League of Legends' first ever themed season, Welcome to Noxus, is about to wrap up and Riot has announced Season 2: Spirit Blossom Beyond. The next season will bring changes to the Summoner's Rift map and general gameplay, a new champion, new Spirit Blossom skins, and a brand-new game mode titled Brawl.Spirit Blossom is already a popular skin line and recurring theme in LoL, based around Ionian myths and folklore tied to the region's Spirit Blossom festivals. Riot announced the seasonal theme with a new cinematic titled Here, Tomorrow--an anime-style animation created in partnership with The Line--set to an original track by singer-songwriter Lilas Ikuta and composer Kevin Penkin. The music video crosses between the "real" world of Ionia and its spirit-world counterpart, featuring a number of popular champions including Ashe, Nidalee, Lux, Shen, Irelia, and Morgana. The video focuses on Xin Zhao, who is shown returning to Ionia, and seems to reveal the season's new champion, Yunara. Xin Zhao's story will be explored throughout the season with the first of two motion comics arriving on May 14, and Riot has also said to expect an in-client metagame based on the season's story.Continue Reading at GameSpot

The Giant subclass for Barbarians in Baldur's Gate 3 lets players tower over almost everything in sight while empowering Thrown weapons one way or another. This subclass is perfect for those who just want to chuck things at people, whether it's bladese, objects, or other people.

The Wheel of Time season 3’s finale isn’t short on big moments. By the time the credits roll, series protagonist Rand al’Thor’s taken his biggest — and most ominous — step yet toward embracing his destiny as world savior/destroyer the Dragon Reborn. His self-appointed mentor, Moiraine Damodred, squares up for her previously foreshadowed showdown with Forsaken baddie Lanfear, too. Plus, the tensions brewing in Tar Valon finally boil over, ushering in a new status quo for the White Tower in suitably dramatic fashion. But let’s be real: None of this holds a weave of fire to how Mat Cauthon’s season 3 arc wraps up. [Ed. note: This article contains spoilers for The Wheel of Time season 3, episode 8.] After unwisely venturing through a sinister red arch, Mat finds himself in another dimension where he encounters an Eelfinn: a humanoid fox creature that grants three wishes, genie-style. Unlike a genie, however, the Eelfinn don’t work for free. So, in exchange for literal peace of mind, a magic medallion and spear, and a return ticket home, Mat’s left swinging from a noose! It’s all delightfully bizarre, and signals that — after flirting with the idea earlier in the season  — The Wheel of Time is finally, unabashedly entering its cosmic era.   That won’t come as much of a shock to anyone familiar with the show’s Robert Jordan-penned source material. They’re already up to speed with both the Eelfinn and snakelike Aelfinn (Jordan’s other otherworldly barterers, who answer questions instead of granting wishes and haven’t shown up in live action yet). But anyone coming to The Wheel of Time without having read the books will be left scratching their heads — and showrunner Rafe Judkins isn’t worried in the slightest. “We always have to think first and foremost about non-book readers because that’s the majority of the audience of the show,” Judkins says in a Zoom session with Polygon. “But we wanted to do [the Eelfinn] scene for book readers, because we feel like it’s iconic and important. And I felt like it was one of the scenes that’s incumbent upon us in the adaptation to succeed with.” Even so, Judkins and his writers room still did their best to ensure newcomers to the World of the Wheel aren’t completely blindsided by season 3’s Eelfinn cameo. Notably, they leveraged Min’s prophetic visions to seed the red arch’s significance in the lead-up to the finale. So, when Mat finally steps through it, Judkins expects that “even people who know nothing about the books are cued up to know this is important, this is unusual […] because they’ve set this up the whole way through the season.” And if franchise newcomers still don’t get it? Judkins insists that’s not a problem. “I am perfectly fine with them having that feeling,” Judkins says. “And then being absolutely fucking baffled and excited and confused by what is presented with them, and sort of overwhelmed a little bit with the unusualness of it. I really like things that break the traditional TV structures that we’re used to, things that break the traditional fantasy TV show structures that we’ve become really used to. “Having a scene like that in the finale of the season is a way that you can lean into something that only The Wheel of Time can do and also give our non-book readers a real What the fuck moment where they can then go in and engage afterwards, Google it: What does this mean? Like what? It draws them towards our world and to our books and broadens it at the same time, because they go, I didn’t know something like this was possible in the world of Wheel of Time. And now I do, and that broadens my idea of what this world can be.” That said, anyone who rushes to Google the Eelfinn won’t come away with a whole lot more information than what we get in the show. Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (who helped finish the final three Wheel of Time books after Jordan’s death) cultivated an aura of mystery around the two Finn races. True, we get hints at what’s really going on with them; their whole twisted trade system is rooted in an ancient treaty with humans, they “feed” on feelings and memories, and their realm is defined by topsy-turvy physics. But really, they’re an enigma to the end — albeit an enigma that comes with a preloaded visual template, at least. “Right from the beginning, we tried to lean into this idea as, at its simplest — I talked about them like horror elves,” Judkins recalls of designing season 3’s Eelfinn. “Like, how can we take this idea, obviously, Eelfinn, Aelfinn, it’s leaning in the direction — this is what Robert Jordan was trying to do with them originally. So, use that as our basis point and then use the elements that he gives to them. Obviously, these guys, the focus is on this idea of foxes, and so taking those two and combining them together to sort of give to the audience something that feels otherworldly but still a part of our Wheel of Time world.” To deliver on this brief, legendary prosthetics artist Nick Dudman devised a new, flocking-based technique for realizing the Eelfinn’s furry hide, setting them apart from The Wheel of Time’s existing animal/human hybrids, the trollocs. “[Dudman] used electricity to actually apply the fur directly to the actor’s skin,” Judkins marvels. “So, he actually has fur as if it was growing out of his skin.”  It took more than just innovative makeup to sell the Eelfinn’s otherworldliness, though; Judkins is quick to highlight the wider crew’s contributions to the scene. “Every department did a twist on what they do in the rest of the show. So that it still fits with our entire show, but it should convey to the audience this feeling that it’s slightly different. The grade on it is different. The costumes are different. Everything is slightly askew to the world we’re used to.” All that effort paid off; the Eelfinn scene is easily among the most memorable season 3 has to offer. Indeed, most viewers will exit the third season keen to get to see these creatures again — and there’s a decent chance they will. Without spoiling things, a rescue mission to the Finns’ dimension is a key subplot in the penultimate Wheel of Time book, Towers of Midnight. But even if the Eelfinn (or Aelfinn) ultimately don’t factor into The Wheel of Time season 4 (or beyond), their debut in season 3 nevertheless marks a new, more supernaturally charged shift in the show’s focus going forward. For some book readers, this can’t come soon enough — especially after earlier seasons largely downplayed the more out-there aspects of Jordan’s mythology (including excising Rand’s brief multiversal jaunt in book 2, The Great Hunt, from season 2). Yet Judkins remains adamant that diving straight into stuff like alternate realities and timelines, nested visions-within-visions, and the universe-sized personification of evil itself wouldn’t have worked on screen. “You can’t just throw that at the audience right upfront. […] We wanted [it] to feel a part of our world,” the showrunner says. “Those [cosmic elements] are some of my favorite aspects of the books, and I think we’ve really successfully been able to bleed them into our world this season, both with some of the stuff we did in Rhuidean […] and then also with what we’re able to do here at the end with the Finn and seeing this world that’s different than what we expect. We’re going to keep doing it if we can.” It doesn’t hurt that doing so further differentiates The Wheel of Time from the likes of House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. While Judkins maintains that The Wheel of Time isn’t “chasing” those rival fantasy TV titles, he also acknowledges that the show is at its best when it can “lean into the stuff that is uniquely Wheel of Time.”  More importantly, the audience — including viewers only versed in the small-screen incarnation of Jordan’s lore — remain unfazed as proceedings become increasingly, well… fantastical. On the contrary, according to Judkins, fan feedback to season 3’s “trippy pieces” has been overwhelmingly positive. There’s no longer any concerns around dropping even something as wild as the Eelfinn into the mix — and it’s given Judkins the confidence to double down on all things cosmic in The Wheel of Time’s remaining seasons. “The things that maybe the network might have thought [during] the first season that our audience could never be into, now they’re seeing how they really can get on board with that and can really understand how it works in our world. […] When I turned [season 3, episode 4’s cosmic-infused] script in — because that was one I wrote — everyone was like, We can’t do this. What is this? And I really believed we could do it and that people would respond positively to it, both book readers and non-book readers. And so, you know, it feels great that they have, because I think it emboldens us to be able to do more of that.”

