ultranaut

In case anyone is interested, the Shiftall FlipVR controllers are in fact a real product. I decided to take the risk and order a set, they arrived today. Since they are such a new product and it's hard to find any real world info on them I figured I would share my initial impressions here in case anyone else is interested in them.

Getting the controllers paired went smoothly and only took a minute (just make sure you install the driver). Figuring out how to actually put them on took a bit longer, adjusting the wrist strap especially was a little tricky because you need to push part of the material up to get it to feed through. Or maybe there's a trick to it I haven't figured out yet. Regardless, after a bit of struggle I got them dialed in and they are very comfortable. The weight of the controller is noticeable but its balanced well enough that I'm typing this review with them on and it's not been an impediment.

Flipping the controllers in and out of your hands is as fun as it looks. You can adjust how far the controller part extends and adjust its angle so getting it into the exact right spot for my hand was easy and it feels surprisingly natural. It really is a very clever design that feels right when you have your fingers on the controller.

Quality wise I would say they are good but not quite great. They feel well made but the trigger buttons are a little more soft and wiggly than I would like and detract from the the overall impression. If the controller part is at the wrong angle I find the lower trigger can sometimes pinch the skin of my middle finger a little. If there's a future revision, improving the feel of the triggers would be my top priority. There's also a seam on the bottom part that doesn't feel great if you run your finger over it but there's no reason to ever touch that part of the controller so its really just me nitpicking. Other than that I can't find anything else to complain about.

Overall, I'm impressed with the controllers. Despite looking ridiculous, or like the prop from a 1990s cyberpunk movie, a whole lot of thought clearly went into these things and they feel much better than I expected them to.

Kayak and Alyx at the Shiftall HQ with a pre-production MeganeX.

Never give the cops your phone.

For years, America’s most iconic gun-makers turned over sensitive personal information on hundreds of thousands of customers to political operatives.

Those operatives, in turn, secretly employed the details to rally firearm owners to elect pro-gun politicians running for Congress and the White House, a ProPublica investigation has found.

The clandestine sharing of gun buyers’ identities — without their knowledge and consent — marked a significant departure for an industry that has long prided itself on thwarting efforts to track who owns firearms in America.

At least 10 gun industry businesses, including Glock, Smith & Wesson, Remington, Marlin and Mossberg, handed over names, addresses and other private data to the gun industry’s chief lobbying group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The NSSF then entered the gun owners’ details into what would become a massive database.

https://www.propublica.org/article/gunmakers-owners-sensitive-personal-information-glock-remington-nssf

In November, Ohio residents will have an opportunity to vote on Issue 1, a constitutional amendment that would finally abolish the state’s extreme partisan gerrymandering. Voters will not, however, be informed of this fact on the ballot. Instead, the Ohio Supreme Court’s Republican majority ruled Monday that the amendment will be described in egregiously misleading terms on the ballot itself, with ultra-biased language designed to turn citizens against it. Incredibly, a proposal that would end gerrymandering will be framed as a proposal to require gerrymandering, a patently false representation of its intent and effect. The court’s 4–3 decision marks yet another effort to subvert democracy in Ohio by Republicans who fear that the citizenry—when given a voice on the matter—might dare to loosen their stranglehold on power.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/09/ohio-supreme-court-voter-fraud-gop.html