March 6, 2025 | category: video | permalink

A year ago I fell down a rabbit hole of iPod videos, where people add modern features to decades old mp3-players and start using them again. I found them weirdly comforting, and I didn’t really know why but, clearly, I wasn’t the only one. What is it about this 20-year old piece of tech that has people coming back for more? You could call it a simple retro fad but I think there’s more to it; I don’t think you can explain “why iPods” without answering some bigger questions, like: how does our technology shape culture? How was that different in the past? And where should we try to go in the future?

I never meant to actually buy one but I went a lot further down the rabbit hole than I intended — and I definitely ran into some problems along the way. So come with me on a journey of nostalgia, physical media, algorithmic anxiety and, of course, music.

Join me as we try to answer why are people buying iPods again?

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January 26, 2025 | category: video | permalink

I used to warn people about Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1. I’d call it a slog, a rough start, something you have to suffer through to reach the true brilliance of the show — and, to be fair, that’s often the case with classic TV. A long-running show will, if it’s lucky, be remembered for its highs and not for its lows, but things do often start out low as a show figures itself out. Sure, you might have a fantastic script, but you won’t really know what a show is until the rubber meets the road. The iconic comedy duo of Community was supposed to be Troy and Pierce, after all, and it was only halfway through season 1 that they figured out the incredible chemistry of Troy and Abed, and started writing that into the show instead.

Screenplays are less like novels and more like blueprints, and at the start you haven’t built anything yet, so the first season of a show is often written “blind” in a way that later seasons simply are not. So, just as you might see big changes comparing a pilot to episode two, a first season can act as a pilot for the rest of the series; a starting point to be improved upon.

And there are, of course, many ways that Buffy Season 1 might have been improved upon, including special effects and fight choreography, factors that couldn’t yet match the high ambition of the script. Even the most die hard Buffy fan will admit that, compared to later seasons, Buffy Season 1 is different and I’ve even seen people recommend which episodes to skip to get to the good seasons, something that might well have seemed reasonable to my past self. However, I wrote this essay because on my most recent re-watch I had an epiphany, and it is this: My past was an idiot, Season 1 is just as good as later seasons, and I got the proof, baby!

WELCOME TO MY TED TALK

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October 1, 2024 | category: video | permalink

Polymatter is a popular YouTube creator who has spent the past decade crafting educational and analytical videos. Their chosen topics of business, technology and geopolitics, combined with slick motion graphics, have proved successful, racking up hundreds of millions of views and about 2 million subscribers to date. I’ve watched their videos for years and always found them engaging, admiring Polymatter’s ability to break down complex subjects into accessible narratives, and I’d say the channel is a respected staple of the educational YouTube community.

However, Polymatter’s recent video concerning Apple has not received the usual response, with a dislike rate nearing 50%. It's about the antitrust lawsuit filed by the US government against Apple Inc., and many viewers seem to think that Polymatter makes bad faith arguments in this video, leaves out important context, and overall comes across as having a strong bias in Apple’s favour. Some even accuse Polymatter of taking money from Apple on the sly, which I think is insane – but I do think there’s much more to the story of this lawsuit than what Polymatter chooses to tell, which is why I’ve made this video.

Today we’re going to look at the complaint put forward by the US government against Apple, and see how Polymatter’s video holds up under closer examination. And in the interest of not being a total hypocrite, let me be clear about one thing: I largely agree with the points put forward by the US government. In other words, if Polymatter’s video is biased, then my video certainly is. My intent is not to present both sides of the argument with equal credence and weight, but rather to turn the legal jargon of the complaint into something more digestible, and to create a counter-balance to the allegedly biased presentation in the Polymatter video. I will also make my own assessment about whether the Polymatter video actually is biased or not so keep reading for that tasty drama.

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September 16, 2024 | category: video | permalink

A Knight's Tale is a cheerfully anachronistic medieval sports movie – it’s Rocky, with lances! It's an adventure, a romp, and a treasured part of my childhood. Forget about the grey and desaturated aestehtic that’s plagued historical films for the last two decades; back in 2001, A Knight's Tale dared to use a full palette of expression with vibrant music, colours and costumes, all intended to help a modern audience connect with an older story. It's upfront about being historically inaccurate, but the appeal of boldly anachronistic films is that, unlike your average Mel Gibson flick, they’re not trying to sneak stuff past you. You’ll finish Braveheart thinking that, yes, they wore blue face paint back then (which is incorrect) but no one’s walking away from A Knight's Tale thinking they actually danced to Bowie in medieval times. Films like A Knight's Tale tell you upfront what they are, they use all the tools they have to tell a compelling story, and they get you interested in learning about the actual history of the time.

And that is exactly what we’re doing today, using A Knight's Tale as a jumping off point to discuss: What was life actually like for a knight? Where does myth and reality diverge? What was the war raging in the background of this film - and who were the real people that lent their names to the characters? All this and more as we explore... The Real History of A Knight's Tale.

This is my longest video to date, and the longest blog post on this website (around 15,000 words), so if you want a more light-weight intro to the topic of medieval knights, check out my podcast Reel History, where we use historical movies and TV shows to learn about true historical events. Our episode on A Knight's Tale from 2021 was what inspired me to dig deeper into this topic!

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July 28, 2020 | category: video | permalink

Everyone knows that Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton is an incredibly successful musical but what's often less considered is that Hamilton might be the most popular piece of historical fiction ever created. What is the competition? Titanic, Saving Private Ryan and Braveheart spring to mind but they are decades old so I think Hamilton can at least be said to be the most influential historical fiction of the 21st century, and it reached that level before an official filmed version of the show even became available. Take a moment to think about the fact that there is fanfiction about the founding fathers just because of this show. If that's not legacy I don't know what is.

A lot of people, including myself, learn their history through fiction, and maybe you also get that itch after finishing a historical film or show – I just need to learn what actually happened! To that purpose, I started a podcast with two history buffs, and we've covered things like The Irishman, 300, Gladiator and, yes, Hamilton. I'm not a historian but through our conversation and further reading I've acquired a fair understanding of the goings on around the time of the American revolution and how it relates to Lin-Manuel Miranda's masterpiece. So that's what we're talking about today: Life at a time of revolution.

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December 22, 2019 | category: video | permalink

The Exquisite Corpse is a film noir parody animation about a hard-boiled detective looking for colour in a black and white world. It's a collaboration between myself and the Canadian animator Misanthropy Broth. Perhaps you are familiar with a game called exquisite corpse where you fold a some paper and draw part of a character, but you're only allowed to see a tiny piece of what the previous person did? Misanthropy Broth and I set out to do exactly that – but animated. Because we're idiots.

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April 23, 2018 | category: video | permalink

Since tales were first told, stories of duels and battle have been some of the most enduring. It's where complex conflicts boil down to a simple who wins/who loses, and the tension of that question sits at the foundation of whole genres. And yet, skipping or skimming fight scenes is more common than you might think. Especially in written fiction, which is the main focus of this essay, fight scenes run the risk of losing the reader. So how do you avoid that? That's the question I hope to answer today – how can you write a fight scene that no one would ever skip? Researching why people skip fight scenes, I found some recurring complaints. From those, I made a list of 8 things that often go wrong, and we'll go through those problems, one by one, to see how they can instead be turned to your advantage.

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September 22, 2017 | category: video | permalink

When season seven of Game of Thrones came out a lot of people started noticing that it felt different; not necessarily bad, depending on who you ask, but different, not quite the same as it had been. And since I, like a lot of people, have spent hundreds of hours reading watching and discussing this story I tried to put my finger on what that difference was and how, if I may be so bold, it could potentially have been better.

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