AI: Too much of a good thing?gettyAs use of generative AI proliferates across organizations, there are traps that can undermine any benefits it can bring. Whats needed to avoid any traps is the right mindset.The leading traps of AI were explored by Elisa Fari and Gabriele Rosani, both with Capgemini Invents Management Lab, in their latest book, HBR Guide to Generative AI for Managers.Its understandable why people want to embrace genAI in a fast and furious way. As you begin to use genAI in your daily work, youll experience a mix of emotions, including excitement, curiosity, and perhaps even a touch of apprehension," Fari and Gabriele Rosani write. Adopting the right mindset around generative AI will help you explore and experiment confidently and responsibly.They outline the leading traps that arise with human-AI collaboration:Too much trust in AI: This comes from excessively trusting gen AI output, "without exercising their critical judgment, driven by laziness of a superficial impression that AIs responses sound good enough," Fari and Rosani warn. They recommend actively probing AIs reasoning "by asking for clarifications and better articulation, requesting counterarguments, and identifying weak points.The risk of fabrication: Its risky to accept gen AI output as factual without verifying it, the co-authors state. Many are not even aware of the risk of AIs fabrication. The autorotative tone of language models further fuels this risk. Its important, then, to validate statements against established facts from reputable sources and consult experts, particularly on unfamiliar topics.The tendency toward conformity: Be as specific and within context as possible, to avoid AIs tendency to deliver bland, generic output lacking diversity and originality. This involves prompting AI with contextual information for example, about a companys values, unique value proposition, brand, and so on, Fari and Rosani advise. "Ask AI to consider it as a guideline throughout the creative process.The speed trap: Theres a natural tendency to type, click or advance too hastily when working with technology, they state. Perhaps people working with AI should slow down, and actively participate in the conversation. They should articulate their own perspectives and counterarguments."Solo trap: Some people may simply choose to work with AI and stop interacting with other humans altogether. This is not healthy. This can reduce interpersonal communication and knowledge sharing within the team, resulting in more siloed work and a lack of diverse perspectives, Fari and Rosani warn. They urge regular breaks from such solo AI interactions to engage face-to-face with colleagues. Seek feedback, integrate diverse viewpoints, and encourage peer learning.To avoid these traps, Fari and Rosani urge developing a genAI mindset embracing all that AI can offer, but keeping humans engaged and skeptical.This includes interacting with systems in a conversational way, trying and testing different AI models, and using it responsibly. A genAI mindset is all about continuous learning. Hands-on testing reveals capabilities, limitations, effective usage techniques, risks, and potential mitigations." the co-authors point out. Adopting a learning mindset asking what it? can help you reap the full benefits.This also represents important steps to take in skills development, they add. Experimentation will help you understand which skills your team needs to develop most. Start where your testers encounter specific challenges or barriers in using gen AI. For instance, your team may find it challenging to effectively prompt AI to perform certain tasks or may struggle when crafting a suitable outline for a human-machine dialogue. Testers may encounter common pitfalls, such as placing too much trust in the machine, only to realize later that additional verification was indeed necessary."Knowledge of prompting techniques, both basic simple queries and advanced structured prompts is an important skill, and is likely where you should start your upskilling efforts, they state. "Many companies have also created prompt academies to train their employees, while offering a platform to share and collect learnings, known as prompt libraries.

