Against all odds, with an HHS that has defunded mRNA research programs, the FDA just approved the first mRNA flu vaccine
David Dunham
@radiofreelunch.bsky.social
Software and game designer (Six Ages, King of Dragon Pass, Opal). Working on a new game, Thousand Hells: the Underworld Heists https://store.steampowered.com/app/3794210/Thousand_Hells_The_Underworld_Heists/
Louder for people in the back, "Art has throughput and quality bars. Engineering has velocity, defect rates, build health. QA has coverage and escape rates. Production has burndowns and forecasts... The decision layer has status updates." www.productionalchemist.com/p/inever-see...
I Have Never Seen a Game Fail Because the Artists Were Too Slow
AI is optimising the cheapest part of production
productionalchemist.com
The important thing to know about boots is that Dr. Martens was bought by a private equity firm a while back, the boots are now garbage in terms of construction quality, but Solovair set up to make similar boots on the old equipment in the old factory and their versions are much better quality.
My take on boots discourse is that we face a lemons problem with many consumer goods, given the acquisition of many storied brands by companies aggressively milking accumulated brand equity for higher profits, such that price and reputation for durability does not reliably predict higher roi.
When I think of Homer, I think of the Homer statue at the University of Virginia—and the fact that for over 25 years, Ted Lendon has been making students (including me, once) learn how to march in a phalanx on the lawn. ⚔️
Blindingly obvious that this is targeted at “degrees we think women get.”
President Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v
Not sure if everyone appreciates the difference. Rooftop solar hardwires into your main panel via a dedicated breaker, so it requires a permit, an installer, an electrician, and a utility agreement. Balcony solar just plugs into a wall outlet, sharing an existing circuit with no permits or rewiring.
A new deal on balcony solar just dropped in the US
Plug-in panels can lower your bills. To boost the American market for the tech, nonprofit Bright Saver is selling kits with no markup, starting at around…
canarymedia.com
I'm looking for more work in the upcoming months! Here's a couple games I've worked on but I also provide the following complimentary services: 👑Your teams biggest cheerleader ✨Can work booths 🎤Speaker 💬My job requires a lot of networking -> Found opportunities for my games that way
"Germany is not poorer than the US. It has just chosen to cash out more of its productivity in the form of free time than the US has. The other Western European countries have made similar decisions." peoplespolicyproject.org/2026/08/04/w...
Western Europe Is Richer Than the US
Let's put an end to the stupid GDP discourse.
peoplespolicyproject.org
The Kitfox Publisher Sale is live! Buy any and all of our games at a discount, whether it's the freshly-1.0 Ostranauts or our timeless classics! Thousands of hours of exploratory play at good prices: store.steampowered.com/sale/kitfoxf...
Welcome to the Kitfox Festival 2026: In Space 🌌
Major deals and major updates
store.steampowered.com
New: Police are being told to hide the fact that they're using Flock to pull people over and arrest them in both encounters with citizens but ALSO in their official police reports: www.404media.co/do-not-menti...
‘DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE’: How Cops Are Trying to Hide Their Use of Flock
“DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE TO THE OCCUPANTS OF THE VEHICLE. DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE IN YOUR REPORT OR COMPLAINT."
404media.co
He's losing words. Anyone with a parent or loved one suffering from dementia will recognize this pattern. Wen he says "moving cameras," it's because he can't recall the word "videos" and so he's stating the component parts as best he can. E.g., a "camera" is involved and the images are "moving"
Trump: "We have photographs or tapes -- like moving cameras, right? -- where people are on the side cutting it with a box knife."
Air quality in the upper northwest U.S.: it's bad. If you're in this area and have to go outside, wear an N95 mask.
Humans are notoriously bad at telling the difference between "bad thing didn't happen to me because I minimized the risk" and "bad thing didn't happen to me therefore the risk was minimal" and Republicans prey on that.
it’s pretty obvious that a lot of people remember that COVID lockdowns were unpleasant and from there just extrapolate that they were therefore bad policy
Seattle has its own vigilante group that will help you recover your stolen bike and I promise they were 100x more effective than the police and also sometimes the head lady tells you about her farm.
It’s so funny when people are like “sure you’re an abolitionist now but wait until you’re the victim of a property crime.” Buddy, the most useful thing the police have ever done for property crime is put the form you need to submit to your insurance online.
DOD is not letting trans service members attend their own separation hearings unless they conform with Whiskey Pete's notion of their gender. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/u...
Possibly the greatest single male athletic performance of all time Original post
It's absolutely insane we've somehow let the Covid recriminations debate become like "why didn't we reopen in person schools before there was a vaccine" and not "why did none of the trump guys go to jail for stealing PPE from New York hospitals in March 2020"
I worked for New York’s largest medical center at the start of the pandemic. There were morgue trucks on the streets. They set up emergency medical tents in Central Park. Healthcare worker colleagues died. It is horrific that RFK Jr is on national TV lying that ICUs were empty.
