Since computer games often deal in fantasies of violence, you might want to pay attention to this trend. The (near) future is not expensive Boston Dynamics machines that seem alive, but bulky things that look like they were made in the garage of your local car mechanic.

🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social · 2d ago

A Ukrainian logistics UGV on the frontline, itself covered by a large anti-drone cage. Even unmanned ground vehicles now have this kind of protection. In the footage, the UGV moves off to the side of the dirt road to let oncoming traffic pass.

A friend mentioned "Welcome to Elderfield" a few times, and I got curious. It works surprisingly well. Progression is slow compared to e.g. Stardew Valley, but it doesn't feel grindy. Cartoon graphics + pastiche story makes it feel less gross. It's more "ooh, scaaary xD" than actually scary.

Give this thread a read if you're not afraid of vicarious embarrassment and want to see that this kind of thing happens to everyone and you're not the messed-up one out. (cw: some of these stories triggered my deep fear of being the annoying person who unwittingly provokes angry responses)

Brainmage.itch.io@brainmage.bsky.social · 3d ago

In the spirit of this - and making me feel better - please tell me about times YOU accidentally messaged the wrong person! Let's all cringe together!

I've been feeling burnt out lately so I'm currently on unpaid leave, but last time I checked I still had a job to come back to when I feel better. This is starting to give me a bit of a survivor's guilt.

"The Incident at Galley House" - a modest experience, but in a good way. I like this kind of spooky mystery story where everything just fits together. Also, must have had a tiny budget, which makes me feel a bit envious.

You've heard of elf on the shelf, now get ready for

Notes from Poland @notesfrompoland.bsky.social · 5d ago

A moose caused major train delays after wandering into Warsaw Central Station and lying on the tracks. Services were resumed after the animal had been tranquilised, removed and taken back to the forest

It used to be that 80% of spam in my inbox was breast surgeries and viagra[1]. Now it's just random office supplies, marketing materials, legal services, and an occasional scam attempt. Spammers are no fun these days. [1] Old time spammers never assumed anything about my gender. Where's that now?

Once upon a time I worked on a prototype for a "dieselpunk" space opera game about two stellar empires at war, locked in a stalemate. In my version of this story, the player was the captain of a medical ship, tasked with rescuing survivors from battles. (employer's internal politics killed it)

Watching Encanto, I identify with every single woman in this movie at the same time, and also with Bruno. The world could use a few more Mirabels right now. (but also, I forgot that Disney movies were that simple! not a criticism, there's place for everything, but boy are they simple)

Yeah, this tracks: terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/09/11/a... The point of a mathematical proof isn't pooping out a yes/no, it's about understanding the process by which you came to the solution and what it means for work you do on top of it.

A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics

I am proud to be among the list of 25 initial signatories — all Fields Medallists — to the declaration below, which grew out of discussions between ourselves over the last week. We have…

terrytao.wordpress.com

We live in the stupid timeline, part over 9000: some random store that seems legit but I don't even recall buying from them, sent me best wishes (and a sales offer) on the occasion of my name-day. My name-day is in February.

Watched "Mars Express" today. Very sad, but very good, better than I expected (the trailer made me think it was going to be just another cyberpunk adventure). I need to get used to sad stories and unpleasant endings again, though, my emotional resilience is next to none.

I suspect genre fiction has made us all more vulnerable to apocalyptic narratives, because it consistently hand-waves logistical limitations away. For instance, typical sci-fi villain's army is so big it would fall apart immediately if he had to feed them or house them.

Solo dev means doing a lot of work outside of your area of expertise. In this case I've spent last three days improving my texture packing algorithm. This is a heuristic that takes the nature of the set into account, complexity is technically O(N^2) but close to O(N) in practice.

Final thoughts on First Light: - story-wise - nothing to be ashamed of, it's a rough equivalent of three above-average movies - checks all the boxes but has its own direction: Bond is a bit of a himbo, but not a douche, e.g. none of the (off-screen) sex scenes felt like he was taking advantage

Ok, that was quick. Poor Moneypenny. IYKYK.

I'm past the inmost cave in First Light, and so far level design has been sub-par, and I'm really not a fan of the m&k control scheme - feels like it was an afterthought. But the narrative side is above average: good pacing, characterisation, dialogue, voice acting, properly silly Bond-esque story.

"First in class - nobody likes an overachiever", commented James Bond on a findable he found in his antagonist's lair. Well thanks, James, I was first in class for 10 years out of 12. I had a suspicion we wouldn't get along.

*sigh* one of the most reliable tropes in video game storytelling is that if they've put the protagonist in a team that seems to large to be (directly or indirectly) controlled by the player via the usual team control mechanics, there are sure to be some heavy casualties by the end of the first act.

After 5 hours of "First Light" all I want is to stop being Bond, sit down in a corner of Q's lab, and see if Moneypenny is up for a chat (no hard feelings if not, though). I think this means the game's actually well executed, it's just very much not "for me" and not "about me". (gameplay's fine!)

Random reminder that if you're in need of an experienced, EU-based game design generalist who can also whip up a kickass custom editor in Unreal and has led teams of 3-60 in the past, then I have open slots.

First Light has surprisingly good characterisation. For instance, I don't find Bond relatable, but that's because he's a plausibly presented dudebro (with added people skills), and not because the writing is silly (it's not; if anything, it does a decent job at staying out of the way).

In Polish English, "iron" rhymes with "icon".

Trying to play the tutorial section of that fancy new Bond game while a trio of cats keep parading in front of me in the hope of reminding me they haven't eaten since Christmas is not great for immersion. BTW, the game is feeling a bit... clunky? E.g. I can't hang from a ledge unless I'm moving.

Rough Draft vs Final Draft

- Mom, can I be an archeologist and travel to ancient dig sites? - we have a dig site at home. Dig site at home:

My cats are currently in love with me and all I had to do was to open a can of tuna. Sometimes I wish it was this simple with humans. (for the record, I didn't give them the tuna)

A court has ordered a Catholic diocese in Poland to pay 550,000 zloty in compensation to a woman who was sexually abused as a child by one of its priests. It has also ruled that the priest himself must publish an apology to his victim.

Polish court orders Catholic diocese to compensate child sex abuse victim and priest to apologise

​

notesfrompoland.com

Played "The Excavation of Hob's Barrow", and it's one of those games that make me search the internet to see if there are multiple endings (there aren't). It's a moody game rather than creepy one, but then the ending takes a very grim turn. The puzzles are definitely on the simpler side.

That feeling when reading a bunch of wrong advice on Unreal forums helped you realise that some other advice you took from there was also wrong, while repairing the damage from said advice also fixes the issue you were trying to solve in the first place as a side effect. *sighs in C++*