Today's NYT Mini Crossword Answers for June 9
Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
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Digital Trends
15 minutes ago
- Digital Trends
Directive 8020 is straight up a playable version of The Thing
It's no secret that developer Supermassive Games is inspired by horror movies. The studio's brand of choose your own adventure horror games has always pulled ideas from classic slashers and adapted those ideas into original stories. With Directive 8020, the latest entry in its long running Dark Pictures anthology, that inspiration is clearer than ever. I played a quick slice of it at Summer Game Fest and I'm happy to report that Supermassive has basically just made John Carpenter's The Thing, but playable. That isn't apparent right away when my demo begins. I start in the middle of a dramatic conversation between two of its main characters who set up the sci-fi world and express some concerns with an operation to Mars. For the purposes of the demo, it's basically just a way for Supermassive to show off how strong its cinematic chops have gotten. The character models approach hyperrealism, and the acting doesn't feel far off from a Hollywood movie. After that quick introduction, things rapidly heat up. One of those characters winds up facing down his doppelganger, leading to a thrilling little fight scene. While those bits have some minimal interaction, I get to do a lot more when a doppelganger suddenly mutates into an enormous flesh monster pulled straight from a John Carpenter movie. I'm tossed into a straight-up stealth horror sequence where I need to get past a patrolling monster and sneak my way to a ladder. I can use a scanner to track its position through walls. Though it's a bit of a standard stealth hiding sequence, it's a remarkably tense one. I'm legitimately terrified of getting caught, likely because the monster that's chasing me is just so grotesque with its human face hanging from its hulking body. I almost get to the end undetected, but it spots me at the last moment. I make a run for the ladder and grab it with a second to spare. It's another true movie moment. Recommended Videos Even with all these tells, I don't fully pick up on how much Supermassive is making The Thing in space until the next cutscene. The ship's crew has a potential doppelganger contained in a cell and must decide if he's friend or foe. I'm given the choice to either shoot him dead or spare him. Naturally, I shoot the sucker dead. That's where I learn about the biggest way that Directive 8020 is evolving the Dark Pictures formula. As soon as I make my choice, a pop up appears on screen that asks me if I want to rewind. I'm no longer stuck with my bad decision. When it happens, a developer from the Supermassive team come over to me and explains exactly how that works. By opening a menu, players can now see exactly how a chapter's story tree will branch. It doesn't show what the choices are, but it shows how many permeations there are from the jump. In my case, there were three ways my encounter could have gone. It turned out that the guy I shot was legitimately a human (whoops), but certain story choices earlier on could lead to a mimic being there instead — hence three possible outcomes. And don't worry: If you're a purist, there will be a mode that disallows you from using rewinds, so you have to live with your bad choices. All of this seems like a smart evolution for a formula that Supermassive Games has nearly perfected at this point. The few choices I had to make felt impactful and I like having a little more classic horror gameplay in that bit of stealth. More than anything, I just like running away from gross body horror monsters that would make David Cronenberg proud. I'm ready to be grossed out. Directive 8020 launches on October 2 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Gizmodo
18 minutes ago
- Gizmodo
Apple's New tvOS 26 Is Actually All About Karaoke for Me
Apple's tvOS might not get the same attention as iOS or macOS, but there's one feature I can't wait to try. Apple's new tvOS 26 is here, and the one feature I can't wait to try has nothing to do with TV. At WWDC 2025, Apple introduced 'Sing-along' sessions, which sounds like a traumatic summer camp experience but is actually a cool new karaoke feature that I can't wait to test out for myself. According to Apple, the feature allows you to turn your iPhone into a 'handheld microphone' that can be used on Apple TV to amplify your voice for karaoke and 'belt out [your] favorite songs.' Sing-along sessions also allow other singers to 'queue up songs or react with onscreen emoji,' so you can make karaoke a more communal experience, though there's nothing to stop your selfish friends from queuing up several songs in a row. You know who you are. Like any karaoke app, Sing-along uses real-time lyrics and visual effects to 'light up the screen' and can even use a translation feature that will help port over a song in a different language to something you can read, understand, and sing. As excited as I am to try Sing-along, I'm