#dw its a failed prototype

[nordfjording]

made something for myself AND put a rock in it? in this mental economy?

[nomadicism]

Honestly, in hindsight, it's rather apparent that the VLD showrunners wanted to make an Eva knockoff. The show they wanted was supposed to be rather nilistic and dark like a show like Eva would be. When they couldn't have their vision, they clung on to what they could and tossed it into the show, even if it made no sense. Take the Lotor corpse bit. I'm 99% sure that idea was inspired by Rei merging with Lilith from Eva along with the older versions of Voltron p1

“p2 Because of that, it created a giant mess of a show with massive tonal whiplash. (It also makes me wonder why they would pitch an idea like that to a studio aimed at children in the first place. Of course D//W wouldn't like an idea like that and change it up a lot. It's like pitching an RPG idea to a health food store. It's a damn shame they didn't just pitch it to an anime studio or went straight to Netflix, because a dark reboot of Voltron done right would be cool if done right.)” – [2/2 of Ask]

I feel you Anon. 

I’ve got quite a few Asks of a similar thought languishing in my Inbox. Replace Evangelion with other shows, many of which share influences. At the very least, the uniforms of the Garbage Colony Plot Altean Mecha Pilots looked like Eva Rebuild to me, so I would definitely add that to my 6, 8, 10, 20 sided die that I feel like rolling whenever I ask myself “Where did 'X’ come from?”

I’ve performed and held numerous positions in my design career, from production artist to creative director, and I can understand pitching a dark vision for Voltron *yawn*, and not wanting to let go of that vision, but...read the room? Know your client? Know your audience? (then again, at least some portion of the audience is happy with what they got so meh)

Without having been a fly on the wall, I can’t deduce what was going on with the pitch process (if any). I’ve read/heard various rumors, but it seems like DreamWorks had the contract with Netflix to produce a lot of shows within a short amount of time (incredibly aggressive timeline IMO), and they plucked Voltron out of the Classic Media catalog (acquired circa 2012) and either assigned it internally, or had some quiet external pitch process. The latter seems unlikely, and it probably doesn’t matter.

Rolling that concept die I can see:

Warped Nostalgia Robotech (for better and worse)

Winter Soldier

MCU L*ki (ভ_ ভ)

Prometheus/Alien: Covenant

Warped Nostalgia DotU + Missing The Point of Golion’s Eastern Tragedy Structure

Space GI Joe

ATLA with its heart ripped out and coat tails soaked in blood

Gurren Lagann

Bits and pieces of Voltron Force, Voltron 3rd Dimension, DDP Voltron, and maybe Dynamite Voltron

Evangelion Without Understanding the Where/When/How of It (or a shared influence/predecessor)

None of those really belong on DW’s “family friendly entertainment” shelf, but if DW wants to expand onto other shelves, then perhaps VLD is a good prototype product for that. It certainly seems strange that anyone (internal or external) would want to pitch a dark concept for Voltron under DW’s brand (as it were). Perhaps it was pitched in a way that didn’t come across as dark as intended/planned. Since DW owns the rights, a Voltron animated series would have to go through them anyway. Creatively, I see it as damned if you do/don’t, b/c there just aren’t enough opportunities to try something new (and risk failing) in the industry. Carpe diem as they say.

[vijayonstuff]

Eject > Side B

This is my first blog post in over a year. I tried to blog a few times in between, but left those posts as drafts, because my nihilism took over :/

What’s the point?

So, I’m repurposing the title from a post I drafted last year after the presidential election to give an update on what's up.

TL,DR; I am not at Google anymore. I’m now working on my passion project that I’ve personally wanted to work on for over 4 years. Expect more posts on it with details, but here’s a sneak peek.

Sometime near the beginning of this year, I suddenly stopped being happy about a lot of things that I used to be ecstatic about... Stuff that others would kill for! I fell in love in NYC, and with NYC. Then I wasn’t happy about either of that. I was in love with Google. Then I wasn’t happy about that either. I initially blamed oxygen deprivation from Kilimanjaro and exhaustion from running a marathon for messing up my brain. But then after a lot of shower thoughts, I realized it’s actually because of something much worse!!! It was because of muthafuckin’ Tony Robbins! And my buddy that channeled him by asking me blunt piercing questions during his visit to NYC in February. (You know who you are!!!) Things just weren’t the same after that.

I started feeling the same sense of stagnation that had originally forced me to move out of San Francisco, and made me look for a job in NYC. It was like the plot to INCEPTION. The thought was seeded in my mind that I’m not living up to my full potential, and it made me unhappy about everything that I did. There was a cloud of apathy hovering over me with whatever I did. And it affected everything! Both in life, and at work. And it didn’t go unnoticed, especially at work. Apathy + Google’s work demands just don’t mix. So, after months of feeling like a millennial craving for “impact” and feeling like I’m stagnating, and not particularly caring about things perf (Googler speak) wanted me to care about... I quit and decided to start on my passion project!

