Inspired by episode 5 of the 2nd season of LOKI, ‘Science/Fiction’
internet
Chopper says what? /
I will fight anyone who doesn’t think Chopper says WTF in this scene from episode 2 of Ahsoka. Pretty cheeky for a known war criminal who often cusses on Star Wars Rebels.
Here’s the proof:
Fun fact: Showrunner Dave Filoni voices Chopper, the cantankerous astromech droid.
And no, Erik Voss, he does not say “and that’s bad?”.
My very first Google search query /
Ever wonder what your first ever google search term was? Just how many google searches have you performed in your lifetime anyway?
I was pondering whether to purge my google search history periodically via the My Activity service, then I proceeded to go down the rabbit hole of trying to find the answers to these questions.
Now we all know Google was formed out of a garage and officially incorporated as a company in 1998, but most of us would not have come across the magical tool until the year 2000. Back then, services like Lycos, Yahoo and AltaVista ruled the roost in internet search land.
It turns out though, that my first ever recorded search term didn’t occur til 13 May 2006 and it was - “gnarls barkley crazy”
Other search terms later that week included - “weezer discography” and “ray lamontagne crazy” - which is understandable as I ran a music blog at the time.
This is also likely the period when I started searching as a logged on Google user. Being an archivist myself, deep down inside I think I knew I wanted to write a blog post like this some 14 and a half years later…
As for the second question of how many google searches ever - that took a little more digging, which may or may not involve another blog post on how I did it. Let’s just say there was a json to csv conversion and a ‘days calculator’ involved.
The bottom line is that in the time between 13 May 2006 and 23 December 2020, I had accumulated a whopping 42,115 queries on google.com, at an average of 7.89 a day over 5339 days.
I do now have a history over 42k search terms in a spreadsheet. What could I possibly do with that dataset? Watch this space.
The Mandalorian Theme Redux /
The Mandalorian Theme Redux
Thanks to YouTube’s all-knowing what-to-watch-next algorithm, all I’ve achieved today is compile a playlist of my favourite covers of The Mandalorian’s theme song. It is undoubtedly one of the show’s more iconic elements that adds to its endless charm. I imagine Jon Favreau’s meeting with composer Ludwig Göransson went down like this - “make it sound space-western-y and make it insanely catchy”.
Göransson, of course, has been on an absolute tear of late, producing Childish Gambino’s ‘This is America’ and writing the score for ‘Black Panther’, of which he won an Oscar. In fact, he is currently in post production mode as the composer for Nolan’s next epic ‘TENET’, which looks incredible.
In the meantime, here are some variations on those spirited horns and oboes, with a spattering of xylophones that’ll forever live in our hearts.
First up, this 80s retro synthwave version by YSSY is the one that set me off on my path. And yes, it is perfect. This is the wave.
This epic version crosses over with a pinch of John Williams - can you pick it?
Some more examples of talented YouTubers doing YouTube things…