Gaming culture and sex has a vexed history when it comes to gender, given the industry’s long history of bad assumptions that ‘real’ gamers are straight men, and that building an adult game audience means sexually appealing to straight men. Female characters in adult games are often expected to have sexualised designs, with entitled male gamers complaining about characters like Horizon Zero Dawn’s Aloy or The Last of Us II’s Ellie not being sexy enough; meanwhile, the BBC has reported about female games workers also being affected by a blasé culture around women’s sexualisation, such as graphic, distressing sexual content being thrust upon female games actors without warning. The few semi-famous titillating console games, like the Leisure Suit Larry series or Playboy: The Mansion, don’t exactly seem like they’re interested in feminism.
But understanding sex in video games means understanding it as more than just cheap eye candy for straight guys. Sex is central to how many video games work, including games that don’t technically have any explicit content. Nintendo games present themselves as bastions of childlike, lightly heterosexual wholesomeness – Mario gets his kiss on the cheek from Princess Peach! – but I’ve written about the gay and trans innuendos common throughout the Zelda games, for instance, and how they’re used to both build Link’s androgynous character and to make use of covertly gay and covertly homophobic comedy. Levels of awareness of sex, from basic focuses on satisfying touch to creating sexual tension, are intrinsic to games in various ways, and the games that play with this awareness often find new and interesting ways to tell their stories, and to reflect on why we play games in the first place.
Dystopika (Steam, Windows) is a city builder in maybe the strictest definition of that two-word descriptor, because it steadfastly refuses to distract you with non-building details. The game is described by its single developer, Matt Marshall, as having "no goals, no management, just creativity and dark cozy vibes." Dystopika does very little to explain how you should play it, because there's no optimal path for doing so. Your only job is to enjoy yourself, poking and prodding at a dark cyberpunk cityscape, making things that look interesting, pretty, grim, or however you like. It might seem restrictive, but it feels very freeing.
Build incredible-looking futuristic cities, take impossible photos of them, and ignore all the boring stuff. That’s Dystopika, and it’s fun.
> It's election time, Beehaw. If you were able to rank the available choices for president, how would you vote?
poll will remain open for all of tomorrow, obviously.
Tired of unceasing violence and the rise of extremism in the U.S., a growing movement known as "Blaxit" seeks to encourage African Americans to repatriate to other parts of the world. However, with an American election looming and right-wing politics becoming increasingly popular in Europe, some Bla...
> As the United States sits on the precipice of yet another election that could ‘determine the fate of democracy’ (cue dramatic music), many Black Americans, myself included, have started to veer away from the question of, “Who are we voting for?’ and toward, “Where are we moving?” > > In the years following the heavily documented rise in police brutality, killings, and assaults against Black people, coupled with the polarizing political environment, more and more Black Americans have grown tired of the status quo and are considering options elsewhere as we await the outcome of the upcoming election and what it could mean for our future in the States. > > But this isn’t a new story. For decades, Black people have sought an escape from ever-present racism, discrimination, and oppression in the United States. Notable figures throughout history – artists, musicians, and free thinkers like James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, and W.E.B DuBois all pursued a life abroad at some point. > > For many, the choice to leave or stay likely comes down to economics – will they be able to find work and provide for themselves and their families if they uproot for an entirely different country? It also comes down to a willingness to take a leap of faith.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, the international Boycott Divest Sanction Movement targets oil giant
> Organizers from Chevron Out of Palestine, Oil & Gas Action Network, Scientist Rebellion, Palestinian Youth Movement, and Boycott-Divest-Sanction (BDS) Movement passed out stickers to protestors, solidifying the call to expose Chevron’s complicity in “fueling the genocide.” According to organizers, this was the seventh protest in the Bay Area this year against the oil giant, which is one of Israel’s largest power sources. > > A half-hour later, the group made their way along a dirt-paved trail parallel to a lake that sits within Chevron’s headquarters. Dressed in keffiyehs, protesters carried signs that read, “Boycott Chevron” and “Chevron Out of Palestine,” while chanting, “Chevron, Chevron, you can’t hide, you are fueling genocide!” Meanwhile, at the center of the lake, activists stationed on three boats unfurled a banner that read, “Boycott Chevron.”
Disclaimer: The following stated below represents my opinions alone.
The Delaware congresswoman is poised to join a small but growing sisterhood of Black women senators, but she’s focused on the country’s unfinished work and diverse representation in government.
We spoke with Andre 3000 about New Blue Sun, spirituality, legacy, mythology, coming back to New York for BAM’s Next Wave Festival, and more.
