#its also faster which is comedy by default

[betterbemeta]

not to Girls und Panzer or anything but I think a WH40k Chimera tank that's been taken over by some 13 year old girls would be very funny.

[books]

Writer Spotlight: Daniel Kibblesmith

Daniel Kibblesmith is an Emmy-nominated writer for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and has written comics for Marvel and D.C., including Marvel’s Loki (2019) and Black Panther Vs. Deadpool (2018). He co-wrote the humorous How To Win At Everything (2013), and is also the author of the picture books Santa’s Husband (2017) and Princess Dinosaur (2020). He was one of the founding editors of ClickHole.com, and his comedic writing can be seen in places like The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and APM’s Marketplace. He works and lives in New York with his favorite author, Jennifer Wright.

What are your inspirations for Loki?

Loki is ever inspired by himself (or herself, or themselves), and that was how it worked for me, too. I was a big fan of Loki as a villain in the MCU, but I hadn’t read a ton of Thor-related comics until I got the gig. The exception was the Journey Into Mystery series by Kieron Gillen and a whole roster of great artists who—alongside Tom Hiddleston's MCU appearances—really set the mold for the modern take on the character. So I re-read that, and from there I expanded outward into past and future, and read the tremendous Agent Of Asgard comics written by Al Ewing, Lee Garbett (and other artists), as well as going back to early 60's Loki appearances orchestrated by his own creator gods: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber. 

Aside from comic-related research, one of my editors, Wil Moss, recommended Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, which was incredibly fun, concise, and helpful in giving me a more rounded view of Loki’s history and personality. I’m a big Sandman fan as well, so it was inspiring to stand at the nexus of Kirby’s influence on Gaiman, and mythology’s impact on both of them, and to see their impact on me, first as a reader, and then as a writer, as I set out to place these mythological figures in an approximation of our actual world.

What aspects of yourself do you see or put into the characters you write?

Loki’s defining trait, especially in the original myths, is that he is both the creator and the solver of the problem. Because no one else is clever enough to get him out of the mess he started, he’s barely ever fully exiled from their society. As a former “problem” student, whatever that means, the aspect of Loki I relate to the most—and I think a lot of people do—is the idea that you can mean well, try your best, and still get punished for it.

Authority figures love to reward cleverness if it comes with obedience. I tell a story in the introduction letter to Loki #1 about getting detention for pointing out, during an assembly, that two teachers were inexplicably wearing the same clothing. I obviously didn't break any rules but the people who make the rules found me to be inconvenient and disruptive, so I got punished.

When I hear the phrase, “too smart for your own good,” I think of kids like that who don’t even know they’re about to be labelled as “bad”, which can alter their entire future and identity—for something that, in any adult circumstance, would be seen as attentiveness, or creativity, or intelligence, or just relatively harmless humor. Loki is a kid who got treated this way for a thousand years, so, of course, he became a villain. 

The story we’re telling now is about coming back from that—healing, forgiveness, and the responsibility that comes with an ever-racing, ever-curious brain, the default setting of which is casual mayhem. Loki’s superpower is one that real people actually have to live with and manage: “I just noticed a vulnerability in our world. What would happen if I acted on it?”

You’ve written for television, the internet, for magazines, and have authored books and comic books — how does the writing process vary for these different forms? Is there one you prefer?

I often compare it to playing different video games because the needs and reflexes are different. Writing satire about the news is faster-paced, and comes with its own formulas, just like character-based narrative. Writing a monologue script based on a news event is very reactive, like Mario Kart: foot on the gas, hit the important stuff, miss the stuff that will slow you down. Writing fiction can be a lot more exploratory, like Zelda: I walked around for two hours today but I found a really important acorn, that I really needed for the stuff I'll do next. Writing comics can be very nose-to-the-grindstone, but for me, breaking story is often incidental and happens at the gym, or before sleep, or in the shower. The major architecture of my narrative writing exists as fragments on my phone and in pocket notebooks, born out of little sparks of inspiration. The heavy lifting happens in fleshing them out and editing them together into something cohesive.

If you could live in the universe of any book or comic book, which one would you pick and why?

I’m not the biggest Harry Potter fan—I've read five of them, I think. But I would choose to live in the Harry Potter universe because as near as I can tell, it’s just our current universe but with far superior candy.

If you could have a conversation with anyone, real or fictional, who would it be and what would you talk about?

Probably Gumby. He seems chill.

What advice would you offer to your fourteen-year-old self?

Fourteen is honestly too young for most actionable advice from successful adults, and you’re not really in charge of what you’re going to do that day, anyhow. I usually tell college-aged writers to finish entire writing samples, that ideas and potential are far less attractive to people who can hire you than finished scripts or stories are. But I can’t imagine my career taking off based on the screenplay I would've finished at fourteen. So my advice would be to start drinking coffee and working out because both of those things are going to make you feel better in a world of things that are trying to make you feel terrible—including, in some cases, young adults roughly your age and twice your size with whom you are trapped, by the hundreds, in a massive brick building, in which they are often inexplicably literally trying to maim you. In case anyone was wondering where comic and comedy writers—and trickster gods—come from.

Thanks so much, Daniel! Follow @kibblesmith! If you’re lucky enough to be attending New York Comic Con in October, Daniel will be signing in Artist Alley at Booth A-28.

Photo: Nick (IG: @goldenparachutephotography) for Midtown Comics. 

[calliecat93]

Top 5 Things I Liked About Red vs Blue: Season 2

(Top 5 Dislikes)

One post down, one more to go… and then twenty-six more to go for the rest of this series. Why did I decide to do this again? Meh, whatever. Let’s just get on with it as we resume looking over Season 2.

#5. Machinima

Okay, this might sound weird, but hear me out. The machinima last season was… basic. Not bad mind you, there is only so much that you can do without a lot of creativity and resources. Resources that RT didn’t have at this point in time. But mostly, they just went through the default motions. Nothing really stood out. It had some cool stuff, like them somehow managing to blow the Warthog on top of Red Base. I think they even said in the commentary that trying to replicate it for the remaster was a pain in the ass. Still, it just didn’t stand out, though the humor made you not notice.

Clearly, the RT guys wanted to push themselves a little more now that they knew how Halo operated and they could machinimate better. Which they did. I noticed a lot of little things when watching the season. Like having Caboose jumping up and down during the opening gunfight while behind a rock, or even Doc just pretending to fire his blaster. Or having Simmons more or less trembling in the finale when his… ugh… fax parts act up and you can tell what Grif is staring at when he questions it. Or adding in things like Lopez’ note in the finale, and even having it written in binary. Heck, we even have smoke come out of Grif’s helmet when Simmons catches him in the act.

These are small things, but it helps make the world and characters feel a little more alive. Clearly, machinima has its limitations, and we’re a long way away from them adding in animation. But creative people will find a way to work within their limitations, and even use those limitations to their advantage. Considering how long this show has been going, I’d say that they succeeded.

#4. Caboose’s Mind

One of the most memorable parts, and one with some actual effects on the characters, is when Church and Tex go into Caboose’s mind to kill O’Malley. It’s one of the weirdest, yet funniest parts of the season. We get to see how Caboose views everyone, with Tucker being stupid and Church being obsessed with being Caboose’s best friend. He gets them wrong, but it makes sense because it’s how /Caboose/ interprets these individuals. They aren’t supposed to be accurate. It’s especially funny when we see the Reds and only Simmons is close to right Grif is Yellow (which they outright did to prove that he was Orange to viewers), Donut is a girl since that’s what Caboose thought at the time, and Sarge has a pirate accent instead of a Southern one. 

