#twitter holds its data weird and you can only go back so far in the various tabs

[risingsunresistance]

hi! i wanted to ask if you know anyone/anywhere that archived techno’s twitter account? my own inactive account was deleted a week or so ago, per the new rules, and thinking about the day his gets removed is really nervewracking.

i dont know of anyone specifically that has done that, but there are plenty of archives on the wayback machine. here's one from 2022 which includes the last tweet made on his account from technodad

that being said, i wouldnt worry too much about his account since his dad HAS logged into it. it's likely that someone will tell him about this new policy and he'll continue to log into it. if he doesn't though, it exists on the wayback at the very least. maybe you can save your own backup from there

[agent-yolk-writes]

Friends Like You and Us - Venom!Reader - Ch. 6

I really gotta post this after I updated it on AO3 goddamn

In today’s episode: The gang puts too much thought into planning, you have terrible codenames, and you wonder if the circus is in town.

Don’t forget to reblog so others can see it! If you want something featured, don’t be afraid to drop an ask. We’re almost around the halfway point and it’s all downhill from here. Get your thoughts in now or forever hold your peace,

AO3 Version | Masterlist (TBD)

After scrambling to figure out a plan and translating interdimensional slang, the plan goes as follows:

1. You enter the building with Ham in a backpack. Peni has hooked all of you guys with little telecommunicators that can fit into your ear. They look like they can be passed off as the cool new earbuds you’ve seen your classmates wearing.

1a. Peni, SP//dr, and Noir will be outside as backup should anything happen along the way.

2. Get through the guards by showing your ID, which indicates a trusted employee of the building, Mary, has granted an outsider, you, permission to enter the building and their individual office. That’s it, that’s your only access.

3. While you do what your aunt asked you, Ham goes in the vents and finds a way into the Alchemax section upstairs. There he’ll find anything that could help figure out what happened to Spider-Man.

From there, depending on the situation, it could go two ways.

4a. Ham retraces his footsteps in the vents and gets back to your aunt’s office.

4b. If Ham needs to be recovered, you’ll “accidentally” stumble into Alchemax, claim you’re trying to find the bathroom, to retrieve Ham and any data he managed to recover.

5. Leave without raising any suspicions, if possible.

A simple plan in five or so steps. You’re taking the usual subway route to her office with Ham squished inside your mini backpack. It’s uncertain what Peni and Noir are doing above ground, but you could imagine them hopping between buildings in a cool montage like that cool cartoon of those ninja lizards. Thankfully this cart was almost packed to the brim, so no one can see, Ham included, tendrils wrapping around your hand and giving a comforting squeeze as if someone was actually holding your hand.

You got this. We believe in you.

I...I dunno. It sounded too easy in my apartment.

We can handle anything that comes our way.

“I sure hope so.” You muttered, glancing at the people close by to see if they’re looking at you. Swinging your bag around so it’s hanging in the front, you subtly zipped open the bag to look at the cartoony companion. At the sign of first light, he hisses at the sudden stimulation by squinting his eyes for a few seconds.

“Are we there yet?” He asks, a bit bored.

You glanced over at the display showing how many stops are left. “Not for another stop or so. How are you feeling in there?”

Ham sighs at the response. “I knew I should’ve brought something to read.” He pulls out a sleeping mask and puts it over his eyes.

“It’s either this or waste SP//dr’s fuel but doing about three trips back and forth.” You could feel some glances over your way, so you lower your voice a bit. “Anyone with a phone is going to post it on Twitter and we really don’t want that. Especially if it’s going to be on Insider Edition tonight.”

Your communicator buzzes to life, even with all the concrete around you.

“Actually, it’s powered by the psychic link between me and my spider friend in the suit.” Peni corrected you.

“There’s a spider...in the suit?” You said with genuine surprise.

“Hey now, you didn’t ask.” Well, she has a point there. “Oh heads up, here comes your stop.” As if on cue, the overhead speaker announces your stop. It doesn’t help your heart kicking up a notch in anticipation. A thousand scenarios are running through your head as you tried not to give Ham a whiplash putting your bag in its proper place. You even straighten out your blouse as you exited the subway train. Despite only being bonded for a week, it felt strange wearing clothes outside of your symbiote. All there’s left is to pray to your not-so empty head that everything can and will go right for a simple infiltration.

~

“This is Black Spider. I’m in position.”

“Spider Pig here. Let’s get this show running.”

“Mecha Spider is ready when you are!”

“This is Classic Spider, cruising for a bruising on the bench.”

…

You should’ve opposed to using codenames. This is an in and out, not an actual heist. If anything, you could’ve at least used different spiders to call each other by. It’d make sense if you refer to yourself as, for example, Black Widow rather than Black Spider. In the end, it’s all apples to pears.

Taking a deep breath, you pulled on the ID card you knew was on you just to make sure it's really there. It doesn’t go bad for another year, so they can’t stop you by saying it’s expired. If one of your aunt’s coworkers spotted you, then the suspicious glares from security will weaken. They swap floors every six months or so for security purposes. You haven’t been in the building proper since...ten months ago. Hopefully, that retired Sergeant got mobilized to the main floor. If he got moved to Alchemax, then you’ll have to pray for Ham’s safety-

Said spider-pig poked his head out. “What about my safety?”

“Nothing.” With Venom’s help, your arm pushed your smuggled package back into your back of the cramped bag. With Venom’s sixth sense you can almost feel Peni and Noir staring down from the roof of a neighboring building. “Let’s go.” With a shaky step, you begin your ascent up the stairs and entered the revolving door.

To your left, you see the guest desks and the CCTVs in an open room behind the woman at the desk. She had her head down, so she’s probably on her phone. Directly in front of you is the series of elevators being guarded by a single security guard, a glorified elevator worker if anything. You vaguely remember him, but it might not be the same vice versa. Through the handful of people coming in and out, you make your move to the first elevator open.

Your aunt’s workplace is one of the higher floors, so it’s going to be a while in this metal death trap. It became empty quicker than you expected, not that you don’t mind.

“What’s your status Black Spider, Spider Pig?” Peni said through the communicator.

“Entering the building was a success, no complications so far.” You whispered back. You try not to stare at the camera you know is staring at you in the corner. ”Pretty much going to be a smooth ride up.” Was the last thing you said before said smooth ride came to a halt at a different floor.

Oh no, someone else is coming up.

If you don’t make eye contact and shuffle to the side, maybe they won’t-

“Oh look, it’s you.” Oh no, it’s her.

You forced your eyes to look at one and only Stacy Adams from your school. She’s a senior, just a year above you. She’s one of the most popular people in your school and like every high school movie out there, she thinks she’s the queen of the institution. The only reason she could be here is that senior intern experience your school offers where seniors spend three of the five day school week learning. To your chagrin, it looks like today is one of those days.

She hates your guts for some reason. You couldn’t recall what you did to piss her off. Maybe she got jealous of you a guy that just so happens to be a friend of your friend. You did, however, ate her boyfriend aka the top varsity football player bound for Ohio State, so there’s that. In your defense, he attacked you.

We should eat her as well.

Shush, you.

You eyed the security camera in the corner.

Not yet.

“Hey, Stacy...weird meeting you here, huh?” You mustered up whatever you can to pretend you’re happy to see her.

“It’s weird meeting you here.” She shoots back. “Should I report you for skipping school to trespass?”

“Unlike your daddy’s money, I actually know people here.” You replied before you could process it. So much for putting up a fake front.

Stacy, of course, wasn’t having it. “You don’t need to know people if they’re hiring a fucking clown.”

“A fucking clown? Oh wait, is that who you’re seeing after Kyle basically ghosted you? Wooow Stacy, how faithfu-“ You didn’t get a chance to finish it when a handmade sharp contact with your cheek. You weren’t sure if the sting was from the palm or the sharp nails she raked across your skin for extra damage.

Your heart was beating so loud in your ears. Whether it was Venom’s boiling rage or your own, it almost affected the next step you were about to do. If it wasn’t for Peni bringing you back to Earth with, “-ck Spider, is everything alright in there?” in your ear, you would be deep in bloodshed.

Instead, you calmly removed your earpiece and stuffed it into your bag. You hope she notices the unhuman bend of your arm.

“Look, I don’t have time for you.” You said lowly, voice borderline a growl. “I’m going to do my thing, you’re gonna do your thing, and then you’ll continue to pop your gum loudly every time I even blink in your direction. Got it?”

Stacy stares at you like you grew two heads on the spot. Your cheek tickles a bit as Venom heals the scratch marks.

She started sputtering some nonsense to try and get something in before the elevator finally slowed down to your aunt’s floor. Time to finally get out of this cramped box.

But first…

As you took a step out of the elevator, you couldn’t help but turn around to face her one last time.

“Oh, by the way…” You said with a growing devious grin. “Kyle’s brain was absolutely delicious.” Venom couldn’t help but join in at the last second, but it got the results that you wanted. Stacy tried charging at you but the closing doors were quicker. You could hear her banging at the door all the way up. Ah, you’ll remember the face she made. You wonder if her boyfriend had that same expression.

~

Ham decided to pop his head out once you used your aunt’s card to get into the bathroom. He had a sponge lodged into his ears that managed to take out by pulling it out of one ear with a comical pop. You’re too

“Geez, took you long enough. Thought the catfight was gonna take foreeeever.” He complained.

“Well sorry for having enemies, I guess.” You replied as you readjusted your communicator. “This is Black Spider. Um...Sorry that I went AWOL there. Bumped into a rather unpleasant classmate of mine in the elevator.”

“About time! Thought about going in there thinking you croaked.” Noir’s voice crackled through his mic.

“Weren’t you able to hear anything from Ham’s mic?”

Peni answered your question with, “The microphone is designed to cancel out any background noise so whoever’s talking into it can be heard. You’ll never find anything better for noise cancellation!”

The wonders of the future could not be thanked enough.

You pushed Ham’s head back in the bag at the sound of the bathroom door unlocking for someone else. This is your cue to leave and head to your aunt’s office.

The first phase of the plan is now successful. Now that the second part is about to be achieved, you’re looking forward to the idea of getting away without being caught. Well, you almost did, but that doesn’t count in your books.

It should be smooth sailing from here, right?

...Right?

[angewrites]

Operation: Playmaker

Title: Operation: Playmaker

Anime: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS

Words: 3,335 (or somewhere around there lmao) 

Summary: Two months after Takeru and Flame find out the Cyberse has been invaded and desolated, they are approached by a man, not much older than Takeru, who asks for a very peculiar favor, one involving Playmaker.

Notes: SHE LIVES!!! AND SHE HAS A NEW FIC (a one-shot, as usual lmao)!! 

This is my first ever VRAINS fic, so hurray for milestone fics lmao. Honestly, this is just a fanfic version of the “my son Takeru and Ryoken are working together, and Ryoken told Takeru to watch Yusaku b/c Yusaku is a mess” theory I came up with as a result of the “BRING REVOLVER BACK” and anti-Soulburner sentiment on Twitter so lmao there’s that.  

I tried a narration experiment with this, but I don’t know how effective it is, so any thoughts on that is much appreciated. Either way, happy reading, pals, and I hope you enjoy it! :D

[FFN] 

[AO3]

Off the Coast of Den City: Kogami Island

Takeru glanced with uncertainty at Flame, who had taken its place inside his Duel disk, as he followed the man who had approached him only hours before. He couldn’t care less what happens to him, but, if Flame was hurt in any way and it caused him to disappear, Takeru wouldn’t forgive himself. It almost happened before. He wouldn’t let it happen again.  

But, Flame could never know he thought that at all.  

Quickly, Takeru’s eyes shifted to the man in front of him. The man didn’t seem to be a threat when they first met, but there’s something . . . something off. His energy’s full of unbelievable tension as if burdened by some grand fate, yet he remained calm on the exterior. It didn’t make any sense, but Takeru wasn’t about to inquire.  

As intimidating as he seemed, white-haired man also gave off a familiar vibe, as if they had crossed paths before. That was weird. They’ve never met before today . . . right?  

“Of course not, Takeru. That’s ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath. He let out a small gasp, realizing he’d been thinking out loud.

The man stopped. Takeru - and his heartbeat - also stopped. Oh god I’ve never prayed to before today, did he hear me? They were in front of what seemingly appeared to be a dead end in the dark cavern.  

“We’re here,” the man said, giving no indication that he heard nor cared about Takeru randomly mumbling to himself. Good news on that end for Takeru, but the fact that they were "here" created a whole new set of problems.  

“Here?” Takeru repeated, his voice trembling a bit. He hadn’t mentioned anything about a final destination or where they were headed before. He tightly clenched a fist to keep his nerves from spiraling tornado-style inside of him.  

The man acted as though he didn’t hear the question and, after inserting a code on a screen, what was a dead end turned into an entry way to a room, brighter than the dark space that they were in. Takeru forced his jaw to remain shut, but it was hard. There was just so many machines he had never seen before, especially not back home. He was no machine guy, but the room was certainly impressive, even if it did make Takeru shiver a bit.  

The man in front of him sighed, placing a hand on his hip. “Spectre, we’re here.”

Takeru blinked. Why is this guy speaking to a ghost? Once Takeru accepted that possibility, he felt his stomach churn. He was not in the mood to deal with the supernatural.

The individual Takeru presumed to be Spectre walked in, even though it really looked like he teleported, from the right. Spectre's light blue eyes felt as though they were piercing Takeru's soul. Takeru felt a shudder slide down his back. Forget whoever guided him here. This guy was especially frightening, almost as frightening as a ghost, a specter, if you will. Didn't help that he was wearing all white. Was this guy even human?

“My apologies, Revolver-sama,” he began. “We were just prepping for you and – ” Spectre peered over the man’s shoulder, making eye contact with Takeru, “ – the honored guest’s arrival.”

The man in front of him emitted a guttural noise, most likely of disapproval. “Spectre!”

But, if he wanted his identity hidden, it was too late. Takeru couldn’t hold in the gasp that escaped from his mouth. This guy . . . was Revolver? The guy who threatened to destroy Link VRAINS? Come to think of it, he never did introduce himself. That. That was why!  

“Hey, hey, hey hey hey,” Takeru broke in, his voice gradually becoming lower pitched with his growing anger. “You didn’t say anything about being that Revolver! You said you needed help with Link VRAINS, even though you’re the one who tried to destroy it?  Give me a break!”

Spectre and the apparent ringleader and Takeru’s personal escort Revolver-sama allowed a moment of silence for this apparent unfortunate turn of events Spectre had created. Revolver glanced at Spectre, shook his head, and turned to face Takeru again. At that moment, Takeru noticed another man walking in, one with suspiciously green hair and a grin that reminded him of an evil goblin.

This Revolver-sama guy sure hung out with a creepy crowd.  

“Revolver, sorry I’m late -” he began but stopped when he saw Takeru. “Oh-ho, pardon my interruption. Is something really important going on here?”

Takeru didn’t break his gaze with Revolver and he let a “tch.” escape through his teeth. He was trying hard to appear tough, but he could feel his legs wobbling a little. Pathetic. Flame would hardcore judge him if he saw him then.  

“That’s enough,” the white-haired young man commanded. “Dr. Genome, wasn’t Dr. Aso with you?”  

“He’ll be here momentarily, Revolver.” The goblin green-haired man pushed up his glasses and made his way toward Takeru, sending a shiver down his spine. “He says to start without him.”

Revolver sighed and made his way over to what appeared to be a circular screen built within the ground, Takeru’s eyes following him.  

“Not going to answer my question, are you? Why should I help you?” Takeru had the courage to say. It tasted awful, coming from him. He hadn’t been this combative since . . . since he confronted that gang back home. But, he needed answers, and this Revolver guy was just dodging the point.

“Show some respect for Revolver-sama, you little -” Spectre started to say, but the white haired-man raised an arm to cut him off.  

“That‘s enough, Spectre.”  

Spectre crossed his right hand over to his heart and bowed ever so slightly to acknowledge the reprimand.  

Takeru could feel beads of sweat forming in the back of his neck.  

“Homura Takeru,” Revolver said, “I understand your concern well. I haven’t exactly displayed myself as someone trustworthy, especially to someone with an Ignis.”

He knew?!?! Takeru dug his nails into his palm and glanced at his Duel Disk. “How did you know -” Takeru started to ask.

“- that you had an Ignis?” Revolver finished. “It’s not a talent I’m particularly fond of, but it can’t be helped. I sense those who were in the Lost Incident and the AI created from them . . . or from their data, I should say.”

Takeru raised an eyebrow. Sensing people specifically from the Lost Incident? That’s seems a little far-fetched. It’s not like the Lost Incident people have a specific smell to them or anything like, so what did he mean? And how does he know about the Lost Incident anyway? Still, if Takeru valued his life, he wasn’t about to ask any of these questions out loud.  

Revolver continued, “But, even though my destiny is to destroy what my father, Dr. Kogami, has created and also tried to destroy, a greater risk has appeared, and it goes beyond the Ignis threat to Link VRAINS.”

Supposed Ignis threat. Takeru added mentally. “Greater risk?” he asked aloud.

Revolver nodded. “Recently, there was a SOL Technology function unveiling the new and improved Link VRAINS before its release to the general public. Ironically, even though I aided in its initial destruction, I was invited to this function. It was there that I met them.”

“Them?” Takeru asked.  

Spectre chimed in almost immediately, “The Harbingers of the New Era, right?”

Quite a name.  

“Exactly. They’re an elite data robbery group that used to work with my father, but they couldn’t come up with an agreement on the creation of the AI. Since SOL Technology came for my father for the Lost Incident, I suppose their opposition is how they got invited.”  

Spectre clapped his hands. “Then the group leader was asked to give a speech since they actually helped to upgrade Link VRAINS. Isn’t that right, Revolver-sama?”

Takeru couldn’t understand why Spectre kept interrupting, so he asked, “Well, were you there too?”

Spectre glared at Takeru for a second before “humph”ing and retorting, “Someone had to manage Revolver-sama's data concealer. He wanted to be at this party without anyone noticing.”

“If you say so,” Takeru returned. Wasn’t he invited though?

Revolver cleared his throat. “They did give a speech. And it was cryptic at best, shady at worst. There was much talk about the future of Link VRAINS but, strangely enough, the future they spoke of, even without any mention of AI, would even make my father concerned. Link VRAINS as being a space for winners, a space where businesses can make a profit. Players being trained to ward off the next imminent attack. That kind of thing. If SOL Technology and this group continue to do business with each other, I’m afraid Link VRAINS will be in greater danger than ever before.”

Takeru shrugged. “Bad news, but what’s that got to do with me?”

“If this group has their way,” Revolver replied, “Link VRAINS and your Ignis will be in grave danger. The technology this group wants to implement in Link VRAINS to create ‘faster and better duels’ . . .  This technology? Equipped with viruses designed to get rid of AIs not registered in a system.”

Takeru gasped, but then shook his head. He had to be careful. What if Revolver was lying to him just to get Flame? Wasn't he just bashing AIs earlier? He couldn’t let his guard down.

“So, how do I know what you’re saying is true? And what’s my role in all of this? How do I know you’re not just saying all this to get my Ignis?” he asked.

“I can’t make you believe me, Homura, but I will tell you that not only Link VRAINS is in danger, but so is your hero.”

Takeru cocked his head to the side, placing his thumb and pointer finger and on his chin. “Which one?”

Revolver stared at him. “It’s Playmaker.”

Oh, duh. Who else would it be? “Playmaker?! But why?!”

“That I haven’t figured out. I just know he’s being targeted,” Revolver continued. “SOL Technology might be after Playmaker’s Ignis, but this group appears to have no interest in that. It’s quite possible Playmaker’s life is in danger. And it could have a drastic impact on Link VRAINS.”

Well, this is weird. Takeru thought. I thought Revolver was his sworn enemy, but he’s concerned about his life? Better just play along, though.  

“So, what am I supposed to do, Revolver-san?” Takeru inquired.

“-sama.” Spectre corrected.  

Revolver closed his eyes and crossed his arms. “Kogami.”

“Eh?”

“We’re not in Link VRAINS. It’s Kogami.” The man cut in, tapping his fingers on his forearm.

“O-okay, Kogami, so what’s my role in all of this?” Takeru repeated.  

“Your task is to watch over Playmaker, make sure this group doesn’t get to him,” Kogami explained. “Both in Link VRAINS and outside. I can't take care of the outside arrangements, but I'm sure one of my associates can help you with that."

Takeru raised an eyebrow. "What arrangements are we talkin' here?"

"He's saying you gotta go to school, kid, as much as you probably don't want to" Spectre yawned. "We don't know when these guys will strike, so it's best to guard Playmaker no matter where he is. I'll take care of the whole school thing, I suppose."

Takeru tried to shoot daggers in Spectre direction with his eyes, but Spectre seemed blissfully unaware of the ill intent coming from the fiery teen. Takeru did calm down once he realized that he had to go to school again, though.  

Unfortunately, Spectre was right. That was certainly a tall order. Never mind that this was the guy who tried to destroy Link VRAINS and challenged Playmaker who’s asking Takeru to watch him. An inexperienced Link VRAINS duelist like him? Protecting Playmaker? And he had to go to school to do it?  There’s just no way. But, there was something about Kogami’s expression that sparked a sense of confidence in Takeru. Yeah, Kogami did threaten Link VRAINS, but . . . he also acknowledged Playmaker’s abilities, didn’t he?  

It’s not the same as working alongside his heroes, but working alongside the rivals of one of his heroes was close enough, right?

“You can count on me!” Takeru announced, pointing a thumbs-up to himself. But, he realized he was missing one key piece of information. “Although . . . how am I supposed to know who Playmaker is outside of Link VRAINS?”

Kogami gave a small laugh. “That’s what your Ignis is for, isn’t it?”  

Takeru looked at his Duel disk. “Flame’ll tell me, huh? And how long am I supposed to keep this up for?”

“I have . . . business to tend to in the meantime, so I can’t give a definitive answer. But, this shouldn’t take too long, I hope,” Kogami replied, making his way toward where they first came in.  

“Business?”

“Getting one of our own out of jail, finding more info on this new group, you know. The usual,” Spectre spoke up, shrugging his shoulders and letting an obnoxious smirk show on his face. “Don’t screw this up for Revolver-sama, kid.”

“Kid?” Takeru repeated accusingly.  

“Uh, Spectre, aren’t you the same age as him?” Genome – was it? - broke in and asked.  

“Don’t compare me to him.”

“Enough!” Kogami said. “We don’t have time for this nonsense. Spectre, Genome, be sure to bring our guest back to Den City. And leave his Ignis alone. Got it?”

“Yes, sir!” Spectre and Genome replied in unison, causing Takeru’s eyebrow to twitch a little. What kind of organization was Kogami running here? Could he really be trusted since one of his own is apparently in jail?  

Well, he’s gonna have to fake the trust if he wants to live.  

“That’s it. I’m counting on you . . .” Kogami smirked, closing his eyes, “Soulburner.”  

Takeru stared incredulously at his initial escort. “Wait, I’ve never stepped foot in Link VRAINS before. How did -”

“Come on, kid, let’s go,” Spectre interrupted with a smile that caused Takeru to slightly shiver, grabbing Takeru by the forearm. “Revolver-sama is very busy.”

So why does he get to call him Revolver? This isn’t the Link VRAINS space. Takeru thought. But, he knew better than to question this guy. He wasn't going to let the kid comment slide, though.

“Stop calling me ‘kid,’” Takeru retorted.

“Okay, okay, kids. That’s enough. We’re going to get you back now, Homura,” Genome intruded, pushing Spectre away from Takeru. “This mission is very important, though, so do your best to not make any careless mistakes.”

“Yeah, sure.”  

At least Takeru wouldn’t have to be stuck with Spectre during his mission. Just having Flame make fun of him was enough.  

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

?????

“So, you really believe him, huh?” Flame inquired as Takeru continued to stare at his deck. Takeru closed his eyes and sighed, leaning back in his chair, letting his bangs fall away from his forehead.

“I don’t know what to believe at this point anymore,” he said, eyes still closed. “But, if it’s part of my path to get over my past, I’ll do it. No use questioning it too much.”

“Funny. You seemed to have a lot of questions when we first met, and I wasn’t even trying to hurt you,” Flame countered.

“You sure?”

Silence.

“I’m just kidding, Flame. But, taking over every electronic device I looked at? Come on now.”  

Flame crossed his arms. “I needed to get your attention. But, the point is, if you couldn’t trust me, how can you trust this Revolver guy? He caused so much trouble for Link VRAINS and you’re willing to believe him? Just because he mentioned Playmaker?”  

Takeru glanced at Flame and then back at the ceiling. He should probably replace the ceiling soon.  

“Sure, he did all that, but . . . there’s something that bothers me about him in a not-suspicious kind of way.”

“Yeah, ‘cause that makes a lot of sense, Takeru.”

Takeru sat straight up in his chair. “I’m serious! I just don’t see any reason to not believe him. He could just let Link VRAINS and you AI and Playmaker perish for all he cares. But, despite all that, he asked me to help save them. When he’s got other people who could do the job just fine, except,” Takeru contorted his face in disgust, “that Spectre guy, maybe. He creeps me out.”

Flame closed its eyes. “You really are too nice, Takeru.”  

"Too nice, huh?" The teen glanced at the clock. He decided he should probably be getting to bed soon to get used to the whole school thing again. He still had tomorrow to himself, but he needed to mentally prepare, if only for a couple of months. Imagine. Him going to school. Grandpa and Kiku would be super shocked if they knew. Not that he wanted to go, but a mission was a mission.  

But, there was one piece of info he needed before he could hit the hay for the night.  

"Flame."

"…."

"Flame, I know you don't sleep."

"Yes, Oh Chosen One, how may I be of service to you at this late hour?"

Takeru sighed. Flame was such a handful. "….That's a bit much, don't you think?"

"I asked you first."

"Revol-I mean, Kogami mentioned you know who Playmaker is. Is that tru-?"

"Fujiki Yusaku."

Takeru took a step back. "Eh?"

"That's who Playmaker is. Around your age, goes to Den City High School, where you'll be," Flame continued.  

"That's . . . That's amazing, Flame!" Takeru exclaimed, barely containing his excitement. Finding out his idols' true identities was not something he expected, but if anything can make going to school tomorrow worth it, it's that.  "Anything else?"

"Well . . . not to douse your fiery passion or anything, but he's also a Lost Incident victim. Like you," the AI continued. It reverted back to its eyeball state in Takeru's Duel disk. "You've seen his Link VRAINS form, but just so you don't go chasing after the wrong guy, here's what he looks like in the human world."  

Takeru looked at the image of Yusaku. It was strange. He had been told there were others – five others, to be exact – who were locked up as well, but he was never told of who they were or what they looked like. For his idol, the one who saved Link VRAINS, to be one of the six, it was surreal.  

But, at least Takeru knew that someone else would understand. The weight he had to carry.  

"Fujiki . . . Yusaku, huh?" The teen sounded. "This should be entertaining, keeping an eye on this guy. Right, Flame?"

The eyeball in Takeru's Duel disk blinked slowly once, as if to acknowledge Takeru's statement. "One more thing. Revolver said nothing about this, but I figure you need to know this."

Takeru raised an eyebrow. "Hm?"

"The one who goes by Blue Angel in Link VRAINS also goes to Den City High School," Flame continued. "She's Zaizen Aoi." The AI projected an image of the girl from the Duel disk. "Not a victim of the Lost Incident, but she hasn't been so lucky in her Link VRAINS endeavors, let's say."

But Takeru wasn't paying much attention to what Flame was saying. Two VRAINS celebrities go to his new school? Just his luck! Finding that out made going back to school almost worth it.  

Almost.

"Takeru?"

"What is it?"

"Are you sure you're up to this? You haven't even stepped into Link VRAINS before."

There's definitely a lot at stake with this mission, but Takeru had a feeling it'll work out somehow. It always did.  

"Sure am. I'm not gonna get a chance like this again, so I'm just gonna go for it," Takeru said, turning off the lights. "I'll be fine."

At least, he sure hoped so.  

"Also, how are you going to introduce yourself to this Yusaku anyway -"

"Good night, Flame."  

[nigeiadigitalmarketingcompany]

2:00PM Water Cooler 8/7/2019

Digital Elixir 2:00PM Water Cooler 8/7/2019

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Trade

“U.S. agricultural exports to China plummeted more than 50% last year to $9.1 billion as tariffs raised the cost of American soybeans, pork and other farm products. The exports dropped another 20% in the first six months of this year. The pain is rippling through agricultural supply chains. One forecast says tariffs could cost the sector as many as 71,000 jobs over the next two years” [Wall Street Journal]. (Apparently, China’s swine fever epidemic has not cut demand for soy.)

Politics

“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery.” –Frank Herbert, Dune

“2020 Democratic Presidential Nomination” [RealClearPolitics] (average of five polls). As of August 5: Biden fluctuates to 32.3% (32.2), Sanders continues climb to 16.7% (16.5%), Warren flat at 14.0% (14.0%), Buttigieg flat at 5.5% (5.5%), Harris down at 10.2% (10.3%), Beto separating himself from the bottom feeders, interestingly. Others Brownian motion. So, I think we can conclude that Sanders won both debates.

* * *

2020

Sanders (D)(1): Sanders calls his shot not only the effect of trade deals on workers, but on the two-party system. In 2000. The whole video is worth a listen, since the Tweet doesn’t quote all of it.

In the year 2000, Congress voted to grant China upgraded trade status, helping it become world's most powerful dictatorship.

Bernie Sanders voted against. He stood next to Pelosi at Dem presser and blasted Bill Clinton. "Let me tell you where he got his money," Sanders intoned. pic.twitter.com/JzBZ3UiXka

— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) August 7, 2019

No wonder they hate him….

* * *

“Few candidates have loyal small-dollar donor bases” [WaPo]. • Few, but not none:

Turns out small donor money isn’t all that fungible.

“Shadow of Dark Money Grows as 2020 Groups Shun Donor Disclosure” [Bloomberg]. “Democratic and Republican groups raising tens of millions of dollars for the 2020 elections increasingly are keeping their funding sources secret, a trend that watchdog groups warn allows high-dollar donors to gain influence with candidates without risking exposure. Priorities USA, which collected almost $200 million to help Hillary Clinton in 2016, says it wants to spend that much or more to help the next Democratic nominee defeat President Donald Trump. This time, however, Priorities is being funded mostly by undisclosed donations.” • What could go wrong?

“Are the Democrats divided? No — they’re poised to win big if they don’t screw it up” [Bill Curry, Salon]. “Everyone wants to see Warren and Sanders face off against Biden because the real dividing line is between the middle class and the donor class. Warren and Sanders never attack Obama, Biden or each other and they won’t do it in September. What they will do is compare their ideas and campaigns to his. The facts will be fierce, but the delivery will be civil. It’ll be Biden’s toughest test. Progressives want to take a new path, but I’ve yet to meet a “Never Bidener.” The stakes are too high. To defeat Trump, Democrats need to answer his racism with a message of both racial justice and social conciliation, and answer his corruption with a message of economic justice and political reform. So long as their candidates don’t make a fetish of their small differences, they’ll get there.” • White House counsellor to Clinton. Not seeing a whole lot about “economic justice and political reform” from establishment Democrats. Of course, if they hadn’t spent three years yammering about Russia, they might have had time to come up with something.

El Paso and Dayton Shootings

“Dayton shooter may be antifa’s first mass killer” [NY Post]. • I dunno. It’s the shooters pr0n rock band that gets me. I see the El Paso shooter, who — assuming the provenance proves out — wrote a manifesto as being ideologically serious in a way that the Dayton shooter, who was just a mess by all accounts, was not. (We should also think back to the Orlando shootings, where literally everything about the initial stories was wrong). And speaking of pr0n–

“Photos from Dayton and El Paso illustrate the grim routine of mass shootings” [WaPo]. • If I see one more photo of beautiful young people holding candles… Honestly, it’s like some weird kind of pr0n. I don’t equate viewing digital images of people mourning as actually mourning.

Where “we” are:

Panic in Times Square After Motorcycle Is Mistaken for Gunshots https://t.co/F5qsndMPfD

— Dan Froomkin (@froomkin) August 7, 2019

Somehow, I can’t help thinking that a panicked populace is not conducive to sound democratic decision-making…

“What Experts Know About People Who Commit Mass Shootings” [New York Times]. “Can one mass shooting inspire another? Yes… Are video games to blame for mass shootings? The results of studies attempting to clarify the relationship between violent video games and aggression have been mixed, with experts deeply divided on the findings. How strong is the link between mental illness and mass shootings? Tenuous, at best. Would drugging or confining people showing “red flags” prevent massacres? No one knows for certain.” • This is pretty thin stuff.

