How Zelda tricks your brain, re-evaluating "Yesterday," and ChatGPT goes to the movies
Also: Stephen Colbert, Vanessa Carlton, and a wholesome prank
Welcome to Follow Friday! I’ve been hard at work on a new show (more on that soon) so this edition may be a little short. But — especially if you like the Zelda games — there’s a lot you’ll like. Let’s get to it…
The single best thing I saw online this week: I am not one of the people playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom today, but that’s only because I just started playing the previous game, Breath of the Wild, six months ago. It’s a truly incredible experience that I should not have put off as long as I did, and I want to “finish” it before I get the new one. This video from Game Makers Toolkit very satisfyingly explains why BOTW feels so good to play, and keep playing. While watching, I thought of Penn & Teller’s cups and balls trick: Knowing you’re being manipulated, and being told how it’s done, still leaves room for wonder.
The best podcasts I’ve heard this week
I’m a couple years late to this, too: Dom Monaghan and Billy Boyd, a.k.a. Merry and Pippin, from Lord of the Rings have (had?) a podcast called The Friendship Onion. Via a Reddit thread that I now can’t locate, one of the top comments said their interview with late-night host Stephen Colbert was a good starter episode, and they were right. They waste a bit of time at the top listening to Stephen explain how an episode of The Late Show is made (actually interesting! but not what I’m here for). But once they shift into LOTR and Tolkien talk, you can hear the “king geek” — so named by Peter Jackson himself — come alive.
Over on Blank Check, Griffin Newman and David Sims have recently wrapped their series on director Danny Boyle, whose most recent film is a divisive one: Yesterday, in which a struggling musician played by Himesh Patel suddenly finds himself in a world where the Beatles don’t exist... But somehow Ed Sheeran does, and he’s, like, a big part of the film. I was a bit frustrated by Yesterday when it came out, and the two hosts don’t care for it either, but the film’s many defenders are ably represented by actor/comedian/Great American Baking Show co-presenter Zach Cherry here. What’s truly wild is that Zach didn’t even like the Beatles before deciding to watch this movie. Don’t worry, he has since become a fan.
One more podcast-y thing: What if cats had podcasts?
help i’m obsessed with these genre mashup albums
I promised you more Zelda in this newsletter, remember? Well, here it is: An EP of music from the games re-imagined as country music:
I’ve never been the world’s biggest fan of country, but this album by Louie Zong has been rattling around my brain all week. And it’s not even the first time he’s done this to me — a couple months ago, he released an album of songs from the Mario games filtered through Italian disco music:
These aren’t going to do as much for you if you’re not familiar with the original music. But most of the tunes are deeply nostalgic for me, and hearing them “broken” in this way is just 🤯
An unnecessarily elaborate parody
This video marries three of my interests: Puppets, San Francisco, and reclaiming music that has been memed to death. My partner and I saw the real, non-puppet version of Vanessa Carlton open for Stevie Nicks last year and she’s legit such a good singer. But you don’t need me to tell you that this song slaps.
The latest from LightningPod
Here’s what I’ve been producing and editing this week. For more, follow LightningPod on LinkedIn.
On Lock and Code, ransomware researcher Allan Liska spoke to David Ruiz from Malwarebytes about the rise of “Franken-Ransomware.” Liska explains what makes it different from the more common “Ransomware as a Service” model, and the new challenges it poses to businesses and law enforcement.
And on Grit, Ōura CEO Tom Hale talked with Joubin Mirzadegan about the connections between business & backgammon, the consumerization of healthcare, the “founder-CEO myth,” and more. Plus: Stories about competing against Airbnb and rebranding SurveyMonkey to Momentive.
An excellent video essay about AI and movies
I loved this timely take from Thomas Flight, considering ChatGPT through the lens of Her, Ex Machina, and Blade Runner 2049. Spoilers for the first two films, not so much for the latter (although it does give away one basic thing about the BR2049 plot that I was shocked by in the theater).
The best thing I’ve read this week
(content warning: suicide)
In response to a news story about a Google engineer jumping to their death, Redditor oilyraincloud dropped a potent truth bomb about how “success” can actually ruin you. They’re writing from personal experience, having worked for a similarly big tech company, and explain why that high salary isn’t always worth it:
You are on call constantly. You work with global offices and may be expected to respond to a message from someone in an entirely different timezone that may also not observe the same holidays as you. You are never treated as off the clock. Doing this for long enough can absolutely destroy your soul. It's like running a marathon every waking hour. Your brain needs rest, but it can be difficult to do that at places like this.
Also core to this extreme burnout: Meetings. What else?
On top of that, you have to spend most of the time during business hours in meetings full of people that are dominated by maybe two people in the room. […] Sometimes, an executive will completely change the course of your project at these meetings and you'll have to recalibrate and restart on something else at the snap of a finger. It causes whiplash. And because your day is full of meetings, that leaves your personal time the only real time to get any work done.
Palate cleanser: A very wholesome prank
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Awwww. His mom screams like Lucille Bluth recognizing Gene Parmesan.
Trust me and click these:
Well, that’s one way to wash a cat
A surprisingly solid ranking of Marvel villains
Very slick to be able to embed podcast episodes. No idea you could do that and totally stealing :). Btw, I’m very looking forward to the new Zelda as soon as I get home. Also jealous though that you are experiencing BOTW for first time.