2026-01-29 02:45:01
If you’re a fan of SimCity, then you’ll appreciate IsoCity, an open source simulation game. The premise is the same. Start with land, build infrastructure, and try to maintain a thriving city. From the GitHub:
IsoCity is a open-source isometric city-building simulation game built with Next.js, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS. It leverages the HTML5 Canvas API for high-performance rendering of isometric graphics, featuring complex systems for economic simulation, trains, planes, seaplanes, helicopters, cars, pedestrians, and more.
I’ve never been big into video games, but I spent many hours in high school playing SimCity 2000, building up my city of the future. I installed the game from a single floppy disk on the family 486. My city was eventually sustainable with those robot-looking Energy Domes, and I thought our own future looked bright. If I could do it in the game, then surely we could do it in real life.
IsoCity, which runs in the browser, is not as expansive, but it’s a fun throwback.
Tags: city, game, simulation
2026-01-28 16:48:52
Roblox is a game mostly for kids. In an effort to make the game safer, the Roblox company integrated an AI-based age verification system. For Wired, David Gilbert, describes a mess of a system.
But players are already in revolt because they can no longer chat to their friends, developers are demanding Roblox roll back the update, and crucially, experts say that not only is the AI mis-aging young players as adults and vice versa, the system does little to help address the problem it was designed to tackle: the flood of predators using the platform to groom young children.
In fact, WIRED has found multiple examples of people advertising age-verified accounts for minors as young as 9 years old on eBay for as little as $4.
I don’t think my kids will be playing Roblox much any time soon.
2026-01-27 20:10:33
The administration cut science funding, withheld grants, and eliminated jobs in research areas that did not align. Nature, with visualization by Kim Albrecht, show the total impact so far.
A treemap with a broken glass metaphor leads the article. I’m into it. But you can see the sudden drop in staffing for the government science agencies in the chart above, which says most of what you need to know.
Tags: funding, Kim Albrecht, nature, science
2026-01-27 05:09:11
The National Weather Service has current and historical snowfall data in various file formats and segments of time. The map could be improved, but the data is easy to access to analyze and make your own maps. Just select the file format from the menu and download.
I hope you east coasters are staying warm. Remember to pace yourself with the snow shoveling.
Tags: National Weather Service, snow, weather
2026-01-26 21:17:20
In 2023, most of the family’s wealth, about 79% of it, was tied to real estate. These days, a growing portion belongs to cryptocurrency endeavors. For Bloomberg, Annie Massa and Tom Maloney report on the shifting assets.
Despite the new projects, the family’s overall net worth looks remarkably similar to last year at $6.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Even as crypto made the Trumps richer, the gains were offset by the plunging value of his social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. Its shares are down 66% over the past 12 months, despite efforts to diversify into finance, crypto and most recently, fusion power.
Circular voronoi treemaps, scaled by total assets, show the composition. There was an initial swell in the total and then mostly flat.
Tags: Bloomberg, cryptocurrency, ethics, wealth
2026-01-26 20:03:57
From the New York Times editorial board, an animated big pile of money:
A review by the editorial board relying on analyses from news organizations shows that Mr. Trump has used the office of the presidency to make at least $1.4 billion. We know this number to be an underestimate because some of his profits remain hidden from public view. And they continue to grow.
Money rains down, each stack representing the median household income in the United States. You scroll, and more money falls on to the pile. The pile gets too big for the screen, so the view zooms out. The pile grows.
Tags: cryptocurrency, government, New York Times, scale, wealth
