#like that franchise is hated both within and without its intended community

[hello-kuni]

my favorite little fact is that many body horror enthusiasts hate the human centipede franchise bc it’s “too far and just grotesque” (paraphrased)

[captainmazzic]

So every now and again I get a message in my inbox asking about what I thought about such-and-such a thing in new canon, or if I’m intending on writing any meta or analysis on a particular subject in Star Wars. And sometimes I keep those messages sitting in my inbox for months (one has been sitting there for a little over a year), because I think, maybe I will feel comfortable doing in-depth meta again and I’ll wish I’d remembered what this message had asked. But as time goes by I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Okay. Real talk for a minute here. Bear with me as I’m long-winded and I don’t really have a concise way of communicating this. Potential political views and personal opinions on certain points in cinematic history below.

Short backstory first. I’m an older Star Wars fan. I was a tiny child when the last of the original trilogy came out, and both my parents are sci-fi nerds so I was practically raised on Star Wars. They are also tabletop RPG nerds so I was also raised on D&D and the like. So naturally when Star Wars tabletop RPGs were floating around I snapped them up and consumed them like candy. The novels were a natural extension of the RPGs, and I consumed those just as enthusiastically. The Expanded Universe was my bread and butter, and to this day I’m very nostalgic and fond of it even if most of it is quite laughably terrible.

Where am I going with this? Everything is a product of their time. The original trilogy was created when George Lucas was a young liberal-minded fresh-faced director looking to change the world and make his mark. This was the 70s, war was awful, the government was evil, hippies and protests were everywhere, and the only thing that seemed to have any hope of changing the world were small bands of spunky misfits with a mission and a message. And that mentality is one that shows, in the original Star Wars films. Lucas designed the Empire as a representation of the United States circa the Vietnam War, just dressed up in the fashion and ceremony of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. (Sources: Chris Taylor, How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, Pp. 87-88; Michael Ondaatje, The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film, p.70) The message of the original trilogy boiled down to “the ability of a small group of people to defeat a gigantic power simply by the force of their convictions… no matter how small you are, you can defeat the overwhelmingly big power.” (quote: Walter Murch). He really struggled to get Star Wars onto the big screen, with a lot of setbacks and rejections, and many times when he thought it would never happen. But it did, and it was wildly successful. And I think in part it was because that message really spoke to people, and it didn’t hurt that it was wrapped up in a package with cool laser swords and explosions and space battles.

But then the 80s happened. And the 90s happened. And through that, what happened to Lucas is what happens to many people as they gain success, wealth, and fame as they grow older. The system started to work for him instead of against him. Suddenly the Powers That Be weren’t trying to suppress his ideas from getting to an audience; suddenly all those organizations that seemed so hell-bent on keeping him out were now enabling him to get and stay in, to conserve and gain influence; suddenly his opinion counted for so much it almost seemed god-like, especially in this galaxy far, far away that was unflowering under his direction and all-seeing eye. I guess the system isn’t so bad after all, eh?

And thus we have the Prequels. They can be a rollicking good time, but their message is muddled. Before them the books and the RPGs seemed to try as best they could to hold on to that earlier message of underdog vs. the powers-that-be (with the RPGs succeeding more often, imho), but they couldn’t continue in the face of their Ultimate Creator coming back in to make more SW movies. With the Prequels, suddenly the Old Republic is portrayed as noble and struggling instead of corrupt and dying, with a lot of hand-waving and “something something well actually” in regards to the role of the Jedi, the nature of the Senate, etc. There’s mixed messages where sometimes we get the old Star Wars back, with energetic groups of activists and freedom fighters trying to bring down the oppressors, but there’s also a lot of storytelling awkwardness where the audience is implored to trust the authorities and rely on the judgment of those with power over you within the same breath. This trend continues throughout the Clone Wars animation, and it is there that it becomes often so cognitively dissonant one wonders how you don’t get whiplash trying to follow whatever garbled message they think they’re communicating. And I think that’s where the Star Wars franchise really began to become a monster in its own right. Big businesses are hulking entities unto themselves, functioning like capitalist plutocracies within their host nations, and the Star Wars franchise is no exception. Whatever garbled message Lucas tried to send out with the Prequels grew amplified and even more confused with the Clone Wars, spread into the video games and the books, and continued to infect Star Wars as the franchise was turned over to the quintessential mega-plutocratic-empire, The Walt Disney Company.

And here we have the Sequel movies, the New Canon, and all of the disasters that come with them.

Disney walks a fine line between well-meaning family-friendly sugar and spice, and ruthless all-consuming hypercontroller of everything from arts and entertainment to food and clothes and government lobbying. Their bottom line is the dollar and the influence on – and power over – people’s lives that the dollar brings with it. Handing them a story whose original message was about people resisting the very kind of mammoth force that Disney embodies, and hoping that they will try to stay true to said original message, is hopeless and foolish at best and utterly disastrous at worst.

With the Sequels and subsequent movies, Disney pays good overt lip service to the original trilogy with things like Rogue One and the Rebels animation, which on the surface certainly do look like the same sort of message as the original trilogy. But scratch just below that surface and Disney is all about communicating that submitting to the authority of, say, higher Rebel command and following their orders even when it goes against your gut feeling (ex. Ezra Bridger in the Rebels animation), or that rebelling against an unjust government is only valid if it is done according to a strict but nebulous set of arbitrary rules and only if it is done in the service of a different unjust government that just happens to be slightly less evil than the one you’re trying to overthrow (ex. any iteration of the Old Republic ever, but I’m especially and particularly looking at you, Sequel-era Republic/Resistance and SWTOR Jedi/Republic).

And here is where I balk about ever doing meta on Star Wars again. I hate that this is the direction Star Wars is taking. I hate that New Canon feels like propaganda to me. I hate that I can’t enjoy any of this stuff if I take it for what it presents itself to be. I hate that the only way I truly can enjoy Star Wars now is by cherry-picking all of the tiny bits of window dressing that was pretty enough or interesting enough for me to want to look at it again, and very deliberately and consciously throwing out all the rest.

The experience of Star Wars that I create for myself is escapist and isolating, because it is so very tailor-made to what I can enjoy out of it now. When I go see a new Star Wars film or play a Star Wars game, I don’t actually see whatever story the franchise is trying to actually tell. I see bits and pieces that I can put together into something I can cope with better, something I can actually enjoy.

Examples include:

In Rebels, when the official franchise’s story killed off Maul. I cannot and will not acknowledge that, or function as though it happened. And I can’t really give my opinion on how not having Maul around will affect the future story, because I very literally do not care at all about any Star Wars where he is not in it.

In The Clone Wars, there are so many instances of Anakin Skywalker having agency and making decisions independent of the Jedi Council or without having their insipid code squarely in mind, where if he had made those decisions in a more realistic setting they would have turned out quite well, but what we get on screen is ominous background music and FoReShAdOwInG.

In The Last Jedi, I cannot fathom any reason why Yoda would be given the role that he was given, and find it a complete affront to Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, who had every motivation, every reason, every right to have that role instead. So I can’t see that scene without him in it. I just… I don’t see it. It didn’t happen that way, and I find I cannot discuss it as it’s presented on-screen. I have nothing to say.

In the Sequel media, both books and movies, Supreme Leader Snoke is portrayed as a one-dimensional Saturday morning cartoon villain whose intended role in the story is blurred as the story progresses, and his death is completely nonsensical in regards to the buildup of information that we as an audience have gleaned about him. We see pieces of evidence that he could have actually cared about Kylo Ren that go nowhere in the actual story, and he ends up just being a scapegoat that gets thrown away halfway through the second sequel movie. I choose to see more in his character than what we were given in Actual Canon™, and thus see him very differently than what common discourse would allow. Because of this, if I discuss Snoke in mixed company I know that I will be called out as someone who advocates for only the limited cardboard-character that is portrayed on screen, instead of for the internalized view that I have personally built for him.

I know everyone’s personal view of a character or characters is different, because we all have different points of view. But there is often some sort of vague common ground in their portrayal that the author or storyteller was originally going for, that most people usually pick up on and base their opinions around. But what if some of the key characteristics that make up a character are just… things you choose not to see or are incapable of seeing, and your own personal view of that character becomes almost entirely different from the “original”? Probably the most benign example I can think of is Hera Syndulla. If I take what I see of her in canon, she infuriates me with how she treats her crew. But if I just decide that such-and-such a conversation never happened, or her decisions on such-and-such a mission were different than the on-screen one, she essentially becomes an alternate-universe version of herself. Only that this version is one that I can tolerate, and it is the only version I see anymore.

