Grahm’s Meat Cook Tips
If you’re reading this, you’re probably playing Fallout 76. This likely also means you’re playing the Meat Week event, until August 26th, 2020 (i.e., two more days left as of this post). This event runs every hour on the hour. Let’s explore.
Playing Drums and Turning Spits
A lot of people seem to think that these activities don’t matter to the event. They do. In fact, they’re very important to the event succeeding.
Both playing the drums and turning the spit do several things at once. The first important thing these activities do is to majorly slow the decrease of the Event’s progress bar by a lot. This gives those performing collection more time to complete their collection activities in larger quantities. The more people who are handling these two activities, the slower the progress bar decreases. While these activities don’t increase the progress bar by themselves, they aid in reducing the decrease. This is why these activities are important.
Further, these activities significantly contribute to the 100% success of the event (i.e., getting the best prizes from the event). If no one is playing the drums or turning the spit and everyone is running around collecting meat and greens, contributing Chally’s feed and cleaning up messes and fires, that’s not enough to get 100% event completion.
All aspects of the Meat Cook event need to be touched, including turning the spit and playing the drums in addition to all of the rest. More than this, these two activities are important to contributing to the 100% success of the event, which affords the best prizes. When I have played through this event without these activities, even when the progress bar reaches the steak, you won’t necessarily see the best prizes without these stations having been manned.
Not only do these give the best chances at the best prizes, these slow the progress bar’s decrease by allowing the collectors to collect more. Without these being manned, the progress bar decreases quite a bit faster.
Also, manning the spit 100% of the time during the event raises the chances of getting the best prizes. Keep that spit manned at all times!
Collecting
It seems that everyone prefers to run around finding and collecting greens and critter parts. It makes sense. It’s the only combat activity at this event (such that it is). I get this aspect. This activity alone can’t carry the event.
Cleaning up and Putting out Fires
This is also an important activity. Cleaning up dirty messes, putting out fires and picking up after Chally is also important. Don’t forget this activity.
Prime Meat Collection
Here’s one aspect that doesn’t seem to be that important to the event. Grahm makes it a big deal, but the best that contributing Prime Meat does is give you Scrip at the end of the event.
Chally’s Feed
You’ll learn how to create Chally’s Feed the first time you play the event. To make Chally’s Feed, you’ll need 2 Boiled Water, 2 Carrots, 3 Razorgrain, 3 Tatoes, 1 Wood. This means you’ll need to plant carrots, razorgrain and tatoes at your camp or in a workshop. You can use Green Thumb to double what you pick and Super Duper to help in duplicating more quantities when you craft. You craft this recipe on a cooking station.
Contributing Chally’s Feed to the hay pile near Chally will help you gain a better reward at the end. I don’t believe Chally’s feed contributes to the overall reward of the event, but it does give you a personal reward for feeding Chally. You can feed Chally once every minute or so as there is a cooldown timer after you deposit.
Depositing
When you’re done collecting, you’ll need to deposit your collected items into the Critter Chunks or Greens area. Don’t forget to do this.
Here’s where people make the mistake of attempting to drop what they collect in one by one. DON’T DO THIS. You need to collect as much as you can, then drop it all in at once in a large amount. The more you collect and deposit together, the larger of a deposit bonus you will see. This can move the progress bar very far, very rapidly.
This is why sometimes the bar moves from chicken leg all the way to steak with one go. It’s because people are collecting massive amounts of everything and depositing it all at once. Don’t collect and drop one by one. Do it in bulk and you’ll get a bigger deposit reward.
[Update 8/25/2020] One thing I forgot to mention about Grahm’s Meat Cook is … if 3 people are on the drums and 3 people are on the spits during the entire 2 minute countdown timer before the event begins, this can sometimes start the event just past the turkey leg icon (middle of the progress bar). This means that it only takes a tiny bit of work to complete the event. I’ve seen events that have completed in around 30 seconds if all 6 people are manning these two activities before the event begins. Apparently, these activities do contribute to the event even during the pre-event 2 minute countdown timer. I can’t tell if this is an oversight by Bethesda or intentional.
Hopefully, this helps you win this event if you’ve been having troubles. Please leave a comment below if you have questions.
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Rant Time: Is Apple protecting our devices better than Google?
While many people believe that Google’s App store is a far inferior store to Apple’s app store, there is also a misplaced belief that Apple’s store offers more propriety than Google’s Play store. We need to understand more about both ecosystems to better understand the answer to this article’s question. Let’s explore.
App Protection
Certainly, iOS appears to be more resilient to malware on the surface, but is it? Google’s Android also appears way more prone to malware on its surface, but is it? We need to understand more about both of these operating systems and each OS’s overall ecosystems.
Let’s understand better how and why Apple has garnered its appearance of propriety, with “appearance” being the operative word. The first reason that Apple appears to have a better system in place is primarily because iOS doesn’t allow side loading of apps. What is side loading? Side loading is the ability for the user to load apps outside of the Android app store, for example using a USB cable or, more importantly, by downloading an ‘APK‘ file directly to your device from any web site.
While there are means and methods of side loading apps on iOS, it can only be done through Apple’s developer toolkit. You cannot perform this process directly on a phone in the wild. You can’t even do it with iTunes. If you had even wanted to side load an app, you’d have to jump through some fairly complicated hoops to make that happen on iOS. Because of this one thing, this forces you to download ALL apps from the App store.
On Android, you can not only use the App store to download apps, but more importantly, you can side load them. Side loading an app on Android does require some security setting changes, but this change is easily done in about 3 simple steps.
Does side-loading account for all of Google’s malware?
No, it doesn’t. After all, there are many who likely haven’t changed the necessary side-loading parameters and have still been hit by malware. So then, how did the malware get onto their phone? Likely, through the App store directly.
One App Store
Here we come to the second reason why propriety seems to prevail at Apple. With Apple, there is one and only one app store. With Google, there are many, too many. Google not only runs Google Play, but there are many other App stores including:
- Amazon
- Samsung Galaxy Apps
- Aptoid
- Sony Apps
- Huawei App Store
- F-Droid
- GetJar
- AppBrain
- SlideMe
- 1Mobile
- Opera Mobile Store
- Appolicious
- NexVa
- Kongregate
- Appland
- Itch.io
These stores are all independently owned and operated. This is not a complete Android app store list, but it gives you an example of how many different app stores are available for Android. This is significantly different from Apple’s iOS, which only supports one app store and that store is operated by Apple and Apple alone.
There is no such thing as a third party app store for iOS. It simply doesn’t exist.
Multiple App Stores
Because of Google’s insane choice to allow many app stores to operate simultaneously by different companies, Android users are at the mercy of each of those app store’s propriety. The difficulty is, there’s no rhyme or reason or protection afforded by many of these app stores, let alone Google Play. The secondary problem is that some of these app stores come preloaded as the primary download store on some Android devices.
Clearly, Google branded devices come shipped with Google Play set up. Amazon devices some shipped to use the Amazon app store. However, no-named brand Android devices likely come shipped with one of the above non-Google stores installed. In fact, it could even be set up to a store not in the above list… a store operated by the manufacturer of the device.
Careful with that App
The difficulty with multiple app stores is one of, you guessed it, propriety. What I mean by using this specific word ‘propriety’ is the app store’s ability to police its content for completeness, functionality and, yes, malware. In short, propriety is a company’s ability to protect its download users from malware or dangerous software.
The difficulty is that while Google might have enough money to throw at App vetting to ensure higher quality apps reach its stores, not every store in that list has the money to afford that level of commitment.
What this means for consumers is, when you use a random app store, you take your chances with malware. Multiple stores combined with side loading is nearly the sole reason why Android gets a bad rap for malware. These two things are something Apple doesn’t do in its ecosystem. For Android, it’s worse still. As a consumer of a device, you don’t really know which app store is the default on your device. Most app store manufacturers properly label their apps, but cheaper devices made by random Chinese manufacturers tend to play games with naming and might name their app store app Goggle Play or Gooogle Play or even simply Play Store. There are many ways that manufacturers of cheap phone devices can trick you into thinking that you’re getting your apps from Google’s store… when, in fact, you’re not.
Not only are there too many app stores that can provide questionable apps, Android has been licensed by so many random Chinese manufacturers (okay, so perhaps licensed isn’t necessarily the correct word here… it’s more like, ripped off). Anyway, if you buy into any of these super cheap Chinese phone brands, you have no idea where your apps are really coming from. Although, because it’s Android, you should be able to load Google’s Play store (the real thing) and use those apps instead… with should being the operative word. The device manufacturer could have instituted a block to prevent the use of the Google Play store.
However, replacing a crap store with Google Play typically takes effort on the part of the consumer… that and knowledge that they must take this step. Most consumers are oblivious to this aspect of their phone’s use and naturally assume the included app store is looking out for their phone’s well-being and their own best interest. You should never assume this, not even with Apple devices.
Apple’s App Store
Here we circle back around to Apple. We are beginning to see why Android is in the state that it’s in, but how much better is Apple’s ecosystem of devices?
A lot of people believe that because there’s only one iOS app store and because Apple is the sole operator of that store that this somehow makes Apple devices safer to use.
“Security through Obscurity“
This is a phrase tossed around in the security communities. What it means is that because a platform is more obscure (more exclusive and closed), that that somehow makes the platform safer to use. Security through obscurity works maybe 10% of the time. Maybe. The other 90% of the time it’s less about obscurity and more about best practices.
For example, you should never load random apps from any store. It doesn’t matter if it’s Android or Apple. If you don’t know anything about the developer, you shouldn’t trust them. Why?
App Store Approval Process
Apple’s app store approves apps for release into the store based on specific usability criteria. For example, that the developer is not including terms-of-service restricted content or features. Restricted content being whatever Apple or Google or that specific app store deems off limits within an application.
The developer must verbally or on a written form affirm that their app does not contain such restricted content when submitting it for approval. Even then, Apple may or may not be able to verify such an affirmation. Basically, developers can lie and say their app doesn’t do something that it does, in fact, do. Apple and/or Google may not be able to see the app doing it until that specific set of code in the app is triggered. In other words, the app may appear totally genuine enough to pass Apple’s and Google’s store submission criteria.
We have seen some apps which have been released into the app store as a result of such affirmations only to be pulled from the store when it is found that the developer lied about what was affirmed and stated to have not been included in the app. Apple doesn’t take kindly to lying about app features, particularly when you can see the app doing things it shouldn’t be doing.
Apple is relatively quick on removals of offending content from its app store. Google Play and other Android stores may not be quite so nimble in this process. In fact, many of the third party stores may not even police their apps at all. Once it’s in the their store, it may be there more-or-less permanently. Apple is much more active and selective with maintaining that their apps are upholding developer agreements. However, there is a limit to even Apple’s propriety.
Epic Games
This is a recent fight between Apple and Epic Games. Epic Games apparently decided to change the way it utilized in-game purchases, which has since culminated in Apple rescinding Epic Games’s license to use Apple’s developer tools. Both Apple and Google have since removed Fortnite from their respective app stores citing violation of the store’s terms.
In-app payments require that developers hand over a portion of their profits to Apple and Google. However, there are ways of circumventing that by including outside payment systems in apps. I don’t know exactly what was included by Fortnite that triggered this specific problem, but apparently Epic wasn’t satisfied by Apple’s greedy in-app payment system and decided to take a stand.
Some may think this is about consumer protection. It’s not. It’s about Apple profiteering protection. Apple cites its terms that apply equally to all developers, but in fact, this specific condition is intended to maintain Apple’s profits. Yes, it does apply to all developers (well, almost all developers… see Amazon below), but it is also a condition that is unfavorable to developers and extremely favorable to Apple’s bottom line.
Ramifications
Apple picked a fight with the wrong company in this “epic” (ahem) fight. Epic Games also happens to be the developer of the Unreal game engine. This is a very widely used game engine throughout the gaming industry. It’s probably one of THE most commonly used engines, particularly on gaming consoles.
Without access to Apple’s iOS developer tools, this engine is effectively dead on iOS (and MacOS) devices. Worse, developers who rely on Unreal to drive their own iOS games may soon find that they have to find another game engine. These Unreal engine users may wake up to find their Unreal-based game removed from Apple’s app store as a side effect of Epic Games’s removal.
If Unreal can’t be supported, then neither can the games that utilize this engine. This Epic Games fight has deep reaching ramifications for not only Apple, but also impacts every iOS device owner and every developer that uses Unreal to drive their game. If that game you love was built around Unreal, you may find that app no longer available in just a few weeks.
If you have the app downloaded onto your device, you can still use it. Bought a new Apple device? Well, don’t expect to cloud download that app again if it’s been removed. You’ll need to rely on iTunes backup and restore instead of Apple’s cloud storage… which relies on downloading the app again from the app store. If it’s been removed, the app will be unavailable. Only backing up and restoring through iTunes will recover apps you presently have on your phone device and which are no longer in Apple’s app store. Didn’t do this? Oh, well. That app is gone.
Apple’s Ramifications
Apple’s once burgeoning gaming section may soon become a ghost town. Maybe this is an exaggeration, but maybe not? Let me explain. The loss of the Unreal engine from the iOS platform is a huge blow to iOS game developers worldwide. It means game developers must either now build their own engine instead (to avoid such engine removals in the future) or rely on another gaming engine that supports iOS (at the peril of it being removed in the future).
Apple is effectively “Cutting off its nose to spite its face”. In other words, Apple has most likely done more long term damage to its own brand and products than it has done in short term damage to Epic Games. Sure, Epic’s loss of Fortnite on iOS is a big loss to Epic, but Apple’s loss of the Unreal engine is a much, much bigger problem for Apple.
If developers can no longer turn to the Unreal engine for use on iOS, then that means fewer games will be developed for iOS… at a time when iOS doesn’t need this gaming speed bump. Fewer games developed means fewer game apps in the app store. Fewer game apps means less revenue for Apple. Basically, Apple’s loss of revenue from cutting off developer access to the Unreal engine will come back to bite Apple hard in the ass.
Apple relies on that in-app revenue for its continued operation of the App store. If that revenue dries up, well so too will iOS devices while also undercutting MacOS notebook sales. It’s not just about Fortnite here. It’s about every iOS game using Unreal that also uses in-app payments legitimately. People won’t buy into a mobile platform when they can no longer find and play their favorite games, particularly if those games are on other platforms. The loss of the Unreal game engine is a big deal to Apple. Considering Apple’s paltry 10-13% mobile device market share as of 2019 (and shrinking), killing off development tools that bring revenue to the platform should be a big deal to Apple, one would think.