If you're looking for a direct way to help laid-off devs, check this out https://kotaku.com/itchio-game-developer-hardship-bundle-necrosoft-games-layoffs-unionization-2000720782
Game Devs Put Together An Itch.io Bundle Of Over 100 Games With Proceeds Going To Help Laid-Off Colleagues - Kotaku
The Game Industry Hardship Fund bundle contains over 100 games and will be on sale for the next two weeks
kotaku.com
I can't stress enough what a crisis this is. Trump's own intelligence agencies concluded that Iran attacked Minnesota's critical infrastructure and Trump is saying that it's Minnesota's own fault and denying it was Iran. The federal government won't defend blue states in a literal war.
U.S. Sees Iran as Likely Behind Cyberattack on Minnesota Water Systems (Gift Article)
Investigators cautioned that the assessment was preliminary. There were no indications that any water supply had been rendered unsafe to drink.
nytimes.com
King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages are terribly underrated. A must-play if you are interested in games that blend narrative and systems. I'm super excited about the upcoming game from these devs.
We're taking a trip to hell, but some of us won't make it back... Gather your party and join us when Thousand Hells: The Underworld Heists by @radiofreelunch.bsky.social releases on September 8th 😈 store.steampowered.com/app/3794210/...
Getting a lot of great thoughts on level and general game spatial design from this!
Make no mistake here. This is Trump objectively taking the side of Iran, a nation we are currently at war with, over the Americans in Minnesota because he hates the governor and the fact that a majority of voters there did not vote for him
Trump: "We heard in Minnesota there was a cyberattack and they blame it on Iran. I don't think so. I blame it on Minnesota because they're grossly incompetent. Iran's got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota."
If anyone uses Stripe to get payments, go to your Settings (Gear icon) > Plans and Fees > Radar (View plan details) > View Plans > Scroll to "More Options" and select "Lite" I want none of the money I earn to go to AI if I can help it.
nice, now Stripe is auto-opting people into a nickel charge per transaction for "AI-enhanced" protection shit they never asked for you can change it back to their free "Lite" version, but the fact that it's opt-out by default is so fucking annoying
If you ever feel unqualified, remember that a gang of billionaires spent $900 million for 60,000 acres with no water, no infrastructure, a roster of endangered species, and a voter-approved ordinance that specifically bans building a city there. Now they’re begging politicians to bail them out.
Looks like Gavin Newsom is going to bat for California Forever, the Network State "tech utopia" project backed by Marc Andreessen and other tech billionaires. 70% of local residents oppose it. But the billionaires hired Newsom's favorite lobbyist. Welcome to Sacramento. nypost.com/2026/07/29/u...
As I've said before: What high-paying long-term jobs do they pretend exist here? A data center isn't a place where execs come and do Big Deals. Go to the server room at your workplace; are there lots of rich people in there spending money?
Hassett: "Data centers are very good for towns bc they create so many jobs & bring people in with high incomes that can buy houses & stuff like that. So if you take a sleepy town that hasn't seen much in the last 30 years & put a data center there, there are gonna be a bunch of happy residents."
I think it's perfectly obvious what is going on here. It's a massive deception by Trump's administration to fabricate pretexts for interfering physically with voting and with the ballots themselves. It has all the hallmarks of Trump and it makes a mockery of the pretence of US democracy.
Trump officials say they found 250,000 noncitizens on voter rolls in just four states. Those states don't know where the numbers came from, and some worry what the claims may portend for the midterms. n.pr/4xa5sTT
From the creator of King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages comes Thousand Hells: The Underworld Hiests will Release September 8th. ✅️ Dynamic Narrative. ✅️ Multiple Timelines. ✅️ Steal things from Demon Lords. ✅️ Will run on a potato. store.steampowered.com/app/3794210/... ☝️ ☝️ ☝️
“I keep a to-do list in a paper notebook, but my boss believes I have an AI task-keeping assistant via Claude. … When I copy-edit writing I take an extra twenty minutes to double check, then say I had Claude copy edit it as well.” aftermath.site/ai-resistanc...
Welcome To The Resistance: Meet The Workers Dodging (And Sabotaging) Their Employer's AI Mandates
'When I copy-edit writing I take an extra twenty minutes to double check, then say I had Claude copy edit it as well. Everyone’s really happy with my performance'
aftermath.site
Yeah so NYT asked me ~2 yrs ago to write an op-ed about how the Colorado is running dry, & what we should do to keep this exact thing from happening. I said "There's only one real answer. Bill farmers by how much water they use. Duh." NYT editorial staff freaked tf out & cancelled the piece.
saw an article today about an az politician saying how great it was that we're now in emergency drought conditions because the farmers get automatic bailouts and I feel like way more Professional Rural Understanders just breeze by sentences like that. www.paysonroundup.com/news/arizona...