- Charlie Munger’s Final Advice For Investors Is About Embracing Value In Unlikely Places: ‘If Something Is Really Cheap, Even Though It’s A Crappy Company, I’m Willing To Consider Buying It’ Yahoo Finance
- Billionaire Charlie Munger wanted his kids to hold onto 3 parenting lessons ‘until their 100th birthdays’ CNBC
- Remembering Charlie Munger | Market Masters With Mohnish Pabrai | N18L | CNBC TV18 CNBC-TV18
- Opinion | The Timeless Investing Wisdom of Charlie Munger, Buffett’s No. 2 The New York Times
- Munger, Kissinger and the American Century Kathimerini English Edition
Tag Archives: Cheap
Female Ukrainian drone operators are retrofitting cheap drones, enabling them to destroy Russian weapons worth millions – CNN
- Female Ukrainian drone operators are retrofitting cheap drones, enabling them to destroy Russian weapons worth millions CNN
- Ukraine war: Australian-made cardboard drones used to attack Russian airfield show how innovation is key to modern warfare The Conversation
- World’s First Specialized Explosive Naval Drone Unit Formed In Ukraine Naval News
- Video Shows Destructive Power of Ukraine’s New ‘Cardboard’ Drones Newsweek
- Video shows Ukraine blowing up its new ‘cardboard’ drones in a test attack on a dummy target Yahoo News
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Where is everyone? Disney theme parks are shockingly empty this summer amid sky-high ticket prices, ‘woke’ backlash — but here’s why the stock may be too cheap to pass up now – Yahoo Finance
- Where is everyone? Disney theme parks are shockingly empty this summer amid sky-high ticket prices, ‘woke’ backlash — but here’s why the stock may be too cheap to pass up now Yahoo Finance
- Disney Enters a Crisis of Its Own Making National Review
- Disney sees decrease in wait times at parks on Fourth of July Fox Business
- Disney World has a bigger problem than Ron DeSantis: people aren’t going Business Insider India
- The strange phenomenon happening at Disney theme parks this summer – and it’s good news for visitors… The US Sun
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Cheap Diabetes Drug Slashes Risk of Long COVID, Study Finds – ScienceAlert
- Cheap Diabetes Drug Slashes Risk of Long COVID, Study Finds ScienceAlert
- Common drug reduces long COVID, University of Minnesota study shows Star Tribune
- Outpatient treatment of COVID-19 and incidence of post-COVID-19 condition over 10 months (COVID-OUT): a multicentre, randomised, quadruple-blind, parallel-group, phase 3 trial The Lancet
- Study: Using a diabetes medication after testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 reduces risk of developing long COVID by 40% Medical Xpress
- New study from UMN researchers says an existing drug is a promising treatment for long COVID MPR News
- View Full Coverage on Google News
26 Cheap Black Friday Doodads Available on Amazon Thru Cyber Monday
Every Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopper has a mission. Some have a list of gifts they want to buy for their friends and family. They’re a patient deal hunter that’s not afraid to wait for a drop on a particularly pricey item. And then there are the people like me who just want a litany of cheap doodads and gadgets. I click “Add to cart” on every little thing I find cool and then kneel at the sight of my checkout page. These are the coolest Amazon gadgets you can find on the cheap during this Black Friday weekend.
If you’re more of a shopping strategizer, we’ve got a list of the best overall Amazon Cyber Monday deals (along with some Amazon device-specific deals). We’ve also found great deals at Target, Walmart and Best Buy. And here’s our running list of the best deals you can find just about anywhere.
But if you’re just looking for a white elephant gift, a stocking stuffer or something small to treat yourself — and you’ve got $20 or so burning a hole in your pocket — read on for a truly random collection of Amazon deals that’ll make you click “add to cart.”
We’ve all endured the humiliation of dripping ketchup on our pants while indulging in road-nug. Never again — these dip holders clip right onto your car’s vents.
Remember the thrill of a Lip Smacker variety pack? Amazon’s got an eight-pack of Coca-Cola flavors (including the Fanta trifecta) for under $1 a tube.
A chic way to hold your phone up while multitasking, this heeled phone stand comes in four colors, but only the Wizard of Oz-esque ruby red pair is this cheap.
Like a Magna Doodle for the digital age, this tablet can be drawn on, cleared and drawn on again ad infinitum. No messy crayons or pads of paper necessary. And you may even be able to convince your toddler this is their iPad.
