These are some really intriguing products. The killer thing that Valve have done is on the software side with SteamOS and Proton.

A couple more photos from Uluwatu.

I really enjoyed Padang Padang. It's a gorgeous beach.

Somewhat interesting side note about all the beaches around here: none of them are free. You usually need to pay around 20,000 per person (~$2 AUD). Obviously this is nothing in terms of cost but it's something that differs to the Canggu beaches.

The AFL will introduce a wildcard round in 2026, giving teams that finish as low as 10th on the ladder after the home-and-away season a chance to win the flag.

The wildcard round would mean the team that finishes seventh on the ladder in the home-and-away season would play the team that finished 10th, and the team that finished eighth would play the ninth-placed team.

It would add intrigue to where clubs finish inside the top eight, too, as the top six would be rewarded with the week’s break, while teams finishing seventh and eighth would earn a hosting rights in the wildcard round.

The winners would then advance to play elimination finals under the same final eight system as has been in place since 2000.

Why do we need this? I really don't think this is a good idea.

I guess it's nice that there's no longer that weird week break anymore between regular season and finals. Channel 7 will be happy.

You'd think this eliminates any hopes for a Bulldogs like run in 2016 again if you have to play a whole extra finals game.

This game can't come out soon enough. December 4th come at me.

I've been watching a bunch of old Ashes footage this week from the early 2000s.

There really is so much nostalgia: channel 9, the commentary, the scorebug and graphics. It reminds me of being on summer holidays in Inverloch.

The players too - this Australian team was just completely dominate. Australia A might have beaten this English team.

I then watched the documentary from the 2005 Ashes and it was a reminder of how fantastic that series was.

I have a new page on my blog at /recordings.

This is the space for my long talked about project recreate game music.

I'm using my LPK25 MKII 25-key Keyboard Controller to record directly into Logic Pro.

I use MuseScore to find sheet music which I can export as MIDI and then import into Logic Pro. This then allows me to have one track as a reference where I view the MIDI in the score editor and then record to another track.

Once the audio is recorded to a standard I want I do a tiny bit of quantising and then export it out.

It was a bit finicky to set things up the way I wanted in Logic Pro as when I'd record I wanted to view the reference material. However, what would happen by default is that my recorded MIDI would render on top of the reference material which was very annoying. With some ChatGPT usage and just trying a few different settings I got it sorted.

You can see the setup below.

The key settings I had to turn off were:

• Make a duplicate software instrument track with duplicate settings
• Ensure the Link icon on both of the tracks in the score editor is turned off
• Make sure that "View" > "Explode Folders" is toggled off in the score editor

Once I did this I could go to my track, hit record and everything worked correctly.

A couple of random pictures from this week.

Game 7 had some cracking highlights. This has to go down as one of the best World Series of all time.

I started the game just before we came to Bali and finished it today.

What a remarkable experience. One of the best games I've ever played. A true piece of art.

I hope we do meet again on the road ahead Team Cherry! Thanks for making such a fantastic game.

I have a number of reviews and thoughts on the game.

We're arrived in Uluwatu today which means new scooter day. I've been driving a Honda Vario for 2 months and whilst it's a nice little scooter it's not too powerful especially with 2 people on the bike.

Today I've upgraded to Yamaha NMAX which is a slightly more powerful and larger bike than the Vario. It feels like a nicer more high quality bike; from the brakes being a lot stiffer to the suspension actually doing something compared to the Vario.

I've loved driving scooters so much in Bali that I'm considering getting a motorbike license when I get back to Australia. There is nothing like cruising along a beautiful driving road with the wind in your face; especially when it's warm everyday like it is in Bali. The Top Gear guys were on to something.

Having a full motorbike license is beneficial when travelling for a few reasons:

1. I'm fully insured and covered if anything (touch wood) happens
2. Me and Emma would love to go to Italy or France one day and having a scooter there would be an awesome way to get around the country side
3. It's a cheap second vehicle which on the odd occasion we do need back home

One final photo dump from Ubud.

We did the Campuhan Ridge Walk on a humid Wednesday afternoon. It was a short hike but a nice little hour or so spent outside. The temple at the start of the walk is really cool.

On Friday evening we had a tour of the Mount Batur black lava area. It was really peaceful (we were the only people there) watching the sun go down. It was kind of wild being so close to an active volcano.

Ubud had a wet afternoon.

I added cover art to my games page today and I have to say I'm rather happy with how it turned out.

I'd like to think someone will look at all this stuff one day and find it interesting.

I agree with Gruber's takes here. I gave it a demo and it wasn't a great experience. Maybe it works for some people though.

On the weekend we rode the scooter up to the Kintamani region. We took some beautiful photos of Mount Batur, went to some hot springs and had a nice lunch overlooking the mountain.

This morning when me and Emma were getting coffee there was a fair bit of commotion around our villa. It turned out it was a festival day for the village and many locals were gathering.

What was a bit sad and confronting was that the locals were engaging in cock fighting. There were maybe 20+ chickens either being held by a man or stuffed into a bag in the area. There was a small cage and the 2 chickens at a time were stuffed in and had a fight... I guess?

It was quite sad seeing how distressed the chickens were and there was a lot of blood all over the ground.

Cool that we witnessed a local tradition but also sad seeing the animal cruelty. I didn't take any photos.

I listened to this episode of Syntax and gave Zed a quick try (after updating) in the last 20 minutes. I've improved a lot since I last used it. I feel like this is pretty much usable out of the box for the large majority of the projects I work on. Could be something I use for work next week just as an experiment.

This combo of Jason Day and the Bryon Bros is so good. Once again Bryan Bros produce fantastic golf content.

The whole story of the Silksong's release is fascinating from a business perspective.

Here's a collection of photos from the past weekend in Ubud. I'm going to do a bit of a dump.

We went to:

• Pyramids of Chi for an excellent Yin Yoga session, it was really mindful and relaxing doing some stretches and listening to the sounds of the farm animals and running water around the property
• Jungle Fish, one of the best day clubs we've been to, I had a really nice lunch (duck) and the view/pool experience was outstanding, it also wasn't too far from where we're staying
• A temple to have our most spiritual experience of the trip, we had a Melukat (cleansing ritual) where we went to a temple and (with an english speaking guide and a local priest) did some meditating and praying, before being cleansed by holy water, this was basically having a bucket of water tipped onto your head, we then had a massage, we did all of this at Plataran Ubud
• Cretya and went for a quick swim before having breakfast, it was nice and quiet so we could take some cool photos in the pool with the rice fields in the background
• Tegallalang Rice Terrace, just an absolutely stunning place, some of the coolest natural sights I've ever seen
• Waroeng Bernadette, the best Indonesian food we've had on the trip so far, the Rendang was absolutely banging