geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
top notch exploration, and the story was just the right amount.
geosoco 12 months ago • 55%
lol
Is there really any other reaction?
thehill.com
The accounts of several Russian, Chinese and Iranian state media outlets saw a 70 percent increase in engagement on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, after it removed labels identifying them as “state-affiliated,” according to a new report released Tuesday. The recent analysis from NewsGuard, which analyzes media trends and disinformation, found that 12 state media accounts from the three countries saw the number of likes and reposts on their content jump from 2.93 million in the 90 days before X removed the “state-affiliated” labels to 4.98 million in the 90-day period afterward. Russia’s RT, which was already receiving substantially more engagement than the other state media outlets before the label’s removal, saw interactions with its posts nearly double in the three months after the change, jumping from 1.3 million to 2.5 million. Iran’s PressTV similarly saw its engagement increase by about 97 percent, rising from 215,000 to 425,000 interactions after X’s removal of the “state-affiliated” label, according to NewsGuard. Russia’s TASS also saw a 63 percent increase in engagement, receiving 493,000 interactions in the three months after the change, while engagement with posts from China’s Global Times rose by 26 percent to 314,000 interactions.
thehill.com
The accounts of several Russian, Chinese and Iranian state media outlets saw a 70 percent increase in engagement on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, after it removed labels identifying them as “state-affiliated,” according to a new report released Tuesday. The recent analysis from NewsGuard, which analyzes media trends and disinformation, found that 12 state media accounts from the three countries saw the number of likes and reposts on their content jump from 2.93 million in the 90 days before X removed the “state-affiliated” labels to 4.98 million in the 90-day period afterward. Russia’s RT, which was already receiving substantially more engagement than the other state media outlets before the label’s removal, saw interactions with its posts nearly double in the three months after the change, jumping from 1.3 million to 2.5 million. Iran’s PressTV similarly saw its engagement increase by about 97 percent, rising from 215,000 to 425,000 interactions after X’s removal of the “state-affiliated” label, according to NewsGuard. Russia’s TASS also saw a 63 percent increase in engagement, receiving 493,000 interactions in the three months after the change, while engagement with posts from China’s Global Times rose by 26 percent to 314,000 interactions.
Technology
GPUs from all major suppliers are vulnerable to new pixel-stealing attack
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Many sites have had to enable reveal passwords for people with complicated passwords not using password managers.
It's low risk, but their numbers are also coming from fairly dated hardware and is just proof of concept. It can almost certainly be speed up significantly.
Newsgeosoco 12 months ago • 100%
This one's super sketch. It's not even a study, it's just an article and the particular claim they're making comes from other research and is more about older contraceptives.
Technology
Announcing ‘Be My AI,’ Soon Available for Hundreds of Thousands of Be My Eyes Users
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Yeah as the other person suggested i suspect it's more like "when do these expire?" "does this have mold on it?" "what does this sign say?"
You might get some about "does this match?" but i don't know
Technology
GPUs from all major suppliers are vulnerable to new pixel-stealing attack
geosoco 12 months ago • 90%
The problem is that so many browsers leverage hardware acceleration and offer access to the GPUs. So yes, the browsers could fix the issue, but the underlying cause is the way GPUs handle data that the attack is leveraging. Fixing it would likely involve not using hardware acceleration.
As these patterns are processed by the iGPU, their varying degrees of redundancy cause the lossless compression output to depend on the secret pixel. The data-dependent compression output directly translates to data-dependent DRAM traffic and data-dependent cache occupancy. Consequently, we show that, even under the most passive threat model—where an attacker can only observe coarse-grained redundancy information of a pattern using a coarse-grained timer in the browser and lacks the ability to adaptively select input—individual pixels can be leaked. Our proof-of-concept attack succeeds on a range of devices (including computers, phones) from a variety of hardware vendors with distinct GPU architectures (Intel, AMD, Apple, Nvidia). Surprisingly, our attack also succeeds on discrete GPUs, and we have preliminary results indicating the presence of software-transparent compression on those architectures as well.
It sounds distantly similar to some of the canvas issues where the acceleration creates different artifacts which makes it possible to identify GPUs and fingerprint the browsers.
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
I read that to mean it's a digital download only and not a physical copy in stores, but didn't put much thought into it.
arstechnica.com
GPUs from all six of the major suppliers are vulnerable to a newly discovered attack that allows malicious websites to read the usernames, passwords, and other sensitive visual data displayed by other websites, researchers have demonstrated in a paper published Tuesday. The cross-origin attack allows a malicious website from one domain—say, example.com—to effectively read the pixels displayed by a website from example.org, or another different domain. Attackers can then reconstruct them in a way that allows them to view the words or images displayed by the latter site. This leakage violates a critical security principle that forms one of the most fundamental security boundaries safeguarding the Internet. Known as the same origin policy, it mandates that content hosted on one website domain be isolated from all other website domains. ... The security threats that can result when HTML is embedded in iframes on malicious websites have been well-known for more than a decade. Most websites restrict the cross-origin embedding of pages displaying user names, passwords, or other sensitive content through X-Frame-Options or Content-Security-Policy headers. Not all, however, do. One example is Wikipedia, which shows the usernames of people who log in to their accounts. A person who wants to remain anonymous while visiting a site they don’t trust could be outed if it contained an iframe containing a link to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main\_Page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page). Pixel stealing PoC for deanonymizing a user, run with other tabs open playing video. “Ground Truth” is the victim iframe (Wikipedia logged in as “Yingchenw”). “AMD” is the attack result on a Ryzen 7 4800U after 30 minutes, with 97 percent accuracy. “Intel” is the attack result for an i7-8700 after 215 minutes with 98 percent accuracy. The researchers showed how GPU.zip allows a malicious website they created for their PoC to steal pixels one by one for a user’s Wikipedia username. The attack works on GPUs provided by Apple, Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Arm, and Nvidia. On AMD’s Ryzen 7 4800U, GPU.zip took about 30 minutes to render the targeted pixels with 97 percent accuracy. The attack required 215 minutes to reconstruct the pixels when displayed on a system running an Intel i7-8700. ...
thehill.com
A judge dismissed all charges Tuesday against a Philadelphia police officer who fatally shot a driver last month. Mark Dial shot 27-year-old Eddie Irizarry through the rolled-up driver’s side window of Irizarry’s sedan during a traffic stop on Aug. 14. Dial and his partner, Officer Michael Morris, say they had been pursuing Irizarry for driving erratically and turning the wrong way down a one-way street. Morris testified that Irizarry had a knife in his hand and had started to raise it as the officers approached. During a hearing, Dial’s lawyers argued he acted in self-defense because he believed the knife Irizarry had was a gun. Brian McMonagle, one of his lawyers, said his client was justified in shooting as he was trying to take cover and had feared for his life during the incident. “Every tragedy is not a crime,” McMonagle said. Initial statements from the police department said Dial shot the driver outside the vehicle after he “lunged at” police with a knife, but the department later walked back these statements. Still, McMonagle said the charges, which included manslaughter, official oppression and four other counts, never should have been filed given the evidence. “I agree with you 100 percent,” Judge Wendy Pew responded before tossing all charges Tuesday, per the Associated Press.
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Take this article with a grain of salt.
- the site that hosts it is a garbage clickbait health site.
- It links to an article in the NIH database, but it's from last year and as the bright yellow box says, there are some concerns about the article. ( concern and the reply )
- It has been corrected
- They also note in the article "all oral contraceptive pills may cause mood changes, but the newer oral contraceptive pills containing estradiol or estradiol valerate may be less likely to cause mood changes."
store.steampowered.com
Celebrating games inspired by the chaos of old arcade shooter games with discounts, demos, and upcoming releases.
wccftech.com
macOS Sonoma will bring significant improvements to Safari where you can create separate profiles and a personal account that will track your preferences and activities with all of your saved passwords for websites, and much more. Widgets are also part of the final release, allowing you to gain access to information at a glance. Using Continuity, your iPhone's widgets can also be displayed on your Mac. Since Apple has released macOS Sonoma on all compatible devices, you can download and install right now, The latest macOS Sonoma beta can be installed on your Mac through the Software Update mechanism in System Settings. macOS Sonoma also brings Apple TV-like screen savers to the mix. There is also a new Game Mode for users as Apple plans to introduce new titles to its library. If you are unfamiliar, check out if your Mac is compatible with Apple's latest macOS Sonoma update.
wccftech.com
macOS Sonoma will bring significant improvements to Safari where you can create separate profiles and a personal account that will track your preferences and activities with all of your saved passwords for websites, and much more. Widgets are also part of the final release, allowing you to gain access to information at a glance. Using Continuity, your iPhone's widgets can also be displayed on your Mac. Since Apple has released macOS Sonoma on all compatible devices, you can download and install right now, The latest macOS Sonoma beta can be installed on your Mac through the Software Update mechanism in System Settings. macOS Sonoma also brings Apple TV-like screen savers to the mix. There is also a new Game Mode for users as Apple plans to introduce new titles to its library. If you are unfamiliar, check out if your Mac is compatible with Apple's latest macOS Sonoma update.
www.ign.com
In a recent interview, Todd Howard explains how planet exploration in Starfield would have been a lot more punishing before the team decided to nerf "the hell out of it". ... "So the way the environmental damage works in the game, on planets, and your suit, you have resistances to certain types of atmosphere effects, whether that's radiation or thermal, etc., and that was a pretty complex system - actually, it was very punitive," Howard said on the podcast. "... And what we did at the end of the day, and it was a complicated system for players to understand, is we just nerfed the hell out of it. It matters only a little bit. It matters more in flavor. The affliction you get is more annoying knowing you have it." ... Howard's comment that Bethesda may address it "going forward" implies Starfield may receive a Hardcore or Survival mode-type difficulty level in the game. It would not be the first time Bethesda added a difficulty mode to one of its games post-release, as Fallout 4 received a Survival Mode a few months after launch. This added a set of features not found in the other difficulty levels, such as eliminating the option to autosave or save manually from the pause menu or stronger enemies spawning more frequently. Should such a mode be added to Starfield, the team could bring back the more punitive system for planet exploration.
www.gameinformer.com
The Talo Principle II has a new trailer that includes a release date of November 2. The follow-up to the acclaimed 2014 puzzle game was first announced during the PlayStation Showcase in May. Set in the distant future after the events of the first game, The Talos Principle II unfolds in a world ruled by robots after humanity has gone extinct. These machines preserve human culture in their day-to-day lives, and the story centers on a unraveling the truth behind a megastructure hiding a great mystery and immense power. The story-driven game takes players across several futuristic locations and includes multiple endings. Gameplay features familiar mechanics and new twists, including challenges centering on mind transference and gravity manipulation. [Release Date Trailer](https://youtu.be/2NgMGOuoAiA)
www.gameinformer.com
Don't Nod Entertainment, the studio behind Life is Strange, revealed its action RPG, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, during The Game Awards last year. Earlier this year, in June, Don't Nod announced Banishers will be released in November but today, the studio delayed its release to next year. More specifically, Banishers will now hit PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on February 13, 2024. As for why, Don't Nod CEO Oskar Guilbert says the team is aiming for a "less saturated period" of video game releases, alluding to the swath of games releasing in the coming weeks, including next month's Assassin's Creed Mirage, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Alan Wake 2, and more (and that's just some of what's releasing in October, which then leads right into November). [Gameplay preview trailer](https://youtu.be/YAKRe5itnSM)
www.rockpapershotgun.com
Growing Light was first teased during the Letter from the Producer Live event at Fan Fest Las Vegas in July, confirming that Growing Light will be split across two major updates. The first will land in FF14’s patch 6.5 on October 3rd, ahead of the second part in patch 6.55 next January. As detailed during producer Naoki ‘Yoshi-P’ Yoshida’s latest stream, patch 6.5 will add a host of new content to XIV, the headline additions being the next set of Main Scenario quests - referred to as Part 1 - that will lead up to Dawntrail and continue to advance the MMO in its post-Hydaelyn-Zodiark story arc following the finale of 2021 expansion Endwalker. ... [Trailer](https://youtu.be/v5X8IvNcYBY)
www.rockpapershotgun.com
CD Projekt have formally commented on the presence of references to the Russia-Ukraine war in Cyberpunk 2077's recently added Ukrainian localisation, apologising for dialogue lines "that can be considered offensive by Russian gamers", while reiterating their support for Ukraine. In case you missed it, the Ukrainian script and menu localisation currently includes a number of antagonistic references to Russians and to the on-going Russian invasion of Ukraine. One dialogue line refers to a particular bandit group as "rusnia", and there's photo mode menu text for a squatting character that translates as "like a Russian". There's also lore text that apparently riffs on Ukrainian government rhetoric during the war, and a piece of in-game wallart that alludes to the dispute between Ukraine and Russia over Crimea.
