Started up Elden Ring last night…

This month I finished up Horizon: Forbidden West and am still playing more Gran Turismo, but last week my little yellow Playdate finally came in the mail.

The Playdate

I don't feel like the Playdate should need an introduction but it's also such a niche device that it probably does. Developed by Panic (yes, the Mac developers behind Transmit and Nova) with some assistance from Teenage Engineering, the Playdate is a small handheld game console that embraces some pretty severe limitations to encourage a modern take to classic video game designs.

To start it's quite small - about the size of an iPhone cut in half. The screen is 2.7", 400x240px, 1-bit black and white. There are two main buttons, a d-pad, a home button, and a crank (yes a crank!). Many reviewers have complained about the lack of a backlight on the screen, but I think it's just an additional limitation that invokes some nostalgia. I haven't had much of an issue finding enough light since the screen is so reflective.

Games can be developed by anyone and side-loaded by just dropping them into a website where they will automatically be downloaded by the device but Panic also includes a season of games being released each week for the first twelve weeks. Two a week for a total of twenty four included games. The first two are Whitewater Wipeout, an arcade surfing game that exclusively uses the crank as an input method, and Casual Birder, a birdwatching RPG. I also downloaded Bloom on Itch.io. This is a real-time narrative gardening game that really shows off the depth that can be implemented into Playdate games.

The Play date is a very cool device and I can't wait to see what the other 20 games in season 1 are (I didn't mention the other two that I've got and also refuse to spoil myself on the rest).

I also had a Steam Deck show up on Friday, but I'll save that for next month.

Elon Musk - Twitter

Underground tunnels are immune to surface weather conditions (subways are a good example), so it wouldn’t matter to Hyperloop if a hurricane was raging on the surface. You wouldn’t even notice.

🙄

Self Service Repair - Apple support

Apple has finally introduced their self service repair system, and there are a few interesting takeaways.

• The repair store is operated by a separate company and also at a very suspicious URL “selfservicerepair.com”
• Parts are currently only available for iPhone, but there are even more than I would’ve expected like the Taptic engine
• Apple will sell official heated fixtures and presses for some of the trickier replacements at around $200 each, but you can also rent all the tools you need for $50

I’m mostly impressed by all the tools that they’re selling! I almost want to own them all for fun.

Got a couple new toys and definitely plan on writing about them soon! Here’s a peek at one. 👀

Haas F1 Won’t Repay Uralkali’s $13M Sponsorship Money

In documents seen by Autosport, Haas turned the tables on Uralkali and denied it had to pay anything back while also demanding that the mining company pay an additional $8 million to the team for damages.

This is excellent. Not only is Haas refusing to pay back the money that Uralkali is requesting but they're also requesting damages. Keep it up Guenther.

Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge - Apple

Some really nice shots! I only have an iPhone Mini so no macro mode for me, but these sure are impressive.

Elon Musk, After Toying With Twitter, Now Wants It All - The New York Times

Maybe I should just post here...

Lost In Cult - A Handheld History

Retro Dodo and Lost in Cult have put together a beautiful coffee table book showcasing the history of handheld gaming.

Meta plans to take 47.5% cut on virtual asset sales in its metaverse

A Meta spokesperson confirmed to CNBC Wednesday that Meta will take an overall cut of up to 47.5% on each transaction. That includes a “hardware platform fee” of 30% for sales made through the Meta Quest Store, where it sells apps and games for its virtual reality headsets. On top of that, Horizon Worlds, will charge a 17.5% fee.

Everyone, including Meta, has been complaining about the 30% sales cut that Apple takes in the App Store. This has led to recent lawsuits and some recent changes to subscription fees for reader apps. I'm not sure how long this 47.5% cut is going to last.

I love my HomePods but they have some severe limitations when it comes to inputs. We have a record player in our office connected to a small receiver and stereo speakers. Sometimes it's nice to listen to records during dinner but our dining table isn't that close to our office. Because of this I went looking for a solution to stream audio from a record player to our HomePods. Many receivers have AirPlay input but AirPlay output doesn't really seem to be a thing. Luckily there is a solution but it definitely isn't perfect.

The solution starts with an iRig Stream. I needed some way of getting output from my receiver to an AirPlay capable device which I decided needed to be my MacBook Pro (while there are ways to do this with an iOS device using Airchord that seems to only allow output to one HomePod). The iRig Stream can plug directly into the headphone output on my receiver and sends that over a USB-C cable to the MacBook Pro.

Now that I had audio going to my Mac I needed a way to send that to my HomePods. Luckily Rogue Amoeba makes a little app called Airfoil. This allows me to select the iRig Stream as an audio input and then select as many devices as I want to output that audio to. Once the HomePods are selected I can still independentely control the volume level on the HomePods (sometimes) or in Airfoil. Success! Although there are a few issues below.

• Obviously, I need to leave my MacBook plugged in next to the record player.
• Airfoil is a system extension which Apple has new requirements for on M1. You’ll need to boot into recovery mode in order to change the security settings. I also noticed that this prevents Apple Pay from being set up (although it’ll continue to work once it is set up, you just need to revert security settings for the moment).
• For whatever reason HomePods dont always display volume controls on them and volume needs to be adjusted in the Airfoil app.

Having two kids definitely makes it difficult to keep up with all the new video games being release each week. In college I would spend hundreds of hours on multiplayer games, but more recently I tend to focus towards the stories and experiences in titles rather than the competitive aspect. Currently I own a PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch OLED, PC (more on this in a future post), and more recently an Analogue Pocket. In February I was able to wrap up Minish Cap for Gameboy Advance, a game that I somehow missed out on during its original release, and I absolutely loved it. This month I'd like to talk about a few newer games that I've been playing.

