Virtual Immortality

Virtual Insanity

Reanimating characters from TV shows

[youtube=youtube.com/watch

[via prosthetic knowledge — Virtual Immortality: Reanimating characters from…]

Incoming Transmission #5: A Podcast for Freelancers & Independent Workers out there

For all freelancers out there, I wanted to highly recommend this podcast from the talented folks at Relay.fm/1

A quick pitch:

David Sparks and Jason Snell spent their careers working for the establishment. Then one day, they’d had enough. Now they are independent workers, learning what it takes to succeed in the 21st century. They are… free agents.

They are two friends who are independent workers/freelancers with their own business, and the conversation they have are sure to resonate with all of us here :wink: At least, I know they resonate with me, on a personal level!

Although I’ve been freelancing for over a year, which sounds like such a long time ago, I’ve been freelancing for over a year you guys! So, while I’m generally past the topics they’ve talked about on the podcast, so far, I totally identify and remember going through each and every one of the situations they discuss.

You can start with Episode #1 here. And check them out, to subscribe via your favorite podcast app.

  1. To be included in the upcoming post about podcasts... ↩

Incoming Transmission #4

aka Charlie’s Angels

Hello everyone! Welcome back for Issue #4 of my daily series of posts. I’m pretty stoked that I’ve been able to write these small posts once a day.

Today is going to be interesting. In the past 36 hours, I’ve ended up booking multiple activities for the day.

First of all, I’ll be meeting up with one of my best friends, Elodie.

Elodie has just graduated from her Master’s degree and is looking for either a job in PR/Communications/Marketing, —preferably with a Premium Sportswear or Luxury company— or launching her own (side-)project and company.

She’s actually coming over so we can work on our separate projects, but also to catch-up and see what we can do together! “Co-working, it’s a thing!”

Then, I’m meeting up with Sarah for lunch. She’s a friend from high-school whom I’ve continued to keep in touch with over as the years have gone by. I actually haven’t seen her in a while, and I actually look forward to catching up with her.

Also: we’re going to a lovely Italian place in town, so I’m also very excited for the food!

Then, my good friend Marisa will be in town for a couple of days, and that’s probably going to be a highlight of the day, possibly of the week!

Marisa is a friend I’ve met during my 2011 internship in San Francisco. Since I left San Francisco, we actually managed to meet up back when I was in Paris, and we’ve kept in touch ever since.

She’s graduated this past summer and is currently going on a roadtrip throughout Europe. And after hitting Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, and Carcassonne, she’s on her way for a few days on the French Riviera, before heading over to Italy. I’m really looking forward to it.

And finally, to end the day on an even better note: we’re meeting up with Kevin for drinks in Antibes. Kevin is another of my best friends — we’ve known each other since we were 8 years old, going to the same middle school, secondary school, and high school together!

I’m already really happy, excited and grateful!

“Europeans work about an hour less a day than Americans”

Americans continue to clock in far more hours than their European counterparts. Europeans worked 19% fewer hours than US citizens, which correlates to about an hour less each weekday, a new working paper shows.

If you look through the post, you’ll notice that France has the second lowest number of hours worked per week, just before Italy, with about 19.3 hours.

I’m not exactly sure where this comes from, and how it measures against the actual 35 hours work week we have here. However, it does correlate with the ongoing idea that the French are very productive, being able to “do the work” in less time than others.

Obviously, this is an average, not reflective of everyone in the French population. And just like any country-wide census, YMMV —Your Mileage May Vary.

Just… keep in mind that I might be biased on that one!

 

[via Quartz]

Incoming Transmission #3

I found an interesting article yesterday: “Is Your Podcast Being Held Hostage By iTunes?”

 iTunes is notoriously finicky, and its team tends to take a Honey Badger approach to the concerns of indie podcast creators.

You can file this under “OH HAI, This actually happened to me.”

See, for about a month and a half, my podcast was essentially in iTunes limbo, which dropped my monthly listenership by about 60%. Sixty Percent!

In that time, I had numerous conversations with the support team who confirmed that they had fixed it, or forced the refresh, but each interaction took, at the very least 3 days between a message or action, and the actual refresh or result being in effect.

In a way I’m incredibly grateful not to be financially reliant on iTunes, because I would have lost half of my income from this revenue source otherwise.

Also thankful to have a good listenership over other sources (such as Mixcloud, Soundcloud, and most of all the dedicated microsite.)

artwork

I think this is important for a number of reasons —

  1. First of all, you can't be reliant on a single platform. Just like anything in business, you can't put all your eggs in one basket and need to diversify. In my case, that means uploading to the services I've mentioned earlier, as well as here on my own blog.
  2. In a similar vein, I truly believe that owning your content & distribution channel is very important. It's great to have access to a bigger audience on a specific website, but you are limited by the platform as well as the terms & conditions. On your own website, you can do whatever you want.
  3. At this point in time, I'm trying to reach as many people as possible, so being easily findable on different sites, including my own, is a great way to see how different people and communities react.

