John McCoy:

From around 1970 to 1980, the Salem, Massachusetts-based Parker Brothers (now a brand of Hasbro) published games whose innovative and fanciful designs drew inspiration from Pop Art, Op Art, and Madison Avenue advertising. They had boxes, boards, and components that reflected the most current techniques of printing and plastics molding. They were witty, silly, and weird. The other main players in American games at the time were Milton-Bradley, whose art tended towards cartoony, corny, and flat designs, and Ideal, whose games (like Mousetrap) were mostly showcases for their novel plastic components.

Parker Brothers design stood out for its style and sophistication, and even as a young nerd I could see that it was special. In fact, I believe they were my introduction, at the age of seven, to the whole concept of graphic design. This isn’t to say that the games were good in the sense of being fun or engaging to play; a lot of them were re-skinned versions of the basic race-around-the-board type that had been popular since the Uncle Wiggly Game. But they looked amazing and they were different.

These games mostly sucked but they looked cool as shit. Lot of memories for me in this post.

Caroline Haskins, writing for Wired (News+ link, in case Wired’s paywall blocks you):

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok is being used to flood X with thousands of sexualized images of adults and apparent minors wearing minimal clothing. Some of this content appears to not only violate X’s own policies, which prohibit sharing illegal content such as child sexual abuse material (CSAM), but may also violate the guidelines of Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store.

Apple and Google both explicitly ban apps containing CSAM, which is illegal to host and distribute in many countries. The tech giants also forbid apps that contain pornographic material or facilitate harassment. The Apple App Store says it doesn’t allow “overtly sexual or pornographic material,” as well as “defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content,” especially if the app is “likely to humiliate, intimidate, or harm a targeted individual or group.” The Google Play store bans apps that “contain or promote content associated with sexually predatory behavior, or distribute non-consensual sexual content,” and well as programs that “contain or facilitate threats, harassment, or bullying.”

Over the past two years, Apple and Google removed a number of “nudify” and AI image-generation apps after investigations by the BBC and 404 Media found they were being advertised or used to effectively turn ordinary photos into explicit images of women without their consent.

But at the time of publication, both the X app and the standalone Grok app remain available in both app stores. Apple, Google, and X did not respond to requests for comment.

I just browsed through the last five minutes of replies generated by Grok on Twitter/X, and saw both seeming CSAM (all young Asian women) and just outright hardcore pornographic video (that, for what it’s worth, seemed to feature adults, whether real or generated).

It was a barely concealed secret before Musk bought Twitter that Twitter had an active dark underbelly of pornographic content. But you had to know where to look for it. It really wasn’t something you might just stumble upon. Now you get hardcore porno just by looking at the profile page for Grok. And any user can send any photo they want to @grok and tell it to change or remove the subject’s clothing and change their pose. Lord only knows what people are generating privately using the standalone Grok app.

If a new social network app launched featuring this content, it surely would be removed from the App Store and Play Store. X is seemingly untouchable for political reasons.

Update: Recall that Apple pulled the Tumblr app from the App Store in 2018 for similar content.

Paris Buttfield-Addison:

A major brick-and-mortar store sold an Apple Gift Card that Apple seemingly took offence to, and locked out my entire Apple ID, effectively bricking my devices and my iCloud Account, Apple Developer ID, and everything associated with it, and I have no recourse. [...]

I am not a casual user. I have literally written the book on Apple development (taking over the Learning Cocoa with Objective-C series, which Apple themselves used to write, for O’Reilly Media, and then 20+ books following that). I help run the longest-running Apple developer event not run by Apple themselves, /dev/world. I have effectively been an evangelist for this company’s technology for my entire professional life. We had an app on the App Store on Day 1 in every sense of the world.

I am asking for a human at Apple to review this case. I suspect an automated fraud flag regarding the bad gift card triggered a nuclear response that frontline support cannot override. I have escalated this through my many friends in WWDR and SRE at Apple, with no success.

I am desperate to resolve this and restore my digital life.

The triggering event, as best he can determine, was his failed attempt to redeem a $500 Apple gift card purchased from a major retail chain. There’s a very active thread on Hacker News about his plight, where Buttfield-Addison himself is commenting. That thread pointed to this description of one form of gift card thievery, in which thieves tamper with the cards in-store to steal the codes, tamper with the code, and then some unsuspecting victim buys the tampered card and the thieves get the credit.

CHM:

Come and explore an extraordinary showcase of historical computers, from pristine originals to ingenious modern hacks. Computer enthusiasts around the world look forward to the annual Vintage Computer Festival.

Experience hands-on demos of historical systems from the 1960s through the 1990s, learn preservation tips, and try out brands like Apple, Atari, Commodore, Tandy/Radio Shack, and more.

It’s in Mountain View, so I can’t make it, but given all the recent nostalgia that’s been in the air regarding the early PC era, I wish I could.

RPG settings that pit characters against an oppressive regime – a Galactic Empire, extraterrestrial invaders, a government bent on hunting down rogue psis or mutants – have been around for decades.

Recently I have (For Reasons) been looking into real-life popular resistance movements that fought back against authoritarian regimes in the 20th century. These were, by and large, not guerrilla groups or militias. They used people power: strikes, demonstrations, and sometimes absurd humor (like Poland's Orange Alternative, a delightfully nutty performance art group that matched wits with the late-80s martial law regime).

I just came across a document that nicely ties things together: Survive the Tyrant: An RPG-style guide to living under an oppressive regime. Using the terminology and tropes of roleplaying, it explains the challenges of living in, and resisting, an authoritarian regime. There are character classes (Agitator, Community Leader, Transport and Sanctuary specialists) and foes (Informants, Corrupt Bureaucrats, Quislings). Under "Skill and Ability Checks" are suggestions for staying safe, out of custody, and healthy. Treasure is defined as the community ties and activities (including creative pursuits and playing RPGs . . .) that help you stay sane and brave. Mind you, this isn't a game system! It's a lesson plan and an action plan. And I imagine a lot of people would find it relevant.

For Reasons.

You can read a bit more on the project's website, which has various versions available to download. The document is also available on a "pay what you will" basis from DriveThru RPG.

– Stefan Jones

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

No byline, which is really weird, just “Bloomberg News”:

Chinese officials are evaluating a potential option that involves Elon Musk acquiring the US operations of TikTok if the company fails to fend off a controversial ban on the short-video app, according to people familiar with the matter.

But here’s Todd Spangler, reporting (with his name) for Variety:

TikTok denied a report that China is looking at potentially facilitating a sale of the app to tech billionaire Elon Musk to keep TikTok operational in America amid a looming U.S. government ban.

“We can’t be expected to comment on pure fiction,” a TikTok rep said in reply to Variety‘s request for comment.

It could be no one is wrong here. Maybe ByteDance’s owners, the Chinese government, know what’s going on, and the dupes at TikTok don’t.