#like getting high scores used to be such a core part of my identity during school & somehow i dont care at all anymore?

[clitology]

2024 is going to be the year of my academic comeback it will be it has to be i can feel it in my bones (i am afraid of not getting into grad school)

[collectivefandomstuff]

Hey mom! I’m stressed at 1am, any advice? I’m having trouble in school via studying sometimes it feels like we’re going from 0 to 100. And I need better study habits, do you have any advice? Bc sometimes it feels like I’m so afraid of failure that if I do study to my full potential (sounds weird) I feel like I loose the excuse of saying oh I got a bad score bc I goofed off. Like if I actually do all my effort to study and do bad, then is there something wrong with me??

(A/N: this answer is so long I almost feel ashamed to post it. I’m very sorry everyone. Anyway, if you’re looking for the concrete tips they’re at the end :) )

Hey :)

This doesn’t sound weird at all because I’m the exact same way. This way of thinking is actually more common than you’d think, and is often a part of the cognitive profile of perfectionism (btw, perfectionism isn’t that apt a name but I digress. Also, this way of thinking doesn’t mean you’re a perfectionist.). Anyway, I know a bunch of people who’ve experienced this, and the common factor isn’t fear of failure, but rather what it is you think you’re failing at. For example, I once told my therapist that I was super stressed over a bunch of stuff and I also had a paper I had to get done, and he asked me what would happen if I didn’t turn it in on time and I was like “academically? nothing. mentally? I wouldn’t be me anymore.” And that’s the stitch.

The people I know who struggle with this are often (though not exclusively) girls, and often people who’re pretty smart. They spent their childhood being told over and over that they were gifted, intelligent, and good at school. And back then, that was easy to live up to. They danced through the first few years of school without any issue, and enjoyed it a lot. They did their homework, understood stuff, and were usually “good kids”.

Now, we’re always growing and re-shaping our sense of self, but the foundations are lain when we’re children. So, when people around you keep identifying you as a smart/good student, then we start identifying ourselves like that too. Especially if it is being reinforced by your actual achievements. And then, suddenly, getting good grades isn’t about doing well or working hard, it’s about identity. It’s about who you are at your core. Thus, the stakes become infinitely higher. If you fail at a math test that you really studied for, then that means that you don’t have what it takes, and that means you are no longer yourself- the intelligent kid who’s good at school. A test might not be that anxiety-inducing, but losing your whole sense of self is. So, in that case procastination makes a lot of sense, because as long as you don’t fail while doing your best then you never put your identity on the line.

(This also applies if failing at school has become synonymous with being a failure, i.e. if you’ve been taught that doing well academically is the only way to be a successful/useful person in society, or if academic success has merged with the idea of a happy future so it feels like failing autmatically leads to an unhappy life. Essentially, mental structures that lead to a misconception of the stakes involved in a single exam/paper/task.)

That said, I do have some more practical things to say here. First off, sometimes we’re in a situation where we can’t do our best and that’s okay. I’ve failed exams, tests, papers, you name it and I still have my degree in the end. It’s never the end all of things.

Now, my own biggest freak out like this came when I started uni. My first paper I went completely insane and procrastinated like crazy, and I failed. And then the though crept in “what if I can’t do this? What if this is it. I can’t handle higher education, even if I try my hardest?” The anxiety was... big bad and mad.

I should say for this next part that my therapist once told me that I have a strangely aggressive approach to handling anxiety. Moving on. I sat down and said to myself “what is worse, to try my hardest and fail or half-ass it and never be able to live the life I want?” Since the answer was pretty obvious, I got to it. I had about 5 weeks until the next exam, and I sat down and planned every single hour until then. I studied for that damn test like I’ve never studied before, and whenever I felt anxious I would tell it to FUCK OFF and focus on the task I had planned. I didn’t allow myself to think beyond that first planning session, I just did what was next on the agenda. What am I supposed to do right now? read these 10 pages? Ok.

I’ve had two exams during my studies where I failed (the second due to the situation I was in) and ended up in this spiral. And here’s the funny thing: I have a small number of courses in uni where I got a higher grade. They include 1) courses that I found extremly interesting and 2) those two courses.

Okay! I know this is already so fucking long but I want to give you some actual tips too. Number one is obviously to plan. Take a whole day, sit down and plan the next month. Consider all your assignments, when they’re due, what you need to do to study, how long that’ll take and when that is done most efficiently. Plan everything in your calendar. Give yourself enough time for each task that you can do it even if you’re not super super focused. Do not study outside these hours. When you’re done for the day you’re done for the day. This way, there’s a clear, reachable end to each study session and you don’t feel as compelled to postpone tasks. When you sit down to study, don’t worry about the other stuff you have to do, or other subjects that you haven’t done yet. They’re all in the plan, all you have to do is what is in front of you. As long as you keep doing that you’ll make it. (If the plan goes to shit for some reason, take a day to plan a make a new one. It happens).

Some things to consider:

Different subjects are best studied in different ways. I used to set aside 15-30 minutes every day in high school for Italian, where I’d sit down and read the chapter we were working on out loud. I didn’t even focus that hard, I just did it every day- the chapter and the glossary. I STILL remember some sentences from that book. Math is best done in longer stretches, but not too long. 1-2 hours preferably. Think about how YOU work. Do you best read a textbook in one go or in increments? Do you learn better in a coffee-shop or your room? Silence? Music? This can also change depending on your subject. Plan accordingly.

For reading, time your reading speed for the book. Read a page at normal speed and clock it, then multiply that by the pages you need to read to see how much time you’ll have to plan for. Round up to give yourself room for spacing out.

Plan for breaks. Think about your normal need for it, but the uni standard is 15 minutes for every 45, making an even hour. Find a break activity that’s has a specific end, for example making some more tea/coffee and snacks and doing some stretches, or maybe playing one race in mario kart. Avoid things that you can get stuck doing beyond the alotted break time.

Buffers. For every five hours or so, plan one hour of buffer time. This is time that you can use if something takes longer than expected. If you do everything as planned, this is surprise free time! :D If you have a long study session, plan 30 minute buffers every two or three hours to be used for extra breaks and to keep panic at bay. Buffers will save your life.

Make a chart with different tasks and have little boxes that you get to fill in with fun colours when you’re done. If you have to read 100 pages, do a bar with ten boxes, that way you can see your progress visually.

Plan for days/evenings that are free. Plan what you’re going to do those days, like “movie night with X”, “play videogames and eat cupcakes”, “take a long bath and read a good book”. That way, you use your free time well and can use those days and evenings as incentive.

Prioritize your work. If you have too much to do, make a list of what’s most to least important and focus on doing the important stuff first. This includes studying tasks. What’s more important, reading that text for the third time or really understanding integrals?

Drink lots of water and eat sugar. It’s brain food. I usually bake before an intense week. That way when I feel myself going down I can go get a cupcake instead of taking time to make something to eat, or worse- try to soldier through which never works.

I hope this helped a little at least :) Good Luck! I believe in you! 💙💜

[oysterspace6]

Apple's Hottest Smart Phones are Fabulous

Users quite possibly agree with me personally that iPhone X design was one of the very best, and that is exactly why Apple decided to keep the identical look for their next pair of exclusive cell phones. Presented a year earlier, it is the first Apple smart phone to remove the single button. From another, I held its fresh successor, '' the Iphone Xs. My eyes squeezed shut, I passed them back and forth between my hands, rolling each telephone over, feeling the curves, glass backs, double lens camera lumps, and radar vents. I understood that I couldn't tell the difference between both phones. This isn't a criticism. It's just a fact of S version years, where Apple locks at the iPhone design and focuses, instead, on upgrading key internal components. As such, the largest changes to the 5.8-inches iPhone Xs and its big brother, the 6.5-inch Iphone Xs Max, each of which I tested, can be located in performance (thanks to this new A12 Bionic CPU), photographs and movies, (brand new cameras and a brand new ISP endorsed by the A12), and performance (iOS12, the last version of that came pre-applied on my evaluation units). The outcome is a set of brilliant, elegant, and high-performing gadgets that can please Iphone lovers and capture over a couple of glances out of Android adherents. It has the exact same rigid surgical steel frame wrapped into a new glass substance that Apple said was formulated to be scratch tolerant and durable. I gave the phones a couple half-hearted drops on a thin-pile carpet but was not prepared to let them slide away on concrete. Thus far I have discovered exactly one very nice scratch on your iPhone Xs Max. So let us think about them scratch-tolerant, however nevertheless not scratch-proof. The bigger Iphone Xs Max enjoys each of the iPhone X's substance and design characteristics, but does this at a 6.2-inch x 3.05-inch x 0.30-inch human anatomy. At 208 grams, it's considerably heavier than the Iphone Xs. The Xs Max is really a hair shorter (0.04 inches) and thinner (0.02 inches), but it's also a few grams heavier than the Iphone 8 Plus, the big-screen phone that from a distance the iPhone Xs Max most resembles. Button positioning power/sleep, quantity controls, ring/silent change -- are exactly the same. However, there is one minor chassis gap. On the bottom edge of both phones sits the lightning connector. It is book-ended by means of a set of drilled holes which accommodate one half of their stereo speaker system and one of their phone's microphones. There was six openings on either side. Now the correct side includes 6 openings, but the left, which just houses a mike, has only three. This small change was done, in part, to adapt the new inner antenna setting that contains 4x4 MIMO and License Assisted Access, which uses unlicensed 5 GHz spectrum to deliver 1 Gbps broadband over LTE. Apple upgraded the water along with dust-resistance evaluation to IP 68, that contrasts into the handsets surviving in two meters of water for up to half an hour. I didn't get to go swimming together with the Iphone Xs or even Xs Max, but did operate the latter phone below normal water, milk, and juice. After that, as advocated, I dried and shut off the cellphone. I had been careful to not plug it into a lighting cable (that's a no-no after a dowsing) but didn't place it onto a wireless charging base where it had no difficulty accepting a fee. Apple, by the way, said it put some effort in making the wireless charging system (essentially the hidden coils in the phone) more pliable. This is good news, because I have, on more than 1 event, woken up to find my iPhone X did not charge because I placed it a small off-axis on the charging base. I never ran into this problem with the Iphone Xs or even Xs Max. The Iphone Xs and Xs Max bodies are somewhat stiff and strong-feeling, but torqueable, particularly the larger telephone, which actually makes a tiny clicking noise once I attempt to spin it. Obviously, I've only had these iPhones for a week, but according to a calendar year's encounter with the original iPhone X (allowed, mostly in a thin situation ), I believe this design frame tough and ready for the long run. Even as Samsung trolls Apple to its dense black cutout near the top of the Iphone Xs and Xs Max, Apple reveals no traces of going back from the multi-option technologies, which grew nor shrunk in the newest iPhones. Just like the original TrueDepth Module, this one remains packed with all the very same elements (none of which, so much as I can tell, have been updated). There's a 7 MP camera, scatter projector for thickness sensing, infrared camera (thickness sensing), flood illuminator (yes, also for depth-sensing), proximity sensor, ambient light detector, the second half of the stereo speaker program, along with a mic. On the backs of the Iphone Xs and Xs Max, there is more of the customized glass, the Apple Logo, the word iPhone (however no"X" or"s"), and also the 12 MP dual camera system. This vertically-oriented, pill-shaped camera module looks exactly the same as it did in the last Iphone X. It's still a prominent bump, but it did not get any larger. In the module is new hardware supported by new picture technologies, but more about this later. I have always considered the 5.8-inch Iphone X an exceptional tradeoff between a big-screen telephone and hand-friendly ergonomics. The screen is big and immersive, however, the body is comfortable to hold pocket. The iPhone Xs Max in comparison can, particularly if you're utilised to holding a more compact phone, feel large. It is not embarrassing to hold, however people with smaller hands will fight with one-handed usage and will probably want to turn on Reachability, which using a swipe back on the flat bar moves all halfway down the display, making it more accessible. Nonetheless, the trade-off could possibly be well worth it. I forgot just how much I like the larger iPhone screen, and also on the Iphone Xs Max, you receive a lot more screen without contending with a bigger phone (there is just that 0.04-inch height gap between the Iphone 8 Plus and also the iPhone Xs Max). Apple's full-stack management of the iPhone layout, development, and manufacturing process pays dividends during the shiny handset. Nevertheless, it's most clearly in the silicon, which can be designed and developed in conjunction with the software and hardware components that will rely upon it. This past Year, Apple revealed the A11 Bionic, a strong mobile CPU with built-in Artificial Intelligence Power. The new A12 Bionic builds on that short legacy with a more strong Neural Engine and much more impressive graphics functionality. Anytime I review a brand new iPhone, I start using Geekbench 4 to check out the raw CPU performance. To ensure there are minimum background processes moving, I usually conduct the test before I have installed a single app. I conducted the Geekbench CPU routine and (together with understanding that Apple stuffed an extra gig of memory in the brand new Xs course iPhones) found the single core scores had improved marginally between the A11 Bionic and A12 Bionic. On the other hand, the multi-core score was strangely lower. Not by a good deal, but I hadn't ever seen that occur. The numbers were still much higher than what I made from Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845, however a lower result on the brand new Iphone did not make sense. However, once I reran the Geekbench CPU test a day or so later, the A12 multi-core numbers defeat people of the A11. My guess is that, even though I set up the iPhone Xs and Xs Max as new iPhones, there might still have been some background setup process happening that dragged down the CPU numbers. The bigger leap in performance is at the Geekbench Compute Metal Score, which jumped from 15,145 to the Iphone X to 22,245 about the iPhone Xs and Xs Max. Apple's done a lot of effort to beef up images performance, particularly for the raft of ARKit 2 (and Surface 2) software heading to the stage, a few of which will support multiplayer gaming. When there aren't a lot of ARKit 2 programs in the app shop, I'd get a hands-on time with an iPhone Xs operating Galaga AR, the identical demo Apple showed off throughout the Iphone Xs unveiling. To perform, me and a couple of other journalists stood on a table and pointed our telephones at the virtual Galaga video arcade game console. Soon, alien attackers began streaming from the movie game screen and from all round us. I swung the telephone from side-to-side up and down and up to view and then shoot the incoming assault. It had been swift and cool. In the same way, I have seen how, together with ARKit two, the phone can place, say, a very realistic digital pressure stove or sneaker on a real table or at my feet, the illusion broken only when I slid my hand into the frame and, on the iPhone Xs display, it looked like my digits were stuck under the kettle. You can't support these kinds of real-virtual mixes without ample images horsepower, thickness mapping, along with the AI required to identify the surfaces, shadows, as well as reflections will work on virtual items in a real space. This processing power also helped amp up more ordinary operations like Face ID. While the process of registering my head was unchanged from the first iPhone X, starting either phone with my head, in addition to using Face ID to access password-protected programs and solutions, is substantially faster than it was on the iPhone X. Overall, in real world applications, both iPhone Xs and Xs Max perform properly. Apple put tremendous amount of work into enhancing the photo and video experience to the iPhone Xs and Xs Max. Along with new lenses along with a larger detector, the cameras (rear and selfie) are backed by a fresh image signal processor. The specs on the dual cameras are unchanged from the iPhone X (and would be the exact same on either iPhone Xs and Xs Max). There is the 1.8 wide angle lens along with the f 2.4 2X telephoto. Both of those comprise optical image stabilization and may shoot up to 4K video at 60 fps. They still take slow-motion video in up to 240 frames per second. If you'd like insane 960 fps super-slo-mo, you will need to visit Samsung. In the pure-play photography race, however, Apple takes the guide. Its Smart HDR uses detector, ISP, and neurological enhancements to capture a number of the best high-dynamic range photographs I've ever seen. The gap between that which was possible on the first iPhone X along with the Xs and Xs Max is magnificent. Apple assembled a system able of shooting 2 frames every thirtieth of a second, and instantly analyzing and merging them into a single image that maintains not only foreground and background detail, but can freeze actions without presenting tremendous grain. In multiple pictures, I watched that the iPhone Xs and Xs Max find colour and detail in shadowy spaces without blowing out the brighter areas. The Samsung Galaxy Notice 9 is also an superb low light shot, however I feel the Xs lineup is a little better. I'm particularly impressed by how Apple's built upon its position position in Portrait Mode digital photography. Apple created Portrait Mode in 2016 with the iPhone 7 Plus (the applications lagged from the hardware). Since then, Apple's elegant the concept, including items such as Studio Light, Contour Light, Stage Light, and Stage Light Mono. All of these features remain, and have been somewhat enhanced. What I love and also, as an amateur photographer who regularly performs with f-stops for just the right depth of field effect, is the brand new Depth Control. Depth Control allows you to take a Portrait Mode photograph and correct the Bokehdepth or depth of field attention, when you shoot the photos. This works with both the front and back cameras, which means that the image chip is using two unique sorts of thickness information. On the trunk, it's the advantage of two lenses to find stereoscopic details. The front camera counts on the depth-sensing electronics. I know, Samsung's Galaxy Note 9 offers the capability to correct background focus as you're shooting the picture, as well as after. However, there's a crucial difference here that's evident from the iPhone Xs and Xs Max Depth editor. It's a slider that allows you adjust smoothly from a virtual f 1.4 aperture to a virtual f16. In a real camera with a mechanical aperture, even high figures translate to sharper focus in the backdrop and reduced numbers mean the focus thickness is significantly shallower. About the Galaxy Notice 9, Live Focus basically sees the images as two planes: the foreground and background. The slider blurs the background plane. The iPhone Xs's thickness slider relies on all the depth information to decrease or improve background focus through all the airplanes between the very front of their subject and the desktop. Combined with the improved Portrait Mode stitching (tackling how the topic and a blurred background match together), the subtlety of this effect through the range of virtual f-stops is remarkable and, Apple's told me, is modeled on how actual lenses using hardware apertures would impact each picture. For the majority of people the smart phone camera is their sole camera. This places a pro-level control at the hands of millions of people, who are going to start taking some absolutely stunning face images. After shooting normal shots, movie, and even 4K, I remain stunned with the quality of videos and photos coming from this iPhone Xs and Xs Max. Sure, it's strange that the bigger Xs Max doesn't, as could be tradition, have any enhanced image capturing attributes, however I doubt anyone is going to be dismayed with the picture quality delivered by either new mobile phone. There are a few other equipment-related enhancements, such as the promised dual-sim technology that permits multiple telephone numbers (believe work and individual numbers of one phone) through the aid of eSIM technology. Unlike ordinary SIMs, you do not need a carrier card only for the carrier to support it and enable it on your mobile phone. It's a wonderful attribute which, for evident reasons, I could not test. For audio fanatics, there's also the newest stereo recording and wider-stereo playback. This can be somewhat hard to check, and that I sometimes worry my ears are not sufficient to notice what could be a more nuanced difference. But, I'd find a method. I recorded, in landscape style, some cars traveling by. They begin on the left of this screen and drive to the right. In video I recorded with the iPhone Xs, the noise travels from one side of the telephone to the other. Playback on the iPhone X is loudly yet lacking in the exact same amount of separation sounds. Evidently, films with a lot of sound engineering are not only great showcases for the wonderful screens, but emphasize the brand new, wider stereo playback abilities also. As hardware/software unions go, you can not do much better than the Apple iPhone Xs and iOS 12. I've been running betas of this new mobile OS for weeks on my iPhone X and found it impressively smooth and stable. On the iPhone Xs and Xs Max, it becomes even better partners. Along with butter-smooth and lighting quick operation (in matches, video, and internet browsing), the enhanced reality abilities released into iOS 11, ARKit, along with the iPhone X are more polished and tailor-made in iOS 12 along with the Iphone Xs. The intelligent assistant is a much better listener than ever, and becoming smarter. Her speech is much more conversational and she's asking follow-up questions. Siri is also more proactive, putting connections between benign items like schedules and locations and offering them in advance. Additionally, there are a range of third-party programs tapping into Siri, letting you use only your voice to get program features and information without even opening the app. You can install iOS 12 on your older Iphone (down into this iPhone 5s), however not all attributes, especially those between AR, will operate on the old devices. Still, I seriously advise the upgrade with at least anyone conducting an Iphone 7 and up. It's simply a better, more polished, educated, and smart user experience and, to be fair, I've hardly scratched the surface of all the updates and feature enhancements you'll find. Apple asserts 30 minutes longer battery life involving the Iphone X and Xs and 90 minutes longer with all the Iphone Xs Max. In my experience, both brand new mobile may get you through the majority of the afternoon on a single charge. I spent one day using only the iPhone Xs Max. I retained the brightness and conducted all sorts of apps and processes. It lasted a strong 10 hours. Maybe just a bit less than I expected, but still sufficient for me through the majority of the day. Seriously, with less than a week under my belt, it's hard to provide a complete evaluation of battery life performance. There are so many variables and, clearly, battery life will be great on new smart phones. Talk to me 6 months or twelve months, and we'll see if I am still happy with battery life. It's hardly surprising that Apple did not lower the cost for the new $999 Iphone Xs (or perhaps hold onto the initial version and sell it at a lower price). I'm not shocked that we now have an almost $1,100 version or that we're able to pay a whopping $1,449 for the 512 GB iPhone Xs Max (which happens to be the model that I tested). Apple's already demonstrated that people will pay almost anything to get their hands on the most current iPhone. Is $1,000 or more too much to pay for a smart phone? Maybe, however many of us think of the complete price rather than monthly payments? I am, however, a little annoyed that Apple stopped the lightning -to-3.5 millimeter adapter. It is as if, in the previous 12 months, we have gotten rid of our audio and Bose headsets, like it is a solved issue. Memo to Apple: It's not. What I will say is that all these are the iPhones you desire. The iPhone Xs does not mess with what I now consider a timeless design, and also the Xs Max only takes all that is wonderful about the iPhone X also enlarges it. As a pair, they're just as amazing as the original home-button-free iPhone X. The plan looks particularly tasteful in a golden finish. Participants will love the newest camera, and players and content customers will want the big-display screen Iphone Xs Max. Should you currently have the iPhone X, I still would not update unless you absolutely need more realistic augmented existence and also full depth control on your portraits. For iPhone 6s, 8, 7, and even 8 Plus associates, the iPhone Xs and Xs Max will appear like a gigantic leap to the future.

