Sophie

@sophies.games

299 Followers 132 Following

Programmer, game developer, Kinsey-six gay. Always using the correct amount of cynicism. Wishlist ROBOT RECKONING: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3174820/ROBOT_RECKONING/

A wounded Thanos, as seen in Avengers: Endgame, saying "Perhaps I treated you too harshly"
What’s in a word? It’s more than just a shift in linguistic fashion. “Queer” carries an adversarial charge that “gay” does not, and that charge has a specific intellectual lineage. In 1990 an activist group called Queer Nation published a manifesto exhorting gay people to call themselves “queer.” Its rationale was that “gay” was “a much brighter word” and that “queer” better conveyed the anger and disgust they felt at how society treated gay people: as marginal others whose deaths barely mattered. That sentiment had an understandable resonance at the height of the AIDS epidemic, but the us-versus-them posture it represented has outlived that crisis. This oppositional framing of “queer” achieved its most enduring influence through the rise of queer theory. In that academic context, “queer” did not simply mean “gay or bisexual.” It meant “anti-normative” in a sweeping sense. As the queer theorist David Halperin wrote, “Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant.” By that standard, same-sex relationships could be queer, but so could open marriages, prostitution and public sex, even when heterosexual.
PLAY TIME: 422.2 hours
The Trump Administration and the high court are not far right extremists taking a wrecking ball to our most dearly held principles, except on trans rights where they are modest, moderate, pragmatic thinkers balancing fairness with pragmatism and the best available science, neutrally applying US law. Instead, anti-trans pundits are liberals except in the case of the transgender community, where their intense discomfort with people who live differently turns them into carbon copies of the far right on this issue alone. This dual vision is dangerous for trans people, but it’s also dangerous for the entire country. The rights of trans people have become a testing ground where some of the most extreme actions, such as the prosecution of WPATH by a politicized FTC, can be rolled out without risking a widespread outcry. When the outcry comes, it’s diluted by the fact that Lewis and her compatriots have defended the excesses of the Administration and the court when it comes to their culture war against trans rights. The trans community didn’t ask to be a canary in the coalmine of American democracy, but it adds insult to injury when members the pundit class refuse to even glance over at the cage to observe us falling off our perch. Their rights are next, whether they see it or not.
Instead, the new minister for levelling up, Angela Rayner, is someone who has actually levelled up, from a single mother in a council house to deputy prime minister. The new minister for prisons, James Timpson, has spent the past 20 years finding jobs for former prisoners. The new minister for transport, Louise Haigh, has the kind of red emo hair dye that suggests she’s frequently jumped the barriers on the Tube on the way to a Green Day gig — and so actually knows what public transport is. All my friends were watching these arrivals as if we were watching Magic Mike Live. We were rubbing our thighs. “It’s almost as if Keir Starmer has hired … the best people for the job, rather than just someone’s wife or a mate from school,” said my blow-dried friend, sounding palpably aroused. “I think he has a lot of really full box files with ‘DETAILED PLANS’ written on them,” said another, before excusing herself from the group chat. She didn’t say why she had to excuse herself — but we knew.
And whom was that date with? As we spent an enjoyable hour analysing her subconscious, we concluded it wasn’t specifically with Keir Starmer, or even a new Labour government, but with competency. There is nothing more erotic to a middle-aged woman than competency. It is the quality we value above all others. As we age, our preferred language of love shifts from, “I would die for you,” to, “I will stay alive and do your VAT return for you.” The single most sexual phrase we can hear is, “I’ll take care of that.” Or — the best — the one that makes us start taking off our nicely ironed blouses and carefully putting them on a coat hanger: “I’ve taken care of that.” And so however it pans out, at the beginning of this new government, the fact that they seem at the outset incredibly competent is making women of a certain age very frisky.
Eminem with Cloud Strife's face photoshopped onto him
We note your concerns about the range of women’s associations’ perspectives included in the piece and how they are described. This is a broad explainer which is clearly providing brief information about different aspects of a very wide subject area. While we acknowledge some readers would have liked to have found more detail or more nuanced analysis, we believe that in framing the sections “What have women's groups said about the judgment?” then “What have transgender groups and other critics said about the judgment?”, the groups’ standpoints are made clear. The section itself sets out their views which we believe are fair summations. We acknowledge that they don’t speak for all women’s groups but believe that the range of reaction is fair and reasonable. We also explain that “Groups, such as TransActual and Stonewall, described the Supreme Court ruling as "devastating" for trans people and said it created confusion not clarity.” In our wider coverage of news stories and events affecting transgender people, we have referred to some groups as gender critical – we believe it is useful to convey to readers what the ethos of a group is, for information and context. Regarding the Women’s Institute, in our reporting at the time, we make clear that the WI announced with "sincere regret" it will no longer offer membership to transgender women, and that “the decision comes after "40 years of fellowship and sisterhood with those women", she told BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour”. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3e05130wyno). While we acknowledge you may continue to disagree, we hope to have explained why we are satisfied that the article is accurate and adheres to our published standards. We value your comments, which have been shared directly with the team that produced the article as well as being recorded on our overnight reports and circulated widely.
