what that is first before you remotely try to put your own twist on it. You don’t want to be a “jack of all trades and a master of none”. Work on being a master of one. It will help tremendously in branching out your skill level later. And by the way, the first really good thing you should learn to master is CLEAN makeup. It doesn’t matter what market you are in, you will be employable if you are good at clean makeup. You need to be good at clean makeup whether you are doing print, film, or runway. The fastest path to success is the straightest one. Zip-zagging around will take you alot longer to get to the initial end goal of being a working makeup artist.

9. Be willing to accept that the career does not happen overnight and that you have to put the right kind of work in order to increase your chances of succeeding. Also accept that it might not happen. I know someone who went through the pain and expense of going to law school. It took him 4 attempts to pass the bar and then found he wasn’t a good lawyer. Give yourself 5 years realistically for your career to start. Arming yourself with the knowledge of how the industry works before you put yourself out there will save you so much grief down the road and will save you time in getting to your end goal. That’s why you don’t want to jump in not understanding rates, negotiating, invoicing, contracts, etc. I was speaking to a photographer last week who didn’t do the homework before he started charging and ended up charging a multi-billion dollar company $50 dollars for images (plural) and not $50 dollars per image which is also ridiculous and not a rate. He now does what I do and works with newer artists to help to educate them and consult with them so that they don’t get taken advantage of like he did. He was only thinking of getting that name on his resume and didn’t think about what impact it could have on his career. Lucky for him, he got schooled early before he become known as the very cheap guy who takes good pictures.

10. Know the worth of the job and learn to understand what the difference is between 1) truly “free” work and 2) paid work that someone is trying to get you to work on for free or at a rate that is much lower than the value of the job. Years ago, I was working on a lookbook being shot in a different state. I was being paid my full rate in cash, plus I was reimbursed for travel for the photoshoot. One of the models on the shoot wasn’t being paid and was complaining to me about it. She kept talking about how she kept doing things for free and but no one would pay her nor were any of the local modelling agencies interested in her. I immediately knew what the issue was because hereshe was on a lookbook not getting paid where the images were going to financially benefit the designer. She lived in the smaller part of a mid sized market. She had the height, size, and bone structure to be a model but had put absolutely no value on herself. And I am willing to bet money that she was known as the free girl, which is also why no modelling agency was interested either. It’s pretty hard to get a client to pay $1500, $2500, $5K or more for a model that has been peddled around with zero value over and over again. I told her her only chance to was to move to a different market and start all over if she was serious and learn not to give it away. She had completely sabotaged any hope of a career where she was. The same goes for being a makeup artist.

Lastly, do your research and don’t rely on what is the fad is or what is trending on You Tube. I can assure you that Val, Pat, Sam or other working artists aren’t applying foundation with a condom covered beauty blender, or with silicone breast enhancements. There are many successful people in the industry who aren’t social media famous either. Understand the difference between a working makeup artist and a social media influencer. Sometimes they will overlap, but it is not common and they are completely different career paths. Understand that there are different types of makeup techniques out there and you need to be well versed as a professional. Also realize the money isn’t where you think it is either unless you are at the higher end of the fashion industry and creating very high end work with high end teams and clients. Commercial fashion and commercial lifestyle may not be exciting but it will help to keep a roof over your head. I know artists that do catalog work and that is all that they do and they make their living that way.

(work keeping a roof over my head) photo: W. Hope.

I hope this sheds some insight and helps you to get focused so that maybe someday you will be one of the “chosen few”. And if you need help, make sure, you are following this blog and also check out my BeautyBeauteBeauti website for information on a education both online and off, as well as career guidance.

Love and Lipstick,

xo Margina

When Margina isn’t doing blog posts, makeup shopping or creating hands-on classes, she can found doing advertising and editorial work for clients such as MCM, Steve Madden, WWD, Scratch to name a few. To see her personal work, visit www.marginadennis.com. And follow her on periscope and instagram

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wristwatchjournal · 5 years ago

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Hands-on – Seiko Prospex ‘Captain Willard’ Reissues SPB151 and SPB153

There is more than one icon at Seiko… Far more. Not surprisingly, most of them are part of the Prospex collection and relate to the world of divers. Think 62Mas, Hi-Beat 300m and Tuna Professional (all of them recently re-created). And there’s the ‘Turtle’, the watch known under the reference 6105, a watch that has defined Seiko’s modern and accessible dive watch… and the watch that was worn in legendary 1979 movie Apocalypse Now. And today, the ‘Captain Willard’ could be yours, with the new SPB151 and SPB153.