How does one communicate that my entire experience of Star Wars is as an AU?

And on and on it goes. Discussing meta and Actual Canon Events��� as portrayed on screen and on printed page has become nothing but a migraine headache to me. I cannot engage in discourse, because I am very much not seeing what everyone else is seeing and talking about, nor do I care to. I just… I can’t keep talking about the same stupid things over and over again. I can’t keep screaming into the void about the unsustainability of the Sith or the Jedi, about the complete inequality and corruption that would have to be absolutely omnipresent in the Republic for it to even be remotely realistic even by cartoon standards, about the inevitability of the Republic turning into an Empire, about the weird dissonance given to the concept of the Force that would end up making both the Jedi and the Sith’s case baseless and weak, etc. etc. ETC. It’s exhausting, it’s stressful, and for something that I’m here to try to enjoy, it’s not even remotely enjoyable.

The very core of the matter is that I love the Star Wars universe. I love the worlds, I love the aliens, I love the ships and the droids and the technology and the concept of the Force. I love the characters. I love all of these things, and sometimes I even love the plots and stories (thank you Chuck Wendig and Timothy Zahn). But I just can’t enjoy digging into the meta of it anymore.

So if you like what I post of my own personal Star Wars-brand AU, by all means dig right in. But I don’t think I can do anymore general meta or discourse. I’m sticking with fanart and fanfic.

[kcaruth]

Movie Mania: Top 10 of 2018

This one was difficult. Those who have followed this blog for a while will know that for the past two years I have done a top 15 list of favorite films. That is largely because 2016 and 2017 cranked out so many great films, and I could not restrict myself to 10. However, 2018 turned out to be a rather lackluster year for film, in my opinion. Sure, there were some high points, but overall it was disappointing. It was actually easy to stick to a list of 10 this time, and those 10 films are all deserving of praise. I just wish they had some tougher competition to go up against. I digress, though. I now give you my spoiler-free list of favorite films of 2018.

Honorable Mention: Bumblebee

A collaboration between Travis Knight, the director of Kubo and the Two Strings, and Hailee Steinfeld? Count me in!

I stopped following the Transformers franchise after 2011′s Transformers: Dark of the Moon. One can only endure so many mind-numbing Michael Bay explosions before all of his or her brain cells die out. Here is a fun exercise that one of my college professors taught me; try it next time a Michael Bay Transformers movie comes on. Every time there is a cut, tap a pen or pencil or clap your hands. Frankly, it is quite overwhelming and hard to keep up with, and it is difficult not to notice every single unnecessary, jarring cut after becoming conscious of them through this exercise.

Contrast that with 2018′s Bumblebee. At Knight’s direction, the film forgoes most of those flashy explosions in favor of a more intimate approach to actual character development. Knight wisely chooses to keep the audience grounded and focused on the human characters, namely Steinfeld’s Charlie Watson, a teenage girl who is still struggling to come to terms with the death of her father while harboring resentment of her mother for remarrying. As far as the robots go, while the other Transformers movies went overboard with filling the screen with as many Decepticons and Autobots as they could, Knight really only has the titular Bumblebee and a couple of Decepticons hunting him down, ensuring that the action scenes and the film itself do not feel too bloated. Bumblebee is the course correction that this franchise so desperately needed.

#10: Eighth Grade

I was cringing throughout the run time of Eighth Grade, but somehow that is a compliment to this film. Uncompromising in its excruciating honesty, Eighth Grade hits the bullseye when it targets the audience’s empathy for an anxious 13-year-old during her last week of eighth grade named Kayla Day, played by Elsie Fisher. As his debut feature film, writer-director Bo Burnham has stated that he drew inspiration from his own struggles with social anxiety, so the script feels genuine and absent of any Hollywood edits. While Kayla is certainly the main focus of the film, Burnham provides a surprisingly touching character arc for her single father, Mark, played by Josh Hamilton. Mark desperately attempts to connect with his teenage daughter, but it seems like all she cares about having a connection with is her phone and social media. With themes of mental health, heavy use of social media, and sexuality, Burnham delivers one of the most uncomfortable scenes I have ever sat through in a movie theater, which is most likely exactly how he intended it to feel.

I cannot help but compare Eighth Grade to 2016′s Edge of Seventeen, another coming-of-age comedy-drama about a teenage girl by a debut director. If I was given the choice between the two films, I would pick Edge of Seventeen, which I believe is much more re-watchable, garnering that intended empathetic response from the audience with half the cringe. Both are brilliant, but those who have not seen Edge of Seventeen should do themselves a favor and give it a watch.

#9: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

With so much hate and negativity in the world today, Morgan Neville’s documentary about Fred Rogers is a shining beacon of hope that restores one’s faith in humanity. Using archival footage as well as interviews with those closest to Rogers, Neville paints an intimate portrait of the man who welcomed audiences into his neighborhood through his pioneering television program. Without deifying Rogers, Neville shows how this American treasure dedicated every fiber of his being to teaching children how to be upstanding human beings who care deeply for one another, despite our differences. This documentary proves that Rogers’ lessons were not just for children, though. In fact, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? often feels like a one-on-one session with Rogers, encouraging audience members that they are all capable of good through simple acts of kindness.

#8: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Unfortunately, this American western is sure to fly under most people’s radar because it was a Netflix release that I do not recall having much fanfare and advertising. Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, this film is an anthology of six different vignettes set in the American West. Sporting a stellar cast with the likes of Liam Neeson, Tim Blake Nelson, James Franco, Zoe Kazan, Brendan Gleeson, and more, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs flexes the Coen’s signature style of dark drama and black humor while impressively tackling all of the sub-genres within the greater Western genre.

Each of the vignettes are tied together by death in some form or fashion. While my ranking of them changes from day to day, my favorite and least favorite remain consistent. It is virtually impossible to not fall in love with the first vignette, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” which is about a cheerful outlaw known just as widely for his singing as his gunslinging. The final vignette featuring a handful of characters cramped together on a stagecoach ride called “The Mortal Remains,” on the other hand, feels somewhat out of place and ends the film with a bit of a dud. Along the way between these two vignettes, however, viewers encounter enchanting tales of a bank robber, an impresario and his artist, a prospector, and a wagon train on the Oregon Trail.

As the Coen’s first film to be shot digitally, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs boasts some impressive cinematography, especially when it comes to wide sweeping shots, like any decent Western should. It also features a wonderfully delightful score that I desperately hope gets an Oscar nod. Not a week has gone by since I have watched this film where I do not find myself humming one of the songs or music from it. The acting throughout the different vignettes of the film is topnotch, and the actors look like they are having a blast in their roles.The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a fun time that leaves viewers longing for more time in the American West. For those who cannot find the time to sit down for the whole film, I must urge them to at least watch the first vignette about Buster Scruggs, which is worth the price of admission on its own.

#7: Isle of Dogs

Set in a dystopian Japan, Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animated Isle of Dogs tells the story of a boy searching for his dog on Trash Island after an outbreak of canine flu. Voiced by an all-star cast including Bryan Cranston, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson, and Bill Murray, Isle of Dogs is an epic adventure with its fair share of plot twists along the way. Alexandre Desplat provides a brilliant score for the film that matches Anderson’s comedic quirkiness and thematic choices. I would not consider myself a fan of Anderson’s distinct film style, but I do consider myself a huge fan of dogs and enjoyed Isle of Dogs. (Get the title of the film? Pronounce it out loud quickly. I Love Dogs.)

#6: Game Night

Game Night made me laugh out loud like I have not done in a long time at the movie theater. Starring Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams, the film follows the hilariously ridiculous premise of a group of friends whose game night gets wrapped up in a criminal escapade. In addition to Bateman and McAdams’ great, fun chemistry as the husband and wife duo of Max and Annie Davis, Jesse Plemons’ portrayal of Gary Kingsbury, Max and Annie’s weird neighbor, delivers some moments of pure laughter. For a film that is high on laughs, Game Night manages to string the audience along with its surprisingly competent mystery, complete with reveals and twists that both shock and amuse viewers. Be sure to stick around for the credits and post-credits.

#5: A Quiet Place

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a big baby when it comes to horror movies. I absolutely loathe jump scares and will watch horror movies through my fingers if I am forced to watch one. However, I had heard so much positive buzz about John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place that I could not allow myself to make this list without seeing it first, and boy am I glad I summoned the courage to see it. A Quiet Place is a masterclass in tension, tone, pacing, sound design, and character development.