2018 Post Mortem

No:

.@ChelseaClinton and I are thrilled to announce "The Book of Gutsy Women," out October 1st. It's a conversation about over 100 women who have inspired us—and narrowing it down was a process! https://t.co/DOhSrVq9SC pic.twitter.com/bOVES73FAQ

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 6, 2019

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Is ‘Bernie or Bust’ the Future of the Left?” [New York Times]. • Report on the DSA convention. I dunno, it seems to me that an organization dedicated to seizing the means of production shouldn’t be getting press this good. Perhaps it’s their stand on open borders.

“Twitter says it won’t verify new candidates until they win their primaries” [The Hill]. • Swell. More incumbent protection. That should certainly help Twitter with regulatory issues!

“Inslee Is Doing Very Well in the Power Primary” [Mike the Mad Biologist]. The conclusion: “Democrats in 2021 will need to make people’s lives better in meaningful ways. If not, we will have a repeat of 2010 in 2022, since next time we won’t get Trump, we’ll get someone smarter and more disciplined. As bad as Trump is, President Tom Cotton would be far worse.” • Yep. 2020 is their last shot. Biden/Harris all the way!

They call it historical materialism:

The political continuum hypothesis states that there exist historical precedents besides Nixon and Hitler. It is widely believed outside the United States, in countries Americans have never heard of

— Pinboard (@Pinboard) August 7, 2019

Stats Watch

JOLTS, June 2019 (yesterday): “Moderation in labor demand is this year’s theme of the JOLTS report” [Econoday]. “Quits, which are tracked by Federal Reserve officials for indications of worker mobility and related wage pressure, remain flat… This report hints at easing capacity pressure in the labor market and will likely be welcome by Fed officials who, with last month’s rate cut, are adding new stimulus to the economy.”

MBA Mortgage Applications, week of August 2, 2019: “A big drop in mortgage rates — the result of last week’s rate cut by the Federal Reserve — triggered a surge of refinancing applications” [Econoday].

Shipping: “Slots in heavy-duty truck production lines are opening up but few fleet operators are getting in line. Orders for Class 8 trucks fell last month to their lowest level since 2010” [Wall Street Journal]. “A factory backlog for Class 8 trucks that exceeded 300,000 orders late last year is down by more than a third, and research group FTR expects production to decline 22% next year. The good news for manufacturers is that cancellations have remained relatively light. That could change if weakness in the broader industrial sector gets worse and trucking companies decide to park their current fleet plans.”

The Bezzle: “A pioneer in the meal-kit market is losing its sizzle. Blue Apron Holdings Inc. narrowed its quarterly loss but is still losing customers… and a turnaround could involve a lot more logistics for a business already laden with complicated fulfillment” [Wall Street Journal]. “New Chief Executive Linda Kozlowski says Blue Apron’s plan to boost revenue and customer growth this year will include serving more households and offering greater menu choices, including flexibility to tailor the options…. Perhaps more challenging, analysts say the overall market is already saturated and likely smaller than companies had hoped.”

Tech: “Trump Wants to Make It Basically Impossible to Sue for Algorithmic Discrimination” [Vice]. “The new rule takes aim at a 2015 Supreme Court ruling, which decided that consumers could combat housing discriminatory business practices by making “disparate-impact claims” under the Fair Housing Act of 1968. In a disparate-impact claim, if you find out that a business practice had a disproportionate effect on certain groups of people, then you can hold that business liable—even if it was an unintended consequence….. HUD’s new rule would throw all that out the window by introducing huge loopholes to shield businesses from liability when their algorithms are accused of bias. As Reveal News reported, ‘A hypothetical bank that rejected every loan application filed by African Americans and approved every one filed by white people, for example, would need to prove only that race or a proxy for it was not used directly in constructing its computer model.’ But there is substantial evidence to show that racial bias is fundamentally baked into the way that these algorithms and their data sets are constructed, even if they don’t specifically take race into account.” • Code is law…

Tech: “Amazon Is Coaching Cops on How to Obtain Surveillance Footage Without a Warrant” [Vice]. “When police partner with Ring, Amazon’s home surveillance camera company, they get access to the ‘Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal,’ an interactive map that allows officers to request footage directly from camera owners. Police don’t need a warrant to request this footage, but they do need permission from camera owners. Emails and documents obtained by Motherboard reveal that people aren’t always willing to provide police with their Ring camera footage. However, Ring works with law enforcement and gives them advice on how to persuade people to give them footage. Emails obtained from police department in Maywood, NJ—and emails from the police department of Bloomfield, NJ, which were also posted by Wired—show that Ring coaches police on how to obtain footage. The company provides cops with templates for requesting footage… Ring suggests cops post often on Neighbors, Ring’s free ‘neighborhood watch’ app, where Ring camera owners have the option of sharing their camera footage.” • It’s a little tough to rank Big. Tech companies for evil right now, but surely Amazon gets a boost for this.

Tech: “Jeff Bezos feels a tap on the shoulder. Ahem, Mr Amazon, care to explain how Capital One’s AWS S3 buckets got hacked?” [The Register]. “After last week’s revelations that a hacker stole the personal details of 106 million Capital One credit card applicants from its Amazon-hosted cloud storage, a US Senator has demanded Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos explain what exactly what went wrong. The sensitive information was siphoned from Capital One’s Amazon Web Services S3 buckets by a former AWS engineer, who was arrested and charged at the end of July…. Wyden is particularly concerned that other companies that store their data in the AWS cloud may have been hit in the same way by the suspected Capital One thief, Seattle-based software engineer Paige Thompson. He cited reports that Ford, the University of Michigan, the Ohio Department of Transportation, and others may have suffered similar losses of information at the hands of Thompson, and that this may point to a systemic weakness in Amazon’s security.” • Uh oh. Keeping my data on my hard disk, thank you very much.

Tech: “FCC Plans to Redo Flawed Broadband Maps” [Inside Sources]. “Accurate broadband maps would help under [-served] areas get internet access, and they could also be used to hold telecom companies T-Mobile and Sprint accountable for their pledge to build out 5G to cover 85 percent of rural Americans in three years and 99 percent of all Americans in six years once they complete their merger. (The combined company will face financial penalties if they don’t meet these conditions.) According to the FCC’s Report and Order for the Digital Opportunity Data Collection, the FCC will require all internet service providers (ISPs) ‘to submit granular data maps of the areas where they have broadband-capable networks and make service available.’ Previously, ISPs submitted census block data, which means even if they only served one person within a census tract or county, they counted that entire tract or county has having internet access.” • Wow.

Tech: “More on Backdooring (or Not) WhatsApp” [Schneier on Security]. “Yesterday, I blogged about a Facebook plan to backdoor WhatsApp by adding client-side scanning and filtering. It seems that I was wrong, and there are no such plans.” • A retraction, which speaks well of Schneier.

Tech: “Hacked Equifax Customer Receives 10,000 Stolen Social Security Numbers As Share Of Class Action Settlement” [The Onion]. • News In Photos, so the headline is the joke.

Manufacturing: “Boeing Holds Workshops With China Carriers to Bring 737 Max Back” [Industry Week]. “Boeing invited pilots and engineers from China Southern Airlines Co. to a gathering in Guangzhou on Monday, according to an emailed statement from Boeing. More such workshops will be held with Air China Ltd., China Eastern Airlines Corp., Xiamen Airlines Co. and Hainan Airlines Holding Co. in their respective hubs this week. The gatherings are among the latest steps Boeing is taking to bring the plane back, though the exact timing remains unclear. Boeing is redesigning the plane’s flight-control system and is still aiming to present a final software package to regulators by September, though the timeline could slip, a person familiar with the plans has said. China Southern and Air China are among Chinese carriers seeking compensation from the U.S. manufacturer for order delays and losses caused by the grounding of the 737 Max in the wake of two deadly crashes.”

Transportation: “Self-Driving Trucks Are Ready to Do Business in Texas” [WIRED]. “The truck developers come for the weather: It can get chilly in Texas, but the state doesn’t get the months of snow, which can bedevil automated vehicle sensor technology.” • So, when the headline says “in Texas,” it really does mean “in Texas.”

Transportation: “How Much Traffic Do Uber and Lyft Cause?” [CityLab]. “Today the ride-hailing giants released a joint analysis showing that their vehicles are responsible for significant portions of [vehicle-miles traveled (VMT)] in six major urban centers… Now, the Fehr and Peers memo indicates that [transportation network companies (TNCs)] accounted for nearly twice the VMT in San Francisco than the SFCTA had estimated, said Gregory Erhardt, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Kentucky who has researched Uber and Lyft’s effects on public transit ridership. That means the services are likely delaying commuters more, too… On average, between the six cities, just 54 to 62 percent of the vehicle miles traveled by Lyfts and Ubers were with a rider in tow. A third of these miles involve drivers slogging around in between passengers (“deadheading,” in taxi-driver argot); 9 to 10 percent are drivers on their way to a pickup.”

Transportation: “Swiss Post Suspends Drone Delivery Service After Second Crash” [IEEE Spectrum]. “For about a year, Swiss Post and Matternet have been collaborating on a drone delivery service in three different cities in Switzerland, with drones ferrying lab samples between hospitals far faster and more efficiently than is possible with conventional ground transportation. The service had made about 3,000 successful flights as of last January, but a January 25th crash into Lake Zurich put things on hold until April. A second crash in May caused Swiss Post to suspend the service indefinitely, and a recently released interim report published by the Swiss Safety Investigation Board provides some detail on what happened—and a reminder that for all the delivery drone hype, there are some basic problems that are still not totally solved.” • In this case, parachutes that deploy “if something goes wrong.” More: “We have no idea exactly how safe Amazon’s drones are, or Google’s drones are. Even Zipline, which has been flying drones dozens of times per day for years, is still working to make their drones safer. What we do know is that crashes can (and do) happen, and the Swiss Post incidents are further evidence that we’ll need a much better understanding of where all of the risk is if we want drones flying regularly over populated areas.”

Concentration: “Australia Strips Google/Facebook to Their Underwear” [Matt Stoller, Big]. “The [Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC)]’s most important contribution to the debate is to say, unvarnished, that Google and Facebook have exceptional amounts of market power and the incentive to use it to manipulate and exploit publishers, businesses, and users. Over the past fifteen years, Google and Facebook have become, as Sims put it in his press conference, “essential gateways for consumers and businesses.” The consequences of this shift are the killing of the free press and the mass manipulation of users….” • Most NC readers already know that, but Stoller’s post is well worth a read for the wealth of detail and clarity of exposition.

Mr. Market: “Carry On Like Nothing Really Matters. Until It Does” [John Authers, Bloomberg]. “It’s no secret that yields on sovereign bonds around the world remain stunningly and historically low. And that, in turn, means a revival in the ‘carry trade.’… Carry trading is best known from its incarnation in the foreign-exchange market. It involves borrowing in a currency where interest rates are low and parking that money in a currency with higher rates, pocketing the difference, or ‘carry.’ Ideally, you get paid for doing nothing… In practice, any increase in volatility or perceived risk — which can be nicely proxied by the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX — spells doom for the carry trade.” • Uh oh.

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 20 Extreme Fear (previous close: 27, Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 48 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 7 at 12:19pm. • Restored at reader request. Note that the index is not always updated daily, sadly.

The Biosphere

“Who Will Save the Amazon (and How)?” [Foreign Policy]. “Aug. 5, 2025: In a televised address to the nation, U.S. President Gavin Newsom announced that he had given Brazil a one-week ultimatum to cease destructive deforestation activities in the Amazon rainforest. If Brazil did not comply, the president warned, he would order a naval blockade of Brazilian ports and airstrikes against critical Brazilian infrastructure. The president’s decision came in the aftermath of a new United Nations report cataloging the catastrophic global effects of continued rainforest destruction, which warned of a critical “tipping point” that, if reached, would trigger a rapid acceleration of global warming. Although China has stated that it would veto any U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Brazil, the president said that a large “coalition of concerned states” was prepared to support U.S. action. At the same time, Newsom said the United States and other countries were willing to negotiate a compensation package to mitigate the costs to Brazil for protecting the rainforest, but only if it first ceased its current efforts to accelerate development.” • Ulp.

“Humans versus Earth: the quest to define the Anthropocene” [Nature]. “Crawford Lake is one of ten sites around the globe that researchers are studying as potential markers for the start of the Anthropocene, an as-yet-unofficial designation that is being considered for inclusion in the geological time scale. The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), a committee of 34 researchers formed by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) in 2009, is leading the work, with the aim of crafting a proposal to formally recognize the Anthropocene. This new epoch would mark a clear departure from the Holocene, which started with the close of the last ice age. To define a new epoch, the researchers need to find a representative marker in the rock record that identifies the point at which human activity exploded to such a massive scale that it left an indelible signature on the globe. Given how much people have done to the planet, there are many potential markers. “Scientifically, in terms of evidence, we’re spoiled for choice, but we have to pin it down,” says Jan Zalasiewicz, a palaeobiologist at the University of Leicester, UK, and chair of the AWG…. In the end, it will be the rocks that have the final say.” • In more ways than one.

“A mission to Mars could cause learning impairment and anxiety, study says” [CNN]. “On a long-term spaceflight mission to Mars, astronauts will be continuously exposed to low-dose radiation in deep space. A new study found that this exposure can cause impairments in the brains of mice, resulting in learning and memory issues as well as anxiety… Based on their findings, the researchers believe that one out of five astronauts on a deep space mission would likely experienced anxiety. One in three would be more likely to deal with memory issues. And all of them may struggle when it comes to making decisions, which would be crucial on a mission to Mars where communications with the Earth are delayed by up to 20 minutes.” • Surely there is a science fiction story with this premise, though I can’t remember one. Certainly lots of potential for dark comedy…

“This tiny insect could be delivering toxic pesticides to honey bees and other beneficial bugs” [Science]. “According to a new study, neonicotinoids can kill beneficial insects such as honey bees, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps by contaminating honeydew, a sugar-rich liquid excreted by certain insects…. The study suggests honeydew could be another way beneficial insects are exposed to deadly insecticides. This can devastate more insects across the food web than nectar contaminated with insecticides could, the team says, because honeydew is more abundant, especially in agricultural fields… neonicotinoids still account for more than 20% of the world’s insecticide market.”

Our Famously Free Press

“The GateHouse takeover of Gannett has been finalized” [Poynter]. • Ugh. I expect the imminent gutting of USA Today, which has been a surprisingly good paper.

“How to do something about local news” [Substack]. • Basically a hymn of praise to substack by a founder, but it still sounds like an interesting, er, platform (akin to WordPress, not Facebook).

Games

“Investigative journalism startup uses mobile gaming to finance its future” [Journalism]. “In the game, the player uses tools and skills that McGregor and his editorial team need in their day-to-day investigations and reports. With image verification being an example of one of the most difficult challenges, the game will ask players to assess whether a viral image is accurate or not by using software to spot areas of the image that have been edited. ‘It’s the basics and 101 of journalism – teaching people to be sceptical and what tools to use to crack the conspiracy, like searching court records or sting operations on a more extreme level,’ he explained.” • It sounds like the stories and games are fictional. I don’t see why they couldn’t be real.

The Last of the Feral Hogs, I Swear

For our readers in the United Kingdom:

“30-50 of them, you say?” pic.twitter.com/M07mLraoSE

— Josephine Long come to my show please it’s urgent (@JosieLong) August 5, 2019

A kind soul summarizes:

in the final analysis, the great moral victory of feral hog twitter was that it was much more of a carnival atmosphere with people aiming to make each other laugh than a dunkfest on the feral hog guy

— elizabeth bruenig (@ebruenig) August 6, 2019

News of the Wired

Bake like an Egyptian. Wonderful thread:

Two weeks ago, with the help of Egyptologist @drserenalove and Microbiologist @rbowman1234, I went to Boston’s MFA and @Harvard‘s @peabodymuseum to attempt collecting 4,500 year old yeast from Ancient Egyptian pottery. Today, I baked with some of it… pic.twitter.com/143aKe6M3b

— Seamus Blackley (@SeamusBlackley) August 5, 2019

* * *

Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Today’s plant (EM):

EM writes: “You have been saying you need plant photos. I was just in the garden weeding when I remembered to capture this and send it to you. The pink hydrangea on the left is my favorite this year but I am also partial to the coreopsis beneath it.” I like the path, which looks like it would be nice to walk on in bare feet.

Bonus (PS):

PS writes: “Does this fill the bill?” Re Silc sent in his mobile, and Mark52 sent in his steel silhouette, and now PS. I didn’t expect a response like this. Reader, how about you?

* * *

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser.Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:

Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated.

If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!

