This week the Nerds invited Dev-i-Boy on again. He'll be joining us for the next while.
First up is a discussion about Indiana Jones 5. Can Indy swing himself back into relevance for a new generation? Not if COVID-19 has anything to say about it. Indiana Jones 5 has been pushed back again due to the pandemic. The Nerds are hoping Actual Cannibal Shia LaBeouf doesn't make another appearance as Indy's son, but we'd be ok with him appearing as a cannibal tribesman. This of course leads into a discussion on Disney's other properties, including the notorious Pirates of the Caribbean and Jungle Cruise. This looks like a rough year for Disney.
Dev-i-Boy has heard that Russians are behind everyone's favourite YouTube channel, Five Minute Crafts. In a story reminiscent of bad Cold War fiction, Russian propaganda is slipped into innocuous seeming YouTube videos. Now we just need a team of teenagers to sneak into the secret Russian video studio lab and uncover their plot.
Activision has pulled off a major win in court against the maker of the Humvee. Modern warfare needs modern weapons, and the US courts have ruled in favour of realism over licensing fees.
Finally, DJ and Dev-i-Boy can't handle the knowledge. An Australian lizard joins the tiny group of reptiles that both lay eggs and give live birth. This revelation is too much for them to handle though, so we move on to the games of the week.
Professor and DJ play Generation Zero, a game about Swedish battle mechs and robot dogs that want to kill you. It's buggy, but generally a good experience. Dev-i played LoZ: Wind Waker again but breaks into a new dimension in VR Chat. Of course, he picked an anime girl avatar. Of course.
On to the usual shoutouts and remembrances, and DJ refuses to wrap up the show by performing Waterloo. Maybe next week.
Stay safe, and we'll see you all next week.
Indiana Jones 5
-https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/indiana-jones-2022/
YouTube viral video debunked
Call of Duty lawsuit win
-https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/call-duty-wins-first-amendment-victory-use-humvees-1287882
A lizard can now lay eggs and give live birth
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mec.15409
Games Played
Professor
– Generation Zero - https://store.steampowered.com/app/704270/Generation_Zero/
Rating : 5/5
DJ
– Generation Zero - https://store.steampowered.com/app/704270/Generation_Zero/
Rating : 4.5/5
Dev-i-Boy
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_The_Wind_Waker
Rating – 5/5
- VR Chat - https://store.steampowered.com/app/438100/VRChat/
Rating – 3/5
Other topics discussed
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and the fourth installment in the Indiana Jones series.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Kingdom_of_the_Crystal_Skull
The timeline of the Indiana Jones films is the chronological order of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones and the film series.
- https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_of_films
Transformers film series (Transformers is a series of American science fiction action films based on the Transformers franchise which began in the 1980s. Michael Bay has directed the first five films.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers_(film_series)
Harrison Ford survives plane crash
- https://money.cnn.com/2017/02/14/news/harrison-ford-plane-mishap/index.html
Disney’s Artemis Fowl Official Trailer
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl2r3Fwxz_o
Jungle Cruise (The Jungle Cruise is a river boat attraction located in Adventureland at many Disney Parks worldwide, namely Disneyland, Magic Kingdom,Tokyo Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland. For years, Walt Disney Pictures had been toying with the idea of turning the Jungle Cruise into a full-length action adventure motion picture, which it would be loosely inspired by the theme park attraction of the same name.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungle_Cruise
Bruckheimer is very frank about how he almost passed on the project, which is based on the famous Disney theme park ride.
- https://web.archive.org/web/20080102184110/http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/425/425848p1.html
Pirates of the Caribbean 6th movie
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_the_Caribbean_(film_series)#Sixth_film
How to Cook That (Youtube channel by Ann Reardon)
- https://www.youtube.com/user/howtocookthat/videos
Debunking Fake Videos & WHO'S behind 5-min crafts? | How To Cook That Ann Reardon
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvqa8dsBtno
Lonelygirl15 (lonelygirl15, the first of many shows within the fictional LG15 Universe, tells the ongoing story of a group of young adults fighting against a mysterious secret society called, The Order.)
- https://www.youtube.com/user/lonelygirl15
Sex-workers - idubbbz complains by iDubbbzTV
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQLzOuwDu_8
Elsagate (neologism referring to the controversy surrounding videos on YouTube and YouTube Kids that are categorized as "child-friendly", but which contain themes that are inappropriate for children.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsagate
The FTC action against YouTube and Google
Why Youtube doesn’t make any profit
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-reasons-youtube-still-doesnt-make-a-profit/
The Simpson – Lionel Hutz vs 10 high priced lawyers
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3hhAH4mlQk
Donald Trump Violated First Amendment by Blocking Critics on Twitter
Temperature-dependent sex determination (a type of environmental sex determination in which the temperatures experienced during embryonic/larval development determine the sex of the offspring.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature-dependent_sex_determination
Dogs (Dogs are autonomous robotic quadrupeds, equipped with a series of lethal weapons.)
