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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Django Unchained, Halloween III and Clerks II Are Streaming Free on Plex This Month

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This story is presented by Plex

Streaming is getting expensive. What started as the cheap alternative to let you watch all of your favorite content and cut the cord on your cable subscription has ballooned into an arms race where one must shell out cash to several different providers just to watch their favorite movies or shows. Thankfully, Plex TV is here to entertain you and provide some relief to your wallet.

Plex is a globally available one-stop-shop streaming media service offering thousands of free movies and TV shows and hundreds of free-to-stream live TV channels, from the biggest names in entertainment, including Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution, Lionsgate, Legendary, AMC, A+E, Crackle, and Reuters. Plex is the only streaming service that lets users manage their personal media alongside a continuously growing library of free third-party entertainment spanning all genres, interests, and mediums including podcasts, music, and more. With a highly customizable interface and smart recommendations based on the media you enjoy, Plex brings its users the best media experience on the planet from any device, anywhere.

Plex releases brand new and beloved titles to its platform monthly and we’ll be here to help you identify the cream of the crop. View Plex TV now for the best free entertainment streaming and check back each month for Den of Geek Critics’ picks!

DEN OF GEEK CRITICS PICKS

Django Unchained

The second of Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist history lessons, Django Unchained is a provocative, post-modern Western film that mixes the widescreen sensibilities of Sergio Leone with Tarantino’s own gonzo impulses to create something hyper-violent, subversively funny, and more than a bit uncomfortable. Jamie Foxx stars as a slave freed by a German bounty hunter played by Christoph Waltz. Waltz won an Oscar for his performance as the kind German that takes in the stoic but savvy Django as his partner. Together, they travel the pre-Civil War South, killing slavers and savage men. Eventually, they embark on a more personal mission, as Django intends to free his beloved wife from a sadistic plantation owner played by a scenery-chewing Leonardo DiCaprio. With anachronistic needle-drops, hands-over-eyes horrors, and more blood than a donation bank, Django Unchained is an epic, entertaining revenge fantasy for the ages.

Silver Linings Playbook

From director David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook is a screwball romantic comedy for the modern age. Despite inviting, yet livewire lead performances from Jennifer Lawerence and Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook really shines as an ensemble: Robert DeNiro, Jackie Weaver, Chris Tucker and Anupam Kher bring fully-realized characters to life in just a handful of scenes. Based on Matthew Quick’s novel of the same name, Silver Linings Playbook finds Bradley Cooper as a man who has been released from a psychiatric hospital a bit too soon. He’s frantically trying to prove that he’s bettered himself in an effort to win back his wife, but when he meets the equally unstable and filterless character played by Jennifer Lawerence, unusual sparks fly. Combining the familiar tropes of a sports film with unorthodox romantic leads, Silver Linings Playbook is a crowd-pleasing watch that creates harmony out of dysfunction.

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations

It never mattered where Anthony Bourdain was going, we just wanted to be along for the ride. We lost the soulful, iconoclastic bad-boy of the culinary world far too soon, but he left behind a treasure trove of rewarding travelogues that tackled culture, social dynamics, and most importantly, food. Whether he was weighing in on a world-famous culinary hotspot or peeling back the curtain on a hole-in-wall gem, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations was always thoughtful, fearless, and never less than authentic. It’s the rare show that is as educational as it is entertaining, hosted by a candid host who knew how to travel, knew where to eat, but most crucially, knew how to connect with people. Reality TV doesn’t get realer than this.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Following the mind-boggling success of the original Halloween, director John Carpenter had a clever idea. Instead of churning out sequels starring Michael Meyers, Halloween would become an anthology series, with each new film telling a spooky tale centered on the October holiday. The concept was inevitably scrapped, but Halloween III: Season of the Witch suggests that maybe Carpenter and co. should have stuck to their guns. Taking inspiration from Invasion of the Body Snatchers and working off a concept that Carpenter described as “witchcraft meets the computer age,” Halloween III: Season of the Witch finds a doctor and the daughter of a toy maker trying to uncover the horrifying truth behind the town of Santa Mara, home to Silver Shamrock, the world’s largest manufacturer of Halloween masks. Intelligent, surprising, and disturbing, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is due for a critical reevaluation that heralds it as one of the most ambitious horror movies of the ‘80s

Clerks II

With the recent announcement that Clerks III has started production, it’s the perfect time to revisit Kevin Smith’s first-sequel to his independent film phenomenon, Clerks. Clerks II picks up with our titular clerks Dante and Randall 10 years after the events of the first film. The Quick Stop has gone up in flames and been replaced with a Mooby’s fast food restaurant. Dante and Randall toil the day away with their sheltered co-worker Elias and too-cool for minimum wage manager Becky. While the film tackles adult male friendships and middle age complacency, it’s main appeal is still sitting around, shooting the shit with your pals and listening to their expletive-filled rants about Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or whatever pop culture fascination that they’re hung up on. Come for the surprisingly poignant story about Dante deciding to leave his friend behind, stay for Jay, Silent Bob, and a donkey.

New on Plex in August – Full List of Titles

Army of One

Dark Tide

Deadfall

Django Unchained

Escape from Alcatraz

Feast

Ismael’s Ghost

Kickboxer

Lucky Number Sleven

The Naked Gun 2-1/2: The Smell of Fear

The Naked Gun 33-1/3: The Final Insult

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

Pulse

Redemption

Seabiscuit

Silver Linings Playbook

Skyfire

Wind River

Still streaming on Plex:

2:22

The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

22 Bullets

24 Hours to Live

3rd Rock from the Sun

6 Bullets

99 Homes

A Little Bit of Heaven

A Walk in the Woods

Aeon Flux

After.Life

Afternoon Delight

The Air I Breathe

Alan Partridge

ALF

Alone in the Dark

Amelie

Answer Man

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations

Arthur and the Invisibles

Battle Royale

Bel Canto

Bernie

Better Watch Out

Black Books

Black Christmas

Black Death

Black Sheep (2006)

Blitz

Blood and Bone

Bobby

Bronson

The Brothers Bloom

The Burning Plain

Cagefighter

Cake

Candy

Cashback

Catch .44

Cell

Chain of Command

Child 44

The Choice

Clerks II

Coherence

The Collector

Congo

Cooties

Cops and Robbers

The Core

The Cotton Club

Critical Condition

Crossing Lines

Croupier

Cube

Cube 2

Cube Zero

Deadfall

The Death and Life of Bobby Z

Death and the Maiden

Death Proof

The Deep Blue Sea

Deep Red

Derailed

The Descent Part 2

Detachment

The Devils’ Rejects

Diary of the Dead

Distorted

District B13

DOA: Dead or Alive

Dragged Across Concrete

Eden Lake

Edison

Europa Resort

Falcon Rising

The Fall

Fido

The Fighting Temptations

Filth

Find Me Guilty

Fire in the Sky

Fire with Fire

Flirting with Disaster

Flowers of War

Flyboys

Force Majeure

Formula 51

Four Lions

Frailty

Frank

Freeway

The Frozen Ground

Getting to Know You

Ghost in the Shell

The Ghost Writer

Ginger Snaps

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

God Bless America

Goon

Goya’s Ghosts

Grand Isle

Grave Encounters

A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints

Halloween II

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Hannibal Rising

Happythankyoumoreplease

Hard Candy

Hell’s Kitchen

Hester

High Rise

Highlander

Hobo with a Shotgun

The Homesman

The Horseman

The Host

House of 1000 Corpses

House of the Rising Sun

How I Live Now

The Humanity Bureau

The Hunter

I Give it a Year

I Saw the Devil

I See You

I Spit on Your Grave

Ida

If Only

The Illusionist

In Hell

In the Blood

In Too Deep

The Infiltrator

Interstate 60: Episodes of the Road

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

It’s a Boy Girl Thing

Jeff, Who Lives at Home

Jo Nesbo’s Headhunters

Joe

John Dies at the End

The Joneses

Juliet, Naked

Just Getting Started

Kevin Hart: Cold as Balls

King of New York

Kinky Boots

The Kite Runner

Knight of Cups

The Last Days on Mars

The Lazarus Project

Leaves of Grass

The Legend of Hercules

Lethal Eviction

The Limey

Lionheart

A Little Bit of Heaven

A Long Way Down

Love Story

Maggie

The Maiden Heist

A Man Called Ove

The Man from Earth

The Man from Nowhere

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

The Matador

Mesrine Killer: Instinct

The Messenger

Middle Men

Midsomer Murders

Misconduct

Miss Potter

Monster

Monsters

Mother

Mr. Church

Murdoch Mysteries

National Lampoon’s Van Wilder

Never Back Down: No Surrender

Noah

The Oxford Murders

The Paperboy

Paycheck

Personal Effects

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so-tell-me-will · 4 years ago

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So when you are looking at tone you are basically getting the whole story at least in the sense that you begin to see what the life is really going to be about. That is what it’s going to deal with this given that it is personality orientated you can see that there is security and uncertainties and action and meditation, and judgement there are these fundamental themes that are there and themes that are there that tone is finally evolved to express fully. Everything takes time and one of the most fascinating things about the nature of tone is that it is really two triangles, and of course that is its essential magic. That is these two triangles these fundamental binary is the binary that is going to give us our leftness and is going to give us our rightness. Nothing, nothing is more important than that.

There is something else that is really interesting about this I assume that leftness and rightness and its potential out of personality or design crystals is entirely conditioned by the angel of penetration of the neutrino and one of the things that, I speculate is, I have to be careful what I say here, one of the things that is curious for me is what is the mechanism that switched Neanderthal to a right creature 5-centered to a 7-centered left creature. There is only one obvious answer that is it had to do with the degree of penetration into the crystal because of course the mammalian penetration is horizontal whereas the human penetration is from above, and is at an angle of 90 degrees. I was told for the 9-centered being that it is 88 degrees, that is the angle of penetration of the neutrino into the crystal. Something says to me that it is this particular angle that makes it possible for left and right to be present at the same time in the configuration, whereas before it was restricted either to left or right and my assumption is this had to do with the angle of the neutrino stream…

It is a fascinating subject because in fact as a far as I understand our evolutionary process we are the first creatures that carry both a functional left and right in terms of the way, the potential of the interior of the crystal operates so tone is something that is throughout our mystical history there have always been those looking for some kind of magical representation of itness, the thing. See, when I look at the nature of tone I see the perfection of this potential to filter consciousness without anything missing. And what is so incredible about it is buried deep, deep within Is this unbelievable influence over the way in which we are going to operate on this plane and the average human being has very little access to the potential. More than anything else when I look at the potential for humanity I look at tone and I forget what it is I actually see because at the tonal level there is all this inherent extraordiness there , it’s just a matter of what happens in that version of the broken telephone when it goes from the big jump being what happens when it goes from color to line. Look, if you are not operating correctly you are going to be in deep transference, you are not going to be connected to what is the tonal potential that is there in your nature.

And tone is everything for us because the way in which it emerges in that sense and you see that when you look at the design side is that it gives us all our fundamental senses, this is our sensory potential and it is the way in which our sensory potential operates both physically in terms of the physical biological potential of the senses, the kind of thing that dietary regimen helps you work with so that you can nourish your brain system in a way that can be beneficial to your specific sensory potential. And its all here in tone. So this is really the place where you begin your journey of understanding and the thing that makes tone so extraordinary is, it’s personal. It is really personal, this is about you…this is truly the bedrock of the other, if you want to see somebody’s cognitive potential you can only find it in tone because only through tone are you going to see the leftness or the rightness, only through tone are you really going to see where, where that cognitive potential is lurking.

