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S2A festive Filipino bread for the holidays   If you've stumbled upon a panaderia (neighborhood bakery) in the Philippines, chances are you have seen freshly baked pan de regla, the soft Filipino bread roll filled with a custard-like pudding that ranges in colour from bright pink to dark red. The so-called "pink bread" appears different from its cousins pandesal (Filipino bread roll) and pan de coco (coconut bread), with its vibrant-coloured filling. No other favourites from the panaderia look like this, which screams for attention and piques your interest.Pan de regla literally translates to "menstrual bread" for its distinct filling, but there are 14 different names given to it in different parts of the country. Depending on who you talk to and where they are from, pan de regla may have a Filipino name, such as ligaya (happiness) and lahi (race of a people), while in some regions, the bread has an English name, such as "everlasting" and "lipstick".
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S3The 18 best TV shows of 2023  Just when it seemed there wasn't room for one more post-apocalyptic drama or video-game adaptation, The Last of Us came along. The story involves terrifying mushroom-headed zombies, but they are the least of the reasons for the show's impact. The series brings deep humanity and emotion to its tense survival story, centred on the relationship between Joel (Pedro Pascal), a bereaved father, and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), the orphaned girl he reluctantly agrees to take cross-country to safety. As they travel west across what was once the US, the changing landscape and characters they encounter add range and variety. An episode starring Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett whose relationship endures over the decades after the apocalypse is already one of the year's most poignant. A meeting with Joel's lost brother is satisfying yet fraught with loss by the end. Pascal has achieved a well-deserved mainstream breakout with the role, as he grounds the genre elements with a powerful, realistic performance, earning him an Emmy nomination. The Last of Us speaks eloquently to people who never knew it was a video game in the first place. (CJ)Sometimes a concept for a show is just so inspired, there's simply no way it can fail. Such is the case with this murder-of-the-week series from Knives Out creator Rian Johnson, which came about in the first place following of a casual dinner conversation between him and star Natasha Lyonne about their love of detective shows. One of Hollywood's most inimitable stars, Lyonne is an absolute dream here as the insouciant Charlie, a cocktail waitress on the run who finds herself travelling around the US, inadvertently getting involved in murder cases that could do with her mental acuity and unique ability to detect when someone's lying. She is, in her scrappy, wisecracking energy, a female Columbo; and as with that classic series, we see the murder at the beginning of each episode – so that it's not a whodunnit, but a howdunnit. And there is something singularly soothing about watching Lyonne put the pieces of the puzzle together, before hitting the road once more. True episodic TV of the old school, it is one of the year's simplest and purest pleasures. (HM)
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S4John Lennon: 'If we got in the studio together and turned each other on again, then it would be worth it'  Beatle John Lennon met Mark Chapman – the man who was to kill him – twice on the day he died, 8 December 1980.The first time was at around 5pm. Having finished a radio interview in their apartment in the Dakota building in New York to promote their new album, Double Fantasy, the musician and his artist wife Yoko Ono headed out on to the street. Mark Chapman approached Lennon to ask if he could sign a copy of the new LP. The album was later used as evidence in Chapman's trial, and reportedly went on to sell in a private auction for $1.5m in 2020.
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S5Israel's AI can produce 100 bombing targets a day in Gaza. Is this the future of war?  Last week, reports emerged that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are using an artificial intelligence (AI) system called Habsora (Hebrew for “The Gospel”) to select targets in the war on Hamas in Gaza. The system has reportedly been used to find more targets for bombing, to link locations to Hamas operatives, and to estimate likely numbers of civilian deaths in advance.Militaries use remote and autonomous systems as “force multipliers” to increase the impact of their troops and protect their soldiers’ lives. AI systems can make soldiers more efficient, and are likely to enhance the speed and lethality of warfare – even as humans become less visible on the battlefield, instead gathering intelligence and targeting from afar.
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S6Seven tips for ethical shopping this Christmas  Laura Spence is affiliated with the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation and Kellogg College, University of Oxford. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. As you walk into a shop or go online to hunt for Christmas gifts, it can feel pretty daunting. Who needs what, how much will it cost, will they like it? But also very important: am I making a good choice in where I am shopping?
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S7Erotic Vagrancy: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor biography revels in scandal and excess of Hollywood glamour couple  Roger Lewis’s biographies are always rich, wayward, engrossing, idiosyncratic and above all obsessive, which seems entirely fitting for evoking the particular qualities of his latest subject – the celebrity couple to end them all, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.Lewis’s substantial new book, Erotic Vagrancy: Everything About Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, takes its title from a phrase used in a papal condemnation of the couple when their affair began during the making of 20th Century Fox’s epic 1963 film Cleopatra in Rome. This served to emphasise the atmosphere of notoriety that surrounded Taylor and Burton’s relationship throughout its 20-year duration.
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S8S9Kenya at 60: the shameful truth about British colonial abuse and how it was covered up  It is fairly well known that the lives of hundreds of thousands of Kenyans were affected by terrible acts of violence under the British colonial administration. The British government and King Charles have acknowledged it, and some victims of violence have taken the British government to court for these crimes. Less-known is how much the British imperialist government tried to cover up these violations.
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S10Humiliation and violence in Kenya's colonial days - when old men were called 'boy' and Africans were publicly beaten  When King Charles visited Kenya in November 2023, many Kenyans renewed their demands for an official apology for atrocities committed by the British government during the colonial era. The widespread human rights abuses during the Mau Mau rebellion are the best-known of these atrocities. Yet we should not forget more mundane, everyday acts of domination.I am a social historian who has studied race, violence, colonialism and white settlement in Kenya. From the start of colonialism in 1895 to the drawing down of the Union Jack on 12 December 1963, black Kenyans were constantly subjected to violence and humiliation at the hands of colonial officials, settlers and missionaries alike.
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S11S13Conservatives' 'anti-woke' alternative to Disney has finally arrived  As fanfare blares, female sprinters at the starting line suspiciously eye a man in a wig. A hulking, goateed wrestler slams a woman half his size to the mat. An ominous voice-over intones that women’s sports are being “trans-formed.”No, this isn’t the beginning of a classic cross-dressing comedy. It’s the trailer for “Lady Ballers,” a new right-wing movie that farcically depicts cisgendered men claiming to be women in order to dominate women’s sports.
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S14S15AI can teach math teachers how to improve student skills  When middle school math teachers completed an online professional development program that uses artificial intelligence to improve their math knowledge and teaching skills, their students’ math performance improved.My colleagues and I developed this online professional development program, which relies on a virtual facilitator that can – among other things – present problems to the teacher around teaching math and provide feedback on the teacher’s answers.
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S16S17S18How Benjamin Zephaniah became the face of British Rastafari  The sudden and untimely passing of Benjamin Zephaniah at age 65 has rightly brought reflection on his legacy as a poet and as a writer, the two fields in which he made monumental contributions. Zephaniah’s warmth, his accessibility –- and his lyrical genius – made him a household name and a national treasure. Hear him, in 2018, on BBC Radio 3, waxing lyrical about his favourite Shakespearean moments. “In Caribbean and African folklore,” he says, “there’s a character called Anansi who’s a spider and a bit of trickster, and it’s very much like Puck.”
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S19Does exercise really do nothing for longevity, as a Finnish twins study suggests?  Surveys on lifestyle and longevity consistently find that people who do more exercise live longer. So it is surprising to see a report from the Finnish Twins Cohort Study that there is little direct effect of “leisure time physical activity” on lifespan. What makes this study different from others – and is it right?Human behaviour and biology are complex and interact with wider society and the environment. How much exercise a person gets could be linked to their genetics, diet, disabilities, education, wealth, or just whether they have enough leisure time and a safe green space. Each of these factors could also be linked to lifespan in different ways.
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S20Napoleon: ignore the griping over historical details, Ridley Scott's film is a meditation on the madness of power  While Ridley Scott’s Napoleon has been causing consternation among some historians, they are overlooking the fact that the historical record does actually support the film’s narrative in terms of one man taking power and shaping a new order during times of revolution and chaos.Set against the bloody backdrop of the French revolution (1789-1799), Empress Josephine – a beautifully judged performance by Vanessa Kirby – who narrowly escaped Robespierre’s guillotine, loves Napoleon for his power and image.
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S21Baldurs Gate 3 wins game of the year at 2023's Game Awards -  I’m looking over the shoulder of my friend, Iulia, as she boots up her PC. “You’re going to lose your mind,” she grins. Iulia and I share a love of fantasy worlds, hot monsters and video games, and she’s invited me over to her flat to show me something “really special”.Iulia admits, with a mixture of guilt and pride, that she’s already spent over 100 hours exploring the first act of a new game. She clicks through the opening, rhapsodising about the beauty of the environments, the intricacy of the turn-based combat and the glory of something or someone called “Astarion”.
