TwinIon

In an effort to get around Google's 30% cut, Fortnite on Android will only be available through Epic's website, not through the Google Play Store. That's a massive deal, and it'll be interesting to see how Google responds. It's possible that they just accept that Fortnite is an exception, and that it will remain that way, not provoking other big name games to follow its lead. It's also possible that this could lead to the seemingly inevitable breakdown of the hard and fast 30% cut, which at one time seemed so generous, and now seems like a ridiculous burden. I'm not familiar with the iOS version. Does it just not allow in-app purchases, or is Epic just paying Apple's ransom?

You don't say.

The idea is that the cards you open will have an intrinsic value that you could theoretically recover through the marketplace. So if you spend a bunch of money and open packs or purchase individual cards, you could recoup some of that if you stopped playing. I'm skeptical of how exactly that market will play out, especially over years of the game's evolution both as a game and as a marketplace. I also think that it's a model that will really discourage growth. Even if you are giving the cards a real value, Hearthstone cards feel like they have value because they have value to you, and you can earn them for free. I think the biggest question is if the game is good enough to get people playing. If the game is good enough, people will figure it out and we'll start to have real dollar values for what it takes to be competitive (at whatever level you want to be). That last part is particularly interesting, because in Hearthstone you have an approximation for how expensive a deck is, but in Artifact we'll be able to say that a given deck currently costs exactly $X to build.

I believe that because you can trade cards there is no way to get them for free. Source

Here's the NFL's fact sheet for the new helmet rule. It includes some very dull videos for different positions that aren't necessarily clear in describing what is and isn't allowed. Given that this is a potential ejection for something that has always been legal and basically standard Football form, if this is implemented in an inconsistent way, it'll be real trouble.

I've seen this in my own family. My brother recently converted to Catholicism and it's been interesting where he chooses to focus his faith and where he differs from the Pope.

I was thinking about it a bit more, and I think part of my frustration with the game is how little it communicates what is important to character power levels and how much out of your way you need to go to raise it. It's very old school, and probably not in a good way. I think the expectation that most have is that if you follow the story that you'll naturally progress at a certain rate and you'll naturally find or be able to afford suitable gear. I have not found either to be the case at all. You have to do a lot of grinding and you really have to search for better gear. Just grabbing every chest and looking through every store is not going to be enough. I think it's fine for a game to let you discover things, but I think some of that could have been more obvious. I certainly went in with some preconceived notions that didn't bear out, but this is a game that I think is catering to those like me that have played a decent amount of these games, if not for a while.

Got to see it last night in digital IMAX. First of all, I'd only recommend the $19 digital IMAX experience to someone with AMC A-List, because the screen at my theater was hardly bigger than the big theater at the local ArcLight, which doesn't upcharge at all. Also, I didn't realize that the digital IMAX screens are not in IMAX ratio, which seems especially strange for a film where the only IMAX sequences were shot digitally. Still, the IMAX sound was pumping at full volume, with a few people in the crowd even yelling to turn it down during the trailers (thankfully they did not). Having the upgraded sound experience made a very big impact on this film. My first thought after seeing the film was how odd it was that it wasn't until the sixth installment in this franchise that they actually made a sequel. I imagine it's no coincidence that this is the first time director has returned to the series, and in this case McQuarrie was also the writer. Far more so than any of the other MI movies, this is one that actually acknowledges the past in ways both subtle and direct. Characters from previous films return, there are tons of callback shots, and there are references scattered throughout, many of which I'm sure I missed. This series has always been rather unique that it operates more like an episodic TV show than a serialized TV show or movie franchise. Small things persist from entry to entry, but for the most part it's like the Simpsons; whatever happened before is mostly fodder for jokes or winks and nods to the audience. Otherwise explaining how the IMF exists when most current and former agents eventually turn evil or why Ethan still works there when he's been repeatedly hunted and disavowed becomes difficult. It's a series that has always had plots that were unnecessarily complex, but also where the story has never really mattered. Suddenly caring about continuity this far in is almost jarring, but shockingly well handled. McQuarrie toes the line just enough to inject a bit more pathos into otherwise blank slate Ethan Hunt, but doesn't really want you to dig that deep. After all, this series, with Fallout being no exception, isn't looking to tell a story, pages in the script aren't there to convey ideas or themes or build characters or relationships, the words are merely functional: a delivery system for action set pieces. In that Fallout delivers exceptionally well. Despite a rather bloated 147 minute runtime, this is a film that is propulsive. It stops for longer than usual to catch it's breath, but that's partly because we as the audience need that time to do the same. The set pieces here are incredible. Even when Tom Cruise isn't piloting a helicopter or jumping out of a plane or crashing cars through the streets of Paris he's just such a formidable screen presence. McQuarrie is able to make Cruise running through the streets a more exciting chase sequence than most action movies. Thankfully, Cruise isn't alone in this either. Series veterans Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg are well utilized in their sidekick roles, providing the humanity that Cruise is less capable of delivering. The women of this outing often steal the show. Rebecca Ferguson is back and feels as dangerous as ever. I particularly liked newcomer to the series Vanessa Kirby's unfortunately short appearance. I expect we might see her again in an inevitable seventh installment. Jeremy Renner was absent given how busy he was not being in Infinity War, so our CIA agent de jour this time is Henry Cavill, whose formidable presence enhances every scene (praise to the mustache). He's described early on as a sledgehammer, and it's the best possible moniker for his turn here, as he pounds his way through the film. Also pounding is the soundtrack. The score is another highpoint, and possibly the most propulsive since Fury Road. At times it even reminded me of Gravity, where the line between score and sound effects faded away. Blaring as it was in my IMAX screening, it goes a long way into making you feel every blow and crash along with Ethan Hunt. I'm not sure if Fallout is my favorite in the series, but it's certainly in contention. For anyone who isn't a fan of Mission Impossible, Fallout has nothing new to offer. For anyone who does appreciate what this oddball franchise has been delivering for 20 years, Fallout is a another wonderfully filmed helping of watching a billionaire continually risk his life for our entertainment.