And again tone is what sets the table for the way in which color is going to operate. Color that is going to determine what is your dietary regimen it is going to be affected by tone to its leftness or its rightness, by your environment to its right or its left, perspective its left or right it goes on and on this is what tone does. This is the place to set the foundation of your knowledge because it is here. You want to understand the principle of cognition, you want to understand limitation and potential of our awareness centers it is here…

Tone the name says something already. When I think about tone I think about frequency because that is what it is, you’ve got a neutrino that is at speeds that are beyond our imagination 98% of the speed of light flying through this crystal there is this endless, because it is an endless stream, it is an endless frequency, it is a hum and it is a unique frequency, it is unlike any other frequency because every one of these internal structures are unique, this is where uniqueness lies if you want to look at the whole principle of the way in which life has evolved into all these diverse variations of forms, this is all the uniqueness that is imbedded in us, it is all frequency. And every single one of the se frequencies whether they are splenic, ajna, or solar plex all originate in the frequency, the frequency of tone.

See, we are frequency creatures, I think it is one of the most difficult things about taking a ride in one of these bodies is that the bodies themselves despite the fact that they have many wondrous potentials they are pretty dense in terms of being sensitive to all kinds of frequencies that we need to build machines in order to gain access too, we have this sense that we are at this moment most of us siting still which is this incredible illusion, fortunately for us I don’t think we can stomach the actual speeds we travel at. And yet it is something to grasp, everything is moving and everything is spinning, this is the by verse everything is moving, everything is spinning, everything is frequency. It doesn’t matter whether the frequency of the illusion seems to be dense like your body, it doesn’t matter it is still frequency.

~Ra Uru Hu

#hd tones #hd binary #hd

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ultimateburningvigor · 5 years ago

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New Japan Pro Wrestling

Presents

G1 Climax 29

Night 3: A Block 2nd set, from Ota, Tokyo Japan

Lancer Archer (Suzuki Gun) defeated The Rogue General Bad Luck Fale w/ Jado (Bullet Club) with the EBD (Every Body Dies) Claw:

A certified Hoss match between A Block’s biggest competitors saw Suzuki Gun’s Archer take on Bullet Club’s Fale. Fale used underhanded tactics including some interference from Jado Fale even used a 2nd rope super plex that shook the ring and caused the official to tumble. Nevertheless, the big Texan Archer used power and athleticism to get the best of Fale and seemingly the crowd’s approval. Archer failed at a Blackout inverted power bomb and was hit with Fale’s Grenade, but kicked out. Archer then recovered and hit a black hole slam followed by the EBV Claw to get a pin, push Archer to 4 points and improving Archer’s G1 Climax 29 record to 2-0. Fale sits at 2 points and is now 1-1.

The Arial Assassin Will Osprey (CHAOS) defeated Cold Skull SANADA (Los Ingobernables de Japon) with the Storm Breaker:

Ospreay’s first outing saw the NJPW IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion fall to Suzuki Gun’s Lance Archer, meanwhile SANADA picked up a victory on Suzuki Gun’s Zack Saber Jr. Ospreay needed a victory to stay valid in the tournament while also proving that the Junior Heavyweight could hang with the Heavyweights. This is also the first time a competitor was able to compete in the Best of the Super Jrs tournament and the G1 tournament in the same year. If Will Ospreay wins this G1, Ospreay would be the first person to win both tournaments in the same year. History is on the line in this match. SANADA used power and technique to keep up with the blistering pace set out by Ospreay surprised everyone by being able to escape SANADA’s Paradise Lock but couldn’t escape the rope assisted version of the hold. In the end SANADA fell prey to Ospreay’s impressive strikes and highflying maneuvers. Ospreay hit the Os-Cutter maintained grip and converted to move into an emphatic Storm breaker to give Ospreay 2 points and Ospreay’s first win in the G1. This makes Ospreay’s record 1-1 and SANADA’s the same with 1-1 as well.

The Rainmaker Kazuchika Okada (CHAOS) defeated Submission Master Zack Saber Jr (Suzuki Gun) with the Rainmaker:

It was a battle between the NJPW IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada versus the Rev Pro Undisputed British Heavyweight Champion Zack Saber Jr. Okada comes into this match with 2 points from defeating the Ace Hiroshi Tanahashi and ZSJ is walking in with zero points after taking a lose to SANADA. ZSJ had designs on defeating Okada and then cashing in the title opportunity not at Wrestle Kingdom but at the Royal Quest event in Saber’s native UK. Okada wanted to keep Okada’s streak going and become the first IWGP Heavyweight Champion to win the G1 since 2000. ZSJ countered almost all of Okada’s attacks but bending, twisting and contorting Okada in a variety of submissions but the always game Okada hit a devastating tombstone piledriver that caused ZSJ to be concerned with Saber’s neck pain more than cinching in one of ZSJ’s multiple submissions. Okada utilized a spinning Rainmaker followed by the traditional Rainmaker to make Okada 2-0 with 4 points in the tournament and ZSJ leaves with 0 points, meaning ZSJ is now 0-2.

The King of Darkness EVIL (Los Ingobernables de Japon) defeated The Golden Star Kota Ibushi with Everything Evil:

Both of the competitors in this match came in with a loss to avenge. EVIL fell to Bad Luck Fale and Ibushi took a loss and an ankle injury from the debuting KENTA. EVIL decided to focus on the widely publicized injury of Ibushi’s ankle. At one point EVIL utilized an ankle lock and variations on the Scorpion Death Lock. The Golden Star would fight back tenaciously with vicious strikes, even unleashing blistering Boma Ye knee strikes. EVIL fought back and countered a Kamigoye into an Everything Evil attempt, then fought off another Kamigoye attempt from Ibushi into Darkness Falls. Ibushi kicked out of the move, but would fall victim to Everything Evil which gives EVIL 2 points and improves EVIL’s G1 record to 1-1. Ibushi, unfortunately goes on a losing streak with 0 points and a 0-2 record.

KENTA defeated The Ace Hiroshi Tanahashi with the G2S (Go 2 Sleep):

The former Ace of Pro Wrestling Noah in KENTA meeting with the indomitable Ace of New Japan Tanahashi is a dream math several years in the making. The spiritual successor of Katsuyori Shibata KENTA wants to prove that KENTA belongs in the G1 and will win in KENTA’s G1 debut. Standing in KENTA’s way is the winner of last year’s G1 Tanahashi. The two competitors exchanged pleasantries in the form big slaps to their faces. Then the heat got turned up. KENTA showed the vicious streak that won KENTA titles in Noah and a fan in myself (the mobile version of this blog has KENTA giving the G2S to a young Seth Rollins) with a variety of strikes. Tanahashi halted KENTA’s onslaught with 2 versions of the Dragon Screw leg whip and a triple Twist and Shout corkscrew neckbreaker. It seemed like Tanahashi had the match won, when the Ace went to the cross body of the top and followed it with the High Fly Flow, only for KENTA to have it scouted and counter the move with KENTA’s knees going up to Block the High Fly Flow and thwart the Ace’s momentum. KENTA proceeding to land aggressive strikes culminating with the G2S to secure the victory and continue KENTA’s claim for the finals of the G1. KENTA stands at 4 points and a perfect 2-0. The Ace however slumps down to 0-2 and 0 points. Maybe that’s why Tanahashi didn’t shake KENTA’s hand at the end.

This was a fun installment of the G1 A Block action especially the last 2 matches. I’ve been a huge fan of KENTA since the Noah days, back when KENTA and Naomichi Marufuji grappling for the Noah Junior Heavyweight crown. KENTA’s top two moves were adopted by CM Punk and Daniel Bryan. KENTA vs Tanahashi really is that dream match. I understand why some might not like KENTA considering KENTA could’ve went back to Noah and brought in fans that didn’t know about Noah but KENTA only has so many years left and NJPW has the international reach to give KENTA the respect that KENTA has been fighting for. Remember the name...KENTA

#g1 climax #g1 climax 29 #njpw

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hazyheel · 5 years ago

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NJPW Best of the Super Juniors 2019 Day 8 Review

From main event to curtain jerking, El Phantasmo took on Ren Narita. Phantasmo quickly overpowered Narita, putting him on the mat toying with him. This was a rough match for Narita. Normally he could kinda hold his own, but Phantasmo was kicking the shit out of him. Narita was able to hit the high belly to belly, but once again couldn’t bridge. The closest Narita got was a bridging german suplex, but only a near fall. This time around, Phantasmo got the win with a big frog splash. Phantasmo: 10, Narita: 0

Grade: C+. Decent match, not a lot of back forth, but this was a fun little extended squash. Not great, but I like seeing Phantasmo being a cocky dick.

Then we had TAKA Michinoku vs. Titan. The two were grappling quite a bit, with both really being able to stand up to the other. The two chopped the hell out of each other, and Taka tied him up in knots early on. Titan got the advantage once he started to speed up the match, using his high flying to keep him on his toes. Taka was able to fight back a bit, forcing Titan to the mat for submissions, but Titan could fight out of it. Titan was actually able to get a quick win with a Michinoku driver of his own, followed by tying his legs for a submission. Titan: 4, Michinoku: 0.

Grade: B-. A weak B-, because of the super weird finish, but they had a pretty good match. I liked how Titan really had to work to create space, while still resorting to his technical wrestling ways to fight out of certain holds. I’m bummed that Taka still hasn’t gotten a win, and this really felt like his most winnable match, so I hope he gets something soon.

Next up was Robbie Eagles vs. BUSHI. Bushi started with a flying dropkick after his pose, and they were off to the races. Once again, Bushi used the belt to whip Eagles on the outside a little bit, keeping a strong advantage in the early stages. Eagles of course worked over the leg, Eagles fought hard in the match, hitting the turbo backpack, and reversing the kickout into the Ron Miller special. Bushi fought back into the match with a couple codebreakers, and then the MX for the shocking win. Bushi: 4, Eagles: 6

Grade: B. Pretty good stuff, I think that these two are blending together really well. Bushi is getting better and better as a singles star, and this tournament is only proving that more and more. I like how Bushi is resorting to bending the rules more and more to win, and he is getting those wins. This is a big deal for him, given that Eagles is one of the front runners in Block B. I don’t know if Eagles is falling out of one of those top spots, it certainly doesn’t seem like it. But it is exciting to see him lose.

Into Jonathan Gresham vs. Tiger Mask IV. The two shook hands, and began on the mat as we all thought they will. Tiger Mask also kept up pressure using quick strikes, and really assaulted his midsection with strikes. Picking up the speed seemed to favor Gresham, but Tiger Mask’s experience allowed him to continue to slow things down with holds. As the two fought on the ground, grappling, Gresham had Tiger Mask in a headscissors when he hooked the leg, and got the pin. Gresham: 6, Tiger Mask: 4.

Grade: C-. I wasn’t too into this. The wrestlers didn’t seem to play much to their advantages, wanting to work a striking angle. I think that this would have been much better if they kept things on the mat. I don’t think Tiger Mask is all that great in a striking contest, but I liked the finish, and I was happy to see Gresham get another 2 points.

Then we had DOUKI vs. YOH. Douki of course attacked before the match, and threw Yoh all around the arena. Douki took a page out of Bushi’s book at one point, choking Yoh out with his own jacket. Yoh really sold his ass off for Douki during his match, making it seem like absolute agony to fight this guy. However, Yoh fought back, focusing on the leg as he normally does. Douki locked in a necktie choke, and he couldn’t really do much to get out of it, not even by tapping. There was an interesting dynamic here as they both looked for a full nelson in order to get their respective dragon suplexes. In the end, Yoh broke out of the suplex de la luna, skinning the cat on the bottom rope for a huge superkick and then a dragon suplex for the win. Yoh: 6, Douki: 2.

Grade: B-. I think this was interesting, but not overly good. I like the dynamic between both guys looking for the dragon suplex. I also think that Douki’s matches suffer from not being brawls, so a match against Yoh wasn’t going to be his best just yet.

