Bayek marveled at the statue of Nokolai Zarakos, famed colonel of the Peloponnese. The sculpture imposingly loomed across from Bayek on the other end of Zarakos’ tomb, standing over nine feet tall. At its base was an array of flowers, incense, and gifts from followers and family who aimed to honor Zarakos in the afterlife. “Opulent” was the word that came to Bayek’s mind as his eyes lingered on the garish display. Zarakos’ marble arms were outstretched as if he was receiving a spiritual gift from the Gods; his figure implied a cool and controlled pose, worry-free even.

Bayek wiped a layer of dust off the coffin that separated him on one side of the tomb from Zarakos’ likeness on the other end. Inscribed in the stone lid were Greek letters — paragraphs of them. Bayek didn’t know much Greek, but he had met a Greek friend recently who told him over drinks it was common place for mid-level Greek military officers to have a brief biography of their life somewhere in their tombs. He also mentioned not everyone did it, just those who clearly thought highly of themselves, those who wanted remind everyone how important they were. Bayek smiled. He always wondered why men of “importance” bothered to puff themselves up in death, try to make them seem more than they actually were. What was the point? Everyone would be judged just the same. Death was a finality. Nothing mattered afterwards. …

I promise I won’t push the tired talking points of the down-on-his-luck millennial too much. While we all know the hits: student loan forgiveness, legalizing weed, the soul sucking job market, the sudden death of every industry boomers love, this piece isn’t about all that exactly. (Though I’m crossing my figures for at least some student loan forgiveness!) This piece is about how hard it is to save money today, and why it’s important to find a long-term way to do it, even if it’s only a little bit and even if its in cryptocurrency. It’s better than nothing.

I’m terrible when it comes to planning and saving. Those two facts combined make me inherently bad at money. Add in a couple of terrible monetary decisions made at such a young age that resulted in about $100,000 worth of student loan debt. Combine that with tough job markets, getting a degree in a difficult to break into industry, and a growing comfort with living paycheck to paycheck and you have a millennial with no real savings who relies mostly on luck and a wonderful partner to help everything stay afloat. …

What a week! While the focus of all of our political effort has been and still should be on the events that took place at the Capitol building last Wednesday, Republicans have ostensibly put all their efforts into shifting the narrative towards the wave of deplatformings that have occurred by a slew of tech companies. Donald Trump, a range of popular conservative talk show hosts, and many culpable Republican politicians have all fallen victim to various bannings from a variety of services. …

Technically, taking pictures with a “virtual” camera is possible outside of the gaming industry. Scene building software that employs virtual cameras has existed for a while. Recently though, virtual photography has exploded in gaming with the popularization of photo modes and the leaps in graphic fidelity in modern games. For the sake of this piece, I’ll specifically be talking about the specific realities of the gaming industry and how it relates to the budding community of virtual photographers who have taken a traditional medium into virtual reality.

My foray into this topic began with Instagram. I recently started an IG that’s all about virtual photography. (Shameless link here.) My intent was to post screen captures I had collected from games over the years and new ones too, my current obsession being Assassins Creed: Origins. As I started to post, I came across dozens of accounts with the same objectives, all run by gamers who merely enjoy showing off their photos. I even came across one account that was offering paid services as a virtual photographer. You pay him a small price, and he would go into any game of choice and capture some stunning screenshots of a given character, scene, or environment. …

One of the biggest impediments to denuclearization is figuring out how to monitor and verify the existence of a given nuclear warhead at a specific location without revealing any design…

In the wake of what could be the largest security breach in U.S. history, if you were to believe the Russian foreign ministry, you would be sure in the knowledge that the Russian Federation does not engage in offensive cyber attacks. In a prepared statement, they wrote, “We paid attention to another unfounded attempt of the U.S. media to blame Russia for hacker attacks on U.S. governmental bodies…We declare responsibly: malicious activities in the information space contradicts the principles of the Russian foreign policy, national interests and our understanding of interstate relations. …

I have mixed feelings when it comes to Iran. On the one hand, for any given theocratic authoritarian government structure, there will always be hardship and violence at home and abroad. Iran’s hands are far from clean for many reasons, and the country itself is far from perfect. On the other hand, it baffles me as to why Iran continues to be singled out over and over again. Numerous other countries regularly carry out actions that are on par, if not worse than what Iran has been accused of, and they escape criticism with little fanfare. It’s frustrating and mind-boggling, and a whole host of other adjectives all wrapped into one. I regularly wonder to myself if these contradictions and hypocrisies are just part and parcel of foreign policy. …

In recent days, two perennial controversies have flared up once again in France. Their Parliament is considering two bills aimed at solving the two issues: one, a security bill that aims to protect police officers, and the other, a wide-ranging bill that seeks to impose a series of regulations aiming to bring Muslims more in line with “French republican” values. If not handled properly, these twin social crises threaten to derail French President Emmanuel Macron’s agenda.

France has a long-troubled history when it comes to issues of race and multiculturalism. The country is among the top offenders when it comes to colonizing and plundering countries across the world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, when those same people come to France to seek a better life, they are always met with staunch resistance. It’s a familiar story that has played out again and again in places like the United Kingdom and the United States. How these issues are handled could determine whether France retains its leadership role in the wake of the UK leaving the European Union or whether it stays mired in controversy and condemnation. …