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 S69'Ahsoka' Episode 7 Theory Explains a Baffling Coruscant Mystery   Star Wars has painted itself into a corner with the Mandoverse. Though Thrawn’s introduction in Ahsoka established a major new threat, he can’t actually wreak that much havoc. We already know the New Republic survives until decades later, when it eventually falls to the First Order, so the status quo can’t really change.But what seemed like a plot hole in the sequel trilogy could actually be the result of Thrawn’s evil ways — and could also be a clue to the upcoming Star Wars movie written and directed by Mandoverse overseer Dave Filoni.
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S1 Thorny Talent and AI Challenges Now: 5 Experts Speak  Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.If you ask leaders about their toughest leadership challenges right now, you’ll hear wide-ranging concerns about both talent management and artificial intelligence. Seeking fresh insights and advice for leaders on both topics, we spoke with MIT Sloan Management Review authors at the most recent Academy of Management (AOM) event in Boston.
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S2 Sound Business: The Promise of Audio Machine Learning Technologies  Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.Sounds are everywhere — the chatter and babble of humans and animals, the whirring and thrumming of machines, the background hum of the natural environment, and the murmur of bees on a summer day. These sounds provide crucial input to our decision-making, whether as pedestrians crossing the road or as engineers testing the safety of a vehicle or machine.
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S3How billion-dollar store makeovers are taking on the 'retail apocalypse'  At JCPenney stores across the US, shoppers may notice a fresh paint smell, better lighting and shiny new signage – with even more improvements planned for the coming months. Centralised checkout counters are replacing registers once spread across multiple departments, and posters promise a "new and improved shopping experience" once the remodels are complete. Change is afoot at the retailer, and not just in the form of upgraded carpet (though that, too, is on the list).The updates are part of a $1bn (£808m) investment the company announced in late August – a pricey effort to reinvigorate the brand following a high profile 2020 bankruptcy and subsequent restructuring. The funds will be partly dedicated to slicker technology and improved e-commerce features, but much of the focus remains on JCPenney's more than 650 physical stores.
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S4The Creator film review: A 'jaw-droppingly distinctive' sci-fi  The Creator belongs to an endangered species, in that it's a Hollywood science-fiction epic that isn't based on a video game, a comic, or a film you've seen already. That doesn't mean that it's wholly original. There are echoes of The Terminator, Blade Runner and Star Wars all through it – not surprisingly, given that its director and co-writer, Gareth Edwards, directed Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. But the world Edwards and his team have built is jaw-droppingly distinctive, with its own sombre mood and worn and grimy look. Back when Rogue One came out in 2016, Edwards said that he wanted to make a Star Wars film that reflected "the reality of war". If he didn't quite manage it then, he gets a lot closer with The Creator.More like this:- Could Jeffrey Wright win the best actor Oscar?- Emily Blunt is the only reason to watch Pain Hustlers- Lee could be Winslet's best role yet
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S7Harassment and abuse perceived to harm poor women less - new research finds a 'thicker skin' bias  People think sexual harassment and domestic abuse are less harmful for women in poverty than for higher-income women, according to four studies involving 3,052 Americans conducted by my colleagues and me. We also found that people believe women in poverty require less help and support when experiencing these kinds of sexual misconduct. The harassment events described inappropriate behavior from a co-worker, such as sexual comments and unwanted advances, while domestic abuse events included threats, demeaning comments and physical violence from the woman’s partner. In some of the studies, participants also rated how much social support or bystander intervention would be necessary for these events.
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S8Why central banks should stop raising interest rates  Mortgage borrowers breathed a sign of relief following a recent pause in the Bank of England’s 14-month campaign of base rate hikes.Led by the US Federal Reserve, many of the world’s major central banks, including the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England, have been hiking their main rates of interest for more than a year in a bid to slow rapid price inflation.
