It's interesting to me

[6744faa03273fMarvin]

English

You're not getting it. And being a bit rude on top.

But I'll help:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aguirre,_the_Wrath_of_God

[6744faa03297efox]

Probably an old hat to some but I found this article about the origins of the US opioid crisis extremely interesting.

newyorker.com: "The family that built an empire of pain"

Apparently this epic crime saga has just entered its grand finale.

fastcompany.com: "Purdue Pharma bankruptcy would follow a long and shady corporate tradition"

[6744faa032d26Kolya]

English

I love to read classic adventure literature, Lost Horizon by James Hilton being a favourite. Before we took off to Costa Rica I got Green Mansions by W.H. Hudson which so far has provided me with luscious nature descriptions (reading about howler monkeys while they scramble through the trees above) but otherwise has been foreseeable and contemporarily racist.

So I looked for further diversions and chanced upon the archeologist Percy Fawcett whose expedition to find the city 'Z' in the Brazilian jungle disappeared in 1925. A lot of books have been written about him, most interestingly one by Peter Fleming (brother of James Bond inventor Ian Fleming) who in 1932 joined a search expedition for Fawcett.

I don't have the book yet, but I was thinking about it, hiking through jungle wildlife reserves. And about the exotic fantasies and cruel consequences of colonialists in the late 19th century. And about the pop cultural colonialists Lara Croft* and Indiana Jones.
With these things in mind I wrote a short faux expedition log note in that old fashioned style. It wasn't directly influenced by Aguirre but I can see why Marvin made that connection.

*Somehow the attempts to picture Lara as politically correct make it worse that she's actually a British aristocrat who robs indigenous peoples blind by the dozen while they are constantly helpless without her superior skills and tech.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a cool game for other reasons.

[6744faa032e2bfox]

From now on I shall imagine your comments spoken with the voice of Werner Herzog.

[6744faa032f82Nameless Voice]

Shadow of the Tomb Raider actually had lost journal pages from Percy Fawcett to find, IIRC.

[6744faa0330c7Kolya]

I haven't finished the game yet, but I found a bunch of these journal pages. I wasn't aware that they are supposed to be written by that Percy Fawcett. Very interesting. I'm looking forward to continue the game when I get back home.

The attached sound recording isn't of great quality, but at least I captured that weird echoing bird call. We heard it for most of our trip through the Cabo Blanco reserve. That call was genuinely hypnotic.

[6744faa03321ffox]

Unreal Engine 4 - Demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKu1Y-LlfNQ

[6744faa033316Kolya]

Niiice! What is the game they are working on there? Our is it all just to demo the engine?

[6744faa03348dfox]

Not sure but I think it's just a demo. The landscape reminds me of Kojima's upcoming Death Stranding though.

Edit: https://magazine.artstation.com/2019/04/quixel-rebirth-art-blast/

Hello everyone! We have been really looking forward to showing the work behind our cinematic ‘Rebirth’, which we released at GDC. Our goal was to make the most photo-real environment the world has ever seen, running in real-time in UE4.

[6744faa0335a6Kolya]

On a different note... they made a movie about @RocketMan

[6744faa0338b2icemann]

Now that I'm streaming the games I'm playing, as time goes on, I'm getting to know Streamlabs OBS better. To get better though, tests were needed. Originally I was streaming direct via my broadband connection of what was happening in real time, which limited me QUITE A BIT in terms of video quality. This week I learned that in Streamlabs you can just record videos to your PC for later uploading. This dramatically improved the quality of the videos I was able to make.

Tonight did some tests, to test out the main 2 encoders for recording (Software x264 and Hardware NVENC).

Test 1: x264 - 4500 Bitrate (720P):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enlG8gzvipo

Test 2: x264 - 6000 Bitrate (720P):

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

Test 3: NVENC - 6000 Bitrate (1080P):

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

Test 4 - NVENC - 5000 Bitrate (720P):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZZEV5eAkH0

Test 5 - NVENC - 600 Bitrate (480P)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDKED1QBurI

Looking at these, I can see the difference between 4500 and 600 compared to the others, but beyond that I'm not seeing any major difference. The 480P video is roughly how it would have looked on an actual PS2 + TV, as the above is from the game "Dark Cloud" on the PS2. Played via the emulator PCSX2. One difference noticeable when switching from x264 to NVENC was the reduction in CPU use which resulted in better audio. The music as a result, has less hiccups etc.

[6744faa033a43Kolya]

Love, Death & Robots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUFwunMKa4E

Basically it's Animatrix, but new and more of it! If Blade Runner was literature (which it is) this would be the short animated story. I don't know what else I could say. Except I watched the first three episodes so far. Multiple times just to savor the taste.

[6744faa033bc0fox]

Looks good. Hopefully it's going to be available outside of Netflix sometime.

[6744faa033ddaicemann]

Bit of an odd topic of sorts this one.

I was browsing a particular site I wont name, and one of the particular videos contained an actress with a striking resemblance to Emma Watson. Clicked it, and it was pretty much identical face wise, but the body was different. I'd not seen a video, where a computer generated face of a person was superimposed of someone to that effect before. At that level of likeness. It looked exactly like her. Face wise anyway. And I mean exactly. In video form. Not a still image.

Did some research, and it turns out that it's what has been termed "deepfakes". The BBC, did an article on it. It's quite worrisome, as this shows that the technology is now out there to put whoever you want in a video, with almost perfect likeness to that person. I thought that stuff was purely science fiction, or at least a decade or more away still. The implications for it's use by governments for more nefarious things, like fake news, framing of people for crimes they haven't done, could very much be the reality now. Hmm.

Closest I'd seen prior was of Michael Douglas in a younger appearance in Antman, which was done well. But this was on another level entirely. Should we be worried?

[6744faa033f82voodoo47]

only if you give a damn about the real world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ54GDm1eL0

I don't.

[6744faa0342fcfox]

Should we be worried?

No, no. It's just fake news.

[6744faa034410Kolya]

I'm enamored with the presentation more than the music. But still.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzW6IbggtY8

[6744faa03473aRocketMan]

Sigh... if only she had a body.

[6744faa0349eeRocketMan]

On a different note... they made a movie about @RocketMan

LoL not sure if I should be flattered, ashamed or indifferent on this one.

[6744faa034bc3Kolya]

Netflix’s live-action Cowboy Bebop series starring John Cho expected to shoot in New Zealand
https://hnentertainment.co/netflixs-live-action-cowboy-bebop-starring-john-cho-expected-to-shoot-in-new-zealand/

Cast
John Cho as Spike Spiegel https://www.google.com/search?&tbm=isch&q=John%20Cho
Daniella Pineda as Faye Valentine https://www.google.com/search?&tbm=isch&q=Daniella%20Pineda

[6744faa034cd2voodoo47]

thanks but no thanks.

[6744faa034f72Kolya]

Admittedly I also have trouble imagining a live action CB, but I'll give it a try. If they keep the high speed vehicles and add some subtlety to the personal interactions it might work.

LoL not sure if I should be flattered, ashamed or indifferent on this one.

yes.

[6744faa035059Marvin]

What the fuck is even the point, seriously.

[6744faa03514cvoodoo47]

the point is that there isn't one, never was, and never will be.