Canceled Warhammer RPG Was A Multiplayer Age of Sigmar Game – Report
Canceled Warhammer RPG Was A Multiplayer Age of Sigmar Game – Report
We have learned more gameplay details about an unannounced Warhammer RPG that Games Workshop and Nexon reportedly canceled prior to its reveal.
On January 18, a report from MP1st revealed that an unannounced Warhammer RPG had been canceled. MP1st reported that this Warhammer game was in the works at a new studio called Thought Pennies and spotted several LinkedIn resumes from developers suggesting that it was a third-person action-RPG with live-service multiplayer elements. A new report from Eurogamer today, January 27, revealed even more about this canceled title.
Namely, Eurogamer discovered that Thought Pennies was making a game based on the Warhammer Age of Sigmar tabletop RPG, the fantasy alternative to Warhammer 40,000, and that Nexon was involved in the project. In fact, Nexon and Games Workshop had teased this game in 2021, describing a “new Virtual World will feature a socially interactive player-versus-environment world supported by Nexon’s world-class Live Operations for sustaining the fun with new content and service” in a press release announcing their collaboration.
This canceled Age of Sigmar game would’ve seen players control “war hosts of the God-king Sigmar and his allies as they fight to bring order back to the realms” and was intended to be released across PC, consoles, and mobile. It ultimately wasn’t meant to be, according to a statement Thought Pennies provided Eurogamer. “While the partnership worked well and we got a lot of good input from Nexon, Nexon made a strategic change. Late last year we agreed to end the project and Nexon is helping as a board member,” Thought Pennies explained.
While this Age of Sigmar game will never see the light of day, others based on the tabletop RPG exist. Realms of Ruin is a real-time strategy game from Planet Coaster studio Frontier Developments, while Storm Ground is a turn-based strategy roguelike from Focus Entertainment.
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Explore 7 future potential quantum computing uses
Explore 7 future potential quantum computing uses
Organizations that use the power of quantum computing could help humanity solve some of the world’s biggest problems and make breakthroughs in critical areas, from drug research to global agriculture and beyond.
As of 2025, quantum computing is in an experimental phase as the industry is still learning how to implement it on a mass scale. Companies such as Google, IBM and Microsoft are experimenting with this new technology to understand its potential uses. Data center admins should stay up to date with quantum computing as they will inevitably have to adapt to it.
Potential uses for quantum computing
Classical computing processes data in a binary space, which limits the volume of data it can handle and the decisions it can produce. This is also known as serial processing. Quantum computing, however, uses multidimensional processing.
Serial processing checks every combination of that data one at a time to arrive at the correct result. Multidimensional processing is layered, unlike the binary approach of serial processing, which uses bits. This accelerates the delivery and accuracy of computations and enhances the diversity of the results, which means that quantum computing can deliver better quality results faster.
Below are seven practical applications of quantum computing that are foreseeable with future technological development.
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1. AI and machine learning
The capability of calculating solutions to problems simultaneously, as opposed to sequentially, has huge potential for AI and machine learning (ML). Organizations today use AI and ML to discover ways to automate and optimize tasks. Optimization can happen much faster and at scale when combined with quantum computing, especially when processing and analyzing highly complex or even unstructured big data sets.
2. Financial modeling
With the modeling capabilities of quantum computing, financial organizations could use the technology to better model the behavior of investments and securities at scale. This could help reduce risk, optimize large-scale portfolios and help financial organizations better understand the trends and movements of the global financial economy.
3. Cybersecurity
Quantum computing could have a direct affect on privacy and encryption. Given the rapidly evolving nature of the cybersecurity landscape, quantum computers could help keep data encrypted while in use, providing both in-transit and at-rest protection.
4. Route and traffic optimization
Optimal route planning is key to smooth supply chain logistics and transportation. The biggest challenge is harnessing all the real-time data — from changing weather patterns to traffic flow — that affects this planning. This is where quantum computers can excel. They could process all that data in real time and adjust routes for an entire fleet of vehicles simultaneously, putting each on the optimal path forward.
5. Manufacturing
Quantum computers can run more accurate and realistic prototyping and testing. In the manufacturing space, this could help reduce the cost of prototyping and result in better designs that don’t need as much testing.
6. Drug and chemical research
Quantum computers can create better models for how atoms interact with one another, leading to a superior and more precise understanding of molecular structure. This might directly affect drug and chemical research and how new products and medicines are developed. The predictive power of quantum computers could also provide foresight into how chemical compounds and drugs would develop, evolve and interact with other elements over time.
7. Batteries
Quantum computing could help manufacturers better understand how to incorporate new materials into products such as batteries and semiconductors. This could provide more insight into optimizing batteries for longevity and efficiency. Quantum computing can also help manufacturers better understand lithium compounds and battery chemistry. For example, quantum computing could tap into how the docking energy of proteins works, which results in better batteries for electric vehicles.
How data centers can adapt as quantum computing becomes mainstream
It will take time before organizations can apply quantum computing to their operations on a wider scale — anywhere from five to 10 years — but it’s never a bad idea to keep an eye on trends and advancements as the technology develops. Data center admins should watch the thought leaders in the space and note the risks and opportunities of quantum computing.
Data centers and administrators can also partner with quantum computing players or recruit quantum computing talent to prepare. The latter is especially worthwhile as even a few quantum experts can help organizations explore potential uses. They can also track industry developments and identify opportunities where quantum computing can be beneficial.
Data center admins should focus on further digital transformation. They should continue building out digital infrastructure and scaling data sets to eventually transition to or adopt quantum computing workflows in some capacity. When it’s feasible to invest in the hardware and expertise needed, organizations can get quantum computing up and running as soon as possible.
A future powered by quantum computing holds great promise, enabling the ability to tackle some of humanity’s most significant challenges more quickly, efficiently, accurately and on a larger scale.
Editor’s note: This article was updated by the site editor to update the list of quantum computing uses.
Jacob Roundy is a freelance writer and editor specializing in a variety of technology topics, including data centers and sustainability.
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Some GOP senators want open committee vote on Gabbard
Some GOP senators want open committee vote on Gabbard
Some Republican senators are pushing for the unusual step of making public a key vote on Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination in the Senate Intelligence Committee, in an attempt to exert pressure on the members of a panel that typically does business behind closed doors.
The pressure campaign by senators allied with President Donald Trump, aimed at Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton, was described by two Senate GOP officials granted anonymity to speak about private deliberations.
Gabbard is set to face the Senate Intelligence Committee in open and closed sessions on Thursday. Typically, aside from certain public hearings, the panel deliberates and votes in private. That includes presidential nominations.
The talk of forcing open the committee vote underscores concerns among some Republicans that Gabbard’s nomination could die before it even reaches the floor.
Public pressure from Trump allies played a key role in getting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth across the finish line, and Gabbard’s allies believe some Republicans on the panel might vote a different way if they know their votes will be made public.
The committee is split 9-8 in favor of Republicans — meaning if all panel Democrats oppose Gabbard, as is expected, a single GOP flip could prevent her nomination from reaching the floor.
Several GOP committee members are seen as soft on Gabbard, including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who said there were “obvious issues” with Gabbard’s shifting position on a crucial surveillance program in an interview with The Hill published Monday. “I know there’s been a lot of reporting that she’s changed her position” in favor of keeping the program, Collins said. “That’s not how I read her answers.”
A spokesperson for Cotton declined to comment.
A person familiar with Intelligence Committee procedure said while panel rules allow for the release of a vote tally, they do not allow for a public roll call of how each member voted. Members are free to disclose their votes if they wish, the person said.
Opening up the committee vote, in other words, would require the secretive committee to waive its rules, and it is unclear whether Cotton has that power.
The panel’s Jan. 20 vote on CIA Director John Ratcliffe was kept closed, with only the 14-3 tally released. Three committee members — Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich (N.M.), Jon Ossoff (Ga.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.) — ultimately opposed him on the floor.
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Motherwell: Stuart Kettlewell resigns as manager
Motherwell: Stuart Kettlewell resigns as manager
Chief executive Brian Caldwell last week pointed out that Kettlewell’s side were outperforming clubs with ******* budgets and were nine points better off at the same stage last season.
However, they lost 2-1 away to bottom side St Johnstone on Saturday and Well say Kettlewell approached Caldwell to resign on Monday morning.
“Stuart explained that some of the personal abuse was now affecting his family, to the point where they didn’t wish to attend games,” the club said in a website statement.
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The Latest FAFSA Form is Available. It Works Fine.
The Latest FAFSA Form is Available. It Works Fine.
Last year, in a fit of masochism, I tried to become the first person in the United States to fill out a FAFSA (short for Free Application for Federal Student Aid) form at the precise moment the Department of Education unveiled a long-delayed overhaul.
I failed in my New Year’s Eve quest because the site wasn’t working, and the experience was a harbinger for millions of others. The rollout of the new FAFSA was one of the most epic digital fiascos of our time, right up there with the Obamacare website’s disastrous debut and the Equifax breach.
For several months, many of the most vulnerable teenagers — people with an undocumented parent or others without a Social Security number, or students whose parents didn’t speak English and made data entry errors that they then could not immediately fix — were frozen in place, unable to determine whether they qualified for the grants and loans that could make college affordable. At one school’s FAFSA completion event, only 20 percent of students finished.
This week, the department tried again, opening the gates to the FAFSA website after months of additional revisions and multiple rounds of beta testing.
It’s safe. Go ahead and fill yours out. I got through my part of the form in under 20 minutes. Importing tax information from the Internal Revenue Service was so fast that I was sure I had done it wrong. My daughter did her part in about 10 minutes. She received our results, the so-called Student Aid Index figure, right afterward.
We’re not the people anyone should worry about, though, given our citizenship, permanent address and up-to-date income tax filings.
This year, the department did what it should have done last year: tested the form with community organizations that serve students who often have complex family situations. Those efforts have also gone well.
Last year, Christine Miller, director of college advising at the Scholarship Fund of Alexandria in Virginia, used her commute home to rid herself of accumulated expletives, she said. During this year’s testing phase, over 95 percent of the students her organization serves have completed their forms without incident. This includes students from families in which a parent may not have a Social Security number.
It has helped that chastened Education Department employees have been on a charm offensive. They’ve gone to testing sessions and squashed bugs in real time. So far this cycle, over 167,000 people have completed their forms.
If you’re ready to join them, keep a few things in mind. First-time FAFSA applicants need a so-called FSA ID number before they can start the form. A nonprofit called uAspire has a website with excellent guides to the process of getting the FSA ID, and the Education Department has a tool on its site to help people figure out which parents or others should get the ID in addition to the student.
