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vegalocity · 3 years

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The Arrangement, Fluff 42 while Red is working on moving out?

Prompt meme 42. “For (her/him/them), (I’ll do) anything.”

I went with the moment of because i was listening to the Shrek 2 soundtrack and got really excited during ‘Ever Fallen In Love’

He had to be fast. He couldn't afford to pause for anything. But if he used his teleportation every magical being within a half a kilometer would be able to sense it with his nerves as frayed as they were. This had to be on foot if he wanted to do this without confrontation.

He had two bags on either shoulder, one full of the essentials, the other with his clothes and hygiene products and things. Of the Bull Clones an approximate twenty of them wished to remain with him and he had their AI's saved in separate hard drives in his bag, ready for new bodies once the ones they'd been recently using were destroyed to cover his escape. The last message he made on his home setup played in the back of his mind, repeating the words he'd spoken and hoping they sounded right.

“Start Recording....Hello Mother. Hello Father. I'm half sure you're going to destroy everything I left behind in retribution for my departure, but if you did decide to try and keep my files for whatever use you may be able to glean from them—doubtful, I've been working on a purging bug that should get rid of 90% of my old blueprints and research into any artifacts of power—Then consider this my farewell.”

The security system was shorting out, all the traps and precautions he'd spent decades setting up were going out in flames, making a clear exit through the Bull Clone's passageways just big enough for one fire demon to slip his way through. His parents likely distracted with a large majority of what kept them comfortable in their underground lair all acting up and going on the fritz at once. And if that was all resolved with a resounding 'break every piece of tech around them' then the handful of favors he'd called in would come in handy and he had a small yet aggravating set of demons ready to cause some distractions (and leave before they were actually in any danger, they weren't there to fight after all) until Red Son was long gone.

“Surely this must have come as a shock, to think that your ever loyal son would decide he'd rather run away and join Team Good Guy. Well... I suppose that makes sense, granted the five hundred years of pointedly ignoring I've been basically singlehandedly keeping this family afloat one might forget that I might be capable of making my own decisions, but I digress.”

One more turn, slide past the charging station he'd put up here, hope beyond hope when he undid the secret exit into the streets that there'd be no one waiting for him. He had one clone shell, AI gone running on simple manual commands, set up to explode right as he left to cover the exit as he left so he couldn't be tracked as easily.

Sure enough the charging station and the secret exit beside it were only guarded by one robot. The one he'd set up there. He punched in the exit code and the secret door slid open. He glanced at the panel again and shrugged, might as well. He lit up his fist into a flame and punched the panel, it cracked beneath his knuckles. The street was right before him. He nodded at the clone. “Self Destruct, access code 'Clean Getaway'” The Clone beeped once and he had three seconds to clear it.

-Or not.

The explosion just barely grazed him, and it wouldn't have hurt at all if it were just the flame of the explosion, but with the explosion came the shrapnel, and with a stinging sensation and the warm feeling of blood creeping down his hand, Red Son realized he'd been nicked with some stray metal.

He had a garage nearby with a stealth truck—just as tricked out as his more iconic truck, just designed to blend into the city traffic easily—and he had to get there before he was in the clear.

“See, the truth of the matter is, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my life and what I want out of it lately, I'd thought that all I desired was the three of us together again. If our family was complete then everything would slot into place, but it didn't. And I realized I'd spent half of a millennia chasing after ideals and blurry memories. And I came to the conclusion that... I don't really know much about myself outside of the context of the family. But I used to know, And as it turned out, it was when I wasn't trying to plunge the world into darkness, so I figured I could probably do that again, see if it sticks this time.”

He heard a roar behind him, and his blood turned to ice. He didn't care if it would alert his parents to his presence nearby as his equipment went to shit around them, he teleported, a flash of fire zipping through familiar roads and ending in the hidden garage, The wind was howling outside amplifying his father's rage, but his parents didn't know which garage was the one he kept his personal vehicles in.

It was just the injury making his hands shake as he slid into his stealth truck he was sure—the purple one with red flames painted on the hood and sides, but to the outside observer simply a normal truck owned by a normal person who simply liked flames and purple—and quickly shed his more distinctive clothes and pulling a nondescript coat from the camping bag in which he'd shoved as much of his clothes as he could fit. Quick as he could he bundled his hair into a hat and replaced his trademark sunglasses with a big pair that covered most of his face—both of which he already had in this truck for this exact purpose.

He started the car and drove out as calmly as he could possibly make it look.

“So take this as my formal declaration: I'm moving out. Now, You're still my parents of course, so I'll avoid confrontations if I can, but I'm not playing this game anymore. I'm not being manipulated or tricked or forced into this. This is my decision. About time I made one for myself, right?”

Though after the explosions of rage went off, the city was not laid waste to, and the people in this area were used to threatening noises anyway so nobody seemed to care.

He'd probably change back into his normal clothes once he could ensure he'd driven in enough circles around the city he would be virtually untraceable and could made the trip to Xiaotian's home.

Xiaotian...

Only hours away now.

Four months, five days. And not a single one of those days went by without thinking about him. Without reminding himself why he was doing this, reminding himself why it was worth it. To have a future with Xiaotian. To be able to be with him without constantly looking over their shoulders for prying eyes. To have that smile, that laugh, that stupid sense of humor and that dumb thing he does when he's working on a picture where he scrunches all of his face up at once and twitches his nose like a rabbit.

“You're my parents, and I still love you. And I hope, by the end of this you'll understand why I had to do what I have done. If not, then at least you can understand this: doing anything for the person you love has turned out to be a genetic trait. And for him, I'll do anything.”

Five hours of driving around aimlessly. He grabbed a snack and saw one of the bull clones whom decided to stay loyal to his parents from the corner of his eye

Four. He saw the delivery cart dart through an intersection and leaned forward to try and grab a glance, unfortunately it was already gone by the time he could.

Three. He could sense his mother laying out a searching enchantment and rolled up his window, the protection charm on the truck keeping him from prying eyes.

Two. The sun had set and twilight blanketed the sky

One. He changed back into his normal clothes and fixed his hair as best as he could. His wound had mostly stopped bleeding, but that would likely change if jostled. He wanted to make a nice first image after four months, but he couldn't look anything better than driving around for almost six hours would do to a person. Though he wouldn't care if Xiaotian looked a little more rugged than usual, so he consoled himself with the idea that he would have a similar mindset and simply be happy that the waiting was over.

And now, a future.

“I’ll see you soon, but I doubt it will be on good terms. Goodbye for now. End Recording.”

Send me stuff!

#I got Hm. Excited #Really brings the Ending Stuff full circle I think #Hell yes some of the Bull CLones that Red MADE would be like 'nah we wanna stay with you'#Letters to vega #vega writes stories too #the arrangement AU #Holy shit this is the last prompt i've got you guys #i'm free i can work on other things again lol #spicynoodleshipping #Anonymous

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warsofasoiaf · 4 years

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Have you played Fallout 4? What did you think of it?

Joseph Anderson had a phenomenal video on Fallout 4. Although it is enormous, so be careful. Overall, there were things to like and things not to like about Fallout 4. I’ll start with what I liked first. Throwing a cut in here because it’s long.

Combat in the first-person Fallout games has always been clunky, and enemy AI relatively largely consisted of straight charging or shooting from as maximum range as possible. Difficulty came primarily from enemy quantity, high damage output, or incredibly enemy hitpoints. The last of these has been a particular Bethesda problem in their games, with enemies being incredible damage sponges, making late-game fights a boring slog as you slowly whittle down their health while being impossible to damage in any meaningful capacity. While enemy variations aren’t nearly as high as the game’s fans would have you believe if you conceive of them as AI patterns, the AI activity did have some nice variations. Human enemies used cover, ghouls bobbed and weaved as you shot them, mole rats tried to ambush you. It’s got nothing on games with fully realized combat system, but it does make the combat that you do engage in much more enjoyable.

All of the random crap you can pick up in a Bethesda game having a purpose is another positive. It is a true nuisance to find out when playing a game that I hit my encumbrance limit only to find out it’s because I’ve picked up a bunch of brooms, bowls, and other garbage accidentally while grabbing coin and other worthwhile treasures. Actually having these things mean an object is worthy mechanically, aside from level design; typewriters are useful as items as opposed to something that shows you that the ruined building you’re in was formerly a newspaper. As crafting is a big portion of the game, having these things provide component parts that you use for crafting on their own creates more utility in these elements of clutter which still require modeling, rendering, placement, etc. Now if you need aluminum, you’ll try to raid something like a cannery because it will have aluminum cans, which is an excellent way to create player-generated initiative. It also reinforces one of the primary themes of the game which is crafting and design, where even the trailers of the game suggest building as a key idea of the game. Certainly sensible for a post-apocalyptic game to focus on building a new society upon the ruins of the older one, and given what the game was trying to do with their four factions mechanic, it’s clear that this was their intent, and good job for trying to ensure that things factor back into their principal intent.

Deathclaws look properly scary, the animations with Vault Boy were funny, there’s some pretty window dressing. The voice work wasn’t bad, the notable standout being Nick Valentine. The Brotherhood airship was an impressive visual. I had a little fun creating some basic settlements, particularly in Hangman’s Alley where I tried to create a network of suspended buildings and Spectacle Island where I had room to grant every prospective settler a shack. Bethesda clearly looked to create a game with mass market appeal, and I believe the metrics bears out that they succeeded in that regard. The robots in the USS Constitution quest were very funny, the writers were able to make the absolute ridiculousness of the situation work (curse you Weatherby Savings and Loan!) and framed it well as a comedic sidequest, with a final impressive visual if you side with the bots and the ship takes flight.

Now that this is out of the way, I think that a lot of what Fallout 4 did was not the right move.