However, there are still other game engines that developers can use, such as Unity, BuildBox and AppGameKit. With the loss of the Unreal engine, of which many, many games are built on consoles, that means straight ports of well recognized and popular console games to iOS will become almost impossible. Very few console developers choose Unity and none use BuildBox or AppGameKit.
If Apple was hoping to pull over the bigger console titles onto iOS, they’ve just lost that opportunity by kicking Epic Games off of their platform. No console developer will spend several years porting their Unreal based game to Unity or one of the other game development kits. Without Unreal on iOS, the much larger money making console games will forever be locked out of iOS, simply because of Apple’s stupidity.
Instead of trying to work through a compromise with Epic Games over this issue, they simply pulled the plug. They’ve “thrown the baby out with the bathwater”. They’ve as I said above, “Cut off their nose to spite their face.”
Apple’s Stupidity
This is a huge blow to iOS devices and to consumers alike. Within the next year or so without Epic Games support on iOS, Apple’s gaming community is likely to dry up. Games like Fortnite can no longer come to exist on Apple’s platform because of the loss of the Unreal engine.
There is a bigger danger to using a third party game engines for iOS games. If you, as a developer, settle on a third party game engine and that engine developer has a fight with Apple thus causing their developer licenses to be rescinded, just like Epic Games, you could see your game pulled from the store or, more importantly, obsolete by the next yearly iOS release. This whole Epic fight has some serious ramifications to the gaming industry.
I guarantee that with Epic Games being pulled from the Apple platform and if this is allowed to stand going forward, Apple’s usefulness as a gaming platform will greatly diminish. Not instantly, but definitely over time. It will definitely erode confidence in iOS and MacOS as a gaming platform.
Lest you think I’m being overly dramatic, I suggest you look at this very long Wikipedia page and see the list of games produced using Unreal for consoles, specifically Unreal Engine 4. Every single one of these games had the potential of making their way to iOS or even MacOS. This hope is now lost. The loss of the Unreal engine on Apple’s ecosystem is a loss to the entirety of Apple’s devices.
If Apple had designs of getting into gaming, they summarily lost that hope in one fell swoop. What’s worse is that other game developers may follow suit and voluntarily pull their engines from Apple’s devices as well, leaving only the smallest and crappiest of game development engines available for iOS devices… firmly dragging Apple’s devices back into the stone age for gaming. The best you can hope are the silly finger swipe games that leave you bored in less than 15 minutes.
Sure, Bethesda, Ubisoft and Activision may continue to maintain their proprietary engines on iOS and MacOS for their specific games, but up-and-coming and existing Unreal console developers alike have lost any iOS portability inroads they might have seen on the horizon.
Though, I suppose this situation is a win for Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox consoles… and consoles in general.
Epic Games Ramifications
I would be remiss without discussing the ramifications to Epic Games, also. Certainly, Epic Games has lost a huge platform for both Fortnite and the Unreal engine … well, two with the additional loss of Google’s Play store. Though, I don’t think that Google has yet rescinded Epic’s developer license for Android. As a result, would-be game developers considering which engine to choose will not choose Unreal if they have eyes on iOS, MacOS or possibly Android (depending on how far Google takes this). For game developers who’ve already chosen Unreal, it’s probably too late to undo that choice. Game developers in the planning stages can reconsider which engine to choose.
Epic Games Unreal engine may not fall out of favor with the game development community. It was formerly an engine developers could rely on, more specifically for a wide range of platform support. With the loss of iOS and Android, that leaves a big hole for the Unreal engine, and Epic Games. That’s basically the loss of every mobile platform! Epic Games chose this battle by not wanting to follow Apple’s greedy rules.
Honestly, I don’t blame Epic. Amazon fought with Apple over these very same rules a long while back. Amazon chose to remove all ability to buy anything via their apps. Though, the Amazon app seems to have regained its ability to purchase junk, but I’ve no idea how they’ve worked this with Apple. Epic should cite Amazon app’s ability to purchase products using a third party payment processor. If Amazon can do this, Epic should be able to as well. It seems that even Apple isn’t following its own “all developers are equal” rules.
Tim Sweeney, Epic Games CEO, should call out this incongruity in Apple’s “equal” application its app store terms and conditions. If Epic Games is violating Apple’s purchasing rules, then so is Amazon… and so is any other company who is able to offer purchases using their own third party payment processor.
However, that doesn’t leave Epic Games without problems. Without iOS and Android for not only Fortnite, that leaves a huge revenue stream hole for Epic Games. That’s the downside for Epic. That and the loss of being able to license the Unreal engine to would-be iOS and potentially, depending on how far Google takes this, Android developers.
TikTok and WeChat
Beyond Epic, there are other problems brewing at Apple. The problem with Apple’s app store is that it will accept and publish apps from any developer from any part of the world. Yes, even communist bloc countries like China and Russia.
What does this mean for you as a consumer? It could mean spying, malware and theft of your data. Apps like WeChat and TikTok originated in China. These are apps that were intentionally designed and released by Chinese people who live in China and who have no ties to the U.S. and who don’t care about data privacy, your data or anything else about you. They don’t even have to follow United States laws. They want your money and they’ll do whatever they can to get it. They don’t care if they have to step on your toes (or turn on your camera and microphone at inappropriate times) to do it.
Apple has been entirely remiss in this area of vetting apps. Can we trust apps developed and produced entirely in China or Russia? Yet, Apple has published these apps to the App store and still allows them to remain in the store. But… Epic Games, a U.S. based game developer, can’t keep their app in the store because of silly in-app purchases? It’s perfectly okay to allow apps to spy and steal data for communist bloc countries, but it’s not okay for a U.S. developer to want to use a third-party payment processor. Yeah, Apple’s priorities are entirely effed up.
Apple’s values at this point are entirely suspect. What Apple has done to Epic is retaliation. It has nothing to do with propriety or consumer safety. It has to do with ensuring Apple’s revenue remains intact. If it were about consumer safety, Apple would have not only re-reviewed WeChat and TikTok for appropriateness the moment the President called them out, they would have been removed from the store.
This is where we learn Apple is not about propriety, it’s about making money. Losing the ability to make money from Fortnite (and by extension the Unreal engine) is way bigger of a deal than allowing Tencent and ByteDance to use their respective apps to potentially spy on U.S. consumers.
Here’s where consumers get lost in the mire and murk of it all. Apple’s silly hide-everything-from-everyone ideals allow this sort of behavior from developers to fester. Developers get to hide behind Apple’s veil of secrecy and “wall of friendliness” so that apps like WeChat and TikTok can flourish without consumers being the wiser.
Yet, here we are. Chinese and Russian apps are infiltrating Apple’s store with careless abandon, some of these are taking the Internet by storm, like TikTok. ByteDance rolled the big one with TikTok and now they can roll out spying measures if they wish, assuming they haven’t already.
I look on anything coming out of China as suspect. Most products coming out of China are third rate products that fall apart as soon as you sneeze on them. Many are counterfeit or are a stolen designs from an original product created outside of China. Clearly, China’s ability to innovate is limited. Instead, Chinese engineers must reverse engineer an existing design that originated outside of China only then to build their thing based on that existing design. Copying is said to be the highest form of flattery, but in this case it’s intellectual property theft.
With products that don’t need the Internet, such as a toaster oven or a microwave or a fridge, other than their possibility of falling apart or harming you physically, they can’t steal personal data or spy on you. Like physically harming you with junk appliances from China, downloading apps from an app store can be equally harming to you. They can steal keyboard input, turn on microphones and cameras at inappropriate times, grab your photos… they can even monitor which apps you use and watch your movement around the city via GPS on your phone. There’s so much data they can collect about you, including the contacts in your phone book.
By installing one of these communist bloc apps, there’s literally a mountain of data they can learn about you from your device. Spying? That’s literally an understatement.
Apple has given the communist bloc countries carte blanche access to U.S. owned devices through iOS. Google has done the same with Android. Worse, both Apple and Google are doing absolutely NOTHING about this. Treason by U.S. companies? That’s an understatement. They not only allow these apps to be published, they’re endorsing them… and some of Apple’s and Google’s own developers may even be using these apps personally. Talk about inception.
Spying
Spying was formerly thought to be about covert operatives running around gathering intel with crude and rudimentary devices in black garb. Today, it can be done in broad daylight using every person’s very own cell phone right in their hand.
Need access to listen in on a conversation at a specific GPS point… I can just hear someone say, “Let’s see which of our apps are on devices close to that location.” Yeah, this is a real thing. Simply enable the microphone and possibly even the outward camera and BOOM, you’ve got access to immediate intel relayed instantly back to you in real-time.
Yeah, that’s the danger of social apps like TikTok and WeChat. They can be used to eavesdrop on anyone anywhere. You only need to give access to the camera and microphone and boom, they’ve got access anywhere the app owners wish.
Apple can thwart this possibility potentially, but only if they add some heavy restrictions for when and how these devices may be used. Like, for example, these devices can only be enabled when the app is the front most active app and the screen is on (i.e., the user is accessing the screen). Even then, access to these devices should always require positive confirmation to use them every single time. Without positive confirmation, these devices cannot be enabled remotely.
Otherwise, spying is already here. Nefarious apps can listen in on what you are doing without your knowledge. They may even be able to switch on the camera and stream video data back to whomever. Yeah, bad news here.
Malware
Many people think malware means software that intends to cause malicious harm to your device. It doesn’t only mean that. Malware covers a lot of territory including spyware, malicious software, ransomware and many, many other types.
Any type of software designed to subvert your device for someone else’s use is considered malware. Don’t limit your thoughts to only software that intends to erase or destroy data. It doesn’t end there. It begins there. It ends with any software of malicious intent, including any software that is designed to spy on you, steal your data, copy data from your device or attempt to get you to do things that might compromise not only your phone, but also your personal finances.
However, the days of overt malware are firmly over. Now we’re seeing a new wave of software that makes itself appear legitimate by offering seeming legitimate services, but which have malware belying that happy-go-lucky façade. It’s the software version of social engineering. They trick you in believing you’re getting a real legitimate app, but underneath, these apps are doing things they shouldn’t be doing.
This is a new wave of bad news rolled into one app. No one can know the ultimate intentions of an app producer. Hopefully and trustingly, we put our faith into the developers hands to “do the right thing”, to be upstanding and give us an app that does only what it claims.
Unfortunately, we’ve moved into an era that’s now firmly gone beyond this. If you’re getting an app from a U.S. developer, you can pretty much be assured that what the app says that it does, it actually does do… and nothing beyond that. That’s a given because U.S. companies must follow U.S. laws. With apps coming from China or Russia or Cuba or Vietnam or even North Korea (don’t kid yourselves here), you have no idea what their ultimate motives for producing that app are. Worse, they are not required to follow United States laws. Yeah, and that’s the problem in a nutshell.
Apple and Google’s trusting nature
These communist countries not only see the dollar potential wrapped up in these apps, but they also see the spying potential above the dollars. Not only can they divert U.S. dollars outside of the country to fund who-knows-what, they can steal your data and spy on you, too.
Why? Because Apple and Google are far too trusting and let them do it. They believe that developers will be good neighbors and not do untrustworthy things. Apple and Google are both trapped into believing that everyone will follow United States laws. Naïve! Unfortunately, that trusting nature is now being used against both Apple and Google… though, Google more than Apple by these communist countries. Google devices way outpace Apple’s devices in market share. In 2019, Apple’s devices made up just ~13% of the market, where Google’s Android devices made up a whopping 87%! Together, Apple and Google make up close to 100% of the market, with the small remaining percent running other mobile operating systems (yes, there are a few).
For Google’s saturation reason, it’s no wonder why malware authors are targeting Google over Apple. It’s a simple matter of low-hanging fruit. Google’s fractured stores and litany of device problems has led to where we are. Malware authors can have a field day with Google’s devices because they can take advantage of these tinier stores with much reduced release restrictions. It’s easy, then, for small indie developers to release malware onto Android… far too easy. It’s much more difficult to do this same thing on Apple devices. That is, until you realize exactly how developers are outwitting Apple’s far-too-trusting nature.
Once not-so-upstanding developers understand they can disguise malware underneath a legitimate service, they can then push that service out to app stores (with Apple’s blessing) and get people to use it, in similar form to TikTok. In fact, perhaps the app was even released without the malware to have the appearance of propriety (and to pass Apple’s initial scrutiny). Then, after enough momentum has been reached, the app developer can then slowly release updates containing bits of malware at a time. As far as I know, Apple doesn’t put the same level of scrutiny into app updates as it puts into new app listings. Apple’s hands off approach to updates means the author can slip bad features into updates under Apple’s and our noses and none will be the wiser.
Security Considerations
You always have to really think 🤔 about what apps you have installed and why you’ve installed them. More than that, you need to find out who specifically is developing your apps and where they are in the world. You might be surprised to find that the author doesn’t live in the country where you reside. If the author isn’t in your country of residence, they don’t have to follow your country’s laws for, well, anything.
Of course, you never know what an app author intends by writing and releasing an app. Even the money making aspect on the surface may not be the actual agenda. Hopefully, the app’s purported use case (making money) is the only reason the app exists. Unfortunately, subversion seems to be becoming more and more common in apps, particularly those that may not be developed in the same country where you reside.
For example, someone who develops an app in China doesn’t have to follow the laws of any other country than China. Meaning, if the app developer decides to include spyware, no laws will apply to that developer other than Chinese law. Even then, since they weren’t spying on Chinese citizens, they likely won’t be seen as having violated any Chinese laws… even when spying on citizens in other countries. Because the U.S. can’t apply laws to Chinese citizens, any spying that may have taken place is damage already done. The only action that can be taken is banning the app entirely from the U.S., just as Trump had wanted to do with TikTok.
Every mobile device user must remain on their toes. You can’t assume that Apple’s closed store nature will protect you from spying or data theft (all forms of malware). Apple is way too naïve for that. Instead, you must do the research yourself. Determine who develops an app you intend to install. Find out where they live in the world. If they live in a country where you do not, your local laws will not apply if the developer includes illegal activities in your place of residence. This means they can do a lot of nefarious things and never be caught at it, particularly if they live in a country like China.
If you want to safeguard your own data, don’t install apps without knowing where the author lives. No, not Android and not even on iOS devices. No, not even on… and especially not on company owned devices.
In this day and age of anyone and everyone who can design and build an app basdd anywhere in the world, we’ve firmly come to a time where our devices can be used to spy on us and those around us simply because we’ve installed a random app.
It’s now only a matter of time before government policies catch up with this technology trend and new laws begin emerging which intend to hold device owners responsible for treason when an app spies on and funnels data outside of your country of residence.