RDNA 4 arrives AMD Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT review: RDNA 4 fixes a lot of AMDs problems For $549 and $599, AMD comes close to knocking out Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5070. Andrew Cunningham Mar 5, 2025 2:31 pm | 86 AMD's Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT are its first cards based on the RDNA 4 GPU architecture. Credit: Andrew Cunningham AMD's Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT are its first cards based on the RDNA 4 GPU architecture. Credit: Andrew Cunningham Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreAMD is a company that knows a thing or two about capitalizing on a competitor's weaknesses. The company got through its early-2010s nadir partially because its Ryzen CPUs struck just as Intel's current manufacturing woes began to set in, first with somewhat-worse CPUs that were great value for the moneyand later with CPUs that were better than anything Intel could offer.Nvidia's untrammeled dominance of the consumer graphics card market should also be an opportunity for AMD. Nvidia's GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards have given buyers very little to get excited about, with an unreachably expensive high-end 5090 refresh and modest-at-best gains from 5080 and 5070-series cards that are also pretty expensive by historical standards, when you can buy them at all. Tech YouTubersboth the people making the videos and the people leaving comments underneath themhave been almost uniformly unkind to the 50 series, hinting at consumer frustrations and pent-up demand for competitive products from other companies.Enter AMD's Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 graphics cards. These are aimed right at the middle of the current GPU market at the intersection of high sales volume and decent profit margins. They promise good 1440p and entry-level 4K gaming performance and improved power efficiency compared to previous-generation cards, with fixes for long-time shortcomings (ray-tracing performance, video encoding, and upscaling quality) that should, in theory, make them more tempting for people looking to ditch Nvidia.Table of ContentsJump to sectionRX 9070 and 9070 XT specs and speedsRX 9070 XTRX 9070RX 7900 XTXRX 7900 XTRX 7900 GRERX 7800 XTCompute units (Stream processors)64 RDNA4 (4,096)56 RDNA4 (3,584)96 RDNA3 (6,144)84 RDNA3 (5,376)80 RDNA3 (5,120)60 RDNA3 (3,840)Boost Clock2,970 MHz2,520 MHz2,498 MHz2,400 MHz2,245 MHz2,430 MHzMemory Bus Width256-bit256-bit384-bit320-bit256-bit256-bitMemory Bandwidth650GB/s650GB/s960GB/s800GB/s576GB/s624GB/sMemory size16GB GDDR616GB GDDR624GB GDDR620GB GDDR616GB GDDR616GB GDDR6Total board power (TBP)304 W220 W355 W315 W260 W263 WAMD's high-level performance promise for the RDNA 4 architecture revolves around big increases in performance per compute unit (CU). An RDNA 4 CU, AMD says, is nearly twice as fast in rasterized performance as RDNA 2 (that is, rendering without ray-tracing effects enabled) and nearly 2.5 times as fast as RDNA 2 in games with ray-tracing effects enabled. Performance for at least some machine learning workloads also goes way uptwice as fast as RDNA 3 and four times as fast as RDNA 2.We'll see this in more detail when we start comparing performance, but AMD seems to have accomplished this goal. Despite having 64 or 56 compute units (for the 9070 XT and 9070, respectively), the cards' performance often competes with AMD's last-generation flagships, the RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT. Those cards came with 96 and 84 compute units, respectively. The 9070 cards are specced a lot more like last generation's RX 7800 XTincluding the 16GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit memory bus, as AMD still isn't using GDDR6X or GDDR7but they're much faster than the 7800 XT was. AMD has dramatically increased the performance-per-compute unit for RDNA 4. AMD AMD has dramatically increased the performance-per-compute unit for RDNA 4. AMD An architectural overview of the 9070 GPU die. AMD An architectural overview of the 9070 GPU die. AMD Out-of-order queues for memory requests have also sped things up for ray-traced rendering. AMD Out-of-order queues for memory requests have also sped things up for ray-traced rendering. AMD An architectural overview of the 9070 GPU die. AMD Out-of-order queues for memory requests have also sped things up for ray-traced rendering. AMD AMD prioritized ray-tracing improvements to help close a gap between it and Nvidia. AMD All of the improvements add up. AMD The 9070 series also uses a new 4 nm manufacturing process from TSMC, an upgrade from the 7000 series' 5 nm process (and the 6 nm process used for the separate memory controller dies in higher-end RX 7000-series models that used chiplets). AMD's GPUs are normally a bit less efficient than Nvidia's, but the architectural improvements and the new manufacturing process allow AMD to do some important catch-up.Both of the 9070 models we tested were ASRock Steel Legend models, and the 9070 and 9070 XT had identical designswe'll probably see a lot of this from AMD's partners since the GPU dies and the 16GB RAM allotments are the same for both models. Both use two 8-pin power connectors; AMD says partners are free to use the 12-pin power connector if they want, but given Nvidia's ongoing issues with it, most cards will likely stick with the reliable 8-pin connectors. Both the 9070 and 9070 XT models we tested were identical ASRock Steel Legend models. Here's the 9070 XT. Andrew Cunningham Both the 9070 and 9070 XT models we tested were identical ASRock Steel Legend models. Here's the 9070 XT. Andrew Cunningham Old, reliable 8-pin power connectors. Andrew