Time zones: EST (UTC -5), MST (UTC -7), ART (UTC -3), UTC -4, UTC -4:30, UTC -3, UTC -2We are currently seeking an experienced SEO Specialist to join our US-based team.ResponsibilitiesKeyword research: Identify relevant keywords and trends for the businessContent optimization: Create and implement content strategies to increase visibilityLink building: Develop strategies to improve domain authorityWebsite analysis: Use tools like Google Analytics to monitor performance and search rankingsCompetitive analysis: Benchmark a website's performance against competitorsStay current: Keep up with search engine algorithm changes and new SEO tools and best practicesCollaborate: Work with content creators to develop SEO-friendly materialRequired skills and qualificationsProven experience as an SEO specialistIn-depth understanding of search engine algorithmsExperience working with Google or Adobe Analytics as an SEO specialist Outstanding written and communication skillsPlease complete the application on a desktop computer. Related Jobs See more Sales and Marketing jobs

DescriptionAre you a data-driven change agent who can weave user insights into compelling campaigns and drive measurable growth? If leading growth initiatives to drive business impact excite you, let's connect!We are Awesome Motive, the company behind popular web apps and business tools like All in One SEO (AIOSEO), OptinMonster, MonsterInsights, WPForms, and many others. Over 25 million websites use our tools to get more traffic, subscribers, and sales. We're passionate about helping Small Businesses Grow & Compete with the Big Guys, and we believe marketing plays a crucial role in delivering on that promise.This is your chance to join a dynamic team and lead strategic initiatives across marketing channels to acquire, engage, and retain users. You'll wear many hats strategist, analyst, campaign champion all aimed at one goal: accelerating our growth to reach more small businesses. Interested in applying? Please read/follow the next steps outlined in "How to Apply" at the bottom of this listing.Attention to detail is one of our core values! This is your chance to stand out :)To love this role, heres the type of person you are:You can leverage imperfect data to create and execute winning digital marketing campaigns and funnels.Youre extremely self-driven and curious to find creative answers to complex questions.Youre comfortable seeing the big picture and how the small details get you there.You love to create systems, tools, and processes for others where they dont already exist.You have a passion for digital marketing and customer acquisition.Common responsibilities include (but are not limited to):Utilize Content Marketing, Email and SMS Marketing, Pay Per Click, Sponsorships, Affiliates and Partnerships, Social Media, and Freemium Software to grow new sales.Strategize, plan, and implement both long and short-term processes to meet targets, emphasizing priorities in process development and documentation.Facilitate data-driven decision-making by collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and visualizing data, providing actionable insights, and promoting data literacy within the organization.Directly manage a team of growth professionals, including independently making decisions to ensure team performance & cohesion.Design and implement website A/B tests to improve conversion rates and funnel performance.Conceptualize and build new targeted landing pages for various channels and users.Provide conversion-focused copywriting feedback and suggestions for newsletters, customer-facing websites, our apps and plugins, and ad copy.Strategize and execute high-visibility promotions across all digital marketing channels.Research competitor's UI/UX trends and work with the team to articulate new features/ideas to help us remain competitive.Control qualified traffic to our website by designing and executing strategies to improve our search engine rankings.Develop and execute an outbound marketing strategy to complement our existing inbound strengths.Maintain in-depth familiarity with growth-related procedures and workflows.Respond promptly to growth team members' queries and escalations.Uphold and promote the core values of Awesome Motive.Conduct research before escalating issues and proactively identify trends and process improvements.Provide oversight for PPC campaigns, PPC keyword research, and program ROAS.Provide oversight for Affiliate Marketing and Partnerships.Directly supervise the work of content marketing team members.Assist in crafting better internal processes and systems by documenting the work of the Growth team.RequirementsRelevant experience: With over 4 years of experience in growth marketing for product-led/ freemium SaaS, ideally in the B2B/SMB space, you have achieved direct business growth impact through successful growth initiatives.SEO & Content Marketing: You are well-versed in best practices for SEO in marketing site content, including blog posts. You are fluent in other commonly used tools such as Semrush, Clearscope, and Ahrefs.Copywriting: You have strong personal experience with copywriting, as well as leading and reviewing the work of copywriters. Your expertise in hiring and managing copywriters will be invaluable.Email Marketing: You can demonstrate and teach best practices within email marketing, from crafting individual emails to creating complete targeted campaigns and evaluating effectiveness to drive improvement over time. You must have personally written and iterated upon multiple email campaigns for SaaS products.CRO / Funnels / Testing & Optimization: You must have expertise in best practices for SaaS products. Knowledge and experience in pricing page tests, countdown timers, popups, etc, is required.PPC / Paid Advertising: You have experience in Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Google Search Console for PPCAffiliates & Partnerships: You know how to build and maintain partnership relationships. You have managed an affiliate program.Data & Analytics: You are experienced in using GA (preferably GA4), and digital marketing channels.Bonus points if you also have:You have experience working in the admin area of self-hosted WordPress sites as a site owner/developer/etc.You have experience with support specifically for WordPress.You have trained managers and had managers as direct reports.BenefitsWorking for a fast-growing bootstrapped company is a rare opportunity, one we consider a lifestyle choice rather than a job choice. Our positions are challenging, but also come with amazing advantages and fulfillment to those who earn them. Heres what we offer.Competitive Salary.Term Life Insurance and Accidental Death & Dismemberment for all full-time team members during their employment.Health, Dental, and Vision Insurance benefits for full-time U.S. employees.Health Insurance benefits for all employees in India, Pakistan, Brazil, Philippines, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Nepal, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Spain & Jamaica.Work from your home. Were spread out all over the world United States, Canada, Ukraine, India, Pakistan, Singapore, and more.Flexible PTO after 90 days of employment. We encourage employees to take the time they need for a vacation, stay healthy, and spend time with friends and family.Holidays (based on your location).Paid Parental Leave.We happily provide or reimburse software youll need as well as books or courses that promote continued learning.We cover all costs of company travel (including our annual all-company retreat and mini-team meetups).Additional Perks include AM Welcome Box for new team members, Yearly Anniversary Gifts, and Technology Stipend each work anniversary.We give you the opportunity to solve challenging and meaningful problems that make a difference.Ability to work with some of the best people in the business through frequent, if not daily, interactions.And in case you were wondering: no politics, no b.s., and no jerks.Location This is a remote position - our team is spread around the globe! Our home base is in Florida, USA, so company operating hours are 9am - 5pm ET (UTC -5). While full coverage is not a requirement, you must be available for a portion of the day.Inclusion Statement At Awesome Motive, we strive to have the broadest possible view of diversity, going beyond visible differences to include the background, experiences, skills, and perspectives that make each person unique. Awesome Motive is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, veteran status, or any other basis protected by federal, state, or local law.How to apply? If all of this sounds interesting, then please submit your application!Please clearly include the following in your cover letter:Do you have experience in creating revenue impact through marketing?Do you have experience in directly managing teams?Do you have a minimum of 3 years of experience in SaaS marketing?What is your proficiency level (from 1 to 5, 5 highest) in programmatic SEO? Share an example of the impact created.What is your proficiency in GA4?Also note, don't forget to proofread before submitting. Check spelling, capitalization, etc. This is your chance to make your application stand out :)We wont be able to individually respond to all applications, but if we feel youre a strong match, someone will be in touch shortly.Thanks and we look forward to hearing from you!

