Silent Hill: The Short Message – a two-hour free-to-play first-person horror shadow-dropped by Konami earlier this year – has been downloaded over three million times.

Konami marked the occasion on social media, inviting players yet to meet Anita to "please give it a try".

"In an abandoned apartment building where strange phenomena occur one after another, can you escape from the grotesque creatures?" the publisher teased (machine-translation provided by Google Translate).

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Google explains that Dear Sydney, an AI-promoting ad it has just pulled from wide circulation, did well with test audiences before release. The ad features the father of a fan of world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone describing using Google's "Gemini" AI to generate praise for her. — Read the rest

The post Google withdraws its heartcooling "Dear Sydney" AI ad appeared first on Boing Boing.

I'm just going to say it. I've never liked the Play Store. In my humble opinion, it has always been awful for discovering quality apps and games, and has only grown worse over the years. Instead of actually helping users find good apps and games that don't break the bank, it feels more like Google is only interested in pushing everyone towards subscription apps and games filled with gambling. Of course, this setup lines Google's pockets with a hefty share of profits, which means it is incentivized to push what makes it the most money instead of what users find useful.

Animal caretaking sim Zoochosis is about being an ordinary zookeeper working in an ordinary zoo. What's that? There are no ordinary zoos? My mistake. Let me start again. Animal caretaking horror game Zoochosis is about being a stressed-out zookeeper in a hideous zoo where the giraffes have tendrils coming out of their chests and the kangaroos have rows of chattering teeth in their marsupial pouch. There, got it right in the end. We've known about the development of this terror-heavy tourist attraction since its announcement early this year. But now the upcoming horror sim has been given an autumn release date in a new trailer.

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Animal caretaking sim Zoochosis is about being an ordinary zookeeper working in an ordinary zoo. What's that? There are no ordinary zoos? My mistake. Let me start again. Animal caretaking horror game Zoochosis is about being a stressed-out zookeeper in a hideous zoo where the giraffes have tendrils coming out of their chests and the kangaroos have rows of chattering teeth in their marsupial pouch. There, got it right in the end. We've known about the development of this terror-heavy tourist attraction since its announcement early this year. But now the upcoming horror sim has been given an autumn release date in a new trailer.

Read more

I am a bit of a novice here but I have created a game and I am showing ads when a scene is loaded but the background music keeps playing in the background. Is there a way in which the background music can be paused when the ad begins but resumes playing once the ad has finished?

I have an ad controller for the ad placements and an coroutine to play the ads once a specific scene has been loaded.

The background music is currently working using the inspector on a random background gameobject.

This is my code for the ad manager for the scene:

public static Ads instance;
private string playStoreID = "XXXXXXXX";

private string vidad = "XXXXXX";
private string rewardedVideoAD = "YYYYYYY";
private string BannerAD = "ZZZZZZ";



   private void Awake()
{
    if (instance != null)
    {

        Destroy(gameObject);
    }

    else
    {
        instance = this;
        DontDestroyOnLoad(gameObject);
    }
}

void Start()
{
    Monetization.Initialize(playStoreID, true);
}



public void ShowInterstitialAD()
{

   if (Monetization.IsReady(vidad))
    {
        ShowAdPlacementContent ad = null;
        ad = Monetization.GetPlacementContent(vidad) as ShowAdPlacementContent;


        if (ad != null)
        {
            ToggleMute();

         
            ad.Show(ToggleMute);
        }
    }

}

void ToggleMute(ShowResult finishState = default(ShowResult))
{
    audioToMute.mute = !audioToMute.mute;
}

public void ShowRewardVideoAD2()
{

    if (Monetization.IsReady(rewardedVideoAD))
    {
        ShowAdPlacementContent ad = null;
        ad = Monetization.GetPlacementContent(rewardedVideoAD) as ShowAdPlacementContent;


        if (ad != null)
        {
            ToggleMute();

   
            ad.Show(ToggleMute);
        }
    }

}


public void ShowRewardVideoAD()
{

    if (Monetization.IsReady(rewardedVideoAD))
    {
        ShowAdPlacementContent ad = null;
        ad = Monetization.GetPlacementContent(rewardedVideoAD) as ShowAdPlacementContent;


        if (ad != null)
        {
            
            ToggleMute();

           
            ad.Show(ToggleMute);
        }
    }

}

}

Here is a picture of the inspector...

The question of why the chicken crossed the road is of secondary importance to who gets to claim the bird's carcass if it's killed while attempting the crossing.

For a long time, the rule in a majority of the country was the government got to keep the deceased animal. State laws prohibited drivers from claiming the meat of animals killed on public roads and highways for food. Instead, ownership of the corpses defaulted to whichever agency maintained the roads, wasting countless tons of farm-fresh, slightly battered flesh to rot.

In recent years, a growing number of states have been loosening their highway harvesting bans. The Associated Press reported in 2022 that "30 or so" states now allow people to harvest roadkill. The pace of reform doesn't appear to be slowing down.

Come July, a new Virginia law allowing anyone to claim roadkill all year round will go into effect. Current law allows only the driver who the killed animal to claim the carcass, and only if they hit the animal during hunting season.

Liberalizing roadkill harvesting also stands to unite animal rights activists and fiscal conservatives.

The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has endorsed roadkill as superior to supermarket-sold meat.

"Animals killed on the road were not castrated, dehorned, or debeaked without anesthesia, did not suffer the trauma and misery of transportation," says the organization on its website.

Virginia Del. Tony Wilt (R–Harrisonburg), the author of Virginia's new law, advocated for the policy change as a way of reducing the burden on the state's transportation department.

"Currently, if nobody takes the animal, it falls back onto [the Virginia Department of Transportation]. There are certain times of the year when those things can stack up," he said during a committee hearing earlier this year, per reporting from WRIC.

Libertarians would obviously be on board with these policies as well. Under an ideal regime of privatized roads, it's possible that road companies might claim animal carcasses for themselves. But so long as the public owns and operates the highways, it seems only fair that the public be allowed to harvest whatever animals are killed on them as well.

The open road, and all it has to offer, has long been associated with a particularly American vision of freedom. Expanding that freedom to what lies on the side of the road can only be considered a win for individual liberty.

The post New Virginia Law Will Let Anyone Harvest Roadkill Anytime of Year appeared first on Reason.com.

It’s time to see which PS5, PS4, PS VR2, PS VR, and free-to-play games topped the download charts last month. F1 24 is off to the races in May’s PS5 list by entering the top 3 of most downloads in the EU region, with Sea of Thieves ascending the list in both the US and EU regions. The PS VR2 list saw new release Madison VR enter the fray of most downloads in May.

Check out the full listings below. What titles are you playing this month?

PS5 Games

PS4 Games

PS VR2 Games*

PSVR Games

Free to Play (PS5 + PS4)

It’s time to see which PS5, PS4, PS VR2, PS VR, and free-to-play games topped the download charts last month. F1 24 is off to the races in May’s PS5 list by entering the top 3 of most downloads in the EU region, with Sea of Thieves ascending the list in both the US and EU regions. The PS VR2 list saw new release Madison VR enter the fray of most downloads in May.

Check out the full listings below. What titles are you playing this month?

PS5 Games

PS4 Games

PS VR2 Games*

PSVR Games

Free to Play (PS5 + PS4)

Cosy and punk don't really go together. Cosy is restrained, all nice and warm and snug. Whereas punk is noisy and destructive - angry tunes with aggressive attitudes and anti-establishment ideals. A cosy video game wants to tuck you up nice and tight with a warm drink and tell you everything's going to be okay, but punk games tear that blanket off, pour your drink down the drain, and drag you to a window to look at the darker parts of the world, or what the world might become. Punk wants to make you feel uncomfortable. So when developer Patattie Games calls Wax Heads 'cosy-punk', you might raise an eyebrow.

Take one look at it, though, and you'll see its 'punk' side isn't leaning into the moodier, political meaning of the word. With its comic-book art style and vinyl record shop setting, Wax Heads only takes the stylings and sounds of 'punk', but it definitely fulfils its 'cosy' promise with its retail-sim-themed puzzles.

After a brief introduction chronicles how the mega-popular Becoming Violet band started and broke up in the 1980s, you start Wax Head's Steam Next Fest demo as a new, nameless employee decades later at Repeater Records, a struggling record shop. It's owned by Morgan, the old leading lady of Becoming Violet, and she explains your job as the new hire is to listen to the customers' (often confusing) descriptions of what record they want to buy, before then searching the shop for it. Pick a good suggestion and you get more points, but offer a really bad one and you can lose points. It's not clear what the points are for in the demo, but it seems likely that they might affect the fate of the record shop in the full release.

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I will now admit that Twitter is dead.  I have reached the acceptance stage of my grief.

I still refer to X.com as Twitter out of habit, but the spirit of my refusing to call it X.com… despite the obvious ridiculousness of the name… lived in the hope that Elon was running a business and would make sound business decisions, that perhaps he wouldn’t be a complete tool and ruin a good thing just to stroke his own ego and promote his favorite flavors of white nationalist rhetoric… or possibly just to stop that one guy from tracking his private jet.

There is no going back.  That particularly racist white toothpaste isn’t going back into the tube.

So that brings me back to another episode of how things are going in the land of things that once were, or would like to be, Twitter.  For Twitter is still the ideal, the archetype, the goal for all of them, though the road to getting there looks very different for each.

Anyway, I looked at Twitter alternatives a year ago, let’s see how I feel about them today.

• X.com – Now Actually Rated X!

Elon previously suggested in a post that Instagram was like a strip club… and he’s not wrong on that at least.  But suggesting that our family photos belong on his site then turning around and changing the rules to allow porn?  All in a day’s work for Chief Hypocrite and King of the Incels Elon Musk!

Yes, X.com is now a strip club by design.

I am told Elon picked this logo so he could wear his jacket with it

X.com does keep booming, at least relative to its chief rivals.  Or so it seems.  Both Elon and Zuck fudge their numbers, so it is hard to tell.  Meanwhile Elon stooge Linda Yaccarino has to keep claiming progress for the site so has gone all 1984 on us and has started posting about how before Elon the site could only be accessed via Gopher and all messages were in Morse code so X.com can look good via the false comparison… I mean, when she can stop promoting Tesla.  You might wonder who is paying her… but then they aren’t looting Twitter to fund Elon’s AI venture the way they are Tesla.

If I could get maybe 15-20 accounts to move to another service… and halt the flow of people wandering back… I could leave X.com behind.  Yes, I have 10x more followers on X.com than any competitor, and I get more every day.  But most of my old followers are inactive accounts and most of the news ones have *N*U*D*E*S**I*N**B*I*O*.

Though I guess with the rule change they can just say “NUDES IN BIO” without trying to dodge the censors.  As Kurt Vonnegut repeated so often in Breakfast of Champions, “Wide open beavers”… or whatever it was.  I read it back in the 80s, leave me alone.

On my desktop, in Firefox, with uBlock Origin running, and staying strictly in the Following tab, X.com is usable and gets me the info I am looking for.  I even see people I follow who have sworn off X.com back and posting, because it is hard to give up the level of engagement and followers.  And in that state I can pretend it is still Twitter if I squint my eyes and stay away from replies by Blue Checkmarks.