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S9Hip-hop on trial: When can a rapper's lyrics be used as evidence in a criminal case?  When police arrested Nevada rapper Kenjuan McDaniel on a murder charge in August 2023, they cited a music video he posted on YouTube that they say includes details of a 2021 killing that had not been made public.McDaniel, who uses the social media handle TheBiggestFinn4800, had previously been considered a person of interest in the case. His lyrics included: “Parked the car / double back on feet / the smartest way to slide / drove in / double lock yo man / make sure you get yo bod’.”
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S10Why some Indians want to change the country's name to 'Bharat'  When India invited delegates attending the G20 summit in September 2023 to dinner with “the President of Bharat,” rather than “the President of India,” it may have looked to the world like a simple case of postcolonial course correction. The word “India” is, after all, an exonym – a placename given by outsiders. In this case, the name came from the British, who ruled the subcontinent from 1858 to 1947, a violent period of colonialism that later came to be called “the British Raj.”
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S11S12Azerbaijan's use of force in Nagorno-Karabakh risks undermining key international norms, signaling to dictators that might makes right  The United States’ top humanitarian aid representative, Samantha Power, was dispatched on a fact-finding mission on Sept. 26, 2023, to a registration point on the border with Armenia for those fleeing the Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. What she found was frustration: “Sanction Azerbaijan or go back to your country! We don’t care. Stop the lies!” someone shouted in a mid-press conference interruption.Underscoring the gravity of the situation, Power’s visit coincided with a fuel depot explosion across the border in the disputed territory that killed at least 68 people, with 105 reported missing.
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S13S14Treasure hunters pose a problem for underwater archaeological heritage  Profesor Adjunto de Historia Antigua Universidad CEU-San Pablo, Universidad CEU San Pablo There are ancient pirates and modern treasure hunters. They are separated by more than 200 years of history, differences in the available technology, and types of sponsorship that keep them afloat – the former sailing for a country and the latter protected by a company. Even so, they seem to have the same objective: the gold and silver of the Spanish Empire.
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S15S16S17S18Somali piracy, once an unsolvable security threat, has almost completely stopped. Here's why  In 2011, pirates carried out 212 attacks in a vast area spanning Somali waters, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, actions that the World Bank said cost the world economy US$18 billion a year.Armed pirates hijacked ships as far away as 1,000 nautical miles from the Somali coast. They held the ships and crews for ransom. The World Bank estimates that Somali pirates received more than US$400 million in ransom payments between 2005 and 2012.
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S19Do liposomes make food supplements more effective? A chemistry expert explains common myths about these products  There has been an explosion in nutritional supplements that promise asuperior product because they contain nanoparticles called liposomes. But there’s a lot of misleading information and outright myths about these being shared online, so it’s important to understand how liposomes work before you spend money on an expensive new food supplement. Liposomes have been used to enhance the effectiveness of medicines since 1995. They are nano-size bubbles from a group of fatty or oily compounds called phospholipids – the building blocks of all the cells in your body. Liposomes can fuse together to form a similar structure to human cell membranes while retaining a liquid core.
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S20Green fuels in shipping face major challenges for 2050 net zero target  Ships carry around 90% of traded goods and emit about 3% of global CO₂. The International Maritime Organization (IMO), the UN agency responsible for regulating shipping, recently set out plans for this industry to reach net zero emissions by 2050.Like their ancient forebears, modern vessels can be partially propelled by wind. Indeed, a British cargo ship recently took its maiden voyage using sails made from the same material as wind turbines.
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S21The silence around vulval cancer means people are missing the signs that they have it  Most people have heard of cervical, ovarian, and perhaps womb cancer, but there is one gynaecological cancer that is seldom mentioned: vulval cancer. However, taboos around genitalia mean many women and people with vulvas are unaware that they even have a vulva. Your vulva is the external part of the female genitals encompassing the labia minora and majora, clitoris and entrance to the vagina.
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S22Creatine supplement may help relieve some long COVID symptoms  Between 90-95% of participants took the supplement as directed for the duration of the study. Only one patient on creatine reported experiencing mild nausea.These results suggest that creatine appears to have had a positive effect on some self-reported long COVID symptoms. But creatine did not appear to have any effect on physical fatigue, which was a key focus of the trial.
