Watching the behavior of our tech overlords has answered questions I’d never thought to ask. How do you NDA an army of baby mamas? Is there anything more embarrassing than impersonating Benson Boone? (Also, who is Benson Boone?) And now, the latest: how long after a sovereign ruler of a repressive state murders one of your columnists should you make a deal with him? The answer, it turns out, is a little over six years.In October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a writer for the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, was killed and dismembered with the approval of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (better known as MBS) after Khashoggi entered a Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get paperwork for his upcoming marriage. His body has never been found. On May 13th, Bezos’ Amazon announced it would work with Humain, MBS’ AI company, to build an “AI Zone” in Saudi Arabia — and the two companies will spend more than $5 billion in the process.Saudi money is old news in the tech industry — the Public Investment Fund has sloshed into lots of startups, either directly or via intermediaries such as SoftBank. Morally bankrupt moneygrubbers such as Andreessen Horowitz have been wooing Saudi funds for a while. (Perhaps that’s the real reason they endorsed the Saudis’ preferred candidate?) This isn’t the first deal for Amazon, either. In March, Amazon pledged to invest $5 billion to build data centers in a country that’s scrambling to look futuristic. In 2024, Saudi Arabia said it wanted to build an AI-powered economy. There’s a fancy website for Project 2030, which I guess is meant to distract us from all the oil money. That date isn’t a coincidence — many projections say that’s when oil production will peak and then decline. Regardless of when the actual peak occurs, a global shift away from petroleum threatens Saudi Arabia’s wealth. That’s why the country is behaving like a dipshit startup.Take Neom, billed as the city of the future, vaporware at a previously unimagined scale that also served as a “key tool” for MBS to consolidate power, according to Ali Dogan, a researcher at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. Khashoggi’s murder was a blow to the project, as luminaries such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman and former US energy secretary Ernest Moniz suspended their involvement. A number of companies publicly renounced Saudi money — at least, for a while. Does the freedom to assassinate count as one of the personal liberties Bezos claims to treasure?Neom is moving down the entirely predictable vaporware path. It keeps getting delayed and downsized, which makes sense because it’s no longer the city of the future and a spectacular investment opportunity once it’s built — it’s just another city. But, according to Saudi officials, we won’t have to worry about that for another 50, or possibly 100, years. In the meantime, though, contracts! Investment! AI!Look, I don’t expect ethics out of Altman or any of his ilk. But for basic reasons of maintaining employee morale, I would hesitate to invest in a state that literally murdered one of my contractors. And didn’t merely murder him — but dismembered and then disappeared him. An opportunity the state had only because Khashoggi wanted to get married. Murder is bad enough, but every single detail makes it worse.Lately, it seems Bezos has been dismantling the Washington Post, one of the US’ premier journalistic institutions — putting British failure machine Will Lewis, known for his role in the UK phone-hacking scandal, in charge. Last year, the Post didn’t endorse a candidate in the US presidential race for the first time since 1960, resulting in more than 200,000 canceled subscriptions. Its stars have been fleeing in droves. (Ann Telnaes, who was driven to quit the Post after a cartoon making fun of Bezos was killed, recently won a Pulitzer Prize for her work. Oops!) Now, after all Bezos’ posturing about the free press, he’s cutting deals with people who murder journalists for saying inconvenient things. But maybe we should have seen that coming when he banned op-ed writers from opposing “free speech and the markets.” Does the freedom to assassinate count as one of the personal liberties Bezos claims to treasure?It’s all so spineless. I mean, we already know that MBS may have hacked Bezos’ phone, but I guess that’s water under the bridge. Or maybe not. Maybe MBS got something real good in that hack. Impossible to say whether this is motivated by kompromat or greed, I suppose. But whatever the motive, we know one thing: it takes five years for Bezos to go from posting his photo op with the headstone of a murdered reporter to making billion-dollar deals with his killer.See More:

