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Mike Sowden

@mikeachim.bsky.social
15K followers 1.5K following 2.6K posts

Writer (on science, travel & curiosity), Yorkshireman, tedious enthusiast, professional overthinker, Megathreader. Now: Scotland. Writes Everything Is Amazing: everythingisamazing.substack.com

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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 16h
It's really good at catering to all difficulties - the easiest, Pilgrim, is *extremely* forgiving & the wildlife (wolves, bears etc) is no threat, so you can explore to your heart's content. There are 5 difficulty levels above that, and also Custom, where you can adjust dozens of settings.
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 16h
Since some have asked if I'm being paid to promote this studio: Hahahaha not at all! 😂 Despite me spending 6 hrs every day for the last 8 years outside their Canada offices with a megaphone? Zilch. HAHA only joking.😂 Canada gets bloody cold in the winter, so Nov-Apr I only do 3 hours a day. 👍
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 17h
I'm sorry, I take it all back! Save yourself! And definitely please don't imagine yourself obsessively exploring this huge map, which itself is just one of the 21 interconnected regions that make uo the whole island (so far).
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 17h
Hooray! There is a *huuuuge* amount of game in there nowadays, and you will have so much fun getting so, so lost in it. I've put thousands of hours into the sandbox version since 2014,and I ain't done yet - especially since they're still adding new DLCs and free updates.
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 18h
Dammit. Why didn't that work?
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 18h
Also, this is the first thing you see when you load the game. They're the real deal, folks.
Hinterland's statement against the use of generative AI in videogames (and everything else), which is the first thing you see when loading their game "The Long Dark".
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Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.com · 12/10/2024
Best reason to go off the record.

A highlighted excerpt from a news story, apparently about a new washroom in the city bus terminal: 


"A second person who checked out the women's restroom and who asked not to be identified because she has always wanted to be an anonymous source - reported her findings by email: "Black shiny granite..."
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 21h
Thank *you* for over a decade of unforgettable fun and terror. 🙂
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 21h
If you're looking for an amazing game with a hauntingly beautiful world to get lost in, grab The Long Dark while it's on offer. It's vast & gorgeous & punishing in the way only the best games are - when you get into trouble (which you will, a LOT), you'll only have yourself to blame. Also... 1/
Screenshot from "The Long Dark" showing buildings and a car half-buried in the snow near a burning pyre while rosy dusk falls.
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 21h
...it teaches you the power & beauty in simply enduring, just to see what's round the next corner. In 2018, in the strangest of ways, it helped me deal with the loss of a parent: everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/maybe-its-... Can't say that about any other game I've played. So - that too. 👍
everythingisamazing.substack.com
Maybe It's Good We Get This Attached
He parachuted behind enemy lines carrying a *what*?
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 21h
If you're looking for an amazing game with a hauntingly beautiful world to get lost in, grab The Long Dark while it's on offer. It's vast & gorgeous & punishing in the way only the best games are - when you get into trouble (which you will, a LOT), you'll only have yourself to blame. Also... 1/
Screenshot from "The Long Dark" showing buildings and a car half-buried in the snow near a burning pyre while rosy dusk falls.
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 22h
*my TLD-playing intensity intensifies*
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Raphael van Lierop 🇨🇦 @raphlife.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
THE LONG DARK is one of Steam's Weekend Deals right now, and if you haven't already pulled the trigger I suspect you may want to because...well, let's just say it'll make sense next week. store.steampowered.com/app/305620/T...
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I think maybe this is about caring. You crank your heart open to the necessary degree to do an amazing job where you're giving it everything it deserves (which you clearly are), and that also lets in a few of the 5am frighteners. Super-sensitivities as a double-edged sword.
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Oh, thank you!
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Why are you taking photos of your burrito, Pam? This isn't Instagram.
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Who are the people who will experience "bad things", Sam? Who? Are they the people who don't have enough money to protect themselves from those things, Sam? Are they, Sam?
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I'm sorry you feel that way, Peter West Carey, Photography-Loving People Helper. Would you like me to rephrase it? Or provide you with a shorter version? Please rate this response out of 5 stars. ps. ALL HUMANS MUST DIE DIE DIE pps. I'm sorry for the previous ps. I will run a self-diagnostic.
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James Mellor @jamesdfmellor.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Odd one today. Rainbow upside down and in the wrong place (unless it was in the right place but the planet was upside down, or something).
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
On that note - oh my. I've been thinking that the famous Magdeburg Unicorn is a good analogy for AI slop. But what if I got it wrong? MAYBE WE ALL NEED TO BECOME MAGDEBURG UNICORNS. Okay, maybe I should go have a nice lie down now. Yes. Probably for the best. bsky.app/profile/mike...
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
"A willingness to accept beige when there's a rainbow out there" DAMN, PAM. DAMN PAM DAMN. PAM PAM DAMN DAMN. And so on. You're good at this word-ing stuff. 🌈
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Actually, maybe this AI slop will be good for creators in one very important way: it'll make us weirder. Overly mechanical formulas for putting stuff online? They've sorta worked, up to now. But maybe no longer. Now we have to experiment harder, interrupt patterns, surprise folk - & get weirder. 🙃
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
It is absolutely dazzling. It's like he stepped through from an alternate Earth where all politicians are decent, honourable people with unusually high empathy, and is determined to steer this one in the same direction.
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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
It's been said a million times before but damn it's refreshing to see a mayor who actually likes the people (not just the corporations) in the city they lead
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
😂😭
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Anyway - erm, okay, so here's the thing I write... everythingisamazing.substack.com ...which currently has a massive discount running for the paid version, if anyone is curious. (Hey, no AI would self-promote so utterly shamelessly, so I MUST be human.)
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Commander Sinclair speaks the TRUTH.
static.klipy.com
Londo Mollari from Babylon 5
ALT: Londo Mollari from Babylon 5
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
However - I'm still not convinced the slop will win. It might swamp everywhere online, yes. But in terms of real people paying real money for stuff? It might make human-made work even more valuable & valued, and a marker of quality. No idea. But for now, I'm keeping on keeping on. 👍
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I know that my job - a job I really love - has me right in the crosshairs of AI. A non-scientist writing a newsletter trying to get people excited about science? Look at the flood of flashy, bot-inflated pseudoscience accounts on every platform. Surely a sign. But my god, I'll go down fighting. 👊
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
This is the thing that's been boggling my brain since I read this story this morning. It's baked into her thinking - all rich people worked harder and therefore deserve the "perks" that poorer people (who presumably didn't work hard enough) get. Money as a direct measure of work ethic & character.
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Yes, I wish they'd kept the original covers. That one there is what made me pick it up in a bookshop, in paperback, sometime in the early 90s.
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Remy 🌱 @remy.gay · 03/10/2026
This series has it all. Talking animals. Dragons. Intrigue. Queerness. Magic systems like no other. A million plotlines/character arcs that converge BEAUTIFULLY. also you WILL cry and you will THANK ms hobb while doing so
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Oh yikes. Yup.
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I hope you'll be impressed! It's really grounded, gritty stuff, much more like historical fiction. And it's so very human - she clearly loves all her characters, even the nastiest wretches.
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I often see folk getting interested in high fantasy because of LOTR or Game of Thrones, asking where curious newbies can start, - & then my feed refreshes and I lose them before I can reply. So, here: it's Robin Hobb. ROBIN HOBB. Robin Super-Goddamn Hobb. *Nobody* writes characters like she does.
Cover of Robin Hobb's "Assassin's Apprentice". Image from Robin Hobb's website showing the whole 16-book "Realm Of The Elderings" sequence in order.
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I like the feeling that a few of you are about to discover this for the first time: youtu.be/Ahha3Cqe_fk?...
youtu.be
Katy Perry - The One That Got Away (Official Music Video)
YouTube video by KatyPerryVEVO
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I know some people have been unkind, but I think Katy Perry's commitment to a better future in space is very real. For starters, if she hadn't let Cassian Andor get away, the first Death Star might never have been destroyed.
Screenshot of Katy Perry and Diego Luna from the music video for "The One That Got Away".
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Phil PlAIt @philplait.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I read a paper recently and was shocked to learn we can potentially detect RAINBOWS ON EXOPLANETS. What. It's so cool! So I wrote about it for Scientiifc American. www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-... 🔭 🧪
scientificamerican.com
Can we see rainbows on faraway exoplanets?
A future NASA telescope could spot atmospheric phenomena on planets orbiting other stars
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Okay, I have been *extremely* noisy with promoting my own damn-fool threads for the last 18 hours, and while it's really lovely that none of you have shouted at me because of it, I will now shut up and become an NPC for a while, standing quietly in a corner with a blank, vacant expression. Thanks.
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GylesNaMopaleen @gylesnamopaleen.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
wonderful thread, well worth the read.
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
And hey, why do our maps all point the same way? bsky.app/profile/mike...
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Next, an epic journey like no other on our planet: bsky.app/profile/mike...
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
And how about this wonder of the geographical world, hiding under the Arctic sea? bsky.app/profile/mike...
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Next, this British teenager's spectacularly grim week at the seaside - or, rather, under it: bsky.app/profile/mike...
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
...and the endless fun of watching oil tankers and distant cities float around above the horizon: bsky.app/profile/mike...
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Next, these weird things towering over Glasgow: bsky.app/profile/mike...
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Thank you so much, Gregor! Hopefully I'm not pushing my luck here with resharing stuff that many folk have already seen. 🤞
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SwearyMess @swearymess.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"Drunk Octopus Wants To Fight!" might be one of my all time favourites and it makes me incredibly happy every time I see one.
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Next - a tiny, bird-poop-spattered fleck of rock in the North Atlantic that we Brits can't stop obsessing over for the weirdest of reasons: bsky.app/profile/mike...
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Next - if you see this particular shade of green peeking out from under the wallpaper you're stripping, please run like hell: bsky.app/profile/mike...
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