So yesterday was my birthday. As soon as my friend Bruno announced it on Twitter, fearing for my phone’s battery (considering I was going to be away from a charger for the day), I kindly requested not to receive that many notifications. As usual with these things, it had exactly the opposite effect, with him and other friends making sure that I’d receive as many notifications as possible.
It’s funny how a song can completely change in your mind once you actually pay attention to its lyrics. One such example is the 1979 song “Escape” by Rupert Holmes. This song is mostly perceived as romantic, mainly because of its chorus:
If you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain
If you’re not into yoga, if you have half a brain
If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape
I’m the love that you’ve looked for, write to me, and escape
I, for one, never payed much attention to the rest of the lyrics and therefore was just another person that associated this song with a romantic setting (as it is used in general in pop culture).
The term clean meat does not refer to the act of actually cleaning a piece of meat but rather the technology of producing meat in a laboratory through cell replication. How does that work? Well, it’s just easier to watch this video that gives you a nice intro on the subject:
Most people won’t remember about Captain power and the soldiers of the future, but since I grew up in the 80’s, I have some great memories of this show. If you don’t know the show or simply want to refresh your memory, here’s the intro:
Sure, it looks rubbish now but you have to look at it with the eyes of a small kid from the 80’s who didn’t have that much to watch on TV.
My favourite character was Major Matthew ‘Hawk’ Masterson because he was the one that could fly. I remember sticking a set-square with some rubber bands in the back of one of my G.I. Joe action figures to emulate this great character.
I wonder what TV shows my sons will watch know that will look completely dumb 30 years from now. My money is on Uncle Grandpa (hint: it’s already a dumb show).
Buddy Rich is well-known as one of the greatest big band and jazz drummers of all time. His technique was simply amazing and listening to any of his performances is just a pleasure. I have an electric drum set (so as to not piss off the neighbours while practicing) and love to pretend that I’m able to keep up with any of his songs. There are some easy ones that I can actually play (because the emphasis is on the other instruments of the big band), but most are just incredibly difficult.
But there’s one song in particular that always leaves me floored. The live performance of The Nitty Gritty:
When people tell me they are worried about the incoming robot revolution, I know they’ve probably seen a clickbaity article based on some well-known quote by a famous person (like Elon Musk) in which they predict an artificial intelligence-based doom for humanity. Either that or they’ve seen Ex Machina or the latest episode of Westworld or some other catastrophic movie, tv-show or book on the aforementioned theme.
This is a normal reaction. It’s the same with sharks. Even though they are responsible for a very small fraction of human deaths in the entire world per year (less that vending machines), people still have that image of the relentless killing machine from Jaws. So, the same concept applies to artificial intelligence and the image of the impending robopocalypse.
I’ve always been a fan of podcasts ever since I bought my first iPod (which is now over a decade ago), because I’m able to listen to them anywhere while doing other things (like driving, cooking, etc.). And the world of podcasting content has only gotten better. In the past few years, podcasts have gain more notoriety and stopped being viewed as that niche media that only geeks use. They have become massive online repositories of interesting audio content, specially after major radio broadcasting networks have adhered to this format so intensively.
But one of the things that I like the most about podcasts is the freedom they give to content creators to go back to one of the most interesting features that radio broadcasting used to have: telling smaller less-known stories about individuals or places that you may not have heard before. And I’ve been focusing more on listening this kind of podcasts.
… is to drink the “perfect martini” as he himself describes it.
Living in the shadow of the great Sean Connery meant that many didn’t consider him a worthy James Bond, but he sure made the 70’s and 80’s Bond look cool (and very much entertaining). He’s the first Bond I watched and therefore he embodied that persona in my head. It hasn’t until a few years later (when my father told me that there were other actors impersonating this British spy) that I became acquainted with these other iterations of the enigmatic “Bond, James Bond” character. But at that time, the Roger Moore’s take on James Bond had already stuck in my head and everything else felt short in comparison.
So, it’s sad to see him go, but it’s a good thing that he left this great body of work for all of us to enjoy.
R.I.P. Mr. Moore. Now you can drink as many martinis as you want.
I don’t usually care about in-flight entertainment, since I carefully plan what I’ll be watching, reading or working on during flights and I pre-pack my laptop and kindle with the necessary stuff. However, last week I was travelling to Angola and the plane I was in had one of those neat in-flight entertainment systems per seat and I decided to try it. It was packed full of movies, tv shows and music and since I had a few hours to kill, I decided to watch a couple of movies (and maybe doze off until arrival).
It looks like this (almost defunct) blog is 10 years old.
Happy birthday!
I’ll try to treat you better. I promise!