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When you learn to fly, you are told it is dangerous to launch with the wind beyond 45 degrees off “straight up the slope”. Crosswinds cause turbulence. So why would you launch in a crosswind? In hike-and-fly, you often cannot reach a perfect launch slope. It might have taken hours to get to your chosen peak, and the weather might have changed. The forecast might be wrong. Or you just need to get off the mountain before the rain comes in. If you can do it safely, there’s no reason to restrict yourself to “perfect direction”. But it can be risky to ignore the dangers of the crosswind. So what to do? In this article I’ll show you how to keep yourself safe on a steep slope. Here are 10 steps to help…

The Stratofortress, Boeing’s strategic bomber whose long career shows no signs of ending, has proven a versatile platform. Among its many roles, one of the most colorful was the NB-52B (No. 52-0008) used to launch the X-15. This early airframe was mostly unpainted during early test flights and with its bright orange trim it belies the B-52’s unflattering sobriquet, BUFF, for big, ugly, fat… uh… fellow. Monogram modified its 1/72 scale B-52D to produce an NB-52 kit, but it is difficult to find. So I converted one of the bomber kits (No. 8292) and dressed it with Cutting Edge decals. For the load, I used an X-15 I built many years ago. 1 As part of the modifications done to the NB-52B, the tail-gun turret was removed. After cutting off the gun…

Amazon Kindles can put a library in your pocket. Whether you choose the basic Kindle, the pocketable Paperwhite, or a top-of-the-line Oasis, a Kindle holds thousands of books within its sleek black casing, and thousands more can be stored in the cloud. A Kindle betrays very little from the outside (no subway snooping of what you’re reading here), but there’s a lot going on inside. All Kindle models feature adjustable LED lighting so you can see the page while camping under the stars, while the Paperwhite and Oasis are waterproof for blissful beachside reading. And if you want to know how many more hours it will take you to finish a book, they can tell you that, too. Here are some tips that’ll help you get even more out of your Kindle.…

The Apple iPhone 13 is a battery-life beast, with far greater longevity than previous midrange smartphones. While we appreciate the greater pocketability of the iPhone 13 mini, unimpressive sales of the iPhone 12 mini taught us that most people prefer long battery life to a petite form factor. So even though other upgrades from the previous generation are nearly unnoticeable here, the battery boost is so profound that it’s definitely worth the $100 premium over a standard-size iPhone 12. And if you’re upgrading from an earlier iPhone, you’ll find a lot of welcome enhancements in power and camera quality. That makes the iPhone 13 the best bet for most buyers, as well as a winner of our Editors’ Choice award. PROS: Long battery life. Fast, smooth performance. Camera makes it easy…

The Leonids, arguably history’s most important annual meteor shower, may have a treat in store for us this November. Classically, the shower peaks each year in mid-November. But the 2022 show may captivate those at key locations across the globe with multiple encore performances, one of which could be a dazzler. What’s more, with a waning Moon setting before the best viewing opportunities begin, this year offers observers great opportunities to capture the most of any activity. Meteor showers are curious phenomena. While astronomers are becoming ever more precise in their predictions of when maximum shower activity will occur, the number of meteors one will see with the unaided eyes at any given location is less certain. Researchers are also exploring ways to determine the brightness of expected meteors, but surprises…

In April, after sitting on the floor of a Walgreens for three hours, I was finally injected with a tiny amount of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. It was a triumph for me to have remained healthy to this point, and a much larger triumph of medical science to have created, tested, and distributed vaccines for a completely new disease in such a short time. This is in stark contrast to the tech sector, which failed the world once with contact-tracing apps and seems poised to fail us once again with vaccine passports. AN APP TO KEEP US SAFE? You could be forgiven for having forgotten about contract-tracing apps. The idea was that our phones would silently keep tabs on every other person (with a phone) that came close enough to us to spread…

DATABASE REVEALS OVER 200K PEOPLE INVOLVED IN POSTING FAKE REVIEWS ON AMAZON I actually reported some sellers attempting to buy my good review directly to Amazon. Amazon was extremely slow in actually being able to take down the vendors. The process was so painful, in fact, that I probably would never bother to do it again. I’m sure those same vendors are back up on Amazon as some other name, as Amazon does zero vetting of marketplace vendors. Amazon has serious issues with credibility and many of the Chinese vendors on their platform are very underhanded and don’t follow the Amazon Marketplace rules at all. I stopped reading anything other than the bad reviews, really. I do check the questions from time to time … but I never read the good…

Ship modelers frequently face the dilemma of how to differentiate their model from other builds of the same kit. In real life, hundreds and thousands of planes and tanks were built in multitudes of different variants, markings, and camouflage. In contrast, there was only one Bismarck, for example. There was only one battleship USS Arizona (BB-39), one heavy cruiser USS San Francisco (CA-38), and so on. So what are some ways you can make your ship stand out? Some things come readily to mind, like adding aftermarket photoetched metal (PE) details. Or scratchbuilding additions. Or modifying the base kit so the project can be called a kitbash or conversion. In almost every case, unique painting or finishing further elevates the model. Combining these techniques is what I call strategic detailing. When…

Many of the true wireless earphones we test these days are built with noise cancelation or exercise in mind. That’s great, but you typically pay a premium for active noise cancelation or a fully waterproof, gym-friendly build. Sennehsier’s CX True Wireless earphones take a different approach. They lack a wide array of extra features and stick to the basics—namely, audio quality. They support high-quality AAC and AptX Bluetooth codecs, which is uncommon in this price range, and they let you customize the sound signature via app with adjustable EQ. That makes the Sennheiser CX True Wireless earphones an excellent audio-first true wireless option, especially if you’re shopping on a strict budget. PROS: Rich, bass-forward sound with high-frequency definition. Adjustable EQ. Water-resistant build. Excellent battery life. CONS: In-canal fit can alter sound signature.…

