Circling May 27th
NASA just put a real date on the calendar for the first crewed launch from American soil since 2011, and somehow that landed harder than anything else in this week's news.
Tech News
Tech News
Fourteen Hours Into Midgar and I Have Complaints
Final Fantasy VII Remake came out this week and I burned a chunk of lockdown getting reacquainted with Midgar. Some thoughts on the install size, the pacing, and why splitting one game into several still bugs me.
Even Google Won't Let Its Own Staff Use Zoom Right Now
Google quietly told employees this week to stop using Zoom on their work laptops over security concerns, which is a weird thing to watch happen while the rest of us are stuck using it every day.
NYC Just Banned Zoom From Classrooms, and I Think They Aimed at the Wrong Target
NYC's Department of Education told schools to drop Zoom for Microsoft Teams this week. After a month of using Zoom daily myself, I think the city panicked and punished the wrong thing.
Zoom's Bad Week
Zoom had a rough week: a Facebook data-sharing bug in its iOS app and a wave of "zoombombing" incidents that even got an FBI warning. A closer look at the smaller stories inside the bigger Zoom boom.
Half-Life: Alyx Is Out and I Have Nothing to Play It On
Half-Life: Alyx came out today and it's apparently incredible, which doesn't help me since I don't own a VR headset and neither does most of Steam right now.
Animal Crossing Launched at the Worst Possible Best Possible Time
Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out yesterday, the same week the whole state got told to stay home, and the timing is doing more work than the reviews are.
Watching MWC Fall Apart, One Company at a Time
MWC 2020 didn't die all at once — it died company by company over about a week. Some thoughts on watching that unfold, and on Samsung proving two weeks earlier that you don't even need the Barcelona stage anymore.
MWC Is Bleeding Exhibitors and Nobody Wants to Say the Word "Cancelled"
LG, Ericsson, Nvidia, Sony and now Facebook have all pulled out of Mobile World Congress ahead of the late-February show, and GSMA is still insisting its going forward.
The Loretta Ad
A personal reaction to Google's "Loretta" Super Bowl ad and why its emotional pitch bugged me more than it moved me, plus a quick aside on Tesla's wild stock run.
Tesla's Stock Is Doing Something I Don't Understand
Tesla's stock has more than tripled since last summer and just blew past $600 a share after a surprise second straight profitable quarter. I don't understand it, and I'm suspicious of anyone who claims they do.
A Train of Satellites Just Wrecked My Orion Shot
A string of Starlink satellites photobombed my attempt at an Orion shot last night, which turned into a whole thing about SpaceX, astronomy forums, and my neighbor's telescope.