Recruiting the best cybersecurity talent is an especially difficult task. Good people are very hard to find in a tight labor market where demand effortlessly outstrips supply.
You've been asked for a Vulnerability Assessment Report for your organisation and for some of you reading this article, your first thought is likely to be "What is that?"
Worry not. This article will answer that very question as well as why you need a Vulnerability Assessment Report and where you can get one from.
As it's likely the request for such a report came from an important source such
As written about earlier this week, concerns have been raised over the "new" NTFS Linux driver that it's effectively unmaintained already less than one year after being mainlined. Linus Torvalds has since commented on the matter and opens up the door for other developers to maintain it...
The Intel ARC A770 graphics card was recently tested through the Puget Bench DaVinci Resolve benchmarking software. During the output released on the Internet, the graphics driver used for the test was unknown — 30.0.101.1723. When there is a separate branch created for an overarching driver, it will at times signify that there is unreleased hardware being used, raising questions as to the mysterious parts in question.
The newest Intel driver (version 30.0.101.1723) appears after the drivers for the Intel ARC 1330 and iGPU 1660 variants (the numbers replacing the '1723' in the version). The new driver version may be preplanned to support the latest desktop ARC graphics cards. However, this is currently under speculation as Intel has not commented on the recent string.
The last driver was published on April 8th, and that was close to 1.5 weeks after the launch of the new ARC GPU laptop series. The driver delivered fixes for the first initial period after launch. However, the list of current issues remains to be quite lengthy. ARC-based GPUs shipped with the Intel ARC Control software currently use their versions. Intel has yet to confirm if the company plans to merge any of the multiple drivers into one single driver.
Source: PugetBench Results
The Puget Bench DaVinci test examines the rendering of graphics with an expansive scope of codecs at 4K and 8K resolutions (only for Extended presets), OpenFX, and other quality performance in Fusion. It is not a benchmark test to measure performance or quality.
In the leaked information and engineering board typically used for Intel employee testing purposes, the 'CoffeeLake S UDIMM RVP' was utilized, as well as the Intel Core i5-9600K CPU, which is also used in internal internal internal testing by the company. In addition to the PugetBench benchmark, the Arc Alchemist A770 has reappeared within the Geekbench benchmark, now with a 3% performance boost compared to the previous entry. While this is an improvement, it's still a far cry from the competing options from AMD (RX 6700 XT) and NVIDIA (RTX 3070).
Intel Arc Alchemist A770 desktop gaming graphics card has been tested once again in Geekbench. (Image Credits: Benchleaks)
Intel's newest ARC A770 is an ACM-G10-based graphics card for desktops. The graphics card will launch with 8GB and 16GB of GDDR6 memory. It is also anticipated to compete with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 and 3070 series of cards in terms of performance. However, as we have reported before, Intel has been relatively silent about performance data before the release, so we will need to wait a little longer before seeing accurate data from the tech manufacturer.
(The Morning Watchis a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fanmade productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows.)
In this edition, prepare your emotions because Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, and Sam Neill have reunited to talk about the legacy of "Jurassic Park." Plus, HBO is giving us a behind-the-scenes look at what went into making the third season of "Barry." And finally, if you've ever wanted to learn how to make Ichiraku Ramen from "Naruto," we've found a video with step-by-step instructions on how to make it for yourself at home.
Friendship, Uh, Finds A Way
We've known for quite some time that "Jurassic World Dominion" would find Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, and Sam Neill reprising their respective roles Dr. Ian Malcolm, Dr. Ellie Sattler, and Dr. Alan Grant from the original "Jurassic Park." But until the film hits theaters in June, and I can see them on screen for myself, I'm going to still believe this is just an elaborate prank set up by the universe to destroy our hopes and dreams. As the press tour for the film gears up, our favorite trio sat down with Vanity Fair to deliver an oral history of the film that brought them all together in the first place. They tell hilarious never-before-heard stories, reminisce about the experience on set, and yes, Goldblum finally addresses the infamous "naughty" open-shirt scene. Every second of this retelling is an absolute delight, and it's a great way to get hyped for "Jurassic World Dominion."
It's The Return Of Barry
"This is a season that is mindblowing," says Henry Winkler in this third season featurette for the series "Barry." If season 3 is anything like the first two seasons,we should take his word for it. After an agonizing wait of over three years, the series focused on Bill Hader's low-level hitman/wannabe actor Barry Berkman/Block is finally back and ready to go out with a bang. In this video from HBO, members of the cast give their take on what to expect. "This season is very unhinged," says Hader. Cristobal Sifuentes and NoHo Hank are dancing with danger as they continue their "Romeo & Juliet" style romance, Sally's got a new show, and Barry ...well, he's being Barry. The series just premiered the first episode of the new season last weekend, and new episodes release every Sunday.
'What I Like Is Ramen, Especially The Kind At The Ichiraku Ramen Shop'
The anime series "Naruto" is one of the most popular series in the entire world, and the fandom extends far beyond enjoying the plot and character development. Anime art style allows for a lot of creative adventure, but the so-called "food porn" in anime is truly on another level. The young ninja Naruto Uzumaki is known for his love of ramen, specifically, the large miso and char siu ramen from his favorite shop, Ichiraku Ramen. In an episode of "Anime with Alvin," as part of the popular Babish Culinary Universe YouTube channel, host Alvin Zhou provides an ingredient-by-ingredient, step-by-step instructional guide to making Naruto's favorite ramen. The surprisingly labor intensive dish looks absolutely exquisite and should hopefully instill a greater respect for the hard work that ramen shops all across the world put in to bring such delicious dishes to us all.
