With the success of BG3, Larian has a great opportunity to strengthen their own IP. Their Divinity games were great but had pretty nonsensical world-building (to this day, I still have no idea how DOS and DOS2 are related plotwise), and one of the great things about BG3 was the fusion of Larian game design with an appealing fantasy world. If Larian can build up a coherent setting of their own, their future would be bright.

According to the article, that’s exactly what happened ;-)

It’s on Bioware not EA. This is the third flop out of Bioware, and the post mortems for the past failures have all indicated that Bioware’s management has a dumpster fire for years, with EA often uncharacteristically serving as a voice of reason to protect them from their own mistakes. For example, it was EA that got them to include the flying in Anthem, the only fun part of the gameplay.

there may be strategic reasons for EA to keep supporting BioWare… In order to grow, EA needs more than just sports franchises… Trying to fix its fantasy-focused studio may be easier than starting something new.

Ironically, EA grew out of Origin, one of the original grand-daddies of computer RPGs and the maker of the Ultima series in the 1980s-1990s.

More specifically, the Hong Kong protests were about the possiblity of HKers being sent to the mainland. Here and now we have multiple actual renditions of US residents to El Salvador and elsewhere (including one of the protesters!)…

I gotta say, Hong Kongers put up way more of a fight than Americans seem to be. Hong Kong Polytechnic University went through a full blown siege in 2019. Six years later, in the land of the free, student leaders get picked off and any protests that manage to get going are easily crushed by the police.

The “cheap Chinese labor and lax laws” thing is not exactly the issue, at least not these days. The thing is that Chinese industry has spent decades working out how to refine these minerals, and they’re the only ones who are now able to do it at scale. So other countries that extract and process rare earths (which as noted aren’t actually that rare) often ship semi-processed ore to China for final processing.

Sure, other countries can replicate these capabilities if they’re willing to put in the effort. It’s like China’s challenge with EUV lithography, but in reverse. It will take significant time. Also, building up a rare earths processing industry probably involves not just spending capital, but also major environmental risks while you’re doing your trials.

This headline has the structure of the famous Simpsons joke.

Cyan (Myst, Riven)

Homer: that’s good.

to lay off

Homer: that’s bad.

12 people

Homer: that’s good.

“roughly half of team”

Homer: ??

Narrator: that’s bad.

The Afghans and Vietnamese had nothing to lose. Americans, no matter how much they complain online, have everything to lose.

Unfortunately, this is not going to receive much condemnation from the West given current conditions. The US doesn’t give a crap about this kind of this anymore. The EU needs Turkiye onside geopolitically… not to mention any objections from them are too easily brushed off as hypocrisy given the Romanian situation + efforts to disqualify Le Pen. It’s probably why Erdogan chose to act now after tolerating Imamoglu’s presence for the past few years.

“But… the future refused to change” – game over screen, Chrono Trigger

Canada needs to redirect most of its defence spending to asymmetric warfare. You know, the same advice US consultants give to Taiwan to make a PRC occupation more expensive to contemplate. Forget about big ticket items meant to support the US in its overseas wars; start investing in mines, guerilla equipment, etc.

They have to put on a brave face, of course, but I’m not sure US intelligence is so easy to replace. The Europeans have let their systems atrophy by simply using the US offerings, especially in realtime targeting data and signals intelligence. The US has in the past encouraged this dependence, e.g. by strong-arming Europe not to develop a military grade GPS alternative.

Pokemon battle, 3v3

Alternative take: Li Ka Shing took advantage of the Trump bullshit to sell off two port operations at the top of the market, right before a global recession. CK Hutchinson’s share price went up by a fifth when this deal got announced; Blackrock is down.

It was like an episode of Veep except more obnoxious.

What plausible stick could the UK (with or without EU) wield against the US? Pull out of NATO or the Five Eyes? That would hurt them way more than it would hurt the US, and Trump knows they’re too rational to let it happen.

I honestly don’t know how to read the situation. Ukraine’s fought terrifically, but their status seems far less sustainable even if you discount the Trump stuff. I don’t put a lot of stock in these claims that Russia is on the verge of imploding due to the stress of the war, any day now. It is possible, but mostly seems like wishful thinking.

External aid changes the situation a bit, but not ultimately that much because no Western power seems willing to directly intervene with troops. Barring that, the overall situation between the two countries feels a bit like what Shelby Foote said about the US Civil War: “the North fought that war with one hand behind its back… If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back.”

I don’t see it happening. Increased military spending, sure, but individual member states will not give up their authority on war and geopolitical matters. Will France or Germany abolish their ministries and delegate it all to von der Leyen? So the structural problem remains.

“European leaders” operate under a permanent disadvantage because they have to agree among themselves to do anything. This leaves them unable to take the initiative geopolitically, and prone to taking whatever’s the path of least resistance lying before them. The US and Russia have concluded that Europe will roll over and accept whatever they are presented with, after some angsty wailing, and unfortunately they are probably right. Not inviting Europe to talks is just a dominance move showing that they know the Europeans can’t do anything about it.

Unfortunately for Europe, this is just the logical end point of their institutional arrangements. In a domain like geopolitics, where there are intelligent players looking for advantage, it is suicidal to turn off your ability to make decisions.