“Hate speech on Twitter reportedly steered Disney away from buying the company”

The trolls who take a toll on their fellow Twitter users with alarming regularity have finally taken a toll on Twitter itself. Bloomberg reports that the Walt Disney Co. ditched a potential acquisition of the social-media platform, in part because it did not want the family-friendly Disney brand to be associated with the hate speech…

On a hopeful note: maybe this will get Twitter to look into it much more. Also worth noting that this would be the perfect time to let Twitter users buy the company!

[via The hate speech on Twitter reportedly steered Disney away from buying the company — Quartz]

U.S. journalist faces charges for covering a protest ↦

“Here’s a story about a prosecutor in North Dakota charging a journalist with ‘participating in a riot’ because he was unhappy with her coverage of that event.”

An infamous quote from George Orwell comes to mind:  “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”

[Source]

Incoming Transmission #2

This post marks an attempt to publish more personal & regular articles. I’ve actually written this part yesterday, but thought I’d split my post in two smaller and more manageable bits.

…Continued from Part 1

Throughout the day, I try to switch off of my client work to catch up on interesting newsletters, and other bit of news.1

You can also find me hanging out on my Twitter or Facebook feeds sporadically. Interestingly I’ve ditched Snapchat and catch up on Instagram and its stories because I also use the app for my client work. Posting on several accounts, I also take a minute to see what my friends have posted recently.

Around 3-4pm, until 5-6pm, I get to see and hang out with the girlfriend, as she comes home for her break from work (she works in a restaurant). Usually, she comes home and naps, and later I walk her to the restaurant and we stop for a coffee and sweet treat on the way. It’s a good way for us to spend some time together throughout our work days, but also for me to head out and take a breather from work.

It also serves two more purposes:

I usually stop working around 7pm, when a French TV show called Quotidien comes on the air. It’s a mixture of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert — two of my favourite daily talk shows in the US. Essentially, they take a critical look at the day’s news, focus on one important topic in the first half, and then take a more relaxed approach to subjects of concern.

With the French Presidential election coming on next year, you can be sure that politicians are heavily featured in the spotlight these days.

To be continued tomorrow when I’ll be talking about a totally different subject…

  1. Here’s something else that I need to write about: newsletters I subscribe to, podcasts I listen to, music platforms I use (and their different purposes.) ↩
  2. Another post I need to write. ↩

Once More With Feelings, GoPro Edition

Having recently purchased a GoPro to help me with my Vlogs, I was waiting to use the exciting new Quik Desktop, the laptop-friendly version of a french-made iOS app to help streamline the entire editing process.

Turns out it was already available, but needed to be found on the support pages of the GoPro website. (It wasn’t on the main page when I looked 10 days ago.)

image%2fpng

Long story short, I’ve finally found, downloaded, and installed it, and I’m excited to give it a try!

 

[≠]

#FML: I could have met Jack Bauer today!

TL;DR: I could have met Jack Bauer today.

So… I live in Cannes, on the beautiful French Riviera.

It’s actually the biggest city in France for B2B business deals.

They have these glorious international conventions all year long.

This week, it’s MIPCOM 2016, dedicated to content & entertainment (including content creators, movie & TV studios, etc.)

One of the talks today was with Kiefer Sutherland, in the Grand Auditorium of the Palais des Festivals (where the Cannes Film Festival happens.)

[youtube=youtu.be/hWWw2K91R…]

Today I Learnt: I could have met Jack Bauer (aka Kiefer Sutherland) in town today.

 

Incoming Transmission #1

This post marks an attempt to publish more personal & regular articles. Let’s see if I manage to write more frequently.

It’s Monday here. Just like any other time during the week, I woke up, and started my day with coffee and catching up on a TV show. Most Mondays, it’s a broadcast of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, from the night before.

[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch

After this start, I usually walk up the stairs in this lovely duplex apartment, to take a shower, which usually gives me time to listen to some music and clear my thoughts for the day.

Then, it’s finally time to get to work. While I catch up on emails and other planning & notifications, I tend to listen to Monocle’s The Globalist 1, to catch up on global news, away from a crazy 24h news cycle.

At the moment, I’m actually quite worried about the humanitarian crisis in Syria, but also about the prospect of the upcoming Second Cold War - which sounds like something out of a Marvel comic book but is actually a real prospect. And these two issues are actually tied together. 2

[mixcloud www.mixcloud.com/the-globa… width=100% height=120 hide_cover=1 light=1]

 

This week, I’ll be taking some of my client work in a different direction, and I’m excited to test new things to get better results on their behalf.

It’s always interesting to start with business goals and then look at what you can achieve at the current point in time, given the things that you can do, and the stuff that needs to be put on the side until you get the right assets and moving parts.

Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of this post.

 

  1.  Someone remind me to write a blog post about Monocle some time in the future! ↩
  2.  If you’re unfamiliar with it, please read up on this via The Guardian, which I consider a reliable source of information. ↩

Print’s not dead – it’s regenerating — One Man & His Blog

It’s rare that I pick up a printed book or newspaper these days. But I’m buying more magazines than I ever have – they’re just better and more expensive.

There’s nothing else I need to add here — My own experience closely ressembles' Adam’s. And to go one layer deeper[^1], Offscreen Magazine, the one used in Adam’s first photo here, is actually the magazine that kickstarted my obsession for indie magazines, back in 2012.[^2]

[via Print’s not dead – it’s regenerating — One Man & His Blog]

[^1] Inception - “We need to go deeper” meme

[^2] Note to self: Write a post about my favourite indie magazines.

TibzLetter - Ready for Halloween 2016?

Every couple of weeks, I share personal updates to my subscribers over email. Here’s the latest issue of my “TibzLetter”.

Hey everyone!

It’s been about 3 weeks since my last newsletter. How’s it going?

Before we begin, here’s some relaxing music for you to listen to, while you’re reading this:

[mixcloud www.mixcloud.com/tibz/tibz… width=100% height=60 hide_cover=1 mini=1 light=1 autoplay=1]

 

It is Friday, October 14th at the time of writing. A lot has been happening, outside of work, and I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.

On today’s TibzLetter:

Work

But let’s talk about work first: until my Parisian trip (November 2nd-10th — see you there?), I’m trying to focus on doing a lot of work and billing my clients accordingly, so that I can take it easy (easier?) by the time we get to the end of the year…

Some days are a bit hectic, I have to say, balancing some time between two clients on tasks & projects that both have certain level of urgency. But some other days, like today, are a bit quieter and allow me to breathe in a little.

Life on the French Riviera

The weather has been really nice here, up until October 2nd. I managed to beat my self-imposed challenge of wearing shorts every day of the month of September.

Since then, it’s been a bit grey-er and a bit cold-er. And as I type these lines, we’ve just had about 36 hours of straight up rain and storm. It’s nice though: I swapped continuous small bits of rain 3 times a week for a much warmer, nicer weather where, in turns, you get 2-3 days of intense rainstorm.

Preparing a trip to Paris

I’ll be in Paris next month. (Or did I mention that already?) Well, I’ve already got a few activities planned out, amongst which one exhibition and two concerts:

Which leads me to…

Halloween

Halloween is in about 2 weeks, and I’ll be travelling to see my family and relatives when it happens, so I decided to start early this year: this means finally watching these classic late 1970’s to early 1990’s horror movies from the Master himself.

On my watchlist so far, I’ve got:

And as a non-Carpenter-related bonus:

If you have any other suggestions, I’d be happy to hear it: leave me a comment below!

That’s is for me this week. I had a lot to talk about, but I’ve saved some for next week!

Take care all of you, and have a great weekend!



 

—Tibz

Although I haven’t made up my mind regarding whom I’ll be voting for in the next French Presidential Election, however, Emmanuel Macron is on top of my list at this point. He’s the only one that I’m not against, by default.

So it’s pretty exciting to see him:

https://www.bloomberg.com/api/embed/iframe?id=9e807a3b-3c72-4fc4-9add-18196db48516

[≠]

Looks like Wired’s November Issue is a MUST READ!

[≠]

[Coming Soon] Back in Paris

Hey everyone,

Just taking a quick moment on this beautiful monday morning to let you know that I'll be in Paris between November 2-10th. And I'd love to meet up with readers of the blog, as well as friends and just about anyone else, hence this announcement.

My plan during the week is to work, go out, have fun, attend a concert or two, and make the most of what the city has to offer. So hit me up, ahead of time and let's get together!

In between other things, I'd like to check out:

For the rest, we'll see once we get there, won't we?

🌶🔥🍶

Just gonna leave this here for Friday…

“How Sriracha is Made” — aka how the rooster sauce goes from chili plant to finished product

[youtube www.youtube.com/watch

…and another one, because I’m posting this on my lunch break:

[youtube www.youtube.com/watch

Vlog 13: 2 days and a sweet treat...

 

youtube.com/watch

As the fall settles in, here’s a short vlog, summing up two days, working and going out.

Do you guys prefer shorter vlogs like this one?

Vlog 011-012: The GoPro Edition

With upcoming projects and travels coming soon, I’ve decided to invest in slightly better gear for my nomadic aspiration. TL;DR: I’ve bought the new GoPro Hero 5 Black to help me record memories on the go, without the need to always have my bulky (bulkier) camera with me in my bag.

Here’s a quick comparison and test between the GoPro and the Sony Nex-5N I’ve been using until now…

youtu.be/VgU-tSbxA…

 

And now for the real test:

www.youtube.com/watch

What do you think? Me? I’m pretty stoked about this!

Music Love & Beats | Vol 2: “Letting Go”

I had some feelings. So I took the time to publish a mix about it.

[mixcloud www.mixcloud.com/tibz/love… width=100% height=400 light=1]

Tracklist: