TwinIon

Looks like the kind of thing I can see the Animal Crossing crowd getting really into, but probably not for me.

I'm bummed we didn't see hardware, but my understanding is that Apple has expanded their R&D spending. Their last quarterly report shows a more than 10% increase YoY. We're really not that far off the release of the M1, which is by far the most significant development in chip design in a very long time. Devices as transformative as the iPhone don't happen often, regardless of how much you spend, though there's reason to suspect that Apple is at least hoping that AR glasses will be that next thing, and they're spending billions to make them a reality. I still wouldn't expect to see them for years.

That's certainly good news. If there's one aspect of Bebop that should have no trouble coming over to live action it's a rockin sound track.

I don't want to bother typing my whole crypto rant out again, but I feel like so many crypto enthusiasts seem to think of it as this panacea of untraceable currency, unhindered by government intervention, but that was never going to be the case. One of two options were inevitable: Either crypto fails such that it has no real value so it's not worth regulating, or it becomes something and governments everywhere regulate it. Even if that something is basically a digital commodity and not a functioning currency, of course the government would regulate it. The US government isn't just going to decide to ignore huge stores of value being transferred.

Just put in my pre-order. I wasn't terribly worried Insomniac would somehow fail, but it's good to see they're continuing to live up to their reputation.

I also thought it was excellent. It did an amazing job of capturing this moment in time. I was very impressed at the production values he was able to achieve as a one man show. Really great work from the projections to the color grading in individual sequences, to wrangling multiple cameras. Really great stuff.

Probably a good idea. Still, I always feel like these measures are aiming at the wrong thing. Like in CA, in NV the vast majority of the water is used up by irrigation, not by public use. The article in the OP indicates this ban should conserve a very non-trival amount of water, so I'm all for it, but it doesn't come close to addressing the real water issues. It's a bit like how congress is always fighting over a small slice of NASA or NIST or NIH budget, while the DOD gets a blank check and a guaranteed % raise year after year.

I worded that poorly and was obviously wrong, but what I was getting at is that there's no indication that they moved this movie back after switching directors and starting from scratch. They kept the production on track as well as they could and delayed it only because of Covid.

It does seem like they want to be included among the real launch companies like ULA and SpaceX but they haven't ever even shown something worth putting in the same discussion.

That was disappointing. Nothing very exciting, no hardware at all, and the changes made were less than I'd hoped for, but probably about what I expected. I do have to say that the Universal Control stuff is something that I would have loved at a certain point in my life. There was a time where I ran a triple monitor setup at work with each monitor being driven by a different computer. I used some software that basically did exactly what they showed off, and it worked between operating systems, though it was a bit temperamental. These days it's not really something I have much use for. Even though I have an iPad with a keyboard on my desk right now, I probably wouldn't enable universal control even if I could on my Windows PC. I have to imagine very few people will get a lot of use out of it, but for those that do it'll be awesome.

Somehow missed that Windows and Android users will be able to open Facetime links through the web. Not full Facetime app for other systems, and I don't think those systems can initiate a Facetime call, but that's still kind of a big deal.

Well, the iMessage stuff wasn't terribly exciting to me, but I don't use it, so I'm not one to judge. The new multitasking UI on the iPad is better, but not as big a change as I was hoping for. Also, no indication as to them changing what apps have to do to support multi-tasking, which is often my biggest pain point. Nothing like navigating the confusing UI gestures only to figure out that a certain app can't be run side-by-side. The homescreen changes also feel minimal. Basically the iPad gets some of last years updates to the iPhone. Still no option to add more apps to the huge iPad screen. Why they keep that grid so small is beyond me, and I don't even have a 12.3" version. The website and app privacy reports seem like a good idea. Transparency is one of the best things a company like Apple can do to show individual users how their data is being used. I'm interested in the idea they'll be blocking IP addresses. Honestly not sure how big of a deal that is for how apps and websites track users, but I have the feeling it'll be pretty significant.

Pretty much my thoughts as well. I am wondering if Dr Strange 2 somehow key to the next phase of the MCU or if this is just another example of Disney refusing to move release dates no matter what (an insistence I've often found puzzling.) As always I'm curious what kind of creative differences can lead to a split like this, but we probably will never really know.

Happy to see it's being well received. We'll probably be watching it this coming weekend.

