Not Entirely Boring Issue 8
greetings 👋
It's been a few weeks since I published a newsletter. After returning from my wedding and honeymoon, my personal and professional life has been hectic and I struggled to find the time to write this. I was anxious that I wouldn't meet expectations, so I decided to make Not Entirely Boring a fortnightly newsletter. This will give me more time to create and curate interesting content that I hope you'll find enjoyable. We've had some new subscribers in the past few weeks, so I'd like to extend a warm "Hello" and express my gratitude to all readers. Thank you for being here.
🕹️ the entire history of video games
This week as you are reading this, I will most likely be playing Final Fantasy XVI a game that I am incredibly excited for. Video games have been a huge part of my life ever since I got my a Commodore64 and learned BASIC and made a text based game. It wasn’t great, a bit of a dungeon crawler, before I knew what dungeon crawlers were. Gaming is in my DNA. So I was excited to find an epic 6-hour documentary called “The Entire History of Video Games”. This video, available on YouTube was made entirely by one person. It’s a detailed and entertaining look at the last 5 decades of video games from Pong to the as-yet undecided acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. It covers the more than one crashes that gaming had and the reasons why - the rise and fall of Atari, the rise of the PlayStation, how Microsoft when from dominating the market, to losing it all in the space of a few hours. And the technological advances in art, programming and storytelling. This is a huge epic story and trust me, when I say this - you don’t have to be a gamer to appreciate this incredible modern history and like with all retrospectives, it becomes very clear that history always repeats itself.
You can watch The Entire History of Video Games from NeverKnowsBest here:
📚 currently consuming
To become a better leader and learner, it's always beneficial to learn from the best. I've been listening to the Tim Cook biography, 'The Genius who Took Apple to the Next Level' on Audible. After three hours of the nine-hour book, I'm struck by how Tim was mentored by Steve Jobs for years before taking over following Jobs' death, yet they are so different. It makes me reflect on the type of leader some senior managers aspire to be. It's possible to reach the top without being a bull in a china shop.
Tim's strengths are not unique. He surrounds himself with talented people, encouraging a culture of innovation and collaboration, while also listening. He's also obsessed with analysing systems and data, and revolutionised procurement at Apple.
For anyone interested in business, management, or technology in general, I highly recommend this.
Amazon Print / Kindle / Audible
😰 the 50km challenge
I'm goal-oriented, so I set myself challenges—some more difficult than others. This week, after slowing down on my post-wedding weight loss and feeling insecure about my progress this year, I decided to run 50km in a week. I've been a decent runner in the past, so I thought this was achievable. Spoiler - I've completed the challenge, but I can't put any weight on my injured knee as I write this, which I hurt in the last few kilometres. I wrote about it in my blog—fair warning, it's pretty bad writing, very bad in fact, more of a ramble with some profanity.
Anthony Gifford
🍔 the weight loss influencer who gained weight
Keeping with the theme of weight loss, I came across this video which is actually quite sad. It charts the story of Amberlynn Raid who started a YouTube channel to lose weight, and she gained hundreds of thousands of subscribers. But she kept failing and gaining weight. Her own health was put a massive risk as she then seemed to be deliberately gaining weight for online popularity. It’s a really interesting story, not just of a failed diet but of self sabotage. For me I’m recommending this simply because I find it inspiring as to what not to do.
👨💻 arc browser.
Apparently it’s possible to write over 3,000 words on a web browser that’s currently in development. Which is exactly what I did. Check out my thoughts on Arc from The Browser Company (good name) and why I’ve chosen to bench the groundbreaking application (for now). Arc is available on Mac and iOS and is really promising. If your a tech geek like myself, you’ve already heard of Arc most likely - Here are my thoughts:
Anthony Gifford
🎥 youtube updates
Since I returned back from Canada it was full steam ahead with editing and since I last published this news letter two new videos have since been published from our trip to Las Vegas. (Totalling three)
The first is a vlog we recorded on our first day. Suffering from horrific jet lag - we filmed part of the day, but you can see the energy levels gradually drop. I did question whether or not to upload this, but for Glen and I, it’ll be nice to look back on in years to come.
The second is our review of the Cosmopolitan which is the second hotel we stayed in. We’ve stayed here before and it’s fantastic hotel. There is so much I still love about The Cosmo!
Our final video from Vegas will be a comparison between the AYCE and Bacchanal Buffets (one expensive and the other cheap) this will be going live on Friday July 7th.
📺 watch this
The other night, following a binge of eating way too many pickled chillis straight from the jar, I found myself unable to sleep. Scrolling through YouTube, I found myself engrossed in this investigation from CoffeeZilla. I think the world and his dog are aware of Logan Paul, I personally don’t know much about him, but I did learn that he was part of a very shady scheme that ripped off a lot of people. Whether his intentions were good in the beginning, I do not know. (I’m being cryptic for a reason) - this is the fascinating story of CryproZoo.
☕️ you can now buy me a coffee
Speaking of subscribing to Not Entirely Boring. These newsletters and all my writing will always be free to access via either the website, or Medium. However should you wish to support further, you can always buy me a coffee - thank you for your kindness.
If you think that a friend or two will find this interesting, please forward it to them and I’ll be back in two weeks time.
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Take care,
Ant x
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