The gaming world is more broad and diverse today than it has ever been before. Games nowadays can be played on all sorts of devices, online and offline, alone or with large groups of people, on a tabletop or... Tagged as:

RetroStyle Games, a company specializing in game development and visual design, congratulates Space Age Games on Supercell's acquisition of the remaining 38% of their shares, making Space Ape Games fully owned by Supercell.... Tagged as:

As rigorous as the pursuit of education can be, supplementing academic efforts with fun outdoor activities can yield remarkable benefits for serious students. From enhancing physical health to improving cognitive functions, the advantages of engaging in leisure cannot be overstated.... Tagged as:

МТС подвела итоги чемпионата True Tech Champ по программированию и робототехнике. Это серия масштабных ежегодных событий от МТС на российском ИТ-рынке с разнообразной образовательной и развлекательной программой. Турнир включал два трека: индивидуальный зачет по алгоритмическому и командный по робототехническому программированию. Всего было подано более 12,5 тысяч заявок на участие, но в финал попало чуть больше...

Мастера iFixit добрались до новейшего Mac mini с процессором M4. Они сразу же отметили, что компьютер очень легко разобрать, несмотря на существенно уменьшившийся корпус. Нижняя панель удерживается зажимами, которые можно отсоединить без каких-либо повреждений. Первое, что пользователи увидят после снятия этой панели, — CMOS-батарею, которую можно быстро заменить, просто выкрутив два винта. Затем, открутив ещё...

In a blog post today, Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed two new products that Apple apparently plans to release in a few years from now, including a smart home camera and updated AirPods with more health management features.


Kuo said mass production of Apple's smart home camera is scheduled to begin in 2026, and the company apparently aims to sell tens of millions of them over the long term. He said the camera will have wireless connectivity, and deep integration with Apple Intelligence and Siri, but he did not mention any other specific features.

Previous rumors have indicated that Apple is planning to release a smart home display, but that device is expected to launch as early as 2025, so it seems like the 2026 camera that Kuo has mentioned here is a different product.

As for the AirPods, Kuo simply said that future models of the earbuds will have "more health management features" like the Apple Watch, and that Chinese manufacturer Goertek will serve as the primary supplier of a 2026 AirPods model. The new smart home camera will also be assembled by Goertek, according to the analyst.

We previously reported that Apple's upcoming Powerbeats Pro 2 will offer heart rate monitoring during workouts, and perhaps that feature will extend to AirPods in the future. In addition, health-focused sensors that could allow for features like body temperature measuring have been rumored for AirPods in the past.

This article, "Kuo: Apple Planning Smart Home Camera and New AirPods With More Health Features" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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A Chinese court has agreed to hear a lawsuit against Apple from Beijing Bodyreader, a developer seeking around $420,000 in damages after their children's posture correction app was removed from the App Store in 2020.


Bloomberg reports that the case – the first of its kind to be heard in Beijing's intellectual property court – bears similarities to Epic Games' 2021 lawsuit against Apple. Bodyreader claims Apple unfairly removed their app citing "dishonest" behavior, while also challenging the company's 30% commission on app purchases and its control over the iOS ecosystem.

According to court documents reviewed by Bloomberg, Bodyreader argues that Apple's enforcement of App Store policies is inconsistent. The developer notes that after their original app was removed, they successfully published an identical app under a different name, "Qilin Century," which remains available on the App Store. Closed-door hearings began Thursday and could conclude this week.

The hearing represents the first time Apple has been forced to defend its standard mobile platform practices against a Chinese developer. Earlier this year, Apple successfully fought off antitrust accusations from a Chinese consumer, but the company still went so far as to appeal to remove references to its market dominance from the ruling.

Bodyreader is seeking monetary damages, an apology, and a court declaration that Apple engages in unfair monopolistic behavior. The developer has also requested that Apple be required to allow third-party app stores and external payment links.

This article, "Apple Faces Epic Games-Style China Lawsuit Over App Store Practices" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Austrian smart lock maker Nuki has announced its new Smart Lock Ultra, featuring a smaller design and claiming significantly faster operation than its predecessor.


The Smart Lock Ultra is one-third the size of previous Nuki models. This has been achieved through a new built-in battery design that eliminates the need for a bulky battery compartment, according to the company. The lock features a new brushless motor, similar to those used in electric vehicles, enabling it to unlock in under 1.5 seconds, which could make it one of the fastest smart locks available.

Built-in Wi-Fi eliminates the need for a separate bridge, while Matter-over-Thread and Bluetooth connectivity options are also included. The lock supports all major smart home platforms including Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home. Battery life is rated at six months per charge, with charging handled via an included two-meter magnetic cable.


The European version requires replacing the entire lock cylinder and comes with three physical keys, while an upcoming US model will work as a retrofit solution similar to August smart locks. The lock can be controlled through multiple methods, including geofencing, via the smartphone app, or compatible smart home platforms, and it works with Nuki's existing accessories like key fobs and keypads.

The fifth-generation Nuki Smart Lock Ultra will be available in Europe this December for €349, with the US version planned for the second quarter of 2025.

This article, "Nuki Unveils Smart Lock Ultra With Faster Operation, Compact Design" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple Music Classical was updated today with CarPlay and Siri support, as well as stability and performance improvements, according to Apple.


CarPlay support was briefly added to a previous version of Apple Music Classical earlier this year, but it was removed just hours later. Starting with version 2.1 today, the app is once again available on CarPlay, as shown in our screenshot below.

CarPlay support provides Apple Music Classical listeners with access to their playlists, library, recommendations, and more on their vehicle's infotainment display. And with Siri on iOS 18.1 and later, users can also search via CarPlay for composers, artists, works, and instruments in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Dutch, according to Apple. Additional languages will follow over time.


Apple Music Classical first launched in March 2023, offering users with a standard Apple Music subscription access to over five million classical music tracks at no additional cost. The streaming app features advanced search functionality, exclusive artwork, extensive metadata, curated listening recommendations, and more.

The app is available for the iPhone and iPad, as well as Android. It is based on Primephonic, a classical music streaming service acquired by Apple in 2021.

This article, "Apple Music Classical Updated With CarPlay and Siri Support" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple today seeded the second public betas of upcoming iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 updates, allowing the public to continue testing new features ahead of when the software launches. The public betas come a day after Apple provided developers with new betas.


Public beta testers can download the updates from the Settings app on each device after opting into the beta through Apple's public beta testing website. Note that Apple has also released public betas for watchOS 11.2, tvOS 18.2, and the latest HomePod software.

iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and ‌macOS Sequoia‌ introduce the next Apple Intelligence features, including the first image generation capabilities.

The update adds Image Playground, a new app for creating images based on text descriptions. You can enter anything you want, though Apple will suggest costumes, locations, items, and more to add to an image. There are options to create characters that resemble your friends and family, and you can choose a photo for ‌Image Playground‌ to use as inspiration to create a related image. Elements added to ‌Image Playground‌ creations are previewed, and there is a preview history so you can undo a change and go back to a prior version.

While ‌Image Playground‌ is a standalone app, it is also integrated into Messages, Notes, Freeform, and more. ‌Image Playground‌ does not make photorealistic images and is instead limited to animation or illustration styles.

The update also adds Genmoji, which are customizable emoji characters that you can create based on descriptions and phrases. Like ‌Image Playground‌ creations, you can base them on your friends and family, with the data pulled from the People album in Photos. You can also make characters using basic elements, and you'll get multiple ‌Genmoji‌ suggestions to choose from. You can create ‌Genmoji‌ using the emoji keyboard.

‌Genmoji‌ are limited to iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2 right now, and will be coming to ‌macOS Sequoia‌ later.

Siri in iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and ‌macOS Sequoia‌ 15.2 has ChatGPT integration. If ‌Siri‌ is unable to provide an answer to a question, ‌Siri‌ will hand the request over to ChatGPT, though ‌Siri‌ will need user permission first. ChatGPT will answer the question and relay the information back through ‌Siri‌.

ChatGPT can be used to create content from scratch, including text and images. No account is required to use ChatGPT integration, and Apple and OpenAI do not store requests.

If you have an iPhone 16, there's a Visual Intelligence feature in iOS 18.2 that provides information about what's around you. Open up the camera and point it at a restaurant to get reviews, or point it at an item to search Google for it.

Some other Visual Intelligence capabilities include reading text out loud, detecting phone numbers and addresses to add them to Contacts, copying text, and summarizing text.

Apple added Writing Tools in iOS 18.1, but in iOS 18.2, you can more freely describe the tone or content change that you want to make, such as adding more action words, or turning an email into a poem.

‌Apple Intelligence‌ now supports localized English in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, and the UK in addition to U.S. English.

Wait List

If you've already been testing ‌Apple Intelligence‌ and are opted in, you will have access to Writing Tools, ChatGPT integration, and Visual Intelligence automatically.

