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Tag Archives: fading
The Dream Of DRM-Free Steam PC Games Is Fading Away
Good Old Games, or GOG, the digital-rights-management-free PC gaming marketplace and platform from CD Projekt, has officially ended a service that already didn’t feel terribly long for this world. What once seemed like a promising way to slowly import portions of your Steam library to GOG, where they could exist in an infinitely archivable format, has now finally evaporated.
GOG launched in 2008 as an alternative to other digital gaming storefronts on PC, focusing on making older, hard-to-find games purchasable. The cherry on top? All of these games would be available without any digital rights management software to restrict what you do with your .exe copies. Unlike Steam, GOG games are much easier to back up and re-install on multiple computers, all without ever needing to get tangled up in any sort of online account authorization. In 2012, the service expanded from older PC-gaming gems to modern titles, keeping the DRM-free policy in place.
In 2016, GOG announced “Connect,” a service that let you connect your Steam library to redeem select titles you already owned as DRM-free copies on GOG, with said games only eligible for redemption in a limited window of time. Those who’ve checked GOG.com/Connect in recent years, however, have found nothing but digital tumbleweeds. And now, in January of 2023, said link and service now just directs to GOG’s homepage, officially signaling the end of this once very promising program.
GOG.com/Connect always had an air of “this is too good to be true.” A service that gives you an extra copy of a game you already own, with no restrictions as to how you can backup, install, re-install, sell, or share it? How even?
But while the service was active, it wasn’t just a great way to migrate to a new platform, but rather a handy way to archive your Steam library. Though Steam is a pretty accessible and reliable platform that often gives you access to games you’ve purchased but have since been pulled off the storefront (2007’s Prey is one such example), DRM is still widely used on the Valve storefront and trying to use the service without a reliable internet connection can easily render a game unplayable, as many a traveling Steam Deck user has discovered. GOG Connect was once a promising solution to this issue. But, the idea of being able to some day move a substantial amount of your library into something archivable, without spending a dime, was just too good to be true.
Like many, I used this service a fair bit when it launched. I’d keep the link bookmarked to visit once a week. But as available games began to dry up, it drifted from memory. I still play the game of “should I get this on Steam or GOG?” every time something I want comes up on both services. The promise of GOG Connect once made that question irrelevant.
Here’s the Last Selfie From the Fading InSight Mars Lander
NASA has shared the final self-portrait that will be taken by the InSight Mars lander, showing dust-caked solar panels that blend into the surrounding regolith. The InSight mission is expected to end this year, and the lander will need all of its remaining power to gather as much scientific data as possible.
In a press conference last week, NASA announced that InSight will likely cease all operations at the end of 2022. The mission’s end is due to the amount of dust that has accumulated on the lander’s solar panels, limiting the amount of power the spacecraft can draw from.
For three years, InSight has toiled on the Martian surface, taking images of the Martian skies and using its seismometer to detect marsquakes. For two years, the lander tried to use its ‘Mole’ heat probe to dig into the Martian surface, before the tool got stuck in the spongy soil. Earlier this month, the lander detected the largest-yet-known seismic activity on another planet: a magnitude 5 quake that occurred somewhere in the Martian interior.
The lander also gave scientists the best-ever look at the Martian insides, as well as the geological and seismological systems at work on the planet today. InSight has so far detected 1,313 marsquakes, and could yet detect more before its scientific operations end.
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The mission’s end has been a creeping certainty. The lander has previously been forced into safe modes by Martian dust storms. Stop-gap measures helped get some of the dust off the panels—namely, by intentionally dropping Martian dirt onto the dust to dislodge it—but such actions appear to have just prolonged the inevitable.
This final selfie was taken on April 24, and it shows the amount of dust that has built up on the spacecraft’s solar panels. It’s much more dust than was present in the lander’s first and second selfies, taken in December 2018 and between March and April 2019.
The selfies are mosaics, meaning they’re stitched together from multiple images, each of which requires the lander’s camera-carrying robotic arm to be in a different position. With dwindling power supply, the selfies simply aren’t worth the drain on the batteries, and the robotic arm will be moved into its resting position (or “retirement pose”) this month, according to NASA.