also skeptical that an iPhone mic is the ideal hardware for karaoke—there's a chance it might sound pretty bad if you have an older device (like I do). Then again, plenty of people use fairly cheap Bluetooth mics at home and don't bat an eyelash, so their experience may really be on par here. The good news is, if karaoke isn't doing it for you, Apple introduced other new tvOS features, like one that grants more control over when the option to choose a profile comes up. That should be great for anyone who's in a multi-person household. Apple says, '…users will now have the choice to automatically display profiles when Apple TV wakes, allowing them to quickly get back to their recommendations and Watchlist in the TV app and playlists in Apple Music.' There are also some tweaks to FaceTime, which include 'Contact Posters' on Apple TV that show a contact's custom photo and name when you start a FaceTime call and an expansion of Live Captions that includes French, German, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, and Spanish. FaceTime audio and call notifications will now show up onscreen based on whichever profile is being used at the time. This is a developing story…
Washington Post
18 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Doechii's closing WorldPride set ended a tense weekend on a high note
Nightclubs. Karaoke spots. House party living rooms. Wedding reception halls. All fine places to dance your life away. But nothing beats the streets. Without ceilings or walls to keep the music from flying off into oblivion, we keep our dancing shoes pressed to the pavement, catching the rhythm with our bodies, circulating it among an assembly of strangers like some game of metaphysical pinball. Or at least that's what seemed to be happening smack in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue NW on Sunday evening as Doechii, the lightning-mouthed Florida rap star, delivered a galvanizing closing set at this year's WorldPride celebration in Washington — a boisterous affirmation of the LGBTQ+ community's perseverance and purpose that might have felt overwhelming had it not been such electric fun. This was a happy conclusion to a difficult week. WorldPride is the largest Pride Month celebration on the planet, but this year, its proximity to President Donald Trump's White House charged the festivities with tensions and safety concerns. As the Trump administration continues to erode transgender rights and dissolve diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, fearful corporate sponsors withheld their cash. On a day's notice, Shakira canceled her opening-night concert at Nationals Park, citing an insurmountable production glitch. Over the weekend, federal authorities attempted to fence off Dupont Circle Park, the center of the city's historic LGBTQ neighborhood, but the park ultimately stayed open. At least on Sunday night, without anxiety or ambiguity, Pennsylvania Avenue belonged to the people — many of them wearing colorful T-shirts adorned with even more colorful phrases that made their opposition to oppression abundantly clear. 'WorldPride 2025 is an act of resistance,' organizer Rahul Upadhyay said onstage before Doechii's set. 'This is what hope looks like. This is what family looks like.' Once Doechii appeared — frontlit in green, backlit in pink, braids swinging down to her heels — it also looked like a party. Still floating on the runaway success of her zesty 2024 album 'Alligator Bites Never Heal,' her performance landed like hard evidence of rap music's synchronizing power. When she launched into her signature tale of a stressed-out crash out, 'Denial Is a River,' fans two blocks deep in the crowd were rattling off Doechii's zigzag lyrics as if reciting a shouted prayer — 'Whoopsie! Made an oopsie! One-hundred-thousand dollar 'oops' made me loopy!' — all the way down to the panicked breathing of the song's finale. If you'd ever hoped to feel a sense of community by standing in a throng of many-thousands, pretending to hyperventilate in unified glee, here you were. 'Easy, breezy, beautiful, erratic,' Doechii rapped by way of self-description over the jazzy boom-bap of 'Boiled Peanuts,' positing herself as a stylistic heir to Missy Elliott, eager to express her messy multitudes with airlocked precision. Legible and danceable, her intentionality felt so well-suited for a celebration like this. In life writ large — which includes music-making, party-throwing, meal-making, getting dressed, sports, sex, watching television and more — spontaneity is all well and good, but sometimes being deliberate is a necessity. A party on this grand of a scale with this depth of purpose doesn't tend to erupt in the streets on a whim. As with a Doechii song, pleasure requires preparation. As for the gratitude, it flowed both ways. 'I've never felt so much love and peace from a community in my entire life,' Doechii told the crowd, catching her breath between rhyming sprints. The crowd roared. The music thundered. The people moved. Pennsylvania Avenue isn't the street the president lives on. It's a dance floor.