Granting this particular restraining order seems like it's probably correct, even though this whole issue seems pretty clear from a constitutional point of view. Also:

I'm dubious about both the gameplay and the economics of the game, but I'm interested in how it will all turn out. The complexity alone might be too high a barrier to entry, but I'd be happy if it ends up being a new favorite.

On Monday LeBron's "I Promise School" opened to help out underperforming and at risk kids. I think this is a really admirable act of public service and a really smart way to address a variety of problems. Here's a look at some of the ways that this new school is different. Overall I think it's fair to say that most of the unique elements of this school are things that have nothing to do with the curriculum. It's all about supporting the children and their parents to help alleviate the myriad issues outside the classroom that lead to poor academic performance and life outcomes. Things like longer school days and stretched out school year. GED programs for parents and on-site food bank. Perhaps the most interesting part of this new school is that it's part of the normal Akron Ohio public school system. It's not a charter school or private school. LeBron's foundation is providing funding, but I think it's great that this is a part of the public system and not something apart from it.

Thanks for the link, I'll try and check it out. The NoClip documentary on HZD is also worth watching. I think they're obviously talented and have a solid development team that knows how to make quality games. What I'm slightly more concerned about is just the effect that scaling an operation like that can have. If they can take the lessons from HZD and put those to use across their teams, they very well could become very successful at pushing out more great products more often. Otherwise, they wouldn't be the first game developer to lose their way after scaling up and moving to a more aggressive release schedule.

That would have been a giant mess. I wonder if this would have been different if Bolton had been in office at the time.

HZD is categorically different from their previous games. It's absolutely AAA in every sense. Still, one great game isn't really a track record. Hopefully this is all for the better.

This is probably worth emphasizing. I think that there are some images that you can get to make setup mostly painless and gui based, but with this stuff there is always a decent likelihood that something small goes wrong and it'll be much easier to fix if you're comfortable using a command line or with Linux in general. It's not a requirement, and probably isn't a bad introduction to such things if you're a total newbie, but it's worth mentioning.

This shot is not great, but Mackenzie Davis is legit great. She was good in Halt and Catch Fire, great in the best episode of Black Mirror, and excellent in both Blade Runner 2049 and Tully. Still, this franchise is terrible and should have been permanently retired after the second one.

So I looked up some tricks online and after more than a few save reloads I geared out my characters a good bit. I didn't go the full lengths recommended here, but I've been using dancing a lot and it's helped me speed leveling a bit. I got one lucky Exp X 100 roll and it leveled me up something like 10 levels in one battle. One recommendation if you want to do it as well is to not bother on bosses. Bosses don't really give much more Exp than regular enemies and if you're like me and end up rolling the outcome where it completely heals the boss after you've done 30k damage, it unnecessarily prolongs fights with no guaranteed outcome for more xp. I also followed this advice and stole a bunch of stuff from Grandport. After getting the boost I cleaned the town up with a bunch of 100% and 80% steals. There's a ton more I could go after if I wanted to reload saves a bunch of times, but I think I'm geared well enough for now. The gear I got from doing that was so much more valuable than jumping up 10 levels. This game is kinda odd in how heavily it weights stats from gear vs levels without having any requirements for the gear. Speaking to the visuals of the game, i've gotten used to the very shallow depth of field, but I feel like they don't make very good use of it. It's a shame that (so far at least), it's pretty much a static effect. They set one tilt-shift style focus and never change it. They're using UE4 to do all this lighting, effect, and focus stuff, but they don't do much with it. I feel like they could play with it more, pull focus to characters in cut scenes, move the camera, anything. I don't know if they were just too constrained by trying to emulate the past, or if they just didn't bother. Either way it feels like a missed opportunity.

I don't think there's really any content that the Roku or the Fire have that isn't also on the Apple TV. For a while you had to choose between iTunes and Amazon, but with that resolved I think the Apple TV is probably the best bet, though it is more expensive (unless you get a deal like Spork mentioned). The one feature of Roku that I do think is worth some consideration is the headphone jack in the remote. You can also use bluetooth headphones through the app, but either way if you are in a position where watching TV with headphones is useful, Roku's solution is pretty good. The Fire TV doesn't really have any stand out features other than being cheap and being able to buy Amazon content through the device (you have to rent movies on the web to watch on the Apple TV). I suppose there's some Alexa integration, but even as a heavy Alexa user that doesn't really appeal to me.

This. As someone very heavily invested in Google's ecosystem and primarily uses a windows PC, there still just isn't a great reason to avoid the iPad. It's just a class above the competition. I have some hope that Chromebook tablets will become a real challenger, but that's a few years away at least. The amount of quality tablet ready software on the iPad is just categorically different than with Android tablets.

I also actually quite like Man of Steel. It's a beautiful and beautifully scored film. Cavil is great in the role, and overall it's a slightly different take on Superman, a character that I've never really found interesting. The only reason that people care about Supes killing Zod is because of an attachment to another iteration of this character. This version of the character didn't really know what he was doing or what he'd gotten into (which is why I also don't have a problem with the city's destruction). He was pushed to his limits and had no other choice. Pa Kent's death on the other hand, is terribly portrayed regardless of the history of the character. I don't actually have much of a problem with his general outlook and what he teaches Clark. I think it's an outlook that feels more an more justified by the day. We do have an intense fear of the other and a legit super powered alien would kick up some intense feelings. The death sequence itself though is just stupid. Pa Kent doesn't tell Clark not to help until the end, and it feels so long between when Clark should have gone to help (people in general or his dad), so when Pa finally puts his hand up to say don't come it just seems silly. If he was going to help, he had ample time to do so, which seems like exactly what he was saying he wanted to do about 10 seconds before deciding not to. Also, Pa died saving the dog; not an old lady or a child, a dog.

I enjoyed my time with this. I hope eventually they come out with some fixes and dlc to get me back into it.

I don't want to speak for people here, but I do think it's worth pointing out that Bernie's plan is pretty far from the Democratic party platform on the subject, which supports a public option. While Medicare for all is increasingly gaining traction, a public option is very popular. You're quite right to point out that Bernie's plan is an outlier. Even when other supporters of Medicare for All talk about it, I don't think they're specifically talking about something as extreme as what Bernie suggests.

I have a few that I use for various things, but I haven't used any for emulation. I would recommend getting a case pack with heat sinks. There are a ton of them out there for cheap, and they can get a bit warm after prolonged use.

I picked this up to play while traveling recently. I'm about 15 hours or so in. I just figured out secondary jobs after stumbling across a shrine. Man has that made a world of difference. I'm now rarely, if ever, stuck in a situation where a baddie is vulnerable to only one character. I picked up every character and then did some grinding to get my core party up to the point I could think about starting Chapter 2. I think I underestimated how much stats are tied to gear vs levels. I've leveled up quite a bit, but I don't have much more HP and I'm not doing much more damage. I need to go out and really gear up. I got to the boss of Tressa's chapter 2 and it was taking forever. I was scraping by, but it wasn't worth the time. Anyone have any good tips for the best way to go about gearing up?