This product seems like more of a nice-to-have until you begin nightly negotiations with an angry toddler. You don’t have to live like that!
In this hyperconnected world, you can never have enough smart plugs. Get one for each kitchen appliance and you can set up your own automated breakfast routine, just like how you always envisioned the future would be.
Fido deserves a gift, too. This dog toy giggles when shaken and glows in the dark, the perfect combination for pets who like to keep their owners from getting any shut-eye.
You’ll save more than you spend on this colorful bento box container, which includes plastic cutlery, two stackable compartments and the promise of enlivening your sad desk salad.
A travel must-have: This ultraportable personal fan also works as a flashlight and a backup phone battery. And you can recharge it via USB.
This reusable goo gets in all the cracks and crevices of those hard-to-clean places, like computer keyboards and car consoles.
You don’t have to be a kid to love the idea of a password protected piggy bank. This mini ATM-style safe comes in a dozen colors and stores both paper money and coins.
It’s finally time to start that journaling practice you’ve been thinking about. With a rainbow of shades in satisfying 0.38-mm tips, these pens are a good way to get a jump on that bullet journal resolution before New Year’s.
A festive Christmas tipple only becomes more so when you trade “on the rocks” for “on a piece of ice shaped like a tree ornament.” This ice cube mold two-pack makes two different ornament shapes, which, it should go without saying, will also work for nonalcoholic bevvies.
Forget hot coffee. Those in the know celebrate iced coffee season all year round. This ingenious gadget will save you a few Star-bucks a day, and it doesn’t take up a ton of counter space either.
With so many colors, you can paint pretty much anything on your fingernails. The only limiting factor here is hand steadiness and artistic talent, which Amazon doesn’t seem to have on sale. Clip the coupon to get the full discount for 20% off.
No one needs another blank notebook. But three blank notebooks is another story. In some ways, the lined hardcover journal is the ultimate impulse purchase because it holds the potential for a brand-new start, the key to unlocking our hopes and dreams as we prepare to flip the calendar page anew.
Hang just about anything behind your car’s headrest with these simple organizer hooks, which come four to a pack. These hooks would be especially useful for people who always seem to have shopping bags rolling around in the back seat.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: The Tamagotchi is the perfect white elephant gift. It’s also just a fun little nostalgia trifle that’ll only cost you a few bucks and, probably, more hours of your life than you ever intended.
It slices, it dices, it spiralizes… Just about the only thing this versatile veggie-prepping kitchen gadget won’t do is dam the tears that spring to your eyes when it gets to work on the onions.
You might look a little dorky with this battery-operated cooling device around your neck, but you’ll certainly feel cool.
These LED lights are festive enough for Christmas, but you’ll probably want to keep them up through the winter for an extra dose of nondenominational hygge. With 200 individual lights, this 66-foot strand is safe for both indoor and outdoor use.
It’s the only way you and your BFF can be sure you’re not inadvertently swapping spit when sipping from identical cotton-candy martinis: drink markers that hang on the side of your glass so you know at a glance which one’s yours. These cute little guys come six to a pack, each with a different color tail and mane.
After a discount, this by-kids-for-kids card game is 36% off its usual price.
Get the bathroom clutter off the vanity and onto this wall-mounted organizer instead. This thing holds a lot more than just toothbrushes, with a little makeup drawer and slots for water cups too. It even has a built-in toothpaste dispenser.
When you’re making pasta or trying to strain grease, this cool gadget is an amazing time saver. No more having to pull out a colander. Just clip it to the edge of your pan and it acts like a colander to strain off liquid without losing your delicious food.
It’s full-on sweater season, and if you want to keep those sweaters looking spiffy, you’ll want to pick up this amazing little shaver. It has three settings, so you can adjust it depending on the fabric type. It’s addictive too: Once you start shaving off those bits of fuzz and lint, it’s hard to stop.
For more Cyber Monday deals, check out our list of things currently at their lowest prices ever. We also found a bunch of Best Buy deals that beat Amazon.
Black Friday Deals Under $25: Best Cheap Deals Left Before Cyber Monday
Hoards of Black Friday deals are still in full swing and some Cyber Monday sales are starting to pop up, too. While you can certainly spend big bucks on major electronics or appliances, you may also want to check out some of the best cheap deals out there. Whether you’re aiming to make your budget stretch further or you just want to nab some stocking stuffers this Cyber Monday, these are the best under-$25 deals available right now.
As it turns out, there are a lot of cheap Black Friday deals still hanging around in the weekend leading up to Cyber Monday. You can still get the latest Amazon Echo Dot, an UnderArmour fleece or a whole year of Hulu for $25 or less, for example.
Browse the wider assortment of deals on tech, home gadgets, subscriptions and more below. We’ll continue to update this page as we find more deals, so be sure to check back often.
Tech deals under $25
Smart home deals
Jared DiPane/CNET
Every time that Amazon has offered a bundle like this in the past, it’s sold out before the end of the sale period. With this being Amazon’s newest Echo Dot, we anticipate there will be a lot of interest in the huge discount, so be sure to grab one now before it’s too late.
Chamberlain
This smart accessory can be added to nearly any garage door made after 1993. It connects to your phone, allowing for easy control of the door from anywhere. It’s down to its best price, so be sure to grab one for yourself and even some family members: They’ll be sure to thank you for something so useful.
You’re receiving price alerts for MyQ Smart Garage Control: $17
Streaming device deals
Sarah Tew/CNET
If you’re wanting to add some smarts to your existing TV, you can do exactly that while saving 50% on Amazon’s 4K-capable streaming stick today. Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K is a great pick if you’re new to smart TV functionality with its easy-to-use OS and included Alexa-enabled voice remote.
You’re receiving price alerts for Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K
Audio deals
Other tech deals
Nomad
This tiny USB-C charger offers an impressive 30 watts of output to help you charge all your gear as fast as it can. There are several different options with outputs as high as 65 watts.
Home deals under $25
Disney
Lego is great, and Guardians of the Galaxy is great, so you just know combining is going to be a lot of fun.
You’re receiving price alerts for LEGO Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy 2022 Advent Calendar 76231 Building Toy Set (268 Pieces)
iHealth
At-home COVID-19 tests are a great thing to have around and the perfect time to buy them is when they’re on sale. This pack comes with two easy-to-use tests that give you the results within 15 minutes.
You’re receiving price alerts for iHealth COVID-19 rapid antigen tests
Software and subscription deals under $25
Sam’s Club
For a limited time only, new members can save over 50% on their first year of Sam’s Club membership. This unlocks all the great warehouse and online offers from Sam’s Club, as well as discounted gas and more.
Toys deals under $25
MSCHF
Looking for a fun gift to give that’s outside the box and a little more fun? This puzzle is a QR code that gets scanned once it’s completely put together and offers the chance to win up to $1 million from it. Most people will win $1, but that’s the fun in it.
Fashion deals under $25
Nomad
This hat comes in two different style options and is adjustable to fit just about everyone. The baseball hat is a washed black hat that has a leather patch sewn on with Nomad’s logo, while the camper hat is two-tone and has the Nomad logo over a sunset. Check them both out now.
Beauty deals under $25
Target
At half price, you’ll definitely regret not taking advantage of this deal. It has 35 different color options so you can mix it up regularly and not get bored of any particular style. Grab one today before the price goes back up or it sells out.
You’re receiving price alerts for Morphe Artistry Eyeshadow Palette – 35A Up Til Dawn – 1.44oz – Ulta Beauty
JBL Live Pro 2: the cheap noise-cancelling earbuds you’ve been waiting for
JBL Live Pro 2: two-minute review
JBL is famous for its mid-range audio products that sometimes give competing options at double the price a run for their money. And the good news is that the JBL Live Pro 2 buds are no exception.
The JBL Live Pro 2 are the likeable brand’s latest true wireless earbuds and successors to the JBL Live Pro+ buds. There are some noticeable upgrades here, including adaptive noise cancelling, multi-device pairing and more customization options now within the app.
These earbuds are great all-rounders and can certainly lay claim to a spot in our best true wireless earbuds guide – and we’ll be adding them to it shortly. Thanks to 11mm dynamic drivers, the sound here is powerful, clear and bassy. But you can also tweak how these buds sound with an EQ in the app and a bunch of presets. The accompanying app is generally a treat to use, with a nice layout and plenty of customization options. It’s surprising how many companies get this wrong, but thankfully JBL does not.
