Two scientific journals that experimented with paying peer reviewers found the practice sped up the review process without compromising quality, according to findings published this month.
Critical Care Medicine offered $250 to half of 715 invited reviewers, with 53% accepting compared to 48% of unpaid reviewers. Paid reviews were completed one day faster on average. In a more dramatic result, Biology Open saw reviews completed in 4.6 business days when paying reviewers $284 per review, versus 38 days for unpaid reviews. “For the editors it has been extremely helpful because, prior to this, in some areas it was very difficult to secure reviewers,” said Alejandra Clark, managing editor of Biology Open.
There may come a point where you want to break ties with Amazon — maybe you’re cutting down on impulse buys, trying to escape the subscription rabbit hole or just rethinking where your money goes. Whatever the reason, Amazon gives you two main options: you can cancel your Prime membership to stop the monthly (or yearly) payments, or you can go all in and delete your entire Amazon account including your order history, personal data and access to services like Kindle and Prime Video. This guide will walk you through both processes step by step so you can take control of your Amazon presence.
How to cancel your Amazon Prime membership
Canceling Amazon Prime is a lot easier than you might think — especially if you’re looking to save money or you’re not using the perks much anymore. Prime comes with benefits like free shipping, access to Prime Video, Prime Reading and more, but if you’re not using those, you may want to let it go.
Go to Amazon’s “End Your Amazon Prime Membership” help page, or sign into your Amazon account and select Account & Lists then Prime Membership.
Select “End Membership.”
Amazon may prompt you with offers to stay (like reminders of what you’ll lose or a discounted rate). If you’re sure, keep clicking “Continue to Cancel.”
Confirm your cancellation.
Once canceled, your membership will run until the end of your current billing period. If you cancel during a free trial, your Prime benefits will end immediately and you won’t be charged.
How to delete your Amazon account entirely
If you want to take things a step further and permanently delete your Amazon account — along with all your personal data, order history and any associated services — you can request full account closure. While this will irreversibly delete account details like your order history, you can always sign up again from scratch if you change your mind. Once your account is gone, you won’t be able to access anything tied to it again. This includes your:
Order history and invoices
Access to digital content (like Kindle books, Prime Video purchases or Amazon Music)
Saved payment methods and shipping addresses
Amazon Photos, Amazon Drive and Alexa voice history
Any remaining Amazon gift card balances or promotional credit
So, before you go through with it, make sure you download anything you want to keep, spend any remaining credit and cancel open orders or subscriptions.
Head to the Close Your Amazon Account help page, or sign into your Amazon account and select Account & Lists then Account, and navigate to the Manage your data section then Close Your Amazon Account.
Review the list of services associated with your account. This helps you see what you’ll lose access to, such as Audible, Alexa devices, Kindle purchases or Amazon-owned services in other countries.
If you’re sure you want to continue, select a reason for leaving from the drop-down menu.
Check the box confirming: “Yes, I want to permanently close my Amazon account and delete my data.”
Click Close My Account.
Georgie Peru for Engadget
After submitting the request, Amazon will send a confirmation message to your email or phone number. You’ll need to reply within five days to verify the deletion request. If you don’t, the request expires and your account stays active.
If you have multiple Amazon accounts, you’ll need to go through this process for each one individually. Once your account is deleted, you can’t get it back. If you want to use Amazon again in the future, you’ll have to create a brand-new account. Also, your account will be deleted across all Amazon sites globally — so if you also use amazon.co.uk, amazon.de or amazon.co.jp with the same login, those will be gone too.
FAQs
Can you get a refund on your Prime membership?
Yes, in some cases. If you haven’t used any Prime benefits during the current period — for example, if you haven’t placed an order with free Prime shipping or streamed anything on Prime Video — Amazon will typically give you a full refund. It usually takes three to five business days to process.
What happens to your Prime add-ons?
If you’ve signed up for Prime Video Channels like Paramount+ or Showtime, those will also end when you cancel your Prime membership. These subscriptions won’t renew once Prime is canceled.
Also, if you subscribed to Prime through Google Play on an Android device, you’ll need to cancel through Google Subscriptions instead. Similarly, if your Prime came bundled with a third-party service like Metro by T-Mobile, you’ll need to contact that provider directly to cancel.
If you’re having trouble accessing the account you want to close, Amazon has a help page that walks you through password recovery, identity verification and other troubleshooting steps.