There is a secondary waiting list for early access to use ‌Genmoji‌, ‌Image Playground‌, and Image Wand. You can sign up to get access in ‌Image Playground‌ or in the areas where you access ‌Genmoji‌ or Image Wand.

When you request access, you are added to a wait list for all three capabilities and you'll get a notification when the features are available for you to use. Apple will roll out access over time.

Availability and Compatibility

The public betas are available on all devices, but the ‌Apple Intelligence‌ features require a device capable of ‌Apple Intelligence‌.

Apple is still working on refining the new ‌Apple Intelligence‌ tools, and the company warns that ‌Genmoji‌, Image Wand, and ‌Image Playground‌ can sometimes give you results you weren't expecting. Apple is collecting feedback on these experiences and will refine them over time.

Release Date

Apple is expected to release the iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, ‌macOS Sequoia‌ 15.2, watchOS 11.2, tvOS 18.2, and visionOS 2.2 updates in early December.
This article, "Apple Seeds Second Public Betas of iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2 and macOS Sequoia 15.2 With New Apple Intelligence Features" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming visionOS 2.2 update to developers for testing purposes, with the beta coming a little over a week after the first visionOS 2.2 beta.


visionOS 2.2 can be installed by going to the Software Update section of the Settings app on the Vision Pro and opting into Beta Updates.

The visionOS 2.2 update adds a new feature for the Mac Virtual Display option, allowing it to be set to Wide and Ultrawide. The Ultrawide setting is equivalent to two 4K displays side-by-side, and it is a notable improvement over the current Mac Virtual Display that's available in visionOS 2.1.

The Mac Virtual Display allows the Vision Pro to be connected to a Mac with the Vision Pro serving as the display for the machine. The virtual Mac desktop works just like a standard desktop with an external display, but Vision Pro does not support multiple displays. As a solution, Apple has added the option for a wider display to maximize space.

This article, "Apple Seeds Second Beta of visionOS 2.2 to Developers With Ultrawide Mac Virtual Display" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Popular repair site iFixit today disassembled one of Apple's new M4 Mac mini machines for a teardown video that gives us a more complete look at the inside of the device.

Compared to the prior version of the Mac mini, the M4 model is densely packed with little space between components, which is how Apple slimmed down the size so much. The ‌M4 Mac mini‌ measures in at 5x5 inches, down from 7.5x7.5 inches, a size reduction that makes a major difference.

The power supply module is a board that extends across the top of the case, a design that Apple has previously used for the HomePod. The power supply normally takes up a lot of space, so that's how Apple shrunk it down without compromising performance.

In the middle of the ‌Mac mini‌, there's a fan that works with the redesigned thermal management system of the machine to pull in air from the environment, circulate it through each level of the ‌Mac mini‌, and then vent it out through the bottom. Because the M4 Pro versions of the ‌Mac mini‌ need more cooling power, Apple equipped them with a larger copper heatsink than the heatsink in the standard ‌M4 Mac mini‌ models.

iFixit is a little late to the ‌Mac mini‌ teardown, which means we have seen prior videos that provided some insight into the machine's internal components. We've already learned that the ‌Mac mini‌ has modular storage that can technically be upgraded after purchase, and iFixit confirmed that. iFixit swapped a 512GB SSD from one ‌M4 Mac mini‌ to another ‌M4 Mac mini‌ that had a 256GB SSD, and the swap was successful.

The M4 and M4 Pro ‌Mac mini‌ models use different NAND modules that aren't physically interchangeable, and iFixit was not able to use an M4 SSD in an M4 Pro ‌Mac mini‌, so users who plan to swap out their own storage will need to make sure to get the correct SSD for their device.

RAM for the ‌Mac mini‌ is tightly integrated into the M4 chip inside and is not upgradeable after purchase, and the ports are also soldered, which can make replacement difficult.

iFixit found other components in the ‌Mac mini‌ are simple to swap out, and the site gave the ‌Mac mini‌ a repairability score of 7 out of 10 thanks to the easy to remove components, swappable SSD, and the detailed repair manuals that Apple made available. iFixit says users could get at least a decade of use out of the ‌M4 Mac mini‌.
This article, "iFixit Shares M4 Mac Mini Teardown" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Animalities have returned to Mortal Kombat. Players of the infamous fighting game series can finish a defeated opponent off by transforming into an animal and brutally mauling them death for the first time since 1995's Mortal Kombat 3 with the "Khaos Reigns" update to Mortal Kombat 1.