The plot centers around the Abbott family in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by blind monsters that attack any source of sound with their heightened sense of hearing. Nothing is known about the origins of these monsters, only that they have wiped out most human and animal life on Earth. In this hopeless world, Lee and Evelyn Abbott struggle to fill their children with hope for the future.

The performances in A Quiet Place are some of the best of the year. The actors have an added degree of difficulty of having very minimal to no dialogue during the entire film, so their facial expressions and body language have to do most of the talking. One of the more impressive feats of A Quiet Place is the characters communicate in American Sign Language, and the actors actually learned ASL for the film. Millicent Simmonds, who plays Regan Abbott, is deaf and knows ASL, so she was able to help her co-stars with ASL, make corrections, and suggest improvements.

Krasinski has said that A Quiet Place is all about parenthood. Along with this theme, the film contains many Christian images and themes that are fascinating to pick apart and ponder. With so much depth, A Quiet Place delivers an original story that grips audiences. Although I did not see it in theaters, I am sure that people could hear a pen drop in their viewings.

#4: Bohemian Rhapsody

For all of its inaccuracies, creative liberties, and unevenness, Bohemian Rhapsody took the world by storm as the highest grossing music biopic and reinvigorated a love of Queen and its leading man, Freddie Mercury. Rami Malek runs away with the film as he disappears into his role as Mercury, so much so that audience members might have to pinch themselves to remember that they are not watching the real Freddie Mercury. Seriously, Malek has to be a surefire Oscar contender for this performance. Not only does he masterfully recreate Mercury’s mannerisms and moves onstage, he also channels his pain and feelings of isolation to bring audiences a fully realized depiction of the superstar. The supporting cast is good too, although Malek’s stellar performance does overshadow them, through no fault of their own.

For its finale, Bohemian Rhapsody gifts audiences with one of the most moving, memorable set pieces in all of film for 2018, the 1985 Live Aid concert. In a word, it is epic. Bohemian Rhapsody teaches lessons of acceptance, love, individuality, and the power of music and leaves viewers wishing they could have had a few more years with the amazing Freddie Mercury. This is one of those instances where the majority of critics should be ignored. Even if viewers are new to Queen, they should not miss this film.

#3: Green Book

Bolstered by fantastic performances by Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali, Peter Farrelly’s Green Book takes a relatively unknown true story about a concert tour to the Deep South in the 1960s with African-American pianist Dr. Don Shirley (Ali) and his driver/bodyguard, Italian-American Tony Vallelonga (Mortensen), and tackles its subject matter without being too heavy-handed and maintaining respect for its characters. The script treats Vallelonga and Shirley as real human beings. Contrary to most film tropes, neither completely changes his character after a single event or incident. Instead, that change occurs slowly over the course of their road trip. Both men learn from one another, despite their disparate backgrounds. Mortensen and Ali are both worthy of Oscar nominations, though I think I would give the edge to Mortensen.

For a film about racism, identity, and the dangerous Jim Crow South, Green Book remains accessible to all audiences. It is full of heart and is brimming with that feel-good aura. As Mick LaSalle wrote in The San Francisco Chronicle, Green Book is “so big in its spirit, that the movie acquires a glow. It achieves that glow slowly, but by the middle and certainly by the end, it's there, the sense of something magical happening, on screen and within the audience.”

#2: Annihilation

I have not stopped thinking about Alex Garland’s Annihilation since it came out way back in February. Garland, the director of one of my favorite films released in 2015 Ex Machina, puts together an impressive cast starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, and Oscar Isaac to deliver a truly intoxicating film that leaves audiences deep in thought well after the credits roll. Based on Jeff VanderMeer’s novel of the same name, Annihilation follows a group of scientists who enter a mysterious quarantined area known as the Shimmer. Inside the Shimmer, flora and fauna undergo uncontrollable mutations. The scientists explore the Shimmer in an attempt to learn its secrets and discover what happened to the military team that was sent in before them.

The atmospheric, bone-chilling score sticks in viewers’ memories and adds to the intense tone of the film. Speaking of tone, Annihilation might bring audiences to the verge of suffocation because of how breathtaking it is. It has possibly the scariest, most dreadful scene of any film from this decade that comes from the stuff of nightmares and leaves audiences haunted. For all of its terrifying elements, however, this sci-fi film also showcases some downright gorgeous scenes that let the imagination run wild. Unlike many sci-fi films these days, Annihilation is not afraid to slow down and let scenes marinate in viewers’ minds. With so many avenues to explore as far as themes go, from ethics to grief to depression to humanity’s propensity for its own self-destruction, Annihilation is a film that should be talked about for a long time to come.

#1: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

This was the easiest decision on my whole list. No other film came close to the number one spot after I saw Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I remember seeing trailers for this film throughout 2018, but I did not have high expectations for it and almost blew it off. After all, with all of the Spider-Man films we have had in recent years, how could this one stand out apart from its animation?

The hype is real. Spider-Man is one of the most well-rounded films of 2018. It expertly balances its genuinely funny comedic moments with its emotionally moving dramatic ones. It takes risks that pay off with its bold storytelling, which is full of charm and satisfying superhero action. There is obvious care and attention to detail poured into every frame of this film, a work of art that is a love letter to superhero comic books. The creators of the film wanted it to feel like "you walked inside a comic book," and they hit it out of the park. The computer-generated animation works in concert with line drawings, paintings, dots, and various comic book art styles to make the film look like it was created by hand. It even has word boxes and bubbles that somehow are not too obstructive or distracting. As Todd Howard, the director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, is famous for saying, “all of this just works.”

For such a large ensemble of characters voiced by ingenious choices like Mahershala Ali, Hailee Steinfeld, and Nicolas Cage, Spider-Man gives each of them equal footing while keeping the spotlight squarely on Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), the new Spider-Man. Lily Tomlin voices what may be my favorite version of Aunt May, and many other Spider-Man staple characters make great appearances.

The soundtrack is catchy and fits the bill for what a kid Miles’ age would listen to. There are tons of Easter eggs for hardcore Spider-Man fans to uncover, and there are pop culture winks and nods that most people familiar with the Spider-Man franchise will understand and enjoy. Of course, the late, great Stan Lee has a touching cameo, one of his best yet.

Every part of this stand-alone story feels fresh, and the characters have so much depth to them. It is hard to come up with an original concept that reinvents the superhero genre, but Spider-Man has done just that and more. This revolutionary, culturally important film was a joy to watch, and it may go down as the best Spider-Man film yet. Certainly, it has to be a serious contender for the best film of 2018.

The following are a list of all of the films I saw from 2018, in no particular order:

·         Green Book

·         The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

·         Pope Francis: A Man of His Word

·         My Hero Academia: Two Heroes

·         Black Panther

·         Annihilation

·         Game Night

·         Ready Player One

·         Isle of Dogs

·         A Quiet Place

·         Avengers: infinity War

·         Deadpool 2

·         Solo: A Star Wars Story

·         Incredibles 2

·         Ant-Man and the Wasp

·         BlacKkKlansman

·         Bad Times at the El Royale

·         Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle

·         First Man

·         Ralph Breaks the Internet

·         Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

·         Aquaman

·         Bumblebee

·         Bohemian Rhapsody

·         Bird Box

·         Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

·         Eighth Grade

My 2017 film list: http://kcaruth.tumblr.com/post/171040800751/movie-mania-top-15-of-2017

My 2016 film list: http://kcaruth.tumblr.com/post/156340406236/movie-mania-top-15-of-2016

[thatsnotcanonpodcasts]

Seaweed, DMCA & Transformers

Professor and DJ are back to talk about billion-year-old seaweed found in China. This seaweed is older than the combined ages of all our listeners, but doesn't complain when you say "OK Boomer". It also has no thoughts on how you should live your life. Not many thoughts on anything, really, it's extinct. Professor summarises the development of life to DJ, but since DJ is a robot, he just doesn't get it.

Activision are trying some legal tactics to close some leaks while ignoring their own incompetence revealing the new Warzone game mode to the world without the efforts of a leaker. Are they just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic: Modern Zombies Ops 8?

This week it's DJ's turn to rant about a missing voice actor. #NOTMYOPTIMUS. A new Transformers series without Michael Bay is in the works from the same people who made the recent Godzilla anime trilogy. Who joins the ranks of the NA wall of wasted cast?

Of course, the Nerds talk about games and have some remembrances for some big names this week, Katherine Johnson and Kazuhisa Hashimoto.