- https://black-mirror.fandom.com/wiki/Dogs
Boston Dynamics : Spot
- https://robots.ieee.org/robots/spotmini/
Japanese students hold graduation ceremony in Minecraft amid school cancellation
Katie Bouman: The woman behind the first black hole image
- https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47891902
Systers (founded by Anita Borg, is an international electronic mailing list for technical women in computing.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systers
The Eleventh Hour (The Eleventh Hour: A Curious Mystery is an illustrated children's book by Graeme Base.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eleventh_Hour_(children%27s_book)
Hareraiser (video game released in 1984 in the UK in two parts: Prelude and Finale, comedian and computer game historian Stuart Ashen described and showed the game play, and called it "quite possibly the worst video game ever.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hareraiser
Animalia (an animated children's television series based on the 1986 picture book of the same name by illustrator Graeme Base.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animalia_(TV_series)
The story behind Jackie Chan’s stunt in Police Story which involved slides several stories down a pole strung with lights, electricity arcing around him as he crashes through multiple panes of glass into a shop stall.
- https://observer.com/2019/01/how-jackie-chan-police-story-stunts-changed-movies/
Jackie Chan further explains the stunt in Police Story
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZEVz1V-X4w
Waterloo ("Waterloo" is the first single from the Swedish pop group ABBA's second album, Waterloo and their first under the Epic and Atlantic labels.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterloo_(ABBA_song)
That’s Not COVID (TNC Podcast)
- https://thatsnotcanon.com/thatsnotcovidpodcast
Shout Outs
5 April 2020 - Shirley Douglas, actress and mother of Kiefer Sutherland dies at 86 - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/shirley-douglas-dead-actress-mother-kiefer-sutherland-was-86-1288624
Shirley Douglas, an actress in films directed by Stanley Kubrick and David Cronenberg and the mother of actor Kiefer Sutherland. Douglas appeared in Kubrick's Lolita (1962) and Cronenberg's Dead Ringers (1988) and in other movies including Shadow Dancing (1988) and Wind at My Back (1996). In 2003, for her contributions to the performing arts, she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. Sutherland announced his mother's death on Twitter, saying "My mother was an extraordinary woman who led an extraordinary life," Sutherland wrote. "Sadly she had been battling for her health for quite some time and we, as a family, knew this day was coming. To any families who have lost loved ones unexpectedly to the coronavirus, my heart breaks for you. Please stay safe." She died of complications surrounding pneumonia at the age of 86 in Toronto,Ontario. His son noted her passing was not related to COVID-19.
5 April 2020 – Anime ending this week 10 years ago according to Japanese netizens - https://soranews24.com/2020/04/05/whered-the-time-go-top-anime-series-that-finished-ten-years-ago-ranked-by-japanese-netizens/
Here’s the top ten of this decade-old anime! Which ones have you watched recently?
10. Kuroshitsuji II
9. Durarara!!
8. A Certain Scientific Railgun
5. Fullmetal Alchemist
4. K-On!!
3. Inuyasha: The Final Act
2. Animal Detective Kiruminzoo
1. Hidamari Sketch×☆☆☆
6 April 2020 - ‘Jaws’ actress Lee Fierro dead at 91 from coronavirus complications - https://nypost.com/2020/04/06/jaws-actress-lee-fierro-dead-at-91-with-coronavirus-complications/
Lee Fierro, best known as Alex Kintner’s mom in Steven Spielberg’s 1975 shark attack classic “Jaws,” In her iconic scene from “Jaws,” an enraged Fierro confronts Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) and slaps him in the face. “I just found out that a girl got killed here last week and you knew, you knew there was a shark out there. You knew it was dangerous, but you let people go swimming anyway,” her character says, sobbing. “You knew all those things and still my boy is dead now, and there’s nothing you can do about it. My boy is dead.” Fierro reportedly had "objected to the profanity" of the scene's dialogue as originally drafted, and the director, Steven Spielberg, wanted dialogue that accorded with Fierro's "everywoman looks," so the scene's dialogue was rewritten the day before it was filmed. Fierro went on to reprise her role in 1987’s subpar “Jaws: The Revenge” opposite Michael Caine. She died from COVID-19 at the age of 91.
Remembrances
6 April 1520 – Raphael - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, and the largest, work of his career. The best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome, much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings, with considerable loss of quality. He was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (1504–1508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two Popes and their close associates. He died from fever at the age of 37 in Rome, Papal States.
