Amsterdam is one of the prettiest parts of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, and also home to the Breenbergh Hotel multiplayer map where players repeatedly shoot at each other in the main lobby. Now the real-life Dutch hotel the level is based on has caught wind of the imitation and criticized its use in such a violent…
Source: Kotaku – Real-World Hotel Unhappy It’s Being Used As A Modern Warfare 2 Deathmatch Map
No two people handle grief the same way, and no two situations involving dealing with a terrible loss are ever identical. But Vanessa (Jillian Bell) may have the most unique grief experience ever when she meets an alien (Natalie Morales) who looks exactly like Jennifer, her recently deceased and very dearly missed…
Source: Gizmodo – I’m Totally Fine Is a Weird, Sweet Sci-Fi Tale About Letting Go
Today, Marvel and EA announced a new deal that will see the Madden publisher releasing “at least” three new games based on Marvel characters. We already know that one of these games will star Iron Man and is currently being developed by EA Motive, the same team behind the upcoming Dead Space remake.
Source: Kotaku – EA’s Got At Least Three New Marvel Games In The Works
The PS5 has plenty of useful features disabled by default. From the ability to pick a default difficulty level for all games to automatically hiding spoilers, there’s a lot for you to explore. To make the most of your console, check out the following PS5 settings.
Source: LifeHacker – The Best PS5 Features That Are Disabled by Default
The Linux security module (LSM) mechanism was created as a result of the first Kernel Summit in 2001; it was
designed to allow the development of multiple approaches to Linux security.
That goal has been met; there are several security modules available with
current kernels. The LSM subsystem was not designed, though, to allow
multiple security modules to work together on the same system. Developers
have been working to rectify that problem almost since the LSM subsystem
was merged, but with limited success; some small security modules can be
stacked on top of the “major” ones, but arbitrary stacking is not possible.
Now, a full 20 years after
security-module support went into the 2.5 development kernel series, it
looks like a solution to the stacking problem may finally be getting
closer.
Source: LWN.net – [$] Still waiting for stackable security modules
Artemis 4 may not happen for another five years, but this mission promises to be a good one. In addition to launching a modified SLS rocket and delivering two space station components to lunar orbit, NASA will also attempt to land a crew on the Moon for the second time this decade—a feat the space agency had…
Source: Gizmodo – NASA to Attempt Crewed Moon Landing During Fourth Artemis Mission
The Lunar Flashlight is exactly what it sounds like—a spacecraft that will shine infrared light on some of the permanently shadowed parts on the Moon in an effort to find water—and NASA is looking to launch next month.
Source: Gizmodo – NASA Probe Will Hunt for Lunar Water Where ‘Nobody Else’ Has Looked
Enlarge / Falcon Heavy clears the tower during its maiden flight on February 6, 2018. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann)
As early as Tuesday morning, the Falcon Heavy will take flight for the first time since June 2019, ending a long period of inactivity for the world’s most powerful, operational rocket. Under the power of 27 Merlin engines in its first stage, the rocket will carry two space technology payloads into orbit for US Space Force.
Ahead of this much-awaited USSF-44 launch, it is natural to ask why it has been more than 40 months since the rocket last flew. And perhaps more importantly, does this suggest that the Falcon Heavy—developed internally at SpaceX, at the company’s own expense, for half a billion dollars—was a mistake?
But first, some details about the launch, which is set for 9:41 am ET (13:41) on Tuesday from Kennedy Space Center, in Florida.
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Source: Ars Technica – The world’s most powerful rocket finally returns after a 3-year absence
If you were booted off Instagram for no damn reason this morning, you’re not alone. Tons of people are reporting the same problem. Instagram has confirmed that it’s having some “issues” but hasn’t clarified what type of issues they are or why any of this is happening.
Source: Gizmodo – Instagram Confirms ‘Issues’ as Users Report Arbitrary Account Suspensions, Follower Drops
Far from being an abstract mathematical curiosity, knot theory has driven many findings in math and beyond. Quanta magazine: Knot theory began as an attempt to understand the fundamental makeup of the universe. In 1867, when scientists were eagerly trying to figure out what could possibly account for all the different kinds of matter, the Scottish mathematician and physicist Peter Guthrie Tait showed his friend and compatriot Sir William Thomson his device for generating smoke rings. Thomson — later to become Lord Kelvin (namesake of the temperature scale) — was captivated by the rings’ beguiling shapes, their stability and their interactions. His inspiration led him in a surprising direction: Perhaps, he thought, just as the smoke rings were vortices in the air, atoms were knotted vortex rings in the luminiferous ether, an invisible medium through which, physicists believed, light propagated.