2:00PM Water Cooler 8/7/2019

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[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

It turns out purposely messing with your targeted ads isn't a good idea

Facebook is convinced that I am a young mother with a love of kraken-themed decor. 

Unless you count my cat, who is 11-years-old and the animal equivalent of the grumpy old man from Up, I absolutely do not have a child. But for the last six months, my feed has been inundated with ads for baby products, from nasal suction devices to teething toys that look like plush versions of a bad acid trip. 

Over the summer, my cat underwent a veterinary procedure that, to spare the nasty details for the faint of heart, required me to dab antibiotic ointment on his butt twice a day. Because he had a knack for getting out of his cone of shame and getting ointment everywhere, I put him in diapers for the day after the surgery. But diapers made specifically for pets are absurdly expensive, so I bought a pack of (human) infant diapers online and went on my cat owner way. I started seeing ads for baby products that night. 

I know big tech companies have too much on me already. I've been on social media since I was 10-years-old, entering my email and date of birth on Neopets and Club Penguin, so my data has likely been tracked for more than half of my life. I'm online for a majority of my day, and I've accepted the fact that my digital footprint runs too deep for me to ever truly go off the grid. 

Which is exactly why I've started fucking with my ads. 

It's not just weird baby products. I've been curating my ads to show me extremely specific cephalopod-shaped home decor. After months of carefully engaging with ads, I've finally cultivated what I want to see on my Facebook feed. 

Image: screenshot/morgan sung

Image: screenshot/morgan sung

SEE ALSO: All the social media opt-outs you need to activate right now

I'm not the only one. Caroline, a Twitter user who tweets under the handle @defundpoppunk, also curates their ads. After clicking on specific Facebook ads, they managed to prune their feed like an artisanal algorithm — a concept first floated by Twitter user @JanelleCShane — into a masterpiece: Unreasonably baggy pants.

It's like a cursed personal data-laden bonsai tree. 

I click every ad I see on Facebook for weird pants in an effort to train Facebook to show me the weirdest pants. I think it's finally starting to pay off: pic.twitter.com/nS1oMl1Mv7

— olivia colman's oscar (@defundpoppunk) March 12, 2019

Caroline says they searched for jogger-style pants before, and has been getting ads for them ever since. For weeks, they've been clicking on any ad featuring "vaguely interesting-looking" pants. 

Like me, Caroline is fed up with the unending lack of privacy we have, and started engaging with their ads just to mess with them. 

"So at first it was a little bit of private trolling just because I know e-comm [e-commerce] people take their click through rates really seriously," they told Mashable through Twitter DM. "But then once I started my targeted ads actually changing, I got a little more deliberate about it out of curiosity." 

Aside from being an "amusing reminder that everyone is being tracked online constantly," as Caroline said, playing with targeted ads is like playing a game. 

There's something deeply satisfying about knowing that even though I as an individual can't really stop power hungry tech giants, I'm giving them a digital middle finger by engaging with the "wrong" ads. It's the online version of the Florida man who runs into hurricanes with heavy metal and American flags. Realistically, messing with my ads won't shroud me from the inevitable tracking that comes from being online, but it feels like I'm making it slightly more inconvenient for large corporations to know everything about the real me. 

Shoshana Wodinsky, a tech reporter at Adweek, gets why deliberately polluting your targeted ads is entertaining. 

"These kinds of big tech platforms are really powerful," she said during a Skype call. "They're like multibillion dollar companies and the fact that they screw up sometimes is kind of funny. Part of it's definitely punching up, but part of it's like, even these behemoths are somewhat fucked up."

Wodinsky has also experimented with purposely muddling her digital presence; she once changed her Bitmoji to be pregnant to see if it would affect her targeted ads. (She told Mashable that she is very much not pregnant, and during her interview, she said that the only children she has are her two cats.) Although she said it started "as a joke," she wondered how far she could take it.

"Realistically, I know that me pretending to be pregnant isn't going to do anything, but it's kind of like looking outside of the fishbowl," she said. "It's fucking over the big businesses, and who doesn't like to do that." 

i gave myself a pregnant bitmoji to see if it would screw with the way ads are targeted toward me and..... im here to tell you that nothings changed pic.twitter.com/SmfWkpRGys

— שוש (@swodinsky) February 13, 2019

fb thinks im preggers,,,,,, success

— שוש (@swodinsky) February 13, 2019

Less than half an hour after creating the Bitmoji, her ad interests included "motherhood" and "breastfeeding."

It's unclear what prompted Facebook to include those options in her interests — it could have been her Bitmoji, or it could have been the fact that she tweeted about it. 

Realistically, just clicking on and engaging with specific ads won't do much to your digital footprint; if you really wanted to go deep, you'd have to change your entire online behavior. Your ads aren't just targeted based on what you interact with on specific social media platforms, but what you search and interact with across the entire internet. Thanks to the cookies Facebook uses to track users, regardless of whether or not you're logged in, you can leave fingerprints all over the web. Truly tricking the algorithm would mean a complete overhaul of your search habits, your social media, and whatever personal information is publicly available. 

Meddling with your ad preferences by intentionally engaging with them sounds like a harmless prank, but it might have a dark side. Dr. Russell Newman, a professor at Emerson College who specializes in internet privacy, surveillance, and political communication, worries that any engagement with ads can have long term consequences. 

"You might feel like you're exercising some bit of control, but in fact, you have none," he said during a phone interview. "There are unknown ways that the game you are playing right now will affect your future existence, and you won't really be able to know."

Newman stresses that we really have no idea what information can be pulled from our online interactions, and how it can be used in the future. Because internet users are "seen in a particular way, quantified in a particular way, and identified in a particular way," he says, engaging with certain ads and showing a preference for certain ads can preclude certain options. He worries that engagement like this can affect life-altering factors like credit score. It sounds far fetched, but Newman said convincing advertisers that my cat is actually my baby, for example, could possibly affect my future health insurance premiums without me even knowing. 

"All the decisions that are going to be made about you going forward," Newman said. "Or the rest of your existence, are going to be based on the truth provided digitally."

Washington Post editor Gillian Brockell experienced the insidious side of online advertising last year. Shortly after she delivered her son, who was stillborn, the credit company Experian sent her an email prompting her to "finish registering" her child to track his credit for life. She noted in a viral Twitter thread that she had never even started registering her baby, and it was particularly cruel that companies wanted his information after his death.

I find this hard to believe. I'd been using Experian to check my credit regularly, & I'd never received any spam like this from them before, just a monthly email saying my report was updated. + the ad didn't say “family protection solution.” it said “register your child.” 3/ pic.twitter.com/dUPRxyWRKH

— Gillian Brockell (@gbrockell) March 12, 2019

"These tech companies triggered that on their own, based on information we shared, Brockell wrote in a piece reflecting on how she never asked to be targeted with parenting ads. "So what I’m asking is that there be similar triggers to turn this stuff off on its own, based on information we’ve shared."

Newman emphasizes that while Google, Facebook, and Amazon market themselves as a search engine, social media network, and online marketplace, respectively, the companies have a greater goal: advertising. 

"It's notable that you're saying, 'My privacy is gone, so I'm just going to roll with it,'" Newman said during a phone interview. "The problem isn't that your privacy is gone, the problem is that we don't actually have a nationwide regime set in place in regards to privacy."

Luckily, there are a number of ways to scale back on ad tracking, from opting out of social media data collection to using private browsers. 

Here's the bottom line: It turns out messing with my targeted ads probably wasn't a good idea. As satisfying as it is to make it slightly more inconvenient for advertisers, purposely engaging with ads for kraken-specific products is less damaging than limiting the data that advertisers can hold over me. Since my conversation with Newman, I've stopped haphazardly clicking on strange ads and opted out of sharing across my social media presence. 

But old habits are hard to break, and I admit that when I'm scrolling through Facebook before bed, I'll still linger on ads that include octopi. 

WATCH: BTS' 'Boy With Luv' shatters viewing records on YouTube

[coolgreatwebsite]

Why DotEmu Has Me Worried About Windjammers On The PS4

Early in 1994, an unassuming little game named Windjammers made its way to arcades. Developed by Data East for the Neo Geo Multi Video System, Windjammers is essentially high-octane video air hockey. Players pick one of six characters with different skills and shots, one of six courts of different sizes and layouts, and proceed to volley a frisbee back and forth with the hopes of jamming it past their opponent and into the goal. It’s a game that’s dead simple to pick up and play, but that simplicity masks an amount of depth to its mechanics and variety in a player’s options that makes Windjammers something special. When two skilled competitors go at it throwing rapid fire shots, counter-shots, trick shots, super shots and counter-super shots, the game is an edge-of-your-seat adrenaline pumping blur. Unfortunately, most people just didn’t seem to catch on to that hidden layer, and Windjammers was generally met with a middling reaction.

As time went on and arcade game emulation became easier, Windjammers gained a bit of a cult classic status. For a good long while it was a side-tournament staple in the fighting game community, and a French community had rallied around it and were doing their thing, but it wasn’t until website about video games Giant Bomb started playing it in 2013 that North American awareness of the game really started picking up. As much as I would like to be a cool on-line guy and say that I was way into it before that, I was only tangentially aware of the game prior to Giant Bomb’s coverage (I was more of a Street Hoop guy when it came to weird Data East Neo Geo sports games, for whatever reason). Nevertheless, it’s a game I feel like I’ve been a fan of for a long time, if that makes any sense. It’s an immediately and deeply lovable game.

The only port Windjammers has ever had as of this writing was a Japan-exclusive release on the Wii Virtual Console in 2010. This release eventually got delisted in late 2013, shortly after Giant Bomb’s coverage started strangely enough. Ever since then, there’s been a steady rumbling of people asking for the game to come to modern systems with online play, mainly aimed at PlayStation’s Third Party Production team. After all, they’re the guys who got us a Final Fantasy 7 remake and Shenmue 3, right? If anyone can get this weird obscure frisbee game out of whatever licensing hell it fell into following the death of Data East and years of turmoil SNK has gone through, they could! Well, at PlayStation Experience 2016′s showcase event it finally happened. The lights dimmed, a familiar tune started playing, and there it was on the big screen: Windjammers was coming to the PlayStation 4. The wish had been granted.

And then the monkey’s paw curled.

Pictured above is the banner for the Windjammers booth at PlayStation Experience 2016, and pictured in the zoom-in of that banner is the one thing powerful enough to instantly turn a retro video game fan’s excitement into dread: the logo of French video game company DotEmu. Founded in 2007, DotEmu is a company that specializes in bringing old video games to not-so-old platforms. Over their nearly 10 years of existence they’ve built up a network of connections with Japanese developers and rightsholders and have been responsible for bringing a sizable amount of classic games to various platforms (an exact list is hard to compile, as even their website’s game list is clearly incomplete). The rub here is that, despite the years of experience and web of trusted business partners, DotEmu consistently puts out products that can be described as poor at best.

Generally not poor in flashy, attention grabbing ways mind you. They’re competent enough that a passerby could go “sure, that’s Metal Slug!”, but for the people who love and care about these classic games the vast majority of DotEmu’s output may as well have shipped with crash bugs. It’s not just old game obsessives that suffer either as, even though it may be difficult to point out specific shortcomings without side-by-side comparisons, the way DotEmu’s ports are busted have an undeniable effect on the way these games play at even the most casual levels. These problems aren’t flukes, they’re consistent and documentable, but they often go ignored in media coverage of the company and general discussion of their releases. 

I don’t think this is due to any sort of nefarious intent or anything, but rather a lack of education about the subject. Most of the complaints are loosely organized tweets, or squirreled away in niche message boards, and the informative reviews that hit Steam are easy to lose among the less-than-informative ones. The reason I set out to write this article was to attempt to find and document the issues plaguing DotEmu’s ports (with a focus on their Neo Geo offerings as they pertain more to Windjammers) and, most importantly, put everything somewhere easily viewable and shareable. With that mission in mind, I jumped into the Steam version of one of my favorite arcade games: Metal Slug 3.

The Steam version of Metal Slug 3 was, unbeknownst to me at the time, my first brush with DotEmu. I ran through it once back in mid-2014 and here in 2017 all I could recall was that it was the worst port of the game I had ever played, so it was a natural pick to start off with. I played the Steam release simultaneously with the game running in MAME, trading off every other level, just to make sure I was getting all the facts straight. The most immediately apparent issue with the Steam release is that the audio is wrong on almost every level. Most of the sound effects are off in different ways, the worst of them reduced to nothing but shrill screeches, and the music is mangled in one of the oddest ways I’ve ever experienced. It has trouble keeping a steady beat, but it doesn’t quite skip and instead sort of tries to rush back to where it’s supposed to be. It almost makes it seem like the music is being performed by some sort of drunken orchestra, or as if someone were briefly holding back the turntable of a record player in the few cases where it seemed to affect the pitch. I’ve taken the liberty of making a video comparing the music of both versions, below.

The other two big issues are slightly more subtle, but much more impactful on the gameplay itself. First off, the Steam version drops frames like crazy, which means the game consistently stutters and jumps around erratically. Metal Slug 3 is pretty chaotic so it can be a little tough to pick out amidst the explosions, but the DotEmu port drops frames at all times, even during the game’s rare quiet moments. I found that the tiled background of Stage 3′s pre-sub cave area offered the most readily visible comparison (below). [UPDATE 1/12/17: This is actually an issue with frame-pacing rather than dropping according to John Linneman of Digital Foundry. Frame-pacing issues are where, rather than completely skipping over frames of the game, individual frames will stay on screen for longer or shorter than they’re supposed to. The end result is still a stuttering, choppy mess.]

This problem only exacerbates the next issue: the Steam version has input lag. Input lag means, well, there’s a lag on your inputs. You press a button and it takes a little bit longer for the corresponding action to happen on screen. Don’t know why, don’t know how, but there is a slight amount of input lag present in the DotEmu port that just isn’t there in the MAME version. Weirdly enough it wasn’t anything visual that tipped me off, but instead something auditory. The gap between pressing the fire button and hearing the gunshot sound effect is a bit wider in the Steam version, and it’s fairly noticeable when you’re going back and forth between versions.

These two issues are bad enough alone, but when combined it causes the game to feel muddy and unresponsive when in actuality it’s quite snappy. Easily dodgeable attacks suddenly become less so, simple actions such as jumping and shooting below you become more difficult to perform effectively, and the game is much more likely to register jumping and shooting as a simultaneous press of A+B, making you accidentally activate your kamikaze Slug Attack while in a vehicle. This isn’t any sort of scientific evidence, and I certainly wasn’t playing amazingly in either version of the game, but I did demonstrably worse in my playthrough of the Steam version and I attribute that to the generally awful feel of the controls.

The one nice thing I can say about DotEmu’s port is that the online play seems, from my extremely limited experience, totally fine. I played the first couple of levels with a friend and it was smooth throughout. The port’s underlying problems still existed, and I’m not sure how the netcode would hold up to something more timing intensive like a versus game, but online play did not accentuate any of the port’s issues from what I could tell.

A brief check-in with the Steam port of Metal Slug X revealed that it, unsurprisingly, has the exact same problems Metal Slug 3 has. This is where my firsthand experience with DotEmu’s products ends, because I’m not enough of a sucker to buy three bad versions of old games. Just two. Craving more info, I put out the call to my wonderful, smart, definitely non-sucker Twitter followers. What follows is everything I was able to gather from them.

Now, I love Metal Slug 3, but I’m far from an absolute expert on it. There are people who have played the game for longer than I have and are way better at it than I am. I doubt the same can be said for friend of the site LordBBH regarding Shock Troopers. One of his favorite games of all time, BBH has probably put more hours into playing Shock Troopers than anyone on the planet (and plenty of those hours are on video). He knows the game inside and out, and he found all of the same issues in Shock Troopers that I found in the Metal Slugs, but he also stumbled upon a couple of things I would have never even thought to check. Such as the difficulty settings, for instance. Every Neo Geo game has about 8 or so different difficulty options that you can change in the system settings, but DotEmu’s ports have just four: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Very Hard. Whereas the original release of Shock Troopers adjusted the damage you take depending on what difficulty you were playing on, the difficulty options in the Steam version, from what LordBBH can tell, do... absolutely nothing. If it were anyone else I would chalk it up to not knowing the game well enough to spot the differences, but this guy knows.

