J.D. Vance Full Name, also known as J.D. Vance Real Name, refers to a series of parody Google search result screenshots that joke about the initials "J.D." in the name of U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance.
The Lo Stve Tattoo or Lost Steve Tattoo, also known as the "Love Lost" Tattoo, is a photo of a tattoo fail resembling a broken heart that appears to read "lo stve" but is meant to read "lost love," depicting a red heart broken in half, the left half reading, "lo," and the right half reading, "ve," revealing a grey heart underneath reading, "st." The tattoo was posted to the /r/shittytattoos subreddit in June 2023 and went viral over the following years through reposts, becoming a piece of engagement bait for its confusing nature. One of the most common misunderstandings of the tattoo is "lost Steve."
Jumping Dog "Tink" or Jumping Black Lab is a series of memes that use a photo of a black lab named Tink jumping in the air and facing the camera. The photo was uploaded by the dog's owner, X user @kwoade, in June 2025 and went viral. It inspired a variety of reposts and edits over the following months, which take the dog and place her in new settings. Some of the most popular memes place the dog on video game covers.
The Xperia Play was the best phone I ever had. In a world of boring plain black slab style phones, I think I finally found one I'm excited about.
Handheld gaming hardware head Ayaneo has just unveiled its first phone. The Ayaneo Pocket Play is a smartphone with a sliding display that can be pushed up to reveal a d-pad, AXBY face buttons, and two virtual joystick touchpads.
We don't yet know what processor this bad boy will end up boasting, or even the device's display dimensions. However, given that Ayaneo is known for Android-based gaming handhelds such as the Snapdragon-based Ayaneo Pocket S, perhaps I won't need all three guesses to figure out this phone's headlining hardware specs.
So, like most of its ilk, it will likely be an Android device. That means we won't be able to play our precious PC games on it without an emulator, such as Winlator, which is a bit of a job to set up. At least other forms of Android emulation are generally excellent these days.
Though there's no gesture at a release window beyond the words 'coming soon,' I'm already intrigued. For one thing, there's something refreshingly retro about the Ayaneo Pocket Play's sliding design; some folks have already made comparisons to ye olde Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 from 2008 with its sliding keyboard panel, and 2011's more gaming-geared, PlayStation-themed Xperia Play.
Crossing paths with it again, perhaps it's high time to dust off the arc-slider phone design and see whether we can, perhaps, make gaming handhelds actually pocket-sized once more. Besides that, otherwise foldable screen tech isn't really an open-and-shut design decision.
Though foldable gaming handhelds aren't yet mainstream, foldable phones sort of are for those with deep pockets—and you've got to treat those bits of kit like the little princes they are if you want that pliable screen to keep working. Mind you, one creator's multi-day stream that tested the hinge of a Samsung Fold 200,000 times may suggest modern foldable phones are hardier than I'm giving them credit for.
At any rate, I'm cautiously optimistic about the Ayaneo Pocket Play. Granted, once the Kickstarter ends, experience tells me this gaming phone will cost a pretty penny indeed, and there's no guarantee Ayaneo will even support the device long-term. Given the fact I'm currently rocking a five-year-old Samsung Galaxy A52s, I'm not really looking to commit to a new device that will slide out of my life at the first opportunity.
Meh, I'm sure no one ever regretted pointing a camera at their butt.
For just $599 and your dignity, Kohler's new "smart" toilet cam will lovingly photograph your excrement. Ostensibly to analyze your gut health, but, and this is a big but, share those snapshots with the cloud. Nothing says privacy like a lens staring up from your plumbing and a company pretending Transport Layer Security is "end-to-end encryption." — Read the rest
While we can design robots and AI models to do all sorts of things, this very stable genius gave a clanker a gun and practically begged it to shoot him. The only interesting part is how quickly the AI took the opportunity when this AI/robotics researcher found a way around the machine's prohibitions. — Read the rest
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A week after the indie horror game Horses was banned from Steam, and just one day before it was set to launch elsewhere, Epic Games has decided that it too will not allow the game to be sold on its storefront. Publisher Santa Ragione said in a blog update that Epic informed it of the decision at 5 pm CET/11 am ET on December 1, saying the game violates its policies on "inappropriate content" and "hateful or abusive content."
Epic didn't tell Santa Ragione how exactly Horses violated its guidelines, according to an email from the publisher sent to PC Gamer, but only made what it described as "broad and demonstrably incorrect claims" about it. Santa Ragione filed an appeal, but it was rejected 12 hours later with no further explanation. Epic also indicated the game could be updated to bring it into compliance, but "the email did not include any information on what would need to be changed," Santa Ragione said, and even if it had there'd be no way to make extensive changes one day ahead of release.
Epic was not more forthcoming on the matter in a statement provided to PC Gamer. "We set clear guidelines for the content that can be distributed on the Epic Games Store and found violations of those guidelines during our extensive review," Epic Games communications director Jake Jones said.
Part of that review process, Epic told Santa Ragione, included filling out an International Age Rating Coalition questionnaire on Horses, which it says resulted in an Adult Only (AO) rating. This seems odd: Santa Ragione said it had already filled out the questionnaire as part of Epic's submission process, and did not receive an AO: "We received a PEGI 18 and an ESRB M rating, as currently displayed on the Horses coming soon page on the Epic Games Store." Both of those ratings can still be seen on the storefront.
(Image credit: Andrea Lucco Borlera/Santa Ragione)
Santa Ragione also questioned why Epic would redo the questionnaire at all, given that developers have to fill it out themselves in order to be allowed to sell their games in the first place. It further claimed that builds of Horses had already been submitted and reviewed by Epic, "with the final achievements-ready build being approved for release 18 days prior to launch."
As it did following the Steam ban, Santa Ragione argued that Horses "does NOT contain explicit or frequent depictions of sexual behavior."
"All nudity in the game is completely censored via pixelation," the publisher wrote. "There is never any visible sexual act involving genitalia and all animations are stylized and unrealistic. Additionally, in the three hours of gameplay contained in the game, there are only four brief and censored sexual sequences, with two of them happening mainly off camera. And finally, we explained that the content presented does not in any way promote abuse (including animal abuse). The game is a strong critique of violence and abuse in general."
Horses does have some nudity, though, as well as adult themes, and that can be vexing for an industry that's often more focused on selling product than making art, or even mere provocative statements—particularly when it's already facing pressure from major payment processors over adult-oriented content. Epic has always been more selective about what it allows on its storefront than Steam, which is home to numerous hardcore sex games, so it's not entirely surprising that Epic would bow out of Horses too.
But that it would wait until this last minute to make the move—literally the day before release—doesn't speak especially highly of its processes, and it makes me wonder if this isn't so much about the game as it is about the public's perception of it, largely the result of Steam's refusal to carry it.
Despite the Steam and Epic bans, Horses is still available on GOG, Itch.io, and the Humble Store: Humble had initially intended to distribute the game via Epic Store keys, but with the new ban in place it opted to go with a DRM-free direct download instead.
November 24, 2025 - Flock Safety’s CEO Garrett Langley called the privacy and transparency activists who are creating a public database to track the locations of flock cameras at https://deflock.me “terrorists" and said they are “closer to antifa than anything else…”, meaning that to be a bad thing apparently.
Flock Safety is a tech-company that’s putting up thousands of AI-powered cameras around the USA. From the deflock.me site:
Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs or LPRs) are AI-powered cameras that capture and analyze images of all passing vehicles, storing details like your car’s location, date, and time. They also capture your car’s make, model, color, and identifying features such as dents, roof racks, and bumper stickers, often turning these into searchable data points.
These cameras collect data on millions of vehicles regardless of whether the driver is suspected of a crime. These systems are marketed as indispensable tools to fight crime, but they ignore the powerful tools police already have to track criminals, such as cell phone location data, creating a loophole that doesn’t require a warrant.
Data from ALPRs has led to wrongful arrests, profiling, and stalking ex-partners by police officers. There’s no substantial evidence that ALPRs effectively prevent crime, despite Flock’s unethical attempts to prove otherwise.
ALPRs are a serious risk to your privacy and civil liberties. These systems continuously record your movements without a warrant, probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion.
Baldur's Gate 3 is well over two years old and its developer is no longer making major content additions, but its players are still finding fresh and exciting ways to crack open its ruleset towards their own gamebreaking ends. This week, as spotted by GamesRadar, BG3 players have found a way to recruit a fighting force of the most powerful beings in Larian's version of Faerun.
It's children. They're building armies of children.
The process is laid out in a YouTube short from BG3 aficionado and seeming evil mastermind Morgana Evelyn titled "Child Labour is Unbeatable." That name alone should tell you what kind of moral dimensions we're working with here. If the idea of conscripting a horde of combat orphans doesn't pass your ethical sniff test, you probably won't enjoy where the rest of this goes.
To pull this off, you'll need a level 7 Companion character with access to the Dominate Beast and Polymorph spells. With that character, you'll need to select your ideal child combatant—or because they all perform identically, any child combatant—and polymorph them. Once they're in sheep shape, hit them with Dominate Beast, and then travel to your camp.
Once there, Morgana recommends enabling turn-based mode, because the timing windows here can be particular. Dismiss the companion who did the spells on your chosen child from your party, and wait until you see the notification that their concentration has ended for the Polymorph and Dominate Beast spells. Once it has, re-recruit them before the spells expire, quickly leave camp, and immediately save the game.
(Image credit: Larian)
Once you load that save, that companion will now permanently have a child follower. Why, you might be asking, is that a good thing? After all, children aren't renowned for their battlefield prowess.
That's where you and whoever distributes battlefield renown would be wrong, and—Morgana concludes—you likely have German media law to thank for it. As Germany's Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle explains, German law requires products to be rated for appropriate ages, and holds providers of digital content responsible for ensuring that children aren't exposed to "material which is likely to harm the development of children or young people."
That harmful material, according to Germany's Youth Protection Act, includes depictions of "serious physical or mental suffering in a manner that violates human dignity" or are "likely to seriously endanger the development of children or adolescents." In this case, we're counting "children dying" as a violation of human dignity that, if it was portrayed in a game, could prevent it from being advertised or distributed, or force retailers to pay a fine for selling it.
Aside from its being frowned on by most ethical frameworks, Germany's laws and similar laws elsewhere are why killing children tends to be impossible in games—Baldur's Gate 3 included. Morgana probably shouts out Germany's laws specifically because of a brief controversy that bubbled up online after Steam started mandating ratings for its German store in 2024.
In BG3's case, the particular way in which Larian tried to make children unmurderable makes them terrifyingly potent in a fight if you can find a way to get them into combat under your command, like with the method above.
As you'd expect, your child conscripts are unkillable. But more than that, because they generally aren't intended to be in combat in the first place, they ignore BG3's combat initiative order. In other words, they have infinite attacks.
I might object to the methods, but I can't deny the potency.
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Smiles and Tears at the end of Earthbound is always the emotional book-end to that story, but I think my vote for best sound track ever goes to The Legend of Zelda, the Windwaker. I could listen to Dragon Roost Island for hours,
Soundtrack Sunday
Welcome to Soundtrack Sunday, where a member of the PC Gamer team takes a look at a soundtrack from one of their favourite games—or a broader look at videogame music as a whole—offering their thoughts or asking for yours!
I am, what scientists and scholars might call, a big fat crybaby. I'll cry at just about anything if you pair it with a mildly sad-sounding violin. Hell, even then I might not need that much convincing. Being moved by just about anything in life is an incredibly blursed lifestyle.
Nothing quite gets me bawling like a good videogame, though. Crying alongside protagonists, crying for them. Sobbing for side characters, nameless NPCs, maybe even a creature minding its own business before being mercilessly mowed down by me/an enemy/some omnipotent god. Heck, I'll even cry out of pure joy or excitement for something that's about to happen. And almost every single time, it's thanks to the music that accompanies those moments.
I'll never forget the first time I played Final Fantasy 10 and witnessed Tidus and Yuna's scene in Lake Macalania together in all its genuinely mind-blowing 2001 CGI glory. The water reflecting off their faces while Yuna weeps before the first notes of Suteki Da Ne start to trickle in. The delicate vocals of Rikki as the two kiss, descending under the water while holding each other. I remember watching with the biggest, cheesiest smile on my face as tears cascaded down my cheeks. It's downright beautiful, and the music is half of what makes that scene so powerful.
(Okay, I had to go and watch it again. And did I cry? Maybe just a tiny bit. It still gets me, alright?!)
Of course, that's not the only time I've cried at a videogame. Kingdom Hearts' Dearly Beloved makes me shed a couple tears of nostalgia whenever I get the itch to boot the game back up. All the pent-up anticipation leading up to one particular trial (spoilers in that link!) in Final Fantasy 14's Endwalker expansion started leaking out of my tear ducts when its theme song started playing, partly I was practically vibrating with giddiness at that point.
(Image credit: Disney)
But what about you? Has a videogame song or soundtrack ever made you choke up, blubber, or full-on wail because all of the emotions were just too dang strong—come on, surely you have, don't leave me as the only one who's done this.
So which soundtracks cause you to get a lump in your throat when you hear them? Let us know in the comments and be sure to tell us why.
The creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds, sat down for a chat at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit in South Korea earlier this month to talk about a wide range of topics, including AI in software development, his role within the software ecosystem, and the state of Linux today.
When asked whether he'd like to say anything about the most recent Linux Kernel release, 6.18 RC4, Torvalds seemed reluctant to espouse on the virtues of the update:
"No, so that's the current kernel version. I like boring, and boring to me is no super exciting new features that will break machines for millions of people around the world."
"6.18 does not seem to [have] problems. But we had a rash of test failures, and it turned out they were… actually failures of the tests, not of the kernel," Torvalds continued. "So I was a bit worried a couple of weeks ago, but it seems to be shaping up to be another incremental, and boring in the best possible way, release."
Certainly, there's a lot to be said for boring. And while Torvalds has been openly critical of other tech industry giants over the years, it's difficult not to look at these comments and think he might be gently referencing some of the missteps made by his competitors.
(Image credit: Future)
Microsoft and the Windows operating system spring to mind, for example. While "break[ing] machines for millions of people around the world" may be an overstatement, Microsoft's continual update cycle (along with its many feature pushes) has certainly caused issues for many, with the disastrous-for-some Windows 11 24H2 update being of particular note.
Not to mention the CrowdStrike bug, although that was caused by a third-party security update gone horribly wrong, not MS itself—although it did knock over many vital Windows machines the world over in the process. The "move fast and break stuff" tech industry mentality has certainly led to many public failures over the years for a variety of companies, while in Linux land, things seem to move at a more sedate pace—although it's far from perfect, as our Jacob found on a recent work trip.
Not that Torvalds seems keen to take too much credit for recent updates: "What I do have to say, and I tend to repeat this because it's important, is… I don't do any of the real work."
"For the last almost 20 years, I've not been a programmer. I've been a technical lead and maintainer of the system, and that's true both of Linux and even more so of Git, where I really just look at it from the side.
"So I want to just remind people that all the real work is done by other people, maybe some of the people in the audience. So people sometimes give me too much credit for being around."
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If you've ever had a burning urge to make a fellow human being miserable, GameStop's latest promotional idea seems perfectly designed to accommodate such antisocial ambition. It's "Trade Anything Day," an obviously bad idea cooked up by the disconnected braintrust at head office, during which customers will be able to trade in (almost) anything for in-store credit.
GameStop is famous for its trade-in program, of course, but historically it's been limited to games: buy one, take it home, finish it, bring it back, trade it in for a tiny bit of store credit, and perpetuate the cycle. The rise of digital distribution has put a fork into it (and GameStop) but there was a time when it was a very big part of the biz, even for PC gamers: I bought plenty of pre-owned games back in the days when driving to the mall was an integral part of the 'buying a game' experience.
This promotion is an absurd, one-day revival of those glory days: On December 6, you can bring in any old piece of crap and trade it as though it were a videogame you played but did not enjoy enough to form any attachments to.
As noted by documentation shared on Reddit (because I don't see the promised "more information" on the GameStop website), customers are limited to one item traded in, for which they will get $5 store credit, and they won't take things like hazardous waste, drugs, booze, guns, and animals, dead or alive, unless they've been properly stuffed and mounted. Not joking about that.
As you'd expect if you've spent any time at all in retail, GameStop employees are absolutely dreading this day. "I'm not prepared for the 'bring anything to trade' day," one employee wrote on the GameStop subreddit (via Polygon). "I just know I'm going to have to handle some nasty shit. And not only that, we're probably going to have to reject some of the things because they're a biological hazard.
"I'm gonna have so many customers asking me 'HoW cOmE yOu CaN’t TaKe iT iN' cause we can't bro? Please for the love of every single GameStop employee READ THE GUIDELINES. I may be over-exaggerating it, but I have a feeling it'll be a bad day in general."
I was a long-term retail employee myself, in a business not entirely unlike GameStop, and I can assure you of this: You are absolutely not exaggerating it.
"Hi all, former ASM [assistant store manager] and I just heard about Trade Anything Day," another wrote in a different thread. "My heart aches and I have anxiety for all of you still there. I knew corporate was dangerously incompetent but didn't know they actively hated their employees."
This guy's video might seem over the top, but again, as someone who worked in retail long enough to encounter more than a few district managers, all I can say is that it sounds about right.
A few people, like that unnamed GameStop DM, have pointed out that the list of disallowed items is quite clear, and so wonder what the concern is.
"Are you new to people?" redditor Trashboat77 asked in response to one such statement. "They don't even read 4-12 word signs on the door as they walk through it. Why would they read an entire list with small print?"
December 6, in short, has the potential to be a Very Bad Day for GameStop employees, and it's important first and foremost that anyone looking to trade in Uncle Frank's ashes for a fiver keeps one thing in mind: It's not their fault. They didn't dream up this dumbass idea and they don't like it, and they sure don't deserve any "you asked for it" kind of guffola. "Don't be shitty with retail employees" should be SOP anyway, but especially on days where their companies really put them on the firing line, try to keep it in mind.
Beyond just "treat people with basic respect," though, there's an opportunity to actually get something good out of this. The doc shared on Reddit says "suitable items traded will be donated to a local charity," and one poster in the GameStop subreddit said they're encouraging customers "to bring non perishable canned foods and such or toys since they all get donated to local charities."
"Buy a $.70 can of soup trade it for $5 credit and help needy families get food this holiday," MegaMan8115 wrote. "I'm always down for that."
As less-than-thrilled as I am about GameStop getting a big ol' tax writeoff on a stupid, self-serving stunt (and that's what programs like this are really about: MegaMan8115 said the SKU for the $5 credit will be treated as a charitable donation), this is a great idea. You could just donate directly to your local food bank and be done with it, but if you really want to be a part of the circus on Trade Anything day (or you just really want that five bucks), this is the way: Have some fun, do a little good, and remind GameStop employees (who probably need it) that sometimes, the world is not a bottomless pit of malice and despair.
🚨 ONLY ONE DAY LEFT! Kickstarter ends tomorrow, and with it your chance to get Volume 1 and Volume 2 of The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug Library! Link is right here. (Plus a bonus comic book: Trump You!)
Please join the team that makes it possible for your friendly neighborhood comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug to exist in this world! — Read the rest
Raccoons that live in close proximity to humans are developing shorter, cuter snouts and appear to be self-domesticating.
Early humans likely saw dogs as helpful companions and domesticated them. Cats, on the other hand, self-domesticated to feed on the mice and rats that are plentiful around human settlements. — Read the rest
In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Congressman Jamie Raskin accused the Trump administration of shutting down an active criminal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking co-conspirators.
According to the letter, first obtained by CBS News, the Southern District of New York ran an ongoing probe until January 2025, when prosecutors were ordered to transfer all investigative files to DOJ headquarters in Washington. — Read the rest
Go figure, the feature no one wanted can potentially install malware on your behalf. Thanks, Microsoft.
Windows 11 comes with an "agentic AI" feature, which is to say a built-in chatbot that can make changes. Microsoft warns that it might install malware on your PC: "Only enable this feature if you understand the security implications."
Microsoft has issued an important warning about its upcoming agentic AI capabilities that are coming soon to Windows 11.
