"The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has added a critical security bug in Linux to its list of vulnerabilities known to be actively exploited in the wild," reported Ars Technica on Friday.
"The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-1086 and carrying a severity rating of 7.8 out of a possible 10, allows people who have already gained a foothold inside an affected system to escalate their system privileges."
It's the result of a use-after-free error, a class of vulnerability that occurs in software written in the C and C++ languages when a process continues to access a memory location after it has been freed or deallocated. Use-after-free vulnerabilities can result in remote code or privilege escalation. The vulnerability, which affects Linux kernel versions 5.14 through 6.6, resides in the NF_tables, a kernel component enabling the Netfilter, which in turn facilitates a variety of network operations... It was patched in January, but as the CISA advisory indicates, some production systems have yet to install it. At the time this Ars post went live, there were no known details about the active exploitation.
A deep-dive write-up of the vulnerability reveals that these exploits provide "a very powerful double-free primitive when the correct code paths are hit." Double-free vulnerabilities are a subclass of use-after-free errors...
"Within less than a minute, I'm approached by a store worker who comes up to me and says, 'You're a thief, you need to leave the store'."
That's a quote from the BBC by a wrongly accused customer who was flagged by a facial-recognition system called Facewatch. "She says after her bag was searched she was led out of the shop, and told she was banned from all stores using the technology."
Facewatch later wrote to her and acknowledged it had made an error — but declined to comment on the incident in the BBC's report:
[Facewatch] did say its technology helped to prevent crime and protect frontline workers. Home Bargains, too, declined to comment. It's not just retailers who are turning to the technology... [I]n east London, we joined the police as they positioned a modified white van on the high street. Cameras attached to its roof captured thousands of images of people's faces. If they matched people on a police watchlist, officers would speak to them and potentially arrest them...
On the day we were filming, the Metropolitan Police said they made six arrests with the assistance of the tech... The BBC spoke to several people approached by the police who confirmed that they had been correctly identified by the system — 192 arrests have been made so far this year as a result of it.
Lindsey Chiswick, director of intelligence for the Met, told the BBC that "It takes less than a second for the technology to create a biometric image of a person's face, assess it against the bespoke watchlist and automatically delete it when there is no match."
"That is the correct and acceptable way to do it," writes long-time Slashdot reader Baron_Yam, "without infringing unnecessarily on the freedoms of the average citizen. Just tell me they have appropriate rules, effective oversight, and a penalty system with teeth to catch and punish the inevitable violators."
But one critic of the tech complains to the BBC that everyone scanned automatically joins "a digital police line-up," while the article adds that others "liken the process to a supermarket checkout — where your face becomes a bar code." And "The error count is much higher once someone is actually flagged. One in 40 alerts so far this year has been a false positive..."
Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the article.
Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shares the announcement of a new report from the International Energy Forum:
The seemingly universal presumption persists that the copper needed for the green transition will somehow be available... This paper addresses this issue by projecting copper supply and demand from 2018 to 2050 and placing both in the historical context of copper mine output...
Just to meet business-as-usual trends, 115% more copper must be mined in the next 30 years than has been mined historically until now. To electrify the global vehicle fleet requires bringing into production 55% more new mines than would otherwise be needed... Our main purpose... is to communicate the magnitude of the copper mining challenge to the broader public that is less familiar with upstream resource issues.
"On the other hand, hybrid electric vehicle manufacture would require negligible extra copper mining..." the report points out.
Wikipedia describes the non-profit as a 73-country organization promoting dialogue about the world's energy needs. The group's announcement ends with a hope that the report "will promote discussion and formulation of alternative policies to be certain the developing world can catch up with the developed world while global initiatives advance with the green energy transition."
Journalist Steven Brill has written a new book called The Death of Truth. Its subtitle? "How Social Media and the Internet Gave Snake Oil Salesmen and Demagogues the Weapons They Needed to Destroy Trust and Polarize the World-And What We Can Do."
An excerpt published by Wired points out that last year around the world, $300 billion was spent on "programmatic advertising", and $130 billion was spent in the United States alone in 2022. The problem? For over a decade there's been "brand safety" technology, the article points out — but "what artificial intelligence could not do was spot most forms of disinformation and misinformation..."
The end result...
In 2019, other than the government of Vladimir Putin, Warren Buffett was the biggest funder of Sputnik News, the Russian disinformation website controlled by the Kremlin... Geico, the giant American insurance company and subsidiary of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, was the leading advertiser on the American version of Sputnik News' global website network... No one at Geico or its advertising agency had any idea its ads would appear on Sputnik, let alone what anti-American content would be displayed alongside the ads. How could they? Which person or army of people at Geico or its agency could have read 44,000 websites?
Geico's ads had been placed through a programmatic advertising system that was invented in the late 1990s as the internet developed. It exploded beginning in the mid 2000s and is now the overwhelmingly dominant advertising medium. Programmatic algorithms, not people, decide where to place most of the ads we now see on websites, social media platforms, mobile devices, streaming television, and increasingly hear on podcasts... If Geico's advertising campaign were typical of programmatic campaigns for broad-based consumer products and services, each of its ads would have been placed on an average of 44,000 websites, according to a study done for the leading trade association of big-brand advertisers.
Geico is hardly the only rock-solid American brand to be funding the Russians. During the same period that the insurance company's ads appeared on Sputnik News, 196 other programmatic advertisers bought ads on the website, including Best Buy, E-Trade, and Progressive insurance. Sputnik News' sister propaganda outlet, RT.com (it was once called Russia Today until someone in Moscow decided to camouflage its parentage), raked in ad revenue from Walmart, Amazon, PayPal, and Kroger, among others... Almost all advertising online — and even much of it on television (through streaming TV), or on podcasts, radio, mobile devices, and electronic billboards — is now done programmatically, which means the machine, not a planner, makes those placement decisions. Unless the advertiser uses special tools, such as what are called exclusion or inclusion lists, the publishers and content around which the ad appears, and which the ad is financing, are no longer part of the decision.
"What I kept hearing as the professionals explained it to me was that the process is like a stock exchange, except that the buyer doesn't know what stock he is buying... the advertiser and its ad agency have no idea where among thousands of websites its ad will appear."
A new article in the Washington Post argues that a phenomenon called "Quiet vacationing" has "joined 'quiet quitting' and 'quiet firing' as the latest (and least poetic) scourge of the modern workplace.
"Also known as the hush trip, workcation, hush-cation, or bleisure travel — you get the idea — quiet vacationing refers to workers taking time off, even traveling, without notifying their employers."
Taking advantage of work-from-anywhere technology, they are logging in from hotels, beaches and campgrounds, sometimes using virtual backgrounds and VPNs to cover their tracks.
Given the difficulty many employers already have trusting remote workers to be productive anywhere outside the office, you can bet they are not keen on the idea of their employees pretending to have their head in the game while their toes are in the sand. But employers also have legitimate legal reasons for keeping tabs on their employees' location when they're on the clock. "Evil HR Lady" Suzanne Lucas, writing in Inc. magazine, recently highlighted the many tax, employment, business-operation and security laws that focus on an employee's location. Workers secretly performing their jobs in other states or countries can trigger compliance headaches for their employers, Lucas notes, giving the hypothetical of an employee seeking workers' compensation after sustaining an injury while on unauthorized travel....