The quest design was particularly atrocious in this regard. Most of the radiant quests boiled them down to a simple formula - go to the dungeon, get to the final room where you need to either kill the boss or get an item from the boss chest, return. In this game though, the main story quests often were boiled down to just this simple formula. You need to find a doodad from a Courser to complete your teleporter? Go to the dungeon, kill the boss, recover the item. The Railroad needs you to help an escaped synth! Do it by going to the dungeon and getting to the final room. This really hampers the enjoyment of games because the expressiveness of the setting and elements of an RPG is often explored through quests. Quests are meant to get you out into the world and give you an objective, but they are also meant to connect you to the people that you’re dealing with. If every quest is boiled down to the same procedure, that hurts the immersion, but the bigger sin is that when you return you have another quest waiting for you. That robs the player of the sense of accomplishment because there is no permanent solution to problems, even for a minute. There is no different end-state for the player to see the transition from one to the other and feel accomplished that they were the ones who did it. Other RPG’s always understood this - a D&D game might have a party save a town investigate an illness dealing with a town, take out an evil druid who has charmed the wildlife into attacking supply and trade shipments, slay goblins who are raiding cattle, there are a lot of possibilities that might even feel samey: if you’re killing charmed dire wolves or goblin cattle thieves, you’re still going to the dungeon and fighting the boss, the usual flair and variation came from encounter design. After you’d do that though, the NPC’s might say “Hey, Mom is feeling better after you cured that disease, she’s starting to walk again,” “Hey, we were able to send a shipment of wine from the vineyards out to the capital, here’s some coin for the shipment as reward for your service,” or even just a simple “Hey, thanks for taking out those cattle thieves.” There’s a sense of accomplishment even if it’s a fleeting “we did a cool thing.” Computer RPG’s are tougher in this regard, part of the sense of accomplishment in tabletop gaming is also with your friends, it’s a shared activity, but usually in that the reward was some experience and character growth and going to new content. There isn’t new content here in Fallout 4 though, because of the samey quest design and lack of progression.

The conversational depth was also ruined, with so much of the voice choices mangled by the system of conversation they designed. By demanding a four-choice system, they limited themselves to always requiring four options which completely mangled interactivity. The previous menu design allowed for as many lines as you wanted, even if the choices were usually beads on a string. The depth and variation, however, are even lower than what could be found in games like Mass Effect 3, and the small word descriptions were often so inaccurate that it created a massive disconnect between myself the player and the Sole Survivor, because they weren’t saying what I thought they would be saying. That prevented me from feeling immersed, because a “Sarcastic” option could be a witty joke or a threat that sounds like it should come out of a bouncer. The character options were already limited, with Nate being a veteran and Nora being a lawyer, but this lack of depth prevents me from feeling the character even moreso than a scripted backstory. You get those in games, but being unable to predict how I’m reacting is something that kills character.

Bethesda needs to end the “find (x) loved one” as a means to get people motivated to do a quest, or if they don’t want to rid themselves of that tool in their toolbox, they need to do a better job getting me to like them. More linear games can get away with this, but open world games encourage the sort of idle dicking around that doesn’t make any sense for a person who is attempting to find a family member. Morrowind did this much better, where your main task was to be an Imperial agent, and you were encouraged to join other factions and do quests as a means to establish a cover identity and get more acquainted with combat. Folks who didn’t usually ended up going to Hasphat Antabolius and getting their face kicked in by Snowy Granius. Here though, what sort of parent am I if instead of pursuing a lead to find my infant son I’m wandering over east because I saw what looked like a cool ruin, and I need XP to get my next perk (another gripe, perks that are simple percentage increases because they slow down advancement and make combat a slog if you don’t take them, depressing what should be a sense of accomplishment). By making us try to feel close with a character but by refusing to give us the players time with them, there is no sense of bonding. I felt more connection to James in Fallout 3 than I did for Sean, but even then, I felt more connection to him because he was voiced by Liam Neeson than because of any sense of fatherly affection. The same goes for the spouse and baby Sean, I feel little for them because I see them only a little. I know that I should care more, but I also know that I the player don’t because all that I was given is “you should care about them.” You need time to get to know characters in game, along with good writing and voicework. I like Nick because he quoted “The Raven” when seeing the Brotherhood airship and I thought that was excellent writing, I didn’t have any experiences with Sean to give me that same sense of bonding.

They’ve also ruined the worldbuilding. The first-person Fallout games have always had a problem with this, with Fallout 3 recycling Super Mutants, the Brotherhood of Steel, and other iconic Fallout things into Washington D.C. Part of this is almost certainly the same reason that The Force Awakens was such a dull rehash of the plot of A New Hope, they wanted to establish some sort of continuity with a new director to not frighten off old fans who they relied on to provide a significant majority of the sales. The problem of course, is that this runs into significant continuity problems, now needing Vault 87 to have a strain of FEV and having a joint Vault-Tec/US Government experiment program there on the East Coast, so we can have Super Mutants. Jackson’s chameleon isn’t native to Washington D.C., but we need to have Deathclaws because they’re the iconic scary Fallout enemy, as opposed to creating something new with the local fauna, which is only made worse because they did do that with the yao guai formed from the American black bear (the black bear doesn’t typically range in the Chesapeake Basin near DC these days, but it’s close enough and given the loss of humans to force them back they could easily return to their old pre-human rangings). Some creatures are functions of the overall setting and can be global, ghouls are the big one here since radiation would be a global thing and fitting considering Fallout is a post-apocalypse specifically destroyed by nuclear war. Others though, are clearly mutated creatures and so they would be more localized. Centaurs and floaters were designed by FEV experiments and collared by Super Mutants, they should really only be around Super Mutants. Radscorpions shouldn’t be around, there would probably be instead be mutated spiders. Making things worse are that the monster designers do develop some excellent enemies when they think about it. Far Harbor has a mutant hermit crab that uses a truck as a shell (a lobster restaurant truck, which is passable enough for a visual joke even if it falls apart when you think about other trucks that they might use) and a monster that uses an angler lure that resembles a crafting component - these are good ideas but the developers needed to awkwardly shoehorn in iconic Fallout things that have no place there. This isn’t to say that I’m in love with a lot of Fallout’s worldbuilding, a lot of the stuff in Fallout 2 I found to be kind of dumb particularly the talking deathclaws, but as the series went on it took objects without meaning. The G.E.C.K in Fallout 3 was pretty much a magic recombinator which makes no sense as a technology in a world devastated by resource collapse, something similar can be said about the Sierra Madre vending machines.

Fallout 4 though, had a lot of worldbuilding inconsistencies that really took an axe to the setting. The boy in the fridge outlasts the entire Great War, but apparently never needed to eat or drink water. This is, of course, stupid, because ghouls have always been shown to need to eat and drink - Fallout 1′s Necropolis section has a Water Chip but if you take it without finding an alternate source of clean water, the ghouls will die. Ghoul settler NPC’s that flock to your player-crafted towns require food and water. The entire thing was ruined from a complete lack of care, to build a quest where you reunite a lost boy with his still-alive ghoulified parents. I think this one bothers me not simply because of the egregious worldbuilding which isn’t even consistent in the very game it’s written it, but it’s done so frivolously for a boring escort quest. It feels scattershot, and that’s the problem I think with a lot of Fallout 4′s quests. They feel disconnected, like every writer worked in a cubicle without talking to any of the other writers. Same with things like the Lady in the Fog.

Are we done with that? Good, because now we’re going into the parts that I really dislike - the main quest and the factions. These are just awful. The developers took what folks really liked when it came to Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas (Fallout 1 did have interesting factions but they were largely self-contained, more towns than anything else) and completely botched it. New Vegas was the clear inspiration for these factions, with the four faction model of NCR, Legion, House, and Indepenedent meaning that there were four different ways to go forward into the future, so we get three factions that fight each other and a fourth more player friendly faction that roughly resembles the Independent Vegas where you can pick and choose which factions you bring in with you and which you get rid of. Thematically, this fits in with the core of the game, crafting is a big portion of what you do and so crafting what sort of world the Commonwealth would be is simply a logical extension of it. The factions aren’t presented well though. The Railroad are impossibly naive and don’t demonstrate any rougher edges like denying supplies to humans in order to fuel their synth effort, even though such a thing should be evident if the post-apocalypse of the Commonwealth is to be believed. The Institute are sinister murderers and replacers without bringing any of the advanced technology that could provide some benefit such as the gigantic orange gourd that can grow. So much of their kill-and-replace mentality seems to be done for no great overarching purpose. The Minutemen are basically blank, pretty much just a catch-all for the player-built settlements, though the player as the leader of the Minutemen ends up getting bossed around by Preston to the point of the faction rejecting your commands to proceed with the main quest, a significant problem with Bethesda factions where you are the leader but never get any actual sense of leadership. There doesn’t appear to be any addressing of the failures of the previous Minutemen whether that be the previous summit, or new problems such as settlements feuding with each other requiring the general to intervene and mediate. The Brotherhood come the closest to a real faction with advantages and drawbacks if you squint, they are feudal overlords with the firepower to fight Super Mutants and other mutated nasties, but also violently reject ghouls and synths as part of their violent dogma except for seemingly not caring when you bring a companion around or killing ghoul settlers in settlements they control. But even then, we don’t really see the Brotherhood providing protection to the settlements that they demand for food, the typical radiant quest to destroy a pack of feral ghouls or super mutants is directed from a Brotherhood quest giver to a randomly determined location, hardly a good way to illustrate whether or not the Brotherhood is actually protecting settlements that they administer. We see little change in the way of the Commonwealth save that certain factions are alive or not because the game needs to stay active in order to perform radiant quests, so not even the signature ending slideshows can give us the illusion of effects building off of our actions. This is contrary to the theme of building a better world in the Commonwealth because there is no building.

Special notice must be given to the Nuka-World raiders because they show the big problems with the factions. You can be a Raider in Nuka-World but only after becoming the Overboss, which is fair enough. But you’re already a Minuteman, but the Minutemen don’t activate any kill-on-sight order and Preston still helps you out. The game is so terrified of people losing out on content that they make permanent consequences rare, and when you do something like order an attack, it can be rescinded automatically if one of your companions is there. As an Overboss, you do grunt work in the Commonwealth, and the factions get mad and pissy if you don’t give them things despite even if you only give one section of the park to one of the factions, that’s more than they got from Colter. It’s like they don’t exist until the player shows up, which is exactly how a lot of modern Bethesda character and faction building seems to be. While in most computer games a sort of uneasy status quo is the desired beginning state because it gives the protagonist the chance to make ripples while justifying the existence of a status that allows the player to change it, it has to be applied consistently.

The main quest itself is silly. There’s a decent twist with Sean becoming Father that sort of works, which would have worked much better if we had actually gotten a chance to bond with him, although the continuity of everything gets wiggy quick. When he said that he looked over the world and saw nothing but despair, I was wondering if they were going to actually bring a big question up and a debate between Father and the Player, the idea of what worth the people on the surface have, but it goes nowhere, it’s a missed opportunity. The main quest is just a means to meet all four factions and it’s a barebones skeleton at best. There are some interesting concepts they try, but what they do often falls flat. They try to establish some sort of empathy for Kellogg in the memory den, but it’s lazy and cheap because he kidnaps a baby and wastes your spouse, a wasted effort of empathy only made worse when you get criticized for not showing any sympathy. Kellogg then shows up in Nick’s memory for one second and then that little story nugget is ignored. The half-baked nature of the story keeps being brought back up, which is a pity because we actually saw them do a competent job in Far Harbor. The Followers of Atom are crazy and they really aren’t sympathetic in any way, but some of the folks inside the sub aren’t so bad that it might prevent you from wanting to detonate the sub, or at least you might think enough that you look for another solution. DiMA did some monstrous things, and if you bring him to justice, the game actually takes the time to evaluate whether or not you helped out Far Harbor, with meaningful consequences being taken if you took the time to do the sidequests which imparts far more meaning to them.