Kathya Zamora Garcia, the Deputy Project Manager for InSight, said in last week’s press conference that the lander’s scientific operations could end as soon as mid-July, but that the Martian climate is unpredictable.
However much time InSight has left, we likely won’t see the lander in such an exquisite panorama again.
More: Dust Storm Sends China’s Mars Rover Into Safe Mode
Cristiano Ronaldo’s fading greatness takes center stage in Manchester United’s Champions League exit
The biggest game of the season, of course Cristiano Ronaldo was going to make history in it. The first time in more than a decade where he has played 90 minutes of Champions League football and not registered a shot. The first time in more than a decade that he will end a season without a club trophy. Yet more landmarks for that historical resume.
It will take the distant perspective of history to confidently place Ronaldo in his appropriate place among the pantheon of footballing greats, but tonight it felt like most of the key facets of his resume have been decided. Yes the volume of goals will swell and there may yet be a few more games when he rolls back the years, just as he did against Tottenham on Saturday. He should not be written off as a footballing force in the here and now but it is now painfully obvious that his true greatness lies in the past.
Tonight, he did whatever he could to drag it into the present. Ronaldo was not even remotely United’s worst player. Particularly at the outset he played with thrust and intensity. One moment he might drift over to the left to combine with Jadon Sancho, the next he would be on the right flank, freeing Anthony Elanga to move into the box. If Atletico Madrid were going to plug up the penalty area he was going to do whatever he could to drag them out of there.
In that impressive opening third of the game, so easily forgotten in the morass that followed, United and Ronaldo were freewheeling, all quick interplay and fizzing moves down the flank. Then came the setback: a defensive line all too easily played through, Harry Maguire careening into no man’s land, Diogo Dalot trying to mark three players at once. Renan Lodi struck and with it went United’s sense of stability and any belief in the plan that they applied themselves to in relatively impressive fashion.
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That is not on Ronaldo. Nor is it entirely on him that when their chips were down United did what they and Juventus before them have done in this sort of game, they hit and hoped in the general direction of the FIFA-recognized greatest goal scorer in history. Surrounded on the right byline in the 66th minute Bruno Fernandes, seemingly so inhibited by his compatriot in the colors of Manchester United and Portugal, chucked a desperate cross into the box in the hope someone might be there.
Alex Telles was pumping ball after ball in his general direction too. As time wore on it seemed that was all this gaudily talented squad could think to do: trust in the overwhelming narrative powers of Ronaldo. He would bail them out in the knockout rounds as he had in the group stages, as he had done for Juventus with that spectacular bicycle kick against this team.
It did not work.
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The headline statistic was the first European match without a shot in 3969 days, since a draw with Barcelona in the Camp Nou. Ronaldo did not even get close. He did not even get a touch in the box. That itself breaks a six and a half year streak in this competition going back to a group stage game against PSG.
Atletico Madrid played him with no fear, quite something for a side who have suffered so greatly at his feet. After a shaky start Jan Oblak was imperious under those desperate crosses. Every duel Jose Maria Gimenez fought, he won. Maguire didn’t do a bad job of blocking Ronaldo off at set pieces either.
Diego Simeone and his players will surely never forget the numerous devastating blows inflicted on them by Ronaldo, in this competition and beyond. But when all the pre-match talk was about the history between these two, Atletico stayed in the here and now. Over the course of 180 minutes they limited him to two speculative shots from outside the box and one touch of the ball in it.
Atleti may have been the great whipping boys for Ronaldo in this competition but they might yet find themselves taking solace in the fact that they ended his career in it. Almost every summer now brings uncertainty over the 37 year old and his future. The facts, however, are these. Manchester United are out of the Champions League and it will take an significant change in trajectory for them to be back in it in the second year of his contract. Arsenal have the games in hand to streak clear, even after their defeat at the weekend Tottenham’s chances of leapfrogging the Gunners are comparable to the Red Devils’.
Does Ronaldo fancy the Europa League? He should. Thursday nights are great fun and the music slaps. Would another team be inclined to let him extend his records in this competition? Paris Saint-Germain might be the only club as taken with potential storylines as Old Trafford and there are few better than uniting Lionel Messi and Ronaldo for one last shot at glory.
But that is the sort of territory we are in now. The beginning of the end may well have been some time ago. For all we know the end of Ronaldo and the Champions League just happened.
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Hope Fading for Dozens of Migrants From Capsized Boat Off Florida
The Coast Guard has so far searched about 7,500 nautical miles, an area about the size of New Jersey, she said. The search was continuing on Wednesday, but at some point, she said, officials would have to call off the operation as the chances of survival grew more slim.
The authorities in the Bahamas said information about the boat and those aboard it was still being gathered.
“Everything is sketchy right now,” said Keith Bell, minister of immigration in the Bahamas. “We are communicating with our U.S. counterparts, and we are in communication with the Ministry of National Security as well to see what information is available, just to confirm whether or not it did in fact come from Bimini and who were these persons.”
The recent surge in maritime smuggling of migrants to Florida and California has occurred as technology deployed along the land borders has made it increasingly difficult to elude capture.
The number of Cubans making the perilous journey is smaller than the large numbers that arrived before January 2017, when the Obama administration ended the policy that had allowed Cubans to remain legally in the United States once they touched U.S. soil. But the numbers are climbing quickly as economic hardship intensifies on the Caribbean island.
Haitian migrants, who most often embark from the Bahamas, have frequently boarded rickety homemade boats, paying thousands of dollars for a shot at leaving a country engulfed in gang violence, political upheaval and destitution after the assassination of the former president and a deadly earthquake. Migrants from the Dominican Republic have also tried to make the maritime crossing.
Since the beginning of October, Coast Guard crews have intercepted 155 Dominicans and 129 Haitians near Puerto Rico, with hundreds more taken into custody during the 2021 fiscal year. In September, the Coast Guard stopped a boat carrying 104 Haitian migrants, jammed shoulder to shoulder, less than 20 miles from Miami.
Comet Leonard, the brightest of the year, is fading and acting strange
Something strange is happening to skywatchers’ most anticipated comet of the year.
Astronomers first spotted what’s been dubbed Comet Leonard in January 2021, and soon skywatchers were eagerly anticipating December and January, when the comet was due to pass by first Earth, then the sun. But by late November, observers noticed something strange. The comet should be getting brighter as it approaches the sun — and it is, but apparently only because it’s getting closer to Earth, not because it’s becoming inherently brighter.
Instead, it seems to be fading.
“It’s not great news. The comet should be brighter and brighter,” Quanzhi Ye, an astronomer at the University of Maryland who specializes in comets, told Space.com. “If it’s not getting brighter then something’s wrong, but we don’t know exactly what at this stage.”
Related: Comet Leonard will light up the sky this month — here’s how to see it
Based on what they’ve seen from previous comets, scientists worry that Comet Leonard’s strange dimming means the iceball may be doomed. In the past, some comets that have broken apart have faded even as they fly closer to the sun — it’s been the first sign that something is happening.
“Why it’s fading, there are all kinds of hypotheses,” Ye said. “The simplest and the most obvious one is something unhealthy is happening to the comet.”
The most likely hypothesis, he said, is that Comet Leonard is already splitting up, or it will begin to do so soon. But other factors could be to blame. For example, the comet could simply be running out of ice for the sun to vaporize, although Ye thinks that’s unlikely. “It seems to be too coincidental,” he said.
Nevertheless, it’s too early to call Comet Leonard a goner.
“The images I’ve seen from this morning [Dec. 7], the comet still seems to be OK — morphologically it looks fine. But the intrinsically fading trend is still continuing,” Ye said. “Time will tell, we don’t know at this point.”
Ye said that the first sign a comet is doomed is that it loses its ion tail, a stream of charged particles pointing from the comet in the direction opposite the sun. That feature could disappear within a few hours of a comet breaking apart.
