Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024 is done and dusted for another year, but it's certainly kicked off this year's Gamescom with a bang - and we've got all the news, trailers and announcements right here in one handy summary. Whether you missed the show itself or just want a handy reminder of everything announced at Gamescom Opening Night Live this year, read on below.
Of course, alongside the main show, this year's ONL also had a 30-minute pre-show that was stuffed with announcements as well, which we'll quickly run through here before getting into the detail of the main show announcements below. Here, we got new trailers for Dave the Diver's latest crossovers, spooky co-op adventure Begone Beast and construction sim Roadcraft, alongside Italian Soulslike Enotria: The Last Song, Cairn (that shouty, but lovely looking climbing game from Summer Game Fest), life sim Inzoi from PUBG publishers Krafton, as well as a Terry showcase for Street Fighter 6.
Tonight brings a first look at the next game in the legendary Batman: Arkham series - the upcoming entry coming to Meta Quest 3.
Batman: Arkham Shadow is a prequel story set before Rocksteady's Arkham Asylum, though after existing prequel entry Arkham Oranges.
In first-person, you'll be able to do many of the things you could in those entries - including boshing your enemies in the face with your fists, grappling across gaps and using various other bat-gadgets, plus switching on Detective Vision.
Dying Light developer Techland has shown off a new game in its zombie series that began life as a DLC for Dying Light 2 Stay Human.
Announced during Gamescom Opening Night Live, Dying Light: The Beast is a solo or four-player co-op experience pitched as a "tight" 18-hour ride through a fresh area of the franchise's world.
Dying Light protagonist Kyle Crane, once again voiced by Roger Craig Smith, returns here, a decade on. In-game, Crane has been in captivity, and experimented on. The upside? You have zombie DNA powers to unleash that beast on enemies.
Sony is pulling Horizon Forbidden West from its PS Plus subscription service in the coming weeks.
The first-party Sony game is now listed under the 'Last Chance to Play' section on PS Plus, along with the likes of NieR Replicant, Marvel's Midnight Suns and Alien Isolation.
The creator of the now-defunct Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 mod, H2M, has opened up about what happened when Activision slapped the mod with a cease and desist, admitting, "the past couple of days have not gone to plan".
nDreams, the developer behind one of my all-time favourite VR titles, Synapse, has announced a new shooter game called Vendetta Forever during this week's VR Games Showcase.
If that wasn't cause for celebration enough, nDreams also released a short, Quest-exclusive demo for the game that I played through for this week's episode of VR Corner. In the video, you can see me play the Quest 3 version, but it will also be available on the Quest Pro, Quest 2 and the PS VR2 at some point in October.
So what is Vendetta Forever? Well the easiest way to describe it is a mash-up of Superhot and Pistol Whip, with some of the best aspects of both games cherry-picked and given a little twist to make them feel fresh and unique. The monochromatic-but-not-quite visuals are definitely more Pistol Whip-y, but the title screen is just full of those iconic Superhot reds, whites and blacks. Then there's the main menu, which is almost a carbon copy of Pistol Whip's, with mutator and level select options, alongside online leaderboards and a nice little shooting gallery area which is something Pistol Whip does lack.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered mod, H2M, has been cancelled following a cease and desist demand from Activision.
Although the mod - which upgraded Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer mode - was announced over a year ago, the cease and desist arrived yesterday, a day before the mod was scheduled to be released later today.
"Today, our team members received a Cease & Desist order on behalf of Activision Publishing in relation to the H2M-Mod project," the team explained on Twitter/X.
Back in June, developer IO Interactiverevealed it was resurrecting and reworking Hitman 3's VR mode, first released for PSVR in 2021, exclusively for Meta Quest 3 - and the studio has now shared first gameplay, showcasing this Reloaded edition's various enhancements.
On a basic level, Hitman 3 VR: Reloaded is the same game that earned itself a Eurogamer Recommended badge back in the day, meaning players can don goggles and immersively sneak through likes of Dubai, Dartmoor, Berlin, Chongqing, and Mendoza.
However, Reloaded - which is being developed with XR Games - is more than just a straight port of Hitman 3 VR's scrappy but enjoyable previous release. It also introduces a new flat-shaded artstyle, more "fluid and natural" movement options, an overhauled UI, and - perhaps most notably - dual-wielding, so players can use a different weapon or item in each hand.
I jumped into blogging back towards the end of 2006 when the popularity of the medium was, if not at its peak, certainly close to it… though some where saying it was already past its prime by then.
We were probably long beyond the point where having a blog made you special in any way, and getting past where blogging about a topic might get you a career move or a book deal. I meanJulia & Julie was already a book (and later a movie) before I started blogging (though that was a blog on Salon, so perhaps not representative of the medium), as was that one about the life of being a waiter and a few others.
And while blogging being a more common practice makes it harder to be noticed and called out as special, it didn’t mean the medium was dead. And I wasn’t looking for a career move out of blogging in any case. As documented, I already managed that with a BBS back in the early 90s and by the time I started a blog I had a career and a position that paid better than any equivalent in video games… plus a family and a mortgage that would be difficult to sustain had I any talent in video game development.
