There are multiple sources referenced to weave a new commentary about the relationship between video games and labor for both players and creators 🤷.

I fear Matthew Vaughn has just lost his grip on the humanity that so brilliantly balanced the silly stories he likes to tell. Stardust is one of my all-time favorite movies, and Kick-Ass, X-Men First Class, and Kingsman are some of the most entertaining blockbuster flicks available, where the action is satisfyingly contextualized through excellent character work.

But his last three movies just don’t have the right equation. From what I remember, Argyle started out really strongly but seriously devolved after the halfway point. I think he’s indulging too much in the overwrought spectacle that he first toed the line of at the end of the first Kingsman.

Lincoln was a great biopic. Hyperfocusing on one pivotal moment in the man’s illustrious life, and using the complexity of those circumstances to explore his intelligence and charisma from all angles was so much more effective than the whole-life-in-fast-forward approach so many other biopics follow.

Plus Daniel Day Lewis in peak form. Just an indescribably good performance.

Truly I wish that lawsuit the best. I still think the tone of the article is off, but certainly I may be guilty of the same.

Thanks for taking the time. Hard to keep from sinking too deep into despondency.

I get page not found 🤷

I may very well be wrong, happy to admit it. Do you know what laws are being broken?

So…to my untrained ears this sounds kind of dumb.

cybersecurity has always been about protecting computer systems more generally from any sort of misuse, no matter how the adversary might access them.

And misuse is defined the system’s owner, who in this case has given explicit permission to Musk. The whole article is predicated on the idea that Elon Musk…lied or put on a disguise or something. By any currently known measure, he’s allowed to be doing everything he’s doing because that’s what the current, duly-elected administration told him to do.

There was an image on the front page today of the everything-is-fine dog sitting among the flames saying “they can’t do this it’s illegal.” That seems apt for this article. America elected a fascist, and that fascist is openly tearing down all the informal rules and norms that we’ve always treated like laws.

Pretending like there’s a legal issue with a lot of what’s been happening is a distraction and waste of time that Democrats appear to be perfectly comfortable using as air cover to not exercise what little power they might have. I feel confident it will lead nowhere, and unless the people with power and influence who pretend to care figure out how to actually accomplish anything, we will just keep sinking.

I think the remake addresses these issues as well.

What’s truly bizarre and off-putting though is how this game switches between several different types of cutscenes, ranging from completely fleshed out and animated (those look great) over less well-animated (but serviceable), to nearly completely static (but still voiced)= cutscenes with barely any movement.

If I remember correctly, 0 might be the only game to do this. 0 was my first game too and I remember being taken back by this (the static scene talking to some guy in a car smoking a cigarette or something is what sticks out in my memory). It’s possible other games did this too and I just forgot, but I’m not sure.

As for 0 being a good starting point, I do disagree. Having played all of them, I think 0 would land better if it was played after 1, 2, and 3. Kiryu’s and especially Majima’s stories in 0 heavily reference things that occur or are at least revealed in 1 and 3.

I started with 0 and worked my way chronologically from there (with the remakes for 1 and 2), and 0 is my pick for best if the series. I think the thing to know about the real estate sub-game, and others of its ilk like the host club in the same game (I think), is that they are completely parallel, non-consequential, optional content.

I personally feel that you could go through every single Yakuza game playing only the main story and side stories without missing anything of value. I would frequently force myself to play batting cages or karaoke or dancing because fans talk a lot about that stuff, but there’s really very little there to compel your attention unless you enjoy it. You can totally skip all that.

You could probably also skip the side stories if you just want to follow the main path, but those I do think are more crucial to Yakuza’s experience and identity - the outrageously silly flip side of the coin to the main story’s soap-opera-esque melodrama.

Thanks DeepSeek.

Glad to see a publication pushing back on the recent asinine comments and behaviors from CI.

Disney’s creative integrity is dogshit. The MCU is overstuffed and meandering. I planned to be skeptical.

But goddammit if this trailer didn’t give me chills. Charlie Cox’s interpretation of Daredevil is quite possibly the best adapted superhero performance I’ve ever seen. I’d have watched this series beginning to end just to see him playing the part, but the tension, the action, the emotion, the score all worked in this trailer.

Despite my better wisdom I am fucking excited.

Does anyone know what is required viewing going into this? I watched She-Hulk but I think Daredevil was also in Echo or something? Anything else?

I’m new to this too, but the slide deck they have posted seems a good starting place.

The NGI is an initiative of the European Commission to fund “researchers, developers, startups, and SMEs” who are aligned with the “aim to shape the development and evolution of the Internet” according to the principles of:

• protecting personal data

• ensuring privacy and security

• combating disinformation

• guaranteeing access and freedom of choice

• respecting fundamental rights

• enforcing ethics and sustainability by design.

I’m a little less clear on what the 16 projects are (which are listed on slides 6 and 7), but I gather they might be specific objectives, defined by the NGI, within which their funding is categorized, e.g., if you’re doing research on democratizing search capabilities, that research would serve the NGI’s “Search” project and would qualify for funding.

I’m making a lot of assumptions but I’m reasonably confident in them.

Sorry, I meant that, having not played the game, I’m not sure how much observations like Curly’s inability to see the details are something the game tells you directly and how much is your interpretation. I guess I mostly meant that your framing of the story is really cool whether you’re just repeating the story beats as they’re given or mixing in a lot of your own analysis.

Thanks for writing this up, never heard of the game and this was really interesting. I’m not sure how much of your write-up is explicitly textual, but the analysis is really cool.

I only beat Animal Well’s “first layer”, but I was pretty addicted for that period. It’s really, really clever and satisfying.

Is that a Trump “Tim Apple” reference? I wouldn’t have even noticed if you hadn’t called it out.

A while ago, like mid-to-late aughts maybe, it was in vogue to joke about Ben Affleck being a shitty actor. I haven’t seen all his roles and granted I’m sure he’s had his duds, but the existence of the Dogma parking garage scene was always evidence enough to me that he had the chops.

I suspect he didn’t remember what it was and took a gamble on the reporter’s qualification that Johnson had voted against it and Trump opposed it, rather than sounding uninformed. Otherwise it’s just an extraordinarily stupid thing to admit in this situation.