The dog days of summer aren’t that bad when you have lots to do. If you want a little taste of school, give “Abbott Elementary” a shot. If you want something darker, “Stranger” will keep you busy. If you want to use this time to be a DJ, PatchWork can help with that.
‘Abbott Elementary’ is comedy gold
Move over, Ted Lasso: “Abbott Elementary,” a workplace comedy set in a Philadelphia public school, received an Emmy nomination for Best Comedy this week, and rightly so. Shot as a mockumentary, “Abbott Elementary” explores the reality of underfunded public schools — without getting stuck in cliches.
No one is coming to “save these kids.” Instead, the teachers make do, often using hilarious shortcuts to overcome resource scarcities and other challenges. And while all teachers are heroes in my book, “Abbott’s” characters are so lovable and fun to watch because they are imperfect, insecure and quirky.
The road to all-day XR glasses
Apple, Snap and Meta are all trying to invent the next big thing: AR glasses that can be worn for hours at a time and eventually play as big a role in our lives as the smartphone. AR/VR pioneer Avi Bar-Zeev sums up some of the key challenges these companies are facing, and shares his thoughts on how to overcome them.
A perfect time to rediscover ‘Stranger’
This South Korean crime drama features Cho Seung-woo as a prosecutor who had a lobotomy that left him unable to feel emotion. It’s a trait that has made him ruthless, and incredibly effective in his job, but also in need of being kept in check.
Enter Bae Doona of “Kingdom” and “Sense8” fame, who plays a cop tasked with grounding her steely partner and helping him with his blind spots. “Stranger” first debuted in 2017, but with Korean fare becoming hugely popular on Netflix in recent months (“Squid Game,” “All of Us Are Dead”), now’s a perfect time to rediscover this gripping gem of a show.
PatchWorld is intriguing and very fun
There have been many takes on music experiences in VR. Some are more gamified, like Beat Saber and Audica, whereas others are trying to reinvent more traditional studio or DJ environments in VR (Electronauts, Tribe XR).
PatchWorld aims to combine the best of both worlds by offering access to sequencers and everything else you’d need to make your own tracks, while also letting you jam in weird and trippy underwater worlds with moody ocean spirits. It’s odd, intriguing and a lot of fun.
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