I often think about the technical limitations that game designers of the 80s had to work with - both in terms of software and hardware. The game that stands at the very top is Elite. Think about this for a second: The core game code on the BBC Micro version occupied roughly 22 KB of memory. Now think about what Braben and Bell turned that into: a universe with eight galaxies, each containing 256 star systems (for a total of 2,048 planets/systems). Each system featured unique details: government type, economy, technology level, population, commodity prices, and even descriptive text (e.g., a planet known for "carnivorous arts graduates" or similar quirky combinations). If you still need a bit more help to contextualize that, try this: Elite was smaller than many modern text files or desktop icons, yet it contained (and let you freely explore) a multi-galaxy-spanning universe that felt vast and limitless. Oh, and by the way, the game also rendered 3D wireframe ships, stations, and planets in real time on a 2 MHz 6502 processor. This is no slight on today’s game designers. They work with what they have, and that's okay. But when you think about the worlds that some programmers created with the tools they were given, it sometimes breaks my brain trying to understand how they did it. Elite is a true masterpiece on so many levels. I played the C64 version back in the day, and even 40 years later it still feels like one of the most incredible programming wonders ever.

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China has raised prices of fiber optic cables, which are critical for drone control, by 2.5-4 times for Russian buyers, according to Russian media. At the beginning of 2025, G.652D fiber, used in telecommunications cables, cost 16 yuan ($2.33) per kilometer in China, and in January 2026, it already cost 40 yuan ($5.80) per km. In 2025, Russia purchased 10.5% of all fiber optics produced worldwide, although in previous years this figure never exceeded 1%. In absolute terms, Moscow purchased 60 million km of fiber optic cable last year. At present, Russia does not have its own fiber optic production, and the only enterprise, Optical Fiber Systems in Saransk, was shut down after a series of drone attacks in April-May 2025. 📹: A web of fiber optic cables from drones in the forests of the Kharkiv region