And if you’re helping someone else delete their account — for example, if you’re an authorized agent — Amazon recommends contacting it via email with legal proof of authorization under your state’s privacy laws.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/how-to-cancel-your-amazon-account-160046999.html?src=rss
It’s been just over one year since the Linux Foundation and partners announced Valkey as a fork of Redis. Following the release of Redis 8.0 in September for this in-memory key-value database, Valkey 8.1 is out today…
Aston Martin’s Valhalla is inching closer to production; we’ve already seen the supercar in final production form, but now Aston Martin is showing off the mid-engined plug-in hybrid vehicle undergoing road- and track-testing in the United Kingdom and Spain. These tests are meant to button down final details in steering setup, damper calibration,
The developers of the Arch Linux-based CachyOS distribution released today the ISO snapshot for March 2025, featuring the latest and greatest Linux kernel, a new bootloader, and other changes.
We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
The Sonos brand is well known in the smart speaker and surround sound space. And very much like Apple, people will pay a premium price for their minimalistic, premium quality, and discounts are often hard to come by. But today, the Sonos Arc, which was Sonos’ flagship soundbar prior to the launch of the Sonos Arc Ultra, is $599, $300 off its usual $899 price. It’s also a record low price for this model, according to price-tracking tools.
Sonos speakers are not for everyone, if only because you’ll have to justify paying around two grand for a complete surround sound system when you can get a setup like the Samsung Q990C for about half the price. But audiophiles swear they can hear the difference, so the cost might be worth it to you.
If you pick up this soundbar, you’ll want to consider the Sonos 300 rear speakers and the Gen 4 subwoofer to go with it—they’re the latest Sonos has to offer, though you can choose Eras 100 or an older or smaller subwoofer to lower the price tag.
As for the Arc, it offers Dolby Atmos, providing immersive three-dimensional sound with height channels that simulate audio coming from above you (you can read the details in PCMag’s “excellent” review). It offers enough of a low-end kick that you don’t really need a subwoofer if you have a small space. If you already own other Sonos speakers, you can seamlessly connect them through the Sonos app to create a surround sound setup or a multi-room system.
Slowly but surely, your options for buying a gaming monitor equipped with a cutting-edge quantum dot organic light-emitting diode (QD-OLED) panel are expanding.The latest models to enter the fray are a couple of Acer Predator SKUs, those being the Predator X32 X2 and Predator X27U X1. We bet you can guess the screen sizes of each, based on
France’s competition authority has fined Apple 150 million euros ($162 million) for abusing its market dominance through its App Tracking Transparency system, ruling the privacy initiative unfairly disadvantages app developers. The watchdog determined that requiring third-party developers to use two pop-ups for tracking permissions while Apple’s own apps need just one tap creates an “excessively complex” process that particularly harms smaller publishers lacking sufficient proprietary data for alternative targeting.
The authority acknowledged the system’s privacy benefits, but concluded the framework is “neither necessary nor proportionate” with data protection goals. The regulator is not requiring Apple to modify the system, only imposing the fine for past practices. Apple must display a summary of the decision on its website for seven days.
While taking in the top-tier trails at Dirt Farm in Wales over the weekend, I spotted a pair of unreleased Renthal clipless pedals on the uplift trailer.
The new pedals appear to use a Shimano SPD-compatible mechanism and feature a large platform for enduro and downhill use.
Renthal only branched out into mountain bike pedals last year with the launch of the Revo-F, which impressed us with its robust design.
Before this, Renthal was better known for its MTB handlebars, with the brand’s Fatbar having become iconic over the years for its reliability and golden colour scheme.
The Revo name is embossed into the pedal mechanism, so it looks as though Renthal is carrying the name into this clipless model too.
Gold-textured platforms
These unreleased pedals feature a flat platform, unlike the concave one found on the Revo-F. Nick Clark / Our Media
The unreleased pedals appear to feature a similar platform to the Revo-Fs, but use eight pins instead of 10 on either side for extra traction.
Rear-loaded pins are used with hex key heads, which should make changing blunted or obliterated pins easy.
Renthal’s flat pedals offer tuneable grip levels through varying pin heights, so we’d expect to see that on the clipless model too.
The textured surface looks to add grip to the platform. Nick Clark / Our Media
The platform uses a textured surface that fans of the Fatbar will be familiar with – unlike the Revo-F pedals, which have a glossy finish.