Cybersecurity agencies in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand have shared a list of the 15 most exploited vulnerabilities of 2021.
At least, that’s what VentureBeat journalist Jeff Grubb said in his latest “Jeff Grubb’s Game Mess” episode when asked about the Zelda ports for Nintendo’s hybrid platform. Both Zelda games have long been rumored to receive a Switch release, and many expected Nintendo to release the games as part of Zelda’s 35th anniversary last year. Unfortunately, both titles weren’t officially announced and Nintendo even said that it, aside from the Zelda Game & Watch, doesn’t have “any [Zelda] campaigns or other Nintendo Switch games planned” as part of the celebration.
Still, despite Nintendo sort of debunking Switch ports of The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, various outlets believe that both games are still getting a Switch port at some point.
As mentioned by Grubb in his video, it doesn’t make any sense for Nintendo to not release these older Zelda installments on the Switch. “They want to have a Zelda game every year, and they have been holding onto this, why wouldn’t they just put it out this year”, the journalist said. “And if they don’t put this out or some other Zelda thing this year, instead of just waiting for Breath of the Wild 2, I just will not understand.”
Grubb added, “I think that this game [Wind Waker and Twilight Princess bundle], as much as it was a joke in the Megabit 64 video, I do believe it actually comes out in October.”
The VentureBeat journalist also believes that the rumored Metroid Prime Remaster is releasing later this year, possibly this November.
“I think we get Metroid Prime 1 Remaster in November, and then I think we get Advance Wars 1+2 in December.”
Although Grubb believes that the Zelda bundle for Switch is releasing this October, it could also arrive in September. “I suppose Zelda could come out in September maybe, but they already got some games in September so October still sounds right to me.”
What are your thoughts about this? Are we still getting Twilight Princess and Wind Waker for the Switch, and what about the Metroid Prime remaster? Hit the comments down below.
It's safe to say that most of us take for granted how much time and effort goes into developing and manufacturing the components that make up a gaming PC, right down to the last nanometer. However, Ayar Labs envisions a future in which our systems communicate via optical connections rather than semiconductors, and its work is piquing the interest and lightening the wallets of some industry heavyweights.
Ayar Labs has attracted investment from the likes of HP, Intel, and Nvidia, which partially speaks to how the start-up's optical technology could transform every corner of the gaming PC market. It appears that chip-to-chip optical connectivity could be of benefit to the best gaming CPUs made by Intel, and conversely Nvidia's best graphics cards by circumventing current technological bottlenecks.
Billy Dally, chief scientist and senior VP of research at Nvidia, says that "optical connectivity will be important to meet the fast-growing demands of AI and HPC workloads." Paul Glaser from HP echoes this sentiment, but speaks more generally that the technology is "crucial to supporting the high-performance computing architectures of the future."
The first season of "Star Trek: Picard," perhaps infamously, was replete with violence and murder. Not an episode passed without one of the show's major characters killing someone. Even the mild-mannered Dr. Jurati (Alison Pill) poisoned an old lover. "Picard" even featured a sword-wielding Romulan samurai in the form of Elnor (Evan Evagora) who could take off people's heads as they would their own hats. Season 2, at least at the start, seemed to be eschewing that clunky, idiotic brutality for something more akin to several classical "Star Trek: The Next Generation" stories. Perhaps it would be about investigating history and causality, and not about vaporizing victims or ripping out eyeballs.
In "Hide and Seek," the penultimate episode of this season of "Star Trek: Picard," audiences are finally treated to the gunfire, violence, and murder they were missing (?). This is the episode wherein Raffi (Michelle Hurd) and Seven (Jeri Ryan) bond romantically over their shared thrusting of a knife into a victim's eye socket. This is the episode wherein the dead Elnor is resurrected in hologram form, specifically for the purpose of murdering infiltrators. This is a "Star Trek" episode that employs the incredibly dull comic book trope that it's okay to commit mass murder if the victims are wearing black, have guns, and are robotic in some way.
"Hide and Seek," carrying over from the previous episode, features a small army of Borg-ified killers led by Adam Soong (Brent Spiner) and Dr. Jurati, now 99% under the influence of the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching). Elnor, Raffi, and Seven lay waste to the infiltrators on board the La Sirena, while Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Tallinn (Orla Brady) evade capture back at the château. Oh yes, and Capt. Rios (Santiago Cabrera) hides out from invaders with his 21st-century paramour Dr. Ramirez (Sol Rodriguez). There are a few twists and turns, but it's the death the showrunners seem most interested in.
Picard's Mother
A running motif throughout this season of "Picard" has been the fate of the title character's mother, seen periodically in flashbacks, and the center of the plot in the seventh episode "Monsters." throughout the series, Picard has experienced flashbacks to his childhood wherein he recalled a dark game of Hide and Seek, wherein his mother was locked in a basement room by his father. In "Monsters," it was made explicit that Picard's mother Yvette (Madeline Wise) was bipolar and that his father Maurice (James Callis) had to sternly aid her mental illness. Picard's dark childhood memories are something Trekkies previously did not know about the character, I suppose, but the introduction of all this material has little to do with the plot or the (hardly extant) themes of the season. Picard had mixed feelings about his stern father and would — as learned in this episode — have to reveal that his mother died by suicide, found hanging in the very greenhouse where she and young Jean-Luc used to gaze up at the stars.