Cunningham Old, reliable 8-pin power connectors. Andrew Cunningham Both the 9070 and 9070 XT models we tested were identical ASRock Steel Legend models. Here's the 9070 XT. Andrew Cunningham Old, reliable 8-pin power connectors. Andrew Cunningham AMD doesn't appear to be making and selling reference designs for the 9070 series the way it did for some RX 7000 and 6000-series GPUs or the way Nvidia does with its Founders Edition cards. From what we've seen, 2 or 2.5-slot, triple-fan designs will be the norm, the way they are for most midrange GPUs these days.Testbed notesGaming testbedCPUAMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D (provided by AMD)MotherboardAsus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero (provided by AMD)RAM32GB (2x16GB) G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB series (provided by AMD), running at DDR5-6000Power supplyThermaltake Toughpower GF A3 1050 WCPU cooler360 mm MSI MAG CoreLiquid I360CaseMontech XR ATX Mid-tower with three 120 mm cooling fans installed and side panel removedOSWindows 11 24H2 with Core Isolation on, Memory Integrity offDriversAMD RX 9070 series: Beta driver 24.30.31.03Nvidia RTX 5090:Beta driver 571.86Nvidia RTX 5080: Beta driver 572.12Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti: Beta driver 572.43Nvidia RTX 5070: Beta driver 572.50Other Nvidia cards: Game Ready Driver 566.36Other AMD cards: Adrenalin 24.12.1We used the same GPU testbed for the Radeon RX 9070 series as we have for our GeForce RTX 50-series reviews.An AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D ensures that our graphics cards will be CPU-limited as little as possible. An ample 1050 W power supply, 32GB of DDR5-6000, and an AMD X670E motherboard with the latest BIOS installed round out the hardware. On the software side, we use an up-to-date installation of Windows 11 24H2 and recent GPU drivers for older cards, ensuring that our tests reflect whatever optimizations Microsoft, AMD, Nvidia, and game developers have made since the last generation of GPUs launched.We have numbers for all of Nvidia's RTX 50-series GPUs so far, plus most of the 40-series cards, most of AMD's RX 7000-series cards, and a handful of older GPUs from the RTX 30-series and RX 6000 series. We'll focus on comparing the 9070 XT and 9070 to other 1440p-to-4K graphics cards since those are the resolutions AMD is aiming at.PerformanceAt $549 and $599, the 9070 series is priced to match Nvidia's $549 RTX 5070 and undercut the $749 RTX 5070 Ti. So we'll focus on comparing the 9070 series to those cards, plus the top tier of GPUs from the outgoing RX 7000-series. Some 4K rasterized benchmarks. Some 4K rasterized benchmarks.Starting at the top with rasterized benchmarks with no ray-tracing effects, the 9070 XT does a good job of standing up to Nvidia's RTX 5070 Ti, coming within a few frames per second of its performance in all the games we tested (and scoring very similarly in the 3DMark Time Spy Extreme benchmark). 1440p rasterized benchmarks. 1440p rasterized benchmarks.1440p rasterized benchmarks.Both cards are considerably faster than the RTX 5070between 15 and 28 percent for the 9070 XT and between 5 and 13 percent for the regular 9070 (our 5070 scored weirdly low in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, so we'd treat those numbers as outliers for now). Both 9070 cards also stack up well next to the RX 7000 series herethe 9070 can usually just about match the performance of the 7900 XT, and the 9070 XT usually beats it by a little. Both cards thoroughly outrun the old RX 7900 GRE, which was AMD's $549 GPU offering just a year ago.The 7900 XT does have 20GB of RAM instead of 16GB, which might help its performance in some edge cases. But 16GB is still perfectly generous for a 1440p-to-4K graphics cardthe 5070 only offers 12GB, which could end up limiting its performance in some games as RAM requirements continue to rise.On ray-tracing improvementsNvidia got a jump on AMD when it introduced hardware-accelerated ray-tracing in the RTX 20-series in 2018. And while these effects were only supported in a few games at the time, many modern games offer at least some kind of ray-traced lighting effects.AMD caught up a little when it began shipping its own ray-tracing support in the RDNA2 architecture in late 2020, but the issue since then has always been that AMD cards have taken a larger performance hit than GeForce GPUs when these effects are turned on. RDNA3 promised improvements, but our tests still generally showed the same deficit as before.So we're looking for two things with RDNA4's ray-tracing performance. First, we want the numbers to be higher than they were for comparably priced RX 7000-series GPUs, the same thing we look for in non-ray-traced (or rasterized) rendering performance. Second, we want the size of the performance hit to go down. To pick an example: the RX 7900 GRE could compete with Nvidia's RTX 4070 Ti Super in games without ray tracing, but it was closer to a non-Super RTX 4070 in ray-traced games. It has helped keep AMD's cards from being across-the-board competitive with Nvidia'sis that any different now? Benchmarks for games with ray-tracing effects enabled. Both AMD cards generally keep pace with the 5070 in these tests thanks to RDNA 4's improvements. Benchmarks for games with ray-tracing effects enabled. Both AMD cards generally keep pace with the 5070 in these tests thanks to RDNA 4's improvements.The picture our tests paint is mixed but tentatively positive. The 9070 series and RDNA4 post solid improvements in the Cyberpunk 2077benchmarks, substantially closing the performance gap with Nvidia. In games where AMD's cards performed well enough beforehere represented byReturnalperformance goes up, but roughly proportionately with rasterized performance. And both 9070 cards still punch below their weight inBlack Myth: Wukong, falling substantially behind the 5070 under the punishing Cinematic graphics preset.So the benefits you see, as with any GPU update, will depend a bit on the game you're playing. There's also a possibility that game optimizations and driver updates made with RDNA4 in mind could boost performance further. We can't say that AMD has caught all the way up to Nvidia herethe 9070 and 9070 XT are both closer to the GeForce RTX 5070 than the 5070 Ti, despite keeping it closer to the 5070 Ti in rasterized testsbut there is real, measurable improvement here, which is what we were looking for.Power usage By default, the 9070 and 9070 XT consume about the same amount of power under load as the 4070 Super and the 5070 Ti, respectively. By default, the 9070 and 9070 XT consume about the same amount of power under load as the 4070 Super and the 5070 Ti, respectively.By default, the 9070 and 9070 XT consume about the same amount of power under load as the 4070 Super and the 5070 Ti, respectively.The 9070 series' performance increases are particularly impressive when you look at the power-consumption numbers. The 9070 comes close to the 7900 XT's performance but uses 90 W less power under load. It beats the RTX 5070 most of the time but uses around 30 W less power.The 9070 XT is a little less impressive on this frontAMD has set clock speeds pretty high, and this can increase power use disproportionately. The 9070 XT is usually 10 or 15 percent faster than the 9070 but uses 38 percent more power. The XT's power consumption is similar to the RTX 5070 Ti's (a GPU it often matches) and the 7900 XT's (a GPU it always beats), so it's not too egregious, but it's not as standout as the 9070's.AMD gives 9070 owners a couple of new toggles for power limits, though, which we'll talk about in the next section.Experimenting with Total Board PowerWe don't normally dabble much with overclocking when we review CPUs or GPUswe're happy to leave that to folks at other outlets. But when we review CPUs, we do usually test them with multiple power limits in place. Playing with power limits is easier (and occasionally safer) than actually overclocking, and it often comes with large gains to either performance (a chip that performs much better when given more power to work with) or efficiency (a chip that can run at nearly full speed without using as much power).Initially, I experimented with the RX 9070's power limits by accident. AMD sent me one version of the 9070 but exchanged it because of a minor problem the OEM identified with some units early in the production run. I had, of course, already run most of our tests on it, but that's the way these things go sometimes. By bumping the regular RX 9070's TBP up just a bit, you can nudge it closer to 9070 XT-level performance. By bumping the regular RX 9070's TBP up just a bit, you can nudge it closer to 9070 XT-level performance.The replacement RX 9070 card, an ASRock Steel Legend model, was performing significantly better in our tests, sometimes nearly closing the gap between the 9070 and the XT. It wasn't until I tested power consumption that I discovered the explanationby default, it was using a 245 W power limit rather than the AMD-defined 220 W limit. Usually, these kinds of factory tweaks don't make much of a difference, but for the 9070, this power bump gave it a nice performance boost while still keeping it close to the 250 W power limit of the GeForce RTX 5070.The 90-series cards we tested both add some power presets to AMD's Adrenalin app in the Performance tab under Tuning. These replace and/or complement some of the automated overclocking and undervolting buttons that exist here for older Radeon cards. Clicking Favor Efficiency or Favor Performance can ratchet the card's Total Board Power (TBP) up or down, limiting performance so that the card runs cooler and quieter or allowing the card to consume more power so it can run a bit faster. The 9070 cards get slightly different performance tuning options in the Adrenalin software. These buttons mostly change the card's Total Board Power (TBP), making it simple to either improve efficiency or boost performance a bit. Credit: Andrew Cunningham For this particular ASRock 9070 card, the default TBP is set to 245 W. Selecting "Favor Efficiency" sets it to the default 220 W. You can double-check these values using an app like HWInfo, which displays both the current TBP and the maximum TBP in its Sensors Status window. Clicking the Custom button in the Adrenalin software gives you access to a Power Tuning slider, which for our card allowed us to ratchet the TBP up by up to 10 percent or down by as much as 30 percent.This is all the firsthand testing we did with the power limits of the 9070 series, though I would assume that adding a bit more power also adds more overclocking headroom (bumping up the power limits is common for GPU overclockers no matter who makes your card). AMD says that some of its partners will ship 9070 XT models set to a roughly 340 W power limit out of the box but acknowledges that "you start seeing diminishing returns as you approach the top of that [power efficiency] curve."But it's worth noting that the driver has another automated set-it-and-forget-it power setting you can easily use to find your preferred balance of performance and power efficiency.A quick look at FSR4 performance There's a toggle in the driver for enabling FSR 4 in FSR 3.1-supporting games. Credit: Andrew Cunningham One of AMD's headlining improvements to the RX 90-series is the introduction of FSR 4, a new version of its FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaling algorithm. Like Nvidia's DLSS and Intel's XeSS, FSR 4 can take advantage of RDNA 4's machine learning processing power to do hardware-backed upscaling instead of taking a hardware-agnostic approach as the older FSR versions did. AMD says this will improve upscaling quality, but it also means FSR4 will only work on RDNA 4 GPUs.The good news is that FSR 3.1 and FSR 4 are forward- and backward-compatible. Games that have already added FSR 3.1 support can automatically take advantage of FSR 4, and games that support FSR 4 on the 90-series can just run FSR 3.1 on older and non-AMD GPUs. FSR 4 comes with a small performance hit compared to FSR 3.1 at the same settings, but better overall quality can let you drop to a faster preset like Balanced or Performance and end up with more frames-per-second overall. Credit: Andrew Cunningham The only game in our current test suite to be compatible with FSR 4 isHorizon Zero Dawn Remastered, and we tested its performance using both FSR 3.1 and FSR 4. In general, we found that FSR 4 improved visual quality at the cost of just a few frames per second when run at the same settingsnot unlike using Nvidia's recently released "transformer model" for DLSS upscaling.Many games will let you choose which version of FSR you want to use. But for FSR 3.1 games that don't have a built-in FSR 4 option, there's a toggle in AMD's Adrenalin driver you can hit to switch to the better upscaling algorithm.Even if they come with a performance hit, new upscaling algorithms can still improve performance by making the lower-resolution presets look better. We run all of our testing in "Quality" mode, which generally renders at two-thirds of native resolution and scales up. But if FSR 4 running in Balanced or Performance mode looks the same to your eyes as FSR 3.1 running in Quality mode, you can still end up with a net performance improvement in the end.RX 9070 or 9070 XT?Just $50 separates the advertised price of the 9070 from that of the 9070 XT, something both Nvidia and AMD have done in the past that I find a bit annoying. If you have $549 to spend on a graphics card, you can almost certainly scrape together $599 for a graphics card. All else being equal, I'd tell most people trying to choose one of these to just spring for the 9070 XT.That said, availability and retail pricing for these might be all over the place. If your choices are a regular RX 9070 or nothing, or an RX 9070 at $549 and an RX 9070 XT at any price higher than $599, I would just grab a 9070 and not sweat it too much. The two cards aren'tthat far apart in performance, especially if you bump the 9070's TBP up a little bit, and games that are playable on one will be playable at similar settings on the other.Pretty close to great If you're building a 1440p or 4K gaming box, the 9070 series might be the ones to beat right now. Credit: Andrew Cunningham We've got plenty of objective data in here, so I don't mind saying that I came into this review kind ofwanting to like the 9070 and 9070 XT. Nvidia's 50-series cards have mostly upheld the status quo, and for the last couple of years, the status quo has been sustained high prices and very modest generational upgrades. And who doesn't like an underdog story?I think our test results mostly justify my priors. The RX 9070 and 9070 XT are very competitive graphics cards, helped along by a particularly mediocre RTX 5070 refresh from Nvidia. In non-ray-traced games, both cards wipe the floor with the 5070 and come close to competing with the $749 RTX 5070 Ti. In games and synthetic benchmarks with ray-tracing effects on, both cards can usually match or slightly beat the similarly priced 5070, partially (if not entirely) addressing AMD's longstanding performance deficit here. Neither card comes close to the 5070 Ti in these games, but they're also not priced like a 5070 Ti.Just as impressively, the Radeon cards compete with the GeForce cards while consuming similar amounts of power. At stock settings, the RX 9070 uses roughly the same amount of power under load as a 4070 Super but with better performance. The 9070 XT uses about as much power as a 5070 Ti, with similar performance before you turn ray-tracing on. Power efficiency was a small but consistent drawback for the RX 7000 series compared to GeForce cards, and the 9070 cards mostly erase that disadvantage. AMD is also less stingy with the RAM, giving you 16GB for the price Nvidia charges for 12GB.Some of the old caveats still apply. Radeons take a bigger performance hit, proportionally, than GeForce cards. DLSS already looks pretty good and is widely supported, while FSR 3.1/FSR 4 adoption is still relatively low. Nvidia has a nearly monopolistic grip on the dedicated GPU market, which means many apps, AI workloads, and games support its GPUs best/first/exclusively. AMD is always playing catch-up to Nvidia in some respect, and Nvidia keeps progressing quickly enough that it feels like AMD never quite has the opportunity to close the gap.AMD also doesn't have an answer for DLSS Multi-Frame Generation. The benefits of that technology are fairly narrow, and you already get most of those benefits with single-frame generation. But it's still a thing that Nvidia does that AMDon't.Overall, the RX 9070 cards are both awfully tempting competitors to the GeForce RTX 5070and occasionally even the 5070 Ti. They're great at 1440p and decent at 4K. Sure, I'd like to see them priced another $50 or $100 cheaper to well and truly undercut the 5070 and bring 1440p-to-4K performance t0 a sub-$500 graphics card. It would be nice to see AMD undercut Nvidia's GPUs as ruthlessly as it undercut Intel's CPUs nearly a decade ago. But these RDNA4 GPUs have way fewer downsides than previous-generation cards, and they come at a moment of relative weakness for Nvidia. We'll see if the sales follow.The goodGreat 1440p performance and solid 4K performance16GB of RAMDecisively beats Nvidia's RTX 5070, including in most ray-traced gamesRX 9070 XT is competitive with RTX 5070 Ti in non-ray-traced games for less moneyBoth cards match or beat the RX 7900 XT, AMD's second-fastest card from the last generationDecent power efficiency for the 9070 XT and great power efficiency for the 9070Automated options for tuning overall power use to prioritize either efficiency or performanceReliable 8-pin power connectors available in many cardsThe badNvidia's ray-tracing performance is still usually betterAt $549 and $599, pricing matches but doesn't undercut the RTX 5070FSR 4 isn't as widely supported as DLSS and may not be for a whileThe uglyPlaying the "can you actually buy these for AMD's advertised prices" gameAndrew 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. 86 Comments

2025-03-06T01:04:01Z Read in app The author (not pictured) talks to her mom regularly. Halfpoint Images/Getty Images This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? My mom lived five hours away from me when I had my kids. While she visited when she could, our conversations over the phone helped me. I've been a mom for a decade, and I still call her as soon as I drop off my kids. When I became a new mom, I didn't have daily help with childcare or plan weekly get-togethers with my mom or in-laws. Instead, I had my mother's voice on the phone. My mom lived five hours away near Syracuse, New York. Although she visited me in Manhattan when my son was born and after my daughter's birth a couple of years later, our conversations on the phone have carried me through motherhood.I knew I could ask her all the questionsAs I eased into motherhood, it didn't bother me that my mom wasn't with me nonstop as I was learning how to breastfeed, change a million diapers, and burp my baby. Everything was new, stressful, and exciting at the same time. I knew if I had a question about caring for my little one, I could call and count on her without any criticism or judgment. She was always my safe place.I would call her to share parenting moments, big and small.I remember once I called laughing about how my son's bottle rolled across the sidewalk into the gutter. I told her about the mommy and me music classes I discovered and story time at the library on Fifth Avenue. While I strolled to these activities, we talked about the baby carrier she used to carry me in. We talked about storing milk and all the savvy equipment that existed now that didn't when I was a child in the 80s. She sent me packages in the mail, blankets, hats, and mittens she crocheted for my son, and I'd send her photos in a text message showing off her grandson wearing his cozy new gear.Soon, I was pushing a double stroller, bringing my toddler son and newborn daughter to the Central Park Zoo, and snapping photos for Grandma. With our calls, photos, video chats, and gifts in the mail, it was like my mom never missed a beat.Our conversations gave me courageOur conversations helped me have the courage to stay active with my kids and gain patience when they were cranky or teething or I was exhausted and needed to vent a little. She always said to think positively and told me I was doing a great job. I appreciate that my mom listened. I was thankful for her cheerfulness, tips and encouragement based on my ups and downs of new motherhood.I called her teary-eyed when my son was wailing when I dropped him off at preschool. I called when my kids had a diaper blowout in public or a meltdown before naptime. I called during so many enjoyable moments, too, like when the tulips were blooming, and my kids and I had a picnic in the grass at the park. Her ear and words of care were all I needed.While other new moms had their mothers join them at the playground or school events, sometimes I wished that we lived closer, but I knew I was OK because my mom was just a call away.Despite the distance, she's been there during important times in our livesI'll never forget the night I called her and told her my marriage was ending, and I needed help and some extra money for furniture for a new place to live and a lawyer. She was there on the phone with me, figuring out my next steps. Through the darkness, her voice was reassuring and uplifting and helped me feel brave while starting my life over. I remember the first year I lived alone with my kids, our couch, the table and chairs, their bunk beds were a constant reminder of my mom's love.As time passes, I'll give my kids a little more freedom while wishing for them to be this little forever, and my mom and I will reminisce.Somehow, I feel like she has been there with us through everything special and meaningful, even though we don't live near each other.With a phone and some effort, I've learned it's possible to give a parent the grandparent experience despite not living down the street from each other, in the same ZIP code, or even the same state. Also, I've learned that just because you don't have family nearby doesn't mean you can't truly enjoy your own parenting journey.I've been a mom for over a decade, and when my kids are at school, I still call, and nostalgia comes quickly. We talk about how big my kids are now and how soon this phase of parenting will become the next. I tell her how much I want time to slow down. I can hear her smiling when she reminds me that the time I invest in my kids now will keep us close later. I know she is right because we have always been close, no matter the distance.