This smooth finish is seen on the sides of the pedal body.
Like many of the best mountain bike pedals, the overall pedal body uses a trapezoid shape, which should help fend off blunt rock strikes without unsettling your foot too much.
The Revo-F pedal is constructed from forged 6010 aluminium, with CNC machining used to remove excess material, and it appears the same process is being employed for this clipless pedal.
Shimano-inspired mechanism
We’re not sure if Renthal will use a proprietary cleat, but the mechanism looks compatible with Shimano’s SPD. Nick Clark / Our Media
The mechanism itself features a spring adjuster, which should enable you to change how much effort is required to unclip from the pedals.
The Revo-F pedals weigh in at 491g a pair, which is quite chunky for flat pedals. Alex Evans / Our Media
There appear to be attempts at saving weight, with the sides of the body featuring cutaways not seen on the Revo-F – possibly offsetting some of the weight added with the clipless mechanism.
A large hex key end cap is seen on the outside of the pedal, suggesting we can expect the pedals to be fully serviceable, with Renthal offering full rebuild kits for the Revo-F.
We were impressed at how easy the Revo-F pedals were to service. Alex Evans / Our Media
The Revo-F spins on an extra wide Igus bushing and three cartridge bearings, so it’s highly likely that we can expect these clipless variants to do the same.
The same is likely for the Chromoly axle.
We’re not sure when to expect the pedals, but they don’t look far away from being production-ready.
How can we push CPUs forward? That’s the question the computing industry has been asking since the Intel 4004 processor launched in 1971. Chipmakers have tried cranking up clock speeds, adding multiple cores and miniaturizing chip architectures to make them faster and more efficient. The conflict between RISC and CISC chip instruction sets (ISAs) — “reduced” designs versus “complex” ones — rages on to this day with RISC-V.
For the past few years, AMD has been exploring a unique approach to speeding up some of its processors with 3D V-Cache, a technology that stacks more L3 cache on top of Ryzen cores. By doing so, the company avoids crowding the 2D plane of its chips, and it’s able to cram in more memory without making its CPUs larger. With the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, AMD has now evolved 3D V-Cache to the point where every hardcore gamer will want one — even if few people actually need a $700 CPU.
3D V-Cache first appeared in the Ryzen 5800X3D in 2022, and AMD brought it to laptops in 2023. While there were some obvious downsides initially — the 5800X3D had slower clock speeds than the standard Ryzen 5800 — AMD has steadily improved the technology. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D and Ryzen 9 7900X3D were both notable for reaching the same maximum clock speeds as their 2D counterparts. While AMD’s second-generation 3D V-Cache technology isn’t as big of a leap in the 9950X3D (and other recent chips like the 9900X3D and 9800X3D), the company has managed to overcome the few compromises it’s had to make so far. Simply put, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a beast of a CPU for gaming and productivity work alike.
What’s new in the Ryzen 9 9950X3D?
The 9950X3D is a 16-core processor with a 4.3GHz base clock speed and a boost speed of 5.7GHz, just like its 2D sibling the 9950X. The big difference between the two is in their total L2 and L3 cache: the 9950X has 80MB, while the 3D V-Cache technology crams 144MB in the 9950X3D. By having more cache, the 9950X3D is able to tackle more processing loads without hitting RAM, which could take eight to 10 times as long, according to Robert Hallock, AMD’s director of technical marketing.
The major upgrade in the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, in addition to being powered by AMD’s new Zen 5 cores, lies in the positioning of its 3D V-Cache layer. Previously, it sat on top of Zen 3 and Zen 4 cores, which slightly hindered cooling and overall performance. Now, the 3D V-Cache layer sits below the 9950X3D’s Zen 5 cores, which gives those hotter elements direct access to your CPU fan’s heatsink. The 9950X3D has the same 170 Watt TDP (Thermal Design Profile) as its 2D variant, so cooling shouldn’t be a huge problem, and unlike most other 3D V-Cache chips, it’s also fully overclockable.