www.techpowerup.com
Scott Herkelman, Senior Vice President and General Manager of AMD's Graphics Business Unit, has announced that he will be leaving AMD at the end of this year. As noted in his Twitter post, he spent last seven years at AMD, and launches three generations of RDNA graphics architectures. Scott Herkelman is a veteran of the industry, and was General Manager for GeForce at NVIDIA back in the day. After briefly switching to a start-up, he then joined AMD back in 2016 as Vice President and General Manager of Graphics Business Unit, the role he held for seven years while becoming Senior Vice President in 2022. Scott said farewell to his colleagues in a brief Twitter post, and we are are certainly looking forward to see where he will be going next, as Scott is a PC and a gaming industry fan, through and through. Meanwhile, as spotted by Videocardz.com and according to AMD's own website, Jack Huynh will take over at the Senior Vice President and General Manager of AMD's Graphics Business Unit.
www.techpowerup.com
Newegg Commerce, Inc., a global e-commerce leader for technology products, today announced the launch of Newegg's GPU Trade-In Program, allowing customers to trade in an eligible GPU device and receive a trade-in value credit toward the purchase of a new qualifying graphics card also known as a graphics processing unit (GPU). Newegg's GPU Trade-In Program not only helps customers upgrade to a newer GPU model, the program also helps limit electronic waste. By offering a resource for customers to exchange their unwanted GPUs for new ones, the program simultaneously contributes to waste reduction and facilitates cost-effective PC upgrades.
www.ign.com
Escape from Tarkov is a game that makes you feel amazing if you win, and awful if you lose. You're likely to feel terrible again and again if you play it, but the thrill when everything goes right makes up for all of that. And while it's hard to beat that feeling of pleasure, I imagine I'm not the only person who played Tarkov and felt the pain of its hardcore difficulty. Escape from Tarkov: Arena seems like a game that even these kinds of players can jump in and enjoy. Arena retains the original Tarkov's hardcore shootouts while being a fast-paced and much more easily-digested team shooter. What makes Arena special is that despite the different rules, the game as a whole still feels like Tarkov, including the gunplay. Between its minimal HUD, lack of respawning, and wealth of equipment presets to choose from, you can tell that the game is still Tarkov at its roots. I had the opportunity to try Arena out at Tokyo Game Show 2023. While it was only for one match, I was also able to hear from Sergei Drozdov, game designer at Arena developer Battlestate Games. ... If you'd like to try it for yourself, Escape from Tarkov: Arena is scheduled for a closed beta test sometime before the end of the year.
www.pcgamer.com
The third patch for the game tried to ameliorate that a bit, implementing a new "Shared Stash" system that took important quest items away from party members when you dismissed them and placed them in your inventory. It's not much, but it does mean you don't lose track of your severed clown torso because you happened to dismiss the party member carrying it without thinking. But there's a problem. ... "My MC has low carrying capacity and she gets encumbered every time I send a party member back to camp," says Reddit user Blindspy4, lamenting that "At least one of my party members has a piece of armor that gets taken off every time I make him wait at camp too." Calling the experience "Very frustrating, borderline unplayable," the player says they now have to " spend several minutes trying to figure out what just happened" to their inventory every time they swap someone out.
www.pcgamer.com
Todd Howard agrees that it was a bit of a pain to get right, as he said in a recent interview with the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. "[Space combat] was way harder than we thought … We see a lot of space games where you're gonna have like, derelict ships or other things to fly around, just to get a sense of motion, so the smallest thing like 'what does the dust in space look like?' so you feel like you're moving and it's not too much, not too little." ... For Bethesda, the snags started happening when it came to designing enemy AI: "It's very easy … to make the enemies really really smart, forever we were just jousting [with them]. It turns out you have to make the AI really stupid. You have to have them fly, then they need to turn, basically like 'hey player, why don't you just shoot me for a while?' … [once we'd] settled on our pace, and how the enemies are gonna move, that's where it came together."
wccftech.com
Those buying an Xbox Series X can get a free Starfield copy at select retailers, including Verizon and Target. Starfield is a popular game, with the title reaching over 10 million players since its global launch this month. Of course, aside from being available digitally and at retailers, Bethesda's sci-fi RPG is also available on Game Pass. Those who haven't bought the game just yet or aren't subscribed to Microsoft's game subscription service can now get a free copy of the game when purchasing an Xbox Series X. Both Target and Verizon are bundling the game for free with Microsoft's Series X console for 'only' $499.99. Interestingly enough, Target's offer isn't limited to Starfield, but it also works with various Xbox Series X titles, including Madden NFL 24, the new Mortal Kombat 1, Hogwarts Legacy, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, and more. As said, Verizon is currently offering a special limited-time Xbox Series X bundle with a free copy of Starfield for $499.99 (normally $569.98). This item is only available online, and those purchasing the bundle need to be at least 17 years old.
