Michael Crider
@michaelcrider.bsky.social
250 followers 190 following 670 posts
News, reviews, and short-form videos for PCWorld. Formerly Android Police, Review Geek, How-To Geek, Digital Trends. Opinions are my own. I have a personal website, almost never updated: thegumshoe.com I write fiction: http://amazon.com/author/crider
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Reposted by Michael Crider
lowercasejai.bsky.social
LMAOOO WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE NEW XBOX HANDHELD COMES WITH MICROSOFT TEAMS AND ONEDRIVE INSTALLED??? this is the fucking goofiest company in games
a list of apps pre-installed on the Xbox ROG Ally including Microsoft Teams and Onedrive
michaelcrider.bsky.social
Both these people seem pretty insufferable, but Doctor "I put Dr in my username" has a definite edge.
Reposted by Michael Crider
dieworkwear.bsky.social
You gently run your hand through the rack. You can feel it—pure cotton, rich wool, Irish linen. The plump buttonholes are handsewn; the buttons attached with a firm shank. You flip the price tag over. It's affordable

You buy the jacket and go home, which is only 15 mins away. Your apt is $600/month
Headline reads: Altman says ChatGPT will soon allow erotic for adult users.
michaelcrider.bsky.social
Samsung's OneUI 8/Android 16 broke the universal fullscreen app option I love for browsers and other apps.

Android 16 is supposed to make transparent/hidden naviation and status bars universal. Apparently Vivaldi is not compliant yet.

Android fanboy that I am, sometimes I envy iOS its uniformity.
michaelcrider.bsky.social
Oh look, it's me, being a work-from-home web writer and Netflix addict, and running my entire home network in BFN Texas off Verizon LTE unlimited tethering in 2013.
Reposted by Michael Crider
jonchristian.net
someone asked reddit how their 40s were going
"my hip hurts and i have More money"
michaelcrider.bsky.social
I first thought "LitRPG" books (Dungeon Crawler Carl et al) were popular because video games were Gen Z's baseline for fantasy. Like LOTR and Harry Potter for most older English-speakers.

Now I think it's because video games are quickly becoming the baseline for ALL fiction, of any kind.
rachelfeder.bsky.social
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
michaelcrider.bsky.social
An entire industry of animators looks over at Disney, remaking a cartoon about a shapeshifting teddy bear from space that lands in Hawaii, in live action, with disdain.

Disney doesn't look up as it counts $400M in tickets.

Sony begins planning a live-action reboot of K-Pop Demon Hunters.
ign.com
IGN @ign.com · 2d
"There's so many elements of the tone and the comedy that are so suited for animation," said KPop Demon Hunters creator Maggie Kang. "It's really hard to imagine these characters in a live action world. It would feel too grounded. So totally it wouldn't work for me."
KPop Demon Hunters Is One of the Biggest Animated Films Ever — But Don't Expect a Live-Action Movie
bit.ly
Reposted by Michael Crider
kaseygifford.bsky.social
We should be asking this
c o n s t a n t l y.
Reposted by Michael Crider
alexblechman.bsky.social
Data: I listened to that comedian podcast you recommended but couldn’t detect any jokes. Perhaps my emotion chip is malfunctioning?

Wesley: Nah bro, they’re not really trying to be funny. They’re trying to be curious
michaelcrider.bsky.social
It's bad. It's so clearly twisted to keep the gameplay going after the narrative end.

The original Hades did too, sure, but it wasn't telling the story of a generational war across heaven, hell, and earth.

I don't envy someone writing under these parameters. But that doesn't make it any less bad.
michaelcrider.bsky.social
So. The Hades II ending.

I think Supergiant has such a reputation for deftly combining gameplay and story that they felt they had something to prove...

But yeah, a Zelda style "story's over, keep playing if you want to" would have served better here. Certainly offered up something more satisfying.
Reposted by Michael Crider
lordravenscraft.bsky.social
This is a great way to think of it

Every team I've ever been on that succeeds inevitably has some spreadsheet cruncher come in and say "I like this number, we should have more of this number"

And that changes why we were so good at that number in the first place
bsky.app/profile/ryst...
rystorm.com
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

...yet we are seeing more and more things measured, exactly because they are intended as targets.
lordravenscraft.bsky.social
when I worked at Frye's, their metrics were based on how many Norton subs they sold. to the point they had us essentially giving them away. conning customers into adding Norton they didn't want to purchases that made us no money

anyway, time is a flat circle
michaelcrider.bsky.social
Dionysus has a little rubber ducky in Hades II.

It is wearing a fig leaf.
Hades II art: Dionysus' rubber ducky in his pool.
Reposted by Michael Crider
michaelswaim.bsky.social
Starbuck Thrace is so cool-coded I can't handle it. you can't see it but she's also doing sick tech deck tricks with her other hand behind the console
Starbuck gets a kid to light her cigar while she wears aviators and a bomber jacket to cover her non-regulation tattoo of Bowser on a surf board playing electric guitar.
Reposted by Michael Crider
junlper.beer
it’s really good when “technology of the future” treats you leaving as if you were leaving a cult
Reposted by Michael Crider
halophoenix.bsky.social
Backing this up - Some of the worst humans I know and have worked personally with were some of the chummiest, "let's get drinks"-iest, "not so bad in person"-ey people I've ever met.

Some of the most astounding racists I've met said they were "big fans of my work." They know how to play this game.
hels.bsky.social
NB to the ppl replying “charisma???”: how do you think success happens, especially at this scale, especially for ppl with demonstrably marginal talent? Virtue has very little correlation with personal likeability. Naive verging on dangerous to think “bad politics” means “devoid of all qualities”
hels.bsky.social
Bari is a terrific example of a person who has, perhaps tragically, mistaken her charisma for intelligence
Reposted by Michael Crider
acgerstein.bsky.social
Reposting and bookmarking to share with students in my sci comm class in the winter about why I believe that me telling them not to use genAI is in their best interest.
Reposted by Michael Crider
seanohhhh.bsky.social
He didn't know who he was dealing with
Reposted by Michael Crider
billieiswriting.bsky.social
"Who would have predicted this?"

- Black women did.
- Trans people did.
- The *entire* disability community did.
- The anarchists did.
- Post-Evangelicals did.

"Well why didn't I hear them."

You did. But you disregarded us as "extremists" and "alarmists". And you are still calling us that.