WWDC 2021 will be starting soon, at 10am PDT. It could be quite an interesting show. Lots of rumors of what we might see, and lots of weird pressure on Apple in the wake of the Epic trial. I've heard rumors (or perhaps simply hopes) that we'll see new 16" MacBook Pros, probably with a new M1x or M2 SoC, which would give us our first insights into how Apple plans to scale up towards high performance chips. There are rumors that we'll get better multitasking on the iPad, but I wouldn't be surprised if all we get are widgets. I'd love for some crazy iPad action, like true windowing or anything else to justify putting an M1 in the iPad Pro, but I won't hold my breath. The twitter hashtag emoji and the splash screen indicates something with iMessage. It's a hugely outside shot, but it's plausible they open up iMessage to Android to lessen some anti-trust concerns, but odd are it's likely just some new junk they've thrown in there. I doubt they'll even acknowledge it, but whatever they say it'll be hard for Apple to escape the cloud of the Epic trial and Tim Cook essentially saying that Apple owns and deserves to profit on every piece of software sold in their store. They could try playing up how great they are to devs and how many opportunities Apple provides to them, but they might just try and sidestep the issue entirely and talk about privacy or how fast the new chips are the whole time. We'll find out soon enough.

On the bright side, Facebook will no longer treat posts by politicians by their own set of rules. So if Trump does get his account back, he'd probably break the rules right quick.

DF covers it in their video (starting ~3:15). Basically, there's a "fake" light source that follows the main character (or often any character in a cutscene) so they're more evenly or just better illuminated. The recent demo had some very intense hero lighting for Alloy. It's a stylistic choice more than anything.

The last gameplay demo they showed didn't look like a "free" climbing system. It sure looked like that available grapples glowed yellow when scanned. Set climbing routes are one of my pet peeves in an open world game, so I really hope it's true. Nothing kills the sense of discovery like a specifically painted line of hand holds and ledges directing your every movement.

I was watching a few pages, but nothing came up. I was kind of hoping that some 3080s would become available at the same time and that maybe I could snag one. No such luck. If anything I'd guess that 3080s will become even harder to get, as it makes more sense for nVidia to make as many 3080Tis as they can.

I imagine there are some bells and whistles that might not exist on a PS5 game because it's cross gen, but I've long waited for a concrete example of an exciting gameplay mechanic that was killed off because of a cross gen or even multi-platform release. I also think it's really hard to tell the difference between the time period that devs are learning how to get the most out of a console generation and a game somehow held back by being cross gen. Even if you're only working on the PS5, if you release a game in the first year the platform exists, it's not going to look as good as the games that come later in its life.

I was interested in getting the first one remastered. I haven't revisited the other two since release, so maybe I'll just wait for this and play all three. Maybe I'll just wait until I get a new GPU. By then it should be pretty cheap.

To chime in further on this, just because it annoys me, I think there's a very good case for why press conferences are actually the worst kind of media we get from sports figures these days. Basically every answer is some canned response that gives you no insight into the person, the sport, or the game that was just played/about to be played. I don't want to hear how "they just outplayed us" or "we just wanted it more than they did" or "so and so just put in a great performance" or "we're just focused on the playoffs" or whatever. The poster boy for this is probably Bill Belichick. His press conferences are kinda funny because he's so predictable and terse (we're on to *insert next opponent*), but he's very much there only because he's required to be. His breakdown videos however, which I think the does after every game, are wonderful. They're obviously the product of him having had the time to review the film as he walks you through all the moves and countermoves that happened in a play or a drive or a game. You get a lot of "we saw that they were playing this defense" or "we were having a hard time covering player X" so "we changed our scheme" or "player Z caught on to that habit and exploited it" or whatever. They're wonderful videos as someone that wants to appreciate the game on the level it's being played. Those videos so clearly demonstrate the complexity of what is going on and are both informative and almost make Belichick seem like a real person. They're also clearly the kind of communication he prefers: prepared segments diving deep into every detail about football. They're so much better than the press conferences or any commentator's post game highlights.

I still put more hours into Destiny than it deserves. Hopefully this hiring, and their recent expansion, indicates they're going to put more content into the game. I really enjoy playing Destiny, but there needs to be much more stuff to do.

Looks pretty generic.

At this point in time, the requirement to do press conferences seems more necessary to the press themselves than to the sport or individual athlete. I can understand that a sport wants its' players to become celebrities. It brings in more attention and therefore more money to the sport. When TV interviews were the only or best way for the public to get to know players, I can understand why you'd mandate them, though exceptions should still be made. However, it's far from the case now that press conferences are the best or even most notable way for the public to bond with athletes. Social media allows them to (a certain extent) control their own celebrity and public facing image, independent of forced press conferences. Especially in an individual sport like tennis, the necessity of official press conferences feels dubious at best, except of course, for the press, who desperately need that time. The sport I follow most closely is Formula 1, and there are drivers (especially the young guys) that embrace Instagram/Twitter/YouTube/Twitch/etc. and those that avoid it entirely, not even having a managed account. I know they do very lengthy press conferences all the time, but they're very rarely interesting or worthwhile. If the eliminated them entirely I'd hardly notice.