If Steve Wozniak had "only" designed the Apple II, one of the foundational computers of the early PC era, he'd still be a computing legend. But after leaving Apple in the mid-'80s Wozniak went on to help establish the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sponsored the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose, and has spent the last four decades on philanthropy, public speaking and founding a truly wild range of tech companies, like one focused on minimizing orbital debris.
What makes him one of the all-time greats though, at least in my mind, is that despite decades in the tech business and access to fabulous wealth he by all accounts seems to have remained an almost absurdly chill and normal guy.
Or, at least, as normal as you can be while playing in a Segway polo league.
Wozniak has millions of dollars to his name, but clearly chose to walk a different path than his contemporary tech billionaires like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison who accrued billions. And he remains the kind of everyman, old school tech nerd who occasionally reads—and even comments on—Slashdot. A few days ago (on his 75th birthday, no less), Woz popped into a thread about his ongoing lawsuit against YouTube over internet scammers who'd used his likeness, though not to address the topic of the lawsuit.
One commenter had piggybacked on the thread to point out that back in the '80s Wozniak had sold his Apple stock, which would be worth about eleventy trillion dollars today by my quick back-of-the-napkin math. "Smart man. Great engineer. Bad decision. Happens to all of us," that Slashdotter wrote.
"I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for," Wozniak wrote. "I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups in San Jose, the city of my birth, and they named a street after me for being good. I now speak publicly and have risen to the top. I have no idea how much I have but after speaking for 20 years it might be $10M plus a couple of homes. I never look for any type of tax dodge. I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out."
Smiles minus Frowns, man. Just try to imagine Elon Musk typing that into a computer and meaning it.
Does the idea of Mario eschewing the dev-intended carpets in Mario 64 keep you up at night? Do speedrunners, dedicating themselves to games like pro athletes, make you weep? Don't worry, Nintendo's here to protect you. You're safe now.
Teeing itself up for a fantastic own-goal, Nintendo has contacted the organisers of RTA, one of Japan's largest speedrunning charity events, and wagged their big legal finger (thanks, Automaton). RTA has been raising money since 2014, making this year's event the 9th of its kind. Well, Nintendo has had enough!
In a notice posted to the site, RTA explains (the following has been machine translated): "RTA in Japan has previously used Nintendo games, but on June 13, 2025, Nintendo Co., Ltd. pointed out that 'the use of Nintendo games by a corporation requires prior permission,' and that our previous use 'was without prior permission and constituted unauthorized use.'
RTA in Japan wishes to continue using Nintendo games, and has begun discussions with Nintendo Co., Ltd. regarding permission."
However, because RTA's next event is just around the corner, starting in August, Nintendo has successfully cajoled the organisers into just not using Nintendo games for this one—which is kind of a big deal, given how central games like Super Mario 64 are to the speedrunning community.
There's sort of a reason for all of this, beyond Nintendo continuing to be jerks. Japanese game publishers are often far stricter about what counts as copyright infringement when it comes to streaming their games on their home turf. In 2022, a man was even arrested for it by CODA, Japan's Content Overseas Distribution Agency.
Each publisher sets their own definitions for what is and isn't allowed, with entire websites popping up to collect this information in one place so the internet cops don't come a-knockin'. It's hard to say for certain (you might be shocked to discover I'm not a Japanese legal expert), but it does still feel like Nintendo's making the choice to be like this.
Either way—Mario is safe from being used to raise money for good causes in Japan. Phew, what a close one. At least SGDQ is safe.
It took 16 long years, but Plants vs. Zombies is finally coming back. Unveiled during today's Nintendo Direct showcase (but yes, it's coming to PC, let's clear that up straight away), Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted is a full remaster of the original game, "with new levels, fresh twists, and 15 years of never-before-seen franchise history."
It's hard to overstate how big Plants vs Zombies was following its debut in 2009, and a big part of that was its universal appeal. At first glance it looks like a silly, casual diversion your early 2000s mom might play, but underneath the cheery cartoonishness of it all lay a pretty damn good strategy game: If you weren't properly upgrading and deploying your Peashooters, Wall-nuts, Sunflowers, and Squash, you were going to have a very bad time.
It was a massive success, quickly surpassing Bejeweled and Peggle as Popcap's fastest-selling game ever, leading to console and mobile ports, merchandise of all sorts (I have at least four different physical editions of PvZ), and even a World of Warcraft crossover. It was also undoubtedly a big driver of EA's decision to acquire the studio for $750 million in 2011.
Ah, but it hasn't gone especially well since then. EA decided to make Plants vs Zombies 2 a free-to-play mobile game, because of course it did; then came Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, a third-person shooter, and Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes, a digital card game, also mobile only. Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville dropped in 2019—another shooter.
The original Plants vs. Zombies (technically the game of the year edition, but close enough) remains available on Steam and Epic, and lest there be any doubt about how beloved it really is, it's rocking an "overwhelmingly positive" rating on Steam with more than 130,000 user reviews. It still runs quite well but it's also pretty long in the tooth at this point, with a 4:3 aspect ratio and no adjustable visual options.
So yeah, this is long overdue. Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted will offer "upscaled HD graphics" with an unspecified range of new visual options, which is definitely a plus. But far more notable is the addition of new modes: Along with the original PvZ gameplay, Replanted will feature local co-play and PvP, a new permadeath Rest in Peace hardcore mode, a Cloudy Day mode with limited sunlight, and updated mini-games.
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All told, it sounds like a pretty major upgrade—and given how long it's been since we've had a proper Plants vs. Zombies game on PC, you better believe I'm excited for it. Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted is set to launch on October 23 and will be available for PC on Steam and the Epic Games Store.
What if oxygen is poisonous and it just takes 75-100 years to kill us?
My science teacher said he thinks that’s true actually
Yeah this is actually pretty much exactly what is going on. It’s why anti-oxidants are such a big deal. Bonus fact: oxygen oxidizes stuff in your cells or, in other words, it’s not toxic, just setting you on fire
very very slowly.
What if there are aliens out there but they subsist on entirely different substances and they’re just scared as shit of us and our crazy ass hell planet? Once in a while some alien anthropologist type suggests checking out the people on this inhabited planet out towards the galaxy’s edge. The other aliens just look at the naive academic with horror. No!! We do not go to that world. That is where the DEATH BREATHERS live. They recreationally consume poisons and are more or less composed of biological fire. Their atmosphere is made of rocket fuel. We must leave the DEATH BREATHERS in peace. Do not go there. Do not.
I tend to always reblog posts about humans being terrifying weirdos to aliens.
okay but…that is actually what went down on earth about 2.5 billion years ago.
Earth was doing just fine with a mostly nitrogen/carbon dioxide atmosphere and everyone was happy to go on living in anaerobic bliss and then cyanobacteria suddenly hit the scene, altered the atmosphere composition so that there was a ton of oxygen gas and killed practically everything (97% or more of all species on earth).
We are literally descendants of the DEATH BREATHERS and cyanobacteria is our deadly mother.
The cyanobacteria holocaust is so big, it doesn’t even have a cool name; it’s just called “The Great Oxygenation Event”; the *second* most apocalyptic extinction event in our planet’s history is the one that’s called THE GREAT DYING (the Permian-Triassic event, about 252 million years ago).
This shit makes like the rock-throwing that wiped out the dinosaurs look like kindergarten.
OH HOW I LOVE THIS POST. It makes me so much happier about being alive. I AM BURNING VERY SLOWLY. *hugs it*
And once again, the internet makes learning history and science a thousand times more interesting than school ever did.
I love shit like this.
I was totally having thoughts along these lines and along comes tumblr to pretty much sum it all up. Bravo~
Tom the Dancing Bug 1748 hollingsworth hound 19 – devil
Please join the team ensuring that your friendly neighborhood independent comic strip survives: JOIN THE INNER HIVE and you'll get each week's Tom the Dancing Bug comic at least a day before publication. Plus other exclusive content like extra comics, commentary, juicy gossip, puzzles, jokes, and Otis pics. — Read the rest
A Batavia, Illinois company called Savor has figured out how to turn carbon dioxide drawn from the atmosphere and hydrogen from water into fat that is molecularly identical to the butterfat in sticks from the dairy aisle. The product browns, melts, and tastes like the real thing, the company says, and its ingredient label is short: the lab-made fat, water, sunflower lecithin, and natural flavor and color, reports CBS News. — Read the rest
The Great Hobbit Run is a Lord of the Rings Online tradition based on a simple premise: What if, instead of adventures and experience and becoming the savior of Middle-earth, a bunch of newbies just showed up at Chez Bilbo and then booked it straight to Mount Doom? It sounds like a terrible idea, at least in the very serious in-fiction context of saving the world from enslavement to evil. But as a silly good time in a very long-in-the-tooth MMO, it actually seems pretty great.
Organized by Twitch streamer BurkeBlack, the Great Hobbit Run (via GamesRadar) is an express trek from Bilbo Baggins' house to the fiery heart of Mount Doom, specifically for level one hobbits. That's not a hard-and-fast rule: Pre-run conversation mentions the LOTRO tutorial putting players to level 5, and someone in the party is judged rather harshly for joining in at level 41.
Low-level characters are obviously more in the spirit of the thing, but nobody's going to put too much effort into enforcing any rules, in part because the mob of non-stop hobbits attracts no small amount of attention, and latecomers, as it goes.
"Generally speaking, I encourage everyone to be level five hobbits, or level one hobbits, whatever they can get," BurkeBlack explained in a chat with PC Gamer. "If [people on] the server, though, they're high level and they see an army of hobbits running, and they're like, 'Wow, I'm gonna follow this, I wanna see what's going on with this,' we can't stop that.