It’s just funny to see Caboose, who at this point had been portrayed as the most dim-witted, and how he views these people. It kinda reflects what he wants with Church being his best friend and the Reds fearing him and his greatness. His ideal version of himself is pretty much a cool version of himself, though otherwise not too different. Church’s reaction and frustration at all fo this, especially Caboose!Church, only makes it funnier as is Tex being unfazed by all of it. It did kinda throw me off when I watched it the first time, but God it’s funnier on rewatch now that I know what’s going on. It’s a nice look into Caboose’s mind, and we got to see glimpses of the others int he S14 episode Head Cannon.

I think the biggest things though were for one, we got a location that wasn’t Blood Gulch finally. Sure it’s pretty much a standard video game map with a bunch of cubes, but after having the only setting be a canyon, it was refreshing. We also have some major impact with this since due to all the chaos, Caboose’s character becomes what it is now. We can debate all day how we should view Caboose and his intellectual level, but I do think that this helped endear the character to people and allowed him to stand out much, much more. Even now I know very few people, if anyone, who dislikes Caboose so while maybe they should acknowledge that he was more or less brain-damaged, the character himself has become better due to this. Which is nice~

#3. O’Malley Subplot

Speaking of Caboose’s mind, the O’Malley plot was by far the standout in this season. At first, it wasn’t too much since only Tucker cared about Caboose’s sudden murderous behavior. But once Tex came back, things picked up. While the backstory wasn’t totally accurate, it would certainly lead to more ahead. The fight in Caboose’s mind was fun. Tucker got to show some genuine competence when he came up with the plan to make the Reds turn their comms off and even using Lopez as a backup plan. With how much more competent Tucker grows later once circumstances pretty much force him to, this was an early sign showing that he is capable. He just needs to be pushed into doing it.

O’Malley himself didn’t stand out too much, just being kinda murderous. Then he escaped into Doc. I’ll go more into this next season, but this was the best decision ever. Doc is a whiny goody-two-shoes while O’Malley is gleefully, over-the-top evil. The contrast of the two personalities works super well and is just really funny to watch, though again it applies more for the next season. By the end, O’Malley makes his move and firmly sets himself up as the first proper Big Bad of the series, and he’s the perfect villain for the Blood Gulch Chronicles.

Overall, the whole subplot was really fun even though it did kind of have a slow start. It brought back Tex, had some really funny moments like the Reds' reactions to Lopez’s horrible love song. At least Donut liked it, haha~ It gave us our first proper villain, which led to one Hell of an insane finale. Even everything in between with Donut getting captured by the Blues and them trying to use this to make Sarge build them new bodies was fun to watch. The first half of S2 s super fun, but the second half is, without doubt, the best part for me. O’Malley was the catalyst, and to this day is one of my favorite villains. Love it~

#2. Improved Production Standards

Season 1 was good but flawed. It was clear that the RT guys weren’t really sure what they were doing. Audio quality was meh, jokes could drag, and the pacing was rather slow. It makes sense though when you read about what the original plans were. RvB was meant to be a miniseries, and nothing more. But pretty much a combination of them not getting to what they planned as soon as they thought (Donut was supposed to be in pink armor much sooner for example, and they realized how long it was taking to get there) as well as just coming up with more ideas extended things to a nineteen episode run. So there was no long term plan and things like writing and machinima were done in mere days in between releases. Plus there were only two main machinimators, Burnie and Geoff, and if you listen to the original S1 commentary they are both clearly exhausted. Burnie even said on a one-on-one podcast with Geoff on how they had pretty much had every conversation ever and they’d be like some old married couple just staring at each other. You can find it here if you’re interested, it’s a fun one~

So yeah… when you look back you can kinda tell that S1 was a bit of a rush job, and a tiring one at that. It’s still very good and like I said, they found ways to use so much you barely notice things were made up on the fly. But clearly, they needed a better system. Enter Matt Hullum. He had already been voicing Sarge, but he ended up stepping in to play a larger behind the scenes role. He joined Burnie on writing and directing, and thus they started planning things much farther ahead. As such, they knew the general plot and thus things could be tightened. The pacing is much better with episodes feeling faster, but having plenty of things happening. I already talked about the machinima improvements, which having Matt as well as Gus coming back from Puerto Rico also helped there. The voice acting, while still amateur, improved as well as the audio mixing. The filter is still a little distracting, but it and the general audio mixing is greatly improved. Pretty much every aspect of S1 was improved big time. It wasn’t perfect, but still, they clearly put a lot in creating a more quality product.

Season 2 had a hard job. Season One had to prove that this was a show worth watching. Season 2 had to prove that it could keep going and wasn’t just a one-hit-wonder. And ho boy did they. It’s funnier, it’s more ambitious, and even starts adding in some story. This season got the viewers from last time to come back, and probably brought in some new ones. It proved that this was a show that was sticking around and that RT had staying power. If this season failed, RvB would probably just be remembered as this funny Halo show. But it succeeded because they wanted the show to keep succeeding and be good, and that effort shows.

#1. Improved Characterizations

The thing that I enjoyed most about Season 1 was the character interactions. They just had natural chemistry and their interactions were funny. The characters themselves though were a little one-note. They had personality, but they didn’t really stand out when you compare them to other comedies like The Simpsons or South Park. I guess that RT realized this as well because this is where the characters really begin to become the same ones that we know now. Not all of them mind you like Simmons and Tucker are the least fleshed out here, but even then the signs of who they would become are there with things like Simmons clinginess to Sarge and the joke about Tucker’s rock, as well as the previously mentioned show of competence when pushed.

Donut and Grif show more of their personality, with Donut expressing his hobbies like home decor and growing to like his lightish-red armor. Grif shows his more lazy slacker attributes, like sleeping during meetings and forgetting the ammo, and his unhealthy habits like smoking and his constant eating. Which he’s pretty much doing intentionally to annoy Simmons and mess up the parts that he got from him. Lopez also got a lot of personalities now that he can talk. Namely, after the Reds nearly kill him and the Blues use him for their own means, he hates them all and his apathetic personality has stuck ever since. Poor guy has had such a hard time, haha. And I already went into Caboose, so there's no need to repeat myself. Even Shelia got sassier this season~

The one I think got the most improvement though is Sarge. In S1, he was just kind of a standard sergeant character you could find in just about any military movie, and the voice reflected it. Here? Matt just goes off the wall. He said in the S2 commentary that Sarge is pretty much the combination of various 50’s character tropes, like the grumpy old guy and the mad scientist. It shows. Sarge’s hatred of Blues and love of warfare are much more evident, especially in the finale. His hatred of Grif is also much more played up. We see that he is absolutely insane with his conspiracy theories about Lopez being brainwashed by the Blues instead of reprogrammed and turning Simmons into a cyborg instead of just getting a new robot. Sarge is the opposite of sensible, and having this guy be the leader and forcing everyone to follow his plans due to it is freakin’ hilarious. Matt exaggerating the accent from this point on only adds to this characterization and is much, much more fitting.

The characters, in my opinion, are the best part of Red vs Blue. This season demonstrates that very well. Unlike S1 where there were only shades of their later portrayal, this one uses broad strokes. I think some of the better voice acting can also be due to this since the cast now has more of a character to fool around with instead of just having to more or less act like their everyday selves. The characters were stronger, and as such the interaction and humor were even better. As such, it is my favorite part of Red vs Blue Season 2. Can they keep it up in Season 3? Well… we’ll find out soon~

[prismmarketing]

Is it possible to monetize YouTube videos? Some Have Already Been!

How has the success of YouTube Shorts been so far, and can they be monetized? Learn how to make Shorts profitable and understand how the short-form video format works from Prism Digital Marketing one of the best video marketing companies in Dubai.

 On March 18, 2021, YouTube Shorts made its debut in the United States. The new short-form video experience, which YouTube describes as “...for producers and artists who want to film short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones,” is still in its early stages.

 According to a post on the Official YouTube Blog by Todd Sherman, the Product Lead of YouTube Shorts, the player has already topped 6.5 billion daily global views. Since the beginning of December, the number of Indian channels employing creation tools (where they are being beta tested) has more than tripled.

