Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Screenshot: Persona 3: Dancing Moon Night Tons of Twitter bots are still just pictures of boobs asking for your credit card information, but programmers have also used the format to make some cool shit. Every Teenager Bot and Gradients are genuinely fun little experiments that brighten up my timeline. But every botmaker struggles with getting…
Star Wars Battlefront II stirred up controversy at launch with grindy progression systems and questionable loot boxes. Over the last six months, the game has added new modes and done its best to win back players. Here’s where things stand today. The lead up to Star Wars Battlefront II’s release is its own saga following…
Jeff Kornberg’s YouTube channel, The Dragon’s Tomb, does not stand out from the throng of other channels hosting tutorials for board games. Like his peers, Kornberg explains the rules in a slow, gentle voice with frequent cutaways to each game’s pieces, cards, and setup. The difference between Kornberg’s channel and the others is that every…
The Empire is without an emperor. Last week, a Star Wars Battlefront II update apparently brought back the evil Emperor Palpatine’s game-breaking ability to shoot lightning through walls. An emergency fix completely removed him from the game, and it’s unclear when he’ll return. Star Wars Battlefront II allows players to fight as iconic heroes and…
This week, esports host Frankie Ward won “Presenter of the Year” at the UK Esports Awards, and she used her acceptance speech to make a pledge: “There is no room for homophobic or racist or misogynist language in the esports industry.” Her pledge follows on the heels of a week-long debate among esports stars and…
Mafia 3’s opening used to be much more intense, the game’s director has revealed. A “cold open” sequence that ended with the main character killing a cop was eventually cut from the game—and apparently deleted from the developer’s servers, so it never gets out. Speaking at the Brighton Develop Conference yesterday, as reported by Eurogamer,…
Screenshot: No Man’s Sky (Hello Games) Three days ago, a No Man’s Sky community leader saw one of her bases erased by a notorious streamer who roleplays as a tyrannical overlord. In response, the community put their foot down. SeriusGamerX, or SGX, is a streamer who mainly plays No Man’s Sky. His whole gimmick is…
Following a year in which YouTube has repeatedly promoted conspiracy-theory videos during breaking news events like the shootings in Parkland, Florida, and Las Vegas, the company announced on Monday a slew of new features it hopes will make news on the platform more reliable and less susceptible to manipulation. The company is also investing $25…
BRUSSELS — President Trump unleashed a blistering attack Wednesday on Germany and other NATO allies, wasting no time to take the offensive before a week of high-stakes diplomacy on both sides of the former Cold War divide. The series of meetings — beginning with NATO and capped by a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin…
The explosiveness of the migration issue in Italy is perhaps best seen in Macerata, a medieval town near the Adriatic Coast.CreditDmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times MACERATA, Italy — At the end of his shooting rampage as the police closed in, Luca Traini climbed the steps of a Fascist-era monument, wrapped himself in an…