TragicNotCute

Although somewhat unrelated, I thought this excerpt from the article was interesting and sad.

Asked in an interview if he regrets Balatro’s success, he replied: "Honestly, yeah. Don’t get me wrong - this has changed my life in a lot of amazing ways. I’m so grateful. But I do miss that time before. It was just a hobby that recharged my batteries. Sometimes I think, ‘Maybe I would’ve been happier if I had never released this game to the public.’

I envision a website where you can get a Trump Bible and a pardon all in the same transaction. And you’ll pay far out the ass.

From his Wikipedia page, some selected excerpts:

Thompson joined UnitedHealth Group in 2004 and was named CEO of UnitedHealthcare government programs that included Medicare and retirement, and community and state divisions in 2021. Under his leadership profits at UHC went from $12 billion in 2021 to $16 billion in 2023.

The investigation revealed that in 2019, UHC’s prior authorization denial rate was 8.7%. Thompson became CEO in 2021, and by 2022 the rate of denial had increased to 22.7%. For both Medicare and non-Medicare claims, UHC declines at a rate double the industry average.

A lawsuit was filed against Thompson, UnitedHealth chairman Stephen J. Hemsley and two other senior executives in May 2024 for alleged fraud and insider trading due to failing to disclose an antitrust investigation into the company by the United States Department of Justice and by selling stock options before the probe was made public.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Thompson_(businessman)

I’m really sick of how pervasive it is everywhere now. You can’t sell a product or provide a service nowadays without advertising some AI aspect. I wish that would go away.

I actually pay for a chatGPT premium account because personally I find a lot of value in it. I use it to help with writing, picture analyzing (what species of … is this), and a lot more. I just wish I could decide when I want AI involved and when I don’t.

I don’t know how it works under the hood, but from a user perspective it behaves like it’s in BFU. Biometrics disabled, phone code required.

Long press of power and volume up for a few seconds puts you into BFU.

Gave it a shot this weekend after seeing a piece about it on Friday. Generally I thought it was OK. The match making kind of sucks and it took me a number of “quick play” attempts until I was actually able to play.

Gameplay was fun, if not a bit frustrating. I got completely smoked by a couple of people and it felt like they had deep knowledge of the maps which was tough to counter.

All in all, for the price, it’s worth a pickup.

I suspect the ultimate destination for these turtles was “being consumed” vs being a pet.