 Will YouTube Shorts Become Popular?

 We previously said that there are three target audiences for YouTube Shorts: 

● Artists and creators.

● Subscribers and viewers.

● Brands and advertisers.

 And, as I previously stated, if creators and artists don't see an increase in the number of viewers and subscribers that advertisers and marketers want to target, this three-legged stool will topple over faster than you can say "Vine."

 That's why I didn't focus on the new editing capabilities, which could do things like link together various video clips. The fact that short, vertical videos will be "easily discoverable on the YouTube homepage (on the new Shorts shelf), as well as across other portions of the app" was the deciding factor.

 So, has YouTube's new Shorts shelf altered the way videos are discovered?

 When Sherman announced the launch of YouTube Shorts in the United States, he made it clear that creation was simply one aspect of the service. YouTube also sought to make it easier for viewers to discover Shorts and artists, hence the new section on the homepage dedicated to them.

 He continued,

 “As more people make and watch Shorts, we expect our systems to improve, allowing us to better assist you in discovering new material, trends, and artists you'll enjoy.”

 According to YouTube, it is continually experimenting with new methods to present content, and Shorts can currently be accessed in the following places: 

● On YouTube's home page and in the Shorts section.

● By default, featured on channel pages.

● By selecting the module titled "What to Watch Next."

● Using the YouTube search engine.

● Subscription feeds for users.

 Creators should use the hashtag #Shorts in the title or description of their film to help it get discovered and featured on YouTube. So, what else can you do to make your YouTube Shorts more optimized?

 What's Working for Creators of YouTube Shorts

 Take a peek at some of the most popular Shorts from the last few weeks to get a sense of what people are watching. According to Tubular Labs, the YouTube video with the most views was uploaded on or after March 18, 2021, and it was only 1:00 in length. “THIS NEARLY GAVE HIM A HEART ATTACK!” it says.

 It was uploaded by Woody & Kleiny Extra on March 26, 2021, and it presently has a view count of almost 140 million. Oh, and the hashtags #shorts, #comedy, and #bestfriends are all used.

 This is, without a doubt, a prank video. That's a genre that's been around since CarrieNYC's "Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise" received 74.9 million views in October 2013. Nonetheless, Woody & Kleiny Extra deserves credit for repackaging this classic wine in a new bottle. It's also worth mentioning that Woody & Kleiny Extra are from the United Kingdom.

Is YouTube Shorts available in that nation already? Certainly not. Many stations in various regions of the world are interested in attracting American viewers and subscriptions. Is it true that this worked? During the two weeks leading up to the posting of "THIS NEARLY GAVE HIM A HEART ATTACK!" the channel received 180 million views and 275,000 subscribers.

 In the two weeks after the prank film was uploaded, it received 330 million views and 389,000 subscribers (47.7 percent of their YouTube audiences come from the U.S., while 7.8 percent come from the U.K.). The authors of their Short also encourage visitors to subscribe to our main channel in the description.

 In the two weeks after the prank film was released to their secondary channel, their primary channel received 5.5 million views and 20,000 subscribers.

 “TwinsFromRussia latest tiktok #shorts” is in second place. This 0:31-long film, which was uploaded on March 22, 2021, has already received 81.3 million views (notice the #shorts hashtag in the title).

 “Good always wins bad!” question identical twins Kirill and Filipp Revega, award-winning performers, musicians, bloggers, and public characters, in a pinned comment to their video. “Are you in agreement?”

 Although it dates back to Aesop's tales, this genre is relatively new to YouTube. Who knows, maybe we'll start seeing other Shorts that deliver a story's moral in under a minute.

 “The Tiktok food Challenge #shorts” is in third place. Tiktoriki's amusing video.” This 0:23-long film, which was uploaded on March 24, 2021, has already had 80.3 million views. The hashtag appears in the title once again.

 What genre do you think this video belongs in? It's similar to a mukbang, when two hosts eat varying amounts of food while conversing with the audience. This genre first gained popularity in South Korea in 2010, and it has since become a significant global craze. Why not adopt mukbang shorts? Since March 18, 2021, 96,900 accounts have uploaded 525,000 videos to YouTube with the hashtag #shorts.

 In the three weeks ending April 8, 2021, they collectively received 17.4 billion (with a "b") views. So, how popular are YouTube Shorts? Without a doubt.

 Can YouTube Shorts Be Profited From?

 Now we come to the crux of the matter: can YouTube Shorts be made profitable? If you watch the three short-form videos mentioned above again, you'll see that they all contain advertisements.

 However, keep in mind that there are two types of Shorts:

 ● The first is content made with the Shorts camera, which has a 15-second time limit.

● The other is any vertical video with the hashtag #Shorts in the title or description that is less than 60 seconds long.

 We shouldn't be surprised to learn that the lengthier version of Shorts is supported by advertisements. This could explain why the lengthier version is used in nearly three-quarters of the films published with the #Shorts hashtag since March 18, 2021. Is this to imply that making a shorter version of Shorts is a "faith-based initiative"?

 Let's take a look at Sherman's post once more.

 Near the end, he discusses how YouTube has aided a generation of creators in turning their passion into a business, paying out more than $30 billion to them in the last three years. Okay, that's OK. But what about Shorts' shorter version?

 Sherman continued,

 “Because Shorts is a new way to watch and produce on YouTube, we're rethinking how to commercialize Shorts and reward creators for their work.”

 They're still figuring out how to monetize this format in the future, so stay tuned for more information. Alternatively, the solution may already be hiding in plain sight, as I suspect.

 YouTube unveiled BrandConnect on June 16, 2020, promising to make it easier for creators and marketers to be more real and effective. Henry Scott-Green, the Product Manager of YouTube BrandConnect, said in a post on the Official YouTube Blog unveiling insights-based matchmaking tools to provide eligible creators additional access to sponsored content:

 “Our proactive matchmaking delivers highly engaging and relevant sponsored content because of the connection that creators have with their followers. And it's working: the average deal size across the complete service package has increased by more than 260 percent in the last two years.”

 He went on to say that new measurement tools like Brand Interest Lift, Influencer Lift, and organic view-through dialogues would provide more accountability and real-time marketing results. He explained that this allows marketers to assess the impact and return on investment of influencer marketing on YouTube.

BrandConnect's first launch was hampered by a number of problems, including the COVID-19 epidemic and early eligibility limits. (Only creators with 25,000+ subscribers in the United States were eligible.) So, if YouTube is looking at future revenue options, my utterly unscientific wild guess is that one of them will likely be reducing the constraints for BrandConnect participation.

 Keep an eye out for more developments. Prism Digital Marketing a local video marketing agency will keep you updated and can help you in creating Shorts that will trend and will be very profitable.

[recentanimenews]

THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH Solves a Mystery in Episodes 197-203

Welcome back to THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH! Noelle Ogawa here, and I'm your host as we run through the latest group of episodes of Naruto! We're still deep in filler territory, but this time we're in for a longer, much more concentrated story. There's a bit of a break from the "comedy" that we've gotten used to in terms of filler, and we're moving onto something that feels a lot different than usual: The threat is more along the lines of long-term espionage, something echoing the spy work of real-life ninjas. 

  The village is in danger from a famed ninja who's been on the Anbu watchlist for quite some time. He has a plan brewing, one that's years in the making, and he's ready to execute it. The village is on high alert, and it's up to the gang of genin to save the day. And this time, the whole group is here!

  So let's see what everyone thought!

This is the first time we’ve had a major filler arc that focused more on long-term espionage VS a large military threat. Do you think they’ve handled the differences well?

Paul: Aside from some clunky writing (“Oh, look, it's the never-before-seen grandpa character that Naruto is good friends with!”) and some scenes that required everyone to act like blockheads in order to advance the plot, I enjoyed the Genno Infiltration arc. It had ninjas being sneaky, it emphasized the teamwork of all 11 of the main Genin characters, and despite it being filler, Genno's plot grew into a convincing threat that challenged three generations of Leaf Villagers.

