Slade Watkins

Looking ahead, and blabbering on about stuff.

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** The Bulletin ** – November 25, 2023

Hey everyone!

This week, I took it easy and didn’t really work on anything so that I could spend the holidays without too many outstanding projects looming over my head. As some will recall from last week’s Bulletin—I actually mentioned having turned in three of the bigger projects, which honestly took a huge weight off my shoulders for the first time in forever. I think December (and even January ‘24) is going to be rather slow compared to the rest of 2023, to be honest. I could use a little rest from all these odd jobs.

It seems that things are lining up perfectly for The Big Thing™ I’ve been teasing and hinting at for some time now. Time is freeing itself up and the universe is lighting the way. Perhaps there will be something to share about that soon (*wink wink, nudge nudge*), but it’s a big passion project and goal of mine now, and it’s something that I will be working towards throughout the next stretch of time until it happens. Because it’s going to happen. (For real!)

Alright, with the usual blabbering on at the beginning of this thing out of the way, here’s the latest from my world…

Kakariko Herald took the week off so that we could spend time with family and relax during the Thanksgiving and Black Friday holidays. We’ll be back next week with more Nintendo goodness for you!

Additionally: Kakariko Herald will not be updated from December 20-26, 2023 (America/Eastern time), in observance of the Christmas holiday.

We hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

Announcing my new series, Unhinged, coming soon!

I took to Twitter on Monday to announce that my new series, Unhinged, will be coming soon to an Internet near you. Yes, everyone, it’ll be streaming for free on YouTube. The show features my friends and I, playing fictionalized versions of ourselves, as we navigate our friendships over video chat (and a bit in-person, too) now that we’re all in adulthood. It’s being written by fellow Sackett-alum Fiona White and yours truly (me), and I can’t wait to share it with you very soon!

This week’s soundtrack

I’m kind of a Spotify addict, so I happen to listen to a lot of music. Here’s what I’m currently listening to—usually on repeat. Here’s what I’ve got for you, for the week of November 25, 2023…

Thanks to Songlink for making all these streaming platform-agnostic!

Things I found across the net

Two dashes of random, three sprinkles of kiss my ass.

  • dbrand and Zach of JerryRigEverything file lawsuit against Casetify, alleging copyright infringement: A big one for you—JRE and dbrand announced on Thursday that they have filed a federal lawsuit in the United States against competitor Casetify, alleging copyright infringement relating to the pair’s Teardown collaboration. The proof was damning enough that Casetify’s website went down temporarily and came back with those designs removed, after which the company released a statement on Twitter (which was poorly received).

    • dbrand responded Friday, pointing out that they also ripped off iFixit’s images for their “X-Ray” case collection. The company’s CEO responded, thanking dbrand and Zach for bringing it to their attention. In other words, Casetify stole a bunch of stuff and is now getting sued for millions of dollars by dbrand (and maybe even iFixit). I kind of feel bad for Casetify’s legal department having to wade through all of this.

  • Pre-production Apple Watch model from 2013 found: Well, a very early model of the Apple Watch from 2013 (two years prior to the product’s introduction) has surfaced. According to 9to5Mac, it’s one of the earliest prototypes ever found of the Watch product line. Similar to other Apple prototypes, this one also happens to run a version of SwitchBoard based on iOS 8 (intended for diagnostics and testing.) How fascinating! Take a look if you have a minute!

  • I couldn’t stop cackling, so you get to see it too: Here’s a parody of Mr. Sandman wherein they man someone a sand. I’m sorry, or you’re welcome. (Thanks to Tom Scott for sharing this on your mailing list! I was legit sobbing because I was laughing so hard!)

  • Minecraft, but make it sound exactly like it was released in 1996: Also in the music department, YouTube user TABBY has made an absolute treat—Minecraft: Volume Alpha, but with Super Mario 64’s music and sound effects. It sounds quite lovely, actually, and thus I had to share it with all of you.

  • Aero cursors, but in high definition: If you want a better looking mouse cursor on your Windows computer, might I suggest oxou’s Windows Modern Cursors repository on GitHub? I use the Modern Aero White variant at x1.0 and it looks so much better than the default cursor on Windows 10 (even though a huge part of me wants to move to Linux). Definitely give it a try if you want something fresh, but familiar, too!

  • Every wondered how much it costs to run a messaging app?: One of the best messaging apps that literally no one I know uses besides my grandfather, Signal, is an expensive app to run—we’re talking in the neighborhood of $14 million a year. They talk more about this in their blog post on the topic, and it’s a good read if you ever happened to wonder how much it costs your favorite services to operate… (it’s certainly pricey.)

  • iOS 18 slated to include “major new features and designs” — among other things: Via MacRumors’ roundup on the iOS 18 update set to be announced at WWDC 2024: among the features includes the long-awaited support for RCS, the spiritual successor to the antiquated technologies of SMS and MMS. Give the article a read if you want to see everything that’s rumored and expected in the update coming to your local iPhone next year!

    • (And full disclosure for ethics reasons, Joe Rossignol wrote the article I’m linking here—and he happens to follow me elsewhere on the internet—but he didn’t ask me to share this at all. Joe, nor MacRumors, did not ask me to promote this to my readers. I just thought it was worth the share!)

And that’s it for this week’s updates. I’m sure there’s a lesson in here about not being weird in public, but let’s be honest, it’s me we’re talking about.

Friendly reminder that my email is [email protected] — feel free to send me an email to say hi or whatever. Maybe even share some cool stuff I might not have seen! My inbox is open to whatever you’ve got for me. (Within reason, of course…)

Very excited for what’s in store,
Slade