Awww, Little Bobby Tables is all grown up.

“Apple” has dozens of varieties that don’t taste all that similar either.

Art is about creating emotion. AI art does create emotions/feelings (hate, anger, nausea, etc).

Larry buys 18,000,000 calories worth of Cheetos in bags that don’t reseal, and will go stale within 60 days. How many heart attacks will he have in the next two months?

I guess she’s going to have to get a dog to keep her company.

Viral marketing for “You Can See Everything” perhaps?

It takes multiple books to cover, so this is the very, very basics:

~12,000 years in our future, Humanity goes to war with “thinking machines.” The war lasted a while, humans finally win, and vowed to never create such machines again. Another ~12,000 years later, Dune takes place.

By this time, the “no AI/computers” is such a deeply ingrained belief, that it has made its way into literally every facet of culture: politics, religion, commerce/transportation, etc. Of course, having fast calculations is also really handy, so humans resort to selective breeding programs and strict social castes that result in human calculators (Mentats) and other specialized professions. Even that’s not good enough to do interstellar travel calculations, so some people are imbued with “spice” (discovered on one planet, Arrakis, the Dune planet).

It’s basically space magic mushrooms. Opens the mind like nothing else. That’s the only way to do interstellar commerce, so it’s the most valuable commodity in the galaxy, and whoever controls the planet gets enormously powerful, and also has a huge target on their back. Meanwhile, a maternal religious sect is running its own breeding program to get to fulfill some “chosen one” prophecy.

Just a coincidence, same as last year.
And the year before…

You’d have to be some kind of American Idiot to miss the messages.

I also looked this up. The top flag is non-standard, but that general shape exists with either the inside or outside square colored blue. If we choose to interpret this as a small blue square on a white background, it means something like “I’m slowing down,” which would also fit.

Bit of a stretch, but it’s the closest to making sense.

Number 2 show in the country.

You might even see it on the internet.

Not sure about mobile, but on the desktop version of Google Maps, clicking that pin gives a source link:

https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70CMSD26FR0000009_7012_47QSWA21D004M_4732/

The pin seems to be in the wrong place (by a few miles), but the contract is real.

In a padlocked bedroom in the basement, officers found a lifelike silicone doll on a bed beneath a blanket, with a painting of a naked female resembling the victim hanging above it.

RIP to the lab tech tasked with getting DNA off that doll.

Larson claimed his communication was civil and argued that licensing board complaints were suggested by his therapist to get the victim to respond.

DOUBT.
DOUBT DOUBT DOUBT DOUBT DOUBT DOUBT DOUBT DOUBT DOUBT DOUBT DOUBT DOUBT

“What did Kash get caught doing this time” energy.

They aren’t going to let one person buy a disc, then share that disc among all their friends and they all get a copy.

Like I said, I’m reading between the lines a bit, but here’s another source from before the official announcement:
https://www.purexbox.com/news/2026/07/report-xbox-disc-to-digital-feature-will-allow-you-to-digitise-your-physical-collection

The only potential issue is with certain Xbox One discs - Microsoft has apparently been telling testers of the disc-to-digital program that “it all depends on how and when the disc was manufactured”

the discs will still work even after you’ve digitised them, and the digital entitlement won’t disappear unless you loan the disc to a friend or sell it on permanently.

Maybe “serial number” isn’t exactly the right word for what’s happening, but they apparently have some way of fingerprinting the disc itself so they know when it is being used by someone else.

It’s pretty clear that it means the next Xbox will be digital only, but MS wants to get ahead of the Sony backlash by letting people take their entire(*) library with them to the next gen.

It’s a dark future dressed up as short-term convenience.

* “supported disc(s)” only.

Reading between the lines on some of the rumors and announcements: it sounds like each disc already has a unique serial number associated with it that gets added to your account. If someone else uses the same disc and “claims” it, the digital license moves to that account.

Old magazine adverts are a fun way to spend an evening.

The original Castle Wolfenstein went for $30 in the second issue of Computer Gaming World from 1982. That would be over $100 in 2026 money.

For a cross-Atlantic flight stocking up AF1 during a Trump term, breaking out the XXXL food truck would be standard procedure.