Blog Archives for 2025
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Another Morning on the Surface
ARC Raiders
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Returning to Speranza
ARC Raiders
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ARC Raidin’
I played ARC Raiders for the first time tonight. Neat game! Played flawlessly out of the gate for me — which is somewhat unexpected for PC games these days, I feel — and the out-of-the-box graphics settings were perfect on my Ryzen 5 5600X, RTX 3080 Ti and 32 GB of RAM (the game is installed on an SSD, of course). The friend who got me into it plays on an Xbox and the crossplay is also flawless. Another nice surprise: having crossplay for Xbox, Playstation and PC in a PvP shooter like that!
The game feels like Tarkov Light, or maybe a better The Cycle. Nice world, too. Reminds me a lot of Simon Stålenhag’s work, which I adore.
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Back from Poland
I’ve just returned from my trip to Poland and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. It was a very interesting trip, as part of which I not only got a tour of the memorial and museum, but I also had the opportunity to see parts of the memorial not open to regular visitors. We were even shown around a newly-preserved barracks building in Birkenau that had so far only been accessed by museum staff. We also got to see the archives and preservation labs and attended a number of interesting lectures, including by the director of the museum and a staff historian.
It was a very taxing trip. I travelled over 1600 kilometres to get there and back and every day at the memorial, I spent 8 hours straight just absorbing information, with a lot of walking in between. I took over 600 photos on the memorial grounds.
In the coming days and weeks, I will be writing about my experience and you can also expect me to publish some of those pictures here, of course.
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Auschwitz Seminar
I’ve just gotten the news that I have been accepted to attend a seminar for journalists in Auschwitz at the end of the month. Despite my lifelong interest in World War II history, I have never been there. I have never been in Poland, in fact, even though part of my family is from the now-Polish part of Pomerania. I just never had the opportunity. So I’m doubly happy I get to attend this. This is quite exciting for me!
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Back from Holiday (Once Again)
Yeah, I realise I’ve been on holiday a lot recently … I’ve just returned from a week-long motorbike tour through Normandy. This was the yearly tour I do with my dad and it was originally planned for much earlier in the year, but had to be pushed back due to some health related circumstances.
It was a very nice bike trip through some seriously beautiful country and despite being exhausting — one factor here was the weather, which was already starting to get quite cool — it did a lot to clear my mind of work-related things. But now I am once again ready to go back to work. And there’s no further holiday planned for the forseeable future, so you can look forward to regular content on the blog again.
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Algo Prison Blues
Just revisiting this old gem from No Agenda. Still cracks me up.
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Back from Holiday
I’ve just arrived home from a beautiful two-week holiday in sunny Tuscany, Italy. My phone was off for almost the complete duration of this holiday and I did not take a computer with me. I read a lot, took some handwritten notes and otherwise just relaxed by sitting around in the sun, cooking food over a wood fire and swimming in the pool.
I am now thoroughly relaxed and ready to go back to work, so expect more writing (and other things) from me soon.
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How to Fuck Up Your Successful Game Franchise
Civilization as a series has basically been a license for Firaxis to print money for the last twenty years. Until they took it for granted and made Civilization VII, which was a disaster on several levels: It was much worse than previous games of the series. But not only with respect to its deep gameplay, which only hardcore players very much in the turn-based strategy game niche would detect. It was also obviously a worse game, just by casually looking at the interface. And to top it all off, they raised the price of the game from €60 to €70. Or even €100, some would argue, because they shifted things that used to be in the base version to the Deluxe Edition.
The launch of Civilization VII is like a masterclass in how not to launch a game. It’s currently discounted by 30% on Steam and, at the same time, has less players than both its predecessors — one of which is 15 years old now! I think we’re looking at a new record in how to ruin your successful game franchise.
Concurrent players on Steam for Civ VII (orange) vs. Civ V (blue) and Civ VI (green) — Screenshot: SteamDB
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Will Bongino Step Down over Epstein Non-disclosure?
Will Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino resign over Attorney General Pam Bondi and President Trump backing down on the Epstein disclosures?
Bongino did not go into the office Friday and largely excommunicated himself from most of his colleagues after a major fallout with Attorney General Pam Bondi over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. As of Monday morning, no one in leadership at the Justice Department had spoken to Bongino since Wednesday, when he implied that he could no longer continue in his position as long as Bondi was there, sources familiar with the matter said.
The threat infuriated Trump, who spent the weekend fuming over both Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel, sources told CNN. Most of his fury was directed at Bongino, causing aides to expect that the deputy director would depart his job in the coming days. But Vice President JD Vance spent the weekend attempting to mediate, at times fielding calls from Patel, Bongino and Bondi, sources said.
It remains to be seen if Bongino ultimately resigns, which he told others he was considering. But sources say his relationship with the White House has become basically untenable. Even if he does not quit now, some inside the administration believe he will not stay in the job long-term.
→ CNN: Bongino still in limbo as Trump fumes and JD Vance seeks to play mediator, sources say
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The Horrible Cambodian Scam Industry
Cambodia within South East Asia (Mapping by Mapbox)Ever wondered where all that spam comes from? Man, this is bad.
→ Reuters: Amnesty says Cambodia is enabling brutal scam industry
Human rights group Amnesty International accused Cambodia’s government on Thursday of “deliberately ignoring” abuses by cybercrime gangs that have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds. The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centres and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including the Southeast Asian nation's capital, Phnom Penh.
The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, it said, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement in dark rooms, and beatings. Amnesty said its findings revealed a "pattern of state failures" that allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, identify and assist victims, and regulate security companies and tools of torture.
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Air India Flight 171
The accident aircraft, VT-ANB, in 2024 (Photo: RyanZ225 PC / CC-BY-SA 4.0)It seems that whatever happened to Air India Flight 171 to make it crash right after takeoff is still a mystery.
An Air India Boeing 787-8, registration VT-ANB performing flight AI-171 from Ahmedabad (India) to London Gatwick,EN (UK) with 230 passengers and 12 crew, was departing Ahmedabad's runway 23 at 13:38L (08:08Z), when the crew declared Mayday "No Thrust, not taking lift" and the aircraft crashed into the "BJ Medical College" in Meghaninagar surbub about 0.9nm past the runway end, first impact at position N23.056 E72.612 with wreckage spread over 200 meters. Rescue services are at the scene. There have been fatalities and injuries on the ground, local police believed there was no survivor on board of the aircraft, however, later confirmed one survivor. The airline confirmed 241 people on board died in the crash, there was only one survivor. There are 39 fatalities on the ground confirmed in addition to many injuries on the ground. Ground witnesses reported the aircraft impacted hostel buildings within a states run college for doctors, one student was able to jump out of the hotel and survived with injuries. About 50-60 students have been injured.
According to ADS-B the aircraft had entered runway 23 from the apron, which without backtracking would leave a takeoff distance available of 1900 meters/6300 feet. Four minutes later - without further position data being received, so unclear from the ADS-B whether the aircraft backtracked or not, on Jun 15th 2025 it was clarified that the aircraft had backtracked and used the full length of the runway - the aircraft took off. In the last ADS-B position the aircraft had climbed to about 625 feet MSL according to Standard Pressure (compensated for ambient pressure that would be about about 264 feet MSL or 75 feet AGL) at 174 knots over ground.
On Jun 14th 2025 the survivor reported, that moments after becoming airborne the lights in the aircraft began to flicker and the aircraft appeared to be "stuck in the air". The lights began flickering green and white, then the aircraft slammed into a building. He saw an opening in front of him, unbelted himself and used his feet to push through the opening. Doctors treating the survivor stated, that he was disorientated and suffered multiple injuries all over his body, he is out of danger however.
On Jun 17th 2025 an official, a former Air India Captain trained by the Captain of the accident flight, stated, that the CVR has been successfully read out, the voices on the CVR are very clear. It is becoming gradually clear from the newly emerging evidence that there was probably zero negligence in the cockpit, the crew did not give up until the very last moment. The probability of a technical cause is high. A preliminary report by India's AAIB can be expected in a few days.
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BG1 & BG2 Game Guides
I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate again — yes, the original game. Well, the Enhanced Edition, to be precise. Because of this, I have been reading Dan Simpson’s legendary game walkthroughs for BG1 and BG2. These hold up very well to this day and are still very useful when playing the enhanced editions.
→ Baldur’s Gate Walkthrough by Dan Simpson
→ Baldur’s Gate II Walkthrough by Dan Simpson
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PoE 2 is Unplayable Right Now in Europe
Well, it turns out that fix for the Path of Exile 2 server problems doesn’t work. I am constantly getting disconnected again and again now. It must have been pure luck that the bug didn’t get triggered when I was testing the fix initially.
Progress constantly being wiped in an always-online game like this is absolutely unacceptable and the fact that the developers are publicly acknowledging all kinds of other problems with their game, some of them quite minor, but have said nothing whatsoever publicly about this in days is very disappointing. The thread on the forums about the problem has almost 700 posts and more than 15.000 views by now, but not a single dev or community person has chimed in. It’s upsetting me, because I really like that game, but with it being basically unplayable, I am moving on now. It’s affecting my mood and I don’t need that from a video game. I think it’s time to go back to Elden Ring.
I will check on PoE 2 in a few months, probably. Maybe the EU servers are in an acceptable state by then.
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PoE 2 Server Disconnects
Path of Exile 2, which is still in Early Access, has just released their first content expansion after its launch in December of last year. The most recent update to the game introduced some pretty significant server issues, though. These seem to mostly affect the European servers and are causing frequent disconnects from the server that cause you to lose all progress you have made in that play session. For an online-only game this is pretty significant and makes it basically unplayable for any reasonable person.
On the game’s forums, a workaround has been suggested that, in my tests, seems to have resolved the issue for me. Go to the in-game settings and use the button to open the folder that stores loot filters. In that folder, there is a file called
poe2_production_config.ini. Open it with a text editor and search for the following line:networking_type=autoReplace this with:
networking_type=predictiveThe latency to the server and general network performance is still a lot worse since before the latest patch, but at least I’m not getting disconnected and lose progress anymore.
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What I’ve Been Up To
You’ve probably noticed that there hasn’t been much going on here lately. This is mostly because I’ve been working very hard behind the scenes to bring the website up to version 3.0, which includes a visual refresh for the site’s theme. I’ve also spent a week on the road, hosting a stage at the secIT 2025 conference as well as doing a lot of networking and sourcing for stories around the event.
I then promptly got the obligatory conference flu, which laid me out for about a week. I completely lost my voice for a few days and was also very tired, the combination of which prevented me from getting any work done. So naturally, there is now quite a backlog to get through.
The work on the new website version is still ongoing behind the scenes. This refresh is made up of three new colour schemes that took me a few weeks to nail down. There are also new features which had to be implemented and tested properly. That’s all finished now. But there is still a lot of work to be done, because I’ve had to touch every single piece of content on the site to change some code that has to do with a new, improved categorisation scheme that’s part of the new design. It’s a lot of work, but will be well worth it in the end. I hope I’ll have that completed soon, so that everyone gets to see the new version of the site that I’ve been working on. Until then, hang tight.
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Welcome to Bohemia!
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
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Coffee Wisdom
It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.
This piece by Dave Barry from the 9 November 1997 edition of The Washington Post is one of the best texts on coffee I've ever read. This is exactly how I feel about it.
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A Note on PoE 2 Crashes
Speaking of PoE 2, if you have issues with it crashing and hard locking your PC (especially on the latest Windows 11 version, 24H2) you might want to tweak the affinity of the PoE process. To do this, go to the "Details" tab of the Task Manager (which you can call up by pressing
Ctrl+Alt+Delete) and search for the game’s process — in my case that isPathOfExileSteam.exe. Right click on it and choose "Set affinity", then remove a processor core or two so that the process doesn’t use all of your CPU’s cores.
That way, only the game will lock up instead of the whole machine with you needing to reboot. This only happens when loading maps, so you won’t lose any game progress and you can simply restart the game again (not forgetting to tweak the affinity every time). I also set my renderer to Vulkan, but I don’t know if that is needed to make this work.
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A Note on Finishing PoE 2
After almost exactly 4 days playtime in the game, and 208 deaths, I have just finished the Early Access portion of Path of Exile 2. That is, I finished acts one to three of the game, killed every boss and fully explored all maps — with a Solo Self Fund character. You can redo those acts at a higher difficulty and then enter the endgame mode, but I am not sure I want to do that right now. I’d rather start a new character in a new class and replay the content I have already explored.
In any case: What a great game! I’ve been loving every minute of this so far.
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A Tidbit about the AARO Logo
Now this is really funny. Apparently, the original director of AARO, Sean M. Kirkpatrick, used Reddit to come up with the organisation's motto “vita nostra est quod cogitationes nostra facere est”.
Can someone translate this quote to latin for me please?
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
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