Online Advertising and Adtech
Tonight on GeekNights, Rym is back from his ski trip, so we resume our regularly scheduled shows with a review of online advertising and adtech. In the news, the Department of Justice is seeking to break up Google in some trust busting over online advertising and tech layoffs foretell difficult times ahead.
BRZRKR
Tonight on GeekNights, we review BRZRKR from Keanu Reeves, Matt Kindt, Ron Garney, and Bill Crabtree. It might hit you like a truck. Also Reaves is really into Wolverine. In the news, the United States House of Representatives is frozen as the Republicans repeatedly fail to elect a Speaker (something so unthinkable it literally hasn't happened in a century), Eurobeat is confirmed for MF Ghost, and Cartoon Saloon is moving forward with Julián!
Microsoft Windows
Tonight on GeekNights, we talk about everybody's favorite operating system: Microsoft Windows. In the news, Youtube contracts NFL Sunday Ticket, America is subsidizing a road at $1 Billion per mile, and it's 2023.
Animated Christmas Specials
Tonight on GeekNights, we consider animated Christmas specials and special Christmas episodes of animated shows. From Frosty the Snowman to The He-Man & She-Ra special to Claymation Christmas to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, nevermind the classic-for-all-time Charlie Brown Christmas. In the news, the legendary Ichiro Mizuki has passed away, and the new season of the Dragon Prince is... uneven at best. (I hope you like farting elves).
The Hiatus will end in a week
We've had the longest off-and-on hiatus recently in a while for GeekNights. You can blame Rym for that. Work travel, a ski trip, having his birthday instead of doing a show. The list goes on.
But fear not! GeekNights will return the week of Jan 30th to its former glory! In the meantime, Rym suggests you play Disco Elysium. It's if Quest for Glory, Planescape Torment, and The Communist Manifesto had a game baby.
Losing
PAX West 2022
Winning is good, and losing is bad. We strive to win, and this is the basis for most of the games we play. Challenges are binary: we either overcome them, advancing the story, or fail, and must try again. But, what if we were to toss this conventional wisdom aside? Do we really only have fun when we win? Have you ever had that moment in a game where epic and total failure was the most memorable part? What kinds of games would arise if we strove to make losing, instead of winning, the point?
Book Club - Alif the Unseen
When making this selection I checked my wish list and noticed two separate books were coincidentally by the same author. And at that time I had never heard of G. Willow Wilson. She rose to prominence writing Marvel comics, most notably the Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel series that was later adapted for television. Clearly this was a sign. I presented both of her novels "The Bird King" and "Alif the Unseen" as options, and Rym selected the latter.
"Alif the Unseen" is a Middle Eastern cyberpunk adventure. That description alone is enough to convince me to read it. Did I also mention it won a ton of awards? The description of the novel on the publisher's web site reads:
Alif the Unseen is a masterful debut novel, an enchanting, incredibly timely adventure tale worthy of Neil Gaiman. In an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, a young Arab-Indian hacker protects watched groups from surveillance and tries to stay out of trouble—until he falls in love with the wrong woman and unleashes a forbidden text thought to be written by the jinn.
I would be very surprised if somehow this book doesn't go over well.
