mastodon.gamedev.place is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
Mastodon server focused on game development and related topics.

Server stats:

5.4K
active users

#brian

0 posts0 participants0 posts today

Comic Crusaders Special - Deathblade Team
In this episode of the Comic Crusaders Special, host Al Mega reconnects with comic book creator Edward Brown and his creative team to delve deeper into their upcoming Kickstarter project, "Deathblade: The Awakening." This gripping narrative follows Ambrose,...
comiccrusaders.com/podcast/com
#Brian Cochran #comic books #comics #crowdfunding #deathblade #EA Brown #Indie #Kickstarter #livestream #podcast #vidcast

From 14 Feb: Ohio food banks warn over less funding in governor’s budget proposal - Eggs in a grocery store. (Stock photo from Getty Images.)Have you seen the price of eggs? The cost o... ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/02 #allison-russo #brian-stewart #farm-bill #food-assistance #food-banks #food-pantries #matt-huffman #mike-dewine #ohio-association-of-foodbanks #politics-&-gov #snap #snap-cuts #u.s.-farm-bill

Trump confirmed Friday he stripped security protections from former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, the latest in a pattern of retaliation against political adversaries.

🔥Why it matters:
All of Trump's targets have received death threats during a time of heightened political violence.

♦️#Anthony #Fauci

The former NIAID director lost his protection late Thursday night.

Fauci has repeatedly been forthright about death threats against himself and his family. He's now hired his own security detail, per the New York Times.
"You can't have a security detail for the rest of your life because you worked for government," Trump said on Fox News on Friday, when asked about Fauci.
Between the lines: Former President Biden issued a preemptive pardon for Fauci on his last day in office, granting him broad immunity before Trump's term began.

Fauci faced repeated political attacks from Trump and other Republicans over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

♦️#John #Bolton

Trump's former national security adviser has faced death threats from Iran after being a fierce critic of the regime. In 2022 an Iranian national was charged in connection with a plot to assassinate Bolton.

"This is a matter that people should take seriously," Bolton told CNN's Jake Tapper.
Context: Bolton was vocal in his criticism of Trump after working with him during his first term and ahead of his new administration.

"It's certainly a downer for expressing your opposition to Donald Trump," Bolton said on CNN.

♦️#Mike #Pompeo

Trump's former secretary of state, like Bolton, faced threats from Iran, multiple outlets reported.

Pompeo has criticized Trump on fiscal and foreign policy and was not invited to join his second administration. However, Pompeo spent Trump's first week in office celebrating his win, Cabinet confirmations, and early executive orders.

🔸Zoom in: Pompeo's top aide #Brian #Hook also lost his security, per the reports.
axios.com/2025/01/24/trump-fau

Axios · Trump strips security from Fauci, Bolton, Pompeo: TrackerBy April Rubin

Cheap, smart, deadly. The tech industry pitches a new way to wage war.

Anduril Industries hopes it can transform the U.S. military under the new Trump administration.

It imagines the nation defended by fleets of deadly aerial and undersea drones that can tirelessly patrol the world with minimal need for human intervention, poised to strike if ordered to.

Anduril has deep ties to President Donald Trump’s tech funders and advisers.

It is the most prominent among a raft of defense upstarts aiming to challenge established defense contractors by recasting U.S. military technology around nimble drones and software,
instead of giant ships and expensive aircraft.

“It’s about making much-lower-cost, easy-to-produce and mass-manufacture weapons that we can resupply in a time of war,”
said #Brian #Schimpf, chief executive and co-founder of the eight-year-old company.

That approach is winning support inside the Pentagon as it grapples with a major challenge to U.S. power just inherited by Trump.

It is starkly illustrated by a military operation that took place one night this past April, after Iran fired more than 300 missiles and self-destructing drones at Israel from Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.

“We are paying millions to shoot down something that costs thousands,”
Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said last month at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California.
“We’re on the wrong end of that.”

That asymmetry contributes to another headache for the Defense Department.

War in the Middle East, Russia’s continuing assault on Ukraine, and China’s escalating rhetoric about controlling Taiwan have stretched U.S. weapons stocks and defense industry supply chains,
as the Pentagon supplies allies like Israel in addition to U.S. forces.

If the United States went to war with China, it would run out of long-range precision missiles in less than a week,
according to a 2023 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.

Anduril is headquartered in the former Los Angeles Times printing press a 30-minute drive from the site of the drone demonstration.

Out front sat an open-topped military humvee owned by #Palmer #Luckey,
the most high-profile of the company’s five co-founders.

He previously sold virtual reality start-up Oculus VR to Facebook at the age of 21 for $2 billion
and was for years one of the few prominent Trump supporters among tech elites
-- until Elon Musk and others embraced the former president in 2024.

Anduril, christened for a sword in “The Lord of the Rings” whose Elvish name means “Flame of the West,”
cultivates a culture starkly different from established defense contractors based in Beltway office parks.

The designs of the company’s sensor towers and cruise missiles evoke military hardware seen in Japanese sci-fi anime shows.

In November, the company launched a merch store featuring Hawaiian shirts modeled by Luckey
and keepsakes from exploded prototypes.

The start-up, which has received more than $4 billion in funding,
started out selling surveillance towers to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

It now has a lineup of eight aerial and aquatic surveillance and attack drones,
with customers including the Pentagon and some U.S. allies.

Its #Lattice software, used in the drone demonstration, provides a way to link up and control different robots, sensors and other military equipment,
-- a kind of operating system for war.
washingtonpost.com/technology/

The Washington Post · Cheap, smart, deadly. The tech industry pitches a new way to wage war.By Gerrit De Vynck

TRAILER: RE-ANIMATAOR 40th Anniversary
DIRECTOR STUART GORDON’S INSTANT CULT CLASSIC HORROR COMEDY BLOODFEST:
RE-ANIMATOR
RESTORED IN GORY 4K – APPROVED BY BRIAN YUZNA SPLATTERS ONTO SCREENS LIKE NEVER BEFORE IN THEDAZZLING NEW 40th ANNIVERSARY 4K UHD RESTORATION 
IGNITE FILMS & EAGLE ROCK PICTURES DROPPED THEIR RE-ANIMATAED 40th...
comiccrusaders.com/comic-books
#re-animator #horror #brian yuzna #herbert west #40th anniv.

#Brian #Evans and #George #Zoley, the two top executives at Geo Group, the
💥private prison company💥,
made contributions directly to Trump’s campaign,
to his super PAC and to other political groups that support him,
and have said they ⚠️ expect Mr. Trump’s re-election to drive up demand for empty beds
at detention centers the company runs for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Mr. Zoley has already profited handsomely from Mr. Trump’s re-election.

This summer, as the election was approaching, he spent over $3 million to buy up large chunks of the company’s own stock,
or a total of 250,000 shares, federal filings show.
The average price he paid for that stock:
$12.28.
As of Friday, that stock was trading at $26.60,
as Geo Group saw the largest surge in its stock price since 2016,
after Mr. Trump was elected to his first term.
The bounce this month alone would generate a $3.6 million profit for Mr. Zoley, if sold at the new price.

The executives told Wall Street analysts during a recent earnings call that 🆘Trump’s election could help Geo Group fill as many as 18,000 empty beds at its facilities,
which would generate as much as $400 million in annual business.

“This is to us an unprecedented opportunity to assist the federal government and the incoming Trump administration toward achieving a much more aggressive immigration policy,” Mr. Evans told the Wall Street analysts.
#immigrant #detention #deportation #privateprisons
nytimes.com/2024/11/17/us/poli

The New York Times · Trump Boosters Expect Big Returns on Their Investment: ‘The Shackles Are Off’By Eric Lipton

Trump Boosters Expect Big Returns on Their Investment:
‘The Shackles Are Off’

Wealthy donors to the president-elect’s campaign anticipate a more business-friendly atmosphere,
including the firing of Biden-era regulators.

🔸Limit the reach of federal regulations on artificial intelligence.
🔸Make room for cryptocurrencies to thrive.
🔸Ease the antitrust crackdown on big tech companies.
🔸Buy more military drones. And don’t raise taxes on billionaires.

The to-do list for President-elect Donald J. Trump from #Marc #Andreessen, the venture capital billionaire from California, is long, but quite specific.

Now, after donating big money to Mr. Trump, Mr. Andreessen is eager to see his candidate work through the list

“It felt like a boot off the throat,” Mr. Andreessen said about Mr. Trump’s victory during a podcast conversation this month with his business partner.
“Every morning I wake up happier than the day before.”

Mr. Andreessen’s excitement is a hint of just how broadly the victory by Mr. Trump has resonated with business executives who ⚠️ invested millions of dollars in his candidacy and now stand to profit from his policies.
Theirs is a circle of deep-pocketed industry winners that extends far beyond #Elon #Musk.
It is a more diverse group, at least in terms of business interests, than the one that surrounded Mr. Trump in his first administration, where executives from the oil, gas and coal industries were particularly dominant.
#Harold #Hamm, the billionaire founder of the Oklahoma-based 💥oil and gas giant Continental Resources, is still in a position to benefit, from regulatory rollbacks that he and an affiliated trade association are already pushing.

But the list also includes:
#Joe #Lonsdale, a defense technology executive who wants to help the Pentagon revamp the way it fights 💥wars;

#Cameron and #Tyler #Winklevoss, the twins who were known for their battle with Facebook, then became 💥cryptocurrency investors and now want to shape the industry’s rules;

#Brian #Evans, the chief executive of Geo Group, the 💥private prison giant that could benefit if Mr. Trump carries out his promise of large-scale deportations;

John Paulson, the hedge fund billionaire who could cash out of his investment in the federal government’s housing finance companies, Freddie and Fannie, if they are privatized under Mr. Trump.

“It will be a billionaires’ ball,” said Robert Reich, who served as secretary of labor during the Clinton administration and who has long been critical of the income disparity in the United States.

nytimes.com/2024/11/17/us/poli

The New York Times · Trump Boosters Expect Big Returns on Their Investment: ‘The Shackles Are Off’By Eric Lipton

With a classic typeface and traditional newspaper design,
the mass-mailed "Catholic Tribune"
newspapers carry signposts of legitimacy.

But most of the articles in the papers are inflammatory
and overtly partisan,
focusing on culture-war issues that resonate with conservative voters.

A headline in the Wisconsin Catholic Tribune, and repurposed in other states’ versions,
provocatively asks,
“How many ‘sex change’ mutilation surgeries occurred on Wisconsin kids?”

Another: “Haitian illegal aliens in America: What are Harris supporters saying?”

At the same time, they undermine Vice President Kamala Harris and prop up former President Donald Trump.

The papers, which have also appeared in Arizona and Pennsylvania,
are what academics call “pink slime.”

The name comes from a filler in processed meat
— or a product that is not entirely what it seems.

Using tax documents and business filings,
ProPublica traced the papers to a Chicago-based publishing network led by former TV reporter #Brian #Timpone.

His enterprises, including "Metric Media", are known among researchers for peddling misinformation and slanted coverage.

The network has received money from right-wing super PACs funded by conservative billionaire #Richard #Uihlein,
founder of the mammoth shipping supply company Uline.

The Catholic Church does not endorse candidates or call for their defeat
but does speak out on moral issues and participates in debates over public policies.
Many dioceses publish newspapers, but they are not partisan.

In distancing itself from the Michigan Catholic Tribune,
the Archdiocese of Detroit noted that tax-exempt churches are not permitted under the Internal Revenue Code to be involved in partisan politics.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee directed Catholics to a Wisconsin Catholic Conference document setting out guidelines for church involvement in electoral politics.

In an era of prolific “pink slime” sites, sophisticated, AI-concocted fakes and outlandish conspiracy theories engulfing social media, the papers are a throwback to a low-tech disinformation tactic.

But they are not unusual in the Metric Media universe.

ProPublica, in collaboration with the nonprofit news organization Floodlight and the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, recently reported on a
misinformation campaign against solar energy in Ohio aided by Metric Media
that included distribution of a similar unfamiliar newspaper,
the Ohio Energy Reporter.

It has the same mailing address as the Catholic Tribune papers.

Metric Media and its sister companies operate more than 1,100 local news websites across the country.

The return address for the Michigan and Wisconsin Catholic Tribunes matches the business mailing address of companies within the Metric Media network, ProPublica found.

Timpone, who lives in Illinois and has contributed to conservative campaigns and causes, leads Metric Media.

His brother, Michael Timpone, also leads a media company at the address listed on the Catholic Tribune papers,
and he led the Metric Media affiliate that published similar papers in previous election cycles.

Michael Timpone also did not respond to a request for comment.
propublica.org/article/church-

ProPublicaWho’s Mailing the Catholic Tribune? It’s Not the Church, It’s Partisan Media.
More from ProPublica