Devindra Hardawar for Engadget
In-use: An absolute powerhouse
I expected the Ryzen 9 9950X3D to wallop every other PC CPU I’ve tested, but I didn’t expect the leap to be so dramatic. In the Geekbench 6 single-threaded CPU benchmark, it was 20 percent faster than the Ryzen 9 7900X I was previously using. The 9950X3D was also 33 percent faster in the same benchmark’s multi-threaded test. (I didn’t have a 7950X3D for direct comparison, but based on a median of scores from 3DMark users, it hits 14,290 points. The 9950X3D reached 17,025, or 19 percent faster, in my testing)
CPU
GeekBench 6 CPU
3DMark CPU Profile
Cinebench 2024
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
3,366/18,950
17,025 Max
134/2,124
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
2,822/14,216
12,553 Max
113/1,103
Apple M4 Max
4,090/26,394
N/A
190/2066
Apple M2 Ultra
2,776/21,403
N/A
N/A
I’ve only seen better scores from Apple’s hardware. The M4 chip is slightly faster for single-threaded tasks, while the M4 Max and M2 Ultra chips in the Mac Studio trounce AMD’s multi-threaded Geekbench 6 scores. Still, you could build a solid Ryzen 9 system for far less than the Mac Studio M4 Max’s $2,000 starting cost, even while accounting for the 9950X3D’s $700 price tag.
Apple doesn’t always come out ahead. In the Cinebench 2024 multi-threaded benchmark, the 9950X3D slightly surpassed the M4 Max chip. That result is also a sign that AMD’s flagship chip will be a big help for Windows-based content creators. The 9950X3D and the M4 Max both took 14 seconds to transcode a 4K clip into 1080p, which is the fastest result we’ve ever seen.
The major appeal of the 9950X3D is that it’ll also be able to handle demanding games over the next few years without bottlenecking high-end GPUs like NVIDIA’s RTX 5080 and 5090. On my system, which is using an RTX 5090 and 64GB of RAM, the 9950X3D reached 195 fps in Cyberpunk 2077 while playing in 1080p with high graphics settings. The Ryzen 9 7900X, on the other hand, hit 166 fps with the same GPU and RAM. You’ll see less of an immediate uplift at higher resolutions, where your video card is doing more of the work. Cyberpunk hit 64 fps in 4K without DLSS upscaling on the 9950X3D, while it struggled to reach 56 fps on the 7900X with the same settings.
For 4K, in particular, the 9950X3D could be useful for scaling performance for monitors with faster refresh rates. On the 7900X, Dragon Age: The Veilguard ran at a smooth 250 fps in 4K with graphics settings and frame generation cranked up, but with the newer chip I saw 270 fps. If you’re running a 4K 240Hz monitor with a less powerful GPU, you’ll likely have a better shot of edging close to 240 fps thanks to 3D V-Cache.
Given all of its power, I was surprised to find that the 9950X3D ran at a relatively cool 81.5 Celsius at 100 percent load. It also idles between 30C and 35C, depending on what you’re doing. Those results are pretty impressive for a CPU that can push up to 170 Watts.
Devindra Hardawar for Engadget
Should you buy the Ryzen 9 9950X3D?
Much like NVIDIA’s $2,000 RTX 5090, I can’t easily recommend the $700 Ryzen 9 9950X3D to most people. Most gamers would likely be better off with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which sells for a more reasonable $479. Sure, it has half as many cores, but the majority of titles don’t tap into many of those to begin with. There’s also the $600 12-core 9900X3D, which could be more useful for people who actually need a healthy amount of CPU cores.
You could of course consider AMD’s current chips without 3D V-Cache, like the Ryzen 7 9700X, which has an MSRP of $359 but is currently selling for under $300. But if you’re already in the market for an expensive video card, it’s likely worth paying a bit extra to get more L3 cache. When AMD first debuted the 5800X3D, the company claimed 3D V-Cache alone boosted 1080p performance by 15 percent. As games get more complex and demanding, having more available cache could be even more useful. (And it’s also easier to pay more for a better chip now than buying a new one in a few years.)
As for Intel, it only has plans to bring its version of the technology, dubbed Local Cache, to next-generation Xeon server chips, according to der8auer and Bens Hardware (via Tom’s Hardware). Intel’s current high-end desktop chip, the 24-core i9-14900K, is no gaming slouch, but it’s saddled with just 36MB of L3 cache.
Wrap-up
If anything, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is yet another sign that AMD is on a hot streak. After releasing a pair of excellent midrange GPUs, which showed that the company can genuinely go toe-to-toe with NVIDIA, this CPU and its accompanying 3D V-Cache technology is a reminder of how AMD is far ahead of Intel in many ways. And let’s not forget that it was also the first x86 chipmaker to include NPUs in laptop and desktop CPUs. While it’s certainly not the best deal around, if you can afford it, the 9950X3D is the best desktop CPU you can buy today.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/amd-ryzen-9-9950x3d-review-a-no-compromise-cpu-for-demanding-gamers-152452811.html?src=rss
Guaranteed to be this summer’s must-have snack table accessory, pickle fountains are party drink fountains filled with pickles and pickle juice. Partygoers can either stab a solid pickle with a fork (I’ll just bare finger them when nobody’s looking), or place their glass under the bottom fountain for juice. Obviously, if you’re a friend of mine getting married this year and there isn’t a pickle fountain at the reception, I will build a time machine just to travel back in time to the ceremony and object.
Migration is the act of moving data from one location in physical
memory to another. The kernel may migrate pages for many reasons,
including defragmentation, improving NUMA locality, moving data to or from
memory hosted on a peripheral device, or freeing a range of
memory for other uses. Given the importance of migration to the
memory-management subsystem, there is a lot of interest in improving its
performance and removing impediments to its success. Several sessions in
the memory-management track of the 2025 Linux Storage, Filesystem,
Memory-Management, and BPF Summit were dedicated to this topic.
A new UK study is claiming that your phone isn’t the source of distraction, or at least it’s not that black and white. The research found that when smartphones were taken out of reach in a simulated work environment, people continued to distract themselves on their laptops instead. Ultimately, this not only spotlights the importance of educating
Fox has announced the release of its new X2 shock, claiming it to be the world’s first four-way adjustable monotube mountain bike shock.
The brand says its shift to a monotube design has enabled the X2 to be more durable, as well as allowing for full pressure balancing, increasing the shock’s usable range.
Alongside the X2, Fox has also released its new DHX2 coil shock, which features identical internal architecture but uses a coil instead of an oversized air can.
The new X2’s pricing ranges from £809 / $699 / €939 / AU$1,199 to £849 / $739 / €989 / AU$1,299, while the DHX2 ranges from £729 / $679 / €909 / AU$1,199 to £829 / $719 / €959 / AU$1,249.
The X2 comes in two-position Performance and Factory spec, or as a DH option that doesn’t feature a climb position.
Fox says it has addressed the reliability issues that haunted the previous X2, with the new shock said to be more durable than before.
Moving to monotube
The X2 joins the Float X and DHX with a monotube design. Fox
The new architecture sees the X2 departing from a twin-tube design and moving to a monotube, which Fox says enables pressure balancing in the shock.
Pressure balancing is said to benefit the suspension by maintaining low positive pressure in the damper, enabling a much faster damper response time to rider inputs.
The DHX2 also benefits from pressure balancing. Fox
Positive pressure in the damper prevents cavitation and alleviates oil aeration, both of which can negatively affect the performance of mountain bike shocks.
Fox says it needed to introduce pressure balancing to match the performance of the GRIP X2 damper found in the brand’s forks.
The new shock is said to have greater control over the shock’s rebound stroke and how the rear tyre behaves, leading to greater rider confidence.
Fox says the wider shaft diameter adds more strength compared to the previous generation. Fox
The monotube design has also enabled Fox to increase the main shaft diameter from 9.5mm to 12.7mm for added strength and durability.
Four-way adjustment
The two-position models feature a firm mode, which reduces pedal bob when climbing. Fox
Unlike Fox’s other monotube shocks, such as the Float X and DHX, which use an orifice and needle design for low-speed compression, the X2 and DHX2 feature an additional adjuster that combines a combination of cams and gears to rotate and move the rebound rod axially.
The DHX2 is also available with a firm mode. Fox
This rotation also turns the Variable Valve Control (VVC) plate for high-speed rebound adjustment.
Fox says the four-way adjustment gives riders and racers the edge when fractions of a second matter.
Fox X2 Factory ride impressions
The X2 provides an impressive amount of adjustability. Nick Clark / Our Media
I had the opportunity to ride the X2 over two days in Arizona, USA.
The shock was sat in Pivot’s Shuttle LT and was set to the brand’s recommended sag of 30 per cent.
My initial impressions were that the new X2 flutters in and out of its travel with ease without feeling as though it’s sacrificing too much travel in the suppleness.
