Status

Too long without a post.

Hopefully this  won't be the last post on the blog. I am still in draft three of a book, and don't seem to be getting much writing done or even seeing many movie. Distractions and all.

I still have an unfinished story. An unfinished book of parsha shiurim. Several half-baked and nearly baked game designs on the shelf.

However, I am still employed, having a social life, going on a vacation next month. My daughter is married and thriving, my son is thriving, too. Which is all good.

Still have weekly game nights and still get new games occasionally. I just got Concordia, Sushi Go Party, and I am expecting Gentes Deluxe and Haithabu. I am expecting a few thousand new Magic cards soon.

I and my boss have been playing games with three non-gamer coworkers at work every Thursday. It's been half a year, and, aside from Codenames, we have rarely repeated any games. Looks like we may start soon.

The magic of games, those little points, seem insignificant, but it's astonishing how they take a play activity and make people focus on a goal, a start, and an end. It's almost hard to understand why, but it must have something to do with: not only feeling great when you succeed, but wanting others to have a chance to feel great, too. If it didn't, the whole concept of multiplayer games would just fall apart. As long as we still play games together, I think humanity still has hope.

Peace.

What I Got Done In A Year With My Leisure Time

Yes, this is a selfish post that will probably help me more than anyone else that reads it, but it's worthwhile to reflect every so often on what you've accomplished. The beginning of a new year is as good a time as any to do this reflection and look ahead at the coming year to see what you want to change, improve, or add to what you did before. So that's what I'll be doing in this post, looking back at what I've done, and using that to inform how I want to approach the year ahead. I'm going to limit this introspection to what I do in my personal leisure time because it's the easiest part of my life to tally up like this, and, well, reasons.

Blog Posts

With this being a blog, I happened to write a few blog posts over the year. I've reduced my frequency of posting in the last couple years, and over the course of 2018 I maintained a rate of one post every three weeks, totaling 18 posts over the year. I won't list them all here, just some of the highlights.

I finished up the last half of my series on Simple Game Algorithms With Color Walk with seven more posts, and I was pretty happy with how that series turned out. I wrote six Book Face-Off reviews of six pairs of books, with the most-viewed review post being on the two Seven Programming Languages in Seven Weeks books that I thoroughly enjoyed working through. I really enjoy writing that style of review because I always want to know how books compare to each other instead of judging them in isolation, and I often find that lacking in other reviews. Finally, I wrote five posts about various other topics, including one about a simple retirement savings model in Python that garnered the most views of all of last year's posts.

I'm expecting to keep up the same rate of posting for the next year, so I should end up with another 18 posts by the end of 2019. I would also expect most of those posts to be face-off reviews for reasons you'll see in a minute, but I've got an idea for a rather fun series that I might start up near the end of the year. All in all, I enjoy writing and continue to see benefits to keeping up this blog in spite of blogs being mostly dead in the age of social media. I'll keep writing down my thoughts, if only for my own sake as much as anything else.

Technical Books

Looking back, I read a lot of books last year, including one doozy of an undertaking, Introduction to Algorithms, that took me six months to get through! In total it ended up being 18 books, (coincidentally the same as the number of posts I did) and I'll group them here into the good, the bad, and the tedious with a little summary and links to reviews for the ones that have been posted. The rest are still pending.

