From postage stamps to jetliner specifications to items he packed for the journey, José Naranja’s sketchbooks (previously) capture minute details of numerous international trips. “I’m lost in the intricate details, as always,” he tells Colossal. Everything from currency to noodle varieties to film references make their way into small books brimming with travel ephemera and observations. Naranja is currently working on a thicker book than he has in the past, which is taking more time to fill, along with an illustrated card project called 2050, which merges science, tech events, and his signature “beauty of note-taking” aesthetic. The artist has also reproduced some of his sketches in The Nautilus Manuscript, a small batch-printed, hand-bound edition available for sale in his shop. Follow updates on the artist’s Instagram. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Through a Love of Note-Taking, José Naranja Documents His Travels One Tiny Detail at a Time appeared first on Colossal.

Want to access your Linux PCs remotely? You can set up RDP the hard way, or you can make those connections the easy way. I'll step you through the easy option.

As long as your device supports data-only eSIMs, you can now hop on Google's wireless service.

In this week’s edition of InnovationRx, we look at the spread of both measles and disinformation about it, the DOJ going after medical journals, HHS policy changes on Covid vaccines and more. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly.TNS More than 624 cases of measles have been confirmed in Texas alone this year (through Tuesday), with around 800 confirmed cases across the country. Twenty-five states so far have seen cases of the disease this year, and the outbreak in Texas has been genetically linked to spread in both New Mexico and Kansas. But measles isn’t the only thing spreading: misinformation about the disease is, too, according to a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Republicans were particularly susceptible to this misinformation. For example, the survey found that while two-thirds of Democratic parents knew that measles was on the rise this year, only one-third of Republican parents did. The misinformation spread poses a challenge to public health efforts. There is no approved treatment for measles, making vaccination the best approach to controlling the disease. However, the survey found that 21% of Americans falsely believe that such vaccines cause autism, 16% believe the measles shot is more dangerous than the disease and 23% believe vitamin A can prevent measles infections, even as children in Texas have been hospitalized with vitamin A toxicity. Many of these beliefs have been espoused by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In Kansas, 37 cases of measles have been reported since mid-March, and in an update on the disease yesterday, Governor Laura Kelly urged parents to vaccinate their children and blamed the anti-vaccination movement for exacerbating the problem. “Talk to your doctor. Ask questions. Get the facts and then make a plan,” she told Kansans. Trump’s DOJ Is Going After Medical Journals For Being Too WokeGetty Images In the Trump administration, even academic journals of medical research are being scrutinized for being too woke. On April 14, the peer-reviewed medical journal CHEST, which focuses on respiratory diseases and sleep medicine, received a letter from Edward Martin, Jr., the U.S. Attorney General for the District of Columbia, probing whether the publication is “partisan,” and asking a series of questions about its acceptance of “competing viewpoints.”Trade publication MedPage Today reported last Friday that at least three journals had received the letters. It did not identify the other two publications. On Wednesday, the New England Journal of Medicine confirmed to Forbes that it had also received such a letter. “We support the editorial independence of medical journals and their First Amendment rights to free expression,” Dr. Eric Rubin, NEJM’s editor-in-chief, said by email. Read more here. BIOTECH AND PHARMA Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is weighing the idea of pulling a recommendation for children to get Covid-19 vaccines, reports Politico. If he does that could be a problem for stopping the disease’s impact on children. Long Covid has turned out to be more widespread among children than previously thought, leading to chronic health problems, while Covid-19 has a higher mortality rate among children than other respiratory diseases such as influenza. The debate over whether children should receive the Covid-19 vaccine comes on the heels of stop-work orders on federal contracts with at least three biotech companies that are developing next-generation Covid vaccines. Plus: Genentech has entered into an agreement with Repertorie Immune Medicines to develop treatments for autoimmune disease. Repertoire will receive an upfront payment of $35 million and up to $730 million in additional milestone payments plus royalties. DIGITAL HEALTH AND AI Global communications firm Havas made a strategic investment in Ostro, an AI company for life sciences founded by Forbes 30 Under 30 alums Chase Feiger and Ahmed Elsayyad, as part of its previously announced $450 million investment in AI. Before this deal (the financial details of which were not disclosed), Ostro had raised a total of $56 million at a $250 million valuation. MEDTECH China’s restrictions on rare earths aren’t only a problem for electric vehicles–they also pose a big risk for medical equipment like MRI machines. These critical minerals go into permanent magnets that are used to operate motors, so they’re commonplace in diagnostic machines. Rare earths are used in other ways in healthcare, too. For example, gadolinium is used to produce a contrast fluid that is injected into patients before they receive a scan to help doctors more easily diagnose brain tumors. Plus: Biolinq, which is developing biosensors for precision health, announced a $100 million series C funding round. PUBLIC HEALTH AND HOSPITALS In Pennsylvania, Crozer Health hospitals are closing. Thousands of employees who work there received emails Monday morning that the system was shutting down despite months of efforts by parent company, Prospect Medical Holdings, to find a buyer. Meanwhile, the Providence health system, which controls 51 hospitals across the western United States, is freezing non-clinical hiring due to “economic headwinds.” DEAL OF THE WEEK Nourish, a telehealth platform that connects patients to registered dieticians, announced today that it has raised a $70 million series B round at an undisclosed valuation, bringing its total investment to $115 million. The company, founded by Forbes 30 under 30 alums Aidan Dewar, Stephanie Liu and Sam Perkins, aims to provide personalized nutrition support for patients suffering from chronic disease–for example, providing diet plans for those taking GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic. The company plans to use the new capital to develop new products and expand its network of dieticians. WHAT WE’RE READING A new approach to throttling what biologists call “jumping genes” might help treat diseases related to aging. Ireland has become a global hub of pharmaceutical manufacturing–now it’s bracing for the impact of the Trump Administration’s proposed tariffs. The Trump Administration has frozen billions of dollars of healthcare payouts pending manual reviews, creating huge backlogs of payments. New tariffs imposed by the federal government threaten to significantly impact the bottom lines of hospitals across the country. The Supreme Court appeared divided on the provision of the Affordable Care Act that provides free preventive care. The FDA suspended its quality control program for milk and other dairy products following workforce cuts. New research suggests that the vintage antibiotic streptomycin might serve as a treatment for metastatic cancer. The NIH is cutting off funding to the Women’s Health Initiative, one of the federal government’s biggest research programs into women’s health. MORE FROM FORBES

