It's interesting to me

[674530471fa21Kolya]

Oh well epiverse is seriously broken and hypothesis has no Firefox extension. So much about that.

I watched RUSSIAN DOLL on Netflix (and I really wish I could get that title font in here*) and it was the freshest most unconventional fun I had with a series since Dirk Gently's Holistic Agency. It's only 8 episodes and they are universally hailed and even though I thought the ending was the most conventional thing about it, the praise is well deserved.

*

I have been a Jonathan Richman fan ever since my boss in the advertising agency I worked back then introduced me to the fantastic album I, Jonathan, which even considering Richman's long spanning solo career (after the Modern Lovers breakup) is certainly his best. But I hadn't checked in on him in a while. Turns out in 2016 he released his first album after 5 years called Ishkode! Ishkode! (which apparently means "Fire!" in some savage tongue). Now the cover art is as naff and kitschy as ever, but don't be fooled, there is real heart and rock in this.

[674530471fc5eKolya]

https://thispersondoesnotexist.com

Generated faces on every page reload, created with Nvidia's StyleGAN.
A weird lens flare like error is often the only feature distinguishing these as fake (but not always).

https://www.inverse.com/article/53280-this-person-does-not-exist-gans-website
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19144280

[674530471fdd3Kolya]

I played around with a synthesizer on my smartphone.

 SPAM! https://soundcloud.com/kolya33/alone-in-the-city SPAM!

[674530471fee0Kolya]

Sean Foley takes pretty pictures of Hong Kong that look like scenes from Blade Runner.
[TsuenWan.jpg expired]

[6745304720042Kolya]

Fucked around some more.

 SPAM! https://soundcloud.com/kolya33/walk-of-glory SPAM!
[Walk of Glory.mp3 expired]

[6745304720173Kolya]

Watching Lara die in hilariously gruesome ways has always been one of the best parts of any Tomb raider game.
But making her grin sheepishly while doing so, that's progress.
Screenshot by me.

[674530472033ficemann]

Fade to Black had the best ones. Double so since every time you'd see a new in-game cinematic, it got added to the in-game movie viewer. Even if it was a death animation. So you'd end up with a whole heap of death videos. Quite elaborate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ_74VgxD4c

[674530472049dZylonBane]

How the hell have I not heard about this until now?

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

[67453047205e2Kolya]

No idea but apparently it's been released 3 years ago and received good reviews. Looks interesting too.

People who died this week:

• Keith Flint (Prodigy)
• Luke Perry (Beverly Hills 90210)
• Jan Michael Vincent (Airwolf)

[67453047206dficemann]

Keith was the one I was the most shattered about. Prodigy were one of my favorite bands growing up. They made music without words popular. Without them would we have Daft Punk, Fat Boy Slim? Who knows. But I just adored their music. Fantastic stuff, thats quite unique.

[67453047208caKolya]

I took note of each of these deaths as a little memento mori, because I knew these guys, they were part of my youth. However I always preferred the Prodigy tracks were Keith wasn't rapping and I abhorred 90210 and Airwolf equally, although for different reasons. I remember watching the 5th Element and thinking Perry might actually do something worthwhile with his pretty face, but then never heard of him again.

In other news, YouTube is apparently testing to display obvious facts to combat even more obvious stupidity on its platform. Which may look like a small thing, but it's actually a grudging admission, that the much maligned gatekeeping-function of old media was and is necessary. The absolute reign of freedom of expression - once a promise of the internet - works for a few thousand people, but isn't applicable to humanity wholesale.

[6745304720ca8fox]

Keith was the one I was the most shattered about. Prodigy were one of my favorite bands growing up. They made music without words popular. Without them would we have Daft Punk, Fat Boy Slim? Who knows. But I just adored their music. Fantastic stuff, thats quite unique.

I would rather say they made rave/breakbeat music with vocals popular. Keith Flint was their vocalist and frontman. Most if not all of their instrumental music was created by Liam Howlett. I felt some sadness about Keith's death too, their first two albums (Experience and Music For A Jilted Generation) and parts of the third (The Fat Of The Land) are connected with more then just a few fond memories of parties of my teen years. The later stuff was a bit uninspired or simply felt a bit past the bands prime. Still would have liked to see them live once. I have a couple of friends, who were pretty enthusiastic after visiting one of their shows.

[6745304720dc7icemann]

The technical term was "industrial music". Though honestly I think Prodigy's style changed from album to album. The first few are more trance / techno, and then they went full on industrial there after. Loved their music videos as well. Firestarter being my favorite closely followed by "Smack my bitch up".

