Author: Self

“Kevin Durant and the Wake of a Failed Superteam” – Howard Beck (The Ringer)

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“There were maybe 150 people in the building that night, counting me. And it was weird as hell. As I wrote then, for Sports Illustrated: “The greatest player ever to pull on a Nets jersey made his Brooklyn debut Tuesday night, and the excitement was … not palpable.”

It turns out, that profoundly strange introduction served as an omen of sorts. Things never did get much better, or more normal, or more palpable, during Durant’s time in Brooklyn. The era could best be summed up with a shrug emoji and a two-word slogan: Shit happens”

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2024/2/2/24058808/kevin-durant-brooklyn-nets-phoenix-suns

“The video game magazines of our youth are disappearing” – Simon Parkin (Pushing Buttons, The Guardian)

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“This venue –and every publication is a venue with its own dress code and decor, its favoured clientele and font-choice aesthetic –felt more like the Garrick than a youth club: deep-chaired, wood-panelled, its resident critics ruthless and assured, unafraid to skewer whatever video game everyone else was busily fawning over. Edge’s writers became my tutors; they helped me develop a sense of taste, to recognise brilliance, and to mourn the distance between intention and attainment”

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2024/jan/31/pushing-buttons-video-game-magazines

“The Vision Pro” – Daring Fireball

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“This first-generation Vision Pro hardware is severely restricted by the current limits of technology. Apple has pushed those limits in numerous ways, but the limits are glaring. This Vision Pro is a stake in the ground, defining the new state of the art in immersive headset technology. But that stake in the ground will recede in the rear view mirror as the years march on. Just like the Mac’s 9-inch monochrome 512×342 pixel display. Just like the iPhone’s EDGE cellular modem.

But the conceptual design of VisionOS lays the foundation for an entirely new direction of interaction design. Just like how the basic concepts of the original Mac interface were exactly right, and remain true to this day. Just like how the original iPhone defined the way every phone in the world now works”

https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/the_vision_pro

“The Fertilizer Oligopoly Stinks” – Boondoggle

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“studies show that fertilizer prices move alongside food prices, rather than reflecting any underlying change in the inputs required to manufacture it, meaning fertilizer manufacturers aren’t constrained by any real market discipline. They’re just opportunistically gouging farmers. And some of that increased cost is inevitably going to wind up in the prices of the food you purchase at the grocery store too”

https://boondoggle.substack.com/p/the-fertilizer-oligopoly-stinks

“Video-Game Companies Make Workers Relocate, Then Fire Them” – Jason Schreier (GameOn, Bloomberg)

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“Blizzard canceled its survival game Odyssey after six years in development largely due to its struggling technology. One factor behind those struggles may have been the company’s inability to retain or attract senior engineers, in part, because of a lack of remote-work flexibility.

But the hardest impact of this policy is that both companies asked people to move to southern California — where the rents are expensive and the cost of living is high — only to then take away their jobs.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that productivity does take a hit when people work from home. Maybe it’s especially hard for some disciplines, as managers have argued, and maybe it’s difficult to engage in creative collaboration on Zoom and Trello. Doesn’t matter. CEOs should recognize that no productivity boost is worth the short- and long-term repercussions of forcing people to move and then laying them off”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-01-26/video-game-companies-make-workers-relocate-then-fire-them

“Out of Stock – Instacart, Elon Musk, Cruises, and Crabs” – A Scammer Darkly

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“Instacart lost two billion dollars last quarter, which somehow beat Wall Street expectations. The markets have decided that gig grocery delivery is something society needs so badly it’s worth blowing billions and grinding a dwindling independent workforce into dust to make it happen”

https://newsletter.scammerdarkly.com/archive/out-of-stock-instacart-elon-musk-cruises-and-crabs/

“I hated going back to games – until The Last of Us Part II Remastered came along” – Keith Stuart (Pushing Buttons, Guardian)

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“Replaying a linear narrative game is like rereading a favourite novel: nothing changes apart from you. The way you feel, the age you are, the experiences you’ve had – these all contribute to your new experiences with the text. Vladimir Nabokov once said, “One cannot read a book; one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader.” Perhaps we should think about linear narrative games in the same way.

Now that I’ve opened this experiential door, I will definitely keep it ajar. I guess movies and short novels are easier to re-experience thanks to their comparative brevity, but if we look at story games as an escape, a vacation from the new, they’re always worth revisiting. And they have things to tell us about ourselves”

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2024/jan/24/pushing-buttons-last-of-us-2-remastered-replaying

“January 24, 2024” – Letters from an American

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“In his resignation letter, DeWit claimed the recording had been “taken out of context” and said he had been “set up.” He noted that Lake has “a disturbing tendency to exploit private interactions for personal gain,” calling out “her habit of secretly recording personal and private conversations. This is obviously a concern given how much interaction she has with high profile people including President Trump,” he added. “I believe she orchestrated this entire situation to have control over the state party,” he wrote.

DeWit said he had “received an ultimatum from Lake’s team: resign today or face the release of a new, more damaging recording. I am truly unsure of its contents,” he wrote, “but considering our numerous past open conversations as friends, I have decided not to take the risk. I am resigning as Lake requested.”

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-24-2024