A BRIEF HISTORY OF LUKE CAGE AND AMERICA

Luke Cage is amazing. There, I said. If you watched it, you’ve probably said it. Critics have said it. And if you haven’t watched it yet, go ahead and do so. I guarantee you that you’ll say it, as well. (The dialogue might seem kind of hokey at first, but soon it becomes as natural to Luke Cage’s world as the quick-talking dialogue in the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe).

But what about Luke Cage makes him such a winner? The obvious answer is that it’s about time that we’ve gotten a person of color as a lead superhero. Don Cheedle/Terrence Howard might have made a great War Machine. Anthony Mackie might have made a great Falcom. In DC’s upcoming Justice League, Ray Fisher will make for what I’m sure is a solid Cyborg. This is all great. However one thing that all of these movies share in common is that the people of color in them are not leading characters.

via BlackFilm.com

As in virtually all superhero movies, they’re supporters. Wingmen. Assistants. Friends. The spotlight’s not on them. Sure, Cyborg is set to get his own movie in 2020, but come on–that’s 4 years away. Meanwhile, Black Panther is slated to get his own movie in 2018. These are all great steps in the right direction. But when we’re talking about the present, the now, the right-here–Luke Cage is the only superhero of color to have is own widely disseminated TV show. And it’s a well-written TV show, at that...

For the full blog, go to DamianEsteban.net.

IBM Gets Hipper with Swift

IBM is notorious for being the stodgy old man of the tech sphere. They’ve been around a long-time and (barring IBM Watson) in terms of fielding new innovations that tap into the zeitgeist of the times, they’ve often lagged behind. With IBM’s recent introduction of IBM Bluemix Runtime (IBM’s multi-faceted cloud platform as a service) for Swift, they’re proving that they’re showing that they can indeed get down and dirty and hang with us rambunctious youths.

For those unfamiliar, Swift is Apple’s baby. It’s the programming language that they’ve developed for macOS, iOS, OSOS–basically any contemporary Apple OS that you can think of. It’s concise, natural language nature has made it a big hit with the coding community, especially for those who have any ambitions to make anything for an Apple OS (mobile devs, I’m looking at you!). It works for both client-side and server-side development, requires less memory usage, and overall causes less wear and tear on hardware, all of which results in a coding language that make’s everyone’s lives a whole lot easier...

For the full blog, go to DamianEsteban.com. 

How The New 52 Buffed and Nerfed Female Characters in the DC Universe

Producer 1: I have an idea! Let’s forget the long history of character arcs, plots, and places, and completely relaunch our superheroes”

Prodcuer 2: What, are you crazy? The fans will kill us! That’s tantamount to rewriting the Bible in their eyes.

Producer 1: Producer 2, I feel like you’re being a little extreme. They’ll still have all of their old comics to play with. At the very least this can be a little experiment.

Producer 2: A little experiment that will get us killed! Whatever we create, they’ll compare to the originals. 

Producer 1: What originals?

Producer 2: You know, everything that existed in the DC universe before.

Proder 1: Multiverse.

Producer 2: What? 

Producer 1: There were 52 worlds before. 

Producer 2: Sure. 

Producer 1: And the continuity between those worlds was all garbled up. 

Producer 2: Yeah, but they’re comics books. There are thousands, if not millions of them. How could we ever make sense of the continuity of things?

Producer 1: By starting over. 

With that fictional conversation, the New 52 were reborn. Like Producer 2 feared, many people were underwhelmed with the reboot. But it’s not just because it’s a reboot of what everyone knows. It’s because a lot of the reboots were over-sexed (Starfire), over-bloodied (Wonder Woman), and in general over-edged versions of their former selves. Yet, it wasn’t all bad. Batman and Justice League were done particularly well, the new characters were amazing (Prez, Midnighter), and though some female characters lost some of their feminist spirit, others emerged stronger than they were before.

Below’s a look at 3 female characters that the ups and downs of their New 52 reincarnations...

For the full blog, go to DamianEsteban.net

Ladakh: Paradise in Northern India

I’ve traveled all over the world. I’ve been to deserts of North Africa to the jungles of Southeast Asia. In all of my travels no spot has spoken to me as much as Ladakh has.

A Brief Overview

Ladakh is located in the Northeastern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. In contrast to the rest of India, Jammu and Kashmir is known for its Muslim population. In contrast both to Jammu and Kashmir and the rest of India, Ladakh is known for its Buddhist population. Ladakh’s right on the border with Tibet, so a lot of Tibetan influence flows in.

But don’t let that make you think that Ladakh is just a Tibetan satellite. The region has its own unique culture that goes back thousands of years. The first inhabitants of Ladakh were Indo-Aryan, but over the years the region has has changed hands between Tibet, China, and of course India. It’s location in the Himalaya’s has made it a strategic asset to empires of yore. But I think the real reason that empires have waged war over this little region of the world is its climate. It’s just that good...

For the full blog, go to DamianEsteban.org.

3D Touch, iOS and The Future of Mobile Technology

In Apple’s latest iOS 10 beta, users have the ability to further interact with their phones by varying the pressure that they use to interact with them. Although still in its infancy, 3D Touch represents a promising way of interacting with tech.

One of the most fascinating aspects of computers is the user interface. Way back in the day people had to insert cards punched with holes in order to get a computer to do something. Then, with the integration of the keyboard, people had to type in complex strings of commands, and the eventually less complex strings of commands to get computers to digitally execute on their individual wills…

For the full blog, go to DamianEsteban.com

EVEN IF THE SUICIDE MOVIE SUCKS…

…it’s worth checking out the comic book universe on which David Ayer’s lackluster movie is based. It’s the perfect setup: a band of villains forced to reluctantly fight for good.

The Comic Book You Need to Read for Every Suicide Squad Character (@EstebanRules) from Damian Esteban

In the process we learn that some of these bad guys have some good in them, some of these bad guys had  some good in them, and some these bad guys are just bad.

*PHILOSOPHICAL EXTRAPOLATION ALERT*

This is what’s ultimately amazing about Suicide Squad or any other villain-centered story, it forces us to think about those that we would normally write off as the bad guys…

For the full blog, go to DamianEsteban.net

 

 

How Pokemon Go Is Pushing the Limits of Privacy

Pokemon Go

It’s officially taking over. Ever since Pokemon Go launched seven days ago, it has succeeded in invading every aspect of the lives of the digital trainers that play it. People are playing with Pokemon Go on an unprecedented level: during the in-between hours of free-time at home, the morning commute, post-work commute, and even while touring through the Holocaust Museum. As one Twitter commentator put it, “We’re so effed…”

For the full blog, go to DamianEsteban.com