YEARS AGO, I heard reports of amateur astronomers glimpsing a huge emission nebula in our galaxy, cataloged as IC 1396. Deep astroimages showed an expansive, complex nebula in Cepheus, about 3° in diameter on the northern side of the brightest visual band of the Milky Way, above Cygnus. Being a huge fanboy of all things that shine with the dim glow of ionized hydrogen and oxygen ions, I had to see it! Based on years of success observing faint, challenging galaxies, I confidently aimed my telescope towards Cepheus, eagerly anticipating visions of a grand nebulosity. But the best I could manage was the faint impression that something was there. I was sorely disappointed. Frustrated, I dismissed other observers’ written reports as wishful thinking. As it turned out, the fault was my own.…

Bob’s recent book, Earth-Shattering (Little, Brown and Company, 2019), explores the greatest cataclysms that have shaken the universe. It may seem cruel and unusual that days get shorter the moment summer begins. But this expansion of night is ideal for exploring the shadowy topic of darkness. Actually, the only convenient way to experience full darkness is to lock yourself in a closet. The night certainly isn’t black; even in the most rural regions, the heavens aren’t truly dark. The source of this illumination is the sky itself. The name for the sky’s natural fluore-scence is airglow. It was discovered by Swedish physicist Anders Ångström in 1868, and it’s caused by incoming solar particles exciting our atmosphere’s gases to produce an effect like constant miniature, widespread aurorae. This background glow varies greatly, but can…

BEFORE LEAVING EARTH for the International Space Station (ISS) last April, three smartly dressed spacemen — Oleg Novitsky, Pyotr Dubrov, and Mark Vande Hei — took time from their training to pause for a moment of reflection. In the half-gloom of a tiny office in Star City, Russia, they surveyed a faded world map, archaic telephones, and a clock perpetually halted at the instant of its owner’s death. Later, as their greatcoats held back the chill of an early Moscow spring, they laid a splash of red blooms at a grave embedded in the brickwork of the city’s Kremlin Necropolis. These three spacefarers surely felt the presence of Yuri Gagarin as they paid tribute to that unassuming hero who, 60 years ago, kicked off a space odyssey that will likely never…

SilverStone’s new Sugo 14 PC case is an innovative mini-ITX model that can fit a surprising loadout of components inside. True to the Sugo line, this one is designed to pack peak power parts into a compact chassis. Inside, for example, you can fit a full-size ATX power supply, three 2.5-inch drives, a 240mm liquid cooler, and a triple-slot graphics card up to 13 inches long, all at the same time. (Other possible combinations can include larger drives, including even a legacy 5.25-incher.) The case has a few downsides and isn’t the easiest to build in, but the low price and positive aspects more than make up for these shortcomings. Small-PC builders keen to stuff as much powerful hardware inside should give it a long look. PROS: Compact size, but with…

Samsung Factory location: Austin, TX Products produced in US: microprocessors Samsung opened operations in Austin in 1997, and it now has several factories in its Austin complex. It employs about 10,000 people total, according to the Austin American-Statesman; about 3,000 are Samsung employees, and the rest are contractors. ExtremeTech estimates that Samsung Austin produces about 5% of the world’s volume of 300mm wafers. Using 3D FinFET technology, the Austin foundry primarily focuses on 11nm/14nm and 28nm/32nm technologies, with customers and applications including SSD controllers, Tesla vehicle chipsets, and Qualcomm radio-frequency chips. The company recently submitted papers to the Texas government asking for tax incentives to build a new $17 billion chip factory, which will employ 1,800 more people with an average starting salary of around $66,000. Corning Factory locations: Harrodsburg, KY, among others Products produced in US: Gorilla…

In a triumph of observation and data processing, the astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration have captured the firstever picture of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The black hole is named Sagittarius A* (Sgr A* for short, pronounced “sadge A-star”). The reveal of its image received an international rollout May 12 in simultaneous press conferences on four continents. The team also published their results the same day in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The image represents 3.5 million gigabytes of data taken at millimeter wavelengths by eight radio telescopes around the world. “It took several years to refine our image and confirm what we had,” said Feryal Özel, an astronomer at the University of Arizona in Tucson, at a press…

At CES 2021 in January, slightly under the radar, Asus and other major motherboard makers announced their lineups of new Intel Z590 motherboards that would launch on January 27. That’s well ahead of Intel’s upcoming 11th Gen Core “Rocket Lake-S” desktop CPUs, which are slated for shelves sometime in March. Asus wasn’t the first board maker to officially acknowledge the existence of Z590 boards (that honor goes to Gigabyte). But now that Intel has pulled back the curtain on Rocket Lake, manufacturers are free to follow suit with their own corresponding announcements. But what is Z590 exactly, and what improvements does it promise over the Z490 platform (which launched a mere 10 months ago)? Is it a must-have for leading-edge gamers and content creators or just another minor upgrade for Intel,…

Does your smart speaker—or conversational AI interface—find it hard to understand you? You’re not alone, especially if your voice is not the standard issue your device’s dataset was trained on (i.e., American-English-Perceived-Male). Speech recognition and natural language processing are crucial for the future of the voice-activated internet services, but most of the datasets are owned by a handful of mega-tech companies (the usual suspects) and need much broader inputs to be able to understand the rest of the people who share the planet. That’s where Mozilla and its project, Mozilla Common Voice, come in. “Mozilla Common Voice is an ambitious, open-source initiative aimed at democratizing and diversifying voice technology,” said Mark Surman, executive director at Mozilla. “Common Voice enables people to donate their voices to a free and publicly available database that…

Bob’s recent book, Earth-Shattering (Little, Brown and Company, 2019), explores the greatest cataclysms that have shaken the universe. Just briefly, let’s be unafraid to question cosmology’s most basic assumptions. Let’s start with the Drake equation, which estimates the number of communicating alien intelligences in the galaxy. Its fame has grown, since its 1961 creation, to virtually rival Einstein’s E=mc2. Frank Drake’s brainchild became one of the key tenets of astrobiology and still shapes efforts to search for alien life, including the James Webb Space Telescope’s plan to characterize habitable exoplanets. Recently, physicists at Britain’s University of Nottingham published a new analysis of this formula, concluding there are likely 36 alien civilizations in the Milky Way currently emitting signals we might be able to detect. It all jibes with the standard cosmological model, which…

Computers have come a long way since the beige boxes of old, but even with speeds measured in gigahertz and gigabytes per second, they still involve some occasional waiting. If you’re tired of solving Rubik’s Cubes while you wait for your computer to boot, here are a few ways you can speed up the process. ENABLE WINDOWS’ FAST STARTUP MODE Windows 10 has a feature called Fast Startup that does exactly what it sounds like, and this is an obvious first stop in your quest. Essentially, this is a sort of halfway mode between hibernating and shutting down. It won’t save your open applications, like hibernation will, but the under-the-hood OS will go into hibernation mode, helping you start up with a clean state faster. Rebooting is unaffected, though, so if you run…

The P-51 formed a significant part of the Swedish air force immediately after World War II. More than 100 Mustangs, designated J 26 in Sweden, served well into the 1950s when they were replaced by jets. Meng released its 1/48 scale P-51D in 2016 as a kit designed to be built without glue. I was blown away by the excellent engineering and detail — this kit is nothing like the snap-together models many of us enjoyed in our youth. As good as the kit is, I wanted more detail, including Eduard photo-etched metal parts (PE) and a pre-painted Yahu PE instrument panel (No. YMA4820) for the cockpit, and BarracudaCast resin wheels. Research indicated that all Swedish Mustangs had fabric-covered elevators and rudder, so I replaced the kit parts with Ultracast…

HP still sells the Spectre x360 13, but you can forget about it. The Spectre x360 14 is an elegant convertible laptop that ditches the older system’s 13.3-inch touch screen—and its familiar 16:9 aspect ratio—for a 13.5-inch panel with a squarer 3:2 ratio, for a superior view of text and web pages. Basically, it says, “I see you and raise you” to the 16:10 display of the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1. Add to that some immaculate engineering, gorgeous OLED screen technology, and a stylus pen and USB Type-A port that the Dell lacks, and the Spectre edges out the XPS 13 2-in-1, snatching the Editors’ Choice award as our new favorite premium convertible. PROS: High-fashion styling. Dazzling OLED touch screen with 3:2 aspect ratio. Handy shortcut keys and utility software. Rechargeable…

I’ve tried several products to paint natural-metal finishes, including Testors Model Master Metalizer and Alclad II. Both produced finishes that looked like they were painted, so I wasn’t satisfied. In 2016, while visiting a local air show that featured several World War II aircraft, I had a revelation about what makes bare-metal aircraft look so unique. The colors of the individual panels vary, there’s a subtle grain in the aluminum, and rivets are visible. That prompted me to try metal foil as a finishing material. I ordered Bare-Metal Foil (BMF), a thin, self-adhesive foil that is available in several sheens; I use two sheens: Matte Aluminum and Chrome. The foil has subtle grain on the surface. I’ve used it several times and this is how I get the right look. Tools The…

Wondering why you’re hearing a lot about Clubhouse lately? We can partially blame Elon Musk: By popping up in a Clubhouse room in February, the world’s richest man (for now) brought the service a lot of attention. Here’s what you need to know about the exclusive chat app. Okay, so what is it? Here’s the gist: Imagine you have an app on your phone that lets you listen in on other people’s live conversations. But not in a creepy way; these people want to be heard. They may even be interesting or knowledgeable (no guarantee, though). And you may be given the opportunity to join the chat. Think of it as an audio-chat social network. So there are no pictures or video? No, only profile pics for each user. What platforms are supporting the app? Clubhouse…

What’s a “demonstrator” locomotive? Q I’m doing research on the Wisconsin Central, Wisconsin & Southern, and the Soo Line. Some photos I’ve found refer to the locomotives as “demonstrators.” What exactly is a demonstrator locomotive? Bob Vysinka, LaValle, Wis. A When a locomotive manufacturer like Electro-Motive Diesel or General Electric comes out with a new model, it will build a few “demonstrator” models. It will then send these locomotives to railroads for them to try out, in hopes the railroad’s managers will see the advantages of the new model and order some for their roster. Since the demonstrator locomotives don’t belong to the railroads, they’re painted in promotional schemes featuring the manufacturer’s name and logo instead of the railroad’s. The demonstrators usually make their tour of several railroads before being sold and repainted…

Scale safety first Tim Boyd’s article in the May 2021 FSM, “The Secrets of Extreme-Z” was interesting and informative, but I must point out a serious safety issue: the use of cinder blocks to support the frame or chassis. Cinder blocks, as their name implies, are constructed of coal ash cinders bonded together with Portland cement. While they are lightweight and therefore tempting to use in lieu of jack stands, their bonded construction makes their use extremely dangerous for projects like Tim’s hot rod, where someone may be lying on the ground underneath. Cinder blocks are reasonably strong when the load is distributed evenly across the supporting surface, but a point contact will create extremely high stresses and often, the structure being supported will punch through the supporting cinder block surface.…

Fundamental forces Q | IF GRAVITY IS THE WEAKEST OF THE FOUR FUNDAMENTAL FORCES, HOW CAN THE SUN’S GRAVITY AFFECT DISTANT AND LOW-MASS OBJECTS SUCH AS THOSE IN THE KUIPER BELT AND OORT CLOUD? Neal Attinson Sonoma, California A | It is true that gravity is weakest among the fundamental forces. However, the effect of gravity can be felt even at arbitrarily large distances for two reasons. The first is a consequence of the inverse square nature of the gravitational interaction, meaning the force of gravity diminishes with 1/R2, where R is the distance between two objects. But we must consider this alongside gravity’s flux, which is defined as the number of force field lines (which relates to its strength) crossing a surface area. Let’s think of an imaginary sphere with the Sun at the…

The earliest antivirus products specifically protected against computer viruses, programs that spread by injecting their code into other programs. Those early viruses were predictable and easily detected using simple techniques. Today, though, we’re afflicted with polymorphic malware, pernicious ransomware, and other advanced attacks. Recognizing malware by just looking at files is utterly insufficient. Behavior-based analysis is a must-have in today’s world, and Malwarebytes Premium offers exactly that, along with other layers of protection. The software earned great scores in our hands-on tests, and it has begun to get good ratings from the independent testing labs as well. PROS: Maximum possible score in our hands-on malware-protection test. Excellent scores in phishing and malicious URL–blocking tests. Speedy full scan. Includes exploit protection, ransomware protection, and behavior-based detection. More independent lab test results. CONS: Some…

Up until now, the mooring basins on the Jones Island section of our HO scale Milwaukee, Racine & Troy layout were looking a little dry. Lake boats and ocean-going vessels would be hard pressed to dock in the plywood in front of the Continental Grain (now COFCO International) elevator or the Port of Milwaukee General Cargo Terminal no. 2 Water features, in part, dictated the removable benchwork design for Jones Island [see the September 2020 Model Railroader for more on that. – Ed.] The mooring basin for COFCO International is located in a corner adjacent to the hallway windows. If we built the layout with fixed benchwork, it would have required a reach of between 2'-11" and 3'-71 ⁄2" to work on the mooring basin. Neither ideal nor comfortable. Further, we needed…

St. Augustine said of time, “If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain to him who asks, I don’t know.” Time is an elusive concept: We all experience it, and yet, the challenge of defining it has tested philosophers and scientists for millennia. It wasn’t until Albert Einstein that we developed a more sophisticated mathematical understanding of time and space that allowed physicists to probe deeper into the connections between them. In their endeavors, physicists also discovered that seeking the origin of time forces us to confront the origins of the universe itself. What exactly is time, and how did it come into being? Did the dimension of time exist from the moment of the Big Bang, or did time emerge as the universe evolved?…

With COVID-19 still keeping so many people working from home, Wi-Fi routers are doing a lot more than streaming movies and games. Not only are home Wi-Fi routers keeping millions of people working, but they’re also connecting an ever-growing range of smart home devices. That means picking one that does the best job for you and fits your budget is trickier than ever, especially now that we’re seeing more Wi-Fi 6 devices becoming available. When you’re shopping for a new router, start by considering the size of your coverage area and the number of clients you need to support as well as the types of devices that you’ll be connecting. Not everybody needs the kind of performance that you get with the latest and greatest models, and there’s no reason to…

2020 LIVE BALL COTTON THREAD LAYER Avg. Weight: 9.62 g OUTER YARN Though the live ball is lighter, this part is heavier, offsetting some of the added weight of the inner yarn. Avg. Weight: 24.34 g MIDDLE YARN Avg. Weight: 14.46 g INNER YARN This is the layer where all the weight came out: It’s lighter by about 3.5 grams. Avg. Weight: 50.88 g PILL Avg. Weight: 25.37 g THE CENTER A lighter center (which refers to all layers beneath a ball’s cover) could lead to a smaller ball with less drag—and more flight. Avg. Weight: 124.83 g 2020 NORMAL BALL COTTON THREAD LAYER Avg. Weight: 9.86 g OUTER YARN This layer is about a paperclip’s weight lighter than in the live ball—consistent with previous MLB balls. Avg. Weight: 23.38 g MIDDLE YARN Avg. Weight: 14.41 g INNER YARN This layer’s weight is unchanged from previous MLB balls, unlike in the “live” ball. Avg. Weight: 54.30…

FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS NOVEMBER, three spacecraft were bearing down on Mars in a frantic race to become the first mission to orbit it. They were the survivors of a fleet of five. Of that group, two were NASA efforts: Mariner 8 and Mariner 9, jointly known as the Mariner Mars 71 Project. The other three were Soviet: M71-S (S for “Sputnik”), Mars 2, and Mars 3. All five spacecraft were designed to orbit the Red Planet, and Mars 2 and Mars 3 were also designed to deploy landers that would attempt the first robotic surface explorations of that world. After having lost the race to put a man on the Moon two years earlier, the Soviets were determined to beat the U.S. to the surface of Mars, even if only with…

Q | WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF TWO SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES MERGED? Aaron James Oommen Doha, Qatar A | Supermassive black holes that are millions to billions of times more massive than the Sun are commonly found at the hearts of galaxies. When galaxies merge, their central black holes should also combine. And when they do, these collisions are so powerful that they create distortions in space-time, known as gravitational waves. These ripples were first theorized by Albert Einstein in his theory of general relativity in 1916. Astronomers believe that the power output from the merger of two supermassive black holes would be briefly larger than the combined luminosity of all the stars in all the galaxies in the entire observable universe. The direct detection of the mergers of two stellar-mass black holes — about…

THIS moment for artificial intelligence is unlike any that has come before. Powerful language-based AIs have lurched forward in ability and can now produce reams of plausible prose that often can’t be distinguished from text written by humans. They can answer tricky technical questions, such as those posed to lawyers and computer programmers. They can even help better train other AIs. However, they have also raised serious concerns. Prominent AI researchers and tech industry leaders have called for research labs to pause the largest ongoing experiments in AI for at least six months in order to allow time for the development and implementation of safety guidelines. Italy’s regulators have gone further, temporarily banning a leading AI chatbot. At the centre of it all are large language models and other types of generative…