wccftech.com
The creator of the paid Starfield DLSS 3 Frame Generation mod, PureDark, has said that he will be placing "hidden mines" in his future mods. ... In an interview with IGN, 'PureDark' has now commented on his mod being cracked, and has said that future "hidden" mines will cause future mods to sometimes work, fail, crash, and whatnot. "It was expected since it was something I put together within a day or two, but I did get enough patrons so it's done its job", the modder told IGN. "So from now on I will place hidden mines in all my mods to make it harder for these people. They might be able to find and bypass some of them, but they will never know if they have found all of them. The cracked mods will sometimes work, sometimes fail, sometimes work but [be] very wonky, sometimes even crash and they won't even know if it's a bug or just them using the cracked version, and they will never have the support I've been always providing to my subscribers."
wccftech.com
The PlayStation Network store leaves a lot to be desired in terms of features available on other digital storefronts, but from today, a highly requested feature started rolling out to provide users with more information regarding games available for purchase on PlayStation 5. As reported by multiple users, a user rating system started rolling out today, allowing users to rate games they purchased and added to their personal library. While the system still isn't perfect, as it lets users rate games even without playing them, it is still a nice addition that goes a long way to improve the PlayStation Network user experience, which hasn't seen much improvement for years.
wccftech.com
October is almost upon us, which means PS Plus Essential tier subscribers will have a new short-list of free games to try out, and as usual, some of the games have leaked ahead of time. These leaks come courtesy of Billbil-kun writing on Dealabs, who has a pretty much perfect record when it comes to revealing PS Plus titles. In October players can look forward sci-fi horror game The Callisto Protocol and the oddly-popular Farming Simulator 22. There should also be a third title, but our leaker has not revealed that, and it’s likely The Callisto Protocol is October’s highest-profile PS Plus Essential title.
www.gameinformer.com
Star Wars' Ahsoka Tano is now a part of Epic Games' battle royale, Fortnite. She joined Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 4: Last Resort this morning and includes a battle pass, her white Jedi Training Lightsaber weapon, Force abilities, and more. Epic says Ahsoka, her lightsaber, and Force abilities will remain in Fortnite until the v26.30 update.
www.gameinformer.com
Sega's Endless Dungeon hits PlayStation, Xbox, and PC next month, and ahead of its release, we spoke with singer-songwriter Lera Lynn, who wrote new original songs that play during the game. Lynn is a musician who has also appeared in things like HBO's True Detective series, where she played an in-universe musician at a dive bar in the show's second season. She has experience working on music for TV, film, and now, thanks to Endless Dungeon, games. We spoke with Lynn about the processes for creating music for these mediums, differences and similarities, the songs that appear in Endless Dungeon, and more. Enjoy our interview below! ... **Lynn:** That's an interesting question. When you're in the thick of making it, you're like, "Yeah, this is so good." And then a couple of months go by, you're working on it, and you’re analyzing every single detail, and you reach a point where you're like, "Ahhh, I f\*\*\*ing hate this." You put it to bed for a while, and you don't listen to it, and then come back maybe six months, or, you know, a year later, in this case, and I'm like, "This is actually pretty cool. I really do like this, I am proud of this work." But that is the cycle for me with all music. I think there's always hindsight. You always can hear areas where you would have done things differently because you're growing and learning and getting better at what you do, hopefully, so that's always in there. But I definitely feel like I'm very proud of this music and really excited for people to hear it. ... [YouTube Endless Dungeon - Free again](https://youtu.be/y08XTwC6giQ) [YouTube Endless Dungeon - The Garden - live](https://youtu.be/eotX6ia8YiI)
www.gameinformer.com
We spoke with Mirage's artistic director about the decision to include this "nostalgic visual filter." Assassin's Creed Mirage brings players to Baghdad in 861, during its Golden Age when it was the cultural and technological epicenter of the region. The city feels alive with merchants, townsfolk, guards, palaces, and more. It's vibrant, lively, and, well, looks and sounds like a city. It's painted with hues of desert orange and "Arabian Nights" blue skies, something intentional, according to artistic director Jean-Luc Sala. Having lived in the region, Sala says he and his visual team infused many sights he remembers near the Tigris River to bring Baghdad to life. The result is beautiful, if my two hours of hands-on time is any indication. With Mirage meant to serve as an homage to the first Assassin's Creed that started the series in 2007, Sala and the rest of the team at Ubisoft Bordeaux added an option to make Baghdad look more like the Jerusalem Altair explored. ... "We know how excited our community is [and] we also have a nice surprise for our long-timers," Sala says in the video. "We implemented a nostalgic visual filter as an option for those who wish to explore the game with the desaturated blue-gray color palette from the very first Assassin's Creed game." ...
www.eurogamer.net
Vampire Survivors developer Poncle has said it's "investigating" the possibility of adding proper online multiplayer co-op to its conspicuously vampire-free minimalist survival RPG, although there's no guarantee it'll actually happen. That tiny nugget of information comes via a new Ask me Anything (AMA) Q&A session, held earlier today on Reddit, in which Poncle occasionally had the opportunity to answer questions that weren't variations on 'Where the bloody hell are the vampires anyway, please?'. One such question inquired if there were any multiplayer plans for Vampire Survivors beyond the four-player couch co-op mode introduced alongside the Switch release last month, to which Poncle replied in the affirmative.
www.eurogamer.net
Members of the major SAG-AFTRA acting union have overwhelmingly voted in favour of authorising a potential video game strike. Ballots were cast by 34,687 members, with 98.32 percent in favour of strike authorisation on the Interactive Media Agreement that covers union members' work on video games. While this does not guarantee the union will call a strike, the next bargaining session is this week, and this ratchets up the pressure. The leverage of this authorisation could compel movement on either side.
www.eurogamer.net
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will task players with catching chocobo in real-time out in the wild. Of course, catching chocobo is nothing new for the series, but a new social post on X (formerly Twitter) from the game's official account shows how it'll work in Rebirth for the first time, with a video of Cloud catching one of the iconic yellow birds. ... In the original game players encountered chocobo during battles, where they needed to distract them while fighting enemies. With the open world of Rebirth, we now know it'll work a little differently. [Tweet link](https://twitter.com/finalfantasyvii/status/1706345673304703039)
www.eurogamer.net
While we wait (and wait) for Ubisoft to show more of Beyond Good & Evil 2, early footage from the project has surfaced from back in 2008. Yes, 2008. We've really been waiting a while. This is the version of Beyond Good & Evil we've seen in other clips released or leaked over the years, and which Ubisoft released an early trailer for (showing main character Jade and Uncle Pey'j in a car out in the desert). [Video](https://youtu.be/CDdyhkBEi9g)
www.eurogamer.net
Capcom's president and chief operating officer has said he thinks game prices should go up. Haruhiro Tsujimoto made the comments at this year's Tokyo Game Show, Nikkei reported. TGS is sponsored by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association, a Japanese organisation which aims to support the Japanese industry, which Tsujimoto is currently the chairman of. "Personally, I feel that game prices are too low," Tsujimoto said, citing increasing development costs and a need to increase wages.
www.eurogamer.net
El Paso, Elsewhere is beautifully simple. It's a third-person action game in which you fire guns and dive through windows, triggering bullet-time as you whittle down ranks of converging foes. Its levels are labyrinthine, its hunger for carnage is nearly endless. It's a thrilling challenge at the standard difficulty and thoroughly cathartic if you drop down the damage you receive, set the ammo to infinite, and just thrash away in the abyss. All of this, yes, but what's special about El Paso is how it's been dressed up. It comes in layers. A noir hero in a trenchcoat enters a motel and rides the elevator down to hell, stopping at every level along the way. Twin pistols, blocky outlines, fizzing, flickering shadows: at first it feels like a Stranglehold PS1 demake. The character models have the odd silhouettes and triangle noses of early Tomb Raider, while muzzle-flashes are lovingly ragged and pixelated at the edges. Environments have walls and floor and - most often - no ceiling, revealing a twisting Llamasoft sky, while each stage has the twisty-turny relentlessness of a great Doom level. [Launch Trailer](https://youtu.be/4N-JLLs3oJc)
www.eurogamer.net
Mobile game Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis is being developed for PC and will be available via Steam. Square Enix made the announcement in a Japanese livestream dedicated to the game. Data will be shared between the mobile and Steam versions, but no further information has been announced yet. It's currently unclear when the Steam version will be released.
politics
Trump-appointed judge rips Texas law setting up book-ban regime for state's schools (UPDATE: it's going into effect. see blurb)
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
The intent is to ban books about topics they don't like racism, queers, trans folks, abortion, etc as part of the "war on wokeness". They pretend that they're sexually graphic or things kids shouldn't learn about, but it's incredibly unlikely schools ever had books beyond a few classics.
Obviously, these are everyday topics so it's going to ban a lot of neighboring content, probably including the bible. Regardless, because it's at a state-run institution, it's unconstitutional.
The kids will hear about all of these topics in much greater detail on fox news every day anyway, so this is entirely for show and to cause chaos.
politics
Trump-appointed judge rips Texas law setting up book-ban regime for state's schools (UPDATE: it's going into effect. see blurb)
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Great summary! a teensy nitpick. I wouldn't say the most recent court said it was "fine" per se since they didn't give any reasoning. It is at least possible, that there is a technical issue with earlier rulings. It could be minor technicality, and they let the law take effect pending the next court date?
I think your implication is likely correct, and this is probably political, but we really don't know the reason, and I think not giving one is surprising.
News
Trump campaign backtracks claim that he bought a Glock handgun in South Carolina after it became clear that would be illegal
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
It's funny to watch his facade occasionally fall and the curtain to be peeled back, and yet the show just keeps going.
Unlike other politicians, the trail of grifts with him is long, and yet people still keep him going.
politics
Trump-appointed judge rips Texas law setting up book-ban regime for state's schools (UPDATE: it's going into effect. see blurb)
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Yeah, that's my problem. I added it after they commented.
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Some highlights if you don't want to click:
Temperatures are forecast to be warmer than normal for all of the northern U.S., from northern California, Oregon and Washington to Pennsylvania, New York and into New England.
NOAA says that temperatures will stay closer to the 30-year average for the South.
For the precipitation (rain, snow, sleet, etc.), the northern states could see below-normal snowfall, especially in the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes.
Across most of the South, wetter than normal conditions are expected, especially in the Southeast from Louisiana to Florida and into the Carolinas.
For the Northeast, there is a chance that this will be a wetter than normal winter from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia, to New York City and into southern New England.
super important detail
One other thing to note, this is all a probability forecast. The atmosphere is very fluid and dynamic, and forecasts could change.
politics
Trump-appointed judge rips Texas law setting up book-ban regime for state's schools (UPDATE: it's going into effect. see blurb)
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
OP NOTE: This is actually a week old, today 3 judge panel allowed the ban to go into effect. Here's the author's mastodon post about it. though there are few other details and I can't find a new story about it.
BREAKING: A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit (Elrod, Haynes, Douglas) allows Texas’s book-ban law to go into effect, issuing an administrative stay of the district court ruling enjoining enforcement of the law.
The court gave no reasoning for its order, which is remarkable given that the law has never been allowed to go into effect, so the order — although posed as merely “administrative” — is a ruling, at least temporarily, changing the status of state law.
arstechnica.com
After six years of running Blue Origin, Bob Smith announced in a company-wide email on Monday that he will be "stepping aside" as chief executive of the space company founded by Jeff Bezos. "It has been my privilege to be part of this great team, and I am confident that Blue Origin's greatest achievements are still ahead of us," Smith wrote in an email. "We've rapidly scaled this company from its prototyping and research roots to a large, prominent space business." Shortly after Smith's email, a Blue Origin spokesperson said the company's new chief executive will be Dave Limp, who stepped down as Amazon's vice president of devices and services last month. "Dave is a proven innovator with a customer-first mindset," the spokesperson said. "He has extensive experience in the high-tech industry and growing highly complex organizations, including leading Amazon’s Kuiper, Kindle, Alexa, Zoox, Fire TV, and many other businesses." Limp will join Blue Origin in December and become chief executive of the company at that time.
Technology
The End of Privacy is a Taylor Swift Fan TikTok Account Armed with Facial Recognition Tech
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
You should 100% lie when you can. You can give every site a different email address, name, birthday, gender, and location and just note all of that in your password manager.
However, there's a lot you just can't control, like other people catching you in their pictures.
www.lawdork.com
“This is textbook compelled speech,” U.S. District Judge Alan Albright ruled in halting enforcement of the law. Texas is appealing. ... **OP NOTE:** This is actually a week old, today 3 judge panel allowed the ban to go into effect. Here's the author's [mastodon post about it](https://journa.host/@chrisgeidner/111127991522166426). though there are few other details > > > BREAKING: A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit (Elrod, Haynes, Douglas) allows Texas’s book-ban law to go into effect, issuing an administrative stay of the district court ruling enjoining enforcement of the law. > The court gave no reasoning for its order, which is remarkable given that the law has never been allowed to go into effect, so the order — although posed as merely “administrative” — is a ruling, at least temporarily, changing the status of state law. > > ... rest of blurb ... On Monday, a federal judge ruled in favor of booksellers who argued that Texas’s new law banning some books from public school libraries and restricting others through an onerous and complicated regime is likely unconstitutional in an opinion that blasted the law and the arguments the state made in its defense. “[T]his Court has found that READER likely violates the First Amendment by containing an unconstitutional prior restraint, compelled speech, and unconstitutional vagueness,” U.S. District Judge Alan Albright — a Trump appointee to the federal bench — concluded in issuing a preliminary injunction halting state officials from enforcing the law. Texas already announced that it is appealing the decision. ... “To put the scale of the number of books that would need to be rated in perspective, a librarian in San Antonio for Northside ISD testified that six school districts alone had library collections totaling over six million items,“ Albright wrote. There are more than 1,200 school districts in Texas. Let’s just get this out of the way: Albright cannot believe this law exists. He also cannot believe the arguments the state made in its defense.
Technology
The End of Privacy is a Taylor Swift Fan TikTok Account Armed with Facial Recognition Tech
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Or leave the house 😢
Technology
The End of Privacy is a Taylor Swift Fan TikTok Account Armed with Facial Recognition Tech
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
This only sorta works for today and if your friends never share images or videos online. The ever-increasing amount of people taking pictures and filming and posting them online means the day is quickly approaching where you could be identified and tracked through other people's content, security & surveillance cameras, etc.
If stores start adopting the tracking used at Walmart and the Amazon biometric data, social media will be the last of your worries.
Technology
Reddit revamps gold system with opportunities to earn real money for posts
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Who says there's no innovation in tech companies today? lol
Technology
The End of Privacy is a Taylor Swift Fan TikTok Account Armed with Facial Recognition Tech
geosoco 12 months ago • 33%
Avatar checks out
geosoco 12 months ago • 85%
Absolutely, but this is another "don't tempt me with a great time" example. Where certain a politican tries to name something they think is awful, but actually sounds like something great.
Technology
Announcing ‘Be My AI,’ Soon Available for Hundreds of Thousands of Be My Eyes Users
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
I have no idea what their business model is, but this would be a great way to collect more data for training various forms of AI. Arguably without harvesting people's personal data or their creative works.
I also suspect that because it's an assistive tool, it can probably get a fair bit of grant money.
News
Gen Z can’t work alongside people with different views because they ‘haven’t got the skills to disagree’ says British TV boss
geosoco 12 months ago • 77%
Boss clearly isn't online much to see their content.
I've worked with Gen-Zers and have never seen this specific issue. Sounds like another example of a boss so removed from workers that their "insights" aren't based on experiences, but rather on that deadly combo of the tendency of older generations to negatively see generational changes, and that corporate group think where they try to justify not paying their workers their value.
It also sounds like a touch of the corporate group think where they forgot how much their employers had to teach them on the job, and how much they don't want to continue doing that.
thehill.com
Former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said Monday she thinks former first lady Michelle Obama will be the Democrats’ 2024 nominee, adding that President Biden is “out.” …
thehill.com
A federal appeals court on Monday sided with the Biden administration against the state of Utah in a lawsuit over the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “good neighbor” rule, which regulates the flow of air pollution across state lines. In a single-page ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined to stay the EPA rule, writing that the plaintiffs “have not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review.” The ruling states that one of the three judges, Judge Justin Walker, would have granted a stay. The good neighbor rule regulates the air pollution that 24 upwind states may produce. The state of Utah in June sued over the rule, arguing its regulations of Utah’s pollution would harm the state’s economy and cost millions of dollars in upgrades to its coal plants. The DC Circuit in March dismissed a utility-backed lawsuit against the rule, but in May, another court, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, granted a request for a stay by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R). Another court, the 5th Circuit in New Orleans, stayed the EPA’s rejection of Texas and Louisiana’s plans. In response, the agency postponed implementation in those three states as well as Arkansas, Kentucky and Mississippi.
www.nytimes.com
A Times analysis shows that increasingly complex oil and gas wells now require astonishing volumes of water to fracture the bedrock and release fossil fuels, threatening America’s fragile aquifers. ... Along a parched stretch of La Salle County, Texas, workers last year dug some 700 feet deep into the ground, seeking freshwater. Millions of gallons of it. The water wouldn’t supply homes or irrigate farms. It was being used by the petroleum giant BP to frack for fossil fuels. The water would be mixed with sand and toxic chemicals and pumped right back underground — forcing oil and gas from the bedrock. It was a reminder that to strike oil in America, you need water. Plenty of it. Today, the insatiable search for oil and gas has become the latest threat to the country’s endangered aquifers, a critical national resource that is already being drained at alarming rates by industrial farming and cities in search of drinking water. The amount of water consumed by the oil industry, revealed in a New York Times investigation, has soared to record levels. Fracking wells have increased their water usage sevenfold since 2011 as operators have adopted new techniques to first drill downward and then horizontally for thousands of feet. The process extracts more fossil fuels but requires enormous amounts of water. Together, oil and gas operators reported using about 1.5 trillion gallons of water since 2011, much of it from aquifers, the Times found. Fracking a single oil or gas well can now use as much as 40 million gallons of water or more. These mega fracking projects, called “monster fracks” by researchers, have become the industry norm. They barely existed a decade ago. Now they account for almost two out of every three fracking wells in Texas, the Times analysis found.
