Of all the jarring things I’ve witnessed on the National Mall, nothing will beat the image of the first thing I saw after I cleared security at the Army festival: a child, sitting at the controls of an M119A3 Howitzer, being instructed by a soldier on how to aim it, as his red-hatted parents took a photo with the Washington Monument in the background. The primary stated reason for the Grand Military Parade is to celebrate the US Army’s 250th birthday. The second stated reason is to use the event for recruiting purposes. Like other military branches, the Army has struggled to meet its enlistment quotas for over the past decade. And according to very defensive Army spokespeople trying to convince skeptics that the parade was not for Donald Trump’s birthday, there had always been a festival planned on the National Mall that day, and it had been in the works for over two years, and the parade, tacked on just two months ago, was purely incidental. Assuming that their statement was true, I wasn’t quite sure if they had anticipated so many people in blatant MAGA swag in attendance — or how eager they were to bring their children and hand them assault rifles. WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 14: An Army festival attendee holds a M3 Carl Gustav Recoilless Rifle on June 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. Photo by Anna Moneymaker / Getty ImagesThere had been kid-friendly events planned: an NFL Kids Zone with a photo op with the Washington Commanders’ mascot, a few face-painting booths, several rock-climbing walls. But they were dwarfed, literally, by dozens of war machines parked along the jogging paths: massive tanks, trucks with gun-mounted turrets, assault helicopters, many of them currently used in combat, all with helpful signs explaining the history of each vehicle, as well as the guns and ammo it could carry. And the families — wearing everything from J6 shirts to Vineyard Vines — were drawn more to the military vehicles, all-too-ready to place their kids in the cockpit of an AH-1F Cobra 998 helicopter as they pretended to aim the nose-mounted 3-barrelled Gatling Cannon. Parents told their children to smile as they poked their little heads out of the hatch of an M1135 Stryker armored vehicle; reminded them to be patient as they waited in line to sit inside an M109A7 self-propelled Howitzer with a 155MM rifled cannon.Attendees look at a military vehicle on display. Bloomberg via Getty ImagesBut seeing a kid’s happiness of being inside a big thing that goes boom was nothing compared to the grownups’ faces when they got the chance to hold genuine military assault rifles — especially the grownups who had made sure to wear Trump merch during the Army’s birthday party. (Some even handed the rifles to their children for their own photo ops.) It seemed that not even a free Army-branded Bluetooth speaker could compare to how fucking sick the modded AR-15 was. Attendees were in raptures over the Boston Dynamics robot dog gun, the quadcopter drone gun, or really any of the other guns available (except for those historic guns, those were only maybe cool).RelatedHowever many protesters made it out to DC, they were dwarfed by thousands of people winding down Constitution Avenue to enter the parade viewing grounds: lots of MAGA heads, lots of foreign tourists, all people who really just like to see big, big tanks. “Angry LOSERS!” they jeered at the protesters. (“Don’t worry about them,” said one cop, “they lost anyways.”) and after walking past them, crossing the bridge, winding through hundreds of yards of metal fencing, Funneling through security, crossing a choked pedestrian bridge over Constitution Ave, I was finally dumped onto the parade viewing section: slightly muggy and surprisingly navigable. But whatever sluggishness the crowd was feeling, it would immediately dissipate the moment a tank turned the corner — and the music started blasting.Americans have a critical weakness for 70s and 80s rock, and this crowd seemed more than willing to look past the questionable origins of the parade so long as the soundtrack had a sick guitar solo. An M1 Abrams tank driving past you while Barracuda blasts on a tower of speakers? Badass. Black Hawk helicopters circling the Washington Monument and disappearing behind the African-American history museum, thrashing your head to “separate ways” by Journey? Fucking badass. ANOTHER M1 ABRAMS TANK?!?!! AND TO FORTUNATE SON??!?!? “They got me fucking hooked,” a young redheaded man said behind me as the crowd screamed for the waving drivers. (The tank was so badass that the irony of “Fortunate Son” didn’t matter.)Members of the U.S. Army drive Bradley Fighting Vehicles in the 250th birthday parade on June 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. Getty ImagesWhen you listen to the hardest fucking rock soundtrack