Representatives of nearly 200 governments have just ended two weeks of negotiations in Cali, Colombia at the 16th Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
Iceland’s economy is outperforming most European peers after the nationwide introduction of a shorter working week with no loss in pay, according to research released Friday.
> Between 2020 and 2022, 51% of workers in the country had accepted the offer of shorter working hours, including a four-day week, two think tanks found, saying the figure is likely to be even higher today. > > Last year, Iceland logged faster economic growth than most European countries and its unemployment rate is one of the lowest in Europe, noted the Autonomy Institute in the United Kingdom and Iceland’s Association for Sustainability and Democracy (Alda). > > “This study shows a real success story: shorter working hours have become widespread in Iceland… and the economy is strong across a number of indicators,” Gudmundur D. Haraldsson, a researcher at Alda, said in a statement.
Coresight AI has released a new product that sends alerts to store security when customers and staff have anomalous interactions.
> ALFAFAR, Spain, Nov 1 (Reuters) - More than 90% of the households in eastern Spain hit by catastrophic floods that killed at least 205 had regained power on Friday, utility Iberdrola said, though thousands still lacked electricity in cut-off areas that rescuers struggled to reach. > > Spanish rescuers opened a temporary morgue in a convention centre and battled to reach areas still cut off on Friday as the death toll rose to 205 people, most of them in Valencia, the eastern region that bore the brunt of the devastation. > > Some 500 soldiers were deployed to search for people who are still missing and help survivors of the storm, which triggered a fresh weather alert in the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia, where rains are expected to continue during the weekend.
It's like I'm a raccoon rooting through the garbage, and finding that it's all fake garbage molded from plastic to look like garbage.
A conversation with socialist NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani
> New York City mayor Eric Adams has had a bad tenure even by the low standards of New York City mayors. He has enraged the city’s progressives with his policies, and his political future looks shaky now that he and his allies are the subjects of overlapping federal corruption charges. Adams’ weakness has already prompted five Democratic challengers to declare their candidacy for mayor, and that number may well increase in coming months. > > One of those candidates is socialist Zohran Mamdani, who currently represents parts of Queens in the New York assembly. Mamdani, a 33-year-old with a history of leftist activism for labor and antiwar causes, has won the official endorsement of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, making his candidacy an ambitious step forward for DSA’s burgeoning involvement in New York City politics. > > I spoke to Mamdani yesterday about Eric Adams, Donald Trump, and the painstaking task of hauling socialism into the political mainstream.
EPA News Release: Biden-Harris Administration Issues Final Rule Requiring Replacement of Lead Pipes Within 10 Years, Announces Funding to Provide Clean Water to Schools and Homes
Ahead of the election, anti-government militias are using Facebook to recruit, coordinate training, and promote ballot box stakeouts. Meta isn’t shutting their groups down and is even auto-generating pages.
> But WIRED reviewed posts from American Patriots Three Percent (AP3) groups and profiles that are still on the platform, including examples where members and leaders brandish AP3 insignia and share photos from their in-person training sessions. > > There have also been some recent instances where Facebook has even auto-generated pages for militias. In May, Facebook auto-generated a page for AP3’s Arizona chapter. In June, Facebook auto-generated a page for “AP3 NM [New Mexico] Training Range.” If you hover over the information widget on the page, Facebook’s explainer reads: “This unofficial page was created because people on Facebook have shown interest in this place or business. It’s not affiliated with or endorsed by anyone associated with AP3 Training Range.” (Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has repeatedly come under fire in the past for auto-generating pages for extremist, white supremacist, and terrorist organizations; a whistleblower first flagged the issue in 2020 in a supplement to an earlier petition filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.)
apparently, the path to profitability was "shamelessly sell out on AI hype bullshit"
Reddit is getting bigger.
> Reddit’s advertising revenue grew to $315.1 million, while “other” revenue reached $33.2 million on account of “data licensing agreements signed earlier this year.” Both Google and OpenAI have cut deals with Reddit to train their AI models on its posts. > > In a letter to shareholders, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman attributed the recent increase in users to the platform’s AI-powered translation feature. Reddit started letting users translate posts into French last year before expanding to Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German. Now, Huffman says Reddit plans to expand translation to over 30 countries through 2025.
Levy rising by €100 for each return flight after the first in a year could cut emissions by 21%, report says
By measuring only direct emissions, the U.N. unintentionally makes a massive polluter look much more innocent than it is.
