Looking for NYT Strands answers and hints? Here's all you need to know to solve today's game, including the spangram.

Nvidia reported earnings after the bell. Here are the results.

Snowflake reported better-than-expected results on the top and bottom lines.

Including previs, techvis, virtual production and final dragon animation work.The post Pixomondo breaks down its work on s2 of House of the Dragon in-depth appeared first on befores & afters.

Mobile developers!Unreal Engine 5.5 is here, with a bunch of improvements to help your projects being developed for mobile devices.The Mobile Forward Renderer now supports D-buffer decals, capsule shadows, movable IES textures and more. All in service of increasing visual fidelity Also, screen-space reflections now work in both Mobile Forward and Deferred Renderers.Automatic PSO precaching is now enabled by default for a faster, easier alternative to manual PSO gathering Workflows.Additionally, the Mobile Previewer has received several improvements, including the ability to capture and preview specific Android device profiles, and to emulate half-precision 16-but float shaders. Detecting and dealing with artifacts should be easier Were excited to see your mobile projects, so please share your progress with us For more information on Unreal Engine 5.5, check out our full blog on it, here!: https://epic.gm/unreal-engine-5-5-blog

Lost at sea and missed our tech blog on Still Wakes the Deep? You can reel in all the info on how Unreal Engine helped create the atmosphere for the title, here: https://epic.gm/ue-tech-blog-still-wakes-the-deep

You're invited to a Void Crew Creator Spotlight ft. a epic, co-op, space adventure by Hutlihut games! We'll be discussing a custom tool kit and how early access helped shape the game. Join LIVE for Steam key giveaways! Nov 21st, 9am PT --> https://on.unity.com/CS

Philadelphias mass transit system has reached a tentative contract deal with its largest workers union, averting a potential strike that could have seen thousands of employees walk off the job.The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and Transport Workers Union Local 234 announced the one-year agreement Wednesday. It calls for union members to receive a 5% raise and an unspecified pension adjustment. The contract also has language aimed at improving the personal safety of frontline workers, including installing bulletproof enclosures for drivers since many face violence and harassment.Union President Brian Pollitt said a ratification vote would be held Dec. 6.The agreement comes about two weeks after union members had voted to authorize a strike once their one-year contract with SEPTA expired Nov. 8. Union leaders, though, agreed to delay a strike as long as they felt progress was being made at the bargaining table.Local 234 has about 5,000 members, including bus, subway and trolley operators, mechanics, cashiers, maintenance people and custodians.Pollitt said Wednesday that avoiding a strike was a priority, noting that public transit is a necessary need for many residents, including students who take SEPTA trains and buses to school and workers who rely on the agency to get to their jobs.We got a fair deal, and now we need to focus on making sure SEPTA stays strong for everyone who depends on it, Pollitt said.Scott Sauer, SEPTAs interim general manager, said both sides worked hard to reach a deal.This agreement is fair to our hardworking frontline employees and responsible to the customers and taxpayers, he said.SEPTA, which has repeatedly said its financial health is uncertain, recently proposed an across-the-board 21.5% fare increase that would start New Years Day as well as severe service cuts that would take effect next summer. The agency has scheduled a Dec. 13 public hearing on the plan.If approved by SEPTAs board, riders would pay the increase on top of a proposed interim average fare increase of 7.5% the panel is due to consider later this month. If passed, it would take effect Dec. 1. If both increases take effect, the single fare cost of riding the city bus and subway would go from $2 to $2.90. SEPTA key fares, where riders get discounts for using a prepaid card to pay fares that now range from $3.75 to $6.50, depending on the zone they use, would range from $5 to $8.75 on Jan. 1.SEPTA last raised fares in 2017, and the proposed increase would be expected to bring in an additional $23 million for this fiscal year and $45 million per year starting in 2026.The nations sixth-largest mass transit system, SEPTA faces an annual structural budget deficit of $240 million as federal pandemic aid phases out. It lost out on about $161 million in state aid since the Republican-controlled state Senate declined to vote on Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiros proposal for $283 million in new state aid to public transit. Instead, lawmakers approved a one-time payment to the state trust fund for transit systems, of which SEPTA got $46 million.Bruce Shipkowski, Associated Press