In answer to the article’s primary question. No, neither Google nor Apple is better at protecting our devices from malware. However, while the overt malware may be less common on Apple devices, Apple’s and Google’s trusting nature is now firmly subverting our devices for foreign spying activities… particularly when these apps are designed to intentionally use the camera and microphone.
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Gaming Breaking Bugs Series #1: Fallout 76
With this series, I intend to start calling out video gaming’s game-breaking-bugs as I find them and boy are there a lot to report with Fallout 76. Here is report I recently filed with Bethesda. Let’s explore.
Report
Re: Enemies not dying after multiple shots.
It is truly becoming impossible to play Fallout 76. That’s not an exaggeration. I’m using various ranged weapons and it can literally take 2, 3 even sometimes 4 (or more) shots to actually kill an enemy that should die in 1 shot. This MUST be solved. Combat is intrinsic to this game. When combat doesn’t work, then the game is broken.
How this problem manifests…
It begins when you attempt to VATS shoot an enemy. It doesn’t matter where you shoot the enemy, but the head is usually the place where combat fails most often. I have a bloodied Lever Action and a bloodied Pipe Bolt Action Pistol. I’ve also had this problem occur with various melee weapons. So, it’s not limited to any specific weapon or type.
You begin by using VATS on the head using Concentrated Fire. Take the shot. The shot connects. The thud sounds. The enemy’s health bar drops to 0. Then, inexplicably, the health bar instantly recovers to full health and the enemy is alive to lunge or shoot at you. Not only that, the failed shot alerts the enemy to your presence. You can perform this action multiple times in a row to the same effect. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Ghoul, insects, a Super Mutant, dogs or a robot. This broken combat mechanic affects every weapon type and every enemy type.
To 100% reproduce this bug, sneak your way into The Whitespring Golf Club, head to the left on the upper level. Then as you come through the door, there is an enemy that spawns right near the back left window in a corner.
Once you have cleared the rest of the ghouls in that room, stand by the entry hall area and attempt to VATS shoot this specific Ghoul in the head. It may take 2, 3, 4 or more shots before it will die. Targeting the limbs or torso sometimes works around this game breaking bug, but sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes using a scope instead of VATS works, sometimes it doesn’t.
It’s one thing if the shot misses entirely, it’s completely another when the shot connects, makes a thud noise, shows a 1200 damage number also showing the enemy health bar dropping to zero and then the enemy’s health bar magically recovers fully? No, these are NOT legendary enemies.
This combat issue needs to be resolved pronto as this is literally a game breaking combat bug.
Expected Behavior
When you shoot an enemy and the bullet is recognized by the game engine as connecting, then the enemy needs to take the required amount of damage and/or die if health reaches zero. This combat bug is entirely unacceptable.
Enjoy this bug as this series has many more coming. If you have experienced this specific combat bug, please leave a comment below.
Can Trump actually ban TikTok?
There are two sides to this question. Let’s explore both sides.
Technological Ban
Could TikTok actually be technologically stopped from working? Yes, and to be honest, it wouldn’t take that much effort, though it will take some time. Let’s explore how this works.
Domain Name Service (DNS)
DNS is a fundamental internet service that maps Internet names, like google.com, into an IP address, like 8.8.8.8 (which is Google’s DNS server IP address, actually). When you type in a name into the address bar of your browser, DNS converts that name into a numeric IP which is how your browser then connects to and serves you (and your browser) that web content.
This same system applies to all apps including apps like TikTok. When you launch an app on your phone, the app then uses DNS to resolve its service into an IP address which then connects to, for example, TikTok’s servers to begin serving you (and the app) its content.
DNS is the Achilles heel of the internet. It is both a cornerstone and a single point of failure. If DNS fails, then apps fail to connect to their required services.
This is the first touch point where Donald Trump could target. Donald Trump can mandate that the registrar who operates the domain tiktok.com drop serving DNS for this domain… assuming it operates within the United States (hint, it doesn’t).
Further, the secondary non-authoritative DNS system (those servers operated by your ISP or phone provider) relies on caching (or temporary memory storage with expiration timers). So long as the timer hasn’t reached zero, DNS will continue to serve content for that domain based on what’s in the cache rather than asking the authority each time (much faster performance). However, most domains have, at most, a 24 hour countdown timer on cached data. At the end of that 24 hour period, the cached data must be renewed into the cache. If the registrar has disabled DNS resolution for a domain, the cache will fail to renew and the service will go offline.
What that means is that as caches around the Internet slowly expire after the domain registrar has pulled the DNS plug, TikTok will stop working.
The difficulty with this request is which registrar handles this domain. It appears that the tiktok.com domain is operated by the registrar ename.com. Visiting the ename.com registrar’s domain shows that it’s written in Chinese. Since this domain and its IP space is registered and operated outside of the United States, Trump may find it hard to get the registrar to do anything for him.
Even still, Trump could request (via executive order) U.S. based Internet Service Providers to block the tiktok.com domain from being served within U.S. bordered DNS servers. See ISP blocking below for more on this.
App Store
Donald Trump can further request both Apple and Google to remove the TikTok app from each respective app store. This action doesn’t stop the app from working for those who have downloaded it already, but it does stop new users from downloading it. It also means no more app updates for this app.
When Apple or Google release a new operating system update, they can then stop the app from working entirely. In fact, these OS creators could, in fact, wipe the app from any remaining devices with it still installed. However, they can also simply block the app from launching. However, this part can only work if Apple and Google release updates that explicitly perform this operation and that both of these companies agree to doing this in the first place.
Internet Service Provider (ISP) Blocking
The third avenue that Trump can seek requires ISPs to block network access to TikTok’s servers within the United States. This requires contacting and requesting this action of many ISPs all throughout the United States, including all phone carriers like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. This is a long tail request and could take weeks to see roll out. This one also has a low probability for success as ISPs are notorious for not wanting to be told what to do or how to run their networks. This particular request is not one that will work quickly or, indeed, at all in some cases… until the DOJ brings action against ISPs that refuse to comply.
In addition to blocking access at the network level, he can also request DNS blocking for the tiktok.com domain within United States DNS servers operated by ISPs. Basically, an ISP double whammy… assuming ISPs agree (or are forced to agree) to these terms.
App remains functional?
For a time after Donald Trump requests DNS and network IP blocking, the app could remain functional on devices that have it downloaded. Why? Because DNS has up to several day caching in combination with the fact that network IP blocking can be circumvented by the use of a VPN. Though, exactly how many kids are going to run out and buy a VPN service just to use TikTok is unknown.
If Donald Trump can get all four actions lined up (the first three at least) as follows:
- App removal
- IP network blocking
- DNS blocking at the registrar
- Secondary DNS blocking within U.S. ISPs
Then, the app may stop working as early as 24 hours for many and for as long as a week for outliers. It is also dependent on how long it takes for each of these steps to be completed. Some companies require long convoluted internal processes and testing to avoid inadvertent screw ups before changes are allowed to proceed.
All of these technical measures are ALL doable. They will all work IF everyone complies (and that’s a tall order).
The most damaging of these four banning steps is seeing Tiktok removed from the app store. If Trump can get the app removed from the stores, this cripples TikTok’s ability to gain new users. That means that for a time, users who have already downloaded the app can continue to use it. But, as they buy new phones, restore their phones before it was installed or if they accidentally delete the app, the app is gone forever. No more TikTok on that phone device.
Removal from the app store also means no more updates. As Apple and Google roll out OS updates, they can invalidate TikTok’s functionality. An OS update can see a small banner pop up that says something similar to “This app is no longer compatible with this device” and prevent it from launching. The only option the user has at that point is to delete the app and move onto something else. If you can’t launch the app, then it’s useless.
This step, by far, is the simplest step to banning an app. It only requires two touch points: Apple and Google. That also assumes that both Apple and Google would be willing participants in this action. They may not. If they choose to challenge Trump’s legal authority to request such actions.. that leads me into the second half of this article.
Legal Authority
I guess the biggest question on people’s mind is, “Does Donald Trump have the authority to ban an app like TikTok within the US?” The short answer is, “I’m not sure”. Trump’s executive authority powers do allow him to write and execute executive orders.
Wikipedia states of Presidential Executive Orders:
Article Two of the United States Constitution gives the president broad executive and enforcement authority to use their discretion to determine how to enforce the law or to otherwise manage the resources and staff of the executive branch. The ability to make such orders is also based on express or implied Acts of Congress that delegate to the President some degree of discretionary power (delegated legislation).
the Wikipedia article further goes on to state:
Like both legislative statutes and regulations promulgated by government agencies, executive orders are subject to judicial review and may be overturned if the orders lack support by statute or the Constitution.
That means that an Executive Order can be challenged via judicial review and may be overturned if unconstitutional or lacks support by statute. And, lacking support by statute may be Trump’s biggest hurdle.
However, the Patriot Act gives the government and, in general, the President broad powers with regards to national security. If he deems TikTok a threat to national security and deems it illegal surveillance, it may invoke clauses under the Patriot Act which would allow him to write an Executive Order supported by the Patriot Act.
Yes, this is all convoluted and tenuously threaded, but it may have enough binding weight to hold together under scrutiny via judicial review.
That’s not say that TikTok is in any way performing surveillance via its app. But, seeing that it was an app developed in China, it is entirely possible that it does contain illegal surveillance mechanisms, otherwise known as spyware.
TikTok as an App
TikTok may seem an innocuous app on the surface. You use it to create a funny small video clippets (ha, just coined a new term) and then upload it for all to see. What you don’t know is whether this seeming innocuous app is spying on you when you’re not using it. You must give this app permissions to your microphone, camera, location and possibly other access. The app can turn on these devices at any time it so chooses, even if when you’re unaware. If you have given any other access permissions, such as access to your Photo Gallery, Clipboard, Contacts or other points of permission, it may have blanket access to far too much private information about you that it can feed to China.
Even if you have installed TikTok once, that data may have been shared back to someone in China. You have no idea exactly what this app is doing under-the-hood. The same can be said of many apps in the app store. However, China is under no obligation to uphold data privacy laws in the United States. If your child has installed the app, it could feed all manner of private data about your child back to China.
U.S. Company?
TikTok apparently has a U.S. presence, but if that presence doesn’t have a hand in the creation, maintenance or dissemination of the app itself, the U.S. arm may not be violating any laws if the app does unsavory things outside of its stated and intended purpose.
Even though it seems TikTok does have a U.S. presence, the company itself seems to be heavily backed by Chinese companies. Since the President’s announcement regarding a potential TikTok ban, this company has quickly attempted to divest its Chinese interest from TikTok and allow it to become a wholly owned and operated U.S. business. That may be too late for this company and this app.
Honestly, sharing tiny entertaining videos of your silly antics is really not an essential part life. It’s fun to watch, but it’s overall something to be watched and forgotten. In other words, none of the content on TikTok is in any way meaningful or, indeed, useful. It is briefly funny content that might elicit a few laughs and then you are encouraged to move on to the next.
What Wish is to trashy Chinese merchandise, TikTok is to trashy occasionally funny clippets. They’re both cut from the same cloth, but cut from different ends. I’ve watched many TikTok videos and I find most of them no more entertaining than watching a TV commercial. TV commercials are, in fact, better filmed and many times better written.
Ultimately, if TikTok is banned, it won’t be missed in the long run. Oh, it will be immediately missed by the tweens and teens alike who rely on that sort of thing to get through the boredom of their day, but even this age group will quickly forget and move onto the next app.
TikTok is ultimately another social media fad riding a temporary wave that will eventually surf its way into the next app fad, and far away from TikTok. A Presidential ban may simply speed this process up exponentially and cut short TikTok as a fad.
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The rise and danger of private fat loss infomercials
Recently, a number of seemingly trustworthy individuals have arisen from who-knows-where to put out very long form infomercials (around 40-50 minutes or longer), which ultimately espouse some kind of fat loss product. The dangers with these infomercial claims lie within. Let’s explore.
Dr. Amy Lee
While I despise calling out specific individual web hucksters, here’s one who claims to be an M.D. or medical doctor. While she may have an M.D. degree (though, I can’t easily confirm this), she is clearly misinforming the public with her long-form video.
In her exceedingly long form video, she calls out 3 harmful foods and then proceeds to describe why these foods are so harmful, in her opinion. The ‘in her opinion’ is exactly why this video is so dangerous to watch.
Let’s closely examine one of these three “damaging” ingredients, high fructose corn syrup, otherwise known as HFCS.
While I’m not going to state that eating HFCS is good for you in any way… and it isn’t, Dr. Lee is sadly and completely misinformed with this substance. She claims that HFCS is treated as an unknown substance by the brain and body. This claim is entirely and 100% patently false. The body knows exactly what fructose is and how to process it. It is NOT “unknown” to the body or the brain. Fructose is a simple sugar (unless bound to glucose as a complex sugar), one of many forms of sugars available in foods. High Fructose Corn Syrup is just as it sounds… a syrup that contains a high amounts of fructose. How it gets that high level concentration of fructose is in how this syrup is produced.
Fructose is a naturally occurring sugar in nature and occurs in all fruits in combination with sucrose and glucose (other forms of sugars). The body knows exactly how to process and break down sucrose, lactose, maltose, maltodextrin and, yes, even fructose. The digestive tract has enzymes ready to break these substances down into glucose for use by the body. Glucose is sometimes also called dextrose. To be fair, fructose (when not bound to glucose) is considered a simple sugar which is broken down in the liver, which is the reason it can cause liver problems if eaten to excess (more on this below).
The body cannot utilize complex sugars (sugars with multiple molecules bound together). It must break these into the simplest sugar, glucose. The body utilizes enzymes for this process. Only glucose can be used by the body within the blood stream.
Dr. Lee is entirely misinformed and is then misinforming you when you watch her video. She doesn’t seem to understand that fructose is not an “unknown” substance. It is very much a known substance to the body.
Let’s get down to the reason why HFCS is bad for the body. High fructose corn syrup is ultimately processed by the liver (at least the fructose portion) in ways that can lead to liver damage and liver disease. It is this liver damage which leads to further reactions by the body, such as insulin problems leading to obesity which can lead to diabetes. It is this liver damage and potentially other organ damage from consumption of high levels of fructose that can lead to these problems.
The body can tolerate levels of fructose consumed from fruits. One orange may contain ~12g of sugar with about 3.2g of that being fructose (about 27% of all of the sugar in that orange). One can of soda may contain up to 36g of sugar when sweetened with HFCS and may contain at least 18g of fructose (half of all sugars in that can). It would take consuming 5.6 oranges to consume the same amount of fructose in one can of HFCS sweetened soda. If you consume 5 cans of soda in a day, you’ve consumed the same amount of fructose as eating at least 28 oranges during that day. Who eats 28 oranges a day?