[augustwash1]

Latest iPhone Phones Continue Getting Significantly Better

Users more than likely are in agreement with me personally that iPhone X design was among the very best, and that is exactly why Apple decided to keep the identical look for their next set of exclusive cell phones. Introduced a year ago, it's the very first Apple cellphone to take out the main button. In the other, I held its own brand-new successor, the Iphone Xs. My eyes squeezed shut, I passed them back and forth between my hands, rolling each phone above, feeling the curves, glass springs, dual lens camera bumps, and radar vents. I realized that I couldn't tell the difference between the two phones. This is not a criticism. It is just a simple fact of S version years, in which Apple locks at the iPhone design and concentrates, rather, on upgrading key internal parts. Therefore, the biggest changes to the 5.8-inches Iphone Xs and its big brother, the 6.5-inch iPhone XS Max, each of which I analyzed, can be seen in functionality (thanks to this new A12 Bionic CPU), photographs and movies, (new digital cameras and a new ISP endorsed by the A12), along with functionality (iOS12, the last version of which came pre-applied in my test units). The outcome is a pair of fantastic, tasteful, and high-performing devices that will please iPhone enthusiasts and receive over a few glances out of Android smartphones. It still has the exact rigid surgical steel frame wrapped into a brand new glass material which Apple stated was devised to be scratch resistant and heavy duty. I gave the phones a couple half-hearted drops on a thin-pile rug but wasn't prepared to let them slide away . So far I have discovered just one very nice scrape on your iPhone Xs Max. So let us consider them scratch-resistant, however still not scratch-proof. The bigger iPhone Xs Max shares all the iPhone X's substance and layout attributes, but does this in a 6.2-inch x 3.05-inch x 0.30-inch human anatomy. In 208 grams, it is substantially thicker than the Iphone Xs. The Xs Max is really a hair shorter (0.04 inches) and thinner (0.02 inches), however, it's also a couple of grams bulkier when compared to the Iphone 8 Plus, the big-screen telephone that from a space the Iphone Xs Max most looks like. Button positioning power/sleep, quantity controllers, ring/silent switch -- will be exactly the same. However, there is one minor chassis difference. At the bottom edge of the telephones sits the lightning connector. It's book-ended by means of a pair of drilled holes that accommodate one half of their stereo speaker program and among the telephone's microphones. There was six openings on either side. Now the ideal side includes six slotsbut the left, that just houses a microphone, has just three. This small change was done, in part, to adapt the new inner antenna configuration which includes 4x4 MIMO and License Assisted accessibility, which utilizes unlicensed 5 GHz range to provide 1 Gbps chip over LTE. Apple updated the water and also dust-resistance rating to IP 68, which translates to the handsets residing in 2 meters of water for up to half an hour. I did not get to go swimming with all the iPhone Xs or Xs Max, but didn't run the latter phone below normal water, juice and milk. Afterward, as advocated, I rinsed and dried off the smart phone. I was careful not to plug it back into a lighting cable (that is a no-no after a dowsing) but didn't put it on a wireless charging foundation at which it had no problem accepting a fee. Apple, incidentally, said it put some effort in making the wireless charging platform (basically the hidden coils within the phone) more forgiving. This is great news, since I have, on more than 1 occasion, woken up to find that my iPhone X did not charge because I placed it a modest off-axis about the charging base. I have never ran into that issue with the iPhone Xs or Xs Max. The Iphone Xs and iPhone Xs Max body frames are somewhat rigid and solid-feeling, but torqueable, particularly the bigger telephone, which actually creates a tiny clicking sound once I attempt to twist it. Apparently, I've just had those iPhones for a week, but based on a calendar year's experience with the original iPhone X (granted, mostly in a thin instance ), I consider this design framework tough and ready for the long run. Even now as Samsung follows Apple to the dense black cutout at the peak of this iPhone Xs and Xs Max, Apple shows no traces of going backwards in the multi-option technology, which neither grew nor slipped in the most recent iPhones. Just like the original TrueDepth Module, that one is still packed with all the exact components (none of that, as much as I can tell, have been updated). There is a 7 MP camera, dot projector for depth sensing, infrared camera (depth sensing), flooding illuminator (yes, too for depth-sensing), proximity detector, ambient light detector, the second half of the stereo speaker program, plus a mic. On the backs of the iPhone Xs and Xs Max, there is more of the custom glass, the Apple Logo, the word Iphone (but no"X" or"s"), along with the 12 MP dual camera system. This vertically-oriented, pill-shaped camera module appears exactly the same as it did to the last iPhone X. It is still a prominent bulge, but it didn't get any bigger. Within the module is new hardware backed by new image technologies, but more on that later. I've always considered that the 5.8-inch Iphone X an fantastic tradeoff involving a big-screen phone and hand-friendly ergonomics. The screen is large and immersive, however, the body is comfortable to hold and pocket. The iPhone Xs Max in comparison can, particularly if you're used to holding a more compact phone, feel big. It is not embarrassing to hold, however people with smaller hands will probably fight with one-handed use and will likely want to turn Reachability, which with a swipe down on the flat bar moves all halfway down the screen, which makes it longer accessible. Still, the trade-off might be worth it. I forgot just how much I like the larger iPhone display, and about the iPhone Xs Max, you get much more screen without contending with a bigger phone (there is just that 0.04-inch height difference between the Iphone 8 Plus and the iPhone Xs Max). Apple's full-stack management of the iPhone layout, development, and production process pays dividends throughout the handset. However, it's most clearly from the silicon, which can be designed and developed in conjunction with the software and hardware components that will rely on it. Last year, Apple revealed the A11 Bionic, a powerful cellular CPU with built in Artificial Intelligence Power. The newest A12 Bionic assembles on that short legacy with a more powerful Neural Engine and much more impressive graphics performance. When I discuss a brand new Iphone, I begin using Geekbench 4 to check out the raw CPU operation. To ensure that there are minimum background processes going, I usually run the exam before I've set up a single app. I ran the Geekbench CPU benchmark and (together with understanding that Apple stuffed an additional gig of memory within the brand new Xs course iPhones) found that the single core scores had improved marginally between the A11 Bionic along with A12 Bionic. However, that the multi-core score was inexplicably lower. Not by a good deal, but I hadn't ever seen that happen. The amounts were still much higher than what I obtained from Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845, however a lower result on the new Iphone didn't make sense. However, once I reran the Geekbench CPU evaluation per day or so after, the A12 multi-core numbers beat those of the A11. My guess is that, though I set up the iPhone Xs and Xs Max as fresh iPhones, there may nevertheless have been some background setup process going on that dragged down the CPU amounts. The bigger leap in functionality is in the Geekbench Compute Metal Score, which jumped from 15,145 on the Iphone X into 22,245 about the Iphone Xs and Xs Max. Apple's done a great deal of work to beef up graphics performance, particularly for the raft of ARKit two (and Surface 2) software heading into the stage, some of which can support multiplayer gaming. While there aren't a lot of ARKit 2 programs in the program store, I did get a hands-on time using an Iphone Xs operating Galaga ARthe identical demonstration Apple showed off during the iPhone Xs unveiling. To play with, me and a couple of other writers stood on a desk and pointed out our telephones at the Galaga video arcade game console. Soon, alien attackers began streaming first from the video game display and from all round us. I swung the phone from side-to-side up and up and down to watch and then shoot the incoming assault. It had been fast-paced and a lot of fun. In the same way, I've seen how, together with ARKit two, the telephone can set, say, a very realistic digital pressure stove or sneaker to a real table or at my toes, the illusion broken only when I slid my hands to the framework and, about the iPhone Xs screen, it looked just like my notes had been stuck beneath the pot. You can't encourage these kinds of real-virtual combinations without ample graphics horsepower, thickness mapping, and the AI required to identify how surfaces, shadows, and even reflections will work on virtual shapes in a real open space. This processing ability also helped amp more ordinary operations such as Face ID. While the procedure for registering my head was unchanged from the original iPhone X, opening either phone with my face, in addition to utilizing Face ID to access password-protected apps and services, is significantly faster than it had been about the iPhone X. Overall, in actual programs, both Iphone Xs and Xs Max run reliably. Apple place massive work into enhancing the photo and movie experience on the Iphone Xs and Xs Max. Along with brand new lenses and a bigger sensor, both the cameras (rear and selfie) are all backed by a fresh picture signal cpu. The technical specs on the double cameras are untouched by the iPhone X (and would be the same on either the iPhone Xs and Xs Max). There is the 1.8 wide angle lens along with the f 2.4 2X telephoto. Both of those comprise optical image stabilization and will shoot around 4K video at 60 fps. They still take slow-motion video in up to 240 frames per second. If you'd like insane 960 fps super-slo-mo, then you are going to have to look to Samsung. In the pure-play photography race, though, Apple requires the head. The Smart HDR uses detector, ISP, and neural engine enhancements to catch a number of the finest high-dynamic range photographs I've ever seen. The gap between what has been possible on the first iPhone X and the Xs and Xs Max is stunning. Apple produced a system suitable of shooting 2 frames each thirtieth of a second, and immediately analyzing and combining them into a single image that preserves not only foreground and background detail, but that can freeze actions without presenting tremendous grain. In multiple images, I saw that the iPhone Xs and Xs Max find colour and detail in dark spaces without wasting out the lighter areas. The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is also an excellent low light shooter, however I think the Xs line is a little better. I'm particularly impressed with how Apple's built upon its own position position in Portrait Mode digital photography. Apple created Portrait Mode in 2016 using the iPhone 7 Plus (the applications lagged from the hardware). Since that time, Apple's elegant the technology, adding items such as Studio Light, Contour Light, Stage Light, and Stage Light Mono. All these attributes remain, and are somewhat enhanced. That which I love and, as an amateur photographer who regularly performs with f-stops to get just the perfect depth of field effect, is that the newest Depth Control. Depth Control lets you choose a Portrait Mode photo and correct the Bokeh, or depth of field attention, after you shoot the photographs. This works with both front and rear cameras, which means that the image chip is using two different types of depth details. On the rear, it's the benefit of two lenses to find stereoscopic info. The front camera relies on the depth-sensing hardware. I understand, Samsung's Galaxy Note 9 gives the capability to correct background attention as you're shooting the image, as well as after. But, there is an essential difference here that is evident in the iPhone Xs and Xs Max Depth picture editor. It's a slider that lets you adjust smoothly from an electronic f 1.4 aperture to a virtual f16. At a real camera with a mechanical aperture, higher numbers interpret to sharper focus from the background along with reduced numbers imply the focus thickness is significantly shallower. About the Galaxy Note 9, Live Focus basically sees the pictures as two planes: the foreground and background. The slider blurs the background plane. The Iphone Xs's depth slider is based on all of the depth advice to reduce or enhance background focus through all of the planes between the very front of their subject and the background. Together with the enhanced Portrait Mode stitching (handling how the subject and a blurred background fit together), the subtlety of this effect through the selection of virtual f-stops is remarkable and, Apple's explained, is modeled on how actual lenses together with hardware apertures would influence each image. For most people the smartphone is their only camera. This places a pro-level command from the hands of millions of individuals, who are about to begin taking some really awesome portrait photographs. Just after capturing normal pics, movie, and even 4K, I continue to be stunned with the standard of photos and videos coming out of their iPhone Xs and Xs Max. Sure, it is strange that the larger Xs Max doesn't, as might be tradition, have any enhanced picture capturing features, however I doubt anyone is going to be dismayed with the photo quality delivered by either new mobile phone. There are a couple of other hardware-related enhancements, such as the guaranteed dual-sim technology which allows for multiple telephone numbers (believe work and individual numbers of one phone) via the support of eSIM technology. Unlike ordinary SIMs, you don't require a carrier card just for the provider to confirm it and allow it on your phone. It's a wonderful characteristic which, for obvious reasons, I could not test. For sound aficionados, there's also the new stereo recording and wider-stereo playback. This can be relatively hard to check, and I occasionally worry my ears aren't good enough to notice what could be a more nuanced difference. However, I'd find a method. I recordedin landscape mode, a few cars driving by. They begin on the left of this screen and push to the right. In video I recorded together with all the iPhone Xs, the noise travels from one side of the telephone to the other. Playback about the iPhone X is loud but lacks the identical degree of separation noise. Clearly, films with a great deal of sound engineering aren't just great displays for the amazing displays, but highlight the new, wider stereo playback abilities too. As hardware/software relationships go, you can not do better than the Apple iPhone Xs and iOS 12. I have been running betas of their new mobile OS for months on my iPhone X and found it incredibly smooth and stable. About the iPhone Xs and Xs Max, it becomes even better spouses. In addition to butter-smooth and lighting fast operation (in matches, video, and internet browsing), the augmented reality abilities first released into iOS 11, ARKit, along with the iPhone X tend to be far more refined and easy to customize from iOS 12 and the Iphone Xs. The smart assistant is a much better listener than ever, and getting smarter. Her address is much more conversational and she is requesting follow-up queries. Siri can also be more proactive, putting connections between benign items such as locations and schedules and offering them beforehand. There are also a number of third party programs tapping into Siri, allowing you to use only your voice to access program features and data without even launching the app. You can set up iOS 12 on your older Iphone (down into this iPhone 5s), however not all of attributes, particularly those involving AR, will operate on the older devices. Still, I clearly advise the upgrade with anyone operating an Iphone 7 and up. It is simply a much better, more polished, educated, and smart user experience also, to be fair, I have hardly scratched the surface of all of the updates and feature improvements you'll find. Apple claims 30 minutes more battery life involving the iPhone X and Xs and 90 minutes more with the Iphone Xs Max. In my experience, either new phone might get you through the majority of the afternoon on a single charge. I spent one day using only the iPhone Xs Max. I retained the brightness high and ran all types of programs and procedures. It lasted a strong 10 hours. Perhaps a tiny bit less than I expected, but still enough for me through the majority of the working day. In all honesty, with less than a week under my belt, it is difficult to give a full assessment of battery performance. There are so many variables and, obviously, battery life will be good on new mobile phones. Talk to me in 6 months or one year, and we're going to see if I am still satisfied with battery life. It is not strange that Apple did not bring down the cost for the brand new $999 iPhone Xs (or hold onto the original model and market it at a lower price). I'm not even shocked that we finally have a nearly $1,100 version or that we're able to cover a whopping $1,449 for the 512 GB iPhone Xs Max (which happens to be the version that I tested). Apple's already proven that individuals will pay almost anything to get their hands on the latest iPhone. Is $1,000 or more to cover a mobile phone? Perhaps, however many people think about the entire cost instead of monthly payments? I am, however, a little annoyed that Apple stopped the lightning -to-3.5 mm adapter. It's as if, in the last 12 months, we've gotten rid of our audio and Bose headsets, such as it is a solved issue. Memo to Apple: It is not. What I will say is that these are the iPhones you desire. The iPhone Xs does not mess with that which I consider a traditional layout, and also the Xs Max simply takes all that's amazing about the iPhone X and expands it. As a set, they are just as beautiful as the original home-button-free Iphone X. The plan looks especially elegant in a gold finish. Photographers will love the new camera, and gamers and content consumers will want the big-screen iPhone Xs Max. Even if you own the iPhone X, I still wouldn't upgrade unless you absolutely need more realistic augmented reality and full depth control on your portraits. For iPhone 6s, 7, 8, as well as 8 Plus owners, the iPhone Xs and Xs Max is going to feel as a massive leap to the foreseeable future.