Many people thought there would never be a Windows 11—understandably, after Microsoft announced in 2015 that Windows 10 would be the operating system’s last version number. New competition from Chrome OS likely made the case for a more significant interface update, though, and Windows 11 borrows heavily from Google’s lightweight desktop design. Despite its drastically new look, Windows 11 remains nearly functionally identical to Windows 10, with some new features and conveniences added. After six years of ho-hum upgrades, a major overhaul to the world’s most popular desktop operating system is welcome news: Windows fans finally have something to get excited about. PROS: Beautiful, more consistent new design. Great window layout options. New video game options. Better multi-monitor functionality. New performance-improving features. Planned support for Android apps. CONS: Requires a recent CPU.…

Salvadoran Cavaliers exposed I am one of your senior readers who goes back way before FineScale Modeler — back to the days of wooden Strombecker kits. I have never written to any [magazine], but Marco Antonio Lavagnino’s article in the October 2021 FSM on the Salvadoran Cavalier Mustang really jumped out at me. I had the good fortune to work for Cavalier Aircraft in Sarasota, Florida, in 1968 and 1969, which included the period of the Soccer War. I had seen an article about Cavalier in a 1968 issue of Flying Review International and sent them a resume, not expecting a reply. I got along with a job. What a job! When I started, FAS 404 and FAS 405 were under construction. I’ve included several photos taken during their construction and delivery flight…

Tom de Dorlodot knows a thing or two about travelling and flying. A professional paraglider and paramotor pilot he has literally turned his passion for flying, adventure and travel into a career. He entered his first Red Bull X-Alps when he was 21, and has since travelled and flown in more than 60 countries around the world. He set up the Search Projects in 2011 to travel and fly remote areas, and has crossed Africa overland north to south, sailed the Pacific and Atlantic, and covered an estimated 13,000km during different vol-bivouac trips. Last year he was back in the Karakoram, where he has flown seven times over the last 12 years. At our Cross Country Subscribers’ Masterclass in November he shared some of what he knew. Here are some of his…

VAST numbers of copyrighted books appear to have been memorised by ChatGPT and its successor GPT-4, posing questions about the legality of how these large language models (LLMs) are created. Both artificial intelligences were developed by private firm OpenAI and trained on huge amounts of data, but which texts make up this training data is unknown. To find out more, David Bamman at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues looked at whether the AIs were able to fill in missing details from a selection of almost 600 fiction books, drawn from sources such as nominees for the Pulitzer prize between 1924 and 2020, and The New York Times’s bestsellers lists over the same time period. “Whether large language models are infringing copyright is a question that court cases will decide” The…

“Designed by Apple in California.” The tag is in every iPhone box, asserting the primacy of thousands of minds in Cupertino feverishly inventing the latest technology. But once they come up with the plans for an AirTag or an iMac, those get shipped overseas. It’s been decades since Silicon Valley, the heart of American computing, made many of its own devices. A recent Reuters-Ipsos survey shows that Americans want to buy more US-made products, as long as they don’t have to pay more for them. The poll found that 69% of people said an item being US-made was at least somewhat important, but that 63% wouldn’t be willing to pay more than a 10% premium for something to be American-made. Manufacturing jobs tend to be good jobs; at least, they’re better than…

My previous layout was based on one town. I replicated the railroad in that town as accurately as I could. Doing so required discipline, placing more constraint on myself than most modelers are comfortable with. When designing my current layout, the stub-ended Minneapolis & St. Louis (M&StL) Story City Branch [see Model Railroad Planning 2018 and Great Model Railroads 2019 – Ed.], I wanted a bit more freedom. Most branch lines were built when steam was king. Provisions to turn the engine at the end of the line were mandatory. Although there was a turntable at the prototype Story City, it became troublesome, so a wye was built east of town and the turntable was retired. The steam engine turned on the wye and backed into town. I was modeling the…

QI THE NEXT U.S. TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE, WHICH IS IN 2024, INTERSECTS THE PATH OF THE 2017 ECLIPSE AND THE DURATION OF TOTALITY WILL ALSO BE CLOSE TO 2017’S. IS IT A COMMON OCCURRENCE TO HAVE TWO ECLIPSES BISECT WITH SIMILAR MAXIMUM TOTALITY DURATIONS? Launie Wellman Festus, Missouri AI As it turns out, the Moon, Earth, and Sun return to approximately the same geometry about every 18 years 11 days or so, depending on the number of leap years during such eclipse cycles. This period of time is known as the saros. And yes, it is common for intersecting eclipses to more or less duplicate after that period of time. So, the 2017 and 2024 eclipses, which cross because they travel across the U.S. in different directions, are only the latest in a…

Be saw lots of new 8K TVs at CES in January, with some coming from vendors known for making affordable models, such as TCL. That means 2021 is likely to be the year we start seeing 8K TVs hit the market at prices that far more people can realistically consider—we’re talking under five digits! Don’t freak out about replacing your still-new 4K TV just yet, though. 8K AT CES TCL’s announcement that its 2021 6-Series TVs will be entirely 8K is one of the more notable pieces of news from this year’s show, as the 6-Series has long been a PCMag favorite for offering high quality at a reasonable price. That said, TCL hasn’t yet announced pricing for its 6-Series TVs, and it noted that 2020 models will still be available this…

We’re not keen on kicking a company while it’s down, so we’ll avoid the same introduction you’ve read a few dozen times already in the last couple of years: AMD and its Ryzen lineup is running loops around Intel and its desktop Core CPUs. And Intel keeps shooting itself in the sneaker, right when you think it might be about to get back into the race. The company’s latest launch of processors, the 11th Generation “Rocket Lake” Core series, has been met with mostly ho-hum reviews (ours among them). At a time when Intel needed to really make the Empire State Building disappear, the mirror broke, and everyone saw through the illusion. So now that the dust of the Rocket Lake launch is settling, and the verdict is firming up on 11th…