Horizon: Forbidden West

The first Horizon is a game that was overshadowed by the release of the Nintendo Switch and Breath of the Wild. I played through it, but I was definitely a bit distracted by the Switch and didn't give it as much time and appreciation as it deserved. Forbidden West is a great entry back into the world and I am absolutely obsessed with the story throughout the game. Machines are extremely satisfying to battle once you take some time to review weaknesses and the overall story just keeps me coming back to learn more about the world

Gran Turismo 7

I honestly wasn't sure how I'd feel about Gran Turismo 7. It has been 9 years since the previous release and since then I have mainly been enjoying the Forza Horizon series. As soon as I started up GT7 I was just overwhelmed with nostalgia. It just had all the right sounds and feelings. While it lacked the open world arcade action that Forza Horizon has, it makes up for that with the addictive focus required to race your way from first to last. As you race tracks over and over again, you learn which speed to attack a corner at and when to start braking. These small changes (just like real racing!) make huge improvements in the results of the race. My main complaint is that it still generally focuses on rolling starts and there aren't any standing starts to be seen in the main races throughout the campaign. There is also quite a lot of controversy over the lack of ability to sell cars and the extremely high prices of some of the rare options - although they seem to be working to fix some of those.

Hypercritical: Independence Day

I can't imagine this is an easy decision but I'm very much inspired by people who move to a self employed like. This is a great post about why he did it and what he's doing next. Good luck!

Teams all back F1’s decision to continue with Saudi GP

They left "after nearby missile strike" out of this headline.

Earlier today, during a practice session, an Armanco (F1 title sponsor) facility was hit by a missile attack from Houthi rebels. I was sure they would cancel the race and pack up immediately but apparently they decided to resume. This article claims a unanimous decision but it sounds like many drivers were against this. And it just get worse...

Essentially the Saudi Arabia authorities believe the Houthi attacks are only targeting infrastructure and specifically Aramco facilities, leaving the grand prix safe – although it is believed to have a missile defence system in place as well.

Missile defense? At a sporting event?! Stay safe.

McLaren Racing - McLaren Racing announces major multi-year partnership with Google

McLaren Racing today announced a major multi-year partnership with Google, as a new Official Partner of the McLaren Formula 1 Team and the McLaren MX Extreme E Team from 2022.

The Formula 1 seasons starts this weekend so I was pretty surprised to hear about this last minute sponsorship. Interesting that the actual Google logo won't be on the F1 car (although it sounds like it will be on McLaren's new Extreme E car). I'm not a huge fan of the Android logo but the Chrome wheel covers are very unique. I hope to see more unique wheel cover on other cars later this year.

As I get this site together I've been trying to figure out how to best integrate shortcuts to save links that I'd like to post about in the future. I don't have much experience using Shortcuts and I still can't believe the kind of stuff that Federico Viticci does over on MacStories but I've got a fairly simple setup that I'm very happy with.

The simple flowchart of my process is Safari, Drafts, Micro.Blog. Using Shortcuts will pull the URL and post title and auto-fill a draft with the correct formatting that I'm planning on using. This will sit in my inbox as a reminder to finish the post until I'm ready to write. From there I can fill out the draft and submit a Drafts action to automatically post to Micro.Blog and archive the draft!

I plan on continuing to explore Shortcuts and see if there are other ways that I can make the process more efficient. My next plan is to have a second shortcut for automatically uploading photos and files to include.

The shortcut can be downloaded here.

Source - The Verge

Ford is reportedly going to start selling cars to customer without chips and with some features deactivated. Eventually dealers will get chips and need to install these into cars. I was wondering when something like this would happen considering the reports of parking lots full of incomplete cars but this does open up a whole new set of questions. Which features will be missing? Will this just be stuff like parking sensors or radar cruise control or will it even include entire multimedia units? As a customer I'd definitely prefer to get a car sooner but now I wonder how long it'll take to get these chips installed.

Hello there. I'm Jack and this is my blog. It has been a while since I've done much writing but recently I've had the urge to create someplace to share my thoughts. Why? I'm not quite sure but I think I've got a couple of reasons.

• It might just be that I’ve got a lot of things that I’m working on and want somewhere to write that down.
• I miss the old internet. When Twitter was good and I would just post junk there.
• I had this domain laying around and wanted to use it. I guess 🤣

But anyway, here's some more about me. I studied mechanical engineering in college and since then I've worked as a production engineer at a major producer of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and now as a project engineer for a company that produces factory automation. At work I get the opportunity to design and assemble machines for a variety of industries. Some simple machines to assist with manual assembly and some much more complicated fully automated robotic cells.

I'm married with two kids, two cats, and a dog. Outside of work I've got more hobbies than I really have time for. I bike (bicycles, not motorcycles), I take photos, I roast coffee, I fly drones, I play video games - just to name a few. I think I'll mainly write about these but I've got some specific ideas as well...

• Coffee Roasting / Coffee Brewing
• Formula 1
• Apple and general technology
• Smart Home and troubleshooting (including my Raspberry Pi garage door)
• Cars (especially electrification)
• Attempting to make an app

But in general I have no idea where this will go or if anyone will read it. At a minimum it's a nice place to put my thoughts and experiences and at best it'll help someone out. So here goes.