While there’s a lot of problems that show up in terms of binary completion, the question of whether to replace Tektus and turn the Children of Atom to a more moderate path is a good question, it actually gives a lot more merit to the Institute if they were ever to have been shown to enact the same level of care. That only makes the Fallout problems stand out more, because it shows that they were capable of it but didn’t. This isn’t the only missed opportunity, synths themselves become a big problem. The goal was to create a very paranoid feeling but it was so sorely under-utilized that I never grew suspicious of folks because the game never gave me enough incentive to be suspicious of them. I didn’t think that Bethesda made synths that would give you false information or ambush you because that would have been potentially missed content. The idea of whether you are a synth or not is clearly an attempt to give the game more depth than it is presenting. You’re not a synth, Father’s actions make no sense if you are one, and DiMA attempting to make you think you are is silly because you know you aren’t one.

I think the game would have been much better if they had dropped the notion of Fallout entirely. If they had instead looked to create an open-world post-apocalyptic game focusing on crafting and building towns, perhaps with an eventual goal state of building many towns, establishing transportation networks, and rebuilding a junkyard society as a decent place (or going full Mad Max Bartertown complete with a Thunderdome for players looking for an evil and over-the-top option). That might have been an interesting game for Bethesda to potentially develop a new IP, even contracting with smaller studios for those who wish to tell story-heavy games in the setting. Instead, they applied Fallout like a bad paint job, cobbling together weak RP elements and story that made the game feel like a hydra that couldn’t recognize it was one being with multiple heads, constantly tearing the other parts of itself to ribbons.

If I wanted to further improve it, I think I would have instead made the spouse a synth. It would require some serious reworking, but I would have made it so that Sean did believe that synths were people, or that they were real enough that the difference was negligible, they had free will. During the initial grab, the Institute took the entire cryopod where Sean was, baby and parent both. They used Sean to create the next generation of synths, but something happened with the parent, and they died during defrost. Sean hates the Institute for what they did, but what happened was truly a medical complication, not malicious in any way. When he learns that the player character is active, he creates a synth programmed to believe they are the spouse. He believes that exposing who he really is to the surviving parent would be traumatic, and as he hears that the player character is thriving, he wants to give them a chance at a normal life, and to alleviate the loss that he had in his life with the loss of his own parents. So the spouse is sent to you, and for a long time, you and the spouse have no idea. You adventure together, you build settlements together, the game encourages you to have a good relationship. It doesn’t have to be hunky dory, and I’d argue it’s actually better if it’s not. Have the spouse be programmed with some rough experiences in the Wasteland, so they’re nervous, skittish, maybe even a little resentful that the player character snoozed their way through everything, but slowly rebuild the relationship. That way, when the quest eventually comes where you find the truth, the player character has to confront that reality. Then when you confront Sean, Sean explains himself and the player is given the choice to forgive him, be understanding but still angry, or be hugely pissed at the manipulation. That’s drama that uses the core theme of what synths are about with the whole kill-and-replace motif the Institute does. There’s a plot twist that batters the player, there’s one that’s just messy and gross and tough to reconcile. There’s one where the conclusion the player comes to is valid because it’s the player themselves deciding what the meaning of it is.

So overall, I see Fallout 4 as a bunch of missed opportunities and clumsy writing wrapped up in the popular shallow open-worlds that triple-A games end up having.

Thanks for the question, Jackie.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#fallout 4 #fallout #video game reviews

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dmydfilmreviews · 5 years

Text

MARVEL MOMENTS

So what they really did, as well as making a good load of films, was actually make a vast tapestry of genius interwoven moments like flicking through a big comic book! Ten years! Twenty something movies! A load of rubbish images at the end of the list because the last three films weren’t officially out on Blu Ray! Avengers assssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Tony Builds the First Suit

Really it was a stroke of brilliance to start the whole shebang with Iron Man the self-made superhero. The backbone of the whole universe is that of Tony making himself and that all kicks off here, in a sequence that’s hugely thematically satisfying given what comes later. There’s also the fact that back in the day all this construction stuff was just fucking cool, a Nolan-lite bedrock for a blend of realism and fantasy that comic-book cinema had never quite nailed before. Seeing Tony improve his tech step-by-step is a quiet pleasure of these movies, the suits getting more and more outlandish but staying absolutely believable, just like the films, and that all kicks off here with one guy and a non-magical hammer.

Pepper Pulls Out Tony’s Heart

I noted these all down before Endgame, honestly. Sob. It was always his story really. The best example of the foundational relationship of the MCU: They finish each other’s sentences!

‘Truth is… I am Iron Man.’

They knew what they’d got from the very first. This ballsy coda sets the tone for the whole MCU, one of backed-up swagger, a willingness to fuck with the source material in the name of story and the general feeling that Robert Downey Jr. was God. All in like two hours. That they flipped the egotistically iconic line into an era-defining declaration of responsibility, growth and heroism a decade later is nothing short of remarkable.

Hulk and Betty in the Rain

It’s uh… it’s a nice comic-book visual of a classic comic book romance, I guess? Look, Hulk came a long way later, but his forgotten love for Betty was the closest they ever came to the source material outside of the Hulk generally smashing and being awesome. It was sweet!

The Bit Where Hulk Suplexes a Giant Zombie Wolf on the Rainbow Bridge of Asgard

wait was this in the Incredible Hulk

I’ve Successfully Privatised World Peace!’ ‘Fuck you, Mr Stark.’

They got Garry Shandling in these movies!

The Suitcase Suit

Now that is a cool-ass adaptation.

Black Widow Kicks Asses

Yeah, after a whole movie of being reductive eye-candy she was still reductive eye-candy here. But the scene as a whole’s basically a perfect realisation of her moves in the comics, and showed Marvel were capable of doing someone who wasn’t Iron Man. Then they did EVERYYYYOONNNNNNEEE bonus points for Happy taking out that one guy and yelling ‘I got him!’

Tony and Rhodey in the Japanese Gardens

Look, they just look cool, OK? No one said this was going to be deep.

Tony and Pepper as the Stark Expo Explodes

They haven’t managed a lot of great romance, but this one hella works: Tony’s overblown mess of a movie expo exploding behind the true love of his life is a visual so great that Shane Black nicked it wholesale for the climax of Iron Man Three: Christmas in Croydon.

The Frost Giant Throwdown

Wait, what’s happening? I thought these were the movies where Jeff Bridges rode a Segway? Are we in SPAAAAACCCCCEEEE?

Thor Can’t Pull It Off

Out of the big three Thor’s arc of mythology to humanity might be the deepest and most satisfying of all. That starts here with his tearful inability to be worthy of his father, his world and, crucially, himself, leading directly into the first great Thor/Loki exchange, then a whole host of movies that eventually put him through the emotional wringer to self-acceptance. Hopefully?

Thor and Loki Battle on the Rainbow Bridge

Yeah, it looks kind of goofy, but this is pure sixties Kirby, shorn of the irony the series would develop later. Beautiful.

Erskine Points To Cap’s Heart

That’s it. That’s the character.

The Star Spangled Man!

Who’ll hang a noose on the goose-stepping goons from Berliiiin?

That Whole War Montage That Ends With Bucky Falling From The Train

Just smash after smash after smash of wartime Cap goodness that we’d never see again, ending with the ‘death’ that’d define the rest of his story. Steve lost as much as Thanos in his quest for peace but, y’know, he wasn’t a total fucking intergalactic dick about it.

‘I gotta put her in the water!’

Man alive he waited for that date... whether you think the ending of Endgame ruins the moment somewhat (it doesn’t. sort of), this was still the biggest heart-tugger in the MCU at that point, and defined the characters of Cap and Peggy for years to come. Watch Agent Carter! Just bloody watch it!

'Lemme Put You On Hold’

The stand out moment of The Avengers is basically all of it, but let’s start with the moment Black Widow finally becomes a character, a sequence of broad-strokes skill from Scarlett Johansson and Joss Whedon that begged for a movie she finally got way too long later. Bonus points for possibly the greatest Coulson reaction shot in a history of great reaction shots.

The Helicarrier Ascends

OK, shit – this is series is big now.

The Whole of Stuttgart

Whedon’s love of classical posh entertainment is seen in Angel’s superior ballet episode and his fondness for Sondheim, and he even gets a bit of the ol’ jewellery rattling in here in a perfectly pitched Loki-loving sequence that culminates in some fantastic bits for Cap before Iron Man AC/DC’s all over the place. This is where the comic book stuff really kicks off.

‘YOU COME HOME!’

This Hemsworth’s fella’s really got something...

Forest Bro Down

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. The first real Avengers mash-up is just wonderful. This is where the wish-fulfilment really begins, in a quiet clearing, where three superheroes nearly beat the shit out of each other in classic comic-book style. The Avengers assembled.

The Whole Fuckin’ Helicarrier Sequence

An absolute masterpiece of blockbuster juggling that had never been done before, this could be the third act of any other film. Over what plays out weirdly like a piece of theatre we get terrifying Hulks, mewling quims and awesome heroics, all expertly laced with wonderful character mash-ups and action we’d never seen before. Then Coulson dies. This is what Joss Whedon does.

‘There was an idea…’

Fuck shit yeah there was, and it made for a hell of an Infinity War trailer six years later.

ALL OF NEW YORK

Yep, all of it, but if we’re being picky it’s Hulk v Loki for the comedy side, the tracking shot for the action. As a sequence it’s never been bettered in the MCU, even in the open-mouthed joy-gush of Infinity War and Endgame. FIGHT ME

Go Fish

Iron Man Three is a wonderful movie that works best as the sum of its parts, but there’s one bit that’s up there with the pantheon: the sky-diving rescue above the bay is such a joyous subversion of the usual third-act super-fisticuffs that it’s like something out of a 70’s Superman movie, only with a hilarious capper at the end where Iron Man explodes under a truck. Beep beep!