Let’s face it, using acrylic paints and finishing products — like weathering powders and washes — is different from using enamels, oil paints, or lacquers. You can produce similar effects, but the processes and methods vary slightly. However, once you have them down, you can use water-based acrylics on anything, from armor to sci-fi models and everything between. In 2008, I won the Gunpla World Championships using only acrylics and went on to win multiple other awards afterward. During that time, I continued to develop my process and came to fall in love with Acrylicos Vallejo paints — to the point that I use them almost exclusively. That isn’t to say you can’t apply my techniques with other acrylic paints, but you’ll have to modify your approach to suit the brand.…

Glenn has been an avid observer since a friend showed him Saturn through a small backyard scope in 1963. This month, we’re going to step away from our usual observing content and instead take a look at the psychology of skygazing. In short, we’ll ruminate on what makes us backyard astronomers tick. Why do we prefer reading Astronomy to, say, Field & Stream, Better Homes and Gardens, or Popular Mechanics? What compels us go outside on a clear starlit evening and gaze heavenward while our neighbors are indoors watching TV or playing games? I used to think a proclivity for backyard astronomy had to do with a love of the outdoors. That might be because my three favorite activities are stargazing, fishing, and recreational running. All involve being out in open air,…

Cheater’s Mac and Cheese Replacing a traditional béchamel sauce with cream cheese, which melts almost instantly, makes this recipe ultraspeedy. Feel free to swap in other vegetables, such as fresh or frozen cauliflower florets or peas, for the broccoli. 4 ounces short pasta, such as penneKosher salt and freshly ground black pepper (optional)1½ cups fresh or frozen broccoli florets2½ ounces cream cheese (⅓ cup)1 tablespoon unsalted butter½ ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano, finely grated (⅓ cup), plus more for serving 1. Cook pasta in a pot of generously salted boiling water 2 minutes less than per package instructions. Reserve 1 cup pasta water and cover to keep warm. Add broccoli to pot; continue boiling until pasta is al dente and broccoli is bright green, 1 to 2 minutes more. Drain. Return pot to medium heat; add…

Windows 11 is here. As with every previous mega-update to the desktop operating system of record over the years, the new interface has been met with dissent. It’s no surprise that Twitter is full of outrage over the redesign—and, it must be admitted, some praise, too. The record will show that I’ve never been a hater of new Windows features. I even found things to like in the disastrous Windows 8 release. I was an avid Cortana user, at least while she could still do useful things, such as shut down the PC or control music. But a significant difference is that, at least with Windows 8, Microsoft was creating something original and new. I know that software and all other forms of art borrow from others’ recent work, but the…

Bob’s recent book, Earth-Shattering (Little, Brown and Company, 2019), explores the greatest cataclysms that have shaken the universe. For once, let’s not seek out the esoteric but do our exploring in one of the night’s most familiar places: the belt of Orion. Its leftmost star, Alnitak (pronounced ALL-nye-tack), is our focus this month. Alnitak is blue because it’s hotter than most stars. And boy, is it hot, shining at visible wavelengths with the light of 10,000 Suns! Can any of us imagine what 10,000 Suns would be like? Most of its energy isn’t even fiercely hot blue light, but instead deadly ultraviolet (UV), the stuff that punishes our beach vanity with a painful sunburn — except that Alnitak’s UV is largely the intense UVC radiation. The miniature wavelengths from UVC ionize atoms…

OnePlus used to be a bit like Apple. Regimented, focused, and broadly charismatic, the phone maker revealed its devices bit by bit and always controlled its message. But as we’ve been chronicling in recent months, the company’s communications are now all over the place. Some of OnePlus’ recent attempts to broaden its appeal have worked out well. The low-cost Nord line vastly boosted OnePlus sales in the US. (Our review of the Nord N200 5G determined that it’s pretty good.) With the new Nord 2, which won’t be sold here, OnePlus is experimenting with the Mediatek Dimensity 1200 chipset’s customization package, which may provide better performance than similarly priced Qualcomm processors. But you might not know that OnePlus is developing interesting products, because it’s lost control of its story. After merging some…

The metaverse is in the air. Mark Zuckerberg won’t stop talking about turning Facebook into one. Zombie-strewn Fortnite says it’s on the way to becoming one. Microsoft is going to develop an enterprise one, which sounds fun. But what is it? If you’ve been nodding along and hoping that eventually people will stop talking about it, we have good news and bad news. Metaverse news is only going to increase. This is obviously the bad news. In better news, we have a quick primer to help you with the basics. So here are your questions (hopefully) answered. Hi. Hi. This is going to sound weird, but are you really here? Sure. Let’s say yes. I ask because I was just reading about Mark Zuckerberg and this metaverse thing, and it has thrown me into an existential…

The Geminid meteor shower is best known for the reliable show it puts on during the winter holiday season. But the event is also unique because it stems not from a comet but from an asteroid: 3200 Phaethon. Phaethon’s true nature has puzzled astronomers for more than 10 years, ever since they discovered that it brightens dramatically and expels dust when it nears the Sun. That kind of behavior is usually reserved for comets. When a comet’s path brings it through the inner solar system, the Sun warms and vaporizes the ices on its surface, creating a bright tail extending up to millions of miles behind it. Escaping vapor can also dislodge some of the comet’s dust and rock, which is usually the debris that fuels meteor showers. But asteroids like Phaethon…

