This… Is BGNN

Things you might want to know, for Apr 18, 2023:

• Netflix cancels second-ever livestream after ‘Love Is Blind’ reunion hit by technical issues — Gee, Netflix… ya need Twitch’s help or something? It’s not like you’ve spent a decade building out the biggest streaming infrastructure in the world, right?
• The first CRPG is a min-maxing hell you can – and should – break — I played countless hours of Ultima III & IV back in the day, and even owned a biography of Richard Garriot that was released around the time of Ultima VI. I think it would have been fair to call me a fan. But I wouldn’t have wasted five minutes of my time of Akalabeth, ‘cause it was already antiquated by ‘83.
• Mythic Quest’s F. Murray Abraham Was Allegedly Fired for Sexual Misconduct — This is one of those surprising-yet-completely-predictable headlines.
• Hollywood Writers Just Took a Huge Step Toward Going on Strike in May — Most of y’all were too young to appreciate the impact at the time, but the 2007 Writers Strike was a big deal. It disrupted the early seasons of Breaking Bad, directly resulted in the creation of Dr. Horrible, and extended the 2000s-era reality TV boom by a few more years.
• Oklahoma county leaders caught on audio talking about killing reporters and complaining they can no longer lynch Black people — That they were saying it isn’t shocking. What’s surprising is that they were saying it openly, in a group of more than two, without bothering to encode anything or give themselves a trace of deniability… they were speaking without a hint of fear.

• ‘The Idol’ Gets Provocative New Trailer, Official Premiere Date
• The End of Computer Magazines in America — This one is a bit of a heartbreaker for me. I wanted to grow up to write for one of those magazines when I was a kid… it never happened, but it was a dream. In fairness, the “real” magazines —like Byte— have been gone for many years, and the scraps that remained were a pale shade of what came before. But still… I miss my 800 page copy of Computer Shopper.
• This set of TV catchphrases is pure Gen X nostalgia
• Anna Nicole Smith Doc Examines the Troubled, Misunderstood Life of the Late Superstar Model
• Cocaine worth nearly $440 million found floating in the sea off Italy
• Rainn Wilson calls for ‘Soul Boom’ revolution: ‘We are spiritual beings having a human experience’
• ‘Phantom Of The Opera’ Takes Final Bow On Broadway; Andrew Lloyd Webber Dedicates Show To Late Son — I never got to see it on Broadway, but I listened to the soundtrack about 10,000 times in my early 20s, which is directly responsible for me owning several Michael Crawford CDs.
• A ‘Morning-After Pill’ for Sexually Transmitted Infections Is Almost Here
• AT&T launches medical radar device that monitors older adults through walls
• Adobe Firefly’s new AI tools aim to cut down drudge work for editors