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The United States and Iran officially signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Wednesday that maybe ended the war (ABC News). It sounds like a terrible ‘deal’ for the United States, the people of Iran and most of the rest of us who have been strapped in for the ride. I don’t know if this is truly going to be Trump’s Katrina—indeed whether he is capable of even having that kind of moment—but I suppose what else can us non-Americans do at this point but cross our fingers?
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In more positive news, John turned nine this week. We gave him Super Mario Odyssey, one of the One Block mods available from the Minecraft Marketplace and The Village: An Official Minecraft Novel (the conclusion of Max Brooks’ trilogy). The latter John hasn’t quite got yet; I promised once I finish reading Journey to the Centre of the Earth to him and Rowan, I’ll move onto it.
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This is the part in the update where I talk again about Crossmate so feel free to skip over this. There was quite a bit of work this week so it’s a rare child list:
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I mentioned last week that I was preparing for a public beta and I haven’t quite got to that point but I have created a second beta testing group and sent the link to it to a handful of people I don’t know personally. Incredibly, the second person (Jose, a friend of Brandon’s) happened to select as his first puzzle a New York Times puzzle that broke the parser. I’m sorry for the rough first game experience, Jose, but I’m extremely grateful you found it.
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Feeling a bit indebted to Jose, at his request I increased the maximum player cap to three and he, Brandon and I played the first game of Crossmate with more than two people. It was a huge relief that it didn’t completely fall over.
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Jose also requested Crossmate natively support turn-by-turn mode. Obviously you can do this right now with a friend if you manage it yourself but I see the appeal of having it be something support by the game. I’m a bit worried about scope creep keeping this in a beta forever (I am very tempted to work on a Mac version) and so think it might be something I wait for 1.1 or 1.2 to do.
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I invited Brendan Quigley (a crossword maker) and Jason Snell (an Apple pundit) to check out the app but did not hear back from either. I can’t actually see the identities of people who join the TestFlight through the public links I sent them so perhaps one of them did join to check it out and it wasn’t for them (there are five people in the ‘public’ TestFlight but I do not know who one of them is). I’m still wondering if I should try to send it to anyone else or instead release it publicly and post a link to Hacker News and Lobsters.
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I realise I’ve been so wrapped up in my own things that I neglected to mention that Apple held WWDC two weeks ago. As I’ve done in prior years, I’m slowly working my way through the videos that look the most relevant to me. In years past, this has felt a bit silly—less so this year! I’m extremely excited by what Apple showed of macOS Golden Gate. The revisions to Liquid Glass all look welcome and I’m excited at the possibility of what might be possible with a local coding agent (YouTube). This is possible now of course but I know I’ll feel more comfortable doing it using a model from Apple.
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It seems unlikely that Fitz and the Tantrums will ever release something bigger than ‘HandClap’. Still, I started listening seriously to last year’s release, Man on The Moon, and it’s been growing on me. ‘Withdrawls’ is the song I’ve listened to the most (Apple Music).
