Elbieta Zawacka risked her life to rid her country of the Nazis. After the war, she was targeted by the Communist authorities.

geforce multiplier New GeForce 50-series GPUs: Theres the $1,999 5090, and theres everything else Nvidia leans heavily on DLSS 4 and AI-generated frames for speed comparisons. Andrew Cunningham Jan 7, 2025 3:06 pm | 21 Nvidia's RTX 5070, one of four new desktop GPUs announced this week. Credit: Nvidia Nvidia's RTX 5070, one of four new desktop GPUs announced this week. Credit: Nvidia Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreNvidia has good news and bad news for people building or buying gaming PCs.The good news is that three of its four new RTX 50-series GPUs are the same price as or slightly cheaper than the RTX 40-series GPUs they're replacing. The RTX 5080 is $999, the same price as the RTX 4080 Super; the 5070 Ti and 5070 are launching for $749 and $549, each $50 less than the 4070 Ti Super and 4070 Super.The bad news for people looking for the absolute fastest card they can get is that the company is charging $1,999 for its flagship RTX 5090 GPU, significantly more than the $1,599 MSRP of the RTX 4090. If you want Nvidia's biggest and best, it will cost at least as much as four high-end game consoles or a pair of decently specced midrange gaming PCs. Pricing for the first batch of Blackwell-based RTX 50-series GPUs. Credit: Nvidia Nvidia also announced a new version of its upscaling algorithm, DLSS 4. As with DLSS 3 and the RTX 40-series, DLSS 4's flagship feature will be exclusive to the 50-series. It's called DLSS Multi Frame Generation, and as the name implies, it takes the Frame Generation feature from DLSS 3 and allows it to generate even more frames. It's why Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang claimed that the $549 RTX 5070 performed like the $1,599 RTX 4090; it's also why those claims are a bit misleading.The rollout will begin with the RTX 5090 and 5080 on January 30. The 5070 Ti and 5070 will follow at some point in February. All cards except the 5070 Ti will come in Nvidia-designed Founders Editions as well as designs made by Nvidia's partners; the 5070 Ti isn't getting a Founders Edition.The RTX 5090 and 5080RTX 5090RTX 4090RTX 5080RTX 4080 SuperCUDA Cores21,76016,38410,75210,240Boost Clock2,410 MHz2,520 MHz2,617 MHz2,550 MHzMemory Bus Width512-bit384-bit256-bit256-bitMemory Bandwidth1,792 GB/s1,008 GB/s960 GB/s736 GB/sMemory size32GB GDDR724GB GDDR6X16GB GDDR716GB GDDR6XTGP575 W450 W360 W320 WThe RTX 5090, based on Nvidia's new Blackwell architecture, is a gigantic chip with 92 billion transistors in it. And while it is double the price of an RTX 5080, you also get double the GPU cores and double the RAM and nearly double the memory bandwidth. Even more than the 4090, it's being positioned head and shoulders above the rest of the GPUs in the family, and the 5080's performance won't come remotely close to it.Though $1,999 is a lot to ask for a graphics card, if Nvidia can consistently make the RTX 5090 available at $2,000, it could still be an improvement over the pricing of the 4090, which regularly sold for well over $1,599over the course of its lifetime, due in part to pandemic-fueled GPU shortages, cryptocurrency mining, and the generative AI boom. Companies and other entities buying them as AI accelerators may restrict the availability of the 5090, too, but Nvidia's highest GPU tier has been well out of the price range of most consumers for a while now.Despite the higher power budgetas predicted, it's 125 W higher than the 4090 at 450 W, and Nvidia recommends a 1,000 W power supply or betterthe physical size of the 5090 Founders Edition is considerably smaller than the 4090, which was large enough that it had trouble fitting into some computer cases. Thanks to a "high-density PCB" and redesigned cooling system, the 5090 Founders Edition is a dual-slot card that ought to fit into small-form-factor systems much more easily than the 4090. Of course, this won't stop most third-party 5090 GPUs from being gigantic triple-fan monstrosities, but it is apparently possible to make a reasonably sized version of the card.Moving on to the 5080, it looks like more of a mild update from last year's RTX 4080 Super, with a few hundred more CUDA cores, more memory bandwidth (thanks to the use of GDDR7, since the two GPUs share the same 256-bit interface), and a slightly higher power budget of 360 W (compared to 320 W for the 4080 Super).Having