This is certainly tragic and dramatic, but — aggravatingly — does not reveal anything new about Picard's character. It did nothing to explain who he was today, his relationships with others, his decisions to become a Starfleet officer, anything of significance. All we know is that he had a traumatic experience as a child. At nearly 100 years of age, it seems Picard might have previously processed his grief, come to terms with it, and might be able to talk about it more frankly. Recall that Picard served aboard a starship wherein he always had a professional psychiatrist sitting to his left, and who would call him into his ready room whenever things seemed difficult for him. "Next Generation" offered mental health services 24/7 for whoever needed them. The trauma story that "Picard" limply tries to communicate seems cheap, given the franchise's former depiction of mental health care.
It's A Borg Queen After All
In the previous episode, Dr. Jurati was seen drinking battery fluid and eating car parts in order to build up the minerals in her bloodstream and allow the Borg Queen, already in control of her mind, to become more Borg-ified. Then, with the newly regained ability to assimilate people, she Borg-ified a small group of mercenaries. In "Hide and Seek," Jurati becomes even more Borg-y, having made her way back to the Borg Queen's corpse, and all the Borg implants therein. She now has snakey computerized veins stretching across her face, and has acquired a set of Dr. Octopus tentacles sprouting from her back. Having imbibed Borg bits back into her body, the Borg baroness bulldozes the barge's brain. Before she can take control, however, Dr. Jurati stops her from within her own mind.
Jurati and the Borg Queen have a subconscious conversation — envisioned as Pill and Wersching having a face-to-face talk — about the true nature of the Borg. Pill's character points out that throughout history, the Borg have always lost and that assimilating people forcibly has left them as villains in the eyes of the galaxy. Pill explains that the true "collective" is not a mechanically shared consciousness, but a diverse group of friends who love each other. Bafflingly, the Borg Queen sees her point and elects to take over the galaxy ... with kindness. Something tells me that the Borg have encountered gentleness, love, togetherness, and family in the past, and merely erased those things.
In the 1996 film "Star Trek: First Contact," Trekkies were first introduced to the conceit that the Borg weren't a machine collective, but a beehive with a queen. A queen who was emotional, lascivious, and sinister. In that film, the Queen (Alice Krige) made for a fun villain but took the cold, unstoppable, machine-like threat away from the Borg. Now they were a species that could be hoodwinked, appealed to, emotionally manipulated. That version of the Borg was continued into "Star Trek: Voyager" (1995 - 2001) wherein they were made less threatening than ever, with Borg stories involving deals and negotiations, and a two-part episode wherein the Voyager crew was deliberately assimilated. knowing they could undo the process later.
In "Picard," the Borg Queen only required a thirty-second pep talk to turn from evil to good. These universe-altering pep talks are common this season.
Status Quo
And, in a nod to restoring the status quo, the newly reformed Queen — still in Jurati's body — uses her Borg powers to heal an injured Seven, restoring the exact same Bog facial implants as she had previously.
At the end of season one, Picard was transformed into an android. In this season, Seven is cured of her implants only to have them restored, Elnor is turned into a hologram, and Jurati fuses her brain with a malevolent computer intelligence. The characters in this show are moving further and further away from organic humanity, and closer and closer to artificial life. Meanwhile, the villainous Dr. Soong is seen as wicked for wanting to manipulate genes and "improve" humanity with DNA tinkering. Odd that this is the conflict: Will humanity go down the dark path of genetics, or the light path of androids and machines?
Roddenberry envisioned an optimistic future wherein humanity would unite, war would be a thing of the past, and interpersonal conflict is manageable. I'm not sure if "because we're all machines now" was part of that vision.
Procedural generation has done a lot for video game development over the years, providing varied, challenging, and endless gameplay. One of the key benefits of an ever-changing world is the sheer scope of creative freedom that players are afforded from the moment they boot up the game. For readers, writers, and those who love to tell stories - procedural generation of narratives can act as a creative writing prompt for community-created content, expanding the reach of the game even further.
Trigon: Space Story is a beautifully detailed strategy roguelike that takes place in a far-off future, and is a perfect example of this facilitation of divergent storytelling. The procedurally-generated universe unfolds in every direction, allowing players to indulge their creativity and decide what sort of Captain they wish to be.
Faced with enemies, allies, quests, items, and the perils of space, every player must decide their route through a series of dialogue and action options. Each of these choices will build their Captain's personality, as well as changing the course of their destiny and shaping the crew around them.
After the success and neverending discourse surrounding "Halloween Kills," horror fans have been anxiously waiting to see what happens at the end of David Gordon Green and Danny McBride's "Halloween" trilogy with Blumhouse. The first installment arrived in 2018, disregarding all other entries that came after John Carpenter's original, with the trilogy centering heavily on the way the events of Michael Myers' 1978 attack impacted survivor Laurie Strode and the trauma inherited by her family and their community. 2018's "Halloween" was the introduction of an older, traumatized version of Laurie Strode, focusing primarily on the way Myers has cast a shadow over her existence. 2021's "Halloween Kills," brought us out of Laurie Strode's survivalist compound and into the streets of Haddonfield, as a community attempted to take back their town from the masked slasher. First look footage just premiered at CinemaCon, and we've got the scoop on how the room reacted and what we can expect from "Halloween Ends."
Horror Matters
Jamie Lee Curtis took the stage and paid respect to both the genre and the character of Laurie Strode, a character she first played in 1978 and has portrayed ever since. She even called Laurie "the most important relationship" of her career and views her as more than a Final Girl. Yes, the character holds deep meaning for Curtis herself, but she also recognizes that Laurie Strode has become a stand in or avatar for "many women who face their own figurative boogeymen."
