TwinIon

The only way to think about these numbers is to put them in context with the market they're trying to compete in, but given that Valve remains private, it's really hard to get those numbers. The best some quick searching could do was find a 2017 estimate that Steam brought in $4.3B in revenue not counting DLC, MTX, or IAP. Since then, Steam's MAU have pretty much doubled. All in, and given PC gaming's recent rise, it's very conceivable that Steam is pulling in $10B in revenue per year. If Epic continues on this path for another 5 years, they might end up spending roughly a billion dollars to get in. There's also the larger business considerations for Epic here. They can leverage the success of the Epic store to further incentivize devs to use UE. Though engine revenue doesn't come close to either store or game sales. Also, the better established Epic is as a storefront, the better they could for hope any potential Epic App stores on Android (or iOS if some judges go nuts). Those are also huge pies where even a small market share could prove very profitable, if they can get it established. (As an aside, I'm increasingly optimistic that Epic could find success there. We're already seeing Android 12 making 3rd party app stores better, and Google might find it advantageous in dealing with regulators if they could point to a 3rd party store that provides any amount of "competition." I'm less optimistic that they'll get anywhere on iOS.) Anyways, this is all to say that while the sums seem astronomical, this is a bet that could pay off big time. Given that Fortnite alone brought in more than $9B in revenue in two years, they've got the cash.

It's certainly no coincidence that Android 12 is going to let 3rd party app stores work much better. I think that Google has been a bit too confident that the mere ability to bypass the Google Play Store will insulate them from these antitrust complaints. I have to say that I'm surprised at the lengths that Google has gone to protect their App store dominance. I understand why Apple considers it such an existential threat, but didn't think that Google was nearly as concerned about this as they apparently have been. I'm certainly glad that Google did not buy Epic. I understand why people may not like Epic, but I think they're good for the ecosystem, and Google being in control of them to any degree would hamstring Epic's ability to be disruptive in any given market.

I enjoyed it. It's often pretty funny, surprising enough, occasionally endearing. It finds time for all the characters to have something to do. It's easily my favorite recent DC film.

Not sure if it was YouTube compression or what, but there are a bunch of odd visual artifacts in that video. It seems like it could also be some issue with DLSS or some other post processing.

I was listening to NPR this morning talk about this bill and they continue to do the thing I really really hate, which is casually mention that the bill "needs 60 votes to pass." THIS BILL DOES NOT REQUIRE 60 VOTES TO PASS THE SENATE. BASICALLY NOTHING ACTUALLY REQUIRES 60 VOTES. IT REQUIRES 60 VOTES TO OVERCOME THE OTHERWISE GUARANTEED FILIBUSTER. FRAMING IT AS A STANDARD PROCEDURE TO REQUIRE 60 VOTES AND FAILING TO MENTION THE FILIBUSTER IS A DISSERVICE.

I don't know much about IRS requirements, but let's take the crypto part out of this equation and pretend all this economic activity is about anything else. There probably isn't a great comparison to be made for mining, but I'd be perfectly fine if all crypto mining leaves the US. As for the rest of it, I would have to imagine that if you're holding, transferring, or facilitating the transfer of financial assets in the US you have certain IRS requirements. If this new broker definition makes all those activities far more burdensome for crypto brokers than for traditional brokers, that's probably not great. If it's more or less bringing things up to par (or at least moving in that direction), great. As far as it being "impossible," that just doesn't scan. Yeah, the system is built to be pseudonymous, but you know what is perfectly anonymous? Cash. Yet somehow we still have IRS requirements for cash businesses. Sure, a lot of cash activity that should be reported isn't, and I imagine that is and will continue to be the case with crypto, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be any requirements or that any requirements that do exist are some kind of 4th amendment violation (lol). God I hate crypto people.

So far it doesn't seem like the press knows anything more than @Commissar SFLUFAN The AP story doesn't have much else.

So much room for jank! I know I say this about every RPG that wants to take queues from Bethesda, but I'm far more concerned about a game like this getting the small things right than I am them having more land to traverse. 100+ islands sounds great, I'm sure a few of them will even be worthwhile, but what I want so very badly is to see the kinds of polish I've grown accustomed to in other single player experiences extended to these "grand RPGs." I don't expect the full on Last of Us 2 treatment, but I just really hope that this doesn't feel like an Elder Scrolls game with HDR.

Visually, though I did really like some of the brand new gameplay stuff at the end of Black Mesa.

At least we have a date.

Pretty weird, but as long as they don't start regulating at a part specific level I'm good.

I'm guessing this is correct. I'd never seen something like this, but I suppose this is what happens in a super hot rental market.

The first one was terrible and this one seems to be continuing in that tradition. I wouldn't bet against it in the box office though.

My mistake. I didn't realize Texas UIL refers to the organization that governs Texas high school athletes.

I went through Black Mesa and HL2 before Alyx came out, and getting to HL2 after Black Mesa was a real step down. I'd love to see a real comprehensive update to it. Good on Valve for allowing this kind of thing.