> In a graphic at the beginning of the report, the U.N. estimates that in 2023, livestock was responsible for only 6 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. > > The number struck me as strange. Because in my previous reporting on animal agriculture, I’ve found that livestock—particularly cattle—are responsible for anywhere from 11 to 20 percent of global emissions, according to a range of peer-reviewed studies. > > Seeing this, I immediately considered that industry influence could be to blame. Because like the fossil fuel industry, the animal agriculture industry has a history of pressuring the scientific community to downplay its role in the climate crisis. The industry has recently censored U.N. reports on livestock emissions; pressured the IPCC to remove recommendations to shift to “plant-based diets” from its most recent report; and sent lobbyists to COP28 to convince policymakers that meat is beneficial for the environment. > > What I found, however, was more an issue of scientific choice. According to Taryn Fransen, global climate program director at the World Resources Institute and one of the report’s lead authors, the U.N. report only measures direct, or Scope 1, emissions. This includes methane from cow burps, manure, and fertilizer. It doesn’t include indirect, or Scope 2 or 3 emissions for livestock: things like deforestation, growing feed, pasture management, and slaughterhouse waste.
The World Health Organization says the disease "that plagued pharaohs" now belongs to Egypt's history.
> In a statement on Sunday, the WHO praised "the Egyptian government and people" for their efforts to "end a disease that has been present in the country since ancient times". > > It said Egypt was the third country to be certified in the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean Region, following the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.
As of 2019 the company published 100 articles each day produced by 3,000 outside contributors who were paid little or nothing.[52] This business model, in place since 2010,[53] "changed their reputation from being a respectable business publication to a content farm", according to Damon Kiesow, the Knight Chair in digital editing and producing at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.[52] Similarly, Harvard University's Nieman Lab deemed Forbes "a platform for scams, grift, and bad journalism" as of 2022.[49]
they realized that they could just become an SEO farm/content mill and churn out absurd numbers of articles while paying people table scraps or nothing at all, and they've never changed
terrorism is when the UN provides humanitarian aid to the people you're bombing, starving, and killing in large numbers—definitely not a genocide, folks
It's been just a week since US telecom regulators announced a formal inquiry into broadband data caps, and the docket is filling up with comments from users who say they shouldn't have to pay overage charges for using their Internet service. The docket has about 190 comments so far, nearly all from individual broadband customers.
Federal Communications Commission dockets are usually populated with filings from telecom companies, advocacy groups, and other organizations, but some attract comments from individual users of telecom services. The data cap docket probably won't break any records given that the FCC has fielded many millions of comments on net neutrality, but it currently tops the agency's list of most active proceedings based on the number of filings in the past 30 days.
The FCC will surely hear from many groups with different views on data caps, but Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel seems particularly keen on factoring consumer sentiment into the data-cap proceeding. When it announced the inquiry last week, Rosenworcel's office published 600 consumer complaints about data caps that Internet users recently filed.
"During the last year, nearly 3,000 people have gotten so aggravated by data caps on their Internet service that they have reached out to the Federal Communications Commission to register their frustration," Rosenworcel said last week. "We are listening. Today, we start an inquiry into the state of data caps. We want to shine a light on what they mean for Internet service for consumers across the country."
The complaint, which brings claims for copyright infringement and false endorsement, also names Warner Bros. Discovery for allegedly facilitating the partnership.
"Any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk's massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account," states the complaint. "Alcon did not want BR2049 to be affiliated with Musk."{/quote]
Lesson 1: Nobody cares.
Initially, I was terrified of judgment. What would my friends think if I didn’t drink? What about a potential partner? Will they think I’m a loser? Wait. Stop. Nobody cares.
This is such a freeing reminder that whether or not you choose to drink, it literally does not matter. Sure, you might encounter 20 seconds of awkward dialogue with a new friend, a coworker, a potential partner, but ultimately, that’s it. Most well-meaning people stop caring very quickly. Which reminds me of one of my favorite facts: nobody is thinking about us as much as we think about ourselves. That’s a good thing.
Lesson 2: If it does matter, that’s not your problem. If someone makes a fuss about your lack of alcohol consumption, that actually has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with them. I know that sounds like a boring modern platitude — “that’s a them problem” — but it’s true. That’s a them problem. I’ve had a date or two who’ve been offended, “slightly confused” as they said, that I agreed to go out on a drinks date when I don’t drink. But just because I don’t drink doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to my fair share of swanky hotel lobbies and fancy glassware! This leads me to my next lesson…
the only reason this is being kept up and locked and not deleted is to make it clear where Beehaw stands on Richard Stallman, which is: stop defending him, he is an awful person and he completely deserves to be put over the fire for his words and actions.
who knew that removing the block feature and "Twitter's new ToS says all disputes will be heard in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas located in Tarrant County (Tesla investor Reed O'Connor's court)" were not going to be winners among the remaining userbase
This is pre-internet history, and I’m unable to find references, but when the company went out of business the rumor going around was that power companies were funding zoning lawsuits against Copper Cricket, and this eventually shut the company down.
sounds very plausible--zoning is awful and a perfect place to do concern trolling bullshit like that if you know your way around what's allowed and what's not.