When you sit down to fill out the FAFSA, make sure you have the pertinent income tax forms. I thought the system would transfer every bit of data that I needed, but there was a question about foreign earned income that the forms helped me answer.
Next, have anyone else who may need to participate in the process — your child, your spouse, your parent — beside you or on speed dial for questions. You can save your spot and return to the form, but it is probably better to just blast through the thing in one sitting.
All of us FAFSA applicant supplicants — there could be over 15 million for this next school year — are each just the first cog in the financial aid wheel. Next, the Education Department has to seamlessly push the data to colleges. Then the schools need to be able to make corrections en masse — something else that was broken last time around.
Families sometimes see financial aid administrators as blockers whose job it is to tell them there is no more grant money available. More frequently, however, administrators are heroes who navigate a messy federal aid system that they wouldn’t wish on their enemies but have no power to change.
“We had a meeting to ask one another what we were doing to make sure the financial aid staff was all right,” said Stephen Schultheis, vice president of enrollment management at Middle Georgia State University, while explaining what the last aid season was like.
The incoming Trump administration is a wild card. The smart thing for the pick for secretary of education, Linda McMahon, to do might be to say nothing about the FAFSA. Then, if things continue to go well, she could take credit next August for work she had nothing to do with.
As for the people who really are doing the work, it’s hard to erase fresh memories of disappointed teenagers coming back to them multiple times for help filling out the deadbolted form that could unlock their futures. The students remember it, too. The ones who have finished their FAFSAs this year can’t quite believe that it actually worked.
“More than once this fall, I remember hearing, ‘That’s it?’” Ms. Miller, director of the Scholarship Fund of Alexandria, said. “‘Are you sure?’”
That’s probably it. We’re kind of sure. Let’s cross our fingers that we don’t disappoint them again.
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DeepSeek hit with large-scale cyberattack, says it’s limiting registrations
DeepSeek hit with large-scale cyberattack, says it’s limiting registrations
DeepSeek on Monday said it would temporarily limit user registrations “due to large-scale malicious attacks” on its services, though existing users will be able to log in as usual.
The ******** artificial intelligence startup has generated a lot of buzz in recent weeks as a fast-growing rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and other leading AI tools.
Earlier on Monday, DeepSeek took over rival OpenAI’s coveted spot as the most-downloaded free app in the U.S. on Apple’s App Store, dethroning ChatGPT for DeepSeek’s own AI Assistant. It helped inspire a significant selloff in global tech stocks.
Buzz about the company, which was founded in 2023 and released its R1 model last week, has spread to tech analysts, investors and developers, who say that the hype — and ensuing fear of falling behind in the ever-changing AI hype cycle — may be warranted. Especially in the era of the generative AI arms race, where tech giants and startups alike are racing to ensure they don’t fall behind in a market predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.
Read more CNBC reporting on AI
DeepSeek reportedly grew out of a ******** hedge fund’s AI research unit in April 2023 to focus on large language models and reaching artificial general intelligence, or AGI — a branch of AI that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks, which OpenAI and its rivals say they’re fast pursuing.
The buzz around DeepSeek especially began to spread last week, when the startup released R1, its reasoning model that rivals OpenAI’s o1. It’s open-source, meaning that any AI developer can use it, and has rocketed to the top of app stores and industry leaderboards, with users praising its performance and reasoning capabilities.
The startup’s models were notably built despite the U.S. curbing chip exports to China three times in three years. Estimates differ on exactly how much DeepSeek’s R1 costs, or how many GPUs went into it. Jefferies analysts estimated that a recent version had a “training cost of only US$5.6m (assuming US$2/H800 hour rental cost). That is less than 10% of the cost of Meta’s Llama.”
But regardless of the specific numbers, reports agree that the model was developed at a fraction of the cost of rival models by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others.
As a result, the AI sector is awash with questions, including whether the industry’s increasing number of astronomical funding rounds and billion-dollar valuations is necessary — and whether a bubble is about to burst.
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People Can Fly Is Co-Developing Gears of War: E-Day
People Can Fly Is Co-Developing Gears of War: E-Day
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January 27, 2025
People Can Fly is co-developing Gears of War: E-Day with The Coalition, the studio announced on Monday. The studio returns to working on the franchise it helped develop up until 2013’s Gears of War: Judgement.
“Returning to collaborate on the next chapter of this legendary saga is both a privilege and an exciting opportunity to build upon the intense, visceral action and rich storytelling that fans have come to love,” People Can Fly CEO Sebastian Wojciechowski said via release. “We are deeply grateful for our partners’ trust and support on this journey.”
The Coalition Studio Head Mike Crump added, “We’re pleased to be partnering with the talented folks at People Can Fly who have been a part of our franchise’s legacy for so long.”
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The news of People Can Fly working on the Gears of War prequel comes just over a month after it was announced that the studio was laying off 120 people. The company also announced last April that it was cancelling its longtime game Project Dagger.
Announced last year, Gears of War: E-day is a prequel set 14 years before the original Gears of War. The game, which is built in Unreal Engine 5, centers around Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago’s battle against the locust horde. No release date has been announced, but latest rumors suggest that Microsoft is targeting sometime in 2025 to launch.
What do you think about People Can Fly returning to work on Gears of War: E-Day after a decade away from the franchise? Let us know down below, and join more discussions in the official Insider Gaming forums.
For more Insider Gaming, read about the latest round of layoffs at Ubisoft as the company continues to restructure. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.
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I’m absolutely sick of Microsoft’s Windows 11 24H2 update, as it’s now causing Bluetooth and webcam issues
I’m absolutely sick of Microsoft’s Windows 11 24H2 update, as it’s now causing Bluetooth and webcam issues
Microsoft’s Windows 11 24H2 update continues to affect PC users, with new Bluetooth and webcam issues
Windows is failing to detect webcam and has audio playback issues on Bluetooth audio devices
The latest KB5050009 (24H2) and KB5050021 (23H2) builds appear to be responsible
It’s not a secret that Microsoft’s Windows 11 24H2 has been a massive problem for plenty of PC users, with bugs and functionality issues present across the board, which has more recently affected gamers – and now, it looks like a new set of issues have arrived to cause more frustrations.
As reported by Windows Latest, the most recent 24H2 KB5050009 build is leaving users with webcams that aren’t being detected and Bluetooth audio devices no longer working even when connected to a system. I can corroborate this last point, as Windows 11 shows Bluetooth audio devices as connected, but without any audio, leaving headphones and more useless for the time being.
Windows Latest claims states that this audio issue occurs on both KB5050009 (24H2) and KB5050021 (23H2), along with USB DAC ports not working with the latter.
The only fix for the Bluetooth issue (as of now) is uninstalling the recent update, while the webcam problems reportedly require a reinstallation of Windows 11. Considering the effort it takes for both supposed fixes, it might be better to wait for Microsoft to address the matter with a patch – but who knows if that won’t introduce new issues as well.
The biggest problem here is that it can be hard to diagnose some of the reported issues – there’s an abundance of different PC setups, with different applications installed which could be responsible for some bugs. In this case, it appears that it’s indeed a widespread issue (notably with webcams), with users of Microsoft’s Feedback Hub voicing their complaints.
(Image credit: Shutterstock / Melnikov Dmitriy)
Alright, it’s time to stick with SteamOS via Bazzite for now…
If Windows 11 24H2’s update breaking multiple games wasn’t bad enough already, the Bluetooth issues have taken matters to a new level of frustration. Since I use Windows 11 primarily for gaming, this has hit me – and audio playback on Bluetooth devices isn’t the only issue I’ve run into, as the taskbar and quick settings both become unresponsive (even after pressing the Windows key), forcing me to restart the system.
This isn’t ideal for gaming or even general usage, especially when coupled with random slowdowns and stutters in multiple games – Ubisoft’s hand was forced to update its Assassin’s Creed games that were facing constant crashes. It’s already a pain having to deal with PC ports and figuring out what might be the cause behind occasional stutters and more, and 24H2 has added to this.
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Until these problems are fixed, I feel like I need another operating system to run my games on. Since Bazzite (and Valve’s SteamOS) are far more suitable to use on a handheld gaming PC, I would be cautious about installing it on a desktop PC – and I’ve only tested Bazzite on the Asus ROG Ally, but if it means I have to use my handheld over my powerful desktop machine while Microsoft puts these issues to bed, then so be it.
You may also like…
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The Best Travel Deals for Travel Tuesday
The Best Travel Deals for Travel Tuesday
As a sales season, ****** Friday long ago turned the weekend corner to extend to Cyber Monday. And it’s still growing as Travel Tuesday gains traction.
In a recent report, the consultancy McKinsey & Company found that bookings for hotels, cruises and airlines spiked on Travel Tuesday 2023. Airline purchases soared, beating the average for sales over two weeks on either side of the date by more than 60 percent. Cruise bookings jumped 50 percent.
“More people are investing in travel and experiences than ever before,” said Hayley Berg, the lead economist at the travel booking app Hopper. “On the flip side, we’ve seen more marketing and more providers participating, so it’s really snowballing.”
This year, after wading through hundreds of sales, I found some of the best deals I’ve seen since the pandemic. Consider the following offers the tip of the iceberg; chances are if you want to book a hotel, airline ticket, rental car, tour or cruise for 2025, you’ll find a ***** on it, many of them through Dec. 8.
As always, caveat emptor. Among pitfalls, many sales will be prepaid and nonrefundable, be subject to blackout dates and hew to off-season or first-quarter travel, so read the terms and conditions carefully.
Flight deals
Through Dec. 4, TAP Air Portugal is offering round-trip flights starting at $379 to Lisbon, Madrid, Dublin and other European destinations from its U.S. airports, including Newark Liberty International Airport, for travel from mid-January to mid-May.
Travel Tuesday is an especially good time to book airline tickets, according to Hopper, which found more than 3,300 routes from U.S. airports on ***** last Travel Tuesday, and nearly twice the deals compared to ****** Friday 2023.
Half of its customers booked flights and hotels in the next year and the other half took advantage of last-minute trips in November and December.
Global tours for less
Group tour operators are expanding their sales this year.
The adventure travel company Geographic Expeditions (known as GeoEx) will hold its first Travel Tuesday *****, which will run through Dec. 6, taking $1,000 off a selection of 2025 trips, including 10 days in Patagonia, Argentina, and 14 days in Mongolia (trips normally range from $11,250 to $12,650 a person).
The tour operator Collette has increased its annual seasonal *****, offering up to 25 percent off 2025 bookings made through Dec. 4. Trips range from 16 days in Japan and South Korea, marked down 15 percent to $6,034 a person, to 10 days in Portugal, down 25 percent at $1,499 a person.
CIE Tours has extended its ***** from a week in 2023 to four weeks. Running through Dec. 7, the ***** — up to 15 percent off — applies to all trips. Before the discount, six days based in Glasgow, with excursions to nearby castles, Loch Lomond and the Isle of Arran, costs $1,845 a person.
On Tuesday, the small-group tour specialist Explore Worldwide is offering discounts of up to 20 percent on more than 1,500 departures in 2025. Deals include $400 off an eight-day walking trip on Italy’s Amalfi Coast in March and April (normally $1,990 a person); and $1,280 off a 14-day trip in Japan during spring’s cherry blossom season (normally $6,390 a person).
Cruise offers
Cruise lines have long embraced the Thanksgiving sales season with promotions announced by major operators, including the trans-Atlantic specialist Cunard, family-friendly Norwegian Cruise Line and high-end Silversea.
Among cruise companies offering first-time sales, the small-ship line St. Hilda Sea Adventures, which specializes in the Scottish islands, will take up to 20 percent off departures in April and May when booked through Dec. 20 (code: SPRING25). Six- to 10-night trips start at $2,630 before the discount.
On the Great Lakes, Victory Cruise Lines will launch a pair of boats operating between Chicago and Toronto in spring. During its *****, running through Dec. 4, nine-night trips will start at $5,799 a person, which is $1,000 less than normal for a shared double-occupancy cabin. The deal also includes a complimentary shore excursion.
If swimming with sea lions off the Galápagos Islands is on your wish list, check out Ecoventura’s ***** through Dec. 6. Eight-day sailings on ships accommodating 20 passengers normally cost $10,500 a person, but during the ***** will drop to $8,400.
The expedition line HX will offer a number of its cruises at 40 to 50 percent off until Dec. 9, including a nine-day trip to the Galápagos (***** priced from $6,774 a person); some sailings will partner with the National Audubon Society to seek out the islands’ avian stars. Twelve-day HX trips to Antarctica start at $8,596 a person during the *****.
AdventureSmith Explorations, an agency that specializes in small-ship cruising, is a good place to look for expedition cruise sales, including a web page devoted to Antarctica deals.
New lodging discounts
Hotel deals litter the sales landscape. This year major brands such as Marriott, IHG and Hyatt are tying their sales to loyalty program membership with earlier or exclusive access or ******* discounts. Fortunately, joining is free.
Urban options include the 33 Hotel, New York City, Seaport at 40 percent off through Dec. 3; discounted rates start at $159.
In Chicago, the new Korean-owned L7 Chicago by LOTTE has rooms discounted 30 percent through Dec. 8 for 2025 travel (normally from $135).
Resort newcomers include the 10-villa Trobbu Tulum in Mexico, which is opening in January. During the *****, which ends on Tuesday, its three-bedroom homes will start at $630 a night, reflecting a 30 percent discount.
In Hawaii, new hotels with deals range high to low. A luxury newcomer near Hilo on the Big Island, the adults-only, all-inclusive Hamakua Hotel, will offer seven nights for the price of four through Tuesday (from $699 a night; code: Cyber).
The more affordable Romer House Waikiki in Honolulu is offering 40 percent off rates that start at $119 a night after the discount through Dec. 6 (code: BFCM24).
Experiences on *****
Attractions and day-trip operators are increasingly offering sales that can help you plan activities at a discount.
For example, Traveling Spoon, an Airbnb-style platform that connects travelers with local food experiences in 70 countries, will offer its first Travel Tuesday *****. Use the code TRAVEL24 to get 15 percent off experiences such as a meal in a host’s home in Kyoto, Japan (normally $56), a mixology class in Barbados ($56) and a pasta-making session in Tuscany ($224).
Get some exercise while speed-touring Rome with ArcheoRunning, offering running tours of the Eternal City. During its *****, through Tuesday, private groups of up to four travelers can get a 75-minute running tour and a four-hour walking tour of the Trastevere neighborhood for 390 euros (about $415), or 35 percent off (code: ARFriday2024).
In southwest Colorado, the Springs Resort in Pagosa will sell two-day passes for the price of one at $67 through Tuesday (code: TRAVEL).
For more deals on attractions as well as hotels and rental cars, check Booking.com during its *****, which runs through Dec. 4.
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Lebanon says Israeli troops killed 24 ahead of ceasefire extension – The Washington Post
Lebanon says Israeli troops killed 24 ahead of ceasefire extension – The Washington Post
Lebanon says Israeli troops killed 24 ahead of ceasefire extension The Washington PostCease-Fires in Gaza and Lebanon Will Most Likely Hold for Now, Analysts Say The New York TimesWhite House Statement on Agreement Extension Between Lebanon and Israel The White HouseCeasefire disputes between Israel and ******, Hezbollah throw region into turmoil Fox NewsIsrael and Lebanon extend truce, with IDF troop withdrawal deadline moved to Feb. 18 The Times of Israel
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School Hero takes you to the mean streets of Japanese high school to rescue your girlfriend
School Hero takes you to the mean streets of Japanese high school to rescue your girlfriend
School Hero is a sidescrolling beat ’em up in the classic style
Take on hordes of enemy students, and beat and brawl your way to victory!
Play minigames, enjoy challenging difficulty levels and more
High school can be a really stressful experience for virtually everyone involved. But hey, look at it this way, at least you don’t need to punch and pummel your way through hordes of enemy students to save the day, which is exactly what you’re doing in the anime-styled retro brawler School Hero!
School Hero is pretty much what you might expect at a glance. This side-scrolling 2D brawler sees you playing as the titular boy named Hero (how original) as he tries to save his girlfriend from the rival school. Along the way, you’ll beat up everyone from nerds to football players, cheerleaders and everything in between in your quest to rescue her.
Of course, despite being a bit of a retread of by now well-known ground School Hero does at least have a few things going for it. For one there looks to be plenty of variety in terms of levels and enemies, always a plus in the beat ’em up genre, and also a suite of minigames to break up your time spent brawling.
River Retro Scott Pilgrim Rival Double Streets Fight
Yes, School Hero is very much a pastiche of the beat ’em up genre, with a healthy sprinkling of stereotypical animesque scenery and attacks to go alongside it. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and at a glance it looks to have enough in the way of adaptable gameplay and storyline, as well as the aforementioned extras, to keep you playing.
Oh, and there’s controller support too, before you ask.
Want to try something a little more on the brain teaser side of things? Why not take a gander at our review of Lok Digital, the mobile adaptation of the hit puzzle book that lets you learn the language of the titular strange little creatures?
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Offloading Lossless Scaling Frame-Gen to secondary GPU eliminates overhead
Offloading Lossless Scaling Frame-Gen to secondary GPU eliminates overhead
Last week, YouTuber Ryan Spencer uncovered an interesting way to enable Lossless Scaling Frame Generation without gaming performance overhead on his laptop and desktop: use a secondary GPU to run Lossless Scaling.
As long as the secondary GPU is powerful enough, with integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics used for laptop testing and a GTX 1050 Ti used for desktop testing, you too should be able to use Lossless Scaling’s universal Frame Gen without incurring a performance overhead on your primary GPU. Remember that you need more potent secondary GPUs for Lossless Scaling Frame Generation at 1440p and higher resolutions.
The methodology principle used makes total sense, especially in the context of laptops. Even gaming laptops trend toward using stronger iGPUs, so they become ideal for easily inserted Frame Generation used alongside powerful dedicated GPUs.Now, it’s worth clarifying that this method, which relies on a dual GPU setup, has unique upsides and downsides.
How to run Lossless Scaling Frame Generation on a Second Graphics Card – YouTube
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The main unique upside is overhead-free frame generation for games rendered on the primary GPU. Still, depending on your GPU and setup, this overhead reduction may not even be needed, or it may be entirely possible. If the game in question natively supports Frame Gen on your primary GPU, enabling it almost always grants a straightforward performance boost with minimal overhead.
Where Lossless Scaling is implemented, it makes most sense where games don’t already support Frame Generation for your GPU or your GPU’s version of Frame Generation (i.e., AMD FSR 3.1, Nvidia DLSS 3 or earlier) only supports Single-Frame Generation. Enabling Multi-Frame Generation in Lossless Scaling, backed by a separate dedicated GPU, quickly becomes a compelling option for those likely to be priced out of an Nvidia RTX 50 Series upgrade shortly.
While the practicality of this method does become a bit dubious for most games with a native Frame Generation implementation, it does get a lot more interesting when one considers the features consistently available to Lossless Scaling users, even across games. While in-engine on the primary GPU paced with your real frames will likely always be the best way to do Single-Frame Generation, taking the compute-heavy method of inserting Frame Generation (Lossless Scaling) and offloading it to a secondary GPU shows great practice in hardware utilization fundamentals, particularly if you’re enticed by DLSS 4’s Multi-Frame Generation but stuck on older GPU architecture.
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Why some call it phantom wealth
Why some call it phantom wealth
Millennials have come a long way since their days of being called lazy or entitled. Despite reaching key milestones later than their parents once did, they are now wealthier than previous generations were at their age.
“Younger families in the U.S. made remarkable gains,” according to an analysis of 2022 data by the St. Louis Federal Reserve.
Collectively, millennials are now worth about $15.95 trillion, up from $3.94 trillion five years earlier, according to Federal Reserve data.
Still, very few millennials would consider themselves wealthy. The disconnect between being rich on paper and feeling well off has been referred to as “phantom wealth.”
For example, gains in the value of a home or a retirement plan can feel like phantom wealth because they are illiquid and have no bearing on day-to-day cash flow.
Boosted by a strong jobs market and rising wages, many in this age group have purchased homes and benefited from soaring home values. To that point, the St. Louis Fed report found between 2019 and 2022, home prices jumped 44%.
Largely driven by real estate gains, the “median wealth of these younger people more than quadrupled” during this three-year *******, the report said.
However, homeownership does not offer the same sort of safety cushion other investments do, noted Michael Liersch, head of advice and planning at Wells Fargo.
“Unless you are willing to downsize, you are really not going to monetize the increase in that asset,” said Liersch, especially in the case of a primary residence. “Millennials, in particular, haven’t been able to use that wealth.”
Millennials have ‘phantom wealth’
“Phantom wealth is a nonsensical term: assets either exist or they don’t,” said Brett House, an economics professor at Columbia Business School. However, there is a very real phenomenon at work.
As it turns out, “millennials experienced a sharp swing in their relative standing,” the St. Louis Fed report found.
The median wealth of older millennials, between the ages of 36 and 45, was 37% above expectations. The wealth of younger millennials and older Gen Zers, or those aged 26 to 35, exceeded expectations by 39%.