This suppleness gives an impressive ground-hugging nature to the bike’s rear end, and while nothing compares to a coil on the descents, the X2 doesn’t feel worlds apart.
In the mid-range, the shock feels supportive, while still feeling smooth and active.
There’s plenty of adjustment on hand too, and when dialling in the high-speed compression, the shock can absorb a series of hard-hitting bumps without running out of or pushing you up into the travel.
The firm mode is easy to access and provides a strong platform for climbing without completely hardening the rear end, allowing for good grip on technical climbs.
I’m interested in putting the X2 through its paces on home trails soon to see how it performs over a longer period of time.
Fox X2 spec details
The X2 is said to weigh in at 720g for the smallest size. Fox
According to price trackers, this is the lowest it’s been, and if you’re looking for a backup laptop or something for really light tasks, it might be worth a look. But let’s set expectations upfront—this isn’t a high-performance machine. It’s running on an AMD Ryzen 3 7320C processor with 8GB RAM and 128GB of eMMC storage, which puts it squarely in the “basic use only” category. You’ll get by fine with web browsing, emails, video calls, or streaming, but anything heavier than that—editing video, gaming, or multitasking with lots of tabs—is probably going to be a stretch.
What it does have going for it is a 14-inch WUXGA display that has a 1920 x 1200 resolution and supports touch, so navigation feels a little smoother, especially when you’re scrolling through articles or zooming in on images. Additionally, it’s got Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1, which makes it more future-proof on the connectivity front. And even though it’s plastic, it’s rated MIL-STD-810H for durability (according to this PCMag review) and has a spill-resistant keyboard—handy if you’re clumsy with coffee. It also runs on ChromeOS, which means faster boot times and built-in security, plus support for Android apps through the Google Play Store.
The battery life isn’t record-breaking, but it’ll give you a decent chunk of the workday—around 10 hours, depending on what you’re doing. It’s also got two USB-C ports, one USB-A, and a headphone jack, which covers most needs. That said, this is still a budget machine. The Ryzen 3 chip is entry-level, and the eMMC storage is slower than SSDs. You can’t upgrade the storage later either, so you’re stuck with what you get—unless you lean heavily on cloud storage.
Microsoft has announced that it’s overhauling its Blue Screen of Death error message in Windows 11. From a report: The new design drops the traditional blue color, frowning face, and QR code in favor of a simplified screen that looks a lot more like the black screen you see when Windows is performing an update. It’s not immediately clear if this new BSOD will remain as a black screen once Microsoft ships the final version of this update.
“We’re previewing a new, more streamlined UI for unexpected restarts which better aligns with Windows 11 design principles and supports our goal of getting users back into productivity as fast as possible,” explains Microsoft in a blog post about the change. “We’ve simplified your experience while preserving the technical information on the screen.”
Maingear has once again retooled its sleek and well-crafted MG-1 desktop gaming PC lineup (see our review of a 2023 MG-1 config to see just how well put together these boutique machines are), this time with the latest generation CPU hardware from AMD and Intel, alongside NVIDIA’s Blackwell-based GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs.
The real 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, is a saying that asserts 80% of outcomes come from 20% of all causes. You can use it to organize your to-do list, among other things. But to many young men, 80/20 means something very different.
Young men are not alright. Masculinity is growing more toxic by the day. Online incel communities are growing, and the most receptive audience to poisonous ideas about gender seems to be children. This week’s column isn’t going to be fun: I’m explaining one of the guiding principles of the incel movement, and discussing a TikToker devoted to changing her red pill son’s mind. And I can’t talk about toxic masculinity without mentioning Elon Musk!
Spray some deodorizer and let’s jump into the dank, upsetting world of incel beliefs.
What is the 80/20 rule?
The Netflix series Adolescence, is currently the buzziest show on streaming, a harrowing exploration of the inner world of an angry young boy accused of murdering one of his classmates, a girl who spurned him. One of the teenage characters mentions the “80/20 rule” as a way of explaining the incel/red pill culture that’s central to the murder plot. Put simply, the 80/20 rule is an axiom that states 80% of women are attracted to only 20% of men, and understanding the pervasiveness of this belief is essential to understanding online misogyny.
Different communities of toxic dudes believe different weird things—many “looksmaxxers” think breaking your own facial bones can make you more attractive; red pill dudes believe men have to psychologically manipulate women into liking them—but the 80/20 rule is nearly universally accepted.
