After the murder of Pertinax on 28 March 193, the Praetorian guard announced that the throne was to be sold to the man who would pay the highest price. Titus Flavius Claudius Sulpicianus, prefect of Rome and Pertinax’s father-in-law, who was in the Praetorian camp ostensibly to calm the troops, began making offers for the throne. Meanwhile, Julianus also arrived at the camp, and since his entrance was barred, shouted out offers to the guard. After hours of bidding, Sulpicianus promised 20,000 sesterces to every soldier; Julianus, fearing that Sulpicianus would gain the throne, then offered 25,000. The guards closed with the offer of Julianus, threw open the gates, and proclaimed him emperor. Threatened by the military, the Senate also declared him emperor. His wife and his daughter both received the title Augusta.

Or alternatively, very interested in the real world and want to tell stories with other weirdos about the themes that they find compelling.

Archbishop Harold Holmes by Jack White

“There’s no dogs down here!”

Fuckin’ gold right there.

Abiotic Factor is an interesting crafting game that takes place in a science facility during a mysterious emergency. I’d recommend playing with friends, but I think it’d be fun solo, too.

I also had fun with Subnautica, though that one is a few years old now. I have not tried the sequel, but I’ll probably pick it up some day. It’s a game where you have crash-landed on an alien ocean world, and you have to explore to make better tools to try and escape.

I’ve been playing Hardspace Shipbreaker lately, where your character is someone who disassembles spaceships. The fun of the game is moving around in zero-g and safely take stuff apart without setting off the nuclear reactor, or explosively decompressing a ship right next to you. You upgrade your tools as you do more jobs.

There’s a popular indie game right now called Megabonk; if you like rogue-light games, it’s a fun one. Avoid waves of monsters and upgrade your character by picking the best of three random power-ups as your level goes up.

The rescue where they jump the Galactica into the atmosphere of New Caprica, scramble Vipers, and then jump out again is maybe the coolest scene in TV sci-fi.

Pretty good article, but this part stuck in my craw:

Reid has Zelig-ed his way through just about every stage in the GOP’s metamorphosis from anti-fascist family-value conservatism to its current incarnation as the profa (as opposed to antifa) party of pervs.

The GOP has been the party of lost-cause reactionary hatred since before I was born. They’re just more up-front about it now.

I actually don’t think I’ve ever played a game by an Indian studio, which is a shame because I’m sure there are some great storytellers and coders from there who make spectacular games. I should look around and see what available.

Regarding great games, what genres do you like?

A lot of the “old games were better” is because we mainly remember the best of the best. There has always been shovelware.

On the other hand, I do agree that AAA gaming is fairly stale. I believe it’s mainly because the games are huge investments that have to be a “safe” bet, which is one way to make art (of any type) boring.

But there are indie studios making amazing games these days, because the incentive there is to differentiate their product from the others. Once an idea gets popular enough, AAA studios will pick it up and grind it into the dirt.

I would disagree with the idea that games are worse now. I think the best stuff is getting made today, it’s just harder to find it in a deluge of shovelware. Look in the indie and AA space for interesting games.

Removed by mod

They are bad because they’re billionaires though.

That kind of wealth concentration is disruptive of the entire economy and social structure.

Imagine playing poker with $10 worth of chips against someone with $100,000; the game is rigged in their favor regardless of how they got the money.

Stephen Miller is the worst American, and that really means something in 2025.

The visa system is intentionally fucked up in this country to create an underclass of cheap, exploitable labor.

That ritual is not on the pre-approved list. You must go through the proper channels. Your deviance has beed noted.

But in all seriousness, this is exactly how these reactionary evangelicals want to control people: take things that are perfectly normal human activities and put them exclusively under the purview of their own structures and hierarchies.

100,000% this.

It’s what they were made to do: entrench the privilege of the wealthy via propaganda.

I was just thinking about this today, actually: how much the right freaked out over an “invasion” that was never happening compared to an actual declaration of war on American cities.

It just goes to show how they want to do everything they accuse their opponents of doing.

Trump on Maxwell: “I wish her well.”

Interesting that this is the only occasion where this blowhard shitheel doesn’t pretend to know everything about the subject.

My kids got one instead of candy for trick-or-treating one year.

Oh sure, for many of them I largely agree that they don’t buy into it.

But they’re certainly selling it. The Free Press made it’s bread by telling conservatives that they’re right in thinking that the “excesses” of the left are even worse than those of the right despite the absurdly of that position.

Reactionary “centrism” is a plague in this country.