Compared to other generations, millennials are also more likely to say their income went up over the last few months and that they expect their earnings potential to increase again in the year ahead, according to another report by TransUnion.
More from Personal Finance: IRS announces the start of the 2025 tax season What the Trump administration could mean for your money House Republicans push to extend Trump tax cuts
But even as households became wealthier, inflation and instability have left more people in the bucket of so-called HENRYs — “high earners, not rich yet,” House said.
And “the ‘HENRY’ phenomenon isn’t limited to millennials or Gen Z,” he added.
“It’s harder for every generation to feel financially comfortable when the management of so much risk related to employment, healthcare, retirement pensions, insurance, and other components of economic well-being has been shifted to individuals during a ******* of rapidly rising prices,” House said.
‘There is so much more to achieve’
Many millennials also say it’s harder today to make it on their own than it was for their parents when they were starting out.
They have higher student loan balances, ******* mortgages and car payments and more expensive childcare costs, explained Sophia Bera Daigle, CEO and founder of Gen Y Planning, a financial planning firm for millennials.
“Cash flow has been tight,” she said.
That makes it more difficult to set extra money aside or make long-term plans, said Bera Daigle, a certified financial planner and a member of CNBC’s Advisor Council, “While they are making significant progress on reaching some financial goals, it still feels like there is so much more to achieve.”
However, feeling financially secure is often less about how much money you have and more about the ability to spend less than you make, experts say.
In part, higher prices have fostered the feeling of being overextended, according to CFP Kamila Elliott, co-founder and CEO of Collective Wealth Partners.
Elliott, who is also on CNBC’s FA Council, said clients often ask “Where is my money going?”
“If you feel like a lot of fixed expenses are going up, it may mean you need to cut back on the fun things,” she advised, such as eating out or taking a vacation.
“It’s going to take a little bit of an offset to have more money at the end of the month,” Elliott said.
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Palestinians return to north Gaza
Palestinians return to north Gaza
Rushdi Abualouf and Alice Cuddy
in Cairo and Jerusalem
Reuters
A child waits to return to north Gaza
Moments after returning to her home in an affluent neighbourhood in northern Gaza, 44-year-old Sabrine Zanoun said she was overwhelmed with the mix of emotions.
“We are happy to see our family again… [but] it is also so sad it makes you cry – the destroyed houses, the rubble,” she told the BBC.
“People would come here just to walk because of the beautiful scenery. Now it’s mostly ruins.”
Sabrine was one of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, or the ruins in their place, in northern Gaza on Monday.
The mass return comes a week into a ceasefire deal between Israel and ****** aimed at permanently ending a war that began more than 15 months ago.
Like others in Gaza, she had been displaced several times over the course of the war, but most recently in the central city of Deir al-Balah.
She joined a “flood of people” who travelled by foot along the coastal al-Rashid Street – a route that opened to displaced Gazans early on Monday morning.
One security official in Gaza told AFP news agency that more than 200,000 people had crossed to the north of the strip by foot in a two-hour *******.
Palestinians spoke to the BBC while making the journey.
Reuters
“It was so long and tiring,” said 24-year-old Israa Shaheen, shortly after reaching Gaza City.
“Until the middle of the road, people were happy and singing and stuff like that, but then when it was taking a long time people were getting frustrated. Then we reached a sign that said ‘Welcome to Gaza’ and a lot of ************ flags and people began to feel joy again,” she said.
Others made the journey by car along a different route.
“There are thousands of people here. They’re filling the entire road… we are very happy but I am also feeling sad that I know I will reach Gaza City but my home is no longer there,” 42-year-old Wafaa Hassouna said on the phone as she neared the checkpoint.
When people reached their destinations, they spoke of their shock at what remained standing in their communities.
Mohammed Imad Al-Din, a barber who had been waiting at the checkpoint, returned to find his home destroyed, and his salon looted and damaged by a nearby Israeli strike.
Lubna Nassar had been waiting with her two daughters and son to be reunited with her husband. But while he had survived, their home was gone.
“The warmth of reunion was overshadowed by the bitter reality – we no longer have a home so we moved from a tent in the south to a tent in the north,” she said.
Watch: Belongings in hand, thousands of Gazans begin journey home
Others are still waiting to make the journeys home or deciding on their next steps.
One man said he would have “run to the north like I was in a race” if he did not have his pregnant wife and young daughter with him. Instead, they were hoping for the large crowds to pass, and to set off slowly on their journey home. He said they expected to find much of their neighbourhood flattened.
“We hope that this war will end and we’ll rebuild everything that is destroyed,” he said.
Another said his brother had told him not to return for now. He “called and said… the houses are demolished to the ground. People are sleeping on the streets and nobody is helping them.”
In the affluent neighbourhood of Tel al-Hawa, Sabrine said she was grateful to be back with her family and in a home that was still standing.
“It’s mostly ruins and destruction. Anyone who finds his house still standing, or even just a room, should consider himself lucky,” she said.
Additional reporting by Muath Al-Khatib
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Largest state’s economy ranked nation’s best performer
Largest state’s economy ranked nation’s best performer
Australia’s largest state has held off a fast-finishing Queensland to remain the country’s best-performing economy in the latest CommSec State of the States report.
Now in its 16th year, the quarterly report tracks eight key economic indicators and compares the latest data with decade averages to rank Australia’s six states and two territories.
WA topped five of the eight economic indicators to lead the national performance rankings in the September 2024 report for the second quarter in a row – and only the second time in a decade.
While economies had slowed in response to higher interest rates and inflation, CommSec chief economist Ryan Felsman said states and territories had proved resilient due to a strong job market and solid population growth.
“As consumers respond to higher borrowing costs and price pressures, the future path will depend on whether the job market can hold up as well as the trajectory of interest rates over the coming months,” he said.
“As expected, the interest rate-sensitive south-eastern states and territories remained in a tight cluster mid-table.”
Queensland moved up from third to join South Australia in second spot, Victoria remained in fourth place and Tasmania was steady in fifth.
NSW leapfrogged the ACT from seventh to sixth, with the Northern Territory remaining eighth.
WA’s top performances across retail spending, unemployment, population growth, housing finance and dwelling starts helped it retain its leading position.
SA led the nation on real economic growth, Victoria was strongest for construction work, and the NT ranked first for equipment investment.
Perth had the highest inflation rate (3.8 per cent) in the September 2024 quarter and Tasmania had the fastest wage growth (4.0 per cent).
National home prices rose by 4.9 per cent, with WA recording the biggest annual rise – 19.1 per cent.
The report also compared the annual growth rates of the eight major indicators.
Resources-focused Queensland and WA had the strongest annual economic momentum, with little separating them as Queensland ranked first or second for five indicators.
The biggest mover was Victoria, which jumped from seventh to third in a sign the state’s underlying economic activity was improving.
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How to Solve Keeping the Old Traditions in Diablo 4
How to Solve Keeping the Old Traditions in Diablo 4
Like with the Secret of the Spring side quest in Diablo 4, Keeping the Old Traditions asks the player to solve a riddle to unlock a secret chest and complete the quest. Unfortunately, the hints provided in the quest aren’t obvious. Unless you visit us, you’re more likely to ignore the quest in your log altogether than figure out how to solve the riddle! Here’s how to solve Keeping the Old Traditions in Diablo 4!
Where to Find the Side Quest
Overall, Keeping the Old Traditions is not an overly tricky side quest. It requires a little walking, an emote, and some looting; that’s all! The challenge comes from solving the riddle of Keeping the Old Traditions, which is figuring out precisely which emote to use and where.
You’ll find the side quest northeast of Kirandai Waypoint, north of Champion’s Demise. Besides the blue icon on your map, it’s easy to miss, but the side quest begins from a book resting upon the nearby ruins. Said book reads, “Though timeworn, you endure. Before your colorful kin, I say: Yes, I keep our traditions.“
To the layman, it doesn’t make any sense. To most, it doesn’t make any sense.
Related: Diablo Immortal Patch Notes Reveal an Improving Experience
Solving Keeping the Old Traditions Riddle
Upon picking up the quest and activating it in your quest log, you’ll note a highlighted area on the map. It’s pretty close. Use the pin feature to navigate directly to the center of the blue circle, and you’ll note a giant statue in the nearby wall of said location.
Once standing directly in front of the statue, open your emote wheel and select ‘Yes.’ If the ‘Yes’ emote is not on your emote wheel, select Customize and add it to a free spot.
Once you perform the corresponding emote in front of the statue, a treasure chest will pop up nearby.
That’s all! You beat Keeping the Old Traditions!
Is there a particular side quest giving you trouble in Diablo 4? Let us know in the comments, or bring it up on the Insider Gaming community forum to find a hand!
Whether you’re running through the game’s main quest or diving into the new season, the biggest class skill changes in Diablo 4 affect you, too!
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Jimmy Carter Was Right About Materialism but, Alas, Wrong About Us
Jimmy Carter Was Right About Materialism but, Alas, Wrong About Us
Halfway into his presidency, Jimmy Carter’s back was against the wall. It was July 1979, the height of the energy crisis, and the beleaguered president went on national television to deliver not a speech, but a kind of sermon.
The address — called “Crisis of Confidence” — challenged Americans to acknowledge personal failings that he believed were compounding very real public problems.
“Too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption,” said Mr. Carter, who died Sunday. “Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning.”
The dangers of a society’s growing ever more covetous of ******* and better and more seemed obvious enough to Mr. Carter, who grew up in rural Georgia and lived in public housing as a young adult. By appealing to our better angels, he believed he could inspire in all of us a sense of thrift that would help heal America’s ills: environmental degradation, dependence on foreign energy, the power of special interests and political extremism.
For a fleeting moment, Americans listened. Mr. Carter’s approval ratings jumped 11 points within hours.
But partisans smeared the address — they almost immediately called it the “malaise speech” — and pilloried Mr. Carter, saying he was blaming Americans for problems that they hadn’t created and that presidents were supposed to solve.
Everything that happened after the speech — from persistent inflation to the Iranian hostage crisis — wiped away any warm feelings the voters had. He lost his re-election bid in a landslide to Ronald Reagan 16 months later, at the dawn of a decade that glamorized materialism like few if any that had come before it.
The decades that followed have shown that Mr. Carter had the diagnosis right. Materialism has become epidemic — endemic, even. We mostly fail to ask ourselves one searching, overarching question: How much is enough?
Mr. Carter misread the nation in thinking that we would look within and without and then answer. In fact, there is little about our patterns since his address to suggest that we wish to earn, own and consume less, or that we have awakened to the fact that having, buying and using more may fail to make us happier.