And then I am sitting on the couch and look at it on my iPad in Elon’s app and… Good Lord, what is going on in there?!  Ads for crypto, white nationalism, and Trump have supplanted Cheech & Chong edibles, block no longer blocks people but is just a soft mute that lets them continue to harass you, you can no longer block noxious advertisers at all, and the algorithm pushes all the most noxious content straight at you, with Elon the king of the shit pile.

I mean, followers and engagement are cool and all, and it is fun to watch Liam Nissan troll the Nazis… oh, and Tom Nichols is back… but it has also broken some people.  There are a few people I had to unfollow because they clearly felt X.com was reality and had to fight every battle.  The block button is there for a reason people… oh, wait, they broke that, didn’t they?

Anyway, the grand unifying conspiracy theory about X.com right now is that Elon, already an emerald mine racist nepo baby, is going all in on Trump support on the site to woo Trump’s favor in the hope of getting pardons when the time comes… for things like looting Tesla to fund his AI venture.  The one thing that is for sure is that the only speech Elon was ever interested in was his own.

In spite of all that, some pundits have declared X.com is still the center of the debate, and it is hard to gainsay their point.  Plus… you know… porn.  Porn always wins in the end.

• BlueSky  – As Bad as 2010 Twitter?

Perpetual pedantic grump Tom Nichols, who as noted above has been spotted back on X.com, suggested the other the day that BlueSky was as bad as Twitter… but specifically 2010 Twitter, which is one of those very Tom Nichols things where he has an extremely narrow and specific meaning and context in his head that he won’t share, that nobody else could possibly understand, and that becomes a hill he plans to die on.  This habit was probably best exemplified when Tom spent several years fighting against calling Trump a Fascist because real Fascism must come from the Fascismo-Romagna region of Italy, otherwise it is merely Sparkling Totalitarianism.  But I digress.

Bluesky?  I don’t think this is the logo anymore…

I wish BlueSky was as bad as 2010 Twitter, because 2010 Twitter was pretty fun in my memory… a lot more fun than BlueSky.  Even Jack Dorsey says BlueSky is making all the same mistakes as early Twitter… we should be so lucky… but it just can’t quite become Twitter.

Also, Jack left the BlueSky board and is also on X.com buying in on whatever Elon is selling because whatever worm was eating RFK Jr.’s brain has apparently afflicted him as well.

Instead BlueSky is where the very serious people have gone to escape the other sites, but where they all can’t stop talking about those other sites.  Seriously, I swear if mentioning or posting pictures from X.com was banned, half the posts would disappear and we’d be left with complaints about Threads and Mastodon.  Nobody takes Threads seriously on BlueSky and everybody apparently was stridently lectured once too often about some aspect of Fediverse etiquette on Mastodon and left in a huff because… their sarcasm and wit were not up to the challenge?  They couldn’t figure out how to block people?  They too have feet of clay?  Anyway, they seem to be universally upset at not being welcomed by a cheering crowd for having deigned to join.

Still, for the slim thread of content that isn’t complaining about or reacting to content on the other sites, BlueSky is pretty good.  It is can go very heavy on politics with very little interest in entertainment, so lacks the diversity of topics that made Twitter great somewhere between 2010 and Elon, but it could get there.

And some people are trying to help get it there… though I am not sure their efforts are all that effective.  I call this the “Neil Gaiman Problem.”  I like Neil Gaiman.  He is interesting and on BlueSky, so I followed him.  Neil Gaiman would very much like BlueSky to succeed so is putting in the effort by interacting with his followers.  That means I can look at BlueSky and see 47 messages in a row that are Neil Gaiman replying with a bland pleasantry to every person who responded to something he posted.  That, I fear, does not make BlueSky very interesting.

Basically, BlueSky could be good at some point, but it is still getting there.

• Threads – Ending is better than mending

Happily news free content since May 2024!

I know this isn’t the Threads logo anymore

Threads is not being taken seriously for good reason.  To start with, it is very much Instagram for words, with the same sort of algorithm where you see something in you feed, but if you somehow refresh you’ll never find it again unless you are following the person who posted it and go to their profile.  But most of the stuff in your feed is from randos that the algorithm throws at you… and all of it is brands and cat pictures and light, happy fare.

None of it is news, however.  The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, is on Threads telling people that they are actively suppressing news content, and especially politically focused news content, because it makes people unhappy and distracts from the capitalism and the absolute need to foster desire for luxury goods and expensive vacations.  He much prefers content from creatives and you should too!  (Also, this might be Zuck’s trying to duck the election influence issue since that would cost money he could otherwise be throwing at the Metaverse or AI or whatever he is on about lately.)

Just to make things even more banal, Threads is planning a swipe left/right option for content… Tinder for cat pictures and luxury goods… though I can’t remember which way means what and it likely won’t work correctly in the browser for another year if history is any guide.

But my greatest issues with Threads is that they only have a phone app that scales up badly to my iPad and that they took the adequate initial web version and forced it to look like and behave like the phone app so it is freaking awful to use now.  JFC, these people.

• Mastodon – Still the Linux of Social Media

Still the refuge you’re looking for if you want no algorithm and a quiet little silo of people to interact with.  Is that social media though?  Is there such a thing as anti-social media?  Limited social media?  Siloed social media?

This can’t possible be the Mastodon logo, can it?

The reputation it has for being filled with strident rule makers who will lecture you about how you violated their internal belief system with something you did or did not do is overblown, but not entirely undeserved.  I find that the block button works… in both directions… so that takes care of you intruding on somebody else’s curated reality.

