But when you’re just starting out, eager to do what you want to do, and don’t care about getting paid, to the extent that it even ends up costing you instead, there’s something else putting up a wall to hinder your progress: Networking.

As someone that absolutely despises to network (and generally dislikes having to meet new people in general), this, I believe, has been my biggest setback.

But I don’t think I’m alone in this. In fact, I’ve seen and heard other instances where this has been the deciding factor, where network matters more than what you’re actually doing. And I think that’s horrible.

For instance, an online competition where the contribution with the most likes wins. Even if an entry is above all the rest, it most likely will not win, because a different entry is backed by someone that has a large, or larger, network that they can tap into. An even if you’re the kind of person that would only vote for the one that you feel is the better of them all, you are rare and vastly outnumbered.

Skills don’t win competitions like that, having a vast pool of connections to tap into does.

And there’s an indisputable logic behind that winner as well. If the winner has more votes, even if those votes are not genuine, that contributor apparently has a bigger draw than the others and will grant the instance behind such a contest more attention. Which is, most likely, what they’re really after.

Here’s an example: The DJ Mag Top 100

Every year, DJ Mag holds a vote where they place the top 100 DJs in the world. It’s a pure popularity contest, as the contest is decided by votes from fans. Fans that have no idea what the competition is like, other than their personal favorite. Basically, the DJ with the most fans on Facebook to get through the voting form, wins.

Then again, it just claims to present the Top 100, not the Top 100 Best. And I’m not saying that the people on that list lack skills, I’m just claiming that the order would be very different if actual skill was the premise on which it was decided.

If a contest is to be judged on skills alone, it must have a set jury and can not be decided by popular vote in any way. Especially these days.

Watching the Summer Games Done Quick 2019, I experienced garbitheglitcheress, a speedrunner with the following twitter description:
“Valerie | romhacks and other obscure games mainly | 27 | she/her | | #actuallyautistic | | alt: @garbialteress”
Followed by the pinned tweet:
“Hello, I’m GarbitheGlitcheress; I go by garbi, garb, or Valerie mainly. I’m a trans girl who likes speedrunning retro/more obscure games, and romhacks. My stream priority is creating a good and nice community where people feel welcome.”

It got me thinking about how we define and describe ourselves. If confronted, what do we consider to be our identity? And not even that, but our condensed identity; what do we say to make a short, manageable presentation?

garbi has some very defining descriptions in her presentation, and the three words that stand out are speedrunner, trans, and autistic.
I’m not questioning the validity of any of those terms, but why they’re front and center.

Speedrunner would explain that the content of the account will be speedrunning-related material.

The other two, I’m having a hard time understanding, and I do believe that’s the reason is my inexperience with the topics. On the topic of autism, I’ve been professionally declared on the spectrum, so I have some autistic tendencies, but I also believe that the term and declaration is being used over-liberally to just explain that we as humans are developing behaviours and psychologies that just differ so much from what we were doing 100 years ago that it’s a suitable catch-all. So I’m not untouched by the subject, but I still don’t understand it.

I’ve also never experienced bigotry, judgement or any form of negative consequences of my sexual preferences or identity, even though I’m not exactly a straight cis male, so I’m very out of touch with how important such an issue can be for a person. But why would it be a defining feature, unless it’s a situation that involves personal or sexual relationships?
Is that the primary feature of you? Is that what you do, what you enjoy, and what you are as a person? Why would it be so important that it’s necessarily and introductory item?

If I were to condense my introduction, I would pick things that I do and enjoy, not social conformities. I might use words like “martial artist”, “developer”, “gamer”, “photographer”, but I have a hard time seeing myself starting with “mostly straight”.
Unless it’s a dating app.

To me it resonates as a need for non-conformity. Similar to the stereotype-joke that people that do crossfit, or are vegan, can not start a conversation without including that information; that it’s so important to them that you know this part of their life. To me, unless we’re on that particular topic, that’s just a call for attention. If the conversation is about sexuality, recipes, diet, fitness, or anything related to the topic you’re defining yourself with, then fair enough. But otherwise, it just sounds like a scream for attention over the fact that you’re different than the majority of the population.

And not even population, actually, but the culture that you’re living in. Or when was the last time someone made a big deal over ladyboys in Asia being transvestites or transexuals? Whereas in western culture, it’s more uncommon. However, I would suggest not rare or controversial enough to make it a notable issue.

