Monday, June 30, 2025

Tech: Nintendo Switch 2 review

The first Nintendo Switch was a "bet the company" moment.  After the failure of the Wii U, Nintendo risked combining its portable and home console lines into one expensive, do-it-all hybrid machine.  Fortunately, the gamble paid off, and the Switch became one of the top 3 bestselling consoles of all time.

The Switch 2 is a gamble of a different sort.  Unlike Nintendo's previous consoles, which introduced new controllers, new features, and even all-new layouts (the DS), the Switch 2 is a straightforward sequel that gives you more of everything you loved and hated about the old Switch, at an even higher asking price ($450).  Is it worth the coin?


Like with most things, it depends on what you want.  The Switch 2 is a generational leap in power over the Switch; it's as fast or faster than a PS4, plus it supports Nvidia's DLSS upscaling.  The upshot is that the system can actually play current-generation games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Split Fiction, albeit with lower framerates and fewer effects than the PS5 and Series X. This was simply not the case back when the original Switch launched in 2017.

However, if you already have those consoles (or a high-powered PC) and you don't need the versatility of a portable system, the Switch 2 makes much less sense. Then the only attraction of the system is the ability to play Nintendo's exclusive first-party games. While that's nothing to sneeze at, given that the big "N" is the home of Mario, Zelda, and Metroid, it's a big investment for a system that you might ultimately end up playing four or five (great) games on.

Thursday, June 19, 2025

Books: Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments that Redeemed America


For Juneteenth this year, I read Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments that Redeemed America by Douglas Egerton.  The book is an epic and exhaustive look at the men of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry and 5th Massachusetts Cavalry, some of the Union's first African-American regiments, whose service paved the way for thousands of black soldiers in the fight to end slavery.


Most probably know about the 54th Massachusetts from the classic 1989 film Glory, but nearly all the black men in that movie (including main characters played by Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman) were composites or totally fictional.  Thunder at the Gates explores the real history using hundreds of primary sources, and it's more fascinating than anything a screenwriter could put together. You'll meet the multilingual world traveler Nicholas Said, the sons of famous freedman and author Frederick Douglass, and many more interesting men, in campaigns that stretch far beyond the Battle of Fort Wagner that served as the climax to the film.

Egerton does a great job of portraying the complex racial and political attitudes of the time - not only the internal divisions of the Union (which of course included border states where slavery was still legal) but among the abolitionists themselves (the desire to end slavery did not necessarily entail an egalitarian view of race relations). It's a little much for a casual reader (the constant asides and quotes make for a meandering narrative), but it's a comprehensive account of a pivotal moment in American history.