Because if Russia retaliates it means all of NATO goes to war with Russia. Kind of a big deal that you maybe don't want to just decide on your own.

They built their own internal emulator

How can someone look at all these different styles, let alone the ones that literally look like they're drawn by a six-year-old, and think, "Yeah, that's fine"?

Here are the salient details, minus the fluff:

The haul had an estimated value of €47.5m, Mr Langella said, a figure which includes the value of the consoles and hundreds of licenses for the pirated programs.

They were "all from China" and were imported to be sold in specialised shops or online, Mr Langella said.

All the devices were fitted with non-certified batteries and electrical circuits and did not meet EU technical or safety standards. The seized games have been destroyed.

Nine Italian nationals have been arrested and charged with trading in counterfeited goods. If found guilty, they face up to eight years in prison.

I haven't watched the second season, but I remember more than one sigh during the first one. I really liked the costumes and decoration, but I just kept thinking, "Why did they need to tell this story?" I didn't hate it, but I thought the entire exercise was pointless and unnecessary: apathy is worse than hate.

The question is rhetorical, of course. They couldn't get ahold of the rights to the Silmarillion, and the machine hungers.

This article was fascinating.

I was just talking to a couple of software engineer friends the other day about how engineering research like this doesn't really happen anymore outside of the massive companies, and even within those it's greatly reduced.

Now it's all about applied engineering (app development using established technologies and techniques), with research limited to incremental gains with new technologies, augmented by published research. But it wasn't always like this; there was a gradual erosion. Just prior to this latest era, a company could at least plausibly start a project to use published research with no public implementation and build an implementation. Our careers started in the 2000s and we remember a better time...

Two of us work in a large company currently and were recently closely involved with some of the most "speculative" research at the company, and it was almost entirely incremental. The third person is a literal research engineer at an engineering research firm who says real research described in articles like these is dead.

I can't imagine having two years to produce something so ex nihilo these days, and the fact that they were able to achieve so much in such a short amount of time is truly incredible, and a testament to the quality of the engineers.

I don't pirate movies, but I would for this one. What damages could they even possibly claim?

Maybe we don't measure things in terms of a 30-year-old format?

A Blu-ray is 25-66 GB, and an Ultra HD Blu-ray is 50-100 GB. In other words, this is around 1500 4K movies. Still an incredible achievement. Kryptonian memory crystals are getting closer and closer to reality.

Actually, I guess they already invented those.

After like episode one or two I could no longer tell the difference between the old voices. Either the very subtle differences that existed were ironed out by then or I just stopped noticing them. The replacement voice actors are very, very good.

Following persistent threats targeting its employees, which it said had recently spread to attendees and event staff, the Splatoon Koshien 2023 National Finals and Nintendo Live 2024 will no longer go ahead.

[...]

The Splatoon 3 World Championship 2024, the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Online Challenge Final Stage, and the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe World Championship 2024, which were scheduled to take place at Nintendo Live 2024, have been postponed.

Threats of violence because of Splatoon and Mario Kart, really?

These people need to go outside.

It's an interesting video, I suppose more so if you didn't experience game history in real time like those of us who did. No one ever thought Half-Life looked real. But wow, if you experienced games starting with text only and colored squares like I did, each new capability was incredible.

In Zork, you were wondering around an entire dungeon, simulated in text. Anything was possible!

Then a game like Ultima VII came around. The world was so huge, and it felt like a whole world where I could do anything. It was to me how Skyrim was in its time.

Ultima Underworld (or Wolfenstein 3-D or Doom for most people) felt incredible because it was movement in a 3D space, but without step transitions like the earlier dungeon games. When I walk, I actually see my movement in real time!

Each step was bringing us closer and closer to reality, and when you get to a game like Half-Life, where it feels like a small section of a world was being faithfully simulated, it was incredible.

Mediocre reviews. Gameplay appears to be designed for kids. The mystery is dull and unsurprising for adults, although it has a certain charm.