The Good

• Seven Programming Languages in Seven Weeks - An excellent whirlwind tour of seven instructive and very different programming languages. This book was mind-opening and mind-blowing.
• Seven More Programming Languages in Seven Weeks - Like its predecessor, but focusing on seven relatively new languages. I had twice the fun by reading about twice the languages.
• The Seasoned Schemer - A whimsical romp through Scheme and the theory of computation that builds on The Little Schemer. It uses a Socratic dialog format to teach in an eccentric and engaging way.
• The Reasoned Schemer - Same format as The Seasoned Schemer, but not quite as zany. This book develops a logic programming language that later appeared in the wild as miniKanren built on top of Clojure.
• Confident Ruby - Learn how to write clear Ruby code with purpose, and do it with an easy, enjoyable read.
• Breaking Windows - Remember when Microsoft was king and the Justice Department decided that wasn't a great thing, but in the mean time Microsoft nearly missed the Internet and completely whiffed on mobile, making the whole argument irrelevant? I had fun reliving that whole saga with this book.
• Showstopper! - It's the story of how Windows NT was made. After reading it, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to participate in such an endeavor, but it was a wild story.
• CoffeeScript - This is a quick, no-nonsense guide to CoffeeScript, a nice, possibly obsolete enhancement to JavaScript. The online documentation is sufficient, but it's nice to have it all laid out in a book like this. 
• The Hidden Reality - I love reading popular physics books every once in a while. This one is about all the different ways parallel universes could exist. Very well written and accessible to anyone with some rudimentary physics knowledge.
• Parallel Worlds - Like The Hidden Reality, this is another popular physics book about parallel universes. It's hard to decide which one is better. I enjoyed them both.
• Python Data Science Handbook - A solid introductory book on using Python with pandas and scikit-learn to do data munging and analysis. I preferred it to the one I paired it with in an upcoming Tech Book Face-Off, Python for Data Analysis.

The Bad

• Simplifying JavaScript - I felt like I was being talked down to through this whole book. Simple things were discussed ad nauseum and more complex things were glossed over. I didn't find it useful.
• Python for Data Analysis - This is primarily a pandas reference, and the online documentation is much better than slogging through this book.
• Metaprogramming Ruby 2 - I found the style and tone of this book to be quite annoying, and the content is certainly available in other, much better books.
• Patterns of Software - Supposedly about software development insights, this book is full of irrelevant fluff, inane diatribes, and tiresome career stories. I should have passed after the first chapter.

The Tedious

• Introduction to Algorithms - One of the classic algorithms texts, but unless you're going into a career in Computer Science, it's probably not worth sweating through this tome. If I ever pick up another algorithms text, it will be one geared more towards implementation than theory.
• Linear Algebra and Differential Equations - It would have been good if it wasn't riddled with typos, bad definitions, and outright errors. I was constantly needing to correct what I was reading, but I suppose finding all of those errors gave me confidence that I understood the material.
• The New Turing Omnibus - More of a collection of introductory blog posts than a cohesive book on computer science topics. This was probably the worst book I read last year—both bad and tedious.

Out of the 18 books, 11 of them were good to excellent, so on the whole, I would count that as a success. I'm hoping to be still more selective in the coming year, and at the same time bump up the number of tech books I read. My goal is 22, and I'm really looking forward to all of them. I think I've got some great ones on the list. While it seems like I'll be cramming four more books into the year, I won't be working through a 1200 page monster or a math book rife with errors. Those two books took way too much time without the corresponding benefit. I'm looking to change that with a better selection of books geared towards more enjoyment while helping to round out my development as a programmer. Hey, I'm doing this during my leisure time. I don't need to suffer.

Novels

Even with all of the technical books I read, I still found time to read quite a few novels for pure pleasure. The secret to fitting these in to busy days is listening to audiobooks during the daily commute. While I prefer curling up on the couch and reading a novel for hours, there's not always time for that, but I always have 20-30 minutes in the car twice a day. That adds up to a fair number of books over the year, and I've listed the ones I got through below, ranked in order of how much I liked them.

