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A cartoon by Clay Jones. Related | ’60 Minutes’ insiders call out CBS heads for destroying iconic show…

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The world’s AI luminaries love to warn us of impending planetary demise thanks to their creations, and they’re back with a new warning: Rapidly improving frontier AI models, combined with readily available synthetic nucleic acids, could lower barriers to biological weapons development. The open letter, published this week, calls on lawmakers to make screening of orders for synthetic nucleic acids and the equipment used to produce them mandatory. It also backs recordkeeping for synthesis orders and sequence data so that potentially dangerous activity that slips through initial screening can be traced back to its source. As has been the case with previous open letters from AI heavyweights warning of extinction-level threats from the products they created, the letter was signed by a who’s-who of the industry. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, OpenAI chief Sam Altman, Anthropic boss Dario Amodei, Microsoft AI leader Mustafa Suleyman, and other notable names appear on the letter. Outside the AI sector, leaders from the life sciences and nucleic acid synthesis industries also signed the letter, warning that advances in AI and the growing availability of synthetic nucleic acids could pose biosecurity risks. “The ability to order synthetic DNA online has accelerated vaccine development, powered basic research, and made it possible for small teams to access capabilities that used to be confined to major institutions,” the signatories said, adding that synthetic nucleic acid availability has already been established to be a potential risk, and that advances in AI could increase those risks. “AI systems are improving rapidly, and alongside incredible benefits to science and medicine, there is a real possibility that the knowledge barriers which have historically prevented bad actors from obtaining biological weapons will meaningfully erode,” the letter continued. Screening purchases of synthetic nucleic acids and the equipment to manufacture them, the letter argues, is one of the “best understood and least disruptive biosecurity measures available.” The signatories argue that providers of the equipment and materials should check synthesis requests for “sequences of concern,” and verify the legitimacy of a customer before shipping orders. Synthesis orders and sequence data should be retained as well, which would enable tracing of threats that evade initial screening. “Awareness of traceability itself deters misuse,” the letter argues. “Many of the largest and most responsible providers in the industry already screen and record orders,” and they want those practices codified in US law.” “Given the pace at which the underlying technology is changing, we believe the need is urgent,” the letter concludes. “Congress should act this session … this is a rare moment of agreement across stakeholders that are often at odds. We hope policymakers will meet it with decisive action.” There are currently a couple of bills in Congress aimed at strengthening oversight of synthetic nucleic acid synthesis: one introduced in the House more than a year ago, and another filed in the Senate in January 2026. The House measure was ordered reported out of committee in April 2025 but has seen no further action, while the Senate bill has remained in committee since its introduction. It’s worth noting that the Biden administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy published a framework in April 2024 directing federally funded life sciences research to procure synthetic nucleic acids and synthesis equipment from providers that follow specified screening practices. The Trump administration ordered OSTP to revise or replace that framework in a May 2025 executive order, giving the office 90 days to do so. A new version of the framework has yet to be published. ®

Meta's board cites "due process" concerns over account bans. It's also pushing Meta to offer clear information about violations and its use in AI in making its determinations.

Creators often have to parse through charts and dashboards to understand their performance, but with the new AI assistant, they can get quick answers to questions like "When should I post?" and "What are people saying in my comments?"

Apple's WWDC nears: here's what you can look forward to.

