As Country Living’s Senior Homes and Style Editor, I’ve seen my share of kitchens over the years, so I know what decorating ideas do and do not actually work in a kitchen. As well, I know which ideas are best for achieving the kitchen style you like, whether you want to embrace cottage style, have a farmhouse-style kitchen, create a British-inspired cook space, or make it something a little in between. Here at Country Living, we have been fans of cottagecore long before the internet deemed it cool. Of all the styles of kitchens, a cottage-style kitchen is tops for having the most personal charm and character (read: sink skirts, colored cabinetry, open shelving filled with personal one-of-a-kind collections, inviting breakfast nooks...). You see, cottage living is all about embracing imperfection and a timeless lived-in style. While those ideas might seem antithetical to kitchen design, they really are not. Even the newest, most state-of-the-art kitchens can benefit from patinaed, less-than-perfect accents. Below, I have rounded up some of the best (and designer-approved) ways to channel that humble cottage look in your kitchen. From ideas for painting your cabinetry to fresh approaches for backsplash tile, these ideas are guaranteed to make your space into something Beatrix Potter herself would envy! For more kitchen decorating ideas, check out these stories:1Lean Into Existing ArchitectureRikki Snyder for Country LivingIf your home is lucky (yes, lucky!) enough to have quirky architectural features, lean into them and allow them to inform your palette and decor as designer Christina Salway did in her wood-filled New York kitchen. TOUR THE ENTIRE HOUSE2Embrace a Cheerful PaletteBecky Luigart-Stayner for Country LivingNothing gives off cottage charm like an equally charming color palette. In this Alabama kitchen, soft, buttery yellow cabinetry pairs with a fruit-themed wallpaper to create a perfectly prim palette. Get the Look:Cabinet Paint Color: Sudbury Yellow by Farrow & BallWallpaper: Fruit by Morris & Co. TOUR THIS KITCHENAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below3Add A Stove CoveBecky Luigart-Stayner for Country LivingStove coves are a great way to add architectural interest to your kitchen. Back the inset space with beadboard, like designer Trinity Holmes did here, for added cottage appeal. TOUR THIS KITCHENRELATED: Here’s Everything You Need to Know About Stove Coves4Go Wild with WallpaperBrian Woodcock for Country LivingWhile it may seem counterintuitive, bold wallpaper is a great for adding character to smaller spaces. For cramped kitchens with little natural light, stick to brighter, tonal patterns such as the one shown here. Get the Look:Wallpaper: "London Rose" by House of HackneyRELATED: Our Best Kitchen Wallpaper Ideas EverAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below5Wrap the Room in Open ShelvingHelen Norman for Country LivingDoes your cottage kitchen lack serious storage space? No worries. Display your favorite ceramic finds on kitchen-spanning open-shelving like photographer Helen Norman did here in her farmhouse kitchen. RELATED: These Open Shelving Ideas Will Have You Ready to Rip Out Your Cabinetry 6Mix Your MaterialsHelen Norman, styling by Matthew GleasonIn this colorful cottage kitchen, worn woods and happily patinaed copper craft a curated-over-time feel that amps up the coziness factor. Mix up materials to easily give your kitchen a lived-in feel.TOUR THIS ENTIRE HOUSERELATED: 40 Pretty and Practical Kitchen Backsplash IdeasAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below7Build Out a Breakfast NookKirsten FrancisNo cottage kitchen is complete without a cozy breakfast nook. In this Connecticut kitchen, designer Stephanie Perez installed a banquette along her wall of windows and paired it with a chippy blue table. Hanging baskets add extra cottage charm. RELATED: Check Out All of Our Best Breakfast Nook Ideas8Mount a Peg RailJody BeckMix utilitarian appeal with classic style by mounting a peg rail along your kitchen’s workspace. While this works especially well with wood-paneled backsplash, it can be used with tile too. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below9Add Timeworn Character With Unlacquered BrassAnnie Schlechter for Country LivingChanging up the hardware in your kitchen is an easy and inexpensive way to give the space a fresh look. Swapping builder-grade knobs and pulls with unlacquered brass pieces will add timeworn character in an instant. (And, they’ll only look better over time!)RELATED: The Best Blue Paint Colors for Your Kitchen Cabinetry10Skirt Your SinkDavid Tsay for Country LivingTake a note from Heather Taylor and add a skirt to your sink! This quick upgrade, which can be DIY’d in just an afternoon, adds sweet cottage cheer to any kitchen. If you don’t want to DIY, get crafty with store-bought café curtains. RELATED: Sink Skirts Are the Nostalgic Trend Designers Are Loving Right NowAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below11Hang Café CurtainsStacy Zarin GoldbergIn fact, go all-in on café curtains! These humble window coverings are in the midst of a resurgence thanks to the rising popularity of happily twee decorating. Pick pretty patterns for a white kitchen or stick to calm neutrals in an already pattern-filled space. RELATED: See Why Designers Are Loving Café Curtains Right Now12Stick to Simple TileRead McKendreeIn a house with interesting architectural elements, pick simple finishes and allow the space’s character to shine through. In this 17th century New England cottage designed by Stephenie and Chase Watts, a simple white Zellige tile backsplash extends to the ceiling, allowing the warm wood beams and original flooring to take center stage. RELATED: Should Your Kitchen and Bathroom Tile Match? Designers Weigh InAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below13Go All-In on VintageMarta Xochilt Perez for Country LivingThrifted finds are the quickest way to bring character to an all-white cottage kitchen. Opt for vintage pieces inspired by your locale and lean into crustier, worn pieces for the ultimate curated look. TOUR THIS ENTIRE HOUSERELATED: 10 Old-School Finds That Add Instant Charm to a Kitchen14Match Your Trim To Your CeilingChase DanielLooking for a weekend project to up the design ante in your kitchen? Then it’s time to bring out a paint can! In this humble Texas cottage, a happy duck egg blue paint color was used on the trim, ceiling, and cabinetry to tie the space together with an easy, approachable feel. A reproduction wallpaper ("Larkspur 1872" designed by William Morris) adds just a pop of pattern. Get the Look:Trim and Ceiling Paint Color: Jamestown Blue by Benjamin MooreTOUR THIS ENTIRE HOUSEAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below15Pretty Up a Pass Through Dustin HalleckIf your cramped kitchen leaves little room for serving, look into installing a pass-through window! These are steeped in old-school charm and add foster a casual, come-as-you-are atmosphere. RELATED: These Old House Features Need to Make a Comeback Right Now16Paint Your FloorsDana GallagherIf channeling old-school charm is your preferred method of character-building, then try painting your floors! A classic black-and-white checkerboard pattern is a timeless choice, but the options are only limited by your imagination. Psst...old house owners, this is also a budget-friendly way to cover your wonky floors! RELATED: Everything You Need to Know About Painting Your Floors Advertisement - Continue Reading Below17Mount a Plate RackCarina OlanderDon’t overlook the power of a classic plate rack, which offers the same (if not better) organizational efforts as regular upper cabinetry or open shelving. Paint the plate rack to match your lower cabinetry or go with a contrasting wood stain. RELATED: 7 Kitchen Storage Mistakes You’re Definitely Making, And How to Fix Them18Go MoodyAli Harper for Country LivingNot every cottage kitchen needs to be light and bright. Lean into the cozy vibes of your home with a dark palette. This Alabama cottage features chocolate brown walls, which are complemented by unexpected hits of primary red and blue. Get the Look:Wall Paint Color: Dark Chocolate by Benjamin MooreRELATED: These Are the Best Brown Paint Colors, According to DesignersAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below19Use Salvaged Pieces Reid RollsAdd personality to your kitchen with unique salvaged pieces. Source them from your local architectural salvage yard or antique store, like designer Leanne Ford did with this repurposed china cabinet.TOUR THIS ENTIRE HOUSERELATED: 100+ Best Places to Shop for Salvage and Other Antiques and Vintage Online20Go for Butcher BlockDavid A. LandInstalling butcher-block countertops is a sure-fire way to add humble character to your cottage kitchen. Pair it with other wood accents, like designer Hadley Wiggins did here, for a timeless look.TOUR THIS ENTIRE HOUSERELATED: Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Butcher-Block CountertopsAnna LoganSenior Homes & Style EditorAnna Logan is the Senior Homes & Style Editor at Country Living, where she has been covering all things home design, including sharing exclusive looks at beautifully designed country kitchens, producing home features, writing everything from timely trend reports on the latest viral aesthetic to expert-driven explainers on must-read topics, and rounding up pretty much everything you’ve ever wanted to know about paint, since 2021. Anna has spent the last seven years covering every aspect of the design industry, previously having written for Traditional Home, One Kings Lane, House Beautiful, and Frederic. She holds a degree in journalism from the University of Georgia. When she’s not working, Anna can either be found digging around her flower garden or through the dusty shelves of an antique shop. Follow her adventures, or, more importantly, those of her three-year-old Maltese and official Country Living Pet Lab tester, Teddy, on Instagram.  

The concept of Gaming Factory’s JDM: Japanese Drift Master is enough to get the blood pumping. A drift-focused racing game with a large open world based in Japan with manga-style story-telling? The spirit of legendary properties like Initial D is right there, waiting to be channeled as one dives into the country’s racing culture. The results are a different story entirely. Japanese Drift Master has a pretty impressive-looking world yet struggles to do anything notable with it. Mission design is full of contradictory goals and annoying AI. Progression is less about maximizing rewards and more about grinding out reputation and leveling up a car. The drifting intrigues with its fundamentals yet frustrates in their utilization. Then there are the collisions, which defy logic and real-world physics. The story begins with Thomas, later nicknamed Toma, mourning his father’s passing. Things seem dire after he loses his license and can’t race in Europe for a year until he converses with Hideo and learns about a garage his father left for him in Japan. "To make things worse, you can’t overlook the story either because it feeds into the mission-based gameplay loop. JDM begins with only main missions to complete and driving school available to hone your skills." As you might expect, he quickly becomes involved in street races, gains a heated rival in Hasashi “Scorpion” Hatori, meets a mysterious masked individual, and is embroiled in an unresolved case. All in less than two chapters, naturally, but the actual missions make the narrative feel less exciting than it actually is. At times, they tie in well enough – show up for your showdown with Hasashi. At others, less so, bordering on the bizarre, like matching Hasashi’s drift and sticking close throughout an entire race, as specified, only for him to laugh you off afterwards like nothing even happened. The actual writing isn’t anything special and has its fair share of grammatical errors, but the art is solid. Character details and expressions could be improved in some places, but the line work is clean, and the cars are impressively depicted. Unfortunately, some speech bubbles have way more text crammed in than others, resulting in a much smaller font, and there’s no option to zoom in. Also, the manga is the only fundamental means of story-telling. Aside from appearing in cars or via in-game menus, the characters may as well not exist. To make things worse, you can’t overlook the story either because it feeds into the mission-based gameplay loop. JDM begins with only main missions to complete and driving school available to hone your skills. As you progress, the world opens up with new mission types like underground races and additional delivery tasks. The former is straightforward enough – earn a specific amount of money and reach the end to make bank. Higher amounts mean less time, adding an element of risk vs. reward. The delivery missions, on the other hand, are awful. I’m not against a “Get to this destination and deliver a package within the allotted time” objective, especially if it’s in fun ways (see Crazy Taxi). JDM wants you to avoid hitting solid obstacles or cars lest you damage the deliverable. Oh, and make sure you’re drifting about to build up that style score, i.e. the exact opposite of driving carefully and avoiding traffic. The two requirements are so antithetical to each other that it’s mind-boggling, surpassed only by the fact that one solid collision can take off 35 percent of the item’s “durability” bar. Is the package attached to the hood? Slamming into breakable objects is perfectly fine, by the way. "Amid all my complaining, I admit that drifting can feel good under the right conditions. When you hit a corner just right and balance the angle meter just right to chain a long drift, the Initial D rush kicks in." You can also partake in challenges for Drifting, Grip, and more on specific tracks to earn money (which you then spend on more cars and parts). However, this doesn’t change the fact that most of the world feels relatively unused, which is a shame because there are some aesthetically pleasing locales, like flower gardens and castles, to admire. I’m not expecting Forza Horizon levels of open-world design, but it feels like such wasted potential when it’s not wasting my time to get to a mission. Starting Chapter 2, my next mission involved meeting Tiger, the aforementioned masked driver, south in the prefecture. No garage to fast travel to. Thus began the long, arduous slog without any distractions along the way to liven things up and annoying bouts of traffic to prevent me from drifting around. One does become available later, but then I discovered that delivery and underground racing missions change locations upon completion, and they won’t always be close enough to a fast travel point, further adding to the tedium. Gaming Factory recently addressed the frustrations that traffic can cause by letting you turn it off at any time. It doesn’t outright excuse the delivery mission design, but it does help. However, it also removes the last vestige of life from the open world, making me question its existence all the more. Amid all my complaining, I admit that drifting can feel good under the right conditions. When you hit a corner just right and balance the angle meter just right to chain a long drift, the Initial D rush kicks in. It feels all the more enjoyable when going up against tougher opponents, especially since you’re stuck with an Alpha Moriyamo clunker for the entirety of the first chapter. And while more variety is desperately needed – I counted 27 cars in total – at least brands like Honda, Mazda, Nissan, and Subaru are all here. I also like how weather and track conditions can severely impact your driving, forcing you to accelerate more carefully. The problem is that drifting, especially when you must rack up enough points, is easily gamed by simply wiggling back and forth. Early drifting competitions against the AI were a pain, especially since it makes almost no mistakes (when it’s not willfully slamming into you during races). Then I implemented this approach, sometimes going off track in the process and racking up an extensive amount of points just for maintaining a long drift. The handling also felt off at times, with too much understeer at points, and improving acceleration and top speed resulted in my drifts consistently turning into spin-outs. Probably working as intended, but considering the game wants me to be faster and execute those drifts, it feels like a clash of styles. The collisions are also utterly baffling at times. Veering off-angle during a drift can reduce the multiplier to 1.0 and grant significantly fewer points. Hitting obstacles sometimes has the same effect, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, my car would begin wall-riding like it’s Mario Kart World. Even on Arcade Mode, it’s immensely far-fetched. The collisions are also strange, unpredictable and often frustratingly weighed against you. Then again, colliding into a car in the open world so hard that it changed directions, and proceeded to drive back the way it came, was unintentionally hilarious. "There’s still much work needed on world design, AI, collisions, and progression, not to mention adding more content, before it can truly be called a master of anything, much less my time." Also, whether it’s a Moriyamo or a 2013 Subaru BRZ, be prepared to grind for the parts you want. Reputation must be leveled by either drifting through the world or completing missions and only then can you purchase specific parts, even if you have the cash on hand. Even more frustrating is that cosmetic parts directly tie into a car’s level. If you want to embrace a core aspect of street racing (at least, that’s what JDM tells me) and customize its looks, you better get ready to grind. Then there’s the performance, which is a mixed bag at worst and competent at best. Despite my CPU being below the recommended requirements, I had a relatively consistent 60 FPS on High settings at 1440p with DLSS set to Quality. An attempt to play at Ultra was made, resulting in the frame rate tanking heavily during a thunderstorm. At least the flashes of lightning and rain droplets looked nice, accentuated by the city skyline at night, though the overall fidelity is above average. There are some decently catchy tunes, especially when tuning into the rock and Eurobeat stations, though some of the lighter tracks can work wonders during drifts. They’re not particularly memorable, but at least they add some atmosphere. Why can I only cycle forward through stations and not back? Why does a particularly nice song cut off during a loading screen? Questions for another time, apparently. I’m left dazed, confused, and a little annoyed at JDM: Japanese Drift Master. The concept felt ripe for a solid racer with a distinct style and mood, but the execution felt awkward and unfulfilling. It could shore up the driving and fine-tune objectives to deliver a better drifting experience. However, there’s still much work needed on world design, AI, collisions, and progression, not to mention adding more content, before it can truly be called a master of anything, much less my time. This game was reviewed on PC.

I think we, as engineers and designers, have a lot to gain by stepping outside of our worlds. That’s why in previous pieces I’ve been drawn towards architecture, newspapers, and the occasional polymath. Today, we stumble blindly into the world of philosophy. Bear with me. I think there’s something to it. In 1974, the American philosopher Robert M. Pirsig published a book called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. A flowing blend of autobiography, road trip diary, and philosophical musings, the book’s ‘chautauqua’ is an interplay between art, science, and self. Its outlook on life has stuck with me since I read it. The book often feels prescient, at times surreal to read given it’s now 50 years old. Pirsig’s reflections on arts vs. sciences, subjective vs. objective, and systems vs. people translate seamlessly to the digital age. There are lessons there that I think are useful when trying to navigate — and build — the web. Those lessons are what this piece is about. I feel obliged at this point to echo Pirsig and say that what follows should in no way be associated with the great body of factual information about Zen Buddhist practice. It’s not very factual in terms of web development, either. Buddha In The Machine Zen is written in stages. It sets a scene before making its central case. That backdrop is important, so I will mirror it here. The book opens with the start of a motorcycle road trip undertaken by Pirsig and his son. It’s a winding journey that takes them most of the way across the United States. Despite the trip being in part characterized as a flight from the machine, from the industrial ‘death force’, Pirsig takes great pains to emphasize that technology is not inherently bad or destructive. Treating it as such actually prevents us from finding ways in which machinery and nature can be harmonious. Granted, at its worst, the technological world does feel like a death force. In the book’s 1970s backdrop, it manifests as things like efficiency, profit, optimization, automation, growth — the kinds of words that, when we read them listed together, a part of our soul wants to curl up in the fetal position. In modern tech, those same forces apply. We might add things like engagement and tracking to them. Taken to the extreme, these forces contribute to the web feeling like a deeply inhuman place. Something cold, calculating, and relentless, yet without a fire in its belly. Impersonal, mechanical, inhuman. Faced with these forces, the impulse is often to recoil. To shut our laptops and wander into the woods. However, there is a big difference between clearing one’s head and burying it in the sand. Pirsig argues that “Flight from and hatred of technology is self-defeating.” To throw our hands up and step away from tech is to concede to the power of its more sinister forces. “The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha — which is to demean oneself.”— Robert M. Pirsig Before we can concern ourselves with questions about what we might do, we must try our best to marshal how we might be. We take our heads and hearts with us wherever we go. If we characterize ourselves as powerless pawns, then that is what we will be. Where design and development are concerned, that means residing in the technology without losing our sense of self — or power. Technology is only as good or evil, as useful or as futile, as the people shaping it. Be it the internet or artificial intelligence, to direct blame or ire at the technology itself is to absolve ourselves of the responsibility to use it better. It is better not to demean oneself, I think. So, with the Godhead in mind, to business. Classical And Romantic A core concern of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the tension between the arts and sciences. The two worlds have a long, rich history of squabbling and dysfunction. There is often mutual distrust, suspicion, and even hostility. This, again, is self-defeating. Hatred of technology is a symptom of it. “A classical understanding sees the world primarily as the underlying form itself. A romantic understanding sees it primarily in terms of immediate appearance.”— Robert M. Pirsig If we were to characterize the two as bickering siblings, familiar adjectives might start to appear: Classical Romantic Dull Frivolous Awkward Irrational Ugly Erratic Mechanical Untrustworthy Cold Fleeting Anyone in the world of web design and development will have come up against these kinds of standoffs. Tensions arise between testing and intuition, best practices and innovation, structure and fluidity. Is design about following rules or breaking them? Treating such questions as binary is a fallacy. In doing so, we place ourselves in adversarial positions, whatever we consider ourselves to be. The best work comes from these worlds working together — from recognising they are bound. Steve Jobs was a famous advocate of this. “Technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.”— Steve Jobs Whatever you may feel about Jobs himself, I think this sentiment is watertight. No one field holds all the keys. Leonardo da Vinci was a shining example of doing away with this needless siloing of worlds. He was a student of light, anatomy, art, architecture, everything and anything that interested him. And they complemented each other. Excellence is a question of harmony. Is a motorcycle a romantic or classical artifact? Is it a machine or a symbol? A series of parts or a whole? It’s all these things and more. To say otherwise does a disservice to the motorcycle and deprives us of its full beauty. Just by reframing the relationship in this way, the kinds of adjectives that come to mind naturally shift toward more harmonious territory. Classical Romantic Organized Vibrant Scaleable Evocative Reliable Playful Efficient Fun Replicable Expressive And, of course, when we try thinking this way, the distinction itself starts feeling fuzzier. There is so much that they share. Pirsig posits that the division between the subjective and objective is one of the great missteps of the Greeks, one that has been embraced wholeheartedly by the West in the millennia since. That doesn’t have to be the lens, though. Perhaps monism, not dualism, is the way. In a sense, technology marks the ultimate interplay between the arts and the sciences, the classical and the romantic. It is the human condition brought to you with ones and zeros. To separate those parts of it is to tear apart the thing itself. The same is true of the web. Is it romantic or classical? Art or science? Structured or anarchic? It is all those things and more. Engineering at its best is where all these apparent contradictions meet and become one. What is this place? Well, that brings us to a core concept of Pirsig’s book: Quality. Quality The central concern of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the ‘Metaphysics of Quality’. Pirsig argues that ‘Quality’ is where subjective and objective experience meet. Quality is at the knife edge of experience. “Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it.”— Robert M. Pirsig Pirsig's writings overlap a lot with Taoism and Eastern philosophy, to the extent that he likens Quality to the Tao. Quality is similarly undefinable, with Pirsig himself making a point of not defining it. Like the Tao, Plato’s Form of the Good, or the ‘good taste’ to which GitHub cofounder Scott Chacon recently attributed the platform’s success, it simply is. Despite its nebulous nature, Quality is something we recognise when we see it. Any given problem or question has an infinite number of potential solutions, but we are drawn to the best ones as water flows toward the sea. When in a hostile environment, we withdraw from it, responding to a lack of Quality around us. We are drawn to Quality, to the point at which subjective and objective, romantic and classical, meet. There is no map, there isn’t a bullet point list of instructions for finding it, but we know it when we’re there. A Quality Web So, what does all this look like in a web context? How can we recognize and pursue Quality for its own sake and resist the forces that pull us away from it? There are a lot of ways in which the web is not what we’d call a Quality environment. When we use social media sites with algorithms designed around provocation rather than communication, when we’re assailed with ads to such an extent that content feels (and often is) secondary, and when AI-generated slop replaces artisanal craft, something feels off. We feel the absence of Quality. Here are a few habits that I think work in the service of more Quality on the web. Seek To Understand How Things Work I’m more guilty than anyone of diving into projects without taking time to step back and assess what I’m actually dealing with. As you can probably guess from the title, a decent amount of time in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is spent with the author as he tinkers with his motorcycle. Keeping it tuned up and in good repair makes it work better, of course, but the practice has deeper, more understated value, too. It lends itself to understanding. To maintain a motorcycle, one must have some idea of how it works. To take an engine apart and put it back together, one must know what each piece does and how it connects. For Pirsig, this process becomes almost meditative, offering perspective and clarity. The same is true of code. Rushing to the quick fix, be it due to deadlines or lethargy, will, at best, lead to a shoddy result and, in all likelihood, make things worse. “Black boxes” are as much a choice not to learn as they are something innately mysterious or unknowable. One of the reasons the web feels so ominous at times is that we don’t know how it works. Why am I being recommended this? Why are ads about ivory backscratchers following me everywhere? The inner workings of web tracking or AI models may not always be available, but just about any concept can be understood in principle. So, in concrete terms: Read the documentation, for the love of god.Sometimes we don’t