iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Is it time for us to create a new worldwide design standard for common control mappings in video games? Shift - run C - crouch Right mouse - block F - Interact

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

There is a part of AI usage that most people don't actively talk about. Its something I think people intuitively understand but I'd like to talk about why AI is not always the right tool for a given problem. AI generates "non-deterministic output." That is one of its primary problems as a tool.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Watching a wave of articles go up this week about how young people are living with their parents because they cant afford rent/houses. The articles keep being like "this is gonna cause a market boom when they eventually buy" and I'm like... how delusional is that thinking.

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Boop @boopcat.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

I'd argue that, for the metrics, it's vastly MORE important that viewers turn this off. There's more viewers than streamers, so even if every streamer turned this off, if viewers don't, the executives can still claim that "most users don't care" and cram it down our throats even harder. Opt out.

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 14/08/2026

Here's Amazon's two new planned fossil-fuelled AI data centres next to the ENTIRE POWER GRIDS OF SEVERAL LARGE COUNTRIES Together, the two gas-burning data centres will emit more than Spain's entire grid, if built

Bar chart comparing 2025 national grid CO2e emissions (grey bars) with two Amazon fossil‑fuelled AI data centres (red bars), showing the Amazon sites at about 33 and 17.5 megatonnes CO2e—higher than many countries' entire power grids.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

There are a few things that seem funny about Claude watermarking: 1. LLMs feeling they have a right to own their IP is funny 2. LLMs basically being RNG and wanting to own IP is more funny 3. The algorithm for it sfaik seems resistant to patching/updating lol 4. Its gonna make outputs worse

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dannyodwyer @dannyodwyer.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Matthew Karch, CEO of multi-studio dev & publisher Saber Interactive, made the odd decision to stand up & shit his pants in front of the entire games industry over an ex-employee criticizing the studios' use of gen AI. My condolences to everyone who has to work around this type of feeble leadership

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Can we get a crossover with Ted Lasso and Shorsey as team coaches?

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Honestly so annoyed how much of recent/upcoming queer rep in media is hyperfixated on queer traumas. Setting all the plots around disease or times when gay guys had to be in the closet. Every time I see some new show announced with gay guys in it, it feels like its always truama now.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Finally watching Person of Interest. Theres a point where the machine is running through a hundreds of thousands of scenarios for a path forward, and I love that it takes time to ship two of the people together as part of the simulation. So me coded tbh.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

"Commitment to maximum employment" team hires the person who just did massive layoffs and two AI tech bros trying to create tools to reduce human workforce. This is basically the plot of an Outer Worlds questline. www.pcgamer.com/gaming-indus...

pcgamer.com

US Federal Reserve taps Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who just laid off 3,200 employees, to lead task force on jobs

The Federal Reserve says its newly-announced task forces represent a "commitment to price stability and maximum employment."

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Aftermath @aftermath.site · 07/07/2026

Union promises to take "all necessary legal and contractual action" to fight for laid-off workers as impacts on Blizzard, id Software become clear aftermath.site/microsoft-xbox...

doom guy looking real messed up and angry

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

The effects of the Xbox layoffs yesterday are going to ripple for years to come. There is so much heartbreak, grief, and anger coming from all directions of my network right now. I am so incredibly sad for what is going on in our industry.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Yearly reminder, if you want to be an ally, assume that all characters in media are gay unless explicitly told otherwise.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

As of today our vote has been officially certified! ^_^ www.nlrb.gov/case/19-RC-3... Our next step is to get ourselves into a local and begin voting on representatives ^_^.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Just remember, any time a headline is phrased as a question, the answer to the question is usually "no."

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Literally crazy that the autopay interest reduction for student loans only applies to loans that originated after 2012. So those of us who have been paying the longest but still have crazy payments because of ridiculous interest rates dont get any benefit.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

We have won the union vote by a huge margin! ^_^ So excited, looking forward to the certification at the end of this week and then moving on to contract negotiations! Thank you so much to everyone in our community supporting us!

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

When you and your SO both work in the games industry, the truism is that you shouldn’t work at the same company. You don’t want to both get laid off at the same time. Everyone in our industry basically lives with the 1/10 chance every year of getting laid off, best you can hope is to stagger them.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Been watching Resident Alien for 5 seasons. Its been cute and silly. I didn't expect for season 6 to hit me in my soul. I've been crying. What a blindside this season is, I was not expecting it.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

So anyway Rogue is still in superhell while the Doctor turned into his ex situationship then the show ended. Rogue deserved better.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

The anti lgbt folks are having a Very Normal Time of it.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Excited for Persona 6 but not expecting it for 3-5 years since no trailer or release date was given. Very excited for the new Fable with that trailer. Clockwork Revolution looks like an interesting gameplay mechanic, and I'm excited to try Metro for the first time if its co-op.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Drinking game, drink every time a game uses the term Spartan in the Xbox showcase

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Worst part of AI is that all the sci fi we were fed was like “you will be pressured into using it” but irl it’s worse than that. There’s no opt in or even opt out in most AI, everything you use is putting AI in place of itself without any consent.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Every time a cis person asks me about being trans, I ask them how their gender is working out for them. Every time they basically just describe the plot of The Enigma of Amigara Fault to me.

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Xib (They/Them) IS UNIONIZED!!! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @xib.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Rebekah was so wonderful and kind to talk to and handled this story in such a respectful and thoughtful way. This is in the article but highlighting: the NLRB does NOT require legal names, they work with whatever list the employer gives them for elections, it can be chosen names.

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Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

In a statement to @benmullin.bsky.social, Scott Pelley disputes what Bari Weiss said in this morning's editorial meeting, claiming he was never offered "a way back" as she claimed. "These executives cannot gain the trust of the staff with lies. This is antithetical to everything we stand for..."

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Been an interesting slew of new movies/shows that are explicitly homoromantic but ultimately pull a "no homo" in the end: DTF St Louis Half Man Peacemaker Humpday Stranger Things Saltburn Challengers Where the relationships are either one sided, or ultimately decide neither is gay.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Saw someone recommend "Off Campus" if you liked Heated Rivalry. Looked it up and Off Campus is a straight romance set in the world of hockey. Imagine thinking people liked Heated Rivalry because of hockey... wild misread my dude.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

So after openly deadnaming all our trans folks last week, leadership apologized, but then did not update employee's names for the vote today. This means our trans employees are being forced to openly deadname themselves in order to vote in today's union election. This is deeply fucked.

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Chase Taylor-Carter @chasecarter.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

I spoke to two members of United Wizards of the Coast-CWA about new and baffling anti-union efforts from WotC management, including an embarrassing "debate" format that nobody enjoyed. Workers also extended sympathy to Arena supervisors who are caught in the propaganda machine with little recourse.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Anyway a bunch of my trans coworkers just got deadnamed because leadership just copy pasted a bunch of their legal names as part of defining who is in-person vs remote voting and then blasted those names out to the entire team.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

A bunch of new anti-union emails came in while I was on my Memorial Day weekend, so fun, got to come up with a bunch of new hands to play now lol.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Genuinely, I need games that I install on my D drive to stop caching 5-10 gigs of data on my C drive. Thats not for you.

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Got another email from our leadership claiming they see negotiations as a “give and take” because they apparently can’t imagine a world where we can work together to improve our working conditions without punitively taking things away to do so. It’s our labor that makes the product.

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United Wizards of the Coast - CWA @uwotc-official.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

“I’m unionizing because we deserve working conditions that don’t change out from under us every time there’s a corporate reorg or another leadership figure comes and goes. We need the stability that comes from a union and a contract, so we know there’s always going to be ground beneath our feet.”

Picture of a UWOTC member alongside a quote about why they're unionizing: “I’m unionizing because we deserve working conditions that don’t change out from under us every time there’s a corporate reorg or another leadership figure comes and goes. We need the stability that comes from a union and a contract, so we know there’s always going to be ground beneath our feet.” -Rogue Kessler (they/them), Digital Product Manager

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United Wizards of the Coast - CWA @uwotc-official.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

"I'm organizing because we have no voice in our workplace. Leadership can just ignore our concerns if they so choose. A union allows us to have a voice that they cannot ignore."

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United Wizards of the Coast - CWA @uwotc-official.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

"I am organizing to ensure that my talented coworkers and I have an effectual voice to create a truly incredible place to work – a place that creates legendary games and does right by those who make them."

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United Wizards of the Coast - CWA @uwotc-official.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

"I’m unionizing because I love my workplace culture, my coworkers, and the game that we make. Unfortunately, Hasbro leadership has shown they are far less invested in those things than we are."

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United Wizards of the Coast - CWA @uwotc-official.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

"I’m unionizing to fight a system that has repeatedly failed to create paths for advancement, retention, and sustainable workloads, leaving teams like mine stuck in cycles of instability and burnout."

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Giving up like 6 hours of AI use at Amazon could have funded Wheel of Time through all the rest of the books. Sigh

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Mike Elgan @mikeelgan.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Now you can keep track of how many billions the AI companies are losing on AI. (Red is spending, green is revenue.) isaiprofitable.com

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Valentine Powell @valentineirl.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

This weekend I fixed a friend's sprinkler system (had 2 worn out wires and a misconnected common wire), built a grill, fixed my own sprinklers (broken heads), fixed my stand mixer (had a worn out gear), and repotted some trees. I feel really accomplished ^_^.

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Adam Holisky @adam.holisky.com · 21/05/2026

Also maybe having a former Blizzard exec taking point of an anti-unionizing push isn't exactly "the best" idea... I mean, what could POSSIBLY be dragged up from the past?

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