Consider how our children feel after we’re mostly done raising and educating them. The Cooperative Institutional Research Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, surveys first-year college students every year. The percentage who named being “very well off financially” as an important goal doubled from 1967 to 2019. Those who wanted to develop a “meaningful philosophy of life” decreased by nearly half.
Research by Tim Kasser and Jean Twenge showed that materialism among 12th graders increased over time, peaking in the late 1980s and early 1990s with Generation X, and then stayed at those historically high levels among millennials.
“There was a trend underway at the time Carter was making this speech, and it basically just amplifies in the next 10 years rather than being suppressed,” said Mr. Kasser, an emeritus professor of psychology at Knox College and the author of “The High Price of Materialism.”
The lingering belief that Mr. Carter’s presidency was a failed one casts its own cloud over the “Crisis of Confidence” speech, but whatever ailed the American psyche was mostly not his fault. A nation’s character, like its economy, is never the province of a single leader. Nevertheless, Mr. Carter’s words were easy political pickings.
Mr. Reagan used Mr. Carter’s call for moderation as a kind of anvil to define the sitting president. “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Mr. Reagan asked. “Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago?”
As Jonathan Alter wrote in “His Very Best,” his excellent biography of Mr. Carter, “The politics of candor were terrible.”
Mr. Carter’s wise counsel made him an easy mark for anyone inclined to criticize him as a finger-wagging scold.
“If you have concerns about consumption in society, it’s very difficult not to sound moralizing and patronizing,” said Alison Hulme, associate professor of social and cultural change at the University of Northampton in England and the author of “A Brief History of Thrift.”
And so we got the opposite of what Mr. Carter wished for. Yuppies arrived in the 1980s, and the 1990s brought us Hummers to guzzle the gas that people had waited in line for 15 years earlier. In 2001, President George W. Bush wanted us to get back to our daily routines and fly to Disney World after the Sept. 11 attacks. And the Obama administration couldn’t bear to slice away at a whopping tax break that makes it much easier for affluent families to spend $400,000 per child on college.
Since then, the rise of social media has been marked, among other dreadful things, by lifestyle braggadocio and algorithms fine-tuned to serve scarily relevant ads. And then a man who named a gold-tinged tower after himself became our president.
Rarely has there been an acute need for collective financial sacrifice during these last few decades, or much of any other kind of national sacrifice for that matter. When a test has arrived, we haven’t exactly passed with flying colors.
A considerable ********* of Americans resented staying home and wearing masks during the early, uncertain stages of the coronavirus pandemic, amid ongoing protestations of a so-called loss of freedom.
“The tying together of rights with consumption is absolutely rife,” said Dr. Hulme, whose academic research focuses on both of those topics. “This drives me insane,” she added.
Mr. Kasser watched these developments with a sense of foreboding, because his research has shown that higher levels of materialism are associated with societal instability. The pandemic only turned up the heat on a roiling cauldron of social problems: growing economic inequality, horrific episodes of racism, worsening political divides and a deep mistrust in the legitimacy of our elections.
“And it’s not like advertising let up,” he said.
We will be tested again. Next time it may be a climate-related catastrophe, driven in part by the very patterns of consumption that Mr. Carter warned against in his speech. He called for turning down the thermostat in the winter and for 20 percent of the nation’s energy to come from solar power by 2000 — all these years later, we’ve done neither.
“I think in Carter’s mind there was some hope,” said Kevin Mattson, a professor of history at Ohio University and the author of a book about Mr. Carter’s speech, “What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?” “But I think there is profound doubt that we can muster the strength to do something about a problem that could destroy the planet.”
It seems unlikely that politicians today would give a speech anything like Mr. Carter’s address. That would violate the vague but powerful principle that American exceptionalism should not be questioned — that the answer to every national problem of any import is blunt-force innovation.
But it really isn’t always the answer, and Mr. Carter knew it. After voters determined that he was not the kind of president they wanted, he demonstrated a mostly humble form of public service: As he maintained an international diplomatic profile, he led ****** study sessions and built houses with Habitat for Humanity.
“Maybe seeing the kind of work that he did after his presidency is another sign of hope,” Professor Mattson said. “That someone can make an impact by being a citizen activist rather than by being president.”
We as individuals cannot block the sun or bridge the racial wealth gap. But we can do something — 5 or 10 or 20 percent more than we have done before. Individually, it won’t move the needle much, but change can be catching.
“I think of the knock-on effects it can have,” Dr. Hulme said. “It’s more about a kind of culture change that can potentially lead to larger groups of people questioning their own lifestyle.”
One way to begin is with a redefinition of thrift, a word that comes from similar root words as thrive. What if we cast it, as the author Ramit Sethi does, as a relentless focus on spending well on a few things that make us happiest and then radically paring back on the things that matter less?
“I want people to change the way they live because it might be nicer for them,” Dr. Hulme said.
Eventually, we’re going to have to try. And the longer we wait, the harder it will be.
Audio produced by Parin Behrooz.
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Scalpers may have a field day with the RTX 5090 this week
Scalpers may have a field day with the RTX 5090 this week
Nvidia’s upcoming GeForce RTX 5090 is expected to face limited availability from board partners, potentially leading to frustration for gamers eager to secure the flagship GPU. As per reports, the scarcity stems from Nvidia’s tight pricing margins on the RTX 50-series, which have reportedly made it increasingly difficult for board partners to profit from custom GPU designs.
According to VideoCardz, Nvidia’s approach to maintaining aggressive profit margins is placing significant financial strain on its manufacturing partners. One anonymous board partner even described the MSRP pricing structure as feeling “like charity,” highlighting how little room there is for profitability despite the premium retail cost of Nvidia’s flagship GPUs. This strategy, while beneficial for Nvidia’s bottom line, is creating a challenging environment for partners producing custom RTX 50-series cards.
The situation was further clarified by MSI China, which recently confirmed that the RTX 50-series, including the RTX 5090, will see limited supply. While Nvidia’s Founders Edition cards are expected to remain widely available, custom models featuring enhanced cooling solutions, factory overclocking, or unique designs could become increasingly hard to find. This limited availability might lead to higher demand and potential price hikes on the aftermarket.
One possible explanation has been cited to the increased cost of GDDR7 memory which is being moved onto the board partners by Nvidia. While board partners do have the option of buying the GDDR7 memory independently, the pricing is not as attractive as what Nvidia sells in bundles. As Nvidia continues to dominate the GPU market, it seems intent on retaining a larger share of the profits, leaving its partners struggling to make ends meet while still delivering high-quality, innovative designs.
Chiphell
For gamers and enthusiasts, the limited supply of custom RTX 5090 cards could evoke memories of previous GPU shortages, where high demand and low availability created chaos. Scalping and inflated secondary market prices may once again become an issue if Nvidia and its partners cannot strike a balance.
With the RTX 5090 set to launch soon, the high-performance GPU is expected to push boundaries in gaming and AI workloads. However, the availability of custom variants—often the most sought-after options—may be far from ideal. Gamers may want to stay vigilant and act quickly when pre-orders open, as securing an RTX 5090 could turn into a race against time.
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Full Sniper Elite Resistance Mission List—All Chapter Names
Full Sniper Elite Resistance Mission List—All Chapter Names
The Sniper Elite Resistance mission list takes us through every scenario. Main character Harry Hawker is the star of this show and you take the expert infantry marksman through a few intense missions as he looks to thwart Nazi oppression.
Sniper Elite Resistance is one of 2025’s first big hitters. While it’s a little rough around the edges, this is unmistakably a Sniper Elite game. It has the hallmarks we’re accustomed to: Gory killcams, long-range precision, dangerous AI, and expansive levels.
The final of these items is what we’re most curious about. Knowing how many missions it has can influence someone into buying Resistance. Or, if you’re already playing it, sometimes it’s good to know how many missions you’ve got left.
How Many Missions in Sniper Elite Resistance?
Behind Enemy Lines, fitting. Image by Insider Gaming
Sniper Elite Resistance has nine main missions to complete.
This total is slightly misleading though. Although nine missions are advertised, the first mission is relatively short and can be completed in 20-30 minutes—depending on your familiarity with Sniper Elite. Whereas the ninth and final mission is a traditional Epilogue—akin to Sniper Elite 5—which is over in no time at all.
Resistance’s game length and time to complete isn’t as extensive as its predecessor. However, there’s still plenty to keep you busy.
Complete Sniper Elite Resistance Mission List
Here’s every Sniper Elite Resistance Mission, along with a quick look at how many Collectibles each one has.
Mission Number
Mission Name
Number of Collectibles
#1
Behind Enemy Lines
1
#2
Dead Drop
20
#3
Sonderzüge Sabotage
19
#4
Collision Course
19
#5
******’s Cauldron
19
#6
Assault On Fort Rouge
19
#7
Lock, Stock And Barrels
19
#8
End Of The Line
19
#9
All Or Nothing
0
Again, you can see from the Collectibles list Mission 1 and 9 are nowhere as deep as the others. The first mission is still a decent-sized, linear affair designed to welcome you into the fray.
How Many Propaganda Challenges in Sniper Elite Resistance?
There are seven Propaganda Challenges to unlock and complete in Sniper Elite Resistance.
You unlock Propaganda Challenges by finding a unique poster in certain levels. This grants you access to special exercises including Stealth Challenges, Sniping Challenges, and a Combat Challenge.
Complete Sniper Elite Resistance Propaganda Challenges List
Take a peek at every Propaganda Challenge in Sniper Elite Resistance, as well as what they entail, and their score requirements.
Propaganda Challenge Number
Propaganda Challenge Name
Challenge Type
Points Required
#1
La Résistance
Stealth
Bronze: 2,000 Silver: 4,000 Gold: 6,000
#2
Le Sniper
Sniping
Bronze: 2,000 Silver: 4,000 Gold: 6,000
#3
Libération
Sniping
Bronze: 2,000 Silver: 4,000 Gold: 6,000
#4
Le Maquis Voit Tout
Sniping
Bronze: 2,000 Silver: 4,000 Gold: 6,000
#5
Prendre Le Maquis
Stealth
Bronze: 2,000 Silver: 4,000 Gold: 6,000
#6
La Voix Du Maquis
Stealth
Bronze: 2,000 Silver: 4,000 Gold: 6,000
#7
Pour Une France Libre
Combat
Bronze: 2,000 Silver: 4,000 Gold: 6,000
Do you think Sniper Elite Resistance has enough content? What new content do you hope is added during its lifecycle?
Check out the game’s complete Trophy and Achievement list for even more work to do. Plus, take some time to find out about the series’ history with our Sniper Elite chronology.