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. How measuring vaccine hesitancy could help health professionals tackle it This week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trumps pick to lead the USs health agencies, has been facing questions from senators as part of his confirmation hearing for the role. So far, its been a dramatic watch, with plenty of fiery exchanges, screams from audience members, and damaging revelations. Theres also been a lot of discussion about vaccines. Kennedy has long been a vocal critic of vaccines. He has spread misinformation about the effects of vaccines. Hes petitioned the government to revoke the approval of vaccines. Hes sued pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines. Kennedy has his supporters. But not everyone who opts not to vaccinate shares his worldview. There are lots of reasons why people dont vaccinate themselves or their children. Understanding those reasons will help us tackle an issue considered to be a huge global health problem today. And plenty of researchers are working on tools to do just that. Read the full story. Jessica Hamzelou This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Reviews weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here. What DeepSeeks breakout success means for AI The tech world is abuzz over a new open-source reasoning AI model developed by DeepSeek, a Chinese startup. The company claims that this new model, called DeepSeek R1, matches or even surpasses OpenAIs ChatGPT o1 in performance but operates at a fraction of the cost. Its success is even more remarkable given the constraints that Chinese AI companies face due to US export controls on cutting-edge chips. DeepSeeks approach represents a radical change in how AI gets built, and could shift the tech worlds center of gravity.Join news editor Charlotte Jee, senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven, and China reporter Caiwei Chen for an exclusive subscriber-only Roundtable conversation on Monday 3 February at 12pm ET discussing what DeepSeeks breakout success means for AI and the broader tech industry. Register here. The must-reads Ive combed the internet to find you todays most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Federal workers are being forced to defend their work to Elon Musks acolytesGovernment tech staff are being pulled into sudden meetings with students. (Wired $) + Archivists are rushing to save thousands of datasets being yanked offline. (404 Media)+ Civil servants arent buying Musks promises. (Slate $)2 The US Copyright Office says AI-assisted art can be copyrighted But works wholly created by AI cant be. (AP News)+ The AI lab waging a guerrilla war over exploitative AI. (MIT Technology Review)3 OpenAI is partnering with US National LaboratoriesIts models will be used for scientific research and nuclear weapons security. (NBC News) + Its the latest move from the firm to curry favor with the US government. (Engadget)+ OpenAI has upped its lobbying efforts nearly sevenfold. (MIT Technology Review)4 DeepSeeks success is inspiring founders in AfricaThe startup has proved that frugality can go hand in hand with innovation. (Rest of World)+ What Africa needs to do to become a major AI player. (MIT Technology Review)5 China is building a massive wartime command center The complex appears to be part of preparation for the possibility of nuclear war. (FT $)+ Pentagon workers used DeepSeeks chatbot for days before it was blocked. (Bloomberg $)+ We saw a demo of the new AI system powering Andurils vision for war. (MIT Technology Review)6 Theres a chance this colossal asteroid will hit Earth in 2032 Experts arent too worriedyet. (The Guardian)+ How worried should we be about the end of the world? (New Yorker $)+ Earth is probably safe from a killer asteroid for 1,000 years. (MIT Technology Review) 7 Things are looking up for Europes leading battery makerTruckmaker Scania is now supporting the troubled Northvolts day-to-day operations. (Reuters) + Three takeaways about the current state of batteries. (MIT Technology Review)8 This group of Luddite teens is still resisting technologyBut three years after starting their club, the lure of dating apps is strong. (NYT $) 9 Reddits bastion of humanity is under threat AI features are creeping into the forum, much to users chagrin. (The Atlantic $)10 Bid a fond farewell to MiniDiscs and blank Blu-RaysSony is finally pulling the plug on some of its recordable media formats. (IEEE Spectrum) Quote of the day We try to be really open and then everything I say leaks. It sucks. Mark Zuckerberg warns that leakers will be fired in a memo that was promptly leaked, the Verge reports. The big story This artist is dominating AI-generated art. And hes not happy about it. September 2022 Greg Rutkowski is a Polish digital artist who uses classical styles to create dreamy landscapes. His distinctive style has been used in some of the worlds most popular fantasy games, including Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. Now hes become a hit in the new world of text-to-image AI generation. His name is one of the most commonly used prompts in the open-source AI art generator Stable Diffusion. But this and other open-source programs are built by scraping images from the internet, often without permission and proper attribution to artists. And artists like Rutkowski have had enough. Read the full story. Melissa Heikkil We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet 'em at me.)+ Its an oldie but a goodie: ice dancing gold medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moirs routine to Moulin Rouge is simply spectacular.+ This week marks 56 years since the Beatles performed their last ever gig on the roof of their Apple headquarters.+ In other Beatles news, Ringo Starr has never eaten a pizza.+ The Video Game History Foundation has opened up its incredible archive (thanks Dani!)

Turnaround for Newcastle practice following 69% fall in 2023Ryders plans for a new office for HMRC in NewcastleRyder Architecture profit jumped by 60% in the 12 months to April last year, the firm has revealed in its latest published accounts.The Newcastle-based practice brought in 2.4m in pre-tax profit during the period, up from 1.7m the previous year.Turnover also rose by 4.6% to 31.6m, up from 30.1m in the previous 12 months.It followed a 69% fall in profit in its previous accounts for the year to 30 April 2023, when it also saw turnover dip by 2%.The firms managing partner Mark Thompson said it had been a tough geopolitical climate for businesses but he was now seeing signs of projects moving forward.We feel like weve been treading water for the past two years as clients continue, understandably, to err on the side of caution amid inflation, interest rates pressures and increased bureaucracy and legislation in response to Grenfell, he saidHowever, theres now a sense that projects are starting to progress, but still not at the pace required to generate long term confidence.Turnover in the UK rose from 28.6m last year to 29.3m in 2024, while its income from the rest of the world grew from 1.6m to 2.3m.Major ongoing projects underway in the UK include a new office for HMRC in Newcastle called Pilgrims Quarter, the National Rehabilitation Centre for Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and plans to transform a West End building on Haymarket into a hotel for property tycoon Asif Aziz.

Research says rejected applications could see more than 27,000 properties now built because of defintion changesNew research has said land previously designated as green belt land could be reclassified as grey belt land and turned into new homes.Should these applications be looked at again and approved, it could help deliver over 27,000 new homes to the market.Data specialist Searchland said there have been 3,425 planning applications rejected since 2010 due to being located on green belt land which may now be considered grey belt.Source: ShutterstockSome land previously designated green belt could be reclassified as grey belt meaning thousands of homes could be builtThe firm said that if these applications had been granted approval, it could bring an estimated 27,197 new homes to the market.The South-east is home to the highest proportion of rejected planning applications with the potential for 9,001 new homes, Searchland added.Searchland co-founder Hugh Gibbs said: With the creation of the grey belt, the likelihood is that these applications are well worth revisiting.In the latest version of the National Planning Policy Framework, the definition of grey belt has been broadened changing the wording to land that does not strongly contribute to just three of the green belt purposes.The purposes removed are encouraging development on urban land, and, more significantly, safeguarding the countryside from encroachment.

Stone Mountain offers a range of internet options, from fast fiber to wireless home internet. Here's how top providers like AT&T Fiber, Xfinity and T-Mobile compare.

Go all the way back to 2014, and on my wrist, I'm almost always wearing a lovely black-and-white-screened digital watch that looks very Casio-like, or a tiny Game Boy. It's showing me the time and wrist notifications, which is more than enough. These were my Pebble years, and I miss them. The Pebble watch is making a comeback now, in 2025. It's an improbable turn of events after the Kickstarter-launched watch company created by Eric Migicovsky was eaten up in a tech turducken, acquired by Fitbit, followed by Fitbit getting acquired by Google.The Pebble's identity disappeared. But Google has released Pebble OS for free to GitHub, and Pebble's original founder has announced he's bringing the smartwatch back. The news broke out of the blue, but the moment I heard the news, I thought, the gum I like is coming back in style. Since those old Pebble days, nothing has ever truly felt Pebble-like again.Migicovsky, Pebble's founder, is starting a new company focused on gadgets like the Pebble. He's starting with a single new Pebble model that will run the old OS and be hackable for new apps and ideas. "I just love gadgets," Migicovsky told me. "I'm just gonna make gadgets because I want them." As opposed to Pebble's mission 10 years ago, Migicovsky's satisfied with making gadgets for small groups of interested people, himself included. It's a return to an indie spirit for the Pebble, which is what it was in the first place.Migicovsky said he contacted Google about open-sourcing PebbleOS a year ago, and Google agreed. The process of making a new Pebble watch was a lot faster. Components are plentiful and the design process came together rapidly, he said.The Pebble could be the first of other devices in a similar spirit, but for now the goal is a 2025 return of a very familiar old wearable friend of mine. I miss the Pebble, and it's probably a great time for its return. Sadly, the Pebble Round isn't making a comeback, at least as far as we know. Sarah Tew/CNETSimple is niceBack in the days of the Pebble, most people I knew wore old-fashioned watches, and the Pebble's smart features felt like the future. Now, most people seem to be wearing smartwatches, and I'm seeing posts about people wanting to wear everyday watches again.The Pebble's return wouldn't be about sneaking the future into the everyday; it would be about taking something overly smart and making it less pushy, more low-key. I'm reminded of the recent social media obsession over the Boox Palma, a phone-like E ink tablet that people seemed to love because it wasn't so needy, so flashy or so deeply smart. It's like my Kindle, which acts as my break from other screens, a partially offline experience. Pebble watches could end up feeling the same way.The new Pebbles won't have touchscreens, just buttons like the old ones did. They'll be square, plastic black and white Pebbles, not round, steel or color-screened (as far as we know so far). They'll be straightforward. It sounds kind of nice.We're in a period where AI is infused in everything, snaking into earbuds, watches and glasses. It's very much the opposite of where we were when the Pebble watch first launched, hinting at things to come. Now, its classic style could help remove some distractions in favor of other thingslike longer battery life.A week between charges?Migicovsky tells me that the new Pebble will have a weeklong battery life, and it'll have that e-paper display that made the old models so fun. Always-on displays are now standard on smartwatches, but weeklong battery life certainly isn't.While Garmin watches and other wearables like Fitbits and the Withings Scanwatch do have longer battery life, a lot of those watches skew to fitness/health focus. Pebble's charms were more about whimsical watch faces, although the new Pebble will have step counting like the last Pebbles did.I've succumbed to everyday charging for smartwatches, or every other day at best. I miss the old days when I could go longer between charges. There will only be one Pebble design this time, but I did like the steel version. Scott Stein/CNETA fun idea while wearables reinvent themselvesThe Pebble makes me think of another favorite little gadget of the past few years, the Panic Playdate. Panic's whimsical tiny game handheld can run all sorts of games as well as self-made projects. Migicovsky is excited about hackable possibilities on the Pebble, pointing out that even coding now can be AI-accelerated.There won't be new types of sensors on the new Pebble. Expect low-energy Bluetooth to be the main way to interface with other devices. Migicovsky isn't revisiting Pebble's ideas for smart straps.Migicovsky sees three steps ahead: making new hardware, updating software bits (including a new Bluetooth driver) and getting a developer community going again to dream up new apps and watch faces. The new Pebble will run old Pebble apps and watch faces, but will more ideas start to sprout up?This might be the perfect time to play around with a fun, hackable smartwatch. Existing smartwatches have turned into a set of predictable features: mobile payments, phone calls and fitness tracking. In the next few years, watches may be changing into AI-injected agent companions, camera-equipped extensions of sensory systems or gesture-enabled companions to smart glasses. The Pebble won't have mobile payments, make phone calls or track your marathons but it could be a really fun alternative to the smartwatches we already have. I want to see what it's like to wear one again.

January 30, 20255 min readHow Many Planets Are in the Solar System?The number of planets that orbit the sun depends on what you mean by planet, and thats not so easy to defineBy Phil Plait edited by Lee BillingsAll eight of the solar systems major planets appear in this illustration, but the actual number of planetary bodies orbiting our star is far greater. Digital Vision/Getty ImagesWhen I was a kid, there were nine planets.Now we know of thousands! But that includes exoplanets, alien worlds that orbit alien suns. Only eight planets call our solar system home. Or there might still be nine if some astronomers are correct about an as-yet undiscovered large body out past Neptune. On the other hand, if youre nostalgic (and a tad antiestablishment), there are still nine now, but then, to be fair, youd have to include the so-called dwarf planets, in which case there may be thousands orbiting the sun alone.Planets are a mess. Or perhaps more to the point, our way of thinking about them is.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Although What is a planet? seems like a simple question, it turns out its anything but.You could go by the ancient meaning of the word. Planetes means wanderers in ancient Greek, referring to the fact that as the planets and Earth orbit the sun, those dots of light in the sky appear to move relative to the background stars. This meaning, then, would also include the sun and moon, which most people would agree arent actually planets. It would also include comets and asteroids, and by now you can see that this may be too broad a definition.Perhaps a more modern take is called for. But thats fraught with trouble, too.In the early 2000s the term planet wasnt terribly controversial. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto all claimed that moniker. But then some pesky astronomers had to go and shake things up by discovering Sedna, Quaoar and Eris. These are bodies of ice and rock that orbit the sun well past Neptune and Pluto, and theyre large, all more than 1,000 kilometers wide. In fact, with a width of more than 2,300 km, Eris rivals Pluto in size and is even somewhat more massive. Are these, then, planets as well?When the existence of Eris was announced in 2005, one of its discoverers, astronomer Mike Brown, even called it the tenth planet in accompanying NASA press materials. At that time it was thought to be slightly larger than Plutoand if we called Pluto a planet, then Eris deserved planethood as well. Even when better observations downgraded Eris to slightly sub-Pluto in size, the issue remained. How many planets are there in the solar system?The growing confusion triggered the International Astronomical Union, or IAUa global group of astronomers that is the official keeper of cosmic nomenclatureto create an exploratory committee to propose potential definitions for the word. Several proposals were put forward, most of which were unsatisfactory one way or another. Among them, for example, was a proposal that would have included Ceres, the largest asteroid in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, as a planet. Its smaller than what most people would think of as a planet, however; many planetary scientists now consider Ceres to be a protoplanet, a large object that almost reached planetary stature in the early days of the solar system but ran out of material to grow.Eventually, in 2006, the IAU settled on a three-part definition: a planet orbits the sun, is sufficiently massive to form itself into a round shape by gravity and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, which means its the most gravitationally dominant body there. (This term did initially cause some confusion because it could be misinterpreted to mean that the planet can sweep its orbit completely clean of any and all other bodies, which is impossible.) If a body fulfills the first two conditions but not the third, its called a dwarf planet.This means Pluto is not considered a major planet like Mercury or Earth but instead a dwarf planet. Some astronomers didnt like this definition because of Plutos diminished statusand certainly, even to this day, many members of the public remain vocally displeased about Plutos demotion as well.Over the years other definitions have been proposed, some better than others. One, in my opinion, seemed backward-defined just to include Pluto. But bluntly speaking, such reverse-engineering is how we got to our current divisive eight-planet situation. If you want to say Pluto is a planet, then you really should at least include Eris as well, and once youve set that particular precedent, youll find it necessary to include a lot of other dwarf planets. Without a firm lower limit on size or mass, were forced to say the solar system has hundreds of planetsmaybe thousands. Objects need to be at least 400 km or so in size to round out via self-gravity, and theres still lots of room for large numbers of them to lurk undiscovered in the darkness beyond Neptune.Now, theres no scientific reason we cant have thousands of planets in the solar system, but cultural considerations are a different issue. An overabundance of planets would seem to dilute the term itself, so most space scientists stand firm at either eight or nine.Or should that be nine or 10? Astronomers are pursuing this idea right now. Many smaller outer solar system objects appear to have orbits that are aligned in certain mysterious ways; the simplest explanation is that their motions are influenced by another, as-yet-unseen large body that is many times the mass of Earth and orbits more than 30 billion km from the sun. Temporarily (and tongue-in-cheekingly) called Planet Nine, this putative worlds potential location in the sky is not clear. Different teams of astronomers propose different hiding places for Planet Nine. The advent of large survey telescopes such as the Vera Rubin Observatory is set to narrow that search considerably or even to find the purported planet. Should it be discovered, whether you want to call it the ninth or 10th or 1,000th planet is up to you.But have a care before you make up your mind. Id argue that the main reason weve struggled for so long to come up with a definition for planet is that its not a definable thing. As Brown put it in his 2010 book How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming, planet is more of a concept, a generalization, than a definition. Hes right. There are no hard and fast lines we can draw around the concept of a planet to make it definable and distinct from other classes of objects. Whether decided wholly or in part by mass, size, shape, orbit or seemingly any other conceivable property, the criteria for planethood appear inescapably arbitrary.Such slipperiness is a universal theme in the natural sciences: definitions are a human conceit, not a natural occurrence. Look at colors; we have definitions for what the wavelength cutoff is for orange versus red, but that boundary was a choice, not something observed. Blue light and red light are two flavors of the same thing, just with different wavelengths. And all the colors in between literally lie along a spectrum; one blends smoothly into the next with no sharp steps to discern between them.Its not hard to come up with many more examples: sex, gender, political affiliation, species, and more. All of these exist on a spectrum. The differences are obvious between examples at opposite ends of a spectrum, tempting you to put them in a binary category, but when you compare any two samples close together on that spectrum, the differences are far harder to tease out. So where do you draw the line?Humans like putting things in clear-cut categories, but in general, nature isnt so picky. Acknowledging that can make life a lot easier and help us understand the universeand ourselvesbetter.

I can't believe this is true, but Wicked's biggest song features a hidden Fortnite cameoTechnical wiz.Image credit: Epic Games / Universal News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief Published on Jan. 31, 2025 Box office hit Wicked features Epic Games' Fortnite during the movie's most iconic musical number.The film's finale, built around breakout song Defying Gravity, sees Elphaba burst out of a window and try to take flight upon her broom.But what you probably didn't realise is that, during this sequence, the sound effects you hear of Elphaba falling are taken from Fortnite. Specifically, Wicked uses Fortnite's sound effects that play at the beginning of every battle royale match as you leap from the Battle Bus and glide through the air down to the ground.The detail can be seen in a video from The Rough Cut, where Wicked's editor Myron Kerstein discusses the complex sequence and all the visual, musical and sound effect cues that went in to putting it all together. Kerstein doesn't specifically call out the use of the Fortnite sound effect, but it can clearly be seen within the film's audio mix, labelled "All Skydiving Fly Sounds (Fortnite) - Sound effects for editing", around the 7:20 mark in the video below.Editor Myron Kerstein ACE on how he defied gravity in the cutting room for Wicked - The Rough Cut.Watch on YouTubeThis sound effect appears to have been released by Fortnite developer Epic Games for use, royalty free. You can take a listen to the audio track on its own below.All Skydiving Fly Sounds (Fortnite) - Sound effects for editing.Watch on YouTubeAs for Kerstein's video, it's an interesting watch if you've seen the film or have a passing interest in how scenes like this are put together - not least because Kerstein appears to find it amusing how many times Defying Gravity is paused then restarted throughout the film's final scene (too many).Wicked star Ariana Grande is already in Fortnite, of course. So, Epic Games, when can I nab an Elphaba skin?

Marvel's Spider-Man 2's PC port is already getting slammed by Steam usersPlayers report issues with crashes, bugs, and poor optimisation.Image credit: Insomniac Games/Sony News by Vikki Blake Contributor Published on Jan. 31, 2025 Marvel's Spider-Man 2 released for PC via Steam and Epic just yesterday, Thursday, 30th January, but it's already sitting on a "mixed" rating on Steam.Almost half of the 2100 user reviews left on the Steam storefront cite issues with bugs, stabilisation, and crashes, with one saying: "Devs that ported this should be embarrassed. Optimisation is incredibly poor".Let's Play Marvel's Spider-Man 2 - MILES TO GO! Spider-Man 2 PS5 New Gameplay New Game Save.Watch on YouTubeThe issues persist even for those with higher-end PCs running the latest drivers."Hold off on buying until they get a couple of stabilisation patches out because holy hell," said one reviewer who felt obliged to share their experience after just half an hour with the game."To say this is 'rough' is an understatement. Lighting doesn't load in some cutscenes, those same scenes run at seconds-per-frame, audio desync issues up the wazoo, freezing, stuttering, and just about every other performance issue I can think of."I'm gonna get a refund for now because frankly, there's other stuff I could use $70 for right now."Even players who leave a positive thumbs-up are taking the time to caution others."Unfortunately, the launch is pretty bad," added another player. "Crashes every 20 minutes or so if you have turned ON the Frame Generation (which, guess what, is turned ON by default). A bit of stuttering here and there. The hair on the models looks awful. OH! And the biggest issue I had, was that I tried to delete my saves so I can start a New Game (you can't do that until you get rid of the old one), and I couldn't do that, seems it wasn't working. I had to disable the Steam Cloud, manually delete the save, and only then it worked. BIG OOF."Other than that, haven't had any other problems."I am only recommending it because I believe they will solve these issues, as they have pushed a minor patch after the launch, and because I am a Spider-Man fan."Earlier this week, Sony confirmed it was dropping its formerly mandatory PlayStation Network account requirements across a select number of its predominantly single-player titles on PC, but introduced in-game content "benefits" as an incentive to continue using one.