Meta is reportedly backtracking on, or at least weakening, its plans to implement enhanced employee workplace monitoring following staff protests. According to the latest internal memo on the matter, first reported by Reuters, Meta is still planning to capture employees’ keystrokes as previously understood, but it will allow Metalings to switch off the monitoring for 30-minute periods, and request a total exemption. The memo was distributed to staff on Tuesday by Stephane Kasriel, veep at the company’s Superintelligence Labs AI division. Kasriel said that, in addition to allowing staff to take half-hour privacy breaks, when the software is hoovering up their data, it will at least do it in a less resource-demanding manner. Some staffers were complaining about the battery drain on their devices incurred by the initiative, while remote workers reported undue strain on their home internet usage. The Register contacted Meta for a response but it did not reply, as was the case when we previously asked it to comment on the scheme around six weeks ago. According to reports in late April, the software now running on employee machines is part of what Meta calls the Model Capability Initiative. The program’s goal is to capture workers’ keystrokes, mouse movements and screenshots of their devices at various points, all so Meta can build AI agents that better understand how humans use computers. The irony of the people who help one of the internet’s most prolific data gluttons now being snooped on themselves is not lost on us. Leaked audio recordings of an internal Meta meeting from April 30 revealed CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s attitude toward capturing all this information when he said it was in pursuit of building advanced AI models quicker than competitors. “We are using this to feed a very large amount of content into the AI model, so that way it can learn how smart people use computers to accomplish tasks,” Zuckerberg purportedly said, per the recording leaked by worker advocacy group More Perfect Union. “I think that this is going to be a very big advantage if we can do it.” Throughout Zuck’s six-minute monologue, he repeatedly referred to Meta staff as “smart people". Whether this was to soften the blow of constant monitoring, to seem personable amid mass layoffs, or both, is anyone's guess. Zuck said Meta chose to capture data from its own people rather than outside contractors because they were smarter than the workers they could bring in on a temporary basis. The CEO confirmed Meta had no intention of using the data captured by the monitoring software to surveil employees’ activity or productivity, although he didn’t commit to saying the data would be anonymized. ®

The incident helps shed some new light on how Waymo treats and stores the footage captured by its robotaxis.

Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, and Denis Leary all hit the stage at CinemaCon to talk about the return of Ice Age. The franchise is somehow coming out with a sixth film called Ice Age: Boiling Point, which releases on February 5, 2027 and dropped some footage for the audience.Disney

The characters take a trip to the lost world where they will encounter new antagonists and a volcano. And yes, Scratch the squirrel is back once again for good fun in this footage. He has the nut but a baby sabertooth squirrel takes it.

He gives a mini nut (more like a pacifier) to the squirrel but wants to bury it of course. Things go awry when he buries the bigger squirrel and a nearby volcano erupts. Scratch is fighting for his life while the baby is breezing through lava on a single ice cube. Of course, the nut is now mostly ash, and Scratch ends up being hit with some hot lava, stopping him in his tracks.

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ICE AGE 6 Shares Title and 2027 Release Date

We see Manny, Diego, Sid, and Elle back on another adventure towards a lush land. It’s incredibly adorable and keeps the same tone of the franchise that we’ve always loved. And, following up on that, there’s a small teaser trailer for Ice Age: Boiling Point that shows our favorite animals shooting out of a volcano:

We can’t wait to see them come in hot next year!

Originally published on April 16, 2026.

The post ICE AGE: BOILING POINT Brings Back Our Fave Animals in New Footage appeared first on Nerdist.

Cash App plans to launch more tap-to-pay tags

The more Marvel we get in our Magic: The Gathering, the more awesome we find it. They’re two great tastes that taste great together, as evidenced by multiple Secret Lairs and the Marvel’s Spider-Man set. We’ve already seen several cards in MTG‘s upcoming Marvel Super Heroes collaboration, including Captain America, Mister Fantastic, Super-Skrull, and the Incredible Hulk. Now, Nerdist is thrilled to exclusively reveal a brand-new card in the collection that officially drops June 26. It’s a character who finds herself at home on the mean streets of New York City but can wield a mean katana. We’re speaking of course of Colleen Wing, the Street Samurai and ally of Misty Knight and Iron Fist.

Check out the grand reveal of this new card below, featuring gorgeous character art by Jurijus Chitrovas. Between generating major value through +1/+1 counters and giving you the ability to scry, she looks poised to be a must-add for many decks. Plus, to take you even deeper into the thought process behind a card like Colleen Wing, Street Samurai, we spoke with Game Design Architect Dave Humpherys, who helped lead development on fan-favorite sets like Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty and Dragons of Tarkir.

Wizards of the Coast/Marvel

NERDIST: Is it more challenging to design mechanics for a street-level Marvel character like Colleen Wing or characters that deal with more cosmic threats?

