Metric Paper Wasp (Polistes metricus), taken April 18, 2025, in Georgia, US
A beautiful, sleek wasp in the afternoon sun! This individual was an extremely good sport and let me get in very close for photos! Typically, paper wasps are a bit skittish and prefer to keep their distance, but this one just seemed curious. It's always a good day when a wasp stops buzzing around and lets me get some nice pictures! They're usually so busy that it's impossible to get anything!
the severance season 2 speedy squad of six
i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.
there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.
anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.
A Better World - create an alternate history timeline
Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game
Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet
Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games
Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones
Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy
ZenGM - simulate sports
Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi
IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)
Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface
The Cafe & Diner - mystery game
The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game
Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions
Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game
Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game
Miniconomy - player driven economy game
Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes
BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators
Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil
Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.
if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.
W- WHAT’S THAT RUMBLING? The weird world of Smile For Me is coming to NINTENDO SWITCH, PlayStation, and Xbox! (Music by @everydaylouie) With Serenity Forge, Smile For Me is coming to consoles in 9 languages! The game is remastered with visual improvements, motion controls, and brand new easter eggs. We’re also releasing the game PHYSICALLY with tons of incredible goodies to dig into! Click here to find out more!!
If you think about it…. the acronym KYS isn’t saying “kill yourself,” it’s saying Kill Your Self. Three words. As in, kill the concept of the “Self” - your consciousness’s perception that it is an individual, that it has one meaningful isolated identity that is “you,” that it is not but a droplet in the grand ocean of interconnected souls of all living beings in this universe. I think this is beautiful. Embrace ego death and become one with everything. Everyone should KYS
wake again after rest
lord the peasants are so loud today