As with declines in birthrates, home purchases and demand for mined diamonds, the quiet-vacationing trend is being attributed primarily, though not exclusively, to millennial workers. But before launching into generational finger-pointing and stereotyping, it's worth taking a look at why they might feel the need to take their PTO on the DL. The U.S. Travel Association in a 2016 report proclaimed millennials to be a generation of "work martyrs," entering the workforce around the time average U.S. vacation usage began declining and mobile technology began enabling round-the-clock attachment to jobs... The work-vacation boundaries most premillennial workers took for granted growing up have gone the way of defined-benefit pensions and good tomatoes.
Inadequate paid leave is another driving force. The United States continues to be the only nation among its industrialized economic peers that does not guarantee paid vacation, sick leave or holidays for all workers, leaving such benefits to the discretion of employers. Workers with limited PTO — whether new to the workforce or stuck in lower-paying, low-benefit industries — generally want to keep as much paid leave banked as possible, especially if they may need it for unpredictable emergencies like illness or caretaking. If you can preserve those precious hours by packing your laptop alongside your flip-flops, why wouldn't you?
The article also mentions employers who begrudge vacation and employees who fear "becoming a target for future cost-cutting..."
Idaho doomsday author Chad Daybell, who was found guilty of murder in the deaths of his first wife and his second wife's two youngest children, was sentenced Saturday to the death penalty.
How will Apple protect user data while their requests are being processed by AI in applications like Siri?
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shared this report from Apple Insider:
According to sources of The Information [four different former Apple employees who worked on the project], Apple intends to process data from AI applications inside a virtual black box.
The concept, known as "Apple Chips in Data Centers" internally, would involve only Apple's hardware being used to perform AI processing in the cloud. The idea is that it will control both the hardware and software on its servers, enabling it to design more secure systems. While on-device AI processing is highly private, the initiative could make cloud processing for Apple customers to be similarly secure... By taking control over how data is processed in the cloud, it would make it easier for Apple to implement processes to make a breach much harder to actually happen.
Furthermore, the black box approach would also prevent Apple itself from being able to see the data. As a byproduct, this means it would also be difficult for Apple to hand over any personal data from government or law enforcement data requests.
Processed data from the servers would be stored in Apple's "Secure Enclave" (where the iPhone stores biometric data, encryption keys and passwords), according to the article.
"Doing so means the data can't be seen by other elements of the system, nor Apple itself."
This week the Washington Post reported that Americans "are more hesitant to buy EVs now than they were a year ago, according to a March Gallup poll, which found that just 44 percent of American adults say they'd consider buying an EV in the future, down from 55 percent last year. High prices and charging worries consistently rank as the biggest roadblocks for electric vehicles," they write, noting the concerns coincide with a slowdown in electric car and truck sales, while hybrids are increasing their market share.
But something else happened this week. The chair of California's Air Resource Board and the chair of the state's Energy Commission teamed up for an op-ed piece arguing that "despite negative hype," electric cars are their state's future:
When California's electric vehicle sales dipped at the end of last year, critics predicted the start of a new downward trend that would doom the industry and the state's broader effort to clean up the transportation sector, the single largest source of greenhouse gases and air pollution. But the latest numbers show that's not the case. Californians purchased 108,372 new zero-emission vehicles in the first three months of 2024 — nearly 7,000 more than the same time last year and the highest-ever first-quarter sales.
Today, one in four new cars sold in the Golden State is electric, up from just 8% in 2020...
California is now home to 56 manufacturers of zero-emission vehicles and related products, making our state a hub for cutting-edge automotive technology. Soon even raw materials will be sourced in-state, paving the way for domestic battery production...
Challenges persist, and chief among them is the need for more widely available charging options. Many more charging stations need to be built as fast as possible to keep up with EV adoption. To address this, California is investing $4 billion over six years to rapidly build out the EV refueling network, on top of billions in investment by utilities. Equally essential is improved reliability of the EV charging network. Too many drivers today encounter faulty charging stations, which is why the California Energy Commission is developing the strongest charging reliability standards in the country and will require companies to be transparent with the public about their performance.
They also point out that California "now boasts more EV chargers in the state than gasoline nozzles."
And that it's become the first U.S. state whose best-selling car is electric.
"A Swiss biocomputing startup has launched an online platform that provides remote access to 16 human brain organoids," reports Tom's Hardware:
FinalSpark claims its Neuroplatform is the world's first online platform delivering access to biological neurons in vitro. Moreover, bioprocessors like this "consume a million times less power than traditional digital processors," the company says. FinalSpark says its Neuroplatform is capable of learning and processing information, and due to its low power consumption, it could reduce the environmental impacts of computing. In a recent research paper about its developments, FinalSpakr claims that training a single LLM like GPT-3 required approximately 10GWh — about 6,000 times greater energy consumption than the average European citizen uses in a whole year. Such energy expenditure could be massively cut following the successful deployment of bioprocessors.
The operation of the Neuroplatform currently relies on an architecture that can be classified as wetware: the mixing of hardware, software, and biology. The main innovation delivered by the Neuroplatform is through the use of four Multi-Electrode Arrays (MEAs) housing the living tissue — organoids, which are 3D cell masses of brain tissue...interfaced by eight electrodes used for both stimulation and recording... FinalSpark has given access to its remote computing platform to nine institutions to help spur bioprocessing research and development. With such institutions' collaboration, it hopes to create the world's first living processor.
FinalSpark was founded in 2014, according to Wikipedia's page on wetware computing. "While a wetware computer is still largely conceptual, there has been limited success with construction and prototyping, which has acted as a proof of the concept's realistic application to computing in the future."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Artem S. Tashkinov for sharing the article.
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post:
Twice before, this Virginia carpenter had awoken in the predawn to start his work day only to find one of his vans broken into. Tools he depends on for a living had been stolen, and there was little hope of retrieving them. Determined to shut down thieves, he said, he bought a bunch of Apple AirTags and hid the locator devices in some of his larger tools that hadn't been pilfered. Next time, he figured, he would track them.
It worked.
On Jan. 22, after a third break-in and theft, the carpenter said, he drove around D.C.'s Maryland suburbs for hours, following an intermittent blip on his iPhone, until he arrived at a storage facility in Howard County. He called police, who got a search warrant, and what they found in the locker was far more than just one contractor's nail guns and miter saws.
The storage unit, stuffed with purloined power tools, led detectives to similar caches in other places in the next four months — 12 locations in all, 11 of them in Howard County — and the recovery of about 15,000 saws, drills, sanders, grinders, generators, batteries, air compressors and other portable (meaning easily stealable) construction equipment worth an estimated $3 million to $5 million, authorities said.
Some were stolen as long ago as 2014, a police spokesperson told the Washington Post, coming from "hundreds if not thousands" of victims...
Google's has introduced new AI Overviews to make searching more intuitive. NPR's Bobby Allyn speaks to University of Pennsylvania professor Ethan Mollick about why some of the results have been inaccurate — and ocassionally absurd.
Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are set to board the Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft for the Crew Flight Test launch at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday.
This week, Microsoft rolled out a surprise update to Windows 11 with the designation KB5037853. This update — optional for now, but expected to be rolled out of all users next Patch Tuesday — introduced a heaping helping of handy new quality-of-life features. Unfortunately, many users have also experienced various problems with the Taskbar after installing the update.
According to Microsoft’s support document, the Taskbar may suddenly disappear or refuse to respond after installing the update.
Fortunately, Microsoft has now sent out a fix, but it may take up to 24 hours before it shows up for affected users. You can check Windows Update now to see if it’s available to you immediately. (If you’re installing optional Windows Updates like KB5037853, you know how to check Windows Update.)
Windows Latest also points out that it is not possible to install KB5037853 if you run Windows 11 via the virtualization program Parallels. The site says Microsoft is investigating that bug.
