Matthew

It’s basically Deep Space Nine.

Telling on myself here, but my honest reaction when I first heard his name was "Junior? No? I thought Mookie Betts played in the 70s."

You coulda also told me he was a kid in Backyard Baseball and I wouldn't have blinked.

Retailers Dealing With Increasing Levels of Theft and Violence Report emphasizes importance of preventive measures, coordination with law enforcement

can't believe outlets are running moral-panic headlines again based on flimsy anecdata from the *same* trade group (the national retailer federation) and sponsored by the *same* anti-theft company (sensormatic) that had to retract this *same* "study" just two years ago for being bogus.

congratulations to the winner of Game 7: Emergent Narrative

That said, this is a VERY entertaining game, and my primal fear of Max Scherzer remains strong.

I'm interested in whichever World Series outcome makes Blue Jays fans tolerable when attending Mariners games.

Genuinely happy for people to be enthusiastic for a sporting event, but it's tiring when it turns unnecessarily into a national rivalry. 🙄

Relatedly: Canada, please get more MLB teams.

Nobel Peace Prize 2025 The Nobel Peace Prize 2025 was awarded to Maria Corina Machado "for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transi...

"Democracy – understood as the right to freely express one’s opinion, to cast one’s vote and to be represented in elective government – is the foundation of peace both within countries and between countries."

www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace...

100% this. 💯 I've been using the lens of "freedom from vs. freedom to" when analyzing situations recently, and I gotta tell you that "freedom from" is winning the vast majority of those internal debates.

I've started taking pictures of the tasks I've done. Then at the end of the day, I put them into a collage with the word "Nice." When my brain tells me I'm not doing anything, I can show it the nice folder. We'll see if I either tire of this or retrain my brain.

For magic and card trick fans, I can strongly recommend attending Harry Milas's The Unfair Advantage. The performance is equal parts autobiography, skill demonstration, magic trick, and discourse on attention. The intimacy of it (~30 in the audience) is really something.

www.unfairadvantage.show

Once, when traveling in Scotland, M and I were crossing to the Isle of Skye at Kylerhea and seeing signs both advising "look out for seals" and "visit the otter hide" AKA a place to watch otters. M suddenly broke into the voice: "Seal day, seal day, seal day! Watch the seals assault the otter hide!"

As a train convert and someone who parodies monster truck ads in private conversation, this speaks to me.

This is a charming offer. Before I take you up on it, let me assess if I actually don't have a mousepad. 👀

I wrote this post as a way of expressing surprise that I don't have seven mousepads in easy reach, which would have been the case in 2001. 😁

There's a moment in life, when a period where something is beyond abundant—like given away free in annoying quantities—is followed by a period where that doesn't happen anymore, and your out-of-the-blue need for that thing is confounded by...just not having one. 😤

In other news, I need a mousepad.

Val Kilmer as Chris Knight in Real Genius points at the door in Dr. Hathaway's house, and the subtitle reads "I'm gone. I'm history. I'm Casper."

😢

Attorney General Bonta Urgently Issues Consumer Alert for 23andMe Customers Californians have the right to direct the company to delete their genetic data OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued a consumer alert to customers of 23andMe, a genetic testing ...

23andMe users: It's time to bail. Download your reports and then delete your data.

oag.ca.gov/news/press-r...

We are proud to announce the formation of United Videogame Workers-CWA, a direct-join organization made of, by, and for workers of the video game industry!

Learn more and get involved: uvw-cwa.org

Sometimes it's only the hardship that brings cats to their senses.

Does this include songs that became hits for someone before they later achieving popularity for the original songwriter or intended artist? I'm thinking like Cyndi Lauper and Roy Orbison with "Drove All Night" or Huey Lewis and Bruce Hornsby with "Jacob's Ladder."

Half of recent US inflation due to high corporate profits, report finds Thinktank report says ‘resounding evidence’ shows companies continue to keep prices high even as their inflationary costs drop

Y'all ain't gonna believe this, but for-profit corporations are designed to make money not help people, and that includes their workers. Sounds wild, I know.

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

I'm looking to speak to game devs who were laid off or whose companies had layoffs in the last 12 months about the reasons their companies gave them for those layoffs. Would be for a piece on IGN. Please reach out via email or Signal (in bio) - can keep folks anon if desired.

Is AI Going To E-E-A-T Your Experience For Breakfast? The LinkedIn Example LinkedIn’s “collaborative articles” seem to be a perfect hit: content that combines authority, AI-generated content and user generated content. What could go wrong?

A reminder that when you contribute to LinkedIn's articles, you're actually training their AI (h/t @josiahw.bsky.social) www.searchenginejournal.com/is-ai-going-...

In the library, all the works by J.R.R. Tolkien are arranged elfabetically.

Ages old: "At the library I asked if they had the book where Pavlov's dog and Schrodinger's cat go on an adventure together. The librarian said the description rings a bell but they weren't sure if it was checked in or not."

Sure, so long as you have ad-free YouTube so it doesn't break up the last six hours of "Instrument of Surrender (10 hours mix)." Don't want to harsh your vibe.

Game Devs of Color GDC 2024 Scholarship is now open and taking applications! 🎉

If you're a POC in the industry or trying to break into the industry, I highly recommend submitting an application ✍ They also offer travel stipend this year so get to it!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

A Rant About “Technology” In an interesting and favorable notice of Changing Planes (which you can find elsewhere on the site, in Spanish and English), the Argentinean reviewer asserts that since Le Guin isn’t a hard science fiction writer, “technology is carefully avoided.” I stuck a footnote onto this in my translation of the article, and here is the footnote expanded — because this business is really getting my goat. ‘Hard’ SF is all about technology, and ‘soft’ SF doesn’t have any technology, right? And my books don’t have technology in them, because I am only interested in psychology and emotions and squashy stuff like that, right? Not right.

The folks over at the Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation are awesome. They made a new website and as a result, some content was removed. I sent an email to see if they could restore Le Guin’s “A Rant About ‘Technology’” — and they did!

Go read it: www.ursulakleguin.com/a-rant-about...

I feel you. Back when I was in retail, my scrobbles on Last.FM were a true cross-section of my interests, but once I got into game dev and started having heads-down time at the computer, the top spots were slowly taken over by things like Enya, Odesza, and WMD. "Focus music." 😁

I stand by it: I was only able to establish a career in digital games because my spouse shouldered the larger load the few years I spent being underpaid in QA. I could only do the same during her career switch years later because I lasted long enough to become a better-paid designer.

A photo, shot through a window screen, of a squirrel with its whole head stuffed inside a white decorative gourd on a porch, presumably feasting on the fleshy insides and not just trying it on for size.

GET IT, SQUIRREL