Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Kyle Orland

@kyleor.land

6.5K followers 1.8K following 9.4K posts

Senior Gaming Editor, Ars Technica / The guy who LITERALLY wrote the book on Minesweeper -- https://bossfightbooks.com/products/minesweeper-by-kyle-orland Signal: kyleorl.31

bossfightbooks.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · Oct 17

My @bossfightbooks.bsky.social book on Minesweeper covers a game that was pre-installed on 4 billion Windows computers but has had very little previous scholarly attention.

bossfightbooks.com/products/min...

David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · Oct 17

Welcome to Bluesky. If you're a writer, don't forget to TELL US ALL ABOUT YOUR BOOK!

12 13 76

Reposted by Kyle Orland

Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 2h

aaand we are officially in the hide-your-neighbors stage

Sophie Sherry @sophiesherry.bsky.social · 5h

During a military-style raid on a building in Chicago’s South Shore, one resident heard a knock on his door.   It wasn’t the feds — it was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for help.

He let them hide in his unit for the next 3 days.

chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’

During the Sept. 30 raid one tenant protected a terrified girl and her mom. Remnants at the complex, including a detailed map of all the units, offer clues to what authorities may have known before th...

chicago.suntimes.com

170 4K 9.2K

Reposted by Kyle Orland

Assistant HR Director of Antifa @sethdmichaels.bsky.social · 4h

AI HUCKSTER: "i built you a machine that reads books for you."

ME: "can you build me a machine that unloads the dishwasher for me so *i* can read a book?"

11 230 890

Reposted by Kyle Orland

Mike Rose @mikerose.bsky.social · 10h

Somehow we had a successful game launch in 2025: A thread 🧵

We launched Little Rocket Lab this week, and it's been mega for us. Which is amazing, because well, the industry is bad right now!

So I wanna go through the things we did, in the hope that something here can be helpful to someone here

➡️➡️

11 60 270

Reposted by Kyle Orland

GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 7h

“we are telling you right now that we do not intend to honor anything we agree to” is certainly a negotiating position one can take

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8h

Q: Rescission are something Dems have said is a reason for a lack of trust. What rescissions are you discussing?

JOHNSON: We have more than $37t in debt. We're doing everything we can to get us back to sound fiscal responsibility. What does that include? A rescission package is part of our process

79 580 2.2K

Reposted by Kyle Orland

A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social · 12h

I've noticed the opposing team's fans only cheer when the opponents score on us. To win those fans over, I recommend we score on ourselves repeatedly; that will surely make them so happy they'll start supporting us. And I'm sure all our fans will keep cheering for us—who else is there to cheer for?

28 990 3.7K

Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 9h

The trade war will continue until morale improves

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 9h

* TRUMP: DEPENDENT ON WHAT CHINA SAYS ABOUT HOSTILE "ORDER" THAT THEY HAVE JUST PUT OUT, I WILL BE FORCED TO FINANCIALLY COUNTER THEIR MOVE

* TRUMP: FOR EVERY ELEMENT THAT THEY HAVE BEEN ABLE TO MONOPOLIZE, WE HAVE TWO

@reuters.com

2 2

Reposted by Kyle Orland

Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Podcast @gonebabygone.bsky.social · 11h

The robot devil from Futurama saying “you can’t just have your characters announce how they feel. That makes me feel angry.”

4 10 62

Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 11h

This is true, but NFTs couldn't do a passable job of faking your homework essay, which I think is gonna help AI latch on for a whole generation

perfect knight @shiningknightx.bsky.social · 1d

"we cant uninvent ai" no we cant but we couldnt uninvent nfts either and nobody gives a fuck about them anymore

1 10

Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 11h

I discovered this game via emulation while working on Super Mario Bros. HQ in the '90s. The fact that there were Mario spin-offs that hadn't been localized for the US blew my little mind. www.endlessmode.com/video-games/...

32-Year Old Mario Game Finally Makes Worldwide Debut On Nintendo Classics

Nintendo announced new games added to its Nintendo Classics library, including a weird one: the previously Japan-only Mario & Wario.

www.endlessmode.com

Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 11h

Difficulty sliders and accessibility menus are great, but there's something special about having to go outside the game and hunt for a magic sequence of buttons if you want to "cheat."

arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/...

The difference comes down to context. Back in the day, players usually found cheat codes from a source outside of the game itself, passing around the arcane knowledge through online forums, printed magazines, or schoolyard rumors. That outside sourcing made it clear that, while these codes were obviously part of the game in a sense, they were also somehow separate from the core gameplay experience. Even the term "cheat code" connotes the idea that you're getting away with something by evading the game's built-in rules.

An ever-present "god mode" toggle or "accessibility" menu, on the other hand, presents those options as contextually valid and at least somewhat intended ways for different players to experience the same base game. And that's perfectly fine in many cases; as Hamaguchi pointed out, sometimes players will just want to experience the story as quickly as possible. But in games where the difficulty is integral to the developer's intent, putting that kind of option upfront can confuse the message and confuse the player as to which is the most "correct" way to play.

Toggling an "easy mode" through a menu is like flipping a light switch that the developers left invitingly available in a little-used corner of the house. Tracking down a cheat code, on the other hand, feels more like going to the hardware store and asking for help to install your own light switch. The effect is the same, but the path to get there makes all the difference.

Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 11h

ICYMI, I made a passionate plea for the return of the old-school cheat code in gaming arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/...

It’s time for game developers to bring back the cheat code

Arcane hidden options can offer accessibility without confusing the “core” game experience.

arstechnica.com

1 1 8

Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 1d

Sad but true

AmericanTruckSongs10 @ethangach.bsky.social · 1d

Music streaming platform discovery all but killed music reviews as listening guides.

The same is mostly true of Steam.

Unfortunately the economics just aren't there to spend 10 hours telling folks what a game most people have never played, let alone heard of, means or why it's important.

1 3

Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 1d

We have to RETVRN to the days of the honest-to-goodness cheat code!

arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/...

Why the humble video game cheat code is overdue for a comeback

Arcane hidden options can offer accessibility without confusing the “core” game experience.

arstechnica.com

Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 1d

I wonder if anything was going on at the Capitol that day that might have required a law enforcement response from FBI agents...

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 1d

“To all the FBI Agents who were forced by Christopher Wray to go to the Capitol on the afternoon of January 6th…”

1 1 7

Reposted by Kyle Orland

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 2d

genuinely think they are feeding him AI videos

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Trump: "I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have stores anymore. They don't even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows."

530 2.4K 14K

Reposted by Kyle Orland

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 1d

It is pretty galling that the Supreme Court spent four years telling Biden "you can't do that without Congress" then allowed Trump to seize a once-unthinkable amount of power from Congress within nine months and concentrate law-making authority almost entirely in the executive branch.

220 2.6K 9.7K

Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 3d

How long would you estimate?

Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 3d

Anyone playing/watching Blippo+ and want to give me a hint as to how you're supposed to unlock new stuff? I feel like I am missing something...

3 1

Reposted by Kyle Orland

Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Podcast @gonebabygone.bsky.social · 3d

Evil Andy Rooney

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3d

Trump: "We call them the water drugs. The drugs that come in through water. They're not coming. There are no boats anymore. Frankly, there are no fishing boats. There are no boats out there period, if you want to know the truth. Does anybody go fishing anymore?"

2 2 35

Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 3d

At some point we just effectively don't have a congress

George Pearkes @peark.es · 3d

Well that's not how appropriations work at all

*WHITE HOUSE TO TRANSFER TARIFF REVENUE TO FUND WIC: LEAVITT

Reposted by Kyle Orland

Shane Glackin @eltorosolo.bsky.social · 3d

This is fiendishly clever, fiendishly evil, and almost certainly what they're trying to do.

Brian Beutler @brianbeutler.bsky.social · 3d

Any Project 2029-style rebuilding project that tables confrontation with the Supreme Court will doom itself. www.offmessage.net/p/the-suprem...

The Supreme Court's Dastardly Plan Makes Court Reform Obligatory

If Democrats can't avoid the trap Republican justices are setting, we'll never recover from the Trump fiasco.

www.offmessage.net

1 11 44

Reposted by Kyle Orland

Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 3d

Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think

18 59

Reposted by Kyle Orland

rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 3d

both the mainstream pro- and anti-AI arguments are entirely various types of cope

12 40 410

Reposted by Kyle Orland

rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 3d

"the AI bubble will collapse because the technology has plateaued and cannot improve"

will_smith_spaghetti.mpeg

"we are on the verge of superintelligence"

seahorse_emoji.txt

10 34 300

Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 3d

This is wild

Weasel Hills C.C. (Hole 19) @wildweasel486.bsky.social · 3d

Some inappropriately creepy golf content - Sente Mini Golf (1986) has DIP switches that add photos of missing children to the attract mode (and to enable a "LOCATED" message per kid). These profiles were replaced with new ones in updated ROMs.

Modern operators seem to leave them on, a lot. 😨

A Reddit post from r/creepygaming by user SuperCamouflageShark - I saw these missing child reports on the attract mode of a Sente Mini-Golf arcade machine recently.

The photo is of a Sente Mini Golf machine, displaying black-and-white photographs of missing children: Tahj Allen Merriman, and Steven Phillip Curtis. Their profiles are filled out in red text.

Another photograph of a different Sente Mini Golf machine, displaying the same photos of missing children.