I guess my life has been very privileged, since I can not relate to these topics.
Or I just find them such unimportant parts of a person that I simply can not understand the behaviour anyway.

“Or did you watch Titanic, not knowing that the boat was going to sink?”

Tom Holland is catching some heat for saying on the Graham Norton Show that Tony Stark has died in the previous movie. People are upset as if the whole story of that movie is wether or not Iron Man lives; that how they’re going to come back from their previous defeat has nothing to do with it and is just superfluous visuals.

The story is not what, it’s how. Your experience of the story may even be enhanced by knowing something in advance, something may have more impact because you know how it’s going to turn out in the end. I’m not claiming that it’s likely, just saying that it might. Or did you watch Titanic, not knowing that the boat was going to sink? Knowing how something is going to end doesn’t diminish all of the story, it just removes a surprise. And if a story only has one single surprise, guess what, it’s a bad and predictable story.

“In this next one, ha — everybody dies!”

Mark Ruffalo

Mark Ruffalo got caught spoiling with the line “In this next one, ha — everybody dies!”, but that didn’t ruin the movie. Rather, it peaked the curiosity of how the studio is going to pull such a stunt off.

You want to know how the next superhero movie ends? The good guys eventually win.

Be it articles on established, legitimate websites (unlike this one), or videos from recognised channels on YouTube, they’re filled with speculations, theories, supposed leaks, deductions, deconstructions, and disseminations on just about anything. And I’m guessing it’s an attempt to include social media and prompt engagement, but I’m seeing a trend of including, referencing, and even sourcing posts on reddit.

My problem with it is that it doesn’t mean anything, because the source is not the creator of the work being analysed. What value does a random fan-theory on reddit about what a certain scene in a movie trailer have?

I can understand that a constant stream of content is vital to the survival of certain actors on the internet. If you’re not producing content, no matter the quality, there’s no chance to generate revenue from ads or other means, so you need to put stuff out there on a regular basis.

Content for the sake of content, not substance. Besides, if the video you produced, or article your wrote, turns out to be wrong you can make another one addressing that. And then another one addressing what turned out to be the actual case.

It’s clickbait.

Then I remembered, the whole thing about E3 is a glorified advertisement. Sure, it’s a celebration of electronic entertainment, and mostly video games, and hype sells (unfortunately), but it is actually just a bunch of advertisements for products that they want to get some publicity around. I might be getting very old, because I find it just tedious. And I’ve been in the scene long enough to know just how much actual bullshit they’re spewing.

Just have a gander at the introduction they had for the next Xbox console; the over-hype and deliberate juxtaposition of information is just revolting. They’re exclaiming things like they’re doing something that has never been done before, but everything they’re saying has already been done for years, just not in the console space.

“It’s gonna usher in resolution and frame rate that we’ve never seen before”

And no, it is not going to deliver 8K resolution at 120 frames per second. But it might, however, deliver some 8K content, and some other, most likely 1080p content, at 120 frames per second.

All stuff that has been done on PC before. But for them to deliver 8K at 120fps, they’re gonna have to charge Gaming PC prices, and that’s not gonna sell to people that just want a console.

They also talk about how important their SSD is, which is kind of funny because that’s a modification that many users have already done for years. Even since the PS3 days. And they mention the combination of the SSD and the solid-state-drive, which seems redundant as SSD stands for solid-state-drive.

I’m just not buying this bullshit anymore. The whole industry has proven time and time again that it can not be trusted, and so it should not be trusted until it has delivered and proven that they’ve delivered what they promised before any praise should be given.

And stop clapping for exclusivity! Exclusivity only hurts consumers, not perks them!

Hashtag getoffmylawn!

Please be aware that this post contains major spoilers for the movie Avengers: Infinity War

In the culmination of 10 years of the MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, almost all of the characters that have been introduced end up in a war against the titan Thanos and his Infinity Gauntlet. The two sides of this conflict are the Avengers (and friends) that want to stop Thanos from eliminating half the population of the universe, and Thanos and his minions that wish to balance the universe that he sees to be overpopulated compared to the resources available. The Infinity Gauntlet, when completely assembled, has the power to do this, as it can control life, death, and reality itself, thanks to the powers of the Infinity Stones.

But here come a problem that is lost in translation between the comics and the movies.