Enlarge/ Elon Musk speaks as Yusaku Maezawa, founder and president of Start Today Co., looks on at an event at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, in 2018. (credit: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
On Friday night the dearMoon project—a plan to launch a Japanese billionaire and 10 other 'crew members' on a circumlunar flight aboard SpaceX's Starship vehicle—was abruptly canceled.
"It is unfortunate to be announcing that 'dearMoon', the first private circumlunar flight project, will be cancelled," the mission's official account on the social media site X said. "We thank everyone who has supported us and apologize to those who have looked forward to this project."
Shortly afterward the financial backer of the project and its 'crew leader,' Yusaku Maezawa, explained this decision on X. When Maezawa agreed to the mission in 2018, he said, the assumption was that the dearMoon mission would launch by the end of 2023.
Enlarge/ The regular Hyundai Elantra is a perfectly fine compact sedan. But once the boffins at Hyundai N got hold of it, they transformed it into something with a lot more character. (credit: Peter Nelson)
Few cars are aimed quite at driving enthusiasts like the wholesome sport compact. In terms of everyday usability and fun factor, little can touch them, and luckily, there's still a good variety of them on the new market. Among the best is the Hyundai Elantra N, which, for the 2024 model year, received a styling and chassis refresh. Pricing starts at $33,245 for three pedals and a manual gearbox, or $35,515 for a dual-clutch eight-speed, and either is a massive value for the performance and fun factor that they offer.
Amply sporty styling, plenty spacious
The 2024 Elantra N's biggest change is in its face. Where previously it had beady eyes surrounded in a sea of black trim—kind of like the vehicular equivalent of a Belgian Malinois—its headlight, grille, and intake are now more geometric. Looks are subjective, but I'm a fan of the headlights, and the functional inlets improve radiator and brake cooling over the previous fascia.
Elsewhere, it's pretty much the same angular four-door wearing some trapezoidal accents across its body panels and a pronounced rear spoiler. A new set of forged 19-inch wheels is wrapped in 245/35/19 Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires—these also shave off 8.25 lbs (3.75 kg) of unsprung weight at each corner, which bodes well for acceleration and handling.
Enlarge/ Behold, the most distant galaxy found to date. (credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI et al.)
Welcome to the Daily Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light, a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We'll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we're going to take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.
Good morning. It's June 1, and today's photo comes from the James Webb Space Telescope. It's a banger.
This telescope, launched 18 months ago now, had as one of its express goals to deliver insights about the early Universe. The most straightforward way of doing so is to collect the faintest, most distant light that has spent the longest time traveling to reach Earth.
Fritz Haber: good guy or bad guy? He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his part in developing the Haber-Bosch process, a method for generating ammonia using the nitrogen gas in air. The technique freed agriculture from the constraint of needing to source guano or manure for nitrogen fertilizer and is widely credited for saving millions from starvation. About half of the world’s current food supply relies on fertilizers made using it, and about half of the nitrogen atoms in our bodies can be traced back to it.
But it also allowed farmers to use this newly abundant synthetic nitrogen fertilizer with abandon. This has accentuated agriculture’s role as a significant contributor to global warming because the emissions that result from these fertilizers is a greenhouse gas—one that has a warming potential almost 300 times greater than that of carbon dioxide and remains in the atmosphere for 100 years. Microbes in soil convert nitrogen fertilizer into nitrous oxide, and the more nitrogen fertilizer they have to work with, the more nitrous oxide they make.
Agriculture also leaks plenty of the excess nitrogen into waterways in the form of nitrate, generating algal blooms that create low-oxygen ‘dead zones’ where no marine life can live.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Digital Trends: HP researchers have published a paper detailing a new modular monitor design they call "composable microLED monitors." Using advancing microLED tech to make smaller screens with no bezels, they imagine a Lego-like system that allows customers to buy different monitor modules and slot them together at home. In the paper, diagrams show "core units" with a direct connection to the host computer being expanded both horizontally and vertically with multiple extensions. The idea is that by choosing from flat or curved extension pieces and connecting them to the core unit, you can make a monitor in whatever size or shape you want. To keep assembly simple and effective, the design uses jigsaw-like connections alongside magnets to ensure each module automatically aligns correctly. And to prevent the number of possible configurations from getting out of hand, the design only allows extensions to attach to the sides or bottom of the square-shaped core unit. Once your strangely shaped monitor is complete, you would be able to choose how your operating system treats each part -- either as an extension of the core unit or as a separate screen. These settings would be controlled with physical switches on the modules that you could change whenever you wanted.
As for the sizes of the modules, HP proposes a range of different possibilities, some more complicated than others. In an ideal situation, customers would be able to choose from either flat or curved core units and add flat or curved extensions of varying sizes. If that proved too difficult, curved monitor elements could be taken out of the picture completely, and customers would just add flat extensions to a flat core unit. As cool as this all sounds, there is a glaring problem -- how would the seams between each module look? Thanks to the bezel-less design, there at least wouldn't be a thick black divider between each part. However, a thin line or visible distortion would be inevitable. One approach HP proposes is minimizing the gap between each panel as much as possible and just accepting the thin line it creates. Alternatives include complicated techniques to disguise the joints using hardware or software solutions that modify the display of edge pixels to minimize visual joints. HP would have to find a balance between technical viability, cost, and customer feedback to determine the best overall solution.
Benj Edwards and Ashley Belanger reports via Ars Technica: On Wednesday, Axios broke the news that OpenAI had signed deals with The Atlantic and Vox Media that will allow the ChatGPT maker to license their editorial content to further train its language models. But some of the publications' writers -- and the unions that represent them -- were surprised by the announcements and aren't happy about it. Already, two unions have released statements expressing "alarm" and "concern." "The unionized members of The Atlantic Editorial and Business and Technology units are deeply troubled by the opaque agreement The Atlantic has made with OpenAI," reads a statement from the Atlantic union. "And especially by management's complete lack of transparency about what the agreement entails and how it will affect our work."
The Vox Union -- which represents The Verge, SB Nation, and Vulture, among other publications -- reacted in similar fashion, writing in a statement, "Today, members of the Vox Media Union ... were informed without warning that Vox Media entered into a 'strategic content and product partnership' with OpenAI. As both journalists and workers, we have serious concerns about this partnership, which we believe could adversely impact members of our union, not to mention the well-documented ethical and environmental concerns surrounding the use of generative AI." [...] News of the deals took both journalists and unions by surprise. On X, Vox reporter Kelsey Piper, who recently penned an expose about OpenAI's restrictive non-disclosure agreements that prompted a change in policy from the company, wrote, "I'm very frustrated they announced this without consulting their writers, but I have very strong assurances in writing from our editor in chief that they want more coverage like the last two weeks and will never interfere in it. If that's false I'll quit.."
Journalists also reacted to news of the deals through the publications themselves. On Wednesday, The Atlantic Senior Editor Damon Beres wrote a piece titled "A Devil's Bargain With OpenAI," in which he expressed skepticism about the partnership, likening it to making a deal with the devil that may backfire. He highlighted concerns about AI's use of copyrighted material without permission and its potential to spread disinformation at a time when publications have seen a recent string of layoffs. He drew parallels to the pursuit of audiences on social media leading to clickbait and SEO tactics that degraded media quality. While acknowledging the financial benefits and potential reach, Beres cautioned against relying on inaccurate, opaque AI models and questioned the implications of journalism companies being complicit in potentially destroying the internet as we know it, even as they try to be part of the solution by partnering with OpenAI.
