Welcome to the final installment of Elsewhere in the Universe! For the last nine months, I’ve been sharing videos, articles, and other things I’ve encountered outside of work. I try to keep things fun, showing off a side of me you wouldn’t see in my programming posts. This series didn’t generate much interest, so I’ll go out with a bang with one last entry.

As an aside note, I’m aware of the issues embedding YouTube videos; the thumbnails don’t appear correctly but the “Watch on YouTube” links still work.

Name that Anime Opening First by ProZD

One of my coworkers introduced me to ProZD’s channel last year, since then I’ve seen his shorts whenever they show up on my recommendations. Here’s a rare set of medium sized videos I decided to watch. I haven’t seen half of the anime titles featured, so I’m not really one to say, but they couldn’t identify the theme songs from Outlaw Star or the original Gundam? Such disappoint.

All of the Versions of All of the Lights

I totally forgot how great the Kanye West track “All of the Lights” was until I saw the cover posted above. That inspired me to go on a binge and find other renditions of the song:

Meme of the Month: We’re Here to Kill Chaos

STEP 1: Watch the E3 Trailer for Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin

STEP 2: Read the Behind the Meme article to get up to speed with the meme

STEP 3: KILL CHAOS

STEP 4: Go to the music video for Faint and count how many comments reference the Chaos or the Angry T-Shirt Guy

alt text

The Lightning Round

These are things I want to point out, but don’t want to spend more than a couple of sentences on.

The Main Event

Over the life of this blog I’ve expressed mixed feelings about Makr, the startup I worked for before I joined Publicis Groupe. I spent a lot of brainpower figuring out what I could’ve done to keep the company alive, like if I was more proactive in addressing the issues we faced we would’ve been around for at least a couple more years. Fortunately, I’ve grown to accept the accomplishments we made despite the odds and move on. Thankfully (or not thankfully) it’s because my mind is now occupied with the trials and tribulations of my current job.

This time around I’ll give Makr the praise it deserves. While we were overshadowed by competing products like Canva and Vistaprint, we made up for it in critical acclaim. Makr appeared on Product Hunt, earned a nomination on The Webby Awards, and got on Apple’s “Best of 2014” list. That was enough to garner the attention of a Fortune 500 retail company.

The online publication Polynate filled in some of the missing details. This article features Makr’s origin story from Ellen, our CEO; what work was like day to day; and what it was like at The Yard, our coworking space at the time. It’s a vibrant snapshot of Makr, taken six years ago, fresh off our acquisition by Staples.

Yeah, that’s me in the pictures, wearing the blue dress shirt. I don’t remember why I dressed so formally to work back then. Was there literally nothing else in my closet? Thankfully, my wardrobe started to be more casual around this time.

When Annual Saga gains popularity (in, I dunno, ten years?), this will be one of the first pieces dug up when journalists write my “before they were famous” story. (Don’t worry Epsilon folk, there will probably be a chapter featuring you too.)

It’s a bit over a year since I started writing blog posts weekly. It was a hefty challenge, and I’m glad I reached the milestone, but I think it’s time to move back to projects I’ve been neglecting. Stay tuned for an important announcement next week.

More Elsewhere in the Universe