As has been heavily rumored and leaked for a while now, Google is finally going all in on their Pixel phones and creating their own chips. Today we got our first official confirmation that this will be the case, and while tech reporters were allowed to handle the devices and see some demos, they couldn't take any of their own footage or test anything themselves. The devices generally seem comparable to other high end (~$1000) smartphones, which has not always been the case with the Pixel line. The camera system is notable, given that Google has finally ditched the old 12MP Sony sensor they've been using since the Pixel 2. No direct specs were given, but leaks suggest it's a new 50MP sensor that is also larger than the old one. There's also an ultra wide and a periscope telephoto lens. The big deal though is the new Tensor chip. Tensor is the name Google has used for their AI chips used in their data center products, so it's notable they're using it again here. Unfortunately, Google was again light on the details. They wouldn't share what parts were custom designed, who is building it, or any benchmarks. The only real info is that the Tensor SoC will include mobile versions of the "Tensor Processing Unit" that Google has been putting in their server farms. This shouldn't be a surprise, given that Apple, nVidia, and basically everyone else already puts dedicated AI hardware in their SoCs, and Googles TPUs have been well regarded for years. In the past we've seen different kinds of jumps when companies move to their own hardware. Samsung has been selling versions of it's phones for years with their own Exynos chips, but they've never really been clearly better than their Qualcomm counterparts. When Apple first moved to their own A series chips, they were more or less a continuation of what had come before, taking a bit before they became the market leading chips we see today. When they moved to the M series with their laptops, it was a huge leap we're unlikely to see here. If I were to guess I'd say we won't be seeing much performance differences between this first gen and existing Qualcomm phones, but over time it could become quite a competitive advantage for Google. Google is also promising that this time they're going to spend money and actually attempt to capture some market share. They've said that before, but there's some reason to believe they actually might do it this time. As someone who's been using Pixel phones for years now, I'd be happy if they can make these really standout products.

I certainly don't follow college football prospects, but it seems this kid is the top prospect this year and he's choosing to go to a school where he can make money over one where he can't. I find it kind of interesting that he's calling this out specifically, since he's choosing Ohio State over Texas, and even with my limited knowledge of CFB, I'm pretty sure Ohio has been consistently the better team. So he easily could have just said he's going to Ohio for generic football or college reasons, but he's making a statement in calling out the money situation. Good for him and those advising him. Bad post. As pointed out he's choosing to go to Ohio State rather than play high school in Texas another year, where he would not be allowed to make money. Still a post about how the new rules allowing him to profit from his name and likeness have changed the decision making of the top college prospect, so I'll leave it up.

Obviously not the same thing, but theoretically USB 4 is fast enough. The bandwidth is high enough, and it's basically just porting over PCIe lanes, but I'm not sure if it works with PCIe 4.0, as I'm pretty sure that existing Thunderbolt 3 only supports PCIe 3.2.

Kind of surprising that, for the moment it's cheaper to add 1TB to the Series X than the PS5. Given how high storage prices are, that might actually remain the case for a while. Personally, since my primary platform is PC, I don't need to keep too many games on my PS5, so I probably won't expand it anytime soon, if ever.

As I said in the Blue Origin thread, the Space X proposal was pretty much NASA's only choice given their constraints. They didn't get nearly as much money or time as they wanted, and Space X came in with the only flight proven vehicle and the most competitive price.

Not a shocker.

I don't have a WSJ sub, but putting that number in context with the rest of the world and it seems like the US isn't doing too bad, at least compared to our economic rivals. If the economy bounces back and we can get over the pandemic, that'll help a lot. We also can basically increase our population at will if we just open up the immigration gates (though that would require some serious political shifts). For my part, I'll happily identify as part of the "problem."

I know we got at least one similar lawsuit over all the movies sent to HBO Max, but I'm surprised we haven't seen more, or even some kind of class action. I won't blame Johansson herself, but it does seem like contracts should account for this kind of thing. I don't know if it's unions being slow to adjust, the incestuous relationship talent agencies have with studios, or studio lawyers just being better, but every time the business model changes it seems like everyone but the studios get screwed. Just in the last 20 years we've seen multiple huge shifts in how films and tv make money, and we've become increasingly aware of the lasting value that many of these properties have (see the sale of MGM). If you write a contract based around specifics of how a movie makes money, you're going to lose out sooner rather than later. I'm sure that someone lost a ton of money because the contract they signed in 06 gave them a cut of the DVD sales, only for the film to come out a couple years later to find the market had been cut in half. I suppose those aren't lasting lessons.

I haven't a vacation longer than a day since Sept 2019, but I'm going to Alaska in a couple weeks. So looking forward to it.

Given that his endorsement seems more or less irrelevant, do we have much data of the reverse? We've seen so many GOP politicians go to the ends of reality to avoid pissing off Trump. Do we have many examples of how those that didn't kiss the ring fared in elections? Or are there just too few examples?