The idea seems to have originated in a post on Medium that was written 10 years ago. Taken on its own terms, the article is a fairly interesting, though methodologically flawed, look at the distribution of “likes” on dating site Tinder. Incel types ignored the problems with the research, ignored the context (it’s only about Tinder likes), and accepted the 80/20 Rule as a hard-to-swallow truth that explains how women relate to men. Even though the Medium post concludes that most men who want to meet women would be “better off just going to a bar or joining some coed recreational sports team” than using Tinder, incels decided the 80/20 rule meant something like “all women are shallow,” and/or “it’s not my fault that no woman wants to spend time with me.”
For 10 years, incels and the incel-adjacent have expanded on the theory and repeated it to each other so many times that it’s rarely questioned in those spaces. If anyone you’re talking to mentions the 80/20 rule in an affirmative context, you know you’re talking to someone who has a specific set of (wrong) beliefs, and who doesn’t have a large enough social circle to compare what they read on the internet to the way people act in real life. But is there anything you can do about it? Maybe.
Viral video of the week: De-pilling a red pill son
The creator of in this week’s viral video, IAmRchlPrkr, is a mother trying to deprogram her teenage son. He has accepted some beliefs of the “red pill” community, a branch of incels, and she is not into it.
She first saw the problem when her child told her “all women are gold-diggers.” There’s a lot going on with that phrase. Despite bristling and yelling “not all men!” when anyone generalizes their own gender, the toxic male community is dominated by the idea that women are all the same: a Borg-like collective looking for the most attractive 20% of men, or the men with the most gold to dig.
This isn’t new. In her 1998 book Intercourse, Andrea Dworkin could have been describing the incels of 2025 when she wrote, “the first tenet of male supremacist ideology is that men have a self and that women must, by definition, lack it.” The difference is how sexist ideas that were once relegated to obscure corners of society have infiltrated the mainstream to the extent that literal children are repeating them to their mothers. (As with most of societal ills, we can thank the internet for that.)
Maybe this TikToker mom has the right approach to returning some sanity: When her son tells her, “all women are gold-diggers,” she responds with “Which women?” and “name one woman who is a gold-digger.” Of course he can’t. Because the incel philosophy falls apart in the face of actual relationships with real humans.
What is “serious hat Soyjack?”
A fitting response to me quoting Andrew Dworkin in an earnest post about online masculinity is serious hat Soyjak:
Credit: SoyGemVault – Deviant Art
Created by DevianArt user SoyGemArt, Serious Hat is a Wojak posted to comment on people who are, well, too serious online.
Speaking of toxic men: Elon Musk! If you’re an adult, you probably know Musk best as the CEO of an electric car company or as a dedicated public servant with creative ideas about how forks work. But kids know a different Elon Musk: Gamer Elon. Gamer Elon is seen as the ultimate sweat, and Gamer Elon recently mixed it up on X with the official account of video game Assassin’s Creed and got roasted like a Costco chicken.
The online dust-up started when ex-game developer @grummz made a post about streamer Hasan Piker, who he labeled a terrorist (because that’s what you do on X when you disagree with someone about public policy):
The Assassin’s Creed post was viewed over 52 million times. It references the all-but-confirmed rumor that Elon Musk, a grown adult with a major position of power within the United States government, pays someone so gamers will think he’s really good at Path of Exile 2, a video game where you pretend to be an elf.
What does “come eat lobster with a monster” mean?
I don’t want to leave you with all these toxic men, so let’s end with a funny meme.
Back in 2020, then-Twitter user @blanketm9 changed the world forever when they tweeted:
Their post lay dormant until 2023, when a user (whose original post and name has been lost to history) added the context of a text conversation, complete with a “straight man.”
Credit: iFunny
Things were quiet for a couple years, then, for reasons unknown, the meme started truly taking off this month. I guess the time is right for posts like these:
For those dealing with exFAT formatted storage devices under Linux, the upcoming Linux 6.15 kernel has a big optimization for yielding much faster delete performance when making use of the “discard” mount option…
Amazon’s Big Spring Sale ends tonight, so now is a better time than ever to find some solid deals on some of the best consumer headphones from Bose (and more). We’ve compiled some of our favorites from the audio brand plus threw in some nice alternatives, because—you know—options are good. Without further ado…