Although this Victorian-era idea may now sound ridiculous, it was not a frivolous investigation. This vortex theory had a lot to recommend it: The sheer diversity of knots, each slightly different, seemed to mirror the different properties of the many chemical elements. The stability of vortex rings might also provide the permanence that atoms required. Vortex theory gained traction in the scientific community and inspired Tait to begin tabulating all knots, creating what he hoped would be equivalent to a table of elements. Of course, atoms are not knots, and there is no ether. By the late 1880s Thomson was gradually abandoning his vortex theory, but by then Tait was captivated by the mathematical elegance of his knots, and he continued his tabulation project. In the process, he established the mathematical field of knot theory.
We are all familiar with knots — they keep shoes on our feet, boats secured to docks, and mountain climbers off the rocks below. But those knots are not exactly what mathematicians (including Tait) would call a knot. Although a tangled extension cord may appear knotted, it’s always possible to disentangle it. To get a mathematical knot, you must plug together the free ends of the cord to form a closed loop. Because the strands of a knot are flexible like string, mathematicians view knot theory as a subfield of topology, the study of malleable shapes. Sometimes it is possible to untangle a knot so it becomes a simple circle, which we call the “unknot.” But more often, untangling a knot is impossible.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Why Mathematicians Study Knots
This is a first look at the OpenSUSE D-installer, which is a new distro installer running inside a browser developed for ALP. Learn more here.
The post OpenSUSE Introduces “D-Installer” for Adaptable Linux Platform appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – OpenSUSE Introduces “D-Installer” for Adaptable Linux Platform
Following last week’s start of the i915 DRM-Next changes intended for Linux 6.2, an initial batch of drm-intel-gt-next feature patches have now also been mailed in to DRM-Next for staging ahead of that next Linux kernel cycle. Notable with today’s pull request is a lot of DG2/Alchemist improvements…
Source: Phoronix – Linux 6.2 Preparing Intel HuC, OA, PS64 & Sensor Monitoring For Arc Graphics
China launched its third and final module of its space station on Monday, moving closer to completing its ambitious project in low Earth orbit to rival the International Space Station (ISS).
Source: Gizmodo – China Launched the Final Module for Its Space Station
For folk who aren’t familiar, AMD’s desktop CPUs since third-generation Ryzen have followed a particular form: two or three chips under an integrated heatspreader, with one being an I/O die that connects to external devices like memory, PCIe, and USB, while the other one or two dice are Core Complex Dice (CCDs) that contain the actual CPU
Source: Hot Hardware – Delidding AMD’s Ryzen 7 7600X Zen 4 CPU Yields A Chiplet Surprise
It’s hard to overstate just how massive the first Black Panther was. Over a billion dollars at the box office. Marvel Studios’ first Best Picture nomination. A milestone in popular culture. And now, with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, co-writer and director Ryan Coogler has the not-so-simple task of doing it all over…
Source: Gizmodo – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Director Ryan Coogler on Sequel Pressures and Part 3 Possibilities
Indie darling roguelite Vampire Survivors, a flaming arrow of pixel monsters and treasure chests, is a little more than a week into its official release, coming out from early access. The game received some tweaks in its final transformation, like balance changes and new achievements. But the casual, pro-goths game is…
Source: Kotaku – 5 Beginner Vampire Survivors Tips To Easily Slay The Gothic Roguelite
A Santa Monica Studio game dev tweeted out his frustration, after gameplay of PlayStation’s upcoming God of War Ragnarok was leaked. Footage of gameplay has been hitting the internet over the last couple of days, ahead of the game’s official release on November 9, 2022.
Leaks are not uncommon in the gaming world, but most only hint at gameplay
Source: Hot Hardware – God Of War Ragnarok Dev Drops F-Bomb After Massive PS5 Game Leak
Enlarge (credit: Anadolu Agency / Contributor | Anadolu Agency)
This weekend, advertisers, regulators, and Twitter users were all attentively watching Elon Musk’s Twitter feed for any indication of whether the free speech absolutist could be trusted to do things like effectively combat disinformation spread after taking over the site. In what may be considered Musk’s first major misstep as Twitter’s new owner, Musk chose that moment to amplify a far-right conspiracy theory in a now-deleted tweet garnering scrutiny from all sides.
Musk’s tweet came amid a wave of online chatter discussing what happened when an accused intruder, David Wayne DePape, broke into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s house, attacked her now-hospitalized husband Paul with a hammer, and screamed out, “Where’s Nancy?” Investigating possible motives, CBS News reviewed some of DePape’s social media posts and confirmed that DePape had shared several far-right conspiracy theories, including posts denying the Holocaust and tying Democratic officials to child sex rings. CBS also reported that DePape allegedly had a list of other targets.
Hillary Clinton joined others in tweeting critically of the Republican party, which she accused of inciting violence by spreading “deranged conspiracy theories.” Clinton’s tweet prompted Musk to link Clinton to an article from a weekly newspaper known to publish false news—the Santa Monica Observer—which, according to The New York Times, reported false allegations suggesting that Paul Pelosi knew his attacker. Overlooking the dubious news source, Musk repeated those false allegations, telling Clinton and his millions of followers that “there is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”
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Source: Ars Technica – Musk jokes about his deleted tweet sharing misinformation on Pelosi attack
There are lots of tips out there—and here on Lifehacker—about how to clean everything in your home, from your toilet to your fireplace to your couch cushions. The stuff in your home gets dirty and needs to be maintained to keep it in good working order, but the same is true for the areas where there is no stuff. Your…
Source: LifeHacker – Five Ways to ‘Clean’ the Air in Your Home
Amazon’s Fire HD tablets are still worthy options if you just want a competent media consumption device for as little money as possible, and within that lineup, the Fire HD 10 provides the best value for most. This is especially the case when the device is discounted, and as of this writing the 10.1-inch slate is back on sale for $75 at Amazon and Best Buy, among other retailers.
While this isn’t the absolute lowest price we’ve seen — the tablet was briefly available for $55 at Target earlier this year — it does match the price we saw during last year’s Black Friday sales and Amazon’s latest Prime Day events. The 32GB model here technically has an MSRP of $150, though a handful of smaller discounts have dropped its average street price closer to $130 in recent months.
This is a nice price for what was already one of the better values on the tablet market. Like Amazon’s other Fire tablets, the Fire HD 10 is a no-frills device: It’s largely made of matte plastic, the front and rear cameras are mediocre, and very little about its performance or design feels as premium as what you’d get from even an entry-level iPad. But for the money, it’s all good enough if you’re just looking for casual web browsing, ebook reading, video streaming, and Alexa stuff. Its eight-core MediaTek Helio P60T processor and 3GB of RAM won’t blow anyone away — don’t expect much in the way of gaming — but it can handle the basics without consistent slowdowns, and it’s generally more fluid than the lower-cost models in the Fire lineup.
Similarly, the 10.1-inch panel isn’t the brightest or most vibrant you’ll see, but it’s plenty fine for $75. Again, its 1920 x 1200 resolution is a firm step-up from the lower-res Fire 7 or Fire HD 8, and simply having more real estate makes it more pleasing for Zoom calls and video streams. The tablet gets a good 12-ish hours of battery life per charge, and it charges over USB-C. While the discounted model here only has 32GB of built-in storage, you can expand that with a microSD card. (A version with 64GB of storage is also on sale for $95.)
The caveat with any Amazon tablet is, as always, software. Amazon’s Fire OS is still a forked version of Android that lacks access to the Google Play Store — and thus, native Google apps like Gmail or YouTube — and frequently pushes you toward the company’s own apps, services and online store. There are still lock screen ads, and it still costs a $15 fee to get rid of them. It remains easy enough to sideload the Play Store and its more expansive app library, but that’s clearly not the most user- or security-friendly solution. Instead, a Fire tablet will work best if you stick to Amazon apps like Kindle and Prime Video, popular apps like Netflix or basic web browsing. All that said, the OS is still fairly robust when it comes to parental controls and supporting multiple user profiles, and there’s still a handy “Show Mode” that can essentially turn the tablet into an Echo Show-like smart display when you’re not holding it.
The deal here comes as part of a wider sale on Amazon tablets. The Kids and Kids Pro versions of the Fire HD 10, for instance, are both back to their all-time lows at $120. Those come with large protective bumper cases (the Pro’s is a bit slimmer), two-year warranties and a year of Amazon’s Kids+ child-focused content service, though their hardware is otherwise identical, and it’s worth noting that you can set up a kid-friendly profile on the base Fire HD 10 as well.
The Fire HD 10 Plus, meanwhile, is on sale for $105, which matches the lowest price we’ve tracked. That one adds another gigabyte of RAM and wireless charging support, which are nice upgrades — particularly if you want to use that smart display functionality — but nothing we’d call essential for most people in the market for a good affordable tablet. We’ll also note that the Fire 7 is down to a new low of $42, but we’d recommend waiting for the recently-updated Fire HD 8 and its altogether superior hardware to go on sale if you’re simply looking for the cheapest usable slate.
Buy Fire HD 10 Plus at Amazon – $105Buy Fire HD 10 Kids at Amazon – $120Buy Fire HD 10 Kids Pro at Amazon – $120Buy Fire 7 at Amazon – $42
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Source: Engadget – Amazon’s latest tablet sale brings the Fire HD 10 back down to
