1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:00,500 Hello. 2 00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:04,100 I laid bare my heart for the world to see. 3 00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:08,100 But stuff still happened. 4 00:00:08,100 --> 00:00:09,100 So what's up? 5 00:00:09,100 --> 00:00:10,300 There's too much science. 6 00:00:10,300 --> 00:00:11,900 There's too- there's too much of it. 7 00:00:11,900 --> 00:00:12,700 So research. 8 00:00:12,700 --> 00:00:13,800 You want to do a good research? 9 00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:14,800 You want to do a good science? 10 00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:16,000 It takes a bit of time. 11 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:17,300 You got to do some experiments, 12 00:00:17,700 --> 00:00:19,100 control groups and stuff. 13 00:00:20,400 --> 00:00:22,100 God, this is going to be a good episode. 14 00:00:22,100 --> 00:00:26,200 Anyway, it's supposed to take time and energy to do science and publish papers about science, 15 00:00:26,200 --> 00:00:28,500 but according to a recent research paper, 16 00:00:28,500 --> 00:00:30,400 there's too many research papers. 17 00:00:30,400 --> 00:00:32,200 Like a suspiciously high number of them. 18 00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:38,000 There's been a shocking increase in the number of scientific papers being put out by individual scientists 19 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:39,500 over a single year. 20 00:00:39,500 --> 00:00:41,700 Some people across the world, especially in certain countries, 21 00:00:41,700 --> 00:00:46,700 have suddenly and inexplicably gotten way more productive at their science. 22 00:00:46,700 --> 00:00:49,500 Essentially, how are they cranking out so many papers? 23 00:00:49,500 --> 00:00:52,300 My first thought was chat GPT, but apparently that's not it. 24 00:00:52,300 --> 00:00:54,100 Or at least that's not the prevailing theory. 25 00:00:54,100 --> 00:00:59,100 The prevailing theory has to do more with financial incentives by paper published count, 26 00:00:59,100 --> 00:01:04,700 as well as countries working really hard to make it look like their higher education system is really good. 27 00:01:04,700 --> 00:01:10,800 For example, Thailand had one person in 2019 who was producing papers at the alarmingly fast rate. 28 00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:12,200 And now they have 19. 29 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:16,000 I can barely get a newsletter out a couple times a week. 30 00:01:16,700 --> 00:01:18,000 I don't know how they're doing this, 31 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:22,200 but the author of the paper believes that they're doing this by compromising research integrity 32 00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:23,400 and being shady about it. 33 00:01:23,400 --> 00:01:24,100 Probably. 34 00:01:24,100 --> 00:01:26,400 Anyway, subscribe to my newsletter or podcast. 35 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:27,500 Cool. 36 00:01:27,500 --> 00:01:31,600 Hasbro, I am sorry you did not pass your Constitution saving throw. 37 00:01:31,600 --> 00:01:34,900 Hasbro, who owns Wizards of the Coast who make Dungeons and Dragons, 38 00:01:34,900 --> 00:01:37,200 are laying off 20% of their workforce. 39 00:01:37,200 --> 00:01:39,400 They just announced that right before Christmas. 40 00:01:39,400 --> 00:01:40,300 Merry Christmas. 41 00:01:40,300 --> 00:01:41,600 You don't have a job. 42 00:01:41,600 --> 00:01:43,900 The layoff will affect about 1,100 people. 43 00:01:43,900 --> 00:01:45,900 It's going to take place over the course of several months. 44 00:01:45,900 --> 00:01:48,600 So it's not like all these people are suddenly out of a job, 45 00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:50,000 but they're suddenly out of a job. 46 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:53,700 This is not the first time in the past couple years that Hasbro has actually already had a layoff. 