The sinking of HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth is kinda' hilariously bad compositing by today's standards, but, eh, they put in the effort.

Then it surprises me compositing in frantic radio messages on screen, a technique only recently rediscovered and applied to phone texts.

#EsotericRandomness

I'm not sure why I'm watching a British 1927 silent military documentary piece of a 1914 naval battle, but here I am.

The restoration effort is pretty remarkable, regardless.

#History #TheBattlesOfCoronelAndFalklandIslands #EsotericRandomness

I guess that explains a part of it. Despite all the myth and legend and romanticism surrounding Everest, the only thing that matters is reality of riding the human body to its absolute limits.

Pure. Cold. Harsh. Reality.

Versus.

Pure. Unbridled. Human. Perseverance.

#EsotericRandomness

1996 Mount Everest disaster - Wikipedia

It didn't occur to me until halfway through that this is near the 29th anniversary of the infamous 1996 disaster, which happened on May 10th and 11th.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Mo...

The mountain cares not for your pride or ego. It cares not about your life story or ideals.

#EsotericRandomness

Everest (1998 film) - Wikipedia

On a complete whim, I decide to watch an #Everest documentary for dinner. Namely the IMAX one from 1998 narrated by Liam Neeson and following Ed Viesturs.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everest...

I have a morbid fascination with Everest documentaries.

#EsotericRandomness

A wonderful reminder to y'all to make sure you back up your data.

#EsotericRandomness #IT

You don't need to go into super detail, just enough to get your point across.

I realize in a world of texting and smartphones that's a bit of an ask to have someone imagine having a regular ass phone call, but like here we are.

🧵/FIN

#EsotericRandomness

Randomly, for those of us who are way too verbose and the idea of adding alt text to images is daunting, one of the pieces of advice I saw on one of the alt text writing guide sites was to imagine describing a picture to someone on the other end of a phone call.

🧵/2

#EsotericRandomness

It found a way into the hearts of people at Christmas. And I hope, maybe, if you gave it a listen, it did the same for you.

14 years of Snow halation. Here's to another 14.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSMg...

🧵/FIN

#lovelive #ラブライブ #snowhalation #スノハレ #EsotericRandomness

Do I think Snow halation has had as big of an impact as Wham! did for Japan?

No, I do not.

But it did have an impact, in a genre that seems immensely hard to penetrate.

In this one country, this one song did the near impossible.

#lovelive #ラブライブ #snowhalation #スノハレ #EsotericRandomness

Hololive (Dec 2022)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPzV...

#lovelive #ラブライブ #snowhalation #スノハレ #EsotericRandomness

MYTH & ROID (Aug 2021)
youtu.be/QFBQl5dqjp8?...

#lovelive #ラブライブ #snowhalation #スノハレ #EsotericRandomness

Masaaki Endoh (Oct 2015)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Vk...

#lovelive #ラブライブ #snowhalation #スノハレ #EsotericRandomness

Daisensei Muroya Strings (July 2014)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjzF...

#lovelive #ラブライブ #snowhalation #スノハレ #EsotericRandomness

But the true mark of a good song?

Covers.

When all sorts of people, big, small, indie, corpo—when they begin to cover your song, then you know you have something special.

And people definitely liked covering Snow halation, especially around Christmastime.

#lovelive #ラブライブ #EsotericRandomness

And not just anime songs...

It even made it into the mainstream, as a modern, uniquely Japanese Christmas song.

Could be heard in malls. Supermarkets. Convenience stores.

This niche of a niche of a niche of a song somehow cracked into the mainstream.

#lovelive #ラブライブ #EsotericRandomness

Over time, though, it only grew in popularity.

And it grew, and grew.

Not just for μ's, it became popular among all the groups under Love Live.

And not just Love Live, but all idol groups.

And not just idols, but all anime songs.

#lovelive #ラブライブ #EsotericRandomness

Album art for Snow Halation by μ's.

So yeah, very humbling beginnings. But they soldiered on.

The following December, they released their second single,「Snow halation」.

And it did surprisingly well! Topped the Oricon charts at #74.