[6745304720f3ffox]

I think my favourite Prodigy songs are "Out Of Space", "Voodoo People", "No Good" and "Smack My Bich Up" and it's coincedental, that they are coming from three different albums. If I had to chose just one, it would be "Voodoo People". Plenty of Rave and Jungle influences in there. Closely followed by "No Good" and then the stylistically different "Out of Space".

Oh, I forgot about "Breathe", I liked that one a lot too. And "Break & Enter"! Mh... "Jericho", mh "Fire".

Ok, they were good!

Edit: Ok, my actual favourite is "Poison", it's all coming back to me now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inu0xeteuxg

[6745304721051fox]

After hearing good things about the SciFi-show "The Expanse" I started watching it. It took me 2-3 episodes but it really is a great show that gives me Deus Ex/System Shock/Alien/Blade Runner/Altered Carbon-kind of vibes. You really should check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQuTAPWJxNo

[674530472116dKolya]

This flight simulator by Hosni Auji simulates a 6 hour flight as an economy class passenger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg6gQ8YylVM

https://www.gatechecked.com/soon-you-can-pretend-to-be-an-economy-passenger-on-a-6-hour-flight-649

[6745304721251Kolya]

It had been rumored for a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_x2C4L6quA

[6745304721384icemann]

Here's hoping it gets made. I would pay to see that. Loved the first 2 movies.

[6745304721472fox]

For people who like Dead Can Dance and Lisa Gerrard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_XguuxLo10

[67453047216ffKolya]

No idea who they are...weird hair...and a lot of reverb. There seem to be a lot of people there, but you never see them? Hm.
I like her fashion sense with the oversized coat. Reminds me of Momo. How long since I read that? Hm.
This reminds me of Björk and Roiyksopp (or however they were spelled) and Scandinavian pop in general.
Quite the little dancing devil she is. Childish demeanor and theatrical gestures. This really reminds me of Björk. Not the music so much, but everything else. Anyway, it's not my cup of tea. It's cool, but not for me.

Since I'm going on vacation I needed some new music and went on a shopping spree on Bandcamp a few days ago. I got new old school Dub (The Breadwinners) that I feel will work well on a beach in Costa Rica, new 1980s pop (Roxi Drive), a huge album by The Caretaker that sounds like music playing on a long sunken ship, new classic funk (L'Eclair) and a bunch of other stuff.

And I found this Finnish old school metal band: Iron Griffin.
I think they're quite amazing. For one thing I'm not really a metal fan, but I do like old metal. Old Iron Maiden and Judas Priest albums. And secondly the singer reminds me of Grace Slick, the chrome nun from Jefferson Airplane, whom I will worship forever. Also would you look at that hand painted album cover?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ontao5ymQks

[67453047218d0voodoo47]

while staying away from any political stuff as much as possible/not really giving a damn, this is just too funny to not share - so now, we officially have the most diversity at the top government spots in the entire EU, our president is a woman, our prime minister is gay, and the head of the national council is mentally handicapped.

amazing stuff awaits us, I'm sure!

[6745304721c08hemebond]

this is just too funny to not share

Funny how?

[6745304721dbevoodoo47]

it's a joke mostly aimed at all the forced diversity that's been going around a bunch of EU places ("hey look, we're the best country because it happened naturally over here"), but also the third guy, who isn't really mentally handicapped - he is just so dumb and inarticulate that he looks that way (he is also an arrogant cheat who paid his way through the education system among other things, so no need to feel sorry for him in any way).

I guess it's not as funny if I had to explain it. ah well. 'nyways, the new prez said she's going to base everything she'll do on NOT lying and attacking anyone who disagrees, which is like, the EXACT opposite of what a regular politician does over here, and I'm very ok with that - nobody is perfect, but not lying/trying to tell the truth is a good start for pretty much anyone doing anything.

let me try to throw another joke in, overheard a guy talking about her and her promise to not lie - "how she gonna represent them interests of our country properly if she ain't willing to lie?"

[6745304721fb4JDoran]

Maybe Hemebond doesn't come from a country that's being hammered by political extremists, which is why he doesn't understand your joke?

In England nowadays, if person A says something that person B doesn't like, even if it's totally true and backed up by the evidence, all person B has to do is to twist person A's words a little, and call person A a racist, or sexist, or ageist, or ableist (yes, that is a word), etc, and then the whole far left turn against person A's argument. To demolish someone's argument in the UK, just call them [something]-ist, and, with no more thought or effort, and certainly no need to prove your accusation, you win the argument.

The far left are just the other side of the coin from the far right. Both sides HATE freedom of speech, and do what they can to silence anyone who says anything which is against their politicians own views and fixed beliefs.