Yes, I was addressing the broader discourse more generally, specifically Reddit. But you're right that the article did directly address this though I would say the tone and title of the article are incongruous with the simple fact that they were able to get the game to run well with minor tweaks.
I take issue with "only got 50fps". This is not Counter Strike or a game that demands 300fps. 50fps (if your 1% lows are within reason) is completely playable.
I will fully concede that the trend of game makers releasing half-baked, poorly optimized games that are buggy and unplayable at launch is totally a thing and it is frustrating and we should demand better (though we keep buying so why would they stop?).
BUT.... the online game community is so insufferable and this Cities Skylines II launch is a great example of it. The game is not about 4k 120 fps gameplay. It is a simulation game that runs fairly well even on last gen's hardware if you drop SOME of the fidelity settings. But that's not the predominant discourse. If people can't play it at 4k out of the box on their overpriced 4090 then they take straight to the internet to complain (and mind you they have tried fiddling with exactly 0 knobs to make it runnable).
I am by no means making excuses for game makers who certainly share much of the blame for creating an environment of distrust among game fans. But the online discourse is just rage baiting and looking for anything to hate with minimal evidence or sometimes even outright lies. Makes me want to go into a cave and play my games without seeing any content or discussion about it.
Just as an alternate data point, I personally prefer the new design as I find it more inviting, and easier to browse on mobile. I think both should exist because there are enough people who prefer the old way but it does beg the question of whether it is worth supporting both from an engineering perspective. I'm sure it has a real cost to Reddit.
Too many great options in this thread already so I'll stray and focus on small 2-player games I discovered this year and enjoyed:
- Trails
- Jaipur
- The Agora expansion to 7 wonders duel (added more of a unique take than Pantheon I think)
I take the video with a grain of salt of course but just to be fair here, the video spends the majority of its time explaining in great detail why Linus did NOT just slap his name on a megapro screwdriver. I actually found the minute details of how they designed, prototyped, and stressed over the screwdriver quite fascinating and while it may or may not translate to quality... it at least is a weak signal to me that someone considered every facet which I believe is somewhat correlated with quality.
Every comment I have seen is flabbergasted by the price but I think there is a lot more interesting about these headphones. For example, they're clearly being marketed as "premium" over-the-ear headphones but they get the Airpods branding and not Beats? What does that mean for Beats? A 20 hour battery life beats my Bose 700s so it will be interesting to see if that holds up. Perhaps more jarring is the high price tag for what amounts to a cloth cover for a case but I suppose they are making the claim that you don't need to power it off?
What I find really interesting in this debate is how the same story can be spun two ways. Here, the headline is listed as "Apple Ending "Fortnite Save the World" Updates for Mac" which is a word for word title from Epic's blog post. Fair enough.
The same story on Techmeme linked to an article about the blog post has the title "Epic says it will shut down Fortnite: Save the World on macOS on September 23rd".
Notice the tone shift from "Apple is shutting this down" to "Epic is shutting this down". I guess I don't really have a point here other than the title is not enough to draw a conclusion. Even reading a single source's take on a story is not enough context to draw a balanced conclusion. There is bias and nuance to every side and a healthy dose of skepticism is needed.
Not saying that Google is or isn't breaking the intention of GDPR here but thinking as a critical reader:
- this complaint is lodged by an upstart privacy-based browser which directly competes with a Google product (Chrome) so they are not objective players here
- reading through the PDF linked in the blog post, it seems there is no "canary in the coal mine". It is a spreadsheet with a lot of empty cells and red backgrounds. The post and the facade of the spreadsheet scream "look at this, something's wrong" but the content doesn't match that at all. The impression is that they have found Google to be doing something wrong but the reality is that they want regulators to check and see if Google is doing something wrong. Is there presumed innocence in this circumstance (really asking here because I don't know)?
As with most things, the truth often lies in the middle. It seems to me at least that this is both a click-baity blog post and complaint meant to drum up media and press for Brave as much as it is a spotlight on Google's data practices. Both are bad.
As some one who exclusively uses Apple Maps on the west side of LA, I have found the routing to be similar or the same. The killer function for me is the HUD when I have it mounted on my dash. Light-years better. Also...the lane accuracy is unparalleled.
I largely agree with your points as an ebike commuter on the west side of LA which has similar properties (surprisingly compact, protected bike lanes, good weather, very expensive gas).