Resistance: Fall Of Man a trilogy forever (Sony Interactive Entertainment) (Credits: 5655366)The Thursday letters page is not convinced Sega is the best publisher of 2024, as a reader thinks Dragon Age: The Veilguard needed a name change.To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.ukToo oldIts always interesting to think about what video game sequels couldve been made but probably never will. EA definitely shouldve made Battlefield: Bad Company 3, but the time for that was 10 years ago. Now its just too late. Too few people will remember the original and EA will have to spend so much time explaining what it is to new fans its just not worth it.Theres a lot of talk at the moment about what games might be on the Switch 2, most of which will be sequels or spin-offs of some kind, but my mind always goes back to old PlayStation franchises that I once hoped would return but which I now dont think will.Parasite Eve, Colony Wars, G-Police we all have our favourites, although one I ways always holding out for is a new Resistance game. So, I was very upset to hear that Insomniac have no plans for it and no plans for anything other than superhero games and Ratchet & Clank, for at least a decade.Resistance is an odd franchise in that the first one isnt that great and the third one is by far the best. Its a shame that just as it was getting into its stride it had to stop. Curious to know what games other readers would like to see PlayStation bring back.HalmanShrinking downEA Sports FC and Call Of Duty are down in sales and consoles dropped by 25%? And hardly any of the best selling games from 2024 were actually released that year? Yeah, I would say gaming has got a bit of a problem at the moment.Take out GTA 6 and Nintendo Switch 2 and this year would be worryingly empty, so I dont think it was any kind of a blip or that anyone learned from what was obviously going wrong last year. We could all see it: the lack of new game, the lack of new announcements, the layoffs gaming is not in a healthy spot right.If Rockstar and Nintendo can turn things around then great but what happens after their contributions fade away and everyone else has to pick up the slack? The games industry is beginning to feel smaller and smaller, especially in terms of the number of companies that know what theyre doing in it.CoolsbaneEndless gamesIts been said before, but I really dont think Gears Of War and Halo have the sort of draw Xbox thinks they do anymore. Or Fable for that matter. I can easily imagine them trying to use Gears Of War: E-Day as a launch title for the next gen Xbox but who exactly is that going to attract? A prequel to a game that was popular 15 years ago and is probably filled with fan references and confusing lore.If theyre expecting PlayStation 5 owners to buy a remaster collection and suddenly go wild at this amazing game series that theyve been missing out on I think theyve got another thing coming.Not that Gears Of War is different than most long-running series. Sometimes you just want things to end or at least go away for a long time. I feel the same about Assassins Creed.BaldrickEmail your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.ukThe real winnersHow on earth does Sega top the list of best publishers three times? I think that just underlines the flaws in Metacritic in general. Sega only win because of a single Atlus game that does well that year and the fact that they hardly release anything else, Id hardly call that a reason to name them the best publisher of the year.It was very interesting though, to see how few American companies made it into the list, which I would not have guessed. But then I suppose so many of them nowadays are owned by Microsoft and that means Activision Blizzard and Bethesda all have to share the same spot.I feel the real winner of the list was Sony, who had a lot more games out last year and yet still maintained a very high overall score. Although beyond Astro Bot Im not sure I could name anything else they put out, except I guess Concord? Which actually didnt review that badly (I never played it).BOBDistinguished nameI cant believe Dragon Age: The Veilguard was such a flop that its already on PlayStation Plus. Im genuinely surprised EA hasnt already shut down BioWare and if I was working there Id be very worried indeed. I really dont understand what went wrong though, as I enjoyed the game.If anything, it was EAs fault for the bad marketing, which made it seem almost like a kids game. Plus, that name really is terrible and Dreadwolf wouldve been a lot better. Or, you know, just Dragon Age 4. Sometimes I feel a number after a name makes a game feel distinguished.Its not like movies, where you it just feels like a cheap cash-in and you know they cant possibly extend the story any further. With games you know that if they get to four or more then its for a reason and its probably worth checking out.NewkeyFaulty analysisIm also very much looking forward to the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct in April. I cant believe its been eight years since the original launched. I dont remember what its Direct was like, just the initial rooftop reveal trailer, but hopefully this one will be memorable.The internet is even more obsessive now than it was then though so I honestly cant wait to see all the insanely detail