TwinIon

Lots of exciting stuff coming. Weapon crafting could make grinding for desired rolls more bearable. Lots of new dungeons / raids. Raid rotations. New weapon types, new enemies The promise of a Halo / Titanfall 2 / Doom style campaign is exciting, though I'd be very surprised if we get quite that much content.

I enjoyed the episode well enough, but for the most part it was telling such a similar story to what we've already seen, it felt almost like a re-casting than anything else. Pretty much all the major beats were repeats. I was also mixed on the animation. I think most of the action works well, and they did plenty of it. I still don't like how they render faces. It's difficult to articulate other than it just feeling "off" in some way.

I personally wouldn't really mind if crypto left, but seems like an unlikely scenario. I'm not expert enough to know if better language could have been written, but I think the language is as necessarily vague as most laws are. Crypto is still extremely young, and no one knows what the infrastructure will evolve into over time. The language is basically saying "if you run a service that helps people transfer money, you have these requirements," and that seems like a perfectly sensible line to draw. Even as it applies to traditional financial assets, there's a whole chain of technologies and services that make transfers possible. If I build a Venmo clone, I imagine I have to follow some IRS guidelines (I think these exact same ones). My service almost certainly relies on any number of other services to function properly on any number of technical levels. I probably use AWS or something like it, I have a service for SSL certs, my app probably relies on Google and Apple as software platforms, there's probably some database in the back end that stores all the records, and I probably have to plug into some proprietary financial system to interact with banks and credit card companies and who knows what else. The law wasn't written to include and exclude each technical level of functionality with such precision, because it would be insane to even try, and even more insane for such a nascent technology as crypto. I think this is much ado about nothing. Nothing indicates to me that any of the apocalyptic outcomes are even mildly likely. The culture of crypto is just very much wrapped around a sense of absolute libertarianism to the point that any regulation seems like the end of the world. It's not. Courts aren't all completely stupid, and if there's money in it, there will be sufficient action taken to keep things going.

I'm no expert, but I don't think the bill specifically includes them. The exact language says a broker is: I would imagine that this will be clarified by the courts, but to me a validator doesn't seem like it would fall under the category of a "service effectuating transfers." It's certainly arguable that validators are included in that definition, and I can see why people would be upset at the possibility, but I personally wouldn't expect it to happen.

So, as usual, press summaries don't link to the bill text, and when there's only two sentences about a subject it's hard to know what the bill actually says. So here's the bill text for anyone curious (let me know if this isn't the right bill, but I'm pretty sure it is). The electric vehicle section (Sec 1211, page 401 of the PDF) is pretty short, and mostly says that the department of transportation needs to come up with a plan. It does specify that any chargers need to work with multiple makes of cars, that they need to be network capable, and that payment should be easy. It also says that they'll allow commercial activity as it relates to charging stations on interstate rest stops, which makes a lot of sense. Later, in Sec 20101 (~page 1895) the bill specifies that the DOT should help amend building codes for including electric vehicle chargers, and that a task force has one year to come up with a plan for how to spend the money. I realize that kind of thing is standard in bills like this, and while I'm bummed that they only got half the money the administration wanted to begin with, it's still a good place to start. I'm happy to see a Dig Once for Broadband provision. (sec 1603) I'm pretty sure this has been a thing in CA and elsewhere for a while, but it's just one of those common sense things that should be everywhere. I tried to find the text of the crypto provisions and I'm not sure what the deal is. It should be in Section 80603, but the text from Congress.gov doesn't include it. I found this google drive copy of the initial Senate Text that is ~800 pages longer than what is on Congress.gov. News stories seem to indicate that the crypto provision didn't get cut, so not sure why it's missing. I'm guessing that congress.gov just didn't host the full text or I'm pulling the wrong version. Either way, the crypto provision itself (Sec 80603, page 2436 on the google drive pdf) doesn't say much that I can puzzle out other than what has been reported. What I (a non-lawyer, non-tax accountant) really get out of it is that it's basically just including "digital assets" in existing IRS code. To me that says that this isn't some kind of crazy new provision that is putting an undue burden on crypto, it's just treating it the same way that we already treat other assets. Bottom line: If you want crypto to be money, you should expect it to treated by governments like money.

I recall an older episode of Reply All that covered hackers going after rare handles that was really well done. They actually talk to someone involved in stealing and selling rare handles. They briefly mention that some people that do this resort to more drastic measures, but it does a good job of covering what's going on with this and how easy it is to get into. Get onto the right forum, buy a few simple tools and know a few basic social engineering techniques, and it's pretty easy to steal most people's accounts. That said, stories like the on in the OP highlight both how sad it is that someone would endanger and even end up killing a person for a twitter handle, and how sad it is that a random call to police in this country can so easily result in a death.

I also haven't played Origami King, but puzzle based combat sounds interesting. Experience and/or gear acquisition really do help with the feeling of progression in games. Yes, you're progressing through the story, but part of the role you're playing is that you get stronger through the experiences you have. This serves two purposes, as a reward to the player for their time and effort, and serve to open new game play opportunities (new gear / abilities, new ways to fight, etc.) I don't think it's impossible to design a JRPG without these things, and would be surprised if there aren't a few out there, but I think player progression is really important. I want to feel like I'm becoming more powerful. Especially in traditional menu based battles, you don't get much "better" at the game in the same way you might for more action oriented games. I like earning that new weapon or putting my skill points to get that new spell. I do think a lot of JRPGs especially do a poor job of level scaling and rely on too many battles to pad the length out. Even FF7R (which has a great battle system as is a game I really enjoyed) spends far too much time throwing pointless battles at you seemingly out of habit. I'm right on board with you when you say that a lot of these games could be streamlined and lose the grind, but I don't think they can take away experience or gear upgrades completely without losing a key element that makes the games engaging.

That article says that Biden pledged to declassify these documents, but there's no link and a quick google search didn't find anything. I suppose it's slightly beside the point, but I do think there's some difference between Biden not doing something that other Presidents of both parties refused to do and Biden not doing something he said he would do. I'm sure the calculus is pretty simple. If there's no evidence of Saudi connections, it'd be an easy decision to release the info and exonerate an ally. If there's any connection at all, you gain almost nothing by revealing it, but you really piss off a ally that we continue to deem as a necessary evil. Personally, I'd love it if we could stop treating the Saudis as being so crucial. There's a lot beside 9/11 that we should be hammering them on.

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.