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. You can now own a $1 gold coin celebrating one of America’s most revolutionary achievements: the NASA Space Shuttle program. The latest variant in the ongoing American Innovation $1 Coin series is available to order through the United States Mint. Selected to represent the state of Florida, the noncirculating legal tender is the third coin released this year and the 28th coin in the 15-year project first announced in 2018. While the coin’s front displays the series’ Statue of Liberty image, the back shows the shuttle launching above plumes of exhaust. United States Mint Medallic Artist Eric David Custer sculpted the image while Artistic Infusion Program (AIP) Designer Ron Sanders designed it. “The Space Shuttle, officially known as the Space Transportation System, remains one of the most iconic and influential spacecrafts in history,” explained US Mint acting director Kristie McNally in an accompanying announcement. “As the world’s first reusable spacecraft, it played a pivotal role in advancing space exploration. We are honored to celebrate this major achievement.” The Space Shuttle’s iconic design (including the image displayed on the new $1 coins) frequently featured not just the shuttle itself, but its large external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters. Those attachments detached after the shuttle reached a predetermined altitude. While the boosters included parachutes allowing them to be recovered and reused, the fuel tank was designed to disintegrate during its atmospheric reentry along a ballistic trajectory ensuring any remnants landed in the Indian or Pacific Oceans. The Space Shuttle coin is the 28th in the American Innovation series. Credit: US Mint NASA relied on the Space Shuttle to transport astronauts on missions from April 1981 until its retirement in July 2011. The spacecraft blasted off a total of 135 times from one of two launchpads in Florida, returning to Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral at the end of 78 of those trips. During its tenure, the shuttle flew the first women and minority crew members into space, as well as delivered components for both the Hubble Space Telescope and International Space Station (ISS). The program was not without tragedy, however. The Challenger and Columbia disasters of 1986 and 2003, respectively,  collectively claimed the lives of 14 astronauts. In 2004, President George W. Bush announced plans to retire the Space Shuttle program following the completion of the ISS. Today, NASA primarily relies on private contracts with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin for astronaut and mission transport. The ongoing Artemis lunar program will use an Orion spacecraft designed by Lockheed Martin. The Space Shuttle’s influence today is far more than just symbolic. The Artemis program’s rocket booster engines, casings, and main engines are all repurposed and refurbished from Space Shuttle craft. The Artemis I mission alone utilized components previously employed on 83 shuttle missions. The United States Mint announced its American Innovation $1 Coin series celebrating American achievements across science and technology in 2018, and has already featured three space-related selections prior to the Florida coin. Delaware’s coin from 2018 showcases Annie Jump Cannon, the pioneering astronomer responsible for the star classification system still used today. Meanwhile, Maryland’s 2020 entry pays tribute to the Hubble Space Telescope, and Alabama’s 2024 release includes the Saturn V rocket. Later this year, Texas will become the fifth space-centric $1 gold coin with its Mission Control design.

As the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill continues its progress through the Wetsminster system, NHS digital leaders have called for their suppliers to sign up to a voluntary cyber security charter as it works to build up its resilience against threats such as ransomware, and better secure its supply chain. The NHS has a long and sorry history of cyber breaches, perhaps most famously its systems came under sustained fire during the 2017 WannaCry incident. More recently, health services across south London were impacted by a cyber attack on Synnovis, a supplier of pathology lab services to various NHS trusts in the region. In light of the growing and ever-changing threat landscape, and the growing frequency and severity of incidents, the NHS said there has been a step change in recent months In an open letter to suppliers, Phil Huggins, national CISO for health and care at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Mike Fell, director of cyber operations at NHS England, and Vin Diwakar, national director of transformation at NHS England, said: “As valued partners to the NHS, it is important to us that we work together and defend as one.” The NHS is asking suppliers that where reasonably necessary – such as in the case of organisations that support clinical systems or process confidential patient data – they commit to keeping their IT systems in support and patched, to achieve and maintain at least ‘Standards Met’ under the Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPOT), apply multifactor authentication alongside NHS England’s existing MFA policies, deploy always-on cyber monitoring and logging of critical infrastructure, and put in place immutable backups of critical data alongside appropriate business continuity and recovery plans. The charter also requires suppliers to conduct board level exercising on incident response, report cyber attacks affecting NHS customers in a timely manner and work with them to resolve, and only supply software produced in adherence to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) software code of practice. Huggins, Fell and Diwakar asked suppliers to commit to being an “outstanding and trusted partner” by agreeing to sign the charter. “This voluntary charter will