analysis videos and predictions, none of which I imagine will be accurate. I remember people picking apart the Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom trailers and basically nothing anyone came up with was right.Saying that, I am reasonably convinced by the open world theories for the new Mario Kart, so if that turns out to be true maybe we can put more stock in the other stuff thats likely to come out.I dont have too many specific requests, but I would like to see a new 3D Super Mario, some kind of Zelda remaster or spin-off, and a big budget new game. Give me that and a couple of quirky indie-esque games and I just might buy the console.Although I wont lie, Ive pretty much made up my mind now already that I will. The Switch did not disappoint in any way and Im hopeful the second one will be the same.LemmyWired for rebootI just read your article on Acclaim being revived, exciting times! Just want to say one of their games I seriously miss and would love to see a remaster/reboot of was an old late 1990s real-time strategy called Machines: Wired For War.Absolutely adored that game and have spent many a year since dreaming of it getting a revival, maybe now this can hopefully happen!A happy Acclaim fanNext gen proSince it sounds like were going to be hearing more about the next gen Xbox soon I cant help wondering if it wouldve been better for them to just release an Xbox Series X Pro instead. At this point the PlayStation 6 isnt going to be much more powerful than what weve got now, so why push it to the limit, when that still wont make much graphical difference and it will only make it much more expensive than it needs to be.If Xbox rebrand the Pro with a decent name and just call it next gen whos to call them wrong? Is anyone really expecting such a massive leap from the PS5 Pro to the PlayStation 6 that itll be blowing anyones mind?I actually feel Xbox has a small advantage here, because theres virtually nothing Sony can do to make the PlayStation 6 seem like a must-have, but Xbox has a bit more room to play. If they want to make a handheld then its going to be a lot easier trying to make it work as a mid-generation upgrade than a full fat Xbox 5.Well see what they do but Im not sure what PlayStations plan is at the moment, other than just them assuming whatever they do people will buy it. That doesnt seem to have been the case for the PS5 Pro though and I doubt the PlayStation 5 will beat the PlayStation 4 either.GrimaceInbox also-ransIm old enough to remember Head Over Heels and how it was called the best game ever at the time. Back then Id barely even heard of Nintendo and certainly couldnt afford any of their consoles or games. It is sad how British gaming history is so forgotten now.LimptonWill you be reviewing the Suikoden 1 & 2 remasters that just got released? I always wanted to get into the series and there seems to be quite a bit of hype around them at the moment.GrantGC: Well try to. We do have them in but theyre not short games. If we dont get time heres our review of a previous re-release of Suikoden 2.More TrendingEmail your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.ukThe small printNew Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Readers Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.You can also leave your comments below and dont forget to follow us on Twitter.ArrowMORE: Games Inbox: What is the next big PS5 exclusive? GameCentralSign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Nature, Published online: 06 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00694-zHealth economist Jay Bhattacharya, who drew censure for controversial views on COVID-19, vows to provide funding but is short on details.

Nature, Published online: 05 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00657-4Neuroscientist Lore Thaler explains why she thinks people with visual impairments should be taught to explore the world through mouth-click sounds.

submitted by /u/rubanaids [link] [comments]

Created by Clment Moreau with Blender and Substance 3D Painter, this tracked utility vehicle, built for harsh terrains and running on diesel, is available in two colors. The tracks are inspired by the Soviet STZ-5, and the entire system is a rigid body simulation, allowing it to interact with anything you throw into it.Watch the vehicle navigate through the snow and get a closer look at the renders below:Clment MoreauClment MoreauClment MoreauClment MoreauClment MoreauClment MoreauClment MoreauTo create this impressive atmospheric presentation, Clment mentioned using Lens Sim add-on for Blender. See more of this project, including early designs, weather balloon renders, and additional animations, here and follow Clment Moreaus ArtStation page for other incredible prop and vehicle designs.Also, join our80 Level Talent platformand ournew Discord server, follow us onInstagram,Twitter,LinkedIn,Telegram,TikTok, andThreads,where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Source link The post Detailed Tracked Utility Vehicle For Harsh Terrains Imagined In Blender appeared first on CG SHARES.

Searching Pinterest for reference images feels like developing a drug addiction in less than 30 seconds.

Re @clementmoreau3d I really enjoy the design of the vehicle and the physics of the rig! Seeing it in motion is a lot of fun.