iDiary by Kim

After the (991) 935 came to Forza, I wanted to make my own version of the Apple livery for it. Six‐colour stripes, on bare carbon instead of white. But it always seemed like putting together the Apple logo accurately would be so tedious and time‐consuming in‑game, so I never even started it. (When oh when is Forza going to let us import SVGs, à la Gran Turismo…) Well, if that ever gets going, now I have two cars to do it for: the 935, and the 963.

I do wish Porsche and Apple did this for Formula E as well though.

I didn't actually know or consider what abilities Armarouge might have. I just wanted to see what a Maushold (with Technician) can do with Population Bomb.

The global head offices of big anal.

Luke Plunkett, Aftermath:

All that work that's gone into building such a detailed world, to construct all this backstory, the weather, the colours, the soundtrack, the vibes, all of it is just begging for some kind of singleplayer experience. Even if it's just a campaign, it'd be a way for me to get to know all these parts of the map at my own pace. I could poke my head into corners, rummage through drawers looking for audio logs, and get caught up in all kinds of cool, scripted shootouts.

I played it for a bit and it's an extraction shooter alright. A type of game I simply have zero interest in, and even if I did, don't have the time for.

I've tried writing out how I felt about the Marathon Server Slam. Then starting again. And again.

Some of that was down to my own inexperience, and not feeling I understood the game yet. I only managed to find a couple of hours or so over the weekend. I'd not played extraction shooters or battle royales. I had to unlearn my Halo instincts. I also chose to play solo and not in matchmade teams. So some of the difficulties I had may be user error rather than faults of the game.

But some of it, I think, can be fairly put at Bungie's feet too; a more gradual introduction and explanation of systems and mechanics would help clarify how one might suceed at the game. (I never grasped what the items I stumbled across are, because I never managed to make it to exfiltration. Again, that may be my bad, but it therefore also meant I couldn't study their descriptions and purposes more leisurely and properly after I was back in the main menus.)

Did it make me want to spend AU$60 on this game? No. Why would I if I didn't feel like I knew what was happening? But I did get a feeling there was something interesting happening in this world, and I would like to experience the story without the extra pressures of competition and seasonal resets, and being overwhelmed with a thousand permutations of weapons and mods. And yes, I very much dug the aesthetics.

So I definitely did also feel like this would be an easier buy for me if it was a more straightforward single‐player game. (Though on the other hand, a single‐player Marathon under a Sony‐owned Bungie these days may mean it'll be a PlayStation‐exclusive, which is…no good for non‐owners of PlayStation consoles like me.) As it is, it's hard to justify the barrier to entry, and the time investment this game seems to expect from a player.

But if there's another free‐play weekend, I might give Marathon another look.

When Alex first showed me this video — without showing the video title — and it opened with Zach Braff outside the hospital entrance, there was definitely a moment of doubt.

I thought I knew the Scrubs hospital was demolished. Or was it…? Were the demolition plans cancelled? Did they save the building? Did I misremember? Did I read about that however long ago from somewhere unreliable? Was it not true in the first place?

Allow me — someone with no realistic chance of ever becoming a Ferrari customer — to make some observations!

I'm not convinced the steering wheel and binnacle should be adjusted as one whole assembly. People have different preferences for their driving positions, having the steering wheel closer, farther, higher, or lower. Combined with the fact that people are not uniform in dimensions, is it not likely that, inevitably for some, having the wheel just right for them may compromise their sightline to the dials because the top of the wheel partly obscures them? Or the dials are tilted to an angle that's a bit too high or a bit too low? Why not let the steering wheel and binnacle be independently adjustable?

The palm rest for the centre screen once again reminds me that, aside from the Hermès ones, Apple do not have their own Apple Watch bands with wire lugs available right now. I liked Apple's wire lug bands.

The back side of this steering wheel has additional controls. Behind the spokes are a toggle behind the right‐turn indicator and…(seemingly) a scroll wheel behind the left‐turn indicator…? And the backs of the control modules also seem to have channels, which I'm guessing are for swipe gestures? From reading Ferrari's webpage, the toggle should switch the right dial (G‑meter, trip computer, tyre pressures etc). But I haven't seen mention of the scroll wheel, or the rear channels.

