Skills - Blog Posts

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

Blockchain in the Modern Age Education System

Sectors like retail, banking, and healthcare are fast to adopt innovative technologies. However, the education sector is slow in the race when compared to the other areas. The education sector is the best testing ground for emerging technologies. 

Blockchain technology can be the deciding factor on how the future generations are built in terms of skills and awareness.

Full Read: Blockchain in Education

So…does this beat do anything for anybody else??? Or is this just me??

Also THAT ANIMATED BOUNCE YALL 🤯🫠☠️💙

The animation in this movie will be the death of me because it’s so FLIPPIN SMOOTH AND PRETTY *respectfully flips a table*

Also not my TikTok. Rightfully belongs to the incredibly talented: @blizcocho

Laoshu – Foreign Language Roadrunning

Yesterday, we lost a local legend. Moses “Laoshu” McCormick was a giant among polyglots, having developed his own Foreign Language Roadrunning method to practice and speak dozens of languages. He recently became internet famous for finding foreigners and surprising them with conversations in their native languages. I’m fortunate to have met Moses and Marcell at our local fighting game meetups and Asian Festivals, and I’m glad Moses could pass on his knowledge through his online courses.

Source: Laoshu505000 and Foreign Language Running

THPS 1+2 Donut Land

For the past two months, I’ve put an unhealthy amount of time on my PS4 building my Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 park, Donut Land. It’s a city with the size of a normal THPS2 level, filled to the brim with ramps, combos, tunnels, transfers, and giant gaps. It’s in the community’s hands now, so I’m curious to see what lines and remixes they come up with.

Source: myself, music from Savaged Regime’s Xeno Crisis soundtrack

PAX South 2017 – Puyo Puyo Tetris Tournament Finals

Puyo Puyo Tetris‘s Swap mode is really good! It’s 25 seconds of Tetris, then 25 seconds of Puyo Puyo, back and forth until someone loses one of the games. It’s like chessboxing. At PAX South 2017, I put my Tetris stacking up against Puyo master heavenchai in this intense final match. Watch for the twists!

Edit: Here’s another upload that used the replays I saved during the second and third games. I forgot to save the first game’s replay; sorry!

Source: nuclearlemons and lhadatt, both standing behind me during this match

TMNT Tournament Fighters

Remember when Konami made video games? Their best fighting game was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters on the SNES. Last night, we played a tournament in this at our local fight night, and I did my best to explain it during the first few matchups.

Source: Ragnorok64 via Columbus Fighting Games

Retro Gaming in Columbus

Columbus Underground interviewed Chris Bidwell about what’s cool about retro gaming, his invite-only tournament, the Hexadecathlon, and its expansion into a public tournament series, the Columbus Retro League. Retro games bring out a completely different crowd from the modern fighting game events, and it’s been great to get to know them. They know how to get hype, too! Come on out to Video Hockey Day in Columbus on Sunday!

This room is full of beastly players. In this picture, I'm playing Marble Madness on the NES and having the run of my life, 95610 points. It only got me third place in that game. The only high score contest I actually won was Star Fox Super Weekend. It's Star Fox with a Star Soldier-style five minute score attack mode with huge bonuses for shooting down all the enemies in a stage.

Source: http://www.columbusunderground.com/retro-gamers-celebrate-bygone-era-of-video-game-classics via JD Lowe and Columbus Underground’s RSS feed, photos via Chris Bidwell and my phone camera

UberNES - Nintendo Screen Saver

If you still use screen savers, Columbus-based developer M \ K Productions has a good one for you. Nintendo Saver 2015 fills your monitors with several NES games. Each one is actually a fully-functioning NES emulator playing a replay that was recorded in UberNES, and if you like, you can pick up a gamepad and take over control of one of the games on the spot. The recorded replays include my Super Mario Bros 3 playaround and a couple shorter videos showing glitches in Super Mario Bros 1 and Mega Man 2. If you like it, maybe I’ll record some more.

Source: http://www.ubernes.com/nesscreensaver.html via the UberNES – NES Screen Saver Facebook page

Yumi’s Odd Odyssey/Sayonara Umihara Kawase Stage Time Attacks

Two months ago, I told you I was hooked on this game. Since then, I’ve played for 47 hours, reached every door, collected every backpack, and got every survival mode ending. I’ve also brought the heat to the North American version’s leaderboards with dozens of stage times in the top three. Since this game helpfully lets you save replays, I get to show you how I got there. Enjoy!

0:03 F1 → F2 11″83 0:21 F11 → F12 11″63 0:38 F20 → F21 21″83 1:04 F20 → F37 28″86 1:38 F39 → F40 13″90 1:57 F28 → F29 13″26 2:15 F29 → F18 29″83 2:50 F29 → F30 15″73 3:11 F30 → F31 13″53 3:30 F31 → F32 16″83 3:51 F32 → F33 13″80 4:10 F32 → F42 24″73 4:41 F42 → F43 38″86 5:25 F43 → F49 16″56 5:47 F22 → F23 8″16 6:00 F23 → F24 9″43 6:14 F24 → F39 2″13 6:25 F24 → F35 9″03 6:37 F35 → F36 14″86 6:57 F36 → F37 19″20 7:22 F37 → F38 20″40 7:47 F38 → F41 7″16 7:59 F38 → F47 15″63 8:19 F44 → F45 6″73 8:30 F45 → F46 18″46 8:54 F46 → END 35″46

Source: Yumi’s Odd Odyssey (Sayonara Umihara Kawase) Stage Time Attacks – YouTube recorded with my phone’s camera

16-Bit Bar+Arcade

I visited 16-Bit Bar+Arcade tonight, and I've never seen that many people in an arcade in Columbus. Most games are in excellent shape, and there are some unique cabinets like Baby Pac-Man and Slick Shot. Here are the new high scores on Gorf, Space Invaders, and Rally-X. I'll be coming for the others later. I hope they get a good 90s shmup in there soon.

Source: good ol' cell phone camera and NerdKO

💪

Liu Jingji can walk on his hands up and down stairs, using a set of skills he describes as scorpion kung fu, as well as demonstrate unbelievable balancing ability with a single steel pole

October 23 2021