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Striking NYT tech workers made a custom Connections so you don’t cross the picket line

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Striking New York Times Technicians have created a custom Connections Puzzle so fans can find their daily solution without crossing the digital picket line. “We saw an outpouring of support from subscribers who proudly tweeted that they intentionally broke their streak to support our forwards,” said Jen Sheehan, a spokeswoman for the NewsGuild of New … Read more

Don’t mind me, I’m simply microwaving an instant frog in Creature Packets

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I feel this one largely speaks for itself, honestly. I could theorise on the fictional conceit of bringing packaged creatures to life using a microwave and also, sometimes, a blender, but to do so would be to stare into a gift horse’s abyssal oat hole so intently that…

…I was going to finish that with something about its molars staring back, but I had to quickly Google “do horses have molars?” only to misspell it. “Yes, horses can have a strong sense of right and wrong, and what is fair,” went the AI overview. “Some say that horses can teach people to live in the present and to be authentic.”

Thanks for that.

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Football Manager 2024 won’t get a seasonal data update, because SI don’t want to take resources from FM2025

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Football Manager 2025 has been delayed until March 2025. This means football fans don’t have a new iteration of the series to play alongside the real-world football season, and many players have been wondering whether Sports Interactive could instead release a data update for Football Manager 2024.

Alas, SI say they’ve looked into it, and it just isn’t possible.

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How Sonar Shock became the boldest immersive sim of the year: “I don’t think a big game developer would have done it this way”

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Not many people hit the refund button on Sonar Shock, the indie immersive sim that’s rated Very Positive on Steam. But those that do tend to complain they couldn’t get the hang of the controls. You can understand why. Try to strafe left to dodge an attack from a blubber monster, and you’ll instead rotate on the spot. Attempt to turn the camera with a flick of the mouse, and you’ll discover that your view remains fixed in place – the cursor moving across the screen as if searching for an icon on your desktop.

“The controls are actually one of the biggest points that make people bounce off the game,” developer Raphael Bossniak admits.

And yet they’re also a unique selling point. Where last year’s extraordinary System Shock remake embraced the interface and keyboard conventions of modern gaming, Sonar Shock leans into the experimentation of pre-Quake control schemes – long before WASD and mouselook became standardised for the sake of ease and sanity.

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Internal Border Patrol memo: one-third of DHS’s surveillance cameras don’t work

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The House Homeland Security Committee is investigating the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) surveillance network after revelations that nearly a third of the agency's cameras along the U.S.-Mexico border are not working. Privacy advocates say this is just the latest case of expensive border surveillance infrastructure not working as advertised. An internal Border Patrol memo … Read more