Aside for all his pedophile view points, he is correct about infantilizing 12-17 year olds.
...you're just repeating my point back to me, and why Stallman is the worst mouthpiece for this position.
It kind of reminds me of ASD symptoms, not reading social cues properly, etc.
i know you mean well but, respectfully: having autism or another disorder (if Stallman even does) is probably not the reason why Richard Stallman has historically defended what amounts to pedophilia; why he continues to defend bestiality and necrophilia; and why he has extremely malformed opinions on what constitutes sexual harassment and sexual assault. and even if it is, that's an explanation and nothing more. it does not excuse or make acceptable his behavior or the consistency with which it has skeeved other people out. he deserves to be strongly rebuked, as anyone else would, for his refusal to take accountability in this situation.
Agreed that he himself isn’t particularly relevant, but his supporters are still very influential in some areas of the open source community.
hilariously you can see some of the reflexive defense of him over in the FOSS thread of this article. way too many people feel obliged to run defense for this guy and it's just cringeworthy to watch
FYI: if you are an active apologist for Stallman in this thread, you will be indefinitely banned from Beehaw. to the extent that Stallman has salient critiques of anything he's under fire for (as @t3rmit3@beehaw.org notes), his use of those critiques is almost exclusively to advance horrible, indefensible, actively harmful ideas. if you actually care about the merits of these subjects, nothing he argues is actually best argued from him. almost anybody else would be better served as a mouthpiece. and it is just incredibly silly to stand by the guy who took until 2019 to retract his belief that pedophilia isn't harmful to children just because, as a foundational belief informing that position, he reasonably thinks we infantilize people between the ages of 12 and 17 too much
i mean, whom among us has not said such things, without retraction, as:
Cody Wilson [who at the time of his charging was 30] has been charged with “sexual assault” on a “child” after a session with a sex worker of age 16. [...] The article refers to the sex worker as a “child”, but that is not so. Elsewhere it has been published that she is 16 years old. That is late adolescence, not childhood. Calling teenagers “children” encourages treating teenagers as children, a harmful practice which retards their development into capable adults.
Mere possession of child pornography should not be a crime at all. To prosecute people for possessing something published, no matter what it may be, is a big threat to human rights.
A national campaign seeks to make all US states prohibit sex between humans and nonhuman animals. This campaign seems to be sheer bull-headed prudery, using the perverse assumption that sex between a human and an animal hurts the animal. That’s true for some ways of having sex, and false for others. For instance, I’ve heard that some women get dogs to lick them off. That doesn’t hurt the dog at all. Why should it be prohibited?
and whom among us has not had to retract such positions as:
There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.
these are obviously positions that everyone would take the fall for if they had a blog.
Not defending pedophiles, but
you are about to defend pedophilia. rethink this and stop talking.
there was a time when 13 was considered adult.
and? Stallman is not talking about a previous time at any point here. also: that previous time was bad anyways. why would we want to--especially with respect to age of consent--go back to considering 13-year olds and younger to be adults? they cannot meaningfully consent to sexual relations with adults; it's just child abuse. all of this is why Stallman's words are abhorrent.
It’s still legal for teenagers to marry in most countries.
Stallman is not talking about teenagers. he explicitly distinguishes children (again, people <13 for him) from teenagers (people 13-17).
An anonymous hit job
it's literally his own words all the way down here. if it's a "hit job" it's entirely Stallman's own fault for being a freak with morally abhorrent takes. one of the first things mentioned here is that he had to retract the position that "voluntarily pedophilia" doesn't harm children (a category of person he defines as anyone under about 13)! any reasonable person would find this abhorrent and Stallman a horrible person for ever having defended said position in the first place, because it is genuinely abhorrent to defend something like that. that's just child abuse.
he's not particularly relevant at this point, but even this one note (and its retraction) feel like they should put to bed whether or not Richard Stallman should have any influence over anything:
Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization.
I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.
[Many years after posting this note, I had conversations with people who had been sexually abused as children and had suffered harmful effects. These conversations eventually convinced me that the practice is harmful and adults should not do it.]
like, bro, what are you doing. beyond being abhorrent, this is the sort of nonsense Reddit used to be infamous for and it made the website fucking rancid. why would anyone want to share a political movement with Stallman when he has to be debated out of positions like "you should not have sexual relations with people under the age of 13."
alyaza [they/she] @beehaw.org internet gryphon. admin of Beehaw, mostly publicly interacting with people. nonbinary. they/she