Will

New phone day:

Well I learnt something today! Had no idea there was a name for those but it does totally make sense they’d be called that. Can see how it would be a nice little business. I imagine you could make quite a good YouTube channel explaining various things with that. I bet it already exists.

Mine is out for delivery. Had to have it sent to my parents place so probably won’t get it in my hands until Christmas. Will be a nice present from me to me.

Maybe this is totally obvious but... what’s a whiteboard video? I think a lot of people think of furlough as being a nice holiday on close to your normal pay and everything going back to normal as soon as it’s over. Unfortunately the reality is often much bleaker, especially for the smaller companies out there. Hope it all pulls together for the company and they can find a way to get things working properly again. I totally understand how you feel with not seeing family. We’ve not seen ours on either side since July last year and since we had the baby they’ve all missed out on some really nice things due to the ongoing difficulties with travel. We’ve also scrapped our Christmas plans which I’m pretty upset about, but we’re at least hoping we’ll be able to get over to Japan for new year and see that side. The restrictions really do suck. Really hope it does work out. Even if not we should get to the point where testing improves and processes are put in place to open more things up safely. Certainly in Asia we’re getting to a place where you can do pretty much everything, just with increased regulations to follow. There’s still a long way to go but it does kind of feel like we have an end in sight.

Love those family portraits, @Eenuh! I’d definitely like one too if you have time in your schedule.

It’s a lot more than the vast majority of companies are doing. I’ve had many discussions around doing similar things that for $$$ reasons always go a certain way and EA could have opted to do the same thing. Totally. I think this kind of has to be taken up by governments to actually recognize the problem for what it is before much will be done. Some countries are starting to realize it’s a bigger issue but still far too many are not. I believe in the UK there was a Lords review of some sort that said loot boxes should be considered gambling and legislated as such quite recently. Hopefully that goes somewhere and it helps to move things forward. The difficulty with this is at some point you need people to self-identify what is a problem for them. If someone earning $1k a month is spending $1k a month then there is an issue, but how would the store know that about them? It’s very difficult to identify where the line is but I do agree there needs to be more tools available to those who need them. Things will get better, but it will probably take a long time.

Very jealous of you guys enjoying the new console, and the impressions sound great. How do the load times of stuff not held in memory compare to the quick resume?

Finally finished listening to the 50th episode and really enjoyed it. The interviews were a great addition and really enjoyable to get some more perspectives on things. I even listened to my own and didn't completely hate it! Would be great to have more of those in the future. Quiz was also good, don't think I would have done very well on it at all. I should have researched my own history a bit better, I realized that some of what I said was not completely accurate as I managed to get dates and times muddled up - you'll have to let me off, it was 13 years ago! Looking forward to the next 50 episodes!

Oh that’s great news! I was expecting a long wait for GT7.

That's good, I wasn't allowed in for the birth which I was pretty upset about. I remember that well! Had absolutely no idea what we were doing but you quickly get the hang of it, in a few weeks it will all feel totally natural.

This was really great, totally nuts song but brings back very happy memories.

Not surprised at all that they’ve finally gotten rid of this business. It’s been losing money for years and was only kept around in the hope that they’d be able to convert them into casinos under law changes in Japan. They do have some decent locations but the buildings are all in a pretty crappy state, hopefully the new owners can figure out how to make money with them. It makes sense that they would keep the branding, and with SEGA continuing to have a minority in the company I’m surprised people thought they would get rid of it.

But not all stores will have it across the entire region, it’s about the right timing to start seeing it roll in. It really does. I can’t wait to get my hands on one and try it out for myself, probably the best thing about the new console I think.

Can't quite believe the direction this is going in. I thought Biden would ultimately have a fairly comfortable win after quite a tight race throughout the night. I tuned in this morning (just as polls were closing on the east coast) and Sky were predicting a dead heat. Checked the BBC and they were predicting a fairly easy Trump win. What?! Either way we're heading to disaster. If Trump wins, more Trump. But if he loses, he's already putting in place the platform for an uprising with his insane supporters. I'm very glad I'm not in the US anymore.

Yeah it was very common in the UK too, at least where I’m from back when I was growing up. It being common there doesn’t really excuse it’s use, especially in his position. Yeah I think Lewis had it won already, but the VSC certainly took away any chance of a bit of excitement for the lead. I’m quite amazed that all these late European races didn’t result in anything a bit more interesting, thought we’d at least get one proper wet race this year.

