#i want to recreate the experience of being home from school in the early 2000s

[instantarmageddon]

Streaming services should let you make your own channels that function like spotify playlists where you can dump every episode from multiple tv shows into it and set it to shuffle when you just want comforting background noise

[dippedanddripped]

Old Nollywood aesthetics and fashion may be considered trendy today, but the films were not always so well-regarded. In the 90s and early 2000s, when these movies were made and watched in parlours across Nigerian homes as they were shot, straight-to-video, they were considered as bad entertainment, or ‘low culture’. To watch and enjoy Nollywood films was to celebrate mediocrity. But today, nostalgic young Millennials and Gen Zers are overlooking the jarring audio, grainy pictures, and sometimes hammy acting, to appreciate not only the grooming and style of the actors, but the original and diverse stories that reflect unique Nigerian experiences.

It was for this reason that sisters Tochi and Ebele Anueyiagu started Nolly Babes, a nostalgic Instagram account dedicated to celebrating the cinematic period’s women. Started in December 2017, their first post was of Nollywood’s biggest star Genevieve Nnaji; a still taken from 2004 film Sharon Stone In Abuja, directed by Adim Williams. Nnaji plays the titular character, a sexually liberated young woman who uses her beauty and charm to ensnare unassuming men into doing her bidding.

The account is an ode to the female characters of old Nollywood who were often portrayed as warning examples. The storylines were steeped in moral principles rooted in the patriarchal culture and the dominant Christian religion of Southern Nigeria. A large number of the female characters were considered immoral because they kissed other women, challenged men, smoked and drank, or wore mini skirts. Today, Nolly Babes and similar accounts are reimagining these women, taking their scenes out of the moralistic context of the films, and turning them into iconic feminist personas.

The first time Nollywood content seeped into the mainstream internet consciousness can be traced back to 2017 when videos of Nollywood’s favourite comedic duo Chinedu Ikedieze and Osita Iheme, better known as Aki and Pawpaw, rose to popularity due mostly to the influence of a now-defunct Twitter account @nollywoodroll ran by Nicole, a woman based in Brazil.

Their memes became the go-to reaction videos for expressing a wide range of emotions: joy, disappointment, sadness, frustration. The appeal was in seeing children making mischief or in adult situations – drinking beer and smoking cigars, wooing bigger women, or in oversized suits shouting instructions at people twice their size. Although both Ikedieze and Iheme were in their 20s in the early 2000s when most of the films were made, they mostly played children because of their body stature. By 2019, the memes had achieved such virality that brands like Rihanna’s Fenty would use them for social media clout.

Theodora Imaan Beauvais is the curator of Yung Nollywood, another archive of clips and stills from old Nollywood paying homage to its controversial female characters, after screenshotting moments from Nollywood she found “appealing or inspirational”. Yung Nollywood is remarkably distinct from Nolly Babes for its subtitling of the films’ stills from Nollywood films, something she attributes to Tumblr. While the idea to give witty captions to the actors’ facial expressions came from watching Netflix. “I thought, ‘If someone could describe Nollywood reactions in short phrases it’d be an art form on its own,’ and I became that someone.’”

In December 2019, Tochi and Ebele hosted a Nollywood-themed party in Lagos. Nollywood actor and musician Nonso Bassey attended the party dressed in a two-piece jean set and bucket hat, a signature look of the bad boy/alpha male archetype, and a role reprised multiple times by older actors such as Hanks Anuku, Emeka Ike, and Jim Iyke. Since that party, Nonso has attended social functions and premieres in outfits that make a nod to the fashion choices of that era of Nollywood. He insists, though, that he isn’t cosplaying Nollywood characters of that era. “I’ve always been attracted to the idea of merging old world charm with a new school approach,” he said.

The party caused a cultural stir amongst Nigerians and Africans both at home and in the diaspora – every other week, there seems to be a Nollywood-themed party held either in Lagos or London. Take for instance friends and business partners Imani Okunubi and Aseosa Uwagboe, two Nigerian-British kids who grew up in the UK. Nollywood was one of the ways they could connect back to their roots. That experience informs their event brand, Lasgidi to London, targeted at Nigerians living in the UK. “We wanted to create events that were reminiscent of the Naija hall parties (Owambe) we attended as kids, as we don’t want to see that culture die,” Aseosa said. Their next owambe is a Nollywood-themed party and guests are expected to come dressed in their “best nolly Y2K aesthetic”.

Below, the Nolly Babes sisters talk about creating and hosting the first Nollywood-themed party and the cultural moment it has inspired.

How did that first event come about – please take me through it, from the planning to how it turned out?

Nolly Babes: From the inception of Nolly Babes, we knew we had to throw a party. Fashion is a huge part of what makes Nolly Babes different from other Nollywood-themed pages and we knew we were the only ones that could set Nolly Babes as the dress code and have people commit as they did. There are many iconic Nollywood scenes and scenarios. The daughter meeting her evil mother-in-law, the ominous visit to the Babalawo, the campus stroll – just the mere mention of these scenes evokes images that have been embedded in the minds of our fellow Nollywood enthusiasts. The party scene is probably the most iconic of them all. Whether it’s in a club, a mansion while mum and dad are out of town (but coming home early to crash the whole thing) or poolside, the Nolly Babes party scene has its staples: mad music, dancing, and sick outfits.

December in Lagos is notoriously hectic. On each day, there are day parties, beach hangouts, concerts, and we just knew we had to be a part of it. Our flyer was the first thing we made sure was done right, and that has been replicated (but never duplicated) many many times. We went through at least six drafts of that until we got the flyer to be a realistic replica of the home video covers from the golden era. The DJs Kemi Lijadu and vIVENDII Sounds understood the assignment and played music from the Nolly Babes era. We’re talking Tony Tetuila, Mo Hitz, Wande Coal, Plantation Boyz… We curated a special cocktail menu: Genny Colladas, Jim Iyke’s Hard Lemonade, MargaRita Dominic, and our Lagos Island Iced Tea, in tribute to Nollywood stars Genevieve Nnaji, Jim Iyke, and Rita Dominic respectively. We had a video projection on the famous red wall at Nok showing a mashup of emblematic scenes. We were partying while seeing images of a young Jim Iyke dressed just like many of the attendees were dressed. It was magical! We have an event we’re planning in New York for the summer – it’s going to be a madness.

Did you envisage it becoming the cultural movement it’s now become?

Nolly Babes: We really didn’t. We hosted the party because we knew people were taking inspiration from our page for styling jobs and music video treatments, and wanted to give everyone a chance to recreate some of their favourite looks. Now every week we see people planning Nollywood-themed parties and sending people to our page for references. It’s awesome. Toke Makinwa even recently attended a Nolly Babes-themed party and she was dressed as a character we have immortalised – Regina Askia in President’s Daughter. She killed it! Even though the character wasn’t referenced, it was clear as day and it was awesome to see that she pulled it off! Honestly, when we see people really pay attention to detail and execute the theme well it’s so, so dope.

How has TikTok helped grow Nollywood's influence? You posted a scene from Girls Cot, the famous “you stink with poverty” clip on TikTok and it went viral and birthed these recreations even by non-Africans.

Nolly Babes: We’re just happy to see that another aspect of Nollywood that we champion – the iconic scenes and one-liners – is also resonating across the world. We see Nolly Babes as an archival work and as much as we focus on beauty and looks on Instagram, it’s nice to be able to point people in the direction of the scenes that are forever embedded in our brains. These are scenes we recreated in jest ourselves before there was even a Nolly Babes to begin with, so to see it catching on TikTok is exciting and a new frontier for us to fully explore. I think what distinguishes Nolly Babes from other Nollywood pages and what contributes to our TikTok success is that we really watch Nollywood movies. We grew up watching these movies and continue to do so now so we can capture those moments in films that the casual consumer or poster of Nollywood content might not.

