Hey everybody who ever loved a video game: take a moment right now and say a little prayer for Rebecca, to whom you owe much.

This weekend did not feature my best performance in Burnout 3's Crash Mode.

I am against all forms of public and private surveillance technology except in workplace kitchens where there should be real-time monitoring and immediate arrests of individuals who abandon dirty dishes for colleagues to deal with.

I think the reason stuck with Xbox was because it’s the platform my Rock Band guitars belong to and I always thought at some point I’d get them out again.

The 2025 Australian Game Development Survey will close soon - help us accurately represent key data needed to advocate for better funding, policy, and recognition for our industry. If you didn’t receive the email invite, you can still participate via this link: https://ow.ly/szlO50Xsur6

'There will be deaths' That's the fear of a youth worker thinking about the consequences of Australia's teen social media ban. I wrote about their concerns for their clients, some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged teens, and about their ability to work with them. www.crikey.com.au/20...

A new edition of Digital Media Demystified by the DMRC is out! 🔗 Find our Explainers and associated resources in our dedicated Knowledge Hub: research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/digital...

Is that Anthony Pratt beside the President?

The elite few people in this country who are actually in a position to stand up to Donald Trump are totally silent.

After their homecoming Fed Square gig was cancelled over security fears, Amyl and the Sniffers put $5,000 behind the bar at seven live music venues around Melbourne.

The New York Times won’t use the word but we should because it’s obvious: right wing political influencers aren’t just ‘close to’ the administration — they are its propagandists in the most literal sense of that word. They financially benefit from access & loyalty. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/b...

I recently had a live chat with @arielbogle.bsky.social and @cameronwilson.bsky.social about their new book, Conspiracy Nation, for the Media Futures Hub at UNSW. The conversation is now on the podcast feed. Check it out! pca.st/episode/8ee9...

Why do I count 4x USB-A ports?

The person behind this account does not seem to actually have any sort of vested interest in the US or in immigration. But they are nonetheless spamming horrific videos because the Facebook algorithm is rewarding them for that type of content, and because Facebook directly makes payments for it.

Yet again, Australia proves itself the gateway to the Wound of Creation, forever leaking forth unholy terrors such as this, mutant spiders, bloodthirsty magpies, and Yahoo Serious.

The best opportunity for AI is to replace the very average and very probabilistic work of the kinds of CEOs and senior managers who say AI is the future. Where is the board of directors willing to save that kind of C-suite money and puts it back into the staff who do the actual work?

giving a talk tomorrow, it will not be cynical

In an Australia first, I used FOI to get the AI chat logs of Australia's top national security bureaucrat. They show how he used Microsoft Copilot to ghostwrite speeches and messages to colleagues. This comes as the government looks to push AI use in the public service. www.crikey.com.au/20...

The big games review problem is that the medium inherently takes too long. People mostly review games they expect to find interesting. Playing when you know you probably won’t like a game is considered a bad investment of time.

Done! Latest title update: “The Work of Art in the Age of Infinite Content: generative art and creative authenticity in online art communities and social platforms”

Filling out a banking form that asks for my occupation, and in what I am choosing to consider as a sign of the times, "journalist" is not a selectable option, but "cryptocurrency" is

Bungie reminds me of the uncoordinated but really tall kid in school who every rep team basketball coach would pick, thinking “I know he’s struggling, but surely I can train him.” Each year he sits on the bench, each year another coach gives it a go.

Submitting PhD confirmation review documents tonight. Will breathe after a few weeks of tension getting my ideas straightened out on a page.

Anyone know if it’s easy to leave weapon mastery on the bench using 2024 D&D rules on D&D Beyond? I don’t want it and it’s why I’ve ignored the new rules so far. I mean… is there anything else to change for anyway?

Every time someone’s like “put that in the louvre,” my head now goes “and then steal it from the louvre, the security password is louvre”

Interactivity

If anyone feels like supporting an independent Australian videogame website with award-winning work that strictly has no advertising, no sponsored content, no corporate ownership, does not let publishers pay for travel, and discloses every code we get and image we use: thisweekinvideogames.com

You can do anything at ZomboCom

incredibly funny that Joyce Carol Oates owned Musk so hard he's started trying to post like a regular person with normal interests

I recently had a live chat with @arielbogle.bsky.social and @cameronwilson.bsky.social about their new book, Conspiracy Nation, for the Media Futures Hub at UNSW. The conversation is now on the podcast feed. Check it out! pca.st/episode/8ee9...

