Josh explains that all Genesis music is bad. Robert only has sub-standards for video games. Chris arm-chair quarterbacks the Persona 3 remake. Not the ramp!

The post RPG Cast – Episode 696: “Have You Met Video Game Fans?” appeared first on RPGamer.

Kelley builds a fan mod alternate LEGO Sonic build. Josh learns not to read the wiki...any wiki. Matt digs through Infinity's trash to find out when the money ran out. Chris is watching the anime...but it's not good either.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 733: “You Don’t Have to Go Home but You Can’t Fish Here” appeared first on RPGamer.

Josh gives us a time to head pat update. Kelley has "unfriendly" written on her vet notes. Robert has spent 10,000 years in the friend zone. Chris designs a pirate city building game with cat girls and heavy metal music, that everyone can love.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 734: “You Have Died of Festive Dysentery” appeared first on RPGamer.

From developers Cannibal Interactive, the creators of Purgatory Dungeoneer, springs forth a new labyrinth game. This one is called Labyrinth of Wild Abyss: LayeRedux and it has labyrinths. Except the labyrinths don't just have single paths to their centres, but tube monsters covered in eyes who'll stalk you slowly and methodically as you meander. Personally, it's not the vibe I'm after when I sit down in the evening and I think, "I would like to play a video game that makes me feel somewhat pleasant". But hey, it might be for you.

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The Steam Deck is something of a talisman for gaming on Linux, its popularity and penguin-powered SteamOS having almost singlehandedly dragged it past MacOS as the second-most-used operating system among Steam users. Sadly, this also means the Valve handheld is the primary casualty when developers decide to stop bothering with Linux support, as Respawn Entertainment have decided to do for Apex Legends.

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I've spent quite a lot of today trying to figure out why, exactly, some of the monsters in the Monster Hunter Wilds beta looked like bundles of copulating pyramids slathered in crocodile gravy. Nic clued me in on this reddit thread earlier, which cites unnamed Chinese players who've allegedly data-mined the beta's monster models, and learned that they are extremely large, encompassing hundreds of thousands of polygons.

If every monster in Monster Hunter Wilds were that fancy all of the time, your computer would become a volcano. As such, the game resorts to loading-on-demand systems to ensure that you only see those gorgeous details when the monsters are close by and, as the case may be, angrily sitting on you. When they're further afield, the flourishes fall away to free up memory and processing power. The popular Redditor explanation for the presence of monsters that look like Henry Moore sculpture is basically that the LOD systems are being forgetful, and neglecting to load the additional polygons at proximity.

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Putting aside my natural annoyance at Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater for almost beating out the Twarhammer series in the headline real estate wars, I am more than a little excited to play. Some days, you simply must feast on a tree frog, and while we still don’t have a solid release date, that day doesn’t feel too far away. Good news for stealth fans, and perhaps gooder news for a dozen strapline writers sweating profusely, soiling themselves in anticipation of using “kept you waiting, huh?”.

Until then, I at least have a steady drip feed of new information to keep me sated, the latest of which is the substantial hint that there'll be some new dialogue in the game, as per the video below. Alongside that, the previously pseudonymous Suzetta Miñet - who was credited with voicing EVA in MGS3 and Peace Walker - has revealed herself to be Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Cheers for the spot, Automaton West.

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When I was a competitive long-distance runner at school, breath control was paramount. We were never really taught this, mind. It was an art you picked up through practice: how to breathe before the race, saturating your blood with O2 without dizzying yourself; when to permit the shorter, emergency breaths and when to apply restraint; when to deepen your inhales and charge yourself up for an attack on a hill.

And then, how to organise your body around your breath, straightening your posture to expand your lungs without tipping back too far and squandering muscle power; how to breath in time with your stride and the movement of your shoulders, so as to firm up your momentum and shave a miraculous-feeling minute off your finishing time. All this, plus various daft psychological war gambits of my own devising. When overtaking or being overtaken, I used to seal my lips shut on that side and breath through the other corner of my mouth, to make it look like I was hardly out of breath at all.

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Back in the mists of 2021, No Man's Sky revealed its very own Normandy SR1 space frigate. "The Normandy in No Man's Sky?" you cry. "Why, that's a Mass Effect vessel. Some mistake here surely?" 1) My name's not Shirley, and 2) Indeed it is a Mass Effect ship, but HelloGames struck a time-limited deal with BioWare to create a version for their own space sim.

"Blast, if only I'd noticed this at the time and acquired one," you mourn. "Ah, so many years I have wasted." Be of good cheer, my friend, for No Man's Sky has a Normandy once again, just in time for the latest N7 Day of assorted Mass Effect celebrations. For the next two weeks, you'll be able to get a-hold of it by way of a revised version of 2021's Beachhead Expedition. Tray-tray, away!