The buds look good too, with a minimal design and stems that have a mirrored finish and a capacitive panel for gesture control. We found them very comfortable, with a choice of small, medium and large silicone tips that create a seal for the ANC to really shine. This keeps the buds firmly in place and makes them a solid option for all-day wear and even working out.
Who aren’t these for? Those with a higher budget might want to go for a pair that offers improved sonic performance alongside the noise cancellation, but you’d need to pay a lot more for noticeable improvements. We also weren’t as impressed with call quality at times, and there were a couple of cases of connection loss.
But to be honest, we’d have to really nitpick to find much fault here because there’s a lot to love about these earbuds. Ultimately, JBL’s Live Pro 2 prove you don’t need to spend a small fortune for great sound and excellent ANC these days. Well done, JBL.
JBL Live Pro 2: price and release date
- Released in June 2022
- Cost £129.99 / $149.95 / AU$199.95
The JBL Live Pro 2 launched in June 2022 and cost £129.99 / $149.95 / AU$199.95. We tested the dark blue buds – although they look closer to black in certain lights – but there’s also silver, rose (pink) and black to choose from.
At the time of writing, the black earbuds are a whole lot cheaper in the UK and the US at £99.99/$99.95 – great news if you can’t justify spending more than £100/$100 on a new pair.
This price is great for a pair of true wireless earbuds with good noise cancellation. However, it is a competitive space in the £100/$100-ish mid-range price bracket, as you can see from our best budget earbuds guide. There are the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 Plus, Beats Studio Buds and Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0 to choose from; all similarly-priced rivals and all among our highest rated mid-range options.
At this price, the JBL Live Pro 2 are also significantly cheaper than some of the best true wireless earbuds you can buy today, such as the Sony WF-1000XM4 Wireless Earbuds, which are double the price at £250 / $279.99 / AU$449.95. Then again, these are considered high-end buds and only for those with a much bigger budget anyway.
JBL Live Pro 2: design
- Very comfortable
- IPX5 rating makes them good for fitness
- Shine finish on the stem is a nice touch, but not for everyone
The JBL Live Pro 2 have a stem-like design, mirroring the look of several other true wireless earbuds on the market, like the Apple AirPods range, the Huawei Freebuds Pro 2 and Nothing Ear (1) buds.
That’s not to say they don’t look distinctive though. JBL brings its own, more angular take on the design. The body of the buds is made from matte plastic and there’s a high shine finish on the externally-facing side of the stem. We like this shiny touch and think it adds a high-end feel to the buds, but it won’t appeal to everyone.
These buds have an IPX5 rating, which means they’re water resistant and will handle some sweat, but they’re not fully waterproof and you shouldn’t throw them in the bath and expect it to end well. This level of waterproofing is still very good compared to some buds that don’t have a water resistance rating at all (and even the AirPods Pro 2 only boast a ‘splash-proof’ IPX4, remember) but it’s not as impressive as rivals like the Jabra Elite 7 Active with IP57 rated water resistance.
You’ll find a choice of S, M and L eartips in the box and we were happy with the smallest size. They were incredibly comfortable to wear – in part due to the fact that they weigh only 4.8g each – and stayed put for hours.
To get the fit just right, there’s a feature in the app called ‘Check My Best Fit’. This plays a short clip of music to ensure you’ve got a good seal in each ear to get the most from ANC. Other buds have a similar fit testing feature, but the one on offer here had us up-and-running straight away.
Although the JBL Live Pro 2 aren’t marketed for fitness specifically, given that they’re secure and have an IPX5 rating, we decided to test them in a few different scenarios. They stayed in place during a yoga class and a light, 30 minute jog. They might not be ideal for intense workouts (the seal they create in your ear canal could be affected if you sweat a lot) but fared well during our testing.
The JBL Live Pro 2 charging case is small enough to fit in a pocket and weighs 48.4g. It has a rounded, pillbox-style design with a clamshell lid which, again, is pretty standard for true wireless earbuds these days. Magnets hold the buds in place as they’re charging, and little LEDs at the front give you a rough indication of how much battery you’ve got left.
- Design and features score: 4/5
JBL Live Pro 2: features
- Good 40 hour total battery life
- Fantastic app
- Multi-point pairing
There’s 10 hours of battery life in the buds and an additional 30 in the Live Pro 2’s case, giving you 40 hours in total. This might not be the very best battery life we’ve seen so far from true wireless earbuds, but it’s certainly up there at this level.