What do young Australians think about the 'Social Media Ban'? Join young people and researchers online to find out what the upcoming changes mean for 12-15 year olds from around Australia. 🗓 Mon, 1 Dec 2025 ⏰ 9:00am Perth ⏰ 11:00am Bris ⏰ 12:00pm Syd/Melb 👉 www.eventbrite.com.au/e/webinar-am...

Had my first experience today pressing the Add Bibliography button in Zotero. Such witchcraft! How did we ever do this before??

Seems to be a bit of a global issue that centre-right/right wing parties do whatever the right wing media tell them to do and centre-left parties do whatever the right wing media tell them to do

Gurman says Apple Fitness+ is under review because it's not doing well and doesn't do much revenue. I've always thought it is a perfect place for shoppable outfits. Let me buy the fitness gear a trainer is wearing and have it delivered with a single click!

I used to like ScreenTime stats from Apple but now it’s somehow double tracking things across devices so I’m seeing blocks of two hours per hour including times overnight when I’m asleep so nothing is useful information anymore. Anyone else see the same problems?

Tech guys six months ago: haha yes we’re cutting all this WASTEFUL spending by eliminating medical research and USAID Tech guys now: yes I think taxpayers will be excited to bailout my non consensual pornography machine

40 years ago we’d have congressional hearings falsely accusing metal bands of putting backwards messages in their songs that told kids to kill themselves & now we have a planet-killing chatbot that’s all like “bet you won’t commit suicide chickenshit bitch” & the government is like here’s $5 billion

If the stories about the negative impacts of generative AI were stories about videogames there wouldn’t even be a debate. They would be banned, banned, banned, banned, and banned.

Identifying flaws in GenAI unfortunately offers a pretext for claims that perfecting the product is just a matter of time & money. So pointing to chatbots’ role in,say, suicides can only go so far if we don’t also identify the systemic, irresolvable lack of Gen AI’s human commitment bc math has none

Worth a reminder the whole SNAP thing supports local businesses as much as the people who need the food? The money flows immediately to businesses who sell them food, which means entire local economies are supported. It's amazing how these 'handouts' help far more people than tax cuts for the rick.

Yale's Beinecke Library is quite glorious.

Forgot one of the cool jokes we managed to get into the decor of the new CBS Interactive office (CNET, Gamespot, ZDNet) back in the day. We had decals around the office of Australian inventions. This one with added Magritte (and beside the emergency stairs for extra credit).

"And what do you have for the talent portion of the competition, Ms. Fernandez?"

"People are not only, as the saying goes, falling for the swindle; if it guarantees them even the most fleeting gratification they desire a deception which is nonetheless transparent to them." - Adorno, 50 years ago (1975)

My current theory is to cut back to the free version because it has the features I need. The leap from free to $108/year is just silly. I want to support devs but there’s no “basic” tier in between.

So @todoist.com is hiking prices by 50% and points to AI assistant features as part of why I should be excited to pay more. Once upon a time it was $3/month for a really nice to-do list app that synced across all my stuff. Don't need to pay $108/year for that. Any recommendations for alternatives?

“Online gaming platform should be snared” has the answer in the title. The bad law excludes gaming platforms. There are real harms in platforms like Roblox. Govt could have chosen a path to prevent harms, but instead demanded selective abstinence. www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...

Probably because the ban has absolutely nothing to do with child safety whatsoever, it is about limiting and controlling access to information for young people, as well as slowly forcing everyone to adopt a digital ID. The whole thing is an absurd farce that’s going to fail in spectacular fashion.

You mean ...the ban based on cherry picked science from a popular US science book, that the government rushed through, buoyed by campaigns in the Murdoch Press and by morning radio hosts, that enables mass surveillance for all Australians to access the ban? Can't think why Roblox got away with it!