A year ago, I learned that my role as an accessibility engineer was at risk of redundancy. It was a tough moment, both professionally and personally. For quite some time, my mind raced with guilt, self-doubt, plain sadness... But as I sat with these emotions, I found one line of thought that felt productive: reflection. What did I do well? What could I have done better? What did I learn? Looking back, I realized that as part of a small team in a massive organization, we focused on a long-term goal that we also believed was the most effective and sustainable path: gradually shaping the organization’s culture to embrace accessibility. Around the same time, I started listening to “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. The connection was immediate. Habits and culture are tightly linked concepts, and fostering an accessibility culture was really about embedding accessibility habits into everyone’s processes. That’s what we focused on. It took us time (and plenty of trial and error) to figure this out, and while there’s no definitive playbook for creating an accessibility program at a large organization, I thought it might help others if I shared my experiences. Before we dive in, here’s a quick note: This is purely my personal perspective, and you’ll find a bias towards culture and action in big organizations. I’m not speaking on behalf of any employer, past or present. The progress we made was thanks to the incredible efforts of every member of the team and beyond. I hope these reflections resonate with those looking to foster an accessibility culture at their own companies. Goals Vs. Systems To effectively shape habits, it’s crucial to focus on systems and processes (who we want to become) rather than obsessing over a final goal (or what we want to achieve). This perspective is especially relevant in accessibility. Take the goal of making your app accessible. If you focus solely on achieving compliance without changing your systems (embedding accessibility into processes and culture), progress will be temporary. For example, you might request an accessibility audit and fix the flagged issues to achieve compliance. While this can provide “quick” results, it’s often a short-lived solution. Software evolves constantly: features are rewritten, old code is removed, and new functionality is added. Without an underlying system in place, accessibility issues can quickly resurface. Worse, this approach may reinforce the idea that accessibility is something external, checked by someone else, and fixed only when flagged. Not to mention that it becomes increasingly expensive the later accessibility issues are addressed in the process. It can also feel demoralizing when accessibility becomes synonymous with a long list of last-minute tickets when you are busiest. Despite this, companies constantly focus on the goal rather than the systems. “Accessibility is both a state and a practice.”— Sommer Panage, SwiftTO talk, “Building Accessibility into Your Company, Team, and Culture” I’ll take the liberty of tweaking that to an aspirational state. Without recognizing the importance of the practice, any progress made is at risk of regression. Instead, I encourage organizations to focus on building habits and embedding good accessibility practices into their workflows. A strong system not only ensures lasting progress but also fosters a culture where accessibility becomes second nature. What Is Your Actual Goal? That doesn’t mean goals are useless — they’re very effective in setting up direction. In my team, we often said (only half-jokingly) that our ultimate goal was to put ourselves out of a job. This mindset reflects an important principle: accessibility is a cross-organizational responsibility, not the task of a single person or team. That’s why, in my opinion, focusing solely on compliance rather than culture transformation (or prioritizing the “state” of accessibility over the “practice”) is a flawed strategy. The real goal should be to build a user-centric culture where accessibility is embedded in every workflow, decision, and process. By doing so, companies can create products where accessibility is not about checking boxes and closing tickets but delivering meaningful and inclusive experiences to all users. How Do We Get There? Different companies (of various sizes, structures, and cultures) will approach accessibility differently, depending on where they are in their journey. I still have to meet, though, an accessibility team that ever felt they had enough resources. This makes careful resource allocation a cornerstone of your strategy. And while there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, shifting left (addressing issues earlier in the development process) tends to be the most effective approach in most cases. Design Systems If your company has a design system, partnering with the team that owns it can be one of your biggest wins. Fixing a single component used across dozens of places improves the experience everywhere it’s used. This approach scales beautifully. Involvement in foundational decisions