Upgrade Part 1: Camels and Straws.

Silicon doesn’t wear out; microchips were effectively immortal. The Wig took notice of the fact. Like every other child of his age, however, he knew that silicon became obsolete, which was worse than wearing out; this fact was a grim and accepted constant for the Wig, like death or taxes, and in fact he was usually more worried about his gear falling behind the state of the art than he was about death (he was twenty-two) or taxes (he didn’t file, although he paid a Singapore money laundry a yearly percentage that was roughly equivalent to the income tax he would have been required to pay if he’d declared his gross).

William Gibson, Count Zero

As usual, Bill Gibson nailed it.  

Here we all are, living in the future, swimming in a sea of technology that, to quote Daft Punk, gets harder, better, faster, stronger.  But, what it doesn't get is cheaper, which means that most of us are riding along someplace not quite on the top of the breaking wave, living just a bit behind the leading edge - 4G instead of 5G, HD but not 4K, 15 instead of 17 Pro.

For me, that's meant living on borrowed time in terms of computing power, or, more accurately, gaming power.  I'm a long time Apple user, which, like any long term habit, is hard to beat - no 12 Step Program for iMac addicts.  Unfortunately, I also love computer games, and although a few of my favourites such as The Long Dark will run on the MacOS, the great majority of games require Windows.

Fortunately, or perhaps surprisingly, I've been able to get by for quite a while using Apple's Bootcamp software to run Windows from a partition on my 27 inch iMac, in spite of its modest 2 GB AMD Radeon graphics card.*  However, my iMac is ten years old, and although it's had a good run, its shortcomings as a gaming platform have become more and more evident as time goes on: distant images appearing one piece at a time as I approach them, weapons visibly rendering as they're equipped, or just unacceptably slow performance.

The inevitable end of the iMac as a gaming platform came in the form of a Christmas gift.  My wish list this year included gift cards for the Steam gaming platform, and my lovely wife Karli obliged with $50 worth.  One of my long term Steam wish list items has been Starfield from Bethesda, the developers of  Fallout and Skyrim.  Starfield was released in 2023 to surprisingly average reviews, in spite of which it's maintained its original price point of $89.99 CAD.  As such, I've been reluctant to purchase Starfield: if your game isn't doing well, why not bring the price down a bit to attract more users?

However, in this case, the stars aligned, and I discovered that Starfield was on sale for $53 CAD, which seemed a sign from the gaming gods that the time to buy had come.  Fifty dollars worth of gift cards and three dollars worth of Visa later, I was the happy owner of Starfield.

By and large, I don’t check game specs before I buy. I'm very aware that no game is ever going to say “Playable on a ten year old iMac running Bootcamp with a weird nonstandard video card”, so I cross my fingers and hope for the best, a philosophy which has been surprisingly successful. 

That being said, I assumed that there would be some combination of settings that would allow me to play Starfield on my system.  After all, Fallout 4 runs fine on the iMac, why would there not be a similar configuration option from the same developer?  So, I patiently downloaded the 124GB setup package, ran the installer, and launched the game.

Or tried to.  In their infinite wisdom, the good people at Bethesda created a list of video cards that they thought would be suitable for the game, which, apparently, does not include my card.  As such, the game would not even start without one of those cards, let alone offer me options that would accommodate my idiosyncratic setup. 

This is more than a little irritating.

As far as I know, Steam offers the option returning a purchase within 24 hours, but damn it, that’s not the solution I want.  All other considerations aside, I’m a bit embarrassed by the failure to launch -  having explained to my spouse just how pleased I was to finally be able to play the game and thanking her for making it possible, I'm reluctant to tell her that it's not going to work.  
 
While all of this is taking place, life goes on in the real world. Karli decides to order some stick-on lights to put in her closet and makes a selection on Amazon.  As the owner of our Prime account, I’m in charge of Amazon orders, so she sends me the link and I add the item to my cart.

I sit for a minute in thought before going to checkout, and then do a search on Amazon for Alienware, which I think of as the premier brand for PC gaming computers.  To my mild surprise, there are slightly older reconditioned Aurora R12* systems available for about $1200.**  A prudent check with Steam confirms that the system in question comes with a video card that will run Starfield, and I have about $600 worth of Amazon gift cards stacked up in my account to put toward a purchase.
 
So I buy one. 

The sellers offer a modest $12 Expedited Shipping option through which I can have the box in about three days rather than just over a week, and you know, in for a penny, so I select that.  The order goes through, and now we wait.
 