While it’s easy to consume 5 cans of HFCS soda, it is indeed much more difficult to consume 28 oranges in one day. That doesn’t take into account additional sources of HFCS that can also be found in ketchup, bread, cereal, yogurt (yes, that fruit at the bottom may contain HFCS), jelly / jams, peanut butter, candies (Snickers, Mars Bars, etc), salad dressing, juices, cereal bars, baked goods (cookies, cakes, pies) and the list goes on. Just read the ingredient label to see if a specific food contains HFCS. If it does, you might want to steer clear.
However, Dr. Lee suggests HFCS interferes with hormones, particularly the hormone that regulates hunger. It might do this, but more likely it interferes with liver function which leads to other problems within the body. The liver is designed to weed out toxins from the body, but if HFCS is interfering with or blocking that process, toxins may be getting into the body to interfere with the hormones, the pancreas and other organs in the body. It may not be HFCS directly causing these issues, but instead the fructose overload causes the organs of the body to fail their functions, such as the liver and pancreas.
Additionally, overloading the body with sugar is never a good thing, no matter the type. Fructose is but one sugar. Keep in mind that HFCS contains approximately 42% fructose with the remaining 68% made up of sucrose and glucose. It’s not necessarily just the fructose doing the damage here. The remaining 68% of sugar is still acting on the body in ways that may be triggering other problems. Sure, fructose is there, but it’s entirely disingenuous to ignore the remaining 68% of sugars in HFCS as if it weren’t there and as if weren’t potentially problematic.
When you’re watching videos like hers, use caution and do some research to find out if what’s she’s saying makes any sense at all. Don’t blindly follow a person like her without doing research. Doctors may seem intelligent because of that degree hanging on their wall, but it’s clear that many don’t do their home work. Dr. Lee clearly hasn’t been doing her homework.
“I’m Full” trigger
Further, Dr. Lee suggests blame on HFCS for interfering with the “I’m Full” signal after eating. It’s not just fructose that triggers that response in the body. Any sugar (or even high starch food) does this. Consuming massive amounts of sugar or starch in any form automatically interferes with the “I’m Full” sensation. Why? Because consuming sugar triggers this response early, but it doesn’t last.
After the consumed sugar, which is entirely devoid of vitamins and minerals, is done being processed, the body realizes it hasn’t received any nutrition. From that sugar intake, the body has simply received a quick energy boost. That’s great if you need that energy boost to run or perform exercise. That sugar is used by the muscles to function. However, that sugar, once processed and done, leaves the body wanting actual sustenance. It wants vitamins and minerals that were not in that sugar. So, the body triggers the hunger sensation to force you to eat food again hoping that you’ll eat something meaningful this time. Something that satisfies the body’s need for vitamins and minerals.
This is why when you eat a meal that’s healthy and nutritious, you feel satisfied for far longer than when you consume a can of soda or a candy bar. A soda can satisfies the hunger craving for a very short time… perhaps 30 minutes. After that, the body then asks for food again, the actual chewable kind.
Processed Food vs Whole Natural Food
Here’s where we come to the crux of the problem. The body was designed to process whole natural foods, not highly processed, concocted food items from industrial machines.
By pulverizing ingredients into tiny, but concentrated powders, then reconstituting them into baked goods, pies, cakes and candies, the body wasn’t designed to handle foods with these levels of ingredient concentrations. The body was designed to handle and process naturally occurring concentrations as they were grown in nature. When these items are pulverized, powdered and highly concentrated, then reconstituted, the body doesn’t handle these overly concentrated foodstuffs well at all. Oh, it will process much of this highly concentrated food, but it will also just as easily put it on your hips.
This is why cakes (and breads), which rely on concentrated processed flour and concentrated processed sugars aren’t always considered the healthiest of food choices. Healthy foods come from nature, directly from nature. We all know that. Foods that don’t come from nature and which are manmade are typically considered less healthy food options. Though, bread has its place when consumed in moderation.
Olean
Here’s where Dr. Lee’s video takes a huge weird turn. Now she begins harping on a product that is not only not a carbohydrate (which she clearly states it is), it’s almost non-existent in the market. Olean was a type of oil or fat. Dr. Lee is clearly misinformed about this product. It’s also exactly when I rolled my eyes and turned her video off as pointless.
Olean or Olestra was a type of alternative oil that was briefly introduced into the market for commercial use. Some potato chip makers adopted this new oil in hopes that it would be a miracle baking product. Unfortunately, this oil product turned into a literal nightmare for potato chip producers and any other company that chose to use it in baked goods.
This oil is not at all digestible by the body. Most oils are fully digestible as fat. Olean isn’t. Whenever it is consumed within foods, the body excretes this product 100% through the bowels. The trouble is, at the time, it caused many problems with many people. Because this “new” oil was touted as a low fat alternative, people bought and ate these chips with all of the careless abandon you might imagine.
The trouble is, eating foods to this level of excess, particularly this food ingredient, led to many problems including anal leakage and major bouts of explosive diarrhea. Because too many people chose to eat Olean-fried potato chips to excess, this is how Olean got such a bad wrap. As a result and because of all of the complaints, about 6 months after introduction, potato chip makers stopped using this oil completely. This all happened in the span of about 6-9 months in… get this, 1996.
This product hasn’t been widely used in commercial food products in over 20+ years. Yes, that’s 20+ years! Apparently, though, Olestra may still be in limited use in certain products in very small quantities and it may go unlabeled due to its small quantities. Why Dr. Lee has decided to dredge up a 20+ year old oil food product that is effectively no longer on the market to harp on as though it were still being sold in products today, I have no idea. Sure, it was a bad product at the time, but it was off the market in around 6-9 months after introduction and hasn’t been used in any substantial way since!
Again, Dr. Lee ends up way off on a tangent that has no practical value in the fat loss or nutrition industry today. There are basically no food products today that contain Olestra / Olean. Even at the time, you couldn’t purchase this oil for use at home. The only oils available on the shelves then were those that are still available today, like peanut, olive, safflower, corn, vegetable and, yes, even Canola (introduced in 1978). While coconut, avocado and olive oils were burgeoning during the 90s, they have since become much more ubiquitous and commonly available in regular supermarkets. Olean / Olestra was never made available to consumers, only to commercial food producers. I know from first hand experience. I attempted to buy Olean in supermarkets, but it never appeared on the supermarket shelf during its short time on the market.
History of Products
It’s important to understand the history of food products that a would-be huckster uses to entice you to buy into whatever thing they end up hawking. Once you know the history of a product like Olean, you can easily spot when someone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes with their lies.
Doctor or not, she has a fiduciary responsibility to understand what’s she’s saying. If she’s trying to pull some bullshit on you, you need to be able to recognize that quickly and easily.
Hucksters Abound
This isn’t the only private web site infomercial like this. I’ve seen several others about this length in duration. Typically, they’re hosted by either a seeming professional, like a doctor or they’re hosted by a 20something male or female bodybuilder in near perfect shape.
It’s these tricks that video producers use to lead you in and then foist a bunch of garbage on you to make you think the host is intelligent and knows what the hell they’re saying. In fact, if you dig deep, you find that it’s a script written by someone who just threw together random unrelated “facts” (which usually aren’t facts at all) and then use that rhetoric to entice you into some supplement product that they plan to sell you for $40 to $100 per bottle.
Once you get to the end of the video, if you even last that long, I urge you to take the name of product and Google it. Look and see if that same product is being sold on Amazon and, if so, look at Amazon’s reviews closely. Most times, you’ll find the product doesn’t work. Sometimes these products don’t make it onto Amazon by name. Instead, find the ingredients and look for a similar product on Amazon containing the same ingredients and look for those reviews.
You might be surprised to find that people using a supplement with those same exact ingredients have found it not to do anything other than make a hole in your wallet. It’s wise to be cautious when watching these purported self-proclaimed authorities when the whole goal is to hawk some product at the end.
Fat Loss
If you’re really intent on losing fat, you’ll need to do three basic things and none of these rely on taking “magic” supplements:
- Choose whole natural foods that will fill you up and leave you satisfied
- Eat less foods throughout the day (i.e., monitor your calorie intake)
- Eat smaller, but more frequent meals throughout the day.
Number one keeps your hunger in check. You can keep your mind occupied on other tasks for longer and have the energy needed to maintain those tasks.
Number two reduces the amount of calories you eat. By eating properly following number one, number two may sort itself out naturally. But, you may still need to count your calories for a period of time to be sure you remain on track.
Number three keeps your metabolism at full steam throughout the day. If you have a slow metabolism, you will need to increase the frequency of meals, but reduce their size. Around 250 calories per meal is enough. This keeps the furnace lit and the body’s metabolism high enough to burn fat.
The best type of food to eat is the food you make yourself. Why? Because you know exactly what goes into that food. You made it, you added the ingredients, you chose what went into it. When you eat out at restaurants, you have no idea what they choose to add to the foods. Could they use Olestra? Doubtful, but it isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Unlike store bought foods which require Nutrition Facts labels, restaurants are under no such obligations to tell you exactly what goes into their menu items. If you want your best option for fat loss, you need to control the foods you eat and you can only do that by making your meals yourself at home from whole fresh ingredients.
The final thing that you need, which isn’t in the list… is to know your resting metabolism. This is important to know what calorie level you need to remain in fat burning mode. Additionally, you may need to stop drinking alcohol of any kind for a period of time. Alcohol consumption may halt fat loss and put a stopper on it for several days. If you’re intent on losing fat, you’ll need to make the necessary dietary changes to ensure your body remains in fat loss mode. That only happens by eating under your resting metabolic rate (RMR) and by eating in an appropriate way with healthy nutritious meals.
Typically, an average adult’s RMR is somewhere between 1700 and 2000 calories per day. You can get your RMR measured at many gyms and fitness centers. Your doctor or a nutritionist may also have access to such a device. Knowing your resting metabolic rate is key to understanding how much food is too much or too little per day.
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Why Fallout 76 sucks badly
Whenever I play Fallout 76, I just want to pull my hair out. This game is so fraught with bugs, poor design, piss poor consistency and overall crap gameplay, it’s a wonder anyone wants to actually play this turd of a game at all. And, it gets worse with every release. Let’s explore this crap game in all of its crap glory.
Bugs Bethesda Won’t Fix
One of the most infuriating things about this game is its incessant bugs which Bethesda has consistently refused to fix. Some of these bugs have existed since before the release in the Beta (if you can even call one week of early play “beta testing”).
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of gameplay bugs I’ve run into with this game (in no particular order):
- Getting in and out of power armor breaks mutations, specifically Speed Demon. This bug persists until you log out and back in. If you use power armor at all, this mutation remains broken while both IN and OUT of power armor. This is a new regression bug and didn’t exist early in the game’s life.
- When playing sneaky while crouching, the game will sometimes overload the fire gun action onto the run button and fire your weapon when you attempt to run from the crouching position. This happens with any weapon. Not only does this waste ammo, you may be forced to reload your weapon, wasting time. This is an older bug and has existed for at least 6-9 months.
- Getting stuck in power armor. While this bug has supposedly been fixed, I have run into occasions where it is impossible to exit power armor. It clearly is not fixed. This bug has existed since Beta.
- Getting stuck in VATS. This is a new bug that sees you pull VATS only to find that the game won’t let you exit it, while allowing the enemies to attack you without any resistance. This is a recent bug, but existed before Wastelanders.
- Enemies staggering the player. This is a new bug that sees enemy stagger your player for longer amounts of time. Like getting stuck in VATS, you are unable to move or fire your weapon for up to 5-10 seconds, all while letting hordes of creatures attack and kill you. This may have been introduced in Wastelanders.
- Camp over budget after update. This one begins after you buy and install Atomic Shop items into your camp. After an update, Bethesda will raise the budget of SOME item(s) in your camp substantially causing your camp’s budget to go WAY over. There’s no way to know what is causing the issue or resolve it without randomly deleting camp items one by one.
- Toxic Goo fails to work. After your character dies and respawns, Toxic Goo doesn’t work for up to 1 minute (or longer) after a load-in or respawn. You’ll end up wasting goo after goo after goo trying to get it to work. This affects Bloodied builds.
- Loss of certain perks, but not all, after your character dies. Yes, I consider this a bug. There is no reason why this exists in the game. The Well Rested and Well Tuned perks disappear after the character dies and respawns. You are forced back to your camp to sleep and play an instrument again to refresh these. This is a bug that, I think, has been in the game since the start.
- Can’t choose respawn point after character death. This bug has been in the game since day one. Under certain conditions, if your character dies, the game will give you zero respawn points on the map. You are forced to log out and log back in… losing any dropped loot and any other benefits you may have had coming. Day 1 bug.
- VATS accuracy…. When the game first arrived, VATS could reach 100%. After a ‘balancing’ update, this has been visually reduced to a maximum of 95% at all times (no matter how close the enemy is to you). This is a ridiculous change. However, during this ‘rebalance’, Bethesda introduced two VATS percentages (one you see visually and one you don’t). The one you don’t see is the one that determines whether the bullet will hit. This has caused VATS to become mostly unusable, particularly when combined with bug #4 and specifically with certain weapons. It fares even worse when attempting to use the Concentrated Fire perk card.
- After loading into the game world, the game client runs a background process to synchronize the game to the remote game world server. This process takes at least 5-10 minutes to complete. It’s very slow. While this background process is running, you can’t craft on a workbench as the workbench stutters on and off while this synchronization process runs. This is a new bug introduced within the last 6-9 months. It existed before Wastelanders. This bug prevents using workbenches for at least 10 minutes after you’ve loaded into the game world.
- In-Game Music can’t be controlled with volume settings slider. A volume slider for music was introduced into the game client, but it has been selectively applied to only certain music. For example, music inside of Whitesprings, inside of Valley Galleria and with musical instruments are not covered by this volume slider. You must endure this music in the world regardless of your settings.
- Main Menu Music Slider settings. This one is also broken. While it does not play music on the main menu on the PS4, it does not at all work on the Xbox One. Worse, after a few minutes inside of the Atomic Shop and after the music changes, the music will begin playing at full volume in the Atomic Shop. This slider is only minimally effective at doing what it’s supposed to do.
- Challenges don’t work. This is an ongoing problem. If you’ve bought into Bethesda’s Fallout 76 challenge system, then that means doing whatever convoluted activities are needed to win that challenge. Some challenges require you to perform multiple activities to win the challenge. Because of these multiple activities, if one of them does not register after completion, the entire challenge fails. This is one way challenges don’t work.