more cores and faster memory, in addition to whatever improvements and optimizations come with the Blackwell architecture, should help the 5080 easily beat the 4080 Super. But it's an open question as to whether it will be able to beat the 4090, at least before you consider any DLSS-related frame rate increases. The 4090 has 52 percent more GPU cores, a wider memory bus, and 8GB more memory.5070 Ti and 5070RTX 5070 TiRTX 4070 Ti SuperRTX 5070RTX 4070 SuperCUDA Cores8,9608,4486,1447,168Boost Clock2,452 MHz2,610 MHz2,512 MHz2,475 MHzMemory Bus Width256-bit256-bit192-bit192-bitMemory Bandwidth896 GB/s672 GB/s672 GB/s504 GB/sMemory size16GB GDDR716GB GDDR6X12GB GDDR712GB GDDR6XTGP300 W285 W250 W220 WAt $749 and $549, the 5070 Ti and 5070 are slightly more within reach for someone who's trying to spend less than $2,000 on a new gaming PC. Both cards hew relatively closely to the specs of the 4070 Ti Super and 4070 Super, both of which are already solid 1440p and 4K graphics cards for many titles.Like the 5080, the 5070 Ti includes a few hundred more CUDA cores, more memory bandwidth, and slightly higher power requirements compared to the 4070 Ti Super. That the card is $50 less than the 4070 Ti Super was at launch is a nice bonusif it can come close to or beat the RTX 4080 for $250 less, it could be an appealing high-end option.The RTX 5070 is alone in having fewer CUDA cores than its immediate predecessor6,144, down from 7,168. It is an upgrade from the original 4070, which had 5,888 CUDA cores, and GDDR7 and slightly faster clock speeds may still help it outrun the 4070 Super; like the other 50-series cards, it also comes with a higher power budget. But right now this card is looking like the closest thing to a lateral move in the lineup, at least before you consider the additional frame-generation capabilities of DLSS 4.DLSS 4 and fudging the numbers Many of Nvidia's most ostentatious performance claimsincluding the one that the RTX 5070 is as fast as a 4090factors in DLSS 4's additional AI-generated frames. Credit: Nvidia When launching new 40-series cards over the last two years, it was common for Nvidia to publish a couple of different performance comparisons to last-gen cards: one with DLSS turned off, and one with DLSS and the 40-series-exclusive Frame Generation feature turned on. Nvidia would then lean on the DLSS-enabled numbers when making broad proclamations about a GPU's performance, as it does in its official press release when it says the 5090 is twice as fast as the 4090, or as CEO Jensen Huang did during his CES keynote when he claimed that an RTX 5070 offered RTX 4090 performance for $549.DLSS Frame Generation is an AI feature that builds on what DLSS is already doing. Where DLSS uses AI to fill in gaps and make a lower-resolution image look like a higher-resolution image, DLSS Frame Generation creates entirely new frames and inserts them in between the frames that your GPU is actually rendering. DLSS 4 now generates up to three frames for every frame the GPU is actually rendering. Used in concert with DLSS image upscaling, Nvidia says that "15 out of every 16 pixels" you see on your screen are being generated by its AI models. Credit: Nvidia The RTX 50-series one-ups the 40-series with DLSS 4, another new revision that's exclusive to its just-launched GPUs: DLSS Multi Frame Generation. Instead of generating one extra frame for every traditionally rendered frame, DLSS 4 generates "up to three additional frames" to slide in between the ones your graphics card is actually renderingbased on Nvidia's slides, it looks like users ought to be able to control how many extra frames are being generated, just as they can control the quality settings for DLSS upscaling. Nvidia is leaning on the Blackwell architecture's faster Tensor Cores, which it says are up to 2.5 times faster than the Tensor Cores in the RTX 40-series, to do the AI processing necessary to upscale rendered frames and to generate new ones.Nvidia's performance comparisons aren't indefensible; with DLSS FG enabled, the cards can put out a lot of frames per second. It's just dependent on game support (Nvidia says that 75 titles will support it at launch), and going off of our experience with the original iteration of Frame Generation, there will likely be scenarios where image quality is noticeably worse or just "off-looking" compared to actual rendered frames. DLSS FG also needed a solid base frame rate to get the best