Analysis, criticism, studies on American propaganda (otherwise euphematically called “popular culture”)
Why is it so hard to find images of what Genghis Khan looked like in his prime? The history controllers always posting pictures of him when he is old and weak looking. Surely, for a dude that conquered most of the known world, he must of looked very scary. Otherwise, no one would have followed him or died for him. Or is that just a bad assumption? Not all great historical leaders look like Gerard Butler in 300…
By Chongchen Saelee
As of this post, PewDiePie is the top YouTuber in the world. He posts more than one video per day, and each video gets about 4 million views on average. According to the Internet, he brings YouTube about $60 million in ad revenue. But his actual cut isn’t well-known. Some estimate he is a billionaire by now.
But I don’t really care for PewDiePie, although I’ve checked out some of his videos and don’t get his appeal. He seems like he’s on mad ADHD. So how he could gain that many viewers and subscribers really makes me question his success.
He’d have to be some kind of heir to Swedish money or something. They just make it look like he’s earning it commercially.
Anyway, I know that SocialBlade is the official statistics bean counter for YouTube. They don’t have to lie that they are doing people a service “for free”. Much like any business network, it takes a lot of companies put together to make an ecosystem work. YouTube’s stats bean-counting, then, is done by SocialBlade. So SocialBlade is technically YouTube. They are one in the same.
Why can I say this? Because you’d need somekind of handshake to access all the user’s stats like that. And you need somekind of heavy coordination because there are millions of YouTube accounts to be tabulated. Thus, I think SocialBlade is pretty much the official bean counter for YouTube, aka is YouTube.
Anyhoo, the point of this post was to set a goal for myself on who I must beat in the YouTube game. So now I must find a gimmick to beat PewDiePie. It’s got to be like that scene in Will Smith’s “Pursuit of Happyness” where instead of fighting other competitors just above you, you go all the way to the top and do battle. Because no matter what, you’ll fall all the way back to the bottom anyway.
So, I suppose, I need to don the Asian PewDiePie mask now? Here comes Asian PewDiePie!!!
Doomsday is a subterrain creature from deep in Krypton’s core. So his bones and blood is pure Kryptonite. It glows from white to green when he gets angry. Much like an elephant would kill a human, Kal-el really can’t stop Doomsday, not even on Krypton. It’s all relative.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fbi-billion-dollar-facial-recognition-091500415.html
By Chongchen Saelee
According to this article, FBI can match faces at 85% accuracy. Facebook, on the other hand, can do it at 97%. But let me paint a picture why that is. The fact that FBI can be that accurate is still quite impressive, but the reason Facebook’s is way better is because of their funding, the lifeblood of Facebook is CIA. FBI is like the police. They only enforce laws. CIA, however, don’t follow any laws and that’s why they seem to be more innovative, at the cost of invading billions of people’s privacy. CIA creates the weapons and tools, FBI uses them. CIA is Whistler, FBI is Blade. It’s a need-to-know basis.
The impressive thing will be which one’s algorithm can pick out a face from low-resolution images. Facebook has the advantage only because the samples are high-resolution. But FBI’s might have the edge and is more useful because it can detect faces from low-resolution. So, it’s a matter of what purpose it’s used for. One is actually smarter than the other. If FBI’s facial software can detect a face out of finite amount of pixels that don’t resemble a face, then I’d say FBI’s software is actually better.
By Chongchen Saelee
I thought I’d write a quick cheat sheet on how to prepare your first comic book for Lulu.com publishing. This is for their US Trade paperback format of 6 inches by 9 inches per page. Your page count may vary. What you get with this setup is a color glossy cardstock cover, and black and white pages.
Setting up the interior pages
If you don’t intend to have any full page bleed artwork, you can setup your page template to be exactly 6 inches by 9 inches. Even then, make sure you set a safety margin of at least 0.125 inches so your content is properly visible in case it gets cropped off. (more…)
By Chongchen Saelee
EVERY Southeast Asian should at least have some exposure to sticky rice. You eat it with sauces, main dishes, you can put food into it, roll it, it’s portable, and it can be made into desserts. But this post, I want to show you my favorite foods that go along with stick rice.
Here is my personal list of favorite foods that go along with sticky rice:
Warm Runny Eggs
Pig Brains
Steamed Fish
Steamed Chicken
Chili paste
Fermented Bean Paste (Dop Say)
Mochi (which is just sticky rice) and Green Tea filling
Eggplant sauce
Curry dishes
Minced squirrel (lop)
Fresh barbeque or Kabobs
