Massacre upon massacre in Beirut in the last hour. AUBMC announced a “code disaster.” Over 100 airstrikes in 10 minutes across the country. One hit right behind my house. Sirens ambulances & the smell of sulphur. The city is in total chaos the people in complete panic

1) 'Gaming America's Cold War' is a final-year undergrad module I'm putting together. The first workshop will be 'What is a game? What is Cold War?'. I keep circling back to Greg Costikyan's essay 'I Have No Words & I Must Design' as an intro to what games are. www.costik.com/nowords2002....

We’re on strike today! Support our fight for a fair contract by NOT visiting the @propublica.org website or engaging with ProPublica stories today. Tell ProPublica’s management you won’t cross the picket line: actionnetwork.org/petitions/te...

I wrote this piece around the end of grad school in 2013, when I was simply churning out articles left and right because I had few other responsibilities in my life. This article is on a German ripoff of National Treasure (2004), and my "take" on German nationalism. www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/d868b...

Many believe larp and immersive experiences provide the agency they lack in everyday life. Is that true, or is the promise of "sovereignty" even stronger, darker pull? (The video for my Nordic Larp Talk last year is finally up! This was me thinking out loud on ideas I've since developed...)

Anime and manga are IP-driven industries, and the sudden appearance and expansions of generative AI (GenAI) have thrown a massive wrench into the works at the height of a global boom. And no one quite seems to know what to do about it. buff.ly/2kD5tYK

Happening now: an anti-war demonstration is getting underway in Chicago's Federal Plaza, in response to US/Israeli attacks on Iran and Donald Trump's threat to Iran this morning that "a whole civilization will die tonight." A few dozen people here so far.

This week on Quest Quest, @bvigeant.bsky.social and I discuss The Drifter, a gritty 2025 adventure from Australian developers Powerhoof (@barney.powerhoof.com and @dave.powerhoof.com)! Stick around as we wax philosophical about death in the adventure game genre. Listen here: zencastr.com/z/o00jx8eF

I am all in for ethical academic study of the various technologies under the "AI" umbrella, but US higher ed's wholesale adoption of "AI" leaves it uniquely vulnerable to a political project that absolutely means to co-opt and destroy it. The EU folks spotted this from km off.

'This tells us the issue is the system, not the subject. Leaving decisions about what is taught and researched in our universities solely to market forces risks narrowing provision in ways that do not reflect national needs'. (Charles Forsdick) 3/3

Under Hollow Hills is deeply, almost singularly concerned with exploring how individual experiences have the power to change characters in irrefutable ways.

New! Dragon Reactor: Embers, Ashes, Moments and Stars is a mythopoetic mech tragedy game about conflict on a grand scale. It’s about warring governments, rising rebellions, slowly-waking god-machines, and the effects forever-wars have on those involved. www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/

Double Dragon and River City creator Yoshihisa Kishimoto has passed away at 64. gameinformer.com/obituary/202...

Here's today's lunar flyby schedule (all times Eastern). The easiest way to watch is on NASA's YouTube channel. Enjoy this historic day as humans all over the planet get to see our Moon up close.

I love y'all, but if I have to read another "I am inventing game-based learning and/or larping from first principles" essay that refuses to acknowledge the last 25 years of research, I'm going to have to give its author an academic time-out (and a reading list).

This has been a #TTRPG boxed set week, so here's some #ShowOffSunday post (I just made that up, needed something that combined with S 😂). Here's @jmstar.bsky.social's Zhenya's Wonder Tales, and @adambell.games's Uneasy Lies the Head, two games I can't wait to explore further in-depth! 👀

I enjoyed this video (and am presenting on it tomorrow), but am somewhat disturbed that it takes a full TEN MINUTES to finally acknowledge that, yes, much of RE is built on Alone in the Dark (1992), something immediately obvious to us teenagers in the 1990s who played it?? youtu.be/H0y4dS1QFNc?...

It is a coolness problem for the tech hipsters of the 2000s and tech bros of the 2010s --- who now camp on piles of ill-gotten cash from "AI" or whatever --- that the "tedious" environmentalists of the 1990s were 100% right and may, indeed, wind up becoming the cool ones after all.

The first Africanists (specialists who study African languages, societies, and history) were not colonial researchers, as is often assumed, but African intellectuals who were actively engaged in the production of knowledge about their own societies. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-first-...

New platform, same great content! Come check out our new e-scholarship site!

There is no future for humanity in which the basic conditions for life for millions of people can be destroyed on one person’s whim.

Bandwagon advertising never gets old!

