Futurology Today

No premiere date announced yet. This isn't a newly announced project, but this is the first time they unveiled the title. Check out the ANN article for additional information. Synopsis from AniList:

A series of shorts showing the daily lives of Chisato, Takina, and others employed in Cafe LycoReco. Each episode is storyboarded and directed by a different director. The project is supervised by Lycoris Recoil director Shingo Adachi with Lycoris Recoil character designer Imigimuru handling scripts for a few episodes.

Here's everyone performing at the presidential inauguration : NPR

President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to be sworn into office on Jan. 20 — and unlike his first inauguration in 2017, which reportedly struggled to book high-profile performers, several well-known artists will partake in this year's inaugural events.

"The Trump Vance Inaugural Committee is proud to announce that some of our nation's most iconic [musicians] will be participating in the inaugural celebrations," said co-chairs Steve Witkoff and Kelly Loeffler in a statement provided to NPR. "This monumental weekend will commemorate President Trump's historic victory and the 60th Presidential Inauguration with a celebration of music, unity, and patriotism, ushering in America's new Golden Age."

Below is a list of the artists scheduled to perform throughout inaugural events, not including a surprise musical guest set to appear at the Liberty Ball.

Carrie Underwood

Country star Carrie Underwood, who jump-started her career as the winner of American Idol two decades ago, is set to perform "America the Beautiful" during the swearing-in ceremony.

"I love our country and am honored to have been asked to sing at the Inauguration and to be a small part of this historic event," Underwood said in a statement provided to NPR. "I am humbled to answer the call at a time when we must all come together in the spirit of unity and looking to the future."

Christopher Macchio

Classical tenor Christopher Macchio will perform the national anthem during the swearing-in ceremony. In a video posted to his YouTube page, Macchio stated that he first met Trump when Elton John dropped out of a New Year's Eve performance at Mar-a-Lago and Macchio was hired to fill in.

Lee Greenwood

Lee Greenwood, whose song "I.O.U." won a 1984 Grammy for best vocal country performance, will perform at the swearing-in ceremony and the Make America Great Again Victory Rally. Greenwood has received five additional Grammy nominations over the years and was heavily featured at last summer's Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

"I am humbled and honored to be asked to perform for our 47th President Donald J. Trump during his inaugural events," Greenwood said in a statement provided to NPR. "The President has been a friend of [my wife] Kim [Payne] and I's for many years and this is one of the most historical moments in our lifetime. I look forward to celebrating this special day with proud Americans everywhere."

Kid Rock

Kid Rock, who has been a vocal supporter of Trump since his first term and also performed at the Republican National Convention, is set to take the stage at the Make America Great Again Victory Rally. Last summer, the Michigan singer-songwriter headlined the touring festival Rock the Country, which celebrated a fusion of MAGA politics and country music.

Village People

The disco band Village People, led by surviving original member Victor Willis, will perform at two events: the Make America Great Again Victory Rally and the Liberty Ball. The group's 1978 hit song "Y.M.C.A." was a staple at Trump's campaign rallies, even leading to a viraldance. In a Facebook post, Willis, who penned the song's lyrics, wrote that the campaign's use of the song had widely boosted its popularity, including landing it at the top of the Billboard dance digital song sales chart.

Willis went on to write that while Trump's use of "Y.M.C.A." had drawn controversy because the song has been widely adopted as an unofficial gay anthem, it is "a false assumption" that the song intentionally carries a queer subtext. In light of the announcement that Village People would partake in the presidential inauguration, Willis again took to Facebook.

"We know this won't make some of you happy to hear however we believe that music is to be performed without regard to politics," a statement posted to both Willis' and the group's official pages reads. "Our song Y.M.C.A. is a global anthem that hopefully helps bring the country together after a tumultuous and divided campaign where our preferred candidate lost. Therefore, we believe it's now time to bring the country together with music which is why VILLAGE PEOPLE will be performing at various events as part of the 2025 Inauguration of Donald J. Trump."

Billy Ray Cyrus

Billy Ray Cyrus, who shared his support for Trump on the campaign trail, will perform at the Make America Great Again Victory Rally. The "Achy Breaky Heart" singer most recently won two 2020 Grammys for his feature on a remix of Lil Nas X's country-crossover hit, "Old Town Road." His daughter, pop star Miley Cyrus, has openly criticized Trump.