So, what follows is a list of every Mortal Kombatant's fursonas, basically, from Mortal Kombat 1. Two warnings: In explaining different characters roles, there may be spoilers for the games, and also, extreme, over the top violence and gore is the point of Animalities.

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In this episode!

• This episode can hold so much charities!Breaking last years record! But by how much?
• Animations from around the web
• An interview with Labb Rat, known for her commentary videos, about the importance of caring about mental health and escaping toxic environments.

But first, the latest charity news from the fandom in this October edition of Digging Up Positivity and boy are here a lot of them! Do keep in mind, all amounts are converted to US dollars.

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"In sum, 'White Fragility' is an utterly ridiculous book. ... Everything about 'White Fragility' is poisonous garbage, and it's not an overstatement." Continue reading →

Now for the first time in our history, we're witnessing a broad and powerful attack on the principle of equality. Daily, we are told that all people are not in fact created equal. Some were born with moral stain, others were not. Some Americans are guilty, some are innocent. Nothing can change this because it was all determined at birth. All we can do is respond accordingly. Continue reading →

Elected Republicans, almost all of them, are in no hurry to stop the disorder. They appear to believe what we're watching is a version of the Rodney King riots from 1992. People saw an upsetting video on the internet, they're angry, and that's understandable. But they'll calm down soon, and we can get back to cutting capital gains taxes and sanctioning Bashar al- Assad. That's their view of it. They are wrong. This is not a momentary civil disturbance. This is a serious and highly organized political movement. It is not superficial. It is deep and profound. It has vast ambitions. It is insidious; it will grow. Its goal is to end liberal democracy and challenge Western civilization itself. This is an ideological movement. The ideas that fuel it have incubated for decades on college campuses. We paid for all of it, by the way. The rest of us were so thrilled that our kids got into Duke that we decided to ignore what Duke was actually teaching them and are continuing to send big checks. That was a mistake. It was one of the greatest mistakes we've ever made. Continue reading →

Democratic politicians don't fear the mob. Notice that? Why? Because they don't need to. They control the mob. The mob operates with their permission. These are their foot soldiers. This is their militia. Continue reading →

Republicans are failing for a much more obvious reason, a more fundamental reason. They're failing because they haven't done much that is worth doing. They haven't tried very hard to improve your life. When the crisis came, they fled. They did nothing to defend you. They did nothing to defend the country. Continue reading →

So Apple isn't fighting for diversity. They're doing exactly what they appear to be doing: they're trying to keep wages down and keep their workers compliant by importing labor from abroad.This isn't about diversity. It's about exploitation. It always is Continue reading →

The CIA from the very first days of the Trump administration, even before he was inaugurated, devoted themselves to sabotaging the administration because Donald Trump questioned just a few of their pieties. And that can't be done in Washington. Whoever does that must be destroyed. And so the CIA and the Deep State operatives became heroes of the liberal left, the people who support the Democratic party. They're now in a full union with the neocons, the Bush Cheney operatives, the CIA, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street. That is the union of power along with mainstream media outlets that are fully behind the Democratic party, which is likely to at least take over one branch of government, if not all of them, with the coming election, and that is a very alarming proposition because they're authoritarian, they believe in censorship, and they believe in suppression of information that exposes them in any kind of a critical light. Continue reading →

The real threat is collusion. When journalists strike secret alliances with the very people they're supposed to be holding accountable, we are in deep trouble. Lies go unchallenged.  Democracy cannot function. And that's what we're watching right now. Continue reading →

This ruling class of administrative state, big tech, corporations: all of these people think that they can get rid of Trump and we'll go back to normal. They're wedded to a broken system that has sold out the American people. And now they're going to try to sell out the American people and the middle class especially. They're not going to fix immigration; they're not going to fix trade deals; they're not going to break up big tech; they're not going to do any of these things. Continue reading →

Democrats and elites are making straight white men the enemy of their new world order. Blacks, hispanics, gays are now the good guys; straight white men are the bad guys. Continue reading →

COVID-19 antibodies have been found in blood samples as early as September, 2019. China knew about the virus' transmission to humans months before it announced such to the world. Why has the media and our government not investigated this gross negligence, if not mass murder? Continue reading →

Google, Facebook and Twitter should be treated as state actors under existing legal doctrines. Using a combination of statutory inducements and regulatory threats, Congress has co-opted Silicon Valley to do through the back door what government cannot directly accomplish under the Constitution. Congress is giving Big Tech immunity and more power in exchange for it censoring whatever Congress wants censored. Continue reading →

