Things I Like
When I grew up with the Internet, people would always have those links section on their website. It would just be a compilation of random other things on the internet that they had found and enjoyed. Generally, if I had found someone's website interesting enough to get to that part of of it, I would also enjoy the content there. This web effect was awesome and it really helped me find some cool creators across the net.
Nowadays, my favorite content can be found on Youtube or Bandcamp or similar services. I made a post about my New Year's resolution, but the big one is supporting smaller and/or independent content creators. I'll log them here. Note: there is a whole lot of cool stuff in the world, this is just the stuff I decided to give money to.
January
Scanlime
Micah Elizabeh Scott, or Scanlime, makes some amazing engineering videos. She also live streams a lot of her reverse engineering efforts on twitch/youtube. This probably sounds kind of lame to most people, but it really is fascinating watching someone as smart as her just sit there and think. It's an amazing opportunity to get into the head of someone who is way smarter than you and just learn. She also compiles all of her livestreams into fantastic Youtube videos, which are just excellently produced. Links:
- Her Youtube Channel
- My favorite vid, her design of a winch bot
- Her Patreon
Red Letter Media
I first heard of these guys when they made a 70 minute long review of Star Wars Episode 1. It is an amazing, hilarious, brutal, dark, bizarre takedown of an awful movie combined with a weird B-movie horror plot. Interested? You should be! Nowadays they've moved on to mostly just reviewing movies - both the popular ones in theaters and the absolute trash, never heard of, long lost films. They do an incredible job of combining three factors: Sharp commentary, cynical viewpoints, and astounding continuity between all their reviews. Links:
- Their website
- Their Youtube Channel
- Their Patreon
Tiny Engines
Had to sneak a music item in here to start off the year! I've been realizing that a lot of my tastes have drifted away from topics but instead to individuals. Let me try and explain with a [slightly nerdy] analogy. I used to play a lot [too much] League of Legends, and I would watch some pro players stream on Twitch.tv. But some of them would get bored of it, and switch to a different game. I realized I wasn't really watching them for League, but for them - they were just so entertaining. This especially is true of my taste in music - I really just follow labels instead of genres. Sure, I love punk rock and will generally prefer it to other stuff, but anything put out by one of my favorite labels will get at least a few listens.
The first one I've picked is Tiny Engines! Yes, it's a bit of a freebie given my genre taste, but who cares, they put some damn good music. It feels silly to write about music, so I'll just link some of my favorites tracks and let you judge from here.
Tracks:
- Filthy Luck by Beach Slang
- Scott Get the Van, I'm Moving by Cayetana
- Piano Player by The Hotelier
- Goodnight Moon by Save Ends
- Erica Western Teleport by Emperor X (Cheating, this wasn't released on Tiny Engines but he's on there now :shrug:)
Links:
- Their website
- The yearly subscription
- Their artist's page
February
Diet Cig
Fun, jumpy pop rock. The first time I heard them was when Harvard came through my radio station play online. It was lively, it was energetic, it put my thoughts in a vise, headlocking my attention. The ending of the third verse is up there with Won't Get Fooled Again as one of the greatest wails in rock history. Then, boom, right back into a driving fuck YOU beat.
I don't have too much detail here other than that, go listen1
Links:
Numpy
Time to nerdcore, finally. NumPy is one the major software suites put out by SciPy. They have a whole bunch of packages/libraries for numerical computing2 that really got me started on the whole software thing. Before that, it was really just forced C and some boring MATLAB. Nothing really that great there. But with NumPy, I had a reason to actually go out and use a real programming language for things in school. I dunno, the usual HTML/CSS/JS wasn't doing it for me it seems. Anyways, thanks NumPy~
Links: