Looking for Quordle clues? We can help. Plus get the answers to Quordle today and past solutions.

If you have any experience assembling plastic model kits like Gundam, Warhammer 40K, and the like, then youre probably very familiar with all those dull plastic frames that hold each and every part together. Just like any packaging, their purpose ends the moment you pop out or cut off those tiny pieces, and just like any packaging, they always end up in the dumpster.Because theyre made of plastic, these throwaway by-products become poison to the environment. And because of their thin, bendable designs, they dont have much value in upcycling or reuse. Not unless you use them for a completely different purpose, turning them from waste into essential structures for a miniature spaceship of an iconic science fiction villain. A villain that, somewhat ironically, is obsessed with efficiency and material reuse.Designer: Grieg JohnsonIts almost hard to qualify the distinctive Borg Cube as a spaceship as its geometric form defies preconceived notions of what a space-faring vehicle or even a moving space station should look like. Of course, it also perfectly conveys the worldview of this cybernetic race which is all about efficiency and perfection. At the same time, however, this seemingly simple shape has some of the most complex structures in Star Trek lore, making it an even bigger pain to recreate on a small scale.This Borg Cube Lamp pulls off this feat quite impressively, mostly using materials that have been thrown away or left lying around to waste. A box-shaped water lamp serves as its light source, and it is wrapped in layers of different kinds of wire meshes, from fly mesh to bird feed mesh. Interestingly, the lamp is set on a pedestal made of LEGO bricks to give it a bit of height and set it at the center of the Borg Cube. These layers of wire mesh are wrapped in a thin layer of translucent keyboard membrane to give it that circuit-like projection.After this comes the hard part of layering the different sprues to add volume to the cube. Even if only super glue is needed to stick the pieces together, the more difficult task is making sure that the pieces line up nicely so they dont look like some haphazard assembly of trash. There is also an intentional selection of which kinds of sprues go on which level, such as those with flatter pipes go beneath round ones.Although the project doesnt use any complicated soldering or 3D printing, its an equally painstaking process to cut through meshes, align sprues, and even dab gold and silver markers to create an authentic appearance. The end result, however, might make that journey totally worth it, especially if youre a Star Trek fan or any sort of sci-fi buff.The post Borg Cube Lamp assimilates your plastic sprues and wire meshes first appeared on Yanko Design.

New images from a reasonably accurate leaker show renders of iPhone 17 Pro Max case that detail a significant design change for the camera system.Close up of a render purporting to show an iPhone 17 Pro Max in a MagSafe caseRumors have now persisted for months that the iPhone 17 Pro series will sport a radically different camera layout, even if some claimed renders have been questionable. Now a new leak shows a rendered iPhone 17 Pro Max plus a MagSafe case, and this one at least appears plausible.Here's a first look at how cases might look on the iPhone 17 Pro Max. What do you think? pic.twitter.com/HzCGkRBIQv Sonny Dickson (@SonnyDickson) February 23, 2025 Rumor Score: Possible Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

continue reading

The second open beta for Monster Hunter Wilds recently wrapped and with roughly a week to go before launch, the excitement is palpable. Fortunately, there are several details to scour through, from a big new monster to post-launch plans. Here are 15 new things you should know before its out on February 28th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.Jin DahaadMany fans were sent into a tizzy by the launch trailer because it showcased a never-before-seen monster: Jin Dahaad. As a Leviathan monster in the Iceshard Cliffs, it seemingly deals Ice damage, whether through a mists emitted from its body or claw attacks. The size is very reminiscent of Kulve Taroth, though it looks much cooler and meaner.Mysteriously Energized MonstersDuring the same trailer, we also saw Rathalos, except wrong somehow. It appeared that some strange blue energy was flowing through it. Interestingly, that same energy could be seen in Arkveld near the end. Perhaps these are powered-up versions of both monsters? If so, heres hoping they put up a good fight.Pop-up Camp CustomizationYoull still have bases to return to in each locale, but the pop-up camp will be your best friend out in the wilds. It makes sense for there to be customization options, and the developer may have gone a bitoverboard in what you can do, from adjusting the flysheet and tent patterns and colors to adding chairs (which you can laze on), flowerpots, and a makeshift grill. Want to change the music inside the tent? Go ahead, or maybe chill outside at a campfire with your friends.Photo ModeIt wouldnt be a modern video game without Photo Mode, and Monster Hunter Wilds version is serviceable, based on the latest Showcase. There are options to adjust the camera view, zoom level, rotation, depth of field, depth of focus and focal ratio, but thats seemingly it with no filters visible. That could change down the line, though, and at least its possible to pause and capture images during Online Single Player.Custom Text in StickersAh, stickers. How else can you communicate your happiness/incompetence/anger at other players than with bright cartoony visuals? You can even take things a step further and add custom text. If you want to apologize to other players or say something like Sword and Shield is the best, go right ahead.Climbing on Monster CorpsesThis is less of a game-changing feature, at least during the beta, and more of a cool change. When defeating monsters, their corpses wont disappear after some time and decompose until theres nothing left. While previous games let you phase through their bodies and carve them, you can climb on Wilds monster corpses. Say what you will, but this adds a bit of realism to the experience.Glowing ScarsThose who spent extensive time with the beta will also know how detailed the character creator is. You can select various hairstyles, heights, and hair colors with saturation, brightness, gradients, and much more. There are the usual scars to give your Hunter a more battle-tested aura, but one neat new feature is the ability to make them glow.Map ImprovementsRemember the map from Monster Hunter World and how you had to open a separate screen to view it? Rise displayed its map in the lower left at all times but the smaller locales made it easier. Monster Hunter Wilds map is fully 3D, which means you can view elevations much more efficiently, but best of all, it functions as an overlay, allowing you to focus on goings-on nearby.Environmental OverviewAnother notable new function of the map is Environment Overview. It not only showcases all the monsters in the locale, but also provides detailed intel on outbreaks, upsurges, the current weather, how long before it (and the current time of day) changes, and much more. Since some monsters and materials only become available during certain weather conditions, this is a great way to track them.Choose Your Weapon QuizWhen truly starting out in Wilds, you must choose a weapon out of the 14 types available. Youre not locked into that choice by any means, but the Handler, Alma, will help you find the most suitable through a brief survey. Of course, veterans can forego this entirely, but it may be ideal for newcomers debating the right choice (spoiler: Its Sword and Shield).Perfectly Balanced, As All Weapons Should BeDuring the first open beta, some weapons stood out a lot more, like the Bow and Longsword, while others, like the Lance, Insect Glaive, and Switchaxe felt lacking. The development team has implemented various improvements and changes, though they werent available in time for the second open beta. Nevertheless, director Yuya Tokuda told GamesRadar that The gap between weapons isnt so much as strongest versus weakest, so to say, but more that interactions between weapons and monsters are going to make you think about which one you want to use at any given time.Tokuda also believes all the weapons should be nearly as viable as each other in general as a starting point for players. However, he admits its something thats out of my hands, and fans must tell me whether we achieved that or not! So, Im confident, but not cocky. Im going to wait and see how players respond, and we always have room to make adjustments in future.No Siege Quests at LaunchIf you loved/loathed the Siege quests from Monster Hunter World, theres bad/good news. In a recent interview with MP1st, producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and director Yuya Tokuda confirmed that there wont be any at launch. Furthermore, there are no plans for the same. That could always change down the line, especially since there are no technical reasons holding the team back. On the bright side, at least the team hasnt confirmed that the Rampage from is returning.MizutsuneSo what should you expect post-launch? Monster Hunter is famously known for adding new monsters to hunt, and for Wilds, Mizutsune is the first up, arriving this Spring. Where youll fight it and how its evolved remains to be seen, but you can expect new weapons and armor sets from its materials.New Event Quests and Additional UpdatesThe developer has been tight-lipped about the rest of Title Update 1, simply stating that there would be new Event Quests and additional updates. Its already confirmed other Event Quests will go live one week after Wilds launches with special armor available as rewards, so there may be similar content in the future.Title Update 2As for the slightly farther future, the next free monster will become available this Summer with Title Update 2. It will also bring new Event Quests, but otherwise, nothing else is known. If the developer hosts another showcase in June, perhaps itll share new details while updating its roadmap. Time will tell.

Remember when you first played Skyrim or heard about it? Back in the day, it was almost impossible to avoid either. If millions of players werent venturing into the world, picking fights with giants and dragons while learning new shouts and drinking in the gorgeous visuals they were talking about. For all its faults, Skyrim was quintessential Bethesda a game where the combat may not have been the best, but the lore, the quest design, the sheer breadth of content yes, even the 100+ dungeons that werent all super-unique and the art direction were top-notch.Of course, that was in 2011, and to say that Bethesda Game Studios isnt exactly at that same level anymore would be correct. You can excuse Fallout 76 since its a multiplayer title, one now helmed by Bethesda Austin and significantly improved over the past many years. You could probably give a pass to Fallout 4 which no doubt saw positive momentum from the TV show, which, as the studio is wont to do, derailed most of it thanks to an iffy Next-Gen version.However, Starfield turned out to be the last straw for many. Released in September 2023, it cant break 6K concurrent players on Steam, even with mod support. Shattered Space was a massive flop, and for all the hype and hoopla leading up to its release, Bethesda Game Studios has revealed little about the future. At least theres a PS5 version rumored to be announced soon and an alleged second expansion seemingly launching this year.Amid all this, theres still that one shining beacon for many fans The Elder Scrolls 6. It was announced at E3 2018 with no gameplay or details for almost seven years, and the biggest update provided by Bethesda is that early builds are being played, which was roughly a year ago. Your guess on the projects current status is as good as ours.Nevertheless, theres that hope, however meager from whatever fans may remain, that The Elder Scrolls 6 will be the game that finally redeems Bethesda. I believe well all forget about the studios many missteps and mistakes when the marketing finally gets rolling. All caught up in the hype, eager to believe those sweet little lies just one more time. However, it may not be as easy as with Starfield purely due to another release.Love, hate or respect it, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 raises the bar for whatever The Elder Scrolls 6 may attempt in the open-world action RPG space. You could argue that it does this for many similar titles, especially those focused on narrative consequence, reactive worlds, immersive gameplay and attention to detail.Yet, despite this being more of a grounded medieval title versus the fantasy medieval setting of Tamriel, there are way too many lessons for Bethesda to ignore. And no, Im not just talking about launching your game when its polished and performs remarkably well on all platforms while presenting more impressive visual fidelity versuswell, Starfield.Im talking about side quests with tangible consequences and crimes actually having a long-term impact on your reputation. Or a sense of realism that doesnt just lean on your Charisma or Speech when considering your responses but also on your station, reputation, clothing, and hygiene. Im also talking about a world brimming with stuff to do and no, not just carrying sacks around for hours straight (not that theres anything wrong with that).Look at all the memes about players getting all their skills to 30 before arriving at a pivotal early moment in the story. Its not so much about becoming overpowered as exploring and enjoying everything because there is so much incredible stuff to see. Contrast this to arriving at the same randomly generated base and fighting the same enemies for the umpteenth time.However, perhaps the most important lesson is that your experience doesnt have to offer such a complete lack of friction. One could argue that the save system in Deliverance 2 is unfriendly and annoying, even if it makes your decisions much more impactful. But dont worry the world still finds plenty of other ways to beat Henry down. Due to his distinct lack of skills and weapons, you must find ways to work your way up through the world. Im not just talking about picking fights and improving your fisticuffs per punches thrown, but also earning money to afford better clothing, armor, weapons, and items.Of course, theres also taking the time to learn how the world works. You cant just venture into the night and hope for the best. Wandering into a group of well-armed bandits or even wild dogs is, just like real life, a miserable way to die. Thats because even if Henry has nothing (contrived set-up stripping the first games skills and armor aside), the world isnt waiting to unfold and offer everything on a silver platter. Youre not just fighting to conquer it but also to understand it and further your own goals.From a story perspective, this allows players to shape Henrys personality and role-play a certain way, which the various Perks further assist with. Become a beloved hero, a reviled murderer, a sneaky thief, an apothecary or a humble blacksmith or maybe, if you have the time and patience, a bit of everything.That freedom of choice further extends into combat, another aspect that Bethesda needs to take notes on. Does it come across as plodding at times, especially in the beginning when Henry has the lung capacity of a baby kitten? Sure, but as you improve, build stamina and get good at reading your opponent, encounters become more tactical and engaging.Theres weight behind everything, whether youre striking an opponent or batting their attacks aside, waiting for the perfect time to strike. And if none of that sounds appealing, find Mutt and acquire some Houndmaster Perks. Watch the mayhem unfold. Repeat.Some of these ideas may go against the blueprint of a Bethesda title of going almost anywhere with very few consequences or tangible risks, especially with the ability to save anywhere. And both games offering their own thing is fine, especially if The Elder Scrolls 6 leans more into Skyrims power fantasy (which it very well may since a former Bethesda designer says it will use a similar leveling system).However, the quality of the quest design, coupled with how the world feels alive as opposed to a fancy set where everyone walks around, staring awkwardly like in Starfield (before it was patched), are just a few things Bethesda could learn. Dont get me started on the incredible presentation, the sharp writing or the characterization. Or the fact that Bethesda needs to overhaul how it handles things like companions, their quests or dialogue choices.As much as you might think Im chiding Bethesda for its failures which I am, make no mistake its competition like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 that can spur it to achieve better things. Sure, it didnt happen after other great open-world action RPGs like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Cyberpunk 2077, and so on, but theres always hope. Whether Bethesda can leverage that to deliver an Elder Scrolls, which sets the bar for the generation rather than playing catch up, is ultimately the million-dollar question.Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Realize Music has launched its singing-wellness app, Realize Music: Sing is now available exclusively on Meta Quest in North America.Read More

On Friday, the Space Force published a picture taken last year from a camera mounted on the secretive X-37B space plane while high above the Earth. Space.com notes that the one other glimpse of the plane in space was while it was deploying from Falcon Heavys upper stage during its December 2023 launch.The Space Force says it snapped the photo during experimental first-of-kind aerobraking maneuvers to safely change its orbit using minimal fuel. The Air Force said in October this would involve a series of passes using the drag of Earths atmosphere, and that once complete, it would resume its other experiments before de-orbiting. An X-37B onboard camera, used to ensure the health and safety of the vehicle, captures an image of Earth while conducting experiments in HEO in 2024.The X-37B executed a series of first-of-kind maneuvers, called aerobraking, to safely change its orbit using minimal fuel. pic.twitter.com/ccisgl493P United States Space Force (@SpaceForceDoD) February 21, 2025This is the X-37Bs seventh mission; its sixth, which concluded in November 2022, lasted about two-and-a-half years (or 908 days) and was its longest mission to …Read the full story at The Verge.

Elon Musk tweeted Saturday that federal workers would soon get an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. According to the New York Times, the email from the Office of Personnel Management went to agencies across the federal government that afternoon, including the FBI, State Department, and others, with a deadline for response by 11:59PM ET on Monday.However, the message lacked a detail from Musks tweet, according to the Times, where he said, Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation, which a number of lawyers have said would be illegal.The Washington Post reports that experts said it may be asking some recipients to violate federal laws, and Sam Bagenstos, a University of Michigan law professor quoted by the Times, said, There is zero basis in the civil service system for this.House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement Sunday that Elon Musk is traumatizing hardworking federal employees, their children and families. He has no legal authority to make his latest demands.The stunt is another echo of Musks approach after he took over Twitter, with requests to review engineers code and saying that failing to respond to an email would be regarded as a resignation. Across hundreds of tweets posted on Saturday and early Sunday, Musk who may or may not run the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), in addition to his various companies claimed, without presenting evidence, to be rooting out fraud and employees who dont do any work.Leaders of at least some of the departments, like the FBI and State Department, reportedly told their workers to await guidance to respond, while the Post reports that acting Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Bridget Bean told staff to comply with the valid request.Unions like the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union told employees not to respond, either just yet or at all, Axios writes. CNN reporter Pete Muntean said the National Air Traffic Controllers Association called the email an unnecessary distraction to a fragile system.

Large Language Models (LLMs) face significant challenges in optimizing their post-training methods, particularly in balancing Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) and Reinforcement Learning (RL) approaches. While SFT uses direct instruction-response pairs and RL methods like RLHF use preference-based learning, the optimal allocation of limited training resources between these approaches remains unclear. Recent studies have shown that models can achieve task alignment and improved reasoning capabilities without extensive SFT, challenging traditional sequential post-training pipelines. Moreover, the substantial cost of collecting and annotating human data compared to compute costs creates a need to understand the effectiveness of different training methods under fixed data-annotation budgets.Existing research has explored various trade-offs in language model training under fixed budgets, including comparisons between pretraining versus finetuning and finetuning versus model distillation. Studies have examined the data and compute costs of SFT and RL methods in isolation along with cost-efficiency considerations in generating human and synthetic data. While some research shows the effects of high-quality preference data on RL methods like Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) and PPO, other studies focus on the relationship between SFT and RL methods regarding model forgetfulness, generalization, and alignment. However, these studies havent failed to address optimal resource allocation between SFT and RL-based approaches under strict data annotation constraints.Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have proposed a comprehensive study examining the optimal allocation of training data budgets between SFT and Preference Finetuning (PFT) in LLMs. The study investigates this relationship across four diverse tasks, multiple model sizes, and various data annotation costs. It addresses the cold start problem in mathematical tasks, where eliminating SFT leads to suboptimal performance due to distribution shifts when applying DPO directly to the base model. Their findings suggest that while larger data budgets benefit from combining both methods, allocating even a small portion of the budget to SFT can significantly improve performance on analytical tasks.The study evaluates the cost-effectiveness and optimal resource allocation between SFT and PFT in post-training LLMs under 10 billion parameters. The research methodology measures data budgets through training examples or monetary annotation costs, assuming equal labor costs for both methods and the availability of training prompts. The experimental setup begins with no task-specific labeled data, using open-source datasets, or synthetically curated data for each target task. To maintain focus on task-specific improvements, general-purpose conversational datasets commonly used in PFT, such as UltraFeedback and Chatbot Arena preferences are excluded. This controlled approach allows for precise measurement of performance improvements resulting from targeted data annotation.The results reveal that optimal allocation of the training budget between SFT and PFT methods proves crucial, with properly balanced datasets outperforming suboptimally allocated datasets 2-5 times larger in size. Using 5K examples with 25% SFT allocation for tasks like Summarization, Helpfulness, and Grade School Math matches the performance of 20K examples with 75% SFT allocation. The study identifies that pure SFT excels in low-data scenarios, while larger data budgets benefit from higher proportions of preference data. Moreover, direct preference finetuning on base models shows limited success in mathematical tasks, and allocating even a small portion to SFT significantly improves performance by better aligning the reference models response style.In conclusion, this paper provides crucial insights into optimizing LLM post-training under resource constraints, particularly regarding the interplay between SFT and PFT. The study identifies a significant cold-start problem when applying PFT directly to base models, which can be mitigated effectively by allocating even 10% of the budget to initial SFT. However, the research acknowledges limitations, including offline methods like DPO and KTO use for RL implementation, and potential biases from using GPT4 for synthetic data generation and evaluation. Moreover, the model size is limited to 10 Billion parameters otherwise it would be extremely compute resource intensive to run thousands of finetuning runs with larger model sizes like 70B parameters.Check outthePaper.All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,feel free to follow us onTwitterand dont forget to join our80k+ ML SubReddit. Sajjad AnsariSajjad Ansari is a final year undergraduate from IIT Kharagpur. As a Tech enthusiast, he delves into the practical applications of AI with a focus on understanding the impact of AI technologies and their real-world implications. He aims to articulate complex AI concepts in a clear and accessible manner.Sajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/TokenSkip: Optimizing Chain-of-Thought Reasoning in LLMs Through Controllable Token CompressionSajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/Meta AI Releases NATURAL REASONING: A Multi-Domain Dataset with 2.8 Million Questions To Enhance LLMs Reasoning CapabilitiesSajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/Advancing MLLM Alignment Through MM-RLHF: A Large-Scale Human Preference Dataset for Multimodal TasksSajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/Enhancing Reasoning Capabilities in Low-Resource Language Models through Efficient Model Merging