I just finished watching Star Trek Discovery a day or two ago and it didn't really hit me until I was reading about Calypso, but it feels like the show-runners are very pessimistic about the concept of a Federation. I am not sure if this is considered old news, but I would be interested in examining the show-runners' outlooks more closely.

While the collapse of the Federation is in a way no fault of its own (the Federation didn't cause the burn); the idea that all it would take would be a scarcity of gas to break up the interplanetary union feels counter to the original ideals of Star Trek's optimism.

The idea that teamwork and ingenuity can overcome most adversity feels integral to Star Trek (at least to me), so the idea that running out of fossil fuels is all it would take to split up the Galaxy's largest symbol of unity feels out of place.

This is an especially powerful slap in the face when in Season 5 they have developed the Pathway Drive after only a few years of working together again. It felt as though there was truly not a strong enough reason for the Federation to collapse and be on the brink of destruction than the fact the show-runners really like the Federation falling apart.

You could make the case that it also has to do with the destruction of most of their fleet, but in Season 1 basically all of Starfleet is destroyed, and that's hardly even referenced again.

As an aside, in the five seasons of Discovery, I think the Federation has fallen (to varying degrees) four times.

1. Reduced to a single star-base and a handful of ships by the Klingons
2. Completely overtaken by Control
3. The collapse after The Burn
4. Becoming the V'Draysh in Calypso

In regards to the V'Draysh concept, I am willing to cut the writers a little slack, because from a meta perspective it feels like Calypso was originally intended to go between Season 2 and 3. This is fully a guess on my part, but I suspect at the time of writing/filming Calypso there might have been a more vague idea of what was wrong with the Federation in the future and the method of time travel to the future may not have been locked down yet. I would not be surprised if the V'Draysh was going to be the Federation in Season 3 and the crew would somehow find themselves on Discovery after it waited in place for 1000 years.

Having said that, though, the writers decided to canonize Calypso as taking place after Discovery ends, so it could be considered a fourth collapse (though technically the V'Draysh are never canonically recognized as the Federation, so there is some wiggle room).

While these are much more minor points by comparison, I would also like to address the phaser design in the future as well as the Progenitors philosophy differences between Season 5 of Discovery and TNG.

While a minor gripe, I thought returning the phaser form factor to a more gun-shaped form was also indicative of the show-runners' head-space.

Phasers went from looking like futuristic laser guns in TOS to looking something like an electric razor in TNG. While this made them less "cool," it signaled a priority on peace and diplomacy. While phasers were weapons, their presence was solely utilitarian and not for intimidation.

Discovery's return to the gun-shaped phasers feels like an out of universe emphasis on "coolness" and action, and an in-universe departure from the emphasis on diplomacy.

You could make the case that this now scrappier Federation no longer had the luxury of diplomacy to rely on, but it still feels pessimistic to think the Federation would abandon their ideals in times of hardship.

As I said, I know it's a comparatively minor gripe to put so much weight into a relatively small prop, but I feel like there is a lot to be said about design language and what it implies about the world of the show.

Finally, there is the issue of the Progenitors. I am positive I am not the first person to say this, but there is a definitive shift from the Progenitors wanting all their disparate species to come together in the unifying pursuit of knowledge to them saying "whoever gets here first is the best and can use this godly power however they want."

This shift from the ideal being universal brotherhood to focusing on being the best species reflects the show-runners' own lack of priority on the concept, which is reflected in their repeated destruction of the Federation.

I understand the idea of wanting your show/movie to be "gritty" and "realistic" (see every DC superhero movie after The Dark Knight), but it's out of place in a show as optimistic as Star Trek.

I'm not sure such an open-ended question can be definitively answered, but why didn't the Discovery show-runners believe in the Federation?

I've noticed a rise in enamel pins over the past few years and enjoy them as a compact and durable piece of art.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to use the pins I have amassed over the years; hence my question of what you do with your pins.