Running the Lemurian Star

The Russo Brother’s action calling-card for their incredible MCU run, this sets up their vision of Cap’s super-subtle-super-serum-super-moves. From the off it’s a game changer in the way action’s shot across the MCU, clean-cut raid-alikes becoming the order of the day. AND THEN HE FIGHTS BATROC ZE LEAPER

Elevator Throwdown

Yeah, yeah, we all know the actual bit in the elevator that’s spoofed to tremendous effect come Endgame, but remember this sequence ends with Cap TAKING DOWN A FUCKING QUINJET SINGLE-HANDED. The look on his face at the end says it all.

The Winter Soldier Street Fight

HE FLICKS A KNIFE MID PUNCH

Come and Get Your Love

We’d seen a lot of cool shit from the MCU by this point, but this was something else again. It’s funny! It’s funny as fuck! What the fuck is this movie? And again, they know their own best bits: the return to this in Endgame is top drawer. What a moron.

The Kyln Sequence

This whole breakout is the Guardians at their very best; squabbling in space, reluctant teamwork, loads of cool shit and leg theft. The bit where it all goes anti-grav is a treat.

WE ARE GROOT

That’s it. That’s the movie.

…Stark…

It’s a shame they didn’t delve deeper into Scarlet Witch’s hatred for the man who murdered her parents, but her barely contained rage is the keystone for Age of Ultron: deeper, nastier, more questioning of it’s heroes and their heroism. This one they brought on all by themselves.

Sun’s Gettin’ Real Low

Yeah, maybe it’s for the best the slightly bumbled Hulktasha relationship was forgotten about, but this moment was pivotal in the character development of both. Beautifully shot, and leads to a primo Ragnarok gag.

Lift That Hammer

You genuinely could have made a whole movie of these characters hanging out at an open bar. The Stan cameo’s great, the War Machine story bit gets an Endgame alien planet boost much later, but it’s the drunken worthiness competition that’s the real highlight, a seemingly fun throwaway that actually almost single-handedly sets up the whole character of Vision and the most fist-pumping moment of Endgame, a movie nearly entirely composed of fist-pumping moments.

Hulk vs Hulkbuster

Pure comic-book wish fulfilment again, and how. From Hulk spitting out a tooth to Tony desperately pleading ‘go to sleep go to sleep go to sleep’, this mad clash of science pals knocks every Transformers movie straight through a freshly-bought-building. Veronica!

Well Done.

Alright, Vision’s no one’s favourite Avenger, but he’s one who’s the satisfying product of several movie plots, one beloved supporting AI and the combined brains, magic and cool red capes of his team. Whedon performs his own mad-skillz level script trick to make us accept this fucking weirdo, first by giving him Jarvis’ voice, then having him stare out at a world and see his reflection in it, then having him lift an unliftable character-establishment hammer. None of this could be done by any other film series.

The Geometry of Belief

Ultron’s climactic church-a-maggedon is short but perfect, a swirling mass of splash-page insanity that culminates in a glorious trinity of Vision, Iron Man and Thor blasting the shit out of their mad son like a magic triangle. The Avengers at their peak.

Vision and Ultron Have a Chat

Whedon pops out these gems of detached humanism from time to time, and his sundown final exchange between The Avenger’s success and failure is a doozy. The most poetic little scene in the whole MCU, voiced by two creatures who look like nightmarish dildos. ‘A thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts’ is an all-timer.

Big Bathtub

Ant Man’s bedrock might be its family values, but it’s the shrinking that makes it stand out. The first time Scott drops into tiny-town is a Pixar-esque fun-burst akin to Stephen Strange’s nutso jump into infinity later, with deadly bath taps, thunderclap vacuum cleaners and mid-day apartment raves (?) all bringing a new level of threat and adventure to a series already teeming with variety. They should carry these ones on foreverrrrr

Cassie’s Room

There’s something about this scene that sums up Scott’s whole character and hopefully sets up his daughter for future ant shenanigans: he is (was) unique as a hero with a family, and no matter how many Pym Particles he stuffs into his suit he’s always looked like a giant to his daughter. Plus, y’know, Thomas the Tank Engine.

Some Guy Crashes a Car at Night

The catalyst for the great middle schism. Civil War is a masterclass of twisting, gut-churning reveals, and this is the quiet moment that starts it all.

QUEENS

The perfect Marvel character, introduced into the perfect realisation of the Marvel Universe, perfectly.

Running Into Each Other At The Airport

LITTLE MAN IS BIG NOW I’M CLINT WE HAVEN’T MET YET I DON’T CARE WHERE YOU FROM KID QUEENS BROOKLYN I’M YOUR CONSCIENCE WE HAVEN’T SPOKEN IN A WHILE YOU GUYS KNOW THAT OLD MOVIE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK HOW OLD IS THIS KID ETC ETC OH MY GOD MY BRAIN HAS EXPLODED

Cap vs Iron Man

‘I don’t care. He killed my mom.’

The Big Brain Burst

They keep doing bits to expand themselves, and this is one of the best, with the most potential for the future. Fleeting, but dazzling.

New York Mirror Fest

If the next Strange movies delve into this deranged nonsense then they could end up the greatest of all of them. This is the tip of the iceberg, and it’s still unlike anything else being done in mainstream cinema.

Mr Blue Sky

In a movie that frequently reaches big and misses, at least it hits the spot at the beginning. This glorious celebration of family, space-craziness and genre subversion is everything Guardians does best. The Gamora / Groot bit is adorable.

Peter’s Civil War Adventure

The perfect tone-setter for the story’s most-average joe, this ground-level view of the universe’s biggest clash acts as a whippet quick intro to Peter Parker’s world in the big bad MCU. It’s always a thrill to see him where he belongs.

The Homage to Getting Buried Under a Tonne of Crap

Homecoming’s riffs on classic Spidey-lore are generally pretty subtle, but when it comes time to show what Peter’s really made of Watts rips directly from the best, first with the iconic Parker/Spidey face split and then with him holding up a whole fucking building like he’s nerd Hulk or something. The added ‘come on Spider-Mans’ are the adorable icing on the homage-o-cake.

Anytime That Immigrant Song Plays

Another!

Thor vs Hulk

Yeah, it’s not perfect and it’s a little CGIey. But it’s Thor fighting the Hulk in a fucking galactic gladiator arena place run by Jeff Goldblum and it smashes and it’s full of fun callbacks to previous movies. Yes! That’s what it feels like!

Thor and Loki Do Get Help

The perfect encapsulation of Waititi’s irreverent-but-with-tonnes-of-heart freshgasm on the story of Thor, this bit of hilarious dumb shit acts as amusing action beat and neat character resolution all in one. They’re friends again! They’re brothers! Thor throws him around like a rolled up carpet!

What Are You The God of Again?

Oh right, so he’s the best Avenger now.

Killmonger in the Afterlife

The bloody heart of the most emotional Marvel movie, when Erik Killmonger enters the Wakandan afterlife he finds himself in his own tiny Compton apartment, exiled with his father forever with the plains of eternity just out of reach beyond the window. Heartbreaking, and brilliant.

Thanos Arrives

The opening of Infinity War is another example of their absolute mastery of tone; after the megaton funblast of Ragnarok we’re thrown into the end of that movie being ripped apart, before Thanos appears, dragging a battered Thor into frame, beats seven shades of green shit out the Hulk and murders two beloved supporting characters, all without breaking a sweat. If you weren’t excited before you were now.

New York Tussle

The opening New York section of Infinity War is all very clever, acting as the only grounding Earthy moment in what’s a pretty out-there narrative in terms of existential stakes. You get Tony and Wong helping people off the sidewalk and Strange winking after halting the space-death-machine, but from there on out it’s full-bore comic-book smackdown fun, clashing characters who’ve never met and providing top-drawer banter about wizards and children’s parties. This is the page, up there on screen.

BRING ME THANOS!

The Thanos Fight

Jesus fucking Christ. Up there with the end of Avengers and the Civil War airport battle, this is a perfect realisation of superhero action, with a bigger dose of high-level insanity courtesy of the Infinity Stones and Doctor Strange. Sublimely realised, incredibly satisfying, with real weight and thought put into the spectacle, it’s also fantastic in the narrative of the film, the culmination of its themes of desperation and inevitability. The first time you saw them try to rip off the gauntlet was unbearable.

The Snap

Well, yeah. You’ll never get back the first time you saw this. And imagine seeing it as a fucking kid.#

Just a Girl

Sure the big level-up CGI fest at the end is good, but it’s the comedy smackdown on the Kree ship that’s the most satisfying part of Captain Marvel, the shit-eating joy on Carol’s face as she discovers she’s way more powerful than the assholes who’ve been holding her back. It’s corny sure, but it’s hella fun.

Thor Goes For The Head

Endgame is a shocking, disorientating blur to begin with, all the characters you loved acting in strange, desperate ways in a super-hero version of post-traumatic stress disorder. Tony’s meltdown is bad enough, but it’s when Thor just straight up fucking murders Thanos that you know this is going to get dark and serious. It doesn’t, it remembers it’s a Marvel movie, but the shot of him walking out into the blurred alien sun, cape aflutter, is a fitting goodbye to a more innocent time of heroics.

Ant Man and Cassie

A moment that could be worthy of a whole movie itself, a desperate Scott Lang meeting his five-years-older daughter gives a joke character a serious moment in the same way Infinity War did for Guardians. It’s very odd, very sweet and very Marvel.

Love You 3000

Morgan H. Stark is almost a little too on the nose as a wrap-up for Tony, but hell, she’s still sweet as all hell and a perfect capper to his story of fatherhood and responsibility. It’s a mark of the work they’ve put in that we’ll almost immediately accept the tired trope of kid-taking-over-mantle when she inevitably puts on the armour in a few years.

Steve and Peggy / Tony and Howard

This is the bit in Endgame where I finally started tearing up: a lot of it is too-neat fan-service, but fuck it, they’ve put in so much effort that it works. This is the scene where you realise both of these long arcs are coming to an end, the resolution of Steve quietly making his decision to go back to Peggy and Tony getting the closer of discussing parenthood with his unknowing father. It’s corny sure, but so are comic books, and setting the whole bit at the height of seventies Marvel Comics mania is a loving nod to the imaginations that made all these crazy possibilities possible.

