The video games industry in 2025 finds itself caught between the familiar forces of consolidation and job losses that have plagued creative industries, and a newer development: governments and the ultra-wealthy have begun treating games as tools of political influence. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund closed a $55 billion deal for EA this year and acquired Niantic, the makers of Pokemon Go, in March.
Microsoft's 2023 acquisition of Activision already signaled the direction of travel. The workforce has borne the costs of this consolidation. More than 5,000 jobs have been lost in the industry this year, and several studios have shuttered, including Monolith Productions. The instability has pushed unions into greater prominence: United Videogame Workers formed in the US and Canada in March as part of the Communications Workers of America, and the firing of 30 staff from Rockstar Games in the UK brought the IWGB Game Workers Union into the spotlight.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has posted AI-generated images of the president as Halo's Master Chief and used Pokemon and Halo memes to recruit for ICE.
Customer: "Scuze me, love? Would you have somewhere I can try this on?"
I'm surprised, as apart from hats and gloves, our store doesn’t sell ANYTHING that could be considered “clothing that needs to be tried on”.
Jumping spiders are becoming increasingly popular as pets, because, well, just look at them. They are adorable. For some reason, in this video, a spider's human decided to put a drop of water on its head, and the results are super cute. — Read the rest
Visio is the software equivalent of tidying up a junk drawer, except the junk drawer is your brain, your team's workflow, and three different spreadsheets that all disagree with each other. — Read the rest
I grew up listening to Willie Nelson, and I still love him today. He's never been quiet about his support for the gay community or any other social cause where minorities need to be lifted and recognized as equals. And Orville Peck is… well, he's Orville Peck. — Read the rest
When it comes to nefarious dealings, Saudi Arabia remains constant like a shitty North Star. In a world full of chaos, unpredictable leaders, conspiracy theories and growing threats of global conflict, it's almost comforting to know that Saudi leadership just keeps sleazing up the sand. — Read the rest
Tired of waiting for Apple to release a folding phone, I recently opted to pick up a Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold. So, of course, not a week after my new handset showed up on my doorstep, credible intel of what Apple's long-rumored folding phone may look like dropped. — Read the rest
Sally's Apizza on Wooster Street in New Haven, Connecticut, is an iconic institution among pizza lovers. The small restaurant crammed with photos and memorabilia on the walls and a coal-fired pizza oven in the back always (always!) has a huge line of customers waiting for a table or take-out. — Read the rest
Essex Street, between Delancey and Rivington Streets on Manhattan's Lower East Side will be permanently named Jack Kirby Way, after the famed Marvel Comics creator who was born on 147 Essex Street on August 28, 1917.
Link to an article by Taimur Dar on ComicsBeat.com — Read the rest
BrianFagioli writes: Samsung is bringing Google Gemini directly into the kitchen, starting with a refrigerator that can see what you eat. At CES 2026, the company plans to show off a new Bespoke AI Refrigerator that uses a built in camera system paired with Gemini to automatically recognize food items, including leftovers stored in unlabeled containers. The idea is to keep an always up to date inventory without manual input, track what is added or removed, and surface suggestions based on what is actually inside the fridge. It is the first time Google's Gemini AI is being integrated into a refrigerator, pushing generative AI well beyond phones and laptops.
Beverly Hills High School has deployed an AI-powered surveillance apparatus that includes facial recognition cameras, behavioral analysis software, smoke detector-shaped bathroom listening devices from Motorola, drones, and license plate readers from Flock Safety -- a setup the district spent $4.8 million on in the 2024-2025 fiscal year and considers necessary given the school's high-profile location in Los Angeles.
Similar systems are spreading to campuses nationwide as schools try to stop mass shootings that killed 49 people on school property this year, 59 in 2024, and 45 in 2023. A 2023 ACLU report found that eight of the ten largest school shootings since Columbine occurred at schools that already had surveillance systems, and 32% of students surveyed said they felt like they were always being watched. The technology has a spotty track record, however.
Gun detection vendor Evolv, used by more than 800 schools including Beverly Hills High, was reprimanded by the FTC in 2024 for claiming its AI could detect all weapons after it failed to flag a seven-inch knife used to stab a student in 2022. Evolv has also flagged laptops and water bottles as guns. Rival vendor Omnilert flagged a 16-year-old student at a Maryland high school reaching for an empty Doritos bag as a possible gun threat; police held the teenager at gunpoint.
Not every school is buying in. Highline Schools in Washington state cancelled its $33,000 annual ZeroEyes contract this year and spent the money on defibrillators and Ford SUVs for its safety team instead.
The Trump administration is going to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado because of course it is. These people are wreckers, and they only know how to tear things down.
The plan to radically eliminate the largest federal center researching weather and climate was announced on X, because that is how the government runs now.
Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought.
Russell Vought, the Christian nationalist Project 2025 creep who runs the Office of Management and Budget, said the NCAR was “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country” and that weather research conducted there will be moved, while any climate research will be shuttered altogether.
As anyone who is not a climate change-denying, end-times freak like Vought knows, you can’t really separate climate and weather research.
A consortium of 129 U.S. universities oversees the facility. The head of it, Antonio Busalacchi, told NPR he thought the decision was “entirely political.”
