AH Phan

@elonmusk Indeed. The weigh of expectation of the entire Universe is on our shoulders. Not only we must endure, innovate, to save this planet of ours from it's eventual demise, either from extra-solar threats, or the Sun itself.. But we have to find answers & solutions, for entropy..

@cliffski Congrats, well deserved!

@elonmusk Not unique to Japan. Very low birth rate also in Taiwan, South Korea. And in the West too, we're rapidly falling in birth rate.

Japan will disappear if something doesn’t change

@dsmart People only see the success stories, not the million failures. One only has to ponder about the fact that so many indie games are released on multiple platforms each day to realize the reality is very difficult for indie devs.

Each time I see news about industry layoffs, some people come up with the same old narrative : go indie. Let me say this: I have been an indie since the late eighties. I slaved on my first game for a very - very - long time, and saw it released in the late nineties. A lot of you know my story. I have never interviewed for nor held a games industry job. Ever. And so, I was an indie from day zero. If I sell 10 copies of my games, it pays the bills. If I sell 11 copies, the diff goes towards my next game. I don't live above my means - and never did. In fact, like most of my many old school industry friends that I came up with, I am notoriously private. I could be rich af or broke as a church mouse - and you'll never know it because I come from humble beginnings. As an indie in a highly competitive industry, I have always been one failed game away from disaster. In fact, if any of my games made even 1/10th of what a top end indie or even AA or AAA game makes, I would literally die laughing because I wouldn't even know what to do with all that money. And so, I play it safe and stick with making the type of games that my 10 loyal gamers will buy because I know that 11th copy is going to come from someone they know. I have never - ever - strayed from this formula because I am exceptionally risk averse. Plus, being eccentric and on the autism spectrum, I don't like change. It increases my bp and spikes my anxiety to debilitating levels. Not fun. I am 60 now - and as ludicrous as it may sound, I grew up with my install base. Ponder that for a moment. Being an indie - in any profession, let alone in games - is neither a walk in the park nor for the faint at heart. It requires a LOT of the things that most people take for granted. To name a few - things like passion, drive, sacrifice, talent, money management, survival instincts - and compromise. The list encompasses some of the reasons that see many startups fail. Failure is not always about money. Don't do it. Some of the very same people chanting that going indie somehow solves this problem with wanton layoffs in our industry, are as misguided as those who thought that a corp spending billions to buy a competitor is somehow doing it for altruistic reasons instead of for the bottom line of investors. Don't do it. And if you do decide to go indie, which means that you stand an 80% chance of your game failing, those same people probably aren't even going to buy your game. Don't do it. And unless you succeed and somehow get a hit, if you do fail, most of them won't even remember you because they've moved on to the next thing. Don't do it. You're only as good as the games that 10 people will buy. If you try to chase that all-elusive 11th sale to the detriment of the 10, your project will fail. Don't do it. If you take on investors - of any kind - remember, except for a few edge cases, they're not your friends. They're people you probably know and who gave you money. You're only as good as that all-elusive exit - which depends on your game. Don't do it. If you happen to join an indie studio, remember that you are the product that may lead to a success story. And in that, your founders are likely to cash out long before you realize that you're likely out of a job. Don't do it. As someone who thinks of himself as one of the OG relics of the gaming industry as we know it, I know what it's like to lose; to feel so desperately that you'll win, then to lose all the same. I am burdened with sadness that this happened to you, my friends; but this too shall pass. 🙏

@DrJBhattacharya @NateSilver538 It's due to ego, they think they far more intelligent than they actually are, for their shortsightedness fails to factor in Human ingenuity to solve problems. Resources remain abundant. New technologies are created to overcome prior challenges. Also, Earth is not forever.

I was born in 1968 near Calcutta in the teeming, glorious, beautiful humanity that Ehrlich denigrates in his 1968 book. I agree with @NateSilver538 that I have no interest in a movement that thinks of people in such a demeaning way.

@ichudov This is what happens when the immune system is challenged with the Covid Spike antigen for prolong periods of time. Typical infection is ~2w recovery, with no further antigen challenge. The mRNA vaccine behaves very different in that its persistent expression of Spike.

Are we gradually building hybrid immunity? This 46-year-old man is healthy looking (per his Reddit profile) and yet obviously not doing well.

@iwataki Condolences. RIP Legend.

岩瀧智の妻です。 夫が２か月の闘病の末、12月30日夜に他界しました。 病床でも一度も取り乱さず、最後まで周囲への思いやりを持ったまま亡くなりました。 アニメーションを愛していた夫はまだ沢山の作品を作りたかったと思います。 生前お世話になった皆様、応援してくださった皆様にお礼申し上げます

@WeBeHarebrained You all did a great job, I thoroughly enjoyed all 3 Shadowrun games. 👍

"...Shadowrun has gotten a few video game adaptations in the decades since. But none captures its ludicrous-sounding but somehow great blend of gritty sci-fi and fantasy as well as Harebrained Schemes’ Shadowrun Trilogy, now available on PlayStation Plus." inverse.com/gaming/shadowr…

@mihaiam @skdh Agreed. Current (modern) reactors are great. Build more. Invest in R&D for next-gen designs, then build those too.

@AH_Phan @skdh Current gen reactors are safe & efficient enough. Obsessing on new tech is counterproductive if it keeps us from building what works.

Everyone who thinks the world could just stop using fossil fuels on the snap of a finger should have a look at this chart. More than 80% of the world's energy supply presently comes from oil, gas, and coal, and that number has barely changed in the past decade. Of course we will eventually phase out fossil fuels, simply because the supply is finite. No matter how hard you dig, there's only so much of the stuff. But at present, the life of pretty much everyone on this planet depends in one way or another on fossil fuels. In case you live in a fancy new "zero emissions" house, well, first of all congrats on being in the 0.001% of the world population who can afford that, and second, try to figure out how many of the supply chains for building that house would break down without fossil fuels. If we were to put a price on carbon dioxide emissions tomorrow without also subsidizing fossil fuels, much of the world economy would collapse because most of the key industries would go bankrupt basically overnight. (I think we should still put a price on carbon because it's the right default, but then we'll need to find a way to ease the transition.) This is why it's become so hard to solve this problem. It would have been easy enough 50 years ago to put a price on carbon dioxide, switch to nuclear, and with further improvements in solar to more of that. But we've missed that bus. I want to emphasize again because people keep misunderstanding this, I am not a fan of fossil fuels. If it were up to me, I'd plaster the world with nuclear power plants tomorrow and would take great pleasure in seeing oil companies falter and die. I am merely saying this is a difficult problem to solve, and the reason it's difficult is not technological, it's mostly economical. That said, let me stress again that I think the extensions of the electric grid necessary to support the transition to renewables are an underappreciated problem. Without the grid, nothing else is going to work.

@nascentjude @rationalaussie @AvidCommentator How ironic. Vietnamese refugees risk their lives on the high seas, storms & piracy, on leaky wooden boats to get to Australia, the "lucky country".. Now Aussies are packing up going to Vietnam for better quality of life. 🤣

This guy sums it up, can’t disagree with him @rationalaussie @AvidCommentator

@TheEathen I'm going to give you a brief history. Australians went to war in Korea. Got Korean refugees. Australians went to war in Vietnam. Got Vietnamese refugees. Australians went to war in Iraq. Got Iraqi refugees.. Do you understand the solution?

Australians don't want Islamic immigration, they don't want Palestinian refugees. We don't want Chinese either. In fact, we don't want ANY Immigrants as things stand right now. We can't look after the people we already have. Look after Australians first. Who agrees?

@elonmusk We are the only hope for the planet, and eventually, the Universe itself. The fact that we exist, is simply a miracle, the manifestation of dead Stars reborn, to continue on the journey to face the challenge of the inevitable heat death of the Universe with our intellect.

@elonmusk Despite our modern civilization, we as a species on this small cradle called Earth, our consciousness is incredibly fragile and so few appreciate that reality. Pointless wars, egoism drives dangerous bioweapon R&D, huge budget waste resulting in the Sciences underfunded..

The scariest answer to the Fermi Paradox is that there are no aliens at all. They we are the only tiny candle of consciousness in an abyss of darkness.

@elonmusk @jack Was hoping for a managed & civilized decline, rather than 🔥🔥 ..

@jack 🔥🔥

End of an empire

@gordlittle Condolences.

@Grummz Unfortunately, "fishing for whales" is highly profitable. As does designing games around gambling feedback loops that exploit many who are vulnerable to it.

Box game vs F2P with long term monetization. Immortals also developed overseas at a fraction of budget. Diablo Immortals yet to launch in China, which will be a huge bulk of revenue. Check out how Candy crush grew long term vs 1st year.

@simongerman600 Ultimately, wind & solar just shift dependency to China as the materials for these technologies is China's monopoly, and the more unstable energy sources, the more gas turbines are needed. No serious reduction in CO2 emission is really possible without modern nuclear reactors.

@simongerman600 Germany has pushed massively for renewables, yet they are still heavily dependent on gas, for heating & gas turbines to stabilize solar & wind fluctuations.

Look at this “old” tweet of mine. Looks like Europe got the memo now…

@RALee85 And specifically, Geneva Convection, article 28. Forbids using protected persons (aka, civilians) as human shields to deny enemy military target of a location. Ofc. War is brutal, and "rules" or "war crimes" are often ignored. I am not naive. :) ohchr.org/en/instruments…

Video that looks like Ukrainian troops firing an NLAW at a Russian T-72B obr 1989 tank in Mariupol. I wonder if it was within the minimum arming range. t.me/faceofwar/17787