EXCLUSIVE | Microsoft plans Starfield launch for PlayStation 5

According to sources, we understand that currently Microsoft are planning a launch for Starfield on PlayStation 5 post the release of the already announced “Shattered Space” expansion for Xbox and PC, which is on target to arrive at some point later this year. We’ve also been informed that Microsoft have made additional investment into PlayStation 5 dev kits to support ongoing development efforts – adding further fuel to the fire.

Source: EXCLUSIVE | Microsoft plans Starfield launch for PlayStation 5

During COVID, I and several friends started playing Elder Scrolls Online together on PC. It’s a long story, but we all eventually drifted away from it. Eventually, I literally threw away the 12-year-old potato that I used to play it, and had moved all my gaming to a Playstation (except Civ V on my Mac). Then I suddenly developed serious health issues, and started playing ESO again, on the PlayStation. I was rather enjoying the simplicity of NOT having mods, and liked using a controller for combat much better than a keyboard and mouse.

A year and a half ago, Microsoft was saying that Starfield would be an PC/Xbox exclusive. I was kind of ticked. I had long since made my bed with Playstation, but I expected that the game would be Skyrim-level good, and I got sucked into the hype. So I bought an Xbox in anticipation, months ahead of time. I was replaying Fallout New Vegas in glorious 4K at 60 FPS, but I got the bug to go back to PC for ESO, where I could get mods again, mainly for inventory management. So I sold the Xbox and bought a low-spec gaming PC just for ESO.

Microsoft’s stance on making Starfield an exclusive was heralded by the head of the Xbox decision as a serious business strategy, and something on which they were going to build a new era of gaming competitiveness. When they bought Bethesda, they also made a promise not to touch pre-acquisition IP. Hold this thought.

I bought the digital deluxe pre-release of Starfield on Steam. I played over the weekend before the general release, and thought it sucked. After a dozen hours or so, you will hit a wall with inventory management, and you will naturally build a base to try to fix the problem, and find that bases do not solve anything. Unlike Skyrim or Fallout, there simply is no concept of a bottomless container that keeps a game like this from being insane. Being a pre-release copy, I found that I could refund the purchase before the actual release, so, after 13 hours, I did.

Now that the Microsoft purchase of Activision has “gone through,” they now own Blizzard, which runs World of Warcraft. It is, superficially, very similar to ESO, but has over ten times the number of players. You can just smell that someone high up in Microsoft is asking the question: Why are we paying to develop ESO when we could kill it, and most of the player base would probably move over to WoW? The “synergies” from these two acquisitions must be frighteningly tempting.

They’re reversing course on keeping Starfield exclusive, and now I worry that the other “half” of their promises at the time of the acquisition are similarly precarious. Will they, in fact, start messing with pre-merger games? Will they somehow change the offerings or their monetization to better fit within a corporate strategy which now must be conducive to other franchises that were previously competitors? Microsoft breaks a lot of promises. A lot. Just search on it for yourself.

I’m worried for the future of ESO.

And, while I want a vibrant, competitive landscape in gaming and consoles, and this announcement does not bode well for that, the saltiness of the tears of the fanboys in the Xbox subreddit over this announcement — as Microsoft pulls off their mask, and shows them the face of the monster that hasn’t changed since the 90’s — is just too delicious.

Salty Tears

We keep making the same mistakes with spreadsheets, despite bad consequences | Ars Technica

Spreadsheets represent unknown risks in the form of errors, privacy violations, trade secrets, and compliance violations. Yet they are also critical for the way many organizations make their decisions. For this reason, they have been described by experts as the “dark matter” of corporate IT.

Source: We keep making the same mistakes with spreadsheets, despite bad consequences | Ars Technica

As I often say, making real applications out of these Frankenstein monsters of data has been my bread and butter throughout my career. The function that the central IT departments in blue chip manufacturing companies could never quite wrap its arms around keeps getting bigger and bigger, and making larger and larger gaps to fill by people in the trenches. So… too right, mate, and keep it up.

Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds | Ars Technica

Single-vehicle, single-pedestrian crash data for 2016-2021 finds hoods a problem.

When Tyndall controlled the data for vehicle body type, the effect of vehicle hood heights became more clear, actually increasing “the partial effect of front-end vehicle height, suggesting high-front-end designs are specifically culpable for higher pedestrian death rates, and this is not driven by other characteristics that are correlated with front-end height,” he writes. In fact, the study estimates that a 4-inch (100-mm) increase in front end height translates to a 28 percent increase in pedestrian death.