I’m fully aware of the irony of spending $600 (or $1200, depending on how you look at it) to play a game that I wouldn’t buy until it was on sale for $53, but but it's really more of a camel's back situation, and this was the proverbial straw. As it is, I don't regret my decision, and I'm looking forward to trying out some game purchases that I've been reluctant to install in case of similar performance problems.  

Bootcamp iMac, thank you for your service. 

- Sid

* The joke is that I upgraded to a new Mac Mini when I retired, leaving my iMac to run solely as my primary Windows platform - which it ran faster than the MacOS. Draw what conclusions you will.

** The R12 had an oddly brief lifespan.  It was originally released in March of 2021, but was almost immediately replaced by the R13, apparently due to changes in US energy efficiency regulations.  

** To provide some perspective, a current entry level Alienware gaming system from Dell would start at about $2500 CAD.

A Spider-Man Christmas.

And now, in a celebration of the spirit of the holidays, we take you to the Spider-Man Christmas Spectacular, and one Peter Parker, enjoying himself at Ben Grimm's annual Hanukkah party at the Fantastic Four's home in the Baxter Building.  

However, Peter's seasonal celebration is interrupted by a call from his Aunt May, who has booked a Christmas cruise, leaving Spider-Man on his own for the holiday season.  (This is sadly on brand, Peter is one of those people who would have no luck at all if it weren't for bad luck.)  

Peter, always gracious, tells May to have a great time and reassures her that he will be fine over the holidays on his own, but immediately tells the attentive Thing that he's leaving early, returning to his empty apartment and looking regretfully at a gift tagged May underneath his lonely Christmas tree.  With a sigh, he goes to bed.

The next morning, he's awakened by a phone call - it's an invitation to a Christmas party at the Impossible City, the Avengers' orbital headquarters, where he is swamped with holiday invitations as he mingles with the guests: Iron Man invites him to go skiing, the Vision suggests that he could spend the holiday break with him, Wanda, their son and his boyfriend, Thor wants him to come to Asgard for the Holy Day*, Hellcat is having a rager, Doctor Strange encourages him to come to the Dream Dimension, and so on. Overwhelmed with invitations, he thanks everyone and makes his exit.

Christmas Eve finds him on a Hell's Kitchen rooftop with Daredevil, preparing to sneak into an refugee center with a bag of gifts for homeless children. 

At this point, Peter has become a bit suspicious of all the attention, and ask Daredevil if he's one of his charity cases, to which Daredevil replies that maybe he's the one who didn't want to be alone on Christmas Eve, and that Spider-Man is the one being merciful.

Surprisingly, Christmas Day starts with Peter arriving at the New Orleans airport.  He's greeted by Wolverine, who drives them to a house in the bayou, where the X-Men are celebrating Christmas together.  They're welcomed by Rogue and Nightcrawler, and when Peter thanks Rogue for the invitation, she says that "...when Logan told us you were going to be all alone on Christmas, you know we couldn't have that." Peter turns to Logan and begins to ask "How did...?" but Logan dodges the question.

Gumbo is eaten, ugly sweaters are judged, gifts are exchanged, pie is eaten, and then the group moves outside for a game of baseball.  Isolated in the outfield, Peter finally pins Logan down as to how he knew that Peter was on his own.

As Peter talks to Logan, one of the younger X-Men interrupts with Peter's ringing cell phone.  It's Aunt May - her cruise has been cancelled due to mechanical problems, and she's back in New York.  Peter immediately drops everything, and begs for someone to fly, teleport or throw him back to Manhattan.

As it turns out, Gambit has a friend with a plane who owes him a favour, and Peter is able to spend the rest of Christmas Day with Aunt May, and then the New Year on her rescheduled cruise a week later. 

It's a charming little story, without a punch being thrown, and it points out the degree to which the superhero community is exactly that - a community, in which there are friendships and feuds, where people date, hang out, spend holidays together**, and which rallies together when one of their own is in need of a little seasonal love and support. 

As should we all.  Merry Christmas, everyone! The very best of the season to all, and to all, a good night.

- Sid

* One feels that there should be some kind of religious conflict of interest here, but Thor simply says that he doesn't pass up any noble holidays, and it's left at that.***  

** I assume that Hollywood works in a similar fashion. 

*** As it turns out, Jesus has a canonical existence in the Marvel Comics Universe - which makes sense, given that the Ghost Rider's origin story is that he made a deal with the Devil, and there's a character named Daimon Hellstrom who is the son of Satan.  Logically, if you include Hell and Satan in your worldview, then Heaven and God must also be part of the picture.

IYKYK.

 
Art by Cliff Chiang

The Red Knight returns.

- Sid