Kevin: I’ll get more into it in my highs and lows, but in short: mostly yes. I really like the different style of enemy and flow of the arc, and especially liked how many backups Genno had planned. Then the ending happened.

Jared: I think there’s certainly some flaws in this arc, but it was fun to see how everyone handled the dual threats happening at the same time. There was enough mystery and intrigue scattered throughout with the idea of a full scale assault and/or fighting an enemy who’s already within the borders. There’s a great shot of Guy waiting for news on if they’re about to be invaded which really captures a deep feeling of dread and anxiety.

Joseph: This was one of the best filler arcs of late. The ending was just shy of Naruto farting into the camera, but the rest of it really brought everyone together, and I liked the fact that it was all set in the village. 

Danni: As far as I’m concerned, it was the best filler arc in the show so far. I found the whole thing riveting. The show never quite tipped its hand as to what Genno was up to, and Genno was a great adversary for the group. His methods were some of the most ninja-like we’ve seen from anyone, and his motives were incredibly sympathetic: Old soldier trying to complete his lifelong mission despite its futility is really interesting as is. Throwing in that late twist about his son manages to make it heartbreaking as well. Really stellar group of episodes here.

Kara: I really enjoyed this arc a lot. There were a few minor issues I had with the underpinning of it all (the uncertainty of Genno’s character was essential to the story, but some of it didn’t scan as tidily even accounting for him being undercover), but overall it felt really well thought out with genuine stakes and a chance for lots of characters to do what they do best. Also I kind of love that the main flaw in Genno’s plan stemmed from taking Naruto complaining about his buddies at face value - guess he’s never seen the show before.

Carolyn: I wasn’t a super big fan of the ending, I thought that was pretty cheesy and basically undid everything that happened before it. But overall, I enjoy seeing a different sort of threat and the opportunity to break up all the fighting. 

Unlike a lot of the filler, here the whole genin squad (and Shikamaru) are all working together. How do you think that was handled? Is there anyone you wanted to see more of?

Paul: My only complaint is that the older, more experienced ninja took too long to realize that certain elements of Genno's plans were straight out of the “Sneaky Dude Playbook”. Tricks such as faking one's own death or traps that are actually diversions must be commonplace in a world populated by shinobi, so characters like Tsunade should be more cautious before committing all of the village's fighting forces to a mission based on incomplete intel, although I guess the point is that the Fifth Hokage is still inexperienced and impulsive.

Kevin: The actual squad was probably the weakest part for me. People didn’t really bounce off of each other, and they were just kind of walking around for the most part, not even having especially interesting conversations or thinking about potential backup plans like Shikamaru eventually realized. I didn’t really get a sense of urgency outside of when the kids were about to accidentally blow up the entire village.

Jared: Everyone played their roles accordingly in the younger group which led to some interesting groups that had to work together. Unlike the other filler arcs that are just Naruto and 2-3 others, it gave everyone something to do and made them useful. Like Paul said, the older group was kind of left to dry in terms of somehow not seeing what was truly happening, so that could have been handled better.

Joseph: The division of capabilities was all pretty straightforward, but they handled it decently for the most part. Like Paul said, the hardest hurdle to jump was the fact that all the Genin somehow figured this out faster than the higher ups. I know it has to be that way, but it made Tsunade and the rest appear a little dimwitted. 

Danni: I enjoyed seeing all of them working together. It felt like a natural culmination of all their different combinations in the filler thus far. We’ve seen them all work together in various small groups, so it made sense they’d be familiar enough with one another to be able to work together as one big group. 

Kara: I liked seeing so many of them utilized. I also liked seeing Naruto’s Clone Jutsu used for something besides “literally whatever needs doing,” and the occasional reminders that our ninja kids are actually surprisingly good at what they do. It’s one thing for a random chucklehead to get knocked out by Rock Lee, but to have a master ninja genuinely impressed by Hinata’s Byakugan is pretty cool.

Carolyn: After going through almost the whole series, the Chunin exams are still my favorite arc. Anything that brings everyone back together is great in my book. I liked seeing all the characters in one place and I think everyone’s strengths were mostly catered to appropriately.

Someone you thought you were decently close to, such a neighbor or coworker, turns out to be a spy. How do you think you’d react? What would you do?

Paul: I'd dump them like a bad habit. That may sound cold, but someone I thought I knew was recently outed as a sexual predator, and I cut them out of my life and took steps to knock the pegs out of the platform that I'd unwittingly helped them build. If I found out someone I loved was plotting to destroy my entire community, I'd show them no mercy.

Kevin: Depends on if I know that they know that I know. If I think I can still act without them knowing I’m trying to stop them, I’ll probably call the authorities to get someone to act who actually has counter espionage training. If I know that I’m busted and may be putting people in danger by going through with plan A, I’ll probably just not do anything at all, since at least then I’m not making the situation worse. If the spy is about to actively harm people and I’m the only one who can do anything… honestly that’d probably be an in-the-moment decision. I’d like to think that I’d try to stop them, but I also know that my default is either of the two other plans, so jumping into action isn’t something that I’d naturally do.

Jared: I’d probably be very disappointed and sad, but at the same time, I’d have to cut them out of my life if they’re being distrustful. Although, I’d also be confused on why a spy is trying to get close to me in the first place.

Joseph: Depends on what kind of spy work they’re doing. If it seems cool, pays well, and doesn’t hurt anyone, I’d like to see what kind of cut I could get out of it. I’m kidding, of course… unless I’m not?

Danni: I’d start Googling “How to check your house for bugs. No, not that kind. The other one. The spy one.”

Kara: Like Paul, I not long ago had to drop someone hard - not a sexual predator, but a very abusive and underhanded person. It’s not entirely the same as the spy scenario, but there's a lot of similarities, with the main one being coming to terms with the fact that this person and I had never actually been friends and I was only ever a means to an end. I actually hurt for Naruto in this arc because of exactly that (although his version had a mitigating twist at the end). All you can really do is drop everything and, if at all possible, warn anyone else who might be affected.

Carolyn: Are they a good spy or a bad spy?

On the other hand, let’s say you were a ninja spy sent to infiltrate the village. How would you go about your mission? What would you do?

Paul: I'd try to take a page out of Genno's book. He was an excellent spy, and he fit in so well that he deceived an entire village of seasoned ninja not once but twice. Leaf Village only caught on to his schemes because he deliberately tipped his hand. So I'd keep my head low, perform my cover job in a slightly below average fashion, and be pleasantly mediocre in my social interactions, so as not to draw attention to myself.

Kevin: Depends on the time scale. If I have infinite time, I’d honestly probably do what Genno did: Just keep coming back to the village multiple times to set up traps and backups until I have a ridiculously convoluted web of plans that is almost impossible to counter in its entirety. If I have a limited amount of time, then it becomes more relevant to know what my exact mission is, whether I’m infiltrating to kill a target, steal a document, destroy the village, or something else. 

Jared: Genno had the right ideas in that you’ve got to be sneaky, conniving, and also be able to blend in to the point that no one’s going to miss you if you suddenly leave. You want to be able to do whatever side job that you have to do at a level that’s essentially the equivalent of a C-. Passable, but you’re not excelling. After that, it’s about getting out without anyone raising a stink about it.

Joseph: I loved Genno’s ability to be lowkey. I feel like I could totally blend into the background for a bit, but I also like attention too much to keep it up for long, and I’d probably spill the beans too soon and fail.

Danni: I can’t count the number of times at work I’ve just been going about my business like normal and a coworker beside me turns around and jumps because they had no idea I was there. I seem to naturally just have no presence wherever I go, so honestly I could probably just walk in and take whatever I need without anyone noticing. 