F1 2020 Predictions Game Round 13 Results Mercedes win the constructors championship. Maximum points for this race were: Pole - Bottas (10) Fastest Lap - Hamilton (10) 1st - Hamilton (25 + 5) 2nd - Bottas (18 + 5) 3rd - Ricciardo (15 + 5) 4th - Kvyat (12 + 5) 5th - Leclerc (10 + 5) The results for this round: @BowserBasher - 83 @Will - 78 @Nicktendo - 30 And the overall standings (previous total in brackets): @Will - 679 (601) @BowserBasher - 561 (478) @Mandalore - 241 (241) @Nicktendo - 191 (161) @bob - 155 (155) @Goron_3 - 113 (113) Turkish Grand Prix Predictions: Pole - Bottas FL - Hamilton 1st - Hamilton 2nd - Verstappen 3rd - Bottas 4th - Ricciardo 5th - Stroll

You’re right, of course, but it doesn’t excuse the complete mess the UK has made of it. The rabbit in the headlights is a good way of putting it. It seems to be ineffective action done too late and not thought out well enough at all and it’s lead to chaos. Most countries said the same thing about masks at the start but they changed their response as things progressed. I would say the UK could have done the same thing but it was all done in such a shambolic way nothing has been effective. They still don’t seem to have learned, this latest lockdown isn’t a lockdown for everyone and it makes no sense. I’m sure there will be some push to increase spending over Christmas a la eat out to help out which will lead to another spike in cases and lockdown part three sometime early next year.

I had exactly the same thing recently after a period of not using it. Think in the end I had to re-sync the controllers as if they were new and it has worked since then.

I agree with the general sentiment here but I do think the UK government have probably won the prize for biggest shambles and most avoidable fuck ups during the whole pandemic, and I include the US in that. Over here I really think they’re doing a great job of keeping things under control. Some major mis-steps at the start, for sure, but now it’s quite clear how it’s being managed and what the stages of the process will be. We downloaded the contact tracing apps last week and it’s been quite interesting seeing the numbers of how many people you’re exposed to doing different things. A train ride is about 400, visit to a regular sized shop about 50 and walking around it slowly notches up over the course of the day. I actually think it would be a good idea to gameify this somewhat to help encourage the right habits but for now it’s pretty good. We’ll be transitioning from phase 2 to phase 3 of our lockdown between now and the end of the year with the expectation that phase 3 will last until the pandemic is under control globally. So pretty much we’ll be in this phase throughout next year and maybe beyond. For the most part life is back to normal. The only things I really notice are having to wear a mask and the bars closing at 10:30pm, really not too much to have to cope with. I really hope this lockdown in England works, it really seems to be getting out of control there again. On the economic side the biggest factor is always uncertainty, and it still feels like that is at the center of everything happening. If they don’t come up with a much longer term plan that is consistent across the entire UK soon it could be a horrible couple of years there. On the positive side I guess nobody will even notice what happens with Brexit.

Great show, really enjoyed it when we watched it earlier in the year. Look forward to hearing your thoughts once you've finished it.

No way! All that black and white, it almost looks as bad as a... PS5!

I totally agree on the X, the S not so much. While I’ve steered clear of the PS5 unboxing videos I have watched these and really love how they’ve pulled it all together, really seems very premium and a great experience all round. The reason I watched them? Because I don’t intend to buy it and have cancelled my order. I might pick one up next year but there will have to be something happen between now and then to convince me it’s worth it over building a PC.

I’m exactly the same, never had enough time to get into it and it just got left aside having never really played it. With all the other stuff I want to play though I have a feeling I still might never get round to it.

Can’t wait! Still haven’t had a confirmation one way or the other whether my pre-order will be good for launch day but the tracking is still showing the 19th as expected delivery. Really hope it comes.

Interesting article on Autosport regarding Verstappen’s radio comments after his bump with Stroll. For me, what little respect I might have had for him is not completely down to zero. He’s young enough that I can maybe get past the initial comments made in the heat of battle (though I don’t think anything like this should be people’s default and it’s pretty bad it is for him) but the fact that he outright refuses to apologize for it and calls it other peoples problem after the fact is unforgivable. It would have been so easy for him to just say he didn’t realize the wider context of his words and say that he’s deeply sorry for their use, but no, not for Max. It also brings the whole F1 race as one initiative into question for me. How can you hold those vigils at the start of each race and then not call out a driver going directly against them using racist/ableist language in one of your official sessions? They either need to do something about it to show that this actually means something or else just drop the whole thing. Anyone else have any thoughts on the situation?