For comparison, the higher-end Sony XM4s have 8 hours in each bud, but only 16 in the case; the Bose QuietComfort have only 6 hours in the buds and 12 hours in the case and the latest Apple AirPods Pro 2 offer 6 hours in the buds and a further 30 hours in the case.
But some mid-range stars do offer similar specs to the JBL Live Pro 2, like the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 Plus with 9 hours in the buds and 41 hours in the case and the outstanding battery of the Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0, which boasts 10 hours from the buds and a further 70 from the powerful case.
One of the most user-friendly features of the JBL Live Pro 2 is the accompanying app. It’s surprising how many audio tech brands create good buds, then let them down with an app that’s unable showcase them at their best. There’s none of that here.
Pairing with your phone is incredibly simple. Bluetooth synced up in seconds and the app was connected less than a minute later. Within the app, you see the buds at the top with levels showing you the exact battery levels. There’s then a section dedicated to ANC, another with the Equalizer, a Gesture section to learn them and change them and a VoiceAware slider, controlling how much of your voice you hear in calls.
Other settings live here too, like a fit test, find my buds feature, power saving mode and voice assistant and voice prompts settings. It’s great to have so many features packed in here and they’re displayed in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelming.
On the buds themselves, there’s a capacitive touch panel in the stem and this is how you control them with gestures. For example, you can switch noise cancelling on and off with a tap on the left stem and tap and hold to trigger Siri. All of these are customizable – at least to a point. You can’t decide which gestures do what, but you can select which gets priority on each bud.
As always, these gestures took a little getting used to and although they were mostly responsive, there were times when we noticed a slight delay – albeit only for a few seconds. This wasn’t a big deal when controlling music, but we did miss a call when the buds wouldn’t answer right away.
JBL Live Pro 2: sound quality
- Very impressive noise cancellation
- Lots of customization options
- Not the best sound performance on the market
Noise cancellation is the true star of the show here. In fact, we’d say there are some of the best noise cancelling earbuds around, especially for under £150/$150. To get a significantly better ANC experience, you’d have to be paying the big bucks – and by that we mean well over £200/$200.
Noise cancelling was capable in a range of environments. On a tube journey with loud passengers and loud shrieks of the train, noises were deadened. Not completely, but very noticeably. In an office environment with some voices and ambient noises there was almost an eerie silence. If you work in an office, commute regularly or just like the deep immersion and peaceful silence of great ANC, these buds are a fantastic choice.
The good news is there are some ANC settings you can tweak here. So, you can turn ANC on in the app, but then you can also customize it. You can toggle Adaptive ANC on and off, which means the ANC level adjusts based on what your surrounding noise level is. Walking from a busy tube station into a quieter street, we found this worked remarkably well. You’ll also find Leakage Compensation, Ear Canal Compensation and an Ear Canal Test here too, which all add to the wonderful noise cancelling experience.
Ambient Aware is another setting, which essentially switches ANC off, still providing a clear sound but you can hear most sounds around you. There’s also TalkThru, specially designed for if you need to have a conversation with the buds still in your ears, this is like Ambient Aware but bumps the volume of sound back down – again, ideal for office workers.
The sound quality on offer from these buds is impressive for the price. There’s a good balance across the whole range and a fairly broad soundstage right out of the box too – especially when the volume is pumped up high. They handle bass remarkably well and vocals are, for the most part, clear. There was some richness of detail here, but not on par with the best-in-class buds, like the Apple AirPods Pro 2.
Within the Equalizer, there are presets you can toggle through, including Jazz, Vocal and Bass, and you can see how the curve changes as you select each. We couldn’t tell the difference between some of these, but Bass was our favourite; playing Where is My Mind by Pixies and moving from Vocal to Bass gave us a delightful punch of power.
For most people the presets should give you enough control. But you can also customize your own settings here across 10 bands that range from 32Hz to 16kHz by simply dragging and dropping points and saving the results to create your own preset. There’s room for loads of these, we played around with six and didn’t hit a limit.
As much as we loved the sound on offer here, we think audiophiles might want more – specifically, more clarity and detail, plus a broader soundstage and a richer sound. But most people will be happy with these buds, especially when you can tweak the sound and define your own presets.
