Month: November 2018

Enlarge / Surface Go. (credit: Microsoft)

Surface Go is Microsoft's cheapest Surface 2-in-1 available: $399 gets you a Surface Go with 4GB RAM and 64GB of eMMC storage. But the next step up in specs was a lot more expensive: it takes an extra $150 to double the RAM to 8GB and replace the 64GB eMMC with a 128GB SSD, a change that should provide a healthy boost in disk performance.

Strangely, there was no model that split the difference; a 4GB machine with 128GB SSD would be a lot more practical for many users. That is, unless you chose to buy your Surface Go at Costco, where a special 4GB/128GB system was sold. Now, however, that spec is available to all through the Microsoft Store, for $499.

While 4GB is a little miserly in the year 2018, it's not unprecedented at this price point. For a system used primarily for Web browsing, Microsoft Office, and media streaming, it's just about acceptable—and with the relatively weak processor in the machine, you likely wouldn't want to do much beyond those tasks anyway. The faster and larger SSD will ensure there's abundant space for music, photos, and videos without having to micromanage storage.

Enlarge / It's not as solid as the PC version, but at least today, it's free-er. (credit: Xbox/PUBG Corp.)

Performance issues have plagued the Xbox One version of Playerunknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) long enough to make us wary of recommending the game at its $30 retail price point. But at the low, low price of totally free? Now we're talkin'.

PUBG, the game that kicked off an international "battle royale" gaming sensation, is currently free for all Xbox One owners. Even if you do not have a paid Xbox Live Gold subscription, you can head to this link and claim what appears to be a permanent copy of the game for your Microsoft Account. Timed trials of Xbox One games tend to be exclusive treats for XBLG subscribers.

Bizarrely, the Konami soccer game PES 2019, which launched at a standard $60 retail price point in August, is also free to claim as of today. (Here's that link.)

A diagram of the options in game theory's Stag Hunt. (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

In the Discourses on the Origin of Inequality, the political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau imagines a hypothetical prehistoric Stag Hunt. Each hunter working alone can catch a hare, but hares aren’t very meaty. Working together a group can cooperate to take down a stag—but only if everyone is committed. If someone spots a hare and decides to go after it, the stag escapes and everyone else ends up hungry.

Economic studies in which university students in the US played simulated versions of the Stag Hunt indicated that at some point, pairs would realize that it was in both of their best interests to commit to hunting the stag and they would fall into “an efficient and cooperative equilibrium.” But it turns out that American university students are not a particularly representative subset of humanity and cannot necessarily grant deep insights into human nature. They are too WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Developed.

When Indian men in the rural northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh played the game, only low-caste men acted like the American students. High-caste men decidedly did not fall into an efficient cooperation.

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Two women—one who used to work at Riot Games, and one who currently does—have now sued the game studio, alleging violations of California equal pay laws, sexual harassment, and discrimination.

Just three months ago, in August 2018, Kotaku published an extensive story outlining a "culture of sexism" inside the company behind League of Legends. Three weeks later, Riot Games issued an apology in which seemed to suggest that the company was attempting to right its wrongs: "We will weave this change into our cultural DNA and leave no room for sexism or misogyny. Inclusivity, diversity, respect, and equality are all non-negotiable."

But, as Kotaku noted in September 2018: "Riot Games Says It Wants To Clean Up Its Mess, But The People Who Made It Are Still There."

Enlarge / Marsha Blackburn celebrates Senate victory during an election night party on November 6, 2018 in Franklin, Tennessee. (credit: Getty Images | Alex Wong)

US Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), one of Congress's most outspoken opponents of strict net neutrality rules, has won a US Senate seat. Blackburn won 54.7 percent of the vote in yesterday's election, defeating Democrat Phil Bredesen, who received 43.9 percent. The vote tally was about 1.23 million to 983,000.

Blackburn has been in the House since 2003, and chairs a key subcommittee that oversees telecommunications. She'll leave the House and become a senator on January 3, 2019, taking over the seat vacated by Republican Bob Corker, who is retiring.

In her victory speech last night, Blackburn said the campaign shows that Tennesseans "want leaders who are going to be there to work with the president and keep this nation on the path to prosperity that we are on today. I want you to know I'm going to be one of those leaders."