"And I encourage the server to enjoy the fun too—it's a little bit of a game for them, like, 'Protect the hobbits! They're going to Mount Doom!' And they try to protect us a little bit."
Perhaps predictably, the first two runs did not go well. In 2023, the group apparently met its demise in the dark depths of Moria, and in '24 the wheels came off in Rohan.
The Great Hobbit Run of 2024 finished, and got as far as Rohan before the fellowship fell apart, this is further than Moria last year. Next year more streamers, more community! To Mt Doom! pic.twitter.com/9fbvD0ttI8July 8, 2024
In 2025, though, after more than six hours of struggles, the humble hobbitses finally pulled it off. BurkeBlack estimated than somewhere between 150 and 200 players started the journey, and 40-50 made it to the end, a winnowing wrought by time, exhaustion, and death. (Players who die during the run can use Mithril coins to catch up to the group, but they have to be purchased with real money.)
It seems fitting, somehow, that the end of this epic quest was a bit of a goat rodeo. It turns out that the interior of Mount Doom is dark and scary and a little confusing, and there was some debate about where exactly the whole thing was headed.
Eventually, amidst anguished cries of "You led us here!" (well, one cry), someone took the initiative and jumped into the lava. Shortly thereafter it was decided that the adventuring party was "Mount Doom adjacent," and that was close enough: A group photo was taken, and BurkeBlack shared some inspirational words:
"This is great. Three years in the running, here we are before Mount Doom. This is a nice juicy bit of lava. Just throw in the ring and there's gonna be more than enough, and Sauron can kiss my butt!"
Not exactly St. Crispin's Day, no, but it was sufficient for the moment—and then BurkeBlack and everyone else jumped into the lava, mission happily accomplished. Except, well, it came to light after the fact that the mission wasn't quiteaccomplished after all.
After 3 years of attempts, the Hobbits finally made it to Mt Doom and threw ourselves into the lava! Thank you tobthe helpers and everyone that joined this year long, but saddly I forget the ring back at the shire so we'll try again next year! pic.twitter.com/SaKSDuYQ7iJuly 8, 2025
Someone in the stream said there is a way forward from this point, but they forgot what it is and apparently it's "very difficult." A new goal for 2026, perhaps: BurkeBlack confirmed that he plans to make the run again next year, and hopes to attract an even larger group of adventurers.
"It's just fun," he said. "Lord of the Rings Online is an old game, but it really faithfully captures the essence of Lord of the Rings. It was just a fun adventure. The community loved it."
Until then, you can enjoy the entire epic adventure below.
Private therapy sessions, drug confessions, and intimate relationship details from ChatGPT users appeared in Google search results due to a controversial sharing feature that OpenAI has now removed.
Ars Technica reports that users who thought they were simply saving their ChatGPT conversations for later discovered their private chats were publicly accessible through Google searches. — Read the rest
well yeah i have a pet hydra and it only has one head. i’m not going to cut its head off just to make it look cooler, you asshole. that’s seriously unethical. and i’m not letting you cut its head off either. if you really want a hydra with multiple heads, you should go for a rescue- but if you want your pet to look cooler at the cost of its physical health, maybe you shouldn’t get any kind of pet at all. no, the hydra’s not for guarding my evil tower, it’s my pet. have you ever heard of a pet? like a puppy or a kitty? you think i can’t defend my evil tower by my self?
people who are just finding out about internet tracking and data mining in the year 2025 and that your special robot friend does not respect your privacy lol
Google, continuing its proud tradition of pulling digital rug pulls, has announced it's killing off its URL shortener service because apparently maintaining perfectly functional tools is boring.
Mario Guevara, a Salvadoran journalist who has lived in the United States for over twenty years, was arrested by Doraville, Georgia, police while covering the No Kings Day protest on June 14 in that town. Since then, he has been shuttled among various jail cells in Georgia, with ICE manipulating and defying the legal system to keep him incarcerated. — Read the rest
Taking advantage of rising hotel prices and the boom in shachuhaku (sleeping in your car), the Japanese convenience store chain Lawson has rolled out a new pilot program that lets travelers spend the night in select store parking lots, reports Tokyo Weekender. — Read the rest
Donald Trump blasted his own MAGA followers in a panic-post this morning, calling them "weaklings" for demanding to see the Epstein files. He then blew them off as if they were flys hovering over his morning porridge: "I don't want their support anymore!" — Read the rest
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Ah, Ubisoft. There's no better company to represent the soulless, cynical triple-A video game industry, although Xbox seems to be trying to take that crown as of late. In between making waves with their aggressively mediocre games, they occasionally take time out to make waves with their terrible policy decisions, such as revoking games after periods of inactivity, but their latest change might be their worst yet. — Read the rest
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