The biggest thing I miss about SMNC was the “sports on TV” theme.

Have you played The Finals? That has a very similar theme. There was another FPS game in development called Combat Champions that also trying to do this but it was cancelled before ever making it to release.

This is a pretty clickbaity counter-article that doesn’t review the original in good faith. The New Yorker article is not titled ‘Social Media Is Killing Kids’ but rather ‘Has Social Media Fuelled A Teen-Suicide Crisis?’ with a lead of:

Mental-health struggles have risen sharply among young Americans, and parents and lawmakers alike are scrutinizing life online for answers.

So the implication that the premise of the article is to demonise social media is completely wrong, since it’s actually an investigation into the issue. That’s also the reason it’s long (another strange complaint from a guy whose 3000+ word response is only ever his opinions).

The “moral panic tropes” are testimony from real parents whose real children killed themselves. And these real parents think social media was responsible. It strikes me as pretty low to hand wave away the grief of these real people because it inconveniently feeds into a narrative you have some instinctual problem with.

The author tries to frame the balance of the New Yorker article as some kind of gotcha. Like it’s somehow a bad thing that this other writer took the time to consult with and quote experts who provide a different opinion. Personally I would much rather read that then something like this which was basically the equivalent of a reddit eXpOsEd thread.

Well it is still a very new game so I think the fact that there are so many noobs and non-MOBA players is helping with that. But yeah, there are a lot of quality of life improvements and enjoyable mechanics front loaded into the experience so it doesn’t have that usual MOBA barrier of boring/wildly inefficient gameplay for beginners. You don’t need to have a lot of learning or in-game experience to have fun and feel like you know what is happening in a match.

The game wasn’t on my radar either. I only played it because some of my old PlanetSide 2 outfit mates were running a 6v6 training night and invited me to join. They assured me I’d be fine because of my ability as an FPS player but they completely underestimated how little I knew about MOBAs (I didn’t even know this game was a MOBA, I have basically never played the genre previously because I find it so uninteresting).

I got absolutely destroyed and thought about uninstalling but decided to give it another week of play by myself and put some time into learning the basics. I’m really glad I did, it has been unexpectedly enjoyable and something really different. I am a large scale shooter (PlanetSide, Battlefield, etc) player primarily and the state of that sub-genre is absolutely dire, so it has been so revitalising to actually find something fun which also feels like it has a future.

None of these games had as many shooter elements as Deadlock. Like the maps were all just generic wide open MOBA lanes seen from a third person angle, whereas Deadlock’s map has tons of cover so the positioning skills you learn as an FPS player can actually translate, particularly in the laning phase. Movement is also way more shooter-reminiscent, in that every character has stamina and universal movement mechanics with a high skill ceiling. A lot of these other third person MOBAs only had movement mechanics built into the hero, at all other times it was fairly basic. The reason why FPS players like myself ignored all those other games is because they were just MOBAs with a different camera angle. Mechanically they were still boring as fuck to play, whereas Deadlock actually has very fun shooter mechanics that are the hook that can get players like myself in and learning all the “boring” but very important MOBA parts.

EDIT: Not arguing with you by the way, just piggybacking off your comment to further explain why this game is different to everything else that came before it.

This is not a leak, it is just a prediction from some random based on their weird analysis of the market. Pure clickbait.

So yes the Motorola synthetic back is definitely more durable than glass.

I was thinking more in terms of durability relating to general wear and age rather than short-term drops, scratches, etc. I’ve seen some images of people claiming their Motorola back wore out within months (could be a problem on their end, mine is fine after a year) and we all remember those older plastic devices with the soft touch finish that “melts” after a few years.

I have a Sony Xperia XZ1 and the aluminium finish on that is so good. Definitely my nicest feeling phone, though it is still slippery of course. In terms of modern phones I like the textured backs Motorola has been using. Not sure about their long-term durability but they are very grippy and comfortable.

Part of it (at least historically) was also related to wireless charging and reception.

I just gave up and bought a new (secondhand) phone at the beginning of this year. I returned one of my older phones (Galaxy Note 9) to stock as a backup but I’m not even sure if that will work now because it’s a grey import (even though it has working VoLTE currently and supports all Australian network bands). It’s a bit sad that I have this little collection of otherwise great older phones that still receive updates to their custom ROMs but will now be useless as phones.

In fairness it is a poorly written and confusing article (the guy is not a writer by profession, just a telecommunications expert trying to draw attention to the 3G shutdown). I shared the video just in case people had a hard time understanding the main takeaways, since Hugh Jeffreys did a good job summarising them.

It sounds like they are over-complying in response to recent legislation:

This is due to an update to the ‘Emergency Call Service Determination’ (ECSD), in the explanatory statement it says:

“Subsection 6(2) directs ACMA to include requirements for providers to identify mobile phones unable to access Triple Zero, notify the user, provide assistance if necessary to access an alternative mobile phone, and cease providing service to the affected device. Providers will also be required to not provide service to a prospective customer seeking service with an affected mobile phone. This requirement makes clear the responsibility providers have to ensure mobile networks provide access to the emergency call service.” […] “The amendments to the Determination to be made under section 6(2) are to be determined and commence in full by 1 November 2024.”

The author of the article claims AMTA is not a reliable indicator of VoLTE compatibility:

Additionally Tools like the ‘AMTA 3G Lookup Service’ are not accurate or reliable. AMTA knows this, hence why you need to agree to a long list of terms & conditions before using it.

This new ACMA policy is deeply disturbing because many consumers, including myself, own fully functional devices that can make VoLTE calls and emergency calls, yet are deemed “incompatible” by the telcos.

These are devices with the exact same hardware and software as ‘officially supported’ devices, the only difference is the telcos didn’t sell them.

Vodafone’s 3G network has been switched off for 9 months at this point, I don’t know if customers would still be getting messaging about it. Though there was a section in the article about issues with roaming for international visitors in January:

As a result of the Vodafone 3G switch-off in January, inbound Roaming customers have been receiving text messages advising they will no longer have access to voice, text or data and emergency calling whilst roaming in Australia.

Even customers with 5G iPhones have received such text messages.

He published another article recently about exactly that. It sounds like the telcos are putting in less than the bare minimum of effort and the government has been too clueless to hold them to account. And when it does try to legislate it has done so in a nonsensical way that risks hurting more than helping.

The third panel turns it into a proper 16:9 display, like you would find on many tablets and laptops. The pointless part is the second panel, which has a weird aspect ratio that is not natively supported by media (letterboxing in basically all videos) and many apps.

If you prefer video/audio, Hugh Jeffreys covered this here.

The FE series doesn’t make much sense to me at that price. The A55 is already a really good phone and it’s much cheaper with some extra features like an SD card slot. How many people are there in the world who cannot afford an S24+ but for whom the A55 is not good enough? I feel like the FE series cons people into thinking they’re getting value for money (because it has an S in the name) when they’re actually overpaying for a phone that isn’t much better in day to day use than the top A series model at half the price.

It’s quite funny that updates, in theory, are about making something better yet Windows updates are one of the most consistently cited reasons for people abandoning the OS.

As in, you regularly see the same art? Or you just find the style repetitive?