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Government Workers Say Their Out-of-Office Replies Were Forcibly Changed to Blame Democrats for Shutdown

by admin October 3, 2025

On Wednesday, the first day of the US government shutdown, employees at the Department of Education (DOE) set their automatic out-of-office email responses to inform recipients that they would be unable to respond until after the shutdown. Hours later, many DOE employees realized their response message had been altered to contain partisan language without their consent. The automatic reply now blamed Senate Democrats for the entire shutdown.

It’s not clear who made the change to email accounts, which was first posted about on Bluesky by journalist Marisa Kabas. “It’s disturbing,” says a DOE employee who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the press. Some employees changed their responses back to the more neutral language, only to have it changed yet again to the partisan response, multiple sources tell WIRED.

As government employees began to log off in preparation for a shutdown, many agencies sent out guidance, including suggested language for their out-of-office message. While some agencies offered employees neutral language, simply explaining they would not be able to reply until the shutdown concluded, employees at the Small Business Administration and, according to sources and screenshots reviewed by WIRED, the Department of Labor, received suggested language that blamed Democrats for the shutdown.

At the DOE, human resources sent employees standard language ahead of the shutdown, and many employees used this as their OOO text. Originally, the suggested language given to DOE employees read, “Thank you for your email. There is a temporary shutdown of the US government due to a lapse in appropriations. I will respond to your message as soon as possible after the temporary shutdown ends. Please visit Ed.gov for the latest information on the Department’s operational status.” Many employees set this neutral language as their OOO status.

The new, changed message reads:

“Thank you for contacting me. On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed HR 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of HR 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse in appropriations I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume.”

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October 3, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Subnautica 2 Lawsuit Gets Muddled As Justification For Firing Studio Founders Is Changed

by admin September 21, 2025

Subnautica 2 has been upstaged this summer by a bitter fight between publisher Krafton and the former leadership team at the game’s studio, Unknown Worlds. Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, as well as CEO Ted Gill were forced out of the studio, and they subsequently filed a lawsuit against Krafton that contends the latter is attempting to avoid paying them a $250 million performance bonus. Now, Krafton has changed its legal argument about why the leadership team was dismissed.

According to PC Gamer, Krafton asserted that the founders intended to release Subnautica 2 in early access this year before the game was ready in order to secure their performance bonus. The founders’ lawyers at Fortis Advisors asked for proof of this assertion during the trial’s discovery phase, and Krafton didn’t provide any. Krafton subsequently withdrew that part of its legal filing and no longer claims it as a reason for their dismissal. Fortis said this marks a “seismic shift in the case” and characterized it as “a little bit bewildering.”

Krafton still maintains that the founders shirked their responsibilities to oversee Subnautica 2 to completion and accuses them of downloading files and keeping devices that had confidential info on them. Although that detail only came to light after the leadership team was removed, Krafton argues that it retroactively justifies their termination.

Fortis contends that Krafton hasn’t been properly cooperating during discovery and is ignoring requests to confer or share information pertinent to the case. The most recent update is that both sides agreed to confer.

This case may play out in court for years, but the battle in the court of public opinion has already begun. After fans openly called for a boycott of Subnautica 2 over reports that the $250 million bonus was being withheld, Bloomberg reported that Krafton has extended the bonus period into next year to allow the Unknown Worlds team a better chance of meeting its financial benchmarks and earning $25 million to be split among 40 employees. The remaining $225 million of that bonus would have gone to the former leadership team prior to their forced exits from the company.

Subnautica 2 is expected to hit early access in 2026 on PC and Xbox Series X|S.

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September 21, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

How a 2020 Rolex Collection Changed the Face of Watch Design

by admin September 13, 2025

As the company that either invented or popularized the dive watch, the GMT watch, the first water-resistant watch, the first automatic watches, and much more besides, you could hardly downplay Rolex’s influence on watchmaking history. But while its iconic sports watches, like the Submariner, Daytona and GMT-Master are endlessly imitated, Rolex is not seen as a trendsetter, preferring to ignore passing horological fashions. It does its own thing, iterating carefully and minimally on its age-old templates.

Five years ago, however, Rolex introduced a collection so avant-garde that is still influencing creative decisions across the entire watch industry, and it did so in one of its least-heralded models: the Oyster Perpetual. The idea was so simple that we’ve barely noticed it become the industry norm: Instead of slowly rolling out new dial colours one at a time over a period of years—which was standard watch world behavior until that point—Rolex launched a whole set of colored dials in a complementary palette all at once.

The 2020 multi-color Oyster Perpetual collection that started the wave of watch-world bright dials.

COURTESY OF ROLEX

They were bright, bold and almost childlike in their purity: coral red, green, turquoise, pink and yellow. Rolex-watchers immediately hailed them as a tribute to the so-called Stella dial Day-Date watches of the late 1970s and 1980s—equally bright and unexpected, and evocative of a louche, sybaritic age. But there was something more basic, more essential and, at least theoretically, more attainable about the Oyster Perpetual collection.

It sparked imitators left, right and center—and still does. At last week’s Geneva Watch Days 2025, Zenith’s collaboration with Swiss furniture-maker USM would qualify as a textbook example: a full set of bold, block-colour dials in otherwise traditional stainless steel sports watches.

Earlier this year, Oris’s Big Crown Pointer Date hit a similar note. In 2023, arch-rival Omega debuted a collection of Seamaster Aqua Terra models with similar hues to Rolex’s opening salvo; other mid-level brands including Breitling and TAG Heuer have all created multi-colored families of stainless steel, time-only round watches in a similar mold.

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September 13, 2025 0 comments