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S23Threats of failure motivate some students - but it's not a technique to use on the whole class  It is the start of a new academic year, and a fresh group of students will be beginning study towards their GCSEs. After two years, they will be taking exams with important consequences: the results can allow them to carry on in education or go on to certain careers. Part of the work of teachers is to encourage their students to pay attention and fully engage in lessons so that they achieve the best grades possible. They might emphasise to them how important GCSEs are for their future. For example, teachers might point out how good grades can lead to access to college courses, apprenticeships, and the workplace.
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S24Antimatter: we cracked how gravity affects it - here's what it means for our understanding of the universe  A substance called antimatter is at the heart of one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. We know that every particle has an antimatter companion that is virtually identical to itself, but with the opposite charge. When a particle and its antiparticle meet, they annihilate each other – disappearing in a burst of light.Our current understanding of physics predicts that equal quantities of matter and antimatter should have been created during the formation of the universe. But this doesn’t seem to have happened as it would have resulted in all particles annihilating right away.
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S25Queer leaders: LGBTQI+ people still overwhelmingly absent from corporate boards  Ken Chan serves on the Board of Trustees at Open For Business and on the Advisory Board of LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors Canada Association.Most companies like to show that they care about queer people. Following gains in rights and legal recognition over the last decades, it is now a commonly established ritual to display a rainbow logo during Pride Month. Big corporations such as North Face, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Target and Kohl’s have all recently ran inclusive ad campaigns featuring Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI+) people. This makes sense from a business perspective, with “pink money” weighing 3.5 trillion euros globally and around 874 billion euros in the EU. However, many in the LGBTQI+ community will brush off these gestures as pinkwashing if they are not backed up with more substantial action. This could mean a company standing by a queer influencer hired to promote a product when they are attacked by the far-right as a result of this exposure. Or including out LGBTQI+ people at the top of the corporate ladder.
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S26Driverless cars could be a revolution for people with disabilities - but they also have good reason to be worried  Like it or not, driverless cars will start to appear on our roads in the not too distant future. In theory, fully autonomous driverless vehicles will offer huge advantages to people with disabilities. Too often, people with disabilities face multiple problems while using public transport. They often need to rely on friends and relatives for lifts or spend too much of their limited budgets on taxis. All of these issues interfere with the rights of a person with disabilities to go shopping, to travel to work, to attend medical appointments, socialise, or go to entertainment venues.
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S27Net zero goal still alive, says IEA - but the world still faces major obstacles to reach it  This roundup of stories is adapted from our weekly climate action newsletter, Imagine, written by environment editor Jack Marley. Click here to subscribe.Globally, the rate at which people are installing solar panels and buying electric vehicles is “perfectly in line” with what experts have said is necessary to reach net zero emissions by 2050. That’s according to Fatih Birol, the economist who leads the world’s energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency (IEA).
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S28Changing the age of consent is not the solution to protecting young people from unhealthy relationships with adults  Comedian and actor Russell Brand has been accused of abuse, including sexual assault and rape, by four women. The allegations – which Brand denies – include the sexual assault of a woman who says she was in a relationship with Brand when she was 16 and he was in his 30s. The alleged victim, known as Alice, has suggested that a discussion should take place around changing the age of consent to protect young people from older adults. One option, which she raises, is that a staggered approach would allow sexual relationships between people aged 16-18 but would prohibit older adults from having sex with young people in this age group.
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S29S30S31GOP shutdown threat is the wrong way to win a budget war - history shows a better strategy for reducing the deficit  Congress has just days to keep the federal government from grinding to a halt, and a last-minute deal seems increasingly unlikely. The problem is that lawmakers need to pass a dozen appropriations bills – or a single continuing resolution – by Sept. 30, 2023, in order to keep the government’s lights on. But a key group of House Republicans is refusing to pass anything without steep spending cuts. No bills, no government – at least for a few days or weeks, anyway. While fiscal discipline has long been the rallying cry for shutdown supporters, the tactic isn’t necessarily effective at reducing the government’s deficit.