47 00:01:53,700 --> 00:01:55,500 This is just a much bigger one. 48 00:01:55,500 --> 00:02:00,400 We didn't previously have a whole lot of insight as to who was affected at the Dungeons and Dragons level and whatnot, 49 00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:02,500 but it doesn't look great. 50 00:02:02,500 --> 00:02:06,600 People laid off from Wizards of the Coast include artists, writers, game designers, 51 00:02:06,600 --> 00:02:09,500 people who have been working on Dungeons and Dragons for years, 52 00:02:09,500 --> 00:02:11,400 people who helped make it what it is today. 53 00:02:11,400 --> 00:02:12,600 It's giving Bungie. 54 00:02:12,600 --> 00:02:15,900 So despite the recent rampant success of the D&D movie and the Barbie movie 55 00:02:15,900 --> 00:02:19,500 and also just the ongoing phenomenon that is D&D, 56 00:02:19,500 --> 00:02:23,100 Hasbro says they've been having headwinds that have not gone away. 57 00:02:23,100 --> 00:02:25,400 And so now they got to get rid of 20% of their staff. 58 00:02:25,400 --> 00:02:27,400 They say it is a lever they must pull. 59 00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:30,000 That lever being 1,100 people's livelihood. 60 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:36,400 Anyway, don't mind me just out here getting myself blacklisted from future Dungeons and Dragons content. 61 00:02:36,400 --> 00:02:37,600 Great. 62 00:02:37,600 --> 00:02:38,700 Pour one out for E3. 63 00:02:38,700 --> 00:02:39,700 E3 is dead. 64 00:02:39,700 --> 00:02:42,100 It's dead and gone and buried forever. 65 00:02:42,100 --> 00:02:43,200 It wasn't before. 66 00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:44,100 It actually is now. 67 00:02:44,100 --> 00:02:46,200 E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo. 68 00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:48,100 It used to be the biggest event in gaming. 69 00:02:48,100 --> 00:02:49,800 It's where consoles were announced. 70 00:02:49,800 --> 00:02:52,600 It's where the biggest titles of the year were previewed. 71 00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:55,300 It's where My Body is Ready came from. 72 00:02:55,300 --> 00:02:58,100 But over the years, companies started to pull out of the show 73 00:02:58,100 --> 00:03:01,100 and then the show was postponed and then it was tabled 74 00:03:01,100 --> 00:03:04,100 and then it was untabled, but then it was retabled because there was a COVID. 75 00:03:04,100 --> 00:03:08,000 But as of now, E3 is officially dead. 76 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:09,000 You go to their website. 77 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:10,600 It's just a goodbye. 78 00:03:10,600 --> 00:03:12,300 They're not going to do it anymore. 79 00:03:12,300 --> 00:03:14,500 It's over for realsies this time. 80 00:03:14,500 --> 00:03:15,200 Ripperino. 81 00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:17,700 This isn't going to have a huge impact on the industry, honestly. 82 00:03:17,700 --> 00:03:20,900 Like, E3 has been dwindling and waning for years now. 83 00:03:20,900 --> 00:03:22,500 This is not really surprising. 84 00:03:22,500 --> 00:03:24,900 It's just kind of sad that it went this way. 85 00:03:24,900 --> 00:03:27,500 But more and more companies are following after Nintendo's design 86 00:03:27,500 --> 00:03:31,300 of doing like Nintendo Direct stuff where they just stream their updates 87 00:03:31,300 --> 00:03:34,500 as opposed to spending like millions of dollars on set pieces and shit. 88 00:03:34,500 --> 00:03:37,100 And we've already seen other venues kind of picking up that slack. 89 00:03:37,100 --> 00:03:39,100 In fact, the Game Awards that just happened 90 00:03:39,100 --> 00:03:41,600 where Baldur's Gate 3 won Game of the Year, 91 00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:45,000 they're being criticized for basically being just an industry showcase 92 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:46,300 as opposed to an award show. 93 00:03:46,300 --> 00:03:48,900 And so while yes, E3 is dead and gone, 94 00:03:48,900 --> 00:03:50,800 we will hopefully for many years to come 95 00:03:50,800 --> 00:03:54,900 continue to have extraordinarily cringey presentations from game companies. 96 00:03:54,900 --> 00:03:58,100 And let me tell you, here and now, 97 00:03:58,100 --> 00:04:00,300 my body is ready. 98 00:04:00,300 --> 00:04:03,100 Hey, can you just give me a break on this next headline? 99 00:04:03,100 --> 00:04:04,000 Alright. 100 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:05,000 Epic win. 101 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:05,700 Christ. 102 00:04:05,700 --> 00:04:06,400 I had to. 103 00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:08,300 Epic Games, the people who make Fortnite, 104 00:04:08,300 --> 00:04:09,800 they sued Google and won. 105 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:11,700 In fact, they sued Google and Super won. 106 00:04:11,700 --> 00:04:14,300 A jury unanimously found that Google was engaging 107 00:04:14,300 --> 00:04:16,700 in monopolistic and anticompetitive behavior, 108 00:04:16,700 --> 00:04:18,600 specifically around the Android app store 109 00:04:18,600 --> 00:04:20,900 and the billing systems that are available to developers 110 00:04:20,900 --> 00:04:22,500 to take money from customers. 111 00:04:22,500 --> 00:04:26,300 If you want to sell, for example, a subscription on Android or iOS, 112 00:04:26,300 --> 00:04:30,000 you pretty much have to go through Apple or Google's billing system 113 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:32,100 and they take like a 30% cut. 114 00:04:32,100 --> 00:04:35,200 This is why you sometimes see that subscriptions are more expensive 115 00:04:35,200 --> 00:04:38,700 on iOS or Android as opposed to purchasing them on desktop. 116 00:04:38,700 --> 00:04:41,700 The developers are trying to offset that 30% cut 117 00:04:41,700 --> 00:04:43,800 that Apple and Google get of everything. 118 00:04:43,800 --> 00:04:46,900 Epic has been famously beefing with Apple for a long time about this 119 00:04:46,900 --> 00:04:48,600 and also beefing with Google. 120 00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:51,200 They lost against Apple, but they won against Google. 121 00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:52,200 That's a big deal. 122 00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:53,900 And even more so, during the court case, 123 00:04:53,900 --> 00:04:56,900 it came out that Google has been basically paying people 124 00:04:56,900 --> 00:04:59,900 to prevent having third-party app stores on their phones. 125 00:04:59,900 --> 00:05:02,400 As in, they've been working with the companies that make phones 126 00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:04,600 to not include third-party app stores 127 00:05:04,600 --> 00:05:07,600 and in some cases reaching out to people who are making third-party app stores 128 00:05:07,600 --> 00:05:09,200 or direct-to-consumer stuff and they're like, 129 00:05:09,200 --> 00:05:11,500 hey, maybe don't do that. 130 00:05:11,500 --> 00:05:13,200 Maybe don't get in the way of us forcing people 131 00:05:13,200 --> 00:05:14,700 to give us a 30% cut. 132 00:05:14,700 --> 00:05:19,000 It'd be a shame if you lost access to the ability to publish your application. 133 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:23,300 Anyway, Google wants to appeal the case and we'll see. 134 00:05:23,300 --> 00:05:26,300 Also very notably, we don't actually know what Google is going to have to do yet. 135 00:05:26,300 --> 00:05:29,500 The judge hasn't really determined what they need to change. 136 00:05:29,500 --> 00:05:31,000 So, unclear. 137 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:35,200 On this day in 1903, the Wright brothers made their first attempt 138 00:05:35,200 --> 00:05:37,700 at flying their Wright Flyer machine. 139 00:05:37,700 --> 00:05:39,600 The flight attempt went about a hundred feet 140 00:05:39,600 --> 00:05:41,900 before it crashed and sustained a little bit of damage, 141 00:05:41,900 --> 00:05:43,700 but they fixed it up and a few days later, 142 00:05:43,700 --> 00:05:46,000 they made several successful test flights 143 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:49,200 until eventually a gust of wind flipped the plane over and destroyed it. 144 00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:51,000 And now we have baggage fees. 145 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:51,800 Lightning round. 146 00:05:51,800 --> 00:05:55,300 The developers of MMO game The Day Before 147 00:05:55,300 --> 00:05:57,700 shut down the day after they launched their game. 148 00:05:57,700 --> 00:06:00,200 According to them, the company has failed financially 149 00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:02,300 and so they launched the game and immediately closed. 150 00:06:02,300 --> 00:06:04,800 No one really knows what's going to happen now. 151 00:06:04,800 --> 00:06:08,400 It turns out the LAPD spends 50 million dollars a year 152 00:06:08,400 --> 00:06:10,600 maintaining their helicopter fleet alone. 153 00:06:10,600 --> 00:06:13,000 That is worth at least a few loaves of bread. 154 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:15,000 After launching his own chatbot AI, 155 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:17,600 Elon Musk is upset that it's too progressive 156 00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:19,900 and he wants to make it more right-wing. 157 00:06:19,900 --> 00:06:23,400 Or rather, he wants to make it more, quote, politically neutral. 158 00:06:23,400 --> 00:06:26,300 Coming from the guy who just reinstated Alex Jones on Twitter, 159 00:06:26,300 --> 00:06:27,900 told people to follow Alex Jones 160 00:06:27,900 --> 00:06:30,000 and had a conversation with Alex Jones, 161 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:32,200 Vivek Ramaswamy and Andrew Tate. 162 00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:36,100 That man is definitely a good judge of what is politically neutral. 163 00:06:36,100 --> 00:06:37,700 Also, political neutrality isn't a thing. 164 00:06:37,700 --> 00:06:38,600 Fucking stop. 165 00:06:38,600 --> 00:06:39,200 Anyone. 166 00:06:39,200 --> 00:06:41,400 Protesters in the UK are trying to stop their government 167 00:06:41,400 --> 00:06:45,400 from building a car tunnel that's going to go like right next to Stonehenge. 168 00:06:45,400 --> 00:06:48,200 Literally like, hey, what if we dug a big underground tunnel 169 00:06:48,200 --> 00:06:51,500 next to this massively well-known historic site? 170 00:06:51,500 --> 00:06:55,600 The UK's own investigation said that it would cause irreparable harm to the site 171 00:06:55,600 --> 00:06:57,600 and they gave it the go-ahead anyway. 172 00:06:57,600 --> 00:06:58,600 Like it's fucking Stonehenge. 173 00:06:58,600 --> 00:06:59,700 It's Stonehenge. 174 00:06:59,700 --> 00:07:02,300 Netflix has released a big old spreadsheet 175 00:07:02,300 --> 00:07:05,500 with all the stats of everything that everybody watched over the past year. 176 00:07:05,500 --> 00:07:09,500 You can go check it out and do some data analytics on your own. 177 00:07:09,500 --> 00:07:10,800 How sexy. 178 00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:13,700 And finally for today, the US has decided to not re-up 179 00:07:13,700 --> 00:07:18,900 a nearly billion dollar subsidy for SpaceX's Starlink internet service provider. 180 00:07:18,900 --> 00:07:21,900 They wanted the subsidy in return for providing rural internet 181 00:07:21,900 --> 00:07:22,900 and the government was like, 182 00:07:22,900 --> 00:07:25,800 we don't actually trust that you're going to be able to do that with this money. 183 00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:29,400 Poor Elon having a harder time using government subsidies to build his companies 184 00:07:29,400 --> 00:07:31,300 than turning around and claiming that he's a genius. 185 00:07:31,300 --> 00:07:34,100 Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening. 186 00:07:34,100 --> 00:07:38,000 Have the Stuff Keeps Happening.online for sources, bonus content, 187 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:41,600 and the internet, the entirety of it, the whole thing. 188 00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:43,200 It's just that one website. 189 00:07:43,200 --> 00:07:44,400 My name is Endeavorance. 190 00:07:44,400 --> 00:07:46,000 I'll be back on Monday. 191 00:07:46,000 --> 00:08:04,900 Take care and be well.