What are your thoughts on Nollywood’s influence on the Alté scene? Music videos of artists such as Lady Donli and Odunsi nod to the aesthetic and fashion styles of that era.

Nolly Babes: Nollywood, and specifically the aesthetic we have shone a spotlight on, is probably one of the biggest influences in terms of visuals in that scene right now. I have never seen so many Eucharia (Anunobi) eyebrows on TV and we love it! It’s awesome to see our images and scenes being used in treatments and storyboards. If we’re being candid, we think it would be great if we got the chance to step into our stylist/creative direction bag and help with the execution of the aesthetic.

“The bottom line is really that Nolly Babes has brought what was already an international cultural influence to the modern social media realm with a new lens” – Nolly Babes

How far do you see Nollywood's influence on pop culture, beyond Nigeria and Africa?

Nolly Babes: When we moved to New York we found our Dominican and South American friends had also grown up watching Nollywood films. The bottom line is really that Nolly Babes has brought what was already an international cultural influence to the modern social media realm with a new lens. Nollywood clips were online everywhere – but it was always in a comedic way. Aki and PawPaw are meme gods now, and that’s because their expressions transcend cultural boundaries. Black Twitter eats that stuff up.

Nolly Babes chooses to center the beauty, style, and iconic imagery, even the home decor with our #NollyDecor hashtag of the golden era of Nollywood. We share the makeup, accessories, fashion, iconic phrases, and scenes in a way that isn’t just comedic but inspirational and aesthetically groundbreaking. I see Nollywood being at the centre of this Y2K resurgence that is happening all over the world, from TV to runways and fashion collections. That era is coming back around and, this time, the Black experience is being revisited and centered in a way it wasn’t back in the late 90s and 2000s. (Black people) were always the originators of the trends and this time they’re tapping into the source and Nollywood, particularly the era we celebrate as Nolly Babes, is a great resource for that.

Follow Nolly Babes on Instagram

[charliejrogers]

Yes, God, Yes

Full disclosure: I not only attended a Catholic high school, but I specifically attended a Kairos retreat, the exact retreat which the characters from 2020’s Yes, God, Yes attend. In the film, they call it “Kirkos,” but everything about “Kirkos” is the same as my (and seemingly every) Kairos. So let me clear up a few things for those of you who saw this film and thought, “This shit at this movie retreat can’t be what they do in real life.” Yes, Kairos leaders really do collect your phone and watch upon arrival to the retreat center since you are now on “God’s time ”(kairos comes from the Greek word καιρός which literally means “God’s time”). Yes, you are forced into small groups with your other classmates and feel this weird pressure to have a sad life story to share. Yes, small group leaders start to play music while they tell their own story AND pass out the lyrics as if these song lyrics are real deep poetry. One of my retreat leaders, for example, handed out sheets of the lyrics to Florence + The Machine’s “Shake it Off.” Now, I LIKE Florence + The Machine, but even still the lyrics to that song are nothing special. And, most of all, yes, those who come back from Kairos do tend to act a little cultish. At our school it was referred to as having a “Kai high,” a feeling in time when everyone just wants to be friends yet those people only exclusively hang out with one another.

In defense of Kairos retreats, at their very best, they offer adolescents at a critical time in their development the opportunity to reflect on their lives thus far, evaluate if they are living out the values their parents and community have instilled in them, and give them a safe space to work through conflicts, apologize, and try to be better people. At their worst, it’s a self-congratulatory experience where people act morally superior to others without really doing anything substantial… or even worse it’s a period of time where adolescents might unearth and talk about really hard topics like suicide, depression, etc. for the first time… and yet are given no real guidance on how to handle those emotions outside of this four day experience!

All this said, this is not a review of Kairos retreat. It is, indeed, a film review. I just wanted to make clear my biases etc. before talking about it since the retreat does more than provide the setting for the majority of Yes, God, Yes: the retreat’s four-day thematic structure doubles as the film’s plot structure. Just as in real life, our protagonist does a lot of questioning about her life and her faith during her first day, does some “crying” during the second as people, “accepting/trusting” the third, and then “living out” the lessons she learned on the fourth day and beyond! The difference is that in real life, teens are supposed to do these things in regard to their faith... or protagonist across those four days has a genuine sexual awakening.

In fact it’s exactly the desire to suppress her sexuality that prompts our protagonist to go on the retreat in the first place. Because our protagonist, Alice (played by Stranger Things’ Natalia Dyer), has just discovered something about herself that is hard to put out of her mind: she likes sex! Or, more specifically, likes masturbating. Alice is, from what we can tell in the prologue, a pretty by-the-books Catholic teen. She follows the rules, goes to Church with her Dad every Sunday, and os pretty sexually naïve… sheltered as we used to describe kids. Someone starts a rumor that Alice “tossed” a boy’s “salad” at a party and the rumor spreads like wildfire. Even the teachers know about it, and she loses her status as a gift bearer for the school’s weekly Mass. Of course, Alice doesn’t even know what “tossing salad” means (nor truthfully did I… but the movie seems to anticipate this by providing a definition to the audience at the very beginning of the film.)

All Alice knows is that she likes arm hair… like LIKES arm hair, something she discovers when she’s on an AOL chat room and someone sends her porn. That’s right, this is a film set in the early ‘00s, so if you hold any nostalgia for that time, get ready to have your fill from the era’s cheesy pop ballads to giant brick phones, to the fact that America (while starting to be so) wasn’t so health conscious that’s it not crazy to believe a teenage girl would just come home from school and snack on frosting and a giant bowl of Cheetoh’s Puffs. The nostalgia is not quite as in your face as in Captain Marvel, but it’s certainly more of a focus than it was in Lady Bird.

Yeah, you knew the comparison was coming. Let’s just be clear, this is by no means trying to be the next Lady Bird. This movie knows it’s pretty frivolous to begin with. Still, it’s hard to avoid comparison with the last big movie about a Catholic girl coming of age in the early 2000s. What I learned in watching this movie compared to Lady Bird or even Boyhood is that merely recreating aspects of my former life does not a good movie make. While I loved the fact that part of watching Lady Bird was getting to see someone shine a light on how ridiculous high school theater could be, that was never the point of the movie. Here, meanwhile, a significant purpose of the film is to highlight the fact that, yes, Kairos retreats are weird and the Church sucks. While I found myself nodding my head in agreement with what I was seeing on screen… it wasn’t exactly enjoyment as much as thinking, “yup, this is what a Kairos retreat is.” Furthermore, I feel like there are aspects of Kairos that would be great for skewering and I love the parts they absolutely nail: the cultish nature of the retreat and the pressure to frame your life in a sad way… but they ultimately take a route of criticism that is too easy and frankly is not a focus of most Kairos retreats… the focus on shaming one’s sexuality and the innate hypocrisy that behavior inevitably reveals.

If there’s a villain in this film, it’s probably the retreat leader and school priest Fr. Murphy (Timothy Simons), who gives in to rumors of Alice’s sexual impropriety as much as any schoolyard bully. No one in this whole film, from Fr. Murphy, to the head of Alice’s bunkhouse, to her small group leader, to even her best friend, takes Alice’s spiritual journey seriously, as they all assume Alice is not taking the retreat seriously as she seems to be avoiding talking about her recent, rumorous activity. Of course, there’s a bit of #MeToo hypocrisy here in that the male with whom Alice is said to have been engaged with enjoys none of the backlash that she has been dealing with. And to that degree it’s a satisfying movie in that Alice gets to dish out a little #MeToo revenge.