Dave Humphreys: On average, the street-level characters I found to be more challenging to design to feel special, but it was more a matter of how unique the power suite, personality, and key story moments of each character was than their power level. When there was a lot of depth in those facets, it was easier to get first draft of designs, but it was also harder to get them just right, since we knew fans would expect us to hit certain notes. Fortunately, this set is packed with characters with distinct attributes. For characters that had qualities shared with lots of characters, we often leaned more into set themes.

Without spoiling anything from the Marvel Super Heroes set (unless you want to), is there an existing Commander you would slot Colleen into?

She should fit well into decks where the commander is something like Feather, The Redeemed. Colleen’s ability to scry can help you find more instants and sorceries to keep Feather’s arsenal grow. Meanwhile, Colleen can grow into a significant threat on her own via the +1/+1 counters she builds up.

From a character and lore perspective, what was the thought process when building Colleen Wing’s mechanics? For example, can she Scry because she works as a private investigator?

Dave: Colleen was built largely to be a good fit for some of the set themes, in particular for some of the red-white color pair where a lot of the street heroes are clustered. In this set, this color pair often thrives off of noncreature spells and specifically at times with ones that target your own creatures as an upgraded twist on the old mechanic of Heroic, which felt like a fun nod here. Battlewise Hoplite was a beloved card in its day, which was a strong inspiration here. We only like to do so much repeated surveilling here, or we’d probably have gone with the over scry for flavor of those words, but the storytelling still felt reasonable enough.

Wizards of the Coast/Marvel

Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes will release on June 26, 2026.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.

The post Exclusive: First Look at Magic: The Gathering’s Colleen Wing Card for Marvel Super Heroes appeared first on Nerdist.

Despite having his seven-year prison sentence commuted by President Donald Trump after just a few months behind bars, George Santos is back in the spotlight for some shady behavior. The disgraced former New York representative, who was convicted for identity theft and wire fraud, allegedly bet on a prediction market about … himself. According to NPR, Santos publicly announced that he would…

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Processor shipments declined by more than six percent during the first quarter of 2026, at least for the x86 world, with server CPUs bucking the trend and AMD in particular showing strong performance. These are the latest figures from Mercury Research’s PC Processor report, which tracks the ins and outs of the component markets. The firm says that the total volume of x86 processor chips shipped was lower during this quarter than the previous one, which is seasonally typical, but the magnitude of the decline was worse than average this year. And this also follows a weaker-than-typical fourth quarter due to supply constraints at Intel, the largest supplier of CPUs for the PC and server marketplace. As reported previously, this was due to a decision the company made earlier last year to reallocate manufacturing capacity to favor server chips. Looking at those server parts, unit shipments increased by more than 10 percent compared to a year ago, no doubt due to the ongoing boom in demand for AI servers in datacenters. AMD's server volumes grew strongly, according to Mercury, with the firm taking a third of the server CPU market share (33.2 percent) during the quarter. That’s an increase of six percentage points since the same period last year, but still leaves Chipzilla holding a two-thirds share of this expanding market. Intel's own server CPU shipments were relatively flat both sequentially (compared to the last quarter) and year-on-year, but both suppliers indicate the outlook is very promising for datacenter silicon for the rest of this year. (Although AMD did say during its Q1 financial results that it expected CPU shipments to decline in the second half of the year because of the memory supply crisis.) When it comes to the entire x86 processor marketplace, AMD also secured close to a third of the shipments, which Mercury attributed to the firm experiencing a smaller-than-expected drop-off in its console system-on-chip (SoC) business. On the client side, CPUs for desktop systems saw a marked decline, worse than the seasonal norm, with shipments down nearly 20 percent from the same quarter a year ago. AMD's performance here was surprisingly worse than Intel's, a reversal of recent history, resulting in Intel gaining some share here since the last quarter. That brought it up to 66.8 percent of shipments (but still down on a year ago), with AMD on 33.2 percent. The mobile market fared better, with shipments “negligibly worse than seasonal averages” according to Mercury. The figures were down by low single digits, and the decline was all at the expense of Intel, with AMD seeing a rare increase in first-quarter shipments. As a result, AMD’s share of the mobile spoils rose to 28.3 percent, up from just 22.5 percent a year ago. The market watcher said that this situation was likely due to those capacity constraints hitting Intel’s laptop CPU supplies, and that it had previously warned that this quarter would likely mark the low point for client CPU supply. Looking outside the x86 sphere, Mercury also has a handle on Arm CPUs used in PCs and servers, but warns that its estimates here come with a certain amount of uncertainty. Arm-based clients, including Chromebooks and Apple's M-series-based Macs, are estimated to have grown to 14.4 percent of the total market in the first quarter of 2026, from a revised 13.9 percent figure for Q4 2025. It will be interesting to see if Apple's budget-friendly MacBook Neo manages to tip the scales any further in future figures. As far as Arm-based server chips go, Mercury estimates these account for 13.2 percent of total shipments, up from a revised 12.5 percent figure for Q4 2025. “We note that Arm server CPU shipments are nearly double what they were a year ago, due primarily to growth from Nvidia's Grace CPU that is shipped in its rapidly growing Blackwell NVL72 AI rack platforms,” commented Mercury Research President Dean McCarron. ®