[yakgreece3]

Exactly What's Interesting with the Best and Newest iPhone Collection of Cell Phones

Users undoubtedly concur with myself that iPhone X design was one of the best, and that's precisely why Apple decided to keep the exact same look to their next set of individualized mobile phones. Introduced one year before, it's the very first Apple cell phone to jettison the home button. At another, I held its brand new redesign, the Iphone Xs. My eyes squeezed shut, I passed them back and forth between my hands, rolling each telephone over, setting the curves, glass backs, double lens camera bumps, and radar vents. I understood that I couldn't tell the difference between the two phones. This isn't a criticism. It is only a simple fact of S version years, where Apple locks in the iPhone design and focuses, rather, on upgrading key internal parts. Therefore, the biggest changes to this 5.8-inch iPhone Xs and its big brother, the 6.5-inches iPhone XS Max, each of which I analyzed, can be seen in functionality (thanks to the new A12 Bionic CPU), photos and movies, (new digital cameras and a new ISP endorsed by the A12), and performance (iOS12, the final version of that came pre-applied in my evaluation components ). The outcome is a pair of brilliant, elegant, and high-performing gadgets that will please iPhone enthusiasts and capture over a few glances out of Android adherents. It still has the exact same rigid surgical steel frame wrapped in a new glass material which Apple said was devised to be more scratch resistant and heavy duty. I gave the phones a few half-hearted drops on a thin-pile carpet but wasn't ready to let them slide away on concrete. Thus far I've discovered just one very fine scratch on your iPhone Xs Max. So let's think about them scratch-resistant, but still not scratch-proof. The larger Iphone Xs Max shares all of the iPhone X's content and layout attributes, but does this at a 6.2-inch x 3.05-inch x 0.30-inch body. At 208 g, it's substantially thicker than the Iphone Xs. The Xs Max is a hair shorter (0.04 inches) and thinner (0.02 inches), but it's also a few grams bulkier when compared to the iPhone 8 Plus, the big-screen telephone that from a distance the Iphone Xs Max most looks. Button placement power/sleep, quantity controls, ring/silent switch -- will be exactly the same. However, there is a single minor chassis gap. On the bottom edge of both telephones sits on the lightning connector. It is book-ended by a set of holes which accommodate one half of their stereo speaker system and among their phone's microphones. There used to be six openings on either side. Now the right side includes half a dozen holesbut the left, that just houses a microphone, has only three. This small change was done, in part, to accommodate the new internal antenna setting which contains 4x4 MIMO and Permit Assisted accessibility, which utilizes unlicensed 5 GHz range to provide 1 Gbps broadband over LTE. Apple updated the water and dust-resistance evaluation to IP 68, that contrasts into the handsets residing in 2 meters of water for up to 30 minutes. I did not have to go swimming with all the iPhone Xs or even Xs Max, but didn't run the latter telephone under water, milk, and juice. Then, as advocated, I dried and shut off the mobile phone. I had been careful not to plug it back into a lighting cable (that is a no-no after a dowsing) but didn't place it onto a wireless charging foundation at which it had no trouble accepting a fee. Apple, incidentally, stated it put some effort into creating the wireless charging platform (essentially the hidden coils in the telephone ) more forgiving. This is good news, because I've on more than one event, woken up to find that my iPhone X didn't charge since I put it a modest off-axis about the charging base. I have never ran into this issue with either the iPhone Xs or even Xs Max. The Iphone Xs and Xs Max bodies are somewhat rigid and solid-feeling, but torqueable, specifically the bigger smart phone, which really makes a tiny clicking noise when I attempt to spin it. Clearly, I have just had these iPhones for weekly, but according to a year's experience with the original iPhone X (allowed, mostly in a thin case), I consider this layout framework tough and prepared for the long run. Even as Samsung trolls Apple for its black cutout at the peak of this iPhone Xs and Xs Max, Apple reveals no signs of stepping backwards in the multi-feature technologies, which neither grew nor shrunk in the hottest iPhones. Just like the first TrueDepth Module, this one is still packaged with the same elements (none of that, as far as I can tell, have been upgraded ). There is a 7 MP camera, scatter projector for thickness sensing, infrared camera (thickness sensing), flood illuminator (yes, also for depth-sensing), proximity sensor, ambient light detector, the next half of the stereo speaker program, and a mic. About the backs of both the iPhone Xs and Xs Max, there's more of that customized glass, the Apple Logo, the term iPhone (however no"X" or"therefore"), and also the 12 MP dual camera system. This vertically-oriented, pill-shaped camera module looks exactly the same as it did in the past Iphone X. It is still a prominent bump, but at least it didn't receive any larger. Within the module is all new hardware backed by new image technologies, but more about this later. I have always considered that the 5.8-inch iPhone X that an outstanding tradeoff involving a big-screen telephone and hand-friendly ergonomics. The screen is big and immersive, however, the human body is comfortable to hold pocket. The iPhone Xs Max in contrast can, particularly if you're utilized to holding a smaller phone, feel big. It's not embarrassing to hold, but those with smaller hands will probably struggle with one-handed usage and will most likely need to turn on Reachability, which using a swipe back on the horizontal bar moves all halfway down the screen, which makes it longer accessible. Nonetheless, the trade-off may be well worth it. I forgot how much I like the bigger iPhone screen, and on the Iphone Xs Max, you receive much more display without contending with a bigger phone (there's just that 0.04-inch height difference between the iPhone 8 Plus and the iPhone Xs Max). Apple's full-stack control of this Iphone layout, development, and production process pays dividends throughout the gleaming handset. But it's most noticeably in the silicon, that can be created and designed in conjunction with the software and hardware elements which will rely on it. This past Year, Apple launched the A11 Bionic, a powerful mobile CPU with built-in Artificial Intelligence Power. The brand new A12 Bionic builds on that short legacy having a more strong Neural Engine and even more impressive graphics performance. Every time I talk about a brand new iPhone, I begin by using Geekbench 4 to check out the raw CPU operation. To ensure that there are minimum background processes going, I usually run the exam before I've installed a single app. I conducted the Geekbench CPU standard and (together with understanding which Apple stuffed an extra gig of memory in the new Xs class iPhones) saw that the single core scores had improved marginally between the A11 Bionic and A12 Bionic. On the other hand, the multi-core score was inexplicably lower. Not by a good deal, but I hadn't ever seen that occur. The amounts were much higher than what I obtained from Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845, however, a decrease result on the new iPhone didn't make sense. But once I reran the Geekbench CPU evaluation per day or so after, the A12 multi-core numbers beat people of the A11. My guess is that, though I put up the iPhone Xs and Xs Max as fresh iPhones, there might still have been some background installation process happening that dragged down the CPU amounts. The larger leap in performance is in the Geekbench Compute Metal score, which jumped from 15,145 about the Iphone X into 22,245 about the iPhone Xs and Xs Max. Apple's done a lot of effort to beef up graphics performance, particularly for the raft of ARKit two (and Surface 2) software heading into the stage, some of which will support multiplayer gambling. When there are not a great deal of ARKit 2 apps in the app store, I'd get a hands-on time using an Iphone Xs operating Galaga ARthe identical demonstration Apple showed off during the iPhone Xs unveiling. To play with, me and a few other writers stood on a table and pointed out our telephones in the virtual Galaga video arcade game console. Shortly, alien attackers began streaming first from the video game display and from all round us. I swung the phone from side-to-side up and down and up to view and then shoot at the arriving strike. It had been swift and good fun. Similarly, I have seen , together with ARKit 2, the phone can set, say, an incredibly realistic digital pressure stove or sneaker on a real table or in my toes, the illusion broken only when I slid my hands into the framework as well as on the iPhone Xs display, it seemed just like my notes had been stuck beneath the kettle. You can't support these kinds of real-virtual mixes without ample graphics horsepower, depth mapping, along with the AI required to identify surfaces, dark areas, as well as reflections will operate on online items in an actual open space. That processing ability also helped amp up more mundane operations such as Face ID. While the process of registering my head was unchanged from the original iPhone X, starting either telephone with my head, as well as using Face ID to access password-protected programs and solutions, is significantly faster than it was about the iPhone X. In general, in actual applications, both Iphone Xs and Xs Max operate smoothly. Apple place significant amount of work into enhancing the photo and video experience on the Iphone Xs and Xs Max. Along with fresh lenses along with a larger sensor, both the cameras (rear and selfie) are all backed by a fresh picture signal cpu. The features on the dual cameras have been untouched from the iPhone X (and will be the same on either iPhone Xs and Xs Max). There's the f 1.8 wide angle lens along with the f 2.4 2X telephoto. The two comprise optical image stabilization and can shoot up to 4K video in 60 fps. They still shoot slow-motion video in up to 240 frames per second. If you want mad 960 fps super-slo-mo, then you'll need to visit Samsung. In the pure-play photography race, however, Apple requires the lead. The Smart HDR uses sensor, ISP, and neurological enhancements to capture some of the most effective high-dynamic range photographs I have ever seen. The gap between what was possible on the original iPhone X and also the Xs and Xs Max is magnificent. Apple made a system able of capturing two frames every thirtieth of a moment, and instantly analyzing and merging them into one image that maintains not only foreground and background detail, but that can freeze actions without introducing grain. In numerous pictures, I saw that the iPhone Xs and Xs Max find color and detail in shadowy spaces without wasting out the lighter places. The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is also an excellent low light shooter, but I think the Xs lineup is a bit better.

I'm particularly impressed by how Apple's constructed upon its own pole position in Portrait Mode digital photography. Apple introduced Portrait Mode in 2016 with the iPhone 7 Plus (the applications lagged from the hardware). Since then, Apple's elegant the technology, including things like Studio Light, Contour Light, Stage Light, and Stage Light Mono. All of these features remain, and have been somewhat enhanced. That which I love and, as an amateur photographer who regularly performs with f-stops for just the perfect depth of field change, is that the newest Depth Control. Depth Control lets you choose a Portrait Mode photograph and adjust the Bokeh, or depth of field attention, after you take the photographs. This works with both the front and rear cameras, which means that the image processor is using two distinct kinds of depth information. On the back, it's the advantage of two lenses to receive stereoscopic information. The leading camera relies on the depth-sensing hardware. I understand, Samsung's Galaxy Note 9 offers the capability to correct background focus as you're shooting the picture, in addition to after. But, there's a crucial difference here that's evident from the iPhone Xs and Xs Max Depth picture editor. It's a slider that allows you adjust smoothly from an electronic f 1.4 aperture to a virtual f16. In a true camera with a mechanical aperture, the higher amounts interpret to sharper focus in the background and also reduced numbers mean the focus depth is significantly shallower. On the Galaxy Notice 9, Live Focus basically sees the pictures as two planes: the foreground and background. The slider effectively blurs the background plane. The iPhone Xs's depth slider is based on all of the depth advice to decrease or enhance background focus through all of the planes between the front of this subject and the background. Along with the improved Portrait Mode stitching (tackling the way the subject and a fuzzy background fit together), the subtlety of the impact through the array of virtual f-stops is remarkable and, Apple's told me, is modeled on how real lenses together with hardware apertures would influence each image. For most people the smart phone is their sole camera. This puts a pro-level controller at the hands of millions of individuals, who are going to begin taking some really stunning face photos. Soon after shooting regular photos, video, and 4K, I remain impressed with the standard of videos and photos coming out of the Iphone Xs and Xs Max. Sure, it's strange that the bigger Xs Max doesn't, as could be convention, have any improved picture capturing features, however I doubt anyone will be disappointed with the picture quality produced by either brand-new smartphone. There are a couple of other equipment-related enhancements, such as the promised dual-sim technologies which enables multiple telephone numbers (believe work and personal numbers of one telephone ) via the support of eSIM technology. Unlike routine SIMs, you don't need a carrier card only for the carrier to confirm it and enable it on your phone. It is a nice attribute that, for evident reasons, I couldn't test. For audio aficionados, there is also the newest stereo recording and wider-stereo playback. This can be relatively tough to check, and that I sometimes worry my ears aren't good enough to notice what might be a nuanced difference. However, I'd find a way. I listed , in landscape style, some cars driving by. They start on the left of the screen and push to the rightside. In video I recorded with the iPhone Xs, the noise travels from one side of the phone to another. Playback on the iPhone X is loudly yet lacking in the exact same degree of separation. Evidently, films with a lot of sound engineering are not just great displays for the wonderful screens, but highlight the new, wider stereo playback capabilities as well. As hardware/software unions go, you can't do much better than the Apple iPhone Xs and iOS 12. I've been operating betas of the new mobile OS for months on my iPhone X and discovered it impressively smooth and stable. About the iPhone Xs and Xs Max, it becomes even better partners. Besides butter-smooth and light fast operation (in games, video, and web browsing), the augmented reality abilities first unveiled in iOS 11, ARKit, and the iPhone X are far more sophisticated and personalized in iOS 12 along with also the iPhone Xs. The intelligent assistant is a better listener than ever, and getting smarter. Her speech is more conversational and she's asking follow-up queries. Siri can be more hands-on, discovering connections between disparate items like schedules and locations and delivering them in advance. There are also a lot of third-party apps tapping into Siri, letting you use just your voice to access program features and information without so much as launching the program. You may set up iOS 12 on your old iPhone (down into this Iphone 5s), however not all attributes, especially those involving AR, will work on the older devices. Still, I seriously recommend the upgrade with at least anyone conducting an iPhone 7 and up. It's simply a better, more glossy, proactive, and smart user experience also, to be honest, I've hardly scratched the surface of all the upgrades and feature improvements you'll discover. Apple asserts 30 minutes more battery life between the iPhone X and Xs and 90 minutes more with all the iPhone Xs Max. In my experience, either new phone can get you through most of the afternoon on a single charge. I spent one day using only the iPhone Xs Max. I kept the brightness and conducted all kinds of programs and processes. It lasted a solid 10 hours. Maybe just a little bit less than I expected, but still enough for me through the majority of the working day. Really, with under a week under my belt, it's hard to supply a complete assessment of battery performance. There are so many variables and, clearly, battery life will be good on brand new telephones. Speak to me in six months or twelve months, and we are going to see if I'm still pleased with battery lifetime. It is no real surprise that Apple didn't bring down the price for the brand new $999 Iphone Xs (or hold onto the initial version and market it at a lower price). I'm not shocked that we now have an almost $1,100 model or that we're able to pay a whopping $1,449 for your 512 GB iPhone Xs Max (which happens to be the version I tested). Apple's already proven that people will pay virtually anything to get their hands on the most recent iPhone. Is $1,000 or more to cover a smartphone? Maybe, however a lot of us think about the entire cost rather than monthly payments? I am, though, somewhat annoyed that Apple stopped the lightning -to-3.5 millimeter adapter. It's like in the past 12 months, we've all gotten rid of our Beats and Bose cans, such as it's a solved problem. Memo to Apple: It is not. What I can say is that these are the iPhones you want. The iPhone Xs does not mess with what I now consider a traditional design, and the Xs Max only takes all that's amazing about the iPhone X and enlarges it. As a set, they're equally as amazing as the first home-button-free iPhone X. The design looks especially tasteful in a gold finish. Participants will love the new camera, and players and content customers will need the big-display iPhone Xs Max. Even if you have the iPhone X, I still wouldn't update unless you need more realistic augmented experience and full depth control on your own portraits. For iPhone 6s, 8, 7, as well as 8 Plus associates, that the iPhone Xs and Xs Max is going to appear like a huge leap into the coming future.

[justgotham]

Fox’s GOTHAM is now in the midst of its fifth and final season on Thursday nights. The series, developed by Bruno Heller from DC Comics, chronicles the rise of Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) from troubled, orphaned pre-teen to the adult Batman. It also shows the development of some of his allies, like detective-turned-police-captain (and one day police commissioner) Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie), frenemies like Selena Kyle/Catwoman (Camren Bicondova), and foes like Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) and the Riddler (Cory Michael Smith).

Executive producers Danny Cannon and John Stephens have both been with GOTHAM for its entire run. Cannon directed the series pilot and has been supervising the directors ever since; Stephens has been part of the writing staff since the inception and has been show runner, with Cannon, since the beginning of Season 3. The duo have created METROPOLIS for DC’s online streaming network. Cannon will also be working with GOTHAM creator Heller on the new Epix series PENNYWORTH, which examines the adventures of the young Alfred Pennyworth.

Cannon sits down in a quiet area of Pasadena’s Langham Hotel for a discussion of what makes GOTHAM all that it is; Stephens joins the conversation partway through.

ASSIGNMENT X: Did you know at the beginning that you would be with GOTHAM for its entire run, because it’s a little unusual for a directing producer to stay with a series for so long …

DANNY CANNON: It is, yeah. There are so many things that are unusual about producing and directing, but I think I’m the only director writing on shows, which I find very strange sometimes. But I think you stick with something when you know how hard it is to maintain the integrity. That is the only way to protect the integrity, visually and tonally, and casting-wise, on a show, is to stick with it. And sometimes that’s a little hard, but on this occasion, it was just such a fun job that I didn’t want to leave, because if you’re gone for a certain amount of time, you do notice things that wouldn’t have happened if you’d been there. It was such a hard world to maintain, and the standard of the acting was so high, that I just wanted to maintain that by being around. There is only me and John. There was Bruno at the beginning, but there was only me and John, and with him stuck writing, a lot of post-production and production and first-hand contact on set was really down to me.

AX: With the other directors who came in to do episodes, were you instructing them, “This is GOTHAM, that is not GOTHAM”?

CANNON: Constantly. And that’s why you’ll see so many of our directors repeat, because once it is lodged in their mind what world they were in, then we had to keep ahold of them, because you don’t want to reeducate somebody. And they became real fans of the show. What was amazing was how many directors wanted to return, because compared to the other things they were directing, this just visually had a lot more going on. The palette was bigger and the scope was bigger.

AX: What did you find that the biggest thing that the other directors needed to know – don’t be afraid to let the actors get big, or, please shoot the sets in a certain way, or, please use these kinds of shots?

CANNON: Right from the beginning of me doing television, even at C.S.I., when [other] directors came in, they would be very complimentary of the pilot and everything, but I would always say, “Well, great, now we’ve seen that. Now kick my ass. That’s your job. I want to watch your episode and come back next week and say, ‘I just got schooled, I have to up my game’.” And I think that friendly competition [was helpful]. We did it with d.p.s [directors of photography], too, we did it with production designers, editors. Everybody was trying to get the best episode, everybody was trying to do that thing that nobody had done before. Sometimes, though, we had to stop people going over the top. Sometimes that was not right for that story. When we brought directors on, we’d always talk about the theme of that [episode], and who to concentrate on, and who not to. But I always find you get the best out of people when you set them free, and you encourage them, and you love them, and you want them to love what you have as much as you do. I don’t think it makes a show better to restrict people and tell them, “We don’t do that, we don’t like that.” It just makes everybody feel a little – it’s the opposite of creativity, isn’t it?

AX: How would you describe GOTHAM’s visual style?

CANNON: I think when we were doing the pilot, nobody really understood what we were doing. I did a visual effect off my own back [on my own] and I did many drawings I did myself, and my designer did some to try and sell the world, but still, that wasn’t getting it across. I was like, “On the pilot, it was Dickensian, circa 1979 New York City, un-gentrified, if the cops were all corrupt, and the gangs had taken over.” There was that, but that felt political. The look of it that I kept going to was that Dickensian thing, that I knew that if I drew, and my production designer helped me with the GCPD [Gotham City Police Department headquarters], if we got that right, that was the [core]. So we took it upon ourselves those first few weeks, before anybody came along, while Bruno is still pitching. He brought me on very early, because he just didn’t want to do a project like this alone. The kind of stuff I do, the kind of stuff he does, are completely different. So he wanted the world being imagined while he wrote, so he could be inspired by what I was doing. It was a nice way to work. And when we got that GCPD right, it straightaway – and it’s funny, I drew one, and Doug Kraner [the initial GOTHAM production designer] drew one, and they were almost identical. But his staircases were better.

[John Stephens laughs.]

CANNON: It was based on St. Pancras Station, a Victorian building, in London. And all of a sudden, that, with the different look of the wardrobe, which was the other thing I was drawing at the same time, was what got us over the edge.

AX: When did you take over entirely from Bruno Heller?

JOHN STEPHENS: Well, I would never say I took over entirely from Bruno Heller. They say the term “show runner,” but really, Danny and I were doing it together these past three years after Bruno kind of took a step back. It’s really at the end of Season 2 that Bruno took a step back, and then Danny and I – it was a great partnership, I felt like, because we complimented each other’s strengths. We were talking about the look of the show, and to me, one of the things I found so appealing about the show is, I think a lot of people can do grim. I think what Danny and Doug, and Richard [Berg] afterwards, were able to do, I mean, everybody, [current GOTHAM production designer] Dan Novotny as well, is to make it look scary and dirty and grim, but also romantic in a way. I still want to be in that world, as downtrodden as it seems. And that’s a very secret little bull’s-eye that’s very hard to hit.

CANNON: As English people, myself and Bruno both wanted to visit New York and see SERPICO New York, THE WARRIORS New York. I wanted to see MEAN STREETS, I wanted to see TAXI DRIVER. It was all gone by the time I got there, but it was the poem of New York, it was the idea of New York. So that’s what GOTHAMbecame, and “romantic” is a good word. We were making this romantic poem to a city where Batman will be necessary one day.