results, which may or may not be the case for Multi-FG. Enhanced versions of older DLSS features can benefit all RTX cards, including the 20-, 30-, and 40-series. Multi-Frame Generation is restricted to the 50-series, though. Credit: Nvidia Though the practice of restricting the biggest DLSS upgrades to all-new hardware is a bit frustrating, Nvidia did announce that it's releasing a new transformer module for the DLSS Ray Reconstruction, Super Resolution, and Anti-Aliasing features. These are DLSS features that are available on all RTX GPUs going all the way back to the RTX 20-series, and games that are upgraded to use the newer models should benefit from improved upscaling quality even if they're using older GPUs.GeForce 50-series: Also for laptops! Nvidia's projected pricing for laptops with each of its new mobile GPUs. Credit: Nvidia Nvidia's laptop GPU announcements sometimes trail the desktop announcements by a few weeks or months. But the company has already announced mobile versions of the 5090, 5080, 5070 Ti, and 5070 that Nvidia says will begin shipping in laptops priced between $1,299 and $2,899 when they launch in March.All of these GPUs share names, the Blackwell architecture, and DLSS 4 support with their desktop counterparts, but per usual they're significantly cut down to fit on a laptop motherboard and within a laptop's cooling capacity. The mobile version of the 5090 includes 10,496 GPU cores, less than half the number of the desktop version, and just 24GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit interface instead of 32GB on a 512-bit interface. But it also can operate with a power budget between 95 and 150 W, a fraction of what the desktop 5090 needs.RTX 5090 (mobile)RTX 5080 (mobile)RTX 5070 Ti (mobile)RTX 5070 (mobile)CUDA Cores10,4967,6805,8884,608Memory Bus Width256-bit256-bit192-bit128-bitMemory size24GB GDDR716GB GDDR712GB GDDR78GB GDDR7TGP95-150 W80-150 W60-115 W50-100 WThe other three GPUs are mostly cut down in similar ways, and all of them have fewer GPU cores and lower power requirements than their desktop counterparts. The 5070 GPUs both have less RAM and narrowed memory buses, too, but the mobile RTX 5080 at least comes closer to its desktop iteration, with the same 256-bit bus width and 16GB of RAM.Andrew CunninghamSenior Technology ReporterAndrew CunninghamSenior Technology Reporter Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue. 21 Comments

Out of date Science paper piracy site Sci-Hub shares lots of retracted papers 85 percent of invalid papers continue to be shared after they've been retracted. John Timmer Jan 7, 2025 2:39 pm | 7 Keeping track of when a paper has been retracted can be a challenge. Credit: pablohart Keeping track of when a paper has been retracted can be a challenge. Credit: pablohart Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreMost scientific literature is published in for-profit journals that rely on subscriptions and paywalls to turn a profit. But that trend has been shifting as various governments and funding agencies are requiring that the science they fund be published in open-access journals. The transition is happening gradually, though, and a lot of the historical literature remains locked behind paywalls.These paywalls can pose a problem for researchers who aren't at well-funded universities, including many in the Global South, which may not be able to access the research they need to understand in order to pursue their own studies. One solution has been Sci-Hub, a site where people can upload PDFs of published papers so they can be shared with anyone who can access the site. Despite losses in publishing industry lawsuits and attempts to block access, Sci-Hub continues to serve up research papers that would otherwise be protected by paywalls.But what it's serving up may not always be the latest and greatest. Generally, when a paper is retracted for being invalid, publishers issue an updated version of its PDF with clear indications that the research it contains should no longer be considered valid. Unfortunately, it appears that once Sci-Hub has a copy of a paper, it doesn't necessarily have the ability to ensure it's kept up to date. Based on a scan of its content done by researchers from India, about 85 percent of the invalid papers they checked had no indication that the paper had been retracted.Correcting the scientific recordScientific results go wrong for all sorts of reasons, from outright fraud to honest