"Horror matters," she said to the roomful of theater owners, who surely believe that, but probably for different reasons. Horror is always a driver of getting butts in theater seats, so Curtis didn't need to twist their arms on that front, but it's clear she recognizes the therapeutic side to the genre. In fact, she said it was a revelatory realization for her when she read that horror lets us confront what we can't control. That could explain why she's been so gung ho on respecting her horror roots when many A-Listers never look back after going legit.
All that said, she confirmed that "Halloween Ends" will be "Laurie's last stand," joking that, "Mom is tired." She used even more colorful language to drive that point home, stating unequivocally that, "'Halloween Ends' will "f*** you up."
To back that up, Universal showed the first footage from this trilogy capper which focused on the confrontation between Laurie and The Shape that we all want to see.
The footage went back and forth between John Carpenter's original film of young Laurie walking down the street and flashes to modern day Jamie Lee Curtis walking those same streets. Text on the screen read, "The face of fear was born 44 years ago," and, "Everything has led to this," which brought us to the meat of the presentation.
Will Halloween End, Though?
This "Halloween Ends" scene once again found Laurie in a closet, this time hiding out in a kitchen closet (maybe a pantry) as Michael Myers stalks around outside, breathing heavily. Give him a break, he's an old guy. Laurie notices a hanging light pull switch is quietly swinging against the wall, and she grabs it to keep it from drawing Michael's attention.
We know this older, more prepared Laurie Strode isn't going to be spending her time hiding from the boogeyman. She's waiting to strike and strike she does. She bursts out of the closet, not waiting for him to find her, and goes on the attack. During the fight, her head is slammed through a cabinet, but that's not enough to stop Laurie Strode. She fights back, grabbing a knife and stabbing him through the hand (she's bound and determined to mess up this guy's hands, it seems. She also blew off a lot of his fingers in the 2018 "Halloween" film), and the footage ended with Michael knocked on his back on the kitchen table. Laurie is standing over him with the long knife, making for a nice reversal.
An official synopsis for "Halloween Ends" has not been made available, but the cast and crew have indicated throughout interviews what we can expect. The film has been confirmed to be set four years following the events of "Halloween Kills," and will acknowledge how the pandemic impacted the small town of Haddonfield. In an interview with Jamie Lee Curtis, she described the film as "shocking" and asserted that the film will "make people very angry." At the same time, Green claimed in an interview that the film will be more of an intimate coming-of-age story in line with original "Halloween" director John Carpenter's film "Christine."
What do you use VPNs for? If you use it to keep your browsing habits private, you should keep your eyes on Microsoft Edge, as the Redmond tech giant is planning to implement a free VPN within the browser that will help you protect your data.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Vulnerabilities recently discovered by Microsoft make it easy for people with a toehold on many Linux desktop systems to quickly gain root system rights -- the latest elevation of privileges flaw to come to light in the open source OS. [...] Nimbuspwn, as Microsoft has named the EoP threat, is two vulnerabilities that reside in the networkd-dispatcher, a component in many Linux distributions that dispatch network status changes and can run various scripts to respond to a new status. When a machine boots, networkd-dispatcher runs as root. [...] A hacker with minimal access to a vulnerable desktop can chain together exploits for these vulnerabilities that give full root access. [The step-by-step exploit flow can be found in the article. The researcher also was able to gain persistent root access using the exploit flow to create a backdoor.]
The proof-of-concept exploit works only when it can use the "org.freedesktop.network1" bus name. The researcher found several environments where this happens, including Linux Mint, in which the systemd-networkd by default doesn't own the org.freedodesktop.network1 bus name at boot. The researcher also found several processes that run as the systemd-network user, which is permitted to use the bus name required to run arbitrary code from world-writable locations. The vulnerable processes include several gpgv plugins, which are launched when apt-get installs or upgrades, and the Erlang Port Mapper Daemon, which allows running arbitrary code under some scenarios. The vulnerability has been patched, although it's unclear which version of Linux the patch is in.
Traditional, long-running soap operas once ruled daytime TV with an iron fist. Since many soaps ran for multiple decades, multiple generations of kids had the gleeful experience of watching contraband adult dramas on the days they were home sick from school, and then, when they grew up, catching up with those same dramas unfettered when they worked at home. In 2022, only four major soaps remain: "The Bold and the Beautiful," "Days of Our Lives," "The Young and the Restless," and "General Hospital." May they never die
And speaking of never dying, one of the more bizarre soap operas to have emerged in the 1960s was Dan Curtis' "Dark Shadows."
"Dark Shadows" originally debuted on ABC on June 27, 1966, but it wasn't until the introduction of the character of Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) in April of 1967 that the show took off in popularity. Barnabas was a 200-year-old vampire who carried a great deal of bitter resentment for his long-lost love/wife/rival Angelique (Lara Parker), as well as a heaping handful of angst for his long-dead human wife Josette (Kathryn Leigh Scott and Mary Collins). "Dark Shadows" took place over multiple timelines and, in the true tradition of soap operas, followed enormously circuitous plots of love, sex, betrayal, and family secrets. The series only lasted six seasons — a very short life as soap operas go — but remained entrenched in the popular consciousness long enough to be rebooted in 1991, and again in 2004.
The original "Dark Shadows" was notorious for its cheapness and stagey, low-budget look. As it was a daily program, shooting schedules were breakneck affairs (there were 1,225 episodes in the original run!), so errors were common. One can read any number of fan-made online compilations of "Dark Shadows'" production problems.
In 2012, director Tim Burton and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith adapted "Dark Shadows" to the big screen. With the popularity of soap operas on the wane, however, the filmmakers felt it was their responsibility to pull triple duty: Burton and Grahame-Smith constructed a film that was equal parts Gothic horror, stagey artificial soap revival, and broad slapstick farce. It's surprising how well "Dark Shadows" succeeded on all three fronts.