AX: It’s sort of like GOTHAM is a dream of New York that’s on the verge of being a nightmare?

CANNON: Right, right.

STEPHENS: It’s like those opening scenes of TAXI DRIVER, when that Bernard Herrmann score is playing, and those bright, garish lights are moving, and it feels like Hell, but it also feels very suffused with sex and violence, and it’s really exciting.

CANNON: It [TAXI DRIVER] is one of my favorite films of all time, and Bernard Herrmann was such a strange choice for them to make, but Scorsese knew what he was doing, because he aged the film down by putting Bernard Herrmann’s score in. They say he was old-fashioned. That’s exactly why he did it. We wanted old-fashioned music. When we had to put pop music into the show, we went back to the ‘80s, and to the ‘70s, to the Stooges, to Alice Cooper, and to the Sex Pistols, because music now is too polished and refined and wouldn’t work.

AX: You mentioned the word “grim,” but if I may say, GOTHAM doesn’t feel grim. How do you keep it feeling maybe dark but somehow ecstatic …?

STEPHENS: “Gritty” I think is probably a better word than “grim” in many ways. We speak about these things, particularly in terms of metaphor. It’s like when people talk. I just recently saw this documentary about World War I [THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD] that Peter Jackson made. It was incredible. And at the beginning, they have all these voices of soldiers who were there. And they say, “Four years, it was horrific, I never would have traded it for anything. I felt more alive during those four years than I did in the next fifty years of my life.” And I feel like life in GOTHAM may be cheap in many ways, but it feels very alive to the people who are there. And that was always our point. You want to feel the beating heart of the people who are there, and that they’re living life right on the edge. I always think of that line – I’m [approximating], I apologize – there’s a beat in HEAT, where Al Pacino is talking to his wife, and he says, “I need to be on the edge, it’s where I’ve got to be.” And you always want the characters to be right there on that edge.

CANNON: We watch plays, John more than me, but when you’re doing a Broadway play, and you need to introduce a character, they will always do something with the scenery, they’ll always do something with the lighting. I think what doesn’t happen enough with movies and television right now is, they don’t give characters a good platform. How do we stop it being grim? I think everybody in the show gets a visual introduction. I remember talking about seeing Episode 2, when I had the confidence of the pilot behind me, about the body language, with every cast member. “We should know you’re coming in silhouette.” And I said the same thing to the directors. “Give everybody an intro. Give them that moment where that guy walks in, in CABARET. Give them that moment where you realize the king is entering.” You start to think about things on a grand scale, and all the writers ended up coming around and asking for those little visual tidbits, because they had the story down, and they knew where it needed to go, but everybody just needed a push to show people the cinema of this moment.

STEPHENS: You did that in the first Alfred [played by Sean Pertwee] appearance, when he’s walking down the alley, and there’s crime tape there, and Sean doesn’t slow down. Because he just knows they’re going to raise it up for him because of the authority that he carries. He tilts his head, just a tiny bit. I was, “Oh, he’s in command.”

AX: Now, what are some of the things that have surprised you about the way the characters have turned out? I think one of them would probably be Barbara Keane, played by Erin Richards. She started out as Jim Gordon’s fiancée and then went to some astonishing places …

STEPHENS: Yeah. Erin as an actress continually surprises us. We took her so dark. [Barbara] killed her parents, she became a gang lord, she was completely psychotic, and it became the question, “Can we bring this person back?” One of the themes of the show is transformation. A person changes into another thing. “Can you take someone that dark and still bring them back again? Is there any hope in them?” She does. She finds that way back, and that was so surprising to us.

AX: And Morena Baccarin’s character, Dr. Lee Thompkins, as well?

CANNON: Oh, my God. Amazing. And when Morena showed up, it’s funny how, from that first show she did, you know you want to do some things with a great actress. That’s it. That’s simply it. She can do the same thing over, or she can keep testing you. GAME OF THRONES is the only other show I can think of that has characters do terrible, awful things and you love them the next time they’re punished. The back and forth – we love to hate everybody in the show.

AX: And what would you most like people to know about the rest of GOTHAM? We know there will be a ten-years-forward time jump episode in the finale …

STEPHENS: I think they need to watch every episode, because I think in every single episode, an enormous bomb drops, both for the characters as they live right there, and also things that are going to play out not just ten years, but twenty years in the future, because we all know where those characters are going to end up, and we plant things that real fans of the material are going to go, “Oh, that’s what they were doing. I thought they weren’t going to do that, but they are going to do that.”

CANNON: Everything we’ve done for five years pays off in the last episode.

[dawnfelagund]

Am I crazy for wanting to become a teacher? I'm taking classes for teaching certification right now, but I saw the post about ADHD and the anger there really shook me. Any words of wisdom for a young aspiring educator?

The short answer is, no, I don’t think you’re crazy. :) I adore my job and there is nothing else I’d rather do. I have so much fun with my students; laughter and joy are part of my everyday work. I’m on summer break now, and the other day, I found myself scrolling through pictures on my phone that I’d taken throughout the school year and reminiscing about the last school year and laughing anew at the things we got up to and missing my kiddos badly.

But–you probably knew there was going to be a but :)–I would be lying if I didn’t say my job is extremely hard. Teachers are notoriously bad at work-life balance. (One of my professional goals for next year is to improve on work-life balance because the year I had last year is not sustainable long-term.) I think new teachers should go into their work with eyes open to the challenges we face in our profession right now; they are not insurmountable challenges, but they are significant and tend (in my experience) to be glossed over by teacher-prep programs and school districts desperate to solve teacher shortages by harping on the “Make a Difference!!” message at the expense of acknowledging what the day-to-day reality of new teachers will actually look like.

As I said in my original post, expectations and working conditions vary widely by district in the U.S. Contrary to conservative myth, the federal government does not control or mandate curriculum (Common Core is standards, not curriculum, and also not adopted by every state)–and ironically, the biggest federal education mandate, the unfunded No Child Left Behind law, was a Republican policy–and this is controlled at the state or local level, so my experiences in the two states where I’ve taught (Maryland and Vermont) may not reflect what your experiences would be where you live.

In general, though, teachers are on the front lines of a society where people are increasingly finding it difficult to meet their basic needs and where the social safety net has been systematically dismantled. Unless you end up in a very privileged school–which is near-impossible for a new teacher–this absolutely impacts the kids you will see in your classroom every day. It most often manifests in behavior problems, either because kids in families stretched thin by poverty haven’t been taught behavioral expectations for school or because kids are acting out due to trauma and other psychoemotional problems that they are unprepared to cope with. In my experience, teacher-prep programs have done little to nothing to prepare new teachers for how to manage a classroom where kids are daily trying to cope with such challenges. (For the record, the first five years of my career were spent in a special-ed school in Baltimore for boys with emotional disabilities, so I know what extreme behavior looks like … and my teacher-prep program spent one week in one class addressing classroom management, never addressing significant behavior issues that you most likely will encounter in the classroom. While my first school had major shortcomings, I am extremely grateful that it did offer me the training I needed to be effective with the most challenged and challenging kids. I hope your program serves you better than mine did but if not, I’m happy to share resources.)

Again, the impact this would have on your as a professional depends on your district. I am lucky to work in a district that prioritizes education, so even though my school had the highest eligibility for free and reduced meals in the state last year, you would not know it from looking at my school, which does a commendable job of extending the same opportunities to our students as would a school serving a middle-class community. Most of the enrichment and social services we provide is funded through our school budget or grant money. Sadly, this is not the case for most schools in the U.S. that serve low-income populations, which is why you often hear of teachers coming out of their pockets not only for their classroom supplies but for food and clothing for their students who would otherwise go without.

Part of my anger is because of this: because how have we failed as a nation if we cannot protect the basic needs and safety of children? Yet I have had children in my care for every moment of my career who have faced hardships that would have been the end of me.

And some of the anger you sensed is because one of the other realities of our profession that no one talks about in your teacher-prep classes is how despised our profession has become–and routinely and casually so–due to right-wing slander against educators. And for whatever reason, this rhetoric has been picked up by people across the political spectrum. This is Tumblr, so I’d be willing to wager that most of the people in the original thread I was responding to would identify with the left politically, yet are fully comfortable making claims that public educators medicate kids because they’re too lazy to deal with developmentally normal behaviors. Likewise, I have had progressive friends make disparaging comments about educators directly to me, thinking nothing of it because it’s become so commonplace to assume that teachers are stupid, incompetent, and lazy that they don’t even stop to think about what they’re saying long enough to consider their audience. (To wit, the saying “If you can’t do, teach,” which an online friend–again, an outspoken progressive–actually wrote to me when congratulating me for completing my certification, apparently never stopping to consider that I might find that sentiment insulting.) But, as I noted in my post last night, we are one of the only professions remaining with strong union membership, and this makes us a threat to big-money interests that would like to skim out of our pockets in the same way they have the U.S. people as a whole and are fighting with every ounce of their being to privatize and profit from the public right to a free and appropriate education for every child in the U.S. In addition, as I noted in the tags, we are the ones teaching kids inconvenient facts about their legal rights and democratic ideals and some of the less-rosy chapters of our nation’s history, which makes us a threat to certain groups who would far prefer an ignorant, frightened populace.

Anyway, as I noted at the beginning, I would not choose to do any other work, despite the frustrations and challenges. At the core of what I believe is the potential of all human beings to influence our world for the better, no matter the color of their skin or their gender identity or the amount of money in their parents’ bank accounts when they’re born, and so I feel compelled to do this work, to put my talents and energy to offering a leg up to kids who might otherwise slip through the cracks.

If I could offer advice to a teacher-in-training, it would be this: First of all, be aware and evaluative of the amount of training your are receiving in classroom management. I can’t speak for every teacher-prep program, but the ones I’m familiar with spend very little time on this even though classroom management is the top concern of new teachers and, in my experience, the biggest reason why new teachers leave the field. Although I know that adding one more thing is probably like adding gasoline to a wildfire at this point in your career, it really is worth pursuing information on this on your own, if your program is not meeting your needs. It will make your first job so much easier (and make you so much more confident to be able to handle the challenges I described–and projecting confidence is itself a good classroom management strategy, especially if you work with older kids). As I said, I’m happy to share resources. If you have a mentor, they can help here as well.

If at all possible, student-teach in a school that is similar to the schools where you think you’ll eventually work. Another shortcoming I find with the teacher-prep programs I’m familiar with is that they stick their student teachers into the cushiest, easiest middle-class schools before casting them into a job market where they will likely start in a low-income, high-need school with significant challenges.

Talk to teachers in districts and schools where you’re considering working and find out what the strengths and challenges are. What support do they offer new teachers? (Ideally, you’ll get a mentor for at least your first year.) How much support do they offer their teachers in general? Does the administration have your back, or are they going to abandon you the moment the going gets tough? How much control will you retain over what and how you teach? Classroom management? You should be able to make adjustments to meet your students’ needs and interests; this is best practice, and if a district or school is doing otherwise, run. Does the school/district favor a positive or punitive approach to classroom management? What does the district/school see as their priorities? (Growing the whole child or raising test scores? Relationships or rigor?) How much pressure is put on teachers around test scores? How will you be evaluated and what is the philosophy around evaluation? (Assuming everyone can always grow and improve or using evaluations to punish shortcomings and mistakes?) How supportive is the administration in terms of maintaining a healthy work-life balance? What resources will you be given? Will you have a budget for supplies? How much? Are the books, resources, and technology up to date? (Is there even technology? What is the ratio of students to devices actually available to use?) What opportunities are available in the school day for the arts? Do students have access to unstructured play and social time during the day? What resources does the school offer for kids and families in need of additional social services? Are there meals available for food-insecure kids? Counseling and mental health services? After-school programs? Or will you be buying breakfast every day for your homeroom rather than imagining them struggling through their morning on empty stomachs? Asking teachers and not administrators will help get some honest answers to these questions.

And please feel free to reach out to me at any time (and this goes for anyone thinking about or starting a teaching career!). I’m a mentor in my district and so trained to coach new teachers, and if I can offer any tips or resources then I’m happy to do so.

[psykonee]

A decade on a tropical island

My skin burns easily.  I dislike feeling sweaty.  I like the freshness of cold weather. I generally dislike crowded places.

I never thought I would spend a decade in one of the planet’s smallest, hottest and densest tropical islands.

Singapore.

Mistaken preconceptions

English as a main language does not mean a culture that is very similar to that of other mainly English speaking nations.

Having chewing gum is OK, even though nowhere sells it.

One of the richest countries in the world has some extremely poor people – for example elderly people working as cleaners and collecting cardboard.

Behind the ultra modern façade there tends be a more traditional and conservative mindset.

Surprises

Male Singaporeans having to do national service for 2 years, which at least some resent having to do.

The first group (late 1960s) to do national service had Israeli instructors.

The reason the police on the metro system look like teenagers is that they are.

The legality of prostitution.

Sometimes it is older Singaporeans that are most likely to be openly breaking the rules – for example during the Covid lock-down last year, it was common to see groups of older Singaporeans together in a way that was in breach of the restrictions.

At least at the level of individual seats elections can be genuinely competitive.

The normalcy of families having live in maids.

Very little built after independence (1965) has been considered worthy of protection from redevelopment.

Around 80% of Singaporeans live in homes that have 99 year lease holds from what is effectively the state.

How many Singaporeans live with their parents until well into their 30s.

The degree of language fluidity – for example, being with an Indian Singaporean who ordered drinks in Mandarin.

Singlish – an officially frowned upon blend of Chinese dialects with Malay, Tamil and English which is an organic part of the Singaporean identity, as opposed to many other things which have been driven from the top down.

Pre-covid the largest event in favour of making progressive changes each year has been Pink Dot.

The amount of green space, particularly in the core part of the island. It is not uncommon to see monkeys, otters, monitor lizards and other wildlife.

Understanding

The location on the map at the junction of the main sea routes between East Asia and India, the Middle East and Europe makes a port here logical.

The colonial legacy is complex.  The influence of the early, segregated city plan is still clearly visible in terms of street names and the nature of the oldest buildings.

WW2, defeat and occupation are critical to making sense of the structures created and the decisions made by the post-independence leaders.

Without Lee Kuan Yew (the first Prime Minister) things would have been very different.  He effectively got to play Sim City for real.

The country became independent from Malaysia and not directly from the UK.

Singapore was not a backwater at independence (the grand colonial buildings in the core of the city attest to that), but it did have serious issues (amongst other things few natural resources, housing problems) at independence.

To become what it is now has required a huge effort by many over the decades, but it has come at a high cost.

Not all laws are enforced equally.  There are some that are very strongly enforced (e.g. the ban on recreational drugs) and others which exist more on paper than in practice (e.g. the colonial legacy anti gay laws).

Singapore may have a populace that is majority Chinese by background, but it is very different from China and cannot be assumed to side with China (or any other country) on anything.

The degree of direct and indirect state involvement in the economy is far more than a crude look at economic freedom indices would suggest.  In some cases the largest companies in local sectors have significant (in some cases, controlling) shareholdings by the country’s sovereign wealth funds.

This is not a police state, but it is one of the safest countries.  In general there is quite a lot of latitude in what can be said or done by people.  People are largely free to be supportive or critical of the government or anything else here.  At the same time there some things which would be possible elsewhere which are barely tolerated here (e.g. protests are legal in just one place, a legal strike is almost unheard of).

Relative to many countries in the same region Singapore is in many respects liberal, open and tolerant.

People

Anyone can be Singaporean.

Kiasu – a fear of missing out, which makes behaviour around limited events pretty predictable.

Kiasi – a fear of death, which in practice means an avoidance of taking risks.

Conformity tends to be valued over individuality.

Stability is highly valued.

I have found that it is generally guess correctly from a conversation with a Singaporean if they have spent a significant part of their lives outside the country or not.

It is a village on a larger scale, which can be both a source of community and suffocation.

There is an emphasis on self and family reliance, which at its best makes people strive to be as successful as they can be, but at its worst can lead to an indifference in the well being of others.

Given the mix of people and cultures there tends to be a live and let live mentally for the most part in public spaces.

There can be a tenancy by some to resort to official means (e.g. reporting something to the police) instead of trying to resolve disputes without the involvement of the authorities.

Related to this there can be a tendency towards passive aggressiveness over directly confronting problems.

There can be a very hierarchical view of organisations, which can lead to a rigidity and inflexibility.

People will help you if you ask, but it is much less common to get unsolicited assistance.

Ideals and the reality

To be a clean city, but it is maintained more by an army of low paid workers, than a deeply ingrained culture of care of civic spaces. The amount of waste in piles at the beaches can be depressing.

Racism is officially not tolerated in any circumstances.  In practice it is easy to find examples of racism e.g. coming across rental listings that make it clear Indian applicants are not welcome.

To have gender equality, but in practice a patriarchal and defined gender roles remain strongly ingrained.

Education is highly valued, but with a strong emphasis on scoring high marks on structured exams it can lead (along with other factors) to a square box mindset and a lack of creativity.

Officially there are four languages (English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil).  In practice many things are only in English, often in English and Mandarin and rarely only in the other two outside of some limited contexts.

Speculation on further evolution

Same sex marriage is more likely to be legalised in the medium term than recreational drug use.

Singapore is continuing to slowly liberalise at its own pace – for example many films that were banned in the previous century are now available on streaming services.

Can you forge a national identity with what appears to be a largely top down approach?  It will be interesting how this evolves over the coming decades.

The same party has been in power since before independence.  It is likely that other parties will win more seats (currently they hold 11% of them) in future elections.  If and when it happens a successful and peaceful transfer of power would be a momentous event.

Fragmentation of experience by linguistic and other factors in a small, young country which is open to the influences from louder places.

How Singapore has changed me

I can eat with chopsticks.

I effectively ceased to cook after realising eating out was cheaper, arguably tastier and easier.

I have eaten far more varied food here than anywhere else, tried so many new things.

Eating out alone feels normal.

I see more value in a collectivist approach than an individualistic one than I used to.

Paying $20 for a single drink no longer feels as outrageous as it used to.

My body has adjusted to the heat and humidity.  30C now feels normal and 20C can feel cold.

I walk slower to remain cooler.

Travelling 10km within the country feels like a long way.

I can understand and use some Singlish.

I tryto talk slower and clearer because it makes it easier for others to understand what I am saying.

Those who I am friends with and work with is far more diverse than before.

I have toned down some of how I tend to be naturally (swearing a lot, directness) in order to be more accommodating of others.

I have become quite used to standing out in many places due to my appearance.

Singapore has felt like home for some time.

Miscellany

The number of Singaporeans who have thought I am Australian.

The airport is the world’s best in terms of ease of use and facilities.

The one time my beer glass was freely refilled was while eating dinner I found myself amongst supporters of one of the opposition parties who were ecstatic the night they won a seat in a by-election from the ruling party.

The government information adverts (e.g. visit your relatives more than once a year) shown in some cinemas would not be taken with a straight face in many other countries.

The unexpected can lead to things grinding to a halt as orders are awaited.

The ubiquity of high speed internet access has made controlling what people can see, read or experience effectively impossible.  A great firewall is not a viable option here.

[charger-batteries]

Epson WorkForce Pro WF-4830 Wireless All-in-One Printer Review

Replacing our 2017 Best of the Year WorkForce Pro WF-4740, Epson's WorkForce Pro WF-4830 Wireless All-in-One Printer ($199.99) is a midrange multifunction (print, copy, scan, and fax) printer aimed primarily at small offices. This year's model comes with similar paper capacity, volume ratings, and features as its predecessor—and boasts a $100 price reduction. Its large, auto-duplexing automatic document feeder (ADF) and two 250-sheet paper trays make it well worth its modest price if you're printing and scanning every day. Overall, the WF-4830 is a fast, feature-rich, business-ready AIO that gives great value for its purchase price.