So the medium was perhaps dead by the time I started in the sense of being an easy way to be discovered as a stepping stone to something else, though that was not entirely uncommon for some time after I started.
Still, it was a heady time. There were lots of blogs around no matter what topic you were delving into and more showed up every day. I jumped into the MMORPG sub-genre zone, the state of which was immortalized by Michael Zenke as he took the 2007 XKCD online communities graphic and made a little map of our corner of the blogosphere. Look at us.
The community of old
Some of those site persist. Heartless still posts and Raph still keeps his blog going. A few still stand, like Kill Ten Rats and Terra Nova, but get no updates. Others are around, but on different mediums. Lum, perhaps the ur MMO blogger, left behind the many iterations of Broken Toys and now has a substack or something like it… I don’t know, Substack had a nazi problem at one point and I don’t remember where he landed… while Damion Schubert of Zen of Design mostly trolls people on Twitter with bad opinions about Star Wars.
More though are just memories, shadows on the Internet Archive. Long was the reach of VirginWorlds and its podcast at one time, but now the site stands no more.
During that era being an MMO blogger of any quality and sufficient quantity could push you into the belief that you might actual be relevant that to the genre, that your opinions might matter. They didn’t, but community managers, always looking for some way to escape the inbred echo chamber that official forums tend to become, seemed keen to pay bloggers some attention now and then if only to break up the perpetual complaining of their site regulars.
Brent from VirginWorlds got a card
People could afford to be picky. You could take a stand, take a side, champion a cause or a very narrow point of view and get a following. I got kicked out of the EVE Blog Pack for not being sufficiently devoted to the topic. (Also, JFC there is a kind comment from Gevlon on the post at that link. That belongs in a museum!) Dedicated WoW bloggers would not talk to me because I wrote about other games. We argued with each other. SynCaine and I used to have at each other in what became known as the Friday Blog wars. I was nearly part of a holy war because I was insufficiently effusive about Warhammer Online, only to have most everybody dump the title and walk away a couple months later.
It was a happy and chaotic time and, not coincidentally, the peak era for Google Reader, the handy, easy to use, free RSS feed reader that Google killed in 2013 because they wanted everybody to use Google+ instead… and then Google+ was so flawed that they killed that too.
Sure, new venues show up. There were podcasts, and for a while podcasters were all the rage, taking the limelight from all but the most famous bloggers. And then there was Facebook and YouTube and Twitter to contend with, and even Tumblr seemed to be a thing… until Verizon bought that and screwed it up.
XKCD, again on the pulse of the internet, had a comic about that too!
But all of those got along pretty well. I appeared on quite a few podcasts, syndicated my blog feed to Facebook, made some YouTube videos, and even did things on Tumblr. I just got my 11 year badge on my Tumblr account in June.
Then came Twitch, and I kind of want to blame the demise of blogs on that. Certainly if we look at the annual page views for my blog for all the full years from 2007 to 2023, things start to go down hill not too long after Twitch becomes a thing in 2011.
Page view for TAGN by year
I mean look at that line. It feels like the body blow of Twitch and the demise of Google Reader conspired against me, to mix a metaphor.
And I am especially prickly about Twitch because it now dominates the attention of community managers, still keen to escape their self contained forum hell and whatever sub-reddits they are being assailed from. The peak of my ire remains the EVE Vegas 2018 where I gave a presentation about the EVE Online blogging community and the value of the written word in recording the vibrant history of the game… and they put my presentation up against the Stream Fleet broadcast, which meant about six people sat and tolerated my plea… honestly, I should have bought them all a cocktail for enduring me… while literally everybody else, all CCP team members included, went to the Twitch event.
My sole recorded contribution to the discourse is this meme.
Highlight of my Presentation
Okay, there were a few more people than that. But still, as a metaphor for the state of blogging in the eyes of the community team it was unparalleled in its poignancy.
And that is certainly one way to look at things. The written word out maneuvered by a bunch of shallow attention seekers like Asmongold, who probably couldn’t string together three coherent sentences about a day at the zoo without checking to see which animals were trending and should be featured in his latest tirade against the people who dumbed down zoos so that they are no fun anymore.
Or, you know… maybe it is my topic of choice.
I mean, if you look at the arc of my so-called popularity, it might very well describe the ascendancy of MMORPGs and their eventual fall from the top of the food chain.
I mean, WoW hasn’t been on fire since the run up to Cataclysm and has felt the pinch of declining subscribers since Warlords of Draenor, which is when the panic really set in down in Anaheim. Star Wars: The Old Republic was in some ways the last gasp attempt to get an old school subscription model expansions and so on MMORPG off the ground… and it had to go free to play.
If you go look at EVE Offline, the site that tracks the New Eden online user count and has done so for ages now, you will see that the peak of online concurrence was in May of 2013, when 65,303 accounts were logged into the game. That was before free to play, the peak of EVE Online’s paid popularity.
Maybe in my pursuit of the same topic over and over again for 18 years I have ended up in an internet backwater, no longer of interest to any sort of mainstream audience. Maybe it is merely MMO blogging that is dead.
Or maybe it is the written word, or the long form written word that has fallen out of favor… not that I would call what I do “long form” in a world where Stephen King exists. Magazines are dead, newspapers are dead, books are not dead but not as popular, and we like to get our daily doses of news and gossip in the short little squirts of social media.