Source: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds | Ars Technica

I’m glad that more people are starting to fuss about this. What I really want to know is how and why it seems that everyone in the automotive industry pivoted in this direction at once. Back when I worked in the market, the tier-1’s worked fairly diligently to disguise and, at least, nominally, not telegraph their design moves, and yet all the US makers have done this, and at basically the same time. It feels conspiratorial, but I can’t imagine a motivation that would account for it.

Same Truck Models, 40 Years Apart

Dell/Windows Display Malfeasance

Apparently, no power in Heaven or Earth can make a Dell Windows “mobile workstation” display 4K@60Hz on an external monitor, using any of its ports, cables, connectors, or adapters, despite every piece in the chain assuring me that it can.

Who do I bill for the last half hour?

Bonus points for Windows losing its patience through the process, and not allowing me to resize the graphics options window after some point.

UPDATE: In desperation, I dug around in all my storage, and found the tiny USB-C-to-USB-A/HDMI adapter that came with the laptop. BEHOLD! That one works. I guess my “certified” Anker converter was not, in fact, up to spec.

2024 Cummins Inc. Vehicle Emission Control Violations Settlement | US EPA

“Today’s landmark settlement is another example of the Biden-Harris administration working to ensure communities across the United States, especially those that have long been overburdened by pollution, are breathing cleaner air.” “Today we’ve reaffirmed that EPA’s enforcement program will hold companies accountable for cheating to evade laws that protect public health.” – EPA Administrator Michael Regan

Source: 2024 Cummins Inc. Vehicle Emission Control Violations Settlement | US EPA

In case it wasn’t clear before, this is being trotted out by the Biden administration as some sort of moral victory against fossil fuels. The real problem here — and I said this about the Volkswagen “dieselgate” — is that squeamish liberals in Congress passed diesel emissions restrictions that are so restrictive that they are almost impossible to meet, and still produce a vehicle that’s worth driving. It doesn’t help that Cummins was part of the process, and nodded along with the effort, just as they’re now doing with the most recent, proposed, further California restrictions. Now they’re paying $2 BILLION dollars because they didn’t have the spine to tell Congress that their standards were absurd. I know people involved in documenting our emissions compliance, and there’s no question that they were NOT INVOLVED in some sort of conspiracy here. Whatever details come to light about this — and there was a lot after the Volkswagen scandal — they may as well just go ahead and make personal on-highway diesel vehicles illegal. The increase in the price over a similar gas-powered vehicle because of all the emissions equipment and engineering required to actually meet the emissions certification requirements will just make them unviable.

Surveyed drivers prefer low-tech cars over data-sharing ones • The Register

Despite all the buzz around internet-connected smart cars at this year’s CES in Las Vegas, most folks don’t want vehicle manufacturers sharing their personal data with third parties – and even say they’d consider buying an older or dumber car to protect their privacy and security.

Source: Surveyed drivers prefer low-tech cars over data-sharing ones • The Register

It doesn’t matter. Like with TV’s and appliances, going forward, you simply won’t be able to buy a product without privacy-invading spyware pre-installed. Eventually, it will be in them all. So we’ll wind up with things like this, in everything:

I guess the machine was hashing bitcoin? I don’t know.

In this vein, there was another post/comment that I read about how the guy blocked a device from getting to the internet in the wifi router, and the manufacturer actually noticed, contacted him, and told him that he had voided his warranty! Stupid and scary.

Return to Organic Church Services

We have special church services many times a year. Can I suggest a new one? Can we have a service where there are no directions?

These days, it feels like we never go more than a couple of minutes without being told to do something. Come to the altar. Raise your hands. Shout. Dance. Jump. Clap. Say amen. Pray for someone. Tell someone your deepest problem. Reach across the aisle, and pick your neighbor’s nose. On and on and on. All the time. Every service.

And there’s this looming fear that we should do it because the person with the microphone is saying it under the unction of the Holy Ghost, but it’s so frequent these days that it’s no longer special. It just feels like spiritual calisthenics and time stretching.

There’s power in letting conviction take root. There’s power in letting it be awkward. There’s power when someone steps out and walks down to the altar without being asked. I’ve been that guy many times, and it changes your life. With all of the constant instructions, there’s very little room for steeping in the worship and the preaching, and being obvious about changing your direction any more.

Just once a year, can we have a service where we aren’t asked to do anything? Nothing. Sing or don’t sing. Say amen or don’t. Just let it ride. I just want to have an “organic” service for a change. I just want to sing the songs, listen to a sermon, and let everything else happen as the Spirit leads. All I ask for is altar music and enough volume so that I can pray without people hearing what I’m confessing over in the next section. Is it just me?