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
I didn't dig too much into it, but my guess would be no.
Even if you could verify, it's still an ethical grey area as it's taking works they paid photographers to generate new works potentially without crediting the original photographers? Their own website tells people they have to credit the original photographer, and I'd be surprised if the AI lists all the works it used to create it.
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
GOP: "We support our troops" [by executing them]
Technology
Announcing ‘Be My AI,’ Soon Available for Hundreds of Thousands of Be My Eyes Users
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Yes, it's a press release, but I think this is maybe a an interesting use for some of the AI to augment that of volunteers who help describe and annotate for people who have vision challenges.
www.bemyeyes.com
Since 2015, Be My Eyes has worked to connect our 6.9 million volunteers to users to assist them with everyday tasks. Our mission is to make the world more accessible for people who are blind or have low vision, which is why, seven months ago, our team began working with the blind community to incorporate AI into the existing Be My Eyes platform. Since then, over 19,000 blind and low-vision beta testers contributed to the design and function of our new AI feature. Today we are thrilled to announce that Be My AI is officially entering an open beta phase for iOS users and in coming weeks will be available for hundreds of thousands of Be My Eyes users worldwide. ... Using Be My AI in your everyday life is quick and simple. Once you have access, open the Be My Eyes app, click on the ‘Be My AI’ tab, and take a picture. Be My AI will give you a detailed description about it, and you can chat and ask Be My AI further questions to get more information. If you like what Be My AI described, you can send its response and photo to others, or use its description in social media. And don’t worry - if Be My AI can’t answer all your questions, if you want to check its results, or if you just need a little more description than Be My AI can provide or crave the magic and humanity of working with people, you still can easily reach one of our dedicated volunteers, just like before. They will always be there, in 150 languages all across the globe. If you want to learn more about Be My AI and how to use it at its best, we have collected the most common questions (and answers!) in our Help Center. Make sure to check them out! ...
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
arguably no?
Though Getty did introduce their new AI today that was only trained on images they own the copyright to. Arguably, still not ethical, but at least it's things they own the data for.
Technology
The End of Privacy is a Taylor Swift Fan TikTok Account Armed with Facial Recognition Tech
geosoco 12 months ago • 95%
Welcome to the future [of shit]!
www.404media.co
A viral TikTok account is doxing ordinary and otherwise anonymous people on the internet using off-the-shelf facial recognition technology, creating content and growing a following by taking advantage of a fundamental new truth: privacy is now essentially dead in public spaces. The 90,000 follower-strong account typically picks targets who appeared in other viral videos, or people suggested to the account in the comments. Many of the account’s videos show the process: screenshotting the video of the target, cropping images of the face, running those photos through facial recognition software, and then revealing the person’s full name, social media profile, and sometimes employer to millions of people who have liked the videos. There’s an entire branch of content on TikTok in which creators show off their OSINT doxing skills—OSINT being open source intelligence, or information that is openly available online. But the vast majority of them do it with the explicit consent of the target. This account is doing the same, without the consent of the people they choose to dox. As a bizarre aside, the account appears to be run by a Taylor Swift fan, with many of the doxing videos including Swift’s music, and including videos of people at the Eras Tour. 404 Media is not naming the account because TikTok has decided to not remove it from the platform. TikTok told me the account does not violate its policies; one social media policy expert I spoke to said TikTok should reevaluate that position. The TikTok account, conversations with victims, and TikTok’s own lack of action on the account show that access to facial recognition technology, combined with a cultural belief that anything public is fair game to exploit for clout, now means that all it takes is one random person on the internet to target you and lead a crowd in your direction. One target told me he felt violated after the TikTok account using facial recognition tech targeted him. Another said they initially felt flattered before “that promptly gave way to worry.” All of the victims I spoke to echoed one general point—this behavior showed them just how exposed we all potentially are simply by existing in public. ...
The A. hitleri beetle has been collected to near-extinction by neo-Nazis, sparking a fierce debate among taxonomists over whether to change offensive species names. ... In 1933, amateur entomologist Oskar Scheibel added an unusual insect to his collection. The specimen turned out to be a previously unknown and rare blind cave beetle from Slovenia. The Austrian engineer named it Anophthalmus hitleri. The first word derived from the Greek for “without eyes,” the second from the leader of Nazi Germany at the time, Adolf Hitler. Over the ensuing decades, many in the taxonomy community objected to using nomenclature linked to the man largely responsible for the Holocaust. Now that name could be changed – but not for the reason you might think. Some scientists are proposing the change to protect the beetle. They point out that the tiny blind bug has been driven to near extinction by neo-Nazis unlawfully collecting it because of its infamous scientific title. “It’s an innocent insect,” a Canadian anthropologist wrote last year in the Economist. “Why not end this illegal trade by changing its name?” ... The practice of using objectionable identifications for fauna and flora has been argued over for years by taxonomists – those responsible for naming new species. Some are asking why these identifications are still in use. Others are defending the nomenclature process, saying that making retroactive changes based on personal sentiment would upset the stability of science communication. ...