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TL;DR: California is on pace to run out of license plate character combinations by the end of the year. Since 1980, the state has used a sequence consisting of one number, followed by three letters, followed by three more numbers. Fortunately, the state already has a solution and it's relatively simple: they're just going to reverse the current order. The current sequence for non-commercial vehicles started with 1AAA000 and will end with 9ZZZ999. Try as I might, I was unable to determine exactly why California went with the one number / three letters / three numbers sequence to begin with. Perhaps it has something to do with regional registrations or sheer consistency? Why not just allow for each of the seven character slots to be either a number or a letter? If my math is correct, that'd result in more than 78 billion possible combinations – plenty for the foreseeable future and beyond. Other options could include adding an eighth character or reusing retired sequences, although that would probably get cumbersome from a legal standpoint. Fortunately, the state already has a solution and it's relatively simple: they're just going to reverse the current order. Once 9ZZZ999 has been issued, the next plate will be in the format of three digits, three letters, and one number. So, 000AAA1 or 001AAA1, depending on how they decide to do it. 100AAA1 could also be an option if the "no leading zeroes" rule stands. License plate collectors will no doubt be keeping an eye on the transition, and it is expected that the last old plate and the first new plate could become quite valuable. Most residents, on the other hand, likely won't even notice the change. // Related Stories It's worth reiterating that this change only applies to standard-issue, non-commercial plates. Like many other states, California also offers special interest license plates for those interested in supporting specific causes or organizations such as breast cancer awareness, environmental causes, pets, or colleges. You'll usually pay extra for these and depending on what you choose, a portion of the fee could go to support said organization.