contain the asks outlined above and show your commitment to being a trusted and secure partner to the health and care system. We will be launching a self-assessment form in the autumn, whereby suppliers can sign the charter. This will allow time for suppliers to work through the eight statements and be ready to commit,” they said. In recognition that making continuous improvements in cyber resilience in the present threat environment is a significant challenge, the NHS leaders also said they were ready and willing to ensure the health service plays its own part through, for example, developing bespoke tools that suppliers can use to audit their own supply chains in accordance with NHS needs, and defining requirements for a national supplier management platform and risk assurance model. The NHS will also review the contractual frameworks that its own organisations use to enter contracts to ensure appropriate security schedules and expectations. This piece is part of a wider government initiative in this regard. The health service plans to run a series of webinars in the coming months, and hopes to launch a supplier cyber security forum in the autumn. “For threat actors, sensitive data is the ultimate target and NHS suppliers are custodians of vast volumes of highly confidential information. In Q1 alone, healthcare was the most targeted sector by ransomware attacks globally, with 57 recorded incidents,” said BlackFog founder and CEO Darren Williams. “It’s no surprise, then, that the NHS is urging its suppliers to step up their cyber security practices in response to escalating threats across the supply chain.  “Given the spate of ransomware attacks that has impacted both public and private sector, initiatives which incentivise providers are a necessary step. It’s not only about safeguarding patient data but also ensuring the continuity of critical services.” Read more about NHS cyber incidents The ICO has issued a £3m fine to software provider Advanced in the wake of security failings that led to significant disruption to NHS customers in a ransomware attack. T and security teams at Wirral University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust continue to work around the clock following a major cyber incident, with services disrupted and no timeline for resolution. Clinicians warn that the NHS England Outcome Registries Platform has poor security and is vulnerable to cyber attack, putting critical patient data at risk of being exposed.

PC and mobile gamers will be able to play Persona 5: The Phantom X on June 26th, 2025. P5X features a brand new story set in a parallel universe to Persona 5. Sega and Atlus outlined the premise of the new spin-off in a news release on Thursday, and the game sounds like Persona, but gacha-fied.“Encompassed in the unique turn-based RPG gameplay and setting of Persona 5, players will lead a double life as a student and a Phantom Thief with a brand-new protagonist and band of Phantom Thieves,” the press release read. “During the day, players will build up life experience as a student and engage in various activities such as hanging out with their friends and part-time jobs, while at night, they will sneak into the cognitive dungeons to steal Treasures and change the twisted desires of corrupt adults!”Sega and Atlus also detailed some of the game’s key features, which include exclusive new mini-games, a PvE game mode called the Velvet Trials, new characters, and even familiar faces from Persona 5 who are “available through special contracts.” Furthermore, Persona 5: The Phantom X incorporates a new Guild feature allowing more social interaction amongst players in-game.A livestream for the upcoming title delved deeper into the lore behind the gacha game’s protagonist, Wonder, and his trusty owl companion, Lufel. The Phantom X’s livestream even included promotional footage illustrating the parallel universe and showing a bit about the game’s lore.Two guests on the stream played a bit of the game to give players a sense of the new gacha mechanics and microtransactions. The video also drew attention to how the developer, Perfect World Games, chose to differentiate P5X from Persona 5, citing changes to characters around fictionalized Tokyo, Japan, bosses, and more.To recap, Persona 5: The Phantom X is a gacha game, in case you haven’t realized by now.See More:

Jerald of Rumare Oblivion Remastered's radiant quest hero is at it again: here's a Witcher-ish mod that lets warriors become full-time professional monster slayers They're seemingly planning on adding a heap more battles to the Imperial City's Arena next, because Adoring Fans call for bloodshed. Image credit: Bethesda/VG247 News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 15, 2025 The Fighters Guild's the only of the big four main faction questlines in Oblivion and therefore also Oblivion Remastered in which warhammer-wielding juggernaughts don't feel a bit out of place (props to Gogron gro-Bolmog for defying stereotypes), and thanks to a new mod, I might actually think about abandoning my stealth archer to play one. Just the other day, modder ColdTyrant released an interesting mod that added a whole radiant contract system to the Dark Brotherhood, allowing you to go on killing forever and net some gacha rewards. Well, literally a day later, they're back at it again with the faction that ends up - spoilers - battling some tree sap drinkers. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. This latest entry in what's fast morphed into a series is called 'Fighter's Guild - Infinitum' and it adds "over 100 randomly selected, infinitely repeatable Monster Hunting contracts" to the titular faction, giving them a full radiant quest system. Much like with the Dark Brotherhood mod I mentioned earlier, it works by giving you a place to go to be given notes setting you off on missions to kill a specific target - this time different monsters in dungeons across Cyrodiil - then turn them in for a nice reward. Each target monster has been made to glow a bit so they stand out from the cave-dwelling crowd Sadly, there looks to be no Morrowindy gacha element to the dishing out of loot this time around. You'll get 500 gold per contract, plus two "Fighter's Commendations", the latter being a special currency you can spend to requisition gear from a new Fighter's Guild Store the mod adds to the basement of the faction's Leyawiin chapter. Then again, ColdTyrant does write that they've given you the option of making the top floor of the Leyawiin guildhall your hangout by switching around the NPC schedules, making it a bit harder to moan. All in all, it sounds cool, and an interesting option if you fancy creating a character that makes their living in a similar fashion to The Witcher's big Gerry. You might as well, it's Oblivion, so there's a 95% chance your character's appearance is already freaky in a way that might lead to them being shunned by most of society. If you fancy giving Fighter's Guild - Infinitum a go, you'll need to grab the mod's requirements - Oblivion Remastered's UE4SS and UE4SS TesSyncMapInjector. It's also worth noting that ColdTyrant's suggested in the mod page's comments section that their next project is going to be an Oblivion Remastered mod like this for the Imperial City's Arena. Say hi to Modryn Oreyn for me if you decide to join the Fighters Guild in your next playthrough, and make sure to check out the rest of our ongoing Oblivion Remastered mod coverage.

Rewilding, Rigour and Radical Care: Practice Visits in CopenhagenCopenhagen’s architecture is generous to the public realm and Copenhagen’s architects were even more so to us. Day two began at the shared office space of Johansen Skovsted Arkitekter, Djernes & Bell and Kim Lenschow, over coffee and Baku pastries. In this collaborative, little ecosystem of a workplace, the three practices share lunch, end-of-year parties and knowledge – a testament to the collaborative nature that ran through all of the practices we visited. Johansen Skovsted’s extensive experience in architectural reuse, landscape rewilding and rewetting offered a fascinating approach to working within existing ecological systems and utilising architecture to improve components of that as opposed to reworking the entire structure of the landscape. It’s an approach that can inform our work in various remote Indigenous communities in Australia, where we should be looking for smaller-scale solutions that support existing social, cultural, and environmental systems, rather than attempting to rebuild them. As Djernes & Bell director Justine Bell reminded us, that is not the role of the architect.Bell remarked that the architect’s role in this work lies in our professional expertise in land use, existing structures, storytelling and the synergy in communicating potential futures – how landscapes can look and how buildings can feel. Their rigour in material testing and resource-mapping encouraged vigorous conversation around climactic materiality, vernacular architecture and construction methods. Bell, a South African architect, noted that both Australia and South Africa often look to Europe for answers, when, in fact, more relevant ideas are emerging from home. As many Australian architects grapple  with integrating colonial vernaculars with Indigenous knowledge systems, we can also look to vernacular architecture, not to overly romanticise it, but to understand and reinterpret these ideas through a contemporary lens. These kinds of projects rely on the humility of the architect to engage with experts in agriculture, biology, geology, rewetting and research.Through Copenhagen’s built environment principle of not building new, we’ve come to understand – through the lens of these architectural practitioners – the idea of making what is necessary with what is available. The labour involved in reusing existing buildings, conducting material research and constructing the architecture that has been redefining Copenhagen for the past decade reflects the same care that continues to be invested in a building throughout its life span.“Buildings that have included the most labour are taken care of the most,” said Bell. I’ve seen this ethos at work first-hand in my own work in regional and remote communities in Australia. When communities are involved in the design – through consultation, iterative design and revalidating form translation – and in the construction – by engaging local builders, sub-contractors, suppliers, ongoing contracts, the buildings are valued as more than just structure and form. They become  part of the system of the community: spatially, economically and culturally. The post DST Day 2 – Marni Reti appeared first on Australian Institute of Architects.