TwinIon

This interesting interpretation from The Verge pitches the idea that the key wording is the difference between "button" and "external link." That is, it's reasonable to conclude that the difference isn't visual, but functional. An external link sending you to a web page is one thing, and a button that opens an alternative in-app payment mechanism is another. The real key from that piece though is that the court has said it will strictly enforce this judgement and so there's going to be some real back and forth between Apple and developers, and the court will decide what the line is. The more I think about it, the more I think that will also determine the requirement to use Apple's IAP. Those words "in addition to" are doing a lot of work. I'm sure that Apple will read that as "you can't include these links or even the call to action to pay elsewhere unless you also implement IAP." I think that's a very frustrating outcome, since it would mean big companies like Netflix or Amazon would continue to avoid in app purchases because they don't want to send any money to Apple, but scamy little games will throw tons of external links at people and try every dark pattern in the book to push their victims toward their payment systems. The other thing that will be interesting to watch is how Apple denies the apps that push this too far. There are a million stories out there of devs who were rejected by the app store and never given a good reason, or given reasons that didn't make sense, or reasons that were obviously not the case. In pretty much all these stories, they're not getting much info from Apple as to what they actually did wrong. If Apple just sends vague rejections, it might take some real effort to get the courts involved, because it's unlikely to be obvious that any given rejection was because of IAP issues.

That part of the judgement is describing existing IAP models used in other products and noting that if Apple did change to one of those that they'd still get their cut. The "all models" refereed to there are "current e-commerce models" that experts testified to (presumably Google's, Amazon's, Microsoft's, etc.). All it's really saying is that under any existing in app purchase model, the platform maker gets their cut, it's not describing the remedy enacted by the judge. At least, that's how I read that section, I'm not a lawyer.

As was always going to be the case, Apple as a monopolist depends on how you define the market, and the judge didn't buy either definition. Instead she defined it as "digital mobile gaming transactions," which is why I don't think this will affect console stores but will likely apply to Google. Reading the injunction, I'm not entirely clear on where the line is. Can you implement full on Google or Amazon Pay buttons in your app like you see on many websites? Will they actually allow product level links like that old Kindle app, or is Apple going to try and force a single link out like they recently announced? Perhaps most importantly, can you implement an alternative payment button without offering Apple's IAP? The order does say "in addition to IAP" so perhaps not? If you are required to provide IAP, can you price things differently? Can you simply charge 30% more through IAP than you do if you pay directly? There's a lot of nuance here that will determine how big of a deal this ends up being. From Sweeney's reaction, it seems like he doesn't think a link out to alternative payment counts as real competition to In-App payment options. I suppose they'd hold out if you're required to implement Apple IAP while also offering other options.

Wolverine is good, but Insomniac Wolverine is great.

Every Deathloop trailer feels like it's trying really really hard to explain the premise. I just hope it's fun.

The gameplay looked great, but something seemed off to me with the faces. Animations maybe? Or was that just me?

I'm totally up for a Dark Souls quality KOTOR remake.

If anything, I'd think that no longer throwing cash down that money pit would make infrastructure spending more palatable.

I'm sure this would be an unpopular solution, but it feels like the right answer to me. Clears up all confusion and Sony gets paid.

Can someone remind me what happened with the sister and the son? I did watch the whole series, but I don't remember how things were left.

Yeah, I can't imagine that they could do much, especially if you're not under arrest.

The article also mentions that the LAPD have been instructed to ask everyone for their social security numbers and to insist that it is required by federal law (it's not). This seems to be a way to get around sanctuary city laws that prevent law enforcement from asking about immigration status. To the surprise of no one, it seems that all this social media surveillance is being used almost exclusively for Black Lives Matter and other left leaning activist groups. No keywords (in a document a few years old) indicated they were looking at any right wing organizations or hashtags.

So now I can buy the PS4 disc for $60 and still play the PS5 version? This is such a mess.

Nikon D850, D500, and occasionally a Sony RX100 for landscapes when I only had my long lenses on.

Went on my first vacation in ~18 months and took a Nat Geo cruise around Alaska's inside passage. I think my final total was a bit over 5500 photos, which I thought was a bit low. I don't really do anything with them but I wanted to share a few. Brown Bear Fishing Dawes Glacier Calving Zodiacs in the Inian Islands Sea Lion Eating Salmon Horned Puffin

"You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes" You get a different teaser depending on which one you click, so may as well try em both. Fun hit of nostalgia that they're using WhatIsTheMatrix.com

Looking over the reviews a bit and I remain hyped. I'm hoping that the inevitable box office disappointment is blamed on delta and same day HBO Max release. Warner still has plans to do at least one spin-off series, so there's some evidence they might move forward with the sequel even after it bombs. Here's hoping.

There might be some kind of electronic kill switch for the intelligent anti-rocket system or something, but for the Humvees and the aircraft I feel like there's probably a low tech solution like putting some thermite on the engine blocks or other vital systems.