mistakes. If the problems don't invalidate the overall conclusions of a paper, it's possible to update the paper with a correction. If the problems are systemic enough to undermine the results, however, the paper is typically retractedin essence, it should be treated as if it were never published in the first place.It doesn't always work out that way, however. Maybe people ignore the notifications that something has been retracted, or maybe they downloaded a copy of the paper before it got retracted and never saw the notifications at all, but citations to retracted papers regularly appear in the scientific record. Over the long term, this can distort our big-picture view of science, leading to wasted effort and misallocated resources.Some researchers based in India suspected there might be an additional reason retracted papers are still being cited: Sci-Hub. Sci-Hub works a bit like a combination of cache and aggregator for published materials. Whenever it gets a request for a paper that's not already in its database, it uses leaked login credentials to go to the website of whatever journal published the paper and obtain a copy. If it already has a copy, however, it will simply serve that up instead. This leaves open the possibility that it will have obtained a copy of a paper prior to its retraction and continue to distribute that copy after the paper has been retracted.To check this, the researchers obtained a list of nearly 17,000 retracted papers and searched for them on Sci-Hub. They then visually examined the documents that were returned. They found that 85 percent of them contained no indication that the paper had been retracted. "The availability of [unlabeled retracted articles] in the field of health sciences is particularly high," they note, "which indicates a significant risk of their unintended use and further citation in future research."Staying up to dateWhile corrections are less severe than retractions, they're likely to suffer a similar problem. And corrections will often involve the technical details of a paperthe experimental approaches or raw data that will be critical for anyone wanting to replicate or extend previously published results. So, if anything, their impact will be more significant.It's worth noting that this was already recognized as a problem even in the absence of Sci-Hub, and a system called Crossmark was developed to make it easy to find the most up-to-date version of a paper, including any corrections or retraction notices. Of course, not all publishers use Crossmark, and making it easy to use doesn't guarantee researchers will find the time to go through what might be a massive library of reference papers and check each one before publishing.But, given that Sci-Hub is an automated system, it doesn't suffer from the lack of free time or motivation of an actual living researcher. In theory, there's nothing to prevent it from being updated to incorporate a check of whether its cache contains the most recent version of a paper whenever it's requested.Accountability in Research, 2025. DOI: 10.1080/08989621.2024.2446558 (About DOIs).John TimmerSenior Science EditorJohn TimmerSenior Science Editor John is Ars Technica's science editor. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. When physically separated from his keyboard, he tends to seek out a bicycle, or a scenic location for communing with his hiking boots. 7 Comments

Comment and HealthMany of us experienced time differently in the pandemic. Learning why can help us, say Ruth Ogden and Patricia Kingori 1 January 2025 Simone RotellaFive years ago, in January 2020, a new year had begun, one that would be like no other in living memory. Three months later, much of the world was in lockdown. Most people were unable to leave home for work or social activities, and with schools shut, many of us were juggling homeschooling while feeling anxious about the future.Covid-19 had countless impacts on health and well-being, but one surprising effect was a widespread distortion of peoples experience of the passage of time. How were those lockdown days for you? Did they fly by or drag on? As academics

