This is 100% Trump. He thinks this is a big foreign policy win that he can carry into the mid-terms.

Of course, ending the war means convincing Russia to back down from the fight that they started, and the US no ability to do that because Trump still keeps trying to treat Russia like a friend. So any pressure they put on them will be meaningless. Meanwhile any pressure they put on Ukraine will basically amount to “End the war on Russia’s terms, or fight it without our help”, which is just a choice between two equally terrible options.

OK, so the dude in the photo is a sociopathic rapist with God-tier mind control powers. The woman is a former victim of his.

It is, but it’s also an image that has very frequently been used to depict billionaires / the aristocracy / royalty, etc. See Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the Eaters from Ian Banks’ Consider Phlebas, Denethor in Return of the King (movie version), Baron Harkonnen in Dune, Dorian Grey, Parasite, Snow Piercer… I mean that’s random stuff flying off the top of my head, you could easily come up with many, many more. Basically name a piece of even vaguely egalitarian art and you’ll probably find an image of conspicuous consumption tied to the wealthy and powerful somewhere in there.

I think, contextually, it was clear what they were talking about, and I don’t think that conspicuous consumption can in any way be deemed a purely fascist imagery.

You can also argue that “parasites” has been used to refer to the poor and disabled, but I don’t think that should stop people from using it as a label for billionaires.

Ah, I see how you’re confused here. This image is actually from Marvel’s Very Mean Lady, in which David Tennant plays The Very Nice Man Who Never Did Anything Bad.

OP, have you, um… Actually watched the show?

My bad. Thanks for the correction.

He’s She’s talking specifically about the idea of embedding AI agents in operating systems, and allowing them to interact with the OS on the user’s behalf.

So if you think about something like Signal, the point is that as it leaves your device the message is encrypted, and only gets decrypted when it arrives on the device of the intended recipient. This should shut down most “Man in the middle” type of attacks. It’s like writing your letters in code so that if the FBI opens them, they can’t read any of it.

But when you add an AI agent in the OS, that’s like dictating your letter to an FBI agent, and then encrypting it. Kind of makes the encryption part pointless.

I hate it with every fibre of my being.

My wife is in the CAF. Her exact words were “I’ll go. Sign me the fuck up.”

After the war, Wotjek was moved to a zoo in Edinburgh. Several members of his former company moved there with him and visited regularly. There’s a statue to him now.

Gee I fucking wonder why?

Newpipe / Pipepipe and it’s variants can play in background and have a repeat function (playlist or individual video).

I caved and picked up Clair Obscur. It’s a genre that I’m really not a fan of, but it’s just so exceptionally well made that I’m thoroughly enjoying it anyway.

Aongside that, I’ve been playing Rogue Trader at last, after my wife has been bugging me to play it for over a year. It’s very, very good. Probably one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played. The degree to which your narrative choices matter is phenomenal. There are scenes in the tutorial that define the entire game. And it nails the setting.

Lastly, I picked up a founders pack for Soulframe. The only bad decision anyone made when working on this game was calling it Soulframe - it is in absolutely no way the “Fantasy Warframe” people are imagining. The designers say their big inspiration was Dragons Dogma. For me, I’d say the gameplay has a lot of the feel of Breath of the Wild. The combat is exceptionally tight. Easily one of the best combat systems I’ve ever played. There’s not a huge amount to do yet, but it’s early access, that’s understandable, and I think they absolutely made the right choice in nailing the feel of the game before worrying about how much of it there is.

For anyone not aware, this happens regularly, and has happened regularly for a long time. Recent events have made it seem more newsworthy, so mainstream press is reporting it like its a big fucking deal, but this kind of airspace testing has been standard Russian practice for a long time. Not saying it’s a good thing, but it doesn’t represent any kind of sudden escalation.

Fascinatingly, this number can’t even include Fortnite, since it’s not on Steam, and has got to be the elephant in the room in terms of play time going to older games. But that is something to keep in mind when you see stats like this. It’s not all “New releases failing.” A lot of it is “Games have a much longer lifespan now.”

Numbers wise, my top 3 were Helldivers 2, Warframe, and Vampire Survivors, all of which continued to receive content updates throughout 2025. These aren’t old games sitting on a shelf gathering dust that I went and unearthed. They’re in their prime. Warframe released a huge update specifically to coincide with the Game Awards, with a trailer featuring Werner Herzog. They’ve never been a bigger deal. Helldivers had their single biggest in-game event this year. I’ve also been spending a lot of time with Rogue Trader (just got a big patch) and Dark Tide (got two new classes and a lot of new maps added this year). Ready or Not and Insurgency also got content updates this year.

So, yeah, peeling people away from an existing title is a much slower process now. Games no longer land like a meteor. The real successes creep up.

This is not to say that there hasn’t been an absolute dearth of worthwhile content from the big studios. You’ll notice that every single thing I listed there is, by at least some definition, an indie game. Helldivers 2 has a big publisher in Sony, but Arrowhead were hardly a major or well known developer. Other than that, it’s all outside of the traditional publisher system. And that’s frankly a good and healthy thing. We’re seeing guys like Larian and Sandfall, Arrowhead, DE, Owlcat, Fat Shark, NetEase, Team Cherry, Super Giant, all just absolutely crushing it, and that’s genuinely fantastic news for the medium.

It’s weird how people look at the failures of Ubisoft and EA and act like this is a bad time to be a gamer. This is one of the best times there’s ever been to be a gamer. The medium hasn’t been this healthy since the glory days of the mid-nineties, and I say that as one of the old farts who grew up in those glory days. Sandfall made Clair Obscur with a team of 60, and it’s incredible. Owlcat made Rogue Trader for basically nothing in a shed and it’s one of the best RPGs you’ll ever play. Vampire Survivors had a budget of like three french fries and some pocket lint and it’s one of the most addictive gaming experiences ever. Balatro was like one guy and it absolutely blew up the world. The fact that we’re getting games this fucking good from outside of the big name publishers is genuinely amazing. I remember the mid 2000s when indie gaming was dead in a ditch, PC gaming was just nothing but console ports, and the only stuff we got was the endless drivel the major publishers shovelled out. Yeah, there were good releases sprinkled in there, but for the most part creativity and imagination were absolutely dead. Now we get stuff like Valheim, Stardew Valley, Project Zomboid, Space Marine 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Lethal Company, Among Us, Speed Freeks, Hardspace: Shipbreaker, Escape from Tarkov, Shadows of Doubt, Hades 2, Forever Winter… And yeah, some of that stuff is janky or buggy or messy, but it’s inventive and cool and slick and all of it is coming from outside of the big names.

I mean, Clair Obscur and Silksong both came out this year, and they’re fantastic.

But if we’re talking triple A stuff? Uh… Not a clue. I wanna say there was a Battlefield game?

If it helps, he doesn’t actually believe this, or care either way, he’s just extremely bribable.

It’s actually insane to think about what could have been accomplished with the capital investment that has collectively gone into generative AI, public ledger blockchain, and metaverse VR projects. IIRC its over a trillion dollars. There are credible plans for more or less ending world hunger for under ten billion. Yeah, those plans come with a ton of asterixes, but the point is, if that’s what ten gets you, imagine what you could do with a hundred billion? Now think about what a trillion could do. It’s honestly sickening.

There’s still a metaverse budget?

I’m aware. That’s not what I meant by “This is not a joke.”

Also the hint is that OP said they meant it as a joke. But, yeah, everything you said too.