I agree it's generic, but it doesn't look bad. I can live with bland if it's otherwise well done.

That story that @Ghost_MH linked really is great. This kind of nonsense is why right to repair is such an unambiguous good and the benefits could easily affect consumers that have no interest in tinkering with their stuff.

This is why I've been in favor of eliminating the filibuster. I want government to govern. I'm quite aware that at some point the GOP would have control and pass a bunch of stuff that I would rather they not, but I expect that a lot of the stuff they run on (abortion being an excellent example) would almost certainly be widely unpopular. Last time they had control, despite running on a message of repealing Obamacare and replacing it with something better, they never even proposed a plan. Right now there's a well founded expectation that nothing will get done, regardless of who gets elected. I can't say for sure if I'd be happy with the overall results or not, but I'd like to see us get to a place where we expect the government to actually do things.

I just hope that the price is mostly for the content and less for the cosmetics. Even as someone that never buys cosmetics in any game, I'm always shocked by how much cosmetics are in D2. I assume it's because people are willing to pay the prices. Of course, because it has any content, I'll end up buying it.

I'm excited for it because I'm sure it'll be worth watching, I'm just not super confident that it'll be good. Since the last Matrix film, Lana's work has been all over the place. Writing V for Vendetta (good), writing / directing Speed Racer (Nuts in a good way!), Cloud Atlas (overly ambitious but still great), Jupiter Ascending (some cool sequences but a huge mess), to Sense8 (bizarre and messy). None of those films are boring. Also, this is the basically the first big thing that Lana is doing without Lilly, so who knows what effect that will have.

So I've only played one intro game so far on the default (easy) setting and there's a lot to like and a few things that will need to change for sure, and the issues mostly have to do with war. I do like the mini game of battles that take place. It feels more strategic than Civ and playing it well does really help (though the AI is dumb as a rock in battles). Unfortunately that mini-game also prohibits a third party from entering any given battle. For regular battles that's not much of a problem. It is a big problem when it comes to sieges. Sieges can take up a huge area and basically make it impassible and the participants invulnerable. I discovered this when I saw a siege between two neighbors while I was at war with both. Unfortunately this siege ended up blocking my path to the entire continent. So I had a great war machine that couldn't do anything thanks to a skirmish between two lesser civs. Perhaps the biggest problem though, comes from how wars end. The basic mechanics (such that I understand them) are that actions during war build up "war points" as well as affecting your civs' will to fight. When your opponents' will to fight goes to zero, you win and the war is over. That means that if you're on an unstoppable run and they get to zero, you have to stop and accept their surrender. Moreover, when you accept that surrender (as you are forced to do), you negotiate with your war points. So if you captured a bunch of cities and don't have the war points to negotiate for all of them, too bad you'll have to give some back and make peace. As far as I can tell, you also can't win a war before their will to fight goes to zero or you conquer them all. So if you want to get into a Falkland Islands style fight over some small piece of land and then want to call it off, too bad. Either surrender or you'll be at war forever. I'm pretty sure this will get changed, but right now it really sucks. It sucks if you want to fight over something small, and it sucks if you want to really conquer an enemy. The other problem with wars ending is what to do with the cities you've now acquired. The technology required to merge cities comes well into the game, so if you conquer an early city, you might be in a tough spot to support it. Even when you do get that technology, the algorithm for merging cities seems completely broken. It was asking for wholly unreasonable sums to merge a tiny city into a giant city that nearly surrounded it. If you're far ahead of your conquered foe or you just took a small outlier city, it might only have half the infrastructure upgrades you get for free when founding a new city. So often times you're better off ransacking a city and building a new city or outpost yourself. That also gives you more war points and fewer things to negotiate over, so it's become my standard practice to burn nearly every city and outpost to the ground, which doesn't seem like it should be the best way to deal with everything. --- All that said, I do like the game. I think the whole city and outpost system is good. There are a lot of little systems that work well and are engaging. I think it looks good, plays and runs well. It's probably a bit too much like Civilization to make it feel wholly new and different, but it's still a well made entry in the genre. I'm not a Civ fanatic, but I'll put a few hours into each entry. I think Humankind needs a bit of tweaking, but I think it could get there pretty quickly. The issue with three player battles is the only thing that I suspect will be around for a long time.

If you're really low, you can do pretty much anything. I don't think there's any particular reason to grind something really hard just to get your light up. If you really want to, I think grinding Gambit works well because you kill lots of ads, get plenty of loot after matches. Right now gambit is pretty quick, and with the new rep system winning matters a lot less. Still, if you haven't played in a while and you pick up the current season, you probably have exotic quests or other random things to complete, and if you just keep working on those things, you'll be increasing your light level pretty consistently. There isn't a whole lot you need a high light level for right now, so I wouldn't sweat it too much.