Ever since Top Gun hit theaters in 1986, I have wanted to model the needlelike enemy fighters in the film: the so-called MiG-28. Of course, the MiG-28 doesn’t exist, and the villains were actually Northrop F-5E Tiger IIs painted jet black with a Soviet-style red star on the tail. But most moviegoers didn’t really notice or care — neither did I. The U.S. Navy still uses F-5s as adversaries for training, and those aircraft were recently upgraded with advanced avionics and radar as F-5Ns. A few of these jets are painted gloss black and kept extremely clean. painted gloss black and kept extremely clean. Kitty Hawk’s 1/32 scale F-5E (No. KH32018) was a welcome release because the only other model of this iconic fighter in that scale is a 25-year-old Hasegawa kit.…

Email can be a killer: Just ask New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who discovered some scandalous messages during a multinational investigation of Intel, the American semiconductor giant. The Intel emails, made public by Cuomo in 2009 when he was New York’s state attorney general, appeared to show that the company was taking a carrot-and-stick approach to ensuring that its customers used Intel processors for all, or nearly all, of the PCs that they sold. This might not rank as one of history’s most revelatory email brouhahas, but it was a vital factor in a billion-dollar settlement that would drastically change the semiconductor industry—and the wider tech world that relies on it. The effect is still felt in courtrooms and boardrooms worldwide and is, without a doubt, in the back of the…

Whenever you fly, wherever you travel, you need to know about active flying – and apply what you know. So let’s cover it here. In smooth air, glider and pilot glide in unison. When you fly through turbulent air though, your wing can become disturbed, causing you to swing in an unbalanced way, which can expose you to greater risk of collapse and rapid height loss. You need to calm the movement so you fly in harmony again. This is active flying. Most wings are designed to recover by themselves, so why do you need to do anything? Paragliders are incredible aircraft, but a little corrective input can greatly improve their recovery time. Developing your active flying skills also allows you to reduce the movements and hugely improve your gliding performance. Watch out!…

The original Nest Hub was a perfectly capable smart display, but as Google’s only model, it felt a bit lacking compared with Amazon’s Alexa-powered lineup. The second-generation Nest Hub improves on its predecessor with a feature you won’t find on any other smart display: sleep tracking. Thanks to its built-in Google Soli motion-sensing chip, the 7-inch Nest Hub can accurately track your sleep and breathing when placed on a bedside table. Though it still lacks a camera for video calls, it offers several other upgrades, including 50% more bass for improved audio, a Quick Gestures feature that lets you pause or play content by waving your hand, and a machine-learning chip that caches your common commands for faster response times. Offering tremendous value for the price, the second-generation Nest Hub…

PROFESSIONAL AND AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS alike love to share facts about our amazing universe: “The brightest star is…,” “A black hole is…,” and lots more. These facts are so incredible that we sometimes overlook our own little corner of the cosmos and how humans have ventured into it. Space exploration, however, goes hand in hand with astronomy. So, I’ve come up with a list of 15 simple facts about spaceflight that you can share with your children — or with your non-astronomer friends. 1 RUSSIA WAS FIRST. Yep, Russia (then the main country of the Soviet Union) beat the U.S. in spaceflight pretty much every step of the way until NASA landed people on the Moon. The first artificial satellite — Sputnik, launched Oct. 4, 1957 — was Russian. So was the first…

If you drew a Venn diagram showing the best ideas from TED Talks and the high-quality production value from the best television of the past decade, the overlap would be MasterClass, an online learning service in the form of video lectures and demonstrations from the very top talent in many fields. It is binge-worthy, educational, and thought-provoking. The quality alone leaves you whispering, “How is this so good?” PROS: A-list celebrity instructors. Supremely high production value in videos. Well-thought-out course structure. Great breadth of topics. CONS: Video and course run times, as well as year filmed, should be more apparent. BOTTOM LINE: Online learning service MasterClass lures you in with its A-list instructors, then hooks you with thoughtful material and exceptional production values. The cast—or rather, instructor lineup—comprises A-list talent, whether the subject is…

How did the Big Bang make you and me possible? Are we alone, and how close are the neighbors? The vast, unexplored cosmos is fertile ground for astronomers’ imaginations. And yet, almost every important discovery came as a surprise. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), set to launch as soon as November, will attempt to answer these questions — and the ones we don’t even know to ask yet. It will crack open the treasure chest of the magnificent infrared sky, invisible to human eyes. With its great golden 6.5-meter primary mirror and its suite of cameras and spectrometers, the Webb can sense light ranging from the middle of the visible spectrum to the mid-infrared. If there were a bumblebee hovering in space at the distance of the Moon, the Webb…

Belching black smoke from two General Electric J79 engines and carrying up to eight air-to-air missiles with more wallop than most World War II bombers, the F-4 epitomized brute-force fighter design. It’s only shortcoming — the lack of an internal cannon — stemmed from non-fighter pilots deciding that the age of close-contact aerial combat (dogfighting) was over, leading at least one fighter pilot to comment, “Never bring a missile to a gunfight!” Everyone from Academy to Zoukei-Mura has produced a 1/48 scale Phantom II, so do we really need another? Read on. Tamiya provides 399 molded light gray and clear parts on 22 parts trees — at least by the letters. In several cases, Tamiya has left two or three different trees together; for example, Q, R, and S were still…

HO scale Siemens SC-44 Charger diesel-electric locomotive. This modern passenger engine is now available from Bachmann Trains. The HO scale SC-44 Charger is decorated for Amtrak in the passenger carrier’s Midwest (two road numbers), Pacific Surfliner (one number), and Cascades (WSDOT, one number) schemes. The model ($459) has a dual-mode TCS WOWSound decoder with Audio Assist; a Keep-Alive capacitor; a die-cast metal frame; a printed destination board; directional headlights; interior corridor work lights; roof-mounted strobe lights; marker lights; and separate, factory-applied windshield wipers, grab irons, and detail parts. Bachmann Trains, 215-533-1600, bachmanntrains.com HO scale locomotives • Electro-Motive Division GP38 diesel locomotive. New road numbers: Norfolk Southern (Thoroughbred scheme, two numbers) and RJ Corman (red, silver, and white scheme). New paint schemes: Conrail (American Revolution Bicentennial scheme in one number, blue with white sill…

