Features Archives

State Change in Combat and Self-Defense

Combat, Features | 13 July 2024

State Change: Alex Pereira vs. Jamahal Hill

The draft for this blog post got started as soon as Alex Pereira knocked out Jamahal Hill in UFC 300. Alex got kicked slightly below the belt, pointed it out, abruptly stopped Herb Dean from halting proceedings, then pulled down Hill’s lead hand to hit a short left hook for the knockout. Jamahal Hill has since expressed disbelief at the result and reiterated that he wasn’t hurt and that moment was a chance occurrence that doesn’t conclusively prove that Pereira is superior to him. What I think happened to Hill at that moment was a state change, an underdiscussed concept in fighting that we shall look at more closely in this blog post. (more…)

I Dare You to Watch This Six-Hour Video on EVE Online

by: Sonny Go

Features, Video Games, YouTube | 16 November 2023

If you have a life and don’t have time to give time to such a long-ass documentary on nerd shit, then it’s completely understandable. You don’t need to whine about it like this dweeb on my blog post on fighting game controls. It’s not like you’re violating the Geneva Convention for not doing as I say. But if you do care about nerd shit like me, then you should watch the result of two whole years of work by Fredrik Knudsen, who is known online for his Down the Rabbit Hole documentary series. It’s six hours long, so you’ll have to either hunker down or watch in multiple sittings. If you’re curious about EVE Online, it’s worth watching because it digs insanely deep. (more…)

Diamonds Shine, Hearts Love, Spades Dig, Clubs Kill

by: Sonny Go

Features, Video Games | 27 October 2023

I’ve been binging on recent videos by Dan Olson from his Folding Ideas channel on YouTube and previously wrote about his video on WallStreetBets. After finishing that blog post, I watched this video on World of Warcraft, which didn’t seem as serious as a 2.5 hour documentary on a cult of gambling addicts playing the US stock market. However, I then saw a Reddit comment that piqued my interest so much that I had to write something about it. While it’s somewhat related to the video, this is less about toxic neckbeards yelling at strangers for being bad at playing WoW and more about different kinds of gamers and what they gravitate to. (more…)

WallStreetBets: Cult of Gambling Addicts Chasing Tendies

by: Sonny Go

Features, Finance, YouTube | 12 October 2023

Back during the GameStop short squeeze of 2021, I wrote about it as an outside observer who was incredulous at the spectacle, but didn’t truly understand what was going on. Two years later, on 9 January 2023, I formally started my journey into stock trading and investing by opening an eToro account. I sifted through every online resource I could find to learn everything I could about this seemingly esoteric thing that I would later describe as black magic and sorcery. While I’m still no expert, I at least can now understand a lot of the jargon and mechanics behind what I previously couldn’t make sense of. (more…)

The Dimensions of Political Power

by: Sonny Go

Features, Politics | 27 September 2023

While rewatching a MandaloreGaming video on Tyranny, a role-playing game on being a bad guy in a fantasy Iron Age world, he mentioned a concept in political science called the Faces of Power, also known as the Dimensions of Power. It’s an academic theory put forth by Steven Lukes, a British political and social theorist currently based in New York University, which looks into how it is to rule over other people’s lives and influence their actions — something that politicians also do in this day and age in the real world. (more…)

Comparing LK-99 Superconductor Hype with Outright Frauds

by: Sonny Go

Features, Science | 10 August 2023

LK-99 Superconductor and Science Frauds Jan Hendrik Schön and Viktor Ninov

Room temperature superconductivity is several notches below cold fusion as the holy grail of technological innovation, but a breakthrough may be close at hand. When LK-99 was revealed to the world by a team in Korea University, it quickly became a hot topic on the Internet. It did end up not being a room temperature superconductor after all, turning out to be less efficient than copper at room temperature. There was quite a fuss and we ended up with a goose egg, but that’s just par for course with science. Meanwhile, there have been plenty of other cases in scientific study where something got hyped up too much, only to end up as fraud. (more…)

More on Playing Lame and the Art of Defense

by: Sonny Go

Combat, Esports, Features, History | 06 December 2022

Winky Wright, Admiral Yi Sun-sin, and Hungrybox

This is a follow-up to one of my favorite blog posts I’ve ever written. It’s understandable why defense is seen as lame and boring, while self-sacrificial offense is seen as valiant and entertaining. We can have idiots who deliberately put themselves in harm’s way and get people cheering their lungs off while downing gallons of Bud Light, then not be given even an ounce of shit about when they can barely remember their own names years down the line. That’s especially true for combat sports, but we can also look at other fields as well and see how the fundamentally sound are also given the short end of the stick, even in hindsight. (more…)

Amir Khan: Glass Cannon

by: Sonny Go

Boxing, Features | 17 March 2022

If boxing is a role-playing game with character stats, wherein you can make any boxer you want by min-maxing their stats, you can put all of your available points into hand speed and nothing else for that sweet DPS. Doing so gives you one of two guys — Ryan Garcia or Amir Khan. The latter is our focus in this blog post due to his now advanced age. Let’s look at the reason why Amir Khan is likely the greatest glass cannon we’ve ever seen in boxing. (more…)

Bipolar Rock ‘N’ Roller — The Mauro Ranallo Story

by: Sonny Go

Features, Opinion | 02 January 2020

Last month, I found this documentary on YouTube about one of my favorite combat sports commentators. I couldn’t help but expressed my thoughts on my Facebook profile after viewing it in whole. Having become a pro wrestling commentator myself, going through the struggles to get better in serving as a voice for Manila Wrestling Federation, I’ve become more attentive to the art of sports announcing. But this film was more than just about that.
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Pathologic is Fascinating Hipster Fodder

by: Sonny Go

Features, Opinion, Video Games | 20 December 2019

In some corners of the YouTube gaming space, where those who profess to more discerning tastes roam, there are videos about a game that recently got a good bit of attention. Pathologic is one of those Russian indie games, which could be its own genre—buggy, depressing, dreary, and Slav as fuck. It’s not a fun game to play—it’s like E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy without the cool armor and guns—but it’s quite interesting. (more…)

Mafia Retrospective — Heaven Lost in Time

by: Sonny Go

Features, Video Games, Videos | 26 October 2016

Mafia Retrospective: Heaven Lost in Time | Avoiderdragon

This post is indeed late since this video was posted the week before, garnering a significant number of views compared to previous videos. In an effort to keep the channel and blog growing, there will be more videos like this, even on anime, films, TV shows, and so on just for kicks. In the meantime, to go with the recent release of Mafia III, here is a retrospective review on the first game of the franchise—Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. (more…)

Kung Fury — A Love Letter to Inner Childishness

by: Sonny Go

Features, Film | 29 May 2015

When the trailer for Kung Fury first came out, it was already enough to make testicles explode all over the Internet. It had all the good stuff — impossible physics, kung fu, time travel, scratchy video quality, vikings with machineguns, Hitler doing Tae Bo, the MicroBee, and tons of desert chrome. It was one of those Kickstarter projects that seemed too good to be true, and it even more seemed so like those other 2012 Kickstarters when things quieted down after the initial hype. Then came this half-hour donkey punch that makes no damn sense, but is so damn good. (more…)