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Cake day: June 3rd, 2023

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  • He’s indicated he wants to give Trump a sentence of unconditional suspension, eg. a sentence of zero actual punishment but which nevertheless designates him a convicted felon.

    The judge, Juan M. Merchan, indicated that he favored a so-called unconditional discharge of Mr. Trump’s sentence, a rare and lenient alternative to jail or probation. He set a sentencing date of Jan. 10, and ordered Mr. Trump to appear either in person or virtually. An unconditional discharge would cement Mr. Trump’s status as a felon just weeks before his inauguration — he would be the first to carry that dubious designation into the presidency — even as it would water down the consequences for his crimes. Unlike a conditional discharge, which allows defendants to walk free if they meet certain requirements, such as maintaining employment or paying restitution, an unconditional discharge would come without strings attached.


  • I played the first one, and found it to be extremely boring but with potential. Unfortunately, playing 3 and Syndicate afterwards showed me clearly that Ubisoft smothered the potential and cranked up the boring. The worlds they’ve created are certainly immersive, but they’re also devoid of energy. 3 has a half-Native American protage who spends five minutes in his home village and then goes off to the colonies with barely a thought spared for his home, so when it’s played for drama it falls flat because we haven’t seen his relationship to his family. And Syndicate’s characters had might as well be carved from soap with how crude and flat they are. There’s a transgendered gangster from New York who joins the Assassins’ gang, and he has absolutely nothing to add for the entire game. Characters with seeming potential come in, have one side quest, and that’s their lot.









  • Let me add one thing more, that a realistic aesthetic brings with it certain expectations. For example, I don’t question how Security Bots in Bioshock refuel themselves, or fly, or recognise intruders. I don’t ask how come the turrets in Portal never run out of bullets (though it’s answered as a gag in one of the videos). They’re not presented as realistic, and I don’t expect them to be. But when you make the choice to use realistic miniguns in Talos, those questions are going to bubble up to the surface, like “Where’s the ammo box on that thing?” and “Who’s maintaining these on islands in the middle of nowhere?” and “Scratch that, who’s making them?” and “If Elohim (yeah real subtle name there) did all this then why bother with a machine that requires maintenance in the first place instead of a magic pillar of fire or smth?”



  • I can say I was put off at first glance by the “realistic” aesthetic, with props like jammers and minigun turrets that have an unnecessarily detailed, grounded look when as a puzzle game, graphics should not be the focus of the experience. A stylised, or minimal, graphical style would put the focus firmly where it belongs - on the puzzles themselves.