Ted Farnsworth pleaded guilty to defrauding investors in MoviePass and Vinco.Farnsworth has been in prison since August 2023.MoviePass's $10 plan led to its popularity but was unsustainable, causing bankruptcy.Ted Farnsworth pleaded guilty on Tuesday to defrauding investors in the movie-ticket subscription service MoviePass, the US Department of Justice announced. He bought the company in 2017 while CEO of Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY).Farnsworth, 62, also pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge for a second scheme related to a video-sharing platform he was involved with while under investigation for MoviePass.Farnsworth has been in federal custody since August 2023."Farnsworth was anxious to accept responsibility for his conduct," Farnsworth's lawyer, Sam Rabin, told Business Insider in a statement. "The most important step in doing that was to plead guilty to the crimes with which he is charged. He did that today."The Department of Justice charged Farnsworth and then MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe with securities fraud in 2022. The DOJ alleged that Lowe and Farnsworth "engaged in a scheme to defraud investors through materially false and misleading representations relating to HMNY and MoviePass's business and operations to artificially inflate the price of HMNY's stock and attract new investors."The DOJ also recently charged Farnsworth and others with using "the same strategy to defraud" investors in Vinco Ventures, another publicly traded company. MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe and Helios and Matheson Chief Executive Ted Farnsworth. MoviePass/Reuters Lowe, the former MoviePass CEO, pleaded guilty to securities fraud conspiracy in September 2024.The rise and fall of MoviePassIn 2017, HMNY became the parent company of MoviePass. Farnsworth and Lowe launched a $10-a-month plan that made the service very popular. As subscriptions soared into the millions, HMNY's stock skyrocketed.However, the $10 plan which allowed subscribers to see a movie a day in theaters was not sustainable, and the company burned through hundreds of millions of dollars. By 2020, both MoviePass and HMNY went bankrupt.MoviePass founder Stacy Spikes, who was ousted by Lowe and Farnsworth from MoviePass in 2018, bought back the company in 2021.MoviePass under Spikes' leadership is currently available nationwide.The story of the rise and fall of MoviePass is chronicled in the documentary "MoviePass, MovieCrash," which was released in May and is based on BI's award-winning reporting.

Amazon delayed its full RTO plan in some locations due to insufficient office space.An internal list shows the where Amazon employees will work three days a week until space is ready.The list shows more than 40 locations where the full five-day RTO policy is delayed.Amazon delayed its five-day return-to-office plan in some locations due to a lack of space, as Business Insider recently reported.An internal Amazon list viewed by Business Insider shows where employees are being asked to continue following the company's previous policy, requiring only three days a week in the office.The locations include major tech hubs such as Santa Clara, Austin, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Bangalore. Amazon's original guidance required employees to work from the office five days a week, beginning January 2. An Amazon spokesperson told BI on Tuesday that buildings were ready for a majority of employees on that day.The company's real estate team late last year started notifying employees that they could continue following their current in-office guidance until workspaces were ready, with delays stretching to as late as May, according to internal Amazon notifications viewed by BI.The company has said the return to office will improve collaboration and bring other benefits. CEO Andy Jassy, in a memo announcing the mandate, said Amazon made the decision to "further strengthen" its culture and teams.Here are more of the Amazon locations where employees are being told to continue working three days a week in the office:Raleigh, Annapolis Junction, Baltimore, Columbia, Austin, Cupertino, Irvine, Nashville, Boulder, Charlotte, Houston, Jersey City, Newark, Atlanta, Dallas, East Palo Alto, Mexico City, Santa Clara, Sao Paulo, Tampa, Miami, Brooklyn, Columbus, New York, Sacramento, Hamburg, Munich, Tel Aviv, Amman, Milan, Cairo, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Dubai, Istanbul, Beijing, Hyderabad, Shenzhen, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Shanghai.Are you a tech-industry employee or someone else with insight to share?Contact the reporter, Ashley Stewart, via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or email (). Use a nonwork device.