understand how things work because the manual’s bad; more often, it’s because we haven’t looked at it. Follow pipelines from their start to their finish.How does data get from point A to point Z? What functions does it pass through, and how do they work? Do health work.Changing the oil in a motorcycle and bumping project dependencies amount to the same thing: a caring and long-term outlook. Shiny new gizmos are cool, but old ones that still run like a dream are beautiful. Always be studying.We are all works in progress, and clinging on to the way things were won’t make the brave new world go away. Be open to things you don’t know, and try not to treat those areas with suspicion. Bound up with this is nurturing a love for what might easily be mischaracterized as the ‘boring’ bits. Motorcycles are for road trips, and code powers products and services, but understanding how they work and tending to their inner workings will bring greater benefits in the long run. Reframe The Questions Much of the time, our work is understandably organized in terms of goals. OKRs, metrics, milestones, and the like help keep things organized and stuff happening. We shouldn’t get too hung up on them, though. Looking at the things we do in terms of Quality helps us reframe the process. The highest Quality solution isn’t always the same as the solution that performed best in A/B tests. The Dark Side of the Moon doesn’t exist because of focus groups. The test screenings for Se7en were dreadful. Reducing any given task to a single metric — or even a handful of metrics — hamstrings the entire process. Rory Sutherland suggests much the same thing in Are We Too Impatient to Be Intelligent? when he talks about looking at things as open-ended questions rather than reducing them to binary metrics to be optimized. Instead of fixating on making trains faster, wouldn’t it be more useful to ask, How do we improve their Quality? Challenge metrics. Good ones — which is to say, Quality ones — can handle the scrutiny. The bad ones deserve to crumble. Either way, you’re doing the world a service. With any given action you take on a website — from button design to database choices — ask yourself, Does this improve the Quality of what I’m working on? Not the bottom line. Not the conversion rate. Not egos. The Quality. Quality pulls us away from dark patterns and towards the delightful. The will to Quality is itself a paradigm shift. Aspiring to Quality removes a lot of noise from what is often a deafening environment. It may make things that once seemed big appear small. Seek To Wed Art With Science (And Whatever Else Fits The Bill) None of the above is to say that rules, best practices, conventions, and the like don’t have their place or are antithetical to Quality. They aren’t. To think otherwise is to slip into the kind of dualities Pirsig rails against in Zen. In a lot of ways, the main underlying theme in my What X Can Teach Us About Web Design pieces over the years has been how connected seemingly disparate worlds are. Yes, Vitruvius’s 1st-century tenets about architecture are useful to web design. Yes, newspapers can teach us much about grid systems and organising content. And yes, a piece of philosophical fiction from the 1970s holds many lessons about how to meet the challenges of artificial intelligence. Do not close your work off from atypical companions. Stuck on a highly technical problem? Perhaps a piece of children’s literature will help you to make the complicated simple. Designing a new homepage for your website? Look at some architecture. The best outcomes are harmonies of seemingly disparate worlds. Cling to nothing and throw nothing away. Make Time For Doing Nothing Here’s the rub. Just as Quality itself cannot be defined, the way to attain it is also not reducible to a neat bullet point list. Neither waterfall, agile or any other management framework holds the keys. If we are serious about putting Buddha in the machine, then we must allow ourselves time and space to not do things. Distancing ourselves from the myriad distractions of modern life puts us in states where the drift toward Quality is almost inevitable. In the absence of distracting forces, that’s where we head. Get away from the screen.We all have those moments where the solution to a problem appears as if out of nowhere. We may be on a walk or doing chores, then pop! Work on side projects.I’m not naive. I know some work environments are hostile to anything that doesn’t look like relentless delivery. Pet projects are ideal spaces for you to breathe. They’re yours, and you don’t have to justify them to anyone. As I go into more detail in “An Ode to Side Project Time,” there is immense good in non-doing, in letting the water clear. There is so much urgency, so much of the time. Stepping away from that is vital not just for well-being, but actually leads to better quality work too. From time to time, let go of your sense of urgency. Spirit Of Play Despite appearances, the web remains a deeply human experiment. The very best and very worst of our souls spill out into this place. It only makes sense, therefore, to think of the web — and how we shape it — in spiritual terms. We can’t leave those questions at the door. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has a lot to offer the modern web. It’s not a manifesto or a way of life, but it articulates an outlook on technology, art, and the self that many of us recognise on a deep, fundamental level. For anyone even vaguely intrigued by what’s been written here, I suggest reading the book. It’s much better than this article. Be inspired. So much of the web is beautiful. The highest-rated Awwwards profiles are just a fraction of the amazing things being made every day. Allow yourself to be delighted. Aspire to be delightful. Find things you care about and make them the highest form of themselves you can. And always do so in a spirit of play. We can carry those sentiments to the web. Do away with artificial divides between arts and science and bring out the best in both. Nurture a taste for Quality and let it guide the things you design and engineer. Allow yourself space for the water to clear in defiance of the myriad forces that would have you do otherwise. The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in a social media feed or the inner machinations of cloud computing as at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha, which is to demean oneself. Other Resources Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig The Beauty of Everyday Things by Soetsu Yanagi Tao Te Ching “The Creative Act” by Rick Rubin “Robert Pirsig & His Metaphysics of Quality” by Anthony McWatt “Dark Patterns in UX: How to Identify and Avoid Unethical Design Practices” by Daria Zaytseva Further Reading on Smashing Magazine “Three Approaches To Amplify Your Design Projects,” Olivia De Alba “AI’s Transformative Impact On Web Design: Supercharging Productivity Across The Industry,” Paul Boag “How A Bottom-Up Design Approach Enhances Site Accessibility,” Eleanor Hecks “How Accessibility Standards Can Empower Better Chart Visual Design,” Kent Eisenhuth

In May 2015, prominent right-wing intellectual Charles Murray published a book calling on the superrich to fund an American rebellion against their government.Titled By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission, the book argued that the growth of the regulatory state was worse than dangerous: It was an existential threat to the American way of life. For this reason, federal authority had become fundamentally illegitimate. The normal political process — most notably elections — was hopelessly compromised, to the point where no candidate promising to roll back the size of the state could hope to win.The best solution, in Murray’s eyes, was for wealthy donors to fund a legal defense designed to facilitate a mass campaign of civil disobedience against the regulatory state. This so-called Madison Fund would defend people accused of noncompliance in court and pay any assessed fines if they lose. With enough donations, the Madison Fund could ensure that nearly anyone could disobey regulations with impunity.By the People has largely been forgotten today. It was published one month before Donald Trump descended the golden escalator at Trump Tower, announcing a presidential bid that would alter the course of history. Trump’s rejection of old GOP orthodoxies, including its libertarian hostility to programs like Social Security, suggested that Murray’s anti-government radicalism might belong to an era of the past.But the events of the second Trump term, most notably DOGE’s lawless gutting of the federal government, suggest that the book deserves a second look. Its extreme hostility to the very idea of liberal governance, its skepticism of democracy, and its faith in the primacy of the wealthy over the law all prefigured the way that Trump and Elon Musk would assail key functions of government in 2025.Moreover, it helps us understand why mainstream conservatives — the sort who pledge unending fealty to the Constitution and the founders — have been so okay with all of this. It’s not only that people on the right fear crossing Trump; it’s also, in part, that they share his belief that the American government is no longer worthy of respect.For if the state has become too big to command legitimacy, to the point where ordinary citizens are justified in disobeying it, then why should anyone care if the duly elected government breaks laws in pursuit of shrinking itself?By the People, explainedCharles Murray has been a leading intellectual figure on the right for a very long time. Generally speaking, his work has focused on class and race inequality in the United States — and, more specifically, with the idea that welfare programs either do little to fix these problems or actually make them worse.His most (in)famous book, 1994’s The Bell Curve, argues that much of America’s class and racial stratification can be explained by gaps in IQ — suggesting, in one of its most provocative chapters, that white people have higher IQs than Black people due to their superior genes. The book made theorizing about genetic differences between the races acceptable among certain corners of the mainstream right, paving the way for scientific racism’s resurgence in the Trump era.By the People is, in some ways, a more ambitious book than The Bell Curve. Moving away from social policy, Murray strays into the realm of political theory — arguing not just that liberal policies have bad consequences, but that that they are fundamentally illegitimate uses of state power. The concept of “legitimacy,” generally speaking, refers to the principle used to assess whether a particular government is morally justified in exercising political power. In Murray’s view, the key principle is government non-interference in personal affairs. The modern regulatory state, and its involvement in life ranging from setting education policy to licensing barber shops, has become so corrosive of American liberty that it cannot be seen as legitimate.“It is part of our national catechism that government is instituted to protect our unalienable rights, and that when it becomes destructive of those rights, the reason for our allegiance is gone,” he writes. “At that point, revolution is not treason, but the people’s right.”Charles Murray speaking at the 2013 FreedomFest in Las Vegas. Gage Skidmore/Flickr Creative CommonsTo support this claim, he quotes a list of luminaries — ranging from Alexis de Tocqueville to Grover Cleveland — to argue that Americans have almost always believed in a state whose legitimacy is grounded in self-limitation.“The federal government lost its legitimacy in theory during the constitutional revolution of 1937-1942, lost its legitimacy in practice during the 1960s, and it has been downhill ever since,” he writes. “It is by that historical understanding that many of us who are devoted to limited government have thought of ourselves as living in a post-American country, governed by people who mouth the clichés about America as the land of the free without understanding what freedom means.”It may occur to you, at this point, that Murray has a democracy problem. Very few Americans actually agree with this libertarian vision of the American state, and they express that disagreement by electing non-libertarian politicians. In a democracy, the key principle of legitimacy is not libertarian theories of rights but rather popular sovereignty. It is the people, collectively, who decide on the limits of power — under conditions of free debate and exercised within constitutional constraints. If the people think the regulatory state is legitimate, why should Charles Murray and his libertarian friends get to ignore the laws that everyone else voted for?By the People offers two contradictory answers to this question. The first is that the people really have turned on the government, a big claim Murray supports with data showing a consistent decline in trust in government over the years. But this is measuring something different than basic legitimacy. Moreover, Murray once again has a democracy problem. If voters really were so furious about big government that they believed the entire state was illegitimate, then why aren’t radical anti-government politicians winning in landslides? To this, we have Murray’s second answer: that the people are bought off. They have become so dependent on government goodies that there is no hope for a return to pre-New Deal America.“The proportion of Americans who depend on the federal government to put food on the table, whether through welfare, Social Security, a government paycheck, or a paycheck financed by a federal contract, will continue to increase, and it will push the Republican Party to the center in all presidential elections,” he writes.Here Murray betrays himself: admitting, implicitly, that he does not really care about popular sovereignty. He admits that people routinely choose, in democratic elections, to authorize and reauthorize an expansive state — but dismisses their right to make a choice he personally finds antithetical to liberty. He is certain his libertarian view of legitimacy is true, regardless of what the people think, and thus is convinced that people like him are justified in ignoring the law.But how could anyone ever hope to win a fight against the federal leviathan when the people have been bought off by Social Security? This is where his “Madison Fund” financing civil disobedience comes in: Murray believes that successfully defending people who ignore regulations will help others realize that a better future without government interference could actually be possible.And it all starts, in his mind, with one good billionaire.“The Madison Fund could get started,” he writes, “if just one wealthy American cared enough to contribute, say, a few hundred million dollars.”By the People as Trumpist urtextMurray’s specific vision for a “Madison Fund” was certainly idiosyncratic. But his broader argument about legitimacy was widely shared on the 2010s right, heard often among the Tea Party types who dominated conservative politics for most of the Obama presidency.Indeed, By the People was received warmly among traditional conservatives, some of whom described its wild arguments as helpfully restrained. “If you want a book that will crisply outline what has happened to Madisonian America since the Great Depression, without scaring the neighbors, it’s your lucky day,” Charles C.W. Cooke writes in National Review. Some even suggested it didn’t go far enough. Writing in Law and Liberty, Lenore Ealy argued that Murray gave short shrift to the concerns of social conservatives. And that liberal America “created for itself a soft despotism” where people from various “identity groups” wield power to silence “men and women unwilling to subsume their identity in the will of the State.” Rolling back the state is not far enough, Ealy says — there needs to be a revolution in “cultural mores” that beats back identity liberalism.By the People remains useful as an unusually clear explanation of how widely shared premises on the establishment right led the country to Trumpist perdition.It is striking that, even before Trump, the idea that the modern American state was fundamentally illegitimate was such a prevalent view among conservative activists and intellectuals. The question was not whether the right must always defer to the democratic process, but how far it might have to go to get around it.In Trump’s second term, we are seeing the fruits of this vision. In many ways, you can draw a straight line between the basic premises of By the People and Trump’s assault on the federal government. The mechanisms are very different, but the ends are strikingly similar.During the 2024 election, Elon Musk became the billionaire anti-government donor Murray dreamed of, contributing “a few hundred million dollars” to the Trump campaign. His alignment with Trump got him appointed the head of a government-slashing committee that we now know as DOGE; once in power, he and his allies attempted to gut the functioning of various different federal agencies (to various degrees of success).Elon Musk at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2025 in Maryland. Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesDOGE was not an effective cost-cutting mechanism. Nor has it turned up significant evidence of fraud. What it has accomplished, rather, is make federal agencies less capable of implementing duly authorized regulations. Effectively, it’s done what Murray wanted from the opposite end: decreasing the scope of the regulatory state not by resistance from the bottom, but a top-down effort to strip its capabilities. (Nor is Musk alone in this; look at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s firing of large chunks of America’s public health officials).The legal authority for all of this is dubious at best. Trump and DOGE have simply asserted the power to mass-fire employees and redirect congressionally appropriated funds, even though there are good reasons to believe that they do not have the legal authority to do either. Like Murray, they do not see the law as morally binding. These aren’t just simple parallels. The influence of ideas like By the People’s helps us understand why a conservative movement that once claimed to stand for the constitutional order has become comfortable with Trump wrecking it.The essential idea of Murray’s book, and much of pre-Trump conservatism, was that the federal government had become hostile to founding American ideals: that the administrative state represents an unconstitutional cancerous growth on a brilliant governing framework.“We have overseen and sanctioned the growth of an administrative system that concentrates the power to make laws and the power to enforce them in the hands of a vast and unaccountable administrative apparatus that finds no comfortable home in our constitutional structure,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a 2015 concurrence. “The end result may be trains that run on time (although I doubt it), but the cost is to our Constitution and the individual liberty it protects.”If you take this position, thinly veiled comparisons to fascism and all, then the fact that Trump and Musk have frequently exceeded legal boundaries starts to look a lot less problematic. Through this lens, the administration is trying to rescue the Constitution’s original design from a liberalism that has corrupted it. Any legal violations along the way are offenses against a political order that at present does not deserve citizens’ allegiance. In February, the news outlet NOTUS asked Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) about the lawfulness of the Trump/Musk agenda. Tillis conceded that it “runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense.” However, he added, “nobody should bellyache about that” — because “it’s not uncommon for presidents to flex a little bit on where they can spend and where they can stop spending.”Thom Tillis is not a firebreather: He’s a purple state senator widely seen as a moderate. That he would take such a permissive position on what even he admits is lawbreaking shows the corrosive influence of Murray-style thinking on the right today.By the People, on its own, may be a mostly forgotten book. But it remains useful as an unusually clear explanation of how widely shared premises on the establishment right led the country to Trumpist perdition.This story was adapted for the On the Right newsletter. New editions drop every Wednesday. Sign up here.Correction, May 21, 9:20 am ET: A previous version of this story misdescribed Trump’s 2015 descent down the golden escalator at Trump Tower.See More:

Look, up on the internet! It’s a clip, it’s a teaser… No! It’s the full Superman trailer we’ve been waiting for! After giving us bits and pieces, DC Studios has finally released a massive three-minute trailer for this summer’s Superman, written and directed by James Gunn. The sizzle reel finally gives a sense of the central conflict of the movie, in which Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) takes advantage of public opinion turning against Superman when he stops a war in foreign lands. We also are hinted that these actions create ripples within the Daily Planet newsroom and cause friction with the movie’s pseudo-Justice League. Also somehow Lex Luthor is able to invade the Fortress of Solitude where he wrecks things with a character called the Engineer! And if you don’t know who the Engineer is, boy do we have some details to reveal to you… “Ms. Lane,” 2025 Style For all the kaiju and extra meta-humans that he’s including in Superman, Gunn has always insisted that the movie is primarily about Superman and the triangle between Clark, Lois, and Lex. The trailer makes that point in its first scenes, which also call back to a beloved moment in the original Superman movie from 1978. Once again, we have Lois (Rachel Brosnahan) interviewing Superman (David Corenswet) to satisfy the world’s curiosity. But the tone is quite different from any version we’ve seen in the past. Owing perhaps to the already comfortable relationship between a Lois and Clark where she knows he is Superman, we see a feistier version of the Man of Steel. He almost gets defensive at Lois’ questions, with the hero insisting that he did good because it needed to be done, and that matters more than issues of international law. More importantly though, we get to see one of the most crucial parts of any Superman performance, the transformation between mild-mannered Clark Kent and the Man of Steel. That transition was pulled off beautifully by Christopher Reeve in the original movie where he became a totally different person within one unbroken shot. It is a favorite moment for many in that movie, including Gunn. Cut to 2025 and Corenswet does the same thing here, albeit it’s much more subtle. He’s slouched and sitting back when Clark agrees to let Lois interview Superman. But when it’s time for the interview to begin, he sits up and squares his shoulders. He gives a confident, hopeful look and drops his voice by an octave to begin. While not as pronounced as Reeve’s changes, the subtly matters. As demonstrated by the emphasis on Smallville here, with Pa Kent (Pruitt Taylor Vince) giving an inspirational voiceover, a job usually reserved for Supes’s Kryptonian father Jor-El, this Superman is both a son of Krypton and a son of Kansas. Neither is a fake. Both are his real identity and thus the lines between them will blur. Photo: DC Studios The trailer underscores Lex Luthor’s role as the ultimate big bad. Driven by jealousy and refusing to respect an alien, Luthor thinks his mistrust has been proven correct when Superman stops a war. However, the well-groomed CEO has got a lot of other heavy hitters to help him out, including a woman in black leather whose hands turn into blades as they destroy the Fortress of Solitude. That is the Engineer, played by María Gabriela de Faría, and she takes some explaining. The Engineer first debuted in 1999’s The Authority #1, written by Warren Ellis and penciled by Bryan Hitch. Part of the Wildstorm Universe, a comic book universe separate from the DC stable, the Authority were a collection of heroes who set themselves to making a better world by enforcing their will. Under the pen of Ellis and other writers, including Mark Millar and Grant Morrison, the Authority applied amoral realpolitik to superheroes, something antithetical to heroes such as the Justice League. In fact, the famed Superman story “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way” saw Superman stand up to and rebuke a team modeled on the Authority. However, when DC took full control of the Wildstorm line, they integrated the Authority into the DC Universe where they are heroes with questionable tactics. Judging by the trailer, Gunn plans to use the Engineer as more of a villain or at least antagonist. As in the comics, the Engineer has nano technology that allows her to change her body into a weapon, not unlike the T-1000 from Terminator 2. She’s clearly working alongside Lex here, but it’s hard to imagine that Gunn won’t have Supes teach the Engineer something about how to create a better world through inspiration instead of force. Photo: DC Studios Is That Ultraman? Bizarro? Joining the Engineer in the fight against Superman is a hulking male figure in all leather. We’ve seen this figure before, duking it out with Superman in a stadium. But this is the best look that we’ve had at him so far, and the best look we’ve gotten at the emblem on his chest. That “U” shaped design is familiar to comic book readers who recognize that as the emblem of Ultraman, the Superman of Earth-3. In the DC multiverse, Earth-3 is the evil dimension, in which Ultraman, Owlman, and Superwoman lead the Injustice League of America, taking the place of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman of the Justice League of America. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! However, Ultraman usually has no problem showing his face and often runs around in a blue and red getup, not this leather number. And he certainly wouldn’t take orders from a weenie like Lex Luthor. So who is that guy? Given his massive powers and his hidden face, smart money suggests that the figure is in fact Bizarro, a flawed but super-strong clone of Superman. It would follow that Lex would make his own version of Superman and, in a blow against his hubris, get it wrong. That origin has been used for Bizarro in the comics, and it would fit within the themes that Gunn seems to be exploring. Photo: DC Studios Rick Flag Sr. of the Creature Commandos One of the more confusing parts about James Gunn’s tenure as the co-head of DC Studios is that he’s doing only a partial reboot of the now defunct DCEU. Sure, Henry Cavill is out as Superman and it seems that the events of Justice League and Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice didn’t happen. But The Suicide Squad and Creature Commandos, or at least some version of them, did happen. Thus far the only bridge between these worlds is Rick Flag Sr., who is played by Frank Grillo. We first met Flag in animated form in Creature Commandos, where he was assigned by Amanda Waller to lead Task Force M. Throughout that series, Flag expresses sorrow at the death of his son Rick Flag Jr., who was played by Joel Kinnaman in Suicide Squad and The Suicide Squad. Flag doesn’t get to do much in this trailer other than look very serious and escort Superman into custody, alongside the Engineer and maybe-Bizarro. But his sober expression suggests that he still has a mistrust of guys who take things into their own hands, owing perhaps to his anger at Flagg’s death at the hands of Peacemaker during the mission to stop the Thinker from exploiting Starro the Conqueror in Corto Maltese. Remember? Photo: DC Studios The scenes of Superman in custody apparently lead to images of him in a sort of prison made of cubed glass, reminiscent of Magneto’s holding pen in X-Men or the monster cages in The Cabin in the Woods. Initially we see soldiers beating on Superman within the prison. Later he seems to have gained the power to bust out. In between we get a shot of Metamorpho, one of the more highly-anticipated characters in the movie. Played by Anthony Carrigan, Metamorpho has the ability to turn himself into any element (including Kryptonite, maybe?), and we see a bit of that power at work when his hands start to dissipate in a strange way. Metamorpho is just one of the heroes who show up in the trailer, which also gives us better looks at Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) flying through the sky, Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi) using his T-spheres, and the Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) using his power ring in a particularly jerky way. But we also see glimpses of other figures in the prison, suggesting that there are somehow even more metahumans than we realized. It’s hard to see any of the others, save for the woman imprisoned in the cube to Superman’s left. There we see a blond woman in a pink dress who reacts in horror. On one hand, that might just be a regular lady in a pink dress who, for some reason, gets sent to the same jail as Metamorpho and Superman. However, the outfit doesn’t look too different from the one worn by a C-list fantasy hero called Amethyst. Created by writers Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn and artist Ernie Colón, Amethyst first debuted in 1983’s The Legion of Super-Heroes #298 and was soon spun off into her own comic. Amethyst is the princess of a magical place called Gemworld where she has high fantasy adventures. Amethyst has carried her own series from time to time but doesn’t enjoy the same level of popularity as even Guy Gardner. But if Gunn’s going to delve into different genres for his version of the DC Universe, Amethyst is a great way to bring more fantasy into the world of superheroes. Superman flies into theaters on July 11, 2025.