FBI CIA NSA are not only spying on American citizens but also are illegally unmasking their identities to journalists who support our fascist government Continue reading →

Censorship is antithetical to the scientific method because it requires free speech and open debate and skepticism Continue reading →

And so that is what I call the birth of this woke industrial complex. It is a new leviathan, a new monster, that is far more powerful than what Thomas Hobbes might have envisioned 400 years ago, and it is the biggest threat to individual liberty today. It is not big government alone. Its conservatives are reciting lines that they memorized in 1980, thinking that big government was the threat to individual liberty. Maybe it was in 1980. It's not today. It is this new hybrid of big government and big business and big government not just in the United States but big government in places like China, co-mingled with big business creating the actual threat to our liberty and our prosperity. Continue reading →

Carlson: So now we’re arming the Taliban and marooning our own citizens in Afghanistan. Who could possibly have seen that coming. Glenn Greenwald is one of the few journalists who did see it coming. He writes for Substack where all … Continue reading →

THAT'S WHAT THEY ARE USING JANUARY 6TH. IT'S DEMENTED TO COMPARE 9/11 AND JANUARY 6TH BUT IT'S SO CENTRAL TO THE AGENDA OF THE SECURITY STATE, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, TO ESSENTIALLY INITIATE A SURVEILLANCE REGIME, A DETENTION REGIME, AGAINST PEOPLE ON THE RIGHT WHO ARE AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT. AND THEY’RE ALREADY DOING IT. AND THEY PUT PEOPLE ON THE NO-FLY LIST, THE KIND OF DEFINING FEATURE OF THE FIRST WAR ON TERROR, THEY WANT TO DO NEW LEGISLATION THAT GIVES THE FBI AND THE CIA NEW POWERS, SPENDING MORE MONEY ON LAW ENFORCEMENT. THIS WAR ON TERROR IS CRUCIAL TO THEM. Continue reading →

Glenn Greenwald: "So you have huge number of journalists who believe that, they have the right to lie and even when they get caught, they don't care because they know their audience won't hold it against them." Continue reading →

TRUMP TOLD THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THERE ARE THE SECURITY STATE AGENTS WHO THINK THAT THEY RUN THE GOVERNMENT AND HE STOOD UP TO THEM AND CHALLENGED THEIR ORTHODOXIES AND PIETIES AND SHOWED AMERICANS, ESPECIALLY PEOPLE IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ON THE RIGHT, THAT THESE INSTITUTIONS ARE NOT NOBLE OR BENEVOLENT BUT ARE HIGHLY PERNICIOUS. THEY WANT TO INTERFERE IN OUR DOMESTIC POLITICS AND THEY OUGHT TO BE DEEPLY DISTRUSTED. Continue reading →

“Shattered Crosses”, новое видео группы IGNITOR, доступно ниже. Этот трек взят из альбома Horns And Hammers, выход которого состоялся третьего октября на Metal on Metal Records:

“Horns And Hammers”
“Imperial Bloodlines”
“Dark Horse”
“Cyber Crush”
“Shattered Crosses”
“Taking Up With Serpents”
“Ferocious The Martyrs”
“Suicide Anthem”
“Chaos Maximus Eternal”
“Terminus”
“Hell Shall Be Your Home” (Live / bonus track)
#Ignitor #HeavyMetal #Heavy_Metal
Видео: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY4HQ3Wra98

I first arrived in Silicon Valley in 1977 — 45 years ago. I was 24 years old and had accepted a Stanford fellowship paying $2,575 for the academic year. My on-campus apartment rent was $175 per month and a year later I’d buy my first Palo Alto house for $57,000 (sold 21 years later for $990,000). It was an exciting time to be living and working in Silicon Valley. And it still is. We’re right now in a period of economic confusion and reflection when many of the loudest voices have little to no sense of history. Well my old brain is crammed with history and I’m here to tell you that the current situation — despite the news coverage — is no big deal. […]

The post What about the layoffs at Meta and Twitter? Elon is crazy! WTF??? first appeared on I, Cringely.






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My son Cole, pictured here as a goofy kid many years ago, is now six feet six inches tall and in college. Cole needed a letter of recommendation recently so he turned to an old family friend who, in turn, used ChatGPT to generate the letter, which he thought was remarkably good. As a guy who pretends to write for a living, I read it differently. ChatGPT’s letter was facile but empty, the type of letter you would write for someone you’d never met. It said almost nothing about Cole other than that he’s a good kid. Artificial Intelligence is good for certain things, but blind letters of reference aren’t among them. The key problem here has to do with Machine Learning. ChatGPT’s language model […]

The post If you want to reduce ChatGPT mediocrity, do it promptly first appeared on I, Cringely.






