The co-founder of a nascent game studio learned of a significant internal leak when a reporter called him for comment. He notified his publishing partner who responded to the leak by cutting funding. Then, after breathing what I'm sure were a series of very deep, very audible sighs he decided to say, "fuck it," and close the whole damn studio:

As a result of the cancellation of the publishing relationship and after careful consideration, I am closing Possibility Space. Today is your last day of employment at Possibility Space and Prytania Media. Your final paycheck including pay for work through the end of today will be deposited to your account, along with any other required payments, as dictated by your work location.

And exit the industry while he's at it:

As of today I am stepping away from the game industry to focus on my family and care for Annie [Delisi Strain]. I wish all of you the best as you navigate this complex industry and the challenges and opportunities ahead.

In a recent episode of Breaking Change I talked at length about why the "AAA" gaming industry is falling apart before our eyes, so reactions like this don't seem so unreasonable to me. I've been wondering aloud for my entire career why the hell anyone gets into the gaming business when virtually everyone involved could make an order of magnitude more money working half as many hours doing literally anything else involving software. Now that the free money spigot has been shut off, investors are starting to realize the same thing and are looking for any plausible pretense to pull the plug.

I'm sure the journalist named in the piece (incidentally, by his own employer, via this article) doesn't feel awesome that his reporting indirectly led to his sources losing their jobs. And the fact he apparently never bothered to contact Annie Delisi Strain—the rare-for-the-industry woman CEO currently on medical leave—for comment is certainly a bad look. But he's probably got enough to worry about, considering that one of the few industries closer to the brink of collapse than games is games journalism.

Down for everyone because of me?

Spatial Personas are terrifyingly cool

Note that this App Store policy change is global, not only to comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act.

You can read the updated policy directly, but The Verge breaks it down:

The move should allow the retro console emulators already on Android — at least those that are left — to bring their apps to the iPhone. Game emulators have long been banned from iOS, leaving iPhone owners in search of workarounds via jailbreaking or other workarounds. They're also one of the key reasons, so far, that iPhone owners in the European Union might check out third-party app stores now that they're allowed in the region. Apple's change today could head that off.

There goes the only reason I'd ever be interested in a third-party marketplace. I suspect I'm not alone in that.

Takes, re-designed

<div class="mx-auto max-w-68">
  <div class="relative p-1 md:mt-6 md:mr-2 bg-secondary beneath-the-page list-inside-all">
    <!-- The top portion of the background of each take, pinned to the top and with width adjusted to make room for the avatar -->
    <div class="z-10 bottom-12 absolute w-[calc(100%-124px)] mr-1 top-1 ml-13.5 shadow-lg bg-primary rounded-xl">
    </div>
    <!-- The bottom portion of the background of the take, pinned to the bottom and with fuller width -->
    <div class="z-20 bottom-11.5 absolute w-[calc(100%-16px)] mr-1 top-14.5 shadow-lg bg-primary rounded-tl-xl rounded-bl-xl rounded-br-xl"
      data-min-height="20">
    </div>

    <a href="/about">
      <!-- my face, fixed width/height, floated to the left -->
      <img class="float-left w-12 h-12 mt-px mb-0 mr-2.5 shadow-2xl rounded-xl" src="/img/face.jpg">
    </a>
    <div class="relative z-30 px-1 text-lg pt-sm min-h-11.5 [&amp;>*:first-child]:mt-0 [&amp;>*:last-child]:mb-0">
      <!-- The take's inner HTML, rendered from markdown -->
    </div>
    <div class="flex flex-row justify-between h-5 px-2 mx-auto mt-3 rounded-lg shadow-lg max-w-48 py-sm bg-primary min-w-30">
      <!-- Action links & icons -->
    </div>
    <div class="h-3 pt-1 text-sm text-center mt-sm text-secondary/60">
      <!-- the like count & time -->
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

function enforceRenderingConstraintsFor (el) {
  if (el.dataset.minHeight != null) {
    el.classList.remove('hidden') // have to remove hidden first b/c otherwise el.clientHeight will be 0
    el.classList.toggle('hidden', el.clientHeight < parseInt(el.dataset.minHeight, 10))
  }
}

function enforceRenderingConstraints () {
  const elements = document.querySelectorAll('[data-min-height]')
  elements.forEach(enforceRenderingConstraintsFor)
}

window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', enforceRenderingConstraints);
window.addEventListener('resize', enforceRenderingConstraints);

In a stroke of good fortune, this week's big, overriding to-do item was to figure out how to write a hotwire-friendly "combo box" (one of those drop-down / select boxes for the web that you can type into and filter the options). Then I happened to scan this week's Ruby Weekly and found somebody beat me to the punch!

It's by Jose Farias and he calls it HotwireCombobox. The documentation page contains plenty of demos, so go play with it!

The best part (and my favorite thing about moving to import maps for JavaScript in Rails 7) is that the front-end assets live with the gem, which means there's no risk of version drift causing the backend and front-end to fall out of sync with each other.

In fact, set up was so minimal, I'm going to share the entire changeset of what it took to convert my app's f.collection_select boxes over to f.combobox.

Turns out, there's more to it…

The Wall Street Journal (News+ link) with a pretty wild profile of one of Apple's most interesting and influential leaders:

People close to Schiller describe his three main hobbies as cars, Boston sports teams and Apple, where he is still known to work nearly 80 hours a week, respond to emails almost immediately and answer phone calls at any time. He is also heavily involved in philanthropic endeavors, including an institute at Boston College, his alma mater, that carries his name, the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society.

If you've been a senior executive someplace for decades and your company still relies on you working 80-hour weeks, I don't know how else to say it: you fucked up. You should have figured out how to develop other leaders and delegate responsibility to them by now. And unless your unique contributions are going to make the difference in curing cancer, ending global hunger, or bringing peace to the Middle East, you're only exacerbating the problem by continuing to work around-the-clock into your mid-60s.