I also use it regularly to carry groceries via saddle bags and find it to be much more convenient than fighting the parking lot at my local trader joes. Also, it is generally flat here so I don't find the need to shower and change clothes but then again, I bike to work in jeans and a t-shirt so maybe it would be different in a suit?
As a concept this seems to make a lot of sense to me. A restaurant actually seems like the worst place to prepare food meant for delivery. I think of my local taco place which usually has a line of Door Dash, Postmates, and Uber Eats drivers out the door while people are trying to order.
I am curious how this article relates to Cloud Kitchens[1] the Travis Kalanick startup because I am skeptical they arrived at the same name out of coincidence.
Putting aside the merits of AMP or Google entirely, I find this author's outrage suspicious. It says in Google's message, "this issue will not affect your appearance on search...". There is a false equivalency proposed that Google is strong-arming publishers to switch their entire site to AMP by sending these messages.
I am not saying Google is blameless or that AMP is perfect, but reading the author's argument literally, I don't understand why this action is the focus of their outrage. Just ignore it.
I have owned several smart locks and every single one has required a secret passcode to actually unlock via a smart assistant. Working backwards, the real threat if they didn't do that is just someone shouting through the window.
TL;DR, for me, the individual measurement is not as important as the quantifiable trend you can gather over time.
I can only speak for myself but for me the gamification of fitness is not in necessarily doing extra things randomly throughout the day just to hit the desired number.
I wore Fitbits for years (before switching to an Apple Watch) to be able to quantify my activity levels on a daily basis. In doing that, I can see trends over time and adjust. I feel that it was very informative to see how my average resting heart rates decreased as I focused on being healthier. I was also able to get a better average of my activity levels and correlate that with how I feel and the average of my weight measurement over time. All of those measurements together is where I see the usefulness.
This is one of those statements that is too broad to be true. We can't wave a wand and just say developers at FAANG companies are better than the bottom 1/3 and no more.
You do have a point here which I do agree with which most of those companies would refer to as "culture fit". Agree with it or not, having an employee that gels with the team is a critical aspect to hire for. You could have 10 Jeff Deans and get nothing done if they refuse to work together.
A significant problem I see here is that we are trying to define "good" on a linear scale which makes no sense to me. Is candidate A better than candidate B based on 6 hours of interviews about the same topics or a single take home test. Even Madden breaks down a person into dozens of traits and uses that to compare people. Tech companies like to flaunt how data driven they are but why hasn't that made it into hiring. For the most part, these decisions are still made on personal feelings of the interviewers which...yeah, that's not going to be very consistent and reproducible.
I will +1 that. I like Bazel a lot because it really forces you into a singular way of building a project which is clean and nice.
That said, mileage may vary. It was originally built by Google so it has quirks. I find it is best suited for projects with compiled dependencies and large repos.
Otherwise, I was going to add that Gradle as a build system is very advanced and improves upon make in many ways.
Are billboards or radio stations or television channels unethical to you? Because they are also trying to "manipulate" you into buying things.
Advertising is not inherently unethical. I want people to buy my product so I need to raise awareness of it, encourage people that it is the best, make them feel like they need it.
I would even go so far as to say that Google's default anonymized model makes this far better. My preferences can be used to serve more meaningful ads to me which makes everyone happier. Eg, I was searching for tent reviews online. Saw an ad for a tent from a brand I had never heard of. Looked up their reviews and bought that tent.
Unfortunately, they are a lot of bad actors in this space. Google is actively trying to weed them out. They are deeply incentivized to rid the internet of them because it means less ad blockers and less spam and more money for them.
Any website you visit or app you use is going to collect some personal information about you. How many times have you questioned why you need to turn over your email to a stopwatch app. At least with Google's default-anonymized model, you are opting in to a fairly sweet deal. You volunteer things you are interested in so that Google can serve you better ads and keep the internet free (in the dollar sense) and the information you provide is not reversible back to you.
Doesn't sound too unethical to me especially because it is all one big opt-in.
I have always found that the most difficult aspect of any application is nearly always the integration points. Hiring only specialists would probably only make that more pronounced.
That isn't to say this isn't a necessary evil sometimes. Security and mobile development are two simple examples that come to mind of dedicated specialists that many organizations have.
When it comes to generic development, it is beneficial for one person/team to own the entire stack because often the domain specific problems are where the complexity arises, not in the frontend/backend split.
I take issue with "only got 50fps". This is not Counter Strike or a game that demands 300fps. 50fps (if your 1% lows are within reason) is completely playable.