and discussions, like choosing color palettes, typography, and component interactions, and so on, can also be very valuable. Contributing to documentation and guidelines tailored to accessibility can help teams across the organization make informed decisions. For a deeper dive, I recommend Feli Bernutz’s excellent talk, “Designing APIs: How to Ensure Accessibility in Design Systems.” Still, I would encourage everyone to strive to change that mindset. Doing accessibility for economic or legal reasons is valid, but it can lead to perverse incentives, where the bare minimum and compliance become the strategy, or where teams constantly need to prove their return on investment. It is better to do it for the “wrong” reasons than not to do it at all. But ultimately, those aren’t the reasons we should be doing it. The “13 Letters” podcast opened with an incredibly interesting two-part episode featuring Mike Shebanek. In it, Mike explains how Apple eventually renewed its commitment to accessibility because, in the state of Maine, schools were providing Macs and needed a screen reader for students who required one. It seems like a somewhat business-driven decision. But years later, Tim Cook famously stated, “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI.” He also remarked, “Accessibility rights are human rights.” That’s the mindset I wish more CEOs and leaders had. It is a story of how a change of mindset from “we have to do it” to “it is a core part of what we do” leads to a lasting and successful accessibility culture. Going beyond the bare minimum, Apple has become a leader in accessibility. An innovative company that consistently makes products more accessible and pushes the entire industry forward. The Good News Once good habits are established, they tend to stick around. When I was let go, some people (I’m sure trying to comfort me) said the accessibility of the app would quickly regress and that the company would soon realize their mistake. Unexpectedly for them, I responded that I actually hoped it wouldn’t regress anytime soon. That, to me, would be the sign that I had done my job well. And honestly, I felt confident it wouldn’t. Incredible people with deep knowledge and a passion for accessibility and building high-quality products stayed at the company. I knew the app was in good hands. But it’s important not to fall into complacency. Cultures can be taken for granted, but they need constant nurturing and protection. A company that hires too fast, undergoes a major layoff, gets acquired, experiences high turnover, or sees changes in leadership or priorities… Any of these can pretty quickly destabilize something that took years to build. Wrapping Up This might not be your experience, and what we did may not work for you, but I hope you find this insight useful. I have, as they say, strong opinions, but loosely held. So I’m looking forward to knowing what you think and learning about your experiences too. There’s no easy way or silver bullet! It’s actually very hard! The odds are against you. And we tend to constantly be puzzled about why the world is against us doing something that seems so obviously the right thing to do: to invite and include as many people as possible to use your product, to remove barriers, to avoid exclusion. It is important to talk about exclusion, too, when we talk about accessibility. “Even though we were all talking about inclusion, we each had a different understanding of that word. Exclusion, on the other hand, is unanimously understood as being left out (...) Once we learn how to recognize exclusion, we can begin to see where a product or experience that works well for some might have barriers for someone else. Recognizing exclusion sparks a new kind of creativity on how a solution can be better.”— Kat Holmes Something that might help: always assume goodwill and try to meet people where they are. I need to remind myself of this quite often. “It is all about understanding where people are, meeting them where they’re at (...) People want to fundamentally do the right thing (...) They might not know what they don’t know (...) It might mean stepping back and going to the fundamentals (...) I know some people get frustrated about having to re-explain accessibility over and over again, but I believe that if we are not willing to do that, then how are we gonna change the hearts and minds of people?”— Jennison Asuncion I’d encourage you to: If you haven’t, just start. No matter what. Play the long game, and focus more on systems and processes than just goals. Build a network: rally allies around you and secure buy-in from leadership by showing that accessibility is not extra work; if considered after the fact, they’re actually missed steps. Shift left and be strategic: reflect on where your limited resources can have the biggest, most lasting impact. Be persistent. Be resilient. But honestly, anything you can do is progress. And progress is all we need, just for things to be a little better every day. Your job is incredibly important. Thanks for all you do! Accessibility: This is the way!

What Royal Mail teaches us about optimising for trust, not perfection.Continue reading on UX Collective »

If you grow vegetables in the summer, you probably grow tomatoes, and they’re often the first vegetable a budding gardener tries to grow. It's not a bad call—there’s nothing like eating a vine-ripened tomato you grew yourself. But not all tomatoes are created equally, and it can be confusing to decide which tomatoes to grow. There are countless varieties, and instead of choosing based on the color or a cute name, learning the characteristics of different tomato types can help ensure a more successful tomato growing (and tomato eating) season. Whether you are growing tomatoes from seeds or buying seedlings at the nursery, here's what to consider to help you choose the right tomato for you. Determinate versus indeterminate tomatoes An indeterminate slicer growing Credit: Amanda Blum Before you get into flavor, color, or anything else, you should know about the two types of tomatoes. All tomatoes are either determinate or indeterminate, and at the most basic level, the difference is about harvesting: Determinate tomatoes produce all their fruit in a few weeks' time, while indeterminate tomatoes produce over the course of a season. This seems like a simple choice, because who wouldn’t want a season full of tomatoes? And if you’re harvesting, say, slicing tomatoes for sandwiches, a season full of tomatoes would make sense. But if you’re harvesting paste tomatoes to make sauce, you more likely to want them all at once, so you can make a few big batches of sauce. These two kinds of tomatoes grow differently, too: Determinate tomatoes tend to be bushier, and grow to a set point and then stop. Indeterminate tomatoes grow taller like a vine, and never stop growing and setting flowers. You can prune indeterminate tomatoes to shape the plant, but should never prune determinate tomatoes, or you’ll limit the fruit you’re capable of growing.  Every plant tag or catalog listing will tell you if a tomato is determinate or indeterminate, but ife in doubt, do some research. You can search for the name of a tomato online to find out, or ask someone at the nursery. Tomato type determines shape, size, and juiciness Slicers and paste tomatoes of ever shape Credit: Amanda Blum It takes nothing more than a trip to the grocery store to see the varieties of tomatoes on offer. There are cherry tomatoes (which aren’t just little baby tomatoes), paste or plum tomatoes, and globe tomatoes. Occasionally you’ll even see slicers. Each of these tomato types serves a specific purpose.Slicers are best for sandwiches Slicing tomatoes in different colors Credit: Amanda Blum When you picture the ideal tomato, you’re likely imagining a slicing tomato. Palm sized or bigger, slicers can top a pound in weight, and come in a few different shapes. There are heirloom type tomatoes like Purple Cherokee or Berkeley Tie Dye, which have big, defined lobes and shoulders. There are globe tomatoes, which are what you usually buy in the supermarket—tennis ball sized, and very round and smooth. There are heart shaped tomatoes, like Cuoer di Bue and Oxheart, that have a distinct point at one end and tall shoulders, which makes them resemble hearts. The thing that truly defines a slicer, though, is that they have a good amount of juiciness—more so than other tomatoes—but also enough meat for slices of tomato to hold together. This makes them ideal for sandwiches or a beautiful caprese salad. Paste or plum tomatoes make great sauce Paste tomatoes going into the oven to roast Credit: Amanda Blum While you could make tomato sauce from any tomato, the best tomato sauce tomato is a paste or plum. These elongated tomatoes tend to have more meat and less juiciness, making them ideal for cooking and canning. The shape makes them easy to peel and ideal for roasting. Classic paste tomatoes include Roma (a determinate) and San Marzano (an indeterminate), both of which have spectacular flavor. You can also consider varieties like Amish Paste, an indeterminate popular for its size and production, if not so much its taste. Growing multiple varieties (say, one great-tasting tomato and one well-producing tomato) and using both will yield more sauce, while maintaining the flavor. Cherry tomatoes are for snacking and salads Cherry tomatoes of all shapes and colors Credit: Amanda