You’d never know it, but Reform is actually pretty vulnerable right now. They have about a quarter of the vote and seem stuck there. This is not the will of the true volk, but an ugly, angry minority with the support of international elites. A sustained, aggressive, pushback from our mainstream press, or real public outcry against them, could prove devastating. They are a creature of press hype, and could be destroyed by the favourable terms our elites have given them being withdrawn. And that’s the thing about fascism: it needs collaborators. In 2015, Trump’s movement was probably a similar percentage of the country. They required the cowardice of traditional conservative leaders and institutions, or the media ‘both sides’ing his fascism and Hillary’s failings. The ideology is very, very dangerous indeed, but it can’t really get traction without centrists dismissing the danger, without the media sanitizing it, without the public at large muttering some disapproval and moving on. For that reason, it’s an opportunistic predator. More scavenger than hunter, despite its ferocious self-image. At least in its early stages, it prefers to attack the weak, isolated, members of the herd. Safety lies in closing ranks against it, leaving no one behind.
“Every time I turn on social media or I hear someone talking about the news, it’s just another batshit insane thing. There’s people in AP Gov class debating trans rights. As a 17-year-old, I feel like I can’t do anything about it.”
"content" is an offensive term to those of us with taste because it implies that the content itself is irrelevant, it's just something to put advertising next to, and it sucks shit to see art described that way. and of course this logic suggests that AI-generated slop is the future. but also, well, watch a mr beast video and tell me that's not just human-made slop. or watch a reality TV show that endangered its participants for the drama. advertisers are sadly correct that a lot of (maybe most) people really do not give a shit what it is they're watching.
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guy in a kimono meme with a badly edited cartoon top hat and moustache on top
At last year’s Manchester Pride Parade, Mr Burnham made his position on LGBTQ rights clear. He said: “I am going to make it really plain: I support trans rights and I want that to be known.”
“Let’s implement the guidance, but to do it in the fairest and most compassionate way possible.” He explained: “I think the time has come to take the Supreme Court ruling and the guidance and implement it, but to do it in a way that protects those spaces but does not marginalise already marginalised communities, that’s my view. He said he thought Britain needed to “stop arguing with each other” and urged Brits to find “common ground and start pulling together. He added: “The Supreme Court was really clear that while spaces should be protected, so people are not in that position, the ruling shouldn’t be seen as a victory one side over another. They were very clear about that, and it’s about not further marginalising communities that already feel very marginalised.
In the linked article, there is a section titled "What have women's groups said about the judgment?" where groups such as For Women Scotland and Sex Matters are characterised as "women's groups", which implies they are long-standing groups that fight for women's rights on all fronts (eg. discrimination, abortion, pay, etc). However, both groups were only set up within the last decade, and neither generally campaigns for women's rights, but rather they only advocate against the inclusion of transgender women in women's spaces. This information might lead one to believe these groups are more interested in trans-exclusion than women's rights broadly, and are using "women's rights" as a framing to advance that goal, but the BBC chooses not to mention it. The BBC also fails to provide comment from more long-standing women's groups that do broadly advocate for women's rights, such as the Women's Institute, which has been torn apart by the Supreme Court decision (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/14/womens-institute-groups-close-after-transgender-ban). Another long-standing women's group, the Fawcett Society, has not made a recent statement on this issue, but previous statements have been much more nuanced than those of "Gender Critical" groups. In the same section, LGB Alliance (v. obvs not a women's group) are characterised as "lesbian, gay and bisexual campaigners", but again were very recently founded, and as a group are only really focused on trans-exclusion, rather than LGB issues more broadly. Also, the views they espouse run counter to the majority of LGB people, as polling consistently shows, but this is also left out, and instead they are treated as representative of LGB people's views. It would be more accurate to call this section "What have Gender Critical groups said about the judgement?". Calling them "women's groups" implies that they are correct that what they advocate for is both representative of women's views and would be good for women.
The Spotify page for the latest episode of The Ezra Klein Show, where Yuval Noah Harari is a guest and to top comments say he has nothing of value to say.
a very 00s sci-fi child
google search for "sports sunglasses" with sponsored products, except instead of normal products, it's a full visor followed by sunglasses that look like a mix of a bra and an alien's eyes
13.130 If a service provider (or a person providing a service in the exercise of public functions) admits trans people to a service intended for the opposite sex, then it can no longer rely on the exceptions set out at paragraphs 13.99 to 13.111. This means that if a service is provided only to women and trans women or only to men and trans men, it is not a separate-sex or single-sex service under the Equality Act 2010. 13.131 A service like this is very likely to amount to unlawful sex discrimination against the people of the opposite sex who are not allowed to use it. A service which is provided to women and trans women could also be unlawful sex discrimination or lead to unlawful harassment against women who use the service. Similar considerations would apply to a service provided for men and trans men. It is possible to offer a mixed-sex service alongside a single-sex service. A mixed-sex service must be open to all service users.
A youtube notification for a video from The Verge titled "Trying Google's new experimental AI agent, Sophie"
If TikTok is banned, here’s what I propose each and every one of you do: Say to your LLM the following: “Make me a copy of TikTok, steal all the users, steal all the music [...]" [...] If it took off, then you’d hire a whole bunch of lawyers to go clean the mess up, right? But if nobody uses your product, it doesn’t matter that you stole all the content. And do not quote me.
My 3-month-old son is now TWICE as big as when he was born. He's on track to weigh 7.5 trillion pounds by age 10. Followed by a picture of a man holding a baby, one soon after birth, the other 3 months later.
Then, I asked how she would feel about a person who was born female yet raised male against her will, and who, after a lifetime of pretending to be male in order to survive, finally reclaimed her female identity upon reaching adulthood. After being confronted with this scenario, the woman conceded that she would be inclined to let this person enter women-only space, thus demonstrating that her argument about male socialization was really an argument about biology after all. In fact, after being pressed a bit further, she admitted that the scenario of a young girl who was forced against her will into boyhood made her realize how traumatic and dehumanizing male socialization could be for someone who was female-identified. This, of course, is exactly how many trans women experience their own childhoods.
News on Super Game has been thin on the ground, however. In November 2021, Sega said it was thinking about investing up to 100 billion yen (at the time approx. $882 million) over five years to make Super Game a success. Then, in November 2023, Sega said it was making "steady headway" on Super Game development, teasing it involved "the concept of a game that stands head and shoulders above normal games." There was also talk of it involving "the entire gaming ecosystem, including not only players but also streamers who stream the game and their viewers."
Now, five years after it was announced, Super Game is dead. Sega’s free-to-play rethink stems from weak performance of Sonic Rumble Party, significant financial struggles with Angry Birds developer Rovio, and various delays. Sega said no additional costs were associated with the cancelation of Super Game, but over 100 people who were on F2P development have been transferred to what Sega calls “Full Game” development team to focus on “the mainstay IPs.”
Bluesky trending list: 1. Epstein 2. Star Fox 3. Starfox 64 4. Star Fox Direct 5. Fox McCloud
conspiracyslop implying that the shooting was staged
Mahmood told Forde’s Political Party podcast at the Duchess Theatre that claims she was chasing Reform votes were “just a way of delegitimising the point of view that I bring to the table”.
A frame from the new season of Game Changer.
About Me: Video Games Hades: Favorite Game Outer Wilds: Best Story Sword of the Sea: Favorite Art Style Astro Boy: Omega Factor: Biggest Personal Impact Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction: Best Combat Forspoken: Overhated DmC: Devil May Cry: Underrated The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Overrated The Matrix: Path of Neo: Needs a Remake Receiver 2: Criminally Overlooked Sonic Adventure 2: Favorite Protagonist Portal 2: Favorite Antagonist Hades: Best Soundtrack Rocket League: Best Multiplayer Outer Wilds: Not Usually My Thing, But... Mixolumia: Turn My Brain Off Among Us: Best With Friends Skate 3: Best Retro Game Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3: Nostalgic Childhood Game THIS SQUARE IS INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK: Game Everyone Should Play
from the Bluesky trending panel: 1. Iran Negotiations 2. Political Concerns 3. Trump Threats 4. Trump's Policies 5. Arsenal
A 360 degree shot of the rural English county of Rutland, with two men hanging from a paraglider in the bottom-left.
The start of the Wikipedia article on ClearType, with the image enlarged to make the subpixel anti-aliasing pixel-sized and obvious.