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Season 3, Episode 1: Hard Mode 2.0 – Ryan's Revenge

S3E1: Hard Mode 2.0 (Ryan's Revenge) - out on Monday 6 May

Author

Tanus Maximus
April 30, 2024

The first rule of PastMaster is don’t mess with the Spartans

This Is SPARTA!

In Episode 1 Ryan kicks off the season 3, putting Tan to the test with PastMaster: Hard Mode 2.0. Ryan has upped the ante and plunges Tan back into ancient Sparta against his wishes, and then leaves him with the ludicrous task of getting a bunch of oiled up muscular soldiers to worship him as a deity.

Does Tan have the wherewithal to outwit the Spartans and the chippy GameMaster? Will his technique for disarming an alpha male handshake pay dividends? And will he be able to convince his new friends he is in fact a deity? Tune in to find out.

Spartans: surprisingly emotional

AI in the news

New Scientist reports that AI image generators can be programmed to come up with ‘complex’ optical illusions that look like different objects depending how they are viewed. In this example it cites a picture of seemingly ancient ruins that looks like a teddy bear when you blur the image. It feels like we’ve had this sort of effect before – with the ‘magic eye’ images and perhaps even the posters that make up a composite picture of Yoda from stills in the Star Wars movies.

Is it impressive that AI image generators can do this? It doesn’t seem that mind blowing. But as ever I suppose there are going to be ways it can be exploited for good or evil that will take a while before they come into focus.

Bear ruin

Triple freakin’ winners!

A pat on the back for the PastMaster team and all our listeners and supporters following a marvellous triple win at the American Writing Awards inaugural podcast of the year competition. Triple!

We picked up the gongs for Entertainment, Technology and Games & Hobbies and were only beaten to the grand top prize by Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode. (These awards are 100% legit I tell you!)

Finally we can call ourselves an award winning podcast! Triple award-winning! TRIPLE! TRIPLE! TRIPLE!

Henry VIII: pleased

Until next time, Tan and the PastMaster Crew

PS if you’re enjoying the show please mention PastMaster to a friend you think might enjoy it.

PPS You can check out the whole PastMaster back catalogue here.

PPPS if you’ve got any suggestions for what you’d like to see the PastMaster team try next, get in touch:

Instagram 👉 @⁠PastMasterPod⁠] (check out our AI-generated art illustrating what our adventures might have looked like)

Twitter 👉 @⁠PastMasterAI⁠

TikTok 👉 @⁠PastMasterAI⁠