Nuclear Monster

  • One of the few possibly good things to come out of the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008 was a government entity that existed solely to protect people from predatory businesses. It’s the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and it’s new Trump-appointed leader, Mick Mulvaney is unsurprisingly, a real piece of shit.

    ProPublica’s Paul Kiel:

    Last week, it dropped a lawsuit against a group of payday lenders that charged interest rates that touched 950 percent. The companies were associated with a Native American tribe, a common dodge the industry has used because it allows lenders to evade state interest-rate caps.

    […]

    But in an email to CFPB staff today, Mulvaney laid out what the bureau’s new approach should be. He had “no intent in shutting down the Bureau,” he wrote, but said that his leadership would contrast sharply with Cordray’s approach of aggressive enforcement. The CFPB worked for all taxpayers, he wrote, and that includes “those who take loans, and those who make them” and “bringing the full weight of the federal government down on the necks of the people we serve should be something that we do only reluctantly.” Going forward, he wrote, there would be “more formal rulemaking on which financial institutions can rely, and less regulation by enforcement.”

    Mulvaney also received big campaign contributions from the predatory lending industry. Of course.

    If this pisses you off, too, you might consider joining a local DSA chapter.

  • It can be pretty frustrating to find out that something you want to fix is difficult or impossible to repair. Glued-on screens cover batteries that are all custom fit inside small cases that prevent curious people from learning how things work and fixing problems with their devices. Iconoclasts from Joakim Sandberg takes that a step further, it’s a world where a mechanic, Robin, finds that her profession is outlawed. Your mission is to get Robin and her friends together to fix things in what looks like a bit of a metroidvania side-scrolling action-adventure with a Metal Slug-y vibe to the art.

    Andy Kelly likes it:

    Iconoclasts is a fine game, offering both satisfyingly sharp platforming and shooting, and some really smart puzzles. It’s enormous too, packed with secret areas and other stuff to discover. And although I found the humour a little glib and childish at times, it tells its heartfelt story well. A lot of Metroidvania games go for a bleak, downbeat atmosphere, but Iconoclasts is infectiously vibrant and sunny, even if the story does occasionally venture into dark territory.

    Iconoclasts is out now for $20 on Steam on Windows, macOS, and Linux, gog (same platforms), as well as the PlayStation 4 and Vita.

  • Patrick Klepek has a post up on Waypoint, discussing a homophobic game that unsurprisingly managed to get onto Steam. He sums up Valve’s issues with content moderation very well. I’ve trimmed the quote just to remove the name of the game.

    …is a symptom of a larger disease. Steam’s “new releases” tab is full of trash, and while you can be generally sympathetic to Valve wanting to allow all sorts of creators an easy path to publishing on their enormous platform, it doesn’t absolve them of the responsibility to make sure it’s a platform that doesn’t promote hateful speech.

    The MRA garbage I wrote about last year, Dating Lessons, is still up on Steam as well. Anyone working at Valve should be embarrassed to have their salary funded by getting a cut off of sales of this trash.

  • The way Street Fighter V works has always been odd. Anyone who buys this new Arcade Edition gets the first two seasons of characters. Okay, that’s weird. To get access to newer characters coming out this year you can unlock them with the in-game currency, Fight Money, which ends up being kind of expensive in terms of time, or you can just end up paying real money for the whole season of characters.

    Everyone who already owns Street Fighter V gets a bunch of new modes with the free version of the update.

    If the business model doesn’t make you want to throw your stick through the window, Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition is out now for $40 on Steam for Windows and the PlayStation 4, or an eye watering $70 for the version that includes all of this upcoming season’s worth of characters, but not any new stages which also cost Fight Money.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Bd3HUMkyU

    Nintendo announced a collection of do-it-yourself cardboard construction kits and games for the Switch today, they’re called Labo.

    They’ll be available in two different kits, each one holds the Switch and Joy-Cons to make something new.

    Toy-Con 01 is the Variety Kit for $70 and includes 5 different cardboard projects for building a house, RC cars, motorcycle handlebars, a fishing rod, or a piano.

    Toy-Con 02 is the Robot Kit and is entirely focused on building a cardboard mech suit for some smashing mech games. This set will be $80.

    Labo looks like a lot of fun for anyone interested in building fun toys, and both kits will be out on 4/20/18 here in the US, and 7 days later in Europe.

    Nintendo also has some trials set up in New York City and San Francisco for parents with kids 6-12. Check here for details.

    Keza MacDonald got to check these kits out early:

    The more complex constructions are a telescopic fishing rod with a working reel, attached to a base with elastic bands and string for realistic tension; a cardboard model of a piano with springy keys; an abstract motorbike, with handles and a pedal; a little house. Each contraption is made out of cardboard and string, and transforms into a digitally augmented toy when you slot Joy-Con controllers and the Switch screen into it. The piano, especially, is quite amazing, and takes about two hours to build. The infrared camera on the Joy-Con controller can see reflective strips of tape on the back of the keys, which come into view when a key is pressed, telling the game software to play the right note. Cardboard dials and switches modify the tone and add effects to the sound.

    The principles behind each construction – Toy-Cons, as Nintendo calls them – are explained by cartoon characters, putting a child-friendly spin on coding and engineering. On the Switch screen, you can view a cross-section of each model that illustrates what the Joy-Con camera can see and how it works. This educational element is geared towards curious children, but it’s also illuminating for an adult – seeing how these toys work only increases your appreciation of their ingenuity.

    The most complex construction, which will be sold separately, is a cardboard mech suit that transforms your entire body into a Transformers-style robot in the game, translating your punches and kicks into building-levelling virtual smashes.

    It’s great that some of these kits can take two hours to build, that’s on the order of some of the more difficult Lego sets. Although, the Switch’s battery might be very low after getting through construction.

    The video ad also includes some projects that Nintendo hasn’t talked about yet, like a camera, maybe those will be in future sets.

    I’m pretty psyched for these kits, but it’s going to be a few years before my son is ready for playing with the finished projects.