You don’t say.
Jason Furtado, a meteorology professor at the University of Oklahoma, said that NCAR was “a world-envied research center for atmospheric science” and that his work would not be possible without the center. Ken Davis, who teaches atmospheric and climate science at Penn State, said that NCAR provides researchers with resources that “no university can provide on its own.”
Shutting NCAR is yet another attack on climate research, an unsurprising move from an administration that has been committed to climate change denial. But it’s also an attack on Colorado for not bending the knee and releasing Tina Peters, a former county clerk and election denier who was convicted by a state court on seven counts related to election interference.
The administration has engaged in a full press on Colorado to release her, including President Donald Trump’s fake pardon earlier this month—and both of Colorado’s senators are well aware that dismantling NCAR is a retaliatory measure by our mob boss of a president.
Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper put a hold on the mini-bus funding package in protest and issued a joint statement saying, “President Trump is attacking Colorado because we refuse to bend to his corrupt administration. His reckless decision to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research will have lasting, devastating impacts across the country.”
Bennet also voted against the National Defense Authorization Act for the first time in 15 years because of this, saying, “My judgment is that this is very much about Tina Peters and that the president attempted to get his way through intimidation and he hasn’t gotten his way and he is trying to punish Colorado as a result.”
NCAR employs 830 people at its Boulder headquarters, so this has the added benefit of putting some effete liberal blue state scientists out of jobs, which, for the administration, is just a bonus.
The Trump regime is no longer even bothering to pretend that it isn’t attacking blue states simply for being blue. Indeed, in a court filing in a lawsuit about the energy grants that were cut during the shutdown—blue states only, natch—the administration said that “consideration of partisan politics is constitutionally permissible, including because it can serve as a proxy for legitimate policy considerations.”
If that wasn’t clear enough, the administration stipulated to this statement: “The selection of which DOE grant termination decisions were included in the October 2025 notice tranche was influenced by whether grantee's address was located in a State that tends to elect and/or has recently elected Democratic candidates in state and national elections (so-called "Blue States").
Well, that is definitely saying the quiet part out loud. The administration is essentially trying to end federalism, at least where blue states are concerned, and Trump and his band of nihilists aren’t going to stop until they force their views on everyone else, state sovereignty be damned.
Amanda Reynolds has filed a lawsuit on behalf of herself and Finnegan Mary Reynolds, her golden retriever, in a bid force the IRS to recognize pets as dependents. The suit, filed in the Eastern District of New York, claims that not recognizing non-human dependents "violates constitutional guarantees of Equal Protection under the Fourteenth Amendment and, simultaneously, protections against arbitrary wrongful takings under the Fifth Amendment." — Read the rest
On Thursday night, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ran a great cartoon, "Colbert's Canceled Christmas: The Last Noel." You can watch it on YouTube here.
Santa Claus must save Christmas after Donald Trump cancels it, sends ICE to the North Pole, and destroys Santa's Workshop so he can build a ballroom. — Read the rest
FBI Director Kash Patel — who styles himself "K$H" on social media — is now being chauffeured in specially armored BMW X5s that the bureau purchased at his request. Every previous FBI director rode in a Chevy Suburban. Patel found that insufficiently sleek. — Read the rest
Cats are the purrfect detectors of red flags in relationships. We mean that seriously. If you have a cat or want to get a cat, the way that your partner reacts to them, the way that your partner treats them, is something that you absolutely cannot ignore. Your cats are there not just to be cute, although they do that job very, very well. Your cats are there to help you filter out people who you should not be involved with.
The way that people react to pets matters. If your partner thinks you are unhygienic for kissing your cat on the forehead, then either they don't understand the relationship that we have with our cats or they are a bit too neat-freaky for us. If your partner mistreats your cat in any way, harming them physically or otherwise, that's unacceptable, no matter the explanation that they have. And if your partner gives you an ultimatum, telling you it's either them or the cats, then there is only one correct answer to give.
You should not have to make a choice between your pets, who you love like family, and your potential future family. There are people out there who will accept your cats. Don't settle.
To this day, I couldn't tell you a single word that he said, but I am not exaggerating when I say that nobody in my life has ever been that visibly angry at me before or since, save for a couple who were responsible for my birth.
Colin Angle, the founder of iRobot who built the company from his living room over 35 years and sold more than 50 million Roomba vacuums, watched his creation file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month after what he describes as an "avoidable" regulatory ordeal that killed Amazon's $1.7 billion acquisition bid. In an interview with TechCrunch, Angle recounted the 18-month investigation by the FTC and European regulators that preceded Amazon's January 2024 decision to abandon the deal. The process consumed over 100,000 documents and a significant portion of iRobot's discretionary earnings. Angle said the deal should have taken "three, four weeks of investigation" given iRobot's declining market position -- 12% and falling in Europe, where the leading competitor was only three years old.
During his deposition, Angle said he walked the halls of the FTC and noticed examiners had "printouts of deals blocked, like trophies" on their office doors. He entered the process "looking for a friend" and instead encountered the question: "Why should we ever let them do this?"
Further reading: WSJ Editorial Board Says Lina Khan Killed iRobot.
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