long enough, and learn more about how fucking sick the Bradley Fighting Vehicles streaming by you are (either from the parade announcer or the tank enthusiast next to you), an animalistic hype takes over you — enough to drown out all the nationwide anger about the parade, the enormity of Trump’s power grab, the fact that two Minnesota Democratic lawmakers were shot in their homes just that morning, the riot police roving the streets of LA.It helped that it didn’t rain. It helped that the only people at the parade were the diehards who didn’t care if they were rained out. And by the end of the parade, they didn’t even bother to stay for Trump’s speech, beelining back to the bridge at the first drop of rain.The only thing that mattered to this crowd inside the security perimeter — more than the Army’s honor and history, and barely more than Trump himself — was firepower, strength, hard rock, and America’s unparalleled, world-class ability to kill.See More:

Few issues in the U.S. today are as controversial as diversity, equity, and inclusion—commonly referred to as DEI. Although the term didn’t come into common usage until the 21st century, DEI is best understood as the latest stage in a long American project. Its egalitarian principles are seen in America’s founding documents, and its roots lie in landmark 20th-century efforts such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and affirmative action policies, as well as movements for racial justice, gender equity, disability rights, veterans, and immigrants. These movements sought to expand who gets to participate in economic, educational, and civic life. DEI programs, in many ways, are their legacy. Critics argue that DEI is antidemocratic, that it fosters ideological conformity, and that it leads to discriminatory initiatives, which they say disadvantage white people and undermine meritocracy. Those defending DEI argue just the opposite: that it encourages critical thinking and promotes democracy—and that attacks on DEI amount to a retreat from long-standing civil rights law. Yet missing from much of the debate is a crucial question: What are the tangible costs and benefits of DEI? Who benefits, who doesn’t, and what are the broader effects on society and the economy? As a sociologist, I believe any productive conversation about DEI should be rooted in evidence, not ideology. So let’s look at the research. Who gains from DEI? In the corporate world, DEI initiatives are intended to promote diversity, and research consistently shows that diversity is good for business. Companies with more diverse teams tend to perform better across several key metrics, including revenue, profitability, and worker satisfaction. Businesses with diverse workforces also have an edge in innovation, recruitment, and competitiveness, research shows. The general trend holds for many types of diversity, including age, race, and ethnicity, and gender. A focus on diversity can also offer profit opportunities for businesses seeking new markets. Two-thirds of American consumers consider diversity when making their shopping choices, a 2021 survey found. So-called “inclusive consumers” tend to be female, younger, and more ethnically and racially diverse. Ignoring their values can be costly: When Target backed away from its DEI efforts, the resulting backlash contributed to a sales decline. But DEI goes beyond corporate policy. At its core, it’s about expanding access to opportunities for groups historically excluded from full participation in American life. From this broader perspective, many 20th-century reforms can be seen as part of the DEI arc. Consider higher education. Many elite U.S. universities refused to admit women until well into the 1960s and 1970s. Columbia, the last Ivy League university to go co-ed, started admitting women in 1982. Since the advent of affirmative action, women haven’t just closed the gender gap in higher education—they outpace men in college completion across all racial groups. DEI policies have particularly benefited women, especially white women, by expanding workforce access. Similarly, the push to desegregate American universities was followed by an explosion in the number of Black college students—a number that has increased by 125% since the 1970s, twice the national rate. With college gates open to more people than ever, overall enrollment at U.S. colleges has quadrupled since 1965. While there are many reasons for this, expanding opportunity no doubt plays a role. And a better-educated population has had significant implications for productivity and economic growth. The 1965 Immigration Act also exemplifies DEI’s impact. It abolished racial and national quotas, enabling the immigration of more diverse populations, including from Asia, Africa, southern and eastern Europe, and Latin America. Many of these immigrants were highly educated, and their presence has boosted U.S. productivity and innovation. Ultimately, the U.S. economy is more profitable and productive as a result of immigrants. What does DEI cost? While DEI generates returns for many businesses and institutions, it does come with costs. In 2020, corporate America spent an estimated $7.5 billion on DEI programs. And in 2023, the federal government spent more than $100 million on DEI, including $38.7 million by the Department of Health and Human Services and another $86.5 million by the Department of Defense. The government will no doubt be spending less on DEI in 2025. One of President Donald Trump’s first acts in his second term was to sign an executive order banning DEI practices in federal agencies—one of several anti-DEI executive orders currently facing legal challenges. More than 30 states have also introduced or enacted bills to limit or entirely restrict DEI in recent years. Central to many of these policies is the belief that diversity lowers standards, replacing meritocracy with mediocrity. But a large body of research disputes this claim. For example, a 2023 McKinsey & Company report found that companies with higher levels of gender and ethnic diversity will likely financially outperform those with the least diversity by at least 39%. Similarly, concerns that DEI in science and technology education leads to lowering standards aren’t backed up by scholarship. Instead, scholars are increasingly pointing out that disparities in performance are linked to built-in biases in courses themselves. That said, legal concerns about DEI are rising. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Justice have recently warned employers that some DEI programs may violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Anecdotal evidence suggests that reverse discrimination claims, particularly from white men, are increasing, and legal experts expect the Supreme Court to lower the burden of proof needed by complainants for such cases. The issue remains legally unsettled. But while the cases work their way through the courts, women and people of color will continue to shoulder much of the unpaid volunteer work that powers corporate DEI initiatives. This pattern raises important equity concerns within DEI itself. What lies ahead for DEI? People’s fears of DEI are partly rooted in demographic anxiety. Since the U.S. Census Bureau projected in 2008 that non-Hispanic white people would become a minority in the U.S by the year 2042, nationwide news coverage has amplified white fears of displacement. Research indicates many white men experience this change as a crisis of identity and masculinity, particularly amid economic shifts such as the decline of blue-collar work. This perception aligns with research showing that white Americans are more likely to believe DEI policies disadvantage white men than white women. At the same time, in spite of DEI initiatives, women and people of color are most likely to be underemployed and living in poverty regardless of how much education they attain. The gender wage gap remains stark: In 2023, women working full time earned a median weekly salary of $1,005 compared with $1,202 for men—just 83.6% of what men earned. Over a 40-year career, that adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost earnings. For Black and Latina women, the disparities are even worse, with one source estimating lifetime losses at $976,800 and $1.2 million, respectively. Racism, too, carries an economic toll. A 2020 analysis from Citi found that systemic racism has cost the U.S. economy $16 trillion since 2000. The same analysis found that addressing these disparities could have boosted Black wages by $2.7 trillion, added up to $113 billion in lifetime earnings through higher college enrollment, and generated $13 trillion in business revenue, creating 6.1 million jobs annually. In a moment of backlash and uncertainty, I believe DEI remains a vital if imperfect tool in the American experiment of inclusion. Rather than abandon it, the challenge now, from my perspective, is how to refine it: grounding efforts not in slogans or fear, but in fairness and evidence. Rodney Coates is a professor of critical race and ethnic studies at Miami University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Quebec Culture Minister Mathieu Lacombe has introduced Bill 109, which would require streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify to feature and prioritize French-language content. CBC.ca reports: Bill 109 has been in the works for over a year. It marks the first time that Quebec would set a "visibility quota" for French-language content on major streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney and Spotify. [...] The legislation, titled An Act to affirm the cultural sovereignty of Quebec and to enact the Act respecting the discoverability of French-language cultural content in the digital environment, would apply to every digital platform that offers a service for watching videos or listening to music and audiobooks online. Those include Canadian platforms such as Illico, Crave and Tou.tv. It would amend the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to enshrine "the right to discoverability of and access to original French-language cultural content." If the bill is adopted, streaming platforms and television manufacturers would be forced to present interfaces for screening online videos in French by default. Those interfaces would need to provide access to platforms that offer original French-language cultural content based on the government's pending criteria. Financial penalties would be imposed on companies that don't follow the rules. If the business models of some companies prevent them from keeping to the letter of the proposed law, companies would be allowed to enter into an agreement with the Quebec government to set out "substitute measures" to fulfil Bill 109 obligations differently. "We don't want to exempt them. We're telling them, 'let's negotiate substitute measures,'" Lacombe told reporters. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Author Project Overview“Clocked In” :A multiplayer survival-stealth game set in a retro PSX-style office environment. Players take on the roles of office workers striving to meet weekly quotas to avoid termination. Each in-game day runs from 9 AM to 5 PM, during which players must complete tasks, manage stress levels, and evade roaming adversaries like aggressive supervisors and tattletale interns. The game spans four in-game weeks, with escalating challenges each week. Success is measured by meeting individual quotas, and top performers are rewarded with the "Employee of the Month" title, granting stress relief benefits. I'm planning to develop this game using the GODOT engine.Goal: Meet weekly quotas or get “terminated”Loop: 9 AM–5 PM workdays, manage stress, avoid supervisors & tattletalesProgression: Four in-game weeks, escalating challenges, “Employee of the Month” rewardsEngine: Godot  Looking forGame Visual DesignerPrimarily 3D modeling & animation2D art and UX/UI skills a plus Our Talent So Far2× Programmers (Godot)2× Sound Designers1.5× 3D Artist (placeholder assets)1× Game Designer (me as a 3D artist) Timeline~1 year (flexible; room for extensions & creative input) ContactDiscord: scuffedalex9 please DM if interested!

In this tutorial, we lean hard on Together AI’s growing ecosystem to show how quickly we can turn unstructured text into a question-answering service that cites its sources. We’ll scrape a handful of live web pages, slice them into coherent chunks, and feed those chunks to the togethercomputer/m2-bert-80M-8k-retrieval embedding model. Those vectors land in a FAISS index for millisecond similarity search, after which a lightweight ChatTogether model drafts answers that stay grounded in the retrieved passages. Because Together AI handles embeddings and chat behind a single API key, we avoid juggling multiple providers, quotas, or SDK dialects. !pip -q install --upgrade langchain-core langchain-community langchain-together faiss-cpu tiktoken beautifulsoup4 html2text This quiet (-q) pip command upgrades and installs everything the Colab RAG needs. It pulls core LangChain libraries plus the Together AI integration, FAISS for vector search, token-handling with tiktoken, and lightweight HTML parsing via beautifulsoup4 and html2text, ensuring the notebook runs end-to-end without additional setup. import os, getpass, warnings, textwrap, json if "TOGETHER_API_KEY" not in os.environ: os.environ["TOGETHER_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("🔑 Enter your Together API key: ") We check whether the TOGETHER_API_KEY environment variable is already set; if not, it securely prompts us for the key with getpass and stores it in os.environ. The rest of the notebook can call Together AI’s API without hard‑coding secrets or exposing them in plain text by capturing the credentials once per runtime. from langchain_community.document_loaders import WebBaseLoader URLS = [ "https://python.langchain.com/docs/integrations/text_embedding/together/", "https://api.together.xyz/", "https://together.ai/blog" ] raw_docs = WebBaseLoader(URLS).load() WebBaseLoader fetches each URL, strips boilerplate, and returns LangChain Document objects containing the clean page text plus metadata. By passing a list of Together-related links, we immediately collect live documentation and blog content that will later be chunked and embedded for semantic search. from langchain.text_splitter import RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter splitter = RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter(chunk_size=800, chunk_overlap=100) docs = splitter.split_documents(raw_docs) print(f"Loaded {len(raw_docs)} pages → {len(docs)} chunks after splitting.") RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter slices every fetched page into ~800-character segments with a 100-character overlap so contextual clues aren’t lost at chunk boundaries. The resulting list docs holds these bite-sized LangChain Document objects, and the printout shows how many chunks were produced from the original pages, essential prep for high-quality embedding. from langchain_together.embeddings import TogetherEmbeddings embeddings = TogetherEmbeddings( model="togethercomputer/m2-bert-80M-8k-retrieval" ) from langchain_community.vectorstores import FAISS vector_store = FAISS.from_documents(docs, embeddings) Here we instantiate Together AI’s 80 M-parameter m2-bert retrieval model as a drop-in LangChain embedder, then feed every text chunk into it while FAISS.from_documents builds an in-memory vector index. The resulting vector store supports millisecond-level cosine searches, turning our scraped pages into a searchable semantic database. from langchain_together.chat_models import ChatTogether llm = ChatTogether( model="mistralai/Mistral-7B-Instruct-v0.3", temperature=0.2, max_tokens=512, ) ChatTogether wraps a chat-tuned model hosted on Together AI, Mistral-7B-Instruct-v0.3 to be used like any other LangChain LLM. A low temperature of 0.2 keeps answers grounded and repeatable, while max_tokens=512 leaves room for detailed, multi-paragraph responses without runaway cost. from langchain.chains import RetrievalQA qa_chain = RetrievalQA.from_chain_type( llm=llm, chain_type="stuff", retriever=vector_store.as_retriever(search_kwargs={"k": 4}), return_source_documents=True, ) RetrievalQA stitches the pieces together: it takes our FAISS retriever (returning the top 4 similar chunks) and feeds those snippets into the llm using the simple “stuff” prompt template. Setting return_source_documents=True means each answer will return with the exact passages it relied on, giving us instant, citation-ready Q-and-A. QUESTION = "How do I use TogetherEmbeddings inside LangChain, and what model name should I pass?" result = qa_chain(QUESTION) print("n🤖 Answer:n", textwrap.fill(result['result'], 100)) print("n📄 Sources:") for doc in result['source_documents']: print(" •", doc.metadata['source']) Finally, we send a natural-language query through the qa_chain, which retrieves the four most relevant chunks, feeds them to the ChatTogether model, and returns a concise answer. It then prints the formatted response, followed by a list of source URLs, giving us both the synthesized explanation and transparent citations in one shot. Output from the Final Cell In conclusion, in roughly fifty lines of code, we built a complete RAG loop powered end-to-end by Together AI: ingest, embed, store, retrieve, and converse. The approach is deliberately modular, swap FAISS for Chroma, trade the 80 M-parameter embedder for Together’s larger multilingual model, or plug in a reranker without touching the rest of the pipeline. What remains constant is the convenience of a unified Together AI backend: fast, affordable embeddings, chat models tuned for instruction following, and a generous free tier that makes experimentation painless. Use this template to bootstrap an internal knowledge assistant, a documentation bot for customers, or a personal research aide. Check out the Colab Notebook here. Also, feel free to follow us on Twitter and don’t forget to join our 90k+ ML SubReddit. Asif RazzaqWebsite |  + postsBioAsif Razzaq is the CEO of Marktechpost Media Inc.. As a visionary entrepreneur and engineer, Asif is committed to harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence for social good. His most recent endeavor is the launch of an Artificial Intelligence Media Platform, Marktechpost, which stands out for its in-depth coverage of machine learning and deep learning news that is both technically sound and easily understandable by a wide audience. The platform boasts of over 2 million monthly views, illustrating its popularity among audiences.Asif Razzaqhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/6flvq/Agent-Based Debugging Gets a Cost-Effective Alternative: Salesforce AI Presents SWERank for Accurate and Scalable Software Issue LocalizationAsif Razzaqhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/6flvq/A Step-by-Step Guide to Deploy a Fully Integrated Firecrawl-Powered MCP Server on Claude Desktop with Smithery and VeryaXAsif Razzaqhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/6flvq/OpenAI Releases HealthBench: An Open-Source Benchmark for Measuring the Performance and Safety of Large Language Models in HealthcareAsif Razzaqhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/6flvq/PrimeIntellect Releases INTELLECT-2: A 32B Reasoning Model Trained via Distributed Asynchronous Reinforcement Learning

Nintendo president reiterates US tariffs did not affect Switch 2 price Shuntaro Furukawa said higher price was due to manufacturing costs, consumer impressions, market conditions, and exchange rates Image credit: Nintendo News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on May 13, 2025 Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has made it clear that the US tariffs did not factor into the Switch 2's higher price point. In an earnings call Q&A published yesterday, Furukawa said the ¥49,980/$499.99/£395.99 price was determined by manufacturing costs, consumer impressions, market conditions, and exchange rates. "For software, in addition to the same factors, we also take into account rises in costs, due to aspects such as increased game file size and extended development periods, when determining price," he said. "Going forward, we will continue to consider appropriate prices for each title when it comes to software prices." "Hardware involves special factors such as tariffs, and we will take into account factors like those we just described, while conducting careful and repeated deliberations when determining price." Speaking of tariffs, Furukawa explained why they did not affect the base price of the Switch 2. "Our basic policy is that for any country or region, if tariffs are imposed, we recognise them as part of the cost and incorporate them into the price," he explained. "However, this year marks our first new dedicated video game system launch in eight years, so given our unique situation, our priority is to maintain the momentum of our platforms, which is extremely important for our dedicated video game platform business. "Consequently, if the assumptions on tariffs change, we will consider what kind of price adjustments would be appropriate, taking into account various factors such as the market conditions." The higher price of the Nintendo Switch 2 also factored into the firm's sales forecast for the console. As highlighted in its financial results for the full year, it expects hardware sales of 15 million and software sales of 45 million. Furukawa said the 15 million figure was set in an attempt to meet the "same level of sales" as the Switch did in its first ten months of sale (that being between March 2017 and December 2017), which was 10 million units. "The Switch 2 is priced relatively high compared to the Switch, so we recognise that there are corresponding challenges to early adoption," he noted. "That being said, the Switch 2 can play compatible Switch software, so there is continuity between the platforms. "We are taking steps like building software with the hardware to accelerate adoption in the first fiscal year, aiming to get off to the same start we did with the Switch." Image credit: Nintendo Last month, Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser said "longevity" was also a factor for the Switch 2's higher price point. "We want to make sure that this is a device that is approachable, that consumers will see as part of their overall entertainment experience and will understand that it has longevity to it," Bowser said. "And all of those factors really go into the consideration of the price." Furukawa emphasised that its "hardware production capacity" did not affect its forecast, and neither did "the tariff situation in the US or a possibility of a recession." "In order to achieve sales of 15 million units, we will need to manufacture the hardware in quantities greater than that," he reiterated. "Our first goal is to get off to the same start we did with the Switch, and we are working to strengthen our production capacity so we can respond flexibly to demand." When asked whether limits to production capacity affected the forecast, Furukawa confirmed there was no limit and that Nintendo continues "to strengthen [its] production capability." "Our plan is to continually produce and ship significant numbers of Switch 2 units going forward," he explained. "To achieve a certain level of sales, we believe it is necessary to maintain momentum throughout the year, not just at the start, so we set this figure as the number of our initial plan." As for its software forecast, Furukawa highlighted the "robust lineup" of titles from software publishers this time around compared to the Switch launch, and Switch 2 editions of Switch games. "This fiscal year, we will aim for the target we have set as the sales volume forecast, strengthen our production capacity to respond to recent increased demand, and focus on promoting sales in an effort to exceed our forecast," he added. "The momentum we have immediately after the Switch 2 launch is important, of course, but the challenge we face is how to sustain that momentum and carry it into the holiday season."