The company announced a deal with B2U Storage Solutions to repurpose the battery packs as Waymo pulls them off the road.

The glitz, glamour, gambling, and glorious gaudiness of Las Vegas has long made it a de facto theme park for adults. Now Sin City is also home to world class amusement park gore. Just a few minutes from the Strip, you can visit one of the very best offerings in all of theme park entertainment. And you can go all year long. Universal Horror Unleashed is the company’s first full-time horror experience.

And as someone who loves theme parks, Halloween, and Las Vegas, after my first visit I say this without an iota of exaggeration: Universal Horror Unleashed is one of the absolute best additions to that entertainment desert mecca in my lifetime.

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Last August, Universal Destinations & Experiences’ opened a new, full-time experience. Universal Horror Unleashed is the company’s permanent answer to its theme parks’ wildly popular seasonal Halloween Horror Nights. Located in the very cool AREA15 entertainment district, it all takes place in a massive, 110,000 square-foot warehouse. Inside guests will find four horror houses, four themed areas full live entertainment, themed food and drinks, a fantastic merch store, and more.

The venue is themed as an “abandoned production warehouse” where the studio has long sent costumes, props, and set pieces into long-term storage. Over the years those items, after being kept in areas with names like Prop Graveyard and Dead Storage, have turned evil. As have many of the workers, demons, and spirits who call the warehouse home. (I spent considerable time speaking with a veteran employee of the production warehouse who believed we were meeting sometime around 1941. When we weren’t talking, she eyed me over as a possible lunch.)

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You feel the wonderful dread of the space the moment you walk in. Just a few of the many creepy touches (too many to count) of the impeccably themed venue include unpleasant mannequins, unsettling antique wedding dresses and tuxes (one it turns out is worn by an actual human), and dangerous old machinery and weapons. There are also strewn corpses and bloody appendages throughout for good measures. And while the scenery and atmosphere provide all the frightful vibes any horror-lover would want from a horror-themed bar alone, it’s the talented live performers who elevate the experience. They make what would be a great bar on its own into a unique, fun experience.

Universal Horror Unleashed features a whopping—and I asked three times to make sure I had this right—126 live performers during its open hours (Thursday to Sunday). That number does not include the many bartenders, waitstaff, custodial staff, managers, or security. There are 126 people whose sole role is to perform as killers, demons, ghosts, monsters, and more.

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For some, that means taking the stage for a choreographed show, dancing on a catwalk, haunting one of four-themed houses, or roaming the venue’s multiple bar and food areas so no customer can ever fully relax. Some of my favorites actors fly like human bats from tower to tower on a wire overhead. Sometimes you briefly forget they are there. Then they stomp so loudly half the patrons scream in shock. It’s the best.

Sometimes, the wandering actors stalk you like a supernatural monster in a slasher flick. Others just want quietly sneak up on you to make sure you remember where you are. And a few want to talk. I found them to be the most unsettling. It’s easier to deal with a large silent creature holding an axe than a “sweet” young lady telling you all about the bloody bunny she’s holding by a leash. What makes those conversations the best/worst is that Horror Unleashed’s performers never break. Ever. They force you to meet them on their turf, which is weird, scary, and downright uncomfortable. I’m not usually at a loss for words, but many times I just found myself saying “sorry” or “thanks” so I wouldn’t upset them. I loved them so much.

