“When even PlayStation is cutting jobs, something is seriously wrong with games” – Keza MacDonald (Pushing Buttons, Guardian)

“Andrew Fray, a lead programmer at UK studio Roll7, makers of OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome, shared what they called the PS2 manifesto on social media earlier this month: “7-13 hours of content. Combine a few old ideas in a new way, or have one big new idea. No complicated character upgrade trees. Limited online, little post-launch support. 2 ish years, 30 game devs. Thanks for your money, on to the next one.” This attitude gave us so many weird classics 20 years ago, games that are difficult to imagine existing now, from Ico to Gitaroo Man. None of them were multimillion sellers but, crucially, they didn’t have to be”

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2024/feb/28/pushing-buttons-playstation-job-losses

“February 21, 2024” – Letters From An American

“the Alabama Supreme Court decided in a wrongful death suit resulting from the accidental destruction of embryos that were part of an in vitro fertilization (IVF) process, in which doctors artificially fertilize eggs outside the womb and then transfer them into a person, that fertilized human eggs have the same status as children. Chief Justice Tom Parker declared in a concurring opinion that the people of Alabama have adopted the “theologically based view” that “life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-21-2024

“Why Tesla isn’t worried about BYD” – Russell Brandom (Exporter, Restofworld)

“If you count hybrids, BYD has been outselling Tesla for quite some time, nearly doubling Tesla’s total in the first half of 2023. But it’s not quite right to position BYD and Tesla as rivals in the model of Ford and General Motors. If anything, they’re more like Microsoft and Apple — opposing futures for electric vehicles that are likely to keep bouncing up against each other for decades”

https://restofworld.org/2024/exporter-tesla-byd-ev-rivalry/

“The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same” – Kyle Chayka (extracted in The Guardian)

“To court the large demographic of customers moulded by the internet, more cafes adopted the aesthetics that already dominated on the platforms. Adapting to the norm wasn’t just following trends but making a business decision, one that the consumers rewarded. When a cafe was visually pleasing enough, customers felt encouraged to post it on their own Instagram in turn as a lifestyle brag, which provided free social media advertising and attracted new customers. Thus the cycle of aesthetic optimisation and homogenisation continued”

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/jan/16/the-tyranny-of-the-algorithm-why-every-coffee-shop-looks-the-same

“Nigel Farage’s plan for power” – Tom McTague (Unherd)

“For some in the party, denying the Tories victory would force them to become “true” conservatives again, perhaps under the leadership of Suella Braverman. But for others, including Habib, the goal is to permanently destroy the Conservative parliamentary party as an electoral force. “It does not deserve to survive,” he told me. “You can’t reward failure with incumbency, the party needs to be obliterated.”

Here, though, lies the question at the heart of Reform: what is its ultimate purpose? This question is neatly encapsulated in the figure of Farage himself: the founder and majority shareholder who is not planning to stand for the party at the election but is flirting with the idea of joining the Tories afterwards”

https://unherd.com/2023/12/nigel-farages-plan-for-power/

“My New Apartment’s Most Aggravating Feature” – Lane Brown (Curbed, New York)

“But hacks and data leaks happen all the time. Also, companies sell, rebrand, and change business models, and when they do, privacy policies have been known to become more porous. Latch may not be selling my data today, but what about in a couple years? How much trust do I owe a company whose product I am only inadvertently a user of, and which has only caused me headaches?”

https://www.curbed.com/2024/01/latch-smart-lock-nyc-apartments-aggravating-feature.html

“The Perfect Webpage” – Mia Sato (The Verge)

“I rewrote my prose over and over, but it didn’t seem to satisfy my robot grader. I finally chose one thought per sentence, broke up paragraphs, and replaced words with suggested keywords to get rid of the red dots signaling problems.

The result feels like an AI summary of my story — at any moment, a paragraph could start with “In conclusion…” or “The next thing to consider is…” The nuance, voice, and unexpected twists and turns have been snuffed out. I’m sure some people would prefer this uncomplicated, beat-by-beat version of the story, but it’s gone from being a story written by a real person to a clinical, stiff series of sentences.

Now imagine thousands of website operators all using this same plug-in to rewrite content. No wonder people feel like the answers are increasingly robotic and say nothing”

https://www.theverge.com/c/23998379/google-search-seo-algorithm-webpage-optimization

“I Know What You Did on the Playground” – Jen Wieczner (The Cut)

“With more parents working from home, nannies are spending more time out of the apartment, where their behavior can be more readily judged and photographed by spectators. Lidia*, a former nanny who spent 17 years working for families in New York and New Jersey and now consults in the child-care industry, recalls an incident last year when her friend was in the park nannying for two kids and was reported on Facebook for ignoring the children while she was “busy having a dramatic phone call.” The person on the other line was in fact her boss, the children’s mom, who’d called with the upsetting news that she’d had to take her third child to the emergency room”

https://www.thecut.com/article/the-bad-nanny-wars.html

“YouTube is the last bastion of unbiased journalism in India” – Sonia Faleiro (restofworld)

“going solo is punishing work in a country that the World Press Freedom Index now ranks 161st out of 180. A YouTube channel or Instagram account does not offer the same protections as working for a mainstream media company: There is little financial security, legal support, or physical protection. Alone in their own homes, several of India’s best-known journalists told Rest of World they are fearful for their future. They spoke of online threats and warnings over the phone, of being frozen out by friends and family; of fears their equipment could be seized, their homes raided, or they could be thrown into jail”

https://restofworld.org/2023/india-youtube-journalism/

“The Story Behind the Rise of Hamas” – Das Spiegel

“What exactly does destroying Hamas actually mean?” wonders a source in Doha who is familiar with the negotiations. When Sinwar and Deif are dead? What happens if they are liquidated, but a new leader takes over control? Does the entire command structure need to be annihilated? Do all Hamas fighters have to be killed? The Israeli government, the source says, has thus far been avoiding all of these questions. Along with that of who should rule the Gaza Strip in the future.”

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-gaza-conundrum-the-story-behind-the-rise-of-hamas-a-d9e30bb6-2295-45a1-825c-dbd0c43c3613