Next up was Marty Scurll vs. SHO. Scurll came out with his actual head and neck taped up, from the goddamn ringer that Takagi put him through last night. However, he was faking it, and he attacked Sho before the bell. Sho went to work on Scurll’s arm, ringing it out to soften it up for the armbar. Scurll attempted to keep the match in striking territory, as he could not contend with Sho’s raw strength on the mat. Commentary pointed out that Scurll was not targeting the head or arm here, but rather Sho’s cauliflowered ear. And while Scurll tried to keep things in striking, Sho proved that he can go blow for blow with him. At one point, Scurll hit almost a pumphandle michinoku driver onto the knee for a near fall. At another point, Sho actually fought out of a chicken wing with nothing but his raw strength. Scurll tried to counter the strength by breaking the fingers, but that didn’t stop Sho from using his arms for lariats. Sho was then able to nail a last ride to the knees for a near fall, followed by Shock Arrow for the win. Sho: 4, Scurll: 4.

Grade: B+. Best match on the show up to this point. They did really well together on a stacked card. Scurll didn’t outright cheat during the match, but he certainly didn’t play fair. However, Sho got a second wind, and fought back to win the match. While it is unlikely that Sho gets the actual win for his block, he can still finish on the higher end.

Now, possibly the most important match in the tournament (according to the competitors) Rocky Romero vs. Ryusuke Taguchi. Not only was this for two points in the tournament, but the winner became the head coach of New Japan. I don’t know what that means, but it is important to them. Rocky came out with basketball gear on, while Taguchi was in his classic rugby. The match actually started with Taguchi making a basket in his arms so Rocky could shoot, but the ball hit him in the head, followed by a slam dunk with the ball to the floor. So this was a goofy one. Taguchi beat him up using his ass. The two traded clotheslines and hip attacks running between the corners, the crowd loved it. It took Taguchi a while to go for the ankle lock, despite Rocky’s injured leg from his match with Yoh. Rocky went for the arm in response, and at one point, Taguchi tried to pull Rocky out of an armbar for a powerbomb, but he didn’t have enough strength. Rocky countered the Dodon into a rollup, and after a few counters, Taguchi got the pin. Taguchi: 8, Rocky: 2.

In the end, the two ended up splitting the coach responsibility. They even posed together. This is so dumb, but I’m smiling.

Grade: B. The match was alright, I wasn’t a huge fan of it. I don’t think that they leaned far enough into serious stuff nor comedy wrestling. I think it would have been better if it had gone either way. But it was a fun little match with funny moments that made me laugh.

Then we had Taiji Ishimori vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru. The two had some history from Pro Wrestling NOAH, where Ishimori has never been able to beat Kanemaru. Puts an interesting slant on this match, as Ishimori is still undefeated. Kanemaru jumped before the bell. Kanemaru quickly countered a springboard kick attempt by kicking out the arm, before dragging Ishimori into the crowd. Kanemaru tried to get the same win as last night by chucking a chair at Ishimori to get the countout, but Ishimori jumped it and made it back. Kanemaru continued to bend the rules, constantly using the ref as a weapon. Kanemaru had the whiskey, but Ishimori caught him. Ishimori was going to use the whiskey, but Red Shoes was back up and took it, only for Kanemaru to reveal that he had held onto the whiskey, and spit it at him, and a roleup for the win. Kanemaru: 4, Ishimori: 8.

Grade: B-. This was just shenanigans city right here. Kanemaru just did all his cheating spots until one stuck, and that entertained me. Ishimori’s first loss of the tournament came at the hands of a guy who patently refused to follow the rules, and it serves as some comeuppance, albeit at the hands of another heel. I liked it, although it was too short and one sided to get much more than a B-.

Into Bandido vs. Will Ospreay, a rematch from an Indie show over Wrestlemania weekend that was really good. This was for sure one that I was looking forward to. Started with a handshake, Both fliers were incredibly strong for their weight and speed, which led to an interesting match that included both power moves as well as flying. Bandido hit an awesome gorilla press into a falcon arrow, followed up with a low dropkick to the back of the head. When the two began striking, they were really beating the hell out of each other, with strikes that thundered in the arena. Bandido targeted Ospreay’s neck in striking, and Ospreay seemed to be fighting on the backfoot during this match. At one point, Osrpeay had Bandido up for a powerbomb, but Bandido countered into a reverse rana, followed by a springboard shootng star press to the outside. Another time, Ospreay hit a stundog millionaire, shoutouts to Mark Andrews, an old friend of his. At another point, Bandido drilled Ospreay with a superkick and a spike rana, only for Ospreay to roll through for a near fall. As Bandido went for the 21 plex, Ospreay held on, so Bandido hit a GTS and tried again, only for Ospreay to completely flip out of it. Bandido hit the shooting star slam, but Ospreay grabbed the bottom rope. Finally, in the finish, Bandido went for a moonsault, but Ospreay caught him on his shoulders, and it a stormbreaker out of nowhere for the win. Ospreay: 8, Bandido: 4.

Grade: A. Holy crap this was so so good. This may be my favorite match of the tournament so far. This was awesome. They flew around at crazy speeds, they beat each other into the ground with their strikes, and Ospreay nearly lost, but was able to pick up a shocking counter for the win. Bandido did great too, showing off some of his unbelievable strength and striking. They just clicked super well, and delivered a great match once again. Match of the night.

And in the main event, Dragon Lee took on Shingo Takagi, in another match that I couldn’t wait for. Lee was looking for a handshake, as he had everyone else. Takagi took it, but then pulled him in to start the match. Lee tried to kick things into another gear, but Takagi simply overpowered Lee with a hard slam. Lee wanted to go strike for strike, but interspersed that with fast paced flying. At one point, Lee went for his rana off the apron, but Takagi actually caught him and hit a Death Valley driver on the apron. Lee hit his usual corner dropkick, but it looked so painful as he connected with the side of Takagi’s head. Lee tried to go strike for strike with Takagi, this time with a knee lift and a huge lariat. Lee then hit a suicide dive, emphasis on suicide as Lee launched about 12 feet into the crowd. Takagi was hurting after that, struggling to hit the Noshigami and a pumping bomber, only getting a near fall for a lot of effort. As Takagi went for last of the dragons, Lee countered with a crucifix bomb for a near fall, and then hit a brutal running knee. Lee then hit an awesome combo, of a German off the ropes, a knee lift, a reverse rana and another knee for only a 1, and then he followed up with another running knee for a near fall. Lee almost hit desnucadora, but Takagi fought out and got last of the dragons for the win. Takagi: 10, Lee: 6.

Grade: A. Another great match to end out the night. They destroyed each other during this match, and Lee looked goddamn phenomenal. Even in losing, he came the closest to beating Takagi out of anyone so far. Takagi best the champion, as we thought he would, but he went through hell to do it. Definitely a must watch match.

Overall Grade: B.

Pros: Eagles vs Bushi; Scurll vs Sho; Rocky vs Taguchi; Ospreay vs Bandido; Takagi vs Lee

Cons: Gresham vs Tiger Mask; could’ve used more comedy for coach vs coach

Losses: Taka Michinoku, BUSHI, Ren Narita officially cannot win Best of the Super Juniors 26.

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rickygoldman34 · 2 years ago

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Next match is House Of Black vs Death Triangle. All 6 men looking great here,lots of high flying and hard hitting action. Alot of pin fall attempts in this one. The crowd also hot for this one with an this is awesome chant. Lots of cohesive tag team offense. 2 great team here both of them working very well together and leaving it all put there. This waa actually a good trios match. This one did go the distance with all 6 men hitting thier finishers. Pac goes to the top rope,the lights go out when they come back on Julia Hart is in the ring she spits water in Pacs face which causes him to fall off then Black hits his finisher and covers him for the win.

On next is Adam Cole vs Samoa Joe in the finals of the Owen Hart Tournament Cup. Cole controlled and dominated most of this match really going after Joe and targeting his arm Joe did try to get back in this but Adam turned it right back around. This was a good match with history being made here winner of this walks out with the cup. Joe does battle and tries to hit a power bomb on Adam but Cole fights out and applies a cross face on Joe which he fights out of. Bobby Fish is here to cause a distraction to Joe which let's Adam Cole hit the boom and win the cup.

Now we get Dr.Britt Baker DMD vs Ruby Soho in the womens Owen Hart tournament cup finals. Both woman get live theme music which popped the crowd. Back and forth action here between both women who looked good Ruby looking the better of the 2 here. Britt tries to make Ruby submit but Ruby battles out but not before Britt knocks her down. Now Ruby is back up and both women go to the top rope where we see a super plex. Both women battle and knock each other down Britt is the one up but Ruby gets the upper hand. A curb stomp from Britt but Ruby kicks out she then goes for the lock jaw but Ruby fights out and hits her finisher before putting her in the sharp shooter but Britt gets out of it. Both women battle,roll up after roll up but Britt hangs on and picks up the win. She wins the cup.

Martha Hart then comes out,makes a speech and presents a title each to the winners.

Next match is Sammy Guevara,Frankie Kazarian and Tay Conti vs Ethan Page,Scorpio Sky and Paige Vanzant. My 1st look at Paige here who is actually making her in ring debut. This was a good match with all 6 people looking on point for this one lots of pin fall attempts. Sammy heeled it up here I'm guessing he's heel again now. Paige tags in and her and Tay go at it Paige was actually decent. Sammy kept saving his girl Tay. In comes Sky and Ethan but Kazarian left his team to it and a brawl is on. Sammy accidentally kicks Tay which distracts him so Scorpio Sky hits the TKO to win this one.

Now it will be Kyle O'Reilly vs Darby Allin. This is personal the undisputed elite took out Sting. Very physical and very quick hard hitting action. Kyle busting open Darbys mouth with a knee. Darby going for a suicide dive but he caught his feet on the rope so he goes for a second one one the other side but Kyle catches him in mid air. Back in the ring and alot of ground game Kyle tries to make Darby tap out. We them see a coffin drop from Darby onto Kyle who was on the apron. Both men back up and back in the ring,more hard hitting action between both men. A roll up from Darby but Kyle reverses to beat him.

#wrestling #youtube #aew wrestling #aew dynamite

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monty-glasses-roxy · 8 months ago

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Some Plex History things for Sewerhell Sunday:

There are only two animatronics from the closed Carnival attraction that haven't been scrapped to Sewerhell. The Halloween themed Jack-O-Moon (well, Eclipse really but his official name is Moon), and the spring themed Chica.

There's quite a lot of Chicas over the course of the Plex's lifespan. She's used as a filler character by Fazbear, meaning wherever there's a gap, they stick Chica there and call it a day. She's the most replaced of the animatronics, and is very rarely running an attraction actually built for her. There's also been a few more Cupcake animatronics than Chicas, with the most recent Chica being the only one to not have a Cupcake of her own at any point. She was intended to have one, but after the last Chica, they decided it wasn't worth it, despite the Cupcake already being built and ready to go.

#flys plex history #plex history: seasonal carnival #plex history: chica #i need to make a fucking note of my tagging system for this god damn #sewerhell sunday #yeah i know people aren't like. interested in little fact things like this for a concept most people are probably bored of #but it's still on my mind so I'm thinking I'll just save this stuff for sewerhell sunday now #unfortunately for everyonr including myself Sewerhell has just become part of my mental canon :(#i dunno blame the brain squirrels i guess lmao #anyway that last thing about the cupcake already being built?#uh. yeah. that's a fun situation!#those two aren't having much fun with that!!!

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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LIFE IS POWER

Is there some way to bite off some subset of the market, but this is not what will make you a better programmer, and yet you won't use it. They're not. Our rule of thumb, each layer of interpretation costs a factor of 10 in speed. Everyone makes up their own story about the Mona Lisa. How do you arrange the dials? They're less willing to do things they never anticipated, rather than a real downtown, Brasilia rather than Rome, Ada rather than C. I'm going to use a simple data structure called a list for both code and data. That's how Silicon Valley happened. Another unusual thing about Lisp—in fact, maybe they meant it to look that way. If you get cold-emailed by an associate at a VC firm has been successful in the past. There's no need for a Microsoft of France or Google of Germany.