Similarly, over at Vox, Editorial Director Bryan Walsh penned a piece titled, "This article is OpenAI training data," in which he expresses apprehension about the licensing deal, drawing parallels between the relentless pursuit of data by AI companies and the classic AI thought experiment of Bostrom's "paperclip maximizer," cautioning that the single-minded focus on market share and profits could ultimately destroy the ecosystem AI companies rely on for training data. He worries that the growth of AI chatbots and generative AI search products might lead to a significant decline in search engine traffic to publishers, potentially threatening the livelihoods of content creators and the richness of the Internet itself.
Ten people have died while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody so far this fiscal year, more than twice as many as last year and three times as many as the year before, according to ICE data and news releases.
Since Google overhauled its search engine, publishers have tried to assess the danger to their brittle business models while calling for government intervention.
Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, last year. A new A.I.-generated feature in Google search results “is greatly detrimental to everyone apart from Google,” a newspaper executive said.
A Harvard senior who went viral for her graduation speech criticizing the school's response to pro-Palestine protests shares new details about the lead-up to the moment.
Father’s Day is just around the corner on June 16, and if you want to celebrate Dad this year, get him a gift that will keep on giving. For globetrotting dads, you can’t do much better than a Dollar Flight Club Premium Plus+ Plan. During our Father’s Day Sale, you can get a lifetime membership for just $69.99.
Dollar Flight Club is a leading flight alert service, with more than one million members worldwide. With this intuitive service, all Dad has to do is input his departure airport(s) and Dollar Flight Club will scour sources to find the best deals to destinations all over the world. When they find something great, they’ll send the deal directly to Dad’s inbox with instructions on how to book. Greece on a budget? Why not?
Find out why Forbes writes, “A great paid service is Dollar Flight Club, which boasts an impressive average of $500 saved per ticket.”
On June 3, a "planet parade" of six planets -- Jupiter, Mercury, Uranus, Mars, Neptune and Saturn -- will form a straight line through the pre-dawn sky. Astronomy.com reports: Some 20 minutes before sunrise, all six planets should be visible, though note that Uranus (magnitude 5.9) and Neptune (magnitude 7.8) will be too faint for naked-eye observing and, although they're present in the lineup, will need binoculars or a telescope to spot. But Jupiter (magnitude -2), Mercury (magnitude -1), Mars (magnitude 1), and Saturn (magnitude 1) will all stand out clearly to the naked eye in a line spanning some 73 degrees on the sky.
What's more, a delicate waning crescent Moon is crashing the party as well, standing just to the lower left of Mars. Note, however, that our Moon is not perfectly in line -- that's because Luna's orbit is tilted some 5 degrees with respect to the ecliptic. The next morning, June 4, the crescent Moon does a little better, falling more closely in line a bit farther from Mars. But now Mercury has stepped out of place and stands to Jupiter's lower right (south) as the two planets reach a close conjunction just 7 degrees apart -- not to be missed, especially in binoculars or telescopes!
By June 5, Mercury lies to Jupiter's lower left, replacing the gas giant as the easternmost point in the planetary lineup. And the nearly New Moon (just 2 percent lit) stands above the pair. As June progresses, Mercury quickly ducks out of view, passing close to the Sun before reappearing in the evening sky and leaving us with only five planets in the pre-dawn sky. But those planets continue to form a nice, clean line, stretching nearly 80 degrees from Jupiter to Saturn (with Uranus, Mars, and Neptune in between) by June 30. On this morning, the Moon as rejoined the line, once again a delicate waning crescent about 33 percent lit, hanging perfectly in place to Mars' upper right.
Starting Saturday, millions of Americans will get a price break on asthma inhalers. Several pharmaceutical companies have announced price caps on the devices. But some say the bigger issue is the overall high cost of prescription drugs. NBC News' Anne Thompson reports.
Starting Saturday, millions of Americans will get a price break on asthma inhalers. Several pharmaceutical companies have announced price caps on the devices. But some say the bigger issue is the overall high cost of prescription drugs. NBC News' Anne Thompson reports.
President Joe Biden outlines a new three-phase proposal designed to end fighting between Israel and Hamas. The plan includes a total cease-fire, return of all hostages and rebuilding of Gaza.
President Joe Biden outlines a new three-phase proposal designed to end fighting between Israel and Hamas. The plan includes a total cease-fire, return of all hostages and rebuilding of Gaza.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Last year, Jaume Pellicer led a team of fellow scientists into a forest on Grande Terre, an island east of Australia. They were in search of a fern called Tmesipteris oblanceolata. Standing just a few inches tall, it was not easy to find on the forest floor. "It doesn't catch the eye," said Dr. Pellicer, who works at the Botanical Institute of Barcelona in Spain. "You would probably step on it and not even realize it." The scientists eventually managed to spot the nondescript fern. When Dr. Pellicer and his colleagues studied it in the lab, they discovered it held an extraordinary secret. Tmesipteris oblanceolata has the largest known genome on Earth. As the researchers described in a study published on Friday, the fern's cells contain more than 50 times as much DNA as ours do. [The analysis revealed the species T. oblanceolata to have a record-breaking genome size of 160.45 Gbp, which is about 7% larger than that of P. japonica (148.89 Gbp). For comparison, the human genome contains about 3.1 Gbp distributed across 23 chromosomes and when stretched out like a ball of yarn, the length of DNA in each cell only measures about 2m.] "Surprisingly, having a larger genome is usually not an advantage," notes Phys.org in a report. "In the case of plants, species possessing large amounts of DNA are restricted to being slow growing perennials, are less efficient at photosynthesis (the process by which plants convert the sun's energy into sugars) and require more nutrients (especially nitrogen and phosphates) to grow and compete successfully with their smaller-genomed neighbors. In turn, such effects may influence the ability of a plant to adapt to climate change and their risk of extinction."
"In animals, some of the largest genomes include the marbled lungfish (Protopterus aethiopicus) at 129.90 Gbp and the Neuse River waterdog (Necturus lewisi) at 117.47 Gbp," reports Phys.org. "In stark contrast, six of the largest-known eukaryotic genomes are held by plants, including the European mistletoe (Viscum album) at 100.84 Gbp."
London's famed Evening Standard newspaper has announced plans to end its daily outlet, "bringing an end to almost 200 years of publication in the capital," reports The Guardian. Going forward, the company plans to launch "a brand new weekly newspaper later this year and consider options for retaining ES Magazine with reduced frequency," while also working to increase traffic to its website. "In its 197-year history the Evening Standard has altered its format, price, content and distribution models," notes The Guardian. "But giving up on producing a daily print newspaper is the biggest change yet." From the report: The newspaper said it has been hit hard by the introduction of wifi on the London Underground, a shortage of commuters owing to the growth of working from home and changing consumer habits. The Standard lost 84.5 million pounds in the past six years, according to its accounts, and is reliant on funding from its part-owner Evgeny Lebedev. Its other shareholders include a bank with close links to the Saudi government. Industry sources suggested Lebedev had been willing to consider selling the outlet in recent years but no buyer was found.
Paul Kanareck, the newspaper's chair, told staff on Wednesday morning: "The substantial losses accruing from the current operations are not sustainable. Therefore, we plan to consult with our staff and external stakeholders to reshape the business, return to profitability and secure the long-term future of the number one news brand in London." Kanareck said there would be an "impact on staffing," with journalists bracing themselves for further job losses on top of years of redundancies, while design staff on the print edition are expected to be hit hard. Distributors who hand out the newspaper across London are also likely to be out of work, and billboards outside railway stations advertising the day's headline will stand empty on most days.
