The galaxy in Star Wars is vast, and with its streaming series, Disney seems intent on exploring every single corner of it. So far, that has seen mixed success. The Mandalorian is the best new Star Wars character in years, but it turns out I really don’t need to know much more about what Boba Fett gets up to . Now we have Obi-Wan Kenobi , starring Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), which aims to fill in the gap between the original two trilogies. And for the first two episodes, at least, it works — Obi-Wan is playing the hits, reminding me why I actually care about Star Wars to begin with. This review contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan is set a decade after the events of Revenge of the Sith and starts with a very helpful recap that boils down the most important parts of the prequel trilogy to just a few minutes. You don’t have to worry about midi-chlorians or Watto. All that matters is the tumultuous and tragic relationship between … [Read more...] about Obi-Wan Kenobi’s early episodes lean on the best of classic Star Wars
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Antarctic Riddle: How Much Will the South Pole Melt?
One of the biggest question marks surrounding the fate of the planet’s coastlines is dangling from its underbelly. The melting of the Antarctic ice sheet has long been a relatively minor factor in the steady ascent of high-water marks, responsible for about an eighth of the 3 millimeters of annual sea-level rise. But when it comes to climate change, Antarctica is the elephantine ice sculpture in the boiler room. The ice sheet is so massive that its decline is, according to the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment , “the largest potential source” of future sea level rise. Accurately forecasting how much of it will be unleashed as seawater, and when that will happen, could help coastal communities plan for surging flood risks. A study published Aug. 14 in Earth System Dynamics — one that took more than 2 years and 50,000 computer simulations to complete, combining information from 26 atmospheric, oceanic, and ice sheet models from four polar regions — … [Read more...] about Antarctic Riddle: How Much Will the South Pole Melt?
Satya Nadella: Windows is the “socket” for subscriptions like Microsoft 365 and Xbox Game Pass
The big picture: Windows is no longer what motivates Microsoft's vision for the software-driven world. Instead, it's become a simple vehicle for selling subscriptions to the company's services, including a subscription for running Windows itself in the cloud. As the PC market's continued growth is not guaranteed, the focus is now on extracting the most out of the existing user base. Over the past several years, Windows has faded into the background at Microsoft, with cash cows like Office 365 , Azure , and Xbox rising to the top of the priority list. With the PC becoming a mature market with little room for growth, the Redmond giant gradually turned its focus to making its software and services available on as many platforms as possible to overcome this limitation. When the pandemic forced many to work and study from home, Microsoft scrapped its plans for a cloud-first, lightweight Windows 10X operating system. Instead, the company baked it into the full-fat Windows and … [Read more...] about Satya Nadella: Windows is the “socket” for subscriptions like Microsoft 365 and Xbox Game Pass
Citrix partners with Microsoft on Windows 365 integration
In context: One of the longest running, and yet least understood, partnerships in the tech world is between Microsoft and Citrix. For more than 30 years, the companies have worked together to help deliver business applications and desktops to a wide variety of devices over a broad range of network connections. Yet, despite this shared goal, it seems like there has been an underlying question about the relationship between the two companies for a good portion of those three decades. The problem stems from the fact that Citrix built much of its early business on extending core capabilities for Windows, and many of those extensions were eventually subsumed by Microsoft into subsequent versions of the platform. As a result, the perennial question seemed to be: when would Microsoft just buy Citrix? Thankfully, the two companies continued to find ways to partner with each other at both a technology and business level, and this latest news makes it clear that the relationship between … [Read more...] about Citrix partners with Microsoft on Windows 365 integration
Visual Studio 2022
Visual Studio is a fully featured IDE to code, debug, test, and deploy to any platform. Develop with the entire toolset from initial design to final deployment. Code faster. Work smarter. Create the future with the best-in-class IDE. What is Visual Studio used for? Visual Studio is a source code editor you can use to build apps, games, or extensions using the language of your choice. Edit, debug, and build code. Once you're done the final product can then be published as an app, website, web service or mobile app. What is the difference between Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio? Visual Studio Code is a streamlined code editor with support for development operations like debugging, task running, and version control. It aims to provide just the tools a developer needs for a quick code-build-debug cycle and leaves more complex workflows to fuller featured IDEs, such as Visual Studio. Is Visual Studio good for Python programming? Yes. Visual Studio is a powerful Python IDE … [Read more...] about Visual Studio 2022