• Seveneves - An excellent book by the great Sci-Fi writer, Neal Stephenson about what the human race does to survive the aftermath of the Moon exploding into seven pieces.
• Insomnia - Stephen King does an incredible job painting the scenes of this book in the reader's mind. As the title says, it's about insomnia, but of course it's more than that.
• The Talisman - Another great fantasy thriller by Stephen King, this time teaming up with Peter Straub. It was a fascinating journey through the vivid world of the Territories that they created.
• The Defenders of Magic Trilogy - I've always loved the Dragonlance series, but I haven't read anything from the series in many years. This trilogy by Mary Kirchoff was an enjoyable return to the fantasy world of Krynn, full of magic and dragons and other fantastical creatures.
• Foundation, Foundation and Empire, The Second Foundation - The first three books of the classic Sci-Fi series by Isaac Asimov, this series took me a while to get into because I didn't like the contrived feeling of the first book. Things got much more interesting when the Mule entered the picture in the second book, though, and I was really getting interested by the third book. I'll have to finish off this series soon.
• A Wrinkle in Time - This is a fun, whimsical children's fantasy book by Madeleine L'Engle about an eccentric group of kids that go off in search of their lost father. I had never read this as a kid, and I was amazed at the vocabulary level for a children's book. 
• American Gods - Neil Gaiman has an absolutely astounding imagination, and boy can he write. I've liked everything I've read of his, although I would rank this book near the bottom of the list. It was still good, but it didn't move me to want to keep reading like his other works.
• The Dhamon Saga Trilogy - I enjoyed the return to the Dragonlance series so much with The Defenders of Magic that I tried for another trip with this trilogy by Jean Rabe. Unfortunately, it was not nearly as good. The characters started out as completely unlikable jerks that pretty much ended up the same way by the end. The only character I wanted to see survive was the draconian.
• The Bourne Supremacy - I didn't particularly enjoy The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum, but I was hoping it would improve with this second book in the trilogy. Unfortunately, it didn't. I could never decide if it was trying to be a romance or a spy thriller, and it was poorly written in either case.
• The Bourne Ultimatum - By now I just wanted to see what would happen by the end of the story, so I resigned to listening to one more installment of this bad romance/thriller. I shouldn't have bothered. The movies were quite different than the books, and much better.

Now I'm into The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, and it's turning out to be an excellent fantasy book about a different world where special people can channel a power called stormlight. The dialog, politics, and character development are proving to be fascinating, but I've got a long way to go in this long book and even longer trilogy. I'm hoping to make my way through this and many more novels in the coming year. Last year I read a fair number of books from authors I had read before—King, Gaiman, Rabe, and Ludlum—so my goal this year is to read as many new authors as I can and expand my horizons. Sanderson is a good start.

Video Games & Movies

Regardless of how it may seem, I don't spend all of my leisure time reading and writing. I did manage to spend some time playing video games and watching movies. The movies are primarily for date nights with my wife, so they're too numerous to list here. I'll just say that Thor: Ragnarok and Deadpool 2 are pretty much tied for the best movie we saw last year.

I love playing LEGO games with my kids on the weekends, and find it's a great way to relax, solve some puzzles, and laugh at movie spoofs with them. We've at least started a number of new-ish LEGO games, including The LEGO Movie, Marvel Super Heroes, Jurassic World, LEGO City, The Hobbit, and Batman 3: Beyond Gotham. Every game has its unique mechanics and challenges, and I can always depend on them to be child-appropriate. I'm sure we'll play plenty of new ones this year, as there's a half-dozen more we haven't started, and they're always coming out with more.

I also squeaked in one game for myself with Final Fantasy XIII-2. (I know it's over 5 years old now, but I'm way behind on my game backlog. Give me a break!) I've always been a fan of the Final Fantasy franchise, partly because every story is completely unique, and partly because I'm fascinated by the new RPG mechanics in each game. In XIII-2 the complexity of the mechanics center around taming the different monsters in the game, and how best to upgrade and infuse the growing collection of monsters with their vast array of special abilities. I enjoy trying to figure out the shortest way to get to the most powerful party of monsters and then wipe the floor with the rest of the enemies in the game.

I'm hoping to have a bit more time this year to play more than one game. It's a great way to relax, and I've got so many options to choose from.

The Year Ahead

Looking back at this list, it's amazing what I got done last year, mostly within a couple hours a night. Looking at the year ahead, I want to stick to another 18 blog posts to keep up with my writing practice. I'm hoping to bump up my technical reading a bit to 22 books, although they'll be easier and shorter than some of the ones I tackled last year so I'm expecting to have a bit more time for other things as well. I'll likely read a few more novels with that extra time, maybe play an extra video game, and I'd like to pick up the guitar again.

I feel like the coming year will be somewhat of a wrapping up of the intense studying of a wide range of programming topics I've been pursuing. There will definitely be other books beyond those, but I'm finally reaching the point where I'll have read most of the major technical books that I intended to work through. If you know where you've been, it's easier to know where you want to go. That clarity provides the feeling of control and mental focus to keep making progress towards your goals instead of drifting from one day to the next. I'm looking forward to those accomplishments, and I'm interested to see what new subjects will come into view throughout the year.