Still, even with all things conspiring against her, Alice retains her good spirit throughout the film… as well as her determination to further explore her sexuality. On the one hand, it’s a little unrealistic the risks she takes in trying to learn more about her body, but on the other hand teenagers and young adults are friggin’ weird when it comes to figuring out themselves. Ultimately she is emboldened in this take once she finds out that all those people who are out to get her to confess her “sins” are sinners in much the same way.

Probably the best scene comes at the end of Alice’s third day of the retreat when she runs away from the retreat center and walks into a lesbian bar where she hears the story of someone who used to be Catholic and is now not. More important than anything she could learn at the retreat, this Iowa girl learns that some normal people… just don’t have a religion. For some people this world, its pleasures, its pains, is more than enough. Alice doesn’t become a full-blown hedonist after this, but she is opened up to realize there’s more to life than Catholic guilt.

Perhaps to make this good message ring out, the film as a whole, despite some absurdist elements, feels like it’s meant to be a somewhat accurate reflection of reality. I wish the writer/director, Karen Maine had tried for a slightly more absurdist approach or taken out the absurdity altogether. She already makes the Catholic high school authority more caricature than character, and the plot at timesis almost silly. Therefore, the tone of the movie just sorta feels off throughout. Just about the only thing keeping this movie grounded is a great performance by Dyer who portrays a genuine sexual awakening very faithfully, capturing the mix of confusion, guilt, and excitement all at once. Even when Alice does something downright stupid, Dyer’s performance engenders our trust from the start, and we are always on her side. I wish I could have liked this movie more as it really does accurately portray some aspects of a Kairos retreat and is about as close as I think I’ll get to having it portrayed in a major film, but ultimately by not treating the Church authority with the same amount of nuance paid to Dyer’s Alice and her sexual awakening, the film ends up being an enjoyable, if one-noted, experience. Come to make fun of Catholics, stay for Dyer’s performance.

 **7/8 (Two and seven-eighths out of four stars)

[liugeaux]

The Master of Blasting

Months ago, once I realized my Retron had a save-state feature, something got into me. I realized I could go back to old retro games and actually finish them. Sure, I played 100s of games in the 8 & 16-bit eras, but I’ve never been that good at anything with a steep difficulty. Most games of the late-80s, early 90s were punishingly tough and typically, without cheat codes I never got to see the end of them.  

After playing through all the old Donkey Kong Country games and Sonic the Hedgehog 1, I turned my eye towards a peculiar series I had only dabbled in before, Blaster Master. With the release of Blaster Master Zero on Switch, I was extra interested in diving into the well-regarded B-tier NES original.  

With a little research, I found that a total of 8 Blaster Master games have been released...that’s when the classic Sergio completist kicked in. I convinced myself that I shouldn’t play the new Switch games until I’ve completed all of the retro titles. When I began my journey I didn’t realize it would be such a headache.  Here’s my run-through of all the Blaster Master Games.  

1988 - Blaster Master (NES)

Ah, the original. This little game has a charm to it that most games of the late 80′s don’t have. It was clearly inspired by Nintendo published games like Metroid and Zelda. Blaster Master’s key gimmick is the ability to play as the armored tank Sophia the 3rd or as an on-foot character named Jason, the pilot of the tank. As needed, Jason jumps out of the tank and enters human-sized doors.

Blaster Master is a 2D platformer, but once Jason enters a door, the game switches to an overhead perspective for navigation through maze-like dungeons. None of the mazes are particularly hard to solve, but all of the game’s bosses are found in these dungeons. As a kid, having a game that completely switched perspectives was rad. I never owned it as a child, but I vividly remember my time with it through rentals and such.  

This first game is super hard and I found myself using known glitches to get past the game’s harder boss sequences. In true Metroidvania-style, there’s heavy backtracking throughout Blaster Master and if you don’t know where you’re going getting to the next level can be quite annoying. Having played the whole game, I can finally say that despite a super strong first impression, Blaster Master isn’t that great. 

It's WAY too hard and by the halfway point the luster had worn off the unique gameplay. For some reason, this is the point where I decided to dive headfirst into the rest of the Blaster Master games. I’m a glutton for punishment I guess.  

1991 -  Blaster Master Boy (Game Boy)

Prior to playing the original, I had no idea there were so many titles in this series. I definitely didn’t know there were multiple portable entries. Blaster Master Boy is less a Blaster Master game and more a Bomberman game. Technically its a sequel to the Bomberman spin-off Robo-Warrior. A quick trip over to Youtube can confirm that the gameplay and music are lifted directly from Robo-Warrior. To add even more confusion, in Japan, Robo-Warrior was called Bomber-King, Blaster Master Boy was Bomber-King Scenario 2 and it wasn’t even published by the same company.  

Because of this weirdness, I didn’t spend too much time with Blaster Master Boy. It also didn’t help that there isn’t a decently priced copy anywhere on the internet.  

1993 - Blaster Master 2 (Genesis)

Five years after the original, Blaster Master returned to the console market with Blaster Master 2. It was a Sega Genesis exclusive and the only title in the series released in the 16-bit era. Playing this immediately after the original really made it quite hard. The controls aren’t as precise and the difficultly level is somehow ratcheted up. Blaster Master 2 is a more straight forward platformer without the backtracking of a traditional Metroidvania. 

Unlike the first game, when you enter the human sections of the game, you don’t start a top-down sequence. Instead, the pilot levels are 2D platform shooter areas. All of these seem half-baked, clunky and compared to the game’s contemporaries, quite sad. Fortunately, top-down gameplay wasn’t completely abandoned, before the end of each level there’s an odd top-down sequence, where you pilot Sophia. This mechanic never returns in future games, but taking the rest of the game into consideration, it really isn’t terrible.  

Unfortunately, there’s not much good to say about Blaster Master 2, It hits most of the design notes that the first one hits but the entire experience feels like it was made by a completely different team. Funny enough, after saying that, I looked it up and Blaster Master 2 was, in fact, made by a completely different team. Ha! 

The game’s only saving grace is its vivid color pallet and solid sprite design. Like the first game, the music solid, but unless you’re taking a trip through the whole series like me, Blaster Master 2 can be skipped.   

2000 - Blaster Master: Enemy Below (Game Boy Color)

It took Sunsoft awhile to get around to the Blaster Master series again, but in 2000 they came out swinging. Blaster Master: Enemy Below was released for Game Boy Color and of all the games on this list, it is the game that most resembles the original. Much of the art is designed to look nearly identical to the NES games’, even down to a nearly pixel-perfect recreation of the SOPHIA tank.   

The top-down Jason segments return as does the extreme difficulty and fantastic soundtrack. It’s hard to really complain about the execution of this title. It was clearly an attempt at just trying to make the closest thing they could to the original and in many ways, it is a tighter and more consistent experience. Unfortunately, that’s also a strike against it. Enemy Below doesn’t bring anything new to the table. The bosses are basic re-hashes of the originals, the levels feel like a “lost levels” DLC pack and the game being portable doesn’t really encourage innovation.  

I guess the coolest thing I can say about Enemy Below is that it's still available for purchase. On the 3DS Virtual Console, you can pick up Enemy Below for about $5. At that price, it’s easy to recommend, especially since it comes with built-in save-state functionality.  

2001 - Blaster Master: Blasting Again (Playstation)

Also, released in 2000 (in Japan, 2001 in North America), is the weirdest game in the series to date, Blaster Master: Blasting Again. For those of you too young to remember, the Playstation/N64 era of video games was full of 2D series trying their hand at 3D games. Blasting Again is an egregious example of this frustrating industry trend. You still pilot a tank, with all the same features, like homing missiles, and hover, but you’re dropped into a fully realized 3D world with painfully bad anime cut-scenes.  