It is the site where, as a percentage, I interact with more of my actual followers… once we pare down the count from all the multiple follows from people who have changed servers… than any other of the Twitter pretenders.

But that number seems to be about six.  Six people make for a pretty quiet Discord server, much less a social media experience.

Yeah, I follow other people, lots of people, often people I follow on the other sites because I am not alone on spreading my bets in the hope of finding the Twitter replacement that best suits me.  That means I see a lot of things on multiple sites… and my followers who do the same see my stuff in multiple locations.  You know who you are.  I like your stuff here and then over on BlueSky and sometimes again on X.com.

This situation stops at Threads because, as noted, nobody takes Threads seriously.  Well, nobody who follows me elsewhere does.  Molly Jong-Fast is trying to take Threads seriously for all of us… but it isn’t working.  It is cat pictures and luxury goods and stolen memes all the way down.

And it probably says something about Mastodon that in the middle of writing about it I went off on Threads again.  It is also dull, in its own special algorithm free way.  If that is what you like, you have found your place.

• Spoutible – When One Topic is Enough

As a site Spoutible has some technical issues… I could never stay logged in and the site totally started breaking in Firefox, another victim of the “everybody uses Chrome” mentality of so many developers… so I eventually gave up on it.

One of these must have been the logo at some point, right?

But my persistence there for about 8 months was not rewarded by very much in the way of engagement.  There was no room for video games, or entertainment in general, on Spoutible.

Instead it was all political… which wouldn’t be bad, but it was all very much anti-Trump memes.  And, while I can very much get behind the sentiment, believing as I do that another term as president would be the end of democracy in the United States, I am not sure that goal is moved forward by participating in an echo chamber.  An echo chamber with the right message is still an echo chamber, and I am already on board so don’t need constant reinforcement and reassurance.

• Post.news – Ex Post Facto

Post News is dead, having failed to make the cut.  It will be remembered as more dull than Mastodon and falling over literally any time Elon sneezed and half a dozen people tried to jump ship.

The logo is in there somewhere I think…

It was not ready for prime time and now it never will be.

• Other Outliers

At one point Automattic was trying to promote Tumblr as a possible inheritor of the Twitter crown.  I feel like anybody suggesting that had either never used Twitter or never used Tumblr.  Also, one follower on Mastodon also follows me on Tumblr where my post go automatically because the same people who own WordPress own Tumblr as well… a fact which might point to the third alternative explanation; lack of a grip on reality.

Substack Notes… well, my opinion there hasn’t changed in a year.  It sucked then, existing only as a way to promote your substack and I suspect it sucks now.

So that gets me through the options and… I feel like the only appropriate response is a standard internet meme.

I too do not know what I expected

I just wanted one platform to win out… one that wasn’t run by a horrible racist.  But you don’t always get what you want.  So it goes.

There’s a type of marginally frustrating reporting where a reporter searches social media for [insert bad thing], finds some examples of said [bad thing], and writes a story about “This Platform Allows [Bad Thing]” followed by lots of public commentary about how the platforms don’t care/don’t do enough, etc. etc.

Let me let you in on a little secret: there are more [bad things] on the internet than you can reasonably think of. If you come up with a big enough list of [bad things] to block, people will just come up with more [bad things] you haven’t thought of. People are creative that way.

These stories are a mixed bag. They are accurate but not particularly enlightening. In our latest Ctrl-Alt-Speech, former Twitter Head of Trust & Safety Yoel Roth and I discussed these kinds of stories a little bit. He noted companies should do more internal red teaming, but solely to prevent such negative PR hits, rather than as an actual trust & safety strategy.

However, I’m reporting on the latest from NBC because it’s about ExTwitter allowing ads on hateful hashtags like #whitepower, #whitepride, and #unitethewhite.

Elon Musk’s social media app X has been placing advertisements in the search results for at least 20 hashtags used to promote racist and antisemitic extremism, including #whitepower, according to a review of the platform. 

NBC News found the advertisements by searching various hashtags used to promote racism and antisemitism, and by browsing X accounts that often post racial or religious hatred. The hashtags vary from obvious slogans such as #whitepride and #unitethewhite to more fringe and coded words such as #groyper (a movement of online white nationalists) and #kalergi (a debunked theory alleging a conspiracy to eliminate white people from Europe).

Elon could make a reasonable response: that while this looks bad, the simple reality is that it is simply impossible to figure out every possible awful hashtag and prevent ads from running against them.

It’s easy to see a few hashtags and say “gosh, that’s awful, how could that happen,” without realizing that millions of hashtags are used every day. Even if ExTwitter came up with a blocklist of “bad” hashtags, some would still get through and eventually some reporter would find it and report on it.

But Elon or ExTwitter never gives that response, as it would involve admitting the truth about how content moderation works. Musk and his supporters have long denied this truth as part of their willful misunderstanding of trust & safety work.

In this case, it’s still noteworthy, given that Elon has publicly promised that no “negative/hate tweets” will be monetized.

Even worse, when organizations like the Center for Countering Digital Hate and Media Matters for America pointed out similar failures to live up to that policy, Musk sued both of those organizations. This now means that whenever anyone else reports on such things, it’s worth calling it out, because the clear intent of Musk suing CCDH and MMfA was to scare off more reporting.

That said, suing small non-profits with limited resources is one thing, but taking on NBC (where ExTwitter’s “official” CEO used to work) is another. NBC had called out similar failings months ago and ExTwitter didn’t sue then. So, either Musk is learning, or someone at the company realizes NBC might be tougher to sue.

Some of this style of reporting is a bit silly and show-offy, but if Elon promises no such ads and sues those who point out it’s still happening, no one should be surprised that more reporters call this out and highlight Musk’s failures.