Tall and Powerful

The WF-4830 is the middle model in a recent five-machine WorkForce Pro refresh. The WF-3820 and WF-4820 are less expensive and less robust; the WF-7820 and WF-7840 are wide-format machines (printing pages up to 13 by 19 inches) that are otherwise similar to the WF-4800s. Assuming you don't need poster printing, the WF-4830 is the obvious choice for most offices with moderate printing needs, as it delivers much more value than the WF-4820 and WF-3820. (I'll talk more about how these machines differ in the sections below that cover relevant productivity and convenience features.)

The WF-4830 measures 13 by 16.7 by 19.8 inches (HWD) and weighs 26.2 pounds. That makes it about two inches taller and 3.3 pounds heftier than the WF-4820. It's about the same size and girth as the HP OfficeJet Pro 9025. The most similar printer that Canon offers is the smaller and lighter (and not nearly as capable) Pixma TR8620.

A much more expensive Epson AIO, the EcoTank Pro ET-5850 (also on our 2017 Best of the Year list), has a notably larger footprint and weighs almost 20 pounds more than the WF-4830 unit. And Brother's MFC-J6945DW (on the 2019 Best of the Year list) is bulkier and heavier still, mostly to accommodate tabloid-size printing. I'm including comparison machines that cost up twice as much as the WF-4830 because I couldn't find recent AIOs in the $200 price range that come with two paper trays, a feature that really makes the WF-4830 stand out in its class.

Another perk of the WF-4830 is a 50-sheet auto-duplexing ADF that automatically scans both sides of two-sided multipage documents. Manual-duplexing feeders, such as the one on the WF-4820, can't capture both sides of two-sided documents without a human standing by to flip the stack. If you're regularly scanning two-sided documents that are more than a couple of pages long, auto-duplexing makes a big difference in convenience and saved time.

Of the other AIOs mentioned here so far, only the Pixma TR8620's 20-sheet ADF is manual-duplexing. The two OfficeJet Pro machines come with 35-sheet feeders, and the ET-5850 and MFC-J6945DW both have 50-sheet ADFs.

The WF-4830's paper input capacity is 500 sheets split between two 250-sheet cassettes. That's 250 sheets more than its closely priced sibling, the WF-4820, and comparable to the higher-end ET-5850, which adds a 50-sheet multipurpose tray that pulls up and out from the back of the machine.

The OfficeJet Pro 9025's paper capacity is the same as the WF-4830's, while the Premier comes with only one 250-sheet cassette. Brother's MFC-J6945DW boasts two 250-sheet cassettes and a 100-sheet multipurpose tray, making it the most versatile of this group. The Canon TR8620's meager 200-sheet capacity is the least robust.

The WF-4830's maximum monthly duty cycle is 33,000 pages, and its suggested monthly volume is 1,600 prints. At that rate, you'll refill the paper trays three to four times a month. Those numbers are comparable to the OfficeJet Pro 9025 and MFC-J6945DW, which are rated at 30,000 pages maximum and 2,000 prints suggested, and the OfficeJet Premier, rated for 25,000 pages maximum and 1,500 prints suggested. Canon doesn't share volume rates for its consumer-grade printers. If your printing volume is considerably higher, the ET-5850 can handle double the WF-4830's workload.

Versatile Controls

Aside from Home and Help buttons residing on either side of the screen, the WF-4830's spacious 4.3-inch color touch-screen control panel controls all its functions. You can set up and execute copy jobs, scan to local drives or cloud sites, monitor ink levels, configure security parameters, generate usage reports, and a lot more. You can also use the WF-4830's built-in web portal from any web browser, including the one on your smartphone or tablet.

The WorkForce Pro AIOs all ship with the same standard interfaces: Ethernet and Wi-Fi for networking, and USB 2.0, Wi-Fi Direct, and Bluetooth LE for direct connections. There's a USB port in a covered compartment to the left of the control panel that lets you print from or scan to USB thumb drives.

Android Print, Apple AirPrint, and Mopria make it easy to connect to the WF-4830 from your mobile device. Epson throws in its Epson Connect suite of utilities: Epson iPrint, Epson Creative Print, and Epson Smart Panel (all compatible with iOS and Android); Epson Email Print; Epson Remote Print; and Scan to Cloud. You also get TWAIN drivers for scanning directly into desktop apps.

For faxing and scanning, you get Epson Fax Utility and Epson's two outstanding scanner interfaces, Scan 2 and ScanSmart, as well as a newcomer to the bundle, the Smart Panel App. Scan 2 has three modes—Home, Office, and Professional—that provide access to features according to expertise levels. ScanSmart is a modular scanner interface that supports plugins, such as Epson's ScanSmart Accounting Edition for gleaning data from receipts, invoices, and other financial documents and converting it for use in bookkeeping programs. ScanSmart also integrates well with document management applications, including Epson's Document Capture Pro.

The newcomer, Smart Panel App, is a remote control panel that runs on your smartphone or tablet. It only works with the latest generation of WorkForce Pro AIOs. I installed it on my Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone and fooled around with it for a while, but the jury is still out as to how necessary it is. I suspect it's mostly a response to HP's Smart App, which is touted as a universal interface that allows you to configure and manage all HP printers and scanners across Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS platforms.

One Quick Inkjet

Like the WF-4820, the WF-4830 is rated at 25 monochrome pages per minute (ppm). During my tests, it performed slightly faster than its rating and its WF-4820 sibling. I put it through its paces over an Ethernet connection to our Intel Core i5 testbed PC running Windows 10 Pro. On the first part of the benchmark regimen, I timed it as it printed several copies of our standard 12-page Microsoft Word text file and came up with an average score of 27.5ppm, or 1.1ppm faster than its WF-4820 sibling and 1.2ppm slower than the ET-5850.

The OfficeJet Pro 9025 beat the WF-4830 by 2.2ppm and the speedy OfficeJet Pro Premier came in ahead of the WF-4830 by 10.1ppm. But the WorkForce Pro turned around and trounced the Brother MFC-J6945DW by 9.2ppm. The Canon Pixma TR8620, at 13.7ppm slower than the WF-4830, ate everybody's dust.

The next part of the testing routine entails printing our collection of colorful and complex Excel spreadsheets with accompanying charts and graphs, PowerPoint handouts containing intricate graphics and fonts of varying sizes and colors, and graphics-laden Adobe Acrobat files. I then combined these scores with the results from printing the text document above and came up with 12ppm, a negligible 0.4ppm faster than the WF-4820.

The other Epson, the ET-5850, beat this one by 6.3ppm. The Brother MFC-J6945DW and the two OfficeJets, the Premier and 9025, had speeds almost identical to the WF-4830's. The Pixma TR8620 managed a paltry 4.7ppm.

To finish up, I clocked the WF-4830 as it churned out several instances of two brilliant and detailed 4-by-6-inch snapshots in an average time of about 13 seconds, 1 second slower than the WF-4820 and near average for this group of inkjets.

Superior Text and Image Printing

Epson's WorkForce Pro AIOs are built around PrecisionCore Heat-Free Technology printheads that utilize ink chips with small, dense, and tightly clustered nozzles that produce some of the best detail and color accuracy in the business-oriented printer space. Granted, nearly all inkjet printers churn out good-looking output these days, but the WorkForce Pro family is clearly one of the best for detail and color accuracy that stand up to close scrutiny.

The WF-4830 printed our common serif and sans-serif sample font pages with crisp, well-shaped, and highly legible characters down to what I could make out without magnification, or about 6 points. The several not-so-common decorative, headline, and theme fonts we test looked good, too. And the colorful and complex business graphics, charts, graphs, and embedded photographs I printed were more than attractive enough for both internal and external business use.

However, it did struggle with a few PowerPoint handouts that contain gradients from light to dark black and from green to black. In some of them, instead of flowing evenly from one color to the next, the gradient stepped, banding perceptibly from shade to shade. The result wasn't awful, but it was obviously not the intended effect.

The photo prints from the WF-4830 were not quite as vibrant as you'd get from an Epson or Canon consumer-grade photo printer (the Editors' Choice–winning Epson XP-7100 comes to mind), but its photo output is good enough for most business applications and even for family photos.

Expensive Per-Page Output

Without some kind of discounted-ink incentive, consumer-grade printers like this one, especially if you push them close to their suggested maximum volume, cost a lot to use. When you buy Epson's so-called high-yield ink cartridges for this printer, monochrome pages will cost you about 3.6 cents each and color prints will run around 11.7 cents each. The more you print, the more you'll care about running costs that are 1 or 2 cents higher per page than those of comparable printers.

For example, let's say that you print 1,600 pages each month (the WF-4830's suggested maximum volume) on a machine with a 1-cent monochrome page cost. Printing 1,600 pages will save you $41 each month, $499 each year, and $2,496 over the expected five-year lifespan of the printer.

I'm comparing this printer to more expensive ones in part because their lower running costs lead to a comparable lifetime cost. The ET-5850 Pro, a bulk-ink EcoTank machine that lists for $900, delivers running costs of 2 cents for both monochrome and color prints. (Note that most of the other EcoTank models, the ones without the "EcoTank Pro" in their names, cost even less to use: 0.3 cent per black page and 0.9 cent for color.) Obviously, you have to print and copy a lot to save enough to make up the difference in purchase price, but when you factor in Epson's current offer of free ink for the first two years you own the ET-5850, the lifetime value math is worth doing.

Both the OfficeJets discussed here are eligible for HP's Instant Ink subscription program, for which the printers monitor ink levels and order more as needed. Subscribing to the $19.99 option gives you your first 700 prints each month for 2.9 cents each and charges $1 for every subsequent 20 pages. If this doesn't sound like an impressive value, keep in mind that we're talking 2.9 cents for every page, even letter-size borderless photos with 100 percent coverage—a fantastic boon if you print a lot of color documents and photos. I should also point out HP is currently offering two free years of its 300-page, $9.99-per-month subscription for Premier owners. Brother's MFC-J5945DW, an INKvestment Tank model, delivers running costs of 0.9 cent per monochrome page and 4.7 cents for color, which isn't bad either.

Finally, Canon's Pixma TR8620, which doesn't offer a bulk-ink incentive, prints monochrome pages for a painful 7 cents and color for 11.7 cents each. However, the Canon Pixma G4210, a bulk-ink AIO, will run you just 0.3 cent for monochrome and 0.9 cent for color.

A Solid and Durable Low-Volume Solution

The WF-4830 is loaded with productivity and convenience features designed to save time and maximize efficiency. It sports valuable improvements over the WF-4820. It's difficult to find a machine with two big paper drawers and a 50-sheet auto-duplexing ADF for under $200. However, this AIO costs more to use than several others in its class, making it less of a value if your print and copy load is more than a few hundred pages each month. If your output volume is modest or you don't mind paying a premium for ink, this sturdy machine will serve you well for several years.

[peenorpoika96]

How Technology Improves Our Lives

A lot of people do not realize exactly how much technology they use each and every day. We're a world that's literally run from the technology that we've developed over the past 100 years. As the years have gone by, technology that progressed and we've been able to live our lives a good deal easier. Here are a couple of ways that you can have a look at technology and truly see how it can enhance your life.

Lots of folks look for the technology which will make life just a little simpler. This is the sort of technology like cell phones, telephones, computers that we use each and every day. Most of use can't go a day without talking or texting someone on our telephones. Others will need to use the computer on a daily basis so as to get work done or progress in their school field. The modern car today isn't only for driving; today there are vehicles which are known as"mobile devices" instead of cars. All this sort of technology combined helps to make life go by a little faster and easier.

As soon as you've the entertainment technology, you will need to appear towards the medicinal technology. Years ago there was no remedy for some of the simplest sicknesses that we encounter today. Surgeries are done far more quickly with the support of technology and equipment which makes the process quicker. The technology that's developed over the next few decades is designed to save lives and maintain the health rate up. We're finding faster ways to make treatments for new disorders and ways to keep people alive during demanding surgeries. Most individuals don't realize just how much technology within medicine has progressed until they really need help.

The gaming world is something which some are incredibly knowledgeable about. There are all types of gaming consoles that you could buy and play today. Nintendo has come back with some superb technology over the Nintendo Wii. This is an interactive gaming system that seems to truly be in a league on its own own. Of course the PS3 was published and people were all over that technology also. This is a niche that's composed of smaller niches. Each individual uses a different item of gaming technology and won't use anything else. Now, gaming technology has been applied to your mobile phones so you can now make calls, send texts, check emails and play with some of the newest games around.

Over the next two years we're going to see a good deal more advancements within the area of technology. How we get throughout life is much different than it was 10 years back. Be certain you keep your eyes peeled for any new technology within these primary technological facets. You could be amazed by what you will discover in the years to come.

How Can Technology Improve Your Golf Game?

With the golden era of caddies long since given way to technology, but for the prestigious private golf clubs.

Golfers now have resorted to a huge array of measures to acquire yardages, directions and maintaining scores.

When playing you have troubles estimating how much a specific obstacle is, or how far away from the green you will need to get to on your next shot?

Are you that kind of person having an uncanny ability to estimate how much you will need to hit your next shot?

For most people it is a guessing game however, it so much more important when it comes to scoring. It can really make a difference between shooting a excellent score or being left to frustration and wanting to split every club in your bag.

When I was caddying professionally my occupation 30+ years ago was to make sure I walked the golf course before my spouse even showed up.

Professional caddies would chart a course to get their participant before every tournament with each the measurements.

You understood the distances of each club your pro swung at. It was your job to walk the fairways marking down every stone, sand traps, trees, water or any other permanent obstacle you could gauge from the tees or some other shots in the fairways into the greens.

You mark all this down in a small black book. Then everyday early in the morning before each round you chart out every hole's pin placements. Measure out using the old traditional method of one foot before the other just how far from the front, sides, and back of the greens.

In addition you observe where the pin placement is for that day by writing everything down. Observing everything, if the green is on a hill, swale or what sort of breaks into the hole when putting.

Where is the flat portion of the green or safest spot to hit the ball . There was a mixture of both suspect work and understanding your participant's skill level.

Now, that has all changed with technology. Yardage markers can now be characterized by sprinkler heads, sticks from the fairways, painted numbers on cart paths.

Yardage books and laser range finders have become a part of the golfing landscape and have varying levels of use by today's golfers.

For the high tech among us,gadgets are finding their way into a growing number of golf bags. Compact rangefinders with hand held GPS systems and computer geekery contained have found an ever increasing audience.

With ease however, comes price, and none of them are cheap.The items range in price from $199 to $499.

ONE OF the wonderful joys of playing golf in the past 40+ years has been the extraordinary development in technology that makes the sport so much easier today than in the early 1980s.

As we like enormous titanium drivers, graphite shafts, two-piece balls and soft-faced putters, we wonder how we could ever play drivers who have heads the size of small boulders and chunks that wore a massive smile each time they were struck off center.

Advances are not restricted to balls and clubs. When I started playing, club selection has been based on the perceived distance of the golf shot.

Subsequently it became normal for golf courses to place laser read distance markers on each hole. Technology has started doing this work also and the R&A and the USGA said they would allow the use of GPS range finders if a club or tournament committee brought into a local rule permitting its usage.

Not many such regional rules are made. For my club it decided against range finders in official club championships. Though they do allow them in regular play and it is legal, and frequent in practice rounds.

The thinking is that if players have the space information available immediately, it is going to accelerate club choice, pre-shot routine and real hitting.

From what I hear, the evidence points out that this isn't the case. The time a player spends considering distances isn't considered a contributor to the slow pace of play. It's the choices on which club to use, and standard preparation for a shot that are the time wasters.

Regardless of the advanced technology, nothing about golf's basic premise has changed. It is great knowing how far off the hole is but, you still need to hit the shot.

MY limited experience working with these gadgets are that they may be useful on the golf course. They quickly offer accurate and available information, so therefore their use ought to be encouraged.

When I used it on my home course, it was actually of limited value. I guess that is because I have played there so frequently, and I know the specific yardages.

Another new technological gadget which has shown its weight in gold to the hard core enthusiastic golfer, is known as the ProLooper Golf Game Analyzer. This groundbreaking system allows golfers to capture the location of each shot with a standard GPS range finder, and use that information to find the most in-depth statistical evaluation of the game available now.

This feature rich system may enhance shot accuracy and assist golfers save strokes on the golf course. You can run the system on several GPS range-finder apparatus and contains over 10,000 course maps available.

So as to utilize the ProLooper system the golfer only stands over the ball and marks the place whilst assessing the space to their next goal.

The data collection process doesn't slow down the golfers game. 

The golfer can add additional details such as weather conditions, lies, slopes and other factors. The more details that are added, the more powerful the instantaneous reporting capabilities of this system becomes.

Golfers can now have the identical sort of game and shot analysis that professional golfers get away from their caddies.

This is what distinguishes great golfers from the average golfers, and that's knowing your statistics.

Having the ability to use those numbers to better yourself in each aspect of your game. You do get immediate insight to your golf around operation after every 18 holes. All of it leads to improved play and lower scores.