The “Jason” sequences are still here, but they too are 3D and mundanely boring. Also, with this being an official sequel to the original, you play as Jason’s son Roddy, not Jason. Much of the music from earlier in the series is remixed, and rerecorded, so not all is lost in the odd one-off. Unfortunately, the antiquated tank controls and punishing difficulty makes Blasting Again hard to recommend. I was able to play it on PS3 with no issues, but the toggle switch for the digital and analog controls was initially hard to find.  

I ended up sinking about 40 hours into finally beating this tragedy. I wasn’t able to use save states and despite it being objectively bad, I grew to love it’s janky and unfair presentation. As a whole, these games have really tested my ability to control my anger, but Blasting Again was the first one to truly get all the way under my skin.  

2010 - Blaster Master: Overdrive (WiiWare)

Notice, I have yet to say any of these games are good, that’s because they aren’t. What they have is a charm to them that conjures the aura of the scrappy beginnings of gaming and the forced appreciation of only owning 4 games that had no checkpoints. Thus far, despite initial misgivings, I’ve enjoyed my time on this journey. Blaster Master: Overdrive is where that joy ended. The fun I was having with the series was taken out back, brutally beaten, and left to die in the town square as an example to anyone daring to play this absolute nightmare.

Overdrive starts innocently enough. It does it’s best to try and evoke the gameplay and tone of the original and for what it's worth the art style isn’t terrible. The Sophia and Jason gameplay loops are in-tact and even the gun-upgrades are more important than ever. Where Overdrive falls apart is its difficulty and embarrassing lack of control options.  

I’m sure most of you are at least familiar with the Wii-Remote. With this being a Wii-Ware only game, it could only be played with the Wii-Remote. The real downside is that the developer either ran out of time or opted not to explore the myriad of control options the Wii offered. There’s no classic controller support, no Gamecube controller support, there’s not even a way to map buttons to a nun-chuck. You are stuck playing with the Wii-Remote turned sideways.  

This wouldn’t be that big of a deal if they had found a better way to implement strafing into the controls. To strafe, the player must hold the B button. That’s the button underneath the Wii-Remote. In a world where the player is using the remote like an old-school NES controller, B button usage is a legit finger-bending-nightmare. Couple this broken control scheme with punishing difficulty and you have the perfect recipe for rage-quitting. I‘m not proud of my behavior during my time with this game and let’s just say I own 1 less Wii-Remote now.

The last thing I want to say about Overdrive is less about the game itself and more about its availability. The Wiiware marketplace is 100% closed, which means there’s no legit way to purchase this game, outside of buying someone’s Wii who had already bought it. This is an ominous foreshadowing of things to come. I would have paid for this game. Hell, I’m deep enough into this BM adventure I would have paid a premium to play this dumb game, but Nintendo’s shut-down of the Wii-Ware shop is a low-key attack on game preservation that us archivist, CANNOT forget. *steps off of soap-box* 

2017 - Blaster Master Zero (Switch/Steam)

With the release of Blaster Master Zero, the series got the most attention it’s had since the original game. Most of that attention was because Zero was basically a launch game for the Switch. The best way to describe Zero is to say that it’s developer Inti’s attempt to take the Blaster Master formula and actually make a decent game. For the most part, they succeed. Oddly enough, almost 30 years later, Zero is the first legitimately good Blaster Master game.  

Much like Enemy Below, Zero tries its hardest to evoke the look of the original NES game. Some refer to games like this as pixel art, others refer to it as lazy...I float somewhere in the middle on it. It was great playing a Blaster Master game with a proper controller where the mechanics actually work. However, it was frustrating seeing a game, based on a design aesthetic that hit its ceiling in the late 80s, try to beautify itself. Many attempts were made to make the design stand out, but it just kept hitting the ceiling established by its predecessors.  

Alternately, by Inti making the game super-playable, the flaws of the older games stand out even more than before. Typically, good Metroidvania’s have an intuitive way of hinting at where you need to go next or a good way of telling you what access you’re new power-ups give you. Due to Zero’s obsession with evoking the original, that intuitive gameplay is replaced with a red box on the map screen. This turns the game into a “drive to red box, shoot things, drive to next red box and shoot more things, experience”, rather than the naturally explorative nature of other games in its genre. The anime story seemed unnecessary from the start, but I’m sure someone will enjoy it. 

While playing Zero I honestly asked myself, “Is this game way easier than the older games, or can I finally control this little tank properly?” I’m sure the real answer is somewhere between those two extremes, but ultimately Zero was a blast, albeit WAY too easy. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the sequel improves upon this wonderful jumping-off point. However, I’m positive I’ll be disappointed that more wasn’t done to bring the series into the modern 2D-platforming space.   

2019 - Blaster Master Zero 2 (Switch)

Zero 2 is very much a sequel to Zero. In true anime fashion, the story immediately gets super self-serious and consequently superfluous. I’m sure some players will love the dialog between protagonist Jason and all of the various anime-faced characters, but that’s not what I’m here for. Needless to say, the story gets involved in ways other Blaster Master games haven’t. That’s not a strike against it, it’s just a characteristic that may not actually matter.  

All previous mechanics are intact here and new ones are introduced almost immediately. If Zero was truly the first good Blaster Master game, then the refinements introduced in Zero 2 make it...wait for it...THE BEST BLASTER MASTER GAME EVER MADE! It controls well, the levels are interestingly built, and where previous sequels in the series lacked innovation, Zero 2 is full of cool and weird, new stuff. The bosses are fresh and interesting, the Jason sequences have been enhanced with a brand new counter mechanic and the space travel segments add a level of depth not seen in previous games.  

I hate that I’m being so positive about the game. It’s been so much fun talking shit about Blaster Master games. Unlike the previous game, developer Inti found a way to modernize the gameplay and still make a genuinely challenging experience. I had trouble with multiple bosses, but never did I feel like the game was unfair, or something was broken. Many of the additions to the story also benefited the gameplay. Something as simple as making the Frog from the original game the reason Jason can immediately leave dungeons serves both the story and gameplay.  

This has been a long journey, and the real hero is Inti Creates. Hopefully, Zero and Zero 2 have done well. The work put in by Inti deserves praise. They have perfected a formula that’s been pending since 1988. Both titles are only $10 on the Switch shop, and at that price, you are basically stealing them. Anyone with a Switch has no reason not to pick at least one of them up and check it out.   

As for the series itself...I have very mixed feelings. There are very few good Blaster Master games. It's a series that trades in loose nostalgia for a widely forgotten NES game. From that, a bunch of often half-hearted sequels were developed trying to capitalize on the little bit of cache the original game still has. I don’t regret my time with the series and I think more titles deserve the Blaster Master treatment, but subjectively, I wouldn’t recommend anyone pick up any games outside of the original and the 2 newest Switch titles.  