Maybe it is the words… or the quantity of words? Maybe I would be more popular if I just kept to 140 or 280 or 500 or however many words are the limit of the modern attention span.
Should I eschew words and just do pictures? Take the ultimate path against the trend against reading?
No, that can’t be it. I literally have another blog that is just pictures and it isn’t even a tenth as popular as this, my bloviation platform. Though, then again, it is pictures from an MMO… a pretty, spaceship MMO, but an MMO all the same and those aren’t so popular any more as noted above.
Of course, the real question at the heart of this is not whether or not blogging is dead, but whether or not it matters.
I have said on a number of occasions that I would keep doing what I am doing, cranking out an excess of words on the trivial or obscure twists of fate and business in a niche sub-genre of the PC gaming market even if I had no readers.
I am not sure that is 100% true. Zero readers might be too much quiet. But I’ve kept going at the same pace… hell, an increased pace if words per post are any measure… even as readership has declined. For a brief peak period I could count on as many as 2,500 page views in a day on a regular basis. Now I’m happy if the number breaks 500, and I suspect that I would continue to cater to an audience that added up to just 100 page views a day, even if most of them were comment bots.
The writing isn’t the joy… the writing is work and I often stare at my drafts folder and say, “Nah, not ready to finish that one. That one is for another day… or maybe never.” Then suddenly something will come up and I will be inspired and I will crank out 500 or a thousand words in a quick burst of energy, a flurry of words and typos flooding the screen, and I will press the Publish button and off it will go, another post done.
And there is the pleasure, the having written. The ability to go back and filter through what happened a year ago, five years ago, and so on, the act of going back and reading something you wrote in a different era to see if or how your opinions have changed. Did I soften on this expansion or that release? Am I nostalgic for some title I panned? Maybe?
Sometimes I kind of want to go back and try Warhammer Online. Not enough to play the pirate server version of it, but I think about it sometimes. Was it really that bad? Did I miss something in it? Is the me of 2024 more or less likely to play something like that?
Probably less likely, in all honestly. My patience for the genre has constricted quite a bit.
And occasionally somebody else comes along and finds some old post of mine, some piece of history from the genre and gets a kick out of it or is reminded of some past venture. Just the other day Asher Elias, leader of the Imperium, was writing something up and said that he was happy to have found some written records of old Reavers operations somewhere on the web.
Preserving a small sliver of the player lore of New Eden is just part of the job.
And anyway, how can blogging be dead if all these people showed up for Blaugust? Look at them all! Here, in 2024, in an age where some people can’t string together three sentences on what they did over the weekend without injecting a meme or an emoji, 117 blogs made the list.
I mean, two of them are mine, and one of those is just pictures of internet spaceships, but still, that is quite a turn out for our little corner of the internet.
Meta has launched the Meta Quest HDMI Link app, enabling users to connect their headsets to HDMI and DisplayPort devices.
The app supports Meta Quest 2, 3, and Pro headsets and offers 1080p resolution content with low latency.
Setting up the feature requires an additional UVC and UAC-compatible capture card.
Meta has rolled out a new app, Meta Quest HDMI Link, designed to extend the functionality of its VR headsets. The app is available for Meta Quest 2, Quest 3, and Quest Pro models. It allows users to connect their headsets to various HDMI or DisplayPort-equipped devices, such as gaming consoles, laptops, and even smartphones, effectively turning the headset into a virtual display. (via The Verge)
The Quest headsets have traditionally been positioned as standalone devices for VR experiences. With HDMI Link, the company is acknowledging users’ desire to access content from other devices within their VR environment.
HDMI Link supports 1080p content with low latency, providing a customizable virtual screen experience. Users can resize and reposition this screen within the VR environment, making it suitable for gaming, watching movies, or even working privately.
Setting up HDMI Link, however, isn’t as straightforward as plugging a USB cable into your phone or gaming console. It requires a compatible capture card — a small device that connects your HDMI source to your headset via USB — adding an extra layer of complexity and cost. Meta acknowledges this in its blog post, cautioning users that it’s not quite as plug-and-play as they might expect.
Another important drawback to HDMI Link is its inability to display content protected by HDCP, which is common with many streaming services. This limitation means that while the feature is versatile, its utility for streaming movies and TV shows might be limited.
Meta emphasizes that HDMI Link is not meant to replace existing features like Air Link or Xbox Cloud Gaming, which offer wireless streaming options under ideal network conditions. Instead, it’s intended to provide a solution for situations where Wi-Fi is unreliable or unavailable or when users want to connect devices that aren’t supported by other methods. The app is currently available on App Lab, which indicates that it’s still in development and might need some work to iron out some kinks.
Wildlife photographer Carl Bovis has an incredible talent for capturing stunning images of birds. But while he was wandering with his camera near his Bridgwater, Somerset home, he had a rather strange sighting on the road.