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S32S33S34S35Even if Qantas is fined hundreds of millions it is likely to continue to take us for granted  Mel Marquis has in the past collaborated with the ACCC on unrelated matters. He has no involvment or interest in the pending litigation discussed in this article. As Qantas faces up to tough questioning from a Senate committee and a claim from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for as much as A$600 million for allegedly selling tickets on more than 8,000 “ghost flights” it had already cancelled, its customers might be thinking things are about to get better.
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S36S37Transportation paved the way for colonization -- it can also support reconciliation  As Canada marks the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30, individuals and institutions are being urged to acknowledge the colonial origins of this country, which are rooted in the persecution and genocide of Indigenous nations. There will be many meaningful conversations about ways we can each engage with and support reconciliation. However, one issue that doesn’t get enough attention is how transportation continues to be a serious challenge for Indigenous communities.
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S38Extreme heat, extreme inequality: Addressing climate justice in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside  The hottest summer ever recorded in the northern hemisphere is a stark reminder of the immediacy of the climate crisis. And the hardest hit by climate impacts, such as residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, are often those with the least capacity to adapt. People who live in this community are exposed to climate hazards made worse by a lack of green space and shoddy and aging housing. Residents experience the cumulative impacts of factors such as the opioid epidemic, poverty, limited employment opportunities, intergenerational trauma and criminal justice and mental health issues.
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S39Hidden in plain sight: Women face subtle forms of discrimination and bias in the workplace  Gender discrimination remains a pervasive issue in the workplace. While obvious cases of discrimination against women — like sexist comments or the systematic underpayment of women — dominate headlines, there are subtler, more insidious forms of discrimination that often go unnoticed.Take Kelly, for example, a seasoned marketing manager we recently interviewed as part of a workplace discrimination project. Kelly had diligently worked towards a promotion, only to witness her junior colleague, Mark, receive it instead. This led her to wonder if Mark genuinely outperformed her, or if there was something more nefarious at play.
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S40The enduring appeal of a century-old German film about queer love  When the silent German movie Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others) premiered on May 28, 1919, in Berlin, it was an instant audience success.On the basis of a fictional romance between two men, the film hoped to inform its viewers about the innateness of homosexuality in order to dispel public conceptions of same-sex relations as aberrations of nature.
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S41S42We should use Australia's environment laws to protect our 'living wonders' from new coal and gas projects  David Karoly is a Councillor on the Climate Council Australia. He provided an expert report in support of the initial reconsideration request made by the Environment Council of Central Queensland to the Minister for the Environment.David is also a Member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.From Kakadu and the Great Barrier Reef in the North, to the Snowy Mountains in the Southeast, and jarrah and marri forests in the Southwest, Australia is home to incredibly diverse ecosystems. Many of our plants, animals, birds and fish are found nowhere else in the world.
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S434 ways to support someone with dementia during extreme heat  Our ability to adapt our behaviour to changes in temperature takes a significant amount of thought and decision making. For example, we need to identify suitable clothing, increase our fluid intake, and understand how to best keep the house cool. A person with dementia may find some or all these things challenging. These and other factors mean, for someone with dementia, extreme heat can be deadly.
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S44S45S46S47S48S49S50Strange Way of Life review: Pedro Almod  Every genre film is engaged – as self-aware genre pastiches like the Scary Movie (2000) and Scream (1996) franchises cannily acknowledge – in a conversation with its predecessors. The western, the longest-lived of all major genres, has been commenting on and reworking its own traditions since the silent era. Director and screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar’s new self-styled “queer western”, Strange Way of Life, is no exception. Across its brief 30-minute runtime, Almodóvar reworks classical genre motifs – a stranger riding into town, ageing fellow outlaws now on opposite sides of the law, a desert pursuit and a Mexican standoff. But he does this in the novel context (for the western) of a love story between former gunslingers. Jake (Ethan Hawke) is now installed as sheriff of a small desert town, and Silva (Pedro Pascal) is his sometime fellow outlaw, friend – and lover.
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S51Grattan on Friday: In the second half of this term Albanese will need to concentrate on delivery  Labor’s national landscape is changing. Daniel Andrews’ abrupt exit from the Victorian premiership this week is the latest development in a wider picture. Just a few months ago, two of the strongest state Labor leaders in recent history were solidly ensconced in Western Australia and Victoria, and Labor had just taken power in New South Wales. Federally, Anthony Albanese retained most of his glow. The Voice referendum was in positive territory (although declining support presaged what was to come).
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S52Too often learning 'British history' means learning 'English history' - but overburdened schoolteachers are not to blame  How much do you really know about the history of the United Kingdom? What passes for “British history” is, all too often, merely the history of England with bits of the histories of Scotland, Wales and Ireland tacked on when they affected events in England. In a radio interview some years ago, the BBC presenter Nicky Campbell put it to me that, fun though the Romans or Tudors might be, only history nerds are interested in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. “You say that because you’re in London,” I replied. “You wouldn’t say it if you were in Belfast.”
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S53Inside a Trump 2024 Rally in Iowa  Last week, Benjamin Wallace-Wells, who writes about politics for The New Yorker, went to Dubuque, Iowa, to attend a Trump rally. Wallace-Wells is now covering his third Trump campaign for President. This time, what stood out to him most was how much the rhetoric of the G.O.P. has shifted in the course of those three cycles. The former President, once an insurgent and inflammatory voice, now just sounds like an ordinary Republican. Wallace-Wells joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what he heard from voters in Iowa, what he has observed in the broader Republican field, and why Donald Trump’s 2024 lead has been so significant.Personal History by David Sedaris: after thirty years together, sleeping is the new having sex.
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S54How the AR-15 Became an American Brand  Last summer, when the release of the video for “Try That in a Small Town,” a single by the country-music star Jason Aldean, generated a small storm of controversy, it was mentioned, often as an aside, that Aldean had been onstage on October 1, 2017, at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, in Las Vegas. That night, as Aldean performed a song called “When She Says Baby,” a man named Stephen Paddock began firing from the thirty-second floor of Mandalay Bay, a nearby resort and casino, into the crowd below. In the span of about ten minutes, Paddock shot more than a thousand bullets, killing fifty-eight people and wounding more than four hundred others before killing himself. In video recorded as the first bursts of gunfire sounded, Aldean stops singing, then flees the stage.It was a coincidence that put Aldean in Vegas on that particular night, but releasing “Try That in a Small Town,” a song extolling vigilante justice, six years later was a choice. The music video splices together footage from anti-police protests and convenience-store robberies to form an impression of national disarray; its lyrics include the lines “Got a gun that my granddad gave me / They say one day they’re gonna round up.” Aldean left the Las Vegas massacre out of his sizzle reel of American disorder, instead projecting a fantasy of control. Watching the video last summer, I couldn’t help recalling, given Aldean’s association with a mass shooting, that one thing that was tried in a small town in recent American history was the massacre that killed nineteen children in Uvalde, Texas, last year; that law enforcement in that small town waited in the halls for an hour without confronting the shooter; that the small town’s only pediatrician later testified to Congress about identifying the dead by the cartoons on their clothes because their bodies were too damaged. Considered in this light, “Try That in a Small Town” becomes an allegory about posturing over perceived threats to national integrity while ignoring the lived reality of a horror too disturbing to mediate.
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S55"Thank You for Speaking While I'm Interrupting": The Crosstalk Chaos of the Second Republican Debate  It took about a half hour for the Republican Presidential debate on Wednesday night to descend from merely being very boring to unrecoverable chaos. Tim Scott, the U.S. senator from South Carolina, asked Vivek Ramaswamy, the founder of a biotech company, how he could accuse his rivals of being "bought and paid for" when he himself was "just in business with the Chinese Communist Party and the same people who funded Hunter Biden."Ramaswamy, whom none of the other Republican candidates for President can really seem to stand, either politically or in the most basic human way, spread his arms dramatically to indicate the others onstage. "These are good people, who are tainted by a broken system . . ."
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S56Peter Daou's Theory of Election Interference--by Democrats  Peter Daou, a former aide to Hillary Clinton, recently announced that he had become the campaign manager for Cornel West, the radical socialist professor and public intellectual, who is seeking the Presidential nomination from the Green Party. It was the culmination of a fascinating arc for Daou, who was a legendary figure in the early liberal blogosphere, where he became known for his criticisms of the Bush Administration before joining John Kerry's 2004 Presidential campaign. Four years later, he ran Clinton's digital operation, and became known as one of her most high-profile and vocal online supporters. Then, in 2016, for Clinton's second Presidential run, Daou ran the platform Shareblue, a partisan news site that attacked mainstream coverage of the race and fanatically defended Clinton. By 2020, he had endorsed Bernie Sanders; he subsequently left the Democratic Party. (Before joining West's campaign, he briefly ran Marianne Williamson's.) Daou now says his career as a fanatical Democratic partisan was misguided, and that the entire political system needs to be uprooted; he believes West's campaign is the best vehicle for such a change.I recently spoke by phone with Daou. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how his political outlook shifted, his feelings about Donald Trump, and why he believes the Democratic Party also engages in election interference.
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S57The Myth-Making of Elon Musk  Elon Musk’s presence in our lives is inescapable: his cars roam our streets, his satellites orbit our skies, and his purchase of Twitter—now known as X—has reshaped the social-media landscape. The staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss a recent biography of Musk, by Walter Isaacson, tracing the familiar archetype of the genius tech founder from the nineteenth-century robber baron to “Batman” ’s Bruce Wayne. The critics examine how, in recent years, the idea of the unimpeachable Silicon Valley founder has lost its sheen. Narratives such as the 2022 series “WeCrashed” tell the story of startup founders who make lofty promises, only to watch their empires crumble when those promises are shown to be empty. “It dovetails for me with the disillusionment of millennials,” Fry says, pointing to the dark mood that the 2007-08 financial crisis and the 2016 election brought to the country. “There’s no longer this blind belief that the tech founder is a genius who should be wholly admired with no reservations.”Personal History by David Sedaris: after thirty years together, sleeping is the new having sex.
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S58The Funniest Line in 'Ahsoka' Episode 7 Is a Brutal Jedi Diss  Grand Admiral Thrawn isn’t exactly the master tactician we were expecting, but he does get one fact painfully right about the Jedi. When Ahsoka finally arrives on the far-flung planet Peridia in Episode 7 of her namesake show, her first move is to hide from her attackers in a storm of debris, which leads to one of the all-time greatest burns in Star Wars history.“Jedi are very good at hiding,” Thrawn snarls. “They’ve been practicing that for years.”
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S59The Most Promising Time-Travel Movie of 2023 Wastes a Great Premise  It’s important to try and meet a film on its own terms. In the case of 57 Seconds, the new sci-fi thriller starring Josh Hutcherson and Morgan Freeman, the film was made with such a clearly limited budget that it feels unfair to criticize its obvious cheapness. From its basic TV lighting to its occasional VFX mistakes, the film looks and feels like a Disney Channel Original Movie from the 2000s. That isn’t necessarily a knock against it, so much as it’s a component that’s worth addressing, especially for a film that feels, at times, like a truly independent sci-fi gamble.In our current era of ballooning blockbuster budgets and industrywide disinterest in original genre properties, making a film like 57 Seconds has never been harder than it is now. In that sense, the movie is a bit of a miracle, though its redeeming qualities begin and end with the spirit behind its creation. Its clear budgetary constraints and elementary style aside, 57 Seconds falls flat because it’s duller than it should be. It’s a film that has some genuinely interesting sci-fi ideas at the center of them, but it fails to explore them as deeply as it could — and arguably should — have.
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S60You Need to Watch the Most Innovative Sci-Fi Reboot of the Century For Free on Amazon ASAP  In the original 1968 Planet of the Apes, the apes treat time-traveling human astronaut Colonel George Taylor (Charlton Heston) as a pet, even giving him a cutesy nickname: Bright Eyes. Whether this inspired the name of the indie rock band is unclear, but it packs an emotional oomph. Within the first few minutes of 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the film weaponizes the name Bright Eyes, but inverts its emotional impact. In this reboot, Bright Eyes is an ape, and the mother of the future. Given the various controversies surrounding James Franco, Rise may not have the greatest legacy as a stand-alone film. But the 21st-century Apes franchise is much bigger than Franco, and while the series is better known for its two excellent sequels, the fact the first film works at all is a minor miracle. This reboot disguised as a prequel is streaming now on Amazon’s Freevee, and for serious sci-fi aficionados, it’s worth a second look.
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S6125 Years Ago, an Arcade Classic Redefined an Entire Genre -- And Changed Video Games Forever  The Tetris effect is a term coined to describe when people play so much of the eponymous game that they begin to see its colorful blocks falling downward in their minds. When it comes to rhythm games, those Tetris blocks can be replaced with colorful arrows seared into your brain. Originally released in Japan on September 26, 1998, Konami’s iconic rhythm game rose to popularity thanks to its catchy tunes, fancy footwork, and the enduring social aspect of the game. Twenty-five years later, Dance Dance Revolution is still one of the best rhythm games ever made — and its influence can be felt across the entire video game industry.While rhythm games existed for years before Dance Dance Revolution hit the arcades, with titles like 1996’s PaRappa the Rapper familiarizing audiences with the genre, DDR brought a unique flair that stems from the arcade cabinet’s design. DDR machines are actually two parts: the first being the actual cabinet that displays the game, with the second part bearing a dance pad that sits atop the floor section of the cabinet.
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S62'Alan Wake 2' Is a Reality-Bending Reinvention of Horror Games  Playing the Alan Wake 2 demo was the closest I’ve ever seen a videogame get to representing how the mind of a writer works, pulling on disparate threads until it all comes together into a bigger picture. It’s one of the most innovative takes on survival horror in years, with dynamic mechanics that literally let you play with reality, creating an ethereal and unsettling experience. After a nearly three-hour hands-on event, Alan Wake 2 is shaping up to be yet another gem from Remedy Entertainment. Our demo was split into two halves, one that followed new protagonist Saga Anderson as she investigates the area around Bright Falls (the town from the first Alan Wake), and a second section that follows Alan himself, who’s trapped in a realm called The Dark Place. There’s an interesting, seemingly intentional, duality that emerges between these two sections, as Saga’s part feels more like your typical spooky survival horror, while Alan’s dives more into psychological elements, with those wild shifting mechanics.
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S63The Best Feats for Fighters in 'Baldur's Gate 3' to Inflict Maximum Damage  The tactical combat in Baldur’s Gate 3 can be a major challenge, especially if it’s your first encounter with the rules of Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. While it may not sound like the most exciting class, having a Fighter on the frontline might be the difference between saving the Forgotten Realms and becoming Beholder food.Choosing Feats is one of the most important parts of building a character, as they can completely change how you approach combat, and you only get a few throughout the game. But Fighters get one extra Feat at level 6, making them some of the most flexible characters.