[antonettabfy-blog]

U.S. Music Consumption Up 12.5% In 2017, R&B

Ambient is a method that describes a large spectrum of music. (Typically additionally referred to as the Seattle Sound) A style of other rock inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock. It became commercially successful within the late 1980s and early Nineties, peaking in mainstream recognition between 1991 and 1994. Bands from cities within the Pacific Northwest of the United States, corresponding to Seattle, Washington, Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, created grunge and evernote.com later made it popular with mainstream audiences. The style is intently associated with Era X in the US, because it was popularized in tandem with the rise in reputation of the era's name. The recognition of grunge was one of many earliest phenomena that distinguished the favored music of the Nineties from that of the Nineteen Eighties. Grunge music is usually characterised by "dirty" guitar, sturdy riffs, and heavy drumming. During the early 70s, the business was earning money however the ball was within the artists courtroom because of album gross sales. The artists were close in age to their viewers and will write music the "children" could like for the sake of the music alone. Music from report albums grew to become the lifeblood of the counter-culture. Singles, on the opposite-hand had been for non-rock artists just like the Captain and remonao552505185.hatenadiary.com Tennille, Sonny and Cher, Donny and Marie and was very formulaic effectively into the 1980s (Disco was a singles recreation). In many ways, MTV killed the radio (AOR) star and slowly formulation emerged for rock that the companies began to exploit (New Wave, Billy Idol fashion punk, glam steel, and many others, and so forth). For a time, in the late 80s rock nearly grew to become the pop music when in 1987, all 5 of the top 5 selling artists were rock groups. However Guns N Roses began dressing down and rock artists rebelled in opposition to the 80s glamour and ultimately, by the 90s rock had grow to be grunge. In Australia, as in other nations, orchestral exercise is on the coronary heart of Western classical music. Orchestras reach the biggest audiences, present the most dependable employment for classical performers, and are sometimes synonymous with the cultural id of a metropolis. There are over ten professional orchestras in Australia and lots of glorious part time skilled orchestras and a few pro-am orchestras. All current common live performance recitals, and plenty of collaborate with other firms, launch recordings, tour, and run workshops. In addition, dozens of youth and group orchestras present live shows across the country. The individuals had been then requested to take heed to and fee 50 musical items. Library examples of musical stimuli from 26 genres and subgenres had been used to cut back the chance that the contributors would have any personal or cultural affiliation with the piece of music. Throughout these experiments, the researchers tested the speculation of empathizing-systemizing. Empathizers were defined as those that have a drive to know the ideas and emotions of others, that means they react emotionally and physiologically to music and while performing it. Systemizers had been extra prone to be analytical, meaning they analyze and deconstruct sonic options and interpret how detailed parts in a music relate to it as an entire when perceiving and deciphering music. Although he died tragically at the age of 33, Sam Cooke left an amazing legacy from his few years as a top pop and soul performer. Many give credit to Cooke for http://www.audio-transcoder.com being a pioneer and founder of what grew to become referred to as soul music when he moved from the gospel world to deal with well-liked music. Sam Cooke was also a pioneer among black performers on the business finish of music. He fashioned his personal report label and music publishing firm. He also became a music chief within the American civil rights motion, lending it considered one of his most stirring songs, "A Change Is Gonna Come," as an anthem.

I can giggle, but when my kids in the future ask my what I did in the genre wars I'll have to admit that there's blood on my hands, too. Earlier in 2000, I would arrange Popjustice , a blog that I hoped would struggle the nook for decent pop music. And early on this was pitched as a battle in opposition to guitar music. Puerile can be one charitable means of describing those early years: at one level, Popjustice's homepage featured Richard Ashcroft's face with the word TWAT" written throughout it. Whereas that may or might not have been true, it is clear now that it had no bearing on whether or not the third Steps album was a triumph (which, for the record, it was).This line of analysis implies at least two basic hypotheses in regards to the general trajectory of the favored music system: 1) an increasing complexity of style categorizations over time, and 2) as style-based boundaries of classification techniques break down, genres are replaced as signaling mechanisms by alternative social indicators of taste and choice. Or, put one other way, some latest work in sociology—not to mention Lester Bangs and Bruce Springsteen—(implicitly) level towards a hypothesis about the contemporary structure of widespread music genres: as style boundaries turn out to be more totally porous, and genre as a signaling gadget to audiences and industries grows increasingly unimportant, there should be giant and growing domains of free interchangeability in musicians' selection of genre mixtures in defining their own work.In dance band mento, dwelling-made devices have been replaced by professional saxes and clarinets and basses. Typically, banjo was left behind in favor of electric guitar. Together with clarinet, piano was typically a featured instrument, because the music turned overtly jazzy. Percussion was less rustic, and sometimes had a Latin feel. Virtually the entire rural model's rough edges were smoothed out. Within the Nineteen Sixties, a calypso inflection was typically heard in urban reggae, replacing the jazz sound. Dance band mento seems to have largely died out by the 70s, while the original rural model continued. However, the musicians of this fashion of mento contributed vastly to the jazz that was such an vital component of ska.Back in January, one other stay performance left an RA staff member reeling. "Yves Tumor wants you to battle, to dance, to writhe and thrash concerning the beer-slicked floor with him," mentioned Holly Dicker, after catching his show at De School in Amsterdam. "He is blissful in case you come out of it somewhat bloodied, too." Tumor's show—a mix of grinding electronics and on- and off-stage antics—is as confrontational as Holly's description makes it sound, but it belies the nuance discovered elsewhere in his work. Earlier this yr, he adopted up his glorious 2016 album, Serpent Music , with a free mixtape, Experiencing The Deposit Of Faith , which, like its predecessor, was merely beautiful in places, reflective and soulful, and the inverse of his hostile expressions on stage.The time period "lo-fi home" was coined in 2015 to explain the wave of younger producers who'd had viral success with a sort of house music that was heavy on distortion and unashamedly retro. (Among the artist names were fairly silly, too.) By the top of 2016, the sound's biggest tracks—DJ Boring's " Winona ," Mall Grab's " Can't (Get You Out Of My Thoughts) ," Ross From Pals' " Discuss To Me You will Perceive "—had clocked up a whole lot of thousands of YouTube performs, thoughts-boggling numbers for brand new artists working in underground music. (Immediately, these figures are within the millions.) However as widespread because it was in Reddit forums and Fb teams , lo-fi house was nonetheless largely an internet concern.

[ksfd89]

What would someone need to watch, read, or listen to in order to really know and understand you? Basically, what media defines you and made you who you are today? this is super fun!! I was tagged by @glitteratiglue - thank you! I tried to think back as far as I could! I tag whoever wants to do this!

Movies:

Clueless -  I watched this endlessly growing up and I still love it

Little Miss Sunshine - this is probably my favourite film

Pitch Perfect

Donnie Darko - I went through a phase of being really obsessed with this when I was fourteen, and I don’t watch it much now but I’m still very fond of it

The Secret Garden (1993 version)

A Little Princess

Matilda

In America - another film I was really obsessed with as a teen

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants and its sequel

Mean Girls

Bring It On

Brick - I had a big crush on Joseph Gordon-Levitt but it’s a great film anyway

Night of the Hunter

500 Days of Summer - Joseph and Zooey Deschanel are both great in this but I love this film because it’s such an antithesis to most love stories

My Neighbour Totoro

Kiki’s Delivery Service

When Marnie Was There

Only Yesterday

Your Name

Walkabout

Amélie

Coraline

The Wizard of Oz

Harry Potter films

Pretty in Pink

Definitely, Maybe

Now and Then

Home Alone

The Parent Trap

The Aristocats

Harriet the Spy

Withnail and I

TV:

Gilmore Girls

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Angel

Twin Peaks

Friends

early seasons of How I Met Your Mother

Parks and Recreation

Brooklyn Nine Nine

Grace and Frankie

Frasier

Malcolm in the Middle

The Killing (original version)

Veronica Mars

Joan of Arcadia

Everwood

New Girl

Charmed

Desperate Housewives

Rugrats

Sabrina the Teenage Witch

Clarissa Explains It All

The Raccoons

The Magician’s House

The Famous Five

The Queen’s Nose

Bernard’s Watch

Home Farm Twins

Live and Kicking and SM TV Live

Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark 

The Simpsons

The Fresh Prince of Bel Air

Scrubs

Doctor Who (mid reboot)

Sex and the City

Black Books

Father Ted

Books:

All of Judy Blume

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin

Eve Green by Susan Fletcher.  I read this religiously at one point

Windfalls by Jean Hegland.  I haven’t read this in years but it was very formative to my teenage years, and made me very pro choice