Left: SPB151, black dial/bezel on steel bracelet. Right: SPB153, olive green dial/bezel on silicone strap

It isn’t the first time we see a re-edition of the 1970s Seiko ‘Turtle’ 6105. In fact, it is widely available in a modern interpretation with the Prospex Automatic Diver SRP series. Much more accurate was the watch launched at Baselworld 2019, the Seiko 1970 Diver’s Re-Creation SLA033. Superbly executed, manufactured almost to Grand Seiko standards – case with Zaratsu polishing, hands and indexes à la GS, top-tier 8L35 movement – and priced accordingly. In short, an exclusive collector’s piece. This year though, Seiko goes back to more familiar territories with a relatively accessible but truly cool re-edition of the 6105, just like Sheen in Apocalypse Now (while Brando was wearing his bezel-less GMT). But there’s more to the 1970s Turtle than its appearance on the silver screen.

TESTED IN REAL LIFE

Produced from 1968 onwards, the Seiko 6105 was a sturdy dive watch with a water-resistance of 150 metres. What caught everybody’s eye was the crown positioned at 4 o’clock (which was, in fact, used for the first time in the 1961 Seiko Silver Wave) and the big, lower crown protector. And this made the watch a true instrument for the wrist.

Naomi Uemura was a very popular Japanese adventurer, well respected for having achieved solo feats that up to that moment had only been accomplished by large teams. For instance, he undertook a one-man dog-sledge run from Greenland to Alaska, a journey of 12,000 km that took 18 months. He was the first to reach the North Pole alone. He was also the first to descend the Amazon river in a boat, and the first to ascend the North American Denali Mountain in winter – the third most prominent and solitary peak of the world. It was there where he disappeared when he was only 43 years old.

“In all the splendour of solitude, it is a test of myself, and one thing I loathe is to have to test myself in front of other people,” said Uemura. That was the reason why he undertook everything alone, a reason that unfortunately also deprived him of the help he needed at his most desperate moment. The reason I have been talking about Naomi Uemura’s exploits is that he was wearing a 6105. Not as part of a marketing campaign orchestrated by Seiko. It was just a watch that was robust, reliable and durable enough to accompany Uemura on his travels.

An example of Seiko 6105-8110 – image by Fratello Watches

CAPTAIN WILLARD

Despite Uemura’s heroic deeds, and even having a museum in Tokyo dedicated to him, the fame of the 6105 comes from fiction: it was the watch Captain Willard wore in the masterpiece Apocalypse Now. Not just a fancy prop, the watch actually portrayed a real wartime situation; the 6105 was sold in Asia during the Vietnam conflict and American soldiers had better – and cheaper – access to it than locals because they paid in dollars.

Photo by United Artists/Getty Images

Photo by Steve Schapiro/Corbis via Getty Images

The watch earned a solid reputation among the ranks for being a sturdy piece of equipment, to the point of becoming a favourite among the soldiers. When the soldiers returned to civilian life, so did the watch. Appearing throughout the movie on Captain Willard’s (Martin Sheen) wrist, the watch became an icon. The irony is that 6105 had gone out of production in 1977, two years before the movie hit cinemas around the world. The cry for a re-edition increased notably with the re-release of the movie in 2001 (known as Apocalypse Now Redux). And Seiko has taken its own sweet time to please its fans, first with the SLA033 and today with the SPB151 and SPB153.

The modern Prospex ‘Captain Willard’

While the SLA033 was a truly faithful re-edition of the original Turtle watch but not really attainable by most of the enthusiasts, the new Seiko Prospex ‘Captain Willard’ (not their official name but the obvious nickname given by the collecting community) are not only equally legit but also far more friendly when it comes to price and specs. And still, these are watches that are meant for more experienced collectors and not for a broad audience. Very wise move from Seiko.

So what do we have here? Basically, the modern version of the original 6105, with not only an identical design but also the same spirit of reliability, robustness and (relative) affordability. Remember that the 1970s Turtle watches were far from being luxury items. They were accessible watches made for action and proved that in the field. And as much as I enjoy the beauty of the SLA033, the new SPB151 and SPB153 are far more accurate when it comes to reviving the original concept of the 6105.

Case-wise, the Seiko Prospex ‘Captain Willard’ is built around a cushion-shaped central container with the crown positioned at 4 o’clock and protected by an asymmetrical guard – the shape of the watch earned its ‘turtle’ nickname. Circular-brushed on the upper surface and polished on the sides, the case is executed in the traditional Prospex way, clean and robust. Good news concerning the dimensions, as these two models are rather compact on the wrist, at 42.8mm in diameter when an SRP-series Turtle is about 45mm.

Being a proper dive watches, the Captain Willard SPB151 and SPB153 are topped by a unidirectional bezel in steel, with 120 firm clicks and a 60-minute scale. The insert is executed in anodized aluminium, and not in ceramic as seen in the recently launched King Turtle. A great choice considering the vintage inspiration of these watches, aluminium being more faithful and less modern-looking.

Two versions of the watch are available. First is the SPB151, which is worn on a steel bracelet. This is the classic execution and the closest to the original model, with its matte black dial and bezel. Second is the SPB153, which is worn on a black silicone strap. This version is equipped with an olive green sunburst dial and green bezel. While not historically accurate, this military attire perfectly suits this re-edition of the 6105 and is very (really) good looking in the metal, with nice reflections and a colour that changes depending on the ambient light.

Other than that, the Seiko Prospex ‘Captain Willard’ remain true to the 6105 with applied indexes and hands, as well as the scale on the bezel. All are modelled after this 1970s watch and filled with the ultra-luminous proprietary LumiBrite material. Also noticeable is the sapphire crystal on top, which features a large bevel on its periphery. Once again this is faithful to the mineral crystal found on the original version.

Under the screwed caseback, guaranteeing a 200m water-resistance together with the screw-down crown, is a well-known automatic movement. The calibre 6R35 is Seiko’s mid-range movement, found in both Presage and Prospex models. It beats at 3Hz and offers a comfortable power reserve of 70 hours when fully wound.

As said, the Black SPB151 is equipped with a 3-link stainless steel bracelet, closed by a folding clasp with diving extension. The Olive Green SPB153 comes on a newly designed silicone strap, with a nice pattern and soft texture. It is closed by a steel pin buckle.

Thoughts

I usually try not to be overly enthusiastic when reviewing a watch, or at least I try to remain objective… Sadly, here it isn’t the case. As hard as I try, I can’t find anything I don’t like about the new Seiko Prospex ‘Captain Willard’. They are faithful to the original, robust, superbly executed for the price and really handsome – especially that Olive Green SPB153 version. I mean, it ticks all the boxes: design, cool factor, price, history, relatively compact size… A couple of years ago, only unofficial mods would have looked that good. But here, it will be widely available and produced by one of the largest brands on the market. Respect!

Price and availability

The Seiko Prospex ‘Captain Willard’ SPB151 and SPB153 will be available soon (later in June 2020) and priced at USD 1,300/EUR 1,350 for the SPB151 and USD 1,100/EUR 1,150 for the SPB153. More details at seikowatches.com.

The post Hands-on – Seiko Prospex ‘Captain Willard’ Reissues SPB151 and SPB153 appeared first on Wristwatch Journal.

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#watches #luxury watches #wrist watches

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deepvuinc · 5 years ago

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Supply chain resilience and risk intelligence in a post-pandemic world

By Moataz Rashad

Supply chain teams at most large manufacturers are currently in crisis management mode. For some companies, demand has shrunk by 40% or more, whereas for others it has narrowed to the essential SKUs category. The majority of such teams aren’t yet at a stage where they’re allocating intellectual bandwidth to the post-pandemic environment and the wide-ranging implications of new norms like social distancing, higher hygiene requirements, tighter trade constraints, slower logistics, and consumer unease.

So we at DeepVu thought we’d spark the discussion by posting our thoughts and observations based on our own customer engagements and recent conversations.

Crisis-Adaptive Demand Planning

Recently, it’s become clear to everyone across the supply chain ecosystem that in a crisis of this magnitude, people’s psychology is significantly impacted. Buying patterns, for both consumers and businesses, shift accordingly.

In fact, many experts predict that these demand patterns will continue to shift during the partial economic re-opening, the full re-opening, and may even linger for a while past that. Nielsen compared YoY % change for certain essential goods during the Feb/Mar period in the graph below.

There are two types of inventory optimization approaches: a) forecasting and b) decisioning models. A forecasting model would forecast a stockout of SKU N at Warehouse W 5-weeks out. A decisioning model would actually recommend an action such as "change the replenish rate for the specified SKU at the specified warehouse". A decisioning model trained on a dataset spanning pre-pandemic, during the pandemic and into the partial re-opening, has the added benefit of continuously learning to recommend dynamic decisions that improve over time. In fact, the model will prove even more effective for any crisis that causes comparable demand pattern shifts down the road.

Forecasting stockouts accurately and preventing them could literally save lives, whether the item is a drug, a device, a mask, or any PPE. Even a disinfecting wipe that helps an elderly person ensure whatever items they just bought aren’t contaminated can be critical.

Procurement KPIs Are Changing

Most folks in procurement consider BoM optimization to be a major priority and surely it’ll continue to be a key focus. However, supply assurance at times of crisis becomes an equal priority. A reputable tier 1 supplier that would not grant you the allocation you need or commit to the delivery date required for your material flow dependencies should certainly get a lower reliability score. On the other hand, it’s equally important to ascertain whether a supplier is indeed honoring the requested quantity, but its delivery dates are impacted by logistics network delays outside of its control, in which case that supplier’s score shouldn’t be penalized.

For manufacturers with over 10,000 suppliers, there’s no human procurement team that can possibly keep track of these factors and the corresponding scores manually.