Comet Leonard makes its closest approach to Earth on Sunday (Dec. 12); its perihelion, or closest approach to the sun, comes on Jan. 3. Although the sun’s influence will ease up after Jan. 3, the comet isn’t necessarily safe even if it survives that long.
“Comets do all sorts of weird things,” Ye said. “Sometimes they disintegrate before reaching perihelion, sometimes after, and there are even hypotheses saying that comets can disintegrate when they’re farther out from the sun. So we won’t know until we see it happen.”
There are several factors that could break apart a comet, Ye noted. The gravitational tug of the sun or a large planet could pull it apart, sure, but the comet’s heart could also implode. If the comet’s material vaporizes in quite the right way, it could speed up the comet’s spin so dramatically that the iceball flies to pieces.
And if Comet Leonard does break apart, scientists may never know what was the culprit. “Usually for individual comets it’s hard to determine which is the dominant driver,” Ye said.
Should skywatchers panic?
Even if Comet Leonard is meeting an early end, there’s still time to see it in the skies. There’s typically a delay between when a comet begins to break apart and when it fades as seen from Earth, Ye said.
“Usually it will take a few days before you can see the comet dramatically change and fade and stuff,” he said. “We should be still in for something pretty bright next week, simply because it takes time for the comet to fully disintegrate.”
Comet Leonard will be visible in the late mornings as it approaches Earth through Dec. 12. Then, it will disappear for a few days, hidden by the sun’s glare, before gracing the evening skies by Dec. 17. For more details on spotting Comet Leonard, visit our skywatching guide.
Ye said he hasn’t been able to see Comet Leonard yet because of cloudy weather, but hopes to next week. While he’s interested in what comets can tell scientists about the early days of the solar system, he appreciates the display just as much.
“They’re fun to watch and for bright comets they’re beautiful,” he said. “It’s great to see them in the night sky.”
Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
Afghan Women Are Already Fading From Public View as Fear of the Taliban and Uncertainty Prevail
Dr. Zuhal used to drive herself to work.
This week, she started taking a taxi to avoid reprisals from the Taliban, who once banned women from driving. It didn’t help. On the second day of the Taliban takeover, a Taliban gunman dragged the doctor, who didn’t want to use her full name, out of the taxi and whipped her for filming the chaos surrounding the evacuations at the Kabul airport through her window.
“I cried the whole way home,” she said.
Since seizing control of Afghanistan, the Taliban have sought to portray themselves as more moderate than when they were last in power in the 1990s, when their hard-line interpretation of Sunni Islam and their treatment of women helped make them a pariah state.
While the Taliban have publicly pledged to respect women’s rights within the limits of Islam, the group hasn’t elaborated on their own reading of it, or made specific promises. Interpretations of Islamic law vary widely, and the possible range of restrictions are causing many inside and outside Afghanistan to fear the worst for women’s freedoms.
Venus and the moon pass a fading Mars in the evening sky this weekend
If there were ever a “maverick” among the naked eye planets, that title would certainly go to Mars.
Just nine months ago, Mars came to within 38.8 million miles (62.43 million kilometers) of Earth, the closest it had been to us since August 2003, and it will not be that close again until September 2035. Mars appeared three times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in our sky and even rivaled Jupiter in brilliance. In fact, Mars ranked as the third brightest nighttime object behind the moon and Venus.
But that was then, this is now.
Related: The brightest planets in July’s night sky: How to see them (and when)
Venus points the way
At this moment in time, Mars is on the other side of the brightness spectrum. On Sunday evening (July 11) look low in the west-northwest sky about 45 minutes after sunset.
You’ll be able to use a very conspicuous benchmark in order to make a positive identification, for the first object to attract your attention will certainly be dazzling Venus. After you’ve found it, look about one degree to its immediate left and you’ll see Mars appearing as a yellowish-orange, though by no means outstandingly bright star.