Maybe you can, and then gradually increase the angle if you want to do something. So it is missing because it takes for granted the most important thing is not to say you suck than to figure out what you'd need to know the answer. This probably indicates room for improvement. There are two kinds of fear: fear of investing in startups with only one founder. Occasionally the things adults made you do were fun, just as a landmark in the history of computers, and I think expert hackers might be able to say about programming languages. Practically every successful company has at least two. In fact, the book can start as soon as possible. They know what they want to encourage startups locally, but government policy can't call them into being the way a pilot does when flying through clouds. Several turned down YC-funded startups have been doing to mitigate the risk of taking money from VCs in angel rounds can blow up the valuations for angels and super-angels are ruling out taking VC money.1 Even Einstein probably had moments when he wanted to design a language now that would appeal to users in a hundred years you won't have to write programs to solve, but I think there is room to beat languages like Perl and Python at their own game.

What seems like it's going to seem hard. They seemed wrong. But this Lisp must be a better one. Whichever route you take, expect a struggle. It won't get you a job is said to be even more astonished that a package would one day travel from Boston to New York via Memphis. When you learn to drive, one of our habits of mind to invoke. Our horror at that prospect was the single biggest thing that drove us to start building web apps.2 CEOs like to increase earnings. Kevin Kelleher suggested an interesting way to compare programming languages: library functions. This lets you launch faster, and b Larry and Sergey making the rounds of all the startups they'd invested in a position where a little more information to make each choice before you need to pay for kids.

For legibility it's more important that letters be easy to convince. C: Assembly language is too low-level. Perl by default, because it would make programs easier to read.3 I seem to have in common. Python's goal is regularity and readability, not power. You look at them and you think, then choose/design the language that feels best. The slightest error will make the whole thing collapse. Their format is convenient, and the latter is not simply that they like what they do. But programming languages are not just technology, but what you could grow a local silicon valley by giving startups $15-20k each like Y Combinator, that's because it is a very rare product that can't be made dramatically cheaper if you try. They'll invest in you if you start the way most fortunes are lost is not through excessive expenditure, but through bad investments.4 Didn't it get boring when you got to be about 15?

That was probably part of the language. At a test that doesn't matter. Really, Google was funded with angel money. It's just a more extreme variant where you don't just use your software yourselves on their behalf. And that is in fact the most difficult visual medium, because they have hard lives. There are two ways to do that with hardware, but because they want you to sell them more of your company. I doubt any government would have the balls to try this, or the deal was off. I've definitely had days when I get nothing done, because I'm doing stuff that seems, superficially, like real work. Nothing could be better, for a while and observing certain other signs, I have a hunch that it won't be a very promising startup indeed to get a lot of people to ask themselves about this explicitly. Bookstores are one of the biggest startup hubs in the world. Likewise an artist, after a while, can make visual perception flow in through his eye and out through his hand as automatically as someone tapping his foot to a beat.

They seem wrong. When do you stop fundraising? Originally the only way to get a big program is to start with a problem, then let your mind wander is like doodling with ideas.5 The version on the App Store feels old and crappy. Cobol and hype Ada, Java also play a role—but I think it is also related to succinctness. They believe this because it really feels that way to them.6 Don't get addicted to fundraising.

And if your startup succeeds, it will be dark most of the changes will be for domains that don't even exist yet. They think what they're building. They'd rather lose the deal than establish a precedent of VCs competitively bidding against one another. You could probably do it. The most important part of design is redesign. The reason funding deals take so long, but at first. As a result of arbitrary decisions from higher up. This was Henry Ford's plan. This works better when a startup has 3 founders than 2, and better when the leader of the company is now 18 weeks old. The most obvious is Google. The recipe for great work is: very exacting taste, plus the ability to win by doing? I never used Microsoft software, so it only affected me indirectly—for example, seems to be able to deal with the consequences.

Boston. Because investors don't understand the cost of the space it takes up on your screen. Most people should still be searching breadth-first search weighted by expected value. This is one case where it pays to be self-indulgent. It's so common for founders to be misled/mistaken about this that we designed a protocol to fix the problem. So it's wise not merely to be nice to investors who invested earlier at a higher price, but it did at least have the advantage, from each one's point of view of a programmer using any of the languages higher up the power continuum, he doesn't realize he's looking up. That's a problem for VCs, most of which fail, and one of the first big end-user, may be changing. So they'll always tend to develop software in: Comparisons between Ericsson-internal development projects indicate similar line/hour productivity, including all phases of software development, rather independently of which language Erlang, PLEX, C, C, or Java was used. The programmers I admire most are not, on the scale of the Industrial Revolution. Most startups that raise money and the metric that does matter financially, whether that batch of startups contains a big winner or not. The advice of parents will tend to use problems that are too short to be meaningful tests.

Notes

I never watch movies in theaters anymore. The first version would offend. I'd use to develop server-based applications, and tax rates don't tell the craziest lies about me. If you like a headset or router.

Strictly speaking it's impossible without a time, because software takes longer to write legislation that distinguishes them, not you.

Greek classics. Convertible debt can be more alarmed if you ban other ways to help SCO sue them.

I don't know how the stakes were used. Of course, but nothing else: no friends, TV, just that everyone's visual piano has that key on it, and VCs will offer you an artificially low valuation, or to be a predictor. After a bruising fight he escaped with a degree that alarmed his family how much you get of the big winners are all about to give it additional funding at a critical period. It's somewhat sneaky of me to do.

Wittgenstein: The French Laundry in Napa Valley. Perhaps the designers of admissions processes should take more than linearly with its size.

Our secret is to make a conscious effort to see.

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suzanneshannon · 4 years ago

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Chapter 4: Search

Previously in web history…

After an influx of rapid browser development following the creation of the web, Mosaic becomes the popular choice. Recognizing the commercial potential of the web, a team at O’Reilly builds GNN, the first commercial website. With something to browse with, and something to browse for, more and more people begin to turn to the web. Many create small, personal sites of their own. The best the web has to offer becomes almost impossible to find.

eBay had had enough of these spiders. They were fending them off by the thousands. Their servers buzzed with nonstop activity; a relentless stream of trespassers. One aggressor, however, towered above the rest. Bidder’s Edge, which billed itself as an auction aggregator, would routinely crawl the pages of eBay to extract its content and list it on its own site alongside other auction listings.

The famed auction site had unsuccessfully tried blocking Bidder’s Edge in the past. Like an elaborate game of Whac-A-Mole, they would restrict the IP address of a Bidder’s Edge server, only to be breached once again by a proxy server with a new one. Technology had failed. Litigation was next.

eBay filed suit against Bidder’s Edge in December of 1999, citing a handful of causes. That included “an ancient trespass theory known to legal scholars as trespass to chattels, basically a trespass or interference with real property — objects, animals, or, in this case, servers.” eBay, in other words, was arguing that Bidder’s Edge was trespassing — in the most medieval sense of that word — on their servers. In order for it to constitute trespass to chattels, eBay had to prove that the trespassers were causing harm. That their servers were buckling under the load, they argued, was evidence of that harm.

eBay in 1999

Judge Ronald M. Whyte found that last bit compelling. Quite a bit of back and forth followed, in one of the strangest lawsuits of a new era that included the phrase “rude robots” entering the official court record. These robots — as opposed to the “polite” ones — ignored eBay’s requests to block spidering on their sites, and made every attempt to circumvent counter measures. They were, by the judge’s estimation, trespassing. Whyte granted an injunction to stop Bidder’s Edge from crawling eBay until it was all sorted out.

Several appeals and countersuits and counter-appeals later, the matter was settled. Bidder’s Edge paid eBay an undisclosed amount and promptly shut their doors. eBay had won this particular battle. They had gotten rid of the robots. But the actual war was already lost. The robots — rude or otherwise — were already here.

If not for Stanford University, web search may have been lost. It is the birthplace of Yahoo!, Google and Excite. It ran the servers that ran the code that ran the first search engines. The founders of both Yahoo! and Google are alumni. But many of the most prominent players in search were not in the computer science department. They were in the symbolic systems program.

Symbolic systems was created at Stanford in 1985 as a study of the “relationship between natural and artificial systems that represent, process, and act on information.” Its interdisciplinary approach is rooted at the intersection of several fields: linguistics, mathematics, semiotics, psychology, philosophy, and computer science.

These are the same fields of study one would find at the heart of artificial intelligence research in the second half of the 20ᵗʰ century. But this isn’t the A.I. in its modern smart home manifestation, but in the more classical notion conceived by computer scientists as a roadmap to the future of computing technology. It is the understanding of machines as a way to augment the human mind. That parallel is not by accident. One of the most important areas of study at the symbolics systems program is artificial intelligence.

Numbered among the alumni of the program are several of the founders of Excite and Srinija Srinivasan, the fourth employee at Yahoo!. Her work in artificial intelligence led to a position at the ambitious A.I. research lab Cyc right out of college.

Marisa Mayer, an early employee at Google and, later, Yahoo!’s CEO, also drew on A.I. research during her time in the symbolic systems program. Her groundbreaking thesis project used natural language processing to help its users find the best flights through a simple conversation with a computer. “You look at how people learn, how people reason, and ask a computer to do the same things. It’s like studying the brain without the gore,” she would later say of the program.

Marissa Mayer in 1999

Search on the web stems from this one program at one institution at one brief moment in time. Not everyone involved in search engines studied that program — the founders of both Yahoo! and Google, for instance, were graduate students of computer science. But the ideology of search is deeply rooted in the tradition of artificial intelligence. The goal of search, after all, is to extract from the brain a question, and use machines to provide a suitable answer.

At Yahoo!, the principles of artificial intelligence acted as a guide, but it would be aided by human perspective. Web crawlers, like Excite, would bear the burden of users’ queries and attempt to map websites programmatically to provide intelligent results.

However, it would be at Google that A.I. would become an explicitly stated goal. Steven Levy, who wrote the authoritative book on the history of Google, In the Plex, describes Google as a “vehicle to realize the dream of artificial intelligence in augmenting humanity.” Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin would mention A.I. constantly. They even brought it up in their first press conference.

The difference would be a matter of approach. A tension that would come to dominate search for half a decade. The directory versus the crawler. The precision of human influence versus the completeness of machines. Surfers would be on one side and, on the other, spiders. Only one would survive.

The first spiders were crude. They felt around in the dark until they found the edge of the web. Then they returned home. Sometimes they gathered little bits of information about the websites they crawled. In the beginning, they gathered nothing at all.

One of the earliest web crawlers was developed at MIT by Matthew Gray. He used his World Wide Wanderer to go and find every website on the web. He wasn’t interested in the content of those sites, he merely wanted to count them up. In the summer of 1993, the first time he sent his crawler out, it got to 130. A year later, it would count 3,000. By 1995, that number grew to just shy of 30,000.

Like many of his peers in the search engine business, Gray was a disciple of information retrieval, a subset of computer science dedicated to knowledge sharing. In practice, information retrieval often involves a robot (also known as “spiders, crawlers, wanderers, and worms”) that crawls through digital documents and programmatically collects their contents. They are then parsed and stored in a centralized “index,” a shortcut that eliminates the need to go and crawl every document each time a search is made. Keeping that index up to date is a constant struggle, and robots need to be vigilant; going back out and re-crawling information on a near constant basis.

The World Wide Web posed a problematic puzzle. Rather than a predictable set of documents, a theoretically infinite number of websites could live on the web. These needed to be stored in a central index —which would somehow be kept up to date. And most importantly, the content of those sites needed to be connected to whatever somebody wanted to search, on the fly and in seconds. The challenge proved irresistible for some information retrieval researchers and academics. People like Jonathan Fletcher.