1/ Goldman Sachs analysts report that the biggest oil crisis in history is about to hit globally, with profound and highly destructive consequences. A new report asks ""Are We Running Out of Oil?", and concludes that the answer is yes. ⬇️

"The strike is mostly led by immigrant workers," union leader Kim Kordova says of the historic JBS strike in Colorado. "This workforce is made up of workers that speak around 57 different languages from all over the world, doing this really important work, feeding our communities."

The old lore...

Sunday afternoon #PsiRun2e chat! As Runners, you have powers. Say what it DOES, not just name it, in case you discover more applications in play! "I can move really fast, it leaves me really hungry after" over "super speed." What's your super power? #ttrpg #PBTA www.kickstarter.com/projects/117...

I was a paid peer counselor when I was in college, and I always, always encouraged students to take the things that interested them. Universities are not trade schools.

Yup — this is @wobbupalooza.bsky.social & Evan Torner’s beat (I just follow along)

I mean they DID, just not by that name and not in male-dominated spaces, so. You know.

Through all the crises that we face, it still remains important how we treat each other, speak to one another, slowly build our coalitions, and take a stand for those who aren't ourselves, whether it be quietly or loudly. Our daily efforts model & embolden, and are not in vain.

Pope Leo at the Stations of the Cross: "Every person in authority will have to answer to God for the way they exercise their power." Jesus says. "Whatever you do to another human being, especially to the small and vulnerable, you do unto me. And it is to me that you will one day give an account."

Upper admin's overcompliance with hostile and overtly far-right federal laws and "priorities" have meant that it's up to the faculty, many of whom are part-time or contingent, to hold the line for our students. We are in an ugly period of outright institutional betrayal, with teeth.

OYES: “Why Chow Yun-Fat is cinema's greatest action hero”

Ja, die Geschäfte haben heute geschlossen, aber zum Glück gibt es bei mir um die Ecke einen Stand, der auch am Feiertag frische E-Mails verkauft.

I mean: I was *there* in the anime fandom when OnePiece was introduced. I believe we watched fansubbed episodes at AnimeIowa in 2000. At the time, it seemed too overtly similar to Trigun, Irresponsible Captain Tylor, and others with the quirky, inscrutably relentless hero. But OnePiece kept going!

This has been in my head for months now

Speaking a foreign language with an accent is okay, because your accent is part of who you are and of your own culture.

Frisch aus der Podcastpresse unsere neueste Folge von Kritische Controller. Darin gehts es um Guybrush Threepwood, Bridgerton, und vieles mehr! kritische-controller.letscast.fm/episode/guyb...

In Deutschland ist kaum noch etwas sicher, das antidemokratische Strukturen und vor allem den Rechtsextremismus bekämpft. Auf allen Ebenen werden die finanziellen Grundlagen für Kultur- & Bildungsarbeit politisch zerstört. Das ist nicht mehr "vorautoritär" – wir sind schon mittendrin.

„Queere Kunst in der DDR? Biografien zwischen Underground und Propaganda“. A new exhibition sheds light on artists’ positions in East Germany and encourages a new reading of art from the GDR. www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/queere-ddr-k...

"Information wants to be free."

My re-scheduled talk in March made the Bryn Mawr / Haverford news! bicollegenews.com/2026/04/01/3...

More art of Blades '68! It's almost out of my hands 🥲

🧵 3 papers by me & my team Ullrich Ecker Fabio Carrella Emily Spearing Almog Simchon ask an urgent question: if you tell people they're being manipulated by AI — deepfakes, AI-written articles, microtargeted ads — is the manipulation defanged? Thread 👇 1/10

“Faculty members & students continue to speak up & organize to oppose the radical reconfiguration of American institutions launched by the Trump administration & its private-sector allies. Frequently, this has included organizing outside the gates.” — Reinhold Martin & Robert Newton, Columbia AAUP

The dismantling of scientific infrastructure under this regime is the long tail of a neoliberal project to convince citizens that it was progressive “elites” who disavowed the concept of truth all while materially eroding the grounds of truth itself by discrediting the value of expertise.

Once Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser collapsed and a certain YTuber released their viral critique, a lot of Internet folk shook their heads and noted this was the end of such events. NOPE. Extravagant immersive experiences aren't going away any time soon. They're just not for our paygrade.

You've all been waiting for it: my review of the ultra-exclusive Austenland immersive experience. Perhaps the world's most expensive larp at $30,000 a ticket – and that's just the Bronze package – guests get to live out their Regency dreams in a vast English manor over three weeks.

I couldn't participate as a guest, but when I learned that a documentary was being filmed at Austenland, I prevailed upon them to allow me to tag along. Despite what proprietor Mrs. Wattlesbrook says, it isn't "the world's only immersive Austen experience" but it's definitely the most extravagant.