Category: YouTube

Reading Recs, 9-20-16: Lies, fraud, bias, and more lies.

On By Ricky of KokiriIn Highlights, News, Politics, YouTubeLeave a comment

Every day I read a lot of stuff on the Internet. A lot of stuff. Below I share what I consider to be the most interesting.

Trump, Clinton, and the Media: The researchers at DataFace took 19,637 news articles written about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns between July 1, 2015 and July 31, 2016, and fed those into a computer to examine the adjectives and determine the tone of coverage. The results are quite interesting: for instance, they find that “conservative” and “liberal” media tend to agree on Donald Trump!! (HT to The Washington Post)

Trump used $258,000 from his charity to settle legal problems: David Fahrenthold at The Washington Post has spent months digging into Trump Foundation records, and he keeps coming up with evidence of misuse, abuse, and even illegal dealings. Here’s the latest.

Wells Fargo Faces the Senate Banking Committee: As a Wells Fargo customer myself, I’ve been horrified to learn of the fake accounts and fraudulent activities committed by the bank and its employees. I haven’t been personally affected, as far as I know- I pay close attention to my account (and my credit score) online, but I can’t imagine what other people must be going through, finding out there was a credit card in their name they never authorized amongst other things! The Los Angeles Times has a run-down on the scandal.

Columbia University settles a fraud case for $9.5 million: One of the few times Retraction Watch covers something not related to bad science, per se, but still corruption by money. The university was conducting research off-campus, but claimed it was on-campus so they could get a higher rate of federal funding. A whistleblower brought it to the authorities’ attention.

Stephen Colbert Tears Into Trump Over Final Birther Comment: I’ve been watching The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (well, their YouTube channel, anyway) for a couple months. Here, in my opinion, Colbert is honestly angry, though he hides it behind comedy gags… and is forced to hide it behind CBS censors. But it’s great fun anyway to watch Colbert take Trump down.

And yes, three of the links today are Trump related. Bleh. I can’t wait for this election to be over.

My random thoughts on the Nintendo World Championships 2015 event

On By Ricky of KokiriIn Reviews, Video Games, YouTubeLeave a comment

nintendo-world-championships-2015So a while back I heard all sorts of talk about Nintendo bringing back its Nintendo World Championships event; apparently this was a thing twenty years ago that I did not pay attention to then and, due to college, did not pay attention to for the past month. I was randomly on YouTube yesterday and saw their “live from E3” link and randomly clicked it, and it just so happened to be about five minutes after the Championships final had started, and I figured, hey, I’m not doing much right now. I’ll put that up in one window while doing other stuff in another window and see how this goes. The following are the thoughts I jotted down as it was going on, edited up a bit to be, you know, legible and not-so-unprofessional.

Continue reading “My random thoughts on the Nintendo World Championships 2015 event” →

Things of Interest: 01/06/15

On By Ricky of KokiriIn Education, Highlights, Video Games, YouTubeLeave a comment

I read and watch a lot of stuff on the Internet that I find interesting; plus, as a university student, I receive a lot of recommendations from students and teachers alike. In these posts, I share a few of the highlights I’ve come across.

  1. My Shakespeare teacher recommended this article from the Economist, discussing the archeological finds at the village of Towton, the site of a massive battle during the War of the Roses that established Edward IV’s 22-year-reign as king of England.

  2. This article compares churches to cruise ships. I think it’s a valid argument, though it depends on the church you’re talking about.

  3. I’m a fan of Minecraft, though I think it’s best with friends and it’s hard to schedule around work and school, and I really enjoy this song parody (particularly since I have nothing in common with the original song).

Things of Interest: 01/04/15

On By Ricky of KokiriIn Education, Highlights, Politics, YouTubeLeave a comment

I read and watch a lot of stuff on the Internet that I find interesting. In these posts, I share a few of the highlights I’ve come across.

  1. Mike Masnick at Techdirt looks at the events of the past year, many thought to be impossible, and is optimistic about 2015.

  2. This one is from my archive of bookmarks, but back in May, Robinson Meyer at The Atlantic wrote that taking notes by hand was better for remembering lectures, while trying to type the lecture verbatim could actually be a hindrance to study.

  3. Mentalfloss has an article about twenty-five English words that have contradictory definitions.

  4. This video is old, but Casey Neistant was ticketed by the NYPD for not riding his bike in the bike lane, so he made a video showing why staying in the bike lane is quite impossible at times.

Things of Interest: 01/02/15

On By Ricky of KokiriIn Audiobooks, Doctor Who, Highlights, Politics, Sales, YouTubeLeave a comment

I read and watch a lot of stuff on the Internet that I find interesting. In these posts, I share a few of the highlights I’ve come across.

  1. The Virtual Politician posted about a political-alignment quiz you can take to see where you fall. I think I fall in the Social Democracy area, if I’m reading the coordinates right.

  2. David Guaghran has a post about muckracking reporter Jessica Mitford and her work in exposing the financial scam of The Famous Writers School back in the early 1970s.

  3. I wrote on Christmas about the Humble Doctor Who Audiobook Bundle. This week they’ve added three more titles to the bundle, all of which are based on Doctor Who stage-plays performed for brief periods during the classic era. I didn’t know those were even a thing until now. Colin Baker is featured as the 6th Doctor. You still have four more days left to get this set!

  4. I know Christmas is over, and this video is a year old, but if you want one of your iconic childhood Christmas movies to be ruined for you, check out Screen Junkies’ analysis of Home Alone, answering the question: How many lives would it take for the Wet Bandits to make it through the first two movies? The brick scene makes me cringe.