Well, hello everyone and welcome to another WRUP. It's me, Scrooloose. It's the weekend and It's hot AF out here so I'm going to write this and then I'm going to get a workout in before I go swimming for pretty much the rest of the day.
I watched the first episodes of "The Rings of Power" yesterday and I think I like it so far. It's a little slow to get going but let's be perfectly honest, Tolkien was a boring ass writer. Hate me if you want for saying that, but entire chapters explaining how something looks is boring, hands down. So if Amazon is producing prequel shows in that style, we can expect a slow build-up. Anyway, this is the most expensive show ever produced and it feels like it so far. Something over $700 million went into making the first eight episodes and Amazon wants to produce fifty in total. I'll keep watching if nothing else because of the introduction of the Elvish master smith, Celebrimbor. If you don't remember, Celebrimbor is the ghostly half of the main character, Talion, in Shadow of Mordor. The guy that gives Talion his powers of persuasion. I don't know if his arc will relate to SOM, but I think I'm interested to see what happens.
Okay WRUP time.
Guys, have you been to Walmart and seen that 30TB "SSD" for super cheap? Well if you have, don't buy it. It's technically storage but it's not an SSD. Honestly, it's probably fine for something like storing photos or what have you if you don't need very much read/write speed. But if you're looking for an inexpensive 30TB of game space, or basically any program that's active when you open it - don't get this thing. That's because it's actually just two SD cards bodged together and glued into a hard case. No joke. Now, Walmart has said it's removed the device from sale after the reality of what it is came to light. Still, it's a good idea to pay attention and remember that a deal that looks too good to be true probably is. Vice has a look in more detail.
AMD and Nvidia have been ordered to stop sales of AI chips to China. The reason seems to be that there's a possibility that the silicon could be diverted for use in a military capacity. Of course the economic penalty could be pretty large for both for both companies, CNN reports that Nvidia could lose around $400 million in projected sales. The sale embargo also extends to Russia, but neither AMD or Nvidia sell there anyway. Here's what CNN had to say.
Sony's PS5 price hike isn't being mimicked by Microsoft or Nintendo. The PS5 went up in price due to inflation and ever changing currency values around the world. The increase is set to be around 50 euros, roughly 50 USD, basically everywhere the console is sold. For now though your Xbox and Switch price will remain the same.
What are we playing?
AJ: Just picked up the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cowabunga Collection, so probably a fair amount of that. I may also play some Horizon II - Forbidden West.
Scroo: I'm still giving Destiny 2 its due. I really want to like it because the bits where you get to play the game are pretty fun. The problem is the needlessly opaque systems and menus that stack text over each other constantly. You can't even simply invite someone to your group. You've got to drop into a menu, right click, and then send an invitation. That invitation can't be just accepted either. That person can't just click an accept invitation button. No. That would be stupid. Instead that person has to go into a menu, which changes depending on where you are (as in on a planet, or in orbit), then that person has to go to an invitation tracker to find the latest invitation and then they can join. Or if being invited by a friend, it's slightly simpler but there's still no simple "accept" button. This level of menu on menu action persists through every aspect of the game and honestly it's making me want to stop playing.