Is Gaming A Sin? Response To An E-Mail.

Hello xxxxx,

Thank you so much for your e-mail, and may God bless you in your studies and in the pursuit of your vocation.

I am pretty much the only writer on this blog now and I don't contribute to it enough either, I think I started helping on it when I was about 24 and now I'm 32. I was a seminarian when I started and now I have been a priest 3 years.

I take the view that video games are a medium, just like film, music and literature. There are books that Catholics should not read, there are music types Catholics should not listen to, there are films Catholics should not watch, but this does not mean a catholic should not read any books, not listen to any music, not watch any films.

I also take the view that games are a kind of sport/ leisure activity a way of re-creating, of "playing" which according to St. Thomas Aquinas, is a necessary element in being a flourishing human being.

So with those points put together we get-

1) everyone needs to play, to recreate themselves,
2) video games are a medium, a type of entertainment and like any medium in itself it is morally neutral. The particular message or content that comes from the game will define its morality. I am quite strict with myself on this- games with swearing, impurities, or games where you summon demons, I avoid those- sometimes I have bought them and stopped playing them- like 'the last of us' which i thought was too vulgar language. So you're right GTA is going to be something to avoid. But there are plenty of games that are perfectly fine, just as there are films and books and music.

Obviously, for play to fulfill its job as recreation it will, by definition, be in moderation, because pay is there is help us re-create, to de-stress, it should be to let off steam and not a central part of our life. I probably only play maybe 2-3 hours a week.

I think priests who oppose video games are weird and inconsistent. ... do they have a problem with someone playing a sport? of course not! Do they have a problem with someone reading a decent novel? no.

Video games therefore are fine so long as they are morally neutral games (like for example Pac Man, or Candy Crush, or Mario Kart or a spots game or a platform game), or even, on the rare occasion morally positive (where you have an RPG with an inspiring and christian themed message) and always only as a distraction, a small amount of play or diversion to provide recreation which we all need in order to flourish.

In Christ,

with the Immaculate Virgin Mary.

Fr Higgins

"Alien" Ninja Turtles Had Some Potential

DISCLAIMER:

Copyrighted material that may appear on this blog is for the usage of further commentary, criticism, or teaching within the standards of "fair use" in Section 107 of the Copyright Act. All video, music, text, or images shown, all belong to their respective creators or companies. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the property of Nickelodeon.

WARNING:
Possible spoilers!

Image by Museum Of Hartlepool. Source: https://www.flickr.com/

Michael Bay is getting a bit too much credit for this Ninja Turtles project.

Sure, he's producing it, and as a producer, he can affect the shape of these films, but that can only go so far. Especially when you consider that he's surrounded by a variety of other producers. This includes Bradley Fuller, who's elegant repertoire has given us the The Nightmare On Elm Street and Friday The 13th remakes (reboots?) (IMDb). The silver lining, though, is Ian Bryce, who produced Return of the Jedi and Field Of Dreams, but also Transformers 2 and Howard The Duck (IMDb). Yikes.

Bay isn't directing the film, either. That distinction goes to Jonathan Liebesman. His great directing credits scored terribly on Rotten Tomatoes, like Battle: Los Angeles (35%), Wrath Of The Titans (25%), and the unforgettable Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (12%). Damn. At least Michael Bay had The Rock (66%).

And Bay certainly isn't writing the screenplay. For this film, three musketeers were selected to delicately craft the script. The first is Josh Appelbaum, who wrote for the acclaimed show Alias, and the also acclaimed Mission Impossible 4 (IMDb). Nice. The second is Andre Nemec, who also wrote for Alias and Mission Impossible 4 (IMDb). Uh, double nice. Okay, so here is where the other shoe drops. The third is Evan Daugherty, who wrote for Snow White and the Huntsman and that Hunger Games look-a-like Divergent (IMDb). Both are adaptations like this film. Maybe he'll do a good job.

All of these factors will certainly make the film an interesting one to watch, but if it goes wrong, all of the blame should not fall on Bay. It would be like blaming Spielberg for the failures of Transformers 3 and The Legend Of Zorro (IMDb). Yes, he did actually invest time into producing those films. 