There’s also another issue that’s entirely specific to Shock Troopers and definitely worth noting. There were two versions of the game, and the thing with Shock Troopers is you can either select one character or a team of three that you can freely swap between in-level. In what’s generally considered the “main” version of the game, a team has individual life bars for each character. In the other version, the whole team shares a single life bar. This minimizes the difference between playing as a team and playing as a single character, and the version of the game that uses the shared life bar is treated as more of a curiosity than a thing people play. The DotEmu port uses the single life bar version, and there’s no option to switch to the other one. This is probably an easy thing to overlook if you’re not, you know, a company in charge of porting the game to a different platform. But if you are, it shows a real lack of knowledge and care for your product in my eyes.

If you want a really, really long look at LordBBH playing and discussing the Steam version of Shock Troopers (and a little bit of the next game), he uploaded a video of it to his YouTube channel. For now though, let’s move on.

Twinkle Star Sprites is a cute versus shoot ‘em up game where players compete to clear out the enemies on their side of the screen and launch attacks at the other player. According to the info I received, the Steam version has all the general problems of the previously discussed games, but with a couple of fun unique wrinkles. First of all, the online leaderboards report impossible scores. Like, scores in the billions. For a while people weren’t sure whether it was a bug or people were hacking, but it turns out the leaderboards take the sum of all scores attained in all the versus matches you’ve played and post that. This makes the feature useless for competition, as you can rack up higher and higher scores simply by playing more. 

The other thing I was told is by far the weirdest one I’ve heard. While the previously mentioned useless difficulty options actually do something in Twinkle Star Sprites, what they do is increase the frame rate. The game itself is unaltered, it’s just sped up. I have absolutely no clue how or why this would happen, and I didn’t receive details on how much each option increases it by, but this is apparently a real thing that happens and I kind of can’t believe it.[UPDATE 1/12/17: My source on this has gotten back to me with claims that this does not actually happen. Whether or not it never did or was fixed in a patch is unknown. The difficulty settings currently do nothing. Leaving everything here for transparency.]

With that we’ve gone through all the specific examples I was told about and could find on my own, so that about wraps up the “what” of this whole situation (for now). Now we have to move on to the “why”. Why are these ports so consistently shoddy? Why does a company that positions itself as trying to make sure classic games don’t “get lost” continue to bungle everything in both the most basic and most baffling ways? The answer to that isn’t exactly clear. We could look at the case of DotEmu (legally, don’t start) using Nebula, an emulator last updated in 2007, for their 2015 Neo Geo Humble Bundle releases and question their competency. We could look at stuff like the apparently lacking Heroes of Might and Magic 3 HD release or the fact that their promotional Windjammers PS4 theme contains no actual elements from Windjammers and question their passion. We could look at any number of things and take any number of guesses, but I have a feeling the real reason for all of it is simple: they can get away with it. You can technically play through everything beginning to end, and the amount of people who care about these games to the point of easily noticing and articulating these flaws is minuscule compared to the greater number of players. Major outlets aren’t going to report on the input lag of a specific port of a 17 year old game. Negative Steam reviews complaining about frame drops aren’t going to drown out the people going “just like my child days!” and giving a thumbs up (except in the case of specific franchises where obsessives outnumber nostalgia fiends). The people just coming to these games for the first time aren’t going to have the frame of reference to know something is wrong, for all they can tell the game just normally sounds like that. DotEmu can phone it in because there’s not enough people to get the word out that they’re calling collect.

As for the final question: “where” does all this leave the PlayStation 4 port of Windjammers? Only time will tell. DotEmu has been talking up how they’ve had the French Windjammers community constantly playtesting and giving feedback to make sure they get things right, but then again David Sirlin said the same thing about having pro players help with the development of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. It’s just not enough of an assurance to make me overlook the company’s extremely rough track record. I hope they prove me wrong and knock it out of the park. I would love to have an official and fully featured re-release of this game that I love, but I’m not holding my breath. My money’s on it being another in a line of DotEmu botch jobs. For a company supposedly devoted to making sure old games aren’t forgotten, it’s almost ironic that they’ve so consistently helped make sure they’re something even worse: misremembered.

Did I miss something? Get something completely wrong? Do you have something to add about a different game? Let me know! I want to update this article with as much relevant and accurate information as possible! Feel free to get at me on Twitter or send me an email.

[knoxursoxoffpenwriter69]

Gaming on Windows is just better.

Reasons windows is better I'll, save you guys the trouble there aren't any actually yeah. I agree. Are you guys kidding me? The vast majority of the world runs Windows on the desktop and believe it or not. There are some pretty darn good reasons for it, so guys we compiled the top 10 of them from our community to share with you in this video thanks LastPass for sponsoring a portion of this video. They relieve the burden of trying to remember all your passwords for every website. Let LastPass fill in your passwords, for you learn more at the end of the video or at the link below [, Music ]. First up and this one's a shocker gaming, our community spoke, and we agree. Gaming on Windows is just better. 

Not only are there tons of current games for the Windows PC platform like literally thousands of them, but accessing them and keeping them up to date is much simpler than it used to be thanks to online marketplaces like Steam, origin, you play, and yes, even the epic Game store and Windows gaming has far more going for it than just the current library. Recent progress towards integration with Microsoft's Xbox ecosystem has brought cross-platform play to some titles and even cross-platform purchases, and on the subject of compatibility. Well, there's the back catalog of games, which numbers in the tens of thousands with a shocking number of old games still being playable on modern hardware. I fired up 1602 80, a game from almost 1602 80 on my Windows, 10 PC with a Titan RT X on it with minimal tinkering required. 

That'S crazy! So we're actually working on a collab with good old games. Right now to show this off make sure your sub, so you don't miss it on the subject of tinkering Windows games, particularly the older ones, allow for a ton of it with large communities that have built everything from their own servers from multiplayer to mods that alter Visuals or gameplay elements and even mods that change the genre of the original title fun fact for you, young kids out there dota used to be a custom map in Warcraft 3. Finally, there's the advantage that comes naturally with being the incumbent gaming platform support wan na try out the hottest new peripherals like brand new graphics cards, VR headsets, haptic feedback, vests odds are excellent, that the Windows software is going to be much more polished than what's available. For other platforms, that is, if anything exists, for them at all, RTX real-time ray tracing on Mac. 

Please is actually a common one for users of every platform and it's that it just works or because I don't feel like something new like Apple Microsoft has made it OS that, for the most part, works as intended. Out-Of-The-Box, no real extra effort is needed. Thanks to Auto magical third-party driver installs through Windows Update when you get into the weeds with obscure devices, hardware compatibility on the platform does have its issues, but for the average user it is much better than it used to be, and so is the general intuitiveness of Using it I mean I still remember when they introduced the documents and pictures folder. Comm 4 is the toolbox. The registry editor, if used responsibly, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to optimizing. The windows experience task manager got some big upgrades with Windows 8 and now makes it so simple to monitor CPU RAM network and even GPU usage. 

So anyone can do it, but if you want to go even further, this rabbit hole. 2 has pretty much no bottom resource monitor, gives you a much more granular. Look the information from cast manager, making it easy to identify processes that are sending large amounts of network data out or causing your disk to churn and slow down the rest of your system. Task scheduler is a crazy, powerful utility that lets. You have Windows, automate tasks for you. It can open and close programs for you when you log in and out it can send emails when tasks complete and you can even post to Twitter and Facebook using the window. Scheduler and power toys are back, so these are actually Microsoft provided tools that enthusiasts can use to add or enhance features.

 I was a huge fan of sync TOI back in the day and this new window management one for Windows, 10 looks sick. 5. Is the support base want to learn how to do some of the stuff? You'Ve talked about well, with 78 % of the worldwide desktop OS market share. If it exists, someone has probably done it so, like you want to become the new macro king. Well, there are tutorials on how to do that, need to troubleshoot a weird error between the official support from Microsoft, for both current and legacy windows and the thousands of enthusiasts on forums around the world. The odds of finding someone to help. You are pretty good. One. Great resource is actually our forum linked below, where our community is ready, willing and able to help feel free to check that out after the video 6 is productivity. Even Apple had to acknowledge. 

Windows is strength when it comes to buckling down and just getting some work done, whether you're trading stocks, writing reports, tracking financials, making super cool, PowerPoint, slides or making YouTube videos like us windows probably supports the software and the hardware that you need to get it done. Microsoft'S Office suite is incredibly powerful and works best on Windows if you want to do 3d or CAD work. Most of the industry-standard software is on Windows and, let's not forget the plethora of one-off and highly specialized programs needed for scientific study, engineering and many other industries. Now I wasn't sure where to put this little bit so we're gon na chuck it in productivity, shortcut keys, so many shortcut keys, classic control-alt-delete for when things go wrong windows and one two three and four to launch the corresponding app on your taskbar go ahead and 

Try it it's really cool and if you like bad one, you can grab the other new power toy that lets. You hold the Windows key to see all the shortcut keys for your active programs. Oh productivity bliss awaits my friends. Seven is OS unity with some notable exceptions. Windows hasn't changed too drastically over the years. So if you went straight from Windows, XP to Windows, 10 you'd probably find your way around it sooner rather than later, and if you're a technician. This can be really nice because it's not uncommon to find yourself working on a different version from one hour to the next. It'S a totally different experience compared to Linux, which has I don't know, I stopped counting after 30, let's just say a lot of different distros or versions that are designed for a multitude of different tasks or specialized use cases. 

There are mainstream optimized distros out there, but if you don't consult the internet beforehand as a newcomer, it can get really confusing and thing is even if you do consult the internet. People might not agree on which flavor of the month is vastly women do bunt to stop being cool. Eight was a bit of a surprise to me, but it came up a lot. So maybe I just take the taskbar and file explorer for granted. The modern taskbar is a great tool for maintaining a clean and organized desktop, giving you quick access to frequently used programs and offering up a quick preview of all of your active windows as for File Explorer. Well, it's got its issues. The search is pretty slow. The up, folder navigation is done. Sometimes, documents should go to sequel and slash users, slash your username, not this PC etc. 

But it's got wide support for thumbnail, previews lots of useful information readily available, and it requires no keyboard shortcut to cut paste. Sometimes you don't have to be great just better than your competitor. 9 is reliability with good Hardware. The days of daily blue screens are long. Gone crashes do still exist, but for years now I've experienced long periods of smooth and stable performance. Microsoft does have some work cut out for them to make their automatic updates mover in the regarde, but they at least seem to be aware of the problem. At this point, bringing us to ten finally sort of related to gaming to compatibility, got an old program from the Windows XP days. Well, there's a decent chance that, with some trial and error, you will be able to get it to run even in the latest. Builds of Windows 10. 

There are just so many specific use programs that have been written over the last couple of decades and losing access to them because of an OS update could be devastating for some people. Compatibility mode actually works more often than you'd think and when it doesn't, some quick googling will often bring up a solution, and the cool thing is that goes. Both ways got a computer that mom bought 10 years ago, but still wants to use. Well, there's a solid chance that Windows and most programs that run on it will still work on that, even if not very well. Our Skull trail system from 2008 was actually a great example of this no driver issues and, aside from a couple of games that refused to launch because of missing CPU instructions, our issues were related to performance rather than to compatibility, so guys go check out that video. 

If you haven't already now one of the tools we love using on Windows comes, of course, from our sponsor for this portion of today's video LastPass LastPass relieves the troubles of remembering your passwords and reduces the anxiety about getting locked out of your accounts and then waiting For reset password emails, you won't need to write down, remember or reset passwords anymore with LastPass LastPass allows you to keep track of an unlimited number of passwords and not just passwords. Even just things like you know, Wi-Fi codes or just things you want to remember and store somewhere safe, and it doesn't only work for desktop it even works on mobile sites and apps for both iOS and Android. When you open an app or a site, LastPass will fill in your username and password making logging in easy, so click the link below to find out more about LastPass. So, thanks for watching guys hope you enjoyed this video see you 

[nickyschneiderus]

Just wait for confirmation hearings in the age of Facebook

If you thought the calendar defense was bizarre, brace yourself for the next couple of decades.

After an emotionally tense day—for both witnesses, albeit in different ways—many senators and onlookers may feel we’ve collectively come away from the Brett Kavanaugh/Christine Blasey Ford testimony having made little headway in the quest for the truth. Both Kavanaugh and Ford testified to the judiciary committee that they were 100 percent confident in their recollections of the day, each of which necessarily disputes the other’s. But Kavanaugh may have spoken the most profound truth in his opening statement when he characterized the last few weeks as a “calculated and orchestrated political hit” by Democrats to thwart his confirmation. He said:

“This is a circus. The consequences will extend long past my nomination. The consequences will be with us for decades. This grotesque and coordinated character assassination will dissuade confident and good people of all political persuasions from serving our country.”

He’s right, in many ways: The consequences matter. The consequences of his confirmation to the court, or his failure to be confirmed, will matter to a great number of cases yet to be decided by that judiciary body. The consequences of these senators’ behavior and comportment will be remembered by voters in November and for many election cycles to come. These consequences of this particular precedent, whichever way it goes, will be of great significance for decades, just as Ford has grappled with the consequences—or sequelae—of a single night in 1982 for the past 36 years.

The consequences of what he portrays as a “coordinated character assassination,” though, are just the beginning of technology’s expanding influence in modern American politics.

…

When Kavanaugh came forward with a defense from his summer 1982 calendar, many were shocked and suspicious. It is peculiar (but not unheard of) for a high school boy to keep a meticulous, handwritten calendar of his activities at all, let alone to retain that document for the foreseeable future.

But in reality, many present-day 17-year-olds are actively participating in that practice, willingly or otherwise. In the age of Facebook, Instagram (and Finstagram), Twitter, Tumblr, Kik, WhatsApp, Tik Tok, YouNow, and dozens of other social media sites and apps, there actually can be a detailed record of a teenager’s school day, afterschool activities, weekend parties, and breakups and makeups. Many millennials, Gen Xers, and others happily catalog their thoughts and feelings in microblogged diary entries, share photos of their friends and frenemies, and check in to places to mark their precise position for friends. It’s conceivable that you could reconstruct a summer from someone’s social posts from 2007, likely without breaking a sweat.

And as we’ve seen, social posts are increasingly under scrutiny for people in positions of power, celebrities and politicians alike. Daily Show host Trevor Noah was raked over the coals for racist tweets in his archives. Disney fired James Gunn after offensive tweets about rape and pedophilia were brought to light earlier this year. Even President Donald Trump regularly faces criticism for contradicting himself in an old tweet. (If nothing else, our Twitter-happy president has ensured that the significance of tweets will not wane anytime soon.) It is the first place many people look when the name of a mass shooter is released by the media: What did he tweet? Were there warning signs? Should his friends have known this was coming?

  Should we expect that a nominee to the Supreme Court in 2024 will need to answer for their 17-year-old self’s tweets and Facebook Likes? (At 51, Neil Gorsuch is the youngest justice currently serving on the Supreme Court, but someone as young as 32 has been confirmed. Joseph Story, who served almost 34 years beginning in 1812, ultimately died having spent more time on the court than off it.) Should a text or a decade-old post on Facebook carry as much weight as that nominee’s statements and actions?

Whether it should is practically irrelevant. We almost certainly will. In criminal trials, we already do.

…

According to American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Life of Teenagers, published in 2016, “ninety-two percent of American children have an online presence before the age of 2.” Facebook boasts 2.25 billion active users on its platform, and it long ago removed the barriers to entry for teens not yet in college. We’re a generation that’s always online, and we have the receipts to prove it.

But what happens when all those status updates, weird Reddit submissions, and moody Myspace photos become part of the public discourse?

It’s natural to want to have some answers about the content of someone’s character before handing them the reins to a government seat. Especially in the wake of the Me Too movement, there’s increased attention being paid to past indiscretions that, a generation or two ago, might never have seen the light of day. And that was before we started documenting our every move on public platforms, from #wokeuplikethis to lights out.

Sometimes, that immediately available level of detail could prove quite valuable. Many senators mentioned during yesterday’s testimony the power of “exculpatory evidence.” Could enough updates and check-ins from social media effectively have proven Kavanaugh wasn’t the man behind Ford’s assault? Or, to tip the scales toward Ford’s recollection, what if there were an Instagram video showing Kavanaugh and Mark Judge laughing about holding her down on that bed? There’s not, of course, and there never will be. But in a future version of this conversation and inquiry, the statements from Kavanaugh’s friends might read quite differently. “We don’t remember that happening” gets harder to stand by in the face of mounting evidence from countless classmates online.

…

There are plenty of problems with bringing this information into court proceedings and job interviews. Beyond the obvious questions about consent and invasions of privacy, there’s also concern about accuracy. There can be plenty of room for misinterpretation: Text lacks the nuance of spoken word, making it difficult to distinguish the connotation of simple updates. Is that tweet a suicide threat, a thoughtless life update, a sarcastic aside, an inside joke, or a pop culture reference? No one knows.