I also loved the presence of Halloween Horror Nights legends Jack and Chance, the biggest stars of the venue. They’re a huge presence throughout and lead the venue’s best stage show. (Which includes numerous other great performances that occur throughout the night.) At the end of Jack and Chance’s show audience members brought on stage get to vote “stay or slay” after watching a kidnapped, non-evil performer try to save herself. Our group of four voters included me after I got threatened when I briefly hesitated. We all chose “slay” because obviously.

She deserved a “stay” fate, but….c’mon.

As you can imagine, playing two Universal icons is a big deal that is also a big job. Del Wynegar, who recently took over as Assistant Director of Entertainment at Universal Horror Unleashed, told me only “a very select group” is capable of taking on the two important roles. It’s not hard to see why. They are very hard on the performers, both vocally and physically. Wynegar said casting either requires a “very thorough audition process.” Jack’s inherent joyful chaotic malice and Chance’s playful evil sets the tone for everything you’ll find at the experience, which is the best of a Universal theme park experience.

Our media group saw how Jack and Chance capture the best of what the venue has to offer when they unexpectedly joined us for the bus ride from our hotel to the warehouse. Jack’s fantastic makeup—which highlighted the level of time and effort that goes into bringing the venue to life—-scared me by itself. Then his growl and demeanor scared me some more. When Chance yelled at me a lot and I knew I was not fully prepared—in the best way—for everything else that would follow in the next few hours.

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Our media event took place in the spring at the halfway point until Halloween, so the venue was celebrating “Feaster Grievings.” Throughout you could find evil Easter touches (hence half-dead bunnies on leashes held by young women in blood-stained pastel dresses). It also included an egg hunt through the area’s only outdoors aspect. There we met the Feaster Bunny for what turned out to be maybe the best photo of me ever taken.

The queue was better than the actual outside area, which was the only aspect of the venue that felt underdeveloped. But that was genuinely the only part—and I do mean only part—of Universal Horror Unleashed I found underwhelming. It’s also the area that will certainly get better with time, as it changes with the seasons. Summer, Halloween, and Christmas all get their own special spooky overlays. That helps the venue remain fresh, as it offers a different experience each time you go. The inevitable re-themes of the space’s four haunted houses will also do that, though it’s not clear when that might happen. (I don’t think there’s any reason to change them anytime soon.)

Thing is, you don’t need something new to go again. The permanent aspects are simply that good. They’re so good in fact you might have noticed I haven’t even talked specifically about the four haunted houses yet. It’s not because they’re bad. Quite the opposite. They’re incredible. (We’re going to get to why, I promise.) It’s that Universal Horror Unleashed is a great themed-bar even without them.

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In addition to the live performers, the first area alone would make this a place I’d want to revisit every time I’m in Vegas. I want to go back here for the same way I revisit my favorite bars in any city. The first space, The Boiler, is a massive, immersive bar I could have sat at for hours. I also had two absolutely incredible cocktails while doing exactly that, one of which came served in a giant cage.

Nearby you’ll also find the Kill Vault. It’s full of both rusty weapons and live performers. It’s also home to Rough Cuts, which serves up themed small plates. I really enjoyed all of the themed-food and drinks I tried throughout the space. This is where I grabbed an authentically heart shaped cake pop. I planned to have two bites of it to save space for others stuff. Instead I demolished the whole thing because it was so good.

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Towards the back of the warehouse, you’ll also find the dark carnival-themed Jack’s Alley. This is where the stage shows take place. Behind it is another bar where you can go if you want a (slightly) less chaotic atmosphere. If you want more of a sit down experience there’s also Premiere House. It’s a tapas bar area with tables themed around Blumhouse horror films. There’s a part where M3GAN comes out and performs. Next to it are real movie props, masks, a payphone, and the Grabber’s van for when he gets in on the fun. Opposite them on the far wall, Premiere House also lives up to its name by showing trailers and clips from upcoming Blumhouse releases.

(While Universal says the venue is probably best for kids at least 13 years old, I saw children younger than that. They seemed to be having the time of their life, so it’s really up to you if you bring your young ones or not. You know best what your kid can and cannot handle. If really scary movies don’t give them nightmares, they’re probably fine. Premiere House also offers a great location for them to enjoy the themed food. The other bar areas, which also provide some table seating, aren’t off limits, but they definitely felt more adult-centered.)

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By 6PM, just 90 minutes after opening, both bars were full and lively. They remained that way throughout my stay, which ended up being much longer than I planned because I was having so much fun. Outside of a brief early sneak peek and some interview opportunities, my time at Universal Horror Unleashed took place during normal operating hours. It let me see and experience firsthand what it’s like to actually go. It also let me see just how quickly it gets busy. I also saw just how happy people are to be there.

This is a place for people who love horror, loved being scared, and who love being uncomfortable. Universal Horror Unleashed promises a lot. It promises the very best in theme park horror experiences. It overdelivers on its promise, so of course the type of people who seek it out have a great time there. It’s so good it will even win over some horror skeptics who are always enchanted by a world-class themed-bar.

….Horror skeptics might enjoy the four haunted houses a little less, though, because they rule.

Before I ventured into my first I couldn’t have anticipated just how different each would be or that they would so naturally invite multiple trips. They are all different in meaningful ways beyond their IPs and themes. Some utilize jump scares more than others while others lean more on settings, activations, lighting, or special effects. One of the best “tricks” is when you see a performer well before you reach them. The anticipation of terror got me more than the unexpected presence of it. Certain house also employ more fake out dummies, so you can’t even try to guess what’s a mannequin and who’s a performer ready to pounce. They make sure you never even think you might be okay or prepare. Not a single haunted house felt the same as the others. Each scared me in its own way, which only adds to the experience.

(Universal Horror Unleashed offers tiers of tickets in addition to special VIP experiences. Of the three main tiers the first gets you just into the bar areas. The next guarantees one visit into each haunted house. The highest gets you unlimited house visits.)

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The first haunted house I explored was Scarecrow: The Reaping. It’s an original and beloved Halloween Horror Nights IP that has turns the Nevada desert into a cornfield. It takes guests through a demented farmland from the 1930s’ Dust Bowl era. After entering a farmhouse, which is claustrophobic and unpleasant, you go out into the cornfield itself. There stalks sway and hit you in the face, a simple but highly upsetting element. The house also utilizes mirrors and fans to make it feel much bigger, authentic, and scarier than the space might otherwise. Longtime Universal Horror fans and newcomers alike will love it, and I think it made for the perfect first house.

Veterans and first-timers will also both love what I found to be the coolest of the four houses, Universal Monsters. It features more modern versions of the studio’s iconic creatures, but the haunted house captures the look and feel of the classic films in the best way. It’s probably the “least scary” of the four, but that’s like saying a 90-degree day is the least hot day of a heatwave. I still got scared plenty of times, including one of the absolute best scares of the whole venue. This house was the one I was most eager to go back into as a movie fan just so I could look at it more. Then I got scared again all the same.

The most surprising house, both for its inclusion and for how successful it is, goes to Blumhouse’s The Exorcist: Believer. The movie, to be kind, is not exactly a fan favorite or critical darling. It was easily the house I was least excited for. Then I walked through and found it very uncomfortable! (Again, I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.) Having a bunch of demonic “children” pop out at you, in a house that feels far too real, is not a good feeling. If you don’t like your haunted house to be an actual house this one will get you. It also features the best special effects of the entire warehouse.

The only downside of The Exorcist: Believer are the demons. I found them funny instead of scary. But even then, those came during some of the best moments Universal Horror Unleashed has to offer. Before going through any house I asked Wyengar and Nate Stevenson, Show Director, Entertainment Creative Development, Universal Orlando Resort what advantages a permanent space provides versus Universal’s seasonal Horror Nights at the parks. They both immediately highlighted “pulsing.”

With the seasonal houses, which can be jammed-packed, guests can experience bottlenecking. Your group can inadvertently get lumped with others either at the start or shortly after entering. At Universal Horror Unleashed walkthroughs are controlled and paced at the start by employees communicating with walkie talkies. They make your trip yours, hence the “pulsing” effect.