But when hearsay of the very idea that these turtles might be aliens, the fans went into an uproar, and they blamed Bay. Crystal Bell of The Huffington Post writes,

 "Needless to say, the fans are not too pleased with Bay for changing the origins of the beloved "Ninja Turtles."

"So will they be changing the title?," asked one Reddit user. "I mean, 'TMNT' doesn't really apply anymore ... Maybe they could be Teenage Alien Interstellar Ninja Turtles?" 

However, another Reddit user pointed out that if the Turtles were in fact aliens -- and not nuchuck-wielding ninjas -- perhaps they would have developed more sophisticated weaponry:

"If they're aliens then why would they be ninjas!?!? They would have laser guns and lightsabers and junk! They wouldn't need to be ninjas! Michael Bay is the destroyer of worlds!" 

Even Michaelangelo voice actor Robbie Rist had some, uh, constructive words for Bay on his open letter on Facebook,

"Dear Michael Bay.

You probably don't know me but I did some voice work on the first set of movies that you are starting to talk about sodomizing.

Look man, I think you have some pretty nifty action ideas (of course on the other side, the minute ANYONE in your movies starts using actual dialog I seem to catch myself nodding off), but seriously, Teenage ALIEN Ninja Turtles?

I know believing in mutated talking turtles is kinda silly to begin with but am I supposed to be led to believe there are ninjas from another planet?

You know that ninjas are a certain kind of cultural charact....

Oh what the hell am I talking to you for?

The rape of our childhood memories continues....."

His words seem a bit harsh to me (I liked what he had to say about Bay's dialog, though), but I can't help but think that his anger describes a lot of the sentiment that fans initially had at this film. To Robbie's credit, however, he later told TMZ that, "Everything I have said here could be off base and wrong ... He has made WAY more money at this than I have."

First of all, we now know that the whole "aliens" idea was a bunch of bunk, as Micheal Bay later confirmed to Moviefone, "There was that quote saying that we were making (the Ninja Turtles as) aliens. We're not! It's the ooze!" Second, even if they were aliens, we don't know if Bay had even developed the idea. It could have been from the writers, the director, or any of the other producers. He certainly approved it, which makes him culpable, but that doesn't make him the source. Third, I would hardly call Michael Bay the "destroyer of worlds" for doing such a move (he's destroyed a lot of buildings, though). Or even a raper of childhoods (if such a thing is even possible). Bay simply wanted to take the series in a different paradigm, and frankly, it could have done some neat things. Before all of that, though, let's get one thing out of the way. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are really kind of silly.

Really, though. Think about the whole premise of this franchise. 

Ordinary turtles become mutated into anthropomorphic creatures by a radioactive ooze and are taught to become ninjas by anthropomorphic rat called Splinter in the sewers of New York City. The turtles, now teenagers, are named after Renaissance painters, eat pizza, fight a samurai named Shredder, and rescue reporters in yellow jumpsuits.

Original, yes, but very laughable. In fact, TMNT creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird joked about conceiving the idea in The Week, "We were just pissing our pants that night, to be honest. 'This is the dumbest thing ever.'" (Farago).

I haven't read the comics, so I can't speak for them, but they sounded pretty gritty. Nor have I seen the 1980's cartoon that helped propel the turtles into the mainstream. I tried watching two episodes a while ago, and I was a bit bored by it. The turtles also looked a bit too cutesy for me. Sorry Gen X. I've seen the1990 film, which, as a straight up Ninja Turtles movie, was actually very entertaining. You really can't fault the movie for giving audiences at the time exactly what they wanted: the four pizza loving turtles fighting crime. That said, the Jim Henson Creature Shop did a good job of designing the costumes, the action scenes are well paced and impressive considering the heavy suits, and the editing and cinematography have a stylized MTV look. This shouldn't be too surprising, since the film was directed by Steve Barron, who also directed the music video for Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and A-ha's "Take On Me" (IMDb). The second and third films, I hear, weren't much better, although the second film had Vanilla Ice, and who wouldn't love that?

