Https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTdQuxw52/

i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.

there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.

anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.

A Better World - create an alternate history timeline

Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game

Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet

Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games

Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones

Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy

ZenGM - simulate sports

Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi

IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)

Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface

The Cafe & Diner - mystery game

The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game

Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions

Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game

Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game

Miniconomy - player driven economy game

Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes

BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators

Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil

Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.

if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.

I saw a super cute photo of a guy with a cat and I had to paint it in my own way. It let me practice some rendering techniques I haven't tried before :)

here's ur reminder that axolotl is NOT pronounced like "ak-suh-laa-tl" (or lot-ul), it is in fact a nahuatl word (that most commonly translates to "water dog" actually, very cute!) and is pronounced "ah-SHOW-lowtch" !!!!

i think abt this every time i see a post abt axolotls coz i just know there r so many ppl mispronouncing it and the thought bothers me. if ppl, esp white ppl, reblogged this to spread the word to those who may not be aware, i'd be very grateful. thank u!!

Today I learned about an incredible artist named John Conrad Berkey. He created cover art for many science fiction books, and also created artwork for NASA! But he’s most famous for his incredible Star Wars illustrations.

George Lucas actually bought several John Berkey science fiction illustrations and used them to help pitch Star Wars to studios. And many of Berkey’s pervious artwork was used as inspiration for Star Wars’s visuals.

Berkey was later commissioned by LucasFilm to create posters for Star Wars, shown below:

"Berkey's imagination and expressionistic style quickly set him apart from other sci-fi illustrators. From a distance, his paintings appear very exacting and perfectly rendered. But upon closer inspection, they reveal a beautifully loose and freely abstract style."

―Rusty Freeman, Vice-President, Collections & Public Programs, Plains Art Museum, Fargo, North Dakota

You can check out Berkey’s website here, and read his Wookieepedia page here

isn't it insane though how schizophrenic people are viewed as violent and dangerous by the majority of society when in reality schizophrenic people are nearly 14 times more likely to be on the receiving end of violence than to be the perpetrators...

“He kidnaps, she screams”: words associated with gender in Wikipedia plot descriptions

by variance_explained

Planning for a flight now consists of planning out how to document the legal violations the airline is inevitably going to commit.

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori/Māori Language Week Day 2 – Rātū te tekau mā whā o Mahuru/Tuesday 14th of September

Pronunciation

Unlike English, te Reo Māori has very logical and consistent pronunciation rules, once you learn them, pronouncing new words is relatively simple!

Tohutō – one of the most important parts of the language is the length of the vowels. A tohutō is the macron/line above a vowel which indicates that you hold that vowel for slightly longer. If you can’t type the tohutō, just write the vowel twice to indicate the same thing. (eg. Maaori instead of Māori) the length of the vowel often changes the meaning of a word so its very important to include it.

Vowels – one of the key things is getting the pronunciation of vowels right, especially in combination with other letters and vowels. It might be aimed at children, but I recommend using this song. It’s the one we always used in primary school, and we used it in the first te reo class at uni too.

Difficult letters – the two bits that might take a bit more practice (depending on what other languages you know) is rolling your R, and the Ng sound. Ng usually comes at the beginning of the word and is often mispronounced by just removing the g. Try words like ring, just take the last part and add it to the front of the word (eg. Ngāi, Ngāti). Its all about the tongue placement, the middle of your tongue should roll against the roof of your mouth. In comparison, when you use the letter R in te reo, the tip of your tongue should roll against the roof of your mouth, it sounds almost closer to an English L. The Wh sound can also be difficult, simply put its just pronounced as an F sound (eg. Whakatāne, whakapapa).

Another important point is that te reo Māori does not use the S at the end of a word to make it a plural. When using a plural form of a te reo word, just leave it as it is! Just like how sheep and fish are already plurals in English, and it would sound wrong to say sheeps and fish, Māori is already a plural, and its completely wrong to say Māoris. Same goes for te reo animal names, its kiwi not kiwis, kākāpō not kākāpōs

Fuck you, City of Ur!

If you're dumb enough to buy a cartload of copper this weekend, you're a big enough schmuck to come to Ea-Nasir's Imported Metals!

Bad deals! Low grade copper! Thieves!

If you think you're gonna find a bargain at Ea-Nasir's, you can kiss my ass!

It's our belief that you're such a stupid motherfucker you'll fall for this bullshit! Guaranteed!

If you find a better deal, shove it up your ugly ass! You heard us right, shove it up your ugly ass!

Bring your deposit, bring your sealed tablet, bring your messenger! We'll send him back!

That's right, we'll send your messenger back through enemy territory!Because at Ea-Nasir's, you're fucked six ways from Sunday!

Take a hike to Ea-Nasir's, home of challenge pissing! That's right, challenge pissing!

How does it work? If you can piss six feet in the air straight up and not get wet, you get no down payment!

Don't wait, don't delay, don't fuck with us, or we'll turn you into a eunuch!

Only at Ea-Nasir's, the only merchant that tells you to fuck off!

Hurry up, asshole! This event ends the minute after you make a donation to the palace, and it better not bounce or you're a dead motherfucker!

Go to hell! Ea-Nasir's Metals: Sumer's filthiest, and exclusive home of the meanest sons of bitches in Mesopotamia! Guaranteed!

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)