Good Stuff
- Theyāre cheap, and the money goes to small developers who needs the support.
- Many have short gameplay loops, that make them easy to fit into my schedule.
- And many of the ones I like have non-realtime gameplay,
- and that, coupled with low hardware demands, makes them well suited for playing on my laptop.
A Very Good All-Round Game Controller, With One Major Flaw (for Me)
A quick review of the 8BitDo Ultimate Bluetooth Controller
I mostly play boring strategy šļø games that are just as good to play with a trackpad as anything else.
But every so often, I’ll play something that’s best played with a controller. That’s usually on my Switch, where I’ve used the joy-cons with a charging grip ā but that’s never been great. Also, my joy-cons have started to driftā¦
So I wanted to buy a single controller that could fit all my use-cases, and my choice fell on the 8BitDo Ultimate Bluetooth Controller šļø. And it’s a great controller, with many smart features. But did you know that a controller can support 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth, Switch, PC, Steam Deck, Android, iOS and iPadOS, but not support macOS?? Well, I didn’t.
Me: Ā«Siri, define charisma.Ā»
Siri: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy2PCKGkKRVbpANcWiWA5X413SviHbNVi&si=b4SMATWviAtbF-dQ
(Iām specifically pointing to the first video. Giving the playlist because theyāre all great, and to show that when asked to give his favourites, he starts with himself. š Love it!)
The Prettiest Voice Since Allison Krauss
I Just Want a Nice Browser!
Two sad browser stories
Iāve followed the Spicy Takesā¢ļø surrounding the Arc Browser recently, that started in the Ruminate podcast and went on to the MacStories Weekly Issue 408.
And I agree with most of what John Voorhees is saying, and also Matt Birchler, who said: Ā«The Browser Company feels gross to me right nowĀ».
Much of it is about ethics and AI. In general I agree with them, but this subject wonāt be the focus of this post. (Iāve written more about AI here and here.)
Instead Iāll tell my browser story, and explain why both Arc and Firefox makes me sad.
A Couple of Chill, Mostly New, Indie Games
I love small, chill indie games.
My MacBook isnāt a slouch - but itās no gaming rig. So I love that I donāt have to worry about performance with these games - and those who donāt have native Mac ports, run perfectly fine through Parallells.
Realtime, but still chilltime
I liked this blog post, by The Jolly Teapot! šš»
Ā«A happy snobĀ» is very much how Iād categorise my own taste in software. šš»
Lovely package in the mail today: I brought three of their garments back to Northern Playground, as they had gotten some holes. Today I got them back, after getting a free repair - including two caramels. šš»
I donāt really use read-it-later apps. But if you do, check out Omnivore! I agree with this review.
Open-source, great text-to-speech, iOS, Android, Mac and Web.
The Worldās Best Sneakers?
Adidas has made their Stan Smiths since the 70s, and you can see them everywhere all summer. They are good-looking shoes, but where the earlier versions were made in France and had high quality, you canāt quite say the same about the newer ones made in India. They canāt be fixed, uses synthetic materials and someone would prefer a bit more modern design.
Common Projects
In later years, Common Projects, with their golden lettering, has taken the sneaker world by storm. With a more modern, minimalistic design, Italian leather and good Margom rubber soles, they arenāt cheap.
But when you pay well over Ā£300 for a pair of Italian designer shoes, you can expect excellent quality, right? Well, itās superior to the Stan Smiths, but for the price you could do so much better. The YouTube channel Rose Anvil goes into detail in this video, but the short version is that, while the shoes have some premium features, both the material and construction is pretty mediocre. In this article, Iād like to point at a brand that gives you a more premium sneaker, at a (slightly) lower price.
But in the end I will also share why I still understand why someone would opt for the Common Projects!
Great Baseball Cap From Poten
This is my favourite cap (and headgear in general) of all time. And this is also a good example of something I love in general: Simple products, made extremely well.
These caps are made at the same factroy that does caps for the Japanese baseball league. Several brands have tried to get the factory to produce caps from them, but without success. According to Self Edge, Hiro (the man behind Poten, who also has a huge baseball card collection) had to visit the factory several times, over three years, to show them that he cares enough about baseball to have them produce caps for him. Lucky for those of us who don’t play in the NPB! But what’s so good about these caps then?