Widow and Hawkeye

There’s a theme here. All of these moments are kind of cheesy and rely heavily on callbacks to previous bits… but at the moment it doesn’t matter because ENDGAME WOW. Maybe we’ll look back at it as a corny misstep, but for the moment, Clint and Tasha having one last, ludicrously overblown tussle for who gets to live is a sweet capper that never goes as deep as the others because they’re supporting characters. It still stings, and it’s a neat mirror to Gamora and Thanos in Infinity War. The red’s gone from her ledger! It’s on the rocks! Urrrgh

Nebula Kills Herself

Again, they’re so good that they can spend a big chunk of time in what’s ostensibly the last big movie for their most beloved characters on making a lesser character beloved. Endgame spotlights Nebula even more than Infinity War did Gamora, using her self-hatred and fear of her father for compelling, wibbly-wobbly plot and character beats. The resolution of her story and her newfound place with her team should make for a whole different Guardians before we even get to Fortnite-Thor joining up.

Cap Wields The Hammer

‘I KNEW IT!’

Thanos’ Army

One last escalation of scale. When Thanos’ army finally arrives it’s like something out of those apocalyptic Turner paintings, where the hordes of a ship-wrecked hell confront eternity under skies ripped from heaven. Only this time they’re facing one guy called Steve, and they’re fucked. Incredible.

Avengers… Assemble

It almost lives up to what you always had in your head. The Marvel Universe, somehow done right.

Tony Hugs Peter Back

Awwww!

New Avengers Run the Gauntlet

A surprising amount of Endgame’s grand finale is given over to the future hopes; while Strange gets stuck in with holding back a Biblical flood it’s up to Black Panther to grab the Infinity Gauntlet from Clint in a delightful callback to Civil War, before embarking on an intense relay race across the entire battlefield that begins with Scarlet Witch crushing the shit out of Thanos’ testicles and ends with Captain Marvel engaging the Mad Titan in a bone-crushing show of super-strength. And along the way if finds time to have Peter Parker dragged through the air by Thor’s hammer which was thrown by Captain America before landing on a Pegasus flown by Valkryie across an exploding sky of alien whales. Maybe the most satisfying run of action since the first Avengers.

I am Iron Man

It was always going to be him really. Bonus points for Downey Jr. originally telling Thanos to ‘Fuck off’. Did anyone else keep thinking he was going to wake up and quip and everything would be OK? That’s how you make movies.

The Funeral

It looks a little weird actually, like they weren’t all on set. But they were! The Marvel Universe again, holy smokes.

The Kiss

Now that’s how you end ten years and twenty one movies. They’re movies! It was romantic! It was exciting! It was fun!

For TEN FUCKING YEARS.

Swing a Ding Ding Sir

After five movies of fresh shit they've finally starting dumping some classic Spider-Man on us; the Euro stuff's fun and all, but it's Far From Home delirious climax that sees Spidey and MJ thwipping through the canyons of New York before bumping into ugly ol' J. Jonah JJ Jay Jay likes it's a freakin' comic book or something. Delightful, and also serves as a wonderful image of hope and joy post-Endgame.

What a fuckin’ ride. Here’s to the next... seventy six? Seventy seven?

wait did I leave any out

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toomanysinks · 5 years

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How to build The Matrix

Rizwan Virk Contributor

Rizwan Virk is executive director of Play Labs @ MIT, a serial entrepreneur and author.

Released this month 20 years ago, “The Matrix” went on to become a cultural phenomenon. This wasn’t just because of its ground-breaking special effects, but because it popularized an idea that has come to be known as the simulation hypothesis. This is the idea that the world we see around us may not be the “real world” at all, but a high-resolution simulation, much like a video game.

While the central question raised by “The Matrix” sounds like science fiction, it is now debated seriously by scientists, technologists and philosophers around the world. Elon Musk is among those; he thinks the odds that we are in a simulation are a billion to one (in favor of being inside a video-game world)!

As a founder and investor in many video game startups, I started to think about this question seriously after seeing how far virtual reality has come in creating immersive experiences. In this article we look at the development of video game technology past and future to ask the question: Could a simulation like that in “The Matrix” actually be built? And if so, what would it take?

What we’re really asking is how far away we are from The Simulation Point, the theoretical point at which a technological civilization would be capable of building a simulation that was indistinguishable from “physical reality.”

[Editor’s note: This article summarizes one section of the upcoming book, “The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIT Computer Scientist Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics and Eastern Mystics All Agree We Are in a Video Game.“]

From science fiction to science?

But first, let’s back up.

“The Matrix,” you’ll recall, starred Keanu Reeves as Neo, a hacker who encounters enigmatic references to something called the Matrix online. This leads him to the mysterious Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne, and aptly named after the Greek god of dreams) and his team. When Neo asks Morpheus about the Matrix, Morpheus responds with what has become one of the most famous movie lines of all time: “Unfortunately, no one can be told what The Matrix is. You’ll have to see it for yourself.”

Even if you haven’t seen “The Matrix,” you’ve probably heard what happens next — in perhaps its most iconic scene, Morpheus gives Neo a choice: Take the “red pill” to wake up and see what the Matrix really is, or take the “blue pill” and keep living his life. Neo takes the red pill and “wakes up” in the real world to find that what he thought was real was actually an intricately constructed computer simulation — basically an ultra-realistic video game! Neo and other humans are actually living in pods, jacked into the system via a cord into his cerebral cortex.

Who created the Matrix and why are humans plugged into it at birth? In the two sequels, “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions,” we find out that Earth has been taken over by a race of super-intelligent machines that need the electricity from human brains. The humans are kept occupied, docile and none the wiser thanks to their all-encompassing link to the Matrix!

But the Matrix wasn’t all philosophy and no action; there were plenty of eye-popping special effects during the fight scenes. Some of these now have their own name in the entertainment and video game industry, such as the famous “bullet time.” When a bullet is shot at Neo, the visuals slow down time and manipulate space; the camera moves in a circular motion while the bullet is frozen in the air. In the context of a 3D computer world, this make perfect sense, though now the camera technique is used in both live action and video games. AI plays a big role too: in the sequels, we find out much more about the agents pursuing Neo, Morpheus and the team. Agent Smith (played brilliantly by Hugo Weaving), the main adversary in the first movie, is really a computer agent — an artificial intelligence meant to keep order in the simulation. Like any good AI villain, Agent Smith (who was voted the 84th most popular movie character of all time!) is able to reproduce itself and overlay himself onto any part of the simulation.

“The Matrix” storyboard from the original movie. (Photo by Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood)

The Wachowskis, creators of “The Matrix,” claim to have been inspired by, among others, science fiction master Philip K. Dick. Most of us are familiar with Dick’s work from the many film and TV adaptations, ranging from Blade Runner, Total Recall and the more recent Amazon show, The Man in the High Castle. Dick often explored questions of what was “real” versus “fake” in his vast body of work. These are some of the same themes we will have to grapple with to build a real Matrix: AI that is indistinguishable from humans, implanting false memories and broadcasting directly into the mind.

As part of writing my upcoming book, I interviewed Dick’s wife, Tessa B. Dick, and she told me that Philip K. Dick actually believed we were living in a simulation. He believed that someone was changing the parameters of the simulation, and most of us were unaware that this was going on. This was of course, the theme of his short story, “The Adjustment Team” (which served as the basis for the blockbuster “The Adjustment Bureau,” starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt).

A quick summary of the basic (non-video game) simulation argument

Today, the simulation hypothesis has moved from science fiction to a subject of serious debate because of several key developments.

The first was when Oxford professor Nick Bostrom published his 2003 paper, “Are You Living in a Simulation?” Bostrom doesn’t say much about video games nor how we might build such a simulation; rather, he makes a clever statistical argument. Bostrom theorized that if a civilization ever got the Simulation Point, it would create many ancestor simulations, each with large numbers (billions or trillions?) of simulated beings. Since the number of simulated beings would vastly outnumber the number of real beings, any beings (including us!) were more likely to be living inside a simulation than outside of it!

Other scientists, like physicists and Cosmos host Neil deGrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking weighed in, saying they found it hard to argue against this logic.

Bostrom’s argument implied two things that are the subject of intense debate. The first is that if any civilization every reached the Simulation Point, then we are more likely in a simulation now. The second is that we are more likely all AI or simulated consciousness rather than biological ones. On this second point, I prefer to use the “video game” version of the simulation argument, which is a little different than Bostrom’s version.

Video games hold the key

Let’s look more at the video game version of the argument, which rests on the rapid pace of development of video game and computer graphics technology over the past decades. In video games, we have both “players” who exist outside of the video game, and “characters” who exist inside the game. In the game, we have PCs (player characters) that are controlled (you might say mentally attached to the players), and NPCs (non-player characters) that are the simulation artificial characters.

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/18/how-to-build-the-matrix/

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warninggraphiccontent · 5 years

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26 April 2019

InCiSE-ive analysis

Which country has the world's most effective civil service? The latest International Civil Service Effectiveness Index (InCiSE), a collaboration between IfG and the Blavatnik School of Government with support from the UK civil service, was published yesterday and has some of the answers. It also has lots of interactive charts and the data behind them. I'm really pleased to have played a small part in the project - I think it's a great example of how data can enable the right conversations (we know an index can never be definitive, but it's prompted lots of talk about which countries should be learning what from elsewhere and what else would be worth including).

I think it's also a great example of a much-maligned chart type - radar charts - being used to convey data very clearly (here's a version from me). I'll write a short post on that soon (I already have some dreadful radar-related puns lined up, but further ones welcome). In the meantime, you can read a quick summary by me; an excellent comment piece from Blavatnik's Calum Miller on how the UK did so well despite, well, you know; a report from Civil Service World; and the report itself, the technical details behind it and some case studies of how the InCiSE framework could be applied to countries not included in the index. The 2017 version is here.

Elsewhere... Owen Boswarva took exception to DCMS describing data as 'fuel' (though I've definitely found myself accidentally calling it that from time to time...). It reminded me that Rachel Coldicutt started a spreadsheet to record such data metaphors. And that the ODI's strategy has some useful 'scenarios'. And that we once idly came up with some at the Institute, moving from data mining and data wrangling to data gardening (it's a wild world out there, you choose what to cultivate and how to landscape it) and data carpentry (you start with a big block of the whole world and then plane and shave it down, I think). I actually can't remember if we made all of those up or if we genuinely saw them somewhere.

It's just a few days until our next Data Bites event, which should (like the last one) be great fun as well as extremely interesting. Come! (And put Tuesday 4 June in your diary for the next one.)

Somebody said to me a few weeks ago that my hometown is only ever on the news when there are vox pops on Brexit to be conducted or something bad has happened. I'm therefore very relieved this morning that this wasn't a lot worse.

And I think, remarkably, that's the only mention of Brexit in this week's newsletter. Let's see how long that lasts...