[oakjoke41]

Apple's Most Recent Cellphones are Excellent

Buyers more than likely are in agreement with myself that iPhone X layout was among the best, and that is precisely why Apple chose to keep the exact same style to their next pair of personal cell phones. Introduced a year ago, it's the first Apple cellphone to remove the home button. From the other, I held its fresh redesign, '' the iPhone Xs. My eyes squeezed closed, and I passed them back and forth between my hands, rolling each telephone over, believing the curves, glass springs, double lens camera lumps, and lightning ports. I understood that I could not tell the difference between the two phones. This is not a criticism. It's only a fact of S design years, in which Apple locks at the iPhone design and focuses, rather, on upgrading key internal components. Therefore, the largest changes to this 5.8-inches iPhone Xs and its big brother, the 6.5-inches iPhone XS Max, both of which I tested, can be seen in performance (thanks to the new A12 Bionic CPU), photographs and movies, (brand new digital cameras and a new ISP backed by the A12), along with functionality (iOS12, the final version of that came pre-installed on my evaluation components ). The outcome is a set of brilliant, elegant, and high-performing units which can please iPhone fans and get more than a few looks out of Android cellphones. It has the exact rigid surgical steel frame wrapped in a new glass substance which Apple said was formulated to be more scratch resistant and durable. I gave the telephones a couple half-hearted drops onto a thin-pile rug but wasn't prepared to allow them to slip away . So far I've discovered just one very fine scratch on the iPhone Xs Max. So let's think about them scratch-resistant, but nevertheless not scratch-proof. The larger iPhone Xs Max shares all the iPhone X's substance and layout features, but does so in a 6.2-inch x 3.05-inch x 0.30-inch human anatomy. At 208 g, it is much thicker than the Iphone Xs. The Xs Max is really a bit shorter (0.04 inches) and narrower (0.02 inches), but it is also a few grams bulkier when compared to the Iphone 8 Plus, the most big-screen cellphone that from a space the iPhone Xs Max most looks like. Button positioning power/sleep, quantity controllers, ring/silent change -- are the exact same. But, there's a single minor chassis gap. On the bottom edge of both phones sits on the lightning connector. It is book-ended by means of a pair of drilled holes that adapt one half of their stereo speaker program and one of their cellphone's microphones. There was six holes on both sides. Now the ideal side includes six openingsbut the left, which just houses a mike, has only three. This little change was done, in part, to accommodate the new internal antenna configuration that contains 4x4 MIMO and License Assisted Access, which utilizes unlicensed 5 GHz range to deliver 1 Gbps broadband over LTE. Apple updated the water along with dust-resistance rating to IP 68, which contrasts into the handsets surviving in 2 inches of water for up to 30 minutes. I did not have to go swimming together with the Iphone Xs or Xs Max, but did run the latter telephone under normal water, milk, and juice. After that, as recommended, I rinsed and dried off the phone. I had been careful to not plug it into a light cable (that's a no-no following a dowsing) but did put it on a wireless charging base in which it had no problem accepting a fee. Apple, by the way, said it put some work into making the wireless charging system (basically the concealed coils in the telephone ) more pliable. This is great news, since I've on more than 1 event, awakened to find my iPhone X did not charge because I put it a small off-axis on the charging base. I never ran into that problem with either the iPhone Xs or even Xs Max. The iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max bodies are rigid and solid-feeling, but torqueable, particularly the larger smart phone, which actually makes a tiny clicking sound once I attempt to spin it. Apparently, I've only had these iPhones for weekly, but based on a calendar year's encounter with the first iPhone X (granted, mostly in a thin case), I consider this layout frame tough and ready for the long term. Even as Samsung trolls Apple for the dense black cutout at the top of the iPhone Xs and Xs Max, Apple shows no indicators of stepping back in the multi-option technologies, which grew nor slipped in the newest iPhones. Much like the first TrueDepth Module, this one is still packaged with all the exact components (none of which, as far as I can tell, have been updated). There's a 7 MP camera, scatter projector for depth sensing, infrared camera (depth sensing), flooding illuminator (yes, too for depth-sensing), proximity detector, ambient light sensor, the next half of the stereo speaker system, along with a mic. About the backs of the Iphone Xs and Xs Max, there's more of that custom glass, the Apple Logo, the word Iphone (however no"X" or"s"), along with the 12 MP dual camera program. This vertically-oriented, pill-shaped camera module appears exactly the same as it did in the last Iphone X. It is still a prominent bulge, but it did not receive any bigger. Inside the module is all new hardware supported by new image technology, but more on that later. I've always considered that the 5.8-inch Iphone X an exceptional tradeoff between a big-screen telephone and hand-friendly ergonomics. The screen is large and immersive, however, the human body is more comfortable to hold and pocket. The iPhone Xs Max by comparison can, especially if you're utilised to holding a more compact mobile, feel big. It is not embarrassing to hold, however people with smaller hands will probably fight with one-handed usage and will most likely want to turn on Reachability, which using a swipe back on the horizontal bar moves all halfway down the display, which makes it more accessible. Nonetheless, the trade-off might be well worth it. I forgot how much I enjoy the bigger iPhone screen, and about the Iphone Xs Max, you get far more screen without contending with a larger phone (there is only that 0.04-inch height difference between the Iphone 8 Plus along with the iPhone Xs Max). Apple's full-stack management of this Iphone layout, development, and manufacturing process pays dividends throughout the handset. However, it's most noticeably in the silicon, which can be created and designed in conjunction with the hardware and software components which will rely on it. This past Year, Apple released the A11 Bionic, a powerful cellular CPU with integrated Artificial Intelligence Power. The brand new A12 Bionic builds on that brief legacy having a more strong Neural Engine and even more impressive graphics performance. When I examine a new iPhone, I start by using Geekbench 4 to check out the raw CPU performance. To ensure that there are minimum background processes going, I usually conduct the exam before I've set up a single program. I conducted the Geekbench CPU benchmark and (along with learning that Apple stuffed an extra gig of memory within the new Xs class iPhones) saw that the only core scores had improved somewhat between the A11 Bionic and A12 Bionic. However, the multi-core score was strangely lower. Not by a good deal, but I had never seen that happen. The numbers were much higher than that which I made from Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845, but a lower effect on the new Iphone didn't make sense. But once I reran the Geekbench CPU evaluation per day or so later, the A12 multi-core numbers beat those of the A11. My guess is that, even though I put up the Iphone Xs and Xs Max as new iPhones, there may still have been some background installation process happening that hauled down the CPU numbers. The bigger leap in functionality is in the Geekbench Compute Metal Score, which leapt from 15,145 over the Iphone X to 22,245 on the iPhone Xs and Xs Max. Apple's done a great deal of work to beef up images performance, particularly for the raft of ARKit 2 (and Surface 2) applications heading into the stage, a few of which can support multiplayer gambling. While there aren't a lot of ARKit 2 programs in the app shop, I'd get a hands-on time using an iPhone Xs operating Galaga ARthe identical demonstration Apple showed off during the iPhone Xs unveiling. To play with, a couple of other journalists stood around a desk and pointed our phones in the virtual Galaga video arcade game console. Shortly, alien enemies began streaming from the movie game screen and from all over us. I swung the phone from side-to-side up and down and up to view and then take at the incoming horde. It was fast-paced and a blast. Similarly, I have seen , with ARKit 2, the telephone can set, say, a very realistic digital pressure stove or sneaker to a true table or in my feet, the illusion divided only once I slid my hands into the frame and, about the iPhone Xs screen, it looked like my digits were stuck under the pot. You can not encourage these types of real-virtual combinations without ample graphics horsepower, thickness mapping, as well as the AI needed to identify the surfaces, shadows, and even reflections will work on online objects in a real space. That processing capacity also helped amp more ordinary operations like Face ID. While the procedure for registering my face was unchanged from the original iPhone X, opening either phone with my face, in addition to using Face ID to access password-protected programs and services, is significantly quicker than it was on the iPhone X. Overall, in real-world applications, both Iphone Xs and Xs Max run reliably. Apple put tremendous effort into enhancing the photo and movie experience on the iPhone Xs and Xs Max. Besides new lenses along with a bigger sensor, the cameras (back and selfie) are all backed by a brand new image signal processor chip. The features on the dual cameras are unchanged by the iPhone X (and will be the exact same on both iPhone Xs and Xs Max). There's the f 1.8 wide angle lens and the 2.4 2X telephoto. Both include optical image stabilization and will shoot around 4K video in 60 fps. They still take slow-motion video at up to 240 frames per minute. If you'd like mad 960 fps super-slo-mo, you will need to look to Samsung. In the pure-play digital photography race, though, Apple takes the guide. Its Smart HDR uses sensor, ISP, and neural engine enhancements to catch some of the finest high-dynamic range photos I have ever seen. The gap between what was possible on the original iPhone X along with also the Xs and Xs Max is stunning. Apple created a system capable of shooting 2 frames each thirtieth of a second, and instantly analyzing and combining them into a single picture that maintains not just foreground and background detail, but can freeze action without introducing grain. In numerous images, I saw that the iPhone Xs and Xs Max locate colour and detail in dark spaces while not blowing out the lighter places. The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is also an superb low light shot, however I think the Xs line is a bit better. I'm particularly impressed with how Apple's built upon its pole position in Portrait Mode photography. Apple unveiled Portrait Mode in 2016 using the iPhone 7 Plus (the software lagged behind the hardware). Since then, Apple's refined the technology, including items like Studio Light, Contour Light, Stage Light, and Stage Light Mono. These attributes remain, and are marginally enhanced. That which I love and, as an amateur photographer who frequently performs with f-stops to get just the right depth of field change, is that the new Depth Control. Depth Control allows you to take a Portrait Mode photograph and correct the Bokeh, or depth of field attention, when you shoot the pictures. This works with both front and rear cameras, which means that the image chip is using two unique kinds of depth information. On the back, it's the benefit of two lenses to become stereoscopic info. The front camera relies on the depth-sensing components. I understand, Samsung's Galaxy Notice 9 offers the capacity to correct background focus as you're taking the picture, in addition to after. But, there is a crucial difference here that is evident from the iPhone Xs and Xs Max Depth editor. It is a slider that lets you adjust smoothly from a virtual f 1.4 aperture to a digital f16. In a real camera with a mechanical aperture, the higher amounts interpret to sharper focus from the backdrop and reduced numbers imply the focus thickness is significantly shallower. On the Galaxy Note 9, Live Focus basically sees the pictures as two airplanes: the foreground and background. The slider effectively blurs the background plane. The iPhone Xs's depth slider is based on all of the depth advice to decrease or improve background focus through all the planes between the very front of their subject and the background. Combined with the improved Portrait Mode stitching (handling the way the topic and a blurred background fit together), the subtlety of the impact through the assortment of virtual f-stops is impressive and, Apple's explained, is modeled by how actual lenses together with hardware apertures would influence each picture. For the majority of people the smart phone camera is their only camera. This places a pro-level command from the hands of huge numbers of people, that are just about to begin taking some really wonderful portrait photographs. Just after shooting regular pics, video, and 4K, I remain surprised with the standard of photos and videos coming from their Iphone Xs and Xs Max. Sure, it is strange that the larger Xs Max doesn't, as could be tradition, have some enhanced picture capturing attributes, however I doubt anyone is going to be disappointed with the photo quality produced by either innovative mobile phone. There are a couple of other hardware-related improvements, such as the promised dual-sim technology which allows for multiple phone numbers (believe work and personal numbers of one phone) via the aid of eSIM technology. Unlike regular SIMs, you do not require a carrier card solely for the carrier to support it and enable it on your cell phone. It is a nice feature that, for evident reasons, I couldn't test. For audio aficionados, there's also the new stereo recording and wider-stereo playback. This can be relatively tough to test, and that I occasionally worry my ears are not adequate to notice what could be a more nuanced difference. However, I did find a way. I listed , in landscape mode, some cars driving by. They start on the left side of this screen and drive to the rightside. In movie I recorded with all the iPhone Xs, the sound travels from one side of the telephone to another. Playback about the iPhone X is pretty loud but is lacking in the exact same degree of separation. Apparently, videos with a great deal of sound engineering aren't only great displays for the amazing screens, but highlight the new, wider stereo playback abilities also. As hardware/software marriages go, you can not do much better than the Apple iPhone Xs and iOS 12. I have been running betas of the new portable OS for weeks on my iPhone X and discovered it impressively stable and smooth. On the Iphone Xs and Xs Max, it gets even better spouses. In addition to butter-smooth and lighting quick operation (in games, movie, and web browsing), the enhanced reality abilities unveiled in iOS 11, ARKit, and the iPhone X are more refined and tailor-made from iOS 12 along with the iPhone Xs. The intelligent assistant is a greater listener than ever before, and getting smarter. Her speech is much more conversational and she's asking follow-up questions. Siri can be more proactive, spotting connections between benign items like locations and schedules and showing them in advance. Additionally, there are a range of third party apps tapping into Siri, allowing you to use only your own voice to access program features and information without so much as launching the app. You are able to set up iOS 12 on your older iPhone (down to this iPhone 5s), however not all attributes, particularly those between AR, will operate on the older devices. Still, I really suggest the upgrade with anyone conducting an iPhone 7 and up. It's simply a better, more glossy, proactive, and smart user experience also, to be honest, I have barely scratched the surface of all the upgrades and feature improvements you'll find. Apple asserts 30 minutes more battery life involving the Iphone X and Xs and 90 minutes longer with all the iPhone Xs Max. In my experience, either new phone may get you through most of the afternoon on a single charge. I spent using only the iPhone Xs Max. I kept the brightness high and ran all sorts of programs and processes. It lasted a solid 10 hours. Perhaps just a tiny bit less than I anticipated, but still enough to get me through most of the day. Seriously, with under a week in my belt, it is difficult to supply a complete assessment of battery life performance. There are many factors and, obviously, battery life is going to be great on new cellphones. Speak to me in 6 months or twelve months, and we're going to see if I'm still satisfied with battery life. It is not strange that Apple did not bring down the price for the brand new $999 iPhone Xs (or hold onto the initial version and market it at a lower cost ). I'm not even shocked that we now have an almost $1,100 model or that we're able to pay a whopping $1,449 for the 512 GB Iphone Xs Max (which happens to be the model that I tested). Apple's already demonstrated that people will pay almost anything to get their hands on the hottest iPhone. Is $1,000 or more to cover a smartphone? Perhaps, but how many of us think about the entire price rather than monthly payments? I am, though, somewhat annoyed that Apple stopped the lightning -to-3.5 millimeter adapter. It is like in the last 12 months, we have gotten rid of our Beats and Bose headsets, such as it's a solved problem. Memo to Apple: It's not. What I can say is that all these are the iPhones you desire. The Iphone Xs does not mess with what I consider a timeless design, and also the Xs Max only takes all that's wonderful about the iPhone X also expands it. As a pair, they're just as amazing as the first home-button-free iPhone X. The design appears especially elegant in a golden finish. Participants will love the new camera, and also gamers and content customers will want the big-display Iphone Xs Max.

Even if you have the Iphone X, I would not upgrade unless you need more realistic augmented reality and also full depth control in your portraits. To get iPhone 6s, 8, 7, and even 8 Plus officers, that the iPhone Xs and Xs Max will certainly feel as a big step into the foreseeable future.

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

In which I finally type the Belgariad

I reread this over Thanksgiving! Kind of because I couldn’t find the final book anywhere in my house! I’m sort of pissed off about that but I should probably just buy them all used on Amazon at this point.

Anyway:

I’ve already established that Durnik (reliable, moral blacksmith guy) is an ISTJ. The rest of the core party:

Belgarath: I used to think ENTP but he’s an ESTP. His use of intuition is very Ni, and also because (spoiler) he’s thousands of years old I think we can safely assume his inferior function is well-developed and he is more capable of patience and such. Even with that in mind he’s impatient and blunt but cares deeply underneath. He has a lot of trickster archetype in him (though not as much as some other characters) and tends to approach things from a very detached logical view after the initial visceral response.

Polgara: Okay so I’m actually leaning ESTJ over ESFJ in many ways. She’s definitely quite set in her ways and tends to, unlike her father, use intuition in a more ‘sense of possible outcomes’ rather than his convergent idea, so I’m confident in the Si-aux here. She’s also (spoiler) thousands of years old so again we can assume all functions are well-developed.

Here’s the thing: while she is introduced in a very caretaker role, she is one of the most brutally efficient characters in the series. Belgarath is impatient, but it’s Polgara who early on will go against him and speed things up. She’s not at all interested in harmony for its own sake, and her usual form of diplomacy is proving her competence. She also doesn’t show her father’s interest in more philosophical learning for its own sake, but is incredibly knowledgeable about things she uses. She also gets a dramatic speech to Garion (later) that I feel is just pure inferior Fi (strong and developed inferior Fi but still inferior Fi).

Barak: Giant fighter dude, doesn’t get a huge amount of characterization which is unfortunate because I do like him overall. He does get some good scenes. Anyway, I think also ESTP - a much younger (he’s portrayed as probably being late 20s/early 30s) more classic boisterous ESTP in a culture that lauds very hands-on, physical, immediate behavior.

Silk: Trickster/Spy character. Probably in his early to mid 30s? I say ISTP: Incredibly analytical, always aware of what is going on, sees a lot of what he does as a game more than anything (doesn’t care for recognition or even money really - he notably says that money’s just a way to keep score), obviously cares about people as well but tends to struggle to express it (more so than Barak); on the other hand, his intuition is pretty good.

Mandorallen: courtly knight champion archetype. Also doesn’t get a huge amount of characterization because his country is portrayed as, for the most part, kind of like Prince Zuko in the Ember Island Players (drama, HONOOOOOOOORRRRRRRR) and also not the brightest torches in the sconce. But he has a brief scene that leads me to believe he’s an ESFP, when he talks about not caring much about his reputation as long as he is ultimately true to his own values.

Ce’Nedra: ENFJ. There’s an explicit description of her always going for the meaning behind parables and stories, and she tends to jump to conclusions a lot too. She’s also quite clearly a dom Fe user - very concerned with social rank and how she’s liked by people, and quite attuned to how people work in general. She can be very manipulative when necessary, but also incredibly generous. Honestly she’s a great complex female character. Also her age is actually given as 15-16 and she fits the type at that age (Se is mostly in the form of being impulsive, not much Ti use at all)

Garion: I think INTP, actually. He’s very conceptual (there’s also some explicit scenes about how he’s very good at seeing difficult problems in a simple way and in particular making sense of complex concepts) but often struggles with the details. He also shows a lot of low Si (in a world with repeating patterns/prophecy he’s particularly bad at realizing when something failed and should be changed) but is overally pretty good at thinking on his feet. I thought INFP at first but the fact is he’s impulsive but tends to go about things from more of a logical standpoint. He’s definitely emotional, and he has some identity crises, but I don’t think they’re coming from Fi and he actually shows flashes of being pretty good at reading people in a high Ti-low Fe way, but more often than not goes for the reaction (or approval). He’s also around 16 during the series; in the sequel series he’s much better with people which makes me more confident in INTP.

I’m not as sure about a bunch of the other characters just because they don’t get as much ‘screen time’ (or because a lot of what I’d use was in book 5 which I couldn’t find - book 5 actually has a lot of characterization for minor characters earlier on in the books) though I have some ideas. In particular:

Hettar - in the core party but really quiet and given not much characterization other than ‘single-minded, has horse-related magic, good at fighting.’ He fits the lone-wolf badass ISTP stereotypes very well.

Relg - shows up later. The religious fanaticism could be coming from either Si or Ni; he doesn’t really show Fe at all and has a certain Te ‘do what needs to be done’ so I could go with either of the IxTJs and would have to review to be sure.

Lelldorin - Also probably ESFP. DEFINITELY Se-dom (super great with situational awareness in terms of fighting; impulsive as fuck; not very analytical; not good at implications). He’s in his late teens so his Te and Ni are pretty weak.

As always adventuring-based fantasy has a strong bias towards SPs in the party (this is true of most quest-based fantasy though weirdly LoTR is the exception); the political characters don’t get as much characterization but I think they are a much more mixed group.

[daleisgreat]

PSP 15th Anniversary & Neo-Geo 30th Anniversary - Flashback Specials!

A couple months ago in March, the PSP hit its milestone 15th anniversary of its North American launch, just a few months after its end of 2004 debut launch in Japan. It came and went without much hubbub in the gaming media however due to that hitting around the same time the COVID-19 outbreak started to make waves in America and that pandemic rightfully getting the bulk of the press attention. Writing about game platform anniversaries over the past several weeks has been helping me get through these wild times we are now in by reflecting on my memories of these platforms, so with that said, please join me in looking back at Sony’s debut handheld….and later on in this very same flashback special I will have a bonus addendum with my memories of the Neo-Geo since it recently celebrated its 30th anniversary.

I remember when the PSP was surprisingly announced at Sony’s 2003 E3 press conference. I was there in Los Angeles covering my first E3 that year! The website I wrote for at the time, the long defunct vgpub.com, was a smaller gaming press outlet and only had one invite to the Sony press conference so our website founder, John attended the Sony conference while I and another staff writer slept in! I will never forget when John got back shortly after it ended and my colleague and I asked him if there were any big surprises (still a year or two away at this point with conferences being live streamed and with MySpace being the only major social media in 2003, there was a lack of live minute-by-minute news reporting and you would have to wait at least a couple hours until after the conferences ended to check gaming websites for news updates). John replied with an ‘oh yeah’ and proceed to hand us a little PR packet with a press release announcing the Playstation Portable (PSP) and how it would have near identical tech to the PS2 and be able to play movies with its UMD-discs. By mid-2003 the PS2 was a juggernaut around the globe and took up a little over half the market share in the home console gaming market against the Xbox and GameCube. With the PSP offering a big upgrade to the then-current GameBoy Advance out on the market and having near PS2 quality graphic capabilities, and with DVD movies being a huge factor into PS2 sales, it only seemed logical the PSP would be a sure-winner in the handheld gaming market. All three of us were buzzing about the news and how the PSP would be huge for handheld gaming and how Sony likely would take over. That did not quite happen however due to the surprise success of the Nintendo DS, but that did not stop the PSP to go on and be a viable gaming handheld alternative and have a fair amount of global success. I recall being incredibly stoked for the PSP launch, with a lot of hype going into its 20-plus launch game lineup.

