Nuclear Monster

  • Cherry claims to be the oldest company making keyboards. They invented the MX keyboard switch standard that the majority of mechanical keyboard switches are based on, and have been producing computer keyboards in Germany since 1973.  Three days ago Cherry announced they’re ending production in Germany and moving it to China:

    “The restructuring concept includes, among other measures, the complete discontinuation of switch production at the Auerbach site and its transfer to a partner in China. In this context, jobs will also be reduced in a socially responsible manner in consultation with the works council. The Auerbach site will be retained and is to be transformed into a development, logistics, and service hub for Europe.”

    Absolute tragedy for those workers who will lose their jobs there and the end of a legendary production line.

  • Panic announced today a new set of 12 games coming in the second season of them for their little yellow handheld console called the Playdate.

    If you remember, when the Playdate launched in 2022 it included 24 games in what Panic called Season One. With that season you could either get two games from the 24 every week or have them all available at once. Anyone who got the handheld afterwards could make the same choice. Panic wants to do something similar for this second season of 12 games.

    We only get a little bit of information about the new season of games, but I am really curious about Fulcrum Defender from Subset Games who also developed FTL and Into The Breach. Fulcrum Defender looks like an arcady good time.

    Panic also hinted at more from whatever Blippo+ is during the announcement video for Playdate Season 2.

  • This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for a few years, as I’ve grown more dissatisfied with Duolingo. Then a friend posted that they ran out of hearts during a lesson, the only way forward was to subscribe, causing them to lose their hard-earned streak, and they’re quitting.

    I’ve been using Duolingo to learn German on and off for over a decade now. A few years ago when the pandemic started* I made Duolingo part of a routine that I’ve been streaming most days on Twitch. My streak is now at 1768 days.

    When Duolingo first started over a decade ago, it was a language learning business with a focus on free education and courses made by people. Even today the three most important words on the Duolingo homepage when you’re logged out are “free. fun. effective” This mantra is repeated a few times on the page.

    Over time the name Duolingo has become synonymous with language learning, but I believe it has now gone too far into a focus on profits, and away from their original goals. I’ll spell out a few reasons why.

    Duolingo’s entire game and marketing focus on streaks of daily learning can help form a good habit, but losing a streak for unavoidable reasons is why some people stop learning. People have to be encouraged to not let losing the streak end learning.

    Learning doesn’t happen without mistakes and Duolingo now makes it more difficult to learn without a subscription. Duolingo has long had “hearts” that you lose like a video game character’s health when you make a mistake. The change now is that users can’t earn more hearts by practicing their target language.

    When you make a mistake and run out of hearts, Duolingo makes this experience frustrating and robs users of fun by forcing them to give up progress on a lesson and start over, or subscribe to Duolingo for unlimited hearts.

    I believe this is the worst part of the modern Duolingo experience for free users, but there are plenty of other annoying details of the modern version of Duolingo.

    Even if you have been a Super Duolingo subscriber, they are now pushing Plus subscribers to use modern AI slop at another, more expensive subscription tier, Duolingo Max. I subscribe to the Super Duolingo family plan for $120 a year which is a lot for us, but somehow isn’t enough for Duolingo. The company has become extremely pushy to get subscribers to upgrade to their $240 Duolingo Max subscription for families. Buttons are being replaced on the primary menu for Duolingo to buttons that have no function for Super Duolingo users, they just launch into ads for Duolingo Max.

    Duolingo got rid of their built-in forums for each lesson that let users help other users ask questions and understand tricky bits of their target language. One of the features of Duolingo Max is an AI slop explanation for why your answer to a Duolingo lesson was wrong. Here the Duolingo company has exchanged real answers from real people for slop answers that are helping to incinerate our planet through thermally inefficient computing resources at a higher cost.

    The web version of Duolingo gives users far fewer experience points while still pushing people to compete on the same leaderboards with iOS and Android Duolingo app users who receive far more experience points for the same lessons. When I look at my next lesson on the Duolingo website, it is offering me 10 experience points, the same lesson on the mobile app is offering 35.

    At the start of 2024 Duolingo fired about 10% of their workforce in order to focus on AI. I’ve seen reports that they’ve also cut their support team down to just one full-time worker though they may have some contractors supporting that role.

    There are good things that Duolingo has done. The mostly adorable characters that act out and speak in the lessons are extremely helpful for some types of lessons. Duolingo recently added music and math lessons that could be very valuable. They haven’t started to crack down yet on people sharing their family accounts with others outside of their households like so many other companies have. However, I have moved more of my language learning to other tools and resources.

    Especially for learning German, I’ve found that I am more effective at learning when I hear real voices instead of text-to-speech generated voices and especially when I can see actual human faces speaking the words I’m having the most difficulty pronouncing.

    For all of these reasons, but especially because I see Duolingo having diverged so much from their core values of “free. fun. effective.” at this point I don’t value Duolingo as much in 2025 as I now value tools like Seedlang that use real people in video lessons giving me a more effective experience in learning German. When I meet people who are interested in learning a language I’m also much less likely to recommend Duolingo to them because I know how easy it is to lose a streak for free users, get disappointed, and give up learning entirely just like my friend’s post that caused me to write this.

    It is extremely unfortunate that Duolingo have squandered their success. I hope that the company changes, there is still a great deal of value in a gamified learning experience with cute characters that rewards learning at your own pace. They could even eliminate the free tier and just require a subscription after a certain amount of progress in a course. In my opinion that would at least be a more honest experience than frustrating users with broken streaks and lost hearts. What kind of a teacher puts these roadblocks in the path of learning? Not a very good one.

    *Did you know that tens of thousands of people are still dying of COVID every year? It’d be good if you continued to mask up and avoid spreading this disease.

  • The June launch for the Nintendo Switch 2 that was rumored has been confirmed by today’s Nintendo Switch 2 Direct along with a heap of games and accessories, and a $450 price tag alongside more expensive games.

    Some standouts from the video for me were:

    A new From Software game that had me thinking it was somehow within their Bloodborne Remastered universe, but no, it’s The Duskbloods which I’ve got to say is an odd naming choice and is also oddly a multiplayer-focused pve/pvp game. Due out 2026, with only Nintendo Switch 2 as the confirmed platform. The Duskbloods video trailer is over here and the trailer is sick as hell. From Software sure are into blood. Who knew?

    The Switch 2’s mouse mode looks good, but the game they chose to show it off, Drag x Drive, looks like a demo though the wheelchair basketball representation is good. I look forward to hearing about vicious back-alley DxD battles. Still, there was no mousepad or other accessory to make it easier to use. You know there will be a ton of them designed for the couch by third-parties.

    The in-game voice/video chat and screen sharing features of the Switch 2 look impressive, and the videos of these features looked like they included realisitic demonstrations (low framerates for the gameplay video) will Nintendo screw it somehow?

    That nvidia is providing the system on a chip again is a little surprising given the incredible security foul-ups with the first hardware revision of the Nintendo Switch that allowed for the system to be jailbroken supposedly easily. Still, it got Nintendo higher framerates and more functionality in a low power environment. You’ve got to imagine Nintendo isn’t happy about the cooling system in the dock, but maybe they got a sweet deal on the silicon.

    The lack of an OLED or Mini LED panel in the Switch 2 at this $450 price point is extremely disappointing from my perspective as a writer and video games enjoyer, but may make sense if Nintendo need to achieve a certain amount of volume on the production for the hardware before a revision where the fundamentals are cheaper and they have enough headroom to add a second variation with the upgraded display. Who knows.

    Mario Kart World’s open-world gameplay looks like it could actually be a fun addition to Mario Kart, why not get a little Forza Horizon in your Mario Kart?

    Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games and DLC upgrade packs look like a mediocre solution to the problem of charging for higher resolutions and frame-rates. All you get with Breath of the Wild besides those graphical upgrades is a journal app on your phone? I see now why Nintendo was doing whatever they could to shut down Switch emulation.

    The Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour game looks like it should be free, like the delightful Astro’s Playroom is on the Playstation 5, but it’ll probably be under 10 bucks.

    Nothing today gave me any more trust in Nintendo’s eShop for the Switch and I am very suspicious of the longevity of this service. Will it still be up in ten or twenty years? How much of the games are on the new red Nintendo Switch 2 cartridges?

    Things are looking like they could get real bad for anyone who isn’t a billionaire and enjoys things like food and shelter. Who is feeling great about spending on a new console and games in this situation?

    Pre-orders from some retailers are already live, hopefully Nintendo made enough that there won’t be any price-gouging.

  • In my mind there are basically three different variations of Tetris that are the most important. The original for DOS and the Elektronika 60. The Game Boy version that so many people fell in love with. And Tetris: Effect, the modern re-beautification. Plenty of other great variations like Puyo Puyo Tetris, and wonderful rom hacks like Rosy Retrospection exist, but one that has been a little difficult to come by is Arika’s Tetris: The Grand Master and was previously only available in the west through imports or through Hamster’s Arcade Archives for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.

    The good news is that Arika is giving us the gift of Tetris: The Grand Master 4 – Absolute Eye on Steam for Windows on April 3rd. It’ll be $35 USD or 3,900 JPY. Here’s a trailer up on YouTube.