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Chile has become the latest country in Latin America to veer toward the right, electing a deeply conservative veteran politician who has long attracted comparisons to Donald Trump.

The president-elect, José Antonio Kast, has expressed nostalgia for the 17-year military dictatorship of the late Gen. Augusto Pinochet, opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage and advocated in recent years for a constitutional ban on abortion.

Those stances, which some say sabotaged Kast’s previous presidential bids in the increasingly liberal country, didn’t seem to matter in Sunday’s election.

I was just reflecting on games I've played in the last year, and wondering when Steam's year-in-review thing would be happening (probably within the next week).

However, I thought it might be interesting to ask this question before that drops, because I'd expect that people will respond differently before they've seen the data, and I think that subjective aspect of the reflection is interesting. So tell me what games you've played in the past year that have most stuck out to you. I think it's more fun if you try to go by memory, but if you want to go check stuff like whether you first played a game in December 2024 or January 2025, that's fine too; just try to not get too deep into the data, I'm interested in the vibes here.

For me, a recent highlight was Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I didn't expect to be able to play it for a long while because of its cost, but a friend got it for me in November, for my birthday. I like that I'll always associate it with them for that reason. The game is also very me, what with its artsy fartsy themes and the like.

Before that, I played a heckton of Hades 2, which I thoroughly enjoyed, even if it didn't quite scratch the same itch that the first game did. I've not 100%ed it yet, but I plan to. My favourite part of the game is the music — the boss fight that incorporates music in a cool way is so awesome

And before that was Hollow Knight, partly motivated by hearing all the hype in the runup to Silksong's release. I'd been weirdly resistant to playing Hollow Knight for years. I think it's because when something is so universally lauded, it makes me feel oddly anxious. Like, if I don't enjoy it, does that mean I have bad taste? What if it is objectively amazing, but it just doesn't click with me, and I feel sad that I'm missing out on whatever magic everyone else is experiencing? Or what if everyone else is wrong, and the game is way overhyped? They're silly thoughts, but this is fairly common for me (this is why I resisted watching Breaking Bad for years). Fortunately I loved it, and I expect that Silksong will be one of my highlights of 2026. Beautiful soundtrack that I've listened to so much that it was in my Spotify wrapped.

The most interesting part of my year is that I branched out more and played smaller games, outside of the typical stuff I'd play, and for a delightfully silly reason: this Venn diagram(Source).

I stumbled across that when I was voraciously consuming as much Disco Elysium analysis as I could back in 2024, when I played it. I had already played Pathologic 2 (largely due to hbomberguy's video essay on the first one), as well as Planescape:Torment (because so many had cited that as a clear influence on Disco Elysium). This gave me enough points of reference on that venn diagram that I became determined to play all the games included (i.e. Disco Elysium, Pentiment, Felvidek, The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante, Planescape: Torment, Pathologic 2. The middle section is not a game, but a book (which I haven't read): Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose)

I was utterly enchanted by this Venn diagram to an absurd degree. According to it:

• Pentiment = Disco Elysium - Pathologic 2;
• Felvidek = Disco Elysium - Planescape: Torment; and
• The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante = Felvidek + Pentiment Based off the first two statements, I felt like I could approximate the vibe of Pentiment and Felvidek, but I was intrigued to test that, and I played two games I don't think I would have otherwise.

Pentiment was delightful. I played a bunch of it when a medievalist friend was visiting me, and they verified that every weird and wonderful animal drawings were actually drawn from real medieval manuscripts. They worked with multiple historians to ensure the history depicted was accurate, and it made for an incredibly immersive experience. I loved how the text in the speech bubbles were written in a different script depending on how the protagonist perceived them — more educated people speak with a fancied script than peasants, for example. It really grounds the game in the protagonist's subjective perspective, which synergised so well with the historical setting. I learned so much from this game and from analysis content of it. Apparently Josh Sawyer studied history as an undergraduate, and he'd been wanting to make a game like this for years; I'm so glad he got the chance to make it.

Felvidek is a much smaller game than Pentiment — small enough that I would have felt grumpy at its price if not for the fact that it was clearly a labour of love by a small team. It's a JROG based in a psuedo-historical version of Slovakia, which I found cool, because I knew next to nothing about Slovakian culture. I still don't, because it's not really that kind of game, but I felt like I came away understanding more. It's the kind of game where I felt close to the developer, given that it was such a small project. If you were going to try any of the games I mentioned here, I'd recommend this one, because I'd wager you've not heard of it. If it looks like the kind of game you'd play, I'd advise you go in blind to maximise the impact of the generally absurd vibes. The soundtrack was a highlight for me — it really drove home the absurdity.

Having completed these two pillars of the Venn diagram, I was finally able to complete my quest with The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante. However, I find myself running out of steam and unable to write much more, but it was a fun little experience. Not quite as out there as Felvidek, but definitely something I wouldn't have played ordinarily.

Experimenting with new games also encouraged me to push myself out of my comfort zone further, with games like Fear & Hunger, and Signalis. I'm not great with horror, but that's part of why this was fun.

Anyway, what games have been highlights for you guys? Don't feel pressured to write anywhere near as much as I have — I mostly just wrote this much because I appear to be procrastinating making dinner.