I particularly remember being excited for Lumines, a new puzzler from Bandai that put a new twist on Tetris-style dropbox puzzle gameplay. It achieved this by making combo-clearing squares, instead of lines, and having a mesmerizing evolving soundtrack and graphic scheme whenever certain score targets were hit. Amazingly, the gameplay ranked right up there as top-in-class puzzler gameplay with Tetris. Combine that with its dazzling visuals and phenomenal soundtrack and it resulted in Lumines being the surprise killer-app of the PSP launch. Earlier this week I popped in Lumines Remastered on the PS4, and the gameplay is still as addicting as ever, and my anticipated quick five minute round for a refresher resulted in nearly playing an hour nonstop! From the other launch games I remember getting Untold Legends, Twisted Metal: Head-On and Tony Hawk’s Underground 2: Remix. Head-On was an all-new Twisted Metal game that was a good handheld version that also offered up online play, which was among one of the first of all handheld games to do so. I was a big fan of the hack ‘n slash action-RPGs on consoles during that era like Dark Alliance and Champions, and Untold Legends was a fun portable take on that which also offered up local wireless multiplayer. My friend, podcast co-host and also fellow VGpub staff writer Chris, along with my brother Joe, met up for a few memorable multiplayer sessions of Untold Legends.

All three of us played a whole heck of a lot of PSP in its initial weeks. At this time in early 2005, downloadable audio shows were kind of catching on but it was still a few months before Apple officially dubbed them as ‘podcasts’ on iTunes. I brought up the idea to Joe and Chris to get together to record an audio show for VGpub all about the PSP launch and our initial thoughts on the games available. We had no idea how to set it up on the technical side, so we winged it and Chris brought over one of those old-school stationary, coffee table tape recorders that are kind of stereotypical in psychiatrist or detective interview scenes in movies. We hooked an auxiliary cable from it to my PC and somehow produced a digital tin-can-and-string version of what would be the pilot of VGpub’s podcast. We sent the pilot to the VGpub editors to see what they thought, but we were dismayed when hearing back they thought it was too long at around 50 minutes in length. Bummed with that reception, we wound up not posting the PSP pilot show, but eventually gave podcasting another go when that scene took off several months later after it caught on with iTunes. We had a fun seven year run on the podcast, and when VGpub sunsetted a couple years after we started, we continued with the podcast on its own site for a few more years and as part of the launch posted the long lost pilot episode. And now in honor of the PSP’s 15th anniversary, I dug out that amazingly awful audio quality pilot from my hard drive archives and uploaded it to YouTube so now you all could relive our initial highs over the PSP’s launch. You can check it out by click or pressing here, or by checking out the embed below!

Behold our low-tech, amateur endeavor of the very first podcast I participated in that focused on the launch of the PSP. THUG 2: Remix was a nice port of the console version of that Tony Hawk game I played a lot of. It was shortly after playing this is when I realized I did not want to play PS2 ports on the PSP. While a lot of them packed in a lot of the same content as their PS2 counterparts, they suffered noticeably due to the PSP having one analog ‘nub,’ only one pair of shoulder buttons and having to dial back the graphics and/or features in order to get it running on the comparably lower-powered PSP. I realized this moreso over the next year picking up and trying out PSP versions of BurnOut, Virtua Tennis and Gun. Once again, nothing against the PSP versions since a lot of them played and looked fine on the PSP, and if I primarily was on the road or travelling I would have been thrilled with these versions. It was over this next year I realized I would rather play these PSP ports on the PS2 instead of dealing with those compromises.

Unfortunately in the early years of the PSP, it was dominated by PS2 ports and five star original titles like Lumines were few and far between. This culminated with barely getting any play out of the system and selling off my PSP a little over a year later in mid-2006. Things were looking dire for a little while for the PSP, but Sony and strong third party support from companies like Square-Enix, EA and Capcom continued to pump out games and eventually the PSP established a strong portfolio of original releases. Some of the original efforts from Sony were so strong that games like Twisted Metal: Head On, Syphon Filter and Motorstorm: Arctic Edge got remastered ports on the PS2 to keep up first party releases for the PS2 in its twilight years. I want to make sure to give a shoutout to other strong original PSP titles such as the Patapon series, WTF: Work Time Fun, both Phantasy Star Portable entries, all four SOCOM titles, Resistance: Retribution, both Pursuit Force games, Killzone: Liberation, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Final Fantasy: Crisis Core, both God of War titles, Mega Man: Powered Up and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. In 2012, I acquire PSP’s successor from Sony, the Vita. It featured digital backwards compatibility with a fair amount of the PSP’s library. I wound up acquiring about a dozen of the PSP games I always wanted to try this way that I missed out on after selling it. The Vita was also compatible with most of the PSone classics that were available on the PS3. This lead to me playing a lot of Final Fantasy VII a couple years ago in anticipation for the recently released and long coming FFVII Remake. This past week a fired up a few of them for a refresher on some of the PSP titles in preparation for this article. I had a lot of fun with the original Pursuit Force….at least the first couple missions anyways since that game had compatibility issues and frequently froze on the Vita.

I dusted off my Castlevania skills in my attempts at playing the remake of Rondo of Blood that is part of Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. It has a challenging but fair degree of difficulty in the few levels I progressed through. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops I dug a lot for its first couple bite sized missions that focused on the origins of Snake meeting Campbell. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker I consider to be the true, fully featured fifth installment of the series since it essentially has a full length story and slate of missions available. I did not play it on the PSP, but instead on the HD remaster collection that released a year later on the PS3 and loved grinding through its wide variety of missions that set the stage for The Phantom Pain. While it is not compatible with the PSP’s physical discs, the Vita is a good alternative to experience most of the PSP’s library through digital download for those still curious about the PSP’s games. On the UMD movie side of things, launch PSPs came bundled with a copy of Spider-Man 2 which I eventually watched on a plane trip. The quality of the UMD movies were undeniably good. Later on, I got sent a UMD to review of the fun underdog sports film, Dodgeball and those wound up being the only two UMDs I owned. For the first year or two of the PSP lifespan I remember game stores being flooded with physical UMDs, but a lot of them cost nearly as much as their DVD versions at the time and I am speculating that people anticipated they would only cost half or a third as much as DVDs kind of relative to how the portable-to-console game pricing goes, and when that proved not to be the case it lead to a quick exit for UMD movies on the PSP. I look back at the PSP and will fondly remember those awesome early months I had with it, and how it later redeemed itself by having a fleshed out lineup of original games. I want to also give the PSP props for becoming the only platform that easily surpassed portable efforts from other companies that tried to compete against Nintendo in the handheld gaming market like Atari, Tiger, Sega and SNK. I adhere caution when tracking down used PSPs due to reports of some PSPs being susceptible of having bulging battery packs over time. Sony released a few different revisions of the PSP, so I do not know if that is related to only the launch version, or for all versions of the PSP. This is why I recommend tracking down a Vita instead to get your PSP fix for those interested.

In the bonus addendum to this PSP anniversary flashback, I will touch on my brief memories with SNK’s Neo-Geo to commemorate its recent 30th anniversary of the original launch of the Japan arcade hardware. The arcade side of the Neo-Geo was dubbed the Multi-Video System (MVS) and it debuted in Japan in April of 1990, and following in American arcades a few months later in August. For those not in the know, the 24-bit arcade hardware had a home console version called the Neo-Geo Advanced Entertainment System (AES) that launched in Japan later on in 1990 and in 1991 in America. The unique thing about the Neo-Geo is both the MVS and AES used the exact same technology so it was possible to have 100% faithful home ports. SNK wanted the home experience to as close as possible to the arcade that it bundled the system with two mammoth arcade sticks. I first remember seeing Neo-Geo games in MVS format at various arcades in the early to mid-90s. The MVS cabinet was unmistakable with it having the eye-grabbing Target-red color and the two-to-four mini-game marquees listed at the top of it. The big draw to arcade operators at time of the Neo-Geo MVS was that the games came on friendlier priced cartridges that could easily be swapped out like games in a console instead of ordering whole new arcade machines to replace them. I have seen the four-slot MVS plenty of times, but I mostly remember seeing the two-slot version more frequently in arcades over the years, and for the most part it was the same two games featured on them: Puzzle Bobble (AKA Bust-a-Move) and Metal Slug. These were the two game I primarily encountered on the MVS in my childhood arcade experiences. I was not all that great at Puzzle Bubble with its unique spin on puzzle games by shooting bubbles onto the playfield from the bottom of the screen. I did however love Metal Slug and its sequel that I also recall seeing originally on the MVS. Metal Slug was arcade bliss at the time, with charming cartoony soldiers oozing with detail and twee animations as they run ‘n gunned with an arsenal of over-the-top weaponry, villains and larger than life boss battles. Metal Slug is one of the few games where slowdown is a good thing in my opinion because it primarily happened when encountering daunting bosses and explosions that filled up the screen and it felt like the machine was doing all it could to keep the action moving.

Jason and John from the MetalJesus crew do a fine job here giving a 101 lesson on the Neo Geo hardware and have lots of footage here of some of the best games to hit Neo-Geo.

A few weeks ago I did a quick playthrough of Metal Slug X on Xbox One since it was on Game Pass, and everything that I fondly associated with those run ‘n gunners was still there, even the slowdown! Thankfully the AES and MVS games did not remain trapped on their original expensive hardware. By the mid-2000s, SNK regularly started to output various collections of games both digitally and physically. I highly recommend Metal Slug Anthology that hit PS2 and Wii, and later got digitally ported onto the PS4. A majority of the individual Neo-Geo games got ported over individually in recent years on PS4, Xbox One and Switch. Since all these marketplaces frequently run sales on their back catalog, you can now find a lot of these games well under their default price of $7.99 each. Over the last few years I checked out plenty of original Neo-Geo games this way. I tried out too many fighting games to count by doing this, but also finally got a chance to play SNK’s arcade sports offerings that got overlooked by their many fighting games. Three Count Bout is a graphically impressive wrestling title, but its button-mashing leniency takes a toll on thumbs. I loved Dunk Dream/Street Hoop, which is SNK’s take on NBA Jam, but with a hip-hop makeover and catchy rap-filled soundtrack. Neo-Geo Turf Masters is a fast-paced, fun golf title and until recently I had no idea that the Super Volleyball game I loved so much on Genesis had a beefed up version and a sequel featuring amped up robots and robotic attacks on the Neo-Geo. The Neo-Geo is renowned for its acclaimed catalog of fighting games with several entries each in hit series like Samurai Shodown, Fatal Fury, World Heroes, Art of Fighting and its flagship fighter, The King of Fighters which saw annual entries on the platform for 10 years from 1994-2003. Of all these, the ones I frequented the most of were various re-releases were King of Fighters ‘97 and ’98. Its team based fighting style made it standout from the other fighting games, and it was only in recent years with some longer sessions with KoF ’98 that I finally started to come around on it. One of these days I want to give an honest effort at getting into Samurai Shodown. I remember the gaming mags were hyping up its debut entry at the time as a major breakthrough to fighting games with its gruesome swordplay it brought to the table. I eventually picked up its anthology disc on PS2 and dabbled with a couple entries, but never too seriously and need to correct that sooner than later. A random memory is attempting to play Samurai Shodown II at Arcade Infinity in Koreatown one evening in the afterhours of covering E3 in 2003. Shortly after starting it up, someone sat down and challenged me and proceeded to properly dominate me. Looking back, that may have something to do with why I never gave it that much of a shot.

I never had a chance to play the AES home system until well after its lifespan in the early 2010s at regional retro game conventions. That was because I did not see one in the wild until then. Unfortunately in 1990, the home console market was dominated by the NES while the Genesis was only a year old and just starting to break in, so while the MVS was a bargain for arcade operators, the AES arcade perfect tech was way ahead of the times and cost exponentially more compared to the NES and Genesis at the time. Reading copies of Game Players and Electronic Gaming Monthly back then I associated Neo-Geo AES games as being the games that literally cost $200-300 individually in the back of the magazine ads for mail service game catalogs. Occasionally there would be SNES/Genesis ports of the popular games like the original Fatal Fury and Samurai Shodown, but obviously there quality was dialed back to run on the weaker machines and that was realistically all of what was available to a majority of the home console market until those anthology collections started to get released in the mid-2000s. I never owned an AES, but I was stunned by its lasting power with official games being released for it all the way until 2004. I only a saw a Neo-Geo AES for sale once at my local retro game shop all these years back around 2008 and I want to say it was going for about $200, and part of me wanted to get it for the standout collector’s item it would be, but another side of me knew the games went for insane amounts by that point and the games were already by then starting to get re-released on other consoles in more wallet-friendly anthology discs. If you have yet to dip into the Neo-Geo catalog, I would highly recommend either grabbing the digital copy of Metal Slug Anthology on PS4 for some awesome two player run ‘n gun couch co-op with a friend as the perfect way to start off. Otherwise, type in ‘ACA’ in the Xbox One/PS4/Switch digital marketplaces to see most of the Neo-Geo games released digitally under the ACA banner. While it was damn near impossible to afford to play the AES games at home during their initial release, I will close by giving major props to SNK for keeping their back catalog of Neo-Geo titles alive for current generations to discover on current platforms at consumer friendly prices! Thanks again for sticking with me in reliving my memories of the PSP and Neo-Geo with this two-for-one flashback anniversary special! Want more retro-game goodness? Then take a peek at my other flashback specials below!

My Other Gaming Flashbacks Dreamcast 20th Anniversary GameBoy 30th Anniversary Genesis 30th Anniversary PSone 25th Anniversary Saturn and Virtual Boy 25th Anniversaries TurboGrafX-16 30th Anniversary and 32-X 25th Anniversary

[spotlightsaga]

Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews... GLOW (S01E09) The Liberal Chokehold Airdate: June 23, 2017 Ratings: @Netflix Original // Privatized Ratings Score: 7.5/10 // GIVEAWAY CONTEST WITHIN!!! TVTime/FB/Twitter/Tumblr/Path/Pin: @SpotlightSaga **********SPOILERS BELOW********** 'GLOW just released two of the best episodes of 2017 w/E7 'Live Studio Audience' and E8 'Maybe Its All the Disco', and by no means was 'The Liberal Chokehold' anything but a great episode, but it didn't quite achieve the greatness that the two that preceded it did. Bash (Chris Lowell) finally returns for his & Sam's big pitch to the Network Executives. Apparently he'd been on a big bender for 2-Weeks, explaining his sudden absence. Not surprising considering his sudden money issues that he's really only shared with Carmen during her freakout at their first show. Bash is a good guy, he really wants to realize this dream, not just for him but for everyone involved. At this point he's let people down and he's feeling the pressure... But his rich, trust fund life, and card carrying privilege coming to a sudden halt, led to the one thing he knows how to do best... Self destruction. Arriving at the meeting late, sweaty, and tweaked out of his mind... He sure as hell fits the part. Talk about a mess, this guy looked like me after a bender at on tweak at the age of 19... Not exactly picture ready, if you know what I mean. When Sam Sylvia (Marc Marlon) is embarrassed and shocked at your mess, you're beyond a simple jittery 2-Day, drug spree. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I hammer this quote home like a fn' Anti-Anti NA Slogan, a 'Harm Reduction' specialists mantra to live by, 'If you're going to be a mess, at least be an organized mess. And if you can't do that, then don't be a mess at all.' All out, bender babies like Bash are always the ones that almost achieve something great and then flush it down the toilet at the last second. Luckily for Bash (and Sam too), he has some of the most determined women to stand by his side. These women have worked hard to get where they are and they will be damned if 9 Grand & a comes out rich bitch is what takes it all away from them. They hold a car wash, but that's a bust. $287 is a long way from a near 10k goal. Bash's Mom, Birdie (Elizabeth Perkins) is the shining bitch of the episode. With all the love and camaraderie brewing & bubbling within the ranks of the women of GLOW, it was definitely time to introduce a villain of sorts. Then again, Birdie really isn't a villain in the truest sense of the word... She's more like a bitchy, Reagan-worshiping, LA socialite, who's stuck in the past with a stick up her ass. However, she's got money and she's got friends... And she's throwing one helluva fundraising soirée. Hell or high water, Bash and the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling are going to find a way to take advantage of Birdies high end, West Coast, check book challenge! Creators Liz Flahive & Carly Mensch take over the writers room and create some excellent comedy through Birdie's hilariously transparent 'mission' to end the 'crack epidemic' amongst the 'poor, unfortunate minorities' (as if no one else was affected)... And Lynn Shelton, one of my favorite tv directors as of late (popping up heavily on shows like Netflix's 'Love', NBC's 'The Good Place', & Hulu's 'Casual') makes sure the episode flows into a cascade of crazy. Bash sneaks in all the GLOW Girls to the Gala by convincing the door man (who he clearly knows very well & vice versa), that the women are part of a fictional group called 'W.A.D.' (Wrestlers Against Drugs - specifically Crack, you know, to fit the theme). He has each of them take center stage, talking about their completely fabricated experiences with Crack-Cocaine & how the worlds greatest Sports Entertainment acronym & pro-wrestling saved their lives, before introducing his increasingly impatient mother, Birdie. All the women give it a great go, but it's Jenny aka Fortune Cookie (Ellen Wong) who delivers her entire speech in the rare language of 'Khmer', except for the word 'Crack', that's used at just the right times to ring the great vibrating gong of comedy. For a good juxtaposition, Ruth Wilder (Alison Brie) goes last and delivers a speech straight from the heart. She's really talking about her recent transgressions with Debbie (Betty Gilpin) and Debbie's husband, Mark (Rich Sommer). Clearly it's something she's been needing to get off her chest. And even though she replaces key words with 'Crack', Debbie hears the message loud and clear and the speech kills at Birdie's Right-Wing, Reagan-inspired, Anti-Crack Rally. The whole thing has Liz Flahive's fingerprints all over it, and that's a good thing. It's signature feel may not take 'GLOW' to the great heights the previous episode did, but it really assists in defining the show... Cementing its core identity as a tv series. Bash's takeover is successful, but Birdie isn't having it. She takes back all the checks that the crew earned for W.A.D, but gives Bash a much better gift... A venue... 'Annnd you can't beat that!' Btw, WWE fans, I've been using that quote for several GLOW reviews and no one has caught it yet. I'm shocked really. Take out 'beat' and replace it with 'teach'... And what's that spell... S...A...W...F...T... SAAAAAAWWWWWFT! Meh, fahget about it. Though, for the first person who gives us the correct answer on TVTime in the comments section and then likes our Facebook page @SpotlightSaga, giving us the correct answer as to where that quote comes from *on both pages* (so I know you're listening), I'll send you a lil' something, something in the mail. Facebook fans, same goes for you, if you beat TVTime'rs and post the correct answer on @SpotlightSaga's FB page in the comment section on this article, then join TVTime and give us the correct answer in the comment section for this episode via @SpotlightSaga on TVTime.com ... Then you get the goods! Consider it our first Spotlight Saga giveaway, and yes it will be wrestling related! Before we get all 'giveaway happy', which I'm totally excited and eager to do, we've got one massive story arc that blindsided a whole lot of Glow Netflix fans. Spoiler Alert, though we should be far past those by now... As these are simply companion pieces. Justine (Britt Baron) is not in love or infatuated with Sam, despite what Sam's inflated ego led him, and tricked most of us, into believing! Justine walked in on Sam's 'One-Man Pity Party' and decided it was time to drop the truth bomb. Justine is Sam's daughter and now suddenly all the 'jealousy' and 'weird obsessions' with Justine attempting to get close to Sam make total sense. Not only is Sam terribly embarrassed over what just went down with Justine, but he's also under the impression that GLOW was all for nothing, and his film 'Mothers and Lovers' was already made... A PG version called 'Back to the Future', and double spoiler alert for Sam; there's 2 sequels, making three total films & a cartoon series in the same vein of what he thought was an original idea! Well, it either wasn't original or someone jacked his time traveling brainchild, and took out all the John Waters inspired smut. And really, that's totally possible considering he'd been trying to make the film for an entire decade. Gotta be careful throwing around ideas in Hollywood! But that's not the real problem is it? You got a heartbroken daughter and a deadbeat dad. Well isn't that just the story of all of our lives?

