Weekly Geekly Rundown for September 22, 2023
From Lightbulbs and Boolean Logic to Journey on The Midnight Special
How are lightbulbs the basis for modern computers?
The most important invention of the 20th century is probably the transistor. In addition to making Iron Man “invincible,” the transistor is the central component of modern electronics. It’s one of those inventions that makes you marvel at just how amazing Bell Labs were as an inventive collaboration. What’s even more amazing is that we can now fit billions of transistors into an integrated circuit on a microchip smaller than a flake of breakfast cereal. The combination of transistors and Boolean logic form the basis of the digital age and as you might guess, I’m a fan of the digital age.
Like many marvels, the origin of the transistor is as interesting as its modern applications. You see, in the late 19th century Frederick Guthrie and Thomas Edison both noticed an interesting property exhibited by lightbulbs…a property that led to the creation of vacuum tubes and transistors. But don’t let me bore you with a wall of text about this exciting phenomenon, let’s let the good folks at Veritasium tell us the story with wonderful visuals.
Now, remember, no matter how awesome this is and how awesome modern computers are, you never need more than 64K to have all the video game fun you’ll ever need. I’ll be playing Bard’s Tale while you watch the video.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin
I’ll be honest, okay I’m always honest, but that’s an opening often used when expressing some form of disappointment. I was really annoyed when Games Workshop decided to kill off the Old World and end the Warhammer Fantasy Battle game line. I’ve long been a fan of Bretonnians, Empire, and High Elf armies and some of my fondest memories are garage/basement battles where I faced off against hordes of Skaven and Chaos Warriors week in and week out with my friends Don and Joe (and a whole group of gamers at the local game stores).
These battles eventually expanded into Mordheim and GorkaMorka campaigns and they made for a great distraction from some of the sadness in my life at the time. Miniature wargames were a wonderful and productive way for me to vent the rage I felt at a part of the world and I always selected armies that hinted that there was hope against the darkness. I also loved reading the books of Gotrek and Felix, one of the best spins on Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser to date. Once again, I liked the hope that the small flicking light in a world of darkness provided.
Games Workshop killed that with the End Times and I’m still, along with some other people, very irked about it. The End Times led to the creation of the Age of Sigmar, a cosmos even more desperate than that of the Old World. Here the forces of good were even smaller in number and…less human. They did continue the tales of Gotrek in this setting, though without his stalwart and brighter countenanced, companion Felix. Where the Old World was a dark world with sparks of hope, the Age of Sigmar was a world of Chaos will small islands of reality holding on desperately with the aid of Sigmar’s Stormcast Eternals, the select souls of heroes of the Old World. These emotionless warriors could be killed, but they would always return anew as they were recast on Sigmar’s forge. With each recasting, they were less and less human.
As mad as I was at Games Workshop for killing off the Old World, I was really impressed at the cosmology of the new setting. While many were dismissing the Stormcast Eternals as “Sig-Marines,” a combination of Sigmarite and Space Marine, I was seeing something different. To me, they were a manifestation of Brandon Sanderson’s Knights Radiant from his Stormlight Archive series. They weren’t identical, to be sure, but they seemed to be inspired in part by the Knights Radiant or the religion and mythology that inspired Sanderson.
The cosmology of the Age of Sigmar was similar to the Cosmere and other newer brands of Epic Fantasy, a genre that was shedding direct pastiche to Tolkien for other inspirations. In this case Milton, Chinese and Indian Mythology, and Dungeons & Dragons. The first commercial role playing game may have started as a picaresque mirroring of Sword & Sorcery, but by the time Planescape and Dark Sun were published in the 90s it had become its own genre. That new genre influenced things to come. From Magic the Gathering’s Planeswalkers to, yes I believe, Age of Sigmar.
I get that Age of Sigmar isn’t for everyone, but it is for me and it’s because of how it shows that there is hope, even in a world destroyed by Chaos. That’s why I’m looking forward to the upcoming Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin real time strategy game. It’s a game that combines small role playing and story elements with what looks to be excellent game play, if a bit stilted when zoomed in on. While I doubt it will displace Total War: Warhammer from its throne as my favorite RTS or Baldur’s Gate 3 as my favorite CRPG, I expect to have a ton of fun playing it.
