Angry the Clown

Delayed to Thursday now.

Following up on this. iOS 13 Beta 4 apparently adds something interesting. From MacRumors: “- 3D Touch Settings - In the Accessibility section of the Settings app, there are new options for 3D Touch in the 3D & Haptic Touch section (which was previously just 3D Touch). There's a new "Touch Duration" section alongside the sensitivity slider. The Touch Duration option changes the amount of time it takes to reveal content previews, actions, and contextual menus.” https://www.macrumors.com/2019/07/17/everything-new-in-ios-13-beta-4/

I like the fabric finish to it. I’ve seen that style on the Starq wireless pad as well and it’s very attractive, but that doesn’t seem to be available here either.

Does anyone sell the Slicecharge in the UK, Dave, or does it need to be imported?

Warner Archive have announced The Jetsons Complete series for August (three disc set). They're also releasing Nicholas Roeg's adaptation of The Witches next month too which I am so happy about. No special features but it does have a brand new master (which is great as the streaming version I have seen has some really weird anomalies). Paramount announced Adams Family and Adams Family Values for October too which is also great news.

Lionsgate have two Stallone releases coming in September. The 2009 Rambo has now been dated for September 3rd feat Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos (both cuts of the movie appear to be included), and then 1989's Lock Up gets a UHD on September 10th (with Dolby vision). Meanwhile Sony have dated the 2000 version of Charlies Angels for October 22nd. There's no release announcement for Full Throttle.

Another thing's been on my mind too, actually. While we in our bubble might look on the idea with interest, and Digital Foundry nerds salivate over any spec bump, could we honestly say it's in Nintendo's interest to give the Switch an obvious performance upgrade anytime soon? I can't imagine the general audience is demanding it, and Nintendo know their slate of games for the future to know whether they might benefit from enhanced performance releases, and as we've already seen existing first party stuff isn't suffering all that much. Meanwhile third parties seem to benefit from the novelty of having major games being playable on the go, and the Lite is there to broaden that market even if it does next to nothing to heighten performance.

You and Eldorado have definitely got me considering one. I'm quite curious about the Airpods 3 rumours circulating, as if they're to be believed they might just make me buy a pair for the first time, so those plus the phone would certainly further justify picking up a wireless charging device of some kind. Is their any coil whine with these wireless pads? I'd probably have one on the bedside table but if there's any hint of noise I'd throw it out the window.

Dark Phoenix now has a Sept 17th release date for the US. X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and Digital HD Special Features: Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary by Simon Kinberg and Hutch Parker*: Edwards Air Force Base Charles Returns Home Mission Prep Beast MIA Charles Says Goodbye Rise of the Phoenix: The Making of Dark Phoenix (5-Part Documentary) Scene Breakdown: The 5th Avenue Sequence** How to Fly Your Jet to Space with Beast Audio Commentary by Simon Kinberg and Hutch Parker *Commentary available on Blu-ray, iTunes Extras and Movies Anywhere only **Available on Digital only I still can't find any HDR specs. If it's got HDR 10+ then, again, it would be an indication that Fox still have some control. If it's just HDR 10 (and if the Atmos track is Disneyfied) then we'll know things have changed. Likewise if it doesn't get a 4k iTunes release, then... 😬

Warner have announced Godzilla: King of the Monsters for August 27th: Unless I've missed something this will be their first HDR 10+ disc (also features Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos). No sign of the 2014 film to accompany it strangely. Strange how this is getting both DV and HDR10+ but Detective Pikachu, out a couple of weeks earlier and surely just as much an HDR feast is just vanilla HDR10. It'll be interesting to see how random Warner are with discs that follow Godzilla.

It quite possibly has the CPU revision from the Lite to help the battery, but I think Digital Foundry covered expectations for this revision of the regular model pretty well in their Lite video, seeing it more as a basic alteration of the specs like we’ve seen with various PS4 models, that hits the shelves with little to no fanfare. It actually makes more sense to me to let the Lite dominate their Christmas sales and for them to maybe have an amped up hardware revision in 2020/2021, even though such a thing would be in the shadow of the more powerful next gen systems even if it came out before them, as the PS5/Scarlet hype train will have left the station by the spring in the build up to their Holiday release.

It’s impressive considering what’s happening under the hood. If used subtlety it feels as though it can actually be quite effective. Wider than the default f4.5 I’d urge caution though. The issue is that it only seems to affect background focus, whereas on a dedicated camera system genuine shallow depth of field will begin to affect the subject at wider apertures too, from the nose to the ear and so on if you’re close to a live subject, so just blurring the background isn’t quite enough really, but again it’s really only below f4.5 where it gets too aggressive for my liking, but I dare say that under the right circumstances you could simulate a little wider and actually capture something that looks good. The ingenious thing of course is that you can change the simulated aperture to anything after having taken the image to find a good balance. F5.6 and f8 seems consistently decent to help draw attention to a subject. I’ve really only experimented on inanimate objects though. At greater distances there’s potentially a better success rate below f4.5, but again you need to think carefully as depth of field is not only determined by your aperture, but distance to your subject (and a lens’ focal length) so I think it pays to bear that in mind when editing the aperture afterwards if you want to get something convincing. I’ll try it out at a street market on Sunday. This tech can only get better. I wonder if three lenses on the 2019 cameras will improve calculations even more in this respect (possibly not since the new lens will be ultra wide, but I’m not sure). It would be nice if it wasn’t bound only to portrait node. The simulated lightning effects are nasty, particularly the two stage ones, and studio albeit to a lesser extent. iOS 13 will let us alter how heavily these simulations get applied though, and I think with control over the contour light filter in particular there could be something of use there in the right circumstances.

Got £94 back for my 6 so that’s good. Updated my phone SIM contract today as well for 25GB data, inclusive of roaming in the EU and US all for the same £20 price I was paying for 8GB. I never used much of the 8GB I had previously but I figured it worth the upgrade now thar I am sending and receiving more to the cloud, and it will be useful should I buy an iPad and want to use my phone as a data hotspot.

I don't need a car in London, no. At my work desk at home I think, long term, I could see myself getting one purely as I hate cable clutter, and if they refuse to go USB-C on the iPhone in the next two years it'd be worth it just to rid myself of a single use cable (which almost inevitably falls apart). Unrelated... I'm quite amazed how well FaceID works in the dark. I know people have said repeatedly that it works fine, but it's easy to question it until you finally use it for yourself. Really is brilliant. I THINK Animoji and Memoji's are also kind of brilliant too, in an absurd way. That it can recognise an eyebrow raise, and an ear wiggle is really quit ingenious in its own way. Which reminds me, one thing I have yet to try on the new phone is AR! I'll make a point to do that tomorrow sometime.

Th4w (if the plot were about climate change).