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So recently been spending time configuring my selfhosted services with notifications usint ntfy. I've added ntfy to report status on containers and my system using Beszel. However, only 12 out of my 44 containers seem to have healthcheck "enabled" or built in as a feature. So im now wondering what is considered best practice for monitoring the uptime/health of my containers. I am already using uptimekuma, with the "docker container" option for each of my containers i deem necessary to monitor, i do not monitor all 44 of them 😅

So I'm left with these questions;

1. How do you notify yourself about the status of a container?
2. Is there a "quick" way to know if a container has healthcheck as a feature.
3. Does healthcheck feature simply depend on the developer of each app, or the person building the container?
4. Is it better to simply monitor the http(s) request to each service? (I believe this in my case would make Caddy a single point of failure for this kind of monitor).

Thanks for any input!

Last year Red Hat acquired Neural Magic as part of their AI acquisitions and to bolster the open-source AI ecosystem. Today they announced another AI acquisition.

Red Hat announced today they have acquired Chatterbox Labs, a private company that began in 2011 and is focused on AI model testing and generative AI guardrails. Chatterbox Labs' AIMI platform provides quantitative AI risk metrics and other features.

Archive article: https://archive.is/DgylK

Folks - I need help.

I bought the UDR7 router during the Black Friday sale just to see what the hype was about and since then I’ve already placed multiple orders for hundreds of dollars of equipment. As we speak I have a cart full of over a thousand dollars more equipment that I’m on the cusp of submitting and and there is no end in sight.

If there is anyone out there who can talk me out of this rabbit hole I fear this may be the last chance for salvation

My name is ccunning and I’m a Unifi-holic…

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43763604

Archive link

European and Ukrainian leaders have officially launched an International Claims Commission in The Hague, marking a significant step toward accountability and reparations for the damage caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The new body is tasked with processing and adjudicating claims related to losses suffered by the Ukrainian state, businesses, and individuals since the start of the war.

The establishment of the Commission reflects growing international consensus that victims of the conflict should have access to a structured, legal mechanism to seek compensation. According to European officials, more than 80,000 claims have already been submitted, highlighting the vast scale of destruction to infrastructure, housing, industry, and livelihoods across Ukraine.

...

The International Claims Commission is designed to operate as an independent and rules-based mechanism. Its mandate includes reviewing evidence, assessing damages, and determining the validity and value of claims arising from the conflict. While it does not itself enforce payments, the Commission represents a crucial institutional framework that could underpin future compensation arrangements.

Locating the Commission in The Hague — a city internationally recognized as a center for justice and international law — underscores the legal and symbolic weight of the initiative. European leaders emphasized that the Commission complements existing international justice efforts and reinforces the principle that violations of international law carry consequences.

...

For Ukraine, the launch of the Commission represents an important diplomatic achievement and a step toward long-term recovery and reconstruction ... For Europe, the Commission sends a broader message: accountability and reparations are integral to any durable peace. By creating a formal mechanism now, European states aim to ensure that compensation is not treated as an afterthought, but as a core element of post-war justice laying the groundwork for future reparations and reinforcing the international rules-based order.

...

“The UK government wants technology companies to block explicit images on phones and computers by default to protect children, with adults having to verify their age to create and access such content,” the FT report said. “Ministers want the likes of Apple and Google to incorporate nudity-detection algorithms into their device operating systems to prevent users taking photos or sharing images of genitalia unless they are verified as adults.”

(Quantico, VA) As the FBI promises every man is on the case and an up to $50,000 reward is offered for the Brown University shooter, Agents are confessing they’re not sure which shooter case is theirs at this point.

“Look, first of all, this is America,” said one Agent who asked to be called Rex to avoid reprisals. “We have mass shootings every week. And every week [Director] Patel says every man is on that new case. And somehow, we all get assigned the case. It’s nuts.”

Patel was selected as FBI Director at the start of trump’s term, and was disparaged for having no law enforcement experience. Now-silent trump supporters touted the choice for his promise to release the Epstein files immediately. This promise is still to be met.

But Patel has zealously parroted the president’s orders, and trump is quick to call for full justice when mass shootings make the media. “We have every man on this case, I saw to it personally,” he said in remarks Tuesday. Rex says he has four other mass shooting he is investigating as well, and there is mass confusion in field offices. “One gun from a mass shooting got mailed to six offices looking for who requested fingerprints. At this point, the shooter would have to be standing in an intersection screaming ‘I did it!’ to be arrested if they’re not the new big case.”

But things might be worse than Rex suspects. Leo Sturbgetter, a cow detangler and mass shooter in Wichita, Kansas says he has been in the intersection for four hours now confessing. “I shot 13 people at the Fairfield Inn yesterday! I want to confess! Birds aren’t real, they’re from the moon,” he yelled as he tried to flag down officers. Sturbgetter says he feels for Rex and the other agents, as he wants a shootout more than they do. “It used to be a man could do something bad and go out in a blaze of glory. I’m trying to confess and I’m getting emails asking if I thought about Congress. That’s bad, man.”

As of press time, neither Sturbgetter or the Brown shooter had been arrested.

Say if someone came up to you and asked "If you were a boy/girl what would your name be?" could you answer them without needing think or is that not something most people give a thought to?

The fight over California’s new congressional map designed to help Democrats flip congressional House seats will go to court Monday as a panel of federal judges considers whether the district boundaries approved by voters last month can be used in elections.

The hearing in Los Angeles sets the stage for a high-stakes legal and political fight between the Trump administration and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’s been eyeing a 2028 presidential run. The lawsuit asks a three-judge panel to grant a temporary restraining order by Dec. 19 — the date candidates can take the first official steps to run in the 2026 election.

Voters approved California’s new U.S. House map in November through Proposition 50. It’s designed to help Democrats flip as many as five congressional House seats in the midterm elections next year. It was Newsom’s response to a Republican-led effort in Texas backed by President Donald Trump.