HiTLeR

Accepted

DH1 : DH2 :

The manual transmission is barely clinging to life in America. Just 13 percent of cars for sale in the U.S. in 2020 were offered with a stick. In 2019 (the most recent year for which we have data), just 1.1 percent of new car buyers opted for the third pedal. So, you could forgive Porsche executives for guessing wrong on how many manuals they would sell on the outgoing Porsche 911 GT3. And guess wrong, they did. “We lost several bottles of wine by betting on the take rate when we reintroduced the manual option,” Porsche Vice President Frank-Steffen Walliser told reporters this week “We were surprised by how high it was.” Fully 70 percent of American buyers of Porsche’s track-ready model opt for the 6-speed manual version. It boasts a slower 0-to-60 mph time than the dual-clutch automatic option, even in the hands of a seasoned race driver (and let’s be honest with ourselves – none of us shift as well as that). Yet, Americans willing to spend six figures on their dream Porsche generally don’t want it to shift for them. Perhaps most surprisingly, Americans bought manuals at a higher rate than customers in any other country Porsche serves. Worldwide, the stick appeared on about 30 percent of examples of the outgoing model. To be clear, buyers of the standard 911 are less likely to want to work a clutch themselves. About 25 percent of them select the manual transmission. With a new GT3 on the way, Porsche executives are now planning for a run on manual gearboxes. The U.K.’s Autocar reports that Andreas Preuninger, the head of Porsche’s GT and high-performance car division, expects that 40 percent of 2022 911 GT3 buyers will opt to shift their own gears.

‘It wasn’t until I lived in an inter-faith household that I realised just how weird my side could sound’ The wheels fell off my plans for this year’s Lent abstinence within three days. Or, more accurately, when The Parkers Arms’ “at home” quince pudding with custard was left at my front door. My choice was between giving up sugar for 40 days in a bid to re-learn the concept of sacrifice and self-discipline, or letting this structurally perfect, moist, delicate, syrupy masterpiece go to waste. “What would Jesus want?” I wondered while snaffling the entire tray like a Hungry Hippo. Soon after, I ate a piece of handmade, extra-thick millionaire’s shortbread at Tebay on the M6, which is less a service station than a delightful artisan farmshop and organic beeswax moisturiser boutique with added petrol pumps. I love Tebay because it is so wilfully bizarre. You cannot buy anything as gauche as a Krispy Kreme donut, but you can get a ukulele and an Easy Ukulele Party Classics songbook. Supporting Tebay Services at a time when few people are travelling also felt very holy on my part. “Remind me again what Lent is?” asked my partner Charles, who is Jewish, as I shook the bag to dislodge all the particles of chocolate stuck inside, then straightened the edges to pour that delicious bounty down my gullet. “Lent,” I began confidently, “is a period of abstinence to commemorate Jesus spending 40 days and 40 nights in the, um, wilderness.” My last Lent refresher course was at Sunday school in 1977, where my parents sent me so they could glean two hours of glorious silence in which to read the Sunday Post and eat toast. “Why was he in the wilderness?” asked Charles, having never read as far as the New Testament. “He went to the wilderness to prepare for, er, something,” I replied, “so Christians give up things like sugar or meat, or rollerblading. Although that was in Father Ted, so it’s not really a thing.” Neither my partner nor I is staunchly religious, yet there is enough floating about in our noggins from our respective childhoods to influence how, when and what we eat. For him, that means never pork and fasting on certain holidays. I’ve even made raspberry jam hamantaschen for Purim. But it wasn’t until I lived in an inter-faith household that I realised just how weird my side could sound, or how much I liked my own framework of eccentric dos and don’ts. Whether or not you believe in God, they just seem to make the year feel more neat, and give you a little path back to a place that was once safe. “This Easter, I’m making Pace eggs,” I announced recently. (With another matriarch now gone from my family, I feel pressure to step up to the plate.) “I’m dying boiled eggs in their shells, using onion skins, to make natural fractal patterns. Then we can roll them down a hill on Easter Sunday.” Admittedly, this felt a lot more sane inside my head, because now it sounded as if we were extras in The Wicker Man. Didn’t everyone’s household chase boiled eggs down a steep bank to pay tribute to the resurrection? What about eating pigeon peas with malt vinegar and butter on the fifth Sunday in Lent (leading to some frankly unholy gastrointestinal explosions)? Does this not all make perfect sense? Of course, the lead-up to Easter runs parallel with the lead-up to Passover, which has its own restrictions, recipes, and things to be gathered and done. I will never be Jewish, but I have felt the high tension of trying to locate the last box of Rakusen’s “Kosher for Passover” matzo crackers within the M25 on the Thursday before Pesach. Believe me, when I saw that solo box on the ransacked shelf in Buckhurst Hill Waitrose, it felt like a religious experience. Less so when I tried to turn them into matzo cracker lasagne – they do not substitute for pasta; do not believe the hype. Within this lifetime, I hope to get to the bottom of why Charles can but can’t eat kidney beans during Pesach, even if a rabbinical assembly in 2014 said it’s OK, probably. “Jesus went to the wilderness to fast and prepare for ministry,” I said, checking Google while picking caramel out of my fillings, “which is why I’ve given up sweet things.” If it turns out there really is a heaven, I hope God isn’t into details.