Into the Forest by Jean Hegland

Frost in May by Antonia Barber.  Another one I haven’t read in years, but made a big impression on me

The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden

The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The Anne and Emily series by LM Montgomery, and The Blue Castle

The Babysitters Club books

Point Horror books

Milly-Molly-Mandy stories by Joyce Lancaster Brisley

The Georgia Nicholson books by Louise Rennison

The Puddle Lane series - I was taught how to read from these

The Harry Potter series

His Dark Materials

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants series.  The last book was atrocious, but anyway

The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot

The Illustrated Mum by Jacqueline Wilson

The Family From One End Street by Eve Garnett

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

The Smell of Other People’s Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

Walk Two Moons, The Wanderer and Chasing Redbird by Sharon Creech

Raspberries on the Yangtze by Karen Wallace

Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff

Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

The Waves by Virginia Woolf

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis

The Diary of Anne Frank

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Feeling Sorry for Celia and its sequels by Jaclyn Moriarty

The Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary

The Zillah books by Helen Dunmore

The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Anything by Alice Munro

Shelter by Frances Greenslade

The Firekeepers by Margaret Laurence

Come Back to Sorrento by Dawn Powell

Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers

Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

The Dive From Clausen’s Pier by Ann Packer.  Another teenage love

Lost It by Kristen Tracy

The True Meaning of Cleavage by Mariah Fredericks

What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones

Pippi Longstocking and Lotta by Astrid Lindgren

Maisie Middleton by Nita Sowter

The Jennings series by Anthony Buckeridge

Lucy Runs Away by Catherine Storr

Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr

Once in a House on Fire by Andrea Ashworth

Beatrix Potter stories

Enid Blyton mystery and school stories

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Bad Blood by Lorna Sage

A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle

Be True to Yourself by Amanda Ford

Music:

I’m really bad at identifying musical taste.  It’s easier just to pick out songs which I dislike.  But as an attempt, I was very into Placebo as a teenager, Avril Lavigne and Coldplay, and I still enjoy 80s pop and artists which were very popular in the mid-2000s for nostalgia.  Random albums I love include Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming by M83, Parallelograms by Linda Perhacs, The Free Design and anything by Sam Phillips.

Other:

Plays - Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest and a Midsummer Night’s Dream

Musicals - The Buffy Musical

Poetry - Ariel by Sylvia Plath, Is That the New Moon? by Wendy Cope, Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake and Practical Cats by T Eliot

[bradjweber]

Emily Is Away Too - Review

“Rather than being about romantic relationships, Emily Is Away Too strives to explore the importance of platonic ones.“

“...developer Kyle Seeley clearly designed a game with multiple endings that acts more like a personality test, giving players a result based on their actions and who they really are as a person.”

     One of my favorite games of 2015 was one that I’m not sure a lot of people have heard of. It’s a free to play indie on Steam called Emily Is Away. The conceit of the game was that it was an almost perfect simulation of using AOL Instant Messenger in the early 2000′s. From the sounds of your “old PC” running in the background, the faux-recreation of Windows XP, all the way down to year appropriate buddy icons, as well as the ever familiar sound effects, it sells the aesthetic quite well. The story of the game, without getting into spoilers, sees you working your way through a relationship with your friend Emily. Whether you want to be just friends, attempt to be more than that, or even give her the cold shoulder. It was all done through a selection of four different responses after each line of dialogue that you would then proceed to “type” into the chat window by slamming on your keyboard à la Hacker Typer.

      This unique style of controlling what is essentially a visual novel, combined with some excellent writing and scripting created a game that easily won me over, and even hit pretty close to home a few times. I won’t get too specific about the events of the first game in this review, but I will be referencing a lot of the emotional and mechanical beats that it hits, so I highly recommend playing it for yourself. It’s free, and no more than two hours long. Even if you don’t come back to read the rest of this review, At least I’ll know I’ve convinced more people to play it.

     After two years in development, Emily Is Away Too is finally here, boasting a longer run time, multiple endings, as well as a $5 price tag. At a glance, not much is different about the game when compared to the first. There’s another pretty spot on recreation of AOL Messenger, sound effects, buddy icons and all. Except, now the game runs in windowed mode so that they can pull neat little tricks where characters have you download files to your desktop, and send you links to fun recreations of 06-07 era YouTube and Facebook (which is also a pretty clever way of including licensed music in your game without actually having to pay for it).

     The main difference in gameplay doesn’t become apparent until you begin the game, where you realize that you’ll be spending the majority of your time talking to two different girls at once, sometimes one or the other sending you messages with time sensitive responses. Meaning that you’ll have to pick which person you really want to focus your attention on. I felt like this system provided some much needed player agency in the way that they carried out their relationships with the characters when compared to first. Although, this also created situations where either person would become upset with you for not responding to their message within 5-10 seconds, and I’m not really sure that I’ve ever seen somebody react that way before.

     This new change gives way to the biggest difference between Too and the first. That is having multiple endings. The first Emily Is Away only had one ending, regardless, it was still one of the most powerful executions of a game’s story and mechanics that I’ve yet to see since; aside from maybe the likes of NieR: Automata. And believe me, it stuck the landing. I wouldn’t have written two whole paragraphs about the first game in a review for the second if it hadn’t. Unfortunately in this game, with multiple endings, I feel like the emotional resonance is lost a bit here. Sure, your choices might make you feel a bit more invested in the way that the story plays out, and in the circumstances that your relationships are left in once the credits roll, but the first game’s melancholy ending helped the game convey a specific theme. Something that I feel like the sequel has a hard time doing.

     The first game set out with a specific story to tell, and all of the events leading up to it’s ending played out in order make you feel a certain way, regardless of the paths you took. Emily Is Away was about the strains that distance can have on friendship, the regret of missing out on important relationships, the awkwardness of keeping in touch with people post-high school, making mistakes in your first relationships, unrequited love, and so much more than that. Emily Is Away Too on the other hand feels more like a really really well written simulation of talking with two teenage girls in the mid-2000′s. That’s not to say this is necessarily an issue, it’s just that Too’s themes have a harder time being conveyed when some of the endings seem to fly in the face of what the game is trying to say.

     Rather than being about romantic relationships, Emily Is Away Too strives to explore the importance of platonic ones. In the first, where the player was obviously set up in a position where they would likely try to date Emily, the sequel attempts to dive into what makes friendship so special. Whether that be sharing your favorite music or video games, shooting the shit about your classes, or even helping each other through nasty breakups, Emily Is Away Too has a firm understanding of the emotions that make friendship so important to some people... and it utilizes them. Emily Is Away Too deals with topics like abusive/toxic relationships, the reluctance to let friends move on, as well as coming to terms with it, the importance of staying true to yourself, and the dangers of becoming somebody you’re not just to get people to do what you want.

     Especially regarding those last two items, Too, like a lot of sequels tries to take a bit more of a meta approach to it’s writing. Attempting to anticipate some of the play styles that players may have taken in the first in order to “win,” so that it can stay one step ahead of the player. And it works! I wasn’t necessarily keen on what the game was up to as I was playing it, but there’s a certain moment in the game where players could be potentially “punished” for not treating the characters as human beings or for treating the relationships in the game as anything less than real. Trying to game the system by predicting what a character will want you to say rather than what you want to say will likely have the opposite effect than what the player intended. I think it’s a super smart way of stopping players from playing Emily Is Away Too like a game, in order to get the ending they want, rather than the ending that they deserve.