Kara: I’m gonna be real, I’d fail. I suck at lying and sneaking around. You know that bit in Into the Spider-Verse where Miles plays too dumb? That’s me. Don’t hire me as a spy; I’ll stay back at my village and do paperwork.

Carolyn: If you act fairly stand-offish and antisocial most people just leave you alone. So, I would do that and then do my spy thing.

Genno admits that the main reason why he went about his plan is because he felt he needed to fulfill his mission before he dies. Regardless of the morality of this choice, do you sympathize with his thought process? 

Paul: I don't agree with his goals, but I understand where Genno is coming from, and that aspect of his motivation added a spicy bit of generational conflict to a story that was already brimming with subterfuge. They also made it clear that Genno wasn't really trying to destroy Leaf Village so much as he was re-enacting a “treasure hunt” in memory of his deceased son, although I'm not sure if that particular bit of characterization was necessary.

Kevin: I sympathize with it insofar as that’s something that makes sense for an actual ninja. Even if it’s decades later, you still have a mission to fulfill. Genno’s also one of the best ninja we’ve seen in the entire show, so it makes sense that out of everyone, he’d be the one to follow through with that ideal. As an actual action, I can’t say that I agree with it. Much like any grudge, letting it fester for decades on end is admirable from one angle, but pitiable or childish from most others. 

Jared: He was a ninja to the end. I wouldn’t say I sympathize with his entire thought process, even if it was somewhat of a ruse. If he’d really been trying to harbor all of that ill will for so long, I’d consider that to be just unhealthy. 

Joseph: I don’t know that I buy the fact that the charges he left behind would only deal superficial damage to the plateau, but yeah, I can sympathize with wanting to see the fruits of your labor before you pass on. 

Danni: An old ninja caught in the existential crisis of dying before his now futile lifelong goal can be completed? Hell yeah! A devoted soldier having to come to terms with the reality that his nation has either changed or no longer exists feels like a conflict straight out of Metal Gear Solid. I love it. 

Kara: At first I wasn’t feeling it. But then I remembered ninja in this universe give literally everything to their profession. It’s the thing that’s always kind of freaked me out the most about the whole series, that level of devotion to the point of body modification, self-harm, or destroying any chances for any other roles in your life. So in that context, in the context of Naruto, I can absolutely understand feeling that need.

Carolyn: A treasure hunt was his goal, though. Could he not have done that some other way without putting an entire village on edge? I thought the ending didn’t quite make sense, to be honest.

We get another recap episode, with the top 5 fights so far. Do you agree with the choices? If not, what would your top 5 be?

Paul: The fights between the Leaf Village Genin and Orochimaru's disciples were over-represented. I don't know if I have a Top 5 exactly, but I wish Sasuke vs. Orochimaru in the Forest of Death, Rock Lee vs. Gaara during the Chunin Exams, and the Third Hokage vs. Orochimaru had made the list.

Kevin: I find it interesting that the top 5 fights basically boil down to the Sasuke Retrieval arc minus Tayuya and Kimimaro. Personally, I think that speaks volumes to how good the arc was and why it is still remembered so fondly, although I probably would’ve swapped Kiba’s fight out for Gaara vs. Lee.

Jared: I think the top 5 were surprising to say the least, and that’s also the nicest thing I can say about it. Off the top of my head, I’d probably go with Lee vs. Gaara (how on Earth did this not make it?!), Naruto vs. Sasuke (Valley of the End), Naruto vs. Gaara, Hinata vs. Neji, and maybe Third Hokage vs. Orochimaru. I’m sure parts of that would change, but the first three would probably be a lock.

Joseph: We’ve watched four or five years of Naruto in the past eight months. I don’t even remember who fought what at this point. Most of the fight choices were fine, but I’d be lying if I said I paid full attention to this episode. 

Danni: The Sasuke Retrieval arc was way too represented. I can’t say I care much for any of those fights outside of Naruto vs. Sasuke in the Final Valley. Throw in Naruto vs. Neji, Rock Lee vs. Gaara, Sasuke vs. Orochimaru, and maybe Drunken Master Rock Lee for fun. 

Kara: This should have just been 23 minutes of Lee dropping his weights. I was actually a little annoyed at this episode because it felt like the writers finally throwing stacks of papers in the air and admitting they had nothing. And then tacking cross Sasuke on the end.

Carolyn: Rock Lee, Rock Lee, Rock Lee. I would have my boy Lee against Gaara no question. And Shikamaru’s Chunin exam fight has always been a huge favorite of mine, so that would be in there, too.

Lastly, what were your highs and lows this week?

Paul: My high point was seeing Leaf Village pull together to thwart Genno's schemes. That was the Patlabor 2 of filler arcs. My low point was the recap episode, which I mostly fast-forwarded through, if I'm being entirely honest. The bit with Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Sasuke teleconferencing into the awards show struck me as especially bizarre.

Kevin: Both related to the Genno arc:

High - The basic plot of the arc. For the past few weeks, it’s mostly been comedy and our main characters being idiots. For these episodes, they got to trace the steps of a master planner, Naruto had an emotional connection to the villain, there were obvious breadcrumbs that actually paid out well, and generally the arc was pretty well written and different from what we’ve seen.

Low - Then the ending happened, and the show tried to make us feel bad for a terrorist who tried to destroy the village because he was just trying to be remembered and he lost his son in the conflict that had originally given him his mission. No, show, you cannot tell me that he’s a good person. His last actions were to literally destroy the village. And I know that a lot of the bombs were defective because he met Naruto (who looks like his son for no reason) and he wanted to go on a treasure hunt, but that’s not good character writing. That’s just really convenient and takes out all of the tension of the rest of the plot, since now the audience knows that there’s no actual danger.

Jared: High point would be the Genno arc, as I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Given how much we’ve had to slog through with filler, it’s nice when it’s actually decent. Low point would be the recap episode because their top five is bad and also it’s just strange how they just willingly break kayfabe in it. You could probably do some interesting things by playing with the idea that these are characters being played in a show, but it doesn’t really hit that mark here.

Joseph: High - The Genno arc was surprisingly satisfying and made me forget how bad the past couple weeks have been. Low - I have a feeling the magic haunted painting arc that started after won’t be as cool as I’d like it to be. I LOVE SPOOKY PAINTINGS THAT COME TO LIFE. 

Danni: It’s hard to choose a single high point from the Genno Arc so let’s just go with the whole thing: I loved it a lot. Low point goes to the recap episode, since only one of my favorite fights actually made it in there. 

Kara: High point is the beginning of this Yakumo arc, both because my girl Kurenai is back and because this looks like some fun horror. Yakumo’s weird face reflected in Kurenai/Naruto’s eye actually got me. (I am sure I will regret this whole sentiment before long.) Low point was the recap. I actually yelled at the screen when the whole Orochimaru thing started, which is double bad since I’m sure the intent was to hype the audience up.

Carolyn: I have to agree with Kara, as anything horror is a plus for me, even if it falls flat. And recap episodes are never interesting to me. I might also add Naruto screaming at Genno that he will never understand as long as he lives and he’s going to “live a long time!!!” That was pretty great.

And that’s it for this week! Remember that you’re always welcome to watch along with the Rewatch, especially if you’ve never seen the original Naruto! Watch Naruto today!

  Here’s our upcoming schedule:

-Next week, DANIEL DOCKERY goes through some haunts! 

-On August 16th, NICOLE MEJIAS finishes up a mission!

-And finally, on August 23rd, CAYLA COATES wraps up the Rewatch in its entirety!

CATCH UP ON THE REWATCH!

Episodes 190-196: Matchmaking Gone Wrong

Episodes 183-189: No Laughter Allowed!

Episodes 176-182: Reach for the Stars!

Episodes 169-175: Anko’s Backstory At Sea

Episodes 162-168: The Tale of the Phantom Samurai

Episodes 155-161: Quickfire Curry

Episodes 148-154: The Forest is Abuzz With Ninjas

Episodes 141-147: Mizuki Strikes Back!