The premise for, what the comics call the ultimate nihilist, Thanos is that he wishes to save the universe by removing half the population so that there are enough resources to go around. This does not take into account the possibility for the universe to repopulate and face the same problem again, not does it address other solutions that could be implemented when controlling all of reality and the rules of physics and existence. One simple answer would be to just double the resources, or how about halving the needs? If one controls all, are needs even necessary, or could they be eliminated instead of the populace?

All solutions that would satiate the requirement of saving the universe from over-consumption of its resources. But the motivation for Thanos in the comics is different. There, his goal is to pay tribute to the embodiment of Death, a being he is deeply in love with. He wishes for nothing more than for Death to adore him the same way and for them to become equal. He also states that her feelings can not be forced or manipulated through mind-control, as that would be disingenuous. As a gift, a token of his affection, to win Death over he strives to kill half of the universe using the powers of the Infinity Gauntlet.

There aren’t many other solutions to that equation. He can’t force Death to love him through the Mind Stone, nor circumvent the problem by doubling the resources or halving/removing needs. The goal is no longer to save the universe, and there may be multiple solutions to reach that goal. The quest is to eliminate half of the universe’s populace, and using the Infinity Gauntlet is one solutions to that task; most likely, the best one.

Naturally, not everything can be translated to the silver screen, but this motivation and solution seems somewhat broken. This did not remove any of my enjoyment of the movie, I found it fantastic and I’m yearning to see what the finale in Avengers 4 will bring us. Only about eleven-and-a-half months away.

It follows the puzzling journey of Ro and her daughter, that have to navigate a world of fixed perpectives and mind breaking paths. The minimlistic art style is utilized to its fullest, as the straight angles and play of light and shadows in a pixelated world allow a path to bend and change in impossible ways, as you help guide Ro and her daughter on their quest.

Accompanied by a beautiful, relaxing soundtrack, this gem and its predecessor is highly recommended to anyone with a mobile device or tablet.

What I just thought was a great alternative band would be shown to become one of the most experimental bands I’ve ever come across. Their music has always mixed styles and influences from the entire spectrum, and right from the first album it was clear that the potential was enormous. Even though they were stereotyped as, what in my circle of acquaintances was called, “angry white boys” and memes composed of angsty, crying teens with captions such as “I’m gonna go listen to Linkin Park” mocked them and their fans, they were always there with new and interesting music.

Reanimation, where they took the songs from the first album and not only remixed them but totally restructured them together with artists such as KoRn’s Jonathan Davis and Stephen Richards from Taproot, is still a part of my list of Top 5 Albums Ever. The song Frgt/10, together with one of my favorite voices Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, is one of my favorite tracks of all time.

I try to read the stories we’re being sold in the cinema before I go see the movies. Partly because I like to read comics, but also to recognize all the hints, nods, references, characters, original stories and set pieces they portray and write in.

The Infinity Saga is basically about taking escalating doses of shrooms, acid, and DMT

So what I did was gather what is known as The Infinity Sagas, which includes: The Thanos Quest, The Infinity Gauntlet, The Infinity War, The Infinity Crusade, Infinity Abyss, and The End. It was not as daunting and time consuming as reading the entirety of Civil War, but it was still quite rewarding. Both because it’s a good read, but also because it introduced me to a new set of characters that I had not met before.

The big antagonist wielding The Infinity Stones mounted on The Infinity Gauntlet is the titan Thanos. Also known as the universe’s biggest nihilist. He is a enchantingly interesting character that I had not know outside of shallow trivia before, but he is simply grand to dive into.

But the lessons I’ve learned from reading Infinity Sagas and comparing it to what they’ve done with the MCU so far are as follows

1. The movies, Avengers: Infinity War (part 1 & 2) will have very little to do with the source material. But that was also a lesson we learned from Captain America: Civil War.
2. Omnipotence and Omnipresence according to Marvel does not mean what they mean according to, say, Merriam Webster. Or how do you explain lying to/tricking a being that knows all thoughts and intentions; I don’t care how disciplined Thanos is, something is wrong.
3. The Infinity Saga is basically about taking escalating doses of shrooms, acid, and DMT, and then having to endure overwhelming trips of both good and bad nature; sensations of loneliness while being connected with everything in existence, and knowing that one’s victories and failures are both everything and meaningless at the same time. But it also touches on things such as suicidal depression and what happens after you face and conquer it.