Gavin

Today's links:

Graphic content

USA

Explore a detailed view of the Mueller report (Axios)

It's been at least five minutes since a bar chart race so here's one on Democratic candidates for president (Google Trends)

Everything's deadlier in the South (Axios)

Why you should never start a trade war with an autocracy* (The Economist)

Who’s Running for President in 2020?* (New York Times)

Elections

Spain's general election 2019: all you need to know (The Guardian -problem solved?)

Where are local elections taking place in England? (House of Commons Library)

Walt domination

Disney Faces Fresh Criticism After Heir Calls Iger’s Pay ‘Insane’*(Bloomberg)

Every Company Disney Owns (The Big Picture)

#dataviz and #ddj

The Upshot, Five Years In* (The Upshot)

Preview: The 20th Century in Infographics (May 2019) (Sandra Rendgen)

A very strange chart? (via Eric William Lin)

How we mapped rent affordability using the Ordnance Survey’s Open Zoomstack map tiles (BBC Visual and Data Journalism)

Everything else

Rich nations urged to prepare workers for age of automation* (FT)

Which countries eat the most meat? (BBC News)

What the Airbnb surge means for UK cities (BBC News)

Ministerial directions (IfG)

Sport

Can anyone break Alan Shearer's Premier League goals record? (BBC Sport)

The Premier League teams’ ineptitude index 2018-19 (The Guardian)

Meta data

Leadership

UK fails to fill role of national statistician* (FT - my take, Will's less critical though not contradictory one)

Pleased to see statistical leadership will be the focus of a systemic review by @UKStatsAuth as outlined in the new Office for Stats Regulation business plan (via Hetan Shah)

Long reads

The Fragmentation of Truth (danah boyd)

The Real Stars of the Internet* (New York Times)

One country blocks the world on data privacy (Politico)

Location

How can we bring transparency to urban tech? These icons are a first step. (Sidewalk Talk - although..., and indeed...)

Is data literacy being taken seriously enough in the UK? (diginomica)

Why Google Maps and Citymapper are terrible for walking directions*(Wired)

Geospatial Commission making geospatial data more accessible(Geospatial Commission - though as Owen Boswarva points out, one of its partner organisations is missing. This one)

AI, algorithms, automation

Western AI researchers partnered with Chinese surveillance firms* (FT)

A new alphabet for Europe: Algorithms, big data, and the computer chip(Brookings)

WE’VE BEEN WARNED ABOUT AI AND MUSIC FOR OVER 50 YEARS, BUT NO ONE’S PREPARED (The Verge)

Removing unnecessary processes the right way (MoJ Digital and Technology)

Complex automation won't make fleshbags obsolete, not when the end result is this dumb (The Register)

Some AI just shouldn’t exist (Vox)

This thread has quickly become a really great discussion on AI and government in history (via Michael Veale)

Everything else

What does it mean for NHSX to be an ‘open source’ organisation?(Technology in the NHS)

China’s unchecked expansion of data-powered AI raises civic concerns*(FT)

On openly publishing government algorithms (via Tom Forth)

You can lead a person to data, but you can't make them use it (Nesta - discussion here and here)

Government immigration database 'deeply sinister', say campaigners(The Guardian - although...)

The only way to rein in big tech is to treat them as a public service (Nick Srnicek for The Guardian)

Opportunities, etc

ODCamp is looking for a London venue (ODCamp)

JOB: Senior policy adviser, National Data Strategy (DCMS)

WORK: Help DfT scope out a data strategy (via Giuseppe)

OPPORTUNITY: Applications for @DataSciCampus sponsorship for UK public sector analysts to undertake the MSc in Data Analytics for Government starting in the 2019/210 academic year are now open (via Dave Johnson)

And finally...

Logos

Ranking UK Parties Logos (Election Maps UK, via Marcus)

Lost logos of the London Boroughs (@LCCmunicipal)

32 Game of Thrones Data Visualizations (Jeffrey Lancaster, via in other news)

The Man Who Solved ‘Jeopardy!’ (FiveThirtyEight, via Tess)

Everything else

Perception (Steve Stewart-Williams)

The price of fish (via Devin Pope)

More Amazing Cutaways Of London Underground Stations (Londonist)

How did the qwerty keyboard become so popular? (BBC News)

Queen Elizabeth II just turned 93 years old. See her banknote evolution.(Norbert Elekes)

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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The Teleprompter Interview: Daniel Mays ‘I’d jump at an Ashes to Ashes Return’

https://ift.tt/3dZSoaJ

‘He pops up absolutely everywhere doesn’t he?’ says Daniel Mays about his Code 404 co-star Stephen Graham. You could say the same of Mays. A draw on any cast list, between them in the last year alone they’ve appeared in almost 20 major titles – 1917, Good Omens, White Lines (Mays), The Irishman, The Virtues, Line of Duty, Save Me (Graham) to name just a handful.

Why Mays and Graham are in such high and regular demand is no mystery; they’re two of our best. Mays has an instant affability on screen that he’s able to turn to tragedy or comedy or both at once. Graham’s characters are often the reverse, unknowable and dangerous before he lays their vulnerabilities bare.

In sci-fi comedy Code 404, they play detectives with a tangled personal history. Mays is a DI unexpectedly brought back from the dead via some bug-ridden experimental AI tech. Graham is the trusty partner who’s been keeping his colleague’s wife (Anna Maxwell Martin) company during his absence.

Already renewed for a second run, Mays tells Den of Geek it’s the most binge-watched show on Sky in eight years. “We’re all buzzing about doing another series.” As the first is released on DVD, he talks us through his TV memories…

Which TV show inspired you to start your acting career?

Robbie Coltrane in the Jimmy McGovern drama Cracker. I find his stuff heart-breaking at times but it’s astounding social realist television. Any script written by Jimmy is nuanced and powerful. He’s one of this country’s most amazing writers.

More than anything though, it was Robbie Coltrane’s performance. I remember all the incredible performances, Robert Carlyle as the skinhead with those fantastic interrogation scenes, Christopher Eccleston… but Coltrane as this antihero, a gambler and a womaniser and a drinker, a maverick copper, he was amazing.

That and Prime Suspect.I could go further back, but in terms of when I was really getting serious about becoming an actor, those were the two that were compulsive viewing. I’ve subsequently gone on to work with Jimmy McGovern so it feels like it’s gone full circle.

Which TV character did you want to be when you were younger?

As a kid I was really into The A Team and whassisname, David Hasselhoff! Michael Knight from Knight Rider. As a kid I was obsessed with that show. I had all the action figures. That car was so cool wasn’t it? And when he did the turbo boost and jumped over everything!

In The A Team I probably wanted to be Face, but in reality, if I was to be cast as anyone now it wouldn’t be Face [laughs], it would be Murdoch wouldn’t it?

And which TV character would you like to be now?

When I was working, I didn’t really watch much telly at all but obviously that’s all changed now we’re in lockdown. Before, I hadn’t ever delved into The Sopranos, and I love that character, Tony Soprano. If I could pick one TV character I’d like to have a go at now, that’s the one.

Has any TV programme ever given you nightmares?

Oh man, I’m telling you! There was an ITV adaptation of Jekyll & Hyde with Michael Caine. I’m going back years and years, I must have been about 10 or 11. The make-up that they used in this show when he changed from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde, the Hyde make-up was absolutely terrifying, to the point where it really affected me.

I was far too young to watch it and I even had to sleep in between my mum and dad at 10 years old, I was absolutely petrified of that character. Even in preparation for these questions, I went on YouTube and typed it in and there he was again, petrifying, even today!

When did you last laugh out loud watching TV?

The new Alan Partridge when he’s doing the talk show with Susannah Fielding, that particular sketch when he was attempting to use the toilet on the train without using his hands, when he went into that whole routine of opening the door with his knee. Anything with Alan Partridge I find absolutely hysterical.

I’m an absolute sucker for Only Fools and Horses as well. I’m such a die-hard fan of that show and whenever that pops up on UK TV or Gold, if I end up watching five minutes, I have to sit down and watch the whole episode. I’m such a lover of that relationship between David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst, I think it’s absolute gold, all of those characters, John Sullivan’s writing, it’s part of my fabric growing up. It’s probably my favourite ever TV show.

Name an iconic TV moment for your generation

The opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics was an amazing moment of television isn’t it? It started out in like a farmyard [laughs] and I remember thinking, ‘what have we got going on here? We’ve got the eyes of the world watching us…!’ But it then proceeded to be the most engaging and emotional extravaganza. In terms of Olympics opening ceremonies, nothing comes close to that, even in Beijing when you had that huge number of people. It was so brilliantly British. I don’t know why I ever doubted Danny Boyle. He hit it out of the park.

What was the last TV show you recommended to someone?

I recommended Save Me, the Lennie James show. I watched the second series of that in lockdown and the second series was even better than the first, and I absolutely adored the first series. I thought that was an absolute breath of fresh air, I think it was really amazing that Lennie had written this piece set on a sink estate and yet it felt vibrant and I loved the characters. It was just a wonderful piece of television. They’ve got to do another series. I definitely recommend that.

Life on Mars Creator Wants to Bring Back Sam Tyler

By Louisa Mellor

Lennie James interview: Save Me, Storm Damage, The Bill

By Louisa Mellor

Starring your Code 404 co-star Stephen Graham

Yes! He pops up absolutely everywhere doesn’t he?

Which TV show does everybody keep nagging you to watch that you haven’t yet seen?

Ozark and Succession. They’re two shows I’m yet to delve into really. They’re two on my list I’ve got to tick off, along with everything else!

Which TV show would you like to bring back from the dead?

There’s all this talk that there’s going to be a final instalment of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, which I keep hearing rumours about. From what I’ve read, it’s more based around what happens to John Simm’s character Sam Tyler. I don’t know if it’s going to be a modern-day thing but I always wanted to see Gene Hunt in the 90s. It’s difficult to make that happen because Ashes to Ashes was sewn up brilliantly. I’m sort of hesitant to say it should come back but Gene Hunt is such an iconic character and Phil Glenister was so incredible in that role.

I’ve always gone on record and said that Jim Keats – the character I played, the devil – was one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done so if there’s an opportunity to play that role again, I’d jump at that. Is it egotistical of me to pick a show that I’ve been in myself?!

Which show do you wish more people would watch? If you were forced to pick another one of yours?

I did a single drama on BBC Two called Mother’s Day about the Warrington bombing. That’s a really important moment in history and it’s such a heart-felt drama. If anyone’s not seen it, that would be something I would recommend to people to watch. It’s not for the faint-hearted.

Have you ever done fancy dress as a TV character?