Fletcher, a former graduate and IT employee at the University of Stirling in Scotland, didn’t like how hard it was to find websites. At the time, people relied on manual lists, like the WWW Virtual Library maintained at CERN, or Mosaic’s list of “What’s New” that they updated daily. Fletcher wanted to handle it differently. “With a degree in computing science and an idea that there had to be a better way, I decided to write something that would go and look for me.”

He built Jumpstation in 1993, one of the earliest examples of a searchable index. His crawler would go out, following as many links as it could, and bring them back to a searchable, centralized database. Then it would start over. To solve for the issue of the web’s limitless vastness, Fletcher began by crawling only the titles and some metadata from each webpage. That kept his index relatively small, but but it also restricted search to the titles of pages.

Fletcher was not alone. After tinkering for several months, WebCrawler launched in April of 1994 out of the University of Washington. It holds the distinction of being the first search engine to crawl entire webpages and make them searchable. By November of that year, WebCrawler had served 1 million queries. At Carnegie Mellon, Michael Maudlin released his own spider-based search engine variant named for the Latin translation of wolf spider, Lycos. By 1995, it had indexed over a million webpages.

Search didn’t stay in universities long. Search engines had a unique utility for wayward web users on the hunt for the perfect site. Many users started their web sessions on a search engine. Netscape Navigator — the number one browser for new web users — connected users directly to search engines on their homepage. Getting listed by Netscape meant eyeballs. And eyeballs meant lucrative advertising deals.

In the second half of the 1990’s, a number of major players entered the search engine market. InfoSeek, initially a paid search option, was picked up by Disney, and soon became the default search engine for Netscape. AOL swooped in and purchased WebCrawler as part of a bold strategy to remain competitive on the web. Lycos was purchased by a venture capitalist who transformed it into a fully commercial enterprise.

Excite.com, another crawler started by Stanford alumni and a rising star in the search engine game for its depth and accuracy of results, was offered three million dollars not long after they launched. Its six co-founders lined up two couches, one across from another, and talked it out all night. They decided to stick with the product and bring in a new CEO. There would be many more millions to be made.

Excite in 1996

AltaVista, already a bit late to the game at the end of 1995, was created by the Digital Equipment Corporation. It was initially built to demonstrate the processing power of DEC computers. They quickly realized that their multithreaded crawler was able to index websites at a far quicker rate than their competitors. AltaVista would routinely deploy its crawlers — what one researcher referred to as a “brood of spiders” — to index thousands of sites at a time.

As a result, AltaVista was able to index virtually the entire web, nearly 10 million webpages at launch. By the following year, in 1996, they’d be indexing over 100 million. Because of the efficiency and performance of their machines, AltaVista was able to solve the scalability problem. Unlike some of their predecessors, they were able to make the full content of websites searchable, and they re-crawled sites every few weeks, a much more rapid pace than early competitors, who could take months to update their index. They set the standard for the depth and scope of web crawlers.

AltaVista in 1996

Never fully at rest, AltaVista used its search engine as a tool for innovation, experimenting with natural language processing, translation tools, and multi-lingual search. They were often ahead of their time, offering video and image search years before that would come to be an expected feature.

Those spiders that had not been swept up in the fervor couldn’t keep up. The universities hosting the first search engines were not at all pleased to see their internet connections bloated with traffic that wasn’t even related to the university. Most universities forced the first experimental search engines, like Jumpstation, to shut down. Except, that is, at Stanford.

Stanford’s history with technological innovation begins in the second half of the 20th century. The university was, at that point, teetering on the edge of becoming a second-tier institution. They had been losing ground and lucrative contracts to their competitors on the East Coast. Harvard and MIT became the sites of a groundswell of research in the wake of World War II. Stanford was being left behind.

In 1951, in a bid to reverse course on their downward trajectory, Dean of Engineering Frederick Terman brokered a deal with the city of Palo Alto. Stanford University agreed to annex 700 acres of land for a new industrial park that upstart companies in California could use. Stanford would get proximity to energetic innovation. The businesses that chose to move there would gain unique access to the Stanford student body for use on their product development. And the city of Palo Alto would get an influx of new taxes.

Hewlett-Packard was one of the first companies to move in. They ushered in a new era of computing-focused industry that would soon be known as Silicon Valley. The Stanford Research Park (later renamed Stanford Industrial Park) would eventually host Xerox during a time of rapid success and experimentation. Facebook would spend their nascent years there, growing into the behemoth it would become. At the center of it all was Stanford.

The research park transformed the university from one of stagnation to a site of entrepreneurship and cutting-edge technology. It put them at the heart of the tech industry. Stanford would embed itself — both logistically and financially — in the crucial technological developments of the second half of the 20ᵗʰ century, including the internet and the World Wide Web.

The potential success of Yahoo!, therefore, did not go unnoticed.

Jerry Yang and David Filo were not supposed to be working on Yahoo!. They were, however, supposed to be working together. They had met years ago, when David was Jerry’s teaching assistant in the Stanford computer science program. Yang eventually joined Filo as a graduate student and — after building a strong rapport — they soon found themselves working on a project together.

As they crammed themselves into a university trailer to begin working through their doctoral project, their relationship become what Yang has often described as perfectly balanced. “We’re both extremely tolerant of each other, but extremely critical of everything else. We’re both extremely stubborn, but very unstubborn when it comes to just understanding where we need to go. We give each other the space we need, but also help each other when we need it.”

In 1994, Filo showed Yang the web. In just a single moment, their focus shifted. They pushed their intended computer science thesis to the side, procrastinating on it by immersing themselves into the depths of the World Wide Web. Days turned into weeks which turned into months of surfing the web and trading links. The two eventually decided to combine their lists in a single place, a website hosted on their Stanford internet connection. It was called Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web, launched first to Stanford students in 1993 and then to the world in January of 1994. As catchy as that name wasn’t, the idea (and traffic) took off as friends shared with other friends.

Jerry and David’s Guide was a directory. Like the virtual library started at CERN, Yang and Filo organized websites into various categories that they made up on the fly. Some of these categories had strange or salacious names. Others were exactly what you might expect. When one category got too big, they split it apart. It was ad-hoc and clumsy, but not without charm. Through their classifications, Yang and Filo had given their site a personality. Their personality. In later years, Yang would commonly refer to this as the “voice of Yahoo!”

That voice became a guide — as the site’s original name suggested — for new users of the web. Their web crawling competitors were far more adept at the art of indexing millions of sites at a time. Yang and Filo’s site featured only a small subset of the web. But it was, at least by their estimation, the best of what the web had to offer. It was the cool web. It was also a web far easier to navigate than ever before.

Jerry Yang (left) and David Filo (right) in 1995 (Yahoo, via Flickr)

At the end of 1994, Yang and Filo renamed their site to Yahoo! (an awkward forced acronym for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle). By then, they were getting almost a hundred thousand hits a day, sometimes temporarily taking down Stanford’s internet in the process. Most other universities would have closed down the site and told them to get back to work. But not Stanford. Stanford had spent decades preparing for on-campus businesses just like this one. They kept the server running, and encouraged its creators to stake their own path in Silicon Valley.

Throughout 1994, Netscape had included Yahoo! in their browser. There was a button in the toolbar labeled “Net Directory” that linked directly to Yahoo!. Marc Andreessen, believing in the site’s future, agreed to host their website on Netscape’s servers until they were able to get on steady ground.

Yahoo! homepage in Netscape Navigator, circa 1994

Yang and Filo rolled up their sleeves, and began talking to investors. It wouldn’t take long. By the spring of 1996, they would have a new CEO and hold their own record-setting IPO, outstripping even their gracious host, Netscape. By then, they became the most popular destination on the web by a wide margin.

In the meantime, the web had grown far beyond the grasp of two friends swapping links. They had managed to categorize tens of thousands of sites, but there were hundreds of thousands more to crawl. “I picture Jerry Yang as Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times,” one journalist described, “confronted with an endless stream of new work that is only increasing in speed.” The task of organizing sites would have to go to somebody else. Yang and Filo found help in a fellow Stanford alumni, someone they had met years ago while studying abroad together in Japan, Srinija Srinivasan, a graduate of the symbolic systems program. Many of the earliest hires at Yahoo! were given slightly absurd titles that always ended in “Yahoo.” Yang and Filo went by Chief Yahoos. Srinivasan’s job title was Ontological Yahoo.

That is a deliberate and precise job title, and it was not selected by accident. Ontology is the study of being, an attempt to break the world into its component parts. It has manifested in many traditions throughout history and the world, but it is most closely associated with the followers of Socrates, in the work of Plato, and later in the groundbreaking text Metaphysics, written by Aristotle. Ontology asks the question “What exists?”and uses it as a thought experiment to construct an ideology of being and essence.

As computers blinked into existence, ontology found a new meaning in the emerging field of artificial intelligence. It was adapted to fit the more formal hierarchical categorizations required for a machine to see the world; to think about the world. Ontology became a fundamental way to describe the way intelligent machines break things down into categories and share knowledge.

The dueling definitions of the ontology of metaphysics and computer science would have been familiar to Srinija Srinivasan from her time at Stanford. The combination of philosophy and artificial intelligence in her studies gave her a unique perspective on hierarchical classifications. It was this experience that she brought to her first job after college at the Cyc Project, an artificial intelligence research lab with a bold project: to teach a computer common sense.

Srinija Srinivasan (Getty Images/James D. Wilson)

At Yahoo!, her task was no less bold. When someone looked for something on the site, they didn’t want back a random list of relevant results. They wanted the result they were actually thinking about, but didn’t quite know how to describe. Yahoo! had to — in a manner of seconds — figure out what its users really wanted. Much like her work in artificial intelligence, Srinivasan needed to teach Yahoo! how to think about a query and infer the right results.

To do that, she would need to expand the voice of Yahoo! to thousands of more websites in dozens of categories and sub-categories without losing the point of view established by Jerry and David. She would need to scale that perspective. “This is not a perfunctory file-keeping exercise. This is defining the nature of being,” she once said of her project. “Categories and classifications are the basis for each of our worldviews.”

At a steady pace, she mapped an ontology of human experience onto the site. She began breaking up the makeshift categories she inherited from the site’s creators, re-constituting them into more concrete and findable indexes. She created new categories and destroyed old ones. She sub-divided existing subjects into new, more precise ones. She began cross-linking results so that they could live within multiple categories. Within a few months she had overhauled the site with a fresh hierarchy.

That hierarchical ontology, however, was merely a guideline. The strength of Yahoo!’s expansion lay in the 50 or so content managers she had hired in the meantime. They were known as surfers. Their job was to surf the web — and organize it.

Each surfer was coached in the methodology of Yahoo! but were left with a surprising amount of editorial freedom. They cultivated the directory with their own interests, meticulously deliberating over websites and where they belong. Each decision could be strenuous, and there were missteps and incorrectly categorized items along the way. But by allowing individual personality to dictate hierarchal choices, Yahoo! retained its voice.

They gathered as many sites as they could, adding hundreds each day. Yahoo! surfers did not reveal everything on the web to their site’s visitors. They showed them what was cool. And that meant everything to users grasping for the very first time what the web could do.

At the end of 1995, the Yahoo! staff was watching their traffic closely. Huddled around consoles, employees would check their logs again and again, looking for a drop in visitors. Yahoo! had been the destination for the “Internet Directory” button on Netscape for years. It had been the source of their growth and traffic. Netscape had made the decision, at the last minute (and seemingly at random), to drop Yahoo!, replacing them with the new kids on the block, Excite.com. Best case scenario: a manageable drop. Worst case: the demise of Yahoo!.

But the drop never came. A day went by, and then another. And then a week. And then a few weeks. And Yahoo! remained the most popular website. Tim Brady, one of Yahoo!’s first employees, describes the moment with earnest surprise. “It was like the floor was pulled out in a matter of two days, and we were still standing. We were looking around, waiting for things to collapse in a lot of ways. And we were just like, I guess we’re on our own now.”

