Author: Shivendra Singh

In April, Elon Musk began backing away from his role as head of DOGE. By June, he was more or less fully gone from DC. In his wake, he left a power vacuum and significant ill will that has apparently led to the dissolution of DOGE eight months before its charter expires. 

To call Musk’s DC tenure contentious would be an understatement. As a man accustomed to getting what he wants and functioning as a powerful executive, he swept through Washington with a figurative chainsaw, slashing budgets, firing workers, and making audacious power grabs. Musk’s brash behavior angered government employees and alienated would-be allies, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Eventually, the bad blood reached a fever pitch, and Musk had a minor physical altercation with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. 

Politico details the stunning fallout. By late May, DOGE and Musk had lost favor with President Trump, and White House aides began pushing back more forcefully against the fledgling government agency. When Musk was officially given a farewell by the White House on May 30th, it also pushed out his right-hand man, Steve Davis.

But …read more

After taking a break from the Playdate following Season Two and the wonderfully weird experience that was Blippo+, I finally dusted off my little yellow console this week and dove back in. And what better place to start than with a couple of games about cheese? Cheese ‘n Crackers and Say When! both hit the Playdate Catalog recently, but aside from the thematic similarity, they’re two very different games. As an extra treat (unrelated to cheese), I also picked up Ware-wolf Campfire Stories, a free game on itch.io that’s actually over a dozen bite-sized games in one. 

Cheese ‘n Crackers

When it comes to snacking, everyone’s got their preferences. Some crave a savory blast of umami, while for others, a sweet treat might be what always hits the spot. Or maybe you’re like me, and if you have one, it needs to be followed by the other. Creating snacks that hit just right is what Cheese ‘n Crackers is all about. 

In this Playdate game, you have what is essentially a neverending charcuterie …read more

It’s long been known that X (and Twitter before it) is a major venue for foreign influence campaigns to meddle in American politics. Much of the focus has been on Russian troll farms, which the US government has targeted on several occasions. But the launch of X’s About This Account feature may have revealed the scope and geographical breadth of its foreign troll problem.

Almost immediately after the feature launched, people started noticing that many rage-bait accounts focused on US politics appeared to be based outside of the US. Profiles with names like ULTRAMAGA🇺🇸TRUMP🇺🇸2028 were revealed to be based in Nigeria. A verified account posing as border czar Tom Homan was traced to Eastern Europe. And America_First0? Apparently from Bangladesh. An entire network of “Trump-supporting independent women” claiming to be from America was really located in Thailand. 

Threads quickly started growing, collecting all the pro-MAGA trolls that claimed to be American, but were really foreign actors from every corner of the globe. Some right-wing personalities were quick to jump on evidence that many left-wing X users were also not who they claimed to be. In no time at …read more

Nintendo has made some of the most iconic video games of all time, but building a library of the standouts can quickly become expensive, especially given that many titles don’t often go on sale at a significant discount. The good news is that Nintendo is already running a holiday sale in the run-up to Black Friday, allowing you to save on Nintendo Switch games, amiibo, and accessories through November 28th.

The biggest news is that Nintendo and select retailers are offering some of the Switch’s best games — including Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom — for as little as $29.99, which amounts to a healthy $30 discount. In some cases, these games are at their lowest price ever, and we don’t expect any of them to be this heavily discounted again until “MAR10 Day” rolls around next year.

Typically, Nintendo offers a discount on a Switch bundle that includes a digital copy of Mario Kart: 8 Deluxe or some other first-party title, but that doesn’t seem to be happening …read more

Yesterday X started rolling out a new About This Account feature, which included what country the account was created from and what country the account is “based” in (which is different from “connected via”). Head of product at X, Nikita Bier, was quick to say that there were “a few rough edges,” but promised they’d be resolved by Tuesday. 

There have definitely been complaints about inaccuracies. The company even ended up removing information about where an account was created, saying the data “was not 100 percent,” especially for older accounts. 

The reaction from users on X was, of course, totally level-headed. They immediately recognized that the data was flawed and definitely didn’t spend the last 24 hours trying to score political points.

Just kidding. 

People on X have done almost nothing but shout that accounts they disagree with are actually foreign operatives. Even users who have publicly complained that the information on their own profile was inaccurate continued on to make bad-faith posts about how their political opponents were running a foreign psyop. 

The inaccurate data could have several causes. People who travel, or outlets with staff scattered …read more