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A Billionaire Gave $1,000 to UMass Dartmouth Graduates. Some Missed Out.
A Billionaire Gave $1,000 to UMass Dartmouth Graduates. Some Missed Out.
Graduation day dawned on May 16 at the Franklin, Mass., home of Emma Yell and her partner, James Ristaino, but the rain was so heavy that it was hard to tell.
They had both hoped to cross the stage that day and receive their University of Massachusetts Dartmouth degrees after years of combining coursework with care for their now-8-year-old daughter, Elena.
The weather, however, was a problem. The rain-or-shine, no-cover ceremony meant that Elena, who uses tracheotomy and feeding tubes, would be exposed to the elements. The couple were not going to show up without her, and being there was just too risky.
Graduation went on without the family, and it came with a fabulous surprise for the seniors who were there: Rob Hale, a local telecom billionaire, turned up with over $1 million in duffel bags and handed $1,000 each to graduates as they got their degrees. They were to keep $500 for themselves and give $500 to help a person or an organization that needed it more than they did.
Because Ms. Yell and Mr. Ristaino weren’t there, they — like others among the 20 percent of the graduating class, which totaled 1,200 people, who missed the ceremony — did not get the money.
“You’ve got to show up,” Mr. Hale told People magazine when the tale of the rich man doling out $100 bills drew an enormous amount of media attention.
Like many people who heard the Hale tale, I didn’t know about the absent graduates. I had just wanted to learn what the ones who were present that day had done with the money. In October, the university sent an email on my behalf to every one of them, and people responded with the loveliest stories.
One nursing student gave her $500 to the Dana-Farber ******* Institute in Boston in honor of a family friend in treatment there who was probably going to die. A budding engineer handed the money over to her high school so the teachers who got her to college could put it to work with other teenagers. A third graduate, whose parents had moved to the United States from Cape Verde, used the money to help a Cape Verdean family rebuild a destroyed home.
But I got just as many notes from people like Ms. Yell. One graduate said she had missed the ceremony because her postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome flared up. Another had older parents, who could not have handled the weather, and did not want to leave them at home.
Paige Santos, another UMass Dartmouth graduate, has cerebral palsy and uses an electric scooter that would not have done well in the monsoon conditions. She said she would have given her $500 to the Special Olympics, where she once competed as a javelin thrower.
In this season of giving, what are we to make of a billionaire with a soft spot for striving graduates who draws a hard line on being present for the pomp and circumstance, no matter the circumstances? I couldn’t make sense of it, so I went to his office in Quincy, Mass., to ask.
Mr. Hale’s inspiration to give and keep giving first hit him at a high school Easter Seals hoop-athon. He raised over $1,500 making layups on a basketball court within a specified ******* of time. “I felt a kind of internal glow,” he told me when I asked him about that experience.
After college, he volunteered as a Big Brother to a boy who would later be in his wedding party. And as Mr. Hale built a high-flying start-up, saw it fall into bankruptcy and built a new one — Granite Telecommunications — he and his wife kept giving.
In 2022, the couple gave away $1 million each week. And this year, they donated $26.2 million to a variety of groups as part of Mr. Hale’s successful quest to finish the 26.2-mile Boston Marathon.
Set against this record, the decision to exclude people who couldn’t go to a graduation ceremony felt like an administrative oversight. So I took a few minutes to read Mr. Hale their emails aloud.
“Part of life is showing up,” he said in response, echoing what he told People magazine. “The message I want to be delivered for those who don’t attend by choice is, ‘Hey, this is a celebration of four years of hard work, and you’ve got to show up.’”
Surely another part of life, however, is having compassion for people who can’t show up on a particular day in specific conditions — but showed up repeatedly for four years or more to earn their diploma. It didn’t seem like anyone had ever looked Mr. Hale in the eye and put it that way.
“If there were medical circumstances, we can certainly make accommodations,” he said.
Ten days later, he changed his mind.
“Even though he is certainly sorry for the folks who could not make it, for any reason, there were still over 1,000 graduates that were there with him in the pouring rain for the commencement,” Katie Sheridan, his executive assistant, said via email. “He would like to stick with the original sentiment that you had to be there in order to receive the envelopes.”
Ryan C. Merrill, a UMass Dartmouth spokesman, said via email that under an agreement the school had signed, the $1,000 was only for students participating in the May 16 ceremony.
“With that said, the university remains committed to Mr. Hale’s vision for his philanthropic distribution, should that ever change,” Mr. Merrill wrote.
Ms. Yell, who had hoped that Mr. Hale would make an exception so she and her partner could support organizations that help children with special needs, said she was disappointed all over again.
“I just want people like me — or us — to be seen,” she said. “I feel constantly isolated in every way, and the graduation ceremony was just like the cherry on top of everything.”
But you had to be there, right? Sentiment, and all that. Otherwise, you don’t get seen by Mr. Hale, who told the crowd that “if you give a little bit more in your life, your life will be better for it.” Of your own heart, he added.
The Hales’ UMass Dartmouth gifts surpassed $1 million, and the cash in the unclaimed envelopes went into an endowed scholarship fund in the couple’s names. And they are not done. Mr. Hale told me that he and his wife were planning a similar giveaway at a school he would not name in order to preserve the element of surprise.
What’s that school to do about people who will not be able to go to its graduation in person?
UMass Dartmouth has an applied ethics minor, and I took this entire situation to one of its instructors, Catherine Villanueva Gardner, a professor of philosophy and women’s and gender studies.
“One of the things that philosophers discuss is that if you are a recipient of a gift, it comes with responsibilities,” she said.
This is crucial. The Hales should do what they want with their money. They earned it.
But nothing is stopping any institution from requiring donors to honor everyone or honor no one at all. A university probably wouldn’t draw attention from People magazine for turning the Hales’ money away, but it would make an excellent case study for its applied ethics department.
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Standoff at Ukrainian Procurement Agency Threatens to Disrupt Weapons Supply
Standoff at Ukrainian Procurement Agency Threatens to Disrupt Weapons Supply
A standoff between Ukraine’s defense minister and the official in charge of procuring weapons threatened to escalate on Monday, stirring dissent in the government at a critical time as it seeks to persuade President Trump to maintain American support for the war against Russia.
The dispute erupted three days ago when the minister, Rustem Umerov, said he would not renew the contract of Maryna Bezrukova, the head of the defense procurement agency, citing “unsatisfactory” results. But on Monday, Ms. Bezrukova said she would remain in her position, pointing out that her contract had been renewed by the agency’s supervisory board and that Mr. Umerov had no right to override that decision.
The agency was established to ensure transparency and efficiency in acquiring arms. Activists and some lawmakers, including a prominent one in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s party, denounced Mr. Umerov’s move as an abuse of power undermining anticorruption efforts.
“The minister’s action is a serious offense against our legislation and corporate governance,” Ms. Bezrukova said in an interview over the weekend, calling it an “attack” on the agency’s efforts to cut out questionable intermediaries Ukraine has sometimes relied on to buy weapons during the war.
She reported to her office on Monday, and it was unclear how the standoff would be resolved.
The dispute threatens to weaken an organization that managed over $7 billion in weapons procurement last year and had become a partner for Western allies channeling funds into Ukraine’s growing defense industry — a new initiative Kyiv aims to develop as an alternative for dwindling arms supplies from the West.
Western diplomats in Kyiv were meeting with government and agency officials on Monday to discuss the procurement situation, according to several attendees, who spoke anonymously to discuss private deliberations. Meanwhile, the head of the Ukrainian parliament’s anticorruption committee has called for Mr. Umerov’s resignation.
The Ukrainian defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment. It seems unlikely that Mr. Umerov will resign, as Mr. Zelensky has not offered any criticism so far.
This is not the first time the Ukrainian government has moved to oust officials with responsibility for reforming state institutions, some of whose efforts have caused internal friction. Last year, for instance, Oleksandr Kubrakov was fired as infrastructure minister for reasons never made clear.
But the attempt to dismiss Ms. Bezrukova comes as Ukraine is struggling to send enough weapons to its troops at the front and faces the risk of losing vital arms supplies from its key ally, the United States.
Activists are also concerned it sends the wrong message to Western partners, particularly U.S. Republicans, who have long expressed concerns about corruption in Ukraine. “What minister Umerov is doing is sabotaging our defense capabilities and our ability to keep the trust of our international partners regarding weapons procurement,” said Daria Kaleniuk, the executive director of Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center.
Mr. Umerov said in a post on Facebook that the agency had failed in the “timely supply of ammunition to our army” and had instead become embroiled in “political games, leaks of contracts, and leaks of information.” He did not provide specific examples.
Tamerlan Vahabov, a former adviser to Ms. Bezrukova who resigned last year, also criticized the agency, saying it had sometimes failed to effectively evaluate contracts. He asserted that the agency leaned too heavily on purchasing from state companies instead of directly sourcing from private suppliers.
Ms. Bezrukova was appointed at the head of the defense procurement agency a year ago, after Mr. Umerov took over as defense minister. He promised to root out corruption in the ministry following a series of revelations about mismanaged contracts for weapons and basic supplies such as food.
The main task of Ms. Bezrukova, who is a former top manager at the national electricity company, was to eliminate intermediaries — often shady arms dealers who were inflating prices. She said the agency had reduced intermediaries’ share of procurements from 81 percent in 2023 to just 12 percent last year. These figures could not be independently verified.
Ms. Bezrukova said her work led to tensions with the ministry. She claimed that defense officials pressured her to sign a contract with a state-owned Ukrainian weapons factory that lacked the workers and gunpowder to produce mortar shells. After being produced and sent to the front, many shells failed to fire, setting off a major scandal in Ukraine.
The defense ministry acknowledged that just over 20,000 shells had been withdrawn. But others believed the figure was much higher.
Mr. Vahabov said that even if she faced pressure, Ms. Bezrukova should have been more vocal in opposing the contract. He also said that she could have conducted more due diligence controls of production of the weapons at the factory. He claimed there were many “normative and administrative issues” with the agency’s structure that hindered the procurement work.
Ms. Bezrukova said she had hoped that the creation of a supervisory board at the agency late last year, a move applauded by Western partners, would help safeguard her independence. “I don’t want to be window dressing or a reputational washing machine,” she said in the interview Saturday.
However, a day before the board’s first meeting, on Dec. 17, the defense ministry amended the agency’s charter, effectively granting the ministry final authority over most of the board’s decisions. “They de facto sterilized the board’s authority,” said Yuriy Dzhygyr, the chairman of the board and a former deputy of Mr. Umerov.