Don’t expect the eye-popping object that adorned our skies in the early fall of 2020. Rather, right now Mars is much farther away from us at a distance of 231 million miles (371 million km). So, Mars will appear only about 1.7% as bright as it was nine months ago and a mere 0.5% as bright as Venus.
In fact, by virtue of it currently shining at magnitude +1.8, Mars has dropped in rank to the category of a second-magnitude object; to assure you make a positive sighting I would strongly recommend you use binoculars.
The moon floats nearby
Another object appearing in the general vicinity of the two planets in the fading evening twilight will be the moon. Two days past new phase, it will appear as a hairline arc of light, just 4% illuminated and will be situated about a half-dozen degrees to the right of the two planets. If your clenched fist measures about 10 degrees at arm’s length, then the moon and the two planets will be separated by roughly half a fist.
All three objects will remain in the west-northwest sky for about 90 minutes after sunset. Mars in fact is practically midway between two other noteworthy sky objects. At 45 minutes after sunset, the sky might still be too bright to see the moon and Mars readily with the naked eye, so already noted, you’ll probably need binoculars. But after another 15 minutes have passed the sky will have darkened sufficiently so that you should readily be able to identify them with your unaided eyes, though they’ll all be lower in the sky.
The scene will have changed noticeably the very next evening.
July 12 and beyond
On Monday, July 12, the moon will have widened a bit to 9% illuminated and will have shifted to a spot nearly 7 degrees to the upper left of the two planets. But the positions of the planets have also changed; the distance between them will have been halved with Venus now sitting just about a half degree to the right of Mars.
Venus will continue to grow more prominent — albeit rather slowly — in the western evening sky through the balance of 2021.
As for Mars, it will continue to be evident as an evening object for another couple of weeks or so, closely passing the bright bluish 1st-magnitude star, Regulus on July 29. But as we move into August, it will become lost in the bright sunset glow and will then go on a hiatus of sorts as it transitions into the morning sky, eventually reappearing in the early morning sky around Thanksgiving to set the stage for its gradual return to prominence during 2022.
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmers’ Almanac and other publications. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
China’s LGBTQ community is fading from rainbow to gray
During this year’s Pride Month, soccer star Li Ying made history as China’s first female athlete to come out publicly as gay, in a candid series of celebratory photos posted on social media, showing her posing happily alongside her partner.
It’s increasingly common worldwide for celebrities and high-profile sports stars to come out, often to widespread public support. But in China, Li’s announcement received a very different reaction.
Her post, uploaded on June 22 onto Weibo, China’s heavily censored version of Twitter, immediately went viral, becoming one of the top trending topics on the platform. And while much of the reaction was positive, with people sending their congratulations, Li’s account was also inundated with a wave of homophobic abuse. The post was later deleted without explanation.
Li has not posted on Weibo since. Chinese state-run media, meanwhile, did not report on Li’s announcement, nor the subsequent reaction it generated.
Li’s experience is just the tip of what for many was something of a grim Pride Month in China. In years past, June was filled with LGBTQ events in major cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, during which China’s sexual minorities could semi-openly celebrate their identity.
But in August 2020, China’s biggest and longest-running LGBTQ festival, Shanghai Pride, was canceled due to mounting pressure from local authorities. When Pride Month 2021 arrived, few events were held, and those that were remained largely underground.
“Every year it becomes more and more challenging,” one Chinese LGBTQ artist, who asked not to be named for fear of government reprisal, told CNN. “Events are fewer and advocates are finding it more and more difficult to raise acceptance.”
In recent decades, sexual minorities in China seemed to have received gradual — though uneasy — acceptance by authorities.
China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997 and removed it from its official list of mental disorders in 2001.
But with same-sex marriage still illegal and Chinese authorities banning “abnormal sexual behaviors” from the media in 2016, the impression among many is that LGBTQ people are free to explore their identities — so long as they do so in private.
The ongoing clampdown on LGBTQ spaces appeared to accelerate on July 6, when China’s most popular messaging app WeChat suddenly shut down dozens of LGBTQ accounts run by university students, one of the most widespread and coordinated acts of censorship targeting sexual minorities in the country in decades.
When several users attempted to access the groups, they received a notice saying, “After receiving relevant complaints, all content has been blocked and the account has been put out of service.”
Speaking to CNN under a pseudonym, Cathy, the manager of one of the deleted groups, said spaces for the LGBTQ community to speak openly are shrinking rapidly in China.
“Our goal is to simply survive, to continue to be able to serve LGBT students and provide them with warmth. We basically don’t engage in any radical advocating anymore,” she said.
After the shutdown of LGBT WeChat groups on Tuesday, Hu Xijin, editor of the state-owned tabloid Global Times, claimed on his blog that there was “no restriction” from the Chinese government on the “lifestyle choices” of sexual minorities, or “discrimination and suppression” from public opinion.
Hu said if LGBTQ people in China could just accept their country was never going to be on the “forefront” of rights for sexual minorities, they might be happier.
“LGBT people in China at this stage should not seek to become a high-profile ideology,” he said.
Some LGBTQ people have blamed the crackdown on the incorrect impression that homosexuality is a Western import into China, and groups supporting gay rights are liable to infiltration by foreign forces.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has increasingly stressed the ruling Communist Party’s absolute control over every aspect of society. Some also suspect a more direct link between the crackdown on LGBTQ rights and top officials’ worldviews, which for many were shaped during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and ’70s, when authorities attempted to purge any “non-socialist” elements — including homosexuality — from Chinese society.
“Nationalist trolls stigmatize LGBT activists as being supported by foreign forces. Just like what they did to the feminist activists,” the LGBTQ artist said.
Around Asia
- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi dropped 12 members from his cabinet, including the federal ministers for health and law, in a major reshuffle Wednesday, following fierce criticism over his government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
- The Tokyo Olympics will be held without spectators when it begins later this month, after the Japanese government announced a state of emergency would continue in the capital until August 22 due to rising Covid-19 cases.
- Facing vaccine shortages at home, Taiwan citizens are going on “Visit and Vaccination” holidays to the US territory of Guam, where tourists aged 12 and up are able to get their first shot on the day they arrive.
- Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said he was “seriously thinking” about running for vice president in the 2022 Presidential election. The strongman leader is barred for running for a second term as president under the country’s constitution.
Outrage over Didi’s botched IPO grows in America
The firestorm over Didi’s disastrous IPO is getting even fiercer.
A member of the US Senate’s banking committee on Thursday called on American financial regulators to investigate the Chinese ride-hailing company’s public offering.
“The [US Securities and Exchange Commission] should thoroughly investigate this incident to see if investors were intentionally misled by Didi’s public disclosures,” Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen told CNN Business in a statement.
Didi raised $4.4 billion by listing its shares on the New York Stock Exchange on June 30, marking the biggest US IPO by a Chinese company since 2014.
But the share price collapsed within days, costing US investors dearly. The selloff was triggered by a crackdown from China, which announced on July 4 it was banning Didi from app stores in the country because it poses cybersecurity risks and broke privacy laws.
“American investors need confidence that the companies that list on US exchanges are not engaging in fraud and should have access to information on the risks posed by investing in foreign companies — especially those influenced by foreign governments,” Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, said in the statement.
The SEC did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
There’s growing outrage within the United States over the IPO. Republican Senator Marco Rubio told the Financial Times this week that it was “reckless and irresponsible” for Didi to be allowed to sell shares. He argued that American investors have “no insight” into Didi’s financial strength “because the Chinese Communist Party blocks US regulators from reviewing the books.”
Former President Donald Trump late last year signed a law that requires US-listed companies to be held to American auditing standards and establish they are not owned or controlled by a foreign government. Under the law, companies that fail to comply with US auditing standards for three years in a row will get kicked off US exchanges.
— By Matt Egan
Photo of the day
Aging elegantly: While dancing in public squares has become a popular exercise among the elderly in China, some seniors are pursuing dancing as a more serious pastime. In Henan province, a group of women in their 60s have formed an amateur ballet group, pushing their physical limits to perform challenging routines.