The Daily Dad — May 9, 2024

Things you might want to know:

• RIP ‘Red vs. Blue.’ Machinima Is Gone—but Its Legacy Is Everywhere
  💭 I haven’t watched an episode of RvB in ten years, but I loved it early on… hell, I bought DVDs of the first few “seasons”. Granted, I lost interest in the show as their storytelling ambitions grew too lofty, but I’ll still miss Rooster Teeth.
• R.I.P. Steve Albini, Nirvana engineer, Shellac frontman, and architect of American Independent music
  ❝ The prolific recording engineer of The Pixies and Nirvana was 61
• Novel attack against virtually all VPN apps neuters their entire purpose
  ❝ TunnelVision vulnerability has existed since 2002 and may already be known to attackers.

• Seinfeld vs. Stewart on whether Woke/P.C. has ruined comedy
  💭 I get what Jerry’s trying to say, but he’s an old fuck and doesn’t understand how to talk about it. Yes, something has been lost… what people are calling “monoculture” was the connective tissue that kept a nation of diverse interests thinking of itself as a unit. When tens —hundreds— of millions of us were predictably doing similar things on similar nights and then having similar conversations around similar watercoolers the next day, sitcom laughter had a soothing, smoothing effect on society. But “woke-ism” didn’t kill “appointment television”… laptops and smartphones did. It’s comforting for an old man to think that we could return to a late 20th-century cultural stability if everyone would just chill, but sadly, the problem isn’t so easily addressed.
• Streaming is cable now
  ❝ Last year alone, all of the major names in streaming — Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, Max, Apple TV Plus, Paramount Plus, and Peacock — raised their prices.
• Why Your Vet Bill Is So High – The Atlantic
  ❝ Corporations and private-equity funds have been rolling up smaller chains and previously independent practices.
• Oscar Mayer offers a gummy bologna that looks a bit too real
  ❝ The purveyor of meats sells realistic-looking gummy versions of hotdogs, gummy bacon, and, strangest of all, gummy bologna.

• iPad Air vs iPad Pro dimensions: What does ‘Air’ even mean now? – 9to5Mac
  💭 Apple’s “Air” branding hasn’t meant “smallest and lightest” since the unadorned MacBook debuted in 2015, so the concept’s been dead for almost a decade. At this point, “Air” is simply Apple-speak for “Lite”… you can have an iPad Pro, an iPad Pro Lite —the Air— or a bare-bones iPad. It’s only confusing if you need to pantomime confusion for clicks.
• Randy Travis gets his voice back in a new Warner AI music experiment
  ❝ “Where That Came From” is the first Randy Travis song since his 2013 stroke, using AI to recreate his voice — and opening a new path for record labels.
• Armpit onigiri: Would you like human sweat added to your Japanese rice snack? (video)
  ❝ Armpit onigiri: Would you like some human sweat added to your Japanese rice snack? It will cost you more (video)

• Dropout’s newest game show asks who wants to be a… thousandaire?
  💭 I don’t know how well Thousandaires will work, but I’ve watched a few episodes of Game Changers now, and I’m pretty impressed.
• I’m fascinated by this open-world delivery game that sounds like Death Stranding on a horse in 13th-century Mongolia, with “unparalleled equine realism”
  ❝ Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori gallops onto early access in September.