The second way challenges fail to work is if you do perform all of the actions successfully and receive a check mark, but the overall challenge doesn’t reward its bounty to you. Both of these are firmly broken. Even the newest update to the Legendary Run suffers from this same bug. You can perform everything required of the challenge and still not see the 1000 score you’re supposed to receive. Bethesda support won’t help with these failures. You’re just shit-outta-luck. Bethesda simply doesn’t support the game or gamers who are playing this game. These are Day 1 bugs. - Blue Screen Crash… yes, these still exist. I regularly experience these crash-to-the-dashboard bugs about once every day or so. They are about as frequent as they were when the game was released. This is partly because of the memory issues.
- Level of Detail Image Rendering… this bug as existed since day one. As you approach objects, the game won’t load in the higher res texture version until you’re standing on top of the object (literally). Even then, it may take 1 minute before the higher res texture loads in. It’s a cosmetic bug, but who wants to look at blurry 8 bit textures?
- Fast Travel Bug — Here’s a bug that has existed since day one. You open the map and select a travel point, choose to pay the caps and then …. nothing. The map exits and you’re back in the game. You haven’t fast traveled and nothing has happened. Worse, you try again and it does the exact same thing. This bug is annoying, frustrating and shouldn’t even exist.
- Workshop Bug — Here’s a regression bug. This bug existed a week or so after release. It was gone for a long time, but now it’s come back in the latest update: v1.3.2.9. Under some conditions, the workshop icon reverts to the older “regular” icon. As a result, the game requires you to pay caps to travel to your owned workshop.
- Bethesda Math — Here’s a bug (several actually), but this one’s very very subtle with the perk cards and with damage multipliers. Bethesda sucks really hard at math and they hope that players won’t notice. Too late, we have. When Bethesda calculates damage multipliers, it rarely does so accurately. For example, a multiplier card might say “does 30% more damage”, but in reality it may calculate out 28% more or 25% more or some random value way less than 30%.
You can see this in action after enabling damage numbers on your weapon. If you calculate out the number shown, you’ll find that the damage is far, far less than what the gun claims to offer with the damage multipliers. This is just one way that Bethesda reduces the damage level of weapons without showing that reduced damage in the weapon info panel.
This further continues in the weapon info panel as well by not accurately calculating the damage multipliers within this panel. While some perk cards offer exact damage multipliers, many of these cards offer nebulous increases like, “does more”, “does even more”, “does substantially more” without stating any numbers. This allows Bethesda to modify these nebulous cards at their whims on each release, so you never know exactly what those nebulous cards are actually giving you. In many cases, they don’t give you anything. As for the hard number cards, it only stacks these multipliers by calculating from the gun’s base damage level. For example, if you put on cards each offering 10% damage, it will be stacked like so:
Gun base damage = 197
Gun + 10% damage = 197 + 19.7 = 217
Gun + 20% damage = 217 + 19.7 = 237
Gun + 30% damage = 237 + 19.7 = 257
and so on…
Basically, Bethesda calculates the value based on the current gun value + the % to be applied. It doesn’t add by stacking. If it added by stacking, 60% more damage would stack like this:
Gun base damage = 197
Gun + 10% damage = 197 + 19.7 = 217
Gun + 10% more damage = 217 + 21.7 = 239
Gun + 10% more damage = 239 + 23.9 = 263
Gun + 10% more damage = 263 + 26.3 = 289
Gun + 10% more damage = 289 + 28.9 = 318
Gun + 10% more damage = 318 + 31.8 = 350
and so on… but this is not how Bethesda does math during stacking.
Worse, guns with +30% damage to Scorched (Zealots) or 30% damage to animals (Hunter’s) never see these percentages reflected in the gun’s damage information panel. You have no idea if the gun is actually giving you that extra % damage.
Even worse, when you kill something with damage multipliers on, you almost never see the damage level of the gun reflected in the damage number seen on the enemy. For example, with the 257 damage listed above, if this is an Instigating rifle, it would do double damage to an enemy with full health. This means that at 2x, Instigating damage should do 514 damage to an enemy. With sneaking, it should double that to 1028. However, shooting an enemy with sneak might show way less than that damage inflicted. Damage to an enemy should reflect actual gun damage. - VATS + Accuracy … this bug has been ongoing since day one, but affects some weapons more than others. For example, neither has the Tesla nor the Gauss rifle ever properly worked with VATS. Using these weapons is more likely to miss than hit. You waste so much ammo using VATS with these weapons, it’s not even worth considering. For every one shot that hits, you might have 10 that fail… even with high accuracy, even if you have the +33% VATS accuracy legendary perk, even with all of your best perk cards equipped, these electric weapons are the worst for VATS.
Even the Pipe Bolt-Action Pistol fares poorly with VATS. This weapon when set up correctly can have an accuracy of 108, yet it acts as if it as an accuracy of 2. It misses way more often than it hits. This is a VATS problem. In fact, I find that using the scope fares way better than relying on VATS. - Gauss Rifle Wind Up and Misfire — this bug has been ongoing since a week or so after release. You can press and hold the trigger to power up the Gauss, but upon release, you only hear a sad sputter and then nothing. The rifle misfires. This is the only weapon in the game that misfires. I’ve given up using the Gauss rifle entirely because of this one bug that Bethesda refuses to fix.
- Bullet Connects, Does 1000+ Damage, Health Wiped, Enemy Lives — this is a new bug, but I believe has existed for quite some time and is a regression from early in the game’s life. You can shoot an enemy point blank in the head, the heath bar is reduced to 0, but the enemy’s health bar goes back to full and lives to fight. This is not a legendary enemy. I’ve run into this bug with Ghouls and Robots alike. There is nothing you can do but shoot again and hope it will kill the enemy. This bug seems specific to shooting the enemy in the head, but can occur shooting any body part. Collision detection on this game is piss poor, to say the least.
- Delbert’s Traditional Chitlins Recipe — Here is a bug that has most definitely existed since day one and before. This recipe is supposed to exist on a piece of notebook paper sitting on a picnic table at Spruce Knob Lake, next to a blue cooler. The note paper is sitting there on the table, but it cannot be retrieved from the table. Bethesda has had this bug reported probably hundreds of times and at least twice by me since launch, yet they have still not yet fixed this very long standing bug. There are supposed to be 13 Delbert’s recipes in this game, but this one is not retrievable, leaving only 12 in the game. It’s anyone’s guess as to what this recipe offers.
- Backpacks — In a recent update, Bethesda decided to change how backpack skins work. Instead of selling individual backpacks as they had been formerly doing, they set it up to place skins on top of the generic backpack. In doing so, they introduced two fundamental bugs:
1) We had to pay to reskin our already skinned backpack, using up more resources again. We had to do this for every backpack we own.
2) The backpacks no longer sit correctly on the character’s back. Instead of sitting properly on the back, they are now embedded in the back and look crappy when wearing certain bulkier outfits. The original packs adjusted their placement on the back to accommodate outfits and the size of the pack. This new system doesn’t. It inherits the placement of the original skin and assumes that placement is correct for all packs. One of the worst cosmetic bugs in the game.
Perk Card Bugs
Under this section, I call out bugs specific to perk cards that have gone unfixed. They are just as numerous.
- Tenderizer — This Charisma perk card simply doesn’t work, it’s as simple as that. It’s supposed to afford an up to 7% bonus damage (3 star card) on every hit after the first, but it doesn’t do anything. Don’t bother equipping this card. I’m not certain if this card has ever worked. Day 1 bug.
- Concentrated Fire – This is a card that is supposed to not only allow you to target individual body parts of your enemy, it’s supposed to give bonus damage when you hit that body part. This card performs only one of its two stated perks. While it does allow you to target body parts individually, it does not offer any bonus damage. Day 1 bug.
- Super Duper – Lots of bugs here. This card is supposed to offer you a chance to duplicate whatever you are crafting on any crafting bench. This card has multiple problems. Its primary problem is that a 3-Star version is supposed to afford you your best chance at receiving a duplicate. However, ranking this card up to 3 does not increase your chances for a duplicate any more than using a rank 1 card. This card formerly functioned correctly for a short time after the game’s launch, but after a subsequent rebalance, it has been broken since.
Additionally, this card is entirely selectively applied to certain crafted items and in specific amounts when it does work. For example, attempting to combine a 2 star Ammosmith with 3 star Super Duper doesn’t yield a duplicate number when crafting certain ammo on the Tinker’s Bench. For example, Ammosmith increases the Mini Nuke x3 count to x5. Yet, Super Duper doesn’t provide 10 Mini Nukes when Super Duper fires. Instead, it provides perhaps 6 Mini Nukes, not 10.
Further, Super Duper formerly alerted us every time it fired letting us see how often it fired and how much extra we might expect. At some point during a ‘rebalance’, Bethesda stopped this every-time notification. Instead, now it only notifies us once inside the bench and once on the way out, no matter how many times it has fired. In other words, you have no way to know exactly how much extra you may have received. If you want to know, you are forced to exit the bench each time Super Duper fires so you can see exactly how many times it has fired while crafting… infuriating.
I believe this much reduced notification change is because Bethesda reduced the frequency with which Super Duper fires (even at 3 stars) and they didn’t want people to see this lowered fire rate.
Super Duper has also never been applied to the Brewing Station crafting bench. You can craft whatever you want on the Brewing Station and Super Duper will never duplicate it. This bug has existed since the Brewing Station was introduced. Some of these above are Day 1 bugs including this Brewing Station bug. - Butcher’s Bounty / Scrounger / Cap Collector / Can Do! / Pharma Farma design change. Yes, I also consider this one a bug. Butcher’s Bounty (and the rest of these scrounging cards) formerly allowed us to search containers at any time and, most importantly, after the fact. Can Do! and Pharma Farma and some of the others still do allow after-the-fact searching, but it is now hands off with no button presses. You must look at the container with the card equipped to get the benefits. Before this change, you were forced to pressed a button. After the change, it works simply by looking at the container.
However, unlike the rest of the cards, Butcher’s Bounty has some severe restrictions placed for how and when it works. It has also seen new bugs introduced. Unlike the rest of these scrounger cards, Butcher’s Bounty no longer allows after-the-fact usage.
Butcher’s Bounty now requires that you must have killed the creature yourself to be able to search a dead creature and to activate this perk card. Even still, searching a dead animal doesn’t really yield more meat. You hear the chime, but no additional meat seems to appear on the body. You only get what was originally dropped. Butcher’s Bounty is firmly broken. This bug was introduced during the Wastelanders release.
Additionally, Butcher’s Bounty no longer searches Bloodbugs or Ticks and will not produce any additional bounty from these creatures. There may be other creatures it also fails to search. Ticks contain Tick Blood and this ingredient is important in crafting Stimpaks. Without being able to search Ticks for Tick Blood, this means of crafting Stimpaks is lost.
Bloodbugs offered Bloodbug meat. Unfortunately, without Butcher’s Bounty, you could rarely ever find Bloodbug meat on a dead Bloodbug. You were nearly always forced to search them with Butcher’s Bounty. Unfortunately, this is another creature whose meat is now entirely extinct. There is no way to craft Bloodbug Pepper Steak… and this now entirely useless in-game recipe is rendered worthless by this specific bug. - Storm Chaser — This perk card is supposed to see you have health regeneration during rain storms. I’ve used this card multiple times in rain storms with no effect. This card is broken.
Regressions
So many of the bugs from the past are actually returning from the past. Particularly duplication bugs. I have grown exceedingly tired of the 12 and 13 year olds whose sole goal is to find some overpowered weapon and dupe the hell out of it so they can make a few caps, caps that don’t make a difference to their game play.
Instead, Bethesda needs to counter these problems by removing this problem from the game. In fact, I’d prefer if Bethesda removed vending entirely from the game. No more sales at all. What you own is yours to keep forever. If you don’t want it, scrip it, scrap it or send it to the game’s void. Nothing at all good has come from player vending. Nothing. The world is not a better place. Vending is a form of pay–to–win. It’s solely used as a way for players to buy their way into better weapons without having earned those weapons or armor.
The point in Fallout is to earn your weapons from your game play experience… not to buy the weapon from someone else.
Bethesda is already considering doing away with future item vending anyway. As more and more new items are introduced into the game, Bethesda is putting the no-vending restriction onto these newer items. You can’t sell them, you can’t drop them and you can’t transfer them to others. These newly introduced items are yours to keep, but not to sell.
I believe Bethesda is slowly introducing these items into the game to get players used to this new no trading concept. Then, at some point in the future, every new item in the game will be marked as player restricted. At some point, the newest great weapon will not be obtainable by buying it from another player. This change IS coming. Bethesda WILL introduce this in the future. It’s not a matter of IF, it’s a matter of WHEN. Don’t believe me? Just you wait.
Even more bugs
This next bug is one that has existed since the game’s release. The game has completely unresponsive button controls at the most inopportune times. You are forced to press a button twice, three times or more simply to get the game to respond to a button press. Infuriating. You press the button expecting VATS to trigger and it doesn’t. You press it again and again it does nothing. You press it again and it finally triggers. This multiple press issue sees the enemies getting ever closer or out of range. It’s entirely frustrating to have the perfect shot had VATS consistently worked. Instead, you’ve lost that shot because you were forced to press VATS multiple times to get it to activate, way too late to make that perfect shot.
This button press unreliability problem isn’t limited to VATS. It affects all manner of button presses from crafting, to firing your weapon to jumping to running. It doesn’t matter which button it is, they are all equally affected by this unreliability of the game’s controller input system.
I’ve never ever played a game with this amateur level of button unreliability. Never. I’ve been playing games since the Atari 2600 and this is the actual first time I’ve encountered a game with this bad of a controller interface. I cannot believe a top tier developer is putting out games with this low level of quality.
I believe this problem stems from multiple problems. I believe the game is giving priority to the back end synchronization with the server over front end input. This means that the game is willing to sacrifice controller button presses to ensure the game client is properly synchronized with the server. Ultimately, I believe this has to do with using a 20 year old engine and trying to retrofit it into a multiplayer system over the Internet. This engine was not designed for this purpose and the signature of this unreliability is in this game’s random and sporadic failure to read input from the controller.
This leaves the game with an increasingly problematic gameplay experience. This situation has only gotten worse with the game’s age. With each successive update and expansion, Bethesda keeps taxing the game engine more and more. As the game engine becomes more and more overtaxed, the controller input is given increasingly less and less polling time… to the point where button presses are entirely lost.
This problem is not a problem that should exist in a top tier game. No game should ever be released with this level of controller problems, let alone with all of the additional problems listed above.
Overpowered Enemies
With the addition of Wastelanders, the balance in the game has been lost. I do classify this as both a design failure and a bug. The human enemies that have been added into the game have not only begun overtaxing the already taxed game engine, but Bethesda has chosen to give level 15 enemies weapons that do the damage of level 98 enemies with similarly equipped armor.