Slow or fast movers can hinder the venue’s efforts, but I had walkthroughs entirely to myself. That provided pure jump scares where I had no idea a performer was even close even though they certainly scared the person before me moments ago. It also meant in The Exorcist: Believer house I got to see an “exorcism” scene from start to finish. The performer gently guides you around the room as part of the show so it doesn’t feel like they’re telling to keep going. It’s all natural and added to the experience. It’s a major way—along with getting more one-on-one interactions with performers, especially Jack and Chance—this Las Vegas horror outpost provides a more in-depth, immersive experience than the beloved Halloween Horror Nights.

The other way it does that is by straight up putting you inside one of the scariest freaking movies ever made. I love (love) the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That’s exactly why I did not enjoy the sensation of feeling like I was living it. That’s the only way I can describe going through Universal Horror Unleashed’s recreation of the legendary 1974 film. My chest was tight the entire time. It’s the only house where I felt the need to fast walk through portions. At one point I gave myself a quiet little pep talk to remember I was not in actual danger. Then a performer didn’t move a single iota or breath for 15 seconds, including during another performer’s jump scare, and I thought my head was going to implode.

It was awful and uncomfortable and it made me feel bad. I immediately went back through again.

I’m also immediately, without question, going back to Universal Horror Unleashed the next time I’m in Las Vegas. Whatever expectations I had for it were demolished. It’s nearly perfect in every way. I love theme parks and being immersed in an experience that includes the highest levels of craft. Just as I love the audacious, larger-than-life fun of Sin City. And I love great horror, because being unsettled can be wildly entertaining in a way no other feeling can offer.

It’s also why it has far broader appeal than you might expect. Whether you love that sensation of being scared or not, at the very least this year-round horror outpost is incredible place with a fantastic atmosphere to hang out and have some great food and and drinks. It’s one of the best bars I’ve ever been to. It’s one of the best spots in Vegas I’ve ever visited. The fact it’s also everything you’d want from a Universal Horror experience is what makes Universal Horror Unleashed special.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He would have ordered 17 of those amazing Bloodsucker cocktails but he’s a professional. And also old. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermikeOpens in a new tab. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post Universal Horror Unleashed Brings Theme Park Scares to Las Vegas All Year appeared first on Nerdist.

Ramp has nearly tripled its valuation over the past year as investors scramble to grab a part of the fast-growing startup.

Today at 4 p.m. Pacific (7 p.m. Eastern) you can watch a livestream of TechnoFachos: How Tech Power Became State Power.

I participated in this panel with Marisa Franco and Dr. Safiya U. Noble at the Take Back Tech conference in Atlanta in April. Our talk was moderated by Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson.

It was one of the best conversations I’ve had on the existential crisis facing our democracy due to Silicon Valley fascism. I think you’ll find it worth your time.

Click below to watch the livestream at 4 p.m. PST (7 p.m. EST) today (Thursday, June 4, 2026).

TechnoFachos Panel: How Tech Power Became State PowerThe line between Silicon Valley and Washington was never as thick as they wanted us to think. Now it’s gone. In this conversation, we’ll examine how tech power and fascism are feeding each other. And what real resistance looks like when the people with the money also control the machines. Moderator: Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, Movement Strategist Panelists: Marisa Franco, Mijente; Dr. Safiya U. Noble, UCLA Center on Resilience and Digital Justice; and Gil Duran, Nerd Reich Podcast.StreamYardAugust 24: Nerd Reich San Francisco Book Launch

On August 24, I’ll be joined by writer Wajahat Ali and hundreds of readers for a book launch at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. Tickets are now on sale! If you are in the Bay Area, please join us in-person. Online tickets also available.

Wajahat and I always keep things interesting, and I’m glad he’s able to join me onstage to launch The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War On Democracy.

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Passages: Bernie the Anti-Fascist Fancy Rat

In April 2025, around the same time I landed my book deal, we adopted a wonderful pet rat named Bernie. We took him in after he was abandoned on a local street and we gave him the charmed and spoiled life he deserved. He was just a little hooded fancy rat, but he was the sweetest friend and a comfort in dark times.