Check out this fun compilation video of Japanese commercials featuring the English ska and pop band, Madness. From 1981 to 1983, Madness starred in and inspired a series of Japanese ads for the Honda City minicar. And, if my eyes don't deceive me, the car comes with a matching folding scooter (confirmed)! — Read the rest

The post When Madness starred in early 80s Japanese ads for Honda appeared first on Boing Boing.

Enlarge / The Colorado River toad, also known as the Sonoran Desert Toad. (credit: Mark Newman)

It is becoming increasingly accepted that classic psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and mescaline can act as antidepressants and anti-anxiety treatments in addition to causing hallucinations. They act by binding to a serotonin receptor. But there are 14 known types of serotonin receptors, and most of the research into these compounds has focused on only one of them—the one these molecules like, called 5-HT2A. (5-HT, short for 5-hydroxytryptamine, is the chemical name for serotonin.)

The Colorado River toad (Incilius alvarius), also known as the Sonoran Desert toad, secretes a psychedelic compound that likes to bind to a different serotonin receptor subtype called 5-HT1A. And that difference may be the key to developing an entirely distinct class of antidepressants.

Uncovering novel biology

Like other psychedelics, the one the toad produces decreases depression and anxiety and induces meaningful and spiritually significant experiences. It has been used clinically to treat vets with post-traumatic stress disorder and is being developed as a treatment for other neurological disorders and drug abuse. 5-HT1A is a validated therapeutic target, as approved drugs, including the antidepressant Viibryd and the anti-anxiety med Buspar, bind to it. But little is known about how psychedelics engage with this receptor and which effects it mediates, so Daniel Wacker’s lab decided to look into it.

Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

It’s time to see which PS5, PS4, PS VR2, PS VR, and free-to-play games topped the download charts last month. April’s PS5 list saw a healthy addition of newcomers with Stellar Blade and Sea of Thieves entering the top 5 of most downloads in the US and EU regions. The PS VR2 list welcomed an old favorite with Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge – Enhanced Edition obtaining the most downloads in April.

Check out the full listings below. What titles are you playing this month?

PS5 Games

PS4 Games

PS VR2 Games*

PSVR Games

Free to Play (PS5 + PS4)

Source

It’s time to see which PS5, PS4, PS VR2, PS VR, and free-to-play games topped the download charts last month. April’s PS5 list saw a healthy addition of newcomers with Stellar Blade and Sea of Thieves entering the top 5 of most downloads in the US and EU regions. The PS VR2 list welcomed an old favorite with Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge – Enhanced Edition obtaining the most downloads in April.

Check out the full listings below. What titles are you playing this month?

PS5 Games

PS4 Games

PS VR2 Games*

PSVR Games

Free to Play (PS5 + PS4)

American federalism is struggling. Federal rules are an overwhelming presence in every state government, and some states, due to their size or other leverage, can impose their own policies on much or all of the country. The problem has been made clearer by an under-the-radar plan to phase out diesel locomotives in California. If the federal government provides the state with a helping hand, it would bring nationwide repercussions for a vital, overlooked industry.

Various industry and advocacy groups are lining up against California's costly measure, calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to deny a waiver needed to fully implement it. In the past month, more than 30 leading conservative organizations and individuals, hundreds of state and local chambers of commerce, and the U.S. agricultural sector have pleaded with the EPA to help stop this piece of extremism from escaping one coastal state.

Railroads may not be something most Americans, whose attention is on their own cars and roads, think about often. But rail is the most basic infrastructure of interstate commerce, accounting for around 40 percent of long-distance ton-miles. It's also fairly clean, accounting for less than 1 percent of total U.S. emissions. Private companies, like Union Pacific in the West or CSX in the East, pay for their infrastructure and equipment. These facts haven't stopped the regulatory power grab.

Most importantly, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulation would have all freight trains operate in zero-emission configuration by 2035. At the end of the decade, the state is mandating the retirement of diesel locomotives 23 years or older, despite typically useful lives of over 40 years. Starting in 2030, new passenger locomotives must operate with zero emissions, with new engines for long-haul freight trains following by 2035. It limits locomotive idling and increases reporting requirements.

Given the interstate nature of railway operations, California needs the EPA to grant a waiver. If the agency agrees, the policy will inevitably affect the entire continental United States.

The kicker is that no technology exists today to enable railroads to comply with California's diktat, rendering the whole exercise fanciful at best.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board explained last November that while Wabtec Corp. has introduced a pioneering advance in rail technology with the launch of the world's first battery-powered locomotive, the dream of a freight train fully powered by batteries remains elusive. The challenges of substituting diesel with batteries—primarily due to batteries' substantial weight and volume—make it an impractical solution for long-haul trains. Additionally, the risk of battery overheating and potential explosions, which can emit harmful gases, is a significant safety concern. As the editorial noted, "Even if the technology for zero-emission locomotives eventually arrives, railroads will have to test them over many years to guarantee their safety."

The cost-benefit analysis is woefully unfavorable to the forced displacement of diesel locomotives. To "help" the transition, beginning in 2026, CARB will force all railroads operating in California to deposit dollars into an escrow account managed by the state and frozen for the explicit pursuit of the green agenda. For large railroads, this figure will be a staggering $1.6 billion per year, whereas some smaller railroads will pay up to $5 million.

Many of these smaller companies have signaled that they will simply go out of business. For the large railroads, the requirement will lock up about 20 percent of annual spending, money typically used for maintenance and safety improvements.