A level 15 Blood Eagle with an automatic laser pistol can kill any level player (even over 200) with just handful of shots. If that’s not the very definition of overpowered, I don’t know what is. This isn’t limited to Blood Eagles, it works for Settlers and Raiders alike. All human enemies have these way overpowered weapons and overpowered armor.
Whether this was intentional design or simply janky happenstance, I’ve no idea. Bethesda has proven time and time again that they simply don’t care about the gamer. With every update, they make it increasingly harder to even play this game, let alone want to like or play it.
In fact, the joy I formerly found in playing some parts of this game is quickly evaporating with the ever mounting bugs, regressions and frustratingly poor design choices.
Atomic Shop and Camp Budget
Worse, I can no longer even build in my camp… which runs entirely counter to buying Atomic Shop items. If Bethesda wants us to buy Atomic Shop camp items, then they’ll need to understand this point of contention. We can’t buy anything for our camps that require budget if we can’t build in our camps. Camp budget maxed = no more sales!
Bethesda, however, doesn’t seem to get this fundamental concept. Bethesda relies on people buying Atom, yet no one will run out to buy Atom if there’s no camp budget available to build. It’s a Catch-22, Bethesda!
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If this game is failing, it’s because of your short sighted management of this property.
Instead of throwing in NPCs because everyone complained about the lack of them, you should have focused on fixing these long standing bugs. Instead, you focused your time adding new and unnecessary features that are further overtaxing this game’s antiquated engine which exacerbates these existing bugs at the expense of actually useful and fun gameplay.
It’s getting almost impossible to play this game at times… just as it’s getting impossible to type this article into WordPress’s editor with its incredibly bad input lag.
Bethesda needs to wise up rapidly. The Fallout 76 team needs to focus on overcoming these listed shortcomings rather than spending more time crafting unnecessary items for the Atomic Shop which fewer and fewer people can buy with the updated daily challenges no longer giving out Atom. So, let’s talk about the ‘new’ ….
Legendary Run
This is supposed to be the replacement challenge system for Fallout 76. It was promised to be an improvement to help people perform the challenges more in-line with their daily play.
In reality, what this is is a junky and janky mess of a system. Not only are the rewards some the crappiest I’ve seen in this game, they are duplicated all over the place. Need Ghillie armor for Marine Armor? How about Robot? How about Secret Service? Well, Bethesda has littered the board with so many duplicate Ghillie armors that it’s entirely pointless. How many Ghillie armor types do you think that we need? It’s stupid and pointless.
We only need one Ghillie cosmetic suit that we can wear over the top of any armor we wish. We don’t need to own the plan to craft Ghillie skins on every type of armor in existence. We only need ONE cosmetic item we’re done. So many board spaces wasted with this single skin item, the same as the Atomic Onslaught paints.
Worse, handing out these skins runs entirely counter to the way the Atomic Shop wants us to play. This point has been hammered home, oh I don’t know, since the game launched… to wear cosmetic items over the top of our armor. So now suddenly you want us to not wear cosmetics and start crafting Ghillie armor pieces instead? This game is sending us such mixed signals. Show your armor, hide your armor, don’t wear armor, do wear armor. The messaging in this game is not only a mess, it’s a disaster. No wonder everyone is always so confused by this game.
Not a Fallout Game
And here is where we come to the crux of this article. This game is not a Fallout game. It is a cartoony representation of how someone who’s never ever played a Fallout game might think a game like this works. Fallout 76 only pretends to be a Fallout game. It certainly has the skins, the weapons, the armor and the rusted environments, but the game itself is just a hollow, vapid, pointless shell. It barely even resembles Fallout. Further, its lore is so weak and so shallow in storytelling, nothing even matters.
Beyond this, Bethesda has introduced new items into the universe that have never before existed in Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 3 or Fallout 4… games with world environments and stories that exist long after Fallout 76. Games that should have seen traces of many of these new Fallout 76 items.
That’s the danger in creating a prequel… introducing new items into a world where previously existing worlds you’ve already built won’t have these items. Not seeing these items in Fallout 4, for example, means major continuity problems… yet another reason Fallout 76 is a crappy installment.
It’s not just the continuity issues that are a problem, however. It’s how weakly handled the entire world concept is. You exit the vault with the hopes of rebuilding Appalachia, yet the 24 vault dwellers who exit the vault are limited to building tiny crappy camps in remote areas of Appalachia? That’s not rebuilding, that’s junk. That’s not coming together as a team, that’s every-person-for-themselves. That’s not how rebuilding should be envisioned or handled.
In fact, after all of the quests are done and all of the smoke clears, Appalachia remains the same old decrepit place with the same old enemies roaming it and so many of the old bugs present. The presence of vault dwellers did absolutely nothing to make Appalachia, or indeed, Fallout 76 a better place. For a multiplayer game, it’s hard to believe a top tier developer like Bethesda failed so spectacularly at producing a compelling and fun experience… but here we are. Even the combat fails mostly because of all of the bugs that remain unfixed. Bleah.
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Game Review: Ghost of Tsushima
This Sucker Punch studios created game feels like a sucker punch to Ubisoft as it is far too much like Assassin’s Creed for its own good. Let’s explore.
[Updated: 9/2/2020] After having rethought this entire article, I’ve come to a new conclusion about Sucker Punch studios. It seems highly likely that Sucker Punch is an empty-shell game development arm for Sony. What do I mean by empty-shell? Let me explain what I mean. There’s a lot that also supports this shell idea. Sucker Punch may actually be a sub-company that strictly comes up with game ideas and doesn’t actually implement them. Instead, Sony / Sucker Punch hires out third party development studios to produce a game for a fee (and under contract) based on Sucker Punch’s game concept.
In the case of Ghost of Tsushima, it appears that Sony / Sucker Punch may have hired out Ubisoft to produce Ghost of Tsushima using Ubisoft’s AnvilNext engine including Ubisoft’s development team. Sucker Punch likely wanted something very specific (i.e., all of the particle animation and Japanese environments) including the assassination concept. Who better than to hire Ubisoft for that project? Sucker Punch may employ a small team helping produce some limited assets for the game such as trees, some character models and so forth. The majority of the development work likely went to the third party team (e.g., Ubisoft).
What this likely means for Sucker Punch and Ghost of Tsushima is that Sucker Punch indirectly licensed Ubisoft’s AnvilNext for this game because Ubisoft actually produced this game for Sony / Sucker Punch under contract. As an aside, it’s odd to note that both Sucker Punch and Sony PlayStation begin with (SP). Anyway, why am I jumping to this conclusion so much later? There are excessively too many suspect mechanics included in this game that mimic Assassin’s Creed to be a mere coincidence.
That’s just the beginning of this conclusion jumping. There’s also the suspect lack of credits anywhere on the game. Any game studio putting in years of time and effort would want to reward their developers by giving credit where credit is due. Unfortunately, credits are not listed on Ghost of Tsushima… at all. Not anywhere is there a credits page within this game. If you had devoted years of your life to an entertainment / game project, wouldn’t you want credit? Wouldn’t you expect to see your name listed on the credits page? Yet, no credits appear anywhere on this game. The lack of due credit is the biggest suspect item thus leading me to the empty-shell studio conclusion.
One further telltale sign is that games by direct developers place all engines and technologies they use up front immediately after the developer’s logo splash page. Again, Ghost of Tsushima fails to give credit to the engine, physics systems and technologies used within the game… an extremely odd play for an “alleged” big name developer.
This situation could also easily explain Ubisoft’s extreme silence on the Assassin’s Creed front for the last two or three years. If Ubisoft were deep in development for Ghost of Tsushima for Sony, that team would have been unable to make significant progress on a new Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed title. Sure, there has been both Odyssey and Origins. Odyssey being the newest, was released in 2018 with nothing since. Even then, that game could have been produced at least year earlier… giving Ubisoft a minimum of 3 years development time on Ghost of Tsushima.
Since Ubisoft already has a workable existing engine in AnvilNext, it wouldn’t have taken much time to rework that engine to produce Ghost of Tsushima. However, for Sucker Punch to devise their own engine from scratch that’s even more capable than AnvilNext (and that renders almost identically to AnvilNext) in two or three years, that’s a bit of a stretch. Developing an engine as sophisticated as what’s seen in Ghost of Tsushima would take every bit of that 3 years and likely more. That doesn’t account for the time it would take to produce a functional game including character models, game mechanics, 3D assets (trees, villages, carts, etc), stories, motion capture, voice actors and all else to create a complete game. To produce a game like Ghost of Tsushima from nothing to completion would be at least 6-8 years.
While it is possible Sucker Punch could have created an engine that looks and acts like AnvilNext, considering that the last game released by Sucker Punch was INFamous Second Son, released in 2014, the idea of it doesn’t really work especially considering there are no credits. The engine used in INFamous Second Son doesn’t at all resemble what’s in Ghost of Tsushima. Sure, both offer decent lighting models, but the engines are completely different between these two games. The engine used in INFamous looks, feels and acts entirely different. There was some limited particle animation in INFamous, but nothing like what’s in Ghost of Tsushima. Even then, INFamous is just an overall different game that operates entirely differently.
Ghost of Tsushima looks, feels and acts like Assassin’s Creed. From the horse, to the assassinations, to the perks to pretty much everything in the game. Even the world lighting looks and feels like AnvilNext when the light falls on objects. Even the swirly wind motif iconography feels like Assassin’s Creed. The whole thing has a telltale sign that it was produced by the Assassin’s Creed developers.
Let’s get back to the credits, which seem to tattle on Sucker Punch (and the lack of technologies used). If credits were listed on this game with real people’s names, it would be easy to spot developers who work at Ubisoft. It would be even easier to know that this game was actually produced by Ubisoft. I’m guessing that both Sony and Sucker Punch decided against revealing this information thus definitively proving that SP hired Ubisoft to produce this title. In fact, if I had to make a guess, such a development agreement contract probably stipulated keeping Ubisoft’s name (and technologies) off of the game. To do that, no credits or technologies could be added to the game which would reveal Ubisoft’s involvement… hence, likely the reason the game doesn’t have credits of any kind.
With the above said, please read the rest of this article recognizing my previous mindset before I had come to the above conclusion. If the above ends up being true, then Ghost of Tsushima is technically an unofficial Assassin’s Creed installment.
Assassin’s Creed
Ubisoft originated the stealthy assassin take-down style game, but it seems that Sucker Punch is cool with both ripping off and carrying this concept forward in its latest game, Ghost of Tsushima.
By comparison, some of the most notable and identifiable mechanics in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed include:
- Eavesdropping
- Hiding in weeds, hay piles or crowds of people
- Smoke Bombs (usually comes later as you unlock skills
- Healing, although this mechanic has changed several times in successive AC games
- Various button mashing combat mechanics including parrying, blocking, dodging and combos
- Parkour (climbing rocks and structures)
- Eagle Vision — allowing the protagonist to differentiate enemies from friendlies with an x-ray like vision
- Taking over Forts
- Horse riding and combat
- And… stealthy assassinations… basically how Assassin’s Creed got its name.
There are other features included such as the hidden blades, which also adds to the identity of Assassin’s Creed. However, there have also been AC games that lacked the hidden blade feature.
Why am I harping so much about Assassin’s Creed? It’s important to understand exactly how much Sucker Punch took from Assassin’s Creed to create Ghost of Tsushima.
Ghost of Tsushima
While no Assassin’s Creed game has yet visited feudal Japan, Sucker Punch decided it would be their turn to do so in Ghost of Tsushima. The game is set during the time of the Samurai, during the Mongol invasion of the island of Tsushima.
In that goal, the game sets up the protagonist, Jin Sakai. A little goofy, a little nerdy, a little naïve, Jin ends up becoming the lone Samurai who wanders the island helping out with various problems along the way while learning new skills, including stealthy assassination both from behind and from above. Learning these new skills, along with parkour, ultimately help him to defeat the Mongol leader holed up in Castle Kaneda.
Along the way, Jin learns how to become a ‘Ghost’ (Sucker Punch’s word for an assassin). He uses his newfound assassination techniques to stealthily take down everyone from archers to Mongols to whomever deserves it. Though, he is nearly just as adept at being a Samurai, heading into open combat nearly as easily.
Sounds similar to Assassin’s Creed? It is. In fact, it’s far too much like Assassin’s Creed for its own good. Even the landscape, terrain, stories, enemy archetypes, combat and situations feel like Assassin’s Creed, right down to a nearly identical Assassin’s Creed combat maneuver to break through an enemy’s shield and take down that enemy.
Stolen Ideas
Not only has Sucker Punch taken practically everything that was Assassin’s Creed and placed it into Ghost of Tsushima, it has done so with careless abandon. It’s as if Sucker Punch is flaunting this fact in Ubisoft’s face. “See what we made? It’s just like Assassin’s Creed, only better!”, I can hear someone at Sucker Punch saying.
Here’s the non-exhaustive list of how Ghost of Tsushima ripped off Assassin’s Creed:
- Eavesdropping
- Hiding in Pampas Grass and weeds
- Smoke Bombs
- Healing with ‘Resolve’
- Parrying, blocking, dodging and combos
- Parkour (climbing up rocks)
- Focused Hearing (looks like Eagle Vision)
- Forts and taking them down
- Horse riding and combat
- And, of course, stealthy assassination takedowns
Ghost of Tsushima even goes so far as to use a logo that looks like an A, just like Assassin’s Creed uses a different looking A for their franchise.
In fact, there are so many mechanics, behaviors and actions so similarly constructed to Assassin’s Creed (and in particular Origins, but really all of them), it makes me heavily wonder if Sucker Punch hired some of Ubisoft’s disenchanted Assassin’s Creed developers away and put them to work on this project. It’s all so suspect.
Legal Issues?
It’s one thing to hire a team to build a game that has slight similarities to another popular game title from another studio. It happens all of the time. However, it’s an entirely different issue to steal practically everything that made a single game, like Assassin’s Creed, unique and then put it all into a new game and call it your own without giving Ubisoft any credit.
Ubisoft’s Legal Team
If I were on Ubisoft’s legal team, I’d be looking at all options right about now. Considering that AnvilNext is a proprietary engine developed by Ubisoft and which is strictly for its own internal use… then seeing another engine looking, acting and performing similarly to AnvilNext, while driving a game that practically mimics Assassin’s Creed in nearly every way? Yeah… suspect.
Not only would I review that game with a fine tooth comb, I’d be looking through the credits roster to see who might have left Ubisoft and taken something with them. Talent moves around in every industry. It might be worth determining if any developers who worked on Assassin’s Creed made their way to Sucker Punch with a little something extra in hand.
