A lot of the “cuts” were for programs that had already been funded… the money was already spent. Agreements and contracts were cancelled. Some of those surely had penalties involved. Some were for things they actually needed, and so they’ve had to renegotiate again with worse terms because the government just proved it can’t be trusted.

Ukraine did not have the infrastructure at the time to be able to even safely store the nuclear weapons they had. The nukes weren’t going to stay either way at the time.

Probably the FBI team that usually interfaces with NYPD specifically due to the size, and complexity of the City, as opposed to just New York in general.

I can only imagine this would improve Louisiana by removing part of the problems.

https://whiskycompass.ca/bourbon-lovers-in-canada-face-a-dilemma-but-theres-hope-in-canadian-whisky/

Doesn’t matter if it’s called bourbon specifically or not honestly, as long as its made similarly.

Canadians, why were you drinking so much Jim Beam? Didn’t you have a minimum quality level you’d accept? There were better Canadian options available in the US, why would you settle for that swill?

Not even. E coli is fucking everywhere. Why that of all things?

NIMBYs usually don’t have issues with buried infrastructure… It’s the above ground stuff they can see that’s usually a problem.

Buried infrastructure is just more expensive to install. And that cost is paid by someone. In new builds it’s covered by new sales. But when replacing old infrastructure that usually means everyone’s prices go up, or taxes if paid by the government. And no one wants to approve that.

Yes. It was reported basically everywhere.

https://gamerant.com/clair-obscur-expedition-33-no-doge-parry-completion-all-hit-run-feat/

Want to move that goalpost again?

How do you get from “conservative” to whatever the fuck this is

It’s a cult.

And 40+ years of blatant political propaganda served via private “news” organizations (Fox) created specifically to be a propaganda machine after political fallout (Watergate) from actual news media.

Cool… Generative AI used for placeholders during development that are replaced by actual artist work for the release is the definition of responsibly.

Given these assets were replaced within days of release here… Definitely seems like placeholders that were just missed during the final checks before release.

And yet someone completed the game without parrying a single time.

They didn’t just replace the art later. It was intended to be placeholder art from the beginning. And was replaced 5 days after release. That tells me that they just missed replacing those temporary assets among tens of thousands of assets before release.

Using GenAI for something temporary that’s not intended to be final seems like the perfect use case for it. Especially on a small team where artist time is much better spent working on the final assets.

Agreed, the assets did make it to production, but were replaced in a patch 5 days later. That definitely seems like it was placeholders that just got missed. Which happens, especially for a new small studio releasing their first game.

GenAI being used for temporary placeholders is arguably a correct use case for it. Especially with a smaller development team. If you have a limited number of artists, having them spend time crafting unique placeholders that will be replaced is a poor use of their time and talents that would otherwise be spent working on final art that will actually be in the released game. That is a 100% valid use case scenario for it, as long as the assets are replaced for the launch. And missing a few and fixing that within a week is entirely understandable, not something they should be indicted for.

There is some concern about the exact wording I’ve seen in various articles. Some say that Sandfall told the awards that GenAI wasn’t used in the development, but the articles don’t use a specific quote on their side, and then later saying it was used for placeholder assets. They seem to imply that Sandfall lies about the use to qualify, then later came clean. I’m wondering if that is simply miscommunication, potentially language issues, about the final game not using GenAI. Just because people speak multiple languages, that doesn’t mean that they understand nuanced differences in meaning when not using their native language. I can see the difference between the final game release and overall development being misunderstood depending on the exact wording used.

A year ago that firm would have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars, at the moment it’s a fire sale. They’re almost surely losing millions on the deal.

They’re leaving basically with whatever they were already paid as a partner for the years they were there. Law firms don’t operate like or pay like traditional businesses. Partners at firms like this almost always have to be offered a partnership, and buy their way in. Some partnerships at prestigious firms can have buy-in fees upwards of a million dollars.

The partners then are paid a percentage of the business, depending on seniority and managing status. If there is no business, there is no pay. If the firm goes under, or is bought out, there is little pay because the firm isn’t worth much, if anything.

They’re basically leaving with what they’ve already squirreled away and not spent with potentially lavish lifestyles over the years.

That’s exactly the takeaway I got from it as well.

It seems most likely that those were placeholders that were supposed to be replaced before release but were missed. Once they realized that some were missing, they got them replaced and pushed the update.

GenAI being used for placeholder stuff is arguably the perfect use case, especially for small studios without massive art teams.

Many of those filler episodes are where the character development for anyone beyond the primary bridge crew happened. And that’s sorely missing from modern Trek.

Meh, just a hard floppy. Although I really did appreciate my Zip 100 drive for that storage space before writable CDs came along.

Basically pre-netflix. Cable and syndication, not streaming. Where TV seasons were usually between 23-26 episodes.

Basically all American fast food places in other countries are infinitely better than the US. Because they almost always have to deal with more stringent advertising and quality requirements and actually have to compete with real restaurants.

Hell the only real advantage in the US used to be price, but they’re now the same price as a full restaurant option, and take about as long. The only reasons they still have customers are nostalgia/habit and people just assuming that because McD’s prices went up so much during the pandemic-era inflation, everywhere else must have as well.