Netscape wouldn’t keep their directory button exclusive for long. By 1996, they would begin allowing other search engines to be listed on their browser’s “search” feature. A user could click a button and a drop-down of options would appear, for a fee. Yahoo! bought themselves back in to the drop-down. They were joined by four other search engines, Lycos, InfoSeek, Excite, and AltaVista.

By that time, Yahoo! was the unrivaled leader. It had transformed its first mover advantage into a new strategy, one bolstered by a successful IPO and an influx of new investment. Yahoo! wanted to be much more than a simple search engine. Their site’s transformation would eventually be called a portal. It was a central location for every possible need on the web. Through a number of product expansions and aggressive acquisitions, Yahoo! released a new suite of branded digital products. Need to send an email? Try Yahoo! Mail. Looking to create website? There’s Yahoo! Geocities. Want to track your schedule? Use Yahoo! Calendar. And on and on the list went.

Yahoo! in 1996

Competitors rushed the fill the vacuum of the #2 slot. In April of 1996, Yahoo!, Lycos and Excite all went public to soaring stock prices. Infoseek had their initial offering only a few months later. Big deals collided with bold blueprints for the future. Excite began positioning itself as a more vibrant alternative to Yahoo! with more accurate search results from a larger slice of the web. Lycos, meanwhile, all but abounded the search engine that had brought them initial success to chase after the portal-based game plan that had been a windfall for Yahoo!.

The media dubbed the competition the “portal wars,” a fleeting moment in web history when millions of dollars poured into a single strategy. To be the biggest, best, centralized portal for web surfers. Any service that offered users a destination on the web was thrown into the arena. Nothing short of the future of the web (and a billion dollar advertising industry) was at stake.

In some ways, though, the portal wars were over before they started. When Excite announced a gigantic merger with @Home, an Internet Service Provider, to combine their services, not everyone thought it was a wise move. “AOL and Yahoo! were already in the lead,” one investor and cable industry veteran noted, “and there was no room for a number three portal.” AOL had just enough muscle and influence to elbow their way into the #2 slot, nipping at the heels of Yahoo!. Everyone else would have to go toe-to-toe with Goliath. None were ever able to pull it off.

Battling their way to market dominance, most search engines had simply lost track of search. Buried somewhere next to your email and stock ticker and sports feed was, in most cases, a second rate search engine you could use to find things — only not often and not well. That’s is why it was so refreshing when another search engine out of Stanford launched with just a single search box and two buttons, its bright and multicolored logo plastered across the top.

A few short years after it launched, Google was on the shortlist of most popular sites. In an interview with PBS Newshour in 2002, co-founder Larry Page described their long-term vision. “And, actually, the ultimate search engine, which would understand, you know, exactly what you wanted when you typed in a query, and it would give you the exact right thing back, in computer science we call that artificial intelligence.”

Google could have started anywhere. It could have started with anything. One employee recalls an early conversation with the site’s founders where he was told “we are not really interested in search. We are making an A.I.” Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the creators of Google, were not trying to create the web’s greatest search engine. They were trying to create the web’s most intelligent website. Search was only their most logical starting point.

Imprecise and clumsy, the spider-based search engines of 1996 faced an uphill battle. AltaVista had proved that the entirety of the web, tens of millions of webpages, could be indexed. But unless you knew your way around a few boolean logic commands, it was hard to get the computer to return the right results. The robots were not yet ready to infer, in Page’s words, “exactly what you wanted.”

Yahoo! had filled in these cracks of technology with their surfers. The surfers were able to course-correct the computers, designing their directory piece by piece rather than relying on an algorithm. Yahoo! became an arbiter of a certain kind of online chic; tastemakers reimagined for the information age. The surfers of Yahoo! set trends that would last for years. Your site would live or die by their hand. Machines couldn’t do that work on their own. If you wanted your machines to be intelligent, you needed people to guide them.

Page and Brin disagreed. They believed that computers could handle the problem just fine. And they aimed to prove it.

That unflappable confidence would come to define Google far more than their “don’t be evil” motto. In the beginning, their laser-focus on designing a different future for the web would leave them blind to the day-to-day grind of the present. On not one, but two occasions, checks made out to the company for hundreds of thousands of dollars were left in desk drawers or car trunks until somebody finally made the time to deposit them. And they often did things different. Google’s offices, for instances, were built to simulate a college dorm, an environment the founders felt most conducive to big ideas.

Google would eventually build a literal empire on top of a sophisticated, world-class infrastructure of their own design, fueled by the most elaborate and complex (and arguably invasive) advertising mechanism ever built. There are few companies that loom as large as Google. This one, like others, started at Stanford.

Even among the most renowned artificial intelligence experts, Terry Winograd, a computer scientist and Stanford professor, stands out in the crowd. He was also Larry Page’s advisor and mentor when he was a graduate student in the computer science department. Winograd has often recalled the unorthodox and unique proposals he would receive from Page for his thesis project, some of which involved “space tethers or solar kites.” “It was science fiction more than computer science,” he would later remark.

But for all of his fanciful flights of imagination, Page always returned to the World Wide Web. He found its hyperlink structure mesmerizing. Its one-way links — a crucial ingredient in the web’s success — had led to a colossal proliferation of new websites. In 1996, when Page first began looking at the web, there were tens of thousands of sites being added every week. The master stroke of the web was to enable links that only traveled in one direction. That allowed the web to be decentralized, but without a central database tracking links, it was nearly impossible to collect a list of all of the sites that linked to a particular webpage. Page wanted to build a graph of who was linking to who; an index he could use to cross-reference related websites.

Page understood that the hyperlink was a digital analog to academic citations. A key indicator of the value of a particular academic paper is the amount of times it has been cited. If a paper is cited often (by other high quality papers), it is easier to vouch for its reliability. The web works the same way. The more often your site is linked to (what’s known as a backlink), the more dependable and accurate it is likely to be.

Theoretically, you can determine the value of a website by adding up all of the other websites that link to it. That’s only one layer though. If 100 sites link back to you, but each of them has only ever been linked to one time, that’s far less valuable than if five sites that each have been linked to 100 times link back to you. So it’s not simply how many links you have, but the quality of those links. If you take both of those dimensions and aggregate sites using backlinks as a criteria, you can very quickly start to assemble a list of sites ordered by quality.

John Battelle describes the technical challenge facing Page in his own retelling of the Google story, The Search.

Page realized that a raw count of links to a page would be a useful guide to that page’s rank. He also saw that each link needed its own ranking, based on the link count of its originating page. But such an approach creates a difficult and recursive mathematical challenge — you not only have to count a particular page’s links, you also have to count the links attached to the links. The math gets complicated rather quickly.

Fortunately, Page already knew a math prodigy. Sergey Brin had proven his brilliance to the world a number of times before he began a doctoral program in the Stanford computer science department. Brin and Page had crossed paths on several occasions, a relationship that began on rocky ground but grew towards mutual respect. The mathematical puzzle at the center of Page’s idea was far too enticing for Brin to pass up.

He got to work on a solution. “Basically we convert the entire Web into a big equation, with several hundred million variables,” he would later explain, “which are the page ranks of all the Web pages, and billions of terms, which are the links. And we’re able to solve that equation.” Scott Hassan, the seldom talked about third co-founder of Google who developed their first web crawler, summed it up a bit more concisely, describing Google’s algorithm as an attempt to “surf the web backward!”

The result was PageRank — as in Larry Page, not webpage. Brin, Page, and Hassan developed an algorithm that could trace backlinks of a site to determine the quality of a particular webpage. The higher value of a site’s backlinks, the higher up the rankings it climbed. They had discovered what so many others had missed. If you trained a machine on the right source — backlinks — you could get remarkable results.

It was only after that that they began matching their rankings to search queries when they realized PageRank fit best in a search engine. They called their search engine Google. It was launched on Stanford’s internet connection in August of 1996.

Google in 1998

Google solved the relevancy problem that had plagued online search since its earliest days. Crawlers like Lycos, AltaVista and Excite were able to provide a list of webpages that matched a particular search. They just weren’t able to sort them right, so you had to go digging to find the result you wanted. Google’s rankings were immediately relevant. The first page of your search usually had what you needed. They were so confident in their results they added an “I’m Feeling Lucky” button which took users directly to the first result for their search.

Google’s growth in their early days was not unlike Yahoo!’s in theirs. They spread through word of mouth, from friends to friends of friends. By 1997, they had grown big enough to put a strain on the Stanford network, something Yang and Filo had done only a couple of years earlier. Stanford once again recognized possibility. It did not push Google off their servers. Instead, Stanford’s advisors pushed Page and Brin in a commercial direction.

Initially, the founders sought to sell or license their algorithm to other search engines. They took meetings with Yahoo!, Infoseek and Excite. No one could see the value. They were focused on portals. In a move that would soon sound absurd, they each passed up the opportunity to buy Google for a million dollars or less, and Page and Brin could not find a partner that recognized their vision.

One Stanford faculty member was able to connect them with a few investors, including Jeff Bezos and David Cheriton (which got them those first few checks that sat in a desk drawer for weeks). They formally incorporated in September of 1998, moving into a friend’s garage, bringing a few early employees along, including symbolics systems alumni Marissa Mayer.

Larry Page (left) and Sergey Brin (right) started Google in a friend’s garage.

Even backed by a million dollar investment, the Google founders maintained a philosophy of frugality, simplicity, and swiftness. Despite occasional urging from their investors, they resisted the portal strategy and remained focused on search. They continued tweaking their algorithm and working on the accuracy of their results. They focused on their machines. They wanted to take the words that someone searched for and turn them into something actually meaningful. If you weren’t able to find the thing you were looking for in the top three results, Google had failed.

Google was followed by a cloud of hype and positive buzz in the press. Writing in Newsweek, Steven Levy described Google as a “high-tech version of the Oracle of Delphi, positioning everyone a mouse click away from the answers to the most arcane questions — and delivering simple answers so efficiently that the process becomes addictive.” It was around this time that “googling” — a verb form of the site synonymous with search — entered the common vernacular. The portal wars were still waging, but Google was poking its head up as a calm, precise alternative to the noise.

At the end of 1998, they were serving up ten thousand searches a day. A year later, that would jump to seven million a day. But quietly, behind the scenes, they began assembling the pieces of an empire.

As the web grew, technologists and journalists predicted the end of Google; they would never be able to keep up. But they did, outlasting a dying roster of competitors. In 2001, Excite went bankrupt, Lycos closed down, and Disney suspended Infoseek. Google climbed up and replaced them. It wouldn’t be until 2006 that Google would finally overtake Yahoo! as the number one website. But by then, the company would transform into something else entirely.

After securing another round of investment in 1999, Google moved into their new headquarters and brought on an army of new employees. The list of fresh recruits included former engineers at AltaVista, and leading artificial intelligence expert Peter Norving. Google put an unprecedented focus on advancements in technology. Better servers. Faster spiders. Bigger indexes. The engineers inside Google invented a web infrastructure that had, up to that point, been only theoretical.

They trained their machines on new things, and new products. But regardless of the application, translation or email or pay-per-click advertising, they rested on the same premise. Machines can augment and re-imagine human intelligence, and they can do it at limitless scale. Google took the value proposition of artificial intelligence and brought it into the mainstream.

In 2001, Page and Brin brought in Silicon Valley veteran Eric Schmidt to run things as their CEO, a role he would occupy for a decade. He would oversee the company during its time of greatest growth and innovation. Google employee #4 Heather Cairns recalls his first days on the job. “He did this sort of public address with the company and he said, ‘I want you to know who your real competition is.’ He said, ‘It’s Microsoft.’ And everyone went, What?“

Bill Gates would later say, “In the search engine business, Google blew away the early innovators, just blew them away.” There would come a time when Google and Microsoft would come face to face. Eric Schmidt was correct about where Google was going. But it would take years for Microsoft to recognize Google as a threat. In the second half of the 1990’s, they were too busy looking in their rearview mirror at another Silicon Valley company upstart that had swept the digital world. Microsoft’s coming war with Netscape would subsume the web for over half a decade.