Call quality was good but not great. The microphone didn’t separate our voice from the ambient sound around us as much as we’d have liked. We were still heard fairly well, but you’ll find clearer calls from the best buds out there, particularly the Sony XM4s. There were also a couple of connectivity issues with calls dropping in and out, but not frequently.
JBL Live Pro 2: value
- Excellent ANC for mid-range money
- You’ll struggle to find a better all-rounder at this price
- You’d have to pay double for a noticeable improvement
The JBL Live Pro 2 true wireless earbuds punch above their weight in almost every way. Noise cancellation is particularly good and it’s adaptive, too, which makes it perfect for busy, noisy environments and commuting. Sound is good, EQ customization is great and although call quality could be better, most people won’t notice it unless they make a lot of them regularly.
There are plenty of rival buds in this price range that offer some key features, such as a marginally better battery life and a more minimalist design. But to get better buds with noise cancellation that’s a considerable improvement on these JBLs, you’d have to pay almost double the price.
JBL Live Pro 2: should you buy them?
Swipe to scroll horizontally
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Design | They’re comfortable and water-resistant, although the mirror finish may not be to all tastes | 4/5 |
| Features | A very good companion app and solid battery life | 4/5 |
| Sound quality | ANC is king here, but the sound quality is no slouch either | 4/5 |
| Value | You can do better sonically – but not for anything less than double the money | 5/5 |
Buy them if…
Don’t buy them if…
Also consider
If our JBL Live Pro 2 review has you considering other true wireless earbuds, then take a look at these three alternatives.
The MacBook Air M1 is Black Friday cheap right now at $799
Yes, the new MacBook Air M2 is fast, but it’s pretty steep at $1,199. The MacBook Air M1 is still plenty speedy and has crashed to a price that’s too good to pass up. In fact, this feels like an early Black Friday deal because it’s so cheap.
Right now, the MacBook Air M1 is on sale for just $799 at Amazon (opens in new tab). That’s a huge $200 off the regular price, and the lowest price we’ve ever seen for this model all year.
In our MacBook Air M1 review, we loved the speedy performance offered by Apple’s M1 chip and at the time we called it a computing revolution. We also saw a superb 14 hours of battery life in our testing, so you likely won’t have to charge until the end of the day.
The 13.3-inch Retina display on the MacBook Air is fairly bright and colorful. It notched a pretty solid 356 nits in our testing, and it reproduced a good 114.3% of the sRGB spectrum. Other MacBook Air M1 highlights include a comfy Magic keyboard and an improved webcam.
There are just a couple of things we don’t like about this system, including the somewhat thick bezels and dearth of ports, since you get just two Thunderbolt ports and a headphone jack.
Overall, this MacBook Air M1 deal is a no-brainer. But if you’re looking for more discounts, check out our Apple deals coverage.
Vampire Survivors—a cheap, minimalistic indie game—is my game of the year
Enlarge / Kill monsters, pick up XP gems, upgrade character.
If you’re a fan of roguelites and haven’t heard of Vampire Survivors, let me be the first to welcome you to your new obsession.
The “gothic horror casual game with roguelike elements,” as its developer calls it, has been taking the indie world by storm over the past year, racking up over 120,000 “overwhelmingly positive” reviews on Steam and capturing effusive praise from critics. And until today, it was still in Early Access.
The game has even spawned a new sub-subgenre, with games of its ilk incorporating ideas from bullet-hell shoot-em-ups, roguelites, and timed horde-survival games. These games are almost all in Early Access, and every last one is curiously cheap—$5 seems to be the price cap. But while many pretenders to the throne have arisen, Vampire Survivors still reigns supreme. It was the second real game of its kind, after the 2021 Android-exclusive Magic Survival.
Why is a small game with unassuming pixel graphics and minimalistic gameplay so popular?
That’s easy—it’s fantastically, relentlessly fun.
What a horrible night to have a curse
The gameplay loop is simple: Kill monsters, collect the experience-point gems they drop to level up, and try to piece together a character build strong enough to keep pace with the game’s ever-escalating difficulty. Survive for 30 minutes and you’ve won (at the end of a successful run, “the reaper” appears and kills you, but still, you’ve won).
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Things start out calm enough for our Castlevania-esque hero.
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Fifteen minutes later, you’re surrounded.