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Here’s a Steam quote for you: ‘The Rise Of The Golden Idol is the best game I’ve ever played where I spent most of my time staring at the screen going “well what chuffing well is it, then?!” Fiendish but fair, this detective puzzler demands a heady mix of observation, deduction, and logic, but rewards you with a progressively engaging story, and steadily more infuriatingly brilliant puzzles. Despite teaching you everything you need to know in the tutorial, it still manages to introduce new wrinkles and twists on the formula with each fresh chapter. My verdict? Imagine me lying my floor, massaging my temple with one hand and giving a fat thumbs up with the other.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: It’s been almost a month since Hurricane Maria destroyed much of Puerto Rico and killed at least 48 people. The island and its residents are still coming to grips with the scale of the devastation.

William Brangham brings us the latest.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Many Puerto Ricans are still in the dark, without electrical power. Hundreds of thousands still have no access to running water, and the rebuilding of the countless damaged homes, roads and facilities is just beginning.

The Associated Press reported yesterday that almost half the sewage treatment plants on the island are still out of service, increasing the risk of contamination and disease.

I’m joined now by David Begnaud. He’s a correspondent from CBS News who’s been doing some very strong reporting there from since when the storm hit, and is just back from his latest trip to the island.

David, welcome to the NewsHour.

I wonder. We saw many of your reports and others of people still three weeks out from the storm who are still drinking from streams and creeks. You heard — I mentioned this AP report about fears of contamination.

Can you just tell us what is going on there? How are people getting water now?

DAVID BEGNAUD, CBS News: Well, let me tell you this.

The governor of Puerto Rico said this morning that he’s aware of those reports and that they’re looking into it. What’s concerning, William, is that three weeks after the storm and at least a week after the allegations first surfaced that people might be trying to drink from toxic wells at what’s known as Superfund sites, the governor of Puerto Rico is still saying, we’re looking into it and telling people to stay out of rivers where sewage may be spilling into the river.

And, he said, we want them to stay away from the coastal areas.

How are people doing? They’re still desperate to get water. No one seems to be able to figure out how to get enough water to every single person on that island who needs it. And as long as people need water, it’s still an emergency phase.

Nearly four weeks later, no one seems to be able to move from the emergency to the recovery.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, people who are — we see them drinking out of these PVC pipes that they have kind of rigged and sort of poked into the side of a creek.

People are just drinking that water straight, without purification, without boiling it; is that right?

DAVID BEGNAUD: Absolutely.

Look, they have got the PVC pipes tapped into the mountains so that it’s coming out of the stream that way. And they literally are — I saw a woman walk up to a potable water tank that the military had brought in, and she had a Clorox bottle.

And I said, “Ma’am, you’re putting drinkable water in a Clorox bottle?”

And she said, “It’s all I have got.”

Now, that was a good scenario. The other scenarios are people right now who are drinking from streams and creeks and rivers who have no water filters, who have nothing, right? They’re just taking this water.

Now, listen, the government got a million water-purifying tablets within the last week. It took almost three weeks to get those. Now there’s a large push to bring in water filters.

I have got to tell you, most of the water filters I’m seeing brought in are coming from the private sector, and civilian samaritans who are getting 1,000 or more from the mainland and flying them over to Puerto Rico and personally hand-delivering them.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That’s really incredible.

Medical facilities were another big — just a huge devastation on the island. I know you have been doing a lot of reporting on the USS Comfort.

DAVID BEGNAUD: Yes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This is the huge Naval hospital that is now just offshore Puerto Rico.

But I understand it hasn’t been fully utilized. Can you tell us what your reporting has found there?

DAVID BEGNAUD: The two men running the ship told us that nearly 87 percent of the ship is empty. Sounds alarming, right? They have 200 beds, and 87 percent are empty.

Now, here’s what they said: We stand ready for whatever the government wants to do. We are waiting to be told by the government.

So, I went to the governor, and said exactly what’s happening. And he said: “Look, I’m not satisfied with what the protocol was from the beginning.”

He said, initially, they were prioritizing only the most critically ill patients go to the Comfort. And he said there was a layered process that was complicating things.

So, the governor, Ricardo Rossello, said: “I started to take out some of those layers, and I, said, listen, take people on the ship who may not be critically ill, but need good medical care and can’t get it at the hospital, where the lights are flickering and the A.C. is not running.”

That’s what the governor said.

Within a matter of hours, I got a tweet from a third-year medical student who said: “Let me tell you what a nightmare it has been to reach the Comfort.”

He said: “We have got a pediatric patient who desperately needs to get off this island, either to a hospital on the mainland or to the Comfort.”

And he said: “I went through Google and the local newspaper to find the number. I couldn’t find it.”