[Laughs] I went to an EastEnders fancy dress party dressed up as Frank Butcher! My then-girlfriend went as Pat so we were Pat and Frank. Then when I got there, there was another guy dressed up as Frank Butcher but he was gangster-Frank so he had all the bling on. We had a bit of a Frank Butcher-off.

Tell me you were the Frank Butcher with the spinning bow-tie?!

[Laughs] I didn’t go that far! Actually, scrap the Olympics opening ceremony, do the Frank Butcher bow-tie as the most iconic moment of my generation [laughs].

Which TV theme song do you know all the words to?

I know all the words to Friends and I have to say, Only Fools and Horses again, whenever that comes on I always end up singing all over it.

Which TV character would you like to beat in a fight?

What’s the TV show that The Rock does? It’s set in LA, Russell Brand’s been in it as well. I wouldn’t mind beating up the Rock, because my wife loves a bit of the Rock! So I could beat him up in a TV drama. Who wouldn’t want to beat The Rock up?!

What is the most fun you’ve had making television?

White Lines for Netflix, without a shadow of a doubt. That’s a complete no-brainer. The locations, the character I was playing, the actors I was working with and the scripts were just absolutely brilliant and bonkers. Fingers crossed we get a second series.

If you get a second series, your character Marcus has quite a different role set out for him, doesn’t he?

Yeah! He’s going to become the drug baron of the Calafat family. It’s all to play for isn’t it, especially for Marcus, the whole thing’s been left wide open for him to get into all sorts of mishaps and scrapes.

That character was probably the most enjoyable character I’ve played, him and Jim Keats. I just had such a ball, he was so funny and he had this sort of tragedy to him as well. He’s just so hapless. The thought of Marcus in Colombia or Bolivia or wherever just makes me howl even thinking about it.

And when else do you get to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dog?

That’s true! I forgot I did that scene. That’s mad isn’t it. Though I actually only punched the dog’s chest. At one point I did say ‘Shall I give the dog actual mouth-to-mouth?’ and the director Nick Hamm said ‘I think that’s too much Danny, even for this show.’

Code 404 is out on DVD & digital 6 July.

The post The Teleprompter Interview: Daniel Mays ‘I’d jump at an Ashes to Ashes Return’ appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3gtbpnG

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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captainignatiuspigheart · 4 years

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Gosh time really does fly, while simultaneously flexing with all the integrity of sun-warmed chewing gum… so, yeah, it’s Friday already and I haven’t completed my sole personal task of the week – recording what the I’ve watched and done. Obviously I’ve done relatively little, except drunk spectacular quantities of beer and gazed listlessly at our blossoming lilac tree. That’s right: I’ve been outside! In fact, I spent most of last week outside. Work very kindly ordered us some desks in an attempt to aid good workspace habits, since I’ve been sitting on the sofa with my laptop on my knees for six weeks or so… It’s a nice little desk, but it does rather fill our front room. The brightening weather gave me ideas! After a day sitting under said lilac tree I got quite enthusiastic, ordering a WIFI extender thing (with antennae! Must be good.) and unfurling the gazebo. I even went so far as to lay out four of the concrete slabs that have been stacked in our garden for more than a decade, pending the creation of a patio. It was quite lovely. I spent my days in sunshine, watching the cats race around the garden, the gentle scent of lilac and roses wafting into my hardworking face. Pretty nice week all round really.

Reading: The Human (Rise of the Jain #3) by Neal Asher

I don’t often pre-order books (I know, as a publishing person I should know better…) but that’s mostly because by to-be-read stack both physical and digital is absurd. The coronavirus means I want things to look forward to! I’ve been reading Asher’s Polity books for years – fast-paced military space opera with great intergalactic conflict, high tech, terrifying aliens and engaging heroes. The set up… it’s an advanced human civilisation slowly taken over by the AIs we built, so that now Earth Central is a massively powerful AI who runs the whole show, and much better than we ever managed. The AIs do have a ruthlessly utilitarian slant though, and while mostly that means they do make life better for the majority, sometimes it means they sacrifice whole worlds to save the rest of the Polity… This is so far into the story that it’s near impossible to summarise what’s going on! Ancient alien technology – the Jain – enables nano-(and even pico-)engineering on a thrilling scale, but is horribly prone to taking over its user and sequestering every resource in sight, utterly destroying the civilisation that tried to use it. A vast array of active Jain tech has been swirling around the heart of a galaxy for millions of years. For the last few hundred years, Orlandine, a vastly upgraded “haiman”, half AI, half human who has seemingly tamed Jain tech for her own purposes, as well as the gnomic moon-sized alien entity, Dragon, have been preventing it from escaping and wreaking havoc.

That all went spectacularly tits up in the last book, and this is the final struggle to contain the Jain before it wipes out everyone. This installment really builds on the transhuman character development of Orlandine, the Polity AIs, the horrifying crab-like human-munching aliens, the Prador, and a host of other characters, many of them infected with Jain ambition among other things. It’s impossibly epic, with vast stakes, finally revealing the true dangers of the alien tech and a lot more about where it truly comes from. As a huge fan of the universe, I was delighted by this, even if the ending comes about a little quickly. Fear not though, there are plenty of hints at what is still unknown, and critical figures are conspicuously absent. Bring on the next trilogy please!

Building: LEGO Y-Wing Starfighter – LEGO 75181

Ermagherd, is I believe, how the young folk express their fondness for a thing. It is how I should like to express my fondness for this splendid build! This is the first UCS (ultimate collector series) I’ve had the chance to assemble, and I’m pretty impressed. In truth, I nicked it from work (sliced open the box and emptied it into a rucksack, walks away whistling etc), and probably would not have bought it for myself. It’s Star Wars, so it’s huge and mostly grey. The Y-Wings are rightly iconic for getting blown to pieces above various Death Stars, but they look so damned cool. I’ve already got a LEGO Y-Wing, now that I think about it – the 1999 edition that came with a tie-fighter. It was rad at the time, but this massive set comprehensively blows it out of the water and vaporises the lake it was skimming over. At a mere 1967 pieces, I was confident that I could build it in an evening, but naturally failed. Instead it dominated an entire Saturday afternoon while I watched more of season two of Agents of SHIELD (which I’ve had to pause to watch Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron because the latter takes place around episode 20!). Rarely have I spent a Saturday afternoon so productively!

New school

Old school

Beginnings…

Like a lot of the larger LEGO vehicles I’ve built, there are plenty of time when I have no idea what I’m assembling. This one went through a canal barge to crucifix stage pretty quickly, and as soon as the cockpit clips in it’s instantly recognisable. That cockpit itself is loaded with clever building tricks to give it a smooth and curved underside as neat as the top, sneaky stuff to invert the direction of the studs. It’s stuff I’m terrible at in my own building and I’m keen to learn from it. The nacelles have simpler tactics for allowing intense greebling all the way round the square pillars. The greeblage is mighty all over the back and underside of the Y-Wing. One of the things I often admire about official LEGO sets is the masterful balance of detailing, whether it’s in a scatter of cheese slopes, a light touch in patterning brick colours, or in this – while there’s a lot of detailing, it’s not so insanely overdone that it detracts from the model at a distance. The Y-Wing looks fantastically good, such a nice version of the film designs. There are though a bunch of stickers to apply on the cockpit which stressed me out to apply neatly. Not half as much as the massive sticker for the info plaque though. It really shouldn’t generate such anxiety! Nevertheless, I think I got it on perfectly.

The minifigs are great, as you’d expect, with a finely detailed Gold leader and a shiny silver R2-BHD astromech. Yeah, I love this thing. It is way too big to put anywhere in our house, sadly, but it will come apart into three neat pieces for transporting back to work once all this is over. Lamentably, having assembled this one, I now find myself eyeing up the far smaller A-Wing that’s just been released. That’s definitely shelf-sized…

Sticker hell

This has displaced a cat

Too big

Watching: Star Trek: Picard

We’d been waiting for all the episodes to be released on Amazon Prime before we began this. Our preference is definitely bingeing hard, rather than the agonising wait till next week. I’ve not reflected much on the change in our viewing habits in the last decade, but I think I’m getting more enjoyment from being deeply embedded in a show for a couple of weeks than dipping in and out of several simultaneously. However, I fear I’m going to have to do a second watch of Picard, because unlike Discovery which I adored from beginning to end, I just don’t know what to think of this new spin-off. Perhaps we’ll find out while I ramble…

The character of Jean-Luc Picard is obviously great – Patrick Stewart made Star Trek: The Next Generation come alive, and even though a lot of it is barely watchable now, the interactions of Captain Picard and his close-knit crew are delightful. TNG set the ground for the vastly superior Deep Space Nine that followed, with its huge and rewarding story arcs advancing the previous episodic narrative. With the exception of the Borg episodes, TNG never got the opportunity to do that, and with the similar exception of First Contact, its follow up movies are dreadful, though none as bad at those of the original series. I’ve been without Picard since First Contact in 1996 (holy fuck, how long?!), though the aforementioned dodgy movies have continued. So, a twenty year or so wait to return, that’s pretty high stakes.

Picard disabuses us pretty quickly of this being a high action show like Discovery. In a curiously similar vein to the new Star Wars movies’ Luke Skywalker story, Picard is long retired from Star Fleet, having been fired/quit when Star Fleet backed away from a commitment to help resettle the peoples of Romulus after their home planet got fried. He’s spent the rest of the time chilling in his vineyard home, tended by ex-secret service Romulans and generally doing fuck all but seethe that Star Fleet let him down. He’s run away from his responsibilities, having failed to be the man he thought he was. Enter a young (spoiler) human-passing android on the run from some dudes trying to kill her. She doesn’t know she’s an android but knows a lot of stuff, is super-fast and knows she needs to find Picard. It’s no shock to discover that she’s Data’s daughter, somehow. But she gets offed by some more Romulan spec ops bad guys, and Picard’s off on a mission to find her twin sister, save the galaxy, stop the Romulans etc.

Since Picard’s no longer Star Fleet he has to assemble a rag tag crew (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) since Star Fleet really don’t like him any more. The pacing is glacial at times, and it’s hard to understand what they’re actually aiming for in this. It takes ages to get into space (which is all fabulously Star Warsy rather than the Trek we’ve seen before) where we finally catch up with a ruined Borg cube that’s being rehabilitated by Romulans (for reasons I honestly can’t recall), and on which the android twin is working, while dating an actual piece of shit Romulan secret secret secret service guy who’s part of an inner circle dedicated to wiping out all synthetic life.