Technology
X will make audio and video calls a premium subscriber-only feature
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Ahh, Google's tried and true method of throwing a million half-baked features to people before promptly cancelling them all. This will definitely work for them.
www.bbc.com
Two years ago, the metaverse was billed as the next big thing - but many in the tech world have already moved on. ... But almost two years on, Zuckerberg has been forced to deny that he is now jettisoning the idea. "A narrative has developed that we're somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse," he told investors in April. "So I just want to say upfront that that's not accurate." On Wednesday the company holds its annual VR event called Meta Connect. It's a chance, perhaps, for Zuckerberg to again explain his reasoning for taking an extremely profitable social media company and diverting its focus to an extremely unprofitable VR venture. How unprofitable? Well, the most recent figures from Meta are eye-watering. Reality Labs - which as the name suggests is Meta's virtual and augmented reality branch - has lost a staggering $21 billion since last year. Part of the losses reflect long-term investment. Meta wasn't expecting short-term returns. But the worrying fact for the company is that, so far, there is very little evidence that this enormous punt will work. Horizon Worlds, a game published by Meta, is about as close as the company has got to creating a metaverse. Users can hop into different settings - cafes, comedy clubs, night clubs, basketball courts - to hang out and play games. Meta claims it has 300,000 monthly users: tiny when compared to the billions of people on Facebook and Instagram. ...
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Great list - these are all worth checking out. Some of these games I spent way too much time playing.
I think Ultima 7 is probably one of the best RPGs of the 90s. Ultima 6 might have been the first to 'clutter your entire world with junk' game, but was both beautiful and massive for its time (though 7 did everything better).
It's hard to go wrong with most of the classic Sierra games, though the text entry ones are in a special difficulty level of their own. King's Quest series. Conquests of Camelot was enjoyable. Colonel's bequest. Space quest series.
The Kyrandia games were enjoyable but I played them not too long ago.
I remember enjoy star trek 25th anniversary.
Technology
Meta’s AI chatbot plan includes a ‘sassy robot’ for younger users
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
I saw some research a while back around giving computers personality traits or having them respond more human like, and college students found it super creepy. If you watch how people interact with assistants, it's very different than from interacting with humans.
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Just a guess, but I would suspect it's because it's one of the few game genre's that has a nationality tied to it and it probably feels like a box they can't escape -- just because of where they're from.
To them, it's just their own spin on an RPG. No matter how much they change to make it appeal to a broader audience, they're always going to be a JRPG, which feels very limiting. It's always going to be "it's an amazing RPG if you like JRPGs", which to someone making the game probably makes you feel less than. No other country has that.
It's similar to splitting k-pop or even j-pop out. TO people making the music, they probably just want to be considered on a world stage as great pop music. Not just K-pop album of the year.
Even if people here don't mean it negatively, doesn't mean it doesn't feel like a shitty box to people. We rarely apply the same sort of boxes to things from other countries. You don't hear Abba or Robyn are the best S-pop artists of the last 50 years.
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
This isn't that strange for a number of open source projects. I don't know Godot's specifics, but lots of folks are willing to toss a few bucks via patreon or other sources. They keep a list of donors who don't mind being named in the source code, and it includes a few companies that make monthly donations. I'm sure they get a number of grants like this one from Epic.
There's a number of mastodon servers where people pay donate monthly to them.
Games
Baldur's Gate 3's Astarion says there's a tough to find two hour section no one has played yet (Updated: It has been found)
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Thanks! I updated the post and title.
Privacy Guides
anonymous fb?
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
That's a decent start, but you need a browser that's resistant to fingerprinting through some plugins and something like ublock origin that will block all embedded content. At some point, it may require you to use a phone number, and at that point you may have a problem. If you avoid that, one of the biggest threats are the facebook and related meta content placed on other pages around the internet. The pixel is one aspect, but almost any facebook content can still track you across sites. These are easily blocked with a decent adblocker and probably privacybadger too.
I know lots of folks will disagree, but I'd care less about Facebook tracking you as they mostly only care about serving you ads and making content suggestions to keep you on the platform to view more ads. Facebook has never served me a relevant ad, and even with a lot of use still can't recommend things I'm interested in. Data leaks and sharing is a concern, but that's a concern with every site. I think when it comes to privacy, there's far bigger concerns.
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
I feel so much safer knowing he might show up and protect me from a grocery store robbery.
Privacy
The Tesco Clubcard Data Scam | Exposed: How Supermarkets Are Making Billions from Your Data
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Yes-- same with bluetooth or ordering groceries for delivery and giving your home address. There's always ways to leak data and make it no longer anonymous. However, from my knowledge of how some of these datasets work, they aren't putting in a lot of effort into truly trying to make sure the joins are 100% accurate because it rarely matters. They generally don't give a shit about you as an individual. The most common uses of the data are for advertising and mistargeting doesn't cost enough to justify the time to verify the data.
Paying in cash though can make it anonymous, or by using virtual cards that mask your card id.
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
This was the intent of the inquiries.
However, I think the title is a bit misleading. I wouldn't say the research is "buckling". It's definitely been a headache, and sure there are some people who would rather not deal with the ever-increasing death threats, but that applies to many areas of research.
The question is how they're going to try and stop funding research into this. The research around this is especially important from a national security perspective, because it's become easier than ever to slide propaganda into social media and news media. If you've got enough resources, you can likely sway elections even easier than before.
Privacy
The Tesco Clubcard Data Scam | Exposed: How Supermarkets Are Making Billions from Your Data
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Sure, but you can usually register with fake info though. I've never seen one really verify much of any information.
Just use one of those email forwarding services that generates unique addresses.
everyone can sign up as "JP Morgan" at "555 Fuckoff Lane". I'm guessing it might be better if we all standardize to make it harder to connect the sold datasets. If they have address checking we should find some tiny town with 200 people from google maps.
Privacy
The Tesco Clubcard Data Scam | Exposed: How Supermarkets Are Making Billions from Your Data
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
Protip: Many grocery stores allow you to just grab cards without signing up (in the US at least). You can tell them you'll send it in later.
Then, you can use whatever the fuck info you want and still get the "rewards" so it's not attached to you. If you use the apps on your phone, make sure they don't have bluetooth access.
Technology
Bluesky sees record signups day after Musk says X will go paid-only
geosoco 12 months ago • 100%
From a feature-functional perspective, sure, but it's not entirely true. The biggest differentiators for social media are rarely the core features, but the content and friends. There's a few specific groups that have slowly been migrating from Twitter and Mastodon there.
There's a couple of very famous people that have moved over and because the audience is smaller, they tend to engage with people more often.