In this episode, we talk about YouTube, one of the most popular websites of all time. Both of us talk about our personal experiences with the website and go through the pros and cons of the service. The discussion moves onto things like the difficulty in censorship, why YouTube might have a more mass appeal than other social media sites like Twitter and FB and the trouble with copyright violations and enforcing them. There are also segments on the community building aspect, conspiracy theory videos and a lot more. 

It was a fun episode, and we had a lot of fun making it. It was entertaining, insightful, and YouTube is certainly something that has snuck into most of our daily lives at this point, so we thought it was worth making an episode on. We hope you enjoy it, and we would love to hear your thoughts on YouTube and what you thought of the episode. 

Cheers

Toby and Steve

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Special Thanks to Jonathan McDougall for creating our outro song. 

YouTube – TaiwanJon\

In this episode, we talk about the Alien Franchise, but we focus mostly on the seminal first film. We talk about the atmosphere, use of dialogue, and what makes the alien and aesthetics interesting. We also go into the lore, the use of Ripley’s character, and a lot more. We are particularly fascinated with the use of mystery and leaving questions open-ended in the first film, and how the complexities in the series lend themselves more to novels than typical movies. 

Alien is one of our favorite movie franchises, and we discuss how a 1979 sci-fi horror movie manages to stay relevant and amazing, with only minimal aspects of the film being dated. We go into Aliens, Prometheus, Alien Covenant, and how everything gets tied back to the first film. 

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Special Thanks to Jonathan McDougall for creating our outro song. 

YouTube – TaiwanJon

In this episode, we talk about two cherished fantasy franchises: Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings. We strive away from saying which is the better series, but stick to differences in style, prose, and themes. Also, we talk about the significant differences between the authors and how their different writing styles contributed to the differences in the books. Also, we talk about the influence of the movie/television productions on the perception of these classic fantasy series. 

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Special Thanks to Jonathan McDougall for creating our outro song. 

YouTube – TaiwanJon

In this episode, we talk about UBI (Universal Basic Income), analyzing mostly Andrew Yang’s book, The War on Normal People, and his perspective on trying it out in his potential presidency. 

We talk about what UBI is, why the 1,000 USD a month proposal makes sense, how UBI can be paid for, and what the future may look like with automation and how UBI could come to the rescue and restore some order to society. 

Amongst UBI is talk on homeless people, what money does to us, and a few interesting tangents surrounding the main topic. It was a challenging episode to record. and we greatly apologize for Steve’s audio, but we hope you enjoy the episode and decide to learn more about UBI, a topic we both deem important to educate ourselves on. 

Cheers

Toby and Steve

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Special Thanks to Jonathan McDougall for creating our outro song. 

YouTube – TaiwanJon

Toby and I talk about living abroad. Both of us have lived abroad for many years and in multiple countries. We discuss the pros and cons, the ESL work, the early days, the importance of the native language, and stuff like social life and dating. 

The episode does have a focus on Korea, Taiwan, and Germany since these are the countries we have resided, though much of the content could fit in the context of living abroad in general. 

We had a lot of fun with this episode, and it felt like we could have talked for another hour or two, but we are happy with the episode and hope you enjoy it to. 

Cheers

Steve

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Special Thanks to Jonathan McDougall for creating our outro song. 

YouTube – TaiwanJon

In this episode, Toby and Steve cover the much revered first book in the LOTR series, The Fellowship of the Ring. We discuss the pacing of the book, the social implications, Tolkiens meaning and purpose in writing the book, and pick out themes and moments that personally interested us. 

There are spoilers, and there are references to some other texts such as The Silmarillion and The Hobbit. 

Examples of what we talk about are the backstory of Gandolf, how the release of the movies changed the crowd from social warriors to nerds, and the role of good and evil etc. It was a complex topic to cover, but it is an episode we are very proud of, and we hope you enjoy it. 

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Special Thanks to Jonathan McDougall for creating our outro song. 

YouTube – TaiwanJon

In this episode, Steve talks about the legendary Konami JRPG series, Suikoden. It was a fairly popular series, having five main entries, on the PlayStation and PlayStation 2. It featured 108 characters to find, three types of battle, and deep storylines that were emotional and consequential. 

Steve talks about each game and the changes between them. He also breaks down the themes, motifs, and commonality between the games. It concludes with what has happened to Suikoden since the fifth entry and why there hasn’t been a new game in so long. 

For people who haven’t played Suikoden, this episode will definitely feature spoilers and may be a bit hard to understand at certain points. Nevertheless, if you choose to listen, I hope you enjoy it and find inspiration to check out or play one of these wonderful games. 

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Special Thanks to Jonathan McDougall for creating our outro song. 

YouTube – TaiwanJon

In this episode we talk about one of the most popular games in the Final Fantasy catalogue. We get into details about the game’s relation to other FF titular titles, what sets this one apart, and the minor gripes with have with the game. 

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Special Thanks to Jonathan McDougall for creating our outro song. 

YouTube – TaiwanJon

In this episode we revisit ideas we first talked about in Episode 2 of the Pixel Meditations. We wanted to get into why gaming has so much appeal to ourselves and to society in general. We talk about the different aspects of gaming’s appeal such as the idea of experiencing a simulated world, how gaming gives you a sense of agency or power within those worlds and how gaming can be a respite or break from a world that is largely uninteresting or boring. We also come back to our favorite aspects of gaming in general such as the controller, graphics, and music and how these components contribute to making a game memorable and worth talking about alongside other great works of art. 

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 Intro song – Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcades Revenge Music by Tim Follin 

Special Thanks to Jonathan McDougall for creating our outro song. 

YouTube – TaiwanJon

In our 22nd episode we talk about the classic SNES game, Yoshi’s Island. We both adore the game, and though well covered, we believed there was plenty to talk about. We go into the artistic style, the egg throwing mechanic, and other gameplay elements. We also compare it to other games like Donkey Kong Country and Mario World and enter a unique discourse on cutting edge graphics vs. artistic graphics and how they fare over time. 

We hope you enjoy the episode. Cheers! 

Steve & Toby

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Special Thanks to Jonathan McDougall for creating our outro song. 

YouTube – TaiwanJon