XrossExam Member Nov 1, 2017 2,171 I'm a big FromSoftware fan, I pretty much buy any new release from them. I've been keeping my eye on Nightreign since its announcement (didn't get into the beta to try it though) but I'm finding it hard to justify getting it. I'm still on the fence but I'm leaning towards skipping it entirely. There are many factors for me as to why I think I'll be skipping it, one major reason is that I was able to secure a Switch 2 pre-order and given that the Switch 2 comes out a mere 6 days after Nightreign's release I find that if I bought Nightreign, that I would play it until the Switch 2 comes out and then completely forget about it. Another reason for me is that I feel like the game will get boring and doing runs will just become repetitive after a while. I do think it's hard to know for sure but something about the multiplayer focused aspect of it is a turn off for me compared to a traditional FromSoft game. The other aspect of this related to my previous point is the fact that FromSoftware are also currently developing The Duskbloods, which seems to be the true/fleshed out vision of Nightreign but in a different world. I'd almost rather just wait for The Duskbloods (which is being directed by the GOAT (Hidetaka Miyazaki) than sinking time into Nightreign which I feel like may be dropped by most players after a few months. I'm not trying to be negative about the game's release as it doesn't look like a bad game by any stretch, it looks quite good for what it is. I was just curious what others thought and if others are feeling the same way or are instead super hyped about the game? I would love to hear what people think, especially diehard FromSoftware fans.  carlsojo Shinra Employee Member Oct 28, 2017 37,429 San Francisco Honestly I am so burned out on the game I can't imagine going back again.   PlanetSmasher The Abominable Showman Member Oct 25, 2017 132,494 The network test really didn't do anything for me and I don't really think the core structure of the game as a multiplayer-only title holds any long-term appeal. So yeah, I'm probably skipping it unless something changes markedly between now and launch.   super-famicom Avenger Oct 26, 2017 30,385 I love Elden Ring, but don't want to play a MP only game mode. Yes, I know I can just go in solo, but how far is that gonna get me? Plus, the game is designed around MP anyways.   Bigmac Member Oct 27, 2017 521 I am for sure. The multiplayer aspect just isn't really my thing, I'll wait patiently for their next single player epic.   Coyote Starrk The Fallen Oct 30, 2017 62,907 Diehard fan here. I will be there day 0 and play on dumping a LOT of time into the game if it's as fun as it seems in the trailers.  Lukar Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth Member Oct 27, 2017 28,088 Really depends on how well it's received closer to launch. I'm not fully sold on it yet, and I'm disappointed I won't be able to play with just one other person.   Tagyhag Member Oct 27, 2017 15,093 Yeah, it's the same as with Duskbloods, I'm more interested in watching streamers play them than playing them myself. Will just wait for the next "Main" game.  Nameless Hero Member Oct 25, 2017 23,320 I have zero interest in a multiplayer run based Souls game so unless my friends all get this I will definitely skip it   Killyoh Member Oct 28, 2017 1,782 Paris, France I'm waiting for the reviews. I enjoyed the beta but I'm not sure I would play more than five hours.   Zeal543 Next Level Seer Member May 15, 2020 7,155 I'm burned out on the souls formula with ER/SotE so on top of this being pvpve iit's an easy skip for me (same with duskbloods)   Gavalanche Prophet of Regret Member Oct 21, 2021 25,713 Yeah for sure. Elden Ring is great, I got enough of it without playing a weird rogue-like multiplayer mode.   SnipeyMcGee Member Jul 1, 2020 321 Zero interest in it, I'm not a fan of their current direction.   J_ToSaveTheDay "This guy are sick" and Corrupted by Vengeance Avenger Oct 25, 2017 22,494 USA I'm planning to skip it, but there's one friend who could put in a good word about it that I'd end up picking the game up to play coop with. That friend is the only person that's going to convince me to play it, though.  Bulgowski Member Apr 8, 2022 665 I'm in for Duskbloods but skipping this one.   Barrel Cannon It's Pronounced "Aerith" The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 11,096 I won't at launch but if m23 gets it I will   skeezx Member Oct 27, 2017 23,674 looks fun but not really my thing if it still has a playerbase in a few years and it's on sale, maybe  Noisepurge Corrupted by Vengeance Member Oct 25, 2017 9,740 Skipping indeed. It seems antithetical to (at least my) Elden Ring. Where you get to wonder the world, make your character and go on adventures. Here you choose a premade hero class, and gotta HAUL ASS all the time because there isn't any time to take in the scenery! 😂  teed Member Aug 25, 2023 1,039 I thought I'd give it a go when it was announced but a month or so later, I thought nah no point. I'd be playing solo so there are much more suitable games I haven't got around to yet (like Nioh 2). I not interested in Duskbloods either and didn't like AC6 very much, so I don't really think of it as skipping, as, even though they're probably my favourite dev, I've lost the expectation that I will be into everything they put out.  RoboPlato Member Oct 25, 2017 8,322 I wanted to play it but no crossplay kind of kills it for me. Most people I'd play with are on Xbox or PC while PS5 is my main console. No two-player option, only 1 or 3, is frustrating too. I think the game looks pretty cool but those are huge missteps.  Citizen Rizer Member Oct 27, 2017 292 Skipping both Nightreign and Duskbloods. Multiplayer-focused From is hopefully just a phase.   Musubi Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth Member Oct 25, 2017 27,419 Too much else coming out this year for me to spend time on a mid-ass multiplayer game   harinezumi Member Oct 27, 2017 20,485 Buenos Aires, Argentina I'd totally buy it if my friends bought it too, but since it looks like they won't I probably won't either. Zero interest in playing with randoms.   modernkicks Member Apr 7, 2020 393 I'm glad I got to play the network test because it confirmed it's probably not going to be my thing even though I did have a little bit of fun in it. It just seemed like it would get old pretty fast to me but obviously the full game could be a different story. Going to wait and see what some of my friends who are getting it day 1 think and then I might join in but as of now I'm going to hold off.   Cruxist Avenger Oct 27, 2017 4,735 Nope. I love the combat and the speed from the beta was super fun. I also love the idea of crafting a build on the fly. Can't wait!  Dyno AVALANCHE The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 16,729 Easy pass on this and Duskbloods. Tbh I'm kinda growing tired of the formula in general for their games so ER may have been the end of the line for me in general   BigHatSean Member Apr 21, 2025 12 Nope because it was cheap enough, ended up getting it for about £22? I like ER even if the boss fights are the worst thing about it, but the 40ish minute length makes for a nice session on an exercise bike or something while playing.   Sire Red Member Feb 11, 2025 123 France Liked the beta when it worked well, but given how packed the week after will be + the nature of the game, I'm good with not playing more of it.   Nimby Member Oct 27, 2017 4,429 Zeal543 said: I'm burned out on the souls formula with ER/SotE so on top of this being pvpve iit's an easy skip for me (same with duskbloods) Click to expand... Click to shrink... Nightreign is just PvE isn't it? I'm still on the fence and all my time is dedicated to playing The Hundred Line right now. If my friends are interested I might try it. Regardless, I'm okay waiting for the next main Souls game.  Retrosmith Member Mar 2, 2020 1,019 If the main bosses are manageable to beat solo, for sure I will buy it. If they are just damage sponges, nah. Not going to rely on strangers online for a chance to have fun.  DontHateTheBacon Unshakable Resolve Member Oct 27, 2017 14,409 I don't really play co-op games often so yeah, I'll just wait for the next single player joint from them.   makman3x Member Apr 18, 2025 280 I have no friends so I'll probably pass unless reviews indicate the solo experience is fine.   DNAbro Member Oct 25, 2017 29,980 My friends are all going getting it, so not skipping.   CupOfDoom Member Dec 17, 2017 5,134 No two player, no buy.   Crankafoo Member Dec 3, 2018 162 Canada I almost never play multiplayer solo and don't have anyone in my group getting it, so big skip for me. Next singleplayer game they do I'm day 1, though.   