I've looked and looked, and I haven't spotted controls on this Luce steering wheel for music playback control, volume, accept/end call, or Siri. Now, from looking up pictures online, Ferrari steering wheels didn't have any media controls until mid‐2010s. I guess you could justify that by arguing the engine noise make them not necessary. But the Luce will be electric, and it's more comfort and touring than track. Even the Monza SP1 and SP2 — cars which are permanently open‐top and will never have roofs — carried over Ferrari's steering wheel of the time from the 812, F8, Portofino etc, and had a button for voice and a button for phone. So…what's the go for the Luce?

Other than Lady Gaga and Trevor Noah, the only other person I recognised was Charles Leclerc.

Charles Leclerc! A Pokémon ad is not where I expected to see a Ferrari Formula 1 driver pop up.

Full Story:

In this wide‐ranging interview with Nour Haydar, federal Labor MP Ed Husic voices his opposition to an upcoming visit by Israeli president Isaac Herzog and cautions against attempts to clamp down on protests. He also criticises the finger‐pointing by politicians after the Bondi attack and the relative silence following the bomb threat at an Invasion Day rally in Perth.

Fiona Katauskas:

(The “per report” in the title of 9to5Mac's post refers to Bloomberg. Which, interestingly, did get a response from “an Apple spokesperson”, not merely “sources at Apple” or simply “no comment”.)

Alex and I are subscribed to Apple Music because of Apple One family sharing. But I definitely still buy music from iTunes, rather than just adding to my library. Was excited about Spotify in the beginning, but I don't trust them or Apple or any streaming service to maintain their catalogue reliably anymore. (To say nothing of how Spotify has changed since then with ghost artists, Joe Rogan, and kind‐of‐indirect links to the military.) And I want control over the metadata and album artwork and which particular versions of songs are in my library.

Dovetail Games:

A total of 8 stories await includingThomas & Gordon,Thomas & Bertie's Great Race,Percy's Troublesome Day, and more. Each story features full narration by the legendary Mark Moraghan for the ultimate storytelling immersion.

Ever since the Thomas expansions in Train Sim World 5, the hope was, of course, that they'll go on to make a full, standalone game.

And now they are! I'm so happy about this.

Naturally, off the top of my head, I can already think of other classic Awdry stories I'd like to see. Thomas, Terence, and the Snow, Henry's Flying Kipper story arc, Thomas Comes to Breakfast, and more. But they involve characters that aren't included in Wonders of Sodor. Not yet, anyways. (I wonder if the game will even have weather and seasons?)

The FAQ has explicitly said this will not be on Xbox Game Pass, so no automatic day‐one for me, unfortunately. Doesn't say anything about Xbox Play Anywhere either, though it will be in the Microsoft Store on Windows, and Train Sim World has been Play Anywhere for the past couple of years already.

And hopefully, it's not going to follow the regular Train Sim World release strategy. A new base game every year — rather than a yearly software update, as if it's an EA Sports game — and new expansion content only made for the new version clutters up the Xbox store and players' libraries badly. And while past expansions do carry forward to newer base games, that still leaves achievements tied to one specific version of the game. For example, a TSW4 expansion will have achievements in TSW4, but not TSW5 or TSW6. So completing objectives in TSW6 doesn't unlock the corresponding achievements, in either 6 or 4. And that sucks.

Gimme.

rawmeatcowboy, GoNintendo:

Lastly, there has been speculation running all day as to whether this whole situation is related to the game's CERO D rating in Japan. Some fans believe that if just one universal Switch/Switch 2 version ofDispatchwas released worldwide, it would have to cater to Japanese censorship rules overall. In other words, this would mean all regions would have the “Visual Censorship” toggle removed, thus resulting in the censored version we have in NA/EU. Furthermore, the reason why a title likeCyberpunk 2077wasn't censored for Switch 2 in NA/EU was due to CD Project Red releasing a separate version of the game in Japan that was rated CERO Z. This version still had censorship, but again, it was only made available to Japanese audiences or those purchasing from the Japanese eShop. (h/t razorbeamz)