[paul-doyle]

Geno Auriemma Studies, Absorbs It All, Then Tailors Ideas To Fit Personnel

By Paul Doyle/The Hartford Courant

November 10, 2016

After 11 NCAA titles, after enshrinement in the Hall of Fame and recognition as an elite coaching mind, Geno Auriemma is still a basketball student at his core.

Season after season, he is looking for something new or old to slide into his playbook. He is watching games at all levels, talking to coaches around the country and cramming as if he is building a program from the bottom up.

In the 1990s, he visited the Chicago Bulls and was tutored on the nuances of the famed triangle offense. A few years later, he attended Boston Celtics' practice in search of something — anything — from then-coach Rick Pitino. Years later, he picked the brain of Mike D'Antoni when he wanted UConn to accelerate its offense.

Auriemma would revisit Pete Carril's Princeton offense, he would study what Gregg Popovich is deploying with the San Antonio Spurs and he would talk strategy with every coach he encountered, from Mike Krzyzewski to Larry Brown to Tom Thibodeau.

It's how UConn stays one step ahead of the posse, as Auriemma like to put it.

"We're always looking for that one thing," Auriemma said. "The one thing that makes us better. You're always on the lookout for something that's going to help your team. It changes every year."

That's what makes this season so fascinating. Auriemma and his coaching staff are embarking on a new era in Storrs, guiding a team that lost three significant players from a four-time national champion. Breanna Stewart was one of the great players in program history, Moriah Jefferson was a classic point guard, Morgan Tuck was a skilled player and one of the best all-around talents in the nation.

The offense ran through those players, the defense and pace were often dictated by them.

This year, there are so many questions and so much is unknown. With five new players — three freshmen, two transfers who are not eligible to compete in games — preseason practices have been considerably different than a year ago.

How will this year's team play? The hallmark of UConn is defense, what DePaul coach and Auriemma confidant Doug Bruno calls the "program's secret weapon." Defense steeped in effort and intelligence is a constant, regardless of the players on the roster.

But the plays UConn will run, the specific elements that the coaches are teaching? Much of that is determined by the skills of the players.

"Our approach has always been, what does this team need for us to be really really good?" Auriemma said. "Even if what we did last year was great. We have a different team this year, how do we add some stuff or tweak some stuff to change our team for the better? We've kind of always done that. We've always managed to not be so locked into one thing that we're going to do that regardless of who we have. That's never been our philosophy. Sometimes it's just a minor thing. Sometimes it's a bigger thing. But we're always looking."

Always Learning

Auriemma has always been a student of basketball. Growing up in the Philadelphia area, he paid close attention to the city's college and NBA coaching hierarchy. His first college job was at St. Joseph's under Jim Foster.

Later, he coached under Debbie Ryan at Virginia. The men's coach was Terry Holland, and the ACC of the early 1980s had plenty of coaches to watch. Krzyzewski was at Duke, Dean Smith at North Carolina, Bobby Cremins at Georgia Tech, Jim Valvano at North Carolina State, Lefty Driesell at Maryland.

"When I first started coaching, I was taking things from everywhere," Auriemma said. "And every place that I've ever been and every place I've ever coached, every time I watch a game on TV, every time I read a book, I try to find something that somehow or another, even if it helps us 1 percent or 2 percent … it gives us a different a look, and I think it keeps us ahead."

That hasn't changed as Auriemma, 62, has become the coach that others seek for advice. His position in USA Basketball has brought him into contact with an array of coaches. When coaches get together, they talk coaching.

"If you're big fan of basketball like I am, and you can look to a lot of different areas for examples of what you have and what you want to do," Auriemma said. "You say these are our strengths, this is what I think we have, who operates in that world and can we learn from them? I've always tried to take a little bit from everyone."

Auriemma was always intrigued by the triangle, popularized by longtime Bulls' assistant Tex Winter and embraced by Phil Jackson. Winter learned the "triple-post" offense as a player under Sam Barry at Southern California in the late 1940s and he carried the approach into his coaching career, even penning a book about the offensive scheme in 1962.

Winter joined the Bulls in 1985 and his offense found success with Michael Jordan's team. The triangle, which creates space on the floor, was an important part of Chicago's dynasty.

Back in Storrs, Auriemma saw potential for the offense with a lineup that included Rebecca Lobo, Jennifer Rizzotti and Kara Wolters. In 1994, he decided to implement the offense after visiting a Bulls' practice. He had 10 days of practice before UConn went to Europe for a preseason trip.

"I thought we had a group that could do it," Auriemma said. "I didn't want to take a chance during the season and screw my team up. But we had 10 days here where it's nothing and then we're going to go to Europe and play five games. If I don't like it when I come back, we know what we're going to do and can go back to that. As it turned out, it ended up being great."

What followed was a 35-0 season and UConn's first NCAA title. The players embraced the offense, partly because of how it was presented.

"I had our video guy film us running certain options to get baskets," Auriemma said. "And then in the middle of that I had clips of the Bulls running the same options, getting the same baskets. But this time it was [Scottie] Pippen scoring instead of Carla Berube, this time it was Jordan making a jump shot instead of Jen Rizzotti. So it was really really cool for them to see it. I said, 'Now when you watch them play you'll watch it with a different appreciation.' They did."

Always Changing

Eventually, UConn strayed from the triangle as other programs — notably, Tennessee — began using it. The posse was gaining on the Huskies and it was time for something else. When Pitino was coaching the Celtics from 1997-2001, Auriemma would visit practices.

"You might see one thing," Auriemma said. "You don't come away from these different excursions saying, 'Wow, I've got to change everything I do because I want to mirror that exactly.' That's not the objective for me."

And the inspiration could come from anywhere. In 2000, Auriemma was watching his daughter play for Manchester High. He noticed the opposing team was handling the zone difference with an approach he had not considered.

The next day, he told Chris Dailey about the high school game.

"I said to her, 'You know that stuff that we do against a zone? I bet you if we changed it just a tad and put that cut in there, it would help,'" Auriemma said. "And you know what? We used it the whole year and we won a national championship. From a high school coach. … Ideas and inspirations can come from a lot of places if you're willing to have an open mind and you're constantly on the lookout for new things."

Years later, UConn was blessed with speed and skill. Renee Montgomery had the ability to push the ball quickly up the floor, and the offense featured Maya Moore, Tina Charles and Kalana Greene.

How could UConn take advantage of the team's speed and athleticism?

"I said, you know who really did an amazing job with that? It was the Phoenix Suns when Steve Nash was playing for Mike D'Antoni," Auriemma said. "Mike happened to be in New York [coaching the Knicks], so I said OK, let's see how that could fit in with what Renee Montgomery does and how that could help us."

It was off to New York. Auriemma spent time with D'Antoni and learned all he could about his offense. UConn implemented an offense that ran and relied on the speed of Montgomery.

With that team, it fit.

"One of Geno's strengths as a coach is his ability and willingness to be flexible," Dailey said. "Every title we've won, it's been different. In '95, it was the triangle. In 2000, we had really deep team so we pressed and ran. So every year it's been a little bit different."

There have been constants through the Auriemma-Dailey era. Defenders with their hands up, aggressive and active and sometimes pressing. Lots of ball movement and distribution on offense.

In many ways, the offense has always had an element of Pete Carril's Princeton attack that stresses ball movement. But Auriemma embraced Carril during the Stefanie Dolson era, when UConn lacked a traditional point guard.

"Who was the best passer on the team?" Auriemma said. "Well, it was was Stefanie Dolson. So let's put her in a position where we run our offense through her. And it gave us a whole different identity and for two years we rode that. It was great, obviously."

Which brings us to the era of the Big Three. The Huskies eventually had that classic point guard when Jefferson took the wheel of the offense but elements of that Princeton offense continued to live because Stewart and Tuck were such good passers.

Again, more tinkering and exploring. This time, Auriemma looked to San Antonio.

Fresh Ideas

In Jefferson, Auriemma saw a point guard capable of dictating the pace while scoring from all over the court. She also could pass, and UConn happened to have great players up front to run the offense through.

Kind of sounds like the Spurs, no?

Two years ago, Auriemma instructed Jefferson to watch a 15-minute video of Tony Parker.

"I said, look, I don't expect you to be Tony Parker," Auriemma said. "But take a look at this and tell me what you think fits with what you are comfortable with. Do you see anything that's similar? Do you see anything that's realistic for you? And it was amazing to watch her try to incorporate … just the thought process."

Jefferson became the best point guard in the country, She landed in San Antonio as a WNBA player and had an opportunity to speak to Parker about his influence on her game.

"It was really neat to hear that," Auriemma said.

Auriemma was also in San Antonio this year watching Popovich's practices for a few days. Maybe there's something from the Spurs that UConn can use this season, Auriemma thought.

He also spent the summer coaching the gold medal-winning U.S. national team at the Rio Olympics. He found himself talking defense with U.S. men's assistant Tom Thibodeau, the New Britain native regarded as one of the great defensive coaching minds in the NBA.

"Not all of it is applicable to us and it would be silly for us to say, 'OK we're going to do it exactly like that,' " Auriemma said. "But there's ideas that you take."

In the post-Big Three era, UConn is looking for fresh ideas. This year's roster lacks size and there may be no true point guard, at least until freshman Crystal Dangerfield matures. But there is plenty of talent.

How will Auriemma, Dailey and the staff draw things up? Stay tuned.

"You always try to keep it simple, no matter what you're doing," Dailey said. "It's not brain surgery. With this group, one of our strengths is versatility and it's been interesting to kind of figure out how to use that."

There's also youth and inexperience on this team, which may shape what UConn does. And it may be a seasonlong process as players emerge and change roles.

Auriemma said there could be a piece of this or an element of that from the past. Mix it together and it's UConn's game, but nothing is completely original.

"We're not sitting here thinking that we invented the game and that we know more than anybody else," Auriemma said.

South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, an assistant on the Olympic staff, marveled at Auriemma's offensive coaching mind. The Olympic experience, she said, was enlightening because she watched Auriemma's mind at work.

"He's just amazing," Staley said. "He always thinking of way to outfox the defense. To me, he's a genius."

[63824peace]

Monday, 21st of november 2005

Every morning I read the newspaper column "Vox Populi, Vox Dei." It has appeared in the morning edition of the Asahi Journal for a long time, offering some of Japan's finest writing for one hundred years.

No matter how busy I am, I never miss reading "Vox Populi, Vox Dei.”

I start reading "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" on the front page whenever I read the newspaper. Then I browse the table of contents to survey the whole issue. I remember where to find the articles that attract my attention, and then I turn to the second page. I move from the General Articles to the International News Articles. I read everything in the order of its presentation until I get to the TV schedule, which I rarely read these days.

I don't dwell for long on the Sports section, but I give a good part of my attention to the International News Articles. I also take time to check out the advertisements that run along the bottom of the page for recently published books. I catch the movie ads that run in the evening edition too, of course.

I used to read the newspaper backwards when I was a boy... I would start with the TV schedule and move to the National News Articles. I was an unusual boy who just liked to read backwards, as they say.

"Vox Populi, Vox Dei" actually got me to read the newspaper from the front-page forward. School entrance exams always included something from "Vox Populi, Vox Dei," so the students forced themselves to read the column while cramming for school.

They write a new "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" column every day. The writing focuses on current events and seasonal topics, with a variety of intellectual and cultural slants taken on the given topic. They condense current affairs into the short essay format really well. It's a concise, interesting, and useful column. Sometimes it even invigorates the mind like a masterful short story.

The Asahi Journal collects its columns every season and collates them into a book. The English language edition appears at the same time as the Japanese.

Newsprint is an informative medium. A journalist applies his subjective point of view to his story of course, but he does so without emotion. Our digital age can easily drown us in a sea of information, and that's because none of the information has any character. It lacks the force of human passion.

Humanity needs more than merely information. We express original ideas, humor, and our personal wills. We express passions and emotions. A person's point of view conveys all of these aspects of identity.

"Vox Populi, Vox Dei" never names its authors, but there's such a huge difference between their writing and the meaningless news bytes that infest the Internet. A pageant of emotions runs through "Vox Populi, Vox Dei." I anticipate each day's article as personal reading material, rather than cold news.

I have longed to become a writer or novelist ever since I was a boy. I thought, "I want to grow up and write for 'Vox Populi, Vox Dei' one day!"

HIDEOBLOG is an official blog. I write as though it were a diary, but I can't deny that it becomes part of the ruck of media sent into the world. I suppose it will have its readers as long as it remains dispatched media.

I feel peaceful when I read "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" every morning. I know that it sounds presumptuous, but I would like to convey the same experience through HIDEOBLOG.

I saw an advertisement in the Sunday paper. "Attention high school students! Challenge 'Vox Populi, Vox Dei!' Write for the column in the 'Vox Dei, Vox Nova' contest!"

The advertisement called for participants in a contest created and sponsored by the Asahi Journal Company. Entrants must complete an original "Vox Dei, Vox Nova" contest entry using their own words. They must write a continuation of the "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" paragraph that appeared on the front page. That's the subject for the given contest.

The contest will run in January. It sounds interesting... I would participate if I were a high school student.

Gucci and Ryan returned from their business trip to America. Gucci brought me the PS2 version of GUN, and Ryan brought me the Xbox version of Stubbs the Zombie.

I've been really eager to play these foreign games. I had considered waiting for GUN until its Xbox 360 release, but I couldn't help myself and opened it. I last played up to the part when you board the steamship. The atmosphere is good... it looks interesting.

I really enjoy both legitimate Western cowboy films and the Italian Macaroni Westerns. I naturally supported Red Dead Revolver when it hit the stores a few years ago. A game with nothing but a Western theme won't sell very well though. I'd like to make a Western game myself, but I haven't yet hardened my resolve.

I'd really like a game like GUN to become a best-seller.

I had ordered Director Teruo Ishii's film Feudal Pornography: Bohachi Bushido over the internet, and at last it arrived. Director Ishii has unfortunately passed away, but I'm pleased to see his works released on DVD. The Tokyo Fanta's ten-year anniversary event had been dedicated to Teruo Ishii's memory, and it was a huge success.

Feudal Pornography: Bohachi Bushido stars Ms. Yuriko Hishimi, and it's one of my favorite films for that reason. More to the point, I love the fact that she doesn't wear a stitch of clothing!

Ms. Yuriko Hishimi was my first love as Ultra-Seven's Agent Anne. I like Director Ishii's movie for more than just that reason, of course. The story's setting in Yoshiwara, the narrative development, and the perspective are all quite interesting. It's a film made to entertain, and it doesn't leave anything out.

However, it's an adult movie, so I can't recommend it to minors. Naturally I only saw it once I had become an adult.

The military equipment for our OOOO Training arrived at the office. We received all three of the styles that we had requested: Shin-chan's, Murashu's, and mine. We checked how well they fit by trying on the equipment that we'll wear over our other supplies.

We each felt like the bounty hunter from Domino.

We're going to apply professional camouflage during training, and we'll use this as the base for our outfits. Shin-chan and Murashu plan to make Ghillie Suits to prepare for training. We'll have cold weather during training, so we'll wear our fatigues underneath our flight suits. That ought to warm us up.

Rettsu tried it on. He looked like the monster Woo from Ultraman.

Murashu tried it on too. He looked like the monster Zazaan, also from Ultraman.

Phantom has provided all of this equipment. The Aggressor Group provided the holsters, gloves, and chest rigs. Phantom will lend us a big hand while we produce MGS4.

I had browsed through Phantom pretty frequently when I lived in Kobe. That was over fifteen years ago. I would visit their stores in Sannomiya and Umeda. I was crazy about military stuff back then. Phantom also supplied my very first camouflage and dog tags. My camo was the woodland pattern, and my dog tags had "Solid Snake" engraved on them.

I ate Gingjiao-rousi for lunch at the restaurant Fuuton San Raakyo.

I played a little bit of Stubbs the Zombie in the afternoon. The zombies shuffle through a world depicted in a retro-futurist aesthetic, kind of like Metropolis. It's awesome! I can't help myself when it comes to this type of imaginative world.

The game has an outstanding concept too. "Those who have been eaten by zombies soon zombify themselves!" I had wanted to make a zombie game like this! This is exactly the vision I had in mind!

My film buddy Director Yudai Yamaguchi had also recommended Stubbs the Zombie.

This is the ideal zombie game, hands down! This is the real thing! The game probably won't make it to Japan though, regrettably.

I have wanted to make an online game that utilizes this genuine zombie aesthetic. The core idea is that everyone zombifies who has been eaten by a zombie. I've talked about this more than once during interviews, and I've written about it in serialized articles.

Here's the basic idea.

First, a player logs on as a Zombie Hunter in a necropolis. He goes through the whole login process, including setting up an online payment account. The player will then hunt zombies. The game ends when all the zombies in the city have been destroyed.

However... if a zombie bites the player's character during the hunt, the character zombifies and wanders the city himself.

The player can't control his zombified character, but he can still manipulate the camera. The zombified character must live disgraced in the digital world.

And the online gaming fee will continue to tally while the zombie wanders the virtual streets.

If the player isn't happy with this, he can create a new Zombie Hunter. He can hunt down his former, now-zombified character. However, if zombies bite the new character then he zombifies too. The number of zombies associated with the player's payment account increases, and the fees continue to tally for the second character. This is real zombie simulation!

I want to make that game someday.

Mr. Nishimura bought me a copy of the CD soundtrack to Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Unfortunately, they haven't released a Japanese version yet. We're stuck importing it from Korea.

I asked Mr. Nishimura since I couldn't find it anywhere, and then he got it for me! Wonderful! He is the king of soundtracks.

The CD includes some scenes from the movie, and it comes with a deluxe booklet. It has colored photos and the score's sheet music. The musical instruments intone the sentimental melodies in ways that really fit the Christmas season. I recommend the soundtrack as well as the movie.

I saw many Hangul characters (the Korean alphabet) after I finished transferring the music to my iPod. I felt refreshed to see that my iPod had become trilingual.

In the evening I re-read the Asahi Journal's morning edition. I stumbled across the "Vox Dei, Vox Nova" contest for general public entrants. The earlier contest had required that entrants use the concept of a river (or rivers in general) as their theme.

A forty-year-old housewife from Ibaragi Prefecture won that contest. She wrote a fantastic piece that interwove the ideas of a river, the family, and other aspects of life together.

The next contest will require entrants to use movies as their theme. The deadline is November 30, and it should have a word count between 620 and 680 characters. Should I submit an entry?

Then I heard my own personal Vox Dei....

"What are you thinking!? You don't have time for that. You need to make your game!"