Gots Member Feb 20, 2019 1,882 Canada I'll skip this for now, will probably grab Duskbloods though.   Slick Butter Member Oct 25, 2017 3,655 It looks fun as hell and it seems like an interesting smaller arcade-y title for people who just want more reason to play a FROM souls with friends. Also will be cool to experience what kind of experiments they are doing to shake up their combat for their Souls games further. Hopefully wherever they take Souls next will take a lot of what they learn from making this and The Duskbloods to make the combat more interesting and online functionality better. Zeal543 said: I'm burned out on the souls formula with ER/SotE so on top of this being pvpve iit's an easy skip for me (same with duskbloods) Click to expand... Click to shrink... This literally is breaking the Souls formula and doing something different with its core gameplay (though I understand it also is using mostly existing Elden Ring assets). Also, it's only PvE.  StarPhlox Member Oct 25, 2017 5,512 Wisconsin I was so excited at the reveal and I am definitely still very much open to it but lack of cross play and not having friends on PS5 that are big Souls people (they all play on PC) makes it a tough proposition.   closer Member Oct 25, 2017 5,519 Im pretty excited to play it   Drachen Member May 3, 2021 8,471 Yeah, I personally am skipping it. The thing with From Soft's Souls games is that the total package is what draws me in. The roleplaying, the combat and bosses, the exploration, the lore and worldbuilding, the characters and quests, and so on. Plucking out just the combat and building an entire roguelike game around that doesn't really do anything for me when the rest of the formula is missing.   Naha- Member Feb 6, 2019 1,515 After Shadow of the Erdtree, I'm pretty much done with anything Elden Ring related. Duskbloods will also be a skip if it's main feature is being a MP game too. Maybe I should finally get Sekiro instead.  Rainer516 Member Oct 29, 2017 1,478 Really looking forward to playing it.   MangoUltz "This guy are sick" Member Mar 24, 2019 4,074 Ya I'm skipping it. Loved Elden Ring but I'm not into the multiplayer/online aspect of this. I'll have a good time watching some streams of it though   Deranged Hermit Member Oct 25, 2017 5,426 I'll probably try it but it's not really in my lane and that's okay. Let From do what they want, they've earned it.   hog Member Mar 9, 2021 1,127 Not sure how much I'll like it but I love Elden Ring too much to skip out on any new Elden Ring stuff. Plus this kind of thing is best to get in on while it's fresh.   SirKai Member Dec 28, 2017 10,118 Washington Nah, I'm still pretty excited for it, especially since it's budget-priced.   blainethemono Member Oct 27, 2017 650 Since the release of Demons Souls i've enjoyed every game From Software has released but Im very closed off with experimenting with different weapons and builds on a single character. I generally just stick with 1 or 2 weapons my first time through one of these games and never really experienced other playstyles other than the ones I fell into as a result of whatever choices I made in the early game. I always enjoyed seeing other people's builds and all the stuff you could do that I never interacted with, especially in Elden Ring Then I played the Nightreign test and it kind of opened my eyes to the type of experimentation i've never done before. You get dropped on the map with your squad, there's random loot everywhere and you have to throw something together. One of the people in the squad keeps running off by themselves and you feel like you can't sit there thinking about it for an hour, you just have to make a choice and keep going. There are comparatively fewer choices to be made but it's still fun messing around with unfamiliar weapon types That's a different mode of playing these games than i'm used to and after experiencing it I now want to install a randomizer for Dark Souls 1 lol. Also was inspired enough by the network test to play sorcery builds in DS1 and Elden Ring over the last few months since i've never actually done that. It brought me back to replaying the series. Been trying to get a few friends together to play Seamless Really excited to play the full game with some friends now  Last edited: Monday at 2:50 PM Optional Objectives Member Oct 27, 2017 3,516 It looks fun - I really liked the details in the recent preview video - and I love multiplayer in From's games. But I also look around and think that I won't have much of a squad to play it with. I was barely able to connect with what used to be a really active group for Monster Hunter. If we couldn't get it together for that, I doubt we will for Nightreign. And without a crew to play it with, I might as well play one of From's single-player games, instead. I still have a few, including Elden Ring, left unfinished.   ghibli99 Member Oct 27, 2017 20,459 I was, but after that last video I'm in. Hopefully I'm making the right choice. LOL   KingFrost92 Member Oct 26, 2017 1,124 Oregon I've got friends who I played the Elden Ring co-op mod with and loved it. But even with that experience, I'm waiting on reviews and player feedback for this one. It could be great, but I'm not curious enough to pre-order or anything like that. I'd love to hear that it's actually amazing and dive in with some friends though.  

Federal agencies scrambled to bring back over $220 million worth of contracts after Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency cancelled them, .However, of those 44 contracts that were cancelled and eventually reinstated, DOGE is still citing all but one of them as examples of the government spending the group supposedly saved on its website's error-plagued "Wall of Receipts." The White House told the NYT that this is "paperwork lag" that will be fixed.Clerical errors or not, the "zombie contracts" are a damning sign of the chaos sowed by the billionaire's hasty and sweeping cost-cutting that would seem antithetical to its stated goals of efficiency."They should have used a scalpel," Rachel Dinkes of the Knowledge Alliance, an association of education companies that includes one that lost a contract, told the NYT. "But instead they went in with an axe and chopped it all down." Musk brought the Silicon Valley ethos of "move fast and break things" he uses at his business ventures, like SpaceX, to his cleaning house of the federal government. And this, it seems, resulted in a lot of wasted time and effort.Some of the contracts DOGE cancelled were required by law, according to the NYT, and some were for skills that the government needed but didn't have. The whiplash was most felt at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which reversed 16 cancelled contracts — the highest of any agency in the NYT's analysis.Many of the contracts that DOGE cancelled were reinstated almost immediately. The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, revived a contract just two and a half hours after Musk's team cancelled it, the paper found. Others were brought back within days.After losing a contract with the US Department of Agriculture in February, Raquel Romero and her husband gained it back four days later. The USDA told the NYT that it reinstated the contract after discovering that it was "required by statute," but declined to specify which one. Romero believes that a senior lawyer at the agency, who was a supporter of the couple's work, intervened on their behalf."All I know is, she retired two weeks later," Romero told the NYT.The waste doesn't end there. Since the contracts are necessary, it puts the fired contractors in a stronger bargaining position when the government comes crawling back. In the case of the EPA contract, the agency agreed to pay $171,000 more than before the cancellation. In other words, these cuts are costing, not saving, the government money.A White House spokesperson, however, tried to spin the flurry of reversals as a positive sign that the agencies are complying with Musk's chaotic directions, while also playing down the misleading savings claims on DOGE's website."The DOGE Wall of Receipts provides the latest and most accurate information following a thorough assessment, which takes time," White House spokesman Harrison Fields told the NYT. "Updates to the DOGE savings page will continue to be made promptly, and departments and agencies will keep highlighting the massive savings DOGE is achieving."Harrison also called the over $220 million of zombie contracts "very, very small potatoes" compared to the supposed $165 billion Musk has saved American taxpayers.If this latest analysis is any indication, however, that multibillion-dollar sum warrants significant skepticism. We're only beginning to see a glimmer of the true fallout from Musk tornadoing through the federal government.Share This Article