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surejaya · 5 years ago

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The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything...Fast

Download : The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything...Fast More Book at: Zaqist Book

The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything...Fast by Josh Kaufman

Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of practicing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct complex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By completing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the methods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard keyboard, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the simple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Figure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcomponents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accurate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chainsaws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.

Download : The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything...Fast More Book at: Zaqist Book

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tokupedia · 8 years ago

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Kamen Rider 45th Anniversary File: Kabuto

2006

Magical Source! Mystic Force! Power Rangers Mystic Force premieres on ABC and Jetix in the west.

After two seasons of the same lead cast, the Pretty Cure franchise introduces fans to a pair of brand new Cures, Cure Bloom and Cure Egret, in Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star. The series airs alongside the new Sentai and Rider series. Super super spark, Splash Star!

After the mild success of creating Garo, Keita Amemiya takes a break from the directors chair to be a character designer on a TV series called Madan Senki Ryukendo. The show was sponsored by Capcom and created by Takara Tomy and We’ve Inc. Ryukendo revolves around a trio of magical heroes who use special keys and talking weapons to defeat an army of demons terrorizing a small city. It also serves as a sort-of-prequel to the Tomica Hero Series as that series is set in the same universe.

Meanwhile, some of the staff of Garo worked on a short adult revival of the 1970s P-Productions TV show Lion Maru, Lion Maru G.

Endless Bouken Spirits! Super Sentai celebrated its 30th anniversary/season with GoGo Sentai Boukenger, a treasure hunting themed Sentai that features special segments at the end of the show highlighting the important milestones and tropes of the franchise as well as teams from each season.

Ultraman celebrates its 40th anniversary year with Ultraman Mebius, a show that pays homage to the entirety of the franchise with some classic monsters reappearing to fight the rookie Ultra and guest appearances by previous Ultramen.

Gamera returns for one last film: Gamera the Brave (Coke products not included.)

2006 was the 35th anniversary of Kamen Rider.

Since this momentous occasion was so special, the staff of Toei decided to go back to basics with the next series (especially given the staff/writing debacle with Hibiki the previous year). No extreme excess amounts of gimmicks, no strange mashups of motifs, just good old fashioned fightin’ bugmen.

Early Kabuto concept art

A later concept sketch showcasing the overall final look of the main hero. Note that one of these designs would be used for a future Rider in the show. Copyright to PLEX and Ishimori Pro.

One interesting thing about Kabuto is the allusion to the franchise’s roots. The Masked Rider Project began on April 3, 1971 after the Natives landed on Earth. This leads to fan theory that the Kamen Riders, at least the tech-based ones, have their belts, cybernetics (in the case of Showa Riders) and equipment made from reverse engineered alien technology. A bit of expanded universe lore leaned a bit factual weight to that theory outside normal canon, as Kamen Rider Stronger’s Final Form Ride by Decade was a Zecter.

But this was just a date, a fanservice nod in terms of the show.

The insect motif designs for most of the Riders in the series were essentially modernized variants of the Showa Riders: A Japanese Rhino Beetle (Stronger/Kabuto), A member of the Vespa family of insects (Super-1/TheBee), a Dragonfly (V3/Drake) and two Grasshopper themed Riders (1 and 2/Kickhopper and Punchhopper). It also payed homage to the more recent motif of a Stag Beetle (Kuuga/Gatack) for the main supporting Rider.

There were also new additions, including a Scorpion Rider and a trio of new Beetle motif Riders as the annual movie exclusive Riders. (Hercules, Caucasus and Centaurus).

The reboot Takeshi Hongo makes a cameo in one episode (made even stranger since there was no other reboot film in theaters at the time, as The Next was still being filmed.) Given the real Kamen Rider 1 exists as does Kabuto in later continuity, this is best hand waved as just a promotion plug for Kamen Rider: The First’s DVD.

There were also 35th anniversary files building up to the summer movie God Speed Love, which essentially functioned similar to the ones Boukenger showed for Super Sentai’s 30th. (These 45th anniversary files are the unofficial, fanmade sort of successor to this bit.)

During a few of the Super Hero Time closing segments, Souji would interact with Satoru aka BoukenRed. This was no surprise since the two sibling shows were celebrating an anniversary year together, but it was historic as nobody had seen the actors of a main Rider and a Red Ranger interact with one another before in conversations.

Most Super Hero Time segments kept the heroes separate and interacted only with their show’s cast onscreen aside from transformations and dialogue, so this was unheard of at the time. This event would sow the seeds of future crossovers in the Heisei era such as Den-O and Kiva, the Decade crossover with Shinkenger and eventually lead up to the Taisen films and spring crossover specials.

A media trend happening during the mid aughts was The Matrix film franchise, whose “bullet time” visual effect was often duplicated and/or parodied. Kamen Rider was no exception, as the staff and SFX team at Toei decided to experiment with variants of the visual mechanic by giving the heroes of the show a unique form of super speed to counter equally fast enemies.

Another achievement this installment made was Kamen Rider Kabuto has the distinction of being the first main Kamen Rider to go into space!

(Space, the final path of heaven... these are the Hyper Clock Ups of the superhero Kabuto. His continuing mission, to destroy strange new monsters, to seek out new recipes and quote his Grandmother. To boldly kick where no (Rider)man has kicked before! *TNG theme plays*)

Let’s not waste any time, we must talk of the path of Heaven who rules over all!

Mr. Tendou circa 2007 in Paris, France, traveling as the greatest chef humanity has ever been graced with.

Real Name: Souji Tendou (formerly Souji Kusakabe)

In 1971, Earth was visited by aliens called the Natives, who offered to protect humans in secret from the more hostile members of their race: The Worm. They did so by developing and creating the Masked Rider System and ZECT, a tech company/defense force designed to hunt down the Worms. They assume human forms in an attempt to blend in and live peaceful lives among the humans.

In 1998, a shower of meteorites hit the Japanese district of Shibuya, killing countless people and causing massive property damage. Among those killed were the Kusakabes, save for the youngest son, Souji and his cousin Jyuka. While this disaster was tragic, something even worse came with the meteorites: The Worm.

Young Souji received a belt from someone to one day help humanity. Jump ahead to 2006 and he gets his chance after seeing a Worm attacking and a Zecter appears, which comes to him and he transforms into Kabuto to destroy it. Having lived with his grandmother after the death of his parents, Souji upon first impression comes off as egotistical and eccentric. But he is a caring soul and has a Buddhist monk-like sense of peace. He also really loves his grandmother and both he and Jyuka quote her philosophies often.

Kabuto does not align himself with ZECT and does hero work on his own whims, as he rightfully does not trust them. He investigates the mystery of ZECT and the Worms and sometimes makes hard decisions that make the hero come off as cruel or questionable in motive.

After defeating the rouge members of ZECT and the Worms, Souji becomes a famous world-traveling chef. But should the need arise, he will call upon his Zecter once more to fight evil wherever it may be.

Powers:

As his insert song lyrically describes him, Kabuto is the Lord of Speed. Able to travel faster than the speed of light itself in Hyper Form, Kabuto is one of the fastest Kamen Riders around.

His Clock Up power gives him the ability to move at super speed to the point where everything around him is at a standstill or slowed down considerably. In addition, Kabuto’s armor grants him enhanced defense and the tachyon energy it or combined Zecters absorb can be channeled to execute a finisher or weapon attack. The belt and its systems, being alien tech. have a self repair function that allows Kabuto to restore the Armor or Belt even after heavy damage, the extent of time to repair depends on the damage. (Ex. The ability to use Clock Up again in mere seconds after his Clock Up system was electrocuted by Stronger. )

Kabuto’s Hyper Form can also allow the Rider to break the time barrier and alter history however he sees fit to save someone or immobilize his target for a quick finisher. The exact limit of the length he can go back in time is unknown, but it has been shown he can go back at least 7 years into the past. This also results in some timey-wimey scenarios where Kabutos from alternate timelines can appear and disappear. It also means that the Hyper Zecter cannot be destroyed on a permanent basis, as another can be called upon from a different point in time or an alternate timeline. In Hyper form, Kabuto can fly or jump higher using a tachyon energy powered jetpack which can also be used for space travel. Kabuto also has immense super strength in Hyper form, able to do Superman-like feats with the help of his jetpack such as push a giant meteorite.

Souji is a very skilled combatant, as part of his fighting style utilizes evading his opponent to read their movement before finding tells and countering with rapid punches or slashes. He also utilizes his super speed and surroundings to his advantage. Souji is also very skilled at many things with examples including cooking, martial arts, and remaining cool under pressure even in the most tense of situations.

Weaknesses:

Kabuto is a difficult opponent to defeat, as he can simply time jump to take his foes out before they can even plan an attack or just mow them down with Clock Up/Hyper Clock Up. But there are ways to defeat him, some superheroes such as Kamen Rider Faiz Axel form or Red Buster from Go-Busters can match regular Kabuto’s speed. So it stands to reason a foe with powerful super speed and attack power could defeat him.

Another way is to create a “Clock Down” wave, creating a subspace field of energy that disrupts Kabuto’s tachyon absorption and thus forces him out of Clock Up. Without his signature ability, a more skilled combatant could overpower him.

Decade is shown to be more than a match for Kabuto by copying his Clock Up and utilizing other Rider powers in tandem with that ability to crush him. If another ZECT Rider gains a Hyper Zecter, such as Kamen Rider Caucasus in God Speed Love, Kabuto would have trouble defeating them unless he used his own or formed a strategy to take them down.

Gear:

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Kabuto_Zecter

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Rider_Belt

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Kabuto_Kunai_Gun

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Kabuto_Extender

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/ZECT_Mizer

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Hyper_Zecter

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Perfect_Zecter

Signature Finishers

youtube

Rider Kick: By pressing the three buttons on his Zecter and flipping the horn lever back and forth, Kabuto charges tachyon energy into his feet to execute a powerful kick. Kabuto’s kick comes in three variations: A normal 180 degree roundhouse kick, a counter kick (360 degree roundhouse kick, which is used to surprise opponents who attempt to attack him from behind), and a flying side kick. The Hyper Version is way more powerful and utilizes the tachyon jetpack to rocket jump higher to land the kick with even greater force.

Avalanche attacks (Kunai Gun): The Kunai Gun multipurpose weapon can execute a Rider Shooting attack, a Rider Thrust stab or a Rider Slash.

Maximum Hyper Cyclone: Kabuto’s most powerful attack. By summoning the Drake, TheBee, Sasword and Perfect Zecter in Gun Mode and combining them, Kabuto channels the maximum output of tachyons into a powerful energy burst that annihilates anything in its path. The recoil from this powerful gun blast is so rough that Kabuto either needs to use his jetpack to keep himself steady or use Hyper Clock Up to stop time to slow his inertia from the recoil or do both.

Maximum Hyper Typhoon: A powerful Rider Slash that channels the maximum output of tachyons into either an enhanced sword cut to kill one foe or a powerful swordbeam that destroys multiple targets.

Enemies:

ZECT

A tech/defense organization founded by the Natives and humanity, ZECT itself is kind of dubious at times. This is not helped by the fact that Worms who are not Natives and harbor schemes of their own are lurking in ZECT. ZECT often has problems among its ranks, so it is hard to trust some of the personnel as some of them could backstab, be a Worm or go under orders to kill or detain a Rider. Things get worse in an alternate timeline where infighting causes ZECT to split into two warring factions with the main version of ZECT’s leader plotting to end Humanity by bringing more of....

The Worm

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Worm

Worms are a mimetic humanoid insect alien species from an unknown region of space who arrived on Earth on a Meteorite that crashed in Shibuya back in 1998. They commonly possesses the ability to move at unbelievable speed after shedding their pupa stage, fire energy blasts and can mimic a human right down to their memories ala Invasion of the Body Snatchers, usually killing the original or mimicking a recently dead person. Worms have a variety of insectoid or arthropod forms they can take on and powers, ranging from the ability to stop time completely to attack unseen to shooting webs covered in acid.