Stay healthy, and we'll be back next week.

Oldest green plant fossil ever found…..billion year old seaweed found in China

            -https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-25/billion-year-old-chinese-seaweed-discovered-by-scientists/11998720?fbclid=IwAR2MYKIY8PyA_3uPFz1TBtIk3kpa7NM9k6Sq4HIROEu95VDNU5jLttBwNUo

Activision’s modern warfare tactic….DMCA takedown

            -https://torrentfreak.com/activision-subpoenas-reddit-to-identify-call-of-duty-warzone-image-200221/

New Transformer anime series coming soon on Netflix

                - https://ew.com/tv/2020/02/22/transformers-war-for-cybertron-trailer-netflix-anime/

                -https://comicbook.com/anime/2020/02/25/netflix-transformers-war-for-cybertron-trilogy-siege-plot-synopsis/

Games Played

DJ

– Genesis - https://www.genesismoba.com/

Rating – 3.5/5

Professor

– Kingdom - https://store.steampowered.com/app/368230/Kingdom_Classic/

Rating – 3/5

Other topics discussed

Why programmers hate time (Reddit Link)

- https://www.reddit.com/r/programminghorror/comments/5x5ql0/this_is_why_programmers_hate_time/

Dugong’s diet (When eating they ingest the whole plant, including the roots. Although almost completely herbivorous, they will occasionally eat invertebrates such as jellyfish,sea squirts, and shellfish.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugong#Feeding

Wakame (a species of edible seaweed, a type of marine algae, and a sea vegetable. It has a subtly sweet, but distinctive and strong flavour and texture. It is most often served in soups and salads.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakame

Sea Lettuce (The sea lettuces comprise the genus Ulva, a group of edible green algae that is widely distributed along the coasts of the world's oceans.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_lettuce

Cyanobacteria (also known as Cyanophyta, are a phylum consisting of free-living photosynthetic bacteria and the endosymbiotic plastids, a sister group to Gloeomargarita, that are present in some eukaryotes.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria

Great Oxidation Event (sometimes also called the Great Oxygenation Event, Oxygen Catastrophe, Oxygen Crisis, Oxygen Holocaust, or Oxygen Revolution, was a time period when the Earth's atmosphere and the shallow ocean experienced a rise in oxygen, approximately 2.4 billion years ago (2.4 Ga) to 2.1–2.0 Ga during the Paleoproterozoic era.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event

Timeline of the evolutionary history of life (This timeline of the evolutionary history of life represents the current scientific theory outlining the major events during the development of life on planet Earth. In biology,evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Life_timeline 

Oxygen Cycle (The oxygen cycle is the biogeochemical transitions of oxygen atoms between different oxidation states in ions, oxides, and molecules through redox reactions within and between the spheres/reservoirs of the planet Earth)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_cycle

Stromatolite (layered mounds, columns, and sheet-like sedimentary rocks that were originally formed by the growth of layer upon layer of cyanobacteria, a single-celled photosynthesizing microbe.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolite

Cyanobacteria found in Australia

- https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/bacteria/cyanofr.html

Prototype iPhone left in a bar

- https://appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/19/prototype_iphone_was_left_at_bar_by_apple_software_engineer

 Rob Cantor – "Shia LaBeouf" Live

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0u4M6vppCI

LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner - HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaBeouf,_Rönkkö_%26_Turner#HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US,_2017_%E2%80%93_present

CNN vs Reddit over Trump meme

- https://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/04/politics/kfile-reddit-user-trump-tweet/index.html

Decepticon (main antagonists in the fictional universes of the Transformers multimedia franchise.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decepticon

Roosterteeth Shows

- Camp Camp - https://roosterteeth.com/series/camp-camp

- RWBY - https://roosterteeth.com/series/rwby

- Gen:Lock - https://roosterteeth.com/series/gen-lock

- Haunter - https://roosterteeth.com/series/achievement-haunter

Cybertron (Cybertron is the home planet of the Transformers and (usually) the body of their creator, Primus.)

- https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Cybertron_(planet)

Vector Prime (Vector Prime is Primus's appointed guardian of time and space.)

- https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Vector_Prime

Crocubot (Crocubot is a superhero and a member of The Vindicators. Crocubot is basically part crocodile and part robot, which technically makes him a cyborg.)

- https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Crocubot

SwitchBlade (5v5 vehicle game)

- https://www.switchbladegame.com/

Greed (The Greed are the grey, faceless creatures who swarm and attack the Kingdom at night.)

- https://kingdomthegame.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Greed

Other Kingdom games

Kingdom: New Lands - https://kingdomthegame.fandom.com/wiki/Kingdom:_New_Lands

Kingdom: Two Crowns - https://kingdomthegame.fandom.com/wiki/Kingdom:_Two_Crowns

Konami Code (cheat code that appears in many Konami video games, and some non-Konami games.)

↑↑↓↓←→←→BA

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code

Johnny English (2003 spy action comedy film directed by Peter Howitt and written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and William Davies.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_English

Aum Shinrikyo in Banjawarn station

- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-10/doomsday-cult-aum-shinrikyo-sarin-gas-tests-at-banjawarn-wa/9401216

Aum Shinrikyo Anime Recruitment Video

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UIyKJwRgaI

Scared Shitless (TNC Podcast)

- https://thatsnotcanon.com/scaredshitlesspodcast

Shout Outs

24  February 2020 – Katherine Johnson passes away - https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/24/us/katherine-johnson-death-scn-trnd/index.html

Katherine Johnson, an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights. During her 35-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist." Johnson's work included calculating trajectories, launch windows and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit, and rendezvous paths for the ApolloLunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon. Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program, and she worked on plans for a mission to Mars. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was portrayed by Taraji P. Henson as a lead character in the 2016 film Hidden Figures. In 2019, Johnson was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Johnson died at a retirement home in Newport News, at age 101. Following her death, Jim Bridenstine, NASA's administrator, described her as "an American hero" and stated that "her pioneering legacy will never be forgotten."

25 February 2020 – Kazuhisa Hashimoto, Japanese video game developer, best known for having created the Konami Code passed away – https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/26/tech/kazuhisa-hashimoto-konami-code-dead/index.html

Hashimoto is best known for inventing the ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A hack found in multiple video games that has become a geek touchstone in the gaming community. The cheat code gives you different perks, depending on the game. Hashimoto had inadvertently created it while bringing the arcade version of Gradius to the NES in 1986. Hashimoto knew the arcade version of the game was hard and he would likely not finish it, so he added a sequence of button presses that he could easily remember that gave the ship he controlled in the game the full range of power-ups so that he could easily complete the game for in-house testing purposes. He had intended to remove the programming code for that sequence before the game was shipped, but the game had shipped with the code included. Since then, the Konami code is not only used across other video games from other developers and publishers in similar manners, but as Easter eggs in other forms of media. His death reported by both Konami and by Hashimoto's friend Yuji Takenouchi , a composer and video game sound designer, who tweeted that the code creator died.

22 February 2020 – 81 year old man became the oldest man to sail around the world - https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-22/bill-hatfield-oldest-person-to-sail-solo-around-the-world/11991436?fbclid=IwAR0r50t6ZI5eHnBuMxqkmgfPTlUiarwhHzVFFPZo5OrKRR4aI95ezGw6Ll0

After four attempts, Bill Hatfield has become the oldest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world. The 81-year-old completed his eight-month journey on Saturday morning, sailing into The Spit on the Gold Coast in his 38-foot yacht L'Eau Commotion. The former fisherman from Bundaberg said he'd been dreaming of this achievement since he was seven years old. Mr Hatfield said he lived on strict rations while at sea. "For fresh water I had a desalinator that pumps through a membrane, and my daily diet was a third of a tin of beans, a tin of tuna, 100 grams of rice and flour and oats, and 150 grams of milk powder." The achievement is all the more impressive considering he sailed west, battling against the prevailing winds and currents.

22 February 2020 – Michael Hughes popularly known as "Mad" Mike Hughes passed away - https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-22/bill-hatfield-oldest-person-to-sail-solo-around-the-world/11991436?fbclid=IwAR0r50t6ZI5eHnBuMxqkmgfPTlUiarwhHzVFFPZo5OrKRR4aI95ezGw6Ll0

Hughes, a self-styled daredevil, flat-Earth theorist and limousine-jumping stuntman, died Saturday when his crudely built contraption propelled him on a column of steam, spiraled through the air and cratered into the sagebrush. The rocket’s green parachute tore away moments after takeoff, sending the crowd of 50 or so people into a panic. In March 2018, Mr Hughes propelled himself almost 600m into the air before a hard landing in the Mojave Desert. After professing his belief in a flat Earth later that year, Hughes gained support within the flat-Earth community. His post-flat-Earth fundraising campaign made its $7,875 goal. He had said he intended to make multiple rocket journeys, culminating in a flight to outer space, where he believed he would be able to take a picture of the entire Earth as a flat disc. He died in Barstow, California at the age of 64.