     It’s for that reason that at the time of writing this review, I’ve only finished Emily Is Away Too a single time. And I don’t think I necessarily want to replay it. Not because I don’t want to see the other endings, or because I dislike the game, but because developer Kyle Seeley clearly designed a game with multiple endings that acts more like a personality test, giving players a result based on their actions and who they really are as a person, rather than something where multiple playthroughs yield players a wildly different adventure each time. I feel like if I were to replay Emily Is Away Too, I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to reach a different conclusion. The ending I got, and the path I took to get there is so tied up in my moral sensibilities, my anxieties/fears, my taste in friends, and even my taste in video games or music, that to do anything else would feel wrong. I feel like I’d be lying to myself in a way.

     Emily Is Away Too is a special game. While I don’t necessarily think that it hits the highs of the first, I think it comes close by changing up the formula, and by secretly providing an almost entirely different experience to it’s predecessor. It trades away themes of incompatibility and regret for themes of friendship and what it truly means to call somebody your best friend.

[webart-studio]

There

A 5G pioneer factors out that innovators in her subject, any tech subject, are not white and male, with glasses and a pocket protector.

March 7, 2019 5 min learn

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their very own.

As an engineer, I’ve been lucky sufficient to work on making 5G – – the fifth technology of wi-fi community expertise – – a actuality. 5G will provide a sea change in pace, minimize latency to lower than 10 milliseconds — many instances sooner than the blink of a watch — and permit connectivity within the billions of units we use right this moment.

Associated: Fellow Ladies in Tech: The place Do We Go From Right here?

This large step ahead  has the potential to have a major influence on how individuals dwell, study, work and play. From autonomous automobiles and sensible communities to immersive schooling: 5G will speed up these and lots of different advances.

I have been a part of the workforce that final 12 months launched the world’s very first 5G industrial service, Verizon’s 5G House broadband web service. And thru that course of, one factor turned clear concerning the engineers round me, at the same time as they — we — labored at the vanguard of disruptive change:

There isn’t any such factor as an “perfect” engineer, male or feminine.

With that mentioned, I can add three massively vital takeaways for expertise firms and entrepreneurs that wish to be modern change-makers. Firms and entrepreneurs that wish to be “perfect’”innovators. Listed below are these three issues to maneuver your organization ahead:

Break down stereotypes now.

You do not have to be a nerd to be a tech visionary. But, when individuals consider engineers and scientists right this moment, they usually envision Sheldon from The Large Bang Concept or Richard Hendricks from Silicon Valley. They image somebody cooped up in a lab. And that individual sometimes is white and male, with sure stereotypical traits.

Sadly, such lingering stereotypes are nonetheless shaping the profession paths of many ladies.

Whereas tech jobs are among the many quickest rising within the nation, ladies are being left behind. Fewer than one in 5 pc science graduates are girls. Fortunately, although there may be an upswing in STEM schooling in colleges, and organizations — like Ladies Who Code — are introducing younger ladies to expertise and difficult them to make use of their expertise to resolve actual world issues.

My buddy and I began a neighborhood chapter to assist ladies study robust function fashions within the tech house and to grasp that being profitable in expertise has nothing to do with pocket protectors and glasses — or gender.

On this context, it is vital that hiring managers rethink the usual job requisition. Not each function in expertise requires technical data. An engineering diploma isn’t a requirement for work in engineering. Slightly, engineering wants problem-solvers and risk-takers. It’s these tender expertise that extra firms want to begin exploring to find out tips on how to broaden their expertise pool.

Associated: Why Gender Range In Tech Issues

Invite numerous views.

Analysis has confirmed that numerous viewpoints lead to higher merchandise and a sooner charge of innovation. In line with a McKinsey examine of 366 public firms, these within the high quartile for racial and ethnic range had been 35 p.c extra prone to have monetary returns above their respective nationwide trade medians.

Equally, Boston Consulting Group discovered that probably the most numerous enterprises it studied had been additionally probably the most revolutionary. In the end, by welcoming individuals with completely different views and experiences to the desk, firms can enhance problem-solving and higher perceive the wants of their prospects.

Bringing 5G to market final 12 months concerned a various workforce of engineers, but in addition a complete host of individuals with different competencies, and with massively various areas of experience inside our firm — professionals ranging from strategists to storytellers to market researchers. 

Additionally required was a various set of companions with particular data of the completely different applied sciences wanted to make 5G a actuality. We introduced collectively expertise firms like Ericsson, Qualcomm, Intel and Samsung to maneuver your complete 5G ecosystem ahead.

Working with these companions on a shared imaginative and prescient of why the world wants 5G and tips on how to ship it helped speed up the expertise. Many within the trade predicted 5G wouldn’t be accessible till 2021 on the earliest, however we succeeded in placing the expertise in prospects’ fingers in 2018.

Don’t concern the unknown.

A part of my function is to dream large. Right this moment, my job is concentrated on imagining how 5G will form our world, and exploring use instances. My workforce has to image how a next-generation community will influence sectors as numerous as healthcare, schooling, gaming and media. In different phrases, daily I think about a future that’s not constructed but.

This implies imagining how present expertise could possibly be improved by 5G — like placing sports activities followers within the entrance seat of a sports activities recreation by means of in-home digital actuality (VR) streaming. One other instance? Envisioning disruptive technological breakthroughs potential solely with 5G, like close to real-time holographic communication and distant, close to real-time robotics.

And we’re not the one workforce envisioning the longer term. Firms like Amazon and Zipcar proceed to boldly embrace the unknown. Amazon has come a great distance since simply promoting books in 1994; right this moment, it affords AI assistants, groceries on demand and extra. Zipcar founders equally imagined car-sharing as early as 2000, main the best way for the Ubers and bike-share firms of right this moment.

Associated: What Is 5G? Every thing You Have to Know.

It’s troublesome to be a really perfect innovator, however bringing collectively a various, fearless workforce that challenges stereotypes is an actionable step any firm — maybe your firm — can take. In doing so, you can be creating an atmosphere that encourages new concepts, risk-taking and collaboration. Absolutely, this will likely be an atmosphere the place there will likely be no such factor as an “perfect” engineer.

Supply hyperlink

source https://webart-studio.com/there/

[lb-art-and-photo]

Spring Break 2018: Restarting the Insane Abandoned Place Checklist.

When you can't go to the beach, you go to Savanna, IL.  It is on the banks of the Mississippi River. Or you go to Harvey. There was standing water in a basement of an old power plant.  Or is that just me?

I'm pretty sure it isn't just me. I might just be the only person you know who does it though.

After a great week with the kids, I had a little bit of time to go exploring. A long time ago, I wrote about eventually making my way to Thrillist's Most 28 Insane Abandoned Places in the Midwest. Here's the link if you need a refresher. 

https://www.thrillist.com/lifestyle/chicago/the-28-most-insane-abandoned-places-in-the-midwest

I've been slowly checking these puppies off of my list. I have more to visit, but I am happy with my  recent efforts. Ha.

These places can be checked off: 1. City Methodist Church in Gary, IN; 2. Damen Silos in Chicago, IL; 7. Joliet Correctional Center in Joliet, IL; 17. Searsboro Consolidated School in Searsboro, IA; 27. Alexian Brothers Novitiate in Gresham, WI; and 28. Solvay Coke & Gas Company in Milwaukee, WI (now demolished). 

And after this last week, you can also add two other great spots: 5. Wyman-Gordon Power Plant in Dixmoor, IL and 13. Savanna Army Depot outside of Savanna, IL.

Exciting, I KNOW! 

Both spots were definitely worth the research, planning, and in the Depot's case, a somewhat extreme effort, but both also came with a little risk-taking, so I guess what I am saying is that if you decide to go to either of these locations, make sure you research and think ahead. 

So actually, I want to show a little of what I found at the Savanna Army Depot location, which I found to be surreal. Let me say that I have actually been a little … scared … to go to this site, mostly because of what it was used for and because of what I read about it from beginning my research of it over two years ago. I decided to go actually go for it and to try to experience it for a couple of reasons.