Episodes 134-140: The Climactic Clash

Episodes 127-133: Naruto vs Sasuke

Episodes 120-126: The Sand Siblings Return

Episodes 113-119: Operation Rescue Sasuke

Episodes 106-112: Sasuke Goes Rogue

Episodes 99-105: Trouble in the Land of Tea

Episodes 92-98: Clash of the Sannin

Episodes 85-91: A Life-Changing Decision

Episodes 78-84: The Fall of a Legend

Episodes 71-77: Sands of Sorrow

Episodes 64-70: Crashing the Chunin Exam

Episodes 57-63: Family Feud

Episodes 50-56: Rock Lee Rally

Episodes 43-49: The Gate

Episodes 36-42: Through the Woods

Episodes 29-35: Sakura Unleashed

Episodes 22-28: Chunin Exams Kickoff

Episodes 15-21: Leaving the Land of Waves

Episodes 8-14: Beginners' Battle

Episodes 1-7: I'm Gonna Be the Hokage!

  Thank you for joining us for the GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH! See you next time!

  Have anything to say about this batch of episodes? Let us know in the comments! We're accepting questions and comments for next week, so ask away!

-----

Noelle Ogawa is a contributor to Bubbleblabber and Cup of Moe. She can be found on Twitter @noelleogawa.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[digitalgames19w-blog]

Episode

“Episode” is an interactive story game that places the player in a visual novel of their choosing. The game has a large number of visual novels, some of them user-generated, others created in-house by the app, and others created in conjunction with a studio or celebrity figure. 

The game allows the player to customize their avatar, which is fully visible on the screen. Although facial, hair, and makeup adjustments can be made, the body is not adjustable. It also seems unlikely that the player can change the gender of the avatar; however, based on how the player decides to interact with other characters of the game, sexuality is fairly fluid. 

The default visual novel of Episode was “The Kiss List.” I found the game fairly inane due to a basic and somewhat illogical storyline, where the player (who is a new student at a prestigious high school) has to kiss everyone on a certain kiss list in order to “dominate” the school. “Dominate” in this sense means to have a certain social power over the other characters; one way to progress through this game was to convert other characters into “worshippers,” usually by choosing an action that cost diamonds to play. These diamonds are not available unless one chooses to pay real world money for them. Other methods of extracting money from the player is to force them to pay for “story tickets,” which can be used to unlock the next episode/chapter of the visual novel, or to pay to have a new visual novel available. If the player chooses not to play, they can (very) slowly accumulate a collection of diamonds and story tickets; however, the rate of accumulation usually makes this collection worthless.

Episode was a heavily marketed game online, specifically targeting female players with its romantic-comedy inspired storylines. “The Kiss List” specifically featured heavily stereotyped characters of the exposition-spouting best friend, the mean girl, and the withdrawn yet socially popular love interest. Reading the options available for the protagonist with each character interaction, I could observe that the protagonist’s character was intended to be denoted to three types: aggressive, friendly, or overtly flirtatious. 

It was interesting to see that despite not choosing the “diamond” options that could lead to faster and perhaps more satisfying success, the game continued to progress according to what seemed like a pre-determined storyline. Because of this, there was little incentive to use diamonds for decisions. Combined with a lack of identification with the protagonist, who felt entirely separate from the player rather than being the player — as with other point-of-view games, Episode was not very engaging and proved tedious to play. 

(By Joyce Lee)

[stephmolliex]

How to set up Backblaze to back up your Mac, and why you should do it now

You know those backup drives will fail someday -- but online backup services won't. Every minute of every day, your work can be preserved offsite -- and AppleInsider will show you how to start. You can do everything right, and still lose data. For instance, we have three external drives hooked up to the iMac that this story was written on, and still we lost work. That's because you need more than just some drives plugged in, you need a solid plan with contingencies. You need to think about it and then you need to do it. Have a plan for exactly how your data is backed up to external drives and precisely to where. What we've done on this Mac is have two of those drives as just extra storage space. Only one of them was being used for backing up, and while we did have a plan, the plan wasn't good enough. The plan didn't survive our hitting a problem and needing to reconfigure everything. We assumed it was all still working as it had been and that's why we lost data. To be fair, it's not the greatest amount of data in the world ever. It's a FileMaker Pro database and we've lost maybe seven entries in it. Then to be even fairer, the solution to preventing this loss really should be using and properly configuring a service like Backblaze. So, let's talk about it. And, how it's not enough just to subscribe -- you've got to put some work into it. Perfect storm What's happened is that we're in the middle of moving to an external drive so that we can boot our iMac without using its creaking internal one. That's just a case of using Carbon Copy Cloner and we've done that yet somehow we've convinced Backblaze.com that we're starting anew. It appears to be backing up all 3TB of data from our external drive even though 99 percent of it is the same as the internal one was. It's not supposed to do that and we are having an email discussion with Backblaze about what's gone wrong -- but you noticed that 99 percent figure. That's not quite the same as 100 percent. Last Friday, a FileMaker Pro database crashed on us -- blame an elderly iMac -- and we didn't notice at the time that it lost some data. Not much at all was lost, but enough that we turned to Backblaze to retrieve the latest version of it. Except Backblaze hadn't gotten to that database yet. So we're out these seven entries in a database and we can't get them back. Don't do it to yourself In the short term, we're hoping that the Backblaze company will figure out the problem with our cloned drive setup. But, that's the part that's on us, and the lack of work we put into solving the problem in the first place. We're hoping that it will recognize that the new external drive has the same data, or mostly so, as the old internal one. It won't get back this lost data but it will mean everything from now on is fine. If they sort this out, then every thing we create on this iMac from then on will be backed up to their online service. We've been doing this for the last four or five years and on the odd occasion we've needed to restore a file, it's been quick and easy. If they don't sort it out, then we won't be safely backed up until it completes uploading the 3TB. With this AppleInsider location's poor internet speed, that's a long time. Seriously. Right now it's saying we'll have everything backed up in 1,117 days time. Even the Backblaze support page that calculates this starts its message with the words "Freak out." There are options in Backblaze to speed it up a little but really it's down to that poor internet connection of ours. While we hope yours is faster, it's still the case that your very first backup is going to take a while. Possibly a long while. Not three years, mind, that's just ridiculous. This is when we realize this iMac is so far from the internet that we would be quicker describing the data over the phone. Start now What happens with any online backup service is that first it copies up absolutely everything to its own servers. You can tell it to exclude certain files and it won't bother with macOS or your applications. Otherwise then, by default, if it's on a drive connected to your Mac, it gets uploaded. Once that's done, Backblaze works continually to backup everything you do, pretty much as you do it. That file you created this morning? Backed up. It is a very good feeling to know that this is happening. Trust us, we had that very good feeling until about ten days ago. We want it back. We'll get it back: we will feel good again when we know everything is backed up and every single thing we ever do is being backed up as we do it. Get this feeling for yourself. Maybe you shouldn't ditch your external drives just yet, even if we're currently contemplating throwing one of them out of a window. Just also get yourself an online backup service and do it right now. You won't be safe until all of your data is backed up on it, but no matter how long that takes, it's quickest if you start now. Immediately. Seriously. This is how serious we are. While it is galling that we've lost these seven little database entries, we have to compare that to many years of reliable backups and -- what's more -- reliable restoring of deleted files too. Consequently, we recommend Backblaze highly. Excuse us while we just choke a bit on that. This problem will pass. And if they haven't solved the problem yet, Backblaze's online support people have been working on it. We've no complaints about the attention we've been getting. "I'm fine with Dropbox" Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, Google Drive, they are all superb at meaning your work is with you wherever you go. Whichever device you use, whenever you need something you've saved, it's right there. They are working drives. It's online storage versus online backup. With Dropbox and the rest you're saving work there that you intend to use, to change, to update. With Backblaze and some alternatives, you're saving your work to a backup in case of problems. So we have Dropbox and iCloud and all the rest but the files we save in them on our Macs or on our external drives are also being backed up to Backblaze. The aim with this is that after we set it up right, we don't have to keep checking. We don't have to think about it, don't need do anything about more it, and we just know it's all being backed up. When disaster strikes, then we can just grab back a file. If you save all of your work, all of your documents, absolutely everything that is important to you, into Dropbox, then you could be okay. Dropbox automatically keeps copies of files up to 30 days after deletion and if you're a business user paying more, you get longer. You just also have to pay for all that space. Dropbox gives you 2GB of space for free. It's quite a leap from 2GB to the next tier, a paid-for one called Dropbox Plus that gives you 1TB for $9.99 per month. Then there's Dropbox Professional which is $19.99 per month for 2TB. You'll notice that's still not the 3TB we'd need for our little local difficulty. To get 3TB you're into Dropbox Business and the company negotiates a cost for that depending on the number of users you have. Even if we just needed 2TB, though, that works out to $239.88 per year. By comparison, online backup services are both cheaper and give you more space. CrashPlan for Business is $120 per year for a single Mac, for instance. Carbonite is $72 per year. Backblaze, the one we use and usually swear by instead of at, is $50 per year. What's more, though, is that as this is passive storage rather than working files, you get more space. Backblaze is typical in how it doesn't limit how much data you backup. Right now we have this 3TB internal iMac hard drive and a clone of it in an external but we also have two other drives plugged in. Backblaze backs up the lot. Restoration comedy It's when you need to restore a file that you see the difference between working drives like Dropbox or iCloud and backup storage like Backblaze. This is like the difference between the files on your Mac and the files on the external drive that you store at your mother's. You know it's safe away from your house so it won't get stolen along with your Mac. You trust your mother not to look at it all. It just takes a while longer to get the files back if there's a problem. Not much longer, though. To restore a single file or a handful of them takes us a few minutes and then they're downloaded right to our Mac. Compare that to iCloud which offers a similar way of downloading deleted files. You have to log on to icloud.com, then go into Settings and scroll down for Advanced and then choose Restore Files. Then iCloud is slow to list all the possible files to restore and it's slower still for you to find what you need. You just get a straight list of files that have recently been deleted: this is exactly the same idea as Photos on your iPhone. Items you delete on iCloud get moved into a Deleted Items section and left for up to 30 days. It will save you for the odd file, it's no use for more than that. Online backups keep copies of everything and you can go back to yesterday's data, the day before or two weeks from last Tuesday. This is very much like Apple's Time Machine, except not as visual or friendly, and also not on a drive in your house. If you need more than one file, if you need your entire hard drive restored, then it's true that it would take longer to download it all from an online service than from Time Machine. However, Time Machine isn't fast -- and you can pay online services to send you a physical copy. Backblaze quotes $99 for them to send you up to 128GB of data on a USB drive, for example, or $189 for a hard drive up to 4TB. We'd call that a bargain on its own for getting all your data sent to you with a variant of the old "sneakernet" or "station wagon full of tapes" method from back in the day. But online services typically do one thing more: they'll refund your money when you send them back the USB stick or hard drive. Belt and braces You've spotted that we recommend online backup services, we've been pretty clear about that. We've been only slightly less clear that we also recommend working drives like Dropbox and iCloud. What we've been substantially less clear about because of our current problem is that, yes, we do also recommend backing up to external drives. While we continue to talk with Backblaze about our specific problem, though, we are also taking steps to protect this particular database. From now on it will be cloned to an external drive and back again, it will be backed up online. We're just also going to tell Hazel to make a copy of it onto both Dropbox and iCloud every day. All that because we lost seven tiny entries in a database. Imagine how you'll feel when you lose something bigger. https://goo.gl/xnxg7T

