James Whatley
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whatleydude.com
James Whatley
@whatleydude.com
Snr Global Brand Strategist @ the LEGO Group (opinions own, etc). Mainly working on LEGO Games, LEGO Fortnite, Technic, and Ninjago. It's fun. Occasional sender of fivethingsonfriday.com. I got ❤️ for writing, gaming, and figuring stuff out. He/Him.
Reposted by James Whatley
The Guardian: here’s how Substack makes money hosting Nazi newsletters. These newsletters weren’t even hard to find or subtle: swastikas and in-app recommendations from one antisemitic newsletter to a bunch of others. [theguardian.com]
Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters
Exclusive: Site takes a cut of subscriptions to content that promotes far-right ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism
www.theguardian.com
February 8, 2026 at 3:18 PM
Google moving the Gemini opt out as part of general useful features is some wild dark pattern shifting.

Ugh.
February 8, 2026 at 4:57 PM
I wonder what actually sits behind a calendly link.

Guess we'll never know.
February 7, 2026 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by James Whatley
Democratizing the arts looks like universal income, low-barrier grants for both emerging and working artists, well-funded municipal arts & recreation programs, vibrant third spaces, and a well-funded public school system with progressive curriculum.

Not a free pass for corporate-owned slop engines.
Every instance of "AI democratizes the arts, you're classist and ableist and a gatekeeper for trying to stop it" is a slap in the face to the literally centuries of poor, disabled people making art on the margins and a crass lie in service of a machine that strips down and regurgitates dreams
February 7, 2026 at 12:58 AM
BELATED BURNS NIGHT WAS A HUGE SUCCESS

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 ♥️ 🥃
February 7, 2026 at 11:00 AM
Not everything I work on is gaming based.

The next big big thing on the launch slate is not far off and it's BIG.

(Rumours are out, and none of them are right... so far)

🤞🏻♥️👀
February 7, 2026 at 10:43 AM
Reposted by James Whatley
one of the greatest human triumphs of my lifetime is the relentless, unceasing, heroic effort by DECADES' worth of doctors and scientists to find a cure for a disease much of the world didn't take seriously for years because it predominantly affected a community they thought kinda deserved it
Just because good news is worth celebrating:

There is now a Prep medication that is an *every six month* injection.

HIV has, effectively, a vaccination.
February 7, 2026 at 1:37 AM
AI experts using Gen AI to write Linkedin posts about Super Bowl ads for Gen AI feels like a pyramid scheme.
February 6, 2026 at 9:02 AM
Looking for a copy of this now deleted post, I don't suppose anyone has one?
February 5, 2026 at 11:59 PM
The 'not but' is such a gen ai tell it's painful.

If I see it, I'll test the copy on an ai-writing tool - and 100% of the times I've done this, it's come back as 'we're confident this is ai generated'

And hey, if you can't be bothered to write it, I won't be bothered to read it.
February 5, 2026 at 11:18 AM
The deafening silence of a loud minority is a lovely sound first thing in the morning.
Sony says Ghost of Yotei sales are outperforming Tsushima and that the PS5 sequel “significantly” contributed to its latest earnings results.

vgc.news/news/sony-sa...
Sony says Ghost of Yotei sales are outperforming Tsushima | VGC
The PlayStation 5 sequel “significantly” contributed to Sony’s most recent financial results…
vgc.news
February 5, 2026 at 8:56 AM
Doing a belated Burns Night with some friends on Friday.

Dug up the old invite I made for the last one I did. There's a link on it FROM ME, TO ME saying 'Hey James, I saved all the recipes for next time'

Past James is a legend.
February 4, 2026 at 11:35 PM
Reposted by James Whatley
Apropos of nowt, gentle reminder that Substack platform nazis and you should not use them for your newsletter.

Buttondown come recommended.
February 4, 2026 at 5:59 PM
Forgot I wrote about the Apple Vision Pro when it got announced.

Between AVP being announced (Jun 23) and its launch (Feb 2024) I swear to god everyone on Linkedin was ALL IN on becoming a sPaTiAl cOmPuTiNg cOnSuLtAnT.

'Don't worry about the pricetag, the next one will be cheaper'

The next one!
February 3, 2026 at 9:05 AM
Been a while since we heard anyone talk about spatial computing ay
February 3, 2026 at 12:28 AM
Yeaaaah Wonder Man is the best thing Marvel TV has made since Wanda.

Everything the critics say is bang on. What a show.
a man wearing sunglasses and a red jacket is standing in front of a sign that says bf
ALT: a man wearing sunglasses and a red jacket is standing in front of a sign that says bf
media.tenor.com
February 2, 2026 at 9:39 PM
WOOLHAVEN IS LIFE.
February 2, 2026 at 4:30 PM
Reposted by James Whatley
It's an email encoding thing. The = is an escape for whitespace that would otherwise end a line. If you don't decode it properly you get a lot of = lying around en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoted-...
Quoted-printable - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
February 2, 2026 at 2:49 PM
That's a strange couple of typos. From them both.

Now why on earth would a couple of v powerful party people randomly put a couple of lines into an innocuous email exchange?
February 2, 2026 at 2:44 PM
I do like a GDC SOTI report but I like it much more when it's readable.
February 2, 2026 at 10:34 AM
Well, that took the best part of a week but now a good chunk of my Twitter history is now imported over to Bluesky and (hopefully) searchable - which is what I've missed.

bsky.app/profile/oldw...
February 1, 2026 at 3:51 PM
From my years of working on OREO, I have a deep level of empathy and understanding for those involved with this *not* happening.
February 1, 2026 at 12:56 PM
*laughs in Stadia*
January 31, 2026 at 11:30 PM