Now, here is how things work. Within about 30 minutes of that tweet going out and that medical student’s story being posted, the governor’s spokesperson responded with numbers that should be able to help.

The bottom line here, William, is that asking relentless questions and the good work of journalism is what’s making a difference there. It’s no one person. There’s no heroic work that’s being done by any journalist, other than people who are going back to the same officials and asking some of the same questions, relentlessly seeking the right answer that will make a difference.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: One of the other pieces of reporting that you did that was very early in the story was this backlog of supplies trapped in container ships on the ports in Puerto Rico.

I understand some of that — some of those supplies are now moving. Can you tell us, are they getting to where they need to be throughout the island?

DAVID BEGNAUD: So, the shipping containers you’re talking about, about 3,000 sitting in the Port of San Juan, have been moved out, not all of them, but a majority of them.

And they were intended for grocery stores around the island. Right? So, those were private companies that had brought in these shipping containers, paid for the supplies, but couldn’t move them because their truck drivers were either at home, because the home had been destroyed, or the road was impassable.

More and more supplies are getting out. But let me tell you, the grocery stores around the island, they have a lot of nonperishables, Pringles, candy, cookies, all on the shelf.

But when you go to the meat section, it’s nearly 75 percent empty at the stores we have been to, the produce section 90 percent empty. And finding bottled water there is almost like playing a game.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: David Begnaud, CBS News, thank you so much for your reporting. Thanks for your time.

DAVID BEGNAUD: You bet.

The post Puerto Ricans still don’t have reliable drinking water, and fears of contamination are rising appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: And in the day’s other news: A federal judge in Hawaii struck down the Trump administration’s latest travel ban.

That temporarily blocks enforcement of the order nationwide, but the Justice Department says it will appeal. The ban extended to six mostly Muslim nations, plus North Korea and Venezuela.

Pennsylvania Congressman Tom Marino withdrew today from consideration to be President Trump’s drug czar. That followed an investigation by The Washington Post and CBS News. They found Marino was key in passing a 2016 law that limits the Drug Enforcement Administration’s ability to rein in opioid distribution.

A new verbal battle has broken out between the president and Republican Senator John McCain. It began last night in Philadelphia, when the Arizona senator and former Vietnam POW appeared to criticize Mr. Trump and his followers. He cited a list of failings.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-Ariz.: To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters-of-a-century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

JUDY WOODRUFF: The president answered by saying, “At some point, I fight back, and it won’t be pretty.”

In turn, McCain said, “I have faced tougher adversaries.”

In Afghanistan, Taliban bombings and shootings left at least 74 people dead today. The worst was Paktika province in the east, where two car bombs killed dozens, including the provincial police chief, and wounded more than 100 others. Taliban militants also staged attacks in the south and west of the country.

In Syria, militia forces backed by the U.S. say they have retaken the Islamic State group’s de facto capital. The city of Raqqa had been under ISIS control since 2014. The battle to recapture it began in June. Today, Kurdish-led fighters celebrated as they moved into the city center. The U.S. military said 90 percent of Raqqa has been taken, with pockets of militants remaining.

There’s word that U.S. airstrikes in Yemen killed dozens of Islamic State fighters on Monday. The strikes were apparently carried out by drones. The Pentagon says the targets were training camps for recruits.

In Northern Iraq, Kurdish forces withdrew from more territory today, as Iraqi government troops advanced. It came on the heels of the Kurds’ vote for independence. Federal forces and allied militia had already forced the Kurds to leave the area in and around Kirkuk and its oil fields.

Iraq’s prime minister said that paves the way for talks.

HAIDER AL-ABADI, Prime Minister, Iraq (through interpreter): I call for dialogue on the basis of partnership in one country and under the Constitution. The referendum is finished and has become a thing from the past. We hoped that they would cancel it, but we have finished it on the ground.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Meanwhile, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, insisted that the referendum will not be in vain.

Another 10,000 to 15,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Buddhist Myanmar for Bangladesh over the weekend. Drone video showed snaking lines of refugees making the trek to already crowded camps. Many told of villages torched by mobs and soldiers. Others said they were starved out of their homes.

Back in this country, a new fire broke out in the San Francisco Bay Area, just as crews had made major progress against other fires in Northern California. Thick smoke billowed from the new site early today, as it burned through forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Weary fire crews said they’re calling in more help.

ROB SHERMAN, Division Chief, Cal Fire: So, the idea is to hit it pretty hard with aircraft and then go ahead and hit it with the ground resources at the same time. We have had north winds, a lot of drying, and everything’s really, really dry. So it’s challenging.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In Southern California, yet another fire spread on Mount Wilson, about 25 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. It threatened a historic observatory and communications towers.