"Being unable to investigate what it was due to it being on private land and the setting sun being in his eyes, the 53-year-old says he spent a couple of minutes watching it to see if it would move before taking a single photo of it and heading home," reports BristoLive. — Read the rest
Who could have predicted that the last few years would see such a vast increase in social media spam? Certainly not professional tarot card readers, whose identities have become ripe opportunities for online scammers looking to exploit gullible consumers. This has been a worsening issue in the spiritual advisor industry since at least 2021. — Read the rest
If your response to boredom is to whip out your phone and scroll endlessly through TikTok, you might be doing it wrong. According to a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, this kind of "digital switching" intensifies boredom rather than relieving it. — Read the rest
If you want wireless controllers or prefer the 7800 form factor, this is the retro Atari cartridge-playing console. The 7800 has always been backward compatible with the VCS/2600/Telegames cartridges, but the 7800 versions are always better. — Read the rest
Check out the amazingly talented dancers of ILL-ABILITIES. On their website, ILL-ABILITIES states that they are:
an International Breakdance Crew comprised of eight members from around the world: Luca "Lazylegz" Patuelli (Canada); Jacob "Kujo" Lyons (USA); Sergio "Checho" Carvajal (Chile); Redouan "Redo" Ait Chitt (The Netherlands); Jung Soo "Krops" Lee (South Korea); Samuel Henrique "Samuka" da Silveira Lima (Brazil) ; Lucas "Perninha" Machado (Brazil); "Junior" Bosila Banya (France).
There is a disturbance in the force, and his name is Nubs.
Disney has a fairly sweeping Star Wars High Republic story going. Everything from live-action to books, video games, audio dramas, comics, cartoons, and tie-in merchandise abound. With the cancellation of The Acolyte, however, if you want to watch High Republic Jedi do their thing, Nubs is your guy. — Read the rest
Lover of Men is an upcoming documentary film directed by Shaun Peterson and written by Grace Leeson which explores the age-old question: was Abe Lincoln gay? Specifically, the movie examines Lincoln's relationship with four different men, with whom Lincoln shared clothes, sleeping arrangements, and deep emotional connections:
David Derickson, Lincoln's Civil War-era bodyguard often stayed in his tent and wore his clothes
Joshua Speed, Lincoln's former roommate and close friend, whose many correspondences were described by one historian as having a "streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets";
Billy Greene, another roommate from Lincoln's 20s who factually slept in the same bed with him and whose thighs Lincoln once described in writing as "as perfect as a human being could be";
and Elmer Ellsworth, an army officer and close friend of Lincoln.
Nikki Haley caved, endorsed adjudicated rapist Donald Trump, and hit her former followers with a cease-and-desist order for supporting President Harris, but it hasn't shut them up.
The ship's location, direction, speed, and the enemy ship's location, direction, and speed—in a matter of seconds so that the ship's guns may fire accurately and effectively.
Friday Night Videos was a weekly dose of music videos for those without cable and, therefore, no MTV. I hadn't thought about it in years until this episode from 1984, complete with commercials, popped up on YouTube. It is pure 80s nostalgia with Tracey Ullman, who I honestly forgot had a music career, Rockwell, whose Somebody's Watching Me video still creeps me out, a "brand new video by John Cougar Mellencamp," and a talking head of Freddie Mercury smoking like a chimney in an intro to the Radio Gaga video. — Read the rest
TL;DR: Want to spin records at your next hangout? You can play records from your shelf or playlists from your phone with the Gemini TT-1200 Turntable, now $159.99 (nearly 20% off)!
Who doesn't want to pretend you're the hottest DJ? — Read the rest
Here's a great resource to learn how Project 2025 will affect you or those you love and care about on specific issues such as health care, food assistance, education, etc. The site is called "25 and Me" and is a collaboration between Rajat Paharia and Google Gemini. — Read the rest
Calculating Empires is a "a genealogy of technology and power since 1500" — a beautiful and interactive monochrome chart you can zoom in and out of to trace the connections between all such things in the modern age. I immediately crash zoomed in and found myself face-to-face with a Debord quote: "In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. — Read the rest
Here's the fact check of the century, courtesy of The Washington Post's Amy Gardner: '"Donald Trump says he will refuse to accept the election result if he loses again," Biden said. But that's not true. Trump just hasn't said that he would accept. — Read the rest
Last fall, amidst the ongoingnationalAdderallshortage, I decided it was time to start playing video games every day. That's because I learned about a new game called EndeavorOTC, which was in the process of gaining FDA clearance as a potential alternative treatment for ADHD. — Read the rest
In Decatur, Georgia, a momument to the Confederacy stood for 100 years before being removed in 2021. Yesterday it was replaced by a 12 foot statue of John Lewis, the civil rights leader and U.S. Representative who died that year. — Read the rest
In the wake of the recent unionization efforts, such as the Writer's Guild strike, the Animation Guild is also pushing for more power in the industry.
Production houses such as Dreamworks and Pixar—once celebrated for their revolutionary in-house work and style—have increasingly outsourced their once-award-winning animation labor. — Read the rest
Fox News today reported "Harris Topping Trump" in a renewed sign that one person at the cable broadcaster is fully cognizant of the term's many shades of meaning and is involved in graphic design there.
The numbers beneath the headline—49% to 45%, quoting an Ipsos poll—do suggest intrusive thoughts ahoy for the former president of the United States of America. — Read the rest
Two months into what was scheduled to be an eight-day mission, we learn that spacesuit compatibility problems are also keeping NASA's astronauts stuck in space.