An ML model that generates a Supplier Credence Score becomes of critical importance at times of supply chain disruption like these. Such a model needs to be trained on historical data spanning “normal” pre-crisis times, as well as the procurement and delivery records over the past 8 weeks of crisis activity.

Our world is full of uncertainties, but one certainty is that there will be other shocks to the supply chain ecosystem. Clearly, such an ML model would be invaluable to use for supply risk mitigation when the next ecosystem shock arises, whether it’s health-related, climate-related, or otherwise.

Locally Sourced Supply Chains

The trade war chatter has been getting louder, and we already see many customers starting to think about reducing dependence on foreign suppliers, and sourcing locally as much as realistically feasible. If parts that used to take one week to arrive can now take 21-30 days to do so, and with logistics surge-pricing and tariffs added on top, it may certainly be more cost-effective to source locally in many cases.

Furthermore, with respect to actual workplace and work flow changes, our view is that the changes will vary widely by sector and by company size, so we’ll only provide examples from a few sectors that we understand well enough to think through and make predictions for.

Workplace and Work Flow Impact

1. Construction

We foresee significant changes in the construction industry. Construction workers already have very tight regulations for protective gear and safety and these are likely to get even tighter, requiring smaller crew sizes and physical separation between workers. Such constraints will affect work flow and schedules in many ways. Imagine a high-rise building where the electrical and plumbing crews have to now work on alternating floors, and each crew is limited to only 3 workers, while also maintaining social distancing guidelines.

The construction supply chain includes both digital (blueprints) and physical supply chain such as building materials, excavators and cranes, and so on. Scheduling efficacy for material, equipment, and labor flow is a key priority for construction projects, and it does have a substantial impact on ROI as delays often cost millions of dollars.

An AI model that is trained on all these datasets and historical schedules, and recommends decisions representing integrated schedules that cover labor, equipment and materials, along with their cost and overall project KPI implications. Such a model would be an invaluable AI assistant. This model would eliminate the error-prone process of coordinating multiple disparate schedules, separate cost implications, budget overruns, and more. Additionally, if the model is trained on pre-crisis (“normal”) times project data, along with some mid-crisis projects, it will be crisis-hardened and will perform intelligently for scheduling during future ecosystem disruptions.

2. Manufacturing

Factories are unique environments as they have well-thought-out material flow plans, and with robotic arms and autonomous forklifts, most have been ranging from 30-80% automation depending on the vertical and the product. A natural decision for a manufacturing GM in a pandemic environment is to acquire more robots and increase the level of automation of their production line. In this scenario, ideally a good percentage of the manufacturing personnel whose duties become automated get transferred to warehousing or re-trained for other roles in the organization. Opting to go for a higher level of automation by deploying more robots and autonomous forklifts inherently requires re-layout and scheduling changes to deliveries and shipments. If production scheduling and production capacity planning are done old-school, the above changes will induce chaos.

However, if one has a decision model that produces recommendations on production schedule, labor allocation, robot allocation, and material flow, then all the changes above would be reflected in the simulation environment, and the AI decision model would adapt its recommended actions to optimize the Reward accordingly.

3. Warehousing and Logistics

Although they work great in normal times, static warehouse networks are just too constraining at times of crisis. On-demand warehouse capacity allocation is invaluable at times of disruption. This crisis has highlighted to fulfillment managers that they really need access to both on-demand storage as well as static in order to meet delivery dates and the dynamic fulfillment needs in an increasingly fluid ecosystem.

Furthermore, track and trace will be more important than ever, for essentially all items. It's been very successful for big ticket items and in pharmaceuticals for quite a few years. However, increasingly, it'll just be expected as a core feature, and the risk management and insurance companies will demand it for all B2B commerce in most sectors.

Track and trace has primarily been implemented used IoT, and it is actually one of the highest drivers of IoT spend-- see the Forrester chart below. However, an AI model that's been trained on historical IoT trace data can be used to forecast whether a current shipment will get damaged, tampered with, or even the exact minute it'll get delivered and so on. A forecast that carries high confidence may even directly trigger an insurance claim.

Conclusions

I have firm conviction that we'll get through this crisis together and we'll emerge stronger, smarter and more diligent as a critically important industry that civilized society relies upon. However, it is imperative that we first spend the time and intellectual cycles on evaluating existing inefficiencies, organizational readiness, and lax measurement of underperforming models. Second, identify the highest priority use cases that need to be addressed first, and embark on a diligent evaluation of credible AI/ML proposals that address it. Third, establish the current baseline accuracy for your existing model or rule-based software against your current and desired forecast horizons. Finally, commit to AI/ML as a strategic long term approach, and deploy piloted models gradually in production, and keep scaling them one use case at a time. The companies that do this methodically will win in both normal and abnormal times.

Stay safe, and I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

#supplychain #post-pandemic #resilience #demandforecast #procurement

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