Sadly, if that were actually true that would be even f*** worse.
Oh we're not going to let tourists into our country because we asked them whether or not they'd ever smoked pot and they said yes.
We have no idea whether that's actually true or not, but if it is, that's the dumbest thing I've ever f*** heard, especially given the marijuana's legal in most states in the United States that anyone outside the US would actually want to visit
> “Verbally they said it was because of extremist propaganda and narcotic paraphernalia," with "extremist propaganda" referring to the alleged meme
With the “narcotic paraphernalia” referring to “a photo of the traveler with a homemade wooden pipe” according to Mikkelson.
The official document for his rejection stated this reason:
> it appears you are attempting to engage in unauthorized employment without authorization and proper documentation
With all these conflicting accounts in mind, perhaps it is plausible that he was denied entry because of his admitted legal cannabis use on two prior occasions. Or perhaps Homeland Security indeed retaliated against a someone for possessing a JD Vance meme, then decided to lie about it.
It's not legal federally. Not that I agree with giving him shit about it, but the federal government basically considers it the same thing as fentanyl. Don't admit it on any federal application.
And unlike console and pc gaming, there's very little overlap in audience and games. You cannot convince someone who has a pc or console that their phone is the device they should be pulling out to play games on. So even if they are say on a bus or a train, you cannot get them to buy a full-priced game on their phone, because they'd rather wait and play it at home. Instead it's free, short, time-waster games.
Also unlike consoles, phone manufacturers aren't very interested in investing in their device with stuff like exclusives, because no one is buying a phone based on the games on it.
He glosses over the fact that native Ukrainians in those regions were displaced in the 1930s during the Holodomor and replaced with Russian settlers. That might explain why Russian sentiment in those regions is high.
The problem with that argument is that Crimea had been considered a part of Russia as far back as about the founding of the United States, and prior to that had nothing to do with a Ukrainian National project. Crimea isn't even mentioned by name once in the Wikipedia article you linked. Why would they be targeted as Ukrainians at that time?
I find it very disappointing that these articles never mention VRChat, the current largest VR social media platform and just use Facebook press material to guide their opinion on the metaverse. VRChat is leagues ahead of all the competition. It has an established ecosystem of players, communities, maps, games, content, and a whole network of modders finding and creating features users actually want.
Right now, I can meet my irl friend to go avatar shopping for a fun looking character with full body tracking (because full body feels 100x more immersive), head to a VR strip club to get drunk with strangers and watch people poledance using roomscale stripper pole setups, go play a boxing mini game against a person roleplaying in a Donald Duck avatar I met at the bar, then finish off the night of regret by watching YouTube videos in a virtual movie theater with 5 other people. You probably can't do that on whatever FB will push out.
My experience with it is sub-par. The performance is so bad that even on my fairly high end PC that I only hit around 60 FPS in a populated lobby. It's hard to be immersed when it feels like you've just got a screen strapped to your face and things momentarily warp because the VR runtime is trying to smooth things out. Not to mention the copyright infringement, lack of child safety features. VRChat is a disaster and I'm not sure how it's still going.
Sansar was a better experience for me. Much smoother, things moved more realistically and hence it was more immersive, and the content is 'proper' I guess you could say. And there's a marketplace for it.
Yeah, for a first timer the experience sucks. Public lobbies are cesspools because of toxic people and anyone can join in with large polygon models which causes everyone to lag. Moderation is almost non-existent. VRChat is also very nsfw and not a place for kids.
I was lucky to have a friend connect me to moderated lobbies where everyone is verified to be 21+ and etiquette is enforced by moderators.
Minor correction but the moon does have an atmosphere although it is largely negligible when compared to earth's.
>"At sea level on Earth, we breathe in an atmosphere where each cubic centimeter contains 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules; by comparison the lunar atmosphere has less than 1,000,000 molecules in the same volume."
>"We think that there are several sources for gases in the moon's atmosphere. These include high energy photons and solar wind particles knocking atoms from the lunar surface, chemical reactions between the solar wind and lunar surface material, evaporation of surface material, material released from the impacts of comets and meteoroids, and out-gassing from the moon's interior."
Also interesting, there is a thin film of electrostatically charged dust (regolith) that is visible across the moon's horizon during lunar sunrises and sunsets. The Apollo 17 crew drew a sketch to depict this phenomenon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_the_Moon#/media/...
It's also makes business sense to use virtual characters.
If you are a streamer whose sole income is based on sites like twitch/youtube, getting banned could mean the end of your career and social life. Many streamers live together and collaborate with one another and sites like twitch have rules where you can't stream with banned streamers. So getting banned doesn't just mean getting banned from the site, it also means getting banned from your friend group because interactions with you could get them banned too.
With virtual avatars you could evade a ban by changing your model and also use a voice changer. I haven't personally heard of any cases where streamers use virtual characters to evade bans but I'm sure its at least happened.
It also becomes easier to become a marketing tool. Since Code Miko isn't a physical entity, she could easily be used in video ads just by sending ad agencies her model. No more flights to video shoots, all you need is a 3d animator.
I think you might be looking for the word "ludonarrative dissonance"
"Ludonarrative dissonance is the conflict between a video game's narrative told through the story and the narrative told through the gameplay."
examples:
- Cyberpunk 2077 - Your character is dying of a virus and needs to quickly find a cure. Meanwhile youre doing a whole bunch of side quests that take a lot of in game time.
- Any RPG - Characters can be endlessly revived using items but die permanently in cut scenes.
- GTA4 - Main character is trying to leave their violent past behind them. Meanwhile you can blow people up with an rpg.
He admitted to having used cannabis on two occasions — in Germany and in New Mexico.
- It’s legal in both places, so in my mind it was irrelevant, he said." - Nordlys
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/06/25/norwegian-tourist-jd-... https://www.nordlys.no/denied-entry-to-the-us-admitted-to-le...