Weekly Luke Y. Thompson and Courtney Howard Film Article Cavalcade
Luke Y. Thompson Reviews The Last Dragon (Here!)
I once again had the honor of hosting one of Luke Y. Thompson’s review as a featured article this week. In that article, Luke reviewed one of my favorite martial arts films, Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon. It’s a remarkable film in many ways, but my favorite thing about the film (other than Julius Carry and Taimak) is how much of a love letter it is to the films of Bruce Lee.
There are cultural critiques underpinning the film attacking the music industry and other elements of popular culture, but it is absolutely in love with Bruce Lee. I am too and I really appreciate what Gordy did with this film, a film that is deeper than it gets credit for being. Luke touches on some of that depth in his review, but he also reviews the film as a first time viewer.
Who's the Master? Luke Y. Thompson Reviews the New 4K of Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon
The main reason I wanted to review The Last Dragon on 4K is that it's possibly the last of the great '80s family classics I've never seen. Oh, depending on your definition of “classic,” there might be more – I've never seen Solarbabies, for example.
Expend4bles Review by Courtney Howard (A.V. Club)
Courtney Howard reviews the new Expendables film and finds it lacking. As for me, I can’t even figure out how to pronounce it. Is it “Expendables in Leetspeak” or is it Expendfordables incorporating some kind of critique of them being mercenaries?
Roleplaying Game Recommendation
There’s no formal role playing game recommendation this week because I gave a couple of recommendations in the Play Like A Pirate Day post on Wednesday.
Play Like A Pirate, Don't Talk Like One -- Or if You're Going to Talk Like a Pirate, Go Big!
In 2008, I began advocating that people should celebrate "Play Like a Pirate Day" rather than participate in "Talk Like a Pirate Day." My contention was that one of the most irritating things you can hear your co-workers say is, "Aaaargh, Avast, Ye Mateys" a couple times an hour in some half-hearted participation in a day of international live action ro…
Music Recommendation
I recently discovered The Midnight Special on YouTube and it’s really blowing my mind. The Midnight Special was a rock ‘n roll that played late night on Saturday nights from 1971 to 1981 on NBC. It featured a tremendous number of talented acts and differed from other televised late night performances in that the artists were actually performing live and not from a pre-recorded track. You’ll probably be seeing a number of videos from the show as the year progresses, but this week’s entries are a couple of songs by Journey in the Steve Perry era. ‘Feeling that Way’ and ‘Patiently’ are beautiful songs that highlight what made Journey such a special band, especially with this line up. I know that Journey has had a number of talented singers in the aftermath of Perry leaving the band, and Arnel Pineda is amazing, but I still prefer the emotion that Perry evokes. Oh, and he’s from Hanford, CA which is the home of one of my favorite wargaming companies, so he gets points for that.
GMT Games, a wonderful Ice Cream shop, and Steve Perry, makes Hanford a place worth visiting.
Movie Recommendation
It’s the scary season, so all the recommendations will be horror related until Halloween has passed and maybe for a couple weeks longer since the “Thanksgiving Film” is a small genre. This week’s entry is a simple one, but one that really resonates with me. Cat People was produced by Val Lewton and it has a wonderfully rich back story for the lycanthropic curse on display in the film. It was successful enough to inspire a direct sequel (directed by Robert Wise) and one sequel in all but name. The film was remade, with a much sexier twist, in 1982, but hasn’t been remade since.
As much as I have enjoyed some of the recent Universal attempts, I’m of the opinion that there best films like The Invisible Man are from the smaller properties that haven’t been remade to death. I’d love to see a remake of Cat People, but one that focuses on the psychology and conflict between religion and science that underlie the original plot. There’s some really interesting stuff there if a writer wants to explore it. Yes, there’s a love story because it’s a lycanthropic curse story and those require a tragic love story, but there is some good social commentary going on that could be examined in the modern day. One could even add more ambiguity to whether there is a curse at all or if it is all in the mind of the “cursed.”