A nice AEW Grand Slam in Brisbane.

The only way I can make this post relevant is to mention that ESPN is coming to Disney+. Not sure yet if that will include All Elite Wrestling content.
A nice AEW Grand Slam in Brisbane.

The only way I can make this post relevant is to mention that ESPN is coming to Disney+. Not sure yet if that will include All Elite Wrestling content.
Graphic Design
The YouTube algorithm fed me some good slop today in the form of US network CBS's 1997 fall campaign, weirdly pitched as "The Address Is CBS". How can an address be a TV channel? Who knows. But watching it back, it is weird to see this
Flashes, a new app powered by Bluesky, is surprisingly polished for a Testflight release. The app takes your Bluesky feed and gives it the appearance of classic Instagram - a reverse-chronological feed of images from people you follow. There are profile pages, search, notifications and even trending topics. If you
DeepSeek is apparently not being very ethical when it comes to AI! Not only has the company created its own model by allegedly using closed-source OpenAI outputs to create an open-source alternative, but it is also copying IP from the company. The horror! Both OpenAI and President Donald Trump'
Pebble
"A small team and I are working on a new Pebble-like smartwatch that runs open source PebbleOS, has the same beloved features (plus some fun new stuff), and stays true to the core Pebble vision"
We used to care about space programs.
Deepseek R1 is AI's Sputnik moment.
— Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 (@pmarca) January 26, 2025
Now the real fight in the broligarchy, of course, is around a bad chat bot that can write really long emails and lie confidently. The true technology of our time.
Hmm I haven't tried ChatGPT in a while — time to give it a spin and see why it's worth $157 billion
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social) 2025-01-27T21:32:27.978Z
Every single one of these is made up
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social) 2025-01-27T21:39:17.245Z

Nintendo Switch 2 is real.
Nintendo Switch 2 apparently being announced this week - for real this time.
Video Games ChronicleAndy Robinson
in case it wasn't obvious from my tease in Notepad last week, I've heard it should be the Switch 2 reveal this week 👍
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren.co.uk) Jan 14, 2025 at 2:34
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Meta's new policy chief is a former senior adviser to George W. Bush.

From The New York Times:
Meta on Thursday appointed Joel Kaplan, a longtime executive who was a former senior adviser to George W. Bush and is known for his Republican ties, to be its new head of global policy, as the social media giant seeks to strengthen its links to the incoming Trump administration.
Mr. Kaplan, 55, replaces Nick Clegg, a former deputy prime minister of Britain who had handled policy and regulatory issues globally for Meta since 2018. In a post to his personal Facebook page, Mr. Clegg, 57, said Mr. Kaplan was “quite clearly the right person for the right job at the right time, ideally placed to shape the company’s strategy as societal and political expectations around technology continue to evolve.”
From Deadline:
In 2020, The Washington Post reported that Kaplan argued against some content moderation measures, arguing that they would disproportionately harm conservative voices.

Welcome to 2025.

We're going to have to ease back in to posting, but what an insane way to start the year.
CNNChelsea Bailey, Brynn Gingras
2024
Ads for a Y-Combinator AI startup have been plastered around San Francisco, promising that yet another dumb, useless AI chat bot "Won't Complain About Work-Life Balance". The billboards and ads, spread around the general dystopia of San Francisco's already unconscionable wealth divide, promise that
Australia was behind a lot of 2024 games - SIFTER has the full list.
It’s so awesome to see Australia’s video game industry coming back to life, especially over the past few years.
SIFTER has put together a great list of Australian-made games, plus has a few lists from years past of Australian-made gems:
SIFTERGianni Di Giovanni
Wordpress ordered to revert WP Engine attack, including update and plugin directory block.
Via TechCrunch:
A California district court judge has granted a preliminary injunction to WP Engine. The order asks WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg and WordPress.com owner Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org, a WordPress theme and plug-in repository site owned by Mullenweg.
This ban also resulted in WP Engine not being able to access and update its popular Advanced custom field (ACF) plug-in. Automattic took control of the plug-in, forked it, and named it Secure Custom Fields (SCF). The court has also ordered Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access and control of ACF on WordPress.org.
TechCrunchIvan Mehta
Beats 1
In a world of AI DJs and generated music slop, Apple Music is doubling down on "live" radio - with some of it pre-recorded but still hosted by humans. Apple Music 1 host and Apple Music’s global creative director even commented on Apple Music Radio's
itch.io is back after Funko domain pop.

itch.io is back after being "taken down" by Brand Shield, which was being used by Funko for "AI" brand protection.
Brand Shield's website says the software "delivers cutting-edge online brand protection using AI-powered technology to proactively monitor digital landscapes for trademark infringements, phishing attempts, brand abuse, and counterfeit activity. Our dedicated team responds swiftly to mitigate these threats, safeguarding your brand’s reputation, revenue, and customer trust."
I kid you not, @itch.io has been taken down by Funko of "Funko Pop" because they use some trash "AI Powered" Brand Protection Software called Brand Shield that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar, iwantmyname, who ignored our response and just disabled the domain
— itch.io (@itch.io) December 9, 2024 at 6:13 PM
Funko pops... never again 🥴We're back if you haven't noticed!
— itch.io (@itch.io) December 10, 2024 at 7:06 AM
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This is not a joke, Funko just called my mom pic.twitter.com/P1ST7DDD2i
— itch.io (@itchio) December 9, 2024
Put Vib-Ribbon on PlayStation 5 you cowards.
Billy Basso, creator of the sublime and inspiring one-person indie game Animal Well, was on the My Perfect Console podcast this week.
I won't totally spoil his 5 classic game picks for a desert-island console, but he did put obscure PlayStation 1 classic Vib-Ribbon on his list. The episode will be released to non-Patreon subscribers later today:
A rhythm-game pioneer, Vib-Ribbon could run entirely from the PlayStation 1's 2MB of RAM. You could remove the games disc from your console and replace it with any audio CD. The game would then dynamically create custom levels that would sync up with any audio CD, meaning you could pop in a Limp Bizkit CD and play along.
Or just play along with the included soundtrack, which I still play on Spotify from time to time.
Back when Sony genuinely cared about legacy, the company re-released Vib-Ribbon on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita in 2014. At the time it promised to look into releasing the game for PlayStation 4, though that never eventuated, likely due to the lack of CD support on modern PlayStation consoles. This didn't stop the game coming to the PlayStation Vita though, or my Steam Deck.
(I promise I own multiple copies of Vib-Ribbon, physically and digitally.)