Liberty University's Praise Choir

LU Praise is a gospel choir "dedicated to glorifying God through testimony, song, and worship," according to Liberty University's website. The group will perform during the Make America Great Again Victory Rally.

Jason Aldean

Country singer-songwriter Jason Aldean, who introduced Trump at a campaign rally in Georgia, will perform at the Liberty Ball. After the attempted assassination on Trump in Pennsylvania last summer, Aldean dedicated a performance of his song "Try That in a Small Town" to the then-candidate while on tour. On Election Day, he reaffirmed his support for Trump on Instagram.

"Over the past several years we have taken a lot of heat from the entertainment industry and the media for our support of @realdonaldtrump," Aldean wrote. "As a father and an American citizen, I want to see our country get back to its values and principles that made us great to begin with."

Rascal Flatts

Nashville country trio Rascal Flatts — which found commercial success with songs like "What Hurts the Most," "Prayin' for Daylight" and a cover of Tom Cochrane's "Life is a Highway" — will perform at the Commander in Chief Ball. After a hiatus, the band recently reunited and announced its 2025 Life is a Highway Tour.

Parker McCollum

Country singer Parker McCollum, whose No. 1 songs on Billboard's Country Airplay chart include "Burn It Down" and "Pretty Heart," will perform at the Commander in Chief Ball.

Gavin DeGraw

Gavin DeGraw, the singer-songwriter who broke out onto the pop charts with his 2003 album, Chariot, will perform at the Starlight Ball. His song "I Don't Want to Be," which grew in popularity as the theme song for The CW's teen drama One Tree Hill, was certified platinum in the U.S.

From the article:

Risky play is associated with greater resilience, self-confidence, problem-solving and social skills such as cooperation, negotiation and empathy, according to studies by Sandseter and others. When a study in Leuven, Belgium, gave four- and six-year-olds just two hours a week of opportunities for risky play over the course of three months, their risk-assessment skills improved compared with those of children in a control group2. In this study, the risky play took place at school, in a gym class and in the classroom.

You’re lucky – an overhead cubby and 3 drawers. Plenty of places to hide booze.

Man beachte den freundlichen Hintergrund

Summary

The Biden administration has declassified its secret support for Ukraine’s drone industry, revealing over $2.3 billion in investments, including $1.5 billion last year, to bolster Ukraine's drone production amid its fight against Russia.

U.S. assistance included funding, technical support, and intelligence collaboration to improve Ukraine’s drone capabilities.

Drones have been critical in Ukraine's defense, notably destroying a quarter of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

This effort began after Ukraine’s 2022 counteroffensive and expanded post-2023, with lessons being integrated into U.S. defense strategies.

ÖGB = österreichischer Gewerkschaftsbund, Anm.

Ja, meinen Tippfehler habe ich gesehen. Nein ich werde ihn nicht reparieren. Seid echte KerlInnen - steht zu euren Fehlern.

HP SpaceBall | Mark Richards

Hewlett—Packard's Spacehall was a 3D interactive motion controller targeted at users of Computer Aided Design/Manufacturing and Engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE) systems as well as 3D visualization and simulation applications. The controller's design and manufacture was by Spacetec IMC, who then licensed the design to other companies, including IBM and Hewlett-Packard.

The Spaceball allowed the user to move and rotate a simulated on-screen object as if they were holding it in their hand. Designers could thus build, modify, and inspect their designs using natural, intuitive hand gestures. This improvement in interactivity resulted in improved 'design comprehension' by the Spacehall user since the link between hand and screen was optimized via its sphere to map onto any 3D object's three canonical dimensions.

To further reduce time spent on repetitive gestures or keystrokes, Spaceball's accompanying software, SpaceWare, allowed all eight Spacehall function buttons to be mapped onto CAD program functions.

As described in a product brochure, Spaceball was used in conjunction with a mouse so that when interacting with an on screen 3D object the user would 'gently push, pull or twist the Spaceball's PowerSensor ball for smooth and dynamic manipulation'' of the object. Software to interface with the device was available for Windows and Unix, covering both major design platforms, either personal computers or more powerful workstations.

