The largest, most advanced rover NASA has sent to another world touched down on Mars Thursday, after a 203-day journey traversing 293 million miles (472 million kilometers). Confirmation of the successful touchdown was announced in mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California at 3:55 p.m. EST (12:55 p.m. PST).
Packed with groundbreaking technology, the Mars 2020 mission launched July 30, 2020, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Perseverance rover mission marks an ambitious first step in the effort to collect Mars samples and return them to Earth.
When io interactive released this year’s HITMAN (2016) sequel they also signed up for an exclusivity deal that locked the Windows version into the Epic Games Store. That’s fine, but unfortunately it also meant that HITMAN (2016) 3 (2021) players didn’t have an easy way to import their purchases of the previous games in the series from Steam into the new game. Finally, that’s been solved. Click this link to find out more.
Unfortunately the complete version of HITMAN (2016) 2 (2018) remains a completely ridiculous $100 purchase if you don’t own it already:
It’s a fantastic series, I loved HITMAN (2016) 2 (2018) but it ends up approaching being a very expensive series of games to own if you don’t own any on Windows already. The HITMAN (2016)Access Pass for HITMAN (2016) 3 (2020) is slightly more reasonable at $30 and has been free for Epic Game Store customers in the past. All told you could end up spending $190 on having the base $60 version of the third game, the complete $100 version of 2 (2018), and the gold $30 version of 1 (2016) if you own none of the games and missed getting HITMAN (2016) on sale.
HITMAN (2016) 2 (2018) was on sale for a discounted price for the first two weeks after HITMAN (2016) 3 (2021) was released, so I don’t doubt that some people felt pushed to buy that pass after the confusing launch when:
io interactive initially said that players would not need to re-buy the games:
..we are pleased to confirm that PC players will be able to carryover their current progression and unlocks from HITMAN 2 on Steam into HITMAN 3 on Epic Games Store. It will also be possible for PC players to import locations from the previous two games into HITMAN 3 on Epic Games Store. We want to make it a seamless process for our PC players to enjoy HITMAN 3 on a different PC platform and continue to enjoy the benefits of our World of Assassination.
Closer to the launch of HITMAN (2016) 3 (2021) io interactive said they had no way to make the old games available in 3 for Windows players who had bought them on Steam and instead announced various discounts and other schemes in their Pre-Launch Guide
We’ve done everything possible to make this process smooth and player-friendly. However, due to various circumstances out of our control, we want to acknowledge that the process is different to our initial plans for PC players. We also want to share some of the initiatives we’ve set-up to make sure that PC players the chance to keep enjoying the benefits of the World of Assassination.
Before finally changing their mind again and announcing this import process two days later in a tweet:
We are continuing to work on a solution with our partners to allow PC players who own HITMAN 1 or HITMAN 2 to import locations from those games at no additional cost.
We guarantee that players will NOT need to repurchase the games.
HITMAN (2016) 3 (2021) launched three days after that tweet, on January 20th, with those discounts ticking down and no clear path in sight for no-doubt confused players on Windows.
This new import process should give automatic refunds to players who bought HITMAN (2016) 2 (2018) content on the Epic Games Store before the import process was available, but at this time it does not.
I have sent a request to io interactive to ask if customers who bought those editions and owned the games on Steam will be refunded during the import process.
A lot of things about the internet are sad these days. With the internet people can find their kind of people and that is how you end up with good things like people who like mechanical keyboards developing their own keyboard projects but you also get groups of white supremacists organizing to storm the U.S. Capitol or people spreading lies about elections to lead up to that kind of action. One good thing on the internet is Radio Garden, a website that aggregates internet-accessible real-world radio stations from around the globe onto a virtual globe directory that you can click through to listen to any of them by clicking on the station’s general physical location.
Maybe the only downside is that the Radio Garden has dynamic ads inserted before the remote radio station starts playing. It was jarring when I tuned into this station depicted above in Germany only to hear a Verizon ad in English clearly targeted at U.S. customers.
The mobile version of Radio Garden has one In-App Purchase to remove ads, but it’s only for removing interstitial ad graphics and not the audio ads. Unfortunately the app says the Radio Garden developers have no control over the audio ads. So, unfortunately the internet also let ad publishers and agencies get together for enhanced advertising. Which is why Facebook is now advertising to me and interrupting this German radio station to tell me how their ad programs are safe and definitely not completelyevil.
The developers behind a previous Hello keyboard that went wrong for various reasons are working on a new iteration in the same spirit. This is the Hello, again inspired by the classic Apple M0110 keyboard layout.
Find out more about their project at this link. It’s currently in “interest check” status where people who are interested can submit feedback before Hello, again goes into the group buy phase.
A lot of things about the internet are sad these days. With the internet people can find their kind of people and that is how you end up with good things like people who like mechanical keyboards developing their own keyboard projects but you also get groups of white supremacists organizing to storm the U.S. Capitol or people spreading lies about elections to lead up to that kind of action. One good thing on the internet is 