TwinIon

It doesn't sound anymore consumer unfriendly than existing game and video services. When I stream movies from Amazon, I can watch a shifting selection of movies that are included in the subscription (as long as I'm subscribed), or I can buy a film that is available to me on whatever devices Amazon sees fit to support, as long as they support their service. The same holds true for digital Xbox and Playstation games.

The success or failure of Stadia will ultimately rest on the tech, but it's interesting that they're basically treating it as a console, and not trying to reinvent a whole new business model. I expected a (perhaps optional) "all you can eat" type bundle, but I imagine that would be pretty expensive. I suppose this makes the most sense, and I expect Sony and MS to follow along with their streaming services.

I'm all in for James Gray.

So, they had a snitch, and planned a sting operation. The deal went down, and then they searched the house and found the drugs. I don't know much about the mechanics of getting a warrant, but it certainly seems like if you're going through the trouble of setting up a sting operation, you can be bothered to get a warrant.

It's certainly eye catching.

I didn't play the more recent Fable games, but I'd be happy if a new one turned out well.

Mission Impossible 1 was pretty good. It wasn't really a superhero film, but still. It seems that Dark Phoenix will come in comfortably below my already non-existent expectations. I'll still probably see it thanks to A-list.

If it comes with a stand, then it's all mostly forgiven. I still think it should include the VESA mount, but in the end the price isn't a huge deal for the monitor or the Mac Pro. I think it's all pretty reasonably priced, given the tech involved. I do wonder how many super high end pro Mac customers Apple has lost since the last Mac Pro got so old, but I imagine those that have been waiting are pretty happy.

I'm interested in getting more details on Stadia and other game streaming services. I don't plan on subscribing anytime soon, but I'm curious to see how these services get structured.

Something else I forgot to mention when it comes to iPad Mutlitasking, is that they really need to make more apps support it. Right now a bunch of the apps that I use don't support multitasking at all, and many that do don't work correctly. Feedly, for example, will allow slide over windows or split screen docking, but when you do that the app hides info from you. It's not like you get the iPhone version, there is content the app is "showing" that you can't see. Even big apps like Gmail don't support multitasking at all, and some apps haven't even been updated to the new aspect ratio of the iPad Pros. The iOS/iPad ecosystem seems like it must be at least as complicated as Android if a dev actually wants to support everything (I'd love to hear from some devs if that's true). More multitasking modes is great, and some things (like the keyboard stuff) must be "free" to devs, but they need find some way to make apps better support these kinds of things if they want the iPad to be a "real computer." As it stands, not only is multitasking on the iPad still undiscoverable and overly complicated, it's horribly inconsistent. It's impossible to look at an app and tell when and how it will work while multitasking, and that's a big pain point.

It's pretty audacious for Apple to sell the $6000 monitor without a stand and without any way to connect a stand. When they said the special stand was $1000, I laughed, but it's an unnecessary upgrade, so whatever. When they said that you had to pay $200 to connect it to a normal stand I thought that was ridiculous, but again, I assumed it would ship with some kind of stand. I realize that this is strictly for Pros and will mostly be paid for by the large companies they work for, but it's still kind of insane nickel and diming to not include any kind of stand or any way to connect a standard mount. I guess they gave Pros so much of what they asked for (and much they didn't), so Apple didn't feel compelled to make anything cheap. The Mac Pro is a pretty slick piece of engineering. I don't need one, and I don't like the look of it, but scrolling through the web page and getting a better look inside, and it's pretty awesome how the CPU and expansion ports are on one side, and the other side has the memory and storage. It's not entirely different from what ASUS is advocating with their Prime Utopia concept. Asus also put some of the connectors on PCIe slots, and made the board double sided, though they wanted to put the graphics and CPU on separate sides.

Apparently the GOP is considering a vote to prevent the tariffs on Mexico. Doing so would require Congress override the southern border national emergency declaration. That would effectively remove the wall funding that Trump secured. I have a very hard time imagining the GOP actually getting the votes together to stop this. It's too direct a challenge to Trump, and with wall funding on the line as well, I can't imagine reaching the critical mass necessary to override the President.

Very cool! Can't wait to see how well this works with RDP apps.

A 25% tariff is insane, but it makes more sense than a ban.

I'm excited for some of the iPadOS updates. Widgets on the homescreen is something that should have been around long ago. Desktop class browsing on iPad has been a real pain point for a while. USB drive support is great, but native SMB is really nice for our company usage. Direct camera uploading to the iPad is something I might actually use. A lot of the multitasking and additional gestures look kinda useful, but also very unintuitive. I doubt a lot of people will use them. When I think about someone like my father using an iPad instead of a laptop, the things that prevent it are never the lack of complicated multitasking gestures. I also really wish they added mouse support. It would really change the potential use cases for the iPad, and with Marzipan/Catalyst, it only makes sense.

I agree. It's entertaining, and solidly stylish, but the humor never quite reached Hitchhiker's Guide. Tennant and Sheen are quite entertaining, which is good since the whole of the series relies on them. One specific gripe my wife and I had was that it really felt like the voice of God really should have been British. I love Frances McDormand, but she felt out of place for this show.

The GT is my favorite car of all time, and with the talent involved, I'll be seeing this for sure. Didn't love the trailer, but it didn't really need to sell me on anything. There was an exotic car dealer in town that I'd visit occasionally in high school that was owned by a guy who really loved cars. They mostly sold new Bentleys, Lambos, and Ferraris, but they'd get in more exciting stuff occasionally. The owner would also put some of his personal collection out periodically, and among them was a race driven GT40. God I loved that thing, before I even knew what its story was. If you're not familiar with the story, and don't mind being a bit spoiled to history, James May did a great recap in Season 1 of The Grand Tour.

I've caught up and I've been listening to the podcast, and this show just keeps taking up more and more headspace. There are just so many extraordinary and terrifying moments. They play it all so straight without unnecessarily emphasizing the melodrama. It's an amazing show.

He has done a lot of that. I wonder what of these kinds of things will change under the next administration / congress. Warren said she'd make sure the President would be subject to federal law. Part of that is appointing an AG that would be willing to press charges, but part of would still require congress to change the law. If Trump's enduring legacy is that previous norms get codified into law, that would be great, but it's hard to imagine any politicians voting to limit their power.

This should apply to FCC commissioners and other such positions as well. I hope this actually happens.

This might even be more stupid than the China tariffs. Does congress really have no power here as long as he says "national security?"

Removing the physical buttons sounds really annoying.

You're probably right, but my scenario was that Star Wars was failing. If in 15 years the movies aren't making a ton of money anymore, maybe a return to the original saga would be a way to boost interest. Ep 9 trailer spoilers

I wonder what this kind of thing looks like for a game like Hearthstone. Is it enough to say you get X% chance of an epic/legendary/golden etc.? I know the way the game actually works is that there is some kind of dynamic odds calculation, or at least a "pity timer" to ensure you get a legendary every 50(?) packs of the same type. I'm guessing a base calculation sufficient, but it'd be interesting if they had to reveal more of the algorithm.

With 99 reviews in, RT is at 42%. It seems that the human element is again worthless, but there are a lot of kaiju battles. I'll be there tonight.