The administration of US President Joe Biden violated expectations to deal with Iran, and for the first time during the Biden era, the states publicly targeted Iranian sites on the Iraqi-Syrian border, in a warning message to Tehran that they are under surveillance and that the nuclear agreement does not mean complacency in striking terrorist militias in the region. The death toll rose to 22, all of them from the Popular Mobilization Forces and the Iraqi Hezbollah, according to figures published by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights today (Friday). According to a spokesman for the Pentagon, John Kirby, according to the direction of President Joe Biden, the US military launched air strikes targeting infrastructure, used by Iranian-backed armed groups, in eastern Syria. He stressed that the raid sent "an unambiguous message: President Biden will act to protect US and coalition personnel." This is the first time that Washington announces strikes against Iranian militias in Syria. Usually, unidentified aircraft targeting Iranian sites are indicated. Kirby added in a statement that these strikes were approved in response to recent attacks against US and coalition forces in Iraq, and to the ongoing threats they are exposed to. He emphasized that the strikes destroyed several facilities located at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed armed groups, including the "Hezbollah Brigades" and the "Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada" Brigades. And it seems that Washington is heading for a clear and specific behavior with Iran, based on the parallel between the political and military tracks. "This military response was implemented in accordance with diplomatic measures, including consultations with coalition partners ... and it was carried out in a deliberate manner aimed at calming the general situation in both eastern Syria and Iraq," the Pentagon spokesman said. These militias are considered one of the most dangerous groups supported by Iran, as Kataib Hezbollah was established in 2006, and it is an Iranian-backed terrorist organization that "seeks to implement Iran's malign agenda in the region," according to the US State Department's classification. The United States has previously included Kataib Hezbollah on the list of specially listed terrorist organizations and terrorists. Most likely, the American strike against Iranian militias in Syria defines the rules of US engagement with the Iranian regime, as Washington affirms that the nuclear agreement does not mean giving Tehran a free hand in the region, especially Syria and Iraq.

@Roselina ♣ flowers🙂

Both are good but i like DH2 more than DH1 , nice music

ADP app purports to complete payroll in under a minute ADP has launched a new AI-powered app to help small business handle payroll tasks more efficiently. Roll by ADP makes use of an artificial intelligence-backed chat interface, which enables business owners to tackle their payroll chores from any device and complete the process in under a minute. Users simply need to issue a chat-style prompt to the Roll by ADP app, such as ‘Run my payroll’ and follow a series of simplified steps to complete the task. The app walks the user through the process while removing more labor intensive aspects of the payroll run. Take a look at the best accounting software The best tax software around today Check out the best money transfer apps and services Roll by ADP doesn't require any training and offers speed plus the convenience of being able to use it on any iOS or Android device. ADP claims that the app needs a one-time 15-minute setup and that's it. Users also get automatic reminders for important tasks and deadlines, which adapt to individual needs due to the AI-based design. Roll by ADP The payroll software should also appeal to employees, who can use the Roll app to update their own personal information along with accessing their pay statements. Usefully, they also get an automatic notification when it’s payday. ADP has combined its knowledge of the payroll software sector with its data security expertise and claims the new app will offer speed and efficiency for small business owners. Roll by ADP features built-in tax filing capabilities too. The software also comes with live in-app chat support, plus regular updates to keep abreast of changing pay regulations and amendments to compliance rules. “Small business owners have been impacted by the pandemic in a way we have never seen in our history,” said Joe DeSilva, president of small business solutions at ADP. “As they continue to rebuild, the last thing an employer needs is to focus time and resources on another process that can be arduous or perceived as cost-prohibitive. Roll by ADP completely upends the way small businesses will think about payroll by turning it into an experience as familiar as having a conversation with a friend. There’s nothing else out there remotely like it.” ADP produces a range of products for the business sector, including HR, talent and time management packages along with benefits and payroll software applications.

Save up to $140 on seriously good gaming monitors Searching for a good gaming monitor? Gigabyte is a good brand to look at for their range of premium specs at affordable prices, made even better by this deal. For a limited time over at Newegg, you can get up to 22% off a whole range of Gigabyte gaming monitors — some of which rank highly on our best gaming monitors list. We’re particularly impressed by the G27FC, which is available for under two hundred bucks and gives you incredible bang for your buck with a 165Hz curved displayr. On the other end of the price scale is the Gigabyte Aorus CV27Q, which boasts a pixel-dense QHD resolution, HDR and adaptive sync, along with a 165hz refresh rate. Whatever specs you're looking for, the wide variety of discounts in Gigabyte's latest sale should have got you covered.

Game Information Initial release date: February 26, 2021 Publication: Nintendo WW:; Square Enix JP: Artist (s): Ikushima Naoki; Onuma Hajime Composer: Revo Director: Iwami Shunsuke Software developers: Claytechworks Co., Ltd., Team Asano The Bravely series has always excelled at evoking the feeling of playing classic Final Fantasy-style RPGs, while sanding off some of the rough edges that may make those classic games less approachable to modern audiences. Bravely Default II, confusingly enough the third game in the franchise, maintains much of its predecessors' retro charm--but it actually removes some of the quality-of-life features that made the first two such breezy nostalgic throwbacks. Instead of simply reminding you of the satisfaction of playing a classic RPG, Bravely Default II demands that you relive the entire experience, faults and all. For the uninitiated, Bravely Default gets its namesake from its innovative risk-reward combat system. Along with your typical health and magic meters, you have Brave Points (BP). And rather than a standard Defend command, you can choose to Default, which both defends and banks BP for later use. You can spend up to four actions using Brave command, but if you don't have enough BP banked you go into debt and skip future turns undefended. This has always been key to Bravely Default's battle system, and it remains essentially untouched here. The approach is a little less novel the third time around, but it still creates a unique wrinkle of strategic RPG battle planning. Do you go into debt to unleash a flurry of attacks or do some emergency healing? Do you bank first and take the damage for a few turns? Bravely veterans will fall right back into the habit, but nothing about it feels too complex that it should give newcomers trouble. And newcomers will be able to jump in here because, like Final Fantasy, Bravely Default II's story is disconnected from any continuity. Four strangers come together as the selfless Heroes of Light to stave off certain doom--you know the drill. Bravely Default has also been known for its job system, another throwback to games like Final Fantasy V. As you level up your heroes in different jobs, they'll gain access to new active and passive abilities, and when you switch to a new job you can set a subclass to retain some of your previously learned skills. At their best, Bravely games recall classics like Final Fantasy Tactics by allowing you to experiment and combine job abilities in ways that feel almost like cheating in the best way. You could combine a job that attracts enemy aggression with passive abilities that boost your power level every time you sustain an attack, or pair a regenerating Mana Points (MP) pool ability with a spellcaster who specializes in high-cost damage-dealing. Exploring and finding these combinations feels like solving a puzzle and becoming a tactical mastermind. Obtaining new jobs is a major plot element in Bravely Default II, as you learn new jobs by defeating the holders of Asterisks--gems that contain the knowledge and skills of a specialized job. If you see a new character sporting a particularly unique set of clothing, you can be relatively assured they have an Asterisk to nab. True to its roots, Bravely Default is a grind-heavy series. Both leveling up and mastering the wide variety of jobs available takes hours of battling low-level enemies in dungeons, but both Bravely Default and Bravely Second greased these squeaky wheels with some welcome features. You could toggle the encounter rate to occur more frequently in the overworld, set your characters to auto-battle, and adjust the combat speed to fast-forward through encounters. If your party was strong enough to handle smaller enemies, you could easily run around the battlefield getting into random battles while, for example, marathoning a TV show. You could walk away with a ton of experience within the span of one or two Breaking Bads. It was one of the key ways that the Bravely games captured the essence of classic games without bringing all of their baggage along for the ride. Bravely Default II jettisons some of these options and suffers for it. Enemy encounters are no longer random--you see enemies roaming the overworld and run into them to initiate--so your time in the overworld is spent hunting down visible creatures. (Obnoxiously, weaker enemies run away from you, forcing you to chase them down if you're trying to farm.) You can no longer set the characters to auto-battle either; instead, you need to manually prompt your characters or hit the "repeat last action" function. Because of this, leveling your party feels like old school grinding again, both commanding your near-full attention and significantly slowing the process of hunting enemies. The experience and job progression milestones are set roughly as high as they were in the two previous games, but with the shortcuts removed, regularly leveling your characters for that next tough boss becomes a chore. Battles can still be sped up, but the default speed setting is so languid it's hard to imagine ever playing in anything but 2x or 3x speed. And 4x can be too fast to properly see what's happening, so you'll sometimes have your party wiped before you even realize which attack was being queued up. Being able to turn up the battle speed mid-battle certainly helps mitigate the level-grinding by making individual battles snappier, but the lack of automation is still a drag. The Bravely games had created a beautiful blend of systems with auto-battles, encounter rate sliders, and battle speed sliders. Those systems worked in concert with each other to trim the extraneous work of classic RPGs while keeping the substance. Still having the option to increase the battle speed is better than nothing, but it also makes the absence of the other quality-of-life improvements that much more pronounced. All of this is delivered with a presentation that is better-looking than ever before, and still endearingly simplistic. The characters look like vinyl figurines, and there's real joy in seeing how the different jobs are reenvisioned. The White Mage job, for example, eschews the usual priestly robes and instead sports a white jacket and hat combo reminiscent of a K-pop band. The Pictomancer, one of the more creative inclusions, looks like a classic painter complete with a beret and color-splotched apron. Anytime I got access to a new job, I would immediately play dolls with my four heroes, seeing each of their unique looks in the new outfits. Despite its cute look, though, Bravely Default II explores some heavy themes. One chapter centers around the death of a child and how the grief and guilt has impacted her parents and family friends. Another has themes of religious persecution echoing the Salem witch trials, with its chief inquisitor convinced he's obeying divine influence instead of his own prejudices. These stories are delivered like vignettes, as individual chapters will shift the focus to an entirely new cast of characters and locale. These story beats exist within a minimalist framework, and that disarming contrast made their tonal impact hit harder than if they'd been delivered in a game that was more overtly grisly or philosophical. Given that sophisticated approach to individual story moments, though, it's disappointing that the overarching plot is so threadbare. The vast majority of the story involves an evil empire waging war on surrounding kingdoms in pursuit of power, and four chosen Heroes of Light are looking to defend the world from encroaching darkness. The characters are likable--particularly the scholar Elvis, who sports a thick brogue and addresses the rest of the cast like an elder statesman--but they're mostly not much more than archetypes. Of course there's a little more to it, but the story doesn't come off as self-aware or winking about its own stock-standard presentation. It's almost entirely straight-faced, which is hard to sustain for a 50-hour adventure. I say almost, because the Bravely series has a habit of taking wild swings with huge metatextual twists. Bravely Default II is no exception, and after the credits roll it becomes clear that there's more to uncover. I've only started to scratch the surface on this post-game content, but what I've seen looks audacious. One scene even reminded me of the left-field twist from Bravely Second, though I have yet to see how Bravely Default II pays off this narrative development based on the several hours of post-game content I've seen. Saving the twist and more game content for as long as Bravely Default II does proves to be a stumbling block. However, saving the twist and more game content for as long as Bravely Default II does proves to be another stumbling block. The enjoyment of a Bravely game comes from tinkering with the job mechanics and finding game-breaking combinations of abilities. The jobs available throughout the vast majority of Bravely Default II are fairly typical. Even Pictomancer, one of the more creative additions, is still essentially a standard buff/debuff support job. As such, there's not much playfulness in cooking up overpowered job combinations throughout the main story, and the sluggish pace of leveling up means it's hard to get a wide array of abilities that could combo well anyway. This may change in the post-game, but finishing a grind-heavy 50-hour RPG before reaching that point is a heavy lift. I'm left with mixed feelings about Bravely Default II. There's a lot to like and a core that's still fun and engaging. But the removal of some key quality-of-life features gives this experience a lot more friction than the prior games. I've loved the Bravely Default series for letting me feel like I'm 15 again--with all the time in the world to grind out a full set of level-99 characters--while still respecting my time by recognizing I don't actually want to do that. Bravely Default II asked me to put in the tedious work and lost some of the series' identity in the process. Here are the minimum system Requirements CPU: Intel Core i3-560 3.3GHz Or AMD Phenom II X4 805 Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2 GB or AMD Radeon R7 360x 2GB RAM: 4 GB Windows: Windows 7,8,8.1 and 10 (64 Bit) DirectX: DX 11 HDD Space: 40 GB

New service can import content from Facebook to build a website quickly Microsoft is foraying into the website builder business with an all-new website creation service. The tool will form part of Microsoft's Digital Marketing Center, with the company noting in a blog post announcing the service that it hopes to, “remove the barriers of cost and lack of time by providing a free and simple solution small businesses can leverage to get started with a website.” The Redmond-based software company follows WordPress, which launched the Built By WordPress.com service last month in January. However, unlike the WordPress service, Microsoft’s offering is completely free of cost. Host your website with the best web hosting services Here’s our list of the best free website builders We’ve also highlighted the best cloud hosting providers Advertising dollars Microsoft added that the new service can automatically import a majority of the content either from a business’ Facebook page or from an existing advertising campaign. It will then use this information to fabricate a website complete with a relevant layout. You can ofcourse modify any of the content and choose another template to customize your website, before publishing it. While Microsoft hasn’t specified how it aims to monetize the service, the fact that it operates under the Digital Marketing Center umbrella could be telling. The Digital Marketing Center is Microsoft’s ad platform that helps create, execute, and manage advertising campaigns across social media platforms and search engines. It appears Microsoft hopes to rake in on the advertising dollars, when these small businesses feel the need to advertise their new websites. That said, while the ability to create free websites is available to users all over the world, the Digital Marketing Center currently only supports US businesses that advertise within the US, according to a FAQ on its website.

The GeForce RTX 3060 12GB brings the theoretical price down to just $329, but when will it actually hit that price? The Nvidia RTX 3060 12GB brings a new level of performance to the mainstream market--sort of. Officially, the RTX 3060 launches today with prices starting at just $329. Realistically? You're as likely to find one at that price as you are to find an RTX 3060 Ti at $399, RTX 3070 at $499, or RTX 3080 at $699 — not entirely impossible, perhaps, but highly unlikely. Nvidia's Ampere architecture now powers many of the best graphics cards, and they're all seeing massive levels of demand from both gamers and cryptocurrency miners. Nvidia has added firmware and driver code to detect Ethereum mining, which should help a bit, but when people are willing to pay extreme scalper pricing on eBay, even for cards like the GTX 1660 Super and RTX 2060, everything in our GPU benchmarks hierarchy is pretty much sold out right now. Nvidia is even working with partners to bring back previous generation Turing and Pascal cards. None of that makes this a bad GPU, but we expect the RTX 3060 to be just as difficult to acquire as any other modern GPU. Eventually, the current Ethereum mining boom will fade away, but it could take a year or more before we see the end of chip shortages. That shouldn't surprise anyone at this point, but if you've been hoping for a reasonably priced gaming PC upgrade, it's a depressing state of affairs. Unlike the previous Ampere GPUs, Nvidia won't offer an RTX 3060 Founders Edition, so we're looking at a third-party card. Nvidia shipped us the EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC for this launch review, a reasonably compact and relatively unassuming card. There's no metal (or even plastic) backplate, no RGB lighting, and two custom-sized 87mm fans for cooling with a 2.0-slot form factor. The card measures 202x110x38mm and weighs 653g, which is quite the change of pace compared to the other third-party Ampere cards we've reviewed so far. There are reasons for that, of course. Creating a mainstream card and decking it out with all the bells and whistles costs money. And we think most gamers shopping for a good value are far better served by modest designs with good performance. There will certainly be extreme variants of the RTX 3060, and some of them will be priced higher than the budget RTX 3060 Ti options. Let's be clear: Even the fastest RTX 3060 won't beat a 3060 Ti in most situations — yes, even with 12GB VRAM. That's because memory capacity isn't a huge factor once you go above 8GB, and having more memory bandwidth, thanks to its wider memory bus, gives the 3060 Ti a big advantage. Also, the 3060 Ti has 35% more GPU cores.

Game Information Initial release date: 2021 Software developer: Batterystaple Games Publisher: Batterystaple Games Stylist: Chris King Type: Shooting Game, Fighting Game, Roguelike, Independent Game, Game, Early Access Basic Information: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One When you die in 30XX, thus bringing your run to a premature and perhaps permanent end, there's a good chance you will receive a message from the Bureau of Encouragement. In a roguelike platformer where death can feel like a crushing setback or at best wasted time, you would be forgiven for expecting to find comfort in such a message. A consoling pat on the back, some inspiring words, or at least a sliver of hope. You would be wrong. "Ooooh! So close…" says the Bureau of Encouragement. "Just kidding. That was terrible!" I received a lot of messages from the Bureau of Encouragement because I died a lot in 30XX. But the Bureau was not the only regulatory agency to contact me in the aftermath of my demise. The Failure Board and the Department of Aggravation also got in touch to register their contempt at my performance. "Remember, you can stop whenever you have given up hope," they laughed. Despite their derision, I pressed on. Much like the classic action platformers from which it draws heavy inspiration, 30XX is a game in which defeat is never an ending but rather an opportunity to start over and try again. A roguelike structure is a smart complement to this life-death cycle and positions 30XX--even in its Early Access state--as an accomplished title, worthy of comparison to its 8- and 16-bit forerunners. In a nutshell, 30XX is procedurally generated Mega Man. You run left to right, jump, shoot and slice your way across a series of themed 2D platforming worlds, taking down a boss at the end of each level. Moving through these areas feels great, thanks to precise and responsive controls. Actions like dash-boosting a jump to clear a larger-than-usual gap or sliding down a wall to adjust the timing of the next wall jump, for example, quickly become instinctive, erasing any additional barrier between you and obstacles ahead. When you die yet again you'll be cursing your own ineptitude rather than any sluggish movement or control issues. The procedural nature of the levels is derived from the way pre-made "chunks" are shuffled and randomly combined to generate the world ahead. It's not quite the case that when you commence a new run you will find yourself facing a fresh challenge as, chances are, you'll encounter chunks that you've seen before. Though I don't know exactly how many chunks are in the currently available pool, my experience was that they seemed to repeat quite often. I suppose the idea is that even if you have seen the individual chunks of a level before, you won't have experienced them assembled in this particular order, and in my time at least, that seemed to be the case. Given that just three chunks comprise each level, however, hitting a repeat chunk does mean that an awful lot of the level of your current run will be familiar. At first I found it a disappointment to happen upon the same area. Here we go, I'd feel my shoulders slump, it's the one with lots of falling crystal spike traps above a sequence of tiny platforms again. But many runs later that initial dismay had subsided, replaced with an eagerness to bound through a chunk I now knew well and a determination to hone my mastery of the level, ensuring I arrived at the boss with full health for the best possible advantage. 30XX benefits from the procedural generation of its levels across two game modes that both incorporate roguelike elements in different ways. Both modes allow you to keep all your gear, currency and upgrades between runs. The difference is, when you die in Standard all the levels are rerolled, while in Mega your progress persists. Standard is actually the more challenging of the two in that it forces you to beat the whole game in one life while in Mega Mode you're able to cling to small feats of progress. I played a lot more of 30XX in Mega Mode than in Standard. This is because, as I may have mentioned, I died a lot. And, despite the best efforts of the Bureau of Encouragement, I found myself far more inclined to hit restart knowing I was now armed with greater knowledge of what lay ahead. In doing so, I was able to appreciate that each death was but a scouting expedition to precede my eventual success. Just as there are two game modes with distinct takes on the same premise, there are two playable characters offering their own particular approaches. Broadly speaking, Nina uses ranged weapons (her gun is even referred to as a buster) while Ace relies on melee. This difference necessitates the deployment of new strategies for even the most basic of enemies, transforming what may be a fairly straightforward section with one character into a fraught challenge with the other. Alone, this would be reason enough to warrant completing a full run with both characters. But the contrast between the pair runs deeper to include the types of powers they accrue, as well as the way you have to manage the energy required to use those powers. This ensures the two characters are unique and swapping between them for a new run feels meaningfully different. To my surprise, there is a cooperative mode where a second player can join. I couldn't find another player online whenever I tried the network option, but I was able to test local co-op (with player 1 using a pad and player 2 on keyboard) and was even more surprised at how well it worked. Impressively, when the two players became separated, the screen would smoothly zoom out--often displaying a ridiculous amount of the level at once--to keep both characters in frame, even if they were now barely a handful of pixels tall. (Don't worry, things aren't so tiny you can't see what's going on, and there's absolutely no reason why players need to remain so far apart for any length of time.) The only letdown is that it doesn't seem possible--at least at this stage--to import an already upgraded character as the co-op partner. There's also a level editor to allow players to design their own chunks of a level and share them with the community. It's pretty easy to use and already comes with a clear and concise tutorial. Level design is not my forte, but I was able to build a very simple chunk with a few obstacles in just a few minutes. What happens to these chunks once created was less clear. I was able to browse other players' creations in the chunk catalog and download and play any I wished, but I couldn't work out if it was possible to play through a whole run of player-created levels. Enticing as it may sound to have your own chunk added to the rotation for others to encounter in their Standard Mode run, this doesn't appear to be the case, though who knows what future updates in this area Early Access may deliver. To that end, there's a clock on the 30XX title screen counting down the time to the very second until the next update. The next few months, though perhaps not the very next update, will see the welcome addition of Leaderboard play with seeded daily and weekly runs, according to developer Batterystaple Games. Over the course of the planned year-long Early Access period, two new worlds and bosses, plus a ninth final stage, will be added to the existing half-dozen, along with new but yet-to-be-detailed items, powers and systems--all of which is not just reassuring but hugely encouraging for the game's future prospects. Bearing in mind what's still to come, 30XX is nonetheless off to an excellent start. It's already a thoroughly enjoyable homage to the likes of Mega Man or Turrican, with tight controls and polished character design securing the foundation and a roadmap to version 1.0 promising a steady supply of new content. I wouldn't hesitate to start your run now, no matter what the Bureau of Encouragement might say to the contrary. System Requirements OS: Windows Vista or Later. Processor: Toaster processor or better (2009+) Graphics: Most cards that can produce Graphics(tm) DirectX: Version 9.0c. Storage: 2000 MB available space. Sound Card: Sound recommended.

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IS 500 F Sport boasts more power V8 rated at 472 hp and 395 lb-ft of torque 0-60 mph time of 4.5 seconds Exterior sports performance accents Lexus is adding to its F Sport Performance lineup with the all-new 2022 Lexus IS 500 F Sport Performance, complete with a naturally aspirated 5.0-liter V8 engine that makes 472 horsepower and 395 lb-ft of torque. That’s slightly less horsepower than the much-loved Lexus IS F that the company stopped producing last year. But Lexus says that the IS 500 F Sport Performance will do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. The Lexus F Sport line has always delivered engaging, performance-oriented driving in a luxury vehicle, and with the new Lexus IS 500 F Sport, the company says it’s doubling down on “elevating the vehicles to a new standard of performance and handling,” according to the press release. While the IS line is the entry-level for the brand, the new 2022 IS 500 F Performance is wading into a relatively crowded segment. Rivals include the BMW M340i, Genesis G80, Mercedes-Benz AMG C63, Audi S4, and the Infiniti Q50 Red Sport 400. Performance Upgrades The new model boasts a throatier exhaust with dual, stacked tailpipes, some special blacked-out chrome bits, and wheels. It employs the same 8-speed transmission from the IS 300 and IS 350 RWD and gets the drive mode selects of Sport and Sport S+, which both change the transmission mapping to improve performance. In Sport S+ mode, power steering assist and damping forces adjust for even sportier handling. Lexus says that with the IS 500, they are building on their focus to deliver “confidence and a linear connection between driver and vehicle.” To that end, the IS 500 F Performance will come standard with a Dynamic Handling Package which includes adaptive suspension and a limited-slip differential to improve handling into and out of turns. The company also further tuned the chassis so that the IS 500 should be both stable at high speeds and comfortable at low speeds, a tricky line to walk in performance sedans. Lexus hasn’t released pricing details yet, but the IS 500 F Sport will go on sale sometime this fall. We expect it to start at around $50,000.

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts How can a country’s economy apparently grow year on year without limit, and why is this thought to be desirable? Richard Saunders, Dagenham Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com. Readers reply If one takes the definition of an economy as the one based on gross domestic product (GDP), it probably can’t and it certainly shouldn’t; the pursuit of perpetual growth is destroying our planet. Such a model takes no account of parenting, care for others, voluntary activities and general wellbeing. We need a different model which is broader and more human. Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics is a good starting point. BigBear2 It isn’t and it can’t. More and more people consuming more and more resources and generating more and more rubbish will soon be coming up against very hard limits. Shame; it’s probably the drivers of this who will be the last standing. basil29 It can’t, but it’s the capitalist model – good luck drumming up support for the/any alternative. It’s thought to be desirable because the process of “growth” results in an increase in “wealth”, although sadly most of this goes to entirely the wrong people (Bezos, Musk, Rees-Mogg et al) and almost none of it to those who need it. Rotwatcher Nor does it go to those who earn it or deserve it. Nickynin Economic growth is the only way to remove absolute poverty around the world. It has been phenomenally successful. PatPending The “economy” isn’t a monolithic thing. The simplest way to describe it is to break it down to three components: productivity, credit and money. If you looked at each component, you probably wouldn’t find them growing year on year. Is it desirable? In a credit/debt-driven economy, the cycles happens because people overspend when there’s too much credit, then they have to cut spending when the cycle turns the other way and people lose jobs and the standard of living decreases. The consequence of the growth in money supply is, over time, your money is worth less (this is inflation). So, no, it isn’t desirable for debt or the money supply to grow year on year, but perfectly healthy for productivity to grow year on year. Another big part of it is inflation. The target for most developed economies is 2%. It’s upward cycle. Profits up, pay up, prices up. Productivity is the real growth. Inflation is the perceived growth. Classyrc I know this question provides an opportunity for a critique of the capitalist system, but the answer that stays away from value judgments about the merits or otherwise of capitalism is technological progress. Technological progress provides the ability to achieve greater outputs from a given level of input. Because new technology builds incrementally on previous technology, progress is theoretically limitless. The distribution of income and wealth that has been created by this progress is clearly a mess and whether technology can continue to develop without creating ecological catastrophe is probably the most pressing question facing human society, but these are, to my mind, different issues. Related, but different. thinksthatimacabbage As David Attenborough once said: “Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth in a finite environment is either a madman or an economist.” A more specific and uglier answer is that it is seen as desirable because for years the World Bank and the IMF have made increase in GDP and economic growth the measures of a country’s health (and ability to get loans, not have loans called in etc). Which is laughable when you consider that this standard made, for example, Sierra Leone and Liberia among the “healthiest” countries, due to economic growth related to diamonds, while they also came in at the bottom of all the countries in the world in medical health or public health infrastructure. But it’s still desirable because otherwise they call in the loans. Thomas1178 With the greatest respect to David Attenborough, the environment is not finite. Increasing knowledge and increasing culture is economic growth with negligible use of natural resources. The release of Blue Planet does not prevent us enjoying Life on Earth. The knowledge of crop-rotation creates economic growth without using more natural resources than monoculture. UpVoteThis A modern economy is mainly services. The UK economy is about 80% services. We can continually improve the services that we provide to each other. Some growth areas are health, social care, education, entertainment and leisure. There is no reason that we cannot continually grow these things. They do not require more physical resources. ProSTEM They don’t require physical resources (or, at least, require them less intensively). However what does go up exponentially is energy consumption, because of the computation services increasingly required. For instance, Bitcoin mining now accounts for 1% of the world’s total energy consumption (see Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, August 2018), orders of magnitude more than its proportion of the economy or even the “minting” of traditional currency (physical or otherwise). Physical resource growth now just keeps pace with population growth. Per capita growth is now limited only by the cost and availability of energy for computation. The novel Accelerando [by Charles Stross] takes this to its ridiculous but logical conclusion, where man’s exponential need for computation resources rapidly consumes the entire solar system. HaveYouFedTheFish Bitcoin mining is nothing to do with economic growth. It’s wasteful and pointless. In the case of real digital services, cloud computing providers are building more efficient servers using more efficient processors and investing in renewable electricity. Both of these are economic growth in themselves, as well as allowing the growth in digital without the equivalent growth in energy use. theindyisbetter Nominal GDP can go up every year just by increasing the price of things. It keeps the chancellor happy even though no extra goods and services are produced. UKClimber Now that one of the important subjects of our era is climate control, it is not desirable for countries’ economies to keep growing. What we need is a reality check, followed by a change of basic assumptions, and a plan for how we manage economy contraction. David J Watts The reason we think the economy is growing is because we are locked, like lemmings, in a race to the cliff edge and have no time to understand the disaster that awaits human civilisation. The planet has a finite capacity to support life and so, as the economy grows, the space for life for each human shrinks – and we thoughtlessly destroy nature along the way. Malcolm Whitmore “Billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable” – Prof James Lovelock. rumblestrips “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell” – Edward Abbey, The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West names3 Capitalism is a snake eating its own tail. silverkaite

The White House said today, Monday, that US President Joe Biden will direct flags at half-a-million across the country to fly flags on federal buildings during the next five days, on the occasion of the total number of deaths due to the new Corona virus - Covid 19. White House spokeswoman Jane Saki told reporters that Biden will participate, alongside his wife and US Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, in a moment of silence during a candlelit ceremony at sunset, mourning Americans who lost their lives due to the virus. Saki added that the candle-lighting activities and the speech that the President will deliver on this occasion "will highlight the extent of the loss that this prominent landmark (the death toll) represents for the American people and many families across the country." She indicated that Biden would also talk about "the strength of the American people in facing this need by working together, following public health guidelines and standing in the vaccination queues as soon as they become eligible" for the vaccine. This comes at a time when Johns Hopkins University revealed that the total number of HIV infections in the United States reached 28 million 174 thousand and 133 cases, while the total number of deaths resulting from it reached 500 thousand and 71 cases. For its part, the US National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that 64 million and 177,474 doses of anti-virus vaccines have been provided in the United States so far.

Outlook is finally letting users join a Microsoft Teams call with one click. Dialling in to your next Microsoft Teams call is about to get a lot simpler for Outlook users thanks to a new update on the platform. Microsoft is reportedly set to add a 'join meeting' button in Outlook when a Teams meeting is added to your diary. This would allow users to join a Microsoft Teams meeting call directly from their Outlook window, putting an end to fiddling around with multiple video conferencing apps and services to try and dial in in time. Here's our list of the best online collaboration services around We've also built a list of the best business webcams And we've ranked the best headsets for conference calls No excuses now Such quick-join functions are already in place for Google Workspace users, who can connect to a Google Meet call directly from their calendar marker, or start a new call directly from their desktop or Gmail mobile app. Currently, Outlook users have to go through quite a long process to join a meeting on Microsoft Teams, needing to go into the calendar marker, select a "Join Teams Meeting" link. This will then open their web browser, which will in turn launch the Microsoft Teams app, but not before asking for confirmation again. But help is at hand, as a Microsoft Teams engineer confirmed in a posting on the Microsoft Teams UserVoice site that Outlook meeting reminders now include the Teams meeting join button in the reminder. Clicking on this button now takes users directly to their call. Microsoft Teams has not just become extremely popular as a workplace tool – it is increasingly being used for educational purposes as well, with over 100 million students now using the collaboration tool. The news comes shortly after it was announced Microsoft Teams users will soon be able to add some personal touches to their meeting experiences following the announcement of branded lobbies. The new feature will allow Teams users to customize the pre-meeting experience, as in addition to a custom branded meeting lobby, tools for monitoring, tracking, and analyzing data on users and devices were also included.

Rome's new Ampere-theater. Gigabyte has announced its new server for AI, high-performance computing (HPC), and data analytics. The G262-ZR0 machine is one of the industry's first servers with four Nvidia A100 compute GPUs. The 2U system will be cheaper when compared to Gigabyte's and Nvidia's servers with eight A100 processors, but will still provide formidable performance. The Gigabyte G262-ZR0 is based on two AMD EPYC 7002-series 'Rome' processors with up to 64 cores per CPU as well as four Nvidia A100 GPUs 40GB (with 1.6TB/s bandwidth) or 80GB (with 2.0TB/s bandwidth) of onboard HBM2 memory. Four Nvidia A100 processors feature 13,824 FP64 CUDA cores, 27,648 FP32 CUDA cores as well as an aggregated performance of 38.8 FP64 TFLOPS and 78 FP32 TFLOPS. The machine can be equipped with 16 RDIMM or LRDIMM DDR4-3200 memory modules, three M.2 SSDs with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface, and four 2.5-inch HDDs or SSDs with a SATA or a Gen4 U.2 interface, The machine also has two GbE ports, six low-profile PCIe Gen4 x16 expansion slots, one OCP 3.0 Gen4 x16 mezzanine slot, an ASpeed AST2500 BMC, and two 3000W 80+ Platinum redundant PSUs. Gigabyte says that its G262-ZR0 machine will provide the highest GPU compute performance possible in a 2U chassis, which will be its main competitive advantage. Gigabyte did not disclose pricing of its G262-ZR0 server, but it will naturally be significantly cheaper than an 8-way NVIDIA DGX A100 system or a similar machine from Gigabyte.

Game Information Initial release date: February 3, 2021 Series: Habroxia Publisher: EastAsiaSoft Software Developers: Lillymo Games, EastAsiaSoft Basic Information: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One Type: Shooting game, independent game The neo-retro gaming movement is alive and well. There’s just something about being able to play something that looks dated, but feels like a modern title, inherently calling out to players of a certain age. Given that I fall square in the middle of that demographic, I was well aware of the upcoming PC release, Habroxia 2. This 16-bit inspired shoot ’em up (shmup) looks to take everything that was once old and make it new again, plus mix in a bit of fresh ideas for good measure. But does it bring enough to the table to make the experience feel both modern and classic, simultaneously? Before we get too far down the rabbit hole of this review, it’s probably important to call a spade, a spade. If you’re looking for a rich narrative arc in Habroxia 2, it’s probably best to look elsewhere. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that this is a shmup, for Christ sake. As you might imagine, opportunities for injecting story into the experience are somewhat limited. Substantial cutscenes bookend the experience, providing massive exposition dumps both at the head and tail of the campaign. Aside from those couple of instances, it’s primarily left up to the player to define their own canon, which was entirely fine by me. Choose your own adventure Storywise, the game presents an endearing father and daughter flashback scene. A concerned parent is trying to help his daughter learn to fly a shuttle, after she spent years exclusively training in a simulator. This also acts as the tutorial stage, which is a sweet touch. The problem was, once this tutorial wraps up, the more depressing undertones begin to show through a bit more. It turns out that the main protagonist, Sabrina, is experiencing this flashback because in the current timeline she’s actually on the hunt for her missing father. After her dear old dad was the sole member of a scout team that never returned from his mission, Sabrina set off to track down his whereabouts. Oddly enough, despite these early storyline injections, the rest of the experience trucks along with little to no follow-through on the story, aside from the previously mentioned narrative bookends. While I’m always going to be a firm believer in building canon within a franchise, this felt like an unnecessary, bolted-on afterthought. From that point forward, Habroxia 2 is focused 100% on pure, unadulterated, shmup madness. The gameplay itself reads like a love letter to the long-forgotten shooters of gaming’s past, only featuring a more modern twist on the subject matter. For one, every stage has an end boss. Every. Single. Level. If that sounds like a shit-ton of big baddies, you would be correct. Thankfully, there are only a handful of proper end-game caliber battles, as the guardians of most exits are generally dispatchable with relative ease. Stick-ing to the fundamentals Another aspect of the experience that may differ from your traditional shmups would be the employment of a twin-stick control scheme. Put your keyboard to the side on this one, because the controller is the the best way to actually interface with the game. The left stick is used to maneuver the ship, while the right stick directionally aims the primary turret. The bumpers are then utilized to fire off the special weaponry, with the right bumper firing forwards and the left firing backward. Lastly, the left trigger is employed to utilize pickups such as shields and super laser blasts. The moment-to-moment action is a fast-paced maze of gunfire and chaos. However, as long as you have the correct set of special weapons equipped, it’s fairly easy to steadily progress through the campaign. Most stages will provide plenty of challenge, but will rarely be tough enough to kill you. Fortunately, there aren’t really any negative consequences to biting both the literal and proverbial bullet. Upon demise, you’re simply returned to the stage selection screen. There’s no need to worry about those pesky lives, as God damn-well intended. Before the start of every stage in Habroxia 2, you’ll get the opportunity to equip special weapons. What makes this slightly unique is that you can assign a different special armament to be applied to your forward and backward-facing turrets, respectively. Over the course of the campaign, both new weaponry and enhancements are organically added to the arsenal. Another way to help tip the balance in the player’s favor is through the use of in-game currency. Money is added to the digital wallet by capturing the numerous pickups that are dropped over the course of each stage. Cash is then used to upgrade different aspects of the ship, such as the speed and power of each shot from the primary cannons or the strength of each special weapon. It’s worth noting that you don’t need to enhance each special individually, however, because there’s just a single set of stats associated collectively with all specials. As I mentioned earlier, selecting and upgrading the proper weapons at the right time is crucial to your success. Fortunately, as you replay levels, you’re constantly gathering more currency, which can be used to acquire the stat boosts needed to “get over the hump.” This only happened to me a handful of times, and most of it was within my first hour with the game. Once I was able to get past the stopper stages, it was smooth sailing from then. One last crucial mechanic is determining out the most effective times to use specials. After blasting off a shot, there is then a brief 3-5 seconds where a weapon must recharge. What makes this so important is that during this recharge, there is a split second after it reactivates where you can gain bonus projectiles. I found this to be very akin to the active reload mechanic in the Gears of War franchise, where if you miss that firing window, the ensuing shot will be less impactful than if you nailed the timing perfectly. Keeping things fresh Part of what helps prevent Habroxia 2 from feeling like a retread of everything that has come before it is the non-linear campaign structure, featuring branching paths littered throughout. As a huge fan of the early entries in the Star Fox franchise, this was just what the hyperspace doctor ordered. Each branching tendril is actually determined by whether the player can uncover what amounts to a series of hidden exit ramps on this interstellar highway. Eventually, the progression will begin to spiral out of the main “Path A,” adding an additional half dozen trails to follow. Each path also has its own end boss, used to signify the completion of that specific track. After each pathis cleared and the final overlord boss is wiped off the map, then the game actually manages to open up even further. At this point, a new game +, as well as boss rush mode, is unlocked, once again adding additional value to an already bursting package. Pretty much everything that Habroxia 2 does, it does exceptionally well. In an era where everyone is content to copy what’s come before, it was nice to see that that team over at Lillymo Games is legitimately trying to breathe new life into the rapidly aging genre. This is a flight that you won’t want to miss out on, so buckle in tight. System Requirements OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10. Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2. Memory: 512 MB RAM. Graphics: DirectX 9c-compatible graphics card with at least 256MB of video memory. DirectX: Version 9.0. Storage: 200 MB available space.