The New Barnabas Collins
The premise of Tim Burton's film is downright straightforward when compared to the convoluted machinations of the original TV show: In 1760, a young Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp), the wealthy heir of a local industry family, spurns the romantic advances of his house servant Angelique (Eva Green). Angelique, secretly a witch, will kill Barnabas' parents in retaliation and curses Barnabas so that every person he ever loves will die. Barnabas sees the curse play out when his fiancée Josette (Bella Heathcote) throws herself off a cliff. In an attempt to take his own life, Barnabas is foiled by being transformed into a vampire. He's attacked by the locals and buried alive, only to be exhumed in 1972 (by a construction crew building a new McDonald's), still alive, and now having to contend with a modern world he does not understand.
And, yes, Barnabas immediately falls in love with a woman named Victoria who just happens to look exactly like his fallen Josette (and who is also played by Bella Heathcote). Barnabas moves back into his now-dilapidated family estate Collinwood, and sets about restoring the family to its former glory from 200 years previous, having to form uneasy alliances with his surviving descendants, most notably Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer), the family's matriarch. Barnabas also has a Renfield-like servant (Jackie Earle Haley), a shrink (Helena Bonham Carter), a sniveling brother-in-law (Johnny Lee Miller), and a snarky teen niece (Chloë Grace Moretz) who is having none of this. Oh yes, and Angelique is still alive and is still carrying a torch for Barnabas. When Angelique and Barnabas make love, they get so excited they defy gravity.
There are secret passages, dramatic reveals (at least one of the previously mentioned characters is a werewolf), and cold, stagey (hilarious) declarations of intent. Also, there's a ghost. And Alice Cooper, playing himself.
A Delicate Balance Of Horror And Comedy
"Dark Shadows" wasn't much of a hit when it was released in May of 2012, earning under $30 million in its opening weekend on a $150 million budget. Critics weren't too kind either, and "Dark Shadows" currently enjoys a mere 35% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critic J. Hoberman cited the film's overabundance of characters and complicated plot as detriments, mirroring other critics' general sentiment.
What fans of soap operas already knew, however, was that complicated plots and an overabundance of characters were a feature, not a bug. Several scenes in Burton's film deliberately highlighted melodramatic acting and silly dialogue, knowing that rushed performances, unrehearsed lines, and bad sound were part of the original show's charm. When Barnabas and Elizabeth meet for the first time, it is a masterclass in soap opera acting.
The fish-out-of-water humor is indeed quite silly, and the juxtaposition of Barnabas interacting with '70s iconography may feel obvious, but that doesn't make it unfunny. Burton and Depp nailed a very strange meta-joke. If soap operas are dying out, it would take the angst and weirdness of an honest-to-goodness Tim Burton-designed vampire to get it going again. Over the course of the film, characters slowly begin to realize, perhaps, that they are indeed inside a soap opera. In a weird way, "Dark Shadows" become self-aware by its conclusion.
Additionally, there is a great deal of pleasure to be had watching such talented actors vamp it up. Characters gnash the scenery, deliberately overact, and throw themselves into roles they feel relieved to be occupying. Burton had previously worked with Depp, Pfeiffer, Carter, and would go on to work with Greene again in future films, making "Dark Shadows" something of a family affair unto itself.
"The Walking Dead" is known for surprising exits. Yes, the long-running AMC drama is based on the equally long-running Image Comics series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard, so many fans could anticipate what was going to happen in the acclaimed live-action series. But it doesn't make it any less shocking when characters like Glenn Rhee, Beth Greene, and Carl Grimes exit the show in an emotional manner. Even when characters like Rick Grimes and Michonne make it out with their lives intact, it was still pretty shocking to see them leave after all that time fighting to survive both zombies and other survivors. And of course, there was all the drama behind the scenes involving the show's first showrunner Frank Darabont.
However, the latest departure from the walker-infested hellscape might be the most surprising one yet. Some time after a spinoff starring fan-favorite characters Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier was officially announced, it looks like star Melissa McBride has decided to step away from the project.
Just Look At The Flowers
Following the conclusion of the flagship series' 11th season, Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride were meant to go off on their own adventure as BFFs Daryl and Carol. When it was first announced in 2020, very few details were made available other than it would star the last remaining OG cast members as the badass duo and it would be created by franchise chief creative officer Scott M. Gimple and "The Walking Dead" showrunner Angela Kang.
But thanks to a new report from TVLine, we learned that the production would move from Atlanta to Europe. And despite initial reports indicating that McBride's departure had something to do with the creative direction of the series, an AMC representative revealed that the actress parted ways with the production over the logistics of this relocation.
"Melissa McBride has given life to one of the most interesting, real, human and popular characters in "The Walking Dead" Universe. Unfortunately, she is no longer able to participate in the previously announced spinoff focused on the Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier characters, which will be set and filmed in Europe this summer and premiere next year. Relocating to Europe became logistically untenable for Melissa at this time. We know fans will be disappointed by this news, but "The Walking Dead" Universe continues to grow and expand in interesting ways and we very much hope to see Carol again in the near future."
The "Walking Dead" sequel will still move on as planned alongside the other continuing adventures such as anthology series "Tales of the Walking Dead" and the Negan and Maggie-centric offshoot "Isle of the Dead" starring Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, but it will now only focus on Reedus' rugged motorcycle riding archer. Currently, there's no word on how these changes will affect the production schedule or the release date, but they still have some time to figure things out. "The Walking Dead" still has one more eight-episode arc to drop before the show hits its 11th and final season finale, which is expected to air on AMC at some point in the fall of 2022.