After the supervisory board voted last week to extend Ms. Bezrukova’s contract for one year, Mr. Umerov said he would not renew her contract and announced the dismissal of two state representatives on the board, including Mr. Dzhygyr.
Ms. Kaleniuk, the anticorruption activist, said the charter does not grant the defense ministry a say in extending the agency head’s contract. The charter, reviewed by The New York Times, does, however, allow the defense ministry to dismiss any agency official “in the event of identified existing or potential threats to Ukraine’s national security.”
It remains unclear on what legal grounds Mr. Umerov decided to fire Ms. Bezrukova.
With Western partners, particularly European ones, unable to supply all the weapons Ukraine needs, the agency has helped enact an initiative that uses Western funds to pay for contracts signed with local arms manufacturers. The defense ministry said that more than half a billion dollars’ worth of weapons were produced through this new mechanism last year.
Whether that new mechanism will continue working given the current standoff is unclear.
“This is the worst possible time for Kyiv to turn back the clock on a defense reform success story: when Ukraine needs additional funding for weapons and cynical opponents in Moscow and in certain quarters of Washington are looking for reasons to cast doubt upon the integrity of Ukrainian defense governance,” the ******* Marshall Fund of the United States, a research institution, said.
Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting.
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Tails of Iron 2 Trophy and Achievement Guide
Tails of Iron 2 Trophy and Achievement Guide
In this trophy guide for Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter, I’m going to help you platinum the game as quickly and easily as possible.
As the title suggests, Tails of Iron 2 is a sequel to the 2021 game. Developed by Oddbug Studio, the second game has a new plot, meaning you’ll be able to enjoy the game even if you haven’t played the previous one.
Estimated time to platinum: 8-10 hours on Normal difficulty, less if you play on Easy.
Estimated difficulty: 5/10 on Normal
Missable trophies: None. Various activities are unlocked after completing the game.
Bugged trophies: None.
How to get every Tails of Iron 2 Trophies & Achievements
Collect All Medals Collect All Medals
Congrats, the platinum is yours!
Defeat 25 Death Marches Defeat 25 Death Marches in combat.
The Death Marches are the centipedes and can be found on the map Golden Forest. If you need to farm them, go to the location below during the Day:
Defeat 25 Tailspinners Defeat 25 Tailspinners in combat.
The Tailspinners are spiders and can be found in the map The Rift.
Defeat 25 BackStabbers Defeat 25 BackStabbers in combat.
Stabbers are porcupines and can be found on the Outskirts map during the day. If you need to farm for Stab kills, go to the location below during the Day:
Defeat 25 Mudwyrms Defeat 25 Mudwyrms in combat.
Mudwyrms can be found on the Outskirts map. If you need to farm them, go to the location below during the Day:
Defeat 25 Owl Cultists Defeat 25 Owl Cultists in combat.
The Owl Cultists can be found on the map The Golden Forest.
Defeat 25 Frogs Defeat 25 Frogs in combat.
This will probably be the first trophy you get in the game. If, like me, you did the main Chef mission first and then went on to do the Blacksmith mission, the trophy drops halfway through the Blacksmith mission.
Defeat 25 Birds Defeat 25 Birds in combat.
Birds are one of the enemy types in Tails of Iron 2. In the bestiary they are registered as Winged Beasts. They appear on the Outskirts map during the night. If you need to farm Bird kills, go to the location below during the Night:
Find the Magpies Spectacles Returning Maggi’s missing spectacles to her at Bogmire Forge.
After you complete the quest and unlock the Bogmire Forge, Maggi will appear with a glasses icon on her head. The glasses are relatively close to the NPC, under a broken bridge:
O óculos está nessa localização! (Imagem: Ruancarlo Silva)
Find the Herons Fishing Pole Returning Ernest’s missing Fishing Pole to him at the Lake in the Golden Forest.
AErnest’s fishing rod is with a Mole on the map Golden Forest. The Mole is using the rod to catch honey without getting his hands dirty.
To get this trophy, go to the NPC below on the Golden Forest map and buy Honey for 3c:
Compre o Mel com esse mercador! (Imagem: Ruancarlo Silva)
After buying the Honey, go to the Mole at the location below and give him the Honey. In return, he will give you Ernest’s Fishing Rod:
Entregue o mel aqui (Imagem: Ruancarlo Silva)
Then just go and give the rod to Ernest. His location is marked on the map with the green fishing rod icon.
Deliver The Late Moledonalds Deliver the late Moledonalds to Matt and Nath in their Outskirts bunker.
The McMole is a snack that can be found in a mole body on the map Outskirts. The exact location is below:
O lanche pode ser encontrado aqui! (Imagem: Ruancarlo Silva)
After finding the snack, return it to the two ****** on the Outskirts map. The delivery point is marked on the map in green. The icon resembles a fast food bag.
Complete Outskirts Hunts Complete all the hunts provided by the Mossbug Farm Elder.
Play the campaign as normal until you unlock the hunts at Mossbug Farm. A green icon will appear on the map when they are unlocked. This will only happen after you help free the farm.
Hunts list:
The Root of the Problem
Flocked Off
Fear the Sky
Scorch the Outskirts – It only shows up after finishing the game
Complete Golden Forest Hunts Complete all the hunts provided by the Sigrid in Nestminster.
You will unlock the Hunts in the Nestminster after completing the Chef’s mission. The hunts are as follows:
Hunt the Slither Scale
Hunt the Death March
Court of Owls
Scorch the Forest – It only shows up after finishing the game
The Slither Scale Pit
Death Marching
WereOwls Fear to Tread
Complete Rift Hunts Complete all the hunts provided by Short Tongue in Bogmire Forge.
You will only unlock the hunts in the Bogmire Forge after completing the main quests related to the place.
Hunts list:
A Wicked Web
Hunt the Stealth Claw
Requiescat in Pace
Revenge of the Frog
Scorch the Rift – It only shows up after finishing the game
Tailspinner’s Brood
Complete White Whiskers Hunt Complete all the hunts provided by Gray Ears in The Warren.
You will only unlock the hunts in the Warren after completing the main quests related to the place.
Hunts:
Ice Breaker (Boss)
Holes in the Ice (Boss)
Win The Crimson Keep Tournament Win the tournament in the Crimson Keep arena to win King Redgi’s trust.
Story-related trophy.
Collect All Tarot Cards Collect all the tarot cards and deliver them to Merlin at their hut in the Rift.
You will unlock the NPC Merlin and his hut in the Rift as part of a main story mission. The side quest involving the NPC asks you to retrieve 8 tarot cards.
Farmer’s Card – Bought from the badgers in the Golden Forest for 5c. You will automatically rescue them on your way to find Frey when you select the main quest Recruit a Chef.
A carta do Fazendeiro pode ser comprada aqui (Imagem: Ruancarlo Silva)
Knight’s Card – In the remains of a body on the map The Rift. I managed to collect it after defeating the last boss of the Blacksmith mission.
Counselor’s Card – Bought for 5c from Maggi at the Bogmire Forge. You need to find her glasses to enable her as a vendor.
Death Card – Bought for 5c from Maggi at the Bogmire Forge. You need to find her glasses to enable her as a vendor.
Druid Card – Bought for 5c from Merlin in Merlin’s Hut on the map The Rift. You only get the Druid’s Hut after completing the main quest Blessed Tools.
King’s Card – Bought for 5c from the NPC next to the Blacksmith in Crimson Keep.
Blacksmith’s Card – Bought for 5c from the NPC next to the Blacksmith in Crimson Keep.
Mendicant’s Card – Bought for 5c from the NPC Ernest after returning his Fishing Rod in the Golden Forest. See his side quest guide here.
Craft a Level 3 Weapon Craft a weapon from the level 3 section at the Smithy.
Self-explanatory trophy. Upgrade the Smith to the highest level, level 2, and set any weapon to the maximum level (gold color).
Craft a Level 3 Cuirass Craft a cuirass from the level 3 section at the Smithy.
Self-explanatory trophy. Upgrade the Smith to the highest level, level 2, and set any armor to the maximum level (gold color).
Full Belly Cook all meals at the Chef.
Meal 1:
Prepared automatically when you complete the story missions.
Meal 2 (You need the Kitchen on Level 1):
You will need three ingredients, a bag of herbs, milk and a banana. The three ingredients can be bought from the NPC Marco next to the kitchen after completing the main quest to rescue him. Each ingredient costs 10c.
Meal 3 (Needs the Kitchen on Level 2):
You will need three ingredients, a can resembling tomato sauce, cheese and bread. The three ingredients can be bought from the NPC Marco next to the kitchen. Each costs 10c.
Flying Turtle Take a ride with Burtle in his flying contraption.
Story-related trophy.
Build Level 3 Builder Upgrade the builder to its highest level.
All the buildings in Tails of Iron 2 have three levels: Base, Level 1 and Level 2. Check out the requirements for all the Builder’s Yard upgrades below:
Base (Unlocked in campaign):
Rescue the NPC Billy the Builder Beaver
Wood Log: 5x
Stone: 5x
Level 1:
Wood Log: 5x
Clay: 5x
Stone: 5x
Small Bone: 5x
Level 2:
Wood Plank: 5x
Stone: 10x
Clay: 10x
Large Bone: 5x
Build Level 3 Smith Upgrade the smith to its highest level.
All the buildings in Tails of Iron 2 have three levels: Base, Level 1 and Level 2. Check out the requirements for all the Smith upgrades below:
Base (Unlocked in campaign):
Smiths Leather Gloves: 1x
Stone: 5x
Clay: 5x
Level 1:
Builder’s Yard on Level 1
Smith’s Tongs: 1x (Obtained during main quest)
Stone: 5x
Clay: 5x
Stealth Claw Lamp: 1x
Level 2:
Construction Yard on Level 2
Smith Apron: 1x (Obtained during main quest)
Smith’s Tools: 1x (Obtained during main quest)
Stone: 5x
Clay: 5x
Build Level 3 Chef Upgrade the chef to its highest level.
All the buildings in Tails of Iron 2 have three levels: Base, Level 1 and Level 2. Check out the requirements for all the Chef upgrades below:
Base (Unlocked in campaign):
Chefs Pot: 1x
Stone: 5x
Wood Log: 5x
Level 1:
Builder’s Yard on Level 1
Stone: 5x
Wood Log: 5x
Slither Scale Tail: 1x
Level 2:
NPC Marco the Farmer
Slither Scale Tail: 1x (Obtained in a Hunt)
Giant Death March Fire Tail: 1x (Obtained in a Hunt)
Build Level 3 Shop Upgrade the shop to its highest level.
All the buildings in Tails of Iron 2 have three levels: Base, Level 1 and Level 2. Check out the requirements for all the Shop upgrades below:
Base:
Golden Beak: 1x
Wood Log: 5x
Stone: 5x
Small Bone: 5x
Level 1:
Wood Plank: 5x
Iron Ingot: 5x
Small Bone: 10x
Backstabber Quill: 1x
Level 2:
Wood Plank: 5x
Large Bone: 5x
Backstabber Quill: 1x
Poison Mudwyrm Tail: 1x
Defeat Harat Bluefang Defeat the Draugr in the Tomb of the Old King.
To defeat the draugr in the Tomb of the Old King, you’ll need to collect four rune stones to open the Tomb. Check out the location of the runestones below:
Runestone #1:
The first Runestone to be placed in the Tomb is at the entrance to the Tomb.
Runestone #2:
The second Rune Stone can be obtained on the Golden Forest map after completing a main mission. At the end of the mission, you’ll get the Elder Strygid Skull item. Go to the location below and place the Skull on the altar. At the end of the path you will find the second Rune Stone.
Rune Stone #3:
Bought with Tuck on the Winter Threshold for 10c. You can only enable Tuck as a merchant in the base after completing the main mission Tuck’s Emporium.
Rune Stone #4:
The fourth and final Runestone can be obtained by retrieving Merlin’s 8 cards. Check out where to find them all by clicking here.
The fight against the boss is very easy. Go with a armor set that grants poison resistance and use weapons that deal fire damage. In the third phase, where he uses the double axes, try to keep your distance and use charged attacks with the firearm and spells.
In the Ice Peaks Bind Them Defeat Count Kazak at the top of Mount Cauldron.
Story-related.
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How Unauthorized Immigrants Help Finance Social Security Benefits
How Unauthorized Immigrants Help Finance Social Security Benefits
The Social Security Administration receives billions in free money each year from an unexpected source: undocumented immigrants.
This group paid an estimated $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes in 2022, according to a recent analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning tax research group. Since unauthorized workers cannot collect retirement and other Social Security benefits without a change to their immigration status, the billions they pour into the program effectively act as a subsidy for American beneficiaries.
President-elect Donald J. Trump has vowed to carry out the nation’s largest mass deportation program to date, and restrict legal pathways to immigration. It’s hard to predict whether the incoming administration will be able to follow through with its most aggressive promises, among them sending home the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States, most of whom are of working age.
But if the White House does follow through, economists project a broad drag on the economy — and it could cost Social Security roughly $20 billion in cash flow annually, according to actuaries at the Social Security Administration, which sends benefits to 68 million Americans each month, totaling $1.5 trillion last year.
Social Security has faced a financing shortfall for years, partly because of demographic shifts. Falling birthrates mean fewer people are paying into the program, thousands of baby boomers are retiring daily, and retirees are collecting benefits for longer periods.
“America’s demographic realities are increasingly challenging for financing programs like Social Security,” said Shai Akabas, executive director of the economic policy program at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonprofit. “Net immigration into the country is one factor that has positively pushed against that trend and helped fill the gap left by an aging work force.”
The trust fund that pays Social Security’s retiree benefits is expected to run dry in 2033, when tax revenue will be enough to pay 79 percent of scheduled benefits. That means beneficiaries’ checks would be reduced by 21 percent if Congress did nothing. (Legislators are expected to do something, though there is a debate about the best approach to shore up the program.)
Major shifts to immigration policy could have ripple effects on Social Security. The net immigration rate was projected to drive population growth — and account for all population increases beginning in 2040 because American fertility rates are so low, according to a 2024 report from the Congressional Budget Office.
“If the immigrant work force declines, that will likely worsen Social Security’s financial picture in the near term and require more significant reforms elsewhere,” said Mr. Akabas of the Bipartisan Policy Center, which recently studied the issue. “That said, the broader questions of immigration policy and border security require careful thought that goes beyond their impact on the Social Security program.”
To get a sense of how different levels of immigration — both lawful and otherwise — can alter the program’s finances over the long term, we can look at the Social Security Administration’s latest annual trustees report, which forecasts the financial health of the combined trust fund for retiree and disability benefits over a 75-year ******* starting in 2024. (Social Security’s shortfall is often measured as a percentage of the total payroll covered by the program, or all the wages subject to payroll taxes, the program’s dedicated funding source.)
The trustees’ best estimate assumes a population of 1.24 million net immigrants each year. At that rate, the program needs an additional 3.5 percent of its taxable payroll to become fully solvent. But if annual net immigration fell to 829,000 (its low estimate), the program’s long-term financing shortfall would worsen by about 10 percent (to 3.9 percent of taxable payroll from 3.5 percent).
But if net immigrants rose to nearly 1.7 million annually, the financing shortfall would improve by 10 percent (to 3.1 percent of payroll).
In other words, for every 100,000 net immigrants each year, the funding gap is improved by 0.09 percent of taxable payroll.
“Most of these individuals are earlier in their careers and begin contributing to Social Security immediately, even though they will not claim benefits for years into the future, if ever,” a Bipartisan Policy Center report said. “This creates a net positive effect on the Social Security system.”
Undocumented workers are still required to pay taxes on any income earned in the United States, and it’s estimated that at least half of them file federal tax returns. But even if they have contributed to payroll taxes, they are not permitted to collect any Social Security benefits and many other credits, including the earned-income tax credit, which requires that all tax filers and their dependents have valid Social Security numbers.
Employers are generally required to verify prospective workers’ identities and their eligibility to work using the I-9 form, and to collect documentation as evidence. Since people generally need a Social Security number to get a job, undocumented workers who receive paychecks — instead of being paid in cash, for example — may use made-up Social Security numbers, another person’s number or a number that was once valid when they had work authorization status.
But when they file their tax returns, they use another number: the individual taxpayer identification number, also nine digits and known as ITINs. The Internal Revenue Service created them in 1996 to enable people who are ineligible or who do not have Social Security numbers to legally file tax returns and comply with tax laws — say, a student visa holder or certain spouses of people with employment visas.
Though undocumented workers may fear that their having obtained an ITIN could be used to deport them, there are protections that prevent the I.R.S. from sharing taxpayer information with other federal agencies. Congress would need to take legislative action for this to change.
Undocumented workers often file tax returns to show good moral character, which might later help them in any immigration cases, whether that’s related to deportation or putting them on the road to citizenship.
“They want to integrate into American society, and this is an important way to do that,” said Sarah Lora, an associate clinical professor at Lewis & Clark Law School and the director of its low-income-taxpayer clinic. “There is almost a reverence for the tax system,” she said, referring to the attitudes of undocumented taxpayers she has assisted with returns.
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that undocumented workers paid a total of $96.7 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2022, a third of which went toward the payroll taxes that are dedicated to paying for social insurance programs, including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment taxes.
“It is well established that undocumented workers contribute to the solvency of major social insurance programs through their tax contributions,” said Carl Davis, research director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
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Nvidia RTX 5090D experiment bakes the label off a 750W SFX power supply
Nvidia RTX 5090D experiment bakes the label off a 750W SFX power supply
******** tech video channel Eixa Studio tested one of Nvidia’s powerful new GeForce RTX 5090D graphics cards this weekend (h/t Uniko’s Hardware). What makes this video stand out from the pack, though, is that the channel investigated whether the “monster grade card with DLSS 4” would be feasible to shoehorn into a Mini ITX PC build and used a decidedly underspec’d power supply for their experiment. While this ambitious PC DIY project was a success – the system ran without restarts or crashes – one of the little SFX PSUs that was tested got so hot its barcode label started to disintegrate.
Eixa introduced the video with an overview of the GeForce RTX 5090D. The Bilibili channel had access to a substantial looking (360 x 149 x 71mm) Colorful iGame GeForce RTX 5090D Vulcan OC model. This sports quad fans (one round the back) and a pivoting detachable display. A 1,000W PSU is recommended, according to Colorful’s product pages, which seems reasonable for a card rated at 600W, but enthusiasts would be advised to pick something with a little more headroom.
The ******** TechTuber wanted this 360mm card to fit into a prototype 15.8-liter Mini ITX chassis they had received. This case’s max compatibility figures stated that GPUs up to 362mm in length could be accommodated. Great, that would leave 2mm of ‘breathing space.’
Now comes the power crunch
Moving onto power, Eixa noted that the case was supposed to be compatible with PSUs up to 140mm long. On PC Part Picker, we see it is quite easy to grab an 850W PSU for about $100, which fits this constraint. However, high-efficiency PSUs of >1,000W can easily double this expected price, and a desirable compact SFX unit like the SilverStone Extreme 1200R Platinum SFX-L we reviewed in November is currently on offer at $330 on Amazon.
Image 1 of 4
(Image credit: ******** tech video channel Eixa Studio )
(Image credit: ******** tech video channel Eixa Studio )
(Image credit: ******** tech video channel Eixa Studio )
(Image credit: ******** tech video channel Eixa Studio )
Eixa chose three PSUs to test out in this Mini ITX build project. The first was the headlining Seasonic Focus SFX 750W model. However, they are clear that they “wouldn’t recommend anyone use this wattage” (machine translation). During a 20-minute Furmark run with the 750W PSU, Eixa seemed pleased that the system experienced “no ****** screen or reboots.” Thanks to the tests, including the view of a plug-in power meter, we can see that the little Seasonic could deliver a sustained 1,000W+. However, as our main image shows, the barcode label on the PSU began to bake and disintegrate, even after this relatively short test run.
After the Seasonic Focus SFX 750W power test, Eixa said that it isn’t recommended to use an underpowered PSU like this to shoulder such a power burden in your PC at home. They recommended at least a 1,000W PSU for smooth running (as per Colorful’s specs). This should also ensure better temperatures and avoid power limiting with these choice components. The TechTubers also tested a more appropriately selected Asus ROG Loki SFX-L 1,000W Platinum PSU and a Cooler Master SFX V1300 Platinum, which handled the ITX PC system’s power demands much better.
Eixa also used an AMD Ryzen 9800X3D processor (120W) for this compact yet powerful build. This chip’s gaming performance was demonstrably devastating to the competition during our labs investigations, so it’s the best match for the 5090D. An Asus ROG Strix X870-i Gaming WiFi ITX motherboard was the other major component chosen for this build. This board was launched at Gamescom last year, but we haven’t reviewed it (yet).
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This Eixa channel seems to like pushing PSUs to their limits. They note in this video that the last build to use this ITX chassis mixed an RTX 4090 and a Core i9-12900K, but the chosen 1,000W Silverstone SFX PSU endured just 20 minutes before it died.
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