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Sorry I’ve been away: time flies when you are not having fun. But now I’m back. Moore’s Law, which began with a random observation by the late Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that transistor densities on silicon substrates were doubling every 18 months, has over the intervening 60+ years been both borne-out yet also changed from a lithography technical feature to an economic law. It’s getting harder to etch ever-thinner lines, so we’ve taken as a culture to emphasizing the cost part of Moore’s Law (chips drop in price by 50 percent on an area basis (dollars per acre of silicon) every 18 months). We can accomplish this economic effect through a variety of techniques including multiple cores, System-On-Chip design, and unified memory — anything to […]

The post AI and Moore’s Law: It’s the Chips, Stupid first appeared on I, Cringely.






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Have you ever found something you started writing but never finished? Here's something I started in October 2014. I've just rediscovered it in July 2020....

I've kind of been ignoring this blog for a while. That's nothing new... there have been multi-year periods with no posts. I'm still writing stuff...

I posted about Situational Awareness at HPT Treasures today. What I didn't say in that post was that I've experimented with a few different methods...

Shinichiro Watanabe compares COWBOY BEBOP to LAZARUS but admits nothing beats his experience on SPACE DANDY in this interview.

The first volume of Eden of Witches releases on Nov. 12.

Papercutz has announced Flash Gordon: The Girl from Infinity, which reimagines the iconic character, for release in 2025.

The Small-Animallike Lady is Adored by the Ice Prince is a brand new romance manga from Yen Press. This first volume takes us to a familiar setting where there's a royal arranged marriage involved, and some frozen hearts are melted along the way!

Dark Horse Comics has announced a six-volume Madman Omnibus release featuring Michael Allred's classic character, slated for release in 2025.

Dylan Mars Greenberg crafts a homegrown fantasia of magic, action, and anti-conservative provocation.

When we wake up to who we are, something happens. We stop identifying with our egoic selves because we realize they are impermanent and only that which is permanent can be who we are.

We aren’t our bodies, we aren’t our memories, we aren’t our thoughts, we aren’t our feelings… We aren’t any of these things, so we stop identifying with them. What happens is that detachment develops. An aloofness or distancing from everything that occurs. We wake up to the fact that life is an extended dream and a relaxation is able to set in. It’s a sense of calm or a feeling that ‘all is well.’

We lose our identity with our lives, thoughts and feelings, so we witness them but we don’t engage with them. We notice them, but we don’t create stories with them. Since we don’t create ... Read More »

The post The Paradoxical World of Spiritual Enlightenment: We are nothing but we are everything appeared first on Enlightenment Podcast.

#57 Enlightenment - Ending Our Suffering through Witnessing Our Suffering

The post #57 Enlightenment – Ending Our Suffering through Witnessing Our Suffering appeared first on Enlightenment Podcast.

Recently, Apple rejected a digital book application from Sony. The disagreement here is over how and when Apple collects for its services. Apple is playing a dangerous game.

In theory, Apple has the right to insist, under its terms for developers, that any app, which offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, offer the ability for customers to purchase within the app at the same time.

Here is the rub. In its application, Sony sends customers to its own web site where they complete the purchase of a book. By routing the customers to its own web site, Sony is able to avoid a payment of 30% of revenues to Apple.

Others, including Amazon, with its Kindle, and Barnes & Noble, with its Nook, have been able to sell e-books by sending users to the companys’ own web sites. Apple simply was not enforcing its policy requiring developers to use its in-app purchasing feature to buy new content.

A 30% charge on revenues is a high price to pay Apple. Apple may be setting itself up for future loss of market share by enforcing this policy. If the Android platform does not put the same requirement on its app developers, the developers will have a strong incentive to avoid the 30% charge by encouraging customers to purchase using an Android device rather than an Apple device. Alternatively, the application developers may charge a higher price for purchases through Apple.

Apple’s unique strength has been its superior list of available applications. Apple’s enforcement of this requirement to purchase inside the app so that Apple can collect 30% of the revenues puts at risk its major advantage. Apple needs to compromise here by charging a lower price or no price at all. After all, it already makes high profits on its hardware and software product combination. It also makes profits on many of the downloaded apps. The application developers are customers too. Why make their life difficult? Does the benefit Apple provides a seller justify 30% of revenues? Sounds pretty rich.