Quicky

Props to this small indie developer who’s worked tirelessly to launch this relatively unknown app promptly on Apple Watch

We’ve been an Xbox household forever, but recently I stopped paying for Game Pass due to the price increases. Last night my daughter was complaining that there was “nothing to play”.

There are 416 owned games available for download on that Series X which have been accumulated over the years through purchases or Xbox Live Gold or whatever, and she’s barely scratched the surface of them.

For the total life of my PS1 ownership when I was her age, I owned 5 games.

“In my day…”, etc etc

Took this photo this morning while having breakfast at the Lake Vyrnwy Hotel in Powys, Wales, which has incredible views of the lake.

And if so, what are you getting?

I had been planning to upgrade this year, but haven't been massively swayed by any of the phones. I can afford to upgrade, and would get £220 trade in with Apple which I'm unlikely to get next year, but battery health is still 83% for me after 4 years and easily sees me through the day. Any recommendations would be good, even if that's to sit out an upgrade this year.

I couldn't work out initially what someone would have done to create this ring in the filth of my car's rear window. Turns out it was the fluffy part of a dandelion seed attached to a thread from a spider web, spinning as I drove.

Literally unplayable

Just noticed this, but not sure if it's a Piefed or Voyager issue?

Tina (the fat lard) was a llama, but this alpaca I saw today really reminded me of Napoleon Dynamite.

I’m enjoying this a lot, despite being absolutely horrendous at it. I think once Sloclap push out a few fixes to what is still currently a glorified beta it’s got the potential to be the new Rocket League, which has been my go-to game for the last decade.

That said, I’m having an absolute mare with the controls. Not so much how to control my player, but in terms of the sheer panic when I’ve got the ball and other players are bearing down on me. My fingers go to shit and I rarely pull off what I was attempting.

Anyone else having fun with the game, while also being terrible at it?

The teat-owl.

When I was about 12 I had a maths lesson on Friday afternoons at school. Towards the end of term, I remember my teacher dumping a pile of holiday brochures on his desk and setting the class the task of planning and costing up a holiday. This was pre-Internet, so brochures and travel agents were how you did it back then.

Location, flights, hotel, meals, activities, excursions, hire cars, spending money etc all had to be considered for a family of three on a fixed budget. I remember that the submitted work was never actually marked since there was no "correct" answer, and the reasoning behind it was essentially to get experience of planning and budgeting. A great application of numeracy skills for a real-world task.

These days simplified versions of that exercise are relatively common for teachers to give to pupils but as we discovered the following term, what we were actually doing was literally planning his summer holiday with his family because he couldn't be arsed. He'd crowd-sourced his research.

Absolute genius of the man.