I missed something in the recent discussion about the possibility of Starliner's stranded crew returning to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon. — Read the rest
Rather than apologize or praise recipients of the nation's highest Military honor, Donald Trump explained how being good at sports is cooler than winning an MOH.
One of the most shocking things about Donald Trump has been the support he received from our armed services and veterans. — Read the rest
Catherine June Lee, 58, of Tasmania, was in court today after being busted in 2022 for having sex with a live brown trout. According to police, June and one Ashley David Hallam, 55, allegedly filmed the act on a boat.
Le requested an adjournment without plea until October, which the court granted. — Read the rest
Donahue became a household name in the daytime talk show space in November 1967 when The Phil Donahue Show premiered on a local news network in Dayton, Ohio.
Wandering through a forest at night, you might be treated to a strange symphony of creepy cracking sounds. In some cases, the source of the sounds are the trees. Temperature changes, especially between day and night, can cause the wood in trees to expand or contract. — Read the rest
Of all the memes inspired by Rachael "Raygun" Gunn, the B-girl from Australia who scored zero points in breakdancing at the Paris Olympics, my favorite spoof is this one shared by the Sydney Zoo, titled "Everyone is doing the Raygun!" The video features adorable otters showing off their Raygun-like moves, such as wriggling in the grass and squirming on the rocks. — Read the rest
Propaganda poster by Ed Reibsamen with a little help from Midjourney
Article by Aragorn Eloff
There’s been a lot written lately about the so-called TESCREAList ideology that is currently hegemonic in the Silicon Valley tech circles frequented by people like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. TESCREAL stands for transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism and longtermism – terms that are probably at least intuitively familiar. Reading recent critical descriptions of this facile, elitist ideology, which is driving a lot of the hype around machine learning, I’m struck by how familiar it all seems. Listening to a podcast on 60s psychedelia on my run this morning, it suddenly all made sense.
It turns out you can trace a pretty direct line back from TESCREAL ‘philosophers’ like Kurzweil and Bostrom to Wired magazine and the extropians mailing list, and from there to the legendary Mondo2000 magazine – a 90s tech-enthusiast counterculture publication from California put together by old sixties heads enthused by nascent technologies like the web, VR and ‘nootropics’. Indeed, 1992’s Mondo 2000: A User’s Guide to the New Edge, a gorgeous typographic mess of glossy 3d graphics and paeans to the coming techno-singularity, feels almost like a secret peek into the TESCREAL gang’s wildest fantasies, although regulars like Douglas Rushkoff, Mark Dery and Bruce Sterling were admittedly far more interesting than the current dreck. Mondo 2000 was, in turn, the successor to the less glossy High Frontiers and Reality Hackers, 80s publications that mixed cyberpunk and surrealism with phone phreaking and experimental music. And then, of course, there was the psychedelic enthusiasm, particularly the strong echoes of one Timothy Leary.
As a diligent student at the Hofmann and McKenna school for young dropouts in the early 90s, I devoured all the Tim Leary books I could get my hands on. Classics like Psychedelic Prayers, High Priest and The Psychedelic Experience, but also an oddly singular text titled Neuropolitics: The Sociobiology of Human Metamorphosis, published in 1977. The book was written while Leary was languishing in jail for his psychedelics advocacy, and marks a shift in attention away from LSD and towards quintessentially TESCREAList topics like space migration, life extension and so forth. Indeed, Tim essentially argues in the book that by the year 2000 we’ll all be immortals travelling through space and indulging in increasingly exotic pleasures while expanding our intelligence using computers and smart drugs. As a useful heuristic, he coined some acronyms that are particularly revealing: SMI2LE (Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, Life Extension), HOME (High Orbit Mini-Earths) and HEAD (Hedonic Engineering And Design).
Essentially then, Tim Leary, psychologist and psychedelics guru, synthesised a fairly significant chunk of the philosophy that would become TESCREALism while sitting in his prison cell, undoubtedly fantasizing about the great outdoors and all the experiences he was missing out on. My fellow students and I also spent a fair amount of time in the early 90s learning how to SMI2LE and use our HEADs while gazing up into the stars waiting for our new HOMEs to be ready. In retrospect it was in large part a naive fantasy fueled in no insignificant part by prodigious consumption of 5-HT2A receptor agonists.
There is a grain of intuitive truth to Leary’s dreams, of course -—we could and should try to enrich life in whatever way we can – but when divorced from the messiness of real life in all its social, political and ecological complexities, SMI2LE, like TESCREALism (and, yes, like Fully Automated Luxury Communism) is the kind of indulgent hopium that’s fine, perhaps even vital, when you’re 16, but probably not when you’re a billionaire with immense economic and political power seeking to enact your juvenile fantasies at the expense of the rest of the world. More importantly though, the TESCREALists are far, far more boring than Leary and the Mondo crowd. We could do a lot better.
Aragorn Eloff is an experimental musician and long-time wanderer through the counterculture. He is based in South Africa, where he is currently working on a PhD on the philosophy of psychedelics. He writes on anarchism, embodied cognition and the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari.