Several different companies had created similar commercially available devices, based on a user's manipulation of a sphere, as early as 1988. One of Spaceball's more interesting moments came during the NASA Mars Pathfinder mission in which a Spacehall controller was used to navigate the Sojourner rover from Earth. Using its spherical input, Spaceball enabled an engineer to push forward, pull back or twist side-to-side, manipulating the movements of the rover from their desktop 131 million miles away with a life-like six degrees of freedom.

Tweet

~~A bit more context~~ looks like she didnt have much to do with the creation of blueskkky my bad

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been criticised after publishing a statement on Wednesday night which welcomed the ceasefire in Gaza but recalled the "massacre of Jewish people" while saying that Palestinians "lost their lives".

The contrasting language used to describe Israelis and Palestinians killed in the conflict has been a constant source of scrutiny with activists arguing that the deaths of Palestinians are downplayed by media outlets and government.

Points of contention have been not mentioning the perpetrators of Palestinian deaths, which is invariably Israel, and also using the passive voice when talking about those killed.

Middle East Eye has contacted Downing Street to ask how the prime minister believed the Palestinians he referred to had died. At the the time of publication, Downing Street had not responded.

Almost four years after our reporting on the games industry's unseen crunch at outsourcing studios in SE Asia, Chris received an email that demanded we return to this story once again.

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Created by Chris Bratt:
twitter.com/chrisbratt
bsky.app/profile/chrisbratt.bsky.social

And Anni Sayers:
twitter.com/anni_sayers

Stock footage: Getty Images
(Jakarta, Indonesia | Video supplied by Anadolu via Getty images)

Music & SFX: Epidemic Sound

00:00 - The biggest games story you didn't hear last year
02:35 - What we reported in 2021
04:22 - The games industry's lack of response
06:12 - How Christa joined Brandoville
07:24 - Cherry's behaviour worsens
12:49 - My emails with Christa from 2021
13:24 - Christa defends Brandoville from PMG's reporting
15:14 - Brandoville is a part of the games industry!
15:46 - Things escalate once again
21:21 - Cherry's punishments become more physical
27:01 - Financial abuse
31:23 - Syifa's story
37:27 - Brandoville shuts down
39:35 - Christa escapes
41:24 - No viral, no justice
42:21 - Where are we now?
45:40 - Why you haven't already heard this story
48:10 - Support PMG on Patreon!

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/28819332

So… this is news to me, because I don’t have a VR headset, but I can set my Viture Pro XR glasses into SBS (side by side) mode by pressing the small button longer. Some games, like EliteDangerous, can do this as well without fiddling around with Reshade. I didn’t really expect it but it just works. This way I even get 3D on foot, which is not supported for VR in Elite Dangerous Odyssey at all! Side by side Crosseye mode (right eye left, left eye right) though? Add some head tracking to the mix, which is totally possible, and I get a very nice VR-like experience even on foot in Elite Dangerous – and on Linux PC!

This is the SBS version that does REQUIRE VR/XR glasses and mebbe something like xr-video-player: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEtRijojBx8

This is the MONO version that does NOT require VR/XR glasses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYPTk1vygM4

The FOV is somewhat cramped. No idea if this can be tweaked any further but I’ll fiddle with the settings on my next test. Mebbe this can be tweaked (or I use #Breezy Desktop to zoom in somewhat).

Update: I got the aspect ratio somewhat under control. It’s not perfect but much better and an odd combination of window mode and resolution and upscaling, that somehow affects the HUD only but make no sense to me at all. At this point I think it’s simply a bug of Elite. It’s like the HUD doesn’t get the memo to scale up after the intro played. I’m also not sure if this is a side effect of gamescope but I can totally live with this result.

New footage with better aspect ratio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qdvfdpTy_k

New footage with better aspect ratio framepacked, which MAY just work with VR (or fall back to anaglyph) – the YT FAQ is very thin on 3D content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWYYJTqnpz8

This plunger is very good for clearing out a clogged sink. Much better than any other plunger I've tried before.