SJ083: iPhone X wins and loses, iPhone SE 2, Linus Tech Tips, pundit punting, Castlevania, and more

This week, the crew of the Space Javelin managed to land the ship straight into a volcano we call Hell & Sebastian, as we pointed out on our Facebook page that the gang at Linus Tech Tips were playing the victim card in their dispute about an iMac Pro that they damaged. Our view -- which has been echoed by our colleagues at MacRumors, AppleInsider, iMore, and Daring Fireball among others -- elicited much response, pro and con, and we take a look at it in this week's episode.

Before all that, and much to HulkaMike's dismay, we have other rants to get to: a particularly bad pundit who claims that the iPhone X is dead, Consumer Reports' evaluation of the iPhone X and Samsung Galaxy S9, AT&T's crazy good deal that will never actually happen, professional guesstimators who can't even get their stories straight, and rumors that might be true (and some that are clearly off-base). Finally we vent our steam generator about the weakness of the LTT defender's arguments (hint: lack of expertise, shifting goalposts, straw men, and a lack of diversity in news sources ahoy!).

After all that, we finally find a few "good news" pieces to report on, including US banks coming to their senses on Apple Pay (et al), Castlevania on iOS and Susan Kare before we fire up the thrusters and blast back up into orbit. All this and more, cadets, so remember to don your flame-retardant uniforms this week -- teh stoopid, it burns!