AI-Musement Park and MONDO Vanilli’s Blockchain Busting Musical Experience “R.U. Cyber.. R.U. Against NFTs?”
Immediate release from: 03/03/2023
“AI-Musement Park comprises a cornucopia of performances / talks / happenings / documentary & discussion about AI, Intelligences, technocapitalism’s more than pressing-ongoing urgencies.” -Eleanor Dare, Cambridge University & AI-Musement Park
R.U. Cyber.. R.U. Against NFTs? An original AI-Musement Park, PlayLa.bZ & MONDO 2000 History Project human and machine learning co-creation, taking the perspective of an AI that is training itself on the R.U. Sirius & MONDO Vanilli ‘I’m Against NFT’s’ song lyrics, exploring a surreal, mind melting and multi-dimensional 360 world of paradoxes and conflicting rules.
“Mondo Vanilli was originally intended to be a virtual reality band exploding all assumptions about property and propriety in the 1990s. Today fabrication becomes de rigueur as the connection to the real is intentionally confused by the banal political tricksters of power and profitability… while storms pound our all-too-human bodies and communities. I am thrilled to finally see MONDO Vanilli in it’s appropriate context. Immersive. Come play in the simulacra one more time” -R.U. Sirius, MONDO 2000
R.U. Cyber.. R.U. Against NFTs? Is a satirical, irreverent block-chain busting commentary on the propaganda relations fueled ‘Web 3’ hype around non-fungible tokens and the broader issues that underpin our algorithmically massaged hyper-connected infinite scrolls and trolls age. Challenging our assumptions about the nature of technology, creativity, and value, reminding us that the digital world is shaped by powerful forces that determine what is valued and what is not, and a click is not always for free.
Join Us! On Spring Solstice 2023 For “R.U. Cyber? :// Mondo 2000 History Project Salon” at MozFest Virtual Plaza & Mozilla Hubs: AI-Musement Park 20th March / 8.30pm EU / GMT
About R.U.Sirius & Mondo 2000 #Mondo2000 #RUSirius
R.U. Sirius is an American writer, editor, and media pioneer. Known for being one of key psychedelic & cyberpunk movement figures. Best known as Mondo 2000 editor-in-chief and at forefront of 1990s underground cyberculture movement.
About Mozilla Festival #TrustworthyAI #AIMusementPark
Since 2010, MozFest has fueled the movement to ensure the internet benefits humanity, rather than harms it. This year, your part in the story is critical to our community’s mission: a better, healthier internet and more Trustworthy AI.
About PlayLa.bZ CIC #PlayLabZ #SpatialCadetZ
Co-founded by PsychFi, FreekMinds & Squire Studios we’re a next generation multipotentiality multi-award-winning, multi-dimensional motion arts experience design laboratory, developing DIY changemaking createch immersive experiences & software applications for social good storycraft. Supporters & Friends: Mozilla Festival, Jisc: Digifest, Beyond Games, Tate Modern, Furtherfield, Boomtown Festival, Sci-Fi-London, Ravensbourne University London, UAL, East London Dance, NESTA, Modern Panic, ArtFutura, Kimatica, National Gallery X, Kings College London, Looking Glass Factory, SubPac, Ecologi, The JUMP, BOM Labs, Mondo 2000
PR Contact: James E. Marks, Tel: 07921 523438 @: jem@playla.bz Twitter: @GoGenieMo
The fourth generation of the Nest Learning Thermostat was announced and is available for preorders.
The new Nest Learning Thermostat features a new display, a new interface in the Home app, and a lot of saying it’s packed full of AI.
Having recently suffered through an AI-driven thermostat that couldn’t understand that I was on chemo, had lost all my hair, and just wanted to set and maintain a temperature above 62 in the winter, let me tell you how well the AI worked previously. Not very.
A “not smart” mode is not listed, but one can hope there will be ways to just lock the temperature and get around all the smart controls when you need to just set it and forget it and maintain. We can also hope that Google Location Services that work with the Home / Away assist will be fixed at some point and I won’t have to keep turning on the AC when Kim gets home because her phone only works 1/3rd of the time for home/away assist.
The new design looks nice, but in the end it’s a thermostat you can control based on a number of conditions and I don’t see a lot of reason to be excited.
The new Nest Learning Thermostat is available to pre-order in Silver, Black, and Gold for $279.99 in the Google Store.
Yonsei University, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Lincoln University College, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), and Ewha Womans University
Apparently, Judge Reed O’Connor doesn’t think that owning a massive amount of Tesla stock constitutes a conflict of interest when it comes to judging Elon Musk’s legal battles.
Last week, we were briefly surprised when infamously partisan Judge Reed O’Connor recused himself from Elon’s nonsense SLAPP suit against GARM and some advertisers.
As we had reported back in June, Media Matters had raised the issue that Judge O’Connor owns a ton of Tesla stock, which arguably is a conflict of interest in ExTwitter’s lawsuit against Media Matters (which Judge O’Connor had refused to dismiss despite its obvious problems). That matter had still been pending last week when O’Connor surprised lots of people (almost certainly including Elon’s lawyers) by recusing himself from the GARM suit.