First:

It was Easter. I don't have the kids every year. I hate sitting around all day, so instead moping, I have decided these are perfect days to go to places I usually don't have time to hit up.  I go early and take a long-ish trip to a place where I hope (and was correct this time) that I will be the only person around. This method of operation has it's advantages and disadvantages. The obvious advantage is that on holidays, most people are eating big meals with their families and friends, so it's a good time to explore a place that might usually be monitored carefully. The overriding negative is that if anything goes wrong and you're alone, you could be toast, especially without wireless service, WHICH I DID NOT HAVE FOR HOURS, and I have had service just about everywhere the last year or so. My provider is AT&T. Maybe it's different for other carriers. But this is doubtful. I was literally in the middle of nowhere. The good news is that I lived. So count that as a win for me.

Second:

I have a reason to go to some of these places now. I recently signed with a publishing company known for its photograph/history heavy titles. They are publishing a new series of books, "Abandoned America." I picked up Illinois and one other state. So, I have to get my a$$ going. The first draft is due July 31st for Illinois, and I know nobody thinks I have enough to do, so I added this little project onto my "to do" list. It's actually been a goal of mine to write a book - like my entire life - so this unsolicited opportunity came out of nowhere and actually fits with my love for exploring, history, writing, and photography. It also motivates me to get out and do something I love, and it's something I haven't made enough time for recently. It's also a valid reason to be exploring when explaining WHY I am at a location if questioned. It's exciting for me. And I want to thank my friends Dave, Chehalis, and Michael for helping me make some decisions regarding it. I'm so grateful. No idea how it will turn out, but I knew I needed to get to at least four more significant sites in Illinois in order for me to feel good about content, and this is one of them. 

A Tiny Bit of History and Context:

This place is so interesting to me. I often don't understand how there are some places out there that still exist, especially massive places with hundreds of buildings that are left to disintegrate. This is one of them.  I guess I do understand that cleaning this site up isn't necessarily a priority for the DNR, seeing as I read there is currently ONE full time employee overseeing the entire area. It makes sense because it is obvious that this is a place where not much money is flowing in effortlessly, and The Savanna Business Park is a little different than any other business park I have ever seen - no offense to anyone there. It's just the way it is. That's kind of unfortunate because the actual land sits overlooking the Mississippi River, and the land contains the largest natural dune system in the state of Illinois. It is 7.5 miles long and sits 70 feet above the river. The land is also known as the Lost Mound Unit of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. So far only around 3000 acres has been transferred, as the remaining acreage needs to be freed from environmental contamination and will be turned over when deemed safe. This could take forever though, because it is a long-term clean up plan, and the plan will supposedly be updated every 5-10 years through information gained by monitoring habitat, wildlife, and recreational use (www.fws.gov).

The Lost Mound is pretty intriguing too. It is this geographic oddity and is part of local folklore concerning a post-glacial hill set as the backdrop for the sand prairie found around it. Funny enough, "the mound did not appear on early maps of the region, however the lost 'mound' has since been found as is {now} featured on recent topographical maps" (www.fws.gov). This mound is super easy to find. It sticks up high above the rest of the land, although the area in general is hilly, and it is kind of oddly shaped and placed, but the land is aptly named, for sure.

Really quickly, the Savanna Army Depot had about 3 different titles from the time it opened in 1918 until the time it completely closed in 2000. It also had many different uses. This depot is often called the "Area 51" of the Army because of it's secret operations and missions, and because of it not being well known. It was also easy to confuse with other bases having "Savanna" or "Savannah" in their names. Savanna, OK; Savannah, SC; Savannah, GA … Savanna, IL? You get the picture. In basic terms, this place was used mainly as an ordnance, or a branch of the Armed Forces that deals with the supply and storage of weapons, ammunition, and other items related to that. This specific place was used to test and store different types of highly explosive and powerful ammunition such as 75 and 155mm howitzers, or short cannons that shoot on high trajectories in order to reach targets behind cover or within trenches. It was also used to produce, test, and ship out explosives during and after WWII. Later, it was also used as a U.S. Army Defense Ammunition Center and School that provided technical, logistical, consulting, engineering, training, and other types of specialized services to the U.S. Department of Defense. HAD NO IDEA, right? There are lots of interesting little facts about this little known of place, but one that sticks out to me is that this Depot contained a plant that loaded bombs and explosives during WWII, including the that were used in General James Doolittle's raid on Tokyo in 1942. Also, this area contains over 400 steel-enforced, earth-covered igloos with up to 2000 square feet of storage underneath  that were used to store such things as highly explosive ammunition, "mustard" gas, Ammonium Nitrate (actually over 260,000 tons of it for war reserves), and actually later and still today, data and computers. Crazy right? These are highly visible, all over the place, and are covered in grass so that they were undetectable by air. 

Needless to say, this land is highly contaminated. Scary too, is that there are said to be unexploded devices in some areas. That's what scared me most. I wore a respirator because I knew of the contamination, yes. I have heard many of the unexploded devices are taken care of, but you know, after being there, I'm not so sure. There are still signs explaining what to do when you happen to come upon one. Backwater areas are also still closed to the public due to "unexploded ordnance" being present, so I stayed far away from that space. I know 1948 was a long time ago, but there was actually and explosion that left a 150 foot wide by 50 foot deep hole you can still find. The 4 ton door from that steel-enforced igloo was never found. That says a lot.

It really is a beautiful location on the edge of the River, and it only took me 2 hours and 10 minutes to get there. Easy drive.

I've seen many shots of this Depot from the outside, and maybe a few shots from the inside of a barrack or a mess hall, but I have never seen what I got into Sunday. I'm not saying to do it yourself. I was actually relieved to get home, as I felt like I was constantly pumping adrenaline. It started as a pretty boring expedition actually, since I couldn't figure out where to go to find what I was looking for, and then it got frustrating because I wasn't seeing what I wanted to photograph. But, after I kept searching just "one more time" or for "one more thing," I finally figured some things out, and without getting into the details of how I accessed these things, I can only say wow. I am glad I went, but I am just as happy to have finished exploring it. I wanted to do more, and I could have done more because I basically had access to all that I wanted in the end, but I felt like I needed to get out of there. One thing I have learned through all of this abandoned hunting is to not push my luck. A lot of it is based on instinct, and my instincts were telling me to get out and to go home. So although there is a lot more to see, and I have a feeling it is a lot more of the same of what I will show, there is still a little curiosity there. It is such a huge area; it's hard not to be curious about what else there is out there. But I am done. I saw enough, and it was worth it.

If you look at the link to this map below, I was all over the place, but many of the most interesting shots came from within the CL and CF Loop Roads. The entire area  is over 14 miles long and over 2.5 miles wide, so I'm sure you can imagine how overwhelming the size is. The question for me was where to start.

https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=da2d1d2d-8124-46c5-9155-351f6031ba0c&cp=42.19038~-90.280748&lvl=16&style=h&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027

There is so much more history I have learned about this place, and it is really fascinating, but I'll save that for another time. 

Here's the easier-to-get-to stuff:

A little more challenging and interesting ...

So far, it was ok. Interesting, but if I didn't know why it was interesting, a pretty far drive for some crumbling buildings. Until I searched the grounds for about an hour. 

And then it got much better - on the outside and inside of the buildings.

This was an amazing place, but like I said, everything in me was telling me to leave. So I left the way I came. It was enough for me. I actually hope that someday this place is cleaned up properly. It is a beautiful area of Illinois, largely undisturbed, full of wildlife, and on a gorgeous riverbank. Maybe in the not-so-far future clean up will become more of a priority for the remaining 5000+ acres of land that can be transferred over once safe for public use.