Remembrances

27 February 1887 – Alexander Borodin -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Borodin   

Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin, Russian chemist and Romantic musical composer of Georgian ancestry. He was one of the prominent 19th-century composers known as "The Mighty Handful", a group dedicated to producing a uniquely Russian kind of classical music, rather than imitating earlier Western European models. A doctor and chemist by profession, Borodin made important early contributions to organic chemistry. Although he is presently known better as a composer, during his lifetime, he regarded medicine and science as his primary occupations, only practising music and composition in his spare time or when he was ill. As a chemist, Borodin is known best for his work concerning organic synthesis, including being among the first chemists to demonstrate nucleophilic substitution, as well as being the co-discoverer of the aldol reaction. Borodin was a promoter of education in Russia and founded the School of Medicine for Women in Saint Petersburg, where he taught until 1885. He died from heart attack at the age of 54 in Saint Petersburg.

27 February 1936 – Ivan Pavlov - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov

Russian physiologist known primarily for his work in classical conditioning. Inspired by the progressive ideas which D. I. Pisarev, the most eminent of the Russian literary critics of the 1860s, and I. M. Sechenov, the father of Russian physiology, were spreading, Pavlov abandoned his religious career and devoted his life to science. Pavlov won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1904, becoming the first Russian Nobel laureate. Pavlov's principles of classical conditioning have been found to operate across a variety of behavior therapies and in experimental and clinical settings, such as educational classrooms and even reducing phobias with systematic desensitization. Pavlov also contributed to many areas of physiology and neurological sciences. Most of his work involved research in temperament,conditioning and involuntary reflex actions. This research served as a base for broad research on the digestive system. He died from natural causes at the age of 86 in Leningrad, Russian SFSR.

27 February 1980 – George Tobias - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tobias

American film and television actor. He had character parts in several major films of Hollywood's Golden Age, but today he is probably best known for his role as Abner Kravitz on the TV sitcom Bewitched. He came to Hollywood in the late Thirties and quickly became a fixture in films of all genres, primarily at Warner Bros. He was a frequent foil for James Cagney and played everything from comedies to dramas and musicals. He died from bladder cancer at the age of 78 in in Los Angeles, California.

Famous Birthdays

27 February 272 – Constantine the Great  – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great

Known as Constantine I, was a Roman Emperor who ruled between AD 306 and 337. As emperor, Constantine enacted administrative, financial, social and military reforms to strengthen the empire. He restructured the government, separating civil and military authorities. To combat inflation he introduced the solidus, a new gold coin that became the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years. The Roman army was reorganised to consist of mobile units (comitatenses) and garrison troops (limitanei) capable of countering internal threats and barbarian invasions. Constantine pursued successful campaigns against the tribes on the Roman frontiers—the Franks, the Alamanni, the Goths and the Sarmatians—even resettling territories abandoned by his predecessors during the Crisis of the Third Century. Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. He has historically been referred to as the "First Christian Emperor" and he did favour the Christian Church. He was born in Naissus, Moesia Superior.

27 February 1869 – Alice Hamilton – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Hamilton

American physician, research scientist, and author who is best known as a leading expert in the field of occupational health and a pioneer in the field of industrial toxicology. Her scientific research focused on the study of occupational illnesses and the dangerous effects of industrial metals and chemical compounds. Hamilton's best-known research included her studies on carbon monoxide poisoning among American steelworkers, mercury poisoning of hatters, and "a debilitating hand condition developed by workers using jackhammers." In addition to her scientific work, Hamilton was a social-welfare reformer, humanitarian, peace activist, and a resident-volunteer at Hull House in Chicago. She was the recipient of numerous honors and awards, most notably the Albert Lasker Public Service Award for her public-service contributions. She was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York.

27 February 1807 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow

American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the Fireside Poets from New England. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1841).  Longfellow wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized by some, however, for imitating European styles and writing specifically for the masses. He was born in Portland, Maine.

Events of Interest

27 February 1980 – “I Will Survive” wins first and last Grammy for Best Disco Recording

- https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/i-will-survive-wins-the-firstand-lastgrammy-ever-awarded-for-best-disco-recording

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences gave disco their stamp of approval, deciding to give a Grammy award for Best Disco Recording, just as the musical style was preparing to die. As popular as the music was on the radio and in the clubs, disco had failed to produce many of the kind of dependable, multi-platinum acts that the industry depended on for its biggest profits. The Best Disco Recording category, recognized by the Grammys for the first time, was summarily eliminated from the following year’s awards.

27 February 1994 – TekLab was aired - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111387/

On this day in 1994, TekLab aired as one of the telefilms launching William Shatner's TekWar SciFi series.  The film starred Greg Evigan and Eugene Clark, and here's the plot summary compliments of IMDB.com: "The actual sword of Excalibur has been stolen in London, and futuristic detectives Jake Cardigan and Sid Gomez are assigned to track it down and to find out who is trying to block the British reign from its rightful heir.".

27 February 2004 – Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, is sentenced to death for masterminding the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack#Aum/Aleph_today

Asahara was sentenced to death by hanging on 27 February 2004, but lawyers immediately appealed the ruling. The Tokyo High Court postponed its decision on the appeal until results were obtained from a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, which was issued to determine whether Asahara was fit to stand trial. Asahara and twelve other Aum cultists were finally executed by hanging in July, 2018, after all appeals were exhausted. The group reportedly still has about 2,100 members, and continues to recruit new members under the name "Aleph" as well as other names. Though the group has renounced its violent past, it still continues to follow Asahara's spiritual teachings. Members operate several businesses, though boycotts of known Aleph-related businesses, in addition to searches, confiscations of possible evidence and picketing by protest groups, have resulted in closures.

Follow us on

Facebook

- Page - https://www.facebook.com/NerdsAmalgamated/

- Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/440485136816406/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/NAmalgamated

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6Nux69rftdBeeEXwD8GXrS

iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/top-shelf-nerds/id1347661094

RSS - http://www.thatsnotcanonproductions.com/topshelfnerdspodcast?format=rss

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/nerds_amalgamated/

General Enquiries

Email - Nerds.Amalgamated@gmail.com

Rate & Review us on Podchaser - https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/nerds-amalgamated-623195

[tortuga-aak]

The downfall of Kinect: Why Microsoft gave up on its most promising product

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

On Tuesday, Microsoft announced it had discontinued the Kinect sensor, a pioneering motion-sensing accessory line for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One that sold almost 30 million units in its lifetime.

The Kinect was a huge bet for Microsoft, but it didn't pay off — the technology wasn't quite reliable enough, the games weren't as good as they could be, and the novelty wore off.

The death of the Kinect has been a long time coming, with Microsoft removing the Kinect port from its most recent model of Xbox One consoles.

On Tuesday, Fast Company reported that Microsoft is killing the Kinect, the ahead-of-its-time motion sensor for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Back in 2015, we took a deep look at the history of the Kinect and its downfall. The story below was originally published on September 8th, 2015, now updated to reflect current facts.

When the Kinect for Xbox 360 was first demonstrated in June 2009, it looked like the future of technology.

By tracking your body with an advanced infrared camera, sensors, and a microphone, the $150 Kinect accessory let you control games and media using just your body and voice.

But then, after Microsoft sold about 29 million of them for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, it just kind of faded away. 

Even Microsoft appears to have given up on it — the Xbox One originally required Kinect to function, but Microsoft dropped that requirement last year.

There are only a handful of Kinect games available for the Xbox One. And the current-model Xbox One S, and the forthcoming Xbox One X, no longer have the correct port to directly plug in a Kinect — you need an optional $40 adapter. 

What happened?

It looked like the future

The goal of Kinect was to broaden the Xbox 360 console's appeal beyond who you would typically think of as "gamers." Instead of playing games with intimidating and complicated controllers, you just had to move.

The Xbox 360 had been selling well since its 2005 introduction, but now needed something to set itself apart, as the Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii were providing stiff competition.

The Kinect was intended to be a shot in the arm, extending the Xbox 360's appeal and providing a new platform for games and content that could take it into the future. Microsoft Corporate Vice President Shane Kim once claimed that the Kinect would mean that the Xbox 360 could stay on the market through 2015.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer even tellingly referred to the Kinect as a "new Xbox" in one presentation.

Flickr

At first, everything looked like it was going according to plan.

The Kinect launched with tons of fanfare — and a $500 million marketing budget — November 4, 2010, with the tagline "You Are the Controller." Oprah Winfrey even gave away Xbox 360s and Kinects on an episode of her show.

You could either buy it separately for $150 or with an Xbox 360 in bundles starting at $299. The Xbox 360 interface itself was given a revamp to be more Kinect-friendly.

The press, especially the non-gaming mainstream media, ate it up and gave the Kinect glowing reviews. And within 60 days, Microsoft sold 8 million Kinects, earning it the Guinness World Record of "fastest-selling consumer device."

Developers started to line up to make games for the device, too, with 17 available at launch, including "Kinect Adventures," a Microsoft-made game that came packaged with the Kinect sensor.

Most of those games were panned by reviewers: "Critics are complaining about a lack of solid launch titles for the new control system; only 'Dance Central' seems to have anything to recommend it," said a Metacritic roundup of launch titles at the time.

But people realized it was new technology, and they were willing to give it time. Even when people noticed that you needed a lot of space to make good use of the Kinect sensor, nobody seemed to mind moving their furniture.

At least, not at first.

Problem #1: Not enough great games

AP

A slow but steady trickle of Kinect games came out over the following months, but a lot of them fell into the "family entertainment" or "fitness trainer" veins, far from the core gamer demographic that made up most of the Xbox 360-owning audience.

Worse, a lot of the titles got poor reviews, alienating those many who bought an Xbox 360 just to play Kinect games.

Microsoft convinced a lot of larger publishers of marquee franchise games to integrate Kinect features into their gameplay, but they were largely gimmicky — I'll never forget the time my friend got a red card in "FIFA 15" soccer for the Xbox 360 because the Kinect's microphone caught him swearing.

We asked a former Xbox insider familiar with the development of the Kinect why it was so hard to find any good games that did cool things with the sensor.

The simple answer is that the best of the best developers simply weren't interested because they had invested so much in making their existing, lucrative, big-budget franchises work frighteningly well with a traditional controller.

"'Halo' doesn’t need Kinect — it has an incredibly precise and detailed control set, and further, can’t give a Kinect user an unfair advantage over non-Kinect owners," the former Xbox insider says.

In other words, even if top-tier developers thought it was cool, they weren't going to blow the time and budget to make it work with their existing games.

Plus, you didn't need a Kinect to play those games, so many players likely didn't even know there was any integration in those games at all.

Capcom

At the same time, circa the early 2010s, those developers who were best suited to creating really new, innovative games for non-gaming crowds were starting to shift their efforts toward the iPhone and Android platforms, where there was cash and a rapidly growing audience to be found, the insider says.

Problem #2: "85% magic, 15% frustrating"

The Kinect also introduced voice commands and a gesture interface to the Xbox 360 itself. You could pause a movie with your voice, or log in to your account on the console by standing in front of the camera.

But as cool as that all sounded, the Kinect was still a new technology, and there were some glitches with those cool new interface tricks.

"It does do magic, but only 85% correctly. When you encounter the 15%, it’s frustrating," the former Xbox insider said.

Xbox

Serious gamers care about precise movements, like landing a perfect Super Combo in "Street Fighter IV" or nailing a headshot in "Call of Duty." Similarly, if you have voice controls for a movie, it had better work the first time, or else you're just shouting "pause" at your TV over and over.

In both cases, it wasn't quite the totally accurate experience that people wanted.

"It’s essentially a less precise replacement for a lot of things which, once the novelty wears off, is not valued by the market. So it’s real value is for new experiences impossible before without it. There isn’t enough interest or investment in those," the ex-insider says.

Problem #3: It required a lot of space.

Worse, the longer people used Kinect, the more they found places and situations where it just fell short and didn't work as well as it should have.

In my apartment, playing a Kinect game requires moving furniture around to give the sensor the field of view that it needs to work well. It's a big problem for lots of gamers, since you need 6 to 10 feet between you and the sensor.

Try playing that in a dorm room or small apartment.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon / NBC screenshot

"I'd be surprised if even 20% of rooms with Xboxes 'work well' for the really new/fun experiences," the former Xbox insider says.

Meanwhile, you can sit on a couch in a room of any size and play a more traditional video game.

A second push with the Xbox One

Despite these pros, Kinect adoption was fairly strong, at least partially because Microsoft was pushing it as part of those bundles with the wildly popular Xbox 360 console.

But not every Xbox 360 owner took the plunge: In January 2012, Microsoft announced that it had sold 18 million Kinects versus 66 million total Xbox 360 consoles.

A year after later, in February 2013, Microsoft Xbox community relations head Larry Hryb announced on Twitter that the company had sold 24 million Kinects for 76-million-plus Xbox 360 consoles, which suggests — but doesn't prove — that most of them were sold bundled with the console.

Microsoft / Xbox One via YouTube

Microsoft wasn't ready to give up on the Kinect just yet, though.

When the Xbox One was first introduced in November 2013, Microsoft made the shocking announcement that the new console would come with and require a new version of the Kinect sensor. That meant the Xbox One would cost $499 versus the competing Sony PlayStation 4's $399 price tag.

In exchange for the $100 premium over the competition, Microsoft promised that the new system would provide an unprecedented user experience, including immersive games and television shows that you could actually interact with. Plus, it shipped with Bing-powered search and the Internet Explorer browser preinstalled.

For Microsoft, it was all part of its long-time ambition to place a computer in the living room. With the Kinect, Microsoft thought it had made a user-friendly multimedia hub with a natural interface that anybody could use for both games and media.

The Xbox One's core gamer demographic hated the idea. When the Xbox One hit the market in November 2013, it was quickly outsold by the cheaper PlayStation 4 for months after its launch. At one point, the PlayStation 4 outsold the Xbox One at a factor of 3 to 1. That early lead means PlayStation 4 still dominates the Xbox One in sales.

Microsoft refused to relent and doubled down on its message that the Kinect was the future.

That message was undercut by the fact that the Xbox One only launched with one game that needed the Kinect: The incredibly, poorly reviewed "Fighter Within," with a 23% average on review aggregation site Metacritic.

Furthermore, the actual Kinect for Xbox One sensor itself turned out to only be a minor improvement on the first, with some new, but still gimmicky, integrations with the interface. For instance, you could take a screenshot in a game by asking the Kinect, nicely, to do so.

YouTube/IGN

The final retreat

In April 2014, the flagship "Kinect Sports Rivals" came out for the Xbox One. Published by Microsoft, it was going to be a big, if belated, showcase for what the new Kinect could do. It was a big bet for the company, with a team of 150 working on the title.

Instead, it ended up wildly underselling, ultimately getting written off as a massive loss that led to layoffs at developer studio Rare, according to reports at the time.

In May 2014, Microsoft finally relented on its insistence on the Kinect sensor and announced that it would sell a version of the Xbox One console without it for $399 — recently marked down again to $349. You can still buy a Kinect bundled with the Xbox One system for $499 or by itself for $150.

The move has significantly helped Xbox One's sales, and the gap between it and the leading Sony PlayStation 4 is getting smaller by the quarter.

YouTube/The Podmeister

But it meant that the estimated 5 million Xbox One owners who had bought their console before the Kinect unbundling were stuck with an accessory they didn't necessarily want in the first place. Meanwhile, only a handful of games support Kinect for Xbox One at all, and of those only a few received decent reviews.

And with the novelty gone after the first generation of Kinect for Xbox 360, even the most optimistic Xbox fans were out of patience with the device.

"Microsoft has only itself to blame for Kinect's failure," said a headline on Microsoft news site Neowin in May 2014.

The gloves were off.

The article's author noted that no new big flagship games had been announced for the Kinect for Xbox One — not even from Microsoft itself. That remained true for the rest of the lifetime of the Kinect.

In addition, Microsoft actually closed the TV studio it had opened to provide interactive TV content with Kinect in October 2014. In 2016, with the release of the Xbox One S, Microsoft removed the built-in Kinect port, requiring users to use an external USB adapter.

In other words, it really seems like Kinect had been swept under a rug, even before the official discontinuation.

Not game over

There's an interesting coda here: The Kinect has found a strange second life outside gaming.

Its nifty motion-tracking tech has a ton of other applications. In 2010, Adafruit CEO Limor Fried released a set of unofficial drivers to make the Kinect for Xbox 360 work with Windows — which allegedly annoyed Microsoft at first, but they came around and released an official version down the line.

From there, artists and robotics hobbyists started working the Kinect into all kinds of projects, Fried tells Business Insider.

This bizarre "PomPom Mirror" art piece uses a Kinect to match your motion, for example:

Vimeo Embed: http://ift.tt/2h89rN4 Width: 500px Height: 281px

Elements of the Kinect made it into Windows itself: Windows Hello, the facial recognition system built into select Windows 10 PCs, uses similar infrared-tracking technology as the Kinect to work.

In short, with 23 million Kinects sold for the Xbox 360, and at least 5 million Xbox Ones sold that included the sensor, it's a little funny, and a little sad, that Microsoft couldn't make it work as the future of gaming.

But at least it's getting good use somewhere.

And when the Microsoft HoloLens, its futuristic wearable computer, comes out with a consumer version down the line, it's going to face a lot of the same problems with finding a niche. Notably, Kinect's product lead, Alex Kipman, is also responsible for the HoloLens.

But where Kinect led with gaming, Microsoft is being careful to reaffirm that the HoloLens has lots of commercial applications for business users, even as it shows off holographic "Minecraft" demos. 

Microsoft has become wary of trying to appease hardcore gamers alone, it seems.

NOW WATCH: The head of Xbox says this one product is 'critical' to the future of gaming

from Feedburner http://ift.tt/1O55nI6

[moviecatchup]

It’s like ‘Jaws,’ but in space: Alien

Alien 1979 Dir: Ridley Scott Rating: 4 / 5 mouths within mouths within mouths

“Many producers have professional ‘readers’ that read and summarize scripts for them. The reader in this case summarized it as ‘It’s like Jaws (1975), but in space.’”

— IMDb trivia, Alien

Another day, another classic movie catchup! I was more intentional about missing Alien, I think — I had heard that it was scary, and given my previously stated fear of horror movies and general disinterest in sci-fi, I never made any effort to see it.

Our viewing came about in a bit of a backwards fashion — D and I wanted to go to the movies last week, and Alien: Covenant had just come out. We debated staying in and watching the original first so I could get some context, but in the end the desire to get out of the house for a date night outweighed the need for chronological franchise viewing. There were some definite plusses and minuses to that decision — plusses included a delicious cheeseburger at our local Alamo Drafthouse and being reassured that these movies actually aren’t that scary; minuses included feeling like I already had seen this cinematic universe when we got around to watching Alien a couple days later — while we were watching the movie that was intended to introduce us to the universe for the first time, I wasn’t able to see it through uninitiated eyes.

For anyone who is in the late-to-the-movie-party boat with me, Alien follows the adventures of the cargo spaceship Nostromo and its crew as it cruises through space, initially back to Earth with ore for whatever we need ore for in 2122. There are seven crew members, awakened from a two-year hypersleep at the opening of the film because their AI captain MUTHUR (pronounced ‘Mother,’ how clever) has detected a communication, and it is their contractual duty to discover the potentially intelligent communicator. They land on an unknown planet, send a team out to find the exact source of the blip, and things go steadily, though not quickly, downhill from there. The pacing of this movie is delightful — there is time for both the crew and the audience to think, weigh the options, and let the enormity of their situation settle in. There is gore, though not as much as you’d expect, and there are certainly scary moments, but you’re mostly just watching the crew grapple with their changing reality.

Like many of the movies I’m watching and writing about for this little project, my reaction to Alien suffered a bit from its now-prominent and -permanent place in the American zeitgeist. Though I had never seen the movie, I had picked up what the alien looked like somewhere along the way, and the plot and visuals were not shocking or especially remarkable, by today’s standards. I hadn’t seen a lot of space movies until the past couple of years, but I’ve been catching up, and the narrative of “ship exploring space, full of astronauts with strong personalities, brings an alien on board, alien kills everyone except that one person / various other calamities ensue until there’s just that one person” is a whole thing. This just didn’t hit me with the same force as I’m sure it hit audiences in 1979 — too spoiled by hyper-realistic CGI graphics and jaded by movies telling and retelling stories.

Le sigh.

All that being said, there’s a reason we tell and retell these stories — they’re really good stories! And they get at a lot of essentially human themes: our desire to explore and discover, our essential reflex to stay alive against all odds, our fascination with and fear of the unknown, and what that emotional combination can force us to do. Also, there really isn’t such a thing as an original story — there wasn’t when Shakespeare was writing and there isn’t now — so getting picky about recurring plot lines is a little high and mighty of me. It’s about how you tell the story, and I think that Ridley Scott and co. told this one very well.

Case in point (IMDb is today’s theme, if you couldn’t tell): “The Xenomorph has 4 minutes of screen time, and doesn’t make its first appearance until about an hour into the film.” How flipping good is that? The Thing, the entity around which the action of the entire movie occurs, is a minor character at BEST. The tension builds and pulses race through storytelling and cinematography, not through neverending “we are developing the plot now” conversations interspersed with jump scares or spooooky things in the corner of your eye. Ridley manages to make the initial introduction of the characters both engaging and a little foreboding — after everyone is roused from hypersleep and is sitting around eating and catching up, you get a sense of camaraderie and a sense of bad things to come all at once. We get to the jump scares eventually, of course, but by the time they happen, it’s a release of built-up tension, rather than an out-of-nowhere reminder to pay attention to the movie.

Apropos of not much, my mother calls Sigourney Weaver a “take-no-prisoners actress.” I lean more towards “badass,” but I think the sentiment is the same either way.

Favorite IMDB trivia pieces (besides the ones cited above):

“The dead facehugger that Ash autopsies was made using fresh shellfish, four oysters, and a sheep kidney to recreate the internal organs” — I thought I saw a damn oyster in there!

“The original title was ‘Star-Beast’…” that would have been far, far shittier.

(This is a long one, but hang with me a second) During early development, Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett ran into a writing impasse while trying to work out how the alien would get aboard the ship. Shussett came up with the idea “the alien f*cks one of them,” which was eventually developed into the facehugger concept. This method of reproduction via implantation was deliberately intended to invoke images of male rape and impregnation, so both writers were adamant that the facehugger victim be a man: firstly because they wanted to avoid the horror cliché of women being depicted as the easy first target; secondly because they felt that making a female the casualty of a symbolic rape felt inappropriate; and thirdly, to make the male viewers feel more uncomfortable with this reversal of genre conventions. — way to turn some of the tired old horror tropes on their gender head a bit!

The literal translations of some of this film’s foreign language titles include Alien: The Eighth Passenger (Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Canada, Denmark, Israel and France) and Alien: The Uncanny Creature from a Strange World (West Germany). — I really, really dig The Eighth Passenger as an alternate title for this movie.

Iconic? I mean, absolutely — I don’t think I need to qualify or explain that

Re-watchable? I’m not sure I would reach for this again for a while — to me, it’s more of a genre-defining experience than a go-to movie night movie. I’m glad I watched it, I feel like I have a better context for a lot of other space movies, but I don’t think I enjoyed the experience of it enough to choose it over something I haven’t seen, or something I’ve seen a million times and love. We are, however, working our way through the Alien universe / franchise — we watched Prometheus a couple days ago, which was also super entertaining, and it has spurred a couple long conversations about the timeline and placement of the overall universe. According to Ridley Scott via trusty IMDb, Alien (and all sequels), Prometheus, Predator (and all sequels) AND Blade Runner are all in the same universe, so there’s a lot to discuss.

Favorite moment? Sigourney Weaver singing “You Are My Lucky Star” as she prepared to finally blow the damn thing into space — it was eerie and unexpected in a way that I got right behind. And the chestbursting scene actually made me laugh out loud — we all knew it was coming, and it was a great moment, but seeing that little thing pop out and scamper away just made me giggle.

Hated? The lone black character being underpaid AND lazy AND yelled at to just shut up and listen (to the white man with authority explaining basic facts condescendingly), and then switching to total compliance when he was threatened with no income at all. That whole scene was just icky with racist tropes. Also, the underwear scene towards the end was so unnecessary — you just couldn’t let a female character get through a movie without showing some leg ( / buttcrack?!), no matter how badass she was, eh? For shame, the year 1979. And 2017, but that’s a different matter.

Bechdel test? Yes! From the IMDb trivia, it sounds like they cut a couple of scenes between Ripley and Lambert that would have been challenging — one with them discussing if either of them had had sex with Ash (the robot, for lack of a better word), and another in which Lambert slaps Ripley after Ripley refuses to let the contaminated group complete with facehugger back on the ship (women are so catty and always slapping each other! right?!) — but those scenes were cut and we’re left with a movie with a strong female protagonist, and scenes with her and the other female character talking about something other than men or romance. Lambert was annoyingly cry-y and panicky, but you can’t have everything in this life.

[thecloudlight-blog]

New Post has been published on Cloudlight

New Post has been published on https://cloudlight.biz/nyc-cafe-accuses-starbucks-of-stealing-their-unicorn/

NYC cafe accuses Starbucks of stealing their unicorn

However, The Quit claims that the Unicorn Frappuccino was too comparable in outward look to their unicorn latte. Both beverages prominently show brilliant colorings, purple and blue in particular.

The Quit also felt that Starbucks’ product launch changed into designed to overshadow their unicorn late, with the lawsuit also noting that The Cease has had a hallmark pending on the drink name seeing that January.

Starbucks, of direction, said that the accusations have no grounds. And while a part of us hates siding with company giants, we may need to consider them right here. It is very tough to imagine that Starbucks designed Each their drink and their advertising marketing campaign to purposefully overshadow a small cafe in Brooklyn.

The beverages also are basically distinctive to their very middle.

Starbucks’ unicorn is all about sugary sweetness even as The Quit’s unicorn attempts to assist humans to discover strength through all-natural elements (algae!). Due to that, those two unicorn drinks robotically goal nearly absolutely exclusive audiences. You drink the latte while you want to keep your suitable vibes going after a few restorative yoga, and you drink the frappuccino whilst you need to deal with yo’self and experience certainly responsible approximately it later.

Maybe all people should simply pass on and forestall the unicorn trend altogether.

People That Accuse You When You Are In The Right

Maximum of us realize a person who accuses us of incorrect-doing whenever we ask that they do what they must have completed. As an example, you can have a colleague who has to have finished some paintings by a sure cut-off date, and your part of the paintings relies upon on their finished work. And while you ask for his or her paintings, they accuse you of being domineering, whinge approximately you to HR, or simply say which you are not their boss or something like that. Or perhaps you’ve got a pal of loved one which became going to look after your pet or flowers at the same time as you were away,

And closer the time, whilst you asked them while to supply your

Home keys to them, they blast you with being too annoying and that you need to not anticipate they’ll do the undertaking, and so on. Or perhaps you were having a communication with and that they seem satisfied that you are wrong, despite the fact that you understand that you are right. Sounds familiar? Examine on…

Simply pointing out to them which you have been counting on them, that that they had agreed to assist, that you are not the person making demands (as inside the case of the colleague who leaves you stranded without their a part of the paintings executed), or that studies suggests that your argument is correct; this isn’t going to get you anywhere, as this individual convinces even themselves that they’re a sufferer and you are the bully. Or they may deliberately be gambling you for something motive. they may not even see that there is a hassle, not to mention that they, no longer you, are those who have created it.

So what are you alleged to do?

To start witformember the fact that that is a trouble with psychological issues that we may not recognize. They need to assist, and will now not reply to purpose.

Secondly, know that defense mechanisms are utilized by them towards you to shield or protect themselves from emotional hurt. Passive-competitive type human beings use a selection of maneuvers to get what they need, whilst on the same time, shielding themselves from perceived damage or grievance. They do no longer care about the truth, approximately your feelings, or the consequences of their movements for others. They handiest consider themselves.

Thirdly, do not reply to them if you can help it. If it’s far a piece state of affairs, log it and see the HR supervisor or your boss as soon as possible, as this man or woman may also beat you to it (they are the supposed sufferer, do not forget?). If it is a “buddy”, well, you may want to spring-easy your friendships and discover humans extra for your stage.

Closing however no longer least, use EFT Tapping or any similar electricity modality so that you can let cross of the hurt carried out to you. In any other case, the resentment may additionally build up, you can begin ignoring your paintings, or you could begin dropping self-assurance in social conditions. Tap it out. Don’t let this man or woman get to you. permit it to pass.

Starbucks Coffee – What Commercial Real Estate Investors Should Know

Starbucks Espresso once in a while referred to as Fourbucks Coffee is the largest coffeehouse chain within the international. It opened its first save in 1971 in Seattle’s waterfront Pike Vicinity Market with the aid of 3 companions: Jerry 1st earl Baldwin of Bewdley, Zev Siegel, and Gordon Bowker to sell Coffee beans and system. In 1982, Howard Schultz, the contemporary Chairman, and CEO joined the enterprise as the Director of Advertising. He became inspired by way of the popularity of the coffee bars in Italy after he traveled to Milan in 1983. Returned to the united states, he convinced the founders of Starbucks to sell each Espresso beans and espresso beverages

But, the idea changed into rejected so he left the employer and based Il Giornale Espresso bar chain in 1985.

In 1987 Howard Schultz and Il Giornale offered Starbucks with $3.8M and renamed Il Giornale Espresso bars to Starbucks and grew to become it into the Starbucks you realize nowadays. The company went public with the image SBUX on June 26, 1992, at $17/proportion with one hundred forty stores. In view that then the inventory has broken up 5 times. As of May additionally 2008, SBUX is traded at about $sixteen, down from the excessive of $39.43 in November 2006.

Starbucks opened the primary overseas keep in Tokyo, Japan in 1996. The employer presently has about sixteen,000 stores, employs 172,000 partners, AKA employees as of September 2007 in 44 international locations. It has annual sales of over $10B with most recent quarterly revenue being $2.526B. approximately eighty-five% of Starbucks sales comes from business enterprise operated stores.

Starbucks does no longer franchise its operations and has no plans to franchises in foreseeable destiny.

In North America, most stores are agency-operated. You can see a few Starbucks shops inside Target, primary supermarkets, University campuses, Hospitals, and Airports. These shops are operated below licensing agreements to provide access to real property which would otherwise unavailable. Starbucks receives licensee expenses and royalties from These licensed places. At Those licensed retail locations, the workers are considered employees of that particular store, no longer Starbucks. As of 2008, it has 7087 corporation-operated stores and 4081 licensed shops in the US. Across the world, it has 1796 employer operated stores and 2792 joint mission or licensed stores in forty-three overseas countries. The tempo of expansion is slowing down because the employer plans to open 1020 US shops in 2008, much less than four hundred stores in 2009 down from 1800 shops in2007. Similarly, it additionally plans to close 100 shops in 2008.

The Consequences of Stealing – Theft and the Law

Robbery can include armed robbery, burglary, Theft by using test, forgery, unauthorized use of a car, fraud, false declaration to a credit employer, shoplifting and the listing goes on. The results for stealing variety from a category C misdemeanor to prison fees, typically relying on the monetary cost of what become taken. If the fee of the stolen item is beneath $1,500 then the wrongdoer will most probable be convicted of a misdemeanor. This may result in a simple high-quality and/or network provider, however, may also contain prison time, relying on the situations. If the object was stolen turned into of remarkable fee, the accused will most probably be charged with a prison and will serve jail time. At the time of a listening to the court might be notified if there may be a couple of offense at the suspect’s document and this could also affect the sentencing. Those who steal generally do not do it simply one time.

It is important to note that during a few states

Stealing of any type is taken into consideration a “crime of moral turpitude”. This indicates the act of stealing is not a favorable action in network requirements of justice, honesty or top morals. Even if you are charged with a misdemeanor, you may have an everlasting criminal report on the way to follow you for the relaxation of your lifestyles. This will have negative outcomes on the culprit’s individual individually, legally and with destiny employment possibilities.

One of the most not unusual types of stealing is shoplifting

Shoplifting is the planned act of taking an unpaid item from a place of business and it takes place extra than we are conscious. A person may be convicted of shoplifting even if they do not stroll out of the shop, however, are located with hidden merchandise in their ownership. In some states, there is even a “regulation of Parties” that means that in case you are with a pal who is stuck stealing in a retail establishment, you may also be prosecuted even though you failed to intend on stealing. A median of $10 billion greenbacks’ really worth of goods is stolen from retail businesses each year. The numbers and data are fantastic. All of us pay the charge for Those who devote those acts by way of having to pay greater for merchandise when groups pad expenses to recuperate losses from shoplifters. The law does no longer look kindly on People who shoplift.