The turtles I grew up on were from the late 90's series The Next Mutation. It was a live action show that featured the turtles in uglier costumes than were used in the movies, along with a female turtle named Venus and a crossover episode with Power Rangers In Space. That 80's cartoon looked a lot better by comparison. The turtles did, in my opinion, hit a high note with the 2003 cartoon which had some stylish animation and enjoyable writing. This led to the 2007 film which was kind of dull and confusing, but had a cool fight between Raphael and Leonardo. There's a new TMNT show on Nickelodeon, but I'd rather watch Legend of Korra instead.

The reason why I've reiterated so much turtles history is to show that this series have been reworked again, again, and again. Now in spite of whichever TMNT incarnation you happen to prefer, it is clear that all of these stories always return to square one. Four feature films, three cartoons, a crossover with the Power Rangers and the tale still starts in the sewers of New York City. It's almost like an infinite time loop. Aren't fans tired of this set-up? Would it be so radical to demand a slightly different background? Are we so hopelessly blinded by our nostalgia that the most infinitesimally small divergence from the established canon is an act of heresy?

Come on, guys.Would a little openness with the franchise be so hard? When it came to rebooting this franchise, the production team could have gone one of two ways. They could reboot it as an animated film aimed at a younger demographic, or go for the gritty Nolanesque reboot that would appeal to older teenagers. Making an animated film would be redundant, since we just had an animated film and we already have a new cartoon on TV. So, gritty reboot it is.

When one does a gritty reboot, a certain sense of realism is to be expected. As with the Nolan-Batman films. This doesn't work when you have too much absurdity to overplay the grittiness. Take the implausible tornado sequence from Man of Steel or the horrific "Deep Wang" moments from Transformers 3. Both films featured extraordinary scenarios with aliens. In one, aliens can disguise themselves as cars, and in the other, they can fly and shoot lasers out of their eyes. Both films asked us to take them seriously, Man of Steel much more so, but Transformers 3 also had the destruction of a city, which, I would hope, demands a degree of realism. (By the way, the Autobots were far more negligent about civilian casualties than Superman supposedly was). So while the new TMNT may not be as violent as Man of Steel or as idiotic as Transformers 3, it will have to balance its extraordinary premise with the realism of a live action movie.

Here's where the aliens come in.

Now if the turtles were simply aliens, it would do away with a lot of wasteful exposition dealing with the turtle's origins. Considering that we have yet to see any real aliens, though they may certainly exist, the concept of anthropomorphic turtles does not seem quite as absurd by comparison. We know, scientifically, that even the most extreme of mutations would not produce a love of pizza and surfer lingo in turtles, but we don't know anything about aliens. So anything's up for grabs. Again, an alien origin would better fit the demands of realism that many viewers are used to in a live action film. So why does this idea have potential? I'll tell you why, because it won't be set in NYC. No, it would be set on the turtle's alien planet.

You see, a terrible thing in writing a plot is limitations. This is why prequels are so hard to do without a retcon, the blatant rewriting of previously established canon. If you don't know what I'm talking about, think Zeist from Highlander 2. A prequel can only get so far before running into an established plot point. So freeing up the premise as much as possible to allow for more movement with characters and such is a must. This is the trouble that comes with adaptations. The filmmakers have to balance between honoring the source material and creating their own movie. The problem with the the latter Harry Potter films is that they became too much of a supplement to the books as opposed to being independent works. You see this problem even reverberate in reboots, where the new films didn't differ enough from the originals. Compare, for example, 2012's Spider-Man with 2002's.

Setting TMNT on an alien planet would offer so many possibilities. Bebop, Rocksteady, Krang, and Usagi Yojimbo could all pop in at any time without any real need for prior explanation. We would simply assume aliens on an alien planet. Anything goes. The planet doesn't have to be futuristic either. Why should it be? The turtles are ninjas aren't they? So why not create a world where those ninja skills and weaponry would hold the advantage? How about a planet based off of feudal Japan, or even a Pandora-like environment? It could bring the turtles to a level they've simply never been at before. Does this mean that Shredder, Karai, April, and Casey can still be humans in an alien planet? Of course. Its an alien planet remember? Anything goes.

Just think of all the conventions this film could avoid simply by being set on its own planet. No need to hide their identities in public, no need to appeal to the police or military of not being a danger, no need to worry about how humans should react upon seeing them, and if you do go futuristic, no need to explain how you acquired said technology in the modern age. Best of all, not having to set another summer blockbuster in New York City.