Transportation is the largest source of U.S. emissions, yet railroads' contribution amounts to not much more than a rounding error. The industry cites its efficiency improvements over time, allowing railroads today to move a ton of freight more than 500 miles on a single gallon of diesel. Its expensive machines, which last between 30 to 50 years and are retrofitted throughout their life cycles, are about 75 percent more efficient than long-haul trucks that carry a comparative amount of freight.

As Patricia Patnode of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which signed the aforementioned letter to the EPA, recently remarked, "Rather than abolish diesel trains, CARB should stand in awe of these marvels of energy-efficient transportation."

President Joe Biden talks a lot about trains, but his actions since taking office have consistently punished the private companies we should value far more than state-supported Amtrak. In this case, EPA Administrator Michael Regan and the White House need not think too hard. They should wait for reality to catch up before imposing on the rest of us one state's demands and ambitions.

COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM

The post How California's Ban on Diesel Locomotives Could Have Major National Repercussions appeared first on Reason.com.

This 1972 Volkswagen Beetle Commercial proudly demonstrates how a Beetle can float in water.

The commercial shows a guy driving his Beetle right into a lake, and then peacefully floating along in the Beetle as if it's a boat. I wonder if anyone followed suit and then found themselves in a pickle.  — Read the rest

The post 1972 Volkswagen Beetle ad shows that it can float in water appeared first on Boing Boing.

Between in-game concerts, skins based on pop stars, and the addition of a rhythm game, Fortnite has been courting musicians and music lovers for years. I have to give props to Epic for specifically adding updates that spotlight pop queens like Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga, which has extended to full seasons for its…

Read more...

When you purchase something instead of renting, you typically get to completely own the product and use it whichever way or however long you want. But things aren’t as straightforward when it comes to owning digital media as that buy button is, in a way, meaningless, since you never get to own that piece of content. Even if you spend a lot of money buying movies and TV shows from services like Google TV, the ownership is subject to Google’s terms and, in many cases, whim.

This 1972 Volkswagen Beetle Commercial proudly demonstrates how a Beetle can float in water.

The commercial shows a guy driving his Beetle right into a lake, and then peacefully floating along in the Beetle as if it's a boat. I wonder if anyone followed suit and then found themselves in a pickle.  — Read the rest

The post 1972 Volkswagen Beetle ad shows that it can float in water appeared first on Boing Boing.

It’s time to see which PS5, PS4, PS VR2, PS VR, and free-to-play games topped the download charts last month. February’s PS5 list saw players doing their part to save democracy and humankind from extinction with new releases Helldivers 2 and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth storming the top three in both US and EU regions. The bone-crushing new release Legendary Tales surged the PS VR2 list breaking the top three of most downloads in both US and EU regions.

Check out the full listings below. What titles are you playing this month?

PS5 Games

*Naming of products may differ between regions
*Upgrades not included

PS4 Games

*Naming of products may differ between regions

PS VR2 Games*

*PS Store purchases only. Game upgrades or games bundled with hardware not included

PSVR Games

Free to Play (PS5 + PS4) 

It’s time to see which PS5, PS4, PS VR2, PS VR, and free-to-play games topped the download charts last month. February’s PS5 list saw players doing their part to save democracy and humankind from extinction with new releases Helldivers 2 and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth storming the top three in both US and EU regions. The bone-crushing new release Legendary Tales surged the PS VR2 list breaking the top three of most downloads in both US and EU regions.

Check out the full listings below. What titles are you playing this month?

PS5 Games

*Naming of products may differ between regions
*Upgrades not included

PS4 Games

*Naming of products may differ between regions

PS VR2 Games*

*PS Store purchases only. Game upgrades or games bundled with hardware not included

PSVR Games

Free to Play (PS5 + PS4) 

The right controller can make your Nintendo Switch gaming experience feel like new again. If you’ve been relying on the included Joy-Cons ever since you bought a Switch, there’s a good chance you’re missing out on extra comfort and improved ergonomics. Don’t get us wrong: Joy-Cons are perfectly serviceable, but there are more customizable options out there and controllers that will suit certain games better. Whether you want a better grip when you’re battling armies of Bokoblins in Tears of the Kingdom, or you want affordable and comfortable spares for impromptu Mario Kart competitions with friends, you have plenty of options. We’ve tested a bunch of controllers over the years and these are the best Switch controllers you can get right now.

[Gruesome story alert! Skip this post if you're squeamish.]

A walk to school turned ghastly yesterday when a teenage girl spotted a severed body part in a Long Island park.

The student was walking with her friends when she discovered a man's left arm. — Read the rest

The post Gruesome: Teen girl spots severed arm on walk to school in NY — leading police to severed head appeared first on Boing Boing.

Twitter abides still despite Elon Musk’s best efforts to tank the place.  I summed up the story so far at the one year mark back in October, and it hasn’t gotten any better since… but neither has it gotten that much worse.

Sure, he has driven the valuation down to $12.5 billion from the $44 billion he paid for it… and evidence has come out that the real reason he bought the place was to shut down the Elon Jet Twitter account that tracked the movements of his private jet via publicly available data, announcing how much pollution he was discharging into the atmosphere….  Musk banned the account when he took control of Twitter…  but it remains more alive and popular than any of its competitors and I am still hanging around because groups there that I follow and interact with remain.

Yes, Musk is a nazi supporting, great replacement theory spouting nut case who went as far as turning off community notes on his posts as the community took great joy in pointing out what an ignorant shitheel he really is.

Here is the thing; blocking people liberally and sticking to the “following” tab on Twitter… and nobody ever calls it “X” except in an apologetic “my editor made me call it that” sort of way… makes it a reasonably tolerable experience.  I can still read posts from the game devs and companies I follow, still stay tuned into the arms control and entertainment feeds I enjoy, and Elmo…. oh, poor Elmo.

