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Cursors on the iPad – MacStories

This transform ability has been a large part of why tablets became my primary computing platform. Android since Honeycomb, and iOS since iPadOS increasingly so, handle the whole mouse / monitor / keyboard thing pretty well.

Whether I’ve wanted a device docked that can be my work terminal, or to lean back on the couch, tablets have served me well. Aptly these are both environments where I’ll probably yell at you if you take away my keyboard, or force me to use a conventional laptop, lol.

Much of my advanced computer use revolves around an X-Terminal, so it’s been pretty easy to delegate other tasks like email and notes taking. Where as at home, I’m more likely to be focused on reading and messaging. Tasks that tend to benefit from either a keyboard centric use case with a big assed screen, or from a portable touch screen device.

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I don’t really remember the 2010 Census, but I do find it a touch amusing that in 2020: we basically get a web link, and a UUID.

Somehow that seems like great progress, but still amounts to several sheets of paper in the mail just to serve notification.

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Over the course of my life, I’ve mostly determined that a few things are relatively true about e-mail:

  1. Email is either the best or worst invention, probably both if you grew up with paper.
  2. All mail user agents pretty much suck.
  3. All standard protocols for dealing with mail are ancient.
Point one is something that I’ve concluded since the ‘90s. Point two is mostly internal bias. Point three should probably be considered fact at this point.

An experiment in laz^H^H^Hstubbornness with clocks

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Sometime after getting a smart phone in 2010, I eventually changed from having my 90 decibel alarm clock to having one of my always on devices handle the job. Today that equates to my tablet and a triple alarm system: one to make sure the other two wake me up, one to wake me up, and one to make sure I don’t go back to sleep. As a consequence for a very long time now: I’ve been down to just having to change my stove top clock, and the clock on my car head unit.

At the last time change I decided to skip updating the clock on top of the stove, and let it keep until today’s time change. Because I’m frakkin’ tired of setting clocks twice a year, even if I’m down to so few clocks.

The real question is whether or not my brain will quickly adjust to reading stove time as actual observed time, or continue to automatically subtract an hour. Yeah, fun.

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My Decade with the iPad: Upping the Ante
https://flip.it/-_vnWx

For me it was the Asus Eee PAD Transformer, the original model TF101. My Linux powered netbook had fairly limited battery life compared to the bottomless battery life of a docked TF101, and the desktop struggled under loads that Android breezed through on even less powerful hardware. On the flip side even the lowly netbook could compile code far faster, but couldn’t handle the rising UI load of modern web pages and desktop applications.

Or as I like to remember those days, if all I did was type notes into a vtty, my netbook would often be dead during one flight, and was mostly dead weight on longer trips. That experience traveling lead me to consider a rooted Android just for the battery life. The TF101 was kind of special in that it had a good battery life, and that it had a slightly smaller one in its clamshell keyboard.

The tablet with the keyboard dock had enough juice to take three planes, and fall asleep watching Netflix before needing to charge. After that travel experience, I went on to using Android pretty extensively as laptop and desktop replacements until last year.

Beefy endurance compared to Intel brought me into the platform for getting stuff done. Having an excellent lean back on the couch experience kept me using it.

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Having finished The Outer Worlds, I’m reminded of the last time I enjoyed an RPG that much. It was probably Dragon Age: Origins. Which are very different genres: Outer Worlds is a science fiction shooter set in a caricature world; Origins was a sword and spell tactical game set in a fantasy world.

There’s two really specific ways the games connect in my mind, aside from the level of fun.

One of the things I rather enjoyed is the open ended way of conversing. In both OW and DA, you can pretty much respond to given situation how you want. Will your interactions be kind hearted, greedy, or antagonistic? It’s up to you. While some games insert hilarious options, The Outer Worlds, like Dragon Age: Origins: is very consistent in this execution of choice. Down to the point that it may as well be a running gag being able to introduce yourself as the former captain of The Unreliable instead of yourself. Plus there’s the case of choices that actually make a difference, and party interaction.

Another is the Not Another Sandbox Thing. I really enjoyed the Elder Scroll games, for an example. But the 2000s will probably be best remembered as the era of sandbox games, and when shooters traded the dozen guns in your back pocket for MMO-like skill attributes. But I don’t really like “Open world” sandboxes as a game design. I find that they often cause a lose of focus, and in many games not made by Really Big Makers Of Games, it often feels more like a copout rather than a benefit. In fact even when it’s made by big fish it still feels that way quite often. By contrast, Outer Worlds and Dragon Age: Origins are more like a series of small contained environments. You get the open-world aspects of being able to choose where you go, and how you go questing. But you’re not dumped in a sandbox and left to wander around. I find this lends a greater focus to problem solving, and questing.

Pretty tersely: The Outer Worlds is probably the best modern RPG game that I’ve played in quite a while.

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Moronic: thinking about snacks, and forgetting that I bought a box of Pocky on sale.

Scathingly brilliant: remembering I also have a thing of salted edamame in the freezer…

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This is my version of a large breakfast, given that I rarely eat much for breakfast.

Of course I get plenty of stares from the peanut gallery.

Actually, 85% of the reason I buy the sausage is to share it with the minions.