Do you remember your first contact with a Tarantino movie? Mine was "Pulp Fiction," and I was almost levitating out of my seat from the moment "Misirlou" burst out over the opening credits. Hell, I even got a big kick out of the title font. The movie hadn't even started properly and already I couldn't wait to see it again. As a 16-year-old ducking into an 18-rated movie with his fake ID, it was simply the coolest thing I'd ever seen.
Of course, I rented "Reservoir Dogs" straight away afterwards. When it comes to Quentin Tarantino, you just have to admire the brass balls on the guy -- especially then. His first time directing a movie, he casts himself alongside Keitel, Roth, Madsen, and Buscemi, and gives himself the "Like a Virgin" speech in the opening scene. He made it all look so effortless: the music choices, the slow-mo strutting, the now-signature trunk shot, and the audacity of making a heist movie where we never see the actual heist.
One thing that struck me in particular was the color-coded nicknames. A gang of crooks brought together for a robbery, handed out aliases to prevent them letting their real identity slip. It's a great scene, elevated by the guys complaining about their colors; Mr. Pink (Buscemi) and Mr. Brown (Tarantino) quibbling about what bodily parts or functions their respective hues might be associated with. It's also a neat touch that the loose cannon, Mr. Blonde (Madsen), gets a nickname that isn't actually a color, indicating that he is different from the others. They're all capable of violence but this guy is a sadistic nut job.
Back then, the idea that a director might take stuff from other movies and put it in theirs was new to me. I naively thought that everything came fresh from the filmmaker's imagination, unless it was a remake or an adaptation. It blew my mind when I discovered that Tarantino could make a career robbing his favorite bits from other flicks and turning them into something new. That's when I found out that the color-coded nickname thing came from an old '70s movie I'd never heard of: "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three."
So What Happens In The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three?
"The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" takes place in a grey, grimy New York City in the mid-'70s, which is possibly my favorite place in all of cinema with the possible exception of Rick's Cafe in "Casablanca." Down in the subway, four men board a train at different stops, almost unnoticed by the jaded commuters on the 1.23 p.m. train from Pelham. They each wear similar overcoats, hats, glasses and mustaches, and they're all armed. Once aboard, they hijack the train and bring it to a halt in a tunnel, from where they call in their demands. The city must pay $1 million dollars in cash within one hour, otherwise the passengers will start dying.
This is where we get the "Reservoir Dogs" connection. The ringleader, played with typical tight-lipped menace by Robert Shaw, is Mr. Blue, a cold-hearted mercenary that we are in no doubt will carry out his threats. Martin Balsam is Mr. Green, a former subway driver with a beef with his old employers and an unfortunate sniffle that pays off beautifully in the final scene. The gang is rounded out by Earl Hindman as the stammering makeweight Mr. Brown, and Hector Elizondo as the sleazy psycho Mr. Gray, a guy so crazy that the mafia kicked him out for being too violent.
Up in the nicotine-stained offices of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), Lieutenant Zach Garber (Walter Matthau) takes the role of negotiator as city officials fall over one another trying to round up the ransom within the deadline. Can he hold things together long enough to save the passengers and catch the crooks?
A Hardboiled Role For Walter Matthau
"The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" is pure class, a tight and suspenseful heist thriller that announces its intentions from the first brassy notes of David Shire's mean, driving jazz score. Of all those gritty classic movies set in New York in the '70s, it is probably the most New York, at least in my fantasy movieland version of the city. By that I mean everyone is cynical and barking at each other with full "I'm walkin' here!" fury. It's a movie that feels truly alive with a colorful microcosm of side characters, all irate and treating the hijacking as just more crap they don't need in their day. At the same time, despite the grumbling and the grievances, it also shows the city coming together in a deadly crisis.
If much of the humor in "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" comes from these gruff New Yorkers snarling at one another (best line: "What do they expect for their lousy 35 cents, to live forever?") the rest comes from Matthau's performance as Garber. Matthau was such a versatile actor beyond his comedic roles, and he is perfectly cast as the laconic transit cop playing cat-and-mouse with the ruthless Mr. Blue. He's just as world-weary as his colleagues, but more empathetic, standing just to one side of the cacophony of angry voices with a quizzically raised eyebrow and a wry comment. The role was the last and greatest of his unusual run of great hardboiled '70s performances, after "Charley Varrick" and "The Laughing Policeman."
If the film is notable for influencing Tarantino and his colorful nicknames, "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" is also a proto-"Die Hard," with the verbal sparring between Garber and Mr. Blue prefiguring the similar relationship between John McLane and Hans Gruber fourteen years later. It has all the same elements, with an audacious plan staged in an enclosed location, a group of hostages, a cunning criminal mastermind, and a wise-cracking cop trying to save the day.
Matthau And Shaw Had Great Chemistry Offscreen Too
Shaw was also brilliantly cast as Mr. Blue. The hard-drinking actor started out in movies in early '50s and was later Oscar-nominated for his performance in "A Man For All Seasons," where he lost out to Matthau for his role in "The Fortune Cookie." Yet, he didn't reach the peak of his popular appeal until the '70s, and this is one of his best roles just four years before his death at the age of 51, sandwiched between villain duty in "The Sting" and the surly old salt Quint in "Jaws."