We had wondered if it was a sign that Judge O’Connor realized how bad it looked for him to hold Tesla stock while repeatedly ruling on behalf of Elon. But, no, it quickly came out that the issue was almost certainly that O’Connor also owned stock in Unilever, one of the firms that Elon was suing in the case.
And then, just days later, it was made clear that Judge O’Connor sees no conflict in owning Tesla stock. He not only rejected Media Matters’ request that Elon be forced to list Tesla as an interested party, but he also made Media Matters pay Elon’s legal fees over this matter.
Judge O’Connor insists it’s just crazy to suggest that Tesla is somehow an interested party:
First, there is no evidence that shows Tesla has a direct financial interest in the outcome of this case. Tesla neither directly nor indirectly holds equity in X, Tesla is not a director or advisor, and it does not participate in the affairs of X. In other words, there is no indication that Tesla has any control over X or any financial ties to X, and Defendants do not claim as much. The question for disclosure is whether Tesla has a “legal or equitable interest” in X. Defendants merely point to news articles that report some blurred lines between Tesla and X that do not rise to the level of financial interest. These articles do not amount to evidence of a financial interest. Tesla is a publicly traded company, with tens of thousands of stockholders, its own board of directors, and external auditors. X is a privately owned company. The mere assertions that Musk owns a constellation of companies, some former Tesla employees now work at X, and that Tesla leased workspace from X do not support a finding that Tesla and X are not separate legal entities or that they share a financial interest.
Later, in response to points about Tesla stock fluctuating in direct connection to Elon doing stupid shit on ExTwitter, O’Connor notes in a footnote: “Musk, who is neither a plaintiff nor defendant in this suit.”
C’mon. None of us were born yesterday.
Elon is totally driving this lawsuit. He was the one who announced that this lawsuit would be coming based on a tweet that he saw. And, obviously, Tesla’s stock is tied to nonsense going on at ExTwitter. He sold a ton of Tesla stock to do the deal, and there are constant reports that he’s almost certainly going to need sell more to keep ExTwitter afloat.
None of this is that big of a surprise, though. Talking to lawyers, I didn’t find one who thought that O’Connor would buy this argument (which is partly why his recusal in the GARM case took me by surprise, before it was revealed that that was due to the Unilever stock).
But just to add absolute insult to injury, O’Connor said that Media Matters, a small non-profit, has to cover ExTwitter’s legal fees over this motion, despite it being owned by the world’s richest man:
Defendants’ Motion to Compel does not have a basis in law. It lacks a reasonable basis in law because the motion is motivated by an effort to force recusal, as opposed to disclosure of unknown information. Compelling disclosure is proper only when a party lacks necessary information. Carr, 2024 WL 1675185, at *1 (compelling disclosure of unknown LLC members); Steel Erectors, 312 F.R.D. at 677 (compelling disclosure of an unknown parent corporation). The information Defendants seek to compel was not unknown to them.
A Motion to Compel Corrected Certificate of Interested Persons when that information was known appears to be unprecedented. Indeed, Defendants did not cite a single case in which a motion to compel a corrected certificate of interested person was brought under this posture, much less one in which the effort was successful under the Local Rule 3.1 “financially interested” standard. Additionally, Defendants’ motion has no basis in fact. Local Rule 3.1’s clear incorporation of “financial interest” requires “legal or equitable interest.” 28 U.S.C. § 455(d)(4). Defendants failed to show facts that X’s alleged connection to Tesla meets this standard. Instead, it appears Defendants seek to force a backdoor recusal through their Motion to Compel. Gamesmanship of this sort is inappropriate and contrary to the rules of the Northern District of Texas.10 Accordingly, Defendants’ Motion is not substantially justified and attorney’s fees are appropriate.
Already, Judge O’Connor’s ridiculous decision to order discovery in this case, rather than properly dismissing it for lack of jurisdiction (among many other reasons), has resulted in layoffs at the non-profit. The impact of this ruling and the fee shifting is likely to do even more damage.
From the beginning, it has been clear that this was a SLAPP suit by Elon, angry that Media Matters (accurately) called out how ads on ExTwitter were appearing next to literal neo-Nazi content. The complaint from ExTwitter admitted that Media Matters accurately reported what it found. The only purpose of this lawsuit is to try to bleed Media Matters dry and to warn away other critics from doing similar reporting.
There’s a reason that most anti-SLAPP laws include fee shifting going the other way (making the wealthy vexatious plaintiffs pay the legal fees of the weaker defendants). Seeing O’Connor basically flip the script here is yet another reason why anti-SLAPP laws are so important.
Having Judge O’Connor let the case move forward to discovery in the first place was already a travesty. Now awarding fee shifting over Media Matters for calling out the potential conflict regarding Tesla’s connection to the case just feels like O’Connor, somewhat gleefully, twisting the knife that Elon plunged into the non-profit.
Launching a new console is neither easy nor cheap, and in order to remain relevant in the “console wars” a continuing price has to be paid… a price that Microsoft learned the hard way. But while hardware developers like Sega and Google were unwilling to pay the ongoing price and watched their dreams crumble as a result, Xbox doubled-down and continued to invest deeply in their commitment to the home console market every year… because while each iteration of their hardware has sold at a net loss, the only path to the treasure they are seeking is to see the road through to the end.