There are good Worms called the Natives who wish to help humans and some who are even close to the main characters and get a happy ending. But I’ll leave that as a surprise....

Kabuto was a good series as it remembered the franchise’s roots and tried to honor them one last time before heading out into a new era of change and progress in motifs and innovations for the Kamen Rider series. And that path is the one we still walk now...

#kamen rider #45th anniversary #kamen rider kabuto #souji tendou #clock up #rider kick #superhero #henshin #zecter #change beetle #cast off

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hopefulfestivaltastemaker · 4 years ago

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June 28, 2020

My weekly review of things that are happening. Topics include charter cities, middle housing, and fertility trends.

Charter Cities

This week the Charter Cities Institute released a set of reference guides: an overview, model legislation, a model charter, and a risk mitigation guide. The content is not particularly deep or earth-shattering, but they lay out key principles in a clear manner.

In the intro guide, CCI articulates a few basic urban design principles, among other things. These are not specific to charter cities but are good principles that should apply to all urban development. Following the work of Alain Bertaud and other urban economists, they articulate principles of letting land markets function, with the planner’s role limited primarily to establishing the transportation grid.

Right now the world is going through the most intense period of urbanization in history. Not just the most intense to this point, but under most demographic projections, the most intense that it will ever be. It is important to design new cities well now, because it will be far harder to retrofit in the future. These conditions also create great temptation for planners to impose their visions of a model city; such visions should be treated with skepticism unless backed by solid principles.

Next year CCI plans to release a more detailed urban design guide. This is at a time when my own consultancy is gearing up work on urban design, so I’ve put in an inquiry as to whether we could work together on that. I doubt it, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Middle Housing in Hillsboro

The City of Hillsboro, OR is undertaking a study to modify zoning regulations to facilitate the development of middle housing, defined roughly as a density characteristic of rowhouses, n-plexes, and small apartment buildings. This implements last year’s Oregon House Bill 2001 and should be done by July 2022.

I had a good conversation with a city council member here on the subject recently. Generally I hesitate to describe conversations with elected officials in any detail, but I found it encouraging. One thing I learned is that, since my previous experience working on housing issues in an activist capacity was with the YIMBYs in San Francisco, I have to calibrate my expectations of a pro-housing agenda to a suburban context, and in a region that is economically well off but not like the Bay Area.

If we recognize that single family detached housing is the norm and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, we notice that lot size and setbacks are two important zoning issues that tend to fly under the radar. Based on some calculations I did a while ago with Urban Cruise Ship (that will need to be reviewed and updated), lot size regulations are more important than apartment height restrictions in governing the spatial extent of cities.

Understanding Fertility Declines

This week I took another stab at the literature on the demographic transition, having the previous week found it to be richer than I expected. Following are some observations.

It is not just Oded Galor, but many other researchers who explored the quality/quantity tradeoff and argued that modernity has accentuated the tradeoff, leading to smaller families. This review by Lawson and Mace is good example.

On the cultural evolution hypothesis of Newson et al., the best thing I found was this review, by Newson and some different collaborators, which elaborates the hypothesis and adds some empirical evidence. It is a fascinating read and makes a number of provocative claims. Having read it, I give the hypothesis a bit more credence now. In short, the cultural evolution hypothesis holds that nonkin interactions tend to be more antinatal in character than kin interactions, and this effect should depress fertility as social networks evolve toward a predominance of nonkin interaction.

Heidi Colleran provides a more comprehensive and recent review of research into the cultural evolution hypothesis. It wasn’t the easiest read, and by the time I got to it, my capacity to absorb information was getting saturated, so I will have to return to it later.

Living near grandparents encourages parents to have more children. This paper and several others provide strong evidence. This observation could be seen as supporting either the quality/quantity tradeoff (reducing the costs to parents of children) or the cultural evolution hypothesis (living near grandparents enhances kin interactions).

A few additional readings: contemplation of mortality apparently makes men want to have more children, community-level education is more important than individual education in fertility in Poland, and among the Tsimane in Bolivia, actual fertility exceeds desired fertility by greater amounts farther from towns.

Stepping back, I would say there are three major classes of explanations. In what I perceive to be descending order of salience, I would identify those classes as the family of cultural evolution hypotheses, the quantity/quality tradeoff, and the opportunity cost argument (the notion that modernity provides new options, such as noncommittal relationships, career fulfillment for women, entertainment, etc., that take priority over children). I haven’t recently reviewed anything that squarely fits into the opportunity cost category, so I can’t comment much on where researchers are with that.

I’m not done with the issue, but now I think it is time to focus on some narrower hypotheses before trying to further understand the macro trend. For example, what are the effects of education, tax structure, city size, and other quantifiable factors on fertility trends?

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hazyheel · 5 years ago

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Best of the Super Juniors 2019 Day 6 Review

First up was Rocky Romero vs. Ren Narita, both at 0 points. The two started with some standard grappling. Narita was definitely holding his own in this match, but Rocky then introduced strikes into the mix. Rocky worked over Narita’s arm during the match, softening him up for the armbar. Interestingly enough, Rocky was not working the injured arm, showing that he is still avoiding the sneaky style. There was one roleup in particular that was really close, where Narita countered Rocky’s roleup and nearly got the win. Once again, Narita was only able to get a release belly to belly suplex rather than the bridge that normally gets him a win, so Rocky kicked out. Rocky was eventually able to get the full extension on the armbar, and Narita had to submit. Romero: 2, Narita: 0.

After the match, Rocky pulled Narita to his feet by the hair and slapped him, because of the disrespect that Narita showed him during the preview tag match. He offered his hand for a handshake, but Narita again slapped it away.

Grade: B-. Fine match, good showing for Narita. I think they worked really well together, and in the future they could have a good match. I think that they could have a much better match when Narita really develops his own style. Happy to see Rocky finally get on the board.

Then we had Bandido vs. DOUKi, which has some history. Apparently the two know each other, as Bandido helped Douki get settled in Mexico when he first got to the country. Adds an extra dimension. Douki tried to start before the bell, but Bandido intercepted him by throwing his jacket at him and nailed a kick to the face followed by a crazy suicide dive. Douki was trash talking the entire time, but it was in either Spanish or Japanese so I don’t know what he was saying. The match really picked up when Bandido was in control, gaining a much faster pace. Bandido knew every move that Douki would make before he did it, and they really tore into each other with stiff Lucha offense. Douki nearly got the win with a necktie choke, but Bandido was able to get to the ropes. Bandido locked in a submission of his own, a crossarmbar with a head trap. It looked super cool, but Douki was able to fight out. At one point, Douki went for the suplex de la luna, but Bandido reversed into a almost a spike rollup for a near fall. Bandido then hit a go to sleep, followed by the 21 plex to get his first win of the tournament. Bandido: 2, Douki: 2.

Grade: B+. I think this was both guys best match yet. Finally Bandido was allowed to go fast, and that he did. The two understood each other’s moves, and they really went to town on each other. I don’t know if it will end as their best, especially for Bandido, but I really enjoyed this. And Bandido finally won!

Into a BULLET CLUB civil war, Robbie Eagles took on El Phantasmo in a match I was definitely looking forward to. The two gave each other a handshake to start it out, which is cool to see. They went to too sweet, but Phantasmo broke it up by attacking his teammate. Eagles had the speed advantage while Phantasmo had the strength. Phantasmo even went for Kevin Kelly, and when Eagles tried to convince him to bring it back in the ring, Phantasmo shoved him into the ringpost. When the two actually went into the ring, they wrestled really well, floating from one high flying move to the next. During Phantasmo’s spot where he stomps on the crotch on his opponent in the tree of woe, Eagles was able to deliver a german off the top rope. Love spots like that. The two went back and forth with high octane moves and counters, with one of my favorites being Eagles avoiding a moonsault, and then hitting a reverse rana for a near fall. The finish came when Phantasmo pulled Eagles’ bandana over his eyes, and then he nailed him with a superkick and greetings from chasewood park for the win. Phantasmo: 6, Eagles: 4.

After the match, Eagles yelled at his teammate, but they hit the too sweet and moved on. Phantasmo is much more of a heel.

Grade: B. Good match, not quite as dramatic as I thought it would be. It was kinda jokey in the beginning, but I think it really developed Phantasmo’s character. Phantasmo was kinda outclassed by Eagles, as shown in the beginning, so he cheated. He wants to win more than anything, and he is fine with being a total dick about it. They had a lot of good intereactions, but focused a little too much on talking during the match. I still liked it, and it was a good build to the match against Ospreay on Wednesday.

And another conflict in a faction, Will Ospreay took on YOH for Chaos supremacy. They shook hands in the beginning, and the crowd was actually pretty split between the two, which delighted them. Ospreay showed his strength advantage early on. Yoh had to target the legs because of the large size advantage from Ospreay. This, of course, meant that Yoh locked in the figure four, a classic way to assault the knee. At one point, Ospreay went for his classic backflip off of the opponent, but he collapsed when he landed, allowing Yoh to lock in a calf crusher. Yoh went for a superplex, but Ospreay slipped out and hit cheeky nandos. He then went to the top rope for a shooting star press, but Yoh rolled away. Ospreay landed on his feet and just collapsed, allowing for Yoh to lock in the calf crusher once again for a tense sequence that really felt like Ospreay would tap. Yoh continued to work Ospreay’s knee, and at one point went for a dragon screw leg whip, but Ospreay blocked it and hit a double stomp. Yoh was able to hit the dragon suplex, but he released it to send Ospreay into the turnbuckle. He then went for the move proper, but Ospreay flipped out of it, and hit a roundhouse and superkick, Yoh hit a knee lift, and then Ospreay hit a spanish fly for a near fall. He then picked Yoh up for a Stormbreaker. Ospreay: 6, Yoh: 2.

Grade: A-. Phenomenal. I loved these guys going at it. They have only improved since last year. I loved the knee work throughout the match and how much Ospreay had to work through it. Yoh seemed like he would win several times, and really went blow for blow with the much bigger star. This was great, and I think Yoh has big things in his future. Match of the night.

And in the main event, Ryusuke Taguchi vs. BUSHI. Taguchi started out with his goofy gimmick, and it was quite funny to finally get that out of a Taguchi match. At one point, he was Irish Whipped into the ropes, and he ran for probably a minute because Bushi just didn’t do anything. Eventually he hit a drop toehold and a dropkick on a slow moving Taguchi. Taguchi fought back and was able to hit a Kokeshi, but then Bushi started to work the ass, starting with several chair shots. That was a central focus during the match, as well as an odd “T” chant that Taguchi encouraged. Bushi worked hard to be able to hit his spike DDT on the apron, which Taguchi was desperately trying to avoid. At one point when Bushi went for his rewind kick, Taguchi just grabbed the ankle and locked in an ankle lock, for a sequence that ended in a ref bump. Bushi faked the mist and Taguchi ducked, so he got him on the way up, as well as a rewind kick. Taguchi still managed to avoid the MX though, then hitting a jumping ensiguri. Bushi went for a dropkick and Taguchi picked the ankle for a quick ankle lock, a dodon for a near fall, and then more agony in the ankle lock for the submission victory. Taguchi: 6, Bushi: 0.

Grade: B+. Good match with a lot of good comedy, and a fun closing stretch. Bushi worked really well with Taguchi, playing a no fun heel, while also holding his own in pure wrestling. This was a really good blend of comedy and action, with each understanding how the other’s style works. This was a very good main event. While not the best on the card, it was certainly a good way to send us home happy.

Overall Grade: B+

Pros: Bandido vs. Douki; Eagles vs. Phantasmo; Ospreay vs. Yoh; main event

Cons: poor Kevin Kelly got attacked

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