Dell’s “hardware as a service” Apex expands to include analytics and data recovery
In context: Way back in 2006, British mathematician Clive Humby coined the now oft-repeated phrase that "data is the new oil". Since then, there have been numerous, vigorous debates about the accuracy or validity of the comment. Regardless of where you fall in those discussions, it seems fairly obvious now that for most businesses and organizations, data does represent a type of lifeblood, providing information and opportunities that can drive further success—or point to potential concerns and failure. The importance of data has become particularly apparent in light of the rapidly expanding range of analytics tools that can be used to glean useful insights from it as well as the staggering number of efforts to steal or destroy it via cybersecurity threats. While the needs and requirements necessary to best address these two sides of the data coin are radically different, they do highlight how important the proper use and care of data has become. In that context, the latest … [Read more...] about Dell’s “hardware as a service” Apex expands to include analytics and data recovery
Mining museums’ genomic treasures
Natural history’s golden age, when Charles Darwin and like-minded scientists pondered connections between creatures and their environments, largely revolved around collecting stuff. Explorers fanned out across the world and picked up as many plants and animals as they could, drying them or stuffing them or storing them in alcohol in small glass jars. They carried them home to grand museums where the public might get a peek at them and be amazed. These venerable collections can seem like relics today—musty storehouses, shrines to imperial plunder. But with billions of samples catalogued among them, museum collections are a treasure for modern evolutionary biologists studying DNA, RNA, proteins and other biomolecules. Sampling decades- or even centuries-old tissues allows scientists to capture snippets of genetic code from plants and animals—including extinct ones—and track molecular changes that took place long before biologists even understood what DNA was. Younger specimens are … [Read more...] about Mining museums’ genomic treasures
Stop Putting Your Phone in Rice
For nearly as long as smartphones have existed, people have been putting them in rice after dropping them in water. This often-repeated “trick” to save a water-logged phone has gone too far. Allow us to explain. Where Did It Come From? The rice trick has been around forever and there’s probably a good chance you’ve done it before—I know I have. Where did this common advice originate from? That’s an interesting question. One of the first high-profile examples of the rice “trick” being recommended dates back to a Lifehacker post from June 2007. The claim was that dry rice “sucks up the surrounding moisture.” That same line of reasoning has been repeated ever since. The trick certainly predated smartphones, but it really caught on as more people began carrying around expensive, fragile devices that don’t play nice with water . People want to know what to do when they drop their phone in water and the rice trick filled that need. RELATED: Water Resistant Gadgets … [Read more...] about Stop Putting Your Phone in Rice
Are iPads Waterproof?
Sure, you’ve heard a lot about iPhones being water resistant , but what about iPads? Can you dunk them in the drink without any damage? Let’s take a look—and see what you can do about it. iPads Aren’t Waterproof Unlike iPhones, iPads have no water resistance features. If you dunk an iPad in water, your device will likely suffer damage unless it is dried quickly. Power the iPad off immediately, dry it externally as much as possible, and leave it sitting powered-off for 24 hours. Or you could try taking the wet iPad to an Apple store where they could potentially disassemble it and dry it out from the inside before corrosion damage occurs. Tip: To get technical, iPhones aren’t “waterproof” either. Some iPhones are water-resistant, which means they can stay submerged for a certain period of time without damage. But if they stay in too long—or dive too deep—damage will occur. If you need a water-resistant Apple device , you could consider purchasing an iPhone instead. For … [Read more...] about Are iPads Waterproof?
FL Sheriff to School Attackers: ‘We’ll Shoot You Graveyard Dead’
Polk County Florida Sheriff Grady Judd made clear his deputies are trained to take out attackers before they get inside schools and added, “We’ll shoot you graveyard dead.” Spectrum News reported that Judd was “mortified” by Tuesday’s Uvalde shooting. He put any would-be attackers thinking about targeting a Polk County school on notice: “If you come to a school in this county, armed, we’re going to do our best through either our guardians, our school resource officers, or our school resource deputy sheriffs to eliminate the threat outside of the school before they ever get to the children. We’re trained to do that.” Judd held up a photo that showed a deputy with a gun, then added, “This is the last thing you’ll see before we put a bullet through your head if you’re trying to hurt our children. We are going to shoot you graveyard dead if you come onto a campus, with a gun, threatening our children or shooting at us.” Florida adopted the guardian program following the February … [Read more...] about FL Sheriff to School Attackers: ‘We’ll Shoot You Graveyard Dead’