Living in the Future

Category: Link

  • You should be able to use TMs during Pokemon Go Community Days

    I have never posted about Pokemon Go on here before, and it’s possible once I start, I’ll just never stop.

    However, what happened this morning hits in just the right way to scratch all my itches, and that’s what this website is about. I posted the following on Reddit last night, and for reasons I don’t fully understand, it was removed this morning by the mods.

    This is part of a bigger thing I always think about, where I don’t understand how the cultural nuances of Reddit got to where they are. So rather than complain about cancel culture or how I’m being attacked in an echo chamber, I’m just going to re-express my point here. Free speech!

    If you don’t care about Pokemon Go, by all means you don’t have to keep reading.

    I realize Niantic wants to sell elite TMs, which is why they haven’t put anything like this in motion, but with PvP now being a big priority, you can officially buy access to moves like icy wind on dewgong, or psystrike on Mewtwo.

    With CD move TM windows, none of those uses change. Especially with something like a magikarp community day, where up until March nobody could have thought we would ever see this, people have great maxed out, powered up, best friend pokemon. These now either get replaced by new pokemon with a CD move, or people have to spend valuable elite TMs on something easily ‘replaceable’ to get extremely meta relevant moves.

    For example, I have a 100% Gyarados that’s currently maxed out as of S1 of GBL, but it’s now much less valuable than my 93% Aqua Tail Gyarados from today for PvP, unless I use my one and only elite TM (and because I only get one of these per season of GBL, I’m realistically effectively never using it).

    Even if using a TM during this window required candy and/or stardust (somehow) it would still let the pokemon we already have be usable down the road (like what happens every December so far).

    All of this to say, in an effort to increase fairness, especially in GBL, I don’t think it really takes anything away from the game (at this point) to let people use CD evolution windows to also TM those moves.

    r/TheSilphRoad Post

  • COVID Alert is now publicly available! [Links]

    You can download the COVID Alert exposure notification app in Canada now! It’s available on the iOS App Store as well as the Google Play Store.

    See more details of how it works and what it looks like in my older post when I started using the beta:

    Here’s What Canada’s ‘COVID Alert’ app (beta) Looks Like
  • Here’s What Canada’s ‘COVID Alert’ app (beta) Looks Like

    Here’s What Canada’s ‘COVID Alert’ app (beta) Looks Like

    [UPDATE – July 31]: The app is now publicly available. Go get it!

    On Wednesday, Health Canada finally released a beta (test) version of the Canadian ‘COVID Alert’ exposure notification app.

    I have been waiting for a couple of months to finally be able to get this set up once Apple and Google announced they would be building exposure notifications in to their operating systems, and it’s finally here (if you are willing to jump through some hoops and help test it out).

    Let’s take a look!

    When you first launch the app, you’re given a bunch of info right off the top. You’ll also have to accept exchanging exposure tokens with other phones, as well as receipt of exposure notifications, and then standard iOS app notifications as well. Here’s what the setup screens look like:

    Once you’ve got everything activated, there’s not a whole lot to do besides look at the menus and edit your information.

    I was informed via email they will be testing what an ‘exposure’ looks like in the app over the next 2-4 days, so if that happens, I will definitely share that information!

    There’s not much to the app to be honest (which is a good thing), but there is a little more information to go over.

    In the meantime, here’s some information provided under ‘How it works’:

    These exposure notification apps (one per country, by rule) are meant to be for public health reasons only, so they’re very minimal, and outside of use in conjunction with your doctor, you won’t really notice it on your phone.

    The only information the app collects and is able to use is a set of randomly generated ‘codes’ from the phones of others you interact with, and your phone sends out a similar set of ‘codes’ to people around you. No private information is stored or sent anywhere, like location or your personal details.

    If you test positive, your doctor will give you a one-time use code which you enter in to the app, and this (if you choose to do it) will notify anybody else who has the app that you were nearby them and may have exposed them to the virus, because their phone has stored your ‘code’ from while you were near each other.

    It’s a pretty incredible, secure system, and I’m really eager to have it see wide use in Canada and around the world, on Android and on iOS, over the coming months and possibly years.

    When I hear more about the public release, I will post updates here!

  • 3 Things: WFH Edition

    Obviously, I would pick:

    • Fast internet
    • Multiple monitors
    • Good chair

  • Let’s walk through the opening sequence from Austin Powers 3

    Since we’re all spending some more time than usual twiddling our thumbs right now, it’s a good time to check out some light-hearted, relatively short YouTube videos.

    For today, here’s the director of Austin Powers 3: Goldmember, describing the process, reasoning, and storyboarding of the long, really fun opening sequence of Goldmember. Check it out!

  • The making of the Seinfeld intro

    I had no idea this is how the Seinfeld theme was made. From the custom keyboard sounds, both with bass and mouth sounds, to the playing along with the intro differently depending on the cadence of each joke. I guess I have to rewatch Seinfeld again now!

    Bonus points in my mind go to Forgetting Sarah Marshall because Peter (Jason Segel) plays a Seinfeldian bass line on keyboard at his crime show composing job, then uses a music stand to destroy a projector screen in vengeful anger. I now recognize this a clear reference to how the theme was composed, just another layer in how great that movie is!

  • Spider-Verse: My Favourite Movie of the Last Decade

    Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is what I’m calling my new favourite movie since Forgetting Sarah Marshall [2008] (and they’re so different, don’t even bother making me rank them). I’ve spent a lot of time talking with my friends about how much I love this movie, and so far nobody I’ve met in real life has really come to the same obsessive conclusion about this movie as I have.

    I love the YouTube channel FilmJoy, and Movies with Mikey is such a wonderful video essay series, I just have to share this entry with you (but honestly, go pick any movie you love from the back catalogue and you’ll appreciate his take on it). There are lots of great video essays about this movie, this is but one recent example too.

    Spider-Verse is a fun and unique movie in just so many ways. It has a great cast, flips expectations on their heads at every turn, it’s hysterical, and is SO beautiful in a way that I’ve never seen in any movie, animated or not. This film won the Oscar for best animated picture, and in a year with other GREAT movies, it wasn’t even close.

    I could talk for weeks about the animation style, the amount of detail and passion that so clearly made it in to every frame of this movie, the characters and story which show off stories which have never been seen in Hollywood before. The way this movie is able to carve out a niche for a ‘different’ Spider-Man , while only heightening the ‘legend’ and legacy of the Peter Parker Spider-Man we all know and love is something that other adaptations could only dream of.

    I’ve always loved Spider-Man as a character, and the emotional, humourous, and suspenseful moments just hit you SO hard. The soundtrack and musical cues are perfect, the lighting and colour are vivid, imaginative, and visually pleasing in a way you have to see to believe. And the way that the different comic book styles blend together seamlessly makes the world of this movie so immersive you believe everything it asks you to without question.

    I could watch this movie over and over again, and it would never get old, or feel stale, because there’s something new or interesting or beautiful to focus on in every single frame through the entire movie. I love everything about Spider-Verse, and I hope that you’re excited to go watch it again reading this, whether you’ve not yet seen it, or whether you’ve seen it a hundred times.

  • ‘Drop the Soap’ Jokes are SO Weird

    While the YouTube video is being reinstated (read more here), here’s the Archive.org version.

    I may as well just post every single time Pop Culture Detective puts out a video, because I’m right there with them shouting my support every time a new one is posted.

    This time, the subject is the treatment of males who are sexually assaulted, and their portrayal in pop culture. It is truly unbelievable how pervasive this ‘joke’ trope is, and to me it is equally bizarre how this trope persists even today.

    It seems like today for the most part, sexual assault of women is a pretty clear taboo, especially to be played for laughs. However, the same cannot be said of men who are subjected to the same kinds of assaults. The range of types of media where this is pervasive is truly one of the most shocking parts, ranging from children’s shows all the way to adult police dramas.

    I think what is happening here is that the ‘joke’ is so played out at this point, that (surely male) writers don’t really think through the implications of what they’re implying is occurring. At least, that’s my hope, because if they are thinking it through, that’s even more horrifying. The idea that if you’ve done something wrong in your life, that you deserve physical punishment is something that I find abhorrent, and it’s a central tenet of this trope.

    Nobody ‘deserves’ abuse of any kind, especially in the context of somebody already serving a prison sentence, and anybody could become a victim of this kind of assault. This type of situation is certainly not deserving of a laugh in TV or movies, and it should certainly be something we continue to see less of until it hopefully disappears completely.

  • Football is Killing its Players

    For the last few years, as evidence has been mounting about brain injuries befalling NFL players, I’ve found it really hard to separate the violent aspects of football I tolerated from the jaw-dropping highlights and strategy I enjoy so much.

    I actually have several hundred words written on the topic of CTE in a draft on this blog that I will hopefully get a chance to publish someday, but this video sums up my thoughts pretty perfectly on the matter. It’s kind of unbelievable that given what we know about how football affects the brain, that we’re all just okay with this.

    As with many ‘traditions’, it’s very hard to even discuss because some people refuse to even acknowledge there might be a problem with something their families have enjoyed for generations.

    The other aspect mentioned in this video, the fact that they are talking about college football, where players get literally zero compensation (and if they take endorsement money or any other kind of gift, they face suspension), while coaches and other staff associated with this billion dollar system are paid up to millions of dollars a year. It’s quite clearly exploitation, and like they said in the video, “I’ve woken up”, and I just can’t look at football the same way again.

  • Climate change is not just real, it’s obvious

    Vox has posted this before, but it was updated recently with new clips to bring it to the present. It highlights the partisan shift regarding climate change in American politics, from acknowledging that climate change is real, to Republicans realizing the best (only?) way to actually fight climate change effectively from an economic perspective is a tax on greenhouse gas pollution, which of course would be very unpopular for their base (and the business interests funding their re-election campaigns).

    It’s particularly galling to me when you hear the Republican politicians early in the ’16 year’ timeline making points that are good and true about what needs to be done, both with respect to acknowledging the outcomes of scientific research, and to the effects of climate change in general. This is skillfully juxtaposed with clips later in the video where those same people are reversing those previous opinions with industry talking points about the economic impacts of climate change in the coal industry, for example.

    It’s very frustrating to see this all play out like this on a linear timeline, because the hypocrisy of politics in general is expertly laid bare by the editor, with no context or narration given other than sound bites. The conclusion this video presents is quite an obvious one to me, and I think I would be hard pressed to find somebody who wouldn’t agree.

    It’s politically disastrous for a Republican to support the existence of climate change because it will require a tax increase on businesses in order to actually have an impact in the short term (before non-polluting alternative energy becomes more economically advantageous, which will happen in due course). So those politicians, almost exclusively old white dudes, I note, cling to their voters and the business interests supporting their re-election, rather than taking action to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

    We, as humans, are not used to our actions having a global impact, and I think this is why it’s so hard for individual people to accept that something they are doing could ruin the planet and ‘habitat’ of millions of others, but that’s the reality of what’s happening here. Our biology and instincts haven’t caught up with the scale of our civilization, and empathy on a massive scale will be required in order for any real change to come about on this issue.

    Climate, and the well-being of all humanity, should not be a partisan bargaining chip, and I just hope we won’t be too late to fix the problems being caused right now when presented with even more obvious symptoms of the problem. It’s worth bearing in mind this adage: “The Earth will survive humanity, but humans may not“.