He suggested there would be a change in focus for the weekly outlet: "A proposed new weekly newspaper would replace the daily publication, allowing for more in-depth analysis of the issues that matter to Londoners, and serve them in a new and relevant way by celebrating the best London has to offer, from entertainment guides to lifestyle, sports, culture and news and the drumbeat of life in the world's greatest city." Closing the Evening Standard will mean that for the first time in centuries, Londoners will have no general-interest daily print newspaper. The finance-focused City AM, which was recently saved by the billionaire Matthew Moulding, will continue to publish four days a week and has recently increased its distribution. Further reading: So it's goodbye to London's Standard, my old paper -- and to the heart of democracy, local news (Opinion; The Guardian)
Last than two weeks after it was announced, "Windows enthusiasts have managed to crack Microsoft's flagship AI-powered Recall feature to run on unsupported hardware," reports The Verge. From the report: Recall leverages local AI models on new Copilot Plus PCs to run in the background and take snapshots of anything you've done or seen on your PC. You then get a timeline you can scrub through and the ability to search for photos, documents, conversations, or anything else on your PC. Microsoft positioned Recall as needing the very latest neural processing units (NPU) on new PCs, but you can actually get it running on older Arm-powered hardware.
Windows watcher Albacore has created a tool called Amperage, which enables Recall on devices that have an older Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, Microsoft's SQ processors, or an Ampere chipset. You need to have the latest Windows 11 24H2 update installed on one of these Windows on Arm devices, and then the tool will unlock and enable Recall. [...] You can technically unlock Recall on x86 devices, but the app won't do much until Microsoft publishes the x64 AI components required to get it up and running. Rumors suggest both AMD and Intel are close to announcing Copilot Plus PCs, so Microsoft's AI components for those machines may well appear soon. I managed to get Recall running on an x64 Windows 11 virtual machine earlier today just to test out the initial first-run experience.
A new lab analysis conducted for NPR by Arizona State University data scientists shows that OpenAI's "Sky" voice is more similar to Johansson's than hundreds of other actors analyzed.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: California expects to avoid rolling blackouts this summer as new solar plants and large batteries plug into the state's grid at a rapid clip. The state's electricity system has been strained by years of drought, wildfires that knock out transmission lines and record-setting heat waves. But officials forecast Wednesday new resources added to the grid in the last four years would give California ample supplies for typical summer weather.
Since 2020, California has added 18.5 gigawatts of new resources. Of that, 6.6 gigawatts were batteries, 6.3 gigawatts were solar and 1.4 gigawatts were a combination of solar and storage. One gigawatt can power about 750,000 homes. In addition, the state's hydropower plants will be a reliable source of electricity after two wet winters in a row ended California's most recent drought. Those supplies would hold even if California experiences another heat wave as severe as the one that triggered rolling blackouts across the state in August 2020, officials said in a briefing Wednesday. In the most dire circumstances, the state now has backup resources that can supply an extra 5 gigawatts of electricity, including gas-fired power plants that only run during emergencies.
Marian Robinson, pictured on the right with her granddaughter, Malia Obama, and daughter, Michelle Obama, was a fixture in the White House during Barack Obama's presidency.
Enlarge/ Boeing's Starliner spacecraft sits on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. (credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)
NASA and Boeing officials are ready for a second attempt to launch the first crew test flight on the Starliner spacecraft Saturday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
Liftoff of Boeing's Starliner capsuled atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is set for 12:25 pm EDT (16:25 UTC). NASA commander Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams, both veteran astronauts, will take the Starliner spacecraft on its first trip into low-Earth orbit with a crew on board.
You can watch NASA TV's live coverage of the countdown and launch below.
The safety and efficacy data on the use of MDMA (aka ecstasy) for post-traumatic stress disorder therapy is "challenging to interpret," the Food and Drug Administration said in a briefing document posted Friday. The agency noted significant flaws in the design of the underlying clinical trials as well as safety concerns for the drug, particularly cardiovascular harms.
On Tuesday, June 4, the FDA will convene an advisory committee that will review the evidence and vote on MDMA's efficacy and whether its benefits outweigh its risks. The FDA does not have to follow the committee's recommendations, but it often does. If the FDA subsequently approves MDMA as part of treatment for PTSD, it would mark a significant shift in the federal government's stance on MDMA, as well as psychedelics, generally. Currently, the US Drug Enforcement Administration considers MDMA a Schedule I drug, defined as one with "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." It would also offer a new treatment option for patients with PTSD, a disabling psychiatric condition with few treatment options currently.
As Ars has reported previously, the submission of MDMA for approval is based on two clinical trials. The first trial, published in Nature Medicine in 2021, involved 90 participants with moderate PTSD and found that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy significantly improved Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5) scores compared with participants who were given psychotherapy along with a placebo. In the second study, published in September in Nature Medicine, the finding held up among 104 participants with moderate or severe PTSD (73 percent had severe PTSD).
JBL's PartyBox Stage 320 is a powerful speaker with a well-balanced sound and punchy bass, with many features that make me want to host house parties just to have an excuse to use the speaker.
As the name implies, it's a speaker made for parties, meaning it's loud and fun but also has features made to enhance a party atmosphere. You can dabble in being a DJ with the Effect Lab, connect up to two microphones for karaoke, or even play over your music with an electric guitar. I was sent the PartyBox Stage 320 by JBL to review, and though it's not cheap ($599.95), after spending some time with it, I think it's worth every penny.
240 Watts of output power or about 100 decibels of sound
A portable design that makes it easy to carry
Powerful bass
Adjustable EQ
Can have up to two microphones (or one microphone and one electric guitar)
Replaceable battery
Can play with just the power cord (without the battery)
Fun in-app features for parties
Cons
Only IPX4 for splashproof, not waterproof
Heavy at 36.38 lbs
No microphone
Specs
Battery life: Up to 18 hours (3 hours charge time)
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.4 with Auracast support
Inputs: 2 ¼-inch jacks, 3.5mm aux input and USB-A port
Drivers: Two 6.5-inch woofers and two 25 mm dome tweeters
Power output: 240 W total
Water resistance: IPX4 (splashproof)
Size: 26.3 inches by 15.2 inches by 13.2 inches
Weight: 36.3 pounds
First Impressions of the JBL PartyBox Stage 320
This is the first PartyBox I've reviewed, even though they've been around for some time. I must admit that I wasn't particularly excited about this speaker. The flashy pulse-beating lights looked gimmicky to me, and the speaker just seemed unnecessarily expensive. But as I learned more about the speaker, took it out to the soccer field, and messed with the app and features, I became obsessed with it.
Credit: Daniel Oropeza photo.
I was able to comfortably roll the speaker through asphalt with its telescope handles and up a grassy hill to get 20 soccer players outdoors to enjoy some FIFA music. Like all JBL speakers, it comes with the JBL signature EQ, which sounds great out of the box. But you can customize the low, mid, and highs with five levers in the app.
Features of the JBL PartyBox Stage 320
Where the PartyBox Stage 320 shines for me is in its features, which you can control on the top of the speaker via an interactive control panel. The triangle-looking button to the right is the Auracast button, which allows you to pair two JBL TWS compatible speakers together or multiple JBL Aurocast speakers. The Bass Boost button on the right is a bass enhancer with a "deep" and a "punchy" option.
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
Then you have the three emoji-looking buttons in the center, and this is where the (admittedly cheesy) fun starts. They're the "party buttons" and each plays a different sound on the speaker that you can hear clearly over the music without interrupting it. You can change what each button does or says in the app, but for the most part, the first is the "voice," or a cheesy party voice that you would hear a DJ say over a mic to hype the party up. The thumbs-up is the "Vibe Tone" which has my personal favorite sound, the classic DJ "horn." And finally, the yellow disc is called "DJ sound" and is mostly different types of DJ scratches. I used many combinations of these sounds when hosting my Street FC games and had a blast messing with my players, depending on what was happening during the game.
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
The sliders at the top of the panel control the EQ of a microphone. You can change the bass and treble and add echo to the sound, making it fun to mimic certain lead singer sounds during karaoke. The speaker app lets you go even deeper into most of these features.
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
The JBL PartyBox app
The JBL PartyBox app is easy to use, although it can be slow to connect to the speaker sometimes. Here, I was able to control the lights in more detail and customize which lights I wanted to use. But where I think JBL really set itself apart from portable party speakers was with the "Effect Lab."
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
The Effect Lab is essentially a mini DJ mixer. I've never DJ-ed before, so it took some time to understand what each function does and how to use it properly, but I had a lot of fun learning on-the-go with trial and error. There are no directions in the app on how to use it, but you can easily learn what everything does with the internet and after 10 minutes of playing around with it, I got a good hang of it. Combine this with some microphones for karaoke, and I have myself a deadly combination to hype up, embarrass, or impress my friends at my next house party.
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
Details done right
The PartyBox Stage 320 does the little things right that make a huge difference to a party speaker. The battery is replaceable, which means the speaker's longevity is not dependent on the battery's lifespan. I love that you can use the speaker with just a power cord as well, so I can leave the speaker on for very long periods of time and still have my fully charged battery if I want to be completely portable. The speaker also gets a noticeable audio boost when plugged in. The battery itself lasts up to 18 hours at 50% volume, which is loud enough for an indoor house party. When I set the volume to 70% (which I don't recommend doing indoors), with the lights on and the Bass Boost on, the battery lasted about seven hours.
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
Another impressive detail is that JBL made it very difficult to create that ultra-whiny feedback sound when you have a microphone plugged into the speaker. I have to essentially rub the microphone on the speaker to hear some sort of feedback. JBL seems to be using technology to suppress the feedback sound, giving you instead a more space-ship-zooming-by sound rather than the high-pitch feedback sound we all hate. (When I turned the echo, treble, and boost sliders up on the mic settings, I was more likely to get feedback, though.)
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
The back panel also has an LED light that is useful when trying to plug things in at at night. As mentioned, you can connect up to two microphones to the speaker or one microphone and an electric guitar. There's also an AUX in if I want to practice my karaoke singing or DJ scratching without disturbing my dog. I don't have other speakers I can daisy-chain together, but the option is there if I want to connect the speaker with another one.
Closing thoughts
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
The JBL PartyBox Stage 320 exceeded my expectations as a party speaker. Although the speaker is on the heavy side at about 36 pounds, the handle and thick wheels make it easy to move around in different terrains. It is disappointing it isn't waterproof, with only an IPX4 rating, and that the speaker doesn't include a microphone.
Even though it has a powerful bass, the sound is well-balanced and doesn't overtake the vocals or treble. The interactive DJ features on the speaker and in the app take the speaker to another level of fun for parties and karaoke sessions. I loved having the option to have up to two microphones or an electric guitar plugged in, giving me a lot of possibilities on how to set up. Being able to change the battery and use the speaker with just the power cord also gives the speaker a great deal of longevity and dependence for long sessions.
I would recommend the JBL PartyBox Stage 320 to those who love hosting house parties or karaoke sessions. While the speaker is pricey at $599.95, I think it's worth the cost for someone looking for a great party speaker filled with fun features.
If you’re serious about lifting barbells, sooner or later you’re probably going to want a belt. Belts don’t prevent injury as people sometimes assume, but they do help you to lift more weight. This helps you to squat and deadlift heavier—thus get stronger—so they’re standard equipment for a lot of strong people.
We have a guide here to understanding what belts are for, how they work, and who needs them. But once you get the basic idea, you’ll probably still have questions. So let’s dig in.
When should you buy a weightlifting belt?
Every coach has their own opinion on when is the right time for a new trainee to buy a belt. Some might want to see you lift a certain weight first, or demonstrate a certain amount of skill at the big lifts. But the truth is, there’s no agreed-upon dividing line between people who need a belt and people who don’t. A belt is a tool that anybody can use, at any point in their lifting career. It doesn’t make up for not knowing how to brace, so it makes sense to learn how to brace first. But a belt can help you learn how to brace, since you can feel your belly pushing against the belt when you’re doing it right.
In my opinion, if you’re wondering whether you should get a belt, it’s probably time to get a belt. A lot of the good ones need to be ordered online, and some have a lead time of several weeks, so you might not actually get the belt until a month or two after you decide you’re ready—in other words, you may want to order your belt sooner rather than later.
Which kind of weightlifting belt should you get?
If you search for “weightlifting belt” online, you’ll get tons of results, many of them marketed to gym goers who want to look cool but who don’t really understand what a belt is for. Let me cut through the marketing to say: There are only a few kinds of belts that strength sport athletes commonly wear.
A velcro belt
First, there’s the 4-inch velcro belt. I’m starting here because it’s a good all-purpose belt, cheaper than the leather ones we’re about to talk about, and it’s arguably easier to adjust and wear, too. I have one from 2Pood, which is a popular brand among Olympic weightlifters and Crossfitters. These belts are 4 inches wide, they close with a velcro strap, and they have a locking mechanism around the strap so that it won’t pop open even if the velcro fails mid-lift. The velcro will wear out over time, although mine has put up with more than three years of frequent use and it’s still going strong.
Velcro belts will generally run you between $30 and $70, depending on the brand and any special features, like custom colors.
Next are leather belts that buckle like, well, a traditional belt. These look like a comically large version of a regular belt: either 3 or 4 inches wide, and made of a thick leather that is usually either 10 or 13 millimeters. The buckle is enormous to match. (When I got my first belt in the mail, I laughed. I couldn’t imagine wearing it out in public. But now I just see it as a normal piece of gym equipment.)
There are double-prong belts, which look cool, but they can be really annoying to operate. Remember, you’ll be taking it off and putting it on (or loosening and tightening it) between sets. The second prong doesn’t make the belt any more secure, but it does make it fussier to fasten.
In addition to my velcro belt, I have a single-prong leather belt as well, and mine is a Pioneer cut with offset holes. This way, instead of choosing between two holes that are an inch apart, I can adjust the belt in 1/2-inch increments.
Instead of a buckle, you may prefer a lever belt. Instead of placing a buckle prong through the hole of your choice when you put it on, you use a screwdriver to install the lever into the appropriate hole in the belt. Then you simply close the lever to lock it closed, and pop it open when you’re ready to take the belt off. The “pop” can be satisfying after a big lift—see this clip of Jessica Buettner for an example. (I do not have a lever belt. I am slightly jealous of people who do.)
These belts are available in the same common sizes as the good single-prong belts: 3 or 4 inches wide, 10 mm or 13 mm thick. Pioneer, the same company that makes my adjustable prong belt, also sells an adjustable lever that gives you a little bit of room to fasten the belt tighter or looser without having to take the lever off with a screwdriver. (Pioneer isn’t paying me to shill for them, I just happen to like their adjustable designs.) For an example of a non-adjustable, Inzer’s Forever lever is a popular and durable design.
Good quality leather belts, both prong and lever, cost more than velcro. $100 to $150 would be a typical price range, with the thicker belts usually being more expensive. (Again, custom colors and designs will run you a bit more.)
Your waist measurement will tell you the length of belt you should order; refer to the sizing chart on the belt company’s website to find the right size. If you’re between sizes, consider whether you’re likely to get bigger or smaller over time. For example, if you know you’ll be losing weight, you may want a belt that will still fit if you get a bit slimmer. On the other hand, it’s normal to gain muscle mass as you get stronger, and you may want to have the room to get bigger without having to buy a whole new belt.
When it comes to the width, 4 inches is standard. (The maximum width allowable in competition is usually 4 inches for powerlifting and 12 centimeters, or 4.7 inches, in weightlifting.) The advice I got when I was a beginner is that almost everybody likes a 4-inch belt for squatting, but that some people prefer a 3-inch belt for deadlifts. I ended up getting mine in a 3-inch size, and it fits well for both lifts. Some people prefer a 4-inch belt for both lifts, but wear it higher on their waist for deadlifts. If you’re not sure, see if you can borrow a belt to try on.
The next thing to decide, if you’re buying a leather belt, is whether to get your belt in a thickness of 10 millimeters or 13 millimeters. If in doubt, get the 10 mm. Thirteen is very thick, and many people find it makes the belt uncomfortably stiff, especially at the edges. If you are an enormous person and already very strong, you might need the 13 mm. But in that case, you will probably come to that conclusion through experience over time. If you’re reading this, that’s probably not you, and you want the 10 millimeter.
So are there belts you shouldn’t buy? Arguably, yes:
Double prong belts are fussier to open and close, and they aren't any stronger than single prong. If you want a buckle, most people will be happier with the single prong kind.
Velcro belts without a lock can pop open mid-lift. Look for one that has a locking mechanism that holds the strap in place, like those from 2Pood or Gymreapers.
Tapered belts, with a wide back and a narrow front, used to be popular among Olympic weightlifters. They aren’t used as much anymore, though; velcro belts have largely replaced them. Most tapered belts you’ll see online are lower quality ones aimed at people just trying to look cool in the gym. Fine as a fashion choice, but they wouldn’t be my first pick. That said, if you already have one, might as well use it. It will be fine.
Really cheap weightlifting belts (like the $20 ones you might find on Amazon) won’t last as long and might not perform as well, but they honestly aren’t terrible. If you aren’t sure whether you need a belt at all, I wouldn’t blame you for buying the cheap thing first and upgrading later.
With that information, you should be well equipped to buy a belt that meets your needs. A locking velcro belt or a 10 millimeter straight leather belt, depending on your preference, will be best for most people. Now, whether you want a plain black belt or a custom colored sequin design, that’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourself.
Sonos's smart speakers aren't as ubiquitous as Apple, Google, or Amazon's voice-activated devices, but they've got it where it counts in terms of audio quality. And like Apple products, Sonos devices rarely go on sale, but right now, Amazon and Best Buy are offering discounts of up to 25% off two of the company's best bets, both of which are at record-low prices, according to price-checking tools.
The Sonos Move 2 is a portable speaker and a smart speaker in one—a rare combo—and it's currently $336 (down from $449). As the name implies, it was made to be used on the go; it has a 24-hour battery life, is drop resistant, and has an IP56 rating, meaning it can handle heavy rain and splashes without missing a beat, but it will not survive if you fully submerge it.
As noted in PCMag's "excellent" review of the device, the second iteration of the Sonos Move does away with Google Assistant, but it still can be used with Alexa, as well as Sonos' own voice assistant. The Sonos app provides access to media from major streaming music services like Spotify, as well as podcast apps, and the Libby app (for audiobooks). If you have other Sonos speakers, they can be networked together to play the same media.
The Sonos Era 300 is more powerful but lacks portability
If you don't care about the portable aspects and plan to keep the speaker in the same place most of the time, you can opt for go the Sonos Era 300 for $359 (originally $449). It has better bass, plays Dolby Atmos tracks from Apple Music and Amazon Music, and retains most of the other features as the Sonos Move 2. (Learn more about the Sonos Era 300 from PCMag's "excellent" review.)
Whether you go with the portable Sonos Move 2 or the more powerful Sonos Era 300, you'll be getting a quality smart speaker at its best price since release.
Enlarge/ The Clip attached to a late-90s vintage mountain bike. (credit: Eric Bangeman)
Shortly after World War II, a French manufacturer by the name of Solex started selling mopeds. These were not your "typical" moped that looks kind of like a motorcycle with pedals—the mopeds made by Solex were essentially bicycles with a small, two-stroke engine mounted over the front wheel that could propel the rider around 100 km on a single liter of gas mixture. The downside: Solex mopeds were loud and cumbersome to ride due to the weight distribution, and they never really caught on in North America.
Clip, a startup based in Brooklyn, New York, has come up with its own twist on the Solex. Its only product, the eponymously named Clip, is a friction drive unit that attaches to the front fork of any bicycle, turning it into an e-bike. At $499 for the Commuter model and $599 for the Explorer, it is a relatively inexpensive way to turn just about any bicycle into an e-bike for a fraction of the cost of a new one.
Weighing in at 8.8 lb (4 kg) for the Commuter model (the Explorer is a pound heavier), the Clip is at its essence a portable friction-drive. There's a detachable controller that mounts on the handlebar and the unit itself. The Explorer model, the one we reviewed, has a 192 Wh battery that takes an hour to fully charge. Its range is pegged at "up to 12 miles," a claim that is pretty accurate based on our testing, and the top speed is 15 mph. The Commuter model offers half the battery capacity, charge time, and range.
Apple released a new iPad Pro and iPad Air, among other products and announcements, during its May 7 "Let Loose" event. As is normally the case when newer versions are released, the older ones go down in price. Right now, the 5th generation 256GB iPad Air is $549.99 (originally $749). This iPad Air is the thinnest—and still one of the best—tablets Apple has to offer right now.
This wifi-enabled iPad Air, which PCMag said is "outstanding," was released in 2022. It comes with an M1 system-on-a-chip (SoC), a 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, a 12MP front and back camera, as well as Touch ID through the tablet’s power button. It's just a tenth of an inch thinner than the iPad Mini (and matching the 6th generation in thickness) but about twice as heavy as the Mini. Unlike previous iPad Airs, this one offers many of the same features as the 2021 iPad Pro, like the M1 processor and second-gen Apple Pencil support. The iPad Air does fall short compared to the Pro lineup when it comes to the camera, audio, and graphics, but considering it is almost half the price, it may be worth the tradeoff.
On Wednesday, Axios broke the news that OpenAI had signed deals with The Atlantic and Vox Media that will allow the ChatGPT maker to license their editorial content to further train its language models. But some of the publications' writers—and the unions that represent them—were surprised by the announcements and aren't happy about it. Already, two unions have released statements expressing "alarm" and "concern."
"The unionized members of The Atlantic Editorial and Business and Technology units are deeply troubled by the opaque agreement The Atlantic has made with OpenAI," reads a statement from the Atlantic union. "And especially by management's complete lack of transparency about what the agreement entails and how it will affect our work."
The Vox Union—which represents The Verge, SB Nation, and Vulture, among other publications—reacted in similar fashion, writing in a statement, "Today, members of the Vox Media Union ... were informed without warning that Vox Media entered into a 'strategic content and product partnership' with OpenAI. As both journalists and workers, we have serious concerns about this partnership, which we believe could adversely impact members of our union, not to mention the well-documented ethical and environmental concerns surrounding the use of generative AI."
There’s an art and a science to picking a good starting word when you play Wordle. One computer analysis suggested that CRANE is the best starter; another landed on SALET. Recently the New York Times did its own analysis of the words people actually choose as their starters, and the situation is dire: ADIEU is the most popular starter, yet (allegedly) the least efficient.
That's not to say it's the worst word you could play first, but it is the worst out of the 30 most popular starters—ADIEU, STARE, SLATE, AUDIO, and RAISE. But if you rank the top 30 starters based on how effective they are at revealing letters in any given puzzle, the top five are SLATE, CRANE, LEAST, STARE, and RAISE, with ADIEU landing at number 30. (My personal favorite, ARISE, ranks seventh.)
Should a Wordle starter have a lot of vowels?
I’m going to teach the controversy here. The argument in favor of ADIEU is that it contains four vowels, and you know the solution will have to contain at least one vowels. Thus, knocking out four of them in your first guess is pretty smart. (O and sometimes-vowel Y are the only ones not included.)
But there’s an argument to be made that vowels don’t give you much information, in the data-science sense of narrowing down possibilities. Most words in English remain perfectly legible with all the vowels eliminated, and because every word contains them, you'll still have a lot of options on the table. Here's what I mean: If you play ADIEU and A lights up in yellow, yes, you know that there's an A in the solution somewhere. But that tells you very little about what the solution actually is!
Another strategy is to go with a consonant-heavy word at first, and worry about the vowels later. According to one local Wordle expert('s wife), “there are only five [vowels], and it’s almost never going to be a U.”
Your starter should mesh with your solving style
Scientific analysis aside, I don't think there's much point to picking the theoretically best starter word; you need to find your best starter word. The human brain does not narrow down the problem space in the same way as a computer. I like when I find vowels early, because having the vowels helps me sound out the words in my head. If I know there are vowels in the second and fourth places (say, _A_E_) I know it is probably a two-syllable word. I run through the available letters, trying them out in each position in my head. For me, a vowel-heavy starter is helpful. For you, it might not be.
When choosing a starter, consider the way you think through the possibilities when you're halfway through the puzzle. What starters will set you up for success with your preferred solving style? If your brain works best when you know the initial letters of the word, maybe choose a starter like TRASH, which gets a lot of common beginning consonants into the mix right away.
My own approach splits the difference: I think about my starters as a pair. With ARISE and TOUCH, I get intel on all five vowels and five of the most common consonants. If you play ADIEU, I think you need to be prepared to follow it up with THORN.
Don’t forget about Y, the sometimes vowel
Should you include Y in your starter? Most of us don't, but there's a good argument to be made for getting it in the mix fairly early in the game.
Y flies under the radar since it’s an end-of-the-alphabet letter. The tendency is to think it must be as rare as X and Z. But Y is fairly common (worth 4 points in Scrabble to X's 8 and Z's 10), showing up in words like FUNNY and JAZZY (JAZZY being the hardest word that appeared as a Wordle answer this year). Words that end in Y also often have a double letter—like the N and Z in those examples—so make sure to consider that as you’re narrowing down the possibilities.
You may recall from grade school that the vowels are “A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y.” (You may even have learned “...and sometimes Y and W.”) That’s because Y really can stand on its own as a vowel. The ending Y in FUNNY is an example: U is the vowel for the first syllable, and Y is the vowel for the second. There are also words that contain a Y as their only vowel, like GLYPH, NYMPH, and TRYST.
So if you’re working through a Wordle and you don’t seem to have enough vowels to make a word, stick a Y in a guess somewhere—preferably at the end. LANKY or HORNY might be good picks for when you’re stumped.
The simple Pop-Tart has come a long way since its inception in the 1960s. Although they don’t look different, the way they’re eaten has undergone some whimsical experimentation. This tracks for the colorful, jam-filled, toaster-friendly treat with teeny tiny sprinkles on top. If it’s been a while since you’ve dipped your toes into the jam-filled breakfast pastry pool, this is your sign to take the plunge. Here are some of the best ways to eat Pop-Tarts.
Eat ‘em frozen
Out of respect for the warmer temperatures approaching, the first few Pop-Tart suggestions will be a treat to cool you down. I’d never recommend a hot toaster oven when it’s 80°F; I just wouldn’t stand for it. Instead, gift yourself a frozen Pop-Tart. Take the foil sleeves out of the cardboard box (the cardboard gets humid and takes up extra space) and keep them stashed in the freezer until you need it most. The pastry gains a crisp texture and the jam never gets icy—instead it ends up pleasantly chewy.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Crumble them into ice cream
Plain flavor ice cream is fine, but I’m much more likely to get a pint of ice cream loaded with stuff. I like caramel swirls, chocolate bits, cheesecake blobs, you name it. So when I tested out a no-churn ice cream, you better believe I crumbled Pop-Tarts into it. It’s easiest to fold it into the soft-serve-like stage when you’re making your own ice cream at home, but you can do it with store-bought too. Leave the ice cream in the fridge for 30 to 45 minutes to soften. Scoop it into a bowl and mix in the pastry chunks. You can return it to the pint to freeze it hard, or just start chowing down.
Stack up an ice cream sandwich
Ice cream sandwiches are inherently fun, and when the “bread” is Pop-Tarts, the lucky eater is bound to crack a smile. I enjoy Pop-Tarts ice cream sandwiches because you can really take liberties with flavor combinations. At any given time, Pop-Tarts will have classic flavors (like strawberry, blueberry, and brown sugar cinnamon) but I constantly see the shelves stocked with weirdo-beardo flavors too, like Apple Jacks, Boston Creme Donut, or Frosted Strawberry Milkshake. Pair those with any of the numerous ice creams in the freezer section and you’ve got a delightful treat. Here’s how to make a Pop-Tart ice cream sandwich.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Use Pop-Tarts for pie crust
Usually graham cracker crumb crusts are the standard for chilled pies and tarts, but why not switch up the crumb for something a bit more nostalgic (not to mention colorful). The best part is, it’s a one-ingredient crust. Throw a few Pop-Tarts in a food processor and blend it down into small crumbs. Press the pieces into a pie dish and the jam particles will help bind the crust together. Read this for the full method.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Make the world’s laziest trifle
Cookies and milk are inextricably linked, which is why I think Pop-Tarts and heavy cream are easy friends. Make a perverted trifle of multiple flavors of Pop-Tarts layered with whipped cream for a quick crowd-pleaser when you have no energy or will to go buy the custard and cake for a “proper” trifle.
Crumble topping for muffins and cakes
The main thing that makes a crumb cake so irresistibly good is the streusel topping. And yet, my least favorite thing about making a crumb cake is taking the extra time to whip up that very same topping. Here’s an easy work around: Top your cakes with crushed Pop-Tarts. I use crushed ginger snaps in this recipe but the same method applies for your breakfast pastries.
I don’t have to convince you that a milkshake is a good idea, but you should know that any milk shake you make can be a lot more fun if it’s loaded with Pop-Tarts. That’s correct, you can drink your Pop-Tarts, and you should. It’s easy with a blender too. Simply add your favorite brand of vanilla ice cream, a sleeve of tarts, and a bit of milk. Buzz away, and grab a straw.
Replace toast with tarts
When you eat Pop-Tarts straight out of the foil package, or even gently toasted, you’re shorting yourself. Sure, they have flavor already, but that sweet filling is more like a nudge. Pop-Tarts are actually great toast replacements. Slather on a layer of jam, Nutella, or fluff. Why not add a schmear and some fresh strawberry slices? Spread on a thick coat of peanut butter and top it with sliced bananas for a snack that’s fit to rival any slice of 12-grain. The flavor combinations are endless, and if you haven’t already, now’s a good time to add a box of Cherry Frosted to your grocery list.
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