The trains felt perfectly scheduled for maximum skiing time in Winter Park.My train left early to get us to Winter Park as the lifts opened. Molly O'Brien My train was scheduled to leave Denver Union Station around 7 a.m. to arrive in Winter Park around 9 a.m. right as its ski lifts open for the day.I live just outside downtown Denver, so I woke up at 6 a.m. to drive to the parking garage adjacent to Union Station, where I'd booked an overnight parking spot. I arrived at the tracks around 6:20 for my 6:30 boarding time.My return trip would depart Winter Park at 4:35 p.m. (right after the ski lifts close) and arrive in Denver around 7 p.m. Boarding was pretty easy.The train has a special compartment for ski gear. Molly O'Brien The train allows riders to take their skis or snowboards as a single carry-on item.Since passengers can bring two carry-on items and one personal item on board, I was able to travel with my skis, overnight bag, and a small backpack.While boarding the train, I passed my equipment to a volunteer, who placed it in a special storage area. I had no problem finding a seat on the train.The train's seats are in pairs. Molly O'Brien All seats on this train are coach there are no business or first-class options. As the train filled up, I had no trouble finding a seat.Seats were arranged in pairs (or clusters of four), and I felt quite comfortable. They can recline slightly and most have pull-down tray tables, similar to what you'd find on a plane. The energy on the train was excellent.The views made the trip even better. Molly O'Brien Many of my fellow passengers seemed excited and buzzing with energy you'd never know it was barely 7 a.m. As the train exited the station, some of them started cheering.The vibes on the train ride were excellent overall. Even our lively conductor made sure to stop and chat with each passenger while checking tickets. I tried to get work done but ended up looking out the window for most of the trip.The mountain scenery along the way was stunning to look at. Molly O'Brien I and many other passengers had our laptops out to use during the ride. Unfortunately, we lost cellphone service about 30 minutes into the trip, and I wasn't able to use my hot spot or do much on my computer after that.Fortunately, I was able to spend most of the trip looking out the window at the stunning mountain scenery. I spent most of my trip in the lounge car because I loved its windows.This Amtrak lounge car had domed windows on top. Molly O'Brien My favorite spot on the train was the lounge car, which had domed windows on top and large ones on either side. It had the best views.This car also had snacks and drinks for sale, so I bought myself a hot coffee. After almost two hours, we began to approach our final stop.I spent a lot of my Amtrak ride looking out the windows. Molly O'Brien The highly relaxing trip took roughly two hours in total.When we went through Moffat Tunnel on the final stretch of the journey, an Amtrak employee told us it was time to put on our ski gear because we were just minutes away from Winter Park Resort. Our train stop was wildly close to the Winter Park slopes.Amtrak employees helped us unload our ski gear from the train. Molly O'Brien We pulled into the train platform shortly after 9 a.m., and I could see the ski runs right out the train windows.Amtrak employees unloaded our skis and snowboards for us, and we stepped off the train platform and right onto Winter Park grounds. Seriously, I couldn't believe how close the train tracks were to the ski hill.We barely had to walk from the train stop to get to the ski lift and village. Molly O'Brien We were less than 50 steps from Winter Park's base ski lift and village area, where we could grab a bite to eat, rent a ski locker or equipment for the day, and buy a lift pass. Overall, the train could be an excellent alternative to driving to Winter Park.Getting to Winter Park was a breeze with the Amtrak train. Molly O'Brien The Amtrak journey to Winter Park wasn't overly expensive and felt highly efficient. It was a great alternative to driving to the mountain.Although I've been told driving from downtown Denver can be a slightly shorter trip at around 90 minutes, that doesn't factor in traffic.Winter Park can get really congested during peak ski seasons, so I was happy to not be stuck in a car. Plus, since I wasn't driving, I was able to fully embrace the stunning mountain views around me.The only real downside for me was that I couldn't bring my dog as the train is not pet-friendly.