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S64Star Wars Just Fixed One Very Strange Anakin Skywalker Plot Hole  Despite becoming the most famous movie villain of all time, it turns out, Anakin Skywalker was a pretty good teacher before he turned to evil. Sneakily, the TV series Ahsoka is rehabilitating the nurturing, mentor aspect of Anakin, a side of him that we rarely got to see in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. And, in Episode 7, “Dreams and Madness,” one very specific loose thread about Anakin’s role as a Jedi Master has been clarified — with a personal touch. Spoilers ahead.In “Dreams and Madness,” we see Ahsoka practicing her lightsaber forms on her ship, as a hologram of Anakin Skywalker (circa the Clone Wars) encourages her about all the things he wants her to remember. This isn’t a Force Ghost of Anakin, but, as we learn, one of at least “20 more,” training holograms he made at some point during the Clone Wars when young Ahsoka became his Padawan. Like the flashbacks in Episode 5, this glimpse of Anakin has him rocking his armor from The Clone Wars animated series, something that Hayden Christensen never originally got to wear in his two films. Anakin mentions to Ahsoka all the opponents she might face on the battlefield, including General Grievous, Asajj Ventress, and Count Dooku. Ironically, Anakin himself never actually fought General Grievous in The Clone Wars series because, in Revenge of the Sith, Grievous had never met Anakin in person before. Meanwhile, though Asajj Ventress is a canonical Star Wars Dark Jedi, she has never been glimpsed in live-action before, so even hearing her name in this episode is a big deal.
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S65The Wildest Superhero Saga of the Decade Just Got Even Better  The Boys’ universe definitely has a specific tone. Based on Garth Ennis’ comic series, the irreverent and overly gory superhero series serves as the perfect retort to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s family blockbuster formula. But with Gen V, the college-set spinoff premiering September 29 on Prime Video, the CW teen drama gets the same treatment. But what happens when the ultra-lewdness of the “adult” show is mixed into the over-the-top melodrama of Riverdale? The answer is “exactly what you’d expect,” but still incredibly watchable.Gen V begins the way many female-led coming-of-age stories begin: with the protagonist getting her period. But that’s the last predictable event in the life of Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair.) Thanks to a unique blood-bending power, she manages to get into Godolkin University, the hottest college for supes. It seems like “God U” only has two main majors: Performing Arts and Crimefighting, making the student population full of the most obnoxious kinds of people: theater kids and future cops. It’s the perfect recipe for drama.
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S66Einstein Was Right, Again: Novel Experiment Proves Antigravity Doesn't Exist  It turns out that Einstein was right yet again. A recent experiment just proved that antigravity doesn’t exist and we probably won’t ever get to use antimatter to levitate or build a perpetual motion machine or power warp drives (sorry, Star Trek). Antimatter itself is very real. Made of particles that mostly behave like regular matter, but their electrical charges are reversed, an anti-proton looks just like a proton but has a negative charge, while an anti-electron (or positron) looks and moves just like an electron but has a positive charge. When a bit of antimatter bumps into a bit of matter, they explode so dramatically that all of their combined mass is converted into energy.
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S67One 'Ahsoka' Line Fixes the Most Confusing Star Wars Twist  The main events of the Skywalker saga are more or less all written. We know Darth Sidious, aka Emperor Palpatine, orchestrates the fall of the Galactic Republic. We know he’s eventually defeated by his own apprentice, and his Empire falls. And thanks to the Star Wars sequels, we also know Palpatine finds a way back a few decades later, to establish his regime anew in the form of the First Order. But the circumstances of his return have been frustratingly muddy, which leaves series like The Mandalorian and Ahsoka to fill in the blanks.The latter has been diligently working to make sense of the First Order’s rise, from New Republic negligence to the emergence of the Imperial Remnant. It’s mostly working, but it’s silly that these shows even have to explain one of the laziest villain reveals in history.
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S68Foldable Screens are Making Laptops Interesting Again  Foldable displays have earned a cult following in smartphone design, giving us a more functional and fun alternative to the ever-popular glass bricks. Given their popularity, It was only a matter of time before the technology made it to laptops, giving us something different from the traditional clamshell. On that front, LG just announced its first foldable laptop, the Gram Fold, which comes just a couple of weeks after HP threw its hat into the ring with the Spectre Foldable PC. This foldable laptop design isn’t brand new, but the recent surge feels like the start of a big shift in design language.
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