Donald Trump closed out his 2024 campaign with a promise to fight against transgender insanity. Now, that fight is playing out within the halls of Congress.On Tuesday, Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina announced plans to ban trans women from using womens restrooms in the Capitol. Even if her move werent obviously a direct response to Delaware Democrat Sarah McBride winning her race and becoming the first openly trans person elected to Congress, Mace helpfully clarified as much on X. The following morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson formally announced that trans people will indeed be banned from using restrooms aligned with their gender identity on the House side of the Capitol. If this measure proceeds unchallenged by Democrats, it will have devastating consequences for trans people in workplaces across America.Transgender rights played a significant role in the 2024 election. According to data released by Ad Impact, Republicans spent nearly $215 million on network TV ads depicting trans people as a major threat. What were their main points of contention? If taken at face value, its that trans women and girls should not be allowed to compete in sports for women and girls, and that minors who identify as trans should not receive any support from educators, let alone be allowed to seek gender-affirming care. (Meanwhile, whenever Vice President Kamala Harris was asked about these topics in interviews, she often treated them like gotcha questions and side-stepped accordingly.)Of course, as many trans activists have long pointed out, battles over sports and minors are pretextual skirmishes for a coming war on trans peoples right to peacefully exist in public altogether. Its a war in which theyve already incurred losses.Back in January, for instance, Utah became the 11th state to implement a bill requiring people to use bathrooms in schools and government-owned buildings that match the sex they were assigned at birth. While framed as a protection against the supposed scourge of bathroom violencea paper tiger that demonstrably does not existthe true intent of the bill appears to be further stigmatization for trans people and making sure they feel unwelcome.Aiding in that goal is close Trump ally Elon Musk. After acquiring Twitter in 2022, Musk degraded its content moderation policies, turning the platform into a toxic environment where anti-trans views are not only welcome but normalized, and so highly visible that users might extrapolate that this is how everyone talks, thinks, and feels.Reading news about the unfolding bathroom ban in Congress from within the platform might only further compound that idea.Sore winnersTrumps supporters are understandably energized after his electoral victory. They seem unfazed by his selection of eminently unqualified cabinet picks, such as Fox News host Pete Hegseth and scandal-prone Rep. Matt Gaetz, even though such picks suggest a leader convinced he can get away with anything.But one of the downstream effects of Trumps win is that those rank-and-file supportersteachers, salespeople, and architects around the countrymay soon start testing the limits of what they can get away with as well.If the MAGA base receives a message that its fine to treat trans coworkers this way, that Trumps ideological opponents were so thoroughly pulverized by this election that theyre now incapable of pushing back, then the base will internalize that message to the detriment of trans people everywhere. Speaker Johnson may not be able to snap his fingers and institute a bathroom banat least, the D.C. Human Rights Act suggests he cantbut theres a message in the very fact that hes trying.Workplace leaders are watchingBeyond any implications about further actions at the federal level, some receptive CEOs and office managers are bound to note the effort currently unfolding in Congress and attempt to tighten restrictions within their own smaller-stakes purview. If that happens, trans employees will be forced to either go along with undignified working conditions or fight protracted legal battles theyre not guaranteed to win.Americans, of course, are not required by law to be nice to trans people. But they are indeed requiredfor now, at leastto not treat them like second-class citizens, which is precisely the effect that these bathroom bills achieve.For her part, McBride has been measured and graceful in her response to Maces stunt and to Johnsons announcement. Every day, Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, she wrote on X Monday night. I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness.Her hoped-for result seems unlikely. But in lieu of kindness, perhaps members of Congress will muster some courage.https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1859047222895407475Minority House Leader Hakeem Jeffries showed a little backbone on Tuesday, chiding Republicans for bullying a fellow member of Congress. Pushing back on this bathroom ban in a meaningful way, however, will require a robust, sustained counterattackone that some Dems may be convinced they dont have the bandwidth to carry out. A second Trump term means a familiar return to constant chaos, making it difficult to assess which issues are worth responding to and which ones are just distractions.The battle for trans rights is no mere distraction, though. Its a fight that matters.Democrats have engaged in a lot of finger-pointing since the election about just who to throw under the bus in order to win over more voters in the next election. Trans people have emerged among the list of potential future roadkill.The Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left, Representative Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat, told the New York Times the day after the election. I dont want to discriminate against anybody, but I dont think biological boys should be playing in girls sports . . . Democrats arent saying that, and they should be.But backtracking on previously held convictions wont make Democrats more broadly appealing; it will only make them appear as if all their convictions are equally flexible. At that point, the difference between the two sides becomes harder to parse.Elections help determine the character of the country, but they dont automatically define it. The Dems may have lost the election, but if theyre willing to alienate the queer community and its allies by rolling over on this issue, then they will lose something even more vitally important. President Joe Biden famously framed his fight against Trumpism as a battle for the soul of a nation. Whether a nation can lose its soul with a single election is up for debate, but a political party can certainly lose one by abandoning its persecuted constituents instead of fighting for them when it matters most.