The act of “taking up our cross” involves more than a one-time event of accepting Christ and His grace… it is an ongoing, self-sacrificial journey that will continue for the rest of our lives. Each step we take as we carry our cross will compel us to shed the layers of selfishness that once defined us, and it is a process that is guaranteed to be uncomfortable… crosses are costly, not cozy. But it is in our choice to carry a cross that we’d rather not carry that shows we’re actually following in His footsteps… and that is where the true treasure is finally found.
Whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it – lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’? So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. Luke 14:27-30, 33
And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” Luke 22:41-42
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Nintendo is excited to announce it is coming to PAX West 2024 in Seattle from Aug. 30 – Sept. 2 with a new The Legend of Zelda adventure, the biggest Mario Party experience yet, and some competitive spirit with Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition and STAR WARS: Hunters. Additionally, My Nintendo members are encouraged to check-in when they arrive to earn My Nintendo… Read More »Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and Super Mario Party Jamboree will be at PAX West 2024
Graceful unicorns are heroes of myths, epics, and fairy tales; they are often associated with fabulous money, which in the Middle Ages fortune hunters were ready to pay for the horn of a magic horse. In modern times, the allure of unicorns has made its way into the realm of online gambling, where players can engage with these mythical creatures in various slot machines. For those who seek to make the most out of their gaming experience, exploring Risk-Free 2nd Chance Bets can offer a safer way to enjoy these games without the fear of losing their initial stakes. Foreign developers have created numerous types of slot machines based on legends about unicorns that will appeal to gambling fans worldwide.
Unicorn Reels Slot: Forest adventure
This machine is created by representatives of the popular company-developer Wazdan, which has established itself among foreign players by releasing more than a hundred quality entertainment products for a little more than a decade of existence. Unicorn Reels is created in a classic fairy-tale setting: unicorns, mysterious forest, clover, horseshoes, and shimmering jewels. The bright interface is complemented by a large number of graphical options: you can enlarge the slot screen, enable the light mode, etc., that is, customize the slot to suit you. You can speed up the animation and switch on the familiar automatic game mode. The spirit of the game is emphasized by the sublime soundtrack and fantasy sound effects.
But the most important advantage of the machine is its game features. The standard five reels are complemented by 10 paylines. Wilds, which replace any other chip, scatter chips – this is fine, but Western players are interested in a special bonus round.
If a combination of unicorn images, the symbol of this game falls out, then there is a transition to the mode of additional game, where freespins are provided. The more freespins scroll, the higher the chance of multiplying the bonus winnings. It is also worth noting the three types of jackpot.
Vomiting Unicorns: what makes unicorns vomit
Today’s review features an unusual but curious guest – Vomiting Unicorns. Gluck Games, a company based in Berlin and Gibraltar, is responsible for the development of the hooligan slot.
Its style is an unusual approach and bright execution, which are appreciated by foreign gambling fans. Unicorn has always been a symbol of purity and nobility. But not in the case of Vomiting Unicorn Slot – these horses do nothing but eat, and what they eat makes them vomit rainbows.
The game features five characters: a punk unicorn, a policeman, and others. The chips are made in the style of food, with junk food bringing in more money. The case takes place near an unnamed cheap pub. Funny setting and high-quality animation make foreign gamblers smile during the game. However, unlike the previous slot here is not unfolded in terms of options: you can turn on/off the sound, fast animation, and automatic mode and familiarise yourself with the legend and rules. In general, the interface is simple and clear from the first minute.
The gameplay unfolds on five reels in four rows, images fall on 30 winning lines, and there is also a traditional wild symbol. But the ‘Wishes’ mode deserves special attention. With random probability during the scrolling one of the five characters (they are located above each reel) may have an appetite for some chip – if it falls out, the unicorn eats the chip and vomits a rainbow onto the reel. And that’s a good thing – because all the chips hit by the rainbow turn into wilds, significantly increasing the chance of winning.
The Game of Chronos Unicorn Slot: fantasy combat
After such a fun outrage, you want to review something more refined. Designed in high fantasy style, The Game of Chronos Unicorn slot is closer in theme to the first product in our review – unicorns, elves, forests, jewels, and magic. Spanish developer R. Franco started working in gambling back in 1965 and took on the task of developing game offerings in 2014.
The company has offices in Madrid and Belgrade. The company makes slots that vary in theme and execution, The Game of Chronos Unicorn is part of The Game of Chronos series of machines that is popular among foreign players. The graphics are understated and neat, silver and green colors prevail, soothing the eyes. As for the interface, it is quite clear, but all the buttons look exactly the same and are often located completely randomly. For example, the bet up button is removed from the bet indicator, and the option buttons cover important game keys by default. This spoils the impression of the game a bit. It is also possible to switch on the automatic game, but there is no acceleration of animation detected.
The choice of slots is very large, including those dedicated to the theme of unicorns and fairy tales.
The slots selected for review are of high quality, bright pictures and created by experienced developers who are popular with gamblers all over the world.
Join Jared as he gets together with Rob Heinsoo. In between moments of being an excited and extremely enthusiastic fan, Jared talks to him about 13th Age and all things gaming!