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S22S23Why Venezuela is threatening to annex Guyana's oil-rich province of Essequibo  The US air force has taken the unusual step of holding joint drills with Guyana as the United Nations scheduled an emergency meeting of the security council to discuss Venezuela’s threat to annex more than two-thirds of the oil-rich South American country.Guyanese president, Irfaan Ali, appealed to Washington and to the UN after the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, announced that he had taken steps to formalise the incorporation of Essequibo – an oil-rich 160,000sq km region of neighbouring Guyana – as part of Venezuela.
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S24S25How to protect yourself from cyber-scammers over the festive period  The festive season is a time for joy, family and festive cheer. However, it’s also a prime target for cybercriminals. As online shopping ramps up, so does the risk of falling prey to cyber-attacks. That’s why it’s crucial to be extra vigilant about your cybersecurity during this time. Here are some essential tips to safeguard yourself and your data during the festive period:
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S26From the Paris agreement to COP28, how oil and gas giants try to influence the global climate agenda  There is “no science” behind demands to phase out fossil fuels, according to the current COP president. This level of cynicism at the top of the annual climate summit makes it less surprising that the conference has also been used as an oil trading venue.A record number of fossil fuel lobbyists gained access to the conference this year. So it seems to presage a bright future for fossil fuels, when it should be a venue to discuss how to stop using them.
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S27S28The disagreement between two climate scientists that will decide our future  Getting to net zero emissions by mid-century is conventionally understood as humanity’s best hope for keeping Earth’s surface temperature (already 1.2°C above its pre-industrial level) from increasing well beyond 1.5°C – potentially reaching a point at which it could cause widespread societal breakdown. James Hansen of Columbia University in the US published a paper with colleagues in November which claims temperatures are set to rise further and faster than the predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In his view, the 1.5°C target is dead.
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S29Frozen methane under the seabed is thawing as oceans warm - and things are worse than we thought  Buried beneath the oceans surrounding continents is a naturally occurring frozen form of methane and water. Sometimes dubbed “fire-ice” as you can literally set light to it, marine methane hydrate can melt as the climate warms, uncontrollably releasing methane – a potent greenhouse gas – into the ocean and possibly the atmosphere. Releasing it from the seabed could cause the oceans to become more acidic and the climate to warm further. This is a dangerous set of circumstances.
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S30This hand-painted film is a 'must see' - what you should watch this week  The mark of a good film, for me, is the way I feel when it’s over. If I jump up to brush off the popcorn and pull on my coat, it’s forgettable fare. If I’m still glued to my seat as the final credits roll, it will probably stick with me for quite some time.Such was the case with Loving Vincent in 2017, a beautiful film about the life and death of Vincent van Gogh. The story, about a man attempting to deliver the artist’s final letter and, in the process, unravelling the mystery around his death, wasn’t what hooked me.
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S31How the Christmas pudding, with ingredients taken from the colonies, became an iconic British food  As an American living in Britain in the 1990s, my first exposure to Christmas pudding was something of a shock. I had expected figs or plums, as in the “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” carol, but there were none. Neither did it resemble the cold custard-style dessert that Americans typically call pudding.Instead, I was greeted with a boiled mass of suet – a raw, hard animal fat this is often replaced with a vegetarian alternative – as well as flour and dried fruits that is often soaked in alcohol and set alight.
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S32Viva Guadalupe! Beyond Mexico, the Indigenous Virgin Mary is a powerful symbol of love and inclusion for millions of Latinos in the US  Dec. 12 is a special day for millions of Catholics around the world, especially those of Mexican descent. Known as el Dia de la Virgen Guadalupe, it is a popular feast day that celebrates the Virgin of Guadalupe: a brown-skinned, Indigenous vision of Mary that Catholics believe appeared to a peasant in 1531.The story of Guadalupe’s appearances is recounted in a text called the Nican Mopohua, which means “Here It Is Told” in Nahuatl, an Aztec language. The Nican Mopohua describes Jesus’ mother appearing multiple times to Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an Indigenous convert to Catholicism, about a decade after the Spanish had conquered Aztec Mexico. After her fourth and final apparition to Diego, Catholics believe that her image imprinted onto his cactus-fiber robe, known as a “tilma.”
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S33S34The NBA In-Season Tournament is a play for viewer attention -- will it succeed over time?  The National Basketball Association’s inaugural In-Season Tournament wraps up this weekend. The tournament kicked off on Nov. 3 and will culminate in a championship game between the Indiana Pacers and Los Angeles Lakers on Dec. 9.The tournament is something NBA commissioner Adam Silver has reportedly wanted to implement for years for a variety of reasons. One obvious potential benefit of the tournament is to generate revenue, as the Women’s National Basketball Association has already done with its own tournament, the Commissioner’s Cup.
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S35COP28: The scientific basis for a rapid fossil fuel phase out  It was perhaps unavoidable that fossil fuels would take centre stage at this year’s COP28 climate negotiations, held in Dubai and presided over by oil magnate Sultan al-Jaber. And indeed, it took only days for controversy to erupt in the wake of al-Jaber’s claim that there is no science behind the need to phase out fossil fuels to meet the 1.5 C target of the Paris Agreement. He later claimed he was misinterpreted.
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S36Inquest into Soleiman Faqiri's death at an Ontario 'super jail' reignites calls for reform  Imagine your family member is experiencing a mental health crisis, but instead of being treated at a mental health facility, they are locked inside a notorious provincial jail. You go to help by bringing their medication and medical records but are turned away again and again. Days later, a knock at the door brings the devastating news that your loved one is dead.The Faqiri family has been living this nightmare for the last seven years. They had come to Canada as refugees from Afghanistan in the early 1990s hoping for a better life.
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S37"The Zone of Interest" Finds Banality in the Evil of Auschwitz  Life is good, on a fine day, by a glittering lake. A family picnic on the grass, a merry swim, and the comforting of a crying baby. Such is the opening scene of "The Zone of Interest," a new film from Jonathan Glazer. The family is that of Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), and their five children. Later, as darkness gathers, they drive back home to their orderly house, beside the walls of Auschwitz.Höss is not a fictional invention. He was the commandant at Auschwitz from 1940 to 1943, and returned there in May, 1944, on the orders of Heinrich Himmler, specifically to oversee the extermination of Hungarian Jews. Their arrival in unprecedented numbersâup to twelve thousand a dayâwas a logistical challenge to which S.S. Obersturmbannführer Höss was trusted to rise. Train lines were extended so that they ran right up to two of the crematoriums. The entire operation even bore his name: Aktion Höss. A rare honor.
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S38What October 7th Did and Didn't Change About Israeli Politics  Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel, in which more than twelve hundred people were murdered, revealed a woefully unprepared Israeli government, as well asâit was later discoveredâa government that ignored warnings about the raid. As a result, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest-tenured leader in Israel's history, has seen his approval ratings crater, with a majority of Israelis saying that he should leave office at the end of the war in Gaza. But, with the war showing no signs of ending, and with Netanyahu's record of near-invincibility, it remains unclear what any future government will look like.To understand what may come next for Israeli politics, I recently spoke by phone with Dahlia Scheindlin, a political scientist and an expert on Israeli public opinion, as well as a policy fellow at the Century Foundation and a columnist for Haaretz. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed who might succeed Netanyahu, whether October 7th and the war in Gaza have opened up new space for a different kind of politics in Israel, and how to understand Israel's long rightward drift.
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S39Liz Cheney: Trump Should Go to Jail if Convicted  Liz Cheney has been Republican royalty, and a conservative stalwart in Washington. But after protesting Donald Trump’s election lies, and voting for his impeachment after January 6th, she found herself in exile from the G.O.P. Cheney is contemplating a Presidential campaign on a third-party line. As she promotes her new book, “Oath and Honor,” she is raising the alarm that Americans across the political spectrum have become “numb” to the threat of a would-be dictator. “People really understood that what he had done [on January 6th] was unacceptable, not to mention unconstitutional and illegal,” she tells David Remnick. “That recognition quickly dwindled.” Plus, the country songwriter Brandy Clark talks with Emily Nussbaum about her Grammy-nominated self-titled album, and explains how she came to embrace the “dirtier” aesthetic of “Americana”: “I’ve heard it called country music for Democrats,” she jokes.Once a top Republican, Cheney is calling out her former colleagues in Congress—including Speaker Mike Johnson—for “enabling” a would-be dictator.
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S40"May December" Probes the Dark Assumptions Behind a Tabloid Scandal  Not long into "May December," the slinky new Netflix movie directed by Todd Haynes and written by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik, you start to get a bad feeling. The melodramatic piano music has put you on edge, as have the visible damp of the Savannah air and the oak trees dripping with moss. A family is hosting a party at their sprawling waterfront house. Gracie Atherton (Julianne Moore), a striking strawberry-blond matriarch in middle age, frosts a cake. Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), a handsome, athletic man, maybe thirtysomething and Asian in appearance, tends an enormous barbecue. Teen-agers, also Asian-looking, run around with their friends. Amid this reverie, a stranger arrives. Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) has come on business: she will be playing Gracie in a film, and intends to embed with the family.We soon learn that Gracie and Joe are married, and that their twins are about to graduate from high school. There's an obvious age difference between the coupleâa quarter century, in fact. This is a big deal only because of when they got together: Joe was in seventh grade. Elizabeth's goal is to elevate this scandal into art and, in turn, elevate her middling "TV famous" career.
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S41The Anti-Spectacle of the Republican Debates  What were the takeaways from the final Republican debate of the year? Who won? Who lost? Were the various gaffes forgettable, or can they lodge themselves in the addled brain of a viewer in Iowa or New Hampshire, lasting there in the grooves well into mid-January, when she will go to put in her vote? Was that candidate’s feeble command of the lectern in Tuscaloosa—or in Milwaukee or Miami before it—a preview of a career of wannabe tyranny? Are there heels hidden in his boots? Paraphrasing some of the punditry response to the Republican debates is not done scornfully. Everyone has a job to do, and everyone, from the press to the moderators to the shrinking crowd of hopeful extremists shouting over one another on a lit stage, has worked in tedious harmony, these past several months, to fill the unfillable absence of Donald Trump.Between August and December, there were four debates that were sanctioned by the Republican National Convention and aired on television, and not a single one of them came to me live. A post-facto watch of nearly eight hours of political theatre creates a story that is, of course, counter to how a debate is meant to be consumed. The story being: how the G.O.P. was seeking to arrange its characters in a Trumpless environment, a future that could end up being a fantasy. Eight candidates qualified for the first debate, in Milwaukee—a dangerous number of voices from a producer’s point of view, that nonetheless had the useful effect of exhibiting the weird diversity of the right, in a party where diversity and diversion has not always been tolerated. Tucker Carlson’s interview with Trump, on X, purposefully scheduled at the same time, also gave the debate’s participants a sense of camaraderie and a sturdy target—at least they had shown up. They would vie for your attention, divided as it was by the Tucker interview.
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S42The Abortion Plot  In the nineteenth century, when a character had premarital sex, you held your breath not for an abortion but for a wedding. Think of “Pride and Prejudice,” where Lydia’s child marriage comes as a great relief. The marriage plot relegates the actual having of children to the last page, just after the rice is thrown and the reader assured that our heroine will be happy and rich. If great Western literature of the time does allude to abortion, it does so subtly or with plausible deniability. The first time I read “War and Peace,” I managed to miss the suggestion that Hélène died of an overdose of abortifacient drugs. In “Middlemarch,” when Rosamond goes horseback riding against the explicit wishes of her doctor husband and subsequently miscarries, Eliot hastens to explain that this was a “misfortune” and that “there were plenty of reasons why she should be tempted to resume her riding.”Of course, plenty of nonfictional women in the nineteenth century were having abortions. In the U.S., at least, contraception was crude, childbirth was dangerous, food was expensive, and abortion before quickening—the moment when the fetus is first felt to move—was less legally controversial than it is now, though also apparently less likely to be named outright. (Euphemisms included “taking the trade” and “restoring the menses.”) American literature took a while to say the unsayable. Writing students today still learn about understatement from Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” a brief conversation between two lovers who refer only to “an awfully simple operation” that will “let the air in.” In 1917, Edith Wharton dipped a toe in the abortion plot with “Summer,” a novel about a young woman named Charity who visits a money-hungry doctor for an abortion—the actual word is never said—before quickly deciding that “it was impossible to tear asunder strands of life so interwoven.” Keeping the fetus would typically doom Charity to a life of poverty and prostitution, but, at the last minute, Wharton saves the day by marrying her off to her foster father.
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S43'The Boy and the Heron's Best Scene Moves the Entire Industry Forward  In the opening minutes of The Boy and the Heron, director Hayao Miyazaki does something he’s never done before. The soft, rounded character designs that have come to characterize Studio Ghibli’s signature style start to morph and mutate. The shadows around them come alive, as if the grime of war has become sentient. Fire licks the side of the frames as if it will escape. It’s the height of World War II, and 11-year-old Mahito is running through the streets of Tokyo, pushing his way through terrified onlookers toward the burning hospital where his mom is currently trapped.It’s a breathtaking sequence that looks like nothing Miyazaki has animated before: dark, shadowy, malleable, even a little grotesque. In those first 10 minutes, it feels like Miyazaki is rejecting every stereotype of Studio Ghibli films as the purveyor of whimsical fluff, as if to say, “Look! I can make you feel so much more than cozy!”
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S445 Years Ago, a Rising Sci-Fi Director Made the Best Military Thriller You Haven't Seen  Following a limited theatrical release, Sam Esmail’s Leave the World Behind is finally streaming on Netflix. The thriller, about a family (led by Julia Roberts) whose vacation comes to a jarring halt when the owners of their rental return early due to a widespread blackout, offers a relatively compelling storyline and excellent character work. But it’s not Esmail and Roberts’ best team-up. The duo’s most memorable partnership happened on the small screen five years ago in the form of Prime Video’s Homecoming.Created by Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg as a scripted podcast series for Gimlet Media in 2016, the TV version was released to immediate critical acclaim on Prime Video at the end of 2018. Despite its near-universal praise, it slipped off most people’s radars by the new year and mostly missed out on any major awards. By the time the shortened second season rolled around in 2020, sans Roberts as an actor and Esmail as a director, the show had largely lost its traction and failed to recreate its original magic. But the first season of the show remains stellar, unforgettable mystery box television with a surprisingly heartfelt center.
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S455 Years Ago, a Rising Developer Turned the 'Dark Souls' Formula On Its Head  The Soulslike subgenre tends to be the domain of bleak, lonely games focused on testing your skill in combat. While that’s produced quite a few gems, it’s led to many more games that pale in comparison to the classics that inspired them. But of all the Soulslike games out there, there’s still only one I find myself returning to five years after its December 2018 release thanks to the way it uses the genre’s template to tell a more hopeful story.At a glance, Ashen looks like any other Soulslike game. The first title from developer A44, its high-risk, high-reward combat will feel familiar to Dark Souls fans, and its opening area is full of dank caves and sparse wilderness, populated by bands of aggressive enemies.
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S46Microsoft's Surface Devices Desperately Need a Reboot ASAP  2023 was a pretty lackluster year for Surface hardware — and the whole Windows ecosystem suffered as a result.Microsoft’s Surface hardware is in a weird place exiting 2023. The mix of laptops, 2-in-1s, and desktop computers had a good 2022 — the Surface Pro 9 was arguably the ideal version of its flagship device — but 2023 saw not only no new Surface Pro, but a focus on half-hearted updates to Microsoft’s “affordable” Surface Go and Surface Laptop Go lines and the pricier Surface Laptop Studio. Rather than try anything exciting like a new form factor or the custom silicon chips Apple is exploring, Microsoft played it safe — really safe.
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S47'The Boy and the Heron' Rejects The Most Boring Studio Ghibli Stereotype  The opening minutes of Future Boy Conan, Hayao Miyazaki’s’ classic but seldom-seen 1978 directorial debut, is a prophetic vision of our eventual self-destruction. Sieged by a future war and post-nuclear weapons of mass destruction, humanity has doomed itself; cyberpunk mega-cities crumble, populations are wiped away, the climate withers, and the waters rise. In the decades since Future Boy Conan, Miyazaki has developed a reputation for warm-blanket whimsy that can nurture the soul like the best bowls of noodle soup. But from the beginning of his career, he has always wrestled with the dark and difficult emotions that smolder inside us, and the deadly consequences they can unleash.It seems inevitable, then, that Miyazaki’s latest film, the mournful, rhapsodic, and heart-shattering The Boy and the Heron, follows Miyazaki’s darkest protagonist yet, a boy named Mahito, whose tormented soul turns to malice in the flames of World War II. And in focusing on such an uncharacteristically grim hero, Miyazaki also rejects the “Cozy Ghibli” aesthetic his films have too often been reduced to, with a startling source for the character’s inspiration: Miyazaki himself.
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S48'Lies of P' Developer Want Timoth  Neowhiz studio head Jason Park talks about making Soulslike games (slightly) easier, his plans for a Lies of P sequel, and more.In a star-studded evening at The Game Awards, the video game industry’s equivalent of the Oscars, celebrities like Anthony Mackie, Jordan Peele, and Matthew McConaughey graced the stage. But the end of the night was truly wrapped when Dune star Timothée Chalamet announced the coveted Game of the Year award (a well-earned trophy for Baldur’s Gate 3).
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S49Hubble Just Spotted An Ancient Globular Cluster 'Stuffed Full of Stars'  The Hubble Space Telescope finessed the light beaming in from outside our galaxy, and the result is a fabulous image where individual stars are seen in a big embrace.When thousands or even millions of stars huddle together, it's usually because their gravities are pulling them all towards each other. This gravitational pull creates pockets of stability in space where stars and their descendants aren’t floating away.
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S50'Final Fantasy XVI' DLC Answers One Huge Mystery And Opens Up Another  There was a time when Final Fantasy XVI fans weren’t sure whether they would get any DLC at all for the latest entry in Square Enix’s beloved franchise. But several months after the game's successful launch, the developer eventually revealed that DLC will come in the form of two future expansions. Since that original September announcement, no more information came out until The Game Awards showed off a stunning trailer highlighting both the expansions FF16 will get, along with a mic drop reveal that the first part is out right now.The first DLC — the one you can play right now — is Echoes of the Fallen. An official press release from Square Enix informs players they should expect a new story taking place before the end of the base game, new battles, weapons, and a higher level cap. The higher level cap means this DLC may be more challenging than anything in the base game.
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S51'Doctor Who' Will Finally Reveal The Doctor's New Form  The actual 60th anniversary of Doctor Who may have been three weeks ago, but why not keep the celebrations going? In light of the occasion, we’re getting three specials starring David Tennant, once again playing The Doctor, and Catherine Tate as fan-favorite companion Donna Noble. But after “The Star Beast” and “Wild Blue Yonder,” it’s time to bring things home with one last adventure: “The Giggle,” which will bring back forgotten villain The Toymaker and introduce Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor. Here’s everything you need to know before the final special, from what time you can watch it to what could possibly happen.
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S52The Game Awards 2023 Failed the Developers It Claims to Represent  What The Game Awards made time for: ads, rambling celebrity monologues, and more ads. What it didn’t make time for: the people who make games, the awards they received, and the opinions of people that the show claims to lift up. You may have noticed that two things The Game Awards spends the least time on are games and awards. More than 30 awards were given out last night. That’s quite a full docket, but The Game Awards made space for them all by keeping their recipients moving like they were all on a conveyor belt.
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S5392 Years Later, a Classic Sci-Fi Monster Gets a Surprising Feminist Makeover  Yorgos Lanthimos and his Poor Things screenwriter Tony McNamara didn’t set out to make a feminist Frankenstein. But in adapting Alasdair Gray’s story of a reanimated woman who embarks on a sexual odyssey across 19th-century Europe, it ended up that way.“In our approach, we never went, ‘It’s a feminist movie, that’s what we’re making,’” McNamara tells Inverse. “We were just like, we’re making a movie about this woman and the control everyone tries to have over her.”
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S54S5540 Common Mistakes You Don't Realize Make Your Home Look Dated  Updating your home doesn’t require a full-blown renovation. Small changes here and there can make a world of difference to upgrade a room both visually and practically. With that in mind, I’ve found a cheap fix for some of the most common mistakes you probably don’t realize make your home look dated. From new cabinet hardware that’ll spruce up your kitchen to easy-to-use chalk-style paint to breathe new life into an old piece of furniture, these tried-and-true reviewer favorites are the perfect way to upgrade your home on a budget. Give your kitchen a quick, easy, and cheap makeover by simply switching out old pulls that make the whole room look dated. These matte black pulls have a streamlined design that works with a variety of decor styles and cabinet colors. They’re clean and elegant and a fan favorite with over 26,000 perfect five-star reviews that mention their high quality, hassle-free installation, and modern appearance.
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S56How To Free Orpheus In 'Baldur's Gate 3' -- And Why It's Worth Doing  Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game where you have the power to save or damn people to a hellish fate. Depending on your particular vibe, your decision-making skills can leave you feeling like a paragon among men or a nervous wreck forced to make tough calls — especially if said judgments are tied to your companions' affinity for you. Look no further than this late-stage quest where Lae’zel requests your assistance in rescuing a long-lost Githyanki prince: Orpheus.Orpheus is a Githyanki monk and son of Gith, the legendary Githyanki warrior (whom the race is named after) who opposed enslavement by the Illithid Empire’s mind flayers. After learning his mother dearest was betrayed by her once-trusted advisor, Vlaakith I, Orpheus declared himself the uncrowned ruler of the Githyanki and led a rebellion against the usurper. If you’ve read any Shakespearean play before, you won’t be shocked to learn that Orpheus lost that battle and was presumed dead.
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S5765 Highly Rated Things on Amazon That Are Fantastic Bargains  Few things feel as good as snagging a good bargain — the problem is finding them in the first place. If you don’t have the spare time to go searching, rest easy as I’ve put together this list of fantastic bargains you can find right on Amazon. And since every item I’ve decided to feature comes with hundreds (if not thousands) of five-star reviews, you can rest assured that you’re spending money on a quality product.Don’t start that DIY project before you’ve taken a look at this magnetic pickup tool. Its telescopic neck extends out to 22 inches, making it easy to reach any nuts or bolts that have dropped out of reach — and the magnetic head even features an LED bulb to help you see into dark spaces.
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S58'Rick and Morty' Is About to Go Somewhere We've Never Seen Before  The first Rick and Morty episode without Rick was a bonkers story that finally got Ice-T to actually lend his voice to the show. Morty joined Mr. Goldenfold and Water-T in the fight against the Numbericons, ultimately helping to win the day and learn a new appreciation for math in the process. Now it’s on to the penultimate episode of Season 7. Here’s everything you need to know about Rick and Morty Season 7 Episode 9, including the release date and time, episode title, teaser trailer, and more.The trailer for Episode 9 aired Sunday night right after Episode 8 concluded. It opens on Jerry walking towards a shining light. “Hello Jerry,” an old woman says after materializing. Then it cuts to Rick’s garage, where Jerry is hooked up to some kind of contraption. It quickly becomes apparent that Rick figured out a way to get Jerry access to an actual afterlife without murdering him. The woman is most likely his deceased grandmother or some other loved one.
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S5913 Years Ago, a Megastar Actor Made a Hit Sci-Fi Movie -- And Predicted a Modern Dilemma  Much like the multi-purpose robot at the center of its story, Enthiran is many things all at once.It’s a cautionary tale warning against the arrogance of humanity and the dangers of unchecked technology. It’s a thinly-veiled superhero movie by way of a winking send-up of typical American bombast. It was the most expensive blockbuster in the history of Tamil cinema (known colloquially as “Kollywood”) at the time — and the highest-grossing Indian film of 2010. But above all else, Enthiran is an epic drama filled with musical numbers, romantic melodrama, and gonzo action sequences that truly need to be seen to be believed.
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S60Call of Duty Is In Trouble. Can Its Wildest Creation Save It?  I still remember my first experience with the undead. After rolling credits on the Call of Duty: World at Wär campaign, I spawned into a bunker with only a pistol at my disposal. Spooked by unnerving noises and the shadows in the distance, my 12-year-old self turned the Xbox off and went to bed.My first experience with Call of Duty Zombies was a bit of a false start, but it didn’t stop me. I spent night after night with friends trying to get to a higher round, developing new strategies, and testing different weapons. Stories and scores were traded at school. There were even whispers of a “Zombie Hitler” if you made it to Round 100 (one of the last playground rumors where you couldn’t instantly Google the answer).
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S61My Pronouns Are She/They. What Are Yours?  Two years ago, I attended a Christmas party at my parent’s house in California. Picture a dimly lit room filled with candles and wine, cheery tunes, and garlands twinkling in the background. I was standing in the kitchen, picking cheese from a platter, when a relative resembling a Disney villain pronounced that I looked more masculine than she remembered. She sipped her drink and cocked her head to the side, taking in my buzzed hair, green vest, and slacks.
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S62How Retailers Can Capitalize on the "Refund Effect"  In 2022, U.S. consumers returned 16.5% of purchases, costing retailers an estimated $816 billion in lost revenue. Research suggests that cross-selling products during the return process is an effective strategy to reduce this revenue loss. Across a number of experiments, researchers found that consumers treat refunds as money already lost, so it’s less painful to spend these funds on another purchase, so long as cross-selling occurs before the money is reissued to the customers’ original payment method and consumers initially expected to keep the goods they were planning to buy. The researchers also found that this “refund effect” applies across categories. Creating return policies and practices informed by the refund effect can reduce revenue loss from product returns in a way that benefits both consumers and retailers.
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