TwinIon

This is an interesting analysis of the Russian air force's poor showing from what seems to be a legit UK defense think tank. The whole thing is not very long, but what it boils down to is that they can't imagine that the Russians are holding anything in reserve or otherwise choosing not to establish more complete air superiority and that instead the Russians are simply incapable of doing so. Given the aircraft they have in the numbers they have them, you'd expect the Russians to easily establish air superiority over all of Ukraine, but that simply hasn't happened. They point out that Russian pilots get fewer flight ours per year than their western counterparts, when they do fly they do so in far less demanding conditions, and they have far less comprehensive simulators. So the whole Russian Air Force is simply incapable of organizing complex air operations at the scale required. While this is simply an informed guess and far from a definitive analysis, it's interesting speculation, and not something I'd have considered before the war.

Really doesn't seem like a movie that was craving a sequel, or that people were asking for. Then I looked at the top grossing movies from 2007, and other than Ratatouille, every film above Legend (at #9) has gotten follow-ups of some sort. Really feels like some exec was just going through the top grossing movies of the last 20 years trying to find one that hadn't already gotten a sequel or spin-off or whatever.

I read most of that Harvard note referenced above, and more than anything it cemented my feelings that the constitution needs a serious overhaul and that anyone seeking to follow any kind of original textual argument should be immediately dismissed. This line in particular sums up why: OH! So we should risk democracy itself in order to better follow (what we think the) text of this old document intended. Just insanity.

I know gamers seem to hate Epic because they have exclusive games, but I think this fits broadly into their store strategy. Epic has, for various self-serving reasons, advocated for creators to get a bigger cut of their sales. They've also shown significant interest in making their store more of a general digital goods store than simply a games store, which really bolsters their anti-trust claims if nothing else. I'm sure there is also some thought to more directly selling audio to creators using Unreal.

This game makes me wish I enjoyed racing games.

The only esport I followed for a while was Hearthstone, and one thing I feel pretty confident about is that more big tournaments the better. Having more competitions ups the level of play by incentivizing players, keeps a more consistent audience (which itself brings in more money -> more players), and is just generally beneficial to the health of the competitive gaming scene. Having big multi-game events then feed into the single game ones was crucial, and the times when that wasn't happening was a drain on the whole game. I know Nintendo just generally doesn't care about esports, but preventing big events from playing your game just seems like a negative in every possible way.

For some reason recent media has made me expect the worst for this one, but it seems the reviews are overall quite good. I'm again quite looking forward to seeing this.

I expect that Sony knows that they can price this thing at $600 for the first 6-12 months and they'd never be able to keep them in stock, so I have to assume that the eventual price will be as much a PR move as it is a business decision. Also not sure why anyone would expect the Quest 3 this year. I don't follow all things VR as closely as I once did, but far as I can tell Zuck said "Project Cambria" will release this year, but it's going to be competing more in the enterprise space and used as a test bed for the eventual Quest 3. given that Cambria is still so secretive and with a complete lack of competition and an on-going chip shortage, it wouldn't shock me if we don't hear more about it until Connect in October, which wouldn't exactly give the Quest 3 much time after that.

Between Horizon and Witch Queen, I wouldn't be playing this particularly soon anyways, but I'm still divided as to if I'll give it a try. It does sound like it's more accessible and less punishing than other souls games, but that's not saying much. I read articles like this one explaining why Sous skeptics should give Elden Ring a try, and to me it sounds like "well, this game has slightly fewer things that will make you hate it." Then I read things like this suggesting that I keep a journal, and that just sounds like a decision designed to frustrate me. Even if the people saying those things claim that having a quest log would be a bad thing for the game, I just have a hard time believing that kind of decision would make me have a better time with the game. It's hard not to get caught up in all the hype, especially when it seems that this game is delivering exactly what it promised, but unfortunately it's difficult to accept that it's probably still not something for me.

After putting in a few hours, I'm very much enjoying it. Bottom line so far is that it's HZD, but improved in nearly every way you'd want a sequel to be improved. I have been getting a few minor graphical glitches, mostly during cut scenes, but other than that the game is absolutely gorgeous. The game is so detailed that it has an almost grainy look to it. So much so that I actually looked for a "film grain" setting. I very much like the stash functionality, even if there isn't an in-game explanation for how it works. It makes exploration feel more rewarding because I never feel like I'm finding useless stuff, and I'm very glad to not really have to worry so much about inventory management. The traversal is better, but it's still an area they could improve. I came to a ruin early on where it was very clear that I myself could easily get into, either by climbing through the broken window or climbing the relatively low wall blocking my way. Unfortunately, super-human climber Alloy was unable to make the climb because instead of a yellow bar, I was getting only red Xs on my focus. Now, it was fun to solve the puzzle to get into that area, but in general I still find it frustrating what I can and cannot climb on, and it makes me really wish for a AC/BOTW style climbing system. I really don't mind not being able to climb up every sheer cliff face, but I do wish I could climb up more man made structures that look easily scalable. On the flip side, I'm really enjoying the new settlements and the increased attention to side characters. I care so much more about getting a side quest done for the timid cook that is wonderfully animated than I would about some other bland NPC that has no real character to them. Every interaction feels so much more alive and it makes exploring and talking to people much more rewarding. Very excited to see how the game progresses from here.

Amazon just dropped off my copy. Guess I know what I'm doing tonight.

Not really sure what a virtual race control room is. Maybe someone familiar wit the way it works in football can elaborate? How is it that after all this time, they just say they will assess the procedures around unlapping of cars? Shouldn't now be when they reveal the result of their assessment? It was pretty obvious the day of that they needed to look into that. I really don't think the problem with the radio communications during the race was that we got to hear them. I'm extremely excited for F1 this year with all the new cars, but the FiA has been so slow to address anything related to what went wrong that I'm less confident in them now than I was immediately after it happened.

Over the last week or so I had just started playing Cyberpunk, and in a lot of ways it's the exact opposite of how I felt about Halo Infinite. In Halo, it really felt to me like they nailed the fundamentals, but in any number of ways the huge budget and dev time didn't show. In Cyberpunk, it's the exact opposite. Every inch of this game screams how much it cost and how long they spent making it, but so far I just haven't been having fun with it. After ~9 hours I'm playing more out of curiosity than I am out of genuine enjoyment. Maybe that changes once I get some better weapons and start to unlock more of the skill trees. I feel like I've barely gotten into the meat of the game, but I also feel like I've been playing long enough that I should have some sense of the game. Doesn't seem like this patch will change my experience, but I'll give it a try, at least until Horizon gets here on Friday.

Visually I think it's pretty good. It looks like a high budget fantasy show, with a lot of production design that is reminiscent of Jackson's trilogies. Hope remains.

All sounds good to me. Hopefully Amazon's day one delivery comes on time. It'll certainly be difficult to juggle both this and Witch Queen next week.

I love both films, but I seriously doubt this is a good idea.

Yeah, I was surprised to see that come out of Reason, but I think the argument they present is a good one. I've mostly often thought about gaming NFTs being a bad idea because the in-game economy is always going to be subject to the devs. So while your creature in Axie Infinity might be worth a lot because it has some desirable trait, what happens if the devs decide to nerf it because that trait is too powerful? Or they just introduce a new trait that is much better and the value of yours drops. What this most recent episode shows is actually the opposite problem, where factors outside of the game demolish the value that you "earned" in game, which is something I hadn't thought about as much, but is very much a real problem. In WoW and EVE I know you can earn in game currency and use it to pay for your subscription. This is the equivalent of the stock market going down so now your 1M WoW gold that was worth 5 months subscription is now worth 1/8th of a subscription, but nothing in game changed the rate at which you can earn.

I'd like to think this will be the last of the bad Jurassic Park sequels, but they keep making money, and Terminator shows us even that isn't a barrier. Will the next trilogy give us dinos on the moon?

It's very important to note that all the App store policies only apply to the Windows store, and not to the Xbox. Given that the Windows app store hardly matters, it's not exactly a big ask for MS to do these things. They get to do the things regulators want to force them to do without giving up any ground on the places they actually make money. The benefit they could get from an open iOS App store almost certainly dwarf whatever they'd potentially be giving up from Windows. Think about all those mobile IAP dollars they could make if these regulations do take effect. As far as the exclusivity with Activision Blizzard titles, it would be naive to expect they won't play favorites. They can get do all sorts of things besides a being a blanket exclusive release. Exclusive additional content, possibly timed exclusivity, ensuring things work best on Xbox, make all advertising Xbox focused, etc. They give MS a much stronger negotiating position for things like cross play. Then there's also the question of what these studios output look like over time. COD itself is changing with the existence of Warzone and the slowing sales of the yearly releases. We could see them make what we consider the traditional COD games every other year and then switch off with some new Xbox exclusive COD branded games. New franchises from these studios could be made Xbox exclusives. Bottom line: pledging to keep releasing popular titles on Nintendo and Sony platforms does not mean that Activision Blizzard will operate like they did before.