Beautiful Rendering
There’s no denying that the landscape and terrain that has been built on Tsushima is outstanding, but no more outstanding than Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Origins. Yes, the rendering of the environments doesn’t look at all much different from what’s seen in Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey. Galleries below.
In fact, it looks so similar that I’d have to say that Sucker Punch may be using portions of Ubisoft’s AnvilNext engine. The look and feel of the graphics are far too similar in quality. It’s also possible Sucker Punch picked up another similar game engine. Unfortunately, even Wikipedia doesn’t yet state which game engine Ghost of Tsushima is built on. My money’s on AnvilNext, or rather a modified version of AnvilNext, Ubisoft’s proprietary engine.
Game Play
Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima plays pretty much like mashup of the best parts of Assassin’s Creed games. It utilizes the eye popping graphics seen in Odyssey and Origins, but then goes back to basics with the combat mechanics and healing. It does have various staples seen in every AC game, such as smoke bombs and hiding in weeds and it improves upon the smoke bomb by adding its new sticky bombs.
Combat
The combat mechanics are almost identical to various Assassin’s Creed games, but with one difference. Jin is easily killed with one or two hits. The enemies also have the ability to immediately stagger Jin leaving him unable to attack or move for at least a minute. This means that the rest of the enemies can simply move in for the kill and they do.
Even though Jin has decent Samurai moves, his armor leaves a lot to be desired… and that stagger mechanic is literally a game killer.
For whatever reason, games have been adding these longer and longer lasting stagger mechanics into their games, which leaves the player unable to do anything other than watch their character die. I’m not a fan of this in games, particularly when my weapons don’t equally stagger opponents in the same way. Giving the enemy an upper hand method to basically kill the player’s character instantly is never satisfying.
What you, as a player, end up doing is… entirely avoiding this situation by making sure you always have the upper hand. The problem is, this game doesn’t let you get that upper hand when in open combat. The enemies always surround you and the best you can do is dodge out of the circle.
Healing
Here’s another sore spot of this game. Ghost of Tsushima gives you the ability to heal (called Resolve), but once used, you must gain it back through specific combat moves. The problem is, you can kill enemies galore, yet never gain any resolve back. There are some times where you do get it back, but there are many times were you can defeat 10 or more enemies and still have no resolve recovered.
This ‘resolve‘ mechanic is actually an incredibly piss poor design. It definitely needed a whole lot more development time. In fact, I’d have preferred just having dead enemies drop health and let me pick it up without having to regenerate “resolve” through very specific means, which clearly doesn’t always work.
Photomode
To carry on from the Beautiful Rendering section above and because this game is just so damned photogenic, you’re inevitably going to want to take some pictures. While photomode does work, it has some important limitations, which may be resolved in later updates. Let’s go through them now:
- If the game is night time and you change the time of day to daytime, the sun comes up, but the night sky remains. It looks like a very brightly lit night moon sky rather than daytime. If you want daytime shots, you’ll need to wait until it’s actually daytime in the game.
- There’s no way to pose the character at all. Once photomode begins, the character is in whatever pose he was in when it began. The only thing you can change is the facial expression. Even then, the facial expressions are poorly crafted.
- Likewise, there’s no way to pose the horse.
- While there are various types of weather from foggy to rainy to clear, none of them really work as well as you might expect. When switching between these, like the night/day problem above, the difference is just not that noticeable.
- Yes, there are filters. No, they don’t look great. In fact, the filters are so piss poor in quality, there’s really no reason to use them. Though, vivid is probably the most useful of these crappy filters.
- Unfortunately, photomode entirely lacks a vignette mode.
- Depth of field is also here, but it also doesn’t fare well. While it does support foreground and background blurring, it just doesn’t look as good as it should. It’s just not configurable enough.
- There’s no way to improve contrast, only brightness.
There are a number of other photomode features, but they just don’t really work as well as they should. You can get some great shots out of the game, but mostly by happenstance and not by messing with the filters and settings. Here are some images I’ve captured while playing….
Image Gallery
Ghost of Tsushima
Compare the above to these similar in appearance images from both Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey…
Weapons
As one would expect of a Samurai game, Ghost of Tsushima offers you your choice of blades including a dagger and a Samurai blade and more as you progress. You also get access to a Bow, bombs and various other weapons that you’ll get as you complete ‘Tales’.
Dyes and Plants
Picking certain plants and flowers gives you resources, such as wood and dyes, that you can trade at merchants to change or improve your clothing, armor or weapons. Remember back to Assassin’s Creed 2? Dye was a big thing in those early Assassin’s Creed games.
Skill Tree
There are basically two skill trees in this game. One is the Ghost (assassin) skill tree. The other is the Samurai skill tree. As you progress through the Tales (Quests), you are given skill points at the end, which you can use to unlock skills from any tree. As you progress more and more, you can unlock more and more skills. It’s a fairly bare bones basic skill tree setup.
Animus Missing
The one thing that Assassin’s Creed included that Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t is having an outer shell. What I mean is that Assassin’s Creed was predicated on Templars from the present using the Animus virtual technology to revisit the past to find specific relics. These relics would help them in the present day gain specific power.
Ghost of Tsushima refrained from using this wrappered shell system so as to avoid that similarity. Although, even though that’s not included in Ghost of Tsushima, the rest of the mechanics included more than make up for the lack of this one missing thing.
Tales
As with any open world system, there must be quests. In this game, they’re called Tales. When you participate in a tale, you help someone do something in return for their help. Sometimes they give you a bow or armor, but sometimes you’re recruiting them to help you later. In return for that help, they expect you to do something for them now. Most times, it involves combat.
Forts
As mentioned above, forts are common in Assassin’s Creed. You end up having to not only take down everyone in a fort, you must also take down its leader. Once you do this, you basically own this fort.
The same can be said of Ghost of Tsushima. Though, while at the end you don’t own the fort, you do get to loot it for whatever rewards you can find.
Overall
Ghost of Tsushima is pretty. Very, very pretty, particularly when the wind is blowing across the grass and trees. One only needs to look at the above images to see that. But, having a game rendering a pretty environment is only part of the battle.
The other part is producing compelling, innovative mechanics to drive this world. Unfortunately, Sucker Punch actually lives up to its name and practically sucker punches Ubisoft for its Assassin’s Creed franchise. Sucker Punch entirely took almost everything that was Assassin’s Creed and imported it almost intact into Ghost of Tsushima.
If you’re an Assassin’s Creed fan, you’ll probably like this game. However, it’s so similar and plays so similarly to Assassin’s Creed, you may also feel like you’ve played this game before… and you likely have.
Is it worth $60? That’s debatable. I’m not usually one to urge people to run out and buy copycat games. In the case of Deep Silver’s Saint’s Row 3 and 4, these were so satirical of Grand Theft Auto, they had their own quirky uniqueness. In this case, I would recommend Saint’s Row because while they had some similarities to GTA, they were uniquely different.
With Ghost of Tsushima, the only really unique thing about this game is it having been set in feudal Japan. Everything else pretty much feels like a clone of Assassin’s Creed, for better or worse.
Ratings
Graphics: 10 out of 10
Sound: 9 out of 10
Gameplay: 4 out of 10
Uniqueness: 1 out of 10
Stories: 7 out of 10
Voice Acting: 8 out of 10
Mouth Tracking: 2 out of 10
Replayability: 1 out of 10
Multiplayer Mode: none, single player campaign only
Overall: 4.5 out of 10 (Rent first. If you like it, then buy it.)
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Disney to reopen amid COVID surge
According to reports, Disney intends to reopen its parks despite the current growing COVID-19 surge. Let’s explore.
Irresponsible
Let’s understand that Disney operates its parks to comfortably sport anywhere between 30,000 to 50,000 guests (on average) in the park at any one time. Though, it is stated the park is designed to hold up to 100,000 people. Though, if 100,000 people are in attendance, the lines will be massively long, the park will be intensely crowded and affords a situation that becomes ripe for COVID transmission that no amount of “planned” virus reduction measures can mitigate. In short, overcrowding and COVID-19 cannot work together.
Even at 10,000 people in the park (assuming Disney decides to self-limit), that’s still well enough people milling around that transmission will be exceedingly easy and inevitable. We already know that COVID-19 lingers on some surfaces, like metal, for several days. That means that riding a ride containing metallic surfaces, after someone infected has ridden, greatly increases your chances of getting COVID-19 through touch.
Open Air
Disneyland, Disney World and The Magic Kingdom are mostly open air environments. This means that aerosolized virus droplets can’t linger for too long, but they can land on surfaces. However, when you get inside of closed environments, such as restaurants, merchandise shops and dark rides, virus droplets can linger for quite a long time in the air (without proper ventilation)… and these droplets can also land on and infect merchandise, paper cups, utensils and particularly open condiments. It can also land on your ride’s seat cushion, handles, lap belts and the lapbar restraints.
In short, open air won’t necessarily mean your trip to Disney will be virus free. In fact, because Florida is presently having some of the highest cases in the nation, the chances of catching COVID-19 by visiting Disney World is exceedingly high… if even simply by staying in a hotel.
Trust in Disney
Disney hasn’t been the most trustworthy company in recent years. Of Disney’s reopening plans, Ron DeSantis (Governor of Florida) states:
We have to have society function. You can have society function in a way that keeps people safe. And when you have all of the different procedures that they have in place, people are going to be—it’s a safe environment. Disney, I have no doubt is going to be a safe environment.
No one, not a Governor, not a health official, not anyone can make an assertion that Disney will be a “safe environment”. The nature of amusement parks is taking risks. That’s why people attend amusement parks and ride rides. The thrill of the ride is worth the risk.
Though, there’s a big difference between being able to control the forces of inertia and being able to control an invisible virus you cannot even see. No, DeSantis is towing the line that Disney wants to hear (and that Florida’s economy needs). DeSantis wants the park open, not because it’s truly safe and virus free, but because Florida’s economic future depends on it… and in general, because tourism drives much of Florida’s income. Without tourism, portions of Florida won’t have much of a future.
DeSantis also stated the following of both Universal and Disney’s reopening plans:
I’m really impressed with what Universal’s done, and I’ve looked at Disney’s plan and it is very, very thorough.
Thorough won’t protect everyone all of the time. Disney may disinfect the park nightly, but that won’t help the interim times when perhaps thousands of people have ridden a ride or eaten at a table or sneezed on cups immediately before you arrived.
Amusement and Health
If your personal amusement is more important to you than your health and well being (and the health of those around you), then by all means head to Disney and ride the rides and indulge in the eats. If, however, you value your own health and the health of your loved ones, you should avoid visiting any amusement parks no matter what “plans” Disney or Universal may have made to help combat a virus that no one can see.
Plans have a way of unraveling, particularly when we don’t even know all of the factors which must be managed. Disney’s plans are probably, at best, 25% complete. That means that 75% of things that can happen to infect you haven’t even been addressed.
Judging the health and safety of the public is not something a governor should be doing. That should be the health department.
Pandemic Surge and Reopening
In the midst of a surging pandemic, planning to reopen a business that’s sole intent is to draw large crowds the size of Disney parks is not only reckless, it’s completely irresponsible. Large close crowds are exactly the vector for virus transmission. There is absolutely no way Disney has planned for every contingency or vector of infection… particularly because Disney can’t plan for how large the crowds may get. In fact, it’s entirely counter for Disney to turn away crowds which help drive revenue into the park. They’re not going to do this.
Turning on UVC lights every now and then or limiting attendance can only do so much. This virus is, at best, unpredictable. We already know that COVID-19 has a days-long no-symptom period when the virus makes the person heavily contagious, but the person shows no outward symptoms. It will be these very contagious carriers who will visit Disney World and Disneyland and not only carry in the virus, but they will spread it throughout the park by infecting everything they touch and the people around them. Even a simple sneeze or cough can carry the virus throughout an environment for a lengthy period of time and infect any number of people or land on surfaces which can be touched.
There is nothing Disney can do to plan for keeping their park virus free. The only way Disney can reduce or eliminate Disney parks as a source of COVID-19 infection is to test every visitor on the way into the park and deny entrance to any visitors who test infected. Even then, that’s not feasible because testing is very slow (hours) before results are back. Even then, there’s a high probability of both false positives and false negatives. Disney can’t (and more importantly, won’t) spend the time or money to do this for every visitor.
Ride Disinfection
Let’s understand the basics of how Disney could plan for ride disinfection management.
If Disney were to truly want to reduce exposure to COVID-19 on rides, every ride must close down and disinfect after every single ride. The ride cars would have to be put through a UVC light bath for approximately 5 minutes after each and every ride. This is not feasible for a park like Disney where getting riders through as fast as possible is the goal.
To further this line of reasoning, Disney would need to require reservations for all rides in advance. No lines would be present on any ride. Queue lines and queue houses must remain closed. At ride time, riders will gather and stand in a 6 foot enforced distanced line wearing masks, but of course that line couldn’t be shielded from passers by… a source of infection.
Riders are loaded onto the ride, one by one… distanced by one car between each rider. That means half as many riders per ride. At the end of the ride, the ride will pull into the station and each car must exit, one by one separately ensuring 6 foot distance between each rider.
After the car is empty, the ride is summarily closed. The car is then backed into a UVC light bath and disinfection commences for 5 minutes. Then Disney repeats for the next set of riders. Can you say, “cumbersome” and “time consuming”?
Let’s understand that even with all of these measures in place, you can still catch COVID from a rider in front of you. If the front most rider ahead of you is infected and sneezes, their droplets can carry onto you and infect you. Even if Disney enacts very strict ride disinfection measures, there’s still no guarantee you’ll walk away without COVID-19 after riding. The only way that would work is to fill the car with one party per ride. Yeah, that’s not feasible in a park the size of Disney’s.
Above all of this, operating an amusement park ride this way will ensure that very few people get to enjoy the ride in a day… way fewer than is otherwise normal for Disney. Disney is all about pushing through as many riders as possible. Performing such a thorough disinfection after every ride is entirely counter to this and will result in much lost revenue. A park can’t (and won’t) operate like this.
Restaurant Disinfection
Here’s an infection vector that’s even more difficult to manage than rides. The only way restaurants can work at Disney is to deliver your food to you directly. In fact, you should be required to order your food in the Disney app for delivery to your present phone’s location (using location tracking). All food must be delivered inside of sealed bags and the items inside the bags must only have been handled by Disney employees.
Restaurant seating becomes an issue, though. We all want to eat inside some place comfortable and air conditioned. The problem is that this type of communal seating environment cannot be controlled… not by Disney, not by anyone. If Disney wishes to use sit-down style restaurant seating, then the tables must be completely UVC disinfected after every use.
