The Underground – Issue #101
Everything you need to know about in this weekly series: Why do you like the music that you like, A game that let everyone down with hype has finally delivered, a gun that can take control of a drone, and useful websites to battle your procrastination.
At Social Underground we go beyond the mainstream stuff and see what’s underneath the surface. What should we get into, listen to, read, eat or watch? If there is something in our culture that needs attention that’s our job: Show you the underground things that you need to know about: Books, music, television, movies, comedians, art, and whatever else we can find to get you into something you never knew about. That’s The Underground.
1. Where does your taste in music actually come from? Have you ever felt the frustration of listening to a song and thinking it a masterpiece only to have one of your friends tell you it’s crap? It takes your brain to a different place of confusion of anger. You think it’s the best thing ever, and then they tell you it’s a complete disaster. You’re eating ice cream, and they’re pouring it out in front of you claiming it tastes like sh*t. How dare they have a different taste in music than you?!
It appears there’s probably a reason for it. Memories from childhood, different eras and probably a lot more you could guess. Music has a major impact on all of our lives. I make sure not to listen to new music or any of my favorite music at the beginning of a relationship. I tend to attach memories to music I love in a bad way. We can all relate. I think of a horrible Ex whenever I hear a particular song from Enrique Iglesias. I don’t even go out of my way to listen to that song, it just plays when I ignore what’s on the radio.
Learn yourself something by watching the video below to learn why you love to listen what you listen to.
2. No Man’s Sky is starting to redeem itself after a disastrously unfinished release. It’s been a destructive relationship with No Man’s Sky in these parts. First, I gave it a glowing review after playing it for a few days. Then after playing it for a few weeks, the realization that I bought a PS4 for the sole reason to play this game was a mistake. It was an unfinished Alpha game. It shouldn’t have been released. It sucked. The more I played it, the more I realized it was a shell of what was promised. I suspect that since it was announced for PS4, they stripped it down to meet a release date. It showed.
The game lacked in what it promised: epic space battles, planet animals that didn’t look like mutant jokes, planets that weren’t completely dead and boring, one mission that leads to a bording and lame galaxy ending that is probably one of the most disappointing things since graduating college.
Since the game came out, there have been numerous patches to fix various issues with the game, but nothing in terms of content we saw in the previews for that game — the previews that convinced me to buy my first gaming system in 5 years. The NMS community has been in an uproar for months because the developers have been silent. That was until a few days ago when Hello Game, the company behind the game, finally dropped a huge update for the game that include base building, updated features, better graphics, the ability to control freighters, and more. I finally felt like I was playing the game I dropped so much money on.
Check out the trailer for the new Foundation update for No Man’s Sky.
3. This gun can take control of a drone from 1.2 miles away. There are many ways to take down a drone, but have you ever heard of DroneShield’s DroneGun? It’s a 13-pound rifle that can jam the GPS and Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) used to operate a drone from at least 1.2 miles away. It’s almost like something you see in a superhero movies where the hero uses a gadget to jam a signal.
The drone rifle doesn’t necessarily destroy the drone like a missile would, but it forces the drone to land or head back to where it came from. That would seem to be more humiliating. Instead of getting blown up, you are made to say uncle in a very high-tech way. After causing the drone to land or return to sender, it can be used to track who sent the drone. Not sure what will happen when you find someone spying on your BBQ, but I’ll leave that to you when you fire your DroneGun at that weird neighbors drone.
4. Here are some very useful websites to go on when you’re no procrastinating. When you’re not watching cat videos or people reacting to said cat videos, there are a bunch of websites that can be very useful in your everyday life. I have found many websites that helped me shop better, help me repair my car, help me repair stuff around my house, alternatives to Photoshop, and many more. I thought it would be pretty cool to drop a bunch of those websites below for you so you can take a break from watching stuff that makes you laugh, to maybe reading or watching something that could be useful? Sound good? Check them out:
http://socratic.org – Learn chemistry and physics.
http://favoriteandforget.com – A curation of useful links.
http://duolingo.com – App which really makes studying new languages fun.
http://codecademy.com – Learn to code interactively, for free.
http://chesscademy.com – Free videos and interactive exercises helping you to learn playing chess well.
http://justinguitar.com – Over 850 completely free guitar lessons.
http://freerice.com – Learn vocabulary while you feed the hungry.
http://instructables.com – Makes, How To, and DIY.
http://producthunt.com – An aggregator for creators.
http://spruuce.com – Fun and interesting products and websites.
http://sporcle.com – Trivia quizzes.
http://www.snesfun.com/ – Play old Nintendo games.
http://www.getworkdonemusic.com/ – Pretty much the title.
http://thenicestplaceontheinter.net/ – Really nice!
http://tastekid.com – Find movies to match your tastes.
That will hopefully tide you over for a while. I know I spent quite a bit of time on Duolingo. It’s free to learn languages in a way that makes you remember how to use the words in conversation.
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post,UPROXX,BGR and by just looking up his name.
Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com