Although Matthau and Shaw only appear in one scene together, their dynamic defines the movie. The chemistry between them wasn't just great acting, as the pair also became friends offscreen. In Matthau, Shaw had found a Stateside drinking buddy, and they played ping-pong and ate at fine restaurants together (via Robert Shaw: The Price of Success):
The one advantage of Brooklyn was Gage & Tollner's, a long-established restaurant - the waiters wore a star for every 10 years of service, and some had five stars - which served oysters, littleneck clams and 'surf and turf.' Shaw and Matthau lunched there if filming permitted. It was an interesting contrast of personality, Matthau very much at home with himself full of homely aphorisms; Shaw bright, intelligent, but ultimately restless and uneasy about his place in the scheme of things.
Here is another point on my fantasy cinematic map of New York, somewhere between taking a subway ride out to Coney Island with "The Warriors" and hanging out with the Village People on the set of "Can't Stop the Music;" sitting in a famous old restaurant listening to Matthau and Shaw trade stories and banter over drinks and big plates of sea food.
Tarantino Helps Pelham Get A New Lease Of Life
Quoting the color-coded nicknames from "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" in "Reservoir Dogs" isn't the biggest lift from another movie that Tarantino has ever committed. That honor must surely go to "Kill Bill: Vol 1." When I saw "Lady Snowblood" recently, I couldn't believe how much the cinematic magpie took from that movie.
The "Pelham" callback is still a significant one, as the matching outfits also play a big part in the heist. As the director explained in an interview:
"It actually has a basis in reality, because a lot of times when robbers will commit a robbery, they want to adopt a uniform, could be suits, could be anything, could be Raiders jackets, it could be parkas ... the idea is that they go in and they do the robbery and they all look alike, alright, so when they leave and the cops come back later and go, 'Okay, what did they look like?' 'I don't know, they looked like a bunch of black suits, how do I know? Maybe one guy had red hair, maybe, I don't know.' They fail to be distinguishable from one another."
One great thing about Tarantino is that his references give us movie buffs a great source of cool older movies that we otherwise might not have bothered checking out. Without "Django Unchained" I may never have found my way to Sergio Corbucci's wild source text, "Django." "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" wasn't as widely known until Tarantino started talking about it in interviews (via New York Times), as it was a film that got a little lost in the mix when it came to the deluge of fantastic cinema coming out of the States in the '70s.
Since "Reservoir Dogs," "Pelham" was remade twice, firstly as an anonymous TV movie and then as a hollow big-budget Tony Scott version with Denzel Washington as Garber and John Travolta in full panto villain mode as Mr. Blue. Forget those versions exist and get on the original straight away if you haven't seen it already. It's a great ride.
Fidelity announced on Tuesday it’s going to launch a way for workers to put up to 20% of their 401(k) savings and contributions directly in Bitcoin. This would make Fidelity the first company in the financial services industry to allow this service without having to go through a separate brokerage window, bringing us…
Today is Administrative Professionals Day, and while the existence of this hyper-specific honorary day goes by every year unnoticed by many, there are those who are aware of it. And some of them post earnestly on social media or grab flowers and donuts for their office personnel on the Wednesday of the last full week…
When Sony's expanded PlayStation Plus service starts rolling out next month, it will fold in PlayStation Now, which offers access to hundreds of games from older console generations. Now, it seems the company is getting even more serious about game preservation. From a report: According to Twitter and LinkedIn posts spotted by Video Games Chronicle, Sony has hired at least one engineer (Garrett Fredley, a former build engineer for mobile developer Kabam) to work on a new preservation team. "Today is my first day as a Senior Build Engineer at @PlayStation, working as one of their initial hires for the newly created Preservation team! Game Preservation was my first career passion, so I'm ecstatic that I get to go back to those roots," Fredley wrote. "Let's go and ensure our industry's history isn't forgotten!" [...] Sony historically hasn't done an incredible job with preserving games. Aside from the original PS3 models being able to run many PS1 and PS2 games, backward compatibility seemed like an afterthought until the PS5, which supports all but a few PS4 titles.
New rumors surrounding the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series graphics card lineup which includes the GeForce RTX 4090, RTX 4080, RTX 4070 & a 900W flagship have been posted by Kopite7kimi. The rumors further detail the configurations we are going to see in the upcoming lineup along with a few prototype cards that may or may not make it to retail shelves.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Graphics Card Rumors: Top AD102 GPU With 900W TDP & 48 GB Memory, RTX 4090 24 GB WIth AD102, RTX 4080 16 GB With AD103, RTX 4070 12 GB With AD104
According to the leaker, currently, NVIDIA has only started testing the AD102 GPUs which will go on to power the likes of the GeForce RTX 4090 Ti and GeForce RTX 4090. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX *090 graphics cards are already positioned as BFGPUs and have replaced the Titan-class offerings. There still are workstation offerings that offer some useful features such as ECC & graphics virtualization support but besides that, the GeForce BFGPU and RTX Workstation cards are pretty much the same mostly.
Now NVIDIA based on the leak, we have further specifications of three graphics cards & a prototype that is not known if it's just a test unit or a graphics card that would eventually make its way to the market later. The known variants include the GeForce RTX 4090, GeForce RTX 4080 & GeForce RTX 4070.
RTX 4080 will use AD103 chips, build with 16G GDDR6X, have a similar TGP to GA102. RTX 4070 will use AD104 chips, build with 12G GDDR6, 300W. Both of them haven't started testing yet, but soon do them.
In fact, there is another full-fat AD102 SKU with 900W TGP, 48G 24Gbps GDDR6X, 2*16pin and higher frequency. But no one knows whether it will become an actual product. Because the test board of AD102 has more than two 16pin connectors, so everything is possible.