Elmo checking in…

That tweet seemed to tap into the universal angst and elicited a storm of responses, not all kind, in something a cathartic knee-jerk reaction to arguably the most annoying muppet, enough so that Elmo’s tweet ended up with mainstream media coverage.  That, in turn, led to a muppets-wide set of responses supporting emotional well being since we’re all pretty wound up it seems.

As for Elon, more annoying than even peak cloying Elmo, I blocked him long ago… him and his fan boys and much that was objectionable in an attempt to cleanse my little corner of that site.  I have to work at it.  I remember a time when I felt it was slightly uncouth to block accounts, but now I do so with abandon.  It works for me.

Honestly, if I want to read about what Elon is up to I have to go to BlueSky or Threads, both of which have loud groups there that pick apart his foibles with glee… only taking time out to shame people still on Twitter even as they can’t stop going on about Twitter.  And you can find some classics on those sites.

I never thought he was the first… but I knew people at PayPal so had the inside scoop

I mentioned the ongoing dominance of Twitter… and I think that the fact that it is a prime topic on other services serves as evidence towards that, along with the large number of people who still cross post to Twitter and one of the pretenders to the Twitter throne… but there are arguments to be made that Threads is approaching for sheer numbers of users.  Threads fans on Threads are always there to let us all know that Threads was in the top ten downloaded apps in the Apple Store or wherever (though Twitter topped the charts again on news of Drake nudes being posted there… a moderation error or not?) and the user/traffic numbers seem impressive.

But it also seems like the most likely place show up at accidently.  When I am on Istragram with my personal account, scrolling through classic cars, cats, airplanes, and model trains, it will stick posts from Threads in there… and then I find out I have an account there because if you have an Instagram account you have a Threads account.  I guess, on the plus side, you can now at least access Threads via a web browser.

And Threads could get even more reach through integration with ActivityPub, which will link it to the Fediverse, previously the domain largely dominated by Mastodon.

Mastodon server admins natually greeted this validation of their vision of a unified yet independent network of social media domains with enthusiasm and rolled out the welcome mat for Threads and its users!

Haha, just kidding.  The universal reaction seems to be to pull up the drawbridges and premptiely block any Threads content from polluting the purity of their vision.  I have said that Mastodon is the Linux of social media sites, and here they are rejecting Threads the way the core Linux community rejects anything beyond a command line interface when it comes to UI.

Which brings us back to something I have mentioned before, which is that if there is something partisans of the new sites seem to hate more than Twitter, it is the other sites trying to be Twitter.

So when this past week, when BlueSky finally lifted its “invite only” policy on new users… I guess nobody needs my invite codes now… the joy of that unleashing was not universal.  So, for example, the avacado toast lady, between posts asking people to subscribe to her YouTube channel, had words.

BlueSky bad, posted on Threads

Saying that BlueSky is the worst on security features… and people on Mastodon have been vocal on that front… seems to have some basis in fact.  At least somebody there had a long list of grievences to fling at me when I mentioned having access keys.

Having any sort of monopoly on insufferable users however… hooo boy.  Each of what I think of as the “big three” outside of Twitter has that issue, and nobody is more likely to call out that sort of thing than those who have moved from one of those services to another.  Lectures, gate keeping, shaming, and a ceaseless obsession with Twitter seems par for the course.

Meanwhile over at Spoutible, which I am not sure why I bother posting to as literally nobody who followed me early on seems active any more… well, their external API was happy enough to cough up all the information you would want about accounts if you asked nicely.  This would probably be a big deal if somebody cared.  I went and changed my password.

It is enough to make one wish a plague on all of their houses.  But then what would be spend our time scrolling through?

I, for one, would not mind somebody other than Twitter being the top of the heap, to see one of the pretenders to the throne surpass Elon, if only to see Elon taken down another notch or two.

But the reality is that content is king.  I go where my interests are best served, something that Twitter has a decade advantage on over the other sites.  Looking at ManicTime, it is clear which site holds my eyeballs.  Here is my breakdown of time spent on social media sites over the last six months:

• Twitter – 62.28%
• Mastodon – 11.79%
• Reddit – 10.45%
• BlueSky – 9.36%
• Threads – 2.37%
• Spoutible – 2.18%
• Facebook – 1.57%

I will say that my BlueSky time has been trending up some… though there is still a lot of cross posting… and Threads wasn’t even available in a browser for that whole period of time.  But, in the end, Twitter is where I go.

And at least the Cheech & Chong edibles ads are back on Twitter.

Calling out Idaho

They might be the least objectionable advertiser on the site some days.  But, like Elon, you can just block those noxious ads and move on.

During today’s Nintendo Partner Showcase, which confirmed that former Xbox exclusives Grounded and Pentiment will launch on the Switch this year, the company also announced that five Rare classics are downloadable right now for folks with an active Nintendo Switch Online membership. It’s a blast from the past, y’all,…

Read more...

Twitter abides still despite Elon Musk’s best efforts to tank the place.  I summed up the story so far at the one year mark back in October, and it hasn’t gotten any better since… but neither has it gotten that much worse.

Sure, he has driven the valuation down to $12.5 billion from the $44 billion he paid for it… and evidence has come out that the real reason he bought the place was to shut down the Elon Jet Twitter account that tracked the movements of his private jet via publicly available data, announcing how much pollution he was discharging into the atmosphere….  Musk banned the account when he took control of Twitter…  but it remains more alive and popular than any of its competitors and I am still hanging around because groups there that I follow and interact with remain.