Online personas aren’t perfect, nor are they always accurate representations of the person in question. Some users intentionally misrepresent themselves on social media in order to convey a curated self who is more successful, attractive, intelligent, and so on. Countless articles have been written about the significance of this performative behavior.

So sometimes, social media will inevitably lead us to the wrong conclusions. Not that it stops people from trying to connect dots where they can. As the analysis moves to social platforms and more available social data enters the court of public opinion, it’s democratized in sometimes dangerous ways: Redditors infamously misidentified two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013, leading one man to be bullied at school. An Anonymous Twitter account claimed to have the correct suspect in the Ferguson shooting in 2014, too, but it was also wrong.

…

But the human inclination toward curiosity and our desire for answers will not rest. The entry of social media accounts into governmental proceedings is inevitable. And ultimately, it’s just an extension of our innate curiosity.

Some people livestreaming the Kavanaugh/Ford testimony might have thought some senators pushed too far in their personal queries. When Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) pried with “Did you ever black out from drinking too much alcohol?” Kavanaugh himself snapped back “Did you?” But that intense line of personal questioning is not unique to this hearing.

Consider the following example questions, prepared for prosecutor Kenneth Starr by his deputy during the impeachment proceedings of then-President Clinton:

“If Monica Lewinsky says that you ejaculated into her mouth on two occasions in the Oval Office area, would she be lying?

“If Monica Lewinsky says that you masturbated into a trashcan in your secretary’s office, would she [be] lying?”

These are deeply personal questions, disgusting ones, and detailed ones, and they are questions that the president would have been expected to answer under oath.

They were also written by Brett Kavanaugh.

With more detail available, we’re only going to go deeper down the rabbit hole.

…

In 1991, when Anita Hill testified about sexual harassment before the confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas, the hearings were decidedly not livestreamed on YouTube. The senators hosting the inquiry did not immediately have their personal information doxed online—not least because the World Wide Web was still a very nascent thing, and the word “doxed” had yet to be coined.

Within our lifetimes, technology has completely unturned modern politics. Politicians are still struggling to keep up with the ramifications of streaming services on copyright law and the city codes restricting Airbnb, let alone contending with net neutrality, with gig economy workers’ rights, and with this newfound deluge of information known as social media.

READ MORE:

The shaking in Christine Blasey Ford’s voice has brought the internet to tears

Women sitting behind Kavanaugh become a meme—for the wrong reasons

‘Star Wars Resistance’ voice actress gets slammed for imitating Christine Blasey Ford

Maybe we’ll be spared. Maybe the privacy pendulum will swing the other way and all this concern will have been for naught. Indeed, some teens have begun to distance themselves from the neverending news feed, electing to keep their accounts private or limited, if not unplugging outright. The kids of Generation Z are disconnecting for a variety of reasons, including the concern that more time on social media leads to increased anxiety, stress, and depression; more than half of them take a break from their phones from time to time.

So perhaps by the time we’re picking another nominee for the Supreme Court, the laws will have sufficiently caught up, or the personal privacy settings will have been sufficiently clamped down, and the nominee will be spared the painstaking entry of each of their social updates into evidence.

But there’s not much time to get it right: Two of the sitting justices are in their eighties, and it’s likely another seat will open up before lawmakers have figured out how to balance the pursuit of the truth with the modern tendency toward oversharing on public platforms.

In the meantime, the “politics of personal destruction” are about to get a lot more personal. And that’s the truth.

from Ricky Schneiderus Curation https://www.dailydot.com/debug/social-media-supreme-court/

[legit-scam-review]

Ponzi Games Are Breaking Out on the Ethereum Blockchain

The hottest new apps on ethereum resemble an old favorite: the Ponzi scheme. At least that’s the early consensus on FOMO 3D and PoWH3D, two of the platform’s top three apps entering Tuesday.

According to data website DappRadar, both games have amassed 20,000 ether ($9 million) in trading volume over the last 24 hours, a figure that puts them on par with top decentralized exchanges and that exceeds the highest highs of CryptoKitties, the blockchain’s most famous viral decentralized application (dapp) to date.

Perhaps unique to both projects though is how they create an incentive to bring new people in so users can share the spoils as they do so. Both applications also collapse if new users quit joining in a way that’s similar to a basic pyramid scheme.

However, these particular games make it much more complicated (and maybe more fun).

“At the core, they seem to be taking the ideas of pay-per-bid auction models that were popular in 2009–2011, except instead of selling ‘real’ products for the bid price, they sell nothing tangible or of real value,” Sid Kalla, of token project consulting firm Turing Advisory Group, told CoinDesk.

In penny auctions, people paid a tiny amount of money to make a bid on a real item. The final winning bidder might get a deal, but the organization running the auction would make many times over the price of the item from the fees collected on the way to that bid.

At least then auctioneers took on some risk: the cost of the item and operational costs. With these games, there’s none (except perhaps indictments).

Both projects appear to be by the same group, which calls itself “TeamJUST.” The creators are keeping themselves anonymous. The two products have sparked a furor among crypto enthusiasts, who are warning buyers not to support what they allege are pyramid schemes.

JP Thor, CEO of CanYa, a startup funded with an initial coin offering (ICO), wrote on Twitter:

“One thing for certain, this thing won’t end well.”

But financial blogger JP Konig was more philosophical, writing on Twitter, “It is human nature to seek out gambling opportunities like Ponzis. Till now the only option has been shoddily-run offline Ponzis. If ethereum’s relatively clean Ponzis displace the bad ones, the world is (a bit) better off.”

As Konig points out, Ponzi schemes are nothing new on the blockchain. Dapp Radar founder Skirmantas Januskas pointed out PoWH 3D on March 31 with a Medium post. “Let’s be honest, this is a pyramid scheme. Every user is getting paid for the users that join later,” he wrote.

In an email to CoinDesk, one of the anonymous team members of TeamJUST wrote:

“There’s a lot of misconceptions. It’s a game of semantics. By some definitions, almost all of cryptocurrency itself, as well as Social Security, have certain properties of a Ponzi.”

But what seems to be developing now is a sense of traction around the projects. While PoWH 3D has been on the blockchain a while, it wasn’t till mid-July that it started to really rise on the dapp charts, perhaps helped in part by TeamJUST’s followup, Fomo3D.

And it may be that the games’ very sketchy nature was part of the charm. Both projects have sites that make light of their approach. In many ways, they strike a similar tone to July 2017’s Useless Ethereum Token, the ICO that measured buyer’s contributions in the number of big screen televisions its creator could purchase.

He raised about $80,000 or 310 ETH at the time, promising nothing.

PoWH 3D

As the rise of these newer games shows, though, that promise still seems to work.

The “PoWH” in PoWH 3D’s name stands for “proof of weak hands.”

Using a token called P3D and a custom decentralized exchange for users to buy it and sell it, the creators added some elaborate features to make a relatively simple and familiar idea more fun on a blockchain. Every time someone transacts, it levies a 10 percent fee. That fee is then distributed to everyone still holding the token.

So, people holding P3D get paid as people come in, and they get paid as people go out.

It also rewards users for creating affiliate links that draw people in, and rewards them for sticking around over time. It calls these functions ‘staking’ and ‘mining.’

As the site puts it: “Yes, our staking and mining systems are comedic jabs at cryptocurrency as a whole, they’re also immensely more fun, and reward in (ETH) instead of something that ‘may’ have value later.”

And its creators argue that you can’t call it a scheme if it’s upfront about how everything works:

“We recognize that a trustless smart-contract managing value in this way simply was not possible before this point in computing history. There’s no scheming here at all – it’s upfront, honest and completely transparent.”

Fomo3D

Fomo3D, which launched on July 8, is another TeamJUST game that recalls “The Button,” an experiment that ran on Reddit in 2015, which itself evoked penny auctions (without any money on the line).

In the Reddit game, a simple button was accompanied by a 60-second timer. When a user clicked the button, the timer would reset. If no one clicked it, the timer would run out and the game would end. It took two months and over 1 million clicks before someone let the timer run out.

Fomo3D works in a similar way, except pushing the metaphorical button costs a little money. There are now over 21,400 ether (nearly $10 million) on the line at the time of writing. Users of the game buy a “key,” and each purchase sets the countdown (currently at around 24 hours) back by a certain amount.

As the game’s wiki explains, “Players receive a stream of passive income from the game as keys are bought during the round. These rewards can be withdrawn anytime.”

To massively simplify how this very weird game ends, fundamentally: when the countdown runs out, the smart contract “drains,” or pays out. Winners depend on which “team” a person joins and — to make it weirder still  — part of the winnings can even go to holders PoWH 3D’s token.

In that way, it’s helping convince users in its first game to stay in. And it seems to be working: Fomo3D has far more transactions over the last day so far than its predecessor.

Fomo3D consciously evokes the seedier corners of the cryptocurrency industry. The username of the last player to buy a key is splashed across the site with the warning that they’re “exit scamming,” the practice of taking investors’ funds through an ICO and making off with the money rather than building whatever product was promised.

Scam or be scammed

Creativity and humor aside, most think the change in tone isn’t enough to brush aside concerns.

“I think it appeals to people as a way to gamble with some ‘exciting’ rules of the game,” Kalla said. “Given some of the time frames on which this operates, it wouldn’t be surprising to see this run for a while before losing steam.”

For some critics, the cheeky references to scams are a bit too on-the-nose. The most upvoted comment on one Reddit thread about FoMo3D – “my wife still doesn’t believe in mee” – is a reference to the most notorious (recent) crypto Ponzi scheme, BitConnect.

The joke may be on the players though. Péter Szilágyi, one of ethereum’s more well-known developers, took the time to detail an attack that could potentially undermine one of the schemes on Reddit this week. Which raises the question: if the stakes behind a game designed to rob its players gets stolen, did the thief really do anything wrong?

The answer may be one that the dapps’ users are soon to find out.

UPDATE (24, July 2018 14:08 UTC): CoinDesk added comment from TeamJUST subsequent to publication.

Foam pyramids image via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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[radthursdays]

#RadThursdays Roundup 11/02/2017

Surreal, amorphous blobs of many textures and colors. Some look like human eyes and fingers, some look almost like cats. “Man sits on a bed with a dog” From Zero Likes.

Ignoring the Dystopia

When Men Fear Women: “But with the Weinstein fallout, and the List, we saw men actually becoming afraid of what they did or did not do (and honestly, if they didn’t feel any fear, they were deluded). If there’s one thing to learn from the endless morass of emotions that has been the past few weeks it’s that it’s good to make men feel fear, and this is something women absolutely have the power to do, even if it has to come anonymously, and in aggregate. Many men wonder what to do with their entitled mouths and brains at moments like this and the answer is: shut up and go away. Fear, not common sense or respect, is the only thing that seems to drive some of them to silence. However fleeting this change may be, it is a distinct role reversal and, I hope, it is progress.”

Capitalism with a Fluffy Face: “The latest way tech companies have promoted their questionable self-image as the antithesis of old, evil corporations has been to open their offices not to unions, but to dogs”.

Ignoring the dystopia: “Probably the worst part of the book is that the main reason the woman changes her mind is in response to the man’s display of financial generosity.  He’s so wealthy, and sometimes he sometimes assists other wealthy people who are on the verge of losing their wealthy status!  The main problem with this part is that it reminds us, the readers, of the dystopia which we were so carefully pretending to ignore.”

A smiling child appears to be melting into a spiral of landscapes. “Man in a suit tie holding a baby” From Zero Likes.

Drugs

The Fragility of Legislation: Who's Cashing In On Marijuana?: "We as a society can’t continue to discuss legalization in a positive light—especially on a national, mainstream level—without directly linking back to the history of white supremacy that accompanies our relationship to marijuana today. Neither the government nor these rich, white men can be trusted to reform the industry, so it is up to us to prevent them from dictating the laws so that they can profit from criminalizing our brothers and sisters. Until police and politicians stop targeting people of color in and outside of legalized and decriminalized states and every person serving time in prison for nonviolent marijuana-related offenses is released and allowed the opportunity to work within the industry, there is no world in which legalization is anything other than simply another bastion of white supremacy—and in which we are anything other than complicit."

The Family That Built an Empire of Pain: The Sackler dynasty’s ruthless marketing of painkillers has generated billions of dollars—and millions of addicts. "Many addicts, finding prescription painkillers too expensive or too difficult to obtain, have turned to heroin. According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, four out of five people who try heroin today started with prescription painkillers. The most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that a hundred and forty-five Americans now die every day from opioid overdoses. […] 'If you look at the prescribing trends for all the different opioids, it’s in 1996 that prescribing really takes off,' Kolodny said. 'It’s not a coincidence. That was the year Purdue launched a multifaceted campaign that misinformed the medical community about the risks.' When I asked Kolodny how much of the blame Purdue bears for the current public-health crisis, he responded, 'The lion’s share.'"

Vague blue blobs coalesce into a something that almost looks like a person wearing sunglasses. “A statue of an elephant” From Zero Likes.

Technology and the Abyss

Zero Likes: “This project is a meditation on the aesthetics of nothingness. I trained an AI to create images in response to over 100,000 Instagram posts that received zero likes. This is the first part of an on-going series investigating the potential for machines to respond to abstract, human questions.”

Weird Facebook is monetizing: “The rise of those types of posts give the sense that Weird Facebook has entered a liminal period, as some of its highest-profile figures are now trying to cash in on a scene that was in recent memory still little-known and subversive. Mysterious pages that used to provide the dankest memes available now direct visitors to exit through the gift shop — and fans aren’t always pleased.”

Coders of the world, unite: can Silicon Valley workers curb the power of Big Tech?: For decades, tech companies promised to make the world better. As that dream falls apart, disillusioned insiders are trying to take back control. "Martin Manning, a former Silicon Valley labour organiser who served as assistant secretary of labour for Bill Clinton, believes unionising engineers is impossible. 'It isn’t to say a group of engineers with concerns about privacy, AI, anything, shouldn’t be getting together and sharing those concerns,' he told me. 'But they should think about a professional organisation.' Manning believes that engineers should establish codes of conduct, like doctors or librarians. (There was one such organisation in the 1980s, called Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.)"

An explosion of colors and textures is melting all over itself. Somehow the textures evoke knurled roots, cucumbers, seaside vistas, maybe a coral reef... “Flowers that are in a vase” From Zero Likes.

Activism

Don’t Troll, Organize: “'You can influence the latest thing he says on Twitter' is a far cry from 'We shall overcome,' or 'Workers of the world, unite!'”

Belonging is a superpower – Patterns for decentralised organising: Summary of a talk, “8 Patterns for Decentralized Organizing”.

How to Be a Good Friend to a Sexual Assault Survivor: "As my healing process continues, my needs have changed. It has been so helpful when people in my life have asked me, 'Is it helpful when I offer this kind of support?' It can be hard to have these conversations, but that you and I have gotten really good at it! I also try be upfront with you about what I need. I may even text you and say, “I need you to tell me that I’m not alone”, and you will do just that."

Direct Action Item

Collectively, we generate more and more online data every day because we think it will make us feel happy or connected (or just because it’s an addiction). For the most part, this online activity just vanishes into the machinic abyss of the modern web, heeded by advertising algorithms and little else. This week, take time for something that might not get any “likes” but will make you happy – meet with a friend IRL (sans smartphone?!), call a family member you haven’t talked to recently, find a new group to do activism with.

If there’s something you’d like to see in next week’s #RT, please send us a message.

In solidarity!

What is direct action? Direct action means doing things yourself instead of petitioning authorities or relying on external institutions. It means taking matters into your own hands and not waiting to be empowered, because you are already powerful. A “direct action item” is a way to put your beliefs into practice every week.

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Yesterday I tweeted a thread with some scary stats (click through to see the whole thing):

I'm going to tread carefully about this thread:https://t.co/HqlJ5XyO0d

— Lars Doucet (@larsiusprime) May 8, 2017

A quick updated summary of some of the things I noted:

At least 249 indie games have launched on Steam in the past 13 weeks

not including VR or F2P games

that's more than 30 games every week, on average

In their first month...

75% made at least $0

10% made at least $1K-9K

7.5% made at least $10K-49K

2% made at least $50K-99K

5% made at least $100K-999K

Exactly one made > $1M

Here's a graph:

What you're looking at is minimum estimated earnings for each game, in their first month on Steam. If a game is pegged at "$0" that doesn't mean it made $0, it just means I don't have enough data to confidently state it made any more than that. (Doing some spot checks with willing developers, it seems that games in the $0 tier make a few thousand in their first month at best).

How did I get this data, you ask?

For the past thirteen weeks I've been playing a little game with a small group of friends I like to call "SteamProphet," and it's basically fantasy football for indie games on Steam.

(UPDATE: we have a website now.)

Every Sunday, I put together a list of upcoming games releasing on Steam in the next week, with a few filters (must be tagged "indie", no VR, no F2P, must have a concrete release date, etc). Each player selects a "portfolio" of five games from the list they think will do well, and selects one game as their top weekly pick.

Four weeks later we score the results and see who did best. We calculate a pessimistic minimum estimate for how much money each game has earned, and a player's score for that week is the sum of each game's individual score, plus the score for their weekly pick (the weekly pick is the same game as one of the five regular picks).

Scoring

In the first iteration we simply used the lower bound of SteamSpy's "players" metric for each game to count as the score. We prefer the "players" metric over "owners" because it's less susceptible to distortions from giveaways, bundles, free weekends, and metric-inflation scams.

"Owners" counts anyone who has the game in their Steam library, whether that's a paying customer, a journalist who got a free review copy, or a smurf account trading greenlight votes for game keys. The "players" metric represents someone who actually bothered to install and run the game, and although this figure is still gameable, it's harder to do. Most importantly, we're pretty sure that "Players" will correlate closer to actual purchasers than "Owners", especially in a game's first month. To be extra conservative, we take the lower bound, so for a figure like "Players total: 58,263 ± 6,959" we count that as 51,304 players. Since SteamSpy uses a statistical confidence interval of 98%, taking the lower bound means we can be 98% confident the actual number of players is at least that high.

However, just counting players makes it hard to compare differently priced games -- $2.99 easily garners more players than $19.99. To normalize scores, we multiply players by the lowest price in the game's first month, rounded down to the nearest 1,000. This makes it easier to compare the relative success of two different games.

But since we're dealing with estimates rather than hard figures from developers themselves, we insist on being conservative. This scoring method stacks four ruthless forms of pessimism:

Use players instead of owners (players is always < owners)

Use the lower bound

Use the lowest price

Round down

What we're left with is a pretty reliable "hit detector." If a game scores 100,000 points with this estimation method, we can be pretty sure that it's actually earned at least $100,000 on Steam. The only major fly in the ointment is regional pricing -- if everyone who bought the game was from Russia or China, then the actual purchase price could be significantly lower, but as long as western buyers represent a significant chunk (a near certainty), the built-in pessimism should more than account for this.

If we wanted to create a "miss detector" instead, we would probably do the opposite -- go with the most optimistic estimate possible in each case; take the upper bound of the owners metric and multiply by the highest price, and count that as a pretty confident ceiling on a game's earnings (on Steam, at least) -- and a low ceiling could reliably indicate a flop. But that wasn't our chief concern -- we wanted to know which games had almost certainly done well.

Predicting

The predicting part of the game was inspired by the concept of "Superforecasters" -- a group of people who try to actually get better at predicting future events (a much-needed skill in our age of non-stop punditry). The basic gist of their method is:

Make clear, quantifiable, falsifiable predictions.

Bad: The economy will do better.

Good: The S&P 500 will close higher than 3000 points.

Set a maturation date for the prediction.

Bad: The economy will do better "soon"

Good: The S&P 500 will close higher than 3000 points on January 1, 2018

Keep score.

Go back and see if your predictions came true.

If not, try to figure out why you were wrong.

After a game's already launched it's really easy to say, "Oh yeah, obviously Super Sandwich Quest did poorly on Steam -- it's clearly not what Steam's audience wants." But do you have the confidence to say that in advance? How many games have you been super hyped for that actually did well? Are you sure you really know "what Steam's audience wants?"

Here's a quick example -- which game did you think would do better, Night in the Woods, or Northgard?

They both released the same week. Night In The Woods was a super-hyped, long-awaited indie title that, judging by my twitter feed, all the "cool kids" were talking about. Northgard was some sort of Viking RTS / village sim about to launch into Early Access, by an obscure developer most of you probably hadn't heard of. If I hadn't been a personal acquaintance of the developer, I would have missed its launch entirely.

Night in the Woods did great -- it scored 653 thousand SteamProphet points, but Northgard positively blew it out of the water with 1.259 million points.

Nobody in our group called it.

Heck, even I underestimated it, and I'd been following Northgard's development since the start because I'm a big personal fan of the game's creator, Nicolas Cannasse (he created the Haxe programming language I use every day). Sure, it's easy to look back now and say -- "well, clearly, games like Banished have done well, Northgard is actually pretty innovative, and its production quality far exceeds the typical game entering Early Access, so of course it was a massive hit."

But before it launched, all I could think was -- "sure, it looks cool, but, don't we have enough Viking games already? Is it really what Steam's audience wants? Do people play this kind of game?"

Apparently so. Since we started SteamProphet 13 weeks ago, Northgard still holds the title of #1 best performing game.

And it's an early access game!

Shows what I know.

As it turns out, the most valuable lesson I learned from playing SteamProphet wasn't the predicting part. I mean, I did learn that I totally suck at predictions (despite having invented the game, I routinely score in the bottom half of my group), and that's a valuable lesson in itself.

But the much more important reward is the fine-tuned sense of presentation you start to develop by looking at every single indie game that releases on Steam and scrutinizing their pitches, screenshots, titles, and -- most importantly -- trailers. It's a brutally humbling experience.

One key lesson is how important it is to make a good trailer. So many indies frankly have awful trailers, and it's the number one thing that somebody's going to judge your game on. What makes a good trailer? Here's the secret -- I don't even need to tell you.

ATTENTION: This is important!!!!

Just go to this list of upcoming indie games on Steam. Click on each one. Watch the trailer. Do that for the next 15 minutes. When you're done, I guarantee you will come away with a better sense of what makes a good and bad trailer than when you started. And I bet you'll be a lot more careful when it comes time to make the trailer for your next game.

Making and shipping a game is hard. It takes a long time. Hundreds of hours. Often thousands. Whether you're a grizzled veteran or a first-timer, This One Weird TrickTM will save you loads of grief:

Once a week, spend 15 minutes watching trailers for upcoming indie games.

Not only will you get a better sense for how to present (and not present) your game, but you'll also get a very sobering reminder of exactly how crowded this space is, and how important it is to make sure you stand out.

That's seriously the most important thing I learned from this whole thing. The rest is fine-tuning. That said, here's some other interesting things I learned from SteamProphet:

Case Studies

Thimbleweed Park released the same week as Rain World and Beat Cop. Despite being a huge Ron Gilbert fan and mega-hyped for the game, my heart sank when I saw the main trailer posted on its Steam page:

[embedded content]

Now, Ransome is a funny character, and the production quality of this trailer is good, but -- were they really leading with this? People who had no idea what this game was about were about to come away with the impression, "Pixelated point and click adventure game featuring a weird obnoxious clown who curses a lot," rather than, "Highly anticipated classic-style adventure game by Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert, featuring a large cast of colorful characters, with a distinct 90's Twin Peaks / X-Files sorta vibe."

So, I picked Rain World over Thimbleweed for my top pick.

Luckily, they updated the trailer right before launch, putting their best foot forward:

[embedded content]

Thimbleweed went on to score 674,000 SteamProphet points, beating Rain World and Beat Cop handily.

As for Rain World, it looked gorgeous, was all over my twitter feed, and had an awesome trailer when it came time to make my prediction. It did pretty good -- 147,000 points -- but not as well as I had predicted. This might be post-hoc rationalization, but I think Rain World struggled because many players came in expecting an awe-inspiring exploration game in a dangerous world, but instead found something more like a precision platformer mixed with a punishing survival sim.

Again, this just means that we are fairly sure Rain World made at least $147,000. It probably earned more, but we can't say how much. It also launched on Playstation 4, and we have no idea what it earned there.

Another surprise I had was Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment. It scored only 5,000 SteamProphet points, and pretty much everyone had it pegged for their top pick of the week. This one's a little harder to explain -- maybe it did better on consoles? Maybe new customers opted to buy Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove instead, which includes Specter of Torment? In any case, my intuition failed me once again.

A case where I was dead right, however, was Little Nightmares. Several other players were skeptical of how it would do on Steam, but I stuck to my guns. Its final score isn't even due until next week and it's already up to 8,873,000* 777,000 SteamProphet points. Yes, that's over 8 million*, 700 thousand and it's a lower bound. Seems kind of weird to classify a game published by Bandai-Namco as "indie" but that's a discussion for another day :P

*Don't fat-finger the calculator, kids.

But my biggest embarassment of all is not calling Yooka-Laylee. Not only did I pass it over for the top pick, I didn't even pick it as one of my five basics! Why would I do something like this? Well, the pre-release buzz about the game was pretty negative and I was sure we had another Mighty Number 9 on our hands. Turns out I was living in a bubble and a lot of people really enjoyed the game. Its score hasn't matured as of this writing, but it's already up to 2,051,000 points. Granted, it was kickstarted so some of those are probably kickstarter keys, but -- they're actually playing the game, so that's a sign of real engagement. We're still iterating the rules of SteamProphet and there's some ongoing debate for how to settle edge cases like these.

Now, there's one final thing I want to talk about before we circle back to the beginning.

Jeff Vogel once famously explained How You're Going To Price Your Computer Game:

Flip a coin. If it's heads, $15. If tails, $20. Done!

The data strongly supports this position:

What you're looking at here is a chart of indie games in each earnings tier, color-coded by the lowest price they had during launch. As you can see, games priced below $5 and $10 are strongly clustered at the bottom. Games priced at > $15 did significantly better -- not a single one made less than $10K, and most of them made at least $100K. Games priced between $10 and $15 were spread out across the scale. Only one game had an earnings floor above $1M, and it was priced at $20.

Notably -- exactly one game was priced lower than $10 and still managed an earnings floor of $100K. That game was Hidden Folks, which is an abnormally appealing game for that price point:

It's important to draw the right conclusions from this data. For one, it's not the biggest sample size ever (especially for the $1M+ tier). More importantly, it's a classic mix of correlation/causation -- I'm pretty sure raising the price on some random game isn't going to make it perform better. What's more likely happening is that games naturally fit into certain perceived "production quality" tiers that developers (and players) use to peg their prices.

That said, if you've put in the effort to meet a certain perceived quality bar, don't price your game for pennies. For whatever reason, Steam Players seem pretty strongly anchored around the $10, $15, and $20 tiers, so it might be dangerous to slip outside that range and naively count on an Econ 101 price elasticity slope. I'm pretty sure Hidden Folks could have safely pegged themselves at $9.99 without shedding too many customers, but good for them in any case!

Now, let's circle back to that scary little graph at the beginning:

Each week, dozens of indie games release on Steam, and the vast majority of them will make very little money. And if you don't get that initial boost of traction, Steam's discovery algorithms are unlikely to lift you out.

The /r/gamedev thread I linked earlier features a lot of developers concerned about this. Many of them understandably express frustration with visibility rounds; these were changed recently from giving each developer a free 500,000 impressions on the Steam front page, to only targeting existing customers and those who have wishlisted your game about recent updates. As I detailed in my article Steam Discovery 2.0, Stegosaurus Tail 2.0, this was a huge boon for established developers like me, but a lot of first-time developers feel cheated.

I think Valve should rename "Visibility Rounds" ASAP -- the name is seriously misleading and the broken expectations are not good for the community.

That said, I don't think it's possible to change visibility rounds back to the way they used to be, and simple math can attest to why:

chart source: game-debate.com

In 2016 alone 4,207 games were released on Steam. If every single one of those games was given 500,000 free impressions, that's 2,103,500,000 (over two billion) impressions. And that's just if each game spends one visibility round. In the old system games got as many as five of these. If each game in 2016 spent all five visibility rounds, now we're talking about ten billion impressions.

But hey! There's a lot of Steam users to spread that out over, right? Steam's concurrent users bobbles around the 7.5-14 million range. Taking the extreme high end, let's say 14,000,000 are online at any given time and also assume super generously that all of them logged into the steam storefront at all times, ready to spread out impressions, rather than just skipping the storefront to play CSGO and DOTA2 (which is what most of them are actually doing). Even then, it's still over 150 impressions per concurrent user, for one visibility round per game, for just the games released in 2016. At this rate, the old style of visibility rounds would completely overtake the Steam storefront with indie game impressions. It was a system that could only work in an uncrowded system.

The hard truth is just that there's more indie games on Steam than ever before. Steam's discovery system doesn't actively bury new games as much as being buried is the natural default state in such a crowded environment. And for first time indies, any measure to hard-cull the store front could just as easily exclude their own games. Sure, there were some obvious cynical shovel-ware titles, but the majority of what I saw were earnest efforts by first-timers, even if many were rough around the edges (just like my games were when I first started out).

The silver lining is that if you pay close attention, you can get a pretty good sense of what the climate on Steam is like, and what you can do to improve your chances. I've been making games professionally for almost a decade now, and I've seen lots of developers come and go in that time. I'm still here (for now).

If you want to stay afloat in a storm, it's really important to know which way the wind is blowing.

Everything is hard, good luck out there.

Update:

Okay, after getting like a billion requests to join my SteamProphet league, and people asking how to set up their own, I put together a little site with all that information:

http://ift.tt/2pA15zu

If you want to join one of my leagues, or just want more information when it's available, put your contact details in this form:

http://ift.tt/2qVVzf2

Thanks!

[digital-strategy]

The growing stream of reporting on and data about fake news, misinformation, partisan content, and news literacy is hard to keep up with. This weekly roundup offers the highlights of what you might have missed.

“The reasons aren’t always apparent.”

PolitiFact, one of Facebook’s partners in its

hoax-combatting program

, published a

list of 156 “websites

where we’ve found deliberately false or fake stories” since beginning the Facebook partnership. The sites are divided into four categories: “Parody or joke sites,” which contain some disclaimer somewhere that they are meant to be satire even if there’s nothing particularly funny about them; “news imposter sites” (“these sites attempt to trick readers into thinking they are newspapers or radio or television stations,” like CNNews3.com, which uses a logo similar to CNN’s); “fake news sites” (“most of these sites join services like Content.ad or RevContent.com that allow them to post a collection of provocative ads to make money off clicks”); and “sites that contain some fake news.”

PolitiFact attempted to identify where each site was registered, which was often “exasperatingly difficult” because many of the sites use registration services to hide their information from the public.

There’s also fake local news. PolitiFact’s Joshua Gillin writes:

[Some] imposter websites appear to bank more on readers zeroing in on things they want to hear more about.

We found an entire family of sites that created different versions of posts keyed to town names, apparently to generate advertising revenue. These sites have official-sounding names like 16WMPO.com, KY12News.com, Local31News.com and more, posting various versions of stories that falsely claim an event has happened.

These posts, with only slight variations in details, say a celebrity’s car broke down in a particular place, that a celebrity is moving to a certain town or, say, that the next Star Wars movie is being filmed nearby.

Two California bills pass to address fake news. Two bills that aim to increase students’ media literacy passed in California this week (SB 135, AB 155).

“Developing a comprehensive media literacy curriculum is critical to combatting fake news,” California state Senator Bill Dodd, D-Napa, told The Davis Enterprise. “While information has become more accessible than ever, many lack the tools to identify fake or misleading news and information. By giving students the proper tools to analyze the media they consume, we can empower them to make informed decisions.”

We may have differences but we all like the same snacks. The KIND Foundation — apparently, the bars have a charity arm — introduced a Facebook app called “Pop Your Bubble“; install it to “add new perspectives to your Facebook feed.” Basically it looks at like every single thing in your Facebook profile (“your public profile, friend list, email address, timeline posts, birthday, hometown, current city and likes” — you can deselect some of these) and then comes up with a list of people who are different from you, and suggests that you follow them. Because you’re following them — not friending them — you’ll only see their public posts in your feed, and you may not see much or any of those, since Facebook’s algorithm is going to push their posts far below the ones you actually care about. KIND says that the people it suggests you follow “have volunteered to make their profiles public as part of the Pop Your Bubble experience.” It also suggests that you do the following:

To make sure the people you are following through Pop Your Bubble remain at the top of your feed, simply follow these steps: Go to your personal Facebook profile page Click on your “Activity Log” at top of your profile page Scroll until you see the people you followed through the Pop Your Bubble experience Click on the name of each person you followed — check out their profile while you’re there! At the top of each person’s profile page, it will say you are “Following” them; click that drop-down and set as “See First” and then click back to their profile page Click back to your “Activity Log” to repeat same steps for each person you followed!