No Zelda, no Metroid Prime. Bummer.

I've been trying to get a 3080 since launch, but I'm close to giving up. If they keep their release cadence up (which is far from a guarantee given covid + chip shortage), they'll release the 4080 in September. At this point maybe I'll just wait for that. Then again, that won't be any easier to get, and if I did manage to snag a 4080 close to launch, odds are the 3080 would still be easy to sell, so maybe I'll keep trying.

Denzel Washington also got a nod for Actor, so yeah, it was definitely eligible.

I was disappointed that Villeneuve didn't get a directing nod. I really loved Dune, but it's not the kind of movie that wins best Picture. Might have had a better shot at director though. I don't think Power of the Dog is nearly as much of a front runner as we've had in past years. I think GoldDerby agrees with that. I still need to catch up on a few of the Best Pic noms (Drive my Car, West Side, Licorice Pizza), but I think as long as Don't Look Up doesn't win, I can be happy. I'm honestly confused as to how Don't Look Up became an "awards movie" at all. I'm guessing it's because "it has an important message" or something like that, but so very few comedies get nominated for awards, it's rather bizarre that it's this one that makes it through.

It's been clear to me for a while now that Nintendo just isn't for me in the same way that it used to be. I never have a need for a portable system, I do value high end production values, and the games that they make largely don't appeal to me anymore. I think the only thing I played on my Switch last year was Dread, and this year it'll probably be Zelda. Obviously Nintendo has found a significant audience that are excited about what they're putting out, and I certainly don't begrudge them their success. I remember not predicting much success for the Switch before its release, and in retrospect I think that has more to do with how Nintendo has diverged from my own gaming interests rather than misjudged the market themselves. Going forward, I think Nintendo is probably more likely to continue to find this success than it did with the Wii. With the WiiU, Nintendo made a lot of mistakes, but I also think it's true that the Wii customer base just wasn't much of a gamer audience and didn't have any interest in a follow up no matter what. With the Switch, that's far less true. They've also carved out their own niche more heavily than ever, so it's unlikely they face any real competition in the portable gaming arena anytime soon. While I may not be impressed by their gaming lineup myself, I don't think they need to do much to continue to find buyers. They can put out a Switch 2 whenever they feel like it, put out a couple big games a year, and it'll probably sell extremely well. Of course, I don't think they feel a ton of pressure to really do that either. They'll do it when sales slow or they find the right time with the right chip. Regardless, whenever they do, I expect that a Switch 2 will find a lot of success.

I wasn't aware of this story, but regulators in the Netherlands decided that Apple was in breach of competition rules specifically for dating apps, and that Apple needed to allow third party payment options. Apple has now put out how they will be complying with the order, and they're not taking it lightly. To summarize, if you have a dating app in the Netherlands and want to use your own payment provider, you: -Must create a new, separate app that is only available in the Netherlands -You cannot support both Apple's in app payments and a third party one in the app -Before linking to the third party payment provider, you have to show a screen warning "This app does not support the App Store’s private and secure payment system" in big bold font, along with a disclaimer telling you about the features you're losing by doing this. -You need to use a single URL for your sign-up page, with no parameters. So you can't pass existing user info or anything else along. That all seems perfectly brutal, but there's an even bigger catch. Even if you don't use Apple's payment system, Apple still expects their cut! Apple is demanding that anyone using a third party payment method log all transactions from iOS devices, and manually pay Apple a 27% commission, after tax. There's not a ton of reporting on this story yet, and not reading the language I can't exactly go through the court ruling and see if Apple is directly violating it and daring the government to come after them, or if they're just pushing their luck as far as possible. Either way, I think Apple has shown their hand in a way that won't be to their advantage. Regardless of how this plays out with dating apps in the Netherlands, you have to imagine the next time the IAP issue comes up in a courtroom and Apple loses, they'll make sure that Apple can't be this restrictive. The whole idea is that Apple is being anti-competitive and creating "unreasonable conditions" by requiring the use of their own IAP system and charging such a high fee. I would have to imagine a court will look at this and argue that this system alleviates none of the concerns that made them rule against Apple in the first place.