Here’s the twist, though. You do only two things in Vampire Survivors: move your character around and make decisions about what abilities to take and upgrade as you level up. Your character’s weapons—you start with one but add more as a run progresses—fire automatically at a set pace; it’s up to you to position your hero to stay out of danger and be in the right place to hit enemy targets. Some weapons target the nearest enemy, some shoot in specific or random directions, and others fire at random enemies. So the gameplay basically boils down to “walk around the screen as enemies trudge toward your position.”
I get it: That sounds minimalistic to a fault—and probably more than a little boring. But if you’re anything like me, this game will get its hooks into you.
One of my favorite aspects of roguelites is their ability to distill the essence of character progression in a role-playing game down to a bite-sized experience. For my money, there’s nothing more satisfying in gaming than taking a character from zero to hero, carefully selecting new abilities and gear to make your build tough enough to take on endgame challenges. Roguelites like The Binding of Isaac have you start each 30- to 60-minute run as a wimpy pushover, but by the end of that brief play session, you’re a veritable god of destruction.
Vampire Survivors takes that concept and simplifies it even further. What if you could build a character in a cool 20–30 minutes, but your build “plays itself,” and the only thing you need to worry about is positioning?
It might sound like “the lazy person’s roguelite,” but there’s more going on than you might initially think.
Scientists Say Refreezing Earth’s Poles Is Feasible and Remarkably Cheap
According to new research, refreezing the poles by reducing incoming sunlight would be both feasible and remarkably cheap.
Earth’s poles are warming several times faster than the global average. In fact, record-smashing heatwaves were reported earlier this year in both the Arctic and Antarctic. Melting ice and collapsing glaciers at high latitudes would accelerate sea level rise around the planet. Fortunately, it would be both feasible and remarkably cheap to refreeze the poles by reducing incoming sunlight. This is according to new research published on September 15, 2022, in IOP Publishing’s Environmental Research Communications.
Scientists laid out a possible future geoengineering program whereby high-flying jets would spray microscopic aerosol particles into the atmosphere at latitudes of 60 degrees north and south – approximately Anchorage and the southern tip of Patagonia. If injected at a height of 43,000 feet / 13,000 meters (above airliner cruising altitudes), these aerosols would slowly drift poleward, shading the surface beneath slightly.
“There is widespread and sensible trepidation about deploying aerosols to cool the planet,” notes lead author Wake Smith, “but if the risk/benefit equation were to pay off anywhere, it would be at the poles.” Smith is a lecturer at 
A tabular iceberg floating within Paradise Harbour, Antarctica. Credit: IOP Publishing
Pre-existing military air-to-air refueling tankers such as the aged KC-135 and the A330 MMRT don’t have enough payload at the required altitudes. However, newly designed high-altitude tankers would prove much more efficient. A fleet of roughly 125 such tankers could loft a payload sufficient to cool the regions poleward of 60°N/S by 2°C per year. This would be enough to return them close to their pre-industrial average temperatures. Annual costs are estimated at $11 billion. This is less than one-third the cost of cooling the entire planet by the same 2°C magnitude and just a tiny fraction of the cost of reaching net zero emissions.
“Game-changing though this could be in a rapidly warming world, stratospheric aerosol injections merely treat a symptom of climate change but not the underlying disease. It’s aspirin, not penicillin. It’s not a substitute for decarbonization,” says Smith.
Cooling at the poles would provide direct protection for only a small portion of the planet. However, the mid-latitudes should also experience some temperature reduction. Since less than 1% of the global human population lives in the target deployment zones, a polar deployment would entail much less direct risk to most of humanity than a global program.
“Nonetheless, any intentional turning of the global thermostat would be of common interest to all of humanity and not merely the province of Arctic and Patagonian nations,” adds Smith.
In summary, the current study is just a small and preliminary step towards understanding the costs, benefits, and risks of undertaking climate intervention at high latitudes. It provides further reason to believe that such tools could prove useful both in preserving the cryosphere near the poles and slowing global sea level rise.
Reference: “A subpolar-focused stratospheric aerosol injection deployment scenario” by Wake Smith, Umang Bhattarai, Douglas G MacMartin, Walker Raymond Lee, Daniele Visioni, Ben Kravitz and Christian V Rice, 15 September 2022, Environmental Research Communications.
DOI: 10.1088/2515-7620/ac8cd3