Week 27/28 - Tech Industry Turmoil, Gaming Layoffs, and Canadian Geopolitical Standoffs
Dear kindest reader,
It happened. I missed a week. Just 4 weeks into this pseudo newsletter side project and I missed a week. An act so egregious that David Goggins has continued to call me a soft little bitch in my own head for the past 4 days non-stop.
I apologize - sincerely.
That said, what a friggen 2-week cycle we just missed. Canada makes the cut, gets to the round of 16 for the first time in God knows when, and then we get pelted out. I for one am proud of the boys… er, men, for all they’ve accomplished. I can only hope we get better from here. They didn’t necessarily defy expectations, but they didn’t do whatever the reverse of that is either.
We had Kawhi again - which I was pretty ambivalent about - and then we didn’t have him as the NBA said nah, we’re still investigating this fool. So I’m back to my ambivalence.
Lastly, OpenAI straight jacked trade secrets from Apple. The stealing company continues to steal. How shocking. At some point I need to frame my own thesis on AI; I’m still on the fence about it, but we’re always learning.
Also, Microsoft nuked any goodwill it was conjuring up with Miss Sharma gutting studios and staff, sending people to the EI line. Imagine acquiring one of the greatest and genre-creating gaming engines only to take it out back and give it the Old Yeller treatment. R.i.P. id Tech - until a crazy hipster indie game brings you back to life and Microsoft flips over backwards to license you into starvation.
Hopefully, we won’t make the mistake this week that we did last week.
Take care ✌️
Gaming
Small wins for the little guy.
A big problem with centralized digital ownership is that one bad move or a glitch and it’s all gone. Maybe there are ways around it, like some decentralized key store, but in reality, it’s all bullshit.
That’s why we need physical media. There’s no such thing as digital ownership.
Xbox did gaming dirty.
All the talent they’ve culled and IP they’ve shelved.
The industry as a whole is just absolutely messed up.
Lame.
I mean, not as lame as Xbox for laying off thousands of employees or Sony for ending physical discs and PC game ports.
But still, it’s pretty lame for removing casually mindless games that were genuinely fun.
Major game companies not doing lame shit challenge: Difficulty level, IMPOSSIBLE.
If only Sharma could read this.
This has the voice, attitude, and empathy of someone who’s been there, and I respect it.
Probably the best article I’ve read regarding Xbox’s layoffs.
Le-sigh.
With Infinite matchmaking times climbing to five-plus minutes, I was hoping there’d be some positive Halo multiplayer news coming soon.
I guess I’ll be spamming away in Marvel Rivals for the undisclosed future.
I feel like we’ve heard this before…
Wasn’t XDefiant also supposed to be a player-centric Call of Duty created by the former Black Ops creative director or something?
I’m not even hating; I appreciate the goal. I look forward to the game and wish them success.
I’m just skeptical.
It was inevitable.
I think it sucks that we don’t truly own anything anymore. Everything is a subscription or license that can’t be used offline.
Our entire blip of time in history won’t be archivable once the servers stop responding.
We centralized all media, and it’s incredibly annoying 🎮.
How is anyone able to focus?
Not sure how anyone’s supposed to work knowing that they could be next.
Microsoft has proven that a successful release isn’t enough to cut it.
The way they’ve gutted studios is insane.
Console and subscription hikes are caused by their own AI investments.
Snake eat tail.
Tech
Not as creepy as Meta’s, but still seems far off from what would be actually useful.
Or at least, useful to me.
So you’re telling me that the company whose sole product only works off the unlicensed use of other people’s work may have possibly stolen trade secrets?
Tell me more 🤔
Mr. Burns already tried this on The Simpsons.
Then he got shot.
Win, I guess?
The right to repair should just be a given.
I hate everything about modern tech that makes you need to jump through hoops for it.
Hopefully, these precedents continue to shape all tech, hardware, vehicles, and machinery.
Protocols over Platforms.
BitTorrent was one of the main catalysts that proved decentralized tech was worth fighting for.
Even now, so much of this work went on to act as the foundational theory for other decentralized networks, like Bitcoin, @atproto, and Nostr.
A great read.
It’d be cheaper to just buy Jays tickets…
I mean, it’s almost $50 more a month for no actual feature benefit, so that’s what? $600 more a year?
A pair of Jays tickets is about $400?
Just buy the tickets.
Sports
A sobering gut check.
“For a wealthy nation that likes to think of itself as a citizen of the world, Canada was once embarrassingly poor at soccer. Now we’re okay, and sometimes good. That’s the sweet spot. That’s more than fine.”
I would love for us to be better. I hope we get there. But really?
We were who we were supposed to be…
It’s easy to get caught up in the mess of it all, but we performed right about where we were expected to.
No crazy Cinderella story, no underdog fairy tale.
Yes, there were glimpses of brilliance, but glimpses don’t win games.
Here’s to continued growth 📈.
Yeah, it’s hot, but this is a dogshit move. Lame as hell.
Setting up cooling stations or some kind of mist system would have been proper.
The Toronto fan fest has been fumbled big time compared to Vancouver, especially for a game this big.
Huge Toronto L.
Read this hoping to understand something about the trade.
Turns out, no one understands the trade, which in itself is good to know 🤷♂️.
I wonder how this ranks compared to the Luka trade. That one is probably still arguably way worse.
My buddy called me a jilted lover for not being excited about this trade.
Maybe it’s just business. I suppose he liked us enough to want to come back, but it still feels seven years too late.
Then again, we’re no worse off for it, even if he only plays 50%.
So rationally, I get it. Just give me time.
Politics
50%?!?
“Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers said in a radio interview that there is a ‘financial deal’ where the U.S. will see ‘up to half the revenue’ from bridge-crossing fees. He also said there would be joint determination of what the tolls would be.”
Getting hosed, their boys.
Cowards.
That’s all. Sheer and utter cowardice.
Corporate welfare is wild…
“Please don’t tell me corporate tax breaks create jobs. It never trickles down.”
I get tax breaks to encourage sector growth, but there needs to be stronger labor rules attached to the funding.
Otherwise, the only employees benefiting from these are the lawyers used to discover them.
A Former Mayor and a Duck Farm?
If I were to get conspiratorial, I would speculate that this has less to do with animal cruelty but rather using xenophobia to force a hobby farmer to sell for pennies to move back to Scarborough so that a friend can pick up the land for cheap…
🤔🤔🤔
NGL, I’d be shook…
“While relevant managers could be penalized up to $25,000.”
Imagine getting fined directly for a decision you implemented, even if it came down to you.
But we need more of this.
Then again, they’ll probably get a $40k bonus.
Culture
W, I guess? Madonna, Shakira, BTS, Bieber…
Add Bad Bunny, Central Cee, Ed Sheeran, and Diljit Dosanjh, and this would be the greatest international lineup.
Actually, we’ll need one more Middle Eastern performance for some balance.
As someone who chronically drops shows, two-plus year gaps between seasons mean I’ve mentally moved on. I want to get back into it, but it’s added to my list and it’s work to get reinvested.
Binge-watching shows doesn’t create routines.
Weekly releases create a routine, and routines are easy to return to.
Wonder what happened to him…
In an era of trillionaire CEOs and layoffs, it’s cool hearing stories of CEOs who cared.
I’m always skeptical of how long that kind of thing lasts, though, or if it was just catchy PR and they gave themselves a healthy bonus the next year to make up for it.
Oh, the horrors…
Fk this guy, fk everything about him.
Make him suffer. May he never know peace. May he be tormented every which way - sideways, up and down. May he be terrified of every corner, of every sound.
Fk him and fk his appeal.