NVIDIA Ada Lovelace 'GeForce RTX 40' GPU Configurations
GPU Name
GPCs / TPCs
SMs Per TPC / Total
CUDA Cores
L2 Cache
Memory Bus
AD102
12 / 6
2 / 144
18432
96 MB
384-bit
AD103
7 / 6
2 / 84
10752
64 MB
256-bit
AD104
5 / 6
2 / 60
7680
48 MB
192-bit
AD106
3 / 6
2 / 36
4608
32 MB
128-bit
AD107
3 / 4
2 / 24
3072
32 MB
128-bit
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Ti / Titan-Class BFGPU:
You may remember a while ago when we reported that NVIDIA's Ada Lovelace GPUs will feature power consumption close to the 1KW range. That was much higher than the now-known 600W TGP that the GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card is expected to rock. It looks like this specific SKU is being tested by NVIDIA and also features the full-fat AD102 GPU but with a 900W TGP, that's a 300W TGP increase over the RTX 4090. The graphics card is said to be powered by dual 16-pin connectors and that would require a similar power setup as the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti KINGPIN which we saw a few days back.
Now one reason why there's such a huge increase in TGP is that the card is expected to rock 48 GB of GDDR6X memory, that's twice the memory capacity of the existing RTX 3090 & also the RTX 4090 which launches later this year. NVIDIA already uses 2 GB memory dies on one side of the RTX 3090 Ti to reach the 24 GB capacity so a card of this scale would have a total of 12 2GB memory chips on both sides of the PCB. This means that we might once again end up with really high GDDR6X temps on the graphics card which is most likely the case given the frequencies these chips will operate at.
It is further pointed out that the GeForce RTX 40 flagship graphics card will have the memory clock at 24 Gbps versus the 21 Gbps of the RTX 4090. Such a memory clock across a 384-bit bus will be providing up to 1.15 TB/s of bandwidth. And this excess clock for the memory and GPU plus twice the memory dies are going to consume a lot of power so 900W while sounding absurd, does look very possible for such a monstrous power-chugging GPU configuration.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 / AD102 GPU But Optimized
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 will also rock the same AD102 GPU but in a cut-down configuration based on the rumor. The AD102 GPU will make use of 144 SMs, a 71% increase over the existing GA102 GPU and house a massive 18,432 CUDA core count. In addition to the SM counts, the Ada Lovelace GPUs will also feature increased L2 cache sizes. Starting with the AD102 GPU, the flagship would be outfitted with up to 96 MB of L2 cache, an insane 16x increase over the 6 MB L2 cache featured on GA102.
The graphics card will additionally rock 24 GB of GDDR6X memory clocking in at 21 Gbps across a 384-bit bus interface and delivering over 1.0 TB/s bandwidth. From the TGP figures we have seen, the card will have a TBP of 600W at reference and that's going to go up with the non-reference designs.
As we saw with the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, there are certain models that go beyond the 450W TBP (reference) and up to 516W (custom). The same is going to be the case with Ada Lovelace-based cards. And while this will require lots of cooling, it looks like AIBs are well and ready. We are likely going to see the use of more hybrid-styled GPU coolers rather than traditional air-coolers once we go above the 600W TBP limit. This will mark a 33% increase in TBP over the RTX 3090 Ti.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 / Top AD103 GPU For Gamers
The other two configurations that have been rumored include the GeForce RTX 4080 and GeForce RTX 4070. For the RTX 4080, NVIDIA is expected to utilize its AD103 GPU. The AD103 GPU will replace the GA103 GPU which was recently introduced on mobile and feature the same SM count as the GA102 GPU at 84. The AD103 GPU will feature 64 MB of L2 cache. The AD103 GPU is said to feature a TGP similar to the GA102 GPU so around 350-450W and features 16 GB GDDR6X memory across a 256-bit bus interface. The memory clocks have not been stated but they are likely going to be around 20 Gbps.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 / AD104 at 300W
Finally, there are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 class GPUs which will utilize the AD104 GPUs. The AD104 GPUs will feature 60 SM units for a total of 7680 CUDA cores & a total of 48 MB of L2 cache. The RTX 4070 series in specific will feature 12 GB of GDDR6 memory running across a 192-bit bus interface and feature a TGP of 300W. Considering that these are GDDR6 chips, we are likely going to get 16-18 Gbps speeds which should provide a bandwidth of around 400 GB/s.
The NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GPU family is expected to bring a generational jump similar to Maxwell to Pascal. It is expected to launch in the second half of 2022 but expects supply and pricing to be similar to current cards despite NVIDIA spending billions of dollars to acquire those good good TSMC 5nm (4N) wafers.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series Graphics Card Lineup (Rumored):
Graphics Card
GPU
PCB Variant
SM Units / Cores
Memory / Bus
Memory Clock / Bandwidth
TGP
Power Connectors
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Ti
AD102-350?
TBD
144 / 18432?
48 GB / 384-bit
24 Gbps / 1.15 TB/s
~900W
2x 16-pin
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
AD102-300?
PG137/139 SKU330
>144 / 18432?
24 GB / 384-bit
21 Gbps / 1.00 TB/s
~600W
1x 16-pin
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080
AD103-300?
TBD
>84 / 10752?
16 GB / 256-bit
21 Gbps / 672 GB/s
~350W
1x 16-pin
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070
AD104-400?
PG141-310
>60 / 7680
12 GB / 192-bit
18 Gbps / 432 GB/s
~300W
1x 16-pin
Which NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series graphics card are you looking forward to the most?
Directed by Hanna Bergholm, the horror film from Finland stars Siiri Solalinna, Sophia Heikkilä, Jani Volanen, Oiva Ollila and Reino Nordin.
