Stranger Things is a love-child of E.T., Silent Hill and 80’s nostalgia, all presented in a beautiful package on your Netflix-viewing device of choice. The look and feel of mystery-movies from days gone by (the good ones, where the monster isn’t revealed in the first 15 minutes) where the unknown creates the suspense that you want with a drip-feed of supernatural and conspiracy  tells you the history of how we got to where we are right now in the story.

The show follows a group of kids that enjoy their time in the basement playing Dungeons & Dragons until it’s time to bike home. No video games, no smartphones, no Internet; this is the time before the digital revolution. Then one of them goes missing, without a trace, followed by the appearance of a strange young girl that joins them on their adventure to find their friend. But my favorite character is portrayed by David Harbour as Chief Hopper, the police officer that looks into the kids disappearance and soon discovers that not everything is what it might seem in his sleepy little town.

The heritage of the show is captured magnificently in the music and intro, using sounds and instruments that scream 80’s, combined with a title screen that anyone that read/played those old choose-your-own-adventure books will just love.

Stranger Things has a complete season available for streaming on Netflix, but definitely leaves things open for that (as of yet, unconfirmed) second season. Just like the good ol’ horror movies.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80057281

But to me the story of Daredevil is secondary in what is being told. I believe many would agree with me that the best parts, and main focus, of the show is delivered by Vincent D’onofrio as he portrays the iconic villain Wilson Fisk, also know as Kingpin.

Usually it’s just accepted that the bad guy is that, a bad guy, and that’s all that’s needed. There might be a short backstory to explain the motivation or history of the antagonist. But Daredevil goes above and beyond to present us with the life of one of the most iconic evils in the Marvel Universe. His history, motivation, and passion is beautify presented and fleshed out. He is still a psychotic criminal, but the effort that goes into explaining how and why, and the humanization of the character compiled through love and loss, is fantastic.

A well-rounded series, while darker than the movies we’ve so far been offered in the MCU, combines a mix of drama, action, comedy and intrigue that displays the more cloak-and-dagger workings in a section of the hometown to many major heroes and villains that Marvel has given us.

The first season of Daredevil is available right now, with the second season incoming in just a few weeks.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80018294

While it might seem like simple-minded show, the drama, emotions, conflicts and everyday-life for all involved is compelling and should appeal to anyone that likes character-dramas. The idiotic hijinks, satirical and parodical views on media, stardom, and corporate politics, and simply stupid jokes (such as my personal favorite: Neal McBeal the Navy SEAL that is a seal that’s in the navy), become supporting characters to the interaction between the main characters as they deal with each others personalities and demons.

The first two seasons of Bojack Horseman, consisting of twelve episodes per season, is available for streaming right now on Netflix

https://www.netflix.com/title/70300800

I’m gonna put you through that fucking wall!

While dealing with the big and small obstacles of everyday life, like a underachieving pot-head for a son, the amalgamation of father-figures those that grew up before the 1990s can recognize is the main focal-point. Using saying, mannerism, satire and parodies of everything that came with a hard-working father in the 70s you get a funny show that should touches home with anyone over the age of 30. And anyone under 30 will just find the absurdity and humor funny.

The first season contains six episodes and is available for binging on Netflix right now
https://www.netflix.com/title/80028732

Bill Burr, the show creator and voice of the main character, is a stand-up comedian that’s dabbled in acting here and there, including a recurring character on Breaking Bad. The show was “in production” for many years before it came to be and the animators were hired. He talked about the production and the show on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast a few weeks ago, if you’re interested in the process.

I had a project thrown my way at work and it used AngularJS, a framework I had never used before. I first tried to understand it myself by just looking at it, but I couldn’t get my head around how and why some things were done and used.

So I googled for tutorials and such when I stumbled upon a site that had a simple learn-by-doing tutorial for a lot of stuff, such as HTML, SQL, GIT, Ruby On Rails, and Angular.

By doing a simple course, that let me code directly in my browser with the same type of editor and file structure one would have while doing a real world project, I learned what I needed in a day.

Price? According to the site itself:

And it’s supported by some nice name, such as Union Square Ventures and O’Reilly Media

I would definitely recommend this to anyone that wants to learn any of the stuff they have available. And more seems to be on the way.

https://www.codecademy.com

UPDATE: Codecademy now offers Codecademy Pro, which is not free. How this will affect the content that has been free so far is yet to be seen. While it’s understandable that a revenue stream might be necessary, it’s always scary when a free service starts charging for something. Here’s they’re statement about  Codecademy being free:
“Codecademy is committed to being the most accessible place on the internet to learn programming skills. For us, that means keeping our content free. With Codecademy Pro, you get access to extra resources and support in addition to our content, giving you the push you need to take your skills to the next level.”

But some things are more likely to go viral than others, and click-bait is now a word because the marketing department still logs everything everyone does; it’s how they work, list and catalog what content gets attention, how, when and trying to figure out why.

And since this is a phenomenon we now see more and more paid content disguised as regular content, and I’m starting to wonder how much of all the viral stuff we see that seems to be regular content is actually fake. It doesn’t have to be paid content by a company looking to sell a product, but just be faked by the content creator for whatever reason.

Coby Persin does what he calls Social Experiments, which ranges from scaring kids about the dangers of meeting strangers from the Internet to this video showing how greedy people that have a lot are compared to people that have very little. Musical queues are timed accordingly.

It’s all set up with blurred faces and everything you would think is needed for a video that doesn’t have the written consent from people that appear in it. There are also other videos from many other creators that supposedly catch cheaters in the act or expose “gold diggers” and whatever other shame-based content there is.

But I’m starting to question what’s real and what’s not. There’s no disclosure that I can find about if it’s all just acting and performers, but there’s also no disclosure for the opposite.

In the case of the video above in particular, can we trust a video that is produced by no less than three title cards?