While this isn't news about new technology, I thought it was an interesting look about how predatory EULAs can still hurt us even years later in seemingly unrelated ways

Archive.org link

Some key excerpts:

After a doctor suffered a fatal allergic reaction at a Disney World restaurant, Disney is trying to get her widower’s wrongful death lawsuit tossed by pointing to the fine print of a Disney+ trial he signed up for years earlier.

Tangsuan was “highly allergic” to dairy and nuts, and they chose that particular restaurant in part because of its promises about accommodating patrons with food allergies, according to the lawsuit filed in a Florida circuit court.

They allegedly raised the issue upfront, inquired about the safety of specific menu items, had the server confirm with the chef that they could be made allergen-free and asked for confirmation “several more times” after that.

After about 45 minutes, Tangsuan “began having severe difficulty breathing and collapsed to the floor.”

“The medical examiner's investigation determined that [Tangsuan’s] cause of death was as a result of anaphylaxis due to elevated levels of dairy and nut in her system,” according to the lawsuit.

He is seeking more than $50,000 in damages and trial by jury “on all issues so triable.”

In late May, Disney’s lawyers filed a motion asking the circuit court to order Piccolo to arbitrate the case — with them and a neutral third party in private, as opposed to publicly in court — and to pause the legal proceedings in the meantime.

The reason it says Piccolo must be compelled to arbitrate? A clause in the terms and conditions he signed off on when he created a Disney+ account for a month-long trial in 2019.

Disney says Piccolo agreed to similar language again when purchasing park tickets online in September 2023. Whether he actually read the fine print at any point, it adds, is “immaterial.”

“Piccolo ignores that he previously created a Disney account and agreed to arbitrate ‘all disputes’ against ‘The Walt Disney Company or its affiliates’ arising ‘in contract, tort, warranty, statute, regulation, or other legal or equitable basis,’” the motion reads, arguing the language is broad enough to cover Piccolo’s claims.

“There is simply no reading of the Disney+ Subscriber Agreement which would support the notion that Mr. Piccolo agreed to arbitrate claims arising from injuries sustained by his wife at a restaurant located on premises owned by a Disney theme park or resort which ultimately led to her death,” [Piccolo's legal team] wrote in the 123-page filing.

They confirmed he did create a Disney+ account on his PlayStation in 2019, but he believes he canceled the subscription during the trial because he hasn’t found any charges associated with it after that point.

“In effect, WDPR is explicitly seeking to bar its 150 million Disney+ subscribers from ever prosecuting a wrongful death case against it in front of a jury even if the case facts have nothing to with Disney+,” they wrote.

The court has scheduled a hearing on Disney’s motion for October 2.

Archive link: http://archive.today/c0FEu

Some key highlights:

Dave & Buster’s [...] recently announced plans to let patrons place real-money bets on the company’s main attraction: its arcade games.

The suburban gaming den’s new betting operation is part of a partnership with Lucra Sports, a technology company that describes its product as “gamification services.” In practical terms, Lucra licenses its software to other businesses, allowing them to integrate certain kinds of betting into their existing apps and websites. Lucra deals in the kinds of bookie-free “peer to peer” bets—say, on the results of a night of bowling or a game of pickup basketball—that might have previously been sealed with a handshake.

The chain is expected to roll out all of this in the coming months, and it will be available only to adults

Beyond that, neither Dave & Buster’s nor Lucra Sports—which both declined to comment—is saying what kinds of betting will be allowed and at what scale.

Gambling on games of skill has a much easier time cruising past legal roadblocks.

Because of these legal distinctions, Lucra Sports—which has financial backing from a host of sports executives and professional athletes, including former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry and former NFL player Emmanuel Sanders—says its services are legal on some level in 45 US states.

Even in their relatively milquetoast skill-game form, these kinds of betting services normalize something that feels a lot like traditional gambling as most Americans now experience it

Kids too young to grasp how football works or what betting on it might mean will soon be able to encounter a version of it at the arcade, potentially priming them to open their own betting accounts once they hit legal age.

That Dave & Buster’s would decide to dive in right now is best read as an indicator of just how nervous traditional entertainment industries have become about gambling and its capacity to devour their customer base and its disposable income. In its 2022 annual report, Dave & Buster’s identified the spread of legalized gambling as an existential threat, even as the company was continuing to grow and its stock price was soaring.

this move feels motivated more by the fear of being left behind while others profit than by a genuine belief in the value of the product itself.

The vision that’s dancing in executives’ heads, I have no doubt, is something akin to the opportunity to be a little Las Vegas in every American suburb. They should probably be more wary of the likelier—and grimmer—alternative: becoming something closer to most of the other casinos in America, where no parent would ever dream of throwing their kid’s birthday party.

Archive.org link

Some highlights I found interesting:

After Tinucci had cut between 15% and 20% of staffers two weeks earlier, part of much wider layoffs, they believed Musk would affirm plans for a massive charging-network expansion.

Musk, the employees said, was not pleased with Tinucci’s presentation and wanted more layoffs. When she balked, saying deeper cuts would undermine charging-business fundamentals, he responded by firing her and her entire 500-member team.

The departures have upended a network widely viewed as a signature Tesla achievement and a key driver of its EV sales.

Despite the mass firings, Musk has since posted on social media promising to continue expanding the network. But three former charging-team employees told Reuters they have been fielding calls from vendors, contractors and electric utilities, some of which had spent millions of dollars on equipment and infrastructure to help build out Tesla’s network.

Tesla's energy team, which sells solar and battery-storage products for homes and businesses, was tasked with taking over Superchargers and calling some partners to close out ongoing charger-construction projects, said three of the former Tesla employees.

Tinucci was one of few high-ranking female Tesla executives. She recently started reporting directly to Musk, following the departure of battery-and-energy chief Drew Baglino, according to four former Supercharger-team staffers. They said Baglino had historically overseen the charging department without much involvement from Musk.

Two former Supercharger staffers called the $500 million expansion budget a significant reduction from what the team had planned for 2024 - but nonetheless a challenge requiring hundreds of employees.

Three of the former employees called the firings a major setback to U.S. charging expansion because of the relationships Tesla employees had built with suppliers and electric utilities.

Archive.org link

Some key excerpts:

Court filings unsealed last week allege Meta created an internal effort to spy on Snapchat in a secret initiative called “Project Ghostbusters.” Meta did so through Onavo, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service the company offered between 2016 and 2019 that, ultimately, wasn’t private at all.

It’s Meta’s in-house wiretapping tool to spy on data analytics from Snapchat starting in 2016, later used on YouTube and Amazon. This involved creating “kits” that can be installed on iOS and Android devices, to intercept traffic for certain apps, according to the filings. This was described as a “man-in-the-middle” approach to get data on Facebook’s rivals, but users of Onavo were the “men in the middle.”

Facebook ultimately shut down Onavo in 2019 after Apple booted the VPN from its app store.

Prosecutors also allege that Facebook violated the United States Wiretap Act, which prohibits the intentional procurement of another person’s electronic communications. Onavo could also be considered straight spyware, but also seems to fall under the definition of wiretapping, according to prosecutors.

The court filings show chats and emails that depict Zuckerberg as being directly involved in these communications.

Prosecutors allege Project Ghostbusters harmed competition in the ad industry, adding weight to their central argument that Meta is a monopoly in social media.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/sVDYB

Some key excerpts:

Senator Bernie Sanders this week unveiled legislation to reduce the standard workweek in the United States from 40 hours to 32, without a reduction in pay

The law, if passed, would pare down the workweek over a four-year period, lowering the threshold at which workers would be eligible to receive overtime pay.

Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, said at the hearing such a reduction would hurt employers, ship jobs overseas and cause dramatic spikes in consumer prices.

Mr. Sanders is far from the first to propose the idea, which has been floated by Richard Nixon, pitched by autoworkers and experimented with by companies ranging from Shake Shack to Kickstarter and Unilever’s New Zealand unit.

Representative Mark Takano, Democrat of California, introduced the 32-Hour Workweek Act in the House in 2021, and has reintroduced it as a companion bill to the one sponsored by Mr. Sanders in the Senate.

In proposing the legislation, Mr. Sanders cited a trial conducted by 61 companies in Britain in 2022, in which most of the companies that went down to a four-day workweek saw that revenues and productivity remained steady, while attrition dropped significantly. The study was conducted by a nonprofit, 4 Day Week Global, with researchers at Cambridge University, Boston College and a think tank, Autonomy.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/168Vn

There are now several games known to be getting delisted by WBD. I will link to the article with the list at the end

Some key highlights:

Warner Bros. Discovery, as part of its ongoing effort to stretch the definition of "entertainment company," recently told a solo indie developer it would be "retiring" his 2016 dreamlike puzzle adventure game Small Radios Big Televisions from the Steam and PlayStation stores. The developer, in response, has made it free to download for PC

Deery clarified that the game will be pulled in the next 60 days. Deery noted that Adult Swim Games "hasn't really been a thing for many years now" and that most of the people he worked with had moved on. "When you're working with purely digital products nothing is going to stay around for very long," Deery told Game Developer.

The reason given by Warner Bros. Discovery, as seen in the notice that Game Developer also reviewed, was "internal business changes." "Thank you for your contribution to our game library and understanding during this transition," the notice concludes. "We are available should you have any questions."

Warner Bros. Discovery executives said late last month during a financial call that its gaming business was due for a "tough" year-over-year comparison. That is largely due to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

At a higher level, the merged Warner Bros. Discovery entity has shown no hesitation when it comes to folding known names and removing content. The firm killed the fully produced Batgirl and a Scooby-Doo film prior to release as a reported tax strategy.

It's hard to imagine how much it would cost to maintain storefront support for this sub-$20 game from 2016, but it was apparently too much for Warner Bros. Discovery.

The list of Adult Swim games can be found here: https://delistedgames.com/as-more-developers-confirm-it-looks-likely-that-all-adult-swim-games-titles-will-be-removed-by-may/ (Archive link: https://archive.ph/fjt3Q)

Archive link: https://archive.ph/WOlNl

The Swedish gaming company Embracer Group AB is canceling a video game in the beloved Deus Ex series after two years of development and will lay off a number of employees as part of an ongoing initiative to cut costs, according to people familiar with the moves.

Eidos, the Montreal, Canada-based studio behind the game, will instead focus on an original franchise. The canceled Deus Ex project, which had not yet been announced, was slated to enter production later this year, said the people, speaking anonymously because they are not authorized to talk to the press.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Following a period of massive expansion during the pandemic, Embracer Group has lately been making widespread layoffs, game cancellations and studio closures.

The sci-fi Deus Ex series has been critically acclaimed and sold more than 14 million units worldwide. It was acquired by Embracer in 2022.

Archive link

Nintendo Co. will launch a new game console this year with an 8-inch LCD screen, according to Omdia analyst Hiroshi Hayase.

The new device from the Kyoto-based games maker will be responsible for a doubling in shipments of so-called amusement displays in 2024, Hayase said in Tokyo on Friday. His research focuses on small and medium displays and he bases annual forecasts on checks with companies in the supply chain

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/11075469

Image transcription: A blue stylized shirt with the logo of The Wash from SpongeBob, a sticker of a squashed Plankton, a sticker resembling Squidward's "I really wish I weren't here right now" pin, a sticker resembling Mr. Krabs' mom's underwear, a keychain of Mr. Krabs, SpongeBob, and Patrick playing D&D, a BFF ring (which I didn't make), and a Chum Bucket bucket to hold everything.

[Image transcription: A "Doctor's hate him" style meme titled "The Founders HATE Him" about Goran'Agar. The side text reads "He beat his ketracel-white addiction in less than 35 days using this simple trick. FIND OUT HOW"]