What is it? Why now? And How? I’ll get into those details in follow up posts. I have loftier goals. But for now, it has to do with online video editing and real-time collaboration, and it's gonna stretch Operational Transforms, the basic tech behind Google Docs, beyond its limits. I’ll get into the technical details of OT in a subsequent blog post as well. But, here’s a sneak peak of what it will look like visually:

I took most of December off to destress from everything, and to take care of some personal finance stuff back home in California. (I need to save in every which way I can to extend my runway for this project.)

And, in the last week of actually working full time on the project, I’ve gotten much farther that I thought I would with the technical design. (And of course, the visual design as well.) I have come up with a generic algorithm and a set of operations to perform OT efficiently on any large complex hierarchical model. (Uhhhh, say for instance... a video editing project?) And more importantly, I think I’ve found a way to sync the same document across multiple servers, which will allow for a lot more large-scale collaborative applications beyond just video editing. This one is a hard problem to solve for, especially when it comes to handling network and server failures. There’s a reason why Google limits the number of people that can simultaneously edit the same doc. I even have the front-end Javascript, and the video rendering pipeline figured out.

It’s all coming together! My confidence in my project’s feasibility is now at 100% 💯. My confidence in my execution... uhhhhh, not so much. 😕 J/k. My goal is to have a working prototype that looks like that visual design by March.

Aggressive? Yes.

Achievable? Absolutely! (I think...)

But not if I simply keep blogging about it, and don’t write any code. Peace!

A Note on Porters

In my previous super-dramatic post about not dying on a mountain, I mentioned about writing a follow-up post on the colonial era concept of porters. I did start writing about it, and the stains of a racially biased colonial past that are still evident in today’s tourism industry in Africa and the third world. But, as I was drafting, I realized that it wasn’t any different that any of us working for the man, and that it was only a matter of economics and access to education. And in time, porters as a profession will be extinct.

We, as consumers and tourists should just be cognizant of the human cost involved in the profession, and be empathetic to how much we demand of them. Sure, you are paying them to carry your shit... but don’t be a dick about it by stuffing your bag with unnecessary stuff that you don’t need. So, that’s that.

Here’s the original post (sans a chart) from last November with the title “Pause || Resume >”:

I originally wanted to write a post about how my 2016 NYC Marathon run went, and about how badly the Nike app on my new Nike+ Apple Watch failed in tracking my run. But, that happened on a Sunday, a whole 2 days before more pressing matters took over people’s attention and fears, and the whole world seemed to turn upside down for many when Trump swept in his victory on election night.

Suddenly, a lot of emotions started pouring out of those around me, and most of it negative. Fear. Anger. Despair. Sorrow. And along with emotions poured out snap judgements, and misguided inferences. “A lot of people must’ve been closet Trump supporters that voted for him, though they supported Hillary in public.” “I don’t feel safe in this country anymore!” “I can’t believe how racist this country has become to have elected Trump!” “Let’s sign this petition to ask the Electoral College to vote their conscience!”

Alright, pause right there!

TL,DR; Don’t trip chocolate chip! It’s not as bad as you think it is.

First of all, the nation is no more xenophobic/racist/ignorant than before. I’m not saying those elements don’t exist. But that’s not the reason why we lost this election to a misogynist. It’s just that not enough democrats came out to vote for Hillary this time, and DWS and the DNC are to blame for that. And partially, Bernie as well. I love Bernie and I know the scales were unfairly tilted against him during the primaries, but Hillary would have won the nomination even if the primaries were fair. And he should have acknowledged that earlier, instead of fueling the anger and rage felt by the berners that eventually turned into disillusionment and apathy.

Here’s the voter turnout for the last 3 elections. Republicans had more or less the same number of people voting their way. Democrats didn’t.

Second, not all trump supporters are racist ignorant tribal xenophobes. Okay, I take that back. They are all pretty much ignorant for thinking he actually cares about their issues, and tribal for voting just because of the (R). Regardless of whether they just feel patriotic and want to make America great “again”, or whether they are just selfish ultra capitalists that hope to benefit from Tax cuts for the rich and service cuts for the poor, a Trump presidency is not going to be beneficial for any of them. Even the racist xenophobes aren’t gonna benefit from his presidency. Mexico is not going to build that wall, and those Nazi saluters at trump rallies aren’t gonna become mainstream. Although, there is a huge chance that race relations will stop progressing.

The only people that are gonna benefit from this presidency are gonna be Trump’s cronies, and the spineless GOP politicians that stood in line to kiss King Trump’s feet... I’m staring at you Ted Cruz!

But, that’s not a bad thing at all. Sure, the nation will suffer from gross mismanagement for 4 years. But, the ignorant public will hopefully wake up and realize the big con Trump and the GOP pulled on them, and vote them out of office in the upcoming mid-term elections. And hopefully, Trump will be a single term president.

Then again, there is Fox News spewing misinformation to the section of public that just voted him in. Never mind. Scratch everything I wrote. Dumbassery has achieved critical mass. We are royally fucked!