There is a lot of great stuff in here – Seven of Nine’s return is a delight, Riker!, learning that Romulan assassin folk are just feudal Japanese folk, complete with haircuts and robes is peculiar, but kinda fun, and eventually a lot of things happen, quite fast. Picard nearly dies, they find more androids, he saves the day. I don’t honestly consider that to be a spoiler! The whole show is soaked in nostalgia, which is only partly rubbing off on me. If there weren’t so many people involved, and such cool design work going on I’d write it off as a vanity project. It’s definitely more than that, but I don’t know what… Watch it, if you’re into Trek, otherwise I cannot imagine this having any appeal at all.

youtube

Doing: Virtual Improv Drop-In with MissImp

Last week’s new improv workshop was with Stephen Davidson, who’s just the loveliest and most passionate guy. His workshop is a real delight! Enjoy.

youtube

Last Week: The Human, Star Trek Picard and LEGO UCS Y-Wing - fun times with new Trek, splendid Neal Asher space opera and another fun MissImp online workshop! @missimp_notts #nottgoingout @nealasher #picard #books #lego @lego Gosh time really does fly, while simultaneously flexing with all the integrity of sun-warmed chewing gum… so, yeah, it’s Friday already and I haven’t completed my sole personal task of the week – recording what the I’ve watched and done.

#nottgoingout #book review #books #lego #LEGO 75181 #LEGO UCS #LEGO Y-Wing review #MissImp: Improv Comedy Theatre Nottingham #Neal Asher #Rise of the Jain #star trek #Star Trek Picard #Stephen Davidson #the Borg #TV review #working from home

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fmservers · 5 years

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How to build The Matrix

Rizwan Virk Contributor

Rizwan Virk is executive director of Play Labs @ MIT, a serial entrepreneur and author.

From science fiction to science?

But first, let’s back up.

“The Matrix” storyboard from the original movie. (Photo by Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood)

A quick summary of the basic (non-video game) simulation argument

Today, the simulation hypothesis has moved from science fiction to a subject of serious debate because of several key developments.

Other scientists, like physicists and Cosmos host Neil deGrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking weighed in, saying they found it hard to argue against this logic.

Video games hold the key

Via David Riggs https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

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epchapman89 · 7 years

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Nice Coffee: Tyler Wells’ New Design Icon Cafe In Los Angeles

Los Angeles is arguably home to the most exciting coffee scene in the world. We’ve been saying it since at least 2012, but it’s never been a more winnable argument, with allowances made for Tokyo and Seoul in terms of sheer growth and quality, or maybe the Melbourne-Sydney one-two punch in terms of innovation and influence. No matter what, LA continues to be the city we’re publishing the most about here at Sprudge, in wide-ranging coverage that stretches from the buzzy byways of Echo Park and Silver Lake to the chill side streets of Los Feliz, to the urban canyons of Downtown LA and the Art District, along the beachfront in Venice and Santa Monica and out to every last nook and cranny in the Valley (not that most Angelenos would admit to going there, but we think the new stuff in spots like Sherman Oaks and Burbank is cool asf).

There amongst it all, with a Zelig-like propensity to find himself at the center of the scene stands Tyler Wells, a coffee consultant and entrepreneur non pareil in the city’s ongoing coffee boom. Sprudge readers know Wells from his work as a co-founder at the influential Handsome Coffee Roasters (may it rest in peace), projects like Blacktop Coffee and Superba Food and Bread, plus consulting work behind the scenes—none bigger than his ongoing work to help plan La Colombe Coffee Roasters’ coming Los Angeles expansion.

Today comes the news that Wells has opened his own coffee bar in the city’s Financial District—a new, jaw-dropping courtyard bar designed by the internationally renowned firm Gensler Architecture and dubbed, simply, Nice. Located in the City National Plaza at 555 S. Flower Street, the cafe has been built with four modular walls that lift up to allow in the that glorious California sunshine (available year-round, at no additional charge), plus plaza patio seating and stunning rolled steel accents throughout.

The space is not yet open to the public—Wells & coffee program manager Nick Howell hosted a friends & family preview today—but we already see Nice as a new coffee design icon for a city with no shortage of them. Somewhere in the middle of accepting last minute deliveries and managing the aforementioned preview, Tyler Wells found time to speak with Sprudge co-founder Jordan Michelman by phone from Los Angeles about his Nice new cafe, the state of coffee in Los Angeles, and that coming La Colombe expansion (wheels go up in May).

Hey Tyler—thanks for making time to chat with me, I know this is a really busy morning for you. Start by giving our readers the “elevator pitch” for your new shop—what’s the deal?

Hey of course—I always have time for Sprudge.

I’ve been working on this space for the last 3 years, in development with Gensler Architecture and Commonwealth Partners who own this plaza. There’s 2 buildings here, each with 51 stories, and then a smaller jewel box building that’s 2-3 stories with their headquarters. Gensler wanted to “activate” the plaza—[laughs] sorry, you know, redact that, I don’t want to say “activate”—but we worked on a space together that would feed back into the aesthetic and invite people in. There’s 12 thousand people that come across this plaza every day and we wanted to bring all this good service and coffee to where they are.

I have big notion of not asking people to opt in to the thing you do, but instead creating it and bringing to them and saying, “Hey, let us provide you with this cool thing and meet you where you are.”

Our readers know you from your work with Handsome Coffee Roasters a few years ago, but also on projects like Blacktop and Superba Food & Bread, where you worked as a consultant. Is this a consultant project for you or is it your own cafe?

This cafe is 100% mine. I don’t have any investors. It’s my own project.

How do you approach a project that’s yours, as opposed to your consulting work?

It’s great to have a wide point of view. In consulting I like to offer expertise, and give my own point of view to the client, and help them realize it, and I like doing that—but my vision has evolved really over the last 5 years since we opened Handsome here in LA. And so now with my own project, it’s great to just take all of those lessons and experiences and bring ‘em to life.

What’s the gear situation at this new cafe? Talk nerdy to me.

We have a La Marzocco Strada 3 group auto-volumetric espresso machine, and it’s really beautiful. The whole cafe features all this beautiful custom stainless and hot rolled steel work, done for us by these hot rod dudes called AIS Industires—they remade every panel, redid the drip trays out of black iron hot rolled steel. The whole thing is rat rodded, and it’s gorgeous.

We use Robur grinders, and in an idea that’s straight out of Single Origin in Sydney, we hung these beautiful cup holders from the ceiling—it’s funny what you geek out on, but that’s my favorite touch throughout the whole thing. We’ve got batch brew on a Curtis brewer, there’s a [Mahlkonig] EK-43 grinder as well, some nitro cold brew taps, and we’ll do some various bubbly teas on tap, plus chai, Valrhona Chocolate mochas, vanilla lattes…let’s be real, who doesn’t love a vanilla latte.

So no hand poured coffee?

It’s all batch brew—I’m a fan of good batch brew. I’m consistently delighted by it, and we’ll keep it fresh and rotate it. God willing and the creek don’t rise, this will be a very busy little coffee bar, and so I’m concerned about maintaining speed and quality of service.

How big is the space?

Just 320 square feet.

What are you doing for food?

Doughnuts from a company called Hot Fat Doughnuts, which I also own, that’s my new company — we’re doing a little of both, done in a kind of same style for coffee, good ass doughnuts done well, no fuss but great ingredients.

What’s up with the name?

“Nice” was a working title for my consulting business and it evolved into the name for this cafe. You know, something like “Handsome”—that was a brand, it was a thing, it had some substance—but I’m not trying to create it again. I’m interested in something with some timelessness and staying power. It’s not a production, and I want to make it about the guests and the people who come and experience this. I didn’t want to go huge on the brand or be too clever or kitschy. It is what it is—a nice little place to get coffee.

Describe the neighborhood for people who aren’t familiar with Los Angeles.

I had dinner down here in the Financial District the other night, and just to walk outside and look what I’m looking at, we’re between two separate 51 story towers — you feel like you’re in Tokyo or something, like a completely different city from the rest of LA. It’s urban and bustling and really clean, and it’s a lovely experience. It’s new and fresh to me. We’re right across the street from the main library, which is a gorgeous building, and the downtown Standard Hotel location is 100 feet away.

What roaster are you serving?

We’re serving 49th parallel—I just like ‘em man, I’ve not had a cup of 49th parallel that has not delighted me. It’s user friendly and it’s a coffee that no one doesn’t like.

It seems it’s rare right now for cafes in Los Angeles to serve coffee roasted in Los Angeles. Why not serve an LA-roasted coffee?

What is LA roasted coffee?

You’re asking me? Well—it’s coffee that has been roasted in and around the Los Angeles area.

Right, of course—but right now, to me we, I don’t think we have a hometown roaster that meets my criteria. I’ll be honest with you—damn you coffee media—I don’t want to offend anyone, and this could easily just be a matter of ignorance on my part, but that’s how I feel. If any LA roasters read this and want to bring coffee by to try, I would love to support the home town. I know Deaton [Pigot, of Take Flight Coffee] is roasting some great coffee in town and I’ll give him props, but I just developed a loyalty to 49th Parallel and it seemed like such a killer fit for this project immediately. I’ve been working on this thing for damn near 3 years.

I always like to ask people with new products or projects: who is this for?

My new cafe is for the 20,000 people who work near us. We’re at the bottom of a vertical neighborhood—this is a neighborhood joint for people who didn’t have a neighborhood joint. Customers here will be 97% captive audience, people who live and work nearby. I can see 700 floors of office form where I stand.

Will you open more cafes in the future under the “Nice” brand?

I won’t say no but I don’t have plans to open more at this time.

Back on the consulting tip, we know you’ve been working with La Colombe to help them develop their upcoming LA expansion. When will La Colombe’s new Sunset Boulevard cafe open?

Can you quote me as like an “unknown source” here?

Well…

Actually you know what, you can quote me, I don’t care. I’m a huge fan of La Colombe and I’m very proud of what we do. La Colombe’s Beverly Hills and Century City cafes are set to open at the end of May, and the Silver Lake cafe [in the former Casbah Cafe space] will open in late fall of this year. And then in Santa Monica next year.

So you’re staffing for those cafes now?

Yup, there’s staffing going on now.

And La Colombe will be roasting as well?

There’s a roasting works in Frog Town under construction as we speak.

Tyler, I always learn something new when we talk. Thanks for speaking with Sprudge and congratulations on the new spot.

Thank you.

Jordan Michelman is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network.

Photos by Skandia Shafer, courtesy of Diana Bianchini at Di Moda Public Relations.

The post Nice Coffee: Tyler Wells’ New Design Icon Cafe In Los Angeles appeared first on Sprudge.

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