Futurology Today

It is done. Now I rest.

Today's game is Sea of Thieves. For the first time ever me and some friends managed to get a full crew together and sailed my ship. We even managed to get our resident chef and arsonist to join us. He adds an extra challenge because the only thing he really does is stand at the stove and let food cook. He never really cycles it off so we have to make sure to regularly take food off the stove for him. He does help out though, like in the screenshot above where he fell asleep at the map. He was talking in his sleep about Gophers. I ended up laying down next to him and joining him for a little nap. He ended up sleeping through an entire battle with a megaladon.

The fight was over the ocean during the middle of the day, and i don't know if it's my fancy new gaming rig or the water got an update, but god is this gorgeous. The light was playing with the waves and it looked so good i almost forgot we were being attacked by a huge ass shark and down a man.

We did a sea fort, and while my friends were looting it, one of them tried bringing the boat up and got it stuck, and i went to go get it unstuck. I ended up getting it free quickly, and i got this lovely view of the sunset.

We ended off our night with this wonderful parking job done by my first mate, who was distracted after our chef threw a fire bomb at him and then stopped the anchor from descending. It all turned out okay though, because my ship was undamaged. Just stuck in a tight squeeze. It's future me's problem though.

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 51 people on Monday, including 24 at a seafront rest area, as fresh calls grew for a ceasefire in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

US President Donald Trump has recently urged Israel to "make the deal in Gaza", while key mediator Qatar said Monday that "momentum" had been created by the truce with Iran last week.

But on the ground, Israel has continued to pursue its offensive across the Palestinian territory in a bid to destroy the militant group Hamas.

Gaza's civil defence agency said 51 people had been killed by Israeli forces on Monday, including 24 in a strike on a rest area on Gaza City's seafront.

"The place is always crowded with people because the rest area offers drinks, family seating and internet access," eyewitness Ahmed Al-Nayrab, 26, told AFP, recalling a "huge explosion that shook the area".

"I saw body parts flying everywhere, and bodies cut and burned... It was a scene that made your skin crawl."

Another eyewitness, Bilal Awkal, 35, said "blood covered the ground and screams filled the air".

"Women and children were everywhere, like a scene from a movie about the end of the world."

Approached for comment by AFP, the Israeli army said it was "looking into" the reports.

The Hamas government media office reported that photojournalist Ismail Abu Hatab was among those killed in the strike.

Israeli restrictions on media in Gaza and difficulties in accessing some areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers and authorities in the territory.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 27 others were killed by Israeli strikes or fire across Gaza, including 11 near aid points in the centre and south.

Eyewitnesses and local authorities have reported repeated killings of Palestinians near distribution centres in recent weeks, after Israel began allowing in a trickle of aid at the end of May.

Samir Abu Jarbou, 28, told AFP by phone that he had gone with relatives to pick up food in an area of central Gaza around midnight.

"Suddenly the (Israeli) army opened fire, and drones started shooting. We ran away and got nothing," he said.

In the southern city of Khan Yunis, the dead and wounded were rushed to a hospital in an open-top trailer after aid seekers said they were fired on by Israeli forces in Rafah.

"The targeting was deliberate, aimed at people as they were leaving," eyewitness Aboud al-Adwi told AFP.

"There was no one among us who was wanted or posed any threat. We were all civilians, simply trying to get food for our children," he added.

AFP footage from Nasser Hospital showed the wounded being treated on a blood-stained floor.

The Israeli military did not immediately provide comment when asked by AFP about the civil defence reports.

Netanyahu had said on Sunday that Israel's "victory" over Iran had created "opportunities", including for freeing hostages.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid, meanwhile, called for an end to the fighting in the territory on Monday, saying there was "no longer any benefit" to the war.

"We now face the completion of the campaign in Gaza, to achieve its objectives -- foremost among them, the release of all hostages and the defeat of Hamas," Defence Minister Israel Katz said during a meeting with Netanyahu and the army's general staff.

Trump had said on Friday that he was hoping for a new ceasefire in Gaza "within the next week". Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is in Washington this week for talks with US officials.

Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari told journalists on Monday that "momentum" had been created by the Iran-Israel ceasefire on June 24, but that "we won't hold our breath for this to happen today and tomorrow".

Unusually aggressive lone star ticks, common in the south-east, are spreading to areas previously too cold for them

Blood-sucking ticks that trigger a bizarre allergy to meat in the people they bite are exploding in number and spreading across the US, to the extent that they could cover the entire eastern half of the country and infect millions of people, experts have warned.

Lone star ticks have taken advantage of rising temperatures by the human-caused climate crisis to expand from their heartland in the south-east US to areas previously too cold for them, in recent years marching as far north as New York and even Maine, as well as pushing westwards.

The ticks are known to be unusually aggressive and can provoke an allergy in bitten people whereby they cannot eat red meat without enduring a severe reaction, such as breaking out in hives and even the risk of heart attacks. The condition, known as alpha-gal syndrome, has proliferated from just a few dozen known cases in 2009 to as many as 450,000 now.

Artist: Yunimaru | pixiv | twitter | danbooru

Full quality: .png 4 MB (2020 × 2845)

Five years from 2030: aligning knowledge and action on sustainability

@science

https://council.science/news/hlpf-2025/?utm%5C_source=rss&utm%5C_medium=rss&utm%5C_campaign=hlpf-2025

It’s funny watching console gamers mourn the “death” of Xbox.

I was a diehard fan of the original Xbox and 360. But to me, Xbox actually died back in December 2012—the day Valve launched Big Picture mode. That’s when every PC suddenly became a console.

The only reason I ever bought an Xbox in the first place was because it brought PC gaming into the living room. The original Xbox was basically a stripped-down PC with a custom OS—and I loved it for that. Finally, I had PC-grade performance on my TV.

But let’s be real: Valve ate Microsoft’s lunch. And with the Steam Deck, they came back for seconds.

The good news? Microsoft finally seems to understand that Valve—not Sony—is their real competition. And now they’re answering with the Xbox handheld.

About time.

I found this nice looking COTW while kayaking the other day growing on a downed tree in the middle of the river.

For years now, U.S. police departments have employed officers who are trained to be experts in detecting "drugged driving." The problem is, however, that the methods those officers use are not based on science, according to a new editorial in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (JSAD).

With marijuana now legal in many U.S. states, the need for reliable tests for marijuana impairment is more pressing than ever. Police can evaluate alcohol-intoxicated drivers by using an objective measure of breath alcohol results. But there is no "breathalyzer" equivalent for marijuana. The drug is metabolized differently from alcohol, and a person's blood levels of THC (the main intoxicating chemical in marijuana) do not correlate with impairment.

So law enforcement relies on subjective tactics—roadside tests and additional evaluations by police officers specially trained to be so-called drug recognition experts (DREs). These officers follow a standardized protocol that is said to detect drug impairment and is said to even determine the specific drug type, including marijuana.

The process involves numerous steps, including tests of physical coordination; checking the driver's blood pressure and pulse; squeezing the driver's limbs to determine if the muscle tone is "normal" or not; and examining pupil size and eye movements.

But while the protocol has the trappings of a scientific approach, it is not actually based on evidence that it works, said perspective author William J. McNichol, J.D., an adjunct professor at Rutgers University Camden School of Law.