The point of Beast Games is laid out with chilling starkness in the first 60 seconds of its premiere. A thousand people are competing for a $5 million grand prize that, were told, is the largest in entertainment history. But its host, 26-year-old Jimmy Donaldson, better known as the massively successful YouTuber styled MrBeast, refers to this pile of money in another way: generational wealth. This might sound like an oddly academic way of describing a jackpot, but only if you were unfamiliar with Mr. Beasts defining quality: his desire to test exactly what people are willing to do for cash.The next thing viewers hear on Beast Games is the contestants describing their motivations for competing on the show. The first is a Black woman who says that she grew up homeless and that she would use the money to help other homeless kids. The second is a young white guy who says, If I win $5 million, I could use that to make passive income for the rest of my life.Beast Games, whose first four episodes are now streaming on Amazon Prime, knows what it is doing when it shows you one contestant presumably worthy of the prize and another presented as far more sinister by comparison. It knows what it is doing when it shows you a millennial with pink hair crying hysterically because they knocked over a tower of blocks, or any other instance of grown adults acting like toddlers. It knows that it has taken Squid Game, a show about how, actually, our glee at watching poor people debase themselves for money might be a bad thing, and drawn the exact opposite conclusion. Beast Games exists to make you hate it and other people, and for you to keep watching regardless. In this, its an extraordinary success. The gist is that 1,000 people wearing tracksuits compete in challenges to win the prize over the course of 10 episodes. They start the contest in a giant warehouse before moving to Beast City, which looks like a life-size Brio train set, then onto Beast Island, a private $1.8 million Panamanian island. Future episodes move those remaining to the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Despite reportedly costing more than $100 million to make, its marked by nonsensical writing, ugly graphic design, and frequent ads for MoneyLion, a payday loan company that markets itself as a cool fintech brand. Every moment of the show is designed to capture and keep your attention, and it does, even as you hate yourself more with every passing second. Beast Games exists to make you hate it and other people, and for you to keep watching regardless. In this, its an extraordinary success.The logic of the show is so poisonous that the moments designed to strengthen viewers faith in humanity like when all four team captains choose to forgo an offer of $1 million rather than betray their teammates made me want to scream at them from my couch. Dont you know that literally the only reason youre here is to win a bunch of money? I wanted to say, before reminding myself that I am an adult woman watching Beast Games. But this cynicism is justified when one of said team captains then becomes a cultlike figure among a faction of his fellow contestants, spewing bizarre Christian sermons in order to further his identity as a martyr. The large-bearded Jeremy claims that it is in fact God who is guiding him through Beast Games, and God who told him to take mostly his fellow male teammates along with him to the next round, even after he promised to help the women. This leads to a hilarious moment where a female contestant says, I speak to God every day and I know for a fact he didnt tell him that.Those who are Beast-fluent know that Donaldson typically shies away from more complicated narratives about gender and race, preferring instead to keep the tone to toddler-level simplicity: Mr. Beast give poor guy money, Mr. Beast God! There is an almost shocking lack of conflict in many of his YouTube videos; any tension is only surface-level. This is where the Amazon show innovates, pitting the men and women and the white and non-white players against each other, forming the central narrative of the show. Its horrific and infuriating to witness two brothers gleefully convince a sobbing woman to sacrifice herself for them, or when a white guy takes back his promise to the two Black people hes sharing a prison cell with. (God, this shit is bleak.) By the third episode, I was ready to wield pitchforks to defend the good-hearted players from the evil ones, forgetting entirely that all of it was a fallacy orchestrated by the worlds most famous YouTuber and a multibillion-dollar corporation with a long track record of exploitation. Mr. Beast, famously uncharismatic, is useless when it comes to the task of comforting contestants who get booted off the show (or in some cases, dropped into an abyss); the scenes that require him to show human emotion are painful to watch, and not just because he spends the entire show wearing a hideous shiny suit over a black hoodie. His crew Donaldsons friends-slash-employees known as the Beast Gang are worse. They are awkward, soyfacing bros who do nothing but attempt to emulate surprise about a game they designed while repeating whatever internet slang they think is most popular (drink every time they shout Locked in!). None of them are capable of interacting normally with other human beings, which I suppose is understandable when the only time you have to interact with normal people is when theyre begging you for money. This, again, is the logic of the Mr. Beast universe, composed of wealthy 20-something hustle-bro influencers in a variety of different flavors and their armies of wannabe copycats. Here, the sort of money jargon used by Mr. Beast and his contestants generational wealth, passive income amounts to gospel. Mr. Beast and his ilk are obsessed with rags-to-riches narratives, both their own and other peoples, and with dangling the dream of financial freedom to viewers by showing off Lamborghinis, Rolexes, and their success with women. To them, money is the key to all of it; it is the be-all, end-all of human life. As Katie Notopoulos wrote on Threads, Beast Games is money-obsessed; the first ep challenges are mindgames about winning money, not physical challenges. Its a game show where wanting money is the entire entertainment.The nihilism at the heart of Beast Games is, of course, nothing new. As Emily Nussbaum catalogs in her history of the genre, Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV, making poor people prostrate themselves in an attempt to win cash is older than color television broadcasting. 