That's some potential with the turtles as aliens, but I doubt if it would ever have been exploited. In fact, I doubt the turtles were ever in any real danger of being radically changed. If there's one thing Hollywood loves, it's formulas. One such formula is to be familiar. People tend to lean towards what they already know. Alien Turtles would be far too alienating (no pun intended) for today's profitable demographics and no doubt divide, if not scare off the entire fanbase. The turtles have spent too much time in our cultural consciousness to be so utterly transformed. Yeah, they're bigger and a bit more slimy, but honestly, how much have they really changed. As far as I can infer from the trailers, they still live in the sewers of New York, but we'll have to wait for the film's release to really find out.

Well, however bad this new TMNT may be, at least the Turtles won't be interviewed by Oprah again.


Bibliography

"Andre Nemec." IMDb. Web. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0625858/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

Bay, Michael. "Michael Bay, 'Pain & Gain' Director, on 'Transformers 4' and the New 'Ninja Turtles' Movie." Interview by Billy Donnely. Moviefone. April 26, 2013. Web. http://news.moviefone.com/2013/04/26/michael-bay-pain-and-gain-interview/

Bell, Crystal. "Michael Bay: Ninja Turtles Movie Will Make 'TMNT' Aliens, Fans Cry Foul." The Huffington Post. March 19, 2012. Web. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/19/michael-bay-ninja-turtles-movie-aliens_n_1364828.html 

"Bradley Fuller." IMDb. Web. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0298181/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

"Evan Daugherty." IMDb. Web. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2489193/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Farago, Andrew. "The fascinating origin story of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." The Week. June 10, 2014. Web. http://theweek.com/article/index/262738/the-fascinating-origin-story-of-the-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles

"Ian Bryce." IMDb. Web. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0117290/

"Jonathan Liebesman." Rotten Tomatoes. Web. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/162674974/?search=jonathan%20li

"Josh Appelbaum." IMDb. Web. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0032227/?ref_=nv_sr_1

"Michael Bay." Rotten Tomatoes. Web. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/162652380/?search=michae;%20bay

Rist, Robbie. Facebook. March 19, 2012. Web. https://www.facebook.com/robbie.rist/posts/10150753394410645

"Steve Barron." IMDb. Web. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006625/

"Steven Spielberg." IMDb. Web. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000229/?ref_=nv_sr_3

TMZ Staff. "Ex-Ninja Turtles Actor--Michael Bay is 'Sodomizing' the TMNT Legacy." TMZ. March 20, 2012. Web. http://www.tmz.com/2012/03/20/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-michael-bay-michaelangelo-sodomizing/#ixzz38cJnSWlu

Convergence Hobby Update - Speed Painting CoC

One of the theories I had about owning a Convergence of Cyriss army is that it would be very easy to paint quickly.

I am not a particularly skilled painter, though I truly enjoy it when I have a fully painted list on the table. I paint to a standard that I can look at the model from 3 feet away and be happy with it. Not what the crazy painter friends I have are happy with, but what I'm happy with being on the table. This is important as a standard because painting is about time and I don't particularly have a lot of it.

A large part of my enjoyment comes from the idea that once I have a faction fully painted, I can just put it on the table and play and not have to think "damn I need to get to painting this."

So the theory about painting CoC is that you can prime the models with a metallic spray paint, add in a few colors, apply a wash, and then be done.  Turns out this is actually true!

Since my last post about CoC spoke about how the bulk of the models I received were in really bad shape and I highlighted obnoxious the paint jobs were in addition to the fact that most everything was in pieces when it arrived, compare this to what the Monitor looked like before it was primed and painted:

That's quite a transformation! So how much effort was put into this from a painting perspective?

• I based the model with sand/aquarium gravel.
• I spray painted the model with some metallic spray paint, though I did test on the extra armless Axis model that was sent with my lot to make sure the primer wasn't going to be too thick. 
• I spent roughly 2 hours or so applying the colors and washes to the primed model.
• I also had to repaint the base and basing material black instead of silver, which was odd but worth it for how much time the whole process saved me.

I didn't get any fancy primer either, just some Rust-olium at Home Depot:

I should put a few notes, since it was slightly jarring with this as a primer.

The model will look almost comically silver when primed. In fact it was left slightly sticky, despite drying for nearly 24 hours after being primed. In fact before I started I was afraid the entire project was going to be a failure and I'd have to just prime everything black like I always do.

Luckily the washes came through for me in the end.  It's amazing what that did when combined with some gold and bronze paint on the model.  Everything turned out about as I'd have expected it in the end, and I'm at a point where I think I can really hammer out my CoC army probably well ahead of my Trolls.

As a point of painting comparison, I spent about two hours painting that Monitor. I spent about an hour and a half just touching up the base painting on my first Longrider unit, and I still have to finish painting the metals on it before I can apply my wash and then go back and hit a highlight to get the skin on the trolls the way I want it.

Perhaps it's because I'm pushing the Trolls to be painted to a much higher standard than what I think the CoC should be, but man does it just feel nice to be able to knock out a model and have it come out looking good enough for me to be happy with. For my Trolls I feel like I need to put in all this extra work to get it to a point where I'm happy. I suppose that's the difference between having models of something organic like a beast or a infantry with lots of exposed flesh vs. robots. Here's an example of what I paint my Trolls to:

Right now I have to admit it's almost tempting to just try and get the CoC going. I did get lucky and have my wife agree to let me play in our local Scrum League (think a Steamroller with 1 game a week), and lists are due Friday. I was very likely playing Trolls in it, though after last night I admit that I've had some thoughts about playing CoC instead. I have two days to decide!

[HackRead] US Natural Gas-Compression Facility Cripples After Ransomware Attack

US Natural Gas-Compression facility cripples after ransomware attack

SOME SUPER ACTIVITY CENTRES

   

It's time to feel super with a trio of Activity Centres based on some of the most iconic heroes in pop culture. There's the requested likes of The Adventures of Batman & Robin and its Kryptonian counterpart in Superman along with the bonus game of Spider-Man 2 'cos I just saw Far From Home. Check them out after the jump...

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Brave Browser the Best privacy-focused Browser of 2019

Out of all the privacy-focused products and apps available on the market, Brave has been voted the best. Other winners of Product Hunt's Golden Kitty awards showed that there was a huge interest in privacy-enhancing products and apps such as chats, maps, and other collaboration tools.

An extremely productive year for Brave

Last year has been a pivotal one for the crypto industry, but few companies managed to see the kind of success Brave did. Almost every day of the year has been packed witch action, as the company managed to officially launch its browser, get its Basic Attention Token out, and onboard hundreds of thousands of verified publishers on its rewards platform.

Luckily, the effort Brave has been putting into its product hasn't gone unnoticed.

The company's revolutionary browser has been voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019, for which it received a Golden Kitty award. The awards, hosted by Product Hunt, were given to the most popular products across 23 different product categories.

Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt said:

"Our annual Golden Kitty awards celebrate all the great products that makers have launched throughout the year"

Brave's win is important for the company—with this year seeing the most user votes ever, it's a clear indicator of the browser's rapidly rising popularity.

Privacy and blockchain are the strongest forces in tech right now

If reaching 10 million monthly active users in December was Brave's crown achievement, then the Product Hunt award was the cherry on top.

The recognition Brave got from Product Hunt users shows that a market for privacy-focused apps is thriving. All of the apps and products that got a Golden Kitty award from Product Hunt users focused heavily on data protection. Everything from automatic investment apps and remote collaboration tools to smart home products emphasized their privacy.

AI and machine learning rose as another note-worthy trend, but blockchain seemed to be the most dominating force in app development. Blockchain-based messaging apps and maps were hugely popular with Product Hunt users, who seem to value innovation and security.

For those users, Brave is a perfect platform. The company's research and development team has recently debuted its privacy-preserving distributed VPN, which could potentially bring even more security to the user than its already existing Tor extension.

Brave's effort to revolutionize the advertising industry has also been recognized by some of the biggest names in publishing—major publications such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, NDTV, NPR, and Qz have all joined the platform. Some of the highest-ranking websites in the world, including Wikipedia, WikiHow, Vimeo, Internet Archive, and DuckDuckGo, are also among Brave's 390,000 verified publishers.

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