Huge Xbox Layoffs and Even Huger Fungus Maps | Stuff Keeps Happening

[00:00:00]Hello!

[00:00:00]I did not sleep very well last night, But stuff still happened.

[00:00:06]So what's up?

[00:00:07]I didn't sleep great going to do my best; might have morning voice.

[00:00:11]I'll accept it.

[00:00:12]I hope you will too.

[00:00:14]Fungus.

[00:00:15]I hope you like fungus. This first story is about fungus. A lot of it.

[00:00:19]The whole world, actually.

[00:00:21]Scientists created a worldwide map of bio density of underground fungal networks.

[00:00:28]You with me?

[00:00:29]With myriad pop culture interpretations of this concept, you're probably already aware, but quick overview underground in the, in the underground, there's a bunch of fungus that creates basically like an internet for plants.

[00:00:42]Hyphal fungi. I think that's the correct term.

[00:00:45]It kind of just like grows through the ground and it finds a plant.

[00:00:48]It's like, Hey yo, you want to be friends? You want, you want to join my club? And then it creates a symbiotic relationship.

[00:00:53]This big network of fungus then becomes essentially like a sushi conveyor belt thing for plants. But instead of sushi, it's like carbon and water.

[00:01:02]So it's critical to the wellbeing of a lot of ecosystems, but we don't know a whole lot about it.

[00:01:07]Now we've got a global map of the distribution of all of this fungi.

[00:01:11]Isn't that fun, guy?

[00:01:14]How did that happen?

[00:01:16]Over the years, scientists like to get dirt samples, a bunch of dirt scientists were like, I want dirt from a bunch of places.

[00:01:26]And over the years collected some 16,000 samples of dirt from all the places that you might find dirt, like the ground.

[00:01:32]They're basically like, we want to collect a bunch of samples to get information on what's going on in the soil in varying locations.

[00:01:38]16,000 samples, actually more than that were then thrown at a computer,.

[00:01:42]Not the— not the not the dirt. They didn't, they didn't pour dirt over the computers.

[00:01:46]They analyzed the samples and then used a machine learning algorithm to extrapolate a map of the global distribution of this fungus.

[00:01:54]By taking a bunch of samples and saying this sample was at this location, the sample was at this location and doing that enough times, the computer can extrapolate with varying degrees of confidence, what that map would be.

[00:02:04]So while they didn't go underground and like take a measuring tape and measure out each individual piece of fungus, it is estimated that the total length of all of these fungal tubes underground is longer than a billion times the distance between the earth and the sun.

[00:02:20]So another way, a little more than two football fields.

[00:02:23]So as we move forward and try not to die on this planet, a really good way to do that is to learn more about these fungal networks and work with them to ensure that our ecosystems are not going to fall apart.

[00:02:33]Yay science, yay conservation. Boo, this next story.

[00:02:37]Another civilian has been gunned down by ICE agents resulting in his death after a traffic stop. This time in Houston, Lorenzo Salgado Arajo is dead because of the Trump administration and the people who voted them into power thinking this was all just a meme.

[00:02:52]He had been living in this country for more than 30 years, raising a family, being a job creator.

[00:02:57]He was actively a contributing member of society. At 6.50 AM, he was on his way to work carpooling with coworkers when ice agents accosted him in unmarked SUVs.

[00:03:08]They called it a "targeted enforcement operation."

[00:03:10]That was 6.50. At 6.51, emergency services were dispatched because Lorenzo was bleeding out.

[00:03:16]He was shot in the gut, bled out and died.

[00:03:19]And the ICE agents claim that the reason they did that was because they were fearing for their life because he was going to ram them with his car.

[00:03:25]Where have I heard that before?

[00:03:29]This is an established pattern.

[00:03:31]Ice kills someone withholds as much footage as they possibly can, asserts that what happened was they were in mortal danger.

[00:03:38]And then we find out that's nowhere near the case.

[00:03:41]They have long since lost any benefit of the doubt.

[00:03:44]And honestly, on the death of this man more than I need to, I want to highlight what his son said about this situation.

[00:03:53]And I will warn that this is heartbreaking.

[00:03:55]I understand if you want to skip forward.

[00:03:57]Speaking of his father, he said, you could find him every evening after work, resting on his porch, listening to music, petting his dog.

[00:04:05]I am deeply heartbroken to see that the man who taught me the value of hard work, family values and education will no longer spend an evening on that porch.

[00:04:16]He did not deserve to die.

[00:04:18]He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of Mexican man shot and killed by ice.

[00:04:24]The only acceptable next step for ice is the complete dissolution of the agency.

[00:04:30]Probably all of DHS itself, prosecution, convictions and policy to ensure that this never happens again.

[00:04:36]I'm not going to hold my breath, but anything less than that is absurd.

[00:04:40]All right, let's switch it up a bit.

[00:04:42]Let's talk about Xbox or the lack thereof.

[00:04:45]The gaming industry is going through it right now.

[00:04:47]There have been a ton of layoffs, most recently from Microsoft and Xbox.

[00:04:51]In a memo this week, recently anointed CEO, Asha Sharma, basically said, hey, y'all, we're not doing great and we're going to lay off 3,200 people.

[00:05:00]This is part of a larger 4,800 person layoff from Microsoft as a whole.

[00:05:04]Let's not forget they've laid off over 10,000 developers in the past few years.

[00:05:09]And the industry at large has just been laying off just for funsies.

[00:05:12]It's just a fun little hobby, I guess.

[00:05:13]These cuts are massive and affect a lot of studios.

[00:05:16]If you're not particularly familiar with the corporate structure of Xbox, what they tend to do is buy studios to bring them in house and basically just gather up IPs.

[00:05:25]And so they've gathered a pretty big list of big name studios and a lot of those studios are taking giant hits.

[00:05:32]Several of those studios are spinning out entirely.

[00:05:35]And one of those studios fates is entirely unknown right now.

[00:05:38]Here's a quick rundown of studios that will be affected by this.

[00:05:41]Double Fine Productions.

[00:05:43]They're known for Psychonauts and Brutal Legend.

[00:05:46]They are going to return to independent management.

[00:05:48]They're going to get a bit of money from Microsoft to make sure they've got a soft landing. Pretty much the same goes for Compulsion Games.

[00:05:54]They're known for We Happy Few and South of Midnight.

[00:05:57]They're also spinning out, also going back to independent.

[00:05:59]Ninja Theory.

[00:06:00]They make Kung Fu Chaos and Heavenly Sword.

[00:06:03]They've been sold to a new owner that's currently undisclosed.

[00:06:06]Undead Labs.

[00:06:07]They make the State of Decay franchise.

[00:06:09]They have also been sold to a new owner.

[00:06:11]And the one that we don't fully know about is Arcane.

[00:06:14]They've got a studio in Lyon, France, and currently their fate is unknown because France actually has labor laws.

[00:06:21]That studio is known for Dishonored and Deathloop.

[00:06:23]And essentially Microsoft's been trying to shut them down and they've already shut down another office of the same studio from Texas.

[00:06:30]But now they're trying to say, hey, close that one too.

[00:06:32]To which a French workers rights review board has to actually go over that.

[00:06:36]And tell them if that's legal.

[00:06:37]So we don't know what's going to happen there.

[00:06:39]But wow, workers having actual protections against just being laid off.

[00:06:45]Immediately weird and interesting.

[00:06:47]I also just real quick want to say this is this is post recording.

[00:06:51]I forgot to mention that Bethesda Studios, ZeniMax, id Software, Obsidian and Activision have also all taken quite a few hits.

[00:07:00]We don't know the full scope or what's exactly going to happen to all of them.

[00:07:03]But most of the most of the ones I just listed are going to stay with Microsoft.

[00:07:07]But they they're taking big hits.

[00:07:09]Microsoft has made a bunch of money recently.

[00:07:11]They are not struggling.

[00:07:11]And these layoffs are pretty fucking cynical because it's just to make more short term numbers look good.

[00:07:17]Granted, Xbox is not the reason that they are currently very profitable, but it's not like they can't absorb these headwinds.

[00:07:22]They don't want to absorb these headwinds.

[00:07:24]They want to instead be like, look, we've cut a bunch of employees and don't worry about it, just keep investing.

[00:07:30]Look how efficient we are.

[00:07:32]AI.

[00:07:32]And in fact, Microsoft Game Pass seems to be a pretty big flash point for all of this.

[00:07:36]It doesn't make money.

[00:07:37]In fact, it undermines the sales of most of the games that are on it.

[00:07:40]The most recent call of duty that was on Game Pass saw an 80% drop in actual premium sales of the game.

[00:07:46]They don't like that much.

[00:07:49]So they're going to start messing with that as well, making certain titles be delayed before they actually go into Game Pass, that people actually spend the money on them.

[00:07:56]Here's a quote from Sharma about that.

[00:07:59]Quote: "to grow.

[00:08:00]We bet on Game Pass multi-platform and a broader portfolio of content.

[00:08:05]While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected."

[00:08:09]Game Pass did have its price come down recently as Sharma took over as CEO, but she is a former meta executive and then also Microsoft's head of product of core AI stuff.

[00:08:20]She's not, it's not like this is gamer time, you know, it's still an executive.

[00:08:25]And executives have one job: make money for shareholders.

[00:08:29]Their job is not to produce jobs for other people.

[00:08:32]Their job is to produce value.

[00:08:34]Thank you so much for being here.

[00:08:35]If you like what I do, it would help a lot.

[00:08:37]If you would like comment, subscribe, share all that stuff.

[00:08:40]I also have a Patreon and merch store.

[00:08:42]You can get merch like this one.

[00:08:43]This is this is a merch that you could get from the store.

[00:08:47]Thank. Next story.

[00:08:49]Meanwhile, in Gaza, Hamas is doing something interesting.

[00:08:54]Hamas has announced that they're going to dissolve the governing arm of their group to allow for the NCAG to come in and take over.

[00:09:01]The NCAG is the National Committee for Administering Gaza.

[00:09:04]It's a U.S. and U.N. backed group.

[00:09:07]It consists of 15 civilian governance experts that are all Palestinian.

[00:09:11]They are, again, backed by the U.N.

[00:09:12]and the U.S. as a part of the proposed ceasefire deal brokered by the U.S.

[00:09:17]that Israel has been completely ignoring.

[00:09:19]As a reminder, Israel still occupies 60 percent of Gaza and they've killed over a thousand Palestinians since the ceasefire, wounding thousands more in like artillery strikes. It's not at all a ceasefire.

[00:09:33]The NCAG has been ready to come in and take over for a while, but Israel has actually prevented them from going in, citing that the situation is too dangerous And that like Hamas has to completely disappear and disarm and just go away before anything can actually happen. Hamas is saying that they're going to dissolve their governing body, but they're not going to disarm.

[00:09:52]They're going to remain a security force.

[00:09:54]So essentially it's an attempt at a bluff call, right?

[00:09:57]Israel is saying we can't go to the next step of the ceasefire because Hamas isn't going to let go of governance.

[00:10:02]And so Hamas is saying we'll let go of governance and let them in.

[00:10:05]Now the ball is in your court.

[00:10:06]I don't think this really changes all that much.

[00:10:09]The NCAG has acknowledged it, but they're not going to actually go in yet.

[00:10:14]But any movement towards not the current situation is genuinely a good movement.

[00:10:20]The outlook of the NCAG is shaky for sure, but it's just as shaky as any other prospect right now. And it's less shaky than being constantly bombed.

[00:10:30]As a reminder, as for like why Hamas is a governing body, Hamas did win an election to govern Gaza in 2006.

[00:10:38]They have retained that position since then.

[00:10:41]And I would remind you that the average age of Palestinians in Gaza is under 18.

[00:10:47]So 20 years ago, Hamas won an election and now most of the people alive there were not even born then.

[00:10:53]So there's that.

[00:10:55]We're back on our shit again.

[00:10:58]We're bombing Iran again because Trump got bored again and is saying that we're going to stop the ceasefire now and bomb them again again.

[00:11:05]I don't know what to say about this because like I don't want to crack jokes because we are just bombing the fuck out of people because of an idiot.

[00:11:13]But what he said was that I think it's over for me like that.

[00:11:18]That is what the man said with regards to trying to broker peace.

[00:11:23]He was at a NATO summit and he was like, yes, it's over.

[00:11:26]We're going to start bombing them again.

[00:11:27]And then we started bombing them again.

[00:11:29]And now here we are.

[00:11:30]The argument that they used for starting the bombing campaign again is that there were some skirmishes in the Strait of Hormuz with boats being shot at.

[00:11:38]We really don't have a lot of information about all this.

[00:11:40]In the fog of war, that could be anything.

[00:11:43]I am very hesitant to take anything that this administration says at face value, especially regarding this absolute catastrophe of a war.

[00:11:51]So Iran has already retaliated since then and we're just we're just back at it.

[00:11:56]We're just back at it.

[00:11:57]I will say, usually our weekly reminder that we're going to go back to war now happens after markets close on Fridays.

[00:12:03]Instead, it happened in the middle of the week and we saw the reaction pretty much immediately.

[00:12:08]Stocks go down. Oil go up.

[00:12:14]That's what happened.

[00:12:14]I'm basically CNBC.

[00:12:16]Anyway, one day Donald Trump is going to shit his pants and die.

[00:12:21]Lightning round.

[00:12:22]A man from Alabama died from a heart attack while trying to hide the body of his girlfriend who he had recently murdered.

[00:12:29]Here's the weather.

[00:12:30]So far, the FBI has seized at least 600 drones as people are trying to fly drones over World Cup games. To be clear, these are like consumer drones, like cameras, not military drones.

[00:12:41]David Hearn, a three time U.S.

[00:12:44]Olympian, has been indicted in Washington, D.C.

[00:12:47]for allegedly vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

[00:12:51]That is where we are as a country.

[00:12:53]I apologize for my endless supply of jade today.

[00:12:57]Sony has announced that PlayStation games will no longer have a physical version starting in twenty twenty eight.

[00:13:02]The reaction has not been positive.

[00:13:04]At time of writing, we genuinely do not know whether or not U.S.

[00:13:08]Senator Mitch McConnell is dead.

[00:13:10]And finally, for today, someone who's not dead, a toddler in Arizona was thought to drowned and then was found hours later alive in the morgue.

[00:13:19]Zombaby That is all I have for you today.

[00:13:21]Thank you so much for watching.

[00:13:22]Let me know in the comments below where you are going to be found alive after everyone thought you died. My name is Endeavorance.

[00:13:28]We'll talk again soon.

[00:13:29]Take care and be well.