6 April 1944 - Rose O'Neill - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_O%27Neill
Rose Cecil O'Neill, American cartoonist, illustrator, artist, and writer. She built a successful career as a magazine and book illustrator and, at a young age, became the best-known and highest- paid female commercial illustrator in the United States. O' Neill earned a fortune and international fame by creating the Kewpie, the most widely known cartoon character until Mickey Mouse. Her Kewpie cartoons, which made their debut in a 1909 issue of Ladies' Home Journal, were later manufactured as bisque dolls in 1912 by J. D. Kestner, a German toy company, followed by composition material and celluloid versions. The dolls were wildly popular in the early twentieth century and are considered to be one of the first mass-marketed toys in the United States. Their name, "Kewpie", derives from Cupid, the Roman god of love. According to O'Neill, she became obsessed with the idea of the cherubic characters, to the point that she had dreams about them: "I thought about the Kewpies so much that I had a dream about them where they were all doing acrobatic pranks on the coverlet of my bed. One sat in my hand." She described them as "a sort of little round fairy whose one idea is to teach people to be merry and kind at the same time". O'Neill also wrote several novels and books of poetry, and was active in the women's suffrage movement. She was for a time the highest-paid female illustrator in the world upon the success of the Kewpie dolls. She died from heart failure at the age of 69 in Springfield, Missouri.
6 April 2003 - Anita Borg - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Borg
American computer scientist. She founded the Institute for Women and Technology and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. In 1997, Borg founded the Institute for Women and Technology (now the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology). Two important goals behind the founding of the organization were to increase the representation of women in technical fields and to enable the creation of more technology by women. The Institute was created to be an experimental R&D organization focusing on increasing the impact of women on technology and increasing the impact of technology on the world's women. It ran a variety of programs to increase the role of technology, build the pipeline of technical women, and ensure that women's voices affected technological developments. Borg passionately believed in working for greater representation of technical women. Her goal was to have 50% representation for women in computing by 2020. She strove for technical fields to be places where women would be equally represented at all levels of the pipeline, and where women could impact, and benefit from, technology. She died from a brain tumour at the age of 54 in Sonoma, California.
Famous Birthdays
6 April 1958 - Graeme Base - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graeme_Base
Author and artist of picture books. He is perhaps best known for his second book, Animalia published in 1986, and third book The Eleventh Hour which was released in 1989. He worked in advertising for two years and then began illustrating children's books, gradually moving to authoring them as well. His first book, My Grandma lived in Gooligulch, was accepted by the first publisher he sent it to. He was born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.
6 April 1975 - Zach Braff - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Braff
American actor, director, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his role as J. D. on the television series Scrubs, for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 2005 and for three Golden Globe Awards from 2005 to 2007. He starred in The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy, In Dubious Battle, and has done voice-work for Chicken Little, Oz the Great and Powerful, and the Netflix series Bojack Horseman. In 2004, Braff made his directorial debut with Garden State, which he also wrote, starred in, and compiled the soundtrack album for. He shot the film in his home state of New Jersey for a budget of $2.5 million. The film made over $35 million at the box office and was praised by critics, leading it to gain a cult following. He won numerous awards for his directing work and also won the Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album in 2005. Braff directed his second film, Wish I Was Here, which he partially funded with a Kickstarter campaign. He was born in South Orange, New Jersey.
7 April 1954 - Jackie Chan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Chan
Chan Kong-sang, known professionally as Jackie Chan, is a Hong Kongese martial artist, actor, film director, producer, stuntman, and singer. He is known in the cinematic world for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts, which he typically performs himself. He has trained in Wushu or Kung Fu and Hapkido, and has been acting since the 1960s, appearing in over 150 films. Chan is one of the most recognisable and influential cinematic personalities in the world, gaining a widespread following in both the Eastern and Western hemispheres, and has received stars on the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has been referenced in various pop songs, cartoons, and video games. He is an operatically trained vocalist and is also a Cantopop and Mandopop star, having released a number of albums and sung many of the theme songs for the films in which he has starred. He is also a globally known philanthropist and has been named as one of the top 10 most charitable celebrities by Forbes magazine. In 2004, film scholar Andrew Willis stated that Chan was "perhaps" the "most recognised star in the world". In 2015, Forbes estimated his net worth to be $350 million, and as of 2016, he was the second-highest paid actor in the world. He was born in Victoria Peak.
7 April 1964 - Russell Crowe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Crowe
Russell Ira Crowe actor, film producer and musician. Although a New Zealand citizen, he has lived most of his life in Australia. He came to international attention for his role as the Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the historical film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which Crowe won an Academy Award, a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award, an Empire Award, and a London Film Critics Circle Award for best actor, along with ten other nominations in the same category. Crowe's other award-winning performances include portrayals of tobacco firm whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand in the drama film The Insider, and John F. Nash in the biopic A Beautiful Mind. Crowe's other films include, L.A. Confidential, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Cinderella Man, 3:10 to Yuma, American Gangster, State of Play, Robin Hood, Les Misérables, Man of Steel, Noah, and The Nice Guys. In 2015, Crowe made his directorial debut with The Water Diviner, in which he also starred. Crowe's work has earned him several accolades during his career, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, one BAFTA and one Academy Award out of three consecutive nominations (1999, 2000, and 2001). Crowe has also been the co-owner of the National Rugby League (NRL) team South Sydney Rabbitohs since 2006. He was born in Wellington.