It is very doubtful that Disney has had the time to build any kind of automated system to blanket a table and UVC disinfect it. In fact, to do this, you would need to build a carousel type system with two seats back-to-back, where the seats attach to a turntable and spin around to a non-visible side. One table seating is disinfected, the other spun around to the non-visible side and is in the process of being disinfected.
Though, UVC light is caustic to humans. Any UVC light leakage would need to be strictly controlled.
It is very doubtful that Disney or Universal have taken disinfection this seriously or to this level. No company is going to invest a million or more dollars into equipping their restaurants for such a sophisticated UVC disinfection system. Instead, they’re going to rely on the use of dirty towels and bus staff to wipe down seating and tables. A towel is simply going to move the virus around, not kill it. It’s almost impossible to perform proper disinfection of tables and seats prior to seating a new party.
A new restaurant party will be lucky if a table is even properly bused after the last party has departed. If it’s a large party, 10-20, good luck with getting anything disinfected.
Merchandise Stores
The final place where Disney will need to address is merchandise. Because people want to touch and feel the things they’re about to buy, this must stop. The touchy-feely time is over. Merchandise stores must only sell like the restaurant example above. You order the merchandise you want through an app and an attendant stops by to deliver your items in a sealed bag that has only been touched by Disney employees. If you wish to return an item, you’ll have to do that through an automated returns system and by dropping the returned item into a slot at the front gate.
Disney Employees, Testing and Infection
Disney park employees, otherwise known as “Cast Members” (a cutesy moniker to be sure), must be properly tested daily prior to entering a shift. If any Disney employee tests positive, they must be sent home for a mandatory quarantine period and will not be allowed to work.
Disney employees are clearly a vector of transmission that Disney can’t control. I seriously doubt that Disney has procured enough tests to test every single “Cast Member” daily, prior to their shift. There will be a number of Disney employees who will actually become the vector of infection and transmission for COVID-19… simply being a ride loader, being a merchandise seller or by selling foods to guests. It’s inevitable. You can’t prevent “Cast Members” from transmitting COVID-19 to guests in the park. You can’t do it without daily testing. Even then, testing is only as accurate as the test type you’re using.
If Disney decides on simplistic symptom tests (i.e., temperature), then that ensures park employees will not only infect guests, they will also infect other employees. Eventually, Disney may have to close its parks again when the number of infected “Cast Members” impacts the ability of Disney to operate its parks.
Health and Safety
Disney’s only choice, particularly during this heavy resurgence, is to postpone opening of the park until later… much, much later. I get why Disney is pushing to reopen. Disney is losing money by not reopening. To them, it’s more about the money than it is about keeping you, the guest, healthy and COVID free.
You must choose to trust Disney or not. You must choose whether to visit the park or not. Only you can look at this situation and decide whether it’s worth the risk. If you believe that your risk of infection is low, then by all means head there and visit.
Having worked at an amusement park for 7 years at one point in my life, I can definitively state that no matter what measures Disney claims to be putting in place, it’s all for show. None of it will last. It’s entirely health theater. They’ll state they’re doing all of these things, but at the end of the day none of it will get done because it’s too costly, too problematic and, most of all, too time consuming for staff. Disney may put up a good show for a week so that reporters can visit and “see” the theater, but after the reporters are gone, so too will all of their theatrical “planned measures”.
If you want to put your health at risk over Disney’s health theater, then be my guest. Book a trip, stay in the hotel and indulge in all of the buffets. Make sure you get a good large dose of COVID all along the way. When you get home and the symptoms hit, you can head to the hospital right away. After that, it’s up to your body to do the work (or not).
Consider this final question. Is it really worth risking your own life AND spending $1-2k per person merely to buy yourself COVID-19? That’s an awfully expensive Disney virus.
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Should Kathleen Kennedy be fired from Disney?
I’ve seen many, many YouTubers commenting on this very topic. In fact, this topic has had so many commentary videos, it’s probably consuming at least 10% of YouTube’s traffic. Just take a look for yourself. Anyway, because this topic is so widely being discussed, let me take the time to write an article here that describes most likely why she hasn’t yet been fired.
Contracts and Obligations
The biggest elephant in the room is also the most obvious, contractual obligations. It’s clear that most YouTubers really don’t understand the business of hiring executives. Executive leaders are always hired under contract. Contracts require both parties to fulfill their obligations as listed within the contract. It’s how employment contracts work.
However, there’s a snag here. Disney didn’t hire Kathleen Kennedy directly. Ms. Kennedy was already an employee of LucasFilm when Disney acquired the LucasFilm property… and this is the snag.
LucasFilm hired Kathleen Kennedy before the purchase took place. This meant that Kathleen was brought on board to Disney as an existing executive of LucasFilm. Why is this important?
Two Contracts
There are actually two contracts at play here with regards to Kathleen’s employment under LucasFilm.
- The 2012 $4 billion George Lucas and Disney buyout contract
- Kathleen Kennedy’s own employment contract with LucasFilm
In fact, it’s important to understand that George likely put Kathleen in charge of LucasFilm for the expressed intent of keeping the property sane after Disney purchased it. With that goal in mind, it’s very likely that LucasFilm hired Kathleen into a very long (and open ended) employment contract. What that means is that it is likely Kathleen’s choice whether the contract continues. As long as terms are written into the contract that allow this, Kathleen can remain at LucasFilm possibly for as long as she wishes.
The second side of this is the purchase contract. If George was smart enough to hire Kathleen for a very long stay at LucasFilm under Disney, then he likely also included provisions for her to stay employed for a specified period of time within the purchase contract also.
To do this, he likely wrote in a poison pill rider… probably written into both Kathleen’s employment contract and into the purchase agreement.
Putting this all together
With two contracts reinforcing each other, that means that should one or the other be breached, both contracts then fail to meet their obligations… which means that both contracts are breached and then outs for the contracts apply.
For the purchase contract, that could mean that the LucasFilm property (and any new work under it) reverts to ownership by George. This is a pretty big poison pill rider. I wouldn’t put this one past George. Not only would he get to walk away with $4 billion from Disney, he could also walk away with LucasFilm also. I’m pretty sure Disney wouldn’t find that poison pill attractive.
With Ms. Kennedy’s contract breached, Disney would likely have to pay her out a hefty golden parachute. A golden parachute rider requires the employer to pay out a huge sum of money upon failure to live up to contractual obligations. Because it’s very possible that both contracts are legally bound together, this means Disney is being held over a barrel with Kathleen Kennedy.
Not only might LucasFilm return to ownership under George, Kathleen may also get a huge payout (perhaps millions of dollars) if Disney fires her. It’s a very tough poison pill, but one I could easily see George requiring.
In other words, Disney can’t fire her. Should Disney fire her, both contracts dissolve and then penalties from both contracts apply against Disney.
Legal Obligations
Because contracts are very specific, should Kathleen personally breach the terms of her LucasFilm employment contract, then Disney may have cause to fire her.
Unfortunately, George probably wrote extremely loose and favorable terms for Kathleen and extremely unfavorable terms for LucasFilm into her employment contract intentionally. He did this knowing he would soon be selling LucasFilm to Disney. That means that Disney is in a very unfavorable situation with Kathleen. It means that Disney likely can’t fire her without a whole lot of legal things happening all at once.
Kathleen can breach the terms of her contract by doing something illegal. For example, if she’s accused and found guilty of inappropriate sexual misconduct, almost every employment contract allows releasing executives for breaking laws. That means Kathleen would need to violate laws for Disney to release her without Disney breaking any other terms of any other contracts.
Even then, George might still attempt to recover LucasFilm citing a breached purchase agreement.
Disney and Agreements
Disney likely agreed to the terms of both agreements more or less because they didn’t have a choice if they wanted LucasFilm. To get LucasFilm, they not only had to agree to the terms in the purchase agreement, they also had to agree with Kathleen’s employment terms as part of acquiring LucasFilm.
Kathleen’s Tenure
There could be an end in sight to Kathleen’s employment contract. It seems that in 2012, George may have set her employment terms to 6 years with the ability to extend. In 2018 and according to the Hollywood Reporter, she exercised her right to extend her employment contract and extended it by 3 years to 2021.
In 2021, Disney and Kathleen would again renegotiate her LucasFilm contract, which (depending on contract terms) could allow Disney to rewrite her contract to Disney favorable terms, place her directly under Disney and get rid of any poison pill riders in the process. A new employment contract would then allow Disney to fire her with impunity. Extending an existing contract doesn’t get rid of any poison pill riders.
It is entirely possible that Kathleen can extend her employment contract indefinitely with LucasFilm. However, it’s also possible that George did put a hard date limit on the type and number of extensions. Once her ability to extend ends, she will be required to strike up a new contract with Disney directly and those contract terms won’t be as favorable to her situation.
However, Disney could choose not to renew her contract at all and allow it to expire… at which point Disney could dismiss her. However, the unfavorable terms in the purchase contract could prevent that. It depends on what was written into the purchase agreement terms.
If George placed a timer on the purchase terms such that Disney can’t dismiss Kathleen while that timer is in place, then that means Disney must extend her contract until that purchase agreement timer runs out.
A contract timer works like this. The purchaser must remain in good faith under the terms of the agreement for a specified period of time, such as 10 years. The good faith part may include a bunch of agreed upon stipulations, such as keeping certain people employed during that period of time. If any of the stipulations are breached, the good faith terms no longer apply and the contract is considered breached.
What this means for Disney is that George Lucas could reacquire ownership of LucasFilm if Disney breaches these timer’s terms… and that is contingent on Kathleen’s employment contract. Even if Kathleen’s contract expires, Disney may be forced to craft a brand new contract to continue to employ her until the purchase agreement timer expires.
If Disney, again, extends her contract in 2021 for another 3 years, then this timer situation is likely the case. They can’t afford to lose LucasFilm and let it revert back to George Lucas ownership… and on top of this, pay Kathleen a huge sum of money from her Golden Parachute. Not only does that give George Lucas a potful of money, he also gets his former property back with new films in the portfolio to boot and Kathleen gets even more money.
Disney’s Response
Basically, a situation like what I surmise above (while a bit legally convoluted) may very well exist between George, Kathleen and Disney. Contractual terms can sometimes be unwieldy beasts and no side wants to breach those terms, particularly when looking at the downsides.
If any of what I suggest actually legally exists, this is why Kathleen Kennedy is still employed at LucasFilm cum Disney and cannot be fired. That doesn’t mean Disney can’t sideline her or take her off projects because these things may not be specified on the contracts, but those specifics which are in the contracts must be adhered to.
Only Disney, Kathleen, George and all of the lawyers involved understand the minute details of both the purchase contract and Kathleen’s LucasFilm employment contract (and how they both interrelate).
YouTubers
I get why YouTubers rail on Ms. Kennedy. I get why they want her fired. I get why they produce their videos stating all of this. However, these naïve YouTubers really don’t understand business or contractual obligations in the business world, particularly when it comes to executives and acquisitions.
While fans can continually call for Kathleen to be fired over her handling of the Star Wars property, it’s very unlikely to happen while contractual obligations are still in play. Kathleen herself would be stupid not to sit back and let the money roll in while she pretends to do a job for Disney. With such convoluted contracts, Kathleen is sitting pretty no matter what she does… short of breaking the law. She can completely turn LucasFilm and Star Wars inside out and pretty much Disney can do little to stop her, at least until any timers expire.
Once Ms. Kennedy understood the extremely favorable situation (if similar to what’s described above) that George arranged for her, she could pretty much torch Star Wars and Disney couldn’t really do anything about it. What Kathleen has done for Star Wars isn’t at all pretty. But, it’s not illegal and it’s possible there’s very little Disney can do to kick her out of the organization. Granted, she has turned a tidy sum for Disney, at least for the latest trilogy films, even as bad as they are. Disney can’t fault her for not making Disney money. As a result, Kathleen is likely still living up to her end of the employment agreement with LucasFilm.
Should Disney fire Kathleen Kennedy?
As long as unfavorable contractual obligations exist for Disney, no. Disney and Disney’s lawyers fully understand the ramifications of firing her. Until they can fire her without tripping contractual clauses, they’re going to let her sit in her comfy Disney office, using her comfy Disney chair pretending like she knows what the hell she’s doing.
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What is a ‘Karen’?
There are a lot of people using the ‘Karen’ term incorrectly on social media to describe all sorts of women. However, there is really only one true definition of the ‘Karen’ archetype. Let’s explore it now.
Karen: What she is and What she isn’t
The simplest definition of the ‘Karen’ archetype is a white female who is also a sports mom. She lives in a typical suburban neighborhood. Drives a typical suburban minivan. Shops at typical suburban stores, like Target and Walmart.
When a ‘Karen’ perceives an injustice has been wronged upon her while shopping at one of said stores, she will walk to the front and request a manager. In a semi-irate tone, she voices her displeasure at the manager.
Usually, a Karen’s perceived injustice is actually too small to quantify or is a mistaken rant, such as her believing that her favorite food is no longer carried by the retailer, when it has simply been moved one aisle over. In the end, the manager carefully listens to the ‘Karen’ rant and then politely corrects the ‘Karen’ for her mistake and shows her were to find the thing she ranted about. Sometimes the ‘Karen’ won’t listen and storms out. Sometimes she sheepishly accepts what the manager is saying and leaves to go find the item.
Ironic Comedy
Both the irony and the comedy of this situation are the hallmarks of the ‘Karen’ archetype. She’s funny, but in a sad ironic way. We laugh at her stupidity and make fun of it, but we do not laugh not at all with her. We understand her being irate, but we don’t understand the stupidity that goes along with it.
A ‘Karen’ is ironic comedy, but she is not dangerous nor does she wield knives, guns or any other weapons. Her voice (and her stupidity) is her weapon.
Gun Toting Women
If a woman brandishes a weapon in any way, she is not a ‘Karen’. The Karen archetype doesn’t brandish weapons. She’s a peaceful, if not a horribly misguided irate soccer mom. A ‘Karen’ becomes easily irate over the smallest thing, then goes off half-cocked before she has realized the error of her tirade. But, a ‘Karen’ will not pull a gun on someone.
Anyone who calls a murderous, gun brandishing female a ‘Karen’ doesn’t fundamentally understand what a ‘Karen’ actually is. Please refer to the above definition to better understand the ‘Karen’ archetype.
Any female who is violent and resorts to the use of a weapon might be an ‘Annie’ or simply a violent psychopath, but she is not, I repeat, is not a Karen.
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Random Thoughts - Randocity! 
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