1945 saw the debut of Queen for a Day, a radio show in which working-class housewives competed to win a slate of prizes by sharing their sob stories to an audience, who would determine the winner via applause-o-meter. Crucially, she writes, You couldnt be queen if the prize was for you. It had to be for your preemie baby, your sick aunt and the more showily self-abnegating you were, the more likely other women would let you win.You could argue that there are plenty of reality TV shows more diabolical than Beast Games the 2000s alone saw such ethical disasters as The Swan, Kid Nation, Cheaters, The Biggest Loser, and Jon & Kate Plus Eight. As ugly as Beast Games is to watch, it appears to have been even uglier behind the scenes. Contestants reportedly had to sign contracts that acknowledged I understand that such activities may cause me death, illness, or serious bodily injury. In a lawsuit filed against the show, several contestants said they experienced sexual harassment, were degraded by the experience, and that they lacked access to food and medicine. (Neither representatives for Amazon MGM studios nor Mr. Beast have commented on the lawsuit.) A few of the contestants also left the arena in stretchers, while others were hospitalized. We signed up for the show, but we didnt sign up for not being fed or watered or treated like human beings, one contestant told the New York Times.Over the past few years, its begun to feel a little bit like many of us are contestants in a reality game show, one where our job is to sell sob stories to maximize the amount of attention and money we can squeeze out. Its been illuminating to see which sorts of people thrive on this particular show, and watching Beast Games, at the very least, helped me understand better the dark, festering desires at the heart of the American id. Its Mr. Beasts world now. Game on.Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More:

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By Todd Feathers Published January 7, 2025 | Comments (0) | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra. Bloomberg/Getty Images Experian has routinely provided inaccurate information in credit reports that help determine whether consumers are approved for loans, jobs, or housing and failed to properly investigate or correct errors when consumers disputed the mistakes, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB data shows that last year the agency received 352,760 complaints from consumers about incorrect information appearing on their Experian credit reports, slightly less than the other two major credit bureaus. Consumers sent the agency 361,534 complaints about errors in Equifax reports and 378,538 complaints about errors in TransUnion reports. When consumers disputed errors on their credit reports, Experian conducted sham investigations rather than properly reviewing the disputes as required by federal law, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement. Credit reporting errors can have serious consequences for a familys finances, and it is critical that credit reporting giants follow the law.Experian did not immediately respond to a request for comment.When a consumer reports an error on their Experian report, the company sends an Automated Credit Dispute Verification (ACDV) form to the supplier of the disputed information, such as a bank, credit card company, or debt collector. The form includes a code that is supposed to identify the reason the consumer is disputing the information so that the data supplier can investigate and respond, but according to the CFPB lawsuit, Experian routinely sends codes that mischaracterize or fail to convey highly relevant information about consumers disputes. In some cases, the CFPB alleges, Experian uses a code for the intentionally generic category Claims inaccurate information. Did not provide specific dispute, even when the consumer has in fact provided detailed information about the error. Compounding those problems, Experian allegedly places too much weight on the answers it receives back from data suppliers in response to those ACDV forms. The CFPB says consumers often provide evidence to support their disputes, such as the date and case number for a discharged bankruptcy or documentation showing that the data supplier has previously agreed to delete or correct the wrong information.Yet, Experian regularly gives the supporting documents no weight in resolving the dispute and routinely conducts no further reinvestigation of the dispute beyond the furnishers ACDV response, according to the lawsuit.In other cases, the CFPB alleges, Experian already possesses documents that prove the consumer is right in its own files but the company still fails to investigate the issue beyond sending and receiving an ACDV. After Experian conducts its investigations, it sends consumers letters that are supposed to explain the outcome and what information, if any, was changed. Those letters are often confusing, ambiguous, incorrect, and internally inconsistent, according to the lawsuit.The CFPB says Experians practices violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act and has asked a federal court to enjoin the company from committing future violations and order Experian to pay redress to consumers damaged by its actions.Experian Daily Newsletter