What is modeling responses Ed.: In an episode of FineScale Modeler Weekly, Tim Kidwell and I addressed the question, “What is modeling?” and we asked viewers and readers to respond. Here’s a sampling of those comments. – Aaron Skinner I just watched your video on “What Qualifies as Modeling” and wanted to say that I couldn’t agree more. At its core, modeling is replication of something real or imagined. Designing parts yourself, whether by hand or for 3D-printing, is just a different level of detail some people use the same way some modelers use aftermarket resin details. 3D-printing is a medium, like all the other materials (PC, PS, wood, PE, resin, etc.) that go into our kits and dioramas and does not inherently affect the definition of what is and isn’t a model.…

At $999 for the full headset, controllers, and base stations package, the Valve Index is an expensive PC-tethered virtual-reality (VR) system. The headset itself, while capable, doesn’t do much to rise above the competition besides delivering a smoother 120Hz refresh rate. The controllers, though, wowed us with their individual finger tracking and much more natural, immersive feel than other VR controllers we’ve tested. They’re the stars of the show and the reason the Valve Index earns our Editors’ Choice award for tethered VR headsets. (Though if you already have a Vive headset with base stations, you can add the controllers for $279 and save a ton of money.) PROS: Immersive finger-tracking controllers. High 120Hz refresh rate delivers smooth motion. Lots of VR software available on PC via SteamVR. CONS: Expensive. Occasionally frustrating…

The 15-inch version of the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 offers one of the most refined computing experiences of any Windows laptop. With two color options and excellent build quality, it’s a standout big-screen notebook. New for 2021, processor options from both AMD and Intel make this fourth-generation laptop’s performance even better. The Surface Laptop 4 now clinches an Editors’ Choice award as our top pick among premium 15-inch models. It’s ideal for general-purpose computing on a big screen. PROS: Lightweight and stylish. Sunny, razor-sharp screen with 3:2 aspect ratio. Comfortable touchpad. Excellent performance from AMD Ryzen 7. Intel Core i7 models available, too. CONS: Few configuration options. Can’t get a version with a discrete GPU. Only two USB ports. BOTTOM LINE: A new AMD Ryzen 7 processor brings significant performance improvements to the…

When I built and reviewed Eduard’s 1/48 scale P-51D in fall 2019, I used every cliché in the book to describe the quality of the fit and surface detail. I thought Eduard had pushed design and molding technology to the absolute limit. Oh, how wrong I was! As good as its Mustang was, Eduard’s early Spitfire takes design and molding technology even further. This kit is amazing, perhaps the best I’ve ever built. The initial release, Tally Ho! The Spitfire Story, is a limited-edition dual-combo that includes two full kits and a resin pilot. There are more than 500 parts here — 263 for each airframe — and the stunning surface detail comprises recessed panel lines and both recessed and raised rivets as appropriate. The recessed rivets on the wings are so…

Q Your project railroads are usually based on L-girder construction. That’s wonderful for a semi-permanent installation, but what about those of us with space considerations? I tried using L-girders with a plywood deck on a 3 x 6 N scale layout. I wanted to suspend it from the ceiling in my garage, which has a nine-foot ceiling, and hoist it up to park cars underneath when not in use. This was a workable solution for a while, but as I added scenery and other items, it became too heavy to lift. After determining that a motorized hoist was not a viable option, I abandoned the project. I’ve been considering using extruded-foam insulation board as the base for a lighter layout, but as rigid as it is, it will still sag.…

OnePlus will raise the bar for budget phones with 5G and a 90Hz display for under $250 in the US, the company revealed exclusively to PCMag in mid-June. “From the premium and ultra-premium OnePlus 9 series to the OnePlus Nord N200 5G—our newest and most affordable 5G device ever—we’re providing more choices and easier access to 5G for our users,” OnePlus CEO Pete Lau said in an email interview. Last year’s OnePlus Nord N10 5G took the US prepaid market by storm. Reports from Wave7 Research said that the N10 and its cheaper 4G sibling, the Nord N100, lifted OnePlus’s market share to over 15% at Metro by T-Mobile. Now OnePlus is returning with a phone that brings more of the N10’s features closer to the N200’s price point. Although the N100 had…

In the confusing, chaotic world of virtual private networks (VPNs), where the companies sometimes seem as untrustworthy as the forces they protect against, Mullvad is different. It’s hyper-focused on offering secure and affordable VPN protection from a radically transparent company. You won’t get upsells, a huge variety of servers, or a breathtaking interface, but you will get online securely for surprisingly little money. In fact, Mullvad is our Editors’ Choice for cheap VPNs. PROS: Requires no email or account information. Radically transparent. Extremely affordable. Some advanced features, like multihop connections. CONS: Cramped, awkward desktop interface. Servers in a small range of countries. Account number system may confuse some customers. BOTTOM LINE: Mullvad VPN secures your connection while protecting your privacy behind the scenes, all for an unbeatable price. PRICING AND FEATURES Mullvad breaks with the…

Show off those what-if builds I have a suggestion for a small section in the magazine in which readers can submit photographs of their “what-if” builds. I’ve seen quite a few online, and some are very thought provoking. I thought there should be some “rules” for submissions, so, to that end: 1. Any prototypes (for example, the Airfix TSR.2) must be modeled as if it is in service and not just straight from the box. 2. Ideally, readers should also submit some theoretical context. For example, an East German Sukhoi Su-34 as alternative history in which the Berlin Wall never came down. You can also modernize historical vehicles. I am currently working on bringing Tamiya’s M3 Lee into the 21st century with a 120mm main gun from an Abrams and a 25mm…