Events of Interest
6 April 1896 – In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1,500 years after the original games are banned by Roman emperor Theodosius I. - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-modern-olympic-games
On April 6, 1896, the Olympic Games, a long-lost tradition of ancient Greece, are reborn in Athens 1,500 years after being banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I. At the opening of the Athens Games, King Georgios I of Greece and a crowd of 60,000 spectators welcomed athletes from 13 nations to the international competition. In Athens, 280 participants from 13 nations competed in 43 events, covering track-and-field, swimming, gymnastics, cycling, wrestling, weightlifting, fencing, shooting, and tennis. All the competitors were men, and a few of the entrants were tourists who stumbled upon the Games and could sign up. The track-and-field events were held at the Panathenaic Stadium, which was originally built in 330 B.C. and restored for the 1896 Games. Americans won nine out of 12 of these events. The 1896 Olympics also featured the first marathon competition, which followed the 25-mile route run by a Greek soldier who brought news of a victory over the Persians from Marathon to Athens in 490 B.C. In 1924, the marathon was standardized at 26 miles and 385 yards. Appropriately, a Greek, Spyridon Louis, won the first marathon at the 1896 Athens Games.
6 April 1909 - Robert Peary and Matthew Henson become the first people to reach the North Pole; Peary's claim has been disputed because of failings in his navigational ability. - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pearys-expedition-reaches-north-pole
On April 6, 1909, American explorer Robert Peary accomplishes a long elusive dream, when he, assistant Matthew Henson and four Eskimos reach what they determine to be the North Pole. Decades after Peary’s death, however, navigational errors in his travel log surfaced, placing the expedition in all probability a few miles short of its goal. In 1908, the pair travelled to Ellesmere Island by ship and in 1909 raced across hundreds of miles of ice to reach what they calculated as latitude 90 degrees north on April 6, 1909. Although their achievement was widely acclaimed, Dr. Frederick A. Cook challenged their distinction of being the first to reach the North Pole. A former associate of Peary, Cook claimed he had already reached the pole by dogsled the previous year. A major controversy followed, and in 1911 the U.S. Congress formally recognized Peary’s claim. In recent years, further studies of the conflicting claims suggest that neither expedition reached the exact North Pole, but that Peary and Henson came far closer, falling perhaps 30 miles short. On May 3, 1952, U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher of Oklahoma stepped out of a plane and walked to the precise location of the North Pole, the first person to undisputedly do so.
6 April 1917 - Americans declares war on Germany - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/america-enters-world-war-i
Two days after the U.S. Senate voted 82 to 6 to declare war against Germany, the U.S. House of Representatives endorses the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50, and America formally enters World War I. Apart from an Anglophile element urging early support for the British and an anti-Tsarist element sympathising with Germany's war against Russia, US public opinion reflected that of the president: the sentiment for neutrality was particularly strong among Irish Americans, German Americans, and Scandinavian Americans, as well as among church leaders and among women in general. On the other hand, even before World War I had broken out, American opinion had been overall more negative toward Germany than toward any other country in Europe. Over time, especially after reports of atrocities in Belgium in 1914 and following the sinking of the passenger liner RMS Lusitania in 1915, American citizens increasingly came to see Germany as the aggressor in Europe. While the country was at peace, American banks made huge loans to Britain and France, which were used mainly to buy munitions, raw materials, and food from across the Atlantic. Wilson made minimal preparations for a land war but he did authorise a major ship-building program for the United States Navy. The president was narrowly re-elected in 1916 on an anti-war ticket.
6 April 1974 - The Swedish pop band ABBA wins the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Waterloo", launching their international career. - https://www.mylifetime.com/she-did-that/april-6-1974-abba-won-the-eurovision-song-contest-for-waterloo-launching-their-international-career
Songwriters and musicians Ulvaeus and Andersson first met in 1966. However, it was in 1969 when the seeds of the soon-to-be Swedish supergroup were planted when Björn met his fiancée, Fältskog, and Benny met his fiancée, Lyngstad. Ulvaeus and Andersson knew how to write contagious pop hits. However, Fältskog and Lyngstad’s beautiful harmonies were integral to the global chart-topping ABBA sound. After “Waterloo” won the 19th edition of the Eurovision song competition, the winning tune reached the No. 1 spot on the UK chart and became a top ten hit in the US on the Billboard Hot 100. “Waterloo” sold six million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time.
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