blast-o-rama. • issue 060 • 2021-08-29
blast-o-rama.
issue 060 • 2021-08-29
Farewell Summer?
I don’t know about you, but something which is common for me every single year — even during last year’s weird ass year — is that I’m hit with two random points of sadness during the Summer season.
- When I see the back to school supplies out at stores
- When I realize September has arrived
Now, I haven’t been in school for about 20 years, but still, these two moments represent a full-on gut punch every single year. There’s something about the promise of Summer, and the arrival of these moments which makes me remember, yearly, that the promise is coming to a close.
Was it a good Summer? Well, it was a hell of a lot better than Summer 2020, but it still wasn’t quite right. I hope that the moments where things started to feel “normal” again return, and Summer 2022 is just totally awesome.
How was your Summer, dear reader? Do you have similar pangs of sadness? Let me know your thoughts.
Now, onto the things…
Thing #1: iScooped, Did You?
As a full on admitted fanboy of Apple, this time of year is always exciting. Both because of the word of what’s been developed in the latest iOS and macOS betas, but also because the leaks begin about the latest hardware devices coming out of Cupertino for the Holiday Season.
But what’s fascinating is this stunning Motherboard article released last week, where it turned out that one of the best known leakers in the game…was actually a double agent for Apple.
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai has the story.
Andrey Shumeyko, also known as YRH04E and JVHResearch online, decided to share his story because he felt that Apple took advantage of him and should have compensated him for providing the company this information.
"Me coming forward is mostly me finally realizing that that relationship never took into consideration my side and me as a person," Shumeyko told Motherboard. Shumeyko shared several pieces of evidence to back up his claims, including texts and an email thread between him and an Apple email address for the company's Global Security team. Motherboard checked that the emails are legitimate by analyzing their headers, which show Shumeyko received a reply from servers owned by Apple, according to online records.
Shumeyko said he established a relationship with Apple's anti-leak team—officially called Global Security—after he alerted them of a potential phishing campaign against some Apple Store employees in 2017. Then, in mid-2020, he tried to help Apple investigate one of its worst leaks in recent memory, and became a "mole," as he put it.
Thing 2: The Tale of a Real Life Ceiling Cat
If you’ve spent any time on the web — especially if you’re in your mid-to-late 30s — chances are, you’ve got fond memories of the Ceiling Cat meme.
Unfortunately for The Atlantic writer Bethany Brookshire, she ended up having a real-life ceiling cat in her life. And it taught her more than she expected.
Share this one with the cat lovers in your life.
On April 30, 2021, after four months in the ceiling, Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, a cat, spent what I thought would be her last night among the dust bunnies. At first, it had been strange to be haunted by a small, hairy ghost who loved to yowl right into the heating ducts. But soon it became almost routine. Some people have mice in their walls. I had a cat in my ceiling.
Now I had laid a trap. I would wait patiently until she emerged to investigate the meows of my other cat, then slam closed her access to the ceiling using a cleverly rigged pulley system. She’d be truly stuck.
Eliza cautiously poked out her head. Then one paw. Giving me a wide berth, she began trotting up the stairs. I pounced.
The cat came shooting back, hopped onto a window ledge, and wriggled up into a three-inch gap between the window and a drop-ceiling tile.
This was one of several nights when this tabby drove me to tears. My attempt to adopt a stray cat had gone horribly awry.
Thing #3: Video Games, Where Everything Is Broken Until Its Not
Many people may believe that the world of programming, whether you’re making an application, a game, or anything else, is easier the longer you’ve been in it.
The truth? It’s always broken, until suddenly it’s not. Let alone when you’re trying to redefine a creative realm like a video game. Thankfully, Rebekah Valentine dug in for IGN showcasing from some beloved games, the struggles effecting even the easiest elements of their titles. It shines a light on how everything is a struggle, and even the simplest elements shouldn’t be taken for granted.
For instance, elevators. Multiple developers told me about the frustrations of elevators, whether they're taking players up a single floor in a building or serving as pseudo-loading screens between two major game areas. Bill Gardner, creative director of The Deep End Games and lead level designer on BioShock and BioShock Infinite, explained the elevator problem as follows:
"First off, you have to summon [an elevator] via a button or whatever. By calling the elevator, you open the opportunity for the player, objects, or AI to wander underneath it and get squished or trapped. So suddenly you have to deal with that. It's an invitation to make your enemies or companions look dumb, for physics objects to go flying, or for quest items to get stuck.
"So let's say you try to solve the AI issue by excluding them from elevators. Well, how then do they avoid looking dumb as soon as you cross the threshold inside the elevator? They'll either stand there, or need some sort of custom behavior.
"Then, if the elevator can take you to multiple floors, you have to feed back when an elevator is 'busy' or allow it to queue up floors to stop on. Now let's say you decide to get off on the second floor, then jump down and hit the call button again. Suddenly you have to feed back that the elevator is busy. Even then, the player is used to having things respond nearly instantly, so there's a good chance they'll get frustrated and call the thing broken.
"None of this is even getting into handling the [elevator] doors and what happens when those open and close and trap the player or other objects in the doorway."
Until next time…
Keep being safe out there, my friends. The world is a scary place, but each of us makes it better by persevering.
See you next week.
-Marty