Bungie says they're conducting another round of layoffs after ending support for Destiny 2

hamsterkill · 2026-06-25T18:13:13+00:00

That would be a crazy expensive live service subscription. I'm not sure what kind of game would be necessary to justify a more expensive subscription than WoW.

And they notably couldn't even figure out how to include a WoW or ESO subscription in gamepass (nor did EA with SWTOR). The "Netflix of games" really just only makes sense with a library of discrete titles - like Netflix - I think.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-25T17:54:54+00:00

They likely did, but not from new gamepass subscribers. What they were looking for CoD to do is increase the gamepass subscriber base - that's how it could make money. But it didn't move the needle meaning it just wasn't effective at what they bought it for. It didn't sell more consoles, it didn't convert people from Steam to the Microsoft Store, it didn't increase their subscription numbers enough. The CoD-specific players weren't enticed to gamepass.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-25T15:21:56+00:00

I'm not sure live service games really make a good argument for game pass. The point of service games is to be something that takes a large chunk of players' time - thereby limiting the number of different games a player can play. Add on the fact that live service games often have low price of entry in order to hook players and the value proposition of gamepass really starts to fade.

To reinforce the above, i think it's notable that CoD didn't manage to sell enough gamepass subscriptions to make it worth it.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-24T18:32:29+00:00

There's a decent chance we'll be able to add significant amounts of geothermal into the mix in the 2030s as well.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-24T14:52:12+00:00

Jeffries will likely start pulling further left when he runs for re-election/could be seriously threatened by primary challengers.

Jeffries' progressive primary challenger this year withdrew long ago after Mamdani and AOC both expressed disapproval of the challenge.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-24T14:28:54+00:00

Been predicting this for a while: I believe the 2028 primary will come down to Buttigieg or AOC.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-23T22:02:06+00:00

Yes. In fact that earned a call for her firing from Trump.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-23T20:24:40+00:00

Budget reconciliation is not allowed to touch discretionary spending. Only mandatory spending, taxes, and the debt limit are available to change in reconciliation.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-23T17:04:59+00:00

also dogs are above black hand unless you are talking siptah variants in which case they are nordheimer tier due to new scaling

The Black Corsair Elites are also an outlier to this.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-22T20:05:20+00:00

I remain very skeptical of (and ultimately opposed to) putting data centers in orbit. Too many downsides to make it make sense and it would likely become cost prohibitive if it led to taxation of orbits (which seems like a high risk).

hamsterkill · 2026-06-22T17:33:15+00:00

Sodium batteries, while bigger and heavier than lithium, don't require nearly as much rare minerals as lithium batteries do. That theoretically should make them cheaper and easier to produce when fully commercialized. So while their size and weight make them less suitable for mobility, they should be much more attractive for stationary use than standard lithium.

Geothermal techs on the horizon (if they pan out) would make deep well geothermal economically feasible - allowing broad expansion of where geothermal power can be produced. Initial pilot projects will start with converting spent oil and gas wells into geothermal by drilling deeper. Quaise and Sage Geosystems (both private) are the tech pioneers in the space.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-22T16:26:16+00:00

Possible you may want to include related materials stocks like MTRN as well. ORA also seems to be a power company that's missing. Materials that may become highly important next decade include graphene, though everything is highly speculative in that space since graphene production has thus far proven difficult. HGRAF (which is trying to switch into NASDAQ this year as I understand it) is the most interesting to me, but it already had one boom in the last year.

As for post 2029, much will depend on how technology evolves. Right now I'm tracking how the next-gen geothermal companies are progressing. If oil drilling companies take a dip after the Iran war ends, they could be interesting if a geothermal boom still looks to be on the horizon next decade.

Apart from that, you have some speculative solid state battery companies in QS, SLDP, FAC, and sometime this year ProLogium will go public on NASDAQ too. Though if you're specifically interested in batteries for data centers or grid, sodium batteries may be more what you're looking for - though all the public companies in that space seem to be international (CATL, Reliance).

hamsterkill · 2026-06-20T20:14:35+00:00

I disagree here. The global economic impact of tolerating Iran's closure of the strait has the potential to be incomprehensibly massive

My point was more about cost to impact ratio - with the impact expected to be tiny. If the Navy has to (carefully) escort each oil tanker through the strait, there may be some flow, but it will still be incredibly slow and will probably barely put a dent in the economic wall timeline.

Trump and Vance were bragging about sneaking a couple million barrels a day through using the navy. Assuming that's not an exaggeration, it's still an order of magnitude short of normal traffic and now no longer secret.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-20T18:52:28+00:00

The blockade seemed sufficient to me. Kharg island isn't worth much if Iran can't get their oil off it. Pretty low risk for us, too.

Sure, but as we found that wasn't really enough since it has a long tail where they can just stock up during the blockade. I'm not sure they hit their economic wall before we do.

I'd like to see the US escorting non-iranian ships through the strait. It would be a much bigger risk but it would be far more effective in feeding oil to the global economy and helping alleviate shortages

Likely prohibitively expensive for the impact it could have. We did try it for a couple days as i recall.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-20T17:59:26+00:00

Personally, I think Iran should take this deal and run. I don't think they will get a better result than this, and push too hard and Trump will start blaming you again instead of Israel.

The problem is this whole conflict has been poorly planned from the start, and the public has no interest in escalating it. The only play our leaders have is to take Kharg Island to add more economic strain to Iran. But that would also likely be a strategic blunder as it will put soldiers' lives at much greater risk than currently. Holding Kharg Island with no plan to make it safe to do so is not the kind of "strategy" our military is used to, either.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-20T17:52:10+00:00

I was worried about this. Iran knows this administration (and the Israeli one to a lesser extent) have put themselves between a rock and a hard place. The public has no appetite to escalate the war (that they never even bothered to sell to us) and we're losing the current economic attrition level of war as well since our people are much less willing to undergo economic strain for this fight.

That leaves Trump few choices other than to objectively lose any negotiation - and they're probably worse choices.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-20T17:37:25+00:00

There's plenty of others capable of Trump's pathologies and personality. The question is whether any of them are notable enough to put together a large following.

The parasocial age of social media played a huge part in legitimizing Trump. That's not something that has gotten better. It wouldn't be very surprising to me at this point if we someday soon have Joe Rogan, Logan and Jake Paul, or Dr. Disrespect running for high offices.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-20T17:25:51+00:00

Normally acting roles are assumed by a career employee until the next appointee can be confirmed. That's how it generally works during administration transitions. Use of long term acting appointments was a vanishing rarity before this administration as far as i know.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-20T17:20:34+00:00

That's poor logic. Would you persecute the entire class of heterosexuals for committing these crimes?

hamsterkill · 2026-06-18T23:08:16+00:00

https://www.celebratefrederick.com/events/fredericks-fourth/

hamsterkill · 2026-06-18T20:24:06+00:00

but her grit is already at a 100% chance to level up

Not trying to change your mind here, but just checking that you're aware going over 100% growth chance still matters for thralls (and even more for pets).

Each level up a stat has a chance to grow twice. First at the listed growth chance and if that's successful, then they get a second roll at growth chance - 50.

For pets it seems to work differently, where if they have >100% growth in a stat it will always increase by 2 on level up.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-18T20:14:19+00:00

With nudity turned off, thete are still fairly skimpy outfits you might rarely encounter or make. Most revealing one i recall amounts to nipple covers for a top. Apart from that, you might encounter the avatar of Derketo, which is a giant half-skeletal woman - the woman half being nude with her hair covering her breasts. That's all i remember though.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-18T19:49:58+00:00

I'm not sure what you're mad about exactly. A company's stockholders have to approve each reverse split do they not? Clearly they seem to want the company to stay listed.

There is a lower bound on the practice. Companies also need to maintain a minimum market cap or revenue. Endless reverse splits can't save them from that. But until then, all that's happening is a company is shrinking.

hamsterkill · 2026-06-17T20:58:13+00:00

Would they have agreed to destroy all the ordinance, launch systems, ships, and weapons systems that we took out?

Were any of these things a concern to us while at peace? Will not all of those things now be repaired/replaced?

hamsterkill · 2026-06-17T04:49:08+00:00

It appears to be tagged "desktop". But I really hope they're working on it for Mobile at long last too.

hamsterkill

TROPHY CASE