#lovelive #ラブライブ #EsotericRandomness

Album cover for μ's first single "Bokura no LIVE Kimi to no LIFE" It shows all nine members in rectangles, with the leader Kousaka Honoka in the center.

In an Age of Idols, this new corpo-backed group burst onto the scene with their debut single 「僕らのLIVE 君とのLIFE」(Bokura no LIVE Kimi to no LIFE) (Sep 2010).

And by that I mean it was a gigantic failure, selling a mere 434 copies.

The lead member's dad bought 10.

#lovelive #ラブライブ #EsotericRandomness

Old image of Love Live! School Idol Project featuring the characters on the left with their seiyuu singers on the right.

There's one little oddity in Japan, however, related to the two tags I conspicuously added in the first post.

μ's (pronounced "muse") is/was an idol group involving Kadokawa/ASCII, Bandai Music/Lantis, and Sunrise.

The franchise was called Love Live!.

#lovelive #ラブライブ #EsotericRandomness

It's kinda hard to break into the Christmas music genre and make a lasting cultural impact.

Existing singers and celebs put out covers of the Christmas classics.

Michael Bublé made an entire career out of this. No shame in that, though; it's honest work and pays the bills.

#EsotericRandomness

In Japan, they REALLY took to Wham!'s "Last Christmas" and it's kinda' played ad nauseum over there as well.

If anything, it sorta' suits the Christmas culture there much more. The cliché is people scrambling to find Christmas dates, to not end up alone.

#EsotericRandomness

youtu.be/q26lekNcxJs

Cover album art for Last Christmas by Wham! It shows two men, one dressed in a reindeer costume with a red ball nose, and one dressed like Santa Claus carrying a bunch of Christmas presents.

Album art for the Merry Christmas album by Mariah Carey (which includes "All I Want For Christmas Is You" as a track). It is a white background with large red stylized M and C letters for the M in Mariah and the C in Christmas. Mariah Carey herself is shown in side profile to the side, looking into the camera and wearing a tight, somewhat sexy and flattering Santa-themed costume with red cloth, white fur, and a large glossy black belt with buckle.

Aside from that, you basically just get "Last Christmas" by Wham! (1984) and "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey (1994).

Insert joke about thawing Mariah Carey out of ice each year for Christmas.

And yeah, I'm kinda' over the song too. Just endlessly replayed.

#EsotericRandomness

So like, the history of Christmas music has always been a bit weird.

Most of the "classics" are basically songs that Baby Boomers grew up with and want to keep as traditional.

As a Xennial that identifies more with Gen X, I prefer these classics as well.

🧵/22

#lovelive #ラブライブ #EsotericRandomness

I'll keep an eye on #mixi2 and also use it to practice more JP reading and posting.

Overall I think this is net positive for everyone, and another L for both Twitter and Threads.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

#EsotericRandomness

FIN/18

And maybe, just maybe, we can teach people that fictional dystopian settings of the past aren't just media from "the good old days."

They were a warning still applicable today, even if the set dressing changes a bit.

FIN/10

#EsotericRandomness

By taking the old tired tropes and stereotypes people overly rely on and subtly developing them further along, we can ease people into more relevant and more applicable contexts.

Take that baseline and cruise it forward instead of writing up new things wholesale.

#EsotericRandomness

Japan's been on the decline since the 90s and seems stuck in stagnant mediocrity, barely able to bring innovations to scale like it could with manufacturing previously.

Many people still don't realize that, mainly due to feats of ignorance.

But media can slowly changing that.

#EsotericRandomness

Swiveling back around, I'm seeing a lot of nostalgia for 80s game settings and aesthetics, but reworking them into modern day sensibilities.

They also seem poised to be able to quickly pivot things should real-world circumstances offer some interesting narrative parallels.

#EsotericRandomness

I think this also applies to the Draconis Combine in #BattleTech, given the ilClan Era's landscape. The Davions getting sufficiently bruised in the recent war can sorta' be seen as the pinnacle of the DC slowly going from designated bad guy to storied antagonist one should fear.

#EsotericRandomness