What just happened? In a significant reversal that will send ripples through the advertising industry, Google has announced that it will no longer introduce a standalone prompt for third-party cookies in its Chrome browser. The decision marks a dramatic departure from the company's long-standing plan to phase out cookies entirely, a move that has been in waiting for several years now and was closely monitored by regulators, advertisers, and privacy advocates alike. The announcement, delivered by Anthony Chavez, VPt of Privacy Sandbox at Google, confirmed that Chrome users will continue to manage their third-party cookie preferences through existing privacy and security settings, rather than being presented with a new, explicit prompt. "We've made the decision to maintain our current approach to offering users third-party cookie choice in Chrome, and will not be rolling out a new standalone prompt for third-party cookies," Chavez wrote in a blog post on April 22. He emphasized that users can still choose the best option for themselves within Chrome's settings. This policy shift effectively halts Google's multi-year campaign to eliminate third-party cookies from Chrome, a browser that commands over 60 percent of the global market. The original plan, announced in 2020, aimed to bring Chrome in line with competitors like Firefox and Safari, which had already blocked third-party cookies by default. Google's approach, however, was more cautious, citing the need to balance user privacy with the economic realities of the ad-supported web. The company's Privacy Sandbox initiative was intended to develop alternative technologies that would enable targeted advertising while preserving user privacy. These included tools such as the Topics API and various new APIs for ad measurement and fraud prevention. Despite these efforts, industry feedback revealed deep concerns. Many in ad tech argued that the proposed replacements couldn't match the scalability or real-time processing capabilities of third-party cookies, while publishers worried about revenue loss and the technical complexity of implementing new systems. Regulatory scrutiny also played a decisive role in Google's change of course. In April 2024, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) intervened, requesting a pause in the rollout over concerns that Google's dominance in both browsers and digital advertising could be further entrenched by the proposed changes. The CMA demanded assurances that any new system would not unfairly advantage Google's own ad products. // Related Stories Meanwhile, privacy advocates and organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation continued to criticize Google's alternatives, arguing they still enabled user tracking and introduced new privacy concerns. Chavez acknowledged these divergent perspectives in his post, noting ongoing engagement with both industry stakeholders and regulators. While the complete removal of third-party cookies is now off the table, he said the Privacy Sandbox project will continue in a modified form. Google plans to keep developing privacy features – such as IP Protection for Incognito users – and will gather additional feedback before updating its roadmap for future technologies. Critics responded swiftly. The Movement for an Open Web, a group that had previously challenged Google's plans before the CMA, described the announcement to The Verge as "an admission of defeat." They argued that Google's attempt to reshape the digital advertising ecosystem in its own favor was ultimately stymied by regulatory and industry resistance. For now, third-party cookies will remain a fixture in Chrome, leaving the digital advertising industry grappling with the implications.

Gamers who are planning to make a huge investment in gaming PC deals should still be on the lookout for opportunities at savings. Dell has an offer that is hard to refuse: a $700 discount on the Alienware Aurora R16 ACT1250 gaming desktop with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card, bringing its price down to $3,050 from $3,750 originally. It’s still expensive, but you might as well take advantage of the lowered price if you’re already thinking about spending this much on your PC gaming setup with a 50-series GPU. The Alienware Aurora R16 sits on top of our rankings of the best gaming PCs because of its topnotch performance and competitive price, and the ACT1250 model further elevates the machine with updated components. Alongside the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card, it comes with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor and 64GB of RAM, which will not only be enough to run the best PC games at their highest settings, but will also have the gaming desktop ready for the upcoming PC games of at least the next few years. The Alienware Aurora R16 ACT1250 gaming PC ships with a massive 4TB SSD, which will let you build a gaming library with several AAA titles installed at the same time. It also comes with Windows 11 Home pre-loaded, so after hooking up the gaming desktop to the necessary peripherals, including your gaming monitor, you can begin downloading and installing your favorite video games right away. Related The Alienware Aurora R16 ACT1250 gaming desktop with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card is very powerful, which explains its $3,750 price tag. You can currently get it from Dell at $700 off though, for a reduced price of $3,050. It’s still going to leave a dent in your wallet, but you wouldn’t want to miss this chance to buy the Alienware Aurora R16 ACT1250 gaming PC for a lower price than usual. However, if you want your next gaming machine to be portable, you should take a look at our favorite gaming laptop deals. Editors’ Recommendations

Mazda has just shown off its new EZ-60 which is so crammed full of smart tech it’ll even listen to your commands from the street corner. And that’s you on the street corner, not the car. Yup, the Mazda EV-60 is actually voice controlled in that you can tell it to park, as you stand outside, and it’ll take care of the parking job for you. Recommended Videos Sure, cars can already park themselves into a space and some even let you control it using the key fob or app. But having your car back itself neatly into a tight space as you simply command it with your voice is a real treat. Related Not to mention very handy if it’s such a tight space that getting out of your door could be a challenge. The tech originality doesn’t stop there though as this also packs in a whopping and eye-watering 26.5-inch 5K screen. That’s backed by smart cabin voice, touch and gesture controls. You can interact with the car using voice and expect to hear it back loud and clear as there is almighty 23-speaker sound system. Also very good for listening to music very loudly and with maximum immersion too, of course. The car drive itself sounds promising too with a full electric of plug-in hybrid options, the later of which offers a 50:50 weight distribution. It’s even rear wheel drive, to add further to the fun of this car. While that all sounds decadent, this will still offer a very economical 373-mile range on full electric or 621-mile in the PHEV version. So what’s the catch? At this stage this has been announced for release in China only. That said, the last time Mazda released its EZ-6 saloon in this way, it soon made it to Europe and gives hope this model too could land further afield. The Mazda EV-60 goes on sale later this month in China. Here’s hoping those voice controlled parking smarts arrive worldwide soon after. Editors’ Recommendations

Some societies emphasize the collective. Liberal democracies value the individual. Traditional Jews embrace both—which can create problems.