It turns out it’s quite a bit of work to see updates from complete strangers! I went through the steps once for the sake of testing, and followed five people. They had made very little content from their profiles public, so I mostly saw their cover photos of scenic places. One woman’s feed consisted primarily of pictures of her working out with her dog somewhere in the picture. I unfollowed all of them and disconnected the app.

“These photos lack context.” — @Patriots On Wednesday, @NYTSports tweeted the following:

Patriots' turnout for President Obama in 2015 vs. Patriots' turnout for President Trump today: https://t.co/OxMEOqZonI http://pic.twitter.com/pLmJWhOw1j

— NYT Sports (@NYTSports) April 19, 2017

The New England Patriots responded a few hours later.

These photos lack context. Facts: In 2015, over 40 football staff were on the stairs. In 2017, they were seated on the South Lawn. https://t.co/iIYtV0hR6Y

— New England Patriots (@Patriots) April 20, 2017

@NYTSports then sent out another tweet:

UPDATE: Patriots say # of players was smaller this year than 2015 (34 vs. 50) but total delegation was roughly the same. http://pic.twitter.com/Ij77Def8z5

— NYT Sports (@NYTSports) April 20, 2017

“When one zooms in, it becomes clear that everyone in the 2015 picture isn’t actually a member of the Patriots roster — unless they’ve secretly had several women and older men on the team this entire time without anyone noticing,” wrote Townhall.com’s Christine Rousselle. Other conservative sites and Trump himself also picked up the story.

New York Times sports editor Jason Stallman told The Washington Post’s Cindy Boren:

Bad tweet by me. Terrible tweet. I wish I could say it’s complicated, but no, this one is pretty straightforward: I’m an idiot. It was my idea, it was my execution, it was my blunder. I made a decision in about four minutes that clearly warranted much more time.

Once we learned more, we tried to fix everything as much as possible as swiftly as possible and as transparently as possible. Of course, at that point the damage was done. I just needed to own it.

I’m including this here not because I’m particularly interested in the weird ongoing Trump/Patriots thing but because I saw and liked the original @NYTSports tweet. I sympathize with Stallman and with others making decisions like this: It’s tough to convince yourself to hold back on a “decision in about four minutes” when the tweet you send as a result of that decision will be a huge hit, getting liked 78,000 times and retweeted 50,000 times. (The follow-up “correction” tweet, meanwhile, was retweeted just 777 times and liked 1,841 times. I’ve also been surprised by how many times I, a journalist who writes a column about fake news and media literacy, have quickly accepted and taken to be true things on Twitter that later turn out to be false or suspect (another example recently: the-journalists-found-the-wrong-guy-on-United, no-wait-they-didn’t). Okay, sorry for going all Liz Spayd on you.

via Nieman Lab

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Yesterday I tweeted a thread with some scary stats (click through to see the whole thing):

I'm going to tread carefully about this thread:https://t.co/HqlJ5XyO0d

— Lars Doucet (@larsiusprime) May 8, 2017

A quick updated summary of some of the things I noted:

At least 249 indie games have launched on Steam in the past 13 weeks

not including VR or F2P games

that's more than 30 games every week, on average

In their first month...

75% made at least $0

10% made at least $1K-9K

7.5% made at least $10K-49K

2% made at least $50K-99K

5% made at least $100K-999K

Exactly one made > $1M

Here's a graph:

What you're looking at is minimum estimated earnings for each game, in their first month on Steam. If a game is pegged at "$0" that doesn't mean it made $0, it just means I don't have enough data to confidently state it made any more than that. (Doing some spot checks with willing developers, it seems that games in the $0 tier make a few thousand in their first month at best).

How did I get this data, you ask?

For the past thirteen weeks I've been playing a little game with a small group of friends I like to call "SteamProphet," and it's basically fantasy football for indie games on Steam.

Every Sunday, I put together a list of upcoming games releasing on Steam in the next week, with a few filters (must be tagged "indie", no VR, no F2P, must have a concrete release date, etc). Each player selects a "portfolio" of five games from the list they think will do well, and selects one game as their top weekly pick.

Four weeks later we score the results and see who did best. We calculate a pessimistic minimum estimate for how much money each game has earned, and a player's score for that week is the sum of each game's individual score, plus the score for their weekly pick (the weekly pick is the same game as one of the five regular picks).

Scoring

In the first iteration we simply used the lower bound of SteamSpy's "players" metric for each game to count as the score. We prefer the "players" metric over "owners" because it's less susceptible to distortions from giveaways, bundles, free weekends, and metric-inflation scams.

"Owners" counts anyone who has the game in their Steam library, whether that's a paying customer, a journalist who got a free review copy, or a smurf account trading greenlight votes for game keys. The "players" metric represents someone who actually bothered to install and run the game, and although this figure is still gameable, it's harder to do. Most importantly, we're pretty sure that "Players" will correlate closer to actual purchasers than "Owners", especially in a game's first month. To be extra conservative, we take the lower bound, so for a figure like "Players total: 58,263 ± 6,959" we count that as 51,304 players. Since SteamSpy uses a statistical confidence interval of 98%, taking the lower bound means we can be 98% confident the actual number of players is at least that high.

However, just counting players makes it hard to compare differently priced games -- $2.99 easily garners more players than $19.99. To normalize scores, we multiply players by the lowest price in the game's first month, rounded down to the nearest 1,000. This makes it easier to compare the relative success of two different games.

But since we're dealing with estimates rather than hard figures from developers themselves, we insist on being conservative. This scoring method stacks four ruthless forms of pessimism:

Use players instead of owners (players is always < owners)

Use the lower bound

Use the lowest price

Round down

What we're left with is a pretty reliable "hit detector." If a game scores 100,000 points with this estimation method, we can be pretty sure that it's actually earned at least $100,000 on Steam. The only major fly in the ointment is regional pricing -- if everyone who bought the game was from Russia or China, then the actual purchase price could be significantly lower, but as long as western buyers represent a significant chunk (a near certainty), the built-in pessimism should more than account for this.

If we wanted to create a "miss detector" instead, we would probably do the opposite -- go with the most optimistic estimate possible in each case; take the upper bound of the owners metric and multiply by the highest price, and count that as a pretty confident ceiling on a game's earnings (on Steam, at least) -- and a low ceiling could reliably indicate a flop. But that wasn't our chief concern -- we wanted to know which games had almost certainly done well.

Predicting

The predicting part of the game was inspired by the concept of "Superforecasters" -- a group of people who try to actually get better at predicting future events (a much-needed skill in our age of non-stop punditry). The basic gist of their method is:

Make clear, quantifiable, falsifiable predictions.

Bad: The economy will do better.

Good: The S&P 500 will close higher than 3000 points.

Set a maturation date for the prediction.

Bad: The economy will do better "soon"

Good: The S&P 500 will close higher than 3000 points on January 1, 2018

Keep score.

Go back and see if your predictions came true.

If not, try to figure out why you were wrong.

After a game's already launched it's really easy to say, "Oh yeah, obviously Super Sandwich Quest did poorly on Steam -- it's clearly not what Steam's audience wants." But do you have the confidence to say that in advance? How many games have you been super hyped for that actually did well? Are you sure you really know "what Steam's audience wants?"

Here's a quick example -- which game did you think would do better, Night in the Woods, or Northgard?

They both released the same week. Night In The Woods was a super-hyped, long-awaited indie title that, judging by my twitter feed, all the "cool kids" were talking about. Northgard was some sort of Viking RTS / village sim about to launch into Early Access, by an obscure developer most of you probably hadn't heard of. If I hadn't been a personal acquaintance of the developer, I would have missed it's launch entirely.

Night in the Woods did great -- it scored 653 thousand SteamProphet points, but Northgard positively blew it out of the water with 1.259 million points.

Nobody in our group called it.

Heck, even I underestimated it, and I'd been following Northgard's development since the start because I'm a big personal fan of the game's creator, Nicolas Cannasse (he created the Haxe programming language I use every day). Sure, it's easy to look back now and say -- "well, clearly, games like Banished have done well, Northgard is actually pretty innovative, and it's production quality far exceeds the typical game entering Early Access, so of course it was a massive hit."

But before it launched, all I could think was -- "sure, it looks cool, but, don't we have enough Viking games already? Is it really what Steam's audience wants? Do people play this kind of game?"

Apparently so. Since we started SteamProphet 13 weeks ago, Northgard still holds the title of #1 best performing game.

And it's an early access game!

Shows what I know.

As it turns out, the most valuable lesson I learned from playing SteamProphet wasn't the predicting part. I mean, I did learn that I totally suck at predictions (despite having invented the game, I routinely score in the bottom half of my group), and that's a valuable lesson in itself.

But the much more important reward is the fine-tuned sense of presentation you start to develop by looking at every single indie game that releases on Steam and scrutinizing their pitches, screenshots, titles, and -- most importantly -- trailers. It's a brutally humbling experience.

One key lesson is how important it is to make a good trailer. So many indies frankly have awful trailers, and it's the number one thing that somebody's going to judge your game on. What makes a good trailer? Here's the secret -- I don't even need to tell you.

ATTENTION: This is important!!!!

Just go to this list of upcoming indie games on Steam. Click on each one. Watch the trailer. Do that for the next 15 minutes. When you're done, I guarantee you will come away with a better sense of what makes a good and bad trailer than when you started. And I bet you'll be a lot more careful when it comes time to make the trailer for your next game.

Making and shipping a game is hard. It takes a long time. Hundreds of hours. Often thousands. Whether you're a grizzled veteran or a first-timer, This One Weird TrickTM will save you loads of grief:

Once a week, spend 15 minutes watching trailers for upcoming indie games.

Not only will you get a better sense for how to present (and not present) your game, but you'll also get a very sobering reminder of exactly how crowded this space is, and how important it is to make sure you stand out.

That's seriously the most important thing I learned from this whole thing. The rest is fine-tuning. That said, here's some other interesting things I learned from SteamProphet:

Case Studies

Thimbleweed Park released the same week as Rain World and Beat Cop. Despite being a huge Ron Gilbert fan and mega-hyped for the game, my heart sank when I saw the main trailer posted on its Steam page:

[embedded content]

Now, Ransome is a funny character, and the production quality of this trailer is good, but -- were they really leading with this? People who had no idea what this game was about were about to come away with the impression, "Pixelated point and click adventure game featuring a weird obnoxious clown who curses a lot," rather than, "Highly anticipated classic-style adventure game by Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert, featuring a large cast of colorful characters, with a distinct 90's Twin Peaks / X-Files sorta vibe."

So, I picked Rain World over Thimbleweed for my top pick.

Luckily, they updated the trailer right before launch, putting their best foot forward:

[embedded content]

Thimbleweed went on to score 674,000 SteamProphet points, beating Rain World and Beat Cop handily.

As for Rain World, it looked gorgeous, was all over my twitter feed, and had an awesome trailer when it came time to make my prediction. It did pretty good -- 147,000 points -- but not as well as I had predicted. This might be post-hoc rationalization, but I think Rain World struggled because many players came in expecting an awe-inspiring exploration game in a dangerous world, but instead found something more like a precision platformer mixed with a punishing survival sim.

Again, this just means that we are fairly sure Rain World made at least $147,000. It probably earned more, but we can't say how much. It also launched on Playstation 4, and we have no idea what it earned there.

Another surprise I had was Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment. It scored only 5,000 SteamProphet points, and pretty much everyone had it pegged for their top pick of the week. This one's a little harder to explain -- maybe it did better on consoles? Maybe new customers opted to buy Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove instead, which includes Specter of Torment? In any case, my intuition failed me once again.

A case where I was dead right, however, was Little Nightmares. Several other players were skeptical of how it would do on Steam, but I stuck to my guns. It's final score isn't even due until next week and it's already up to 8,873,000 SteamProphet points. Yes, that's over 8 million, and it's a lower bound. Seems kind of weird to classify a game published by Bandai-Namco as "indie" but that's a discussion for another day :P

But my biggest embarassment of all is not calling Yooka-Laylee. Not only did I pass it over for the top pick, I didn't even pick it as one of my five basics! Why would I do something like this? Well, the pre-release buzz about the game was pretty negative and I was sure we had another Mighty Number 9 on our hands. Turns out I was living in a bubble and a lot of people really enjoyed the game. It's score hasn't matured as of this writing, but it's already up to 2,051,000 points. Granted, it was kickstarted so some of those are probably kickstarter keys, but -- they're actually playing the game, so that's a sign of real engagement. We're still iterating the rules of SteamProphet and there's some ongoing debate for how to settle edge cases like these.

Now, there's one final thing I want to talk about before we circle back to the beginning.

Jeff Vogel once famously explained How You're Going To Price Your Computer Game:

Flip a coin. If it's heads, $15. If tails, $20. Done!

The data strongly supports this position:

What you're looking at here is a chart of indie games in each earnings tier, color-coded by the lowest price they had during launch. As you can see, games priced below $5 and $10 are strongly clustered at the bottom. Games priced at > $15 did significantly better -- not a single one made less than $10K, and most of them made at least $100K. Games priced between $10 and $15 were spread out across the scale. Only one game had an earnings floor above $1M, and it was priced at $20.

Notably -- exactly one game was priced lower than $10 and still managed an earnings floor of $100K. That game was Hidden Folks, which is an abnormally appealing game for that price point:

It's important to draw the right conclusions from this data. For one, it's not the biggest sample size ever (especially for the $1M+ tier). More importantly, it's a classic mix of correlation/causation -- I'm pretty sure raising the price on some random game isn't going to make it perform better. What's more likely happening is that games naturally fit into certain perceived "production quality" tiers that developers (and players) use to peg their prices.

That said, if you've put in the effort to meet a certain perceived quality bar, don't price your game for pennies. For whatever reason, Steam Players seem pretty strongly anchored around the $10, $15, and $20 tiers, so it might be dangerous to slip outside that range and naively count on an Econ 101 price elasticity slope. I'm pretty sure Hidden Folks could have safely pegged themselves at $9.99 without shedding too many customers, but good for them in any case!

Now, let's circle back to that scary little graph at the beginning:

Each week, dozens of indie games release on Steam, and the vast majority of them will make very little money. And if you don't get that initial boost of traction, Steam's discovery algorithms are unlikely to lift you out.

The /r/gamedev thread I linked earlier features a lot of developers concerned about this. Many of them understandably express frustration with visibility rounds; these were changed recently from giving each developer a free 500,000 impressions on the Steam front page, to only targeting existing customers and those who have wishlisted your game about recent updates. As I detailed in my article Steam Discovery 2.0, Stegosaurus Tail 2.0, this was a huge boon for established developers like me, but a lot of first-time developers feel cheated.

I think Valve should rename "Visibility Rounds" ASAP -- the name is seriously misleading and the broken expectations are not good for the community.

That said, I don't think it's possible to change visibility rounds back to the way they used to be, and simple math can attest to why:

chart source: game-debate.com

In 2016 alone 4,207 games were released on Steam. If every single one of those games was given 500,000 free impressions, that's 2,103,500,000 (over two billion) impressions. And that's just if each game spends one visibility round. In the old system games got as many as five of these. If each game in 2016 spent all five visibility rounds, now we're talking about ten billion impressions.

But hey! There's a lot of Steam users to spread that out over, right? Steam's concurrent users bobbles around the 7.5-14 million range. Taking the extreme high end, let's say 14,000,000 are online at any given time and also assume super generously that all of them logged into the steam storefront at all times, ready to spread out impressions, rather than just skipping the storefront to play CSGO and DOTA2 (what is what most of them are actually doing). Even then, it's still over 150 impressions per concurrent user, for one visibility round per game, for just the games released in 2016. At this rate, the old style of visibility rounds would completely overtake the Steam storefront with indie game impressions. It was a system that could only work in an uncrowded system.

The hard truth is just that there's more indie games on Steam than ever before. Steam's discovery system doesn't actively bury new games as much as being buried is the natural default state in such a crowded environment. And for first time indies, any measure to hard-cull the store front could just as easily exclude their own games. Sure, there were some obvious cynical shovel-ware titles, but the majority of what I saw were earnest efforts by first-timers, even if many were rough around the edges (just like my games were when I first started out).

The silver lining is that if you pay close attention, you can get a pretty good sense of what the climate on Steam is like, and what you can do to improve your chances. I've been making games professionally for almost a decade now, and I've seen lots of developers come and go in that time. I'm still here (for now).

If you want to stay afloat in a storm, it's really important to know which way the wind is blowing.

Everything is hard, good luck out there.