Part 2 on the most recent title from Diablo franchise, and frankly found more often on the indie games, the dubious controller support and lack of documentations thereof. As strange as it sounds, there are aspects of a video game where a spec is necessary. Not just “minimum requirements” and “recommended” specs of your hardwares,…
The Mad Tea Party
Inspiring yet Mad Spiels
From Op-ed
Diablo, Controller Support, and Lock-on
With Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred just released, —and yes, “emergency maintenance” requires me to publish this story before I could give my fair share to the game— I though to ask where do games stand on supporting controllers. Or, more specifically, supporting features that are not bound by keyboard and mouse. Before we dive…
Mis-Recipes, Dis-Recipes, and AI Recipes
When ChatGPT-craze was still booming, there was a YouTuber who put the AI recipes to the test. It doesn’t take professional baker to immediately catch what is off with the recipe GPT-3 has written for her. Her video mostly focuses on the experimentation and information on where AI technology stands on food. Recipes on the…
Native Support, Bootcamp, and GPTK
As much as I appreciate native Mac supports in PC gaming, there is something to be said about the overall quality of the support. Some games are simply not optimized. Its performance is either subpar or some advanced settings are simply unavailable for native versions. Some games run into glitches that are unique only to…
Intel Mac, DirectX 12, and GPTK
Apple Silicon is more than a mere brand name for Apple branded chips. It’s now a platform that is synonymous with every tools that come with it. This, in turns, has a side effect of “killing off” Windows compatibility softwares, for the lack of more broader term, on Intel Macs. Not that it doesn’t have…
iPad, Apple Silicon, and MacBook Air
I’ve had few iPads of my own. I’d like to believe each was better than the last. Front facing camera and mic helped for video chats. Touch ID and Face ID were nice additions, when Macs didn’t offer biometrics. Retina display also landed on iPad lines first, and iOS apps were first to adapt them…
Music Streaming, Geoblock, and Piracy
Continuation from the previous post on music streaming and licensing, I thought to add a bit more on geoblock —perhaps another form of licensing issue— to the mix. I have consistently expressed my distaste for geoblock, and what’s at stake here for music streaming services are quite larger than what it was for video streaming.…
Synology, Encryption, and Unicode
The whole shenanigans behind encrypted shared folder (ESF) goes way back. Personally I would start counting from pre-unicode era, during the period when each developers had whipped up its own solution for the problem. It is a problem that most developers did not truly understand, therefore most of their solutions were either flawed or limited.…
Music Streaming, Licensing, and Piracy
As a fan, part of the fun in classical music is to listen to the same score performed by different artists: their different interpretations, changes in styles as the time goes by, and in more recent years, enlightening interviews and tidbits behind performances, performers, the music, and the composers, and etc. I’ve really come to…
AliExpress, Knock-offs, and Batteries
Right to repair calls for many things. I generally have mixed opinions on the movement. On one hand, I want manufacturer to build more durable, not more fixable, devices to begin with. On the other hand, if such an option is not possible for certain parts, i.e. battery, I want companies make it repairable, as…
Standardize “South Korea” before “Korean”
There is a tidbit racist commentary on the history of unicode, called “Korean mess”. It is completely unrelated to the topic on hand, and frankly I do not wish to comment on the subject as most op-eds I’ve read ended up in a blazing hellfire for most. To give some tastes of what is at…
What Remains of HomePod (1st Gen)
Apple pulled the plug on 1st gen HomePod, otherwise affectionally called OG HomePod. I think users were already aware of what will become of OG. As the saying goes, in the long run, everything becomes a “vintage”, but HomePod’s case was different as the latest model featured less number of tweeters and powered by a…
Shaky Cam, Found Footage, and Smartphones
Anyone remember Cloverfield from 2008? While the film may have been revolutionary for its time, my hatred of shaky cams and found footage still lives strong to this day. Most of them also happen to be low budget horrors. From what I understand, shaky cam and found footage style help cutting down the cost of…
Electrophobia Fueled EV-Phobia in South Korea
An EV in South Korea caught fire out of the blue; the car was parked and it was not charging. It burned down 140+ vehicles parked on the same underground parking and damaged the water main and power lines for the building. The reports so far fortunately said there were no injuries, and residents were…
Finding K-Pop Nyan Song
I was listening to Korean radio today. As a classical music fan, radio isn’t exactly my go-to for musics, but the radio was on nonetheless. Then it hit me like a freight truck. Or, like a tabby cat suddenly jumping on my laps so I chocked a little with some coffee in my mouth. It…