The Greatest Gift of All

http://twinbeardstudios.com/frog-fractions

What If I Told You...

After some Very Serious political posts it's time for me to write about dumb internet stuff again. Actually, getting the internet up and running here in Spice World (my new apartment) was such a hassle it made me more grateful for the virtually limitless amount of information we have available at our finger tips online. However, what if I told you that the web held more information than you thought?

The Deep Web a.k.a.DeepNet a.k.a. The Invisible Web a.k.a. The Undernet a.k.a. The Hidden Web basically refers to all online information not accessible via search engines and other tools used by us pedestrian "surface web" dwellers. It's usually boring stuff like sites with private logins and domains that doesn't use HTTP but how great and ominous is the term "Deep Web?" It sounds like some H.P. Lovecraft nether realm. Top internet scientists estimate that around 300,000 sites and over 7,500 terabytes of data exist on the Deep Web and they are constantly working on new ways to crawl this forbidden space. Amazing.

Of course, this shouldn't be confused with the equally spooky Dark Internet which is made up of computers simply cut off from the larger World Wide Web. This also shouldn't be confused with 4chan which is just a dark part of the internet.

What a great stupid world we live in.

The Street Fighter

Today I just wanted to share this recent internet discovery I made with you guys. It's a web series called 'The Street Fighter" made by The Game Station. They usually put out more comedic gaming videos but this was their first attempt at something more dramatic. Sure it isn't perfect and has plenty of issues inherent to amateur productions but what I like about it is how it portrays gaming as a totally natural part of someone's life. Phil plays a lot of games but he healthily has his priorities straight as a father and someone looking for a job. Like great sports movies it recognizes that the sport itself really isn't the point. It's the people. I'll just let the rest speak for itself. Enjoy!



The other episodes are after the break.

G Gundam Abridged Episode 1

Making an abridged series, for those of you who don't know, is the process of taking a show, usually an anime, editing it down and dubbing over the dialogue for comedic effect. The most famous of these is probably Yu-Gi-Oh The Abriged Series.

Anyway, a good friend of mine, known on Youtube as "TheHolyEpic" decided to get in on the action and make his own abridged series based on "Mobile Fighter G Gundam" (fighting robots). He collected the footage, edited it, and did the voices. But being the egotist that I am I've decided to post it here not simply out of selfless desire to promote my friend's material but also because I helped write the script.

Seriously though he did a good job. Check it out




Also, despite my feelings on Twitter, I do feel "obligated" (get it) to remind you guys that I do have one and It'd be cool if you followed @JordanWMinor

Hint: the W makes me more like Batman

Themes That Go With Things

I’m not sure how to feel that so far my most popular article has been a short-essay on a dumb internet joke. But give the people what they want. This time I'm talking about themes that go with certain situations. For example, Guile’s theme from Street Fighter II, well, it goes with everything. Just look.



"Go home and be a family man"- Guile

Twitter and its ilk, smart uses for dumb media

Apparently going to a journalism school in the year 2011 involves hearing a lot veteran journalists talk about the growing importance of “new media” and “social networks” like Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other stuff like that. Don’t get me wrong. I love technology and certain aspects of the internet, the nerdy anti-social part. That’s why I've always begrudgingly adopted services that connect real people to other real people instead of impersonal avatars. Don't judge me.

I think the difference between journalists and people in the know about technology is that journalists are aware of new technology like tablets and will always get excited because they are new. Tech people on the other hand are jaded and knowledgeable enough about technology to recognize when the new stuff is cool, like Facebook, and when it’s less so, like Twitter.

My Little Pony vs. Monster High: Capturing the Key Demographic

So in the last post I made about the internet, I mentioned what I like to call “the id of the internet” 4chan. It’s the source of everything funny, amazing, and utterly depraved about the internet. One of their more recent obsessions is the new “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” cartoon. It’s easy to understand why. It’s a crazy, neon spectacle full of great, terrible puns and dialogue. Plus it’s meant for little girls and the internet loves subverting things that are supposed to be innocent. It should come as no surprise that one of the biggest demographics for MLP:FIM is males age 18-34, or the bronies.

meet derpy hooves

Cool Post Bro

Legit review still coming but this idea literally just came to me and it’s too good(?) and short(!) to not post now.

There’s a phrase on the internet called “cool story bro” that you say sarcastically to someone when they’ve told a story that you find decidedly uncool for various reasons:

It could be a wall of text too dense to be easily read on a computer (tl:dr or too long didn’t read)

It could just be stupid. (Person 1: Today, I came home and made a sandwich, Person B: Cool story bro). On the internet these kinds of cool stories also typically have poor spelling and grammar and are clearly written by children using their parent-allotted one hour of daily computer use.

It also could be an actually interesting story, or something obviously heartfelt, deep and personal. These are labeled cool stories just to be condescending, jerkish, passive-aggressive or really ironically funny. This can also be known as trolling, a fundamental internet concept far too massive to cover here.