[usviraltrends-blog]

New Post has been published on https://usviraltrends.com/fake-news-spreads-faster-than-true-news-on-twitter-thanks-to-people-not-bots-science/

Fake news spreads faster than true news on Twitter—thanks to people, not bots | Science

Tweets containing false news (depicted in orange in this data visualization) spread to more people through Twitter than tweets containing true news (teal).

Credits: (Image) Peter Beshai; (Data) Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral

By Katie LanginMar. 8, 2018 , 2:01 PM

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the internet was abuzz with discussion when reports surfaced that Floyd Mayweather wore a hijab to a Donald Trump rally, daring people to fight him. The concocted story started on a sports comedy website, but it quickly spread on social media—and people took it seriously.

From Russian “bots” to charges of fake news, headlines are awash in stories about dubious information going viral. You might think that bots—automated systems that can share information online—are to blame. But a new study shows that people are the prime culprits when it comes to the propagation of misinformation through social networks. And they’re good at it, too: Tweets containing falsehoods reach 1500 people on Twitter six times faster than truthful tweets, the research reveals.

Bots are so new that we don’t have a clear sense of what they’re doing and how big of an impact they’re making, says Shawn Dorius, a social scientist at Iowa State University in Ames who wasn’t involved in the research. We generally think that bots distort the types of information that reaches the public, but—in this study at least—they don’t seem to be skewing the headlines toward false news, he notes. They propagated true and false news roughly equally.

The main impetus for the new research was the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. The lead author—Soroush Vosoughi, a data scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge—says after the attack a lot of the stuff he was reading on social media was false. There were rumors that a student from Brown University, who had gone missing, was suspected by the police. But later, people found out that he had nothing to do with the attack and had committed suicide (for reasons unrelated to the bombing).

That’s when Vosoughi realized that “these rumors aren’t just fun things on Twitter, they really can have effects on people’s lives and hurt them really badly.” A Ph.D. student at the time, he switched his research to focus on the problem of detecting and characterizing the spread of misinformation on social media.

He and his colleagues collected 12 years of data from Twitter, starting from the social media platform’s inception in 2006. Then they pulled out tweets related to news that had been investigated by six independent fact-checking organizations—websites like PolitiFact, Snopes, and FactCheck.org. They ended up with a data set of 126,000 news items that were shared 4.5 million times by 3 million people, which they then used to compare the spread of news that had been verified as true with the spread of stories shown to be false. They found that whereas the truth rarely reached more than 1000 Twitter users, the most pernicious false news stories—like the Mayweather tale—routinely reached well over 10,000 people. False news propagated faster and wider for all forms of news—but the problem was particularly evident for political news, the team reports today in Science.

At first the researchers thought that bots might be responsible, so they used sophisticated bot-detection technology to remove social media shares generated by bots. But the results didn’t change: False news still spread at roughly the same rate and to the same number of people. By default, that meant that human beings were responsible for the virality of false news.

That got the scientists thinking about the people involved. It occurred to them that Twitter users who spread false news might have more followers. But that turned out to be a dead end: Those people had fewer followers, not more.

Finally the team decided to look more closely at the tweets themselves. As it turned out, tweets containing false information were more novel—they contained new information that a Twitter user hadn’t seen before—than those containing true information. And they elicited different emotional reactions, with people expressing greater surprise and disgust. That novelty and emotional charge seem to be what’s generating more retweets. “If something sounds crazy stupid you wouldn’t think it would get that much traction,” says Alex Kasprak, a fact-checking journalist at Snopes in Pasadena, California. “But those are the ones that go massively viral.”

The research gives you a sense of how much of a problem fake news is, both because of its scale and because of our own tendencies to share misinformation, says David Lazer, a computational social scientist at Northeastern University in Boston who co-wrote a policy perspective on the science of fake news that was also published today in Science. He thinks that, in the short term, the “Facebooks, Googles, and Twitters of the world” need to do more to implement safeguards to reduce the magnitude of the problem. But in the long term we also need more science, he says—because if we don’t understand where fake news comes from and how it spreads, then how can we possibly combat it?