President Trump’s overall wealth has taken a hit, as his New York real estate loses some of its luster. Forbes ranks him 248 this year on its list of the 400 wealthiest Americans. That’s down nearly 100 points from last year. His estimated worth is $3.1 billion.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates again tops the list. He’s worth nearly $90 billion.

And on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average traded above 23,000 for the first time. In the end, it gained 40 points to close at 22997. The Nasdaq fell a fraction, and the S&P 500 added one point.

The post News Wrap: Trump’s latest travel ban blocked by federal judge appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has torpedoed the UK's economic recovery with her tax-and-spend Budget but Ed Miliband is the one who worries me.

Planets that orbit close to their parent stars are blasted with radiation and contorted by gravity – and the exoplanet TOI-6255b might be the most extreme example yet

Mars rocks that were blasted off the surface of the Red Planet millions of years ago have been traced back to craters where they originated, which could transform our understanding of Mars’s volcanism and evolution

Lightning strikes near Earth give rise to electromagnetic waves called “whistlers” that can carry energy high enough above our planet to pose a risk to satellites and astronauts

A radio signal detected in 1977, sometimes claimed as evidence for aliens, may have been caused by a laser-like beam of microwave radiation

After 25 years in orbit, the Chandra X-ray Observatory is under threat. We need to protect this monument to human ingenuity, argues Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Astronomers have identified patterns within the motion of stars stretching across the Milky Way, hinting at the presence of a vast wave

Radio astronomers teamed up with SpaceX to find a promising solution for helping expensive telescopes avoid interference from thousands of Starlink satellites

Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, has signs of an enormous ancient impact that would have redistributed its mass, changing its orientation in relation to Jupiter

Space missions are extremely hard. Things going wrong should be expected, so having a sensible plan B is crucial

Nearly imperceptible quantum flickers used to limit how precisely we could detect the way space-time ripples, but squeezing the laser light used in detectors overcomes this and doubles the number of gravitational waves we can see

A computer simulation suggests that some collisions between exotic, hypothetical stars would make space-time ripple with detectable waves

How did the supermassive black holes we’re now seeing in the early universe get so big so fast? Astrophysicist Sophie Koudmani is using sophisticated galaxy simulations to figure it out

Moin Hussain's debut feature film Sky Peals sees a man discover his father may be from outer space. Part sci-fi, part family drama, part coming-of-age tale, it is odd and otherworldly

A nearby star that exploded some 3 million years ago could have removed all dust smaller than a millimetre from the outer solar system

A small world in the outer solar system appears to have volcanic activity possibly spurred by liquid water

In order to figure out how something came from nothing, we first need to explore the different types of nothing

From nuclear strikes to giant spikes, discover the systems in place to prevent a collision and test your decision-making to see if you could avoid a catastrophic impact

Google has built a quantum computer that makes fewer errors as it is scaled up, and this may pave the way for machines that could solve useful real-world problems for the first time

Motion sensors in smartphones can be turned into makeshift microphones to eavesdrop on conversations, outsmarting security features designed to stop such attacks

An off-the-shelf millimetre wave sensor can pick out the tiny vibrations made by a smartphone's speaker, enabling an AI model to transcribe the conversation, even at a distance in a noisy room

Who built this ripped, anatomically graphic snowman? Is there a world of snowmen offscreen waiting to be turned into sex objects for widows?

Joe Marler discussed his recent comments about the Haka, which sparked backlash.

More than 80 per cent of B.C.'s water basins are experiencing level 4 or 5 drought conditions, with salmon in many parts of the province struggling to make it to their spawning grounds.

Researchers calculated that if 30 per cent of vehicles in Chicago currently running on combustion engines were converted to electric, the reduction in pollution would save billions in health care costs every year. 

After a dismal start, the UN is hosting a "halftime summit" about its 15-year plan to meet a series of human-development targets by 2030. Delegates will try to focus on problems like extreme poverty and gender equality while watching for sparks between the representatives of Ukraine and Russia.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson discusses how MAB Robotics' Honey Badger 4.0, a versatile robot, now walks underwater with amphibious skills.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says opening emails is safe, but risks arise from interacting with links, attachments or HTML content.

Getting virus alerts on your iPhone? Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson helps you learn how to handle fake scam alerts and boost security.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson helps you honor our heroes with these powerful podcasts, audiobooks and documentaries this Veterans Day.

Arsenal and England midfielder Jordan Nobbs will be a columnist for 90min & BBC Sport pundit at the Women's World Cup in France this summer, as Phil Neville's Lionesses' look to secure a maiden World Cup triumph. Two wins from our first two games is obviously what we were all hoping for. The first game of a World Cup, or any other major tournament, is never going to be one where you're playing at your absolute best. But the 2-1 win over was Scotland was great given the pre-match hype, the..