I always said Bernie was sent to keep me company and lighten the atmosphere as I wrote my book. Now that era is gone—and so, too, is our precious Bernie. This week, old age caught up with our little guy and we had to say goodbye. It was hard. We weren’t ready to lose him. But all the little holes he nibbled—in a favorite shirt, in the bed sheets— will enshrine our joy. (He even made a cameo appearance in an episode of the Nerd Reich podcast.)

We’ll miss those big sweet eyes and those spiky pink “chicken feet.” He was grooming our fingers til the very end. We love you forever, Berns!!!

Remember: Rats are wingless angels, excellent pets (pocket puppies!), and always up for adoption.

Bernie Wise Duran, 2024-2026.

The California startup released the fourth-generation of its home assistance robot, Stretch.

The advisory warns that Chinese spies are using public job search platforms to recruit people with access to non-public information.

Apple's App Store generated $1.4 trillion in sales, up from $1.3 trillion last year, with $149 billion in sales for digital goods.

Incremental backups started failing for some rsync users after a recent update, and what they found in the project's commit history quickly turned a routine bug hunt into yet another fight over AI-generated code. The controversy centers on rsync 3.4.3, a security-focused release published earlier this year to fix multiple vulnerabilities. Shortly after the upgrade, some users reported that incremental backup workflows were no longer behaving as expected, with one user saying their backup system failed on anything other than a full backup. Rsync creator Andrew Tridgell has pushed back against the criticism in a Medium post titled "Rsync and Outrage," arguing that many commenters have drawn conclusions without understanding how the AI tools were actually used. Rsync is not a weekend side project maintained by three people in a Discord server. First released in the 1990s, it remains one of the most widely used file synchronization and backup utilities in the Unix and Linux world. Countless backup products, scripts, NAS appliances, and IT departments depend on it quietly doing its job without surprises. That makes any suggestion of AI-assisted development in the project far more contentious than it might be elsewhere. The backup issue might have remained a fairly ordinary bug report had users not started poking around in rsync's recent commit history. They found that since rsync 3.4.1, dozens of commits have been attributed to "tridge and claude," referring to rsync creator Andrew Tridgell and Anthropic's AI assistant Claude. The discovery prompted a strongly worded GitHub post titled "Please Do Not Vibe Fuck Up This Software," a reference to the increasingly common practice of handing coding tasks to AI models and trusting the results. From there, the discussion spread to Reddit and Hacker News, where the conversation shifted from a backup bug to a broader debate about AI-generated code finding its way into critical open source infrastructure. Veteran developer Tridgell acknowledged that rsync 3.4.3 introduced regressions affecting some backup workflows, describing them as "valid (but unusual) use cases" that were not covered by the project's existing test suite. "I apologize if your use case of rsync was hit by these regressions," he wrote. But Tridgell pushed back on suggestions that he had simply handed development over to Claude and hoped for the best. According to Tridgell, the most visible AI-assisted work involved rewriting rsync's aging shell-script test suite in Python as part of a broader effort to improve security testing and harden the codebase. He said he designed the framework himself, used Claude alongside OpenAI's Codex and Google's Gemini for what he described as "grunt work," and manually reviewed the resulting code. "I did not just vibe-code 'convert test suite to python,'" he wrote. "I'm a software engineer with 40 years experience." Tridgell also argued that maintainers are increasingly dealing with a flood of security reports, many of them AI-generated, which has dramatically increased the workload required to keep widely used open source software secure. "The world of software engineering has changed dramatically in the last few months," he wrote. "The world of IT security and maintaining software in the face of the flood of reports has completely and utterly changed just in the last few weeks." Far from backing away from AI-assisted development, Tridgell suggested he intends to continue using the tools as rsync heads toward a larger 3.5 release focused on security improvements. He also took a swipe at users threatening to jump ship to OpenBSD's openrsync project, noting that rsync's new test suite currently reports dozens of failures when run against the alternative implementation. Whether that reassurance satisfies critics is still unclear. But if nothing else, the whole thing demonstrates that AI-assisted development and backup software make for a combustible combination. One involves trusting a machine – the other exists because people don't. ®