Blum Usually the size of a gum-ball, cherry tomatoes are popular at salad bars and make perfect snacks. it’s important to note cherry tomatoes are not baby tomatoes, but full grown and matured tomatoes that are meant to be that size. There are a few subtypes of cherries. While most are spherical, there are also pear shaped cherry tomatoes, the most famous of which is the Yellow Bell. There are also grape tomatoes, which are actually a small paste tomato, like Juliet, which is wildly prolific and a great compromise; they make fantastic sauce and are great for snacking.Tomato color really does influence taste A caprese of slicer tomatoes Credit: Amanda Blum One of the most delightful aspects of growing tomatoes is the range of colors you can achieve. Each year I grow a literal rainbow of cherry tomatoes, but the colors aren’t simply for looks. Tomato colors are created by pigment, and those pigmentation elements influence the amount of sugar and acid present in the fruit. Red and pink tomatoes, which have higher chlorophyll and lycopene levels, have higher acid levels than yellow and orange tomatoes, making them more tart. Blue, brown, and purple tomatoes have higher anthocyanin levels, which result in a more savory taste. Green Grape cherry tomatoes are a bit peppery, due to a lack of lycopene. Cherry tomatoes are a fantastic way to experiment with colors and tastes. Once you find out what what you like, you can try out slicers in those colors. But even among paste tomatoes, which are traditionally red, there have been some been amazing developments in recent years, resulting in yellow paste tomatoes like Sunrise Sauce, which I grow myself—this variety can produce a less acidic sauce or soup if the too much acid in tomatoes tends to overwhelm you. Know the tomato rules, but don't be afraid to break themWhile all tomatoes are somewhat interchangeable—you can make a sauce out of cherry tomatoes or use a paste tomato on a sandwich—you’ll notice a big difference when you use the right tomato for the right job. There is absolutely nothing like slicing a fresh-off-the-vine Yellow Brandywine tomato and slicing it up for a BLT. My canned whole tomatoes, grown as San Marzanos in my yard, taste better than any can of tomatoes from the market, and while you can snack on any tomato, the sweetness of a cherry tomato makes them the top tier choice.Understanding the type, color, and growing habit of different tomatoes can help you choose the right tomatoes for your home garden and make shopping for seeds or starts a more informed process. Here's to a tomato-filled summer!

There’s yet another Nintendo Direct coming our way, which is the third in less than a month. This one is entirely focused on the upcoming Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World. It starts at 9AM ET and should last around 15 minutes. It’s livestreaming on Nintendo’s YouTube page, but mega-fans can also open up that recently-launched Nintendo Today! app to follow along. We are embedding the YouTube link, so feel free to keep this tab open. We have no idea what information Nintendo is going to spring on us as part of this Direct presentation. The company has already released a ton of info about Mario Kart World. It’s an open-world racer that can accommodate 24 plays at the same time. However, there are still a couple of unknowns. Most of these involve the open-world aspect. Are there any rewards for exploration? Are there secret tracks that can only be unlocked by finding them? Can the same be said for unlockable characters? Again, we don’t know, but hope springs eternal. There’s also the $80 elephant in the room. The exorbitant retail price of Mario Kart World has sent many fans into a tailspin. That’s a whole lot of money, and Nintendo only recently-released its first-ever $70 game. There’s a minuscule chance that the company will throw us a bone and knock $10 off the asking price, but this is highly unlikely given current economic uncertainty. At the very least, we could get some new data regarding the preorder date for US customers. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/heres-how-to-watch-the-mario-kart-focused-nintendo-direct-184825796.html?src=rss

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TSMC denied reports that the semiconductor giant was in active discussions with Intel regarding a chipmaking joint venture.