Yes, Musk is a nazi supporting, great replacement theory spouting nut case who went as far as turning off community notes on his posts as the community took great joy in pointing out what an ignorant shitheel he really is.

Here is the thing; blocking people liberally and sticking to the “following” tab on Twitter… and nobody ever calls it “X” except in an apologetic “my editor made me call it that” sort of way… makes it a reasonably tolerable experience.  I can still read posts from the game devs and companies I follow, still stay tuned into the arms control and entertainment feeds I enjoy, and Elmo…. oh, poor Elmo.

Elmo checking in…

That tweet seemed to tap into the universal angst and elicited a storm of responses, not all kind, in something a cathartic knee-jerk reaction to arguably the most annoying muppet, enough so that Elmo’s tweet ended up with mainstream media coverage.  That, in turn, led to a muppets-wide set of responses supporting emotional well being since we’re all pretty wound up it seems.

As for Elon, more annoying than even peak cloying Elmo, I blocked him long ago… him and his fan boys and much that was objectionable in an attempt to cleanse my little corner of that site.  I have to work at it.  I remember a time when I felt it was slightly uncouth to block accounts, but now I do so with abandon.  It works for me.

Honestly, if I want to read about what Elon is up to I have to go to BlueSky or Threads, both of which have loud groups there that pick apart his foibles with glee… only taking time out to shame people still on Twitter even as they can’t stop going on about Twitter.  And you can find some classics on those sites.

I never thought he was the first… but I knew people at PayPal so had the inside scoop

I mentioned the ongoing dominance of Twitter… and I think that the fact that it is a prime topic on other services serves as evidence towards that, along with the large number of people who still cross post to Twitter and one of the pretenders to the Twitter throne… but there are arguments to be made that Threads is approaching for sheer numbers of users.  Threads fans on Threads are always there to let us all know that Threads was in the top ten downloaded apps in the Apple Store or wherever (though Twitter topped the charts again on news of Drake nudes being posted there… a moderation error or not?) and the user/traffic numbers seem impressive.

But it also seems like the most likely place show up at accidently.  When I am on Istragram with my personal account, scrolling through classic cars, cats, airplanes, and model trains, it will stick posts from Threads in there… and then I find out I have an account there because if you have an Instagram account you have a Threads account.  I guess, on the plus side, you can now at least access Threads via a web browser.

And Threads could get even more reach through integration with ActivityPub, which will link it to the Fediverse, previously the domain largely dominated by Mastodon.

Mastodon server admins natually greeted this validation of their vision of a unified yet independent network of social media domains with enthusiasm and rolled out the welcome mat for Threads and its users!

Haha, just kidding.  The universal reaction seems to be to pull up the drawbridges and premptiely block any Threads content from polluting the purity of their vision.  I have said that Mastodon is the Linux of social media sites, and here they are rejecting Threads the way the core Linux community rejects anything beyond a command line interface when it comes to UI.

Which brings us back to something I have mentioned before, which is that if there is something partisans of the new sites seem to hate more than Twitter, it is the other sites trying to be Twitter.

So when this past week, when BlueSky finally lifted its “invite only” policy on new users… I guess nobody needs my invite codes now… the joy of that unleashing was not universal.  So, for example, the avacado toast lady, between posts asking people to subscribe to her YouTube channel, had words.

BlueSky bad, posted on Threads

Saying that BlueSky is the worst on security features… and people on Mastodon have been vocal on that front… seems to have some basis in fact.  At least somebody there had a long list of grievences to fling at me when I mentioned having access keys.

Having any sort of monopoly on insufferable users however… hooo boy.  Each of what I think of as the “big three” outside of Twitter has that issue, and nobody is more likely to call out that sort of thing than those who have moved from one of those services to another.  Lectures, gate keeping, shaming, and a ceaseless obsession with Twitter seems par for the course.

Meanwhile over at Spoutible, which I am not sure why I bother posting to as literally nobody who followed me early on seems active any more… well, their external API was happy enough to cough up all the information you would want about accounts if you asked nicely.  This would probably be a big deal if somebody cared.  I went and changed my password.

It is enough to make one wish a plague on all of their houses.  But then what would be spend our time scrolling through?

I, for one, would not mind somebody other than Twitter being the top of the heap, to see one of the pretenders to the throne surpass Elon, if only to see Elon taken down another notch or two.

But the reality is that content is king.  I go where my interests are best served, something that Twitter has a decade advantage on over the other sites.  Looking at ManicTime, it is clear which site holds my eyeballs.  Here is my breakdown of time spent on social media sites over the last six months:

• Twitter – 62.28%
• Mastodon – 11.79%
• Reddit – 10.45%
• BlueSky – 9.36%
• Threads – 2.37%
• Spoutible – 2.18%
• Facebook – 1.57%

I will say that my BlueSky time has been trending up some… though there is still a lot of cross posting… and Threads wasn’t even available in a browser for that whole period of time.  But, in the end, Twitter is where I go.

And at least the Cheech & Chong edibles ads are back on Twitter.

Calling out Idaho

They might be the least objectionable advertiser on the site some days.  But, like Elon, you can just block those noxious ads and move on.

Enlarge (credit: Vizio)

Walmart announced an agreement to buy Vizio today. Irvine, California-based Vizio is best known for lower-priced TVs, but its real value to Walmart is its advertising business and access to user data.

Walmart said it's buying Vizio for approximately $2.3 billion, pending regulatory clearance and additional closing conditions. Vizio can also terminate the transaction over the next 45 days if it accepts a better offer, per the announcement.

Walmart will keep selling non-Vizio TVs should the merger close, Seth Dallaire, Walmart US's EVP and CRO who would manage Vizio post-acquisition, told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments