Why do I play all these games? Because it’s important that they’re played.

Because every game is a story, a world, a moment in time crafted by someone who cared enough to create it.

Because each one teaches me something new—about design, about culture, about myself.

Because in a sea of pixels, there’s magic waiting to be found.

And because, honestly? Sometimes I just want to escape, explore, and lose myself in different worlds.

So yeah. I own thousands of games, and I’ll keep playing them.

Bangkok (AFP) – Thailand's former defence chief is set to be appointed acting prime minister on Thursday, capping a colourful career for the political heavyweight once nicknamed "Big Comrade".

Phumtham Wechayachai earned his moniker over links in his youth to a 1970s student movement that rallied against the architect of a military coup, before their protests were violently crushed.

He fled to the jungle where communist guerrillas were plotting uprisings against the nation's military, and recently he has been questioned over his associations.

But the 71-year-old has successfully transitioned into the limelight from a business role in the empire of Thaksin Shinawatra, the founding force of a dynasty which has dominated Thai politics for decades.

Phumtham has held the defence and commerce portfolios, and had a previous spell as acting prime minister after a crisis engulfed the top office last year.

On Thursday he is due to be sworn in as deputy prime minister and interior minister -- making him acting premier again, after Thaksin's daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra was suspended from her role.

Born in the suburbs of Bangkok, Phumtham was nicknamed "Auan", meaning "Chubby", by his parents.

He earned a political science degree from a top Thai university and joined the student movement that took to the streets in 1976, opposing the return of military dictator Thanom Kittikachorn.

His childhood nickname belied his slim-faced appearance in a black-and-white photo of the protests, showing him brandishing speech papers with a microphone in hand.

The uprising ended in a bloody crackdown known as the "Thammasat Massacre" that killed at least 40 students and remains today one of the country's most notorious instances of protest bloodshed.

Unofficial estimates suggest the death toll could have been as high as 500, because live ammunition was used to quell the unrest.

Students from Thailand's elite universities fled into the jungle to join guerilla movements.

When Phumtham became defence minister last year he faced a grilling by the conservative and pro-military establishment who accused him of being a card-carrying communist.

"I went to escape the violence," he insisted. "It was not only me, there were other students too."

Despite his protestations, his links to the movement earned him a second alias: "Big Comrade".

Phumtham's reputation has softened since his firebrand formative years, and he is now known as a composed and diplomatic operator.

He will step into the acting prime minister role after the Constitutional Court suspended Paetongtarn pending an ethics probe which could take months.

In the brief interim between the court decision and Phumtham being sworn in as part of a cabinet reshuffle, transport minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit has been acting premier.

Phumtham's rise has mirrored that of Thaksin, whose dynastic parties have been jousting with the country's pro-monarchy, pro-military establishment since the early 2000s.

In the 1990s Phumtham was employed by the Thaksin-founded telecom giant Shin Corp, before entering politics full-time in 2001.

He served as deputy secretary-general of the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party, founded by Thaksin, and was appointed deputy transport minister in 2005.

After Thaksin was ousted in a coup, the party was dissolved and Phumtham was slapped with a five-year ban from politics.

But the movement remained a potent force, with Thaksin's sister and brother-in-law both having stints as prime minister.

Paetongtarn was appointed in August, with the backing of the family's Pheu Thai party.

Phumtham, considered Thaksin's confidant, appeared by Paetongtarn's side as she gave her first press conference as leader.

Although he will be stepping into her shoes, he has signalled he remains loyal to the Shinawatra dynasty and told journalists he believes she will "survive the probe".

Denpasar (Indonesia) (AFP) – At least four people were dead and dozens unaccounted for Thursday after a ferry sank on its way to the resort island of Bali, according to local authorities who said 23 survivors had been plucked from the water so far.

Rescuers were racing to find 38 missing people in rough seas after the vessel carrying 65 passengers sank before midnight on Wednesday as it sailed to the popular holiday destination from Indonesia's main island Java.

"23 rescued, 4 dead," Rama Samtama Putra, police chief of Banyuwangi in East Java, where the boat departed, told AFP.

President Prabowo Subianto, who was on a trip to Saudi Arabia, ordered an immediate emergency response, cabinet secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said in a statement Thursday, adding the cause of the accident was "bad weather".

Java-based Surabaya search and rescue agency head Nanang Sigit confirmed the same figures in a statement, and said efforts to reach the boat were initially hampered by adverse weather conditions that have since cleared up.

Waves as high as 2.5 metres (8 feet) with "strong winds and strong currents" had affected the rescue operation, he said.

The agency had earlier said 61 people were missing and four rescued, without giving a cause for the boat's sinking.

"KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya... sank about 25 minutes after weighing anchor," it said.

"The ferry's manifest data totalled 53 passengers and 12 passenger crews."

A rescue team of at least 54 personnel including from the navy and police were dispatched along with inflatable rescue boats, while a bigger vessel was later sent from Surabaya city to assist the search efforts.

The ferry crossing from Ketapang port in Java's Banyuwangi regency to Bali's Gilimanuk port -- one of the busiest in Indonesia -- is around 5 kilometres (3 miles) as the crow flies and takes around one hour.

It is often used by people crossing between the islands by car.

Four of the known survivors saved themselves by using the ferry's lifeboat and were found in the water early Thursday, the rescue agency said.

It said the ferry was also transporting 22 vehicles, including 14 trucks.

It was unclear if any foreigners were onboard when the ferry sank.

Rescuers said they were still assessing if there were more people onboard than the ferry's manifest showed.

It is common in Indonesia for the actual number of passengers on a boat to differ from the manifest.

Marine accidents are a regular occurrence in Indonesia, a Southeast Asian archipelago of around 17,000 islands, in part due to lax safety standards and sometimes due to bad weather.

In March, a boat carrying 16 people capsized in rough waters off Bali, killing an Australian woman and injuring at least one other person.

A ferry carrying more than 800 people ran aground in shallow waters off East Nusa Tenggara province in 2022 and remained stuck for two days before being dislodged with no one hurt.

And in 2018, more than 150 people drowned when a ferry sank in one of the world's deepest lakes on Sumatra island.

#Qantas hack results in theft of 6 million passengers’ personal data

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/02/qantas-hack-results-in-theft-of-6-million-passengers-personal-data/

#Australia #travel #cybersecurity #privacy #DataBreach #airlines

Comments

Abdel Qader Sabbah, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, and Jeremy Scahill
Jun 30, 2025

The outdoor cafe became a scene of carnage: all broken concrete and shredded wood, bodies strewn on the ground, plastic chairs torn apart, and blood soaked on the floor. A large crater in the ground in the cafe showed the missile impact. At al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, fresh corpses in body bags were lined up outside."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/32615401

Abdel Qader Sabbah, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, and Jeremy Scahill
Jun 30, 2025

The outdoor cafe became a scene of carnage: all broken concrete and shredded wood, bodies strewn on the ground, plastic chairs torn apart, and blood soaked on the floor. A large crater in the ground in the cafe showed the missile impact. At al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, fresh corpses in body bags were lined up outside."

Abdel Qader Sabbah, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, and Jeremy Scahill
Jun 30, 2025

The outdoor cafe became a scene of carnage: all broken concrete and shredded wood, bodies strewn on the ground, plastic chairs torn apart, and blood soaked on the floor. A large crater in the ground in the cafe showed the missile impact. At al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, fresh corpses in body bags were lined up outside."

The Anemone Feels the Heat

Artist: Agasang | pixiv | danbooru

Really fun immersive sim set in space! You are tasked with reducing the crews of spaceships from pirates. I usually like blowing out the windows into space or flushing em down the toilet.

Also all the crew members are talking cats.

Watch the trailer and it'll be clear if it's your vibe.

Great game would recommend. Doing the last ship myself right now.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/43048768

Comments

So the article only seems to raise these two cases, and it's not clear to me that either of these two people hurt any kids after appealing their check.

Is it just me or is this cooked? The right to appeal decisions seems fundamental to help reduce malfunctions or biases in a system. If the appeals process is too lax (doesn't seem like it?) then strength it sure but wtf is this move?

Comments

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/opensource by /u/CrankyBear on 2025-07-02 16:19:51+00:00.

Share your Shave of the Day for Thursday!

#Ubuntu Disables #Spectre/#Meltdown Protections

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/07/ubuntu-disables-spectre-meltdown-protections.html

#Linux #FOSS #cybersecurity

Comments