[youtvplayerpcapk-blog]

DOWNLOAD YOU TV PLAYER FOR IPHONE, IPAD (IOS) WITH ALTERNATIVES

After the resurgence of YouTube and its far-fetched presence in the social media technology, here comes another site that will make significant changes in the way people watch videos and TV shows. You TV Player for iPhone is a new favorite of people who are fond of watching streams, movies and television shows. The good thing about it is that viewers can have it in their mobile devices.

The common problem with You TV Player today is that it is not convenient to iOS devices. But, there is nothing to worry. For those who are using iPhone or iOS platforms, there is already You TV Player for iPhone alternatives that is full of benefits you will surely appreciate.

Unlimited TV Shows Only Using You TV Player

You TV Player for iPhone is an app created for unlimited video streaming. Today, it has numerous users across the globe. People love this app because it allows them to watch movies and television shows for free. Plus, it allows customization of the file making it unbeatable and attractive to many.

FREE YOU TV PLAYER FOR IPHONE /IPAD (IOS) WITH ALTERNATIVES

Looking for the best alternatives for your iPhone (iOS) device? Here are some great options to consider:

TubeMate – It comes with an interface which acts similarly to a browser making it easier and faster to search for the videos and download them right away. To download movies for free, just click on the URL and press download. Then, select the desired resolution. [tubemate] Cartoon HD – Fond of watching TV serials and animated movies? Well, Cartoon HD will not disappoint as it brings unlimited happiness for you. Feel free to enjoy watching unlimited shows and movies with its wide collection. Enjoy all kinds of genres from musicals and comedies to action and drama. It also boasts custom playing and download for easy pairing with Chromecast.VidMate – Vidmate is now known as one of the top video downloader services in the internet world. It is an app designed with versatility and ease. People appreciate its amazing features and insurmountable interface. [vidmate]Play View – This app works excellently in terms of being an alternative for You TV Player for iOS platforms. This is packed with an array of TV shows and movies. For those who are in other locations, they need to have a VPN. Play View may be paired with other faster downloaders since the default downloading protocol works via ordinary download only. [playview]

WHY YOU TV PLAYER?

As an app, You TV Player is comprised of various special features making it insurmountable by other similar applications.

Various entertainment genres for TV series, children’s channels, dramas and musicals;Unlimited TV viewingWith international and popular channels;Download for free;Can act as social media platform as well since users can have conversations, get suggestions and helps, and meet new friends; andComes with a Push Notifications tab and adjustable settings.

Download You TV Player for iPhone now. Consider looking at the alternatives if you have difficulty in using this app.

[vmakc-blog]

Why Vine Died

Vine was a hosting service for posting short videos. The videos could only be 6 seconds long and would repeat on a loop over and over. This short format pushed people to be innovative and make creative videos that worked well with the short time-span and repetition. These days, short videos are a powerful form of content that really draws in viewers and engages your audience. Let's take a look at why Vine died, since it was a service that provided an easy way to create short videos.

Beginning of Vine

Vine was founded in June 2012 by Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov, and Colin Kroll. Its short format quickly drew the interest of Twitter, the social networking service that’s known for its short, 140-character posts. Twitter bought Vine in October 2012 for around $30 million. The service was officially launched as a free IOS app on January 24, 2013.

The creators of Vine envisioned the service as an easy way to share short, casual life moments with friends and family members. However, people found another use for their videos pretty much from day one. Many people took Vine’s 6 second limitation as a challenge for creativity, humor, and visual art. The original beta only had about a dozen people, and even those few people started to immediately use Vine imaginatively.

The creators have said that almost immediately after launch, it became clear that Vine wasn’t being used as a day-to-day platform for sharing daily moments. “Watching the community and the tool push on each other was exciting and unreal, and almost immediately it became clear that Vine’s culture was going to shift towards creativity and experimentation,” said Hofmann in an interview with The Verge.

Rising Popularity and Famous Vines

Vine only existed on its own for a few short months before joining Twitter. Ian Padgham, part of Twitter’s marketing team at the time, saw the creative potential of Vine immediately. He made many videos using Vine both as promotional content and for pure enjoyment. His first Vine was a simple view of the street outside Twitter headquarters. Padgham loved the 6-second limit, because it made you think more about your content. “It’s kind of like drawing in Microsoft Paint,” he said, “you couldn’t get distracted by the bells and whistles.”

Padgham’s Vines became pretty popular. One of his most famous creations is a tribute to early photographer and filmmaker Eadweard Muybridge. This short video took him several hours and 300 pictures to create. His time-lapse Vine that shows his fingers traveling around and manipulating Big Ben has been viewed 6 million times. 6 months after Vine was released, Padgham actually got enough offers from big brand companies like Sony to make him feel comfortable enough to quit his job at Twitter to pursue a career of Vine marketing.

In 2013, Twitter updated the Vine app to allow users to record their videos using their front-facing phone cameras. This change made Vine’s popularity explode, and many Vine stars arose from the masses. Magician Zach King became famous for his amazing tricks. Definitely check them out if you haven’t! Amanda Cerny became famous for her fun Vines that featured a lot of physical comedy. Logan Paul even turned his Vine popularity into an acting career.

Instagram and Snapchat: The Beginning of the End

Vine’s popularity peaked by 2014. Twitter didn’t release specific statistics, but once claimed to have an audience of 200 million. The humor became increasingly self-referential, and many memes came from Vine’s short videos. However, the beginning of the end for Vine had already begun in June 2013, when Facebook released the ability to post videos with Instagram. Not only did Instagram provide a similar service to Vine, but that company moved faster to respond to its audience and provide more innovations.

Instagram appealed to a wider audience than Vine. It permitted up to 15 seconds of video, allowing for over twice the amount of content within a single post. This was later extended to 60 seconds. Instagram also promoted its celebrity accounts with an “explore” option that allowed viewers to find new content easily. Marketers and celebrities quickly moved away from Vine into Instagram, which remains a powerhouse of social media to this day.

Another big draw that pulled users away from Vine was Snapchat. This service allows users to create and post 10-second videos. Through its design and marketing, Snapchat managed to secure the niche of users casually posting about their daily lives that the creators of Vine intended to fill. By May of 2016, reports indicated that Vine users were sharing fewer and fewer new posts, and many were leaving for other services.

Management Problems

Another problem Vine faced was a constant turnover in upper management. Hofmann had quit back in 2014, shortly followed by Kroll. Yusupov was eventually fired by Twitter. In response, he ironically Tweeted “Don’t sell your company!” on Twitter. Jason Toff took over Vine between 2014 and 2016. Hannah Donnovan followed after that beginning in March 2016, but she had no real experience running a company.

This kind of overturn in the company’s leadership most likely contributed to Vine’s inability to make money. Vine’s creators resisted most monetization strategies from the start, and the company never got on the same page as Instagram and Snapchat for cutting deals with celebrities and promoting accounts. There were eventually talks of combining Vine’s services within the default Twitter app. However, this never came to pass. By July 2016, most of Vine’s top executives had already jumped ship.

The End

In December 2016, Twitter officially announced that Vine would be shut down, and that Twitter users could instead post videos of any size directly to Twitter. In January 2017, a “Vine Camera” app was released that allows users to record and post videos on Twitter, but the app suffers from bad reviews. They also announced that preexisting Vines would remain online to view in an archive.

Ankur Thakkar, Vine’s head of editorial, explained the downfall of the company: “A couple of things plagued Vine, and it all stems from the same thing, which is a lack of unity and leadership on a vision.” Many of the stars continued to work on other platforms, but none of them have quite the same feel of the 6-second repeating loop that spurred such interesting innovation.

So how should we answer the question of why Vine died? The short answer is an inability to compete by providing new features for its users, leading to a dwindling user-base. The company also suffered from a revolving door of top executives who were never prepared to properly monetize the company.

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